[1015] Agrippa d'Aubigné, ii. 18.
[1016] Tocsain contre les massacreurs, 136, 137.
[1017] Reveille-Matin, ubi supra, 184, 185; Eusebii Philad. Dial., i. 42; Mém. de l'estat, 127; Jean de Serres (1575), iv. 38; De Thou, iv. (liv. lii.) 588; Agrippa d'Aubigné, ii. 18. The minor details of the story are given, with variations, by different authors. D'Aubigné gives us Biron's answer to the commands and menaces with which Madame de la Châtaigneraie sought to gain possession of young La Force: "I would certainly intrust him in the hands of his relative, in order to take care of him, but not in the hands of his next heir, who took too great care of him yesterday morning," ii. 21. It must be noted, however, that the "Mémoires authentiques de Jacques Nompar de Caumont, Duc de la Force, Maréchal de France, recueillis par le Marquis de la Grange" (Paris, 1843), i. 2-37, so far from accusing the sister of La Force, ascribe the persistent attempts to secure his death solely to Archan (or Larchant), who had married this sister; and they state that, at her death, she left her property, including what she had inherited from her husband, to her brother.
[1018] Mémoires de l'estat, ubi supra, 146
[1019] Mém. de l'estat, 146; Tocsain contre les massacreurs, 129, 130; De Thou, iv. (liv. lii.) 592; Claude Haton, ii. 678; Agrippa d'Aubigné, ii. 20.
[1020] Tocsain, 136.
[1021] Mém. de l'estat, 146.
[1022] "Radices, atque etiam radicum fibras, funditus evellas." Pii Quinti Epistolæ, 111. See ante, chapter xvi., p. 308.
[1023] Mém. de l'estat, 147. The children of other cities emulated the example of those of Paris. In Provins, in the month of October, 1572, a Huguenot, Jean Crespin, after having been hung by the officers of justice, was taken down from the gallows by "les petis enfans de Provins, de l'âge de douze ans et au dessoubz," to the number of more than one hundred. By these mimic judges he was declared unworthy to be dragged save by his feet, and, his punishment by hanging being reckoned too light, he was roasted in a fire of straw, and presently thrown into the river. Numbers of older persons looked on, approving and encouraging the children; a few good Catholics were grieved to see such cruelty practised on a dead body. Mém. de Claude Haton, ii. 704-706.
[1024] Mém. de l'estat, ubi supra, 128.