like Lansac and Du Ferrier believed in qualified toleration of
Protestants (St. Sulpice, 115); many of the members, while believing
in the enlargement of the Pope’s prerogatives in religious affairs,
were opposed to a reduction of governmental rights of control over
ecclesiastical temporalities. Philip II’s attitude in this respect was
identical with that of Charles IX—each wanted to exercise political
control over the church within his kingdom (St. Sulpice, 198). Even
the cardinal of Lorraine was an advocate of temporal independence
(St. Sulpice, 161). See Baschet, _Journal du Concile de Trente_; the
Appendix has a valuable bibliography of the history of the Council of
Trent. M. Baguenault de la Puchesse’ article in _R. Q. H._, 1869, may
be added. The cardinal of Lorraine left Trent on March 23. M. Baschet
questions (p. 214): “Que sont devenues toutes les dépêches qu’il a du
écrire à la Reine mère, tant sur sa négociation avec l’Empereur, que
sur sa visite à la Republique de Venise et son voyage en Cour de Rome,
pour l’accomplissement desquels il s’était deplacé de sa résidence au
Concile?” He was not aware of the fact, when he wrote in 1870, that
Count Hector de la Ferrière had shortly before discovered them in the
archives at St. Petersburg (La Ferrière, _Deux années de mission à
Saint Petersbourg_, 51). For the cardinal’s mission to Venice see _R.
Q. H._, October 1869, 349, 350, and 385, note.
[701] Forbes, II, 271; _C. S. P. For._, No. 1,193, §5, December 5,
1562. Granvella to the King, March 10, 1563; Gachard, _Correspondance
de Philippe II sur les Pays-Bas_, I, 239; cf. Philip to Margaret of
Parma, May 16, _ibid._, I, 249.
[702] The fear was amply justified. Granvella wrote to his sovereign
on December 22, 1563: “Le situation actuelle de la France est plus
fâcheuse qui j’aie vue depuis la mort du roi François.”—_Papiers
d’état du cardinal de Granvelle_, VII, 284. Gachard, _Rapport sur les
archives de Lille_, 218, cites a remark made in 1562: “Messieurs,
acoustez bien ce qui adviendra en France entre les catholicques et les
Huguenots; cas, au son flageolet de Franche il vous faudra danser par
dechà.”
[703] On this subject see La Ferrière, _La Normandie à l’étranger_,
and his article entitled, “La paix de Troyes avec l’Angleterre,” _R.
Q. H._, XXXIII, 36 ff. Much of the article is reprinted from the
introduction to _Correspondance de Catherine de Médicis_, II.
[704] _C. S. P. For._, No. 443, March 13, 1563, Smith to D’Andelot; cf.
511, the Privy Council to Warwick, March 23, 1563; Forbes, II, 363.
[705] The prince of Eboli and the duke of Alva proposed that
Havre-de-Grace be put temporarily into the hands of Philip II, he to
mediate between England and France! (St. Sulpice to Charles IX, July
11, 1563, and to Catherine, August 27; _L’Ambassade de St. Sulpice_,
137, 151.)
[706] _C. S. P. For._, No. 498, March 22, 1563, Elizabeth to Smith.
[707] _Ibid._, Ven., No. 319, January 24, 1563.
[708] Charles IX to St. Sulpice, June 20, 1563; _L’Ambassade de St.
Sulpice_, 122, 123.
[709] _Ibid._, 136.
[710] Neither Coligny nor D’Andelot could be prevailed upon to
serve in the war against England, although believing they had
been shabbily treated by Elizabeth. The admiral openly refused;
D’Andelot feigned illness; Condé alone, of the Huguenot leaders,
bore arms against his former ally—“l’honneur de la France couvrait
son ingratitude.”—_Correspondance de Catherine de Médicis_, II,
Introd., xii, xiii, xvii; cf. _C. S. P. For._, Nos. 498, 511, 541,
and especially 548, March, 1563. Elizabeth had replied to the envoy
sent to her by the prince of Condé to notify her of the peace made
by the prince with the King and to treat for the restitution of
Havre-de-Grace, that as the envoy had neither power nor commission
from the King, she would not negotiate with him, and that nothing must
be said about Havre-de-Grace unless the affairs of Calais were first
adjusted (_C. S. P. Ven._, May 18, 1563).
[711] _Ibid._, _For._, No. 936, April 17, 1563. Warwick in a letter to
Lord Robert Dudley and Cecil of April 23, 1563, estimates the French
force around Havre at 10,000 French and 6,000 Swiss (_ibid._, No. 659;
Forbes, II, 398).
[712] _C. S. P. For._, No. 652, Mundt to Cecil, April 20, 1563, from
Strasburg; cf. No. 659, Warwick to the Privy Council on the authority
of the Rhinegrave, April 23, 1563; Forbes, II, 398. Nevertheless, the
French continued to fortify Metz against the future (_C. S. P. For._,
No. 705, May 4, 1563).
[713] The church complied by mortgaging its possessions to this amount
(Claude Haton, I, 330). They were redeemed in the March following
(Catherine de Medici to St. Sulpice, December 22, 1563; _L’Ambassade de
St. Sulpice_, 203); _Journal de Bruslart_, 141. The transaction cost
the church 3,230,000 livres. Some of the clergy claimed that the King
had no right to do this without papal authorization (Claude Haton,
_loc. cit._).
[714] The rate was fixed at five _livres_ for each measure of wine,
and at 6 _sous_, 8 _deniers_, for each _queue_ (Claude Haton, I, 330,
331). The farm of this _gabelle_ was sold at Provins for the sum of 600
livres.
[715] “ ... Led. prince dit avoir moyen de faire sortir ... les
Allemans qu’il a en grand nombre.”—_L’Ambassade de St. Sulpice_, 101;
_C. S. P. For._, Nos. 688; 748, §§13, 20; 753, §§5, 10; No. 764 (_anno_
1563); _C. S. P. Ven._, No. 326, May 18, 1563.
[716] _C. S. P. Eng. For._, No. 750, §§6, 7, May 16, 1563; No. 753, §5,
May 17; No. 770, May 20, 1563.
[717] _C. S. P. For._, 584, April 5, 1563; Forbes, II, 573.
[718] Warwick had barely 5,000 men of all sorts to defend the town
(_C. S. P. For._, No. 680, Muster of April 29-30, 1563). There was
much sickness. Food was scarce. “The estate of victuals here,” wrote
the earl to the Privy Council on April 30, “rests now upon a scarce
proportion of one month in bread and corn (of beer we can make no
further account than as long as we are masters of water, to brew),
having neither flesh, fish, butter, nor cheese, nor any meat of the
queen’s store but bacon for two days. The clerk of the store here is
as bare in money as victuals.... The enemy’s chief hope for taking
this town rests upon famine.”—_C. S. P. For._, No. 676; Forbes, II,
402. Warwick pointed out, however, that if the queen “would put forth
a power upon the sea” and keep the mouth of the Seine open, as well as
prevent relief from being brought from Flanders and Brittany, Havre
might be saved. “Their whole relief must come to them by Picardy side,
which will not suffice long; neither can they be victualled by land any
way, if the commodities of the seas be by this means taken away.”—_C.
S. P. Dom._, XXVII, 15, January 12, 1563. Cf. XXVIII, 48, May 8, 1563.
[719] _C. S. P. For._, No. 786; Forbes, II, 427.
[720] _C. S. P. Ven._, No. 328, May 28, 1563.
[721] _Rel. vén._, I, 375.
[722] _Ibid._, I, 429.
[723] _C. S. P. Ven._, No. 338, July 27, 1563; _L’Ambassade de St.
Sulpice_, 141, 142.
[724] I have come upon an interesting item in the history of the art
of war in connection with this siege of Havre. In January, 1563, a
Corsican, resident in Spain, by the name of Pietro Paolo del Delfino
offered his services to St. Sulpice. “Il va dans l’eau,” wrote the
ambassador to Catherine, “et m’a assuré qu’avec certains engins il
empéchera que nul navire venant d’Angleterre puisse aborder aud. Havre
sans grand danger.” In June Delfino arrived at Bois de Vincennes, where
he was well received, according to his own statement (_L’Ambassade de
St. Sulpice_, 112, and n. 4). But I do not find any further mention of
him. Was this invention a sort of torpedo? We know that shells were
first used in the siege of Orleans in this year.
[725] _C. S. P. Ven._, No. 341, August 6, 1563; on the progress of
the siege and the condition of Havre cf. _ibid._, _For._, 1563, Nos.
754, §6; 762, 806, §§4, 5; 828, 835, 852, §4; 853, §4; 857, §8; 871,
881, 894, 907, §2; 941, 967, 973, §2; 977, §4; 982, §9; 998, 1007,
1021, 1024, 1026, §7; 1044, §4; 1049, 1081, 1086, 1100, 1208, 1296. In
Appendix VI is a letter of Admiral Clinton to Lord Burghley, July 31,
1563, in which he says that the plague, not the arms of France, has
conquered them.
[726] _C. S. P. Ven._, No. 343, August 14, 1563.
[727] _Correspondance de Catherine de Médicis_, II, Introd.,
xxvi-xxviii; _L’Ambassade de St. Sulpice_, 177, 194, 195.
[728] “Adieu le droit de Calais,” wrote Robertet, Charles IX’s
secretary, on July 4, 1561, to St. Sulpice (_L’Ambassade de St.
Sulpice_, 142).
[729] _C. S. P. Ven._, 347, November 11, 1563; _ibid._, _For._, No. 6,
January 4, 1564; No. 47, January 15.
[730] _Ibid._, _Ven._, No. 348, November 18, 1563; _Archives de la
Gironde_, XVII, 293.
[731] The text of the treaty is in Rymer’s _Foedera_, XV, 640. La
Ferrière has an extended account of the negotiations in _Correspondance
de Catherine de Médicis_, II, Introd., xxxiv-xliv. For other details
see _C. S. P. For._, 1564, Nos. 6, 47, 250-53, 297, 307-10, 314, 347,
363, 364. On the great commercial importance of the treaty of Troyes,
see De Ruble, _Le traité de Cateau-Cambrésis_, 193, 194.
[732] _C. S. P. Ven._, 1564, No. 388.
[733] “A Paris arriva toute la maison de Lorraine vestue de deuil, pour
faire une solemnelle demande de justice exemplaire sur la mort du duc
de Guise.”—D’Aubigné, II, 204; the request bearing date September 26,
1563, is in _Mém. de Condé_, IV, 667.
Coligny was so fearful of suffering violence in Paris from the bigotry
of the populace or at the instigation of the Guises, that he would not
enter the city.
[734] On these feuds see _C. S. P. For._, _anno_ 1563, No. 748, §§1-6,
15; No. 753, §1; No. 770; No. 896, §3; No. 912, §4; No. 1,003, §3; No.
1,212; No. 1,233, §4; No. 1,249; No. 1,287: No. 1,337, §3; No. 1431;
No. 1,445, §8; _Proceedings of the Huguenot Society_, letters of April
20, 30, May 1, 21, 27, 31.
[735] _C. S. P. For._, No. 1,558, December 29, 1563. “Le connétable lui
même, tout en étant homme de bien catholique, était cependant carnale,
et voulait avoir appui des deux cotés.”—Baschet, _Journal du Concile
de Trente_, 240.
[736] For examples see _C. S. P. For._, No. 982, §§1, 2, an episode of
the last week of June, 1563; _ibid._, _Ven._, No. 333; _Correspondance
de Catherine de Médicis_, II, Introd., xxix.
[737] A law was made in August forbidding the wearing of any weapon but
sword and dagger; concealment of firearms was an offense punishable by
confiscation of lands and goods (Edict of Caen, August 24, _L’Ambassade
de St. Sulpice_, 147; _C. S. P. For._, No. 1,394, October 1563;
_ibid._, No. 912).
[738] _C. S. P. For._, No. 1,003, July 14, 1563; _ibid._, _Ven._, No.
330, June 10.
[739] _Correspondance de Catherine de Médicis_, II, Introd., xxxii,
xxxiii (many examples).
[740] _C. S. P. For._, Nos. 896, §§3, 17; 912 §4.
[741] _Ibid._, Nos. 1,155, 1,387, 1,394, 1,431, 1,445, _anno_ 1563.
[742] The fisheries of France, however, were profitable. “They
quietly make their herring fishery ... without impeachment.... Their
fish-markets were never better furnished.”—_C. S. P. For._, No. 1,356,
Throckmorton to the queen November 1, 1563.
[743] Castelnau, Book V, chaps. vii-ix.
[744] “Instructions pour le Sieur de Lansac, envoyé en Espagne, janvier
1564,” _L’Ambassade de St. Sulpice_, 223.
[745] August 18, 1563. The officiai promulgation is in _Mém. de Condé_,
IV, 574. _Déclaration faicte par le Roy en sa majorité tenant son lict
de justice en sa cour de Parlement de Rouen_, Robert Estienne, Paris,
1563.
[746] _L’Ambassade de St. Sulpice_, 101, 102; _R. Q. H._, XXIV, 459;
Claude Haton, I, 363, and n. 2; _Correspondance de Catherine de
Médicis_, II, Introd., xxiii; _C. S. P. For._, No. 1,190, September,
1563.
The declaration, by a technicality, contravened the testament of
Charles V (1374), which for centuries had been the law regulating the
King’s majority. Charles IX was born on June 17, 1550, so that he
was _in his fourteenth year_, though not yet fourteen years old. The
Parlement of Paris for more than a month refused to register the edict,
not on political, but on religious grounds. It objected to “la mention
de l’édit de pacification d’Amboise, introduite sans motif dans la
déclaration de l’édit de la majorité, ce _que semblait reconnaître deux
religions_.”—_Correspondance de Catherine de Médicis_, II, Introd.,
xxiv. The Venetian ambassador gives an interesting character-sketch of
Charles IX at this time (_Rel. vén._, I, 419).
[747] The estates of Burgundy declared in a memorial that it was
impossible to maintain double worship in France and petitioned that
Protestant worship might be abolished in that province, May 18, 1563
(D’Aubigné, II, 205; _Mém. de Condé_, IV, 413; Castelnau, Book V, chap.
vi.)
