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

night-fall, and when the dawn appeared, retiring to
some forest or cavern for rest and sleep. Sometimes
they lay concealed in a barn, or burrowed in a haystack,
till the return of the darkness made it safe for
them to continue their flight. Nobles and
gentlemen, setting their servants on horseback,
would put on their dress, and follow on foot as
though they were lackeys.
The women were not less fertile in artifices and
disguises. They dressed themselves as servants, as
peasants, as nurses; even noble ladies would
journey onward trundling wheel-barrows, or
carrying hods, or bearing burdens. The young
disfigured their faces by smearing or dyeing their
skin and cutting off their hair, thus converting
blooming youth into withered and wrinkled age.
Some dressed themselves as beggars, some sold
rosaries, and some reigned to be deaf or insane.[5]
The perils that environed them on every side could
not daunt their heroic resolution. They urged their
fleeing steps onward through the darkness of night
and the tempests of winter, through tangled forests
and quaking morasses, through robbers and
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