A new and still more striking act increased the wrath of the priests and that of their partisans. Of all the Romish dogmas there was none which more disgusted the huguenots than transubstantiation. To affirm it (they maintained) was to presume that Jesus Christ, man and God, was transformed into a little cake. And hence a French refugee, Maigret, surnamed the Magnificent, a man without pity for Roman errors, having found some wafers in the church, threw them upon the ground; his dog, who followed him, sprang upon them and ate them up. 'Now if these little cakes had been real gods,' said the pitiless Maigret, 'they would not have allowed themselves to be eaten by that beast.'[569] No one has combated the doctrine of transubstantiation more vigorously than Calvin, but he would not have approved of such a rude mode of acting; later, he expressly condemned it. 'Let us not take too great license,' he said. [Sidenote: HUGUENOT DISCOVERIES.] The horror of the priests knew no bounds; they ran out of the church, hastened to the hôtel-de-ville, and described to the council the violent scenes that had just taken place. The syndics, irritated because the huguenots had despised their orders, sent two of their number to the cathedral—Antoine Chiquand and Ami Bandière. They were 'much excited,' shouting and threatening 'those who had done this.' But the reformed were not inclined to give way. They had made strange discoveries. Some who had begun to search after the famous arm of St. Anthony—upon which, in important cases, oaths used to be made with the ringing of bells and great pomp, found—not the arm of the saint, but the limb of a stag. Others, opening the precious shrine which inclosed the head of St. Peter, brought out a piece of pumice-stone instead of the skull. 'See,' they exclaimed, showing these objects to the surrounding crowd, 'see what the priests used to make us worship.' This gave another direction to the indignation of the delegates from the council, and one of them, disgusted at such mean frauds, said to the other: 'If the gods of the priests are true gods, let them defend themselves. As for us we can do no more.' The huguenots, wishing to make these scandals known to the people, put the pumice-stone and the stag's bone under magnificent canopies, and prepared to carry these precious relics of an apostle and a saint all round the city. The novel procession attracted an immense crowd, and the disgusting falsehoods, of which it was a proof, opened the eyes of the most obstinate. 'Now we know,' they said, 'the value of the priests' words! They made us pay five florins for the ceremony; they pretended that if any one made a false oath, the saint would wither up his hand. All that was only to frighten and plunder us.' Every one began to despise a clergy who, for so many ages, had thus played upon the good faith of the people. An old writer has said: '_Justæ quibus est iræ_.'[570] 'Woe unto the Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!'[571]