Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 10.djvu/158

 138 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 58. causeway, the air rang with yells and curses, pistol- shots and crashing windows ; the roadways were strewed with mangled bodies, the doors were blocked by the dead and dying. From garret, closet, roof, or stable, crouching creatures were torn shrieking out, and stabbed and hacked at ; boys practised their hands by strangling babies in their cradles, and headless bodies were trailed along the trottoirs. Carts struggled through the crowd carrying the dead in piles to the Seine, which, by special Providence, was that morning in flood, to assist in sweeping heresy away. Under the sanction of the great cause, lust, avarice, fear, malice, and revenge, all had free indulgence, and glutted themselves to nausea. Even the distinctions of creed itself became at last con- founded ; and every man or woman who had a quarrel to avenge, a lawsuit to settle, a wife or husband grown inconvenient, or a prospective inheritance if obstacles could be removed, found a ready road to the object of their desires. Towards midday some of the quieter people attempt- ed to restore order. A party of the town police made their way to the palace. Charles caught eagerly at their offers of service, and bade them do their utmost to put the people down; but it was all in vain. The soldiers, maddened with plunder and blood, could not be brought to assist, and without them nothing could be done. All that afternoon and night, and the next day and the day after, the horrible scenes continued, till the flames burnt down at last for want of fuel. The number who perished in Paris was computed variously