tread under foot all
respect for religion in general, and even all morality too, and which
could have been conceived only in the mind of the vilest reprobate.
Besides, this outrage was too sudden in its outbreak, too vehement in
its execution altogether, too monstrous to have been anything more than
the offspring of the moment in which it saw the light; it seemed to flow
so naturally from the circumstances which preceded it that it does not
require to be traced far back to remount to its origin.

A rude mob, consisting of the very dregs of the populace, made brutal by
harsh treatment, by sanguinary decrees which dogged them in every town,
scared from place to place and driven almost to despair, were compelled
to worship their God, and to hide like a work of darkness the universal,
sacred privilege of humanity. Before their eyes proudly rose the
temples of the dominant church, in which their haughty brethren indulged
in ease their magnificent devotion, while they themselves were driven
from the walls, expelled, too, by the weaker number perhaps, and forced,
here in the wild woods, under the burning heat of noon, in disgraceful
secrecy to worship the same God; cast out from civil society into a
state of nature, and reminded in one dread moment of the rights of that
state! The greater their superiority of numbers the more unnatural did
their lot appear; with wonder they perceive the truth. The free heaven,
the arms lying ready, the frenzy in their brains and fury in their
hearts combine to aid the suggestions of some preaching fanatic; the
occasion calls; no premeditation is necessary where all eyes at once
declare consent; the resolution is formed ere yet the word is scarcely
uttered; ready for any unlawful act, no one yet clearly knows what,
the furious band rushes onwards. The smiling prosperity of the hostile
religion insults the poverty of their own; the pomp of the authorized
temples casts contempt on their proscribed belief; every cross they set
up upon the highway, every image of the saints that they meet, is a
trophy erected over their own humiliation, and they all must be removed
by their avenging hands. Fanaticism suggests these detestable
proceedings, but base passions carry them into execution.

1566. The commencement of the attack on images took place in West
Flanders and Artois, in the districts between Lys and the sea. A
frantic herd of artisans, boatmen, and peasants, mixed with prostitutes,
beggars, v