“There was another observation made of this (accident), not only by the Protestants, but some of the moderate Roman Catholics, and which disposed some to turn Protestants. For this King Henry, by the persuasion of Cardinal Lorrain, had begun a severe persecution of the Protestants; and said, as was reported of him, that he _would raise a mountain out of the ashes of Protestants that should be burned, higher than any in France_: and, a day or two before, the Count Montmorency, by an order brought him by Oliver the Chancellor, seized and committed to the Bastile eleven eminent councillors and members of the Parliament of Paris, who lay under suspicion of favouring the Protestant doctrine: wherefore it was concluded and believed a visible and just judgment of God for avenging the blood of some of his servants, and the intended cruelty against others, that the King should receive his death by the same hand which seized these innocent men, in the very face of the Bastile where they were imprisoned, and that he should die too between twelve and one, the same hour in which he signed the order for seizing them. Thuanus reports that it was given out that King Henry said to those who came to take him up, that ‘_he was afraid he had been injurious to those innocent persons_,’ pointing to the Bastile; which Cardinal Lorrain checked in great wrath, telling him that these thoughts proceeded from an evil spirit. It is also remarkable how that the same Count Montgomery had afterwards his head struck off publicly at Paris, being condemned for treason because he joined the Prince of Condé’s party against the Queen and the Regency.” [11] A still more ingenious mode of fighting was adopted by a young soldier, of a diminutive stature, who had been insulted by a tall sturdy Gascon: he insisted that they should both wear a steel collar round their necks, bristled with pointed blades as sharp as razors; and, wearing no armour, their bodies and limbs were exposed to the swords of each other. By this invention the little man could look up at his antagonist without any danger; while the tall fellow could not look down at his adversary without cutting his chin with the acerated points of his collar, in consequence of which he was soon run through the body. [12] In Lady Blessington’s “Idler in Italy,” we find the following feminine remark, when speaking of Nice:--