Part 4 (2/2)

When she entered her room, to her great surprise she found thirty or forty gentlemen a.s.sembled there. They were the friends and the supporters of Henry, who had become alarmed by the mysterious rumors which were floating from ear to ear, and by the signs of agitation, and secrecy, and strange preparation which every where met the eye. No one could imagine what danger was impending. No one knew from what quarter the storm would burst. But that some very extraordinary event was about to transpire was evident to all. It was too late to adopt any precautions for safety. The Protestants, unarmed, unorganized, and widely dispersed, could now only practice the virtue of heroic fort.i.tude in meeting their doom, whatever that doom might be. The gentlemen in Henry's chamber did not venture to separate, and not an eye was closed in sleep. They sat together in the deepest perplexity and consternation, as the hours of the night lingered slowly along, anxiously awaiting the developments with which the moments seemed to be fraught.

In the mean time, aided by the gloom of a starless night, in every street of Paris preparations were going on for the enormous perpetration. Soldiers were a.s.sembling in different places of rendezvous. Guards were stationed at important points in the city, that their victims might not escape. Armed citizens, with loaded muskets and sabres gleaming in the lamplight, began to emerge, through the darkness, from their dwellings, and to gather, in motley and interminable a.s.semblage, around the Hotel de Ville. A regiment of guards were stationed at the gates of the royal palace to protect Charles and Catharine from any possibility of danger. Many of the houses were illuminated, that by the light blazing from the windows, the bullet might be thrown with precision, and that the dagger might strike an unerring blow. Agitation and alarm pervaded the vast metropolis. The Catholics were rejoicing that the hour of vengeance had arrived. The Protestants gazed upon the portentous gatherings of this storm in utter bewilderment.

All the arrangements of the enterprise were left to the Duke of Guise, and a more efficient and fitting agent could not have been found. He had ordered that the tocsin, the signal for the ma.s.sacre, should be tolled at two o'clock in the morning. Catharine and Charles, in one of the apartments of the palace of the Louvre, were impatiently awaiting the lingering flight of the hours till the alarm-bell should toll forth the death-warrant of their Protestant subjects. Catharine, inured to treachery and hardened in vice, was apparently a stranger to all compunctious visitings. A life of crime had steeled her soul against every merciful impression. But she was very apprehensive lest her son, less obdurate in purpose, might relent. Though impotent in character, he was, at times, petulant and self-willed, and in paroxysms of stubbornness spurned his mother's counsels and exerted his own despotic power.

Charles was now in a state of the most feverish excitement. He hastily paced the room, peering out at the window, and almost every moment looking at his watch, wis.h.i.+ng that the hour would come, and again half regretting that the plot had been formed. The companions and the friends of his childhood, the invited guests who, for many weeks, had been his a.s.sociates in gay festivities, and in the interchange of all kindly words and deeds, were, at his command, before the morning should dawn, to fall before the bullet and the poniard of the midnight murderer. His mother witnessed with intense anxiety this wavering of his mind. She therefore urged him no longer to delay, but to antic.i.p.ate the hour, and to send a servant immediately to sound the alarm.

Charles hesitated, while a cold sweat ran from his forehead. ”Are you a coward?” tauntingly inquired the fiendlike mother. This is the charge which will always make the poltroon squirm. The young king nervously exclaimed, ”Well, then, begin.”

There were in the chamber at the time only the king, his mother, and his brother the Duke of Anjou. A messenger was immediately dispatched to strike the bell. It was two hours after midnight. A few moments of terrible suspense ensued. There was a dead silence, neither of the three uttering a word. They all stood at the windows looking out into the rayless night. Suddenly, through the still air, the ponderous tones of the alarm-bell fell upon the ear, and rolled, the knell of death, over the city. Its vibrations awakened the demon in ten thousand hearts. It was the morning of the Sabbath, August 24th, 1572.

It was the anniversary of a festival in honor of St. Bartholomew, which had long been celebrated. At the sound of the tocsin, the signal for the ma.s.sacre, armed men rushed from every door into the streets, shouting, ”_Vive Dieu et le roi!_”--_Live G.o.d and the king!_

CHAPTER V.

