FOOTNOTES:
[587] Mémoires d'Agrippa d'Aubigné (Ed. Buchon), 475.
[588] Jean de Serres, iii. 247.
[589] Mém. de Claude Haton, ii. 541; De Thou, iv. (liv. xliv.) 145.
[590] The text of the edict is given by Jean de Serres, iii. 272-281. See also De Thou, iv. (liv. xliv.) 145, 146; Castelnau, liv. vii., c. ii. La Fosse (Journal d'un curé ligueur, 98), gives the correct date: "Septembre. La veille du Saint Michel (i.e., Sept. 28th) fut rompu l'esdict de janvier, et publié dedans le palais esdict au contraire;" while the ambassador La Mothe Fénélon alludes to it in a despatch to Catharine as "votre édict du xxxe de Septembre." Correspondance diplomatique, i. 28.
[591] J. de Serres, iii. 281, 282; De Thou and Castelnau, ubi supra, Recordon, Le protestantisme en Champagne, 158, 159.
[592] Zway Edict, u. s. w., ubi infra, p. 38.
[593] Castelnau, ubi supra.
[594] I have before me this interesting publication, of which the first lines of the title-page (inordinately long and comprehensive, after the fashion of the times) run as follows: "Zway Edict, sampt einer offnen Patent der Königlichen Würden in Franckreich, durch welche alle auffrurische Predigten, versamblungen und ubung der newen unchristlichen Secten und vermainten Religion gantz und gar abgeschafft und allain die Römische und Bäpstische Catholische ware Religion gestattet werden sollen.... 1568."
[595] De Thou, iv. (liv. xliv.) 160, 161.
[596] "Notre sang nous sera ung secong baptême, par quoy sans aucun empeschement, nous irons avec les autres martyrs droit en paradis." Publication de la croisade, Hist. de Languedoc, v. (Preuves) 216, 217. See the account, ibid., v. 290.
[597] Ibid., v. (Preuves) 217. The laborious author of the Hist. de Languedoc, v. 290, makes a singular mistake in saying "that this bull is dated March 15th, of the year 1568, which proves that the project had been formed several months before its execution." The date of the bull is, indeed, given as stated at the close of the document; but the addition, "pontificatus nostri anno quarto," furnishes the means for correcting it. Pius V. was not created Pope until January 7, 1566. See De Thou, iii. (liv. xxxix.) 622.
[598] Mémoires de Claude Haton, ii. 541, 542.
[599] Jehan de la Fosse, 99.
[600] Jean de Serres, iii. 249.
[601] Jean de Serres, iii. 255, 256; De Thou, iv. (liv. xlix.) 141. De Serres (iii. 256-266) gives interesting extracts of the letters which Jeanne wrote to Charles, to his mother, to the Duke of Anjou, and to her brother-in-law, the Cardinal of Bourbon. She urged the latter, by every consideration of blood and honor, to shake off his shameful servitude to the counsels of the Cardinal of Lorraine, whom she openly accused of having conspired to murder Bourbon, with Marshal Montmorency and Chancellor L'Hospital, during a recent illness of the queen.
[602] Jean de Serres, iii. 267-269; De Thou, iv. (liv. xliv.) 142, 143; D'Aubigné, liv. v., c. 2, 3 (i. 264-268).
[603] J. de Serres, ubi supra.
|
"C'est en Judée proprement Que Dieu s'est acquis un renom; C'est en Israël voirement Qu'on voit la force de son Nom: En Salem est son tabernacle, En Sion son sainct habitacle." |
I quote from an edition of the unaltered Huguenot psalter (1638).
[605] Jean de Serres, iii. 270; De Thou, iv. (liv. xliv.) 144, 145; Agrippa d'Aubigné, Hist. univ. liv. v., c. 4 (i. 269) states the circumstance that the river fell a foot and a half during the four hours consumed in the crossing, and then rose again as opportunely: "Mais il s'en fust perdu la pluspart sans un heur nompareil; ce fut que la riviere s'estant diminuée d'un pied et demi durant le passage de quatre heures, se r'enfla sur la fin;" adding in one of those nervous sentences which constitute a principal charm of his writings: "Nous dirions avec crainte ces courtoisies de Loire, si nous n'avions tous ceux qui ont escrit pour gariment."
[606] Jean de Serres, iii. 270, 271; De Thou, iv. (liv. xliv.) 147; Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 269.
[607] La Noue, c. xx.
[608] Ibid., ubi supra; De Thou, iv. (liv. xliv.) 150.
[609] Jacques de Crussol, Baron d'Acier (or, Assier), afterwards Duke d'Uzès, lieutenant-general of the royal armies in Languedoc, etc. According to the Abbé Le Laboureur (iii. 56-60), it was interest that induced him, a few years later, to become a Roman Catholic.
[610] Le Laboureur, Add. aux Mém. de Castelnau, ii. 588. The same author elsewhere (ii. 56-60) states the army as only 20,000. Jean de Serres, iii. 284, 285, and De Thou, iv. (liv. xliv.) 150-152, give an account of the difficulties encountered in bringing these troops to the place of rendezvous, and enumerate the leaders and contingents of the three provinces. According to the latter, the total was 23,000 men. See Agrippa d'Aubigné, liv. v., c. 5 (i. 271).
[611] Jean de Serres, iii. 286, 291, 292; De Thou, iv. (liv. xliv.), 153, 154; Agrippa d'Aubigné, ubi supra; Davila, bk. iv., p. 132, 133; Le Laboureur, ii. 588, 589. It is more than usually difficult to ascertain the loss of the Huguenots at Messignac. Jean de Serres, who states it at 600, and Davila, who says that it amounted to 2,000 foot and more than 4,000 horse, are the extremes. De Thou sets it down at more than 1,000; D'Aubigné at 1,000 or 1,200; Castelnau at 3,000 foot and 300 horse; and Le Laboureur, following him, at over 3,000 men.
[612] Hist. univ., liv. v., c. 6 (i. 273).
[613] "Discours envoyé de la Rochelle," accompanying La Mothe Fénélon's despatch of January 20, 1569. Correspondance diplomatique, i. 137, 138. Another letter of a later date gives even larger figures—30,000 foot (25,000 of them arquebusiers) and 7,000 or 8,000 horse, besides recruits expected from Montauban. Ibid., i. 147.
[614] Upwards of 23,000 horse and 200 ensigns of foot (which we may perhaps reckon at 40,000 men). Despatch of La Mothe Fénélon, Dec. 5, 1568, Corresp. diplomatique, i. 29.
[615] Mémoires de Tavannes, iii. 38. De Thou, iv. 154, assigns 18,000 foot and 3,000 horse to Condé; and 12,000 foot and 4,000 horse, exclusive of the Swiss (who, according to Tavannes, numbered 6,000), to Anjou.
[616] Jean de Serres, iii. 295, 296.
[617] "Resolution qui sembloit la plus nécessaire aux Réformez, pource que difficilement pouvoient-ils maintenir une telle troupe sans solde et sans magazins reglez." Agrippa d'Aubigné, liv. v., c. 6 (i. 273).
[618] See "Tableau des phénomènes météorologiques, astronomiques, etc., mentionnés dans les Mémoires de Claude Haton."
[619] Jean de Serres, iii. 304, 305; De Thou, iv. (liv. xliv.) 159.
