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A horrid massacre was committed on St. Bartholomew's day, being the 24th of August, 1571, which was the Sabbath day, and is made famous for ever, by the effusion of so much precious innocent blood, as no age nor time can parallel, for there were at this time in Paris, threescore thousand men, with pistols, poinards, swords, knives, and such other bloody instruments, who ran up and down, swearing and blaspheming the sacred majesty of God, cruelly massacring all they met, so that the streets were covered with mangled bodies, and the gates and doors defiled with blood; the lords and gentlemen were inhumanly murdered, some in their beds, others on the tops of their houses, and in all other places where they were found; and such a multitude of dead bodies were thrown into the river Seine, that the water was dyed red with their blood.
In the hellish assembly wherein this bloody massacre was concluded on, it was there debated, whether the King of Navarre, and Prince of Conde, should not be destroyed with the rest? the Duke of Guise pleaded for it, but others were against it, and argued how abominable it would be to destroy two young princes of the blood, in the flower of their age, and one of them in the embraces of his young bride, and the king's own sister; and therefore it was concluded, that they should be threatened violently with death, and all manner of torments, if they would not turn Papists.
In this butcherly massacre at Paris, there were about four thousand houses robbed and plundered, and above five hundred barons, knights and gentlemen, who were chief officers in the war; with
