MASSACRE IN THE PROVINCES.
[August to October, 1572.]
Instructions to the Governors--The Count of Tende--Nantes
and Alençon--Massacres at Saumur, Angers, Lyons, Orleans,
Troyes, Rouen, Meaux, Bordeaux, and Toulouse--St. Hérem’s
letter--The stolen Dispatch--The Governor of Bayonne--The
Bishop of Lisieux--Chabot at Arnay-le-Duc--Senlis, Provins,
Château-Thierry, Dieppe, and Nismes spared--The Number of
Victims--Contemporary Judgments--Dorat’s Panegyric--Jean
Le Masle--Pierre Charpentier and Sorbin--Rejoicings at
Rome--Exultation of Philip II.--Horror in England--John Knox’s
Denunciation--The Emperor Maximilian’s regret.
The writers who maintain that the tragedy of St. Bartholomew’s Day
was the result of long premeditation, support their opinions by
what occurred in the provinces; but it will be found after careful
examination, that these various incidents tend rather to prove the
absence of any such premeditation. Unless we suppose Catherine and
her Italian advisers to have been the clumsiest of conspirators, they
would naturally have made arrangements for a general massacre of the
Huguenots throughout the kingdom to take place on the same day; but
it did not, and the murders committed were in many instances the
consequences of popular commotions that broke out after the arrival
of the news from Paris.[682] There is indeed a well-known letter from
the queen-mother to Strozzi,[683] which he was not to open until the
24th of August, and in which he read: “This is to inform you that
_to-day_ the admiral and all the Huguenots in this place are
killed.” But the letter is manifestly spurious, and with it falls the
principal item of evidence to show premeditation.
It would appear that on the 23d, as soon as the king’s assent had
been gained, instructions to massacre the Protestants were forwarded
to various parts of the country. Alberi[684] emphatically says that
there remain no traces in any provincial registers of orders received
to this effect; but even were there no such record, there is abundant
evidence that such instructions were sent. Davila says that messengers
were dispatched on the 23d. De Thou, who was in a position to know
the truth, declares that _verbal orders_ were sent;[685] which
is confirmed by a letter to the governor of Chartres withdrawing
_all verbal orders_.[686] There is also a letter from Charles
to Matignon, canceling all the orders he may have given _by word
of mouth_.[687] Writing to Longueville on the 26th of August, he
recalls “_le mandement verbal_;”[688] and the next day he reminds
the mayor of Troyes of the “letters he had received” ordering the
extermination of the heretics. Puygaillard, writing in the king’s name
(August 26) to the governor of Angers, to put the principal Huguenots
to death, bids him wait for _no farther orders_, as he will have
none. It is clear, therefore, that Charles desired to act up to his
resolution, to permit no Huguenot to survive to reproach him with his
breach of faith. That his orders were not carried out, depended in
many cases upon the character of the governors or municipalities to
whom they were addressed. A messenger, named La Molle, was sent to the
Count of Tende, governor of Provence, with a letter ordering him to
massacre all the Huguenots. A postscript, however, bade him neither
do nor believe what La Molle told him. The count, unable to reconcile
these contradictory instructions, sent his secretary to the king, who
told him to “put a few Huguenots to death.” But Tende dying in the
interval, his successor, the Count of Courcis, refused to act without
farther instructions, and the result was an order, which the messenger
was directed on peril of his life to communicate to none but De
Courcis, “not to execute the massacre.”[689]
Louis, Duke of Bourbon-Montpensier, governor of Brittany, wrote to the
municipal officers of Nantes, desiring them to carry out the massacre.
They refused, and their refusal is commemorated in the following
inscription:
“_L’an MDLXXII, le 8 jour de septembre, le Maire de Nantes, les
échevins, et les suppóts de la ville avec les juges-consuls, réunis à
la Maison Commune, font le serment de maintenir celui précédemment fait
de ne point contrevenir à l’Édit de Pacification rendu en faveur des
Calvinistes, et font défense aux habitants de se porter à aucun excès
contre eux._”
At Alençon there was no massacre, owing to the energy of the governor,
who, observing that the Catholics were arming with a murderous intent,
closed the city gates, strengthened the posts, and issued a severe
proclamation, forbidding any injury to the Huguenots. The latter were
ordered to assemble, to give up their arms, to send in thirty-two
hostages, and to take a new oath of fidelity. This they did, and all
were spared. Matignon’s name was long revered as a household word among
the people of Alençon.[690]
At Angers the massacre had some distinct characteristics. After
Montsoreau, the governor of Saumur, had killed all the Huguenots in
that town according to the instructions from an agent of the Duke
of Anjou, he hastened to Angers (29th August), which he reached at
day-break. Ordering the gates to be shut, he went to the house of La
Barbée, a Huguenot gentleman, who escaped, but his less fortunate
brother was killed as he lay sick in bed. Montsoreau next called on
the pastor La Rivière, with whom he had long been on friendly terms.
