act that neither Charles IX nor his mother Catherine were in
any sense bigoted Catholics, or even of a normal religious sincerity.

(c) The lack of concerted action--so far as the kingdom generally was
concerned--in the execution of the massacre.

A subsidiary disproof lies in the attempted assassination of Coligny two
days before the massacre, an act which might, by putting the Huguenots
on their guard, have caused the miscarriage of the entire plan--had it
existed.

It must be borne in mind that for years France had been divided by
religious differences into two camps, and that civil war between
Catholic and Huguenot had ravaged and distracted the country. At
the head of the Protestant party stood that fine soldier Gaspard de
Chatillon, Admiral de Coligny, virtually the Protestant King of
France, a man who raised armies, maintaining them by taxes levied upon
Protestant subjects, and treated with Charles IX as prince with prince.
At the head of the Catholic party--the other imperium in imperio--stood
the Duke of Guise. The third and weakest party in the State, serving, as
it seemed, little purpose beyond that of holding the scales between the
other turbulent two, was the party of the King.

The motives and events that precipitated the massacre are set forth in
the narration of the King's brother, the Duke of Anjou (afterwards
Henri III). It was made by him to Miron, his physician and confidential
servant in Cracow, when he ruled there later as King of Poland, under
circumstances which place it beyond suspicion of being intended to serve
ulterior aims. For partial corroboration, and for other details of the
massacre itself, we have the narratives, among others, of Sully, who was
then a young man in the train of the King of Navarre, and of Lusignan,
a gentleman of the Admiral's household. We shall closely follow these in
our reconstruction of the event and its immediate causes.

The gay chatter of the gallants and ladies thronging the long gallery
of the Louvre sank and murmured into silence, and a movement was made to
yield a free passage to the King, who had suddenly made his appearance
leaning affectionately upon the shoulder of the Admiral de Coligny.

The Duke of Anjou, a slender, graceful young man in a gold-embroidered
suit of violet, forgot the interest he was taking in his beautiful
hands to bend lower over the handsome Madame de Nemours what time the
unfriendly eyes of both were turned upon the Admiral.