it remained faithful to its traditions till the last moment at which they could be carried into practice.

We have seen already* that from about the beginning of the second quarter of the eighteenth century, the vigour of the persecutions relaxed gradually and variably, but sensibly. Not only did arrests for religion become less frequent, but the galleys, the prisons, and the Tower of Constance began to disgorge their prey. The good word of a nobleman, a state-official, or even a distinguished author or philosopher, could procure the release of a prisoner with little difficulty. The moderately rich, and now and then the comparatively poor, could purchase their freedom; and in some cases the hardships of captivity and servitude were alleviated. After the middle of the century a faint approach to toleration of Protestantism seemed to be made.

In these circumstances a young Pastor, François Rochette, ventured to seek rest at the mineral springs of St. Antonin. On his way thither he was requested to baptize a child in the little town of Caussade, at some distance from his route. He travelled to the village by night, with two peasants for guides. The little party was arrested by the police, who thought they belonged to a gang of robbers that infested the neighbourhood. The mistake was speedily discovered, and Rochette was recognised. As he had not been seized while performing any ministerial function, his captors, who admired and pitied him, offered to release him if he would speak any words which they could construe into a denial of his identity. But the Preacher would consent to no evasion of the truth, and the three Huguenots were necessarily taken before the Mayor of Caussade, who committed them to prison.

Tidings of the event spread with extraordinary rapidity. Early in the morning crowds of Huguenots poured into the town to entreat for the deliverance of their beloved Pastor. The Catholics industriously circulated the report that another Camisard insurrection was imminent, or that at any rate the prisoners were to be released by force. Three Protestant gentlemen, the brothers Grenier, rashly came to Caussade with arms in their hands. The narratives of their arrest are not very intelligible. They seem to have joined prominently in the appeal to the mayor, and finding it fruitless, to have started upon their homeward journey. They were pursued, dogs being employed to track their footsteps, and soon shared the same gaol as Rochette and his comrades. It is worthy of notice that from first to last no one charged the Greniers with using their weapons.

* See The Church of the Desert, in this Miscellany, for Nov. and Dec., 1882.

Fearful, apparently, that the ordinary judges would not deal with the accused with sufficient rigour, the Parliament of Toulouse claimed cognisance of the matter. After a prolonged but atrociously partial trial, sentence was pronounced: the Pastor and the three brothers were condemned to death, the two peasants to the galleys for life. When the sentence was communicated to Rochette and the Greniers, they knelt down, and the Minister prayed that God would accept the sacrifice of their lives which they were about to offer Him. The Popish usher of the court was affected to tears. Strenuous efforts were put forth to induce the four Huguenots to change their religion. To threats of eternal torment if he did not abjure, Rochette calmly answered, 'We shall shortly appear before a Judge more just than you.' To some soldiers who compassionated him, he said, 'Are you not yet ready to die for the king; why should you then weep for me who am to die for God?' The three gentlemen showed equal constancy, though they could not brook patiently the wearisome exhortations of the priests to recant: 'If you were at Geneva,' retorted one of them, 'about to die in your bed -for there they kill nobody for religion's sake-how would you like four ministers, under pretence of zeal, to come and persecute you to your very last breath?' The abashed priests, for lack of answer, withdrew.

The execution took place on February 19th, 1762. Rochette walked to the gallows stripped to his shirt, his head and feet bare, the rope round his neck. A paper was pinned on his back bearing the words, 'Minister of the pretended Reformed religion.' The hangman, with kind-hearted bigotry, besought the Pastor to 'die a Catholic.' 'Judge,' he replied, 'whether is the better religion, that which persecutes or that which is persecuted.' While the final preparations were being made, the four martyrs sang a psalm of praise. Rochette was hanged; the three Greniers were beheaded, after an ineffectual effort to terrify the youngest into abjuration by the sight of his brothers' blood.

Streets, windows, house-tops, terraces, and stands of various sorts, were packed with spectators of the execution. The demeanour of the crowd must have been the reverse of satisfactory to the Roman Catholic authorities. Huguenots were present in large numbers; and they did not hesitate to manifest their grief and anger and sympathy. But the Catholics themselves showed unequivocal signs of admiration of the heretics and disapproval of the authorities. 'Toulouse seemed a Protestant town,' declared an eye-witness. Something was due to the youth and handsome figure of Rochette, something to his courageous and devout bearing, something to the social

position and the undaunted constancy of the Greniers; but it was only too evident that public opinion stigmatized the executions as cruel and unnecessary murders, and regarded the four Huguenots not as vile criminals, but as sincere, even if possibly mistaken, martyrs. Such a change of sentiment in Toulouse, 'the city of blood,' must have been as startling as unwelcome to the Popish rulers.

No direct connection can be traced between the scene and comments at the execution of Rochette and the brothers Grenier, and the tragedy which was consummated nineteen days afterwards. But the most reasonable explanation of what would otherwise be a purposeless crime is that the Popish priests eagerly availed themselves of an opportunity to turn the growing popular sympathy with the Huguenots into fanatical hatred. For once, however, the schemes of evil, though successful at first, ultimately wrought out their own defeat.

