The Story of Chartres

by Cecil Headlam

Still there was no sign of immediate succour from without. Fair words from the Ligueurs at Dreux, and promises from the Duc de Mayenne came in abundance. But those in charge of the defence knew that unless aid came quickly or provisions were thrown into the town, it would be impossible to hold out long. Already they were dependent for their flour upon the little wind-mills set up in the town, one of which had just been discovered in the Clocher Neuf, where it had lain since the days when the English besieged Chartres.[96] Those in command of the garrison were indeed by this time quite ready to deliver up the town into the King’s hands, but the inhabitants refused to entertain the idea of yielding to the heretic of Navarre. They therefore decided to gain time by any means. Negotiations were opened with this object. La Bourdaisière and Gramont held an interview with the King’s representatives on the 19th, and again on the 26th. Biron and others, with a strong escort, came to the Porte S. Michel, when Gramont went forth to parley with them. But hardly had the conference begun when a cannon-shot, fired by mistake from the Royalist camp, ricochetted near them. The people of Chartres, thinking themselves betrayed, replied with a volley, which accounted for several soldiers of Biron’s escort, and abruptly put an end to parleyings. Next day Gramont and others had an interview with the King in person at the Monastery of S. Lubin, and brought back terms which were promptly rejected by the Ligueurs, who were still in a majority in the Council. They would rather die, they said, than surrender to a Huguenot King. This reply provoked an assault from the enemy, but the Chartrains were still unshaken. They informed the King that they would recognise him when he returned to the bosom of the Church, and meanwhile proposed such terms of capitulation that Henri swore a Mort Dieu, instead of his usual Ventre S. Gris, and cried out that as soon as he had taken the town he would hang these mutinous rascals who made fun of him.

His next step was to shift all his batteries suddenly to the side of the bishop’s palace, and, concentrating his fire on a small section of the wall in that quarter, speedily to effect a new breach. Every effort had been made by the defenders during the short respite allowed them to strengthen their position against the inevitable assault. And when the assault was delivered the defence was admirable. Six times the Royalist troops rushed to the breach; six times they were flung back by the desperate courage of the besieged. They retired finally at seven o’clock in the evening, after five hours’ fighting. They had lost three hundred men. The trenches were filled with dead and dying. Among the Chartrains the losses were almost as heavy. After the fourth assault, not one of the defenders of the first entrenchment had remained unwounded. A truce for the removal of the dead was arranged, and during the following night the besieged filled up the gap in the walls with sacks and gabions. But a new trial was in store for them. The Royalists built a large wooden bridge, closed like a gallery, and this, on the night of the 7th, they rolled on barrels up to and over the moat. The garrison were filled with consternation when they woke to see it in position, and the soldiers within, safe from attack, engaged in pulling down the sacks and gabions with which the breach had just been built up. The discouragement was great. Many began openly to declare that further resistance was useless. In some cases the soldiers were only induced to enter the ravelin, which, they maintained, was now untenable, by the persuasion of their officers’ swords. The King, hearing of the growing spirit of discouragement within the walls, made yet another attempt to bring about a surrender. But such was the suicidal intolerance and obstinacy of the leading Ligueurs, that in the proposals they submitted they still insisted on the absolute prohibition of the reformed cult, a governor of their own choice, and a long truce, to enable them to inform the Duke of Mayenne of what was being done. Henri, of course, tore up the paper on which these absurd conditions were written, and proceeded to impose his own terms. They were accepted on the 10th of April, and proved to be extraordinarily lenient.

Henri authorised the practice of the Catholic religion, and forbade that of the reformed cult in the town and suburbs; he confirmed the established government and offices, and promised to punish no one for an act of war. The Ligueurs were granted permission to retire from the town, and eight days were allowed in which to warn Mayenne. If within that time a relieving force of four hundred men or more succeeded in throwing themselves into the town, the capitulation should be regarded as not having taken place. Henri took care, of course, that no force should so find its way into the town. With the object of intercepting any relief that might arrive, he himself, it is said, rode unceasingly round the environs of the town, and so wore himself out with his excessive vigilance that one day, overwhelmed by fatigue, he dismounted, made his pages lie down side by side on the ground, and, stretching himself upon them, slept thus for some hours.

It was also provided that the professional soldiers who formed the garrison should be allowed to march out of the town with their arms and baggage, colours flying and drums beating, and that they should make arrangements, in which the King would aid them, for the care of their wounded.

The clergy were still firm in their refusal to treat with the heretic and held out hopes of a miracle. But La Bourdaisière and Gramont and the majority of responsible people declared that the age of miracles was past and the day of necessity was upon them.

No succour arrived, and on the 19th of April the garrison marched out through the Porte S. Michel between two rows of Royalist soldiery. They were accompanied by the principal Ligueurs among the citizens. It was arranged that next day all the clergy and communities of the town should present themselves at the same gate on the morrow to receive the King and conduct him in full procession to the Porte Royale of Notre-Dame, and that there the Bishop, De Thou, should pronounce an official harangue. The King arrived on horseback with his staff at the appointed hour and was presented with the keys of the city by the mayor. ‘Sire,’ he said, ‘we are obliged to obey you both by human law and law divine.’ ‘You might add by canon law,’ threw in the conqueror, with a laugh. Thereafter, beneath a canopy of blue velvet fringed with gold and silver, and supported by four aldermen, His Majesty went in triumphant procession across the city by the streets S. Michel and Des Changes until he came to the Cathedral. But then, instead of stopping opposite the western porch, he went on his way to the episcopal palace, without appearing to notice the Bishop and Chapter who awaited him on the steps. Not to be cheated of the opportunity of delivering their address, Bishop and Chapter cut across through the church and appeared beneath the northern porch in time to stop the King, make the harangue and receive a gracious reply.

