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

unpremeditated, and that it was a sudden and
violent resolve on the part of Catherine de Medici
and the Guises, to prevent the king yielding to the
influence of Admiral de Coligny, and putting
himself at the head of a Huguenot crusade in favor
of Protestantism.[11] Verily there never was much
danger of this; but though the hesitations of
Charles impart some feasibility to the theory, they
give it no solid weight whatever. All the historians,
Popish and Protestant~ who lived nearest the time,
and who took every care to inform themselves,
with one consent declare that the massacre was
premeditated and arranged. It had its origlnation in
the courts of Paris, Madrid, and the Vatican. A
chain of well-established facts conducts us to this
conclusion. Most of these have already come
before us, but some of them yet remain to be told.
But even irrespective of these facts, looking at the
age, at Charles IX., and at the state of Christendom,
can any man believe that the King of France should
have seriously contemplated, as he must have done
if his professions to the Huguenots were sincere,
not only proclaiming toleration in France, but
becoming the head of an armed European
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