deserve.  I rely entirely upon your word, but I have not so much confidence in theirs; I know that they are only looking for an opportunity of letting their vengeance burst forth; I know their bold and haughty character; as they have the people of Paris devoted to them, and as, on coming hither, under pretext of the rejoicings at my sister’s marriage, they have brought a numerous body of well-armed soldiers, I should be inconsolable if they were to take anything in hand against you; such an outrage would recoil upon me.  That being so, if you think as I do, I believe the best thing for me is to order into the city the regiment of guards, with such and such captains (he mentioned none but those who were not objects of suspicion to Coligny); this re-enforcement,” added the king, “will secure public tranquillity, and, if the factious make any disturbance, there will be men to oppose to them.”  The admiral assented to the king’s proposal.  He added that he was ready to declare “that never had he been guilty or approving of the death of Duke Francis of Guise, and that he set down as a calumniator and a scoundrel whoever said, that he had authorized it.”  Though frequently going to the palace, both he and the Guises, they had not spoken when they met.  Charles had promised the Lorraine princes “not to force them to make friends with Coligny more than was agreeable to them.”  He believed that he had taken every precaution necessary to maintain in his court, for some time at least, the peace he desired.

On Friday, the 22d of August, 1572, Coligny was returning on foot from the Louvre to the Rue des Fosses—­St.-Germain-l’Auxerrois, where he lived; he was occupied in reading a letter which he had just received; a shot, fired from the window of a house in the cloister of St. Germain-l’Auxerrois, smashed two fingers of his right hand and lodged a ball in his left arm; he raised his eyes, pointed out with his injured hand the house whence the shot had come, and reached his quarters on foot.  Two gentlemen who were in attendance upon him rushed to seize the murderer; it was too late; Maurevert had been lodging there and on the watch for three days at the house of a canon, an old tutor to the Duke of Guise; a horse from the duke’s stable was waiting for him at the back of the house; and, having done his job, he departed at a gallop.  He was pursued for several leagues without being overtaken.

Coligny sent to apprise the king of what had just happened to him.  “There,” said he, “was a fine proof of fidelity to the agreement between him and the Duke of Guise.”  “I shall never have rest, then!” cried Charles, breaking the stick with which he was playing tennis with the Duke of Guise and Teligny, the admiral’s son-in-law; and he immediately returned to his room.  The Duke of Guise took himself off without a word.  Teligny speedily joined his father-in-law.  Ambrose Pare had already attended to him, cutting off the two broken fingers; somebody expressed a fear that