It is strange that the arrangements in the city, which must have been attended with no little commotion, did not rouse the suspicion of the Huguenots. Probably, in their blind confidence, they trusted implicitly in the king’s word that these movements of arms and artillery, these postings of guards and midnight musters, were intended to keep the Guisian faction in order. There is a story that some gentlemen, aroused by the measured tread of soldiers and the glare of torches—for no lamps then lit up the streets of Paris—went out-of-doors and asked what it meant. Receiving an unsatisfactory reply, they proceeded to the Louvre, where they found the outer court filled with armed men, who, seeing them without the white cross and the scarf, abused them as “accursed Huguenots,” whose turn would come next. One of them, who replied to this insolent threat, was immediately run through with a spear. This, if the incident be true, occurred about one o’clock on Sunday morning, 24th August, the festival of St. Bartholomew.

Shortly after midnight the queen-mother rose and went to the king’s chamber,[588] attended only by one lady, the Duchess of Nemours, whose thirst for revenge was to be satisfied at last.[589] She found Charles pacing the room in one of those fits of passion which he at times assumed to conceal his infirmity of purpose. At one moment he swore he would raise the Huguenots, and call them to protect their sovereign’s life as well as their own. Then he burst out into violent imprecations against his brother Anjou, who had entered the room but did not dare say a word. Presently the other conspirators arrived: Guise, Nevers, Birague, De Retz, and Tavannes. Catherine alone ventured to interpose, and in a tone of sternness well calculated to impress the mind of her weak son, she declared that there was now no turning back: “It is too late to retreat, even were it possible. We must cut off the rotten limb, hurt it ever so much. If you delay, you will lose the finest opportunity God ever gave man of getting rid of his enemies at a blow.” And then, as if struck with compassion for the fate of her victims, she repeated in a low tone—as if talking to herself—the words of a famous Italian preacher, which she had often been heard to quote before: “É la pietà lor ser crudele, e la crudeltà lor ser pietosa” (Mercy would be cruel to them, and cruelty merciful). Catherine’s resolution again prevailed over the king’s weakness, and the final orders being given, the Duke of Guise quitted the Louvre, followed by two companies of arquebusiers and the whole of Anjou’s guard.

As soon as Guise had left, the chief criminals—each afraid to lose sight of the other, each needing the presence of the other to keep his courage up—went to a room adjoining the tennis-court overlooking the Place Bassecour.[590] Of all the party, Charles, Catherine, Anjou, and De Retz, Charles was the least guilty and the most to be pitied. They went to the window, anxiously listening for the signal that the work of death had begun. Their consciences, no less than their impatience, made it impossible for them to sit calmly within the palace. Anjou’s narrative continues: “While we were pondering over the events and the consequences of such a mighty enterprise, of which (to tell the truth) we had not thought much until then, we heard a pistol-shot. The sound produced such an effect upon all three of us, that it confounded our senses and deprived us of judgment. We were smitten with terror and apprehension of the great disorders about to be perpetrated.” Catherine, who was a timid woman (adds Tavannes), would willingly have recalled her orders, and with that intent hastily dispatched a gentleman to the Duke of Guise, expressly desiring him to return and attempt nothing against the admiral.[591] “It is too late,” was the answer brought back: “the admiral is dead”—a statement at variance with other accounts. “Thereupon,” continues Anjou, “we returned to our former deliberations, and let things take their course.”

Between three and four o’clock in the morning, the noise of horses and the measured tramp of foot-soldiers broke the silence of the narrow street in which Coligny lay wounded. It was the murderers seeking their victim: they were Henry of Guise with his uncle the Duke of Aumale, the Bastard of Angoulême, and the Duke of Nevers, with other foreigners, Italian and Swiss, namely, Fesinghi (or Tosinghi) and his nephew Antonio, Captain Petrucci, Captain Studer of Winkelbach with his soldiers, Martin Koch of Freyberg, Conrad Burg,[592] Leonard Grunenfelder of Glaris, and Carl Dianowitz, surnamed Behm (the Bohemian?). There were besides one Captain Attin, in the household of Aumale, and Sarlabous, a renegade Huguenot and commandant of Havre. It is well to record the names even of these obscure individuals who stained their hands in the best blood of France. De Cosseins, too, was there with his guard, some of whom he posted with their arquebuses opposite the windows of Coligny’s hotel, that none might escape.

Presently there was a loud knock at the outer gate: “Open in the king’s name.” La Bonne, imagining it to be a message from the Louvre, hastened with the keys, withdrew the bolt, and was immediately butchered by the assassins who rushed into the house. The alarmed domestics ran half awake to see what was the uproar: some were killed outright, others escaped up stairs, closing the door at the foot and placing some furniture against it. This feeble barrier was soon broken down, and the Swiss who had attempted to resist were shot. The tumult woke Coligny from his slumbers, and divining what it meant—that Guise had made an attack on the house—he was lifted from his bed, and folding his robe-de-chambre round him, sat down prepared to meet his fate.[593] Cornaton entering the room at this moment, Ambrose Paré asked him what was the meaning of the noise. Turning to his beloved master, he replied: “Sir, it is God calling us to himself. They have broken into the house, and we can do nothing.” “I have been long prepared to die,” said the admiral. “But you must all flee for your lives, if it be not too late; you can not save me. I commit my soul to God’s mercy.” They obeyed him, but only two succeeded in making their way over the roofs. Pastor Merlin lay hid for three days in a loft, where he was fed by a hen, who every morning laid an egg within his reach.[594]

