The flame of civil wars, of which Francis II. had beheld the first
sparks, had set all France in a blaze during the minority of Charles
IX. Religion was the motive of these wars among the people, and the
pretext among the great. The queen-mother, Catherine de Medici, who
joined to the most boundless ambition the artful policy of her country,
had more than once hazarded the safety of the kingdom to preserve her
authority; arming the Catholics against the Protestants, and the Guises
against the Bourbons, that they might destroy each other. In this age
of troubles, the great, who had become too powerful, were factious
and formidable; and the French, animated by that party fury which a
false zeal inspires, were, for the most part, fanatics and barbarians.
Passions or interests armed every hand: one-half of the nation made
war against the other half. The greatest cities were taken, retaken,
and sacked, in turn. Prisoners of war were put to death in a manner
till that time unheard of. The churches were reduced to ashes by the
Reformers, the temples by the Catholics. Poisonings and assassinations
were looked upon as only the legitimate vengeance of clever enemies.
The crowning horror of all these excesses was the massacre of St.
Bartholomew. On that ever-execrable day, a young king of twenty-three
commanded, in cool blood, the death of more than a million of his
subjects, and himself set the example of murder. Charles IX. did
not long survive this abuse of sovereign power. Henry III. quitted
furtively the throne of Poland, to return to his country and plunge it
once more into troubles. Of the two brothers, notwithstanding what we
have said of Charles IX., Henry III. was the worse: there is no more
detestable character in history than this prince, who rather resembles
a Heliogabalus or a Commodus, than a king of chivalric France: in the
great massacre he had been, if possible, more active than his brother.
He found in his states two dominant parties; that of the Reformers,
reviving from its ashes, more violent than ever, and having at its
head Henry the Great, then king of Navarre; and that of the League,
a powerful faction, formed by the princes of the house of Guise,
encouraged by the popes, fomented by Philip II. of Spain, whose
dangerous policy procured him the name of the Demon of the South,
increasing every day by the artifices of the monks, under the veil of
zeal for the Catholic religion, but whose principal aim was rebellion.
Its leader was the duke of Guise, surnamed le Balafré, from a scar on
his cheek, a prince of a brilliant reputation, and who, having more
shining qualities than good ones, seemed, in this season of confusion,
born to change the destinies of France. Henry III., who perhaps might
have crushed both these parties by a judicious exercise of the regal
power, absolutely strengthened them by his own weakness. He thought to
exhibit a great feat of policy by declaring himself the head of the
League; whereas he only proved himself the slave of it. He was forced
to make war for the interests of the duke de Guise, whose object was
to dethrone him, against the king of Navarre, his brother-in-law and
presumptive heir, who only wished to re-establish him in all the rights
of his rank. Some successes against the Reformers carried the credit
of the too-powerful Balafré to its height. This prince, inflated with
his own glory, and strong in the weakness of the king, came to Paris
in opposition to the royal command. Then arrived the celebrated day of
the _barricades_, in which the people defeated the guards of Henry,
and obliged him himself to fly from his capital. Guise did still more;
he forced the king to hold the States-General of the kingdom at Blois,
and took his measures so well, that he was near sharing the royal
authority, with the consent of the representatives of the nation,
and with an appearance of the most respectable formalities. Roused
by a danger so pressing, Henry III. caused this redoutable enemy,
and the cardinal de Lorraine, his brother, still more violent and
ambitious than the duke, to be assassinated at the castle of Blois.
That which happened to the Protestant party after the St. Bartholomew,
now happened to the League; the death of the leaders reanimated the
faction. On all parts the Leaguers threw off the mask. Paris closed its
gates: nothing was thought or talked of but vengeance. Henry III. was
considered as the assassin of the defenders of religion, as an odious,
insupportable tyrant, and not as a king who had punished too audacious
subjects. The king, pressed on all sides, was at length obliged to seek
a reconciliation with Henry of Navarre; in the course of 1589 these two
princes encamped in conjunction before Paris.
We cannot describe without a groan the excesses to which the capital
gave itself up on learning the death of the duke de Guise: the shops
closed, the people in crowds in the streets, arms in hand, seeking
everywhere the duke d’Aumale, to place him at the head of the League,
knocking down the king’s arms wherever met with, and imprisoning every
one suspected of fidelity to him. A kind of vertigo or spirit of fury
took possession of all the citizens without exception; they willingly
allowed themselves to be dragged into the most detestable rebellion.
The churches were hung with mourning, and the depositaries of the Word
of God proclaimed aloud the martyrdom of the Balafré and his brother.
“Those unworthy ministers,” says an historian of the time, “only
mounted the pulpit to put forth, instead of the Scriptures, a series of
bitter insults against the sovereign, and by the vomitings of an iliad
of maledictions, they increased the fury of revolt. The people never
came out from their infamous sermons without their brain being on fire,
their feet prepared for running, and their hands for fighting, like so
many wild beasts, against all who did not wear the badge of the League.
