ayed corpses torn up and
trampled on. All this was done with as much wonderful regularity as if
each had previously had his part assigned to him; every one worked into
his neighbor's hands; no one, dangerous as the work was, met with
injury; in the midst of thick darkness, which the tapers only served to
render more sensible, with heavy masses falling on all sides, and though
on the very topmost steps of the ladders, they scuffled with each other
for the honors of demolition--yet no one suffered the least injury. In
spite of the many tapers which lighted them below in their villanous
work not a single individual was recognized. With incredible rapidity
was the dark deed accomplished; a number of men, at most a hundred,
despoiled in a few hours a temple of seventy altars--after St. Peter's
at Rome, perhaps the largest and most magnificent in Christendom.

The devastation of the cathedral did not content them; with torches and
tapers purloined from it they set out at midnight to perform a similar
work of havoc on the remaining churches, cloisters, and chapels. The
destructive hordes increased with every fresh exploit of infamy, and
thieves were allured by the opportunity. They carried away whatever
they found of value--the consecrated vessels, altar-cloths, money, and
vestments; in the cellars of the cloisters they drank to intoxication;
to escape greater indignities the monks and nuns abandoned everything to
them. The confused noises of these riotous acts had startled the
citizens from their first sleep; but night made the danger appear more
alarming than it really was, and instead of hastening to defend their
churches the citizens fortified themselves in their houses, and in
terror and anxiety awaited the dawn of morning. The rising sun at
length revealed the devastation which had been going on during the
night; but the havoc did not terminate with the darkness. Some churches
and cloisters still remained uninjured; the same fate soon overtook them
also. The work of destruction lasted three whole days. Alarmed at last
lest the frantic mob, when it could no longer find anything sacred to
destroy, should make a similar attack on lay property and plunder their
ware houses; and encouraged, too, by discovering how small was the
number of the depredators, the wealthier citizens ventured to show
themselves in arms at the doors of their houses. All the gates of the
town were locked but one, through which the Iconoclasts broke for