William Bude hurried to the scene, and vehemently urged the prisoner to give it up.

"A second sentence," said he, "is ready, and it pronounces death.

If you acquiesce in the first, we shall be able to save you later on.

All that is demanded of you is to ask pardon: and have we not all need of pardon ?" It appears that for a moment Berquin hesitated, and was on the point of consenting; but Bude remained anxious.

"I know him," said he; "his ingenuousness and his confidence in the goodness of his cause will ruin him." The king was at Blois, and his sister Marguerite at St.Germain; on the news of this urgent peril she wrote to her brother, "I for the last time, make you a very humble request; it is, that you will be pleased to have pity upon poor Berquin, whom I know to be suffering for nothing but loving the word of God and obeying yours.