e Cardinal of Guise, and
encouraged by the violent example of Constable Montmorency at Paris,[92]
fell on the Protestants, murdered more than a hundred of both sexes and of
every age, and threw their dead bodies into the waters of the Yonne.[93]
While these victims of a blind bigotry were floating on under the windows
of the Louvre toward the sea, Conde addressed to the queen mother a letter
of warm remonstrance, and called upon her to avenge the causeless murder
of so many innocent men and women; expressing the fear that, if justice
were denied by the king and by herself, the cry of innocent blood would
reach high heaven, and God would be moved to inflict those calamities
with which the unhappy realm was every day threatened.[94]

A few days before Conde penned this appeal, the English ambassador had
written and implored his royal mistress to seize the golden opportunity to
inspirit the frightened Catharine de' Medici, panic-stricken by the
violent measures of the Roman Catholic party; assuring her that "not a day
passed but that the Spanish ambassador, the Bishop of Rome, or some other
papist prince's minister put terror into the queen mother's mind."[95] But
Throkmorton's words and Cecil's entreaties were alike powerless to induce
Elizabeth to improve her advantage. The opportunity was fast slipping by,
and the calamities foretold by Conde were coming on apace.

[Sidenote: Disorders in Provence and Dauphiny.]

In truth, few calamities could exceed in horror those that now befell
France. In the south-eastern corner of the kingdom, above all other parts,
civil war, ever prolific in evil passions, was already bearing its
legitimate fruits. For several years the fertile, sunny hills of Provence
and Dauphiny had enjoyed but little stable peace, and now both sides
caught the first notes of the summons to war and hurried to the fray.
Towns were stormed, and their inhabitants, whether surrendering on
composition or at the discretion of the conqueror, found little justice or
compassion. The men were more fortunate, in being summarily put to the
sword; the women were reserved for the vilest indignities, and then shared
the fate of their fathers and husbands. The thirst for revenge caused the
Protestant leaders and soldiers to perpetrate deeds of cruelty little less
revolting than those which disgraced the papal cause; but there was, at
least, this to be said in their favor, that not even their enemies could
accuse them of tho