[1045] Valued at from 100,000 to 200,000 crowns, Reveille-Matin, 190; Mém. de l'estat, 151. The interesting anonymous letter from Heidelberg, Dec. 22, 1573, published first by the Marquis de Noailles in his "Henri de Valois et la Pologne en 1572" (Paris, 1867), iii. 533, from the MSS. of Prince Czartoryski, alludes to the costly jewels which Henry, now king-elect of Poland, made to the elector palatine, his host, and remarks: "Fortasse magna hæc fuisse videbitur liberalitas et rege digna, at parva certe vel nulla potius fuit, si vel sumptibus quos illustrissimus noster princeps in deducendo et excipiendo hoc hospite sustinuit conferamus, vel si unde hæc dona sint profecta expendamus. Ipse siquidem rex (Henry) ne teruncium pro iis solvisse, sed ex taberna cujusdam prædivitis aurifabri Parisiensis, quam scelerati sui ministri in strage illa nobilium ut alias multas diripuerunt, accepisse ea fertur."
[1046] Mémoires de l'estat, ubi supra, 150. Versailles, which thus passed into the hands of the family of Marshal Retz—the Gondi family—was an old castle situated in the midst of an almost unbroken forest. The Gondi family sold it to Louis XIII., who built a hunting lodge, afterward transmuted by Louis XIV. into the magnificent palace, which, for more than a century, was the favorite residence of the most splendid court in Europe. The mode in which the title was acquired did not augur well for the justice or the morality which was to reign there. M. L. Lacour has contributed an animated sketch, "Versailles et les protestants de France," to the Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. fr., viii. (1859) 352-367.
[1047] Discours sur les causes de l'exécution, ubi supra, 249.
[1048] Royal orders of Aug. 25th, Aug. 27th, etc. Order of the Prévôt des marchands, Aug. 30th. Registres du bureau de la ville, Archives curieuses, vii. 222-230. Euseb. Philadelphi Dialog., i. 45.
[1049] Registres du bureau de la ville, pp. 222, 223.
[1050] Ibid., p. 227.
[1051] "Aucuns malades languissans, ayant ouy ce miracle, se firent porter audit cymetière pour veoir laditte espine; lesquelz, estans là avec ferme foy, firent leur prière à Dieu en l'honneur de nostre dame la vierge Marie et devant son ymage qui est en laditte chapelle, pour recouvrer leur santé, et, après leur oraison faicte, s'en retournèrent en leurs maisons sains et guaris de leur maladie, chose très-véritable et bien approuvèe." Mém. de Claude Haton, ii. 682.
[1052] Ibid., ubi supra; Tocsain contre les massacreurs, 146; Reveille-Matin, 193, 194; Mém. de l'estat, 155; Jean de Serres, iv., fol. 41; De Thou, iv. (liv. lii.) 596.
[1053] Dr. White (Massacre of St. Bartholomew, 459) has tabulated the estimates, nine in number, afforded by twenty-one distinct authorities. The lowest estimate—1,000 victims—is that of the Abbé Caveyrac, whose undisguised aim was to place the number as low as possible, so as to palliate the atrocity of the massacre. Being based apparently upon the number of the names of victims that have been recorded, it may be dismissed as unworthy of consideration. The highest estimate, of 10,000, though adopted by such writers as the authors of the Reveille-Matin and the Mémoires de l'estat de France, is vague or excessive. The Tocsain and Agrippa d'Aubigné are, perhaps, too moderate in respectively stating the number as 2,000 and 3,000. On the whole, it appears to me, the contribution of Paris to the massacre of the Huguenots may be set down with the greatest probability at between 4,000 and 5,000 persons of all ages and conditions. Von Botzheim, who estimates the total at 8,000 (F. W. Ebeling, Archivalische Beiträge, p. 120), makes 500 of these to be women (Ibid., p. 119).
[1054] In other letters Charles had even the effrontery to represent the King of Navarre as having been in like danger with his brothers and himself. See Eusebii Philadelphi Dialog. (1574), i. 45: "se quidem metu propriæ salutis in arcem Luparam (the Louvre) compulsum illic se continuisse, una cum fratre charissimo Rege Navarræ, et dilectissimo Principe Condensi, ut in communi periculo eundem fortunæ exitum experirentur!"