Protestantism in France From Death of Francis I to Edict of Nantes - James Aitken Wylie

eing somewhat hot in the handling, and having
about it a noisome smell like that of a fagot, they
might rest assured it would certainly cure them. If
the audience desired to know her name, and the
book's name, she said, they were two riddles which
they might guess at.[8]
The citizens of La Rochelle had no great
difficulty in reading the riddle. Many of them made
trial of the book, despite its associations with the
stake and the fagot, and they found that its efficacy
sufficiently sovereign to cure them. They obtained
deliverance from that burden on the conscience
which had weighed them down in fear and anguish,
despite all that friar or penance could do to give
them ease. From that time Protestantism flourished
in La Rochelle; a Church was formed, its members
not darng as yet, however, to meet for worship in
open day, but assembling under cloud of night, as
was still the practice in almost all places in France.
We are now arrived at a new and most
important development of Protestantism in France.
As has been already mentioned, the crowns of
60