explanation.”[263] The men, however, did not keep their word, and were sent to prison. A proclamation was then issued ordering all persons to decorate their houses under pain of being fined twenty livres parisis; but this had so little effect that, the very next Sunday, two hundred and sixty persons refused to comply with the order. Although the liberal-minded Christians of our days may think these Amiens Reformers overscrupulous, we are hardly in position to blame them. They looked upon the procession of the Corpus Christi as an act of idolatrous worship, and to hang tapestry on the walls of their houses was indirectly to countenance the idolatry. It is not very long ago that a similar argument was urged in the House of Commons against the turning-out of the guard at Malta when the host was carried past the guard-house. But the Huguenots were almost as turbulent as the Romanists: in many places they had become strong enough to defy the penal laws passed against them. They seized upon the churches, drove the monks from their convents, made bonfires of the crosses, images, and relics, and demanded an enlargement of their privileges. During the procession of the Fête Dieu at Lyons (5th June, 1561) a Huguenot tried to snatch the host out of the priest’s hand. There was an instant riot: “Down with the heretics! To the Rhone with them!” was the cry. Many were drowned, and the principal of the college of the Trinity was dragged a corpse through the streets. In all times of excitement there are hot-headed partisans who add to the confusion and thwart the exertions of those who are inclined to conciliatory measures. The early Reformed Church was not without them: each Protestant country had its iconoclasts. These indiscreet Reformers were the dread of the moderate Beza: “I fear our friends more than our enemies,” he wrote.[264] After receiving intelligence of an outrage at Montpellier he said that, if he were judge, he would punish those “madmen” with extreme severity.[265] And in a letter to Calvin he says (18th January, 1562): “You will scarcely believe how intemperate our people are, as if they wanted to rival our enemies in impatience.” It was necessary to do something, for the two parties were coming into collision, and blood had been shed not only in Paris, the head-quarters of orthodoxy, but in other parts of the country.