Courteously saluting his wife, Montsoreau passed into the garden to her
husband. After the usual embrace, he said: “I have the king’s orders
to put you to death instantly.” The minister asked for a few moments’
delay to collect his thoughts and to pray, which being granted,
he commended his soul to God and fell pierced through the heart.
Montsoreau then went and killed two other ministers. Meanwhile the news
spread, and some Catholics assembled in the streets, with the white
cross in their hats. Montsoreau’s words aroused their fanaticism: they
dragged the dead bodies to the river, rang the alarm-bell, and chased
the Huguenots from house to house. But the citizens held aloof, the
magistrates interposed, and the massacre was stopped.[691] Later in the
day a messenger arrived from the Duke of Anjou, ordering the property
of heretics to be set aside, it being valued at 100,000 livres. The
highway robbers of those days gave their victims the alternative of
money or life: the duke took both.
A week after the massacre in Paris, the Huguenots of Lyons were taken
one after another “like sheep,” says Capilupi, and shut up in prison.
When the governor desired the executioner to put some of them to death,
he replied: “I am not an assassin: I work only as justice commands
me.” But this did not save them. Three hundred soldiers were found
ready to do the bloody work. Those confined in the archbishop’s palace
were first robbed, and then cut to pieces, children hanging round
their parents’ necks, brothers and sisters exhorting one another to
suffer patiently in the cause of God. All who had been shut up in the
Rouane, a public prison, were dragged to the bridge and then flung
into the river.[692] As night came on, the murderers, now joined by
the mob, threw off all restraint. “In the square of St. John,” says
D’Aubigné, “a pile of bodies was collected so vast and terrible as to
exceed description.” In this city alone, 4000 persons, including the
famous musician Goudimel, are estimated to have been killed;[693] and
yet Mandelot wrote to the king, regretting that a few had escaped, and
begging for a share of the spoils.[694] At Arles the river became so
putrid from the corpses rolling down from Lyons, that the inhabitants
were for several days unable to drink its waters.[695]
At Orleans the massacre had its peculiar features of atrocity.[696]
One La Bouilli invited his friend La Cour to supper, and stabbed him
as he sat at table. Taillebois, a professor of law, was murdered by
his own pupils. Some of them went to his house and begged to see his
library; and when he showed it them, they began to ask him for some
of his books, which he gave them. “This is not all,” they said; “we
intend to kill you.” Falling on his knees, he prayed a few minutes in
silence and then exclaimed, “I am ready! slay me at once.” This they
would not do, but drove him into the street, where his courage failed
at the sight of a poor shoe-maker who lay bleeding to death. Though
scarcely able to walk, he was driven forward, until he came in front
of the Law Schools where he used to teach. There the murderers put an
end to his long agony. Nicholas Bongars lay at the point of death when
some ruffians broke into his room. They respected the dying man, but
murdered the apothecary who was attending upon him. The next day a man
who had been in the habit of visiting Bongars, went to the house, and
saluting his mother at the door, as she like a good Catholic was going
to mass, went up stairs, stabbed the sick man, wiped his dagger in the
bed-clothes, and departed as he had come, without betraying the least
emotion. Of the victims, some were tossed into a ditch, and then left
to be devoured by wolves and dogs; others were thrown into the Loire,
which became so discolored that the Catholics refused to drink the
water or to eat the fish caught in it. Of the fourteen hundred victims,
one hundred and fifty were women.
The massacre at Bordeaux did not begin until the 3d of October. The
populace had been inflamed by the sermons of one Auger, a Jesuit;
on Michaelmas Day he said from the pulpit: “Who executed the divine
judgments at Paris? The angel of God. Who in Orleans? The angel of
God. Who in a hundred cities of this realm? The angel of God. And who
will execute them in Bordeaux? The angel of God, however man may try
to resist him.” The slaughter was carried out by an organized band of
ruffians wearing the “bonnet rouge,” which afterward became so famous
in history. Many of the Huguenots found a safe refuge in the houses
of certain priests and Catholic laymen, who were horrified at the
barbarities they had witnessed. Others found a secure asylum in the
castles of Ham and Trompette.
