trusted servant that all his thoughts were bent on thwarting
Philip.[10] While the Christian navies were fighting at Lepanto, the
King of France was treating with the Turks. His menacing attitude in the
following year kept Don Juan in Sicilian waters, and made his victory
barren for Christendom. Encouraged by French protection, Venice withdrew
from the League. Even in Corsica there was a movement which men
interpreted as a prelude to the storm that France was raising against
the empire of Spain. Rome trembled in expectation of a Huguenot invasion
of Italy; for Charles was active in conciliating the Protestants both
abroad and at home. He married a daughter of the tolerant Emperor
Maximilian II.; and he carried on negotiations for the marriage of his
brother with Queen Elizabeth, not with any hope of success, but in order
to impress public opinion.[11] He made treaties of alliance, in quick
succession, with England, with the German Protestants, and with the
Prince of Orange. He determined that his brother Anjou, the champion of
the Catholics, of whom it was said that he had vowed to root out the
Protestants to a man,[12] should be banished to the throne of Poland.
Disregarding the threats and entreaties of the Pope, he gave his sister
in marriage to Navarre. By the peace of St. Germains the Huguenots had
secured, within certain limits, freedom from persecution and the liberty
of persecuting; so that Pius V. declared that France had been made the
slave of heretics. Coligny was now the most powerful man in the kingdom.
His scheme for closing the civil wars by an expedition for the conquest
of the Netherlands began to be put in motion. French auxiliaries
followed Lewis of Nassau into Mons; an army of Huguenots had already
gone to his assistance; another was being collected near the frontier,
and Coligny was preparing to take the command in a war which might
become a Protestant crusade, and which left the Catholics no hope of
victory. Meanwhile many hundreds of his officers followed him to Paris,
to attend the wedding which was to reconcile the factions, and cement
the peace of religion.

In the midst of those lofty designs and hopes, Coligny was struck down.
On the morning of the 22nd of August he was shot at and badly wounded.
Two days later he was killed; and a general attack was made on the
Huguenots of Paris. It lasted some weeks, and was imitated in about
twenty places. The chief provincial towns of France were among th