Heroes of Modern Europe Part 7

Catherine de Medici had intended originally that her daughter should marry the {105} Catholic King of Portugal, and was angry with Philip II of Spain because he had done nothing to a.s.sist her in making this alliance. Charles IX longed to humble Philip, who was indignant that the "heretics" had been offered freedom of wors.h.i.+p in 1570, and had expressed his opinion rather freely. Therefore the Valois family did not hesitate to receive the leader of the Protestants, Henry de Bourbon, whose territory extended from the Pyrenees to far beyond the Garonne.

The Queen of Navarre disliked the match and was suspicious of the Queen-Mother's motives. She feared that Catherine and Catherine's daughter would entice Henry into a gay, dissolute course of life which would destroy the results of her early training, and she could not respond very cordially to the effusive welcome which greeted her at the court when she came sadly to the wedding.

The marriage contract was signed in 1571, neither bride nor bridegroom having much choice in the matter. Henry was probably dazzled by the brilliant prospects that opened out to one who was mated with a Valois, but he was only nineteen and never quite at ease in the s.h.i.+fting, tortuous maze of diplomacy as conceived by the mind of Catherine de Medici. Margaret was a talented, lively girl, and pleased with the fine jewels that were given her. She did not understand the reasons which urged her brother Charles to press on the match. He insisted that it should take place in Paris in order that he might show his subjects how much he longed to settle the religious strife that had lately rent the kingdom. It was a question, of course, on which neither of the contracting parties had to be more than formally consulted.

The Queen of Navarre died suddenly on the eve of {106} the wedding, and her son, with 800 attendants, entered the city in a mourning garb that had soon to be discarded. Gorgeous costumes of ceremony were donned for the great day, August 18th, 1572, when Margaret met her bridegroom on a great stage erected before the church of Notre Dame.

Henry of Navarre could not attend the Ma.s.s, but walked in the nave with his Huguenot friends, while Margaret knelt in the choir, surrounded by the Catholics of the party. Admiral Coligny was present, the stalwart Huguenot who appealed to all the finest instincts of his people. He had tried to arrange a marriage between Elizabeth of England and Henry of Anjou, the brother of the French King, but had not been successful, owing to Elizabeth's politic vacillation. He was detested by Catherine de Medici because he had great power over her son, the reigning monarch, whom she tried to dominate completely. A dark design had inspired the Guise faction of late in consequence of the Queen's enmity to the influence of Coligny. It was hinted that the Huguenot party would be very weak if their strongest partisan were suddenly taken from them. All the great Protestant n.o.bles were a.s.sembled in Paris for the marriage of Navarre and Margaret of Valois. They were royally entertained by the Catholic courtiers and lodged at night in fine apartments of the Louvre and other palaces. They had no idea that they had any danger to fear as they slept, and would have disdained to guard themselves against the possible treachery of their hosts. They might have been warned by the attempted a.s.sa.s.sination of Admiral Coligny, who was wounded by a pistol-shot, had not the King expressed such concern at the attempt on the life of his favourite counsellor. "My father,"

Charles IX declared when {107} he came to the Admiral's bedside, "the pain of the wound is yours, but the insult and the wrong are mine."

The King had the gates of Paris shut, and sent his own guard to protect Coligny. He was weak, and subject to violent gusts of pa.s.sion which made him easy to guide, if he were in the hands of an unscrupulous person. His mother, who had plotted with Guise for the death of Coligny, pointed out that there was grave danger to be feared from the Protestants. She made Charles declare in a frenzy of violence that every Huguenot in France should perish if the Admiral died, for he would not be reproached with such a crime by the Admiral's followers.

