Shall we blame those sturdy, straightforward men, so long fed upon unmeaning or readily-broken promises of redress, if they gave little credit to the royal assurances, and to the more honeyed words of the queen mother? Perhaps there existed no sufficient grounds for the immediate alarm of the Huguenots. Perhaps no settled plan had been formed with the connivance of Philip—no "sacred league" of the kind supposed to have been sketched in outline at Bayonne—no contemplated massacre of the chiefs, with a subsequent assembly of notables at Poitiers, and repeal of all the toleration that had been vouchsafed to the Protestants.[428] All this may have been false; but, if false, it was invested with a wonderful verisimilitude, and to Huguenots and Papists it had, so far as their actions were concerned, all the effect of truth. At all events the promises of the king could not be trusted. Had he not been promising, again and again, for four years? Had not every restrictive ordinance, every interpretation of the Edict of Amboise, every palpable infringement upon its spirit, if not upon its letter, been prefaced by a declaration of Charles's intention to maintain the edict inviolate? In the words of an indignant contemporary, "the very name of the edict was employed to destroy the edict itself."[429]
The Huguenot attempts at colonization in Florida.
The Huguenot expeditions to Florida have been so well sketched by Bancroft and Parkman, and so fully set forth by their latest historian, M. Paul Gaffarel, that I need not speak of them in detail. In fact, they belong more intimately to American than to French history. They owed their origin to the enlightened patriotism of Coligny, who was not less desirous, as a Huguenot, to provide a safe refuge for his fellow Protestants, than anxious, as High Admiral of France, to secure for his native country such commercial resources as it had never enjoyed. "I am in my house," he wrote in 1565, "studying new measures by which we may traffic and make profit in foreign parts. I hope shortly to bring it to pass that we shall have the best trade in Christendom." (Gaffarel, Histoire de la Floride française, Paris, 1875, pp. 45, 46). But, although the project of Huguenot emigration was conceived in the brain of the great Protestant leader, apparently it was heartily approved by Catharine de' Medici and her son. They certainly were not averse to be relieved of the presence of as many as possible of those whom their religious views, and, still more, their political tendencies, rendered objects of suspicion. "If wishing were in order," Catharine (Letter to Forquevaulx, March 17, 1566, Gaffarel, 428) plainly told the Spanish ambassador, on one occasion, "I would wish that all the Huguenots were in those regions" ("si c'estoit souëter, ie voudrois que touts les Huguenots fussent en ce pais-là"). In the discussion that ensued between the courts of Paris and Madrid, the queen mother never denied that the colonists went not only with her knowledge, but with her consent. In fact, she repudiated with scorn and indignation a suggestion of the possibility that such considerable bodies of soldiers and sailors could have left her son's French dominions without the royal privity (Ibid., 427).
1562.
The first expedition, under Jean Ribault, in 1562, was little more than a voyage of discovery. The main body promptly returned to France, the same year, finding that country rent with civil war. The twenty-six or twenty-eight men left behind to hold "Charlesfort" (erected probably near the mouth of the South Edisto river, in what is now South Carolina), disheartened and famishing, nevertheless succeeded in constructing a rude ship and recrossing the Atlantic in the course of the next year.
1564.
A second expedition (1564), under René de Laudonnière, who had taken part in the first, was intended to effect a more permanent settlement. A strong earthwork was accordingly thrown-up at a spot christened "Caroline," in honor of Charles the Ninth, and the colony was inaugurated under fair auspices. But improvidence and mismanagement soon bore their legitimate fruits. Laudonnière saw himself constrained to build ships for a return to Europe, and was about to set sail when the third expedition unexpectedly made its appearance (August 28, 1565), under Ribault, leader of the first enterprise.
1565.
Massacre by Menendez.
Unfortunately the arrival of this fresh reinforcement was closely followed by the approach of a Spanish squadron, commanded by Pedro Menendez, or Melendez, de Abila, sent by Philip the Second expressly to destroy the Frenchmen who had been so presumptuous as to settle in territories claimed by his Catholic Majesty. Nature seemed to conspire with their own incompetency to ruin the French. The French vessels, having gone out to attack the Spaniards, accomplished nothing, and, meeting a terrible storm, were driven far down the coast and wrecked. "Caroline" fell into the hands of Menendez, and its garrison was mercilessly put to death. The same fate befell the shipwrecked French from the fleet. Those who declared themselves Roman Catholics were almost the only persons spared by their pitiless assailants. A few women and children were granted their lives; also a drummer, a hornblower, and a few carpenters and sailors, whose services were valuable. Laudonnière and a handful of men escaped to the woods, and subsequently to Europe. About two hundred soldiers, who threatened to entrench themselves and make a formidable resistance, were able to obtain from Menendez a pledge that they should be treated as prisoners of war, which, strange to say, was observed. The rest—many hundreds—were consigned to indiscriminate slaughter; Ribault himself was flayed and quartered; and over the dead Huguenots was suspended a tablet with this inscription: "Hung, not as Frenchmen, but as Lutherans" (Gaffarel, 229; De Thou, iv. 113; Ag. d'Aubigné, i. 248). Spain and Rome had achieved a grand work. The chaplain Mendoza could piously write: "The greatest advantage from our victory, certainly, is the triumph our Lord grants us, which will cause His Holy Gospel to be introduced into these regions." (Mendoza, apud Gaffarel, 214).
