ur Lord and His holy Mother. In June of the next year some Lutherans
struck down and mutilated an image of the Virgin and Child at a street
corner near St. Gervais; the king was so grieved and angry that he
wept violently, and offered a reward of one hundred gold crowns, but
the offenders could not be found. Daily processions came from the
churches to the spot, and all the religious orders, clothed in their
habits, followed "singing with such great fervour and reverence that
it was fair to see." The rector, doctors, masters, bachelors and
scholars of the university, and children with lighted tapers, went
there in great reverence. On Corpus Christi day the street was draped
and a fair canopy stretched over the statue. The king himself walked
in procession, bearing a white taper, his head uncovered in _moult
gran reverence_; hautboys, clarions and trumpets played melodiously;
cardinals, prelates, great seigneurs and nobles, each with his taper
of white wax, followed, with the royal archers of the guard in their
train. On the morrow a procession from all the parishes of Paris, with
banners, relics and crucifixes, accompanied by the king and nobles,
brought a new and fair image of silver, two feet in height, which the
king had caused to be made. Francis himself ascended a ladder and
placed it where the other image had stood, then kissed it and
descended with tears in his eyes. Thrice he kneeled and prayed, the
bishop of Lisieux, his almoner, reciting fair orisons and lauds to the
honour of the glorious Virgin and her image. Again the trumpets,
clarions and hautboys played the _Ave Regina caelorum_, and the king,
the cardinal of Louvain, and all the nobles presented their tapers to
the Virgin. Next day the Parlement, the provost and sheriffs, came and
put an iron trellis round the silver image for fear of robbers.[109]

[Footnote 108: For the first offence a fine; for the second, the lips
to be cloven; for the third, the tongue pierced; for the fourth,
death.]

[Footnote 109: The image was stolen in 1545 and replaced by one of
wood. This was struck down in 1551, and the bishop of Paris
substituted for it one of marble.]

Never were judicial and ecclesiastical punishments so cruel and
recurrent as during the period of the Renaissance. It is a common
error to suppose that judicial cruelty reached its culmination in the
Middle Ages.[110] Punishments are described with appalling iteration
in the pages we are following. The Pl