ontbrun from the "Comtat," enabled the Sieur de Maligny to
collect a large Huguenot force without attracting notice. It had been
arranged that these troops should be first employed in seizing the
important city of Lyons for the King of Navarre. A part of the Huguenot
soldiers had, indeed, already been secretly introduced into the
city,[910] when letters were received from the irresolute Antoine
indefinitely postponing the undertaking. After having for several days
deliberated respecting his best course of conduct in these unforeseen
circumstances, Maligny decided to withdraw as quietly as he had come;
but a porter, who had caught a glimpse of the arms collected in one of
the places of rendezvous, informed the commandant of the city. In the
street engagement which ensued the Huguenots were successful, and for
several hours held possession of the city from the Rhone to the Saone.
Finding it impossible, however, to collect the whole force to carry out
his original design, Maligny retired under cover of the night, and was
so fortunate as to suffer little loss.[911]

[Sidenote: The _people_ not discouraged.]

[Sidenote: "The fashion of Geneva."]

[Sidenote: Books from Geneva destroyed.]

Maligny's failure disconcerted Montbrun and Mouvans, with whom he had
intended to co-operate, but had little effect in repressing the courage
of the Huguenot _people_. Of this the royal despatches are the best
evidence. Francis wrote to Marshal de Termes that since the Assembly of
Fontainebleau there had been public and armed gatherings _in an infinite
number of places_, where previously there had been only secret meetings.
In Perigord, Agenois, and Limousin, _an infinite number_ of scandalous
acts were daily committed by the seditious, who in most places _lived
after the fashion of Geneva_. Such _canaille_ must be "wiped out."[912]
A month later those pestilent "books from Geneva" turn up again. Count
de Villars, acting for Constable Montmorency in his province of
Languedoc, had burned two mule-loads of very handsomely bound volumes,
much to the regret of many of the Catholic troopers, who grudged the
devouring flames a sacrifice worth more than a thousand crowns.[913] But
he quickly followed up the chronicle of this valiant action with a
complaint of his impotence to reduce the sectaries to submission. The
Huguenots of Nismes had taken courage, and guarded their gates. So, or
even worse, was it of Montpellier[914] and Pezenas. Other cit