glare of terrifying flambeaux, were seen daggers dripping with the blood of men, women, and even babes. The people without means of defence or flight saw they were doomed to perish without mercy or revenge. Coligny awakened from his sleep by the terrific yells and screams that filled the air, arose from his bed and opened the door of his mansion. Meeting the assassins, he courteously invited them into his chamber. "Companions," said he, "finish your work. Take the blood sixty years of war have respected: Coligny will forgive you. My life is of little consequence, and though I would rather lose it in defending you, yet take it." Touched at these words, and his calm, majestic countenance, the ruffians fell upon their knees; one of them threw away his dagger; another embraced the knees of his intended victim, and the courage of all dissolved into tears. Besme, the commander of the gang, who had waited in the court for Coligny's head, becoming impatient entered the chamber, and seeing the assassins overcome by humanity denounced them as traitors to Catherine. At this denunciation one of them averting his head, drew his sword and plunged it into Coligny's breast. For thirty days in every part of the kingdom the most atrocious acts were perpetrated. Doors were burst open; men and women assassinated night and day; babes torn from their mother's arms were murdered before their parents' eyes. Over this dreadful calamity the friends and foes of France might have together wept; but Rome was illuminated, cannons were fired in its honor, churches were shaken with the peals of thanksgiving, priests formed themselves into holy processions to testify their joy, jubilees were proclaimed, and the pope, jealous of the authorship of atrocities that shook the world with horror, had medals prepared to immortalize his right to the honor of having originated the most horrible massacre on record. When we consider the atrociousness of the massacre, and the exultations of the holy father, we are at a loss which most to pity, the victims of the catastrophe, or the fiend that rejoiced over it. After the incidents of that day Henry of Navarre and the Prince of Condé had to profess Catholicism in order to save their lives. This device defeating the designs of Catherine on the life of Henry, she next added to the ignominy of her character by attempting to dissolve the marriage which, through her influence, had just been consummated. Foiled in this scheme, she then sought to poison the happiness of the royal pair. To hold Henry spell-bound in the power of her fascinations, she spread around him all the voluptuous allurements of sensual pleasure. But the native magnanimity of his spirit broke the thralls of her enchantment; and secretly escaping from a corrupt and besotted court, he recanted his Catholicism, and placed himself at the head of the Protestant League as King of Navarre; a title which he had rightfully assumed since his mother's death.