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

Chapter 17
Resurrection of Huguenotism
Death of Charles IX
WHEN the terrible storm of the St.
Bartholomew Day had passed, men expected to
open their eyes on only ruins. The noble vine that
had struck its roots so deep in the soil of France,
and with a growth so marvellous was sending out
its boughs on every side, and promising to fill the
land, had been felled to the earth by a cruel and
sudden blow, and never again would it lift its
branches on high. So thought Charles IX and the
court of France. They had closed the civil wars in
the blood of Coligny and his 70,000 fellowvictims.
The governments of Spain and Rome did
not doubt that Huguenotism had received its deathblow.
Congratulations were exchanged between the
courts of the Louvre, the Escorial, and the Vatican
on the success which had crowned their projects.
The Pope, to give enduring expression to these
felicitations, struck, as we have seen, a
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