es, and lords of the court--gentlemen, archers of the king's
body-guard, soldiers of his suite, as well as all sorts of people mingled
with them and under their authority--were plundering and pillaging many
houses and killing many persons in the streets." This was certainly no
news to Charles; but as he desired, now that the massacre had begun, not
to enrich the Roman Catholic inhabitants of Paris, but to fill his own
coffers, he deemed it best to prohibit any further action on their part,
and to leave the rest of the work to his own commissioned servants.
Accordingly the municipal authorities were directed to ride through the
city with all the troops at their disposal, and to see to it, both by day
and night, that the bloodshed and robbery should cease. "Sir William
Guerrier"--thus runs one of the commissions to the "quarteniers" issued
from the central bureau of the city, in pursuance of these
directions--"give commandment to all burgesses and inhabitants of your
quarter, who to-day have taken up arms _according to the king's order_, to
lay them down, and to retire and remain quietly in their houses, ...
according to the king's command conveyed to us by my Lord of Nevers." And
this document is accompanied with another, of the same date, applying to
soldiers of the guard or others, who should pillage or maltreat
Protestants, and threatening them with punishment. Such a proclamation, it
is well known, was made by trumpet at about five o'clock that afternoon.
The registers tell us that the instructions were so well carried out that
all disorder "was at once appeased and ceased." They contain, however, a
distinct refutation of this falsehood, in the frequent repetition of
similar orders and the variety of forms in which the same statements are
made on subsequent days. Again and again does the king direct that
soldiers be placed at the head of every street to prevent robbery and
murder;[1048] the guards either were never posted, or, as is more likely,
became foremost in the work which they were sent to repress. Indeed, the
instructions given on Monday to visit all the houses in the city and its
suburbs where there were any Protestants, and obtain their names and
surnames,[1049] afforded an opportunity which was not permitted to slip by
unimproved, for the exaction of heavy bribes, as well as for more open
plunder and violence. So notorious was it, nearly a week after the
butchery began, that the massacre had only abated in in