"I will certainly, my dear friend," replied the Count, "take every measure that it is possible for man to take, to put down this evil system of plunder and violence, whether it be carried on by Protestants or Catholics. There is a notorious violation of the law, and I am determined to put it down if it be possible, without any regard whatsoever to distinction between the two religions. The petition to the King was necessary when I wrote about it, and is so still, for it was then our only hope, and it may now be taken as a proof that even to the last moment we were willing to show ourselves humble, devoted, and loyal. I expect nothing from it but that result; but that result itself is something." "I fear, my son," said the old man, "that you have heard bad news since you wrote to me." "The worst," replied the Count, with a melancholy shake of the head, "the very worst that can be given. They intend, I understand from authority that cannot be doubted, to suppress entirely the free exercise of our religion in France, and to revoke the edict of our good King Henry which secured it to us." The old man dropped the reins upon his mule's neck, and raised his eyes appealingly to heaven. "Terrible, indeed!" he said; "but I can scarcely credit it." "It is but too true--but too certain!" replied the Count; "and yet terrible as this is--horrible, infamous, detestable as is the cruelty and tyranny of the act itself, the means by which it is to be carried into execution are still more cruel, tyrannical, and detestable." The old man gazed in his face as if he had hardly voice to demand what those means were; but after a brief pause the Count went on: "To sum up all in one word, they intend to take the Protestant children from the Protestant mother, from the father, from the brother, and forbidding all intercourse, to place them in the hands of the enemies of our faith, to be educated in the superstitions that we abhor."