The deed was nearly accomplished.  The king himself, from a window of the Louvre, fired upon his Protestant subjects, as they fled in dismay through the streets.  In a few hours eighty thousand of the Protestants were mangled corpses.  Protestantism in France has never recovered from this blow.  Maximilian openly expressed his execration of this deed, though the pope ordered Te Deums to be chanted at Rome in exultation over the crime.  Not long after this horrible slaughter, Charles IX. died in mental torment.  Henry of Valois, brother of the deceased king, succeeded to the throne.  He was at that time King of Poland.  Returning to France, through Vienna, he had an interview with Maximilian, who addressed him in those memorable words which have often been quoted to the honor of the Austrian sovereign: 

“There is no crime greater in princes,” said Maximilian, “than to tyrannize over the consciences of their subjects.  By shedding the blood of heretics, far from honoring the common Father of all, they incur the divine vengeance; and while they aspire, by such means, to crowns in heaven, they justly expose themselves to the loss of their earthly kingdoms.”

Under the peaceful and humane reign of Ferdinand, Germany was kept in a general state of tranquillity, while storms of war and woe were sweeping over almost all other parts of Europe.  During all his reign, Maximilian II. was unwearied in his endeavors to promote harmony between the two great religious parties, by trying, on the one hand, to induce the pope to make reasonable concessions, and, on the other hand, to induce the Protestants to moderate their demands.  His first great endeavor was to induce the pope to consent to the marriage of the clergy.  In this he failed entirely.  He then tried to form a basis of mutual agreement, upon which the two parties could unite.  His father had attempted this plan, and found it utterly impracticable.  Maximilian attempted it, with just as little success.  It has been attempted a thousand times since, and has always failed.  Good men are ever rising who mourn the divisions in the Christian Church, and strive to form some plan of union, where all true Christians can meet and fraternize, and forget their minor differences.  Alas! for poor human nature, there is but little prospect that this plan can ever be accomplished.  There will be always those who can not discriminate between essential and non-essential differences of opinion.  Maximilian at last fell back simply upon the doctrine of a liberal toleration, and in maintaining this he was eminently successful.

At one time the Turks were crowding him very hard in Hungary.  A special effort was requisite to raise troops to repel them.  Maximilian summoned a diet, and appealed to the assembled nobles for supplies of men and money.  In Austria proper, Protestantism was now in the decided ascendency.  The nobles took advantage of the emperor’s wants to reply—­

“We are ready to march to the assistance of our sovereign, to repel the Turks from Hungary, if the Jesuits are first expelled from our territories.”