. Balls,
pageants, and theatricals followed in the evening, and there was hardly
a prince or noble in France who was not carried away by these seductions
into darker habits of profligacy. Jeanne of Navarre dreaded them for her
son Henry, whom she kept as long as possible under training in religion,
learning, and hardy habits, in the mountains of Bearn; and when
Catherine tried to draw him to court by proposing a marriage between him
and her youngest daughter Margaret, Jeanne left him at home, and went
herself to court. Catherine tried in vain to bend her will or discover
her secrets, and her death, early in 1572, while still at court, was
attributed to the queen-mother.

7. Massacre of St. Bartholomew (1572).--Jeanne's son Henry was
immediately summoned to conclude the marriage, and came attended by all
the most distinguished Huguenots, though the more wary of them remained
at home, and the Baron of Rosny said, "If that wedding takes place the
favours will be crimson." The Duke of Guise seems to have resolved on
taking this opportunity of revenging himself for his father's murder,
but the queen-mother was undecided until she found that her son Charles,
who had been bidden to cajole and talk over the Huguenot chiefs, had
been attracted by their honesty and uprightness, and was ready to throw
himself into their hands, and escape from hers. An abortive attempt on
Guise's part to murder the Admiral Coligny led to all the Huguenots
going about armed, and making demonstrations which alarmed both the
queen and the people of Paris. Guise and the Duke of Anjou were,
therefore, allowed to work their will, and to rouse the bloodthirstiness
of the Paris mob. At midnight of the 24th of August, 1572, St.
Bartholomew's night, the bell of the church of St. Germain l'Auxerrois
began to ring, and the slaughter was begun by men distinguished by a
white sleeve. The king sheltered his Huguenot surgeon and nurse in his
room. The young King of Navarre and Prince of Conde were threatened into
conforming to the Church, but every other Huguenot who could be found
was massacred, from Coligny, who was slain kneeling in his bedroom by
the followers of Guise, down to the poorest and youngest, and the
streets resounded with the cry, "Kill! kill!" In every city where royal
troops and Guisard partisans had been living among Huguenots, the same
hideous work took place for three days, sparing neither age nor sex. How
many thousands died, it is impossib