cution of a
sentence malignantly cruel.[297] But, for that day, their expectation
was disappointed. Louis de Berquin gave notice that he appealed to the
absent king and to the Pope himself. It was no part of the programme,
however, that the thrice-convicted heresiarch should gain a fresh
respite and enlist powerful friends in effecting his release. No sooner
were the judges satisfied that he persisted in his appeal, in spite of
the secret and urgent advice of Bude and others, than they rendered a
new and more severe sentence (on the seventeenth of April): he must pay
the forfeit of his obstinacy with his life, and that, too, within a few
hours.[298]

The cause of this intemperate haste is clearly set forth by a
contemporary--doubtless an eye-witness of the execution--all whose
sympathies were on the side of the prosecution. It was "lest recourse be
had to the king, or to the regent then at Blois;"[299] for the delay of
even a few days might have brought from the banks of the Loire another
order removing De Berquin's case from the commission to the royal
council.

The historian must leave to the professed martyrologist the details of
the constant death of Louis de Berquin, as of the deaths of many other
less distinguished victims of the intolerant zeal of the Sorbonne.
Suffice it to say that although, when he undertook to address the
people, his voice was purposely drowned by the din of the attendants,
though the very children filled the air with shouts that De Berquin was
a heretic, though not a person was found in the vast concourse to
encourage him by the name of "Jesus"--an accustomed cry even at the
execution of parricides--the brave nobleman of Artois met his fate with
such composure as to be likened by a by-stander to a student immersed in
his favorite occupations, or a worshipper whose devout mind was
engrossed by the contemplation of heavenly things.[300] There were
indeed blind rumors, as usual in such cases; to the effect that De
Berquin recanted at the last moment; and Merlin, the Penitentiary of
Notre Dame, who attended him, is reported to have exclaimed that
"perhaps no one for a hundred years had died a better Christian."[301]
But the "Lutherans" of Paris had good reason to deny the truth of the
former statement, and to interpret the latter to the advantage of De
Berquin's consistent faith--so great was the rejoicing over the final
success attained in crushing the most distinguished, in silencing the
bo