About seven o'clock the King was at one of the windows of his palace, enjoying the air of that beautiful August morning, when he was startled by shouts of "Kill, kill!" They were raised by a body of guards, who were firing with much more noise than execution at a number of Huguenots who had crossed the river--"to seek the King's protection," says one account; "to help the King against the Guises," says another. Charles, who had just been telling his mother that "the weather seemed to rejoice at the slaughter of the Huguenots," felt all his savage instincts kindle at the sight. He had hunted wild beasts; now he would hunt men, and, calling for an arquebuse, he fired at the fugitives, who were fortunately out of range. Some modern writers deny this fact, on the ground that the balcony from which Charles is said to have fired was not built until after 1572. Were this true, it would only show that tradition had misplaced the locality. Brantome expressly says the King fired on the Huguenots--not from a balcony, but--"from his bedroom window." Marshal Tesse heard the story, according to Voltaire, from the man who loaded the arquebuse. Henault, in his _Abrege chronologique_, mentions it with a "_dit-on_" and it is significant that the passage is suppressed in Latin editions. Simon Goulart, in his contemporary narrative, uses the same words of caution. Not many of the Huguenot gentlemen escaped from the toils so skilfully drawn round them on that fatal Saturday night: yet there were a few. The Count of Montgomery--the same who was the innocent cause of the death of Henry II--got away safe, having been forewarned by a friend who swam across the river to him. Guise set off in hot pursuit, and would probably have caught him up had he not been waiting for the keys of the city gate. Some sixty gentlemen, also, lodging near him in the Faubourg St. Germain, were the companions of his flight.