Note 1085 — Chapter XIX

I know, however, of no letters of this kind signed by Charles IX. himself. They all seem to have been written by his inferior agents, such as Puigaillard in the case of Saumur, or Masso and Rubys in that of Lyons. The advantage of this course was apparent. The king could not be proved to have ordered any massacre; he could throw off the responsibility upon others. On the other hand, such politic governors as Mandelot were naturally reluctant to act upon instructions which could at any moment be disavowed. The verbal messages of Charles himself would seem, from the Mandelot correspondence, to have been less definite—perhaps going to no greater lengths than to order the arrest of the persons and the sequestration of the effects of the Huguenots. May we not naturally suppose that the king and his council counted upon such subsequent massacres of the imprisoned Protestants as occurred in many places?