cts. In
this cold-blooded way, too, did his Catholic Majesty order the execution
of some thousand Huguenots additionally, in order more fully to carry out
his royal brother's plans; yet Philip could write of himself, "that all
the world recognized the gentleness of his nature and the mildness of his
intentions."

In truth, the advice thus given by Saint Goard on the subject of the
French prisoners in Alva's possessions, was a natural result of the Saint
Bartholomew. Here were officers and soldiers whom Charles IX. had himself
sent into the Netherlands to fight for the Protestant cause against
Philip and Alva. Already, the papers found upon them had placed him in
some embarrassment, and exposed his duplicity to the Spanish government,
before the great massacre had made such signal reparation for his
delinquency. He had ordered Mondoucet, his envoy in the Netherlands, to
use dissimulation to an unstinted amount, to continue his intrigues with
the Protestants, and to deny stoutly all proofs of such connivance. "I
see that the papers found upon Genlis;" he wrote twelve days before the
massacre, "have been put into the hands of Assonleville, and that they
know everything done by Genlis to have been committed with my consent."

[These remarkable letters exchanged between Charles IX. and
Mondoucet have recently been published by M. Emile Gachet (chef du
bureau paleographique aux Archives de Belgique) from a manuscript
discovered by him in the library at Rheims.--Compte Rendu de la Com.
Roy. d'Hist., iv. 340, sqq.]

"Nevertheless, you will tell the Duke of Alva that these are lies
invented to excite suspicion against me. You will also give him
occasional information of the enemy's affairs, in order to make him
believe in your integrity. Even if he does not believe you, my purpose
will be answered, provided you do it dexterously. At the same time you
must keep up a constant communication with the Prince of Orange, taking
great care to prevent discovery of your intelligence with King."

Were not these masterstrokes of diplomacy worthy of a King whom his
mother, from boyhood upwards, had caused to study Macchiavelli's
"Prince," and who had thoroughly taken to heart the maxim, often repeated
in those days, that the "Science of reigning was the science of lying"?

The joy in the Spanish camp before Mons was unbounded. It was as if the
only bulwark between the Netherland rebels and total destruction had been
sudde