Mezeray, speaking of the marriage of the King of Navarre (afterwards
Henry IV.) with Margaret de Valois, says, "There were many diversions,
tournaments, and ballets at Court; and amongst others, one which
seemed to presage the calamity that was so near bursting out upon the
Huguenots--the King and his brothers defending Paradise against the
King of Navarre and his brothers, who were repulsed and banished to
Hell;" and Sainte Foix, in his relation of the horrible massacre,
gives a detail, which in the present age appears almost incredible.
Catherine of Medicis, whose abominable politics had corrupted the
disposition of her son, was at the head of the cabinet council who
agreed to the murder of more than one hundred thousand Protestants;
and the miserable bigot Charles IX. stationed during the massacre at
the window of a house then belonging to the Constable of Bourbon,
fired with his own hands upon the Huguenots with a long blunderbuss,
whilst they were trying to escape across the river.
The River Erdre runs northward of the city, and forms a beautiful
feature, winding for many miles among cultivated fields and woodlands,
through a country agreeably diversified with villas, to which the
wealthier inhabitants retire during the summer months. The river
resembles a lake for the greater part of its course, and is called the
Barban.
The Gothic church of Saint Pierre, built by the English in 1434, is
a fine old structure: having been much neglected for many years, and
greatly defaced during the Revolution, it was at this time restoring.
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