BEFORE THE STORM.
Henry, King of Navarre, accompanied by the Prince de Condé and his wife,
and attended by eight hundred Huguenot gentlemen dressed in black (for
his mother, Queen Jeanne, had died suddenly at Paris, while he was on
the road), has just arrived at the Louvre to claim the hand of the
Princess Marguerite. The two Princes and the Princesse de Condé are
received with royal honours and much effusion of compliments by King
Charles and Catherine; they are lodged in the Palace of the Louvre.
Whatever Marguerite’s feelings are, she carefully conceals them.
Insinuating, adroit, clever, gifted with a facile pen and a flattering
tongue, she is too ambitious to resist, too volatile to be constant. She
lives in a world of intrigue, as she tells us in her memoirs, and
piquing herself on being “so Catholic, so devoted to the ‘sacred faith
of her fathers,’ ” and she pendulates between Henri de Guise and La
Molle, amid a thousand other flirtations. She lives in a family divided
against itself. Sometimes she
[Illustration: HENRI DE GUISE.
FROM A DRAWING IN THE LOUVRE.
(By permission of A. Giraudon, Paris.)]
takes part with the Duc d’Anjou and watches the Queen-mother in his
interests, in order to report every word she says to him; or she
quarrels with D’Anjou and swears eternal friendship with her youngest
brother, D’Alençon--all his life the puppet of endless political
conspiracies; or she abuses the King (Charles) because he listens to her
enemy, De Gaust, and tells her that she shall never marry the Duc de
Guise, because she would reveal all the secrets of state to him, and
make the House of Lorraine more dangerous than it is already. This
greatest princess of Europe, young and beautiful, a “noble mind in a
lovely person,” as Brantôme says of her, is agitated, unhappy, and
lonely. “Let it never be said,” writes she, “that marriages are made in
heaven; God is not so unjust. All yesterday my room echoed with talk of
weddings. How can I purge it?”
The Duc de Guise no longer whispers in her ear “Eternal love.” The great
Balafré, stern in resolve, firm in affection, is disgusted at her
_légèreté_. He has ceased even to be jealous. His mind is now occupied
by those religious intrigues which he developed later as leader of the
Holy Catholic League. Guise dislikes and distrusts the Valois race. He
especially abhors their unholy coquetting with heretics in the matter of
Marguerite’s approaching marriage. He has now adopted the motto of the
House of Lorraine, “Death to the Valois! Guise upon the throne!”
Moreover, he looks with favour on a widow--the Princesse de Porcian,
whom he marries soon after. Guise only remains at Court to fulfil the
vow of vengeance he has sworn against Coligni for his suspected
connivance in the murder of his illustrious father, Francis of Guise, of
which accusation Coligni could never clear himself.[11] The great
Admiral is now at Court. He is loaded with favours. Charles IX. has
requested his constant attendance at the council to arrange the details
of a war with Spain. He has also made him a present of a thousand
francs. The friends of Coligni warn him to beware. His comrade and
friend Montmorenci refuses to leave Chantilly. The Admiral, more honest
than astute, is completely duped. It is whispered among the Catholics
that revenge is at hand, and that the Protestant princes and Coligni are
shortly coming to their death. It is said also that the marriage
liveries of the Princess will be “crimson,” and that “more blood than
wine will flow at the marriage feast.”
And the Queen? Serene and gracious, she moves with her accustomed
majesty among these conflicting parties. She neither sees, nor hears,
nor knows aught that shall disarrange her projects. Silent, inscrutable,
her hands hold the threads of life. Within her brain is determined the
issue of events. Her son Charles is a puppet in her hands. This once
frank, witty, brave, artistic youth, who formerly loved verses and
literature,--when not a roaring Nimrod among the royal forests,--is
morose, cruel, and suspicious; convinced that the whole world is playing
him false, all perjured but his mother. She has told him, and she has
darkly hinted in the council, that events are approaching a crisis. She
has secured the present support of the young Duc de Guise and the
powerful House of Lorraine, ever foremost when Catholic interests are at
stake. She can now sit down calmly and marshal each act in the coming
drama, as a general can marshal those regiments which are to form his
battle-front. Fifteen hundred Protestants were slaughtered at Amboise
alone, but there are thousands upon thousands remaining, and she has
promised Philip II., her awful son-in-law, and his minister, the Duke of
Alva, that she will cut off the head of heresy within the realm of
France. She has tried both parties, intrigued with both--with Coligni
and the Condés, with Guise and the Cardinal de Lorraine--and she finds
that at present orthodoxy answers her purpose best.
Besides, there is personal hatred, fear, and offence towards the
Huguenots. Did not Coligni dare to criticise her government at the
Council of Amboise? Did not Condé (that cautious Bourbon) escape her?
The King of Navarre, too, her future son-in-law, is he to be lured to
Court and married to the fascinating Marguerite for _nothing_? Has not
Ruggiero shown her that his life crossed the life of her sons? Does she
not hate him? Is he not adored by the people, who, grown cold towards
the House of Valois, extol his vigour, courage, and ability? Yes, he
shall marry. Then he shall die along with all rebels, heretics, and
traitors! A general massacre of the Huguenots throughout France can
alone satisfy her longings and secure Charles on the throne.
