1 1 2 HIS TOR V OF FRA NCE. [chap. murdered in his bed and thrown out of the window. The streets resounded with the cry, " Kill, kill." Vague re- ports of a Huguenot plot excited the blood-thirsty frenzy to which the mob of Paris is peculiarly liable, and the whole city was one great shambles. The king had begun by securing his Huguenot nurse and surgeon in his own chamber; but he became maddened by horror, threatened the King of Navarre and Prince of Condd, and would have fallen on them himself had not his wife, Elizabeth of Aiistriix, thrown herself in front of them. The choice between death and the mass was set before them, and when they yielded they were still kept at court as prisoners at large. Ho^ts of Huguenots were killed in that night and the two following days ; those who escaped were either country nobles in their own castles, or the inhabi- tants of the more unimportant towns and of those southern cities and districts which were almost entirely Calvinist. The court tried to justify itself by professing to have dis- covered a great Calvinist plot, and appointing a thanks- giving" day for the deliverance, when Coligny's corpse was gibbeted as that of a traitor. Gregory XIII. who had thought the French court on the point of forsaking the Roman obedience, did not scruple to rejoice ; but the Emperor Ma.xmilian II. showed how much he was shocked, and Queen Elizabeth broke off the plans of marriage which had been designed between her and Charles's youngest brother Francis, Duke of Alen^on. 8. Death of Charles IX., 1574. — Queen Joan of Na- varre had strongly fortified the city of La Rochelle, and here the remaining Huguenots drew together, but they were stunned by the loss of their leaders. Before long they were relieved of the presence of the Duke of Anjou, who was elected King of Poland, and crowned at Cracow on the 22nd of February, 1574. Charles IX. 's heart had been broken by the horrible crime into which he had been dragged, and he was dying of decline. The Hugue- nots, therefore, fixed tlieir hopes on the Duke of Alenqon, on whose behalf they promised to raise the south ; while the Dtike of Montmorency, who, though a Catholic, hated Guise, would secure the queen-mother. Aicn^on con- sented, but his mother guessed the plot, and forced the whole design from him. She thus had time to hinder its execution by carrying the dying king back to Paris, and keeping a strict watch on his brother and the Bourbon princes. Over".onic by agonizing thoughts of the terrible
