CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE

BY ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

IN EIGHT VOLUMES



MASSACRES OF THE SOUTH--1551-1815




CHAPTER I

It is possible that our reader, whose recollections may perhaps go back
as far as the Restoration, will be surprised at the size of the frame
required for the picture we are about to bring before him, embracing as
it does two centuries and a half; but as everything, has its precedent,
every river its source, every volcano its central fire, so it is that the
spot of earth on which we are going to fix our eyes has been the scene of
action and reaction, revenge and retaliation, till the religious annals
of the South resemble an account-book kept by double entry, in which
fanaticism enters the profits of death, one side being written with the
blood of Catholics, the other with that of Protestants.

In the great political and religious convulsions of the South, the
earthquake-like throes of which were felt even in the capital, Nimes has
always taken the central place; Nimes will therefore be the pivot round
which our story will revolve, and though we may sometimes leave it for a