em.

Judged by its immediate result, the massacre of St. Bartholomew was a
measure weakly planned and irresolutely executed, which deprived
Protestantism of its political leaders, and left it for a time to the
control of zealots. There is no evidence to make it probable that more
than seven thousand victims perished. Judged by later events, it was the
beginning of a vast change in the conflict of the churches. At first it
was believed that a hundred thousand Huguenots had fallen. It was said
that the survivors were abjuring by thousands,[13] that the children of
the slain were made Catholics, that those whom the priest had admitted
to absolution and communion were nevertheless put to death.[14] Men who
were far beyond the reach of the French Government lost their faith in a
religion which Providence had visited with so tremendous a judgment;[15]
and foreign princes took heart to employ severities which could excite
no horror after the scenes in France.

Contemporaries were persuaded that the Huguenots had been flattered and
their policy adopted only for their destruction, and that the murder of
Coligny and his followers was a long premeditated crime. Catholics and
Protestants vied with each other in detecting proofs of that which they
variously esteemed a sign of supernatural inspiration or of diabolical
depravity. In the last forty years a different opinion has prevailed. It
has been deemed more probable, more consistent with testimony and with
the position of affairs at the time, that Coligny succeeded in acquiring
extraordinary influence over the mind of Charles, that his advice really
predominated, and that the sanguinary resolution was suddenly embraced
by his adversaries as the last means of regaining power. This opinion is
made plausible by many facts. It is supported by several writers who
were then living, and by the document known as the Confession of Anjou.
The best authorities of the present day are nearly unanimous in
rejecting premeditation.

The evidence on the opposite side is stronger than they suppose. The
doom which awaited the Huguenots had been long expected and often
foretold. People at a distance, Monluc in Languedoc, and the Protestant
Mylius in Italy, drew the same inference from the news that came from
the court. Strangers meeting on the road discussed the infatuation of
the Admiral.[16] Letters brought from Rome to the Emperor the
significant intimation that the birds were all caged, and now