At Meaux, all the houses in the market-place were completely gutted,
and many of their inhabitants killed. The next day (August 26), the mob
entered the prison, which was crammed with Huguenots to the number of
two hundred and more. They were called out one by one into the yard,
and such as sword and pike failed to kill instantly, had their brains
beaten out with the sledge hammers used by the butchers to knock down
their bullocks. Some were buried, still breathing, in a trench dug to
receive them, and when this was filled, the rest were thrown into the
Marne.
The news of the massacre reached Troyes on the 26th of August, when the
gates were immediately closed to prevent the frightened Huguenots from
escaping. Many were taken to prison, but there was no general slaughter
until the 4th of September, when one Belin, an apothecary, arrived
from Paris with the king’s orders of the 28th of August, forbidding
the Protestants to be molested.[697] This wretch persuaded the high
bailiff and the council to murder the prisoners, and then issue the
proclamation. The public executioner refused to lend himself to the
foul plot. “It was his duty,” he said, “to put to death only such as
had been legally condemned.” This did not save the prisoners, who were
butchered by a drunken mob, and their blood flowing under the gate into
the street filled the humane Catholics with horror.
The governor of Rouen hesitated to execute the orders he had received,
and asked for fresh instructions. The answer being unfavorable, he
locked up all the Protestants he could find, and on the 17th of
September the city gates were shut, and military posts established in
the squares. A band of assassins then went to the prisons, and killed
with clubs and daggers about sixty Huguenots, according to a list they
carried with them. They next searched the private houses, where the
number of victims of both sexes amounted to more than six hundred.
On the last day of August the _capitouls_ of Toulouse received
a letter from Joyeuse, lieutenant-general in Languedoc, giving an
account of the massacre of the 24th, and adding that the king “would
not permit any infringement of the Edict of Pacification.”[698]
He farther instructed the magistrates to be on the watch lest the
Protestants should rise, and ordered the guards to be doubled, “in the
quietest way possible, so as to incommode nobody.” Jean d’Affis, the
first president, communicated this message to the magistrates, desiring
them particularly to see that there were “no assemblies, riots, or
cruelties, to the prejudice of public tranquillity.” As far as the
language of the proclamation went, nothing could be more conducive to
peace and good-will among the followers of both religions. According to
the Edict, the Huguenots were forbidden to assemble for worship within
a certain distance of the city; but, as their ordinary meeting-place
was at Castanet, a little village just within the prescribed limits,
the magistrates, for some reason unknown, determined on a literal
interpretation of the law, and arrested all who were present at divine
worship on the 4th of September. The prisoners were not ill treated,
but held in safe custody until the king’s pleasure should be known. Of
the 300 captured, more than 200 managed to escape with the connivance
of their jailers. On the 1st of October a number of ruffian soldiers,
armed with pike and arquebuse, entered Toulouse, and soon made known
their business by threatening peaceable citizens in the streets,
abusing them as “Patarins, Parpaillots, and Huguenots.”[699] Having
found a leader in one Latour, prior of the College of St. Catherine,
they broke open the prisons and murdered the prisoners. The ruffians,
now masters of the city, began to attack the Catholics also, for
plunder, not religion, was their real object. One of their victims
was a priest named Guestret, murdered by Latour, with whom he had a
lawsuit;[700] and Jean Coras, the famous legist.
But, happily for human nature, the history of this period is not one of
unrelieved treachery and murder. There were many brave and honorable
gentlemen in France, who refused to obey the bloody rescripts of the
court. St. Hérem of Montmerin, governor of Auvergne, wrote to the king:
“Sire, I have received an order under your majesty’s seal to put to
death all the Protestants in my province. I respect your majesty too
much to suppose the letter is other than a forgery; and if (which God
forbid) the order really proceeds from your majesty, I have still too
much respect for you to obey it.” Although the Huguenots of Auvergne
escaped the massacre, there are reasons for doubting the authenticity
of the letter. The Dulaure manuscripts contain a very circumstantial
account of how one Captain Combelle was sent by the king to M. de
St. Herrent (Hérem) with a dispatch containing orders to exterminate
the Huguenots. On the road he fell in with another traveler, who had
escaped from the massacre at Paris, and represented himself as the
bearer of instructions to Marshal Damville in Languedoc to put all the
Calvinists in his government to death. They traveled together, and the
end was that Combelle’s dispatch was stolen at Moulins, where they both
slept in the same room. The thief hurried to Issoire, gave the packet
to the minister Claude Baduel, bidding him warn his co-religionists
to flee at once. Combelle continued his journey, and told St. Herrent
the contents of the lost letter.[701] If this narrative be true, St.
