If their creed were no longer tolerated, then, and if they remained true to it, they must either fly from the country or spend a living death tugging at an oar or working in a chain-gang upon the roads.

It was a dreadful alternative to present to a people who were so numerous that they made a small nation in themselves.

And most dreadful of all, that she who was of their own blood should cast her voice against them.

And yet her promise had been given, and now the time had come when it must be redeemed.
The eloquent Bishop Bossuet was there, with Louvois, the minister of war, and the famous Jesuit, Father la Chaise, each piling argument upon argument to overcome the reluctance of the king.

Beside them stood another priest, so thin and so pale that he might have risen from his bed of death, but with a fierce light burning in his large dark eyes, and with a terrible resolution in his drawn brows and in the set of his grim, lanky jaw.