n the disguise of Protestant refugees were lurking
in Geneva itself. On the other hand, the Roman Catholic cantons of
Fribourg and Soleure, when on the point of joining Berne and Zurich in
sending assistance, undertook to stipulate for the reinstatement of the
mass within the walls of Geneva; and the Genevese, who, whatever other
faults they might possess, were no cowards, declined an alliance upon such
conditions.[1218] But the threatened contest of arms never came. By one of
those strange turns of affairs, which, from their frequent recurrence in
the history of Geneva, an impartial beholder can scarcely interpret
otherwise than as interpositions of providence in behalf of a city that
was destined for ages to be a safe refuge for the oppressed confessors of
a purer faith, the storm was dissipated as rapidly as it had gathered. The
bodily ailments of Charles the Ninth were, humanly speaking, the salvation
of Geneva.[1219]

In other parts of Switzerland the King of France made great efforts to
counteract the injurious influence upon his interests which the
intelligence of the massacre could but exert. Almost immediately after the
events of the last week of August, the royal ambassador, Monsieur de la
Fontaine, and the treasurer whom the French monarch was accustomed to keep
in Switzerland, were instructed to write out an account for the benefit of
his Majesty's "best and perfect friends," "the magnificent seigniors,"
wherein among the numerous falsehoods with which they attempted to feed
the unsophistical mountaineers, was at least a single truth: "This young
and magnanimous prince, since his accession to the throne, has, so to
speak, reaped only thorns in place of a sceptre."[1220]

[Sidenote: Impression at Baden.]

A little later M. de Bellievre, his special envoy at the diet of Baden,
was profuse in assurances to the effect that the deed was not
premeditated, but had been rendered necessary by the machinations of the
admiral--"a wretched man, or rather, not a man, but a furious and
irreconcilable beast who had lost all fear of God and man." He
particularly defended the king from all responsibility for the excesses
that had been committed, insisting that it was the people that "had taken
the bit in its teeth," while Charles, Anjou, and Alencon, did their best
to check its mad impetuosity, and Catharine felt "unspeakable
regret."[1221] But the envoy had little reason to congratulate himself
upon his success. "Sire," h