A young student, who already held a living, though not yet in priest’s orders, had believed in the Gospel, and had boldly declared that there was no other saviour but Jesus Christ, and that the Virgin Mary had no more power than other saints.[478] This youthful cleric of Thérouanne in Picardy had been imprisoned in 1525, and terrified by the punishment. On Christmas-eve, with a lighted torch in his hand and stripped to his shirt, he had ‘asked pardon of God and of Mary before the church of Notre Dame.’ In consideration of his ‘very great penitence,’ it was thought sufficient to confine him for seven years on bread and water in the prison of St. Martin des Champs. Alone in his dungeon, the scholar heard the voice of God in the depths of his heart; he began to weep hot tears, and ‘forthwith,’ says the chronicler, ‘he returned to his folly.’ Whenever a monk entered his prison, the young cleric proclaimed the Gospel to him; the monks were astonished at such raving; all the convent was in a ferment and confusion. Dr. Merlin, the grand penitentiary, went to the prisoner in person, preached to him, advised and entreated him, but all to no effect. By order of the court, the young evangelist ‘was burnt at the Grève in Paris,’ and others underwent the same punishment. Such was the method employed in that cruel age to force the doctrine of the Church back into the hearts of those who rejected it: they made use of scourges to beat them, and cords to strangle them. It was not only in Paris that severity was used against the Lutherans: the same was done in the provinces. Young Pierre Toussaint, prebendary of Metz, who had taken refuge at Basle after the death of Leclerc,[479] having regained his courage, returned to France and proclaimed the Gospel. His enemies seized him, and gave him up to the Abbot of St. Antoine. This abbot, a well-known character, was a violent, cruel, and merciless man.[480] Neither Toussaint’s youth, nor his candour, nor his weak health could touch him; he threw his victim into a horrible dungeon full of stagnant water and other filth,[481] where the young evangelist could hardly stand. With his back against the wall, and his feet on the only spot in the dungeon which the water did not reach, stifled by the poisonous vapours emitted around him, the young man remembered the cheerful house of his uncle the Dean of Metz and the magnificent palace of the Cardinal of Lorraine, where he had been received so kindly while he still believed in the pope. What a contrast now! Toussaint’s health declined, his cheeks grew pale, and his trembling legs could hardly support him. Alas! where were those days when still a child he ran joyously round the room riding on a stick,[482] and when his mother seriously uttered this prophecy: ‘Antichrist will soon come and destroy all who are converted.’ The wretched Toussaint thought the moment had arrived.... His imagination became excited, he fancied he saw the terrible antichrist foretold by