CHAPTER VIII.ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S NIGHT.

"No better insight can be got into the craftiness of tyrants to brutify their subjects than from the measure that Cyrus adopted towards the Lydians after he took possession of Sardis, the principal city of Lydia, and reduced to his mercy Croesus, the rich King, and carried him off a prisoner of war. Cyrus was notified that the people of Sardis rose in rebellion. He speedily reduced them to order, but unwilling to put so beautiful a place to the sack, and also to be himself put to the trouble of garrisoning the city with a large force in order to keep it safe, he hit upon a master scheme to make sure of his conquest. He set up in Sardis a large number of public houses for debauchery, and issued a decree commanding the people to frequent these brothels. That garrison answered his purpose so well that never after did he have to draw the sword against the Lydians."Indeed, no bird is more easily caught with bird-lime, no fish is more securely hooked with an appetizing bait, than the masses of the people are lured to servitude by the tickle of the smallest feather, which, as the saying goes, is passed over their lips. Theaters, games, farces, spectacles, gladiators, strange beasts, medals, pictures and other trifles were, to the peoples of antiquity, the charms of servitude, the price of their freedom, the instruments of tyranny."These lures kept the people under the yoke. Thus, mentally unnerved, they found the pastimes pleasant, they were amused by the idle spectacles that were paraded before their eyes, and they were habituated to obedience as fully, but not as usefully to themselves, as little children, who, in order to gladden their eyes with the brilliant pictures of illuminated books insensibly learn to read."The tyrant Romans furthermore resorted to the plan offeasting the populace, which can be led by nothing so readily as by the pleasures of the mouth. The cleverest of them all would not have dropped his bowl of soup to recover the liberty of the Republic of Plato. The tyrants made bountiful donations of wheat, of wine and corn. Whereupon the cry went up lustilyâ€”Long live the King!The dullards did not realize they were receiving but a small portion of what belonged to them, and that even the portion which they received the tyrant would not have it to give, but for his first having taken it away from themselves."

"Indeed, no bird is more easily caught with bird-lime, no fish is more securely hooked with an appetizing bait, than the masses of the people are lured to servitude by the tickle of the smallest feather, which, as the saying goes, is passed over their lips. Theaters, games, farces, spectacles, gladiators, strange beasts, medals, pictures and other trifles were, to the peoples of antiquity, the charms of servitude, the price of their freedom, the instruments of tyranny.

"These lures kept the people under the yoke. Thus, mentally unnerved, they found the pastimes pleasant, they were amused by the idle spectacles that were paraded before their eyes, and they were habituated to obedience as fully, but not as usefully to themselves, as little children, who, in order to gladden their eyes with the brilliant pictures of illuminated books insensibly learn to read.

"The tyrant Romans furthermore resorted to the plan offeasting the populace, which can be led by nothing so readily as by the pleasures of the mouth. The cleverest of them all would not have dropped his bowl of soup to recover the liberty of the Republic of Plato. The tyrants made bountiful donations of wheat, of wine and corn. Whereupon the cry went up lustilyâ€”Long live the King!The dullards did not realize they were receiving but a small portion of what belonged to them, and that even the portion which they received the tyrant would not have it to give, but for his first having taken it away from themselves."

"The cleverest of them all would not have dropped his bowl of soup to recover the Republic," repeated Captain Mirant. "The fact is shockingly, distressfully true! Men become animals when they sacrifice everything to perverse instincts and vulgar appetites. Nevertheless, a curse upon all tyrants! It is they who incite these very appetites, in order to rule the heart through the stomach, and the mind through the eyes, by attracting the peoples to tourneys, tilts and such other pageants, amusements that are but disgraceful badges of servitude, and must be paid for by the fruit of the labor of the slaves themselves!"

"Go to, poor Jacques Bonhomme!" added the Franc-Taupin. "Fill up your paunch, but bend your back! Pay for the gala! Gnaw at the bones cast to you, and cry 'Thanks!' Oh, if only you knew! If only you wanted to! With one shake of your shoulders, both the tyrants and their cohorts would be thrown to the ground!"

"No! No!" interjected Antonicq. "Do not imagine that our tyrants Catherine De Medici and Charles IX are defended mainly by the arquebusiers of their bodyguards,their light mounted horse and their footmen in arms! Not at all! Just listen to this passage from La Boetie's book:

"I shall now touch upon a point that is the secret spring of the sway, the support and the foundation of tyranny. He who imagines that the halberdiers of the guard constitute the safety and the bulwark of tyrants is, I hold, greatly in error. No; it is not arms that defend a tyrant. At first blush the point may not be granted, nevertheless it is true. It is only four or five men among his accomplices who uphold a tyrant and who keep the country in servitude to him. It has ever been only five or six who have a tyrant's ear, and are invited by him to be the accomplices of his cruelties, the sharers in his amusements, the go-betweens in his debaucheries, the co-partners in his plunder, these five or six hundred have, in turn, under them five or six who are to them what they themselves are to the tyrantâ€”and these five or six hundred have, in turn, under them five or six thousand thieves among whom they have caused the government of the provinces and the administration of the funds to be distributed, in order that they may cater to the avarice and the cruelty of the tyrant, in order that they may promptly execute his orders, and be ready to do so much mischief that they can hold their places only under the shadow of his authority, nor be able to escape the just punishment of their offences but through him. Wide and long is the train that follows these latter ones. Whoever cares to amuse himself in tracing the threads of this woof will see that, not the six thousand only, but hundreds of thousands, aye millions depend through that cord upon the tyrant, who, with the aid of the same, can (as Jupiter boasts in Homer) pull over to himself all the gods by pulling at the chain."

"Well put! Never before has the centralized power of royalty, that fearful engine of tyranny, been more lucidly laid bare!" cried Captain Mirant. "I am more and more convincedâ€”the federation of the provinces, each independent as to itself, but mutually united by the common bond of their common interests, like the Republic of the Swiss cantons, is the sole guarantee of freedom.Commune and Federation!"

"Now," said Antonicq, "do not fail to admire the penetration with which Estienne of La Boetie traces back the secret punishment that is visited upon tyrants, and the awful consequences of tyranny itself. He says:

"From the moment a King has declared himself a tyrant, then, not merely a swarm of thieves and skip-jacks, but all those who are moved by ardent ambition, or overpowering greed, gather around him, and assist him in order to have a share in the booty, and to be, under the great tyrant, petty tyrants themselves. Thus it happens with highwaymen and pirates. One set holds the roads, the other rifles the travelers; one set lies in ambush, the other is on the watch; one set massacres, the other plunders."Hence it comes that the tyrant is never loved, and never loves. Friendship is a sacred gift, a holy boon! It never exists but among honorable people, it never arises but through mutual esteem. It is preserved, not so much through gifts as by upright conduct. That which makes one friend feel sure of another is the knowledge he has of the other's integrity. The security he holds from his friend is the latter's good character, his faith, his constancy. No friendship can exist where cruelty, disloyalty and injustice hold sway. When malignant people meet, they meet to plot, not for companionship! They do not mutually aidif they mutually fear one another. They are not friends, they are accomplices in crime and felony."This is the reason why, as the saying goes, there is honor among thieves at the distribution of the booty. They supplement one another, and they are unwilling, by falling out, to reduce their strength."In that begins the punishment of tyrants. When they die, their execrated name is blackened by the ink of a thousand pens, their reputation is torn to shreds; even their bones, pilloried by posterity, chastise them for their wicked lives. Let us then learn to be upright; let us raise our eyes to heaven; let us implore it to bestow upon us the love of virtue. As to me, meseems nothing is so contrary to God as tyranny, and that He reserves for tyrants some special chastisement."

"Hence it comes that the tyrant is never loved, and never loves. Friendship is a sacred gift, a holy boon! It never exists but among honorable people, it never arises but through mutual esteem. It is preserved, not so much through gifts as by upright conduct. That which makes one friend feel sure of another is the knowledge he has of the other's integrity. The security he holds from his friend is the latter's good character, his faith, his constancy. No friendship can exist where cruelty, disloyalty and injustice hold sway. When malignant people meet, they meet to plot, not for companionship! They do not mutually aidif they mutually fear one another. They are not friends, they are accomplices in crime and felony.

"This is the reason why, as the saying goes, there is honor among thieves at the distribution of the booty. They supplement one another, and they are unwilling, by falling out, to reduce their strength.

"In that begins the punishment of tyrants. When they die, their execrated name is blackened by the ink of a thousand pens, their reputation is torn to shreds; even their bones, pilloried by posterity, chastise them for their wicked lives. Let us then learn to be upright; let us raise our eyes to heaven; let us implore it to bestow upon us the love of virtue. As to me, meseems nothing is so contrary to God as tyranny, and that He reserves for tyrants some special chastisement."

"Oh, my children!" exclaimed Odelin's widow, "that book which breathes such hatred for tyranny and such generous indignation towards cowards that one must doubt divine justice if he can lightly submit to iniquity;â€”that book, every page of which bears the imprint of the love of virtue and the execration of evil;â€”that book should be placed in the hands of every lad about to enter manhood. It would be a wholesome and strong nourishment to their souls. From it they would gather a horror for that cowardly and blind voluntary servitude, and then all, in the name of justice, of human dignity, of right, and of honesty, would riseAgainst-One, the title of those sublime pages, and they would proclaim everywhereâ€”Commune and Federation!"

"But, aunt," timidly suggested Cornelia, "should notthat book be also for girls who reach maturity? They become wives and mothers. Should not they also be nourished in the love of justice and in the abhorrence of tyranny, to the end that they may bring up their children to virile principles, regain for woman equal rights with man, and share both the self-denial and the dangers of their husbands when the hour of battle and of sacrifice shall have come?"

Cornelia looked so beautiful as she gave utterance to these patriotic sentiments that all the members of the Lebrenn family turned their eyes admiringly toward the young girl.

"Oh, my brave one!" exclaimed Antonicq, rising and taking Cornelia's hands in his own with a transport of love. "How proud I am of your love! What generous duties does it not impose upon me! Well, it is to be to-morrowâ€”the happy day for you and meâ€”the day when we are to be joined in wedlock!"

Hardly had Antonicq finished his sentence when the tramp of a horse's hoofs was heard in the street. It stopped at the armorer's door. Theresa Rennepont rose with a start, and ran to the door crying: "My husband!"

The presentiment of the young wife did not deceive her. The door opened and Theresa fell into the arms of Louis Rennepont.

The joy of the Lebrenn family over the return of one of its members from a distant journey dominated at first all other feelings and thoughts. Immediately after the first outpourings of affection the same question escaped at once from all lips:

"What tidings from Paris, and about Admiral Coligny?"

Alas! it was only then that the members of the Lebrenn family noticed the profound alteration of Louis Rennepont's appearance, and his wife, who had been scrutinizing the young man's face with eager and uneasy curiosity, suddenly cried:

"Great God! Louis, your hair has turned grey!"

Indeed, when Louis Rennepont left La Rochelle towards the end of the previous month, not a thread of silver whitened his raven locks. Now they were streaked with broad bands of grey! He seemed to have aged ten years. Such a change must have been produced by some terrible and sudden emotion. Theresa's exclamation was followed bya mournful silence. All eyes were fixed upon Louis Rennepont with increasing anxiety. He answered his wife with a trembling voice:

"Yes, Theresa; yes, my friends; my hair turned grey in one nightâ€”the night before St. Bartholomew's dayâ€”the night of the 23d of this month of August, of this year, 1572!"

And still shuddering with terror, his chest convulsed with repressed sobs, the young man hid his face in his hands and muttered: "My God! My God!"

Presently the young man recovered sufficient composure to proceed.

"Do you all remember," he said, solemnly addressing the stupefied members of his family, "the infernal scheme of Catherine De Medici that our poor Anna Bell overheard during the Queen's conversation with Loyola's disciple Lefevre at the Abbey of St. Severin?"

"Great God!" cried Antonicq. "The scheme of massacring all the Protestants, disarmed by the peace?"

"The massacre, begun in Paris under my own eyes, during the night before St. Bartholomew," answered Louis Rennepont with an effort, "that massacre is proceeding at this very hour in almost all the large cities of France!"

"Oh!" exclaimed Captain Mirant. "In sight of such a stupendous crime one's head is seized with vertigoâ€”one is not certain of himselfâ€”one asks himself whether he is awake, or dreams."

"By my sister's death! We are not dreaming!" ejaculated the Franc-Taupin. "Friends, if we look down at a stream running under our feet, it often happens that, fora moment, our head turns. That is what we are now experiencing. We see at our feet a torrent flowing, a torrent of bloodâ€”the blood of our brothers!"

"A curse upon my head," thundered the boilermaker Barbot, raising his clenched fist to the ceiling, "if the blood of the Catholics does not run, if not in torrents, at least drop by drop, before La Rochelle! Let them come and attack us!"

"They will come," put in Captain Mirant. "They are surely on the march now! Our ramparts shall be our grave! God be thanked, we shall not be slaughtered like cattle in the shambles! We shall die like men!"

Cornelia, pale and motionless like a statue of sorrow, her arms crossed over her palpitating bosom, and her face bathed in tears, remained in mute consternation until this moment. The girl now took two steps towards her betrothed and said to him in a trembling voice:

"Antonicq, to-morrow we were to be marriedâ€”people in mourning do not marry. From this instant I wear mourning for our brothers, massacred on St. Bartholomew's night! A woman owes obedience to her husband, according to our lawsâ€”iniquitous, degrading laws! I wish to remain free until after the war."

"Cornelia, the hour of sacrifices has sounded," answered Antonicq with a trembling voice; "my courage shall vie with yours."

"We have paid our tribute to human weakness," observed Odelin's widow, smothering a sob; "let us now bravely face the magnitude of the disaster that has smittenour cause. Louis, we listen to your account of St. Bartholomew's night."

"When a few weeks ago I left for Paris, I concluded I would, in passing through Poitiers, Angers and Orleans, visit several of our pastors in order to ascertain whether they also shared our apprehensions. Some I found completely set at ease by the loyal execution of the last edict, above all by the certainty of the marriage of Henry of Bearn with the sister of Charles IX. They looked upon this as a pledge of the good intentions of the King, and of the end of the religious conflicts. Other pastors, on the contrary, felt vaguely uneasy. Being convinced that Joan of Albert was poisoned by Catherine De Medici, they saw with no little apprehension what they considered the heedless confidence that Admiral Coligny placed in the court. But in short, the vast majority of our brothers felt perfectly at ease.

"Immediately upon my arrival at Paris I proceeded to Bethisy Street, the residence of Admiral Coligny. I expressed to him the fears that agitated the Rochelois concerning his life, so precious to our cause, and their mistrust of Charles IX and his mother. The Admiral's answer was: 'The only thing that keeps me back at court is the almost positive prospect of Flanders and the Low Countries rising against the bloodthirsty tyranny of Philip II. Only the support of France could insure the success of the revolt. If those rich industrial provinces secede from Spain, they will be the promised land to our brothers. These will find there a refuge, not as to-day, behindthe ramparts of a very few cities of safety, but either in the Walloon provinces, which will have become French territory under solid guarantees for their freedom, or in the Low Countries, which will be federated upon a republican plan, in imitation of the Swiss cantons, under the protectorate of the Prince of Nassau. By family tradition, and on principle, I am attached to the monarchic form of government. But I am well aware that many of our brothers, you of La Rochelle among them, shocked at the crimes of the reigning house, are strongly inclined towards a republic. To these, the federation of the Low Countries, should the same be established, will offer a form of government to their taste.' 'But, Admiral,' I replied, 'suppose our suspicions prove true, and the help that the King and his mother have so long been holding out the prospect of proves to be but a lure to hide some new trap?' 'I do not think so,' rejoined Admiral Coligny, 'although it may be. One must be ready for anything from Catherine De Medici and her son.' 'But,' I cried, 'Admiral, how can you, despite such doubts entertained by yourself, remain here at court, among your mortal enemies! Do you take no precautions to protect yourself against a possible, if not probable, act of treachery?' 'My friend,' was the Admiral's reply given in a grave and melancholy tone, 'for long years I have conducted that sort of war which, above all others, is the most frightful and atrociousâ€”civil war. It inspires me with insurmountable horror. An uprising in Flanders and the Low Countries offers me the means of putting an end to the shedding of French blood and ofsecuring a new and safe country to our brothers. It will be one way or the otherâ€”either the King's promises are sincere, or they are not. If they are I would consider it a crime to wreck through impatience or mistrust the success of a plan that promises so favorable a future to the Protestants.' 'And if the King should not be sincere,' I inquired, 'if his promises have no object other than to gain time to the end of insuring the success of some new and frightful treachery?' 'In that event, my friend, I shall be the victim of the treachery,' calmly answered Coligny. 'Is it my life they are after? I have long since offered it up as a sacrifice to God. Moreover, only day before yesterday, I declared to the King that, after the suppression of the revolt at Mons, as a consequence of which LanoÃ¼e, my best friend, fell a prisoner into the hands of the Spaniards, France should no longer hesitate to give her support to the insurrection of the Low Countries against Philip II.' 'And what did the King say to that? Did he give you any guarantee of his honest intentions?' 'The King,' Coligny answered me, 'said this to me: "My good father, here are the nuptials of my sister Margot approaching; grant me only a week longer of pleasures and enjoyment, after which, I swear to you, by the word of a King, you and your friends will all be satisfied with me."'"

At this passage Louis Rennepont interrupted his narrative and cried with a shudder:

"Would you believe it, my friends, Charles IX addressed these ambiguous and perfidious words to Coligny on the13th of Augustâ€”and on the night of the 23rd the massacre of our brothers took place!"

"Oh, these Kings!" exclaimed Marcienne, raising her eyes to heaven. "These Kings! The sweat of our brows no longer suffices to slake their thirst. They are glutted with thatâ€”they now joke preparatorily to murder!"

"By my sister's death!" shouted the Franc-Taupin, furiously. "The Admiral must have been smitten with blindness. Acquainted as he was from a long and bitter experience with that tyrant whelp, that tiger cub, how is it he did not take warning from the double sense that the King's words carried! What imprudence!"

"Alas, far from it!" said Louis Rennepont. "In answer to the remarks I made to him, calling his attention to the suspiciousness of the King's words, a suspiciousness rendered all the more glaring by reason of the tyrant's character, the Admiral merely replied: 'If they are after my life, would they not long ago have killed me, in the course of these six months that I have been at court?' 'But monsieur,' I observed, 'it is not your life only that is threatened; they probably aim also at the lives of all our Protestant leaders. Our enemies rely upon your example, upon your presence at court, and upon the festivities of the marriage of Henry of Bearn, to attract our principal men to Parisâ€”then to strike them all down at the giving of a signal, and to massacre the rest of our brothers all over France. Do you forget the scheme that Catherine De Medici talked over with the Jesuit Lefevre?' 'No, no, my friend,' he replied serenely, 'my heart and my judgmentrefuse to believe such a monstrous plan possible; it exceeds the bounds of human wickedness. The most reckless tyrants, whose names have caused the earth to grow pale, never dreamed of anything even remotely approaching such a horrible crimeâ€”it would be nameless!"

"That crime now has a nameâ€”it is called 'St. Bartholomew's Night'!" said Cornelia with a shudder. "What will be the name of the vengeance?"

"Mayhap the vengeance will be called the 'Siege of La Rochelle'!" answered Captain Mirant, the girl's father. "Our walls are strong, and resolute are our hearts."

"The war will be a bloody one!" interjected Master Barbot the boilermaker.

Louis Rennepont proceeded with his narrative: "I left Admiral Coligny, unable to awaken his suspicions. He went to his Chatillon home, spent two days in that retreat so beloved of him, and returned to Paris on the 17th of August, the eve of the marriage of Henry of Bearn and Princess Marguerite. The union of a Protestant Prince with a Catholic Princess, in which so many of us saw the end of the religious struggles, drew to Paris almost all the Protestant leaders. I shall mention, among those whom I visited, Monsieur La Rochefoucauld, Monsieur La Force, and brave Colonel Piles. Apprehending no treason, they all shared the expectations of Coligny with respect to the revolt in the Low Countries. The feeling of safety that prevailed among my brothers gained upon me also. The marriage of Henry of Bearn and Princess Marguerite took place on the 18th of this month. From that day to the21st there was a perpetual round of splendid festivities and general merrymaking at court and in the city. I took up my lodgings at the sign of the Swan, on St. Thomas-of-the-Louvre Street, not far from the residence of Monsieur Coligny. The inn-keeper was of our people. On the 22d he came to my room at about nine in the morning and said to me with surprise not unmixed with alarm: 'Something strange is going on. I just learned that the provosts of each quarter of the city are going from house to house inquiring about the religion of the tenants, and noting down the Huguenots. The reason given is that a general census of the population is wanted. Subsequently,' the inn-keeper proceeded to say, 'the regiment of the Arquebusiers of the Guard entered Paris. Finally, I learn that last night a large number of arms, especially cutlasses and daggers, were transported to the City Hall. I received this information from my niece. She is a Catholic and a chamber maid of the Duchess of Nevers. The taking of a list of the Huguenots in town, the arrival of a whole regiment of Arquebusiers of the Guard, and finally the conveying of such large stores of arms to the City Hall, seem to me to foreshadow some plot against the Protestants. I wish you would notify the Admiral of these occurrences.' The inn-keeper's advice seemed wise to me. I hastened to Bethisy Street and knocked at the Admiral's house. He was not home. As was his habit, he had departed early in the morning to the Louvre. His old equerry Nicholas Mouche, to whom I imparted some of my information, seemed not a little startled. We agreed to proceed to theentrance of the palace and wait for the Admiral. We were passing by the cloister of St. Germain-L'Auxerois, where several houses were in the course of construction, when we caught sight of Coligny returning on foot and followed by two of his serving men. He was reading a letter, and walked slowly. We hastened our steps to meet him. Suddenly we were blinded by the flash of a firearm, fired from the ground floor window of one of the houses contiguous to the cloister. Nicholas Mouche rushed to his master, screaming: 'Help! The Admiral is assassinated! Help! Help!'"

A cry of horror leaped from the lips of all the members of the Lebrenn family, who followed breathlessly the report of Louis Rennepont. Captain Mirant exclaimed:

"Murder and treason! To kill that great man in such a way! Vengeance! Vengeance!"

"No," put in Louis Rennepont with a painful effort. "Monsieur Coligny, killed by a bullet, would at least have met a soldier's death. I followed close upon the heels of Nicholas Mouche and reached him at the moment when Coligny, pale but calm, pointed to the window from which the shot was fired, and said: 'The shot came from there.' The arquebus was loaded with two balls. One carried off the Admiral's left thumb, while the other lodged in his arm near the elbow. Weakened by the loss of blood, that ran profusely, Coligny said to Nicholas Mouche: 'If I leaned upon your arm I could walk to my houseâ€”proceed!' In fact, he walked home. Several Protestant officers happened to be not far behind. Upon learning of the crimethat was committed, they forced their way into the house where the would-be assassin had lain in ambush. They were informed that he fled through a rear door, where a saddled horse, held by a page in the Guise livery, stood waiting for him. Their searches proved vain. No trace of the assassin could they find."

"The Guises! Always the Guisards, either directly guilty, or the accomplices of assassins!" exclaimed Odelin's widow with a shudder. "With how much blood have not those Lorrainian Princes reddened their hands since the butcheries of Vassy! But did Monsieur Coligny's wound prove fatal?"

"No, unfortunately for the Admiralâ€”because the very next dayâ€”" Louis Rennepont broke off suddenly. "Do you want to know, mother, whether the Guises were accomplices in the attempted murder upon the Admiral? Yes, they had their hands in that fresh misdeed, at the instigation of the Queen-mother. And here a plot begins to unroll itself, the deep villainy of which would seem incredible if Catherine De Medici and her son were not known. Presently I shall tell you from whom I have my information; it is reliable. In line with the conversation which she had with the Jesuit Lefevre, and which Anna Bell overheard, Catherine De Medici hated and feared the Guises no less than she did the Admiral. Her scheme was to cause the Admiral to be assassinated by the Guises; then to rid herself of them through the Protestants; and finally to rid herself of the Protestants by the King's soldiers. Does such an infernal combination seem impracticable toyou? Well, it came near succeeding. This was the plot: The Guises continued to slander the Admiral by accusing him of having suborned Poltrot who killed Francis of Guise at the siege of Orleans; the old family hatred burned as implacable as ever. On the day after the marriage of Henry of Bearn, the Queen and her son Charles IX said with much unction to Henry of Guise that, in order to preserve the confidence of the Huguenots and the Admiral, it was necessary to seem to give him a pledge of reconciliation, to request of him that the flames of hatred, so long burning in the breasts of the two families, be extinguished, and to offer him the hand of friendship. All the more reassured by the cordial advance, the Admiral was expected to be thrown still more off his guard, and his assassination was considered all the more certain! The Queen offered for the deed a man after her own and the King's heartâ€”Maurevert, surnamed the 'King's Killer,' since his assassination of brave Mouy, a crime for which the felon received the collar of the Order of St. Michael. The Queen's advice was relished. Young Guise gave his hand to the old Admiral, and two days later Monsieur Coligny, on his return from the Louvre, received a load of arquebus shot fromâ€”Maurevert!"

Louis Rennepont stopped for a moment, and then proceeded amid the profound silence of the family:

"By wounding, instead of killing Coligny, the 'King's Killer' ruined the project of the Queen and her son. They had counted upon the murder of the Admiral to incite a great tumult in Paris; their agents were to scatter amongthe mob the information that the heinous murder was the work of the Guisards; the exasperated Huguenots were expected to run to arms and avenge Coligny's death with the massacre of the whole Guise family and their partisans; that done, the royal troops were in turn to overwhelm the Protestants, on the pretext of being guilty of a flagrant breach of the edict of pacification. The last massacre was to extend from Paris all over France, under the guise of a vindication of the outraged edict of pacification. Machiavelli could not have plotted better. The arquebus shot of Maurevert would have rid Charles IX at once of Coligny, the Guises and the Protestants. The 'King's Killer' having missed fire, another course had to be pursued, and, above all, the reformers had to be convinced that Maurevert's attempt was merely an act of individual vengeance. Accordingly Charles IX hastened to the Admiral's residence. The tiger-cub wept. He called the old Admiral his 'good father.' He promised, 'upon the word of a King, however high the station of the would-be murderers, they should not escape just punishment.' I was an eye-witness of those tears and royal protestations; many of our brothers, myself among them, remained near the bed where Coligny lay while awaiting the surgeon. We were present at that interview with Charles IXâ€”"

"Then you saw him, Louis, that tiger with the face of a man?" asked Cornelia with a curiosity born of disgust and horror. "How does the monster look?"

"Pale and atrabilious of face, with dull, glassy eyes, and a sleepy look, as if the fervent Catholic and crownedmurderer were ever dreaming of crime," answered Louis Rennepont. "Now watch the sanguinary craftiness of that pupil of Machiavelli's, to whom neither pledge nor oath is aught but a more effective form of perfidy. Would you believe it, that after having expressed sympathy for the wounds of his 'good father,' and after having pledged his royal word to secure justice, the first words of Charles IX were: 'I shall forthwith issue orders to close the gates of Paris, so that none shall leave the city; the murderer will not be able to flee. Moreover, I authorize, or rather I strongly urge the Protestant seigneurs, to whom I have offered the hospitality of the Louvre during the nuptial festivals of my sister Margot, to summon their friends near them for safeguard.'"

"I perceive the trick of the tiger," broke in Captain Mirant. "By closing the gates of Paris he prevented the escape of the Huguenots whom he had consigned to death!"

"No doubt," added Master Barbot the boilermaker, "the same as by inducing the Protestant seigneurs, who were lodged at the Louvre, to summon their friends to them, Charles IX only aimed at having them more ready at hand for his butchers!"

"The issue proved that such were the secret designs of the King," replied Louis Rennepont. "But haste was urgent. If tidings of the attempted murder of the Admiral reached the provinces, the Huguenots would be put on their guard. The Queen assembled her council that very night, and presided at its meeting. These were the members at the council: The King Charles IX; his brother,the Duke of Anjou; the Bastard of Angouleme; the Duke of Nevers; Birago and Gondi, the Queen's messengers of evil. It was decided that the butchery should start at early dawn. The provosts of the merchants, all exemplary Catholics, had, under pretext of taking a general census, drawn up full lists of all the Huguenots in the city. Their places of residence being thus accurately indicated, the assassins would know exactly where to go. The next question that came up was whether Henry of Bearn also was to be killed. Catherine De Medici and her son, the King, were strongly in favor, and urged the necessity of the murder. The other councillors, however, more scrupulous than their monarchs, objected that the whole world would be shocked at the assassination of a Prince whose throat was cut, so to say, under the very eyes of the mother and brother of his wife. Moreover, the young Prince was lightheaded, unsteady of purpose, they thought, and without any rooted religious belief. It would be easy, they concluded, either by means of promises or threats to cause him to abjure the Reformed religion. The death of the Prince of CondÃ© was also long discussed. Twice the decision was in favor. But his brother-in-law, the Duke of Nevers, saved him by guaranteeing the Prince's abjuration. For the rest, the lad, only the rallying ground of the Huguenots and without personal valor, inspired but little fear, especially if compared with Coligny. Towards one o'clock in the morning, the young Duke of Guise was summoned to the Louvre and introduced to the council. The principal leadership of the carnage was offered to andaccepted by him. A strange thing happened. At the last moment, Charles IX was assailed by some slight qualms of conscience at the thought of the murder of the Admiral, the old man whom that very morning he had addressed with the title of 'my good father.' But the King's hesitance was short-lived. His last words were: 'By the death of God! Seeing you think the Admiral should be killed, I will it, too; but I demand that all the Huguenots be killed, all, to the last one, that there may not be one left alive to reproach me with the Admiral's death'!"

"Oh, just God!" exclaimed Odelin's widow, raising her hands to heaven. "Since you consented to the unheard-of deed, Oh, God of Vengeance, You must have reserved some frightful punishment for him! Oh, You gave Your consent to that palace plot! to that nocturnal council! There Charles IX, armed with sovereign power, and certain of the ferocious obedience of his soldiers and his minions, like an assassin in ambush in the edge of a forest, laid in the dark the infamous, bloody and cowardly trap into which, when they awoke, so many of our brothers, who went to sleep confiding in the law, in their right and in the oath of that Prince, fell to their death! How many times did he not swear in the presence of God and man to respect the edict of peace! Yes, You allowed those horrors, O, God of Vengeance, to the end that this Frankish royalty and the Roman Church, its eternal accomplice, soon may fall under the general execration that the massacre of St. Bartholomew will arouse! Death to Kings! Death to their infamous accomplices, the nobles and priests!"

The Lebrenn family joined with hearts and lips in the widow's imprecations. When the excitement again subsided Louis Rennepont proceeded:

"Before retiring that night to my inn, I walked through a large number of streets. At least in appearance they were quiet. I met many of our brothers. Alarmed at the attempted murder of the Admiral, several had tried to leave Paris. They found the gates rigorously closed by orders of Charles IX. Back at night in my inn, I did not find the keeper, upon whom I relied for further information. Broken with fatigue and agitated by vague fears, I threw myself in my clothes upon my bed and fell asleep. At about three in the morning I was awakened by my inn-keeper. He was trembling with terror. 'The death of all the Protestants of Paris is decreed,' he whispered to me; 'the massacre is to begin at daybreak. My niece, the chambermaid of the Duchess of Nevers, overheard some words about the plot; she hastened to warn me. I have notified all our brothers who are lodged here. They have all fled. Your only chance to escape the carnage is to join the first gang of the cut-throats whom you may run across; you must pretend to be of them; you may in that way be able to reach some place of safety. For a sign among themselves they have a white paper cross attached to their hats, and a white shirt sleeve slipped like an armlet over the sleeve of their coats. Their password is: "God and the King!" Flee! Flee! May the Lord protect you! Thanks to my niece I have a safe retreat in the palace of Nevers.' While the inn-keeper was giving me these lastdirections, there came through my window, which I had left open on that hot and sultry night of August, the measured tintinnabulation of the large bell in the tower of the palace. The sound seemed to leap strangely from the depths of the silence in which the city was shrouded. 'It is the signal for the massacre!' cried my inn-keeper, leaving the room precipitately and whispering his last warnings to me: 'Flee! You have not a minute to spare; my house is marked! It will be instantly assaulted by the butchers!'"

"Great God!" cried Theresa, Louis Rennepont's young wife, pressing her child distractedly to her breast, and unable to hold back her tears. And addressing her husband: "You are here, near us, safe and sound, poor friend! and yet I shiver. I weep at the thought of the cruel agonies that you must have undergone. Did you follow the inn-keeper's advice, and assume the signs of the Catholics?"

"It was my only safety. I cut a cross of white paper and stuck it in my hat; I cut off a shirt sleeve and thrust my right arm through it; I then sallied out into the street. It was still silent and deserted. But the funeral knell from all the Paris churches had by that time joined the clangor of the tower bell, which then was ringing at its loudest. Windows were thrown open. Little by little lights appeared in them."

"Malediction upon the people of Paris!" cried Odelin's widow. "It seems most of them were accomplices in the butchery!"

"Alas, yes, mother! To their eternal shame, the factmust be admitted; the people of Paris were the accomplices of Charles IX, and our butchers! The people and a considerable portion of the bourgeoisie, being drugged by the fanaticism of the monks, did take part in the massacre. Some, yielding to the fear of being suspected, obeyed the orders of the provosts, and placed lights at their windows at the sound of the first strokes of the bells that they heard. My first thought was to run to the residence of the Admiral and notify him of the projected butchery. As I entered Bethisy Street I saw men emerging from several houses; all carried white crosses in their hats and their arms in shirt sleeves. They brandished pikes, swords and cutlasses, and cried: 'God and the King! Kill! Kill all the Huguenots!' They then gathered into groups, drew themselves up before certain doors that bore the mark of a cross in white chalk, beat upon and broke them down, and rushed in yelling: 'Kill! Kill the Huguenots!'

"I was rushing towards the residence of the Admiral when I saw a battalion of Arquebusiers of the Guard turn into Bethisy Street. The troop was headed by the young Duke Henry of Guise, accompanied by his uncle Aumale and the Bastard of Angouleme, brother of Charles IX. All three were clad in war armor. Pages carrying lighted torches preceded them. Among the soldiers were interspersed a large number of Catholic cut-throats, recognizable by the signs which I also wore. I mixed with them. The crowd arrived before Coligny's residence. The soldiers knocked at the main door with the butts of their arquebuses. It was instantly opened. Despite the promptobedience shown, all the serving-men of Coligny found in the corridor and the yard were promptly done to death. The Guises and the Bastard of Angouleme, surrounded by their pages, remained outside in front of the facade of the house at the foot of the porch, the stairs of which led to the vestibule. Duke Henry of Guise made a sign; instantly his equerry Besmes, followed by Captains Cosseins, Cardillac, Altain and Petrucci, rushed forward with a detachment of soldiers and dashed up the stairs to the first floor, on which the Admiral's room was. I realized the Admiral was lost, and remained unobserved below among the Catholics, where the details of the murder were soon reported. Awakened by the outcry of his servants, and the tumult on the street, the Admiral guessed the fate that awaited him. His faithful Nicholas Mouche and Pastor Merlin were with him. They had watched all night at his bedside. 'Our hour has come; let us commend our souls to God!' said Coligny, with which words he rose from his bed, threw a morning gown over his shoulders and knelt down. The minister and his old servant knelt down beside him. The three began to pray. The door was broken in. Besmes, the equerry of Henry of Guise, was the first to enter, sword in hand, leading in his captains. He walked straight to Coligny, who, having finished his prayer was rising from the floor serene and dignified. 'Is it you who are the Admiral?' shouted Besmes; 'Well, you shall die!' 'The will of God be done! Young man, you shorten my life only a few days,' answered Coligny. These were that great man's last words. Besmes seized him bythe throat with one hand, and with the other thrust his sword through him. The old man sank on his knees. Captain Cardillac threw him down, and opened his throat with one slash of his dagger. The other officers despatched Merlin and Nicholas Mouche.

"I had remained below. There I witnessed an even more execrable scene. Only a minute or two after the murderers had rushed upstairs, the Duke of Guise stepped closer to the facade of the house and called out impatiently in a ringing voice: 'Well, Besmes! Is it done?' Thereupon a casement was thrown open on the first floor; the equerry appeared at the window holding his bloody sword in his hand, and answered: 'Yes, monseigneur! It is done! He is dead!' 'Then throw the corpse down to us that we may see it!' commanded Henry of Guise. Besmes vanished, and reappeared dragging, with the aid of Captain Cosseins, the corpse of Admiral Coligny; the two raised itâ€”meseems I still behold the grey head of the venerable old man, pale and limp, as the body was pushed out of the window, with his lifeless arms swinging in space. Besmes and the captain made a final effort; the corpse was precipitated upon the pavement, where it rolled down at the feet of the Duke of Guise. Coligny was clad only in the morning gown that he had hurriedly put on. Thus half-naked and still warm he was hurled out of the window. The venerable head rebounded upon the cobblestones and reddened them with blood. The victim had fallen on his face. The Duke of Guise stooped down, and, aided by the Bastard of Angouleme, turned the corpseover on its back, wiped with his sash the blood that covered the Admiral's august visage, contemplated it for a moment with ferocious glee, and then kicked the white head with the tip of his boot, crying: 'At last! Dead at lastâ€”thoroughly dead!' The Duke then turned to his henchmen: 'Comrades, let us proceed with our work! The Pope wills it! the King so orders it!' Almost fainting with sickening horror and unable to move, I witnessed this cannibal sceneâ€”it was only the prelude for another and still more horrifying one. The Dukes of Guise and of Aumale and the Bastard of Angouleme departed with their soldiers from Monsieur Coligny's courtyard. Almost immediately the same was invaded by a band of men, women and children in rags. They were a troop hideous to look upon, as they brandished their sticks, butcher knives and iron bars, under the leadership of a Cordelier monk who held a jagged cutlass in one hand and a crucifix in the other, yelling at the top of his voice: 'God and the King!' The howlings of the mob kept time to the monk's yells. Two men with hang-dog looks carried torches before the monk. The moment that he recognized the corpse of our martyr, the Cordelier emitted a screech of infernal glee, threw himself upon the lifeless body of the Admiral, squatted down upon its chest, sawed at the neck with his cutlass, severed the head from the trunk, seized it by its grey locks, and held it up to the mob, crying in a resonant, though cracked voice: 'This is the share of theHoly Father! I shall send him Coligny's head to Rome!'[77]â€”That monk," added Louis Rennepont in a tremulous voice, and answering a cry of execration that leaped from the hearts of his listeners, "that monk, O shame and O misfortune!â€”that monk was the assassin of Odelin! Oh, may God have pity upon us!"

"Fra HervÃ©!" exclaimed all the members of the Lebrenn family in chorus. A silence of terror and horror reigned in the armorer's hall.

"I wish to come quickly to an end with these monstrosities," proceeded Louis Rennepont, catching his voice. "After the tiger come the jackals, after the ferocious beasts the unclean ones. Hardly had Fra HervÃ© severed the Admiral's head from his trunk, amid the hideous acclamations of the ragged crew, when they fell upon the corpse. Its feet and hands were cut off. The entrails were torn out of the abdomen and were struggled for by the human jackals. The sacrilegious mutilations seemed to go beyond the boundaries of the horrible, and yet the limit was not reached. Women, veritable furies, pounced upon the bleeding limbs, andâ€”but I dare say no more before mother, or before Cornelia, nor before you, my wife. The stentorian voice of Fra HervÃ© finally silenced the tumult and quelled the anthropophagous orgie. 'Brothers!' he cried, 'to the Pope I shall send the head of this Huguenot carrion, but let us carry the stripped carcass to the gibbet of Montfaucon!It is there that should be exposed the remains of the villain who has infested France with his heresy, and lacerated the bosom of our holy mother the Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church!' 'To Montfaucon with the Huguenot carrion!' howled the ferocious band. A procession was improvised. Fra HervÃ© sheathed his cutlass, planted the Admiral's head on the point of a pike, and raised the trophy in one hand. In the other he waved aloft his crucifix, and, lighted by his two torch-bearers, headed the procession. The now shapeless remnants of the corpse were tied to a rope, a team of cut-throats harnessed to it, and the bloody lump was dragged through the gutters. The procession marched to the cry of 'To Montfaucon with the Huguenot carrion! God and the King!' At that moment, and despite the terror that held me rooted to the ground, my inn-keeper's last suggestions occurred to me. Montfaucon was situated outside of the walls of Paris. No doubt some city gate would be opened to the Cordelier's band. I joined it, in the hope of escaping from Paris. We left the courtyard of Monsieur Coligny's house. It was now broad day. Before proceeding to Montfaucon, Fra HervÃ© wished to exhibit his bloody trophy to the eyes of Charles IX and his mother. We directed our course to the Louvre. Other scenes of carnage were taking place there. The Protestant seigneurs and officers who came in the suite of the Princes of Bearn and CondÃ© to participate in the wedding festivities of the King's sister, were lodged at the palace. Relying upon the royal hospitality, they were taken by surprise while asleep, dragged half naked to thecourtyard, and there either brained or stabbed to death. Among others whom I recognized at a distance were Morge, Pardillan, St. Martin, besides the brave veterans Piles, Baudine and Puy-Vaud. They struggled in their shirts against the soldiers who beat them down with their halberds, and then stripped the corpses of their last shreds of clothing. The moanings, the imprecations of the victims, the streams of steaming blood through which we tramped, and that often reached our ankles, made my head reel. The butchers laid the corpses out in rows in front of the facade of the Louvre. The bodies were yet warm; many a bloody limb still seemed to palpitate; the corpses lay stripped naked, upon their backs. I counted over four hundred. Suddenly there appeared Catherine De Medici accompanied by her maids of honor and other ladies of the court. She mounted a terrace from which a full sight of the carnage could be had. They cameâ€”"

Louis Rennepont stopped short. He hid his face in his hands. "Alas! I have to inform you of something still more horrible than anything I have yet said! The furies who profaned the corpse of Coligny were beings, who, depraved by misery and ignorance, and besotted by a brutish paganism, yielded obedience to fanatic promptings. But Catherine De Medici and the women of her suite were brought up in the splendors of court life, and yet they came to mock and insult the bodies of the dead. And would you believe itâ€”" but again Louis Rennepont found it impossible to proceed. "No!" he cried; "I shall not soil your ears with the nameless infamies of those worsethan harpies.[78]While Catherine De Medici, her maids of honor and a bevy of court ladies were amusing themselves on the terrace, Fra HervÃ©, still carrying Coligny's head on the point of the pike, addressed to the Queen a few words that I did not hear, my attention being at that moment diverted by the appearance of Charles IX at the balcony of one of the windows of the Louvre. The King held a long arquebus in his hand; a page carried another of identical shape and stood behind his master ready to pass it over to him. Suddenly I saw the King lower the arm, take aim, blow upon the fuse on the cock, approach it to the panâ€”and the shot departed. Charles IX raised his arquebus, looked into the distance, and started to laughâ€”pleased as a hunter who has brought down his game. The monster with a human face was firing upon the Huguenots who were fleeing from the butchery in the St. Germain quarter, and were attempting to escape death by swimming across the Seine.

"After haranguing Catherine De Medici, Fra HervÃ© resumed his march to Montfaucon at the head of his band, dragging behind them the now shapeless remains of the Admiral. I had to cross Paris almost from one end to the other in the wake of Fra HervÃ©'s procession. In the course of the march my eyes encountered fresh horrors. We ran across Marshal Tavannes, the commander of the royal army at the battle of Roche-la-Belle. At the head of aregiment of the guards he was urging his men and the mobs to massacre, shouting to them: 'Kill! Bleed them! Bleed them! A bleeding is good in August as well as in May!' And his men did the bleeding. They bled so well that the gutters ran no longer water but blood. The smoldering hatreds of neighbors against neighbors were now given a loose to, under the pretext of religious fervor. Among a thousand atrocities that I witnessed on that frightful day, I shall mention but one, because it exceeds any other that I have yet mentioned. When I first arrived in Paris, and despite the apprehensions that were uppermost on my mind, I often went to the lectures of the illustrious scientist Remus. The man's renown, he being one of the most celebrated professors at the University, besides enjoying the reputation of a foremost philanthropist of these days, attracted me. I found students, grown-up men and even greyheads crowding around his chair. Well, holding close to Fra HervÃ©'s band, I passed by the house of Remus, which the cut-throats had invaded. A large concourse of people blocked our way, and interrupted our march for awhile. The mob clamored aloud for the life of the celebrated scientist. The most frantic in their cries for the murder were a bunch of pupils, between fourteen and fifteen years of age, whom two monksâ€”a Carmelite and a Dominicanâ€”had in lead. The assassins finally pushed Remus, half naked, out of his house. The unhappy man, already wounded in many places, and blinded by the blood that streamed down his face, staggered like a drunken man, and held his hands before him. I see him yetâ€”he falls to the ground, they despatch him, and thereupon the pupils, boys yet, throw themselves upon the corpse of the scientist, rip his bowels open, tear out the steaming entrails, turn the body around, raise the bloody shirt that barely covered it, and thrash the corpse with its own intestines amid roars of laughter, while they shout: 'Remus has whipped enough of us, it is now our turn to whip him.'

"Fra HervÃ©'s band again resumed its march. It arrived at one of the city gates that leads to the gibbet of Montfaucon. As I had hoped, the gate was thrown open before the Cordelier. I slackened my pace, fell to the rear of the procession, and, at the first practicable turn on the road, I jumped aside and blotted myself out of sight in a wheat field. The tall stalks concealed me completely. I waited till Fra HervÃ©'s band was a safe distance away. I crept to the road that encircles the ramparts and towards sunset I arrived, worn out with fatigue, at an inn where I spent the night, giving myself out for a good Catholic. Early in the morning I started for Etampes. They had just finished the carnage when I arrived! It was still going on in Orleans when I passed that city. At Blois, at Angers, at Poitiersâ€”the same massacres of our brothers. Thus, after long years of hypocrisy and craftiness, the pact of the triumvirate inspired by Francis of Guise, the butcher of Vassy, was finally carried out. Oh, my friends! Not for nothing did Catherine De Medici say to the Jesuit Lefevre: 'Induce the Holy Father and Philip II to be patient; let us lull the reformers with a false sense of safety; I shall hatch the bloody egg that the Guise laidâ€”on oneday, at the same hour, the Huguenots will be exterminated in France.' The Italian woman kept her promise. The shell of the egg, nursed in her bosom, has broken, and the extermination has leaped out full armed."

Odelin's widow rose to her feet pale and stately. She raised one of her venerable hands to heaven, and with a gesture of malediction she uttered these words, solemnly, amidst the profound silence of her family:

"Be they eternally accursed of God and man, who, from this day or in the centuries to come, do not repudiate the Church of Rome, that infamous Church, the only Church that has ever given birth to such misdeeds!"

"By my sister's death!" cried the Franc-Taupin. "Shall the voice of Estienne of La Boetie be hearkened to at last? Shall we at last seeallleaguedagainst one?the oppressed, the artisans, the plebs, finally annihilate the oppressor and crush royalty?"

Hardly had the Franc-Taupin finished speaking when James Henry, the Mayor of La Rochelle, entered precipitately, and addressing Louis Rennepont, said: "My friend, the few words dropped by you to some of the people whom you met on your arrival, have flown from mouth to mouth and thrown the city into a state of alarm! Is it true that Monsieur Coligny has been assassinated?"

"Monsieur Coligny has been assassinated! All the Protestant leaders are murdered!" answered Louis Rennepont. "All the Protestants of Paris were massacred on St. Bartholomew's night! At Etampes, at Orleans, at Blois, at Tours, at Poitiers, the work of extermination isstill in progress. It was expected to steep in blood the rest of France as well. It is a fact!"

"To arms! And may the Lord protect us!" shouted James Henry vigorously. "Let us make ready for a desperate defense. La Rochelle is now the only safe city left to the Huguenots. Charles IX will not be long in laying siege to us. I shall order the belfry to ring. The City Council shall be in session within an hour. It shall proclaim La Rochelle in a state of danger. To arms! War to the knife against the King and his Catholics, against the assassins of our brothers! To arms!"

For the first time in their lives did Charles IX, his mother and her priests discover that there was a limit to endurance. The crime so long elaborated, so skilfully planned, and carried out with incredible audacity, so far from annihilating the Reformation gave it fresh life, steeled its nerves, and rendered it unconquerable. Hardly had two months elapsed since the massacres of St. Bartholomew, when, not Huguenots only, but a considerable portion of the Catholic party itself, in open revolt at the cruel excesses of the court, the fanaticism of the papacy and the subjection of France to the exactions of Philip II, took up arms, and made common cause with the Huguenots in order to bring about the triumph not only of the religious but of a political reformation also. The new adversaries of Charles IX and his mother took the name of the "Politicals." Alarmed at the renewed and more threatening attitude of the now so unexpectedly reinforced Huguenots, the King endeavored once more to beguile them with false promises. He doubled and twisted, sought to deal and compromise. It was too late. A fourth religiouswar broke out. Several provinces federated together upon a republican plan. La Rochelle became the fortified center of the Protestants. Against that city Charles IX concentrated and directed all his forces in the course of the last month of the year 1572â€”less than six months after St. Bartholomew's night.

La Rochelle, situated at the further extremity of a wide and safe bay, presented the aspect of an elongated trapezium, the wide side of which was about three thousand feet in length, while the narrow one was only twelve hundred feet, and faced the sea. The city extended from north-east to southwest, and stretched between the salt marshes of Rompsai, Maubec and Tasdon, on the east, and those of the New Gate, on the west. These marshes, then partly dried or turned into meadows, were intersected by a large number of canals the locks of which enabled the land to be readily inundated, and presented an impassable barrier to any hostile force. The entrance of the port was at the Center of the sea frontage, and at the further end of the bay. It was defended by the two large towers of Chaine and St. Nicholas, both built of brick, equipped with cannon, and also used for powder magazines. To the right and left of the two towers, and leaving between them the narrow port entrance, extended a wall made of cut stone which at high tide was washed by the waves. The wall reached, to the east, the St. Nicholas Gate, and, to the west, the Lantern Gate, at the summit of which was a beacon to guide the sailors by night. From that side the city was unapproachable by an armed force except along a narrowtongue of land which joined the suburb of Tasdon with the St. Nicholas Gate. Furthermore, besides the water-filled fosse, Scipio Vergano, a skilful Italian engineer, employed by us, the Rochelois, had raised an additional protection to this gate by a sort of double counter-guard made of earth, and flanking the entrance of the port. The eastern front which extended from the St. Nicholas Gate to the Congues Gate, was along its whole extent but a poor wall, flanked by two round towers. It was one of the weak sides of our city. The western front ran in a straight line from the Lantern Tower to the bastion that we called the Bastion of the Evangelium. This portion of the fortifications consisted of a wall flanked by a large number of small and closely built towers, with occasional terraces. In the middle of this long line of defenses, which the large number of canals rendered almost unapproachable, Scipio Vergano cut the New Gate, flanked with a solid bastion. Finally the north front extended from the Bastion of the Evangelium to the Congues Gate, a distance of nearly two thousand five hundred feet. The left extremity of that vast and very vulnerable front was defended by the Bastion of the Evangelium, which was itself protected by a terrace of earth. In the center and the highest spot of the line rose the demi-bastion of the Old Fountain. True enough, it commanded the whole plain, but both the slightness of its projection and the insufficiency of its flanks unfitted it for real purposes of defense. This bastion covered the ramparts but imperfectly.

Such, Oh, sons of Joel, was the aspect of the fortifications of La Rochelle, the bulwark of the Reformation and of freedom, the holy city against which Charles IX was about to hurl his Catholic hordes and the most powerful army ever commanded by his generals.

I, Antonicq Lebrenn, kept a sort of diary of the siege of La Rochelle, and of the defense made by its inhabitants, among whom our own family combated gloriously.

SEPTEMBER1, 1572.â€”Informed of the massacre of St. Bartholomew, and foreseeing that the Huguenots would once more take up arms, the Rochelois placed their city in a state of defense. James Henry, the Mayor, took an accurate census of the inhabitants. The serviceable part was divided into eight companies, exclusive of the Colonel, the name given to the ninth, in which the Mayor and aldermen, all anxious to share the perils of the other citizens, are enrolled. The respective captains elected over these bodies are: James David, Louis Gargouillaud, Peter Portier, John Colin, Charles Chalemont, Marie Mari, Mathurin the elder, and Bonneaud. These are all made members of the Council of the Commune. The aldermen and other Councilmen who command no company, are charged with inspecting the posts, and shall be on guard, day and night, in the ranks of the Colonel. Besides these, six other companies are formed of volunteer foot-soldiers, each a hundred and twenty men strong. The chiefs of these are: Dessarts, Montalembert, La Riviere, De Lys, Bretin, called the Norman, and Virolet. All these captains, men well known for their bravery, took a glorious part in the lastcivil wars. The magistrates are engaged in increasing the food supply of the city, so long as the sea is still open to them. Captain Mirant, the father of Cornelia, my betrothed, is charged with the command of a foraging flotilla. He is to go for wheat to the coast of Brittany, and for ammunitions to England. The daring sailor will know how to elude the royalist corsairs, or to give them battle. Cornelia is to accompany her father on the voyage, and will combat like a true Gallic woman. We bade each other good-bye this morning.

SEPTEMBER5, 1572.â€”Yesterday there arrived at La Rochelle Colonel Plouernel, who is now head and heir of that powerful house by the death of Count Neroweg of Plouernel and his son Viscount Odet, both killed at the battle of Roche-la-Belle in the encounter with my father and myself. The colonel left his wife and children with his father-in-law at the manor of Mezlean, situated near the sacred stones of Karnakâ€”a fief which includes among its dependencies a house, a large garden and several fields that once belonged to our ancestor Joel before the conquest of Gaul by Julius Caesar.

SEPTEMBER9, 1572.â€”During the last few days a large number of fugitives who escaped the massacre of St. Bartholomew arrived at La Rochelle. There are to-day in our city fifty noblemen of the neighborhood, together with their families, besides sixty ministers of the Reformed religion. Over fifteen hundred soldiers, who deserted the royal army with arms and baggage, have come over to us.

OCTOBER30, 1572.â€”Mayor James Henry and the CityCouncil, who are charged with watching over the safety of the city, display marvelous activity. A military council has been established with Colonel Plouernel and my uncle the Franc-Taupin as members. My uncle is an expert in matters appertaining to siege work, and especially in mining and counter-mining. The military council is strengthening the fortifications, and throwing up fresh ones. New batteries have been set up at all the weak points that might invite an attack between the Congues Gate and the Bastion of the Evangelium. A redoubt is being raised on Notre Dame Church, and upon one of its remaining towers two large cannons, capable of sweeping the surrounding fields far and wide, are being raised and mounted. Other engines of bombardment are mounted upon the platforms of all the belfries that are strong enough to support the weight and shock of artillery. The towers of Aix, of St. Catherine, of Verdiere and of Crique are all armed in this way. Noticing that certain portions of the moat between the Congues Gate and the Evangelium Bastion are poorly flanked, the Franc-Taupin proposed the construction of what he callstaupinieres, that is, casemates, the protected embrasures of which are on a level with the ground, and can open an almost subterranean, and therefore destructive fire upon the enemy. The casemates are being constructed. Men, women and children labor at the fortifications with inexpressible enthusiasm.

NOVEMBER3, 1572.â€”A heroic decision was taken yesterday. It recalls the decision that our ancestors Albinik the sailor and his wife MeroÃ« saw put into execution whenthe Bretons, to the end of famishing the army of Julius Caesar, reduced to ashes their rich and fertile fields, turning the same into a desert that extended from Nantes to Vannes![79]Yesterday, by order of the Mayor of La Rochelle, all the houses of the suburb of St. Eloi, and of the quarters of Salines, Volliers and Patere, were torn down or burned by their owners. No place is to be left to the enemy under shelter of which they can approach the city, and render the investment more dangerous to us.

NOVEMBER8, 1572.â€”Monsieur Biron has received considerable reinforcements and advance supplies of siege material with which to invest our city. He set up his camp before the city with headquarters at St. AndrÃ©. Colonel Strozzi, one of the ablest officers of the Catholic army, occupies Puy-Liboreau; Colonel St. Martin occupies Gord with twelve hundred men under him; Colonel Goas is encamped at Rompsai with six companies of artillery; and Monsieur Du Guast, a minion of the Duke of Anjou, the brother of King Charles IX, is at Aytre with two regiments of veterans. We prepared for these dispositions of the enemy. The inhabitants of Aytre left only ruins for Du Guast to house in.

DECEMBER8, 1572.â€”The enemy's army is steadily receiving reinforcements, and extending its lines. The land blockade is tightening. Every day there are bloody skirmishes between us and the royalists. They lose heavily at this game. Relying upon their numbers, they venture far into the network of our defenses. These are cut up bymoats and protected by walls, where, amid the labyrinth of hardly distinguishable paths across the salt marshes, we find many available places to hide in ambush, and our arquebusiers easily decimate the Catholics. When, surprised, they seek to pursue us, they are swallowed up in the depths of the turf-pits the surface of which is covered by a greenish weed that they have not learned to distinguish from the grass of the prairie. It has so far been a war of ambuscades, similar to the patriotic resistance that the Armoricans offered on their moors, their marshes and their forests, against the soldiers of the son of Charlemagne, in the days of our ancestor Vortigern.[80]

DECEMBER13, 1572.â€”Yesterday was fought a stubborn encounter at the Font suburb where, led from rich springs, there pours into a reservoir the water that an aqueduct takes into the city. The Catholics took possession of the place for the purpose of turning off the water and depriving La Rochelle of it. They succeeded. My uncle, the Franc-Taupin, and his friend Barbot, the boilermaker of the isle of Rhe, proposed to enter the aqueduct, which had been allowed to run dry, and in that way to arrive under the camp of the enemy's troops at Font, and then blow them up with a mine. Unfortunately their proposition was not favored. An open attack was preferred. It cost us many men, and Font remained in the hands of the Catholics. The canals have been cut. But the village fountains and wells furnish us with enough water.

JANUARY7, 1573.â€”In order still more to tighten theland blockade, the enemy has erected two forts at the entrance of the bay, on the roadstead in front of the inside port, thereby compelling our vessels to run the gauntlet of those batteries in order to reach the city.

JANUARY12, 1573.â€”Our friend Master Barbot, the boilermaker, achieved day before yesterday a deed, unmatched, I think, in the annals of military exploits. Not far from the counterscarp of the Evangelium Bastion, stands a mill which we call Brande, and where Captain Normand placed a small advanced day guard. At night they returned to the city, leaving at the mill their arms and only one sentinel. Evening before last, Colonel Strozzi, profiting by the moonlight, marched at the head of a strong detachment, supported by two light pieces of artillery, to the attack of the mill, where Master Barbot was alone on guard. Barbot decided to remain firmly at his post, which he did, discharging one after the other upon the assailants the arquebuses which were left loaded on the gunrack of the post. Our friend made simultaneously a great noise, counterfeiting a variety of voices, with the view of causing the enemy to believe that the mill was strongly defended. On hearing the rattle of the arquebus shots, Captain Normand ran to the parapet of the bastion, and shouted to Master Barbot to hold out and that reinforcements were hurrying to his support! The road was circuitous and therefore rather long. As a consequence, before our men could reach the bastion of the mill, which lay on the other side of the moat, and despite all his intrepidity, Master Barbot found himself on the point ofyielding. His ammunition had run out. He parleyed, and demanded quarter for himself and his pretended garrison. Colonel Strozzi granted quarter to our friend, who, stepping out, revealed the fact that his garrison consisted of himself alone. Furious at the discovery, Strozzi was about to hang Master Barbot, when Captain Normand's men arrived at the double quick, routed the royalists and snatched our intrepid boilermaker from their clutches.

JANUARY15, 1573.â€”God be blessed! My mother, my sister Theresa Rennepont, Cornelia, my betrothed, and several other brave Rochelois women had a narrow escape last night. The brigantines of Captain Mirant, charged with the duty of provisioning La Rochelle with munitions of war and grain, frequently set sail for the shores of Brittany or for Dover, and re-entered our port with their cargoes of supplies. To the end of blocking these excursions, or rendering them too perilous to be frequently attempted, the royalists brought from the port of Brouage the hull of a large dismantled vessel. They filled the same with sand, and sank it at the entrance of the bay that leads to our port. The water in that spot being shallow, the sunken hull was thus turned into a species of half-submerged pontoon, and was mounted with a number of artillery pieces which, jointly with those on the redoubts raised by the enemy on the opposite sides of the bay, could cross their fires upon any of our ships that either left or entered the roadstead. Yesterday the City Council decided that during the night, at low tide, the vessel, left dry upon the sand banks by the outflowing sea, was to beset on fire. The audacious strokeâ€”audacious because those who were commissioned to execute it had to leave the city by the Two Mills Gate, and were forced to heap up the combustibles around the hull under the fire of the soldiers on guardâ€”the audacious expedition did not otherwise require military skill. It only required stout hearts; it devolved upon the Rochelois women, at their unanimous and pressing demand. "The blood and lives of the men, already numerically inferior to the besiegers, should," said they, "be preserved for battle." The brave women assembled, about three hundred strong, together with a goodly number of children of about twelve years who insisted upon accompanying their mothers. The troop consisted of bourgeois women, noble ladies, female servants, and wives of artisans, fishermen and merchants. Among these, and foremost among themâ€”I mention it proudlyâ€”were my mother, my sister Theresa, and Cornelia Mirant, recently returned from one of her father's foraging expeditions to Brittany. At about three in the morning they started from the city, carrying bundles of dry kindling wood and packages of hay. A strong wind was blowing. Deep darkness favored their march under the guidance of a fisherman's wife who bore the nickname of theBombarde, by reason of her having extinguished one of the enemy's projectiles. Due to her often dragging for oysters and clams, which abounded on our coasts, the Bombarde was acquainted with the safe passages between the rocks and the quicksands that strewed the bay. She led the Rochelois women throughthe darkness. The following is Cornelia's own and thrilling account of the affair:

"Thanks to the darkness, the whistling wind, and our silent footsteps, we approached within an arquebus shot of the vessel's hull without being noticed by the royalists. Your mother, marching among the front ranks between Theresa and myself, and often, like ourselves, sinking up to her knees in water or mud, steadfastly refused to be relieved of the weight of the bundle of kindlings that she carried. We were a short distance from the vessel, the lights of which guided us from afar through the mist, when the soldier on watch took alarm, and called out: 'Who goes there!' 'Fire! Fire' answered your mother. It was the signal agreed upon. We covered on a run the short distance that separated us from the hull, and rapidly heaped up along its flanks the kindling wood and straw that we brought with us. The soldier fired upon us at haphazard in the dark, and called his companions to arms. They hastened upon the bridge with the cannoniers, but unable to take aim upon us at so short a distance, and from above down, they left the cannons alone and sent us through the darkness a shower of arquebus shots that struck several of us. The bullets whistled. One of them carried off my bonnet. Your mother, sister and myself were close together, but we could not see one another on account of the darkness. 'Cornelia, are you wounded?' they asked. 'No! and you?' 'We neither!' answered your mother; and again she called out: 'Firm, my daughters! Fire!' Thereupon she and the Bombarde, who had just lighted a link dippedin sulphur set fire to the first bundles of wood and straw. Their example was followed simultaneously at a score of different places, despite fresh arquebus discharges from the royalists. In a minute thick clouds of smoke enveloped the hull. The flaming combustibles cast their reflection upon the puddles of water on the sandbanks, and beyond them upon the two towers of the port. We could see as clearly as by day. The royalists, however, blinded with the smoke which the wind blew upon them, together with wide sheets of flame, could no longer see to fire upon us. Thus protected, we threw three relays of combustibles upon the flames along the flanks of the accursed hull, which was so saturated with salt water and coated with ooze that, despite the heat, it could only be made to sweat by the flames. When our combustibles were exhausted, we were compelled, in order to effect a safe retreat, to profit by the last clouds of smoke that, concealing us from the enemy's eyes, prevented them from aiming upon us. We returned to the city carrying the dead bodies of five of our troop. Among these was Marie Caron, the worthy wife of our neighbor the mercer. She was shot stone dead by a bullet in the left temple. Her son, a lad of thirteen, had his arm broken. We also helped back a number of women and girls of our band who were more or less seriously wounded. There were fifteen of these. Our only sorrow was to have failed in carrying our enterprise to a successful end."[81]

Such, sons of Joel, was the intrepidity and courage ofthe Rochelois women during the siege of the city. Do they not approve themselves worthy daughters of the Gallic women of the old heroic times?

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