War in Brittany and Normandy--Death of La Noue--Religious and
political persecution in Paris--Murder of President Brisson,
Larcher, and Tardif--The sceptre of France offered to Philip--The
Duke of Mayenne punishes the murderers of the magistrates--Speech of
Henry's envoy to the States-General--Letter of Queen Elizabeth to
Henry--Siege of Rouen--Farnese leads an army to its relief--The king
is wounded in a skirmish--Siege of Rue by Farnese--Henry raises the
siege of Rouen--Siege of Caudebec--Critical position of Farnese and
his army--Victory of the Duke of Mercoeur in Brittany.
Again the central point towards which the complicated events to be
described in this history gravitate is found on the soil of France.
Movements apparently desultory and disconnected--as they may have seemed
to the contemporaneous observer, necessarily occupied with the local and
daily details which make up individual human life--are found to be
necessary parts of a whole, when regarded with that breadth and clearness
of vision which is permitted to human beings only when they can look
backward upon that long sequence of events which make up the life of
nations and which we call the Past. It is only by the anatomical study
of what has ceased to exist that we can come thoroughly to comprehend the
framework and the vital conditions of that which lives. It is only by
patiently lifting the shroud from the Past that we can enable ourselves
to make even wide guesses at the meaning of the dim Present and the
veiled Future. It is only thus that the continuity of human history
reveals itself to us as the most important of scientific facts.
If ever commonwealth was apparently doomed to lose that national
existence which it had maintained for a brief period at the expense of
infinite sacrifice of blood and treasure, it was the republic of the
United Netherlands in the period immediately succeeding the death of
William the Silent. Domestic treason, secession of important provinces,
religious-hatred, foreign intrigue, and foreign invasion--in such a sea
of troubles was the republic destined generations long to struggle. Who
but the fanatical, the shallow-minded, or the corrupt could doubt the
inevitable issue of the conflict? Did not great sages and statesmen
whose teachings seemed so much wiser in their generation than the
untaught impulses of the great popular heart, condemn over and over again
the hopeless struggles and the atrocious bloodshed which were thought to
disgrace the age, and by which it was held impossible that the cause of
human liberty should ever be advanced?
To us who look back from the vantage summit which humanity has reached--
thanks to the toil and sacrifices of those who have preceded us--it may
seem doubtful whether premature peace in the Netherlands, France, and
England would have been an unmitigated blessing, however easily it might
have been purchased by the establishment all over Europe of that holy
institution called the Inquisition, and by the tranquil acceptance of the
foreign domination of Spain.
If, too; ever country seemed destined to the painful process of national
vivisection and final dismemberment, it was France: Its natural guardians
and masters, save one, were in secret negotiation with foreign powers to
obtain with their assistance a portion of the national territory under
acknowledgment of foreign supremacy. There was hardly an inch of French
soil that had not two possessors. In Burgundy Baron Biron was battling
against the Viscount Tavannes; in the Lyonese and Dauphiny Marshal des
Digiueres was fighting with the Dukes of Savoy and Nemours; in Provence,
Epernon was resisting Savoy; in Languedoc, Constable Montmorency
contended with the Duke of Joyeuse; in Brittany, the Prince of Dombes was
struggling with the Duke of Mercoeur.
But there was one adventurer who thought he could show a better legal
title to the throne of France than all the doctors of the Sorbonne could
furnish to Philip II. and his daughter, and who still trusted, through
all the disasters which pursued him, and despite the machinations of
venal warriors and mendicant princes, to his good right and his good
sword, and to something more potent than both, the cause of national
unity. His rebuke to the intriguing priests at the interview of St.
Denis, and his reference to the judgment of Solomon, formed the text to
his whole career.
The brunt of the war now fell upon Brittany and Normandy. Three thousand
Spaniards under Don John de Aquila had landed in the port of Blavet which
they had fortified, as a stronghold on the coast. And thither, to defend
the integrity of that portion of France, which, in Spanish hands, was a
perpetual menace to her realm, her crown, even to her life, Queen
Elizabeth had sent some three thousand Englishmen, under commanders well
known to France and the Netherlands. There was black Norris again
dealing death among the Spaniards and renewing his perpetual squabbles
with Sir Roger Williams. There was that doughty Welshman himself,
truculent and caustic as ever--and as ready with sword or pen, foremost
in every mad adventure or every forlorn hope, criticising with sharpest
tongue the blunders and shortcomings of friend and foe, and devoting the
last drop in his veins with chivalrous devotion to his Queen. "The world
cannot deny," said he, "that any carcase living ventured himself freer
and oftener for his prince, state, and friends than I did mine. There is
no more to be had of a poor beast than his skin, and for want of other
means I never respected mine in the least respect towards my sovereign's
service, or country." And so passing his life in the saddle and under
fire, yet finding leisure to collect the materials for, and to complete
the execution of, one of the most valuable and attractive histories of
the age, the bold Welshman again and again appears, wearing the same
humorous but truculent aspect that belonged to him when he was wont to
run up and down in a great morion and feathers on Flemish battlefields,
a mark for the Spanish sharpshooters.
