[985] G. Colinii Vita (1575), 127. Mém. de l'estat, ubi sup., 114.
[986] Mém. de l'estat, 118, 119; Jean de Serres (1575), iv., fol. 32; Reveille-Matin, 180; Euseb. Philad. Dialogi (1574), 39, 40.
[987] Joh. Wilh. von Botzheim, in his narrative, gives several versions of the words. According to one they were: "Behem—'N'est tu pas Admiral?' Admiralius—'Ouy, je le suis. Mais vous estes bien un jeune souldat pour parler ainsi avec un vieil capitaine, pour le moins au respect de ma vielesse.' Behem—'Je suis assez aage (agé) por te faire ta reste.'" Cyclopica illa atque inaudita hactenus detestanda atque execranda laniena, quæ facta est Lutetia, Aureliis, etc., published in F. W. Ebeling, Archivalische Beiträge zur Geschichte Frankreichs unter Carl IX. (Leipsic, 1872), 107, 108.
[988] Capilupi puts in Besme's mouth the words: "Now, traitor, restore to me the blood of my master, which thou didst impiously take away from me!" It is not at all improbable that he used some such expression. Lo stratagema di Carlo IX., 34.
[989] Jean de Serres, De statu reipub. et rel. (1575), iv., fols. 32, 33; Mémoires de l'estat, ubi supra, 119-122; Vita Gasparis Colinii Castellonii, magni quondam Franciæ Amirallii (sine loco, 1575), pp. 127-131; 178-180. These latter accounts, which agree perfectly, are the best. Reveille-Matin, ubi sup., 182, and Euseb. Philad. Dialogi (1574), i. 39, 40; Tocsain contre les massacreurs (Rheims, 1579), 121-123; Capilupi, Lo stratagema di Carlo IX. (1574), 33, etc.; Journal d'un curé ligueur (Jehan de la Fosse), 148, 149; Relation of Olaegui, secretary of D. de Cuñiga, Spanish ambassador at Paris; Particularités inédites sur la St. Barthélemi, Gachard in Bulletins de l'Académie royale de Belgique, xvi. (1849), 252, 253; Alva's bulletin prepared for distribution, ibid., ix. (1842), 563. Both are very inaccurate. De Thou, iv. (liv. lii.) 584, 585; Agrippa d'Aubigné, ii. 16 (liv. i., c. 4).
[990] "Le lundy d'après, ayant la teste ostée et les parties honteuses coupées par les petits enfans, fut d'iceulx petits enfans qui estoient jusques au nombre de 2 ou 300, traîné, le ventre en haut, parmy les ruisseaux de la ville de Paris." Jehan de la Fosse, 149. See the long account in Von Botzheim's narration, ubi supra, 113.
[991] Mémoires de l'estat, ubi supra, 122.
[992] Letter of Mandelot to Charles IX., Sept. 5, 1572, Correspondance du roi Charles IX. et du sieur de Mandelot (Edited by P. Paris, Paris, 1830), 56-58.
[993] Of this memorable enterprise Coligny has left "Mémoires" which are contained in the collection of Petitot, etc. It is the only military treatise we possess coming from the admiral's hand, and it enters into the subject with technical minuteness. The destruction by his royal murderers of the admiral's papers (including diaries that would have thrown great light upon the transactions of the last two years of his life), see Vita Gasparis Colinii (1575), i. 138, was an irretrievable loss to history. We are told also of a much more recent act of vandalism, not even palliated by the miserable excuse of political expediency: "In 1810, an inhabitant of Châtillon having discovered in the solitary remaining tower of the old castle a walled chamber wherein were the archives of the Coligny family and of the family of Luxemburg, burned all the papers from motives of private interest. Some fragments that escaped this conflagration, and which are preserved in the mairie, prove that a correspondence between Catharine de' Medici and Coligny had been laid away in this repository." Bulletin de la Société de l'histoire du prot. français, iii. (1854) 351.
[994] Ante, chapter xiii.