Licenced and Entered According to Order.   

Popish Treachery: OR, A Short and New Account OF THE Horrid Cruelties Exercised on the PROTESTANTS IN FRANCE. Being a true Prospect of what is to be expected from the most solemn Promises of Roman Catholic Princes.  
In a Letter from a Gentleman of that Nation, to one in England, and by him made English.  
LONDON: Printed and are to be sold by Richard Baldwin, in the Old-Baily. MDCLXXXIX.   

POPISH TREACHERY: OR, A Short and New Account OF THE HORRID CRUELTIES Exercised in France, etc.   

The Preface.  
IT is not long since this Letter was writ to me by a French Gentleman, at my Request, and for my particular Satisfaction; who as he is a Person of much Worth and Integrity, and has been an Eye-witness of most of the things whereof he speaks, so the readier Faith and greater Credit ought to be given to them. But his Testimony alone need not to be relied on for the Matters of Fact he here relates, there are thousands of other French Protestants, now in England, that confirm the truth of all; and who having felt the smart of a severe Persecution in France, are fled from thence to avoid the extreme Fury and insupportable Violence thereof. Now the unquestionable Evidence I have for the certainty of what is advanced in the following Account, and the desire of many to see it Published in English, has made me consent so to expose it, hoping it may give some seasonable Information, and Satisfaction, to our People.  
For though most of them may have heard much talk of a Persecution in France, and have Generously and Bountifully contributed their Charity towards the Relief of those Miserable Persecuted French Protestants, who are come hither for Refuge and Succour, yet I have reason to believe that very few of them know any thing of the Cruel manner wherewith the Barbarous and Inhuman Papists have pursued that Persecution; this is what they will find set down in short, in the little Relation here presented to them; and they may there see a Notorious Example of the base Treachery of Popery, and of the Cruelties which it holds, as a Point of Religion, to make Protestants suffer; over whom it pretends to have a Sovereign and Absolute Dominion. So this little History not being perplexed and embarressed with numerous and tedious Circumstances, all sorts of people may thereby easily inform themselves of this Persecution, as much as we ordinarily desire to know of such Events. And besides that Charity of our poor Persecuted Brethren and Fellow Protestants makes us concerned therein, as being equally Objects of the Hatred and Oppression of Popery, so it may serve to prompt us to some Reflections for our own Interest: Nam tua res agitur parces cum proximus ardet. When our Neighbour's House is on Fire, it behoves us to take Care of our own, and to use all Lawful and Convenient means to Preserve it from the Rage and Fury of a Merciless Enemy. Such has Popery ever been to Protestants, and from it, Good Lord still Deliver England.   

Ppoish Treachery: OR, A Short and New Account OF THE HORRID CRVELTIES Exercised on the PROTESTANTS IN FRANCE, etc.  
SIR,  
I Cannot but wonder, as well as you, that no History of the Persecution of the French Protestants, has yet appeared in your Language: 'Tis to be wished it were well known to all people of the Reformed Religion, that they might there see Popery in its true Colours, and be taught by that great Example, to understand, that the promises it makes, are but Lies and Snares, to deceive the honest Faith and good Nature of other Men. They would there see, likewise, how by little and little it advanceth its Affairs, still swearing that it has no design to proceed any further; and how it, at length, adds Inhumanity to Perfidiousness, when it has once got to be uppermost: But we had enough to convince us of the Treacherous and Bloody Spirit of Popery, without the History of this late Persecution. The Massacre of the Waldenses so often reiterated: The general Massacre of the Protestants all over Europe, in the beginning of the Reformation: The Persecution and Massacre of the Low-Countries, under Philip the Second: The Massacre of St. Bartholomew in France: The Gunpowder Treason in England: The Massacre of Ireland: The last Persecution of Hungary; and the late one of the Valleys of Piedmont, show sufficiently, how that Communion thirsts after the Blood of men, and is Ingenious in satiating itself therewith, from time to time. However, Sir, since you desire it, I will here draw you a short Scheme of that great Persecution, which ought to be an Eternal Advertisement to all Protestants in the World, that Popery spares neither Oaths nor Promises to delude them, and sticks at no Frauds nor Violences to obliterate them totally, if it were possible, from off the face the Earth. And this Relation I am now going to make you, will be so much the more faithful, as that I shall say nothing therein, but what my own Eyes have seen, or what I other ways know for certain Truth.  
