e duke's brother, the duke himself, and their allies,
the Constable Montmorency and Marshal Saint Andre, assumed so
threatening an attitude that Catharine left Paris and went to
Melun, her sympathies at this period being with the reformers; by
whose aid, alone, she thought that she could maintain her influence
in the state against that of the Guises.

Conde was forced to leave Paris with the Protestant nobles, and
from all parts of France the Huguenots marched to assist him.
Coligny, the greatest of the Huguenot leaders, hesitated; being,
above all things, reluctant to plunge France into civil war. But
the entreaties of his noble wife, of his brothers and friends,
overpowered his reluctance. Conde left Meaux, with fifteen hundred
horse, with the intention of seizing the person of the young king;
but he had been forestalled by the Guises, and moved to Orleans,
where he took up his headquarters. All over France the Huguenots
rose in such numbers as astonished their enemies, and soon became
possessed of a great many important cities.

Their leaders had endeavoured, in every way, to impress upon them
the necessity of behaving as men who fought only for the right to
worship God; and for the most part these injunctions were strictly
obeyed. In one matter, alone, the Huguenots could not be
restrained. For thirty years the people of their faith had been
executed, tortured, and slain; and their hatred of the Romish
church manifested itself by the destruction of images and pictures
of all kinds, in the churches of the towns of which they obtained
possession. Only in the southeast of France was there any exception
to the general excellence of their conduct. Their persecution here
had always been very severe, and in the town of Orange the papal
troops committed a massacre almost without a parallel in its
atrocity. The Baron of Adrets, on behalf of the Protestants, took
revenge by massacres equally atrocious; but while the butchery at
Orange was hailed with approbation and delight by the Catholic
leaders, those promoted by Adrets excited such a storm of
indignation, among the Huguenots of all classes, that he shortly
afterwards went over to the other side, and was found fighting
against the party he had disgraced.

At Toulouse three thousand Huguenots were massacred, and in other
towns where the Catholics were in a majority terrible persecutions
were carried out.

It was nearly a year after the massacre at Vassy before the two