ich, new forces of late are
secretly being got ready against them, and those among them who
profess the Roman Religion have warning orders to remove for a
time, so that all things now again seem to point to an
exterminating onslaught on those most miserable creatures who were
left over from that last butchery. That you will not allow this to
be done I beseech and conjure you, Most Christian King, by that
right hand of yours which sealed alliance and friendship with Us,
by that most sacred ornament of the title of _Most Christian_;
that you will not permit such a license of furious raging, I do not
say to any prince (for such furious raging cannot possibly come
upon any prince, much less upon the tender age of that Prince, or
into the womanly mind of his Mother), but to those most holy
assassins, who, while they profess themselves the servants and
imitators of our Saviour Christ, Him who came into this world to
save sinners, abuse His most meek name and institutes for savage
slaughters of innocents. Snatch, thou who art able, and who in such
a towering station art worthy to be able, so many suppliants of
yours from the hands of homicides, who, drunk with gore recently,
thirst for blood again, and consider it most advisable for
themselves to lay at the doors of princes the odium of their own
cruelty. Do not thou, while thou reignest, suffer thy titles or the
territories of thy realm, or the most merciful Gospel of Christ,
to be defiled by that scandal. Remember that these very Vaudois
submitted themselves to your grandfather Henry, that great favourer
of Protestants, when the victorious Lesdiguieres, through those
parts where there is even yet the most convenient passage into
Italy, pursued the yielding Savoyard across the Alps. The
instrument of that Surrender is yet extant among the Public Acts of
your Kingdom; in which, among other things, it is expressly
provided and precautioned that the Vaudois should thenceforth be
handed over to no one unless with those same conditions on which,
by that instrument, your most invincible grandfather received them
into his protection. This protection the suppliants now implore;
as pledged by the grandfather, they demand it from you, the
grandson. They would prefer and desire to be your subjects rather
than his to whom they now belong, even by some exchange, if that
could be managed; but, if that cannot be manag