A large area was prepared for the display of one of those barbaric passes of arms in which the rude chivalry of that day delighted. The inclosure was surrounded by all the polished intellect, rank, and beauty of France. Charles IX., with his two brothers and several of the Catholic nobility, then appeared upon one side of the arena on noble war-horses gorgeously caparisoned, and threw down the gauntlet of defiance to Henry of Navarre and his Protestant retinue, who, similarly mounted and accoutred, awaited the challenge upon the opposite side.

The portion of the inclosure in which the Catholics appeared was decorated to represent heaven. Birds of Paradise displayed their gorgeous plumage, and the air was vocal with the melody of trilling songsters. Beauty displayed its charms arrayed in celestial robes, and ambrosial odors lulled the senses in luxurious indulgence. All the resources of wealth and art were lavished to create a vision of the home of the blessed.

The Protestants, in the opposite extreme of the arena, were seen emerging from the desolation, the gloom, and the sulphurous canopy of hell. The two parties, from their antagonistic realms, rushed to the encounter, the fiends of darkness battling with the angels of light. Gradually the Catholics, in accordance with previous arrangements, drove back the Protestants toward their grim abodes, when suddenly numerous demons appeared rushing from the dungeons of the infernal regions, who, with cloven hoofs, and satanic weapons, and chains forged in penal fires, seized upon the Protestants and dragged them to the blackness of darkness from whence they had emerged. Plaudits loud and long greeted this discomfiture of the Protestants by the infernal powers.

But suddenly the scene is changed. A winged Cupid appears, the representative of the pious and amiable bride Marguerite. The demons fly in dismay before the irresistible boy. Fearlessly this emissary of love penetrates the realms of despair. The Protestants, by this agency, are liberated from their thralldom, and conducted in triumph to the Elysium of the Catholics. A more curious display of regal courtesy history has not recorded. And this was in Paris!

Immediately after the marriage, the Admiral Coligni was anxious to obtain permission to leave the city. His devout spirit found no enjoyment in the gayeties of the metropolis, and he was deeply disgusted with the unveiled licentiousness which he witnessed every where around him. Day after day, however, impediments were placed in the way of his departure, and it was not until three days after the marriage festivities that he succeeded in obtaining an audience with Charles. He accompanied Charles to the racket-court, where the young monarch was accustomed to spend much of his time, and there bidding him adieu, left him to his amusements, and took his way on foot toward his lodgings.

The Pope, not aware of the treachery which was contemplated, was much displeased in view of the apparently friendly relations which had thus suddenly sprung up between the Catholics and the Protestants. He was exceedingly perplexed by the marriage, and at last sent a legate to expostulate with the French king. Charles IX. was exceedingly embarrassed how to frame a reply. He wished to convince the legate of his entire devotion to the Papal Church, and, at the same time, he did not dare to betray his intentions; for the detection of the conspiracy would not only frustrate all his plans, but would load him with ignominy, and vastly augment the power of his enemies.

"I do devoutly wish," Charles replied, "that I could tell you all; but you and the Pope shall soon know how beneficial this marriage shall prove to the interests of religion. Take my word for it, in a little time the holy father shall have reason to praise my designs, my piety, and my zeal in behalf of the faith."



CHAPTER IV.

PREPARATIONS FOR MASSACRE.

1572

The attempted assassination of Coligni.—Escape of the assassin.—Arrival of Henry.—Christian submission of Coligni.—Indignation of Henry.—Artifice of Catharine and Charles.—Perplexity of the Protestants.—Secret preparations.—Feeble condition of the Protestants.—The visit.—The secret council.—Preparations to arm the citizens.—Directions for the massacre.—Signals.—Feast at the Louvre.—Embarrassment of Henry.—The Duke of Lorraine.—His hatred toward the Protestants.—The assassin's revenge.—Anxiety of the Duchess of Lorraine.—Scene in Henry's chamber.—Rumors of trouble.—Assembling for work.—Alarm in the metropolis.—Inflexibility of Catharine.—The faltering of Charles.—Nerved for the work.—The knell of death.—"Vive Dieu et le roi!"

As the Admiral Coligni was quietly passing through the streets from his interview with Charles at the Louvre to his residence, in preparation for his departure, accompanied by twelve or fifteen of his personal friends, a letter was placed in his hands. He opened it, and began to read as he walked slowly along. Just as he was turning a corner of the street, a musket was discharged from the window of an adjoining house, and two balls struck him. One cut off a finger of his right hand, and the other entered his left arm. The admiral, inured to scenes of danger, manifested not the slightest agitation or alarm. He calmly pointed out to his friends the house from which the gun had been discharged, and his attendants rushed forward and broke open the door. The assassin, however, escaped through a back window, and, mounting a fleet horse stationed there, and which was subsequently proved to have belonged to a nephew of the king, avoided arrest. It was clearly proved in the investigations which immediately ensued that the assassin was in connivance with some of the most prominent Catholics of the realm. The Duke of Guise and Catharine were clearly implicated.

Messengers were immediately dispatched to inform the king of the crime which had been perpetrated. Charles was still playing in the tennis-court. Casting away his racket, he exclaimed, with every appearance of indignation, "Shall I never be at peace?"

The wounded admiral was conveyed to his lodgings. The surgeons of the court, the ministers of the Protestant Church, and the most illustrious princes and nobles of the admiral's party hastened to the couch of the sufferer. Henry of Navarre was one of the first that arrived, and he was deeply moved as he bent over his revered and much-loved friend. The intrepid and noble old man seemed perfectly calm and composed, reposing unfailing trust in God.

"My friends," said he, "why do you weep? For myself, I deem it an honor to have received these wounds for the name of God. Pray him to strengthen me."

Henry proceeded from the bedside of the admiral to the Louvre. He found Charles and Catharine there, surrounded by many of the nobles of their court. In indignant terms Henry reproached both mother and son with the atrocity of the crime which had been committed, and demanded immediate permission to retire from Paris, asserting that neither he nor his friends could any longer remain in the capital in safety. The king and his mother vied with each other in noisy, voluble, and even blasphemous declarations of their utter abhorrence of the deed; but all the oaths of Charles and all the vociferations of Catharine did but strengthen the conviction of the Protestants that they both were implicated in this plot of assassination. Catharine and Charles, feigning the deepest interest in the fate of their wounded guest, hastened to his sick-chamber with every possible assurance of their distress and sympathy. Charles expressed the utmost indignation at the murderous attempt, and declared, with those oaths which are common to vulgar minds, that he would take the most terrible vengeance upon the perpetrators as soon as he could discover them.

"To discover them can not be difficult," coolly replied the admiral.

Henry of Navarre, overwhelmed with indignation and sorrow, was greatly alarmed in view of the toils in which he found himself and his friends hopelessly involved. The Protestants, who had been thus lured to Paris, unarmed and helpless, were panic-stricken by these indications of relentless perfidy. They immediately made preparations to escape from the city. Henry, bewildered by rumors of plots and perils, hesitated whether to retire from the capital with his friends in a body, taking the admiral with them, or more secretly to endeavor to effect an escape.

But Catharine and Charles, the moment for action having not quite arrived, were unwearied in their exertions to allay this excitement and soothe these alarms. They became renewedly clamorous in their expressions of grief and indignation in view of the assault upon the admiral. The king placed a strong guard around the house where the wounded nobleman lay, ostensibly for the purpose of protecting him from any popular outbreak, but in reality, as it subsequently appeared, to guard against his escape through the intervention of his friends. He also, with consummate perfidy, urged the Protestants in the city to occupy quarters near together, that, in case of trouble, they might more easily be protected by him, and might more effectually aid one another. His real object, however, was to assemble them in more convenient proximity for the slaughter to which they were doomed. The Protestants were in the deepest perplexity. They were not sure but that all their apprehensions were groundless; and yet they knew not but that in the next hour some fearful battery would be unmasked for their destruction. They were unarmed, unorganized, and unable to make any preparation to meet an unknown danger. Catharine, whose depraved yet imperious spirit was guiding with such consummate duplicity all this enginery of intrigue, hourly administered the stimulus of her own stern will to sustain the faltering purpose of her equally depraved but fickle-minded and imbecile son.

Some circumstances seem to indicate that Charles was not an accomplice with his mother in the attempt upon the life of the admiral. She said to her son, "Notwithstanding all your protestations, the deed will certainly be laid to your charge. Civil war will again be enkindled. The chiefs of the Protestants are now all in Paris. You had better gain the victory at once here than incur the hazard of a new campaign."

"Well, then," said Charles, petulantly, "since you approve the murder of the admiral, I am content. But let all the Huguenots also fall, that there may not be one left to reproach me."

It was on Friday, the 22d of August, that the bullets of the assassin wounded Coligni. The next day Henry called again, with his bride, to visit his friend, whose finger had been amputated, and who was suffering extreme pain from the wound in his arm. Marguerite had but few sympathies with the scenes which are to be witnessed in the chamber of sickness. She did not conceal her impatience, but, after a few commonplace phrases of condolence with her husband's bosom friend, she hastened away, leaving Henry to perform alone the offices of friendly sympathy.

While the young King of Navarre was thus sitting at the bedside of the admiral, recounting to him the assurances of faith and honor given by Catharine and her son, the question was then under discussion, in secret council, at the palace, by this very Catharine and Charles, whether Henry, the husband of the daughter of the one and of the sister of the other, should be included with the rest of the Protestants in the massacre which they were plotting. Charles manifested some reluctance thus treacherously to take the life of his early playmate and friend, his brother-in-law, and his invited guest. It was, after much deliberation, decided to protect him from the general slaughter to which his friends were destined.

