attack, but the most powerful nobles, who might be suspected of
complicity, were sounded respecting their intentions. Coligny and his
brother, D'Andelot, who, in virtue of their offices as Admiral and
Colonel-General of the infantry, stood at the head of the army, received
affectionate invitations from Catharine to visit the court. Upon their
arrival they were taken apart, and were earnestly entreated by the queen
mother and Chancellor Olivier to assist them by their counsel, and not
to abandon the young king. To so urgent a request Coligny made a frank
reply. He explained the existing discontent and its causes, both
religious and political. Persecution, and the usurpation of those who
were esteemed foreigners by the French, lay at the root of the troubles.
He advised the relaxation of the rigorous treatment of the adherents of
the Reformation. _Extermination_ was out of the question. The numbers of
the Protestants had become too great to permit the entertaining of such
a thought. Moreover, the court might be assured that there were
those--and they were not few--who would no longer consent to endure the
cruelty to which, for forty years, they had been subjected, especially
now that it was exercised under the authority of a young king governed
by persons "more hated than the plague," and known to be inspired less
by religious zeal than by excessive ambition, and by an avarice that
could be satisfied only by obtaining the property of the richest houses
in France. An edict of toleration, couched in explicit terms and
honestly executed, was the only remedy to restore peace and quiet until
the convocation of a free and holy council.[823]
[Sidenote: The edict of amnesty March, 1560.]
[Sidenote: It is promptly registered.]
The privy council, if not persuaded of the propriety of initiating a
policy of toleration, were at least convinced of the necessity of
yielding temporarily to the storm; and even the Guises deemed it
advisable to make concessions, which could easily be revoked on the
advent of more peaceful times. Accordingly, an edict of pretended
amnesty was hastily drawn up, and as expeditiously published. The king
was moved to take this step--so the edict made him say--by compassion
for the number of persons who, from motives of curiosity or simplicity,
had attended the conventicles of the preachers from Geneva--for the most
part mechanical folk and of no literary attainments--as well as by
reluctance to render the first year of his reign notable in after times
for the effusion of the blood of his poor subjects. By the provisions of
this important instrument the royal judges were forbidden to make
inquisition into, or inflict punishment for any _past_ crime concerning
the faith: and all delinquents were pardoned _on condition that they
should hereafter live as good Catholics and obedient sons of Mother Holy
Church_. But from the benefits of the amnesty were expressly excluded
all preachers and those who had conspired against the person of the king
or his ministers.[824] The edict--much to the surprise of those who knew
the sanguinary disposition of the judges--was promptly registered by
parliament; whether it was that the judges were reconciled to the step
by a secret article with which, it was said, they accompanied it, to
guide in the future interpretation of the law, or that the majority
regarded it as a piece of deceit.[825]
[Sidenote: A year's progress.]
[Sidenote: Beza's comment.]
In spite of its insincerity, however, the edict, wrung from the
unwilling hands of the cardinal and the privy council, marks an
important epoch in the history of the Reformed Church in France. Barely
nine months had elapsed since five members of the Parisian Parliament
had been thrown into the Bastile for daring to advocate a mitigation of
the penalties pronounced against the Protestants, until the assembling
of the long-promised Oecumenical Council. Little more than two months
had passed since one of their number, and the most virtuous judge on the
bench, had been ignominiously executed. And now the King of France, with
the approval and almost at the instigation of the chief persecutor,
proclaimed an oblivion of all offences against religion, and the
liberation of all persons imprisoned for heresy. The reformers, who had
rarely succeeded by their most strenuous exertions in obtaining the
release of a few of their co-religionists, could scarcely restrain a
smile when they discovered what a potent auxiliary they had obtained
unawares--in the _fears_ of their antagonists. "Would that you could
read and understand the number of contradictory edicts they have written
in a single month!" wrote one who took a deep interest in French
affairs. "You would assuredly be amazed at their incredible fright, when
no one is pursuing them, except Him whom they least fear! What you could
not succeed in obtaining by any of your embassies in former years, they
have given of their own accord to those who sought it not--the
liberation of the entire number of prisoners on all sides. Most have
been released in spite of their open profession of their faith. The
injustice of the judges has, however, led to the retention of a few in
chains up to this moment."[826]
[Sidenote: A powerful party had arisen.]
Notwithstanding its incompleteness and insincerity, however, "the Edict
of Forgiveness," as it was termed, is a significant landmark in the
history of French Protestantism. It is the point where begins the
transition from the period of persecution to the period of civil war. By
this concession, reluctantly granted and faithlessly executed, the first
recognition was made of the existence of a large and powerful body of
dissidents from the Roman Catholic Church. No longer were there a few
scattered sectaries whose heretical views might be suppressed by their
individual extermination. But a compact and wide-spread and rapidly
growing party had assumed dimensions that defied any such paltry
measures. It had outgrown persecution. The time for its eradication by
open war or by secret massacre might yet come. Meanwhile, it was
important to avert present disaster by partial concessions.
[Sidenote: Dismay of the court.]
[Sidenote: New alarms.]
The treachery of Des Avenelles had warned the Guises of their danger,
but had left them in dismay and doubt. They knew not whom to trust, nor
whence to expect the impending blow. Sir Nicholas Throkmorton's
correspondence is full of interesting details throwing light upon the
confusion and embarrassment of the Guises. "You shall understand," he
writes on the seventh of March, "that the Duke of Guise and the Cardinal
of Lorraine have discovered a conspiracy wrought against themselves and
their authority, which they have bruited (to make the matter more
odious) to be meant only against the king: whereupon they are in such
fear as themselves do wear privy coats, and are in the night guarded
with pistoliers and men in arms. They have apprehended eight or nine,
and have put some to the torture." "Being ready to seal up this letter,"
he adds in a postscript, "I do understand that the fear of this
commotion is so great, as the sixth of this present, the Duke of Guise,
the Cardinal of Lorraine, the Grand Prior, and all the knights of the
Order which were here, watched all night long in the court, and the
gates of this town were all shut and kept." On the fifteenth of March he
writes: "These men here have their hands full, and are so busied to
provide for surety at home, that they cannot intend to answer
foreigners. This night a new hot alarm is offered, and our town doth
begin again to be guarded. It is a marvel to see how they be daunted,
that have not at other times been afraid of great armies of horsemen,
footmen, and the fury of shot of artillery: I never saw state more
amazed than this at some time, and by and by more reckless; they know
not whom to mistrust, nor to trust.... He hath all the trust this daye,
that to-morrow is least trusted. You can imagine your advantage." A few
days later he writes again: "And now it was thought that this was but a
popular commotion, without order, and not to be feared; when, unlooked
for, the 17th, in the morning, about four of the clock, there arrived a
company of 150 horsemen well appointed, who approached the court gates,
and shot off their pistolets at the church of the Bonhommes, whereupon
there was such an alarm and running up and down in the court, as if the
enemies being encamped about them had sought to make an entry into the
castle: and there was crying, _To horse, to horse_.... This continued an
hour and a half,"[827] etc.
La Renaudie had actually established himself within six leagues of
Amboise on the second of March, and had made his arrangements for the
vigorous execution of his plans a fortnight later. The Guises were to be
seized by a party that counted upon gaining secret admission to the
castle, and opening the gates to comrades concealed in the neighborhood.
