THE MEETING AT BAYONNE AND THE SECOND WAR.
[June, 1565–March, 1568.]
The Royal progress--Bayonne in June--Identical
note--Amusements--Political Deliberations--The Queen of Navarre
Excommunicated--Catherine’s Remonstrance--The Pope yields--State
of Gascony--Assembly of Notables at Moulins--Feud between Guise
and Coligny--Montmorency and the Cardinal--Disturbed state of
Maine--Montluc pacifies Gascony--Embassy from Germany--Rebellion
in Flanders--March of Alva--Condé leaves the Court--Rumored
Plot--Huguenot Meeting at Chatillon--War resolved upon--Attempt
to seize Charles--Huguenot Rising--Battle of St. Denis--Death of
the Constable--German Auxiliaries--Michelade of Nismes--Siege of
Chartres--Peace of Longjumeau--Death of Coligny’s Wife.
In order to test the state of public feeling and apply a remedy to
the great disorders of the realm, the queen-mother decided upon an
extensive tour through the south and west of France, which would
give her an opportunity of showing the king to his subjects and
strengthening him in their affections. It is not necessary to trace
the progress of the court step by step; a few incidents, however, may
be quoted to show the intolerant temper of the Catholic party. In many
of the towns of Burgundy, Charles was received with shouts of “Long
live the King!” and “The Mass forever!” At Chalons a medal was struck,
representing the monarch trampling on Heresy, depicted as a Fury
pouring out torrents of fire. At Lyons the foundations were laid of a
citadel intended to crush the heretical tendencies of the inhabitants.
The walls of several Protestant towns were demolished, and numerous
addresses were presented to the young monarch, praying him to interdict
the exercise of any form of religion but the Romish.
In the middle of June, 1565, the court reached the city of Bayonne,
near the Spanish frontier, where the famous meeting took place at
which it was generally supposed the extirpation of Protestantism was
arranged. As early as April, 1561, Catherine had suggested a similar
meeting, when she was agitated by the fear of a marriage between the
widowed Mary Stuart and Don Carlos. She pretended a great desire to
discuss with Philip II. the religious condition of France and the
affairs of the King of Navarre, hoping by such an interview to thwart
the Scottish matrimonial project.[357]
The ostensible cause of the meeting four years later was the queen’s
desire to see her daughter, who had just recovered from a severe
illness. Political motives were not forgotten, and among other matters
to be considered between the sovereigns of France and Spain--for
Catherine hoped that Philip would accompany his wife--was undoubtedly
the repression of heresy. There exists among the state papers at
Simancas what is called by diplomatists an “identical note” of the
subjects to be discussed at Bayonne. In it we read that the two powers
engaged not to tolerate the Reformed worship in their respective
states, that the canons of the Council of Trent should be enforced,
that all nonconformists should be incapacitated for any public office,
civil or military, and that heretics should quit the realm within
a month, permission being accorded them to sell their property.
Although Catherine gave her assent to these declarations, so far as
the discussion of them was concerned, we have indisputable evidence
that she did not intend to adopt them in the same sense as Philip of
Spain, for at this very time she was corresponding with the Bishop of
Rennes, the French embassador to the imperial court, on the propriety
of making concessions to the Huguenots. A long and tedious negotiation
ensued between the two courts of France and Spain--a fencing-match
of deceit--which ended in an arrangement that Isabella should go to
meet her mother and brothers alone, attended by the Duke of Alva as
embassador extraordinary. Fernando Alvarez de Toledo, Duke of Alva, had
not yet attained that evil eminence which has linked his name with all
that is blood-thirsty. He was now in his fifty-seventh year, and the
most successful general in Europe. He had fleshed his maiden sword at
the battle of Fontarabia, when he was only sixteen; had served under
the emperor Charles V. in Germany; saved the Spanish infantry from
destruction at the siege of Metz; and, as viceroy of Naples, foiled all
the efforts of the Duke of Guise to recover the throne of that country
for France. He had accompanied Philip II. to England during that
monarch’s brief matrimonial expedition, and afterward waged a fruitless
war in Italy against Francis of Guise and the pope. As a statesman he
possessed great capacity, although at Bayonne he entirely failed in the
chief object of his mission.[358]
The mother and daughter first met at Irun on the banks of the Bidassoa,
and thence proceeded to Bayonne, where the French court had taken up
its quarters. The magnificence of the processions and _fêtes_ in
that remote corner of France put to shame all modern attempts of a
similar kind. Isabella entered Bayonne riding on a milk-white palfrey,
whose trappings of velvet, silver, and pearls were estimated at 25,000
ducats.[359] Four of the principal citizens bore a canopy of crimson
velvet over her head, as she rode from the gate to the cathedral
through streets hung with arras; and as the day was drawing to a
close, every house and church was illuminated, and each member of the
_cortège_ bore a lighted torch. A _Te Deum_, “accompanied
by excellent cornets,” was sung by choristers from the chapel-royal
of the Louvre, Cardinals Guise and Strozzi officiating with a number
of French and Spanish bishops. The weather was so intensely hot
that six soldiers of the queen’s escort fell dead, the victims of
sun-stroke.[360] Other casualties of a similar nature occurring in the
small and crowded city, a proclamation was issued ordering that all
the sick, aged, and infirm should seek shelter in certain villages
specified, at a distance from Bayonne.[361]
Some years later, when Walsingham referred to this meeting as the
origin of a “general league” against the Protestants, Catherine
affirmed that it “tended to no other end but to make good cheer.”[362]
And so it would seem, for _fête_ followed _fête_ in rapid
succession, the political business being transacted at odd moments,
after those more serious occupations of the day were ended.
One day there was a grand tilting-match, the prize being a valuable
diamond given by Isabella. Charles IX. and his brother of Anjou headed
one band of noble tilters, all arrayed in fancy costumes; another band
was led by the Duke of Nemours, while the horsemen composing that
following the Duke of Longueville were dressed in cloth of gold with
wings of silver tissue, so as to imitate butterflies. On the evening
of another day a masque was performed in a large hall constructed for
the purpose. The scene represented a giant’s castle, where a number
of beautiful maidens were imprisoned in an enchanted chamber. The
entrance, defended by a revolving wheel and guarded by six frightful
demons, was attacked by a troop of French and Spanish gentlemen headed
by Charles IX., who, after several unsuccessful assaults, overcame
every obstacle, killing the giant, routing the demons, and delivering
the imprisoned damsels, whom he led as witnesses of his prowess to the
feet of his sister Isabella.
A pageant of a more elaborate description followed the next day. It
began with a romantic prologue. A herald presented himself at Charles’s
apartments in the castle, and having been led into the king’s presence,
he related how, during a recent journey, he had fallen in with a
gallant company of knights, who, unable to decide on the superiority of
LOVE or VIRTUE, had agreed to refer the difference to the arbitration
of his Majesty of France. A deputation from the supporters of each
opinion was waiting below, desirous to plead their cause. The knights
were admitted, they made their speeches; but the matter in dispute
was so knotty that Charles declared it could only be settled by arms.