Thus came to be planned that most tremendous crime, fixed for the
festival of St. Bartholomew, ostensibly for the triumph of the Catholic
Church, but in reality to compass the death of the Queen’s political
enemies--Navarre, Condé, and Coligni--and to crush the freedom of
thought and opinion brought in by liberty of conscience and a purer
faith.
This was the Court to which Henry of Navarre came, to be lodged under
the roof of the Louvre, and to marry the Princess Marguerite!
The marriage took place on the 18th of August, 1572, at Notre-Dame.[12]
The outspoken Charles had said that, in giving his sister _Margot_ to
the King of Navarre, he gave her to all the Huguenots in his kingdom.
The Princess tells us she wore a royal crown and a state mantle of blue
velvet, wrought with gold embroidery, four yards long. It was held up by
three princesses; and she further wore a corset, forming the body of her
dress, covered with brilliants, and the crown jewels. The streets
through which she passed were dressed with scaffoldings, lined with
cloth of gold, to accommodate the spectators, all the way from the
Archbishop’s palace to Notre-Dame.
A few nights after, Admiral Coligni was shot at, with an arquebuse, by a
man standing at a barred window in the street of the Fossés
Saint-Germain, as he returned from playing a game of rackets with the
King, at the Louvre, to his lodgings at the Hôtel de Saint-Pierre, in
the Rue Béthisy. He was walking along slowly, reading a paper; the
finger of his right hand was broken, and he was otherwise grievously
wounded. The assassin, Maurévert, was a fellow known to be in the pay of
Henri, Duc de Guise. The house from which the shot was fired
[Illustration: NOTRE DAME, PARIS]
belonged to the Duke’s tutor. The King of Navarre and Condé were
overcome at the news. Charles IX., along with the Queen-mother, visited
the Admiral next day, and stayed an hour with him. Before leaving,
Charles folded him in his arms and wept. “You, my father,” he said,
“have the wound, but I suffer the pain. By the light of God, I will so
avenge this act that it shall be a warning as long as the world lasts.”
A few hours after the shot was fired, the Huguenot chiefs assembled in
Navarre’s apartments to deliberate what means should be taken to punish
the assassin. About the same time a secret council was called by the
Queen-mother, to decide whether or no Navarre and Condé should be
massacred. Charles IX., the Duc de Guise--who, however hostile
otherwise, join issue to destroy Navarre and Condé--Anjou, Nevers, and
D’Angoulême were present. It was resolved that the King of Navarre and
the Prince de Condé should die, and that the massacre should take place
that very night, before the Huguenots--alarmed by the attempt on
Coligni--had time to concert measures of defence. Under pretence of
protecting them from further violence, all hotels and lodging-houses
were diligently searched, and a list made of the name, age, and
condition of every Protestant in Paris. Orders were also given for the
troops to be under arms, during the coming night, throughout the city.
Every outlet and portal of the Louvre were closed and guarded by Swiss
Guards, commanded by Cossein. The Hôtel de Saint-Pierre, in the Rue
Béthisy, where Coligni lay, was also surrounded by troops, “for his
safety,” it was said. No one could go in or out. At a given signal, the
tocsin was to sound from all places where a bell was hung. Chains were
to be drawn across the streets and bonfires lighted. White cockades,
stitched on a narrow white band to be bound round the right arm, were
distributed, in order that the Catholics might be recognised in the
darkness. The secret, known to hundreds, was well kept; the Huguenots
were utterly unprepared. “No one told me anything,” said Marguerite.[13]
“They knew that I was too humane. But the evening before, being present
at the _coucher_ of my mother the Queen, and sitting on a coffer near my
sister Claude, who seemed very sad, the Queen, who was talking to some
one, turned round and saw I was not gone. She desired me to retire to
bed. As I was making my obeisance to her, my sister took me by the arm
and stopped me. Then, sobbing violently, she said, ‘Good God, sister, do
not go!’ This alarmed me exceedingly. The Queen, my mother, was watching
us, and, looking very angry, called my sister to her and scolded her
severely. She peremptorily desired her to say no more to me. Claude
replied that it was not fair to sacrifice me like that, and that danger
might come to me.
“ ‘Never mind,’ said the Queen. ‘Please God, no danger will come to her;
but she must go to bed at once in order to raise no suspicions.’ But
Claude still disputed with her, although I did not hear their words. The
Queen again turned to me angrily and commanded me to go. My sister,
continuing her sobs, bade me ‘good-night.’ I dared ask no questions.
So, cold and trembling, without the least idea of what was the matter, I
went to my rooms and to my closet, where I prayed to God to save me from
I knew not what. The King, my husband, who had not come to bed, sent
word to me to do so.” (They occupied the same room, she tells us, but
separate beds.) “I could not close my eyes all night,” she adds;
“thinking of my sister’s agitation, and sure that something dreadful was
coming. Before daylight my husband got up. He came to my bed-side,
kissed me, and said that he was going to play a game of rackets before
the King was awake. He said he would have justice in the matter of the
attempt on the Admiral’s life. Then he left the room. I, seeing the
daylight, and overcome by sleep, told my nurse to shut the door, that I
might rest longer.”
This took place on Saturday evening, the 23d of August, being the eve of
St. Bartholomew.