phemers and heretics, the greatest in the world! Light then your fagots to burn and roast yourselves, not us, because we do not wish to believe in your idols, your new gods and false Christs, which are eaten by beasts and you alike; you who are worse than beasts, in your trifling about your god of paste." Francis I., on his return from Blois, found one of these papers put up at the door of his room. He was in a transport of rage; he could not comprehend how any one dared to offer him such an insult, and swore that he would punish the guilty. The pope was thus finding a powerful ally in the rash imprudence of the Reformers. The placards, as they were called, soon began to exhibit their results. Michael Morin, a man dissolute in life and renowned for the ability with which he captured heretics, and, when captured, convicted them, was brought to court to attend to this business. The prisons in a little while were gorged with men and women accused by him, many of them from the most noble families of France. CHAPTER XIII. THE BALANCOIRE. THREE months afterward a scene occurred which showed with a terrible distinctness the dispositions of the king. On the morning of the 21st day of January, 1535, in the midst of an immense concourse of people, a religious procession issued from the church of St. Germain l'Auxerrois. At its head marched the priests, clothed in glittering robes, carrying in little trunks the relics of St. Germain, and St. Landry, and of St. Genevieve. For this solemn occasion the holy chapel had opened all its treasures, and, for the first time since St. Louis, his relics, so renowned, were brought out of their sacred resting-place to adorn the procession. Among them was displayed, as worthy of the most prominent place, the head of St. Louis. Old men, as they looked at the imposing and splendid scene, could not remember that they had ever beheld anything so striking. Bishops, mitered abbots, monks, religious orders of all kinds were there represented. The college of the Sorbonne was there in all its dignity. After the Sorbonne came Du Bellay, bishop of Paris, carrying in his hands the holy sacrament. Francis I. followed, bareheaded, carrying in his hands a large wax torch. After the king appeared the princes, princesses, dukes, counts, and embassadors. With a slow and solemn step the procession went through the principal parts of the city, and halted in six of its principal places, in each of which a magnificent altar had been erected for the holy sacrament. Thus far the Romish clergy appeared as worshipers, according to the peculiar pomps and ceremonies of their Church. More than this, however, is the object of all this magnificent display. By the side of each altar there is seen a gibbet, and fagots ready to be lighted. Michel Morin, the grand purveyor of the fete, had provided six Lutherans for the occasion, one for each altar. The people seemed hardly able to contain their joy in the anticipation of beholding their death. Such a scene explains the horrible eagerness of the murderers of St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr. In this atrocious and sacrilegious drama the Luther ans appeared most intrepid and courageous. God sustained them wonderfully. Not one of them showed any signs of fear; but all with a loud voice glorified the Saviour, for whom they were about to die. It was for their faithfulness to him that they were thus exposed as a spectacle, and delivered into the hands. of men more cruel than savage beasts. And yet, when they gathered round them closely, and beheld the mildness and serenity of these martyr heroes, mingled with their decision, there were signs of pity shown in that moving mass of people. Perhaps they would have saved them if it had not been for one man. That man was the king, who on this occasion became himself the executioner. He had decided that the Lutherans should be tied to a beam, placed seesaw, which should lower so as to plunge the victims in the flames and then should rise immediately, and thus prolong their suffering until the fire should burn the cords which bound them, and they should fall into it. They waited until the king came to the spot, so that he might see the tortured men as they were lowered into the fire. Francis then at each station gave his own torch to the Cardinal of Lorraine to light the flames, and immediately joined his hands and humbly prostrated himself, imploring the divine pity upon his people, until the death agonies were over. Six times he, who was called the father of letters, passed his torch to the cardinal, six times he prayed for his people, and six times he waited until the dying struggles of the victims were over. The procession, which started at the Church of St. Germain l'Auxerrois, came at length to St. Genevieve, where a mass was sung, to thank God for the blessings which he had poured upon the Church. Immediately after the procession there was a splendid banquet in the archbishop's palace. After it was over the king made an address in which the following passage occurs: "I pray you to put out of your hearts and out of your thoughts all opinions which would seduce you, and that you will instruct your children and servants in Christian obedience to the Catholic faith; and that if you know any one infected. by this perverse sect, whether parent, brother, or cousin, you will reveal him, for by silence you become his accomplice. As for myself, your king, if I knew of one of my members stained by this detestable error, not only would I deliver it to you to cut off, but more ÿet, if I perceived that one of my children was tainted, 1 would myself sacrifice him. And because this day, I know you to have a good will toward Jesus Christ, I pray you to persevere. In doing so I will live with you as a good king, and you with me as good faithful Christians and Catholic subjects, in peace, repose, and tranquillity."* And this is the man who once listened to the Gospel with pleasure; a man whom Margaret de Valois yet loved as her brother. Some historians think that the placards turned Francis I. from the reform. They may have influenced him, but the true causes were further back in his history than this event. As we have already said, he had turned his heart from the light, and the light which was in him became dark. Added to this was the fear that, after the Church, the Protestants would attack the throne. The visit of Clement VII. and Catharine de Medicis finished the work. * Puaux, Histoire de la Ref. Franc., vol. i, p. 210, etc. Sismondi, Histoire de France, annee 1535. On the 25th day of January, 1535, four days after the grand procession we have referred to, a royal edict appeared commanding the extirpation and extermination of the Lutheran sect and other heresies. In this year another event took place which had a great influence upon the Reformation in France. The Institutions of the Christian Religion, by John Calvin, were published when the author was but twenty-six years of age, "a work which," it has been said, "has placed Calvin upon a pedestal from which his enemies have failed to dislodge him; a work which has made the Reformation in France what it is at the present day." CHAPTER XIV. DECREE AGAINST CABRIERES AND MERINDOL BETWEEN the years 1535 and 1540, the events which took place were so similar that the narration of one is a description of others. Martyrs were arrested and burned. They triumphed in their sufferings. And still the priests perceived that the socalled heresy was not destroyed. Upon the borders of the Durance there lived a people who had been driven from Piedmont by persecution, consisting of about eighteen hundred souls. Their principal villages were Cabrières and Merindol. For two centuries they had been here engaged in |