Dark Eminence Catherine De Medici And Her Children by Marguerite Vance (good e books to read .TXT) 📗

The King and the Queen Mother were notified and came promptly, bringing with them the Duke of Anjou and the King s physician, Ambrose Pare* There was talk of moving

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Coligny to the Louvre for safety, but this was deemed unwise in his weakened state following the amputation of the stump of the mangled finger and the probing for and removal of the large copper bullet in his arm. Instead, Henry of Navarre dispatched a group of his Swiss Guards to watch beside the wounded man around the clock, and the King, his face drawn, his eyes stricken and wild, could only weep loudly like a small boy, swearing by his crown to track down the guilty ones and administer such punishment as France never should forget.

Catherine and Anjou exchanged glances. Charles more and more was taking on the looks and manner of a madman. And here lay danger, Catherine reminded herself, for the deranged mind retains much that is lost to the rational thinker. Charles, determined to find the culprits, would stop at nothing. On the rack Guise's old tutor could be made to talk . . . In sheer panic Catherine refused to think further.

The attempt on Coligny's life and the massacre that followed it within twenty-four hours have been favorite subjects for writers of French history for centuries. Little can be proved beyond a doubt; much can be assumed, all facets considered in the light of sixteenth-century morals. Probably, since Catherine, Henry of Guise, and his mother, like Catherine an Italian, all hated Coligny, it is not beyond the bounds of reason to believe they plotted his death among them. With the Guises it doubtless was even considered a deed of honor; with Catherine a deed of expediency to save the throne for her sons. It is possible, too, that she felt the time had come to make a definite move for the Catholic

cause, to do away with all Huguenot chiefs. Surely that should prove to Philip of Spain and to the Pope himself that she was being true to her faith. However, that is all supposititious.

One fact may have escaped the notice of everyone in Paris as Friday the 22nd of August and Saturday the 23d passed in a shimmer of breathless heat: the mob of Paris like a thick alloy in a pot over flame began to show around its edges the first small eruptions of power ... a shot here, a savage knife thrust there, nothing more for the moment. Catholics, still seething over the presence of Navarre, the bridegroom, recalled to one another the wanton destruction of their shrines and sacred vessels by Huguenots on the march. Protestants told and retold tales they had heard of the Inquisition. Hate was in every man's heart; the powder was ready for the match.

In the first false dawn of Sunday, Saint Bartholomew's Day, lights could be seen moving about in the Louvre and the adjoining Tuilleries. Then shortly after three o'clock the great bell of Saint-Germain d'Auxerrois near the Louvre began to toll—a terrifying sound booming over the sleeping city. Who gave the orders for what followed? Guise with a group of courtiers broke down the door of Coligny's house, annihilated his faithful servants with their swords and hurried on to the bedroom.

Brave men die bravely. Still too weak to stand, the Admiral had asked to be helped into his robe and then to be lowered to his knees beside his bed. And there they found him. He made no outcry, but lowered his head as they fell upon him. Mutilated beyond recognition, his body was thrown from the

window to the court below where it is said Guise touched it with his foot and smiled.

An inexplicable thing happened at that moment. A rider came clattering up, shouting, "By order of Her Majesty the Queen, spare Coligny!" What had happened? Had Charles become violent? Had Anjou weakened in one of his unpredictable outbursts of conscience? There is no known answer. But it was too late.

Paris, one of the world's most gracious, most beautiful cities, has through all time been a city all too susceptible to mob rule. Whoever fomented the mob terror of Saint Bartholomew's Day had organized it well Catholics were to be distinguished from Huguenots by white crosses worn on hats or caps. Now as Guise and his followers pounded through the streets shouting, ''Kill! Kill! Kill all Huguenots by the Kings command!" all Paris was suddenly abloom with white crosses. Huguenots, old and young, the sick and aged, and newborn babies were mercilessly slaughtered by any and every means available, hacked to pieces, stripped and thrown into the Seine, outraged in every conceivable way. Parents saw their little children brutally tortured by laughing, shouting ruffians; children screamed vainly for help from parents themselves begging for mercy. And because a mob is senseless, blind and deaf to reason, old scores were settled between rivals who had no religious differences whatever.

For three days and nights the nightmare held, the air filled with the shrieks of the mortally wounded and the sickening reek of human blood. The palace of the Louvre itself was strewn with the bodies of prominent Huguenots who.

Lad gone there thinking mistakenly to find sanctuary with royal friends. Henry of Navarre talked himself out of danger while Charles stormed and raved at him and the Prince of Conde. He would, he told them, allow their retinues to pay the price for their heresy. In speechless horror the two men watched while their combined staffs of gentlemen were killed hy hired mercenaries before their eyes.

Charles's mad seizures waxed and waned through the days. His young wife, the Austrian Elizabeth, pregnant and near her time, managed to quiet him though he continued to sob that he alone was to blame for the massacre. Again she