Ma.s.sACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW.

1572

The commencement of the ma.s.sacre.--The house forced.--Flight of the servants.--Death of Admiral Coligni.--Brutality.--Fate of the Duke of Guise.--Excitement of the Parisians.--Fiendish spirit of Charles.--Fugitives butchered.--Terror of Marguerite.--Flight of Marguerite.--Terrors of the night.--Remarkable escape of Maximilian.--Efforts to save his life.--The disguise.--Scene in the street.--The talisman.--Arrival at the college.--His protection.--Henry taken before the king.--He yields.--Paris on the Sabbath following.--Encouragement by the priests.--The ma.s.sacre continued.--Exultation of the Catholics.--Triumphal procession.--Extent of the ma.s.sacre.--Magnanimity of Catholic officers.--The Bishop of Lisieux.--n.o.ble replies to the king's decree.--The higher law.--Attempted justification.--Punishment of Coligni.--Valor of the survivors.--Pledges of aid.--Prophecy of Knox.--Apology of the court.--Opinions of the courts of Europe.--Rejoicings at Rome.--Atrocity of the deed.--Results of the ma.s.sacre.--Retribution.

As the solemn dirge from the steeple rang out upon the night air, the king stood at the window of the palace trembling in every nerve.

Hardly had the first tones of the alarm-bell fallen upon his ear when the report of a musket was heard, and the first victim fell. The sound seemed to animate to frenzy the demoniac Catharine, while it almost froze the blood in the veins of the young monarch, and he pa.s.sionately called out for the ma.s.sacre to be stopped. It was too late. The train was fired, and could not be extinguished. The signal pa.s.sed with the rapidity of sound from steeple to steeple, till not only Paris, but entire France, was roused. The roar of human pa.s.sion, the crackling fire of musketry, and the shrieks of the wounded and the dying, rose and blended in one fearful din throughout the whole metropolis. Guns, pistols, daggers, were every where busy. Old men, terrified maidens, helpless infants, venerable matrons, were alike smitten, and mercy had no appeal which could touch the heart of the murderers.

The wounded Admiral Coligni was lying helpless upon his bed, surrounded by a few personal friends, as the uproar of the rising storm of human violence and rage rolled in upon their ears. The Duke of Guise, with three hundred soldiers, hastened to the lodgings of the admiral. The gates were immediately knocked down, and the sentinels stabbed. A servant, greatly terrified, rushed into the inner apartment where the wounded admiral was lying, and exclaimed,

”The house is forced, and there is no means of resisting.”

”I have long since,” said the admiral, calmly, ”prepared myself to die. Save yourselves, my friends, if you can, for you can not defend my life. I commend my soul to the mercy of G.o.d.”

The companions of the admiral, having no possible means of protection, and perhaps adding to his peril by their presence, immediately fled to other apartments of the house. They were pursued and stabbed. Three leaped from the windows and were shot in the streets.

Coligni, left alone in his apartment, rose with difficulty from his bed, and, being unable to stand, leaned for support against the wall.

A desperado by the name of Breme, a follower of the Duke of Guise, with a congenial band of accomplices, rushed into the room. They saw a venerable man, pale, and with bandaged wounds, in his night-dress, engaged in prayer.

”Art thou the admiral?” demanded the a.s.sa.s.sin, with brandished sword.

”I am,” replied the admiral; ”and thou, young man, shouldst respect my gray hairs. Nevertheless, thou canst abridge my life but a little.”

Breme plunged his sword into his bosom, and then withdrawing it, gave him a cut upon the head. The admiral fell, calmly saying, ”If I could but die by the hand of a gentleman instead of such a knave as this!”

The rest of the a.s.sa.s.sins then rushed upon him, piercing his body with their daggers.

The Duke of Guise, ashamed himself to meet the eye of this n.o.ble victim to the basest treachery, remained impatiently in the court-yard below.

”Breme!” he shouted, looking up at the window, ”have you done it?”

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