on for the pitiless cruelties of
which the parliament of Toulouse has been guilty.

"Happily for you, though I regard you with loathing as pitiless
persecutors, I have no personal wrongs to avenge. Your conscience
will tell you that, fallen as you have into the hands of Huguenots,
you could only expect death; but it is not for the purpose of
punishment that you have been captured. You are taken as hostages.
My friends, the Count de Laville and the Sieur D'Arblay, were
yesterday carried prisoners into Toulouse; and with them Monsieur
de Merouville, whose only fault was that he had afforded them a
night's shelter. His innocent wife was also dragged away with him.

"You, sir," he said to one of the prisoners, "appear to me to be
the oldest of the party. At daybreak you will be released; and will
bear, to your colleagues in the city, the news that these nine
persons are prisoners in my hands. You will state that, if any body
of men approaches this place from any quarter, these nine persons
will at once be hung up to the branches above us. You will say that
I hold them as hostages for the four prisoners, and that I demand
that these shall be sent out here, with their horses and the arms
of my two friends, and under the escort of two unarmed troopers.

"These gentlemen here will, before you start, sign a document
ordering the said prisoners at once to be released; and will also
sign a solemn undertaking, which will be handed over to Monsieur de
Merouville, pledging themselves that, should he and his wife choose
to return to their chateau, no harm shall ever happen to them; and
no accusation, of any sort, in the future be brought against them.

"I may add that, should at any time this guarantee be broken, I
shall consider it my duty, the moment I hear of the event, to
return to this neighbourhood; and assuredly I will hang the
signatories of the guarantee over their own door posts, and will
burn their villas to the ground. I know the value of oaths sworn to
Huguenots; but in this case, I think they will be kept, for I swear
to you--and I am in the habit of keeping my oaths--that if you
break your undertaking, I will not break mine."

As soon as it was daylight, Pierre produced from his saddlebag an
ink horn, paper, and pens; and the ten prisoners signed their name
to an order for the release of the four captives. They then wrote
another document, to be handed by their representative to the
governor, begging him to see th