[1035] His son, Jacques Merlin, at a later time pastor at La Rochelle, although he does not mention the particulars of his father's escape, in the journal published for the first time by M. Gaberel in an appendix to the second vol. of his Histoire de l'église de Genève, pp. 153-207, alludes to it—"fut deliuré par une grace de Dieu spéciale" (p. 155).
[1036] Mémoires de Sully (London, 1748), i. pp. 29, 30.
[1037] Tocsain contre les massacreurs, 131; Mém. de l'estat, ubi supra, 142, etc. De Thou, iv. (liv. lii.) 592, 593. Strange to say, Von Botzheim was so far misinformed, that he makes Charpentier weep for the fate of Ramus! Archival. Beiträge, p. 117.
[1038] De Thou, iv. (liv. lii.) 596; Mémoires de l'estat de France sous Charles IX. (Cimber et Danjou, vii. 137-142, and in M. Buchon's biographical notice prefixed to the "Commentaires"). An appreciative chapter on Pierre de la Place and his works may be read in Victor Bujeaud, Chronique protestante de l'Angoumois (Angoulême, 1860), 50-66.
[1039] Cahors is over 300 miles in a straight line from Paris, more than 400 miles—153 leagues—by the roads.
[1040] De Thou, iv. (liv. lii.) 594, 595; Agrippa d'Aubigné, Hist. univ., ii. 23.
[1041] The incident of Charles IX.'s firing upon the Huguenots has been of late the subject of much discussion. M. Fournier and M. Méry have denied the existence, in 1572, of the pavilion at which tradition makes the king to have stationed himself. See Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. français, v. (1857) 332, etc. It has, I think, been conclusively shown that they are mistaken. The pavilion was in existence. But, besides, there is no reason why an incident should be deemed apocryphal because of a popular mistake in assigning the spot of its occurrence. The "Reveille-Matin" and the Eusebii Philadelphi Dialogi, published in 1574, are the earliest documents that refer to it. They place Charles at the window of his own room. So does Brantôme, writing considerably later. Jean de Serres (in the fourth vol. of his Commentaria de statu, etc. (fol. 37), published in 1575) says: "Regem quoque ex hypæthrio (i.e., from a covered gallery) aiunt, adhibitis, ut solebat, diris contenta voce conclamare, et tormento etiam ipsum ejaculari." Agrippa d'Aubigné alludes to it not only in his Histoire universelle (ii. 19, 21), but in his Tragiques (Bulletin, vii. 185), a poem which he commenced as early as in 1577 (See Bulletin, x. 202). M. Henri Bordier has been so fortunate as to discover and has reprinted a contemporary engraving of the massacre, in which Charles is represented as excitedly looking on the slaughter from a window in the Louvre, while behind him stand two halberdiers and several noblemen (Bulletin, x. 106, 107). The question is discussed in an able and exhaustive manner by MM. Fournier, Ludovic Lalanne, Bernard, Berty, Bordier, and others, in the Bulletin, v. 332-340; vi. 118-126; vii. 182-187; x. 5-11, 105-107, 199-204.
[1042] The Porte de Bussy, or Bucy, was the first gate toward the west on the southern side of the Seine. During the reign of Francis I. and his successors of the house of Valois, the walls of Paris were of small compass. In this quarter their general direction is well marked out by the Rue Mazarine. The circuit started from the Tour de Nesle, which was nearly opposite the eastern front of the Louvre—the short Rue de Bussy fixes the situation of the gate where Guise was delayed. A little west of this is the abbey church of St. Germain-des-Prés, which gave its name to the suburb opposite the Louvre and the Tuileries. This quaint pile—the oldest church, or, indeed, edifice of any kind in Paris—after being built in the sixth century, and injured by the Normans in the ninth, was rebuilt and dedicated in 1163 A.D., by Alexander III. in person. On that occasion the Bishop of Paris was not even permitted by the jealous monks to be present, on the ground that the abbey of St. Germain-des-Prés was exempt from his jurisdiction. The pontiff confirmed their position, and his sermon, instead of being an exposition of the Gospel, was devoted to setting forth the privileges accorded to the abbey by St. Germain, Bishop of Paris, in 886. Dulaure, Histoire de Paris, ii. 79-84.
[1043] Tocsain contre les massacreurs, 138, 139; Reveille-Matin, 186-188; Mém. de l'estat, 129-131.
[1044] See Henry White, Massacre of St. Bartholomew, p. 460.