rance to the
countries where his influence was all powerful; and in the
ambitious house of Guise he found ready instruments.

For a time the new faith, that had spread with such rapidity in
Germany, England, and Holland, made great progress in France, also.
But here the reigning family remained Catholic, and the vigorous
measures they adopted, to check the growing tide, drove those of
the new religion to take up arms in self defence. Although, under
the circumstances, the Protestants can hardly be blamed for so
doing, there can be little doubt that the first Huguenot war,
though the revolt was successful, was the means of France remaining
a Catholic country. It gave colour to the assertions of the Guises
and their friends that the movement was a political one, and that
the Protestants intended to grasp all power, and to overthrow the
throne of France. It also afforded an excuse for the cruel
persecutions which followed, and rallied to the Catholic cause
numbers of those who were, at heart, indifferent to the question of
religion, but were Royalists rather than Catholics.

The great organization of the Church of Rome laboured among all
classes for the destruction of the growing heresy. Every pulpit in
France resounded with denunciations of the Huguenots, and
passionate appeals were made to the bigotry and fanaticism of the
more ignorant classes; so that, while the power of the Huguenots
lay in some of the country districts, the mobs of the great towns
were everywhere the instruments of the priests.

I have not considered it necessary to devote any large portion of
my story to details of the terrible massacres of the period, nor to
the atrocious persecutions to which the Huguenots were subjected;
but have, as usual, gone to the military events of the struggle for
its chief interest. For the particulars of these, I have relied
chiefly upon the collection of works of contemporary authors
published by Monsieur Zeller, of Paris; the Memoirs of Francois de
la Noue, and other French authorities.

G. A. Henty.

Chapter 1: Driven From Home.

In the year 1567 there were few towns in the southern counties of
England that did not contain a colony, more or less large, of
French Protestants. For thirty years the Huguenots had been exposed
to constant and cruel persecutions; many thousands had been
massacred by the soldiery, burned at the stake, or put to death
with dreadful tortures. Fifty thousand, it was calculated, h