greatly mistaken the character of this image-breaking. It has been said
that the Calvinists killed a hundred priests in this city, cutting some
of them into pieces, and burning others over a slow fire. I remember
very well every thing which happened upon that abominable day, and I can
affirm that not a single priest was injured. The Huguenots took good
care not to injure in any way the living images." This was the case
every where. Catholic and Protestant writers agree that no deeds of
violence were committed against man or woman.

It would be also very easy to accumulate a vast weight of testimony as to
their forbearance from robbery. They destroyed for destruction's sake,
not for purposes of plunder.

Although belonging to the lowest classes of society, they left heaps of
jewellery, of gold and silver plate, of costly embroidery, lying unheeded
upon the ground. They felt instinctively that a great passion would be
contaminated by admixture with paltry motives. In Flanders a company of
rioters hanged one of their own number for stealing articles to the value
of five Shillings. In Valenciennes the iconoclasts were offered large
sums if they would refrain from desecrating the churches of that city,
but they rejected the proposal with disdain. The honest Catholic burgher
who recorded the fact, observed that he did so because of the many
misrepresentations on the subject, not because he wished to flatter
heresy and rebellion.

At Tournay, the greatest scrupulousness was observed upon this point.
The floor of the cathedral was strewn with "pearls and precious stones,
with chalices and reliquaries of silver and gold;" but the ministers of
the reformed religion, in company with the magistrates, came to the spot,
and found no difficulty, although utterly without power to prevent the