History of the Rise of the Huguenots Volume I Part 52

[Footnote 924: Geneva MS., _apud_ Baum, Theodor Beza, ii. 110.]

[Footnote 925: See the interesting pa.s.sage in the Hist. eccles. des egl.

ref., i. 204.]

[Footnote 926: "As touching the occurrents of this Court, it may please your Majesty to be advertised, that the King of Navarre being on his way to this Court, hath had letters, as I am informed, written unto him, of great good opinion conceived of him by this King, with all other kind of courtesies, to cause him to repair thither." Despatch of Sir Nicholas Throkmorton, Orleans, Nov. 17, 1560, Hardwick, State Papers, i. 138.]

[Footnote 927: The portrait of this personage is painted in no flattering colors by Calvin in two letters, to Sulcer, Oct. 1, 1560 ("whose mind is more lumpish than a log, unless when it is a little quickened by wine"), and to Bullinger, of the same date ("one whom you might easily mistake for a cask or a flagon, so little has he the shape of a human being"). Bonnet, Eng. tr., iv. 131-135.]

[Footnote 928: The despatches that pa.s.sed between the court and the French amba.s.sador in Spain reveal the general alarm. Oct. 4th, Cardinal Lorraine expects Navarre and Conde within the first half of the month, "dont je suis fort ayse." Oct. 5th, Francis writes that, within two days, he has heard that they intend carrying out their enterprise. Oct.

9th, the secretary of state complains of "fresh alarm daily." Negoc.

sous Francois II., 604-607, 610, 650. Others were, in the end, as much astounded as the Guises at Navarre's pacific att.i.tude. Throkmorton, writing to the privy council that this king was looked for shortly at Orleans, adds that all bruits of trouble by him were clean appeased, _which caused great marvel_. Despatch to privy council, Paris, Oct. 24, 1560, State Paper Office.]

[Footnote 929: Letter of Bishop of Limoges to the Cardinal of Lorraine, Sept. 26, 1560, _apud_ Negotiations sous Francois II., 562: "Je vous supplie de croire que le roy et mes seigneurs de son conseil [_i. e._, Francis and the Guises] ne feront rien pour extirper un tel mal qui ne soit icy [in Spain] bien pris et receu _a_ _l'endroict de qui que ce soit_ [sc. Navarre and Conde]: tant ceux-cy craignent qu'il y ait changement en notre religion et estat." Cf. also pp. 551, 552.]

[Footnote 930: Negociations sous Francois II., 553, 554.]

[Footnote 931: Instructions of the king to M. de La Burie, commanding in Guyenne, Sept., 1560, _apud_ Negociations sous Francois II., 578-580; also Ib., 644.]

[Footnote 932: La Planche, 377.]

[Footnote 933: La Planche, 375; Baum, Theodor Beza, ii. 120-123, whose account of this episode in the reformer's life is well written and interesting. For the general facts above stated the best authority is, as usual, La Planche, 373-377; see also La Place, 71; De Thou, ii. 807, 827; Hist. eccles., i. 205; Castelnau, l. ii., c. 9; Davila, 34, 35; Calvin's Letters (Bonnet), iv., pp. 132, 137, 143, 147-151.]

[Footnote 934: Calvin to Bullinger, Dec. 4th, and to Sulcer, Dec. 11, 1560 (Bonnet, iv. 149 and 151).]

[Footnote 935: La Planche, 377; Agrippa d'Aubigne, liv. ii., c. 19.]

[Footnote 936: La Planche, _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 937: Sommaire recit de la calomnieuse accusation de M. le prince de Conde, in the Recueil des choses mem. (1565), 722-754, and Memoires de Conde, ii. 373-395--a contemporaneous account by one who speaks of himself as "ayant a.s.siste a la conduicte de la plus grand part de tout le negoce."]

[Footnote 938: "Nevertheless, upon his coming, being accompanied with his brethren, the Cardinal of Bourbon and Prince of Conde, after they have [had] done their reverence to the king and queens, the Prince of Conde was brought before the council, who committed him forthwith prisoner to the guard of Messrs. de Bresy and Chauveney, two captains of the guard, and their companies of two hundred archers." Despatch of Sir Nicholas Throkmorton, _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 939: "The King of Navarre goeth at liberty, but as it were a prisoner." Despatch of Sir Nich. Throkmorton, _ubi supra_. "Tanquam captivus." Same to Lord Robert Dudley, same date, State Paper Office.]

