d from Pierre-Encise to Paris, and put in the
Bastille, where he arrived on the 4th of August, 1476, and that
commissioners should set about his trial. The king complained of the
gentleness with which the prisoner had been treated on arrival, and wrote
to one of the commissioners, "It seems to me that you have but one thing
to do; that is, to find out what guarantees the Duke of Nemours had given
the constable of being at one with him in making the Duke of Burgundy
regent, putting me to death, seizing my lord the _dauphin_, and taking
the authority and government of the realm. He must he made to speak
clearly on this point, and must get hell (be put to the torture) in good
earnest. I am not pleased at what you tell me as to the irons having
been taken off his legs, as to his being let out from his cage, and as to
his being taken to the mass to which the women go. Whatever the
chancellor or others may say, take care that he budge not from his cage,
that he be never let out save to give him hell (torture him), and that he
suffer hell (torture) in his own chamber." The Duke of Nemours protested
against the choice of commissioners, and claimed, as a peer of the realm,
his right to be tried by the parliament. When put to the torture he
ended by saying, "I wish to conceal nothing from the king; I will tell
him the truth as to all I know." "My most dread and sovereign lord," he
himself wrote to Louis, "I have been so misdoing towards you and towards
God that I quite see that I am undone unless your grace and pity be
extended to me; the which, accordingly, most humbly and in great
bitterness and contrition of heart, I do beseech you to bestow upon me
liberally;" and he put the simple signature, "Poor James." "He confessed
that he had been cognizant of the constable's designs; but he added that,
whilst thanking him for the kind offers made to himself, and whilst
testifying his desire that the lords might at last get their guarantees,
he had declared what great obligations and great oaths he was under to
the king, against the which he would not go; he, moreover, had told the
constable he had no money at the moment to dispose of, no relative to
whom he was inclined to trust himself or whom he could exert himself to
win over, not even M. d'Albret, his cousin." In such confessions there
was enough to stop upright and fair judges from the infliction of capital
punishment, but not enough to reassure and move the heart of Louis X