The colporteurs of the palace cried nothing but an execration of the
life of Henry III., the self-called king. They said that France was
sick, and that she could never be cured without giving her a draught of
French blood.”
The leaders of the sedition sought, however, to colour the public
excesses with some specious pretexts. They caused a request to be
presented to the faculty of Theology at Paris, in which it was said
“that the princes of the house of Lorraine had always deserved well
of the Catholic church during their lives, and that, being protectors
of the faith, the king had put them to death; that the monarch must
be declared to have forfeited his crown, and his subjects be released
from their fidelity; that that prince was a hypocrite, a favourer
of heresy, a persecutor of the Church, having bathed his hands in
the blood of a cardinal, without respect to his person or his sacred
character.” The Sorbonne, on the 7th of January, issued a decree,
which allowed and even ordered all that this request stated. Lefebvre
the dean, and several other doctors, refused to sign this abominable
sentence; but the majority prevailed, and gave it all the authority
that was desired. The principal Leaguers, armed with this fatal
document, tried to lay the foundations of an authority, which the same
caprice which gave it to them might deprive them of an instant after.
The heads of the sixteen quarters of Paris, all scoundrels, and for
the most part the issue of low families, were revered like so many
sovereigns. These monsters governed Paris; they were its oracles, and
put in motion the arms of all the rebels. They also determined to have
the Parliament. Bussy le Clere, governor of the Bastille, who had
been a master-at-arms, took upon himself the task of ordering that
august company to enregister the decree of the Sorbonne. On the 16th of
January he entered the assembly of French senators with fifty of his
satellites, and, pistol in hand, presented to them a request, or rather
an order, no longer to recognise the royal house. The refusal being
unanimous, he selected the most conspicuous and led them away at once
to the Bastille, where the barbarous manner in which he treated them
procured him the sobriquet of “Grand Penitentiary of the Parliament.”
Very shortly, the duke de Mayenne, brother and heir to the power of the
duke de Guise, arrived in Paris with a reinforcement of troops. This
prince, intrepid and intelligent, but indolent, was still employed in
placing the capital in a state of defence, when the two kings of France
and Navarre appeared at its gates with an army of forty thousand men.
Henry III. took possession of the bridge of St. Cloud, and formed the
blockade of the faubourg St. Honoré and the whole quarter of the Louvre
as far as the river; the king of Navarre, on the other side, besieged
the faubourg St. Marceau to that of St. Germain. The consternation
and the fury of the Parisians were extreme when they found themselves
surrounded in this manner by the royal troops. The priests recommenced
their seditious declamations; to strike the vulgar, they caused little
figures of wax to be made, representing the two monarchs, which they
placed upon the altar during mass, and pricked them with knives. All
priests carried arms, and mounted guard with the other citizens. But
this aimless and blind fury could not have protected the capital from
the just anger of the king, had it not been prevented by the most
infamous of crimes. Jacques Clement, a priest and Dominican, devoted
himself, as he said, to the task of killing the tyrant. He communicated
his project to the doctors, the Jesuits, the leaders of the League,
and the principals of the Sixteen; all encouraged him, all promised
him the greatest dignities, if he survived this generous action; and
if he became a martyr to it, a place in Heaven, above the apostles.
On the 31st of July he went to St. Cloud, where the king’s quarters
were. He was arrested by the sieur de Coublan, and conducted to the
procureur-général De la Guesle. This magistrate introduced him the
next day into the king’s apartment. With a simple and respectful air he
presented the king an intercepted letter to the president De Harley.
The monarch having read it, and being separated from the Dominican by
La Guesle, asked him if he had nothing else to say to him. “I have
many important things to reveal to the king,” replied Clement, “but I
can only do it in a whisper to his own ear.” “Speak out!” cried the
procureur-général two or three times, as he began to mistrust the good
father. “Speak aloud, and before me; there is no one here in whom
the king has not confidence.” Henry then told him to approach. The
villain obeyed, and instead of communicating secrets, plunged a knife,
expressly forged for the purpose, into his bowels, and left it sticking
in the wound. The astonished king immediately drew out the knife, and
springing upon the assassin, stabbed him in the forehead. La Guesle put
the finishing stroke with his sword. His body was thrown out at the
window, torn in pieces, burnt, and his ashes cast into the Seine.
