miral would have the command of her armies. It
was to be a war for Protestant dominance, with France at the head of
the Protestant interest in Europe, and Protestants in high offices at
home. Queen Catharine was resolved not to submit to their ascendency,
and she knew a short way out of it. There was a blood-feud of nine
years' standing between the House of Guise and the admiral who had
never succeeded in vindicating himself from the suspicion that he was
cognisant of the murder of the former Duke of Guise at the siege of
Orleans. They were glad to obtain their revenge; and one of their
bravos, after two days' watching, shot Coligny, wounding him severely
but not mortally. His friends, who were collected at Paris in large
numbers, insisted on satisfaction. Catharine then informed her son
that there could be no punishment and no inquiry, that the real
culprit was herself, and that if anything was done, by way of justice,
Guise would cast upon her all the ignominy of the attempt, all
the ignominy of its failure. Nothing could save her but the immediate
destruction of Coligny and his chief adherents, all conveniently
within reach. The king hesitated. Not from any scruple; for when the
Parliament had offered a reward for the capture of the admiral, he had
obliged them to add the words--alive or dead. But he hesitated to
surrender the hope of annexing Flanders, the constant and necessary
object of national policy.

Late in the day after that on which Coligny received his wound, the
civic authorities were warned to hold their men in readiness, when the
bell of the church near the Louvre, St. Germain of Auxerre, rang the
tocsin. This was the beginning of that alliance between the rural
aristocracy of Catholic France and the furious democracy of the
capital which laid the inauspicious foundation of the League. Their
objects were not entirely the same. The Parisian populace were
indiscriminately murderous and cruel, killing every Huguenot they
knew. The Spanish envoy wrote: "not a child has been spared. Blessed
be God!" Guise had his thoughts fixed on political enemies. Some
Protestant officers who lived beyond the Seine, hearing the tumult,
took horse and made off before it reached them, and were pursued by
Guise for many hours along the north road. When Guise gave up the
chase and returned to Paris, his house became a refuge for many
obscure persons from whom he had nothing to fear. In his absence, the
king