vish, we are less inclined to commiserate the difficulty of
his position than to pity the ingenuous historian who strives to touch
leniently upon a fault of his father which he can neither conceal nor
palliate.[1061] We may credit his assertion that his father remonstrated
with the king in private with respect to that for which he had praised him
in public, and that Christopher de Thou marked his detestation of that
ill-starred day by applying to it the lines of Statius:

Excidat illa dies aevo, ne postera credant
Saecula: nos certe taceamus, et obruta multa
Nocte tegi propriae patiamur crimina gentis.

But we cannot forget that this was not the first time that Christopher de
Thou "accommodated" his words or his actions to the supposed "exigencies
of the times." He was a member of that commission that sentenced Louis of
Conde to death, in deference to the desires of another king and his
uncles, the Guises; and the prince would doubtless have lost his head in
consequence, but for the sudden death of Francis the Second. Since that
time he had repeatedly acquiesced in the bloody sentences of the Parisian
parliament. His voice was never heard opposing the proscription instituted
in the late civil wars, even in the case of the atrocious sentence against
Gaspard de Coligny. If we concede to his son that no one was of a less
sanguinary or of a milder disposition than President De Thou, we must also
insist that few judges on the bench displayed less magnanimity or
conscientiousness.[1062]

[Sidenote: Ineffectual effort to inculpate Coligny.]

But it was not a simple congratulatory address that Charles, or his
mother, required of his parliament. Tyrannical power is rarely satisfied
with the mere acquiescence of servile judges; it demands, and ordinarily
obtains from them, a positive indorsement of its schemes of successful
villainy. It was necessary--especially, as we shall see later, after the
cry of horror was heard that rose toward heaven from all parts of Europe
on receipt of the tidings of the massacre in Paris and elsewhere--to
palliate its atrocity by affixing to the slain Huguenots, and above all to
Coligny, a note of rebellious and murderous designs against the king and
the royal family. And here again the Parliament of Paris was as pliant as
its rulers could desire. Coligny's papers, both in Paris and at
Chatillon-sur-Loing, were subjected to close scrutiny; but nothing could
be discovered to warrant the