Having been bathing in the Scheldt, he had returned by way of the church with a couple of bladders under his arm.

He had struck these against the door of the Cathedral, partly to dry them, partly from a love of mischief.

Thus a great uproar, in the course of which it had been feared that Toumay was to be sacked and drenched in blood, had been caused by a little wanton boy who had been swimming on bladders.
This comedy preceded by a few days only the actual disaster.

On the 22d of August the news reached Tournay that the churches in Antwerp, Ghent, and many other places, had been sacked.

There was an instantaneous movement towards imitating the example on the same evening.