signs to his arm bound up and swathed to his side. Besme makes a pass at him. “If I could have died by the hands of a gentleman and not of this varlet!” exclaims the Admiral. Besme for answer plunges his sword up to the hilt into Coligni’s breast.
A voice is now heard from without under the window—“Besme, you are very long; is all over?”
“All is over,” answers Besme, thrusting his head out and displaying his bloody sword.
“Sirrah, here is the Duc de Guise, and I, the Chevalier d’Angoulême. We will not believe it until we see the body. Fling it out of the window, like a good lad.”
With some difficulty the corpse is raised and thrown into the street below. The gashed and bleeding remains of the old hero fall heavily upon the pavement. Henri de Guise stoops down to feast his eyes upon his enemy. The features are so veiled with blood he cannot recognise them. He takes out his handkerchief and wipes the wrinkled face clean. “I know you now—Admiral Coligni,” says he, “and I spurn you. Lie there, poisonous old serpent that murdered my father. Thou shalt shed no more venom, reptile!” and he kicks the corpse into a corner, amidst the dirt and mud of the thoroughfare. (Coligni’s dead body[14] is carried to the gallows at Montfaucon, where it hangs by the feet from a chain of iron.) Guise then turns to the fifty arquebusiers behind him. “En avant—en avant, mes enfants!” he shouts; “you have made a good beginning—set upon the others—slaughter them all—men, women—even infants at the breast—cut them down.” Sword in hand Guise rushes through the streets with Nevers, D’Angoulême, and Tavannes, as well as Gondi and De Retz, who have now joined him, at his back.
Meanwhile, Marguerite de Valois is awakened by some one beating violently with feet and hands against her door crying out, “Navarre! Navarre!” “My nurse,” writes she, “thinking it was the King, ran and opened the door; but it was M. de Séran, grievously wounded and closely pursued by four archers, who cried out, ‘Kill him; kill him! spare no one.’ De Séran threw himself on my bed to save himself. I, not knowing who he was, jumped out, and he with me, holding by me tightly. We both screamed loudly; I was as frightened as he was, but God sent M. de Nançay, Captain of the Guards, who finding me in this condition, could not help laughing. He drove the archers out and spared the life of this man, whom I put to bed in my closet and kept there till he was well. I changed my night-dress, which was covered with blood. M. de Nançay assured me that my husband was safe and with the King. He threw over me a cloak, and took me to my sister Claude, in whose room I arrived more dead than alive; specially so when, as I set my foot in the antechamber, a gentleman named Bourse dropped, pierced by a ball, dead at my feet. I fell fainting into the arms of M. de Nançay, thinking I was killed also. A little recovered, I went into the small room beyond where my sister slept. While I was there, two gentlemen-in-waiting, who attended my husband, rushed in, imploring me to save their lives. So I went to the King and to the Queen, my brother and my mother, and falling on my knees begged that these gentlemen might be spared, which was granted to me.”