But another act of treachery on the part of a confederate enabled the
cardinal and his brother to frustrate a project so sagaciously laid and
offering fair promise of success. The parties of cavaliers, who had
succeeded, as by a miracle, in eluding the spies and agents of their
enemies, posted in every important city of France, and had reached the
very vicinity of the court without discovery, were caught in detail at
their rendezvous. Companies of fifteen or twenty men thus fell into the
hands of the troops hastily assembled by the urgent commands of the
king's ministers.
[Sidenote: Treacherous capture of Castelnau.]
[Sidenote: Death of La Renaudie.]
A more powerful detachment of malcontents could not be so easily
stopped, and threw itself into the castle of Noizay. It seemed more
feasible to overcome them by stratagem than by open assault. The Duke of
Nemours, having been sent to reduce the place, allowed Baron de
Castelnau, commander of the insurgents, a personal interview. Here the
Huguenot defended his adherents against the imputation of having
revolted against their lawful monarch, and maintained that, on the
contrary, they had come to uphold his honor and free him from the
intrigues of the Guises. Seeing, however, the hopelessness of resisting
the superior force of his enemy, Castelnau consented to capitulate,
after exacting from the Duke of Nemours his princely word that he and
his followers should receive no injury, and be permitted to have free
access to the king, in order to lay before him their grievances. The
pledge thus given was redeemed in no chivalrous manner. No account was
made of the terms accepted. Castelnau and his companions-in-arms were at
once thrown into the dungeons of Amboise, and steps were taken for their
trial on a charge of treason.[828] Much larger numbers, arriving in the
vicinity of Amboise ignorant of what had happened, were surrounded by
cavalry and brought in tied to the horses' tails. Many a knight, better
accoutred than his fellows, was despatched in a more summary manner and
stripped of his armor, after which his body was carelessly thrown into a
ditch by the roadside.[829] La Renaudie was so fortunate as to escape
this fate and the yet more cruel doom that awaited him at Amboise, by
meeting a soldier's death, while courageously fighting against a party
of Guisards who fell in with him. He had just slain his antagonist--one
Pardaillan, his own relative--when (on the nineteenth of March) he was
himself instantly killed by the ball from an arquebuse fired by his
opponent's servant.[830]
[Sidenote: Plenary powers given to the Duke of Guise.]
While the alarm arising from the "tumult" was yet at its height, the
Guises took advantage of it to obtain yet larger powers, at the same
time securing their position against future assaults. The king, in his
terror, was readily induced to accept the warlike uncle of his wife as
the only person on whose military prowess and faithfulness he could
rely. He regarded the interest of the Guises and his own as identical;
for he had been told, and he firmly believed it, that the enmity of the
insurgents was directed no less against the crown than against its
unpopular ministers.[831] On the seventeenth of March he therefore gave
a commission to "Francis of Lorraine, Duke of Guise, peer, grand master,
and grand chamberlain," to be his lieutenant-general with absolute
powers, promising to approve of all his acts, and authorizing him to
impose the customary punishment upon the seditious, without form or
figure of process.[832]
[Sidenote: Chancellor Olivier opposes.]
[Sidenote: Forgiveness to the submissive.]
There were those about the monarch who could not but look with concern
upon the unlimited authority thus accorded to an ambitious prince.
Chancellor Olivier was of this number. He at first refused to affix the
seal of state to a paper which falsely purported to have been made by
advice of the council. It was, however, at length decided that another
edict should be published contemporaneously, extending forgiveness to
all that had assembled in arms in the neighborhood of the city of
Amboise, under color of desiring to present to the king a confession of
their faith. To avail themselves of the benefits of this pardon, they
must, within "twice twenty-four hours," return to their homes, in
companies of two, or, at the most, three together. The disobedient were
to be hung without process of law, and the tocsin might be rung to
gather a force for the purpose of capturing them. The king, however,
invited all that desired to present him their requests to depute one of
their number to lay them before his council, promising, on the pledge of
his royal word, redress and security.[833]
[Sidenote: Explained away by a new edict.]
The acts of the court little agreed with these words of clemency. Many
of those who, in obedience to the edict, turned their steps homeward,
found that edict to be only a snare for their simplicity. Indeed, five
days only had elapsed when, on the twenty-second of March, a fresh
edict, explanatory of the former, excluded from the amnesty all that had
taken part in the conspiracy![834]
[Sidenote: Carnival of blood.]
[Sidenote: The young king visibly affected.]
But it was at Amboise that the vengeance of the Guises found its widest
scope. Day and night the execution of the prisoners stayed not. Their
punishment was ingeniously diversified. Some were decapitated, others
hung; still others were drowned in the waters of the Loire.[835] The
streets of Amboise ran with blood, and the stench of the unburied
corpses threatened a pestilence. Ten or twelve dead bodies, in full
clothing and tied to a single pole, floated down from time to time
toward the sea, and carried tidings of the wholesale massacre to the
cities on the lower Loire. Neither trial nor publication of the charge
preceded the summary execution. Most frequently the victims were placed
in the hangman's hand immediately after the hour for dinner, that their
dying agonies might furnish an agreeable diversion to the ladies of the
court, who watched the gibbet from the royal drawing-rooms. Few, besides
the Duchess of Guise, daughter of Renee of Ferrara, manifested any
disgust at the repulsive spectacle. Some of the prisoners who
importunately insisted on seeing the king, and making before him a
profession of their faith, were summarily hanged from the castle
windows. One intrepid reformer had been so fortunate as to be admitted
to the queen mother's presence, and there, by his ready and cogent
reasoning, had well-nigh brought the Cardinal of Lorraine to admit that
his view of the Lord's Supper was correct. Catharine's attention having
been for a moment withdrawn, when she returned to the discussion the man
had disappeared. Actuated by curiosity or by a desire to spare his life,
she requested him to be sent for. It was too late; he had already been
despatched.[836] For the most part, the victims displayed great
constancy and courage. Many died with the words of the psalms of Marot
and Beza on their lips.[837] Castelnau, after having in his
interrogatory made patent to all the hypocrisy of the cardinal and the
cowardice of the chancellor, died maintaining that, before he was
pronounced guilty of treason, the Guises ought to be declared kings of
France. Villemongys, upon the scaffold, dipped his hands in the blood of
his companions, and, raising them toward heaven, exclaimed in a loud
voice: "Lord, this is the blood of Thy children, unjustly shed. Thou
wilt avenge it!"[838] The body of La Renaudie was first hung upon one of
the bridges of Amboise, with the superscription: "_La Renaudie, styling
himself Laforest, author of the conspiracy, chief and leader of the
rebels_." Afterward it was quartered, and his head, in company with the
heads of others, was exposed upon a pole on a public square.[839] The
sight of these continually recurring executions, succeeding a fearful
struggle in which so many of his subjects had taken part, is said to
have affected even the young king, who asked, with tears, what he had
done to his people to animate them thus against him. It is even reported
that, catching for an instant, through the mist with which his advisers
sought to keep his mind enshrouded, a glimpse of the true cause of the
discontent, he made a feeble suggestion, which was easily parried, that
the Guises should for a time retire from the court, in order that he
might find out whether the popular enmity was in reality directed
against him, or against his uncles.[840] Their fertile invention,
however, was not slow in concocting a story that turned his short-lived
pity into settled hatred of the "Huguenot heretics."