Henri Quatre made arrangements for converting the Porte S. Michel into a citadel and for levying a large sum of money from the citizens, and then, after attending the Protestant meeting-house, he left Chartres.

For the moment it must have seemed that the obstinate defence of the town had done little except add to the lustre of its arms. For the Catholic city was held now by the Protestant troops and became, next to Tours, the most important place in the hands of the Huguenot King. Henri, indeed, soon made it his seat of government. He summoned the Parliament, the Cour des Aides and the Council of State to meet here, and here they sat till the year 1594. It was in that year that he took the ‘perilous leap,’ as he termed it, which was, however, nothing more or less than a step of the highest political wisdom. He put a stop to the civil war, which was plunging France into anarchy and ruin, by reconciling himself with the Church of Rome. Amongst those prelates, before whom at S. Denis he solemnly abjured his Calvinistic errors and made profession of the Catholic, Roman and Apostolic faith, was Nicholas de Thou, Bishop of Chartres. And from that same bishop, whom he had flouted three years before, he received the royal consecration in the Cathedral of Chartres. For to prove the sincerity of his conversion, which was still much doubted, he demanded of the Church the Holy Unction which consecrates the kings. And Reims, the proper place of coronation for the French kings, being still occupied by the troops of Mayenne, Henri chose the ‘town of his good council’ as the scene of this august ceremony. ‘He was moved to make this choice,’ says a writer of his day, ‘by reason of the peculiar devotion entertained for Notre-Dame by the Dukes of Vendôme, his ancestors, and also because that magnificent temple is the most ancient in Christendom.’ But whatever the cause, it may well have seemed to the Bishop and Chapter of Notre-Dame on this occasion that the conqueror was conquered and felt his captive’s charms, that ‘her arts victorious triumphed o’er his arms.’

The occupation of Reims by the enemy rendered it impossible for the sacred vessel of oil to be used for Henri’s consecration, but as the monks of Marmoutiers possessed a phial of miraculous oil, the King sent a deputation to ask them to send it to be used for his coronation. The precious relic arrived in the capital of La Beauce on February 19, 1594, brought by three brethren, monks and officials of the monastery, and escorted by De Souvré, the King’s deputy, the Bishop of Angers and a great number of gentlemen, presidents and councillors. The Bishop of Chartres had sent to meet them all the clergy of the parishes and monasteries of the town, who were joined by Guy Robert, the Provost of Chartres, and twelve notable burgesses, carrying torches decorated with the royal arms and those of the town. A huge concourse of citizens in festal garb accompanied them.

The relic was then carried in procession through the streets, which were hung with tapestry, and to the sound of peals of bells, till it reached the Abbey of S. Père. There it was entrusted to the care of Yves Gaudeau, the prior, and four other monks. On Sunday, the 27th, the Comtes de Cheverny, D’Halluin, De Lauzun and the Baron de Termes presented themselves at the abbey and begged Brother Giron and his comrades of Marmoutiers to bring the holy oil to Notre-Dame to anoint His Majesty withal. The monks acquiesced, but first exacted from the King’s deputies an oath, which was given before notaries, to the effect that the said sacred vessel should be brought back in good faith to S. Père after the said consecration was performed. Then Brother Giron, mounted on a white hackney, bore the precious phial under a magnificent canopy of red damask, followed by the lords responsible for its safety, notable citizens and the multitude of the people. The bishop, Nicholas de Thou, received the sacred vessel from the hands of Brother Giron, and took the oath exacted from the deputies. Then commenced the ceremony of the coronation. Apart from its picturesqueness and the fact that it illustrates a really important moment in French history, the following account, drawn from a contemporary record, may prove of particular interest in this year of grace 1902. It will be not uninteresting to compare the ceremony with that which is to take place in Westminster Abbey in June. The choir of the Cathedral had been hung with rich tapestry. Two arm-chairs had been placed before the high altar, one for the King and one for the officiating Bishop. Behind these, seats were reserved for the peers spiritual and temporal, and for the seigneurs and magistrates invited to assist at the splendid ceremony, whilst the galleries of the choir and nave were expressly left for those who could find a place there through the good offices of those in charge.[97] The King, who had had to listen the previous evening to a preachment on the custom of anointing the kings of France, emerged from the episcopal palace clad in a camisole of crimson satin and a long robe of silver cloth. He entered the Cathedral by the Porte Royale, accompanied by the Bishops of Nantes and Maillezais and preceded by the archers of the Grand Provost, the clergy, the Swiss Guards, heralds, Knights of the Holy Spirit, the Scots Guards, and the Marshal de Matignon bearing the Constable’s sword. Behind him came the Grand Chancellor of France, the Grand Master, the Lord Chamberlain and the First Gentleman of the Bedchamber. The King walked straight towards the altar, accompanied by the two bishops aforesaid, and deposited there as an offering a casket of silver gilt. Then he took the seat prepared for him at the foot of the altar steps. The Bishop of Chartres now took the sacred oil from the hands of the monks of Marmoutiers, showed it to the people and placed it on the high altar. Next, turning towards His Majesty, he said, ‘We demand of you that you should grant unto each one of us, and to the churches whereof we have charge, the lawful and canonical privileges, rights and justice, and that you should defend us as a king in his kingdom should defend all the bishops and their churches.’