14: REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 58. at once insisted that the circulars should be recalled. The Parliament of Paris was assembled, and the King was compelled to admit publicly that the troops had re- ceived their orders from himself. The story of the Huguenot conspiracy was revived, systematized, and supported by pretended confessions made at the mo- ment of death by men who could now offer no contra- diction. The Protestants of the provinces, finding themselves denounced from the throne, were likely instantly to take arms to defend themselves. Couriers were therefore despatched with second orders that they should be dealt with as they had been dealt with at ^ Paris ; and at Lyons, Orleans, Rouen, Bourdeaux, Toulon, Meaux, in half the towns and villages of France, the bloody drama was played over again. The King, thrown out into the hideous torrent of blood, be- came drunk with frenzy, and let slaughter have its way, till even Guise himself affected to be shocked, and interposed to put an end to it ; not however till, i according to the belief of the times, a hundred thou- sand men, women, and children had been miserably murdered. 1 The guilt of such enormous wickedness may be dis- ^tinguished from its cause. The guilt was the Queen- mother's ; the cause was Catholic fanaticism. Catherine de Medici had designed the political murder of a few inconvenient persons, with a wicked expectation that 1 The number again may be hoped to have been prodigiously ex- aggerated; with all large figures, when unsupported by exact statistics, it is safe to divide at least by ten.
