given to the powerful on earth city, plain, and sea, but the mountains
are the heritage of the oppressed.

Persecution and proselytism kept pace with each other, but the blood that
was shed produced the usual effect: it rendered the soil on which it fell
fruitful, and after two or three years of struggle, during which two or
three hundred Huguenots had been burnt or hanged, Nimes awoke one morning
with a Protestant majority. In 1556 the consuls received a sharp
reprimand on account of the leaning of the city towards the doctrines of
the Reformation; but in 1557, one short year after this admonition, Henri
II was forced to confer the office of president of the Presidial Court on
William de Calviere, a Protestant. At last a decision of the senior
judge having declared that it was the duty of the consuls to sanction the
execution of heretics by their presence, the magistrates of the city
protested against this decision, and the power of the Crown was
insufficient to carry it out.

Henri II dying, Catherine de Medicis and the Guises took possession of
the throne in the name of Francois II. There is a moment when nations
can always draw a long breath, it is while their kings are awaiting
burial; and Nimes took advantage of this moment on the death of Henri II,
and on September 29th, 1559, Guillaume Moget founded the first Protestant
community.

Guillaume Moget came from Geneva. He was the spiritual son of Calvin,
and came to Nimes with the firm purpose of converting all the remaining
Catholics or of being hanged. As he was eloquent, spirited, and wily,
too wise to be violent, ever ready to give and take in the matter of
concessions, luck was on his side, and Guillaume Moget escaped hanging.