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looked to God alone, in whom we reposed our confidence, and who was a righteous Judge. 'Do not, I pray you,' said he, 'attribute to me the rigour of your sentence; these are king's orders which condemn you.'

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'But, sir,' said I, the king does not know if I am suspected and convicted of intending to leave the kingdom, and the ordinance does not state that for professing the reformed religion one is sent to the galleys; it is only a conviction of the intention of escaping from the kingdom which condemns to this kind of punishment; but you, sir, have introduced in the sentence, "suspected and convicted of having intended to escape from the kingdom," not only having no proof of this, but not even having examined whether there was any.'

'What would you have?' said he. It is a formality required to obey the king's orders.'

'No longer call yourself a judge, then,' said I, 'but simply an executor of the king's orders.' 'Appeal to the parliament,' said he.

'We will do nothing of the kind,' we replied; for we know well enough that the parliament is devoted to the king's orders, and that it will not examine the proofs in our favour any more than you have done.'

'Very well,' said he; 'then I must appeal for you.' We knew this before, as no inferior judge can carry into execution a sentence which involves corporal

punishment without its being ratified by parliament. Therefore prepare,' said the judge, 'to start for Tournay.'

'We are ready for anything,' we replied.

The same day they shut us up again in the dungeon; and we only left it to set out for Tournay, with four archers, who put fetters on our hands, and bound us together with cords. Our journey on foot was very painful. We went by Philippeville, Maubeuge, Valenciennes, and thence to Tournay. Every evening they placed us in the most frightful dungeons that they could find, giving us only bread and water, neither bed nor straw to rest on; and if we had deserved the wheel or the gallows, we could not have been treated more cruelly. At last, arrived at Tournay, we were confined in the prison of the parliament. We had not a sou; and as no charitable person entered this prison to assist the prisoners, as is the custom in so many jails, and having only a pound and a half of bread a day, we soon nearly died of hunger. The curé of the parish obtained the consent of the parliament that our act of indictment should not be revised till he had exercised his mission upon us, hoping, as he said, to convert us. But the curé, either by idleness or to constrain us by famine, only came to see us every eight or fifteen days, and then he spoke so little to us about religion,

that we had not even the trouble of defending ourselves; and when we wished to tell him our sentiments upon the truths of the reformed religion, he cut us short. 'Another time,' said he; and off he went. Meanwhile, we became so thin and attenuated, that we could no longer stand, and were obliged to lie down upon a little damp straw, filled with vermin, close to the door of our cell, through a hole in which our bread was thrown to us, as if we were dogs; for if we had strayed farther away from the door, we should not have had the strength to go and take it, so weak were we. In this extremity, we sold to the turnkey, for a little bread, our coats and waistcoats, as well as a few shirts which we had, only reserving the one which we wore, and which soon fell into rags. In this state, the most miserable which can be imagined, we saw no one but the curé, who sometimes paid us a visit, rather to mock us than to show us any compassion. The object of his mission was to askus if we were not weary of suffering thus, and to tell us that we were not to be pitied, since our deliverance and welfare depended upon ourselves and our renouncing the errors of Calvin. last his discourses were so wearisome to us, that we did not deign to answer him.

At

Such was our situation in the prison of the parliament of Tournay during nearly six weeks; at the end of which,

one morning about nine o'clock, the jailor threw us a broom through the door, telling us to sweep out our dungeon well, as they were just about to bring two gentlemen to keep us company. We asked him of what they were accused. 'They are,' said he, 'Huguenots, like you ;' and then he left us. A quarter of an hour afterwards the door of our cell opened, and the jailor and some soldiers, armed with swords and muskets, led into it two young gentlemen, covered with lace from head to foot. As soon as this escort had thrust them into our cell, they shut the door and went away. We recognised these gentlemen as being two of our fellow-townsmen, sons of well-to-do citizens of Bergerac, with whom we had been very intimate, having been schoolfellows together. They, on their part, did not recognise us, for the misery in which we were made it absolutely impossible for any one to do so. We were the first to salute them, calling them by name. One was named Sorbier, the other Rivasson. But they pretended to be nobles: Sorbier called himself Chevalier, and Rivasson Marquis, titles which they had assumed to facilitate their escape from France. Hearing themselves addressed in our patois, they inquired who we were; we told them our names and our country. They were very much astonished, and told us that our relatives and friends, during the six or seven months since

money,' giving him the louis d'or at the same time.

'Very well, gentlemen,' said

have? will you have soup and boiled beef?'

we had left Bergerac, hearing nothing of us, believed us to be dead, or assassinated on the road. Indeed, since our deten-he, what would you like to tion we had not been allowed to write. Then we all four embraced each other, shedding abundance of tears at the sad situation in which we found ourselves.

These gentlemen asked us if we had anything to eat, for they were hungry. We gave them our wretched morsel of bread, intended for the whole day, and the pitcher of water for our drink. 'Good God!' they cried, 'shall we be treated in this manner? and can we by payment have something to eat and drink?'

Yes, yes,' said I; 'a good thick soup, and a ten-pound loaf, and some beer.'

'You shall have it all in an hour,' said he.

'In an hour!' I replied. 'What a long time!'

The two gentlemen could not help laughing at my eagerness to get something to eat.

