[809] Calvin's Letters, iv. 107. So the ministers of Geneva declare before the council: "que pour les troubles arrivés en France, ils n'en sont nullement coupables; qu'il ne doit pas être inconnu au Conseil qu'ils ont détourné, autant qu'ils ont pu, d'aller à Amboise, ceux qu'ils ont sceu avoir quelque dessein d'y aller." Registers, Jan. 28, 1561, apud Gaberel, Histoire de l'égl. de Genève, i., pièces justif., 203.
[810] La Planche, 237.
[811] De Heu was a man of great influence. He had been échevin at Metz, and the chief mover in introducing Protestantism into that city. In 1543 he invited Farel to come thither. Persecution drove him to Switzerland. He returned from exile upon the fall of Metz into the hands of the French, in 1552. When he found that the change had only aggravated the condition of the Protestants, he became prominent in the effort to enlist the sympathy and support of the German princes in behalf of the French reformation. Bulletin de l'hist. du prot. fr., xxv. (1876), 164.
[812] The whole affair remained involved in impenetrable obscurity until the recent fortunate discovery of the "Procès verbal" (or original minute) "de l'exécution à mort de Caspar de Heu, Sr. de Buy" among the MSS. of the Bibliothèque Nationale, 22562, 1re partie, pp. 110-113. It is now printed in the Appendix to "Le Tigre," 103-108, and Bulletin de l'hist. du prot. fr., xxv. (1876), 164-168. The very date (which proves to be Sept. 1, 1558) was previously unknown.
[813] "Ce pendant," says the royal lieutenant, in the interesting document just described, "aurions fait faire une fosse dans les fosses du donjon dudit chasteau, soubz les arches du pont de la poterne, comme nous semblant lieu le plus caché et secret d'alentour dudit chasteau, d'autant que l'on ne va souvent ny aysement esdits fossez, et que les herbes y sont communément grandes," etc. Le Tigre, 108.
[814] The author of that terrible invective, "Le Tigre," reminds the cardinal of this crime in one of the finest outbursts of indignant reproach: "N'oys-tu pas crier le sang de celuy que tu fis estrangler dans une chambre du boys de Vincennes? S'il estoit coupable, que [pourquoi] n'a il esté puny publiquement? Où sont les tesmoingts qui l'ont chargé? Pourquoy as-tu voulu en sa mort rompre et froisser toutes les loix de France, si tu pençoys que par les loix, il peut estre condemné?" Also in the versified "Tigre," lines 315-326. It is only just to La Renaudie to add that, according to La Planche, those who knew him best acquitted him of the charge of being much influenced by these and other personal considerations. Hist. de l'estat de France, 238, 316-318.
[815] "Homme, comme l'on dit, de grand esprit, et de diligence presque incroyable." Hist. du tumulte d'Amboise, in Recueil des choses mémorables (1565), and Mémoires de Condé, i. 324.
[816] According to De Thou, ii. 762, March 15th. So Davila, 22, and La Place, 33. Calvin (Letter to Sturm, March 23, 1560, Bonnet, iv. 91) says "before March 15." Castelnau, i. 6, says March 10th.
[817] The uniform statement of the contemporary authorities from whom our accounts of the "Tumult" are derived, is to the effect that the blow was to be struck at Blois, but that, on discovering their peril, the Guises hastily removed the court, for greater safety, to the castle of Amboise. And yet the correspondence of the English commissioners discloses the fact that the time of the removal had been decided upon on the 28th of January, several days before the Nantes assembly. See Ranke, Am. ed., 176. "The Frenche King, as it is said, the 5th of February removeth hens towardes Amboise; and will be fifteen dayes in going thither." Despatch of Killigrew and Jones, from Blois, January 28, 1559/60, Forbes, State Papers, i. 315. In fact, the general outline of the royal progress was indicated by the Spanish ambassador, Perrenot Chantonnay, to Philip II., so far back as December 2, 1559: "La cour, lui avait-il écrit, a le projet de passer le curéme à Amboise, de se rendre en Guyenne au printemps, en passant par Poitiers, Bordeaux, Bayonne, d'aller ensuite à Toulouse, de demeurer l'hiver suivant en Provence et en Languedoc, et d'agir vigoureusement contre les hérétiques." Mignet, Journal des Savants, 1857, 419, from Simancas MSS. The Spanish ambassador saw so much that appalled him in the rapid progress of the Reformation in every part of France, that he feared alike for the North and the South, when the king was not present to check its growth.
[818] La Planche, 238, 239; Hist. ecclés., i. 158, 159; De Thou, ii. 754-762 (where La Renaudie's harangue is given at length); Castelnau, liv. i., c. 8; Davila, 22; La Place, 33. Hist. du tumulte d'Amboise, ubi supra.