The procedure had been made more rapid; the police commissioner of the Chatelet dealt with cases summarily, and the Parliament confirmed.

The victims had at first been strangled before they were burned; they were now burned alive, after the fashion of the Spanish Inquisition.

The convicts were suspended by iron chains to beams which alternately "hoisted" and "lowered" them over the flames until the executioner cut the cord to let the sufferer fall.

The evidence was burned together with the convicts; it was undesirable that the Reformers should be able to make a certified collection of their martyrs' acts and deeds.
After a detailed and almost complacent enumeration of all these executions, we find in the _Journal d'un Bourgeois de Paris_ this paragraph: "The rumor was, in June, 1535, that Pope Paul III., being advertised of the execrable and horrible justice which the king was doing upon the Lutherans in his kingdom, did send word to the King of France that he was advertised of it, and that he was quite willing to suppose that he did it in good part, as he still made use of the beautiful title he had to be called the Most Christian king; nevertheless, God the Creator, when he was in this world, made more use of mercy than of rigorous justice, which should never be used rigorously; and that it was a cruel death to burn a man alive because he might have to some extent renounced the faith and the law.

Wherefore the pope did pray and request the king, by his letters, to be pleased to mitigate the fury and rigor of his justice by granting grace and pardon.