d arrest.

"Well, there is no document which answers these questions. An author can
take some liberties here and set down his own conjectures. But that
curious trial is going to give me some trouble.

"As soon as Gilles and his accomplices are incarcerated, two tribunals
are organized, one ecclesiastical to judge the crimes coming under the
jurisdiction of the Church, the other civil to judge those on which the
state must pass.

"To tell the truth, the civil tribunal, which is present at the
ecclesiastical hearings, effaces itself completely. As a matter of form
it makes a brief cross-examination--but it pronounces the sentence of
death, which the Church cannot permit itself to utter, according to the
old adage, '_Ecclesia abhorret a sanguine_.'

"The ecclesiastical trial lasts five weeks, the civil, forty-eight
hours. It seems that, to hide behind the robes of the Bishop, the duke
of Brittany has voluntarily subordinated the role of civil justice,
which ordinarily stands up for its rights against the encroachments of
the ecclesiastical court.

"Jean de Malestroit presides over the hearings. He chooses for
assistants the Bishops of Mans, of Saint Brieuc, and of Saint Lo, then
in addition he surrounds himself with a troop of jurists who work in
relays in the interminable sessions of the trial. Some of the more
important are Guillaume de Montigne, advocate of the secular court;
Jean Blanchet, bachelor of laws; Guillaume Groyguet and Robert de la
Riviere, licentiates _in utroque jure_, and Herve Levi, senescal of
Quimper. Pierre de l'Hospital, chancellor of Brittany, who is to preside
over the civil hearings after the canonic judgment, assists Jean de
Malestroit.

"The public prosecutor is Guillaume Chapeiron, curate of Saint Nicolas,
an eloquent and subtile man. Adjunct to him, to relieve him of the
fatigue of the readings, are Geoffroy Pipraire, dean of Sainte Marie,
and Jacques de Pentcoetdic, Official of the Church of Nantes.

"In connection with the episcopal jurisdiction, the Church has called in
the assistance of the extraordinary tribunal of the Inquisition, for the
repression of the crime of heresy, then comprehending perjury,
blasphemy, sacrilege, all the crimes of magic.

"It sits at the side of Jean de Malestroit in the redoubtable and
learned person of Jean Blouyn of the order of Saint Dominic, delegated
by the Grand Inquisitor of France, Guillaume Merici, to the functions of
Vice Inquisitor of the c