As to the King's service, the Lord Bishop did not mean that it should
be rendered at the expense of justice; he was a man of some priestly
pride and was not likely to reveal his own evil designs. If he spoke
thus, it was because in France, for a century at least, the
jurisdiction of the Inquisition had been regarded as the jurisdiction
of the King.[2161] And as for the expression "an elaborate prosecution"
(_un beau proces_), that meant a trial in which legal forms were
observed and irregularities avoided, for it was a case in which were
interested the doctors and masters of the realm of France and indeed
the whole of Christendom. Messire Guillaume Manchon, well skilled in
legal procedure, was not likely to err in a matter of legal language.
An elaborate trial was a strictly regular trial. It was said, for
example, that "N---- and N---- had by elaborate judicial procedure
found such an one to be guilty."[2162]

[Footnote 2161: L. Tanon, _Histoire des tribunaux de l'inquisition en
France_, pp. 550, 551.]

[Footnote 2162: De Beaurepaire, _Recherches sur le proces de
condamnation_, p. 320.]

Charged by the Bishop to choose another registrar to assist him,
Guillaume Manchon selected as his colleague Guillaume Colles, surnamed
Boisguillaume, who like him was a notary of the Church.[2163]

[Footnote 2163: _Trial_, vol. i, p. 25; vol. iii, p. 137. De
Beaurepaire, _Recherches...._ p. 103. A. Sarrazin, _loc. cit._, pp.
222, 223.]

Jean Massieu, priest, ecclesiastical dean of Rouen, was appointed
usher of the court.[2164]

[Footnote 2164: _Trial_, vol. i, p. 26. De Beaurepaire,
_Recherches...._ p. 115. A. Sarrazin, _loc. cit._, pp. 223, 224.]

In that kind of trial, which was very common in those days, there were
strictly only two judges, the Ordinary and the Inquisitor. But it was
the custom for the Bishop to summon as councillors and assessors
persons learned in both canon and civil law. The number and the rank
of those councillors varied according to the case. And it is clear
that the obstinate upholder of a very pestilent heresy must needs be
more particularly and more ceremoniously tried than an old wife, who
had sold herself to some insignificant demon, and whose spells could
harm nothing more important than cabbages. For the common wizard, for
the multitude of those females, or _mulierculae_, as they were
described by one inquisitor who boasted of having burnt many, the
judges were content with three or four eccl