(1517-1572)
[Illustration: Burning of a house. [TN]]
There was a time, when the doctrines of the Reformation seemed
destined to achieve far ampler conquests over the dominion of Papal
Rome than they have ultimately realized. France, in particular, at the
commencement of the second half of the sixteenth century, appeared to
be almost won over to Protestantism. The Huguenots (as the followers
of the Reformed Faith in that country were termed) formed the most
influential, if not the largest part of the population of many of the
principal provinces, and of nearly all the provincial capitals; they
were numerous in Paris; nor was there a single district or town in
France in which they had not obtained converts and power, before the
war of 1562.
The history of the Reformation in France is a mournful one; but it
presents names to our notice which every good heart must delight to
honor; and foremost of these is the name of Gaspard de Coligni, the
statesman, the soldier, and the saint; who long was the stoutest
champion of the Protestant cause, and finally became the most glorious
of its many martyrs. Unlike his comrade Conde, he was proof against
the vicious blandishments of the enemy's court, as well as against the
terrors of their camps. Familiar with defeat, he never learned
despair. Hallam has well compared his indomitable energy to the
"Atrocem animam Catonis;"
but the Huguenot chief, while fully equal to the ancient Roman in
probity, in self-reliance, and in unflinching fortitude, was far
superior to him in comprehensiveness of judgment and in fertility of
resources; and moreover, the affectionate gentleness which marked the
private life of Coligni, contrasts favorably with the stoic coarseness
by which the character of Cato was deformed.
The father of Coligni was head of an ancient and noble house, and was
the seigneur of Chatillon-sur-Lion. At his death, in 1522, he left
three sons, then of tender years, all of whom became eminent in French
history, and all of whom embraced the Protestant doctrines, though
trained up in the Romish Church. The elder brother, who is known as
the Cardinal de Chatillon, was raised to that high ecclesiastical
dignity by Clement VII., in 1533. Chiefly through the influence which
his younger brother exerted over him, he became a convert to the
tenets of the Reformers in his middle age, and took part in the early
scenes of the civil wars. After the reverse which his party sustained
at the battle of St. Denys, he fled to England, where he died in 1571.
The younger brother, Dandelot, was the first of the three who became a
Protestant. He was a skilful and gallant soldier, and signalized
himself repeatedly by his enterprise, his inexhaustible resources, and
undaunted spirit, as a commander of the Huguenot forces from the first
outbreak of the religious wars until his death soon after the battle
of Jarnac, in 1569. Gaspard, the great Coligni, or the Admiral (as he
is often termed, from having held the titular office of Admiral of
France), was the middle one of the three brothers, and was born at
Chatillon-sur-Lion, February 16, 1517. He served with distinction in
the later wars of Francis I. against Spain; and with his brother
Dandelot received knighthood on the field of battle at Cerisoles. He
was afterward raised to the important post of colonel-general of the
French infantry, and in 1552 was nominated by Henry II. Admiral of
France. He was taken prisoner at St. Quentin by the Spaniards, and
underwent a long captivity in Spain before he regained his liberty by
payment of a heavy ransom.
During the long hours of solitude and compulsory inaction which he
passed in his Spanish prison, he meditated deeply and earnestly on
religious subjects; and after his return to France, the conversation
of his brother Dandelot, who had already joined the Huguenots,
confirmed the bias to the Protestant doctrines, which his own studies
and deliberations had created. Coligni now resigned all his
appointments and preferments, except the nominal rank of admiral, and
retired to his estates, where he passed his time in fervent devotion,
and in the enjoyment of the calm happiness of domestic life. But the
cry of suffering which rose from his fellow-Protestants, against whom
the pernicious influence of the Princes of Lorraine in the French
court kindled the fires of persecution throughout France, soon drew
him from his blameless and cherished repose. He at first sought to
provide for them a refuge from oppression, by founding colonies of
French Protestants in America; but his projects proved unsuccessful;
and as the tyranny of the violent party among the French Catholics
grew more and more alarming, Coligni deemed that both honor and
conscience required him to stand openly forward in behalf of his
co-religionists.
No class of men ever were more long-suffering, or showed more
unwillingness to rise in arms against their domestic tyrants, than the
much-calumniated Huguenots of France. When we read the hideous edicts
that were promulgated against them, and which were not mere empty
threats, but were carried into execution throughout the land with
unrelenting and strenuous ferocity, we feel that if ever the right of
self-defence can make an appeal to arms justifiable, it was so in
their instance. Extermination or apostasy formed the only choice that
their rulers offered them. Mackintosh, in his "History of the English
Revolution of 1688," has truly termed the question of when subjects
are justified in making war on their sovereign, "a tremendous
problem." But the same admirable writer has bequeathed to us a full
and luminous code of the rules and principles of immutable morality,
by which this awful issue must be tried, and no one who is familiar
with these principles can hesitate in pronouncing that the war on the
part of the French Huguenots was lawful and laudable before God and
man.