[748] “S’étaient tous départis avec une hâte extrème causée sur la
disposition du pape.”—Testu to Catherine de Medici, _L’Ambassade
de St. Sulpice_, 207. “Les évêques français se déclarent obligés de
partir, se voyant privés de ressources.”—Baschet, _Journal du Concile
de Trente_, 239.
[749] The Pope sent the bishop of Vintimilla to Spain to persuade
Philip II to enforce the Tridentine decrees in favor of the
counter-Reformation (_L’Ambassade de St. Sulpice_, 174, 200, 217, 218).
See also a letter of Luna, Philip II’s ambassador at Trent, of November
17, 1563, in _Correspondencia de los principes de Alemania con Felipe
II, y de los Embajadores de Este en la Corti di Vienna (1556-98)_ in
“Documentos inéditos,” CI, 24.
[750] _Annales Raynaldi_, 1564, No. 1; Labbé, XIV, 939; cf. _R. Q. H._,
October, (1869), 402.
[751] For the grounds of objection see _R. Q. H._ (October, 1869), 365,
366, and 401-8; Frémy, _Diplomates du temps de la Ligue_, 45. In Vol.
LXXXVI, _Coll. de St. Pétersbourg_, is a collection of letters, many of
them from Lansac and the cardinal of Lorraine while at the Council of
Trent. These are the letters whose disappearance Baschet wondered at
and deplored (La Ferrière, _Rapport_, 58).
[752] Charles IX to St. Sulpice, February 26,1564, _L’Ambassade de
St. Sulpice_, 229; D’Aubigné. II, 223; L’Estoile, I, 19; _Bulletin de
la Soc. prot. franç._, XXIV, 412. Catherine makes no allusion to this
scene in her letter to Elizabeth of Spain at this season (_L’Ambassade
de St. Sulpice_, 237). But on a subsequent occasion, when the cardinal
of Lorraine dropped the remark that the Council of Trent ought to be
called _Spanish_, the queen mother replied “qu’il avait raison, et
que aussi lui même s’était montré tel et plus de ce parti que de tout
autre.”—_Ibid._, 383.
[753] _R. Q. H._, XXXIV, 462; Frémy, _Diplomates de la ligue_, chap. i.
[754] Tavannes, 291.
[755] Vargas, Spanish ambassador in Rome, to the cardinal Granvella,
February 22, 1561 (_Papiers d’état du card. de Granvelle_, VI, 512,
513; _R. Q. H._, XXXIV, 460).
[756] On January 16, 1562, Granvella wrote to Perez from Brussels that
it was already impossible to prevent this (Gachard, _Correspondance de
Philippe II sur les Pays-Bas_, I, 198).
[757] Philip II to Quadra, Spanish ambassador in England, August 4,
1562 (_Papiers d’etat du cardinal de Granvelle_, VI, 606).
[758] La Popelinière, Book VIII, 591, 634, gives the text of these
appeals.
[759] “Les états ne payeraient un maravédis aux bandes d’ordonnance si
on voulait envoyer celles-ci en France.”—Gachard, _Correspondance de
Philippe II sur les Pays-Bas_, I, 206.
[760] “Pour coupper la racine du mal, il ny puisse avoir de plus
courte voye, ny de meilleur expédient que alluy d’armes.”—_Lettres du
cardinal de Ferrare_, Letter xxx, 1563.
[761] “Après la déclaration que seigneurs ont envoyée en Espagne
des deniers qu’ils y ont demandez, ils ne voyant pas qu’on se haste
beaucoup de leur respondre.”—_Ibid._
[762] _Nég. Tosc._, III, 492.
[763] _Papiers d’état du cardinal de Granvelle_, VI, 620, September 13,
1563. It is interesting to observe the objections of Margaret of Parma
and Granvella. According to the former, “l’impossibilité de donner
secours au roi de France était notoire, à moins qu’on ne voulût la
perte et la ruine totale des Pays-Bas.”—Gachard, _Philippe II et les
Pays-Bas_, I, 211; Margaret to Philip, August 6, from Brussels. The
latter deplores the reduction of the forces of the country because “les
ligues et confédérations (c’est ainsi qu’on les appelle) formées contre
lui, continuent.”—_Ibid._, August 6, 1562. Three future patriots of
the Netherlands were in this session of the Council of State—William
of Orange, Egmont and Hoorne. Cf. Gachard’s note.
[764] La Popelinière, Book viii, 499; _Rel. vén._ II, 99.
[765] “Cependant la ligue ne s’est pas renfermée dans l’enceinte de
Paris. Paris, qui l’avait incertaine et hesitante encore, la renvoya
aux provinces, toute brûlante et toute armée. Elle s’associa à leur
intérêts, réfléta leur passions et leur caractère, feroce en Languedoc,
durement obstinée en Bretagne, partout modifiée dans sa nature et sa
durée par la politique locale des municipalités.”—Ouvré, _Essai sur
l’histoire de la ligue à Poitiers_ (1855), 6.
[766] Ranke, _Civil Wars and Monarchy in France_, 226, notices this
contrast between the north and the south.
[767] This local organization did not seem strong enough for Montluc,
whose activity against the Protestants in 1562 was already notable
and who was suspicious lest some Huguenots might creep into the
body and betray it; so the power was taken out of the hands of the
_jurats_ of the city at his suggestion and vested in the hands of
Tilladet, governor of Bordeaux, who also had possession of the keys
of the city. This proceeding was destined to be revolutionary in the
development of the municipality. The _jurats_ pleaded their ancient
privileges, which were as old as the English domination, which Louis
XI had confirmed after the wars of the English in France were over.
But the parlement of Bordeaux approved the change and thus the form of
government of the greatest city of the Gironde was altered by stress
of circumstances (O’Reilly, _Hist. de Bordeaux_, II, 241-44; Montluc,
_Lettres et commentaires_, IV, 214, note). Cf. Gaullieur, _Histoire de
la réformation à Bordeaux et dans le ressort du parlement de Guyenne_.
Tome I, “Les origines et la première guerre de religion jusqu’à la paix
d’Amboise” (1523-63), Paris, 1848.
[768] “Tellement que les pauvres fidèles trembloyent dans Aix et
plusieurs firent constraints de s’enfuyr.”—_Mém. de. Condé_, IV, 240.
At p. 278 is an account of the formation of this league. Cf. _Discours
véritable des guerre et troubles advenus au Pays de Provence en l’an
1562._
[769] This was Henri Damville, the second son of the constable
Montmorency.
[770] This association, in the words of D’Aubigné, was the “prototype
et premier example de toutes les ligues qui ont despuis paru en
France.”—Vol. II, 137. Extended accounts of its origin may be found in
the _Annales de Toulouse_, II, 62 ff.; De Thou, IV, Book XXXIV, 496,
497; La Popelinière, Book VIII, 602, gives the text of the compact,
which shows the financial measures adopted in the support of the
league; _Lettres et commentaires de Montluc_, ed. De Ruble, II, 398;
_Hist. du Languedoc_, V, 249 ff. Protestant accounts are in Beza, Book
X; D’Aubigné, III, chap, xviii.
[771] _Commentaires_ (Eng. trans.), Book V, 232.
[772] “Ordonnance de Blaise de Montluc, chevalier de l’ordre et
lieutenant du roi en Guyenne, sur l’opinion qui devoit estres les
sujets fidèles à sa Majesté en la séné-chaussée d’Agenois, et sur
l’ordre qu’ils devoient tenir pour résister aux entreprises des sujets
rebelles.”—Ruble, _Comment. et Lettres de Montluc_, IV, 190; La
Faille, _Annales de Toulouse_, II, 62. The preamble is a recital of
Catholic grievances and Huguenot violence.
[773] D’Aubigné, II, 213, and n. 6; _Commentaires et lettres de
Montluc_, IV, 214.
[774] _C. S. P. For._, No. 1,000, _anno_ 1563.
[775] Mourin, _La réforme et la ligue en Anjou_, 21, 22.
[776] It is interesting to observe how history is repeating itself in
the formation of these local associations or confraternities against
the Huguenots. In 1212 in the course of the war against the Albigenses
the “Confraternitas ad ecclesiae defensionem Massiliae instituta”
was formed at Marseilles by Arnaud, the papal legate. See Martène,
_Thesaurus anecdotorum_, _sub anno_.
[777] Martin, _Histoire de France_, IX, 201; Anquetil, I, 213.
[778] “Si la Réforme acquit une si grande importance, au point que
les esprits superficiels y virent l’origine des libertés actuelles,
c’est qu’auparavant avait éclaté une révolution sociale et économique,
dont les luttes religieuses ne furent que les arrière-maux. Tant que
les historiens, dans leurs études sur la Réforme, ne tiendront pas
compte de ce dernier point de vue, ils n’écriront à son sujet que
les romans ou des pamphlets.”—Funck-Brentano, Introd. to new ed. of
Montchrétien’s _L’Œconomie politique_, LXXI.
[779] Hauser, “The Reformation and the Popular Classes in France in the
Sixteenth Century,” _American Historical Review_, January, 1899, 220.
[780] See Hauser, _Ouvriers du temps passé_; Pariset, _Histoire de la
fabrique lyonnaise_, 1901; Roussel, “Un livre de main au XVI^[e] siècle,”
_Revue internationale de sociologie_, XIII (1905), 102, 521, 825.
[781] Eberstadt, “Der französische Gewerberecht und die Schaffung
staatlicher Gesetzgebung und Verwaltung in Frankreich vom dreizehnten
Jahrhundert bis 1581,” _Schmoller’s Forschungen_, XVII, Pt. II, 270.
This is a pioneer work in the economic subject here briefly outlined.
The reader will find Unwin’s _Industrial Development in the Sixteenth
and Seventeenth Centuries_, London, 1905, an admirable survey of the
same subject, dealing chiefly with England, but with frequent reference
to the continent, where the conditions were much the same. There is a
copious bibliography prefixed to the work. The article by M. Hauser
referred to in the _American Historical Review_, January, 1899, should
also be examined.
[782] Weiss, _La chambre ardente_, cxlv. The early identification of
the French nobility with Calvinism has been exaggerated. One must be
cautious in the use of the term “nobility,” for it is to be remembered
that the eldest son received the largest share of the inheritance and
that younger sons and small nobles, in many instances, had much in
common with the small farmers in the provinces. As Mr. Armstrong aptly
says: “All that separated them from their neighbors was ‘privilege,’
and to this they clung all the more desperately.”—Armstrong, _The
French Wars of Religion_, 4. In the decade between 1550 and 1560
there is an increase in the number of aristocratic names identified
with French Protestantism, but it was not till 1557 that the first
great noble espoused its cause and that covertly. This was Antoine of
Bourbon. In the same year Coligny and D’Andelot also inclined to it
(Whitehead, _Gaspard de Coligny, Admiral of France_, 63-66). On the
whole matter, see Lavisse, _Histoire de France_, V, Pt. II, 238-42.
[783] Relazione IV, 242. The great store-house of information on this
head is M. Noel Weiss, _La chambre ardente_, 1889—the trials for
heresy during the years 1547-49 of the reign of Henry II—a book which
has revolutionized the point of view of the history of the French
Reformation (see a review of this work in _English Hist. Review_, VI,
770).
In the town of Provins there were but a few Huguenots. Among them
were 1 doctor; 2 lawyers; a notary; 1 barber and surgeon; 1 dyer; 3
apothecaries; 1 draper; 1 fuller; 1 salt dealer.—Claude Haton, I, 124,
125.
[784] It would be a narrow view of the history of France at this time
to infer that religious and economic changes were the only sort. The
truth is, the reigns of Francis I and of Henry II, were an age of
transition in religion, in institutions, even in manners.
“La corruption des bonnes mœurs a continué en tous estatz, tant
ecclesiastique que aultres, depuis les cardinaux jusques aux simples
prebstres, et depuis le roy jusques aux simples villagloix. Chascun
a voulu suyvre son plaisir; on a délaissé mesme l’ancienne coustume
de s’habiller. De temps immémorial, nul homme de France n’avoit esté
tondu ni porté longue barbe avant le régne dudit feu roy; ains tous
les hommes, garçons et campagnons portoient longs cheveux et la
barbe rasée au menton.... Les prebstres et évesques se sont faict
tondre des derniers; et ont porté longue barbe, ce qui a esté trouve
fort estranger depuis le commencement du règne dudit feu roy, ont
commencé les nouvelles façons aux habillemens toutes contraires à
l’antiquité, et a semblé la France estre ung nouveau peuple ou ung
monde renouvelé.”—Claude Haton, I, 112.
[785] The _cahier_ of the estates of Orleans was published at the eve
of the French Revolution (_Recueil des cahiers généraux des trois
ordres_, chap. i).
[786] Isambert, XIV, 63 ff.
[787] I am indebted for much of this information to M. Henri Hauser,
“Les questions industrielles et commercielles aux Etats de 1560,”
_Revue des cours_, XIII, No. 6, December 15, 1904. Cf. Funck-Brentano,
Introd. to Montchrétien, _Traicté de l’œconomie politique_, LXXIV-VI.
[788] Hauser, “The Reformation and the Popular Classes in France
in the Sixteenth Century,” _American Historical Review_, January
1899, p. 223. “The trade-unions fell under the sway of the religious
brotherhoods, which excluded the non-Catholics and were soon to lead
the revolutionary movement of the League.”—_Ibid._, 227.
[789] “L’origine des ligues en ce royaume vient des
Huguenots.”—Tavannes, 222; Martin, _Histoire de France_, IX, 125.
“En face des Protestants, qui s’associaient et s’organisaient contre
les catholiques, ceux-ci avaient de bonne heure formé des unions
locales pour résister aux entreprises des hérétiques. Ces premières
ligues ont seulement un but religieux. Elles sont généralement
composées de bourgeois dévoué à la royauté et sincèrement émus des
dangers auxquels est exposé la catholicisme.”—_La grande encyc._,
XXII, 234, _s. v._ “Ligue,” article by M. de Vaissière.
