CIVIL WAR.
1565-1568
Henry but little acquainted with his parents.--Indecision of
Henry.--Hypocrisy of Catharine.--She desires to save Henry.--A
significant reply.--Indications of future greatness.--The
prophecy.--Visit of Catharine.--Endeavors of Catharine to influence
the young prince.--The return visit.--Obstacles to the departure.--The
stratagem.--Its success.--Home again.--Description of the
prince.--Evil effects of dissolute society.--Influence of Jeanne
d'Albret.--Catharine's deity.--Principle of Jeanne d'Albret.--The
cannon the missionary.--Devastation.--Indecision of the
prince.--Arguments pro and con.--Chances of a crown.--War
again.--Arrival of the Queen of Navarre.--Education of the
prince.--The Prince of Conde.--Slaughter of the Protestants.--The
battle.--Courage of the Prince of Conde.--The defeat.--Death
of the Prince of Conde.--Retreat of the Protestants.--Fiendish
barbarity.--Advice of the Pope.--Incitement to massacre.--The
protectorate.
While France was thus deluged with the blood of a civil war, young
Henry was busily pursuing his studies in college. He could have had
but little affection for his father, for the stern soldier had passed
most of his days in the tented field, and his son had hardly known
him. From his mother he had long been separated; but he cherished her
memory with affectionate regard, and his predilections strongly
inclined him toward the faith which he knew that she had so warmly
espoused. It was, however, in its political aspects that Henry mainly
contemplated the question. He regarded the two sects merely as two
political parties struggling for power. For some time he did not
venture to commit himself openly, but, availing himself of the
privilege of his youth, carefully studied the principles and the
prospects of the contending factions, patiently waiting for the time
to come in which he should introduce his strong arm into the conflict.
Each party, aware that his parents had espoused opposite sides, and
regarding him as an invaluable accession to either cause, adopted all
possible allurements to win his favor.
Catharine, as unprincipled as she was ambitious, invited him to her
court, lavished upon him, with queenly profusion, caresses and
flattery, and enticed him with all those blandishments which might
most effectually enthrall the impassioned spirit of youth.
Voluptuousness, gilded with its most dazzling and deceitful
enchantments, was studiously presented to his eye. The queen was all
love and complaisance. She received him to her cabinet council. She
affected to regard him as her chief confidant. She had already formed
the design of perfidiously throwing the Protestants off their guard by
professions of friendship, and then, by indiscriminate massacre, of
obliterating from the kingdom every vestige of the reformed faith. The
great mass of the people being Catholics, she thought that, by a
simultaneous uprising all over the kingdom, the Protestants might be
so generally destroyed that not enough would be left to cause her any
serious embarrassments.
For many reasons Catharine wished to save Henry from the doom
impending over his friends, if she could, by any means, win him to
her side. She held many interviews with the highest ecclesiastics upon
the subject of the contemplated massacre. At one time, when she was
urging the expediency of sparing some few Protestant nobles who had
been her personal friends, Henry overheard the significant reply from
the Duke of Alva, "The head of a salmon is worth a hundred frogs." The
young prince meditated deeply upon the import of those words.
Surmising their significance, and alarmed for the safety of his
mother, he dispatched a trusty messenger to communicate to her his
suspicions.
His mind was now thoroughly aroused to vigilance, to careful and
hourly scrutiny of the plots and counterplots which were ever forming
around him. While others of his age were absorbed in the pleasures of
licentiousness and gaming, to which that corrupt court was abandoned,
Henry, though he had not escaped unspotted from the contamination
which surrounded him, displayed, by the dignity of his demeanor and
the elevation of his character, those extraordinary qualities which so
remarkably distinguished him in future life, and which indicated, even
then, that he was born to command. One of the grandees of the Spanish
court, the Duke of Medina, after meeting him incidentally but for a
few moments, remarked,
"It appears to me that this young prince is either an emperor, or is
destined soon to become one."
Henry was very punctilious in regard to etiquette, and would allow no
one to treat him without due respect, or to deprive him of the
position to which he was entitled by his rank.
