pherd, they may, nevertheless, return. I do not read
in the Gospel that the shepherd should suffer the blood of his sheep to
be shed; on the contrary, I find there that he is bound to pour out his
own blood and give his own life for them. Take the order back, for it
shall never be executed so long as I live."[1139]

[Sidenote: Kind offices of Matignon at Caen and Alencon;]

[Sidenote: of Longueville and Gordes;]

Fortunately, there are other instances on record which are not apocryphal.
Monsieur de Matignon seems to have saved Caen and Alencon from becoming
the scenes of general massacres, and thus to have endeared himself to the
Protestants of both places.[1140] The Duke of Longueville prevented the
massacre from extending to his province of Picardy.[1141] Gordes, Governor
of Dauphiny, who had obtained advancement by the assistance of the
Montmorency influence, excused himself, when repeatedly urged to kill the
Huguenots, on the plea that Montbrun and others of their leaders were
alive and out of his reach, and that any attempt of the kind would only
lead to still greater difficulties. He therefore waited for more direct
instructions. When, in his letter of the fifth of September, in reference
to a clause in the king's letter just received, he stated that he had
received no verbal orders, but merely his letters of the twenty-second,
twenty-fourth, and twenty-eighth of August, Charles replied bidding him
give himself no solicitude as to them, as they were addressed only to a
few persons who happened to be near him,[1142] and enjoined upon him to
enforce the royal "declaration," and cause all murder and rapine to cease
in his government. Yet even here a number of Huguenots were imprisoned,
and a few lost their lives at Romans.[1143]

[Sidenote: of Tende in Provence.]

The manly boldness of the Comte de Tende is said in like manner to have
saved the Protestants of Provence. Receiving from the hands of La Mole, a
gentleman of Arles and servant of the Duke of Alencon, a letter from the
secret council ordering him to massacre all the Huguenots in his province,
the governor replied: "I do not believe that such commands have emanated
from the king's free will; but some of the members of his council have
usurped the royal authority in order to satisfy their own passions. I need
no more conclusive testimony than the letters which his Majesty sent me a
few days ago, by which he threw upon the Guises the blame for this
massacr