[Sidenote: The elder D'Aubigne and his son.]
On others, and especially upon those whose hearts throbbed with
patriotic devotion, a less transient impression was made. Some months
after, the young Agrippa d'Aubigne, then a mere child of ten years, was
traversing the city of Amboise with his father. The impaled heads of
the victims were still to be recognized. The barbarous sight moved the
elder D'Aubigne's soul to its very depths. "They have beheaded France,
hangmen that they are!" he cried out in the hearing of the hundreds that
were present at the fair. Then, spurring his horse, he scarcely escaped
the hands of the rabble who had caught his words. Afterward, when his
young son had rejoined him, he placed his hand on Agrippa's head, and
exclaimed, full of emotion: "My child, you must not spare your head
after mine, to avenge these chieftains full of honor, whose heads you
have just seen! If you spare yourself in this matter, you will have my
curse."[841]
[Sidenote: Peril of the Prince of Conde.]
[Sidenote: He is summoned by the king.]
[Sidenote: Conde's defiance.]
[Sidenote: Guise's offer.]
The Prince of Conde had set out for the court about the time of the
discovery of the conspiracy. If the coldness of the courtiers whom he
met on the way did not convince him that he was suspected, the position
in which he soon found himself at Amboise left him no doubts. Surrounded
by spies, he was viewed more as a prisoner than as a guest. The Guises
even counselled Francis to stab him with his dagger while pretending to
sport with him. The crime was averted both by the caution of the prince
and by a reluctance on the part of the young king to imbrue his hands in
the blood of his kinsman--a sentiment which the Guises interpreted as
cowardice.[842] But, unable to resist the urgency of those who accused
Conde of being the true head of the conspiracy, and maintained that the
testimony of many of the prisoners rendered the fact indubitable,
Francis at length summoned the young Bourbon to his presence. He
informed him of the accusations, and assured him that, should they prove
true, he would make him feel the difficulty and the danger of attacking
a king of France. At Conde's request an assembly of all the princes, and
of the members of the Privy Council and of the Order of St. Michael, was
summoned, that he might return his answer to the charges laid against
him.[843] In the midst of the august gathering, Louis of Bourbon arose
and recited the conversation which he had had with the king. He knew, he
said, that he had enemies about him who sought his entire ruin and that
of his house. He had, therefore, solicited to be heard in this company,
and his answer was: that, excepting the person of the king, his
brothers, and the queens, his mother and wife--and he said it with all
respect to their presence--whoever had asserted to the king that Conde
was the chief of certain seditious individuals who were said to have
conspired against his person and estate, had "falsely and miserably
lied." To prove his innocence he offered to waive for the time the
privileges of his rank as prince of the blood, and in single combat
force his accuser at the point of the sword to confess himself a
poltroon and a calumniator. As Conde looked proudly around, no one
ventured to accept the gauntlet he had thrown down. On the contrary, the
Duke of Guise, his most bitter enemy, promptly stepped forward to offer
him his services as second in the single combat proposed! Hereupon Conde
begged the king to esteem him hereafter a faithful and honorable man,
and entreated his Majesty to lend no ear to the authors of such
calumnies, but to regard them as common enemies of the crown and of the
public peace.[844]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: An alleged admission of disloyal intentions by La
Renaudie.]
It is well known that the Huguenots were accused by their enemies
of intending to remodel the government of France. According to
some, the king was to be retained, but shorn of his authority;
according to others, he was to be dispensed with altogether. Under
any circumstances, the Swiss confederation was to be imitated or
reproduced in France. That which gave the pretended scheme most of
its air of probability, in the eyes of the unreflecting, and
compensated for the entire absence of proof of its substantial
reality, was the familiarity of many of the Huguenots--both
religious and political--with Geneva, Basle, Berne, and other small
republican states. These were fountains of Protestant doctrine;
these had afforded many a refugee shelter from persecution in
France. It was notorious that the free institutions of these cities
were the object of admiration on the part of the Calvinists.[845]
I believe that no contemporary writer has brought forward a
particle of evidence in support of this view, and impartial men
have rejected it as incredible. But a history of the Parliament of
Bordeaux, lately published,[846] contains an extract from the
records of that court, which, if trustworthy, would go far to
establish the reality of treasonable designs entertained by the
Huguenots. Under date of Sept. 4, 1561, the following entry
appears:
"Ledit jour, M. Geraut Faure, official de Perigueux, a dit: qu'il y
a deux ans que le feu _Sieur de La Renaudie_ fust a la maison dudit
official, a Nontron, lui dire _que c'estoit grande folie qu'un tel
royaume fust gouverne par un roi seul_, et que si l'official
vouloit l'entendre, qu'il lui feroit un grand avantage; car _on
deliberoit de faire un canton a Perigueux, et un autre a Bordeaux_
dont il esperoit avoir la superintendance. Et lors luy tenant de
tels propos, retira a part ledit official sans qu'autre
l'entendist. Ainsi signe: Faure."
The late M. Boscheron des Portes, giving full credit to the
assertion of the "official" of Perigueux, believed that the party
of which La Renaudie was a prominent leader contemplated, in
1559-1560, the formation of "a federative republic broken up into
cantons, the number and situation of which were already, it would
appear, determined upon by the authors of the project." And he
deplores the blind sectarian spirit which could induce Frenchmen to
acquiesce in a plan designed to destroy the unity and consequent
power of a realm whose consolidation every successive king since
the origin of the monarchy had unceasingly pursued.
I imagine that few unbiassed minds will follow this usually
judicious historian in his singularly precipitate acceptance of the
"official's" statement. It is in patent contradiction with
well-known facts respecting the constitution of the Huguenot party.
The noblemen who gave this party their support had everything to
lose, and nothing to gain, by the change from a monarchical to a
republican form of government. Conde, the "chef muet," was a prince
of the blood, not so far removed from the throne as to regard it
altogether impossible that he or his children might yet succeed to
the crown. The main body of the party had had no reason to
entertain hostility to regal authority. The prevailing discontent
was not directed against the young king, but against the persons
surrounding him who had illegally usurped his name and the real
functions of royalty. If persecution for religion's sake had long
raged, the victims had never uttered a syllable smacking of
disloyalty, and continued to hope, not without some apparent
reason, that the truth might yet reach the heart of kings.
But, independently of the gross inconsistency between the design
ascribed to La Renaudie and the known sentiments of the Huguenots
at this time, there are other marks of improbability connected with
the statement of Geraut Faure. It was not made at the time of the
pretended disclosure, or shortly after, when, if genuine, it would
have insured the informer favor and reward; but, after the lapse of
"two years," when Francis the Second had been dead nine months, and
when under a new king fresh political issues had arisen. In fact,
if the term of two years be construed strictly, it carries us back
to September, 1559, when Francis the Second had been barely three
months on the throne, and the plans of the Huguenots had, to all
appearance, by no means had time to assume the completeness implied
in Faure's statement. Not to speak of the great vagueness and the
utter absence of circumstantial details in the announcement of the
conspiracy and in the promised advantages, it should be remarked
that the confidant selected by La Renaudie was a very unlikely
person to be chosen. The "official," an ecclesiastical judge
deputed by the Bishop of Perigueux to take charge of spiritual
jurisdiction in his diocese, could scarcely be regarded by La
Renaudie as the safest depositary of so valuable a trust.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 729: Davila, p. 20.]
