PARIS OF THE REFORMATION
While Henry II lived Catherine de Medicis was not conspicuous, Henry
yielding rather to Diane de Poitiers than to his wife, but the
queen-mother wielded a ruthless power over her three young sons who
succeeded their father in turn. Through her, also, Italian pictures and
books were brought in by their painters and authors, Italian architects
transformed French buildings, Italian favorites filled the court, where
they introduced the ruffs and padded trunks and soft crowned toques of
Italian fashions. Paris streets, narrow as in the days when their Gothic
houses were first built, widened into occasional squares meant to remind
the queen of her southern home.
Francis II (1559-1560) was Henry’s oldest son, known to-day only as the
husband of Mary, Queen of Scots, whom he married in Notre Dame when he
was fourteen and she was sixteen. He came to the throne a twelvemonth
later and during the one short year of his reign he was a tool in the
hands of the ex-Italian family of the Guises of which Mary’s mother was
a member. Throughout France quarrels and conspiracies were rife, all
having for their basic reason differences in religion and the lack of
tolerance which could not allow freedom of belief.
Of Francis’s reign as it concerns Paris there is nothing of interest
except the fact that his wedding supper, like that of his sister a year
later, was given in the Great Hall of the palace of the Cité.
Francis’s death gave the crown to his next younger brother, Charles IX
(1560-1574), who was but eleven years old. During the fourteen years of
his reign Catherine de Medicis ruled, first as regent and later in fact
though not in name. Her methods were tell-tale of her nature. She
favored Protestants or Catholics as the moment demanded, she promised
and did not fulfil, she deceived, she ordered assassination, she
depraved the morals of her own children. All the time civil war went on,
pausing now and again but never entirely ceasing.
The most horrible event of the whole hideous contest was the massacre of
the Protestants which took place on Saint Bartholomew’s Day, August 24,
1572. Catherine had arranged that her daughter, Marguerite of Valois,
should marry Henry, King of Navarre, the leader of the Protestants.
Whether this was done in the hope of bringing the opposing parties
together, or whether the queen-mother’s intention was to decoy as many
prominent Huguenots as possible to Paris it is impossible to say. The
fact that Henry’s mother, Jeanne d’Albret, died in Paris a few weeks
before the wedding, probably from poison-saturated gloves, would seem to
lend color to the latter theory. So suspicious of evil were the
Huguenots that it is said that one-half of Henry of Navarre’s moustache
turned white from fear when he saw two prominent Catholics talking
together a little while before the wedding.
Events proved that such suspicions were not groundless. The wedding was
set for the seventeenth of August. On account of the difference between
the religious belief of Henry and his bride, it took place in front of
the cathedral in the Parvis or Paradise of Notre Dame. This was an open
place raised above the level of the adjoining streets and railed from
it. Marguerite was so unwilling to marry Henry that she refused her
consent even up to the moment when the archbishop demanded it. Her
brother, the king, met the emergency by seizing her head and bobbing it
and the service went on as if she had answered a legitimate “I will.”
After the marriage the bride heard mass in the cathedral while the
bridegroom admired the bishop’s garden. Dinner followed at the bishop’s
palace, and supper at the Louvre. On succeeding days there were balls,
jousts, and masquerades.
Four days later Admiral Coligny, the head of the Protestants, was
attacked by a paid assassin but not killed. This piece of news was
brought to Charles IX while he was playing tennis on one of the courts
at the eastern end of the Louvre.
On the night before St. Bartholomew’s Day the Provost of the Merchants
was summoned to the Louvre and received instructions to close the city
gates, to fasten the chains across the streets, and to arm the militia.
At the appointed hour, or rather, owing to Catherine’s eagerness, at two
in the morning, an hour before the appointed time, the signal was given
on the right bank by the bell of the church of Saint Germain
l’Auxerrois, facing the eastern end of the Louvre, and on the Cité by
that in the clock tower on the palace. Admiral Coligny, who lived just
north of the Louvre, was killed in his bed and his body thrown from the
window to the pavement where the Duke of Guise kicked it.
