Page:Memoirs of a Huguenot Family.djvu/26

 20 military profession as a buckler in time of profound peace. He retired to his paternal estates in Maine, where he hoped to end his days peacefully in the bosom of his family, worshipping God according to the dictates of conscience, with those of his neighbors and friends who yet survived. He was greatly mistaken in his anticipations of tranquillity following the Edict: the change was for the worse; whereas, heretofore the proceedings had been openly carried on, and with the semblance of justice, founded upon the king's proclamation against the (so-called) heretics; now, all was secrecy, prisons and judges were alike uncalled for, any wretched vagabond, imbued with the spirit of bigotry, could at once exercise the functions of judge and executioner. Armed miscreants broke into the houses of the Protestants at midnight, they robbed and murdered the inmates with attendant circumstances of cruelty, at which humanity shudders, and they were encouraged in their atrocities by priests, monks and bigots, who made them promises of the tenor of that given to the city watch by the Sanhedrin of Jerusalem, "If this comes to the governor's ears, we will persuade him and secure you."

No inquiry or examination followed these excesses, and the Protestants, in self-defence, were again obliged to have recourse to arms, to repel nocturnal insult and guard against treachery.

John de la Fontaine had long been watched by sworn enemies of God and his Gospel, who hated him on account of his piety and his zeal for the pure worship of God. He was a stanch supporter of the Protestant Church, and occupying an elevated position, it was judged expedient to get rid of such a man as soon as possible, in order the more easily to scatter or destroy the congregation to which he belonged.