signal that the work of death
had begun. Their consciences, no less than their impatience, made it
impossible for them to sit calmly within the palace. Anjou's narrative
continues: "While we were pondering over the events and the consequences
of such a mighty enterprise, of which, to tell the truth, we had not
thought much until then, we heard a pistol shot. The sound produced such
an effect upon all three of us that it confounded our senses and
deprived us of judgment. We were smitten with terror and apprehension of
the great disorders about to be perpetrated." Catherine, who was a timid
woman, adds Tavannes, would willingly have recalled her orders, and with
that intent hastily despatched a gentleman to the Duke of Guise
expressly desiring him to return and attempt nothing against the
admiral. "It is too late," was the answer brought back; "the admiral is
dead"--a statement at variance with other accounts. "Thereupon,"
continues Anjou, "we returned to our former deliberations, and let
things take their course."

Between three and four in the morning the noise of horses and measured
tramp of foot-soldiers broke the silence of the narrow street in which
Coligny lay wounded. It was the murderers seeking their victims: they
were Henry of Guise with his uncle the Duke of Aumale, the bastard of
Angouleme, and the Duke of Nevers, with other foreigners, Italian and
Swiss, namely, Fesinghi (or Tosinghi) and his nephew Antonio, Captain
Petrucci, Captain Studer of Winkelbach with his soldiers, Martin Koch of
Freyberg, Conrad Burg, Leonard Grunenfelder of Glaris, and Carl
Dianowitz, surnamed Behm (the Bohemian?). There were, besides, one
Captain Attin, in the household of Aumale, and Sarlabous, a renegade
Huguenot and commandant of Havre. It is well to record the names even of
these obscure individuals who stained their hands in the best blood of
France. De Cosseins, too, was there with his guard, some of whom he
posted with their arquebuses opposite the windows of Coligny's hotel,
that none might escape.

Presently there was a loud knock at the outer gate--"Open in the King's
name." La Bonne, imagining it to be a message from the Louvre, hastened
with the keys, withdrew the bolt, and was immediately butchered by the
assassins who rushed into the house. The alarmed domestics ran half
awake to see what was the uproar: some were killed outright, others
escaped upstairs, closing the door at the foot and placing some
furniture agai