Beza, alone remained faithful to him, more through compatibility of temperament than from identity of principles. The French Huguenots had, however, accepted as their supreme chief a theocrat like Calvin, who, for four-and-twenty years, never stepped without an escort of swords, of faggots, and of executioners (Fig. 325). [Illustration: Fig. 325.--Violence of the French Huguenots against the Catholics.--A. Noble lady of Montbrun (Charente) being tortured by soldiers whom she had hospitably welcomed. They are burning the soles of her feet with red-hot irons, and with the sharp edges of the irons cutting the skin from her legs in strips.--B. Master Jean Arnould, Procureur-Royal at Angoulême, after having had his limbs mutilated, is strangled in his own house.--C. The widow of the Procureur at the criminal court of that city, seventy years of age, being dragged by the hair through the streets.--Fac-simile of a Copper-plate in the “Theatrum Crudelitatum nostri Temporis” (4to, Antwerp, 1587).] [Illustration: Fig. 326.--Seal of an imaginary Bull of Lucifer, taken from the “Roi Modus,” a Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century, in the Burgundian Library, Brussels. The inscription on the seal seems to be cabalistic; at any rate, it is unintelligible.] It is therefore to Calvin and his personal influence that must be attributed the violent and merciless character which reform took during the sixteenth century, when the horrors of religious warfare were excused by the necessity of preaching the word of God to Christians who were anxious to hear it! THE INQUISITION. General Principles of the Inquisition; its Existence amongst the Greeks and Romans.--The Papal Inquisition.--The Inquisition in France.--The Albigenses.--The Royal Spanish Inquisition; its Political Purpose; it is opposed by the Popes.--Inquisitors of Toledo excommunicated by Leo X.--The Holy Hermandad.--The Spies of the Inquisition.--The Holy Office and the Supreme.--The Prisons of the Inquisition.--The _Auto-da-fé_.--The Inquisition in the Netherlands.--The Protestant Inquisition in Holland, Germany, France, England, and Switzerland.