the world that she had not done the deed, or at least that the government had been forced, in self-defence, to do it, she could get no one to believe her. To compensate for the loss of prestige and influence abroad, what had she gained at home? Literally nothing. The Huguenots in all parts of France were coming forth from their hiding-places; important towns were defying the royal arms; whole districts were Protestant; and the demands of the Huguenots were once morebeginning to be heard, loud and firm as ever. What did all this mean? Had not ALVA and CATHERINE dug the grave of Huguenotism? had not CHARLES assisted at its burial? and had not the Pope set up its gravestone? What right then had the Huguenots to be seen any more in France? Had Coligny risen from the dead, with his mountaineer Huguenots, who had chased Anjou back to Paris and compelled Charles to sign the peace of St. Germain? Verily it seemed as if it were so. Four long months the battle raged: innumerable | Catherine strove by enormous lying to persuade mines were dug and exploded; portions of the wall fell in, and the soldiers of Anjou hurried to the breach in the hope of taking the city. It was now only that they realized the full extent of the difficulty. The forest of pikes on which they were received, and the deadly volleys poured into them, sent them staggering down the breach and back to the camp. Not fewer than twentynine times did the besiegers attempt to carry Rochelle by storm; but each time they were repulsed, and forced to retreat, leaving a thick trail of dead and wounded to mark their track. Thus did this single town heroically withstand the entire military power of the government. The Duke of Anjou saw his army dwindling away. Twenty-nine fatal repulses had greatly thinned its ranks. The siege made no progress. The Rochellese still scowled defiance from the summit of their ruined defences. What was to be done? At that moment a messenger arrived in the camp with tidings that the Duke of Anjou had been elected to the throne of Poland. One cannot but wonder that a nation so brave, and so favourably disposed as the Poles then were towards Protestantism, should have made choice of a creature so paltry, cowardly, and vicious, to reign over them. But the occurrence furnished the duke with a pretext of which he was but too glad to avail himself for quitting a city which he was now convinced he never would be able to take. Thus did deliverance come to Rochelle. The blood spilt in its defence had not been shed in vain. The Rochellese had maintained their independence; they had rendered a service to the Protestantism of Europe; they had avenged in part St. Bartholomew's eve; they had raised the renown of the Huguenot arms; and now that the besiegers were gone, they set about rebuilding their fallen ramparts, and repairing the injuries their city had sustained; and they had the satisfaction of seeing the flow of political and commercial prosperity which had been so rudely interrupted gradually return. A yet greater humiliation awaited the court. When the 24th of August 1573-the anniversary of the massacre— came round, the Huguenots selected the day to meet and draw up new demands, which they were to present to the government. Obtaining an interview with Charles and his mother, the delegates boldly demanded, in the name of the whole body of the Protestants, to be replaced in the position they occupied before St. Bartholomew's Day, and to have back all the privileges of the pacification of 1570. The king listened in mute stupefaction. Catherine, pale with anger, made answer with a haughtiness that ill became her position. "What!" said she; "although the Prince of Condé had been still alive, and in the field with 20,000 horse and 50,000 foot, he would not have dared ask half of what you now demand." But the queen-mother had to digest her mortification as best she could. troops had been worsted; her kingdom was full of anarchy; discord reigned in the very palace; her third son, the only one she loved, was on By the time these transactions were terminated, the point of leaving her for Poland; there were a year well-nigh had elapsed since the great mas- none around her she could trust; and certainly sacre. Catherine and Charles could now calcu- there was no one who trusted her; the only policy late what they had gained by this enormous open to her, therefore, was one of conciliation. crime. Much had France lost abroad, for though | Hedged in, she was made to feel that her way Her was a hard one. The Bartholomew massacre was becoming bitter even to its authors, and Catherine now saw that she should have to repeat it not once, but many times, before she could erase the "religion," restore the glories of the Catholic worship in France, and feel herself firmly seated in the government of the country. To the still further dismay of the court, the Protestants took a step in advance. Portentous theories of a social kind began at this time to lift up their heads in France. The infatuated daughter of the Medici thought that, could she extirpate Protestantism, Catholicism would be left in quiet possession; little did she foresee the strange doctrines-foreshadowings of those of 1789, and the Commune of our own day--that were so soon to start up and fiercely claim to share supremacy with the Church. The Huguenots of the sixteenth century did not indeed espouse the new opinions which struck at the basis of government as it was then settled, but they acted on them so far as to set up a distinct ecclesiastico-political confederation. The objects aimed at in this new association were those of self-government and mutual defence. A certain number of citizens