FOX'S BOOK OF MARTYRS
CHAPTER IV
Papal Persecutions
Thus far our history of persecution has been confined principally to the pagan
world. We come now to a period when persecution, under the guise of Christianity,
committed more enormities than ever disgraced the annals of paganism. Disregarding
the maxims and the spirit of the Gospel, the papal Church, arming herself with the
power of the sword, vexed the Church of God and wasted it for several centuries,
a period most appropriately termed in history, the "dark ages." The kings
of the earth, gave their power to the "Beast," and submitted to be trodden
on by the miserable vermin that often filled the papal chair, as in the case of Henry,
emperor of Germany. The storm of papal persecution first burst upon the Waldenses
in France.
Persecution of the Waldenses in France
Popery having brought various innovations into the Church, and overspread the
Christian world with darkness and superstition, some few, who plainly perceived the
pernicious tendency of such errors, determined to show the light of the Gospel in
its real purity, and to disperse those clouds which artful priests had raised about
it, in order to blind the people, and obscure its real brightness.
The principal among these was Berengarius, who, about the year 1000, boldly preached
Gospel truths, according to their primitive purity. Many, from conviction, assented
to his doctrine, and were, on that account, called Berengarians. To Berengarius succeeded
Peer Bruis, who preached at Toulouse, under the protection of an earl, named Hildephonsus;
and the whole tenets of the reformers, with the reasons of their separation from
the Church of Rome, were published in a book written by Bruis, under the title of
"Antichrist."
By the year of Christ 1140, the number of the reformed was very great, and the
probability of its increasing alarmed the pope, who wrote to several princes to banish
them from their dominions, and employed many learned men to write against their doctrines.
In A.D. 1147, because of Henry of Toulouse, deemed their most eminent preacher,
they were called Henericians; and as they would not admit of any proofs relative
to religion, but what could be deduced from the Scriptures themselves, the popish
party gave them the name of apostolics. At length, Peter Waldo, or Valdo, a native
of Lyons, eminent for his piety and learning, became a strenuous opposer of popery;
and from him the reformed, at that time, received the appellation of Waldenses or
Waldoys.
Pope Alexander III being informed by the bishop of Lyons of these transactions,
excommunicated Waldo and his adherents, and commanded the bishop to exterminate them,
if possible, from the face of the earth; hence began the papal persecutions against
the Waldenses.
The proceedings of Waldo and the reformed, occasioned the first rise of the inquisitors;
for Pope Innocent III authorized certain monks as inquisitors, to inquire for, and
deliver over, the reformed to the secular power. The process was short, as an accusation
was deemed adequate to guilt, and a candid trial was never granted to the accused.
The pope, finding that these cruel means had not the intended effect, sent several
learned monks to preach among the Waldenses, and to endeavor to argue them out of
their opinions. Among these monks was one Dominic, who appeared extremely zealous
in the cause of popery. This Dominic instituted an order, which, from him, was called
the order of Dominican friars; and the members of this order have ever since been
the principal inquisitors in the various inquisitions in the world. The power of
the inquisitors was unlimited; they proceeded against whom they pleased, without
any consideration of age, sex, or rank. Let the accusers be ever so infamous, the
accusation was deemed valid; and even anonymous informations, sent by letter, were
thought sufficient evidence. To be rich was a crime equal to heresy; therefore many
who had money were accused of heresy, or of being favorers of heretics, that they
might be obliged to pay for their opinions. The dearest friends or nearest kindred
could not, without danger, serve any one who was imprisoned on account of religion.
To convey to those who were confined, a little straw, or give them a cup of water,
was called favoring of the heretics, and they were prosecuted accordingly. No lawyer
dared to plead for his own brother, and their malice even extended beyond the grave;
hence the bones of many were dug up and burnt, as examples to the living. If a man
on his deathbed was accused of being a follower of Waldo, his estates were confiscated,
and the heir to them defrauded of his inheritance; and some were sent to the Holy
Land, while the Dominicans took possession of their houses and properties, and, when
the owners returned, would often pretend not to know them. These persecutions were
continued for several centuries under different popes and other great dignitaries
of the Catholic Church.
Persecutions of the Albigenses
The Albigenses were a people of the reformed religion, who inhabited the country
of Albi. They were condemned on the score of religion in the Council of Lateran,
by order of Pope Alexander III. Nevertheless, they increased so prodigiously, that
many cities were inhabited by persons only of their persuasion, and several eminent
noblemen embraced their doctrines. Among the latter were Raymond, earl of Toulouse,
Raymond, earl of Foix, the earl of Beziers, etc.
A friar, named Peter, having been murdered in the dominions of the earl of Toulouse,
the pope made the murder a pretense to persecute that nobleman and his subjects.
