The Parliament was presided over by Messire Pomponne de Bellievre, Chancellor of France, beside whom the Marechal was requested to take his place upon a low wooden stool.  Matthieu asserts that, although neither duke nor peer had obeyed the summons of the Chambers, the number of Biron’s judges nevertheless amounted to one hundred and twelve;[197] and it is probable that this very fact gave him confidence, as during the two long hours occupied by his trial he never once lost his self-possession, but argued as closely and as sagaciously as though he had yielded to no previous intemperance of language.  He urged the pardon previously accorded to him by the King; earnestly protested that he had never entered into any cabal against the throne or dignity of his sovereign; and denied that any man could be proved a traitor, whatever might be his wishes, so long as he made no effort to realize them.  He admitted that he might have talked rashly, but appealed to his judges whether he had not proved himself equally reckless in the field; and required them to declare if so venial a fault had not, by that fact, already been sufficiently expiated.  He then recapitulated the events of his career as a military leader; but he did so temperately and modestly, without a trace of the arrogant bombast for which he had throughout his life been celebrated.  So great was the effect of this unexpected and manly dignity, that many members of the court were seen to shed tears; and had his fate been decided upon the instant, it is probable that his calm and touching eloquence might have saved his life; but so much time had already been exhausted that enough did not remain for collecting the votes, and the result of the trial was consequently deferred; the Marechal meanwhile returning to the Bastille under the same escort which had conveyed him to the capital.[198]

On the 29th, the Chambers having again assembled, they remained in deliberation from six o’clock in the morning until two hours after mid-day, when sentence of death was unanimously pronounced against the prisoner; and he was condemned to lose his head in the Place de Greve, “as attainted and convicted of having outraged the person of the King, and conspired against his kingdom; all his property to be confiscated, his peerage reunited to the Crown; and himself shorn of all his honours and dignities.”

On the following day, the decision of the Parliament having been made public, immense crowds collected in the Place de Greve in order to witness the execution; scaffoldings were erected on every side for the accommodation of the spectators; and the tumult at length became so great that it reached the ears of the Marechal in his prison-chamber.  Rushing to the window, whence he could command a view of some portion of the open fields leading to the Rue St. Antoine, along which numerous groups were still making their eager way, he exclaimed, in violent emotion:  “I have been judged, and I am a dead man.”