The Protestants of France, lived under the Faith of many Edicts, which promised them Liberty of Conscience, and equal Privileges with the rest of the French; the most considerable of their Edicts was that of Nantes. Henry the Fourth, Grandfather of His present Majesty, having by their Assistance and Fidelity, put an end to the League which the Papists had made, to hinder him from getting into the Throne, was desirous to recompense the Blood and Lives which the Hugonots had expended for his Service; and he did it by that famous Edict which gave them the same Privileges as his other Subjects enjoyed, and he granted it to them, and to their Posterity, for ever, under the Title of PERPETVAL and IRREVOCABLE; so it was, as a Law of the State, which was confirmed by the Kings, at their coming to the Crown, and has been expressly so, by many Edicts of Lewis the 13th, and of Lewis the 14th, now Reigning.  
When this King came to the Crown, he was very Young; the Prince of Conde stirred up Civil Wars to ravish it from him, and the greatest part of the Papists sided with him, but the Protestants were all of a constant and uncorrupted Fidelity to their Sovereign, so that they made all the Prince's Designs prove Abortive, and preserved the Sceptre to him that yet bears it. After which, he gave them a public Declaration of his acknowledgement, and assured them of his favour and protection, during his whole Reign; but at the same time that he gave this public Declaration, and a thousand other private ones to particulalar persons, he even then began to form a design of ruining those who had saved him: He made reflection, that since, by their means, he had been settled in his Throne, they might, in an other occasion, shake him out of it; and upon this reflection it was that he resolved to ruin them, as he has in effect done.  
At first, he began with retrenching, by degrees, all the Hugonots from his House, who had any Employment therein, and the which he had given them as a recompense of their faithful service to him; insomuch, that in a short time, there was not a Soldier in his whole Guards, but what was of his own Religion: Merit was no longer considered in their persons; he no more advanced any of them to the places of Trust in the Kingdom; he put out those he had formerly preferred thereto; and he set forth divers Declarations, prohibiting them all kind of Offices, Arts and Trades, so that none but Papists could exercise, or profess any; by which means, vast numbers of Protestants were reduced to inevitable misery.  
He took their Colleges and Schools away from them, so that they had no Master of their Religion, to teach their Children either to Read or Write. When he had done that, he then sent Troops of Missionaries into all the Towns, to gain, as many as they could, by cunning Tricks, or price of Money; and 'twas a strange thing to see the shameful Commerce this people made, of buying those whom extreme poverty obliged to sell themselves. The misery was so great in some places, that they were forced to turn Papists; sometimes for ten Crowns, sometimes for five, sometimes for two, sometimes for a great deal less. These Missionaries walked about, every where, with Bags of money in their Hands, and for the space of two years together, one saw hardly any other Traders stirring up and down the Kingdom, but these Dealers for the Souls of men, who bought them according to their Profession, and the number of their Families.  
At the same time, Pensions, or Employments were given to those, of any consideration, who would turn Papists. The King, by a Declaration, gave liberty to Children, at seven years of Age, to choose a Religion; and the Fathers of such Children as became Papists, were forced to give them yearly Pensions, and always more than what they were well able; by which means they seduced abundance of the younger sort, bringing mourning and desolation into many Families, which for the most part of the time they utterly ruined.  
After this, they forbade their Minister to speak any thing of Controversy, or of what passed against them; upon which prohibition, and divers others of the like nature, they daily made them say things that had never entered into their thoughts: They hired false Witnesses to depose against them, who were often reduced to avow their lying Testimonies; and 'twas frequently proved too, the Priests, and others, had suborned them. But as their ruin was absolutely sworn, so nothing satisfied them; their Estates were confiscated, their persons cast into prison, banished, or condemned to some other shameful disgrace. There was no safety for any, they found ways to bring the most moderate into trouble, and especially, to destroy those who were capable of giving some good Example to others.  
