Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
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
|
longer and to shut up their Shops which hath been punctually executed 7. They have establish'd Societies of Physicians at Rochelle and in other places where as I am assured from good hands there were none ever before None but Papists will be received into those Societies By this the Jesuits have found out the way at one stroke to hinder the Practice of all the Protestant Physicians however able and experienc'd they may be In so much that the Lives of all sick Protestants are by this means put into the hands of their Enemies 8. In short there is scarce now any place in all France where they may get their livelyhood They are every where molested and hindered from exercising in quiet any Trade or Art which they have learn'd To dispatch them quite they require of them not only that they shall continue to bear all the Burdens of the Government altho they take from them the means of doing it but also that they bear double to what they did that is to say they use a rigor far greater than what was practised upon the People of God when they were commanded to deliver the same tale of bricks and yet had not straw given them as formerly In effect at the same time that they will not allow them of the Protestant Religion to get a penny they exact of them to pay the King double nay treble to what they paid before Monsieur de Marillac Intendant of Poitou hath an Order of Council which gives him alone the Power of the Imposition of the Tax in that great Province He discharges the Papists who are at ease and overcharges the poor Protestants with their proportion who before that fainted under their own proper burden and could bear no more I will tell you farther on this occasion that the Jesuits have obtain'd an Order of the King by which all Protestants who change Religion are exempted for two years from all quartering of Soldiers and all Contributions of Moneys which are levied on that Account which also tends to the utter ruine of them who continue firm in the Protestant Religion For they throw all the burden upon them of which the others are eas'd From thence in part it is that all the Houses of those poor people are filled with Soldiers who live there as in an Enemy's Country I do not know if the zeal of the Jesuits will rest here For they want yet the satisfaction of keeping S. Bartholomew's Day as they kept it in the former Age. It is true what is allowed them is not far from it For which is the better of the two to stab with one blow or to make men die by little and little of hunger and misery As to the Blow said I to our Friend I do not understand you Pray if you please explain your self what do you mean by keeping S. Bartholomew's Day Monsieur de Perifix that Archbishop of Paris who hath writ the Life of Henry the Fourth answered he shall tell you for me There 's the Book the place may be easily found Here it is Six days after which was S. Bartholomew 's Day all the Huguenots who came to the Wedding Feast had their Throats cut amongst others the Admiral twenty persons of the best quality twelve hundred Gentlemen about four thousand Soldiers and Citizens afterwards through all the Cities of the Kingdom after the Example of Paris near a hundred thousand were massacred An execrable Action Such as never was and I hope to God never will be the like You know then well continued our Friend directing his Speech to me you know well now what it is to keep S. Bartholomew's Day and I believe that what I said is no Riddle to you The Jesuits and their Friends set a great value on themselves in the world because they forbear cutting the Protestants Throats as they did then But Merciless as you are do you ere the less take away their lives You say you do not kill them but do you not make them pine to death with hunger and vexation He who gives slow poison is he less a poisoner than he who gives what is violent and quick since both of them destroy the life at last Pardon this short Transport said our Friend in good earnest I cannot restrain my indignation when I see them use the utmost of cruelty and yet would be looked on as patterns of all moderation and meekness Let me impart to you three Letters which two of our Friends who are yet in France have written to me since I came from Paris I received the two first at Calis before I got into the Pacquet Boat the last was delivered me last night after you went away from my Chamber You will there see with what Gentleness they proceed in those Countries He thereupon read to me his Letters and I have since took Copies of them send them here inclosed A Copy of the First Letter WE are just upon the point of seeing that Reformation which hath cost so much labour and pains and so much blood come to nothing in France To know the condition of the Protestants in the several Provinces of this Kingdom you need but read what the first Christians suffered under the Reigns of the Emperors Nero Domitian Trajan Maximin Dioclesian and such like There are four Troops of Horse in Poitou who live at free Quarter upon all of the Protestant Religion without any exception When they have pillaged the Houses of them who will not go to Mass they tie them to their Horse Tails and drag them thither by force The Intendant whom they have sent thither who is their most bitter Enemy hath his Witnesses ready suborned who accuse whom they please of what Crimes they please and after that cast the poor men into dark Dungeons beat them with Cudgels and then pass sentence of death to terrifie them and afterwards under-hand send others to try them by fair means to promise them that their mourning shall be turn'd into joy if they will but go to Mass Those whom God gives the grace to resist die in the Dungeon through unspeakable anguish Three Gentlemen of Quality who went about to confirm some of the poor people in their Village that began to waver were presently clapt up Flax put about their Necks then set on fire and so they were scorch'd till they said they would renounce their Religion There would be no end if I should relate all that is done This you may be assured of that the People of Israel were never so oppress'd by the Egyptians as the Protestants are by their own Country-men A Copy of the Second Letter TO make good my promise of giving you an exact Account of the continuance of the persecution which is rais'd against the Protestants in France I shall acquaint you that they of Poitiers are threat'ned with being made a Garrison this Winter I say they the Protestants For none but they must quarter any of them Monsieur de Marillac gives
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. Paâ—…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.