A la messe allons donc!"
--"Y aller a la messe,
Ma mere, ce n'est qu'abus.

Apportez-moi mes livres
Avec mes beaux saluts.
J'aimerais mieux etre brulee
Et vantee au grand vent

Que d'aller a la messe
En faussant mon serment."
--Quand sa tres-chere mere
Eut entendu c' mot la,

Au bourreau de la ville
Sa fille elle livra.
"Bourreau, voila ma fille!
Fais a tes volontes;

Bourreau, fais de ma fille
Comme d'un meurtrier."
Quand elle fut sur l'echelle,
Trois rollons ja montee,

Elle voit sa mere
Qui chaudement pleurait.
"Ho! la cruelle mere
Qui pleure son enfant

Apres l'avoir livree
Dans les grands feux ardents.
Vous est bien fait, ma mere,
De me faire mourir.

Je vois Jesus, mon pere,
Qui, de son beau royaume,
Descend pour me querir.
Son royaume sur terre
Dans peu de temps viendra,
Et cependant mon ame
En paradis ira."

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The nuncio alone seems to have thought that the edict would work so
well, that "in six months, or a year at farthest, there would not be a
single Huguenot in France!" His ground of confidence was that many, if not
most of the reformed, were influenced, not by zeal for religion, but by
cupidity. Santa Croce to Card. Borromeo, Jan. 17, 1562, Aymon, i. 44;
Cimber et Danjou, vi. 30.

[2] Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., i. 428, 429. The letter is followed by an
examination of the edict, article by article, as affecting the
Protestants. Ib. i. 429-431.

[3] Abbe Bruslart, Mem. de Conde. i. 70. Barbaro spoke the universal
sentiment of the bigoted wing of the papal party when he described "the
decree" as "full of concealed poison," as "the most powerful means of
advancing the new religion," as "an edict so pestiferous and so poisonous,
that it brought all the calamities that have since occurred." Tommaseo,
Rel. des Amb. Ven., ii. 72.

[4] Claude Haton, 211. "Et longtemps depuis ne faisoient sermon qu'ilz
_Acab_ et _Hiesabel_ et leurs persecutions ne fussent mis par eux en
avant," etc. In fact, Catharine seemed fated to have her name linked to
that of the infamous Queen of Israel. A Protestant poem, evidently of a
date posterior to the massacre of Saint Bartholomew, is still extant in
the National Library of Paris, in which the comparison of the two is drawn
out at full length. The one was the ruin of Israel, the other of France.
The o