him a visit, and asked him if he held to his appeal.  Berquin said, “Yes.” court revised its original sentence, and for the penalty of perpetual imprisonment substituted that of the stake.  On the 22d of April, 1529, according to most of the documents, but on the 17th, according to the Journal d’un Bourgeois de Paris, which the details of the last days render highly improbable, the officers of Parliament entered Berquin’s gloomy chamber.  He rose quietly and went with them; the procession set out, and at about three arrived at the Place de Greve; where the stake was ready.  “Berquin had a gown of velvet, garments of satin and damask, and hosen of gold thread,” says the Bourgeois de Paris.  “‘Alas!’ said some as they saw him pass, ’he is of noble lineage, a mighty great scholar, expert in science and subtile withal, and nevertheless he hath gone out of his senses.’” We borrow the account of his actual death from a letter of Erasmus, written on the evidence of an eye-witness:  “Not a symptom of agitation appeared either in his face or the attitude of his body:  he had the bearing of a man who is meditating in his cabinet on the subject of his studies, or in a temple on the affairs of heaven.  Even when the executioner, in a rough voice, proclaimed his crime and its penalty, the constant serenity of his features was not at all altered.  When the order was given him to dismount from the tumbrel, he obeyed cheerfully without hesitating; nevertheless he had not about him any of that audacity, that arrogance, which in the case of malefactors is sometimes bred of their natural savagery; everything about him bore evidence to the tranquillity of a good conscience.  Before he died he made a speech to the people; but none could hear him, so great was the noise which the soldiers made, according, it is said, to the orders they had received.  When the cord which bound him to the post suffocated his voice, not a soul in the crowd ejaculated the name of Jesus, whom it is customary to invoke even in favor of parricides and the sacrilegious, to such extent was the multitude excited against him by those folks who are to be found everywhere, and who can do anything with the feelings of the simple and ignorant.”  Theodore de Beze adds that the grand penitentiary of Paris, Merlin, who was present at the execution, said, as he withdrew from the still smoking stake, “I never saw any one die more Christianly.”  The impressions and expressions of the crowd, as they dispersed, were very diverse; but the majority cried, “He was a heretic.”  Others said, “God is the only just Judge, and happy is the man whom He absolves.”  Some said below their breath, “It is only through the cross that Christ will triumph in the kingdom of the Gauls.”  A man went up to the Franciscan monk who had placed himself at Berquin’s side in the procession, and had entreated him without getting from him anything but silence, and asked him, “Did Berquin say that he had erred?” “Yes, certainly,” answered the monk, “and I doubt not but that his soul hath departed in peace.”  This expression was reported to Erasmus; but “I don’t believe it,” said he; “it is the story that these fellows are obliged to invent after their victim’s death, to appease the wrath of the people.”