There lived in Toulouse a Protestant tradesman, Jean Calas by name, who had passed the sixty-four years of his life as quietly and inoffensively as a Huguenot could. The entire family followed the faith of their father, except one son, who had been perverted through the influence of a Roman Catholic servant. The servant was permitted to continue in the household, though she had so grievously abused her trust- a tolerably clear indication of Calas' lenient temper. The law allowed no one to practise any of the learned professions without a certificate of Catholicism, which, however, was granted and accepted not unfrequently as a mere matter of form. This certificate was refused to the eldest son of Jean Calas-Marc Antoine; and after repeated failures to obtain it, he settled down discontentedly to assist in his father's shop. Feeling the business to be unbearable drudgery, he sought relief in gambling, billiards, and loose company. He was entrusted with money in the course of trade, for which he professed himself unable to account. One evening he sat down as usual with the family to an early supper, but left the room before the meal was fairly finished. For weeks he had grown taciturn, so that his silence and absent-mindedness that evening passed unremarked. A friend who was visiting Toulouse, remained with the household till about ten o'clock. Pierre, the youngest son, carrying a light, accompanied him downstairs to the outer door. Speedily the two returned with the terrifying intelligence that Marc Antoine had committed suicide.

The body was found suspended by the neck from a log of wood laid across the open leaves of a folding-door that divided the front from the back shop. Pierre, in wild excitement, ran everywhere spreading the dreadful news. As the nearest neighbours arrived, the

father unadvisedly begged them to keep the occurrence a secret, so that his son might not be deprived of Christian burial. A great crowd soon collected, and amongst it was David de Beaudrigue, a titular Capitoul of Toulouse,'* and a zealous Catholic. This official conceived, or adopted, the brilliant idea that Jean Calas had murdered his son because he was about to forsake his paternal creed, and that the whole household, including the visitor and the Romanist maidservant, were accessories before the fact, or possibly assistants in the deed. In vain was it pointed out to him that Jean Calas was a semiparalytic old man, and Marc Antoine in the vigour of his age; that the young man's upper garments had been taken off and folded neatly; that neither the body nor the clothes that covered it, nor even the shop, bore the slightest marks of any struggle. Jean Calas was a Huguenot, and that was sufficient presumptive evidence of guilt.

The prisoners were tried before a court of which the magistrate, who had already prejudged the case, was a prominent member. It rejected all evidence in favour of the accused, and allowed the merest untested hearsay and unsupported conjectures as evidence against them. Yet even this atrocious travestie of evidence required manufacture. The Brothers of the White Penitents went throughout the city inflaming the passions of the mob, and spreading the most preposterous calumnies against the Huguenots. They murdered, it was said, all children who abjured the Reformers' religion, their meetings in the desert were held to elect executioners. Marc Antoine Calas had fallen a victim to this practice; and so on. Masses were offered for the repose of the (so-called) martyr's soul; visions were reported to be seen of his ghost, with the martyr's palm in its hand. The Archbishop of Toulouse issued a pastoral which was read in all the churches, assuming the guilt of the prisoners, denouncing their crime, and ascribing it to the principles held by Protestants, and commanding all good Catholics to come forward with any condemnatory evidence they could gather by rumour or otherwise.

The court sentenced Jean Calas to be broken upon the wheel, and announced its intention of burning his wife alive if they could obtain further testimony. The Parliament of Toulouse duly ratified the finding.

The problem how to extort more abundant incriminating evidence remained unsolved. Jean Calas was therefore put to the torture 'by water and by rack,' that some words might be extorted from his agony that could be used against the members of his household.

He

* A titular Capitoul was one who had bought the rank and rights of Councillor of Parliament and judge without previous legal training.

endured the most excruciating and protracted pain the human body can bear without dying, but no confession could be wrung from him. Even when his broken body hung upon the wheel, expiring in slow torment, not one syllable could be extorted from him of the character his murderers hoped for. To the last he protested his own perfect innocence and that of his family. The priest who was stationed by his side to catch from his dying lips some acknowledgment of guilt, was so impressed with his fortitude and his persistent declarations of innocence, that he waited upon each of the judges separately to convey to them Calas' last testimony and his own conviction of its truth. After this the unscrupulous Parliament of Toulouse itself dared not detain the other prisoners in custody.

Though Jean Calas did not die in defence of his faith, yet he deserves to be reckoned on the roll of the Huguenot martyrs. His faith was the cause of his violent and cruel death; and, as will appear in the sequel, his judicial murder put an end to the slaughter of the men of the religion' for righteousness' sake.

(To be concluded.)

ON HIS DAY:

A MORNING PORTION FOR THE SABBATH.

BY THE REV. G. STRINGER ROWE.

MARCH 4th.- Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup.-1 COR. XI. 27, 28.

This is a very solemn admonition. Let me take good care that I make no ill use of it. And surely I shall use it grievously amiss if, through dread of the evil against which it is spoken, I fall into the sin of disobeying the Lord, and forsake the Table whither He has charged me to come. If these words be rightly considered, there is nothing in them to deter the feeblest disciple from taking his place in the Lord's appointed Communion. Let me, then, search into their meaning. What is this great sin-guilty of the body and blood of the Lord? They who eat this bread and drink this cup, do showproclaim-the Lord's death. But if any do this without accepting Him as the atonement-for the pardon of their sins and the cleansing away of their unrighteousness-His death leaves on them nothing but the guilt of His murder. Thus it is said elsewhere (Heb. vi. 6) of those who renounce their faith in Him as the Christ, that they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put Him to an open ghame,