fighting in the streets. The troopers were despoiled of their plunder, and were obliged to take refuge within the walls of the bishop's fortress. William de la Roue was furious. He sent down the obnoxious bailiff with all the force he could muster to chastise the citizens. But they were surrounded by the enraged populace, and driven to take refuge in the Franciscan convent. The butchers with their choppers hewed down the door and slew the provost and six sergeants. De Rochebaron fled up the tower. The butchers pursued, caught him hiding among the bells, flung him down, and his mangled body was hewn to pieces.
Eventually the bishop reduced the city to subjection. He had its consuls hung in chains, and put to death all the butchers on whom he could lay his hands. The old town, built about a volcanic dyke, was ill provided with water. The wells tapped no springs, and were filled with surface-water only, and the soil was impregnated with sewage soaking down from every street and yard and lane through the joints in the rock. As a natural result typhoid fever—or the Pestilence, as the people called it—broke out, and became endemic. Frantic at this, the citizens looked about for a cause, and looked in the wrong direction. It did not occur to them that they poisoned their own wells. They assumed that the sickness was due to a league among the lepers, jealous of the health and happiness of sound men, and that they insidiously poured poison into the pits. In 1321, after a great outbreak of the plague, the citizens complained to the bishop, Durand de S. Pourcain. Perhaps he shared their conviction, perhaps he sought only to gratify the people. He swept together all the lepers in the county and burned them alive.