The king sent for some of the leading officers of his troops, and commanded them immediately, but secretly, to send his agents through every section of the city, to arm the Roman Catholic citizens, and assemble them, at midnight, in front of the Hotel de Ville.

The energetic Duke of Guise, who had acquired much notoriety by the sanguinary spirit with which he had persecuted the Protestants, was to take the lead of the carnage. To prevent mistakes in the confusion of the night, he had issued secret orders for all the Catholics "to wear a white cross on the hat, and to bind a piece of white cloth around the arm." In the darkest hour of the night, when all the sentinels of vigilance and all the powers of resistance should be most effectually disarmed by sleep, the alarm-bell, from the tower of the Palace of Justice, was to toll the signal for the indiscriminate massacre of the Protestants. The bullet and the dagger were to be every where employed, and men, women, and children were to be cut down without mercy. With a very few individual exceptions, none were to be left to avenge the deed. Large bodies of troops, who hated the Protestants with that implacable bitterness which the most sanguinary wars of many years had engendered, had been called into the city, and they, familiar with deeds of blood, were to commence the slaughter. All good citizens were enjoined, as they loved their Savior, to aid in the extermination of the enemies of the Church of Rome. Thus, it was declared, God would be glorified and the best interests of man promoted. The spirit of the age was in harmony with the act, and it can not be doubted that there were those who had been so instructed by their spiritual guides that they truly believed that by this sacrifice they were doing God service.

The conspiracy extended throughout all the provinces of France. The storm was to burst, at the same moment, upon the unsuspecting victims in every city and village of the kingdom. Beacon-fires, with their lurid midnight glare, were to flash the tidings from mountain to mountain. The peal of alarm was to ring along from steeple to steeple, from city to hamlet, from valley to hill-side, till the whole Catholic population should be aroused to obliterate every vestige of Protestantism from the land.

While Catharine and Charles were arranging all the details of this deed of infamy, even to the very last moment they maintained with the Protestants the appearance of the most cordial friendship. They lavished caresses upon the Protestant generals and nobles. The very day preceding the night when the massacre commenced, the king entertained, at a sumptuous feast in the Louvre, many of the most illustrious of the doomed guests. Many of the Protestant nobles were that night, by the most pressing invitations, detained in the palace to sleep. Charles appeared in a glow of amiable spirits, and amused them, till a late hour, with his pleasantries.

Henry of Navarre, however, had his suspicions very strongly aroused. Though he did not and could not imagine any thing so dreadful as a general massacre, he clearly foresaw that preparations were making for some very extraordinary event. The entire depravity of both Catharine and Charles he fully understood. But he knew not where the blow would fall, and he was extremely perplexed in deciding as to the course he ought to pursue. The apartments assigned to him and his bride were in the palace of the Louvre. It would be so manifestly for his worldly interest for him to unite with the Catholic party, especially when he should see the Protestant cause hopelessly ruined, that the mother and the brother of his wife had hesitatingly concluded that it would be safe to spare his life. Many of the most conspicuous members of the court of Navarre lodged also in the capacious palace, in chambers contiguous to those which were occupied by their sovereign.

Marguerite's oldest sister had married the Duke of Lorraine, and her son, the Duke of Guise, an energetic, ambitious, unprincipled profligate, was one of the most active agents in this conspiracy. His illustrious rank, his near relationship with the king—rendering it not improbable that he might yet inherit the throne—his restless activity, and his implacable hatred of the Protestants, gave him the most prominent position as the leader of the Catholic party. He had often encountered the Admiral Coligni upon fields of battle, where all the malignity of the human heart had been aroused, and he had often been compelled to fly before the strong arm of his powerful adversary. He felt that now the hour of revenge had come, and with an assassin's despicable heart he thirsted for the blood of his noble foe. It was one of his paid agents who fired upon the admiral from the window, and, mounted upon one of the fleetest chargers of the Duke of Guise, the wretch made his escape.

The conspiracy had been kept a profound secret from Marguerite, lest she should divulge it to her husband. The Duchess of Lorraine, however, was in all their deliberations, and, fully aware of the dreadful carnage which the night was to witness, she began to feel, as the hour of midnight approached, very considerable anxiety in reference to the safety of her sister. Conscious guilt magnified her fears; and she was apprehensive lest the Protestants, when they should first awake to the treachery which surrounded them, would rush to the chamber of their king to protect him, and would wreak their vengeance upon his Catholic spouse. She did not dare to communicate to her sister the cause of her alarm; and yet, when Marguerite, about 11 o'clock, arose to retire, she importuned her sister, even with tears, not to occupy the same apartment with her husband that night, but to sleep in her own private chamber. Catharine sharply reproved the Duchess of Lorraine for her imprudent remonstrances, and bidding the Queen of Navarre good-night, with maternal authority directed her to repair to the room of her husband. She departed to the nuptial chamber, wondering what could be the cause of such an unwonted display of sisterly solicitude and affection.

When she entered her room, to her great surprise she found thirty or forty gentlemen assembled there. They were the friends and the supporters of Henry, who had become alarmed by the mysterious rumors which were floating from ear to ear, and by the signs of agitation, and secrecy, and strange preparation which every where met the eye. No one could imagine what danger was impending. No one knew from what quarter the storm would burst. But that some very extraordinary event was about to transpire was evident to all. It was too late to adopt any precautions for safety. The Protestants, unarmed, unorganized, and widely dispersed, could now only practice the virtue of heroic fortitude in meeting their doom, whatever that doom might be. The gentlemen in Henry's chamber did not venture to separate, and not an eye was closed in sleep. They sat together in the deepest perplexity and consternation, as the hours of the night lingered slowly along, anxiously awaiting the developments with which the moments seemed to be fraught.

In the mean time, aided by the gloom of a starless night, in every street of Paris preparations were going on for the enormous perpetration. Soldiers were assembling in different places of rendezvous. Guards were stationed at important points in the city, that their victims might not escape. Armed citizens, with loaded muskets and sabres gleaming in the lamplight, began to emerge, through the darkness, from their dwellings, and to gather, in motley and interminable assemblage, around the Hotel de Ville. A regiment of guards were stationed at the gates of the royal palace to protect Charles and Catharine from any possibility of danger. Many of the houses were illuminated, that by the light blazing from the windows, the bullet might be thrown with precision, and that the dagger might strike an unerring blow. Agitation and alarm pervaded the vast metropolis. The Catholics were rejoicing that the hour of vengeance had arrived. The Protestants gazed upon the portentous gatherings of this storm in utter bewilderment.

All the arrangements of the enterprise were left to the Duke of Guise, and a more efficient and fitting agent could not have been found. He had ordered that the tocsin, the signal for the massacre, should be tolled at two o'clock in the morning. Catharine and Charles, in one of the apartments of the palace of the Louvre, were impatiently awaiting the lingering flight of the hours till the alarm-bell should toll forth the death-warrant of their Protestant subjects. Catharine, inured to treachery and hardened in vice, was apparently a stranger to all compunctious visitings. A life of crime had steeled her soul against every merciful impression. But she was very apprehensive lest her son, less obdurate in purpose, might relent. Though impotent in character, he was, at times, petulant and self-willed, and in paroxysms of stubbornness spurned his mother's counsels and exerted his own despotic power.

Charles was now in a state of the most feverish excitement. He hastily paced the room, peering out at the window, and almost every moment looking at his watch, wishing that the hour would come, and again half regretting that the plot had been formed. The companions and the friends of his childhood, the invited guests who, for many weeks, had been his associates in gay festivities, and in the interchange of all kindly words and deeds, were, at his command, before the morning should dawn, to fall before the bullet and the poniard of the midnight murderer. His mother witnessed with intense anxiety this wavering of his mind. She therefore urged him no longer to delay, but to anticipate the hour, and to send a servant immediately to sound the alarm.

Charles hesitated, while a cold sweat ran from his forehead. "Are you a coward?" tauntingly inquired the fiendlike mother. This is the charge which will always make the poltroon squirm. The young king nervously exclaimed, "Well, then, begin."

There were in the chamber at the time only the king, his mother, and his brother the Duke of Anjou. A messenger was immediately dispatched to strike the bell. It was two hours after midnight. A few moments of terrible suspense ensued. There was a dead silence, neither of the three uttering a word. They all stood at the windows looking out into the rayless night. Suddenly, through the still air, the ponderous tones of the alarm-bell fell upon the ear, and rolled, the knell of death, over the city. Its vibrations awakened the demon in ten thousand hearts. It was the morning of the Sabbath, August 24th, 1572. It was the anniversary of a festival in honor of St. Bartholomew, which had long been celebrated. At the sound of the tocsin, the signal for the massacre, armed men rushed from every door into the streets, shouting, "Vive Dieu et le roi!"—Live God and the king!



CHAPTER V.

MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW.

