Massacres of the South (1551-1815): Celebrated CrimesDumas, Alexandre
History
Massacres of the South (1551-1815): Celebrated Crimes
Dumas, Alexandre
Crime
At that instant three shots were fired from the ramparts, and cries of
“Treachery! treachery!” were heard on every side. The Catholic chiefs
returned to the tower, while the Protestants, believing that the
commissioners were being assassinated, reopened the cannonade; but
finding that it took too long to complete the breach, ladders were
brought, the walls scaled, and the towers carried by assault. Some of
the Catholics were killed, the others gained Froment’s house, where,
encouraged by him, they tried to organise a resistance; but the
assailants, despite the oncoming darkness, attacked the place with such
fury that doors and windows were shattered in an instant. Froment and
his brother Pierre tried to escape by a narrow staircase which led to
the roof, but before they reached it Pierre was wounded in the hip and
fell; but Froment reached the roof, and sprang upon an adjacent
housetop, and climbing from roof to roof, reached the college, and
getting into it by a garret window, took refuge in a large room which
was always unoccupied at night, being used during the day as a study.
Froment remained hidden there until eleven o’clock. It being then
completely dark, he got out of the window, crossed the city, gained the
open country, and walking all night, concealed himself during the day in
the house of a Catholic. The next night he set off again, and reached
the coast, where he embarked on board a vessel for Italy, in order to
report to those who had sent him the disastrous result of his
enterprise.
For three whole days the carnage lasted. The Protestants losing all
control over themselves, carried on the work of death not only without
pity but with refined cruelty. More than five hundred Catholics lost
their lives before the 17th, when peace was restored.
For a long time recriminations went on between Catholics and
Protestants, each party trying to fix on the other the responsibility
for those dreadful three days; but at last Franqois Froment put an end
to all doubt on the subject, by publishing a work from which are set
forth many of the details just laid before our readers, as well as the
reward he met with when he reached Turin. At a meeting of the French
nobles in exile, a resolution was passed in favour of M. Pierre Froment
and his children, inhabitants of Nimes.
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