History of the Rise of the Huguenots, Vol. 2

by Henry Martyn Baird

Others, however, were, merciful from more honorable motives. A number of instances of clemency are mentioned. It is not, indeed, always safe to accept the stories, some of which are suspicious from their very form, while others are manifest inventions of an age when tolerance had become more popular than persecution. To the category of fable we are compelled to assign the famous response which Le Hennuyer, Bishop of Lisieux, is reported, by authors writing long after the event, as having returned to the lieutenant sent to him by Charles the Ninth. History is occasionally capricious, but she has rarely indulged in a more remarkable freak than when putting into the mouth of an advocate of persecution, a courtier and the almoner of the king, who was not even in his diocese, but undoubtedly in Paris itself, at the time the incident is said to have occurred, this declamatory speech: "No, no, sir; I oppose, and shall always oppose, the execution of such an order. I am the shepherd of the church of Lisieux, and the people I am commanded to slaughter are my flock. Although at present wanderers, having strayed from the fold intrusted to me by Jesus Christ the great shepherd, they may, nevertheless, return. I do not read in the Gospel that the shepherd should suffer the blood of his sheep to be shed; on the contrary, I find there that he is bound to pour out his own blood and give his own life for them. Take the order back, for it shall never be executed so long as I live."[1139]

Kind offices of Matignon at Caen and Alençon;

of Longueville and Gordes;

Fortunately, there are other instances on record which are not apocryphal. Monsieur de Matignon seems to have saved Caen and Alençon from becoming the scenes of general massacres, and thus to have endeared himself to the Protestants of both places.[1140] The Duke of Longueville prevented the massacre from extending to his province of Picardy.[1141] Gordes, Governor of Dauphiny, who had obtained advancement by the assistance of the Montmorency influence, excused himself, when repeatedly urged to kill the Huguenots, on the plea that Montbrun and others of their leaders were alive and out of his reach, and that any attempt of the kind would only lead to still greater difficulties. He therefore waited for more direct instructions. When, in his letter of the fifth of September, in reference to a clause in the king's letter just received, he stated that he had received no verbal orders, but merely his letters of the twenty-second, twenty-fourth, and twenty-eighth of August, Charles replied bidding him give himself no solicitude as to them, as they were addressed only to a few persons who happened to be near him,[1142] and enjoined upon him to enforce the royal "declaration," and cause all murder and rapine to cease in his government. Yet even here a number of Huguenots were imprisoned, and a few lost their lives at Romans.[1143]

of Tende in Provence.

The manly boldness of the Comte de Tende is said in like manner to have saved the Protestants of Provence. Receiving from the hands of La Mole, a gentleman of Arles and servant of the Duke of Alençon, a letter from the secret council ordering him to massacre all the Huguenots in his province, the governor replied: "I do not believe that such commands have emanated from the king's free will; but some of the members of his council have usurped the royal authority in order to satisfy their own passions. I need no more conclusive testimony than the letters which his Majesty sent me a few days ago, by which he threw upon the Guises the blame for this massacre of Paris. I prefer to obey these first letters, as more befitting the royal dignity. Besides, this last order is so cruel and barbarous, that even were the king himself in person to command me to put it into execution, I would not do it." The magnanimity of the count spared Provence the horrors of a repetition of the massacres of Mérindol and Cabrières, but perhaps cost him his own life, for he soon after died at Avignon, and rumor ascribed his death to poison. The infamous Count de Retz, Catharine's favorite, succeeded him as governor.[1144] Saint Héran, Governor of Auvergne, is said to have replied in very similar words; but as he managed to induce a great part of the Protestants within his jurisdiction to apostatize, less notice was taken of his insubordination.[1145]

Viscount D'Orthez at Bayonne.

Perhaps the most striking instance of a magnanimous refusal to comply with the bloody mandate of the Parisian court, was that of Viscount D'Orthez,[1146] Governor of Bayonne. This nobleman was not only of a violent and imperious temper, but on other occasions so severe in his treatment of the Protestants of the border city, that the king was obliged to write to him to moderate his rigor. When, however, the messenger from Paris (who on his way had caused an indiscriminate slaughter to be made of all the men, women and children who had taken refuge in the prisons of Dax) delivered his orders to the viscount, the latter returned the following laconic answer:

"Sire, I have communicated your Majesty's commands to your faithful inhabitants and warriors in the garrison. I have found among them only good citizens and brave soldiers, but not one hangman. For this reason they and I very humbly beg your Majesty to employ our arms and our lives in all things possible, however hazardous they may be, as we are, so long as our lives shall last, your very humble, etc."[1147]