Henry M. Baird · 212 of 379

CHAPTER IX · The elder D'Aubigné and his son.

On others, and especially upon those whose hearts throbbed with patriotic devotion, a less transient impression was made. Some months after, the young Agrippa d'Aubigné, then a mere child of ten years, was traversing the city of Amboise with his father. The impaled heads of the victims were still to be recognized. The barbarous sight moved the elder D'Aubigné's soul to its very depths. "They have beheaded France, hangmen that they are!" he cried out in the hearing of the hundreds that were present at the fair. Then, spurring his horse, he scarcely escaped the hands of the rabble who had caught his words. Afterward, when his young son had rejoined him, he placed his hand on Agrippa's head, and exclaimed, full of emotion: "My child, you must not spare your head after mine, to avenge these chieftains full of honor, whose heads you have just seen! If you spare yourself in this matter, you will have my curse."