Constant to Death - 1542
Knobelsdorf's letter was addressed to George Cassander (shown here).
Introduction
Eustathius de Knobelsdorf was a Catholic student in Paris who witnessed the execution of two Protestants on the Place Maubert. In a letter written on this day, 10 July, 1542, to George Cassander, a pro-Catholic professor at Bruges, he described the courage of one of the victims, a beardless boy, the son of a shoemaker. His tongue was cut out and his head smeared with sulfur. Far from showing marks of terror, he signified by a motion to the executioner his perfect willingness to meet death.
Quote
“I doubt, my dear Cassander whether those celebrated philosophers, who have written so many books on the contempt of death, would have endured so cruel tortures with such constancy. So far did this youth seem to be raised above what is of man.”
Baird, Henry Martyn. The Rise of the Huguenots. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1880.