turned from the wretched young King at Bayonne, when he expressed the
opinion that to take arms against his own subjects was wholly out of the
question, and could only be followed by general ruin. "'Tis easy to see
that he has been tutored," wrote Alva to his master. Unfortunately,
the same mother; who had then instilled those lessons of hypocritical
benevolence, had now wrought upon her son's cowardly but ferocious nature
with a far different intent. The incomplete assassination of Coligny,
the dread of signal vengeance at the hands of the Huguenots, the
necessity of taking the lead in the internecine snuggle; were employed
with Medicean art, and with entire success. The King was lashed into a
frenzy. Starting to his feet, with a howl of rage and terror, "I agree
to the scheme," he cried, "provided not one Huguenot be left alive in
France to reproach me with the deed."

That night the slaughter commenced. The long premeditated crime was
executed in a panic, but the work was thoroughly done. The King,
who a few days before had written with his own hand to Louis of Nassau,
expressing his firm determination to sustain the Protestant cause both in
France and the Netherlands, who had employed the counsels of Coligny in
the arrangement, of his plans, and who had sent French troops, under
Genlis and La None, to assist their Calvinist brethren in Flanders, now
gave the signal for the general massacre of the Protestants, and with his
own hands, from his own palace windows, shot his subjects with his
arquebuss as if they had been wild beasts.

Between Sunday and Tuesday, according to one of the most moderate
calculations, five thousand Parisians of all ranks were murdered. Within
the whole kingdom, the number of victims was variously estimated at from
twenty-five thousand to one hundred thousand. The heart of Protestant
Europe, for an instant, stood still with horror. The Queen of England