, one of the martyrs to the cause of the protestant religion in France,
, one of the martyrs to
the cause of the protestant religion in France, in the sixteenth century, was a native of Auvergne, sou to Stephen
du Bourg, comptroller general of the customs in Languedoc, and brother to Anthony du Bourg, president of the
parliament of Paris, and afterwards chancellor of France.
He was born in 1521, designed for the church, and ordained priest; but embracing the protestant religion, was
honoured with the crown of martyrdom. He was a man of
great learning, especially in the law, which he taught at
Orleans with much reputation, and was appointed counsellor-clerk to the parliament of Paris in October 1557.
In this high station, he declared himself the protector of
the protestants, and endeavoured either to prevent or
soften the punishments inflicted upon them. This alarmed
some of Henry II.'s counsellors, who advised that monarch
to get rid of the protestants, and told him that he should
begin by punishing those judges who secretly favoured
them, or others who employed their credit and recommendations to screen them from punishment. They likewise suggested that the king should make his appearance
unexpectedly in the parliament which was to be assembled
on the subject of the Mercurials, or Checks, a kind of board
of censure against the magistrates instituted by Charles
VIII. and called Mercurials from the day on which they
were to be held (Wednesday). The king accordingly came
to parliament in June 1559, when Du Bourg spoke with
great freedom in his defence, and went so far as to attack
the licentious manners of the court; on which the king
ordered him to be arrested. On the 19th he was tried,
and declared a heretic by the bishop of Paris, ordered to
be degraded from the character of priest, and to be delivered into the hand of the secular power; but the king’s
death, in July, delayed the execution until December,
*vhen he was again condemned by the bishop of Paris, and
the archbishop of Lyons, his appeals being rejected by the
parliament. Frederick, elector Palatine, and other protestant princes of Germany, solicited his pardon, and probably might have succeeded, had it not been for the assassination, at this time, of the president M in art, whom
Du Bourg had challenged on his trial; and it was not
therefore difficult, however unjust, to persuade his persecutors that he had a hand in this assassination. He was
accordingly hanged, and his body burnt Dec. 2O, 1559;
leaving behind him the character of a pious and learned
man, an upright magistrate, and a steady friend. At his
execution he avowed his principles with great spirit; and
the popish biographers are forced to allow that the firmness and constancy shown by him and others, about the
same time, tended only to “make new heretics, instead of
intimidating the old.
”