Many persons were seized and maltreated. Those, who were able to fly, quitted the place, leaving furniture, money, provisions, all their goods, at the mercy of the bandits, who were intrusted with the office of serjeants; and houses were pillaged and sacked, according to the relation of Theodore de Bèze, as in a town taken by assault; the rabble gleaned and devastated what the first plunderers had omitted to take. “But what was most to be deplored,” adds this historian, “was to see the poor little children, who had no dwelling but the flagstones, crying, ahungered, in the most piteous manner, and begging about the streets, without any one daring to relieve or shelter them, for fear of falling into the like danger; so that they were less cared for than dogs.”[33]
Abominable contrivances had been put to work to fan the fury of the people of Paris. There may be still seen, in old collections, engravings which represent the heretics slaying priests with the arquebuse, casting monks into the water, slaughtering children, strangling women and old men, and persons were posted about the public squares to comment upon these infamies.
The people answered these dastard provocations by erecting images of the Virgin at the corners of the streets. They scrutinized the countenances of the passengers, and woe to him who did not lift his hat! woe to him who refused to put a piece of money into the trunks, or épargne-mailles, which were held out to him in order to provide for the payment of the tapers! The shout of “A heretic!” was raised; he was dragged to the Châtelet, and the prisons were so crowded that it was necessary to hurry the executions, that new victims might be accommodated.
One trait will depict the state of feeling. Two miserable apprentices, who had been won over, declared that turpitudes were committed in the secret meetings of the Calvinists. The Cardinal de Lorraine went straight to relate this to the queen-mother, aggravating his recital with all the abominations with which in former times the Gnostics, the Mersalians, the Borborites, and the Manichæans, had been reproached, so that the Reformers might seem to have combined, as in a common sewer, the vices of every age.
Among the persons mentioned, were the wife and two daughters of a celebrated advocate of Paris. They voluntarily gave themselves up to justice, preferring death to dishonour. They were confronted with the two apprentices, who coloured, stammered, and so contradicted themselves in their statements, that it became evident they had invented an execrable lie. Some indignant magistrates were for imprisoning them instead of the outraged women. Just the contrary happened: the calumniators were absolved, and the females were sent back to their dungeons.
At the same time the Guises created other malcontents, who made an approach to the Calvinists, whence resulted the enterprise known by the name of the Conspiracy of Amboise.
Many gentlemen had come to the court to claim compensation for their blood spilled in the king’s service, or for their properties, which had been despoiled in these times of confusion and anarchy. The Cardinal de Lorraine, dreading the presence of so many soldiers, caused a proclamation to be published, which commanded all the petitioners, of whatever rank, to quit the place within twenty-four hours, under pain of death. A gibbet was even erected at the gates of the castle, to confirm the menace. The gentlemen departed, deeply angered at an affront, which no king of France had ever passed upon his brave nobility.
The war began by pamphlets, in which the Lorraines were accused of having usurped the rights of princes of the blood, of keeping the crown in pupilage, although they were foreigners, and of treading underfoot all the ancient laws of the kingdom. “France can abide it no longer,” is the language of one of these pamphlets, “and demands the convocation of the States-General to reduce these affairs to order.”
The malcontents soon passed from words to acts. Those of the religion felt scruples. Could they have recourse to force to obtain redress for their grievances? They consulted the divines of Switzerland and Germany, who replied that it was lawful to oppose the government usurped by the Lorraines, provided one of the legitimate chiefs, namely, a prince of the blood, were at their head, and the support of the States-General were secured.
Notwithstanding this, the greater number of the Reformed refused to participate in this enterprise, in which, says Brantôme, “there was not less discontent than Huguenotism.” Coligny was not initiated into it, and those who were concerned, had expressly reserved the person and authority of the king. They proposed nothing more than to expel the Lorraines, and to replace the government of France in the hands of French princes. Louis de Condé was the invisible or mute chief of the conspiracy; La Renaudie, who represented the political malcontents, rather than the religious malcontents, was its visible chief.