er and those in whose hands rested the chief control of affairs,
really tired of a war in which nothing was to be gained and everything was
in jeopardy, a war whose most brilliant successes had been barren of
substantial fruits, and had, in the sequel, been stripped of the greater
part of their glory by the masterly conduct of a defeated opponent? Or,
was the peace only a prelude to the massacre--a skilfully devised snare to
entrap incautious and credulous enemies?

The latter view is that which was entertained by the majority of the
contemporaries of the events, who, whether friends or foes of Charles and
Catharine, whether Papists or Protestants, could not avoid reading the
treaty of pacification in the light of the occurrences of the "bloody
nuptials." The Huguenot author of the "Tocsin against the murderers" and
Capilupi, author of the appreciative "Stratagem of Charles the
Ninth"--however much they may disagree upon other points--unite in
regarding the royal edict as a piece of treachery from beginning to end.
It was even believed by many of the most intelligent Protestants that the
massacre was already perfected in the minds of its authors so far back as
the conference of Bayonne, five years before the peace of St. Germain, in
accordance with the suggestions of Philip the Second and of Alva. This
last supposition, however, has been overthrown by the discovery of the
correspondence of Alva himself, in which he gives an account of the
discussions which he held with Catharine de' Medici on that memorable
occasion. For we have seen that, far from convincing the queen mother of
the necessity for adopting sanguinary measures to crush the Huguenots, the
duke constantly deplores to his master the obstinacy of Catharine in still
clinging to her own views of toleration. It seems equally clear that the
peace of St. Germain was no part of the project of a contemplated massacre
of the Protestants. The Montmorencies, not the Guises, were in power, and
were responsible for it. The influence of the former had become paramount,
and that of the latter had waned. The Cardinal of Lorraine had left the
court in disgust and retired to his archbishopric of Rheims, when he found
that the policy of war, to which he and his family were committed, was
about to be abandoned. Even in the earlier negotiations he had no part,
while the queen mother and the moderate Morvilliers were omnipotent.[792]
And when Francis Walsingham made his appearance