To conceal the old negotiation he committed a further crime, and being betrayed by the tool he employed was seized and convicted.

On the 1st September, 1606, he lost his head on a scaffold erected before his own house in the Bourg du Four.
The Merciers had at least one son--probably he was the eldest, for he bore his father's name--who lived into middle life, and proved himself their worthy descendant.

For precisely fifty years after the date of these events a poor woman of the name of Michee Chauderon was put to death in Geneva, on a charge of sorcery; and among those--and they were not few--who strove most manfully and most obstinately to save her, we find the name of a physician of great note in the Canton at that time--one Claude Mercier.

He did not prevail, though he struggled bravely; the long night of superstition, though nearing its close, still reigned; that woman suffered.

But he carried it so far and so boldly that from that day to this--and the city may be proud of the fact--no person has suffered death in Geneva on that dreadful charge.
THE END.
THE ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY PRESS LIMITED.