THE MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW
The dominant politics of France in the years 1570-72 were foreign, not
domestic, and had to do with Spain. The clouds hung heavy over Spain’s
dominions in spite of the suppression of the Moriscos, and dark was the
prospect ahead for Philip II. In the east only was light. The great
victory at Lepanto over the Turks, fought on October 7, 1571, though of
general benefit to Christendom, was of greatest advantage to Spain.
It is at this juncture that the duke of Anjou, the King’s brother,
becomes a conspicuous political figure, one, indeed, of international
importance. In order to confirm the confidence of the Huguenots, but
especially to strengthen France against Spanish preponderance, the idea
was again put forward of marrying Anjou to Queen Elizabeth.[1460] At
the same time the plan was broached of marrying young Henry of Navarre
to the sister of the duke of Württemberg. But again Montmorency came to
the forefront and revived the plan suggested in 1569 of marrying the
princess Marguerite, Charles IX’s youngest sister, to Henry of Navarre.
Coligny for the Huguenots, and Walsingham and Norris for England,
urged the double plan.[1461] The Ridolfi plot proved to Elizabeth that
England, like France, had her greatest enemy in Spain.
[Illustration: THE MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW
From a picture by François Du Bois of Amiens († 1584 at Geneva). The
original, in the Museum Urlaud at Lausanne, is 3½ × 5 feet.
In the middle of the picture Coligny is being thrown out of the
window, below which stand the dukes of Guise and Aumale and the
bastard of Angoulême. Teligny, the admiral’s son-in-law is trying
to escape over the roof. In the background is the Louvre, with
Pilles being beset in the doorway. The bodies of Bricquemault and
Cavagnies are hanging from the gibbet in the street. On the hill-top
in the right of the picture the gibbet of Montfaucon is seen. On
the left bank of the Seine some Huguenots are escaping by the Porte
de Nesles—Montgomery is the man on horseback outside the gate. The
windmill stands on Mont Sainte Geneviève.]
The consternation of the Guises and Spain at the discovery of this
double marriage project was great. The Guises sought to break the
proposed marriage of Anjou and Queen Elizabeth by offering him Mary
Stuart, and that of Henry of Navarre with the King’s sister by offering
the cardinal d’Este as a prospective husband, since he was universally
expected to succeed his brother, the duke of Ferrara who was without
issue. Tuscan influence was used to this end. Spain and the papacy,
for their part, dangled before the eyes of the duke of Anjou the post
of command over the fleet preparing against the Turks.[1462] The gulf
between France and Spain, however, was too wide to be bridged by such
an offer. Disappointed at Bayonne, Catherine was dreaming of the elder
daughter of the Hapsburgs as the future wife of Charles IX. Such a
marriage appealed to her as a practical way of playing one house of
Hapsburg against the other, although she plausibly represented it as a
new tie that would bind France and the Hapsburgs in greater amity.[1463]
The counter-claims of France and Austria to the Three Bishoprics, and
the renewal by France of her former relations with Turkey, retarded
this negotiation.[1464] The greatest hindrance, though, was the
opposition of Philip II. It was with the object of frustrating the
designs of France that Philip II had transferred his ambassador in
France, Chantonnay, from Paris to Vienna.[1465] At Bayonne, the queen
mother had exerted all her influence in vain to prevail upon the court
of Spain to commit itself. When Fourquevaux succeeded St. Sulpice at
Madrid, he, in turn, continued to urge that Charles IX should marry
the princess Anne; that Marguerite of Valois should marry Don Carlos,
and Henry of Anjou the infanta Juana, Philip’s sister. But Philip II
still hesitated between Mary Stuart and Anne of Austria, and suggested
the younger daughter of Maximilian as prospective spouse for Charles
IX.[1466] Matters remained thus undetermined for years. The marriage
of Mary Stuart to Darnley in 1565 and the death of Don Carlos in July,
1568 raised Catherine’s hopes. But they were dashed to pieces after
the death of Elizabeth of Valois, on October 3, 1568, when Philip II
himself became the suitor for the hand of Anne of Austria. French and
Spanish diplomacy thereafter plotted and counterplotted, until in 1570
the French King had to endure the chagrin of seeing his expected queen
become the fourth bride of Philip of Spain and himself be satisfied
with the younger sister, whose physical charms[1467] did not compensate
for the injury to his pride.[1468]
But Philip gained another point of advantage over the French King, a
point which the latter never discovered. The duchy of Lorraine, was a
fief of the empire and had been so ever since the Middle Ages. Situated
in the penumbra between France and Germany, the duke of Lorraine’s
position had become a complex one and he was a vassal of France for
the border duchy of Bar. As a sign of his amity toward the Emperor,
Charles IX at the time of his marriage agreed to release the duke of
Lorraine from his fealty to France. This waiver stirred the patriotic
indignation of the keeper of the seal, Morvilliers, who resigned his
office, declaring that he would not be an agent for separating from the
crown of France any principality owing allegiance to it. Unfortunately
for the future, the King appointed a secret partisan of Spain to the
