tholic princes of Germany would prevent the
Protestants beyond the Rhine from sending succor to their French
brethren. The Roman Catholic cantons of Switzerland, with the assistance
of the Pope, would engage the Protestant cantons. To the Duke of Savoy,
supported by Philip and the Italian dukes, was intrusted the welcome
task of destroying utterly the nest of heresy--Geneva. Here should the
executioner revel in the blood of his victims. Not an inhabitant was to
escape. All, without respect to age or sex, were to be slain with the
sword or drowned in the lake, as an evidence that divine retribution had
compensated for the delay by the severity of the punishment, causing the
children to bear, as an example memorable to all time, the penalty of
the wickedness of their fathers. The fruits of the French confiscations
would be applied as a loan to the expenses of the crusade in Germany,
where the united forces of France, the emperor, and the Catholic princes
would subjugate the followers of Luther, as they had already
exterminated the disciples of Calvin.

Such are the reported details of a plan almost too gross for belief. It
is true that the existence of similar schemes--less extensive, perhaps,
but equally sanguinary, and, in the light of history, not much less
absurd--formed by the adherents of the papacy during the sixteenth
century, is too well attested to admit of doubt. But the historical
difficulties surrounding this document have never yet been
satisfactorily explained, and the student of the Huguenot annals must
still content himself with regarding it as a summary of reports current
within the first two years of the reign of Charles the Ninth, respecting
the secret designs of the Triumvirs, rather than as an authorized
statement of their intentions.[1023]

[Sidenote: Massacres in holy week.]

While the intrigues of the Duchess of Valentinois and other bigots had
been successful at court, the enemies of the Huguenots had not been
idle in other parts of France. Fearful of the effect which the apparent
union between Catharine and the King of Navarre might produce in
accelerating the advance of the reformed doctrines, they resolved to
stir up the zeal of the populace--that portion of the people that
retained the strongest devotion for the traditional faith--in the
country as well as in the capital.[1024] Holy week furnished
opportunities that were eagerly embraced. Fanatical priests and monks
wrought up the excitabl