itants opened the gates. Without a
moment's hesitation the Baron gave orders to put them all to death.
The soldiers refused to break plighted faith; but the mob had no
scruples and the ghastly work began. 'A multitude of women and
children had fled to the church: the furious horde rushed headlong
among them and committed all the crimes of which hell could dream.
Other women had hidden themselves in a barn. The Baron caused them to
be shut up there and fire set to the four corners. A soldier rushed to
save them and opened the door, but the women were driven back into the
fire with blows of pikes. Twenty-five women had taken shelter in a
cavern at some distance from the town. The Vice-legate caused a great
fire to be lighted at the entrance: five years afterwards the bones of
the victims were found in the inmost recesses.'[26] La Coste had the
same fate; the promise made and immediately violated, and then all the
terrors of hell. In the course of a few weeks 3000 men and women were
massacred, 256 executed, and six or seven hundred sent to the galleys;
while children unnumbered were sold as slaves. The offence of these
poor people was that they had been seeking in their own fashion to
draw nearer to the God of Love.

[26] R.C. Christie, _Etienne Dolet_, ch. xxiv.

But public morals ever lag behind private; and in the sixteenth
century private standards of truth and honour were not so high as they
are now. Here again we may find one main cause in the absence of
personal security. In these days of settled government, when thought
and speech are free, it is scarcely possible to realize what men's
outlook upon life must have been when walls had ears and a man's foes
might be those of his own household. In Henry VII's reign England had
not had time to forget the Wars of the Roses, and claimants to the
throne were still occasionally executed in the Tower. Even under the
mighty hand of Henry VIII ministers rose and fell with alarming
rapidity. When princes contend, private men do well to hold their
peace; lest light utterances be brought up against them so soon as
Fortune's wheel has swung to the top those that were underneath. In
matters of faith, too, it was supremely necessary to be careful; for
unguarded words might arouse suspicions of heresy, to be followed by
the frightful penalties with which heresy was extirpated. On great
questions, therefore, men must have kept their tongues and thoughts in
a strict reserve: can