chamber, attended only by one lady, the Duchess of Nemours, whose thirst
for revenge was to be satisfied at last. She found Charles pacing the
room in one of those fits of passion which he at times assumed to
conceal his infirmity of purpose. At one moment he swore he would raise
the Huguenots and call them to protect their sovereign's life as well as
their own. Then he burst out into violent imprecations against his
brother Anjou, who had entered the room but did not dare say a word.
Presently the other conspirators arrived--Guise, Nevers, Birague, De
Retz, and Tavannes. Catherine alone ventured to interpose, and, in a
tone of sternness well calculated to impress the mind of her weak son,
she declared that there was now no turning back: "It is too late to
retreat, even were it possible. We must cut off the rotten limb, hurt it
ever so much; if you delay, you will lose the finest opportunity God
ever gave man of getting rid of his enemies at a blow." And then, as if
struck with compassion for the fate of her victims, she repeated in a
low tone--as if talking to herself--the words of a famous Italian
preacher, which she had often been heard to quote before: "_E la pieta
lor ser crudele, e la crudelta lor ser pietosa_" ("Mercy would be
cruel to them, and cruelty merciful"). Catherine's resolution again
prevailed over the King's weakness, and, the final orders being given,
the Duke of Guise quitted the Louvre, followed by two companies of
arquebusiers and the whole of Anjou's guard.
As soon as Guise had left, the chief criminals--each afraid to lose
sight of the other, each needing the presence of the other to keep his
courage up--went to a room adjoining the tennis-court overlooking the
Place Bassecour. Of all the party--Charles, Catherine, Anjou, and De
Retz--Charles was the least guilty and the most to be pitied. They went
to the window, anxiously listening for the signal that the work of death
had begun. Their consciences, no less than their impatience, made it
impossible for them to sit calmly within the palace. Anjou's narrative
continues: "While we were pondering over the events and the consequences
of such a mighty enterprise, of which, to tell the truth, we had not
thought much until then, we heard a pistol shot. The sound produced such
an effect upon all three of us that it confounded our senses and
deprived us of judgment. We were smitten with terror and apprehension of
the great disorders about to be perpetrated." Catherine, who was a timid
woman, adds Tavannes, would willingly have recalled her orders, and with
that intent hastily despatched a gentleman to the Duke of Guise
expressly desiring him to return and attempt nothing against the
admiral. "It is too late," was the answer brought back; "the admiral is
dead"--a statement at variance with other accounts. "Thereupon,"
continues Anjou, "we returned to our former deliberations, and let
things take their course."
Between three and four in the morning the noise of horses and measured
tramp of foot-soldiers broke the silence of the narrow street in which
Coligny lay wounded. It was the murderers seeking their victims: they
were Henry of Guise with his uncle the Duke of Aumale, the bastard of
Angoulême, and the Duke of Nevers, with other foreigners, Italian and
Swiss, namely, Fesinghi (or Tosinghi) and his nephew Antonio, Captain
Petrucci, Captain Studer of Winkelbach with his soldiers, Martin Koch of
Freyberg, Conrad Burg, Leonard Grunenfelder of Glaris, and Carl
Dianowitz, surnamed Behm (the Bohemian?). There were, besides, one
Captain Attin, in the household of Aumale, and Sarlabous, a renegade
Huguenot and commandant of Havre. It is well to record the names even of
these obscure individuals who stained their hands in the best blood of
France. De Cosseins, too, was there with his guard, some of whom he
posted with their arquebuses opposite the windows of Coligny's hotel,
that none might escape.
Presently there was a loud knock at the outer gate--"Open in the King's
name." La Bonne, imagining it to be a message from the Louvre, hastened
with the keys, withdrew the bolt, and was immediately butchered by the
assassins who rushed into the house. The alarmed domestics ran half
awake to see what was the uproar: some were killed outright, others
escaped upstairs, closing the door at the foot and placing some
furniture against it. This feeble barrier was soon broken down, and the
Swiss who had attempted to resist were shot. The tumult woke Coligny
from his slumbers, and divining what it meant--that Guise had made an
attack on the house--he was lifted from his bed, and, folding his
_robe-de-chambre_ round him, sat down prepared to meet his fate.
Cornaton entering the room at this moment, Ambrose Pare asked him what
was the meaning of the noise. Turning to his beloved master he replied:
"Sir, it is God calling us to himself. They have broken into the house,
and we can do nothing."
