; but while Catharine is always Jezebel, it
is Charles that now figures, in place of poor Antoine of Navarre, as
Ahab.[518] Again, in the struggle of royalty with priests and monks
breathing sedition, it is the churchman who by his arrogance carries off
the victory with the common people, while from the sensible he receives
merited contempt.[519] So fine a text as the edict afforded for spirited
Lenten discourses did not present itself every day, and the clergy of
France improved it so well that the passions of their flocks were inflamed
to the utmost.[520] Except where their numbers were so large as to command
respect, the Protestants scarcely dared to return to their homes.

[Sidenote: Riot when the edict is published at Rouen.]

The very mention of the peace, with its favorable terms for the
Protestants, was enough to stir up the anger of the ignorant populace.
When the Parliament of Rouen, after agreeing to the Edict of Longjumeau in
private session, threw open its doors (on the third of April, 1568) to
give it official publication, a rabble that had come purposely to create a
tumult, interrupted the reading with horrible imprecations against the
peace, the Huguenots, the edicts, the "preches," and the magistrates who
approved such impious acts. The presidents and counsellors fled for their
lives. The populace, as though inspired by some evil spirit, raged and
committed havoc in the "palais de justice." The mob opened the prisons and
liberated eight or ten Roman Catholics; then flocked to the ecclesiastical
dungeons and would have massacred the Protestants that were still confined
there, had these not found means to ransom their lives with money. It was
not until six days later that the royal edict was read, in the presence of
a large military force called in to preserve order.[521]

[Sidenote: Treatment of the returning Huguenots.]

In spite of the provisions of the edict, the Huguenots wandered about in
the open country, avoiding the cities where they were likely to meet with
insult and violence, if not death. The Protestants of Nogent, Provins, and
Bray hesitated for three months, and then we are told that each man
watched his opportunity and sought to enter when his Roman Catholic
friends might be on guard to defend him from the insolence of others.

[Sidenote: At Provins.]

But the sufferings of the Huguenot burgess were not ended when he was once
more in his own house. He was studiously treated as a rebel.