nothing less than the trial of Semblancay. The trial lasted five years,
and, on the 9th of April, 1527, a decree of Parliament condemned
Semblancay to the punishment of death and confiscation of all his
property; not for the particular matter which had been the origin of the
quarrel, but "as attained and convicted of larcenies, falsifications,
abuses, malversations, and maladministration of the king's finances,
without prejudice as to the debt claimed by the said my lady, the mother
of the king." Semblancay, accordingly, was hanged on the gibbet of
Montfaucon, on the 12th of August. In spite of certain ambiguities which
arose touching some acts of his administration and some details of his
trial, public feeling was generally and very strongly in his favor. He
was an old and faithful servant of the crown; and Francis I. had for a
long time called him "his father." He was evidently the victim of the
queen-mother's greed and vengeance. The firmness of his behavior, at the
time of his execution, became a popular theme in the verses of Clement
Marot:--

When Maillart, officer of hell, escorted
To Montfaucon Semblancay, doomed to die,
Which, to your thinking, of the twain supported
The better havior? I will make reply:
Maillart was like the man to death proceeding;
And Semblancay so stout an ancient looked,
It seemed, forsooth, as if himself were leading
Lieutenant Maillard--to the gallows booked!

It is said that, at the very moment of execution, Semblancay, waiting on
the scaffold for at least a commutation of the penalty, said, "Had I
served God as I have served the king, He would not have made me wait so
long." Nearly two centuries later, in 1683, a more celebrated minister