60 



THE FEENCH BLOOD IN AMEEICA 



A Noble 

 Reply 



A Martyr to 

 his Faith 



An Enemy's 

 Praise 



mies, and to-morrow you will be burned unless you be- 

 come converted." 



"Sire," answered the unconquerable old man, "lam 

 ready to give my life for the glory of God. You have 

 said many times that you have pity on me ; and now I 

 have pity on you, who have pronounced the words, ' I 

 am constrained.' It is not spoken like the King; it is 

 what you, and those who constrain you, can never effect 

 upon me — for I know how to die." 



The King, who admired the brave man and ths great 

 artist, did not permit Palissy to be bui^ned, but did leave 

 him in prison, where he died — a real martyr to his faith 

 — less than a year later. This was the kind of character 

 and of ability that France lost. There was nothing left 

 to replace such genuine religion, nothing out of which to 

 create such type of citizens, who are the bulwark of the 

 state as they are its glory. Palissy the potter deserves 

 high place on the roll of honour of the Huguenot 

 martyrs. 



X 



Louis XIV himself bore testimony to the high char- 

 acter of his Protestant subjects, whom he declared, in 

 1666 : " Being no less faithful than the rest of my people, 

 it behooves me to treat with no less favour and consider- 

 ation." But this was the very year in which the "re- 

 lapsed heretics" were placed entirely at the mercy of the 

 Eoman Catholics, and subjected to all kinds of annoy- 

 ances and persecutions. As one wrote, ' ' The members 

 of the reformed religion are so cruelly persecuted through 

 the whole kingdom that, if the work go on, it is to be 

 feared that nothing less than a great massacre must be 

 looked for." Public worship was proscribed and even 

 the singing of psalms prohibited on the highways or in 

 private houses. The Protestants were forbidden to bury 

 their dead in open day. 



Perhaps nothing could show the condition and spirit of 



