, and to the interests of the Pontifical See, but
accompanied by lugubrious vaticinations of their own, based upon the
tolerant course on which the king, under Coligny's guidance, had entered.
The Cardinal of Alessandria had made little account of the ring offered
him by Charles as a pledge of his sincerity, and preferred to wait for the
proof which the sequel might exhibit. The last defiant act of the French
monarch, in marrying his sister to a professed heretic, and within the
degrees of consanguinity prohibited by the Church, without obtaining the
Pope's dispensation, served to confirm all the sinister suspicions
entertained at Rome. Under these circumstances the papal astonishment and
rejoicing can well be imagined, when couriers sent by the Guises brought
the intelligence of the massacre to the Cardinal of Lorraine, and when
letters from the King of France and from the Nuncio Salviati in Paris to
the Pope himself confirmed its accuracy. Salviati's letters having been
read in the full consistory, on the sixth of September, the pontiff and
the cardinals resolved to go at once in solemn procession to the church of
San Marco, there to render thanks to God for the signal blessing conferred
upon the Roman See and all Christendom. A solemn mass was appointed for
the succeeding Monday, and a jubilee published for the whole Christian
world. In the evening the cannon from the Castle of San Angelo, and
firearms discharged here and there throughout the city, proclaimed to all
the joy felt for so signal a victory over the enemies of the Church. For
three successive nights there was a general illumination. Cardinal Orsini,
who seems to have been on the point of starting for France as a special
legate to urge the court to withdraw from the course of toleration, now
received different instructions, and was commissioned to congratulate
Charles, and to encourage him to pursue the path upon which he had
entered. Charles of Lorraine, as was natural, distinguished himself for
his demonstrations of joy. He made a present of one thousand crowns to the
bearer of such glad tidings.[1152] Under his auspices a brilliant
celebration of the event took place in the church of San Luigi de'
Francesi, which was magnificently decorated for the occasion. Gregory
himself, attended by his cardinals and bishops, by princes, foreign
ambassadors, and large numbers of nobles and of the people, walked thither
under the pontifical canopy, and high mass was sai