[1171] Correspondance de Catherine de Médicis, II, 62.
[1172] Gachard, Correspondance de Philippe II sur les Pays-Bas, I, 608.
[1173] “Porqué seria mala burla yr á meter fuego en casa agena, començandose á arder la propria.”—Ibid., 597: Alva to Philip II, November 6, 1567.
[1174] It was à propos of Catherine de Medici’s weakness at this time that the marshal Vieilleville bluntly said to Charles IX.: “Ce n’est point Votre Majesté qui a gagné la bataille [of St. Denis]; encore moins le prince de Condé. C’est le roi d’Espagne.”—Weiss, L’Espagne sous Philippe II, I, 119.
[1175] On the military state of Sens at this time see Charles IX’s postscript to his mother’s letter to Fourquevaux of December 7 in Correspondance de Catherine de Médicis, III, 89, note.
[1176] Norris, writing to Queen Elizabeth on December 15, in one place says, “the reiters are 4,000 with 4,000 lansquenets” (§2); later in the course of the same letter, which is a long one and probably the information of several days running, he says, “6,800 with 6,000 lansquenets” (C. S. P. For., No. 1,864, December 15, 1567). This seems to be confirmed by another report from France, December 26, which says “the reiters who have arrived amount to 6,500 men” (ibid., No. 1,882).
[1177] Ibid., No. 1,864 §2, No. 1,882, December 15-26, 1567. The reiters came “with certain pieces of artillery and 700 or 800 empty wagons, trusting to be no greater losers by this dissension than by the last” (ibid., No. 1,864, §3. Norris to Elizabeth).
[1178] Ibid., No. 1,889, December 28, 1567; No. 1,911, January 3, 1568. In ibid., Nos. 1,976 and 2,011, the following is given as the strength of the two armies: “Army of the King, 20,600 horsemen and 10,000 Swiss footmen; the numbers of the other footmen are not set down. Condé’s army, footmen 13,000; horsemen 11,900 where of reiters 6,200”—January, 1568. List of the troops of the prince of Condé with their commanders, amounting in all to 15,000 or 16,000 foot, and 14,000 horse, exclusive of those in garrison or serving in other parts of France—February 15, 1568. Norris wrote in February, 1568: “The prince has crossed the Seine, and is at present nothing inferior in number to the King’s army in infantry, but they are not esteemed so good for battle by reason of the Switzers. He has 3,000 more cavalry than the king has.”—Ibid., No. 1,981.
[1179] C. S. P. For., No. 1,864, §4, December 15, 1567. Names of the different noblemen commanding in the army of the King of France (ibid., No. 1,918, January 4, 1568). Letters-patent of Charles IX, dated December 16, 1567, ordered the exodus of all of the “pretended Reformed religion” from Paris and enjoined the seizure of all their benefices and lands, which were to be annexed to the crown property, and the sale of all the goods of such subjects (ibid., Nos. 1,877, 1,878, December 21-24, 1567). In January a supplementary order commanded the sale of all goods and movables of those with the prince of Condé, and the annexation of all their lands and hereditaments to the crown (ibid., 1,914, January 3, 1568)—decrees which “were not left unexecuted in any point to the utmost” (Norris to Cecil, ibid., No. 1,889, December 28, 1567, §1). Cf. Charles IX’s letters-patent of February 21, 1568, bidding that the houses and real property held by base tenure belonging to rebels shall be sold in the same manner as personal property (ibid., No. 2,200, February 21, 1568). The same sort of measures were practiced elsewhere. For instance, in Agen, Protestant merchants suffered confiscation of grain and wine to the amount of 1,014 livres, 7 sous (Arch. Commun., Agen, Reg. CC, 302).
[1180] The original letter of Charles IX, written from Paris, December 17, 1567 to the duke of Anjou, reciting the terms of peace to be presented to the prince of Condé was sold in Paris in 1845. The duke’s instructions were to renew hostilities if the terms were not accepted. In Coll. Godefroy, XCVI, No. 8, is the safe-conduct given to the cardinal Châtillon by the duke of Anjou. It is dated December 25, 1567.