‘You are here, Messieurs,’ said Catherine, ‘for your own safety.’

The King shouted: ‘There must be one religion in France from now on. I will have only one religion in my kingdom. It is the Mass now . . . the Mass or death.’ He began to laugh. ‘You have perchance seen what is happening out there, eh? You have passed through the streets. The bodies are piled high. Men have been torn limb from limb . . . women too . . . babies . . . little girls, little boys. They were all heretics in my kingdom. The Mass . . . or death . . . Death or the Mass.’

Catherine said: ‘You, Messieurs, have been more fortunate than others who have not had the choice which is offered to you.’

Henry of Navarre looked shrewdly from the mad face of the King to the impenetrable one of the Queen Mother; he was aware of the guards who were posted, not only in the apartment, but in the corridors. He would be careful; he had no intention of losing his life over a mere matter of faith.

Condé had folded his arms. Poor Condé! thought his cousin of Navarre; he was emotional—sentimental—brave as a lion, and as stupid as an ass.

‘Sire,’ said Condé in a cold remote voice as though he faced death a hundred times a day and therefore to him such a situation was commonplace, ‘I will be faithful to my creed though I die for it.’

The King’s fingers closed about his dagger. He came close to Condé and held the weapon against the Prince’s throat. Condé stared up at the ornate hangings as though the King had merely asked him to admire them, and poor Charles lost his nerve before such a display of cool courage. His trembling hand fell to his side, and he turned to Navarre.

‘And you . . . you?’ he screamed.

‘Sire,’ said Navarre evasively, ‘I beg of you, do not tamper with my conscience.’

The King frowned. He suspected his uncouth kinsman of cunning; he had never understood him and he did not understand him now; but the look on Navarre’s face suggested that he was in fact ready to consider changing his religion, but that he did not wish to appear to do so readily. He needed time to consider how he might adjust his conscience.

Condé cried out: ‘Most diabolical things have been done. But I have five hundred gentlemen ready to avenge this most lamentable massacre.’

‘Do not be so sure of that,’ said Catherine. ‘Have you had a roll-call lately? I doubt not that many of those fine gentlemen will never again be in a condition to serve the Prince of Condé.’

The trembling King felt his frenzy passing; he was close to that mood of deep melancholy which often followed his more violent bouts. He said almost piteously to Navarre: ‘Show good faith and I may show you good cheer.’

At that moment there came hurrying into the room a beautiful girl with her dark hair loose about her shoulders. Margot knelt before the King, and taking his trembling hands in hers kissed them.

‘Forgive me, brother. Oh, Sire, forgive me. I heard that my husband was here, and I have come to ask you to spare his life.’

Catherine said: ‘Get up, Marguerite, and leave us. This affair is none of yours.’

But the King held his sister’s hands and the tears ran fast down his cheeks.

‘My husband is in danger,’ said Margot turning to her mother. ‘That, it seems, should be an affair of mine.’

Catherine was furious. She had no intention of letting Condé or Navarre die, but she was angry that her daughter as well as her son should dare to defy her; she was annoyed also by this display of what seemed to her yet another of Margot’s dramatic tricks. A little while ago the girl had hated that husband of hers; now she was making a spectacle of herself, as she said, to save his life. It was her love of drama not of Navarre that made her act so, Catherine was sure; but it was the effect on the King which was important.

‘I have offered him his life,’ said the King. ‘He only has to change his religion. “The Mass or death”, is what I said to him. “Death or the Mass . . .”’

‘And he has chosen the Mass,’ said Margot.

‘He will,’ said Catherine sardonically.

‘Then he is safe!’ cried Margot. ‘And, Sire, there are two gentlemen who have begged me to help them . . . gentlemen of my husband’s suite—De Mossans and Armagnac. You will give them this chance, Sire? Dearest brother, you will let them make this choice between death and the Mass?’

‘To please you,’ said Charles, embracing his sister hysterically. ‘To please my dearest Margot.’

‘You may leave us, Marguerite,’ said Catherine.

As. Margot went out her eyes met those of her husband. His seemed to signal: ‘Effective but unnecessary. Can you doubt that I would choose the Mass?’ But there was also a twinkle in those eyes, a smile of approval about his lips which seemed to add: ‘This means that we are friends, does it not? It means that we are to work together?’

When Margot had left, the King turned to Condé. ‘Give up your faith!’ he cried. ‘Accept the Mass. I give you an hour’s grace, and then if you will not accept the Mass, it shall be death. I will kill you myself. I will kill . . . kill . . .’

The Queen Mother signed to the guards to take Navarre and Condé away; then she gave herself up to the task of soothing the King.


* * *

Charles was weary. He lay on his couch, and the tears rolled down his cheeks. ‘Blood . . . blood . . . blood,’ he murmured. ‘Rivers of blood. The Seine is red with blood, the cobbles are red with it. It stains the walls of Paris like the leaves of creeping plants in autumn. Blood! Everywhere blood!’

His Queen came to him; her face was distorted with grief. The awkward gait which proclaimed her pregnancy made the King’s tears flow more copiously. Their child would be born into a cruel world. Who knew what would happen to it?

She knelt before him, ‘Oh, Sire, that terrible night! This terrible day! Do not let it go on. I beg of you. I cannot bear to hear the cries of the people. I cannot bear it.’

‘I cannot bear it either,’ he moaned.

‘They say you yourself are going to kill the Prince of Condé.’