[Footnote 730: "Lancea sanctorum tunc inopina salus." Epigram _apud_ Le
Laboureur, Additions aux mem. de Castelnau, i. 276.]
[Footnote 731:
Sic cruce detractum fixit tua lancea Christum,
Per latus illorum quos sua membra vocat.
At Deus omnipotens, Christi justissimus ultor,
Sanguine, dixit, erit lancea tincta tuo. _Ib._, _ubi supra_.
]
[Footnote 732: "O que si ce bon roy eusse vescu," says Montluc, "ou si
ceste paix ne se fust faite, qu'il eust bien rembarre les Lutheriens en
Allemagne." Memoires, Petitot ed., ii. 483.]
[Footnote 733: Davila, Civil Wars of France, p. 6. Hist. du tumulte
d'Amboise, Recueil des choses memorables, _in initio_; Mem. de Conde, i.
320.]
[Footnote 734: Yet Catharine herself, in a letter written in 1563 to her
son Charles IX., just after he had declared himself to be of age, admits
the full truth of her opponents' assertion, that Francis II. was a
minor!--"que l'on cognoisse les desordres qui out este jusques icy _par
la minorite du Roy vostre frere_, qui empeschoit que l'on ne pouvoit
faire ce que l'on desiroit." Avis donnez par Catherine de Medicis a
Charles IX., pour la police de sa cour, etc., printed in Cimber et
Danjou, Archives curieuses, v. 245-254.]
[Footnote 735: "Di natura benignissima, e cerca di gratificare ciascuno,
e massime gl' Italiani quanto piu gli e possibile, ed e tanto amato, non
solamente da tutta la corte, ma da tutto il regno che e cosa
incredibile." Rel. del clar^mo Giovanni Soranzo, 1558, Relaz. Ven.,
ii. 429, 430.]
[Footnote 736: "La Royne mere, ambitieuse et craintive." Mem. de
Tavannes, ii. 256.]
[Footnote 737: Relaz. di Giovanni Michiel (1561), Tommaseo, i. 426.]
[Footnote 738: La Planche, 204, 205: "The Duchesse of Valentinoys and
Duches of Buillon are commaunded, that neither they nor any of theirs
shall resort to the courte.... The yong Frenche Quene hath sent to the
Duches of Valentinoys, to make accompt of the French King's cabenet and
of all his jewels." Throkmorton to Queen, July 13, 1559, Forbes, State
Papers, i. 158, 159.]
[Footnote 739: Regnier de la Planche, p. 203: "Lequel (Henry) ... avoit
entierement resolu, apres avoir acheve ces mariages, et renvoye les
estrangers, de les dechasser arriere de soy, comme une peste de son
royaume." So Hist. eccles., liv. iii. I can scarcely agree with De Thou
(ii., 681, liv. xxiii.) in supposing Catharine deceived in the character
of the Guises: "Comme elle ne connoissoit pas encore le caractere de ces
Princes, elle crut qu'ils se soumettroient en tout a ses volontes," etc.
This statement does injustice to the perspicacity of Catharine, who for
so many years had been quietly, but none the less carefully, studying
these courtiers and all others that figured on the stage of French
politics. La Planche, with his usual acumen, makes much of the advantage
which this circumstance conferred upon her (_ubi supra_): "La royne
mere, italienne, florentine, et de la race des Medicis, et qui plus est,
ayant depuis vingt-deux ans [rather, for twenty-five years] eu tout
loisir de considerer les humeurs et facons de toutes ces gens, regardoit
ce jeu, et sceut si bien empoigner l'occasion, qu'elle gaigna finalement
la partie."]
[Footnote 740: For a full and not uninteresting account of the
obsequies, see the pamphlet already referred to: "Le Trespas et l'Ordre
des obseques," etc. Paris, 1559. Reprinted in Cimber et Danjou, iii.
307, etc.]
[Footnote 741: Regnier de la Planche, Hist. de l'estat de France sous
Francois II., 206. "The French King," wrote Throkmorton to his royal
mistress, "alredy hathe geven him (the constable) to understande, that
the Cardinal of Lorrain and the Duke of Guise shal manage his hole
affairs." Throkmorton to the Queen, July 18, 1559, Forbes, State Papers,
i. 166.]
[Footnote 742: "Ut re vera sit conestabilis." Beza to Bullinger, Sept.
12, 1559, _apud_ Baum, ii. App. 1. The _title_ of constable was for
life. Of the tenure of the office, the memoirs of Vieilleville make
Henry II. say: "Vous scavez que les estats de connestable, mareschaux et
chancelliers de France sont totalement _collez et cousus_ a la teste de
ceulx qui en sont honnorez, que l'on ne peut arracher l'un sans
l'autre." Mem., i. 207.]
[Footnote 743: Huguenot and papist agreed in this, if they could agree
in nothing else. "Guisiani fratres," said Beza, "ita inter se regnum
sunt partiti ut regi nihil praeter inane nomen sit relictum." Beza, _ubi
supra_. Cardinal Santa Croce used almost the same expression: "Eo
devenerat ut regi solum nomen reliquisse, alia omnia sibi sumsisse
videretur." Commentarii, v. 1440.]
[Footnote 744: The poor fellow's wit was recompensed with a public
flogging. The incident is told in the recently published Journal d'un
cure ligueur (Jehan de la Fosse), 37. It need scarcely be said that the
_Crescent_ referred to Diana of Poitiers.]
[Footnote 745: "Nam cum ... regem de more salutatum venisset ...
Lotharingii suasu ne respicere hominem voluit." Santa Croce, Comment.,
v. 1439.]
[Footnote 746: La Planche, 206.]
[Footnote 747: In a remark which he was accused of once making to Henry
II., "that he was surprised that the king had no child resembling him,
save his illegitimate, but acknowledged daughter, Diana, married to the
constable's son!" La Planche, 204, 207; De Thou, ii. 685.]
[Footnote 748: Blaise de Montluc, a trusty agent, kept Guise well posted
respecting the King of Navarre's words and disposition. "Encores que M.
le Connestable luy ayt escript plusieurs lettres, neantmoins il m'a
toujours dict qu'il ne se fieroit jamais de luy, ayant bien cogneu que
ce semblant d'amitie qu'il luy portoit n'estoit que pour l'attirer de
son coste, affin de ruiner ses cousins," etc. Instruction donnee par le
seign. de Montluc a M. de la Tour, 22 juillet, 1559, Mem. de Conde, i.
307; Mem. de Guise, 450.]
[Footnote 749: The wealth and power of the Montmorency family were
proverbial; their palaces were among the most magnificent in France. Of
one of them the English ambassadors wrote, four years earlier, a long
description for the benefit of Queen Mary, beginning: "We saw another
house which the said constable had but lately built, called Ecouen,
which was praised for the fairest house in France." The Journey of the
Queen's Ambassadors to Rome, Anno 1555 (Hardwick, State Papers, i. 63).]
[Footnote 750: See the _Livre des marchands_, Paris, 1565, ascribed to
Louis Regnier de la Planche, the reputed author of the most authentic
history of this reign (Ed. Pantheon litt., 429, 453, _et passim_).]
[Footnote 751: De la Planche, 207.]
[Footnote 752: De la Planche, p. 208.]
