Your citizens of Paris formerly had lent themselves as the ready
instruments to slaughter the followers of Calvin, at the infamous
massacre of St. Bartholomew. What should we say to those who could
think of retaliating on the Parisians of this day the abominations and
horrors of that time? They are indeed brought to abhor that
massacre. Ferocious as they are, it is not difficult to make them
dislike it, because the politicians and fashionable teachers have no
interest in giving their passions exactly the same direction. Still,
however, they find it their interest to keep the same savage
dispositions alive. It was but the other day that they caused this
very massacre to be acted on the stage for the diversion of the
descendants of those who committed it. In this tragic farce they
produced the cardinal of Lorraine in his robes of function, ordering
general slaughter. Was this spectacle intended to make the Parisians
abhor persecution and loathe the effusion of blood?- No; it was to
teach them to persecute their own pastors; it was to excite them, by
raising a disgust and horror of their clergy, to an alacrity in
hunting down to destruction an order which, if it ought to exist at
all, ought to exist not only in safety, but in reverence. It was to
stimulate their cannibal appetites (which one would think had been
gorged sufficiently) by variety and seasoning; and to quicken them
to an alertness in new murders and massacres, if it should suit the
purpose of the Guises of the day.
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