was restored,
and already the victims of religious assassination rivalled in number the
martyrs of the days of open persecution. At Crevant the Protestants were
attacked on their way to their "temple;" at Tours they were attacked while
engaged in worship. At Mans the fanatical bishop was the chief instigator
of a work of mingled murder and rapine. At Vendome it was the royal
governor himself, Gilbert de Curee, who fell a victim to the hatred of the
Roman Catholic noblesse, and was treacherously killed while hunting.[349]
If anything more was needed to render the violence insupportable, it was
found in the fact that any attempt to obtain judicial investigation and
redress resulted not in the condemnation of the guilty, but in the
personal peril of the complainant.[350]

[Sidenote: Conde appeals for redress.]

Smarting under the repeated acts of violence to which at every moment they
were liable, and under the successive infringements upon the Edict of
Amboise, the Huguenots urged the Prince of Conde to represent their
grievances to the monarch, in the excellence of whose heart they had not
yet lost confidence. The Protestant leader did not repel the trust. His
appeal to Charles and to the queen mother was urgent. He showed that, even
where the letter of the edict was observed, its spirit was flagrantly
violated. The edict provided for a place for preaching in each prefecture,
to be selected by the king. In some cases no place had yet been
designated. In others, the most inconvenient places had been assigned.
Sometimes the Huguenots of a district would be compelled to go _twenty or
twenty-five leagues_ in order to attend divine worship. The declaration
affecting the monks and nuns who had forsaken their habit was a violation
of the general liberty promised. So also was the prohibition of synods,
which, though not expressly mentioned, were implied in the toleration of
the religion to which they were indispensably necessary. But it was the
prejudice and ill-will, of which the Huguenots were the habitual victims
at the hands of royal governors and other officers, which moved them most
deeply. The evident desire was to find some ground of accusation against
them. The ears of the judges were stopped against their appeals for
justice. It was enough that they were accused. Decrees of confiscation, of
the razing of their houses, of death, were promptly given before any
examination was made into the truth of their culpability. On