History of the Rise of the Huguenots Volume II Part 26

[521] Floquet, Hist. du parlement de Normandie, iii. 36-42.

[522] Memoires de Claude Haton, ii. 533, 534. Similar regulations were made in many other places "c.u.mplurimis in locis." Jean de Serres, iii.

156.

[523] Jean de Serres, iii. 158, 159.

[524] De Thou, iv. 77, 78; Castelnau, l. vii., c. 1; D'Aubigne, i. 260; La Fosse, 97; Motley, Dutch Republic, ii. 184.

[525] Charles was, however, near experiencing trouble with the reiters of Duke Casimir. He had, by the terms of the agreement with the Huguenots, undertaken to advance the 900,000 francs which were due, and on failing to fulfil his engagements his unwelcome guests threatened to turn their faces toward Paris. Mem. de Castelnau, liv. vi., c. 11. At last, with promises of payment at Frankfort, the Germans were induced to leave France. Du Mont, Corps diplomatique, v. 164, gives a transcript of Casimir's receipt, May 21, 1568, for 460,497 livres, etc.

[526] Memoires de Castelnau, liv. vi., c. 9, c. 10. Duke John William of Saxe-Weimar was even more vexed at the issue of his expedition than Castelnau himself. It was with difficulty that he could be persuaded to accept an invitation to make a visit to the French court.

[527] Paris MS., _apud_ Soldan, Gesch. des Prot. in Frankreich, ii. 300.

Rumor, as is usual in such cases, outstripped even the unwelcome truth, and Norris wrote to Queen Elizabeth that the king had sent secret letters to two hundred and twelve places, charging the governors "to runne uppon them [the Huguenots] and put them to the sword." "Your Majestie will judge," adds Norris, "ther is smale place of surety for them of the Religion, either in towne or felde." Letter of June 4, 1568, _apud_ D'Aumale, Les Princes de Conde, ii. 363, Pieces inedites.

[528] When the Protestants at Rouen begged protection, the king sent four companies of infantry, which the citizens at first refused to admit. At last they were smuggled in by night, _and quartered upon the Huguenots_.

Floquet, Hist. du parlement de Normandie, iii. 43.

[529] Jean de Serres, iii. 157, 158.

[530] Ibid., _ubi supra_.

[531] Jean de Serres, iii. 161; Soldan, ii. 303.

[532] Soldan, ii. 306.

[533] Letter to Catharine, April 27, 1568, MS., _apud_ Soldan, ii. 303.

[534] Jean de Serres, iii. 163, 164. Pet.i.tion of Conde of Aug. 23d. Ibid., iii. 215, etc.

[535] MS. Bibl. nat., _apud_ Mem. de Claude Haton, ii. App., 1152, 1153.

Less correctly given in Lestoile's Memoires. The t.i.tle is "Sermens des a.s.sociez de la Ligue Chrestienne et Roiale," and the date is June 25, 1568.

[536] Prof. Soldan is certainly right (ii. 305) in his interpretation of the pa.s.sage, "tant et si longuement qu'il plaira a Dieu que nous serons _par eux_ regis en nostredicte religion apostolique et romaine," which Ranke (Civil Wars and Monarchy, p. 236), and, following him, Von Polenz (Gesch. des franz. Calvinismus, ii. 361), have construed as referring to "la maison de Valois." Involved as is the phraseology, I do not see how the word "eux" can designate any other person or persons than "ledit sr.

lieutenant avec mesditz sieurs de la n.o.blesse de cedit gouvernement et autres a.s.sociez."

[537] Jean de Serres, iii. 164.

[538] "Den Erfolg des letzten Krieges," well observes Prof. Soldan, "hatten die Hugenotten nicht ihrer Anzahl, sondern der Organisation und dem Geiste ihres Gemeindewesens zu verdanken. Diese bewegliche, weitverzweigte, aus einem festen Mittelpunkte gleichma.s.sig gelenkte und von Eifer fur die gemeinsame Sache belebte Vereinsgliederung hatte uber den lahmen und stockenden Mechanismus vielfach grosserer, aber in sich selbst uneiniger Krafte einen beschamenden Triumph erlangt." Geschichte des Protestantismus in Frankreich, ii. 303.

[539] Relations des Amb. Ven., ii. 116.

[540] Cipierre, a young n.o.bleman only twenty-two years of age, was returning, with a body-guard of about thirty-five men, from a visit to his cousin, the duke, at Nice, where he had been treated with great honor.

