Page 21 - 12 The French Reformation

At the stake, Berquin endeavored to address

a few words to the people; but the monks,

fearing the result, began to shout, and the

soldiers to clash their arms, and their clamor

drowned the martyr's voice. Thus in 1529 the

highest literary and ecclesiastical authority of

cultured Paris “set the populace of 1793 the

base example of stifling on the scaffold the

sacred words of the dying.”—Ibid., b. 13, ch.

9.

Berquin was strangled, and his body was

consumed in the flames. The tidings of his

death caused sorrow to the friends of the

Reformation throughout France. But his

example was not lost. “We, too, are ready,”

said the witnesses for the truth, “to meet

death cheerfully, setting our eyes on the life

that is to come.”—D'Aubigne, History of the