that the poor infant must be cast again into the flames,
which was accordingly performed; and so that pretty babe was
born a martyr, and added to the number of the holy
innocents.

Parsons, the English Jesuit, has asserted that the women were felons
and were executed for theft, while other apologists have described
them as prostitutes and generally infamous in character. The original
sentences, however, which still exist at the Guernsey _Greffe_, and
which I have examined, conclusively settle the question. Both the
ecclesiastical sentence, which is in Latin, and the civil sentence,
which is in French, distinctly describe the charge as one of _heresy_,
and make no mention whatever of any other crime as having aught to do
with the condemnation.

It has been questioned too whether a child could be born alive under
such circumstances. Mr. F.B. Tupper, in his _History of Guernsey_
(page 151), says: "We are assured by competent surgical authority that
the case is very possible"; and he further mentions that in a volume
entitled _Three Visits to Madagascar_, by the Rev. Wm. Ellis,
published in London, in 1858, a precisely similar case is stated to
have occurred in that island. A native woman was burnt for becoming a
convert to Christianity, and her infant, born in the flames, was
thrust into them again, and burnt also.

Lord Tennyson refers to this Guernsey martyrdom in his historical
drama of _Queen Mary_ (Act v. Scene iv.). It is night-time in London;
a light is burning in the Royal Palace; and he makes two "Voices of
the Night" say:--