The meeting of the States-General did not quiet the agitation in the provinces. The war of words soon became a war of blows, and serious riots occurred in many large towns. At Beauvais, Cardinal Chatillon, the admiral’s brother, nearly lost his life, because on Easter Sunday he had celebrated divine service in his private chapel and not in the cathedral, and had administered the holy communion in both kinds, after the Huguenot fashion. The mob broke into the houses of some persons suspected of heresy, and catching one Adrian Fourré, a priest, they killed him, and were dragging him to the _voirie_ to burn him, when the public executioner interfered, asserted his rights, and burned the body himself amid the shouts of the populace. Some of the rioters were afterward hanged, when the fanatic people rose and hanged the executioner. At Le Mans a Protestant was killed, and the bishop did not scruple to write to the king, asking pardon for the murderers. At Rennes, the Huguenots ventured to worship openly, for which they were attacked by a “noisy bawling bully” of a grey friar, who exhorted his hearers to fall upon them by night. The municipal officers did not attempt to silence him, fearing that if they should not succeed they would next day be “publicly and scandalously preached at before the people.”[226] In December, 1560, an image of the Virgin was found lying in the kennel at Carcassonne. The sacrilege was imputed to the Huguenots, and the mob rose upon them, and many were killed. One man had his mouth cut from ear to ear, and an iron bit was fastened into it. The town hangman murdered five Huguenots, whom he skinned, and then ate the heart of one of them. He also sawed another, a private enemy, in two. It must not, however, be supposed that the provocation and insult were all on one side. On the 25th March, 1561, the high bailiff of Blois sent the queen-mother a long account of the mischievous doings and profanity of the Huguenots; how they had broken open churches, shattered images and crucifixes, and carried away thirteen young women from the convent of Guiche. Even in Paris, the hot-bed of Romish fanaticism, the Huguenots broke the images set up in the streets, and in some of the churches. They also held tumultuous meetings in the Pré aux Clercs, which were at last put down.