VII.
The duke of Guise and his confederates hastened to lay siege to the town of Rouen. The count of Montgomery, the same who had mortally wounded Henry II. in a tournay, took the command, and had with him a devoted population, and a strong garrison.
Between the besiegers and the besieged a contrast might be observed, which was to be reproduced eighty years later, between the Puritans of Cromwell and the royalist cavaliers. In the (Roman) Catholic army licentiousness reigned. Catherine de Medicis, who had turned to the strongest side, had brought with her her maids of honour. The trenches were opened to the sound of serenades, and the damsels of the court, constituting themselves the judges of the camp, awarded prizes to the cavaliers. In the interior of the town all was sober and severe. Here were no games or spectacles, but only sermons, prayers, and psalms; and after the religious service, the women went to the ramparts to fight by the side of their husbands.
After a siege of five weeks, Rouen was taken by assault, and given up for eight days to the fury of the soldiery. The Parliament, which had retired to Louviers, came to complete the work by judicial murders. Several of the principal inhabitants were condemned to death, among others Jean de Mandreville, president of the “cour des aides,” and the pastor Augustin Marlorat.
This last had figured at the conference of Poissy. He was versed in science, and possessed piety and moderation of character, and enjoyed the esteem of the faithful. The constable wished to see Marlorat, and accused him of having seduced the people. “If I have seduced them,” answered the minister of Christ, “God first seduced me; for I have preached to them the simple Word of God.” While they were dragging him on a hurdle to the gibbet, he exhorted his fellow-sufferers to glorify God to their last breath.
Anthony de Bourbon was mortally wounded during this siege, and licentious passions, which he could not subdue, hastened his end. After having received the viaticum, on the entreaty of a court-bishop, he appeared in his last moments to return to the Reformed faith; for he requested his physician to read the Bible to him, and with his eyes full of tears he prayed to God for pardon, declaring that if he recovered, he would cause the Gospel to be preached throughout the kingdom. But it was too late. Anthony de Bourbon died at the age of forty-four, and the only funeral oration that can be made over him is that of Etienne Pasquier: “The king of Navarre is dead, from a gun-shot; he is regretted neither by one party, nor the other!”
On the 19th of December the battle of Dreux was fought. The Calvinist army consisted of four thousand cavalry and five thousand infantry; the (Roman) Catholic army of sixteen thousand foot and two thousand horse. These forces were but small for an encounter, which might produce most important results; but, even of these, the foreign mercenaries of the triumvirs amounted to two-thirds, and to one-half in those of the Huguenots. But the war was at that time carried on from one end of France to the other; every province, every town, and, in some sort, every hamlet, had its soldiers; so that the troops encamped near Dreux formed but the smallest number of the combatants.
For more than two hours, the armies gazed at each other in sullen stillness. “Each one thought within himself,” as relates the honest Lanoue, “that he had relations, friends, and comrades before him.” At length the battle began, and was kept up for seven hours with excessive ferocity. Eight thousand dead bodies encumbered the plain at the end of day.
The Calvinists had at first the advantage, and some runaways having carried the news to Paris, Catherine de Medicis coolly replied: “Well, we must pray to God in French.”
But the duke of Guise, having charged with the reserve, changed the face of the combat. Coligny tried in vain to bring his men back to the attack; all he could effect, was to retreat in good order. The chiefs of the two armies, the prince of Condé and the Constable de Montmorency, were taken prisoners. The Marshal de Saint André, one of the triumvirate, fell upon the field. “Die, traitor,” said a Calvinist officer, in discharging a pistol at his head, “die by the hand of one whom thou hast despoiled.”
The winter did not suspend hostilities. Coligny again took the field in Upper and Lower Normandy. The duke of Guise went to besiege Orleans, the principal place, and the centre of the war-operations of the Calvinists. “Once take the burrow, when the foxes have retreated,” said he, “and we will chase them all over France.”
Already, in spite of the heroic defence of D’Andelot and the citizens, two suburbs had been taken, and the tower of the bridge had been carried, when the duke of Guise was wounded on the evening of the 18th of February, 1563, by Jean Poltrot de Méré, who fired a pistol close to his breast. He died six days after, bitterly regretted by the (Roman) Catholic party. They gave him at Paris the funeral of a king, and Catherine de Medicis assumed great grief, which she did not feel.
Several historians,—Mézeray among others,—assure us, that in his last moments he advised the queen-mother to make peace as quickly as possible; adding, that whosoever prevented it would be an enemy to the king and to the state. This was to counsel toleration, since peace could not be firmly established, except on this condition. Did François de Guise better understand his duty at the hour of death, than he had done throughout his life? Perhaps he did. Ambition no longer led him astray, and the thought of the judgment of God might have inspired him with the words of truth.
