Henry M. Baird · 249 of 379

CHAPTER X · Books from Geneva destroyed.

Maligny's failure disconcerted Montbrun and Mouvans, with whom he had intended to co-operate, but had little effect in repressing the courage of the Huguenot people. Of this the royal despatches are the best evidence. Francis wrote to Marshal de Termes that since the Assembly of Fontainebleau there had been public and armed gatherings in an infinite number of places, where previously there had been only secret meetings. In Périgord, Agenois, and Limousin, an infinite number of scandalous acts were daily committed by the seditious, who in most places lived after the fashion of Geneva. Such canaille must be "wiped out." A month later those pestilent "books from Geneva" turn up again. Count de Villars, acting for Constable Montmorency in his province of Languedoc, had burned two mule-loads of very handsomely bound volumes, much to the regret of many of the Catholic troopers, who grudged the devouring flames a sacrifice worth more than a thousand crowns. But he quickly followed up the chronicle of this valiant action with a complaint of his impotence to reduce the sectaries to submission. The Huguenots of Nismes had taken courage, and guarded their gates. So, or even worse, was it of Montpellier and Pézénas. Other cities were about to follow their example.