It would have been well had these deeds of brutality been confined to Normandy; but they were repeated all over France. One Friar Viroleau died of the consequences of a barbarous mutilation. Other priests or Catholic people were killed by hanging, speared to death, left to die of hunger, sawn in two, or burned at a slow fire. All this happened in Angoulême. At Montbrun a woman was burned on her legs and feet with red-hot tongs. The lieutenant-general of Angoulême and the wife of the lieutenant-criminal of that city were first mutilated, then strangled, and their corpses dragged through the streets. At Chasseneuil in the vicinity, a priest, one Loys Fayard, was shot to death after having been tortured by having his hands plunged in boiling oil, some of which had been poured into his mouth. The vicar of St. Auzanni was mutilated, shut up in a chest, and burned to death. In the parish of Rivières others had their tongues cut off, their feet burned, and their eyes torn out; they were hung up by the legs, or thrown from the walls. Other atrocities were committed which can not be described without offending propriety. One Huguenot is said to have gone about with a chain of priests’ ears around his neck.[351] In 1562 men did not stop to ask whether these things were true or false; they were passed from mouth to mouth and believed, just as the vulgar even now believe any story, however wild or improbable, that falls in with their peculiar temper or prejudices. The Catholic burned with indignation as he listened to the story of these outrages--sometimes related to him from the pulpit--outrages against the men and the things that he reverenced most upon earth. Blasphemy against God might be pardoned, but against the Virgin Mary--never! They retaliated immediately upon all the Huguenots within their power, and with all the more cruelty and persistency that they fervently believed they were doing God a service. But these are scenes too disgusting to dwell upon, and we gladly turn to less savage, though hardly to purer scenes. The hostility between the two sects showed itself at court by quarrels between the ladies, the Princess of Condé and the Duchess of Ferrara heading one party, and the widowed Duchess of Guise the other. The queen-mother tried in vain to check their feminine disputes. The Huguenot ladies would not give way. Chantonnay says of them: “They do little else at court than preach sermons and sing psalms. Daily prayers are said in the apartments of the Prince of Condé, with the help of all who have the will and the ability to go there.”