Note 1388 — Chapter XX · (continued 2)

Mémoires de Lestoile, i. 38. Agrippa d'Aubigné gives us (ii. 131) a full account of Montgomery's address, which he himself heard, mounted, as he informs us, "en croupe" behind M. de Fervaques, to whom Montgomery bade farewell just before his death. The Huguenot captain made but two requests of the bystanders: "the first, that they would tell his children, whom the judges had declared to be degraded to the rank of 'roturiers,' that, if they had not virtue of nobility enough to reassert their position, their father consented to the act; as for the other request, he conjured them, by the respect due to the words of a dying man, not to represent him to others as beheaded for any of the reasons assigned in his judicial condemnation—his wars, expeditions, and ensigns won—subjects of frivolous praise to vain men—but to make him the companion in cause and in death of so many simple persons according to the world—old men, young men, and poor women—who in that same place (the Place de Grève) had endured fire and knife." D'Aubigné's narrative, as usual, is vivid, and mentions somewhat trivial details, which, however, are additional pledges of its accuracy; e.g., he alludes to the fact that, having spoken as above to those who stood on the side toward the river, he repeated his remarks to those on the other side of the Place de Grève, beginning with the words, "I was saying to the men yonder," etc.