[524] Dr. Wotton to the Council, Paris, April 6, 1547, State Paper Office, and printed in Fraser-Tytler, England under the Reigns of Edward VI. and Mary, i. 35, etc.
[525] De l'Aubespine (Cimber et Danjou), iii. 284, 285.
[526] Relaz. Venete, ii. 437, 438.
[527] The legate Santa Croce describes his qualities thus: "Erat Montmorantius animo alacri et prompto, ingenio acri, corpora vivido, somni ac vini parcissimus, negotiis vehementer deditus, etc." He mentions as remarkable the facility with which, in the midst of the most pressing affairs of state or military exigencies, he could give his attention, as grand master of the royal household, to the most minute matters respecting the king's food or dress. De Civilibus Gall. Dissens. Comment. (Martene et Durand, Ampliss. Coll., v. 1429).
[528] The devoted "connestabliste" Begnier de la Planche does not conceal the aversion the head of the family which he delights in exalting entertained for letters: "Il avoit opinion," he writes, "que les lettres amolissoyent les gentilshommes et les faisoyent dégénérer de leurs majeurs, et mesmes estoit persuadé que les lettres avoyent engendré les hérésies et accreu les luthériens en telle nombre qu'ils estoyent au royaume; en sorte qu'il avoit en peu d'estime les sçavans, et leurs livres." Histoire de l'estat de la France tant de la république que de la religion sous le règne de François II., p. 309.
[529] The people were as a body declared attainted of treason, their hôtel-de-ville was razed to the ground, their written privileges were seized and reduced to ashes. The bells that had sounded out the tocsin, at the outbreak of the insurrection, were for the most part broken in pieces and melted. One miserable man was hung to the clapper of the same bell that he had rung to call the people to arms. Others for the like crime were broken on the wheel or burned alive. Tristan de Moneins, lieutenant of the King of Navarre, had been basely murdered by the citizens: they were now compelled to disinter his remains, being allowed the use of no implements, but compelled to scrape off the earth with their nails! De Thou, i. 459, etc.
[530] Brantôme, Homines illustres (Œuvres, viii., 129).
[531] Sir John Mason to Council, Poissy, Sept. 14, 1550, State Paper Office.
[532] Claude de l'Aubespine, Histoire particulière de la cour du Roy Henry II. (Cimber et Danjou), iii. 277.
[533] "Onorevolissimo universal carico che tiene." Relazioni Venete, ii. 166. It is somewhat painful to find from a letter of Margaret of Navarre, written after Henry's accession, that this amiable princess was compelled to depend, for the continuance of her paltry pension of 25,000 livres as sister of Francis, upon the kind offices of the constable. Lettres de Marguerite d'Angoulême, t. i., No. 154. The king's affection for Montmorency was so demonstrative that he ordered that, after their death, the constable's heart and his own should be buried together in a single monument, as an indication to posterity of his partiality. Jod. Sincerus (Itinerarium Galliæ, 1627, pp. 281-284) takes the trouble to transcribe not less than three of the epitaphs in the Church of the Celestines, in which Montmorency receives more than his proportion of fulsome praise.