victorious generals, at their request. He was received in Alva's camp
with an extraordinary show of admiration and esteem. The Duke of Medina
Coeli overwhelmed him with courtesies and "basolomanos," while Don
Frederic assured him, in the high-flown language of Spanish compliment,
that there was nothing which he would not do to serve him, and that he
would take a greater pleasure in executing his slightest wish than if he
had been his next of kin.
As the Count next day, still suffering with fever, and attired in his
long dressing-gown, was taking his departure from the city, he ordered
his carriage to stop at the entrance to Don Frederic's quarters. That
general, who had been standing incognito near the door, gazing with
honest admiration at the hero of so many a hard-fought field, withdrew
as he approached, that he might not give the invalid the trouble of
alighting. Louis, however, recognising him, addressed him with the
Spanish salutation, "Perdone vuestra Senoria la pesedumbre," and paused
at the gate. Don Frederic, from politeness to his condition, did not
present himself, but sent an aid-de-camp to express his compliments and
good wishes. Having exchanged these courtesies, Louis left the city,
conveyed, as had been agreed upon, by a guard of Spanish troops. There
was a deep meaning in the respect with which the Spanish generals had
treated the rebel chieftain. Although the massacre of Saint Bartholomew
met with Alva's entire approbation, yet it was his cue to affect a holy
horror at the event, and he avowed that he would "rather cut off both his
hands than be guilty of such a deed"--as if those hangman's hands had the
right to protest against any murder, however wholesale. Count Louis
suspected at once, and soon afterwards thoroughly understood; the real
motives of the chivalrous treatment which he had received. He well knew
that these very men would have sent him to the scaffold; had he fallen
into their power, and he therefore estimated their courtesy at its proper
value.
It was distinctly stated, in the capitulation of the city, that all the
soldiers, as well as such of the inhabitants as had borne arms, should be
allowed to leave the city, with all their property. The rest of the
people, it was agreed, might remain without molestation to their persons
or estates. It has been the general opinion of historians that the
articles of this convention were maintained by the conquerors in good
faith. Never was a more signal error. The capitulation was made late
at night, on the 20th September, without the provision which Charles IX.
had hoped for: the massacre, namely, of De la None and his companions.
As for Genlis and those who had been taken prisoners at his defeat,
their doom had already been sealed. The city was evacuated on the 21st
September: Alva entered it upon the 24th. Most of the volunteers
departed with the garrison, but many who had, most unfortunately,
prolonged their farewells to their families, trusting to the word of the
Spanish Captain Molinos, were thrown into prison. Noircarmes the butcher
of Valenciennes, now made his appearance in Mons. As grand bailiff of
Hainault, he came to the place as one in authority, and his deeds were
now to complete the infamy which must for ever surround his name.
In brutal violation of the terms upon which the town had surrendered,
he now set about the work of massacre and pillage. A Commission of
Troubles, in close imitation of the famous Blood Council at Brussels, was
established, the members of the tribunal being appointed by Noircarmes,
and all being inhabitants of the town. The council commenced proceedings
by condemning all the volunteers, although expressly included .in the
capitulation. Their wives and children were all banished; their property
all confiscated. On the 15th December, the executions commenced. The
intrepid De Leste, silk manufacturer, who had commanded a band of
volunteers, and sustained during the siege the assaults of Alva's troops
with remarkable courage at a very critical moment, was one of the
earliest victims. In consideration "that he was a gentleman, and not
among the most malicious," he was executed by sword. "In respect that he
heard the mass, and made a sweet and Catholic end," it was allowed that
he should be "buried in consecrated earth." Many others followed in
quick succession. Some were beheaded, some were hanged, some were burned
alive. All who had borne arms or worked at the fortifications were,
of course, put to death. Such as refused to confess and receive the
Catholic sacraments perished by fire. A poor wretch, accused of having
ridiculed these mysteries, had his tongue torn out before being beheaded.
A cobbler, named Blaise Bouzet, was hanged for having eaten meat-soup
upon Friday. He was also accused of going to the Protestant preachings
for the sake of participating in the alms distributed an these occasions,
a crime for which many other paupers were executed. An old man of sixty-
two was sent to the scaffold for having permitted his son to bear arms
among the volunteers. At last, when all pretexts were wanting to justify
executions; the council assigned as motives for its decrees an adhesion
of heart on the part of the victims to the cause of the insurgents,
or to the doctrines of the Reformed Church. Ten, twelve, twenty persons,
were often hanged, burned, or beheaded in a single day. Gibbets laden
with mutilated bodies lined the public highways,--while Noircarmes, by
frightful expressions of approbation, excited without ceasing the fury of
his satellites. This monster would perhaps, be less worthy of execration
had he been governed in these foul proceedings by fanatical bigotry or by
political hatred; but his motives were of the most sordid description.