To effect this, he sent persons throughout all Europe, in order to raise forces to
act coercively against the Albigenses, and promised paradise to all that would come
to this war, which he termed a Holy War, and bear arms for forty days. The same indulgences
were likewise held out to all who entered themselves for the purpose as to such as
engaged in crusades to the Holy Land. The brave earl defended Toulouse and other
places with the most heroic bravery and various success against the pope's legates
and Simon, earl of Montfort, a bigoted Catholic nobleman. Unable to subdue the earl
of Toulouse openly, the king of France, and the queen mother, and three archbishops
raised another formidable army, and had the art to persuade the earl of Toulouse
to come to a conference, when he was treacherously seized upon, made a prisoner,
forced to appear barefooted and bareheaded before his enemies, and compelled to subscribe
an abject recantation. This was followed by a severe persecution against the Albigenses;
and express orders that the laity should not be permitted to read the sacred Scriptures.
In the year 1620 also, the persecution against the Albigenses was very severe. In
1648 a heavy persecution raged throughout Lithuania and Poland. The cruelty of the
Cossacks was so excessive that the Tartars themselves were ashamed of their barbarities.
Among others who suffered was the Rev. Adrian Chalinski, who was roasted alive by
a slow fire, and whose sufferings and mode of death may depict the horrors which
the professors of Christianity have endured from the enemies of the Redeemer.
The reformation of papistical error very early was projected in France; for in
the third century a learned man, named Almericus, and six of his disciples, were
ordered to be burnt at Paris for asserting that God was no otherwise present in the
sacramental bread than in any other bread; that it was idolatry to build altars or
shrines to saints and that it was ridiculous to offer incense to them.
The martyrdom of Almericus and his pupils did not, however, prevent many from
acknowledging the justness of his notions, and seeing the purity of the reformed
religion, so that the faith of Christ continually increased, and in time not only
spread itself over many parts of France, but diffused the light of the Gospel over
various other countries.
In the year 1524, at a town in France, called Melden, one John Clark set up a
bill on the church door, wherein he called the pope Antichrist. For this offence
he was repeatedly whipped, and then branded on the forehead. Going afterward to Mentz,
in Lorraine, he demolished some images, for which he had his right hand and nose
cut off, and his arms and breast torn with pincers. He sustained these cruelties
with amazing fortitude, and was even sufficiently cool to sing the One hundredth
and fifteenth Psalm, which expressly forbids idolatry; after which he was thrown
into the fire, and burnt to ashes.
Many persons of the reformed persuasion were, about this time, beaten, racked,
scourged, and burnt to death, in several parts of France, but more particularly at
Paris, Malda, and Limosin.
A native of Malda was burnt by a slow fire, for saying that Mass was a plain denial
of the death and passion of Christ. At Limosin, John de Cadurco, a clergyman of the
reformed religion, was apprehended and ordered to be burnt.
Francis Bribard, secretary to cardinal de Pellay, for speaking in favor of the
reformed, had his tongue cut out, and was then burnt, A.D. 1545. James Cobard, a
schoolmaster in the city of St. Michael, was burnt, A.D. 1545, for saying 'That Mass
was useless and absurd'; and about the same time, fourteen men were burnt at Malda,
their wives being compelled to stand by and behold the execution.
A.D. 1546, Peter Chapot brought a number of Bibles in the French tongue to France,
and publicly sold them there; for which he was brought to trial, sentenced, and executed
a few days afterward. Soon after, a cripple of Meaux, a schoolmaster of Fera, named
Stephen Poliot, and a man named John English, were burnt for the faith.
Monsieur Blondel, a rich jeweler, was, in A.D. 1548, apprehended at Lyons, and
sent to Paris; there he was burnt for the faith by order of the court, A.D. 1549.
Herbert, a youth of nineteen years of age, was committed to the flames at Dijon;
as was also Florent Venote in the same year.
In the year 1554, two men of the reformed religion, with the son and daughter
of one of them, were apprehended and committed to the castle of Niverne. On examination,
they confessed their faith, and were ordered to execution; being smeared with grease,
brimstone, and gunpowder, they cried, "Salt on, salt on this sinful and rotten
flesh." Their tongues were then cut out, and they were afterward committed to
the flames, which soon consumed them, by means of the combustible matter with which
they were besmeared.
The Bartholomew Massacre at Paris, etc.
On the twenty second day of August, 1572, commenced this diabolical act of sanguinary
brutality. It was intended to destroy at one stroke the root of the Protestant tree,
which had only before partially suffered in its branches. The king of France had
artfully proposed a marriage, between his sister and the prince of Navarre, the captain
and prince of the Protestants. This imprudent marriage was publicly celebrated at
Paris, August 18, by the cardinal of Bourbon, upon a high stage erected for the purpose.
They dined in great pomp with the bishop, and supped with the king at Paris. Four
days after this, the prince (Coligny), as he was coming from the Council, was shot
in both arms; he then said to Maure, his deceased mother's minister, "O my brother,
I do now perceive that I am indeed beloved of my God, since for His most holy sake
I am wounded." Although the Vidam advised him to fly, yet he abode in Paris,
and was soon after slain by Bemjus; who afterward declared he never saw a man meet
death more valiantly than the admiral.
