btedly taking rapid strides in that direction. For the giddy throng
of courtiers, living in an atmosphere that reeked with corruption,[276]
the stern morality professed by the lips and exemplified in the lives of
Gaspard de Coligny and his noble brothers, as well as by many another of
nearly equal rank, could afford but few attractions. Many of these
triflers had, it is true, exhibited for a time some leaning toward the
reformed faith. But their evanescent affection was merely a fire kindled
in the light straw: the fuel was soon consumed, and the brilliant flame
which had given rise to such sanguine expectations died out as easily as
it sprang up.[277] When once the novelty of the simple worship in the rude
barn, or in the retired fields, with the psalms of Marot and Beza sung to
quaint and stirring melodies, had worn off; when the black gown of the
Protestant minister had become as familiar to the eye as the stole and
chasuble of the officiating priest, and the words of the reformed
confession of sins as familiar to the ear as the pontifical litanies and
prayers, the "assemblee" ceased to attract the curious from the salons of
St. Germain and Fontainebleau. Besides, it was one thing to listen to a
scathing account of the abuses of churchmen, or a violent denunciation of
the sins of priest and monk, and quite another to submit to a faithful
recital of the iniquities of the court, and hear the wrath of God
denounced against the profane, the lewd, and the extortionate. There were
some incidents, occurring just at the close of the war, that completed the
alienation which before had been only partial. The Huguenots had attempted
by stringent regulations to banish swearing, robbery, and other flagrant
crimes from their army. They had punished robbery in many instances with
death. They had succeeded so far in doing away with oaths, that their
opponents had paid unconscious homage to their freedom from the despicable
vice. In those days, when in the civil struggle it was so difficult to
distinguish friends from foes, there was one proof of unimpeachable
orthodoxy that was rarely disputed. He must be a good Catholic who could
curse and swear. The Huguenot soldier would do neither.[278] So nearly,
indeed, did the Huguenot affirmation approach to the simplicity of the
biblical precept, that one Roman Catholic partisan leader of more than
ordinary audacity had assumed for the motto on his standard the
blasphemous device: "'Double 's