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.