So slenderly provided was the poor Huguenot, that he had taken with him no other outfit than a simple staff in his hand; neither purse nor scrip had he, nor carried any weapon of defence. Alone, and without fear, he went his way, solely intent on the errand he was about. His friend, who evidently regarded him with the utmost love and reverence, after describing his defenceless condition, his poverty, and his trustful spirit, humorously contrasts with all this the extravagant and absurd measures adopted by his enemies, who “constrained the bishop to produce money for the maintenance of a pursuit of the said Philebert, with horses, gendarmes, cooks, and cutlers.” With all this fuss and ado, they speedily transferred themselves to the islands of Allevert, where they re-baptized the child—thus, as far as was in their power, repairing the mischief done by the heretic, whom, though they failed to catch him in that place, they shortly discovered in the mansion of one of the neighbouring gentry; and, laying forcible hands on him, they carried him off as a malefactor, to the criminals’ prison in Saintes, where they lodged him in safe custody. Sore was the grief of Palissy when he learned that the friend whom he esteemed above all others, had thus been captured by wicked men; and well he knew that they had both power and will to destroy Hamelin. Indignation struggled in his breast with sorrow; and as he reflected on the blameless conversation, pure charity, and simple-heartedness of the man, he exclaimed—“I am full of wonder that men should have dared to sit in judgment of death over him, when they had heard and well knew, that his life was holy.” Not content with passively bewailing his friend’s calamity, he tells that he mustered hardihood, notwithstanding that these were perilous days, “to go and remonstrate with six of the principal judges and magistrates of the town, that they had imprisoned a prophet or an angel of the Lord,” assuring them that for eleven years he had known this Philebert Hamelin to be of so holy a life that it seemed to him as if other men were devils compared with him.