Jeanne d'Albret, the Queen of Navarre, was now considered the most
illustrious leader of the Protestant party. Catharine, the better to
disguise her infamous designs, went with Henry, in great splendor, to
make a friendly visit to his mother in the little Protestant court of
Bearn. Catharine insidiously lavished upon Jeanne d'Albret the warmest
congratulations and the most winning smiles, and omitted no courtly
blandishments which could disarm the suspicions and win the confidence
of the Protestant queen. The situation of Jeanne in her feeble
dominion was extremely embarrassing. The Pope, in consequence of her
alleged heresy, had issued against her the bull of excommunication,
declaring her incapable of reigning, forbidding all good Catholics, by
the peril of their own salvation, from obeying any of her commands. As
her own subjects were almost all Protestants, she was in no danger of
any insurrection on their part; but this decree, in that age of
superstition and of profligacy, invited each neighboring power to
seize upon her territory. The only safety of the queen consisted in
the mutual jealousies of the rival kingdoms of France and Spain,
neither of them being willing that the other should receive such an
accession to its political importance.
The Queen of Navarre was not at all shaken in her faith, or influenced
to change her measure, by the visit of the French court to her
capital. She regarded, however, with much solicitude, the ascendency
which, it appeared to her, Catharine was obtaining over the mind of
her son. Catharine caressed and flattered the young Prince of Navarre
in every possible way. All her blandishments were exerted to obtain a
commanding influence over his mind. She endeavored unceasingly to lure
him to indulgence in all forbidden pleasure, and especially to crowd
upon his youthful and ardent passions all the temptations which
yielding female beauty could present. After the visit of a few weeks,
during which the little court of Navarre had witnessed an importation
of profligacy unknown before, the Queen of France, with Henry and
with her voluptuous train, returned again to Paris.
Jeanne d'Albret had seen enough of the blandishments of vice to excite
her deepest maternal solicitude in view of the peril of her son. She
earnestly urged his return to Navarre; but Catharine continually threw
such chains of influence around him that he could not escape. At last
Jeanne resolved, under the pretense of returning the visit of
Catharine, to go herself to the court of France and try to recover
Henry. With a small but illustrious retinue, embellished with great
elegance of manners and purity of life, she arrived in Paris. The
Queen of France received her with every possible mark of respect and
affection, and lavished upon her entertainments, and fetes, and
gorgeous spectacles until the Queen of Navarre was almost bewildered.
[Illustration: THE FLIGHT OF THE QUEEN OF NAVARRE.]
Whenever Jeanne proposed to return to her kingdom there was some very
special celebration appointed, from which Jeanne could not, without
extreme rudeness, break away. Thus again and again was Jeanne
frustrated in her endeavors to leave Paris, until she found, to her
surprise and chagrin, that both she and her son were prisoners,
detained in captivity by bonds of the most provoking politeness.
Catharine managed so adroitly that Jeanne could not enter any
complaints, for the shackles which were thrown around her were those
of ostensibly the most excessive kindness and the most unbounded love.
It was of no avail to provoke a quarrel, for the Queen of Navarre was
powerless in the heart of France.
At last she resolved to effect by stratagem that which she could not
accomplish openly. One day a large party had gone out upon a hunting
excursion. The Queen of Navarre made arrangements with her son, and a
few of the most energetic and trustworthy gentlemen of her court, to
separate themselves, as it were accidentally, when in the eagerness of
the chase, from the rest of the company, and to meet at an appointed
place of rendezvous. The little band, thus assembled, turned the heads
of their horses toward Navarre. They drove with the utmost speed day
and night, furnishing themselves with fresh relays of horses, and
rested not till the clatter of the iron hoofs of the steeds were heard
among the mountains of Navarre. Jeanne left a very polite note upon
her table in the palace of St. Cloud, thanking Queen Catharine for all
her kindness, and praying her to excuse the liberty she had taken in
avoiding the pain of words of adieu. Catharine was exceedingly
annoyed at their escape, but, perceiving that it was not in her power
to overtake the fugitives, she submitted with as good a grace as
possible.
Henry found himself thus again among his native hills. He was placed
under the tuition of a gentleman who had a high appreciation of all
that was poetic and beautiful. Henry, under his guidance, devoted
himself with great delight to the study of polite literature, and gave
free wing to an ennobled imagination as he clambered up the cliffs,
and wandered over the ravines familiar to the days of his childhood.
His personal appearance in 1567, when he was thirteen years of age, is
thus described by a Roman Catholic gentleman who was accustomed to
meet him daily in the court of Catharine.
