After one of the most bloody sieges
recorded in history, the Turks captured the stronghold, losing 50,000 men.
Maggi was taken captive and conducted in chains to Constantinople.
Unfortunately he whiled away the tedious hours of his captivity by writing
two books, _De equuleo_ and _De tintinnabulis_, remarkable for their
learning, composed entirely without any reference to other works in the
squalor of a Turkish prison. He dedicated the books to the Italian and
French ambassadors to the Sublime Porte, who were much pleased with them
and endeavoured to obtain the release of the captive. Their efforts
unhappily brought about the fate which they were trying to avert. For when
the affair became known, as Maggi was being conducted to the Italian
ambassador, the captain of the prison ordered him to be brought back and
immediately strangled in the prison.
The unhappy Jean Lenoir, Canon of Seez, was doomed in 1684 to a life-long
servitude in the galleys, after making a public retractation of his errors
in the Church of Notre-Dame, at Paris. His impetuous and impassioned
eloquence is displayed in all his writings, which were collected and
published under the title _Recueil de Requetes et de Factums_. The titles
of some of his treatises will show how obnoxious they were to the ruling
powers--e.g., _Heresie de la domination episcopale que l'on etablit en
France, Protestation contre les assemblees du clerge de 1681_, etc.
Pages:
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134