Paré and Coligny were left alone—Coligny looking as calm and collected as if no danger impended. After a brief interval of suspense the door was dashed open, and Cosseins, wearing a corslet and brandishing a bloody sword in his hand, entered the room, followed by Behm, Sarlabous and others, a party of Anjou’s Swiss guard, in their tricolored uniform of black, white, and green, keeping in the rear. Expecting resistance, the ruffians were for a moment staggered at seeing only two unarmed men. But his brutal instincts rapidly regaining the mastery, Behm stepped forward, and pointing his sword at Coligny’s breast, asked: “Are you not the admiral?” He replied: “I am; but, young man, you should respect my grey hairs,[595] and not attack a wounded man. Yet what matters it? You can not shorten my life except by God’s permission.” The German soldier, uttering a blasphemous oath, plunged his sword into the admiral’s breast.

Others in the room struck him also, Behm repeating his blows until the admiral fell on the floor. The murderer now ran to the window and shouted into the court-yard: “It is all over.” Henry of Guise, who had been impatiently ordering his creatures to make haste, was not satisfied. “Monsieur d’Angoulême will not believe it unless he sees him,” returned the duke.[597] Behm raised the body from the ground, and dragged it to the window to throw it out; but life was not quite extinct, and the admiral placed his foot against the wall, faintly resisting the attempt.[598] “Is it so, old fox?” exclaimed the murderer, who drew his dagger and stabbed him several times. Then assisted by Sarlabous, he threw the body down. It was hardly to be recognized. The Bastard of Angoulême—the chevalier as he is called in some of the narratives—wiped the blood from the face of the corpse. “Yes, it is he; I know him well,” said Guise, kicking the body as he spoke.[599] “Well done, my men,” he continued, “we have made a good beginning. Forward—by the king’s command.” He mounted his horse and rode out of the court-yard, followed by Nevers, who cynically exclaimed as he looked at the body: Sic transit gloria mundi. Tosinghi took the chain of gold—the insignia of his office—from the admiral’s neck, and Petrucci, a gentleman in the train of the Duke of Nevers, cut off the head and carried it away carefully to the Louvre.[600] Of all who were found in the house, not one was spared, except Ambrose Paré, who was escorted in safety to the palace by a detachment of Anjou’s guard.[601]

Thus died, in the fifty-sixth year of his age,[602] one of the noblest men of whom France, so rich in great men, can boast. His character has been described in his actions. In stature he was of middle height, of ruddy complexion, and well proportioned. His countenance was serene, his voice soft and pleasant, but his utterance was rather slow. His habits were temperate: he drank but little wine, and ate sparingly. He had been blessed with five children: Louisa, who married Teligny, and afterward William of Orange, ancestor of our William III.; Francis and Odet, who escaped the massacre; Charles, who fell a victim in the general massacre; his other son had died in battle. A posthumous daughter was born to him, of whose fate nothing is known.

Le Laboureur, a Catholic priest, says of Coligny: “He was one of the greatest men France ever produced, and I venture to say farther, one of the most attached to his country.” The papal legate Santa Croce describes him as “remarkable for his prudence and coolness. His manners were severe; he always appeared serious and absorbed in his meditations. His eloquence was weighty. He was skilled in Latin and divinity, and he grew in people’s love the more they knew his frankness and devotedness to his friends.” He never told a lie (minime mentiretur); but then, adds the legate, “he had no pretensions to refined manners, and always kept a straw in his mouth to clean his teeth with.”[603]

Coligny’s headless trunk was left for some hours where it fell, until it became the sport of rabble children, who dragged it all round Paris. They tried to burn it, but did little more than scorch and blacken the remains, which were first thrown into the river, and then taken out again “as unworthy to be food for fish,” says Claude Haton. In accordance with the old sentence of the Paris Parliament, it was dragged by the hangman to the common gallows at Montfauçon,[605] and there hung up by the heels.[606] All the court went to gratify their eyes with the sight, and Charles, unconsciously imitating the language of Vitellius,[607] said, as he drew near the offensive corpse, “The smell of a dead enemy is always sweet.”[608] The body was left hanging for a fortnight, or more, after which it was privily taken down by the admiral’s cousin, Marshal Montmorency, and it now rests, after many removals, in a wall among the ruins of his hereditary castle of Chatillon-sur-Loing. What became of the head no one knows. It was intended to be sent to Rome as a peace-offering to the pope; but it probably never got farther than Lyons, Mandelot, the governor of that city, having received orders to stop the messenger—one of Guise’s servants—and take it away. What can have been the king’s object? Was he conscience-stricken, and did he repent of the foul indignities offered to the man for whom he had once professed such love? Or was he jealous of the credit Duke Henry might acquire by laying the arch-Huguenot’s head at the feet of the holy father? All that appears certain is—that the head never reached Rome. The Abbé Caveyrac states that he saw fragments of a skull in a coffin at Chatillon containing the admiral’s remains; but, accepting the abbé’s testimony as to what he saw, it by no means follows that the bones were a part of Coligny’s head.