Hérem could hardly answer a letter he did not receive. It is certain,
however, that he imprisoned all the Protestants at Issoire, while
waiting for farther orders, and that at Aurillac in his government
eighty Protestants were murdered.
Viscount Orte or Orthez, governor of Bayonne, wrote a letter which
one would fain believe to be true, in spite of the discredit recently
thrown upon it:[702] “Sire, I have communicated your majesty’s
commands to the faithful inhabitants and garrison of this city. I have
found among them many good citizens and brave soldiers, but not one
executioner.” One thing is certain, that the Huguenots in Bayonne were
saved.
When the king’s lieutenant waited upon James Hennuyer, Bishop of
Lisieux, to communicate the orders he had received to kill the
Huguenots in that city, “No, no, sir,” he replied, “I oppose, and
will always oppose, the execution of such an order, to which I can
not consent. I am pastor of the church of Lisieux, and the people you
are commanded to slay are my flock. Although they are wanderers at
present, having strayed from the fold which has been confided to me by
Jesus Christ, the supreme pastor, they may nevertheless return, and I
will not give up the hope of seeing them come back. I do not read in
the Gospel that the shepherd ought to suffer the blood of his sheep to
be shed; on the contrary, I find that he is bound to pour out his own
blood and give his own life for them. Take the order back again, for it
shall never be executed so long as I live.”[703] And the Huguenots of
Lisieux were spared.
When the fatal order was brought to Arnay-le-Duc by two messengers in
rapid succession, Elinor Chabot, Count of Charny, asked the advice
of the council. That body was divided in opinion, until a young and
obscure advocate quoted a law enacted by Theodosius when suffering
under remorse for a massacre executed by his orders at Thessalonica. By
this law, all governors were forbidden to carry out any such commands
in future, until the lapse of thirty days, during which interval they
were to demand a written confirmation of the order. Moderate counsels
prevailed, and two days later came a fresh mandate from the king,
revoking the former order. Chabot, as prudent as he was brave, boldly
declared that “the severity and cruelty which had been exercised toward
the Protestants had hitherto only served to exasperate them; and that
the best means of bringing them back to the Church was to treat them
with kindness.” So that there was little blood shed in Burgundy (says
De Thou), and nearly all the Protestants returned to the religion of
their ancestors.[704]
The royal orders were received at Senlis on the 24th; but the
Catholics, unwilling to stain their hands with the blood of their
fellow-citizens, only enjoined them to leave the town, which was done
“in a quiet and orderly manner.”[705] Bertrand de Gordes, governor
of Dauphiny, having received a _written_, order revoking all
_verbal_ orders, wrote to the king saying he had received no
orders, verbal or otherwise; to which Charles replied that “he need
not trouble himself, for the orders were given only to some that were
about him.” The historian of the religious wars in Dauphiny says
with a “dit-on” that Gordes “refused to obey the orders of the court,
or at least contrived to avoid carrying out his instructions.”[706]
Another historian tells us that he would not believe the king could
have desired the death of so many innocent persons. In this he was
supported by the first president, “who, like all men of learning,
was an enemy to violence.”[707] The king can have had nothing to do
with such a massacre, he said. “His power and authority are abused by
foreigners, and it is our duty as magistrates and Frenchmen to preserve
his subjects for him.” On October 11, Gordes issued an order that any
attempt upon the lives of the Huguenots would be punished with death;
and at the same time certain precautionary restrictions were imposed on
religious assemblies. On the 18th, he exhorted the king’s officers and
governors “to comfort and assist such as manifest a desire to return to
the true Church.”[708]
At Provins many Huguenots thought it prudent to be converted; and,
says Claude Haton, “for eight days and nights they dared not show
themselves.” But there was no blood shed in that little town.
The garrulous chronicler tells us how the Huguenot gentlemen and
demoiselles of the environs, notwithstanding their châteaux-forts, ran
away or emigrated: some to Sedan, others to Germany or Geneva. The
men wore white crosses on their hats and sleeves; the women had beads
in their hands or fastened to their girdles. These were very common
practices to save life. At Château-Thierry, where heretics were few in
proportion to the population, no violence was committed, and not a drop
of blood was shed, though the town was immediately dependent on the
king.
