"I ought to inform your Majesty that the nuncio from his Holiness absolutely relies upon your presence at the first 'Act of Faith' of your reign," added the pitiless cardinal. "When everybody else is present,--even the Prince de Condé, I venture to say,--is it fitting that your Majesty should be absent?" "Alas, _mon Dieu_! we will talk of this matter again presently," rejoined François. "The guilty men are not yet condemned." "Oh, I beg your Majesty's pardon, but they are!" said the cardinal, earnestly. "So be it! Thus you impose this terrible necessity upon me in my feebleness," replied the king. "But now, Monsieur le Cardinal, let us go, as I said, to kneel before the altar and thank God, who has deigned to turn aside from us the peril of this conspiracy." "Sire," said the Duc de Guise, "we must not exaggerate these things, and give them more importance than they deserve, therefore I trust that your Majesty will not speak of this movement as a conspiracy; it was, in truth, nought but a _tumult_." CHAPTER XXIX AN ACT OF FAITH Although the conspirators had inserted in a manifesto, seized among La Renaudie's papers, a declaration that they would "attempt nothing against the king's majesty, nor the princes of the blood, nor the good of the kingdom," they had, nevertheless, been taken in open rebellion, and might well expect to meet the fate of those who are vanquished in civil wars. The mode of treatment that had been adopted with regard to those who professed the principles of the Reformation, while they were conducting themselves as peaceful and submissive subjects, left little room for hope of pardon now. In fact, the Cardinal de Lorraine hurried on their condemnation with a passionate zeal that was quite characteristic of the ecclesiastic of those days, though it was hardly Christlike. He intrusted the proceedings against the nobles who were implicated in the deplorable affair to the parliament of Paris and the Chancellor Olivier. Thus matters progressed finely. The interrogations were quickly gone through, and the sentences pronounced still more quickly. They dispensed with even these empty formalities in the cases of the less highly placed abettors of the rebellion, people of small importance, who were being broken on the wheel or hanged every day at Amboise without wearying parliament with their cases. The honor and expense of a trial were only accorded to persons of some quality or note. At last, thanks to the pious ardor of Charles de Lorraine, everything was concluded in their cases as well in less than three weeks. The 15th of April was fixed for the public execution at Amboise of twenty-seven barons, eleven counts, and seven marquises; in all, fifty gentlemen, leaders of the Protestants, were to meet their death that day.