At Rouen, many Huguenots took to flight; the rest were cast into prison. The massacre began only on the 17th September, and lasted four days. The prisoners were called over by their names, from a list given to the murderers. There perished, according to the relation of Crespin, near six hundred persons.
At Toulouse, the events of Paris were made known on Sunday, the 31st August. The gates of the town were instantly closed, and the Reformed, who had gone to celebrate their worship at the village of Castanet, were only admitted one by one, by little posterns. They were taken to the prisons and the convents. There they remained a month. It was not till the 3rd October that they were executed, by order of the chief president Dafis. Three hundred perished, amongst whom were five councillors, who after they were killed, were hanged in their robes on the great elm, which stood before the court of the palace.
The massacre of Bordeaux was delayed like that of Toulouse, and during these hesitations, a Jesuit named Augier declaimed every day from his pulpit against the pusillanimity of the governor. At length, companies of assassins were organized: they had the name of “the red, or cardinal band,” bestowed upon them.
The towns of Bourges, Angers, and many others, witnessed similar scenes. But these were trifling by the side of the massacres of Lyons: here there was a second Saint Bartholomew, more frightful still than that of Paris, because it was conducted with a sort of regularity. The governor Mandelot gave orders that the Calvinists should be shut up in the prisons of the Archbishoprics, of the Cordeliers, and of the Célestins, and be slaughtered in detachments. The executioner of Lyons, like his brother of Troyes, refused to lend his hand to the work. “After sentence,” said he, “I will do what I have to do; there are but too many such executioners as are needed residing in the town.” A writer says upon this subject: “What a re-establishment of order it would have been, if in this unhappy city the governor had been the executioner, and the executioner the governor!”[62]
There perished at Lyons, according to some, eight hundred, according to others, thirteen hundred, fifteen hundred, or eighteen hundred, Huguenots. The dwellers on the borders of the Rhone, in Dauphiné, and in Provence, stood aghast at the sight of so many corpses floating on the waters, or thrown up on the banks of the river; many were tied to long poles, and horribly mutilated. “At Lyons,” says Capilupi, a gentleman attached to the court of the pope, “thanks to the excellent order and singular prudence of M. de Mandelot, governor of the town, all the Huguenots were taken one after the other like sheep.”[63]
The correspondence of Mandelot has recently been published. He expressed his deep regret to Charles IX. that a few Huguenots had escaped, and supplicated his majesty to grant him a share of the spoils of the dead. Lyons has witnessed other massacres, but we have not learned that the proconsuls of the Convention held out their hands to clutch the wages of blood.
What was the number of victims throughout France? De Thou says 30,000; Sully, 70,000; the bishop Péréfixe, 100,000. This last figure is probably exaggerated, if we reckon those only who met with a violent death. But if there be added those who died of misery, hunger, grief, the aged, who were helpless and abandoned, women without shelter, children without bread, the many wretched beings, whose lives were shortened by this great catastrophe, it will be confessed that the number given by Péréfixe is still below the truth.
The sensation produced by the massacre of Saint Bartholomew throughout Europe was immense. Men were unwilling to believe the first accounts. When they were confirmed, all the courts, all the churches, all the public places, every house resounded with acclamations; and there was not a hut, into which the deeds done on that day did not carry, according to the sentiments of the inhabitants, the exultations of joy, or the stupor of overwhelming grief.
Many thought, at first, that it was only the first scene of a vast conspiracy, and that the (Roman) Catholic powers had resolved to exterminate all the Protestants of Europe. The Papacy, Philip II., and the court of Charles IX., in fact never ceased to talk of the complete extirpation of heretics: the power, not the will, was wanting.
At Rome, the news of the massacre, which Charles IX. had announced in ambiguous words to the legate, was expected, and received with transports of joy. The messenger was gratified with a present of a thousand pieces of gold. He brought a letter from the nuncio Salviati, written on the very day, the 24th August, in which this priest said to Gregory XIII., that “he blessed God to see his pontificate commence so auspiciously.” The king Charles IX., and the queen Catherine, were praised for having shown so much prudence in extirpating this pestilent race, and for having so well chosen their time that all the rebels had been secured under lock and key, as in a dovecot (sotto chiave, in gabbia).