Posted on 02/19/2023 3:39:44 PM PST by CheshireTheCat
In September 1761, a man named Francois Rochette was detained in Toulouse, France, having been arrested traversing the nearby countryside on suspicion of being one of that area’s robbers.
Rochette was not a robber.
He was much, much worse: a Huguenot minister.
Interrogation soon made the situation clear. Technically, his heretical calling could subject Rochette to the death penalty, but the authorities weren’t going to be unreasonable about this — and “as Rochette was not surprised in the exercise of his function, he might easily have escaped by concealing his profession. Those, who interrogated him went even so far as to point out to him this means of acquittal.”
Every legal regime needs a bit of discretion, a bit of look-the-other-wayism, lest the letter of the law excite a judicial slaughter that public sentiment could never support.
Francois Rochette wasn’t interested in signing himself off a clerk or a cloth-merchant and being on his cagey way. He would not elide his calling: would not abet an other-way look....
(Excerpt) Read more at executedtoday.com ...
Good thing my Huguenot ancestors got here in 1680.
Too bad the same f**ks who did this crap followed us here in big numbers starting about 100 years after this, and are currently bringing in millions more with the same mindset.
Looking forward to Spanish Inquisition Part Deux, last time out was such a blast.
Francois Rochette was not executed. He was a Huguenot minister who fled from France to England after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, which had granted Huguenots religious toleration in France. Rochette served as a minister to Huguenot congregations in Spitalfields and Canterbury, and was known for his work as a translator, particularly for his translation of the New Testament into French in 1724. Rochette died in 1743 and was buried in Canterbury. There is no indication that he was ever executed.
Interesting.
All the internet sources - including the French - show this story.
Can you point to a source? Was the fate of the Grenier brothers similar?
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