post. This was Biragues, a Milanese by birth, whose sinister influence
was to play no mean part in the future.[1469]
As might be expected, the winter and spring of 1571-72 were filled with
cross-negotiations of great importance. The greatest Catholic-Spanish
fear was lest a positive alliance be made between France, England, and
Holland, and perhaps the Protestant German states for the liberation
of the Netherlands, that league to have greater binding force through
the double marriage of the duke of Anjou and Queen Elizabeth and Henry
of Bourbon to Marguerite of France.[1470] Spain, to prove France, made
final demand of Charles IX: namely, that he forcibly suppress the
activity of the prince of Orange in France; that Spain be permitted
to levy Catholics in France to serve in the Low Countries; that
France restrain the preparations of the Huguenots, especially those
of La Rochelle, from aiding the Dutch cause on the sea; that France
renounce her alliance with Turkey and join the Holy League against the
Ottoman; and finally, that Charles IX abandon the project of marrying
his sister to the prince of Navarre. Charles IX’s replies were very
vague. To the first of these demands he replied that his country was
too much exhausted by the late wars to take up arms for any cause; to
the second he said that if he permitted Catholic levies to be made in
France, the Huguenots would not believe them to be for service abroad
but would again take up arms; as to the preparations at La Rochelle,
it remained to be seen if their purpose was not mercantile instead of
military.[1471]
The attitude of the various parties in France toward the crown’s
Spanish policy was a peculiar one. The Huguenots and moderate Catholics
of course urged the marriage of the King’s brother to Queen Elizabeth
with the greatest zeal. But even intense Catholics, like Tavannes,
singular as it seems, urged the match, with Machiavellian ingenuity
estimating that the King, by incurring the deeper enmity of Spain,
would be compelled to avail himself of their services, and thus, in the
end, the cause of Catholicism in France would be promoted.[1472] The
queen mother, with characteristic caution, professed much inclination
for the match, but urged that it could not be attempted without
hazarding the King’s honor. Meanwhile Montmorency, pushed it with all
his ability, alternately urging Catherine de Medici and Lord Burghley
by an assiduous correspondence.[1473]
How purely political as an issue religion had become by this time in
Europe is made almost cynically manifest in the conferences between the
advocates of the French-English match for the purpose of overcoming the
religious disparities represented by the principals in the proposed
match. From the beginning of the negotiations it was evident that
every compromise made in religion would have to be made by France. The
incongruities of age and religion and the complications of politics
were great. The hardest thing, perhaps, to estimate, is the influence
of Elizabeth’s vacillation. Catherine de Medici, on the whole, seems to
have been anxious for the match. So protracted and so intricate were
the negotiations that the duke of Anjou, with mingled prejudice and
despair, declared that “all was but dalliance.”[1474] It was speciously
urged upon the duke that no attempt was being made to effect his sudden
conversion to the Anglican religion, but that he should forego the use
of private mass, and “examine whether he might not with good devotion
use the forms of prayers appointed throughout her realm, the same being
in effect nothing but that which the Church of Rome uses, saving that
it is in the English tongue, which, if he pleased, might be translated
into French; and further, that the usage of the divine service in
England did not properly compel any man to alter his opinion in the
great matters being now in controversy in the church.”[1475] To this
it was rejoined that “religion was a constant persuasion confirmed by
time” and that “relenting in religion, being a matter of conscience,
was an inconvenience of more weight than any that might happen to
the queen.”[1476] For a while Anjou, although after the Edict of
St. Germain he had staunchly protested that no preaching be allowed
anywhere in his territories—which the King granted—wavered between
policy and conscience. One day while visiting Madame Carnevalet, the
wife of his tutor, he said with affected gaiety: “Carnevalet, thou and
I were once Huguenots, and now again are become good Catholics.” “Aye,”
she said, “we were so, and if you proceed in the matter you wot of, you
will then return to be a Huguenot.”[1477]
Spain did everything possible to thwart the negotiation. Her ambassador
in the presence of the King’s council inveighed against the plan,
asserting that the kingdom of France was going to ruin, but he was
cautious not to allege any ground but that of religion.[1478] Finally
the counter-practices of the Guises and the Spanish ambassador, partly
by appeals to religious scruples and partly by the means of lavish
promises, overcame Anjou’s hesitation and he flatly refused to consider
the marriage.[1479] The King was furious. “Brother,” he said, “you
should have used some plainness with me in this matter and not leave
me to wade so far to abuse a prince I so much esteem and honour. You
allege conscience to be the cause but I know it is a late pension
offered unto you by the clergy, who would have you still remain here
for a champion of the Catholic faith. I tell you plainly, I will have
