The moment a rising sect ceases to be downtrodden it becomes a queen, and
heresy, already mistress of three-fourths of the city, began to hold up
its head with boldness in the streets. A householder called Guillaume
Raymond opened his house to the Calvinist missionary, and allowed him to
preach in it regularly to all who came, and the wavering were thus
confirmed in the new faith. Soon the house became too narrow to contain
the crowds which flocked thither to imbibe the poison of the
revolutionary doctrine, and impatient glances fell on the churches.

Meanwhile the Vicomte de Joyeuse, who had just been appointed governor of
Languedoc in the place of M. de Villars, grew uneasy at the rapid
progress made by the Protestants, who so far from trying to conceal it
boasted of it; so he summoned the consuls before him, admonished them
sharply in the king's name, and threatened to quarter a garrison in the
town which would soon put an end to these disorders. The consuls
promised to stop the evil without the aid of outside help, and to carry
out their promise doubled the patrol and appointed a captain of the town
whose sole duty was to keep order in the streets. Now this captain whose
office had been created solely for the repression of heresy, happened to
be Captain Bouillargues, the most inveterate Huguenot who ever existed.

The result of this discriminating choice was that Guillaume Moget began
to preach, and once when a great crowd had gathered in a garden to hear
him hold forth, heavy rain came on, and it became necessary for the
people either to disperse or to seek shelter under a roof. As the
preacher had just reached the most interesting part of his sermon, the
congregation did not hesitate an instant to take the latter alternative.
The Church of St. Etienne du Capitole was quite near: someone present
suggested that this building, if not the most suitable, as at least the
most spacious for such a gathering.