n taken by a discussion to which
they had flocked as to a scene of diversion, and the enraged king
ordered the tailor's instant trial and punishment. He even desired with
his own eyes to see him undergo the extreme penalty of the law. A solemn
procession had been ordered to proceed from St. Paul's to Notre Dame.
The prayers there offered for the destruction of heresy were followed by
an "exemplary demonstration" of the king's pious disposition, in the
execution of four "Lutherans" in as many different squares of the
city.[566] In order the better to see the punishment inflicted upon the
tailor of the Rue St. Antoine, Henry posted himself at a window that
commanded the entire spectacle. But it was no coward's death that he
beheld. Soon perceiving and recognizing the monarch before whom he had
witnessed so good a profession, the tailor fixed his gaze upon him, nor
would he avert his face, however much the king ordered that his position
should be changed. Even in the midst of the flames he still continued to
direct his dying glance toward the king, until the latter, abashed, was
compelled to withdraw from the window. For days Henry declared that the
spectre haunted his waking hours and drove sleep from his eyes at night;
and he affirmed with an oath that never again would he witness so
horrible a scene.[567] Happy would it have been for his memory had he
adhered, in the case of Anne du Bourg, to so wise a resolution!

[Sidenote: Other victims of intolerance.]

The ashes of one martyr were scarcely cold before new fires were
kindled--now before the cathedral, now before some parish church, again
in the crowded market or in the distant provincial town. At one time it
was a widow that welcomed the rope that bound her, as the zone given her
by a heavenly bridegroom in token of her approaching nuptials. A few
years later, it was a nobleman who, when in view of his rank the
sentence of the judges would have spared him the indignity of the halter
which was placed around the neck of his companions, begged the
executioner to make no exception in his case, saying: "Deny me not the
collar of so excellent an order."[568]

[Sidenote: Severe edicts and quarrels with Rome.]

[Sidenote: Edict of Chateaubriand, June 27, 1551.]

[Sidenote: War upon the books from Geneva.]

The failure, however, of these fearful exhibitions to strike terror into
the minds of the persecuted, or accomplish the end for which they were
undertaken, is prove