[701] Mém. de Vieilleville, ii. 405. The date of Henry's visit to parliament is not free from the same contradictory statements that affect many of the most important events of history. De Thou, and, following him, Félibien, Browning, and others, place it five days later than I have done in the text. La Place, the anonymous "Discours de la mort du Roy Henry II." (in the Recueil des choses mémorables, published in 1565, and later in the Mémoires de Condé), Castelnau, the Histoire ecclés., etc., are our best authorities. As Sir Nicholas Throkmorton gave an account of the Mercuriale in his despatch to the queen of June 13th (Forbes, State Papers, i. 126-130), I am surprised that Dr. White, who refers, to this interesting paper (although by an oversight ascribing it to June 19th) should, while correcting M. de Félice's error, have preferred the date of June 15th. "Massacre of St. Bartholomew," Am. ed., p. 51.
[702] Discours de la mort du Roy Henry II. (Recueil des choses mémorables, 1565.) Dulaure, Hist. de Paris, ii. 434-437. Cf. also the maps accompanying that work.
[703] The Discours de la mort du Roy Henry II. add that Henry demanded the reason of the Parliament's delay to register an edict they had received from him against the "Lutherans"—doubtless the last—establishing the inquisitorial commission of three cardinals. "Cest édict estoit sorti de l'oracle dudict cardinal de Lorreine." Baum, Theodore Beza, ii. 31, note, etc., has already called attention to the gross inaccuracies of Browning, in his description of the incidents of the Mercuriale, as well as of the king's visit to parliament. (Hist. of the Huguenots, i. 54, etc.). Among other assertions altogether unwarranted by the evidence, he states that Henry, in order to entrap the unwary, "declared himself free from every kind of angry feeling against those counsellors who had adopted the new religion, and begged them all to speak their opinions freely," etc. (p. 55). If true, this would rob Du Bourg's course of half its heroism.
[704] "Whereas," wrote Throkmorton to Queen Elizabeth, "the Kinge's presence is very rare, and hathe seldome happened but upon somme great occasion; so I endevored myself (as much as I could) to learne the cause of their assemblé." Forbes, State Papers, i. 126.
[705] Strangely enough, Mr. Smedley, History of the Reformed Religion in France, i. 87, note, following a careless annotator of De Thou, discovers an inaccuracy in the allusion where no inaccuracy exists. It was not to Ahab's question, but to Elijah's retort, that Du Faur made reference. See La Place, p. 13.
[706] La Place, Comm. de l'estat, etc., p. 13; Hist. ecclés., i. 122; (Crespin, Gal. chrét., ii. 303); De Thou, ii. 670. Félibien, Hist. de Paris, ii. 1066.
[707] La Place, ubi supra.
[708] Among them Paul de Foix, "who is cousin to the King of Navarre." Throkmorton to Queen Elizabeth, June 23, 1559, Forbes i. 126.
[709] La Place, Com. de l'estat, etc., p. 14; Discours de la mort du Roy Henry II.; De Thou, ii. 671; Félibien, Hist. de Paris, ii. 1067; Vieilleville, ii. 405-406; Hist. ecclés. i., 122-123. Even Anne de Montmorency was struck with Du Bourg's boldness, and exclaimed, "Vous faictes la bravade." Forbes, State Papers, i. 126.
[710] The date is variously given as the 25th or 26th of May. The latter, adopted by the Histoire ecclésiastique, is probably correct. See Triqueti, Premiers jours du protestantisme en France (Paris, 1859), 253, 254.