1572

The commencement of the massacre.—The house forced.—Flight of the servants.—Death of Admiral Coligni.—Brutality.—Fate of the Duke of Guise.—Excitement of the Parisians.—Fiendish spirit of Charles.—Fugitives butchered.—Terror of Marguerite.—Flight of Marguerite.—Terrors of the night.—Remarkable escape of Maximilian.—Efforts to save his life.—The disguise.—Scene in the street.—The talisman.—Arrival at the college.—His protection.—Henry taken before the king.—He yields.—Paris on the Sabbath following.—Encouragement by the priests.—The massacre continued.—Exultation of the Catholics.—Triumphal procession.—Extent of the massacre.—Magnanimity of Catholic officers.—The Bishop of Lisieux.—Noble replies to the king's decree.—The higher law.—Attempted justification.—Punishment of Coligni.—Valor of the survivors.—Pledges of aid.—Prophecy of Knox.—Apology of the court.—Opinions of the courts of Europe.—Rejoicings at Rome.—Atrocity of the deed.—Results of the massacre.—Retribution.

As the solemn dirge from the steeple rang out upon the night air, the king stood at the window of the palace trembling in every nerve. Hardly had the first tones of the alarm-bell fallen upon his ear when the report of a musket was heard, and the first victim fell. The sound seemed to animate to frenzy the demoniac Catharine, while it almost froze the blood in the veins of the young monarch, and he passionately called out for the massacre to be stopped. It was too late. The train was fired, and could not be extinguished. The signal passed with the rapidity of sound from steeple to steeple, till not only Paris, but entire France, was roused. The roar of human passion, the crackling fire of musketry, and the shrieks of the wounded and the dying, rose and blended in one fearful din throughout the whole metropolis. Guns, pistols, daggers, were every where busy. Old men, terrified maidens, helpless infants, venerable matrons, were alike smitten, and mercy had no appeal which could touch the heart of the murderers.

The wounded Admiral Coligni was lying helpless upon his bed, surrounded by a few personal friends, as the uproar of the rising storm of human violence and rage rolled in upon their ears. The Duke of Guise, with three hundred soldiers, hastened to the lodgings of the admiral. The gates were immediately knocked down, and the sentinels stabbed. A servant, greatly terrified, rushed into the inner apartment where the wounded admiral was lying, and exclaimed,

"The house is forced, and there is no means of resisting."

"I have long since," said the admiral, calmly, "prepared myself to die. Save yourselves, my friends, if you can, for you can not defend my life. I commend my soul to the mercy of God."

The companions of the admiral, having no possible means of protection, and perhaps adding to his peril by their presence, immediately fled to other apartments of the house. They were pursued and stabbed. Three leaped from the windows and were shot in the streets.

Coligni, left alone in his apartment, rose with difficulty from his bed, and, being unable to stand, leaned for support against the wall. A desperado by the name of Breme, a follower of the Duke of Guise, with a congenial band of accomplices, rushed into the room. They saw a venerable man, pale, and with bandaged wounds, in his night-dress, engaged in prayer.

"Art thou the admiral?" demanded the assassin, with brandished sword.

"I am," replied the admiral; "and thou, young man, shouldst respect my gray hairs. Nevertheless, thou canst abridge my life but a little."

Breme plunged his sword into his bosom, and then withdrawing it, gave him a cut upon the head. The admiral fell, calmly saying, "If I could but die by the hand of a gentleman instead of such a knave as this!" The rest of the assassins then rushed upon him, piercing his body with their daggers.

The Duke of Guise, ashamed himself to meet the eye of this noble victim to the basest treachery, remained impatiently in the court-yard below.

"Breme!" he shouted, looking up at the window, "have you done it?"

"Yes," Breme exclaimed from the chamber, "he is done for."

"Let us see, though," rejoined the duke. "Throw the body from the window."

The mangled corpse was immediately thrown down upon the pavement of the court-yard. The duke, with his handkerchief, wiped the blood and the dirt from his face, and carefully scrutinized the features.

"Yes," said he, "I recognize him. He is the man."

Then giving the pallid cheek a kick, he exclaimed, "Courage, comrades! we have happily begun. Let us now go for others. The king commands it."

In sixteen years from this event the Duke of Guise was himself assassinated, and received a kick in the face from Henry III., brother of the same king in whose service he had drawn the dagger of the murderer. Thus died the Admiral Coligni, one of the noblest sons of France. Though but fifty-six years of age, he was prematurely infirm from care, and toil, and suffering.

For three days the body was exposed to the insults of the populace, and finally was hung up by the feet on a gibbet. A cousin of Coligni secretly caused it to be taken down and buried.

The tiger, having once lapped his tongue in blood, seems to be imbued with a new spirit of ferocity. There is in man a similar temper, which is roused and stimulated by carnage. The excitement of human slaughter converts man into a demon. The riotous multitude of Parisians was becoming each moment more and more clamorous for blood. They broke open the houses of the Protestants, and, rushing into their chambers, murdered indiscriminately both sexes and every age. The streets resounded with the shouts of the assassins and the shrieks of their victims. Cries of "Kill! kill! more blood!" rent the air. The bodies of the slain were thrown out of the windows into the streets, and the pavements of the city were clotted with human gore.

Charles, who was overwhelmed with such compunctions of conscience when he heard the first shot, and beheld from his window the commencement of the butchery, soon recovered from his momentary wavering, and, conscious that it was too late to draw back, with fiendlike eagerness engaged himself in the work of death. The monarch, when a boy, had been noted for his sanguinary spirit, delighting with his own hand to perform the revolting acts of the slaughter-house. Perfect fury seemed now to take possession of him. His cheeks were flushed, his lips compressed, his eyes glared with frenzy. Bending eagerly from his window, he shouted words of encouragement to the assassins. Grasping a gun, in the handling of which he had become very skillful from long practice in the chase, he watched, like a sportsman, for his prey; and when he saw an unfortunate Protestant, wounded and bleeding, flying from his pursuers, he would take deliberate aim from the window of his palace, and shout with exultation as he saw him fall, pierced by his bullet. A crowd of fugitives rushed into the court-yard of the Louvre to throw themselves upon the protection of the king. Charles sent his own body-guard into the yard, with guns and daggers, to butcher them all, and the pavements of the palace-yard were drenched with their blood.



Just before the carnage commenced, Marguerite, weary with excitement and the agitating conversation to which she had so long been listening, retired to her private apartment for sleep. She had hardly closed her eyes when the fearful outcries of the pursuers and the pursued filled the palace. She sprang up in her bed, and heard some one struggling at the door, and shrieking "Navarre! Navarre!" In a paroxysm of terror, she ordered an attendant to open the door. One of her husband's retinue instantly rushed in, covered with wounds and blood, pursued by four soldiers of her brother's guard. The captain of the guard entered at the same moment, and, at the earnest entreaty of the princess, spared her the anguish of seeing the friend of her husband murdered before her eyes.

Marguerite, half delirious with bewilderment and terror, fled from her room to seek the apartment of her sister. The palace was filled with uproar, the shouts of the assassins and the shrieks of their victims blending in awful confusion. As she was rushing through the hall, she encountered another Protestant gentleman flying before the dripping sword of his pursuer. He was covered with blood, flowing from the many wounds he had already received. Just as he reached the young Queen of Navarre, his pursuer overtook him and plunged a sword through his body. He fell dead at her feet.

No tongue can tell the horrors of that night. It would require volumes to record the frightful scenes which were enacted before the morning dawned. Among the most remarkable escapes we may mention that of a lad whose name afterward attained much celebrity. The Baron de Rosny, a Protestant lord of great influence and worth, had accompanied his son Maximilian, a very intelligent and spirited boy, about eleven years of age, to Paris, to attend the nuptials of the King of Navarre. This young prince, Maximilian, afterward the world-renowned Duke of Sully, had previously been prosecuting his studies in the College of Burgundy, in the metropolis, and had become a very great favorite of the warm-hearted King of Navarre. His father had come to Paris with great reluctance, for he had no confidence in the protestations of Catharine and Charles IX. Immediately after the attempt was made to assassinate the admiral, the Baron de Rosny, with many of his friends, left the city, intrusting his son to the care of a private tutor and a valet de chambre. He occupied lodgings in a remote quarter of the city and near the colleges.

Young Maximilian was asleep in his room, when, a little after midnight, he was aroused by the ringing of the alarm-bells, and the confused cries of the populace. His tutor and valet de chambre sprang from their beds, and hurried out to ascertain the cause of the tumult. They did not, however, return, for they had hardly reached the door when they were shot down. Maximilian, in great bewilderment respecting their continued absence, and the dreadful clamor continually increasing, was hurriedly dressing himself, when his landlord came in, pale and trembling, and informed him of the massacre which was going on, and that he had saved his own life only by the avowal of his faith in the Catholic religion. He earnestly urged Maximilian to do the same. The young prince magnanimously resolved not to save his life by falsehood and apostasy. He determined to attempt, in the darkness and confusion of the night, to gain the College of Burgundy, where he hoped to find some Catholic friends who would protect him.

The distance of the college from the house in which he was rendered the undertaking desperately perilous. Having disguised himself in the dress of a Roman Catholic priest, he took a large prayer-book under his arm, and tremblingly issued forth into the streets. The sights which met his eye in the gloom of that awful night were enough to appal the stoutest heart. The murderers, frantic with excitement and intoxication, were uttering wild outcries, and pursuing, in every direction, their terrified victims. Women and children, in their night-clothes, having just sprung in terror from their beds, were flying from their pursuers, covered with wounds, and uttering fearful shrieks. The mangled bodies of the young and of the old, of males and females, were strewn along the streets, and the pavements were slippery with blood. Loud and dreadful outcries were heard from the interior of the dwellings as the work of midnight assassination proceeded; and struggles of desperate violence were witnessed, as the murderers attempted to throw their bleeding and dying victims from the high windows of chambers and attics upon the pavements below. The shouts of the assailants, the shrieks of the wounded, as blow after blow fell upon them, the incessant reports of muskets and pistols, the tramp of soldiers, and the peals of the alarm-bell, all combined to create a scene of terror such as human eyes have seldom witnessed. In the midst of ten thousand perils, the young man crept along, protected by his priestly garb, while he frequently saw his fellow-Christians shot and stabbed at his very side.

