y and
people mixed with them and under their wing." Charles ordered them "to
get on horseback, take with them all the forces in the city, and keep
their eyes open day and night to put a stop to the said murder, pillage,
and sedition arising," he said, "because of the rivalry between the
houses of Guise and Chatillon, and because they of Guise had been
threatened by the admiral's friends, who suspected them of being at the
bottom of the hurt inflicted upon him." He, the same day, addressed to
the governors of the provinces a letter in which he invested the
disturbance with the same character, and gave the same explanation of it.
The Guises complained violently at being thus disavowed by the king, who
had the face to throw upon them alone the odium of the massacre which he
had ordered. Next day, August 25, the king wrote to all his agents, at
home and abroad, another letter, affirming that "what had happened at
Paris had been done solely to prevent the execution of an accursed
conspiracy which the admiral and his allies had concocted against him,
his mother, and his brothers;" and, on the 26th of August, he went with
his two brothers to hold in state a bed of justice, and make to the
Parliament the same declaration against Coligny and his party. "He could
not," he said, "have parried so fearful a blow but by another very
violent one; and he wished all the world to know that what had happened
at Paris had been done not only with his consent, but by his express
command." Whereupon it was enjoined upon the court, says De Thou, "to
cause investigations to be made as to the conspiracy of Coligny, and to
decree what it should consider proper, conformably with the laws and with
justice." The next day but one, August 28, appeared a royal manifesto
running, "The king willeth and intendeth that all noblemen and others
whosoever of the religion styled Reformed be empowered to live and abide
in all security and liberty, with their wives, children, and families, in
their houses, as they have heretofore done and were empowered to do by
benefit of the edicts of pacification. And nevertheless, for to obviate
the troubles, scandals, suspicion, and distrust, which might arise by
reason of the services and assemblies that might take place both in the
houses of the said noblemen and elsewhere, as is permitted by the
aforesaid edicts of pacification, his Majesty doth lay very express
inhibitions and prohibitions upon all the said nobleme