The bells of the church nearest to the Louvre rang out on the Eve of St Bartholomew--they gave the signal for a cruel ma.s.sacre. After the devout Protestant, Coligny, was slain in the presence of the Duke of Guise, there was little resistance from the other defenceless Huguenot n.o.bles. They were roused from sleep, surprised by treacherous foes, and relentlessly murdered. It was impossible to combine in their perilous position. Two thousand were put to death in Paris, where the very women and children acted like monsters of cruelty to the heretics for three days, and proved themselves as cunning as the Swiss guards who had slain the King's guests on the night of Saint Bartholomew. A Huguenot n.o.ble escaped from his a.s.sailants and rushed into Henry's very bridal chamber. He cried, "Navarre! Navarre!" and hoped for protection from the Protestant prince against four archers who were following him. Henry had risen early and gone out to the tennis-court, and Margaret was powerless to offer any help. She fled from the room in terror, having heard nothing previously of the Guises' secret conspiracy.

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Charles IX sent for Navarre and disclosed the fact that he had been privy to the ma.s.sacre. He showed plainly that the Protestants were to find no toleration henceforth. Henry felt that his life was in great jeopardy, for most of the n.o.blemen he had brought to Paris had fallen in the ma.s.sacre, and he stood practically alone at a Catholic court.

Henry understood that if he were to be spared it was only at the price of his conversion, and with the alternatives of death or the Ma.s.s before him, it is little wonder that he yielded, at least in appearance, to the latter. There were spies and traitors to be feared in the circle of the Medici. Even Margaret was not safe since her marriage to a Protestant, but she gave wise counsel to her husband and guided him skilfully through the perils of court life.

Catherine disarmed the general indignation of Europe by spreading an ingeniously concocted story to the effect that the Huguenots had been sacrificed because they plotted a foul attack on the Crown of France.

She had been hostile to Coligny rather than to his policy, and continued to follow his scheme of thwarting Spain by alliances with Elizabeth and the Prince of Orange.

Henry of Guise met the charge of excessive zeal in defending his King with perfect equanimity. He was a splendid figure at the court, winning popularity by his affable manners and managing to conceal his arrogant, ambitious nature.

After 1572 the Huguenots relied mainly on the wealthy citizens of the towns for support in the struggle against the Guise faction. In addition to religious toleration they now demanded the redress of political grievances. A republican spirit rose in the Protestant party, who read eagerly the various books and pamphlets declaring that a monarchy should not continue if it {109} proved incapable of maintaining order even by despotic powers. More and more a new idea gained ground that the sovereignty of France was not hereditary but elective.

Charles IX, distracted by the confusion in his kingdom and the caprices of his own ill-balanced temper, clung to Henry of Navarre because he recognized real strength in him such as was wanting in the Valois.

Henry III, his successor, was contemptibly vain and feminine in all his tastes, wearing pearls in his hair and rouging his face in order that he might be admired by the foolish, empty courtiers who were his favourite companions. He succeeded to the throne in 1575, and made some display of Catholic zeal by organizing fantastic processions of repentant sinners through the streets of Paris. He insisted on Navarre taking part in this mummery, for it was to his interest to prevent the Protestant party from claiming a n.o.ble leader.

Navarre had learnt to play his part well, but he chafed at his inglorious position. He saw with a fierce disgust the worthless prince, Alencon, become the head of the Protestant party. Then he discovered that he was to have a chance of escape from the toils of the Medici. In January, 1576, he received an offer from some officers--who had been disappointed of the royal favour--that they would put him in possession of certain towns if he would leave the court. He rode off at once to the Protestant camp, leaving his wife behind him.

The Peace of Monsieur, signed in February 1576, granted very favourable conditions to the Protestants, who had stoutly resisted an attack on their stronghold of La Roch.e.l.le. Catherine and Henry III became alarmed by the increasing numbers of their enemies, for a Catholic League was formed by Henry of Guise and {110} other discontented subjects in order to ally Paris with the fanatics of the provinces.

