‘It is therefore wonderfully astonishing how our adversary should have dared to have called the duke of Orleans a tyrant, by way of excusing his abominable act, when it is apparent that his qualities were directly the reverse to those of a tyrant. This I think a sufficient answer to the damnable proposition of our opponent.
‘But the advocate for our adversary says, That whatever he may have done contrary to the letter of the law was not, however, contrary to the intention of the maker of the law, nor contrary to its spirit, but through love of God. Who is he that has thus revealed to him the intention of the Maker of the law, and that it is the object of laws to cause men to be put to death without authority or sentence of the law? The consequence would be, that any prince may be made away with, under pretence that he was a tyrant; for every one would interpret the law according to his fancy, which would create the greatest misfortunes. ‘Cujus est leges condere ejus est interpretari.’ It is therefore clear, that our opponent could not establish laws binding on the duke of Orleans, who was not his subject, or interpret the law in respect to him. For although his advocate styles him dean of the peers, it does not follow that he had any authority over the defunct; for if so, he would have authority over the whole kingdom, and be equal to the king. What though he be a peer? he has no power but over his own lands; and in so much as he attributes to himself the power of another over the realm, he appropriates to himself kingly domination.
‘His advocate has indeed alledged twelve reasons to prove that his lord might lawfully put to death the duke of Orleans without orders from any one whatever. The three first are founded on the declarations of three doctors in theology, and three others on the writings of three moral philosophers,—three on the civil law, and the three last on examples drawn from the holy Scriptures.
‘With regard to the first, taken from the writings of St Thomas Aquinas, who says,—‘Quando aliquis aliquod dominium sibi per violentiam suscipit nolentibus subditis, vel sine consensu communitatis et non est recursus ad superiorem per quem de tali invasore judicium posset fieri, tunc qui ad liberationem patriæ talem tyrannum occidit laudatur et præmium accipit.’ To this I reply, that it is no way applicable to the case; for my lord of Orleans never intruded on any other’s domination by violence, nor did he attempt to usurp the power and authority of the king. I say, he never even thought of such a thing, as will more amply be shown in the third part of my defence of him.