Charles IX of France had a loving, sensitive nature as a young person, but he gradually became evil through the influence of his villainous mother. Eventually he grew so wicked that he issued an order which led to the death of more than 25,000 Huguenots in the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre. Many years later, when Charles was on his deathbed, the memory of this terrible deed caused him to cry out, “Asleep or awake, I see the mangled forms of the Huguenots passing before me. They make hideous faces at me; they point to their open wounds, and mock me.” He died this way.

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