Three or four hundred of the faithful had met together one evening to celebrate the Supper, in a house of the Rue Saint Jacques, behind the Sorbonne. Among them were many gentlemen and men of the law. The ladies belonged, with the exception of four or five, to noble families; many of them were of the court. Some bachelors or doctors of theology, lodging at the Sorbonne, had watched and given the signal of alarm. Fearing lest the assembly might separate before they were sufficiently strong in numbers, they had heaped up a great quantity of stones to overwhelm those who should come out. About midnight, the service being over, the faithful opened the door; but, at the threshold, they were assailed with a shower of missiles accompanied by frightful vociferations, and were compelled to retreat within. The whole quarter was awakened by the tumult. The cry “to arms” was raised. Sinister rumours agitated the crowd. “Have the Spaniards surprised the town?” “No, not yet;” some replied, “but there are wretches who have sold the kingdom.” “Not so,” answered others, “they are Lutherans, damnable heretics, who rejoice in the misfortunes of France. Death, death to the heretics!” The street was filled with men armed with halberts, pikes, javelins, arquebuses, with everything that came to hand. The faithful, momentarily expecting to be massacred, fell upon their knees and supplicated God to come to their aid. Then they deliberated upon what they should do. To barricade themselves until the arrival of the serjeants, would be to devote themselves to almost certain death. To cut a passage through that furious multitude was scarcely less perilous. Upon this, however, the most daring decided, persuaded that the only way to daunt their adversaries was to front them boldly. The gentlemen drew their swords and marched foremost: the others followed. They traversed the crowd in the midst of a shower of stones, and through the pikes of their assailants. Favoured by the night, they escaped with their lives, though sorely wounded. One alone fell; he was trodden underfoot, and so mutilated as to have lost all likeness to the human form. But what was the fate of those who had not the courage to leave the building? They were nearly all women and children. They sought to fly by the garden, but all the issues were watched. At break of day they tried to gain the street, but were beaten and driven back. The women, counting upon the pity their helplessness commanded, presented themselves at the windows and with clasped hands implored the compassion of the wretches who had begun to force the doors; but they might as successfully have supplicated rocks as these pitiless miscreants. Already, offering back their life to God, they were preparing to die, when in the morning, the civil-lieutenant arrived with a troop of serjeants.