hideous ceremony was over, and the martyr, Claude
Brousson, had ceased to live.[31]

[Footnote 31: The only favour which Brousson's judges showed
him at death was as regarded the manner of carrying his
sentence into execution. He was condemned to be broken alive
on the wheel, and then strangled; whereas by special favour
the sentence was commuted into strangulation first and the
breaking of his bones afterwards. So that while Brousson's
impassive body remained with his persecutors to be broken,
his pure unconquered spirit mounted in triumph towards
heaven.]

Strange are the vicissitudes of human affairs! Not a hundred years
passed after this event, before the great grandson of the monarch, at
whose instance Brousson had laid down his life, appeared upon a
scaffold in the Place Louis XIV. in Paris, and implored permission to
say his few last words to the people. In vain! His voice was drowned
by the drums of Santerre!

CHAPTER V.

OUTBREAK IN LANGUEDOC.

Although the arbitrary measures of the King were felt all over France,
they nowhere excited more dismay and consternation than in the
province of Languedoc. This province had always been inhabited by a
spirited and energetic people, born lovers of liberty. They were among
the earliest to call in question the despotic authority over mind and
conscience claimed by the see of Rome. The country is sown with the
ashes of martyrs. Long before the execution of Brousson, the Peyrou at
Montpellier had been the Calvary of the South of France.

As early as the twelfth century, the Albigenses, who inhabited the
district, excited the wrath of the Popes. Simple, sincere believers in
the Divine providence, they rejected Rome, and took their stand upon
the individual responsibility of man to God. Count de Foix said to the
legate of Innocent III.: "As to my religion, the Pope has nothing to
do with it. Every man's conscience must be free. My father has always
recommended to me this liberty, and I am content to die for it."

A crusade was waged against the Albigenses, which lasted for a period
of about sixty years. Armies were concentrated upon Languedoc, and
after great slaughter the heretics were supposed to be exterminated.

But enough of the people survived to perpetuate the love of liberty in
their descendants, who continued to exercise a degree of independence
in matters of religion an