Vilified with contumelious language

 
I am reading some of Montaigne's Essays at the moment. They were written in the late 1500s and the translation I am using has stuck fairly closely to the English equivalent language of the time. I came across the wonderful phrase - "vilified with most bitter and contumelious language". It sounds like what our politicians do to each other all the time.

To vilify is to malign someone; to make malicious and abusive statements about somebody.

Contumelious meant expressing scorn; having or showing an insulting, scornful, or contemptuous attitude.

Whilst vilify is still in occasional use the word contumelious has, sadly, died out.