When the poor folks answered that they were ready to sacrifice their property and even their life for the king, but not their conscience, then the dragoons were brought on the scene. After a few days, there was a new convocation, a new appeal, and generally all resistance ceased. The terror became at length so great that the mere announcement of the approach of the military, was sufficient to drive the Reformed people, conscious of their helplessness, to pronounce the formula of abjuration. It was the opinion of many that it might be lawful to bend before violence, provided their internal faith remained intact; many also abjured, to secure the opportunity of flight. It is also to be remarked that the formulas of recantation were often drawn up in such a way that they did not bind the conscience very strictly. What the public officers and the priests were most desirous of, was a large number of proselytes. Many of the Reformers simply said: “I rejoin.” Others were even authorized to frame their act of abjuration in these terms: “I acknowledge and confess the Catholic and Apostolic church of Rome, as it was in the time of the apostles;” or, “conformably to the doctrine of our Lord Jesus Christ;” or, again, “while loving God and Jesus Christ, and adoring Him only with the fitting worship.” But this was, at least on the part of the priesthood, only a concession for the moment. “They were soon revisited after a few days,” says the pastor Claude in his _Plaintes des Protestants de France_, “and did not escape until they had signed another formulary, whereby they were entirely committed; and what was most impudent, is, that they were obliged at the same time to acknowledge that they embraced the Romish religion of their own free will, and without any inducement through fear, or other extraneous cause. If, after that, they made any difficulty about going to mass, if they did not communicate, if they were not present at processions, if they did not confess, if they did not tell their beads, if they allowed a sigh or a murmur of complaint to escape them, they were chastised with fines, and with a recommencement of the billeting of soldiers upon them.”[95]