but that the Huguenots, conscious of
their growing numbers, confident of the near approach of the day when
their rights were to be formally recognized, and impatient of the
fetters with which their enemies still attempted to embarrass their
progress, would assert their rights from day to day with increasing
boldness. The priests and the rabble, on the other hand, regarded this
new courage with suspicion, and interpreted every action as springing
from insufferable insolence. They were on the watch to detect fresh
examples of Huguenot audacity. They complained of the numbers that
flocked to hear the reformed preachers, of the arms which some carried
for self-defence--a precaution not very astonishing in view of the
excited feelings of the Parisians and the frequent outbursts of their
fury, and still less extraordinary on the part of the "noblesse," who
were accustomed to wear a sword at all times. They went so far as to
assert that the Huguenot multitude usurped the entire pavement, and were
become so overbearing that they were ready to pick a quarrel with any
one that presumed "to look at them." A peaceable Catholic must needs, to
avoid abuse and hard blows, show more skill in getting out of their way
than he would in shunning a mad dog. The streets resounded with their
profane psalm-singing, and ill fared it with the unlucky wight that
ventured to remonstrate, or dared to find fault with their provoking use
of meat on the prohibited days. He was likely to have a broken head for
his pains, or be shut up in prison by judges who sympathized with the
"new doctrines."[1245] The court, however, more correctly ascribing the
disturbances that occurred on such occasions to the attacks made upon
the Protestants by their opponents, detached the "chevalier du guet"
and his archers to attend the meetings and to prevent the disturbance of
the worshippers on their way to and from the places assigned for the
Protestant services in the suburbs.

[Sidenote: The "tumult of Saint Medard."]

At length, on Saturday, the twenty-seventh of December, a serious
commotion took place. One of the two spots where Catharine, at the
chancellor's suggestion, had permitted the Huguenots of the capital to
meet for worship, was a spacious building on the southern side of the
Seine, outside the walls and not far from the gate of St. Marceau. It
bore the enigmatical designation of "Le Patriarche," derived--so
antiquarians alleged--from the circumstance tha