When Guise left the admiral’s corpse lying in the court-yard, he went to the adjoining house in which Teligny lived. All the inmates were killed, but he escaped by the roof. Twice he fell into the hands of the enemy, and twice he was spared; he perished at last by the sword of a man who knew not his amiable inoffensive character.[609] His neighbor La Rochefoucault was perhaps more fortunate in his fate. He had hardly fallen asleep, when he was disturbed by the noise in the street. He heard shouts and the sound of many footsteps; and scarcely awake and utterly unsuspicious, he went to his bedroom door at the first summons in the king’s name. He seems to have thought that Charles, indulging in one of his usual mad frolics, had come to punish him, as he had punished others, like school-boys. He opened the door and fell dead across the threshold, pierced by a dozen weapons.

When the messenger returned from the Duke of Guise with the answer that it was “too late,” Catherine, fearing that such disobedience to the royal commands might incense the king and awaken him to a sense of all the horrors that were about to be perpetrated in his name, privately gave orders to anticipate the hour.[610] Instead of waiting until the matin-bell should ring out from the old clock-tower of the Palace of Justice, she directed the signal to be given from the nearer belfry of St. Germain l’Auxerrois.[611] As the harsh sound rang through the air of that warm summer night,[612] it was caught up and echoed from tower to tower, rousing all Paris from their slumbers.

Immediately from every quarter of that ancient city uprose a tumult as of hell. The clanging bells, the crashing doors, the musket-shots, the rush of armed men, the shrieks of their victims, and high over all the yells of the mob, fiercer and more pitiless than hungry wolves—made such an uproar that the stoutest hearts shrank appalled, and the sanest appear to have lost their reason.[613] Women unsexed, men wanting every thing but the strength of the wild beast, children without a single charm of youth or innocence, crowded the streets where the rising day still struggled with the glare of a thousand torches.[614] They smelled the odor of blood, and thirsting to indulge their passions for once with impunity, committed horrors that have become the marvel of history.

Within the walls of the Louvre, within the hearing of Charles and his mother, if not actually within their sight, one of the foulest scenes of this detestable tragedy was enacted. At day-break, says Queen Margaret of Navarre,[615] her husband rose to go and play at tennis, with a determination to be present at the king’s lever, and demand justice for the assault on the admiral. He left his apartment, accompanied by the Huguenot gentlemen who had kept watch around him during the night. At the foot of the stairs he was arrested,[616] while the gentlemen with him were disarmed, apparently without any attempt at resistance. A list of them had been carefully drawn up, which the Sire d’O, quarter-master of the Guards, read out. As each man answered to his name, he stepped into the court-yard, where he had to make his way through a double line of Swiss mercenaries. Sword, spear, and halberd made short work of them, and two hundred[617] (according to Davila) of the best blood of France soon lay a ghastly pile beneath the windows of the palace[618] Charles (it is said) looked on coldly at the horrid deed,[619] the victims appealing in vain to his mercy. Among the gentlemen they murdered were the two who had been boldest in their language to the king not many hours before: Segur, Baron of Pardaillan, and Armand de Clermont, Baron of Pilles, who with stentorian voices called upon the king to be true to his word. De Pilles took off his rich cloak and offered it to some one whom he recognized: “Here is a present from the hand of De Pilles, basely and traitorously murdered.” “I am not the man you take me for,” said the other, refusing the cloak.[620] The Swiss plundered their victims as they fell; and pointing to the heap of half-naked bodies, described them to the spectators as the men who had conspired to kill the king and all the royal family in their sleep, and make France a republic.[621] But more disgraceful even than this massacre was the conduct of some of the ladies in Catherine’s train, of her “flying squadron,” who, later in the day, inspected and laughed[622] at the corpses as they lay stripped in the court-yard, being especially curious about the body of Soubise, from whom his wife had sought to be divorced on the ground of nullity of marriage.

A few gentlemen succeeded in escaping from this slaughter. Margaret, “seeing it was day-light,” and imagining the danger past of which her sister had told her, fell asleep. But her slumbers were soon rudely broken. “An hour later,” she continues, “I was awoke by a man knocking at the door and calling, Navarre! Navarre! The nurse, thinking it was my husband, ran and opened it. It was a gentleman named Léran,[623] who had received a sword-cut in the elbow and a spear-thrust in the arm; four soldiers were pursuing him, and they all rushed into my chamber after him. Wishing to save his life, he threw himself upon my bed. Finding myself clasped in his arms, I got out on the other side, he followed me, still clinging to me. I did not know the man, and could not tell whether he came to insult me, or whether the soldiers were after him or me. We both shouted out, being equally frightened. At last, by God’s mercy, Captain de Nançay of the Guards came in, and seeing me in this condition, could not help laughing, although commiserating me. Severely reprimanding the soldiers for their indiscretion, he turned them out of the room, and granted me the life of the poor man who still clung to me. I made him lie down and had his wounds dressed in my closet, until he was quite cured. While changing my night-dress, which was all covered with blood, the captain told me what had happened, and assured me that my husband was with the king and quite unharmed. He then conducted me to the room of my sister of Lorraine, which I reached more dead than alive. As I entered the anteroom, the doors of which were open, a gentleman named Bourse, running from the soldiers who pursued him, was pierced by a halberd three paces from me. I fell almost fainting into Captain de Nançay’s arms, imagining the same thrust had pierced us both. Being somewhat recovered, I entered the little room where my sister slept. While there, M. de Miossans, my husband’s first gentleman, and Armagnac, his first valet-de-chambre, came and begged me to save their lives. I went and threw myself at the feet of the king and the queen my mother to ask the favor, which at last they granted me.”

