Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 10.djvu/95

 1572-1 THE DUKE OF NORFOLK. 75 pen, ' thinking it was good policy for him if he could drive the Protestants to renew the war.' Happily the business was over before Guise reached the scene ; but enough had taken place to show that the Catholic vol- cano was on the brink of an eruption. The Provost, after some difficulty, removed the cross; but the Ca- tholic mob flew to arms and surged about the streets, cursing the King, and ' crying out to kill the Hugue- nots.' Two or three houses were gutted, and the fami- lies found in them were murdered. The people wanted only leaders to commence a general massacre ; and when the riot ceased, it was ' rather by God's providence than by any good policy used by the heads of the town.' 1 The sedition died down, but the film had been removed for the moment, and revealed the fury which was boil- ing in the populace of the city ; and the fears of the Huguenot leaders, so often repeated to Walsingham, that the proscription and persecution would be revived if the English alliance broke down, received a signal confirmation. Sir Thomas Smith went over in January to discuss the terms of the treaty with Catherine. She instantly 1 Advertisement from Mr Wal- singham from Paris, December 29 : MSS. France. A highly curious and detailed account of this emeute is con- tained in a letter from some one at Paris to Sir William Fitzwilliam. It is especially interesting, because, being within six months before the massacre of St Bartholomew, it de- scribes a state of feeling which, in the writer's opinion, was leading in- evitably to some such catastrophe. Characteristically, Sir William Fitz- william being Lord Deputy of Ireland, the letter is buried by the arrangements at the Record Office among the Irish MSS., although it does not contain a single reference to that country.