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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	bear_v	life_n	live_v	4,791	5	5.2156	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A55723	The present state of the Protestants in France in three letters / written by a gentleman at London to his friend in the country.	Gentleman at London.	1681 (1681)	Wing P3274; ESTC R29406	31,309	36

himself up wholly to the making of Proselytes The Deputies of Poitiers are now here to make complaint of the violences they still labour under They offer by a Petition which they have presented at the cost of their lives if they are found guilty of any Falshood or if they do not make out what they say They set forth that by the Orders of Monsieur Marillac the Protestants are dealt with as declared Enemies that their Goods and their Houses are plundered their persons assaulted that the Soldiers are employed as Executioners of these Outrages That they are quartered upon the Protestants only that besides the excessive expence they put them to they exact money of them with dreadful Oaths and Execrations They knock them down they drag Women by the hair of the Head and Ropes about their Necks they have put them to the torture with Screws by clapping their Fingers into a Vice and so squeezing them by degrees they have bound aged Men eighty years old and beaten them and have misused before thir Eyes their Children who came to comfort them They hinder Handicrafts men from working they take from Labourers what they use for their Livelyhood they set their Goods openly to sale and they clap their Swords and Pistols to their Breasts who are not frighted with their other Usages they drag them in Sheets into their Churches they throw Holy Water in their Faces and then say they are Catholicks and shall be proceeded against as Relapsed if they live otherwise It is not permitted to these miserable persons to complain those who would have attempted it have been seised on and the Prisons are full of them They are detained there without any Process being made against them and even without so much as having their Names entred in the Jayl-Books If any Gentleman speak to Monsieur Marillac he answers them that they should meddle with their own Business that otherwise he will lay them fast This is a Taste of what they are doing here A Copy of the Third Letter BEing very busie it shall suffice at this time to send you a Copy of a Letter which I just now received from Saintes concerning the Protestants of this Kingdom Sir J. P. our common Friend writ it me He is now making his Tour of France I intreated him to inform himself as well as he could how they treated the poor people in those places he was to pass through that he might give me a full Account This is the Letter dated the last of August Old Style I am now going out of Aulnix where I meet with nothing but Objects of Compassion The Intendant of Rochefort which is Monsieur Du Muins lays all waste there It is the same person concerning whom at the Marquis de Segnelay's we were told so many pleasant Stories last Winter at S. Germain Do not you remember that they talked much of a certain Picard who owed all his Fortune to his Wife and whom the Marquis de Segnelay treats always as the worst of men That 's the Man he is born to do mischief as much as ever man was and his Employment hath increas'd bis insolence beyond measure To this he hath added to the Protestants grief all the barbarous zeal of Ignorance And if the King would let him do it he would soon act over again the Tragedy of S. Bartholomew About ten days since he went to a great Town in Aunix called Surgeres accompanied with his Provost and about forty Archers He began his Feats with a Proclamation that all the Huguenots should change their Religion and upon their refusal he quartered his Troop upon those poor people he made them to live there at discretion as in an Enemies Country he made their Goods to be thrown into the Streets and their Beds under the Horses Feet By his Order the Vessels of Wine and Brandy were staved and their Horse Heels wash'd with it their Corn was sold or rather given away for a fourth part of what it was worth and the same was done to all the Tradesmens Goods Men Women and Children were put to the Torture were dragged by force to the Popish Churches and so great Cruelty was used towards them that the greatest part not being able longer to indure the extremity of the pain renounced their Religion By the same means they forced them to give it under their hands That they had abjured without constraint and of their own free choice The Goods of those who found means to escape are sentenced to be sold and to be pillaged Proud of so noble an Expedition our good man returns to Rochefort the place of his ordinary abode forbids all the Protestants who are there pretty numerous to remove any of their Goods out of the Town under penalty of confiscation of what should be seised and corporal punishment over and above and he commands them all to change their Religion in five days This was done by sound of Trumpet that no one might pretend ignorance The Term expires to morrow After this he marched to Mozé it is another great Town in Aunix where there is a very fair Church of the Protestants and a very able Minister there he set out the same Prohibitions and the same Commands that he had at Rochefort Upon this a very worthy person of the place and Elder of the Church named Mr. Jarry addressed to him with a most humble Remonstrance and this cruel and barbarous man made him presently to be clapt up in Irons After this he quartered his Men upon those of the Protestant Religion where he exerciseth the same violence which he did at Surgeres Nevertheless hitherto no one hath made Shipwrack of his Conscience in this place They suffer all this cruel persecution with an admirable constancy God of his Mercy support them to the end All the rest of Aunix is in extreme consternation There are