'Here comes the true cross!' Again there was a rushing and shouting, citizens and strangers crushing one another,—'It is not the only one,' said the reformer, 'there is no petty town or paltry church where they do not show you pieces; and if all were collected together, there would be a load for a great barge, and three hundred men could not carry it.'[256] Next appeared a silver-gilt shrine, which attracted universal attention: it contained the relics of St. Genevieve, the patron saint of Paris; it was the last anchor in the midst of the tempest, and was never brought out except when France was in great peril. The butchers of Paris had offered to carry this precious amulet, and had prepared themselves for it by a fast of several days: they moved along barefoot and dressed in long shirts. Around this somewhat ferocious group there was a continual movement. 'There she is, the holy virgin of Nanterre,' was the cry. 'She saved our forefathers from the fury of Attila, may she save us from Luther's!' The people threw themselves upon the relic: one wished to touch it with his cap, another with his handkerchief, a third with the tip of his finger, some even more daring tried to kiss it. _Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little._[257] After the relics came a great number of cardinals, archbishops, and bishops, with coped and mitred abbots. Then, under a magnificent canopy, the four pillars of which were borne by the king's three sons and the Duke of Vendome, first prince of the blood, came the host carried by the bishop of Paris, and adorned as if it had been the Lord in person. [Sidenote: PENITENCE OF THE KING.] Then appeared Francis I., without parade, bareheaded and on foot, holding a lighted taper in his hand,[258] like a penitent commissioned to expiate the sacrilege of his people. At each _reposoir_ he gave his taper to the Cardinal of Lorraine, joined his hands and knelt down, humbling himself, not for his adulteries, his lies, or his false oaths—of these he did not think-but for the audacity of those who did not like the mass. He was followed by the queen, the princes and princesses, the foreign ambassadors and all the court, the chancellor of France, the council, the parliament in their scarlet robes, the university, the other corporations, and the guard. All walked two and two, 'exhibiting every mark of extraordinary piety.' Each man carried a lighted torch in profound silence. Spiritual songs and funereal airs alone interrupted from time to time the quiet of this gloomy and slow procession. In this way it traversed the different quarters of the capital, followed by an immense crowd of people, and the inhabitants of each street, standing in front of their houses, fell on their knees as the host went by. The crowd was so great that bodies of archers, with white staves in their hands, posted in every street, could scarcely keep open a passage for the procession.[259]