We will bring forward in support of this double assertion only such facts and quotations as appear to us decisive.

In 1565, Charles IX. and Catherine de’ Medici had an interview at Bayonne with the Duke of Alba, representative of Philip II., to consult as to the means of delivering France from heretics.  “They agreed at last,” says the contemporary historian Adriani [continuer of Guicciardini; he had drawn his information from the Journal of Cosmo de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, who died in 1574], “in the opinion of the Catholic king, who thought that this great blessing could not have accomplishment save by the death of all the chiefs of the Huguenots, and by a new edition, as the saying was, of the Sicilian Vespers.  ‘Take the big fish,’ said the Duke of Alba, ’and let the small fry go; one salmon is worth more than a thousand frogs.’  They decided that the deed should be done at Moulins in Bourbonness, whither the king was to return.  The execution of it was afterwards deferred to the date of the St. Bartholomew, in 1572, at Paris, because of certain suspicions which had been manifested by the Huguenots, and because it was considered easier and more certain to get them all together at Paris than at Moulins.”

Catherine de’ Medici charged Cardinal Santa Croce to assure Pope Pius V. “that she and her son had nothing more at heart than to get the admiral and all his confidants together some day and make a massacre (un macello) of them; but the matter,” she said, “was so difficult that there was no possibility of promising to do it at one time more than at another.”

La Noue bears witness in his Memoires to “the resolution taken at Bayonne, with the Duke of Alba aiding, to exterminate the Huguenots of France and the beggars (gueux) of Flanders; whereof warning had been given by those about whom there was no doubt.  All these things, and many others as to which I am silent, mightily waked up those,” he adds, “who had no desire to be caught napping.  And I remember that the chiefs of the religion held, within a short time, three meetings, as well at Valeri as at Chatillon, to deliberate upon present occurrences, and to seek out legitimate and honorable expedients for securing themselves against so much alarm, without having recourse to extreme remedies.”

De Thou regards these facts as certain, and, after having added some details, he sums them all up in the words, “This is what passed at Bayonne in 1565.”

In 1571, after the third religious war and the peace of St. Germain-en-Laye, Marshal de Tavaunes wrote to Charles IX., “Peace has a chance of lasting, because neither of the two parties is willing or able to renew open war; but, if one of the two sees quite a safe opportunity for putting a complete end to what is at the root of the question, this it will take; for to remain forever in the state now existing is what nobody can or ought to hope for.  And there is no such near approximation to a complete victory as to take the persons.  For to surprise what they (the Reformers) hold, to put down their religion, and to break off all at once the alliances which support them—­this is impossible.  Thus there is no way but to take the chiefs all together for to make an end of it.”