When the governor of Dieppe received the fatal instructions, he
assembled the Huguenots in the great hall of the Palace of Justice and
read the letter to them, following it up by a characteristic speech:
“Citizens, the orders I have received can only concern rebellious and
seditious Calvinists, of whom, thanks be to God! there are none in this
place. We read in the Gospel that love to God and our neighbor is the
duty of Christians; let us profit by the lesson, which Christ himself
has given us. Children of the same Father, let us live together as
brothers, and having for each other the charity of the Samaritan. These
are my sentiments, and I hope you all share them; they make me feel
assured that in this town there does not exist a man who is unworthy
to live.” Touched by his words, says the historian, the Huguenots
recanted, and vowed to live and die in the Catholic faith.
The order to sweep Nismes clear of every Huguenot within its walls
reached that venerable city on August 29, when Jean de Montcalm,
the _juge-mage_, called an extraordinary council, before which
he placed the royal missive. Unanimously they resolved not to act
upon it. Thinking it unnecessary and possibly dangerous to make any
public explanation, the magistrates took every precaution to preserve
order, and called upon the leading men of both religions to swear to
watch over the safety of all and to defend each other. In order to
keep out strangers, every gate was closed, except one, and the guard
of that was given to two trusty citizens. When this was done, they
informed Joyeuse, the commander of the province, who approved of their
measures.[709]
What was the number of victims sacrificed to the policy of Catherine
and the jealousy of Anjou? It is impossible to arrive at any thing like
a correct estimate; for hardly two historians give the same figures,
and none of them mention the grounds of their estimate. It is evident
that in many instances they are mere random guesses, and as such
without any weight.
The following table for Paris only will show the impossibility of
accepting any of the statements:
AUTHORITIES. NUMBERS.
Caveyrac } 1000
La Popelinière }
Kirkaldy[710] }
Papyr Masson } 2000
Tocsin }
Tavannes }
Aubigné } 3000
Capilupi }
Alva’s Bulletin 3500
Bonanni } 4000
Brantome }
Gomez da Silva }
Mezeray } 5000
Simancas Archives }
Neustadt Letter[711] 6000
Claude Haton [712] 7000
Art de Vérifier }
Davila }
Etat de France } 10,000
Peleus: Henry IV. }
Réveille-Matin }
Probably the number of victims may have amounted to 6000; but to
reduce it as low as 1600 for all France, which Dr. Lingard has done,
is monstrously absurd. All that we know positively is that a certain
number of bodies were buried, and beyond that all is conjecture.
The length of time through which the massacre was continued, is one
evidence of the numbers that were slain. The nuncio Salviati wrote on
the 15th of September: “Every night some tens of Huguenots, caught
by day in various places, are thrown into the river without any
disturbance.” On the next day the Count of St. Pol, embassador from
the Duke of Savoy, wrote: “They are continuing the great execution
against these folks, who are thrown into the river by night;” and
as late as the 26th, more than a month after the first outbreak, he
reported: “They are daily putting Huguenots to death in Paris and
elsewhere.” The registers of the Hotel-de-Ville supply us with a
curious comment upon the massacre. On September 9th, fifteen livres
tournois were paid to the sextons of the cemetery of St. Innocent and
their eight helpers for burying the dead bodies round the convent of
Nigeon (Bonshommes of Chaillot) “to prevent the spread of infection.”
On the 23d, twenty livres were paid to the same men for burying in
one week 1100 bodies found in the neighborhood of St. Cloud, Auteuil,
and Chaillot. If we suppose the payments proportionate to the numbers
buried, those paid for on the 9th must have been nearly 1500; thus
giving for all Paris a _known_ massacre of 2600. The same rolls
record the payment of one Nicholas Sergent, who had stopped the ferries
and prevented the crossing of the Seine, and also 80 livres for medals
struck to commemorate the massacre, to be distributed among the
municipal officers.
But the dead accounted for above could not have been all that perished:
there is indeed direct evidence to the contrary. Many were buried in
the city, as Oudin Petit in his cellar, and there is a tradition that
475 were interred near the Church of St. Gervais, and that theirs were
the bones discovered in 1851.[713]
In Alva’s Bulletin we read that more than 3500 were dispatched “in
a short time,” and that the principal gentlemen were flung into the
Clerks’ Well (Puis aux Clercs), where “dead animals were thrown.”
When Gomicourt, Alva’s agent, had his farewell audience, he asked
the queen-mother for her answer to his commission. She replied that
she could give him no other answer than what Christ said to John’s
disciples: _Ite et nunciate quæ vidistis et audivistis: cæci
vident, claudi ambulant, leprosi mundantur_; bidding him also not
forget to tell the duke in addition, _Beatus qui non fuerit in me
scandalizatus_. Such blasphemous application of Holy Writ is perhaps
unparalleled in history.