The murderer of the Duke de Guise was a gentleman of Angoumois, at that time twenty-five or twenty-six years old. An ardent (Roman) Catholic in his youth, Poltrot had served in Spain, and had so far adopted the language and manners of that country, as to have been called by the nickname of Espagnolet. Having embraced the Reformed faith, he was compelled to fly to Geneva, and to follow the trade of an artisan for a livelihood. His temper was soured and his imagination excited. Returned to France, he heard on every side loud complaints against the duke of Guise, whom the Huguenots called the butcher of Vassy, and the destruction of the murderer of his brethren appeared to him an act of legitimate reprisal. Such were the deplorable effects of these wars of religion, which distorted all ideas of justice, and depraved the soul—abyss only leading to abyss!
The death of the duke of Guise changed the face of affairs. Anne de Montmorency being a prisoner, there was no longer in the (Roman) Catholic army any chief of renown, and Catherine de Medicis resumed the negotiations, which she had never entirely abandoned. She tried to seduce Condé by the promise of the lieutenancy-general of the kingdom. This prince, who had fallen into the hands of the (Roman) Catholics at the battle of Dreux, had lived for three months apart from the austere men of the Calvinist party; “he already breathed,” says Mézeray, “the soft air of the court, and of the gaieties of the ladies.” Won over by the artifices of the queen, he asked leave to go and treat for peace at Orleans.
As soon as he arrived, he addressed these two questions to the pastors: Whether it were reasonable to exact that the Edict of January should be restored in all its articles? or, on the other hand, if that could not be obtained, whether it would not be desirable to enter into arrangements with the queen to quell the disorders of the kingdom? The pastors, to the number of seventy-two, seeing him hesitate, addressed a remonstrance to him in writing, asking for a fair and safe exercise of their religion, both in the places where it already existed, and in such places where the inhabitants might claim it.
The prince paid no heed to this remonstration, and despairing of overcoming the resistance of the ministers, turned to the gentlemen, who he knew were tired of war, and communicated to them certain clauses, which accorded to the nobility religious privileges. The pastoral body was neither heard nor received in this conference, and the majority of the gentlemen accepted the proposed articles.
The queen-mother vehemently urged on the conclusion; she feared to lose a single day, because she foresaw that if the Admiral Coligny had time to come up, the entire edifice of her intrigues would fall at a blow. Therefore, as soon as the prince of Condé had returned, she signed the articles, and this treaty, drawn up under the form of an edict of pacification, was published at Amboise on the 19th of March, 1563.
It contained the following points: Free exercise of religion in those towns, which were in the power of the Calvinists at the date of the 7th of March, 1563; permission to the lords haut-justiciers to hold assemblies throughout the whole extent of their domains; permission to the nobles of the second rank to celebrate their worship in their own houses, but only for their households; finally, in each bailiwick pertaining directly to the Parliaments, the concession of a single place of worship. To all the other members of the Reformed faith, it accorded only private worship: “Every one,” said the treaty, “shall be permitted to live at liberty in his own house, without search or molestation, and without being forced or constrained for conscience’ sake.”
Truly, there was a wide difference between the articles of Amboise and the Edict of January. Instead of a general right, the mass of the Reformed had now but the toleration of their domestic hearths. The nobles alone, and the faithful who dwelt in the neighbourhood of a bailiwick-town, could hold assemblies. This was separating the disciples of the Reformation like persons sick with the plague in a lazaretto.
When the Admiral learned the contents of this treaty, he felt the most lively indignation. “This stroke of the pen,” said he, “ruins more churches than the enemy could have pulled down in ten years.”
He returned to Orleans by forced marches, and arrived on the 23rd of March, hoping still to find the means of obtaining better conditions. He presented himself before the council, and explained his dissatisfaction to the prince. He said that the affairs of religion were in a favourable state; that two of the principal authors of the war were dead, and the third a prisoner; that, in confining the assemblies to one town in a bailiwick and to the lords haut-justiciers, the poor, who had nevertheless set the example to the rich, were sacrificed; and lastly, that the gentlemen themselves who wished to do their duty, would soon feel what heavy chains they had accepted.
This discourse made so strong an impression, that many, who had taken the advice of Condé, would have wished that the whole matter were to be done over again. But the prince answered that he had received private promises, and that when he was lieutenant-general of the kingdom, all would go on well. Coligny had to give way. Orleans was restored to the king’s troops, and the Huguenots aided them in retaking Hâvre from the English.
Such was the end of the first religious war, if such a word can be used to designate a simple suspension of arms, adopted on each side with mental reservations. No one was or could be satisfied. The ardent (Roman) Catholics complained no less than the Calvinists. Politicians could not understand those categories, which surrendered to a few what was refused to the masses. No principle had dictated the Edict of Pacification, and France, covered with blood, had not even time to apply the first dressing to her grievous wounds.