"Two other bishops, brothers, bearing the name of De la Rochefoucauld, one the Bishop of Beauvais, and the other of Saintes, also encouraged their companions in misfortune by their words and by their example. The Bishop of Saintes had not been arrested, but, wishing to join his brother, he made himself a prisoner. There were members of every rank in the ecclesiastical hierarchy: M. Hébert, the confessor of the king who wrote to him at the beginning of August, 'I expect nothing more from man, bring me therefore the consolations of heaven;' the general of the Benedictines, the Abbé de Lubusac, several of the curés of Paris, Mr. Gros, called the modern Vincent of Paul, and priests brought from various places, holy victims whom the God of Calvary had chosen to associate with his sufferings, and judged worthy of the most glorious of all deaths—that of martyrdom.
"For more than two days, the wretches who hovered around their enclosure had filled the air with cries of blood, and predicting that the sacrifice was about to take place. One said to the Archbishop of Arles: 'My lord, on the morrow your grace is to be killed.' These derisive insults recalled to the holy captives the judgment-hall of their divine Master, and like him they bore them in silence, forgiving and praying for their enemies.
"On the second of September they could no longer doubt that their last hour had arrived. The hurried movements of the troops, the cries in the neighboring streets, and the alarm-guns they heard made them somewhat aware of the sinister events that were passing without. At the dawn of day they had gathered together in the church. They made their confessions to each other, they blessed one another, and partook of the Holy Eucharist. They were singing the Benediction together at about five in the evening when the ominous cries came nearer. Then two holy hymns succeeded the prayers for the dying. All at once the jailers entered, and began calling the roll, which already had been done three times that day. The prisoners were then ordered into the garden, which they found occupied by guards armed with pikes and wearing the bonnet rouge. The murderers filled the courts, the halls, and the church, making the venerable arches re-echo to the noise of their weapons and their blasphemies. The priests, one hundred and eighty-five in number, were divided into two groups. About thirty, among whom were the bishops, rushed toward a little oratory at the extremity of the garden, where they threw themselves upon their knees, recommending themselves to God. They embraced each other for the last time, and began saying the vespers for the dead, when suddenly the gates were flung open, and the assassins rushed in from various directions.
"The sight of these holy priests upon their knees arrested their fury for an instant. The first who fell under their blows was Father Gerault, who was reciting his breviary regardless of their cries. That breviary, pierced with a ball and stained with blood, was discovered on the spot at the restoration of the Carmelites, and it is preserved as a precious relic. Then the Archbishop of Arles was demanded. While they were seeking him through the alleys, he was exhorting his companions to offer to God the sacrifice of their lives. Hearing his name called, he knelt down, and asked the most aged of the priests to give him absolution; then, rising, he advanced to meet the assassins. With his arms crossed upon his breast and his eyes raised toward heaven, he uttered in a calm voice the same words his divine Master addressed to his enemies: "I am he whom you seek." The first stroke of the sword was upon his forehead, but the venerable man remained standing; a second made the blood flow in torrents, but still he did not fall; the fifth laid him on the ground, when a pike was driven through his heart. Then he was trampled under the feet of the assassins, who exclaimed, 'Vive la nation!'
"The general massacre then ensued. While the unfortunate priests, with the instinct of self-preservation, were flying at random through the garden, some screening themselves behind the hedges and others climbing the trees, the murderers fired at them, and, when one of them fell, they would rush upon his body, prolong his agony, and exult over his sufferings. About forty perished in this manner. Some of the younger priests succeeded in scaling the walls and hiding themselves; but, remembering they were flying from martyrdom and that their escape might excite greater fury against their companions, they retraced their steps and received their reward! The Bishop of Beauvais and his brother were in the garden oratory with thirty priests. A grating separated them from the murderers, who fired upon them, killing the greater number. The Bishop of Beauvais was not touched, but his brother had a leg broken by a ball.
"For an instant this horrid butchery was suspended. One of the leaders ordered all the priests into the church, whither they were driven—even the wounded and dying—at the sword's point. There they gathered around the altar, offering anew to their Saviour the sacrifice of their lives, whilst their executioners, calling them out two by two, finished their butchery more promptly and completely. To each one life was offered on condition of taking the revolutionary oath. They all refused, and not one escaped. Whilst these assassins added blasphemous shouts to their murderous strokes, whilst they demolished the crosses and the tabernacles, the holy phalanx of priests, which death was every moment lessening, kept praying for their murderers and their country. The two bishops were among the last executed. When it came to the turn of the Bishop of Beauvais, he left the altar upon which he had been leaning, and calmly advanced to meet his death. His brother, whose wound prevented his walking, asked for assistance, and was carried out to his execution. It was eight in the evening when the last execution took place. Over four hundred priests were massacred in different parts of Paris at this period, besides many isolated murders."
The constancy of these martyrs has made many do more than exclaim with Horace Walpole: "Almost thou persuadest me to be a Catholic!" He says, in a letter dated October 14, 1792: "For the French priests, I own I honor them. They preferred beggary to perjury, and have died or fled to preserve the integrity of their consciences. It certainly was not the French clergy but the philosophers that have trained up their countrymen to be the most bloody men upon earth."
In 1854, this monastery, where flowed the blood of martyrs and which had echoed with their dying groans, resounded with the strains of O Salutaris Hostia! on the festival of Corpus Christi, and priests bore the divine Host through the alleys of the garden where, sixty years before, had rushed those who were swift to shed blood. An altar had been erected under the yew-tree where the Archbishop of Arles fell. Children scattered flowers over the place once covered with blood. Well might the pale-lipped clergy tearfully chant in such a spot:
"The white-robed army of martyrs praise thee!"
Every age has its martyrs. They are the glory of the church, and their blood is its seed. The church must ever suffer with its divine spouse. Sometimes its head—the Vicar of Christ-is crowned with thorns; sometimes its heart bleeds from a thrust in the very house of its friends; and, again, its feet and hands are nailed in the extremities of the earth.