While both parties were thus deliberating as to the future, an apparent accident speedily brought the whole matter to an issue. Those who had been appointed to patrol the streets, and to inspect all the posts in the city, entered the cathedral church of St. Peter. One of the men, urged by curiosity, opened a side door with his halberd, where a number of idols had been stowed away. One of them falling on the stone pavement was broken to pieces. The curiosity of the spectators was further moved by the sight of the fragments, and they began turning out the images one after another that were concealed in this closet. The floor was soon covered with heads, trunks, and broken limbs; the priests, who were not far off, raised a great outcry, and attempted resistance, but this only hastened the work of destruction. The rumor of a disturbance in the church flew rapidly through the city. Hundreds of armed burghers were immediately on the spot.
The hour of religious fury had arrived. "Why should we spare the idols that light up the flames of discord?" cried the Protestants; and the cathedral was swept as by a hurricane. The altars were demolished, the pictures were torn down, the idols were overturned, and the fragments piled up, and set on fire in the public squares.
The priests, trembling with fear, hastened to conceal themselves from public view. The senate came together in amazement, and attempted to interpose their authority, and appease the tumult; but it was too late. They had failed in the first requisite in the art of popular government—the wisdom to discern the right time to meet the popular demand. The citizens were long patient, but their determination gradually increased, and the senate was blinded by the influence of a small faction within it; and now they must listen to the haughty reply of the people. "We are doing in one hour that on which you have been deliberating for these three years, whether it should be done or not." While the iconoclasts respected all kinds of private property, no symbol of idolatry was spared. Under the blows of these zealous burghers, all the idols in all the churches fell, and were cast into the flames, so that they lighted up the darkness of the night, and warmed the chilly and excited crowds.
The people carried the day; the senate submitted. Twelve members—opposed to the Reformation—were dismissed to an honorable obscurity, and the demands of the citizens were granted. "They decreed, 1, That the citizens should vote in the election of the members of the two councils; 2, That from this day the idols and mass should be abolished in the city and the canton, and the churches provided with good ministers to preach the word of God; 3, That in all matters appertaining to religion and the commonwealth, two hundred and sixty of the members of the guilds should be admitted to deliberate with the senate."
Such were the triumphs of these two eventful days. They had secured the establishment of the Reformed religion; and gained, what were in their estimation, great civil advantages, and all without shedding one drop of blood. The two objects, civil and religious, were generally combined in the Swiss Reformation. "The commencement of the Reformation in Basle," says Ruchat, "was not a little tumultuous, but its issue was happy, and all the troubles that arose about religion were terminated without injury to a single citizen in his life or goods." All the trades met on the 12th of February, and took the oath, guild by guild, of fidelity to the new order of things. The following Sunday the Reformed worship was introduced in all the churches of Basle, with the singing of the Psalms in German: and in the course of the week a general amnesty was proclaimed, covering all offenses.