Francis is said to have been stung with remorse on reflecting upon this infamous massacre, especially on his death-bed. He died in 1547, as the persecutor dies,--despairing, dishonoured, and undeplored. His eldest son, the dauphin, died of poison, administered by his cup-bearer; and his own death is believed to have been caused by the same instrument of revenge, administered by the husband of a lady whom he had dishonoured. His character, therefore, was worthy of “the mystery of iniquity,” the Romish Antichrist. France exhibited a long series of the most bloody scenes, after the decease of Francis I., the horrid fruit of the Inquisition, the detail of which would require a volume. Notwithstanding persecution, the Protestants increased greatly; so that, in 1570, it is recorded, there were _two thousand one hundred and fifty_ congregations of Protestants in France, some of them containing _two thousand_ members! Papal intrigues were long employed, under the direction of the inquisitors, for their extirpation; and the pages of history do not contain such another record of monstrous treachery and malignant barbarity, as that of St. Bartholomew, in 1572. It is to be remembered that the deed was perpetrated in the name of the religion of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace! Charles IX., king of France, guided by his wicked mother, the infamous Catherine de Medicis, was induced, by the agents of the Pope, to resolve upon exterminating, by one decisive effort, all the dissenters from the Romish church. For this purpose, many of the principal Protestants were invited to Paris, under a solemn oath of safety, to celebrate the marriage of the king of Navarre with the French king’s sister. The queen dowager of Navarre, a zealous Protestant, was destroyed before the marriage was solemnised, by means of poison, concealed in a pair of gloves. The inhuman butchery commenced at the tolling of the bell of the Palais de Justice, at two o’clock in the morning of the 24th of August (the Sabbath), by the murder of the Admiral Coligny, who had been shot at and wounded two days previously. The hypocritical king of France visited him, and declared the admiral’s wound was his own. But the shocking work was conducted by the Duke of Guise, urged on by the king himself in person!