each day its
task of blood; in all but a few exceptional cases, we know merely that
the victims perished in the general slaughter. Writing in the midst of
the carnage, probably not later than noon on the 24th, the nuncio
Salviati says: "The whole city is in arms; the houses of the Huguenots
have been forced with great loss of life, and sacked by the populace
with incredible avidity. Many a man to-night will have his horses and
his carriage, and will eat and drink off plate, who had never dreamed of
it in his life before. In order that matters may not go too far, and to
prevent the revolting disorders occasioned by the insolence of the mob,
a proclamation has just been issued, declaring that there shall be three
hours in the day during which it shall be unlawful to rob and kill; and
the order is observed, though not universally. You can see nothing in
the streets but white crosses in the hats and caps of everyone you meet,
which has a fine effect!" The nuncio says nothing of the streets
encumbered with bleeding corpses, nothing of the cart-loads of bodies
conveyed to the Seine, and then flung into the river, "so that not only
were all the waters in it turned to blood, but so many corpses grounded
on the bank of the little island of Louvre that the air became infected
with the smell of corruption." The living, tied hand and foot, were
thrown off the bridges. One man--probably a rag-gatherer--brought two
little children in his creel, and tossed them into the water as
carelessly as if they had been blind kittens. An infant, yet unable to
walk, had a cord tied round its neck, and was dragged through the
streets by a troop of children nine or ten years old. Another played
with the beard and smiled in the face of the man who carried him; but
the innocent caress exasperated instead of softened the ruffian, who
stabbed the child, and with an oath threw it into the Seine. Among
the earliest victims was the wife of the King's _plumassier_. The
murderers broke into her house on the Notre-Dame bridge, about four in
the morning, stabbed her, and flung her still breathing into the river.
She clung for some time to the wooden piles of the bridge, and was
killed at last with stones, her body remaining for four days entangled
by her long hair among the woodwork. The story goes that her husband's
corpse, being thrown over, fell against hers and set it free, both
floating away together down the stream. Madeleine Briconnet, the widow
of Theo