THE TOWN OF NEW ROCHELLE. 



593 



silver almond ; and he, with the silver-smith who made the almond, were 

 both hanged. Two illustrious ladies, the Duchess of Rohan and her 

 daughter, who were not named in the capitulation, are thus referred to 

 by a writer of that day. ' Rigor without precedent, that a person of her 

 quality, at the age of seventy, on quitting a siege in which she and her 

 daughter had lived for three months on horse flesh and four or five 

 ounces of bread per day, should be held a captive, deprived of the exer- 

 cises of religion.' ' Protestants were no longer allowed to reside in this 

 ' city of refuge,' unless they had been inhabitants before the arrival of 

 Buckingham's expedition. The walls were prostrated, the fortifications 

 razed, and a cross erected. Thus perished this little Christian republic 

 which had defied the crown of France for seventy years." 



" History does not afford an example of more malignant or desolating 



Anna of La Rochelle. 



war than that which raged in France during the seventeenth century. 

 Louis XIV., the easy dupe of the Jesuits, confessors, and the designing 

 Madame de Maintenon, and led on, also, by the Cardinal Mazarine, 

 determined to convert the Reformers to the Roman faith. Not only 

 force, but bribery was now employed ; converts were to be purchased, 

 and proselytism in every form resorted to."* 



To enter into the minute particulars of this disastrous period would 

 be surperfluous ; suffice it to say, that now commenced a renewal of the 

 outrageous proceedings of former years. Commissioners were sent into 

 the provinces to dispossess the Reformed of all they held as citizens ; 

 nothing awaited them but fines, humiliation, and poverty. Troops of 

 soldiers were quartered among them, who inflicted the most horrid bar- 

 barities, while others scoured the country, and dragooned men into false 

 confessions. And not only this ; hundreds were condemned to the gal- 



as Sketch of the Huguenots, Christian Intelligencer, Mr. Disosway. 



