seven
months long the culprits remained in confinement, while daily and nightly
the people crowded the streets, hurling threats and defiance at the
authorities, or pressed about the prison windows, encouraging their
beloved ministers, and promising to rescue them in case the attempt
should be made to fulfil the sentence. At last Granvelle sent down a
peremptory order to execute the culprits by fire. On the 27th of April,
1562, Faveau and Mallart were accordingly taken from their jail and
carried to the market-place, where arrangements had been made for burning
them. Simon Faveau, as the executioner was binding him to the stake,
uttered the invocation, "O! Eternal Father!" A woman in the crowd, at the
same instant, took off her shoe and threw it at the funeral pile. This
was a preconcerted signal. A movement was at once visible in the crowd.
Men in great numbers dashed upon the barriers which had been erected in
the square around the place of execution. Some seized the fagots, which
had been already lighted, and scattered them in every direction; some
tore up the pavements; others broke in pieces the barriers. The
executioners were prevented from carrying out the sentence, but the guard
were enabled, with great celerity and determination, to bring off the
culprits and to place them in their dungeon again. The authorities were
in doubt and dismay. The inquisitors were for putting the ministers to
death in prison, and hurling their heads upon the street. Evening
approached while the officials were still pondering. The people who had
been chanting the Psalms of David through the town, without having
decided what should be their course of action, at last determined to
rescue the victims. A vast throng, after much hesitation, accordingly
directed their steps to the prison. "You should have seen this vile
populace," says an eye-witness, "moving, pausing, recoiling, sweeping
forward, swaying to and fro like the waves of the sea when it is agitated
by contending winds." The attack was vigorous, the defence was weak--for
the authorities had expected no such fierce demonstration,
notwithstanding the menacing language which had been so often uttered.
The prisoners were rescued, and succeeded in making their escape from the
city. The day in which the execution had been thus prevented was called,
thenceforward, the "day of the ill-burned," (Journee des mau-brulez). One
of the ministers, however, Simon Faveau, not discouraged by this ne