progress; but the imagination of the Nimes authorities was not to be
restrained within such narrow bounds: at the entrance to the city the
king found the Porte de la Couronne transformed into a mountain-side,
covered with vines and olive trees, under which a shepherd was tending
his flock. As the king approached the mountain parted as if yielding to
the magic of his power, the most beautiful maidens and the most noble
came out to meet their sovereign, presenting him the keys of the city
wreathed with flowers, and singing to the accompaniment of the shepherd's
pipe. Passing through the mountain, Charles saw chained to a palm tree
in the depths of a grotto a monster crocodile from whose jaws issued
flames: this was a representation of the old coat of arms granted to the
city by Octavius Caesar Augustus after the battle of Actium, and which
Francis I had restored to it in exchange for a model in silver of the
amphitheatre presented to him by the city. Lastly, the king found in the
Place de la Salamandre numerous bonfires, so that without waiting to ask
if these fires were made from the remains of the faggots used at the
martyrdom of Maurice Secenat, he went to bed very much pleased with the
reception accorded him by his good city of Nimes, and sure that all the
unfavourable reports he had heard were calumnies.

Nevertheless, in order that such rumours, however slight their
foundation, should not again be heard, the king appointed Damville
governor of Languedoc, installing him himself in the chief city of his
government; he then removed every consul from his post without exception,
and appointed in their place Guy-Rochette, doctor and lawyer; Jean
Beaudan, burgess; Francois Aubert, mason; and Cristol Ligier, farm
labourer--all Catholics. He then left for Paris, where a short time
after he concluded a treaty with the Calvinists, which the people with
its gift of prophecy called "The halting peace of unsure seat," and which
in the end led to the massacre of St. Bartholomew.