"I have been long prepared to die," said the admiral. "But you must all
flee for your lives, if it be not too late; you cannot save me. I commit
my soul to God's mercy." They obeyed him, but only two succeeded in
making their way over the roofs. Pastor Merlin lay hid for three days in
a loft, where he was fed by a hen, that every morning laid an egg within
his reach.
Pare and Coligny were left alone--Coligny looking as calm and collected
as if no danger impended. After a brief interval of suspense the door
was dashed open, and Cosseins, wearing a corselet and brandishing a
bloody sword in his hand, entered the room, followed by Behm, Sarlabous,
and others; a party of Anjou's Swiss guard, in their tricolored uniform
of black, white, and green, keeping in the rear. Expecting resistance,
the ruffians were for a moment staggered at seeing only two unarmed men.
But his brutal instincts rapidly regaining the mastery, Behm stepped
forward, and pointing his sword at Coligny's breast asked, "Are you not
the admiral?"
"I am, but, young man, you should respect my gray hairs, and not attack
a wounded man. Yet what matters it? You cannot shorten my life except by
God's permission." The German soldier, uttering a blasphemous oath,
plunged his sword into the admiral's breast.
"_Jugulumque parans, immota tonebat_
_Ora senex._"
Others in the room struck him also, Behm repeating his blows until the
admiral fell to the floor. The murderer now ran to the window and
shouted into the court-yard, "It is all over." Henry of Guise, who had
been impatiently ordering his creatures to make haste, was not satisfied.
"Monsieur d'Angoulême will not believe it unless he sees him," returned
the Duke. Behm raised the body from the ground, and dragged it to the
window to throw it out; but life was not quite extinct, and the admiral
placed his foot against the wall, faintly resisting the attempt. "Is it
so, old fox?" exclaimed the murderer, who drew his dagger and stabbed
him several times. Then, assisted by Sarlabous, he threw the body down.
It was hardly to be recognized. The bastard of Angoulême--the chevalier
as he is called in some of the narratives--wiped the blood from the face
of the corpse. "Yes, it is he; I know him well," said Guise, kicking the
body as he spoke. "Well done, my men," he continued, "we have made a
good beginning. Forward--by the King's command." He mounted his horse
and rode out of the court-yard, followed by Nevers, who cynically
exclaimed as he looked at the body, "_Sic transit gloria mundi_."
Tosinghi took the chain of gold--the insignia of his office--from the
admiral's neck, and Petrucci, a gentleman in the train of the Duke of
Nevers, cut off the head and carried it away carefully to the Louvre. Of
all who were found in the house, not one was spared except Ambrose Paré,
who was escorted in safety to the palace by a detachment of Anjou's
guard.
Coligny's headless trunk was left for some hours where it fell, until it
became the sport of rabble children, who dragged it all round Paris.
They tried to burn it, but did little more than scorch and blacken the
remains, which were first thrown into the river, and then taken out
again "as unworthy to be food for fish," says Claude Haton. In accordance
with the old sentence of the Paris Parliament, it was dragged by the
hangman to the common gallows at Montfaucon, and there hanged up by the
heels. All the court went to gratify their eyes with the sight, and
Charles, unconsciously imitating the language of Vitellius, said, as he
drew near the offensive corpse, "The smell of a dead enemy is always
sweet." The body was left hanging for a fortnight or more, after which
it was privily taken down by the admiral's cousin, Marshal Montmorency,
and it now rests, after many removals, in a wall among the ruins of his
hereditary castle of Chatillon-sur-Loing. What became of the head no one
knows.
When Guise left the admiral's corpse lying in the court-yard, he went
to the adjoining house, in which Teligny lived. All the inmates were
killed, but he escaped by the roof. Twice he fell into the hands of the
enemy, and twice he was spared; he perished at last by the sword of a
man who knew not his amiable and inoffensive character. His neighbor
La Rochefoucault was perhaps more fortunate in his fate. He had hardly
fallen asleep when he was disturbed by the noise in the street. He heard
shouts and the sound of many footsteps; and scarcely awake and utterly
unsuspicious, he went to his bedroom door at the first summons in the
King's name. He seems to have thought that Charles, indulging in one of
his usual mad frolics, had come to punish him as he had punished others,
like schoolboys. He opened the door and fell dead across the threshold,
pierced by a dozen weapons.
