page,[1119] had been but slightly punished. Few of the guilty
failed to escape from the city, and the sole penalty suffered had been an
execution in effigy. These turbulent men had ever since that time been
watching an opportunity to return. They were now burning with a desire to
signalize their advent by bloody reprisals. Monsieur de Carouge, governor
of the city, was, however, a just and upright man,[1120] and they could
not hope for countenance in their plans from him. In fact, the
contemporary accounts inform us that he received from the king repeated
orders to exterminate the Huguenots of Rouen,[1121] which he could not
bring himself to execute, and that he sent messengers to remonstrate with
his Majesty who returned without succeeding in shaking his determination;
and hereupon the governor found himself obliged to shut himself up in the
castle, and permit the work which had been intrusted to others also, to
take its course.[1122] The secret records of parliament, however, reveal
the fact that Carouge received from Paris the order to leave Rouen and
visit other portions of Normandy, in order to restore the quiet and peace
which had been much disturbed of late. The real, though perhaps not the
ostensible object of this commission was to rid the city of the presence
of a magistrate whose well known integrity might render it futile to
attempt a massacre of the innocent. The records also show that, contrary
to the current report, both the municipal authorities and the parliament,
greatly alarmed at the danger menacing Rouen in case of his departure,
implored him to remain;[1123] but that the king's peremptory commands left
him no discretion, and he was obliged to leave the unhappy city to its
fate. The able historian of the Norman Parliament has rightly observed
that the governor, whether he left Rouen because he could not consent to
execute the barbarous injunctions that were sent him, or because his
character was so well known that the court was unwilling to intrust them
to him, is equally deserving of praise; and not without reason does this
writer claim similar respect for the judicial body which manifested its
desire to save everything, by retaining him at Rouen.[1124] Here, as
elsewhere, a great part of the Protestants had been arrested and placed in
the prisons, to shield them from popular violence. The governor believed
this to be the safest place for them; and at least one instance is known
of a father who was so