At Samarobridge, they murdered above 100 protestants, after promising
them peace; and at Antisidor, 100 were killed, and cast part into a
jakes, and part into a river. One hundred put into prison at Orleans,
were destroyed by the furious multitude.
The protestants at Rochelle, who were such as had miraculously escaped
the rage of hell, and fled there, seeing how ill they fared who
submitted to those holy devils, stood for their lives; and some other
cities, encouraged thereby, did the like. Against Rochelle, the king
sent almost the whole power of France, which besieged it seven months,
though, by their assaults, they did very little execution on the
inhabitants, yet, by famine, they destroyed eighteen thousand out of two
and twenty. The dead being too numerous for the living to bury, became
food for vermin and carnivorous birds. Many taking their coffins into
the church yard, laid down in them, and breathed their last. Their diet
had long been what the minds of those in plenty shudder at; even human
flesh entrails, dung, and the most loathsome things, became at last the
only food of those champions for that truth and liberty, of which the
world was not worthy. At every attack, the besiegers met with such an
intrepid reception, that they left 132 captains, with a proportionate
number of men, dead in the field. The siege at last was broken up at
the request of the duke of Anjou, the king's brother, who was proclaimed
king of Poland, and the king, being wearied out, easily complied,
whereupon honourable conditions were granted them.
It is a remarkable interference of Providence, that, in all this
dreadful massacre, not more than two ministers of the gospel were
involved in it.
The tragical sufferings of the protestants are too numerous to detail;
but the treatment of Philip de Deux will give an idea of the rest. After
the miscreants had slain this martyr in his bed, they went to his wife,
who was then attended by the midwife, expecting every moment to be
delivered. The midwife entreated them to stay the murder, at least till
the child, which was the twentieth, should be born. Notwithstanding
this, they thrust a dagger up to the hilt into the poor woman. Anxious
to be delivered, she ran into a corn loft; but hither they pursued her,
stabbed her in the belly, and then threw her into the street. By the
fall, the child came from the dying mother, and being caught up by one
of the catholic ruffians, he stabbed the infa
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