[Sidenote: Fanaticism of the Roman Catholic preachers.] The faithful, but somewhat garrulous chronicler, who has left us so vivid a picture of the social, religious, and political condition of the city of Provins during a great part of the second half of this century, describes a solemn procession in honor of the publication of the new ordinance, which was attended by over two thousand persons, and even by the magistrates suspected of sympathy with the Protestants. Friar Jean Barrier, when pressed to preach, took for his text the song of Moses: "I will sing unto the Lord, for He hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath He thrown into the sea." His treatment of the verse was certainly novel, although the exegesis might not find much favor with the critical Hebraist. The Prince of Conde was the _horse_, on whose back were mounted the Huguenot ministers and preachers--the _riders_ who drove him hither and thither by their satanic doctrine. Although they were not as yet drowned, like Pharaoh and his army in the Red Sea, France had great reason to rejoice and praise God that the king had annulled the Edict of January, and other pernicious laws made during his minority. As for himself, said the good friar, he was ready to die, like another Simeon, since he had lived to see the edicts establishing "the Huguenotic liberty" repealed, and the preachers expelled from France.[598] [Sidenote: The Huguenot places of refuge.] Similar rejoicings with similar high masses and sermons by enthusiastic monks, were heard in the capital[599] and elsewhere. But the jubilant strains were sounded rather prematurely; for the victory was yet to be won. The Huguenot nobles, invited by Conde, were flocking to La Rochelle; the Protestant inhabitants of the towns, expelled from their homes, were generally following the same impulse. But others, reluctant, or unable to traverse such an expanse of hostile territory, turned toward nearer places of refuge. Happily they found a number of such asylums in cities whose inhabitants, alarmed by the marks of treachery appearing in every quarter of France, had refused to receive the garrisons sent to them in the king's name. It was a wonderful providence of God, the historian Jean de Serres remarks. The fugitive Huguenots of the centre and north found the gates of Vezelay and of Sancerre open to them. Those of Languedoc and Guyenne were safe within the walls of Montauban, Milhau, and Castres. In the south-eastern corner of the kingdom, Aubenas, Privas, and a few other places afforded a retreat for the women and children, and a convenient point for the muster of the forces of Dauphiny.[600] [Sidenote: Jeanne d'Albret and D'Andelot reach La Rochelle.]