This League was by no means favourable to the King and Catherine, for its openly avowed leader was Henry of Guise, who was greatly beloved by the people. Henry III was foolish enough to become a member, thereby incurring some loss of prestige by placing himself practically under the authority of his rival. Bitterly hostile to the Protestants as were the aims of the League, it was nevertheless largely used by the Duke of Guise as a cloak to cover his designs for the usurpation of the royal power. The hope of Henry III and his mother was that the rival Catholics and Protestants would fight out their own quarrel and leave the Crown to watch the battles unmolested.

The last of the Valois was closely watched by the bold preachers of political emanc.i.p.ation. These were determined to s.n.a.t.c.h the royal prerogatives from him if he were unworthy of respect and squandered too much public money on his follies. It enraged them to hear that he spent hours on his own toilette, and starched his wife's fine ruffs as if he were her tire-woman. They were angry when they were told that their King regarded his functions so lightly that he gave audiences to amba.s.sadors with a basketful of puppies round his neck, and did not trouble to read the reports his ministers sent to him. They decided secretly to proclaim Henry III's kinsman, the King of Navarre, who was a fine soldier and a kindly, humane gentleman.

Navarre was openly welcomed as the leader of the Reformed Church party.

He was readmitted to Calvinist communion, and abjured the Ma.s.s. He took the field gladly, being delighted to remove the mask he had been obliged to wear. His brilliant feats of arms made him more popular than ever.

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When Anjou died, Navarre was heir presumptive to the throne, and had to meet the furious hostility of the Guise faction. These said that Navarre's uncle, Cardinal de Bourbon, "wine-tun rather than a man,"

should be their king when Valois died. They secured the help of Spain before publis.h.i.+ng their famous Manifesto. This doc.u.ment avowed the intentions of those forming the Catholic League to restore the dignity of the Church by drawing the sword, if necessary, and to settle for themselves the question of Henry III's successor. He bribed the people by releasing them from taxation and promised regular meetings of the States-General.

The King hesitated to grant the League's demands, which were definitely formulated in 1585. He did not wish to revoke the Edicts of Toleration that had recently been pa.s.sed, and might have refused, if his mother had not advised him to make every concession that was possible to avoid the enmity of the Guise faction. He consented, and was lost, for the Huguenots sprang to arms, and he found that he was to be driven from his capital by the Guises.

The King was accused of sympathy with the Protestant cause, which made his name odious to the Catholic University of Paris. He had personal enemies too, such as the d.u.c.h.ess of Montpensier, sister to Henry of Guise, who was fond of saying that she would give him another crown by using the gold scissors at her waist. There was some talk of his entering a monastery where he would have had to adopt the tonsure.

One-half of Navarre's beard had turned white when he heard that Henry III was revoking the Edicts of Toleration. Yet he was happiest in camp, and leapt to the saddle with a light heart in May 1588 when the {112} King fled from Paris and Guise entered the capital as the deliverer of the people. He looked the model of a Gascon knight, with hooked nose and bold, black eyes under ironical arched eyebrows. He was a clever judge of character, and knew how to win adherents to his cause. His homely garb attracted many who were tired of the weak Valois kings, for there was no artificial grace in the scarlet cloak, brown velvet doublet and white-plumed hat which distinguished him from his fellows.

Henry III plotted desperately to regain his prestige, and showed some of the Medici guile in a plot for Guise's a.s.sa.s.sination. When this succeeded he went to boast to Catherine that he had killed the King of Paris. "You have cut boldly into the stuff, my son," she answered him, "but will you know how to sew it together?"

Paris was filled by lamentations for the death of Guise, and the festivities of Christmas Eve gave way to funeral dirges. The University of Sorbonne declared that they would not receive Henry of Valois again as king. His only hope was to reconcile himself with Navarre and the Protestant party. Paris was tumultuous with resistance when the news came that Royalists and Huguenots had raised their standards in the same camp and ma.s.sed two armies. The Catholic League was beloved by the poorer citizens because it released them from rent-dues. The spirit of the people was shown by processions of children, who threw lighted torches to the ground before the churches, stamped on them, and cried, "Thus may G.o.d quench the House of Valois!"

