risoner to the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear. As "a preacher of
false doctrines," an "apostate" and a "liar toward God Almighty," they
declared him excommunicated and deprived of whatever ecclesiastical
benefices he might hold. The faithful compiler of the French martyrology
gives in accurate, but painful, detail the successive steps by which
Chatellain was stripped of the various prerogatives conferred upon him
in ordination. I shall not repeat the story of sacred vessels placed in
his hands only to be hastily snatched from them, of the scraping of his
fingers supposed to remove the grace of consecration, of chasuble and
stole indignantly taken away--in short, of all the petty devices of a
malice at which the mind wearies and the heart sickens. It was perhaps a
fitting sequel to the ceremony that the degrading bishop should hand his
victim over to the representative of the secular arm to be put to death,
with a hypocritical recommendation to mercy: "Lord Judge, we entreat you
as affectionately as we can, as well by the love of God, as from pity
and compassion, and out of respect for our prayers, that you do this
wretched man no injury tending to death or the mutilation of his
body."[247] The prayer was granted--according to the intent of the
petitioner. On the twelfth of January, 1525, Chatellain was led to the
place of execution, as cheerful in demeanor, the witnesses said, as if
walking to a feast. At the stake he knelt and offered a short prayer,
then met his horrible sentence with a constancy that won many converts
to the faith for which he had suffered. At the news of the fate of their
admired teacher, the citizens of Metz could not contain their rage. A
tumultuous scene ensued, in which it was well that the
ecclesiastics--there were more than nine hundred within the
walls[248]--escaped with no greater injury at the hands of the angry
populace than some passing insults. John Vedast, an evangelical teacher,
was at that time in confinement, reserved for a similar doom to that of
Chatellain. He was liberated by the people, who, in a body membering
several thousand men, visited his prison and enabled him to escape to a
safe refuge. It was not until a strong detachment of troops had been
thrown into the city that the burgesses were reduced to submission.[249]
"None the less," admits a Roman Catholic historian, "did Lutheranism
spread over the entire district of Metz."[250]

[Sidenote: Tragic end of Wolfgang Schuch.]