Suddenly, in turning a corner, he fell into the midst of a band of the body-guard of the king, whose swords were dripping with blood. They seized him with great roughness, when, seeing the Catholic prayer-book which was in his hands, they considered it a safe passport, and permitted him to continue on his way uninjured. Twice again he encountered similar peril, as he was seized by bands of infuriated men, and each time he was extricated in the same way.

At length he arrived at the College of Burgundy; and now his danger increased tenfold. It was a Catholic college. The porter at the gate absolutely refused him admittance. The murderers began to multiply in the street around him with fierce and threatening questions. Maximilian at length, by inquiring for La Faye, the president of the college, and by placing a bribe in the hands of the porter, succeeded in obtaining entrance. La Faye was a humane man, and exceedingly attached to his Protestant pupil. Maximilian entered the apartment of the president, and found there two Catholic priests. The priests, as soon as they saw him, insisted upon cutting him down, declaring that the king had commanded that not even the infant at the breast should be spared. The good old man, however, firmly resolved to protect his young friend, and, conducting him privately to a secure chamber, locked him up. Here he remained three days in the greatest suspense, apprehensive every hour that the assassins would break in upon him. A faithful servant of the president brought him food, but could tell him of nothing but deeds of treachery and blood. At the end of three days, the heroic boy, who afterward attained great celebrity as the minister and bosom friend of Henry, was released and protected.

The morning of St. Bartholomew's day had not dawned when a band of soldiers entered the chamber of Henry of Navarre and conveyed him to the presence of the king. Frenzied with the excitements of the scene, the imbecile but passionate monarch received him with a countenance inflamed with fury. With blasphemous oaths and imprecations, he commanded the King of Navarre, as he valued his life, to abandon a religion which Charles affirmed that the Protestants had assumed only as a cloak for their rebellion. With violent gesticulations and threats, he declared that he would no longer submit to be contradicted by his subjects, but that they should revere him as the image of God. Henry, who was a Protestant from considerations of state policy rather than from Christian principle, and who saw in the conflict merely a strife between two political parties, ingloriously yielded to that necessity by which alone he could save his life. Charles gave him three days to deliberate, declaring, with a violent oath, that if, at the end of that time, he did not yield to his commands, he would cause him to be strangled. Henry yielded. He not only went to mass himself, but submitted to the degradation of sending an edict to his own dominions, prohibiting the exercise of any religion except that of Rome. This indecision was a serious blot upon his character. Energetic and decisive as he was in all his measures of government, his religious convictions were ever feeble and wavering.

When the darkness of night passed away and the morning of the Sabbath dawned upon Paris, a spectacle was witnessed such as the streets even of that blood-renowned metropolis have seldom presented. The city still resounded with that most awful of all tumults, the clamor of an infuriated mob. The pavements were covered with gory corpses. Men, women, and children were still flying in every direction, wounded and bleeding, pursued by merciless assassins, riotous with demoniac laughter and drunk with blood. The report of guns and pistols was heard in all parts of the city, sometimes in continuous volleys, as if platoons of soldiers were firing upon their victims, while the scattered shots, incessantly repeated in every section of the extended metropolis, proved the universality of the massacre. Drunken wretches, besmeared with blood, were swaggering along the streets, with ribald jests and demoniac howlings, hunting for the Protestants. Bodies, torn and gory, were hanging from the windows, and dissevered heads were spurned like footballs along the pavements. Priests were seen in their sacerdotal robes, with elevated crucifixes, and with fanatical exclamations encouraging the murderers not to grow weary in their holy work of exterminating God's enemies. The most distinguished nobles and generals of the court and the camp of Charles, mounted on horseback with gorgeous retinue, rode through the streets, encouraging by voice and arm the indiscriminate massacre.

"Let not," the king proclaimed, "one single Protestant be spared to reproach me hereafter with this deed."

For a whole week the massacre continued, and it was computed that from eighty to a hundred thousand Protestants were slain throughout the kingdom.

Charles himself, with Catharine and the highborn but profligate ladies who disgraced her court, emerged with the morning light, in splendid array, into the reeking streets. The ladies contemplated with merriment and ribald jests the dead bodies of the Protestants piled up before the Louvre. Some of the retinue, appalled by the horrid spectacle, wished to retire, alleging that the bodies already emitted a putrid odor. Charles inhumanly replied, "The smell of a dead enemy is always pleasant."

On Thursday, after four days spent in hunting out the fugitives and finishing the bloody work, the clergy paraded the streets in a triumphal procession, and with jubilant prayers and hymns gave thanks to God for their great victory. The Catholic pulpits resounded with exultant harangues, and in honor of the event a medallion was struck off, with the inscription "La piete a reveille la justice"—Religion has awakened justice.

In the distant provinces of France the massacre was continued, as the Protestants were hunted from all their hiding-places. In some departments, as in Santonge and Lower Languedoc, the Protestants were so numerous that the Catholics did not venture to attack them. In some other provinces they were so few that the Catholics had nothing whatever to fear from them, and therefore spared them; and in the sparsely-settled rural districts the peasants refused to imbrue their hands in the blood of their neighbors. Many thousand Protestants throughout the kingdom in these ways escaped.

But in nearly all the populous towns, where the Catholic population predominated, the massacre was universal and indiscriminate. In Meaux, four hundred houses of Protestants were pillaged and devastated, and the inmates, without regard to age or sex, utterly exterminated. At Orleans there were three thousand Protestants. A troop of armed horsemen rode furiously through the streets, shouting, "Courage, boys! kill all, and then you shall divide their property." At Rouen, many of the Protestants, at the first alarm, fled. The rest were arrested and thrown into prison. They were then brought out one by one, and deliberately murdered. Six hundred were thus slain. Such were the scenes which were enacted in Toulouse, Bordeaux, Bourges, Angers, Lyons, and scores of other cities in France. It is impossible to ascertain with precision the number of victims. The Duke of Sully estimates them at seventy thousand; the Bishop Perefixe at one hundred thousand. This latter estimate is probably not exaggerated, if we include the unhappy fugitives, who, fleeing from their homes, died of cold, hunger, and fatigue, and all the other nameless woes which accrued from this great calamity.

In the midst of these scenes of horror it is pleasant to record several instances of generous humanity. In the barbarism of those times dueling was a common practice. A Catholic officer by the name of Vessins, one of the most fierce and irritable men in France, had a private quarrel with a Protestant officer whose name was Regnier. They had mutually sought each other in Paris to obtain such satisfaction as a duel could afford. In the midst of the massacre, Regnier, while at prayers with his servant (for in those days dueling and praying were not deemed inconsistent), heard the door of his room broken open, and, looking round in expectation of instant death, saw his foe Vessins enter breathless with excitement and haste. Regnier, conscious that all resistance would be unavailing, calmly bared his bosom to his enemy, exclaiming,

"You will have an easy victory."

Vessins made no reply, but ordered the valet to seek his master's cloak and sword. Then leading him into the street, he mounted him upon a powerful horse, and with fifteen armed men escorted him out of the city. Not a word was exchanged between them. When they arrived at a little grove at a short distance from the residence of the Protestant gentleman, Vessins presented him with his sword, and bade him dismount and defend himself, saying,

"Do not imagine that I seek your friendship by what I have done. All I wish is to take your life honorably."

Regnier threw away his sword, saying, "I will never strike at one who has saved my life."

"Very well!" Vessins replied, and left him, making him a present of the horse on which he rode.

Though the commands which the king sent to the various provinces of France for the massacre were very generally obeyed, there were examples of distinguished virtue, in which Catholics of high rank not only refused to imbrue their own hands in blood, but periled their lives to protect the Protestants. The Bishop of Lisieux, in the exercise of true Christian charity, saved all the Protestants in the town over which he presided. The Governor of Auvergne replied to the secret letter of the king in the following words:

"Sire, I have received an order, under your majesty's seal, to put all the Protestants of this province to death, and if, which God forbid, the order be genuine, I respect your majesty still too much to obey you."

The king had sent a similar order to the commandant at Bayonne, the Viscount of Orthez. The following noble words were returned in reply:

"Sire, I have communicated the commands of your majesty to the inhabitants of the town and to the soldiers of the garrison, and I have found good citizens and brave soldiers, but not one executioner; on which account, they and I humbly beseech you to employ our arms and our lives in enterprises in which we can conscientiously engage. However perilous they may be, we will willingly shed therein the last drop of our blood."

Both of these noble-minded men soon after very suddenly and mysteriously died. Few entertained a doubt that poison had been administered by the order of Charles.

The law of France required that these Protestants should be hunted to death. This was the law promulgated by the king and sent by his own letters missive to the appointed officers of the crown.

But there is—there is a HIGHER LAW than that of kings and courts. Nobly these majestic men rendered to it their allegiance. They sealed their fidelity to this HIGHER LAW with their blood. They were martyrs, not fanatics.

