The persecution was renewed in 1535 by the Archbishop and _Parlement_ of Aix, who cited seventeen of the people of Merindol, one of the villages, before them on a charge of heresy. When they failed to appear, the _Parlement_ published (Nov. 18th, 1540) the celebrated _Arrêt de Merindol_, which sentenced the seventeen to be burnt at the stake. The Waldenses again appealed to the King, who pardoned the seventeen on the condition that they should abjure their heresy within three months (Feb. 8th, 1541). There was a second appeal to the King, who again protected the Waldenses; but during the later months of 1541 the _Parlement_ of Aix sent to His Majesty the false information that the people of Merindol were in open insurrection, and were threatening to sack the town of Marseilles. Upon this, Francis, urged thereto by Cardinal de Tournon, recalled his protection, and ordered all the Waldenses to be exterminated (Jan. 1st, 1545). An army was stealthily organised, and during seven weeks of slaughter, amid all the accompaniments of treachery and brutality, twenty-two of the thirty Waldensian villages were utterly destroyed, between three and four thousand men and women were slain, and seven hundred men sent to the galleys. Those who escaped took refuge in Switzerland.[181] The persecution at Meaux (1546) was more limited in extent, but was accompanied by such tortures that it formed a fitting introduction to the severities of the reign of Henri II. The Reformed at Meaux had organised themselves into a congregation modelled on that of the French refugees in Strassburg. They had chosen Pierre Leclerc to be their pastor, and one of their number, Étienne Mangin, gave his house for the meetings of the congregation. The authorities heard of the meetings, and on Sept 8th, 1546, a sudden visit was made to the house, and sixty-one persons were arrested and brought before the _Parlement_ of Paris. Their special crime was that they had engaged in the celebration of the Lord's Supper. The sentence of the Court declared that the Bishop of Meaux had shown culpable negligence in permitting such meetings; that the evidence indicated that there were numbers of "Lutherans" and heretics in Meaux besides those brought before it, and that all such were to be sought out; that all books in the town which concerned the Christian religion were to be deposited in the record-office within eight days; that special sermons were to be delivered and expiatory processions organised; and that the house of Étienne Mangin was to be razed to the ground, and a chapel in honour of the Holy Sacrament erected on the site. It condemned fourteen of the accused to be burnt alive, after having suffered the severest tortures which the law permitted; five to be hung up by the armpits to witness the execution, and then to be scourged and imprisoned; others to witness the execution with cords round their necks and with their heads bare, to