[Footnote 940: La Place, 73; La Planche, 380, 381; Castelnau, 1. ii., c.

10.]

[Footnote 941: La Place, 74: La Planche and Castelnau, _ubi supra_; Sommaire recit, _ubi supra_. "Madame de Roy (Roye), the Admiral of France his sister ... is taken and const.i.tuted prisoner." Despatch of Sir Nich. Throkmorton, Orleans, November 17, 1560, Hardwick, State Papers, i. 139.]

[Footnote 942: "The Dutchess of Ferrara, mother to the Duke that now is, according to that I wrote heretofore to your Majesty, is arrived at this Court, the 7th of this present, and was received by the King of Navarre, the French King's brethren, and all the great Princes of this Court."

_Ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 943: Brantome, Femmes ill.u.s.tres, Renee de France; La Planche, 381; La Place, 74; "que si elle y eust este, elle l'eust empesche, et que ceste playe saigneroit long temps apres, d'autant que jamais homme ne s'estoit attache au sang de France, qu'il ne s'en fust trouve mal."

De Thou, ii. 830.]

[Footnote 944: "He remaineth close in a house, and no man permitted to speak with him; and his process is in hand. And I hear he shall now be committed to the castle of Loches, the strongest prison in all this realm." Sir Nich. Throkmorton, November 17, 1560, _ubi supra_, i. 138.]

[Footnote 945: La Place, 75, _ubi supra_; De Thou, ii. 832, 833 (liv.

26); Sommaire recit, _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 946: La Planche, 402.]

[Footnote 947: Ib., 401; La Place, 75; Sommaire recit, _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 948: La Planche, 400; Castelnau, liv. ii., c. 10.]

[Footnote 949: Sommaire recit, _ubi supra_. "For, being a prince of the blood, he said, his process was to be adjudged either by the Princes of the blood or by the twelve Peers; and therefore willed the Chancellor and the rest to trouble him no further." Throkmorton, Nov. 28, 1560, Hardwick, State Papers, i. 151. Castelnau (liv. ii., c. 11) has, by a number of precedents, proved the validity of this claim.]

[Footnote 950: Memoires de Conde, i. 619, containing the royal _arret_ of Nov. 20th, rejecting Conde's demand; Sommaire recit. The (subsequent) First President of parliament, Christopher de Thou, was, after Chancellor L'Hospital, the leading member of the commission. His son, the historian, may be pardoned for dismissing the unpleasant subject with careful avoidance of details. La Planche makes no mention of the chancellor in connection with the case, but records Conde's indignant remonstrance against so devoted a servant of the Guises as the first president acting as judge.]

[Footnote 951: La Planche, 399.]

[Footnote 952: La Planche, 401; Davila, 37, 38; Castelnau, l. ii., c.

12. The unanimous voice of contemporary authorities, and the accounts given by subsequent historians, are discredited by De Thou alone (ii.

835, 836), who expresses the conviction, based upon his recollection of his father's statement, that the sentence was drawn up, but never signed. He also represents Christopher de Thou as suggesting to Conde his appeal from the jurisdiction of the commission, and opposing the violent designs of the Guises.]

[Footnote 953: La Planche, 401; Castelnau, liv. ii., c. 12.]

[Footnote 954: La Planche, 405, 406, has preserved this striking speech, which I have somewhat condensed in the text. Agrippa d'Aubigne, Histoire universelle, _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 955: La Planche, it may be noticed, leans to this supposition.

Ibid., 405.]

[Footnote 956: Ibid., 406; D'Aubigne, _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 957: See Michele Suriano's account, Rel. des Amb. Ven., i.

