re the soldiers of Guise called off by the trumpet sounding a
joyful note of victory. The evidence of their prowess, however, remained
on the field of contest, in fifty or sixty dead or dying men and women,
and in nearly a hundred more or less dangerously wounded.[38]

In a few hours more Guise was resuming his journey toward Paris. He was
told that the Huguenots of Vassy had forwarded their complaints to the
king. "Let them go, let them go!" he exclaimed. "They will find there
neither their Admiral nor their Chancellor."[39]

Upon whose head rests the guilt of the massacre of Vassy? This was the
question asked by every contemporary so soon as he realized the startling
fact that the blow there struck was a signal that called every man to take
the sword, and stand in defence of his own life. It is the question which
history, more calm and dispassionate, because farther removed from the
agitations of the day, now seeks to solve, as she looks back over the
dreary torrents of blood that sprang from that disastrous source. The
inquiry is not an idle one--for justice ought to find such a vindication
in the records of past generations as may have been denied at the time of
the commission of flagrant crimes.

The Huguenots declared Guise to be a murderer. Theodore Beza, in eloquent
tones, demanded the punishment of the butcher of the human race. So
imposing was the cry for retribution that the duke himself recognized the
necessity of entering a formal defence, which was disseminated by the
press far and wide through France and Germany. He denied that the massacre
was premeditated. He averred that it was merely an unfortunate incident
brought about by the violence of the Protestants of Vassy, who had
provided themselves with an abundant supply of stones and other missiles,
and assailed those whom he had sent to remonstrate courteously with them.
He stated the deaths at only twenty-five or thirty. Most of these had been
occasioned by the indignant valets, who, on seeing their masters wounded,
had rushed in to defend them. So much against his will had the affair
occurred, that he had repeatedly but ineffectually commanded his men to
desist. When he had himself received a slight wound from a stone thrown by
the Huguenots, the sight of the blood flowing from it had infuriated his
devoted followers.

The Duke's plea of want of premeditation we may, perhaps, accept as
substantially true--so far, at least, as to suppose that he had f