=VALETON AND HIS BOOKS SEIZED.=

By degrees the news of this horrible expedition spread through the capital; anguish seized not only the friends of Farel, but all who were not fanatical adherents of Rome, and even the mere followers of learning or of pleasure, who had no taste for the Reformation. 'Morin made all the city quake,'[226] for no one knew that he might not be among the number of the suspected. In many houses a look-out was kept, to observe whether the terrible troop was coming. Nicholas Valeton the receiver, who kept near the window, saw Morin approaching; hurriedly turning away, he said to his wife: 'Here he is, take the chest of books out of my room.... I will run and meet him; I will speak to him and detain him, so as to give you time.' The startled young woman took the books and hastily thrust them into a hiding-place. 'Arrest this man,' said the lieutenant-criminal, immediately he saw Valeton; 'let him be put into close confinement.' He then went upstairs and searched every corner, saw the empty chest, but found nothing. Being impatient to interrogate his prisoner, he did not stop, but proceeded straight to the prison whither he had been taken. He could not entrap him. The receiver, being a clever man, eluded all his questions. The lieutenant began to grow nervous; thinking to himself that the receiver had influence, and was a man likely to bear him a grudge, he resolved to destroy him by proceeding more craftily.[227] The empty chest recurred to his mind; it must have contained something that had been removed at his approach. He immediately returned to the house of the accused, and standing near the chest, said in a natural tone: 'Madame, your husband has confessed that he kept his books and secret papers in this trunk. Besides, we are agreed; I desire to behave mercifully towards him; if you give a certain sum of money and tell me where the books are, I swear to you before God that your husband shall suffer no prejudice.' The wife, who was 'young, thoughtless,' and much disturbed by what had taken place, suffered herself to be caught by this trick. Morin put so many 'crafty and subtle questions,' that trusting in his promise, she told him everything. 'Good!' thought the lieutenant-criminal, 'he wished to hide his books from us, because he felt himself guilty of heresy.' Having seized them, he left the house, and putting the papers in a place of safety, went to look for other victims.

If there was one man in Paris who could not be suspected of having fixed up the placards, it was the poor paralytic: he could hardly leave his bed. That was of no consequence; and Bartholomew Milon was one of the first towards whose house Morin turned his steps. He had had him in his prisons before this; 'but,' says the Book of Martyrs, 'the Lord had delivered him to make him serve for the consolation of his people in this bitter season.' The lieutenant-criminal knew the shoemaker's shop very well; it was noted down in his books. He entered, like one out of his mind and foaming with rage, into the room where poor Berthelot was lying. 'Come, get up!' he cried, looking fiercely at him. Bartholomew, 'not being terrified by the hideous face of the tyrant,' replied, with a sweet smile: 'Alas! sir, it wants a greater master than you to make me rise.'—'Take this fellow away,' said the brute to his creatures, and after ordering them to carry with them a piece of furniture in which the paralytic kept his papers, he continued his inglorious campaign.

=ARRESTS.=

The lieutenant-criminal now proceeded towards the gate of St. Denis, to the sign of the Black Horse, and entered the shop of the wealthy tradesman, Du Bourg. When they caught sight of him, all who had any employment there were startled; but although they loved their master well, no one stirred to defend him. The draper's wife, daughter of another rich tradesman named Favereau, was not so tranquil: bursting into tears and shrieking, she conjured the cruel Morin not to take her husband away. Nothing could soften him, and he arrested Du Bourg. 'He is one of those who pasted up the papers at the corners of the streets,' said the lieutenant, and took him away. Next came the turn of the poor bricklayer, Poille, who was captured in his wretched hut.

After them many persons without distinction of rank or sex were shut up—those who had condemned the placards as well as those who had approved of them. Informers were not wanting; they were given a fourth part of the property of the accused, and accordingly these quadruplers (as they were called)[228] were indefatigable in hunting out victims; each of them could be accuser and witness in one. It was a reign of terror, and all good people were astounded at it.

The Sorbonne took advantage of this furious tempest to be avenged on Margaret and to punish her friends. That princess had quitted Béarn at the beginning of summer to be present at the marriage of her sister-in-law, Isabella of Navarre, with Viscount de Rohan, and had obtained her brother's permission for Roussel, who was with her, as well as Courault and Berthaud, to preach in Paris. These moderate men were strongly opposed to the act accomplished in the night of the 25th October; they were thrown into prison all the same. As there was no apprehension of offending the king's allies, many Germans were roughly seized, catholics as well as protestants; it was enough to have a transrhenane accent to be suspected of heresy.

In the meantime Francis I. arrived in Paris. Cardinals, Sorbonne, Parliament, all the ardent friends of Roman-catholicism, outvied each other in zeal to confirm 'this wise and good prince'[229] in his religion, which had been somewhat shaken. They must take advantage of the crisis to detach him from his alliances with the English and the Saxons. Now was the time for striking the blow and for severing these guilty ties. Cardinal de Tournon was particularly indefatigable and continually calling for punishments. When Du Chatel, bishop of Tulle, declared his opposition to sanguinary measures: 'Your tolerance has a suspicious look,' said De Tournon; 'it is unbecoming a true son of the Church.'—'I am acting like a bishop,' answered Du Chatel, firmly, 'and you like a hangman.' But nothing could check either the Cardinal or Duprat. They said to Francis: 'Carefully preserve the honour which Pius II. gave our kings when he said: The kings of France have this peculiarity, that they preserve the catholic faith and the honour of churchmen;' and added: 'We prevent the spreading of a fire, by knocking down the houses which it has first touched, and even the adjoining ones; do likewise, Sire; order those to be exterminated utterly and without reserve, who rebel against the Church. Kindle the fires and erect gibbets for the use of the Lutherans.'[230]

A new act of madness (as some historians relate, but which we can hardly believe) inflamed the king's wrath still further. The very night of his arrival, we are told, the placards reappeared and were stuck on the gates of the Louvre. Nay more; it is asserted that as Francis I. was going to bed, he found the document under his pillow. The historian who records these things is very prone to exaggeration,[231] and I am inclined to think that such stories are mere fables invented by the enemies of the Reform, its friends being just then too terrified to show such boldness.

=MARGARET'S SORROW.=