The Protestants stood in dire need of outside aid during this summer.[570] A few days after Condé had retired within Orleans, D’Aumale took Honfleur (July 21). In Paris mobs killed almost hourly men, women, and children, notwithstanding an edict to the contrary under pain of death. Arms were in the people’s hands, not only in Paris but in the villages. Neither the King nor the queen mother had the means to rule them, for the king of Navarre and the duke of Guise were then at Blois, with the result that Paris did much as it pleased. The leaders contemplated the recovery of Touraine, Anjou, and Maine, and all the towns upon the Loire, and then proposed to go into Normandy and recover Havre-de-Grace, Dieppe, and Rouen. In pursuance of this project the duke of Guise took Loudon and Chinon in Touraine. In the same month Mondidier was entered by the Catholics upon assurance that all the Protestants therein should live safely; but notwithstanding the promises they were all cut to pieces, robbed, or driven forth. Numbers of men, women, and children were drowned in the night with stones about their necks, at Blois, Tours, and Amboise, and those towns which surrendered to the king of Navarre.
While these events were taking place in the Loire country, the duke of Aumale again approached Rouen on the 29th of June, and planted his batteries before St. Catherine’s Mount, but succeeded in doing little in spite of his long battery. He hoped to recover Havre-de-Grace after Guise had seized the towns upon the Loire. The great fear of the French was lest Havre-de-Grace should be given by the Huguenots into the hands of the English, and the atrocious practice of D’Aumale was likely to further such conduct on the part of the Huguenots,[571] for he promised the peasantry not only the privilege of sacking the châteaux of the nobles, but also to relieve them of all taxes. As a result of this vicious policy, trade was dead and whole families of the nobility retired to Dieppe, abandoning their homes.[572]
Violence increased both in the cities and in the provinces. In the southeast Somarive committed great cruelties in Orange, killing men, women, and children wherever he went.[573] But the achievements of Montluc, “the true creator of the French infantry”[574] were the conspicuous feature of the war in the south. By his own confession this famous soldier “rather inclined to violence than to peace, and was more prone to fighting and cutting of throats than to making of speeches.”[575] The war in the southern provinces, it is plain, was one of both politics and religion. The practices of the Huguenots penetrated the whole administrative machinery. The sieur de Burie, king’s lieutenant in Guyenne, was old and overcautious, and not without suspicion of Calvinism,[576] while Duras, the Huguenot leader was so active that the crown had sent the veteran of the siege of Sienna into Guyenne in January, 1560, with a special commission.[577] The Huguenots tried to buy Montluc off through one of their captains formerly with him before Sienna, who came to him saying that the church at Nérac had made him their captain. Montluc’s reply nearly took the captain off his feet. “What the devil churches are those that make captains?” was his fierce question.[578] He speedily began to make his name formidable by hanging six Huguenots without process of law “which shook great fear into the whole party.”
