rt. Pressure was brought to bear upon him, but, pope or no pope,
said Charles, he was determined to conclude the marriage and himself
would take Margot by the hand in open church and give her away. The
party of the Guises, and especially Paris, were furious. The capital,
with the provost, the Parlement, the university, the prelates, the
religious orders, had always been hostile to the Huguenots. The people
could with difficulty be restrained at times from assuming the office
of executioners as Protestants were led to the stake. Any one who did
not uncover as he passed the image of the Virgin at the street
corners, or who omitted to bend the knee as the Host was carried by,
was attacked as a Lutheran. When the heralds published the peace with
the Huguenots at the crossways of Paris, filth and mud were thrown at
them, and they went in danger of their lives: now Coligny and his
Huguenots were holding their heads high in Paris, proud and insolent
and a heretic prince of Navarre was to wed the king's sister.

[Footnote 113: Henry of Guise had succeeded to the dukedom after his
father's assassination.]

Jeanne of Navarre died soon after her arrival at court,[114] but the
alliance was hurried on. The betrothal took place in the Louvre, and
on Sunday, 17th August 1572, a high dais was erected outside Notre
Dame for the celebration of the marriage. When the ceremony had been
performed by the Cardinal de Bourbon, Henry conducted his bride to the
choir of the cathedral, and went walking in the bishop's garden while
mass was sung. The office ended, he returned and led his wife to the
bishop's palace to dinner, and a magnificent state supper at the
Louvre concluded this momentous day. Three days of balls, masquerades
and tourneys followed, amid the murmuring of a sullen populace. These
were the _noces vermeilles_--the red nuptials--of Marguerite of France
and Henry of Navarre.

[Footnote 114: Suspicions of poison were entertained by the Huguenots.
Jeanne, in a letter to the Marquis de Beauvais, complained that holes
were made in her rooms and wardrobes that she might be spied upon.]

Meanwhile Catherine and Charles had differed on a matter of foreign
policy. Her support of the Prince of Orange against Spain in the
Netherlands was conditional on an alliance with England and the
marriage of her son the Duke of Alencon with Elizabeth. But the
English Queen's habitual duplicity made any reliance on her word
impossible and when Marie