n his mind that he excitedly exclaimed, 'Well, then,
kill them! kill them all, that not a single Huguenot may live to
reproach me!' This frantic remark was construed as an order.

"The massacre was appointed to begin on St. Bartholomew's Eve, at the
tolling of a bell. The young king was fearfully nervous and agitated
during the preceding day. Just before the fatal hour, his conscience
had so affected his better feelings, that he despatched orders to the
Duc de Guise, countermanding the slaughter. The duke received the
message as he was in the act of mounting his horse to lead the
assassins.

"'_Il est trop tard!_' 'It is too late!' said the duke to the bearer,
and at once rode away.

[Illustration: COLIGNY.]

"It was a still night, August 24, 1572. The defenceless Huguenots
were unsuspicious of danger, while armed assassins were lurking in
every house. At last the heavy clang of a great bell fell on the
breathless evening air, and the slaughter began.

"All that summer night the streets ran with blood. The young and the
old, the daughter, the mother, the nobleman and the beggar,--all who
bore the name of Huguenot,--were cut off without mercy. None were
spared. Even women murdered women, and children, it is said, impelled
by the maddening example, applied the dagger to other children in
their beds. The streets of Paris ran with blood. From thirty to
seventy thousand persons were slain in the city and in the towns of
France on this night and a few days following it.

"The new Queen of Navarre, Marguerite de Valois, had gone to bed on
the fatal eve, by the express order of Catharine. Just as she was
going to sleep, she says, a man knocked with hands and feet at her
door, shouting 'Navarre! Navarre!' The nurse, thinking it was the
king, opened the door. A Protestant gentleman, bleeding, and pursued
by four archers, threw himself on her bed for protection. The archers
rushed after him, but were stayed by the appearance of the captain of
the guard. The young queen hid the wounded Huguenot in one of her
closets, and cared for him until he was able to escape. Such scenes
took place in nearly all the houses of the nobility.

"Coligny was rudely murdered, and his body thrown out of the window of
his apartments into the courtyard, where it is said to have been
kicked by the Duc de Guise. The young king was in a court of the
palace of the Louvre, with his mother, when the great bell began to
toll. At first he trembled with