The report of these atrocities, tardily reaching the Old World, called forth an almost universal cry of horror. Fair-minded men of both communions stigmatized the conduct of Menendez and his companions as sheer murder; for had not the French colonists of Florida been attacked before being summoned to surrender, and butchered in cold blood after being denied even such terms as were customarily accorded to Turks and other infidels? Among princes, Philip alone applauded the deed, and seemed only to regret that faith had been kept with any of the detested Huguenots (Gaffarel, 234, 245). It has been commonly supposed that whatever indignation was shown by Catharine de' Medici and her son, was merely assumed in deference to the popular clamor, and that but a feeble remonstrance was really uttered. This supineness would be readily explicable upon the hypothesis of the long premeditation of the massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day. If the treacherous murder of Admiral Coligny and the other great Huguenot leaders had indeed been deliberately planned from the time of the Bayonne conference in 1565, and would have been executed at Moulins in 1566, but for unforeseen circumstances, no protests against the Florida butchery could have been sincere. On the other hand, if Catharine de' Medici was earnest and persistent in her demand for the punishment of Menendez, it is not conceivable that her mind should have been then entertaining the project of the Parisian matins. The extant correspondence between the French queen mother and her envoy at the court of Madrid may fairly be said to set at rest all doubts respecting her attitude. She was indignant, determined, and outspoken.
So slowly did news travel in the sixteenth century, that it was not until the eighteenth of February, 1566, that Forquevaulx, from Madrid, despatched to the King of France a first account of the events that had occurred in Florida nearly five months before. The ambassador seems to have expressed becoming indignation in the interviews he sought with the Duke of Alva, repudiating with dignity the suggestion that the blame should be laid upon Coligny, for having abused his authority as admiral to set on foot a piratical expedition into the territories of a friendly prince; and holding forth no encouragement to believe that Charles would disavow Coligny's acts. He told Alva distinctly that Menendez was a butcher rather than a good soldier ("plus digne bourreau que bon soldat," Forquevaulx to Charles IX., March 16, 1566, Gaffarel, 425). He declared to him that the Turks had never exhibited such inhumanity to their prisoners at Castelnovo or at Gerbes—in fact, never had barbarians displayed such cruelty. As a Frenchman, he assured the Spaniard that he shuddered when he thought of so execrable a deed, and that it appeared to him that God would not leave it unpunished (Ibid., 426).
Catharine's own language to the Spanish ambassador, Don Francez de Alava, was not less frank. "As their common mother," she said, "I can but have an incredible grief at heart, when I hear that between princes so closely bound as friends, allies, and relations, as these two kings, and in so good a peace, and at a time when such great offices of friendship are observed between them, so horrible a carnage has been committed on the subjects of my son, the King of France. I am, as it were, beside myself when I think of it, and cannot persuade myself that the king, your master, will refuse us satisfaction" (Catharine to Forquevaulx, Moulins, March 17th, Gaffarel, 427). Not content with this plain talking to Alava, she "prayed and ordered" Forquevaulx to make Philip himself understand her desires respecting "the reparation demanded by so enormous an outrage." He was to tell his Catholic Majesty that Catharine would never rest content until due satisfaction was made; and that she would feel "marvellous regret" should she not only find that all her pains to establish perpetual friendship between the two kings had been lost, but one day be reproached by Charles for having suffered such a stain upon his reputation ("que ... j'aye laissé faire une telle escorne à sa reputation." Gaffarel, 429).
Forquevaulx fulfilled his instructions to the very letter, adding, on his own account, that in forty-one years of military service he had never known so execrable an execution. He seems also to have disposed effectually of the Spanish claim to Florida through right of ancient discovery, by emphasizing the circumstance that Menendez, after his victory, thought it necessary to take formal possession of the land. He informed Philip that no news could be more welcome to the Huguenots than that the subjects of Charles had been murdered by those very persons who were expected to strengthen him by their friendship and alliance (Forquevaulx to Catharine, April 9th, Gaffarel, 432). His words had little effect upon any one at the Spanish court, save the young queen, who felt the utmost solicitude lest her brother and her husband should become involved in war with each other. ("Me sembla qu'il tint à peu qu'elle ne pleurast son soul de crainte qu'il ne survienne quelque alteration." Forquevaulx, ubi supra, 430.)
