for flower, a light like their own flashed up counter-wise, but with
blood, all three of them, fresh upon the bosom, or in the mouth. It
was well to draw the sword, be one's enemy carnal or spiritual; even
devils, [76] as wise men know, taking flight at its white glitter
through the air. Out flashed the brave youths' swords, still with
mimic counter-motion, upon nothing--upon the empty darkness before
them.

Curdled at heart for an hour by that strange encounter, they went on
their way next morning no different. There was something in the mere
belief that peace was come at last. For a moment Huguenots were, or
pretended to be, satisfied with a large concession of liberty; to be
almost light of soul. The French, who can always pause in the very
midst of civil bloodshed to eulogise the reign of universal kindness,
were determined to treat a mere armistice as nothing less than
realised Utopia. To bear offensive weapons became a crime; and the
sense of security at home was attested by vague schemes of glory to
be won abroad, under the leadership of "The Admiral," the great
Huguenot Coligni, anxious to atone for his share in the unhappiness
of France by helping her to foreign conquests. Philip of Spain had
been watching for the moment when Charles and Catherine should call
the Duke of Alva into France to continue his devout work there.
Instead, the poetic mind of Charles was dazzled for a moment by the
dream of wrestling the misused Netherlands from Spanish rule
altogether.

Under such genial conditions, then, Gaston set out towards those
south-west regions he had [77] always yearned to, as popular
imagination just now set thither also, in a vision of French ships
going forth from the mouths of the Loire and the Gironde, from