“La jalousie entre les deux Religions ne se borna pas l’émulation
d’une plus grande régularité; elles cherchèrent s’appuyer l’une
contre l’autre de la force des confédérations et des serments. Depuis
longtemps la Romaine entretenoit dans son sein des associations connues
sous le nom de confréries. Elles avoient des lieux et des jours
d’assemblée fixés, une police, des repas, des exercices, des deniers
communs. Il ne fut question que d’ajouter à ce la un serment d’employer
ses biens et sa vie pour la défense de la Foi attaquée. Avec cette
formule, les confréries devinrent comme d’elles-mêmes, dans chaque
ville, des corps de troupes prêtes à agir au gré des chefs, et leur
bannières, des étendarts militaires.”—Anquetil, I, 213.
[790] Coligny expressly denied having made any promise to return
Calais to England, and as to the occupation of Havre, he said: “J’en
ignorais les termes jusqu’à la venue de Throckmorton en Normandie, et
lorsque j’en ai signé la confirmation, je n’ai jamais pu croire qu’il
y eut autre clause que l’assurance donnée à la reine du remboursement
des sommes qu’elle nous avançait.”—_Correspondance de Catherine de
Médicis_, II, Introd., xiii. See the extended discussion of this
controverted subject in Whitehead, _Gaspard de Coligny_, Appendix I,
where he shows that the admiral is to be exonerated from the odium of
having sought to betray Havre-de-Grace into the hands of the English
and puts the blame for this article of the treaty of Hampton Court upon
the vidame de Chartres.
[791] The conduct of La Rochelle in the fourth civil war is the
most pronounced instance of Huguenot willingness to subordinate
French territory to a foreign domination and this action was of the
municipality, not of a single Huguenot leader, nor did it, of course,
imply the subjection of the government of France to English rule as the
Triumvirate contemplated in the case of Spain.
[792] _Mém. de Condé_, IV, 93: “Traicté d’Association faicte par
Monseigneur le Prince de Condé avec les Princes, Chevaliers de l’Ordre,
Seigneurs, Capitaines, Gentilhommes et autres de tous estats, qui sont
entrez, ou entreront cy-apres, en la dicte association, pour maintenir
l’honneur de Dieu, le repos de ce royaume, et l’estat et liberté du Roy
sous le gouvernement de la Roy sa mere.”
The third article provides for implicit obedience to the prince of
Condé, “chef et conducteur de toute la Compagnie,” i. e., the army;
_there was no league_. Minute regulations follow for the government of
the camp, for services of prayer both morning and evening, etc. The
fourth article, which has to do with the ways and means of raising
revenue, is the nearest approach to _political_ organization: “ ...
nous jurons and promettons devant Dieu et ses Anges nous tenir prests
de tout ce qui fait en nostre pouvoir, comme d’argent; d’armes, chevaux
de service, et toutes les autres choses requises, pour nous trouver
au premier Mandement du dict Seigneur Prince.”—_Mém. de Condé_, III,
210-15. Cf. La Popelinière, Book VIII, 582 ff., upon the same subject.
[793] In 1567 when the Huguenot chiefs tried to seize Charles IX
by surprise at Meaux, thus precipitating the second civil war, the
Venetian ambassador, Correro, expressed astonishment at the perfection
of the Huguenot organization (_Rel. vén._, II, 115).
[794] Edit de confirmation de l’édit de pacification du 19 Mars
1562, sec. 6: “Nous ... prohibons et défendons, sur peine de crime
de leze-majesté à tous nos dits sujets, quels qu’ils soient, qu’ils
n’ayent à faire practique, avoir intelligence, envoyer ne recevoir
lettres ne messages, escrire en chiffre n’autre escriture feincte,
ne desguisée, à princes estrangers, ne aucuns de leur subjects et
serviteurs, pour chose concernant nostre estat sans nostre sceu et
exprès congé et permission.”—Isambert, _Recueil des lois_, XIV, 145;
the “Ordonnance explicative” of April 7 is on p. 333; cf. _Mém. de
Condé_, IV, 311; La Popelinière, Book X, 724.
[795] We find repeated orders for their dissolution, e. g., F. Fr.
15,876, fol. 201.
[796] Lettres-patentes of Charles IX extended the right of Protestant
worship to Condom, St. Sevère, and Dax, towns which did not figure in
the edict of March 19 (Ruble, _Commentaires et lettres de Montluc_, IV,
257, 272, and notes). A royal ordinance was later issued giving a list
of those towns where Calvinist worship was permitted, specifying that
it must be conducted in the faubourgs, however (_Mém. de Condé_, IV,
338).
[797] Within a month the government received anonymous information
of Candalle’s activity (_Archives de la Gironde_, XXI, 14 [April 16,
1563]). Cf. “Lettre de Candalle à la reine, du mai 20, 1563” (F. Fr.
15,875, fol. 495). In the same volume, fol. 491, is a joint declaration
of the gentlemen of Guyenne upon the purposes of this association.
[798] _Commentaires et lettres de Montluc_, IV, 214.
[799] _Correspondance de Catherine de Médicis_, I, 552, col. 2. At
the same time Catherine wrote to certain members of the Parlement
of Bordeaux. Montluc’s reply, both the personal letter he wrote to
the queen mother (April 11), and the more official remonstrance he
forwarded to the King, is a palpable lie. He wrote to the queen
“Je vous puis asseurer ... que despuis la nouvelle de la paix, il
n’y a eu traicté d’association aucune; que, au moindre mot que
j’en ay dict, tout ne soit cessé comme s’il n’en avoit jamais
esté parle.”—_Commentaires et lettres_, IV, 206. Cf. his similar
declaration to Charles IX, on p. 214. The clergy of Bordeaux sustained
Montluc in this deception, and when the queen’s suspicion continued,
justified the association on the ground of religion. _Corresp. de
Catherine de Méd._, I, 552, note. Candalle in a letter of May 20,
1563, still evaded the truth in writing to the queen (F. Fr., 15,876,
fol. 495), and Catherine, upon more suspicious information from
d’Escars, determined to satisfy herself of certain facts, and sent two
commissioners to Guyenne to secure better information (_Commentaires et
lettres de Montluc_, IV, 270, note). Unfortunately for the government,
the Parlement of Bordeaux resented their coming as an invasion of their
jurisdiction, and the inquiry degenerated into a quarrel between the
Parlement and the commissioners (_ibid._, IV, 292, n. 1; _Corresp. de
Catherine de Médicis_, II, 114, 115).
[800] Claude Haton, I, 266.
[801] “A Lyon, les catholiques y sont pour le jour d’huy en plus
grand nombre des troiz partz pour une que les huguenotz; mais les
dits huguenotz sont les principaulx et ceulx qui ont les forces en
mains.”—Granvella to the emperor Ferdinand I, April 12, 1564, _Papiers
d’état du cardinal de Granvelle_, VII, 467.
[802] The coast trade with England and Holland probably explains the
prevalence of Protestantism in Lower Normandy, at least in part. But
the reasons of the prevalence of rural Huguenotism on an extensive
scale in Normandy are quite obscure. On this subject see La Ferrière,
_Normandie à l’étranger_, 2-5, 82; Hauser, “The French Reformation
and the French People in the Sixteenth Century,” _American Historical
Review_, January 1899, 225, 226.
[803] Hauser, _op. cit._, 226, 227. I find in Montluc an interesting
allusion to the prevalence of the Reformed belief among the peasantry
of Guyenne, which M. Hauser has not noticed. It occurs in a letter of
“Instruction au cappitaine Monluc [Pierre-Bertrand, called captain
Peyrot] de ce qu’il dira à la royne et au roy de Navarre, de la part du
sieur de Monluc, touchant l’état de Guyenne,” March 25, 1561, and is as
follows: “Et ce, à cause des insollences, scandalles et contemnements
que _les paisans_ dudit païs leur ont faict depuis ung an en cà,”
etc.—_Commentaires et lettres de Montluc_, IV, 115.
[804] Hauser, “The French Reformation and the French People in the
Sixteenth Century,” _American Hist. Review_, January 1899, 224. For
further information upon this change in the condition of the lower
and middle classes in France in the sixteenth century see Avenel, “La
fortune mobilière dans l’histoire,” _Revue des deux mondes_, August 1,
1892, pp. 605, 606; _idem_, “La propriété foncière de Philippe-Auguste
à Napoléon,” _Revue des deux mondes_, February 1, 1893, pp. 128, 129;
April 15, 1893, pp. 796, 797, 801-3, 812, 813; August 15, 1893, pp.
853-55; Lavisse, _Histoire de France_, V, Pt. I, 262-65.
[805] Remonstrance sent to the Pope out of France, _C. S. P. For._, No.
1453 (1562).
[806] _Ibid._
[807] _Rel. vén._, II, 121.
[808] Du Bois, _La ligue: documents relatifs à la Picardie d’après les
registres de l’échevinage d’Amiens_ (1859), 5.
[809] _Mém. de Condé_, II, 812.
[810] Montluc, Letter 48, March 25, 1561, _Comment. et lettres_, IV,
115. “Cette appréciation de Montluc est digne d’être signalée à cause
de sa conformité absolue avec les conclusions de l’érudition actuelle.
On admit généralement que le parti protestant, à l’époque même de sa
plus grande force, n’a jamais compté plus de dixième de la population
en France.”—Note appended by M. de Ruble.
[811] _Synodicon in Gallia_, I, lix.
[812] A Venetian syndicate interested in France in 1566 estimated the
population to be between fifteen and sixteen millions (_Rel. vén._,
III, 149). I assume this estimate to be more reliable than most.
According to Levasseur, economically France could support a population
of 20,000,000 in the sixteenth century (Foville, “La population
française,” _Revue des deux mondes_, November 15, 1891, 306).
[813] _C. S. P. For._, No. 935, §4, March 14, 1562.
[814] Upon the details of this famous tour see _Correspondance de
Catherine de Médicis_, II, Introd., xlv ff.; D’Aubigné, Book IV, chap
iv; Jouan, _Voyage du roi Charles IX_, new ed.; _L’Ambassade de St.
Sulpice_, 243, 254, 255, 270, 272, 274-76, 287, 300, 319.
[815] _Rel. vén._, I, 108.
[816] _C. S. P. For._, No. 43, March 7, 1574.
[817] “Entrée du roy Charles IX et de la reyne-mère Catherine de
Médicis en la ville de Sens, le 15 mars 1563,” Relation extraite du MSS
d’Eracle Cartault, chanoine, et des déliberations de l’Hôtel-de-Ville.
Préface de M. H. Monceaux, 1882.
[818] Coutant, “Dépenses du roi Charles IX à Troyes le mercredi 5
avril 1564 après Pâques,” Annuaire admin., etc., pour 1860 (Troyes);
“Depenses du roi Charles IX à Troyes le samedi 8 avril 1564,” Annuaire
admin., etc., pour 1859 (Troyes).
[819] Claude Haton, I, 364.
[820] The visit of the King to Bar-le-Duc (to attend the baptism of
the child-prince Henry of Lorraine) profoundly stirred the Calvinists
of France and Switzerland. Charles IX in person, Ernest of Mansfeldt,
governor of Luxembourg, representing Philip II, and the dowager-duchess
of Lorraine, Christine of Denmark, acted as god-parents.
[821] Fourquevaux to St. Sulpice, May 19, 1564, _L’Ambassade de St.
Sulpice_, 266.
[822] Armstrong, _French Wars of Religion_, 22, admirably observes:
“Geneva was practically a French republic, constantly recruited by
raw refugee material, and circulating in return trained ministers and
money, giving unity to measures which local separation was likely to
dissolve. Hence came the propagandism, the organization for victory,
the reorganization after defeat, the _esprit de corps_, the religious
zeal which whipped up flagging political or military energies.”
[823] See a letter of Alva in K. 1,502. Montluc later informed Philip
II of it (_Commentaires et lettres_, V, 25, letter of June, 1565). The
rumor seems not to have passed unheeded, for the marshal Vieilleville
cautioned the King and his mother to be moderate in their course,
saying that the Huguenots were many and the soldiers few (_Papiers
d’état du cardinal de Granvelle_, VIII, 632). On the state of Geneva at
this time see Roget, _L’église et l’état à Genève du vivant de Calvin;
étude d’histoire politico-ecclésiastique_, 1867.
[824] The constable to St. Sulpice, June 21, 1564, in _L’Ambassade de
St. Sulpice_, 273.
[825] _L’Ambassade de St. Sulpice_, 275, 276; _Nég. Tosc._, III,
515, 516; Nyd (l’abbé) “Notes écrites en 1566, à la fin d’un missel
de l’abbaye de Malgrivier (evénements rel. à Lyon, 1562-66),” _Bull.
du Com. de la langue, de l’hist. et des arts de la France_, IV, 300
(1857). The copper and lead mines of the Lyonnais had been profitable
in the Middle Ages, but the wars of the English in France and the Black
Death ruined the industry. See Jars, “Notice historique des mines du
Lyonnais, Forez et Beaujolais,” MS, Bibliothéque de Lyons, No. 1,470.
[826] _Rel. vén._, I, 35-37.
[827] A letter of his published by La Ferrière, _Deux années de mission
à St. Pétersbourg_, Paris (1867), 56, 57, casts an interesting light
upon the state of the city at this time.
[828] _L’Ambassade de St. Sulpice_, 266.
[829] La Cuisine, _Histoire du parlement de Bourgogne_, I, 60;
Castelnau, Book V, chap. vi, says the petition was printed. The bishop
of Orleans, Jean de Morvilliers, in a letter dated August 21, 1563,
called the queen mother’s attention to this growing prejudice (Frémy,
_Les diplomates de la Ligue_, 30-32).
[830] _L’Ambassade de St. Sulpice_, 129-31. Philip II, as has been
observed, expressed his disapproval of this practice (_ibid._, 152),
and when the French government endeavored to make it apply to the
property of the French church in the Low Countries, he set his foot
down hard (_ibid._, 188). An endeavor was made to restrain speculation
in church property by law.
[831] For details see _ibid._, 152, 156, 165, 185, 186, 226.