no other champion here but myself, and seeing you have such a desire to
remain here on such respects, it behooves me the more narrowly to look
to you; and as for the clergy, seeing they have so great superfluity,
and I so great necessity, the benefices being at my disposition, I will
take a new order; and as for those who make the offer, I will make some
of them shorter by the head.”[1480]
Nevertheless, despite the fact that the cause was a lost one, the
matter was protracted so long that the negotiators of the affair
themselves perceived the humor in it. Elizabeth protested that “of
herself she had no mind thereto, yet the continual crying unto her
of her Privy Council, the necessity of the time, and the love of her
subjects, had turned her mind to marriage,” while the duke of Anjou
reasserted his belief in his future damnation if he yielded anything
in the matter of religion. Smith, the English envoy, solemnly averred
that “the matter of religion would be the most honourable to break off
with,” both for his mistress and the duke, and in the same breath asked
whether it would suffice if the duke were suffered for a time to have
his mass private in some little oratory or chapel—this so that there
should be no scandal to any of the Queen’s subjects. The queen mother
replied that the duke must have the exercise of his religion open, lest
he should seem to be ashamed of it, and that he was now of late so
devout that he heard two or three masses every day, and fasted the Lent
and vigils so precisely “that he began to be lean and evil-coloured,”
so that she was angry with him and told him that she “had rather he
were an Huguenot than be so foolishly precise to hurt his health.” She
told the English ambassador that he would not be content to have his
mass in a corner, but insisted upon “high mass and all the ceremonies
thereof according to the time, and in song after all solemn fashion
of the Roman church, and a church or chapel appointed where he might
openly have his priests and singers and use all their ceremonies.”
“Why, Madame,” ejaculated Smith, “then he may require also the four
orders of friars, monks, canons, pilgrimages, pardons, oil and cream,
relics, and all such trumperies. The queen of England will never agree
to any mass, let alone great high mass, with all the ceremonies of Rome
according to the season, priest, deacon, subdeacon, chalice, altar,
bells, candlesticks, paten, singing men, ‘les quatre mendiants et tous
les mille diables’”—at which tirade all but Anjou laughed.[1481]
It is at this moment that the duke of Alençon comes forward into
the light around the throne. Since the duke of Anjou was “so
extraordinarily, papistically superstitious”[1482] both sides turned
toward him, notwithstanding the absurd disparity between his age and
that of Queen Elizabeth. Even Elizabeth’s hardy modesty blushed at the
thought of such a match,[1483] and the objection of inequality in their
ages was backed up by guarded expressions of repugnance on account of
the disfigurement the young duke had suffered from smallpox.[1484]
The Huguenot pressure eagerly supported the proposed marriage between
Queen Elizabeth and the duke of Alençon, for the duke was as easy in
religion as his brother was straight.[1485] The admiral Coligny urged
it upon Lord Burghley, pointing out that it would strengthen the treaty
of Blois,[1486] while others urged that England would have a practical
advantage from the fact that Alençon was as rich in lands as his
brother, and that the duchy of Alençon adjoined Normandy, where the
whole of the nobility was devoted to the duke, and hoped by his means
to be restored to their ancient privileges and liberties, and that
then England could make “a bulwark and defense” out of Normandy for her
own protection.[1487]
It is a difficult story to take seriously, for each one of the actors
felt its hollowness and unreality. One feels that it was a gigantic
bubble produced by English and French councilors of state to amuse and
occupy each other by its brilliancy and wavering instability. Yet the
greatest statesmen in England were driven nearly to distraction by
their endeavors to keep it in the air. At first this diplomatic affair
assumes an almost farcical comedy aspect: then it darkens into tragedy.
It is a game of chess in which the players are grave and reverend
statesmen and the pieces queens and princes, with this distinction,
that the pieces are always likely to move of themselves and create
unexpected combinations. Yet, for all its hollowness, the story
deserves attention, for as long as it lasted it absorbed the attention
of the persons concerned, and it illustrates most admirably Elizabeth’s
and Catherine’s tortuous methods of diplomacy.
When the negotiations began, Elizabeth was already thirty-eight years
old and of vast experience in promoting and then avoiding marriages.
As a coy and bashful damsel, she could always plead her repugnance to
the marriage state, and as the head of a Protestant nation, religion
was another rock of refuge when anxious or angry suitors pressed her
too closely. She had fooled Philip and she had kept the poor Austrian
archduke gamboling before her. What could the pockmarked François
d’Alençon expect but disaster? Yet it was he who came the nearest to
pinning her down to a state of matrimonial stability.
The two things in Catherine’s character which seem to be especially
prominent in this tale of love and lying are her thirst for power for
herself and a mother’s natural ambition for her children.
