THE THIRD CIVIL WAR (_Continued_). THE PEACE OF ST. GERMAIN
By the death of Condé the Admiral Coligny became the actual leader of
the Protestant cause in France,[1324] the more so when his brother
d’Andelot died on May 7,[1325] although the young prince of Condé and
his cousin, Henry of Navarre, were theoretically so regarded.[1326]
In the nature of things, the leadership of two boys—the former was
seventeen, the other sixteen years of age—could only be a nominal one.
After the first shock of dismay at the prince’s death had passed,
the Huguenots were not dispirited. It is true that numbers of the
Protestant gentry returned home.[1327] But the Huguenot position
was strong in upper and lower Poitou, for the line of the Charente
from Angoulême to Saintes was theirs, besides St. Jean-d’Angély, La
Rochelle, and the islands of Marins and Oléron.[1328] The admiral
rallied his forces at Tonnay-Charente,[1329] which he could do with
impunity since the duke of Anjou raised the siege of Angoulême on April
12.[1330]
The hope of the court was to prolong the war, since the King controlled
most of the towns and the river passages, “while the religion, their
conquered country excepted, had but the fields,”[1331] until the
resources of the Huguenots would at last become exhausted—money,
men, munitions. But the queen of England loaned 20,000 livres to the
Protestants, the jewels of Condé and Jeanne d’Albret being taken
as security.[1332] Jeanne d’Albret in person directed the foreign
negotiations of the Huguenots.[1333] The anxiety of the Huguenots
was greatest over the effect which Condé’s death might have upon the
foreign assistance which they were looking for, and letters from
the prince of Navarre and the other leaders of the Huguenot army in
Saintonge earnestly urged the reiters’ advance to the Loire.[1334]
Coligny’s hope was by making a detour by way of Cognac and Chalais to
reach the Loire and effect a junction with Deuxponts. To his great
relief, the prince of Orange and the duke of Deuxponts wrote assuring
the admiral of their continued adherence.[1335] As good as his word,
Deuxponts, who was at Pont-à-Mousson on January 11, 1569, entered
France near Langres, having passed by Joinville, the seat of the Guises
in Lorraine, where the old duchess of Guise was then staying,[1336] and
advanced upon Dijon where he arrived on April 26.[1337]
The real center of the government’s activity was Metz, which became the
basis of operations against Deuxponts and Orange.[1338] Active efforts
were made to repair the duke of Anjou’s losses and to strengthen his
position.[1339] The offer of Spanish support which Alva had made was
now formally accepted, for after the mission of Castelnau to the
margrave of Baden to get relief, he was sent into Flanders to solicit
the assistance of Alva, since it now had become the common interest
of both crowns to crush the Protestants.[1340] The French commanders,
the dukes of Nemours and Aumale, had received orders to prevent the
approach of Deuxponts at all cost,[1341] but Aumale, partially on
account of carelessness, partly because of misinformation, failed in
his task, and by clever management Deuxponts at last succeeded in
crossing the Saône above Bar into Auxerre and Berry, scaled the walls
of Nevers, thereby shortening the road between him and the Huguenot
army, and finally captured La Charité upon the Loire on May 20, after
ten days of siege, and thus controlled the link which united Huguenots
and reiters.[1342]
[Illustration: CAMPAIGN OF THE SUMMER & AUTUMN OF 1569
_Methuen & Co._
]
If the Huguenots had been dispirited after Jarnac, they had reason
to feel elated after the capture of La Charité. Although the duke of
Anjou kept the field in Saintonge, Angoumois, and Limousin, the army
was so mutinous for want of pay, so depleted by desertion and disease,
that it was far from formidable.[1343] Paris was in consternation
after the capture of La Charité and anticipated seeing the high hats
and great feathers of the reiters before long.[1344] The _échevins_ of
the city were ordered with all speed to make sale of the property of
the Protestants to provide means for a new army, which had to be made
up of peasant levies, “all their soldiers and men of the greatest
value being already abroad.”[1345] The queen mother, having received
letters complaining of lack of funds and mutiny in his army, bitterly
reproached Aumale for negligence and cowardice in letting the duke
of Deuxponts capture La Charité, and hastily started for the army in
Saintonge, in company with the cardinals of Lorraine and Bourbon, where
she went right among the soldiers with words of encouragement.[1346]
[Illustration: BATTLE OF LA ROCHE-L’ABEILLE, JUNE 25, 1569
(Tortorel and Perissin)]
But mutiny of the army, and the capture of La Charité, with the
prospective union of Coligny and the duke of Deuxponts, was not all
that worried the queen and the cardinal. Casimir of the County Palatine
was reported to be coming with 6,000 horse and as many foot; moreover,
the Emperor was hostile.[1347] The extremity of the government was so
great that compromise was necessary, and Catherine had in mind to patch
matters up by offering her daughter Marguerite of France in marriage
to the young Henry of Navarre—a plan whose consummation three years
later precipitated the massacre of St. Bartholomew.[1348] Marshal
Damville, the second son of the old constable, whose Politique leanings
already had made him conspicuous, was significantly appointed the
King’s lieutenant in Languedoc. Toleration was in the air once more.
But all of a sudden the Catholic cause revived for an instant.[1349]
Coligny fell ill, and the progress of the Huguenot army was thereby
impeded. Worse still, the duke of Deuxponts was stricken with a burning
fever, so that he died the very day of his arrival in La Marche.[1350]
Strozzi with some Italian forces attacked Coligny at La Roche-L’Abeille
on June 25, when the rain was pouring in such torrents that the
matchlocks of the Italians were useless, so that the soldiers on both
sides clubbed their weapons—in the expressive words of D’Aubigné,
“rompre croce sur cap”—that is, broke the crosses of their arquebuses
over the heads of their antagonists.[1351] In the conflict Strozzi was
taken prisoner. From this time forth the army of the King was simply
a disorderly mass of men. Famine and fever so reduced it that the
duke of Anjou was not able to defend himself, let alone invading the
enemy’s territory. To increase his forces, he put arms in the hands of
the peasantry of Limousin, with the result that a local _jacquerie_
prevailed in the province. Lansac was repulsed in assaulting La
Charité; Châtellerault (July 12) and Lusignan (July 20) were taken by
the Huguenots.[1352] The Catholics failed before Niort, to whose relief
the brilliant La Noue came after his own seizure of Luçon.[1353]
Under these circumstances the government was compelled to content
itself with maintaining the line of the Loire save at La Charité, while
it sought foreign succor.[1354] But the Swiss could not be expected
until the middle of September, and Coligny sought to profit by the
situation to take Saumur and thus secure a crossing on the lower
Loire also, and Poitiers, for which purpose he divided the Protestant
army,[1355] to the intense alarm of the government, which tried,
through the queen mother, to delay action by drawing the admiral into
an empty parley. This is the moment when the marriage of Henry of
Navarre with Marguerite of France was first broached. But the admiral
and Jeanne d’Albret were not to be deceived, and the siege of Poitiers
was resolutely continued. (It lasted from July 25 to September 7,
1569.) The Catholic party fully appreciated that the importance of the
war depended upon the success or failure of the Huguenots before this
city, into which the young duke of Guise, then but nineteen years of
age, had thrown himself on July 12 with all the ardor of his father
before Metz. If Coligny took the town, some notable prisoners of war
would have fallen into his hands, the dukes of Guise and Mayenne and
the abbess of La Trinité, a sister of the cardinal of Bourbon[1356]
and the ill-starred prince of Condé, the ransom of whom would have
abundantly provided for the reiters in the service of the Protestants.
