The young Queen of Navarre had scrupulously been left in ignorance of a
plot which involved the life of her bridegroom as well as those of his
co-religionists; nor was she aware of the catastrophe which had been
organised until Paris was already one vast shambles. Startled from her
sleep at the dead of night, and hurriedly informed of the nature of the
frightful cries that had broken her rest, she at once sprang from her
bed, and throwing on a mantle, forced her way to the closet of her royal
brother, where, sinking on her knees, she earnestly implored the lives
of Henry's Protestant attendants; but for a time Charles was obdurate;
nor was it until after he had reluctantly yielded to her prayers that
she recognised, with an involuntary cry of joy, the figure of her
husband, who stood in the deep bay of a window with his cousin, M.
de Condé.[8]

By one of those caprices to which he was subject, the King had refused
to sacrifice either of these Princes; and he had accordingly summoned
them to his presence, where he had offered them the alternative of an
instant abjuration of their heresy.

Shrieks and groans already resounded on all sides; the groans of strong
men, struck down unarmed and defenceless, and the shrieks of women
struggling with their murderers; while through all, and above all,
boomed out the deep-toned bells of the metropolitan churches--one long
burial-peal; and amid this ghastly diapason it was the pleasure of the
tiger-hearted Charles to accept the reluctant and informal recantation
of his two horror-stricken victims; after which he compelled them
without remorse to the agony of seeing their friends and followers
butchered before their eyes.