Part 1 — The Answer of the Clergy of France to the Duke of Alva.

HAD you made as sincere a confession in the days of yore, as you do now, you might, for your zeal in persecuting heresy, have obtain’d an ample absolution of all your sins, tho’ they had been never so numerous and black, and been a glorious saint in the Roman calendar; which induces us to believe, your zeal tended rather towards the propagation of your own power and interest, than that of the church. Thus in cheating us, you likewise cheated yourself; and we are not sorry at your calamities. But, does it become you, who once fill’d Flanders and Spain with horror, to reproach the apostolick legions with the noble effects of their fervency? And was it not absolutely necessary, after we had once preached the destruction of the Protestants, that Lewis the Great, to compleat his glory, and our satisfaction, should send his holy troops to burn, ravish, and pillage at discretion; that he might say with an emperor of Rome, whom he very much resembles, Let them hate, so they fear me? Where, Sir, do you find us commanded to keep faith with hereticks, or suffer their princes to live, when ’tis against our interest? Does not the Roman church dispense with these little peccadillo’s? And are not those who wear her cloth, and eat her bread, oblig’d to obey her precepts? What pleases us most is to hear a whining recreant as thou art, sing peccavi at this time of day, and pretend to remorse of conscience. For your comfort, you may desire Cerberus, if you please, to join in the consort with you; but rest assured, that if you had three mouths like that triple-headed cur, your barking would be all in vain.