ormed no
deliberate plan of slaughtering the inhabitants of Vassy who had adopted
the reformed religion.[40] It is difficult, indeed, to accept the argument
of Brantome and Le Laboureur, who conceive that the fortuitous character
of the event is proved by the circumstance that the deed was below the
courage of Guise. Nor, perhaps, shall we give excessive credit to the
asseverations of the duke, repeated, we are told, even on his death-bed.
For why should these be more worthy of belief than the oaths with which
the same nobleman had declared to Christopher of Wuertemberg that he
neither had persecuted, nor would persecute the Protestants of France? But
the Duke of Guise admits that he knew that there was a growing community
of Huguenots at Vassy--"scandalous, arrogant, extremely seditious
persons," as he styles them. He tells us that he intended, as the
representative of Mary Stuart, and as feudal lord of some of their number,
to admonish them of their disobedience; and that for this purpose he sent
Sieur de la Bresse (or Brosse) with others to interrupt their public
worship. He accuses them, it is true, of having previously armed
themselves with stones, and even of possessing weapons in an adjoining
building; but what reason do the circumstances of the case give us for
doubting that the report may have been based upon the fact that those who
in this terror-stricken assembly attempted to save their lives resorted to
whatever missiles they could lay their hands upon? If the presence of his
wife, and of his brother the cardinal, is used by the duke as an argument
to prove the absence of any sinister intentions on his part, how much
stronger is the evidence afforded to the peaceable character of the
Protestant gathering by the numbers of women and children found there? But
the very fact that, as against the twenty-five or thirty Huguenots whom he
concedes to have been slain in the encounter, he does not pretend to give
the name of a single one of his own followers that was killed, shows
clearly which side it was that came prepared for the fight. And yet who
that knows the sanguinary spirit generally displayed by the Roman Catholic
masses in the sixteenth century, could find much fault with the Huguenots
of Vassy if they had really armed themselves to repel violence and protect
their wives and children--if, in other words, they had used the common
right of self-preservation?[41]

The fact is that Guise was only witnessing the