r with the convicts;
it was undesirable that the Reformers should be able to make a certified
collection of their martyrs' acts and deeds.

After a detailed and almost complacent enumeration of all these
executions, we find in the _Journal d'un Bourgeois de Paris_ this
paragraph: "The rumor was, in June, 1535, that Pope Paul III., being
advertised of the execrable and horrible justice which the king was doing
upon the Lutherans in his kingdom, did send word to the King of France
that he was advertised of it, and that he was quite willing to suppose
that he did it in good part, as he still made use of the beautiful title
he had to be called the Most Christian king; nevertheless, God the
Creator, when he was in this world, made more use of mercy than of
rigorous justice, which should never be used rigorously; and that it was
a cruel death to burn a man alive because he might have to some extent
renounced the faith and the law. Wherefore the pope did pray and request
the king, by his letters, to be pleased to mitigate the fury and rigor of
his justice by granting grace and pardon. The king, wishing to follow
the pope's wishes, according as he had sent him word by his letters
patent, sent word to the court of Parliament not to proceed any more with
such rigor as they had shown heretofore. For this cause were there no
more rigorous proceedings on the part of justice." [_Journal d'un
Bourgeois de Paris,_ p. 456.]

Search has been made to discover whether the assertion of the Bourgeois
de Paris has any foundation, whether Pope Paul III. really did write in
June, 1535, the letter attributed to him, and whether its effect was,
that the king wrote to Parliament not to proceed against the Reformers
"with such rigor." No proof has, however, been obtained as to the
authenticity of the pope's letter, and in any case it was not very
effectual, for the same _Bourgeois de Paris_ reports, that in September,
1535, three months after that, according to him, it was written: Two
fellows, makers of silk ribbons and tissues, were burned all alive, one
in the Place Maubert and the other in St. John's cemetery, as Lutherans,
which they were. They had handed over to their host at Paris some
Lutheran books to take care of, saying, 'Keep this book for us while we
go into the city, and show it to nobody.' When they were gone, this host
was not able to refrain from showing this book to a certain priest, the
which, after having looked at it, s