[620] "Cette Roine, n'aiant de femme que le sexe, l'âme entière aux choses viriles, l'esprit puissant aux grands affaires, le cœur invincible aux adversitez." Agrippa d'Aubigné, ii. 8.
[621] Jean de Serres, iii. 306, 307.
[622] Jean de Serres, iii. 296, 297; Relation sent from La Rochelle, La Mothe Fénélon, i. 173. The Prince of Condé had also made a solemn protestation in writing, and before a large assembly, before entering upon any belligerent acts. The substance of these frequent documents is so similar that I have deemed it unnecessary to do more than refer to it. See J. de Serres, iii. 249, 250. The Huguenot soldiers had, at the same time, taken an oath to support the cause until the achievement of a peace securing the undisturbed enjoyment of life, honors and religious liberty, and to submit to a careful military discipline. Ibid., iii. 251, 252-255, where the oath and a summary of the rules of discipline are inserted.
[623] "Projet d'alliance du Prince d'Orange avec l'Amiral de Coligny et le Prince de Condé pour obtenir entière liberté de conscience dans les Pays-Bas et en France. Le—août l'an 1568." Groen Van Prinsterer, Archives de la Maison d'Orange-Nassau, iii. 282-286.
[624] Letter of Favelles (Dec., 1568), Groen Van Prinsterer, Archives, etc., iii. 312-316.
[625] He was not a "maréchal," as Mr. Motley inadvertently calls him (Dutch Republic, ii. 261), but a very prominent and successful negotiator, whose eulogy M. de Thou, an intimate friend, has pronounced in the 122d book of his history (ix. 285). Henry, the first Count of Schomberg made Marshal of France, was not born until 1583.
[626] It was generally believed that Schomberg, gaining access to the Germans through one of the principal officers, to whom he was related, was the occasion of their disaffection. Jean de Serres, iii. 298. "Il mesnagea si bien la plus part des capitaines," says Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 340, "que quand le Prince leur parla d'aller joindre le Prince de Condé, il les trouva tous bons théologiens et mauvais partisans; discourans de la justice des armes, sans oublier le droit des rois et les affaires qu'ils avoient en leur païs. Schomberg s'en revint aiant reçeu quelques injures par Genlis."
[627] Letter of December 3, 1568, Cissonne, in Motley, Rise of the Dutch Republic, ii. 261, 262.
[628] News-letter from Paris, from the Huguenot physician of the Duke of Jarnac, discovered in the gauntlet of the Prince of Condé, and sent by Anjou, with other papers found on his dead body, to King Charles. Duc d'Aumale, Princes de Condé, Pièces inéd., ii. 391.
[629] Jean de Serres, iii. 299; Groen Van Prinsterer, Archives, etc., iii. 316; Motley, Dutch Republic, ii. 263; Ag. d'Aubigné, liv. v., c. 26 (i. 340).
[630] M. Froude falls into a very natural error, in calling him (History of England, Am. edit., ix. 334) "the younger Châtillon." With the exception of a brother who died in early youth, he was the oldest of the family; but his quiet and more sluggish character inclined him to accept the cardinal's hat, when offered to him by his uncle, the constable; and, rich with the revenues of bishoprics and abbeys, he subsequently renounced all his rights as eldest son to his brother Gaspard. Froude is, however, in good company. Even the usually accurate Tytler-Fraser says of Cardinal Châtillon: "This high-born ecclesiastic was in most things the reverse of his elder brother D'Andelot." England under Edward VI. and Mary, i. 36.
[631] Lodged by Elizabeth in Sion House, not far from Hampton Court, he was accorded more honor than usually fell to the lot of an envoy of royalty. Never, says Florimond de Ræmond, did the queen meet him but she greeted him with a kiss, and it became a popular saying that Condé's ambassador was a much more important personage than the envoy of the King of France. De ortu, progressu, et ruina hæreseon (Cologne, 1614), ii. 284 (l. vi., c. 15).
[632] The letter of Jeanne to Elizabeth, Oct. 15, 1568, is inserted in Jean de Serres, iii. 288-291.
[633] There were many English clergymen with whom the diversity of order in public worship created no prejudice against the reformed churches of France. Of this number was William Whittingham, Dean of Durham, who, when he accompanied the Earl of Warwick, upon the occupation of Havre in 1562, conformed the service of the English garrison to that of the resident Protestants. Understanding that some of his countrymen had made "frivolous" complaints of his action, the Dean justified himself by Saint Augustine's counsel in such matters, and by alleging the disastrous consequences a different course would have produced on the minds of the French Protestants, who, he said, "as they had conceived evil of the infinity of our rites and cold proceedings in religion, so if they should have seen us (but in form only, though not in substance), to use the same or like order in ceremonies which the papists had a little afore observed (against whom they now venture goods and body), they would to their great grief have suspected our doings as not sincere, and have feared in time the loss of that liberty which after a sort they had purchased with the bloodshedding of many thousands." And the dean maintains the wisdom of the course pursued, having "perceived that it wrought here a marvellous conjunction of minds between the French and us, and brought singular comfort to all our people." The Bishop of London seems to have concurred in these views, as well as Cuthbert Vaughan, and probably Warwick himself. Whittingham to Cecil, Newhaven (Havre), Dec. 20, 1562, State Paper Office. It ought to be added that Whittingham, in this letter, expresses in fact a preference for the French forms to the English, as "most agreeable with God's Word, most approaching to the form the godly Fathers used, best allowed of the learned and godly in these days, and according to the example of the best reformed churches." Dean Whittingham, who had married the sister of John Calvin, was a leader of the Puritan party in the Church of England, and the editor and principal translator of the "Genevan" version of the English Bible. His opponents maintained that he was "a man not in holy orders, either according to the Anglican or the Presbyterian rite." (History of the Church of England, by G. G. Perry, Canon of Lincoln, New York, 1879, p. 303.) But a commission appointed by the queen to look into the matter, after the dean had been excommunicated by the Archbishop of York, reported that "William Whittingham was ordained in a better sort than even the archbishop himself." (Historic Origin of the Bible, by Edwin Cone Bissell, New York, 1873, p. 57.)
[634] "A view of a seditious bull sent into England from Pius Quintus, Bishop of Rome, 1569," etc. Works of Bishop Jewel, edited by R. W. Jelf, vii. 263-265.
[635] Despatch of La Mothe Fénélon, Dec. 5, 1568, detailing the justification of Charles, which he had made in an interview with Queen Elizabeth, Correspondance diplomatique, i. 28-33.
[636] Yet no one could speak more courageous words than Elizabeth in her own interests. In December, 1560, she requested the ambassador of Francis II. "to write to his master frankly what she was about to say, viz., that she meant to do her best to defend herself: that she was not of such poverty, nor so void of the obedience of her subjects, but she trusted to be able to do this. She came of the race of lions, and therefore could not sustain the person of a sheep." Communication with the French Ambassador, December 13, 1560, State Paper Office.
[637] Despatch of La Mothe Fénélon, Dec. 21, 1568, Corresp. dipl., i. 55, 56.
[638] "Qu'elle n'avoit rien en si grand horreur, en ce monde, que de voir ung corps s'esmouvoir contre sa teste, et qu'elle n'avoit garde de s'adjoindre à ung tel monstre." Ibid., i. 60.
[639] Ibid., i. 36-130.
[640] Mém. de Castelnau, liv. vii., c. 2; Agrippa d'Aubigné, liv. v., c. 10 (i. 283); De Thou, iv. (liv. xliv.) 160. La Mothe Fénélon's despatch of January 24, 1569 (Corr. dipl. i. 153, 154), states the assistance at 6 cannon and furniture, 300 barrels of powder, 4,000 balls, and £7,000.