On the third day of the massacre the king assembled the Parliament in Paris, and made a public avowal of the part he had taken in this fearful tragedy, and of the reasons which had influenced him to the deed. Though he hoped to silence all Protestant tongues in his own realms in death, he knew that the tale would be told throughout all Europe. He therefore stated, in justification of the act, that he had, "as if by a miracle," discovered that the Protestants were engaged in a conspiracy against his own life and that of all of his family.

This charge, however, uttered for the moment, was speedily dropped and forgotten. There was not the slightest evidence of such a design.

The Parliament, to give a little semblance of justice to the king's accusation, sat in judgment upon the memory of the noble Coligni. They sentenced him to be hung in effigy; ordered his arms to be dragged at the heels of a horse through all the principal towns of France; his magnificent castle of Chatillon to be razed to its foundations, and never to be rebuilt; his fertile acres, in the culture of which he had found his chief delight, to be desolated and sown with salt; his portraits and statues, wherever found, to be destroyed; his children to lose their title of nobility; all his goods and estates to be confiscated to the use of the crown, and a monument of durable marble to be raised, upon which this sentence of the court should be engraved, to transmit to all posterity his alleged infamy. Thus was punished on earth one of the noblest servants both of God and man. But there is a day of final judgment yet to come. The oppressor has but his brief hour. There is eternity to right the oppressed.

Notwithstanding this general and awful massacre, the Protestants were far from being exterminated. Several nobles, surrounded by their retainers in their distant castles, suspicious of treachery, had refused to go to Paris to attend the wedding of Henry and Marguerite. Others who had gone to Paris, alarmed by the attack upon Admiral Coligni, immediately retired to their homes. Some concealed themselves in garrets, cellars, and wells until the massacre was over. As has been stated, in some towns the governors refused to engage in the merciless butchery, and in others the Protestants had the majority, and with their own arms could defend themselves within the walls which their own troops garrisoned.

Though, in the first panic caused by the dreadful slaughter, the Protestants made no resistance, but either surrendered themselves submissively to the sword of the assassin, or sought safety in concealment or flight, soon indignation took the place of fear. Those who had fled from the kingdom to Protestant states rallied together. The survivors in France began to count their numbers and marshal their forces for self-preservation. From every part of Protestant Europe a cry of horror and execration simultaneously arose in view of this crime of unparalleled enormity. In many places the Catholics themselves seemed appalled in contemplation of the deed they had perpetrated. Words of sympathy were sent to these martyrs to a pure faith from many of the Protestant kingdoms, with pledges of determined and efficient aid. The Protestants rapidly gained courage. From all the country, they flocked into those walled towns which still remained in their power.

As the fugitives from France, emaciate, pale, and woe-stricken, with tattered and dusty garb, recited in England, Switzerland, and Germany the horrid story of the massacre, the hearts of their auditors were frozen with horror. In Geneva a day of fasting and prayer was instituted, which is observed even to the present day. In Scotland every church resounded with the thrilling tale; and Knox, whose inflexible spirit was nerved for those iron times, exclaimed, in language of prophetic nerve,

"Sentence has gone forth against that murderer, the King of France, and the vengeance of God will never be withdrawn from his house. His name shall be held in everlasting execration."

The French court, alarmed by the indignation it had aroused, sent an embassador to London with a poor apology for the crime, by pretending that the Protestants had conspired against the life of the king. The embassador was received in the court of the queen with appalling coldness and gloom. Arrangements were made to invest the occasion with the most impressive solemnity. The court was shrouded in mourning, and all the lords and ladies appeared in sable weeds. A stern and sombre sadness was upon every countenance. The embassador, overwhelmed by his reception, was overheard to exclaim to himself, in bitterness of heart,

"I am ashamed to acknowledge myself a Frenchman."

He entered, however, the presence of the queen, passed through the long line of silent courtiers, who refused to salute him, or even to honor him with a look, stammered out his miserable apology, and, receiving no response, retired covered with confusion. Elizabeth, we thank thee! This one noble deed atones for many of thy crimes.

Very different was the reception of these tidings in the court of Rome. The messenger who carried the news was received with transports of joy, and was rewarded with a thousand pieces of gold. Cannons were fired, bells rung, and an immense procession, with all the trappings of sacerdotal rejoicing, paraded the streets. Anthems were chanted and thanksgivings were solemnly offered for the great victory over the enemies of the Church. A gold medal was struck off to commemorate the event; and Charles IX. and Catharine were pronounced, by the infallible word of his holiness, to be the especial favorites of God. Spain and the Netherlands united with Rome in these infamous exultations. Philip II. wrote from Madrid to Catharine,

"These tidings are the greatest and the most glorious I could have received."

Such was the awful massacre of St. Bartholomew. When contemplated in all its aspects of perfidy, cruelty, and cowardice, it must be pronounced the greatest crime recorded in history. The victims were invited under the guise of friendship to Paris. They were received with solemn oaths of peace and protection. The leading men in the nation placed the dagger in the hands of an ignorant and degraded people. The priests, professed ministers of Jesus Christ, stimulated the benighted multitude by all the appeals of fanaticism to exterminate those whom they denounced as the enemies of God and man. After the great atrocity was perpetrated, princes and priests, with blood-stained hands, flocked to the altars of God, our common Father, to thank him that the massacre had been accomplished.

The annals of the world are filled with narratives of crime and woe, but the Massacre of St. Bartholomew stands perhaps without a parallel.

It has been said, "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church." This is only true with exceptions. Protestantism in France has never recovered from this blow. But for this massacre one half of the nobles of France would have continued Protestant. The Reformers would have constituted so large a portion of the population that mutual toleration would have been necessary. Henry IV. would not have abjured the Protestant faith. Intelligence would have been diffused; religion would have been respected; and in all probability, the horrors of the French Revolution would have been averted.

God is an avenger. In the mysterious government which he wields, mysterious only to our feeble vision, he "visits the iniquities of the fathers upon the children, even unto the third and fourth generation." As we see the priests of Paris and of France, during the awful tragedy of the Revolution, massacred in the prisons, shot in the streets, hung upon the lamp-posts, and driven in starvation and woe from the kingdom, we can not but remember the day of St. Bartholomew. The 24th of August, 1572, and the 2d of September, 1792, though far apart in the records of time, are consecutive days in the government of God.



CHAPTER VI.

THE HOUSES OF VALOIS, OF GUISE, AND OF BOURBON.

Illustrious French families.—The house of Valois.—Early condition of France.—Clovis.—The Carlovingian dynasty.—Capet and Philip.—Decay of the house of Valois.—House of Guise.—The dukedom of Lorraine.—Claude of Lorraine.—Marriage of the Count of Guise.—Francis I.—The suggestion and its results.—Bravery of the duke.—His prominence.—Days of war.—The bloody rout.—Scene from the castle.—Claude the Butcher.—The Cardinal of Lorraine.—The reprimand.—Duke of Mayence.—The family of Guise.—Henry the Eighth.—Death of Claude.—Francis, Duke of Guise.—The dreadful wound.—Le Balafre.—Interview with the king.—Jealousy of the king.—Arrogance of the Guises.—Power of the house of Guise.—Appointment of Francis.—Thralldom of Henry II.—Mary, Queen of Scots.—Francis II.—Troubles between the Protestants and Catholics.—Admiral Coligni.—Antoinette.—Massacre by the Duke of Guise.—The Butcher of Vassy.—Remonstrance to the queen.—Magnanimity of the Duke of Guise.—Religious wars.—Assassination of the Duke of Guise.—Death of the duke.—Jean Poltrot.—Anecdote.—Prediction of Francis.—Enthusiasm of the populace.—The house of Bourbon.—The houses united.

At this time, in France, there were three illustrious and rival families, prominent above all others. Their origin was lost in the remoteness of antiquity. Their renown had been accumulating for many generations, through rank, and wealth, and power, and deeds of heroic and semi-barbarian daring. As these three families are so blended in all the struggles of this most warlike period, it is important to give a brief history of their origin and condition.

1. The House of Valois. More than a thousand years before the birth of Christ, we get dim glimpses of France, or, as it was then called, Gaul. It was peopled by a barbarian race, divided into petty tribes or clans, each with its chieftain, and each possessing undefined and sometimes almost unlimited power. Age after age rolled on, during which generations came and went like ocean billows, and all Gaul was but a continued battle-field. The history of each individual of its countless millions seems to have been, that he was born, killed as many of his fellow-creatures as he could, and then, having acquired thus much of glory, died.

About fifty years before the birth of Christ, Caesar, with his conquering hosts, swept through the whole country, causing its rivers to run red with blood, until the subjugated Gauls submitted to Roman sway. In the decay of the Roman empire, about four hundred years after Christ, the Franks, from Germany, a barbarian horde as ferocious as wolves, penetrated the northern portion of Gaul, and, obtaining permanent settlement there, gave the whole country the name of France. Clovis was the chieftain of this warlike tribe. In the course of a few years, France was threatened with another invasion by combined hordes of barbarians from the north. The chiefs of the several independent tribes in France found it necessary to unite to repel the foe. They chose Clovis as their leader. This was the origin of the French monarchy. He was but little elevated above the surrounding chieftains, but by intrigue and power perpetuated his supremacy. For about three hundred years the family of Clovis retained its precarious and oft-contested elevation. At last, this line, enervated by luxury, became extinct, and another family obtained the throne. This new dynasty, under Pepin, was called the Carlovingian. The crown descended generally from father to son for about two hundred years, when the last of the race was poisoned by his wife. This family has been rendered very illustrious, both by Pepin and by his son, the still more widely renowned Charlemagne.