[Footnote 753: Ibid., p. 205, 206; De Thou, ii. 683, whose account, as
in so many other instances during this reign, is almost exclusively
based upon the invaluable history of Regnier de la Planche.]
[Footnote 754: La Planche, p. 208; Tumulte d'Amboise, _ubi supra_;
Languet, Epist. secretae, ii. p. 2.]
[Footnote 755: La Planche, p. 212; La Place, 26; De Thou, ii. 684.]
[Footnote 756: "Rex Navarrorum animum in corpore virili gerit
muliebrem." J. C. Portanus, Oct. 30, 1559, Languet, Epist. secretae, ii.
4.]
[Footnote 757: The Bishop of Mende was to become a member of the privy
council; D'Escars to be made a knight of the order of St. Michael, and
to command fifty men-at-arms. La Planche, 213.]
[Footnote 758: The Guises did not fail, however, to take precautions
against a surprise. If Throkmorton was well informed, the duke had
"caused two thousand corselets to be laid up in the house of Burbone
(Bourbon), nere to the court, to serve in case of innovacion; if that
any such matter shuld happen upon the arrivall of the King of Navarre."
Desp. of Aug. 8, 1559, Forbes, State Papers, i. 194.]
[Footnote 759: La Planche, _ubi supra_.]
[Footnote 760: Idem, 213, 214.]
[Footnote 761: Throkmorton to the queen, Aug. 15, 1559, Forbes, i. 202.]
[Footnote 762: "Qu'il n'est point petit compagnon en France."]
[Footnote 763: Instruction of Montluc to La Tour, already cited, Mem. de
Guise, 450.]
[Footnote 764: Antoine did, indeed, continue his protestations of his
firm intention "not to fail to do the best he could to advance God's
true religion and cause." He made secret appointments with the English
ambassador, at one time about eleven o'clock at night, near the abbey of
St. Denis, at another time in disguise in the cloisters of the
Augustinian friars, and had much to say about his satisfaction "that he
had so good a colleague" as Elizabeth "in so good a cause." But the
diplomatic correspondence does not show a single step which Navarre ever
ventured to take in behalf of that "good cause." See Throkmorton's
despatch of Aug. 25th, Forbes, State Papers, i. 213, 214.]
[Footnote 765: "Navarrus ad quem jure ipso et more majorum hactenus
inviolata pertinebat regni administratio, quamvis a plerisque Ecclesiis
salutatus et rogatus ne tam praeclaram et divinitus oblatam occasionem
negligeret, quamvis summo et aperto ludibrio a Guisianis exceptus, tamen
omnibus annuit et suo exemplo confirmavit Christi dictum; Difficile est
divitem ingredi in regnum coelorum." Beza to Bullinger, Sept. 12,
1559, _apud_ Baum, ii., App., 1, 2; La Place, 27; La Planche, 213-216;
De Thou, ii. 686, 687.]
[Footnote 766: Held Sept. 18th. See a description in Forbes, State
Papers, i. 232. Navarre, as one of the six temporal peers, represented
the Duke of Burgundy; Guise represented the Duke of Normandy; Nevers,
the Duke of Guyenne, etc.]
[Footnote 767: La Planche, 218; De Thou, ii. 688. That the promise of
assistance was only given in order to frighten Navarre was patent to all
who were cognizant of Philip's projected African campaign.]
[Footnote 768: De Thou (ii. 722, 723) gives an account apparently
correct, save in one or two particulars, of these two missions. The
slavish letter of Antoine to D'Audoz or D'Odoux, as De Thou writes the
name of the second messenger, may be read in the Negociations relatives
au regne de Francois II. (drawn from the papers of the Bishop of
Limoges, French ambassador to Philip, and published by the French
government, under the editorial care of M. Paris, 1841), pp. 164-166.
Compare Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 91.]
[Footnote 769: La Planche, 209.]
[Footnote 770: Throkmorton to Cecil, July 13, 1559, Forbes, State
Papers, i. 161.]
[Footnote 771: La Planche, 221; Beza to Bullinger, Sept. 12, 1559, Baum,
ii., App., 3.]
[Footnote 772: La Planche, 221; Mem. de Castelnau (Eng. tr. of 1724, p.
23), bk. i. c. 5; Declarations of Sept. 4th and Nov. 14, 1559, in the
Memoires de Guise, 450, 451. These declarations were registered by
parliament, with the proviso that no house should be razed unless the
owners were privy to the crime or guilty of inexcusable negligence.
Memoires de Conde, i, 310.]
[Footnote 773: La Planche, _ubi supra_.]
[Footnote 774: Arret du parlement, of September 6, 1559, in Memoires de
Conde, i. 308, 309.]
[Footnote 775: In August there were nineteen Protestants in Parisian
dungeons, sentenced to be executed for heresy, some in one place, some
in another. A man and a woman were rescued, on the twenty-first of this
month, while on their way to execution at Meaux. Forbes, State Papers,
i. 211, 212.]
[Footnote 776: La Planche, 221, 223; Hist. eccles., i. 144--147, where
the account is taken word for word from La Planche; De Thou, ii. 691,
692; Felibien, Hist. de Paris, ii. 1069; Mem. de Castelnau, liv. i., c.
4.]
[Footnote 777: "La royne Catherine de Medicis, florentine, nation
desireuse de nouvellete ... haissoit, comme belle mere, la Royne sa
fille, qui l'esloignoit des affaires et portoit l'amitie du Roy son fils
a MM. de Guise, lesquels ne luy deportoient du gouvernement qu'en ce
qu'ils cognoissoient qu'elle ne pouvoit nuire, luy donnant credit en
apparence sans effect," Mem. de Tavannes, ii. 260.]
[Footnote 778: La Planche, 211; Hist. eccles., i. 141, seq.; Beza to
Bullinger, Sept. 12, 1559; Baum, ii., App., 3.]
[Footnote 779:
"Vers l'Eternel, des oppresses le pere,
Je m'en iray, luy monstrant l'impropere
Que l'on me fait; et luy feray priere," etc.
]
[Footnote 780: "Coppie de lettres envoyees a la Royne Mere par un sien
serviteur apres la mort du feu Roy Henri deuxieme." Cimber et Danjou,
Archives curieuses, iii. 349, etc. The substance of Villemadon's letter,
which is dated August 26th, 1559, is given by La Planche, 211, 212, and,
after him, by Hist. eccles., i. 141, 142.]
[Footnote 781: La Planche, 219; Hist. eccles., i. 143; cf. Forbes, State
Papers, i. 226.]
[Footnote 782: La Planche, 220; Hist. eccles., _ubi supra_. It is not at
all improbable that those who endeavored to influence Catharine showed
too little discretion in their zeal, and needlessly provoked her
displeasure by reference to the judgment of God upon her husband. So, at
least, thought the judicious Frenchman Languet, who added, with some
bitterness, that whoever urged upon them moderation was rewarded for his
pains by being called a traitor to the faith. Epist. secretae, ii. 41.]
[Footnote 783: Or, Trouillard, according to Castelnau, _ubi supra_.]
[Footnote 784: La Planche, 223-225; Castelnau, liv. i., c. 4; De Thou,
ii. 691.]
[Footnote 785: La Planche and De Thou, _ubi supra_.]
[Footnote 786: Epistolae secretae, ii. 30.]
