is brief hour. There is eternity to right the oppressed.

Notwithstanding this general and awful massacre, the Protestants were
far from being exterminated. Several nobles, surrounded by their
retainers in their distant castles, suspicious of treachery, had
refused to go to Paris to attend the wedding of Henry and Marguerite.
Others who had gone to Paris, alarmed by the attack upon Admiral
Coligni, immediately retired to their homes. Some concealed themselves
in garrets, cellars, and wells until the massacre was over. As has
been stated, in some towns the governors refused to engage in the
merciless butchery, and in others the Protestants had the majority,
and with their own arms could defend themselves within the walls which
their own troops garrisoned.

Though, in the first panic caused by the dreadful slaughter, the
Protestants made no resistance, but either surrendered themselves
submissively to the sword of the assassin, or sought safety in
concealment or flight, soon indignation took the place of fear. Those
who had fled from the kingdom to Protestant states rallied together.
The survivors in France began to count their numbers and marshal their
forces for self-preservation. From every part of Protestant Europe a
cry of horror and execration simultaneously arose in view of this
crime of unparalleled enormity. In many places the Catholics
themselves seemed appalled in contemplation of the deed they had
perpetrated. Words of sympathy were sent to these martyrs to a pure
faith from many of the Protestant kingdoms, with pledges of determined
and efficient aid. The Protestants rapidly gained courage. From all
the country, they flocked into those walled towns which still
remained in their power.

As the fugitives from France, emaciate, pale, and woe-stricken, with
tattered and dusty garb, recited in England, Switzerland, and Germany
the horrid story of the massacre, the hearts of their auditors were
frozen with horror. In Geneva a day of fasting and prayer was
instituted, which is observed even to the present day. In Scotland
every church resounded with the thrilling tale; and Knox, whose
inflexible spirit was nerved for those iron times, exclaimed, in
language of prophetic nerve,

"Sentence has gone forth against that murderer, the King of France,
and the vengeance of God will never be withdrawn from his house. His
name shall be held in everlasting execration."

The French court, alarmed by the indignation it had