The soldiers were appointed at a certain signal to burst out instantly to the
slaughter in all parts of the city. When they had killed the admiral, they threw
him out at a window into the street, where his head was cut off, and sent to the
pope. The savage papists, still raging against him, cut off his arms and private
members, and, after dragging him three days through the streets, hung him by the
heels without the city. After him they slew many great and honorable persons who
were Protestants; as Count Rochfoucault, Telinius, the admiral's son-in-law, Antonius,
Clarimontus, marquis of Ravely, Lewes Bussius, Bandineus, Pluvialius, Burneius, etc.,
and falling upon the common people, they continued the slaughter for many days; in
the three first they slew of all ranks and conditions to the number of ten thousand.
The bodies were thrown into the rivers, and blood ran through the streets with a
strong current, and the river appeared presently like a stream of blood. So furious
was their hellish rage, that they slew all papists whom they suspected to be not
very staunch to their diabolical religion. From Paris the destruction spread to all
quarters of the realm.
At Orleans, a thousand were slain of men, women, and children, and six thousand
at Rouen.
At Meldith, two hundred were put into prison, and later brought out by units,
and cruelly murdered.
At Lyons, eight hundred were massacred. Here children hanging about their parents,
and parents affectionately embracing their children, were pleasant food for the swords
and bloodthirsty minds of those who call themselves the Catholic Church. Here three
hundred were slain in the bishop's house; and the impious monks would suffer none
to be buried.
At Augustobona, on the people hearing of the massacre at Paris, they shut their
gates that no Protestants might escape, and searching diligently for every individual
of the reformed Church, imprisoned and then barbarously murdered them. The same curelty
they practiced at Avaricum, at Troys, at Toulouse, Rouen and many other places, running
from city to city, towns, and villages, through the kingdom.
As a corroboration of this horrid carnage, the following interesting narrative,
written by a sensible and learned Roman Catholic, appears in this place, with peculiar
propriety.
"The nuptials (says he) of the young king of Navarre with the French king's
sister, was solemnized with pomp; and all the endearments, all the assurances of
friendship, all the oaths sacred among men, were profusely lavished by Catharine,
the queen-mother, and by the king; during which, the rest of the court thought of
nothing but festivities, plays, and masquerades. At last, at twelve o'clock at night,
on the eve of St. Bartholomew, the signal was given. Immediately all the houses of
the Protestants were forced open at once. Admiral Coligny, alarmed by the uproar
jumped out of bed, when a company of assassins rushed in his chamber. They were headed
by one Besme, who had been bred up as a domestic in the family of the Guises. This
wretch thrust his sword into the admiral's breast, and also cut him in the face.
Besme was a German, and being afterwards taken by the Protestants, the Rochellers
would have brought him, in order to hang and quarter him; but he was killed by one
Bretanville. Henry, the young duke of Guise, who afterwards framed the Catholic league,
and was murdered at Blois, standing at the door until the horrid butchery should
be completed, called aloud, 'Besme! is it done?' Immediately after this, the ruffians
threw the body out of the window, and Coligny expired at Guise's feet.
"Count de Teligny also fell a sacrifice. He had married, about ten months
before, Coligny's daughter. His countenance was so engaging, that the ruffians, when
they advanced in order to kill him, were struck with compassion; but others, more
barbarous, rushing forward, murdered him.
"In the meantime, all the friends of Coligny were assassinated throughout
Paris; men, women, and children were promiscuously slaughtered and every street was
strewed with expiring bodies. Some priests, holding up a crucifix in one hand, and
a dagger in the other, ran to the chiefs of the murderers, and strongly exhorted
them to spare neither relations nor friends.
"Tavannes, marshal of France, an ignorant, superstitious soldier, who joined
the fury of religion to the rage of party, rode on horseback through the streets
of Paris, crying to his men, 'Let blood! let blood! bleeding is as wholesome in August
as in May.' In the memories of the life of this enthusiastic, written by his son,
we are told that the father, being on his deathbed, and making a general confession
of his actions, the priest said to him, with surprise, 'What! no mention of St. Bartholomew's
massacre?' to which Tavannes replied, 'I consider it as a meritorious action, that
will wash away all my sins.' Such horrid sentiments can a false spirit of religion
inspire!
"The king's palace was one of the chief scenes of the butchery; the king
of Navarre had his lodgings in the Louvre, and all his domestics were Protestants.
Many of these were killed in bed with their wives; others, running away naked, were
pursued by the soldiers through the several rooms of the palace, even to the king's
antichamber. The young wife of Henry of Navarre, awaked by the dreadful uproar, being
afraid for her consort, and for her own life, seized with horror, and half dead,
flew from her bed, in order to throw herself at the feet of the king her brother.
But scarce had she opened her chamber door, when some of her Protestant domestics
rushed in for refuge. The soldiers immediately followed, pursued them in sight of
the princess, and killed one who crept under her bed. Two others, being wounded with
halberds, fell at the queen's feet, so that she was covered with blood.