[Illustration: SIEGE OF POITIERS, 1569
(Tortorel and Perissin)]
Poitiers was one of the most mediaeval towns in France. The remains of
its towers and fortifications, its narrow bridges, the ruined palace
of the ancient dukes of Aquitaine, everything recalled the life of a
vanished past.[1357] The admiral’s guns soon made two breaches in the
wall, but the fire from the castle and platform drove his men back and
the breaches were repaired. The town, however, was too large in circuit
for Guise to defend the whole,[1358] since many vineyards and fields
were within its walls, in consequence of which the French had made a
line of double trenches within the town. On August 19 the Huguenots
made a furious assault, broke through the wall, and drove the Guisard
forces back of the inside trenches. The enemy was “so straitly pent”
that for sixteen days the soldiers had to live upon horse-flesh. The
most remarkable incident of the siege was the driving-out of a great
number of people, old men and women and children, who were unable to
fight and could not be fed on account of the lack of provisions. So
reluctant were they to go that they had to be whipped through the
gates. Fortunately the duke of Guise took pity upon them at last,
although in the city bread was so scarce that the food of one had to
suffice for ten. All the horses and asses in the town were slain,
the gentry out of honor to their position sating their hunger on the
former. Of wheat, barley, and other grain there was none, nor was
there a green thing left growing in the city. Even rats and mice were
consumed.[1359]
[Illustration: POITIERS IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY]
The strength of Coligny (he had about 10,000 footmen and 8,000 to 9,000
horse) made it impossible for Anjou to dislodge him by direct attack.
His own strength, as appeared by a general muster on September 3,
consisted of 1,500 French gendarmes, 700 Italian horse, 1,000 Walloons,
and 4,000 reiters, besides La Vallette’s regiment of 400 horse—it was
much reduced during the siege—and the duke of Longueville’s and some
other companies. Of footmen he had 6,000 French, 4,000 Swiss, 2,500
Italians, and 2,000 Walloons. Although this army in actual numbers
excelled that of Coligny, in reality it was considerably inferior.
The troops were many of them without officers, the 6,000 French were
drafted peasantry unused to the use of arms; all of them were suffering
from hunger and many from fever. The duke of Anjou, therefore, with
the approval of his mother, determined to try to draw off Coligny from
before Poitiers by a feigned attack upon Châtellerault.[1360] For this
purpose he crossed the river Creuse on September 4 and planted his
artillery before the town. The honor of the first assault was given
to the Italians, which offended the French, who refused to support
them.[1361] Nevertheless a breach 40 feet wide was made in the wall, so
that the admiral, judging the place to be in great danger, sent 7,000
horse and 8,000 foot to the city’s relief, September 7. It was fatal
impatience on Coligny’s part, for the action relieved Poitiers from the
danger of being taken.
There was now no other recourse for the Huguenots except to give
battle. But Coligny was unwilling to do this at once, desiring to wait
until the devastation of the country round about still further reduced
Anjou’s forces. In the interval he withdrew across the Vienne. But the
mercenaries in both armies clamored for battle, for there was great
want of money on both sides, the King’s Swiss being unpaid for three
months, the reiters five, the admiral’s also being behindhand for three
months’ wages.[1362]
On September 30, at Moncontour, the two armies clashed in a preliminary
engagement. But three days later on Monday, October 3, 1569, the real
battle was joined. It must have been an impressive and thrilling sight
before the conflict began. In the Huguenot army the preachers moved
about encouraging the men, who sang the solemn psalms of the Calvinist
worship with fervor. Across the plain, the Swiss and Germans in the
royal host, after the German fashion, knelt and kissed the ground.[1363]
[Illustration: BATTLE OF MONCONTOUR, OCTOBER 3, 1569 (Tortorel and
Perissin)]
At the first shock it seemed as if the Huguenots would win, and they
cried in exaltation, “Victory, victory! The Evangel has won the victory
and has vanquished the mass of the popes. Down with the Papists!”[1364]
The admiral began the fray by charging Anjou’s center with 2,000
reiters and such French gendarmes as he had, but was himself attacked
on the flank by the duke of Aumale and Villars so furiously that he was
compelled to fall back. The Protestant infantry which had followed
the horse into the battle, was thus left unsustained, and when the
duke of Guise’s light horse charged, the lansquenets broke in flight,
abandoning the artillery. In the midst of the melée various companies
of reiters, seeing the battle lost, ran to their baggage, seized their
most valuable effects, and decamped in haste. Mansfeldt’s reiters
alone fought well; the others were of slight service. Matters were
little better with the hirelings of the King. Many of the leaders on
both sides were injured in the course of the battle; Guise in the hand
and foot, Bassompierre, a German captain destined to become a very
prominent man at court, in both arms; Anjou was borne to the ground
off his horse but escaped injury; Coligny was hurt in the face by a
pistol-ball. Among the Catholic dead was Montbrun, captain of the Swiss
guard. He was haughty and cruel, and a despot with his men, but it is
to his credit that he sought to prevent the soldiery from abusing the
peasantry.[1365] The most of the Huguenot dead were the German reiters
and lansquenets, many of whom were killed by their Catholic compatriots
or the Swiss, who distinguished themselves by their ferocity.[1366] The
fight endured for four hours, from 11 until 3 o’clock, at the end of
which time the forces of Anjou overthrew the admiral, routed both his
horse and foot, and captured his artillery and baggage. But for the
good fortune that some of Coligny’s horse intercepted a treasurer of
the King coming out of Limousin with 30,000 francs, the distribution of
which among his reiters quieted their murmurs, Coligny might have been
all but deserted by the German horse.[1367] As it was, he was able to
fall back on Niort and thence make his retreat to the far south.[1368]
Fortunately for the Huguenots, the enemy did not attempt pursuit of
them, but instead undertook the siege of St. Jean-d’Angély, which lay
directly in the way southward, to the disgust of the liberal marshal
Cossé and even Tavannes, who urged that the King, in the light of this
great victory, might now make peace with good grace.[1369] Others,
considering the strength of St. Jean-d’Angély thought that the war
would be protracted into the depth of winter and that the capture of
St. Jean-d’Angély would be of small importance while La Rochelle still
remained. Instead of accepting the advice, the government hardened
its policy. A reward of 50,000 crowns was offered for the head of
Coligny,[1370] 600,000 francs were distributed among the soldiers and
300,000 sent into Germany to make a new levy against the spring.[1371]
On October 16 Charles IX arrived before St. Jean-d’Angély and beheld
the greatest part of the royal troops ranged in order of battle.
Anticipating a desperate resistance upon the part of those in the
city, the King’s infantry requested to be equipped with the gendarmes’
cuirasses. One incident will illustrate the desperate valor of the
besieged. On the night of October 21 they made a sortie, entered the
enemy’s trenches, slew twenty men, took two ensigns prisoner, and all
the arms they found in the _corps de garde_, and returned into the
town. The Protestant garrison was not over 1,500 men, but in spite
of the odds against him (he had no artillery except falconets and
muskets, while Anjou had eleven guns, great and small), the Huguenot
commander, Pilles, refused to surrender. Instead, when the governor
of the town urged him to surrender rather than make resistance, the
desperate captain had him hanged and his body cast into the river.
The attack upon St. Jean-d’Angély opened on October 25, but although
the wall was badly battered, no sufficient breach was made for days.
The town resisted every attack until December 2, when it at last
surrendered.[1372]
Yet in spite of the double victory of Moncontour and at St.
