the human race, were
completely extinguished in the hearts of men; they reappeared here and
there as a protest against the vices and the crimes of the period; but
they were too feeble and too rare to struggle effectually against the
sway of personal passions and interests, against atrocious hatreds and
hopes, against intellectual aberrations and moral corruption. To betray
and to kill were deeds so common that they caused scarcely any
astonishment, and that people were almost resigned to them beforehand.
We have cited fifteen or twenty cases of the massacres which in the reign
of Charles IX., from 1562 to 1572, grievously troubled and steeped in
blood such and such a part of France, without leaving any lasting traces
in history. Previously to the massacre called the St. Bartholomew, the
massacre of Vassy is almost the only one which received and kept its true
name. The massacre of Vassy was, undoubtedly, an accident, a deed not at
all forecast or prepared for. The St. Bartholomew massacre was an event
for a long time forecast and announced, promised to the Catholics and
thrown out as a threat to the Protestants, written beforehand, so to
speak, in the history of the religious wars of France, but, nevertheless,
at the moment at which it was accomplished, and in the mode of its
accomplishment, a deed unexpected so far as the majority of the victims
were concerned, and a cause of contest even amongst its originators.
Accordingly it was, from the very first, a subject of surprise and
horror, throughout Europe as well as in France; not only because of the
torrents of blood that were shed, but also because of the extraordinary
degree in which it was characterized by falsehood and ferocious hatred.

We will bring forward in support of this double assertion only such facts
and quotations as appear to us decisive.

In 1565, Charles IX. and Catherine de' Medici had an interview at Bayonne
with the Duke of Alba, representative of Philip II., to consult as to the
means of delivering France from heretics. "They agreed at last," says
the contemporary historian Adriani [continuer of Guicciardini; he had
drawn his information from the _Journal of Cosmo de' Medici,_ Grand Duke
of Tuscany, who died in 1574], "in the opinion of the Catholic king, who
thought that this great blessing could not have accomplishment save by
the death of all the chiefs of the Huguenots, and by a new edition, as
the saying was, of the Sicilian Vespers. 'T