Hugh Capet then succeeded in grasping the sceptre, and for three hundred years the Capets held at bay the powerful chieftains who alternately assailed and defended the throne. Thirteen hundred years after Christ, the last of the Capets was borne to his tomb, and the feudal lords gave the pre-eminence to Philip of Valois. For about two hundred years the house of Valois had reigned. At the period of which we treat in this history, luxury and vice had brought the family near to extinction.

Charles IX., who now occupied the throne under the rigorous rule of his infamous mother, was feeble in body and still more feeble in mind. He had no child, and there was no probability that he would ever be blessed with an heir. His exhausted constitution indicated that a premature death was his inevitable destiny. His brother Henry, who had been elected King of Poland, would then succeed to the throne; but he had still less of manly character than Charles. An early death was his unquestioned doom. At his death, if childless, the house of Valois would become extinct. Who then should grasp the rich prize of the sceptre of France? The house of Guise and the house of Bourbon were rivals for this honor, and were mustering their strength and arraying their forces for the anticipated conflict. Each family could bring such vast influences into the struggle that no one could imagine in whose favor victory would decide. Such was the condition of the house of Valois in France in the year 1592.

2. Let us now turn to the house of Guise. No tale of fiction can present a more fascinating collection of romantic enterprises and of wild adventures than must be recorded by the truthful historian of the house of Guise. On the western banks of the Rhine, between that river and the Meuse, there was the dukedom of Lorraine. It was a state of no inconsiderable wealth and power, extending over a territory of about ten thousand square miles, and containing a million and a half of inhabitants. Rene II., Duke of Lorraine, was a man of great renown, and in all the pride and pomp of feudal power he energetically governed his little realm. His body was scarred with the wounds he had received in innumerable battles, and he was ever ready to head his army of fifty thousand men, to punish any of the feudal lords around him who trespassed upon his rights.

The wealthy old duke owned large possessions in Normandy, Picardy, and various other of the French provinces. He had a large family. His fifth son, Claude, was a proud-spirited boy of sixteen. Rene sent this lad to France, and endowed him with all the fertile acres, and the castles, and the feudal rights which, in France, pertained to the noble house of Lorraine. Young Claude of Lorraine was presented at the court of St. Cloud as the Count of Guise, a title derived from one of his domains. His illustrious rank, his manly beauty, his princely bearing, his energetic mind, and brilliant talents, immediately gave him great prominence among the glittering throng of courtiers. Louis XII. was much delighted with the young count, and wished to attach the powerful and attractive stranger to his own house by an alliance with his daughter. The heart of the proud boy was, however, captivated by another beauty who embellished the court of the monarch, and, turning from the princess royal, he sought the hand of Antoinette, an exceedingly beautiful maiden of about his own age, a daughter of the house of Bourbon. The wedding of this young pair was celebrated with great magnificence in Paris, in the presence of the whole French court. Claude was then but sixteen years of age.

A few days after this event the infirm old king espoused the young and beautiful sister of Henry VIII. of England. The Count of Guise was honored with the commission of proceeding to Boulogne with several princes of the blood to receive the royal bride. Louis soon died, and his son, Francis I., ascended the throne. Claude was, by marriage, his cousin. He could bring all the influence of the proud house of Bourbon and the powerful house of Lorraine in support of the king. His own energetic, fearless, war-loving spirit invested him with great power in those barbarous days of violence and blood. Francis received his young cousin into high favor. Claude was, indeed, a young man of very rare accomplishments. His prowess in the jousts and tournaments, then so common, and his grace and magnificence in the drawing-room, rendered him an object of universal admiration.

One night Claude accompanied Francis I. to the queen's circle. She had gathered around her the most brilliant beauty of her realm. In those days woman occupied a very inferior position in society, and seldom made her appearance in the general assemblages of men. The gallant young count was fascinated with the amiability and charms of those distinguished ladies, and suggested to the king the expediency of breaking over the restraints which long usage had imposed, and embellishing his court with the attractions of female society and conversation. The king immediately adopted the welcome suggestion, and decided that, throughout the whole realm, women should be freed from the unjust restraint to which they had so long been subject. Guise had already gained the good-will of the nobility and of the army, and he now became a universal favorite with the ladies, and was thus the most popular man in France. Francis I. was at this time making preparations for the invasion of Italy, and the Count of Guise, though but eighteen years of age, was appointed commander-in-chief of a division of the army consisting of twenty thousand men.

In all the perils of the bloody battles which soon ensued, he displayed that utter recklessness of danger which had been the distinguishing trait of his ancestors. In the first battle, when discomfiture and flight were spreading through his ranks, the proud count refused to retire one step before his foes. He was surrounded, overmatched, his horse killed from under him, and he fell, covered with twenty-two wounds, in the midst of the piles of mangled bodies which strewed the ground. He was afterward dragged from among the dead, insensible and apparently lifeless, and conveyed to his tent, where his vigorous constitution, and that energetic vitality which seemed to characterize his race, triumphed over wounds whose severity rendered their cure almost miraculous.

Francis I., in his report of the battle, extolled in the most glowing terms the prodigies of valor which Guise had displayed. War, desolating war, still ravaged wretched Europe, and Guise, with his untiring energy, became so prominent in the court and the camp that he was regarded rather as an ally of the King of France than as his subject. His enormous fortune, his ancestral renown, the vast political and military influences which were at his command, made him almost equal to the monarch whom he served. Francis lavished honors upon him, converted one of his counties into a dukedom, and, as duke of Guise, young Claude of Lorraine had now attained the highest position which a subject could occupy.

Years of conflagration, carnage, and woe rolled over war-deluged Europe, during which all the energies of the human race seemed to be expended in destruction; and in almost every scene of smouldering cities, of ravaged valleys, of battle-fields rendered hideous with the shouts of onset and shrieks of despair, we see the apparition of the stalwart frame of Guise, scarred, and war-worn, and blackened with the smoke and dust of the fray, riding upon his proud charger, wherever peril was most imminent, as if his body were made of iron.

At one time he drove before him, in most bloody rout, a numerous army of Germans. The fugitives, spreading over leagues of country, fled by his own strong castle of Neufchateau. Antoinette and the ladies of her court stood upon the battlements of the castle, gazing upon the scene, to them so new and to them so pleasantly exciting. As they saw the charges of the cavalry trampling the dead and the dying beneath their feet, as they witnessed all the horrors of that most horrible scene which earth can present—a victorious army cutting to pieces its flying foes, with shouts of applause they animated the ardor of the victors. The once fair-faced boy had now become a veteran. His bronzed cheek and sinewy frame attested his life of hardship and toil. The nobles were jealous of his power. The king was annoyed by his haughty bearing; but he was the idol of the people. In one campaign he caused the death of forty thousand Protestants, for he was the devoted servant of mother Church. Claude the Butcher was the not inappropriate name by which the Protestants designated him. His brother John attained the dignity of Cardinal of Lorraine. Claude with his keen sword, and John with pomp, and pride, and spiritual power, became the most relentless foes of the Reformation, and the most valiant defenders of the Catholic faith.

The kind-heartedness of the wealthy but dissolute cardinal, and the prodigality of his charity, rendered him almost as popular as his warlike brother. When he went abroad, his valet de chambre invariably prepared him a bag filled with gold, from which he gave to the poor most freely. His reputation for charity was so exalted that a poor blind mendicant, to whom he gave gold in the streets of Rome, overjoyed at the acquisition of such a treasure, exclaimed, "Surely thou art either Christ or the Cardinal of Lorraine."

The Duke of Guise, in his advancing years, was accompanied to the field of battle by his son Francis, who inherited all of his father's courtly bearing, energy, talent, and headlong valor. At the siege of Luxemburg a musket ball shattered the ankle of young Francis, then Count of Aumale, and about eighteen years of age. As the surgeon was operating upon the splintered bones and quivering nerves, the sufferer gave some slight indication of his sense of pain. His iron father severely reprimanded him, saying,

"Persons of your rank should not feel their wounds, but, on the contrary, should take pleasure in building up their reputation upon the ruin of their bodies."

Others of the sons of Claude also signalized themselves in the wars which then desolated Europe, and they received wealth and honors. The king erected certain lands and lordships belonging to the Duke of Guise into a marquisate, and then immediately elevated the marquisate into a duchy, and the youngest son of the Duke of Guise, inheriting the property, was ennobled with the title of the Duke of Mayence. Thus there were two rich dukedoms in the same family.

Claude had six sons, all young men of imperious spirit and magnificent bearing. They were allied by marriage with the most illustrious families in France, several of them being connected with princes of the blood royal. The war-worn duke, covered with wounds which he deemed his most glorious ornaments, often appeared at court accompanied by his sons. They occupied the following posts of rank and power: Francis, the eldest, Count of Aumale, was the heir of the titles and the estates of the noble house. Claude was Marquis of Mayence; Charles was Archbishop of Rheims, the richest benefice in France, and he soon attained one of the highest dignities of the Church by the reception of a cardinal's hat; Louis was Bishop of Troyes, and Francis, the youngest, Chevalier of Lorraine and Duke of Mayence, was general of the galleys of France. One of the daughters was married to the King of Scotland, and the others had formed most illustrious connections. Thus the house of Guise towered proudly and sublimely from among the noble families in the midst of whom it had so recently been implanted.