Jean-d’Angély, hard experience was proving the wisdom of the course
advised by Tavannes and Cossé. The King was without money to pay the
Swiss and the reiters who threatened to mutiny at any minute. The
country round about the army was so denuded that there was great misery
for want of food and multitudes of the soldiers fell sick.[1373]
Finally, on November 24, in a sitting of the King’s council, Charles
IX was formally petitioned by certain of its members to make peace
overtures to his revolted subjects,[1374] and expressed his willingness
to comply with the request.
The hand of the government was forced by events; the courageous
resistance of St. Jean-d’Angély, Montluc’s action in resigning his
commission, and the growing strength of the Reformed among the southern
“viscounts,” made the crown think eagerly of peace. As an earnest
of this purpose, the King sent the liberal marshal Cossé in company
with De Losses, the new captain of the Scotch Guard, to La Rochelle
to confer with the queen of Navarre and La Rochefoucault. But Jeanne
d’Albret was not minded to use haste, to which the marshal meaningly
rejoined that “there were many of rank in the Protestant army who
would not give her that advice.”[1375] Yet even if she had wanted
to, the queen of Navarre could not have hastened a settlement. For
at this time there was a real division of opinion existing between
the Huguenot nobles and the people of the Huguenot towns like St.
Jean-d’Angély and La Rochelle. The former class were weary of war and
wanted to return to their homes and were in favor of peace and inclined
to make their own terms, even to the extent of ignoring the claims
of their coreligionists of the towns. The latter felt aggrieved at
seeing themselves thus deserted, when they had done so much to maintain
the general cause of the Huguenots, not merely in contributing money
but by making such heroic resistance as that of the people of St.
Jean-d’Angély, and Jeanne D’Albret sympathized with them. She would
not listen to talk of peace, being firmly convinced that it was but
another ruse, like that at Longjumeau, and resolutely declared that
there would be time enough to consider terms of peace when their
forces were more equal; that nothing short of the free exercise of
the religion as granted by former edicts would avail; that even if
all the Huguenot nobles consented to the terms, her own signature and
that of Henry of Navarre would never be affixed to any half-way terms
of pacification.[1376] But at last, after long debate, the queen of
Navarre yielded, and sent the admiral’s future son-in-law, Teligny,
who had conferred with Coligny, to the King to request “a good assured
and inviolable peace,”[1377] probably being in part influenced by the
treatment of St. Jean-d’Angély, whose garrison was suffered to march
out, bag and baggage, with colors flying. The Huguenots demanded
liberty of conscience, the restitution of their goods, estates, and
offices to those of the religion, and the reversal of all sentences
against them, together with guaranties for the observance of the
articles.[1378]
The essential issue, and that which protracted the debate so long was
the demand for _chambres mi-parties_,[1379] and that the crown give
over certain cities into the hands of the Huguenots to be garrisoned
and governed by them alone. On February 3, 1570, the King replied,
promising to grant amnesty for the past, the restoration of their
estates and offices to the Huguenots, the expulsion of the reiters,
with liberty of the religion within private dwellings and in two towns
which he would appoint.[1380] But Jeanne d’Albret, who conducted the
negotiations for the Huguenots, refused to be satisfied. In a long
letter to the queen mother a week later she recapitulated the former
negotiations at great length and complained of the government’s want
of good faith, especially alluding to the cardinal of Lorraine and the
duke of Alva.[1381] As a matter of fact the government was not yet
willing to give in. The cardinal of Lorraine still hoped to hasten
forward a new levy of reiters in Germany when spring should open, and
held out the vain hope of the restoration of the Three Bishoprics if
the Emperor would lend France this assistance and stay the Protestant
levies.[1382] But the Emperor himself had something to say about the
matter and asserted that he would not consider the proposed marriage
of his daughter with the French King until peace was concluded in
France.[1383] Aware of the Emperor’s attitude, the queen of Navarre
resolutely demanded terms of peace in conformity with the demands of
the Huguenots.[1384]
The arguments of peace urged by the marshal Cossé and others who shared
his thought had less influence upon the King and his counselors as the
storm of war drove off toward the south,[1385] to the elation of Pius
V, who overwhelmed Charles IX with protests against pacification.[1386]
South of the Loire the principal interest of the third civil war is
attached to the doings of that famous group of Huguenot warriors known
as the “viscounts,” with whom Coligny had failed to connect before
the battle of Jarnac. A brief account of the earlier achievements of
this group, who sometimes fought together, sometimes separately, and
had three or four thousand footmen and three or four hundred horsemen
in their command,[1387] is necessary at this point. There were ten
of these captains: Bernard Roger de Cominges, vicomte de Bruniquel;
Bertrand de Rabastenis, vicomte de Paulin; Antoine de Rabastenis,
vicomte de Montclaire; the vicomte de Montaigu; the vicomte de Caumont;
the vicomte de Parat; Geraud de Lomagne, vicomte de Sevignac (near
Beaucaire), a brother of Terride, who was a Catholic and implicated
with Montluc in the project to deliver Guyenne to the King of
Spain;[1388] the vicomte d’Arpajon; the vicomte de Rapin; and the
vicomte de Gourdon.[1389] Three of these, and the most conspicuous,
save Rapin, the viscounts of Paulin, Bruniquel, and Arpajon were
natives of the diocese of Albi, a stronghold of heresy from mediaeval
times; the first had seen service in Piedmont in the reign of Henry II,
and the ancestors of all three of them had fought against Ferdinand of
Aragon in 1495.[1390] The viscount of Rapin was a leader of the great
Huguenot rising in Toulouse in 1562, and was made Protestant governor
of Montauban in 1564 by the prince of Condé.[1391] He was so bitterly
hated by the people of Toulouse that he was accused of wanting to
destroy the city utterly and remove the very stones to Montauban. He
had fought in the second civil war, but was betrayed into the hands
of the magistrates of Toulouse and condemned and executed there on
April 13, 1569, in defiance of the King’s orders to the contrary. The
Huguenots took terrible reprisal for this outrage, devastating the
environs of Toulouse for leagues around, even inscribing on the ruins
“Vengeance de Rapin.”[1392]
These four viscounts were the nucleus of the group and began their
career in the first civil war. But save Rapin, none became conspicuous
then. During the second war the others were drawn to the standard.
They operated in Languedoc and Quercy at first, aided by the peasantry
who seem to have turned toward them as natural enemies of the higher
nobles.[1393] In the summer and autumn of 1568 their united hosts
made a mighty raid up the valley of the Rhone from Montauban through
Rouergue and the Cévennes, where part of the troops crossed the Rhone
under the viscount of Rapin and joined the Protestant army of Dauphiné
and Provence under a former lieutenant of Des Adresse. The rest
remained in Languedoc. Later Rapin recrossed the river into Vivarais
with the hope of joining the prince of Condé. But the governor of
Provence, the count of Tende, aided by the viscount of Joyeuse, the
Catholic general in these parts, blocked his passage. In the midst of
this plight relief came to the viscount of Rapin in the person of his
former comrade in arms. But at least Joyeuse had prevented the union of
the viscounts with the prince of Condé.
The people of Vivarais resented the occupation of the country by these
guerrilla chieftains, much as their ancestors two hundred years before
had risen against the Free Companies during the reign of Charles V.
The towns organized an army of their own and distinguished themselves
by routing the viscounts upon one occasion. In January, 1568, the
viscounts succeeded in their early purpose, penetrated the Catholic
army and crossed the Loire at Blois. The relief of Orleans and their
union with the prince of Condé before Chartres hastened the peace of
Longjumeau.[1394]
During the interim between the armistice of Longjumeau and the outbreak
of the third war, the viscounts, in common with most of the Protestant
forces of the south, seem not to have disarmed, but stayed in the
vicinity of Montauban, the Huguenot capital of the far south. When war
was renewed, Joyeuse and Gordes, governor of Dauphiné, unsuccessfully
tried to keep the Huguenots east of the Rhone from joining them in
Languedoc. At Milhaud in Rouergue a great council of war was held at
which practically all the Protestant fighting forces of the south save
Guyenne and Gascony were represented.[1395] In conformity with the
plan there arranged, the viscounts remained in Quercy and Languedoc
while the main army crossed the Dordogne with the purpose of joining
the prince of Condé. But in Périgord it was met and scattered, on
October 25, 1568, by the duke of Montpensier and Marshal Brissac.
