Two illustrious ladies, the Duchess of Rohan and her daughter, who were not named in the capitulation, are thus referred to by a writer of that day. ^ Rigor without precedent, that a person of her quality, at the age of seventy, on quitting a siege in which she and her daughter had lived for three months on horse flesh and four or five ounces of bread per day, should be held a captive, deprived of the exercises of religion.' ' Protestants were no longer allowed to reside in this ' city of refuge,' unless they had been inhabitants before the arrival of Bucking'iam's expedition. The walls were prostrated, the fortifications razed, and a cross erected. Thus perished this little Christian republic which had defied the crown of France lor seventy years."

•' History does not afford an example of more malignant or desolating war than that which raged in France during the seventeenth century. Louis XIV., the easy dupe of the Jesuits, confessors, and the designing Madame de JVlaintenon, and led on, also, by the Cardinal Mazarine, determined to convert the Rer<^rmers to the Roman faith. Not only force, but bribery was

• Smedley's History of Reform. Religion in Franc, vol. iii., p. 164, Harper's editi^EL

COUNTY OF WESTCHESTER.

now employed ; converts were to be purchased, and proselytism in every form resorted to."a

Arms of La Roclielle.

To enter into the minute particulars of this disastrous period would be superfluous ; suffice it to say. that now commenced a renewal of the outrageous proceedings of former years. Commissioners were sent into the provinces to dispossess the Reformed of all they held as citizens; nothing awaited them but fines^ humiliation and poverty. Troops of soldiers were quartered among them, who inflicted the most horrid barbarities, while others scoured the country, and dragooned men into false confessions.