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

stimulate the court to immediate and remorseless
massacre. "The more the Lord has treated you and
me with kindness," so wrote he to Charles IX, "the
more you ought to take advantage of the
opportunity this victory offers to you, for pursuing
and destroying all the enemies that still remain; for
tearing up entirely all the roots, and even the
smallest fibers of the roots, of so terrible and
continued an evil. For unless they are radically
extirpated, they will be found to shoot up again;
and, as it has already happened several times, the
mischief will reappear when your majesty least
expects it. You will bring this about if no
consideration for persons, or worldly things,
induces you to spare the enemies of God -- who
have never spared yourself. For you will not
succeed in turning away the wrath of God, except
by avenging him rigorously on the wretches who
have offended him, by inflicting on them the
punishment they have deserved."[8]
These advices, coming from such a quarter
were commands, and they could take no practical
shape but that of massacre; and to make it
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