50 THE FEENCH BLOOD IN AMERICA 



gurated a long train of persecutions, broken promises, 

 and repressive acts of legislation, which culminated in 

 • the revocation of the '"Edict of Kantes," in 1685. It 

 would be out of place in this brief sketch to go into the 

 history of these wars and the troubles which followed 

 them. A short account of the massacre of St. Barthol- 

 omew's Day will be sufficient to show the treachery and 

 ferocity with which the Huguenots were treated. 

 m4w'YDa°'°" ^" *^^ month of August, 1572, Henry of Navarre, the 

 August 24, 1572 nominal head of the Huguenot party, together with Ad- 

 miral Coligny and the Prince of Conde with eight hundred 

 gentlemen, entered Paris to celebrate the nuptials of 

 Henry and Margaret of Valois, sister of Charles IX. 

 They came as the king's guests and were under the pro- 

 tection of the ''Edict of Saint Germain," in which the 

 throne reiterated the promises of religious toleration made 

 in the previous "Edict of January." The wedding was 

 celebrated on the seventeenth with great magniiicence, and 

 the remainder of the week was devoted to various holiday 

 sports and games. These festivities were, however, but 

 a mask to cover the real intentions of the Roman Cath- 

 olics and to throw the Huguenot gentlemen off their 

 guard. On the eve of St. Bartholomew's Day the plans 

 for an appalling massacre had been perfected, and the 

 unsuspecting victims were already marked out for 

 slaughter. The gates of Paris were locked so that none 

 might escape, every house in which a Protestant lodged 

 was marked with a piece of chalk, and soldiers were in 

 readiness to begin their bloody work as soon as the great 

 bell in the tower of the " Palais de Justice" should ring 

 forth the appointed signal. 



V 



Murder of The massacrc was begun by the murder of Coligny, who 



Colony was coufiued to his house by a wound he had received a 



few days before. Early in the morning he was awakened 



by an uproar in the street, followed by a loud demand for 



