On May 23, 1563, a vengeful French Dominican named Fray Jacques Alberti made a lengthy denunciation of his compatriots before a comisario of the Inquisition in Madrid. He began, not uncommonly for key witnesses, by sketching his own biography. Born about 1532 at Carcasonne in Languedoc, he had become a lay brother of St. Dominic at their Montpellier convent around 1549. Except for three years at the convent of St. Maximin in Toulouse, he had lived quietly in his home convent until the Wars of Religion erupted in Montpellier. (Although surrounded by members of a great teaching order, Alberti was illiterate and could only mark his deposition with a cross.) About a year ago, he continued, his convent was sacked, its custodian killed, and he had fallen into the hands of the Huguenots. Seven monks captured with him were martyred because they refused to convert or to tell where the body of St. Roch and its accompanying treasures were hidden. Alberti had saved his life by revealing the location of a few minor decorations.