The men of letters then had their turn: many of them were charged with having taught and written contrary to their real opinions. The poets made every one laugh, on asserting, that when they spoke of Jupiter, of gods and goddesses, they meant the true God, saints, and saintesses: that they had never seriously deified the king of Candia, nor the first king of Egypt, nor the queens of Cyprus and Sicily; that if these people had become idolaters, they ought to take the blame upon themselves. Virgil in particular, was examined very minutely upon that passage of his poems, where he invokes the Sicilian muses: he pretended to have spoken of the birth of the Messiah; but he was answered that he must then have been in the soul of the Son of Pollio. Orpheus was accused by the ladies of Thrace, because he had taught men a love that did not concern them. The clerks, lawyers, and constables, applied to Saint _Ives de Chartres_, to plead their cause; but he refused, saying, he had never been a robber, but had always pursued the cause of truth and justice, and that they had not acted in that manner. The devils also accusing them of having often been corrupted by presents, and the solicitations of women; few among them escaped. After these, the physicians, surgeons, and apothecaries, were brought forward: they justified themselves by the authority of Hippocrates, Galen, and Paracelsus; but those whom they summoned, mocked at them, and their allegations. “And who are they,” demanded those eminent physicians, “who have cited us, and presume to shelter themselves behind our example?” The unhappy accused then sought the assistance of their two saints, _Come_ and _Damiens_; but they refused to defend homicides, and judgment of condemnation was accordingly pronounced.