A tournament was proclaimed, and all proceeded to the lists, the two
queens taking their seats in a gallery hung with velvet. And now the
pageant began. First came VIRTUE, seated on a rock, and attended by
six nymphs. She wore an azure robe, and carried a lighted torch in
her hand. After making the circuit of the arena, the car stopped
before Queen Isabella, when VIRTUE, reciting some appropriate verses,
presented her and each of her ladies with a massive gold chain. As
soon as the goddess had retired, LOVE entered the lists in a chariot
drawn by four piebald horses. He too halted before the Queen of Spain
and sang some verses in praise of the joys and triumphs of love. The
tournament now commenced, Charles maintaining the cause of VIRTUE, the
Duke of Anjou that of LOVE. The two troops first engaged hand to hand,
the king and his brother breaking a lance together. Then they divided
into fours, until at last the _mêlée_ became general. At the end of
about half an hour, the trumpets sounded, the combatants retired to
their own side of the list, and Charles and the duke, riding forward,
embraced each other, to show “that, VIRTUE and LOVE being brother and
sister, the triumph of each was the glory of the other.”
On another occasion, Isabella was entertained at a rural _fête_,
where the collation was spread under the leafy branches of an oak-tree,
from whose root issued a fountain, the construction of which cost
a sum equivalent to £400 sterling. Another day the pageant took the
singular form of a whale fishery. A turtle, on which sat six Tritons,
floated down the Adour; then came Neptune in a car drawn by sea-horses,
with Arion on a dolphin. When the company landed, there followed
a pastoral ballet, in which the dancing of the French ladies and
gentlemen so delighted the Spaniards that it was repeated again and
again until midnight.[363]
One of the masques given at Bayonne is remarkable for the curious
picture it presents of a “wild Scotchman.” After the Prince-dauphin of
Auvergne and his train of six gentlemen, all dressed like women, had
filed off, the Duke of Guise and another six followed, all dressed “à
l’écossais sauvage.” Over a white satin shirt embroidered with gold
lace and crimson silk, they wore a _casaquin_ of yellow velvet
with short skirts closely plaited “according to the custom of the
savages”--it appears to have been a kilt--trimmed with a border of
crimson satin, and ornamented with gold, silver, pearls, and other
jewels of various colors. Their yellow satin hose was similarly
adorned, and their silk boots were trimmed with silver fringe and
rosettes. On their heads they wore a cap _à l’antique_ of cloth
of gold, and for crest a thunder-bolt pouring out a fragrant jet of
perfumed fire--the said thunder-bolt being twined round by a serpent
reposing on a pillow of green and satin. Each cavalier wore on his
arm a Scotch shield or targe covered with cloth of gold and bearing
a device. The horses’ trappings were of crimson satin with plumes
of yellow, white, and carnation. So much for the Frenchman’s ideal
of a Scotchman! The suite of the Duke of Longueville was still more
extraordinary: it consisted of six winged demons whose head-dresses
were all flames of fire.[364]
While the younger and fairer portion of the court were indulging
in these gayeties, Catherine and Alva did not entirely forget more
important matters, though the queen-mother seems to have put them off
as long as possible. She would probably have evaded them altogether had
not Cardinal Granvelle urged his royal mistress to take the initiative.
At a private interview, on the 19th June, Isabella urged her mother to
make known the important business which she had declared could only be
told to Philip or to herself. Catherine replied: “It would be useless
to do so, for I have been informed that his Catholic majesty shows
such signs of distrust toward me and my son as must inevitably lead
to war ere long.” As this was shifting the ground, and Isabella could
not get her mother to talk of any thing else, she ended the interview
by saying: “Your majesty must excuse me. As the king my husband has
not commanded me to take an active share in the negotiations, I must
refer you, madam, to the embassadors.” At a second meeting, two days
later, Alva was present when the closer union of the royal houses of
France and Spain by the marriage of Margaret of Valois to Don Carlos
was advocated by the queen-mother, as “the best means of healing the
differences everywhere prevailing, and also of placing the affairs of
religion on a stable foundation.” In his account of this interview,
Don Francisco of Alava wrote to his royal master: “Never was princess
in greater embarrassment than this queen. One person advises her
majesty to act this way, another quite the contrary; and she herself
dares not decide nor even evince a preference.... The principal
Roman Catholics of this court show much zeal, but they are men of
words more than of deeds.” In the evening of the 23d, Alva was again
summoned to the queen’s presence; he found her walking alone with her
daughter in a long gallery. Isabella pressed her to dismiss L’Hopital,
the chancellor: “I am persuaded,” she continued, “that so long as
he is maintained in his present post, your good subjects alone will
have reason to dread and fear, while the bad will find shelter and
countenance.” To which Catherine replied: “I can not admit the truth
of my daughter’s observations.” Alva, to excuse her, added: “The queen
my mistress has only pressed your majesty thus hardly because the king
my master wishes to ascertain positively from your majesty and the king
your son whether it is the intention of your majesties to put down
heresy or not, as in either case my master will know how to govern his
conduct.” To this Catherine replied, with no little haughtiness: “The
council will give the reply demanded by my son the Catholic king.”
The last conference was held on the 28th June, and at it were present
the king and the two queens, Anjou, Alva, Don Juan Manrique, Don
Francisco Alava, Montpensier, the Cardinals of Bourbon, Guise, and
Lorraine, and the Constable Montmorency. After some remarks about
accepting the canons of the Council of Trent, the discussion turned on
the best mode of settling the religious differences. The Duke of Alva
said: “It seems to me that this is not the moment to root out the evil
with the sword, or to treat it merely with mildness and dissimulation;
for, on the one hand, my master can hardly approve that your majesty
should raise an army and lead it against your own subjects, and,
on the other, there seems no sufficient reason for leaving those
unpunished who are too audacious. I would not set religion on the
uncertain footing of the chances of a war, in which one evil accident
may throw all into the greatest danger.... Some persons, as I have
been told, have advised your majesty to take up arms against those of
the religion. I have not come to France to do it so bad a service,
nor would the king my master have sent me for such a purpose.”[365]
Cardinal Granvelle was of the same opinion; there were safer ways of
getting rid of troublesome enemies than by war: the government had
only to seize five or six of the chief Huguenots and cut off their
heads.[366] That the King of Spain entertained similar views we learn
from his remarks to Sigismond Cavalli, the Venetian embassador, that
the French troubles were owing to the neglect of the advice he had
given them years before.[367] Neither Charles nor Catherine would make
any promises; they thought the state of France was satisfactory, but
would willingly listen to any suggestions and deliberate very carefully
upon them. For one incident of the conference we are indebted to Prince
Henry of Navarre, who was allowed to visit Bayonne, because, said
Philip, “he is still a child, whom God will not allow to remain in
ignorance.” One day when the Duke of Alva and Catherine were conversing
together, the former, putting Tarquin’s gesture into words, advised
her to get rid of the Huguenot nobles, after which all would be easy
work: “Ten thousand frogs,” he said, “are not worth the head of one
salmon.”[368] Henry overheard him, and the words struck him so much
that he repeated them to Soffrey de Calignon, one of his attendants, by
whom they were transmitted to the Queen of Navarre. They soon became
known to the Huguenot leaders, and aroused a suspicion, which it would
have been well for them had they never laid aside. The words produced
a deep impression upon Catherine, and more than once she tried to act
upon them, until at last she succeeded but too well. Giovanni Correro,
the Venetian envoy, writing to his government in 1569, gives us a
little insight into the queen-mother’s opinions about this time. Being
one day in a confidential mood, she said to her fellow-countryman:
“While at Carcassone, on my way back from Bayonne, I read a manuscript
chronicle about the mother of St. Louis, a boy only eleven years old.
