t it had been built long
before by a patriarch of Alexandria expelled from his see by the
Moslems.[1246] Here a congregation of several thousand persons[1247] had
assembled in the afternoon. The introductory services over, the pastor,
Jean Malot, had been preaching for a quarter of an hour, when his sermon
was noisily interrupted. Separated from the "Patriarche" by a narrow
lane stood the parish church of Saint Medard. Under the pretext of
summoning the people to vespers, the priests had ordered all the bells
in the tower to be rung violently, and hoped by the din to put an end to
the heretical worship in the vicinity. Finding it impossible to make
himself heard, the minister endeavored to restrain his excited audience,
and after the singing of a psalm resumed his discourse. It was all in
vain: St. Medard's bells pealed out the tocsin, and the sound of the
discharge of fire-arms, and the crash of stones hurled from the belfry,
increased the confusion. Meanwhile two Protestants had quietly gone over
to the side door of the church, to request an abatement of the
interruption. Their civil request was answered with violence. One of the
men barely escaped with his life; the other, a deacon of the church, was
killed on the spot. Five or six royal archers, commanded by the provost,
Rouge-Oreille, next summoned the party within the church to desist, but
met with no better success. At length the people, now congregated around
the entrance, and subjected to a storm of missiles from the windows and
the tower, forced open the doors and entered the church. Here they
discovered the corpse of their murdered brother. The priests and
sacristans, though armed with swords and clubs, were soon driven to take
refuge in the belfry. In the struggle the ecclesiastics themselves
became iconoclasts, and, when their supply of less sacred implements ran
low, broke in pieces the images of saints, and rained the fragments upon
the Huguenot crowd. Finally a threat to set fire to the belfry put an
end at once to the ringing of the tocsin and to the holy shower.
Meantime the tumultous peals of St. Medard's bells had drawn to the spot
the "chevalier du guet," one Gabaston, who, on learning the
circumstances, promptly lent aid in quelling the disturbance, and
arrested a number of the leaders in the riotous proceedings. Yielding to
an injudicious impulse, the motley crowd of Huguenots and of persons who
had been attracted to the scene by the noise resolved