[Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) I by Alexandre Dumas Pere]@TWC D-Link bookMassacres Of The South (1551-1815) I CHAPTER IX 21/30
The prince expressed his approval of this attitude with regard to the past, but said that his presence was a guarantee for the future, and that on Thursday the 9th inst.
the two meeting-houses should be reopened and restored to their proper use.
The Protestants were alarmed at, having a favour accorded to them which was much more than they would have dared to ask and for which they were hardly prepared.
But the prince reassured them by saying that all needful measures would be taken to provide against any breach of the public peace, and at the same time invited M.Desmonts, president, and M.Roland-Lacoste, member of the Consistory, to dine with him. The next deputation to arrive was a Catholic one, and its object was to ask that Trestaillons might be set at liberty.
The prince was so indignant at this request that his only answer was to turn his back on those who proffered it. The next day the duke, accompanied by General Lagarde, left for Montpellier; and as it was on the latter that the Protestants placed their sole reliance for the maintenance of those rights guaranteed for the future by the word of the prince, they hesitated to take any new step in his absence, and let the 9th of November go by without attempting to resume public worship, preferring to wait for the return of their protector, which took place on Saturday evening the 11th of November. When the general got back, his first thought was to ask if the commands of the prince had been carried out, and when he heard that they had not, without waiting to hear a word in justification of the delay, he sent a positive order to the president of the Consistory to open both places of worship the next morning. Upon this, the president carrying self-abnegation and prudence to their extreme limits, went to the general's quarters, and having warmly thanked him, laid before him the dangers to which he would expose himself by running counter to the opinions of those who had had their own way in the city for the last four months.
<<Back Index Next>> D-Link book Top TWC mobile books
|