Attempts have been made to fix upon the Huguenots the terrible responsibility of beginning the civil strife. It is easy to prove this, or any other historical untruth, by a skillful manipulation of documents; but the evidence of eye-witnesses of, and actors in, the events of the spring of 1562, points to the opposite conclusions. La Noue, who was present at Meaux, positively affirms that there was no plan or previous arrangement. “Most of the nobility,” he says, “hearing of the slaughter at Vassy, partly of a voluntary good-will, and partly for fear, determined to draw toward Paris, imagining that their protectors might stand in some need of them.”[284] And that there was good ground for this fear appears certain from a contemporary letter, in which the writer says: “Every thing is in such confusion at court that, if God does not lend a helping hand, I fear that in less than ten days you will have news of the prettiest (_plus beau_) massacre that ever was.”[285] Is it wonderful if in such a state of things the Protestant gentry thought it necessary to take counsel together? Of their deliberations we know nothing, but the result was a resolution to take up arms. Coligny alone appears to have held back, and without his countenance and support the chances of success were very small. There is a story told of him, which we could hope to be true, though it is at variance with certain known facts. He had long kept aloof, notwithstanding the entreaties of his brothers Andelot and the Cardinal of Chatillon that he would take the field; and when his wife added her entreaties to theirs, he drew a terrible picture of civil war and the possible fate of herself and their children, and begged her take three weeks to weigh the matter deliberately in her mind. “The three weeks are already past,” replied the heroic dame; “you will never be conquered by the virtue of your enemies; employ your own, and do not take upon your head the murders of three weeks.” He hesitated no longer, and the next day set off to join Condé at Meaux, where the Huguenot gentlemen held rendezvous. That prince had already committed himself too far not to see that none but the boldest measures could save him: “It is all over,” he said; “we have plunged in so deep that we must either drink or drown.”