These malcontents opened negotiations with the Calvinists, who had strengthened their bond of union at Milhau, on the 16th of December, 1573, by promising _fraternity, mutual, perfect, and eternal, in all things, civil and religious_. They had provided in their act of union for the regular convocation of their assemblies every six months, a new judicial code, and the course to be adopted in raising men and money. This was a state within the state; a sad but inevitable consequence of the overthrow of all law by the massacre of Saint Bartholomew. Charles IX. died in the midst of these troubles, beset by vague and sombre terrors, believing that he heard groans in the air, starting up out of his sleep at night, and affected with a strange malady, which caused his blood to ooze through every pore. “Two days before his death, he had near him,” says D’Estoile, “his nurse, whom he much loved, _although she was a Huguenot_. As she was seated upon a box, and was just beginning to doze, she heard the king murmur, weep, and sigh, which induced her softly to approach his bed, when, drawing aside the curtains, the king, heaving a profound sigh, and weeping so much that his sobs interrupted his utterance, began to say to her: ‘Ah! my nurse, my nurse, what blood and what murders! Oh! that I should have followed such wicked counsel! O my God! pardon me, and have mercy upon me, if it please Thee; I know not where I am. What shall I do? I am lost, I see plain enough.’ The nurse replied to him: ‘Sire, these murders are upon those, who have caused you to commit them! And since you did not give your consent, and you now regret them, believe that God will not impute them to you, but will cover them with the mantle of His Son’s righteousness, in which alone you must take refuge.’ After this, she having fetched him a pocket-handkerchief, because his own was wet with tears, and his majesty having taken it in his hand, he signed her to retire and leave him to repose.”[68] Charles IX. died on the 30th of May, 1574, not having yet attained the age of twenty-four years, and rejoicing, he said, that he left no male heir of tender age, inasmuch as he would have had too much to suffer. XV. Catherine de Medicis resumed the regency, which she had never really abdicated, and endeavoured to negotiate with the Calvinistic party and the malcontents, until the arrival of her second son, whom we shall now call Henry III. He escaped from Poland as from a prison. During his journey he received some good advice from the Emperor Maximilian, the doge of Venice, and even from the dukes of Savoy, who recommended him to re-establish peace in his kingdom by equitable edicts, which should be faithfully observed; but he derived no profit from these counsels.