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 knawed with their teeth. Those who had fled to the castle, when they yielded, were almost all 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 visiters, 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, 300 were inhumanly butchered; and five and forty at Albin, 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 100 protestants, after promising them peace; and at Antisidor, 100 were killed, and cast part into a jakes, and part into a river. One hundred put into 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 taking 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 132 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 honourable 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 XIII. 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 favour 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. Montaban 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 their 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 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.