likewise Prohibitions made at Rochelle against the shipping of any Goods In so much that all they who flie away run a great hazard of carrying away their lives only for a prey Adieu I will end mine as Sir J. P. doth his all your Friends Do you intend to conclude there said I to our Friend I have a mind to do so replyed he tho I have a thousand Insolences and Outrages more yet to acquaint you with But it is late and I have produced but too much to justifie the French Protestants who forsake their Country from any suspicion of impatience or wantonness You see now what are the Reasonable Means that are used to convert them Those goodly means which have been employed are To despise the most Sacred Edict that was ever made by men to count as nothing promises repeated a hundred times most solemnly by authentick Declarations to reduce people to utmost Beggary to make them die of Hunger in my opinion a more cruel death than that by Fire or Sword which in a moment ends life and miseries together to lay upon them all sorts of

afflictions to take away their Churches their Ministers their Goods their Children their liberty of being born of living or of dying in peace to drive them from their Employments their Honors their Houses their native Country to knock them on the head to drag them to the Mass with Ropes about their Necks to imprison them to cast them into Dungeons to give them the question put them to the Rack make them die in the midst of torments and that too without so much as any Formality of Justice This is that they call Reasonable Means Gentle and Innocent Means For these are the Terms which the Archbishop of Claudiopolis useth at the Head of all the Deputies of the Clergy of France in the Remonstrance they made to their King the last year when they took leave of his Majesty I must needs read you the passage here is the Remonstrance and the very words of that Archbishop Those gentle and innocent means which you make use of Sir with so much success to bring the Hereticks into the bosom of the Church are becoming the Bounty and Goodness of your Majesty and conformable at the same time to the mind of the divine Pastor who always retains Bowels of Mercy for these strayed Sheep he wills that they should be brought back and not hunted away because he desires their salvation and regrets their loss How far is this conduct from the rigor wherewith the Catholicks are treated in those Neighbouring Kingdoms which are infected with Heresie Your Majesty makes it appear what difference there is between Reason and Passion between the Meekness of Truth and the Rage of Imposture between the Zeal of the House of God and the Fury of Babylon In good truth cryed I to our Friend after the reading of this passage this is insufferable and I cannot forbear taking my turn to be a little in passion Methinks they should blush to death who call those Cruelties which have been executed upon innocent Sheep Meekness and that Rigor and the fury of Babylon which we have inflicted upon Tigers who thirsted after our Blood and had sworn the destruction of Church and State They plague and torment to death more than a million of peaceable persons who desire only the freedom of serving God according to his Word and the Laws of the Land who cannot be accused of the least shadow of Conspiracy and who by preserving that Illustrious Blood which now reigns there have done to France Services which deserv'd together with the Edict of Pacification the love and the hearty thanks of all true French Men. And we have put to death in a legal manner it may be twenty wretched persons the most of which had forfeited their lives to the Law for being found here convinced by divers Witnesses who were the greatest part Papists of having attempted against the Sacred Life of our King and the lives of millions of his faithful Subjects Surely they would have had us let them done their Work let them have rooted out that Northern Heresie which they were as they assure us by their own Letters in so great and so near hopes of accomplishing But we had not forgot the Massacre of Ireland wherein by the confession of one of their own Doctors who knew it very well more than a hundred and fifty thousand of our Brethren in the midst of a profound peace without any provocation by a most sudden and barbarous Rebellion had their Throats cut by that sort of Catholicks whose fate they so much bewail Altho your Transport be very just and I am very well pleased with it said our Friend to me I must needs interrupt you to bring you back again to our poor Protestants What say you to their Condition I say answered I that there can be nothing more worthy compassion and that we must entirely forget all that we owe to the Communion of Saints if we open not our hearts and receive them as our true Brethren I will be sure to publish in all places what you have informed me and will stir up all persons to express in their favour all the Duties of Hospitality and Christian Charity To the end said he to me you may do it with a better heart at our next meeting I will fully justifie them against all those malicious Reports which are given out against their Loyalty and their Obedience to the Higher Powers Let us take for that all to morrow seven-night As you please said I so we took leave one of another and thus you have an end of a long Letter assuring you that I ever shall be Sir Yours FINIS Declaration of the 17th of June 1681. Art 1. Pa●…tic Ann. 1599 p. 285 and 286 Edit Amsterdam 1664. P. 156 157 of the Lions Edition See Statutes at large 1 Elizab. 1. 5 Eliz. 1. 13 Eliz. 1. 23 Eliz. 1. 27 Eliz. 2. 35 Eliz. 2. 1 Jacob. 4. 3 Jac. 4 5 c. Printed for Henry Brome 1674. Art 1. par Mr. God Hermant Doctor of the Sorbon Tom. 1. Book 2 p. 204. and Notes of the same chapt p. 625. Surl ' an 1572 Edit Amsterd p. 30. Printed at Paris cum Privilegio Chaz Leonard Imprimear du Roy. 1680. Omahon S. Th. Mag. Disputatio Apologetica de Jure Regni Hiberniae pro Catholicis n. 20.