having been exercised on the seventh of March,
1563, were meant only those that had been garrisoned by Protestants, and
had undergone a successful siege. This stroke of the pen cut off several
cities in which Protestantism had been maintained without conflict of
arms. The Huguenot counsellors of the parliament were deprived of the
enjoyment of their right to attend the "assemblee," or "Protestant
congregation," by a gloss which forbade the inhabitants of Paris from
attending the reformed worship in the neighboring districts. When the
court reached Lyons, a city which, as we have seen, had been among the
foremost in devotion to the Protestant cause, a fresh edict, of the
twenty-fourth of June, prohibited the reformed rites from being celebrated
in any city in which the king might be sojourning. Five or six weeks
later, at the little town of Roussillon, a few miles south of Vienne, on
the Rhone, another and more flagrant violation of the letter and spirit of
the edict of pacification was incorporated in a declaration purporting to
remove fresh uncertainties as to the meaning of its provisions. It forbade
the noblemen who might possess the right to maintain Protestant services
in their castles, to permit any persons but their own families and their
vassals to be present. It prohibited the convocation of synods and the
collection of money, and enjoined upon ministers of the gospel not to
leave their places of residence, nor to open schools for the instruction
of the young. But the most vexatious and unjust article of all was that
which constrained all priests, monks, and nuns, who during or since the
troubles had forsaken their vows and had married, either to resume their
monastic profession and dismiss their consorts, or to leave the kingdom.
As a penalty for the violation of this command, the men were to be
sentenced to the galleys for life, the women to close confinement in
prison. I omit in this list of grievances suffered by the Huguenots some
minor annoyances such as that which compelled the artisan to desist from
working in his shop with open doors on the festivals of the Roman
Catholic Church.[348]

[Sidenote: Assaults upon unoffending Huguenots.]

These legal infractions were not all. Everywhere the Huguenots had to
complain of acts of violence, committed by their papist neighbors, at the
instigation of priests and bishops, and not infrequently of the royal
governors. Little more than a year had passed since peace