This makes the first move one of the court party against Coligny personally. The Catholic party, then a recently formed organization, had no part in it; and yet, if we may credit the statement of Cretineau Joly, who has never deceived as to a document he professes to possess, Catholicity in France was in imminent peril, Coligny having, in a letter of June 15th, 1572, to the Prince of Orange, given notice of an intended general execution of the Catholics in September. If a general massacre was plotted, the Catholic party were to be victims, not actors.
Coligny's death having been decided on, Henry de Guise was admitted to the plot, and the execution assigned to him. It needed little to stimulate him to shoot down one who had been privy to his father's assassination. An officer, either Maurevert or Tosinghi, was stationed in a vacant house belonging to Canon Villemur, and as Coligny rode past fired at him, cutting off the first finger of the right hand, and burying a ball in his left arm.
Charles was, as all admit, not only not privy to this act, but was deeply incensed at it. He ordered the assassin to be pursued, and, in despatches to other parts of the kingdom, gave assurance of his intention to adhere to the edict of pacification and to punish all who infringed it. Accompanied by his mother and his brother Henry, he went, that same afternoon, to see the admiral. There a long private conversation ensued between the king and Coligny. White gives this at length from a life of Coligny, published in 1576, but which cannot surely be held as authority. It rests probably on no better source than the _Mémoires de l'Etat de France._
Charles, in his letter to the French ambassador at London, tells him that this "vile act proceeds from the enmity between Coligny's house and the house of Guise. I will take steps to prevent their involving my subjects in their quarrels."
Whether the interview changed the king's mind as to the source of the attempt, of course is only conjectural. Still acting in good faith, he appointed a commission of inquiry, including members of both religions, the Huguenots apparently suggested by Coligny.
Charles returned to his palace moody and incensed. He ordered guards to protect Coligny against any further violence, and by his demeanor alarmed his mother and Henry. The Duke d'Aumale and Henri de Guise, foreseeing a tempest, withdrew to the Hotel de Guise, and shut themselves up.