Calvinistic rites, were foremost and loudest in putting down and
denouncing all forms and shows of the reformation. The country was
as completely "pacified," to use the conqueror's expression, as Gaul had
been by Caesar.

The, Regent issued a fresh edict upon the 24th May, to refresh the
memories of those who might have forgotten previous statutes, which were,
however, not calculated to make men oblivious. By this new proclamation,
all ministers and teachers were sentenced to the gallows. All persons
who had suffered their houses to be used for religious purposes were
sentenced to the gallows. All parents or masters whose children or
servants had attended such meetings were sentenced to the gallows, while
the children and servants were only to be beaten with rods. All people
who sang hymns at the burial of their relations were sentenced to the
gallows. Parents who allowed their newly-born children to be baptized by
other hands than those of the Catholic priest were sentenced to the
gallows. The same punishment was denounced against the persons who
should christen the child or act as its sponsors. Schoolmasters who
should teach any error or false doctrine were likewise to be punished
with death. Those who infringed the statutes against the buying and
selling of religious books and songs were to receive the same doom;
after the first offence. All sneers or insults against priests and
ecclesiastics were also made capital crimes. Vagabonds, fugitives;
apostates, runaway monks, were ordered forthwith to depart from every
city on pain of death. In all cases confiscation of the whole property
of the criminal was added to the hanging.

This edict, says a contemporary historian, increased the fear of those
professing the new religion to such an extent that they left the country
"in great heaps." It became necessary, therefore, to issue a subsequent