le and
the boiling-point the interval is short. Threats spoken in a low voice
were soon succeeded by noisy objurgations. Women, children, and men
brake out into yells, "Down with the broilers!" (for this was one of
the names by which the Protestants were designated). "Down with the
broilers! We do not want to see them using our churches: let them give
us back our churches; let them give us back our churches, and go to the
desert. Out with them! Out with them! To the desert! To the desert!"

As the crowd did not go beyond words, however insulting, and as the
Protestants were long inured to much worse things, they plodded along to
their meeting-house, humble and silent, and went in, undeterred by the
displeasure they aroused, whereupon the service commenced.

But some Catholics went in with them, and soon the same shouts which had
been heard without were heard also within. The general, however, was
on the alert, and as soon as the shouts arose inside the gens d'armes
entered the church and arrested those who had caused the disturbance.
The crowds tried to rescue them on their way to prison, but the general
appeared at the head of imposing forces, at the sight of which they
desisted. An apparent cam succeeded the tumult, and the public worship
went on without further interruption.

The general, misled by appearances, went off himself to attend a
military mass, and at eleven o'clock returned to his quarters for lunch.
His absence was immediately perceived and taken advantage of. In the
twinkling of an eye, the crowds, which had dispersed, gathered together
in even greater numbers and the Protestants, seeing themselves once more
in danger, shut the doors from within, while the gens d'armes guarded
them without. The populace pressed so closely round the gens d'armes,
and assumed such a threatening attitude, that fearing he and his men
would not be able to hold their own in such a throng, the captain
ordered M. Delbose, one of his officers, to ride off and warn the
general. He forced his way through the crowd with great trouble, and
went off at a gallop. On seeing this, the people felt there was no time
to be lost; they knew of what kind the general was, and that he would be
on the spot in a quarter of an hour. A large crowd is invincible through
its numbers; it has only to press forward, and everything gives way,
men, wood, iron. At this moment the crowd, swayed by a common impulse,
swept forward, the gens d'armes and their