She had to contend against malcontent nobles, but with time the king
grew up and crushed his enemies beneath the vengeance they had drawn
upon themselves. I applied the case to myself.” Correro observed:
“Your majesty must have found comfort therein, for as the present is
an image of the past, so you may be sure the end will not be unlike.”
At this the queen began to laugh, as was her custom when she heard any
thing that pleased her, and replied: “But I should not like any body
to know that I have read that chronicle, for they would say that I am
taking Queen Blanche of Castile for my pattern.”[369] It was not likely
this precedent would be forgotten when opportunity served.
It is certain that nothing was settled at the Bayonne meeting,
Catherine being steadfast in her purpose to maintain her power by
holding the balance between the two hostile parties. “She has promised
to do wonders,” wrote Granvelle (20th August, 1565), “but will do
nothing of any service.” The king, young as he was, proved equally
immovable. “It is easy to see that he has been tutored,” wrote Alva
contemptuously to his master. And thus terminated the interview from
which so much had been expected.[370] It left, however, a very bitter
feeling among the Huguenots, who believed that some devilish plot had
been contrived against them, and tended to alienate them from the
crown, although they still professed great loyalty to the king, not
confounding him with the government, as the Parliamentarians expressed
their devotion to Charles I.
As soon as Isabella had recrossed the Spanish frontier, the French
court proceeded to Nerac in Gascony to visit Joan, the widowed Queen
of Navarre. When her husband apostatized, he would have made her
apostatize also; but she refused, and took refuge in Bearn. Anthony
ordered Montluc to stop her and keep her prisoner--a danger she happily
escaped, as also a conspiracy entered into by some of her Catholic
subjects to seize and deliver her to the King of Spain. Joan abolished
popery in her hereditary states, and confiscated the church property
for the benefit of the new clergy and of education. For this the pope
summoned her to appear at Rome to answer a charge of heresy, on pain
of being excommunicated and deprived of her territories (1564).[371]
In this Pius IV. overshot the mark: his proceedings endangered every
crowned head in Europe. He had also about the same time issued a
citation against the Cardinal of Chatillon,[372] the Bishop of Valence,
and four other prelates. The papal citation being a gross infringement
of the privileges of the Gallican Church, a special embassador was sent
to Rome to remonstrate with the Holy Father, and the opinions of the
government may be gathered from a letter written by the queen-mother
to the Bishop of Rennes, her embassador in Germany: “We acknowledge
no authority or jurisdiction on the pope’s part over those who bear
the title of king or queen, and that it is not for him to give away
states and kingdoms to the first conqueror.... Let me know how the
emperor takes this matter, for it concerns all rulers to understand
whether it is for the pope at his own pleasure to assume authority and
jurisdiction over them, and to make a prey of their territories and
dominions. We for our part are determined never to submit to it.” The
pope retreated: the citations against the bishops were abandoned, the
bull against the Queen of Navarre was revoked. But a more formidable
danger than this threatened Joan not long after, Philip II. having
concerted a plan with Montluc to seize her and her two children, and
carry them to Spain, where they would be committed to the cruel mercies
of the Inquisition. Treatment like this confirmed the queen in her
faith; she swept her dominions of every vestige of Romanism, and denied
to her Catholic subjects that religious liberty which she claimed for
her co-religionists in France.
In some respects the province of Gascony, through which the court
was now traveling, had suffered more than any part of France from
the effects of the war. The Protestants had succeeded in putting
down Romanism, and at every step he took Charles was reminded of the
outrages offered to his religion; he restored the old form of worship,
but the scenes he then witnessed appear never to have been forgotten.
As he rode along by the side of the Queen of Navarre, who accompanied
him to Blois, he pointed to the ruined monasteries, the broken crosses,
the polluted churches; he showed her the mutilated images of the Virgin
and the saints, the desecrated grave-yards, the relics scattered to the
winds of heaven. The impression of that day’s ride long haunted the
Protestant queen and filled her with a distrust of the king and his
mother which she never entirely shook off.
At the end of the year the king summoned an assembly of Notables to
meet at Moulins for the purpose of remedying many grievances that had
become known during the recent progress, and also of reconciling the
chiefs of the rival factions. The ambiguities of the Edict of Amboise
and the obstacles to carrying it out fully in many places had already
called forth several interpretative edicts, one of which had been
published at Roussillon in Dauphiny (August, 1564), restraining the
hitherto unlimited freedom of worship in private dwellings. The nobles
were to admit to their chapels none but members of their household or
their vassals; no synods were to be held or collections made in the
temples; and the pastors were forbidden to open schools or preach out
of their districts. It farther renewed the injunction for the married
priests and nuns to return to their cloisters or leave the kingdom--the
latter alternative being generally preferred.
Moulins in the Bourbonnais is one of the neatest and prettiest towns
in France. Of the magnificent castle where Charles and Catherine de
Medicis sat in council very little remains save a fragment of a tower,
strangely named _Malcoiffée_, which rises high above the brick
buildings, and a small pavilion built by the queen-mother. Beside the
banks of the smiling Allier, and in those irregular streets where
many a house of variegated brick, red and white, still dates back
beyond this period, were crowded the princes of the blood, several
cardinals and bishops, the chief nobility, and the principal officers
of the parliaments of France. The resolutions they adopted were merely
administrative, reforming many judicial abuses, but they remained a
landmark in French jurisprudence until all law was swept away in the
great Revolution. But law reform was merely a secondary object with
Catherine. With every motive for desiring a continuance of peace,
she saw that this was impossible unless the hostile leaders would
agree to lay aside their private feuds and become friends. Between
the Guises and Coligny there could be no amity, so long as they held
him to be the instigator of the late duke’s murder. At the signing
of the treaty of Amboise, the Prince of Condé had come forward as a
compurgator--to adopt a well-known Anglo-Saxon term--and taken oath
that Coligny was innocent. The family were still dissatisfied. One day
a funeral procession was seen in the streets of Meulan,[373] where
the court then resided. It was Antoinette of Bourbon, mother of the
murdered duke, and Anne of Este, his wife, accompanied by her four
children, and attended by their friends and partisans, who in long
mourning robes and with veiled faces were going to the king to sue
for justice. In gloomy silence, broken only by their sobs, the two
ladies entered the palace and fell at the king’s feet, demanding
justice. Charles raised them graciously and promised what they asked.