Henry VIII. of England, inflamed by the report of the exceeding beauty of Mary, daughter of the Duke of Guise, had solicited her hand; but Claude was unwilling to surrender his daughter to England's burly and brutal old tyrant, and declined the regal alliance. The exasperated monarch, in revenge, declared war against France. Years of violence and blood lingered away. At last Claude, aged and infirm, surrendered to that king of terrors before whom all must bow. In his strong castle of Joinville, on the twelfth of April, 1550, the illustrious, magnanimous, blood-stained duke, after a whole lifetime spent in slaughter, breathed his last. His children and his grandchildren were gathered around the bed of the dying chieftain. In the darkness of that age, he felt that he had been contending, with divine approval, for Christ and his Church. With prayers and thanksgivings, and language expressive of meekness and humility before God, he ascended to that tribunal of final judgment where there is no difference between the peasant and the prince.

The chivalrous and warlike Francis inherited his father's titles, wealth, and power; and now the house of Guise was so influential that the king trembled in view of its rivalry. It was but the kingly office alone which rendered the house of Valois superior to the house of Guise. In illustration of the character of those times, and the hardihood and sufferings through which the renown of these chieftains was obtained, the following anecdote may be narrated.

Francis, Duke of Guise, in one of the skirmishes with the English invaders, received a wound which is described as the most severe from which any one ever recovered. The lance of an English officer "entered above the right eye, declining toward the nose, and piercing through on the other side, between the nape and the ear." The weapon, having thus penetrated the head more than half a foot, was broken off by the violence of the blow, the lance-iron and two fingers' breadth of the staff remaining in the dreadful wound. The surgeons of the army, stupefied by the magnitude of the injury, declined to attempt the extraction of the splinter, saying that it would only expose him to dreadful and unavailing suffering, as he must inevitably die. The king immediately sent his surgeon, with orders to spare no possible efforts to save the life of the hero. The lance-head was broken off so short that it was impossible to grasp it with the hand. The surgeon took the heavy pincers of a blacksmith, and asked the sufferer if he would allow him to make use of so rude an instrument, and would also permit him to place his foot upon his face.

"You may do any thing you consider necessary," said the duke.

The officers standing around looked on with horror as the king's surgeon, aided by an experienced practitioner, tore out thus violently the barbed iron, fracturing the bones, and tearing nerves, veins, and arteries. The hardy soldier bore the anguish without the contraction of a muscle, and was only heard gently to exclaim to himself, "Oh my God!" The sufferer recovered, and ever after regarded the frightful scar which was left as a signal badge of honor. He hence bore the common name of Le Balafre, or The Scarred.

As the duke returned to court, the king hurried forth from his chamber to meet him, embraced him warmly, and said,

"It is fair that I should come out to meet my old friend, who, on his part, is ever so ready to meet my enemies."

Gradually, however, Francis, the king, became very jealous of the boundless popularity and enormous power acquired by this ambitious house. Upon his dying bed he warned his son of the dangerous rivalry to which the Guises had attained, and enjoined it upon him to curb their ambition by admitting none of the princes of that house to a share in the government; but as soon as King Francis was consigned to his tomb, Henry II., his son and successor, rallied the members of this family around him, and made the duke almost the partner of his throne. He needed the support of the strong arm and of the inexhaustible purse of the princes of Lorraine.

The arrogance of the Guises, or the princes of Lorraine, as they were frequently called, in consequence of their descent from Claude of Lorraine, reached such a pitch that on the occasion of a proud pageant, when Henry II. was on a visit of inspection to one of his frontier fortresses, the Duke of Guise claimed equal rank with Henry of Navarre, who was not only King of Navarre, but, as the Duke of Vendome, was also first prince of the blood in France. An angry dispute immediately arose. The king settled it in favor of the audacious Guise, for he was intimidated by the power of that arrogant house. He thus exasperated Henry of Navarre, and also nurtured the pride of a dangerous rival.

All classes were now courting the Duke of Guise. The first nobles of the land sought his protection and support by flattering letters and costly presents. "From all quarters," says an ancient manuscript, "he received offerings of wine, fruit, confections, ortolans, horses, dogs, hawks, and gerfalcons. The letters accompanying these often contained a second paragraph petitioning for pensions or grants from the king, or for places, even down to that of apothecary or of barber to the Dauphin." The monarchs of foreign countries often wrote to him soliciting his aid. The duke, in the enjoyment of this immense wealth, influence, and power, assumed the splendors of royalty, and his court was hardly inferior to that of the monarch. The King of Poland and the Duke of Guise were rivals for the hand of Anne, the beautiful daughter of the Duke of Ferrara, and Guise was the successful suitor.

Francis of Lorraine was now appointed lieutenant general of the French armies, and the king addressed to all the provincial authorities special injunction to render as prompt and absolute obedience to the orders of the Duke of Guise as if they emanated from himself. "And truly," says one of the writers of those times, "never had monarch in France been obeyed more punctually or with greater zeal." In fact, Guise was now the head of the government, and all the great interests of the nation were ordered by his mind. Henry was a feeble prince, with neither vigor of body nor energy of intellect to resist the encroachments of so imperial a spirit. He gave many indications of uneasiness in view of his own thralldom, but he was entirely unable to dispense with the aid of his sagacious ally.

It will be remembered that one of the daughters of Claude, and a sister of Francis, the second duke of Guise, married the King of Scotland. Her daughter, the niece of Francis, was the celebrated Mary, Queen of Scots. She had been sent to France for her education, and she was married, when very young, to her cousin Francis, son of Henry II. and of the infamous Catharine de Medici. He was heir of the French throne. This wedding was celebrated with the utmost magnificence, and the Guises moved on the occasion through the palaces of royalty with the pride of monarchs. Henry II. was accidentally killed in a tournament; and Francis, his son, under the title of Francis II., with his young and beautiful bride, the unfortunate Mary, Queen of Scots, ascended the throne. Francis was a feeble-minded, consumptive youth of 16, whose thoughts were all centred in his lovely wife. Mary, who was but fifteen years of age, was fascinating in the extreme, and entirely devoted to pleasure. She gladly transferred all the power of the realm to her uncles, the Guises.

About this time the conflict between the Catholics and the Protestants began to grow more violent. The Catholics drew the sword for the extirpation of heresy; the Protestants grasped their arms to defend themselves. The Guises consecrated all their energies to the support of the Papal Church and to the suppression of the Reformation. The feeble boy, Francis II., sat languidly upon his throne but seventeen months, when he died, on the 5th of December, 1560, and his brother, Charles IX., equally enervated in mind and with far less moral worth, succeeded to the crown. The death of Francis II. was a heavy blow to the Guises. The Admiral Coligni, one of the most illustrious of the Protestants, and the bosom friend of Henry of Navarre, was standing, with many other nobles, at the bedside of the monarch as he breathed his last.

"Gentlemen," said the admiral, with that gravity which was in accordance with his character and his religious principles, "the king is dead. It is a lesson to teach us all how to live."

The Protestants could not but rejoice that the Guises had thus lost the peculiar influence which they had secured from their near relationship to the queen. Admiral Coligni retired from the death-bed of the monarch to his own mansion, and, sitting down by the fire, became lost in the most profound reverie. He did not observe that his boots were burning until one of his friends called his attention to the fact.

"Ah!" he replied, "not a week ago, you and I would each have given a leg to have things take this turn, and now we get off with a pair of boots."

Antoinette, the widow of Claude of Lorraine, and the mother of Francis, the then Duke of Guise, was still living. She was so rancorous in her hostility to the Protestants that she was designated by them "Mother of the tyrants and enemies of the Gospel." Greatly to her annoyance, a large number of Protestants conducted their worship in the little town of Vassy, just on the frontier of the domains of the Duke of Guise. She was incessantly imploring her son to drive off these obnoxious neighbors. The duke was at one time journeying with his wife. Their route lay through the town of Vassy. His suite consisted of two hundred and sixty men at arms, all showing the warlike temper of their chief, and even far surpassing him in bigoted hatred of the Protestants.

On arriving at Vassy, the duke entered the church to hear high mass. It is said that while engaged in this act of devotion his ears were annoyed by the psalms of the Protestants, who were assembled in the vicinity. He sent an imperious message for the minister and the leading members of the congregation immediately to appear before him. The young men fulfilled their mission in a manner so taunting and insulting that a quarrel ensued, shots were exchanged, and immediately all the vassals of the duke, who were ripe for a fray, commenced an indiscriminate massacre. The Protestants valiantly but unavailingly defended themselves with sticks and stones; but the bullets of their enemies reached them everywhere, in the houses, on the roofs, in the streets. For an hour the carnage continued unchecked, and sixty men and women were killed and two hundred wounded. One only of the men of the duke was killed. Francis was ashamed of this slaughter of the defenseless, and declared that it was a sudden outbreak, for which he was not responsible, and which he had done every thing in his power to check; but ever after this he was called by the Protestants "The Butcher of Vassy."

When the news of this massacre reached Paris, Theodore de Beza was deputed by the Protestants to demand of Catharine, their regent, severe justice on the Duke of Guise; but Catharine feared the princes of Lorraine, and said to Beza,

"Whoever touches so much as the finger-tip of the Duke of Guise, touches me in the middle of my heart."

Beza meekly but courageously replied, "It assuredly behooves that Church of God, in whose name I speak, to endure blows and not to strike them; but may it please your majesty also to remember that it is an anvil which has worn out many hammers."

At the siege of Rouen the Duke of Guise was informed that an assassin had been arrested who had entered the camp with the intention of taking his life. He ordered the man to be brought before him, and calmly inquired,

"Have you not come hither to kill me?"

