great danger and embarrassment.”  Towards midnight, the queen-mother went down to the king, followed by her son Henry and four other councillors.  They found the king more put out than ever.  The conversation began again, and resolved itself into a regular attack upon the king.  “The Guises,” he was told, “will denounce the king himself, together with his mother and brother; the Huguenots will believe that the king was in concert with the party, and they will take the whole royal family to task.  War is inevitable.  Better to win a battle in Paris, where we hold all the chiefs in our clutches, than put it to hazard in the field.  After a struggle of an hour and a half, Charles, in a violent state of agitation, still hesitated; when the queen-mother, fearing lest, if there were further delay, all would be discovered, said to him, ’Permit me and your brother, sir, to retire to some other part of the kingdom.’  Charles rose from his seat.  ‘By God’s death,’ said he, ’since you think proper to kill the admiral, I consent; but all the Huguenots in Paris as well, in order that there remain not one to reproach me afterwards.  Give the orders at once.’” And he went back into his room.

In order to relieve and satisfy her own passions and those of her favorite son, which were fear and love of power, the queen-mother had succeeded in working her king-son into a fit of weakness and mad anger.  Anxious to profit by it, “she gave orders on the instant for the signal, which was not to have been given until an hour before daybreak,” says De Thou, “and, instead of the bell at the Palace of Justice, the tocsin was sounded by the bell of St.-Germain-Auxerrois, which was nearer.”

Even before the king had given his formal consent, the projectors of the outrage had carefully prepared for its execution; they had apportioned out amongst themselves or to their agents the different quarters of the city.  The Guises had reserved for themselves that in which they considered they had personal vengeance as well as religious enmity to satisfy, the neighborhood of St.-Germain-l’Auxerrois, and especially Rue de Bethisy and Rue des Fosses-St.-Germain.  Awakened by the noise around his house, and, before long, by arquebuse-shots fired in his court-yard, Coligny understood what was going to happen; he jumped out of bed, put on his dressing-gown, and, as he stood leaning against the wall, he said to the clergyman, Merlin, who was sitting up with him, “M.  Merlin, say me a prayer; I commit my soul to my Saviour.”  One of his gentlemen, Cornaton, entered the room.  “What is the meaning of this riot?” asked Ambrose Pare, who had also remained with the admiral.