command, to single him out amongst all the others, whether in the field,
or from over a wall, or from behind a hedge. In short, I would not have
spared any of the means permitted by the laws of war in time of hostility
to get rid of so great an enemy as he was for me and for so many other
good subjects of the king."

After three years of such deadly animosity between the two parties and
the two houses, the king and the queen-mother could find no other way
of stopping an explosion than to call the matter on before the privy
council, and cause to be there drawn up, on the 29th of January, 1566,
a solemn decree, "declaring the admiral's innocence on his own
affirmation, given in the presence of the king and the council as before
God himself, that he had not had anything to do with or approved of the
said homicide. Silence for all time to come was consequently imposed
upon the attorney-general and everybody else; inhibition and prohibition
were issued against the continuance of any investigation or prosecution.
The king took the parties under his safeguard, and enjoined upon them
that they should live amicably in obedience to him." By virtue of this
injunction, the Guises, the Colignies, and the Montmorencies ended by
embracing, the first-named accommodating themselves with a pretty good
grace to this demonstration: "but God knows what embraces!" [Words used
in La Harenga, a satire of the day in burlesque verse upon the Cardinal
of Lorraine.] Six years later the St. Bartholomew brought the true
sentiments out into broad daylight.

At the same time that the war was proceeding amongst the provinces with
this passionate doggedness, royal decrees were alternately confirming and
suppressing or weakening the securities for liberty and safety which the
decree of Amboise, on the 19th of March, 1563, had given to the
Protestants by way of re-establishing peace. It was a series of
contradictory measures which were sufficient to show the party-strife
still raging in the heart of the government. On the 14th of June, 1563,
Protestants were forbidden to work, with shops open, on the days of
Catholic festivals. On the 14th of December, 1563, it was proclaimed
that Protestants might not gather alms for the poor of their religion,
unless in places where that religion was practised, and nowhere else.
On the 24th of June, 1564, a proclamation from the king interdicted the
exercise of the Reformed religion within the precincts of any r