th Don Eugenio, and arrange the mode, day, and hour of execution. He
would leave Valladolid on the evening before a holiday, late in the
afternoon, so as to arrive a little after dark at Simancas. He would take
with him a confidential notary, an executioner, and as few servants as
possible. Immediately upon his entrance to the fortress, he was to
communicate the sentence of death to Montigny, in presence of Don Eugenio
and of one or two other persons. He would then console him, in which task
he would be assisted by Don Eugenio. He would afterwards leave him with
the religious person who would be appointed for that purpose. That night
and the whole of the following day, which would be a festival, till after
midnight, would be allotted to Montigny, that he might have time to
confess, to receive the sacraments, to convert himself to God, and to
repent. Between one and two o'clock in the morning the execution was to
take place, in presence of the ecclesiastic, of Don Eugenio de Peralta,
of the notary, and of one or two other persons, who would be needed by
the executioner. The ecclesiastic was to be a wise and prudent person,
and to be informed how little confidence Montigny inspired in the article
of faith. If the prisoner should wish to make a will, it could not be
permitted. As all his property had been confiscated, he could dispose of
nothing. Should he, however, desire to make a memorial of the debts which
he would wish paid; he was to be allowed that liberty. It was, however,
to be stipulated that he was to make no allusion, in any memorial or
letter which he might write, to the execution which was about to take
place. He was to use the language of a man seriously ill, and who feels
himself at the point of death. By this infernal ingenuity it was proposed
to make the victim an accomplice in the plot, and to place a false
exculpation of his assassins in his dying lips. The execution having been
fulfilled, and the death having been announced with the dissimulation
prescribed, the burial was to take place in the church of Saint Saviour,
in Simancas. A moderate degree of pomp, such as befitted a person of
Montigny's quality, was to be allowed, and a decent tomb erected. A grand
mass was also to be celebrated, with a respectable number, "say seven
hundred," of lesser masses. As the servants of the defunct were few in
number, continued the frugal King, they might be provided each with a
suit of mourning. Having thus personally