Massacres of the South (1551-1815): Celebrated CrimesDumas, Alexandre
History
Massacres of the South (1551-1815): Celebrated Crimes
Dumas, Alexandre
Crime
A young fellow of fifteen, named Payre, in passing near the guard placed
at the Pont des files, had been asked by a red-tuft if he were Catholic
or Protestant. On his replying he was Protestant, he was shot dead on
the spot. “That was like killing a lamb,” said a comrade to the
murderer. “Pooh!” said he, “I have taken a vow to kill four Protestants,
and he may pass for one.”
M Maigre, an old man of eighty-two, head of one of the most respected
families in the neighbourhood, tried to escape from his house along with
his son, his daughter-in-law, two grandchildren, and two servants; but
the carriage was stopped, and while the rebels were murdering him and
his son, the mother and her two children succeeded in escaping to an
inn, whither the assassins pursued them, Fortunately, however, the two
fugitives having a start, reached the inn a few minutes before their
pursuers, and the innkeeper had enough presence of mind to conceal them
and open the garden gate by which he said they had escaped. The
Catholics, believing him, scattered over the country to look for them,
and during their absence the mother and children were rescued by the
mounted patrol.
The exasperation of the Protestants rose higher and higher as reports of
these murders came in one by one, till at last the desire for vengeance
could no longer be repressed, and they were clamorously insisting on
being led against the ramparts and the towers, when without warning a
heavy fusillade began from the windows and the clock tower of the
Capuchin monastery. M. Massin, a municipal officer, was killed on the
spot, a sapper fatally wounded, and twenty-five of the National Guard
wounded more or less severely. The Protestants immediately rushed
towards the monastery in a disorderly mass; but the superior, instead of
ordering the gates to be opened, appeared at a window above the
entrance, and addressing the assailants as the vilest of the vile, asked
them what they wanted at the monastery. “We want to destroy it, we want
to pull it down till not one stone rests upon another,” they replied.
Upon this, the reverend father ordered the alarm bells to be rung, and
from the mouths of bronze issued the call for help; but before it could
arrive, the door was burst in with hatchets, and five Capuchins and
several of the militia who wore the red tuft were killed, while all the
other occupants of the monastery ran away, taking refuge in the house of
a Protestant called Paulhan. During this attack the church was
respected; a man from Sornmieres, however, stole a pyx which he found in
the sacristy, but as soon as his comrades perceived this he was arrested
and sent to prison.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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