[832] _Castelnau_, Book V, chaps. vi and x is very clear in the
statement of various motives.
[833] Claude Haton, I, 368.
[834] See the wonderful word-picture drawn by Castelnau at the
beginning of Book V, and Montluc, Books V, VI, _passim_. For the
brigandage that prevailed see Montluc, IV, 343 (letter to the King from
Agen, March 26, 1564).
[835] Franklin, “La vie d’autrefois,” _Hygiene_, chap. ii, especially
pp. 67-75. For the plague of 1563-64 in Languedoc see _Hist. de
Languedoc_, XI, 447 (Toulouse), 464 (Montpellier, Nîmes, Castres,
etc.). It was at its height in July, 1564. It seems to have come into
Languedoc from Spain. See also _Papiers d’état du card. de Granvelle_
(March 11, 1564), VII, 387, 401; VIII, 36, 382, 470; _C. S. P. For._
(1564), Introd., xi-xii, and Nos. 544-53, §2; No. 592; Claude Haton I,
332. Those exposed to the infection were required to carry white wands
as a sign (_C. S. P. Ven._, No. 824, November 20, 1580).
[836] Claude Haton, I, 332.
[837] Vingtrinier, _La peste à Lyon_, 1901.
[838] _C. S. P. For._, No. 553 (1564).
[839] On the state of medical science at this time see Franklin, “La
vie d’autrefois,” _Hygiene_, chap. ii; cf. _C. S. P. For._, No. 544,
July 1, 1564 (summary of a pamphlet printed by the city authorities).
[840] Claude Haton, I, 224-28.
[841] Claude Haton, I, 332.
[842] “Non-seulement la France fut agitée en ceste année de guerres,
diminution des biens de la terre et de peste, mais aussi fut
remplie et fort tormentée des voleurs, larrons et sacrilèges, qui
de nuict et de jour tenoient les champs et forcoient les églises et
maisons, pour voller et piller les biens d’icelles pour vivre et
s’entretenir.”—_Mémoires de Claude Haton_, I, 332 (1562).
Smith declared that Lyons was the “most fearful and inhuman town he
had ever seen. Men show themselves more fearful and inhuman than
pagans.”—_C. S. P. For._, No. 553, July 12, 1564.
[843] Castelnau, Book V, chap. x.
[844] Claude Haton, I, 378.
[845] _C. S. P. For._, No. 327, §11, April 14, 1564; No. 389, §12, May
12, 1564.
[846] _Ibid._, No. 755, October 21, 1565.
[847] Jeanne d’Albret had an interview with Catherine after the court
left Macon; she demanded possession of Henry of Béarn, and leave to
return to her estates. But the queen mother, feeling that to grant
either of these requests might injure her cause with Philip II, sought
to satisfy her with the gift of 150,000 livres and the assignment
of Vendôme as the place of her residence (_Corresp. de Catherine de
Médicis_, Introd., II, l).
[848] _C. S. P. For._, No. 384, §7; _Papiers d’état du cardinal de
Granvelle_, VII, 529. His opinion of the synod is expressed in Vol.
VIII, 17; _Correspondance de Catherine de Médicis_, II, 179, note;
Claude Haton, I, 384.
[849] _C. S. P. For._, No. 358.
[850] Castelnau, Book V, chap. x, p. 284, attests this miscarriage of
justice.
[851] _C. S. P. For._, 755, October 21, 1564.
[852] No one can read the Huguenot historian, La Popelinière, Vol. II,
Book XI, without prejudice, and not be convinced of the fact that the
French Protestants infringed both the letter and the spirit of the
Edict of Amboise. The fact that Damville, who had succeeded his father
the constable as governor of Languedoc in 1562, and who was a moderate
Catholic, was required to be so drastic in his measures of repression
that the Protestants complained of him to Charles IX, supports this
view. Cf. _Corresp. de Catherine de Médicis_, II, Introd., l and li.
[853] Castelnau, Book V, chap. x; La Popelinière, _loc. cit._
[854] _L’Ambassade de St. Sulpice_, 328; _Papiers d’état du cardinal de
Granvelle_, VIII, 398.
[855] It was rumored also that the queen mother was ready to sacrifice
the Italian protégés of France to curry favor with Spain (_Papiers
d’état du cardinal de Granvelle_, VIII, 395-400, note; _L’Ambassade de
St. Sulpice_, 300, 335).
[856] “Traité et renouvellement d’alliance entre Charles IX, roi de
France, et Messieurs les Ligues de Suisse, faite et conclué en la ville
de Fribourg, le 7 jour de Déc., 1564” (Dumont, _Corps dip._, V, Pt. I,
129).
[857] Abridged from Rott, “Les missions diplomatiques de Pomponne
de Bellièvre en Suisse et aux Grisons (1560-74),” _Rev. d’histoire
diplomatique_, XIV, 26-41 (1900); cf. _Papiers d’état du cardinal de
Granvelle_, VIII, 630, 631; D’Aubigné, II, 210. M. Rott admirably
observes (p. 42): “Ainsi donc, cinquante ans et plus avant Richelieu,
la politique confessionnelle de la France s’inspirait déjà dans les
rapports avec l’étranger, de principes fort différents de ceux qui
dirigeaient son action à l’interieur du royaume.”
[858] _Papiers d’état du cardinal de Granvelle_, VIII, 72. The prince
of Condé had secured leave to leave the court in order to visit her
at Vitry in May, where she then lay ill. Her mother was Madeleine
de Mailly, sister of the admiral and granddaughter of Louise de
Montmorency, sister of the old constable (_ibid._, VII, 630, and note;
cf. _C. S. P. For._, 592, August 4, 1564).
[859] “All go and come by the cardinal of Lorraine, for without him
nothing is done.”—Smith to Cecil, November 13, 1564, _C. S. P. For._,
793, §2.
[860] Granvella to Mary Stuart, November, 1564, _Papiers d’état du
cardinal de Granvelle_, VIII, 570; cf. 550, 591, 599.
Randolph to the earl of Leicester: “The prince of Condé is become a
suitor here, supported by the cardinal.”—_C. S. P. Scotland_, IX,
67, November 7, 1564. Mary Stuart expressed her repugnance at such a
prospect by saying: “Trewlye I am beholding to my uncle: so that yt
be well with hym, he careth not what becommethe of me.”—Randolph to
Cecil, _C. S. P. Scot._, II, 117, November 9, 1564. Another match,
proposed simply for the purpose of leading Condé along, was between
the young duke of Guise and the prince’s daughter, Margaret, who was
a little child.—_C. S. P. For._, No. 642, §3; Smith to Cecil from
Valence, September 1, 1564; No. 650, _ibid._, September 3, 1564; No.
784, November 7, 1564. Smith to Cecil: “News is that the prince of
Condé and the cardinal of Lorraine have intervisited each other.” Cf.
_Papiers d’état du cardinal de Granvelle_, VIII, 127. Bolwiller who
disapproved of these plans in the interest of Philip II (_ibid._,
VIII, 381, note) evidently believed the prince won over to Catholicism
(_ibid._, VIII, 156). A propos of Condé’s relapse he sarcastically
wrote to Granvella on July 8, 1564: “Ce que l’on est en oppinion que
L’Admiral et D’Andelot se doibvent renger et hanger leur robbe, si le
font, lors me semblera-il veoir une vraye farce, et pourront les femmes
dire lors estre dadvantaige constante que les hommes, mesme madame de
Vandosme et duchesse de Ferrare demeurans en l’oppinion où l’on les
void.”—_Ibid._, VIII, 129.
[861] _Corresp. de Catherine de Médicis_, II, 106, note; _L’Ambassade
de St. Sulpice_, 164; _C. S. P. Scot._, II, 153, Randolph to Cecil,
March 1-3, 1565. Mary Stuart in 1564 was twenty-two years of age,
Charles IX barely fourteen (_Papiers d’état du card. de Granvelle_,
VIII, 347, note).
[862] Cf. the luminous letter of Philip to Granvella, August 6, 1564,
in _Papiers d’état du card. de Granvelle_, VIII, 215, 216.
[863] _C. S. P. Ven._, November 6, 1575.
[864] Fortunately for Philip, a whim of passion helped the Spanish
King’s purposes, and Catherine and the Guises failing to carry the
match between Mary Stuart and the prince were content to keep the
prince alienated from his party. The prince of Condé had become
enamored of one of the queen mother’s maids-of-honor, Isabel Limeuil,
while the court was at Roussillon, and had seduced her.
On this liaison see _Corresp. de Cath. de Méd._, II, 189, note; Louis
Paris, _Négociations_, Introd. XXVI, XXVII; _Nég. Tosc._, III, 572, and
especially La Ferrière, “Isabel de Limeuil,” _Revue des deux mondes_,
December 1, 1883, 636 and the duc d’Aumale, _Histoire des princes de
Condé_, I, Appendix, xix. A suggestion of the manners prevailing at
court is found in the following information: “Orders are taken in the
court that no gentleman shall talk with the queen’s maids, except it
is in the queen’s presence, or in that of Madame la Princesse de la
Roche-sur-Yon, _except he be married_; and if they sit upon a form or
stool, he may sit by her, and if she sits in the form, he may kneel by
her, _but not lie long_, as the fashion was in this court.”—_C. S. P.
For._, 1091, April 11, 1565.
[865] Unknown to Charles IX, the Spanish ambassador Chantonnay, whose
recall Catherine had insisted upon for months past and who was finally
replaced late in 1564 by Alava, traversed the provinces of France in
disguise, in the interest of his master, journeying through Auvergne,
Rouergue, Toulouse, Agen and Bordeaux, before he reported at Madrid for
new duty.
St. Sulpice to Catherine de Medici, June 12, 1564; _L’Ambassade de
St. Sulpice_, 711; _Papiers d’état du cardinal de Granvelle_, VII,
592. For some correspondence between Philip II and Granvella, and
Granvella and Antonio Perez regarding Chantonnay’s recall see Gachard,
_Correspondance de Philippe II sur les Pays-Bas_, I, 251-53. Upon
Chantonnay’s successor, Alava, see _L’Ambassade de St. Sulpice_,
227, 228, 236; _Papiers d’état du cardinal de Granvelle_, VIII, 393;
_Correspondance de Catherine de Médicis_, II, 359, 534; Poulet, I, 570,
n. 1; Forneron, _Histoire de Philippe II_, II, 256.
On the secret service of Philip II, see Forneron, I, 218, 290, 334; II,
304, 305; _Papiers d’état du cardinal de Granvelle_, VII, 498, 499;
VIII, 128, 182.
Alava exceeded his instructions in threatening France with war. Philip
II, far from wishing war with France, repudiated his ambassador’s
statements (_R. Q. H._, January, 1879, p. 23).
[866] Upon one of the fits of madness of Don Carlos see letter of the
Bishop of Limoges to Catherine de Medici in La Ferrière, _Rapport_,
48, 49. The Raumer Letters from Paris, Vol. I, chap. xv, contain an
interesting account of Don Carlos, with long extracts from the sources.
The editor rightly says that Ranke in his treatise on the affair of Don
Carlos, as acute as it is circumstantial, has adopted the only right
conclusion for the solution of this mysterious episode of history. See
also _Wiener Jahrbücher_, XLVI; Forneron, _Hist. de Philippe II_, II,
103 ff.; Louis Paris, _Négociations_, etc., 888; _Papiers d’état du
cardinal de Granvelle_, VIII, 317, note; _L’Ambassade de St. Sulpice_,
17, 29, 101, 597; Lea, in _Amer. Hist. Rev._, January, 1905; _English
Hist. Rev._, XIV, 335.
[867] Cf. _Papiers d’état du card. de Granvelle_, VIII, 334 and note;
cf. 215, 343, 344, 595, 596. Philip found a new prospective husband for
Mary Stuart in the person of the archduke Charles. He had abandoned the
idea of marrying Mary Stuart to his son even before the death of Don
Carlos.
[868] See _R. Q. H._, XXXIV, 461.
[869] Catherine turned to her own advantage an almost forgotten wish
of Philip II that he might see her, expressed in July, 1560, when his
anxiety was great because of her lenient policy toward the French
Protestants (_R. Q. H._, XXXIV, 458).
[870] Challoner, English ambassador to Spain, to the queen: “Hardly
shall a stranger by his countenance or words gather at any great
alteration of mind, either to anger, or rejoicement, but after the
fashion of a certain still flood;” quoted by Forneron, I, 319, n. 2,
from Record Office MSS No. 466.
[871] See the extremely interesting account of the passing of the
Turkish embassy through Provins, in Claude Haton, I, 342-44.
[872] On the conspiracy of Bajazet and his flight to Persia see
D’Aubigné, Book III, chap. xxviii.
[873] _Négociations dans le Levant_, II, 729.
[874] _Ibid._, 730.
[875] Spain suspected the Sultan was desirous of securing a French
roadstead for his fleet during the siege of Malta. See _Commentaires et
lettres de Montluc_, V, 38, note; D’Aubigné, 221, and n. 1; _Papiers
d’état du cardinal de Granvelle_, VIII, 162; _L’Ambassade de St.
Sulpice_, 398; _R. Q. H._, XXXIV, 473-78.
[876] _Corresp. de Cath. de Méd._, II, Introd., lxxxvi, lxxxvii; _R. Q.
H._, XXXIV, 470.
[877] _L’Ambassade de St. Sulpice_, 14, Letter of March 27, 1562.
[878] Perez writes to Granvella on November 15, 1563: “La reine mère
de France tourmente sa majesté catholique pour la déterminer à une
entrevue.”—_Papiers d’état du card, de Granvelle_, VII, 256; and two
weeks later (December 4, 1563) we find Philip II writing to Alva,
saying that “L’ambassadeur de St. Sulpice lui a proposé une entrevue
avec la reine de France,” and desiring the duke’s opinion in the matter
(Gachard, _Correspondance de Philippe II sur les Pays-Bas_, I, 277).
The actual text is in Philip’s correspondence, No. XXVI.
[879] _L’Ambassade de St. Sulpice_, 226.