These are the degrees of the Desolations of this people, and of the tears they have been made to shed for about twenty five years last passed; during which time, no body possessed in peace what they had, and every one were in perpetual inquietudes for themselves, and for their Children. But these were only the beginnings of their Misery, and the Essays of Popish fury and perfidiousness: Whilst on one hand they persecuted some, they assured others that the King had no design against their Liberty. In almost all the Edicts which His Majesty set forth, he inserted some Article to lull them asleep: He said, that not one Tittle of the Edict of Nantes should be violated: And he insinuated, that his intention was only to interdict the Religion, and to stop there.  
The Elector of Brandenburg having had the bounty to intercede for them, the King of France gave him an Answer, that is to be seen in many of the Protestants Writings; by which he assured His Highness, That so long as he lived, no wrong should be done to his Subjects of the Reformed Religion; that he acknowledged them for good ones, and would maintain them in all their Privileges. In the mean time, he had taken from them many of these privileges; and what is remarkable at the same time that he wrote this Letter to his Highness of Brandenburg, he in the very self same instant caused many of their Temples to be Demolished, and others to be shut up; put the Ministers into Prison; oppressed private persons with heavy Injustices; and made those to mourn bitterly whom he said he would protect. He began a thing too, which had never been heard of in any Age, not even in the Savagest Nations, or the most remote from Christianity; that is, He made Children to be taken from their Fathers and Mothers, and to be put into Convents, with a strict charge not to let their Parents see them, not excepting even persons of the highest Birth, and of Families to which he had obligations that ought never to have been forgotten by him. He took away seven from the Duke de la Force, an Ancient Duke and Peer of the Kingdom, the Eldest not being then Twelve Years old. He did the like by all those of the Count de Roy, whom he had some time before permitted to go and serve the King of Denmark, in Quality of General of his Armies. In a word, at the same time that he promised to protect the Hugonots, he even then did all he could to ruin them, and there was nothing but Sighs and Tears amongst them: One saw every where Souls afflicted to the very Grave; some bewailing the loss of their Pastors and Temples; others the dispersion and ruin of their Families; others the carrying away of their Children; and others trembled for fear of the same, or of greater Misfortunes. In fine, do but mark now how far their Fraud and Cruelty went; that Edict of Nantes was Revoked which they had so often promised, and so often sworn should be inviolably observed; and this Fence being quite broke down, all that great people was abandoned to the Rage and Fury of the Soldiers. But, what is yet more notorious, to push on the Cheat as far as the fraudulent Wit of Man could carry it, in the very Act for Cessation of the forementioned Edict, this King declared, that he was desirous that all people should live quietly in their Families; and that the Exercise of the Protestant Religion being interdicted, every one might live, in his own House, as he pleased. But at the same time that His Majesty solemnly Swore this promise, he sent his Armies to surprise the Protestants in their Towns and Houses, with orders, to Plunder, Burn, Demolish, Beat, and in short, to make them suffer all manner of Evils could be devised, Death only excepted; which in this circumstance would have been looked on as a great Happiness. The King Usurped the Throne of God, and took upon him the Empire over the Conscience; and in his Name whole Towns were summoned, by puissant Armies, to turn Papists, and upon refusal, they were abandoned to pillage and ruin, and to the same Fury as Enemy Towns are wont to be when taken by Storm. They seized on all the Avenues, and brought back those to the persecutors, who had escaped out of their hands: They beat, ransacked, violated, and made this people suffer a thousand Evils, without distinction either of Age, Sex, or Quality, from the oldest to the youngest, Male and Female, Noble, or Ignoble, all were equally at the discretion of the Soldiers: Blasphemies, Impieties and Blows, were the Arguments of this Infernal Mission; and one may say, without exaggeration, that Hell seemed to be let loose, and that the Devils were come to Preach up Popery on the Earth. Alas! Who can reckon the Tears were shed in this sad occasion? God alone knows their number, who doubtless has counted and gathered them all into his Bosom. The Air echoed every where with grievous Lamentations; and I think, nothing more pitiful could be heard, than the Cries and Groans of this people, whilst they were in the hands of their tormentors.  
