the ignorant and fanatic monks who for a whole generation, in every
university and school in France, had been howling down sound science, as
well as sound religion; and at Montpellier in 1560-1, their debt was paid
them in a very ugly way. News came down to the hot southerners of
Languedoc of the so-called conspiracy of Amboise.--How the Duc de Guise
and the Cardinal de Lorraine had butchered the best blood in France under
the pretence of a treasonable plot; how the King of Navarre and the
Prince de Conde had been arrested; then how Conde and Coligny were ready
to take up arms at the head of all the Huguenots of France, and try to
stop this lifelong torturing, by sharp shot and cold steel; then how in
six months' time the king would assemble a general council to settle the
question between Catholics and Huguenots. The Huguenots, guessing how
that would end, resolved to settle the question for themselves. They
rose in one city after another, sacked the churches, destroyed the
images, put down by main force superstitious processions and dances; and
did many things only to be excused by the exasperation caused by thirty
years of cruelty. At Montpellier there was hard fighting, murders--so
say the Catholic historians--of priests and monks, sack of the new
cathedral, destruction of the noble convents which lay in a ring round
Montpellier. The city and the university were in the hands of the
Huguenots, and Montpellier became Protestant on the spot.

Next year came the counter blow. There were heavy battles with the
Catholics all round the neighbourhood, destruction of the suburbs,
threatened siege and sack, and years of misery and poverty for
Montpellier and all who were therein.

Horrible was the state of France in those times of the wars of religion
which began in 1562; the times which are spoken of usually as "The
Troubles," as if men did not wish to allude to them too openly. Then,
and afterwards in the wars of the League, deeds were done for which
language has no name. The population decreased. The land lay untilled.
The fair face of France was blackened with burnt homesteads and ruined
towns. Ghastly corpses dangled in rows upon the trees, or floated down
the blood-stained streams. Law and order were at an end. Bands of
robbers prowled in open day, and bands of wolves likewise. But all
through the horrors of the troubles we catch sight of the little fat
doctor riding all unarmed to see his patients throug