[641] Despatch to La Mothe Fénélon, March 8, 1569, and "Articles presantez à la royne d'Angleterre par le Sr de la Mothe, etc," Corresp. diplom., i. 224, 237-241.
[642] "Considérant luy-mesmes et toute la flotte des marchands estre en leur pouvoir, il trouva nécessaire pour luy de condescendre en partie à leurs demandes, combien quv ce fût contre sa volonté." Coppie du messaige qui a esté declairé par la Majesté de la Royne et son conseil, par parolle de bouche, à l'amb. du Roy de France, par Jehan Somer, clerc du signet de sa Majesté le IIIe jour de mars, 1568. Corresp. diplom., i. 242-251.
[643] Despatch of Dec. 5, 1568, Corresp. diplom., i. 32, 33.
[644] In his despatch of March 25, 1569, La Mothe Fénélon admits to Catharine his great perplexity as to how he should act, so as neither to show too little spirit nor to provoke Elizabeth to such a declaration as would compel the king, his master, to declare war at so inopportune a time. Corresp. diplom., i. 281.
[645] Jean de Serres, iii. 307, 308; De Thou, iv. (liv. xlv.) 169, 170; Castelnau, liv. vii., c. 3.
[646] De Thou, iv. 171, 172; Castelnau, ubi supra.
[647] Jean de Serres, iii. 302, 309; De Thou, iv. 161; Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 277.
[648] De Thou, iv. (liv. xlv.) 174, 175.
[649] The Earl of Leicester gives Charles a more direct part in the war. "The king hathe bene these two monethes about Metz in Lorrayne, to empeache the entry of the Duke of Bipounte, who is set forward by the common assent of all the princes Protestants in Germany, with twelve thousand horsemen, and twenty-five thousand footemen, to assiste the Protestants in France, and to make some final end of their garboyles." Letter to Randolph, ambassador to the Emperor of Muscovy, May 1, 1569, Wright, Queen Elizabeth, i. 313. The facilities, even for diplomatic correspondence, with so distant a country as Muscovy, were very scanty. Leicester's despatch is accordingly an interesting résumé of the chief events that had occurred in Western Europe during the past sixty days.
[650] Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 277; De Thou, iv. 172, etc.
[651] "Ja Dieu ne plaise qu'on die jamais que Bourbon ait fuyt devant ses ennemis." Lestoile, 21. It is probably to this circumstance that the Earl of Leicester alludes, when he says that "the Prince of Condé, through his overmuche hardines and little regard to follow the Admirall's advise had his arme broken with a courrire shotte," etc. Wright, Queen Elizabeth, i. 313, 314.
[652] Agrippa d'Aubigné, Hist. univ., liv. v., c. 8 (i. 280); De Thou, iv. 175.
[653] D'Aubigné, ubi supra. A Huguenot patriarch, named La Vergne, was noticed by Agrippa himself fighting in the midst of twenty-five of his nephews and kinsmen. The dead bodies of the old man and of fifteen of his followers fell almost on a single heap, and nearly all the survivors were taken prisoners.
[654] Jeanne d'Albret to Marie de Clèves, April, 1569, Rochambeau, Lettres d'Antoine de Bourbon et de Jehanne d'Albret (Paris, 1877), 297.
[655] I regret to say that the current representations as to the termination of Condé's dishonorable attachment to Isabeau de Limueil are proved by contemporary documents to be erroneous. The tears and remonstrances of his wife Éléonore de Roye (see ante, chapter xiv.) may have had some temporary effect. But an anonymous letter among the Simancas MSS., written March 15, 1565 (and consequently more than six months after Éléonore's death, which occurred July 23, 1564), portrays him as "hora più che mai passionato per la sua Limolia." Duc d'Aumale, Pièces justif., i. 552. Just as Calvin (letter of September 17, 1563, Bonnet, Lettres franç., ii. 539) had rebuked the prince with his customary frankness, warning him respecting his conduct, and saying that "les bonnes gens en seront offenséz, les malins en feront leur risée," so now Coligny and the Huguenot gentlemen of his suite united with the Protestant ministers in begging him to renounce his present course of life, and contract a second honorable marriage. The latter held up to him "il pericolo et infamia propria, et il scandalo commune a tutta la relligione per esserne lui capo;" the former threatened to leave him. I have seen no injurious reports affecting Condé's morals after his marriage, November 8, 1565, to Françoise Marie d'Orléans Longueville. Duc d'Aumale, Princes de Condé, i. 263-278.
[656] Long the idol of the Huguenots, both of high or of low degree, he enjoyed a popularity perpetuated in a spirited song ("La Chanson du Petit Homme"), current so far back as the close of the first war, 1563, the refrain of which, alluding to the prince's diminutive stature, is: "Dieu gard' de mal le Petit Homme!" Chansonnier Huguenot, 250, etc.
[657] The author of the Vie de Coligny (Cologne, 1686) gives more than one instance of a deference on the part of the subject of his biography which may seem to the reader excessive, but which alone could satisfy the chivalrous feeling of the loyal knight of the sixteenth century.
[658] Brantôme (Hommes illustres, Œuvres, viii. 163, 164) relates that Honorat de Savoie, Count of Villars, begged the Duke of Anjou to have Stuart given over to him, and, having gained his request, murdered him.
[659] "Qui par artifices merveilleusement subtils ont bien sceu vandre le sang de la maison de France contre soy-mesmes."
[660] The Earl of Leicester wrote to Randolph: "Robert Stuart, Chastellier, and certaine other worthy gentlemen, to the number of six, were lykewise taken and slayne, as the Frenche tearme it, de sang froid." Wright, Queen Elizabeth, i. 314. See also Cardinal Châtillon's letter to the Elector Palatine, June 10, 1569, in which the writer declares significantly of Condé's murder by Montesquiou, "ce qu'il n'eust osé entreprendre sans en avoir commandement des plus grands." Kluckholn, Briefe Friedrich des Frommen, ii. 336.
[661] Letter of Henry of Navarre to the Duke of Anjou, "escript au Camp d'Availle le xiie jour de juillet 1569." Lettres inédites de Henry IV. recueillies par le Prince Augustin Galitzin (Paris. 1860), 4-11.
[662] The Huguenot loss is given by Jean de Serres (iii. 316) at 200 killed and 40 taken prisoners. Agrippa d'Aubigné states it at 140 gentilhommes (Hist. univ., i. 280). The Earl of Leicester's words are: "In which conflicte was slayne on both sydes, as we heare, not above foure hundred men" (Wright, Queen Elizabeth, i. 313, 314). Castelnau speaks of over a hundred Huguenot gentlemen slain and an equal number taken prisoners (liv. vii., c. 4). The "Adviz donné par Mr Norrys, ambassadeur pour la royne d'Angleterre, prins de ses lettres, envoyées de Metz, le 18 d'Avril" (La Mothe Fénélon, i. 362), agrees with Leicester, but is unique in making Anjou's loss greater than that of the Huguenots. De Thou makes the Protestants lose 400. The untruthful Davila says, "the Huguenots lost not above seven hundred men, but they were most of them gentlemen and cavaliers of note."
