rest, not excepting even babes and sucklings.'

It seems to be assumed here that there are a hundred thousand times more
damned than saved, and that children dying unbaptized are included among
the former. Both these points are disputed, and especially the damnation of
these children. I have spoken of this above. M. Bayle urges the same
objection elsewhere (_Reply to the Questions of a Provincial_, vol. III,
ch. 178, p. 1223): 'We see clearly', he says, 'that the Sovereign who
wishes to exercise both justice and clemency when a city has revolted must
be content with the punishment of a small number of mutineers, and [204]
pardon all the rest. For if the number of those who are chastised is as a
thousand to one, in comparison with those whom he freely pardons, he cannot
be accounted mild, but, on the contrary, cruel. He would assuredly be
accounted an abominable tyrant if he chose punishments of long duration,
and if he eschewed bloodshed only because he was convinced that men would
prefer death to a miserable life; and if, finally, the desire to take
revenge were more responsible for his severities than the desire to turn to
the service of the common weal the penalty that he would inflict on almost
all the rebels. Criminals who are executed are considered to expiate their
crimes so completely by the loss of their life, that the public requires
nothing more, and is indignant when executioners are clumsy. These would be
stoned if they were known deliberately to give repeated strokes of the axe;
and the judges who are present at the execution would not be immune from
danger if they were thought to take pleasure in this evil sport of the
executioners, and to have surreptitiously urged them to practise it.' (Note
that this is not to be understood as strictly universal. There are cases
where the people approve of the slow killing of certain criminals, as when
Francis I thus put to death some persons accused of heresy after the
notorious Placards of 1534. No pity was shown to Ravaillac, who was
tortured in divers horrible ways. See the _French Mercury_, vol. I, fol.
m., 455 _et seq._ See also Pierre Matthieu in his _History of the Death of
Henry IV_; and do not forget what he says on page m. 99 concerning the
discussion by the judges with regard to the torture of this parricide.)
'Finally it is an exceptionally notorious fact that Rulers who should be
guided by St. Paul, I mean who should condemn to the extreme penalty all
th