were selected in each of the Huguenot towns. These formed a governing body in all matters appertaining to the Protestants. They were, in short, so many distinct Protestant municipalities, analogous to those cities of the Middle Ages which, although subject to the sway of the feudal lord, had their own independent municipal government. Every six months delegates from these several municipalities met together, and constituted a supreme council. This council had power to impose taxes, to administer justice, and, when threatened with violence by the government, to raise soldiers and carry on war. This was a state within a state. The propriety of the step is open to question, but it is not to be hastily condemned. The French government had abdicated its functions. It neither respected the property nor defended the lives of the Huguenots. It neither executed the laws of the state in their behalf, nor fulfilled a moment longer than it had the power to break the special treaties it had made with them. So far from redressing their wrongs, it was the foremost party to inflict wrong and outrage upon them. In short, society in that un happy country was dissolved; and surely, in so unusual a state of things, the Protestants had the right to make the best arrangements they could for the defence of their natural and social rights. It would have been well, however, had the French Protestants drawn more strongly the line which separated their action as citizens from their action as Church members. In other words, it would have been better had they given more distinctness and prominence to their Church associa tion. Our fathers, at the Reformation, ever gave prominence to the fact that they were a Church. And what did they mean by that? Even this, that they were not only professors of another faith, but members of another society. This society, they held, was distinct from civil society; and yet it possessed as real an individuality, as complete an organization, and as valid rights as those of civil society. It was distinct from civil society in that it was constituted upon another basis, even Revelation; that it was placed under another Head, even Christ; that it had rights and laws given it by God; and that in the exercise of these rights and laws for its own proper ends it was not dependent upon nor accountable to the State. This view of the Church makes her posi tion and claims and jurisdiction perfectly intelli gible. It may not be assented to by all, but even where it is not admitted it can be understood, the logical foundation of her jurisdiction can be seen, and her authority felt even where it may be resisted. It was the weakness of the French Protestants that they never attained to definite views on this head, nor put distinctly before the nation their rights as a divinely chartered society. They had no great commanding theological intellect like our own Knox; they were the "religion," while we were the "Church;" they claimed liberty to celebrate their worship, while we claimed liberty to frame and administer our ecclesiastical constitution; they blended to a large extent things civil and ecclesiastical, while we, in virtue of realizing the great idea of "Headship" kept them more distinct than anywhere else in Christendom. In Germany the magistrate has continued to be the supreme bishop; in Geneva the Church tended toward being the supreme magistrate; in Scotland we have been able more nearly to keep in the middle path between Eras tianism and a theocracy. Nowhere has the action of the Church been less political than in Scotland; yet, as a proof that the higher law will always rule in the end, what Church has so deeply moulded the genius of the nation, or so powerfully influenced the action of the State? At the court of France even there now arose a party that threw its shield over the Huguenots. That party was known as the Politiques or Tiers Parti, It was composed mostly of men who were the disciples of the great Chancellor l'Hospital, whose views were so far in advance of the age in which he lived, and whose reforms in law and the administration of justice made him one of the pioneers of better and more tolerant times. The chancellor was now dead-happily for himself, before the extinction of so many names which were the glory of his country-but his liberal opinions survived in a small party which was headed by the three sons of the Constable Montmorency, and the marshals Cosé and Biron. These men were not Huguenots; on the contrary, they were Romanists, but they abhorred the policy of extermination pursued toward the Protestants; and they lamented the strifes which were wasting the strength, lowering the character, and extinguishing the glory of France. Though living in an age noways fastidious, the spectacle of the court-now become a horde of poisoners, murderers, and harlots-filled them with disgust. They wished to bring back something like national feeling and decency of manners to their country. Casting about, if haply there were any left who might aid them in their schemes, they offered their alliance to the Huguenots. They meant to make a beginning by expelling the swarm of foreigners which Catherine had gathered round her. Italians and Spaniards filled the offices at court, and in return for their rich pensions rendered no service but flattery, and taught no arts but those of magic and assassination. The leaders of the Tiers Parti hoped, by the assistance of the Huguenots, to expel these creatures from the government, which they had monopolized, and to restore a national régime, liberal and tolerant, and such as might heal the deep wounds of their country, and recover for France the place she had lost in