and those among them who profess the Roman Religion
have warning orders to remove for a time, so that
all things now again seem to point to an exterminating
onslaught on those most miserable creatures who were
left over from that last butchery. That you
will not allow this to be done I beseech and conjure
you, Most Christian King, by that right hand of
yours which sealed alliance and friendship with Us,
by that most sacred ornament of the title of Most
Christian; that you will not permit such a license
of furious raging, I do not say to any prince (for
such furious raging cannot possibly come upon any
prince, much less upon the tender age of that Prince,
or into the womanly mind of his Mother), but to
those most holy assassins, who, while they profess
themselves the servants and imitators of our Saviour
Christ, Him who came into this world to save sinners,
abuse His most meek name and institutes for savage
slaughters of innocents. Snatch, thou who art
able, and who in such a towering station art worthy
to be able, so many suppliants of yours from the
hands of homicides, who, drunk with gore recently,
thirst for blood again, and consider it most advisable
for themselves to lay at the doors of princes the
odium of their own cruelty. Do not thou, while
thou reignest, suffer thy titles or the territories
of thy realm, or the most merciful Gospel of Christ,
to be defiled by that scandal. Remember that
these very Vaudois submitted themselves to your
grandfather Henry, that great favourer of Protestants,
when the victorious Lesdiguieres, through those parts
where there is even yet the most convenient passage
into Italy, pursued the yielding Savoyard across
the Alps. The instrument of that Surrender
is yet extant among the Public Acts of your Kingdom;
in which, among other things, it is expressly provided
and precautioned that the Vaudois should thenceforth
be handed over to no one unless with those same
conditions on which, by that instrument, your most
invincible grandfather received them into his protection.
This protection the suppliants now implore; as pledged
by the grandfather, they demand it from you, the grandson.
They would prefer and desire to be your subjects rather
than his to whom they now belong, even by some exchange,
if that could be managed; but, if that cannot be
managed, to be yours at least in as far as your
patronage, pity, and shelter can make them so.
There are even reasons of state which might exhort
you not to drive back Vaudois fleeing to you for
refuge; but I would not, such a great King as you
are, think of you as moved to the defence of those
lying under calamity by other considerations than the
promise of your ancestors, piety, and kingly benignity
and greatness of soul. So the praise and glory
of a most beautiful deed will be yours unalloyed
and entire, and through all your life you will find
the Father of Mercy, and His Son, King Christ, whose
name and doctrine you will have vindicated from
a wicked atrocity, more favouring and propitious