The position of affairs was strange enough. The admiral was not wounded so as to excite any alarm as to his recovery; the loss of a finger and a bullet-wound in the arm, injuries not requiring, one would suppose, the nine physicians and eleven surgeons called in. { 13} But it was an attempt on the life of the leader of their party, and the Huguenots determined to pursue it at all hazards. The more violent of them marched through the streets in military array, threatening not only the Guises, who were considered the prime movers, but Anjou, the queen-mother, and even the king himself. They passed the Hotel de Guise with every mark of defiance, and proceeding to the Louvre, made their way to the king's presence as he sat at supper, fiercely demanding vengeance: "If the king refuses us justice," they cried, "we will take the matter into our own hands."
This violence could not but have had its effect on the king. At all events, it must have made him ready to credit any charge of violence brought against them. Catharine was clearly overjoyed at the false step of the Huguenots, as offering her a means of escape from her critical position.
On Saturday, after dinner, a cabinet council was held, and here, according to Tavannes, Anjou, and Queen Margaret of Navarre, it was for the first time proposed to Charles to put an end to all the troubles by cutting off Coligny and the leaders of the party. The council was composed, it is said, of Catharine, Anjou, Nevers, Tavannes, Retz, and the chancellor Birague. Of Catharine and Anjou, afterward Henry III., we need say nothing. Tavannes was little but a soldier, ready for action. The rest, strangely enough, were Italians. Louis de Gonzaga, Duke of Nevers by marriage, was timid and easily led; Albert de Gondi, Marshal de Retz, foster-brother of the king, was a schemer; René de Birague is represented by Mezeray as one who bent before every breath of wind from the court.
Not only in this council was there no one of the Huguenot party so recently restored to favor, but no one of the moderate party, none even of the old French nobility. All but Tavannes were bound to Catharine, and would naturally support her.
According to Anjou and Tavannes, Catharine urged the necessity of the blow to prevent a new civil war, for which the Huguenots were preparing, having sent for ten thousand Germans and six thousand Swiss, their object being to place Henry of Navarre on the throne. Margaret states that they made the king believe his life in danger. The nuncio Salviati, in his despatch of September 2d, also ascribes the king's ultimate action to the instigation of Catharine, impelled by her fears.