When Captain de Nançay arrived so opportunely, he was leaving the king’s chamber, whither he had conducted Henry of Navarre and the Prince of Condé. The tumult and excitement had worked Charles up to such a pitch of fury, that the lives of the princes were hardly safe. But they were gentlemen, and their first words were to reproach the king for his breach of faith. Charles bade them be silent: “Messe ou mort,”—Apostatize or die. Henry demanded time to consider; while the prince boldly declared that he would not change his religion: “With God’s help it is my intention to remain firm in my profession.” Charles, exasperated still more by this opposition to his will, angrily walked up and down the room, and swore that if they did not change in three days he would have their heads. They were then dismissed, but kept close prisoners within the palace.[624]

The houses in which the Huguenots lodged having been registered, were easily known. The soldiers burst into them, killing all they found, without regard to age or sex, and if any escaped to the roof they were shot down like pigeons. Day-light served to facilitate a work that was too foul even for the blackest midnight. Restraint of every kind was thrown aside, and while the men were the victims of bigoted fury, the women were exposed to violence unutterable. As if the popular frenzy needed excitement, Marshal Tavannes, the military director of this deed of treachery, rode through the streets with dripping sword, shouting: “Kill! kill! blood-letting is as good in August as in May.”[625] One would charitably hope that this was the language of excitement, and that in his calmer moods he would have repented of his share in the massacre. But he was consistent to the last. On his death-bed, he made a general confession of his sins, in which he did not mention the day of St. Bartholomew; and when his son expressed surprise at the omission, he observed: “I look upon that as a meritorious action, which ought to atone for all the sins of my life.”

The massacre soon exceeded the bounds upon which Charles and his mother had calculated. They were willing enough that the Huguenots should be murdered, but the murderers might not always be able to draw the line between orthodoxy and heresy. Things were fast getting beyond all control; the thirst for plunder was even keener than the thirst for blood. And it is certain that among the many ignoble motives by which Charles was induced to permit the massacre, was the hope of enriching himself and paying his debts out of the property of the murdered Huguenots. Nor were Anjou and others insensible to the charms of heretical property. Hence we find the Provost of Paris remonstrating with the king about “the pillaging of houses and the murders in the streets by the guards and others in the service of his majesty and the princes.” Charles, in reply, bade the magistrates “mount their horses, and with all the force of the city put an end to such irregularities, and remain on watch day and night.” Another proclamation, countersigned by Nevers, was issued about five in the afternoon, commanding the people to lay down the arms which they had taken up “that day by the king’s orders,” and to leave the streets to the soldiers only—as if implying that they alone were to kill and plunder.[626]

The massacre, commenced on Sunday, was continued through that and the two following days. Capilupi tells us, with wonderful simplicity, “that it was a holiday, and therefore the people could more conveniently find leisure to kill and plunder.” It is impossible to assign to each day its task of blood: in all but a few exceptional cases, we know merely that the victims perished in the general slaughter. Writing in the midst of the carnage, probably not later than noon of the 24th, the nuncio Salviati says: “The whole city is in arms; the houses of the Huguenots have been forced with great loss of lives, and sacked by the populace with incredible avidity. Many a man to-night will have his horses and his carriage, and will eat and drink off plate, who had never dreamt of it in his life before. In order that matters may not go too far, and to prevent the revolting disorders occasioned by the insolence of the mob, a proclamation has just been issued, declaring that there shall be three hours in the day during which it shall be unlawful to rob and kill; and the order is observed, though not universally. You can see nothing in the streets but white crosses in the hats and caps of every one you meet, which has a fine effect!” The nuncio says nothing of the streets encumbered with heaps of naked bleeding corpses, nothing of the cart-loads of bodies conveyed to the Seine, and then flung into the river, “so that not only were all the waters in it turned to blood,” but so many corpses grounded on the bank of the little island of the Louvre, that the air became infected with the smell of corruption.[627] The living, tied hand and foot, were thrown off the bridges. One man—probably a rag-gatherer—brought two little children in his creel, and tossed them into the water as carelessly as if they had been blind kittens. An infant, as yet unable to walk, had a cord tied round its neck, and was dragged through the streets by a troop of children nine or ten years old. Another played with the beard and smiled in the face of the man who carried him; but the innocent caress exasperated instead of softening the ruffian, who stabbed the child, and with an oath threw it into the Seine. Among the earliest victims was the wife of the king’s plumassier. The murderers broke into her house on the Notre Dame bridge, about four in the morning, stabbed her, and flung her still breathing into the river. She clung for some time to the wooden piles of the bridge, and was killed at last with stones, her body remaining for four days entangled by her long hair among the wood-work. The story goes that her husband’s corpse being thrown over fell against hers and set it free, both floating away together down the stream. Madeleine Briçonnet, widow of Theobald of Yverni, disguised herself as a woman of the people, so that she might save her life, but was betrayed by the fine petticoat which hung below her coarse gown. As she would not recant, she was allowed a few moments’ prayer, and then tossed into the water. Her son-in-law, the Marquis of Renel, escaping in his shirt, was chased by the murderers to the bank of the river, where he succeeded in unfastening a boat. He would have got away altogether but for his cousin Bussy d’Amboise, who shot him down with a pistol.[628] One Keny, who had been stabbed and flung into the Seine, was revived by the reaction of the cold water. Feeble as he was he swam to a boat and clung to it, but was quickly pursued. One hand was soon cut off with a hatchet, and as he still continued to steer the boat down stream, he was “quieted” by a musket-shot. One Puviaut or Pluviaut, who met with a similar fate, became the subject of a ballad.[629]

