do the
same. The young prince magnanimously resolved not to save his life by
falsehood and apostasy. He determined to attempt, in the darkness and
confusion of the night, to gain the College of Burgundy, where he
hoped to find some Catholic friends who would protect him.

The distance of the college from the house in which he was rendered
the undertaking desperately perilous. Having disguised himself in the
dress of a Roman Catholic priest, he took a large prayer-book under
his arm, and tremblingly issued forth into the streets. The sights
which met his eye in the gloom of that awful night were enough to
appal the stoutest heart. The murderers, frantic with excitement and
intoxication, were uttering wild outcries, and pursuing, in every
direction, their terrified victims. Women and children, in their
night-clothes, having just sprung in terror from their beds, were
flying from their pursuers, covered with wounds, and uttering fearful
shrieks. The mangled bodies of the young and of the old, of males and
females, were strewn along the streets, and the pavements were
slippery with blood. Loud and dreadful outcries were heard from the
interior of the dwellings as the work of midnight assassination
proceeded; and struggles of desperate violence were witnessed, as the
murderers attempted to throw their bleeding and dying victims from the
high windows of chambers and attics upon the pavements below. The
shouts of the assailants, the shrieks of the wounded, as blow after
blow fell upon them, the incessant reports of muskets and pistols, the
tramp of soldiers, and the peals of the alarm-bell, all combined to
create a scene of terror such as human eyes have seldom witnessed. In
the midst of ten thousand perils, the young man crept along, protected
by his priestly garb, while he frequently saw his fellow-Christians
shot and stabbed at his very side.

Suddenly, in turning a corner, he fell into the midst of a band of the
body-guard of the king, whose swords were dripping with blood. They
seized him with great roughness, when, seeing the Catholic
prayer-book which was in his hands, they considered it a safe
passport, and permitted him to continue on his way uninjured. Twice
again he encountered similar peril, as he was seized by bands of
infuriated men, and each time he was extricated in the same way.

At length he arrived at the College of Burgundy; and now his danger
increased tenfold. It was a Catholic college. The porter at