catastrophe which no human power could
withstand, the magistrates fled precipitately from the scene. Fearing
that the next attack would be upon the town-house, they hastened to
concentrate at that point their available forces, and left the stately
cathedral to its fate.

And now, as the shadows of night were deepening the perpetual twilight of
the church, the work of destruction commenced. Instead of evening mass
rose the fierce music of a psalm, yelled by a thousand angry voices. It
seemed the preconcerted signal for a general attack. A band of marauders
flew upon the image of the Virgin, dragged it forth from its receptacle,
plunged daggers into its inanimate body, tore off its jewelled and
embroidered garments, broke the whole figure into a thousand pieces, and
scattered the fragments along the floor. A wild shout succeeded, and then
the work which seemed delegated to a comparatively small number of the
assembled crowd, went on with incredible celerity. Some were armed with
axes, some with bludgeons, some with sledge-hammers; others brought
ladders, pulleys, ropes, and levers. Every statue was hurled from its
niche, every picture torn from the wall, every wonderfully-painted window
shivered to atoms, every ancient monument shattered, every sculptured
decoration, however inaccessible in appearance, hurled to the ground.
Indefatigably, audaciously,--endowed, as it seemed, with preternatural
strength and nimbleness, these furious iconoclasts clambered up the dizzy
heights, shrieking and chattering like malignant apes, as they tore off
in triumph the slowly-matured fruit of centuries. In a space of time
wonderfully brief, they had accomplished their task.

A colossal and magnificent group of the Saviour crucified between two
thieves adorned the principal altar. The statue of Christ was wrenched
from its place with ropes and pulleys, while the malefactors, with bitter
and blasphemous irony, were left on high, the only representatives of the
marble crowd which had been destroyed. A very beautiful piece of
architecture decorated the choir,--the "repository," as it was called, in
which the body of Christ was figuratively enshrined. This much-admired
work rested upon a single column, but rose, arch upon arch, pillar upon
pillar, to the height of three hundred feet, till quite lost in the vault
above. "It was now shattered into a million pieces." The statues, images,
pictures, ornaments, as they lay upon the ground, were brok