“They told us nothing of all this,” says the bride, Marguerite of
Navarre, who has left an account of her experiences. “I saw everybody in
action, the Huguenots desperate over this attack; M. de Guise fearful
lest they take vengeance on him, whispering to everybody. The Huguenots
suspected me because I was a Catholic, and the Catholics because I had
married the king of Navarre who was a Huguenot. On this account no one
said anything to me about it until evening, when being in the bedroom of
the queen, my mother, seated on a chest beside my sister of Lorraine
whom I saw to be very sad, as the queen my mother was speaking to some
of them she noticed me and told me to go to bed. As I was courtesying to
her my sister, weeping bitterly, seized my arm and stopped me, saying
‘Sister, don’t go.’ I was greatly frightened. The queen my mother saw it
and called my sister and scolded her severely, forbidding her to say
anything to me. My sister told her that there was no reason to sacrifice
me like that, and that if they discovered anything they undoubtedly
would avenge themselves on me. The queen my mother replied that if God
so willed I should come to no harm, but, whatever happened, I must go,
for fear of their suspecting something which would impede the outcome.
“I saw quite well that they were disputing though I did not hear their
words. Again she roughly ordered me to go to bed. My sister burst into
tears as she bade me good-night, daring to say nothing more to me, and I
went away thoroughly stunned and overcome, without understanding at all
what I had to fear. Suddenly when I was in my dressing room I began to
pray God to take me under his protection and preserve me, without
knowing from what or whom. Upon that, the King my husband, who had
retired, summoned me to his room, and I found his bed surrounded by
thirty or forty Huguenots whom I did not then know, for I had only been
married a few days. They talked all night about the accident that had
befallen the Admiral, resolving that as soon as morning came they would
ask the king for revenge on M. de Guise and that if he would not give it
to them they would take it for themselves. I still had my sister’s tears
upon my mind and I could not sleep because of the fear she had inspired
in me, though I knew not of what. Thus the night passed without my
closing my eyes. At daybreak, the King my husband, suddenly making up
his mind to ask justice from King Charles, said that he was going to
play tennis until the King should awake. He left my room and all the
gentlemen also. I, seeing that it was daylight, thinking that the danger
of which my sister had spoken to me was passed by, overcome with sleep,
told my nurse to shut the door that I might sleep comfortably.
“An hour after as I was still sleeping there came a man who beat on the
door with hands and feet crying, ‘Navarre, Navarre!’ My nurse, thinking
that it was the King my husband, ran at once to the door and opened it.
It was a gentleman named Léran who had received a sword thrust in the
elbow and a blow on the arm from a halberd, and who was still pursued by
four archers who all rushed after him into my room. He, wishing to save
himself, flung himself on to my bed. When I felt the man grasp me I
flung myself out of bed, and he rolled after me still clinging to me. I
did not recognize the man and I did not know whether he was there to
attack me, or whether the archers were after him or me. We both screamed
and we were equally frightened. At last, by God’s will, M. de Nançay,
captain of the guards came. When he saw in what a state I was, though he
was sorry he could not help laughing. He reprimanded the guards severely
for their indiscretion, sent them away and granted to my request the
life of the man who was still holding on to me. I made him lie down and
have his wounds dressed in my dressing room until he was quite
recovered. I had to change my clothes for the wounded man had covered me
with blood. M. de Nançay told me what had happened and assured me that
the King my husband was in the King’s room and that there would be no
more disturbance. I threw a mantle over me and he escorted me to my
sister, Madame de Lorraine’s, room, where I arrived more dead than
alive. Just as I entered the antechamber, where the doors were all
open, a gentleman named Bourse, escaping from the pursuit of the archers
was pierced by a halberd-thrust only three paces away. I fell in the
opposite direction into M. de Nançay’s arms thinking that the thrust had
stabbed us both. When I had recovered somewhat I went into the small
room where my sister was sleeping. While I was there M. de Mixossans,
the King my husband’s first gentleman-in-waiting, and Armagnac, his
first valet-de-chambre, sought me out to beg me to save their lives. I
knelt before the King and the queen my mother to beg the favor from them
and and at last they granted it to me.”
There is a story, probably untrue, that Charles, almost crazy with
excitement took his stand at a window of the Louvre and shot down all
the Huguenots he saw, shrieking “Kill! Kill!” For twenty-four hours the
slaughter continued in Paris, ruffians and unprincipled men seizing the
opportunity to kill for plunder and to rid themselves of their enemies.
