for we see she is frightened." "Why," replied the woman, "you know me; I am no Hugonot; I go to mass every day; and yet I have been so frightened, that for these eight days past I have been in a fever." "In truth," exclaimed one of the soldiers on this, "I have been in the same state myself." The two men at last consented to con. duct their prisoner back to the boat, merely remarking, as they put her again on board, that if she had been a man she should not have escaped so easily.

We must sum up very briefly the remaining hazards which Madame de Feuqueres ran in effecting her escape. The house of the corn merchant, in which she had lain so long concealed, was pillaged, she tells us, immediately after she left it. At the place where they put on shore for the night there was only one sleeping chamber in the inn to which they repaired, and she was obliged to sleep in the same bed with two other women, whose suspicions she greatly feared would be excited by a fine hol. land shirt, trimmed with lace, which she wore, ill as it suited the rest of her attire, which was that of a servant. Her apprehensions here, however, proved vain. On Thursday she left the boat, and under the conduct of a person who had been sent to meet her by Madame de Tombonneau, proceeded on foot to Vignay, the residence of the chancellor l'Hospital, being a distance of about five leagues. They found the chancellor's house occupied by the guard which the king had sent for his protection; and Madame de Feuqueres therefore resolved to take up her residence in the house of his vinedresser, a poor man, who, although a Catholic, treated her with the kindest hospitality. Here she remained for fifteen days, during which time the soldiers came to the village searching every suspected house; but they were prevented from en tering that in which she was concealed, in consequence of its being considered under 'he protection of the chancellor's guard. At last, when matters seemed to be some. what tranquillized, she set out on her ass, accompanied by the vinedresser, to Eprunes, a property belonging to her grandmother, which she reached in safety. She was received here as one returned from the dead. From this she went at the end of a fortnight to Buhy, now in the possession of her eldest brother. Here she was exposed to new persecutions-her brother, who had himself saved his life by consenting to go to mass, being still so alarmed that he refused to allow her to remain in his house, on her per sisting in declining to accompany him to chapel. With a very scanty supply of money, therefore, she was obliged once more to set out on her travels; and taking on this occasion the road to Selan, she arrived safely in that city on the first of Novem ber, and received the warmest welcome, and the supply of all her wants, from numerous friends, most of whom had like herself taken refuge here, after escaping from the Pari sian massacre. Madame de Feuqueres continued to reside in Sedan till her marriage with M. Duplessis Mornay, in January 1576.*

But perhaps the most extraordinary deliverance from the St. Bartholomew, of which an account has come down to us, was that of the marshal de la Force. The father of the marshal, de la Force, the sieur was one of the Protestant gentlemen who were lodged, when the massacre broke out, in the faubourg St. Germain. The first notice he received on the morning of the fatal Sunday of what was passing in the city, was from a person, who had, it appears, swam across the river to apprise him of his dan ger. There were living with La Force his two sons, the youngest of whom, after wards the marshal, was now in his thirteenth year. Had the father thought but of his own safety, he probably might have been able, like many of his friends, to have effected his escape; but some time was lost in getting his two boys in readiness to fly along with him, and before they had left the house, it was broken into by the murder. ers. A man of the name of Martin was at the head of the party, who having made his men instantly disarm their prisoners, addressing himself to La Force, told him with the most violent oaths that his last moment was come. On La Force, however, offering him two thousand crowns to save the lives of himself and his children, the , ruffian and his band agreed to accept of this bribe. After having pillaged the house, they desired the father and his two sons to tie their handkerchiefs in the form of crosses around their hats, and to turn up the right sleeves of their coats; and then they all set out together. The river, as they crossed it, was already covered with dead bodies; and the same frightful tokens of the tragedy acting around them strewed the courts of the Louvre and the other places through which they passed. At last

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they arrived at Martin's house in the rue des Petits Champs (to the north of the rue St. Honore); and here, La Force having been first bound by an oath not to attempt to withdraw either himself or his sons until he should have paid the two thousand crowns, he and they were left in the charge of two Swiss soldiers.