Alençon’s appearance is the one thing about him which is seriously
discussed. He was born 1555 and was therefore twenty-two years
younger than Elizabeth. This was, of course, an enormous objection,
or, at least, one which could always be urged. His age is the official
and public objection, but his face and stature affected Elizabeth
far more.[1488] As to his character we have the testimony of the
English and Venetian ambassadors. Smith, in January, 1572, calls him
“a good fellow and a lusty prince” and says “he is not so obstinate,
papistical, and restive like a mule as his brother is.” Dale, in the
quaint letter in a Hatfield MS says of him: “As touching his behavior
he ys the most moderate yn all the court; never present at any of the
licentious acts of his brethren, nor here nor at Rochelle; of much
credit, and namely with them of the religion; thus he ys and hath ben
hetherto; what may be hereafter God knoweth.” On the whole, the English
ambassadors favored him, Walsingham the least. Evidently he was not an
unpleasant person, but a young and inexperienced lad, ambitious to do
great things, resenting his treatment at the court, and so plunged into
the current of things, only to be deceived and ruined by the superior
cunning of his supposed friends. His shortcomings may be excused on the
ground of his environment and bringing up; may even be praised as being
more manly and significant than the effeminate Henry.
Alençon’s motives in attempting to win Elizabeth are obvious. His
position in France was most unpleasant to him: suspected by his
brothers, made fun of and pestered by the Guises and the “mignons” of
the court; condemned to a life of subordination and idleness by the
accident of his birth, the prospect of the hand of the Queen of England
seemed most glowing, even though she was a heretic and more than twenty
years older than he. But why should Catherine and Elizabeth ever
consider such an intrinsically absurd proposition?
Elizabeth was face to face with several problems, foreign and domestic,
upon the solution of which depended her throne and her very existence.
It is hard to remember as one looks back upon her long and splendid
reign that there was hardly a moment in it when she was free from the
danger of overthrow and execution. This danger, at this time, had just
manifested itself in the Ridolfi plot in which the duke of Norfolk,
the greatest noblemen of England, Spain, Mary Stuart, and the Pope had
all combined. Naturally the Catholic nobles rallied around Mary, the
probable successor to the throne, while the Protestants were at a loss
to know what to do in view of the unsettled succession. So great was
the excitement that Elizabeth always hesitated to call a Parliament
for fear it would attempt to urge her on to marriage. Negotiations,
not to speak of marriage, with France would immensely relieve the
situation. They could be used before Parliament to show that Elizabeth
was doing her best; hopes of a settled succession would at once
reassure the country and diminish Mary’s importance, both as a center
of conspiracy and as a source of danger in other ways. To be sure, this
possible marriage might excite the Catholics to renewed efforts to
save their faith, but the fact that France was Catholic and that from
it might come much of their help would militate against disturbance.
Negotiations might bring about most of these results and would in any
case gain time and postpone the solution of the difficulties.
A second problem before Elizabeth was the maintenance of the Protestant
faith. So far as this enters the negotiations it is mostly a pretext,
but there was, nevertheless, an actual problem. Negotiations for
marriage with a Catholic prince might stir up the Catholics to renewed
activities and raise hopes which it might be difficult to allay, but,
on the other hand, Elizabeth could hope for relief from the Huguenot
movement in France, and the rebellious Dutch, while the alliance with
a Catholic prince would immensely strengthen her in her own middle
ground. To allow him to bring the mass with him might cause trouble,
but still one prince could not do much when queen and council were
carefully watching him.
Scotland was another source of continual anxiety to the English
ministry. The government was unsettled and the power likely to
fall at any time into the hands of those who would turn it over to
France. Of course this danger would be entirely removed by a French
marriage, though as events proved, negotiations did not stop the
intrigues. A similar point of attack existed in Ireland where the least
encouragement was sure to raise rebellion. A French marriage would make
danger in that quarter also less likely.
But perhaps the greatest source of danger was from Spain. There were
countless reasons why Philip should declare war—religion, the seizure
of his treasure by Elizabethan seamen, the treatment of Mary (though
this did not at first much concern him), and Spanish repression in
the Netherlands. English negotiation with France would be of value to
England, if for nothing else, in keeping France and Spain apart. It
was hoped, moreover, that once England and France were united, the
combination might check Philip in his dealing with the Netherlands and
the English Catholics and in the cruelties visited on Englishmen in
Spain.
But there were grave objections to a marriage. It would introduce a
new and unknown element into English councils. Suppose, as a Catholic,
the King should join that party; or worse, ally himself with Mary
herself, plot the death of Elizabeth and a Catholic restoration. Or
suppose he should become king of France? or that his child should be
heir to both thrones? The thought of becoming a French dependency was
intolerable to England. In any case it would mean a break with Spain
and how could England be sure that France was not merely tempting her
to that, finally to leave her to face Spain alone? Plainly, marriage
was too close and dangerous a union—as for negotiations, that was
another matter, and it was simply for the negotiations themselves
that Elizabeth entered upon them. This is proved, I think, by her
entire policy. Whenever France seems most willing she draws away; but
when France seems likely to abandon such fruitless endeavors, she
at once becomes affable and yielding. Sometimes her ministers urged
her to definite and decided action, but she always managed to find
a loop-hole, if either they or circumstance had forced her into too
dangerous agreement.