[Footnote 787: See _ante_, c. viii., p. 275. The authority of the
Memoires de Tavannes (ii. 258)--"Les chambres ardentes sont erigees pour
persecuter les Huguenots, et ce d'autant plus que les princes du sang et
les freres de Coligny favorisoient la religion nouvelle"--cannot weigh
against the positive statement of the preamble of Henry II.'s edict of
Paris, Nov. 19, 1549, _ante_, c. viii., p. 275. Yet Drion, Hist. chron.
de l'eglise prot. de France, i. 63, places the original institution
here.]
[Footnote 788: Drion, i. 64; Hist. eccles., i. 151. On the other hand,
Protestant sympathizers sometimes interfered with the course of law in
the interest of their brethren in the faith. "Since our arrivall to this
towne," wrote Killigrew and Jones from Blois, Nov. 14, 1559, "there were
xvii persones taken for the worde's sake, and committed to the
sergeaunts to be conveyed to Orleauns, and other places therabouts, to
be prosecuted. Notwithstanding, it hathe so happened, as the prisoners
in the way betwene this towne and Orleans were rescued, and taken from
the sergeaunts who had charge of them, by sixty men on horsebacke, and
so were conveyed away." Forbes, State Papers, i. 261. At Rouen, Jan. 29,
1560, a bookbinder was snatched from between two friars, as he was being
led in a cart to be burned alive, a cloak thrown over him, and he
conveyed out of the hands of his enemies. Unfortunately, the gates
having been closed, he was recaptured the same night, and the cruel
sentence was executed the next day, with a guard of 300 men-at-arms, for
fear of the people. Memorandum of Feb. 8th, State Paper Office.]
[Footnote 789: La Planche, 236, 337; De Thou, ii. 705, 706.]
[Footnote 790: "Comme d'abus." La Place, 19; Crespin, Gal. chretienne,
ii. 304.]
[Footnote 791: La Planche, 209, 210; La Place, 20; Hist. eccles., i.
138, 139; Crespin, Galerie chretienne, ii. 305-318; Forbes, State
Papers, i. 185. The Memoires de Conde, i. 217-304, reprint entire a
contemporary pamphlet entitled, "La vraye histoire, contenant l'inique
jugement et fausse procedure faite contre le fidele serviteur de Dieu
_Anne du Bourg_, conseillier pour le Roy, en la Cour du Parlement de
Paris," etc. (Paris) 1561. It contains in full the interrogatories and
replies, Du Bourg's confession, etc., and will amply repay a careful
reading. It concludes with a pregnant sentence: "Voila l'issue et fin de
l'histoire que j'avoye propose d'ecrire, _pour un commencement de
beaucoup de troubles, guerres et divisions: car d'injustice procede tout
mal_." Significant and prophetic words to be written and published the
year before the outbreak of the first civil war! The editor of 1743, p.
217, well observes that the execution of Du Bourg may be regarded as one
of the chief causes of the conspiracy of Amboise, which broke out soon
after, and, consequently, of the troubles agitating France for nearly
forty years.]
[Footnote 792: La Planche, 227-235; Hist. eccles., i. 153-155.]
[Footnote 793: There was no proof that Antoine Minard's murder was
wrought by a Protestant hand. An address of Du Bourg, in which he
reminded the unrighteous judge of the coming judgment of God, was, after
the event, perversely construed as a threat of assassination. A
Scotchman, Robert Stuart, a kinsman of the queen, was charged with
firing the fatal pistol-shot, but even under the torture revealed
nothing. Public opinion was divided, some attributing the catastrophe to
Minard's well-known immorality ("d'autant," says La Planche, "qu'il y
estoit du tout adonne, et qu'il ne craignoit de seduire toutes les dames
et damoiselles qui avoyent des proces devant luy," etc.), others to his
equally flagrant injustice, others still to the "Lutherans." La Planche,
233, 234.]
[Footnote 794: Not, as La Planche, 235, and the Hist. eccles., i. 154,
state, Otho Henry, but his successor, Frederick III. Baum, Theodor Beza,
ii. 35, 36; Languet, Epistolae sec., ii. 36.]
[Footnote 795: So the English agents, Killigrew and Jones, wrote from
Blois, Dec. 27, 1559: "Bourg was not executed, till about the xx of this
present: who before his deathe made suche an oration to the Lords of the
parliament, _as it moved as many of them as were there to shede
teares_," Forbes, State Papers, i. 290.]
[Footnote 796: La Place, 22, 23; Crespin, Galerie chretienne, ii.
318-322.]
[Footnote 797: La Place, 23; Crespin, Galerie chretienne, ii. 322, 323;
Hist. eccles., i. 155, 156; De Thou, ii. 700-703.]
[Footnote 798: La Planche, 236. "Inter quos," writes Jean Crespin in the
colophon to the edition of his Actiones et Monimenta Martyrum of 1560,
"egregie cordatus Dei Martyr Annas a Burgo supremae Parisiensis Curiae
senator, xxiij. die mensis Decemb. anni M.D.LIX. admirabilem martyrii
coronam accepit." In the preface dated Feb. 26th--two months after Du
Bourg's death--he is styled "senator innocentissimus, integerrimus,
sanctissimus."]
[Footnote 799: Florimond de Raemond, Historia de ortu, progressu, et
ruina haesreseon hujus saeculi (Col. 1613), lib. vii, c. vi., p. 411. We
have La Planche's testimony to the somewhat extraordinary statement that
the judges themselves declared Du Bourg happy in suffering in behalf of
so just a cause, and excused themselves for their own conduct by
alleging the pressure of the Guises (p. 228). "Stulte fecerunt
gubernatores Gallici, quod eum publice supplicio affecerunt," wrote
Languet, a few months later; "ejus enim supplicium _est una ex non
minimis causis horum tumultuum_." Epist. sec., ii, 47.]
[Footnote 800: Florimond de Raemond, ii. 410, 411. Let not the humane
reader mistake. Policy, not pity, dictated toleration. The same
Florimond de Raemond, presiding as the oldest counsellor, read an _arret_
of the Parliament of Bordeaux, not only ordering the disinterment of a
child buried in the cemetery of Ozillac in Saintonge, but that of all
the bodies of Huguenots that had been placed in any other cemetery
within ten years. Plaintes des eglises reformees de France, etc., 1597;
_apud_ Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. fr., xi. (1862), 145.]
[Footnote 801: Compare La Planche, 242.]
[Footnote 802: The singular details of these trials, which strikingly
illustrate the horrible corruption of the French judiciary in the
sixteenth century, are given by La Planche, 242-245; Hist. eccles., i.
160-164; De Thou, ii. 703, 704; La Place, 24, who remarks upon the
singularly different judgments in the five cases, and attributes the
variety to the change in the state of the kingdom, and to the diversity
of the interrogatories addressed to the prisoners. The sentences against
Du Faur and De Foix were subsequently annulled and erased from the
records of the parliament, on the ground of irregularity.]
[Footnote 803: De Thou, ii. 699; Agrippa d'Aubigne, Histoire universelle
(Maille, 1616), i. 89.]
[Footnote 804: Recueil gen. des anc. lois franc. (July 23, 1359), xiv.
1; (Dec. 17th), xiv. 14; and (Aug. 5, 1560), xiv. 46.]
[Footnote 805: La Planche, 218. Cf. Histoire du tumulte d'Amboise.]
