take place, in presence of the ecclesiastic, of Don Eugenio de Peralta,
of the notary, and of one or two other persons, who would be needed by
the executioner. The ecclesiastic was to be a wise and prudent person,
and to be informed how little confidence Montigny inspired in the article
of faith. If the prisoner should wish to make a will, it could not be
permitted. As all his property had been confiscated, he could dispose of
nothing. Should he, however, desire to make a memorial of the debts
which he would wish paid; he was to be allowed that liberty. It was,
however, to be stipulated that he was to make no allusion, in any
memorial or letter which he might write, to the execution which was about
to take place. He was to use the language of a man seriously ill, and
who feels himself at the point of death. By this infernal ingenuity it
was proposed to make the victim an accomplice in the plot, and to place a
false exculpation of his assassins in his dying lips. The execution
having been fulfilled, and the death having been announced with the
dissimulation prescribed, the burial was to take place in the church of
Saint Saviour, in Simancas. A moderate degree of pomp, such as befitted
a person of Montigny's quality, was to be allowed, and a decent tomb
erected. A grand mass was also to be celebrated, with a respectable
number, "say seven hundred," of lesser masses. As the servants of the
defunct were few in number, continued the frugal King, they might be
provided each with a suit of mourning. Having thus personally arranged
all the details of this secret work, from the reading of the sentence to
the burial of the prisoner; having settled not only the mode of his
departure from life, but of his passage through purgatory, the King
despatched the agent on his mission.

The royal program was faithfully enacted. Don Alonzo arrived at
Valladolid; and made his arrangements with Don Eugenio. It was agreed
that a paper, prepared by royal authority, and brought by Don Alonzo from