[663] Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 281. La Fosse and others have preserved one of the good Catholic stanzas composed on this occasion:
|
L'an mil cinq cent soixante et neuf Entre Congnac et Châteauneuf Fust apporté sur une ânesse Le grand ennemi de la messe. (Journal d'un curé ligueur, 104.) |
[664] "On donna l'honneur de cette défaicte à M. de Tavannes." La Fosse, 104.
[665] De Thou, iv. (liv. xlv.) 177. Claude de Sainctes, afterward Bishop of Evreux, who, it will be remembered, figured at the colloquy of Poissy, is credited with the suggestion of the chapel.
[666] The principal authorities consulted for the battle of Jarnac, or of Bassac, as it is also frequently called, from the abbey near which it raged, are: Jean de Serres, iii. 309-315; De Thou, iv. (liv. xlv.) 173-176; Castelnau, liv. vii., c. 4; Ag. d'Aubigné, i. 278-281; Le vray discours de la bataille donnée par monsieur le 13. iour de Mars, 1569, entre Chasteauneuf et Jarnac, etc., avec privilege (Cimber et Danjou, Archives curieuses, vi. 365, etc.); Discours de la bataille donnée par Monseigneur, Duc d'Anjou et de Bourbonnoys, ... contre les rebelles ... entre la ville d'Angoulesme et Jarnac, près d'une maison nommée Vibrac appartenant à la Dame de Mezières; an inaccurate official account, drawn up at Metz by Neufville on the first reception of the news, and sent by the Spanish ambassador, Alava, to Philip II.; La Mothe Fénélon, Corr. dip., vii. 3-11; Davila, bk. iv.; the "Relation originale" in Documents inédits tirés des coll. MSS. de la bibliothèque royale (Fr. gov.), iv. 483, etc. Compare the excellent narratives of the Duc d'Aumale and Prof. Soldan. The Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. fr., i. (1853) 429, gives a representation of a monument, in the form of an obelisk, about eleven feet in height, erected by the Department of the Charente, in 1818, on the spot where Condé fell. A somewhat similar monument, raised in 1770 by the Count de Jarnac, was destroyed during the first French revolution.
[667] Anjou to Charles IX., March 17, 1569, Duc d'Aumale, Les Princes de Condé, ii. 399.
[668] Apostolicarum Pii Quinti, P. M., Epistolarum libri quinque. Antverpiæ, 1640, 152.
[669] Pii Quinti Epist., 157-166.
[670] Ibid., 160, 161.
[671] Boscheron des Portes, Hist. du Parlement de Bordeaux (Bordeaux, 1877), i. 214, 216. As the Huguenots were condemned, not for heresy, but for rebellion, sacrilege, etc., the learned author finds no mention of fagot and flame.
[672] La Mothe Fénélon. i. 288-294.
[673] Despatch of April 12, 1569, ibid., i. 303.
[674] It is evident that the results of the battle were designedly exaggerated by the Roman Catholics at the time, and have been overrated ever since. Agrippa d'Aubigné alleges that, out of 128 cornets of cavalry in the Huguenot army, only fifteen were engaged; and that of over 200 ensigns of infantry, barely six—those under Pluviaut—came within a league of the battle-field. Hist. univ., ubi supra.
[675] Jean de Serres, iii. 317, 318; De Thou, iv. (liv. xlv.) 178, 179. De Thou reckons the losses of the Roman Catholics before Cognac at more than 300 men.
[676] De Thou, iv. 180, 181; Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 282; J. de Serres, iii. 318, 319.
[677] La Mothe Fénélon, i. 367. And now, to the insulting quatrain already quoted à propos of Condé's death, the Huguenot soldiers of Angoumois replied in rough verses of their own:
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Le Prince de Condé Il a été tué; Mais Monsieur l'Amiral Est encore à cheval, Avec La Rochefoucauld Pour achever tous ces Papaux. |
V. Bujeaud, Chronique protestante de l'Angoumois, 40.
[678] Discours merveilleux de la vie de Catherine de Medicis (Cologne, 1683), 645. See the atrocious letter to Catharine, which the queen found upon her bed, Nov. 8, 1575, and which purports to have been written from Lausanne. In the copy published by Le Laboureur (ii. 425-429), it is signed "Grand Champ;" in that which the editor of Claude Haton gives in an appendix (p. 1111-1115) the name is "Emille Dardani." The date is doubtful. Le Laboureur is apparently more correct in giving it as "le troisième mois de la quatrième année après la trahison" (St. Bartholomew's Day).
[679] The Vie de Coligny (Cologne, 1686), p. 360, 361, says nothing to indicate that the author regarded D'Andelot's death as other than natural. But Hotman's Gasparis Colinii Vita (1575), p. 75, mentions the suspicion, and considers it confirmed by the saying attributed to Birague, afterward chancellor, that "the war would never be terminated by arms alone, but that it might be brought to a close very easily by cooks." Cardinal Châtillon, in a letter to the Elector Palatine, June 10, 1569, alludes to his brother's having died of poison as a well-ascertained fact, "comme il est apparent tant par l'anatomie," etc. Kluckholn, Briefe Frederick des Frommen, ii 336.
[680] Since the outbreak of the present war, the court had undertaken to deprive D'Andelot of his rank, and had divided his duties between Brissac and Strozzi. Brissac had been killed, and Strozzi was now recognized by the court as colonel-general.
[681] The letter written from Saintes, May 18, 1569, is inserted in Gasparis Colinii Vita (1575) pp. 75-78, the author remarking, "quam ipsius manum, atque chirographum præ manibus jam habeo." The possession of so many family manuscripts on the part of the anonymous writer of this valuable contemporary account, is explained by the fact that he was no other than the distinguished Francis Hotman, in whose hands the admiral's widow, Jaqueline d'Entremont, or Antremont, had placed all the documents she possessed, entreating him to undertake the pious task of compiling a life of her husband. In a remarkable letter which has but lately come to light, dated January 15, 1572 (new style 1573), after an exordium full of those classical allusions of which the age was so fond, she writes: "Ne trouvez étrange, je vous supplie, si j'ai essayé de réveiller vostre plume pour laisser à la postérité autant de témoignages de la vertu de feu monseigneur et mari, que nos ennemis la veulent désigner," etc. Bulletin, vi. 29.
[682] "La France aura beaucoup de maux avec vous, et puis sans vous; mais en fin tout tombera sur l'Espagnol." Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 283.
[683] Agrippa d'Aubigné, ubi supra.
[684] Berger de Xivrey, Lettres missives de Henri IV. (Paris, 1843), i. 7.
[685] Histoire de Charles IX. par le sieur Varillas (Cologne, 1686), ii. 161, 162. I am glad to embrace this opportunity of quoting a historian in whose statements of facts I have as seldom the good fortune to concur as in his general deductions of principles. M. de Thou (iv. 182) remarks in a similar spirit: "Il fit voir à la France (et ses ennemis même en convinrent) qu'il étoit capable de soutenir lui seul tout le parti Protestant dont on croyoit auparavant qu'il ne soutenoit qu'une partie."
[686] Ranke (Civil Wars and Monarchy), 241; the statement of Jean de Serres, iii. 325, would make the total number a little larger; the accounts of Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 285, and De Thou, iv. 185, make it somewhat smaller.
[687] Adviz, etc., La Mothe Fénélon, i. 363.
