[669] Ibid., Eng., No. 291. Throckmorton’s report of his conference with Admiral Coligny, February 12, 1563. It is astonishing, after this display of selfishness and greed, that Coligny should still have retained patience with, and faith in, Elizabeth.
[670] The duke was short of heavy guns and had to send to Paris for them to come to Corbeil by water, from thence to Montargis, and so after by land to the river. The defenders had improvised a mill on the island into a fortress but after the arrival of the heavy guns, so hot a fire was poured upon them that they were compelled to retire across the bridge, “leaving many to the mercy of the fish” (Claude Haton, I, 319).
[671] C. S. P. For., No. 323, February 17, 1563. Both D’Aubigné, Book III, chap. xvi, and La Noue, Mém. milit., chap. x, have vivid accounts of this siege; cf. also De Thou, Book XXXIV.
[672] Barbaro gives details of the havoc wrought by this explosion (C. S. P. Ven., January 28, 1563); cf. C. S. P. For., No. 239, § 3, No. 323, § 18, February 17, 1563.
[673] Throckmorton wrote to Cecil on February 21: “He is to be pitied, for every hour he is in danger of his life and of being betrayed by his reiters.”—C. S. P. For., No. 333, §§1, 5, 9, February 20, 1563; No. 339, February 21, 1562.
[674] Ibid., No. 374, March 1, 1563; Forbes, II, 332.
[675] Montgomery to the Rhinegrave, Dieppe, 8 fevrier, 1563: “Les habitans du plat pays m’ont faict entendre qu’ils seroient prestz de se joindre à moy si je me vouloys metre en campagne pour les deffendre des oppressions, pilleries et sacagementz qu’ilz disent estre exercés par ceux qui vous suivent. Monsieur l’admiral [Coligny] n’est [pas] au pays [l’Orléannais] que me mandez ou à tout le moings qu’il a faict une extrème diligence et est plus près de nous qu’on ne cuyde, en delliberation de metre bientost une fin à ces troubles, pour nous faire tous jouyr du rang que nous debrons tenir prez la personne du Roi comme ses vrays subjets et loyaulx serviteurs.”—Fillon Collection.
[676] C. S. P. For., No. 352, Warwick to the council, February 25, 1563; cf. Forbes, II, 336; C. S. P. Eng. For., No. 327, §3, February 18, 1563; Forbes, II, 334, 380, March 1, 1563; cf. Nos. 333, 344.
[677] The money reached Havre on February 25 and was brought by Beauvoir, Briquemault, and Throckmorton under guard of eight pieces of artillery to Caen at once (Delaborde, II, 226, 227). The reiters received their pay at once. For some curious information about the avarice of the reiters and the pay given them, see Papiers d’état du cardinal de Granvelle, VIII, 129, note; VII, 407.
[678] C. S. P. For., 391; Forbes, II, 346.