The disturbances at Lyons began in the night of the 12th April, when the Catholics, “without any provocation,” rose in several parts of the city. About a dozen persons were murdered, and among them a woman, who fell by the hand of her own son. The governor, De Saulx, called in reinforcements, while the Huguenots were strengthened by the arrival of two hundred men from the surrounding Protestant towns. Both parties, watching each other, kept under arms for a fortnight, until Wednesday the 26th, when the Protestants, to the number of 1200, assembled in their temple, and after invoking the blessing of God upon their enterprise, marched out, occupied the Saone bridge, and made themselves masters of the city. Every convent was broken open, every friar and nun turned out.[343] In this tumult only three persons were killed, and as many wounded. A treaty was now arranged with the Senate, who promised to assign churches to the Protestants. The citizens who had left for religion were permitted to return, the mass was abolished, liberty of conscience proclaimed, and the Senate was in future to be composed of twelve Protestant and as many Catholic councilors.[344] But the Huguenots do not appear to have kept to the spirit of the treaty, however faithfully they may have adhered to the letter. They committed devastations that would have disgraced the Vandals. Churches were ravaged, tombs broken open, coffins stripped of their lead and their gold or silver plates; the bells were broken up and the basilica of the Maccabees destroyed by gunpowder. There does not appear to have been any private plunder, and this is the only redeeming feature in these riotous scenes. The flagrant violations of the January edict by the Catholics roused the Huguenots of La Rochelle to assert their rights, and accordingly the Lord’s Supper was administered with much solemnity--not without the walls, but in the very heart of the city--in the Place de la Bourserie, on the 31st May. Armed men closed every avenue, and a guard of forty soldiers patrolled the adjacent streets to prevent violence. About four in the afternoon, the people, excited by the novelty of the spectacle and the language of the preachers, rushed to the churches, threw down the altars, and burned the images.[345] The Count of Jarnac and the mayor, who were both Calvinists, vehemently but ineffectually condemned such violence, and were supported by the ministers. Some priests who had been shut up in the Lantern Tower were stabbed and thrown half dead into the sea. One Stephen Chamois, a Carmelite monk, had escaped from the city; but being recognized at Aunai in Saintonge, he was called upon to abjure, and, on his refusing to do so, was murdered on the spot.