it may have been equally an apparent State necessity.  A Protestant prince might mount the throne of France, and with him, perhaps, the ascendency of Protestantism, or at least its protection.  Such a catastrophe, as it seemed to the councillors of Charles IX., must somehow be averted.  How could it be averted otherwise than by the assassination of Henry himself, and his cousin Conde, and the brave old admiral, as powerful as Guise, as courageous as Du Gueslin, and as pious as Godfrey?  And then, when these leaders were removed, and all the Protestants in Paris were murdered, who would remain to continue the contest, and what Protestant prince could hope to mount the throne?  But whoever was directly responsible for the crime, and whatever may have been the motives for it, still it was committed.  The first victim was Coligny himself, and the slaughter of sixty thousand persons followed in Paris and the provinces.  The Admiral Coligny, Marquis of Chatillon, was one of the finest characters in all history,—­brave, honest, truthful, sincere, with deep religious convictions, and great ability as a general.  No Englishman in the sixteenth century can be compared with him for influence, heroism, and virtue combined.  It was deemed necessary to remove this illustrious man, not because he was personally obnoxious, but because he was the leader of the Protestant party.

It is said that as the fatal hour approached to give the signal for the meditated massacre, Aug. 24, 1572, the King appeared irresolute and disheartened.  Though cruel, perfidious, and weak, he shrank from committing such a gigantic crime, and this too in the face of his royal promises.  But there was one person whom no dangers appalled, and whose icy soul could be moved by no compassion and no voice of conscience.  At midnight, Catherine entered the chamber of her irresolute son, in the Louvre, on whose brow horror was already stamped, and whose frame quivered with troubled chills.  Coloring the crime with the usual sophistries of all religious and political persecution, that the end justifies the means, and stigmatizing him as a coward, she at last extorted from his quivering lips the fatal order; and immediately the tocsin of death sounded from the great bell of the church of St. Germain de Auxerrois.  At once the slaughter commenced in every corner of Paris, so well were the horrid measures concerted.  Screams of despair were mingled with shouts of vengeance; the cries of the murdered were added to the imprecations of the murderers; the streets flowed with blood, the dead rained from the windows, the Seine became purple.  Men, women, and children were seen flying in every direction, pursued by soldiers, who were told that an insurrection of Protestants had broken out.  No sex or age or dignity was spared, no retreat afforded a shelter, not even the churches of the Catholics.  Neither Alaric nor Attila ever inflicted such barbarities.  No besieged city taken by assault ever saw such wanton