THE GLORIOUS EVENT AT TOULOUSE.

Wellington Independent, Volume XVII, Issue 1736, 1 July 1862, Page 5

THE GLORIOUS EVENT AT TOULOUSE.

Tbe Opinione Nationale gives an historical sketch of tht "glorious event," the tri-centenary I Festivalof which tb.6 Archbishop of Toulouse vow proposes to celebrated. It took placs ten years before the St. Bartholomew massacre of Paris. The animosity between Protestants and Catholics had flamed up into a civil war. "The Protestants entrenched themselves in the Hotel de Ville, where they had sotn c pieces of cannon. In order to dislodge them the adjacent houses were set on fire,and tbe Parliament forbade, under pain of death, any one to extinguish the conflagration ; the beseiged, however, knocked down the burning houses with their cannon. Th&'Governor of Narboune was then sent to them as a messenger of peace. Two conditions only were made, that the besieged should quit the capital, leaving their arms and munitions. That done, they might withdraw from the town or do as they pleased. On the day of the Penteenst, thefo, on the fa^l of the treaty, the Protestants left without arms. during vespers, hoping thus to execute the retreat with greater security ; but loud cries were heard, the crowd rushed precipitately out of the churches and massacred the disarmed Huguenots without pity. Tbe Parliament caused those who escaped to be put to death, and Montluc, who arrived from Guienne with a reinforcement of royal troops, was still in time to assist at the end of this slaughter. ' I never saw so many heads fly,' he said in his Memoirs. The number of victims is estimated at 4000." The writer proceeds to show the consequences of the centenary celebratiou of the " glorious event :" — •' The centenary festival of the 17th of May 1862, was called at Rome the ' Feast of Deliverance,' while Voltaire called it the processiou to thank God for 4000 murders. . . . - The whole of the year 1762 was occupied by prosecutions for the cause of religion ; that of the pastor Rochette. and the brothers Grenier, who were executed in February, that of Calas, who was broken on the wheel on the 10th of March, and that of Sirven, *ho succeeded iv saviug his life by flight. Jean Cala.s, his wife, his son, Lavaysse, their friend, and the servant of the house, were for a long time in prison, awaiting their condemnation, wheu the young minister Francois Rochette was put to death with the three gentlemen who had attempted to rescue him from the hands of the authorities. Rochette was hanged on the 19th of February, on the Place dv Petit Salin at Toulouse, a placard being attached to bis breast bearing the words 'Ministre

de la R. P. R. ('the Minister of the Pretended Reformed Religion'). He w;ss then twenty-six years of age. The three Greniers, being gentlemen were beheaded. Wheu the tain of the youngest came, who had buried his lace in his hands during the execution of his two brothers, the executioner approached and ouce more offered him his life if he would become a Catholic. The young martyr quietly replied, ' Fulfil your duty,' ami phiced his head upon the block As to Jean Oalas, his history is well known ; he was without any proof condemned to 'be broken alive; to be exposed for two hours on the wheel, strangled, and then thrown on a flaming pile to be burnt and consumed.'" It is reported that the Archbishop of Toulouse is to be prosecuted on account of his notable pastoral.