“He awaited death with a resignation which is inconceivable,” says the author of his Memoires; “never did man speak more boldly than he about it; it seemed as if he were recounting another’s perils when he described his own to his servants and his guards, who were the only witnesses of such lofty manliness.”  His sister, the Princess of Conde, had a memorial prepared for his defence put before him.  He read it carefully, then he tore it up, “having always determined,” he said, “not to (chicaner) go pettifogging for (or, dispute) his life.”  “I ought by rights to answer before the Parliament of Paris only,” said he to the commission of the Parliament of Toulouse instructed to conduct his trial, “but I give up with all my heart this privilege and all others that might delay my sentence.”

There was not long to wait for the decree.  On arriving at Toulouse, October 27, at noon, the duke had asked for a confessor.  “Father,” said he to the priest, “I pray you to put me this moment in the shortest and most certain path to heaven that you can, having nothing more to hope or wish for but God.”  All his family had hurried up, but without being able to obtain the favor of seeing the king.  “His Majesty had strengthened himself in the resolution he had taken from the first to make in the case of the said Sieur de Montmorency a just example for all the grandees of his kingdom in the future, as the late king his father had done in the person of Marshal Biron,” says Richelieu in his Memoires.  The Princess of Conde could not gain admittance to his Majesty, who lent no ear to the supplications of his oldest servants, represented by the aged Duke of Epernon, who accused himself by his own mouth of having but lately committed the same crime as the Duke of Montmorency.  “You can retire, duke,” was all that Louis XIII. deigned to reply.  “I should not be a king if I had the feelings of private persons,” said he to Marshal Chatillon, who pointed out to him the downcast looks and swollen eyes of all his court.

It was the 30th of October, early:  and the Duke of Montmorency was sleeping peacefully.  His confessor came and awoke him. “Surgite, eamus (rise, let us be going),” he said, as he awoke; and when his surgeon would have dressed his wounds, “Now is the time to heal all my wounds with a single one,” he said, and he had himself dressed in the clothes of white linen he had ordered to be made at Lectoure for the day of execution.  When the last questions were put to him by the judges, he answered by a complete confession; and when the decree was made known to him, “I thank you, gentlemen,” said he to the commissioners, “and I beg you to tell all them of your body from me, that I hold this decree of the king’s justice for a decree of God’s mercy.”  He walked to the scaffold with the same tranquillity, saluting right and left those whom he knew, to take leave of them; then, having with difficulty placed himself upon the block, so much did his wounds still cause him to suffer, he said out loud, “Domine Jesu, accipe spiritum meum (Lord Jesus, receive my spirit)!” As his head fell, the people rushed forward to catch his blood and dip their handkerchiefs in it.