the world of a dangerous fellow.  Fortunately Charles had German subjects to consider, and the Germans had a reputation for good faith of which they were proud.  Let us credit him too with some generosity; he was scarcely 21, and the young find the arguments of expediency difficult.  Anyway, Luther with the help of his friends got off safely.  The intrigues and subterfuges of diplomatists are still very often revolting to honest men.  But there is some excuse for them; they act on behalf of nations, who have to look to themselves for protection and can rarely afford to be generous and aboveboard.  But so barefaced a violation of faith to an individual before the eyes of the world would no longer be tolerated, not even in the name of the Lord.

The following example will illustrate the ideas of the age about the treatment of heretics; an example of faith continually broken and of incredible cruelty.  In 1545 the Cardinal de Tournon and Baron d’Oppede, the first president of the Parliament of Aix, were moved to extirpate that plague-spot of Southern France, the Vaudois communities of Dauphine, who went on still in their wickedness and heresy.  The intriguers prepared a decree revoking the letters patent of 1544, which had suspended proceedings against the Vaudois; and when the keeper of the seals refused to present it to the king for signature, by unlawful means they presented it through a secretary and unlawfully procured the affixion of the seals.  But this was a mere trifle:  greater things were to follow.

On 13 April 1545 the Baron entered the Vaudois territory at the head of a body of troops, reinforced by the papal Vice-legate and a fanatical mob of countryfolk.  The inhabitants offered little resistance, and soon villages were in flames on every side.  At Merindol the soldiers found only one inhabitant, a poor idiot; all the rest had fled.  The Baron ordered him to be shot.  Above by the castle some women were discovered hiding in a church; after indescribable outrages they were thrown headlong from the rocks.  Cabrieres being fortified was prepared to stand a siege; but on a promise of their lives and property the inhabitants opened the gates.  Without a moment’s hesitation the Baron gave orders to put them all to death.  The soldiers refused to break plighted faith; but the mob had no scruples and the ghastly work began.  ’A multitude of women and children had fled to the church:  the furious horde rushed headlong among them and committed all the crimes of which hell could dream.  Other women had hidden themselves in a barn.  The Baron caused them to be shut up there and fire set to the four corners.  A soldier rushed to save them and opened the door, but the women were driven back into the fire with blows of pikes.  Twenty-five women had taken shelter in a cavern at some distance from the town.  The Vice-legate caused a great fire to be lighted at the entrance:  five years afterwards the bones of the victims were found in the inmost recesses.’[26] La Coste had the same fate; the promise made and immediately violated, and then all the terrors of hell.  In the course of a few weeks 3000 men and women were massacred, 256 executed, and six or seven hundred sent to the galleys; while children unnumbered were sold as slaves.  The offence of these poor people was that they had been seeking in their own fashion to draw nearer to the God of Love.