ST. BARTHOLOMEW.
A signal sounded from the belfry of Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois. It was
answered by the great bell of the Palace of Justice on the opposite bank
of the Seine. Catherine and her two sons, Charles IX. and the Duc
d’Anjou, had risen long before daylight. Catherine dared not leave
Charles to himself. He was suddenly grown nervous and irresolute. He
might yet countermand everything. Within a small closet over the gate
of the Louvre, facing the quays, the mother and her two sons stood
huddled together. Charles was tallest of the three. The window was open;
it was still dark; the streets were empty; not a sound was heard save
the crashing of the bells. They listened to the wild clamour without;
but not a word was spoken. Catherine felt Charles tremble. She clutched
him tightly, and, dreading to hear the echo of her own voice, she
whispered in his ear, “My son, God has given your enemies into your
hands. Let them not escape you.”
“_Mort de Dieu_, mother, do you take me for a coward?” whispered back
Charles, still trembling.
Suddenly a shot was fired on the Quays. The three conspirators started
as if the weapon had been levelled against themselves.
“Whence this pistol shot came, who fired it, or if it wounded any one, I
know not,” writes the Duc d’Anjou, who as well as his sister has left an
account of the massacre; “but this I know, that the report struck terror
into our very souls. We were seized with such sudden dread at the
horrors we had ourselves invoked, that even the Queen-mother was
dismayed. She despatched one of the King’s gentlemen who waited without,
to command the Duc de Guise to stay all proceedings and not to attack
Admiral Coligni.” This counter order came too late. The Duke had already
left his house.
All the bells in Paris were now ringing furiously; the quays and streets
were rapidly filling with citizens bearing flambeaux. Multitudes came
pouring in from every opening, every window was filled with persons
holding lights, and the crackling of firearms, loud curses, piercing
screams, and wild laughter were heard on every side. In the midst of
this uproar, Henri de Guise, thirsting for revenge upon the supposed
murderer of his father, accompanied by Nevers and D’Angoulême, and a
company of Catholic nobles, made his way to the Hôtel Saint-Pierre, in
the Rue Béthisy, where Coligni lodged.
Coligni, who had the night before been embraced by his sovereign, lay
asleep on his bed. Some of his Protestant friends, Guerchi, Teligny,
with Cornaton and Labonne his gentlemen, who had hastened to him upon
the news of the attempted assassination, lingered in the anteroom. Paré,
the surgeon who had dressed his wounds, had not yet left the hotel. The
Admiral had been conversing with him and with his chaplain Merlin, who
had offered up a thanksgiving for his deliverance. Within the Court five
Swiss Guards stood behind the outer doors; without, in the darkness of
the night, crouched Cossein with fifty arquebusiers, who had been gained
over by the Duc de Guise.
Suddenly, out of the stillness of the night a voice is heard calling
from without, “Open the door--open in the name of the King!” At the
King’s name the street-door is immediately unbarred; Cossein and his men
rush in, poniard the five guards, break open the inner door, and dash up
the stairs. The noise disturbs Cornaton, who descends the stairs; he is
pushed violently backwards amid cries of “_De par le Roi!_” Now the
whole house is aroused, Merlin has risen, and Coligni awakened from his
sleep, calls loudly from the door of his room, “Cornaton, what does this
noise mean?” “My dear Lord,” cries Cornaton hurrying up to him,
wringing his hands, “it means that it is God who summons you! The hall
below is carried by your enemies--Cossein is a traitor--we cannot save
you--we have no means of defence!”
“I understand,” replies Coligni, unmoved. “It is a plot to destroy me
now that I am wounded and cannot defend myself. I have long been
prepared to die. I commend my soul to God. Cornaton, Merlin, and the
others, if the doors are forced you cannot save me, save yourselves.”
Coligni returns to his room.
By this time the Admiral’s retainers are aroused and enter his chamber,
but no sooner does he repeat the words, “Save yourselves, you cannot
save me,” than they lose not a moment in escaping to the leads of the
house. One man only remains with his master; his name is Nicolas Muso.
The door is then shut, barred, and locked.
Meanwhile Cossein, heavily mailed and sword in hand, having slain all he
has found in his way, is on the landing. Besme, a page of the Duc de
Guise, Attin, and Sarbaloux are with him; they force open the door of
Coligni’s room.
The Admiral, his long white hair falling about his shoulders, is seated
in an arm-chair. There is a majesty about him even thus wounded, unarmed
and alone, that daunts his assailants. The traitor Cossein falls back.