Montluc’s arrival was in the nick of time for the Catholics of the south. He thought that if the Huguenots had been more led by soldiers and not so “guided by ministers, they had not failed of carrying Bordeaux and Toulouse. But God preserved those two forts, the bulwarks of Guyenne, to save all the rest.” Montluc was everywhere at once, never resting long in any place, holding his foes in suspense everywhere, and not only was himself in continual motion, but also with letters and messages perpetually solicited and employed all the friends he had.[579] His troops were few in numbers and so ill-paid that he sometimes was reluctantly compelled to ransom his prisoners. “We were so few that we were not enough to kill them all,” he comments. “Had the King paid his companies I should not have suffered ransom to have been in use in this quarrel. It is not in this case as in a foreign war where men fight for love and honor. In a civil war we must either be master or man, being we live as it were, all under a roof.” He was as good as his word and “shook a great terror into the country everywhere.” When he appeared before Agen he “wondered that the people should be so damnably timorous and did not better defend their religion.” Instead “they no sooner heard my name but they fancied the rope already about their necks.” Yet terrible as the old war-dog was, he still waged war according to the rules of the game. He is outspoken in condemnation of the conduct of the Spanish companies sent by Philip II which joined him before Agen.[580] The importance of Montluc’s services in the south was great. He helped save Toulouse and Bordeaux to the government and the subsequent capture of Lectoure, and the notable battle of Vergt in Périgord (October 9, 1562) prevented the Huguenots south of the Loire from joining the forces of the prince of Condé, who thus narrowly lost the battle of Dreux.[581]
As the Catholic cause mended, the situation of the Huguenots darkened. Four thousand Swiss in June had joined Tavannes in Burgundy and thereby Dijon, Macon, and Châlons-sur-Saône were made safe. Late in July 6,000 lansquenets passed through Paris toward the camp at Blois. Pope Pius IV sent his own nephew to the aid of Joyeuse with 2,500 footmen, one thousand of whom were “Hispainolz.”[582] The Huguenots impatiently awaited the coming of German pistoleers and footmen, to be brought by Casimir, the second son of the count palatine, accompanied by D’Andelot who had been sent into Germany for assistance. But the German princes were slow in responding, especially to the demand for money,[583] so that the prince of Condé actually promised to give them the pillage of Paris![584] D’Andelot passed the Rhine on September 22, 1562—three weeks too late to relieve Bourges—with 2,000 German horse and 2,000 musketeers, who figured in the battle of Dreux in the next December.[585] France had seen nothing like these reiters in days heretofore. Their coming created both consternation[586] and curiosity. Claude Haton in vain sought the meaning of the word.
The word reiter had never had vogue in France within the life of the oldest of men, and one had never used the word until the present, although the kings of France had been served in all their wars by Germans, Swiss, and lansquenets, who are included under this word and name of Germany or Allemaigne. I have taken pains to inquire of numerous persons, who are deemed to know much what was the signification of this word “reiter,” but I have not found a man who has been wise enough to tell me what I wished to know.[587]
In order to pay the reiters and to find money, a taille was imposed upon the Huguenots of all classes, in all towns and villages under their control, upon nobles, priests, merchants, bourgeois, and artisans. But as this means was very tedious, the prince had recourse to the gold and silver vessels, chalices, and crosses of the churches which the Huguenots had pillaged. He also seized upon the government receipts from the gabelle and other taxes of the King in all the villages and élections controlled by the Huguenots, even the moneys of the royal domain, and the revenues of the churches.[588]
Meanwhile on August 19 the siege of Bourges had begun. The city was defended by about 3,500 soldiers, but the circuit of its walls was very great. It was well provisioned for a time, and had considerable munitions and artillery of an inferior sort, but neither cannon nor culverin. Half the town was protected by a great marsh near by; the other half was fortified. It was the plan of D’Andelot, who had entered Lorraine with 2,000 horse and 4,000 foot, commanded by the duke of Deuxponts, feeling he could do nothing in time for Bourges, to cut off Paris by securing the passages of the river at St. Cloud and Charenton.[589] Accordingly the constable and the duke of Guise, learning of the approach of the reiters, dispatched D’Aumale with a commission to levy all men of war in Champagne, Brie, and Burgundy, both foot and horse, and to sound the tocsin for the purpose of raising new levies for the King if those which he first raised should not suffice, and to make a great camp of all these men for the purpose of combating the reiters.[590] But D’Aumale dallied so long,[591] to the intense chagrin of his army, which clamored to “frapper dessus les lif-lof de reistres,”[592] that the German troopers were able to cross the river Seine at Chanceaux, whence they took the road above Auxerre, crossed the Yonne, and so joined the prince of Condé at Orleans.
It would have been much better for France, and especially for the provinces of Champagne, Brie, and Burgundy, if D’Aumale had attempted to repulse the reiters, for his soldiers were the ruin of the villages where they lodged, and any action, even defeat, would have been better than license and idleness. When it was known that the reiters had evaded the force sent against them, the King, seeing new villages of France taken every day, sent orders to all those who still adhered to the crown to the effect that they should be on their guard night and day, for fear of being taken by surprise. For greater security commissions were dispatched authorizing the election of a gentleman of honor and credit to be town-captain in every town.[593]