C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
M. le Constable Anne de Montmorency
By Pierre de Bourdeille, Seigneur de Brantôme (d. 1614)
From ‘Lives of Distinguished Men and Great Captains’
H
E never failed to say and keep up his paternosters every morning, whether he remained in the house, or mounted his horse and went out to the field to join the army. It was a common saying among the soldiers that one must “beware the paternosters of the Constable.” For as disorders were very frequent, he would say, while mumbling and muttering his paternosters all the time, “Go and fetch that fellow and hang me him up to this tree;” “Out with a file of harquebusiers here before me this instant, for the execution of this man!” “Burn me this village instantly!” “Cut me to pieces at once all these villain peasants, who have dared to hold this church against the king!” All this without ever ceasing from his paternosters till he had finished them—thinking that he would have done very wrong to put them off to another time; so conscientious was he!
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