"We have here the young Prince of Bearn. One can not help
acknowledging that he is a beautiful creature. At the age of
thirteen he displays all the qualities of a person of
eighteen or nineteen. He is agreeable, he is civil, he is
obliging. Others might say that as yet he does not know what
he is; but, for my part, I, who study him very often, can
assure you that he does know perfectly well. He demeans
himself toward all the world with so easy a carriage, that
people crowd round wherever he is; and he acts so nobly in
every thing, that one sees clearly that he is a great
prince. He enters into conversation as a highly-polished
man. He speaks always to the purpose, and it is remarked
that he is very well informed. I shall hate the reformed
religion all my life for having carried off from us so
worthy a person. Without this original sin, he would be the
first after the king, and we should see him, in a short
time, at the head of the armies. He gains new friends every
day. He insinuates himself into all hearts with
inconceivable skill. He is highly honored by the men, and no
less beloved by the ladies. His face is very well formed,
the nose neither too large nor too small. His eyes are very
soft; his skin brown, but very smooth; and his whole
features animated with such uncommon vivacity, that, if he
does not make progress with the fair, it will be very
extraordinary."
Henry had not escaped the natural influence of the dissolute society
in the midst of which he had been educated, and manifested, on his
first return to his mother, a strong passion for balls and
masquerades, and all the enervating pleasures of fashionable life. His
courtly and persuasive manners were so insinuating, that, without
difficulty, he borrowed any sums of money he pleased, and with these
borrowed treasures he fed his passion for excitement at the
gaming-table.
The firm principles and high intellectual elevation of his mother
roused her to the immediate and vigorous endeavor to correct all these
radical defects in his character and education. She kept him, as much
as possible, under her own eye. She appointed teachers of the highest
mental and moral attainments to instruct him. By her conversation and
example she impressed upon his mind the sentiment that it was the most
distinguished honor of one born to command others to be their superior
in intelligence, judgment, and self-control. The Prince of Navarre, in
his mother's court at Bearn, found himself surrounded by Protestant
friends and influences, and he could not but feel and admit the
superior dignity and purity of these his new friends.
Catharine worshiped no deity but ambition. She was ready to adopt any
measures and to plunge into any crimes which would give stability and
lustre to her power. She had no religious opinions or even
preferences. She espoused the cause of the Catholics because, on the
whole, she deemed that party the more powerful; and then she sought
the entire destruction of the Protestants, that none might be left to
dispute her sway. Had the Protestants been in the majority, she would,
with equal zeal, have given them the aid of her strong arm, and
unrelentingly would have striven to crush the whole papal power.
Jeanne d'Albret, on the contrary, was in _principle_ a Protestant. She
was a woman of reflection, of feeling, of highly-cultivated intellect,
and probably of sincere piety. She had read, with deep interest, the
religious controversies of the day. She had prayed for light and
guidance. She had finally and cordially adopted the Protestant faith
as the truth of God. Thus guided by her sense of duty, she was
exceedingly anxious that her son should be a Protestant--a Protestant
Christian. In most solemn prayer she dedicated him to God's service,
to defend the faith of the Reformers. In the darkness of that day, the
bloody and cruel sword was almost universally recognized as the great
champion of truth. Both parties appeared to think that the thunders of
artillery and musketry must accompany the persuasive influence of
eloquence. If it were deemed important that one hand should guide the
pen of controversy, to establish the truth, it was considered no less
important that the other should wield the sword to extirpate heresy.
Military heroism was thought as essential as scholarship for the
defense of the faith.
A truly liberal mind will find its indignation, in view of the
atrocities of these religious wars, mitigated by comparison in view of
the ignorance and the frailty of man. The Protestants often needlessly
exasperated the Catholics by demolishing, in the hour of victory,
their churches, their paintings, and their statues, and by pouring
contempt upon all that was most hallowed in the Catholic heart. There
was, however, this marked difference between the two parties: the
leaders of the Protestants, as a general rule, did every thing in
their power to check the fury of their less enlightened followers. The
leaders of the Catholics, as a general rule, did every thing in their
power to stimulate the fanaticism of the frenzied populace. In the
first religious war the Protestant soldiers broke open and plundered
the great church of Orleans. The Prince of Conde and Admiral Coligni
hastened to repress the disorder. The prince pointed a musket at a
soldier who had ascended a ladder to break an image, threatening to
shoot him if he did not immediately desist.
"My lord," exclaimed the fanatic Protestant, "wait till I have thrown
down this idol, and then, if it please you, I will die."
It is well for man that Omniscience presides at the day of judgment.
"The Lord knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust."
