[935] It is astonishing to see what considerable distances the Protestants were obliged to go in order to enjoy any religious privileges, and what fatigue they willingly underwent in order to avail themselves of them. In 1563, immediately after the close of the first civil war, instead of being assigned a place for worship in the suburbs, according to the terms of the edict, the Protestants of Troyes were told to go to Céant-en-Othe—full eight leagues, or about twenty-four miles; nor could they obtain justice by any remonstrances with the court! As they went to Céant, in spite of its inconvenient distance, and of the death of several children taken thither to be baptized, the Romanists, in 1570, actually proposed to remove the Protestant prêche still farther off, to Villenauxe, thirteen leagues from Troyes! Happily, after a while, they availed themselves of the hospitality of a feudal lord nearer by. Recordon, Le protestantisme en Champagne (MSS. of N. Pithou), 136, etc., 149, 163.
[936] Ibid., pp. 168, 169. The Roman Catholics of Troyes sent, about the middle of August, two deputies to get the Protestant place of worship removed from Isle-au-Mont, who were present at the massacre.
[937] Baschet, La diplomatie vénitienne, p. 540.
[938] This confession exists in manuscript in the National Library of Paris (Fonds de Bouhier, 59), under the heading: "Discours du Roy Henry troisiesme à un personnage d'honneur et de qualité estant près de sa majesté, sur les causes et motifs de la St. Barthélemy." It is printed in an appendix to the Mémoires de Villeroy (Petitot ed., xliv. 496-510). Its authenticity is vouched for by Matthieu, the historiographer of Louis XIII., and is corroborated by its remarkable agreement with what we can learn from other sources. Cf., especially, Soldan, Frankreich und die Bartholomäusnacht, 224-226. Some suppose that M. de Souvré, and not Miron, was the person with whom the conversation at Cracow was held. Martin, Hist. de France, x. 315.
[939] Discours du Roy Henry III., Mém. de Villeroy, 499, 500.
[940] See J. Bonnet, Vie d'Olympia Morata (Paris, 1850), 20, etc.
[941] Discours du Roy Henry III., ibid., p. 501. The nuncio, Salviati, informs us that young Guise urged his mother herself to kill Coligny.
[942] The article on the massacre in the North British Review for October, 1869—an article to which I shall have occasion more than once to refer—brings forward a number of passages in the diplomatic correspondence, especially of the minor Italian states, pointing in this direction. They can all, I am convinced, be satisfactorily explained, without admitting the conclusion, to which the writer evidently leans, of a distinct, though not a long premeditation.
[943] "Mad. la Regente venuta in differenza di lui, risolvendosi pochi giorni prima, gli la fece tirare, e senza saputa del Re, ma con participatione di M. di Angiu, di Mad. de Nemours, e di M. di Guisa suo figlio; e se moriva subito non si ammazzava altri," etc. Salviati, desp. of Sept. 22, 1572, apud Mackintosh, Hist. of England, vol. iii., Appendix K. It will be remembered that these despatches were given to Sir James Mackintosh by M. de Châteaubriand, who had obtained them from the Vatican. I need not say how much more trustworthy are the secret despatches of one so well informed as the nuncio, than the sensational "Stratagema" of Capilupi, which pretends (ed. of 1574, p. 26) that Charles placed Maurevel in the house from which he shot at Coligny, on discovering that the admiral had formed the plan of firing Paris the next night. To believe these champions of orthodoxy, the Huguenots were born with a special passion for incendiary exploits. It does not seem to strike them that burning and pillaging Paris would not be likely to appear to Coligny a probable means of furthering the war in Flanders. Besides, what need is there of any such Huguenot plot, even according to Capilupi's own view, since he carries back the premeditation of the massacre on the part of Charles at least four years?
[944] Le Reveille-Matin des François, etc., Archives curieuses, vii. 173; Eusebii Philadelphi Dialogi (1574), i. 33. It has been customary to interpret this language and similar expressions as covertly referring to the massacre which was then four days off. But this seems absurd. Certainly, if Charles was privy to the plan for Coligny's murder, he must have expected him to be killed on Friday—that is, within less than two days. If so, what peculiar significance in the four days? For, if a general massacre had been at first contemplated, no interval of two days would have been allowed. Everybody must have known that if the arquebuse shot had done its work, and Coligny had been killed on the spot, every Huguenot would have been far from the walls of Paris long before Sunday. As it was, it was only the admiral's confidence, and the impossibility of moving him with safety, that detained them.