It was mainly to acquire gold for himself that he ordained all this
carnage. With the same pen which signed the death-sentences of the
richest victims, he drew orders to his own benefit on their confiscated
property. The lion's share of the plunder was appropriated by himself.
He desired the estate; of Francois de Glarges, Seigneur d'Eslesmes. The
gentleman had committed no offence of any kind, and, moreover, lived.
beyond the French frontier. Nevertheless, in contempt of international
law, the neighbouring territory was invaded, and d'Eslesmes dragged
before the blood tribunal of Mons. Noircarmes had drawn up beforehand,
in his own handwriting, both the terms of the accusation and of the
sentence. The victim was innocent and a Catholic, but he was rich.
He confessed to have been twice at the preaching, from curiosity, and
to have omitted taking the sacrament at the previous Easter. For these
offences he was beheaded, and his confiscated estate adjudged at an
almost nominal price to the secretary of Noircarmes, bidding for his
master. "You can do me no greater pleasure," wrote Noircarmes to the
council, "than to make quick work with all these rebels, and to proceed
with the confiscation of their estates, real and personal. Don't fail to
put all those to the torture out of whom anything can be got."
Notwithstanding the unexampled docility of the commissioners, they found
it difficult to extract from their redoubted chief a reasonable share in
the wages of blood. They did not scruple, therefore, to display their,
own infamy, and to enumerate their own crimes, in order to justify their
demand for higher salaries. "Consider," they said, in a petition to this
end, "consider closely, all that is odious in our office, and the great
number of banishments and of executions which we have pronounced among
all our own relations and friends."
It may be added, moreover, as a slight palliation for the enormous crimes
committed by these men, that, becoming at last weary of their business,
they urged Noircarmes to desist from the work of proscription.
Longehaye, one of the commissioners, even waited upon him personally,
with a plea for mercy in favor of "the poor people, even beggars, who,
although having borne arms during the siege, might then be pardoned."
Noircarmes, in a rage at the proposition, said that "if he did not know
the commissioners to be honest men, he should believe that their palms
had been oiled," and forbade any farther words on the subject. When
Longehaye still ventured to speak in favor of certain persons "who were
very poor and simple, not charged with duplicity, and good Catholics
besides," he fared no better. "Away with you!" cried Noircarmes in a
great fury, adding that he had already written to have execution done
upon the whole of them. "Whereupon," said poor blood-councillor
Longehaye, in his letter to his colleagues, "I retired, I leave you to
guess how."
Thus the work went on day after day, month after month. Till the 27th
August of the following year (1573) the executioner never rested, and
when Requesens, successor to Alva, caused the prisons of Mons to be
opened, there were found still seventy-five individuals condemned to the
block, and awaiting their fate.
It is the most dreadful commentary upon the times in which these
transactions occurred, that they could sink so soon into oblivion.
The culprits took care to hide the records of their guilt, while
succeeding horrors, on a more extensive scale, at other places, effaced
the memory of all these comparatively obscure murders and spoliations.
The prosperity of Mons, one of the most flourishing and wealthy
manufacturing towns in the Netherlands, was annihilated, but there were
so many cities in the same condition that its misery was hardly
remarkable. Nevertheless, in our own days, the fall of a mouldering
tower in the ruined Chateau de Naast at last revealed the archives of all
these crimes. How the documents came to be placed there remains a
mystery, but they have at last been brought to light.
The Spaniards had thus recovered Mons, by which event the temporary
revolution throughout the whole Southern Netherlands was at an end.
The keys of that city unlocked the gates of every other in Brabant and
Flanders. The towns which had so lately embraced the authority of Orange
now hastened to disavow the Prince, and to return to their ancient,
hypocritical, and cowardly allegiance. The new oaths of fidelity were
in general accepted by Alva, but the beautiful archiepiscopal city of
Mechlin was selected for an example and a sacrifice.
There were heavy arrears due to the Spanish troops. To indemnify them,
and to make good his blasphemous prophecy of Divine chastisement for
its past misdeeds, Alva now abandoned this town to the licence of his
soldiery. By his command Don Frederic advanced to the gates and demanded
its surrender. He was answered by a few shots from the garrison. Those
cowardly troops, however, having thus plunged the city still more deeply
into the disgrace which, in Alva's eyes, they had incurred by receiving
rebels within their walls after having but just before refused admittance
to the Spanish forces, decamped during the night, and left the place
defenceless.