When the messenger returned from the Duke of Guise with the answer that
it was "too late," Catherine, fearing that such disobedience to the
royal commands might incense the King and awaken him to a sense of all
the horrors that were about to be perpetrated in his name, privately
gave orders to anticipate the hour. Instead of waiting until the matin
bell should ring out from the old clock tower of the Palace of Justice,
she directed the signal to be given from the nearer belfry of St.
Germain l'Auxerrois. As the harsh sound rang through the air of that
warm summer night, it was caught up and echoed from tower to tower,
rousing all Paris from their slumbers.
Immediately from every quarter of that ancient city uprose a tumult as
of hell. The clanging of bells, the crashing doors, the rush of armed
men, the musket-shots, the shrieks of their victims, and high over all
the yells of the mob, fiercer and more pitiless than hungry wolves--made
such an uproar that the stoutest hearts shrank appalled, and the sanest
appear to have lost their reason. Women unsexed, men wanting but the
strength of the wild beast, children without a single charm of youth or
innocence, crowded the streets where rising day still struggled with
the glare of a thousand torches. They smelt the odor of blood, and,
thirsting to indulge their passions for once with impunity, committed
horrors that have become the marvel of history.
Within the walls of the Louvre, within the hearing of Charles and his
mother, if not actually within their sight, one of the foulest scenes of
this detestable tragedy was enacted. At daybreak, says Queen Margaret of
Navarre, her husband rose to go and play tennis, with a determination
to be present at the King's _lever_, and demand justice for the assault
on the admiral. He left his apartment, accompanied by the Huguenot
gentlemen who had kept watch around him during the night. At the foot
of the stairs he was arrested, while the gentlemen with him were
disarmed, apparently without any attempt at resistance. A list of them
had been carefully drawn up, which the sire D'O, quartermaster of the
guards, read out. As each man answered his name, he stepped into the
court-yard, where he had to make his way through a double line of Swiss
mercenaries. Sword, spear, and halberd made short work of them, and two
hundred, according to Davila, of the best blood of France soon lay a
ghastly pile beneath the windows of the palace. Charles, it is said,
looked on coldly at the horrid deed, the victims appealing in vain to
his mercy. Among the gentlemen they murdered were two who had been
boldest in their language to the King not many hours before--Segur,
Baron of Pardaillan, and Armand de Clermont, Baron of Pilles, who with
stentorian voices called upon the King to be true to his word. De
Pilles took off his rich cloak and offered it to someone whom he
recognized: "Here is a present from the hand of De Pilles, basely and
traitorously murdered."
"I am not the man you take me for," said the other, refusing the cloak.
The Swiss plundered their victims as they fell, and, pointing to the
heap of half-naked bodies, described them to the spectators as the men
who had conspired to kill the King and all the royal family in their
sleep, and make France a republic. But more disgraceful than even this
massacre was the conduct of some of the ladies in Catherine's train, of
her "flying squadron," who, later in the day, inspected and laughed at
the corpses as they lay stripped in the court-yard, being especially
curious about the body of Soubise, from whom his wife had sought to be
divorced on the ground of nullity of marriage.
A few gentlemen succeeded in escaping from this slaughter. Margaret,
"seeing it was daylight," and imagining the danger past of which her
sister had told her, fell asleep. But her slumbers were soon rudely
broken. "An hour later," she continues, "I was awoke by a man knocking
at the door and calling, 'Navarre! Navarre!' The nurse, thinking it was
my husband, ran and opened it. It was a gentleman named Léran, who had
received a sword-cut in the elbow and a spear-thrust in the arm; four
soldiers were pursuing him, and they all rushed into my chamber after
him. Wishing to save his life, he threw himself upon my bed. Finding
myself clasped in his arms, I got out on the other side; he followed me,
still clinging to me. I did not know the man, and could not tell whether
he came to insult me or whether the soldiers were after him or me. We
both shouted out, being equally frightened. At last, by God's mercy,
Captain de Nançay of the guards came in, and, seeing me in this condition,
could not help laughing, although commiserating me. Severely reprimanding
the soldiers for their indiscretion, he turned them out of the room, and
granted me the life of the poor man who still clung to me. I made him
lie down and had his wounds dressed in my closet until he was quite
cured. While changing my night-dress, which was all covered with blood,
the captain told me what had happened, and assured me that my husband
was with the King and quite unharmed. He then conducted me to the room
of my sister of Lorraine, which I reached more dead than alive. As I
entered the anteroom, the doors of which were open, a gentleman named
Bourse, running from the soldiers who pursued him, was pierced by a
halberd three paces from me. I fell almost fainting into Captain de
Nançay's arms, imagining the same thrust had pierced us both. Being
somewhat recovered, I entered the little room where my sister slept.
