she would receive no injury."[1000] So
deep was the impression of impending danger made upon Margaret's mind,
that she remained awake, she tells us, until morning, when her husband
arose, saying that he would go and divert himself with a game of tennis
until Charles should awake. After his departure, the Queen of Navarre,
relieved of her misgivings, as the night was now spent, ordered her maid
to lock her door, and composed herself to sleep.[1001]

Meantime the Protestant gentlemen who accompanied Navarre, and all the
others who lodged in the Louvre, had been disarmed by Nancay, captain of
the guard. In this defenceless condition ten or twelve of their number
were conducted, one by one, to the gate of the building. Here soldiers
stood in readiness, and despatched them with their halberds as they
successively made their appearance. Such was the fate of the brave
Pardaillan, of St. Martin, of Boursis, of Beauvais, former tutor of Henry
of Navarre, and of others; some of whom in a loud voice called upon
Charles, whom they saw at a window, an approving spectator of the
butchery, to remember the solemn pledges he had given them. M. de
Piles--that brave Huguenot captain, whose valor, if it did not save St.
Jean d'Angely in the third civil war, had at least detained the entire
Roman Catholic army for seven weeks before fortifications that were none
of the best, and rendered Moncontour a field barren of substantial
fruits[1002]--was the object of special hatred, and his conduct was
particularly remarked for its magnanimity. Observing among the bystanders
a Roman Catholic acquaintance in whose honor he might perhaps confide, he
stripped himself of his cloak, and would have handed it to him, with the
words: "De Piles makes you a present of this; remember hereafter the death
of him who is now so unjustly put to death!" "Mon capitaine," answered the
other, fearful of incurring the enmity of Catharine and Charles, "I am not
of the company of these persons. I thank you for your cloak; but I cannot
take it upon such conditions." The next moment M. de Piles fell, pierced
by the halberd of one of the archers of the guard. "These are the men,"
cried the murderers at their bloody work, "who resorted to violence, in
order to kill the king afterward."[1003] One of the victims marked out for
the slaughter escaped the death of his fellows. Margaret of Valois had not
been long asleep, when her slumbers were rudely disturbed by loud blows
struc