the streets, had at first felt no alarm, so implicitly
did he rely upon the protestations of Charles, so confident was he that
Cosseins and his guards would readily quell any rising of the
Parisians.[986] But now some one knocks at the outer door, and demands an
entrance in the king's name. Word is given to La Bonne, who at once
descends and unlocks. It is Cosseins, followed by the soldiers whom he
commands. No sooner does he pass the threshold than he stabs La Bonne with
his dagger. Next he seeks the admiral's room, but it is not easy to reach
it, for the brave Swiss, even at the risk of their own lives, defend first
the door leading to the stairs, and then the stairs themselves. And now
Coligny could no longer doubt the meaning of the uproar. He rose from his
bed, and, wrapping his dressing-gown about him, asked his chaplain to
pray; and while Merlin endeavored to fulfil his request, he himself in
audible petitions invoked Jesus Christ as his God and Saviour, and
committed to His hands again the soul he had received from Him. It was
then that the person to Whom we are indebted for this account--and he can
scarcely have been another than Cornaton--rushed into the room. When Pare
asked him what the disturbance imported, he turned to the admiral and
said: "My lord, it is God that is calling us to Himself! The house has
been forced, and we have no means of resistance!" To whom the admiral,
unmoved by fear, and even, as all who saw him testified, without the least
change of countenance, replied: "For a long time have I kept myself in
readiness for death. As for you, save yourselves, if you can. It were in
vain for you to attempt to save my life. I commend my soul to the mercy of
God." Obedient to his directions, all that were with him, save Nicholas
Muss or de la Mouche, his faithful German interpreter, fled to the roof,
and escaped under cover of the darkness.

One of Coligny's Swiss guards had been shot at the foot of the stairs.
When Cosseins had removed the barricade of boxes that had been erected
farther up, the Swiss in his own company, whose uniform of green, white,
and black, showed them to belong to the Duke of Anjou, found their
countrymen on the other side, but did them no harm. Cosseins following
them, however, no sooner saw these armed men, than he ordered his
arquebusiers to shoot, and one of them fell dead. It was a German follower
of Guise, named Besme, who first reached and entered Coligny's chamber,
and wh