to accompany the
prisoners to the "Petit Chatelet," and the march assumed the appearance
of a triumphal procession. Between Gabaston's troop of over two hundred
mounted and foot archers, and the detachment of Rouge-Oreille, walked a
band of unarmed Protestants, followed by the Roman Catholic prisoners,
many of them in their ecelesiastical dresses, and tied together two by
two. It was deemed little short of a miracle that the procession, even
with its escort of soldiery, should be suffered to enter the city and
pass through its densely crowded streets on a public holiday, without
being attacked by the intensely Roman Catholic populace.[1248]

Such was the famous "tumult of Saint Medard"--the result of a plan
adopted expressly to stir up the inveterate hostility of the Parisians
against the adherents of the Reformation, and to serve as the pretext
for demanding the prohibition of the Protestant "assemblies."[1249] The
popular explosion that had been expected instantly to follow the
application of the match was deferred until the morrow, when a rabble
such as the capital alone could pour forth gutted the interior of the
"_Patriarche_" and would have set it on fire, had it not been repulsed
by a small body of Huguenot gentlemen.[1250] The plot had proved
abortive; but it was the innocent victims and the friends of good order,
not the conspirators, who paid the penalty of the broken law. While the
priest of Saint Medard and his accomplices were promptly discharged,
without even a reprimand, Gabaston and one "Nez-d'Argent," royal
officers who had interfered to restore order, were executed by command
of parliament.[1251]

[Sidenote: Assembly of notables at St. Germain.]

About a week after the occurrence of the seditious disturbance just
narrated, the assembly of notables was convened at St. Germain (January,
1562). To this body it was proposed to refer the religious condition of
the realm, with the view of reaching some more definite and satisfactory
settlement than the "Edict of July," whose provisions had become a dead
letter before the ink with which they were written was dry.

[Sidenote: Chancellor L'Hospital's opening address.]

[Sidenote: Diversity of sentiment.]

[Sidenote: The nuncio's alarm and activity.]

The chancellor, who, according to custom, set forth at considerable
length the circumstances constraining the king, by his mother's advice,
to summon the representatives of his trusty parliaments, with the