"Count de la Rochefoucault, a young nobleman, greatly in the king's favor
for his comely air, his politeness, and a certain peculiar happiness in the turn
of his conversation, had spent the evening until eleven o'clock with the monarch,
in pleasant familiarity; and had given a loose, with the utmost mirth, to the sallies
of his imagination. The monarch felt some remorse, and being touched with a kind
of compassion, bid him, two or three times, not to go home, but lie in the Louvre.
The count said he must go to his wife; upon which the king pressed him no farther,
but said, 'Let him go! I see God has decreed his death.' And in two hours after he
was murdered.
"Very few of the Protestants escaped the fury of their enthusiastic persecutors.
Among these was young La Force (afterwards the famous Marshal de la Force) a child
about ten years of age, whose deliverance was exceedingly remarkable. His father,
his elder brother, and he himself were seized together by the Duke of Anjou's soldier.
These murderers flew at all three, and struck them at random, when they all fell,
and lay one upon another. The youngest did not receive a single blow, but appearing
as if he was dead, escaped the next day; and his life, thus wonderfully preserved,
lasted four score and five years.
"Many of the wretched victims fled to the water side, and some swam over
the Seine to the suburbs of St. Germaine. The king saw them from his window, which
looked upon the river, and fired upon them with a carbine that had been loaded for
that purpose by one of his pages; while the queen-mother, undisturbed and serene
in the midst of slaughter, looking down from a balcony, encouraged the murderers
and laughed at the dying groans of the slaughtered. This barbarous queen was fired
with a restless ambition, and she perpetually shifted her party in order to satiate
it.
"Some days after this horrid transaction, the French court endeavored to
palliate it by forms of law. They pretended to justify the massacre by a calumny,
and accused the admiral of a conspiracy, which no one believed. The parliament was
commended to proceed against the memory of Coligny; and his dead body was hanged
in chains on Montfaucon gallows. The king himself went to view this shocking spectacle.
So one of his courtiers advised him to retire, and complaining of the stench of the
corpse, he replied, 'A dead enemuy smells well.' The massacres on St. Bartholomew's
day are painted in the royal saloon of the Vatican at Rome, with the following inscription:
Pontifex, Coligny necem probat, i.e., 'The pope approves of Coligny's death.'
"The young king of Navarre was spared through policy, rather than from the
pity of the queen-mother, she keeping him prisoner until the king's death, in order
that he might be as a security and pledge for the submission of such Protestants
as might effect their escape.
"This horrid butchery was not confined merely to the city of Paris. The like
orders were issued from court to the governors of all the provinces in France; so
that, in a week's time, about one hundred thousand Protestants were cut to pieces
in different parts of the kingdom! Two or three governors only refused to obey the
king's orders. One of these, named Montmorrin, governor of Auvergne, wrote the king
the following letter, which deserves to be transmitted to the latest posterity.
"SIRE: I have received an order, under your majesty's seal, to put to death
all the Protestants in my province. I have too much respect for your majesty, not
to believe the letter a forgery; but if (which God forbid) the order should be genuine,
I have too much respect for your majesty to obey it."
At Rome the horrid joy was so great, that they appointed a day of high festival,
and a jubilee, with great indulgence to all who kept it and showed every expression
of gladness they could devise! and the man who first carried the news received 1000
crowns of the cardinal of Lorraine for his ungodly message. The king also commanded
the day to be kept with every demonstration of joy, concluding now that the whole
race of Huguenots was extinct.
Many who gave great sums of money for their ransom were immediately after slain;
and several towns, which were under the king's promise of protection and safety,
were cut off as soon as they delivered themselves up, on those promises, to his generals
or captains.
At Bordeaux, at the instigation of a villainous monk, who used to urge the papists
to slaughter in his sermons, two hundred and sixty-four were cruelly murdered; some
of them senators. Another of the same pious fraternity produced a similar slaughter
at Agendicum, in Maine, where the populace at the holy inquisitors' satanical suggestion,
ran upon the Protestants, slew them, plundered their houses, and pulled down their
church.
The duke of Guise, entering into Blois, suffered his soldiers to fly upon the
spoil, and slay or drown all the Protestants they could find. In this they spared
neither age nor sex; defiling the women, and then murdering them; from whence he
went to Mere, and committed the same outrages for many days together. Here they found
a minister named Cassebonius, and threw him into the river.
At Anjou, they slew Albiacus, a minister; and many women were defiled and murdered
there; among whom were two sisters, abused before their father, whom the assassins
bound to a wall to see them, and then slew them and him.
The president of Turin, after giving a large sum for his life, was cruelly beaten
with clubs, stripped of his clothes, and hung feet upwards, with his head and breast
in the river: before he was dead, they opened his belly, plucked out his entrails,
and threw them into the river; and then carried his heart about the city upon a spear.
At Barre great cruelty was used, even to young children, whom they cut open, pulled
out their entrails, which through very rage they gnawed with their teeth. Those who
had fled to the castle, when they yielded, were almost hanged. Thus they did at the
city of Matiscon; counting it sport to cut off their arms and legs and afterward
kill them; and for the entertainment of their visitors, they often threw the Protestants
from a high bridge into the river, saying, "Did you ever see men leap so well?"
