All the Huguenot nobles dwelling near the admiral were pitilessly murdered, and a similar carnage took place at the Louvre. Marguerite, the young bride of Navarre, in her Memoirs, tells of the horrors of that morning, how, when half-asleep, a wounded Huguenot nobleman rushed into her chamber, pursued by four archers, and flung himself on her bed imploring protection, followed by a captain of the guard from whom she gained his life. She entreated the captain to lead her to her sister's room, and as she fled thither, more dead than alive, another fugitive was hewn down by a hallebardier only three paces from her; she fell fainting in the captain's arms. Meanwhile Charles, the queen-mother, and Anjou, after the violent scene in the king's chamber, had lain down for two hours' rest and then went to a window which overlooked the _basse-cour_ of the Louvre, to see the "beginning of the executions." If we may believe Henry's story, they had not been there long before the sound of a pistol shot filled them with dread and remorse, and a messenger was sent to bid Guise spare the admiral and stay the whole undertaking; but the nobleman who had been sent returned saying that Guise had told him it was too late: the admiral was dead, and the executions had begun all over the city. A dozen Protestant nobles of the suites of Conde and Navarre, who at the king's invitation had taken up their quarters in the Louvre, were seized; one was even dragged from a sick-bed: all were taken to the courtyard and hewn in pieces by the Swiss guards under the eyes of Charles, who cried: "Let none escape." Meantime the Catholic leaders had been scouring the streets on horseback, shouting to the people that a Huguenot conspiracy to murder the king had been discovered, and that it was the king's wish that all the Huguenots should be destroyed.