This violence could not but have had its effect on the king. At all events, it must have made him ready to credit any charge of violence brought against them. Catharine was clearly overjoyed at the false step of the Huguenots, as offering her a means of escape from her critical position.
On Saturday, after dinner, a cabinet council was held, and here, according to Tavannes, Anjou, and Queen Margaret of Navarre, it was for the first time proposed to Charles to put an end to all the troubles by cutting off Coligny and the leaders of the party. The council was composed, it is said, of Catharine, Anjou, Nevers, Tavannes, Retz, and the chancellor Birague. Of Catharine and Anjou, afterward Henry III., we need say nothing. Tavannes was little but a soldier, ready for action. The rest, strangely enough, were Italians. Louis de Gonzaga, Duke of Nevers by marriage, was timid and easily led; Albert de Gondi, Marshal de Retz, foster-brother of the king, was a schemer; René de Birague is represented by Mezeray as one who bent before every breath of wind from the court.
Not only in this council was there no one of the Huguenot party so recently restored to favor, but no one of the moderate party, none even of the old French nobility. All but Tavannes were bound to Catharine, and would naturally support her.
According to Anjou and Tavannes, Catharine urged the necessity of the blow to prevent a new civil war, for which the Huguenots were preparing, having sent for ten thousand Germans and six thousand Swiss, their object being to place Henry of Navarre on the throne. Margaret states that they made the king believe his life in danger. The nuncio Salviati, in his despatch of September 2d, also ascribes the king's ultimate action to the instigation of Catharine, impelled by her fears.
Charles hesitated long, and at last yielded, crying: "Kill all, then, that none may live to reproach me." The words of 'the weak king, wrought to madness by his perplexities, seem to have been accepted at once; and the scheme of murder took a wider scope. The Huguenots were doomed.
The question arises, Had Catharine any ground for charging the Huguenots with a plot against the king? A despatch of the Duke of Alva had been received, announcing it. White derides the idea as preposterous. Gandy examines the subject, and admits that the charge lacks all requisite proof. He ascribes the whole to fear. But this does not seem to explain it sufficiently.
The fact of a plot formed after Coligny's wound must have been established in some degree at least, to have brought the king to the policy of the queen-mother. The bed of justice on the 26th, the solemn declaration of Charles, the action of the Parliament, may have been rash and unsupported by proper testimony, but were to all appearance sincere. Charles was not a hypocrite. The declarations of Bouchavannes as to what was proposed at Coligny's house were doubtless more than justified by the loud threats of some of the leaders, like De Pilles and Pardaillan, whose words and deeds make La Noue call them stupid, clumsy fools.
The solution of this historical question is made the more difficult from the speedy termination of the house of Valois. That family and the League come down to us under a heavy cloud of odium; the succession of Henry IV. to the throne made them the only parties on whom all might safely lay the burden of an act at once a crime and a blunder, while it was equally necessary to shield the party with which Henry then acted from any charge of conspiracy. Interest raised up apologists for him and his associates: there was none to do reverence to the name of Catharine or the fallen house of Valois.
Once that the council had decided on its bloody course, the action was prompt. Guise, from being a prisoner in his house, was summoned to command. To the leaders of the people of Paris he repeated the charge of a Huguenot conspiracy against the king, of Swiss and German invaders, adding the approach of a force under Montmorency to burn the city. At four in the afternoon Anjou rode through the streets. At ten, another council was held, to which Le Charron, provost of the merchants, was summoned. To him the king repeated the same charges, giving him orders to put the able-bodied men in each ward under arms, and take precaution for the safety of the city.
Meanwhile, Huguenot gentlemen entered the palace as usual, and Catholics mingled with the Huguenots who called upon Coligny.