The arguments of peace urged by the marshal Cossé and others who shared his thought had less influence upon the King and his counselors as the storm of war drove off toward the south,[1385] to the elation of Pius V, who overwhelmed Charles IX with protests against pacification.[1386] South of the Loire the principal interest of the third civil war is attached to the doings of that famous group of Huguenot warriors known as the “viscounts,” with whom Coligny had failed to connect before the battle of Jarnac. A brief account of the earlier achievements of this group, who sometimes fought together, sometimes separately, and had three or four thousand footmen and three or four hundred horsemen in their command,[1387] is necessary at this point. There were ten of these captains: Bernard Roger de Cominges, vicomte de Bruniquel; Bertrand de Rabastenis, vicomte de Paulin; Antoine de Rabastenis, vicomte de Montclaire; the vicomte de Montaigu; the vicomte de Caumont; the vicomte de Parat; Geraud de Lomagne, vicomte de Sevignac (near Beaucaire), a brother of Terride, who was a Catholic and implicated with Montluc in the project to deliver Guyenne to the King of Spain;[1388] the vicomte d’Arpajon; the vicomte de Rapin; and the vicomte de Gourdon.[1389] Three of these, and the most conspicuous, save Rapin, the viscounts of Paulin, Bruniquel, and Arpajon were natives of the diocese of Albi, a stronghold of heresy from mediaeval times; the first had seen service in Piedmont in the reign of Henry II, and the ancestors of all three of them had fought against Ferdinand of Aragon in 1495.[1390] The viscount of Rapin was a leader of the great Huguenot rising in Toulouse in 1562, and was made Protestant governor of Montauban in 1564 by the prince of Condé.[1391] He was so bitterly hated by the people of Toulouse that he was accused of wanting to destroy the city utterly and remove the very stones to Montauban. He had fought in the second civil war, but was betrayed into the hands of the magistrates of Toulouse and condemned and executed there on April 13, 1569, in defiance of the King’s orders to the contrary. The Huguenots took terrible reprisal for this outrage, devastating the environs of Toulouse for leagues around, even inscribing on the ruins “Vengeance de Rapin.”[1392]
These four viscounts were the nucleus of the group and began their career in the first civil war. But save Rapin, none became conspicuous then. During the second war the others were drawn to the standard. They operated in Languedoc and Quercy at first, aided by the peasantry who seem to have turned toward them as natural enemies of the higher nobles.[1393] In the summer and autumn of 1568 their united hosts made a mighty raid up the valley of the Rhone from Montauban through Rouergue and the Cévennes, where part of the troops crossed the Rhone under the viscount of Rapin and joined the Protestant army of Dauphiné and Provence under a former lieutenant of Des Adresse. The rest remained in Languedoc. Later Rapin recrossed the river into Vivarais with the hope of joining the prince of Condé. But the governor of Provence, the count of Tende, aided by the viscount of Joyeuse, the Catholic general in these parts, blocked his passage. In the midst of this plight relief came to the viscount of Rapin in the person of his former comrade in arms. But at least Joyeuse had prevented the union of the viscounts with the prince of Condé.
