trocious crime recorded
in history. The Catholics and Protestants in France were nearly equally
divided in numbers, wealth and rank. The papal party, finding it
impossible to crush their foes by force of arms, resolved to exterminate
them by a simultaneous massacre. They feigned toleration and
reconciliation. The court of Paris invited all the leading Protestants
of the kingdom to the metropolis to celebrate the nuptials of Henry, the
young King of Navarre, with Margaret, sister of Charles IX., the
reigning monarch. Secret orders were dispatched all over the kingdom,
for the conspirators, secretly armed, at a given signal, by midnight, to
rise upon the Protestants, men, women and children, and utterly
exterminate them. "Let not one remain alive," said the King of France,
"to tell the story."

The deed was nearly accomplished. The king himself, from a window of the
Louvre, fired upon his Protestant subjects, as they fled in dismay
through the streets. In a few hours eighty thousand of the Protestants
were mangled corpses. Protestantism in France has never recovered from
this blow. Maximilian openly expressed his execration of this deed,
though the pope ordered Te Deums to be chanted at Rome in exultation
over the crime. Not long after this horrible slaughter, Charles IX. died
in mental torment. Henry of Valois, brother of the deceased king,
succeeded to the throne. He was at that time King of Poland. Returning
to France, through Vienna, he had an interview with Maximilian, who
addressed him in those memorable words which have often been quoted to
the honor of the Austrian sovereign:

"There is no crime greater in princes," said Maximilian, "than to
tyrannize over the consciences of their subjects. By shedding the blood
of heretics, far from honoring the common Father of all, they incur the
divine vengeance; and while they aspire, by such means, to crowns in
heaven, they justly expose themselves to the loss of their earthly
kingdoms."

Under the peaceful and humane reign of Ferdinand, Germany was kept in a
general state of tranquillity, while storms of war and woe were sweeping
over almost all other parts of Europe. During all his reign, Maximilian
II. was unwearied in his endeavors to promote harmony between the two
great religious parties, by trying, on the one hand, to induce the pope
to make reasonable concessions, and, on the other hand, to induce the
Protestants to moderate their demands. His first great endeavor