throng, after much hesitation, accordingly directed their steps to the
prison. "You should have seen this vile populace," says an eye-witness,
"moving, pausing, recoiling, sweeping forward, swaying to and fro like
the waves of the sea when it is agitated by contending winds." The
attack was vigorous, the defence was weak--for the authorities had
expected no such fierce demonstration, notwithstanding the menacing
language which had been so often uttered. The prisoners were rescued,
and succeeded in making their escape from the city. The day in which the
execution had been thus prevented was called, thenceforward, the "day of
the ill-burned," (Journee des mau-brulez). One of the ministers,
however, Simon Faveau, not discouraged by this near approach to
martyrdom, persisted in his heretical labors, and was a few years
afterwards again apprehended. "He was then," says the chronicler,
cheerfully, "burned well and finally" in the same place whence he had
formerly been rescued. [Valenciennes MS.]

This desperate resistance to tyranny was for a moment successful,
because, notwithstanding the murmurs and menaces by which the storm had
been preceded, the authorities had not believed the people capable of
proceeding to such lengths. Had not the heretics--in the words of
Inquisitor Titelmann--allowed themselves, year after year, to be taken
and slaughtered like lambs? The consternation of the magistrates was
soon succeeded by anger. The government at Brussels was in a frenzy of
rage when informed of the occurrence. A bloody vengeance was instantly
prepared, to vindicate the insult to the inquisition. On the 29th of
April, detachments of Bossu's and of Berghen's "band of ordonnance" were
sent into Valenciennes, together with a company of the Duke of Aerschot's
regiment. The prisons were instantly filled to overflowing with men and
women arrested for actual or suspected participation in the tumult.
Orders had been sent down from the capital to make a short process and a