ction which he usually expressed on such occasions was
mingled some degree of scepticism. "If his inner man," he writes of
Montigny, "was penetrated with as Christian a spirit as he exhibited in
the outer, and as the friar who confessed him has reported, God, we may
presume, will have mercy on his soul."[1266] In the original draft of
the letter, as prepared by the king's secretary, it is further added:
"Yet, after all, who can tell but this was a delusion of Satan, who, as
we know, never deserts the heretic in his dying hour." This sentence--as
appears from the manuscript still preserved in Simancas--was struck out
by Philip, with the remark in his own hand, "Omit this, as we should
think no evil of the dead!"[1267]

Notwithstanding this magnanimous sentiment, Philip lost no time in
publishing Montigny to the world as a traitor, and demanding the
confiscation of his estates. The Council of Blood learned a good lesson
from the Holy Inquisition, which took care that even Death should not
defraud it of its victims. Proceedings were instituted against the
_memory_ of Montigny, as had before been done against the memory of the
marquis of Bergen.[1268] On the twenty-second of March, 1571, the duke
of Alva pronounced sentence, condemning the memory of Florence de
Montmorency, lord of Montigny, as guilty of high treason, and
confiscating his goods and estates to the use of the crown; "it having
come to his knowledge," the instrument went on to say, "that the said
Montigny had deceased by natural death in the fortress of Simancas,
where he had of late been held a prisoner!"[1269]

The proceedings of the Council of Blood against Montigny were
characterized, as I have already said, by greater effrontery and a more
flagrant contempt of the common forms of justice than were usually to be
met with even in that tribunal. A bare statement of the facts is
sufficient. The party accused was put on his trial--if trial it can be
called--in one country, while he was held in close custody in another.
The court before which he was tried--or rather the jury, for the council
seems to have exercised more of the powers of a jury than of a
judge--was on this occasion a packed body, selected to suit the purposes
of the prosecution. Its sentence, instead of being publicly pronounced,
was confided only to the party interested to obtain it,--the king. Even
the sentence itself was not the one carried into effect; but another was
substituted in its pla