[688] De Thou, iv. 184; Jean de Serres, iii. 320-323. This was in February. It was the more natural for Wolfgang to defend his course, as he was himself an ancient ally of the King of Spain. In the Papiers d'état du card. de Granvelle, ix. 567, we have the text of a compact formed Oct. 1, 1565: "Lettres de Service accordées par le roi d'Espagne à Wolfgang, comte Palatin et duc de Deux Ponts." According to this document, the duke was bound for three years to obey Philip's summons, although he refused to pledge himself to do anything directly or indirectly against the Augsburg Confession or its supporters.
[689] Journal d'un curé ligueur (Jehan de la Fosse), 104.
[690] Letter of Charles IX. to La Mothe Fénélon, May 14, 1569, Corresp. dipl., vii. 20, 21. The same incredulity respecting the possibility of Deux Ponts's enterprise is expressed by the anonymous author of a memorandum of a journey through France, in Documents inédits tirés des MSS. de la bibl. royale, iv. 493. It is alluded to in the "Remonstrance" of the Protestant princes presented after the junction of the armies. Jean de Serres, iii. 337.
[691] Castelnau, liv. vii., c. 5.
[692] De Thou, iv. 185-188; Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 285; Anquetil, Esprit de la ligue, i. 297.
[693] Discours envoyé de La Rochelle à la Royne d'Angleterre. La Mothe Fénélon, ii. 158, etc.
[694] De Thou, iv. 188; Lestoile, 22; J. de Serres, iii. 524; Castelnau, liv. vii., c. 6.
[695] Castelnau, liv. vii., c. 7; De Thou, iv. 192; Jean de Serres, iii. 327 (who states the Roman Catholic loss as higher than given in the text). Brantôme ascribes the defeat of Strozzi to the circumstance that the matches of his troops were put out by the rain, and that his infantry, unsupported by cavalry, was at the mercy of Mouy and the Huguenot troopers. Colonnels fr., Œuvres, ed. Lalanne, vi. 60. But the "Discours envoyé de la Rochelle à la Royne d'Angleterre" (La Mothe Fénélon, ii. 160) states that the Huguenots would have done much greater execution and perhaps put an end to the dispute, "n'eust été que, tout ce jour là, la pluye fut si extrême et si grande que noz harquebouziers ne pouvoient plus jouer." La Roche Abeille, or La Roche l'Abeille, is a hamlet seventeen miles south of Limoges.
[696] According to J. A. Gabutius, the biographer of Pius V. (sec. 120, p. 646), the Pope sent 4,500 foot and 1,000 horse, and Cosmo, Duke of Florence, 1,000 foot and 200 horse. Besides these, many nobles attached themselves to the expedition as volunteers. Santa Fiore was instructed to leave France the moment he should perceive that the heretics were treated with. "Quod si ipse summus copiarum Dux, vel de pace vel de rerum compositione quidquam Catholicæ religioni damnosum præsentiret; [Pius V.] imperavit e vestigio aut converso itinere in Italiam remearet, aut ad Catholicum exercitum in Belgio cum hæreticis bellantem sese conferret et adjungeret."
[697] De Thou, iv. 192; Vie de Coligny, 364; Gasparis Colinii Vita, 81; Jean de Serres, iii. 331. Charles IX. in a letter to La Mothe Fénélon, from St. Germains des Prés, July 27, 1569, alludes to the successes of the Huguenots, whom Anjou cannot resist, "ayant donné congé à la pluspart de sa gendarmerye de s'en aller faire ung tour en leurs maisons." Corresp. diplom., vii. 35, 36. The furlough, which was to expire on the 15th of August, was afterward extended by Anjou to the 1st of October.
[698] See Vie de Coligny, 364; De Thou, iv. 192; Jean de Serres, iii. 345, 346.
[699] Yet the "Guisards" were never tired of asserting the contrary. Sir Thomas Smith tells us that Cardinal Lorraine maintained to him that "they [the Huguenots] desired to bring all to the form of a republic, like Geneva." Smith records the conversation at length in a letter to Cecil, wishing his correspondent to perceive "how he had need of a long spoon that should eat potage with the Devil." The discussion must have been an earnest one. Sir Thomas was not disposed to boast of being a finished courtier. In fact, he declares that, as to framing compliments, he is "the verriest calf and beast in the world," and threatens to get one Bizzarro to write him some, which he will get translated (for all sorts of people), and learn them by heart. He managed on this occasion to speak his mind to Lorraine pretty freely respecting the real origin of the war (the conversation took place in 1562), and told the churchman the uncomplimentary truth, that his brother's deed at Vassy was the cause of all the troubles. Smith to Cecil, Rouen, Nov. 7, 1562, State Paper Office.
[700] Not to speak of Noyers, belonging to Condé, Coligny's stately residence at Châtillon-sur-Loing fell into the hands of the enemy. In direct violation of the terms of the capitulation, the palace was robbed of all its costly furniture, which was sent to Paris and sold at auction. Château-Renard, which also was the property of Coligny, was taken by the Roman Catholics, and became the nest of a company of half-soldiers, half-robbers, under an Italian—one Fretini—who laid under contribution travellers on the road to Lyons. De Thou, iv. 198, 199; Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 292.
[701] How deeply the Guises felt the taunt that they were strangers in France, appears from a sentence of the cardinal's to the Bishop of Rennes (Trent, Nov. 24, 1563), wherein, alluding to the recent birth of a son to the Duke of Lorraine and Catharine de' Medici's daughter, he says that he is "merveilleusement aise ... pource que sera occasion aux Huguenots de ne nous dire plus princes estrangers." Le Laboureur, ii. 313.
[702] "Copie d'une Remonstrance que ceulx de la Rochelle ont mandé avoyr envoyée au Roy, après l'arrivée du duc de Deux Ponts." La Mothe Fénélon, ii. 179-188. In Latin, Jean de Serres, iii. 333-345. Gasparis Colinii Vita, 80.
[703] Mém. de Castelnau, liv. vii., c. 6; Jean de Serres, iii. 345, 346; De Thou, ubi supra.
[704] "Lusignan la pucelle." De Thou, iv. 197; Jean de Serres, iii. 331; Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 290.
[705] Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 294; De Thou, iv. (liv. xlv.) 200-202; Jean de Serres, iii. 347.
[706] Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 298: "Pressé par les interests et murmures des Poictevins, il sentit en cet endroit une des incommoditez qui se trouve aux partis de plusieurs testes; sa prudence donc cedant à sa nécessité," etc.
[707] Letter of Sept. 8, 1569, Wright, Queen Elizabeth, i. 323.
[708] Jean de Serres, iii. 348, etc.; Castelnau, liv. vii., c. 7; De Thou, iv. 205-214; Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 297, etc.
[709] Journal d'un curé ligueur (Jehan de la Fosse), 109.
[710] Jean de Serres, iii. 332; Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 292; De Thou, etc.
[711] Agrippa d'Aubigné, liv. v., c. 13 (i. 293); De Thou, iv. (liv. xlv.) 204; Jehan de la Fosse, 108.
[712] That Renée was, like all the other prominent Huguenots, from the very first opposed to a resort to the horrors of war, is certain. Agrippa d'Aubigné goes farther than this, and asserts (i. 293) that she had become estranged from Condé in consequence of her blaming the Huguenots for their assumption of arms: "blasmant ceux qui portoient les armes, jusques à estre devenus ennemis, le Prince de Condé et elle, sur cette querelle." I can scarcely credit this account, of which I see no confirmation, unless it be in a letter to an unknown correspondent, in the National Library (MSS. Coll. Béthune, 8703, fol. 68), of which a translation is given in Memorials of Renée of France (London, 1859), 263, 264. It is dated Montargis, Aug. 20, 1569: "Praying you ... to employ yourself, as I know you are accustomed to do, in whatsoever way shall be possible to you, in striving to arrive at a good peace, in which endeavor I, on my part, shall put forth all my power, if it shall please God. And if it cannot be a general one, at least it shall be to those who desire it, and who belong to us." Who, however, was the correspondent? The subscription, "Your good cousin, Renée of France," would appear to point to Admiral Coligny or some one of equal rank. Louis de Condé was no longer living.