Their case was laid before the Parliament of Paris, from which it
was transferred to the privy-council, with the injunction that no
farther steps should be taken within three years. Various attempts at
reconciliation were made during the interval, and as this blood-feud
had indisputably very much to do with the massacre of St. Bartholomew,
it may not be a waste of time to show the progress of the quarrel. In
December, 1563, Morvilliers, Bishop of Orleans, wrote to the Bishop of
Rennes, embassador to the emperor: “One would willingly find a way of
arrangement between them; but the means are very difficult considering
the offense and the particulars of the feud. It is impossible
but at last this should burst (_crève_) under some dagger
(_coustel_), and that the one party for revenge or the other for
security, should attempt something.” Eleven days later the same writer
continues: “We are in great trouble through the difference between the
family of the late Duke of Guise and the admiral, and many people would
be pleased to see a disturbance. The queen-mother does all she can to
prevent it: the poor lady watches and toils incessantly.”?[374] On the
23d December, Morvilliers writes again: “The king and queen are always
in trouble through the discords of the Guises and the admiral. No court
can settle it, for the admiral objects to the parliaments and the
others to the great council.”
Several temporary arrangements had been made, and at last, when the
three years had nearly expired, the Guises, whose desire for vengeance
had grown all the stronger for being repressed, appeared at Moulins and
renewed their cries for justice. On the 12th January, 1566, Charles
published a declaration that “it was his desire to bring the difference
about the homicide to a happy issue, and that he forbade each of the
two houses to attempt any thing against the other.” After a wearisome
series of explanations, more worthy of pettifogging attorneys than of
brave soldiers, Coligny, in the presence of the king, declared “that
he had not committed the murder or abetted it, and that he had never
approved of it, then or now.”[375] With this the widow and the Cardinal
of Lorraine expressed themselves satisfied, and declared they would
no longer entertain revengeful feelings. Thereupon the two parties
embraced; but the young Duke Henry of Guise still held out, and in
the very presence of the queen challenged Coligny to single combat.
“The admiral charges me,” he said, “with plotting his assassination.
I will not deny it, but shall esteem it a singular favor to be shut
up with him in a room, when I will show him that I am quite capable
of defending myself, and need not employ other people to settle my
quarrels.”
So far the queen-mother’s plans were frustrated, and she was hardly
more successful in arranging the difference between Marshal Montmorency
and the Cardinal of Lorraine. In consequence of the quarrels between
the partisans of the two religions, the possession and carrying of
arms--especially fire-arms--had been strictly prohibited in Paris.
Montmorency, “a wise man and loving the public peace,”[376] who after
Marshal Brissac’s death had been made governor of Paris, enforced
the edict in a manner never contemplated by the king. The Cardinal
of Lorraine, returning from the Council of Trent, was escorted to
the capital by a number of gentlemen and relatives, but they were
forbidden to enter unless they laid aside their spears and arquebuses
(8th January, 1565). The prelate paid no attention to the order, upon
which Montmorency fell upon his escort at the Innocents’ Cemetery in
the Rue St. Denis, killed some, wounded others, and so frightened the
churchman that he leaped off his horse and took refuge in a neighboring
house, whence he safely reached his own hotel during the night,
Pâle en couleur, de ses membres tremblant,
Mieux un corps mort qu’homme vif ressemblant.
The cardinal said he had permission under the king’s letters patent
to travel with an armed retinue. “Then he ought to have shown them to
me,” said Montmorency, “and I would have allowed him to pass.” The
governor, rendered uneasy by the threatening posture of the Lorraine
party in the city, invited the assistance of Coligny, who entered
Paris with 1200 gentlemen, greatly to the terror of the citizens, who
feared their streets would be converted into a battle-field; but the
admiral conducted himself so prudently, that he was complimented by the
University and the trade guilds.
But nothing that the king or his mother could do was effectual to
dissipate the mutual distrust with which Catholics and Huguenots still
regarded each other. Every act was viewed with suspicion, and to a
great extent the misgivings of the Protestants were justified by the
way in which the edicts of toleration were strained against them. “The
Huguenots,” says Pasquier, who was no friend to them, “have lost more
by edicts in time of peace than by force in time of war.”[377]
At Lyons they were accused of an attempt to blow up the city with
gunpowder, and on this idle charge the governor prevented their
assembling for public worship. Every Protestant was expelled from
Avignon, and the city and surrounding districts were put under martial
law. At Foix a number of Huguenots were murdered; at Toulouse many were
judicially put to death. These are but a small sample of the Protestant
grievances.
A remonstrance presented to the king by the nobles of the Reformed
religion in Maine displays a terrible picture of the disturbed state of
that province. The Dame de la Guynandière was murdered, with her son,
three daughters, and two waiting-women, by a troop of ruffians from Le
Mans, who afterward turned the pigs into the house to devour the dead
bodies. The bishop of the diocese, a man of dissolute life, used to
ride about attended by one hundred and fifty men armed with pistols or
arquebuses. One Hélie, a priest, was accused of indescribable acts of
brutality toward nine little girls. That and many other such horrors
fill a pamphlet of more than one hundred pages, and the perpetrators
(as was usually the case) escaped punishment.[378]
On the other hand, the Catholics had their complaints. At Pamiers the
Huguenots attacked a procession, killed some of the clergy and burned
their houses.[379] At Soissons they pillaged the churches, demolished
the beautiful painted windows, broke the organ, melted the bells,
stripped the lead off the roofs, plundered the shrines of their gold
and jewels, burned the relics of the saints, and tore up the charters
and title-deeds belonging to the clergy. Similar tumults occurred at
Montauban and other towns. Where the Catholics were the strongest, they
fell upon the Huguenots; where the latter, they attacked the Catholics.
At one time there is a rumor of an attempt to assassinate the king; at
another, of an atrocious book ascribed to Sureau, a Protestant pastor,
in which the doctrine is boldly affirmed that “it is lawful to slay a
king or a queen who resists the Gospel Reformation.” Then an anonymous
letter is found at the door of Catherine’s bed-chamber, threatening her
with the fate of President Minard and the Duke of Guise, unless she
permits complete liberty of conscience to the Reformed party.
Many of the atrocities we have recorded were owing to the weakness
of the central government. It must be remembered that the several
provinces of France were under their own governors, who held their
offices by an almost hereditary right, and that the king had not always
the power, even when he had the inclination, to preserve peace. There
were few like that rough warrior Montluc, who kept Gascony so quiet
that for three years “horseman or footman did not steal so much as a
pullet.” He hanged two Catholic soldiers for infringing the edict,
and two Huguenots who had committed a similar offense “were shortly
strung up to keep the others company.” And he continues: “When these
good people saw that neither one side nor the other would meet with any
indulgence if they transgressed, they began to like and associate with
one another. I believe if every one had done the same, without favor to
either side, we should never have had so many troubles.”
