from education rather than conviction. At twelve, in the year 1565, he
was intrusted by his mother, the Queen of Navarre, to the care of his
uncle, the Prince of Condé, and, on his death, to Admiral Coligny, the
acknowledged leader of the Protestants. He thus witnessed many bloody
battles before he was old enough to be intrusted with command. At
eighteen he was affianced to Marguerite de Valois, sister of Charles
IX., in spite of differences of religion.

It was amid the nuptial festivities of the young King of Navarre,--his
mother had died the year before,--when all the prominent leaders of the
Protestants were enticed to Paris, that preparations were made for the
blackest crime in the annals of civilized nations,--even the treacherous
and hideous massacre of St. Bartholomew, perpetrated by Charles IX., who
was incited to it by his mother, the ever-infamous Catherine de Médicis,
and the Duke of Guise.

The Protestants, under the Prince of Condé and Admiral Coligny, had
fought so bravely and so successfully in defence of their cause that all
hope of subduing them in the field was given up. The bloody battles of
Montcontour, of St. Denis, and of Jarnac had proved how stubbornly the
Huguenots would fight; while their possession of such strong fortresses
as Montauban and La Rochelle, deemed impregnable, showed that they could
not easily be subdued. Although the Prince of Condé had been slain at
the battle of Jarnac, this great misfortune to the Protestants was more
than balanced by the assassination of the great Duke of Guise, the
ablest general and leader of the Catholics. So when all hope had
vanished of exterminating the Huguenots in open warfare, a deceitful
peace was made; and their leaders were decoyed to Paris, in order to
accomplish, in one foul sweep, by wholesale murder, the
diabolical design.