Page:Margaret of Angoulême, Queen of Navarre (Robinson 1886).djvu/120

Rh Francis. He went himself, with the ladies of his court, with the fervent outraged Leonor and the laughing Madame d'Étampes, to see them light the pile where six of the accused should suffer that evening. Throughout December the Autos had flamed and smoked; already ten Lutherans had died that winter at the stake. In general they suffered singly; but to honour so tremendous an occasion, no less than six could die.

"Three Lutherans," says the Bourgeois of Paris, "and a clerk of the Châtelet, and a fruiterer, and the wife of a cobbler and a schoolmaster; this last for eating meat on Fridays." These were to be the victims. They were fastened by long iron chains to a lofty gibbet, and swung to and fro in and out of the burning fire. Madame d'Étampes is said to have complained of the sickening odour of the burning flesh; of the horrible sight of the convulsed and blackened bodies. Poor, easy-natured Anne de Pisseleu, yourself suspected of Lutheran leanings, the spectacle may well have turned you faint with fear and horror! But the Bourgeois of Paris does not mention the presence of the King at the actual sacrifice. The Court, I incline to believe, turned home before it came to that.

Throughout the spring the stakes are constantly piled, the gibbets swing their smoking freight to and fro. And, whereas in the earlier months the victims were humble and ignorant folk, as time goes on we note a richer prey. In November "a cobbler's son," "a printer," "a mason," "a tailor," "a young servant": in such wise run the entries. But in the spring: "a rich merchant, from fifty to sixty years of age, estimé homme de bien," "a goldsmith," "a painter," "a young Italian merchant," "a scholar," "one of