At this moment arrived the band led by the descendant of the crusaders, the young and dashing Percival de Pesmes, eager to fight, like his fathers, for the pope and his Church against these new Saracens. He bore the great banner with pride, and, defiling with his corps, drew them up in line of battle. Syndic Baud took the banner from his hands, and planted it in the middle of the square. The people, electrified at the sight, 'raised a loud shout.'[663] There is no longer any doubt: the republic is arming, the city banner floats above the catholic ranks, and the huguenots are only rebels.

=THE NUNS OF SAINT CLAIRE.=

The monks took the most active part in this business; the convents were therefore empty, all but that of Saint Claire, which alone was not deserted. The nuns, however, wished to take part in the struggle: 'Alas!' they said, 'our worthy fathers have gone to share in the fight with a number of monks, because it is in behalf of the faith.... Let us kneel before God that He may show mercy to the poor city.' The mother abbess drew a cross of ashes on the foreheads of the sisters, after which they marched in procession round the cloister, invoking in devout litanies the protection of the whole celestial choir. Then forming a cross, they took their places in the middle of the choir, and there, distracted and weeping, they fell on their knees and cried aloud: 'Mercy, O God! through the intercession of the glorious Virgin Mary and all the Saints! Give victory to the Christians, and bring the poor wanderers back to the way of salvation.'[664]

At this moment the sisters heard a noise at the gate of the convent: it was a few good catholic women who, very much afraid themselves, came to bring the sisters tidings calculated to add to their distress. 'If the heretics win the day,' they said, 'they will certainly make you all marry, young and old—all to your perdition.'[665] This was the customary bugbear of the poor nuns. They were superstitious and even fanatical, but nothing indicates that they were not pure. A tradition to the effect that there was an underground communication between their convent and that of the gray friars is a fiction as void of foundation as the frightful news of a forced marriage brought by their indiscreet friends. The terrified nuns crossed themselves, sang their litanies once more, and cried louder than ever: 'O holy Virgin, give victory to the Christians!'

=A CRUEL HUSBAND.=

The agitation in the city was then at its height; the shouts of the priests were frightful,[666] They bawled lustily to those who lagged behind, exhorted those who appeared indifferent, and animated the whole body with voice and gesture, as hunters urge their hounds after the stag. The catholics responded to the tumultuous clamours of these ministers of disorder and strife. But the tempest was not confined to the streets: scenes still more harrowing were taking place in the houses. 'Alas!' said the wisest men, 'there is no humanity left, and they take no account of the ties of nature.' One of the most fiery catholics, hearing the tocsin, was hurriedly fitting on his armour, when his wife, a fervent Romanist like himself, and whose father was at the head of the Lutherans, was filled with terror at seeing her husband's animation, and looked at him with a dejected countenance. She was Micah, daughter of Baudichon de la Maisonneuve. Her catholic faith did not make the young wife forget the sweet and holy ties that bind a child to her father. She shuddered at each malediction uttered by her husband against the author of her days. At length her grief broke out in a flood of tears. Her fanatical husband, exasperated to the highest degree against Maisonneuve, who was regarded as the main support of the heresy, turned back and, without showing the least pity, said: 'Wife, cry as much as you please. If we come to blows and I meet your father, he shall be the first on whom I shall try my strength.... I will kill him, or he shall kill me.' And then, callous at the sight of Micah, whose tears flowed faster at these words which pierced her heart, the barbarous husband said as he left her: 'He is a bad Christian, a renegade, the worst of the worst—this wretched Baudichon!'[667] Micah was twice married: first to Bernard Combet, and secondly to Guyot Taillon. We have not been able to discover which of her two husbands was so cruel; probably it was the first.

These distressing scenes became more heart-rending every moment. In the houses nothing was heard but the cries and groans of mothers and wives, of daughters and young children. The streets echoed with the oaths of the men who cursed that law (the Reformation), and the first man who had brought it there. 'In truth, it is not possible,' says the chronicler, 'to describe the cries and tears which then filled the whole city.' But the mournful sounds of grief and sorrow which rose in the air could not drown the fanatical and sonorous voices of the priests.[668]

During this time a deep and solemn awe prevailed in Baudichon's house. The evangelicals were not insensible to the hatred which was arrayed against them, but the greatness of the danger gave them that calmness which the Christian experiences in the presence of death. The strong encouraged the weak, addressing them in words of piety and feeling: 'Ah!' they said, 'if all the world would agree in the truth, we should be at peace; but as the majority fight against it, we cannot confess Christ without encountering resistance and hatred. It is the malice of the wicked one that divides us into contrary bands, and everywhere kindles strife and debate.'[669]

=NOVEL REINFORCEMENT.=

An unexpected reinforcement added to the numbers of the catholic troop. The women of that party had not all a tender soul and bruised heart, like Baudichon's daughter: the virtues of the evangelical women, the eagerness with which they had renounced their jewels and dress in favour of the poor, had excited the displeasure of many of them; and the thought that they no longer came to kneel with them at the altar of Mary, had filled them with anger and hatred. The tempest then sweeping through the city fanned the evil passions of the weaker sex. In every house the wives and sisters, and even the mothers of the catholics got ready; they assembled the children from twelve to fifteen years old, and proceeded with them to the Place d'Armes, where they had agreed to meet. 'In this assemblage of women,' says Sister Jeanne, who was very intimate with them, 'there were full seven hundred children from twelve to fifteen years old, firmly resolved to do good service along with their mothers.'