At Penna, after promising them safety, three hundred were inhumanly butchered;
and five and forty at Albia, on the Lord's Day. At Nonne, though it yielded on conditions
of safeguard, the most horrid spectacles were exhibited. Persons of both sexes and
conditions were indiscriminately murdered; the streets ringing with doleful cries,
and flowing with blood; and the houses flaming with fire, which the abandoned soldiers
had thrown in. One woman, being dragged from her hiding place with her husband, was
first abused by the brutal soldiers, and then with a sword which they commanded her
to draw, they forced it while in her hands into the bowels of her husband.
At Samarobridge, they murdered above one hundred Protestants, after promising
them peace; and at Antsidor, one hundred were killed, and cast part into a jakes,
and part into a river. One hundred put into a prison at Orleans, were destroyed by
the furious multitude.
The Protestants at Rochelle, who were such as had miraculously escaped the rage
of hell, and fled there, seeing how ill they fared who submitted to those holy devils,
stood for their lives; and some other cities, encouraged thereby, did the like. Against
Rochelle, the king sent almost the whole power of France, which besieged it seven
months; though by their assaults, they did very little execution on the inhabitants,
yet by famine, they destroyed eighteen thousand out of two and twenty. The dead,
being too numerous for the living to bury, became food for vermin and carnivorous
birds. Many took their coffins into the church yard, laid down in them, and breathed
their last. Their diet had long been what the minds of those in plenty shudder at;
even human flesh, entrails, dung, and the most loathsome things, became at last the
only food of those champions for that truth and liberty, of which the world was not
worthy. At every attack, the besiegers met with such an intrepid reception, that
they left one hundred and thirty-two captains, with a proportionate number of men,
dead in the field. The siege at last was broken up at the request of the duke of
Anjou, the king's brother, who was proclaimed king of Poland, and the king, being
wearied out, easily complied, whereupon honorable conditions were granted them.
It is a remarkable interference of Providence, that, in all this dreadful massacre,
not more than two ministers of the Gospel were involved in it.
The tragical sufferings of the Protestants are too numerous to detail; but the
treatment of Philip de Deux will give an idea of the rest. After the miscreants had
slain this martyr in his bed, they went to his wife, who was then attended by the
midwife, expecting every moment to be delivered. The midwife entreated them to stay
the murder, at least till the child, which was the twentieth, should be born. Notwithstanding
this, they thrust a dagger up to the hilt into the poor woman. Anxious to be delivered,
she ran into a corn loft; but hither they pursued her, stabbed her in the belly,
and then threw her into the street. By the fall, the child came from the dying mother,
and being caught up by one of the Catholic ruffians, he stabbed the infant, and then
threw it into the river.
From the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, to the French Revolution, in 1789
The persecutions occasioned by the revocation of the edict of Nantes took place
under Louis XIV. This edict was made by Henry the Great of France in 1598, and secured
to the Protestants an equal right in every respect, whether civil or religious, with
the other subjects of the realm. All those privileges Louis the XIV confirmed to
the Protestants by another statute, called the edict of Nismes, and kept them inviolably
to the end of his reign.
On the accession of Louis XIV the kingdom was almost ruined by civil wars.
At this critical juncture, the Protestants, heedless of our Lord's admonition,
"They that take the sword shall perish with the sword," took such an active
part in favor of the king, that he was constrained to acknowledge himself indebted
to their arms for his establishment on the throne. Instead of cherishing and rewarding
that party who had fought for him, he reasoned that the same power which had protected
could overturn him, and, listening to the popish machinations, he began to issue
out proscriptions and restrictions, indicative of his final determination. Rochelle
was presently fettered with an incredible number of denunciations. Montauban and
Millau were sacked by soldiers. Popish commissioners were appointed to preside over
the affairs of the Protestants, and there was no appeal from their ordinance, except
to the king's council. This struck at the root of their civil and religious exercises,
and prevented them, being Protestants, from suing a Catholic in any court of law.
This was followed by another injunction, to make an inquiry in all parishes into
whatever the Protestants had said or done for twenty years past. This filled the
prisons with innocent victims, and condemned others to the galleys or banishment.
Protestants were expelled from all offices, trades, privileges, and employs; thereby
depriving them of the means of getting their bread: and they proceeded to such excess
in this brutality, that they would not suffer even the midwives to officiate, but
compelled their women to submit themselves in that crisis of nature to their enemies,
the brutal Catholics. Their children were taken from them to be educated by the Catholics,
and at seven years of age, made to embrace popery. The reformed were prohibited from
relieving their own sick or poor, from all private worship, and divine service was
to be performed in the presence of a popish priest. To prevent the unfortunate victims
from leaving the kingdom, all the passages on the frontiers were strictly guarded;
yet, by the good hand of God, about 150,000 escaped their vigilance, and emigrated
to different countries to relate the dismal narrative.
