by men who hated them heartily. The new
favorites used their influence to secure the Waldenses a hearing.
D'Oppede and the four commissioners were summoned to Paris. Count De
Grignan himself barely escaped being put on trial--as responsible for
the misdeeds of his lieutenant--by securing the advocacy of the Duke of
Guise, which he purchased with the sacrifice of his domains at Grignan.
For fifty days the trial of the other criminals was warmly prosecuted
before the Parliament of Paris; and so ably and lucidly did Auberi
present the claims of the oppressed before the crowded assembly, that a
severe verdict was confidently awaited.

[Sidenote: Meagre effect.]

The public expectation, however, was doomed to disappointment. Only one
of the accused, the advocate Guerin, being so unfortunate as to possess
no great influence at court, was condemned to the gallows. D'Oppede
escaped with De Grignan, through the protection of the Duke of Guise,
and, like his fellow-defendants, was reinstated in office.[506] For the
rendering of a decision so flagrantly unjust the true cause must be
sought in the sanguinary character of the Parisian judges themselves,
who, while they were reluctant, on the one hand, to derogate from the
credit of another parliament of France, on the other, feared lest, in
condemning the persecuting rage of others, they might seem to be passing
sentence upon themselves for the uniform course of cruelty they had
pursued in the trial of the reformers.[507]

The oppressed and persecuted of all ages have been ready, not without
reason, to recognize in signal disasters befalling their enemies the
retributive hand of the Almighty himself lifting for a moment the veil
of futurity, to disclose a little of the misery that awaits the
evil-doer in another world. But, in the present instance, it is a candid
historian of different faith who does not hesitate to ascribe to a
special interposition of the Deity the excruciating sufferings and death
which, not long after his acquittal, overtook Baron d'Oppede, the chief
actor in the mournful tragedy we have been recounting.[508]

[Sidenote: New persecution at Meaux.]

The ashes of Merindol and Cabrieres were scarcely cold, before in a
distant part of France the flame of persecution broke out with fresh
energy.[509] The city of Meaux, where, under the evangelical preachers
introduced by Bishop Briconnet, the Reformation had made such auspicious
progress, had never been thorough