Henry M. Baird · 226 of 379

CHAPTER X · Concourse at Nismes.

At Nismes, in Languedoc—destined periodically, for the next three centuries, to be the scene of civil dissension arising from religious intolerance—as early as in Holy Week, three Protestant ministers had been preaching in private houses and administering baptism. On Easter Monday a large concourse from the city and the surrounding villages publicly passed out into the suburbs—armed, if we may believe the cowardly Vicomte de Joyeuse, with corselets, arquebuses, and pikes—and celebrated the Lord's Supper "after the manner of Geneva." Neither the presidial judges nor the consuls exhibited much disposition to second the efforts of the provincial government in suppressing these manifestations.