"Giles Lemaître alone found courage to speak:—
"'It is just,' said he. 'So may all those be punished who dare to fail of respect to the majesty of royalty!'
"But as if to give the lie to his words, the guards at that moment entered the hall, and proceeded to execute orders which they produced, by arresting De Foix, Fumée, and De la Porte, all of whom had spoken before the king appeared at all, and had confined themselves to defending the principle of toleration in matters of religion, without suggesting the least reproach against the sovereign.
"Thus it became evident that it was not for their remonstrances uttered in the king's presence, but simply for their religious opinions, that five members of parliament, inviolable by law, had been charged with a capital crime, by means of a shameful subterfuge."
Nicolas Duval ceased to speak. Mutterings of grief and anger had interrupted him twenty times, only to follow more closely than ever his description of that momentous and stormy session, which to us at this distance in time seems as if it must have been told of another assembly, and bears a startling resemblance to scenes that were enacted two hundred and thirty years later.
But there was this important difference,—that at the later epoch it was liberty and not royalty which had the last word to say!
The minister David followed Nicolas Duval upon the rostrum.
"Brothers," said he, "before we take counsel together, let us lift up our voices and our hearts to God with a psalm, that He may quicken the spirit of truth in us."
"Psalm forty!" cried several voices in the assemblage, and they all began to sing the stirring words of that psalm.
It was an extraordinary selection to calm excited imaginations. It was much more like a strain of menace, it must be confessed, than like a prayer for guidance.