convinced of it that he brought thither his
Huguenot son, whom he might have sent out of the city.[1125]

The storm, so long delayed, broke out at last on Wednesday, the
seventeenth of September, and lasted four entire days. The gates were
closed, and the organized bands of murderers, under the leadership of
Laurent de Maromme, one of the most sanguinary of the turbulent men who
had returned from banishment, and of a priest, Claude Montereul, curate of
the church of St. Pierre, had undisputed possession of the city. First
they slaughtered like sheep the prisoners in the spacious "conciergerie"
of the parliament house and in the other prisons of the city. Next they
burst into the houses, and nearly every atrocity which history is
compelled at any time reluctantly to chronicle, was perpetrated on
unresisting men, on tender women, on unoffending children. Not less than
five hundred persons, and perhaps even more, perished in a butchery, whose
details I gladly pass over in silence.[1126] Grim humor and charity were
incongruously mingled with the most brutal inhumanity. The assassins
jocularly denominated their work one of "accommodating" their
victims;[1127] and the clothes of the Protestants--whose bodies were
buried in great ditches outside of the Porte Cauchoise--after having been
carefully washed, were piously distributed among the poor.[1128] The
tragedy finished, the farce of an investigation was instituted by the
officers of justice, but no punishment was ever inflicted upon any Roman
Catholic, other than that which could be recognized in the retributive
judgments befalling a few of the most notable, and especially the cruel
Maromme, at the hand of God.[1129]

[Sidenote: At Toulouse.]

The previous character of Toulouse, as among the most sanguinary cities of
France, was already sufficiently well established. If behind some of the
rest on this occasion in the number of victims, Toulouse was inferior only
because its previous massacres had rendered it a suspicious place of
sojourn in the eyes of the Huguenots. Here, too, notwithstanding deceitful
proclamations guaranteeing safety and protection, the Protestants were
gathered into the public prisons and jails attached to monasteries; and
after having been reserved for several weeks, on receipt of orders from
Paris were butchered to the number of two or three hundred. Among others,
some Protestant members of parliament were hung in their long red gowns to
the branche