Under him, the _Louvre_ became the bloody theatre of treacheries and
massacres which time will never efface from the memory of mankind,
and which, till the merciless reign of Robespierre, were unexampled
in the history of this country. I mean the horrors of St.
Bartholemew's day.

While the alarmed citizens were swimming across the river to escape
from death, Charles IX. from a window of this palace, was firing at
them with his arquebuse. During that period of the revolution, when
all means were employed to excite and strengthen the enmity of the
people against their kings, this act of atrocity was called to their
mind by an inscription placed under the very window, which looks on
the _Quai du Louvre_.

Indeed, this instance of Charles's barbarity is fully corroborated by
historians. "When it was day-light," says Brantome, "the king peeped
out of his chamber-window, and seeing some people in the _Faubourg
St. Germain_ moving about and running away, he took a large arquebuse
which he had ready at hand, and, calling out incessantly: _Kill,
kill!_ fired a great many shots at them, but in vain; for the piece
did not carry so far."--This prince, according to Masson, piqued
himself on his dexterity in cutting off at a single blow the head of
the asses and pigs which he met with on his way. Lansac, one of his
favourites, having found him one day with his sword drawn and ready
to strike his mule, asked him seriously: "What quarrel has then
happened between His Most Christian Majesty and my mule?" Murad Bey
far surpassed this blood-thirsty monarch in address and strength. The
former, we are told by travellers in Egypt, has been known, when
riding past an ox, to cut off its head with one stroke of his
scimitar.