The viscounts continued to operate in Languedoc against Joyeuse and
others. The success of their activities, especially the destruction
of Gaillac (September 8, 1568) was what led to the revival of the
league at Toulouse under the cardinal of Armagnac on September 12, in
the cathedral of St. Etienne. The recall of Joyeuse with the Catholic
troops of Languedoc to the north to assist the duke of Anjou, left a
clear field in Provence and Languedoc. The loss of Jarnac, March 13,
1569, where the prince of Condé was killed, may in part be ascribed
to the fact that the viscounts refused to respond to his orders for
them to come to him, so that the united forces of Anjou and Joyeuse
overwhelmed the Huguenots. A similar reverse befell the Protestants on
June 8 following, in the Ariège near Toulouse, where Bellegarde, the
seneschal of Toulouse, routed the viscounts and captured the viscount
of Paulin, who would have suffered the fate of the viscount of Rapin,
had not Charles IX, less for magnanimity’s sake than to rebuke the
parlement of Toulouse for violating the royal orders before, refused to
have him delivered up to it.[1396] The shattered bands of the viscounts
joined Montgomery, a leader of their own kind, who had been detached by
Coligny from his own army, in the same month.
The reason for Montgomery’s appearance in the south is to be found
in the peril threatening Béarn and Navarre at this time. Montluc had
conceived the idea that Béarn might be conquered while its ruler was
absent. The parlement of Toulouse energetically favored the project
and on November 15, 1568, had issued an _arrêt_ placing Béarn under
its jurisdiction.[1397] In the early months of 1569 efforts were made
with some success to corrupt the captains in the Béarnais army.[1398]
When the plan was broached to the duke of Anjou he enthusiastically
approved it. The time was auspicious, for it so happened that the
suggestion coincided with his victory at Jarnac. Exactly a week after
the battle[1399] he detached the seigneur de Terride with instructions
to report to Montluc, for the duke thought Montluc could not be spared
from Guyenne.[1400] This order was a bitter disappointment to Montluc,
who wanted to conquer Béarn himself, and he ever thereafter cherished a
hatred against Marshal Damville[1401] who was away from his government
at the time with the duke of Anjou, believing that Damville’s jealousy
of him was responsible for it. This may very probably have been so,
for, as will be seen later, the enmity between the two was extreme.
Terride’s campaign began well. One by one, in rapid order, the
fortified towns of Béarn collapsed before him—Pontacq, Morlaas,
Orthez, Sauveterre, and Pau—the birthplace of Henry of Navarre, while
the country round about was wasted with fire and sword. The queen of
Navarre’s lieutenant was driven to find refuge in Navarrens, whose
château, reputed to be impregnable, had been built by Henri d’Albret
during his enterprises against Spain. On April 27, 1569, Terride began
the siege of the castle of Navarrens.[1402]
Montgomery, who arrived at Castres on June 21[1403] bearing the double
commission of the two Protestant princes,[1404] in the course of four
weeks found himself in the neighborhood of Toulouse and at the head of
the united forces of the viscounts and some levies made in Albigeois.
Montgomery’s energy amazed Montluc who was soldier enough to give his
enemy credit for really wonderful achievement. He had never been in
the country before and all the forces he had brought with him were
three score and ten horses, and he had no other forces but those of the
viscounts in the beginning. He had to cross the Garonne river, too,
the entire length of which was watched by spies. The belief of the
Catholic captains in Languedoc was that Montgomery intended to organize
the defense of the places the Protestants were possessed of, and this
erroneous opinion seems to have been given currency by the Huguenots
themselves, “who had ever that quality to conceal their designs better
than we,” testifies Montluc. “They are a people that rarely discover
their counsels, and that is the reason why their enterprises seldom
fail of taking effect.”
[Illustration: PLAN OF THE FORTRESS OF NAVARRENS MADE BY JUAN MARTINEZ
DESCURRA, A SPANISH SPY
In Archives nationales, K. 1499, No. 84.]
By rapid marching Montgomery reached Navarrens incredibly soon.
Terride, his soldiers wearied out by a siege which had endured for
three months and a half in midsummer, loaded with spoil, licentious
and mutinous to an extent that shamed even the reiters, abandoned the
siege and fell back on Orthez. But the city was not proof against the
attacks of the viscounts. In broad daylight the walls were carried
_par escalade_. On August 13, Terride, who had taken refuge in the
castle with so much haste that he was without provisions or munitions,
surrendered. He himself was spared by Montgomery for the purpose of
being exchanged for the latter’s brother, but died before the transfer
was made. His captains, almost to a man, were put to death. Some of
these were former officers in the Béarnais army and were legally guilty
of treason, but the real motive of Montgomery was reprisal for the
ravages done by Terride’s army. At the beginning of the war the queen’s
lieutenant, the heroic baron de Larboust, either in the hope of sparing
Béarn, or anticipating what would be meted out again, had proposed to
neutralize Béarn, putting it into the custody of the count de Grammont,
even offering to oppose Montgomery if it were done. Terride refused
and paid the price of his wilfulness and bigotry. Béarn was saved by
Montgomery, in the most brilliant and most honorable campaign of his
checkered career.[1405]
The Catholic failure to conquer Béarn goaded Montluc’s slumbering
hatred of Damville to fury, for he believed the utter collapse of the
Protestant cause would have followed the conquest.[1406] He blamed
Damville for it, asserting that Terride’s overthrow was due to his
slowness. But the marshal had had great difficulty in returning to his
government. The Huguenots were in full possession of Quercy and the
Albigeois, and the region around Toulouse was so much overrun by them
that Damville was unable to reach Toulouse until the end of June.[1407]
It took Montgomery even with the viscounts immediately at hand, nearly
five weeks (June 21-July 27) to prepare for the relief of Navarrens,
though the desperate condition of things there required haste, and with
the entire civil as well as military burden of Languedoc upon him,
a burden that necessarily had accumulated, too, during his absence,
Damville could hardly be expected, with justice, to have got ready
to go against Montgomery before the middle of August, by which time
the siege of Navarrens was over. The truth is, Montluc and Damville
radically disagreed as to the policy to be pursued in the south.