All that has been related hitherto were only infringements on their established
charter, the edict of Nantes. At length the diabolical revocation of that edict passed
on the eighteenth of October, 1685, and was registered the twenty-second, contrary
to all form of law. Instantly the dragoons were quartered upon the Protestants throughout
the realm, and filled all France with the like news, that the king would no longer
suffer any Huguenots in his kingdom, and therefore they must resolve to change their
religion. Hereupon the intendants in every parish (which were popish governors and
spies set over the Protestants) assembled the reformed inhabitants, and told them
they must, without delay, turn Catholics, either freely or by force. The Protestants
replied, that they 'were ready to sacrifice their lives and estates to the king,
but their consciences being God's they could not so dispose of them.'
Instantly the troops seized the gates and avenues of the cities, and placing guards
in all the passages, entered with sword in hand, crying, "Die, or be Catholics!"
In short, they practiced every wickedness and horror they could devise to force them
to change their religion.
They hanged both men and women by their hair or their feet, and smoked them with
hay until they were nearly dead; and if they still refused to sign a recantation,
they hung them up again and repeated their barbarities, until, wearied out with torments
without death, they forced many to yield to them.
Others, they plucked off all the hair of their heads and beards with pincers.
Others they threw on great fires, and pulled them out again, repeating it until they
extorted a promise to recant.
Some they stripped naked, and after offering them the most infamous insults, they
stuck them with pins from head to foot, and lanced them with penknives; and sometimes
with red-hot pincers they dragged them by the nose until they promised to turn. Sometimes
they tied fathers and husbands, while they ravished their wives and daughters before
their eyes. Multitudes they imprisoned in the most noisome dungeons, where they practised
all sorts of torments in secret. Their wives and children they shut up in monasteries.
Such as endeavored to escape by flight were pursued in the woods, and hunted in
the fields, and shot at like wild beasts; nor did any condition or quality screen
them from the ferocity of these infernal dragoons: even the members of parliament
and military officers, though on actual service, were ordered to quit their posts,
and repair directly to their houses to suffer the like storm. Such as complained
to the king were sent to the Bastile, where they drank the same cup. The bishops
and the intendants marched at the head of the dragoons, with a troop of missionaries,
monks, and other ecclesiastics to animate the soldiers to an execution so agreeable
to their Holy Church, and so glorious to their demon god and their tyrant king.
In forming the edict to repeal the edict of Nantes, the council were divided;
some would have all the ministers detained and forced into popery as well as the
laity; others were for banishing them, because their presence would strengthen the
Protestants in perseverance: and if they were forced to turn, they would ever be
secret and powerful enemies in the bosom of the Church, by their great knowledge
and experience in controversial matters. This reason prevailing, they were sentenced
to banishment, and only fifteen days allowed them to depart the kingdom.
On the same day that the edict for revoking the Protestants' charter was published,
they demolished their churches and banished their ministers, whom they allowed but
twenty-four hours to leave Paris. The papists would not suffer them to dispose of
their effects, and threw every obstacle in their way to delay their escape until
the limited time was expired which subjected them to condemnation for life to the
galleys. The guards were doubled at the seaports, and the prisons were filled with
the victims, who endured torments and wants at which human nature must shudder.
The sufferings of the ministers and others, who were sent to the galleys, seemed
to exceed all. Chained to the oar, they were exposed to the open air night and day,
at all seasons, and in all weathers; and when through weakness of body they fainted
under the oar, instead of a cordial to revive them, or viands to refresh them, they
received only the lashes of a scourge, or the blows of a cane or rope's end. For
the want of sufficient clothing and necessary cleanliness, they were most grievously
tormented with vermin, and cruelly pinched with the cold, which removed by night
the executioners who beat and tormented them by day. Instead of a bed, they were
allowed sick or well, only a hard board, eighteen inches broad, to sleep on, without
any covering but their wretched apparel; which was a shirt of the coarsest canvas,
a little jerkin of red serge, slit on each side up to the armholes, with open sleeves
that reached not to the elbow; and once in three years they had a coarse frock, and
a little cap to cover their heads, which were always kept close shaved as a mark
of their infamy. The allowance of provision was as narrow as the sentiments of those
who condemned them to such miseries, and their treatment when sick is too shocking
to relate; doomed to die upon the boards of a dark hold, covered with vermin, and
without the least convenience for the calls of nature. Nor was it among the least
of the horrors they endured, that, as ministers of Christ, and honest men, they were
chained side by side to felons and the most execrable villains, whose blasphemous
tongues were never idle. If they refused to hear Mass, they were sentenced to the
bastinado, of which dreadful punishment the following is a description. Preparatory
to it, the chains are taken off, and the victims delivered into the hands of the
Turks that preside at the oars, who strip them quite naked, and stretching them upon
a great gun, they are held so that they cannot stir; during which there reigns an
awful silence throughout the galley. The Turk who is appointed the executioner, and
who thinks the sacrifice acceptable to his prophet Mahomet, most cruelly beats the
wretched victim with a rough cudgel, or knotty rope's end, until the skin is flayed
off his bones, and he is near the point of expiring; then they apply a most tormenting
mixture of vinegar and salt, and consign him to that most intolerable hospital where
thousands under their cruelties have expired.
