"At the head of two hundred gentlemen of his party, the valiant Procopius came before the council, and stoutly maintained that monkery was an invention of the devil.
"'Can you prove this?' asked Cardinal St. Julien, while his face flushed red as his stockings.
"'Yes!' replied the Bohemian, stoutly.
"'How?' thundered the cardinal, knitting his brows.
"'Thus; will you deny that the Saviour did not institute it?'
"'We do not.'
"'Then,' quoth Procopius, ''tis plainly an invention of the devil,' whereat Ænies Sylvius Piccolomini——"
"He who was in Scotland?"
"Yes; burst into a fit of laughter, which however did not prevent him from committing several poor devils to the flames in the course of the evening, where they spluttered and burned bravely for the amusement of all good Catholics."
"We have had some such work at home, where John Resby and Paul Crawar have perished at the stake, for preaching doctrines which some term false and others simply new."