[744] J. de Serres, iii. 372; De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvi.) 234, 235, who makes the loss in the first siege 300 men, and in the second over 1,000 horsemen; Agrippa d'Aubigné, Hist. univ., l. v., c. 19 (i. 315, 316), who states the total at 1,400 foot and near 400 horse; while Castelnau, l. vii., c. 10, speaks of but 300 in all. Vézelay, famous in the history of the Crusades (see Michaud, Hist. des Croisades, ii. 125) as the place where St. Bernard in 1146 preached the Cross to an immense throng from all parts of Christendom, is equidistant from Bourges and Dijon, and a little north of a line uniting these two cities.
[745] De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvi.) 246, 247; Agrippa d'Aubigné, liv. v., c. 19 (i. 317); J. de Serres, iii. 370. About twenty prisoners were taken, to whom their captors promised their lives. Afterward there were strenuous efforts made, especially by the priests, to have them put to death as rebels and traitors. M. de la Chastre resisted the pressure, disregarding even a severe order of the Parliament of Paris, accompanied by the threat of the enormous fine of 2,000 marks of gold, which bade him send them to the capital. (Hist. du Berry, etc., par M. Louis Raynal, 1846, iv, 104, apud Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. fr., iv. (1856) 27.) Even Charles IX. wrote to him, but the governor was inflexible. His noble reply has come to light, dated Jan. 21, 1570, just one month after the failure of the Protestant scheme. After urging the danger of retaliation by the Huguenots of La Charité and Sancerre upon the prisoners they held, to the number of more than forty, and the inexpediency of accustoming the people of Bourges to bloody executions which they would not fail to repeat, he concludes his remonstrance in these striking words: "Nevertheless, Sire, if you should find it expedient, for the good of your service, to put them to death, the channel of the courts of justice is the most proper, without recompensing my services, or sullying my reputation with a stain that will ever be a ground of reproach against me. And I beg you, Sire, to make use of me in other matters more worthy of a gentleman having the heart of his ancestors, who for five hundred years have served their king without stain of treachery or act unworthy of a gentleman." Inedited letter, apud Bulletin, ubi supra, 28, 29. M. de la Chastre became one of the marshals of France. He conducted, three years later, the terrible siege of Sancerre, famous in history. He had the reputation among the Huguenots of being very severe, if not bloodthirsty—a reputation which he deserved, if he was, as Henry of Navarre styles him, "un des principaux exécuteurs de la Sainct Barthélemy." (Deposition in the trial of La Mole, Coconnas, etc. Archives curieuses, viii. 150.) La Chastre tried to clear himself of the imputation, by recalling the events of 1569. To Jean de Léry he maintained "qu'il n'est point sanguinaire, ainsi qu'on a opinion, comme aussi il l'avoit desjà bien monstré aux autres troubles, lorsqu'il avoit en sa puissance les sieurs d'Espeau, baron de Renty, et le capitaine Fontaine, qui est en son armée: car encores que la cour du parlement de Paris luy fist commandement de les représenter, à peine de 2,000 marcs d'or, il ne le voulut faire." Jean de Léry, "Discours de l'extrême famine ... dans la ville de Sancerre," Archives curieuses, viii. 67.
[746] De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvi.) 235-237; Agrippa d'Aubigné, liv. v., c. 19 (i. 316, 317); Jean de Serres, iii. 368, 369.
[747] "Si est-ce que Dieu est très-doux."
[748] Agrippa d'Aubigné, l. v., c. 18 (i. 309). The words were, as M. Douen reminds us (Clément Marot et le Psautier huguenot, 1878, 13) the first line of the seventy-third psalm of the Huguenot psalter.
[749] De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvi.) 232; Jean de Serres, iii. 366.
[750] Ibid., iii. 372, etc.
[751] Even in December, Languet could scarcely imagine that Coligny would not return and winter at La Rochelle. Letter of Dec. 12, 1569, Epist. secr., i. 130.
[752] Mém. de Castelnau, liv. vii., c. 12.
[753] At least, so says Agrippa d'Aubigné, liv. v., c. 18 (i. 309).