The church of St. Martin, so magnificent in the times of the historian Archbishop Gregory of Tours (573-94), became more and more magnificent after several destructions by fire. It had reached its greatest splendour when it was pillaged by the Huguenots. Tours claims to have originated the name of those destructive people, who in the beginning used to steal out for secret meetings at night beyond the walls of the city, flitting about like the local bogey _le roi Hugon_.[199] And Tours possesses to this day in the name of one of its streets a reminiscence of the early hunting down of the Huguenots as a highly enjoyable form of the _chasse aux renards_. When their time came, they wreaked a savage revenge, and practically destroyed the noble Abbey Church. A reproduction of its appearance in the perfection of symmetry has been prepared from plans and drawings, and is shown in Plate I. The only remains left by the Revolution and by the necessity for new streets are the south-west tower, called of St. Martin,[200] or of the Horloge, and a tower of the north transept, called of Charlemagne.[201] They are of 12th-century foundation, but the latter has a capital of earlier date still clinging to it. Louis XI had surrounded the shrine of St. Martin with a rich and very massive gallery of solid silver, but his needy successor Francis was beforehand with the Huguenots and coined it into crown pieces. The tombs of St. Martin and the Saints who lay near him were destroyed by the Huguenots, and their relics were burned. Portions were saved, and in the new basilica of St. Martin, close to the site of the old basilica, there is a noble crypt with a reproduction of the massive tomb of St. Martin.[202] On the wall is an inscription to the following effect: Nomina corporum sanctorum quæ hic sepulta erant circa tumulum Beati Martini. SS. Briccius, Spanus, Perpetuus, Gregorius Tur., Eustochius, Eufronius, quorum venerabiles reliquiæ in capsis existentes ab hæreticis impiissime in dicta ecclesia fuerunt combustæ anno 1562. EUSTOCHIUS BRICCIUS PERPETUUS MARTINUS SPANUS MARTYR GREGORIUS EUFRONIUS Sic erant corpora horum in ecclesia B. Martini Tur. ordinata. The Rue des Halles runs right through the site of the old basilica. The new basilica lies at right angles to the old one, its axis lying north and south, an arrangement which places the modern _confessio_, with its reproduction of the old tomb, practically on the site of the old _confessio_.