There, too, under the banner of the Bearnese, that other historian of
those sanguinary times, who had fought on almost every battle-field where
tyranny and liberty had sought to smite each other dead, on French or
Flemish soil, and who had prepared his famous political and military
discourses in a foul dungeon swarming with toads and rats and other
villainous reptiles to which the worse than infernal tyranny of Philip
II. had consigned him for seven years long as a prisoner of war--the
brave and good La Noue, with the iron arm, hero of a hundred combats,
was fighting his last fight. At the siege of Lamballe in Brittany, he
had taken off his calque and climbed a ladder to examine the breach
effected by the batteries. An arquebus shot from the town grazed his
forehead, and, without inflicting a severe wound, stunned him so much
that he lost his balance and fell head foremost towards the ground; his
leg, which had been wounded at the midnight assault upon Paris, where he
stood at the side of King Henry, caught in the ladder and held him
suspended. His head was severely bruised, and the contusions and shock
to his war-worn frame were so great that he died after lingering eighteen
days.
His son de Teligny; who in his turn had just been exchanged and released
from the prison where he had lain since his capture before Antwerp, had
hastened with joy to join his father in the camp, but came to close his
eyes. The veteran caused the chapter in Job on the resurrection of the
body to be read to him on his death-bed, and died expressing his firm
faith in a hereafter. Thus passed away, at the age of sixty, on the 4th
August, 1591, one of the most heroic spirits of France. Prudence,
courage, experience, military knowledge both theoretic and practical,
made him one of the first captains of the age, and he was not more
distinguished for his valour than for the purity of his life, and the
moderation, temperance, and justice of his character. The Prince of
Dombes, in despair at his death, raised the siege of Lamballe.
There was yet another chronicler, fighting among the Spaniards, now in
Brittany, now in Normandy, and now in Flanders, and doing his work as
thoroughly with his sword as afterwards with his pen, Don Carlos Coloma,
captain of cavalry, afterwards financier, envoy, and historian. For it
was thus that those writers prepared themselves for their work. They
were all actors in the great epic, the episodes of which they have
preserved. They lived and fought, and wrought and suffered and wrote.
Rude in tongue; aflame with passion, twisted all awry by prejudice,
violent in love and hate, they have left us narratives which are at
least full of colour and thrilling with life.
Thus Netherlanders, Englishmen, and Frenchmen were again mingling their
blood and exhausting their energies on a hundred petty battle-fields of
Brittany and Normandy; but perhaps to few of those hard fighters was it
given to discern the great work which they were slowly and painfully
achieving.
In Paris the League still maintained its ascendancy. Henry, having again
withdrawn from his attempts to reduce the capital, had left the sixteen
tyrants who governed it more leisure to occupy themselves with internal
politics. A network of intrigue was spread through the whole atmosphere
of the place. The Sixteen, sustained by the power of Spain and Rome, and
fearing nothing so much as the return of peace, by which their system of
plunder would come to an end, proceeded with their persecution of all
heretics, real or supposed, who were rich enough to offer a reasonable
chance of spoil. The soul of all these intrigues was the new legate,
Sego, bishop of Piacenza. Letters from him to Alexander Farnese,
intercepted by Henry, showed a determination to ruin the Duke of Mayenne
and Count Belin governor of Paris, whom he designated as Colossus and
Renard, to extirpate the magistrates, and to put Spanish partizans in
their places, and in general to perfect the machinery by which the
authority of Philip was to be established in France. He was perpetually
urging upon that monarch the necessity of spending more money among his
creatures in order to carry out these projects.