France, on the other hand, could not be content with mere negotiations.
She, too, had several definite problems. Rent by civil war, with
enormously powerful barons on the one side and a clamorous people
on the other, while outside the realm stood Spain and England, only
too glad to promote and foster her difficulties, the crown was in a
struggle for existence as real as that of Elizabeth. To join Spain
would be for France to lose her integral existence and to be swallowed
up in the maw of the Hapsburgs. Therefore the English alliance was
the only refuge. Besides there were many other advantages. It would
stop England’s meddling in French affairs and would calm and reassure
the Huguenots. But there was the rub: did the Huguenots need to be
reassured? Could France safely commit herself to a liberal policy? To
Catherine it was not so much that, as the question of her own authority
and personal ambition for her family; she had no intention of giving
place to the Huguenots any more than she had to the Guises. And so she
wavered when the Guises were becoming too powerful, and helped along
the marriage; when the Huguenots began to be too authoritative, she
frowned on it.
To the Huguenots the marriage was a question of enormous advantage—if
it were accomplished, the Calvinists might hope, not only for success
in France, but in the Low Countries as well; while to the Guises, on
the contrary, the alliance meant the ruin of their hopes for Mary and
for absolute dominion in France.
But to all the risk was great. Elizabeth was by no means firmly seated
upon her throne and seemed to be manifesting a reckless carelessness
in the leniency of her treatment of the late conspirators. The English
ambassadors noted that any “roundness” of treatment at home at once
caused a quickening of the negotiations. The real objection, both with
France and with England, was fear of duplicity. Neither could trust the
other. Each insisted that the other should commit itself first; neither
would consent, with the result that all came to naught. This was just
what Philip expected. Naturally a French-English league would have
seriously hampered him, but he had found by long and trying experience
that when Elizabeth talked of marriage, she was only amusing herself
with a polite fiction. Not once does he take the matter seriously. So
the Spanish attitude was one of unconcern, which in itself added to the
fear of both Elizabeth and Catherine, for each supposed some secret
understanding with Spain on the part of the other.
With such motives and in such troubled waters the negotiations went
on. In the end Elizabeth could not “digest the inconvenience” of the
proposed marriage, and failing to cement the new friendship of France
and England by this form of alliance, it was then suggested that a
political compact, not a marriage alliance, be made between the two
powers.[1489] But there were great difficulties in the way of this
project. For, although the English desired a closer union with France,
they were nevertheless not unprepared to treat with Spain, and to use
the prospective alliance with France for the purpose of bringing Philip
II to terms. England was unwilling yet to be considered as an open
enemy of Spain, in spite of the fact she was well aware of Alva’s plot
with Lord Seton and other Scotch and English refugees in Flanders.[1490]
Trade considerations were of great influence in governing this
attitude. England could not afford to forfeit her commercial
intercourse with Spain and Flanders for the none-too-sure friendship of
France, since the staple in Flanders was worth between two and three
millions.[1491] France could not offer any staple or port advantages
to England comparable with those England enjoyed elsewhere.[1492]
England accordingly proposed that the league be extended to include
the Protestant princes of Germany and that they should join together
“in defense against any who for matters of religion should use force
against any of them;” secondly, that France would bind herself not to
support the cause of Mary Stuart in Scotland; and thirdly, that France
would not seek any greater trade advantages in the Low Countries than
she had in former times. France balked at the proposed extension of
the alliance to Germany and it was dropped; as to Scotland, she was
willing to make a partial sacrifice of honor for the sake of political
advantage.[1493]
But England’s fear of contributing to the aggrandizement of France was
too keen to permit her to have free rein in the Netherlands,[1494]
though Walsingham proposed a way to prevent the possibility of French
ascendency there, and declared that the grandeur of France abroad was
less to be feared by England than the continuance of civil war in
France or the destructive policy of Alva in the Netherlands.[1495]
Burghley was as cautious as his mistress. “If the sea-ports fall into
the hands of the French,” he wrote, “they will regulate not only the
commerce of our merchants abroad but the sovereignty of the Channel,
which belongs to us.”[1496] The jealous determination of England to
monopolize the commerce of the Low Countries was, the greatest obstacle
to the formation of the alliance. For England most of all feared lest
France would not content herself with Flanders and Artois.[1497]
In the delicate business of state which burdened him at this season,
Charles IX showed more acumen than either his new-found friends of
Protestant faith or the Catholics had expected to find, because while
exerting himself to keep the peace with Spain on the one hand, on the
other he endeavored to conciliate his Protestant subjects. Unlike his
elder brother, Francis II, Charles IX was of strong physical frame,
being big boned and vigorous, until the fatal taint of his heritage
and his excesses undermined his constitution[1498] and brought on the
disease of consumption of which he died. He was gross, even brutish
in inclination, rejoicing in base physical sport and disinclined to
books.[1499] But in the present politics Charles IX showed little
of the rashness of his physical nature.[1500] Nevertheless the King
went farther than caution approved in dealing with his new-found
friends. He would have disarmed the suspicion of Spain, and the
Guises[1501] to some degree, at least, if he had drawn close to the
duke of Montmorency, whose moderate Catholicism, however impeachable,
was not the detested heresy of the French Protestants. But instead of
so doing, the King, unable to dissemble as much as his mother, openly
manifested a great admiration for the admiral Coligny, than whom
neither the Guises nor Spain had a more resolute foe. The admiral was
received in Paris upon his arrival there early in September, 1571, with
distinguished honors.[1502] His popularity with the King was at once
a menace and a challenge to Philip II and the Guises.[1503] An added
difficulty, as the result of this policy, was that Catherine de Medici,
seeing her son so well affected toward the admiral, grew jealous of the
latter’s influence, lest it supplant her own, and intrigued against him.