They dragged many of these poor Creatures into the Popish Churches by the Feet, by the hair of the Head, or by Ropes tied about their Necks; they hanged them up at the tops of Rooms, or out of the Windows, by their Heels, or by their Hands▪ they plunged them into deep Wells, and stinking Mires, with Toads and Serpents, where they left them according to the time of their Constancy; they lighted great Fires, and Roasted some till they had changed their Religion; if their patience was longer than the Cruelty of their Persecutors, than they basted their Naked Legs with scalding Grease, or boiling Oil. Others they made to hold red hot Coals in their Hands; burnt the sols of their Feet; tore the Hair from their Beards, and the Nails from their Fingers, and Toes by the very Roots; larded their flesh all over with Pins, and thrashed them with Sticks till they left them for Dead. If they were Sick, they beat Drums, and sounded Trumpets, Night and Day, in their Ears, for 'twas a general Rule to hinder them from sleeping, and to set them in different Postures; sometimes standing upon one Leg, holding up a Hand in the Air; sometimes down on their Knees, doing the like, etc. If they changed Postures, through weariness, than they pinched and cudgelled them till they were Black and Blue. Sometimes they tied all the people of a Family in a Room together, and in sight of one another, they beat and bruised the Men, and made the Women suffer a thousand indignities. They would often carry them separately into Chambers, to torment them, but so as they might hear each others cries; and every one in suffering, suffered for themselves, and for the rest of their Family, which they either saw in torments, or heard the cries thereof. In short, let any man but fancy to himself, what vast numbers of Shoulders, brutal, and let loose, are capable to invent and act in all manner of mischief and cruelty, and he will have an Idea of the method whereby the Protestants of France have been taught to become Papists. O Tempora! O Mores!  
This great Fury made those that could save themselves, fly into the Woods, Mountains and Caves; they wandered in the Fields, exposed to all the injuries of the Air, not having wherewith to live, or to cover themselves; and not daring to stir but in the Night, for fear of falling into the hands of their Enemies, Old and Young, Men and Women, all wandered in the Deserts; and all these were but some Members of sad Families, Fathers without Children, and Children without Fathers; Wives without their Husbands, and Husbands without their Wives; a doleful spectacle, no doubt, to the Eyes of Men. But this is not all, the fury was so excessive that the Seaports were every where shut for to hinder their flight, and above 100000 Soldiers employed to stop their passage on the Frontiers, besides all the Peasants whom they had made, and the Priests enjoined, to take up Arms against them; so that it was by great good Providence, if any could save themselves amidst so many Obstacles: And I don't believe there was one in forty but what was taken, after having gone, sometimes two or three hundred Leagues, with all sort of misery and difficulty. The Prisons were all full of these poor Fugitives, and if any of them had ever changed their Religion before, they were sent to the Galleys; a punishment in France, more Ignominious and Cruel than any Death. One saw every where, in the Provinces, the Chains of these Confessors, which they dragged along from one end of the Kingdom to the other: Tantaene Animis coelestibus irae. The Women were Shaved, and carried away to Convents; nor were they put in there many times, till they had first been at the mercy of certain people▪ worse than the very Dragoons, and who made them suffer things that modesty and civility permit me not to name: I shall only say that they shut several of them up for many months together, with Murderers and Highway Men, and such like Cattle. Some were cast into deep Dungeons where they never saw daylight, and they clothed them with filthy Rags, taken from the noisome Carcases of Dead persons, which they stripped before their Faces. But the height of all Evils, and that which had never entered into the heart of the wickedest of all the men History tells us of, was the sending whole Vessels full of them to the New World, to be sold to the Savages there; Men and Women, Young and Old, Noble or others, all were treated equally alike.  