Early next morning there issued from the gates a solemn procession of
priests, with banner and crozier, followed by a long and suppliant throng
of citizens, who attempted by this demonstration to avert the wrath of
the victor. While the penitent psalms were resounding, the soldiers were
busily engaged in heaping dried branches and rubbish into the moat.
Before the religious exercises were concluded, thousands had forced the
gates or climbed the walls; and entered the city with a celerity which
only the hope of rapine could inspire. The sack instantly commenced.
The property of friend and foe, of Papist and Calvinist, was
indiscriminately rifled. Everything was dismantled and destroyed.
"Hardly a nail," said a Spaniard, writing soon afterwards from Brussels,
"was left standing in the walls." The troops seemed to imagine
themselves in a Turkish town, and wreaked the Divine vengeance which
Alva had denounced upon the city with an energy which met with his
fervent applause.
Three days long the horrible scene continued, one day for the benefit of
the Spaniards, two more for that of the Walloons and Germans. All the
churches, monasteries, religious houses of every kind, were completely
sacked. Every valuable article which they contained, the ornaments of
altars, the reliquaries, chalices, embroidered curtains, and carpets of
velvet or damask, the golden robes of the priests, the repositories of
the host, the precious vessels of chrism and extreme unction, the rich
clothing and jewellery adorning the effigies of the Holy Virgin, all were
indiscriminately rifled by the Spanish soldiers. The holy wafers were
trampled underfoot, the sacramental wine was poured upon the ground, and,
in brief, all the horrors which had been committed by the iconoclasts in
their wildest moments, and for a thousandth part of which enormities
heretics had been burned in droves, were now repeated in Mechlin by the
especial soldiers of Christ, by Roman Catholics who had been sent to the
Netherlands to avenge the insults offered to the Roman Catholic faith.
The motive, too, which inspired the sacrilegious crew was not fanaticism,
but the, desire of plunder. The property of Romanists was taken as
freely as that of Calvinists, of which sect there were; indeed, but few
in the archiepiscopal city. Cardinal Granvelle's house was rifled. The
pauper funds deposited in the convents were not respected. The beds were
taken from beneath sick and dying women, whether lady abbess or hospital
patient, that the sacking might be torn to pieces in search of hidden
treasure.
The iconoclasts of 1566 had destroyed millions of property for the sake
of an idea, but they had appropriated nothing. Moreover, they had
scarcely injured a human being; confining their wrath to graven images.
The Spaniards at Mechlin spared neither man nor woman. The murders and
outrages would be incredible, were they not attested by most respectable
Catholic witnesses. Men were butchered in their houses, in the streets,
at the altars. Women were violated by hundreds in churches and in grave-
yards. Moreover, the deed had been as deliberately arranged as it was
thoroughly performed. It was sanctioned by the highest authority. Don
Frederic, Son of Alva, and General Noircarmes were both present at the
scene, and applications were in vain made to them that the havoc might be
stayed. "They were seen whispering to each other in the ear on their
arrival," says an eye-witness and a Catholic, "and it is well known that
the affair had been resolved upon the preceding day. The two continued
together as long as they remained in the city." The work was, in truth,
fully accomplished. The ultra-Catholic, Jean Richardot, member of the
Grand Council, and nephew of the Bishop of Arras, informed the State
Council that the sack of Mechlin had been so horrible that the poor and
unfortunate mothers had not a single morsel of bread to put in the mouths
of their children, who were dying before their eyes--so insane and cruel
had been the avarice of the plunderers. "He could say more," he added,
"if his hair did not stand on end, not only at recounting, but even at
remembering the scene."
Three days long the city was abandoned to that trinity of furies which
ever wait upon War's footsteps--Murder, Lust, and Rapine--under whose
promptings human beings become so much more terrible than the most
ferocious beasts. In his letter to his master, the Duke congratulated
him upon these foul proceedings as upon a pious deed well accomplished.
He thought it necessary, however; to excuse himself before the public in
a document, which justified the sack of Mechlin by its refusal to accept
his garrison a few months before, and by the shots which had been
discharged at his troops as they approached the city. For these
offences, and by his express order, the deed was done. Upon his
head must the guilt for ever rest.
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Hanged for having eaten meat-soup upon Friday
Provided not one Huguenot be left alive in France
Put all those to the torture out of whom anything can be got
Saint Bartholomew's day
Science of reigning was the science of lying