Montluc’s patent covered the territory of Guyenne only. But Montluc,
with a mere soldier’s disregard for forms of law, believed that it
was a soldier’s duty to go where the need was greatest. He made the
proposal that when Damville should have won a town in Languedoc he
would come to attack another in Guyenne. To this the marshal demurred,
asserting that it was his duty to attempt to recover what had been
lost in his government and pointed to his commission. Montluc derided
the plea and accused Damville of being so proud “a grand lord, son to a
constable and a marshal of France,” that he would not work with a poor
gentleman.[1408]
In the late summer (1569) Montgomery victoriously returned from Béarn,
having reached the highest point of his reputation. Within six weeks
he had gathered an army, marched leagues through a strange and hostile
country, crossed the Garonne and raised a siege against equal forces,
and turned the Catholic conquest of Béarn into defeat. It seemed a
dream both to friend and foe. Nobly did his enemy say: “In all the
wars there never was performed a more notable exploit.” If Montgomery
had failed, Coligny would have had no place to retire to after the loss
of Moncontour. For he came from that field of Protestant overthrow
with the relics of an army only, mostly gentry and reiters, for the
infantry was almost all cut to pieces or captured, without baggage,
without money, even the horses needing to be reshod. It was well that
the admiral could throw himself into the arms of Montgomery and the
viscounts who enriched him with the spirit of their success and drew
thousands, literally, to the Huguenot standard by the magic of their
achievements. His following increased so rapidly that by the time
he reached Montpellier he again had between ten and twelve thousand
men.[1409] On January 3, 1570, Coligny and Montgomery united their
forces. The dissension between Montluc[1410] and Damville gave them
and the viscounts almost unrestrained freedom in Upper Gascony and
Languedoc, where they grew enormously rich on the spoils of war, and
carried their depredations to the very walls of Toulouse which was
actually invested from January 22 to February 20, 1570.[1411]
[Illustration:
Voyage of the Princes after the
Battle of Moncontour Oct. 1569 July, 1570
in blue ——
Montgomery’s Itinerary in
Bigorre and Gascony, July-Nov. 1569
in black ——
Union of Coligny and Montgomery in
Dec. 1569 at Port St. Marie.
——}
——} Conjectured route
]
When the news of Terride’s downfall was known to Montluc he made
overtures to Damville in spite of his resentment. A council of war was
held at Auch, but instead of coming himself the marshal sent Joyeuse to
say that he thought it his duty to pass his time in his own government,
considering the charge the country was under to sustain the war. It
is interesting to observe the ancient ideas of provincial separation
and autonomy asserting themselves at this time. In vain Montluc argued
that the real enemy was in Guyenne and that the local hostility of the
Huguenots in Languedoc was a little matter in comparison; that all
Catholics were equally the King’s subjects and that the country was the
King’s.[1412] Joyeuse answered that the estates of Languedoc would not
pay for Montluc’s army unless he employed their money in recovering
the places in their province. The decision abandoned Guyenne, leaving
it alone and single handed, for the King’s forces were engaged in the
protracted siege of St. Jean-d’Angély and could not come to its relief.
“J’ay tousjours ouy dire que plus près est la chemise que la robbe,”
said Montluc satirically.[1413]
The old man was on the point of discharging his army and retiring
to Libourne or Agen, but the duty of a soldier forbade him. If he
now abandoned the open country in so critical a condition, it would
ever have been a reproach to him. He thought better of himself and
attacked Mont-de-Marsan instead, where he placated his outraged
feelings by refusing the petition of the garrison to capitulate and
secretly gave orders for the massacre of the entire number save
the captain, Favas.[1414] This feat of arms insured the future of
Gascony and the Landes, for the city served as a granary for all the
surrounding country from whence, however, to the detriment of France,
much grain was exported to Spain.[1415] After this exploit, feeling
the impossibility of maintaining his forces in the field, Montluc
disbanded his army, sending his son to Lectoure and himself retiring to
Agen. It goaded him to the quick that the crown approved throughout of
Damville’s conduct and either ignored his own complaints, or criticized
him for what he had done. “I was born under a planet to be ever subject
to calumny,” he growled. “Age deprives a man of his heat: for in my
younger days the greatest prince upon earth could not have made me
swallow such a pill.”
It may have been that Damville had friends at court and Montluc none;
it may have been that the marshal’s pride of long descent made him
indifferent or even contemptuous of Montluc in some degree. But if we
look closely at things it is evident that the spirit of provincial
separation was the fundamental source of the difficulty between them.
This spirit penetrated to the very bottom. Both Montluc and Damville
were making war with men levied from the country in which they
were—with militia instead of regular troops. The consequence of this
was that every man in the host had an eye to the welfare of his family
or his friends instead of to the King’s business; moreover, many had
relatives or friends with the enemy, which made them fight reluctantly;
finally, they were ill-paid and had to subsist on plunder, which
debauched discipline. The true remedy would have been for Charles IX to
have raised the useless siege of St. Jean-d’Angély and to have come in
person into the southland, where the authority of the King might have
overcome the local forces of separation; and where the regulars would
have plied war as a trade, as the circumstances demanded.
The Catholics of the south had an example before their eyes in the
reiters with the admiral, of the efficiency of regular troops over
local forces. Coligny owed his future to them and Montgomery. The
way the reiters made war excited the admiration of trained soldiers
like Montluc. They so barricaded the villages in which they quartered
themselves that nothing was to be got by assault and in the open
country they were always mounted at the least alarm. It was very hard
to surprise them. They were careful of their horses and arms and so
terrible in action “that a man could see nothing but fire and steel.”
The very grooms fought.[1416]
The reverses experienced at Poitiers, Moncontour, and St. Jean-d’Angély
had not been fatal to the Protestants. In the middle of December
Coligny wrote to the captain of La Charité that he felt ready to resume
the offensive in the spring, having in La Rochelle, Cognac, Angoulême,
Montauban, Castres, La Charité, and Montpellier a chain of impregnable
fortresses extending from the seaboard clear to the heart of France,
and controlling the Loire.[1417] A survey of the map will show the
strength of the Huguenots in this part of France. All of Provence and
Lower Languedoc was in full control of the Protestants, Montauban,
Albi, and Castres, constituting a line of defense on the west. In Upper
Languedoc they were not so strong and the condition of the Catholics
was less precarious, since Toulouse, Auch, Agen, and Cahors, formed a
quadrilateral in the very center. The Huguenots controlled many of the
lesser towns, so that Montluc complained that time and again he had to
pass through their hands “and for the least affair trot up and down
with great trouble from city to city. Would to God that, as they do in
Spain, we had made our constant abode in the good towns; we had then
both more riches and more authority.”[1418]
Guyenne was safely Catholic if it could continue to hold its own; for
this important fact Montluc richly deserves credit.[1419] But Guyenne,
Gascony, and Upper Languedoc were isolated from the Catholic north by
a broad Protestant strip running southeastward from La Rochelle to
Montpellier through Saintes, Cognac, Angoulême, Chalais, Bergerac,
Montauban, Albi, Castres, Béziers, and Montpellier, which united
Saintonge on the seaboard with Provence and Dauphiné. But, on the
other hand, Béarn was separated from the main trunk of Calvinism and
was not yet safe, in spite of Montgomery’s success, unless it were
bound to the main trunk. The Huguenot leaders realized this, and one
of Coligny’s adroitest strokes, after Moncontour, was the seizure of
Port-Ste. Marie, below Agen on the Garonne, with the aid of the German
reiters.[1420] The capture of this place (November 29, 1569) insured
the passage of the Garonne to the Huguenots[1421] and accomplished
for those of the far south what the possession of La Charité insured
to those of central France, for it bridged the Garonne. Later, when
Bernard d’Astarac, baron de Martamot, early in the following January
(1570) recovered Tarbes[1422] on the Adour, the Huguenots had a chain
of fortresses running straight north from Béarn through Condom and
Nérac to Bergerac and Angoulême, and Catholic Gascony and Guyenne were
cut in twain.