Captain Moneins had been put into a safe hiding-place by his friend Fervacques, who went and begged the king to spare the life of the fugitive. Charles not only refused, but ordered him to kill Moneins if he desired to save his own life. Fervacques would not stain his own hands, but made his friend’s hiding-place known.

Brion, governor of the Marquis of Conti, the Prince of Condé’s brother, snatched the child from his bed, and without stopping to dress him, was hurrying away to a place of safety, when the boy was torn from his arms, and he himself murdered before the eyes of his pupil. We are told that the child “cried and begged they would save his tutor’s life.”

The houses on the bridge of Notre Dame, inhabited principally by Protestants, were witnesses to many a scene of cruelty. All the inmates of one house were massacred, except a little girl, who was dipped, stark naked, in the blood of her father and mother, and threatened to be served like them if she turned Huguenot. The Protestant book-sellers and printers were particularly sought after. Spire Niquet was burned over a slow fire made out of his own books, and thrown lifeless, but not dead, into the river. Oudin Petit[630] fell a victim to the covetousness of his son-in-law, who was a Catholic book-seller. René Bianchi, the queen’s perfumer, is reported to have killed with his own hands a young man, a cripple, who had already displayed much skill in goldsmith’s work. This is the only man whose death the king lamented, “because of his excellent workmanship, for his shop was entirely stripped.” One woman was betrayed by her own daughter. Another, whose twenty-first pregnancy was approaching its term, was exposed to tortures unutterable. Another pregnant woman was drowned, after she had been compelled to walk over the face of her husband. Another woman, in a similar state, was shot as she tried to escape by the roof of her house, and the immature fruit of her womb was dashed against the wall. Frances Baillet, wife of the queen’s goldsmith, after seeing her husband and her son murdered, leaped out of the window, and broke both her legs by falling into the court beneath. A neighbor had compassion on her, and hid her in his cellar; but being “less brave than tender-hearted,” he was frightened by the threats of the assassins, and gave up the poor woman to them. The brutes dragged her through the streets by the hair, and in order to get easily at her gold bracelets, they chopped off both her hands, and left her all bleeding at the door of a cook-shop. The cook, annoyed by her groans, ran a spit into her body and left it there. Some hours later, her mutilated remains were thrown into the river, and dogs gnawed her hands which had been left in the street. In the list of victims we find the name of Gastine—a widow, and mother of two young children. Hers had been a life of suffering: her husband, father-in-law, and uncle had been hanged; one relative banished, another sent to the galleys, their goods confiscated, and their house leveled to the ground.[631]

Few of the Huguenots attempted any resistance, though many of them were veteran soldiers. Had they done so, the whole body might have found time to rally. As it was, they were equally unable to defend themselves or to fly: their faculties seemed benumbed. Agrippa d’Aubigné gives a curious instance of the panic felt by the Huguenots. He was riding along the high-road several days after the massacre, accompanied by fourscore soldiers, among whom were some of the most daring in France, when a man shouted out: “There they are,” and immediately they galloped off, as fast as their horses could carry them. The next day half of the same panic-stricken men routed 600 Catholics. In the memoirs of Gamon we read that the Huguenots of Annonay (Ardèche) were so terrified by the massacre, that at the least noise or movement among the Catholics they would run away, though no one pursued them.

Three men only in Paris are recorded as having fought for their lives. Taverny, a lieutenant of Maréchaussée, stood a regular siege in his house. For eight or nine hours he and one servant kept the mob at bay, and when his leaden bullets were exhausted, he used pellets of pitch.[632] As soon as these were spent, he rushed out, and was overwhelmed by numbers. His wife was taken to prison; but his invalid sister was dragged naked through the streets, until death ended her suffering and her ignominy. Guerchy also struggled unsuccessfully for his life, his only weapon being a dagger against men protected with cuirasses. Soubise also fought like a hero—one against a host—and died beneath the windows of the queen’s apartments, among the earliest of the victims.

