[1096] See Rosseeuw-Saint-Hilaire, “Le duc d’Albe en Flandre. Procès des comtes d’Egmont et de Hornes (1567-1568),” Séances et travaux de l’Acad. des sc. moral et polit., 4e sér., XVI (LXVIe de la collect.), 1863, p. 480.
[1097] C. S. P. For., No. 1,155, May 1, 1567.
[1098] D’Aubigné, I, Book IV, chap. vii.
[1099] This château was a gift to the prince of Condé by the widow of marshal St. André, who was infatuated with him. After the prince’s second marriage she wedded Geoffrey de Caumont (Claude Haton, I, 363). See also Clément-Simon, La Maréchale de Saint-André et ses filles, Paris, 1896.
[1100] The rendezvous was at Rosay-en-Brie (La Popelinière, Book XII, 37; D’Aubigné, IV, chap, vii; Claude Haton, I, 424, 425).
[1101] The Venetian ambassador Correro, in his relation of the conspiracy, expresses astonishment that the secret of the Huguenot leaders did not leak out, and attributes the fact to the perfection of the Protestant organization (quoted by La Ferrière in Correspondance de Catherine de Médicis, III, ix). It seems to me that this feature was less due to perfect organization than to the promptitude with which Condé and Coligny endeavored to carry out the project. The lesson of the conspiracy of Amboise seven years before could not have been lost upon them. Moreover, the queen mother did have some intimation, notwithstanding her surprise when the shock came. For on September 10, while the court was staying at Monceaux, some armed bands of horsemen were seen hovering around, which caused the King’s hasty removal to Meaux (C. S. P. For., No. 1,683, September 13, 1567, Norris to Leicester). From that hour Catherine was on the alert, though she refused to attach alarmist importance to the signs she had seen until her eyes were opened.
[1102] Claude Haton, I, 434.
[1103] Zurlauben, Hist. milit. des Suisses, IV, 351; Laugel, “Les régimens suisses au service de France pendant les guerres, de religion,” Revue des deux mondes, November 15, 1880, pp. 332 ff. Pfiffer had served in France during the first civil war and was made a colonel after the battle of Dreux. There is a life of him in German by Segesser, Ludwig Pfyffer und seine Zeit, Bern, 1880. Other versions of this incident are in D’Aubigné, II, 230-32; Claude Haton, I, 428, 429; Castelnau, VI, chap. iv; De Thou, Book XLII; Nég. Tosc., III, 530. La Popelinière, XII, 38, 39, gives a good account of the behavior of the Swiss. The duke of Bouillon, an eye-witness of these incidents, has left a striking account in his Mémoires, ed. Petitot, 75.
[1104] For Charles IX’s own version of the affair of Meaux see a letter of the King to the baron de Gordes, begun at Meaux and finished at Paris, September 28, 1567, in Duc d’Aumale, Histoire des princes de Condé, I, Appendix XXII. His letter to Montluc of the same date is in Archives de la Gironde, X, 437.
[1105] Rel. vén., II, 187.