[713] Letter of Villegagnon to the Duchess of Ferrara, Montereau, March 4, 1569, apud Mém. de Claude Haton, ii. Appendix, 1109.
[714] It must be remembered that this was a different place from Châtillon-sur-Loing, Admiral Coligny's residence, which was not more than fifteen miles distant. The places are frequently confounded with each other. The Loing is a tributary of the Seine, into which it empties below Montereau, after flowing by Châtillon-sur-Loing, Montargis, and Nemours.
[715] The fullest and most graphic account of this interesting incident I find in Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 293 (liv. v., c. 13). See De Thou, iv. (liv. xlv.) 204, and Memorials of Renée of France (London, 1859), 261-263. The Huguenot horsemen numbered not eight hundred, as the author last quoted states, but about one hundred and twenty—"six vingts."
[716] The "Discours de ce qui avint touchant la Croix de Gastines, l'an 1571, vers Noel" (Mémoires de l'état de France sous Charles IX., and Archives curieuses, vi. 475, etc.), contains the quaint decree of the parliament. See Journal d'un curé ligueur (Jehan de la Fosse), 107. As actually erected, the monument consisted of a high stone pyramid, surmounted by a gilt crucifix. Besides the decree in question, there were engraved some Latin verses of so confused a construction that it was suggested that the composer intended to cast ridicule both on the Roman Catholics and on the Huguenots. M. de Thou, who was a boy of sixteen at the time—and who, as son of the first President of Parliament, and himself, at a later time, a leading member and president à mortier of that body, enjoyed rare advantages for arriving at the truth—declares (iv. 488) that the elder Gastines was a venerable man, beloved by his neighbors, and, indeed, by the entire city; and that the execution was compassed by a cabal of seditious persons, who, by dint of soliciting the judges, of exciting the people, of inducing them to congregate and follow the judges with threats as they left parliament, succeeded in causing to be punished with death, in the persons of the Gastines, an offence which, until then, had been punished only with exile or a pecuniary fine.
[717] Jehan de la Fosse, 107, 108.
[718] Journal d'un curé ligueur, 110; Mém. de Castelnau, liv. vii., c. 8; De Thou, iv. (liv. l) 216; Gasp. Colinii Vita (1569), 87; Memoirs of G. de Coligny, 140, etc. The arrêt of the parliament is in Archives curieuses, vi. 377, etc. The Latin life of Coligny (89-91) inserts a manly and Christian letter, in the author's possession, written (Oct. 16, 1569) by the admiral to his own children and those of his deceased brother, D'Andelot, who were studying at La Rochelle, shortly after receiving intelligence of this judicial sentence and of the wanton injury done to his palace at Châtillon-sur-Loing. "We must follow our Head, Jesus Christ, who himself leads the way," he writes. "Men have deprived us of all that it was in their power to take from us, and if it be God's will that we never recover what we have lost, still we shall be happy, and our condition will be a good one, inasmuch as these losses have not arisen from any harm done by us to those who have brought them upon us, but solely from the hatred they bear toward me for the reason that it has pleased God to make use of me in assisting His Church."
[719] Jean de Serres, iii. 356, 357; Mem. of Coligny, 136; De Thou, iv. 216, 217; Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 302.
[720] Jean de Serres, iii. 363; De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvi.) 221; Castelnau, vii., c. 8.
[721] De Thou, iv. 216; Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 302. The place was also known by the name of Foie la Vineuse.
[722] Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 305.
[723] In the heat of the engagement, the excited imaginations of the combatants even saw visions of celestial champions, as Theseus was fabled to have appeared at Marathon. A renegade Protestant captain afterward assured the Cardinal of Alessandria that on that eventful day he had seen in mid-air an array of warriors with refulgent armor and blood-red swords, threatening the Huguenot lines in which he fought; and he had instantly embraced the Roman Catholic faith, and vowed perpetual service under the banners of the pontiff. There were others, we are told, to corroborate his account of the prodigy. Joannis Antonii Gabutii Vita Pii Quinti Papæ (Acta Sanctorum, Maii 5), § 125, pp. 647, 648.
[724] Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 307. "Ne se trouva oncques gens plus fidelles au camp catholicque que lesditz estrangers, et singulièrement les Suisses, lesquelz ne pardonnèrent à ung seul de leur nation germanique de ceux qui tombèrent en leurs mains." Mém. de Claude Haton, ii. 582.
[725] "Che non avesse il comandamanto di lui osservato d'ammazzar subito qualunque heretico gli fosse venuto alle mani." Catena, Vita di Pio V., apud White, Mass. of St. Bartholomew, 305, and De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvi.) 228. With singular inconsistency—so impossible is it generally to carry out these horrible theories of extermination—the Roman pontiff himself afterward liberated D'Acier without exacting any ransom. De Thou, ubi supra. "Si Santafiore lui avoit obéï," says an annotator, "Jacques de Crussol (D'Acier) ne se seroit pas converti, et n'auroit pas laissé une si illustre poterité."
[726] On the battle of Moncontour, consult J. de Serres, iii. 357-362; De Thou, iv. 224-228; Castelnau, liv. vii., c. 9; Agrippa d'Aubigné, liv. v., c. 17; a Roman Catholic relation in Groen van Prinsterer, Archives de la Maison d'Orange Nassau, iii. 324-326.
[727] "Nihil est enim ea pietate misericordiaque crudelius, quæ in impios et ultima supplicia meritos confertur." Pius V. to Charles IX., Oct. 20, 1569. Pii V. Epistolæ (Antwerp, 1640), 242. The French victories of Jarnac and Moncontour were celebrated by a medal struck at Rome, with the legend, "Fecit potentiam in bracchio suo, dispersit superbos," and a representation of Pius kneeling and invoking the aid of heaven against the heretics. In the distance is seen a combat, and above it appears the Divine Being directing the issue. Figured in "Le Trésor de Numismatique et de Glyptique, par Paul Delaroche" (Médailles des Papes, plate 15, No. 5), Paris, 1839.
[728] La Mothe Fénélon, vii. 65, etc., from Simancas MSS. So Claude Haton, who is rarely behindhand in such matters, makes the Protestants lose fifteen thousand or sixteen thousand men. Mémoires, ii. 582. Admiral Coligny was for a time believed by the court to be dead or mortally wounded, "mais ne fut rien." Ibid., ubi supra.
[729] If we may credit the curate Claude, Catharine de' Medici alone was vexed at the completeness of the rout and the number of Huguenots slain, "inasmuch as she gave them as much support as possible, and encouraged them in rebellion, that the civil wars might continue, in which she took pleasure because of the management of affairs they threw into her hands"—"pour le maniment des affaires qu'elle entreprenoit et manioit." Mémoires, ii. 583.
[730] Journal d'un curé ligueur (Jehan de la Fosse), 110.
[731] Jehan de la Fosse, 112. The date is stated as "about Oct. 17th."
