The Chancellor commanded he should be brought down into the Chappel, where as soon as he saw the Chancellor, are you come, said he, to pronounce me my death: The Chancellor saluted him, then put on his Hat, the Prisoner stood bare headed, and began to speak first. Ah my Lord Chancellor, is there no pardon? is there no Mercy? such and such (whom he did name one after another) have committed such offences and yet have been pardoned. What? you that look like an honest man, have you suffered that I should be so miserably condemned? ah! my Lord, if you had not told the Court that the King would have me to die, they would not have condemned me so. My Lord, my Lord, you could have hindred that evil, and you have not done it, you shall answer for that injustice before all the rest of the Judges that have condemned me, and saying so, he stroke the Chancellor upon the Arm. Ah! what a great service the King doth this day to the King of Spain, to rid him of such an Enemy as I was, might I not have been kept within four Walls, till some occasion had offered where I might have been useful? Ah my Lord, have you forgot my fathers love to you so much, as not to give notice to the King of what I say, and what dammage he suffereth in loosing me: I am yet as willing as ever to do Service to the Kingdom, you could let him know so much, he hath so good an opinion of you, I am sure he would believe you: A Messenger could quickly go thither and back again; what shall a thousand Gentlemen my Kinsmen say? doth he think that after my death they can do him any service? and what if I had been guilty, would I have come upon those false assurances that President Janin that great Cheat gave me, when he told me, that businesses were so ill mannaged in France, that it was fit I should see the King and tell him of it, who at my perswasion would settle them in better order: I have neglected all the advices of my friends to hearken unto his perswasions. I have trusted to that cursed Traitor la Fin, who writ to me that I could come in all safety, and that he had told the King nothing but of the Marriage that was propounded to me with a daughter of Savoy, that the King would receive me with all kindness. What then? the goings to and fro of many, the reasons of those who advised me to come, and the Kings Letters, were they all baits to catch me: I am well served to have trusted to much upon his Word, I could have sought and got other securities, if I had not trusted to my Innocency; I am come upon the confidence of my integrity since his pardon. Ah! doth he not know that he hath forgiven me; I have lied some evil designs, I have hearkened, I have written, I have spoken, I confessed them all at Lyon, he did assure me never to remember it, and did exhort me that from hence forwards I should commit nothing that might compel me to have recourse to his clemency: Nevertheless I am now accused of things that are blotted out by his pardon; I have not offended him since, unless it be in that I desired War rather than Peace, because my humour is not peaceable, had not the King at that time reason to approve of it? if this Crime deserveth death I fly to his clemency, I implore his Mercy. The Queen of England told me, that if the Earl of Essex would have humbled himself, and asked forgiveness, he should have obtained it: I do, being Innocent, what he would not do being guilty. Ah! Shall all Mercy be put out for me; those that have done worse have found Grace and Mercy: I perceive what it is, I am not the more guilty but the most unhappy, and the King, who hath been so sparing of his Subjects lives, hath a mind to be prodigal of mine.
To conclude, he forgot nothing of what might be said by a soul pierced with grief spite, anger, and violent threatning, in exclamations and revilings against the King and his Parliament, in reproaches against the Chancellor, that he had more contributed to his condemnation than to his absolution, in words that are not fit to be spoken nor related.
His words ran so fast that the Chancellor could not stop them: Nevertheless he took occasion to tell him, his passion suggested him many things without appearance of reason, and against his own judgment, that no body had known his defects better than he, and that he could have wished his faults had been as unknown as dissembled, that the knowledge of them had been so visible and apparent, that his Judges had more ado to moderate his punishment than to inflict it. That Sentence was given upon the proofs of several attemps he had made against the Kings Person and his Estate, and for having kept intelligence and correspondency with the Enemies of the Kingdom, of which he had been found guilty, that if he had concealed the truth in the answers to his accusations, he should now reveal it being so near to his end, and that for these causes the King did ask his Order of Knighthood, and his staff of Marshal of France, with which he had formerly honoured him: He pulled the Order out of his Pocket and put it into the Chancellors hands, Protesting and Swearing upon the Salvation of his Soul, that he never had broken the Oath he made in receiving it, that (it is true) he had desired War more than Peace; because he could not preserve in Peace, the reputation he had got in War, as for the Staff, he never carryed it: Nevertheless by the Oath that the Knights of the Holy Ghost take, they are bound to take no Pension, Wages nor Money from forrain Princes, and to engage themselves in no bodies service but the Kings, and faithfully to reveal what they shall know to be for or against the Kings service.
After that the Chancellor exhorted him to lift up his thoughts from Earth to Heaven, to call upon God, and to hear patiently his Sentence.
My Lord (said he) I beseech you do not use me as other men; I know what my Sentence beareth, my accusations are false, I wonder the Court would Condemn me upon the Evidence of the most wicked and detestable man that is alive; he never came near me without Witchcraft, nor never went from me till he had bewitched me, he did bite my left ear off, and made me drink inchanted waters, and when he said, that the King had a mind to rid himself of me, he called me his King, his Benefactor, his Prince, his Lord, he hath communication with the Devils, and hath shewed me a Wax Image, speaking these words in Latine, Rex impie morieris, ungodly King thou shalt die. If he hath had so much power by his Magick, as to make an inanimate body to speak, it is no wonder that he should make my Will conformable to his.