Accordingly the attention of the Sixteen had been directed to President
Brisson, who had already made himself so dangerously conspicuous by his
resistance to the insolent assumption of the cardinal-legate. This
eminent juris-consult had succeeded Pomponne de Bellievre as first
president of the Parliament of Paris. He had been distinguished for
talent, learning, and eloquence as an advocate; and was the author of
several important legal works. His ambition to fill the place of first
president had caused him to remain in Paris after its revolt against
Henry III. He was no Leaguer; and, since his open defiance of the ultra-
Catholic party, he had been a marked man--doomed secretly by the
confederates who ruled the capital. He had fondly imagined that he could
govern the Parisian populace as easily as he had been in the habit of
influencing the Parliament or directing his clients. He expected to
restore the city to its obedience to the constituted authorities. He
hoped to be himself the means of bringing Henry IV. in triumph to the
throne of his ancestors. He found, however, that a revolution was more
difficult to manage than a law case; and that the confederates of the
Holy League were less tractable than his clients had usually been found.
On the night of the 14th November; 1591; he was seized on the bridge St.
Michel, while on his way to parliament, and was told that he was expected
at the Hotel de Ville. He was then brought to the prison of the little
Chatelet.
Hardly had he been made secure in the dimly-lighted dungeon, when Crome,
a leader among the Parisian populacey made his appearance, accompanied by
some of his confederates, and dressed in a complete suit of mail. He
ordered the magistrate to take off his hat and to kneel. He then read a
sentence condemning him to death. Profoundly astonished, Brisson
demanded to know of what crime he was accused; and under what authority.
The answer was a laugh; and an assurance that he had no time to lose.
He then begged that at least he might be imprisoned long enough to enable
him to complete a legal work on which he was engaged, and which, by his
premature death, would be lost to the commonwealth. This request
produced no doubt more merriment than his previous demands. His judges
were inflexible; and allowed him hardly time to confess himself. He was
then hanged in his dungeon.
Two other magistrates, Larcher and Tardif, were executed in the same
way, in the same place, and on the same night. The crime charged against
them was having spoken in a public assembly somewhat freely against the
Sixteen, and having aided in the circulation in Paris of a paper drawn
up by the Duke of Nevers, filled with bitterness against the Lorraine
princes and the League, and addressed to the late Pope Sixtus.
The three bodies were afterwards gibbeted on the Greve in front of the
Hotel de Ville, and exposed for two days to the insults and fury of the
populace.
This was the culminating point of the reign of terror in Paris. Never
had the sixteen tyrants; lords of the market halls, who governed the
capital by favour of and in the name of the populace, seemed more
omnipotent. As representatives or plenipotentiaries of Madam League they
had laid the crown. at the feet of the King of Spain, hoping by still
further drafts on his exchequer and his credulity to prolong indefinitely
their own ignoble reign. The extreme democratic party, which had
hitherto supported the House of Lorraine and had seemed to idolize that
family in the person of the great Balafre, now believed themselves
possessed of sufficient power to control the Duke of Mayenne and all his
adherents. They sent the Jesuit Claude Mathieu with a special memorial
to Philip II. That monarch was implored to take, the sceptre of France,
and to reign over them, inasmuch as they most willingly threw themselves
into his arms? They assured him that all reasonable people, and
especially the Holy League, wished him to take the reins of Government,
on condition of exterminating heresy throughout the kingdom by force of
arms, of publishing the Council of Trent, and of establishing everywhere
the Holy inquisition--an institution formidable only to the wicked and
desirable for the good. It was suggested that Philip should not call
himself any longer King of Spain nor adopt the title of King of France,
but that he should proclaim himself the Great King, or make use of some
similar designation, not indicating any specialty but importing universal
dominion.
Should Philip, however, be disinclined himself to accept the monarchy,
it was suggested that the young Duke of Guise, son of the first martyr
of France, would be the most appropriate personage to be honoured with
the hand of the legitimate Queen of France, the Infanta Clara Isabella.
But the Sixteen were reckoning without the Duke of Mayenne. That great
personage, although an indifferent warrior and an utterly unprincipled
and venal statesman, was by no means despicable as a fisherman in the
troubled waters of revolution. He knew how to manage intrigues with both
sides for his own benefit. Had he been a bachelor he might have obtained
the Infanta and shared her prospective throne. Being encumbered with a
wife he had no hope of becoming the son-in-law of Philip, and was
determined that his nephew Guise should not enjoy a piece of good fortune
denied to himself. The escape of the young duke from prison had been the
signal for the outbreak of jealousies between uncle and nephew, which
Parma and other agents had been instructed by their master to foster to
the utmost. "They must be maintained in such disposition in regard to
me," he said, "that the one being ignorant of my relations to the other,
both may without knowing it do my will."