Montluc, having fortified Agen, the capture of which would have been
another disaster to the Catholics, then set to work to contrive how
to break the bridge of boats which Coligny had constructed. A mason
who had once built a floating mill for the marquis de Villars above
Port-Ste. Marie came to him and suggested loading the mill with stone,
cutting it loose, and letting it float down stream with the hope of
breaking the bridge. The Garonne at this time was swollen with winter
rains. The leaders were skeptical of the scheme, as the bridge was
known to be protected by heavy cables above stream. But the captain
Thodeas, an engineer with Montluc, supported the mason, after secretly
surveying the structure. The novel battering-ram accomplished the
work intended. Shortly before midnight the mill was loosed from its
moorings, one of the soldiers being drowned in unchaining it. Coligny’s
artillery, when it loomed through the darkness, made a desperate
attempt to sink it by fire from the batteries at either end of the
bridge, but in vain. The mill struck the bridge with such a shock that
cables, chains, and boats all went to pieces with a crash. Two of the
boats went down as far as St. Macaire and some, it was said, were
picked up as far down as Bordeaux.[1423]
The destruction of the bridge was a heavy blow to the Protestants for
it cut their forces into two parts. Besides Montgomery, very many of
the reiters were caught on that side of the river toward Gascony. But
Coligny’s enterprise robbed adversity of its sting. He improvised a
bridge of two boats, upon which five or six horses could be carried
at once, the boats being hauled by cable, after the Italian manner.
It required an hour and a half to go and return, yet at last, with
great pains and difficulty the whole company of reiters was got across
stream. Montluc had proposed to Candale and La Valette that an attack
be made upon Montgomery who was quartered at Condom, south of Nérac.
But they were so slow in responding that Montgomery, too, was able to
pass over, first his horse and then his foot, one after the other, it
requiring five or six days for all his forces to make the transit.[1424]
But the admiral and Montgomery followed up this clever deed by a
blunder so bad that the Reformed suffered for it for years afterward,
and were saved from losing Béarn, perhaps, as they had almost lost it
before, by the intervention of the Peace of St. Germain. Coligny’s
original plan was to pass the rest of the winter and until harvest
in Gascony and Guyenne, with Port Ste. Marie as his base and to have
heavy artillery brought from the fortresses of Béarn with which to take
all the towns upon the Garonne as far as Bordeaux. The bridge assured
them control of two of the richest provinces of France, for they were
absolute masters of the field. By this means Bordeaux would have been
at their mercy, for the sea power of the Huguenots at Blaye[1425] was
sufficient to close the city upon the sea side. It could not have held
out for more than three months, for already corn was selling there at
ten livres per sack. Bordeaux itself was rich and strong but situated
in a barren country, so that, deprived of the Garonne and Dordogne, it
could presently be reduced to famine. As for the Protestant army it
would have fared well. The lesser towns like Libourne and Lectoure must
inevitably have succumbed with their stores, and the viscounts were in
full possession of Comenge and Loumaigne, the most fertile counties
of all Guyenne. There were numerous stores of grain here, for it was
a practice of the dealers and even gentlemen, to accumulate three or
four years’ store in anticipation of a dear year. Had the Huguenots
once got Bordeaux in their clutches, they might have boasted that they
had the best and strongest angle of the kingdom, both by land and
sea, commanding five navigable rivers. The bridges over the Charente
at Saintes and Cognac, being in their hands, no one could pass from
Saintonge to Bordeaux where La Noue lay, “as valiant a man as any that
ever was in France.” The river system of the southwest—the Charente,
Ile, Dordogne, Lot, and Garonne—could have been made to bind the whole
region into a compact whole if this plan had been carried out, and from
behind these natural barriers the Protestants might have defied all the
King’s armies.
Yet although Coligny’s army tasted of Bordeaux wine and his reiters
watered their horses in the Garonne, he did not go on. He failed to
see that the most vital need of the Huguenots was to gain complete
mastery of the sea. This is what La Noue perceived and Coligny did
not. After the loss of Rouen they had but one important port town at
their command, La Rochelle, which the blunders of the government in
the second civil war had permitted the Protestants to make their own,
on which depended Brouage, reputed the fairest and most commodious
haven in all the kingdom, and the chief staple for salt in all the
southwest.[1426]
The sequel to such a course, it is true, must probably have been the
erection of the southwest of France into an independent state. Such a
result, looking at the France of today, is repugnant to our feelings.
But we must look at things as they were then and judge accordingly
and without prejudice. In the first place, it is to be remembered
that in Béarn there was already the nucleus of such a state to build
upon; and secondly that Guyenne and Gascony for centuries had been
possessions of another sovereignty, and that their attachment to
France was barely over a century old. In the sixteenth century it was
impossible to divorce religion from politics and the only solution
was the separation of those which disagreed on matters of religion,
as the division between the Protestant Dutch and the Catholic Flemish
provinces in 1578-79 proves. The Peace of Augsburg had laid down the
principle _cujus regio, ejus religio_, and no other policy could have
prevailed in Germany at that time. But France was trying to make a
monarchy, institutionally and necessarily Catholic, adapt itself to two
religions, which could not be done as long as politics and religion,
church and state, were united. Even after twenty-eight years more of
struggle, neither the trial and experience of all those years nor the
genius of Henry IV ever made the Edict of Nantes anything more than a
_modus vivendi_ which first proved intolerable to the Huguenots because
of their own political ambitions, and finally to the monarchy of Louis
XIV, whose motto was as truly: “Un roi, une loi, une foi” as it was
“l’état, c’est moi.” The French monarchy in the nature of things, in
the sixteenth century, could not be one-half Catholic and one-half
Protestant, any more than the United States, as Lincoln said, could
exist one-half slave and one-half free. What France would have lost
by the creation of an independent state in the southwest would have
been compensated for by other gains in other ways. Such a state in
southwest Europe would have been an effective agency for peace, in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It not only would have relieved
its Catholic neighbors of the religious dissidents within their
borders; it would have been a checkmate upon the undue aggrandizement
of either France or Spain, operating like Holland and Switzerland as
a buffer state and for the maintenance of the balance of power. The
Spanish marriages of France in the next century probably never would
have been, with their attendant train of dynastic and territorial
complications during the reign of Louis XIV. The Grand Monarque perhaps
never would have conceived the thought of browbeating the rest of
Europe, and certainly never would have been able to carry the idea out
to the extent he did.
In abandoning his original plan in January, 1570, Coligny not merely
altered the immediate future of France; perhaps he changed its destiny
for centuries to come. Instead of securing peace and security for the
Huguenots by cutting the Gordian knot and establishing an independent
Huguenot state, with Béarn as its cornerstone, he threw the solution
of the question back upon France. He had dreamed of a Huguenot France
beyond sea. Why not one at home? Instead Coligny had become possessed
with the idea that neither the King nor his ministers would seriously
think of peace as long as the war could be kept confined to provinces
remote from Paris and therefore, in order to force the hand of the
King, it was necessary to force war upon him in the very heart of the
kingdom. In other words, he conceived a new design, namely, to throw
the war into the center of France once more, to march upon Paris, and,
before its gates, dictate the terms he desired.
In pursuance of this new policy, the army of the admiral and the
viscounts, with Montgomery, moved up the Garonne. Toulouse was invested
for a month (January 22-February 20, 1570), as we have seen, without
success and the country fearfully wasted.[1427] Want of provisions
for men and horses at the end of this time compelled the host to
move toward Carcassonne and Montréal.[1428] As the country between
Montpellier and Avignon was almost totally in control of the Huguenots,
Coligny soon moved thither, whence he followed up the right bank of the
Rhone to Vivarais and Forez. Illness overtook him here and he was in
great danger.[1429] For a time it seemed certain that fate would call
Louis of Nassau who had joined him from Orange, to the leadership of
the army.[1430] By the time of the admiral’s recovery, it was time for
action if his design was to be executed, for things were in a greater
state of doubt and uncertainty regarding the peace than ever.