When approaching Frejus he perceived signs of treachery in a body of men lurking under cover of a grove, and betook himself for safety into the city, now, since his father's death, a part of the province of which his eldest brother was royal governor. The tocsin was rung, and his enemies, originally a band of three hundred men, being swollen by constant accessions to four times that number, the house in which Cipierre had taken refuge was a.s.sailed. After a heroic defence the small party of defenders surrendered their arms, on a.s.surance that their opponents would at once retire. The papists, however, scarcely made a pretence of fulfilling their compact, for they speedily returned and ma.s.sacred every one whom they found in the house. Cipierre himself was not among the number. To secure him a new breach of faith was necessary. The captain of the murderers pledged his own word to the magistrate that if Cipierre would come forth from his hiding-place he would spare his life. He discharged the obligation, so soon as Cipierre presented himself, by plunging a dagger into his breast. J. de Serres, iii. 166-168; Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 262.

[541] Pet.i.tion of Conde, Aug. 23, 1568, J. de Serres, iii. 210, 211.

[542] Vie de Coligny (Cologne, 1686), 349, 350; J. de Serres, iii. 166.

[543] Ibid., iii. 165; Recordon, from MSS. of N. Pithou, 155-157; MS. Mem.

historiques des Antiquites de Troyes, by Duhalle, _apud_ Bulletin de l'hist. du prot. fr., xvii. (1868) 376. Of the royal edicts guaranteeing the Protestants, the last author remarks that "ils firent plus de bruit que de fruit."

[544] Duc d'Aumale, Princes de Conde, ii. 364, Pieces justificatives.

[545] J. de Serres, iii. 168; Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 262.

[546] Jean de Serres does not expressly state that he refers to the combatants, but I presume this to be his meaning.

[547] Relazione di Correro, Rel. des Amb. Ven., ii. 120.

[548] "Montauban, etc., faisoient conter les cloux de leurs portes aux garnisons qu'on leur envoyoit." Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 261. It was the _garrisons_ only that were refused; the royal governors were promptly accepted. M. de Jarnac, for instance, had no difficulty in securing recognition at La Roch.e.l.le; but he was not permitted to introduce troops to distress and terrify the citizens. See the letters of the "Maire, Echevins, Conseilliers et Pairs," of La Roch.e.l.le to Charles the Ninth, April 21st, June 6th and 30th, etc. Le Laboureur, Add. aux Mem. de Castelnau, ii. 547-551. They deny the slanderous accusation that the Roman Catholics have not been permitted to return since the peace, a.s.serting, on the contrary, that they have greeted them as brethren and fellow-citizens.

They appeal to M. de Jarnac himself for testimony to the good order of La Roch.e.l.le. "Meanwhile," they say, "we are preserving this city of yours in all tranquillity, and maintain it, under your obedience, with much greater security, devotion, affection, fidelity and loyalty, such as we have received from our predecessors, than would do all others who were strangers and mercenaries, and not its natural subjects and inhabitants."

Norris to Queen Elizabeth, June 23, 1568: "The towne of Roch.e.l.le hathe now the thirde time bin admonished to render itself to the king." State Paper Office, Duc d'Aumale, ii. 367.

[549] His wife, Charlotte de Laval, whose brave Christian injunctions, as we have seen, decided the reluctant admiral to take up arms in the first religious war (see _ante_, chapter xiii., p. 35), lay dying of a disease contracted in her indefatigable labors for the sick and wounded soldiers at Orleans, whilst the admiral was at the siege of Chartres. On the conclusion of the peace he hastened to her, but was too late to find her alive. In a touching letter, written to her husband after all hope of seeing him again in this world had fled, a letter the substance of which is preserved by one of his biographers (Vie de Coligny, Cologne, 1686, p.

342), she lamented the loss of a privilege that would have alleviated the sufferings of her last hours, but consoled herself with the thought of the object for which he was absent. She conjured him, by the love he bore her and to her children, to fight to the last extremity for G.o.d and religion; warning him, lest through his habitual respect for the king--a respect which had before made him reluctant to take up arms--he should forget the obligations he owed to G.o.d as his first Master. She begged him to rear the children she left him in the pure religion, that they might one day be capable of taking his place; and, for their sakes, implored him not to hazard his life unnecessarily. She bade him beware of the house of Guise.

"I do not know," she added, "whether I ought to say the same thing of the queen mother, as we are forbidden to judge evil of our neighbor; but she has given so many marks of her ambition that a little distrust is excusable." The earlier biographer of Coligny (Gasparis Colinii Vita, 1575, p. 63, etc.) gives an affecting picture of the deep sorrow and pious resignation of the admiral.