Charles, whose dislike toward “those of the religion” needed no
stimulus, occasionally indulged in bursts of irritation which he was
too young to repress. One day when the admiral remonstrated with him
on the restrictions put upon the last edict, he replied: “Not long
ago you were satisfied to be tolerated by the Catholics, now you want
to be their equals; in a short time, I suppose you will desire to be
alone and to drive us from the kingdom.” Coligny made no reply, as
indeed no reply would have satisfied the angry boy, who burst into his
mother’s apartments, and added, after telling her what had passed: “The
Duke of Alva was right: such heads are too tall in a state. We must
put them down by force.”[380] Catherine appears at this time to have
been exceedingly ill-disposed toward Coligny. Writing to her daughter
Isabella, she says: “Although the admiral remains at court, he will be
as one dead;[381] because, with God’s help, I shall not suffer myself
to be governed by either party, for I know they all love God, the king,
and your mother less than their own advantage and ambition; and as they
know full well that I will not permit the king or the kingdom to be
ruined by them, they love me in words only.”
It was about this time also that several German princes, including
the Palatine of the Rhine and the Dukes of Saxony and Wurtemberg,
dispatched an embassy to Charles, interceding in behalf of their French
co-religionists. With expressions of great attachment, they prayed
him to observe the Edict of Pacification; to permit the ministers
to preach as well at Paris as elsewhere, and to allow the people to
listen to them in any number. He answered them sharply that he could
be friends with his cousins of Germany only so long as they abstained
from meddling in the domestic affairs of his kingdom. After a pause he
continued in a still more angry tone: “I might also pray them to permit
the Catholics to worship freely in their own cities.” It was an apt
retort, for so far as concerned public worship the Romanists in many
parts of Protestant Germany and Switzerland were very little, if at
all, better off than the Huguenots of France.
Every thing seemed tending toward an explosion. The Huguenots and the
Catholics, like two hostile nations on the same soil, were ready to
fly at each other, and the treacherous truce, which substituted riots
and assassination for open war, could not last much longer. Still
the actual rupture might have been deferred, but for circumstances
connected with the state of the Netherlands. The Protestants of that
country had been goaded into rebellion by the infamous persecutions
of Philip II. of Spain. William, Prince of Orange, put himself at
their head, and although unsuccessful, the movement was considered so
dangerous that the ferocious and uncompromising Alva was commissioned
to crush it utterly. For this purpose it was necessary to increase
the Spanish army in Flanders; and as that could not be done by sea,
on which the rebels were superior, a force of ten thousand picked
veterans[382] was transported from Carthagena to Genoa, whence they
made their way through the passes of Mont Cenis into Burgundy and
Lorraine. Catherine, who distrusted Philip, thought it prudent to
watch their march, and for that purpose collected all the forces she
could muster to form an army of observation. These being insufficient
for the purpose, Condé and the admiral advised the enrolment of 6000
Swiss mercenaries.[383] The queen, delighted at such an opportunity of
raising soldiers without offending the susceptibility of the Huguenots,
promptly acted upon the advice. But when the prince asked for the
command of the troops with the quality of lieutenant-general of the
kingdom, the constable withdrawing his claim on account of his age, she
fenced and prevaricated, although the appointment was promised in one
of the secret articles of the late treaty of peace. The Duke of Anjou,
Catherine’s favorite son, aspired to the same office, and hearing of
Condé’s application, the insolent boy said to him: “If ever I catch you
failing in respect to me, I will make you as little as you aspire to be
great.”[384] Surprised at such language, the prince left the court.[385]
As soon as the Spanish troops had crossed the frontier and entered the
Netherlands, it was expected that the royal army would be disbanded;
but, instead of that, it was marched to the neighborhood of Paris. This
was of itself quite enough to excite the alarm of the Huguenot leaders,
who were farther startled by information of a plot to seize both Condé
and the admiral; to imprison the former for life, and put the other to
death; and to place garrisons in the towns favorable to the Reformed
religion, the exercise of which was to be prohibited all over the
kingdom.[386] The heads of the Huguenot party immediately took council
with the admiral at his castle of Chatillon. Their deliberations were
long and serious. No doubt seems to have been entertained regarding the
truth of the report. The suspicions aroused by the Bayonne meeting,
corroborated by stories of the projected massacre at Moulins, which
failed only because the Huguenots were present in too great number,
were strengthened by the insolence of Anjou and the queen-mother’s
insincerity. The edicts of toleration had not been fairly brought into
operation; new interpretation edicts were continually encroaching
upon the privileges of the Reformed; Alva was at hand in Flanders to
assist in carrying out the scheme he had suggested only a few months
before. Men in a panic never reason fairly, never indeed examine into
the truth of the rumors by which their alarm has been roused. It was
so in the present instance when the more violent party said: “Shall
we tarry until they come and bind us hand and foot, and so draw us
unto their scaffold at Paris, there by our shameful deaths to glut
others’ cruelty? Do we not see the foreign enemy marching armed toward
us, and threatening to be revenged on us for Dreux? Have we forgotten
that about 3000 of our religion have, since the peace, endured violent
deaths, for whom we can have no redress? If it were our king’s will we
should be thus injured, we might perhaps the better bear it; but shall
we bear the insolence of those who shroud themselves under his name and
try to alienate his good-will from us? For more than forty years our
fathers professed the true religion in secret, and endured all sorts
of tortures and injuries with patience inexhaustible. If we who are
so numerous, and who are able to profess our religion openly, should
betray a righteous cause by a disgraceful silence and unseasonable
moderation, we should fall into an apostasy unworthy of the two goodly
titles of Christian and gentleman. We should be wanting not only to
ourselves but to God, and besides losing our own souls should be the
cause of ruin to others.”[387] Coligny advised them to be patient: “I
see clearly how we may rekindle the fire,” he said; “but not where we
may find water to quench it.” His brother Andelot was for more vigorous
measures: “If we wait until we are shut up in prison, what will our
patience avail us? If we give our enemies the advantage of striking
the first blow, we shall never recover from it.” But before coming to
a final decision, a deputation of the Huguenot nobility waited upon
Catherine and entreated her to be more just to their co-religionists.
Their reception was such that there seemed no alternative left them but
to draw the sword.
It was an unfortunate decision, and not justified by the real facts.
