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

the midst of all these dangers, without his mother's
strong arm to lean upon, was frightful to Charles.
He forgot the greatness of the crime in the
imminency of his own danger. His vulpine and
cowardly nature, incapable of a brave course, was
yet capable of a sudden and deadly spring. "He was
seized with an eager desire," says Maimbourg, "to
execute the resolution already taken in the secret
council to massacre all the Huguenots."[11] "Then
let Coligny be killed," said Charles, with an oath,
"and let not one Huguenot in all France be left to
reproach me with the deed."
One other point yet occasioned keen debates in
the council. Shall the King of Navarre and the
Prince of Conde be slain with the rest of the
Huguenots? "The Duke of Guise," says Davila,
"was urgent for their death; but the King and the
Queen-mother had a horror at embruing their hands
in royal blood;"[12] but it would seem that the
resolution of the council was for putting them to
death. The Archbishop of Paris, Perefixe, and
Brantome inform us that "they were down on the
red list" on the ground of its being neccessary "to
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