[550] Somewhat hyperbolically, the biographer of the admiral (Vie de Coligny, p. 346) says that the concourse at Chatillon and Noyers was so great that the Louvre was a desert in comparison! When ten gentlemen left by one gate, twenty entered by another. The churches raised a purse of 100,000 crowns, one-half of which was to go to him, and the other half to the Prince of Conde; but, though nearly ruined by the enormous expenses of his hospitality, he declined to receive his portion.

[551] Noyers and Tanlay are ten or twelve miles from each other, in the modern department of the Yonne.

[552] Jean de Serres, _ubi supra_. Cf. De Thou, iv. 142; Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. fr. (1854), iii. 239. This valuable periodical is mistaken in stating, vii. (1858) 120, that "D'Andelot s'etait retire dans ses terres de Bretagne a la conclusion de la paix." He did not leave Tanlay until after writing the letter referred to below, and shortly before Coligny's arrival: "partant de chez lui, pour se rendre chez son frere Andelot, il trouva qu'il etoit alle en Bretagne." Vie de Coligny, 350. D'Andelot was in Brittany at the outbreak of the third war. His adventures in escaping to La Roch.e.l.le will be narrated in the next chapter. Mr. Henry White is, of course, equally wrong when he says (Ma.s.sacre of St. Bartholomew, New York, 1868, p. 291): "The admiral had gone to this charming retreat [Tanlay], to consult with his brother, to whom it belonged, _and who had joined him there_," and when he mentions D'Andelot as in the suite of Conde and Coligny in their celebrated flight (p. 292); "besides which, he (the prince) was accompanied by the admiral and his family, _by Andelot_ and his wife," etc.

[553] Lettre de Francois d'Andelot a la Royne mere du Roy, de Tanlay, co 8me juillet, 1568. MS. Library of Berne. This letter has been twice printed in the Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. francais, iv.

(1856) 329-331, and vii. (1858) 121-123. The first reproduction is in one important part more correct than the second. It is not impossible, after all, that the author of the letter was not D'Andelot, but his brother, Admiral Coligny himself; for M. J. Tessier mentions (Bulletin, xxii.

(1873) 47), that it exists in ma.n.u.script in the Paris National Library (MSS. Vc. Colbert, 24, f. 161), in the admiral's own handwriting, and signed with his usual signature, _Chastillon_. The whole tone, I must confess, seems rather to be his.

[554] Journal d'un cure ligueur (Jehan de la Fosse), 96.

[555] Norris to Queen Elizabeth, May 12, 1568, State Paper Office.

[556] Jean de Serres, iii. 170; Davila, bk. iv. 128; Conde to the king, Noyers, June 11, 1568, MS. Paris Lib., _apud_ D'Aumale, ii. 351-353.

[557] As the prince had described the state of affairs in a letter to the king, of July 22, 1568: "Nous nous voions tuez, pillez, saccagez, les femmes forcees, les filles ravies des mains de leurs peres et meres, les grands mis hors de leurs charges," etc. All this injustice had been committed with complete impunity. In fact, to use his own forcible words, were the king to attempt to punish the outrages done to the Protestants, "the trees in France would have more men than leaves upon them"--"tous les arbres seroient plus couvertz d'hommes que de feuilles." MS. Paris Lib., _apud_ D'Aumale, ii. 355, 356.

[558] J. de Serres, iii. 171-173; Davila, bk. iv. 128.

[559] The Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. francais, ix. (1860) 217-219, published from MSS. in the Library of the British Museum, the letter of Charles the Ninth to the first president of the Parisian parliament, dated "du chateau de Bolongne, ce premier jour d'aoust,"

enclosing the formula. The pretext is "afin d'oster tout ce doubte et differend qui regne aujourd'huy parmi nos subjectz." The president is to a.s.sociate with himself the seigneur de Nantouillet, provost of the city, and the seigneur de Villeroy, "prevot des marchands."

[560] Bulletin, etc., ix. (1860) 218, 219; Jean de Serres, iii. 175, etc.

[561] Jean de Serres (Comm. de statu rel. et reipublicae, iii. 174-183) inserts the reply of the Protestants to the proposed oath, article by article.

[562] Built by Francis I., and so named because constructed on the plan of the palace in which he lived when a captive in Spain.

[563] It is true the writer carefully avoids mentioning the cardinal's name, but there is no difficulty in discovering that he is intended.