While there De Moissans, my husband's first gentleman, and Armagnac, his
first _valet-de-chambre_, came and begged me to save their lives. I
went and threw myself at the feet of the King and the Queen--my
mother--to ask the favor, which they at last granted me."
When Captain de Nançay arrived so opportunely, he was leaving the
King's chamber, whither he had conducted Henry of Navarre and the
Prince of Condé. The tumult and excitement had worked Charles up to
such a pitch of fury that the lives of the princes were hardly safe.
But they were gentlemen, and their first words were to reproach the
King for his breach of faith. Charles bade them be silent--"_Messe ou
mort_"--("Apostatize or die"). Henry demanded time to consider; while
the Prince boldly declared that he would not change his religion:
"With God's help it is my intention to remain firm in my profession."
Charles, exasperated still more by this opposition to his will, angrily
walked up and down the room, and swore that if they did not change in
three days he would have their heads. They were then dismissed, but
kept close prisoners within the palace.
The houses in which the Huguenots lodged, having been registered, were
easily known. The soldiers burst into them, killing all they found,
without regard to age or sex, and if any escaped to the roof they were
shot down like pigeons. Daylight served to facilitate a work that was
too foul even for the blackest midnight. Restraint of every kind was
thrown aside, and while the men were the victims of bigoted fury, the
women were exposed to violence unutterable. As if the popular frenzy
needed excitement, Marshal Tavannes, the military director of this deed
of treachery, rode through the streets with dripping sword, shouting:
"Kill! Kill! Bloodletting is as good in August as in May." One would
charitably hope that this was the language of excitement, and that in
his calmer moods he would have repented of his share in the massacre.
But he was consistent to the last. On his death-bed he made a general
confession of his sins, in which he did not mention the day of St.
Bartholomew; and when his son expressed surprise at the omission, he
observed, "I look upon that as a meritorious action, which ought to
atone for all the sins of my life."
The massacre soon exceeded the bounds upon which Charles and his mother
had calculated. They were willing enough that the Huguenots should be
murdered; but the murderers might not always be able to draw the line
between orthodoxy and heresy. Things were fast getting beyond all
control; the thirst for plunder was even keener than the thirst for
blood. And it is certain that among the many ignoble motives by which
Charles was induced to permit the massacre, was the hope of enriching
himself and paying his debts out of the property of the murdered
Huguenots. Nor were Anjou and others insensible to the charms of
heretical property. Hence we find the provost of Paris remonstrating
with the King about "the pillaging of the houses and the murders in the
streets by the guards and others in the service of his majesty and the
princes." Charles, in reply, bade the magistrates "mount their horses,
and with all the force of the city put an end to such irregularities,
and remain on the watch day and night." Another proclamation,
countersigned by Nevers, was issued about five in the afternoon,
commanding the people to lay down the arms which they had taken up "that
day by the King's orders," and to leave the streets to the soldiers
only--as if implying that they alone were to kill and plunder.
The massacre, commenced on Sunday, was continued through that and the
two following days. Capilupi tells us, with wonderful simplicity, "that
it was a holiday, and therefore the people could more conveniently find
leisure to kill and plunder." It is impossible to assign to each day its
task of blood; in all but a few exceptional cases, we know merely that
the victims perished in the general slaughter. Writing in the midst of
the carnage, probably not later than noon on the 24th, the nuncio
Salviati says: "The whole city is in arms; the houses of the Huguenots
have been forced with great loss of life, and sacked by the populace
with incredible avidity. Many a man to-night will have his horses and
his carriage, and will eat and drink off plate, who had never dreamed of
it in his life before. In order that matters may not go too far, and to
prevent the revolting disorders occasioned by the insolence of the mob,
a proclamation has just been issued, declaring that there shall be three
hours in the day during which it shall be unlawful to rob and kill; and
the order is observed, though not universally. You can see nothing in
the streets but white crosses in the hats and caps of everyone you meet,
which has a fine effect!" The nuncio says nothing of the streets
encumbered with bleeding corpses, nothing of the cart-loads of bodies
conveyed to the Seine, and then flung into the river, "so that not only
were all the waters in it turned to blood, but so many corpses grounded
on the bank of the little island of Louvre that the air became infected
with the smell of corruption." The living, tied hand and foot, were
thrown off the bridges. One man--probably a rag-gatherer--brought two
little children in his creel, and tossed them into the water as
carelessly as if they had been blind kittens. An infant, yet unable to
walk, had a cord tied round its neck, and was dragged through the
streets by a troop of children nine or ten years old. Another played
with the beard and smiled in the face of the man who carried him; but
the innocent caress exasperated instead of softened the ruffian, who
stabbed the child, and with an oath threw it into the Seine. Among
the earliest victims was the wife of the King's _plumassier_. The
murderers broke into her house on the Notre-Dame bridge, about four in
the morning, stabbed her, and flung her still breathing into the river.
