Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 10.djvu/162

 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [en. 58, versal outpouring of thanksgiving to the Father who had taken pity on His children. The cannon were fired at St Angelo, the streets were illuminated, Pope Greg- ory with his cardinals walked in procession from sanc- tuary to sanctuary to offer their sacrifice of adoring gratitude. As, for an act of hostility committed five centuries before, a prophet of Israel commanded the ex- termination of an entire nation ; as then the baby was not spared at the breast, the mother with child, the aged, and the sick were slaughtered in their beds all mur- dered ; as the hideous fury was extended to the cattle in the field, and all living things were piled together in a gory mass of carnage : so another slaughter of scarce in- ferior horror had again been perpetrated in the name of religion, and the Vicar of Christ, like a second Samuel, bestowed upon the deed the especial blessing of the Al mighty. The scene of the massacre was painted by the Pope's orders, with an inscription immortalizing his own gratification and approval. 1 He struck a commemor ative medal, with on the one side his own image, on the other the destroying Angel immolating the Huguenots He despatched Cardinal Orsini to Paris to congratulate the King ; and the assassins of Lyons, on whose hands the blood of the innocents was scarcely dry, knelt be- and presently they dread their own lives. The Duke of Guise himself is not so bloody, neither did he kill any man himself hut saved diverse. He spoke openly that for the Admiral's death he was glad, for he knew him to be his enemy ; but he thought for the rest that the King had put such to death as, if it pleased him, might have done good service.' News from Paris, September, 1572 : MSS. France. 1 ' Pontifex Colignii necem pro- bat.'