“On l’appela arquebuse à croc quand on l’eut munie d’un axe de rotation reposant sur une fourchette ou croc et facilitant le pointage. L’arquebuse à croc était souvent d’un poids considérable. Elle lançait parfois des balles de plomb de 8, 12 et 13 livres. Jusqu’au commencement du XVIe siècle, on mettait le feu à la charge au moyen d’une mèche allumée que le coulevrinier portait enroulée autour du bras droit. A Pavie, les Espagnols se servirent d’une arquebuse perfectionnée par eux, dans laquelle la mèche était mise en contact avec l’amorce pour faire partir le coup, au moyen d’un serpentin, sorte de pince qu’une détente faisait agir, sans que le pointage en fût dérangé. Disposer la mèche à la longueur voulue, en aviver le feu avant de tirer constituait l’opération de maniement d’arme designée sous ce nom compasser la mèche.”—La grande encyclopédie, III, art. “Arquebuse.”

[1352] La Popelinière, Book XVII; D’Aubigné, III, 80, 81.

[1353] D’Aubigné, Book V, chap, xii; Jean de Serres, 355, 356.

[1354] Schomberg offered to make a levy of 4,000 Poles; 8,000 Swiss were asked of the Catholic cantons (C. S. P. For., No. 351, July 27, 1569). To support them Paris was mulcted for 700,000 francs and confiscation of Protestant lands to the crown eked out the balance (ibid., No. 355, July 29, 1569).

The following summary from Sir Henry Norris’ letter to Queen Elizabeth sets forth the government’s fiscal policy at this time: “On the 1st instant the king went to the Palais, where in the end, the Parlement made a general arrest of all the goods, lands, and offices of those who bore arms against the king, and that all their lands held in fee—or knight-service—should revert to the crown; and that for the other lands, first there should be alienated for the sum of 50,000 crowns by the year, and given to the clergy, in recompense of their demesne, which the king had license to sell, and the remainder bestowed on such as had suffered loss by the religion and done service in these wars. It is accounted that this attainture will amount to 2,000,000 francs a year. The same day they made sale, by sound of trumpet, of the admiral’s goods in Paris. Some moved to have him executed in effigy, which was thought unmeet, as serving only to irritate him to proceed the more extremely. The king borrows 300,000 £ and offers to perpetuate the Councillors of Parlement’s offices to their children, on their giving a certain sum of money; besides this they tax all citizens throughout the realm to make great contributions. The cardinals of Bourbon and Lorraine, to show an example to the clergy, have offered to sell 4,000 £ rent of the monasteries of St. Germain and St. Denis” (C. S. P. For., No. 375, August 5, 1569).

[1355] D’Aubigné, II, 38, 39.

[1356] Louise de Bourbon, abbess de Fontevrault, daughter of François, comte de Vendôme, and of Marie de Luxembourg, died in 1575.

[1357] For a graphic description of Poitiers in the sixteenth century see Ouvré, Histoire de Poitiers, 24, 25.

[1358] Rel. vén., II, 271.

[1359] All the historians narrate the history of the siege of Poitiers (see Claude Haton, II, 375 ff.; La Popelinière, Book XVII; D’Aubigné, Book V, chap, v; Claude Haton, II, 534; De Thou, Book XLV; Liberge, Ample discourse de ce qui s’est fait au siège de Poitiers, 1569, new ed., 1846, by Beauchet-Felleau; Mém., de Jean d’Antras, ed. Cansalade and Tamizey de Larroque, 1880; see also Whitehead, Gaspard de Coligny, Admiral of France, 215, 216; Babinet, Mém. de la Soc. des antiq. de l’ouest, séries II, Vol. XI). The story of the siege is also related in an unpublished letter of Charles IX to the duke of Nevers, September 10, 1569, F. Fr., 3,159, No. 195.