THE MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW
From a picture by François Du Bois of Amiens († 1584 at Geneva). The original, in the Museum Urlaud at Lausanne, is 3½ × 5 feet.
In the middle of the picture Coligny is being thrown out of the window, below which stand the dukes of Guise and Aumale and the bastard of Angoulême. Teligny, the admiral’s son-in-law is trying to escape over the roof. In the background is the Louvre, with Pilles being beset in the doorway. The bodies of Bricquemault and Cavagnies are hanging from the gibbet in the street. On the hill-top in the right of the picture the gibbet of Montfaucon is seen. On the left bank of the Seine some Huguenots are escaping by the Porte de Nesles—Montgomery is the man on horseback outside the gate. The windmill stands on Mont Sainte Geneviève.
The consternation of the Guises and Spain at the discovery of this double marriage project was great. The Guises sought to break the proposed marriage of Anjou and Queen Elizabeth by offering him Mary Stuart, and that of Henry of Navarre with the King’s sister by offering the cardinal d’Este as a prospective husband, since he was universally expected to succeed his brother, the duke of Ferrara who was without issue. Tuscan influence was used to this end. Spain and the papacy, for their part, dangled before the eyes of the duke of Anjou the post of command over the fleet preparing against the Turks.[1462] The gulf between France and Spain, however, was too wide to be bridged by such an offer. Disappointed at Bayonne, Catherine was dreaming of the elder daughter of the Hapsburgs as the future wife of Charles IX. Such a marriage appealed to her as a practical way of playing one house of Hapsburg against the other, although she plausibly represented it as a new tie that would bind France and the Hapsburgs in greater amity.[1463]
The counter-claims of France and Austria to the Three Bishoprics, and the renewal by France of her former relations with Turkey, retarded this negotiation.[1464] The greatest hindrance, though, was the opposition of Philip II. It was with the object of frustrating the designs of France that Philip II had transferred his ambassador in France, Chantonnay, from Paris to Vienna.[1465] At Bayonne, the queen mother had exerted all her influence in vain to prevail upon the court of Spain to commit itself. When Fourquevaux succeeded St. Sulpice at Madrid, he, in turn, continued to urge that Charles IX should marry the princess Anne; that Marguerite of Valois should marry Don Carlos, and Henry of Anjou the infanta Juana, Philip’s sister. But Philip II still hesitated between Mary Stuart and Anne of Austria, and suggested the younger daughter of Maximilian as prospective spouse for Charles IX.[1466] Matters remained thus undetermined for years. The marriage of Mary Stuart to Darnley in 1565 and the death of Don Carlos in July, 1568 raised Catherine’s hopes. But they were dashed to pieces after the death of Elizabeth of Valois, on October 3, 1568, when Philip II himself became the suitor for the hand of Anne of Austria. French and Spanish diplomacy thereafter plotted and counterplotted, until in 1570 the French King had to endure the chagrin of seeing his expected queen become the fourth bride of Philip of Spain and himself be satisfied with the younger sister, whose physical charms[1467] did not compensate for the injury to his pride.[1468]
But Philip gained another point of advantage over the French King, a point which the latter never discovered. The duchy of Lorraine, was a fief of the empire and had been so ever since the Middle Ages. Situated in the penumbra between France and Germany, the duke of Lorraine’s position had become a complex one and he was a vassal of France for the border duchy of Bar. As a sign of his amity toward the Emperor, Charles IX at the time of his marriage agreed to release the duke of Lorraine from his fealty to France. This waiver stirred the patriotic indignation of the keeper of the seal, Morvilliers, who resigned his office, declaring that he would not be an agent for separating from the crown of France any principality owing allegiance to it. Unfortunately for the future, the King appointed a secret partisan of Spain to the post. This was Biragues, a Milanese by birth, whose sinister influence was to play no mean part in the future.[1469]
As might be expected, the winter and spring of 1571-72 were filled with cross-negotiations of great importance. The greatest Catholic-Spanish fear was lest a positive alliance be made between France, England, and Holland, and perhaps the Protestant German states for the liberation of the Netherlands, that league to have greater binding force through the double marriage of the duke of Anjou and Queen Elizabeth and Henry of Bourbon to Marguerite of France.[1470] Spain, to prove France, made final demand of Charles IX: namely, that he forcibly suppress the activity of the prince of Orange in France; that Spain be permitted to levy Catholics in France to serve in the Low Countries; that France restrain the preparations of the Huguenots, especially those of La Rochelle, from aiding the Dutch cause on the sea; that France renounce her alliance with Turkey and join the Holy League against the Ottoman; and finally, that Charles IX abandon the project of marrying his sister to the prince of Navarre. Charles IX’s replies were very vague. To the first of these demands he replied that his country was too much exhausted by the late wars to take up arms for any cause; to the second he said that if he permitted Catholic levies to be made in France, the Huguenots would not believe them to be for service abroad but would again take up arms; as to the preparations at La Rochelle, it remained to be seen if their purpose was not mercantile instead of military.[1471]
The attitude of the various parties in France toward the crown’s Spanish policy was a peculiar one. The Huguenots and moderate Catholics of course urged the marriage of the King’s brother to Queen Elizabeth with the greatest zeal. But even intense Catholics, like Tavannes, singular as it seems, urged the match, with Machiavellian ingenuity estimating that the King, by incurring the deeper enmity of Spain, would be compelled to avail himself of their services, and thus, in the end, the cause of Catholicism in France would be promoted.[1472] The queen mother, with characteristic caution, professed much inclination for the match, but urged that it could not be attempted without hazarding the King’s honor. Meanwhile Montmorency, pushed it with all his ability, alternately urging Catherine de Medici and Lord Burghley by an assiduous correspondence.[1473]