On the 26th of August the king boldly avowed responsibility before the Parlement for measures which he alleged had been necessary to suppress a Huguenot insurrection aiming at the assassination of himself and the royal family and the destruction of the Catholic religion in France. The ears of the Catholic princes of Europe and of the pope were abused by this specious lie; they believed that the Catholic cause had been saved from ruin; the so-called victory was hailed with transports of joy, and a medal was struck in Rome to celebrate the defeat of the Huguenots.[115] Similar horrors were enacted in the chief provincial towns. Some few governors, to their honour, declined to carry out the orders of the court, and the public executioner at Troyes refused to take part in the butchery, protesting that his office was not to kill untried persons. At Angers some of the rich Huguenots were imprisoned and their property confiscated by order of Henry of Anjou. "Monseigneur, we can make more than 150,000 francs out of them," wrote his agent. Such was the massacre of St. Bartholomew. The death-roll of the victims is known to the Recording Angel alone. It was a tremendous folly no less than an indelible crime, for it steeled the heart of every Protestant to avenge his slaughtered brethren. [Illustration: PETITE GALERIE OF THE LOUVRE.] Many of the Huguenot leaders escaped from Paris while the soldiers sent to despatch them were pillaging, and the flames of civil strife burst forth fiercer than ever. The court had prepared for massacre, not for war; and while the king was receiving the felicitations of the courts of Spain and Rome, he was forced by the Peace of La Rochelle to concede liberty of conscience to the Protestants and to restore their sequestered estates and offices. After two years of agony of mind and remorse, Charles IX. lay dying of consumption, abandoned by all save his faithful Huguenot nurse. The blood flowing from his nostrils seemed a token of God's wrath; and moaning "Ah! _ma mie_, what bloodshed! what murders! I am lost! I am lost!" the poor crowned wretch passed to his account. He had not yet reached his twenty-fourth year. [Illustration: PLAN OF PARIS WHEN BESIEGED BY HENRY IV. IN 1590.] CHAPTER XIII HENRY III.--THE LEAGUE--SIEGE OF PARIS BY HENRY IV.--HIS CONVERSION, REIGN AND ASSASSINATION