An equal uncertainty prevails as to the number murdered all over
France. The calculations or guesses range from 2000 to 100,000.
AUTHORITIES. NUMBERS.
Caveyrac 2000
Papyr Masson 10,000
Martyrologue 15,000
De Thou }
Montfauçon } 20,000
La Popelinière }
Bonanni 25,000
Mém État de France }
Félibien } 30,000
Pibrac }
Serranus }
Davila 40,000
Sully 70,000
De Furoribus } 100,000
Pèrefixe }
If it be necessary to choose from these hap-hazard estimates, that of
De Thou is preferable, from the calm, unexaggerating temper of the
man. But whatever be the number,[714] not all the waters of the ocean
can efface the stain upon the characters of those concerned in the
massacre. A few of the murderers--men of overheated fanaticism--may
have truly believed that they were doing God a service by putting
heretics to death; for these we may feel pity even while we condemn.
But the majority of the assassins were impelled by the lowest of all
possible motives. Jealousy and ambition filled the breast of Catherine
de Medicis; Anjou was envious of merit and virtues he could never hope
to imitate, and which were a standing reproach to his licentiousness;
Guise dreamed but of revenge; and sinking lower in the scale of
society, but not lower in motives, the people were eager for plunder,
jealous of the success of the industrious and thrifty Huguenots, and
ignorantly impelled to murder by a clergy scarcely less ignorant than
themselves. We have already seen one instance in which plunder was
manifestly the object principally aimed at, and other instances are not
wanting. In Paris alone, 600 houses were pillaged.[715] The Duke of
Anjou was accused of conniving at the robbery of the house of a wealthy
lapidary, by which he put 100,000 crowns into his purse. The Bastard of
Angoulême stripped the house of the Bishop of Chartres, in which Queen
Joan of Navarre had lodged; and Capilupi estimates that the king’s
share of the plunder amounted to three millions of gold.[716]
“The equity of history,” says the eloquent historian of the Tudor line,
“requires that men be tried by the standard of their times.”[717] But
low as that standard was in the court of Charles IX. and Catherine
de Medicis, there were men honest enough to condemn the crimes which
have made the Feast of St. Bartholomew memorable in all history.
Such a purely gratuitous massacre is unexampled in the annals of the
world. The Greeks of Lesser Asia rose and slew 80,000 Romans living
among them. In our own history we read that the Britons massacred
whole settlements of the invading Danes. In the Sicilian Vespers
20,000 French were put to death without distinction of age or sex. But
these massacres, however condemnable, were committed in the name of
freedom--to drive out a foreign conqueror, to throw off the yoke of the
invader; but the massacre of St. Bartholomew arose out of the paltriest
and most selfish motives. Envy, jealousy, greediness--such were the
motives of Catherine, of Anjou, and of their councilors. The plea of
religion was never put forward, though it is a plea too often employed
to extenuate what can not be justified.
But if the moral tone of the age had not been low, Catherine and
Charles would never have contemplated so foul a deed. Truth and honor,
either among men or women, were held in slight esteem at court; and the
modern respect for human life was a thing unknown. Might made right.
Private assassination was a venial crime, if it were not even a lawful
means of getting rid of an enemy. Even Coligny did not speak of the
murder of Guise before Orleans in very emphatic terms of condemnation.
Many Catholics looked upon the massacre as merely a sort of reprisals
for the blood shed by the Huguenots during the wars, or as a clever
mode of disabling them forever. This is the tone of Pibrac’s defense
and of Dorat’s song. The poet congratulates Charles and his brother as
“crowning the work of ten years’ war.” These wars shall supply a new
Homer with matter for a new Iliad. But after a struggle of ten years,
all was not over. Ulysses had not yet taken Troy, and above all had
not killed the suitors! “One night did this deed. By the counsel of
another Pallas (Catherine de Medicis) see Pergamus overthrown, Paris
dead with Gaspar, and lying in blood those who aspired not to the hand
of Penelope, but to thy crown, O king. Their detestable ambuscades were
detected, their treachery anticipated. The suitors were slain like
pigs.”[718]
We need make very little allowance for poetical exaggeration: Dorat
merely gave bolder expression to what was in many persons’ thoughts.