But Mayenne, in this grovelling career of self-seeking, in this perpetual
loading of dice and marking of cards, which formed the main occupation of
so many kings and princes of the period, and which passed for
Machiavellian politics, was a fair match for the Spanish king and his
Italian viceroy. He sent President Jeannin on special mission to Philip,
asking for two armies, one to be under his command, the other under that
of Farnese, and assured him that he should be king himself, or appoint
any man he liked to the vacant throne. Thus he had secured one hundred
thousand crowns a month to carry on his own game withal. "The
maintenance of these two armies costs me 261,000 crowns a month," said
Philip to his envoy Ybarra.
And what was the result of all this expenditure of money, of all this
lying and counter-lying, of all this frantic effort on the part of the
most powerful monarch of the age to obtain property which did not belong
to him--the sovereignty of a great kingdom, stocked with a dozen millions
of human beings--of all this endless bloodshed of the people in the
interests of a high-born family or two, of all this infamous brokerage
charged by great nobles for their attempts to transfer kingdoms like
private farms from one owner to another? Time was to show. Meanwhile
men trembled at the name of Philip II., and grovelled before him as the
incarnation of sagacity, high policy, and king-craft.
But Mayenne, while taking the brokerage, was less anxious about the
transfer. He had fine instinct enough to suspect that the Bearnese,
outcast though he seemed, might after all not be playing so desperate a
game against the League as it was the fashion to suppose. He knew
whether or not Henry was likely to prove a more fanatical Huguenot in
1592 than he bad shown himself twenty years before at the Bartholomew
festival. And he had wit enough to foresee that the "instruction" which
the gay free-thinker held so cautiously in his fingers might perhaps turn
out the trump card. A bold, valorous Frenchman with a flawless title,
and washed whiter than snow by the freshet of holy water, might prove a
more formidable claimant to the allegiance of Frenchmen than a foreign
potentate, even though backed by all the doctors of the Sorbonne.
The murder of President Brisson and his colleagues by the confederates of
the sixteen quarters, was in truth the beginning of the end. What seemed
a proof of supreme power was the precursor of a counter-revolution,
destined ere long to lead farther than men dreamed. The Sixteen believed
themselves omnipotent. Mayenne being in their power, it was for them to
bestow the crown at their will, or to hold it suspended in air as long as
seemed best to them. They felt no doubt that all the other great cities
in the kingdom would follow the example of Paris.
But the lieutenant-general of the realm felt it time for him to show that
his authority was not a shadow--that he was not a pasteboard functionary
like the deceased cardinal-king, Charles X. The letters entrusted by the
Sixteen to Claude Mathieu were intercepted by Henry, and, very probably,
an intimation of their contents was furnished to Mayenne. At any rate,
the duke, who lacked not courage nor promptness when his own interests
were concerned, who felt his authority slipping away from him, now that
it seemed the object of the Spaniards to bind the democratic party to
themselves by a complicity in crime, hastened at once to Paris,
determined to crush these intrigues and to punish the murderers of the
judges. The Spanish envoy Ybarra, proud, excitable, violent, who had
been privy to the assassinations, and was astonished that the deeds had
excited indignation and fury instead of the terror counted upon,
remonstrated with Mayenne, intimating that in times of civil commotion it
was often necessary to be blind and deaf.
In vain. The duke carried it with a high and firm hand. He arrested the
ringleaders, and hanged four of them in the basement of the Louvre within
twenty days after the commission of their crime. The energy was well-
timed and perfectly successful. The power of the Sixteen was struck to
the earth at a blow. The ignoble tyrants became in a moment as
despicable as they had been formidable and insolent. Crome, more
fortunate than many of his fellows, contrived to make his escape
out of the kingdom.
Thus Mayenne had formally broken with the democratic party, so called-
with the market-halls oligarchy. In thus doing, his ultimate rupture
with the Spaniards was foreshadowed. The next combination for him to
strive for would be one to unite the moderate Catholics and the Bearnese.
Ah! if Henry would but "instruct" himself out of hand, what a game the
duke might play!
The burgess-party, the mild royalists, the disgusted portion of the
Leaguers, coalescing with those of the Huguenots whose fidelity might
prove stanch even against the religious apostasy contemplated by their
chief--this combination might prove an over-match for the ultra-leaguers,
the democrats, and the Spaniards. The king's name would be a tower of
strength for that "third party," which began to rear its head very boldly
and to call itself "Politica." Madam League might succumb to this new
rival in the fickle hearts of the French.
