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CHAPTER IX · The persecution continues.

For persecuted the Protestants continued to be. The death of Henry did not for an instant interrupt the work of searching for and punishing reputed heretics. The brief term must be improved, during which the Spaniards and other strangers who had come to witness the marriage festivities were still present, to fulfil the promises given to the Dukes of Alva and Savoy, and demonstrate the catholicity of the Very Christian King. Three days after the fatal termination of Henry's wound in the tournament, the English ambassador wrote to his government: "In the midst of all these great matters and business, they here do not stay to make persecution and sacrifice of poor souls: for the twelfth of this present, two men and one woman were executed for religion; and the thirteenth of the same there was proclamation made by the sound of trumpet, that all such as should speak either against the church or the religion now used in France should be brought before the bishops of the dioceses, and they to do execution upon them." On the fourteenth of July, only four days after Henry's death, new steps were taken to bring to trial the five counsellors of parliament arrested on the day of the famous "Mercuriale." An account of these proceedings, and in particular of those instituted against Anne du Bourg, will presently be given.