ussion, in
secret council, at the palace, by this very Catharine and Charles,
whether Henry, the husband of the daughter of the one and of the
sister of the other, should be included with the rest of the
Protestants in the massacre which they were plotting. Charles
manifested some reluctance thus treacherously to take the life of his
early playmate and friend, his brother-in-law, and his invited guest.
It was, after much deliberation, decided to protect him from the
general slaughter to which his friends were destined.

The king sent for some of the leading officers of his troops, and
commanded them immediately, but secretly, to send his agents through
every section of the city, to arm the Roman Catholic citizens, and
assemble them, at midnight, in front of the Hotel de Ville.

The energetic Duke of Guise, who had acquired much notoriety by the
sanguinary spirit with which he had persecuted the Protestants, was to
take the lead of the carnage. To prevent mistakes in the confusion of
the night, he had issued secret orders for all the Catholics "to wear
a white cross on the hat, and to bind a piece of white cloth around
the arm." In the darkest hour of the night, when all the sentinels of
vigilance and all the powers of resistance should be most effectually
disarmed by sleep, the alarm-bell, from the tower of the Palace of
Justice, was to toll the signal for the indiscriminate massacre of the
Protestants. The bullet and the dagger were to be every where
employed, and men, women, and children were to be cut down without
mercy. With a very few individual exceptions, none were to be left to
avenge the deed. Large bodies of troops, who hated the Protestants
with that implacable bitterness which the most sanguinary wars of many
years had engendered, had been called into the city, and they,
familiar with deeds of blood, were to commence the slaughter. All good
citizens were enjoined, as they loved their Savior, to aid in the
extermination of the enemies of the Church of Rome. Thus, it was
declared, God would be glorified and the best interests of man
promoted. The spirit of the age was in harmony with the act, and it
can not be doubted that there were those who had been so instructed by
their spiritual guides that they truly believed that by this sacrifice
they were doing God service.

The conspiracy extended throughout all the provinces of France. The
storm was to burst, at the same moment, upon the unsuspecting victims
in