could satisfactorily amputate the wounded finger.
"My friends," said Coligny to Merlin, his minister, and to other friends,
"why do you weep? As for me, I think myself happy in having received these
wounds for the name of God." And when Merlin exhorted him "to thank God
for His mercy in preserving his mental faculties sound and entire, and to
continue to divert his thoughts and feelings from his assassin and his
wounds, and to turn them, as he was doing, from all things else to God,
since it was from His hands that he had received them," the admiral's
reply was, that sincerely and from the heart he forgave the person who had
wounded him, and those who had instigated him, holding it for certain that
it was beyond their power to injure him, since, should they even kill him,
death would be an assured passage to life.[954] Thus, with quiet
submission, and with edifying prayers which it would be too long to
insert, the Admiral de Coligny passed those hours which his enemies
subsequently, in their desperate attempts to justify or palliate the most
abominable of crimes, represented as given up to infamous plots against
king and state.

[Sidenote: He is visited by the king and his mother.]

That afternoon, between two and three o'clock, Charles visited the wounded
man, at the suggestion of Teligny and Damville; for Coligny had expressed
a desire to see the monarch, that he might communicate certain matters
which concerned him greatly, but of which he feared there was no one else
that would inform him.[955] The king came, accompanied by his mother, his
brothers, the Duke of Montpensier, Cardinal Bourbon, Marshals Damville,
Tavannes and Cosse, Count de Retz, and the younger Montmorencies, Thore
and Meru.[956] The interview was kind and reassuring. The admiral, who lay
upon his bed, heartily thanked the king for the honor he had deigned to do
him, and for the measures he had already taken in his behalf. And Charles
praised the patience and magnanimity exhibited by Coligny, and bade him be
of good courage. Then more important topics were introduced. There were
three points respecting which the admiral wished to speak to Charles. The
first was his own loyalty, which, however much it had been maligned by his
enemies, he desired now solemnly to reaffirm, in the presence of Him
before whose bar he might soon be called to stand, and he declared that
the sole cause of the hostility he had aroused was his attempt to set
bounds to the fury