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

alance, Charles IX died.[5] His life had been full
of excitement, of base pleasures, and of bloody
crimes, and his death was full of horrors. But as the
curtain is about to drop, a ray--a solitary ray--is
seen to shoot across the darkness. No long time
after the perpetration of the massacre, Charles IX
began to be visited with remorse. The awful scene
would not quit his memory. By day, whether
engaged in business or mingling in the gaieties of
the court, the sights and sounds of the massacre
would rise unbidden before his imagination; and at
night its terrors would return in his dreams. As he
lay in his bed, he would start up from broken
slumber, crying out, "Blood, blood!" Not many
days after the massacre, there came a flock of
ravens and alighted upon the roof of the Louvre.
As they flitted to and fro they filled the air with
their dismal croakings. This would have given no
uneasiness to most people; but the occupants of the
Louvre had guilty consciences. The impieties and
witchcrafts in which they lived had made them
extremely superstitious, and they saw in the ravens
other creatures than they seemed, and heard in their
screams more terrible sounds than merely earthly
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