[732] Ranke, Civil Wars and Monarchy in France, i. 241.
[733] De Thou, iv. 230; Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 310. The murderer's name is variously written Maurevel, Moureveil, Montrevel, etc.
[734] This letter, respecting which I confess that I find some difficulties, possesses a history of its own. On the 13th of Ventôse, in the second year of the republic, the original was sent to the national convention, which, the next day, ordered its insertion in the official bulletin, and its preservation in the national library, as emanating "from one of the Neros of France." See App. to Journal de Lestoile, ed. Michaud, pt. i., p. 307, 308, and the revolutionary bulletins.
[735] "Ut sese Montalbani cum Vicecomitibus conjungerent, et sperantes Andium, dum se persequeretur, ab San-Jani oppugnandæ instituto destiturum." De statu rel. et reip., iii. 365.
[736] See Soldan, iii. 372, 373; Anquetil, Esprit de la ligue, i. 317, etc.
[737] With his usual inaccuracy, Davila speaks of Saint Jean d'Angely as "excellently fortified" (Eng. trans., p. 166).
[738] This number, given by Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 313, and by De Thou, iv. (liv. xlv.) 242, seems the most probable. La Popelinière swells it to near 10,000 (Soldan, ii. 375), while Castelnau, liv. vii., c. 10, reduces it to "over 8,000." Strange to say, Jean de Serres, who, writing and publishing this portion of his history within a year after the conclusion of the third civil war, almost uniformly gives the highest estimates of the Roman Catholic losses, here makes them about 2,000, or lower than any one else.
[739] Agrippa d'Aubigné, who was generous enough to appreciate valor even in an enemy, calls him "celui qui entamoit toutes les parties difficiles, à qui rien n'estoit dur ny hazardeux, qui en tous les exploits de son temps avoit fait les coups de partie" (i. 312). Lestoile in his journal (p. 22, Ed. Mich.) affirms that he was killed just as he had uttered a blasphemous inquiry of the Huguenots, where was now their "Dieu le Fort," and taunted them with his having become "à ceste heure leur Dieu le Faible." "Le Dieu, le Fort, l'Éternel parlera," was the first line of a favorite Huguenot psalm.
[740] On the siege of Saint Jean d'Angely, see J. de Serres, iii. 369, 370; Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 311-313; De Thou, iv. 238-242; Castelnau, liv. vii., c. 10. It scarcely needs to be mentioned that Davila, bk. v., p. 166, knows nothing of any treachery on the part of the Roman Catholics, but duly mentions that De Piles did not observe his promise.
[741] Davila, bk. v. (Eng. tr., p. 163 and 167); De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvi.) 250. Gabutius, in his life of Pius V., transcribes the exultant inscription, dictated by the pontiff himself (§ 126, p. 648), and claims for the canonized subject of his panegyric the chief credit of the victory. According to him the Italians were the first to engage with the heretics, and the last to desist from the pursuit.
[742] Davila, bk. 5th (Eng. tr., p. 167); Mém. de Claude Haton, ii. 591.
[743] "L'hiver arriva, il fallut mettre les troupes en quartier; et le fruit d'une victoire si complette, l'effort d'une armée royale si formidable, fut la prise de quelques places médiocres, pendant que La Rochelle, la plus utile de toutes, restoit aux vaincus, et que les princes rétablissoient les affaires, à l'aide d'un délai qu'ils n'avoient point osé se promettre." Anquetil, L'Esprit de la ligue, i. 317.
[744] J. de Serres, iii. 372; De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvi.) 234, 235, who makes the loss in the first siege 300 men, and in the second over 1,000 horsemen; Agrippa d'Aubigné, Hist. univ., l. v., c. 19 (i. 315, 316), who states the total at 1,400 foot and near 400 horse; while Castelnau, l. vii., c. 10, speaks of but 300 in all. Vézelay, famous in the history of the Crusades (see Michaud, Hist. des Croisades, ii. 125) as the place where St. Bernard in 1146 preached the Cross to an immense throng from all parts of Christendom, is equidistant from Bourges and Dijon, and a little north of a line uniting these two cities.
[745] De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvi.) 246, 247; Agrippa d'Aubigné, liv. v., c. 19 (i. 317); J. de Serres, iii. 370. About twenty prisoners were taken, to whom their captors promised their lives. Afterward there were strenuous efforts made, especially by the priests, to have them put to death as rebels and traitors. M. de la Chastre resisted the pressure, disregarding even a severe order of the Parliament of Paris, accompanied by the threat of the enormous fine of 2,000 marks of gold, which bade him send them to the capital. (Hist. du Berry, etc., par M. Louis Raynal, 1846, iv, 104, apud Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. fr., iv. (1856) 27.) Even Charles IX. wrote to him, but the governor was inflexible. His noble reply has come to light, dated Jan. 21, 1570, just one month after the failure of the Protestant scheme. After urging the danger of retaliation by the Huguenots of La Charité and Sancerre upon the prisoners they held, to the number of more than forty, and the inexpediency of accustoming the people of Bourges to bloody executions which they would not fail to repeat, he concludes his remonstrance in these striking words: "Nevertheless, Sire, if you should find it expedient, for the good of your service, to put them to death, the channel of the courts of justice is the most proper, without recompensing my services, or sullying my reputation with a stain that will ever be a ground of reproach against me. And I beg you, Sire, to make use of me in other matters more worthy of a gentleman having the heart of his ancestors, who for five hundred years have served their king without stain of treachery or act unworthy of a gentleman." Inedited letter, apud Bulletin, ubi supra, 28, 29. M. de la Chastre became one of the marshals of France. He conducted, three years later, the terrible siege of Sancerre, famous in history. He had the reputation among the Huguenots of being very severe, if not bloodthirsty—a reputation which he deserved, if he was, as Henry of Navarre styles him, "un des principaux exécuteurs de la Sainct Barthélemy." (Deposition in the trial of La Mole, Coconnas, etc. Archives curieuses, viii. 150.) La Chastre tried to clear himself of the imputation, by recalling the events of 1569. To Jean de Léry he maintained "qu'il n'est point sanguinaire, ainsi qu'on a opinion, comme aussi il l'avoit desjà bien monstré aux autres troubles, lorsqu'il avoit en sa puissance les sieurs d'Espeau, baron de Renty, et le capitaine Fontaine, qui est en son armée: car encores que la cour du parlement de Paris luy fist commandement de les représenter, à peine de 2,000 marcs d'or, il ne le voulut faire." Jean de Léry, "Discours de l'extrême famine ... dans la ville de Sancerre," Archives curieuses, viii. 67.
[746] De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvi.) 235-237; Agrippa d'Aubigné, liv. v., c. 19 (i. 316, 317); Jean de Serres, iii. 368, 369.
[747] "Si est-ce que Dieu est très-doux."
[748] Agrippa d'Aubigné, l. v., c. 18 (i. 309). The words were, as M. Douen reminds us (Clément Marot et le Psautier huguenot, 1878, 13) the first line of the seventy-third psalm of the Huguenot psalter.
[749] De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvi.) 232; Jean de Serres, iii. 366.
[750] Ibid., iii. 372, etc.
[751] Even in December, Languet could scarcely imagine that Coligny would not return and winter at La Rochelle. Letter of Dec. 12, 1569, Epist. secr., i. 130.
[752] Mém. de Castelnau, liv. vii., c. 12.
