Where these sentiments prevailed, Gregory XIII. was not alone in deploring that the work had been but half done. After the first explosion of gratified surprise men perceived that the thing was a failure, and began to call for more. The clergy of Rouen Cathedral instituted a procession of thanksgiving, and prayed that the King might continue what he had so virtuously begun, until all France should profess one faith.[155] There are signs that Charles was tempted at one moment, during the month of October, to follow up the blow.[156] But he died without pursuing the design; and the hopes were turned to his successor. When Henry III. passed through Italy on his way to assume the crown, there were some who hoped that the Pope would induce him to set resolutely about the extinction of the Huguenots. A petition was addressed to Gregory for this purpose, in which the writer says that hitherto the French court has erred on the side of mercy, but that the new king might make good the error if rejecting that pernicious maxim that noble blood spilt weakens a kingdom, he would appoint an execution which would be cruel only in appearance, but in reality glorious and holy, and destroy the heretics totally, sparing neither life nor property.[157] Similar exhortations were addressed from Rome to Henry himself by Muzio, a layman who had gained repute, among other things, by controversial writings, of which Pius V. said that they had preserved the faith in whole districts, and who had been charged with the task of refuting the Centuriators. On the 17th of July 1574, Muzio wrote to the King that all Italy waited in reliance on his justice and valour, and besought him to spare neither old nor young, and to regard neither rank nor ties of blood.[158] These hopes also were doomed to disappointment; and a Frenchman, writing in the year of Henry's death, laments over the cruel clemency and inhuman mercy that reigned on St. Bartholomew's Day.[159]