Twenty Centuries of Paris

by Mabell S. C. Smith

Francis II (1559-1560) was Henry’s oldest son, known to-day only as the husband of Mary, Queen of Scots, whom he married in Notre Dame when he was fourteen and she was sixteen. He came to the throne a twelvemonth later and during the one short year of his reign he was a tool in the hands of the ex-Italian family of the Guises of which Mary’s mother was a member. Throughout France quarrels and conspiracies were rife, all having for their basic reason differences in religion and the lack of tolerance which could not allow freedom of belief.

Of Francis’s reign as it concerns Paris there is nothing of interest except the fact that his wedding supper, like that of his sister a year later, was given in the Great Hall of the palace of the Cité.

Francis’s death gave the crown to his next younger brother, Charles IX (1560-1574), who was but eleven years old. During the fourteen years of his reign Catherine de Medicis ruled, first as regent and later in fact though not in name. Her methods were tell-tale of her nature. She favored Protestants or Catholics as the moment demanded, she promised and did not fulfil, she deceived, she ordered assassination, she depraved the morals of her own children. All the time civil war went on, pausing now and again but never entirely ceasing.

The most horrible event of the whole hideous contest was the massacre of the Protestants which took place on Saint Bartholomew’s Day, August 24, 1572. Catherine had arranged that her daughter, Marguerite of Valois, should marry Henry, King of Navarre, the leader of the Protestants. Whether this was done in the hope of bringing the opposing parties together, or whether the queen-mother’s intention was to decoy as many prominent Huguenots as possible to Paris it is impossible to say. The fact that Henry’s mother, Jeanne d’Albret, died in Paris a few weeks before the wedding, probably from poison-saturated gloves, would seem to lend color to the latter theory. So suspicious of evil were the Huguenots that it is said that one-half of Henry of Navarre’s moustache turned white from fear when he saw two prominent Catholics talking together a little while before the wedding.

Events proved that such suspicions were not groundless. The wedding was set for the seventeenth of August. On account of the difference between the religious belief of Henry and his bride, it took place in front of the cathedral in the Parvis or Paradise of Notre Dame. This was an open place raised above the level of the adjoining streets and railed from it. Marguerite was so unwilling to marry Henry that she refused her consent even up to the moment when the archbishop demanded it. Her brother, the king, met the emergency by seizing her head and bobbing it and the service went on as if she had answered a legitimate “I will.” After the marriage the bride heard mass in the cathedral while the bridegroom admired the bishop’s garden. Dinner followed at the bishop’s palace, and supper at the Louvre. On succeeding days there were balls, jousts, and masquerades.

Four days later Admiral Coligny, the head of the Protestants, was attacked by a paid assassin but not killed. This piece of news was brought to Charles IX while he was playing tennis on one of the courts at the eastern end of the Louvre.

On the night before St. Bartholomew’s Day the Provost of the Merchants was summoned to the Louvre and received instructions to close the city gates, to fasten the chains across the streets, and to arm the militia. At the appointed hour, or rather, owing to Catherine’s eagerness, at two in the morning, an hour before the appointed time, the signal was given on the right bank by the bell of the church of Saint Germain l’Auxerrois, facing the eastern end of the Louvre, and on the Cité by that in the clock tower on the palace. Admiral Coligny, who lived just north of the Louvre, was killed in his bed and his body thrown from the window to the pavement where the Duke of Guise kicked it.

“They told us nothing of all this,” says the bride, Marguerite of Navarre, who has left an account of her experiences. “I saw everybody in action, the Huguenots desperate over this attack; M. de Guise fearful lest they take vengeance on him, whispering to everybody. The Huguenots suspected me because I was a Catholic, and the Catholics because I had married the king of Navarre who was a Huguenot. On this account no one said anything to me about it until evening, when being in the bedroom of the queen, my mother, seated on a chest beside my sister of Lorraine whom I saw to be very sad, as the queen my mother was speaking to some of them she noticed me and told me to go to bed. As I was courtesying to her my sister, weeping bitterly, seized my arm and stopped me, saying ‘Sister, don’t go.’ I was greatly frightened. The queen my mother saw it and called my sister and scolded her severely, forbidding her to say anything to me. My sister told her that there was no reason to sacrifice me like that, and that if they discovered anything they undoubtedly would avenge themselves on me. The queen my mother replied that if God so willed I should come to no harm, but, whatever happened, I must go, for fear of their suspecting something which would impede the outcome.

“I saw quite well that they were disputing though I did not hear their words. Again she roughly ordered me to go to bed. My sister burst into tears as she bade me good-night, daring to say nothing more to me, and I went away thoroughly stunned and overcome, without understanding at all what I had to fear. Suddenly when I was in my dressing room I began to pray God to take me under his protection and preserve me, without knowing from what or whom. Upon that, the King my husband, who had retired, summoned me to his room, and I found his bed surrounded by thirty or forty Huguenots whom I did not then know, for I had only been married a few days. They talked all night about the accident that had befallen the Admiral, resolving that as soon as morning came they would ask the king for revenge on M. de Guise and that if he would not give it to them they would take it for themselves. I still had my sister’s tears upon my mind and I could not sleep because of the fear she had inspired in me, though I knew not of what. Thus the night passed without my closing my eyes. At daybreak, the King my husband, suddenly making up his mind to ask justice from King Charles, said that he was going to play tennis until the King should awake. He left my room and all the gentlemen also. I, seeing that it was daylight, thinking that the danger of which my sister had spoken to me was passed by, overcome with sleep, told my nurse to shut the door that I might sleep comfortably.

“An hour after as I was still sleeping there came a man who beat on the door with hands and feet crying, ‘Navarre, Navarre!’ My nurse, thinking that it was the King my husband, ran at once to the door and opened it. It was a gentleman named Léran who had received a sword thrust in the elbow and a blow on the arm from a halberd, and who was still pursued by four archers who all rushed after him into my room. He, wishing to save himself, flung himself on to my bed. When I felt the man grasp me I flung myself out of bed, and he rolled after me still clinging to me. I did not recognize the man and I did not know whether he was there to attack me, or whether the archers were after him or me. We both screamed and we were equally frightened. At last, by God’s will, M. de Nançay, captain of the guards came. When he saw in what a state I was, though he was sorry he could not help laughing. He reprimanded the guards severely for their indiscretion, sent them away and granted to my request the life of the man who was still holding on to me. I made him lie down and have his wounds dressed in my dressing room until he was quite recovered. I had to change my clothes for the wounded man had covered me with blood. M. de Nançay told me what had happened and assured me that the King my husband was in the King’s room and that there would be no more disturbance. I threw a mantle over me and he escorted me to my sister, Madame de Lorraine’s, room, where I arrived more dead than alive. Just as I entered the antechamber, where the doors were all open, a gentleman named Bourse, escaping from the pursuit of the archers was pierced by a halberd-thrust only three paces away. I fell in the opposite direction into M. de Nançay’s arms thinking that the thrust had stabbed us both. When I had recovered somewhat I went into the small room where my sister was sleeping. While I was there M. de Mixossans, the King my husband’s first gentleman-in-waiting, and Armagnac, his first valet-de-chambre, sought me out to beg me to save their lives. I knelt before the King and the queen my mother to beg the favor from them and and at last they granted it to me.”