Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 10.djvu/154

I 3 4 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 58. to be killed were in different parts of the town. Each took charge of a district. Montpensier promised to see to the Palace ; Guise and his uncle undertook the Ad miral ; and below these, the word went out to the leaden* of the already-organized sections, who had been disap- pointed once, but whose hour was now come. The Ca- tholics were to recognize one another in the confusion by a white handkerchief on the left arm and a white cross in their caps. The Royal Guard, Catholics to a man, were instruments ready made for the work. Guise assembled the officers : he told them that the Hugue- nots were preparing to rise, and that the King had ordered their instant punishment. The officers asked no ques- tions, and desired no better service. The business was to begin at dawn. The signal would be the tolling of the great bell at the Palace of Justice, and the first death was to be Coligny's. The soldiers stole to their posts. Twelve hundred lay along the Seine, between the river and the Hotel de Ville ; other companies watched at the Louvre. As the darkness waned, the Queen-mother went down to the gate. The stillness of the dawn was broken by an acci- dental pistol-shot. Her heart sank, and she sent off a messenger to tell Guise to pause. But it was too late. A minute later the bell boomed out, and the massacre of St Bartholomew had commenced. The Admiral was feverish with his wounds, and had not slept. The surgeon and a Huguenot minister, named Malin, had passed the night with him. At the first sounds ho imagined that there was an emeute of the