Page:Margaret of Angoulême, Queen of Navarre (Robinson 1886).djvu/116

Rh suffered at greater length. Suspicious, either that the farce as performed at his instigation, or else that he was actually the author of it, the King sentenced the combative syndic to two years of exile.

The Sorbonne was in despair. It did, indeed, appear impossible to assail this high-throned heretic; moreover, the exile of Béda struck their weapon from their hands. For a while all was quiet. Then an event occurred to set the Protestants hopelessly in the wrong. Whether laid in train by the coarser and more blundering Reformers, or the fruit of unscrupulous Catholic zeal, none may decide.

During the night of the 18th October 1534, the doors of the cathedral and town halls of Paris, Rouen, Meaux, and other cities, even to the gates of the castle of Amboise where was the King, were covered with placards, assailing in the grossest terms the mysteries of the Catholic faith, denying the Mass, the Host, the prayers for the dead: whatever was held most mystical and sacred. Nothing could be more brutal than the feeling which prompted this offence, unless it be the feeling which punished it. All that was tender and holy was publicly outraged here; the mysterious sacrifice of the Mass, the faith that rescued the dear but sinful dead from the pains of Purgatory. More than this. In Paris there stood an image of the Mother and Child, held especially venerable and beloved. Many prayers were addressed to this succourable Madonna; her image in the public street brought to the roughest heart a reminder of gentleness and purity. This dawn of the 19th October shone upon a desecrated shrine. The head of the Virgin, the head of the Babe, had been rudely chopped from the trunks, and lay, fallen and mutilated, in the gutter. When the King heard