day were guilty, why were they not apprehended, imprisoned, interrogated,
and judged, but so much made of as might be, within two hours of the
assumation? Is that the manner to handle men either culpable or suspected?
So is the journeyer slain by the robber; so is the hen of the fox; so is
the hind of the lion; so Abel of Cain; so the innocent of the wicked; so
Abner of Joab. But grant they were guilty--they dreamt treason that night
in their sleep; what did the innocent men, women, and children at Lyons?
What did the sucking children and their mothers at Roan (Rouen) deserve?
at Cane (Caen)? at Rochel?... Will God, think you, still sleep? Will not
their blood ask vengeance; shall not the earth be accursed that hath
sucked up the innocent blood poured out like water upon it?... I am glad
you shall come home, and would wish you were at home, out of that country
so contaminate with innocent blood, that the sun cannot look upon it but
to prognosticate the wrath and vengeance of God. The ruin and desolation
of Jerusalem could not come till all the Christians were either killed
there or expelled thence."[1192]

[Sidenote: Catharine's unsuccessful representations.]

Neither Catharine nor Charles was insensible to the impression made upon
the English court by the French atrocities. It became important to
furnish, if possible, some more convincing proofs of the existence of a
Huguenot plot, since the assurances of both monarch and ambassador had
lost all weight. The papers of the admiral, both in Paris and in his
castle of Chatillon-sur-Loing, had been searched in vain for anything
which, even after the murder, might seem to justify the king in violating
his pledged word and every principle of law and right. Not a scrap of a
letter could be found inculpating him. Not the slightest approach to a
hint that it would be well to make way with the king or any of the royal
family. The most private manuscripts of the admiral, unlike those of many
courtiers even in our own day, contained not a disrespectful expression,
nothing that could be twisted into a mark of disaffection or treason.
Catharine could lay her hand upon nothing that suited her purpose better
than the paper, which, as stated in a former chapter,[1193] she showed to
Walsingham, wherein he advised Charles to keep Elizabeth and Philip "as
low as he could, as a thing that tended much to the safety and maintenance
of his crown." But the finesse of the queen mother failed of