S3S FRANCE. 



Coligni, admiral of France, who was then at the head of the protec- 

 tant party. Three civil wars succeeded. At length the court pre- 

 tended to grant the Huguenots a very advantageous peace ; and a 

 match was_ concluded between Henry, the young king of Navarre, a 

 protestant, and the French king's sister. The heads of the protes- 

 tants were invited to celebrate the nuptials at Paris, with the infernal 

 view of butchering them all, if possible, in one night. The project 

 proved but too successful, though it was not completely executed, on 

 St. Bartholomew's day, 1572. The king himself assisted in the mas- 

 sacre, in which the admiral Coligni fell. The signal for the inhu- 

 man slaughter of so many thousands was to be made by striking the 

 great bell of the palace. At that dreadful knell, the work of death 

 was begun, and humanity recoils from the horrors of the fatal night 

 of St. Bartholomew; yet the reader may expect, amidst the general 

 carnage, that some few moments should be devoted to the fate of Co- 

 ligni. He had long retired to rest, when he was aroused by the noise 

 of the assassins, who had surrounded his house. A German, named 

 Besme, entered his chamber; and the admiral, apprehending his in- 

 tentions, prepared to meet death with that fortitude which had ever 

 distinguished him. Incapable of resistance, from the wounds he had 

 received by two balls, in a late attempt to assassinate him, with an 

 undismayed countenance, he had scarce uttered the words — " Young 

 man, respect these grey hairs, nor stain them with blood," when 

 Besme plunged his sword into his bosom, and, with his barbarous as- 

 sociates, threw the body into the court. The young duke of Guise 

 contemplated it in silence ; but Henry, the count d'Angouleme, na- 

 tural brother to Charles, spurned it with his foot, exclaiming — >" Cou- 

 rage, my friends ! we have begun well ; let us finish in the same 

 manner." It is said that about 30,000 protestants were murdered at 

 Paris, and other parts of France; and this brought on a fourth civil 

 war. Though a fresh peace was concluded in 1573 with the protes- 

 tants, yet a fifth civil war broke out the next year, when the bloody 

 Charles IX died without heirs. 



His third brother, the duke of Anjou, had some time before been 

 chosen king of Poland ; and hearing of his brother's death, he with 

 some difficulty escaped to France, where he took quiet possession of 

 that crown by the name of Henry III. 



Religion at that time supplied to the reformed nobility of France 

 the feudal powers they had lost. The heads of the protestants could 

 raise armies of Huguenots. The governors of provinces behaved in 

 them as if they had been independent of the crown ; and the parties 

 were so equally balanced, that the name of the king alone turned the 

 scale. A holy league was formed for the defence of the catholic re- 

 ligion, at the head of which was the duke of Guise. The protes- 

 tants, under the prince of Conde, and the duke of Alencon, the king's 

 brother, called the German princes to their assistance ; and a sixth 

 civil war broke out in 1577, in which the king of Spain took the part 

 of the league, in revenge of the duke of Alencon declaring himself 

 lord of the Netherlands. The civil war was finished within the year, 

 by another pretended peace. The king, from his first accession to the 

 crown, had plunged himself into a course of infamous debauchery 

 and religious extravagancies. He was entirely governed by his pro- 

 fligate favourites, but he possessed natural good sense. He began to 

 suspect that the proscriptions of the protestants, and the setting aside 

 from the succession the king of Navarre, on account of his religion, 