[753] At least, so says Agrippa d'Aubigné, liv. v., c. 18 (i. 309).
[754] De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvi.) 233; Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 309, 318 (liv. v., cs. 18 and 20). The two authorities are not in exact agreement, De Thou stating that Coligny went to Montauban before his march to meet Montgomery, while D'Aubigné makes him follow the left bank of the Dordogne down to Aiguillon. Gasparis Colinii Vita (1575), 91, 92, supports De Thou.
[755] De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvi.) 249; Agrippa d'Aubigné, liv. v., c. 20 (i. 318); Gasparis Colinii Vita (1575), 94. The author of this valuable and authentic life of the admiral gives a full description of the bridge. Professor Soldan is mistaken in saying that the bridge was not yet completed (Geschichte des Prot. in Frank., ii. 377). It had been completed, and two days had been spent in taking over the German cavalry ("opere effecto, biduoque in traducendis Germanis equitibus consumpto") when the disaster occurred.
[756] Languet, Letter of January 3, 1570, Epist. secretæ, i. 133.
[757] Gasparis Colinii Vita (1576), 91; Vie de Coligny (Cologne, 1686), 378, where the account of the expedition, however, is full of blunders. Mr. Browning, following this untrustworthy authority, makes Admiral Coligny cross the Garonne and pass through Béarn, on his way from Saintes to Montauban! A glance at the map of France will show that this would have required a much greater bend to the right than he in reality made to the left, since Béarn lay entirely south of the river Adour. To reach Béarn by land before crossing the Garonne, as the "Vie" evidently imagines he did, would almost have required Aladdin's lamp. In fact, the entire passage is a jumble of the exploits of Montgomery and Coligny.
[758] La Popelinière, apud Soldan, ii. 378.
[759] De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvii.) 303-306; Agrippa d'Aubigné, liv. v., c. 20 (i. 319, 320); Davila, bk. v., p. 168; Raoul de Cazenove, "Rapin-Thoyras, sa famille," etc., 49, 50.
[760] La Mothe Fénélon, vii. 81.
[761] "L'imprudence des Catholiques, lesquels laissant rouler, sans nul empeschement, ceste petite pelote de neige, en peu de temps elle se fit grosse comme une maison." Mém. de la Noue, c. xxix.
[762] Of course, Davila (bk. v., p. 167, 168), who rarely rejects a good story of intrigue, especially if there be a dainty bit of treachery connected with it, adopts unhesitatingly the popular rumor of Marshal Damville's infidelity to his trust.
[763] St. Étienne possessed already, at the time the "Vie de Coligny" was written, that branch of industry which still constitutes one of its chief sources of wealth. It was described as a "petite ville fameuse par la quantité d'armes qui s'y fait, et qui se transportent dans les païs étrangers, en sorte que c'est ce qui nourrit presque toute la province." P. 381.
[764] Agrippa d'Aubigné, liv. v., c. 21 (i. 322).
[765] Gasparis Colinii Vita, 97, 98.
[766] Arnay-le-Duc, or René-le-Duc, as the place was indifferently called, is situated about thirty miles south-west of Dijon, on the road to Autun.
[767] De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvii.) 312-314; Agrippa d'Aubigné, liv. v., c. 22 (i. 321-325); Castelnau, liv. vii., c. 12; Davila, bk. v. 169.
[768] De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvii.) 315. Davila attributes to the connivance of Marshal Cossé the escape of the Protestants from Arnay-le-Duc. This is consistent with the same writer's statement that it was the marshal's intentional slowness that enabled Coligny to seize upon Arnay-le-Duc and post himself so advantageously.
[769] Castelnau, liv. vii., c. 10.
[770] De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvii.) 301.
[771] De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvii.) 302.
[772] The articles, a copy of which was sent to the ambassador at the court of Elizabeth, in a letter from Angers, Feb. 6, 1570, are printed in La Mothe Fénélon, vii. 86-88. I omit reference in the text to the articles prohibiting foreign alliances and the levy of money, prescribing the dismissal of foreign troops, etc. The two cities referred to in the fifth article are rather to be regarded as places of worship—the only places in the kingdom where Protestant worship would be tolerated—than as pledges for the performance of the projected edict, as Prof. Soldan apparently regards them chiefly, if not exclusively. Geschichte des Prot. in Frankreich, ii. 379.
[773] Charles to ambassador, Jan. 14th; letter of Catharine, same date; La Mothe Fénélon, vii. 77, 78.
[774] See Froude, History of England, x. 9. etc.
[775] De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvii.) 305. Cf. Soulier, Hist. des édits de pacification, 92.
[776] De Thou, iv. 311. It was at St. Étienne in Forez, that the incident occurred.
[777] For a fuller discussion of these circumstances than the limits of this history will permit me to give, I must refer the reader to the work of Prof. Soldan, Geschichte des Protestantismus in Frankreich, ii. 385.
[778] La Noue was one of the most modest, as well as one of the most capable of generals. "I have felt myself so much the more obliged to speak of it," writes the historian De Thou respecting the battle of Sainte Gemme, "as La Noue, the most generous of men, who has written on the civil wars with as much fidelity as judgment, always disposed to render conspicuous the merit of others, and very reserved respecting his own, has not said a word of this victory." De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvii.) 320.
[779] Brantôme has written the eulogy of this personage, whose true name was Antoine Escalin. He was first ambassador at Constantinople, where his good services secured his appointment as general of the galleys. After undergoing the displeasure of the king, and a three years' imprisonment for his participation in the massacre of the Vaudois, he was reinstated in office. Subsequently he was temporarily displaced by the grand prior, and by the Marquis of Elbeuf. It is an odd mistake of Mr. Henry White (Mass. of St. Bartholomew, p. 14, note) when he says: "In the religious wars he sided with the Huguenots." Brantôme says: "Il haïssoit mortellement ces gens-là."
[780] De Thou, iv. 316-325; Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 325-335.
[781] Ibid., ubi supra.
[782] La Mothe Fénélon, iii. 210, 215. Despatch of June 21st.
[783] De Thou, iv. 287, 288; Kluckholn, Briefe Friedrich des Frommen, ii. 398.
[784] La Mothe Fénélon, iii. 256, 257.
[785] Letter of April 17, 1570, Rochambeau, Lettres d'Antoine de Bourbon et de Jehanne d'Albret (Paris, 1877), 299.
[786] Chassanée in his "Consuetudines ducatus Burgundiæ, fereque totius Galliæ" (Lyons, 1552), 50, defines the "haute justice" by the possession of the power of life and death: "De secundo vero gradu meri imperii, seu altæ justiciæ, est habere gladii potestatem ad animadvertendum in facinorosos homines."
[787] See the edict itself in Jean de Serres, iii. 375-390; summaries in De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvii.) 328, 329, and Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 364, 365.
[788] Journal d'un curé ligueur, 120.
[789] Ibid., ubi supra.
[790] Castelnau, liv. vii., c. 12. The work of this very fair-minded historian terminates with the conclusion of the peace. De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvii.) 327.
[791] "On la disoit boiteuse et mal-assise," says Henri de Mesmes himself in his account of these transactions, adding with a delicate touch of sarcasm: "Je n'en ay point vû depuis vingt-cinq ans qui ait guère duré." Le Laboureur, Add. aux Mém. de Castelnau, ii. 776. Prof. Soldan has already exposed the mistake of Sismondi and others, who apply the popular nickname to the preceding peace of Longjumeau. See ante, chap. xv.