at, in case of his death, it
might be known from what quarter the blow came, and that none might dare
to accuse the protestants of this crime. The probable death of this
general produced a small degree of relaxation on the part of their
enemies, and some calm; but the mass of the people had been indulged in
licentiousness too long to be restrained even by the murder of the
representative of their king. In the evening they again repaired to the
temple, and with hatchets broke open the door; the dismal noise of their
blows carried terror into the bosom of the protestant families sitting
in their houses in tears. The contents of the poor's box, and the
clothes prepared for distribution, were stolen; the minister's robes
rent in pieces; the books torn up or carried away; the closets were
ransacked, but the rooms which contained the archives of the church, and
the synods, was providentially secured; and had it not been for the
numerous patrols on foot, the whole would have become the prey of the
flames, and the edifice itself a heap of ruins. In the mean while, the
fanatics openly ascribed the murder of the general to his own
self-devotion, and said "that it was the will of God." Three thousand
francs were offered for the apprehension of Boissin; but it was well
known that the protestants dared not arrest him, and that the fanatics
would not. During these transactions, the systems of forced conversions
to catholicism was making regular and fearful progress.

_Interference of the British Government._

To the credit of England, the reports of these cruel persecutions
carried on against our protestant brethren in France, produced such a
sensation on the part of the government as determined them to interfere;
and now the persecutors of the protestants made this spontaneous act of
humanity and religion the pretext for charging the sufferers with a
treasonable correspondence with England; but in this state of their
proceedings, to their great dismay, a letter appeared, sent some time
before to England by the duke of Wellington, stating "that much
information existed on the events of the south."

The ministers of the three denominations in London, anxious not to be
misled, requested one of their brethren to visit the scenes of
persecution, and examine with impartiality the nature and extent of the
evils they were desirous to relieve. The Rev. Clement Perot undertook
this difficult task, and fulfilled their wishes with a zeal, p