tion in
breaking an image or tearing in pieces a picture, than a traveller, whom a
highwayman has wounded, is aware of, when he destroys the weapons dropped
by his assailant in his hurried flight. Indeed, they experienced a strange
satisfaction in visiting upon the lifeless idol the punishment for the
spiritual wrongs received at the hands of false teachers of religion.[87]

[Sidenote: It bursts out at Caen.]

We have an illustration of the way in which the work of demolition was
accomplished in events occurring about this time at Caen. Two or three
inhabitants of this old Norman city were at Rouen when the churches were
invaded and sacked by an over-zealous crowd of sympathizers with the "new
doctrines." On their return to their native city, they began at once to
urge their friends to copy the example of the provincial capital. The news
reaching the ears of the magistrates of Caen, these endeavored--but to no
purpose, as the sequel proved--to calm the feverish pulse of the people.
On a Friday night (May eighth), the storm broke out, and it raged the
whole of the next day. Church, chapel, and monastery could testify to its
violence. Quaint windows of stained glass and rich old organs were dashed
in pieces. Saints' effigies, to employ the quaint expression of a Roman
Catholic eye-witness, "were massacred." "So great was the damage
inflicted, without any profit, that the loss was estimated at more than a
hundred thousand crowns." Still less excusable were the acts of vandalism
which the rabble--ever ready to join in popular commotions and always
throwing disgrace upon them--indulged. The beautiful tombs of William,
Duke of Normandy and conqueror of England, and of the Duchess-queen
Mathilda, the pride of Caen, which had withstood the ravages of nearly
five hundred years, were ruthlessly destroyed. The monument of Bishop
Charles of Martigny, who had been ambassador under Charles the Eighth and
Louis the Twelfth, shared the same fate. The zealous Roman Catholic who
relates these occurrences claims to have striven, although to no purpose,
to rescue the ashes of the conqueror from dispersion.[88]

[Sidenote: The "idol" of Sainte Croix.]

The contagion spread even to Orleans. Here, as in other places where the
Huguenots had prevailed, there were but few of the inhabitants that had
not been drawn over to the reformed faith, or at least pretended to
embrace it. Yet Conde, in his desire to convince the world that no
partisan h