tire to her own room. She rose, and was about to obey, when the Duchess of Lorraine caught her by the arm, exclaiming : "Sister, for the love of God, do not leave us." Catherine sternly rebuked the duchess, and bade her be silent; but Claude, with true sisterly affection, would not let Margaret go. "It is a shame," she said, "to send her to be sacrificed, for if any thing is discovered, they [meaning the Catholics] will be sure to avenge themselves upon her." Still Catherine insisted: "No harm will befall the Queen of Navarre, and it is my pleasure that she retire to her own apartments, lest her absence should create suspicion." Claude kissed her sister, and bade her good-night with tears in her eyes. "I departed, alarmed and amazed," continues Margaret," unable to discover what I had to dread." She found her husband's apartments filled with Huguenot gentlemen. "All night long," says Margaret, "they continued talking of the accident that had befallen the admiral, declaring that they would go to the king as soon as it was light, and demand justice on the Duke of Guise, and if it were not granted, they would take it into their own hands. I could not sleep for fear," she continues; but when day-light came, and her husband had gone out with the Huguenot gentlemen to the tennis-court, to wait for his majesty's rising, she fell off into a sound slumber.

Coligny's hotel had been crowded all day by visitors; the Queen of Navarre had paid him a visit, and most of the gentlemen in Paris, Catholic as well as Huguenot, had gone to express their sympathy. For the Frenchman is a gallant enemy, and respects brave men; and the foul attempt upon the admiral, whom they had so often encountered on the battlefield, was felt as a personal injury. A council had been held that day, at which the propriety of removing in a body from Paris and carrying the admiral with them, had again been discussed. Navarre and Condé opposed the proposition, and it was finally resolved to petition the king "to order all the Guisians out of Paris, because they had too much sway with the people of the town." One Bouchavannes, a traitor, was

among them, greedily listening to every word, which he reported to Anjou, strengthening him in his determination to make a clean sweep that very night.

As the evening came on, the admiral's visitors took their leave. Teligny, his son-in-law, was the last to quit his bedside. To the question whether the admiral would like any of them to keep watch in his house during the night, he answered, says the contemporary biographer, "that it was labor more than needed, and gave them thanks with very loving words." It was after midnight when Teligny and Guerchy departed, leaving Ambrose Paré and Pastor Merlin* with the wounded man. There were besides in the house two of his gentlemen, Cornaton (afterward his biographer) and La Bonne; his squire Yolet, five Switzers belonging to the King of Navarre's guard, and about as many domestic servants. It was the last night on earth for all except two of that household..

* Mr. Froude (x. 397) writes Malin, which is probably a misprint.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE FESTIVAL OF BLOOD.

[August and September, 1572.]

The Huguenot Gentleman Killed-Midnight at the Louvre-Charles still hesitates-The Conspirators at the window-The pistol-shot-Guise recalled too late-Scene at Coligny's Hotel-The assault and murder-Indignities-Montfauçon-Scene at the Louvre-Queen Margaret's alarmn -Proclamations-Salviati's letter-List of Atrocities-Death of Ramus and La Place-Charles fires upon the Fugitives-Escape of Montgomery, Sully, Duplessis-Mornay, Caumont-The Miracle of the White ThornCharles conscience-stricken-Thanksgiving and Justification-Execution of Briquemaut and Cavaignes-Abjuration of Henry and Condé.

Ir is strange that the arrangements in the city, which must have been attended with no little commotion, did not rouse the suspicion of the Huguenots. Probably, in their blind confidence, they trusted implicitly in the king's word that these movements of arms and artillery, these postings of guards and midnight musters, were intended to keep the Guisian faction in order. There is a story that some gentlemen, aroused by the measured tread of soldiers and the glare of torches-for no lamps then lit up the streets of Paris-went out-of-doors and asked what it meant. Receiving an unsatisfactory reply, they proceeeded to the Louvre, where they found the outer court filled with armed men, who, seeing them without the white cross and the scarf, abused them as "accursed Huguenots," whose turn would come next. One of them, who replied to this insolent threat, was immediately run through with a spear. This, if the incident be true, occurred about one o'clock on Sunday morning, 24th August, the festival of St. Bartholomew.

