The conversion of Henry VIII., because the pope refused to annul his
marriage with Catharine, aunt of Charles V., was not the proudest, but
one of the most important triumphs of the new faith. Had Catharine's
charms been fresher, or Anne Boleyn less alluring, the course of
history would have been changed. Henry VIII., as persecutor of
heretics, would have found congenial occupation for his ferocious
instincts, and the triumph of Protestantism would have been long
delayed. But no such cause existed for the success of the Reformation
on French soil. The slumbering germs of heresy, left perhaps by
Abelard, or by the heretics in Toulouse and Provence, were quickly
warmed into life. It may be also that the memory of her desertion by
the Church, once her only friend and champion, gave such intensity to
the welcome of a "Reformation" by the people. At all events, whatever
the explanation, a religious war was at hand which was going to stain
the fair name of France more even than the treacheries of her civil war.
The question at issue was deeper than any one knew. Neither Luther nor
Leo X. understood the revolution they had precipitated. Protestants
and Papists alike failed to comprehend the true nature of the struggle,
which was not for supremacy of Romanist or Protestant; not whether this
dogma or that was true, and should prevail; but an assertion of the
right of every human soul to choose its own faith and form of worship.
The great battle for human liberty had commenced; the struggle for
religious liberty was but the prelude to what was to follow. There was
abundant proof later that Protestants no less than Papists needed only
opportunity and power to be as cruel and intolerant as their
persecutors had been. Before the Reformation was fifty years old,
Servetus, one of the greatest men of his age, a scholar, philosopher,
and man of irreproachable character, was burned at Geneva for heretical
views concerning the nature of the Trinity; Calvin, the great organizer
of Protestant theology, giving, if not the order for this odious crime,
at least the nod of approval for its commission.
France had known many tragedies. But when Francis, in pursuance of his
Italian policy, secured the hand of Catharine de' Medici for his son
and heir, Henry II., he prepared the way for the most tragic event in
her history. Powerless to win the affection, or even confidence, of
Henry while he lived, Catharine remained unobserved; but, as the event
proved, not unobservant. Her astute mind had been studying every
current in the kingdom.
Two families had come into prominence during this reign which were to
play leading parts in the immediate future: the family of Guise, of the
house of Lorraine, represented by Francis, Duke of Guise; and that of
Châtillon, of which Admiral Coligny was the head, both of whom
Catharine hated and had marked for destruction.
Mary, of the house of Guise, was the wife of James VI. of Scotland; and
through the powerful influence of the Guises, the brothers of the
Scottish queen, a marriage was arranged between her daughter--her most
serene little highness, Marie Stuart--and the dauphin, who would some
day be Francis II.
In order to be prepared for this high destiny, the little maid when
only five years old was brought to the Court of France to be trained
under the direct influence of the accomplished queen-mother,
Catharine--undoubtedly, although unsuspected then, the worst woman in
Europe! Poor little Marie Stuart, predestined to sin and to tragedy!
What could be expected of a woman with the blood of the Guises in her
veins, and with Catharine de' Medici as her model and teacher?
In 1559 Henry II. was killed by an accident at a tournament. The
marriage of the two children had taken place. The sickly boy, with
only a modest portion of intelligence, was Francis II., King of France.
Marie, his beautiful and adored queen, controlled him utterly, and was
herself in turn controlled by her uncles of the house of Guise. In
fact, the family of Guise, which was the head of the Catholic party in
the kingdom, ruled France, with the strange result that if Catharine
looked for any allies in her fight with this ambitious family, she must
make common cause with the Protestants, led by Admiral Coligny, whom
she hated only a little less than the uncles of Marie Stuart.
The princes of the house of Bourbon, a remote branch of the royal
family, which, next to Francis, were the nearest to the throne, had
been extremely jealous of the growing power of the Guises. Now they
saw them, as the advisers of the young king, actually usurping the
position which was theirs by right of birth.
