therefore, commanded that
quarter should not be given to a single Huguenot.[1011]

Nothing more was needed to inflame the popular hatred of the Huguenots,
nor to prepare the rabble for an indiscriminate slaughter of the
Protestants.

[Sidenote: La Rochefoucauld and Teligny fall.]

Among the earliest victims of this day of carnage was Count de la
Rochefoucauld. This witty and lively young noble had been in the Louvre
until a late hour on Saturday night, diverting himself with the king, with
whom he was a great favorite. Apparently in his anxiety to save La
Rochefoucauld's life, Charles invited, and even urged him, to spend the
night in the royal "garde-robe;" but the count, suspecting no danger,
insisted on returning to his lodgings, while the king reluctantly
abandoned his boon companion to his fate, rather than betray his secret.
Early awakened from his sleep at his lodgings by loud knocking at the door
and by demands for admission in the king's name, and seeing a band of
masked men enter, he recalled Charles's threat at parting, that he would
come and administer to him a whipping. The practical joke would not have
been unlike many of the mad antics of the royal jester, and La
Rochefoucauld, addressing himself to the person whom he supposed to be his
Majesty in disguise, begged him to treat him with humanity. His deception
was not long continued; for the maskers, after rifling his trunks, drew
him from his place of concealment and murdered him. His lifeless body was
dragged through the streets of Paris.[1012]

Teligny was, perhaps, even more unfortunate than the rest, because he
awoke too late to the fact that his own blind confidance in the word of a
faithless prince had been a chief instrument of involving his
father-in-law and his friends in destruction. He was among the first to
pay the penalty of his credulity. More than one of the parties sent to
destroy him, it is said, overcome by compassion for his youth and manly
beauty, or by respect for his graceful manners and extraordinary learning,
left their commission unexecuted. To avoid further peril, he ascended to
the roof, from which he made his way to an adjoining house; but he had not
gone far before he was seen and shot with an arquebuse by one of the Duke
of Anjou's guards.[1013]

[Sidenote: Self-defense of a few nobles.]

The Huguenots, attacked in the midst of their slumbers by the courtiers
and the soldiers of the royal guard,[1014] among whom were pr