St. Medard. On the 27th of December, whilst the
Reformed minister was preaching, the Catholics had all the bells of St.
Medard rung in full peal. The minister sent two of his congregation to
beg the incumbent to have the bell-ringing stopped for a short time. The
mob threw themselves upon the two messengers: one was killed, and the
other, after making a stout defence, returned badly wounded to the
Patriarch's house, and fell dead at the preacher's feet. The provost of
tradesmen was for having the bells stopped; the riot became violent; the
house of the Reformers was stormed; and the provost's archers had great
difficulty in putting a stop to the fight. More than a hundred persons,
it is said, were killed or wounded.

[Illustration: Massacre of Protestants---305]

In 1562, in the month of February, whilst the Guises were travelling in
Germany, with the object of concluding, in the interests of policy,
alliances with some German Lutheran princes, disturbances broke out at
Cahors, Amiens, Sens, and Tours, between the Protestants and the
Catholics. Which of the two began them? It would be difficult to
determine. The passions that lead to insult, attack, defence, and
vengeance were mutually felt and equally violent on both sides. Montluc
was sent to Guienne by the queen-mother to restore order there; but
nearly everywhere he laid the blame on the Protestants. His Memoires
prove that he harried them without any form of justice. "At Sauveterre,"
says he, "I caught five or six, all of whom I had hanged without expense
of paper or ink, and without giving them a hearing, for those gentry are
regular Chrysostoms (_parlent d'or_)." "I was informed that at Gironde
there were sixty or eighty Huguenots belonging to them of La Reole, who
had retreated thither; the which were all taken, and I had them hanged to
the pillars of the market-place without further ceremony. One hanged has
more effect than a hundred slain." When Montluc took Monsegur, "the
massacre lasted for ten hours or more," says he, "because search was made
for them in the houses; the dead were counted and found to be more than
seven hundred." [_Memoires de Montluc,_ t. ii. pp. 442, 443-447.]

Almost at the very time at which Montluc, who had been sent to Guienne to
restore order there between the Catholics and the Protestants, was
treating the latter with this shocking severity, an incident, more
serious because of the rank of the persons concerned, too