Jean le Masle published in 1573 a “Bref Discours sur les Troubles,” in
which he eulogizes the king and court for their share in the massacre,
and writes of Coligny:
Ce malheureux
(Qui mérite cent fois avoir la roue)
Fut mis à mort, et son corps par la boue
De mainte rue honteusement traîné.[719]
And as if to show to all the world that the massacre was not an
unpremeditated outbreak of fanaticism, the poet says in another place:
Il faut punir d’une mort très-cruelle
(Comme autrefois) le premier qui grommelle
Contre l’église, et nous pourrons encor
Voir luire ici le temps et le siècle d’or.
Pierre Charpentier, a renegade Protestant and the murderer of Ramus,
wrote an apologetic “Lettre à François Portès Candiois,” which has
been described as a “monster unique of its kind.”[720] The most
labored defense was that of Arnault Sorbin,[721] entitled “Le Vray
Resveille-matin des Calvinistes et Publicans François” (1576), and
dedicated “to the eternal memory and immortality of the soul of the
late Charles IX.” He says the universe will call the Feast of St.
Bartholomew “le jour de la grande justice,” adding that “on good days
good deeds are done.”
Charles IX. had two medals struck: one represents the king sitting on
the throne and trampling on corpses, with the motto, VIRTUS IN
REBELLES;[722] the other, Hercules destroying the hydra with fire,
NE FERRUM TEMNAT SIMUL IGNIB’ OBSTO. On the 27th of August
the metropolitan bishop ordered a solemn procession for the following
Sunday to thank God for this happy beginning (de felici incepta
extirpatione heresium). On the 25th of August, 1583, William Cecil
wrote to Lord Burghley: “Upon St. Bartholomew’s Day we had here [Paris]
solemn processions and other tokens of triumph and joy in remembrance
of the slaughter committed this time eleven years past.”[723] The
procession was continued for twenty years, until Henry IV. entered
Paris. In 1602, when the Landgrave of Hesse visited Henry IV. and
afterward traveled through France, he left Marseilles before the Feast
of St. Bartholomew to escape the invitation of the Duke of Guise, then
governor of Provence, who celebrated “that day of mournful memory by
running at the ring, by balls and banquets.”[724]
Some defended the massacre as a great act of state policy. Among them
was Gérard de Groesbeck, an enlightened tolerant prelate, who governed
the principality of Liége. Replying to Alva’s bulletin announcing
the slaughter, he calls it “a clear sign that our Lord God wishes to
arrange matters for the greater tranquillity of his service.”[725]
But Charles evidently felt less confident. Writing to De Cély, the
president of the Parliament of Paris, he ordered him to keep “_very
secret_” any papers he might have relative to the arrangements made
for the massacre, so that they might not get into print, adding that he
had done the same with the documents in his possession.[726] Does this
refer to some mystery that has escaped the eyes of the historians of
the massacre?
When the news of the massacre reached Rome, the exultation among the
clergy knew no bounds. The Cardinal of Lorraine rewarded the messenger
with a thousand crowns; the cannon of Saint Angelo thundered forth a
joyous salute; the bells rang out from every steeple; bonfires turned
night into day; and Gregory XIII.,[727] attended by the cardinals and
other ecclesiastical dignitaries, went in long procession to the Church
of St. Louis, where the Cardinal of Lorraine chanted a _Te Deum_.
A pompous Latin inscription in gilt letters over the entrance describes
Charles as an avenging angel sent from heaven (“angelo percussore
divinitus immisso”) to sweep his kingdom from heretics.[728] A medal
was struck to commemorate the massacre,[729] and in the Vatican may
still be seen three frescoes by Vasari[730] describing the attack
upon the admiral, the king in council plotting the massacre, and the
massacre itself. Gregory sent Charles the golden rose; and four months
after the massacre, when humaner feelings might have been supposed to
have resumed their sway, he listened complacently to the sermon of a
French priest, the learned but cankered Muretus, who spoke of “that day
so full of happiness and joy when the most holy father received the
news and went in solemn state to render thanks to God and St. Louis....
That night the stars shone with greater lustre, the Seine rolled her
waters more proudly to cast into the sea the corpses of those unholy
men;” and so on in a strain of rhapsody unendurable by modern ears.
With such damning evidence as this against the Church of Rome, a
recent defender of that church vainly contends[731] that the clergy
had no part in the massacre, and that the rejoicings were over rebels
cut off in the midst of their rebellion, and not heretics murdered for
their religion.
