Page:History of Freedom.djvu/185

 MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW 14 1

civil power may enter into engagements which impede the free scope of the Church's law. l It is part of the punish- ment of heretics that faith shall not be kept with them. 2 It is even mercy to kill them that they may sin no more. 3 Such were the precepts and the examples by which the French Catholics learned to confound piety and ferocity, and were made ready to immolate their country- men. During the civil war an association was formed in the South for the purpose of making war upon the Huguenots; and it was fortified by Pius V. with blessings and indulgences. I( We doubt not," it proclaimed, "that \ve shall be victorious over these enemies of God and of all humankind; and if we fall, our blood will be as a second baptism, by which, without impediment, we shall join the other martyrs straightway in heaven." 4 Monluc, who told Alva at Bayonne that he had never spared an enemy, was shot through the face at the siege of Rabasteins. Whilst he believed that he was dying, they came to tell him that the place was taken. "Thank God!" he said, "that I have lived long enough to behold our victory; and now I care not for death. Go back, I beseech you, and give me a last proof of friendship, by seeing that not one man of the garrison escapes alive." 5 When Alva had defeated and captured Genlis, and expected to make many more Huguenot prisoners in the garrison of Mons, Charles IX. \vrote to Mondoucet "that it would be for the service of God, and of the King of Spain, that they should die. If the Duke of Alva answers that this is a tacit request to have all the prisoners cut to pieces, you will tell him that that is what he must do, and that he will

1 Principi sacculari nulla ratione permissum est. haereticis licentiam tribuere haereses suas docendi, atque adeo contractus ille iniustus. , . . Si quid Princeps saecularis attentet in praeiudicium Ecclesiasticae potestatis, aut contra earn aliquid statuat et paciscatur, pactum illud nullum futurum (R. Sweertii. De Fide Haereticis servanda. 16u. p. 36). 2 Ad poenam quoque pertinet et odium haereticorum quod fides illis data servanda non sit (Simancha. Inst, Cath. pp, 46. 52), 3 Si nolint converti. expedit eos citius tollere e medio. ne gravius postea damnentur. unde non militat contra mansuetudinem christianam. occidere Haereticos. quin potius est opus maximae misericordiae (Lancelottus. p. 579), 4 De Rozoy, Annates de Toulouse, iii, 65, 5 Alva to Philip. June 5. 1565; Pap. de Granz:elle. IX. 288; Comment, lÚ , lonluc, iii. 425,