‘It is all killing,’ he said. ‘It is all blood. It is the only thing which will make us safe.’

‘Oh, my lord, do not have murder on your soul.’

The King burst into loud laughter while his tears continued to flow. ‘All last night’s murders will be on my soul,’ he said. ‘What is one more?’

‘It was not your fault. It was others. Do not kill Condé. I beg of you, do not kill him.’

He stroked her hair and thought: poor little Queen. Poor little stranger in a strange land.

‘It is a sad life we live,’ he said, ‘we Princes and Princesses. They married you, poor child, to a King of France who is a madman.’

She kissed his hand. ‘You are so kind to me . . . so good to me. You are not a murderer. You could not do it. Oh, Charles, give me the life of Condé. It is not often that I ask for a gift, is it? Give me Condé’s life now, dearest husband.’

‘I will not kill him, then,’ he said. ‘Let him live. Condé is yours, my poor sad little Queen.’

Then she lay down beside him and, like two unhappy children, they wept silently together, wept for the terrible things which were happening in the streets below them, and for the terrible fate which had made them a King and a Queen in this cruel age.


* * *

The nightmare days went on. At noon, on St Bartholomew’s Day, le Charron the prévôt, came to the palace and begged Catherine to stop the massacre. Both Catherine and the King attempted to do this, but without success. That which had been started with the ringing of the bell of Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois could not be stopped, and all through that day and the next night the carnage continued.

The King’s madness returned and he called for fresh bloodshed. He was the instigator of those expeditions to witness the vilest executions. He made a pilgrimage, with priests and nobles, to that gibbet where they had now hung Coligny’s body after they had taken it out of the Seine; it had been thrown there following the roasting.

On the 25th a hawthorn in the Cemetery of Innocents unexpectedly blossomed. This, cried the excited Catholics, was a sign of Heaven’s approval. Any who said that hawthorn had been known to blossom in all other seasons, ran the risk of being named ‘Heretic’, which meant instant death, for it was so comforting to stifle any pangs of conscience by calling attention to Heaven’s approval. Solemn pilgrimages were made to this cemetery, led by the dignitaries of the Church. The chanting voices of the priests, singing praises to God and the Virgin, mingled with the screams for mercy, with the groans of the dying.

Charles had aged considerably since the Eve of St Bartholomew; he now looked more than ever like an old man; his moods were various and sadness came to him suddenly, to be dispersed in wild hilarity when he shouted for more excitement. He would be proud of the carnage at one hour; he would be deeply ashamed the next. In a moment of melancholy, he declared his innocence of responsibility for the massacre and announced that it had been brought about because of a feud between the House of Guise and Lorraine and that of ChâtiHon, a feud which had been simmering for years and which he had been unable to prevent boiling over.

Guise, who would not allow this, publicly declared that he had but obeyed the orders of the King and the Queen Mother. The Duke and his adherents brought such pressure to bear on the King that he was forced to declare before an assembly of his ministers that he, and he only, was responsible for what had taken place. He was nervous and exhausted; in turn humble and truculent, belligerent and repentant. He stooped more than usual and his breathlessness had increased. He seemed perpetually to be tottering on the brink of complete insanity.

Catherine on the other hand looked, so many remarked, ten years younger. Energetic, eager to take her place at all ceremonies, she was in the forefront of the religious processions that paraded the streets and entered the churches to sing Te Deums of praise, and the Cemetery of the Holy Innocents to rejoice at Heaven’s sign of approval. She herself rode out to see Coligny’s remains; she made a point of being present at executions whenever possible.


* * *

The King talked continually of the massacre. He longed, he said, to put back the clock, to live again through that fateful day of August the 23rd. ‘If I had that chance,’ he would sigh, ‘how differently I should act!’

Yet he was persuaded that the murder of Huguenots in Paris was not enough; so throughout the whole of France Catholics were ordered to commit murders and atrocities similar to those which had taken place in the capital. Readily the Catholics of Rouen, Blois, Tours and many other towns in the tortured land obeyed the commands that came from Paris.

There were some who protested, for there were Catholics in the provinces as humane as le Charron, the prévôt of Paris; chief among these were the Governors of Auvergne, Provence and Dauphine together with the Duc de Joyeuse of Languedoc, who refused to obey such command which came by word of mouth and would not kill until they received written orders from the King. In Burgundy, Picardy, Montpellier and in Lyons the governors declared that they had learned to take life for justice of war, but that cold-blooded murder was something with which they did not care to burden their souls.

This seemed like rebellion, and Catherine and her council were uncertain how to act until they decided on sending priests down to the rebellious provinces to explain to the citizens that St Michael, in a vision, had ordered the massacre.

This was accepted as the certain will of Heaven, and so the bloody orgy continued, and for weeks after the Eve of St Bartholomew thousands were slaughtered all over France.


* * *

When Philip of Spain heard the news he laughed aloud—as many said—for the first time in his life. Charles, he said, had now truly earned the title of the ‘Most Christian King’; he sent congratulations to Catherine for having brought up her son in her own image.

The Cardinal of Lorraine, who was in Rome at that time, gave the messenger who brought him news of the massacre a great reward. Rome was especially illumined to celebrate the death of so many of its enemies; Te Deums were sung, and the cannons of Castel St Angelo were fired in honour of the massacre. The Pope and his Cardinals went in special procession to the Church of St Mark, there to call God’s attention to the good and religious work of the faithful; and Gregory himself proceeded in state on foot from St Mark’s to St Louis’.