While the events we have described in the preceding chapter were taking place in the north and west of France, the rest of that beautiful land was a prey to anarchy and all the direst evils of civil war. In our favored country, where internecine strife has been so long unknown, and where, even in its worst days, Englishmen never forgot that they were brothers, we can hardly picture to ourselves the frightful condition of France during the whole reign of Charles IX. A few scattered incidents must be taken as a sample of the hideous mass of horrors: to repeat a tenth part of them would sicken and disgust the least sensitive of readers. Foremost among the blood-stained heroes of these cruel scenes are two personages, distinct yet alike, to whom no parallel can be found except in the sanguinary butchers of the Revolution of 1789. They are Montluc and Des Adrets. Blaise de Montluc had distinguished himself in the Italian wars of Francis I. He had been made prisoner at Pavia, and had decided the wavering fortunes of Cerisoles. As lieutenant of Guyenne he was ordered to reduce that province to submission, and he did it in a very characteristic manner, putting his Huguenot prisoners to death without permitting them to say a word, “for they have golden tongues.” Terror was his great weapon, and he used to boast that any one could know which way he had passed by the “marks” he left upon the trees by the roadside, adding, with a grim smile, that “one man hanging frightens more than a hundred slain.” His “Commentaries,” an autobiographical sketch, which he composed when years and disease prevented his using the sword any longer, are a curious illustration of the state of mind to which a man can be brought who makes mere military discipline the principle of his actions. Reform was insubordination; “obedience to the king’s edict or death”--he allowed no middle course. One day he hanged six prisoners without a minute’s delay. “Why,” said the terrified neighbors when they heard of it, “he puts men to death without trial.” What need of trial? he would have replied; you are in arms against the king. At St. Mezard four prisoners were brought before him as he stood in the church-yard, his two executioners behind him with their swords drawn; they always accompanied him, with cords and other implements of their office. One of the prisoners was charged with seditious language. Montluc caught him violently by the throat: “Rascal, how dare you insult the king with your ribald tongue?” “Mercy, mercy!” cried the man. “What! expect me to spare you when you have not spared your king!” And, in a towering passion, Montluc threw the poor wretch to the ground, his head falling on a broken monument. “Strike, scoundrel!” roared Blaise to one of his executioners; and at the word the sword fell, decapitating the man, and chipping a fragment of stone from the slab. Two others were hanged on a tree hard by, and the fourth was scourged so severely that he died a few days after.