"Do not imagine that I seek your friendship by what I have done. All I wish is to take your life honorably."
Regnier threw away his sword, saying, "I will never strike at one who has saved my life."
"Very well!" Vessins replied, and left him, making him a present of the horse on which he rode.
The Bishop of Lisieux.
Though the commands which the king sent to the various provinces of France for the massacre were very generally obeyed, there were examples of distinguished virtue, in which Catholics of high rank not only refused to imbrue their own hands in blood, but periled their lives to protect the Protestants. The Bishop of Lisieux, in the exercise of true Christian charity, saved all the Protestants in the town over which he presided. The Governor of Auvergne replied to the secret letter of the king in the following words:
Noble replies to the king's decree.
"Sire, I have received an order, under your majesty's seal, to put all the Protestants of this province to death, and if, which God forbid, the order be genuine, I respect your majesty still too much to obey you."
The king had sent a similar order to the commandant at Bayonne, the Viscount of Orthez. The following noble words were returned in reply:
"Sire, I have communicated the commands of your majesty to the inhabitants of the town and to the soldiers of the garrison, and I have found good citizens and brave soldiers, but not one executioner; on which account, they and I humbly beseech you to employ our arms and our lives in enterprises in which we can conscientiously engage. However perilous they may be, we will willingly shed therein the last drop of our blood."
Both of these noble-minded men soon after very suddenly and mysteriously died. Few entertained a doubt that poison had been administered by the order of Charles.