conducted very respectably.

On the 3rd of November, 1570, these two letters, ostensibly written by
Don Eugenio de Peralta, were transmitted by Philip to the Duke of Alva.
They were to serve as evidence of the statement which the Governor-
General was now instructed to make, that the Seigneur de Montigny had
died a natural death in the fortress of Simancas. By the same courier,
the King likewise forwarded a secret memoir, containing the exact history
of the dark transaction, from which memoir the foregoing account has been
prepared. At the same time the Duke was instructed publicly to exhibit
the lying letters of Don Eugenio de Peralta, as containing an authentic
statement of the affair. The King observed, moreover, in his letter,
that there was not a person in Spain who doubted that Montigny had died
of a fever. He added that if the sentiments of the deceased nobleman had
been at all in conformity with his external manifestations, according to
the accounts received of his last moments, it was to be hoped that God
would have mercy upon his soul. The secretary who copied the letter,
took the liberty of adding, however, to this paragraph the suggestion,
that "if Montigny were really a heretic, the devil, who always assists
his children in such moments, would hardly have failed him in his dying
hour." Philip, displeased with this flippancy, caused the passage to be
erased. He even gave vent to his royal indignation in a marginal note,
to the effect that we should always express favorable judgments
concerning the dead--a pious sentiment always dearer to writing masters
than to historians. It seemed never to have occurred however to this
remarkable moralist, that it was quite as reprehensible to strangle an
innocent man as to speak ill of him after his decease.

Thus perished Baron Montigny, four years after his arrival in Madrid as
Duchess Margaret's ambassador, and three years after the death of his