and in the timber-yards beside the river.  Ten thousand, fifty thousand, a hundred thousand, it was rumoured, had perished in Paris.  In Orleans, all.  In Tours this man’s sister; at Saumur that man’s son.  Through France the word had gone forth that the Huguenots must die; and in the busy town the same roof-tree sheltered fear and hate, rage and cupidity.  On one side of the party-wall murder lurked fierce-eyed; on the other, the victim lay watching the latch, and shaking at a step.  Strong men tasted the bitterness of death, and women clasping their babes to their breasts smiled sickly into children’s eyes.

The signal only was lacking.  It would come, said some, from Saumur, where Montsoreau, the Duke of Anjou’s Lieutenant-Governor and a Papist, had his quarters.  From Paris, said others, directly from the King.  It might come at any hour now, in the day or in the night; the magistrates, it was whispered, were in continuous session, awaiting its coming.  No wonder that from lofty gable windows, and from dormers set high above the tiles, haggard faces looked northward and eastward, and ears sharpened by fear imagined above the noises of the city the ring of the iron shoes that carried doom.

Doubtless the majority desired—­as the majority in France have always desired—­peace.  But in the purlieus about the cathedral and in the lanes where the sacristans lived, in convent parlours and college courts, among all whose livelihood the new faith threatened, was a stir as of a hive deranged.  Here was grumbling against the magistrates—­why wait?  There, stealthy plannings and arrangements; everywhere a grinding of weapons and casting of slugs.  Old grudges, new rivalries, a scholar’s venom, a priest’s dislike, here was final vent for all.  None need leave this feast unsated!

It was a man of this class, sent out for the purpose, who first espied Count Hannibal’s company approaching.  He bore the news into the town, and by the time the travellers reached the city gate, the dusky street within, on which lights were beginning to twinkle from booths and casements, was alive with figures running to meet them and crying the news as they ran.  The travellers, weary and road-stained, had no sooner passed under the arch than they found themselves the core of a great crowd which moved with them and pressed about them; now unbonneting, and now calling out questions, and now shouting, “Vive le Roi!  Vive le Roi!” Above the press, windows burst into light; and over all, the quaint leaning gables of the old timbered houses looked down on the hurry and tumult.