Gandy concludes his view of the matter by giving 1000 or 1200 as the nearest approach to the truth; but the estimate of Tavannes, an actor, Kirkaldy, a witness, and the Tocsin, a Huguenot pamphlet, would seem to be most authentic.
Thus fell the great admiral, the Cromwell of France, in religion less fanatical than hypocritical, a soldier of a high order, aiming under Calvin's teaching to make France a commonwealth with a religious tyranny that would brook no opposition. A man who occupied long a prominent position as one of the high nobility and rulers of the land, but who was simply a destroyer, not a creator; for no great work, no line of sound policy, no important reform, is connected with his name. His life was most injurious to the country, and but for the cowardly and cruel circumstances attending his death, he would occupy but a subordinate place in French history. Few other victims were eminent: Peter Ramus, the learned professor, Pierre de la Place, President of the Court of Ans, and some say Goujon, the sculptor. In fact, the more able leaders of the party had not come to Paris, and this renders the deed indefensible even on the ground of policy. The few nobles who hastened to bask in the sunshine of the court, were not the men most to be dreaded. The slaughter of men and women belonging to the lower classes could but rouse the sympathies of Europe.
The work of blood was not confined to Paris. Throughout France, as the news spread of a Huguenot conspiracy against the king, the scene was reenacted. Of this, White remarks: "The writers who maintain that the tragedy of Saint Bartholomew's day was the result of a long premeditation support their opinion by what occurred in the provinces; but it will be found, after careful examination, that these various incidents tend rather to prove the absence of any such premeditation."
Were orders sent from court to massacre the Huguenots? White, on the authority of Davila, De Thou, and expressions in certain letters, inclines to the opinion that verbal orders were sent. Gandy as positively asserts that no such orders were given. The provincial registers show no trace of such orders. Yet he admits secret orders, subsequently recalled by Charles, and gives a letter addressed to Montsoreau, dated August 26th, which is explicit. The massacres took place as follows: Meaux, August 25th; La Charité, August 27th; Saumur and Angers, August 29th; Lyons, August 30th; Troyes, September 2d; Bourges, September 15th; Rouen, September 17th; Romans, September 20th; Toulouse, September 23d; Bordeaux, October 3d; Poitiers, October 27th. They were thus continued from time to time for two months; long after Charles formally revoked any secret orders given on the spur of the moment. This point is involved in as great obscurity as any other connected with the affair.
Several letters current as to the matter, including those of De Tende and Orthez, are manifest forgeries. As to Saumur, White represents Montsoreau as killing all the Huguenots in that town. The only authority, Mémoires de l'Etat de France, says he killed all he could, and the whole charge rests on this feeble foundation. There is similar exaggeration elsewhere. White, speaking of Lyons, says: "In this city alone 4000 persons are estimated to have been killed;" but in his note adds that one authority says that they were all killed in one day, "which is not probable." He then cites another contemporary brochure setting down the total at Lyons at 1800; and he corrects the error of De Thou, who asserted that the Celestine canons allowed Huguenots to be killed in their monastery, when Protestant authorities admit that the religious saved the lives of those very fugitives.
What was the number slain in the provinces? The martyrologies, by a detailed estimate, make those killed in Paris 10,000, elsewhere 5168, and names 152 as identified in Paris, 634 in the provinces; but the estimate for Paris is of the very highest, and should, as we have seen, not exceed 2000. The very fact that, with researches and personal recollections, only 152 names could be recalled, being one in a hundred out of 10,000, while elsewhere one in eight was known, is very suspicious. Taking his figures for the provinces, it would reduce the whole number in France to about 7000.
After giving the calculations or guesses of various authors, ranging from 2000 to 100,000, White says: "If it be necessary to choose from these hap-hazard estimates, that of De Thou is preferable, from the calm, unexaggerating temper of the man." De Thou's estimate for all France was 30,000. Gandy thinks the number given by Popelinière (2000) nearer the truth.
Under the examination of impartial history, the massacre of St. Bartholomew dwindles really to far less in numbers, extent, and brutality than the massacre of the Irish Catholics under Cromwell; and does not greatly exceed the number of victims of the Huguenot outbreak in 1563.
One other point remains. Charles, on the 25th, represented the massacre in Paris as a collision between the houses of Guise and Chatillon; but from the 26th he uniformly charges a conspiracy against his person. This he announced to all the foreign courts in explanation. His letter to Gregory XIII. announced the escape of the royal family and the punishment of the conspirators. The nuncio Salviati, in his letters, shows a belief in the reality of the plot. At Rome, the Cardinal of Lorraine, brother of the murdered Guise, was high in influence. What his views and feelings would be on the receipt of the tidings of the discovery of a plot, and the sudden action of the king, it is easy to conceive. In his eyes it was a triumph of justice, religion, loyalty, and law. The pope received the same impression, and under it proceeded to chant a Te Deum at Santa Maria Maggiore. Processions followed. A medal, well known from its frequent reproduction, was struck. But in all this there is nothing to show that Rome knew of the intended massacre or counselled it. Gregory XIII. approved it, only as represented in the brief despatches of Charles IX. and the verbal statements of Beauvillé, to which they refer.