The King had the gates of Paris shut, and sent his own guard to protect Coligny. He was weak, and subject to violent gusts of passion which made him easy to guide, if he were in the hands of an unscrupulous person. His mother, who had plotted with Guise for the death of Coligny, pointed out that there was grave danger to be feared from the Protestants. She made Charles declare in a frenzy of violence that every Huguenot in France should perish if the Admiral died, for he would not be reproached with such a crime by the Admiral's followers. The bells of the church nearest to the Louvre rang out on the Eve of St Bartholomew--they gave the signal for a cruel massacre. After the devout Protestant, Coligny, was slain in the presence of the Duke of Guise, there was little resistance from the other defenceless Huguenot nobles. They were roused from sleep, surprised by treacherous foes, and relentlessly murdered. It was impossible to combine in their perilous position. Two thousand were put to death in Paris, where the very women and children acted like monsters of cruelty to the heretics for three days, and proved themselves as cunning as the Swiss guards who had slain the King's guests on the night of Saint Bartholomew. A Huguenot noble escaped from his assailants and rushed into Henry's very bridal chamber. He cried, "Navarre! Navarre!" and hoped for protection from the Protestant prince against four archers who were following him. Henry had risen early and gone out to the tennis-court, and Margaret was powerless to offer any help. She fled from the room in terror, having heard nothing previously of the Guises' secret conspiracy. {108} Charles IX sent for Navarre and disclosed the fact that he had been privy to the massacre. He showed plainly that the Protestants were to find no toleration henceforth. Henry felt that his life was in great jeopardy, for most of the noblemen he had brought to Paris had fallen in the massacre, and he stood practically alone at a Catholic court. Henry understood that if he were to be spared it was only at the price of his conversion, and with the alternatives of death or the Mass before him, it is little wonder that he yielded, at least in appearance, to the latter. There were spies and traitors to be feared in the circle of the Medici. Even Margaret was not safe since her marriage to a Protestant, but she gave wise counsel to her husband and guided him skilfully through the perils of court life. Catherine disarmed the general indignation of Europe by spreading an ingeniously concocted story to the effect that the Huguenots had been sacrificed because they plotted a foul attack on the Crown of France. She had been hostile to Coligny rather than to his policy, and continued to follow his scheme of thwarting Spain by alliances with Elizabeth and the Prince of Orange.