Coligni is peculiarly free from the heavy imputation, which
insurrectionary leaders incur, however great their provocation, who
introduce the appeal of battle in civil controversy, and, to use the
emphatic language of Milton, "let loose the sword of intestine war,
soaking the land in her own gore," before every other possible mode of
obtaining protection from further enormous wrong has been attempted,
and attempted in vain. He was wholly unconnected with the enterprise
(known in French history as the conspiracy of Amboise) by which some
of the Protestant chiefs designed to withdraw the young king, Francis
II., forcibly from the influence of the Guises, and which may be
considered the first overt act of insurrection. Not that Conde is to
be condemned for that effort, but the Admiral's exceeding loyalty is
proved by his having kept aloof from it. Coligni continued to seek
security for his co-religionists by peaceable means, for two years
after that unsuccessful enterprise, from the savage reprisals of the
Court upon its authors. He seemed at one time to be successful in his
blameless exertions; and in the Assembly of Notables, held in January,
1562, an edict was issued, called the "Edict of Pacification," giving
a partial toleration of the Protestant creed, and suspending all penal
proceedings on the ground of religion.
This was all that Coligni strove for. He said at the time to some of
his adherents: "If we have our religion, what do we want more?" But
those who had made this concession were treacherous as they were
cruel, and the fair promise which France seemed to have acquired of
tranquillity was destined to be soon destroyed.
Two powerful parties were arrayed against the Huguenots, one of which
consisted of their avowed and implacable enemies. This was headed by
the Guises, with whom the Constable Montmorenci, and the Marechal St.
Andre had been induced to enter into league. Less fanatically violent,
but far more formidable, through its false show of moderation and
favor, was the party of the Queen-mother, Catherine de Medici.
Catherine dreaded the power of the house of Guise; and was often glad
to avail herself of the Protestant interest as a counterpoise against
them. But though the jealousy which animated herself and her sons
against the Princes of Lorraine was great, their hatred of the
Huguenots was greater; and their occasional simulation of friendship
enabled them to wreak it more malignantly and more completely.
They had sided with Coligni and Conde and the other Protestant chiefs
in enacting the Edict of Pacification, and had thereby given a check
to the power of the Duke of Guise and his confederates. But when their
temporary purpose was served, the wise provisions of that edict were
set at naught; the Protestants were again exposed to outrage and
slaughter at the hands of their foes, nor could any redress be
obtained from the royal tribunals. At length occurred the massacre of
Vassi, where the armed followers of the Duke of Guise attacked a
defenceless body of Protestants, while engaged in the services of
their church, and slaughtered several hundreds of them under the eye
of Guise, if not by his orders. Reeking from this carnage, the bands
of the Lorraines entered Paris, where they were enthusiastically
received by the fanatic populace, which was devoted to the Catholic
cause.
Conde now left the capital, and summoned the Protestant nobility and
gentry to rally round him in defence of their lives and their creed.
Coligni long delayed joining him, and evinced a hesitation and a
reluctance to embark in civil war, which emphatically attest the
goodness while they in no degree detract from the greatness of his
character. His wife, who naturally thought that anxiety on her account
aided in restraining him, exhorted him in words of more than Roman
magnanimity to arm in defence of the thousand destined victims, who
looked up to him for guidance and protection. Coligni urged on her and
on the friends who thronged round him, the fearful risks of the
enterprise, and his earnest desire to wait in patience for better
times, and rest upon the public faith rather than justify persecution
by having recourse to violence. Unconvinced and undaunted, the heroine
renewed her entreaties to the lingering hero. She told him that such
prudence was not wisdom toward God. D'Aubigne professes to report this
remarkable conversation from the lips of those who were present; and
he states that she proceeded to urge on him these words:--
"God has bestowed on you the genius of a great captain--will you
refuse the use of it to his children? You have confessed to the
justice of their cause--is not the knightly sword you bear pledged to
the defence of the oppressed? Sir, my heart bleeds for our slaughtered
brethren--and their blood cries out to God and Heaven against you as
the murderer of those whom you might have saved."
"Since," replied the Admiral, "the reasons which I have this evening
alleged against an ineffectual resistance have made so little
impression upon your mind, lay your hand upon your heart and answer me
this question, Could you, without murmuring against Providence and the
husband to whom Heaven has united you, receive the news of a general
defeat? Are you prepared to endure the opprobrium of your enemies--the
reproaches of your friends--the treachery of partisans--the curses of
the people--confiscation, flight, exile--the insolence of the English,
the quarrels of the Germans--shame, nakedness, hunger--and, what is
worse, to suffer all this in your children? Are you prepared to see
your husband branded as a rebel and dragged to a scaffold; while your
children, disgraced and ruined, are begging their bread at the hands
of their enemies? I give you eight days to reflect upon it, and when
you shall be well prepared for such reverses, I will be ready to set
forward, and perish with you and our mutual friends."