Europe. The existence of this party was | known to Catherine, and she had divined, too, the cleansing they meant to make in the Augean stable of the Louvre. Such a reformation not being at all to her taste, she began again to draw toward the Huguenots. Thus wonderfully were they shielded. The Tiers Parti never carried out their projects. The depths of Catherine were too great for them, and the corruption of France was too far gone to be cured by any skill or power of theirs; still they accomplished this good that they hindered the queen-mother from stretching out her hand as she wished to vex the men who had so marvellously survived St. Bartholomew's Eve, and who, risen from the dead as it were, were again coming with their demands to the foot of the throne. Thus there passed a few years of dubious policy on the part of Catherine, of fruitless schemings on the part of the Politiques, and of uncertain prospects to all parties. While matters were hanging thus in the balance, Charles IX. died. His life had been full of excitement, of base pleasures, and of bloody crimes, and his death was full of horrors. But as the curtain is about to drop, a ray-a solitary ray—is seen to shoot across the darkness. No long time after the perpetration of the massacre, Charles IX. began to be visited with remorse. The awful scene would not quit his memory. By day, whether engaged in business or mingling in the gaieties of the court, the sights and sounds of the massacre would rise unbidden before his imagina tion; and at night its terrors would return in his dreams. As he lay in his bed, he would start up from broken slumber, crying out" 'Blood, blood!" Not many days after the massacre, there came a flock of ravens, and alighted upon the roof of the Louvre. As they flitted to and fro, they filled the air with their dismal croakings. This would have given no uneasiness to most people'; but the occupants of the Louvre had guilty consciences.. The impieties and witchcrafts in which they lived had made them extremely superstitious, and they saw in the ravens other creatures than they seemed, and heard in their screams more terrible sounds than merely earthly ones. The ravens were driven away; but the next day, at the same hour, they returned, and so did they for many days in succession. There, duly at the appointed time, were the sable visitants of the Louvre, performing their gyrations round the roofs and chimneys of the ill-omened palace, and making its courts resound with the echoes of their horrid cawings. This did not tend to lighten the melancholy of the king. One night he awoke with fearful sounds in his ears. It seemed so he thought-that a dreadful fight was going on in the city. There were shoutings, and shrieks, and curses, and, mingling with these, were the tocsin's knell and the sharp ring of firearms; in short, all those dismal noises which had filled Paris on the night of the mas sacre. and while the tears poured down, and sobs choked his utterance, he said, 'Ah, nurse, dear nurse, what blood! what murders! Ah, I have followed bad advice! Oh, my God, forgive me! Have pity on me, if it please thee! I do not know what will become of me. What shall I do? Then the nurse I am lost; I see it plainly.' said to him, 'Sire, may the murders be on those who made you do them; and since you do not consent to them, and are sorry for them, believe that God will not impute them to you, but will cover them with the robe of his Son's justice. To Him alone you must address yourself.' Thereupon, having found him a pocket-handkerchief, as his own was wet through with his tears, after his majesty had taken her by the hand, he made a sign for her to go, and leave him to sleep." Alas! alas! history has few sadder scenes than this. We must go as well as the nurse, for it is too painful to stand longer at such a death-bed The But before quitting Charles IX., let us express a hope that he may have found mercy at the last hour. Some of the murderers of the Son of God found forgiveness, why may not some of the St. Bartholomew murderers? It were striking indeed if this Huguenot nurse, spared from the wreck of her people, as it were, was the instrument made use of for leading the dying king to the blood that cleanseth from all sin! The chief guilt of this enormous crime must rest with those who were the advisers of it, and who, in a sort, coerced the king into the commission of it. Of these, one of the most prominent is Catherine de Medici, and she, so far as we know, never shed a tear for it. The king did not doubt that the massacring had recommenced, and summoning an attendant, he ordered him to go quickly and stop the fighting. The messenger returned to say that all was at peace in the city, and that the sounds which had so terrified the king were wholly the creation of his own fancy. These incessant apprehensions brought on at last an illness. The king's constitution, sickly from the first, had been drained of any original vigour it ever possessed by the vicious indulgences in which he lived, and into which his mother, for her own vile ends, had drawn him; and now his decline was accelerated by the agonies of remorse-the Nemesis of the St. Bartholomew. Charles was rapidly approaching the grave. It was now that a malady of a strange and frightful kind seized upon him. Blood began to ooze from all the pores of his body. On awakening in the morning his person would be wet all over with what appeared a sweat of blood, and a crimson mark on the bedclothes would show where he had lain. Mignet and other historians have given us most affecting accounts of the king's last hours; but we content ourselves with an extract from the old historian Estoile. And