Since perhaps there are some, who may think themselves concerned in this
history, because they are the grand-children or descendants of those
who are here mentioned, I desire them to consider, that writing like a
faithful historian, I am obliged sincerely to relate either the good
or ill which they have done. If they find themselves offended, they
must take their satisfaction on those who have prescribed the laws of
history: let them give an account of their own rules; for historians
are indispensably bound to follow them; and the sum of our reputation
consists in a punctual execution of their orders.
Thus, as I pretend not to have deserved their thanks in speaking well
of their relations, so I may reasonably conclude, that they ought not
to wish me ill, when I say what is not much to their advantage. I
faithfully relate what I find written in good authors, or in particular
memoirs, which I take for good, after I have thoroughly examined them.
I do yet more; for, considering that no man is bound to believe, when
I say in general that I have had the use of good manuscripts, on whose
credit I give you what is not otherwhere to be had; I sincerely and
particularly point out the originals from whence I drew these truths; and
am fully convinced, that every historian, who hopes to gain the belief
of his reader, ought to transact in the same manner. For, if there were
no more to be done, than barely to say, I have found such or such an
extraordinary passage in an authentic manuscript, without giving a more
particular account of it under pretence of being bound to secrecy, there
is no kind of fable which by this means might not be slurred upon the
reader for a truth. An author might tell many a lusty lie, but a reader,
who were not a very credulous fool, or a very complaisant gentleman,
would have a care of believing him. It is for this reason that I have
always marked in my margins, the books, relations, and memoirs, whether
printed or manuscripts, from whence I take the substance of my relations.
One of those writers, of whom I have made most use, is Monsieur Peter
Victor Cayet, in his nine years chronology, containing the history of the
wars of Henry the Fourth.[19] Because he having always followed that
prince, since he was placed in his service, together with Monsieur de
la Gaucherie, who was his preceptor, it is exceeding probable, that he
was better informed of the passages of those times, of which he was an
eye-witness, than others who had not that advantage.
For what else concerns him, he was one of the most learned and able
ministers which our Protestants have ever had; and in that quality
served Madam Catharine, the king’s sister, till, about two years after
the conversion of that great prince, he acknowledged the true Catholic
religion, and made his solemn abjuration of heresy at Paris. He also
published the motives of his conversion in a learned treatise, which was
received with great applause both in France and in foreign countries; and
his example, fortified with the strong reasons of a man so able as he
was, to which no solid answer was ever given, was immediately followed by
the conversion of a great number of Protestants, who by his means came to
understand the falsehood of their religion pretendedly reformed.
This action so infinitely nettled his former brotherhood of ministers,
that they grew outrageous against him. They ran down his reputation
with full cry, and endeavoured to blacken it with a thousand horrible
calumnies, with which they stuffed their libels; and, amongst others,
that which they have inserted into the memoirs of the League, with
the greatest villainy imaginable, taking no notice of the solid and
convincing answers he made them. Which proceeding of theirs is sufficient
to discover the falsity of all they have written to defame him, according
to the libelling genius of presbytery.
For, of all heretics, none have been more cruel, or more foul-mouthed,
than the Calvinists; none have revenged themselves of their pretended
enemies more barbarously, either by open arms, or private mischiefs, when
the power was in their hands; or more impudently with their pens, and by
their libels, when they had no other way to shew their malice; murdering
their reputations with all sorts of injuries and impostures, who have
once declared themselves against their party.
In effect, what have they not said to defame the memory of Monsieur de
Sponde, lieutenant-general in Rochelle; of Salette, counsellor to the
king of Navarre; of Morlas, counsellor of state and superintendant of
the magazines of France; as also of Du Fay, Clairville, Rohan, and a
hundred others of their most celebrated ministers, who, after having
been esteemed amongst them for good men, and looked on as the leaders of
their consistory, are, by a strange sort of metamorphosis, become, on
the sudden, profligate wretches, and the most infamous of mankind, only
for renouncing Calvinism? By how many forgeries and calumnies have they
endeavoured to ruin the repute of all such Catholics as have the most
vigorously opposed their heresy, history will furnish us with abundant
proofs: and we have but too many in the fragments which Monsieur le
Laboreur has given us of their insolent satires, where they spare not
the most inviolable and sacred things on earth, not even their anointed
sovereigns.
For which reason, that writer, in a certain chapter of his book, wherein
he mentions but a small parcel of those libels, after he has said, “that
the most venomous satirists, and the greatest libertines, were those of
the Huguenot party,” adds these memorable words: “I should have been
ashamed to have read all those libels, for the blasphemies and impieties
with which they are filled, if that very consideration had not been
aiding to confirm me in the belief, that there was more wickedness, than
either error or blindness, in their doctrine; and that their morals were
even more corrupt than their opinions.”
