e mob to a frenzy.[1025] When their passions had
reached a fervent heat, it was easy to bring on seditious explosions,
the blame of which could be attached to the other party. "Few cities in
the realm," says Abbe Bruslart in his journal, "escaped at this time
riots and tumultuous scenes occasioned by the new religion."[1026]
Amiens, Pontoise, and Paris itself were among the scenes of these
disorders. Twenty cities witnessed the slaughter of Protestants by the
infuriated rabble.[1027]

[Sidenote: The affair at Beauvais.]

The disturbance that attracted more attention than any other took place
in the episcopal city of Beauvais--about forty miles north of Paris--on
Easter Monday, the very next day after Montmorency, Guise, and St. Andre
had been confirming their inauspicious compact at the sacred feast in
honor of a risen Redeemer. The Bishop of Beauvais was the celebrated
Cardinal Odet de Chatillon, long suspected of being at heart a convert
to the reformed doctrines. More bold than he had formerly been, he now
openly fostered their spread in his diocese.[1028] But even the personal
popularity of the brother of Coligny and D'Andelot could not, in the
present instance, secure immunity for the preachers who proclaimed the
Gospel under his auspices. Incited by the priesthood, the people
overleaped all the bounds within which they had hitherto contained
themselves. The occasion was a rumor spread abroad that the Cardinal,
instead of attending the public celebration of the mass in his cathedral
church, had, with his domestics, participated in a private communion in
his own palace, and that every communicant had, at the hands of the Abbe
Bouteiller, received both elements, "after the fashion of Geneva."
Hereupon the mob, gathering in great force, assailed a private house in
which there lived a priest accused of teaching the children the
doctrines of religion from the reformed catechisms. The unhappy Adrien
Fourre--such was the schoolmaster's name--was killed; and the rabble,
rendered more savage through their first taste of blood, dragged his
corpse to the public square, where it was burned by the hands of the
city hangman. Odet himself incurred no little risk of meeting a similar
fate. But the strength of the episcopal palace, and the sight of their
bishop clothed in his cardinal's costume, appeased the mob for the time;
and before the morrow came, a goodly number of the neighboring nobles
had rallied for his defence.[1029]