Baring-Gould’s sources: Venerated only at Nismes. They have never been canonized. Authorities: — Baragnon: Hist, de Nismes, &c.] It is hard to say on which side most atrocities were committed in the religious wars in France, in the 16th century. If the Catholic cause was sullied by the cruelty of Monluc, the Calvinist side was disgraced by the barbarity of Des Adrets. The horrible crime of the massacre of S. Bartholomew produced so vivid an effect on men of the time, and has attracted such attention since, that men have forgotten that the Huguenots had provoked the king and his party to a frenzy of alarm for the safety of his crown and of the Catholic religion. France was at the height of her prosperity, and at peace, when the spread of. Calvin’s doctrines disturbed the faith and consciences of men, and led to revolts, desecration of churches, and horrible outrages committed upon priests and monks, and faithful Catholic laymen. In taking revenge for these crimes, the leaders of the Catholic party conducted themselves with such barbarity as did not beseem Christians; but we must not forget the intense provocation they had received.

At Nismes the Huguenots attacked the churches, destroyed the altars, broke the sculptured ornaments, trampled and spat on the Blessed Sacrament, and taking the large crucifix from the principal church, publicly whipped it, and then hacked the figure of the Redeemer to pieces. All the Catholic clergy were driven out of the city, and the exercise of the Catholic religion was rigidly suppressed. On September 30th, 1567, the Huguenots rose against the Catholics, and drove a number of Catholics, including the consul, Gui Rochette, into the episcopal palace, shouting, “ Kill all the Papists ! ” The Catholics were shut up in the cellars of the palace. About an hour before midnight they were dragged out and led into that grey old courtyard, where the imagination can still detect the traces of that cruel massacre. One by one the victims came forth; a few steps, and they fell pierced by sword or pike. Some struggled with their murderers, and tried to escape, but only prolonged their agony. By the dim light of a few torches, between seventy and eighty unhappy wretches were butchered in cold blood, and their bodies, some only half-dead, were thrown into the well in one corner of the yard, not far from an orange-tree, the leaves of which (says local tradition) were ever afterwards marked with the blood-stains of this massacre. In the September of the following year, the brutal scenes of violence were renewed; the city was plundered, and its streets were dyed with Catholic blood. The governor, S. Andrk, was shot and thrown out of the window, and his corpse was torn in pieces by the Calvinist mob. In the country round Nismes, forty-eight unresisting Catholics were murdered; and at Alais the Huguenots massacred seven canons, two grey-friars, and several other churchmen.