One of his guards hastened to assure him that the outcry was occasioned by a quarrel between two nobles, which was about to terminate in a duel; and the unhappy prisoner thus remained for a short time in uncertainty as to his ultimate fate.  Yet still, as he sat in his dreary prison, he heard the continued murmur of the excited citizens, who, believing that he was to be put to death by torchlight, persisted in holding their weary watch until an hour before midnight.[199]

The King had, however, determined to postpone the execution until the morrow; when, apparently yielding to the solicitations of the Duke’s family, but, as many surmised, anxious to avoid a tumult which the great popularity of Biron with the troops, and the numerous friends and followers whom he possessed about the Court, led him to apprehend might prove the result of so public a disgrace to his surviving relatives, Henry consented to change the place of execution to the court of the Bastille, where the Marechal accordingly was beheaded at five o’clock in the evening.  The circumstances attending his decapitation are too painful for detail; suffice it that his last struggles for life displayed a cowardice which ill accorded with his previous gallantry, and that it was only by a feint that the executioner at length succeeded in performing his ghastly office; while so great had been the violence of the victim, that his head bounded three times upon the scaffold, and emitted more blood than the trunk from which it had been severed.

It was said that the father of the culprit, the former Marechal, had on one occasion, during an exhibition of the violence in which Biron so continually indulged, bitterly exclaimed:  “I would advise you, Baron, as soon as peace is signed, to go and plant cabbages on your estate, or you will one day bring your head to the scaffold.” [200] A fearful prophecy fearfully fulfilled.

The corpse was conveyed to the church of St. Paul, where it was interred without any ceremony, but surrounded by a dense mass of the populace, many of whom openly pitied his fate, and lamented over his fall.[201]

La Fin and Renaze were pardoned; but Hubert, the secretary of the Marechal, suffered “the question,” both ordinary and extraordinary, and was condemned to perpetual imprisonment, having refused to make any confession.  He was, however, a short time subsequently, restored to liberty; but the remembrance of all that he had undergone rankled in his heart, and he no sooner found himself once more free than he abandoned his country, and withdrew to Spain, where he passed the remainder of his life.

The Baron de Luz, who had revealed all he knew of the conspiracy on the promise of a free pardon, was not only forgiven for the share which he had taken in the plot, but had, moreover, all his appointments confirmed; and was made governor of the castle of Dijon and the town of Beaune.  The governorship of Burgundy, vacant by the death of Biron, was given to the Dauphin; and the lieutenancy of the province was conferred upon the Duc de Bellegarde, by whom the young Prince was ultimately succeeded in the higher dignity.