[Footnote 806: "In Gallia omnia sunt perturbatissima," wrote Languet
(Jan. 31, 1560), "et scribitur esse omnino impossibile, ut res diu eo
modo consistant." The Cardinal of Lorraine, he added, has dissipated the
single church of Paris, but during this very period there have been
established more than sixty churches in other parts of the kingdom; nor
are the Genevese able to supply so many ministers as they are asked to
furnish. Meantime many are defending themselves against the royal
officers. The Gascons lately drove off the commissioners sent by the
Parliament of Bordeaux to make inquisition for Lutherans. The same has
happened in the district of Narbonne, not far from Marseilles. Epistolae
sec., ii., pp. 32, 33.]
[Footnote 807: Beza to Bullinger, Sept. 12, 1559 (Baum, ii., App., p.
3). Calvin, in his letters to Bullinger and Peter Martyr, both dated May
11, 1560, by the expression "eight months ago," points back to the same
period. Calvin's Letters (Bonnet), Eng. tr., iv. 104-106.]
[Footnote 808: Beza, _ubi supra_.]
[Footnote 809: Calvin's Letters, iv. 107. So the ministers of Geneva
declare before the council: "que pour les troubles arrives en France,
ils n'en sont nullement coupables; qu'il ne doit pas etre inconnu au
Conseil qu'ils ont detourne, autant qu'ils ont pu, d'aller a Amboise,
ceux qu'ils ont sceu avoir quelque dessein d'y aller." Registers, Jan.
28, 1561, _apud_ Gaberel, Histoire de l'egl. de Geneve, i., pieces
justif., 203.]
[Footnote 810: La Planche, 237.]
[Footnote 811: De Heu was a man of great influence. He had been
_echevin_ at Metz, and the chief mover in introducing Protestantism into
that city. In 1543 he invited Farel to come thither. Persecution drove
him to Switzerland. He returned from exile upon the fall of Metz into
the hands of the French, in 1552. When he found that the change had only
aggravated the condition of the Protestants, he became prominent in the
effort to enlist the sympathy and support of the German princes in
behalf of the French reformation. Bulletin de l'hist. du prot. fr., xxv.
(1876), 164.]
[Footnote 812: The whole affair remained involved in impenetrable
obscurity until the recent fortunate discovery of the "Proces verbal"
(or original minute) "de l'execution a mort de Caspar de Heu, S^r. de
Buy" among the MSS. of the Bibliotheque Nationale, 22562, 1re partie,
pp. 110-113. It is now printed in the Appendix to "Le Tigre," 103-108,
and Bulletin de l'hist. du prot. fr., xxv. (1876), 164-168. The very
date (which proves to be Sept. 1, 1558) was previously unknown.]
[Footnote 813: "Ce pendant," says the royal lieutenant, in the
interesting document just described, "aurions fait faire une fosse _dans
les fosses du donjon dudit chasteau, soubz les arches du pont de la
poterne_, comme nous semblant _lieu le plus cache et secret_ d'alentour
dudit chasteau, d'autant que _l'on ne va souvent ny aysement esdits
fossez, et que les herbes y sont communement grandes_," etc. Le Tigre,
108.]
[Footnote 814: The author of that terrible invective, "Le Tigre,"
reminds the cardinal of this crime in one of the finest outbursts of
indignant reproach: "N'oys-tu pas crier le sang de celuy que tu fis
estrangler dans une chambre du boys de Vincennes? S'il estoit coupable,
que [pourquoi] n'a il este puny publiquement? Ou sont les tesmoingts qui
l'ont charge? Pourquoy as-tu voulu en sa mort rompre et froisser toutes
les loix de France, si tu pencoys que par les loix, il peut estre
condemne?" Also in the _versified_ "Tigre," lines 315-326. It is only
just to La Renaudie to add that, according to La Planche, those who knew
him best acquitted him of the charge of being much influenced by these
and other personal considerations. Hist. de l'estat de France, 238,
316-318.]
[Footnote 815: "Homme, comme l'on dit, de grand esprit, et de diligence
presque incroyable." Hist. du tumulte d'Amboise, in Recueil des choses
memorables (1565), and Memoires de Conde, i. 324.]
[Footnote 816: According to De Thou, ii. 762, March 15th. So Davila, 22,
and La Place, 33. Calvin (Letter to Sturm, March 23, 1560, Bonnet, iv.
91) says "before March 15." Castelnau, i. 6, says March 10th.]
[Footnote 817: The uniform statement of the contemporary authorities
from whom our accounts of the "Tumult" are derived, is to the effect
that the blow was to be struck at Blois, but that, on discovering their
peril, the Guises hastily removed the court, for greater safety, to the
castle of Amboise. And yet the correspondence of the English
commissioners discloses the fact that the time of the removal had been
decided upon on the 28th of January, several days before the Nantes
assembly. See Ranke, Am. ed., 176. "The Frenche King, as it is said, the
5th of February removeth hens towardes Amboise; and will be fifteen
dayes in going thither." Despatch of Killigrew and Jones, from Blois,
January 28, 1559/60, Forbes, State Papers, i. 315. In fact, the general
outline of the royal progress was indicated by the Spanish ambassador,
Perrenot Chantonnay, to Philip II., so far back as December 2, 1559: "La
cour, lui avait-il ecrit, a le projet _de passer le cureme_ a Amboise,
de se rendre en Guyenne au printemps, en passant par Poitiers, Bordeaux,
Bayonne, d'aller ensuite a Toulouse, de demeurer l'hiver suivant en
Provence et en Languedoc, et _d'agir vigoureusement contre les
heretiques_." Mignet, Journal des Savants, 1857, 419, from Simancas MSS.
The Spanish ambassador saw so much that appalled him in the rapid
progress of the Reformation in every part of France, that he feared
alike for the North and the South, when the king was not present to
check its growth.]
[Footnote 818: La Planche, 238, 239; Hist. eccles., i. 158, 159; De
Thou, ii. 754-762 (where La Renaudie's harangue is given at length);
Castelnau, liv. i., c. 8; Davila, 22; La Place, 33. Hist. du tumulte
d'Amboise, _ubi supra_.]
[Footnote 819: De Thou, ii. 762, 763.]
[Footnote 820: Castelnau, 1. i., c. 8; La Planche, 245, 246; Hist.
eccl., i. 164; La Place, 33; De Thou, ii. 763. The Histoire du tumulte
d'Amboise, _apud_ Recueil des choses memorables (1565), i. 5, and Mem.
de Conde, i. 329, describes Des Avenelles as "prest de se donner a
louage au premier offrant;" adding "estant ambitieux et necessiteux tout
ensemble, il pensa avoir trouve le moyen pour se rendre riche et
memorable a jamais." For a favorable view of Des Avenelles's motives,
see De Thou, ii. 775. The 12th of February was the date when these
tidings reached the Guises, as appears from the speech of Morage or
Morague, sent in March to deliver to parliament for registry the edict
of amnesty for past religious offences. Mem. de Conde, i. 337. The king,
who had started on his hunting tour from Blois on the 5th of February,
was, when the news came, between Marchenoir and Montoire (places north
and northwest of Blois). The first intimations must, however, have been
very vague and general, since, on the 19th of February, the Cardinal of
Lorraine wrote to Coignet, French ambassador in Switzerland, directing
him to set one or two persons to watch La Renaudie ("a la queue de la
Regnaudie pour l'observer de loin, n'en perdre connaissance ni jour, ni
nuit"), and seize him the moment he entered the French
territories--evidently supposing him to be still in Switzerland and far
from Amboise. Letter of Card. Lorraine from Montoire, Feb. 19, 1560,
Imp. Lib. Paris, Mignet, Journal des Savants, 1857, 420, 421. It was,
doubtless, the receipt of more definite warnings that led the Guises to
hasten the termination of the king's pleasure excursion. On the 22d of
February, Francis arrived at Amboise, "which was two dayes sooner then
was loked for." Throkmorton to the queen, Feb. 27, 1560, Forbes, State
Papers, i. 334.]