Two factions grew out of this feud in the court, and there developed a
Bourbon party, and the party of the Guises; one identified with the
Protestant and the other with the Catholic cause.
Antony de Bourbon, the head of the family of this name, whether from
conviction or from antagonism to the Guises, had openly espoused the
Protestant side. It was the rich burghers of the towns, in combination
with the smaller nobles, which composed the Protestant party in France.
And although the impelling cause of the great movement was religious,
political wrongs had become a powerful contributing cause; as is always
the case, the discontented and aggrieved, for whatever reason, casting
in their lot with those who had a deeper grievance and a more sacred
purpose.
Whether the conversion of the Bourbon prince was of that nature or not,
who can say? But the movement swelled, and France was divided into two
hostile camps: one under the Protestant banner of Antony de Bourbon,
father of Henry of Navarre, and the other under that of the Catholic,
Francis, Duke of Guise; and two children were on the throne of France
while the ground was trembling beneath their feet with a coming
revolution.
Francis I. had been too much occupied with his own plans to take in
hand systematically and seriously the prevailing heresy. Henry II.,
son of Francis, had also temporized with the religious revolt, probably
not realizing the powerful element it contained. Now, with the Guises
firmly in power, there would be no more half-way measures.
But a crisis was at hand which would change the whole situation. The
discovery of a plot to seize the person of the young king and place a
Bourbon prince upon the throne, led to a general slaughter. Fresh
relays of executioners in Paris stood ready to relieve each other when
exhausted, and the Seine was black with the bodies of the drowned.
During this preliminary storm the frail young king, Francis II.,
suddenly died. Marie Stuart passed out of French history, and the
power of the Guises was at an end. The fates were certainly fighting
on the side of Catharine.
There are hints that the fine Italian hand may be seen in this event
which at one stroke removed every obstacle from her path! However this
may be, Catharine wasted no regrets upon the death of a son which made
her queen regent during the minority of her second son, Charles, now
ten years of age (1560).
There was no time to lose. Her control over the feeble Charles IX.
before he reached his majority must be absolute. Every impulse toward
mercy must be extinguished.
What can be said of a mother who seeks to exterminate every germ of
truth or virtue in her son; who immerses him in degrading vices in
order to deaden his too sensitive conscience and make him a willing
tool for her purposes? Inheriting the splendid intelligence as well as
genius for statecraft of the Medici, nourished from her infancy upon
Machiavellian principles, cold and cruel by nature, this Florentine
woman has written her name in blood across the pages of French history.
There were two main ends to be kept in view: the destruction of the
Guises, and the extermination of the Huguenots, as the Protestants were
now called. These were difficult to reconcile, but both must be
accomplished.
Coligny, the splendid old admiral and Huguenot, hero of the nation, he,
too, must go. And Henry of Navarre, the adored young leader of the
Huguenots, of course was high on the list marked for destruction; but
there might be other uses for him before that time.
Never had the Huguenots received such gentle treatment. Disabilities
were removed and privileges bestowed. Never was the beautiful
queen-mother as smiling, gracious, and witty. A letter to her uncle,
Pope Innocent III., written, it is said, between a dinner and a
masquerade, asked if men might not be good enough Christians even if
they did not believe in transubstantiation, and useful subjects even
though they could not accept the Apostolic succession!
Then this excellent woman declared her admiration for the intelligence
of the Huguenots, whom until now she had believed were mere fanatical
enthusiasts. Then Henry of Navarre, the brave, generous, accomplished
Protestant leader, was urgently invited to the court, and finally even
offered the hand of Margaret of Valois, her daughter, as a compromise
which would heal the rivalry between the two faiths.
And so, on the 18th of August, 1572, Notre Dame, grim but splendid,
looked down upon the marriage of Margaret and Henry, in the presence of
all the leaders of Huguenot and Catholic in France.
The Protestants wept for joy at the reconciliation accomplished by this
union. And all were to remain and partake of the week of festivities
which were to follow.