But the mistake committed by the Huguenot chiefs is patent enough, and
they were thought by their contemporaries to have acted very wisely. La
Popelinière, whose evidence on this point is of great weight, speaks
of “the approach of the Swiss who had been levied under color of
preventing the entrance of the King of Spain and the Queen of England;
and since then, the necessity having passed, the declaration made to
them by Barbazieux, the king’s lieutenant in Champagne, that they were
to be employed against those of the religion.”[388] Alva, in a letter
to his royal master, written on the 28th June, 1567, testifies to the
satisfaction felt in France at the vicinity of the Spanish troops.[389]
Languet writes from Strasburg on the 22d October, that the Huguenot
chiefs knew for certain that the pope and the other princes who had
conspired against the true religion, had determined, as soon as it
was put down in Lower Germany, to do the same in France, and for that
purpose the king had raised a strong force of Swiss.”[390]
The Huguenot counterplot was to seize the king and his mother, then
residing at her castle of Monceaux in Brie, just as the Guise faction
had seized them five years before. Indistinct rumors of a Protestant
rising reached the court, and a messenger was sent to watch the
admiral. On his return he reported that he had found the old warrior
busily engaged in getting in his vintage.[391] Two days later (28th
September, 1567), all France was in flames. Fifty towns were seized,
and a strong force of Huguenot cavalry was preparing for a dash upon
Meaux, about ten leagues east of Paris, whither the court had proceeded
upon the first intelligence of the outbreak. Confusion prevailed in
that little city: Catherine feared to leave it lest she should be
intercepted by the Huguenots, and the Swiss troops, though not far off,
were not so near as the cavalry under Condé. The Swiss were ordered to
be brought up with all speed; but L’Hopital suggested that the wiser
plan would be to disband those mercenaries--a concession which would
satisfy the Huguenots, and induce them to lay down their arms. “Will
you guarantee that they have no other aim than to serve the king?”
asked Catherine. “I will,” he replied, “if I am assured there is no
intention of deceiving them.” But either the queen was meditating
treachery, as L’Hopital’s remark would almost imply, or the risk
appeared too great. The Swiss made their appearance, and, under their
safeguard, the king reached Paris in twelve hours. “But for Nemours
and my good friends the Swiss, I should have lost both liberty and
life,” said Charles. The Duke of Nemours, who, from his marriage with
Anne of Este, widow of the murdered Duke Francis, was held in great
respect by the Guises, commanded a body of volunteers composed of
gentlemen attached to the court, who acted as a sort of light cavalry,
and covered the king’s retreat. More than once Charles turned upon his
pursuers and fought at the head of his gallant little body-guard. The
constable, seeing the unnecessary danger to which he exposed himself,
caught his horse by the bridle and stopped him, saying: “Your majesty
should not risk your person like this: it is too dear to us to permit
you to be accompanied by a troop of less than 10,000 French gentlemen.”
But Condé with his five hundred horse could do nothing against the 6000
Swiss, who “stood fast awhile and then retired close, still turning
their head as doth the wild boar whom the hunters pursue.”[392] The
prince had lost his opportunity. While he was wasting time in an idle
conference with Montmorency, whom the queen-mother had ostensibly sent
to demand the cause of his arming, the Swiss were hurrying to Meaux
with the utmost speed. His irresolution was a great mistake: he ought
never to have made the attempt to seize the king’s person, or to have
risked every thing to clutch the prize within his reach. His failure
made him a traitor as well as a rebel, and inflamed the anger of
Charles against the Huguenots more than success could have done.[393]
In the latter case the king would, in spite of appearances, have found
them to be loyal and faithful subjects, and would have had the best
of evidence that in their hands neither his life nor his liberty were
imperiled. As it was, he never forgave their attempt to seize him, and
he swore with one of his usual blasphemous oaths, that he would some
day be revenged on them.
The Cardinal of Lorraine, knowing that he had little to hope for
should he fall into the hands of the Huguenot chiefs, fled in another
direction, losing his baggage on the road, and got safe to Rheims,
where he entered into a traitorous correspondence with the King of
Spain, offering to place several frontier towns in his hands, and
support his claims to the throne of France in right of his wife.[394]
But his plots were frustrated by the course of events.
Both parties now made the most strenuous exertions to increase their
forces. The king, writing to Simiane de Gordes, governor of Dauphiny,
instructing him to raise troops and keep down the heretics, uses
language worthy of the St. Bartholomew: “You will cut them in pieces,
_not sparing one, for the more dead the fewer enemies_.”[395]
Before the actual outbreak of hostilities, attempts were made by the
Moderates, or _Parti Politique_, to effect a reconciliation. Condé
demanded complete toleration of the Reformed religion all over the
kingdom, without distinction of place or person; to which Charles IX.
replied, through Marshal Montmorency, that “he would not tolerate two
religions in his kingdom.” There was nothing more to be done: the sword
must decide between them. The train-bands of Paris were called out; new
taxes were imposed; the clergy made a voluntary gift of 250,000 crowns,
a loan of 100,000 crowns was raised at Venice, and one to a similar
amount at Florence.
Although the Huguenot force was very small--1200 foot and 1500
horse--the chiefs boldly marched to Paris, which they hoped to blockade
and starve into submission before any help could reach that city
from the more distant provinces. But here again Catherine’s wonderful
talent for negotiation was exerted to keep the Protestant leaders in
check, until the reinforcements--impetuously summoned from various
quarters--were hurriedly marched into the capital. Condé had placarded
the walls of Paris with a protest that he had taken up arms only to
deliver the king’s subjects from the oppression of Italian favorites;
but he was no match for those wily Italians who, now feeling safe,
broke off the negotiations. On the 10th November, the Huguenots found
themselves in the presence of the royal forces on the great plain of
St. Denis. It was then quite open and highly cultivated, the only
buildings on it were a solitary farm-house and a few windmills. Across
it ran that broad highway, along which travelers from the north used
to pass before the railroad had diverted the living stream. The troops
under Constable Montmorency were five times more numerous than those
under Condé, and had the advantage of artillery. The scene of the
contest was about a mile from Paris, between Montmartre, Pantin, and
St. Denis. The gibbet of Montfauçon was on the edge of the field. Being
so near the walls, crowds of idlers, including many women, went to look
on.[396] Ballad singers were already celebrating Montmorency’s victory,
quacks on their frail platforms were extolling their salves and
plasters for wounds; the swindlers and ruffians, the cheats and rogues,
who live by the vices, or prey upon the weaknesses of society--all the
vermin of a great city--were there in crowds; monks mingled in the
throng, chanting their litanies and selling beads; and more numerous
than all was that foul horde which always gathers, like birds of prey,
upon a battle-field.
There was not much time to lose in manœuvring, for the day was drawing
to a close. Condé charged furiously upon the advancing enemy, sweeping
every thing before him, so much to the admiration of the spectators
that they loudly applauded the gallant Huguenots. “If my master had
only 6000 horsemen like those white-coats[397] yonder,” exclaimed the
sultan’s envoy, who had been watching the fight from the city walls,
“he would soon be master of the world.” But the Huguenots were so
outnumbered that they were gradually hemmed in by the larger masses
of the enemy, and compelled to retreat. The approach of night saved
them from farther disaster. The battle was fatal to the constable,
who seems to have fallen a victim to private malice. In the heat of a
charge, when wounded and separated from his troops, he saw one Robert
Stuart ride up to him and present a pistol. The constable, expecting
to be made a prisoner, called out: “You do not know me!” “It is just
because I do know you,” replied the Scotchman, “that I give you
this.” And he fired,[398] the ball shattering Montmorency’s shoulder
and throwing him to the ground, not however before he had broken
Stuart’s jaw with the fragment of the sword he still grasped in his
warlike hand. His death was like his life. When a priest approached to
administer religious consolation, he smilingly begged to be left in
peace, “for it would be a shameful thing,” he added, “to have known
how to live fourscore years, and not know how to die one short quarter
of an hour.” The queen-mother went to visit him before his death,
and, as she bent over his bed to console him, he advised her to make
peace as soon as possible, adding that “the shortest follies are the
best.”[399] Marshal Vieilleville was of the same opinion. “It was not
your majesty that gained the battle,” said he to the king, “much less
the Prince of Condé!” “Who then gained it?” asked Charles. “The King
of Spain,” answered Vieilleville; “for on both sides valiant captains
and brave soldiers have fallen, enough to conquer Flanders and the Low
Countries.” The united loss was nearly six hundred.
