Measures were at once taken for the arrest of every Lutheran in Paris . A poor artisan , an adherent of the reformed faith , who had been accustomed to summon the believers to their secret assemblies , was seized and , with the threat of instant death at the stake , was commanded to conduct the papal emissary to the home of every Protestant in the city . He shrank in horror from the base proposal , but at last fear of the flames prevailed , and he consented to become the betrayer of his brethren . Preceded by the host , and surrounded by a train of priests , incense bearers , monks , and soldiers , Morin , the royal detective , with the traitor , slowly and silently passed through the streets of the city . The demonstration was ostensibly in honour of the " holy sacrament ," an act of expiation for the insult put upon the mass by the protesters . But beneath this pageant a deadly purpose was concealed . On arriving opposite the house of a Lutheran , the betrayer made a sign , but no word was uttered . The procession halted , the house was entered , the family were dragged forth and chained , and the terrible company went forward in search of fresh victims . They " spared no house , great or small , not even the colleges of the University of Paris . . . . Morin made all the city quake . . . . It was a reign of terror ." -- Ibid ., b . 4 , ch . 10 .
The victims were put to death with cruel torture , it being specially ordered that the fire should be lowered in order to prolong their agony . But they died as conquerors . Their constancy were unshaken , their peace unclouded . Their persecutors , powerless to move their inflexible firmness , felt themselves defeated . " The scaffolds were distributed over all the quarters of Paris , and the burnings followed on successive days , the design being to spread the terror of heresy by spreading the executions . The advantage , however , in the end , remained with the gospel . All Paris was enabled to see what kind of men the new opinions could produce . There was no pulpit like the martyr ' s pile . The serene joy that lighted up the faces of these men as they passed along . . . to the place of execution , their heroism as they stood amid the bitter flames , their meek forgiveness of injuries , transformed , in instances not a few , anger into pity , and hate into love , and pleaded with resistless eloquence in behalf of the gospel ." --Wylie , b . 13 , ch . 20 .
The priests , bent upon keeping the popular fury at its height , circulated the most terrible accusations against the Protestants . They were charged with plotting to massacre the Catholics , to overthrow the government , and to murder the king . Not a shadow of evidence could be produced in support of the allegations . Yet these prophecies of evil were to have a fulfillment ; under far different circumstances , however , and from causes of an opposite character . The cruelties that were inflicted upon the innocent Protestants by the Catholics accumulated in a weight of retribution , and in after centuries wrought the very doom they had predicted to be impending , upon the king , his government , and his subjects ; but it was brought about by infidels and by the papists themselves . It was not the establishment , but the suppression , of Protestantism , that , three hundred years later , was to bring upon France these dire calamities .
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