Note 406 — CCCVII.—To Mathieu Dimonet.[406]

Mathieu Dimonet, a devout Protestant of Lyons, was arrested in that town the 9th January 1553. In his letters to the ministers of Geneva he has himself related the details of his trial:—"On Monday 9 January being in my house in presence of the king's lieutenant and the official, who, after they had searched and visited my books, found nothing, except a little book of spiritual songs set to music...." Dimonet underwent a first examination, and was then led away to the prison of the officialty. "I have undergone," says he, "great assaults and temptations ... for on the one side, they set before me tortures and death, then the shame and dishonour of myself and my relations, the sorrow of my mother, who they said was dying with grief and many other things ... which would have been very hard for me to bear, unless the Lord had strengthened me by his Holy Spirit." The prisoner courageously withstood the threats of the inquisitor Oritz, and the pressing entreaties of his family. The 15th July 1553, quite cheerfully, and praying to the Lord, he endured the torment of death.—Histoire des Martyrs, p. 247.