The intrepid but misguided young man openly avowed his intention.

"And what motive," inquired the duke, "impelled you to such a deed? Have I done you any wrong?"

"No," he replied; "but in removing you from the world I should promote the best interests of the Protestant religion, which I profess."

"My religion, then," generously replied the duke, "is better than yours, for it commands me to pardon, of my own accord, you who are convicted of guilt." And, by his orders, the assassin was safely conducted out of camp.

"A fine example," exclaims his historian, "of truly religious sentiments and magnanimous proselytism very natural to the Duke of Guise, the most moderate and humane of the chiefs of the Catholic army, and whose brilliant generosity had been but temporarily obscured by the occurrence at Vassy."

The war between the Catholics and Protestants was now raging with implacable fury, and Guise, victorious in many battles, had acquired from the Catholic party the name of "Savior of his Country." The duke was now upon the very loftiest summits of power which a subject can attain. In great exaltation of spirits, he one morning left the army over which he was commander-in-chief to visit the duchess, who had come to meet him at the neighboring castle of Corney. The duke very imprudently took with him merely one general officer and a page. It was a beautiful morning in February. As he crossed, in a boat, the mirrored surface of the Loiret, the vegetation of returning spring and the songs of the rejoicing birds strikingly contrasted with the blood, desolation, and misery with which the hateful spirit of war was desolating France. The duke was silent, apparently lost in painful reveries. His companions disturbed not his thoughts. Having crossed the stream, he was slowly walking his horse, with the reins hanging listlessly upon his mane, when a pistol was discharged at him from behind a hedge, at a distance of but six or seven paces. Two bullets pierced his side. On feeling himself wounded, he calmly said,

"They have long had this shot in reserve for me. I deserve it for my want of precaution."



He immediately fell upon his horse's neck, and was caught in the arms of his friends. They conveyed him to the castle, where the duchess received him with cries of anguish. He embraced her tenderly, minutely described the circumstances of his assassination, and expressed himself grieved in view of the stain which such a crime would inflict upon the honor of France. He exhorted his wife to bow in submission to the will of Heaven, and kissing his son Henry, the Duke of Joinville, who was weeping by his side, gently said to him,

"God grant thee grace, my son, to be a good man."

Thus died Francis, the second Duke of Guise, on the twenty-fourth of February, 1563. His murderer was a young Protestant noble, Jean Poltrot, twenty-four years of age. Poltrot, from being an ardent Catholic, had embraced the Protestant faith. This exposed him to persecution, and he was driven from France with the loss of his estates. He was compelled to support himself by manual labor. Soured in disposition, exasperated and half maddened, he insanely felt that he would be doing God service by the assassination of the Butcher of Vassy, the most formidable foe of the Protestant religion. It was a day of general darkness, and of the confusion of all correct ideas of morals.

Henry, the eldest son of the Duke of Guise, a lad of but thirteen years of age, now inherited the titles and the renown which his bold ancestors had accumulated. This was the Duke of Guise who was the bandit chieftain in the Massacre of St. Bartholomew.

One day Henry II. was holding his little daughter Marguerite, who afterward became the wife of Henry of Navarre, in his lap, when Henry of Guise, then Prince of Joinville, and the Marquis of Beaupreau, were playing together upon the floor, the one being but seven years of age, and the other but nine.

"Which of the two do you like the best?" inquired the king of his child.

"I prefer the marquis," she promptly replied.

"Yes; but the Prince of Joinville is the handsomest," the king rejoined.

"Oh," retorted Marguerite, "he is always in mischief, and he will be master every where."

Francis, the Duke of Guise, had fully apprehended the ambitious, impetuous, and reckless character of his son. He is said to have predicted that Henry, intoxicated by popularity, would perish in the attempt to seat himself upon the throne of France.

"Henry," says a writer of those times, "surpassed all the princes of his house in certain natural gifts, in certain talents, which procured him the respect of the court, the affection of the people, but which, nevertheless, were tarnished by a singular alloy of great faults and unlimited ambition."

"France was mad about that man," writes another, "for it is too little to say that she was in love with him. Her passion approached idolatry. There were persons who invoked him in their prayers. His portrait was every where. Some ran after him in the streets to touch his mantle with their rosaries. One day that he entered Paris on his return from a journey, the multitude not only cried 'Vive Guise!' but many sang, on his passage, 'Hosanna to the son of David!'"

3. The House of Bourbon. The origin of this family fades away in the remoteness of antiquity. Some bold chieftain, far remote in barbarian ages, emerged from obscurity and laid the foundations of the illustrious house. Generation after generation passed away, as the son succeeded the father in baronial pomp, and pride, and power, till the light of history, with its steadily-increasing brilliancy, illumined Europe. The family had often been connected in marriage both with the house of Guise and the royal line, the house of Valois. Antony of Bourbon, a sturdy soldier, united the houses of Bourbon and Navarre by marrying Jeanne d'Albret, the only child of the King of Navarre. Henry came from the union, an only son; and he, by marrying Marguerite, the daughter of the King of France, united the houses of Bourbon, Navarre, and Valois, and became heir to the throne of France should the sons of Henry II. die without issue.

This episode in reference to the condition of France at the time of which we write seems necessary to enable the reader fully to understand the succeeding chapters.



CHAPTER VII.

THE DEATH OF CHARLES IX. AND THE ACCESSION OF HENRY III.

1576-1577

Henry, King of Poland.—Henry's journey through Germany.—Enmity between the two brothers.—Sickness of Charles IX.—Remorse of the king.—Death of Charles IX.—Chateaubriand.—Character of the king.—Henry III.—The stratagem.—Flight from the crown.—The sojourn in Italy.—The three Henrys.—Marriage of Henry III.—The Duke of Alencon.—Suspicions of poison.—Invectives of the king.—Recovery of the king.—Disappointment of Francis.—Fanaticism of the king.—Escape of the Duke of Alencon.—The king aroused.—War of the public good.—Defeat of Guise.—Perplexity of Catharine.—The guard of honor.—Plan of escape.—Successful artifice.—The false rumor.—Escape accomplished.—Trouble of the Duke of Alencon.—Terms of settlement.—Paix de Monsieur.—Duke of Anjou.—Arrival at Rochelle.—Conduct of Catharine and Henry III.—Complexity of politics.—Francis and Queen Elizabeth.—New assaults on the Protestants.—Anecdote of the Protestants.—Gratitude of the citizens of Bayonne.—Anecdote of Henry of Navarre.—Another peace.—The battle arrested.—Pledge of peace.—Morality in France.—Disgraceful fete.—Murder in the royal palace.

After the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, a large number of the Protestants threw themselves into the city of Rochelle. For seven months they were besieged by all the power which the King of France could bring against them. They were at length, weakened by sickness and exhausted by famine, compelled to surrender. By their valiant resistance, however, they obtained highly honorable terms, securing for the inhabitants of Rochelle the free exercise of their religion within the walls of the city, and a general act of amnesty for all the Protestants in the realm.

Immediately after this event, Henry, the brother of Charles IX., was elected King of Poland, an honor which he attained in consequence of the military prowess he had displayed in the wars against the Protestants of France. Accompanied by his mother, Catharine de Medici, the young monarch set out for his distant dominions. Henry had been a very active agent in the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. At Lorraine Catharine took leave of him, and he went on his way in a very melancholy mood. His election had been secured by the greatest efforts of intrigue and bribery on the part of his mother. The melancholy countenances of the Protestants, driven into exile, and bewailing the murder of friends and relatives, whose assassination he had caused, met him at every turn. His reception at the German courts was cold and repulsive. In the palace of the Elector Palatine, Henry beheld the portrait of Coligni, who had been so treacherously slaughtered in the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. The portrait was suspended in a very conspicuous place of honor, and beneath it were inscribed the words,

"SUCH WAS THE FORMER COUNTENANCE OF THE HERO COLIGNI, WHO HAS BEEN RENDERED TRULY ILLUSTRIOUS BOTH BY HIS LIFE AND HIS DEATH."

The Protestant Elector pointed out the picture to the young king, whom he both hated and despised, and coolly asked him if he knew the man. Henry, not a little embarrassed, replied that he did.

"He was," rejoined the German prince, "the most honest man, and the wisest and the greatest captain of Europe, whose children I keep with me, lest the dogs of France should tear them as their father has been torn."

Thus Henry, gloomy through the repulses which he was ever encountering, journeyed along to Poland, where he was crowned king, notwithstanding energetic remonstrances on the part of those who execrated him for his deeds. The two brothers, Charles IX. and Henry, were bitter enemies, and Charles had declared, with many oaths, that one of the two should leave the realm. Henry was the favorite of Catharine, and hence she made such efforts to secure his safety by placing him upon the throne of Poland. She was aware that the feeble Charles would not live long, and when, with tears, she took leave of Henry, she assured him that he would soon return.

The outcry of indignation which the Massacre of St. Bartholomew called forth from combined Europe fell like the knell of death on the ear of the depraved and cowardly Charles. Disease began to ravage, with new violence, his exhausted frame. He became silent, morose, irritable, and gloomy. He secluded himself from all society, and surrendered himself to the dominion of remorse. He was detested by the Protestants, and utterly despised by the Catholics. A bloody sweat, oozing from every pore, crimsoned his bed-clothes. His occasional outcries of remorse and his aspect of misery drove all from his chamber excepting those who were compelled to render him service. He groaned and wept incessantly, exclaiming,