[Footnote 821: Castelnau, _ubi supra_.]
[Footnote 822: La Planche and Hist. eccles., _ubi supra_. I need not
call attention to the gross absurdity into which Jean de Tavannes falls
(Mem. ii. 260, 261), when he makes Catharine, through policy and hatred
of Mary of Scots and of the Guises, whom the Scottish queen supported,
favor the malcontents! Can the younger Tavannes have been misled by the
hypocritical representations with which she once and again attempted
ineffectually to deceive the reformers when they appealed to her to put
an end to the persecutions?]
[Footnote 823: See the synopsis of Coligny's speech in La Planche, 247,
248. Tavannes ascribes Coligny's impunity throughout this reign to
Catharine's interposition, revealing the plans of his enemies, etc.
(Memoires, ii. 264). It was much more probably owing to his powerful
family alliances, and particularly to the fear of throwing the weight of
the enormous influence of his uncle, Constable Montmorency, into the
opposite scale. Yet it must be confessed that Catharine displayed for
the admiral, on more than one occasion, that respect which integrity
always exacts from vice, and which is most likely to be manifested in
the hour of danger. Early in this reign the court faction had endeavored
to sow discord between the two principal men of the Protestant party, by
intimating to Coligny that Conde was seeking to obtain the governorship
of Picardy, which the former held. The calumny, however, failed of its
object.]
[Footnote 824: Recueil des anc. lois franc, xiv. 22-24; La Planche, 248;
La Place, 37; Hist. eccles., i. 166, 167; De Thou, ii. 764; Forbes, i.
877. A Latin version, but out of its chronological position in Languet,
Epist. sec., ii. p. 15. The date of the publication of this important
document at Paris is indicated in a letter of Hubert Languet: "Certum
est _undecima Martii_ Lutetiae propositum esse edictum, in quo Rex
condonat suis subditis quidquid hactenus peccatum est in religione."
Epist. sec., ii. 44.]
[Footnote 825: "Car aucuns conseillers disoyent que c'estoit un
attrape-minault." La Planche, 248.]
[Footnote 826: Beza to Bullinger, June 26, 1560; in Baum, ii., App. 13.]
[Footnote 827: Throkmorton's Correspondence in Forbes, State Papers, i.
353, 354, 374-378.]
[Footnote 828: Hist. du tumulte d'Amboise, _ubi supra_; La Planche, 251,
252; La Place, 34, 35; De Thou, ii. 767, 768; Mem. de Castelnau, liv.
i., c. 8; Throkmorton to the queen, March 21, 1560, Forbes, State
Papers, i. 376, 377. Vieilleville, if we may credit Carloix, foresaw the
impossibility of keeping his honor in this mission, and refused to take
it. Mem. de Vielleville, ii. 420, etc.]
[Footnote 829: La Planche, _ubi supra_.]
[Footnote 830: La Planche, 254; La Place, 35; De Thou, ii. 769; Davila,
25. Sir Nich. Throkmorton, March 21, 1560, Forbes, State Papers, i. 380.
M. Mignet has shown (Journal des Savants, 1857, 477, note) that the
death of La Renaudie cannot have taken place before the evening of the
19th, or the morning of the 20th.]
[Footnote 831: Even in their letter to their sister, the Queen Dowager
of Scotland (April 9, 1560), the Cardinal of Lorraine and the Duke of
Guise had the assurance to speak of the affair of Amboise as "a
conspiracy made to kill the king, in which we were not forgotten."
Forbes, State Papers, i. 400.]
[Footnote 832: Cf. the commission in the Recueil des choses memorables
(1565), 19-24; La Planche, 252, 253; De Thou, ii. 768; Davila, 24.;
Agrippa d'Aubigne, liv. ii., c. 15.]
[Footnote 833: Recueil des anc. lois fr., xiv., 24-26; La Planche, 253,
254; Languet, ii. 48, 49; De Thou, ii. 769. It need scarcely be added
that the aim of the insurgents is misrepresented to be, "under veil of
religion, to ravage all the rich cities and houses of the kingdom."]
[Footnote 834: La Planche, 257, 262.]
[Footnote 835: "The 17th of this present there were twenty-two of these
rebellis drowned in sacks, and the 18th of the same at night twenty-five
more. Among all these which be taken, there be eighteen of the bravest
captains of France." Throkmorton to the queen, March 21st, Forbes, i.
378.]
[Footnote 836: La Planche, 257, 263.]
[Footnote 837: Throkmorton, _ubi supra_.]
[Footnote 838: La Planche, 263, 265; La Place, 34, 35; Hist. du tumulte
d'Amboise, _apud_ Mem. de Conde, i. 327; D'Aubigne, _ubi supra_.]
[Footnote 839: Ibid., 254-258; La Place, 35; Hist. du tumulte, _ubi
supra_; Throkmorton, _ubi supra_, i. 380.]
[Footnote 840: La Planche, 258.]
[Footnote 841: Memoires de Theodore Agrippa d'Aubigne (Ed. Pantheon
lit.), 472.]
[Footnote 842: La Planche, 267.]
[Footnote 843: I have followed in the text the account of La Planche. La
Place, 36, represents Conde as voluntarily making his appearance and
declaration before the king and the princes and knights that were
present, on hearing that the ambassadors of several foreign princes had
named him in their despatches as the author of the enterprise.]
[Footnote 844: La Planche, 268, 269; La Place, 36; Hist. eccles., i.
171; De Thou, ii. 773, 774; Mem. de Castelnau, liv. i., c. 11. The
Cardinal of Lorraine, however, was deeply mortified and vexed. "El
cardenal estava presente teniendo los ojos en tierra, sin hablar
palabra, mostrando solamente descontentemiento de lo que passava." MSS.
Simancas, _apud_ Mignet, Journal des Savants, 1857, 479.]
[Footnote 845: The accusation referred to occurs, for instance, in a
private diary, part of which has recently come to light, begun by one
Friar Symeon Vinot, Sept. 10, 1563. He notes: "L'an 1561 "--an error for
1560--"commenca a, s'elever en France la secte des Hugguenotz, ou (a
mieulx dire) Eygnossen, pour ce qu'il [ils] vouloient fayre les villes
franches, et s'allier ensemble, comme les villes des Schwysses, qu'on
dict en allemand Egnossen, cest a dire Aliez," etc. Bulletin de l'hist.
du prot. fr., xxv. (1876) 380.]
[Footnote 846: Histoire du parlement de Bordeaux, depuis sa creation
jusqu'a sa suppression (1541-1790), oeuvre posthume de C. B. F.
Boscheron des Portes, president honoraire de la cour d'appel de
Bordeaux, etc. (Bordeaux, 1877), i. 130.]