The Duchess of Nemours and Henry of Guise.
Several times had Anjou and Catharine perceived that, whenever Charles had conversed in private with the admiral, his demeanor was visibly changed toward them. He no longer exhibited his accustomed respect for his mother or his wonted kindness for his brother. Once, in particular—and it was, so Anjou tells us, only a few days before St. Bartholomew's Day—Henry happened to enter the room just after Coligny had gone out. Instantly the king's countenance betrayed extreme anger. He began to walk furiously to and fro, taking great strides, and keeping his eyes fixed upon his brother with an expression that boded no good, but without uttering a word. Again and again he placed his hand on his dagger, and Anjou expected nothing less than that his brother would attack him. At last, taking advantage of an opportunity when Charles's back was turned, he hastily retreated from the room. This circumstance led Catharine and Anjou to compare their observations and their plans. "Both of us," says Henry, "were easily persuaded, and became, as it were, certain that it was the admiral who had impressed some evil and sinister opinion of us upon the king. We resolved from that moment to rid ourselves of him, and to concert the means of doing so with the Duchess of Nemours. To her alone we believed that we might safely disclose our purpose, on account of the mortal hatred which we knew that she bore to him."[939] The Duchess of Nemours was born of an excellent mother; for she was Anne d'Este, daughter of Renée of France, the younger child of Louis the Twelfth. In her youth, at the court of her father, the Duke of Ferrara, and in society with that prodigy of feminine precocity, Olympia Morata, she had shown evidences of extraordinary intellectual development and of a kindly disposition.[940] Although she subsequently married Francis of Guise, the leading persecutor of the Protestants, she had not so lost her sympathy with the oppressed as to witness without tears and remonstrances the atrocious executions by which the tumult of Amboise was followed. But the assassination of her husband turned any affection or compassion she may have entertained for Protestantism into violent hatred. Against Coligny, whom, in spite of his protestations, she persisted in believing to be the instigator of Poltrot's crime, she bore an implacable enmity; and now, having so often failed in obtaining satisfaction from the king by judicial process, she eagerly accepted the opportunity of avenging herself by a deed more dastardly than that which she laid to the charge of her enemy. Entering heartily into the project which Catharine and Anjou laid before her, the Duchess of Nemours enlisted the co-operation of her son, Henry of Guise, and her brother-in-law, the Duke of Aumale, and herself arranged the details of the plan, which was at once to be put into execution.[941]
Was the massacre long premeditated?
Salviati's testimony.
Such was the germ of the massacre as yet not resolved upon, which, rapidly developing, was to involve the murder of thousands of innocent persons throughout France. In opposition to the opinion that became almost universal among the Protestants, and gained nearly equal currency among the Roman Catholics—that the butchery had long been contemplated, and that Charles was privy to it—and notwithstanding the circumstances that seem to give color to this opinion,[942] I am compelled to acquiesce in the belief expressed by the Papal Nuncio, Salviati, who, in his despatches, written in cipher to the cardinal secretary of state, could certainly have had no motive to disguise his real sentiments, and whom it is impossible to suppose ignorant of any scheme for the general extirpation of the Protestants, had such a scheme existed for any considerable length of time: "As to all the statements that will be made respecting the firing upon the admiral and his death, different from that which I have written to you, you will in time find out how true they are. Madame the regent, having come to be at variance with him [the admiral], and having decided upon this step a few days before, caused him to be fired upon. This was without the knowledge of the king, but with the participation of the Duke of Anjou, the Duchess of Nemours, and her son, the Duke of Guise. If the admiral had died at once, no others would have been slain. But, inasmuch as he survived, and they apprehended that some great calamity might happen should he draw closer to the king, they resolved to throw aside shame, and to have him killed together with the rest. And this was put into execution that very night."[943]
The king's cordiality.
As the hour approached, Coligny exhibited no apprehension of special danger. Others, however, more suspicious, or possessed of less faith in Heaven, felt alarm; and some acted upon their fears. The very "goodness" of the king terrified one. Another said that he had rather be saved with fools than perish with the wise, and hastily forsook the capital. Dark hints had been thrown out by courtiers—such surmises were naturally bred by the defenceless position of the Protestants in the midst of a population so hostile to their faith as the population of Paris—that more blood than wine would be spilled at this wedding. And there were rumors of some mysterious enterprise afloat; so, at least, it was said after the occurrence. But Coligny moved not from the post which he believed had been assigned to his keeping. On Wednesday Charles assured him, with laughing countenance, that if the admiral would but give him four days more for amusement, he would not stir from Paris until he had contented him;[944] and the sturdy old Huguenot made no objection when the king, in order to prevent any disturbance which the partisans of Guise might occasion in seeking a quarrel with the followers of the house of Châtillon, proposed to introduce a considerable force of soldiers into the city. "My father," said Charles, with his usual appearance of affection, "you know that you have promised not to give any cause of offence to the Guises so long as you remain here; and they have in like manner promised to respect you and all yours. I am fully persuaded that you will keep your word; but I am not so well assured of their good faith as of yours; for, besides the fact that it is they that would avenge themselves, I know their bravadoes and the favor this populace bears to them."[945]
Coligny is wounded, August 22.
On Friday morning, the twenty-second of August, Admiral Coligny went to the Louvre, to attend a meeting of the royal council, at which Henry of Anjou presided. It was between ten and eleven o'clock, when, according to the more primitive hours then kept, he left the palace to return home for dinner.[946] Meeting Charles just coming out of a chapel in front of the Louvre, he retraced his steps, and accompanied him to the tennis-court, where he left him playing with Guise, against Téligny and another nobleman. Accompanied by about a dozen gentlemen, he again sallied forth, but had not proceeded over a hundred paces when from behind a lattice an arquebuse was fired at him.[947] The admiral had been walking slowly, intently engaged in reading a petition which had just been handed to him. The shot had been well aimed, and might have proved fatal, had not the victim at that very moment turned a little to one side. As it was, of the three balls with which the arquebuse was loaded, one took off a finger of his right hand, and another lodged in his left arm, making an ugly wound. Supported by De Guerchy and Des Pruneaux, between whom he had previously been walking, Coligny was carried to his house in the little Rue de Béthisy,[948] only a few steps farther on. As he went he pointed out to his friends the house from which the shot had been fired. To a gentleman who expressed the fear that the balls were poisoned, he replied with composure: "Nothing will happen but what it may please God to order."[949]
The attempted assassination had happened in front of the cloisters of St. Germain l'Auxerrois. The house was recognized as one belonging to the Duchess Dowager of Guise, in which Villemur, the former tutor of young Henry of Guise, had lodged. The door was found locked; but the indignant followers of Coligny soon burst it open. They found within only a woman and a lackey. The assassin, after firing, had fled to the rear of the house. There he found a horse awaiting him; this he exchanged at the Porte Saint Antoine for a fresh Spanish jennet. He was out of Paris almost before pursuit was fairly undertaken. Subsequent investigation left no doubt as to his identity. It was that same Maurevel of infamous memory, who during the third civil war had traitorously shot De Mouy, after insinuating himself into his friendship, and sharing his room and his bed. The king's assassin, "le tueur du roi"—a designation he had obtained when Charles or his advisers gave a special reward for that exploit[950]—had been selected by Catharine, Anjou and the Guises, as possessing both the nerve and the experience that were requisite to make sure of Coligny's death. It was found that he had been placed in the house by De Chailly, "maître d'hôtel" of the king, and that the horse by means of which he effected his escape had been brought to the door by the groom of the Duke of Guise.[951]