The Huguenots received the edict with gratitude, if not with exultation. Limited as were the privileges it granted, still it was a victory over their opponents. The right of assembling was conceded to them, and for such a right the blood of their martyred brethren had not been shed in vain. The preachers took immediate advantage of the liberty given them by the edict, and preached more boldly than ever in fields and gardens or any open space, and, if the weather was bad, in such sheds and barns as they could find. “The people,” says Castelnau, “curious about every thing new, crowded to hear them, Catholics as well as Protestants.” The Romish party, who undoubtedly formed the great majority of the nation, and the most ignorant portion of it, were greatly disgusted with this Edict of Pacification, imperfect as it was, and began to range themselves in opposition to the crown. Brulart only echoed the public opinion when he declared the Edict of January to be “the most pernicious possible for the repose and welfare of the state, and the support of the kingdom,” and “a wholesale approval of that wretched Calvinistic sect.” Tn certain provinces it had been well received; but, in Burgundy, Tavannes would hear of no toleration. He drove a large number--report says more than 2000--of the Reformed out of Dijon, and issued an order to the neighboring peasantry “to massacre all who prayed elsewhere than in the churches, and to refuse drink, food, and shelter to the expelled rebels.” At Aix, the Protestants had been accustomed to worship under a fir-tree outside the walls. Every morning for weeks men and women were seen hanging from its branches; they had been seized in the night, and executed without trial, on the mere denunciation of an enemy.