mies than the Roman Catholic army to its
friends. Even a curate of Brie--no very great lover of the Huguenots, who
relates with infinite gusto the violation of Huguenot women by Anjou's
soldiers[482]--admits that, excepting in the matter of the plundering of
the churches and the distressing of priests, the Roman Catholics were a
little worse than the heretics.[483]

[Sidenote: The "Michelade" at Nismes.]

Leaving the Huguenot army on its march toward Orleans, let us glance at
the operations of the party in other quarters of the kingdom. Southern
France, where the Protestants were most numerous, and where the excitable
character of the people disposed them more easily than elsewhere to sudden
outbreaks, was not behind the north in rising at the appointed time
(September, 1567). At Nismes, indeed, a furious commotion broke out--the
famous "Michelade," as it was called, because it immediately followed the
feast-day of St. Michael--a commotion whose sanguinary excesses gave it an
unenviable notoriety, and brought deep disgrace upon the Protestant cause.
Here the turbulent populace was encouraged by the report that Lyons was in
friendly hands, and maddened by the intelligence that, besides the common
dangers impending over all the Huguenots of France, the Huguenots of
Nismes had more particular occasion for fear in the troops of the
neighboring Comtat Venaissin. These troops, it was said, had been summoned
by the bishop and chapter of the cathedral of Nismes. The mob accordingly
took possession of the city, closing the gates, and imprisoning a large
number of persons--consuls, priests, and other obnoxious characters. That
night the cathedral and the chapter-house witnessed a wild scene of
destruction. Pictures of the saints, and altars, including everything
associated with Roman Catholic worship, were ruthlessly destroyed. But the
most terrible event occurred in the episcopal palace. The bishop was saved
from capture and certain death by the intervention of a courageous man,
himself a Protestant; but others were less fortunate. No fewer than eighty
prisoners, brought in detachments to the court of the palace, were
butchered in rapid succession, and their corpses thrown promiscuously into
a well. The next morning the Protestant pastors and elders assembled, and,
sending to the ringleaders a minister and a deacon, begged them to
discontinue their horrible work. Already, however, had returning shame
made everybody unwilling to