Such are some of the characteristics and memories of the small inland town in which was born Dominique de Gourgues, the leader of the celebrated expedition against the Spaniards in Florida. He was the third son of Jean de Gourgues and Isabella de Lau, his wife.
He was born in the year 1537, in an age of religious conflict, when party spirit ran too high for any one to remain neutral, whatever their grade of piety. It might therefore seem surprising there should ever have been any doubt as to the religious convictions of De Gourgues. Because he was the avenger of the massacre of the Huguenots in Florida, he has often been identified with the Protestant party. Because he lived in an age when provincial and sectarian spirit often prevailed over patriotism, it has been taken for granted that sympathy with the religious sentiments of the victims of the Spaniards could alone have induced him to sell his property to provide for a distant and dangerous expedition that would never repay him even if successful. In a work entitled, La France Protestante, by MM. Haag, a kind of dictionary of Protestant celebrities in France, issued in 1853 by a proselyting press, whose works are everywhere to be found, De Gourgues is made a Huguenot. No proof is given, no doubt expressed—the surest and shortest way of carrying one’s point in these days. Assurance always produces a certain effect even on the thoughtfully-minded. They take it for granted it has some real foundation.
The Revue Protestante[163] makes the same assertion, appealing to De Thou and other historians.
Francis Parkman, in his Pioneers of France in the New World, says: “There was a gentleman of Mont-de-Marsan, Dominique de Gourgues, a soldier of ancient birth and high renown. That he was a Huguenot is not certain. The Spanish annalist Barcia calls him a terrible heretic; but the French Jesuit, Charlevoix, anxious the faithful should share the glory of his exploits, affirms, that, like his ancestors before him, he was a good Catholic. If so, his faith sat lightly upon him, and Catholic or heretic, he hated the Spaniards with a mortal hate.”
The English made the Catholic Church responsible for the massacre of the Huguenots. The account of Le Moyne, published in England under the patronage of Raleigh, inflamed anew the public mind against Catholicity, and the terrible words of the Spanish leader, El que fuere herege morira, were regarded as the echo of the church. Consequently the avengers of the deed were supposed to be necessarily Protestants—not only De Gourgues, but all his followers. Nor is this all. The whole family of the latter is said to have been converted to Calvinism in the XVIth century.
M. le Vicomte de Gourgues, the present representative of the family, desirous of vindicating the orthodoxy of his ancestors, and, in particular, of so illustrious a relative as Dominique de Gourgues, has given to the public incontrovertible proofs that the whole family was eminently Catholic, that Dominique lived and died in the faith, and that his expedition to Florida was a patriotic deed in which religious zeal had no part. He felt the anger of a man of honor against the cruelty of the Spaniards. A great national injury was to be avenged, and he was too good a soldier not to wish to be foremost in the conflict. And perhaps some private motives excited him to vengeance, for he had been taken himself by the Spaniards, and narrowly escaped death at their hands, and could therefore feel for these new victims of their barbarity. Moreover, his expedition was the expression of public sentiment in France concerning the massacre—the mere outburst of the electric current that ran over the country at such an insult to the honor of France. The assertion that De Gourgues was a Protestant is a modern invention without a shadow of foundation. None of the old French historians express any doubt as to his orthodoxy. Even the romances in which he figures represent him as a Catholic, as if his religion were a prominent feature in his character. Some years ago, a novel was published in the Siècle called “La Peine du Talion,” of which the Chevalier de Gourgues is the hero, and on his Catholicity turns the interest of the story. He is represented as a brilliant cavalier who has served in the wars of Italy, and is now an officer in the service of the Duke of Guise, whose favor he enjoys. An attachment is formed between him and Estiennette de Nérac, whose hand he requests in marriage. The Seigneur de Nérac expresses great surprise that Messire Dominique should forget the insuperable abyss there is between an ardent Catholic in the service of the house of Lorraine and his Protestant daughter.
But for more serious proofs. And first let us examine the orthodoxy of Dominique de Gourgues’ family.
That his parents were Catholics is proved by the list of those who appeared in the ban and arrière-ban at Mont-de-Marsan, March 4, 1537. “Noble Jean de Gourgues, Seigneur de Gaube and Monlezun, present at the convocation held in this town by order of the king.” And Isabella de Lau, his wife, requests in her will “to be buried in the church of the convent of the Cordeliers at Mont-de-Marsan,[164] before the chapel of the Conception where the ancestors of the said De Gourgues are buried.” It is sure, therefore, that Dominique was baptized in the Catholic Church at Mont-de-Marsan.
Dominique and his brother Ogier left their native place in early life and established themselves at Bordeaux. The former was never married, and seems to have made his home with his brother, to whom he was greatly attached. At the château de Vayries there were, a few years ago, four old evergreen trees of some foreign species, at the corners of the lawn before the terrace, said by tradition to have been planted by the hero of Florida.
Ogier became king’s counsellor in the council of state, and president of the treasury in Guienne, and, after serving his country faithfully under five kings, died full of years and honors at his house in Bordeaux, “without leaving the like of his quality in Guyenne.” He took part in all the affairs of the province, in the accounts of which we find many things significant of his religious convictions. Monluc mentions him in his Commentaries, as offering to procure wheat and cattle from the Landes, on his own credit, when it was proposed to fortify the coast to defeat the projects of the Huguenots. He placed his property as much as possible at the disposal of the king. He manifested great interest in the reduction of La Rochelle, and lent twenty-three hundred livres to enable the Baron de la Gardie to despatch his galleys to the siege, as is shown by the following letter from the king: