ladies," answered Cazotte, "will not protect you this time, and however careful you may be not to be mixed up with politics, you will be treated exactly like the men. You also, Duchess, with many ladies before and after you, will have to mount the scaffold, and more than that, they will carry you there on the hangman's cart, with your hands bound behind your back." The duchess, perhaps looking upon the whole as a jest, said, smiling: "Well, I think I shall at least have a coach lined with black." "No, no," replied Cazotte, "the hangman's cart will be your last carriage, and even greater ladies than you will have to ride in it." "Surely not princesses of the royal blood?" asked the duchess. "Still greater ones," answered Cazotte. "But they will not deny us a confessor?" she continued. "Yes," replied the other, "only the greatest of all who will be executed will have one." "But what will become of you, M. Cazotte?" asked the guests, who began at last to feel thoroughly uncomfortable. "My fate," was the reply, "will be the fate of the man who called out, Woe! over Jerusalem, before the last siege, and Woe! over himself, while a stone, thrown by the enemy, ended his life." With these words Cazotte bowed and withdrew from the room. However much of the details may have been subsequently added to the prediction, the fact of such a prophecy has never yet been impugned, and William Burt, who was a witness of the scene, emphatically endorses the account. Even the stern Calvinists have had their religious prophets, among whom Du Serre is probably the most interesting. He established himself in 1686 in the Dauphiné, but extended his operations soon into the Cevennes, and thus prepared the great uprising of Protestants there in 1688, which led to fearful war and general devastation. Special gifts of prophecy were accorded to a few generally uneducated persons; but in these they appeared very strikingly, so that, for instance, many young girls belonging to the lowest classes of society, and entirely unlettered, were not only able to foretell coming events, but also to preach with great eloquence and to interpret Holy Writ. These phenomena became numerous enough to induce the _camisards_, as the rebellious Protestants of the Cevennes were called, finally to form a regular system of inspiration. They spoke of four degrees of ecstasis: the first indication, the inspiring breath, the prediction, and the gifts; the last was the highest. The spirit of prophecy could be communicated by an inspired person to others; this was generally done by a kiss. Even children of three and four years were enabled to foretell the future, and persevered, although they were often severely punished by their parents, whom the authorities held responsible for their misconduct, as it was called. (_Theâtre Sacré des Cevennes_, p. 66.) Nor has this gift of prophesying been noticed only in men of our own faith and our race.