stants. More would have been
executed had not the Bishop of Valence been induced to intercede for his
episcopal city, and obtain amnesty for its citizens. Romans and
Montelimart fared little better than Valence.[862]

[Sidenote: Concourse at Nismes.]

At Nismes, in Languedoc--destined periodically, for the next three
centuries, to be the scene of civil dissension arising from religious
intolerance--as early as in Holy Week, three Protestant ministers had
been preaching in private houses and administering baptism. On Easter
Monday a large concourse from the city and the surrounding villages
publicly passed out into the suburbs--armed, if we may believe the
cowardly Vicomte de Joyeuse, with corselets, arquebuses, and pikes--and
celebrated the Lord's Supper "after the manner of Geneva." Neither the
presidial judges nor the consuls exhibited much disposition to second
the efforts of the provincial government in suppressing these
manifestations.[863]

[Sidenote: Mouvans in arms in Provence.]

[Sidenote: His message to Guise.]

In Provence the commotion assumed a more military aspect, in immediate
connection with the conspiracy of Amboise. Mouvans, an able leader,
after failing in an attempt to gain admission to Aix, long maintained
himself in the open country. Keeping up a wonderful degree of discipline
in his army, he allowed his soldiers, indeed, to destroy the images in
the churches and to melt down the rich reliquaries of gold and silver,
but scrupulously required them to place the precious metal in the hands
of the local authorities. At length, forced to capitulate to the Comte
de Tende, the royal governor, he obtained the promise of security of
person and liberty of worship. New acts of treachery rendered his
position unsafe, and he retired to Geneva. It was thence that he
returned to the Duke of Guise, who professed to be eager to secure for
himself the services of so able a commander, a noble answer: "So long as
I know you to be an enemy of my religion and of the public peace, and to
be occupying the place of right belonging to the princes of the blood,
you may be assured you have an enemy in Mouvans, a poor gentleman, but
able to bring against you fifty thousand good servants of the King of
France, who are ready to endanger life and property in redressing the
wrongs you have inflicted on the faithful subjects of his Majesty."[864]

[Sidenote: A popular awakening.]

It was impossible to ignore the fact: Franc