[Illustration: HUGUENOT ATTACK UPON A CATHOLIC CHURCH
(Bib. Nat., Estampes, _Histoire de France_, Q. b)]
The prospect of peace darkened as the winter began to break and
preparations in both camps grew more active. In February the marshal
Cossé prepared to expel the Huguenots from La Charité in order to
deprive them of their only means of communication across the Loire
River, by which assistance could be brought from Germany. This place
had been one of the cities demanded from the government as pledge
of good behavior, but the crown was determined not to yield in this
particular. Queen Elizabeth had strongly assured the King that she
had not directed nor licensed any of her subjects to carry arms
or munitions to La Rochelle, but guarded herself against possible
compromising evidence being discovered in future by adding that
she “generally must permit merchants to resort indifferently to
France.”[1431]
While the negotiations thus dragged on through March and April,[1432] a
new element of excitement was introduced by the conduct of the reiters
in the Catholic army. These adventurers, many of whom were Protestant
in faith, tired of idleness and determined either to renew the war or
secure their wages, on April 17 sent the King an address in which,
in the same breath, they asserted their loyalty to Charles IX and
their belief that those of the Reformed religion were only fighting
for liberty of conscience and the preservation of their lives. Though
guardedly put, reading between the lines, this memorial implied peace
at once or immediate renewal of the war. Coincident with this manifesto
the princes of Navarre and Condé joined in a note to the King declaring
their resolution never to yield. To these causes of disaffection must
be added the further one that many in the rank and file of the Huguenot
party believed that the Protestant leaders were seeking to serve their
own ends more than the common good; and accused them of being more
anxious for the preservation of their privileges than for the free
exercise of religion.
Matters continued thus to hang fire for several weeks. The King went
to Mont St. Michel in the middle of May to keep the feast of Corpus
Christi there, where, while professing his desire to conclude the
peace, Charles IX nevertheless imposed a tax of 60,000 francs monthly
upon those who had failed to bear arms in the late conflict. At the
same time there was a large exodus of nobles from the court, many
gentlemen, weary of long service in arms, soliciting and securing
leave to retire. The talk of peace, too, continued to be current in
the court,[1433] although Charles IX’s secret dealings with Montluc,
the alienation of 50,000 _écus de rente_ of the property of the
church,[1434] and the fact that the marshal Cossé at this same time
advanced out of Orleans with 2,000 horse and 4,000 French footmen and
was soon joined by 8,000 Swiss and 30 companies of men-at-arms belied
this.
Montluc had been on the point of resigning his commission for months
past on account of the friction with Damville, but repented when there
was prospect of the liberal marshal Cossé succeeding him, fearing
lest, with another such as Damville, the Catholic cause throughout
the south would be ruined.[1435] He still clung to the hope of seeing
Béarn conquered notwithstanding Terride’s failure, and in June, 1570,
the opportunity seemed to have come. With the aim of diverting the
war from the Ile-de-France, and throwing it into the provinces once
more—the farther the better—Charles IX grasped at a new expedition
against Béarn. Montluc was given the commission.[1436] Notwithstanding
his years and his infirmity and the penury of the government, which
had neither munitions nor money to spare, Montluc managed to raise a
considerable force.[1437]
He had resolved to besiege the little fortified town of Rabastens, near
Tarbes, which he had chosen as the point of attack because he could
draw upon Gascony for supplies from this place more easily than by
beginning at St. Severs, which bordered on the Landes, “a country only
fruitful in sands.”[1438] But the expedition came to an untimely end.
In an unguarded moment Montluc exposed himself and “a harquebus-shot
clapt into his face” with such force as to break his whole visage in,
so that the cheek-bones were taken out in splinters. The town was
taken, nevertheless. How it suffered may be read in the words of him
who meted out its punishment.
My Lieutenant, who had marcht on the one hand of me when I went on
to the Assault ... came to see if I was dead, and said to me: “Sir,
cheer up your spirits, and rejoyce, we have entred the Castle, and the
Soldiers are laying about them, who put all to the sword; and assure
your self we will revenge your wound.” I then said to him, “Praised
be God that I see the Victory ours before I dye. I now care not for
death. I beseech you return back, and as you have ever been my friend,
so now do me that act of friendship not to suffer so much as one man
to escape with life.” Whereupon he immediately returned and all my
servants went along with him, so that I had no body left with me but
two Pages, Monsieur de Las, and the Chirurgeon. They would fain have
sav’d the Minister, and the Governor, whose name was Captain Ladon, to
have hang’d them before my Lodging, but the Soldiers took them from
those who had them in their custody, whom they had also like to have
kill’d for offring to save them, and cut them in a thousand pieces.
They made also fifty or threescore to leap from the high Tower into
the Moat, which were there all drown’d. There were two only saved who
were hid, and such there were who offer’d four thousand Crowns to save
their lives, but not a man of ours would hearken to any Ransom; and
most of the women were kill’d who also did us a great deal of mischief
with throwing stones. There was found within a Spanish Merchant whom
the Enemy had kept prisoner there, and another Catholick Merchant
also, who were both saved; and these were all that were left alive
of the men that we found in the place, namely the two that some one
help’t away, and the two Catholick Merchants. Do not think, you who
shall read this Book, that I caused this slaughter to be made so much
out of revenge for the wound I had received, as to strike terror into
the Country, that they might not dare to make head against our Army.
And in my opinion all Souldiers in the beginning of a Conquest ought
to proceed after that manner, with such as are so impudent as to abide
Canon; he must bar his ears to all Capitulation and Composition, if he
do not see great difficulties in his Enterprize, and that his Enemy
have put him to great trouble in making a Breach. And as severity
(call it cruelty if you please) is requisite in case of a resolute
opposition, so on the other side mercy is very commendable, and fit,
if you see that they in good time surrender to your discretion.[1439]
Since his assumption of the command at La Rochelle La Noue had
displayed an energy that drove the enemy to despair. On land and on sea
he became a terror to them. Sometimes it was by arresting the King’s
galleys and bringing them as prizes to La Rochelle or Brouage;[1440]
sometimes it was by driving them out, as at Rochefort, by digging a
trench which poured waters waist deep down upon them; sometimes it
was by battle in the open field. La Noue outmatched Puygaillard at
every point, notwithstanding that his antagonist had the King’s picked
troops. In the plain of Ste. Gemme, near Luçon, their armies clashed
in a fierce, stubbornly fought engagement. Nearly all the captains
of his enemy’s two regiments and 500 arquebusiers were killed and as
many more taken prisoner. The brilliant captain at last won, although
he was so badly injured by an arquebus shot in the left arm that
amputation was necessary. Yet in the hour of his own intense suffering
he magnanimously lamented “the death of so many brave gentlemen.”[1441]
Much more decisive than this engagement, however, was Coligny’s
action. The admiral had been lingering at Montbrison in Auvergne
during May for the purpose of guarding the upper Loire.[1442]
Alarmed by the formidable army under the marshal Cossé, Coligny
now determined to strike suddenly and hard in order to preserve La
Charité. This resolution precipitated the battle of Arnay-le-Duc on
June 15, 1570.[1443] The result of this victory was startling. The
government capitulated almost at once. All the essential terms of
peace had been thrashed over during the spring and in less than a
week after the battle Charles IX held in his hands the articles of
pacification demanded by the Huguenots, chiefly stipulating for the
free exercise of religion within three towns in every province and
at Charenton, amnesty for the past and restitution of offices and
estates. But the crown flatly refused the right within ten miles of
Paris, or even for Protestant noblemen attending court in their own
chambers and offered two towns in each province instead of three. When
this was refused it was finally settled to adopt August 1, 1570, as
an _annus normalis_, and permit Calvinist worship to be held in all
towns in the possession of the Huguenots on that date. The two points
of contention still unsettled were the payment of the reiters and
determination of the surety-towns. The government at first proposed
that the payment of the reiters be equally apportioned between the
subjects of both religions, but finally shouldered the burden. As to
the surety-towns—the most important point of all as far as practical
politics was concerned—great difficulty was experienced before
agreement was made. The King at first offered to yield La Rochelle,
Angoulême, and Montauban, and to trade Perpignan or Lansac for La
Charité.[1444] Later, Angoulême was withdrawn and Cognac substituted,
to the displeasure of the Huguenots, and La Charité definitely yielded.
