of their chief, the young King of Navarre, with the sister of
CHARLES THE NINTH: a miserable young King who then occupied the French
throne. This dull creature was made to believe by his mother and other
fierce Catholics about him that the Huguenots meant to take his life; and
he was persuaded to give secret orders that, on the tolling of a great
bell, they should be fallen upon by an overpowering force of armed men,
and slaughtered wherever they could be found. When the appointed hour
was close at hand, the stupid wretch, trembling from head to foot, was
taken into a balcony by his mother to see the atrocious work begun. The
moment the bell tolled, the murderers broke forth. During all that night
and the two next days, they broke into the houses, fired the houses, shot
and stabbed the Protestants, men, women, and children, and flung their
bodies into the streets. They were shot at in the streets as they passed
along, and their blood ran down the gutters. Upwards of ten thousand
Protestants were killed in Paris alone; in all France four or five times
that number. To return thanks to Heaven for these diabolical murders,
the Pope and his train actually went in public procession at Rome, and as
if this were not shame enough for them, they had a medal struck to
commemorate the event. But, however comfortable the wholesale murders
were to these high authorities, they had not that soothing effect upon
the doll-King. I am happy to state that he never knew a moment's peace
afterwards; that he was continually crying out that he saw the Huguenots
covered with blood and wounds falling dead before him; and that he died
within a year, shrieking and yelling and raving to that degree, that if
all the Popes who had ever lived had been rolled into one, they would not
have afforded His guilty Majesty the slightest consolation.

When the terrible news of the massacre arrived in England, it made a
powerful impression indeed upon the people. If they began to run a
little wild against the Catholics at about this time, this fearful reason
for it, coming so soon after the days of bloody Queen Mary, must be
remembered in their excuse. The Court was not quite so honest as the
people--but perhaps it sometimes is not. It received the French
ambassador, with all the lords and ladies dressed in deep mourning, and
keeping a profound silence. Nevertheless, a proposal of marriage which
he had made to Elizabeth only two days before the eve of