At last the long-desired hour arrived. They brought us a thick cabbage soup, a dish of boiled beef, and a ten-pound loaf. The two gentlemen ate very little; but as for my com

'Certainly,' said I, 'for money; but there is the diffi-panion and myself, we fell upon culty; we have not seen a coin for nearly three months.'

'Oh, oh!' said they, 'if we can have what we want for money, it is all right.' At the same time they cut the seams of their belts and trousers, and the soles of their shoes, and nearly 400 louis d'or fell out. I confess that I never felt greater joy than the sight of the gold caused me; for I foresaw that we should eat a good meal, and no longer languish in hunger. Our friends now gave me a coin, requesting me to try to get something to eat. I knocked with all my strength at the door. The jailor came and asked us what we wanted.

'To eat,' I said to him, 'for

the soup in such a ravenous
manner, that I suffered greatly
in consequence, having so long
been accustomed to a spare
diet.
diet. An apothecary was sent
for, who gave me an emetic,
without which I should pro-
bably have died.

I

When I had recovered, they asked me through what bad luck we had been reduced to this miserable condition. told them all which had passed since our departure from Bergerac up to the present time. They began to weep on account of their own weakness, confessing to us that they had resolved to abjure their religion rather than be condemned to the galleys.

'What an example, gentle

mised this half louis d'or extremely, eating nothing but bread. However, we had no time to spend it in the parlia

men,' said I, 'do you bring us here! We should wish rather never to have seen you, than to find you holding sentiments so opposed to the education whichment prison, for we were transyour parents gave you, and to the faith in which you have been instructed. Do you not tremble for fear of the just judgment of God, who declares that those who know their Master's will and do it not, shall be beaten with more stripes than those who are ignorant of it?'

'What would you have us do?' they replied. "We cannot make up our minds to go to the galleys. You are very fortunate in having courage to do so, and we praise you for it; but speak no more about it-our resolution is taken.' We could do nothing but lament and sigh over their weakness, and pray God to bring them to a better mind.

Sorbier and Rivasson prevented us from dying of hunger, as I have already said. We knew that they had plenty of money; and the fear that we should be again reduced to starvation after their departure, made me supplicate them with clasped hands to leave us three or four louis d'or. I told them that I would write out an order, so that my father should pay them at Bergerac. But they were so hard-hearted that they would only leave us half a louis, which I gave back to them when we met in the prisons of Lille, in Flanders, a few days before their release. We econo

ferred to the prison of the tower, named Le Beffroi, at the request of the Bishop of Tournay, who, having heard of the indifference, or rather negligence and ignorance of the curé who visited us,-in converting us,determined to have us placed in a prison of his own diocese.

Here we were, then, in the prison of Beffroi, where we were much better off than in that of the parliament. Many Protestants, respectable citizens of Tournay, had permission to visit us. They greased the paw,' as the expression is, of the jailor, who, at their solicitation, opened our cell door every morning that we might take the air in a small courtyard close by for several hours, often till the evening. There our zealous friends frequently came to see us, consoling us as much as they could, and exhorting us to perseverance. The grand vicar, Regnier, often met them there, but without taking the least offence at it.

One day about nine in the morning our jailor put five persons into our cell, and then retired. We looked at each other, and soon recognised three of these gentlemen as being from Bergerac ; but we did not know the other two, who burst into tears on embracing us, as each of the three first did, calling us

by name, and appearing to know us intimately. Surprised at not knowing these two persons, who did not cease to embrace us, and to lament our condition as much as their own, we asked Sieur Dupuy-who was one of the three-who these two persons were.

'One,' said he, 'is Mademoiselle Madras, and the other Mademoiselle Conceil, of Bergerac, your good friends, who have exposed themselves to the perilous journey of escaping from France with us, in men's attire, as you now see them, and who have endured the fatigue of this painful journey on foot with a firmness and constancy, extraordinary for persons brought up in refinement, and who, previous to this expedition, would not have been able to walk a league.'

We saluted these two ladies, but represented to them the impropriety of their remaining thus disguised, and continuing in the same cell with five young men, which our enemies would certainly magnify into a scandalous crime. I begged them to allow me to acquaint the jailor with their disguise, which could in no way serve them at present, and that they ought now to declare their names and sex, and confess the truth with firmness and constancy. The gentlemen were of my opinion, and the ladies consented. I called the jailor, and having told him about it, he made these ladies leave our cell, put

them into a private room, and told the judge, who gave them clothes suitable to their sex. We have not seen them since, for they were condemned for the remainder of their days to the convent of the 'Repentants' at Paris, to which they were taken, at the time their companions in suffering were condemned to the galleys, for attempting to escape the kingdom.

After the space of six weeks, we were for a second time deprived of our fellow-prisoners; for these three gentlemen were conducted to Lille, where the chain of galley slaves sembled. They were bound, two and two together, by their hands.

as

Thus bound, at ten o'clock in the morning they took them out of the prison to lead them to Lille. Their departure much afflicted us.

Some weeks after the loss of our friends, the archers of the Grand Provost came to conduct us also to Lille, in Flanders, to join a chain of galley-slaves there assembled. We were

bound, and fetters put on our hands. We arrived at Lille in the evening, exhausted with the fatigue of walking these five leagues, and much inconvenienced by our bonds. They took us to the town prison, where the tower of St. Pierre is set apart for the galley-slaves, on account of the thickness of its walls. On entering the prison, the jailor searched us all over; and as, either by chance or pre-arranged design, there

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