e
rapidly replaced by the loud _te deum_ and by jubilant processions in
honor of the signal success of the Roman Catholic arms.[217]

[Sidenote: Riotous conduct of the Parisian mob.]

Recovering from their panic, the Parisian populace continued to testify
their unimpeachable orthodoxy by daily murders. It was enough, a
contemporary writer tells us, if a boy, seeing a man in the streets, but
called out, "Voyla ung Huguenot," for straightway the idle vagabonds, the
pedlers, and porters would set upon him with stones. Then came out the
handicraftsmen and idle apprentices with swords, and thrust him through
with a thousand wounds. His dead body, having been robbed of clothes, was
afterward taken possession of by troops of boys, who asked nothing better
than to "trail" him down to the Seine and throw him in. If the victim
chanced to be a "town-dweller," the Parisians entered his house and
carried off all his goods, and his wife and children were fortunate if
they escaped with their lives. With the best intentions, Marshal
Montmorency could not put a stop to these excesses; he scarcely succeeded
in protecting the households of foreign ambassadors from being involved in
the fate of French Protestants.[218] Yet the same men that were ready at
any time to imbue their hands in the blood of an innocent Huguenot, were
full of commiseration for a Roman Catholic felon. A shrewd murderer is
said to have turned to his own advantage the religious feeling of the
people who had flocked to see him executed. "Ah! my masters," he exclaimed
when already on the fatal ladder, "I must die now for killing a Huguenot
who despised our Lady; but as I have served our Lady always truly, and put
my trust in her, so I trust now she will show some miracle for me."
Thereupon, reports Sir Thomas Smith, the people began to murmur about his
having to die for a Huguenot, ran to the gallows, beat the hangman, and
having cut the fellow's cords, conveyed him away free.[219]

[Sidenote: Orleans invested.]

[Sidenote: Coligny returns to Normandy.]

Of the triumvirs, at whose instigation the war had arisen, one was
dead,[220] a second was a prisoner in the hands of the enemy, the
third--the Duke of Guise--alone remained. Navarre had died a month before.
On the other hand, the Huguenots had lost their chief. Yet the war raged
without cessation. As soon as the Duke of Guise had collected his army and
had, at Rambouillet, explained to the king and court, who had c