[696] "Addidere aliqui, nolle se in id operam conferre, ut quinquaginta aut sexaginta hominum millia, se Provincias administrantibus, igni concrementur." Strada, De Bello Belgico, tom. I. p. 203.
[697] Correspondance de Guillaume le Taciturne, tom. II. p. 112.
[698] Correspondance de Philippe II., tom. I. p. 378.
[699] Archives de la Maison d'Orange-Nassau, tom. II. p. 33.
[700] "A ce propos le duc d'Albe répondit que dix mille grenouilles ne valoient pas la tête d'un saumon." Sismondi, Hist. des Français, tom. XVIII. p. 447.
Davila, in telling the same story, reports the saying of the duke in somewhat different words:—"Diceva che ... besognava pescare i pesci grossi, e non si curare di prendere le ranocchie." Guerre Civili di Francia, (Milano, 1807,) tom. I. p. 341.
[701] Henry the Fourth, when a boy of eleven years of age, was in the train of Catherine, and was present at one of her interviews with Alva. It is said that he overheard the words of the duke quoted in the text, and that they sank deep into the mind of the future champion of Protestantism. Henry reported them to his mother, Jeanne d'Albret, by whom they were soon made public. Sismondi, Hist. des Français, tom. XVIII. p. 447.—For the preceding paragraph see also De Thou, Hist. Universelle, tom. V. p. 34 et seq.—Cabrera, Filipe Segundo, lib. VI. cap. 23.—Brantôme, Œuvres, tom. V. p. 58 et seq.
[702] It is a common opinion that, at the meeting at Bayonne, it was arranged between the queen-mother and Alva to revive the tragedy of the Sicilian Vespers in the horrid massacre of St. Bartholomew. I find, however, no warrant for such an opinion in the letters of either the duke or Don Juan Manrique de Lara, major-domo to Queen Isabella, the originals of which are still preserved in the Royal Library at Paris. In my copy of these MSS. the letters of Alva to Philip the Second cover much the larger space. They are very minute in their account of his conversation with the queen-mother. His great object seems to have been, to persuade her to abandon her temporizing policy, and, instead of endeavoring to hold the balance between the contending parties, to assert, in the most uncompromising manner, the supremacy of the Roman Catholics. He endeavored to fortify her in this course by the example of his own master, the king of Spain, repeating Philip's declaration, so often quoted, under various forms, that "he would surrender his kingdom, nay life itself, rather than reign over heretics."
While the duke earnestly endeavored to overcome the arguments of Catherine de Medicis in favor of a milder, more rational, and, it may be added, more politic course in reference to the Huguenots, he cannot justly be charged with having directly recommended those atrocious measures which have branded her name with infamy. Yet, on the other hand, it cannot be denied that this bloody catastrophe was a legitimate result of the policy which he advised.
[703] "On voit journellement gens de ce pays aller en Angleterre, avec leurs familles et leurs instruments; et jà Londres, Zandvich et le pays allenviron est si plain, que l'on dit que le nombre surpasse 30,000 testes." Assonleville to Granvelle, January 15, 1565, Correspondance de Philippe II., tom. I. p. 392.