BARTHOLOMEW MASSACRE. 



171 



opinions, is another revolting and melancholy 

 trait in the character of the professed votaries of 

 the Christian cause. Of these, the massacre of 

 the Protestants in France on the feast of St. 

 Bartholomew, on the 24th August, 1572, was 

 perhaps, one of the most diabolical acts of perfidy, 

 injustice, and cruelty, which have stained the 

 character of our race. Every thing was atro 

 cious and horrible in this unexampled conspiracy 

 and assassination ; feelings of the most sacred na 

 ture were annihilated ; religious zeal was chang 

 ed into an impious frenzy ; and filial piety de 

 generated into sanguinary fury. Under the di 

 rection of the infamous Duke of Guise, the sol 

 diers and the populace en masse, at the signal of 

 the tolling of a hell, flew to arms, seizing every 

 weapon that presented itself; and then rushing in 

 crowds to every quarter of the city of Paris, no 

 sound was heard but the horrible cry, Kill the 

 Huguenots! Every one suspected of being a 

 Calvinist, without any distinction of rank, age, 

 or sex, was indiscriminately massacred. The 

 air resounded with the horrid cries and blasphe 

 mous imprecations, of the murderers, the piercing 

 shrieks of the wounded, and the groans of the 

 dying. Headless trunks were every instant pre 

 cipitated from the windows into the court-yards, 

 or the streets ; the gate-ways were choked up 

 with the bodies of the dead and dying, and the 

 streets presented a spectacle of mangled limbs, 

 and of human bodies, dragged by their butchers 

 in order to be thrown into the Seine. Palaces, 

 hotels, and public buildings, were reeking with 

 blood ; the image of death and desolation reign 

 ed on every side, and under the most hideous ap 

 pearances ; and in all quarters, carts were seen 

 loaded with dead bodies, destined to be cast into 

 the river, whose waters were for several days 

 sullied by tides of human gore. The infuriated 

 assassins, urged on by the cry, that &quot; It was the 

 king s will that the very last of this race of vi 

 pers should be crushed and killed,&quot; became fu 

 rious in the slaughter ; in proof of which, one 

 Cruce, a jeweller, displaying his naked and 

 bloody arm, vaunted aloud, that he had cut the 

 throats of more than 400 Huguenots in one day. 

 During this horrid period, every species of the 

 most refined cruelty became exhausted ; the 

 weakness of infancy proved no impediment to 

 the impulse of ferocity ; children of ten years, 

 exercising the first homicidal deed, were seen 

 committing the most barbarous acts, and cutting 

 the throats of infants in their swaddling clothes ! 

 the number of victims thus slaughtered in the 

 city of Paris, amounted to above six thousand ; 

 and, in the provinces, at the same time, there 

 perished about sixty thousand souls. And, what 

 is still more shocking, the news of this massa 

 cre was welcomed at Rome with the most lively 

 transports of joy. The Cardinal of Lorraine 

 gave a large reward to the courier : and interro 

 gated him upon the subject, in a manner that de 



monstrated he had been previously aware of the 

 intended catastrophe. The cannons were fired, 

 bonfires were kindled, and a solemn mass was 

 celebrated, at which Pope Gregory XIII. assist 

 ed, with all the splendour which that court is 

 accustomed to display on events of the most glo 

 rious and important consequence !* 



The horrid practice of Dragooning, which 

 was used by Papists, for converting supposed he 

 retics, was another melancholy example of reli 

 gious cruelty and frenzy. In the reign of Louis 

 XIV. of France, his troopers, soldiers, and dra 

 goons, entered into the houses of the Protestants, 

 where they marred and defaced their household 

 stuff&quot;, broke their looking-glasses, let their wine 

 run about their cellars, threw about and trampled 

 under foot their provisions, turned their dining- 

 rooms into stables for their horses, and treated 

 the owners with the highest indignity and cru 

 elty. They bound to posts mothers that gave 

 suck, and let their sucking infants lie languishing 

 in their sight for several days and nights, cry 

 ing, mourning, and gasping for life. Some they 

 bound before a great fire, and after they were half 

 roasted, let them go. Some they hung up by the 

 hair, and some by the feet, in chimneys, and 

 smoked them with wisps of wet hay till they 

 were suffocated. Women and maids were hung 

 up by their feet, or by their arm-pits, and exposed 

 stark naked to public view. Some they cut and 

 slashed with knives, and after stripping them 

 naked, stuck their bodies with pins and needles 

 from head to foot ; and, with red hot pincers, took 

 hold of them by the nose and other parts of the 

 body, and dragged them about the rooms till they 

 made them promise to be Catholics, or till 

 the cries of these miserable wretches, calling 

 upon God for help, induced them to let them go. 

 If any, to escape these barbarities, endeavoured 

 to save themselves by flight, they pursued them 

 into the fields and woods, where they shot at 

 them, as if they had been wild beasts ; and pro 

 hibited them from departing the kingdom, upon 

 pain of the galleys, the lash, and perpetual im 

 prisonment. On such scenes of desolation and 

 horror, the Popish clergy feasted their eyes, and 

 made them only a matter of laughter and of sport.f 

 What a striking contrast to the benevolence of 

 the Deity, whom they impiously pretend to serve ! 

 Could a savage American have devised more 

 barbarous and infernal cruelties ? 



In the civil wars, on account of religion, which 

 happened in France, in the beginning of the 17th 

 century, above a million of men lost their lives, 

 and nine cities, 400 villages, 2000 churches, 

 2000 monasteries, and 10,000 houses were burn- 



* See a late publication entitled &quot;Memoirs of 

 Henry the Great, and of the Court of Prance during 

 his reign,&quot; 2 vols. 8vo, in which is contained the 

 fullest description of this massacre whicn has ap 

 peared in our language. 



t For a more particular account of such 

 see Ency. Brit. Articie Dragooning. 