The death of the constable was a serious blow to the Moderate party,
although he did not actually belong to them. He had learned wisdom
as he advanced in life, showing himself one of those rare men--rare
at all times, but especially so in the sixteenth century--who could
accommodate themselves to altered circumstances. His deep loyalty
to the crown made him suspicious of the Lorraine faction; and his
relationship to Condé and the Chatillons tempered the zeal of his
orthodoxy. He saw clearly that no one would gain by the war, except the
enemies of France. Languet adds that, taught by experience, Montmorency
had learned that the Huguenots could not be crushed without the ruin of
the kingdom; and he labored strenuously to carry out the Pacification
of Amboise to the great disgust of the pope and Philip of Spain.[400]
Before the end of the year, a body of 2000 foot and 1500 horse,
dispatched by Alva from Flanders under the Count of Aremberg,
accompanied by a choice band of the Catholic nobility of the Low
Countries, had joined the royal camp of Paris. At the same time the
Huguenots were expecting reinforcements from Germany, and, in order
to meet them, Condé left his head-quarters at Chalons, marched above
twenty leagues in three days, through the rain and over bad roads,
losing neither wagons nor artillery. There was some doubt whether the
royal forces would not intercept the Germans before they could join
the Huguenots. “And what will you do, in case they do not come to the
rendezvous?” asked some one of Condé. “I think we should have to blow
on our fingers,” he jestingly replied, “for the weather is very cold.”
But they were not reduced to such extremity, having formed a successful
junction with the German auxiliaries, commanded by John Casimir, son
of the elector-palatine. This force consisted of 7000 cavalry and 4000
infantry--all mercenary troops who fought solely for pay and plunder.
Before they would move another step, the reiters (as they were called)
demanded a bounty of 100,000 crowns; and as the military chest was
empty, the French force voluntarily subscribed money, jewels, rings,
gold chains, and other ornaments to the amount of 30,000 crowns, with
which the Germans, astonished at so much self-denial, were momentarily
satisfied. “Even soldiers, lackeys, and boys gave every one somewhat,”
says La Noue, “so as in the end it was accounted a dishonor to have
given a little.” The old warrior takes the opportunity furnished by
this incident to describe some of the difficulties with which the
Huguenot chiefs had to contend. It required “great art and diligence to
feed an unpaid army of above 20,000 men.” The admiral was remarkably
careful in all the arrangements of his commissariat department, and
acted up to the spirit of the old saying, that “a soldier fights upon
his belly.” Whenever there was any question of forming an army, he
used to say: “Let us begin the shaping of this monster by the belly.”
“This devouring animal,” continues La Noue, “passing through so many
provinces, could still find some pasture wherewith was sometimes
mixed the poor man’s garment, yea, and the friend’s too; so sore did
necessity and desire to catch incite those that wanted no excuses to
color their spoil.”
Civil war now raged with increased fury all over France. Although the
two main armies did not again come into collision, there were little
partisan campaigns in every province and almost every large town. It
was during this period that Nismes became the theatre of that terrible
tragedy known as the _Michelade_, from its occurring at the feast
of St. Michael in 1567. The new doctrines had made such progress in the
old Roman city that, in the year 1562, the municipal council decided
that the cathedral with some other churches should be made over to the
Reformed, and farther ordered the bells of the convents to be cast
into cannon, the convents to be let “for the good of the state,” the
relics and their shrines to be sold, and the non-conforming priests to
leave the city. Damville, governor of Languedoc, and second son of the
Constable Montmorency, was sent to Nismes to restore order, which he
succeeded in doing by severe and arbitrary measures. At Uzès, a person
named Mouton having ventured to blame these high-handed proceedings,
was taken and hanged on the spot without any form of trial.[401] If
such was the beginning, we may imagine what the Reformed had to suffer
afterward. At length a trifling circumstance led to an explosion. About
six in the morning of the 30th September, 1567, the second day of St.
Michael’s fair, some Albanians belonging to Damville’s guard, lounging
outside the city gates, stopped several women bringing vegetables to
market, and in mere wantonness upset the baskets and trampled upon
their contents. There was an immediate uproar: the women screamed,
the neighbors ran to their assistance, and the crowd was swelled by
the peasants coming from the country, at whose menacing gestures the
foreigners drew their swords to defend themselves. On a sudden there
was a shout: “To arms! to arms! Kill the Papists!” Hundreds rushed out
of their houses and collected on the esplanade. The Consul Gui Rochette
tried to calm them, but they violently rejected his prudent advice.
When the news of the tumult reached the bishop he exclaimed: “This is
the prince of darkness! blessed be the holy name of Heaven!” and then
knelt down in prayer, momentarily expecting martyrdom. He succeeded,
however, in escaping from the mob, who, in their angry disappointment,
sacked his palace and killed the vicar-general. A number of Catholics,
including the consul and his brother, had been shut up in the cellars
of the episcopal residence. About an hour before midnight they
were dragged out and led into that grey old court-yard, where the
imagination can still detect the traces of that cruel massacre.[402]
One by one the victims came forth; a few steps, and they fell pierced
by sword or pike. Some struggled with their murderers, and tried to
escape, but only prolonged their agony. By the dim light of a few
torches between seventy and eighty unhappy wretches were butchered in
cold blood, and their bodies, some only half-dead, were thrown into the
well in one corner of the yard, not far from an orange-tree, the leaves
of which (says local tradition) were ever afterward marked with the
blood-stains of this massacre.
The Michelade has been contrasted with the St. Bartholomew, but there
is this difference between the two crimes: the former was committed in
despite of the exhortations of the pastors, and no one has attempted
to justify it. After the peace of Longjumeau, the Parliament of
Toulouse prosecuted all who had taken any part in the murders. More
than a hundred persons were condemned by default to be hanged and to
pay 200,000 livres, of which 60,000 were allotted to the repair of the
churches, 6000 to Gui’s widow, and the remainder to the families of
the victims. Only four were caught, who, after being dragged through
the city at the horse’s tail, were beheaded, and their quarters hung
up over the principal gates. In the September of the following year,
the brutal scenes of violence were renewed: the city was plundered, and
its streets were dyed with Catholic blood. The governor, St. André, was
shot and thrown out of the window, and his corpse was torn in pieces
by the lawless mob.
