eded
in swimming across the river, and carried to Montgomery the first tidings
of the events of the last two hours. The count at once notified his
comrades, but, although there were among them those who had been most
urgent to leave Paris immediately after Maurevel's attack upon Coligny,
few of the nobles would harbor the thought that Charles was so lost to
honor as to have plotted the assassination of his invited guests. They
preferred to believe that the king was himself in danger through a sudden
commotion occasioned by the Guises. Acting upon this theory, the Huguenots
proceeded in a body toward the Seine, intending to cross and lend
assistance to the royal cause; but, on reaching the river's bank, they
were speedily undeceived. They saw a band of two hundred soldiers of the
royal guard coming toward them in boats, and discharging their arquebuses,
with cries of "_Tue! Tue!_"--"Kill! Kill!" Charles himself was descried at
a window of the Louvre, looking with approval upon the scene. There is
good authority also, for the story that, in his eagerness to exterminate
the Huguenots, Charles snatched an arquebuse from the hand of an
attendant, and fired at them, exclaiming, "Let us shoot, _mort Dieu_, they
are fleeing!"[1041]

Montgomery and his companions had by this time recognized their mistake,
and hesitated no longer to flee from the perfidious capital. They promptly
took to horse, and rode hard to reach Normandy and the sea. This part of
the prey was, however, too precious to be permitted to escape.
Accordingly, Guise, Aumale, the Bastard of Angouleme, and a number of
"gentilhommes tueurs," started in pursuit. But an accident prevented them
from overtaking the Huguenots. When Guise and his party reached the Porte
de Bussy[1042]--the gate leading from the city into the faubourg in which
the Protestants had been lodging--which was closed in accordance with the
king's orders, they found that they had been provided by mistake with the
wrong key, and the delay experienced in finding the right one afforded
Montgomery an advantage in the race, of which he made good use.[1043]

[Sidenote: The massacre continues.]

The carnival of blood, which had been so successfully ushered in on that
ill-starred Sunday of August, was maintained on the succeeding days with
little abatement of its frenzied excitement. Paris soon resembled a vast
charnel-house. The dead or dying lay in the open streets and squares, they
blocked the doors a