[880] “Ne se passoit jour sans nouvelle sorte de combatz, passe-temps
et plaizirs.... L’on dréçoit joustes, tournoy, commédies et
tragoedies.”—Fourquevaux to St. Sulpice, _L’Ambassade de St. Sulpice_,
266; cf. _Papiers d’état du cardinal de Granvelle_, VIII, 466. For an
account of one of these entertainments, see Castelnau, Book V, chap. vi.
[881] “Le pays est tel que vous avez entendu, pleins de montagnes et
bandoliers.”—Catherine to St. Sulpice, January 9, 1564, _L’Ambassade
de St. Sulpice_, 331.
[882] Charles III had been educated in France and was a French
pensioner to the amount of 250,000 francs annually (_Rel. vén._, I,
451). On this Spanish pressure to revoke the Edict of Amboise see
_Papiers d’état du cardinal de Granvelle_, VII, 461, 468; Poulet, I,
576, note; Castelnau, Book V, chap. ix; _R. Q. H._, XXXIV, 462, 463.
The Huguenots quickly divined it (Languet, _Epist. secr._, II, 268,
November 18, 1563; _Arch. d’Orange-Nassau_, I, 136).
The anxiety of the French Protestants over the King’s visit of Lorraine
is well expressed in the letter of Lazarus Schwendi to the Prince of
Orange, August 22, 1564, in _Arch. d’Orange-Nassau_, I, 191.
[883] Ranke, _Civil Wars and Monarchy in France_, 226.
[884] Davila, _Guerre civile di Francia_, III, 144. On September 27,
1564, the prévôt Morillon wrote to the cardinal Granvella: “L’édit de
France contre les apostatz me faict espérer que la royne mère passera
plus avant, puisque la saison est à propos; et si elle ne le faict, je
crains qu’elle et les siens le paieront.”—_Papiers d’état du card. de
Granvelle_, VIII, 361.
[885] Castelnau Book V, chap. x. Granvella expressed impatience at
Catherine’s slowness in repressing the Huguenots. See his letters to
vice-chancellor Seld and Philip II at this time in _Papiers d’état du
cardinal de Granvelle_, VIII, 598, 599, 632, 633.
[886] Unless the order forbidding Renée of Ferrara to hold Protestant
service even in private while at the court, be taken as the first; see
_R. Q. H._, XXXIV, 467.
[887] Near Lyons, where on account of the plague the court was stopping
July 17 to August 15; it belonged to the cardinal Tournon, who held it
in apanage.
[888] Isambert, XIV, 166; Castelnau, Book V, chap. x; La Popelinière,
II, Book XI, 5, 6; Chéruel, _Histoire de l’administration monarchique
de la France_, I, 196.
[889] D’Aubigné, II, 211. On the last complaint see _Correspondance
de Catherine de Médicis_, II, 195, 203, and notes. These Catholic
associations generally at this time went by the name of “Confréries du
St. Esprit,” as D’Aubigné’s allusion shows.
[890] For an episode showing at once the manners of some in the court,
and the Catholic intensity of the people of Marseilles, see _Papiers
d’état du cardinal de Granvelle_, VIII, 475.
[891] Lamathe, “Délibération des consuls de Nismes au sujet de l’entrée
de Charles IX dans ladite ville (1564),” _Rev. des Soc. savant des
départ._, 5^[e] série, III (1872), 781.
[892] While here, Catherine dispatched the marshal Bourdillon into
Guyenne for the purpose of dissolving the league formed at Cadillac on
March 13, 1563 (D’Aubigné, II, 213). As we shall see, the mission was
fruitless.
[893] _Correspondance de Catherine de Médicis_, II, Introd., lviii. The
editor adds: “De toutes les villes du Midi, c’était [Beziers] celle qui
comptait le plus de Protestants.” On account of the alarm evinced by
the Huguenots of the south—300 gentlemen of Beziers visited the King
in a body—Charles IX, when at Marseilles on November 4, “confirmed”
the Edict of Amboise. Yet so apprehensive was the court that whenever
it stopped an effort was made to disarm the local populace (_C. S. P.
For._, No. 788-1564).
[894] On the incident of Catherine reading a MS chronicle about Blanche
of Castile, see the extract of the Venetian ambassador in Baschet (_La
diplomatie vénetienne_, 521, 522).
[895] _Correspondance de Catherine de Médicis_, II, Introd., lix.
[896] Claude Haton, I, 378.
[897] The order of the King of December 13, 1564, prohibiting any
nobles whoever they might be, unless princes of the house of France,
from entering the government of the Ile-de-France is still unpublished.
It is preserved in a report of the Spanish ambassador, Arch. nat., K.
1,505, No. 31. It is to be distinguished from the general _ordonnance_
of the year before—“Lettres du roy contenans defenses à toutes
personnes de ne porter harquebuzes, pistoles, ni pistolets, ni autres
bastons à feu, sur peine de confiscation de leurs armes et chevaulx,”
Paris, 1564. Cf. Isambert, XIV, 142.
[898] All the historians notice this episode. See D’Aubigné, Book IV,
chap, v; _Corresp. de Catherine de Médicis_, II, Introd., lix, lx, and
253-56 where the letters of the marshal and the queen mother on the
subject are given. The editor, in a long note, sifts the evidence.
Other accounts are in Claude Haton, I, 381-83 (other references in
note); _C. S. P. For._, No. 942, January 24, 1564; _Mém. du duc de
Nevers_, V, 12, 13; Castelnau, Book VI, chap. ii.
In _Papiers d’état du cardinal de Granvelle_, VIII, 600-2, is an
account from the pen of Don Louis del Rio, an attaché of the Spanish
embassy at Paris; and on pp. 655, 656 is the “Harangue de l’admiral
de France à MM. de la court du parlement de Paris du 27 janvier 1565
avec la réponse.” The baron de Ruble has written the history of this
incident in _Mém. de la Soc. de l’hist. de Paris de l’Ile-de-France_,
Vol. VI.
According to a letter of Mary Stuart to Queen Elizabeth, February 12,
1565, the resentment due to the old law-suit over Dammartin flashed
out at this time. But it must have been a conjecture on her part,
for she adds: “I have heard no word of the duke of Guise or monsieur
d’Aumale.”—_C. S. P. Scot._, II, 146. The prince of Condé’s Catholic
leanings at this critical moment are manifested in a letter to his
sister, the abbess of Chelles, in which he states that he is annoyed
at the outrage committed on the cardinal of Lorraine by the marshal
Montmorency; that the union of these two houses is more than necessary;
that if he had been with the cardinal, he would have given proof of his
good-will by deeds. See Appendix VII.
[899] “Les confraires du Sainct-Esprit et autres reprenoient plus de
viguer, et les provinces ne pouvoient plus souffrir les ministres ny
les presches publics et particulièrs, et se séparoient entièrement des
huguenots; qui estoient argumens certains qu’en peu de temps il se
verroit quelque grand changement.”—Castelnau, Book VI, chap. ii.
[900] Ardent Catholics, like Cardinal Granvella, believed both the
marshal Montmorency and Damville to be Protestants at heart (_Papiers
d’état du cardinal de Granvelle_, VIII, 278).
[901] “Des catholiques formèrent des ‘unions’ pour défendre l’honneur
de Dieu et de la Sainte Eglise, et ces unions, en se rapprochant
constituèrent la Ligue.”—Beulier, “Pourquoi la France est-elle restée
catholique au XVI^[e] siècle,” _Revue anglo-romaine_, January 11, 1896,
257. The Jesuits worked hard in France for Philip II. Forneron, II,
304, quotes an interesting letter to this effect from a Jesuit working
in France.
[902] The procès-verbal of this league is in _Mémoires de Condé_,
ed. London, VI, 290-306. For the court’s sojourn at Agen see Barrère
(l’abbé), “Entrée et séjour de Charles IX à Agen (1565),” _Bull. du
Com. de la langue, de l’hist. et des arts de la France_ I (1854), 472.
For the King’s sojourn at Condom (1565) see Barrère (l’abbé), _ibid._,
476.
[903] _Commentaires et lettres de Montluc_, III, 80, 81; De Thou, V,
Book XXXVII, 32; Anquetil, I, 213.
[904] Collection Godefroy, CCLVII, No. 7, July 18, 1564.
[905] De Thou, IV, Book XXXVII, 32.
[906] A printed copy of this important dispatch, entitled “Coppie d’une
lettre du sieur d’Aumale au sieur marquis d’Elbœuf son frère, sur
l’association qu’ils delibèrent faire contre la maison de Montmorency”
(February 27, 1565), is to be found in the Bib. Nat., L _b._ 33: 172.
It evidently was circulated as a political pamphlet by the Huguenots.
But where is the original? Portions of it are as follows: “Mon frère
... j’ay receu de vostre homme la lettre que m’avez escripte.... J’en
ay par plusieurs fois cy devant escript à Messieurs de Montpensier,
d’Estampes, Cehavigny: par où ils auroyent bien peu juger la volonté
que j’ay tousjours lue de nous venger, et combien je desirerois
l’association que vous dites (_verso_) prevoyant assez combien elle
estoit necessaire non seulement pour nous, mais aussi pour tous les
gens de bien à qui l’on en veult plus que jamais.
“Et pour ceste cause, mon frere, je trouverais merveilleusement bon que
les dicts Sieurs y voulsissent entendre, laissant les villes, d’autant
qu’il n’y a nulle asseurance en peuple, comme je l’ay dernièrement
encore cogneut. Mais avec la Noblesse, de ma part je suis tout resolu
et prest, et n’y veux espargner aucune chose, et le plustost sera le
meilleur. Qui me fait vous prier, de regarder et en bien adviser tous
parensemble, et mesmes avec le seigneur de Montpensier, et de m’en
mander ce que vous aurez deliberé, à fin que par là je resolue avec les
Seigneurs et Noblesse qui sont de deça et mes Gouverneurs, qui feront
tout ce que je vouldray.
“Au demeurant, vous avez bien entendu le nombre de Chevaliers de
l’Ordre qui ont esté faicts, qui sont bien pres de trente ou plus,
dont monsieur de Brion en est des premiers. Aussi des preparatifs que
lon fuit à la Court pour aller à Bayonne recevoir festoyer la Roine
d’Espaigne.”
[907] _Commentaires et lettres de Montluc_, III, 80-86. I have used the
seventeenth-century translation of Cotton, 274, 275, which preserves
something of the spirit of the original. De Thou, never having seen
the document in question, expresses his doubt of Montluc’s veracity in
the matter, and argues the improbability of the King’s having followed
Montluc’s advice on the ground that the crown had condemned all secret
associations as destructive of domestic tranquillity. “Why should
the King make a league with his subjects?” asks De Thou. “Far from
deriving any advantage from it, would it not diminish his authority?
Would the King not incite his subjects to do exactly what he wanted
to avoid, and by his own example accustom them to town factions; to
foment and support parties in the kingdom?”—De Thou, IV, Book XXXVII,
33. Unfortunately for the truth of De Thou’s hypothesis, the facts are
the other way, for there is documentary proof that Charles IX followed
out Montluc’s suggestion, and sent the declaration to all his officers
requesting their adherence to it. The baron de Ruble discovered the
proof in F. Fr. 20,461, fol. 58. See his edition of Montluc, III, 86,
note; cf. D’Aubigné, II, 218, and n. 6.
[908] The credit of having made this important discovery is due to the
baron de Ruble, _Commentaires et lettres de Montluc_, IV, 317-26, 329,
330, 346, 347, 362, 363. But it was Forneron who showed the world the
magnitude of Montluc’s treason (_Hist. de Philippe II_, I, 293-330).
Suspicion of Montluc’s course, however, prevailed in his own day. He
was charged with having agreed to deliver over the province of Guyenne
to Philip II in 1570 and issued a cartel against his adversaries
denying that he had any intelligence with Spain. See Appendix VIII.
[909] D’Andelot’s appointment to this post created intense feeling
among the Catholic officers. Strozzi, Brissac, and Charry openly
refused to obey him (D’Aubigné, II, 207; Brantôme, V, 341).
[910] Forneron, I, 294, n. 3.
[911] Montluc, ed. De Ruble, IV, Introd., ix.
[912] It will be observed that Montluc independently had come to the
same conclusion as Granvella.
[913] Montluc, ed. De Ruble, IV, 317-26, February 8, 1564.
[914] Forneron, I, 330. D’Aubigné, II, 294, wrongly ascribes this plot
to the Jesuits. The traditional Protestant account, attributed to
Calignon, chancellor of Navarre, is printed in _Mém. du duc de Nevers_,
II, 579; also in _Mém. de Villeroy_. The account in _Arch. cur._, VI,
281, is much colored. Catholic historians have denied the existence
of such a plot, e. g., the abbé Garnier in _Mém. de l’Acad. des
inscrip._ (1787), Vol. L, 722. But since the publication of Montluc’s
_Correspondance_ there is no doubt of it.
[915] Forneron, I, 303-6. Cabie, _L’Ambassade de St. Sulpice_, 483,
gives the text of the ambassador’s letter to Catherine, and his note of
thanks to the queen’s embroiderer who divulged the plot.
[916] D’Aubigné, II, 204, 205; _Mém. de Condé_, IV, 669. Charles IX’s
letter of November 30, 1563, to St. Sulpice gives some details of the
process (_L’Ambassade de St. Sulpice_, 186, 187).
[917] _Correspondance de Catherine de Médicis_, II, 119, 120. Her
letter to her daughter in Spain, not in the correspondence, which
M. Cabie cites in _L’Ambassade de St. Sulpice_, 208, displays real
courage. Charles IX said he could not abandon Jeanne d’Albret “sans
être vu déserter de ses plus proches parents” (_ibid._, 247). The
instructions to Lansac, who was sent to Spain to protest in the name of
France against the papal action, show fine scorn (_ibid._, 224).
[918] _Commentaires et lettres de Montluc_, IV, 327, note.
[919] _L’Ambassade de St. Sulpice_, 228: “Réponse de Philippe II au sr.
de Lansac en sa première audience, 18 fev. 1565.”
[920] _Ibid._, 247.
[921] _L’Ambassade de St. Sulpice_, 5.
