Richard Clough saw ten or twelve persons entirely sack church after
church, while ten thousand spectators looked on, indifferent or horror-
struck. The bands of iconoclasts were of the lowest character, and few
in number. Perhaps the largest assemblage was that which ravaged the
province of Tournay, but this was so weak as to be entirely routed by a
small and determined force. The duty of repression devolved upon both
Catholics and Protestants. Neither party stirred. All seemed overcome
with special wonder as the tempest swept over the land.

The ministers of the Reformed religion, and the chiefs of the liberal
party, all denounced the image-breaking. Francis Junius bitterly
regretted such excesses. Ambrose Wille, pure of all participation in the
crime, stood up before ten thousand Reformers at Tournay--even while the
storm was raging in the neighboring cities, and, when many voices around
him were hoarsely commanding similar depravities to rebuke the outrages
by which a sacred cause was disgraced. The Prince of Orange, in his
private letters, deplored the riots, and stigmatized the perpetrators.
Even Brederode, while, as Suzerain of his city of Viane, he ordered the
images there to be quietly taken from the churches, characterized this
popular insurrection as insensate and flagitious. Many of the leading
confederates not only were offended with the proceedings, but, in their
eagerness to chastise the iconoclasts and to escape from a league of
which they were weary, began to take severe measures against the
Ministers and Reformers, of whom they had constituted themselves
in April the especial protectors.

The next remarkable characteristic of these tumults was the almost entire
abstinence of the rioters from personal outrage and from pillage. The
testimony of a very bitter, but honest Catholic at Valenciennes, is
remarkable upon this point. "Certain chroniclers," said he, "have