528. The amba.s.sador seems to have entertained no doubt of the complete success that would have crowned the movement had Francis's life been spared: "Il quale, se vivea un poco piu, non solamente averia ripresso, _ma estinto dal tutto_ quell' incendio che ora consuma il regno." The Spanish amba.s.sador, Chantonnay, writing to his master, Nov., 1560, confirms the statements of Protestant contemporaries respecting the plan laid out for the destruction of the Bourbons, and then of the admiral and his brother D'Andelot; but the wily brother of Cardinal Granvelle, much as he would have rejoiced at the destruction of the heads of the Huguenot faction, was alarmed at the wholesale proscription, and expressed grave fears that so intemperate and violent a course would provoke a serious rebellion, and perhaps give rise to a forcible intervention in French affairs, on the part of Germany or England. "Pero a mi paresce que seria mas acertado castigar poco a poco los culpados que prender tantos de un golpe, porque a.s.si se podrian meter en desesperacion sus parientes, y causar alguna grande rebuelta y admitir mas facilmente las platicas de fuera del reyno ... o de Alemania o de Inglaterra." Papiers de Simancas, _apud_ Mignet, Journal des Savants, 1859, p. 39.]

[Footnote 958: Mem. de Castelnau, liv. ii., c. 12; La Planche, 404; Memoires de Mergey (Collection Michaud and Poujoulat), 567. The Count of La Rochefoucauld, hearing through the d.u.c.h.ess of Uzes--a bosom confidant of Catharine, but a woman who was not herself averse to the Reformation--that Francis had remarked that the count "must prepare to say his _Credo_ in Latin," had made all his arrangements to pa.s.s from Champagne into Germany with his faithful squire De Mergey, both disguised as plain merchants.]

[Footnote 959: La Planche, 404; De Thou, ii. 835 (liv. xxvi.). The latter does not place implicit confidence in these reports, while conceding that subsequent events would induce a belief that they were not dest.i.tute of a foundation. According to Throkmorton, also, writing to Cecil, Sept. 3, 1560, the chief burden was to rest with the clergy, who gave eight-tenths of the whole subsidy. State Paper Office.]

[Footnote 960: Ibid., 403; De Thou, iii. 82.]

[Footnote 961: Throkmorton's despatches from Orleans, several frequently sent off on a single day, acquaint us with the rapid progress of the king's disease, and the cold calculations based upon it. "The const.i.tution of his body," he writes in the third of his letters that bear date Nov. 28th (Hardwick, State Papers, i. 156), "is such, as the physicians do say he cannot be long-lived: and thereunto he hath by his too timely and inordinate exercise now in his youth, added an evil accident; so as there be that do not let to say, though he do recover this sickness, he cannot live two years; _whereupon there is plenty of discourses here of the French Queen's second marriage_; some talk of the Prince of Spain, some of the Duke of Austrich, others of the Earl of Arran." No wonder that cabinet ministers and others often grew weary of the interminable debates respecting the marriages of queens regnant, and that William Cecil, as early as July, 1561, wrote respecting Queen Bess: "Well, G.o.d send our Mistress a husband, and by time a son, that we may hope our posterity shall have a masculine succession. This matter is too big for weak folks, and too deep for simple." Hardwick, State Papers, i.

174.]

[Footnote 962: Throkmorton to Chamberlain, Nov. 21, 1560. British Museum.]

[Footnote 963: De Thou, ii. 833, etc. (liv. 26); D'Aubigne, liv. ii., c.

20, p. 103.]

[Footnote 964: On the 17th of Nov. Throkmorton had written: "The house of Guise practiseth by all the means they can, _to make the Queen Mother Regent of France_ at this next a.s.sembly; _so as they are like to have all the authority still in their hands, for she is wholly theirs_."

Hardwick, State Papers, i. 140. D'Aubigne (_ubi supra_), who attributes to the sagacious counsel of Chancellor de l'Hospital the credit of influencing Catharine to take this course.]

[Footnote 965: I must refer the reader for the details of this remarkable interview and its results, which, it must be noted, Catharine insisted on Antoine's acknowledging over his signature, to the _Histoire de l'Estat de France, tant de la republique que de la religion, sous le regne de Francois II._, commonly attributed to Louis Regnier de la Planche (pp. 415-418)--a work whose trustworthiness and accuracy are above reproach, and respecting which my only regret is that its valuable a.s.sistance deserts me at this point of the history.]

[Footnote 966: Ibid., 413.]