ng
to the officer of his guard, said, "Whilst we wait to see what will
become of these eighteen hundred thousand Protestant families, will
you please conduct these gentlemen to the citadel?"[21]

[Footnote 21: When released from prison, Gaultier escaped to
Berlin and became minister of a large Protestant congregation
there. Isaac Dubourdieu escaped to England, and was appointed
one of the ministers of the Savoy Church in London.]

The great temple of Montpellier was destroyed immediately on receipt
of the King's royal mandate. It required the destruction of the place
within twenty-four hours; "but you will give me pleasure," added the
King, in a letter to De Noailles, "if you accomplish it in two."

It was, perhaps, scarcely necessary, after the temple had been
destroyed, to make any effort to justify these high-handed
proceedings. But Mdlle. Paulet, on whose pretended conversion to
Catholicism the proceedings had been instituted, was now requested to
admit the authenticity of the documents. She was still imprisoned in
Toulouse; and although entreated and threatened by turns to admit
their truth, she steadfastly denied their genuineness, and asking for
a pen, she wrote under each of them, "I affirm that the above
signature was not written by my hand.--Isabeau de Paulet."

Of course the documents were forged; but they had answered their
purpose. The Protestant temple of Montpellier lay in ruins, and
Isabeau de Paulet was recommitted to prison. On hearing of this
incident, Brousson remarked, "This is what is called instituting a
process against persons _after_ they have been condemned"--a sort of
"Jedwood justice."

The repetition of these cases of persecution--the demolition of their
churches, and the suppression of their worship--led the Protestants of
the Cevennes, Viverais, and Dauphiny to combine for the purpose of
endeavouring to stem the torrent of injustice. With this object, a
meeting of twenty-eight deputies took place in the house of Brousson,
at Toulouse, in the month of May, 1683. As the Assembly of the States
were about to take steps to demolish the Protestant temple at
Montauban and other towns in the south, and as Brousson was the
well-known advocate of the persecuted, the deputies were able to meet
at his house to conduct their deliberations, without exciting the
jealousy of the priests and the vigilance of the police.

What the meeting of Protestant deputies rec