The trial of the Lutherans was soon over, and the executions began. An expiation was required for the purification of France, and the heretics must be offered in sacrifice. The burning piles were distributed over all the quarters of Paris and the executions followed on successive days. Millon was the first. The turnkey entered his cell, lifted him in his arms, and placed him on a tumbril-a cart. The procession then took its course towards the Place de Greve. Passing his father's house, he smiled, bidding adieu to his old home, as one in sight of that house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. "Lower the flames," said the officer in command, "the sentence says he is to be burnt at a slow fire." He had to be lifted and flung into the flames, but he bore his lingering tortures as if miraculously sustained. Only words of peace, with great sweetness of spirit, dropped from his lips, while his soul, ransomed by the precious blood of Jesus, ascended on angels' wings to the paradise of God.
A long list of names follows. Du Borg, of the Rue St. Denis, Calvin's friend, was the next; and many persons of distinction suffered at that time, and many, having warning, made their escape.
While these tumultuous scenes were convulsing the capital, Margaret was residing at her castle of Nerac. The news filled her with dismay. Her enemies, now that they had the ear of the king, labored to inflame his mind against her. In times past, the slightest reflection on the reputation of his beloved sister would have been instantly and vehemently silenced by Francis. But now, in his gloomy state of mind, he listened to the representations of his ministers. It was insinuated to the king, that "if he had a mind to extirpate the heretics out of his kingdom, he must begin by his court and his nearest relations." Margaret was summoned to Paris. She immediately obeyed, confident in the integrity of her intentions, the love of her brother, and fearless of the hostile theologians, whom she neither dreaded nor respected. For the first time, perhaps, in his life, Francis received Margaret at the Louvre with cold severity, and reproached her for the evils which her support of heresy had brought on his kingdom. Margaret wept, but she concealed her tears from her angry brother. She gently expostulated with him, and soon found that bigotry had not quite extinguished his love for her. She became bolder, and ventured to suggest that it was the intolerance of the fanatical party that had filled the kingdom with discord. She was as grieved about the placards as he was, but felt sure that none of the ministers whom she knew had any hand in their publication.
Without entering into particulars, we need only further add, that her entreaties obtained the liberation of the three preachers-Roussel, Berthault, and Couralt; and that the king's countenance was changed towards those who had maligned the motives of his sister. Her presence in Paris, for a time, hindered the designs of the persecutors; but as Francis was determined to command a public procession through the streets of Paris to cleanse away the pollution of the placards, she petitioned the king to permit her departure into Bearn, which he reluctantly granted.