Our heaviest troubles began, of course, in the year 1685, when King Louis revoked the Edict of Nantes; but for years before that the Huguenots were afflicted with innumerable unjust restrictions. There was one of the king’s decrees that caused more confusion than all the others put together. This was the law permitting children at the age of seven to renounce the faith in which they had been bred, and to enter the Roman church. Every kind of inducement was held out to persuade them to acknowledge belief in the Catholic religion. Once confessed, they were considered to be under the jurisdiction of the priesthood. When dolls, fairy stories, idle promises of childish pleasures, failed to make a mere infant nod to some statement mumbled by the priest—when all such ways of seducing little children failed, they were often shamelessly kidnapped and carried away to a convent by force. It was mainly against this latter danger that I had to protect Ruth, for she clung so tenaciously to me and to our Protestant faith that I had no fear of their cajoling her by any fair and open means. One day Ruth and I were walking in the fields near the edge of Paris. We were on our way home about twilight, and Ruthie, as I called her then, danced ahead of me like a golden-haired butterfly. She always danced—bless her heart!—and carried sunlight wherever she went. Suddenly, while she was passing the dark gateway of a court-yard, a priest in a black mantle stepped out from the covered way and caught my sister by the arm. “Come in here,” he cried insinuatingly, at the same time drawing her swiftly towards the doorway. Ruth resisted, and then the priest clapped a big hand over her mouth so she could not scream. Shame on him! And she a mere child! But he was reckoning without me when he made that false move. I was at her side even before he noticed me. He called for help and soon brought another priest to his assistance. Even so, it was only two to one, which was hardly fair considering my size and the fact that I had been bred to arms. It was a dreadful thing for me to do, but, in a trice, and without even stopping to draw my sword, I had stretched one of them unconscious upon the ground and sent the other crying for help, with his blood dripping all the way. For the moment, the rashness of my deed quite overcame me. I had struck a priest. In those days the penalty for such an offence could be none other than death; and Ruth would be left alone to worse than death. She and I resolved to fly from the capital and to escape from the country altogether if we could. We packed what little of value we possessed, and in twenty minutes had left our lodgings behind us. It was our haste only—always excepting the grace of God—that saved us from immediate pursuit. Even so, it seems a miracle that we got out of the city and found ourselves safe upon the road to La Rochelle.