[1191] La Mothe Fénélon to Catharine, ibid., v. 164.
[1192] Letter of Sept. 26th, Digges, 262.
[1193] See ante, chapter xviii., p. 495.
[1194] As well as by the queen mother's assurances respecting the massacre in the provinces—too heavy a draft upon the credulity of her royal sister. "Pour ce qu'ilz disent que, voyant les meurtres qui ont esté faictz en plusieurs villes de ce royaume par les Catholiques contre les Huguenotz, ils ne se peuvent asseurer de l'intantion et volonté du Roy, qu'ilz n'en voyent quelque punission et justice et ses édictz mieux observés, elle cognoistra bientost que ce qui est advenu ès autres lieux que en ceste ville, a esté entièrement contre la volonté du Roy, mon dict sieur et filz, lequel a délibéré d'en faire faire telle pugnition et y establir bientost ung si bon ordre que ung chascun cognoistra quelle a esté en cest endroit son intantion." Catharine to La Mothe Fénélon, Cor. dipl., vii. 377.
[1195] Walsingham to Sir Thomas Smith, Sept. 14th, Digges, 242.
[1196] Tocsain contre les massacreurs, 150.
[1197] It is true that when their sentences were read to them, and particularly that portion which branded with infamy their innocent children, the courage of the old man of seventy, Briquemault, momentarily failed, and he condescended to offer to do great services to the king in retaking La Rochelle whose fortifications he had himself begun; and when this proposal was rejected, it is said that he made more humiliating advances. But the constancy and pious exhortations of his younger companion, who sustained his own courage by repeating many of the psalms in Latin, recalled Briquemault to himself, and from that moment "he had nothing but contempt for death." De Thou (iv. 646), a youth of nineteen, who was present in the chapel when the sentence was read, remembered the incident well. Cf. Agrippa d'Aubigné, ii. 32 (bk. i., c. 6). Walsingham, when he says in his letter of Nov. 1, 1572, that "Cavannes (Cavaignes) showed himself void of all magnanimity, etc.," has evidently confused the persons. Here is an instance where the later account of an eye-witness—De Thou—is entitled to far more credit than the contemporary statement of one whose means of obtaining information were not so good.
[1198] "N'ayant regret sinon que vous ayez voulu profaner le jour de sa nayssence par ung si fascheus espectacle qu'allastes voir en grève." Corresp. diplom. de la Mothe Fénélon, v. 205; Tocsain contre les massacreurs, 151, 152; Reveille-Matin, Arch, cur., vii. 206; Walsingham to Smith, Nov. 1, 1572, Digges, 278, 279.
[1199] Froude, x. 444, 445.
[1200] "Entre autres choses, il me dist qu'on luy avoit escript de Rome, n'avoit que trois semaines ou environ, sur le propos des noces du Roy de Navarre en ces propres termes: 'que à ceste heure que tous les oyseaux estoient en cage, on les pouvoit prendre tous ensemble.'" M. de Vulcob to Charles IX., Presburg, Sept. 26th, apud De Noailles, Henri de Valois et la Pologne en 1572 (Paris, 1867), iii., Pièces just., 214.