In proportion as this parricide spread consternation in the army,
so did it give cause of triumph to the Parisians. A relation of the
martyrdom of Brother Jacques Clement was printed; he was canonized, and
lauded at Rome from the very pulpit in which the funeral oration of
Henry III. ought to have been pronounced. The object was by such means
to incite fresh assassinations. The king died of his wound on the 2nd
of August, at two o’clock in the morning; and Henry of Bourbon, king
of Navarre, whom he had proclaimed his successor as he was dying, was
acknowledged by a part of the army, and by all who deserved the name of
Frenchmen. The new monarch was obliged to interrupt the attacks upon
Paris to disperse the different armies of the League; and it was not
till after he had rendered himself master of the places which served
as magazines to the capital, that he formed the blockade of it with
less than twenty thousand men. He commenced by attacking the faubourgs:
his army, divided into ten bodies, attacked ten different quarters of
Paris. In order to witness the operations, he placed himself in the
abbey of Montmartre, and at midnight gave the signal. The artillery
was immediately heard to roar on both sides. “There is nobody,” says
Sully, “who would not have supposed that that immense city was about
to perish by fire, or by an infinite number of mines ignited in its
entrails; there perhaps never was a spectacle more capable of inspiring
horror. Dense masses of smoke, through which pierced at intervals
sparks or long trains of flame, shrouded all the surface of that sort
of world which, by the vicissitudes of light and darkness, appeared
either plunged in black night or covered with a sea of fire. The roar
of the artillery, the clash of arms, the cries of combatants, added
everything to this scene that can be imagined that is terrifying; and
the natural horror of night redoubled it still more. This lasted two
whole hours, and ended by the reduction of all the faubourgs, even of
that of St. Antoine, though, from its extent, it was obliged to be
attacked from a great distance.”
The king’s success did not relax the mad courage and the blind fury of
the Parisians; the leaders set the same springs to work that had been
employed the preceding year: sacrilegious sermons, the confirmation of
the Sorbonne, and the excommunication of the king.
As soon as Henry IV. had closed all the issues from the city,
provisions began to fail, and more than two hundred thousand persons of
all conditions were reduced to the most awful extremity, but without
losing any of that factious ardour which had seized all minds. To
animate the people still further, a kind of regiment of ecclesiastics
was formed, to the number of thirteen hundred; they appeared on the
bridge of Notre Dame in battle-array, and made a general review, which
was called the Procession of the League. The leaders carried in one
hand a crucifix, and in the other a halbert, the rest having all sorts
of arms.
The Pope’s legate, by his presence, approved of a proceeding at once
so extraordinary and so laughable; but one of these new soldiers, who
was no doubt ignorant that his arquebuss was loaded with ball, wishing
to salute the legate in his carriage, fired into it, and killed his
almoner. The legate, in consequence of this accident, made as speedy
a retreat as possible; but the people exclaimed that it was a great
blessing for the almoner to be killed in such a holy cause. Such was
the frightful persuasion of this populace, whom impunity had rendered
formidable. They believed themselves invincible under the orders of
the duke de Nemours, a skilful, courageous, and prudent general, whom
the duke de Mayenne, his brother, had left in Paris during his absence;
they were backed by three or four thousand good troops, and by several
nobles of high courage. They every day skirmished against the royal
army, or fought small battles; the Chevalier d’Aumale, of the blood of
Lorraine, being always at the head of their sorties, and imparting his
impetuous valour to his followers. Henry IV. satisfied himself with
repulsing these attacks, convinced that famine would soon open the
gates of the capital to him.
In fact, this terrible scourge began to make rapid progress; there was
neither wheat, barley, nor oats left; more than fifty thousand persons
had already died of want; the sad remains of this numerous population,
nobles, plebeians, rich or poor, languidly crawled through the streets
to seek for and devour the grass and weeds that grew in them. Mules,
horses, cats, dogs, all the domestic animals,--even beasts that are
reckoned unclean,--served for food. The leather of shoes was sold for
its weight in gold; it was boiled and devoured in secret, for fear some
wretch, stronger and more hungry, should tear it from the mouth of the
purchaser. Mothers were seen feeding upon the flesh of their children,
and miserable beings flew like vultures upon a newly-dead body that had
fallen in the streets. The Spanish ambassador to the League advised
that bread should be made of the ground bones of the dead, and his plan
was eagerly adopted; but this shocking aliment cost the lives of most
of those who partook of it. In this general desolation, the priests
and monks enjoyed the comforts of abundance; on visiting their abodes,
there was generally enough for the present discovered, and, in many
instances, a good provision for the future. At length the leaders of
the League, to appease the people, who now never ceased crying, “Bread
or peace!” charged the bishop of Paris and the archbishop of Lyons
with proposals to the king. “I am no dissembler,” said the monarch,
“I speak plainly and without deceit what I think. I should be wrong
if I told you I did not wish for a general peace; I do wish for it, I
ardently desire it, that I may have the power of enlarging and settling
the limits of my kingdom. For a battle I would give a finger, for a
general peace I would give two. I love my city of Paris; it is my
eldest daughter; I am jealous of her. I am anxious to confer upon her
more good, more kindness, more pity than she could ask of me; but I
desire that she should owe them to me and to my clemency, and not to
the duke de Mayenne or the king of Spain. When you ask me to defer
the capitulation and surrender of Paris till a universal peace, which
cannot take place till after many journeys, backwards and forwards, you
ask for a thing highly prejudicial to my city of Paris, which cannot
wait so long. So many persons have already died of hunger, that if a
further delay of ten or twelve days took place, vast numbers must die,
which would be a great pity (_une éstrange pitié_). I am the father
of my people, and I am like the mother of old before Solomon, I would
almost prefer having no Paris at all to having it ruined and dissipated
by the death of so many Parisians. You, Monsieur le Cardinal, ought
to have pity on them; they are your flock. I am not a remarkably good
theologian; but I know enough of divinity to be able to tell you that
God is not pleased that you should treat thus the poor people he has
consigned to you. How can you hope to convert me to your religion, if
you set so little store by the safety and lives of your flock? It is
giving me but a poor proof of your holiness; I am but little edified by
it.”