The capital welcomed Spanish troops to aid them in keeping Henry III from the gates. He was a.s.sa.s.sinated {113} by a Burgundian monk as he approached the city "he had loved more than his wife," and Henry of Navarre, though a heretic, now claimed the right of entrance.

Navarre was the lineal descendant of Saint Louis of France, but for ten generations no ancestor of his in the male line had ruled the French kingdom. He was the grandson of Margaret, sister of Francis I, and Henry d'Albret, who had borne captivity with that monarch. Many were pledged to him by vows made to the dying King, who had come to look on him as a doughty champion; many swore that they would die a thousand deaths rather than be the servants of a heretic master.

In February 1590, Henry laid siege to Dreux in order to place himself between his enemies and Paris. Mayenne, the leader of the opposite camp, drew him to Ivry, where a battle was fought on March 14th, resulting in the complete discomfiture of the Catholic Leaguers. The white plume of Navarre floated victorious on the field, and the black lilies of Mayenne were trampled. The road to Paris lay open to the heretic King, who invested the city on the northern side, but did not attack the inhabitants. The blockade would have reduced the hungry citizens to submission at the end of a month if the Duke of Parma had not come to their relief at the command of the Spanish sovereign.

Philip II wished his daughter to marry the young Duke of Guise and to ascend the French throne with her husband. For that reason he supported Paris in its refusal to accept the Protestant King of Navarre. It was not till March 1594, that the King, known as Henri Quatre, was able to lead his troops into Paris.

Navarre had been compelled to attend Ma.s.s in public and to ask absolution from the Archbishop of Bourges, {114} who received him into the fold of the Catholic, Apostolic and Roman Church before the coronation. He was now the "most Christian King," welcomed with blaze of bonfires and the blare of trumpets. He was crowned at Chartres because the Catholic League held Rheims, and he entered Paris by the Porte Neuve, through which Henry III had fled from the Guises some six years previously. The Spaniards had to withdraw from his capital, being told that their services would be required no longer.

Henry IV waged successful wars against Spain and the Catholic League, gradually recovering the whole of his dominions by his energy and courage. He settled the status of the Protestants on a satisfactory basis by the Edict of Nantes, which was signed in April 1598, to consolidate the privileges which had been previously granted to the Calvinists. Full civil rights and full civil protection were granted to all Protestants, and the King a.s.signed a sum of money for the use of Protestant schools and colleges.

Henry introduced the silk industry into France, and his famous minister, Sully, did much to improve the condition of French agriculture. By 1598 order had been restored in the kingdom, but industry and commerce had been crippled by nearly forty years of civil war. When France's first Bourbon King, Henry IV, was a.s.sa.s.sinated in April 1610, he had only begun the great work of social and economical reform which proved his genuine sense of public duty.

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Chapter X

Under the Red Robe

Never was king more beloved by his subjects than Henry of Navarre, who had so many of the frank and genial qualities which his nation valued.

There was mourning as for a father when the fanatic, Ravaillac, struck him to the ground. It seemed strange that death should come in the same guise to the first of the Bourbon line and the last of the Valois.

Henry had studied the welfare of the peasantry and the middle cla.s.s, striving to crush the power of the n.o.bles whose hands were perpetually raised one against the other. Therefore he intrusted affairs of State to men of inferior rank, and determined that he would form in France a n.o.bility of the robe that should equal the old n.o.bility of the sword.

The _paulette_ gave to all those who held the higher judicial functions of the State the right to transmit their offices by will to their descendants, or even to sell them as so much hereditary property.

In foreign affairs Henry had attempted to check the ambitious schemes of the Spanish Hapsburg line and to restore the ancient prestige of France in Europe, but he had to leave his country in a critical stage and hope that a man would be found to carry on his great work.

Cardinal Richelieu was to have the supreme {116} honour of fulfilling Henry IV's designs, with the energy of a nature that had otherwise very little in common with that of the first King of the Bourbons.

