gers to be incurred by assuming the responsibility
of a massacre; for of all the "echevins," only two opposed the violent
measures of their associates. The written protest which they insisted upon
entering on the official records is still extant.[1104] The first tidings
of the wounding of Coligny by Maurevel reached Lyons on Wednesday morning,
the twenty-seventh of August, in a letter from Charles the Ninth to
Governor Mandelot, similar in tenor to those which were despatched to
every other part of France.[1105] Although the king spoke only of
displeasure at the outrage, and of his determination to avenge it, the
populace interpreted the event according to their wishes, and instantly
circulated reports of the murder of the admiral and all his adherents. The
Roman Catholics, long discontented with the toleration extended to those
who dissented from the creed of the dominant church, were jubilant and
menacing; the Protestants were disheartened, but exhibited a self-control
only to be accounted for by the long years of oppression which had
wellnigh broken their spirit. The next day came the news of the events of
Sunday, and, in the afternoon, letters from Masso and Rubys, prominent
citizens of Lyons then at Paris, who said that they had been instructed by
the king to order the authorities to copy the example of the capital. The
fanatical party was now clamorous; but Mandelot, cautious and politic,
would act on no such instructions, although he had taken the precaution of
closing the gates, and of commanding the Protestants, on pain of
imprisonment, to remain in their houses. Friday morning came, and with it
the arrival of Sieur du Peyrat from court, bearing the royal letter
written on the day of the massacre, in which it was represented as the
exclusive work of the Guises, and the king strenuously enjoined the
maintenance of the Edict of Pacification.[1106] These were the _public_
instructions sent to Mandelot; but they were not all. There is a
suspicious little postscript to the letter: "Monsieur de Mandelot, you
will give credit to the bearer respecting the matter which I have charged
him to tell you."[1107] What these verbal orders were which the king, not
venturing to commit to paper, commissioned Du Peyrat to communicate, the
reply of the governor himself distinctly reveals; it was the arrest of the
Protestants and the confiscation of their property.[1108] Still more
perplexed as to what course to pursue, Mandelot held a