ad. la Regente venuta in differenza di lui, risolvendosi pochi
giorni prima, gli la fece tirare, e senza saputa del Re, ma con
participatione di M. di Angiu, di Mad. de Nemours, e di M. di Guisa suo
figlio; e se moriva subito non si ammazzava altri," etc. Salviati, desp.
of Sept. 22, 1572, _apud_ Mackintosh, Hist. of England, vol. iii.,
Appendix K. It will be remembered that these despatches were given to Sir
James Mackintosh by M. de Chateaubriand, who had obtained them from the
Vatican. I need not say how much more trustworthy are the secret
despatches of one so well informed as the nuncio, than the sensational
"Stratagema" of Capilupi, which pretends (ed. of 1574, p. 26) that
_Charles_ placed Maurevel in the house from which he shot at Coligny, on
discovering that the admiral had formed the plan of firing Paris the next
night. To believe these champions of orthodoxy, the Huguenots were born
with a special passion for incendiary exploits. It does not seem to strike
them that burning and pillaging Paris would not be likely to appear to
Coligny a probable means of furthering the war in Flanders. Besides, what
need is there of any such Huguenot plot, even according to Capilupi's own
view, since he carries back the premeditation of the massacre on the part
of Charles at least four years?

[944] Le Reveille-Matin des Francois, etc., Archives curieuses, vii. 173;
Eusebii Philadelphi Dialogi (1574), i. 33. It has been customary to
interpret this language and similar expressions as covertly referring to
the massacre which was then four days off. But this seems absurd.
Certainly, if Charles was privy to the plan for Coligny's murder, he must
have expected him to be killed on Friday--that is, within less than two
days. If so, what peculiar significance in the _four_ days? For, if a
general massacre had been at first contemplated, no interval of two days
would have been allowed. Everybody must have known that if the arquebuse
shot had done its work, and Coligny had been killed on the spot, every
Huguenot would have been far from the walls of Paris long before Sunday.
As it was, it was only the admiral's confidence, and the impossibility of
moving him with safety, that detained them.

[945] Capilupi, Lo stratagema di Carlo IX., 1574. Orig. ed., pp. 24, 25,
and the concurrent French version, pp. 42, 43. This version is
incorporated _verbatim_ in the Memoires de l'estat de France sous Charles
IX. (Archives curieuses), vii. 89, 90.