houses richly panelled and adorned with some special work of art, and
also a carved chest) the life of the merchant was passed; there the
joyous suppers after the work of the day was over, there the secret
conferences on the political interests of the burghers and of royalty
took place. The formidable corporations of Paris were at that time
able to arm a hundred thousand men. Therefore the opinions of the
merchants were backed by their servants, their clerks, their
apprentices, their workmen. The burghers had a chief in the "provost
of the merchants" who commanded them, and in the Hotel de Ville, a
palace where they possessed the right to assemble. In the famous
"burghers' parlor" their solemn deliberations took place. Had it not
been for the continual sacrifices which by that time made war
intolerable to the corporations, who were weary of their losses and of
the famine, Henri IV., that factionist who became king, might never
perhaps have entered Paris.

Every one can now picture to himself the appearance of this corner of
old Paris, where the bridge and quai still are, where the trees of the
quai aux Fleurs now stand, but where no trace remains of the period of
which we write except the tall and famous tower of the Palais de
Justice, from which the signal was given for the Saint Bartholomew.
Strange circumstance! one of the houses standing at the foot of that
tower then surrounded by wooden shops, that, namely, of Lecamus, was
about to witness the birth of facts which were destined to prepare for
that night of massacre, which was, unhappily, more favorable than
fatal to Calvinism.

At the moment when our history begins, the audacity of the new
religious doctrines was putting all Paris in a ferment. A Scotchman
named Stuart had just assassinated President Minard, the member of the