"Monseigneur," said the Cardinal de Tournon, who was following the Prince, "since the day at Amboise you have taken steps in opposition to royal authority at Lyons and at Mouvans in Dauphiné--things of which the King knew nothing when he addressed you in those terms." "Rascals!" cried the Prince, laughing. "You made a public declaration against the Mass, and in favor of heresy----" "We are masters in Navarre," said the Prince. "In Béarn, you mean! But you owe homage to the Crown," replied the Président de Thou. "Ah, you are here, Président!" exclaimed the Prince ironically. "And is all the Parlement with you?" With these words the Prince flashed a look of contempt at the Cardinal and left the room; he understood that his head was in peril. On the following day, when Messieurs de Thou, de Viole, d'Espesse, Bourdin the public prosecutor, and du Tillet, the chief clerk, came into his prison, he kept them standing, and expressed his regrets at seeing them engaged on a business which did not concern them; then he said to the clerk: "Write." And he dictated as follows: "I, Louis de Bourbon, Prince de Condé, peer of the realm, Marquis de Conti, Comte de Soissons, Prince of the Blood of France, formally refuse to recognize any Commission appointed to try me, inasmuch as that by virtue of my rank and the privileges attaching to every member of the Royal Family, I can only be attainted, heard, and judged by a Parlement of all the peers in their places, the Chambers in full assembly, and the King seated on the bed of justice.--You ought to know this better than any one, gentlemen, and this is all you will get of me. For the rest, I trust in God and my Right." The magistrates proceeded nevertheless, in spite of the determined silence of the Prince. The King of Navarre was at liberty, but closely watched; his prison was a wider one than the Prince's, and that was the whole difference between his position and his brother's; for the heads of the King and the Prince were to be felled at the same time. So Christophe was so closely confined by order of the Cardinal and the Lieutenant-General of the kingdom only to afford proof to the judges of the Prince's guilt. The letters found on the person of La Sagne, the Prince's secretary, intelligible to a statesman, were not clear enough for the judges. The Cardinal had thought of bringing the Prince accidentally face to face with Christophe, who had been placed, not without a purpose, in a lower room of the tower of Saint-Aignan, and the window looked out on the yard. Each time he was examined by the magistrates, Christophe entrenched himself in systematic denial, which naturally prolonged the affair till the meeting of the States-General.