Massacres of the South (1551-1815): Celebrated CrimesDumas, Alexandre
History
Massacres of the South (1551-1815): Celebrated Crimes
Dumas, Alexandre
Crime
As may easily be supposed, the “Cadets of the Cross” vied with both
Catholics and Protestants in the work of destruction. One of their bands
devoted itself to destroying everything belonging to the new converts
from Beaucaire to Nimes. They killed a woman and two children at
Campuget, an old man of eighty at a farm near Bouillargues, several
persons at Cicure, a young girl at Caissargues, a gardener at Nimes, and
many other persons, besides carrying off all the flocks, furniture, and
other property they could lay hands on, and burning down the farmhouses
of Clairan, Loubes, Marine, Carlot, Campoget Miraman, La Bergerie, and
Larnac—all near St. Gilies and Manduel. “They stopped travellers on the
highways,” says Louvreloeil, “and by way of finding out whether they
were Catholic or not, made them say in Latin the Lord’s Prayer, the Ave
Maria, the Symbol of the Faith, and the General Confession, and those
who were unable to do this were put to the sword. In Dions nine corpses
were found supposed to have been killed by their hands, and when the
body of a shepherd who had been in the service of the Sieur de
Roussiere, a former minister, was found hanging to a tree, no one
doubted who were the murderers. At last they went so far that one of
their bands meeting the Abbe de Saint Gilles on the road, ordered him to
deliver up to them one of his servants, a new convert, in order to put
him to death. It was in vain that the abbe remonstrated with them,
telling them it was a shame to put such an affront on a man of his birth
and rank; they persisted none the less in their determination, till at
last the abbe threw his arms round his servant and presented his own
body to the blows directed at the other.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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