to massacre. The Duke of
Guise, who had inflicted such an ineffaceable stain upon his
reputation by the foul murder of the Admiral Coligni, made some
atonement for this shameful act by the chivalrous spirit with which he
endeavored to mitigate the horrors of civil war.

One day, in the vicinity of Bayonne, a party of Catholics, consisting
of a few hundred horse and foot, were conducting to their execution
three Protestant young ladies, who, for their faith, were infamously
condemned to death. As they were passing over a wide plain, covered
with broken woods and heath, they were encountered by a body of
Protestants. A desperate battle immediately ensued. The Protestants,
impelled by a noble chivalry as well as by religious fervor, rushed
upon their foes with such impetuosity that resistance was unavailing,
and the Catholics threw down their arms and implored quarter. Many of
these soldiers were from the city of Dux. The leader of the Protestant
band remembered that at the Massacre of St. Bartholomew all the
Protestants in that city had been slain without mercy. With a most
deplorable want of magnanimity, he caused all the prisoners who
belonged to that place to be separated from the rest, and in cold
blood they were slaughtered.

The remainder of the prisoners were from the city of Bayonne, whose
inhabitants, though Catholics, had nobly refused to imbrue their hands
in the blood of that horrible massacre which Charles IX. had enjoined.
To them, after they had seen their comrades surrendered to butchery
before their eyes, he restored their horses and their arms, and gave
them their entire liberty.

"Go," said he, "to your homes, and there tell the different treatment
which I show to soldiers and to assassins."

The three ladies, thus rescued from impending death, were borne back
in triumph to their friends. Eight days after this, a trumpet was
sounded and a flag of truce appeared emerging from the gates of
Bayonne. The friends of the Catholic soldiers who had been thus
generously restored sent a beautifully embroidered scarf and a
handkerchief to each one of the Protestant soldiers.

It is a singular illustration of the blending of the horrors of war
and the courtesies of peace, that in the midst of this sanguinary
conflict, Henry of Navarre, accompanied by only six companions,
accepted an invitation to a fete given by his enemies of the town of
Bayonne. He was received with the utmost courtesy. His table was
loade