the gate
absolutely refused him admittance. The murderers began to multiply in
the street around him with fierce and threatening questions.
Maximilian at length, by inquiring for La Faye, the president of the
college, and by placing a bribe in the hands of the porter, succeeded
in obtaining entrance. La Faye was a humane man, and exceedingly
attached to his Protestant pupil. Maximilian entered the apartment of
the president, and found there two Catholic priests. The priests, as
soon as they saw him, insisted upon cutting him down, declaring that
the king had commanded that not even the infant at the breast should
be spared. The good old man, however, firmly resolved to protect his
young friend, and, conducting him privately to a secure chamber,
locked him up. Here he remained three days in the greatest suspense,
apprehensive every hour that the assassins would break in upon him. A
faithful servant of the president brought him food, but could tell him
of nothing but deeds of treachery and blood. At the end of three days,
the heroic boy, who afterward attained great celebrity as the minister
and bosom friend of Henry, was released and protected.

The morning of St. Bartholomew's day had not dawned when a band of
soldiers entered the chamber of Henry of Navarre and conveyed him to
the presence of the king. Frenzied with the excitements of the scene,
the imbecile but passionate monarch received him with a countenance
inflamed with fury. With blasphemous oaths and imprecations, he
commanded the King of Navarre, as he valued his life, to abandon a
religion which Charles affirmed that the Protestants had assumed only
as a cloak for their rebellion. With violent gesticulations and
threats, he declared that he would no longer submit to be contradicted
by his subjects, but that they should revere him as the image of God.
Henry, who was a Protestant from considerations of state policy rather
than from Christian principle, and who saw in the conflict merely a
strife between two political parties, ingloriously yielded to that
necessity by which alone he could save his life. Charles gave him
three days to deliberate, declaring, with a violent oath, that if, at
the end of that time, he did not yield to his commands, he would cause
him to be strangled. Henry yielded. He not only went to mass himself,
but submitted to the degradation of sending an edict to his own
dominions, prohibiting the exercise of any religion except that of
Rome.