say, however, the baron professed to deplore the cruel necessities of war, and excused his barbarities by pleading that it was not cruelty to retaliate. “The first acts are cruelties,” he said, “the second mere justice.” De Thou, who saw him at Grenoble, describes his green and vigorous old age, his fierce eyes, and thin, fleshless features, marked, like Sylla’s, with red spots, as of blood.[340] The ferocity of Des Adrets was exceeded by the atrocities committed under the eyes of Cardinal Strozzi, Bishop of Albi, who excited the populace of Gaillac to massacre their Protestant brethren, with whom they had hitherto lived on friendly terms. About seventy Huguenots were seized as they were attending divine worship, and thrust into a dungeon of the abbey of St. Michael, situated on a precipitous rock above the river Tarn. A laborer, wearing the judicial cap and robe of a magistrate whom he had killed, went through the farce of trying the prisoners and condemning them to be thrown from the wall into the river. Boatmen were stationed on the banks of the stream to brain such as were not killed by the fall. In the south of France, the Reformed doctrines had extended more widely and struck deeper root than in other parts of that kingdom. This difference was owing to a combination of many causes. The great cities of Provence and Languedoc still retained many of their municipal privileges, dating from the time of the Roman dominion, which made them almost republican. This begat the spirit of independence which always accompanies self-government. Moreover, the Albigensian crusade of the thirteenth century had not exterminated heresy: the opinions that had been so bitterly persecuted fastened their roots deep in the hearts of the southern population, where they lay, generation after generation, waiting for the opportunity of displaying themselves. It came at last, and with it a desire to revenge themselves on the descendants of those who had devastated the fair south with fire and sword. It was an oppressed nation rising against their oppressors, the sins of the fathers being visited upon the children. At the first outbreak of hostilities, the Huguenots seized upon the churches, which they purified of all marks of idolatry, destroying the relics and making a jest of the consecrated wafer. In some towns they entirely forbade the Catholic worship, turned the nuns from their convents, and even compelled them to marry. Beza, in a letter to the Queen of Navarre, expressed himself plainly, though not very strongly, upon the matter: “About this destruction of images I can say nothing more than what I have always felt and preached, that such a mode of procedure does not at all please me.” The violation of sepulture he declared to be utterly without excuse, and that Condé was determined to punish it.