As to other matters, namely, restitution of honors, offices, estates,
privileges, equality of justice, amnesty, release of prisoners, and
the like, these of course were provided for, and Protestant nobles
enjoying “high justice” were to be permitted to enjoy free exercise
of the Calvinist faith, including baptism in their houses, for their
families, and all others in their dependence,[1445] an evidence that
the feudal element in the Huguenot party was more considered than the
bourgeoisie.[1446]
The papal nuncio, understanding that the Huguenots had demanded the
exercise of their religion in the counties of Verre and Avignon, which
belonged to the Pope, declared that no peace could be made with those
who were outside of the church.[1447] At the same time the Spanish
ambassador, being informed that it was part of the Huguenot programme
to secure the restitution of William of Orange and his brother Louis
of Nassau to their French possessions, also protested warmly against
the peace. Spain offered direct assistance to France of men and
money, and the city of Paris and the clergy offered to maintain the
war at their own expense for eight months longer. But these protests
were ineffectual. The Spanish ambassador’s mouth was stopped by the
rejoinder that the French King had as much right to make a treaty of
peace with his subjects as Philip of Spain had to make terms with the
Moriscos,[1448] and so, though apprehensive of French and German
Protestant assistance being given to Orange and fearful of an attack
upon Franche Comté, the Spanish ambassador was forced to be content
with the promise of France that no hostility was intended or would be
permitted in France toward Spain.
The Peace of St. Germain was the broadest and most substantial body of
privileges yet secured by the French Protestants. Antedating the Edict
of Nantes by twenty-eight years, it might have been as great and as
permanent an instrument as the latter, if the ambition of the Guises
and the intervention of Spain in French affairs had not overthrown
it. France itself, government and people, was tired of ten years of
strife and disposed to peace. The economic interests of the country
were anxious for peace. Only zealots for the religion and those who
sought to fish in troubled waters reprobated the terms of St. Germain
and sought to continue the struggle. It is true that mutual suspicion
still prevailed. Some of the Huguenots anticipated new encroachments
again, destructive of the peace, and that the King only aimed to
disarm the Protestants in order to overwhelm them later. But time, in
all probability, would have qualified this feeling. Religion, unless
artificially exaggerated, had ceased to be the primary issue of France
by 1570. The real issue was Spain. For all parties alike in France
had begun to chafe because of the power acquired by foreign military
influences, especially that of Philip—a feeling which ultimately was
destined to unite the country on the basis of a national patriotism
and embolden Henry of Navarre to expel the Spaniard and establish the
Bourbon throne on a truly national basis.
An incident which took place at the court in mid-July, when the terms
of peace were under consideration, illustrates this all but universal
hatred of Spain. One day the Spanish ambassador entered the King’s
chamber for audience. Soon afterward the marshal Tavannes came in, who
was somewhat deaf and accustomed to speak in a loud voice. Perceiving
the ambassador he gruffly remarked in a voice so audible as to be heard
by Alava:
These Spaniards would do better to govern their own members and not
interfere by trying to govern other people’s countries. For I well
know that the Spaniards have no wish but to foment civil wars, so
that both one party and the other may be weakened and they themselves
become stronger than both. For my own part, I would rather see a
hundred white capes [the Huguenot costume] than one red cross [the
device the Spaniards wore]; because, after all, the first are our
brethren and our kindred, while the latter are the natural enemies of
our country.[1449]
It was an opportune time for France to undertake an anti-Spanish
policy, and it was soon predicted that she would follow such a
course.[1450] Aside from the discomfiture of the Guises owing to the
peace, a condition which peculiarly discountenanced the cardinal
of Lorraine, the duke of Guise was in disgrace also. For he was
discovered to have made overtures of marriage to Madame Marguerite,
the King’s sister, and the lady herself for whom a Portuguese match
was being considered as a blow to Spain, was reputed to have expressed
a preference rather to stay in France than “to eat figs in Portugal.”
Guise, when the discovery was made that he had raised his eyes to
the princess, hastily attempted to divert suspicion by marrying the
princess of Porcien. But the episode injured the influence of the
Guises, and brought Montmorency forward as the man of the hour.[1451]
Under the new régime, the government set about carrying out the terms
of pacification, enforcement of which chiefly depended upon the upright
and just conduct of the four marshals.[1452] By the end of September
the camps were wholly broken up and the reiters either over or on
their way across the frontier.[1453] To be sure, radical Protestants
continued to complain of infractions of the edict.[1454] But the one
serious infraction of the edict was in the fifteenth article, providing
that all scholars, the sick and the poor, should be received in the
universities, schools, and hospitals without difference or distinction
on account of religion. The Catholic party, in the hope of abridging
the development of the competing religion soon persuaded the King to
nullify this provision. In compliance with a petition praying that the
crown would forbid any of the Reformed religion from holding any post
of authority in the University of Paris, and also that the university
authorities might have power to search for and seize all heretical
books, Charles IX on October 8, 1570, issued a proclamation forbidding
any Calvinist from holding any office or teaching in the University
of Paris and giving the authorities thereof the right of search for
heretical books.[1455] On November 20, this was followed by a more
sweeping decree forbidding any persons from keeping schools or holding
office in any college, or lecturing on any art or science in public or
in private unless recognized and approved by the Roman church.[1456]
Nevertheless, these petitions, complaining of infractions of the edict,
were more smoke than fire. The only internal issue of great importance
was an economic one.
Apart from the destructiveness of the war, nature again dealt hardly
with France in this year. There were heavy rains over all Europe
which either rotted the grain in the fields or washed it out. A great
inundation of the Seine occurred on June 2, 1570, and the plague began
to grow more virulent once more.[1457] There was a certain amount of
reason in the demand for a new session of the Estates to consider
the economic distress of France, but the King was wise in refusing
the request, for in event of its meeting, the enemies of Spain would
have been sure to endeavor to fan the ashes of the late civil war
into flames again. As a solace to those demanding economic relief
Charles IX promised to abolish sundry superfluous offices and to tax
the nobles instead of the commons for the relief of his debts which
amounted to 37,000,000 francs. An earnest of this intention is manifest
in an ordinance requiring parish wardens to keep accounts and to
make a declaration of the revenue of their churches and to send this
information to the royal bailiffs. Every parish was forced to obey this
edict, which was a novelty indeed. But the parish authorities took
advantage of the situation and not merely rendered an account of their
incomes, but also gave the King a minute account of the ruin they had
suffered at the hands of the Huguenots. The bailiffs received these
declarations and sent them to the Privy Council of the King, where the
evidence was reviewed and every church taxed accordingly. The churches
which had been burned by the Protestants were lightly taxed, and those
which were found to be incapable of payment were authorized to sell
their possessions, their vessels, jewels, or lands, or else impose a
tax on the parish.[1458]
But the thrifty bourgeoisie of France were too lucrative a source of
income for the King to keep his promise not to tax them more. In March,
1571, an edict was issued providing that bolts of woolen cloth should
be sealed with a leaden seal before sale, and that each bolt should be
taxed 3 francs, 4 deniers. The new impost, which was very unpopular,
was ascribed to the Italian influence at court.[1459]