The councillors of the Parliament immediately passed a sentence of arrest against the magistrates who had taken part in this affair, and sent round to demand the armed assistance of all the captains and gentlemen of the surrounding country. Then they presented themselves to the people in red robes, commanding them to take arms and seize the heretics dead or alive. “Pillage, kill boldly, with the approval of the pope, of the king, and of the court,” cried out five or six frenzied councillors, whilst traversing the streets. The struggle became horrible. The Calvinists who had not been able to take refuge in the Hôtel de Ville were seized in their houses, thrown out of the windows, or dragged to the Garonne. Wretches, whom the constables were taking to prison, were massacred on their way, whilst no mercy was shown to well-dressed passengers! It was taken for granted that every one, who was not a labouring man, a member of the Parliament, a monk or a priest, must be a heretic. Another characteristic circumstance of the struggle, was that the people, imagining all cultivation of the mind to be a commencement of heresy, crowded at once around the shops of the booksellers, and burned all the books they contained in the public places. These wretched men, who could not read, thought they were thus doing the work of good (Roman) Catholics. The tocsin rang from all the churches, for five or six leagues round. Bands of peasantry poured into the town, attracted by the hope of plunder. The Reformed, besieged in the Capitol, had cannon, and defended themselves, from the Monday to the Saturday, with all the courage of despair. Reduced at length to the last extremity, without food for their wives and children, or powder to load their arms, the people having also fired the whole quarter near the Capitol, they demanded a parley, crying: _Vive la Croix! Vive la Croix!_ They were promised their lives, on condition of leaving their arms and effects in the _Maison-de-Ville_. Before, however, they departed, they celebrated the Holy Communion with many prayers and tears, and began, between eight and nine in the evening, to retreat by the gate of Villeneuve. But the labourers and peasants, whom the priests had taught that it was not binding on them to keep faith with heretics, fell on them, and it is reckoned that three thousand five hundred persons perished in these conflicts.