back run the risk of massacre in their own homes.
The Catholics have no such impulse. Our persecutions have been the
work of the mobs in the towns, excited by the priests; and these
ruffians, though ardent when it is a question of slaying
defenceless women and children, are contemptible in the field
against our men. We saw how the Parisians fled like a flock of
sheep, at Saint Denis.

"Thus, outnumbered as we are, methinks we shall take up arms far
more quickly than our foes; and that, except from the troops of
Anjou, and the levies of the great Catholic nobles, we shall have
little to fear. Even in the towns the massacres have ever been
during what is called peace; and there was far less persecution,
during the last two wars, than in the intervals between them."

The next morning the prince and Admiral, with their escort, rode on
towards La Rochelle; which they entered on the 18th September. The
countess, with a hundred of her retainers and tenants, accompanied
them on the first day's journey; and returned, the next day, to the
chateau.

The news of the escape, and the reports that the Huguenots were
arming, took the court by surprise; and a declaration was at once
published, by the king, guaranteeing his royal protection to all
adherents of the reformed faith who stayed at home, and promising a
gracious hearing to their grievances. As soon, however, as the
Catholic forces began to assemble in large numbers, the mask of
conciliation was thrown off, all edicts of toleration were
repealed, and the king prohibited his subjects in all parts of his
dominions, of whatever rank, from the exercise of all religious
rites other than those of the Catholic faith, on pain of
confiscation and death.

Nothing could have been more opportune, for the Huguenot leaders,
than this decree. It convinced even the most reluctant that their
only hope lay in resistance; and enabled Conde's agents, at foreign
courts, to show that the King of France was bent upon exterminating
the reformed faith, and that its adherents had been forced to take
up arms, in self preservation.

The fanatical populations of the towns rejoiced in the new decree.
Leagues for the extermination of heresy were formed, in Toulouse
and other towns, under the name of Crusades; and high masses were
celebrated in the churches, everywhere, in honour of the great
victory over heresy.

The countess had offered to send her son, with fifty men-at-arms,
to swell the gather