Besme advances brandishing his sword.
“Are you Admiral Coligni?” he cries.
“I am,” replies the veteran, following with his eyes the motion of the
sword. “Young man, respect my grey hairs and my infirmities,” and he
[Illustration: ADMIRAL GASPARD DE COLIGNY.
FROM A DRAWING BY FRANÇOIS CLOUET.
(By permission of A. Giraudon, Paris.)]
signs to his arm bound up and swathed to his side. Besme makes a pass at
him. “If I could have died by the hands of a gentleman and not of this
varlet!” exclaims the Admiral. Besme for answer plunges his sword up to
the hilt into Coligni’s breast.
A voice is now heard from without under the window--“Besme, you are very
long; is all over?”
“All is over,” answers Besme, thrusting his head out and displaying his
bloody sword.
“Sirrah, here is the Duc de Guise, and I, the Chevalier d’Angoulême. We
will not believe it until we see the body. Fling it out of the window,
like a good lad.”
With some difficulty the corpse is raised and thrown into the street
below. The gashed and bleeding remains of the old hero fall heavily upon
the pavement. Henri de Guise stoops down to feast his eyes upon his
enemy. The features are so veiled with blood he cannot recognise them.
He takes out his handkerchief and wipes the wrinkled face clean. “I know
you now--Admiral Coligni,” says he, “and I spurn you. Lie there,
poisonous old serpent that murdered my father. Thou shalt shed no more
venom, reptile!” and he kicks the corpse into a corner, amidst the dirt
and mud of the thoroughfare. (Coligni’s dead body[14] is carried to the
gallows at Montfaucon, where it hangs by the feet from a chain of iron.)
Guise then turns to the fifty arquebusiers behind him. “En avant--en
avant, mes enfants!” he shouts; “you have made a good beginning--set
upon the others--slaughter them all--men, women--even infants at the
breast--cut them down.” Sword in hand Guise rushes through the streets
with Nevers, D’Angoulême, and Tavannes, as well as Gondi and De Retz,
who have now joined him, at his back.
Meanwhile, Marguerite de Valois is awakened by some one beating
violently with feet and hands against her door crying out, “Navarre!
Navarre!” “My nurse,” writes she, “thinking it was the King, ran and
opened the door; but it was M. de Séran, grievously wounded and closely
pursued by four archers, who cried out, ‘Kill him; kill him! spare no
one.’ De Séran threw himself on my bed to save himself. I, not knowing
who he was, jumped out, and he with me, holding by me tightly. We both
screamed loudly; I was as frightened as he was, but God sent M. de
Nançay, Captain of the Guards, who finding me in this condition, could
not help laughing. He drove the archers out and spared the life of this
man, whom I put to bed in my closet and kept there till he was well. I
changed my night-dress, which was covered with blood. M. de Nançay
assured me that my husband was safe and with the King. He threw over me
a cloak, and took me to my sister Claude, in whose room I arrived more
dead than alive; specially so when, as I set my foot in the antechamber,
a gentleman named Bourse dropped, pierced by a ball, dead at my feet. I
fell fainting into the arms of M. de Nançay, thinking I was killed also.
A little recovered, I went into the small room beyond where my sister
slept. While I was there, two gentlemen-in-waiting, who attended my
husband, rushed in, imploring me to save their lives. So I went to the
King and to the Queen, my brother and my mother, and falling on my
knees begged that these gentlemen might be spared, which was granted to
me.”
“Having,” continues Marguerite, “failed in the principal purpose, _which
was not so much against the Huguenots as against the Princes of the
blood--the King my husband, and the Prince of Condé_--the Queen, my
mother, came to me and ‘_asked me to break my marriage_.’ But I replied
that I would not; being sure that she only proposed this in order to
murder my husband.”[15]
The magic mirror of Ruggiero had revealed the truth; Henry of Navarre
led a charmed life. Of his escape, against the express command of the
all-powerful Catherine, various accounts are related. He is said to have
been saved by his wife, but of this _she_ says nothing. It is believed
on good authority that, with the Prince de Condé, he went out unusually
early, before daybreak even, in order to prepare for playing that
identical game of rackets, of which he spoke to Marguerite and which
probably saved his life. When it is discovered that these two princes,
Condé and Navarre, are both alive, they are summoned to the King’s
presence. They find Charles, arquebuse in hand, within the same small
closet over the gate of the Louvre. He has been there since daybreak. A
page stands by him, ready to reload his weapon. He is mad with
exultation and excitement; he leans out of window to watch the crowds of
fugitives rush by and to shout to the Swiss Guards below--“Kill--kill
all--cut them all in pieces!” “_Pardieu!_ see,” he roars out, pointing
to the river, “there is a fellow yonder escaping. By the mass,
look--one, two, three--they are swimming across the Seine--at them, at
them--take good aim--shoot them down, the carrion!” Volleys of shot are
the reply. Charles had recovered his nerves; he now looks on Huguenots
as game, and has been potting them with remarkable precision from the
window. With hideous mirth, he boasts to Navarre and Condé how many
heretics he has brought down with his own hand. He counts upon his
fingers the names of the Huguenot chiefs already slaughtered. He yells
with fiendish laughter when he describes how Coligni, whom the night
before he had called “father,” looked when dead. “By the light of God,
it is a royal chase!” shrieks Charles, as the page quickly reloads his
arquebuse. “That last shot was excellent. Not a heretic shall be left in
France.” Again he points his gun and shoots; a piercing cry follows.