[922] Letter to St. Sulpice, February 10, 1563, _ibid._, 115.
[923] _Ibid._, 135.
[924] Pius IV was so perplexed that he tried to avoid pronouncing in
the matter. “On avait décidé, à la dernière fête de St. Pierre, de
supprimer cette cérémonie, afin de n’offenser personne.”—Charles IX to
St. Sulpice, July 24, 1563, _ibid._, 141.
[925] Du Ferrier, French ambassador at Venice to St. Sulpice, April 12,
1564, _ibid._, 252.
[926] Cf. the report of the conversation between Archbishop Cispontin,
the papal secretary, and D’Oysel (_ibid._, 273, July, 1564).
[927] “Instructions données par Charles IX à L’Aubespine le jeune,
envoyé en Espagne,” _ibid._, 277, June 24, 1564.
[928] _Ibid._, 279, 281, 282, 299. “It is an error to regard, as most
historians do, the course of the relations of Philip II to the see of
Rome as a single consistent development, for the earlier part of his
reign was dominated by a principle utterly different from that which
inspired the latter. In the sixties and early seventies the Spanish
king devoted himself primarily to the maintenance of the principles
of the counter-Reformation; he abandoned political advantage in the
interest of the faith, united with the ancient foes of his house for
the suppression of heresy, dedicated himself and his people to the
cause of Catholicism.... But in the later seventies there came a
change. The spirit of the counter-Reformation was waning in France:
the old political lines of cleavage had begun to reappear; Philip
began to discover that he was draining his land to the dregs in the
interests of a foreign power who offered him no reciprocal advantages,
and reluctantly exchanged his earlier attitude of abject devotion to
the interests of the church for the more patriotic one of solicitude
for the welfare of Spain.... Viewed from the Spanish standpoint, the
story of this long development is a tragic but familiar one—reckless
national sacrifice for the sake of an antiquated ideal, exhaustion
in the interests of a foreign power, which uses and casts aside but
never reciprocates. But it adds one more to the already long list
of favorable revisions of the older and more hostile verdicts on
the Spanish monarch. Philip’s attitude toward the papacy, though
not always wise or statesmanlike, was at least far more honorable
and loyal to the church than it is usually represented (as, for
instance, by Philippson): the first part of his reign is marked by his
single-hearted devotion to the cause of Rome, and even at the last
that devotion does not falter, though the interests of his country
forced him to adopt a more national policy toward the papacy than that
with which he had begun.”—R. B. Merriman, Review of Herre, _Papsttum
und Papstwahl im Zeitalter Philipps II_ (Leipzig, 1907), in _American
Historical Review_, October, 1908, pp. 117, 118.
[929] _Papiers d’état du cardinal de Granvelle_, VIII, 177, July 30,
1564; _R. Q. H._, 1869, p. 403.
[930] _Papiers d’état du cardinal de Granvelle_, VII, 669.
[931] Granvella said as much to Philip II, July 14, 1563. See _Papiers
d’état du card. de Granvelle_, VII, 124; cf. Gachard, _Correspondance
de Philippe II sur les Pays-Bas_, I, 277 (Philip II to Alva, December
14, 1563).
[932] Granvella to Perez, August 6, 1563, _Papiers d’état du cardinal
de Granvelle_, VII, 177.
[933] _Ibid._, 231.
[934] _Ibid._, 262.
[935] See Paillard, _Histoire des troubles de Valenciennes_, 1560-67.
[936] _Papiers d’état du cardinal de Granvelle_, VIII, 270.
[937] For proof see _ibid._, 55, 56, and note.
[938] “Les Huguenots de France sollicitent continuellement ceulx des
Pays-Bas pour se révolter,” writes Granvella to the Emperor on June 3,
1564 (_ibid._, 18).
[939] _Ibid._, 99; cf. 104, note.
[940] _Ibid._, 23, 393; _L’Ambassade de St. Sulpice_, 5, 275, 280, 284,
300, 305; _Correspondance de Catherine de Médicis_, II, 197_s_.
[941] “Si cela de la religion succède bien en France, les affaires
vauldront de mieulx.”—_Papiers d’état du cardinal de Granvelle_, VIII,
152, July 15, 1564.
[942] The presence of many Belgian students at the French universities
undoubtedly contributed to this sympathy. See Gachard, _Correspondance
de Philippe II sur les Pays-Bas_, I, 372.
[943] _Papiers d’état du cardinal de Granvelle_, VIII, 390, 527, 550,
556, 593.
[944] _Ibid._, VII, 281.
[945] The counselor d’Assonleville wrote to Cardinal Granvella after
the peace of Troyes, “Adieu, Callais! combien qu’elle nous duiroit bien
hors de mains des François!”—Poulet, I, 570.
[946] _L’Ambassade de St. Sulpice_, 191, 194, 209, 221. Each state
appointed a commission in 1563 to adjust this difficulty and other
border complications on the edge of Artois and Luxembourg (for
instances, see _L’Ambassade de St. Sulpice_, 224, 227, 228, 240, 254),
whose conferences were prolonged through the years 1564-65. See the
long note in Gachard, _Philippe II sur les Pays-Bas_, I, 270.
In Collection Godefroy, XCIV, No. 16, will be found a “sommaire de la
négociation de Calais, entre le président Séguier et le conseiller
du Faur, députés de Charles IX, et les ambassadeurs de Philippe II;”
original, signed by Séguier and Du Faur. In the same collection, XCVI,
No. 6, is a delimitation treaty pertaining to the Picard frontier,
signed by Harlay and Du Drac, at Gravelines, December 29, 1565. Charles
IX refused to ratify it.
[947] _Papiers d’état du cardinal de Granvelle_, VIII, 18.
[948] “Un eslavon tan importante desta cadena.”—_Ibid._, VII, 215.
[949] For Granvella’s opinion of the demand for the Estates-General,
see his letter to Philip II, April 18, 1564 (_ibid._, 492-94).
[950] _Ibid._, 294, note, and especially 495-97; cf. _L’Ambassade de
St. Sulpice_, 188, 193.
[951] “Non admettre à couleur de la peste.”—Granvella to the duchess
of Parma, _Papiers d’état du cardinal de Granvelle_, VII, 411.
[952] This was a mere threat, however, as such a course would have
injured France as much as the Netherlands.
[953] See the letter of the president Viglius to Granvella, April 17,
1564, in _Papiers d’état du cardinal de Granvelle_, VII, 476; cf. 481.
On this whole question, so far as England is concerned see Brugmans,
_England en de Nederland in de eerste Jaren von Elizabeth’s regeering
(1558-67)_, Groningen, 1892; cf. _English Historical Review_, VIII,
358-60.
[954] _Papiers d’état du cardinal de Granvelle_, VII, 496, 497. Cf. the
observation of Assonleville in a letter to Granvella, Poulet, I, 570.
The cardinal’s prophecy was partially fulfilled (_Papiers d’état du
cardinal de Granvelle_, VIII, 40, 41).
[955] “Qui est autant que couper la gorge aux marchands.”—“Mémoire
envoyé pour le roi de France à St. Sulpice,” January, 1564, in
_L’Ambassade de St. Sulpice_, 210.
[956] See “Note du Ministère de France en réponse aux griefs presentés
par l’ambassadeur d’Espagne” in _Papiers d’état du cardinal de
Granvelle_, VIII, 584-86. Other references to this commercial matter
are in VII, 62, 164, 375, 411, 476, 481, 495-97, 584, 668; _L’Ambassade
de St. Sulpice_, 175, 181, 188, 191, 193, 194, 200, 206, 209, 210,
213, 217, 221, 224, 304, 350, 351; _Papiers d’état du cardinal de
Granvelle_, VIII, 6-15, 514, 515; Gachard, _Correspondance de Philippe
II sur les Pays-Bas_, I, 244, 246, 247; Poulet, I, 567, and n. 2. There
is a memoir on the mission of Assonleville to England, April-June 6,
1563, in the _Bulletin de la commission royale d’histoire_, sér. III,
I, 456 ff.
Undoubtedly Spain’s harsh commercial policy toward France was also
influenced in part by jealousy of the commercial relations of France
and England, for the treaty of Troyes established freedom of trade
between the two nations. For the great importance of this treaty in
the history of commerce see De Ruble, _Le traité de Cateau-Cambrésis_,
193-95.
[957] St. Sulpice sent this important information in a letter of
January 22, 1565 (_L’Ambassade de St. Sulpice_, 338).
[958] _Ibid._, 366. Catherine de Medici pushed her insistence
perilously far, asserting that Alava, the Spanish ambassador in France,
had intimated that objection would not be made to the presence of the
prince of Condé, since his exclusion might endanger the peace. Philip
II promptly declared that if Alava had made Catherine believe so, he
had acted in violation of instructions. “Mémoire envoyé à Catherine sur
les réponses du roi catholique,” May 7, 1564, in _L’Ambassade de St.
Sulpice_, 375.
[959] Egmont passed through Bordeaux on his way to Spain while the
court was there (_R. Q. H._, XXIV, 479).
[960] The reasons for the selection of Bayonne are set forth in _R. Q.
H._, XXXIV, 472.
[961] “Les lenteurs ... qui sont habituelles en Espagne.”—_L’Ambassade
de St. Sulpice_, 363.
[962] F. Fr. 20,647, fol. 11. For other details of the preliminaries of
Bayonne, see _L’Ambassade de St. Sulpice_, 335-38, 347, 350, 351, 353,
354, 357-60, 362, 363, 366, 374-78, 382.
[963] Cf. _Recueil des choses notables qui ont esté faites à Bayonne
Paris_, 1566; and the _Mémoires de Marguerite de Navarre_, Book I.
[964] See De Thou, Book XXVII; Mathieu, _Histoire de France_, I, 283;
La Popelinière, Book XI, 8. The prince of Orange and William of Hesse
both believed that the massacre of St. Bartholomew was concerted at
Bayonne (_Archives de la maison d’Orange-Nassau_, III, 507; IV, 108).
[965] Some of the literature upon this famous interview is as follows:
E. Marcks, _Die Zusammenkunft von Bayonne: Das französ. Staatsleben u.
Spanien in d. J. 1563-67_, Strassburg, 1889; Combes, _L’entrevue de
Bayonne de 1565_, Paris, 1882; Maury, in _Journal des savants_, 1871;
Loiseleur _La St. Barthelémy_, Paris, 1883; Lettenhove, _La conférence
de Bayonne_, 1883; La Ferrière, _R. Q. H._, XXXIV, 457, and the same
in _Correspondance de Catherine de Médicis_, II, Introd.; Philippson,
_L’Athénæum belge_, July 1, 1882; De Croze, _Les Guises, les Valois
et Philippe II_; Boutaric, _La Saint Barthélemy, d’après les archives
du Vatican_ (_Bib. de l’Ecole des Chartes_, sér. V, III, 1); Raumer,
_Frankreich und die Bartholomäusnacht_, Leipzig, 1854; Wuttke, _Zur
Vorgeschichte der Bartholomäusnacht_; Soldan, _La Saint Barthélemy_
(French trans.), 1854.
[966] _R. Q. H._, XXXIV, 483, and n. 2.
[967] For Alva’s judgment on the government of France see _Papiers
d’état du cardinal de Granvelle_, VII, 276; cf. _L’Ambassade de St.
Sulpice_, 341-43.
[968] _Nég. Tosc._, III, 523; _R. Q. H._, XXXIV, 492-512, n. 4. Alva
frankly said that he wished the constable were gone with the rest—“el
condestable que valierá mas que faltára como los otros.”—_Papiers
d’état du cardinal de Granvelle_, VII, 277.
[969] The duke of Montpensier was a notoriously bigoted Catholic.
The Venetian ambassador said of him: “Il quale è tenuto più atto a
governare un monasterio di frati che a comandare ad eserciti.”—_Rel.
vén._, II, 155.
[970] _R. Q. H._, XXXIV, 485. Montluc put a memoir in Alva’s hands
which proposed an alliance between the crowns of France and Spain for
the purpose of crushing the Protestants in France. In event of the
French king’s refusal to become a party to this alliance, Montluc
outlined the means of defense which Philip II would have to resort
to. This memoir is published by the baron de Ruble in _Commentaires
et lettres de Montluc_, V, 23 ff. In this striking document the
veteran soldier, after setting forth his favorite thesis that French
Calvinism was antimonarchical in its nature, makes a survey of the
religious state of the provinces. He concludes that while Protestantism
was rampant everywhere in France, in five-sixths of the country the
Catholics were superior. The place of great danger is Guyenne. The
mutual safety of France and Spain requires the subjugation of this
province. France cannot or will not do this alone (cf. _Correspondance
de Catherine de Médicis_, I, 342, n. 3; 343, n. 4). It remains,
therefore, for the king of Spain to do so. This is the historical
argument for all of Montluc’s subsequent course of treason with Philip
II.
[971] This has been triumphantly proved by Count Hector de la Ferrière,
who has shown that M. Combes, _L’Entrevue de Bayonne de 1565 et la
question de St. Barthélemy d’après les archives de Simancas_, Paris,
1881, has mistranslated the very documents upon which he relied (_R. Q.
H._, _XXXIV_, 511 ff.).
[972] Pius V was elected pope January 17, 1566 (see Hilliger, _Die
Wahl Pius V zum Päpste_, 1907). He had been grand inquisitor before
his elevation, and imparted a ferocious zeal to the holy office
(see Bertelotti, _Martiri di Libero Pensero e Vittime della Sta.
Inquisizione nei Secoli, XVI, XVII, e XVIII_, Rome, 1892). The violence
of his character and his bigotry led to his committing several acts
injurious to the Catholic cause, but it was due to him that the
Spanish, Venetian, and papal fleets defeated the Turks at Lepanto.
