This was hypocrisy with a witness, but that is no crime in a zealot. You’ll tell me perhaps, I direct my discourse to improper persons, who know not the history of _Philip_ of _Austria_, ignorance being common enough in those of your fraternity, yet let me tell you, I am not mistaken; for the diabolical spirit that now possesses you, is the very same that influenced the priests of my time; and I may safely affirm, that _France_ is the theatre of cruelty and iniquity. Your monarch, who is much such another saint as my master, spares the poor Protestants lives, for no other reason, but to make, by his inhuman torments, death more desirable to them. These, and a thousand more unjust actions does he commit, to satiate your hellish vanity, which would for ever domineer in the city built on seven mountains. To this you will answer, What doth it signify if we make him persecute the Protestants, murther their kings, and keep no faith or treaties with them, since it encreases our power, and propagates our religion? But, gentlemen, when you come to be where I am, you will, I’m certain, sing another tune. _The Answer of the_ CLERGY _of_ FRANCE _to the Duke of_ ALVA. Had you made as sincere a confession in the days of yore, as you do now, you might, for your zeal in persecuting heresy, have obtain’d an ample absolution of all your sins, tho’ they had been never so numerous and black, and been a glorious saint in the _Roman_ calendar; which induces us to believe, your zeal tended rather towards the propagation of your own power and interest, than that of the church. Thus in cheating us, you likewise cheated yourself; and we are not sorry at your calamities. But, does it become you, who once fill’d _Flanders_ and _Spain_ with horror, to reproach the apostolick legions with the noble effects of their fervency? And was it not absolutely necessary, after we had once preached the destruction of the Protestants, that _Lewis_ the Great, to compleat his glory, and our satisfaction, should send his holy troops to burn, ravish, and pillage at discretion; that he might say with an emperor of _Rome_, whom he very much resembles, _Let them hate, so they fear me_? Where, Sir, do you find us commanded to keep faith with hereticks, or suffer their princes to live, when ’tis against our interest? Does not the _Roman_ church dispense with these little _peccadillo’s_? And are not those who wear her cloth, and eat her bread, oblig’d to obey her precepts? What pleases us most is to hear a whining recreant as thou art, sing _peccavi_ at this time of day, and pretend to remorse of conscience. For your comfort, you may desire _Cerberus_, if you please, to join in the consort with you; but rest assured, that if you had three mouths like that triple-headed cur, your barking would be all in vain. PHILIP _of_ AUSTRIA _to the_ DAUPHINE.