The Italian mother, having thus become supreme in the kingdom, began to mature her plans for stamping out heresy in the dominions of her son. Possessed in an eminent degree of the family arts of dissimulation and concealment, she pursued, with steadiness of purpose and recklessness of means, the object before her. She has justly been compared to the shark which follows the vessel through storm and calm in expectation of its prey. The country was divided into two, apparently equally matched, and irreconcilable camps. Several campaigns had been fought, and there was no immediate prospect of the Catholics overcoming the Huguenots in the field; therefore Jezebel has recourse to her old policy-which she thoroughly understood-treachery and secret assassination. At the same time, it is affirmed by Felice, that no state reason can be advanced in justification of the massacre. Rome had no longer anything to fear for her supremacy, or the crown for the maintenance of its political power. It was fanaticism, resentment, Jezebel's unquenchable thirst for the blood of God's saints, which led to the crushing of the minority in 1572.
The first and real authors of the massacre were Catherine, Pope Pius V., and Philip II. of Spain-none of them French. Others were drawn into the plot, but nothing could be done without the sanction of the king. The mother, with the assistance of the pope, accomplished this. By a gross perversion of scripture, the crafty pontiff pointed out to the young king that he was now in the position of Saul, king of Israel, who had received the orders of God, by the mouth of Samuel the prophet, to exterminate the infidel Amalekites, and not to spare one in any case. But as he did not obey the voice of God, he was deprived of his throne and his life. Charles saw the application of the allusion, and ultimately consented to kill all the Huguenots, that not one might be left to reproach him with the deed.