ishment, to banish
from the camp theft and rapine, and, above all, that more insidious and
heaven-provoking sin of licentiousness, which, creeping in, had doubtless
drawn down upon the cause such marked signs of the Lord's displeasure,
that, of all the congregations in France, only the churches of a few
islands on the coasts, and the churches of Montauban, Havre, Orleans,
Lyons, and of the cities of Languedoc[194] and Dauphiny, continued to rear
their heads through the storm that had prostrated all the rest; and, to
this end, they warned him by no means to neglect to afford his soldiers
upon the march the same opportunities of hearing God's Word and of public
prayer which they had enjoyed in Orleans.[195]

The Huguenot army directed its course northward, and the different
divisions united under the walls of Pluviers, or Pithiviers, a weak place,
which surrendered after six hours of cannonading, with little loss to the
besieging party. The greater part of the garrison was dismissed unharmed,
after having been compelled to give up its weapons. Two of the officers,
as guilty of flagrant breach of faith and other crimes, were summarily
hung.[196] And here the Huguenot cause was stained by an act of cruelty
for which no sufficient excuse can be found. Several Roman Catholic
priests, detected, in spite of their disguise, among the prisoners, were
put to death, without other pretext save that they had been the chief
instigators of the resistance which the town had offered. Unhappily, the
Huguenot regarded the priest, and the Roman Catholic the reformed
minister, as the guilty cause of the civil war, and thought it right to
vent upon his head the vengeance which his own religion should have taught
him to leave to the righteous retribution of a just God. After the fall of
Pithiviers, no resistance was attempted by Etampes and other slightly
garrisoned places of the neighborhood, the soldiers and the clergy taking
refuge, before the approach of the army, in the capital.

[Sidenote: The prince appears before Paris.]

The prince was now master of the country to the very gates of Paris, and
it was the opinion of many, including among them the reformer, Beza, that
the city itself might be captured by a sudden advance, and the war thus
ended at a blow.[197] They therefore recommended that, without delay, the
army should hasten forward and attack the terrified inhabitants before
Guise and the constable should have time to bring the ar