1829,] The Massacre of St. Bartholomew. 461 
great cities, but the villages, and even the chateaus, were deluged with 
slaughter. Sully computes the number of the slain at 70,000; De Thou 
at 30,000. But Sully, from his rank, his personal connexion with the 
leading individuals of the French court in the reign of Henry IV., and 
his unimpeached honour, may be presumed the true authority. 
The first object of the French king, after glutting his thirst of 
slaughter, was to disguise his share in the conspiracy. But his words 
on the day itself, that, “now every one must turn Catholic!” were too 
well remembered ; and it was undeniable that he was seen firing from 
the Louvre windows on the fugitives, and exclaiming, “ Kill! kill 
them !” 
A more specious contrivance was equally ineffectual. On the 26th, 
he went to mass with his court to thank Heaven for having saved him 
from the Protestants ; and on his return to the palace he held a “lit de 
justice,” in which, changing the former ground, of the massacre having 
been an accidental tumult, he observed, that it was committed by his 
orders, but that it had become necessary to prevent an attack on the 
royal person by the Protestants. In two days after, the king, by pro- 
clamation, declared himself the author of the massacre, and, at the same 
time prohibited the exercise of protestanism “ till provision were made 
for the public tranquillity.” This was followed by a parliamentary 
decree, declaring the memory of Coligny infamous; and the French 
ambassadors were everywhere directed to put this colouring on the 
conduct of Charles. But they were everywhere received with either 
open horror or open incredulity. Elizabeth’s reception of the ambassa- 
dor Fenelon was characteristic. She and her whole court were in deep 
mourning. Nothing could be at once more dignified and more expres- 
sive. Two sovereigns, and but two, welcomed the tidings : those two were 
the King of Spain, and the Pope. The King of Spain, however, had one 
regret ; it was, that the work was not completed by the death of the 
young King of Navarre and the Prince of Condé. 
But at Rome the triumph was open and boundless. The messenger 
who brought the dispatch to the Cardinal of Lorrain, was rewarded like 
one who had brought the news of a great victory. The Cardinal Alex- 
ander exclaimed, exultingly, “ The King of France has kept his word !” 
And the Pope, Gregory XIII., ordered a grand procession, went to high 
mass, had “ Te Deum” sung, the cannon of St. Angelo fired, and a 
_medal struck, in commemoration of this holy slaughter, bearing on one 
side his own head, and on the other the destroying angel smiting the 
Protestants; the motto, to make all clear, being, “ Huguenotorum 
Strages. 1572.” 
- The natural reflection upon events like this—and the massacre is but 
one of many in the history of this tremendous power—is, whether there is 
discoverable in the laws of popery any rational ground for conceiving 
that with the new extent of its influence that must follow from its ad- 
_ mission into the Legislature, the old and undying antipathy of Rome to 
_ every shape of truth, whether civil or religious, may not be expected to 
start up again? The Government of Charles I. among ourselves, by en- 
couraging the papists in Ireland was the direct and immediate origin of 
_ the Irish massacre of 1641, which was computed to have destroyed up- 
wards of a hundred thousand Protestants, almost at the instant. The 
tampering of the Government in our own time with the Irish 
papists produced the ‘rebellion of 1798, in which a great number 
