The massacre of the Vaudois raised the indignation of all France; the souls of the people were not yet merciless, as they became during the religious wars. The king complained that his orders had been exceeded; but, sick and almost dying, he gave way to the representations of the Cardinal de Tournon, and had not the courage to punish the assassins. But, in his last moments, he adjured his son to take vengeance upon them, adding that if he failed therein, his memory would be execrated throughout the world. In effect, the matter was brought before the Parliament of Paris in 1550, where it occupied fifty audiences. The advocate of the Vaudois, or rather of the Lady du Cental, who complained that she had been ruined, spoke for seven days consecutively, with a force which was said to have shown the things, instead of relating them. The Baron d’Oppède defended himself, and had the audacity to commence his pleading with these words of the Psalmist: “Judge me, O God, and plead my cause against an ungodly nation.” He was acquitted. The advocate-general Guérin only was condemned to death, and care was taken to specify in the sentence that he had been guilty of misappropriating the king’s money; as if a whole people murdered was not a sufficient crime in the eyes of these judges. VII. Towards the end of the reign of Francis I., and under that of his son Henry II., the Reformation made such rapid progress, that it becomes impossible to follow it in all its details. Men of letters, of the law, of the sword, of the Church itself, hastened to its banner. Several great provinces,—Languedoc, Dauphiny, the Lyonnese, Guienne, Saintonge, Poitou, the Orleanese, Normandy, Picardy, Flanders; the most considerable towns of the kingdom,—Bourges, Orleans, Rouen, Lyons, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Montpellier, La Rochelle, were peopled with Reformers. It is calculated that they comprised in a few years nearly a sixth of the population, of whom they were the _élite_. They might have repeated the saying of Tertullian: “We date only from yesterday, and are, yet, everywhere.” If the persecution kept some aloof, it brought the accession of a greater number, through that instinct, which impels the human conscience to rise against injustice, and incline to the side of the victim. Moreover, the faith, the constancy, and the serenity of the martyrs soared above the ferocity of the executioner. The impulse once given to the movement, everything was shaken. There was in the understanding, in the heart, and, so to say, in the air one breathed, an immense want of religious reforms. People began to reflect that religion is not to be transmitted, like a name or an estate which one inherits, but that, before accepting it, one is bound to examine it by and for oneself. People also began to consider more minutely the enormous abuses of the Romish church, and crowds separated themselves from that degenerated communion.