THE HUGUENOTS IN FRANCE 53 



ness, babes were torn from their mother's breasts and 

 spitted on the ends of pikes, women were treated to 

 every bestial indignity, so that the blow which ended 

 their suffering seemed like an act of mercy. So sudden 

 was the attack and so scattered were the Huguenots that 

 resistance was out of the question except in a rare in- 

 stance or two where some doughty gentleman found time 

 to buckle on his breastplate and grasp his sword. The 

 Lieutenant de la Mareschauss6e was one of these. With 

 the aid of a solitary companion he defended his house 

 against the onslaughts of the butchers for the whole of 

 that day. Spurred on by the thought of the fate await- 

 ing his wife and invalid daughter he fought like a mad- 

 man until sheer exhaustion enabled his enemies to 

 despatch him. To vent their spite the soldiers dragged 

 his sick daughter naked through the streets until she 

 died of their maltreatment. 



Altogether, probably between five and six thousand 

 persons were slain within the walls of Paris, though The Number 



of the Victims 



some authorities place the number as high as eight or ten 

 thousand. Most of these bodies were dumped into the 

 Seine, so that the river fairly flowed with blood for days 

 afterwards. So numerous were the corpses floating in 

 the stream that the lagging current was unable to carry 

 them all away, and for miles below the city the shores 

 were covered with putrefying remains. It is only fair to 

 France to say that the blame for these atrocities of 

 St. Bartholomew's Day falls heaviest on the Church of 

 Eome, which for years had taught the doctrine that it 

 was no sin to kill those who held other forms of belief ; 

 which had gone even further and stated that to do so was 

 an act of signal pietv. Indeed, when the news of the R?'?*'^ Re- 



^ - ' joicing 



massacre reached Rome it was received with the greatest 

 rejoicing, a jubilee was celebrated, and for three nights 

 the city was brilliantly illuminated. King Charles who, 

 under his mother's instigation, ordered the massacre that 