Despite the failure of the marriage alliance, France still had two
strings to the Ulysses bow she was drawing against Spain—support
of the Dutch, and the union of France by means of the marriage of
Henry of Navarre and the princess Marguerite. Spain’s suspicions
that the Huguenot naval preparations at La Rochelle were in favor of
the Dutch[1504] had not been based on groundless suspicion. William
of Orange’s own brother, Louis of Nassau, had remained in France
after the Peace of St. Germain, urging an alliance between France
and England against Spain,[1505] or else French intervention in the
Netherlands.[1506] The count of Nassau enlarged upon the vast designs
of the Spanish monarch and showed how sinister they were to France as
well as Holland, artfully alluding to the peace of Cateau-Cambrésis,
“a peace dishonorable to France;” he dwelt upon the tyranny of Alva
and the horrors of the inquisition; he demonstrated that all the
inhabitants of the Low Countries, both Catholics and Protestants,
hated the Spanish domination; that all the maritime towns were ready
to receive French and Dutch garrisons, if but those of Spain could be
driven out; that with the sea-power of France thrown into the scale,
the Dutch could conquer Spain; and finally proposed the formation of
an international league to overthrow Spain, and asserted that France
might acquire Flanders and Artois and the empire Brabant, Guelders, and
Luxembourg as reward of their services. So alluring was the prospect
portrayed to Charles IX that he almost cast off the mask he wore of
pretended friendship for Spain.[1507] He told Philip’s minister,
Alava, than whom “there was no prouder man or one more disdainful in
countenance”[1508] when the ambassador complained to the French King
that certain ships of the prince of Orange were being harbored at
La Rochelle,[1509] that “his master should not look to give laws to
France.”[1510]
Meantime the proposed marriage of Henry of Navarre to Marguerite,
the King’s sister, progressed. A full year before the nuptials were
concluded, the jewels and apparel for the ceremony were already
provided. The difficulty of arranging a religious form for the
ceremony acceptable to both Catholics and Protestants was the great
hindrance.[1511]
Again Spain made unavailing protest. Henry of Bourbon still bore the
title of king of Navarre, though the kingdom had been lost to the house
long before his birth and was, in fact, entirely in the possession of
Spain. Her fear was lest the new bond of marriage might unite the
parties of France in war for the acquisition of Navarre. It was in
vain, however, that Spain sought to prey upon the fears of Charles IX,
endeavoring to excite the King’s jealousy against the growing power
of the house of Bourbon and pointing out that of the twelve provinces
of the kingdom ten were in the hands of governors who were bound by
blood or interest to the Bourbons.[1512] So eager were many of the
gentry of France for war with Spain, either in Navarre or Flanders,
that one of Coligny’s officers, when asked whether France meant to lose
the favorable opportunity of attacking Spain, scornfully rejoined,
“What can we do? We are good for nothing, for we have to deal with a
scared King and a timid queen, who will not come to any decision.” By
December, 1571, war with Spain was on every lip and the government
began to collect money.[1513]
At this juncture, when all Europe was keyed to concert pitch of
political tension, when anything seemed likely to happen and no one of
the great powers dared make an overt move, the Gordian knot was cut.
On April 1, 1572, the most notable event in the Low Countries since
the iconoclastic outburst occurred. For on that day the count van
der Marck, commander of the Beggars of the Sea, captured the port of
Brille. From that time onward the Dutch and Flemings had a maritime
point of their own on the mainland and were no longer dependent on the
precarious shelter of English and Norman ports. The effect of this blow
to Spain was great. Within the week—on Easter Day—Flushing, and soon
afterward Middelburg, rebelled against the billeting of Spanish troops
sent by Alva to replace the Walloon garrison there.[1514]
The Gueux were masters of the sea and when Dordrecht also rebelled,
the inland water routes were endangered too. No vessel could come
from Holland, Guelders, or Frisia and no communication could be made
from the north with Brabant. Even Amsterdam could be starved and
Alva determined to retire all his forces to Ghent and Antwerp.[1515]
On April 14 William of Orange issued a proclamation from Dillenburg
expressing his grief at the miseries suffered from the exactions,
outrages, and cruelties inflicted by the Spaniards, and assured the
people of his determination to liberate the land from their tyranny.
