ho had planted
a maypole at the mayor's door were invited to lunch with him. On the
2nd, the company which was on guard at the mayor's official residence
shouted several times during the day, "Long live the king! Up with the
Cross and down with the black throats!" (This was the name which they
had given to the Calvinists.) "Three cheers for the white cockade!
Before we are done, it will be red with the blood of the Protestants!"
However, on the 5th of May they ceased to wear it, replacing it by a
scarlet tuft, which in their patois they called the red pouf, which was
immediately adopted as the Catholic emblem.

Each day as it passed brought forth fresh brawls and provocations:
libels were invented by the Capuchins, and spread abroad by three
of their number. Meetings were held every day, and at last became
so numerous that the town authorities called in the aid of the
militia-dragoons to disperse them. Now these gatherings consisted
chiefly of those tillers of the soil who are called cebets, from a
Provencal word cebe, which means "onion," and they could easily be
recognised as Catholics by their red pouf, which they wore both in and
out of uniform. On the other hand, the dragoons were all Protestants.

However, these latter were so very gentle in their admonitions, that
although the two parties found themselves, so to speak, constantly face
to face and armed, for several days the meetings were dispersed without
bloodshed. But this was exactly what the cebets did not want, so they
began to insult the dragoons and turn them into ridicule. Consequently,
one morning they gathered together in great numbers, mounted on asses,
and with drawn swords began to patrol the city.

At the same time, the lower classes, who were nearly all Catholics,
joined the burlesque patrols in complaining loudly of the dragoons, some
saying that their horses had trampled on their children, and others that
they had frightened their wives.

The Protestants contradicted them, both parties grew angry, swords
were half drawn, when the municipal authorities came on the scene, and
instead of apprehending the ringleaders, forbade the dragoons to patrol
the town any more, ordering them in future to do nothing more than
send twenty men every day to mount guard at the episcopal palace and
to undertake no other duty except at the express request of the Town
Council. Although it was expected that the dragoons would revolt against
such a humiliation, they