Of all the monarchs that ever lived, we like to hear Henry IV. of
France speak. His words come forth with that unstudied frankness which
proves that they flow from a manly heart and a right mind. He had his
faults--what human creature has not? but neither the annals of France
nor England describe a king with whom we would rather have sat in
council; have followed his white _panache_ in the battle-field; have
crossed the hand of friendship, or chatted in a lady’s bower, than with
the good, valiant, and witty Béarnais. We verily think that delightful
word of the French language, _bonhomie_, was coined to express the
character of Henry IV.
“Such,” says the historian, “were the words and sentiments of this
generous prince; the evils which oppressed his people penetrated
his compassionate and tender heart. He could not endure the idea,”
says Sully, “of seeing that city, of which Providence had destined
him the empire, become one vast cemetery; he held out his hands to
all he could secretly assist, and shut his eyes upon the supplies of
provisions which his officers and soldiers frequently stole in, whether
out of compassion for relations or friends, or for the sake of the
heavy prices they made the citizens pay for them.”
He could have carried Paris by the sword; and his soldiers, the
Huguenots in particular, demanded that favour of him with loud cries;
but he resisted all their entreaties. The duke de Nemours having turned
out a vast number of useless mouths, the council advised the king to
refuse them a passage. Henry, deeply affected by their melancholy fate,
gave orders to let them go where they liked.
“I am not astonished,” said he, “that the chiefs of the League, or
the Spaniards, should have so little compassion on these poor people,
they are but their tyrants; but as for me, I am their father and
their king, and I cannot behold them without being moved to my inward
heart.” But he was deceived, if he thought these kindnesses would make
any impression upon the Parisians. They availed themselves of his
benevolence, without ceasing to regard him as the author of all the
public calamities; and when, a short time after, the prince of Parma
and the duke de Mayenne, at the head of an army, obliged him to pause
in his enterprise, they insulted him who had only raised the siege
because he was too sensible to the misfortunes of the besieged.
Paris persisted in its revolt to the month of March, 1594; when the
duke de Brissac, who had joined the League because Henry III. had told
him that he was good for nothing, either by land or sea, negotiated
with Henry IV. and opened the gates of Paris to him, for the reward of
the baton of a marshal of France. Henry IV. made his _entrée_, which
only cost the lives of a small body of lansquenets, and of two or three
citizens, who endeavoured to induce the people to take up arms against
a king who was willing to treat them as a father.
Of the policy or propriety of Henry’s changing his religion, to insure
the peaceful possession of his throne, it is not our province to speak.
When Brissac had thrown open the gates, Henry’s troops marched in in
silence, keeping close and careful order, and took possession of the
squares, public places, and great thoroughfares. After the prévôt des
marchands and De Brissac had presented the keys to him, he advanced at
the head of a large troop of the nobility, with lances lowered: his
march was a triumph, and, from that day, he considered himself among
the Parisians, as in the midst of his children. “Let them alone!” cried
he, to those who wished to drive back the crowd; “let them alone! they
want to see a king.” His clemency extended to all classes, even to his
worst enemies, the fanatical preachers. The Spanish garrison quitted
Paris the day of his _entrée_, with the honours of war; Philip’s
ministers departing with them. The king placed himself at a window to
see them pass, and when they were at a distance, he laughingly cried to
them: “Make my compliments to your master, gentlemen, but don’t come
back any more.” He received the Bastille by capitulation, welcomed the
repentant and submissive Sorbonne, and joined to the parliament of
Paris the magistrates of the parliament he had established at Châlons
and Tours.
The ridiculous yet bloody war of the Fronde, though it maddened and for
a time half-starved the Parisians, and although its two parties were
headed by a Condé and a Turenne, does not furnish us with a regular
siege.
[Illustration: HENRY THE FOURTH ENTERS HIS CAPITAL.]