In many places in France not more than two out of twenty of the inhabitants were left alive[81], and the capital felt the fury of the plague, alike in the palace and the cot. Two queens[82], one bishop[83], and great numbers of other distinguished persons, fell a sacrifice to it, and more than 500 a day died in the Hôtel-Dieu, under the faithful care of the sisters of charity, whose disinterested courage, in this age of horror, displayed the most beautiful traits of human virtue. For although they lost their lives, evidently from contagion, and their numbers were several times renewed, there was still no want of fresh candidates, who, strangers to the unchristian fear of death, piously devoted themselves to their holy calling. The churchyards were soon unable to contain the dead[84], and many houses, left without inhabitants, fell to ruins. In Avignon, the pope found it necessary to consecrate the Rhone, that bodies might be thrown into the river without delay, as the churchyards would no longer hold them[85]; so likewise, in all populous cities, extraordinary measures were adopted, in order speedily to dispose of the dead. In Vienna, where for some time 1200 inhabitants died daily[86], the interment of corpses in the churchyards and within the churches, was forthwith prohibited; and the dead were then arranged in layers, by thousands, in six large pits outside the city[87], as had already been done in Cairo, and Paris. Yet, still many were secretly buried; for at all times, the people are attached to the consecrated cemeteries of their dead, and will not renounce the customary mode of interment. In many places, it was rumoured that plague patients were buried alive[88], as may sometimes happen through senseless alarm and indecent haste; and thus the horror of the distressed people was everywhere increased. In Erfurt, after the churchyards were filled, 12,000 corpses were thrown into eleven great pits; and the like might, more or less exactly, be stated with respect to all the larger cities[89]. Funeral ceremonies, the last consolation of the survivors, were everywhere impracticable.