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 Saint-Laurent-d'Aigozre, at Milhaud, in
Rouergue.

Meanwhile all this torturing and questioning had taken so much time that
when the stake and the scaffold were ready it was almost dark, so that
the duke put off the executions until the next day, instead of carrying
them out by torchlight. Brueys says that this was done in order that the
most disaffected amongst the fanatics should not be able to say that it
was not really Catinat, Ravanel, Villas, and Jonquet who had been
executed but some other unknown men; but it is more probable that the
duke and Baville were afraid of riots, as was proved by their ordering
the scaffold and the stake to be erected at the end of the Cours and
opposite the glacis of the fortress, so that the garrison might be at
hand in case of any disturbance.

Catinat was placed in a cell apart, and could be, h