e to the Duke of Alva: "I must give you the
answer of Christ to the disciples of St. John, 'Ite et nuntiate quae
vidistis et audivistis; caeci vident, claudi ambulant, leprosi
mundantur.'" And she added, "Beatus qui non fuerit in me
scandalizatus."[78]

If mere fanaticism had been their motive, the men who were most active
in the massacre would not have spared so many lives. While Guise was
galloping after Ferrieres and Montgomery, who had taken horse betimes,
and made for the coast, his house at Paris was crowded with families
belonging to the proscribed faith, and strangers to him. A young girl
who was amongst them has described his return, when he sent for the
children, spoke to them kindly, and gave orders that they should be well
treated as long as his roof sheltered them.[79] Protestants even spoke
of him as a humane and chivalrous enemy.[80] Nevers was considered to
have disgraced himself by the number of those whom he enabled to
escape.[81] The Nuncio was shocked at their ill-timed generosity. He
reported to Rome that the only one who had acted in the spirit of a
Christian, and had refrained from mercy, was the King; while the other
princes, who pretended to be good Catholics, and to deserve the favour
of the Pope, had striven, one and all, to save as many Huguenots as they
could.[82]

The worst criminals were not the men who did the deed. The crime of mobs
and courtiers, infuriated by the lust of vengeance and of power, is not
so strange a portent as the exultation of peaceful men, influenced by no
present injury or momentary rage, but by the permanent and incurable
perversion of moral sense wrought by a distorted piety.

Philip II., who had long suspected the court of France, was at once
relieved from the dread which had oppressed him, and betrayed an excess
of joy foreign to his phlegmatic nature.[83] He immediately sent six
thousand crowns to the murderer of Coligny.[84] He persuaded himself
that the breach between France and her allies was irreparable, that
Charles would now be driven to seek his friendship, and that the
Netherlands were out of danger.[85] He listened readily to the French
ambassador, who assured him that his court had never swerved from the
line of Catholic policy, but had intended all along to effect this great
change.[86] Ayamonte carried his congratulations to Paris, and pretended
that his master had been in the secret. It suited Philip that this
should be believed by Protestant prin