He wrote on March 28, 1569 to Catherine de Medici: “Si Votre Majesté
continue, comme elle a fait constamment, dans la rectitude de son âme?
et dans la simplicité de son cœur, à ne chercher que l’honneur de Dieu
toutpuissent, et à combattre ouvertement et ardemment les ennemis de
la religion catholique, _jusqu’à ce qu’ils soient tous massacrés_ (ad
internecionem usque), qu’elle soit assurée que le secours divin ne lui
manquera jamais, et que Dieu lui préparera, ainsi qu’au roi, son fils,
de plus grandes victoires: ce n’est que par _l’extermination entière_
des hérétiques (deletis omnibus haeritics) que le roi pourra rendre à
ce noble royaume l’ancien culte de la religion catholique.”—Potter,
_Pie V_, 35; letter of the Pope to Catherine de Medici, March 28, 1569.
The original Latin version of this letter, the salient words of which
are in parentheses above, is in _Epistola SS. Pii V_, ed. Gouban,
III, 154, Antwerp, 1640. The editor was secretary to the marquis de
Castel-Rodrigio, ambassador of Philip IV to the Holy See. An abridged
edition was published by Potter, _Lettres de St. Pie V sur les affaires
religieuses de son temps en France_, Paris, 1826. The letter is one
of congratulation written to Catherine de Medici upon the Catholic
victory of Jarnac and the death of the prince of Condé. (Cf. the letter
of April 13, 1569, on p. 156 to the same effect.) Nevertheless, even
the Pope regarded the total destruction of the French Protestants
as a result more devoutly to be wished for than practicable. Pope
Pius V, however, was not the first advocate of destruction, for as
early as 1556 François Lepicart gave the same advice to Henry II: “Le
roy devroit pour un temps contrefaire le luthérien parmi eux [the
Protestants], afin que, prenant de là occasion de s’assembler hautement
partout, on pût faire main-basse sur eux tous, et en purger une bonne
fois le royaume.”—_Bayle’s Dictionary_, art. “Rose.”
The doctrine of assassination for heresy originally proceeded from
the mediaeval church, in which it can be traced back as far as the
beginning of the Crusades. Urban II asserted that it was not murder
to kill an excommunicated person, provided it was done from religious
zeal. (“Non enim eos homicidas arbitramur quod adversus excommunicatos
zelo catholicae matris ardentes, eorum quoslibet trucidasse
contigerit.”—Migne, _Epistolae Urbani_, CLI, No. 122; Mansi, XX, 713;
the same words are used by Ivo of Chartres, X, 331, and by Gratian
in the _Decretum_ [causa 32, quaestio 2, canon: _De neptis_].) The
passage stands in the revised edition, to which Gregory XIII prefixed
the injunction that nothing should be omitted, and the gloss gives
the following paraphrase: “Non putamus eos esse homicidas qui zelo
justitiae eos occiderunt.”
In 1208 Innocent III proscribed the count of Toulouse (Teulet, _Trésor
des Chartes_, I, 316), and in the same pontificate the Fourth Lateran
Council declared that the Pope might depose anyone who neglected
the duty of exterminating heresy and might bestow his state on
others (Harduin, _Concilia_, VII, 19). The same canon reappears in
the _Decreta_ of Gregory IX (Lib. iv, tit. 7. cap. 13). St. Thomas
Aquinas declared that the loss of political rights was incurred by
excommunication (_Summa_ [ed. 1853], III, 51). The teaching that
faith need not be kept with a heretic was well established by the
church in the thirteenth century. It was pleaded by the Emperor in
the case of Huss—“quoniam non est frangere fidem ei qui Deo fidem
frangit.”—Palacky, _Documenta Joannis Hussi_, I, 540.
The spirit of this teaching survived in the sixteenth century. In
1561 some citizens of Lucca, having embraced the Protestant belief,
were obliged to flee from the city. The government of the republic,
under suggestion from Rome, passed a law on January 9, 1562, that
whoever killed one of these refugees, though he had been outlawed,
yet would his outlawry be reversed; and that if he himself needed
not this privilege, it could be transferred to another (_Archivio
storico italiano_, X, app. 176, 177). On January 20, Pope Pius IV
wrote to congratulate the city on this pious legislation: “Legimus
pia laudabiliaque decretaque civitatis istius Generale Consilium
nuper fecit ad civitatem ipsam ab omni heresum labe integram
conservandam.... Nec vero quicquam fieri potuisse judicamus, vel ad
tuendum Dei honorem sanctius, vel ad conservandam vestre patrie salutem
prudentius.”—_Ibid._, 178, 179.
When Henry of Valois made oath to respect liberty of conscience in
Poland he was informed that it would be sin to observe the oath, but
that if he broke it, the sin of making it would be regarded as a venial
offense: “Minor fuit offensio, ubi mens ea praestandi quae pelebatur,
defuit.”—Hosii, _Opera_, II, 367.
The Ridolfi plot, it may be added, casts a very clear light upon the
teaching and conduct of Pius V.
[I owe some of the information given above to a curious accident. In
1899, among a number of books which I purchased in London, I found
a number of fragmentary notes dealing with this question. There is
nothing to indicate their authorship, but in recognition of the
assistance of some scholar to me unknown this acknowledgment is made.
It may be added that the books purchased dealt with France in the
fourteenth century].
[973] This was Montluc’s idea, which he broached both to the cardinal
of Lorraine and Philip II, in the form of an edict which he himself
improvised, and which we know that the king of Spain actually read
(_Commentaires et lettres de Montluc_, IV, 359-62). There are two
Spanish translations of the first document in the Archives nationales.
Philip indorsed the letter to Bardaxi in his own handwriting: “la carta
para el cardinal de Lorena.”—_Ibid._, IV, 362, note.
[974] _Papiers d’état du cardinal de Granvelle_, IX, 306; Gachard,
_Correspondance de Philippe II sur les Pays-Bas_, I, 368; letter of
Margaret of Parma to Antonio Perez, September 27, 1565.
[975] The monotony of life and the tyranny of Spanish etiquette must
have borne hard upon the little queen of Spain. But in the midst of the
miseries of this “royal slavery,” as M. le comte de la Ferrière calls
it, it was a crowning humiliation to be condemned to be the instrument
of Philip’s political intrigues. That her young spirit rebelled, though
hopelessly, against the situationis evident, from a pitiful letter
written by her to her brother’s ambassador in Spain (La Ferrière,
_Rapport_, 28).
[976] On Cardinal Pacheco see Poulet, I, 7, note and Index.
[977] _Correspondance de Catherine de Médicis_, II, Introd., lxxxiii,
lxxxiv.
[978] The key to it was discovered in 1885. Suriano had been Venetian
envoy at Trent. He was not the regular ambassador of the senate in
France and his dispatches seem to have been in another key from that of
Marc Antonio Barbaro the accredited ambassador.
[979] _Correspondance de Catherine de Médicis_, II, Introd., lxxxv.
[980] Combes, 47.
[981] “For a whole fortnight Catherine resisted the pressure of her
daughter and the Spanish envoys, who found support in the drastic
proposals of the leaders of the French Catholics. Within the last
three days of the interview, however, concessions were made which
satisfied Alva and his master, though Granvella and Alva exhibited
some skepticism. The queen was prompted, ... not by Alva’s alleged
threat that the King must lose his crown, or his brother Henry his
head, but merely by her fear that the total failure of the interview
would hinder the attainment of her ends. These concessions consisted
in the engagement to accept the decrees of the Council of Trent and in
an enigmatical promise of punishment or remedial measures. The latter,
however, probably did not refer to the judicial murder or assassination
of the Huguenot leaders—a scheme suggested by Montpensier’s confessor
and welcomed by Alva—but to the expulsion of the ministers and
subsequent enforcement of orthodoxy. The execution of these measures
was postponed until the conclusion of the journey, but it seems
probable that Catherine never seriously intended an act which would
have been the inevitable sign of civil war.”—Armstrong in _English
Historical Review_, VI, 578, 579 (review of Marcks, _Die Zusammenkunft
von Bayonne_, Strasburg, 1889).
[982] For example La Noue, chap. xii (1567).
[983] _Correspondance de Catherine de Médicis_, II, 509, 510; _R. Q.
H._, XXXIV.
[984] “Tous les bruis que l’on fayst courer ne sont pas vray.... Et
y a tent de noblèse au demeurant que tou les souir à la sale du bal
je panserès aystre à Baionne si j’y voyais reine ma fille,” writes
Catherine to the duke of Guise (_Correspondance de Catherine de
Médicis_, II, 315).
[985] Fourquevaux, I, 6, November 3, 1565. Cf. _Correspondance de
Catherine de Médicis_, II, 326—Catherine to Fourquevaux, November 28,
1565.
[986] For the beginnings of Catherine’s negotiations in Poland see
_Correspondance de Catherine de Médicis_, II, Introd., cv, 404;
Capefigue, 412 ff.
[987] _Correspondance de Catherine de Médicis_, II, 320.
[988] “C’est la rareté et la cherté des vivres qui nous chasse,”
said Catherine to the Venetian ambassador (cited by La Ferrière,
_Correspondance de Catherine de Médicis_, II, Introd., cii).
[989] See the rhyme upon it in L’Estoile, ed. Michaud, series 2, Vol.
I, p. 17.
[990] Cf. Babinet de Rencogne, “Sur un débordement de la Charente et la
cherté des vivres en 1481,” _Bull. de la Soc. art._, etc., 1860, 3^[e]
sér., II, 3 (Angoulême, 1862).
[991] Cf. Boutiot. “Notes sur les inondations de la rivière de Seine à
Troyes depuis les temps les plus reculès jusqu’ à nos jours,” _Annuaire
admin. pour 1864_ (Troyes), p. 17.
[992] Claude Haton, I, 395-98. This statement, even if there were no
other evidence, is confirmed for the south of France by the court’s
experience in the foothills of the Pyrenees in January, 1565 (cf.
_Hist. du Languedoc_, V, 465). For the west of France see _Chroniques
Fontenaisiennes_ (Paris, 1841), 84, 85, and the “Journal de Louvet,”
published in the _Revue d’Anjou_ in 1854. One quotation may suffice:
“Au mois de febvrier, il tomba sy grande quantité de neige au païs
d’Anjou et fust l’hyver si froid, que les rivières furent glacées et
qu’on marchoit et passont par-dessus, et que tous les lauriers et
romarins gelèrent, et qu’au dégel les eaux crurent et furent si grandes
qu’elles rompirent des arches, ponts et chaussées, et fust ceste année
appelée l’année du grand hyver.” I know of no article upon this subject
as a whole. M. Joubert, _Etude sur les misères de l’Anjou aux XV^[e] et
XVI^[e] siècles_, 1886, pp. 35 and 161, has a little to say. The subject
deserves treatment. The sources of course are almost wholly local.
[993] Claude Haton, I, 331.
[994] _Idem_, I, 409.
[995] Catherine’s order to the marshal Montmorency, as governor of
Paris, dated November 19, 1565, is in _Correspondance de Catherine de
Médicis_, II, 325.
[996] The authorities of Provins made requisition of the grain
possessed by private persons and appropriated all save that which
was necessary for the owners, which was sold to the townspeople
at the maximum price of 20 sous per _boisseau_. The abbot of St.
Jacques and the prior of St. Ayoul baked bread to be distributed to
the poor. One of the wealthy citizens from Easter till harvest made
daily distribution of bread to more than three hundred poor, besides
furnishing them with work (Claude Haton, I, 409).
The _boisseau_ (Med. Latin, _boissellus_ [Du Cange, _s. v._]) was an
ancient measure of capacity equivalent to 13.01 litres, approximately
12 quarts. In remote parts of France the term is still sometimes used
to indicate a décalitre. The _boisseau_ was used for both dry and
liquid measure. On the other hand the _bichet_ (Med. Latin, _bisselus_
and _busellus_, whence the English bushel) was a dry measure,
representing from one-fifth to two-fifths of a hectolitre (from 4.4
to 8.8 gallons) according to the province. The _setier_, was a larger
dry measure of 6 pecks (Paris measure). The _muid_ (Latin _modius_)
also was of variable capacity. That of Paris equaled 36 gallons. The
_queue du creu_ was a large wooden cask, about equivalent to a hogshead
and a half, and was used only for wine. The calculations of terms of
American money are on the theory that the _livre tournois_ in 1565 was
equivalent to 3.11 francs, according to the estimate of the vicomte
d’Avenel in _Revue des deux mondes_, June 15, 1892, p. 795.
[997] Claude Haton, I, 418. For information on this subject see Reuss,
_La sorcellerie au 16^[e] et au 17 siècle, particulièrement en Alsace
d’après des documents en partie inédits_; Jarrin, _La sorcellerie en
Bresse et en Bugey_ (Bourges, 1877); Pfister, “Nicolas Rémy et la
sorcellerie en Lorraine à la fin du XVI^[e] siècle,” _Revue hist._,
XCVII, 225.
[998] “Molins è città, ed à posta vicina all’ Alier, sopra il quale
ha un ponte; è la principale del ducato di Borbon. Vi è un bellissimo
palazzo, fabbricato già dai duchi di Borbon, posto in fortezza, con
bellissimi giardini e boschi e fontane, e ogni delicatezze conveniente
a principe. Tra le altre cose vi è una parte dove vi si teniano de
infinite sorte animali e ucelli, delli quali buona parte è andata de
male; pur vi restano ancora molti francollini, molte galline d’India,
molte starne, è altre simil cose; è vi son molti papagalli vi diverse
sorte.”—_Rel. vén._, I, 32, 34.
[999] When the court was at Blois so great was the number of strangers
that the Knights of the Order made a house-to-house canvass.
[1000] _C. S. P. For._, _anno_ 1565, p. 524; cf. _Nég. Tosc._, III,
523. For details upon the history of the six months between July and
January, see _Correspondance de Catherine de Médicis_, II, lxxxvii-cv.
[1001] _C. S. P. For._, _anno_ 1566, No. 17. Before the end of the
month the old scores were officially “shelved” by decrees of the King
in council (January 29 and 31, 1566). Many of the sources allude to
this hypocritical reconciliation: De Thou, V, Book XXIX, 184; Poulet I,
125—letter of Granvella from Rome; D’Aubigné, II, 223-25; _C. S. P.
For._, No. 57, January 29, 1566; Castelnau, Book VI, chap. ii.