As many towns and ports had already recognized him as their ruler, he
urged others to follow their example, pledging his word to use all his
power to restore the ancient privileges and liberties of each.[1516]
When news of these wondrous deeds reached France, Charles IX’s
hesitation was swept away by the combined fervor of Louis of Nassau
and the admiral. On April 19, the Anglo-French treaty of alliance was
signed at Blois.[1517]
Du Plessis-Mornay, a young Huguenot gentleman of twenty-three, of
marked literary ability and destined to be the intellectual leader
of the Protestants in coming years, who had lately traveled through
the Netherlands and visited England,[1518] in collaboration with the
admiral drew up a remarkable memorial advocating French intervention in
the Low Countries,[1519] which Coligny presented to the King. English
and French volunteers soon poured into the land.[1520] Louis of Nassau
left for Valenciennes, which had successfully revolted, accompanied
by La Noue and Genlis.[1521] On May 24, by a stratagem, Genlis secured
possession of Mons, one of the most important fortresses to Spain
in the Low Countries in the present state of mind that France was
in.[1522] From this point of vantage he wrote hopefully to Charles IX
for more soldiers, a “good minister,” a surgeon, some cannon founders,
and drugs.[1523] While these events were happening on land, on the sea
the Zealanders attacked and dispersed the Spanish fleet in the Sluys on
June 8, and seized twenty merchantmen under its convoy:[1524] and, to
the elation of France,[1525] far down in the Bay of Biscay the fleet of
Flushing three days later scattered another of Spain’s armadas.[1526]
All Holland, Amsterdam and Rotterdam excepted, was lost to Spain.[1527]
Sir Humphrey Gilbert with 1,200 English and some French and Walloons
landed in the Low Countries, on July 10, and captured Sluys and
Bruges.[1528] Money poured in upon William of Orange, who in June went
to Frankfurt to purchase supplies and enlist men.[1529] The duke of
Alva was in desperate straits. The Walloons everywhere in the army
mutinied and deserted, and he was short of munitions.[1530]
But such successes were too great to last. Louis of Nassau found he
could not hope to hold Mons for long with the slender forces at his
command and sent Genlis back to France for reinforcements. Charles
IX, under pressure from Coligny, provided men and money secretly,
but Genlis’ relief column was intercepted on July 16 and captured by
the duke of Alva.[1531] It was only a question of time before Mons
surrendered.[1532] The blow was a heavy one to France. It mattered
little to France that French subjects were killed or taken prisoner
during the siege. But it was of tremendous consequence to France that
Alva found on Genlis’ person a letter written by Charles IX to Louis of
Nassau on April 27, 1572, in which the King said that he was resolved
as soon as the condition of affairs at home permitted him, to employ
the armies of France for the liberation of the Low Countries.[1533]
Well might Alva’s secretary write “I have in my possession a letter
of the king of France which would strike you with astonishment if you
could see it.”[1534] Spain possessed indubitable proof at last of
French duplicity.
The capture of Genlis and the knowledge that Spain had penetrated
the whole secret of her design, filled the French government with
consternation, though Charles IX affected a show of courage he did not
feel.[1535] That consternation became abject dismay when it was learned
that Elizabeth of England, partially out of reluctance to have war with
Spain, more because of fear lest French foothold in the Low Countries
would jeopardize her commercial ascendency there, repudiated the treaty
of alliance.[1536] As one reviews the months before the massacre one
asks just how far Elizabeth herself may have been responsible for it.
It was she who, by her tortuous and insincere policy alarmed Charles IX
and Catherine, causing the Flanders expedition to be abandoned; it was
this which caused Coligny to turn upon Catherine in the King’s council,
saying, “This war the King renounced. God grant he may not find himself
involved in another less easy to renounce.” The line comes straight
from Elizabeth surely, but can be emphasized too strongly. That some
blame must rest on the English cannot be denied, however. Did Catherine
de Medici plan the massacre of St. Bartholomew to save herself from the
wrath of the Huguenots? Or, in her terror did she seek to appease the
wrath of the Catholic dragon with human lives? Was the massacre of St.
Bartholomew the bloody price of Spain’s satisfaction?
But there is another element to be considered in any endeavor to
unravel the causes of that event. All the art of Catherine de Medici
for years past had been expended in an endeavor to maintain control
by balancing the parties against one another. At this minute she was
insanely jealous of the admiral Coligny, whose political ascendency
seemed all the greater because of the conduct of the Protestants who
crowded Paris for the coming nuptials, enjoying their superficial
popularity with too much arrogance in many cases, and angering the
sentiment of the Parisians, the most Catholic populace in France.
