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HORRIBLE MASSACRE IN FRANCE.

HORRIBLE MASSACRE IN FRANCE, A. B. 1572.

FTER a long series of troubles in France, the papists seeing nothing could be done against the protestants by open force, began to devise how they could entrap them by subtlety, and that by two ways: first by pretending that an army was to be sent into the lower country, under the command of the admiral, prince of Navarre and Condé; not that the king had any intention of so doing, but only with a view to ascertain what force the admiral had under him, who they were, and what were their

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In some measure to palliate their cruelties, the Roman catholics, while they were murdering the innocent people, cried out, "Vile wretches, this is for wanting to overturn the constitution of your country; this is for conspiring to murder the king." Rank, sex, or age, was no protection; nobles sunk beneath the daggers of ruffians; the tears of beauty made no impression on the hearts of bigotry; the silver hairs of venerable age, and the piteous cries of helpless infancy, were alike disregarded. Superstition steeled the hearts of the papists against the ties of humanity; and infatuation directed the sword of false zeal, to pierce the bosoms of piety and innocence. The lamentations of distress, the shrieks of terror, and the groans of the dying, were music to the ears of the furious mur derers they enjoyed the horrors of slaughter, and triumphed over the mangled carcasses of those whom they had butchered.

Upon this dreadful occasion, swords, pistols, muskets, cutlasses, daggers, and other instruments of death, had been put into the hands of above sixty thousand furious and bigoted papists, who now, in a frantic manner, ran up and down the streets of Paris, uttering the most horrid blasphemies, and committing the most inhuman barbarities. It is almost beyond the power of imagination to paint, or of language to describe, the cruelties that were acted on that fatal night, and the two succeeding days. The infirm were murdered in the bed of sickness; the aged stabbed while tottering

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HORRIBLE MASSACRE IN FRANCE.

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on their crutches; children snatched from their mothers, and tossed on the points of spears; infants strangled in their cradles; pregnant women ripped open, and men indiscriminately murdered by various means. The confusion and horrors of the scene were dreadful indeed; oaths, shoutings, shrieks, and the discharge of firearms, were heard in all quarters; houses were defiled with the blood of their owners; the streets strewed with carcases; and the waters of the Seine appeared of a crimson color, from the number of mangled bodies which had been thrown into that river.

Several ruffians entered the house of Monsieur De la Place, president of the court of requests, and having plundered it of above a thousand crowns, they took that gentleman into the street, stabbed him with their daggers, laid his body in a stable, covered his face with manure, and the next day threw him into the Seine.

Peter Ramus, the royal professor of logic, was seized in the college over which he presided, for professing protestant tenets; and after being murdered, his body was thrown out of the window, and trailed about the streets in derision, by several boys who were ordered so to do by their popish tutors.

A pious young gentleman was killed with battle-axes in his study; two ministers were stabbed, and thrown into the river; and several of the assassins, breaking into the house of a jeweller, they found the midwife with his wife, who was in labor. Having murdered the jeweller, they were proceeding to kill the wife, when the midwife kneeled before them, and entreated permission to deliver the woman; "for this will be the twentieth child she has borne." The inhuman brutes, however, turning a deaf ear to her entreaties, spurned the midwife from them, stabbed the woman, and threw her out of the window. The fall forced the child from the womb, who lay crying for some time, and then perished in the street for want of proper care.

Three hundred and fifty protestants were confined in a place called the archbishop's prison. To this place a number of soldiers repaired, picked their pockets of what money they had, took from them such garments as they thought proper to appropriate to their own uses, and then drawing their swords, cut them to pieces without the least remorse.

After the massacre had subsided, the inhuman assassins paraded the streets, boasting that they had dyed their white cockades red

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PORTUGUESE NUNNERY.

with the blood of Huguenots. On seeing a multitude of dead bodies lay about, a papist apothecary suggested that money might be made of the fat contained in them; the plumpest bodies were accordingly selected, and the grease being extracted from them, was sold for three shillings per pound: a shocking instance of the most depraved cruelty! The inhabitants of the villages which lay below Paris, on the borders of the Seine, were astonished to see the number of dead bodies that floated down the stream, and even some of the Roman catholics were so much touched with compassion, as to exclaim, "It surely could not be men, but devils in their appearance, who have transacted these cruelties." The pope's legate, soon after, gave all who were concerned in these murders a general resolution, which plainly evinces that the Roman catholics themselves thought these transactions criminal.

The king of France gave a formal account to the king of Navarre, and the prince of Condé, of the whole affair, and told them, at the same time, he "expected they should renounce their religion, as he had saved their lives with that expectation only " The king of Navarre only answered, "I beg you will recollect our late alliance, and not think of forcing my conscience;" but the prince of Condé, with more spirit, replied, "You may seize my estates, property, and life, but my religion is out of your power." This answer so much enraged the king, that he fell into a vehement passion, and threatened him violently; but becoming cool again, he thought proper to let his anger subside, and suffered his resentment to give way to policy.

PORTUGUESE NUNNERY.-An English lady who had lately visited a convent, told me that she had spoken with a nun who had been immured for thirty years. "I can not describe to you," said she, "how tired, how worn out I am with my hopeless confinement. I would consent to die to be allowed to return for one year to the world; and I have an ardent desire to mingle one month with society; but, alas! I can not escape from my confinement." My informant also said that in the church of the convent she saw some gentlemen most devoutly crossing themselves; and remarking on their piety afterward to a friend-" You are mistaken," was the reply, "these pious gentlemen were engaged in making signs to the nuns, who were peeping at them through a grating behind the altar."

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