Guise was waiting impatiently in the courtyard. “Besme, hast thou done it?” [he shouted]. “It is done, my lord,” [was the reply given]. Monsieur le Chevalier would not believe it unless he saw it with his eyes; “Throw him out of the window,” [was, therefore, the command]. Besme and one of his companions lifted up the body of the Admiral, who still breathing, clutched the window-frame. They flung him into the courtyard. The duke of Guise, wiping off the blood from his face with a handkerchief, said: “I know him, it is he;” and kicking the dead body with his foot, he hastened into the street, exclaiming: “Courage, comrades; we have begun well—now for the rest; the king commands it.”
Sixteen years and four months afterwards, on the 23rd of December, 1588, in the castle of Blois, the corpse of this same Henry of Guise was lying before Henry III., who, in like manner, kicked it in the face. Sovereign justice of God!
Coligny was fifty-five years and a half old. Since the peace of 1570, he every morning and evening read the sermons of Calvin upon the book of Job, saying that this history was his help and consolation in all his troubles. He also spent several hours of the day in writing his memoirs. These papers having been brought to the council after the massacre of Saint Bartholomew, were burned by the king’s order, lest they might increase regret for his death.
Some time after this event, when the English ambassador expressed his grief for the murder of Coligny, Catherine made answer to him: “Do you know that the Admiral recommended the king, as a matter of the last importance, to keep under the king of Spain, and also your mistress (Queen Elizabeth), as much as possible?” “Very true, madam,” replied the ambassador; “he was a bad Englishman, but a good Frenchman.”
Let us also cite a saying of Montesquieu: “The Admiral Coligny was assassinated, having only had the glory of the state at heart.”
XIII.
We are willing, whilst fulfilling our task, to abridge as far as possible the details of the massacre of Saint Bartholomew.
When the sun of the 24th of August rose upon Paris, all was tumult, disorder, and carnage; rivers of blood flowed in the streets; corpses of men, women, and children blocked up the doorways; on all sides groans, blasphemies, death-cries, and imprecations, were heard; ruffians by thousands insulted their victims before butchering them, and then loaded themselves with the spoils; the poniard, the pike, the knife, the sword, the arquebuse, every weapon of the soldier and the brigand, were brought into the service of this execrable slaughter; and the vile populace running after the murderers, finished the Huguenots, by mutilating them and dragging them in the mire, by a cord round the neck, to have their share also in this feast of cannibals.
At the Louvre, the Huguenots, brought up one after another between a double line of halberts, fell bleeding before they reached the end; and the ladies of the court, well worthy to be the mothers, the wives, and the sisters of assassins, came to gloat over the bodies of the victims.
It has been remarked that of so many brave men, who had a thousand times faced death on the field of battle, there was but one, Taverny, who sought to defend himself; and even he was a lawyer. The rest presented their throats to the poniard like women. A crime so monstrous overwhelmed their minds, and paralyzed their hands; and before they could recover themselves, they were no more.