Protestantism in France From Death of Henry IV to the Revolution - James Aitken Wylie

without confession and without the Sacrament of
extreme unction. His corpse was a thing too vile to
rest in the bosom of the earth -- it must rot above
ground; it was exposed on the highway, or was
flung into the public sewer. The body of M. de
Chevenix, a man illustrious for his learning and
piety, was subjected to this indignity. Dragged
away on a hurdle, it was thrown upon a dung-hill.
His friends came by night, and wrapping it in linen,
bore it reverently on their shoulders, and buried it
in a garden, giving vent to their sorrow, as they
lowered it slowly into its place of sepulture, by
singing the seventy-ninth Psalm: "Save me, O
Lord, for the waters are come into my soul."[4]
While one clause of the Act of Revocation
made it death for the pastor to remain in France,
another clause of the same Act made it death for
the layman to flee from it. The land was converted
into a vast prison. The frontiers were jealously
guarded; sentinels were placed at aft the great
outlets of the kingdom; numerous spies kept watch
at the seaports; officers patrolled the shore; and
ships of war hovered off the coast to prevent
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