high altar, an ancient and highly valued piece of workmanship, was
pulled to the ground with cords, and cut to pieces with axes, while the
two malefactors at its side were respectfully spared. The holy wafers
were strewed on the ground and trodden under foot; in the wine used for
the Lord's Supper, which was accidentally found there, the health of the
Gueux was drunk, while with the holy oil they rubbed their shoes. The
very tombs were opened, and the half-decayed corpses torn up and
trampled on. All this was done with as much wonderful regularity as if
each had previously had his part assigned to him; every one worked into
his neighbor's hands; no one, dangerous as the work was, met with
injury; in the midst of thick darkness, which the tapers only served to
render more sensible, with heavy masses falling on all sides, and though
on the very topmost steps of the ladders, they scuffled with each other
for the honors of demolition--yet no one suffered the least injury. In
spite of the many tapers which lighted them below in their villanous
work not a single individual was recognized. With incredible rapidity
was the dark deed accomplished; a number of men, at most a hundred,
despoiled in a few hours a temple of seventy altars--after St. Peter's
at Rome, perhaps the largest and most magnificent in Christendom.

The devastation of the cathedral did not content them; with torches and
tapers purloined from it they set out at midnight to perform a similar
work of havoc on the remaining churches, cloisters, and chapels. The
destructive hordes increased with every fresh exploit of infamy, and
thieves were allured by the opportunity. They carried away whatever
they found of value--the consecrated vessels, altar-cloths, money, and
vestments; in the cellars of the cloisters they drank to intoxication;
to escape greater indignities the monks and nuns abandoned everything to
them. The confused noises of these riotous acts had startled the
citizens from their first sleep; but night made the danger appear more