Europe was manifestly preparing for another dreadful religious
conflict. The foreboding cloud blackened the skies. The young Prince
of Navarre had not yet taken his side. Both Catholics and Protestants
left no exertions untried to win to their cause so important an
auxiliary. Henry had warm friends in the court of Navarre and in the
court of St. Cloud. He was bound by many ties to both Catholics and
Protestants. Love of pleasure, of self-indulgence, of power, urged him
to cast in his lot with the Catholics. Reverence for his mother
inclined him to adopt the weaker party, who were struggling for purity
of morals and of faith. To be popular with his subjects in his own
kingdom of Navarre, he must be a Protestant. To be popular in France,
to whose throne he was already casting a wistful eye, it was necessary
for him to be a Catholic. He vacillated between these views of
self-interest. His conscience and his heart were untouched. Both
parties were aware of the magnitude of the weight he could place in
either scale, while each deemed it quite uncertain which cause he
would espouse. His father had died contending for the Catholic faith,
and all knew that the throne of Catholic France was one of the prizes
which the young Prince of Navarre had a fair chance of obtaining. His
mother was the most illustrious leader of the Protestant forces on the
Continent, and the crown of Henry's hereditary domain could not repose
quietly upon any brow but that of a Protestant.
Such was the state of affairs when the clangor of arms again burst
upon the ear of Europe. France was the arena of woe upon which the
Catholics and the Protestants of England and of the Continent hurled
themselves against each other. Catharine, breathing vengeance, headed
the Catholic armies. Jeanne, calm yet inflexible, was recognized as at
the head of the Protestant leaders, and was alike the idol of the
common soldiers and of their generals. The two contending armies,
after various marchings and countermarchings, met at Rochelle. The
whole country around, for many leagues, was illuminated at night by
the camp-fires of the hostile hosts. The Protestants, inferior in
numbers, with hymns and prayers calmly awaited an attack. The
Catholics, divided in council, were fearful of hazarding a decisive
engagement. Day after day thus passed, with occasional skirmishes,
when, one sunny morning, the sound of trumpets was heard, and the
gleam of the spears and banners of an approaching host was seen on the
distant hills. The joyful tidings spread through the ranks of the
Protestants that the Queen of Navarre, with her son and four thousand
troops, had arrived. At the head of her firm and almost invincible
band she rode, calm and serene, magnificently mounted, with her proud
boy by her side. As the queen and her son entered the plain, an
exultant shout from the whole Protestant host seemed to rend the
skies. These enthusiastic plaudits, loud, long, reiterated, sent
dismay to the hearts of the Catholics.
Jeanne presented her son to the Protestant army, and solemnly
dedicated him to the defense of the Protestant faith. At the same time
she published a declaration to the world that she deplored the horrors
of war; that she was not contending for the oppression of others, but
to secure for herself and her friends the right to worship God
according to the teachings of the Bible. The young prince was placed
under the charge of the most experienced generals, to guard his person
from danger and to instruct him in military science. The Prince of
Conde was his teacher in that terrible accomplishment in which both
master and pupil have obtained such worldwide renown.
Long files of English troops, with trumpet tones, and waving banners,
and heavy artillery, were seen winding their way along the streams of
France, hastening to the scene of conflict. The heavy battalions of
the Pope were marshaling upon all the sunny plains of Italy, and the
banners of the rushing squadrons glittered from the pinnacles of the
Alps, as Europe rose in arms, desolating ten thousand homes with
conflagrations, and blood, and woe. Could the pen record the
smouldering ruins, the desolate hearthstones, the shrieks of mortal
agony, the wailings of the widow, the cry of the orphan, which thus
resulted from man's inhumanity to man, the heart would sicken at the
recital. The summer passed away in marches and counter-marches, in
assassinations, and skirmishes, and battles. The fields of the
husbandmen were trampled under the hoofs of horses. Villages were
burned to the ground, and their wretched inhabitants driven out in
nakedness and starvation to meet the storms of merciless winter. Noble
ladies and refined and beautiful maidens fled shrieking from the
pursuit of brutal and licentious soldiers. Still neither party gained
any decisive victory. The storms of winter came, and beat heavily,
with frost and drifting snow, upon the worn and weary hosts.
In three months ten thousand Protestants had perished. At Orleans two
hundred Protestants were thrown into prison. The populace set the
prison on fire, and they were all consumed.
