Page:Memoirs of a Huguenot Family.djvu/457

 Rh brutality and insolence. They sent him away soon after their arrival, to procure for them, from the neighbouring village, some delicacies with which to pamper their appetites. While on the road, he was intimidated by hearing of the cruelty with which the dragoons had said they would treat him on his return home; and his informant, a kind neighbor, persuaded him to conceal himself in his house.

I think, that, whatever might have been his anticipations of suffering, it was most unmanly to desert his wife, and leave her alone with the dragoons, particularly from her state at the time, being in bed with an infant only three days old. As might have been expected, the dragoons vented all their malice upon the poor woman. When they found that her husband did not return, they dragged her out of bed, and threatened to roast her alive: they took it in turns to hold her close to a fire, which was so hot that each one could only bear to hold her for a short time. Death must soon have followed if she had not been rescued by the timely intervention of the village Curé, who accidentally heard what was going on, and persuaded them to desist, promising that he would make her recant. This was in the year 1681.

He went through various trials and vicissitudes during the four years following. His wife died, and her young infant also, and he was hunted from place to place; and at last in 1685, the memorable year of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, he proceeded to Rochelle, for the purpose of embarking for England. He was arrested and imprisoned there, and after much threatening, insult and abuse, he was induced to sign an act of abjuration. He was liberated immediately, but was more miserable than ever, full of remorse for the act he had committed when under the influence of fear. He still