The massacre seems primarily due to the jealousy and hatred felt by
Catherine de Medici toward Coligny on account of his great ascendency
over Charles IX, coupled with panic after the failure of her deliberate
attempt to have him murdered, and fear of war with Spain—a fear all
the greater because of England’s desertion of France in Flanders
at this critical moment, lest English commercial ascendency there
should suffer.[1537] It was a crime of fear, a horrible resource in
a difficult emergency; partly a craven attempt to placate Spain for
what had been done against her; partly a crime of jealousy. Perhaps
jealousy of Coligny was even a stronger motive than fear of Spain.
The attempt upon Coligny’s life on August 22, would seem to indicate
this.[1538] Was the general slaughter of the Huguenots the consequence
of the failure of this attempt? If the shot of August 22 had killed the
admiral, would the massacre have taken place? I think not. The failure
to kill the admiral was the immediate occasion of the massacre of St.
Bartholomew’s Day. If Coligny had been killed then and there, the
massacre probably would not have happened.
The failure to compass the death of the admiral made Catherine frantic
with mingled rage and fear lest the Huguenots concentrated in Paris
would rise in reprisal. She took council with Guise, Anjou, Madame de
Nemours, and Gondi, the Italian bishop of Paris. The resolution of the
King, who at first believed that the duke of Guise was the author of
the attempted assassination, was beaten down by his mother, and when
his fierce instincts were at last aroused, the way was easy. The hatred
of Paris could be relied upon to do its worst, under the guidance of
the provost who was taken into the plot.[1539]
There is no need to detail the history of this famous day. At
one-thirty on the morning of August 24 the tocsin sounded from the
tower of St. Germain-l’Auxerrois. Coligny was the first victim. From
the Louvre the murderous spirit spread to the Ville, to the Cité,
to the university quarter. Henry of Navarre and the prince of Condé
saved themselves by abjuration. Montgomery escaped on a fleet horse to
the south. Estimates of the dead are so different that any positive
opinion is impossible. La Popelinière gives 1,000 for Paris, the Tuscan
ambassador 3,000, Davila 10,000. Brantôme says nearly 4,000 bodies were
thrown into the Seine.
From Paris the massacre spread to the provinces. On August 25 the fury
reached Meaux and Troyes; on the 26th La Charité, on the 27th Orleans
and Bourges, on the 28th Caen, on the 30th Lyons. Bordeaux and Toulouse
followed. At Rouen, Carrouges, the governor, would not obey the
King’s warrant until doubly convinced, when he retired to his country
house and refused to execute it, though he did not have the courage
to prevent the massacre, as was the case at Dijon, Limoges, Blois,
Nantes.[1540]
There is no reason for doubting that the massacre of St. Bartholomew
was unpremeditated. It was not plotted years before, or even many days
before. The light of modern investigation[1541] has proved this to
the satisfaction of every unprejudiced historian, whether Protestant
or Catholic. The combination of causes that led to the action; the
motives of the principals; the responsibility for the massacre are
today known with as much certainty as moral forces having relative
and not absolute values can be. Even unprejudiced contemporaries, La
Noue and Henry IV himself, did not believe the massacre to have been
premeditated. A general slaughter of the Protestants was an old idea,
but never regarded as a practical one, save by the papacy. The guilt of
the massacre in all its monstrous proportions and consequences rests
upon Catherine de Medici first of all. Fundamentally considered, it
was the crime of a tigerishly hateful and essentially cowardly woman’s
heart. Catherine was the author and instigator of it. The Guises
entered into the plot chiefly to avenge themselves upon the admiral and
really had little interest in prosecuting it beyond his death.[1542]
The duke of Anjou and Tavannes were the fanatics. Charles IX was the
creature of his mother’s malign influence and the victim of his own
ferocious temperament which he had long indulged, and to which he now
allowed monstrous license. For the rest the massacre of St. Bartholomew
was perpetrated by men whose natures were compounded out of religious
bigotry, political enmity, personal resentment or mere ruffianism and
love of violence. The massacre of St. Bartholomew could not possibly
have been of the remotest political benefit to any person. It was
both a crime and a blunder. But Catherine de Medici was a ruler whose
political conduct was governed by her personal feelings and prejudices.
In the crisis in which she was, she had not the acumen to discern, or
the courage to dare to follow, the course that lay open before her if
she had had eyes to see and an understanding instead of a passionate
heart. That course lay toward Italy and not toward the Netherlands.
If France had reasserted her claims to Naples and Milan, then in the
possession of Philip II, the nation would have been united in a common
cause that would have appealed to ancient pride and achievement as well
as existing animosity against Spain. England would have had no reason
to be jealous, for her hand would have been free in Flanders. Moreover,
in Italy France might have looked for support from Tuscany and Ferrara.
Switzerland would have supported the enterprise; Venice would have
made no opposition and the Emperor, for all his Spanish attachments,
could not have done so. With the Turk in the Mediterranean on her side,
France could have gone into war with Spain and the Pope without fear
and with great promise of success.[1543]