But, although no progress was made toward obtaining justice, the French government did not relax its efforts. Charles wrote from Saint Maur, May 12, 1566, that his will was that Forquevaulx should renew his complaint and insist with all urgency upon a reparation of the wrong done him. "You will not cease to tell them," said the king, "that they must not hope that I shall ever be satisfied until I see such a reparation as our friendship demands." (Gaffarel, 437.)
Sanguinary revenge of De Gourgues, April, 1568.
The French ambassador continued to press his claim, and, in particular, to demand the release of the French prisoners, even up to near the time when a private citizen, Dominique de Gourgues, undertook to avenge his country's wrongs while satisfying his thirst for personal revenge. De Gourgues was not, as has usually been supposed, a Huguenot; he had even been an adherent of Montluc and of the house of Guise (Gaffarel, 265). But, having been captured in war by the Spaniards, in 1566, he had been made a galley-slave. From that time he had vowed irreconcilable hatred against the Catholic king. He obtained a long-deferred satisfaction when, in April, 1568, he surprised the fort of Caroline, slew most of the Spanish soldiers, and placed over the remainder—spared only for the more ignominious punishment of hanging upon the same trees to which Huguenots had been suspended—the inscription, burned with a hot iron on a pine slab: "I do this not as to Spaniards, nor as to seamen, but as to traitors, robbers, and murderers." (The words are given with slight variations. See "La Reprinse de la Floride par le Cappitaine Gourgue," reprinted by Gaffarel, 483-515; Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 354-356; De Thou, iv. 123-126.)
FOOTNOTES:
[265] Froude, Hist. of England, vii. 519. Seethe courteous summons of Charles, April 30, 1563, Forbes, State Papers, ii. 404, 405, and Elizabeth's answer, May 7th, ibid., ii. 409-411; Condé's offer in his letter of June 26, 1563, Forbes, ii. 442. See also the extended correspondence of the English envoys, in the inedited documents published by the Duc d'Aumale, Princes de Condé, i. 423-500.
[266] Froude, vii. 520; Castelnau, liv. v., c. ii. Compare Forbes, ii. 422.
[267] "The plage dothe increace here dayly, wherby our nombres are decayde within these fowr days in soche sorte, as we have not remayning at this present (in all our judgements) 1500 able men in this towne. They dye nowe in bothe these peces upon the point of 100 a daye, so as we can not geyt men to burye theym," etc. Warwick to the Privy Council, July 11, 1563. Forbes, ii. 458.
[268] De Thou, iii. (liv. xxxv.) 417-420; Mém. de Castelnau, liv. v., c. ii. and iii.; Cimber et Danjou, v. 229; Stow's Annals (London, 1631), 655, 656; Agrippa d'Aubigné, liv. iv., c. ii. (i. 198-200); Davila, bk. iii. (Eng. trans., London, 1678), p. 89; Froude, vii. 519-528. Consult especially Dr. Patrick Forbes, Full View of the Public Transactions in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth (London, 1741), vol ii. pp. 373-500. This important collection of letters, to which I have made such frequent reference under the shorter title of "State Papers," ends at this point. Peace was definitely concluded between France and England by the treaty of Troyes, April 11, 1564 (Mém. de Condé, v. 79, 80). Sir Nicholas Throkmorton, who had long been a prisoner, held to be exchanged against the hostages for the restitution of Calais, given in accordance with the treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis, now returned home. Before leaving, however, he had an altercation with his colleague, Sir Thomas Smith, of which the latter wrote a full account. Sir Nicholas, it seems, in his heat applied some opprobrious epithets to Smith, and even called him "traitor"—a charge which the latter repudiated with manly indignation. "Nay, thou liest, quoth I; I am as true to the queen as thou any day in the week, and have done her Highness as faithful and good service as thou." Smith to Cecil, April 13, 1564, State Paper Office.
[269] Mém. de Claude Haton, i. 356, 357.
[270] See the order of the fanatical Parliament of Toulouse, which it had the audacity to publish with, or instead of, the king's edict. It contains this clause: "Ce que estant veu par nous, avons ordonné et ordonnons que, en la ville de Thoulouse ni aultres du ressort du parlement d'icelle, ne se fera publicquement ni secrettement aulcun exercice de la nouvelle prétendue religion, en quelque sorte que ce soit, sous peine de la hart. Item, que tous ceux qui vouldront faire profession de laditte prétendue religion réformée ayent à se retirer," etc. Mém. de Claude Haton, i. 358, 359.