Madame de Brissembourg, the sister-in-law of La Force, who resided in the arse nal, of which her relation, the marshal de Biron, was grand master, upon being ap plied to for the money to pay the promised ransom, engaged to send the requisite sum by the evening of the following day. La Force and his sons were therefore obliged to remain till then where they were. At last, when the appointed time arrived, a messenger was dispatched for the money; but while he was yet absent, the count de Coconas suddenly presented himself at the head of a party of soldiers, bringing orders, as he said, to conduct the prisoners immediately to the duke of Anjou. He had no sooner intimated the purpose of his visit, than his men, laying hold of the father and his sons, pulled off their bonnets and mantles; and by the rough manner in which they used them, afforded them a sufficient presage of the fate prepared for them. They led them, however, as far as to the end of the street entering the rue St. Honore without offering them any violence; but on arriving here, the assassins halted, and making a sudden assault upon them, dispatched first the eldest son, and the next instant the father, by multiphed blows with their daggers. By a singular chance, the youngest, whose name was Jacques Nompar, in the confusion of the encounter escaped untouched; the wildly directed strokes of the murderers having all missed him and fallen upon his father and his brother. He had the presence of mind, however, to throw himself down on the ground beside them, and as he lay bathed in their blood, to call out that he was mortally wounded; and then to counterfeit the appearance of death. The murderers, supposing their deed done, after hastily stripping the three bodies, left the spot. It was not long before a number of the neighbors approached · and among the rest, a poor man, a marker belonging to the tennis court in the rue du Verdelet. This person, on beholding the body of the youngest son, happened to remark, loud enough for his words to reach the ear of the boy, "Alas! this one is but a mere child!" On hearing these expressions of compassion, young La Force ventured gently to raise his head, and to whisper that he was still alive. The man, on this, desired him to remain still for a little longer, till he could come to remove him without being observed. As soon as every body was out of sight he returned; and, throwing an old ragged cloak over the boy, he took him on his back and set out with him for his own house. Some persons whom he met on the way, having asked him who it was he was carrying, " It is my nephew," said he, "who has got drunk; I shall give him a good whipping this evening." He soon got home to his garret with his burden, and here La Force spent the night. On the morning of the following day (Tuesday) his preserver, at his request, agreed to conduct him to the arsenal, the boy gladly engaging to pay him thirty crowns for this service. They set out together at break of day, and in a short time reached the gate of the arsenal without having met with any interruption. The difficulty now was for La Force (in the beggarly dress in which he was) to get into the inside of the building; but, leaving his guide without, he at last found an opportunity, when the gate was opened for the admission of another person, to pass through without being observed by the porter. He met nobody till he reached the part of the building in which his aunt resided. When Madame de Brissembourg beheld him, her astonishment and emotion were extreme; for she had been already informed that all the three had perished. The thirty crowns were immediate ly sent out to the poor tennis marker; and La Force was put to bed that he might recover from the effects of the terror and agitation he had undergone. He remained concealed in the arsenal for the two following days; but at the end of this time, information was brought to marshal Biron, that the building was about to be searched, by order of the king, in consequence of reports that were in circulation of some Hugonots having taken refuge in it. It was deemed advisable, therefore, that he should be immediately transferred to some other hiding-place; and accordingly, on Thursday morning, being attired as a page, he was confided to the care of a M. Guillon, controller of artillery, who, however, was only informed that he was the son of his late friend M. de Beaupuy, and that having been newly brought up to Paris it was merely wished that he should be taken charge of, till the confusion, in which the city at present was, should have subsided. He remained with M. Guillon seven or

eight days; when, even at that distance of time after the massacre, the report of his singular escape having got abroad, fears were still entertained that an attempt would be made to gain possession of him. By some management, however, it was contriv. ed to convey him beyond the walls of the capital; and after several other hazardous adventures, he was fortunate enough on the eighth day from his leaving Paris to reach the house of his father's brother, the sieur de Caumont, near Mirande, in the south of France, by whom he was received with "so great joy and contentment," says the original narrative, "as is not to be believed." The boy thus miraculously rescued from the jaws of destruction, and who eventually rose, as has been mentioned, to the rank of marshal, lived for more than eighty years after his singular escape, having died at the age of ninety-four, in 1653, probably one of the last survivors of the bloody scene in which he had so nearly perished.*

The massacre of St. Bartholomew, as has already been intimated, was far from being confined to the walls of Paris. In numerous other places similar tragical scenes were acted, and the blood of the Protestants was poured out like water. Sixty thou sand are supposed to have been slaughtered, for which solemn thanksgivings were rendered to God, in the Catholic Churches.

Taken by surprise, as the Hugonots had been, they were for a time incapable of any resistance; but at length, rallying under the prince of Conde, they nobly stood for their defence, and combatted their enemies with success. But for the space of thirty years, the Protestants suffered the most grievous calamities, and during this period, it has been estimated that thirty-nine princes, one hundred and forty-eight counts, two hundred and thirty-four barons, one hundred forty-six thousand five hundred and eighteen gentlemen, and seven hundred and sixty thousand of the common people, were destroyed for adopting the reformed religion.