Jean Goujon, the sculptor, was killed while at work. Another victim, less widely known except among scholars, was Peter Ramus. He was a man of poor parentage: his grandfather had been a charcoal-burner, and his father a ploughman. By day he worked with his hands, and studied by night, rising by degrees to be professor of philosophy and eloquence at the College of Presle.[633] He made many enemies by attacking the authority of Aristotle, and more than once had to fly for his life. During the horrors of the massacre he had hidden himself in a cellar, where he was discovered by the assassins whom his rival Charpentier had sent to murder him. He was robbed of his little wealth, and then thrown from a window. Some of the youths of the university, urged by other tutors, dragged his body through the streets, inflicting on it various indignities.[634] A surgeon passing by cut off the head and carried it away, while the trunk was tossed into the river. Gilbert Genebrad, Archbishop of Aix, speaking of the “guilty victims” of the St. Bartholomew, declares Ramus to have been “justly punished for his turbulence and folly, which dared attack languages, arts, science, and even theology.”[635] Charpentier exults over his death as “making ample atonement to us or rather to the republic.”[636] Lambin, a rigid Catholic and “royal reader,” was so horror-stricken on being told of the murder, that he could not survive it.

Another distinguished victim was Pierre de la Place, president of the Court of Aids. He lived in an isolated house at the extreme border of the Marais, and the first news he had of the massacre was from one Captain Michel, who with arquebuse on his shoulder, white ribbon on his left arm, and pistol at his belt, entered the library at six in the morning and said: “M. de Guise has just killed the admiral by the king’s order. All the Huguenots, of whatever rank or station, are destined to die. I have come hither expressly to save you from this calamity; but you must show me what gold and silver you have in the house.” “Where do you think you are?” returned La Place. “Have we no longer a king?” Michel answered with an oath: “Come with me and speak to the king, that you may know his pleasure.” La Place did not follow his advice, but made his escape by the back door; while Michel, for a consideration of 1000 crowns, put the president’s wife and children in safety with a Catholic family. La Place had not benefited by his escape; he had wandered up and down, but could find no asylum; all doors were closed against him, and he was glad at last to return home. His wife, a lady adorned with every grace of mind and person, had returned before him, hoping to find him, and resolved (now that her children were in safety) to stay at the head of her little household. In the evening—for it was Sunday—the servants and relations assembled for divine worship. After reading and commenting on a chapter of Job, La Place prayed and prepared his little congregation for the worst. “Let us learn (he said) how to conduct ourselves firmly and temperately in this condition of trial. Let us show that God’s word has been copiously poured into our souls.” He had not ended his exhortation when he was told that Provost Senescay was at the door with archers sent to protect him and escort him to the Louvre. He feared to go, the danger was too great, but eight men were left with him to garrison the house. On Monday Senescay returned with express orders to take him to the king. His wife, suspecting treachery, fell at his knees and prayed to accompany her husband. Raising her up, he said cheerfully: “My dear, we must not have recourse to the arm of man, but to God alone.” Seeing his son with a paper cross in his hat, which had been put there as a precaution, he added: “Take it out, my child, take out that mark of sedition; the true cross which you must now wear is the affliction which God sends as a sure earnest of life eternal.” The president then took up his cloak, embraced his wife, and bidding her have the honor and fear of God before her eyes, departed in a cheerful humor. He was escorted by twelve armed archers, but at the corner of the street was stopped by four men with daggers. The escort made no resistance, and La Place fell to the ground, stabbed through the heart.[637] His body was taken to a stable at the Hotel-de-Ville, whence it was afterward thrown into the Seine, and his house was pillaged. He was probably a victim of private vengeance, murdered by the hirelings of Stephen de Neuilly, who succeeded to his various charges.

Mezeray writes that 700 or 800 people had taken refuge in the prisons, hoping they would be safe “under the wings of justice;” but the officers selected for this work had them brought out into the fitly-named “Valley of Misery,”[638] and there beat them to death with clubs and threw their bodies into the river.[639] The Venetian embassador corroborates this story, adding that they were murdered in batches of ten. Where all were cruel, some few persons distinguished themselves by especial ferocity. A gold-beater, named Crozier, one of those prison-murderers, bared his sinewy arm and boasted of having killed 4000 persons with his own hands.[640] Another man—for the sake of human nature we would fain hope him to be the same—affirmed that unaided he had “dispatched” 80 Huguenots in one day. He would eat his food with hands dripping with gore, declaring “that it was an honor to him, because it was the blood of heretics.” On Tuesday a butcher, Crozier’s comrade, boasted to the king that he had killed 150 the night before. Coconnas, one of the mignons of Anjou, prided himself on having ransomed from the populace as many as thirty Huguenots, for the pleasure of making them abjure and then killing them with his own hand, after he had “secured them for hell.”[641]

