em incapable of being resolved with certainty; and, even were
they resolved, they would not give the key to the character of Charles
IX. and to the portion which appertains to him in the deed of cruelty
with which his name remains connected. The great historic fact of the
St. Bartholomew is what we confine ourselves to; and we have attempted to
depict it accurately as regards Charles IX.'s hesitations and equally
feverish resolutions, his intermixture of open-heartedness and
double-dealing in his treatment of Coliguy, towards whom he felt himself
drawn without quite understanding him, and his puerile weakness in
presence of his mother, whom he feared far more than he trusted. When he
had plunged into the orgies of the massacre, when, after having said,
"Kill them all!" he had seen the slaughter of his companions in his royal
amusements, Teligny and La Rochefoucauld, Charles IX. abandoned himself
to a fit of mad passion. He was asked whether the two young Huguenot
princes, Henry of Navarre and Henry de Conde, were to be killed also;
Marshal de Retz had been in favor of it; Marshal de Tavannes had been
opposed to it; and it was decided to spare them. On the very night of
the St. Bartholomew, the king sent for them both. "I mean for the
future," said he, "to have but one religion in my kingdom; the mass or
death; make your choice." Henry of Navarre reminded the king of his
promises, and asked for time to consider; Henry de Conde "answered that
he would remain firm in the true religion though he should have to give
up his life for it." "Seditious madman, rebel, and son of a rebel," said
Charles, "if within three days you do not change your language, I will
have you strangled." At this first juncture, the king saved from the
massacre none but his surgeon, Ambrose Pare, and his nurse, both
Huguenots; on the very night after the murder of Coligny, he sent for
Ambrose Pare into his chamber, and made him go into his wardrobe, says
Brantome, "ordering him not to stir, and saying that it was not
reasonable that one who was able to be of service to a whole little world
should be thus massacred." A few days afterwards, "Now," said the king
to Pare, "you really must be a Catholic." "By God's light," answered
Pars, "I think you must surely remember, sir, to have promised me, in
order that I might never disobey you, never, on the other hand, to bid me
do four things--find my way back into my mother's womb, catch myself
fighting