In the country round Nismes forty-eight unresisting Catholics were
murdered; and at Alais the Huguenots massacred seven canons, two
grey-friars, and several other churchmen. Even at the little town of
Gap, far away among the Upper Alps, the followers of the two religions,
who had hitherto lived together on friendly terms, now sought each
other’s blood. The outbreak was occasioned by the attempt of the
Catholics to wear a white cross--a badge of distinction recently
adopted among the Romanists. The two parties came to blows, and, says
their historian, “they vied with one another in cruelty.”[403] It was
the same wherever the two armies marched. “Our people,” writes Languet,
“burn all the monasteries and destroy all the churches they come near:
but the Germans (that is, the reiters) spoil friends and enemies
alike.” Castelnau confirms this statement: “When Blois capitulated,
faith was not kept with the governor and inhabitants on the ground
that the Catholics boasted of not keeping their promise to the
Huguenots. So that on both sides the _droit des gens_ was violated
without any shame.... What the Huguenots spared was plundered by the
Catholics.”[404] Even the dead were not left in peace; in more than one
instance the corpses were exhumed and treated with savage barbarity.
But these scattered hostilities, much as they increased the misery of
France, had very little influence on the main course of events. So
long as Condé and Coligny were in the field, the cause of independence
was safe. The young Duke of Anjou, who, as lieutenant-general of the
kingdom, had been put at the head of the royal forces, was no match for
his experienced antagonists; nor could he always check the dissensions
between the veteran generals who, nominally under his orders, were
really the directors of all his movements. The Huguenot leaders saw
the favorable opportunity, and, with unexpected caution and rapidity,
Condé moved his army toward Chartres, in the hope of securing it as a
base of operations against Paris. But the Royalists were too quick for
him, and the garrison was reinforced before he could reach the city.
Determined to take the town at all hazards--for it was on the main line
of communication between Paris and the west and south--Coligny pressed
the siege, when Catherine, seeing that affairs had reached a crisis,
took the bold step of appearing in the enemy’s camp.
A timely remonstrance from the pen of Chancellor L’Hopital had a marked
effect in turning the minds of the people toward peace. Beginning with
a comparison of the two parties he says, “The Huguenots are not a mob
hastily collected together, but men, warlike, resolute, and in despair
... ready to venture all that men hold most dear in defense of their
wives and children. The Catholic party is ill-constructed, all are
tired of the war, and, even among the common people, there is nothing
but murmuring.... To exterminate the enemy is impossible, unless you
would fill the country with pestilence, famine, and starvation. Look
at Champagne--a desert, so utterly wretched that there is nothing left
the poor inhabitants but to die of hunger and despair.... But if we
could destroy them all, what will you do with their innocent children?
If you, spare them, will they not grow up to avenge their fathers?
If the king should lose a battle, he would be deserted by thousands
who now follow him through fear or love of plunder: it would be the
destruction of his throne.” After combating the arguments of those who
contend that the king is bound to punish rebels, and that he can not
capitulate with his subjects, he advises Charles “to use clemency, as
he shall meet it from God; to forget his own resentment toward his
subjects, and they will forget their evil dispositions toward him,
and forget their very selves to honor and obey him.”[405] If the
queen-mother was not influenced by these arguments, she saw at least
that it was time to put an end to the war. She had often boasted that
her tongue and her pen were more than a match for the lances of her
enemies; and their power was never more strikingly shown than in the
present instance. She offered an amnesty for all past offenses, and an
unconditional acquiescence in the demands of her son’s “loyal though
misguided subjects.” The admiral was suspicious, and hesitated. “They
have not forgiven us the surprise of Meaux,” he said. “But the desire
of all for peace,” observes La Noue, “was as a whirlwind which they
could not resist.”[406] Meanwhile the Huguenot army melted away, whole
bodies going off without asking leave, and Condé hurriedly signed the
Treaty of Longjumeau (20th March, 1568),[407] which restored the Edict
of Amboise, bound the court to pay the foreign auxiliaries in the rebel
service, and left the Reformed party, says Mezeray, “at the mercy of
their enemies, with no other guarantee than the word of an Italian
woman.”[408]
While the admiral was negotiating the treaty of Longjumeau his wife
fell ill and died at Orleans of a fever contracted in the course of
her charitable labors in that crowded and unhealthy city. As soon as
she felt the approaches of death, she wrote the following pathetic
letter to her husband: “I feel very unhappy in dying so far from you,
whom I have always loved more than myself; but I take comfort from the
knowledge that you are kept away from me by the best of motives. I
entreat you, by the love you bear me, and by the children I leave you
as pledges of my love, to fight to the last extremity for God’s service
and the advancement of religion.... Train up our children in the pure
religion, so that if you fail them, they may one day take your place;
and as they can not yet spare you, do not expose your life more than is
necessary. Beware of the house of Guise; I know not whether I ought to
say the same of the queen-mother, being forbidden to judge evilly of my
neighbor; but she has given so many marks of her ambition that a little
distrust is pardonable.” It was two or three days before the admiral
could leave the army, and when he reached Orleans all was over. His
wife had been dead twenty-four hours, leaving him with three boys and
one girl. For a time the bereaved husband was inconsolable: “Oh, God,
what have I done?” he exclaimed, in the anguish of his heart; “what
have I done that I should be so severely chastised, so overwhelmed with
calamities?” At last the consolations of religion began to temper his
sorrow. “Would that I might lead a holier life and present a better
example of godliness! Most Holy Father, look upon me, if it please
thee, and in the multitude of thy mercies, relieve my sufferings!”[409]
As soon as the state of affairs permitted he retired to his estate at
Chatillon, but was not long permitted to enjoy the rest and privacy
he sought. In a short time he became the centre of a little court.
The crowd was so great that, “when two gentlemen left by one door,
twenty entered by another.” The admiral was so beloved that he was
overwhelmed with presents, the members of his party forcing them upon
him notwithstanding his protests. “It is only right,” they urged, “to
help the man who is ruining himself for love of us.”
Peace found the finances of the kingdom in a very dilapidated
condition. The expenditure was eighteen millions of livres, and the
revenue less than half that amount; besides which there were arrears
due to the foreign auxiliaries--not only those whom Condé had enrolled,
but a large body under the Duke of Saxony, who claimed five months’
pay, although they had not drawn a sword and scarcely entered the
French territory. These reiters were a terrible scourge to France,
and it was necessary to get rid of them at any sacrifice. Davila
paints them as sweeping through the country like a frightful hurricane
(_spaventosa tempesta_). Armed to the teeth in black mail, drawn
up in squadrons sixteen deep and with a front of thirty, they rode down
the weak lines of the French cavalry. Fierce in demeanor, brutal in
habits, as intractable as they were insolent, and a nuisance alike to
friend and foe, they were insatiable pillagers, and their long train of
wagons filled with plunder often caused irremediable delay in the march
of the Huguenot army. None knew how to drive a hard bargain better than
they did. Castelnau gives a curious account of his negotiations with
these men, who, in the true spirit of mercenary soldiers, were ready to
turn their arms against any body, if they were paid for it. The only
means of raising money to meet the various claims upon the treasury was
to sell church property, which was done to the amount of 100,000 crowns
rental. Although the pope had given his consent to this alienation,
provided the money was employed to extirpate heresy, the Parliament of
Paris long refused to register the decree authorizing the sale, on the
factious ground that “things consecrated to God could not be touched.”