The fate of so obscure a victim could hardly find room on the crowded pages of the Netherland martyrdom.
This kind of work, which went on daily, did not increase the love of the people for the inquisition or the edicts.

It terrified many, but it inspired more with that noble resistance to oppression, particularly to religious oppression, which is the sublimest instinct of human nature.
Men confronted the terrible inquisitors with a courage equal to their cruelty: At Tournay, one of the chief cities of Titelmann's district, and almost before his eyes, one Bertrand le Blas, a velvet manufacturer, committed what was held an almost incredible crime.

Having begged his wife and children to pray for a blessing upon what he was about to undertake, he went on Christmas-day to the Cathedral of Tournay and stationed himself near the altar.

Having awaited the moment in which the priest held on high the consecrated host, Le Blas then forced his way through the crowd, snatched the wafer from the hands of the astonished ecclesiastic, and broke it into bits, crying aloud, as he did so, "Misguided men, do ye take this thing to be Jesus Christ, your Lord and Saviour ?" With these words, he threw the fragments on the ground and trampled them with his feet.
[Histoire des Martyrs, f.

356, exev.; apud Brandt, i.