Here the Chancellor stopt him, and told him, that the Court had well considered his answers, and his Letters, that he ought not to find fault with his Sentence, that it had done him the same justice as a Father should do to his son, if he had offended in the like manner. He had scarce spoken these words when the other answered, what Judgment? I have been heard but once, and had no time to tell the fiftieth part of my justification; if I had been heard at large, I could have made it clearly appear that la Fin is such a one as I say; what Judgment upon the Evidence of a Bougerer? of a Rogue that hath forsaken his Wife, of a treacherous and perfidious man, that had Sworn so many times upon the Holy Sacrament, never to reveal what was between us, of a Knave that hath so often counterfeited my Hand and Seal: It is true, I have written some of those Letters that were shewed me, but I never intended to put them in Execution: and the rest are falsified: Is there not many that can counterfeit so well the Hand and Seal of others, that themselves can scarce distinguish them. It is well known that the Lady Marchioness of Vernevil hath lately acknowledged that to be her own hand, which she had never written. My Heart and my Actions have sufficiently countervailed the faults of my Hand, and of my Tongue. Besides, the King hath forgiven me, I do implore his Memory for a Witness. You say I have been found guilty to have attempted upon the Kings Person; that is false, that never came into my mind, and I knew nothing of it till that la Fin did propose it to me before St. Katherines Fort, six or seven days after the Siege, if I had been thus minded, I could have easily brought it to pass; I was the only man that hindred the King to go before the Fort: If my services had been taken into consideration, I should not have been thus condemned: I believe that if you had not been present, the Parliament would not have judged me so rigorously; I wonder that you, whom I thought to be prudent and wise, have used me so cruelly; it would have been more honourable for your quality and old age to implore for me the Kings Mercy, than his Justice. There is Dungeons here where I might have been kept bound hand and foot; I should have at last that comfort to pray for those who should have got me that favour from the King. If I had been but a single Souldier, I should have been sent to the Galleys; but because I am a Marshal of France, I am thought to be as dangerous a man to the State, as I have been useful heretofore. My life is sought after, I see there is no Mercy for me; the King hath often forgiven those, who not only intended to do evil, but had done it; this Vertue is now forgotten, he giveth occasion now to the World to believe, that he never used clemency or forgiveness, but when he was afraid. I was of opinion, that if I had killed one of his Children he would have forgiven me. Is it not pity that my Father should have run so many dangers, and at last died in the field to keep the Crown upon his Head, and that now he should take my head off my Shoulders, is it possible he should forget the services I have done him? doth he not remember the conspiracy of Mantes, and the dangers he should have been in if I had taken the Conspirators part? Hath he forgotten the Siege of Amiens, where I have been so often among the fire and Bullets, neglecting my own life to preserve his, I have not a Vein but hath been open to preserve his own Blood, I have received five and thirty wounds to save his life; he sheweth now that he never loved me but when he had need of me, he taketh away my head, but let him beware that the Justice of God doth not fall upon his. My Blood shall cry for revenge for the wrong that is done me to day, I call the King of Spain and the Duke of Savoy to Witness, if I know any thing what is laid to my charge. La Fin himself did shew me sometimes a Catholick List of about fourscore Gentlemen, who received Pension from the King of Spain, I had never so much curiosity as to read it; let him be put to the rack he shall tell many particularities of it; the King within a little while shall perceive what he getteth by my death; I shall at last die a good Catholick, and constant in my Religion, I believe that’s the cause of my death.
The Chancellor seeing that all his discourses were full of passion, vanity and repetitions, and void of reason, and were like an impetuous Torrent that cannot be stopt, and that all his words were nothing but reproaches against the King and the Court of Parliament, blasphemies against God, and execrations against his Accusers; said that his business called him away, and that in his absence he would leave him two Divines to comfort him, and to dispose his soul to leave quietly this World, for the enjoying of a better.
As the Chancellor was going out, the Prisoner begged of him that he might have the liberty to make his Will, because he did owe much, and much was owing to him, and he desired to satisfie every body. The Chancellor answered, that the Recorder Voisin should stay with him to write his Will under the Kings good pleasure. And as the Chancellor spoke to Voisin, the Prisoner turning to Roissy, Master of Requests, asked him if he were, one of those that had condemned him: my Father hath loved you so much, that though you were one, yet should I forgive you. Roissy answered, my Lord, I pray God Almighty to comfort you.
They went out, and he with a quiet mind and free from passion, did dictate his Will in what form he would, with the same Garbe, as if he had been making a Speech at the head of an Army; he remembred his friends and servants, and did not forget the Baron of Lux, whom he loved above all the rest. He lest eight hundred Livers a year to a Bastard of his, whom he begot of a woman that he left with Child of another, to which child he left a Mannor near Dijon that had cost him six thousand Crowns, he disposed all the rest of his Debts, and answered modestly, and without confusion to all the Notes and Bills that were brought him about his affairs. Took three Rings off his fingers, and intreated Baranton to give them to his Sisters, two to the Countess of Roussy, and the other to that of Saint Blancard, desiring they would wear them for his sake; he distributed in Alms about 200. Crowns that he had in his Pocket, fifty to the Capuchines, fifty to the Fueillants, fifty to the Minimes, and the rest to several poor people.
The Will being made, the Recorder put him in mind how my Lord Chancellor had told him he was condemned to death, and that according to the ordinary forms of the Law, he must have his Sentence read to him; that this action required humility, therefore willed him to kneel before the Altar, leaving off hence forth all thoughts of this World, to think upon the Father of Mercies; he kneeled with the right knee upon the first step of the Altar, and heard it read as followeth: