th killed the nurse with a shot from his pistol.
Whether it was that they had no more loaded firearms, or that they
wished to save their ammunition, they were satisfied with only giving
me several bayonet wounds. I pretended to be dead: they thought it was
really the case, and went away. Some time after, seeing that everything
had become quiet, and hearing no sound, I dragged myself, dying as I
was, to where my dear mistress lay, and called her. As it happened, she
was not quite dead, and she said in a faint voice, 'Stay with me, Suzon,
till I die.' She added, after a short pause, for she was hardly able to
speak, 'I die for my religion, and I hope that God will have pity on me.
Tell my husband that I confide our little one to his care.' Having said
this, she turned her thoughts from the world, praying to God in broken
and tender words, and drew her last breath as the night fell."
In obedience to Cavalier's orders, the four criminals were taken and
brought before him. He was then with his troops near Saint-Maurice de
Casevielle; he called a council of war, and having had the prisoners
tried for their atrocious deed, he summed up the evidence in as clear
a manner as any lawyer could have done, and called upon the judges to
pronounce sentence. All the judges agreed that the prisoners should
be put to death, but just as the sentence was made known one of the
assassins pushed aside the two men who guarded him, and jumping down a
rock, disappeared in the forest before any attempt could be made to stop
him. The three others were shot.
The Catholics also condemned many to be executed, but the trials
conducted by then were far from being as remarkable for honour and
justice as was that which we have just described. We may instance the
trial of a poor boy of fourteen, the son of a miller of Saint-Christol
who had been broken the wheel just a month before. For a moment the
judges hesitated to condemn so young a boy to death, but a witness
presented himself who testified that the little fellow was employed by
the fanatics to strangle Catholic children. Although no one believed
the evidence, yet it was seized-on as a pretext: the unfortunate boy was
condemned to death, and hanged without mercy an hour later.
A great many people from the parishes devastated by M. de Julien had
taken refuge in Aussilargues, in the parish of St. Andre. Driven by
hunger and misery, they went beyond the prescribed limits in search of
means of subsi
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