Paris streets literally ran blood and Paris buildings so echoed the
cries of the dying that the king heard them in his own delirium of
death.
When Queen Wilhelmina visited Paris in June, 1912, she placed a wreath
at the foot of the statue of her ancestor, Admiral Coligny, which stands
at the outside end of the church called the Oratory, now Protestant,
not far from the spot of his assassination.
Charles IX’s name is not connected with buildings or improvements in
Paris, so overshadowed was he by his mother. He rebuilt the Arsenal at
the eastern end of the city, and he furthered the sale and demolition of
the great establishment of the Hôtel Saint Paul, whose breaking up had
been begun by Francis I.
Catherine had left the Hôtel des Tournelles after the death there of her
husband, Henry II. At the Louvre she found herself sadly crowded, for
she had been obliged to give up her royal apartments to the young queen
when Charles married, and, counting her daughters and daughter-in-law
there were four queens with their retinues to be housed in the old
palace. Near the church of Saint Eustache the dowager-queen selected a
location to her fancy for the building of a new palace, but the ground
was occupied by a refuge of Filles Pénitentes. With the entire lack of
consideration for others peculiar to the powerful, Catherine had this
establishment razed and its inmates removed to an abbey on the rue Saint
Denis. The religious of the abbey, in their turn, were sent to the top
of the Mont Sainte Geneviève, where they took possession of the old
hospital of Saint Jacques-du-Haut-Pas, whose name still clings to the
parish and the church. The construction for which all this moving gave
place was a charming palace known as the Hôtel de Soissons of which
nothing is left but a graceful pillar from whose top it is said that
Catherine indulged in the harmless amusement of star-gazing. The palace
was pulled down in 1749 to give place to the Corn Exchange, and that, in
1887, to allow the erection of the Bourse de Commerce.
[Illustration: COLUMN AT THE HÔTEL DE SOISSONS.]
More ambitious was a southwestern addition to the Louvre, a wing going
to meet the river, and another at right angles following the stream
westward. This extension parallel with the Seine was begun with the idea
of continuing it to meet the palace of the Tuileries (see plan of
Louvre, Chapter XXII) which the queen had begun on the site of some
ancient tile-yards to the west of the Louvre. Only the central façade
was finished in Catherine’s day, a pavilion containing a superb
staircase and crowned by a dome, connected by two open galleries with
what was planned to be the buildings surrounding the quadrangle. The
workmanship was exquisitely delicate. Its beauty was enhanced by a
lovely formal garden laid out by that Jack-of-all-Trades, Bernard
Palissy, best known as “the Potter.”
Of private buildings two of the most beautiful still remain. Both are in
the Marais, which had become fashionable at this time on account of its
proximity both to the Tournelles and the Louvre. One of them is the
Hôtel Carnavalet which now houses the Historical Museum of Paris, the
most interesting special collection in the city to students of olden
times. This building was begun in 1544 in Francis I’s reign, by the then
president of the Parliament of Paris, who employed the best architects
of the day, Lescot and Bullant, aided by Goujon, the sculptor, whose
symbolic figures give its name to the “Court of the
[Illustration: HÔTEL CARNAVALET.]
Seasons.” After changing hands more than once and being restored in the
seventeenth century by another famous architect, Mansart, the house was
occupied for eighteen years by Madame de Sévigné, the author of the
famous “Letters.” When it was taken over by the city it was again
thoroughly restored, and it now stands not only as a fine example of
sixteenth and seventeenth century architecture but as a repository for
bits and sections of old buildings from other parts of the city.
Not far away is the Hôtel Lamoignon, built toward the end of the
sixteenth century for one of Henry II’s daughters. It is used for
business purposes to-day, but its façade is still imposing with lofty
Corinthian pilasters which rise from the ground to the roof. In the
course of its vicissitudes it was the first home of the city’s
historical library, and in the nineteenth century it was made into
apartments, in one of which Alphonse Daudet, the novelist once lived.
Montaigne speaks with frankness of the evil smells of the streets of
this time, and it is small wonder, since animals were slaughtered not
far from the city hall, and the offscourings of the abattoirs drained
into the Seine emitting foul odors as they went. Charles was moved to
improve the condition of the Grève, which was a mud-hole and a
dump-heap, not, apparently, because its state made it a disgraceful
entrance to the city hall, but because it inconvenienced the crowds who
assembled to witness tortures and executions on the square.
