Being questioned, they confessed the state of the case.

Whereupon, by sentence of the said commissioner, confirmed by decree, "they made honorable amends in front of the church of Notre-Dame de Paris, had their tongues cut out, and were burned all alive and with unshaken obstinacy." Proceedings and executions, then, did not cease, even in the case of the most humble class of Reformers, and at the very moment when Francis I.was exerting himself to win over the Protestants of Germany with the cry of conciliation and re-establishment of harmony in the church.

Melancthon, Bucer, and Luther himself had allowed themselves to be tempted by the prospect; but the German politicians, princes, and counsellors were more clear-sighted.

"We at Augsburg," wrote Sailer, deputy from that city, "know the King of France well; he cares very little for religion, or even for morality.

He plays the hypocrite with the pope, and gives the Germans the smooth side of his tongue, thinking of nothing but how to cheat them of the hopes he gives them.