Armand Jean Duplessis, born in 1585, was the youngest son of Francois Duplessis, knight of Richelieu, who fought for Navarre upon the battle-fields of Arques and Ivry. He was naturally destined for a military career, and had seen, when he was a little child, some of the terrible scenes of the religious wars. Peering from the window of the chateau in the sad, desolate land of Poitou, he caught glimpses of ragged regiments of French troops, or saw foreign soldiers in their unfamiliar garb, intent on pillaging the mean huts of the peasantry.

Armand was sent to Paris at an early age that he might study at the famous College of Navarre, where the youths of the day were well equipped for court life. He learned Spanish in addition to Latin and Greek, and became an adept in riding, dancing and fencing. When he left the humble student quarter of the capital and began to mingle with the crowd who formed the court, he soon put off the manners of a rustic and acquired the polished elegance of a courtier of the period. He spent much time in studying the drama of Parisian daily life, a brilliant, s.h.i.+fting series of gay scenes, with the revelation now and then of a cruel and sordid background.

The very sounds of active life must at first have startled the dreamy youth who had come from the seclusion of a chateau in the marsh land.

Cavaliers in velvet and satin rallied to the roll of a drum which the soldiers beat in martial-wise, and engaged in fierce conflicts with each other. Acts were constantly pa.s.sed to forbid duelling, but there were many wounded every year in the streets, and the n.o.bility would have thought {117} themselves disgraced if they had not drawn their swords readily in answer to an insult. Cla.s.s distinctions were observed rigidly, and the merchant clad in hodden grey and the lawyer robed in black were pushed aside with some contempt when there was any conflict between the aristocrats. The busy Pont Neuf seemed to be the bridge which joined two different worlds. Here monks rubbed shoulders with yellow-garbed Jews, and ladies of the court tripped side by side with the gay _filles_ of the town. Anyone strolling near the river Seine could watch, if he chose, the multicoloured throng and amuse himself by the contrast between the different phases of society in Paris.

Richelieu, who held the proud t.i.tle of Marquis de Chillon, handled a sword skilfully and dreamed of glory won upon battle-fields. He was dismayed when he first heard that his widowed mother had changed her plans for his career. A brother, who was to have been consecrated Bishop of Lucon, had decided to turn monk, and as the preferment to the See was in the hands of the family, it had been decided that Armand Jean should have the benefit.

Soon a fresh vision had formed before the eyes of the handsome Bishop, who visited Rome and made friends among the highest dignitaries. He was tall and slender, with an oval face and the keenest of grey eyes; rich black hair fell to his shoulders and a pointed beard lent distinction to his face. The Louvre and the Vatican approved him, and many protesting voices were heard when Richelieu went down to his country diocese.

Poitou was one of the poorest districts of France, the peasants being glad enough to get bread and chestnuts for their main food. The cathedral was battered by warfare and the palace very wretched. Orders to {118} Parisian merchants made the last habitable, Richelieu declaring that, although a beggar, he had need of silver plates and such luxuries to "enhance his n.o.bility." The first work he had found to do was done very thoroughly. He set the place in order and conciliated the Huguenots. Then he demanded relief from taxation for his overburdened flock, writing urgently to headquarters on this subject. He had much vexation to overcome whenever he came into contact with the priests drawn from the peasantry. These were far too fond of gambling and drinking in the ale-houses, and had to be prohibited from celebrating marriages by night, a custom that led to many scandals.

But Lucon was soon too narrow a sphere for the energy and ambition of a Richelieu. The Bishop longed to establish himself in a palace "near to that of G.o.d and that of the King," for he combined worldly wisdom with a zeal for religious purity. He happened to welcome the royal procession that was setting out for Spain on the occasion of Louis XIII's marriage to Anne of Austria, a daughter of Philip II. He made so n.o.ble an impression of hospitality that he was rewarded by the post of Almoner to the new Queen and was placed upon the Regent's Council.