A more important point is the number of victims. The estimates differ widely:
La Popelinière, a Huguenot contemporary...1,000
Kirkaldy of Grange, in a letter to Scotland at the time, and the _Tocsin_, a pamphlet of the day, as well as Tavannes, a main actor in the slaughter...2,000
Aubigné, another Huguenot author, and Capilupi...3,000
The estimates of ambassadors at Paris are higher.
Gomez de Silva, and the Simancas archives...5,000
_Réveille-Matin_, a party pamphlet...10,000
White bases his estimate on a curious calculation. An entry in the registers of the Hôtel de Ville states that on the 9th of September certain persons received 15 livres for burying dead bodies, and on the 23d the same men received 20 livres for burying 1100. He concludes that the 15 livres represented 1500, by what rule he does not explain, "giving," he says, "a known massacre of 2600." Even on his basis, 35 livres would really represent only 1925. But according to Caveirac, who first cites this entry, 35 livres were paid for interring 1100, which would give only about 1600 in all.
Gandy concludes his view of the matter by giving 1000 or 1200 as the nearest approach to the truth; but the estimate of Tavannes, an actor, Kirkaldy, a witness, and the _Tocsin_, a Huguenot pamphlet, would seem to be most authentic.
Thus fell the great admiral, the Cromwell of France, in religion less fanatical than hypocritical, a soldier of a high order, aiming under Calvin's teaching to make France a commonwealth with a religious tyranny that would brook no opposition. A man who occupied long a prominent position as one of the high nobility and rulers of the land, but who was simply a destroyer, not a creator; for no great work, no line of sound policy, no important reform, is connected with his name. His life was most injurious to the country, and but for the cowardly and cruel circumstances attending his death, he would occupy but a subordinate place in French history. Few other victims were eminent: Peter Ramus, the learned professor, Pierre de la Place, President of the Court of Ans, and some say Goujon, the sculptor. In fact, the more able leaders of the party had not come to Paris, and this renders the deed indefensible even on the ground of policy. The few nobles who hastened to bask in the sunshine of the court, were not the men most to be dreaded. The slaughter of men and women belonging to the lower classes could but rouse the sympathies of Europe.