In some places they made Assemblies to pray to God, and there the Dragoons Massacred all they could light on, burned the Houses to which the Fugitives retired, and those poor creatures with them. Some they hanged up on Trees, and others they precipitated from the tops of high Rocks, and they broke those on the Wheel, limb after limb, whom they called the heads of these Assemblies. But it would be endless to particularise all the various Tortures, and unheard of Cruelties, which the Papists practised upon the Protestants in France, for to force them to abjure their Religion: I will only say, that they carried them to all the excess of Fury and Inhumanity that the Devils themselves were capable to inspire. So that considering this Persecution in all its circumstances, it may well be reckoned the greatest and blackest that ever was amongst Christians in any Age.  
After they had in this manner dispersed so many Families, ruined so many Houses, made so many Tears to be shed, and caused a general Desolation, they at length made a public Spectacle and Divertisement thereof. The King's Players Acted for many months together in Paris, a Comedy, called, Merlin Dragoon; in which the Persecutors and the Persecuted were the Persons Represented, and the Court and People went in Crowds to laugh and divert themselves, at the Oppressions and Torments which the Protestants had suffered; and by this, as well as the rest, you may judge what share Piety had in that Work.  
Now, though all these Frauds, Violences and Cruelties, and infinite numbers more have been acted towards the Protestants of France, in the face of the Sun, before Millions of Eye-witnesses, and are known to the greatest part of Europe; yet some are so unreasonably incredulous, that they will not be persuaded there has been any Persecution in that Kingdom; and others have been so disingeniously confident, as to maintain in their Oral and printed Discourses, that there has been none. Amongst these latter, is the Bishop of Meaux, Monsieur Varillas, Father Thomasin, Monsieur Brueis, etc. persons of great Parts and Learning, though of very little Candour and Integrity. Nor indeed, is it any wonder to find such Sons and Champions of Popery, deficient in those laudable and Christian Virtues▪ since 'tis very difficult, nay, almost impossible, for a man to be of the Roman Church, and not have his Principles Vitiated, and his Morals Depraved by her; so different are the Maxims and Doctrines she imposes, from those which our Saviour teacheth us in his Holy Gospel. But that which the Ingenious Author of the Apolog. Hist. urges, to prove the truth of the late Persecution against the assertions of Monsieur Brueis, and the rest, seems sufficient to convince the unprejudiced World of the reality thereof, and to invalidate those gentlemen's Arguments, and all other whatsoever to the contrary.  
Above two hundred thousand persons, 
Apologetic Hist. p 388 p. 399. Tome 2d.  says he, of both Sexes, of all Ages, and of all conditions, the greatest part of which lived very well, at their ease, in their own Houses, and many of them possessed rich Inheritances, considerable Employs, fair Revenues, some to the value of three and four thousand pounds per Annum. These, says he, have left all, and are most of them gone out of France, in a manner, quite Naked. They have not only quitted their Houses and Estates, abandoned their Country, their Friends, their Parents, Relations of all kinds, those that were nearest and dearest to them; they have broke all the ties of Nature and Consanguinity, and of the most tender Affection; they have separated, if I may so say, from a part of themselves, from their own Bowels. In this cruel separation, they have gone away from all they had most near and dear to them in the World, at the price of their Liberties and their Lives. They have done it to go and wander in unknown Countries, in Climates extremely different from those where they had received their Births, without having any thing certain, without hoping for any other subsistence there, than what they could gather from the charity of strangers. If this be not the effect of a violent Persecution, what is then that madness which has got into the minds of all, and made them take so unparellelled a Resolution? How has this Fury communicated itself to so many people of all sorts, who lived very far asunder, and who had never known, or seen one another? How has it gained, in so short a time, all the Provinces of so great a Kingdom as France is, and in those Provinces, almost all who were, or had been of the Reformed Religion, Men and Women, Young and Old, Rich and Poor, Noble and Ignoble? Let Monsieur Brueis now explain to us a little this unheard of Prodigy, if he will persuade us that there has been no Persecution in France.  
