ed on his way northward to raise the siege--but none
could arrive in time. The King of Navarre had been severely wounded in the
shoulder, but Guise and the constable pressed the city with no less
decision. At last the walls on the side of the suburbs of St. Hilaire and
Martainville were breached by the overwhelming fire of the enemy. The
population of Rouen and its motley garrison, reduced in numbers, worn out
with toils and vigils, and disheartened by a combat which ceased on one
day only to be renewed under less favorable circumstances on the next,
were no longer able to continue their heroic and almost superhuman
exertions.

[Sidenote: Fall of Rouen.]

[Sidenote: The Norman parliament.]

On Monday, the twenty-sixth of October, the army of the triumvirate forced
its way over the rubbish into Rouen, and the richest city of France,
outside of Paris, fell an unresisting prey to the cupidity of an
insubordinate soldiery. Rarely had so tempting a prize fallen into the
hands of a conquering army; rarely were the exactions of war more
remorsely inflicted.[178] But the barbarities of a licentious army were
exceeded in atrocity by the cooler deliberations of the Norman parliament.
That supreme court, always inimical to the Protestants, had retired to the
neighboring city of Louviers, in order to maintain itself free from
Huguenot influence. It now returned to Rouen and exercised a sanguinary
revenge. Augustin Marlorat, one of the most distinguished among the
reformed ministers of France, and the most prominent pastor of the church
of Rouen, had been thrown into prison; he was now brought before the
parliament, and with others was sentenced to death as a traitor and a
disturber of the public repose, then dragged on a hurdle to the place of
execution and ignominiously hung.[179]

The ferocity of the Norman parliament alarming the queen mother, she
interfered to secure the observance of the edict of amnesty she had
recently prepared. But serious results followed in the case of two
prominent partisans of Guise who had fallen into Conde's hands, and were
in prison when the tidings reached Orleans. On the recommendation of his
council, the prince retaliated by sending to the gallows Jean Baptiste
Sapin, a member of the Parisian parliament, and the Abbe de Gastines, who
had been captured while travelling in company with an envoy whom the court
were sending to Spain.[180]

[Sidenote: Death of Antoine de Bourbon, King of Navarre.]