Several letters current as to the matter, including those of De Tende and Orthez, are manifest forgeries. As to Saumur, White represents Montsoreau as killing _all_ the Huguenots in that town. The only authority, _Mémoires de l'Etat de France_, says he killed all he could, and the whole charge rests on this feeble foundation. There is similar exaggeration elsewhere. White, speaking of Lyons, says: "In this city alone 4000 persons are estimated to have been killed;" but in his note adds that one authority says that they were all killed in _one_ day, "which is not probable." He then cites another contemporary brochure setting down the total at Lyons at 1800; and he corrects the error of De Thou, who asserted that the Celestine canons allowed Huguenots to be killed in their monastery, when Protestant authorities admit that the religious saved the lives of those very fugitives. What was the number slain in the provinces? The martyrologies, by a detailed estimate, make those killed in Paris 10,000, elsewhere 5168, and names 152 as identified in Paris, 634 in the provinces; but the estimate for Paris is of the very highest, and should, as we have seen, not exceed 2000. The very fact that, with researches and personal recollections, only 152 names could be recalled, being one in a hundred out of 10,000, while elsewhere one in eight was known, is very suspicious. Taking his figures for the provinces, it would reduce the whole number in France to about 7000. After giving the calculations or guesses of various authors, ranging from 2000 to 100,000, White says: "If it be necessary to choose from these hap-hazard estimates, that of De Thou is preferable, from the calm, unexaggerating temper of the man." De Thou's estimate for all France was 30,000. Gandy thinks the number given by Popelinière (2000) nearer the truth. Under the examination of impartial history, the massacre of St. Bartholomew dwindles really to far less in numbers, extent, and brutality than the massacre of the Irish Catholics under Cromwell; and does not greatly exceed the number of victims of the Huguenot outbreak in 1563.