Charles nods his head approvingly. “We will have them all--babies and
their mothers. ‘Break the eggs and the nest will rot.’ Our mother says
well--we must reign. We will no longer be contradicted by our subjects.
We will teach them to revere us as the image of the living God. You,
Princes,”--and as he turns to address the King of Navarre and Condé, his
tall, gaunt figure, distorted countenance, bleared and bloodshot eyes,
and matted hair are repulsive to look upon--“You, Princes, I have called
hither, out of compassion for your youth, to give you a chance for your
lives, _as you are alive_,--but by the holy Oriflamme, _I thought you
were both dead already_. You are, both of you, rebels, and sons of
rebels. You must instantly recant and enter the true Church or you must
die. So down on your knees, both of you. Purge yourselves from your
accursed sect. Give me your parole, and your swords too, Princes, that
you will not leave the Louvre; or, _Dieu des Dieux_, you shall be
massacred like the rest!”
Thus did Henry IV. and the Prince de Condé escape death, unknown to, and
contrary to the express orders of Catherine.
Without, Paris is a charnel-house. The streets are choked up by murdered
Huguenots. Carts and litters full of dead bodies, huddled together in a
hideous medley, rumble along the rough causeways, to be shot into the
Seine. The river runs red with blood; its current is dammed up with
corpses. But the Court is merry. Catherine triumphs. Her ladies--_la
petite bande de la Reine_--go forth and pick their way in the gory mud,
to scrutinise the dead, piled in heaps against the walls and in the
courts of the Louvre, to recognise friends or lovers.
On the 6th September the news of the massacre reaches Rome by letters
from the Nuncio. Gregory XIII. commands solemn masses and thanksgivings
to God for the event. The cannon of St. Angelo booms over the papal
city; _feux de joie_ are fired in the principal streets; a medal is
struck; a jubilee is published; a legate is sent into France; a
procession, in which the Pope, Cardinals, and Ministers to the See of
Rome appear, visit the great Basilicas; the Cardinal de Lorraine, uncle
to the Balafré, then at Rome, is present, and in the name of his master,
Charles IX., congratulates his Holiness on the efficacy of his prayers
these _seventeen years past_ for the destruction of heretics.
Blood calls for blood![16] Charles IX., whose royal mandate authorised
the massacre (which lasted seven days and seven nights), falls sick two
years after at the Castle of Vincennes. “I know not what has befallen
me,” he says to his surgeon, Ambrose Paré; “my mind and body both burn
with fever. Asleep or awake, I see the mangled Huguenots pass before me.
They drip with blood; they make hideous faces at me; they point to their
open wounds and mock me. Holy Virgin! I wish, Paré, I had spared the old
and the infirm and the infants at the breasts.” Aged twenty-four,
Charles died, abhorring the mother whose counsels had led him to this
execrable deed--abhorring her so intensely that he could not even bear
her in his sight. In her place he called for the King of Navarre, and
confided to him his last wishes. He died, poor misguided youth, piously
thanking God that he left no children. The blood actually oozed from the
pores of his skin. His cries and screams were horrible.
Thus another King of France passed into the world of spirits, bringing
Henry of Navarre one step nearer the throne. Charles, according to the
prediction of Ruggiero, had died young, bathed in his own blood.
And Catherine? Calm, undaunted, still handsome, she inaugurated a new
reign--that of her third and best beloved son, Henri, Duc d’Anjou and
King of Poland, popularly known by the style and title of Henry III.,
“_by the favour of his mother inert King of France_.”