Periere latebræ
Tot scelerum; populo venia est erepta nocenti,
Agnovere suos.[732]
There is no retreat for the Church which approved of and justified such
a crime, even if the victims were political rebels.[733]
Philip II. was, if possible, more delighted than the pope. When
he received the news, he laughed aloud--for the first time in his
life;[734] for Charles had not only destroyed heresy, but weakened
France by the murder of so many veteran soldiers. And Flanders, too,
was safe![735] He professed to be quite offended with St. Goar and all
who “tried to make him believe that it had taken place on a sudden
and without deliberation.”[736] The news reached him on the 12th
of September, and on the 18th he told the Marquis of Ayamonte, his
embassador at Paris, to congratulate the king “for a resolution so
honorable, Christian, and valiant;” and that the news was “one of the
greatest pleasures he had ever known.”[737] To Catherine, who had
spoken of “God’s favor in giving her son the means of getting rid of
his subjects, rebels against Heaven and their king, and of preserving
himself from their hands,”[738] he replied: “The just punishment
inflicted on the admiral and his followers was an act of such courage
and prudence, and of so great service to God’s glory and honor, and
such universal benefit to Christendom ... that it was the best and most
delightful news I could receive.”[739] Philip went even farther than
this, urging the king to exterminate all the heretics in his dominions,
and offering his services toward so desirable an end. There is a story
in Brantome that Philip sent the letter containing the first account
of the massacre to the Admiral of Castile, who received it while at
supper, and thinking to promote the cheerfulness of his guests, read it
aloud. The Duke of Infantado, one of the party, asked if Coligny and
his friends were Christians. He was answered in the affirmative. “How
is it, then, that being Frenchmen and Christians, they have been killed
like brutes?” “Gently, duke,” said the admiral, “do you not know that
war in France means peace for Spain?”
Alva, who was more clear-sighted, condemned the massacre; and Micheli,
the Venetian embassador, affirms that all thinking men, without
distinction of creed, protested against the crime, denouncing it as
an act of unbridled tyranny, which none but an “Italiana Fiorentina e
di casa dei Medici” could contrive, and none but Italians carry into
execution.
In England a thrill of horror ran through the nation on receiving
intelligence of the slaughter. A treaty had just been concluded with
France, and negotiations were actively proceeding for the marriage of
Alençon with Elizabeth. On a sudden it was perceived that the nation
had been duped, and that popery was as dangerous as ever. For some days
the queen refused to receive the French embassador: at length he was
summoned to Richmond, where the court was staying. Hume thus describes
the scene: “A melancholy sorrow sat on every face: silence as the dead
of night reigned through all the chambers of the royal apartment;
the courtiers and ladies, clad in deep mourning, were ranged on each
side, and allowed the embassador to pass without offering him a salute
or a favorable look, until he was admitted to the queen herself.” La
Mothe-Fénelon candidly expressed his disapprobation of the murder,
and declared that he was ashamed to be counted a Frenchman.[740] Lord
Burghley told him in most undiplomatic language, that “the Paris
massacre was the most horrible crime which had been committed since
the crucifixion of Christ.... It was a deed of unexampled infamy.”
Sir Thomas Smith wrote to Walsingham: “Grant that the admiral and his
friends were guilty, what did the innocent men, women, and children at
Lyons? What did the sucking children and their mothers at Rouen, and
Caen, and elsewhere? _Will God sleep?_” But more plainly still
spoke Knox to Du Croc, the French embassador: “Go, tell your king,”
said the bold apostle of Scotland, “go tell your master, that God’s
vengeance shall never depart from him nor from his house; that his name
shall remain an execration to posterity; and that none proceeding from
his loins shall enjoy the kingdom in peace unless he repent.”[741]
In Germany the sense of horror was hardly less than in England. The
Emperor Maximilian II. thus expressed his feelings on the matter: “As
for that strange action so tyrannically committed upon the admiral and
his confederates, I can by no means approve it, and it is with great
sorrow of heart I am informed that my son-in-law suffered himself
to consent to so foul a massacre. Now, though I know that others
govern more than he, yet that will not excuse the fact or palliate
the villainy.... He has so stained his honor with this piece of work,
that he will not easily wash out the spot. May God forgive those who
have had a hand in it; for I very much apprehend that in course of
time the same treatment will be returned for them. Matters of religion
are not to be ordered or decided by the sword.”[742] When Henry of
Anjou was on the way to Poland, he stopped at Heidelberg, where the
elector-palatine, when showing him over the castle, drew his attention
to two pictures: one a portrait of Coligny, another a representation
of his death. “Of all the French nobles it has been my good fortune to
know,” said he, “I esteem the original of this portrait to have been
the most zealous for the glory and welfare of his country, and his loss
is a public calamity which his most Christian majesty will never be
able to repair.”