most
envenomed enemy of the Protestants that ever undertook to write their
history, "when Anne Du Bourg, counsellor in the Parliament of Paris, was
burned, that all Paris was astonished at the constancy of the man. As we
returned to our colleges from the execution, we were melted in tears;
and we pleaded his cause, after his death, anathematizing those unjust
judges who had justly condemned him. His sermon at the gallows and upon
the funeral pile did more harm than a hundred ministers could have
done."[799]

[Sidenote: He deplores the result.]

But the martyrdom of Du Bourg was not a solitary case. The same
consequences flowed from the public execution of others, whose dying
words and actions shook to its very foundations the fabric of
superstition reared in many a spectator's heart. Florimond de Raemond,
himself an advocate of persecution in the abstract, noticed and deplored
the inevitable result. "Meanwhile funeral piles were kindled in all
directions. But as, on the one hand, the severity of justice and of the
laws restrained the people in their duty, so the incredible obstinacy of
those who were led to execution, and who suffered their lives to be
taken from them rather than their opinions, amazed many. For who can
abstain from wonder when simple women willingly undergo tortures in
order to give a proof of their faith, and, while led to death, call upon
Jesus Christ their Saviour, and sing psalms; when maidens hasten to the
most excruciating torments with greater alacrity than to their nuptials;
when men leap for joy at the terrible sight of the preparations for
execution, and, half-burned, from the funeral pile mock the authors of
their sufferings; when, with indomitable strength of courage and joyful
countenance, they endure the lacerating of their bodies by means of
heated pincers; when, in short, like an immovable rock, they receive and
break all the billows of the most bitter sufferings at the hands of the
executioner, and, like those who have eaten the Sardinian herb, die
laughing? The lamentable sight of such incredible constancy as this
created no little doubt in the minds not only of the simple, but of men
of authority. For they could not believe that cause to be bad for which
death was so willingly undergone. Others pitied the miserable, and
burned with indignation against their persecutors. Whenever they beheld
the blackened stakes with the chains attached--memorials of
executions--they could not rest