History of the Rise of the Huguenots, Vol. 1

by Henry Martyn Baird

His death.

He was led under a strong guard to the Place de Grève. A vast concourse of people had assembled to witness the death of the illustrious victim. "My friends," he cried, as with assured countenance he prepared for the execution, "I am here not as a thief or a robber, but for the Gospel." The people listened with breathless interest to the harangue he made them from the scaffold. Then, before he died, he exclaimed again and again: "My God, forsake me not, that I may not forsake Thee!" The judges did him the favor of permitting him to be strangled before he was burned. Perhaps this was done that the story might be circulated that he had at the last moment recanted; but his refusal to kiss the crucifix which was offered him was a visible proof to the contrary.[797] Thus he died, displaying, according to a friendly historian,[798] "the most admirable constancy shown by any that have suffered for this cause."

His death a disastrous blow to the established church.

Account of an eye-witness.

Du Bourg's martyrdom was the most terrible blow the established church had ever received in France. Never had a more disastrous blunder been committed by the Guises, than when they stirred Henry to imprison and try, and Francis to execute, the most virtuous member of the Parisian senate. Such strength of principle in the midst of affliction, such fortitude upon the brink of death, had never been seen before. The witnesses of the execution never forgot the scene. Thousands who had never before wavered in their allegiance to the Roman Catholic Church, resolved that day to investigate the truth of the faith which had given him so signal a victory over death. "I remember," writes the most envenomed enemy of the Protestants that ever undertook to write their history, "when Anne Du Bourg, counsellor in the Parliament of Paris, was burned, that all Paris was astonished at the constancy of the man. As we returned to our colleges from the execution, we were melted in tears; and we pleaded his cause, after his death, anathematizing those unjust judges who had justly condemned him. His sermon at the gallows and upon the funeral pile did more harm than a hundred ministers could have done."[799]

He deplores the result.

But the martyrdom of Du Bourg was not a solitary case. The same consequences flowed from the public execution of others, whose dying words and actions shook to its very foundations the fabric of superstition reared in many a spectator's heart. Florimond de Ræmond, himself an advocate of persecution in the abstract, noticed and deplored the inevitable result. "Meanwhile funeral piles were kindled in all directions. But as, on the one hand, the severity of justice and of the laws restrained the people in their duty, so the incredible obstinacy of those who were led to execution, and who suffered their lives to be taken from them rather than their opinions, amazed many. For who can abstain from wonder when simple women willingly undergo tortures in order to give a proof of their faith, and, while led to death, call upon Jesus Christ their Saviour, and sing psalms; when maidens hasten to the most excruciating torments with greater alacrity than to their nuptials; when men leap for joy at the terrible sight of the preparations for execution, and, half-burned, from the funeral pile mock the authors of their sufferings; when, with indomitable strength of courage and joyful countenance, they endure the lacerating of their bodies by means of heated pincers; when, in short, like an immovable rock, they receive and break all the billows of the most bitter sufferings at the hands of the executioner, and, like those who have eaten the Sardinian herb, die laughing? The lamentable sight of such incredible constancy as this created no little doubt in the minds not only of the simple, but of men of authority. For they could not believe that cause to be bad for which death was so willingly undergone. Others pitied the miserable, and burned with indignation against their persecutors. Whenever they beheld the blackened stakes with the chains attached—memorials of executions—they could not restrain their tears. The desire consequently seized many to read their books, and to become acquainted with the foundations of the faith from which it seemed impossible to tear them by the most refined tortures.... Why need I say more? The greater the number of those who were consigned to the flames, the greater the number of those who seemed to spring from their ashes."[800]

Fate of the remaining judges.

Of the five counsellors of parliament arrested by the late king's orders, Du Bourg was the only martyr. By the others greater weakness was shown, or the judges were less willing to fulfil the cardinal's bloody injunctions.[801] La Porte was reprimanded for finding fault with the rigorous sentences of the "grand' chambre," and liberated on declaring those sentences good and praiseworthy. De Foix was condemned to make a public declaration of his belief in the sole validity of the sacrament as administered in the Romish Church, and to be suspended from his office for a year; Du Faur to beg pardon of God, the king, and his fellow-judges, for having maintained the propriety of holding a holy and free universal council before extirpating the heretics, to pay a considerable fine, and to suffer a five years' suspension. Fumée, more fortunate than his associates, was acquitted in spite of the most strenuous exertions of the Cardinal of Lorraine.[802]

Public indignation against the Guises.