Martyrdom of John Calas
We pass over many other individual maretyrdoms to insert that of John Calas, which
took place as recently as 1761, and is an indubitable proof of the bigotry of popery,
and shows that neither experience nor improvement can root out the inveterate prejudices
of the Roman Catholics, or render them less cruel or inexorable to Protestants.
John Calas was a merchant of the city of Toulouse, where he had been settled,
and lived in good repute, and had married an English woman of French extraction.
Calas and his wife were Protestants, and had five sons, whom they educated in the
same religion; but Lewis, one of the sons, became a Roman Catholic, having been converted
by a maidservant, who had lived in the family about thirty years. The father, however,
did not express any resentment or ill-will upon the occasion, but kept the maid in
the family and settled an annuity upon the son. In October, 1761, the family consisted
of John Calas and his wife, one woman servant, Mark Antony Calas, the eldest son,
and Peter Calas, the second son. Mark Antony was bred to the law, but could not be
admitted to practice, on account of his being a Protestant; hence he grew melancholy,
read all the books he could procure relative to suicide, and seemed determined to
destroy himself. To this may be added that he led a dissipated life, was greatly
addicted to gaming, and did all which could constitute the character of a libertine;
on which account his father frequently reprehended him and sometimes in terms of
severity, which considerably added to the gloom that seemed to oppress him.
On the thirteenth of October, 1761, Mr. Gober la Vaisse, a young gentleman about
19 years of age, the son of La Vaisse, a celebrated advocate of Toulouse, about five
o'clock in the evening, was met by John Calas, the father, and the eldest son Mark
Antony, who was his friend. Calas, the father, invited him to supper, and the family
and their guest sat down in a room up one pair of stairs; the whole company, consisting
of Calas the father, and his wife, Antony and Peter Calas, the sons, and La Vaisse
the guest, no other person being in the house, except the maidservant who has been
already mentioned.
It was now about seven o'clock. The supper was not long; but before it was over,
Antony left the table, and went into the kitchen, which was on the same floor, as
he was accustomed to do. The maid asked him if he was cold? He answered, "Quite
the contrary, I burn"; and then left her. In the meantime his friend and family
left the room they had supped in, and went into a bed-chamber; the father and La
Vaisse sat down together on a sofa; the younger son Peter in an elbow chair; and
the mother in another chair; and, without making any inquiry after Antony, continued
in conversation together until between nine and ten o'clock, when La Vaisse took
his leave, and Peter, who had fallen asleep, was awakened to attend him with a light.
On the ground floor of Calas's house was a shop and a warehouse, the latter of
which was divided from the shop by a pair of folding doors. When Peter Calas and
La Vaisse came downstairs into the shop, they were extremely shocked to see Antony
hanging in his shirt, from a bar which he had laid across the top of the two folding
doors, having half opened them for that purpose. On discovery of this horrid spectacle,
they shrieked out, which brought down Calas the father, the mother being seized with
such terror as kept her trembling in the passage above. When the maid discovered
what had happened, she continued below, either because she feared to carry an account
of it to her mistress, or because she busied herself in doing some good office to
her master, who was embracing the body of his son, and bathing it in his tears. The
mother, therefore, being thus left alone, went down and mixed in the scene that has
been already described, with such emotions as it must naturally produce. In the meantime
Peter had been sent for La Moire, a surgeon in the neighborhood. La Moire was not
at home, but his apprentice, Mr. Grosle, came instantly. Upon examination, he found
the body quite dead; and by this time a papistical crowd of people were gathered
about the house, and, having by some means heard that Antony Calas was suddenly dead,
and that the surgeon who had examined the body, declared that he had been strangled,
they took it into their heads he had been murdered; and as the family was Protestant,
they presently supposed that the young man was about to change his religion, and
had been put to death for that reason.
The poor father, overwhelmed with grief for the loss of his child, was advised
by his friends to send for the officers of justice to prevent his being torn to pieces
by the Catholic multitude, who supposed he had murdered his son. This was accordingly
done and David, the chief magistrate, or capitol, took the father, Peter the son,
the mother, La Vaisse, and the maid, all into custody, and set a guard over them.
He sent for M. de la Tour, a physician, and MM. la Marque and Perronet, surgeons,
who examined the body for marks of violence, but found none except the mark of the
ligature on the neck; they found also the hair of the deceased done up in the usual
manner, perfectly smooth, and without the least disorder: his clothes were also regularly
folded up, and laid upon the counter, nor was his shirt either torn or unbuttoned.
Notwithstanding these innocent appearances, the capitol thought proper to agree
with the opinion of the mob, and took it into his head that old Calas had sent for
La Vaisse, telling him that he had a son to be hanged; that La Vaisse had come to
perform the office of executioner; and that he had received assistance from the father
and brother.