At length the Catholic armies, having become far more numerous than
the Protestant, ventured upon a general engagement. They met upon the
field of Jarnac. The battle was conducted by the Reformers with a
degree of fearlessness bordering on desperation. The Prince of Conde
plunged into the thickest ranks of the enemy with his unfurled banner
bearing the motto, "Danger is sweet for Christ and my country." Just
as he commenced his desperate charge, a kick from a wounded horse
fractured his leg so severely that the fragments of the bone protruded
through his boot. Pointing to the mangled and helpless limb, he said
to those around him, "Remember the state in which Louis of Bourbon
enters the fight for Christ and his country." Immediately sounding the
charge, like a whirlwind his little band plunged into the midst of
their foes. For a moment the shock was irresistible, and the assailed
fell like grass before the scythe of the mower. Soon, however, the
undaunted band was entirely surrounded by their powerful adversaries.
The Prince of Conde, with but about two hundred and fifty men, with
indomitable determination sustained himself against the serried ranks
of five thousand men closing up around him on every side. This was the
last earthly conflict of the Prince of Conde. With his leg broken and
his arm nearly severed from his body, his horse fell dead beneath him,
and the prince, deluged with blood, was precipitated into the dust
under the trampling hoofs of wounded and frantic chargers. His men
still fought with desperation around their wounded chieftain. Of
twenty-five nephews who accompanied him, fifteen were slain by his
side. Soon all his defenders were cut down or dispersed. The wounded
prince, an invaluable prize, was taken prisoner. Montesquieu, captain
of the guards of the Duke of Anjou, came driving up, and as he saw
the prisoner attracting much attention, besmeared with blood and dirt,
"Whom have we here?" he inquired.
"The Prince of Conde," was the exultant reply.
"Kill him! kill him!" exclaimed the captain, and he discharged a
pistol at his head.
The ball passed through his brain, and the prince fell lifeless upon
the ground. The corpse was left where it fell, and the Catholic troops
pursued their foes, now flying in every direction. The Protestants
retreated across a river, blew up the bridge, and protected themselves
from farther assault. The next day the Duke of Anjou, the younger
brother of Charles IX., and who afterward became Henry III., who was
one of the leaders of the Catholic army, rode over the field of
battle, to find, if possible, the body of his illustrious enemy.
"We had not rode far," says one who accompanied him, "when we
perceived a great number of the dead bodies piled up in a heap, which
led us to judge that this was the spot where the body of the prince
was to be found: in fact, we found it there. Baron de Magnac took the
corpse by the hair to lift up the face, which was turned toward the
ground, and asked me if I recognized him; but, as one eye was torn
out, and his face was covered with blood and dirt, I could only reply
that it was certainly his height and his complexion, but farther I
could not say."
They washed the bloody and mangled face, and found that it was indeed
the prince. His body was carried, with infamous ribaldry, on an ass to
the castle of Jarnac, and thrown contemptuously upon the ground.
Several illustrious prisoners were brought to the spot and butchered
in cold blood, and their corpses thrown upon that of the prince, while
the soldiers passed a night of drunkenness and revelry, exulting over
the remains of their dead enemies.
Such was the terrible battle of Jarnac, the first conflict which Henry
witnessed. The tidings of this great victory and of the death of the
illustrious Conde excited transports of joy among the Catholics.
Charles IX. sent to Pope Pius V. the standards taken from the
Protestants. The Pope, who affirmed that Luther was a ravenous beast,
and that his doctrines were the sum of all crimes, wrote to the king
a letter of congratulation. He urged him to extirpate every fibre
of heresy, regardless of all entreaty, and of every tie of blood
and affection. To encourage him, he cited the example of Saul
exterminating the Amalekites, and assured him that all tendency to
clemency was a snare of the devil.
The Catholics now considered the condition of the Protestants as
desperate. The pulpits resounded with imprecations and anathemas. The
Catholic priests earnestly advocated the sentiment that no faith was
to be kept with heretics; that to massacre them was an action
essential to the safety of the state, and which would secure the
approbation of God.
But the Protestants, though defeated, were still unsubdued. The noble
Admiral Coligni still remained to them; and after the disaster, Jeanne
d'Albret presented herself before the troops, holding her son Henry,
then fourteen years of age, by one hand, and Henry, son of the Prince
de Conde, by the other, and devoted them both to the cause. The young
Henry of Navarre was then proclaimed _generalissimo_ of the army and
_protector_ of the churches. He took the following oath: "I swear to
defend the Protestant religion, and to persevere in the common cause,
till death or till victory has secured for all the liberty which we
desire."