"The eight days are already expired!" she cried. "Go, sir, where your
duty calls you. Heaven will not give the victory to our enemies. In
the name of God, I call upon you to resist no longer, but to save our
brethren, or die in the attempt."
On the next morning Coligni was on horseback, with all his retainers
round him; and with a heavy heart but a clear conscience, he rode on
his way to join Conde at Meaux, which was now, in the early spring of
1562, the head-quarters of the insurgent Huguenots.
The high rank of the Prince of Conde, as well as his brilliant
abilities and chivalrous courage, caused him to be acknowledged as
chief of the Protestant party; but Coligni was looked on by friends
and foes as the main pillar of their cause; and it was he that gave
organization to the volunteers who flocked around himself and the
prince, first at Meaux, and afterward in greater numbers at Orleans,
when toward the end of March they succeeded in occupying that
important city, and making it a centre of operations for the Huguenot
confederacy. Like Cromwell in after times, Coligni relied on the
religious enthusiasm as well as the natural bravery of his troops. He
exercised them by preaching and prayer as well as by drilling and
manoeuvring. He inspired them with his own spirit of austere devotion
to their cause; and the Huguenot army was in its first campaigns as
conspicuous for good order and morality as for valor; though by
degrees it became tainted with a tendency to marauding and to brutal
violence.
The Roman Catholic party now sought support from Philip II. of Spain,
from the Duke of Savoy, the emperor and other foreign princes of their
creed, and the Huguenots, to the deep regret of Coligni, were
compelled to strengthen themselves by similar negotiations. The
English queen, Elizabeth, promised succors in men and money, on
condition of Havre (which city, like most of the other strong places
in Normandy, was devoted to the Protestant cause) being placed in her
power as a security for repayment. The German Lutheran princes
permitted a large auxiliary force of lansquenets and heavy-armed
cavalry to be raised among their subjects in behalf of the French
Protestants; and Dandelot was despatched into Germany to place himself
at their head, and lead them across the Rhine; a difficult operation,
which he accomplished with great skill, and joined his brothers and
Conde at Pluviers, near Orleans, late in the year, and at a crisis
when the fortunes of the Protestant party appeared reduced to a very
low ebb, as in the interval which had elapsed since the commencement
of the war, though there had been no engagement between the main
armies, the Royalists had gained numerous advantages, and had captured
many towns, both in the South and in Normandy, which had originally
declared for the insurgents.
Coligni and Conde with their own troops and their German allies now
(December, 1562) marched upon Paris; but finding it hopeless to
attempt the storm or siege of the capital, they led their army toward
Normandy, desiring to form a junction with the English troops at
Havre. The Royal forces, commanded nominally by the Constable
Montmorenci and the Marechal de St. Andre, but in which the Duke of
Guise was also present, marched for some days on their flank, till the
two armies came into collision on December 19th at Dreux, where the
first battle of the civil wars was fought. In this action, after many
vicissitudes of fortune, the Duke of Guise secured the victory for the
Roman Catholics, and Conde was taken prisoner. Coligni led the remains
of the Protestant army back to Orleans; whither the Duke of Guise, at
the head of a largely recruited army, flushed by their recent victory,
soon advanced, with the intention of crushing insurrection and
Protestantism, by the capture of their stronghold.
Coligni's situation now seemed desperate. His German mercenaries in
arrear of pay, threatened to desert him; the funds which he had been
able to collect for the conduct of the war were exhausted; and he was
utterly unable to encounter the numerous and well-appointed forces of
Guise. In this emergency he formed the bold plan of leaving his
brother, Dandelot, with the bulk of the infantry to defend Orleans,
while he himself led the cavalry and a few companies of foot again to
Normandy, and again attempted to avail himself of the English supplies
of money and troops. In spite of the mutinous murmurings of the German
reisters, in spite of the attempts which the Roman Catholic commanders
made to intercept him, Coligni executed his daring scheme. Havre was
reached. The English subsidies were secured, and the rich and powerful
city of Caen voluntarily placed itself in Coligni's power. Meanwhile
Orleans had been well defended by Dandelot; and the great chief of the
Roman Catholics, the Duke of Guise, had died by the hand of an
assassin. Some attempts were made to implicate Coligni in the guilt of
this murder, but the Admiral indignantly denied the charge; nor is
there any ground for believing him to have had the least cognizance of
Poltrot's crime.
