Barthelemi Milon, whom
paralysis had deprived of the use of the lower half of his body.[347]
His unpardonable offence was that copies of the placard against the mass
had been found in his possession. A wealthy draper, Jean du Bourg, had
been guilty of the still more heinous crime of having posted some of the
bills on the walls. For this he was compelled before execution to go
through that solemn mockery of penitence, the _amende honorable_, in
front of the church of Notre Dame, with but a shirt to conceal his
nakedness, and holding a lighted taper in his hand; afterward to be
conducted to the _Fontaine des Innocents_, and there have the hand that
had done the impious deed cut off at the wrist, in token of the public
detestation of his "high treason against God and the king." A printer, a
bookseller, a mason, a young man in orders, were subjected to the same
cruel death. But these were only the first fruits of the
prosecution.[348] However opinions may differ respecting the merits of
the cause for which they suffered, there can be but one view taken of
their deportment in the trying hour of execution. In the presence of the
horrible preparatives for torture, the most clownish displayed a
fortitude and a noble consciousness of honest purpose, contrasted with
which the pusillanimous dejection, the unworthy concessions, and the
premeditated perjury of Francis, during his captivity at Madrid not ten
years before, appear in no enviable light. The monarch who bartered away
his honor to regain his liberty[349] might have sat at the feet of
these, his obscure subjects, to learn the true secret of greatness.

[Sidenote: The great expiatory procession.]

The punishment of the persons who had taken part in the preparation and
dissemination of the placards was deemed an insufficient atonement for a
crime in the guilt of which they had involved the city, and, indeed, the
whole kingdom. As the offence excelled in enormity any other within the
memory of man, so it was determined to expiate it by a solemn procession
unparalleled for magnificence. Thursday, the twenty-first of January,
1535, was chosen for the pageant. Along the line of march the streets
had been carefully cleaned. A public proclamation had bidden every
householder display from his windows the most beautiful and costly
tapestries he possessed. At the doors of all private mansions large
waxen tapers burned, and, at the intersection of all side streets,
wooden barriers, g