The horrible persecution of the French Protestants in the province of Poitou truly set forth by a gentleman of great quality, an eye witness of those sad passages, in a letter to a worthy friend of his at Canterbury ; June 26, S.N. 1681. Gentleman of great quality. 1681 Approx. 7 KB of XML-encoded text transcribed from 2 1-bit group-IV TIFF page images. Text Creation Partnership, Ann Arbor, MI ; Oxford (UK) : 2008-09 (EEBO-TCP Phase 1). A44550 Wing H2862 ESTC R13253 11832947 ocm 11832947 49733 This keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership. This Phase I text is available for reuse, according to the terms of Creative Commons 0 1.0 Universal . The text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. Early English books online. (EEBO-TCP ; phase 1, no. A44550) Transcribed from: (Early English Books Online ; image set 49733) Images scanned from microfilm: (Early English books, 1641-1700 ; 497:27) The horrible persecution of the French Protestants in the province of Poitou truly set forth by a gentleman of great quality, an eye witness of those sad passages, in a letter to a worthy friend of his at Canterbury ; June 26, S.N. 1681. Gentleman of great quality. 1 sheet (2 p.) Printed for Randolph Taylor ..., London : 1681. Broadside. Caption title. Reproduction of original in Huntington Library. Created by converting TCP files to TEI P5 using tcp2tei.xsl, TEI @ Oxford. Re-processed by University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. Gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. 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Copies of the texts have been issued variously as SGML (TCP schema; ASCII text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable XML (TCP schema; characters represented either as UTF-8 Unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless XML (TEI P5, characters represented either as UTF-8 Unicode or TEI g elements). Keying and markup guidelines are available at the Text Creation Partnership web site . eng Huguenots -- France -- Poitou. Broadsides -- England -- London -- 17th century 2007-01 TCP Assigned for keying and markup 2007-02 Apex CoVantage Keyed and coded from ProQuest page images 2007-03 Jonathan Blaney Sampled and proofread 2007-03 Jonathan Blaney Text and markup reviewed and edited 2008-02 pfs Batch review (QC) and XML conversion THE HORRIBLE PERSECUTION OF THE French Protestants In the PROVINCE of POITOU . Truly set forth by a Gentleman of great Quality , an Eye Witness of those sad Passages . In a Letter to a Worthy Friend of his at Canterbury , June 26 , S.N. 1681. My Dear Cousin , THe good Air of France which I find to conduce much to my health , and the desire to see once more the goodly Countreys of the South , made me travel as far as Poitou , where I have much acquaintance of the best sort . Here I was stay'd by the horrible Tragedy which is now acting in this Province , to destroy the Protestant Religion , and the Professors thereof , of the middle sort , which in these parts are very numerous . My Heart is so full of it , that I must tell you what I have seen . The great Actor in it is one Intendant Marillac , who having from the potent Jesuit Father Le Chese , the promises of the present Life , and not caring for those of the Life to come , hath laid upon the Reformed a most heavy Cross , such as was not known since the Reformation . For which he hath got about him a Choice of Hard hearted Villains , expert to do Mischief to good Men , Indicting some of Crimes , suing others for Debts , loading all with Taxes . Those hungry Oppressors are made Jussices , that they may raven and tear by Authority . They are searching into the Lives of Protestants : If any of them twenty years before hath spoken some offensive Word , or given a Blow , there goeth out a Decree against him . He is Imprisoned in a dark Den , none of his Friends are suffered to come near him . He is put to a most refined kind of Inquisition : For though all his Friends be kept from him , he hath every day two sorts of Visiters ; Some seemingly kind and merciful , promise him Goods and Advantages of the World , if he will but go to Mass . Some severely telling him of the King 's Absolute Will , that there be but one Religion in his Kingdom : That if he remain obstinate in the Heresie , there is no mercy for him , he must look for the total Ruin of himself and his Family , after he hath been many Years suffering under the Condition of a Gally-Slave . Projects of severe Sentences are given him to read , that he may see what a weight of Distress is hanging over his Head , ready to fall on him and crush him . If these Arts shake not his Constancy , he is left in his dark Den , where he hath Bread allowed him , but hardly enough to live . Others are sued for their Debts , which are made to swell into fearful excesses of Costs : The Creditor is never to be found when the Debtor hath got money to pay him , whilst the poor Debtor is vexed with all the severe ways of the Law for not paying . The Lands of Debtors are extended for Debts , and themselves put out of their Houses . Among those Excesses , they are haunted with evil Counsellors , offering to see the Debts paid , if they will forsake their Religion , the only way for them to be happy . Another Persecution of the Protestants is by Taxes , so heavy that they sink under the Burthen . Those Taxes are Arbitrary , so that the taxed persons never know what they must pay till it be demanded : And the Protestants whom they have made Collectors , are imprisoned for not being able to pay for others , whom they had no power to distrain . Some of the Raskally sort of Tradesmen will turn Papists , and then they will set a higher Rate upon their Work ; but though they were disliked as ill Workmen , when they are not employed by the Protestants , they will complain to the Justices , who thereupon lay Mulcts upon those that will not employ them . Finally , when all other tricks to pick Quarrels with Protestants are wanting , the last and certain way to undo them is used , which is to set Souldiers upon them . There are in Poitou four Troops o● Horse , who take Free Quarter in Protestants Houses , and use them as Enemies . Their Salute when they come in , is to curse and revile the Master and all his Houshold , with the basest Language . Answerably to that beginning they do their worst to consume and spoil the Goods of the House , till they have ruin'd the Owners . Their way to bring them to Church , is to drag them tied with Cords to their Horses , and cudgel them besides , to make them go . Neither do they make an end of their horrible Violences , till they have made the Owners abandon their Houses and Goods , or till they have made them turn Catholicks . For an increase of Cruelty , those Violences are done when men are preparing for their Harvest , which the Souldiers destroy . Do but imagine what Souldiers will do , when they are commanded to do all the harm they can ; and what an Harvest of Tears and Lamentations they leave to poor Families , when they have destroyed the Harvest of their Corn. To these Cries and Lamentations of persons persecuted for the Gospel , some are the more bitter Cries of others brought to the Brink of Despair by their Abjuration of Gods Truth to save their Estates . Which criminous Act they now openly detest with a Flood of Tears . Between these two sorts of Weepers , a Voice of Lamentation and bitter Weeping is heard in Poitou , as once in Rama : And the rest of the Text alluded unto , will shortly be for them and all the Protestants of France ; Rachel Weeping for her Children , and would not be comforted because they are not , when the great declared Design shall be put to farther execution , the getting of all the Children under Age from Protestant Parents . They have gotten too many of them already ; and for the keeping of them , they exact such heavy Pensions from the Parents , that nothing remains to them , but their Hands to get a poor Living . Notwithstanding all this hard usage , I see the generality of the Protestants resolved to undergo the dismallest Tryals , as the Gallows , and the Fire , that they may Seal with their Blood the Truth of their Glorious Redeemer . As these Persecutions on the one side fright Christians , on the other side they confirm them , putting them in mind , that Sufferings are the Livery of a Christian . That which is most happy for the Protestant Party , is , that they are not accused of any Crime , and that never Subjects served their King better , or were more subjected to his Will : Wherefore their Enemies durst not accuse them of any Violation of their Duty to the King : And they have this Comfort , that they suffer merely for Righteousness sake . So they deal now with the ignoble or little Gentlemen . The Turn of the Great Men , among whom he that writ this Letter liveth , is not yet come ; but they are in part undone by the undoing of their Tenants . London , Printed for Randolph Taylor , near Stationers Hall , 1681.