In 1593, Henry IV. who was a Hugonot, ascended the throne of France. Although, from political motives, he made a profession of popery, he evinced his regard for the Protestants, by publishing, in the year 1598, the celebrated Edict of Nantes, which granted to them the privilege of citizenship, the right of worshipping God according to their own faith, and certain lands to support their churches and garrisons. Henry, however, soon experienced the vengeance of the court of Rome for his clemency; for he was assassinated in his chariot, in the streets of Paris, by the hands of a fanatic, by the name of Ravaillac, in the year 1610.

From this period, the Hugonots, as they were tolerated by the civil power, flourished for a season greatly. But they were still hated by the men in power, and particularly by cardinal Richelieu, prime minister to Louis XIII., who early adopted and long pursued the maxim, "That there could be no peace in France, until the Hugonots were entirely suppressed."

In the year 1685, Lewis XIV. revoked the edict of Nantes, and ordered the Reformed Churches to return to the Romish faith. The cup of their calamities was now full. Their case was hopeless. Their churches were demolished, and themselves insulted and massacred, by a brutal soldiery. Flight presented itself as their only alternative; but even in this they were opposed by bands of soldiers, who were stationed on the several frontiers of the kingdom. Fifty thousand, however, it is supposed, effected their escape, and sought refuge in the different Protestant countries of Europe. Such is an outline of the calamities, brought upon the Protestants in several countries, (of the sufferings of the Protestants in England, we shall speak in a future page,) by the friends of papal Rome, with the professed design of exterminating them from the earth, and of re-establishing the dominion of the Roman pontiffs.

This effort was a mighty one. In the language of an unknown writer, "Providence never made use of so terrible a scourge to chastise mankind. No power ever outraged the interests of society, the principles of justice, and the claims of humanity, to the same extent. Never did the world behold such blasphemy, profligacy, and wantonness, as in the proceedings of this spiritual domination. It held the human mind in chains; visited with exemplary punishment every inroad on the domains of ignorance, and attempted to sink nations into a state of stupidity and imbecility. Its proscriptions, its massacres, its murders, the miseries it heaped on the objects of its vengeance, aud the grasp of its iron sway, fill the mind only with horror and disgust."

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9. The means thus employed by the court of Rome to sustain her power which remained, and to regain that which she had lost, although such as were likely to result in her triumph, were found insufficient to accomplish her purpose. Although, subsequently to the reformation, owing to her propagation of Christianity in heathen countries, she held her empire over more millions than before, and for a season appeared within reach of her former spiritual sway, from a series of unexpected causes, her ancient power has been successively weakened, until that, together with her wealth and splendor, has passed away.

10. Among the causes which have contributed to this result, may be mentioned the loss of foreign conquests-unsuccessful contests with several European governments-the suppression of the order of Jesuits -the revolution in France—and the abolition of the Inquisition.

In a former page, (159,) was noticed the successful attempt of the Roman Catholics to introduce Christianity into China, Japan, and other countries. But, owing to the dissolute and iniquitous conduct of the Jesuits, and particularly to the tumults and seditions occasioned by their political intrigues, they were at length banished from those countries, and the knowledge of Christianity became extinct.

At home, the pontiffs were often engaged in quarrels with neighboring governments. In 1606, Paul V. nearly lost the rich republic of Venice. Peace was indeed restored, but the pope was obliged to relinquish many of his pretensions. Naples, Sardinia, Portugal and Spain, each, in turn, withheld immunities which before had been fully granted. In subsequent years, a violent dispute was carried on between the pope and the king of France. In 1682, the power of the papacy received a severe blow in that country, in consequence of the decree of a council of the Gallican Church, convened by order of Louis XIV. viz. that the power of the pope is only spiritualthat a general council is superior to him-and that his decisions are not infallible, without the consent of the Church.

But the event, which more than any other tended to abridge the power of the pope, was the suppression of the order of Jesuits. This event was owing to a variety of causes; but chiefly to their usurpations and iniquitous conduct, which, in all countries, had reached a point beyond endurance. The voice of the world was against them, and loudly demanded the abolition of the order. Their suppression, however, took place in different countries in successive years. From England, they were expelled by proclamation, during the reign of James I., 1604; from Venice, in 1606; from Portugal, 1759; France, 1764; Spain and Sicily, 1767; and the order was, at length, totally abolished, in all papal countries, by Ganganelli, or Clement XIV., July 21, 1773.