About seven o’clock the king was at one of the windows of his palace, enjoying the air of that beautiful August morning, when he was startled by shouts of “Kill! kill.” They were raised by a body of 200 Guards, who were firing with much more noise than execution at a number of Huguenots who had crossed the river: “to seek the king’s protection,” says one account: “to help the king against the Guises,” says another. Charles, who had just been telling his mother that “the weather seemed to rejoice at the slaughter of the Huguenots,”[642] felt all his savage instincts kindle at the sight. He had hunted wild beasts, now he would hunt men: and calling for an arquebuse, he fired at the fugitives, who were fortunately out of range. Some modern writers deny this fact, on the ground that the balcony from which Charles is said to have fired was not built until after 1572. Were this true, it would only show that tradition had misplaced the locality. Brantome[643] expressly says the king fired on the Huguenots—not from a balcony, but “from his bedroom window.” Marshal Tesse heard the story (according to Voltaire) from the man who loaded the arquebuse. Henault, in his “Abrégé Chronologique,” mentions it with a “dit-on,” and it is significant that the passage is suppressed in the Latin editions. Simon Goulart, in his contemporary narrative,[644] uses the same words of caution. In Barbier’s “Journal” we read of the destruction of the former Garde Meuble in the Rue des Poulies on the quay, in which there was a balcony whence the king fired. Agrippa d’Aubigné speaks in his “Universal History” of letters written by the same hand “with which he brought down the fugitives.”[645] As for the date of the building, the king’s bed-chamber in the south-west pavilion of the Louvre (not the balcony) was completed in 1556, and so far as regards the pavilion itself, it is represented in the “Bastiments de France” of Androuet de Cerceau, published in 1576. Now if any one will consider the time it must necessarily have taken to get up such a work as the “Bastiments”—a conscientious undertaking of great labor—he can not but come to the conclusion that the pavilion was in existence four years earlier.[646] There is no good reason, therefore, to regard this story of the king’s ferocity as unhistoric.

Not many of the Huguenot gentlemen escaped from the toils so skillfully drawn around them on that fatal Saturday night: yet there were a few. The Count of Montgomery—the same who was the innocent cause of the death of Henry II.—got safe away, having been forewarned by a friend who swam across the river to him.[647] Guise set off in hot pursuit, and would probably have caught him up, had he not been kept waiting for the keys of the city gate. Some sixty gentlemen also, lodging near him in the Faubourg St. Germain, were the companions of his flight.

Sully, afterward the famous minister of Henry IV., had a narrow escape. He was in his twelfth year, and had gone to Paris in the train of Joan of Navarre for the purpose of continuing his studies. “About three hours after midnight,” he says, “I was awoke by the ringing of bells, and the confused cries of the populace. My governor, St. Julian, with my valet-de-chambre, went out to know the cause; and I never heard of them afterward. They no doubt were among the first sacrificed to the public fury. I continued alone in my chamber dressing myself, when in a few moments my landlord entered, pale and in the utmost consternation. He was of the Reformed religion, and having learned what was the matter, had consented to go to mass to save his life, and preserve his house from being pillaged. He came to persuade me to do the same, and to take me with him. I did not think proper to follow him, but resolved to try if I could gain the College of Burgundy, where I had studied; though the great distance between the house in which I then was and the college made the attempt very dangerous. Having disguised myself in a scholar’s gown, I put a large prayer-book under my arm, and went into the street. I was seized with horror inexpressible at the sight of the furious murderers, running from all parts, forcing open the houses, and shouting out: Kill, kill! Massacre the Huguenots! The blood which I saw shed before my eyes redoubled my terror. I fell into the midst of a body of Guards, who stopped and questioned me, and were beginning to use me ill, when, happily for me, the book that I carried was perceived and served me for a passport. Twice after this I fell into the same danger, from which I extricated myself with the same good fortune. At last I arrived at the College of Burgundy, where a danger still greater than any I had yet met with awaited me. The porter having twice refused me entrance, I continued standing in the midst of the street, at the mercy of the savage murderers, whose numbers increased every moment, and who were evidently seeking for their prey, when it came into my head to ask for La Faye, the principal of the college, a good man by whom I was tenderly beloved. The porter, prevailed upon by some small pieces of money which I put into his hand, admitted me; and my friend carried me to his apartment, where two inhuman priests, whom I heard mention Sicilian Vespers, wanted to force me from him, that they might cut me in pieces, saying the order was—not to spare even infants at the breast. All the good man could do was to conduct me privately to a distant chamber, where he locked me up. Here I was confined three days, uncertain of my destiny, and saw no one but a servant of my friend’s, who came from time to time to bring me provisions.”[648]

Philip de Mornay, or, as he was usually designated, Duplessis-Mornay, was among those who suspected treachery, and refused to take part in the rejoicings on the marriage of Henry with Margaret. He got his mother out of Paris, but not seeing how he could honorably leave the city himself, while the chiefs of the Huguenot cause remained, he resolved to share the perils of his leaders. His resolution well-nigh proved fatal to him. He had scarcely time to burn his papers and hide between the two roofs of the house in which he lived. On Monday, as the mob became more furious, his host, a conscientious Catholic, begged him flee, as his continuance there might prove the ruin of both, adding that “he should have disregarded his own danger, if it could have secured the safety of the other.” Duplessis, therefore, assumed a plain black dress, girded on his sword and departed, while the mob were plundering the next house, whose owner they murdered and threw out of the window. He got safely to his law-agent, by name Girard, who received him favorably and set him to work in the office. This place of refuge being discovered, early next day he had to leave the house conducted by one of the clerks. They were stopped and questioned at the St. Denis gate, when Duplessis represented himself to be a lawyer’s clerk going to spend the holidays with his family at Rouen. They were allowed to pass, but had scarcely reached Villette, between Paris and St. Denis, when farther progress was checked by the “carters, quarrymen, and plasterers of the faubourg.” They dragged Duplessis toward the river, and he was saved only by the cool assurance of his companion, who asserted that the men were mistaken, that the other really was a lawyer’s clerk going to Rouen, and that he was well known in the environs of Paris. “Surely,” interposed young Mornay, “you do not want to kill one man for another.” He referred them to several individuals, among others to Girard, and then they all went off to breakfast. Just at this moment the Rouen coach passed along; the mob stopped it to ascertain if the fugitive was known to any of the passengers, and being recognized by no one, they called him a liar and again threatened to drown him. After being kept some time in suspense he was released, the messengers who had been dispatched to Mr. Girard having returned with a certificate that “Philip Mornay his clerk was neither rebellious nor disaffected.” But all was not over yet. At Ivry-le-Temple, where he passed the night of Thursday, some persons, who probably suspected him, entered the room in which he was sitting, observing to each other that they smelled a Huguenot. On his way to Buhy, his birthplace, he narrowly escaped falling into the hands of a one-eyed monster named Montafié, who at the head of a band of ruffians was scouring the French Vexin. His house he found desolate, his family dispersed no one could tell where. At length, after undergoing many privations and more perils, he escaped from Dieppe to England. It was nine days after the massacre.[649]

