in order to convince himself that it was
really Catinat.

From the Presidial Court he was brought before the Duke of Berwick, who
addressed several questions to him, which Catinat answered; he then
told the duke he had something of importance to impart to him and to
him alone. The duke was not very anxious for a tete-a-tete with Catinat;
however, having ordered his hands to be securely bound, and telling
Sandricourt not to go away, he consented to hear what the prisoner had
to say.

Catinat then, in the presence of the duke and Sandricourt, proposed that
an exchange of prisoners should be made, the Marechal de Tallard, who
was a prisoner of war in England, being accepted in his place. Catinat
added that if this offer was not accepted, the marechal would meet the
same treatment from the English as might be meted out to him, Catinat,
in France. The duke, full of the aristocratic ideas to which he was
born, found the proposal insolent, and said, "If that is all you have to
propose, I can assure you that your hours are numbered."

Thereupon Catinat was promptly sent back to the palace, where truly his
trial did not occupy much time. That of the three others was already
finished, and soon his was also at an end, and it only remained to
pronounce sentence on all four. Catinat and Ravanel, as the most guilty,
were condemned to be burnt at the stake. Some of the councillors thought
Catinat should have been torn apart by four horses, but the majority
were for the stake, the agony lasting longer, being more violent and
more exquisite than in the of other case.

Villars and Jonquet were sentenced to be broken on the wheel alive--the
only difference between them being that Jonquet was to be to taken while
still living and thrown into the fire lit round Catinat and Ravael.
It was also ordered that the four condemned men before their execution
should be put to the torture ordinary and extraordinary. Catinat, whose
temper was fierce, suffered with courage, but cursed his torturers.
Ravanel bore all the torments that could be inflicted on him with a
fortitude that was more than human, so that the torturers were exhausted
before he was. Jonquet spoke little, and the revelations he made were
of slight importance. Villas confessed that the conspirators had the
intention of carrying off the duke and M. de Baville when they were out
walking or driving, and he added that this plot had been hatched at the
house of a certain Boeton de Sain