Henry M. Baird · 192 of 379

CHAPTER IX · He deplores the result.

But the martyrdom of Du Bourg was not a solitary case. The same consequences flowed from the public execution of others, whose dying words and actions shook to its very foundations the fabric of superstition reared in many a spectator's heart. Florimond de Ræmond, himself an advocate of persecution in the abstract, noticed and deplored the inevitable result. "Meanwhile funeral piles were kindled in all directions. But as, on the one hand, the severity of justice and of the laws restrained the people in their duty, so the incredible obstinacy of those who were led to execution, and who suffered their lives to be taken from them rather than their opinions, amazed many. For who can abstain from wonder when simple women willingly undergo tortures in order to give a proof of their faith, and, while led to death, call upon Jesus Christ their Saviour, and sing psalms; when maidens hasten to the most excruciating torments with greater alacrity than to their nuptials; when men leap for joy at the terrible sight of the preparations for execution, and, half-burned, from the funeral pile mock the authors of their sufferings; when, with indomitable strength of courage and joyful countenance, they endure the lacerating of their bodies by means of heated pincers; when, in short, like an immovable rock, they receive and break all the billows of the most bitter sufferings at the hands of the executioner, and, like those who have eaten the Sardinian herb, die laughing? The lamentable sight of such incredible constancy as this created no little doubt in the minds not only of the simple, but of men of authority. For they could not believe that cause to be bad for which death was so willingly undergone. Others pitied the miserable, and burned with indignation against their persecutors. Whenever they beheld the blackened stakes with the chains attached—memorials of executions—they could not restrain their tears. The desire consequently seized many to read their books, and to become acquainted with the foundations of the faith from which it seemed impossible to tear them by the most refined tortures.... Why need I say more? The greater the number of those who were consigned to the flames, the greater the number of those who seemed to spring from their ashes."