umstances was
consummated the union of Coligny's daughter, Louise de Chatillon, to
Teligny, a young noble whose skill as a diplomatist seemed to have
destined him to hold a foremost rank among statesmen. Scarcely less
unhappy, however, than her step-mother, Louise was to behold both her
father and her husband perish in a single hour by the same dreadful
catastrophe.

[Sidenote: Accepts the invitation to court.]

Was it foolish rashness or overweening presumption that led the admiral to
leave the new home he had made within the strong defences of La Rochelle;
or was he moved solely by a conscientious persuasion that he had no right
to consider personal danger when the great interests of his country and
his faith were at stake? The former view has not been without its
advocates, some of whom have gloried in finding the proofs of a judicial
blindness sent by Heaven to hasten the self-induced destruction of the
Huguenots. A more careful consideration of all the circumstances of the
case, illustrated by a better appreciation of Coligny's character, rather
induces me to adopt the opposite conclusion. Certainly the noble language
of Coligny in reply to the warnings of his friends, both now and later,
when he was about to venture within the walls of Paris, displayed no
unconsciousness of the perils by which he was environed. "Better, however,
were it," he said, "to die a thousand deaths, than by undue solicitude for
life to be the occasion of keeping up distrust throughout an entire
kingdom."

About the beginning of September, 1571, Charles and his court repaired to
Blois, on the banks of the Loire.[842] The avowed object of the movement
was to meet Coligny and the Protestant princes. "There are many practices
(intrigues) to overthrow this journey," wrote Walsingham, about the middle
of the preceding month, "but the king sheweth himself to be very resolute.
I am most constantly assured that the king conceiveth of no subject that
he hath, better than of the admiral, and great hope there is that the king
will use him in matters of greatest trust; for of himself he beginneth to
see the insufficiency of others--some, for that they are more addicted to
others than to himself; others, for that they are more Spanish than
French, or else given more to private pleasures than public. There is none
of any account within this realm, whose as well imperfections as virtues,
he knoweth not. Those that do love him, do lament that he is so mu