eing president of the Consistory, and Captain Bouillargues
commander-in-chief of the armed forces, suddenly resolved to create a new
authority, which, while sharing the powers hitherto vested solely in the
consuls, should be, even more than they, devoted to Calvin: thus the
office of les Messieurs came into being. This was neither more nor less
than a committee of public safety, and having been formed in the stress
of revolution it acted in a revolutionary spirit, absorbing the powers of
the consuls, and restricting the authority of the Consistory to things
spiritual. In the meantime the Edict of Amboise, was promulgated, and it
was announced that the king, Charles IX, accompanied by Catherine de
Medicis, was going to visit his loyal provinces in the South.

Determined as was Captain Bouillargues, for once he had to give way, so
strong was the party against him; therefore, despite the murmurs of the
fanatics, the city of Nimes resolved, not only to open its gates to its
sovereign, but to give him such a reception as would efface the bad
impression which Charles might have received from the history of recent
events. The royal procession was met at the Pont du Gare, where young
girls attired as nymphs emerged from a grotto bearing a collation, which
they presented to their Majesties, who graciously and heartily partook of
it. The repast at an end, the illustrious travellers resumed their
progress; but the imagination of the Nimes authorities was not to be
restrained within such narrow bounds: at the entrance to the city the
king found the Porte de la Couronne transformed into a mountain-side,
covered with vines and olive trees, under which a shepherd was tending
his flock. As the king approached the mountain parted as if yielding to
the magic of his power, the most beautiful maidens and the most noble
came out to meet their sovereign, presenting him the keys of the city
wreathed with flowers, and singing to the accompaniment of the shepherd's
pipe. Passing through the mountain, Charles saw chained to a palm tree
in the depths of a grotto a monster crocodile from whose jaws issued
flames: this was a representation of the old coat of arms granted to the
city by Octavius Caesar Augustus after the battle of Actium, and which
Francis I had restored to it in exchange for a model in silver of the
amphitheatre presented to him by the city. Lastly, the king found in the
Place de la Salamandre numerous bonfires, so that without