was the
time to lay hands on them.[17] Duplessis-Mornay, the future chief of the
Huguenots, was so much oppressed with a sense of coming evil, that he
hardly ventured into the streets on the wedding-day. He warned the
Admiral of the general belief among their friends that the marriage
concealed a plot for their ruin, and that the festivities would end in
some horrible surprise.[18] Coligny was proof against suspicion. Several
of his followers left Paris, but he remained unmoved. At one moment the
excessive readiness to grant all his requests shook the confidence of
his son-in-law Teligny; but the doubt vanished so completely that
Teligny himself prevented the flight of his partisans after the attempt
on the Admiral's life. On the morning of the fatal day, Montgomery sent
word to Walsingham that Coligny was safe under protection of the King's
Guards, and that no further stir was to be apprehended.[19]

For many years foreign advisers had urged Catherine to make away with
these men. At first it was computed that half a dozen victims would be
enough.[20] That was the original estimate of Alva, at Bayonne.[21] When
the Duke of Ferrara was in France, in 1564, he proposed a larger
measure, and he repeated this advice by the mouth of every agent whom he
sent to France.[22] After the event, both Alva and Alfonso reminded
Catherine that she had done no more than follow their advice.[23] Alva's
letter explicitly confirms the popular notion which connects the
massacre with the conference of Bayonne; and it can no longer now be
doubted that La Roche-sur-Yon, on his deathbed, informed Coligny that
murderous resolutions had been taken on that occasion.[24] But the
Nuncio, Santa Croce, who was present, wrote to Cardinal Borromeo that
the Queen had indeed promised to punish the infraction of the Edict of
Pacification, but that this was a very different thing from undertaking
to extirpate heresy. Catherine affirmed that in this way the law could
reach all the Huguenot ministers; and Alva professed to believe her.[25]
Whatever studied ambiguity of language she may have used, the action of
1572 was uninfluenced by deliberations which were seven years old.

During the spring and summer the Tuscan agents diligently prepared their
master for what was to come. Petrucci wrote on the 19th of March that,
for a reason which he could not trust to paper, the marriage would
certainly take place, though not until the Huguenots had delivered up
thei