On the Monday morning, the morrow after the festival, some passers-by fancied they observed something wrong in the place where the image stood: they could not see either the head of the Virgin or of the child. The men approached, and found that both the heads had been cut off; they looked about for them, and discovered them hidden behind a heap of stones close by; they picked up in the gutter the Virgin’s robe, which was torn and appeared to have been trampled under foot. These persons, who were devout catholics, felt alarmed; they respectfully took up the two heads and carried them to the magistrate. The news of the strange event quickly spread through the quarter. Monks and priests mingled with the crowd, and described the injury done to the image. Men, women, and children surrounded the mutilated figure--some weeping, others groaning, all cursing the sacrilege. A ‘complaint’ of the times has handed down to us the groans of the people: Alas! how great the woe, And crime that cannot pardoned be!... To have hurt Our Lady so, Lady full of charity, And to sinners ever kind![658] ... Such were the sentiments of the good catholics who, with tearful eyes and troubled hearts, looked upon the mutilated image. Who were the authors of this mutilation? It was never known. It has been said that the priests, alarmed at the progress of the Reformation and the disposition of the king, had perpetrated the act, in order to use it as a weapon against the Lutherans. That is possible, for such things have been done. I am, however, more inclined to believe that some hot-headed member of the evangelical party, exasperated at hearing that attributed to the Virgin which belongs only to Christ, had broken the idol. Be that as it may, the fanatical party resolved to profit by the sacrilege, and they succeeded. Francis I., the most susceptible and most irritable of princes, considered this act of violence as an outrage upon his dignity and authority. As soon as he reached Paris, he did everything in his power to discover the guilty party. For two whole days heralds paraded the streets, and stopping at the crossways summoned the people by sound of trumpet and proclaimed: ‘If any one knows who has done this, let him declare it to the magistrates and the king; the provost of Paris will pay him a thousand gold crowns, and if the informer has committed any crime, the king will pardon him.’ The crowd listened and then dispersed; but all was of no use. Nothing could be learnt about it. ‘Very well, then,’ said the king, ‘I will order commissioners to go and make inquiry at every house.’ The commissioners went and knocked at every door, examining one after another all the inhabitants of the quarter; but the result was still the same: ‘No one knew anything about it.’