[1002] _C. S. P. For._, No. 41, January 23, 1566.
[1003] _C. S. P. For._, No. 120, February 22, 1566.
[1004] _Ibid._, No. 150, March 6, 1566.
[1005] _Ibid._, No. 136, February 25, 1566. “The constable lies at
Chantilly ill at ease.”—_Ibid._, No. 406, May 21, 1566. Poulet, I,
190, Morillon to Granvella, March 5.
[1006] _C. S. P. For._, _anno_ 1566, Introd. The text of the
_ordonnance_ is in Isambert, XIV, 189; De Thou, Book XXXIX, 178-84, has
much upon it. It is he who records the speeches of the King and the
chancellor. It is interesting to observe that very similar conditions
prevailed in Germany at this time. See the account of the Diet of
Spires (1570) in Janssen, _History of the German People_, VIII, 75 ff.
[1007] Cf. Cheruel, _Histoire de l’administration monarchique de la
France_, I, 196-203; Glasson, _Histoire du droit et des institutions de
la France_, VIII, 170 ff.
[1008] The clergy of Guyenne were so incensed at this prohibition that
they threatened to leave the country (_Archives de la Gironde_, XIII,
183).
[1009] See the case of the magnificence of the house of a Parisian
shoemaker, who had purchased the estate of a king’s treasurer and
enormously enriched himself with gold and silver. Under a pretext the
queen mother secured entrance to the house. Claude Haton, I, 412, gives
a detailed description of its magnificence.
According to an estimate of January 15, 1572, the income from the
“Parties Casuelles,” that is to say, from offices vacated by the death
of particular possessors thereof, and from the “Paulette,” was two
million francs and yet the corruption in the administration was so
great that the King received but a quarter of this amount (Cheruel, I,
208).
[1010] De Thou, V, Book XXXVII, 185; D’Aubigné, II, 224; _C. S. P.
For._, Nos. 343, 344, 347, 387, April 28; May 3-4, 16, 1566; Forneron,
_Hist. des ducs de Guise_, II, 59.
[1011] “On ne sait encore quant on délogera d’icy, combien que les
laboureurs des champs ayent ja faict présenter deux requestes au Roy
pour se retirer et sa suite à Paris jusques à ce que la récolte soit
faict.”—Tronchon to M. de Cordes, July 4, 1567; quoted by the duc
d’Aumale, _Histoire des princes de Condé_, I, Appendix XVI.
[1012] “Politique de bascule,” _R. Q. H._, XXVII, 274.
[1013] _C. S. P. For._, No. 275, April 12, 1566.
[1014] It was estimated that, beside footmen, captains, men-at-arms,
there were 20,000 horsemen attached to the various factions (_C. S. P.
For._, No. 470, May-June, 1566).
[1015] _C. S. P. For._, No. 667, August 21, 1566.
[1016] _Ibid._, No. 715, September 14, 1566.
[1017] Hugh Fitzwilliam to Cecil: “The constable is of great authority
with the king and the queen mother; and being mortal enemy to the house
of Guise is with his nephews and the Protestants for his life.”—_C. S.
P. For._, No. 741, October 3, 1566.
[1018] _Nég. Tosc._, III, 515. “A man might easily perceive by the sour
countenance the queen made that she liked not all that he had said.
After he had saluted divers persons the king made him somewhat too
short an answer for so long a demand.”—_C. S. P. For._, No. 444, June
1, 1566.
[1019] “The king has made peace with his treasurers for a certain
sum by the constable’s means, whereof something cleaves to his
fingers.”—_C. S. P. For._, No. 733, §2, September 28, 1566.
[1020] According to the estimate of this syndicate France had a
population of from fifteen to sixteen millions (_Rel. vén._, III, 149).
[1021] _C. S. P. For._, Nos. 1,111-15, April 18-19, 1567.
[1022] _Papiers d’état du cardinal de Granvelle_, IX, 594, 595; Poulet,
I, Introd., l-lii, n. 2; Gachard, _Don Carlos et Philippe II_, I, 303;
_C. S. P. For._, No. 641, August 13, 1566. Coussemaker, _Les troubles
religieux du XVI^[e] siècle dans la Flandre maritime 1560-70_; Van
Velthoven, _Documents pour servir à l’hist. des troubles religieux du
XVI^[e] siècle dans le Brabant_; Verly, _La furie espagnole, 1565-95_;
Kervyn de Lettenhove, _Les Huguenots et les Gueux: Etude hist. sur
vingt-cinq annels du XVI^[e] siècle (1560-1585)_, Bruges, 1883-85, 6
vols.; Poulet, _Correspondance du cardinal de Granvelle_, I, Introd.,
lvii-lxxvi; II, Introd., iv-vii; De Thou, V, 204-37; D’Aubigné, Book
IV, chap. xxi.
[1023] The most notable of these was Francis Junius, who was driven out
of Antwerp. The Spanish ambassador demanded his arrest but the prévôt
de l’hôtel refused, alleging with right that Junius was the ambassador
of the count palatine and entitled to immunity (_Correspondance de
Catherine de Médicis_, II, Introd., cviii).
[1024] On this famous siege of Malta see D’Aubigné, Book IV, chap. xix;
De Thou, Book XXXVIII. It was begun on May 17, 1565.
Mingled with this fear was apprehension lest even the Turk might
become an ally of the Flemings and the Protestant French (Poulet, I,
357, Morillon to Granvelle). That it was not an utterly fantastic
notion of him alone, see the letter of Margaret of Parma to Philip II,
in _Corresp. de Philippe II_, I, No. 411, and Gachard, _Corresp. de
Guillaume le Taciturne_, VI, 408.
[1025] _Archives de la maison d’Orange-Nassau_, I, 259-89; Poulet,
I, 207; Gachard, _La Bibliothèque Nationale à Paris_, I, 88. “Avec
la liberté des consciences, que aulcungs prétendent, nous ne nous
trouverions pas mal si, suyvant l’exemple des François, nous tumbions
aux mesmes inconvenientz.”—Letter of Granvella, April 9, 1566, in
Poulet, I, 209.
[1026] Sir Francis Berty to Cecil: “The Prince of Orange since
Wednesday shows himself openly to take the Gueux part, and divers of
his men wear their badge. This town is marvellously desolated; great
riches are conveyed out, chiefly by strangers.”—_C. S. P. For._, No.
582, July 20, 1566, from Antwerp.
[1027] Poulet, I, 307.
[1028] We know of Montigny’s treason from a dispatch of Granvella to
Philip II, July 18, 1565, in which the cardinal tells the King that
Montigny is still successfully pretending to be a Calvinist and is in
correspondence with the Châtillons and Montmorency. He had already
been at least nine months in the pay of Spain. He got 20 écus per diem
for one job (_Papiers d’état du cardinal de Granvelle_, IX, 404, 595).
Montigny came to Paris ostensibly to attend the wedding of the duke
of Nemours’ son to the admiral’s niece at Easter time. We get a line
on Philip II’s methods at this point, for the Guises themselves were
having secret and treasonable dealings with Spain, yet did not know
of Montigny’s relation to Philip II and treated him with scorn and
contempt (_ibid._; Poulet, I, 329; cf. Finot, _L’espionnage militaire
dans les Pays-Bas entre la France et l’Espagne aux XVI^[e] et XVII^[e]
siècles_).
[1029] Poulet, I, 304; Edward Cook to Cecil: “Montgomery has told
him that the French Protestants are resolved to succour those of
Flanders.”—_C. S. P. For._, No. 661, August 18, 1566. This letter
is analyzed in the _Bull. de la comm. roy. d’histoire_, 3^[e] sér., I,
129. Granvella’s confidant in Brussels, the prevost Morillon, wrote
with truth on July 7: “Je croy que si avons mal cest année ce ne sera
du costel de France.”—Poulet, I, 350. Cf. Reiffenberg, _Corresp. de
Marguerite de Parme_, 88; Gachard, _Corresp. de Philippe II_, I, 429,
431, 436; at p. 473 is a letter dated October 15 in Italian from the
duchess of Parma to Philip expressing fear of Huguenot projects.
[1030] Louis of Nassau without doubt was in close connection
with the leading French Protestants. See _Archives de la maison
d’Orange-Nassau_, I, 229; II, 196, 403. It was extremely difficult to
repress the ardor of the Protestants at Valenciennes, owing to its
nearness of the French border and the number of Calvinist preachers
whom the Huguenots sent into the country in June, 1566 (_ibid._, II,
135). For the influx of Calvinist preachers into the country as early
as 1561 see Languet, _Epist. secr._, II, 155. The prince of Condé was
reputed to have sold a tapestry for 9,000 florins, which he gave to the
cause there (Poulet, I, 439).
[1031] Montluc to Bardaxi, October 27, 1564: _Commentaires et lettres
de Montluc_, IV, 368.
[1032] Poulet, I, 64; Reiffenberg, 91; _Archives de la maison
d’Orange-Nassau_, II, 175, 178.
[1033] _Corresp. de Philippe II_, I, 433.
[1034] The government of Charles IX even winked at the secret levies
made by the prince of Condé for the benefit of Louis of Nassau, from
behind the mask of an official repudiation of the complicity of any
French in Flanders, denying that the prince of Condé was ever in
Antwerp in disguise (Poulet, I, 521, 3; Gachard, _La Bibliothèque
Nationale à Paris_, II, 206). The last assertion, of course, was
true. On July 24 a royal proclamation was issued at Alva’s instance,
forbidding French subjects to go into the Low Countries “pour
négotiation ou autrement.”—Poulet, I, 364; Gachard, _op. cit._, II, 27.
[1035] “Hinc illae lachrymae et ille metus,” wrote the provost to
Granvella (Poulet, I, 405). It was the wish of the Emperor that the
King of Spain would go in person and without an army to the Low
Countries in order to pacify it by kindness and not by force (_Archives
de la maison d’Orange-Nassau_, II, 505; Raumer, I, 173, December,
1566). But Philip II could not make up his mind to come in person
to the Netherlands, although advised to do so by all. For years he
continued to entertain the thought and continually put it off. See a
letter of the Duchess of Parma to Duke Henry of Brunswick upon the
coming of the duke of Alva, January 1567, in _Archives de la maison
d’Orange-Nassau_, III, 21 ff.
[1036] On April 3, 1565, St. Sulpice sent word to Charles IX that
Philip II had sent Menendez to Florida “avec une bonne flotte et
600 hommes pour combattre _les Français et les passer au fil de
l’épée_.”—_L’Ambassade de St. Sulpice_, 364. When Fourquevaux
succeeded him the French government had not yet learned of the
massacre. St. Sulpice’s fragmentary information is to be found at pp.
400, 401, 404, 414. The abortive efforts of France to secure redress
are spread at length in _Corresp. de Catherine de Médicis_, II, 209,
330, 337, 338, 341, 342, 360; and in Fourquevaux, I, Nos. 4-7, 9, 15,
21, 28, 43, 47, 55, 66. The editor’s account in the Introd., xv-xxi
is admirable. In the _Correspondencia española_, II, 126-28, is to be
found Philip II’s letter to Chantonnay, February 28, 1566, in reply to
the ambassador’s letter of advice about Coligny’s enterprise. The blood
of French colonists who had been massacred in Florida cried out for
vengeance, and from the hour of its knowledge the subject of reprisal
was a matter of common talk in the Norman ports (_C.S.P. Dom._, Add.,
XIII, 227). On September 24, 1566, Sir Amyas Paulet, the English
ambassador informed his government that he had information that a
squadron was about to sail for this purpose, although it was “late for
so long a voyage” (_ibid._, 31). On the whole history of this ill-fated
colony see Gaillard, “La reprise de la Floride faite par le capit.
Gourgues (1568),” _Notices et extr. des manuscr. de la Biblioth. Nat._,
IV, and VII (1799); Gourgues, _La reprise de la Floride_, publiée
avec les variantes, sur les MSS de la Bibl. Nat. par Ph. Tamizey de
Larroque, 1867; Gafferel, _Histoire de la Floride française_, 1875;
Parkman, _The French in North America_. The newest literature upon
the subject is Woodbury Lowery, “Jean Ribaut and Queen Elizabeth,”
_American Historical Review_, April, 1904, and the same author’s _The
Spanish Settlements within the Present Limits of the United States:
Florida, 1562-74_ (New York, 1905).
[1037] De Thou, V, 37-40.
[1038] _Papiers d’état du cardinal de Granvelle_, VII, 381, note.
In 1558 Bolwiller made an inroad into France (_Bulletin des comités
historiques_, 1850, p. 774; a summary of a letter concerning this
episode to be found in the archives of Basel). On Bolwiller see
_Papiers d’état du cardinal de Granvelle_, IX, 36, note. The new plan
was occasioned by the issue of letters-patent of Charles IX on October
9, 1564, forbidding sale or alienation of any regalian rights of the
Three Bishoprics without his consent (text in _Papiers d’état du
cardinal de Granvelle_, VIII, 394).
[1039] Bolwiller to Granvella, October 16, 1564, on the written
authority of Philip II (_ibid._, VIII, 429).
[1040] “Je tiens que les François, par voye de faict, y (Toul)
mectront la main, comme ilz ont jà commencé, et le mesmes à Metz
et Verdung.”—_Papiers d’état du cardinal de Granvelle_, VII, 465;
Granvella to the Emperor, April 12, 1564.
[1041] _Ibid._, VIII, 504-6.
[1042] _Ibid._, IX, 44. Granvella to Perez, February 26, 1565; p. 111,
Philip II to Chantonnay, then stationed at Vienna, April 2, 1565.
Bolwiller intrusted the action to Egelolf, seigneur de Ribeauspierre
(the German form is Rapolstein), a noble of Upper Alsace. His mother
was a Fürstenburg. (See _ibid._, IX, 24, note.) Strange vicissitude,
that a descendant of that house in the next century should have been
Louis XIV’s right-hand agent in his seizures on the Rhine through the
Chambers of Réunion, playing an identically opposite part from that of
his ancestors.
[1043] _Papiers d’état du cardinal de Granvelle_, IX, 71—Bolwiller to
the cardinal March 20, 1565.