He assures us in another place, that these new evangelists have made
entire volumes of railing, of which he has seen above forty manuscripts;
and that there needed no other arguments to decide the difference betwixt
the two religions, and to elude the fair pretences of these reforming
innovators.
So that all they have scribbled, with so much (I will not say violence,
but) madness, against the Sieur Cayet, immediately upon his conversion,
cannot do him the least manner of prejudice, no more than their
ridiculous prediction, wherein they foretold, that it would not be long
before he would be neither Huguenot nor Catholic, but that he would set
up a third party betwixt the two religions. For he ever continued to live
so well amongst the Catholics, that, after he had given on all occasions
large proofs, both of his virtue and of his faith, he was thought worthy
to receive the order of priesthood, and the degree of doctor in divinity,
and was reader and professor royal of the Oriental tongues.
Now seeing, in the year 1605, ten years after his conversion, he had
published his “Septennary Chronology,” of the peace which was made at
Vervins in the year 1598; some of the greatest lords at court, who
understood his merit, and had seen him with the king, (by whom he had
the honour to be well known, and much esteemed,) obliged him to add
to the history of the peace, that of the war, which that great prince
made during nine years after his coming to the crown, till the peace
of Vervins; which he performed in the three tomes of his “Nine Years
Chronology,” printed at Paris in the year 1608; in which, before he
proceeds to the reign of Henry the Fourth, he makes an abridgment of
the most considerable passages in the League, to the death of Henry the
Third. And it is partly from this author, and partly from such others
as were eye-witnesses of what they wrote, whether in printed books, or
particular memoirs, that I have drawn those things, which are related
by me in this history. I am not therefore myself the witness, nor as an
historian do I take upon me to decide the merit of these actions, whether
they are blameable or praiseworthy; I am only the relater of them: and
since, in that quality, I pretend not to be believed on my own bare
word, and that I quote my authors, who are my warrantees, as I have done
in all my histories, I believe myself to stand exempted from any just
reproaches, which can be fastened on me for my writing.
On which subject I think it may be truly said, that if, instead of
examining matters of fact, and enquiring whether they are truly or
falsely represented, that consideration be laid aside, and the question
taken up, whether such or such actions were good or bad, and matter
of right pleaded, whether they deserved to be condemned or praised;
it would be but loss of time in unprofitable discourses, in which an
historian is no way concerned. For in conclusion, he is only answerable
for such things as he reports, on the credit of those from whom he had
them; taking from each of them some particulars, of which the rest are
silent, and compiling out of all of them a new body of history, which is
of a quite different mould and fashion from any of the authors who have
written before him.
And it is this, in which consists a great part of the delicacy and beauty
of these kinds of works, and which produces this effect; that, keeping
always in the most exact limits of truth, yet an author may lawfully
pretend to the glory of the invention; having the satisfaction of setting
forth a new history, though, writing only the passages of a former age,
he can relate almost nothing, but what has been written formerly, either
in printed books, or manuscripts; which, though kept up in private, and
little known, are notwithstanding, not the work of him who writes the
history.
As to what remains, none ought to wonder, that I make but one single
volume on this subject, though the matter of it is of vast extent. I
take not upon me to tell all that has been done, on occasion of the
League, in all the provinces, nor to describe all the sieges; the taking
and surprising of so many places, which were sometimes for the king,
and at other times for the League; or all those petty skirmishes, which
have drawn (if I may have liberty so to express myself) such deluges of
blood from the veins of France. All these particulars ought to be the
ingredients of the general history of this nation, under the reigns of
the two last Henries, which may be read in many famous historians; and
principally in the last tome of the late Monsieur de Mezeray, who has
surpassed himself, in that part of his great work.
I confine my undertaking within the compass of what is most essential in
the particular history of the League, and have only applied myself to the
discovery of its true origin, to unriddle its intrigues and artifices,
and find out the most secret motives, by which the heads of that
conspiracy have acted, to which the magnificent title of the Holy Union
has been given with so much injustice; and, in consequence of this, to
make an exact description of the principal actions, and the greatest and
most signal events, which decided the fortune of the League; and this, in
short, is the model of my work.
As for the end which I proposed to myself, in conceiving it, I may boldly
say, that it was to give a plain understanding to all such as shall read
this history, that all sorts of associations which are formed against
lawful sovereigns, particularly when the conspirators endeavour to
disguise them under the specious pretence of religion and piety, as did
the Huguenots and Leaguers, are at all times most criminal in the sight
of God, and most commonly of unhappy and fatal consequence to those, who
are either the authors or accomplices of the crime.