Protestantism in France From Death of Francis I to Edict of Nantes - James Aitken Wylie

to peruse it, in the pages of Agrippa d'Aubigne, De
Thou, Beza, Crespin, and other historians.[21]
But before these latter edicts were issued the
Huguenots had come to a decision. While Coligny,
shut up in his Castle of Chatilion, was revolving
the question of civil war, events were solving that
question for him.
Wherever he looked he saw cities sacked,
castles in flames, and men and women slaughtered
in thousands; what was this but civil war? The
tidings of to-day were ever sadder than those of
yesterday, and the tidings of to-morrow would, he
but too surely guessed, be sadder than those of today.
The heart of his wife, the magnanimous
Charlotte Laval, was torn with anguish at the
thought of the sufferings her brethren and sisters in
the faith were enduring. One night she awoke her
husband from sleep by her tears and sobs. "We lie
here softly," said she, "while our brethren's bodies,
who are flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone,
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