o had beaten to death and thrown into the river the two
collectors of the Babel at Angouleme, he cast them all three into a fire
which was ready at the spot, and said to them aloud, in conformity with
the judgment against them, 'Go, rabid hounds, and grill the fish of the
Charente, which ye salted with the bodies of the officers of your king
and sovereign lord.' As to civil death (loss of civil rights)," adds
Vieilleville, "nearly all the inhabitants made honorable amends in open
street, on their knees, before the said my lords at the window, crying
mercy and asking pardon; and more than a hundred, because of their youth,
were simply whipped. Astounding fines and interdictions were laid as
well upon the body composing the court of Parliament as upon the
town-council and on a great number of private individuals. The very
bells were not exempt from experiencing the wrath and vengeance of the
prince, for not a single one remained throughout the whole city or in the
open country--to say nothing of the clocks, which were not spared either
--which was not broken up and confiscated to the king's service for his
guns."

The insurrection at Bordeaux against the gabel in 1548 was certainly more
serious than that of Rochelle in 1542; but it is also quite certain that
Francis I. would not have set about repressing it as Henry II. did; he
would have appeared there himself and risked his own person instead of
leaving the matter to the harshest of his lieutenants, and he would have
more skilfully intermingled generosity with force, and kind words with
acts of severity. And that is one of the secrets of governing. In 1549,
scarcely a year after the revolt at Bordeaux, Henry II., then at Amiens,
granted to deputies from Poitou, Rochelle, the district of Aunis,
Limousin, Perigord, and Saintonge, almost complete abolition of the Babel
in Guienne, which paid the king, by way of compensation, two hundred
thousand crowns of gold for the expenses of war or the redemption of
certain alienated domains. We may admit that on the day after the revolt
the arbitrary and bloody proceedings of the Constable de Montmorency must
have produced upon the insurgents of Bordeaux the effect of a salutary
fright; but we may doubt whether so cruel a repression was absolutely
indispensable in 1548, when in 1549 the concession demanded in the former
year was to be recognized as necessary.

According to De Thou and the majority of historians, it was on the