The petty annoyances and vexations to which the Reformed were subjected, were at times harder to bear than actual persecution. In the one case pride and conscience might make the severest torture endurable; in the other, there was all the consciousness of the martyr without a sufficient injury to awaken the sympathy of others. The annoyances inflicted by the municipal authority on the Huguenots of Provins must have been to many more intolerable than any amount of physical pain. They were forbidden to take lodgers, to assemble in any manner, or to leave their houses after 7 P.M. in the summer and 5 P.M. in the winter. They were not allowed to walk on the ramparts by night or by day, under pain of death; and they could not take a stroll into the country without the written pass of the officer of the gate.[417] At Amiens the privilege of keeping inns was taken from them; they were turned out of such of their houses as happened to be near the walls or the gates; they could not meet more than three together, and were liable to be hanged if found in the streets between seven at night and six in the morning.[418] During this “peace which was no peace,” as La Noue says, more than 2000 Huguenots--surely an exaggerated number--were put to death at Amiens, Bourges, Rouen, and other places. The teaching of the clergy had produced the desired effect. Under the pretext of imaginary crimes, Sigognes, governor of Dieppe, arrested all whom he suspected, or drove them out of the town. The soldiers insulted the women as they went to their meetings; the men interfered to protect them; there was a riot, and the governor always sided with the ruffians. Open war seemed better than such insecurity. M. de Cypierre was murdered, with thirty-six of his companions and suite, as he was passing through Provence. Remonstrances and appeals for justice were vainly made to the government, which affected to be more powerless than it really was. Under these circumstances, it is no wonder that the Huguenots again took up those arms in self-defense which they had laid aside in accordance with the treaty; no wonder that in their fury they once more defiled the altars, destroyed the churches, and perpetrated a thousand retaliatory atrocities. Briquemaut, one of their leaders, cheered them on to murder, wearing a string of priests’ ears round his neck. On the other side, Louis de Bourbon, Duke of Montpensier, far surpassed all others in barbarity, even to the disgust of Charles himself, who was not over-nice in such matters. One punishment, which he was proud of inventing, is so foul and horrible that we dare not name it. Correro, the Venetian embassador, describes the whole population as in a state of fury.