Shortly after midnight the queen-mother rose and went to

the king's chamber,* attended only by one lady, the Duchess of Nemours, whose thirst for revenge was to be satisfied at last. She found Charles pacing the room in one of those fits of passion which he at times assumed to conceal his infirmity of purpose. At one moment he swore he would raise the Huguenots, and call them to protect their sovereign's life as well as their own. Then he burst out into violent imprecations against his brother Anjou, who had entered the room but did not dare say a word. Presently the other conspirators arrived: Guise, Nevers, Birague, De Retz, and Tavannes. Catherine alone ventured to interpose, and in a tone of sternness well calculated to impress the mind of her weak son, she declared that there was now no turning back: "It is too late to retreat, even were it possible. We must cut off the rotten limb, hurt it ever so much. If you delay, you will lose the finest opportunity God ever gave man of getting rid of his enemies at a blow." And then, as if struck with compassion for the fate of her victims, she repeated in a low tone-as if talking to herself-the words of a famous Italian preacher, which she had often been heard to quote before: "É la pietà ·lor ser crudele, e la crudeltà lor ser pietosa" (Mercy would be cruel to them, and cruelty merciful). Catherine's resolution again prevailed over the king's weakness, and the final orders being given, the Duke of Guise quitted the Louvre, followed by two companies of arquebusiers and the whole of Anjou's guard.

As soon as Guise had left, the chief criminals—each afraid to lose sight of the other, each needing the presence of the other to keep his courage up-went to a room adjoining the tennis-court overlooking the Place Bassecour. Of all the

*Favyn (Hist. Navarre, p. 867) says that after supper, "about eleven o'clock," the king went down to his forge with Navarre, Condé, and others, where they all worked as usual, until between one and two, when the tocsin was rung.

+ The Réveille-Matin and the Mém. État de France say, "attended only by

a fille-de-chambre."

"Ainsi que le jour commençait à poindre." Now as the sun rose that

party, Charles, Catherine, Anjou, and De Retz, Charles was the least guilty and the most to be pitied. They went to the window, anxiously listening for the signal that the work of death had begun. Their consciences, no less than their impatience, made it impossible for them to sit calmly within the palace. Anjou's narrative continues: "While we were pondering over the events and the consequences of such a mighty enterprise, of which (to tell the truth) we had not thought much until then, we heard a pistol-shot. The sound produced such an effect upon all three of us, that it confounded our senses and deprived us of judgment. We were smitten with terror and apprehension of the great disorders about to be perpetrated." Catherine, who was a timid woman (adds Tavannes), would willingly have recalled her orders, and with that intent hastily dispatched a gentleman to the Duke of Guise, expressly desiring him to return and attempt nothing against the admiral.* "It is too late," was the answer brought back: "the admiral is dead". -a statement at variance with other accounts. "Thereupon," continues Anjou," we returned to our former deliberations, and let things take their

Between three and four o'clock in the morning, the noise of horses and the measured tramp of foot-soldiers broke the silence of the narrow street in which Coligny lay wounded. It was the murderers seeking their victim: they were Henry of Guise with his uncle the Duke of Aumale, the Bastard of Angoulême, and the Duke of Nevers, with other foreigners, Italian and Swiss, namely, Fesinghi (or Tosinghi) and his nephew Antonio, Captain Petrucci, Captain Studer of Winkelbach with his soldiers, Martin Koch of Freyberg, Conrad Burg, Leonard Grunenfelder of Glaris, and Carl Dianowitz,

day at five o'clock, this would make it a little after four, which does not harmonize with other statements.

*We must remember that Anjou is vindicating himself, and that his narrative, like the confession of a criminal, endeavors to extenuate his crime.

+ According to Burg, he, Koch, and Grunefelder were the admiral's mur