ss of the nation was hardly touched by the
new Gospel; and the Guises stirred busily the fanaticism of the poor.
The failure of a conference between the advocates of either faith was
the signal for a civil war in the south. Catharine strove in vain to
allay the strife at the opening of 1562 by an edict of pacification;
Guise struck his counter-blow by massacring a Protestant congregation at
Vassy, by entering Paris with two thousand men, and by seizing the
Regent and the King. Conde and Coligni at once took up arms; and the
fanaticism of the Huguenots broke out in a terrible work of destruction
which rivalled that of the Scots. All Western France, half Southern
France, the provinces along the Loire and the Rhone, rose for the
Gospel. Only Paris and the north of France held firmly to Catholicism.
But the plans of the Guises had been ably laid. The Huguenots found
themselves girt in by a ring of foes. Philip sent a body of Spaniards
into Gascony, Italians and Piedmontese in the pay of the Pope and the
Duke of Savoy marched upon the Rhone. Seven thousand German mercenaries
appeared in the camp of the Guises. Panic ran through the Huguenot
forces; they broke up as rapidly as they had gathered; and resistance
was soon only to be found in Normandy and in the mountains of the
Cevennes.

[Sidenote: Elizabeth and the Huguenots.]

Conde appealed for aid to the German princes and to England: and grudge
as she might the danger and cost of such a struggle, Elizabeth saw that
her aid must be given. She knew that the battle with her opponent had to
be fought abroad rather than at home. The Guises were Mary's uncles; and
their triumph meant trouble in Scotland and worse trouble in England. In
September therefore she concluded a treaty with the Huguenots at Hampton
Court, and promised to supply them with six thousand men and a hundred
thousand crowns. The bargain she drove was a hard one. She knew that the
French had no purpose of fulfilling their pledge to restore Calais, and
she exacted the surrender of Havre into her hands as a security for its
restoration. Her aid came almost too late. The Guises saw the need of
securing Normandy if English intervention was to be hindered, and a
vigorous attack brought about the submission of the province. But the
Huguenots were now reinforced by troops from the German princes; and at
the close of 1562 the two armies met on the field of Dreux. The strife
had already widened into a general war of re