Next morning at sunrise, a few citizens left their houses and proceeded towards the field of battle. They perceived a man, dressed like a warrior, lying on the steps of a house; a great sword lay a few paces off. They approached, stooped down and touched him ... he was stark dead ... it was the canon, Messire Pierre Wernli. His body had lain all night in the street, unobserved by every one. As Councillor Chautemps, a peaceable man, had remained indoors, the body had not been perceived. The cuirass bore the marks of the blows received by the champion of the priests. His garments were bloody and his features still wore a fierce look. Those who gazed upon him were moved. A canon, a chief of the Church, he who the day before had officiated with so much state at St. Pierre's, surrounded by all the pomps of the service, had been struck down by the huguenots ... and there he lay dead. Some ran off to spread the news: 'Messire Pierre lies bathed in blood near the Molard.' Canons and priests, monks and mamelukes, and even the huguenots, ran out and surrounded the dead body. 'All the city was troubled when they found the corpse.'[729] The devout knelt down, and striking their breasts, exclaimed with tears: 'O blessed martyr, sacrificed to God!' According to some good catholics, he took his place in the ranks of the confessors who, like Thomas à Becket, had been put to death for honouring the holy Roman Church. This species of canonisation disgusted the huguenots: 'What!' they said, 'a priest fights with the halberd and sheds the blood of citizens—he turns soldier, and you make him a saint! Rather recognise in his death the just judgment of God.'[730] At that moment, there came up a woman of mean appearance, who fell shrieking on the body. She pressed it in her arms, with many sighs and groans. She was the canon's housekeeper, they said; but the manuscript which records this incident gives her a more significant name.[731]