The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1871-06-17
Massacre of st. Bartholomew Eve.

FAuxcrrois sounded over silent Paris. It.
omnous peal awoko an awful clamor, sucl
as the earth had never witnessed before
/ A clang of bells responded from ever.
| tower and bclfry, the adherents of the popt
| seized their arms, rushed to the houses o
/ the Huguenots, and murdered every inmate
! from the sleeping infant to the gray-hairet
! grandsire and the helpless maid. The cit,
had been suddenly illuminated, and from
every Catholic house the blaze of torches
| lighted up the labor of death. Beneath
their rays were seen women unSexed, ant
children endowed with an unnatural malice
torturing and treating with strange malig
nifty the dying and the dead. 1t is impos
sible, indeed, to narrate the details of thi!
| awful event, over which Catholic King.
| and priests rcjoiced, and for which the in
fallible pope at Romo gave public thanks
to God.
Within the palace of the Louvre ITSELF
where few days before every saloon had
rung with festivity, and where mask and
dance and throngs of gallant knights and
maidens had greeted the nuptials of Henry
and Marguerite, now echoed the groans of
the dying Huguenots, and the shrieks Of
the terrified queen. In the evening Mar
guerite had been driven by her enraged
mother from her presence and from the
arms of her sister Claude, who would have
detained her, and was forced to go trem-
bling to the apartment of her husband,
lest her absence might excite suspicion
She lay awake all night, filled with sense
of impending danger; she pretends that
she knew nothing of the approaching event.
Henry's rooms were filled with his compan-
ions in arms, who passed the night in
uttering the vain threats against the Guises
and planning projects of revenge. Tow
ard morning they all went out in company
with the king; and Marguerite, weary with
watching, sank into brief slumber. She
was aroused by loud cry without of
Unaware! Navarrev and a knocking at
the door. 1t was thrown open, man
wounded and bleeding, pursued by four
soldiers, rushed into the room, and threw
his arms around the queen. He chung to
her begging for life. She screamed in her
terror; the captain of the guard came in
and drove off the soldiers, and the wounded
Uuguenot was allowed to hide himself in
her closet. Marguerite fled hastily across
the halls of the Louvre to her sisters room,
and, as she passed amidst the scene that
had so lately rung with the masks and
revels of her wedding night, she saw
his pursurer, and heard the clamor of the
general massacre. Faint and trembling,
she went to her mother and the king, threw
herself at their feet, and begged the lives
of two of her husbands retainers.
Meantime when Henry of Navarro had
left his room in the morning, he had been
arrested, and carried to the kings cham
Der; but of the throng of Huguenots who
had attended him in the night only few
escaped. Each man, as he passed out
into the court, between two lines of swiss
guards, was stabbed without mercy. Two
hundred of the noblest and purest reform
ers of France lay piled i'll a huge heap
before the windows of the Louvre: Charles
IN, Catherine, and her infamous train of
honor, inspected and derided them as they
lay dead. All through that fearful Sab
bath day, the feast of st. Bartholomew,
and for two succeeding days, the murders
went on. the whole city was in arms; every
hat or cap was marked with white cross,
and every catholic was converted into an
assassin. Charles a raging lunatic, rode
through the streets laughing and testing
over the fallen; the streets were filled with
corpses; the Seine was turned to blood;
many Catholics grew rich by the plumber
of the IIuguenots; and it was believed that
the king and his brother, Anjou, shared the
spoils of opulent merchants and skillful
goldsmiths. The papal nuncio, Salviati,
overjoyed at the spectacle, wrote to the
pope that nothing was to be seen in the
streets but white crosses, producing fine
effect: he did not see the heaps of dead,
nor the scenes of incapable crime.
Charles IN, shot at the flying Huguenots
from his bedroom window. The rage of
the murderers was chiefly turned against
women and infants. One man threw two
little children into the Seine from a basket;
another infant was dragged through the
streets by cord tied around its neck by a
throng of catholic children; a babe smiled
in the face of the man who had seized it,
and played with his beard, but the monster
stabbed the child, and, with an oath, threw
it into the Seine.
For three days the massacre continued
with excessive atrocities; month later
Hugucnots were still being murdered in
Paris. 1t is computed that several thous-
and persons persisted in that city alone
In every part of the kingdom, by orders of
the king, an effort was made to extermi-
nate the uuguenots; and Lyons, Orleans,
Bordeaux, and all the provincial towns ran
with blood. Four thousand reformers are
said to have been killed in Lyons. At Bor-
deaux Anger, the most eloquent of the
Jesuit preachers, employed all his powers
in urging on the work of slaughter
"Who,' he cried, executed the divine
judgments at Paris? The Angel of the
Lord. And who will execute them in Dor
deaux? The angel of the Lord, however
man may try to resist him!' The number
of the slain throughout France has been
variously estimated at from ten to one hun
bred thousand. History has no parallel to
offer to this religious massacre even in its
most barbarous periods.
Harper's Magazine.
All our preconcived ideas in regard to
historical characters are, one by one, being
swept away by the new Development of the
present age. That much maligned woman,
Xantippe, is now crowned with honor. 1t
is now asserted that she was beautiful,
thrifty, and good housewife; that she first
won the regard of Socrates by her wonder.
full conversational powers, and the skill
| ,,-if1, cl,o fal Of |,