Then, the pageant over, a secret council was held in Catharine's
apartment in the Louvre, in which her remaining son, Henry,
participated, but from which his brother the king was excluded; some
wishing to include the Guises in the approaching massacre, some urging
that Henry of Navarre be spared, but all agreeing that Coligny must go;
it being, in fact, the influence of this magnetic man over the young
king which was the danger-point compelling haste and the uncertainty as
to what her son might do endangered the success of the whole plot.
Charles, who was now king, was impressible, easily influenced, yet
stubborn, intractable, incoherent, passionate, and unreliable;
sometimes inclining to the Guises, sometimes to Coligny and the
Huguenots, and always submitting at last, after vain struggle, to his
imperious mother's will, in her efforts to free him from both. We see
in him a weak character, not naturally bad, torn to distraction by the
cruel forces about him, who when compelled to yield, as he always did
in the end, to that terrible woman, would give way to fits of impotent
rage against the fate which allowed him no peace.
The time had arrived when Catharine feared the influence of Coligny
more than that of the Guises. Brave, patriotic, magnetic, he had
succeeded in winning Charles's consent to declare war against Spain.
Philip II. of Spain was Catharine's son-in-law and closest ally. Her
entire policy was threatened. At all hazards Coligny must be gotten
rid of. The young King of Navarre, adored leader of the Protestants,
was a constant menace; he, too, must in some way be disposed of.
There were sinister conferences with Philip of Spain and with his
minister, that incarnation of cruelty and of the Inquisition, the Duke
of Alva.
To the honor of France it may be said that the initiative, the
inception of the horrid deed which was preparing was not French. It
was conceived in the brain of either this Italian woman or her Spanish
adviser and co-conspirator, the Duke of Alva. We shall never know the
inside history of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. It must ever remain
a matter of conjecture just how and when it was planned, but the
probabilities point strongly one way.
Charles was to be gradually prepared for it by his mother. By working
upon his fears, his suspicions, by stories of plottings against his
life and his kingdom, she was to infuriate him; and then, while his
rage was at its height, the opportunity for action must be at hand.
The marriage of Charles's sister Margaret with the young Protestant
leader Henry of Navarre, with its promise of future protection to the
Huguenots, was part of the plot. It would lure all the leaders of the
cause to Paris. Coligny, Condé, all the heads of the party, were
urgently invited to attend the marriage feast which was to inaugurate
an era of peace.
Admiral Coligny was requested by Catharine, simply as a measure of
protection to the Protestants, to have an additional regiment of guards
in Paris, to act in case of any unforeseen violence.
Two days after the marriage, and while the festivities were at their
height, an attempt upon the life of the old admiral awoke suspicion and
alarm. But Catharine and her son went immediately in person to see the
wounded old man, and to express their grief and horror at the event.
They commanded that a careful list of the names and abode of every
Protestant in Paris be made, in order, as they said, "to take them
under their own immediate protection."
"My dear father," said the king, "the hurt is yours, the grief is mine."
At that moment the knives were already sharpened, every man instructed
in his part in the hideous drama, and the signal for its commencement
determined upon. Charles did not know it, but his mother did. She
went to her son's room that night, artfully and eloquently pictured the
danger he was in, confessed to him that she had authorized the attempt
upon Coligny, but that it was done because of the admiral's plottings
against him, which she had discovered. But the Guises--her enemies and
his--they knew it, and would denounce her and the king! The only thing
now is to finish the work. He must die.
Charles was in frightful agitation and stubbornly refused. Finally,
with an air of offended dignity, she bowed coldly and said to her son,
"Sir, will you permit me to withdraw with my daughter from your
kingdom?" The wretched Charles was conquered. In a sort of insane
fury he exclaimed, "Well, let them kill him, and all the rest of the
Huguenots too. See that not one remains to reproach me."