The death of Guise made a temporary pacification easy; and the edict
of Amboise, on March 19, 1563, by which a narrow and restricted
permission for the exercise of the Protestant religion was allowed,
closed the first war.
This peace on the part of the Royalists was only a hollow and a
treacherous truce. Fresh communications with Philip II. were opened;
and an interview took place in 1564 at Bayonne, between Catherine, her
son Charles IX., and the Duke of Alva. There is every reason to
believe that at that meeting the destruction of the Protestants by
craft or by force was concerted. The treaty of Amboise was now openly
and repeatedly violated by the fanatic party of the French Roman
Catholics; and the Huguenots were again driven to take up arms in
self-defence. Conde and Coligni advanced upon Paris, and fought on
November 10, 1567, the sanguinary battle of St. Denys against the
Royalist forces. The Huguenots were beaten, but Coligni rallied them,
and marching toward the Meuse, effected a junction with fresh bands of
German auxiliaries. The war now raged with redoubled horror in every
district of France. Alarmed at the strength of the Huguenot army,
Catherine tried and successfully exerted her powers of persuasion and
deceit over Conde, and a second faithless peace, called the treaty of
Longjumeau, was concluded; but when the Huguenot forces were
disbanded, and their German auxiliaries dismissed, the Royalists
renewed the war.
In 1569, the indiscreet spirit of Conde brought the Protestants into
action at Jarnac, under heavy disadvantages, against the flower of the
Catholic army. Conde was killed in the battle, and a large part of his
forces routed with heavy slaughter; but Coligni was again the Ajax of
the cause, covered the retreat, and reorganized the fugitives for
fresh exertions. But the waves of calamity were not yet spent. The
hostile armies met again at Moncontour, and the Protestants sustained
the most complete and murderous overthrow that had been dealt to them
throughout the war. Coligni's brother, the gallant Dandelot, was
mortally wounded in this disastrous field; many of his stanchest
friends had fallen; many abandoned him; and he found himself a
fugitive, with only a few bands of mutineers around him, the wreck of
the gallant army that he had lately led.
But it was in this depth of gloom that the true heroic lustre of his
soul was seen. Fearless himself of what man could do unto him, he
calmed the panic of his followers, and inspired them with his own
energy. He who has innate strength to stand amid the storm, will soon
find others flock around and fortify him while they seek support for
themselves. When it was known that Coligni's banner still was flying,
the Protestants of France and Eastern Germany, who at first had been
stunned by the report of Moncontour, thronged to him as to a strong
tower in the midst of trouble. While the Royalists were exulting at
the fancied annihilation of their foe, they suddenly learned that
Coligni was approaching the capital, at the head of the largest army
that the Huguenots had yet sent into the field. Again the device of a
treacherous pacification was attempted, and again it prevailed.
Coligni was warned of the personal danger that he incurred by trusting
the faith of a Medici and a Guise; but he replied that he would rather
lay down his life, than see France continue the victim of the woes of
civil war.
The treaty of St. Germains was signed on August 8, 1570, and on August
24, 1572, the Massacre of St. Bartholomew attested with what worse
than Punic faith the crowned conspirators of the French Court had
planned it. In the interval, the most detestable and elaborate
hypocrisy was employed to lull the suspicions of the Huguenot chiefs,
and to bring them defenceless into the power of their enemies. At
last, in the summer of 1572, they were collected in Paris, under the
pretence of being the honored guests of the French king, at the
nuptials of his sister with Henry of Navarre. An attempt was made on
the life of Coligni by an assassin, in which the Admiral was severely
wounded. The king and his courtiers affected the utmost indignation at
this crime, and the warmest sympathy with the suffering veteran. But
in the early dawn of the day appointed for the most unchristian
carnage that ever defiled the earth, a party of murderers, headed by
the young Duke of Guise himself, broke open the doors of the house
where Coligni lay, and Besme, one of the duke's domestics, entered
with a drawn sword, into the room where the Admiral was sitting in an
arm-chair.
"Young man," said he, undisturbed, "you ought to respect my gray
hairs; but do as you please, you can only shorten my life a few days."
Besme thrust him through in many places, and then threw his body,
still breathing, out of the window into the court, where it fell at
the feet of the Duke of Guise. The minions of the Louvre flocked
around in hideous glee, to insult the lifeless form of him, before
whom they had so long quailed and trembled. They gibbeted their own
infamy in vainly seeking to dishonor the illustrious dead. His memory
is at once the glory and the shame of France: and the very land of the
St. Bartholomew is, to some extent, hallowed by having been the
birthplace of Coligni, and the scene of his heroic career.
I do not pause to describe the tardy homage which his countrymen
afterward paid to the name and relics of the fallen great. These
obsequies and panegyrics may be looked on as some small expiation for
the national guilt of France, but Coligni needed them not.