Clare’s order should be left alive. Lorenzo had just succeeded in piercing his way through the crowd, when one of the gates was forced open. The rioters poured into the interior part of the building, where they exercised their vengeance upon everything which found itself in their passage. They broke the furniture into pieces, tore down the pictures, destroyed the relics, and in their hatred of her servant forgot all respect to the saint. Some employed themselves in searching out the nuns, others in pulling down parts of the convent, and others again in setting fire to the pictures and valuable furniture which it contained. These latter produced the most decisive desolation: indeed the consequences of their action were more sudden than themselves had expected or wished. The flames rising from the burning piles caught part of the building, which being old and dry, the conflagration spread with rapidity from room to room. The walls were soon shaken by the devouring element: the columns gave way: the roofs came tumbling down upon the rioters, and crushed many of them beneath their weight. Nothing was to be heard but shrieks and groans; the convent was wrapped in flames, and the whole presented a scene of devastation and horror.