The French revolution, in 1793, also, contributed to abridge the power of papal Rome. About the middle of the century, a conspiracy was formed to overthrow Christianity. At the head of this conspiracy were Voltaire, D'Alembert, Rousseau, Diderot, and Frederic II. king of Prussia; who, by every artifice that impiety could invent, by union and secret correspondence, endeavored to spread abroad the poison of infidelity, and thus to debase and sap the foundations of Christianity.

The efforts of this combination were attended with amazing success. Infidelity was soon spread abroad among all nations, and affected every Catholic and Protestant community. In France, however, the tide was seen rolling with an irresistible force, and the consequence was, an entire revolution in that country-the abolition of the regal government-and, for a season, the overthrow of the long established Roman hierarchy. This gave to the papal Church a deep and lasting wound; and followed as it was, by the victorious arms of the republic, carrying forward their triumphs, presently reduced many of the popish states to a condition the most fearful and degrading.

At the commencement of the French revolution, the clergy in France were both numerous and wealthy. They amounted to no less than eighteen archbishops, one hundred and eleven bishops, one hundred and fifty thousand priests, having under

heir control a revenue of five millions sterling, annually, besides three thousand four hundred wealthy convents.

The clergy and their wealth were now attacked by the infidel revolutionists, and fell an easy prey. The tithes and revenues of the clergy were taken away, by a de cree of the constituent assembly; the possessions of the Church were decreed to be the property of the nation; the religious orders were abolished; the monks and nuns ejected from their convents, and their immense wealth seized for the nation.

The revolutionary torrent, which was thus set in motion, destroyed law, government and religion, in France; and laid waste the Roman Church, both there and in neighboring countries. "Her priests were massacred. Her silver shrines and saints were turned into money, for the payment of troops. Her bells were converted into cannon, and her churches and convents into barracks for soldiers. From the Atlantic to the Adriatic, she presented but one appalling spectacle. She had shed the blood of saints and prophets, and God now gave her blood to drink."

Upon the re-appearance of something like a regular government in France, liberty of conscience and freedom of worship were declared to be a fundamental law of the constitution. This was confirmed by the consular despotism of Buonaparte, and maintamed inviolate during his imperial sway. Napoleon despised the pope, and the whole system of monkery. On becoming emperor in 1804, he compelled the pope, Pius VII., to place the imperial crown upon his head; but in less than four years, he dispossessed him of his ecclesiastical state, and reduced his holiness to a mere cipher in the political world.

The abolition of the inquisition in most countries, has, also, still further narrowed down the influence of the Roman pontiffs. The power of this engine has been already noticed, together with the thraldom in which, for centuries, it held individuals and nations. To Buonaparte the world is indebted for its annihilation. "I have," says he, in his speech to the magistrates of Madrid, in 1808, "abolished the court of the inquisition, which was a subject of complaint to Europe, and the present age. Priests may guide the minds of men, but must exercise no temporal, nor corporal jurisdiction over the citizens. I have preserved the spiritual orders, Lut with a`limitation of the number of monks."

Thus expired the horrid and infernal court of inquisition. Europe no longer paid deference to its bloody tribunal; and the same, with some reserve, may be said of the monkish orders. An effort has recently been made to re-establish the inquisition in Spain; but it is now in all other parts of the globe annihilated, and its terrific power no longer agitates and appals the human race.

11. In respect to the present state of the papal power, it may be observed, that the temporal dominions of the pope are confined to a narrow, crooked territory, lying south of the river Po, in Italy, and contains about fifteen thousand square miles, and about two million five hundred thousand inhabitants. Its ecclesiastical subjects are supposed to amount to eighty, or one hundred millions, who are scattered over the world. The countries which are considered entirely papal, are the pope's dominions in Italy, Spain, Portugal, and South America; France, Austria, Poland, Belgium, Ireland, and Canada, almost entirely. Switzerland has seven hundred thousand; England more than half a million. Others are found in Russia, Sweden, Denmark, the West India Islands, and the United States.

As a temporal prince, the political power of the pope is now regarded with absolute contempt by all the European governments; but it is still supported by them as a matter of policy.

France, more particularly, appears almost ready to throw off entirely the trammels of the papal yoke; for, as the Catholic priesthood has been found uniformly to give its support to an arbitrary form of government, and to neglect the instruction of the people, the Bourbon dynasty has been overthrown by the revolution of 1830, and the Romish Church cut off from being the established religion, and free toleration granted. Still, as the Roman Catholic is the professed religion of the majority in the French