[1055] Correspondance du roi Charles IX. et du sieur de Mandelot, 39-41. Letter to the Governor of Burgundy, apud Mém. de l'estat, ubi sup., 133-135.
[1056] It was undoubtedly with the object of showing that they were not the prime movers in the massacre, or, as the author of the Mém. de l'estat expresses himself, that they had no particular quarrel save with Admiral Coligny, that Henry of Guise and his uncle actually rescued a few Huguenots from the hands of those who were about to put them to death. Reveille-Matin, 188; Mémoires de l'estat, 150.
[1057] Mém. de l'estat, ubi supra, 154, from Reveille-Matin, 192; De Thou, iv. (liv. lii.) 597, 598; Euseb. Philad. Dial., i. 47.
[1058] It was while Charles was on his way to the Palais de Justice that a gentleman in his train, and not far from him, was recognized as being a Protestant, and was killed. The king, hearing the disturbance, turned around; but, on being informed that it was a Huguenot whom they were putting to death, lightly said: "Let us go on. Would to God that he were the last!" Reveille-Matin, 194 (copied in Mém. de l'estat, 157); Euseb. Philad. Dial., i. 50.
[1059] De Thou, whom I have chiefly followed, iv. (liv. lii.) 599; Tocsain contre les massacreurs, 142; Reveille-Matin, 193, 194; Euseb. Phil. Dial., i. 49; Mém. de l'estat, 156; Jean de Serres (1575), iv., fol. 43; Capilupi, 45; Relation of Olaegui, secretary of Don Diego de Cuñiga, Spanish ambassador at Paris, to be laid before Philip II., Simancas MSS., apud Bulletins de l'Acad. Roy. des Sciences, etc., de Belgique, vol. xvi. (1849) 254.
[1060] De Thou, Tocsain, etc., ubi supra.
[1061] Returning to the unpleasant theme in a subsequent book of his noble history (iv. (liv. liii.) 644), Jacques Auguste de Thou remarks, with an integrity which cannot swerve even out of consideration for filial respect: "Ce qu'il y avoit de déplorable, étoit de voir des personnes respectables par leur piété, leur science, et leur intégrité, revêtues des premières charges du Royaume, ennemies d'ailleurs de tout déguisement et de tout artifice, tels que Morvilliers, de Thou, Pibrac, Montluc et Bellièvre, louer contre leurs sentimens, ou excuser par complaisance une action qu'ils détestoient dans le cœur, sans y être engagés par aucun motif de crainte ou d'espérance; mais dans la fausse persuasion où ils étoient que les circonstances présentes et le bien de l'État demandoient qu'ils tinssent ce langage."
[1062] The case stands much worse if we accept the statement of the author of the Mémoires de l'estat de France sous Charles IX., who, after contrasting the honorable conduct of President La Vaquerie, in the time of Louis XI., with that of Christopher de Thou, adds: "Mais cestui-ci n'avoit garde de faire le semblable; il prend trop de plaisir à toute sorte d'injustice pour s'y vouloir opposer." (Ubi supra, pp. 156, 157.) So, also, Euseb. Philad. Dial., i. 50: "Nam quomodo sese injustitiæ viriliter opponeret, qui ex ea tam uberes fructus colligit?" The Mém. de l'estat accuse him of having instigated the murder of Rouillard—a counsellor of parliament and canon of Notre Dame, and one of a very few Roman Catholics that were assassinated—because the latter loved justice, and had prosecuted one of the first president's friends (p. 148). According to the historian De Thou, on the other hand (iv. 593), Rouillard was "homme inquiet, querelleux, et ennemi des officiers des compagnies de ville."
[1063] The passage is not in the will in the admiral's own handwriting, dated Archiac, June 5, 1569, a facsimile of which has been accurately lithographed by the French Protestant Historical Society, and which has also been printed in the Bulletin, i. (1852) 263-268. See ante, p. 461, 462.
[1064] Mémoires de l'estat, ubi supra, 153; Gasparis Colinii Vita (1575), 131.