[1131] Mém. de l'estat, Archives curieuses, vii. 381-385; De Thou, ubi supra; Agrippa d'Aubigné, ii. 27, 28 (liv. i., c. 5); Jean de Serres (1575), iv., fol. 50.
[1132] President Lagebaston even says that, had this been suffered to go on a week longer—so rapidly were the Protestants flocking to the mass—there would not have been eight Huguenots in town.
[1133] Registers of Parliament, in Boscheron des Portes, Hist. du parl. de Bordeaux (Bordeaux, 1877), i. 241.
[1134] Letter of President Lagebaston to Charles IX., October 7, 1572, Mackintosh, Hist. of England, iii., App. E, 351-353. See also De Thou, iv. 651, 652, and Agrippa d'Aubigné, ii. 27. Lagebaston was "first president" of the Bordalese parliament, but, so far from being able to prevent the massacre, received information that his own name was on Montferrand's list, and fled to the castle of Ha, whence he wrote to the king. His remonstrances against a butchery based upon a pretended order which was not exhibited, his delineation of the impolitic and disgraceful work, and his reasons why an execution, that might have been necessary to crush a secret conspiracy at Paris, was altogether unnecessary in a city "six or seven score leagues distant," where there could be no thought of a conspiracy, render his letter very interesting.
[1135] Registres du Parlement, Boscheron des Portes, i. 246, 247.
[1136] Boscheron des Portes, ubi supra.
[1137] Claude Haton waxes facetious when describing the sudden popularity acquired by the sign of the cross, and the numbers of rosaries that could be seen in the hands, or tied to the belt, of fugitive Huguenot ladies.
[1138] Tocsain contre les massacreurs, 156. See ante, chapter xviii., p. 491.
[1139] De Félice, Hist. of the Protestants of France (New York, 1859), 214, and Henry White, 455, from Maimbourg, Histoire du Calvinisme, 486. I refer the reader to Mr. L. D. Paumier's exhaustive discussion of the story in his paper, "La Saint-Barthélemy en Normandie," Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. français, vi. (1858), 466-470. Mr. Paumier has also completely demolished the scanty foundation on which rested the similar story told of Sigognes, Governor of Dieppe, pp. 470-474. See also M. C. Osmont de Courtisigny's monograph, "Jean Le Hennuyer et les Huguenots de Lisieux en 1572," in the Bulletin, xxvi. (1877) 145, etc.
[1140] Tocsain contre les massacreurs, 156; Odolant Desnos, Mémoires historiques sur la ville d'Alençon, ii. 285, apud Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. français, viii. (1859), 68. The truth of the story as to Alençon seems to be proved by the circumstance that when, in February, 1575, Matignon marched against Alençon, in order to suppress the conspiracy which the duke, Charles's youngest brother, had entered into to prevent Henry of Anjou from succeeding peaceably to the throne of France, the grateful Protestants at once opened their gates to him. Ibid., 305, Bulletin, ubi supra.