Madame de Mornay herself had to undergo many dangers. Her cook, a Huguenot, awoke her in the morning with cries that “they were murdering every body.” From her window, which looked into the Rue St. Antoine, she saw an excited restless crowd and several soldiers with white crosses in their hats. Hastily secreting some of her valuables, she sent the maid away with her little girl, and at eight in the morning took shelter with one of the king’s household. More than forty persons found refuge in the same charitable asylum; the owner, M. de Perreuze, or his wife, standing occasionally at the door to exchange a word with Guise, Nevers, and other lords, as they passed to and fro; and also with the “captains of Paris,” who were sacking the adjoining houses belonging to Huguenots. On Tuesday the house was searched, and Madame Duplessis (or to speak more correctly, the young widow of M. de Feuquères) had to conceal herself. From her hiding-places she could hear “the strange cries of the men, women, and children they were murdering in the streets.” Her next refuge was in the house of a blacksmith, a seditious fellow and the captain of his ward, who had married her waiting-maid. “He passed the night,” says the lady, “in cursing the Huguenots and seeing to the booty that was brought in from the plundered houses.” After various changes of refuge, eleven days after the massacre she went on board the passage-boat for Sens, where she was accused of being a Huguenot and told that she ought to be drowned. A woman came up and asked what they were going to do with her. “Why, this is a Huguenot, and we intend to throw her into the river.” The woman replied: “You know me well; I am no Huguenot; I go every day to mass; but I am so frightened, that I have had a fever this week past.” “And I too,” rejoined one of the soldiers: “j’en ai le bec tout galeux.” This saved her life; but she had the horror of listening to the rejoicings of her fellow-passengers (there were two monks and a priest among them) over what they had seen in Paris. Twenty-seven days after the massacre a body of soldiers, the Swiss guard of Queen Elizabeth, searched the village where she lay hid, but did not find any Huguenots. It was not until the 1st November that she got beyond all danger by reaching the town of Sedan. In her flight, she had gone near the country seat of the Chancellor de l’Hopital. This, by the king’s express order, was held by a strong garrison, possibly by way of protection; but the lawless soldiers compelled Madame de l’Hopital, who had been converted to the new religion, to go to mass; and the ex-chancellor assured the fugitive that if he received her beneath his roof, she would have to do the same.[650]

Young Caumont, a boy about twelve years old, and better known in after life as the Duke of La Force, escaped in a singular manner. A number of dead bodies had been thrown upon him, those of his father and brother being among them. He lay for some hours beneath this horrible load, when the marker from an adjoining tennis-court, attracted by one of his stockings, tried to pull it off. While doing so, he uttered an exclamation of pity, which the boy heard. “I am not dead,” he whispered; “pray save me.” He was saved, but, as the murderous ruffians were still in sight, he had to remain some time longer beneath the bloody heap. He was taken, not without difficulties, to the arsenal, where Marshal de Biron, as master of the ordnance, commanded. Here young Caumont was kept several days disguised as a page. This was told the king, with the addition that several other Huguenots had found refuge in the same place. Charles determined to have it searched; and when the marshal heard of it, he declared angrily “he would take very good care to hinder any one from entering who wanted to control his actions,” and “thereupon pointed three or four pieces of cannon toward the gate of the arsenal.”[651]

The Duchess René of Ferrara, daughter of Louis XII., sheltered many in her hotel, and among them were the wife and child of Pastor Merlin. Even the Duke of Guise was not all blood-thirsty, at least one Huguenot owing his life to him.[652] Some were saved at the house of the English embassador, although a guard had been set over it, as much to keep out refugees as to protect the English who had been hastily collected within its walls.[653] Two or three are reported to have fallen in the massacre, from not receiving the warning early enough. Kirkaldy, so famous in the history of Mary Stuart, had a narrow escape for his life.[654] Hubert Languet was saved by Jean de Morvilliers, Bishop of Orleans, who sheltered him in his own house. Anne d’Este, widow of the Duke of Guise, saved the life of L’Hopital’s daughter, for which the father thanked her: