"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 Paris—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 judgment refuse 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 crime—it would be nameless!"
"That crime now has a name—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 the 21st 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 the entrance 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 house—proceed!' In fact, he walked home. Several Protestant officers happened to be not far behind. Upon learning of the crime that 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?"