PERSECUTIONS OF CHRISTIANS 969 PERSECUTIONS OF CHRISTIANS
same purpose. The Invincible Armada, as it was vainly called, had the same end in view. The Inquisition, which was established in the 12th century against the Waldenses [see Isqi-isition], was now mure effectually set to work. Terrible persecutions were carried on in various parts of Germany, and even in Bohemia, which continued about thirty years, and the blood of the saints was said to How like rivers of water. The countries of I'oland, Lithuania, and Hungary were in a similar man- ner deluged witli Protestant blood.
1. Ilolhind. — In the Low Countries, for many years, the most amazing cruelties were exercised under the merciless and unrelenting hands of the Spaniards, to wliom the inhabitants of that part of the world were then in subjection. Father Paul observes that these Belgic martyrs were 50,000 ; but Grotius and others ob- serve that there were 100,000 who suffered by the hand of the executioner. Herein, however, Satan and his agents failed of their purpose; for in tlie issue a great part of the Netherlands shook off the Spanish yoke, and erected themselves into a separate and independent state, which has ever since been considered as one of the principal Protestant countries.
2. France. — Xo countrj-, perhaps, has ever produced more martyrs than this. After many cruelties had been exercised against the Protestants, there was a most vio- lent persecution of them in the year 157'2, in the reign of Charles IX. Many of tlie principal Protestants were invited to Paris, under a solemn oath of safety, upon oc- casion of the marriage of the king of Navarre with the French king's sister. Tlie queen-dowager of Navarre, however, a zealous Protestant, was poisoned by a pair of gloves before the marriage was solemnized. Coligni, admiral of France, was basely murdered in his own house, and then thrown out of tlie window to gratify the malice of the duke of Guise: his head was afterwards cut off, and sent to the king and (lueen-mother; and his body, after a thousand indignities offered to it, was hung b}' the feet on a gibbet. After this the murderers ravaged the whole city of Paris, and butchered, in three days, above ten thousand lords, gentlemen, presidents, and people of all ranks. A horrible scene of things, says Thuanus, when the very streets and passages resounded with the noise of those that met together for murder and plunder; the groans of those who were dying, and the shrieks of such as Avere just going to be butchered, were everywhere heard; the bodies of the slain were thrown out of the windows; the courts and chambers of the houses were tilled with them ; the dead bodies of oth- ers were dragged through the streets; tiieir blood ran through the cliannels in such plenty that torrents seemed to empty themselves in the neighboring river : in a word, an innumerable multitude of men, women with child, maidens, and children were all involved in one common destruction; and the gates and entrances of the king's palace were all besmeared with their blood. From the city of Paris the massacre spread throughout the whole kingdom. In the city of Meaux they threw above two hundred into jail; and after they had ravished and killed a great number of women, and plundered the liouses of the Protestants, they executed their furj' on those they had imprisoned; and calling them one by one, they were killed, as Thuanus expresses, like sheep in a market. In Orleans they murdered above five hundred men, women, and children, and enriched them- selves with the spoil. The same cruelties were prac- ticed at Angers, Troyes, Bourges, La Charite, and espe- cially at Lyons, where they inhumanly destroyed above eight hundred Protestants — children hanging on their parents' necks, ami parents embracing tlieir children; imttiug ropes about the necks of some, dragging them through the streets, and throwing them, mangled, torn, a.id half dead, into the river. According to Thuanus, above thirty thousand Protestants were destroyed in this massacre, or, as others affirm, above one hundred thousand. But what aggravates these scenes with still greater wantonness and cruelty was the manner in
which the news was received at Rome. When the let- ters of the pope's legate were read in the assembly of the cardinals, by which he assured the pope that all was transacted by the express will and command of the king, it was immediately decreed that the pope should march with his cardinals to the church of St. Mark, and in the most solemn manner give thanks to God for so great a blessing conferred on the see of Rome and the Christian world ; and tiiat, on the ^Monday after, solemn mass should be celebrated in the church of Jlinerva, at which the pope, Gregory XIII, and cardinals were pres- ent; and that a jubilee should be published throughout the whole Christian world, and the cause of it declared to be to return thanks to God for the extirpation of the enemies of the truth and Church in France. In the evening the cannon of St. Angelo were fired to testify the public joy; the whole city was illuminated with bonfires; and no one sign of rejoicing was omitted that was usualh^ made for the greatest victories obtained in favor of the Roman Church. See Bartholomew's Day.