not," he said, "have parried so fearful a blow but by another very violent one; and he wished all the world to know that what had happened at Paris had been done not only with his consent, but by his express command." Whereupon, says DeThou, it was enjoined upon the court "to cause investigation to be made as to the conspiracy of Coligny, and to decree what it should consider proper, conformably with the law and with justice." The next day but one-August 28thappeared a royal manifesto running: "The king willeth and intendeth that all noblemen and others whatsoever of the religion styled Reformed be empowered to live and abide in all security and liberty, with their wives, children, and families, in their houses, as they have heretofore done, and were empowered to do by the edicts of pacification. And nevertheless, for to obviate the troubles, scandals, suspicion, and distrust which might arise by reason of the services and assemblies that might take place both in the houses of the said noblemen and elsewhere as is permitted by the said edicts of pacification, his Majesty doth lay very express inhibitions and prohibitions upon all the said noblemen and others of the said religion against holding assemblies, on any account whatsoever, until that by the said lord and king, after having provided for the tranquillity of his kingdom, it be otherwise ordained. And that on pain of confiscation of body and goods, in case of disobedience."

These tardy and lying accusations officially brought against Coligny and his friends-these promises of liberty and security for the Protestants, renewed in the terms of the edicts, and in point of fact annulled at the very moment at which they were being renewed-the massacre continuing here and there in France, at one time with the secret connivance, and at another notwithstanding the publicly given word of the King and the Queen-mother-all this policy, at one and the same time violent and timorous, incoherent and stubborn, produced amongst the Protestants two contrary effects: some grew frightened, others angry. At court, under the direct influence of the King and his surroundings, "submission to the powers that be" prevailed. Many

fled; others, without abjuring their religion, abjured their party. The two Reformed princes, Henry of Navarre and Henry de Condé, attended Mass on the 29th of September, and on the 3d of October wrote to the Pope, deploring their errors and giving hopes of their conversion. Far away from Paris, in the mountains of the Pyrenees and Languedoc, in the towns where the Reformed were numerous and confident-at Sancerre, at Montauban, at Nîmes, at La Rochelle-the spirit of resistance carried the day. An assembly, meeting at Milhau, drew up a provisional ordinance for the government of the Reformed Church, "until it please God, who has the hearts of kings in his keeping, to change that of King Charles IX., and restore the State of France to good order, or to raise up such neighboring prince as is manifestly marked out, by his virtue and by distinguishing signs, for to be the liberator of this poor and afflicted people." In November, 1572, the fourth religious war broke out. The siege of La Rochelle was its only important event. Charles IX. and his counsellors exerted themselves in vain to avoid it. There was everything to disgust them in this enterprise so sudden a revival of the religious war after the grand blow they had just struck, the passionate energy manifested by the Protestants in asylum at La Rochelle, and the help they had been led to hope for from Queen Elizabeth, whom England would never have forgiven for indifference in this cause.

In the spring of 1574, at the age of twenty-three years and eleven months, and after a reign of eleven years and six months, Charles IX. was attacked by an inflammatory malady which brought on violent hemorrhage; he was revisited in his troubled sleep by the same bloody vision about which, after the St. Bartholomew, he had spoken to Ambrose Paré. He no longer retained in his room anybody but two of his servants and his nurse, "of whom he was very fond, although she was a Huguenot," says the contemporary chronicler, Peter de l'Estoile. When she had lain down upon a chest and was just beginning to doze, hearing the King moaning, weeping, and sighing, she went full gently up to his bed. Ah! nurse, nurse,' said the King, 'what

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bloodshed and what murder! Ah! what evil counsel have I followed! Oh! my God, forgive me for them, and have mercy upon me, if it may please Thee! I know not what hath come to me, so bewildered and agitated do they make me. What will be the end of it all? What shall I do? I am lost; I see it well!' Then said the nurse to him, 'Sire, the murders be on the heads of those who made you do them! Of yourself, Sire, you never could ; and since you were not consenting thereto, and are sorry therefor, believe that God will not put them down to your account, and will hide them with the cloak of justice of His Son, to whom alone you must have recourse. But, for God's sake, let your Majesty cease weeping! And thereupon, having been. to fetch him a pocket-handkerchief, because his own was soaked with tears, after that the King had taken it from her hand he signed her to go away and leave him to rest."

On Whitsunday, May 30, 1574, about three in the afternoon, Charles IX. expired, after having signed an ordinance conferring the regency upon his mother, Catherine," who accepted it "-such was the expression in the letters-patent-"at the request of the Duke of Alençon, the King of Navarre, and other princes and

peers of France.' According to D'Aubigné, Charles used often to say of his brother Henry, that "when he had a kingdom on his hands, the administration would find him out, and that he would disappoint those who had hope of him." The last words he said were, "that he was glad not to have left any young child to succeed him, very well knowing that France needs a man, and that, with a child the king and the reign are unhappy." -History of France; translation of ROBERT BLACK.

GUNSAULUS, FRANK WAKELEY, an American poet, divine, and educator, was born at Chesterville, O., January 1, 1856. He is a lineal descendant of one of the martyrs of the Spanish inquisition. He was educated at the Ohio Wesleyan University, and became a Methodist preacher in 1875, and in 1879 he took charge of a Congregational church in Columbus. In 1885 he became pastor of the Brown Memorial Church in Baltimore, and two years later he was called to Plymouth Church, Chicago, with which latter pastorate he united the labors of president of the Armour Institute. His published works include November at Eastwood (1881); Metamorphoses of a Creed (1884); Monk and Knight (1891); Phidias and Other Poems (1891); Loose Leaves of Song (1893), and lectures on Savonarola, John Hampden, Oliver Cromwell, and The Higher Ministries of Contemporary English Poetry.

His style is characterized as "brilliant and warm," and his analysis of historical cause and effect as singularly acute." Of his poetry an English critic says that "the author has clearly dwelt upon his subject until it has become real to him, and he writes not only with conviction, but with a delicacy of phrasing and dignified reserve that prove him, beyond question, a poet."

UNPLEASANT VISITORS.

More came into the vaulted room just as the abbot and Erasmus had partaken of the excellent beer which was brewed by the monks of Glastonbury. After sipping a little more, and remarking upon its good quality, they started, with the proud head of the institution, to look at the interesting and sacred relics. Old Fra Giovanni, breathing whispers to Vian, who came close to Abbot Richard, came and went with surprising freedom, as they proceeded from spot to spot. This beautiful youth amidst these ancient buildings, this fresh boyhood in this atmosphere of antiquity-the contrasts and the suggestions made the scholar and the statesman silent. Abbot Richard, however, talked incessantly.

"For fifteen centuries and more, the cross has stood on this spot; and yet some fear that base men will some day be wicked enough to raze these buildings to the earth. The saints forefend us !"

He listened for a reply, but Erasmus said only this: "There will be no change but for the better, I am sure.'

"Ah, if I could be sure!" urged the abbot. "Heretics are everywhere, and kings are silent. Would that the sword were drawn but once! they would disappear."

"Nay," said More; "ideas alone may conquer ideas. Saint Peter once drew his sword ; and his Master bade him sheath it again."

"Yes, good friend!" added Erasmus; "ideas cannot be swept back by institutions—for institutions are only the forms of old ideas."

He was just going to say that new ideas often supplanted them with new institutions, when the abbot, somewhat nettled, said, "And what if these old ideas be true ideas?"

"Then," cautiously replied Erasmus-"then they need no swords; they and their institutions will stand forever."

"Ah!" said the abbot, "the Holy Church is an institution of God, not the embodiment of any human ideas."

Thomas More remembered the story of the young