But whatsoever men are pleased to say, 
Apologetic Hist. Tome 2d. p. 388. 389.  and think of it, I may with truth affirm, that above two hundred thousand of the Kings most faithful Subjects have voluntarily Banished themselves from his Kingdom to fly the Persecution; not to speak of many thousand others, persons, some of which have been condemned to the last punishments by the Judges; others have been Massacred by the Soldiers; others have died in the Galleys, others have been shut up in Convents; and others been embarked and sent for America. New Declarations more severe than the former are daily published; fresh Orders are given for the Guard of the Frontiers; the new Converts are forced, with greater rigour than ever, to go to Mass, to Confess, and to receive the Communion. They continue to fill the Convents, Prisons and Galleys with Confessors; and they empty them from time to time by new Embarkments for America. There where the Assemblies continue, there they continue to Massacre them. The Dragoons perform their Mission with the same Zeal still; and the Judges cease not giving the same sights to the people of Bodies drawn about on Sledges, and cast Dead upon the common Highways; and of Martyrs conducted to punishment, and ending their Lives by the hands of Executioners.  
Such is now the face of France: 
Apolog. Hist. p 394. & 395, etc.  Such is the Concord and the Union that reigns at present in this Kingdom: Such is the calm which the Church enjoys, and that happy Peace which the King has given it; according to the style of Monsieur Brueis. What Concord, O God What Union! What Calm! What Peace! Truly no Patience is proof against the base dishonesty of this Declaimer. Who can suffer such like impudence? But above all, who can without indignation read what he says in another place in the same Spirit? We see now, says he, that the Wise Conduct of this Great Prince has brought again into the Church, the fairest days of Christianity, etc. Yes, these are, we know it but too well; these are the fairest days, not of Christianity, God forbid! But of Popery, of the Roman Church; that cruel Babylon, which is never so satisfied, as when she can make herself Drunk with the Blood of the Saints and Martyrs of Jesus; looks on such Days, as her Days of Festival, as her Days of Triumph. So it was that she heretofore looked on that sad and dreadful Night of St. Bartholomew, wherein many thousand Protestants were Massacred by the Papists in times of Peace, and in cold Blood: One of her Orators made the Encomium thereof, with a thousand Transports of Admiration and Joy, in a Speech which he pronounced before Pope Gregory the XIII. 
Murat. Orat. 22. pro Caro.  O! Memorable Night, said he, and Worthy to be Engraved in large Characters in History, etc. That same Night, I think the Stars appeared more Bright and Glorious than ordinary; and the River Seine had swelled its Waters, that it might hurry away with a greater rapidness, the dead Bodies of those Impure Persons, viz. of the Reformed, and discharge itself the sooner of them into the Sea. O! Thrice happy Women, Katherine, Mother of the King! etc. O! Happy Brothers of the King! etc. O! Day, in fine, full of Joy and Pleasantness, wherein you, Holy Father, having received this News, you assisted on foot at the Processions you had ordered, for the rendering thanks for it to God, and to St. Lewis, etc. What more agreeable News could have been told you? And we, what Happier beginning could we have wished for of your Popedom?  
Let any one judge by these Words, of the Spirit of Popery, and of that of her Sovereign High Priest; and whether it be not the Spirit of the Impure and Cruel Babylon, rather than that of the Church of Jesus Christ.  
I will now conclude, because I proposed to myself to give you but a little Abridgement, and an Idea, only of this great Persecution; I doubt not but he, to whom Vengeance belongs, will sooner or later Revenge so many Evils. Lento quidem gradu Divina procedit ira, sed tarditatem Supplicii gravitate compensat.  
Vengeance doth surely, tho' but slowly tread,  
And strikes with Iron, tho' it walks with Lead.  
You see, in this Relation, the Impostures and Treacheries of Popery, as to its Oaths and Promises; to which no credit ought ever to be given, because it certainly never Swears and Promises, but to be Perjured, and to break its Word upon the first occasion. You likewise see here the degrees of its Cruelties, and how by little and little it advances them, till it at length comes to the Effusion of Blood, and to open Violence Farewell. I am  
SIR, Your very Humble and Obedient Servant.  
FINIS.