Rutland herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1823-1847, 1842-01-25
MKSTORTC.aL.

century ago. sBx JOHN Lyon, NEAR THE STATE
HOUSE, RUTLAND, VERMONT" This old reflex
of the seventeenth century has been carefully pre-
served by gentleman of this town, and is a curos
y to be contrased with the goodly sheet now issued
This account of the treatment Of the Protestants bv The
Catholics in France, after the revocation of the edci
Of NantS by Louis 4IV, is written by person tcho
eye itneSS to many Of the Transactions ,chich
he relates.
The Troopers, Soldiers and Dragons went into
the Protestant houses where they marred and defac
cd their household stuff, broke their lookng-glasses
and other utensils and ornaments, let their wine run
about their cellars, and threw about their corn and
spoiled it And as to those things which thew could
not destroy in this manner such as BEDS linen wear
ing apparel plate, sc. they carried them to the
marketplace and sold them to the Jesutes and other
Roman Catholics. BY these means the protestants
in Montaubon alone were in four or five DAVIS srin
ped of above million of money. But this was not
the worst
They turned the dining, rooms of gentlemen into
stables for their horses and treated the owners of the
houses where they quartered with the highest indig
nifty and cruelty lashing them about from one to an
other, day and night without ntermisson not suffer
ing them to eat or drink and when they began to
sink under the fatigue and pains they had undergone
they laid them on bed, and when they thought
them somewhat recovered, they made them rise and
repeated the same fortunes. When they saw the
blood and sweat down their faces and other parts
of their bodies, they suiced them with water, and
putting over their heads kettle drums upside down,
they made continual din upon them until these mn
happy creatures lost their senses When one party
of these tormentors were weary, Ley were relieved
by another, who practiced he7 same crueties with
fresh vigor
AT Negreplisse, town hea + Montaubon, thew
hung up Isaac Favin Protestant citizen of that
place, by his arm-pits and tofmented him whole
nImhf htrn MIN h nx.1 II = n i
GERS they made great fire round q boy about l2
years old who with hands and eyes lifted up to hea-
ven cried out, "My God help. mel" and resolved to
die rather than renonce his religion they snatched
him from the fire on the point of being burned.
In several places the sodiery applied red hot irons
to the hands and feet of men and breasts of women
AT Nantz they hung up several women and girls bv
their feet and others by their armpits and thus ex-
posed them naked to public view They bound to
posts mothers that gave suck, and let their sucking
infants lie langushng in their sight for several DAVIS
and nights, crying, mourning, and gaspmg for life
Some they bound before great fire, and being half
roasted let them goa punishment worse than death
Amidst thousand hideous cries and thousand bias
phemles they hung up men and women by their
hair and some by their feet on hooks in chimneys
and smoked them with wisps of wet hay till they
were suHocated. They tied some under the arms
with ropes and plunged them again and again into
wells they bound others like criminals, put them to
the torture, and with funnel filled them with wine
till the fumes of took away their reason when thew
made them say they consented to be Catholics Thew
stripped them naked, and after thousand indgnities
stuck them with pms and needles from head to foot
They cut and slashed them with knives and some-
times with red hot pincers took hold of them bv the
nose and other parts of the body and dragged them
about the rooms till they promised to be catholics or
TIL the cries of these wreched sufferers calling on
God for help forced them to let them 90. They
beat them w Sfava md ~ ~
broken bones, dragged them to church where their
forced pretence was taken for an abiuration In
some places they tied fathers and husbands to bed
posts and before their eyes ravshed their wives and
daughters with impunity; they blew up men and wo-
men with bellows till they burst them If any to
escape these barbarites endeavored to save them.
selves by flight they were pursued into the fields
and woods where they were shot at like wild beasts
and were prohibited from departing the kingdom Ia
cruelty never by Nero or Doclesan) upon
pain of conhscation of effects, the gaeys the LASH
and perpetual imprisonment insomuch that the pris
ons OF the seaport towns were crammed with men
women and children who endeavored to save Them
selves by flight from their dreadful persecution
with these scenes of desolaon and horror the popisb
clergy feaSted their eyes and made them onlv n mat
ter Of laughter and sport"
If any reader has heart for further descriptions
othe tortures and prosecutions of the Protesants bv
the bloody Romsh Church, we refer him to Jones
Church History. There is more cause for bringing
this matter before the public eye than most people
seem to suppose, For the last ten years the influx
of Roman Catholics into this country has been al
most incredible, and not only are they numerous in
cities and large towns but they are becoming so in
smaller towns throughout the country, and even now
have warfare, in its incipient stages in progress
They boldly demand portion of public money to
aid the propagation of their system of bigorv ntol
GRANGE and superstition they have already began
to burn our Bibles, even in Vermont; and are ac.
lively engaged in the political contests all over the
country We have its earlier history before us which
clearly shows us what Roman Catholicism ,cas;-