The people of Vivarais resented the occupation of the country by these guerrilla chieftains, much as their ancestors two hundred years before had risen against the Free Companies during the reign of Charles V. The towns organized an army of their own and distinguished themselves by routing the viscounts upon one occasion. In January, 1568, the viscounts succeeded in their early purpose, penetrated the Catholic army and crossed the Loire at Blois. The relief of Orleans and their union with the prince of Condé before Chartres hastened the peace of Longjumeau.[1394]
During the interim between the armistice of Longjumeau and the outbreak of the third war, the viscounts, in common with most of the Protestant forces of the south, seem not to have disarmed, but stayed in the vicinity of Montauban, the Huguenot capital of the far south. When war was renewed, Joyeuse and Gordes, governor of Dauphiné, unsuccessfully tried to keep the Huguenots east of the Rhone from joining them in Languedoc. At Milhaud in Rouergue a great council of war was held at which practically all the Protestant fighting forces of the south save Guyenne and Gascony were represented.[1395] In conformity with the plan there arranged, the viscounts remained in Quercy and Languedoc while the main army crossed the Dordogne with the purpose of joining the prince of Condé. But in Périgord it was met and scattered, on October 25, 1568, by the duke of Montpensier and Marshal Brissac. The viscounts continued to operate in Languedoc against Joyeuse and others. The success of their activities, especially the destruction of Gaillac (September 8, 1568) was what led to the revival of the league at Toulouse under the cardinal of Armagnac on September 12, in the cathedral of St. Etienne. The recall of Joyeuse with the Catholic troops of Languedoc to the north to assist the duke of Anjou, left a clear field in Provence and Languedoc. The loss of Jarnac, March 13, 1569, where the prince of Condé was killed, may in part be ascribed to the fact that the viscounts refused to respond to his orders for them to come to him, so that the united forces of Anjou and Joyeuse overwhelmed the Huguenots. A similar reverse befell the Protestants on June 8 following, in the Ariège near Toulouse, where Bellegarde, the seneschal of Toulouse, routed the viscounts and captured the viscount of Paulin, who would have suffered the fate of the viscount of Rapin, had not Charles IX, less for magnanimity’s sake than to rebuke the parlement of Toulouse for violating the royal orders before, refused to have him delivered up to it.[1396] The shattered bands of the viscounts joined Montgomery, a leader of their own kind, who had been detached by Coligny from his own army, in the same month.
The reason for Montgomery’s appearance in the south is to be found in the peril threatening Béarn and Navarre at this time. Montluc had conceived the idea that Béarn might be conquered while its ruler was absent. The parlement of Toulouse energetically favored the project and on November 15, 1568, had issued an arrêt placing Béarn under its jurisdiction.[1397] In the early months of 1569 efforts were made with some success to corrupt the captains in the Béarnais army.[1398] When the plan was broached to the duke of Anjou he enthusiastically approved it. The time was auspicious, for it so happened that the suggestion coincided with his victory at Jarnac. Exactly a week after the battle[1399] he detached the seigneur de Terride with instructions to report to Montluc, for the duke thought Montluc could not be spared from Guyenne.[1400] This order was a bitter disappointment to Montluc, who wanted to conquer Béarn himself, and he ever thereafter cherished a hatred against Marshal Damville[1401] who was away from his government at the time with the duke of Anjou, believing that Damville’s jealousy of him was responsible for it. This may very probably have been so, for, as will be seen later, the enmity between the two was extreme.
Terride’s campaign began well. One by one, in rapid order, the fortified towns of Béarn collapsed before him—Pontacq, Morlaas, Orthez, Sauveterre, and Pau—the birthplace of Henry of Navarre, while the country round about was wasted with fire and sword. The queen of Navarre’s lieutenant was driven to find refuge in Navarrens, whose château, reputed to be impregnable, had been built by Henri d’Albret during his enterprises against Spain. On April 27, 1569, Terride began the siege of the castle of Navarrens.[1402]
Montgomery, who arrived at Castres on June 21[1403] bearing the double commission of the two Protestant princes,[1404] in the course of four weeks found himself in the neighborhood of Toulouse and at the head of the united forces of the viscounts and some levies made in Albigeois. Montgomery’s energy amazed Montluc who was soldier enough to give his enemy credit for really wonderful achievement. He had never been in the country before and all the forces he had brought with him were three score and ten horses, and he had no other forces but those of the viscounts in the beginning. He had to cross the Garonne river, too, the entire length of which was watched by spies. The belief of the Catholic captains in Languedoc was that Montgomery intended to organize the defense of the places the Protestants were possessed of, and this erroneous opinion seems to have been given currency by the Huguenots themselves, “who had ever that quality to conceal their designs better than we,” testifies Montluc. “They are a people that rarely discover their counsels, and that is the reason why their enterprises seldom fail of taking effect.”
PLAN OF THE FORTRESS OF NAVARRENS MADE BY JUAN MARTINEZ DESCURRA, A SPANISH SPY