With Charles IX on the throne of France, Catherine de Medicis sought to
provide for her youngest son by placing him on the vacant throne of
Poland. A splendid _fête_ at the Tuileries celebrated his election, and
he set forth joyfully for his new kingdom. He had lived in his adopted
country only a few months when the news of his brother’s death reached
him. The French crown, was, naturally, more attractive than the Polish,
and Henry planned immediate departure for his fatherland. He had been
long enough in Poland to know something of the temper of his subjects
and he fled like a criminal before the pursuit of enraged peasants armed
with scythes and flails. If they had known him better they might not
have been so eager to keep him.
The Parisians were not fond of Henry. He made his formal entry into the
city adorned with frills and ear-rings, and accompanied by sundry small
pet animals. It was his habit to carry fastened about his neck a basket
of little dogs and occasionally he dug down under them to find important
papers. Silly as it sounds this habit at least had the merit of being
more humane than Charles IX’s custom of having fights between dogs and
wild beasts.
Henry began at once to change for the worse his mother’s already vile
court. Occasionally he was stricken with remorse and made such public
exhibition of repentance as caused excessive mirth to all beholders of
the processions wherein he and the dissolute young men, his “minions,”
walked barefooted through the city. It is related that the court pages
were once sharply switched in the Hall of the Cariatides in the Louvre
for having indulged in a take-off of one of these penitential exercises
of their king’s.
Except for the continuing of the work on the Louvre, decorating the old
clock on the palace on the Cité (see Chapter VI) beginning the Pont Neuf
across the western tip of the Cité, and establishing a few religious
houses, Henry III was too busy contending with the Parisians to have
time or inclination to beautify the city.
The Parisians not only objected to the continual financial drain made
upon them by the king’s constant appeals for money for his minions, but
they openly showed themselves favorable to the Duke of Guise, the leader
of the Catholic party.
For his own defense Henry brought into the city a band of Swiss
soldiers. To the citizens it was the final outrage. Every section of the
town hummed with preparations for revolt. A rumor of an attack upon the
Temple made Henry send a body of troops there. For the first time in the
history of Paris the people made use of a defense habitual with them two
centuries later. They erected across the streets barricades made of
_barriques_ (hogsheads) filled with earth, took shelter behind them and
attacked the mercenaries so vigorously that the Duke of Guise was forced
to come to their rescue. The day after the Day of Barricades the troops
sent to the defense of the Temple helped the populace seize it. When the
governor of the Bastille went to the palace, and, entering the Great
Hall, summoned the sixty members of the Parliament of Paris then in
session, to follow him, and led them in their red and black robes
through the streets to the prison where they were held for ransom, the
citizens felt themselves to be in real possession of the town.
Henry had been warned of trouble on the Day of Barricades by a man who
made his way to the royal apartments by the staircase existing even now
in a corner of the Hall of the Cariatides. Reversing the direction taken
by the Empress Eugénie when the news of the battle of Sedan reached
Paris on the fourth of September some three hundred years later, the
king fled through the Louvre westward, gained the stables of the
Tuileries, mounted a horse, and fled once more, though not pursued as he
had been in Poland. The Parisians did not want to keep him.
In an effort to bring about better conditions Henry had made concessions
to the Huguenots. Indignant at what they considered as treachery to his
own religion the Catholics organized a League, of which the popular duke
of Guise was the head. The duke’s power over the people, as he had shown
it when he stopped the attack upon the king’s Swiss guard, and his
connection with the League brought about Guise’s assassination by
Henry’s order. The Parisians were enraged by the loss of their favorite,
shut the gates against Henry, and prepared themselves to withstand a
siege. Henry was forced to join the Protestant army of his cousin, Henry
of Navarre, at Saint Cloud, on the Seine a few miles below Paris. There
the king was assassinated by a young Jacobin novice sent out from the
city.
Thus Paris was responsible for the crown’s passing at this juncture to
the House of Bourbon whose representative, Henry of Navarre, who now
became Henry IV, was one of the Protestants to whom the city was
fiercely opposed.