Page:Celebrated Trials - Volume 1.djvu/462
Lactantius took a wisp of lighted straw, and held to Grandier's face, saying: "Miscreant, wilt thou not confess, and renounce the devil? it is full time, you have but a moment longer to live."" I have no comnunication with the devil," answered Grandier, "I renounce him and all his works, and implore the divine mercy." Whereupon, without waiting the provost-deputy's order, that furious bigot openly performed the office of executioner under the patient's eye, setting fire himself to the pile. Grandier, without being moved with this barbarity, said to him in the calmest manner: "Ah! Father Lactantius, what is charity become? this sure is not the promise I received. But there is a God who will be judge of you and me; I summons you to appear at his tribunal within a month." Then addressing himself to God, he pronounced these words, which were his last: "Deus meus, ad te vigilo; mi-serere met, Deus."To thee, O God, lift my soul; O God, have mercy upon me. Then the exorcists began again to throw upon his face all the holy-water they had in their pots; while the people called to the executioner to strangle him; but that was not in his power, the rope being full of knots, and the flame soon rising to the head, thus Grandier was burnt quite alive.
As to this unhappy man, it must be owned, that how-ever he was innocent of magic, which seems pretty evident, yet he was guilty of dishonouring the sacredness of his character by flagrant debauchery. The criminal intercourse he kept up for seven years with a young lady, for whose sake he composed the treatise against the celibacy of priests, is a proof of his libertinism. We must not give into the rash judgment of those who, because they are persuaded that a man is innocent of one crime whereof he was unjustly accused, acquit him of others whereof he had been actually guilty.
Nevertheless, the sentence of the judges ceases not to be most iniquitous, because it was not for his libertinism he was impeached. As to his treatise on celibacy, he never owned the use that he had made of it, till he was upon the rack, that is, till he was already condemned. Besides, his single confession was not sufficient to found his condemnation upon; he ought to have been indicted at the instance of the young lady whom he seduced.