be it known, that the man who stipulated, when giving orders for the Bartholomew massacre, that not a single Huguenot should be left alive to reproach him with the deed, was waited upon, when he was on his death-bed, by a Huguenot nurse! "As she seated herself on a chest," says Estoile, "and was beginning to doze, she heard the king moan and weep and sigh. She came gently to his bedside, and adjusting the bed-clothes, the king began to speak to her; and heaving a deep sigh, Charles IX. died on the 30th of May 1574. just twenty-one months after the massacre, having lived twenty-five years, and reigned fourteen. Unhappy throne of France! how often does it change its occupants! First one, then another, and yet another, flits past us. They are but phantom-kings. They occupy the throne only long enough to make a pool of blood before it, and then vanish. And with what a frightful frequency does death come to the Louvre! Its inhabitants, amid all their magical arts, have no spell strong enough to stay the entrance of this unwelcome visitor. Their gaieties are none the less, and their intrigues and plots go on all the same, despite the presence of this grim intruder. Catherine de Medici has made a covenant with Death, that whoever may be carried forth at the - palace gates to be buried, she shall be exempt. Father-in-law, husband, her son, and now her second son, all has she seen depart, and go to dwell in the silence of the royal vault: the palace halls know them no more; but she is still here --still keeping state in the Louvre-still weaving her schemes, and waiting the ripening of her projects. Verily this woman might appropriate the words of another and a yet haughtier-" I sit a queen, and shall see no sorrow." The Duke of Anjou, the heir to the throne, was in Poland when Charles IX. died. He had been elected king of that country, as we have already stated, but had already brought it to the brink of civil war by the violations of his coronation-oath. When he heard that his brother was dead, he stole out of Poland, hurried back to Paris, and became King of France under the title of Henry III. This prince was shamelessly vicious, and beyond measure effeminate. Neglecting business, he would shut himself up for days together with a select band of youths, debauchees like himself, and pass the time in orgies which shocked even the men of that age. He was the tyrant and the bigot as well as the voluptuary; and the ascetic fit usually alternated at short intervals with the sensual one. He passed from the beast to the monk, and from the monk to the beast, but never by any chance was he the man. It is true we find no St. Bartholomew in this reign, but that was because the first made a second impossible. That the will was not wanting, is attested by the edict with which Henry opened his reign, and which commanded all his subjects to conform to the religion of Rome or quit the kingdom. His mother, Catherine de His mother, Catherine de Medici, still held the regency; and we trace her hand in this tyrannous decree, which happily the government had not the power to enforce. Its impolicy was great, and it instantly recoiled upon the king, for it advertised the Huguenots that the dagger of St. Bartholomew was still suspended above their heads, and that they should commit a great mistake if they did not take effectual measures against a second surprise. Accordingly, they were careful not to let the hour of weakness to the court pass without strengthening their own position. Coligny had fallen, but Henry of Navarre now came to the front. He lacked the ripened wisdom, the steady persistency, and deep religious convictions of the great admiral; but he was young, chivalrous, heartily with the Protestants, and full of dash in the field. His soldiers never feared to follow wherever they saw his white plume waving. The Protestants were further reinforced by the accession of the Politiques. These men cared nothing for the "religion," but they cared something for the honour of France, and they were resolved to spare no pains to lift it out of the mire into which Catherine and her allies had dragged it. At the head of this party was the Duke of Alençon, the youngest brother of the king. This combination of parties, formed in the spring of 1575, brought fresh courage to the Huguenots. They now saw their cause espoused by two princes of the blood, and their attitude was such as thoroughly to intimidate the king and queen-mother. Never before had the Protestants presented a bolder front or made larger demands, and bitter as the mortification must have been, the Court had nothing for it but to grant all the concessions asked. Passing over certain matters of a political nature, it was agreed that the public exercise of the Reformed religion should be authorized throughout the kingdom: that the provincial parliaments should consist of an equal number of Catholics and Protestants: that all sentences passed against the Huguenots should be annulled that eight towns should be placed in their hands as a material guarantee: that they should have a right to open schools, and to hold synods: and that the States General should meet within six months to ratify this agreement. This treaty was signed May 6th, 1576. Thus within four years after the St. Bartholomew massacre, the Protestants, whom it was supposed that that massacre had exterminated, had all rights conceded to them. The Catholics opened their eyes in astonishment. Protestant schools! Protestant congregations! Protestant synods! They already saw all France Protestant. Taking the alarm, they promptly formed themselves into an organization, which has since become famous in history under |