As no proof of the supposed fact could be procured, the capitol had recourse to
a monitory, or general information, in which the crime was taken for granted, and
persons were required to give such testimony against it as they were able. This recites
that La Vaisse was commissioned by the Protestants to be their executioner in ordinary,
when any of their children were to be hanged for changing their religion: it recites
also, that, when the Protestants thus hang their children, they compel them to kneel,
and one of the interrogatories was, whether any person had seen Antony Calas kneel
before his father when he strangled him: it recites likewise, that Antony died a
Roman Catholic, and requires evidence of his catholicism.
But before this monitory was published, the mob had got a notion that Antony Calas
was the next day to have entered into the fraternity of the White Penitents. The
capitol therefore caused his body to be buried in the middle of St. Stephen's Church.
A few days after the interment of the deceased, the White Penitents performed a solemn
service for him in their chapel; the church was hung with white, and a tomb was raised
in the middle of it, on the top of which was placed a human skeleton, holding in
one hand a paper, on which was written "Abjuration of heresy," and in the
other a palm, the emblem of martyrdom. The next day the Franciscans performed a service
of the same kind for him.
The capitol continued the persecution with unrelenting severity, and, without
the least proof coming in, thought fit to condemn the unhappy father, mother, brother,
friend, and servant, to the torture, and put them all into irons on the eighteenth
of November.
From these dreadful proceedings the sufferers appealed to the parliament, which
immediately took cognizance of the affair, and annulled the sentence of the capitol
as irregular, but they continued the prosecution, and, upon the hangman deposing
it was impossible Antony should hang himself as was pretended, the majority of the
parliament were of the opinion, that the prisoners were guilty, and therefore ordered
them to be tried by the criminal court of Toulouse. One voted him innocent, but after
long debates the majority was for the torture and wheel, and probably condemned the
father by way of experiment, whether he was guilty or not, hoping he would, in the
agony, confess the crime, and accuse the other prisoners, whose fate, therefore,
they suspended.
Poor Calas, however, an old man of sixty-eight, was condemned to this dreadful
punishment alone. He suffered the torture with great constancy, and was led to execution
in a frame of mind which excited the admiration of all that saw him, and particularly
of the two Dominicans (Father Bourges and Father Coldagues) who attended him in his
last moments, and declared that they thought him not only innocent of the crime laid
to his charge, but also an exemplary instance of true Christian patience, fortitude,
and charity. When he saw the executioner prepared to give him the last stroke, he
made a fresh declaration to Father Bourges, but while the words were still in his
mouth, the capitol, the author of this catastrophe, who came upon the scaffold merely
to gratify his desire of being a witness of his punishment and death, ran up to him,
and bawled out, "Wretch, there are fagots which are to reduce your body to ashes!
speak the truth." M. Calas made no reply, but turned his head a little aside;
and that moment the executioner did his office.
The popular outcry against this family was so violent in Languedoc, that every
body expected to see the children of Calas broke upon the wheel, and the mother burnt
alive.
Young Donat Calas was advised to fly into Switzerland: he went, and found a gentleman
who, at first, could only pity and relieve him, without daring to judge of the rigor
exercised against the father, mother, and brothers. Soon after, one of the brothers,
who was only banished, likewise threw himself into the arms of the same person, who,
for more than a month, took every possible precaution to be assured of the innocence
of the family. Once convinced, he thought himself, obliged, in conscience, to employ
his friends, his purse, his pen, and his credit, to repair the fatal mistake of the
seven judges of Toulouse, and to have the proceedings revised by the king's council.
This revision lasted three years, and it is well known what honor Messrs. de Grosne
and Bacquancourt acquired by investigating this memorable cause. Fifty masters of
the Court of Requests unanimously declared the whole family of Calas innocent, and
recommended them to the benevolent justice of his majesty. The Duke de Choiseul,
who never let slip an opportunity of signalizing the greatness of his character,
not only assisted this unfortunate family with money, but obtained for them a gratuity
of 36,000 livres from the king.
On the ninth of March, 1765, the arret was signed which justified the family of
Calas, and changed their fate. The ninth of March, 1762, was the very day on which
the innocent and virtuous father of that family had been executed. All Paris ran
in crowds to see them come out of prison, and clapped their hands for joy, while
the tears streamed from their eyes.
This dreadful example of bigotry employed the pen of Voltaire in deprecation of
the horrors of superstition; and though an infidel himself, his essay on toleration
does honor to his pen, and has been a blessed means of abating the rigor of persecution
in most European states. Gospel purity will equally shun superstition and cruelty,
as the mildness of Christ's tenets teaches only to comfort in this world, and to
procure salvation in the next. To persecute for being of a different opinion is as
absurd as to persecute for having a different countenance: if we honor God, keep
sacred the pure doctrines of Christ, put a full confidence in the promises contained
in the Holy Scriptures, and obey the political laws of the state in which we reside,
we have an undoubted right to protection instead of persecution, and to serve heaven
as our consciences, regulated by the Gospel rules, may direct.
Chapter 5
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