This was more than she had hoped. All was easy now. So eager was she
to give the order before a change of mood, that she flew herself to
give the signal, fully two hours earlier than was expected. At
midnight the tocsin rang out upon the night, and the horror began.
Lulled to a feeling of security by artfully contrived circumstances,
husbands, wives, sons, daughters, peacefully sleeping, were awakened to
see each other hideously slaughtered.
The stars have looked down upon some terrible scenes in Paris; her
stones are not unacquainted with the taste of human blood; but never
had there been anything like this. The carnage of battle is merciful
compared with it. Shrieking women and children, half-clothed, fleeing
from knives already dripping with human blood; frantic mothers
shielding the bodies of their children, and wives pleading for the
lives of husbands; the living hiding beneath the bodies of the dead.
The cry that ascended to Heaven from Paris that night was the most
awful and despairing in the world's history. It was centuries of
cruelty crowded into a few hours.
The number slain can never be accurately stated, but it was thousands.
Human blood is intoxicating. An orgy set in which laughed at orders to
cease. Seven days it continued, and then died out for lack of
material. The provinces had caught the contagion, and orders to slay
were received and obeyed in all except two, the Governor of Bayonne, to
his honor be it told, writing to the king in reply: "Your Majesty has
many faithful subjects in Bayonne, but not one executioner."
And where was "his Majesty" while this work was being done? How was it
with Catharine? We hear of no regrets, no misgivings; that she was
calm, collected, suave, and unfathomable as ever; but that Charles, in
a strange, half-frenzied state, was amusing himself by firing from the
windows of the palace at the fleeing Huguenots. Had he killed himself
in remorse, would it not have been better, instead of lingering two
wretched years, a prey to mental tortures and an inscrutable malady,
before he died?
Europe was shocked. Christendom averted her face in horror. But at
Madrid and Rome there was satisfaction.
Catharine and the Duke of Alva had done their work skilfully, but the
result surprised and disappointed them. Tens of thousands of Huguenots
were slain, which was well; but many times that number remained, with
spirit unbroken, which was _not_ well.
They had been too merciful! Why had Henry of Navarre been spared? Had
not Alva said, "Take the big fish, and let the small fry go. One
salmon is worth more than a thousand frogs."
But Charles considered the matter settled when he uttered those
swelling words to Henry of Navarre the day after the massacre: "I mean
in future to have one religion in my kingdom. It is the Mass or death."
All the events leading up to that fateful night, August 24, 1572, may
never be known. Near the Church of St. Germain d'Auxerrois, which rang
out the signal and was mute witness of the horror, has just been
erected the statue of the great Coligny, bearing the above date.
The miserable Charles was not quite base enough for the part he had
played. Tormented with memories, haggard with remorse, he felt that he
was dying. His suspicious eyes turned upon his mother, well versed in
poisons, as he knew; and, as he also knew, capable of anything. Was
this wasting away the result of a drug? Mind and body gave way under
the strain. In 1574, less than two years from the hideous event,
Charles IX. was dead.
Catharine's third son now wore the crown of France. In Henry III. she
had as pliant an instrument for her will as in the two brothers
preceding him; and, like them, his reign was spent in alternating
conflict with the Protestants and the Duke of Guise. At last, wearied
and exasperated, this half-Italian and altogether conscienceless king
quite naturally thought of the stiletto. The old duke, as he entered
the king's apartment by invitation, was stricken down by assassins
hidden for that purpose.
Henry had not counted on the rebound from that blow. Catholic France
was excited to such popular fury against him that he threw himself into
the arms of the Protestants, imploring their aid in keeping his crown
and his kingdom; and when himself assassinated, a year later, the
Valois line had become extinct.
By the Salic Law, Henry of Navarre was King of France. The Bourbon
branch had left the parent stem as long ago as the reign of Louis the
Saint. But as all the other Capetian branches had disappeared, the
right of the plumed knight to the crown was beyond a question. So a
Protestant and a Huguenot was King of France.