e
meetings were often surprised by the military. Sometimes the soldiers
would come upon them suddenly, and fire into the crowd of men, women,
and children. On some occasions a hundred persons or more would be
killed upon the spot. Of those taken prisoners, the preachers were
hanged or broken on the wheel, the women were sent to prison, and the
children, to nunneries, while the men were sent to be galley-slaves
for life.[46]

[Footnote 46: In the Viverais and elsewhere they sang the
song of the persecuted Church:--

"Nos filles dans les monasteres,
Nos prisonniers dans les cachots.
Nos martyrs dont le sang se repand a grands flots,
Nos confesseurs sur les galeres,
Nos malades persecutes,
Nos mourants exposes a plus d'une furie,
Nos morts traines a la voierie,
Te disent (o Dieu!) nos calamites."]

The persecutions to which Huguenot women and children were exposed
caused a sudden enlargement of all the prisons and nunneries in
France. Many of the old castles were fitted up as gaols, and even
their dungeons were used for the incorrigible heretics. One of the
worst of these was the Tour de Constance in the town of Aiguesmortes,
which is to this day remembered with horror as the principal dungeon
of the Huguenot women.

The town of Aiguesmortes is situated in the department of Gard, close
to the Mediterranean, whose waters wash into the salt marshes and
lagunes by which it is surrounded. It was erected in the thirteenth
century for Philip the Bold, and is still interesting as an example of
the ancient feudal fortress. The fosse has since been filled up, on
account of the malaria produced by the stagnant water which it
contained.

The place is approached by a long causeway raised above the marsh, and
the entrance to the tower is spanned by an ancient gatehouse. In
advance of the tower, to the north, in an angle of the wall, is a
single, large round tower, which served as a citadel. It is sixty-six
feet in diameter and ninety feet high, surmounted by a lighthouse
turret of thirty-four feet. It consists of two large vaulted
apartments, the staircase from the one to the other being built within
the wall itself, which is about eighteen feet thick. The upper chamber
is dimly lighted by narrow chinks through the walls. The lowest of the
apartments is the dungeon, which is almost wi