She clung for some time to the wooden piles of the bridge, and was
killed at last with stones, her body remaining for four days entangled
by her long hair among the woodwork. The story goes that her husband's
corpse, being thrown over, fell against hers and set it free, both
floating away together down the stream. Madeleine Briçonnet, the widow
of Theobald of Yverni, disguised herself as a woman of the people, so
that she might save her life, but was betrayed by the fine petticoat
which hung below her coarse gown. As she would not recant, she was
allowed a few moments' prayer, and then tossed into the water. Her
son-in-law, the marquis Renel, escaping in his shirt, was chased by the
murderers to the bank of the river, where he succeeded in unfastening a
boat. He would have got away altogether but for his cousin Bussy
d'Amboise, who shot him down with a pistol. One Keny, who had been
stabbed and flung into the Seine, was revived by the reaction of the
cold water. Feeble as he was he swam to a boat and clung to it, but was
quickly pursued. One hand was soon cut off with a hatchet, and as he
still continued to steer the boat down the stream, he was "quieted" by a
musket-shot. One Puviaut, or Pluviaut, who met with a similar fate,
became the subject of a ballad.
Captain Moneins had been put into a safe hiding-place by his friend
Fervacques, who went and begged the King to spare the life of the
fugitive. Charles not only refused, but ordered him to kill Moneins if
he desired to save his own life. Fervacques would not stain his own
hands, but made his friend's hiding-place known.
Brion, governor of the young Marquis of Conti, the Prince of Condé's
brother, snatched the child from his bed, and, without stopping to dress
him, was hurrying away to a place of safety, when the boy was torn from
his arms, and he himself murdered before the eyes of his pupil. We are
told that the child "cried and begged they would save his tutor's life."
The houses on the bridge of Notre-Dame, inhabited principally by
Protestants, were witnesses to many a scene of cruelty. All the inmates
of one house were massacred, except a little girl, who was dipped stark
naked in the blood of her father and mother and threatened to be served
like them if she turned Huguenot. The Protestant booksellers and
printers were particularly sought after. Spire Niquet was burned over a
slow fire made out of his own books, and thrown lifeless, but not dead,
into the river. Oudin Petit fell a victim to the covetousness of his
son-in-law, who was a Catholic bookseller. Rene Bianchi, the Queen's
perfumer, is reported to have killed with his own hands a young man, a
cripple, who had already displayed much skill in goldsmith's work. This
is the only man whose death the King lamented, "because of his excellent
workmanship, for his shop was entirely stripped."
Mezeray writes that seven hundred or eight hundred people had taken
refuge in the prisons, hoping they would be safe "under the wings of
Justice"; but the officers selected for this work had brought them into
the fitly named "Valley of Misery," and there beat them to death with
clubs and threw their bodies into the river. The Venetian ambassador
corroborates this story, adding that they were murdered in batches of
ten. Where all were cruel, some few persons distinguished themselves by
especial ferocity. A gold-beater, named Crozier, one of those
prison-murderers, bared his sinewy arm and boasted of having killed four
thousand persons with his own hands. Another man--for the sake of human
nature we would fain wish him to be the same--affirmed that unaided he
had "despatched" eighty Huguenots in one day. He would eat his food with
hands dripping with gore, declaring "that it was an honor to him,
because it was the blood of heretics." On Tuesday a butcher, Crozier's
comrade, boasted to the King that he had killed one hundred fifty the
night before. Coconnas, one of the _mignons_ of Anjou, prided himself
on having ransomed from the populace as many as thirty Huguenots, for
the pleasure of making them abjure, and then killing them with his own
hand, after he had "secured them for hell."