dvance his
suit with a lady whose love he sought. Coconnas, an Italian, instead of
inviting contempt for his poltroonery, inspires aversion for his crimes.
No assassin had distinguished himself more at the Massacre of St.
Bartholomew's Day. We are inclined to believe the contemporary chronicler,
who states that Charles the Ninth himself averred that he had never liked
Coconnas since hearing the latter's sanguinary boast that he had redeemed
as many as thirty Huguenots from the hands of the populace, only that he
might induce them to abjure their religion, under promise of life, and
afterward enjoy the satisfaction of murdering them by inches under his
dagger.[1376]

Had Coconnas and La Mole been persons more entitled to our respect, we
might have pitied their misfortune in falling into the hands of a royal
commission with whom the evidence of the guilt of the prisoners was
apparently of less weight than the desire to gratify the court by their
condemnation. The first president of parliament, Christopher de Thou,
again headed the commission. The same pliant tool of despotism who had
signed the death-warrant of Prince Louis of Conde, just before the sudden
close of the brief reign of Francis the Second, and had congratulated
Charles the Ninth, twelve years later, in the name of the judiciary of the
kingdom, on the "piety" he had displayed in butchering his unoffending
subjects, again obeyed with docility the instructions of his superiors,
and suppressed those more generous sentiments, which, if we may credit his
son's account, he secretly entertained.

[Sidenote: Conde retires to Germany.]

Meantime the arrests and judicial proceedings at the capital did not delay
the military enterprise in which the Huguenots and Malcontents were alike
embarked. More fortunate than his cousin of Navarre, the Prince of Conde,
chancing to be in Picardy at the outbreak of the pretended conspiracy of
St. Germain, took Thore's advice and fled out of the kingdom to
Strasbourg.[1377] Himself free from the dangers encompassing his
confederates in France, he was able to assist them materially by
addressing personal solicitations to the German princes, and by
superintending the levy of auxiliary troops.

[Sidenote: Reasons for the success of the Huguenots in face of great
difficulties.]

The Huguenots were entering in good earnest upon the fifth religious war,
and used their successes with such moderation as to conciliate even
hostile popula