Upon the morning of St. Bartholomew’s day a band of armed men entered the apartments of the king of Navarre, and conveyed him to the presence of the king of France. Frenzied with the scenes of blood he had already witnessed, Charles with curses and blasphemous imprecations commanded the king of Navarre, as he valued his life, to abjure the Protestant faith. Charles gave him three days to consider the question, and declared that at the end of that time if he did not obey he should be strangled. Henry yielded, and this blot upon his name was only removed when, in 1598, as Henry IV. of France, he issued his famous Edict of Nantes, which granted the Protestants full liberty of conscience. Two years after the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, Charles IX. lay upon his death-bed. Not one hour of peace had he known since that fatal event. His nights had been filled with spectres of blood and murder, his troubled sleep had been haunted with visions of horror. His old nurse, though a Huguenot, had been saved by the king’s order, and she now watched with him in these last moments. One night, hearing the king moaning, weeping, and sighing, she went gently up to his bed and drew aside the curtains. “Ah, nurse, nurse,” cried the king, “what bloodshed and what murders! Ah, what evil counsel have I followed! O, my God! forgive me them, and have mercy upon me! What shall I do? I am lost; I see it well!” And with this hopeless wail of remorse, Charles IX. expired. But no emotions of regret or sorrow moved the stony heart of Catherine de’ Medici. Having debased this son to her foul designs, she now spurned him in contempt for his exhibitions of remorse. When her third and favorite son, Henry, departed for Poland, of which kingdom he had been elected king, she said to him: “Go, you will not be long away.” For even before Charles was dead she was looking forward with satisfaction to that probable event, as a means of giving the throne of France to her favorite child. But when, in 1574, Henry ascended the French throne as Henry III., Catherine’s power was already weakened, and she found that her son would not be a pliant tool in her wicked hands. Not that he was aught but worthless and vicious, but their evil plans no longer harmonized. Their government for fifteen years served only to make them lose their reputation for ability. The tact of this utterly corrupted woman, and the weakness of this irresolute prince, were feeble instruments in taming the Catholics and Protestants who were now both rising in rebellion around them. The Catholics formed a League under the brave but infamous Duke of Guise. There were now three Henrys. Henry III., king of France, Henry, king of Navarre, and Henry, duke of Guise. The war which followed between those parties is called the _War of the Three Henrys_.