political hatred;
but his motives were of the most sordid description. It was mainly to
acquire gold for himself that he ordained all this carnage. With the same
pen which signed the death-sentences of the richest victims, he drew
orders to his own benefit on their confiscated property. The lion's share
of the plunder was appropriated by himself. He desired the estate; of
Francois de Glarges, Seigneur d'Eslesmes. The gentleman had committed no
offence of any kind, and, moreover, lived beyond the French frontier.
Nevertheless, in contempt of international law, the neighbouring
territory was invaded, and d'Eslesmes dragged before the blood tribunal
of Mons. Noircarmes had drawn up beforehand, in his own handwriting, both
the terms of the accusation and of the sentence. The victim was innocent
and a Catholic, but he was rich. He confessed to have been twice at the
preaching, from curiosity, and to have omitted taking the sacrament at
the previous Easter. For these offences he was beheaded, and his
confiscated estate adjudged at an almost nominal price to the secretary
of Noircarmes, bidding for his master. "You can do me no greater
pleasure," wrote Noircarmes to the council, "than to make quick work with
all these rebels, and to proceed with the confiscation of their estates,
real and personal. Don't fail to put all those to the torture out of whom
anything can be got."

Notwithstanding the unexampled docility of the commissioners, they found
it difficult to extract from their redoubted chief a reasonable share in
the wages of blood. They did not scruple, therefore, to display their
own infamy, and to enumerate their own crimes, in order to justify their
demand for higher salaries. "Consider," they said, in a petition to this
end, "consider closely, all that is odious in our office, and the great
number of banishments and of executions which we have pronounced among
all our own relations and friends."

It may be added, moreover, as a slight palliation for the enormous crimes
committed by these men, that, becoming at last weary of their business,
they urged Noircarmes to desist from the work of proscription. Longehaye,
one of the commissioners, even waited upon him personally, with a plea
for mercy in favor of "the poor people, even beggars, who, although
having borne arms during the siege, might then be pardoned." Noircarmes,
in a rage at the proposition, said that "if he did not know the
commissioners to be honest men, h