is,
he said, was no duty of his office, and he would consent to perform it
only when all the forms of law should have been observed. Other persons
were found more pliable, and, under the leadership of one Perremet, the
bloody scenes of the prison of Meaux were re-enacted, on Thursday, the
fourth day of September, in that of Troyes. How many were the victims we
know not; we have, however, the names of over thirty, apparently the most
prominent of the number. Others were assassinated in the streets. At last,
when all had been done that malice could effect, the king's declaration,
which promised protection to the Huguenots, was published on Friday, the
fifth of September.[1092]

[Sidenote: The great bloodshed at Orleans.]

In Orleans, a city once the headquarters of the Huguenots, where their
iconoclastic assaults upon the churches during the first civil war had
left permanent memorials of their former supremacy, the massacre assumed
the largest proportions. One of the king's court preachers, Arnauld
Sorbin, better known as M. de Sainte Foy, had written from Paris letters
instigating the inhabitants of Orleans to imitate the example of the
capital, and the letters came to hand with the earliest tidings of the
Parisian massacre. The first murder took place on Monday. M. de Champeaux,
a royal counsellor and a Protestant, who as yet was in ignorance of the
events of St. Bartholomew's Day, received late on Monday the visit of
Tessier, surnamed La Court, the leader of the assassins of Orleans, and
some of his followers. Imagining it to be a friendly call--for they were
acquaintances--Champeaux received them courteously, and invited them to
sup with him. The meal over, his guests recounted the story of the tragic
occurrence at Paris, and, before he was well over his surprise and horror,
asked him for his purse. The unhappy host, still mistaking the character
of those whom he had entertained, at first regarded the demand as a
pleasantry; but when he had been convinced of his error and had complied,
his treacherous visitors instantly stabbed him to death in his very
dining-room.[1093] The general butchery began on Tuesday night, in the
neighborhood of the ramparts, where the Protestants were most numerous,
and from Wednesday to Saturday there was no intermission in the slaughter.
Here, more even than elsewhere, the murderers distinguished themselves by
their profanity and their undisguised hatred of the Protestant faith and
worsh