s truth and despised the day of visitation."

During the twelve months that Brousson was occupied with his perilous
journey through France, two more of his friends in the Cevennes
suffered martyrdom--La Porte on the 7th of February, 1696, and Henri
Guerin on the 22nd of June following. Both were broken alive on the
wheel before receiving the _coup de grace_.

Towards the close of the year, Brousson arrived at Basle, from whence
he proceeded to visit his friends throughout the cantons of
Switzerland, and then he returned to Holland by way of the Rhine, to
rejoin his family at the Hague.

At that time, the representatives of the Allies were meeting at
Ryswick the representatives of Louis XIV., who was desirous of peace.
Brousson and the French refugee ministers resident in Holland
endeavoured to bring the persecutions of the French Protestants under
the notice of the Conference. But Louis XIV. would not brook this
interference. He proposed going on dealing with the heretics in his
own way. "I do not pretend," he said, "to prescribe to William III.
rules about his subjects, and I expect the same liberty as to my own."

Finding it impossible to obtain redress for his fellow-countrymen
under the treaty of Ryswick, which was shortly after concluded,
Brousson at length prepared to make his third journey into France in
the month of August 1697. He set out greatly to the regret of his
wife, who feared it might be his last journey, as indeed it proved to
be. In a letter which he wrote to console her, from some remote place
where he was snowed up about the middle of the following December, he
said: "I cannot at present enter into the details of the work the
Lord has given me grace to labour in; but it is the source of much
consolation to a large number of his poor people. It will be expedient
that you do not mention where I am, lest I should be traced. It may be
that I cannot for some time write to you; but I walk under the conduct
of my God, and I repeat that I would not for millions of money that
the Lord should refuse me the grace which renders it imperative for me
to labour as I now do in His work."[30]

[Footnote 30: The following was the portraiture of Brousson,
issued to the spies and police: "Brousson is of middle
stature, and rather spare, aged forty to forty-two, nose
large, complexion dark, hair black, hands well formed."]

When the snow had melted sufficiently to enable Brousso