At the beginning of the year 1591; Buzanval had presented his credentials
to the States-General at the Hague as envoy of Henry IV. In the speech
which he made on this occasion he expressed the hope that the mission of
the Viscount Turenne, his Majesty's envoy to England and to the
Netherlands, had made known the royal sentiments towards the States and
the great satisfaction of the king with their energetic sympathy and
assistance. It was notorious, said Buzanval, that the King of Spain for
many years had been governed by no other motive than to bring all the
rest of Christendom under his dominion, while at the same time he forced
upon those already placed under his sceptre a violent tyranny, passing
beyond all the bounds that God, nature, and reason had set to lawful
forms of government. In regard to nations born under other laws than
his, he had used the pretext of religion for reducing them to servitude.
The wars stirred up by his family in Germany, and his recent invasion of
England, were proofs of this intention, still fresh in the memory of all
men. Still more flagrant were his machinations in the present troubles
of France. Of his dealings with his hereditary realms, the condition of
the noble provinces of the Netherlands, once so blooming under reasonable
laws, furnished, a sufficient illustration. You see, my masters,
continued the envoy, the subtle plans of the Spanish king and his
counsellors to reach with certainty the object of their ambition.
They have reflected that Spain, which is the outermost corner of Europe,
cannot conveniently make war upon other Christian realms. They have seen
that a central position is necessary to enable them to stretch their arms
to every side. They have remembered that princes who in earlier days
were able to spread their wings over all Christendom had their throne in
France, like Charles the Great and his descendants. Therefore the king
is now earnestly bent on seizing this occasion to make himself master of
France. The death of the late king (Henry III.) had no sooner occurred,
than--as the blood through great terror rushes from the extremities and
overflows the heart--they here also, fearing to lose their opportunity
and astonished at the valour of our present king, abandoned all their
other enterprises in order to pour themselves upon France.
Buzanval further reminded the States that Henry had received the most
encouraging promises from the protestant princes of Germany, and that so
great a personage as the Viscount Turenne, who had now gone thither to
reap the fruit of those promises, would not have been sent on such a
mission except that its result was certain. The Queen of England, too,
had promised his Majesty most liberal assistance.
It was not necessary to argue as to the close connection between the
cause of the Netherlands and that of France. The king had beaten down
the mutiny of his own subjects, and repulsed the invasion of the Dukes of
Savoy and of Lorraine. In consideration of the assistance promised by
Germany and England--for a powerful army would be at the command of Henry
in the spring--it might be said that the Netherlands might repose for a
time and recruit their exhausted energies, under the shadow of these
mighty preparations.
"I do not believe, however," said the minister, "that you will all answer
me thus. The faint-hearted and the inexperienced might flatter
themselves with such thoughts, and seek thus to cover their cowardice,
but the zealous and the courageous will see that it is time to set sail
on the ship, now that the wind is rising so freshly and favourably.
"For there are many occasions when an army might be ruined for want of
twenty thousand crowns. What a pity if a noble edifice, furnished to the
roof-tree, should fall to decay for want of a few tiles. No doubt your
own interests are deeply connected with our own. Men may say that our
proposals should be rejected on the principle that the shirt is nearer
to the skin than the coat, but it can be easily proved that our cause
is one. The mere rumour of this army will prevent the Duke of Parma from
attacking you. His forces will be drawn to France. He will be obliged
to intercept the crash of this thunderbolt. The assistance of this army
is worth millions to you, and has cost you nothing. To bring France into
hostility with Spain is the very policy that you have always pursued and
always should pursue in order to protect your freedom. You have always
desired a war between France and Spain, and here is a fierce and cruel
one in which you have hazarded nothing. It cannot come to an end without
bringing signal advantages to yourselves.
"You have always desired an alliance with a French sovereign, and here is
a firm friendship offered you by our king, a natural alliance.
"You know how unstable are most treaties that are founded on shifting
interests, and do not concern the freedom of bodies and souls. The first
are written with pen upon paper, and are generally as light as paper.
They have no roots in the heart. Those founded on mutual assistance on
trying occasions have the perpetual strength of nature. They bring
always good and enduring fruit in a rich soil like the heart of our king;
that heart which is as beautiful and as pure from all untruth as the lily
upon his shield.
"You will derive the first profits from the army thus raised. From the
moment of its mustering under a chief of such experience as Turenne, it
will absorb the whole attention of Spain, and will draw her thoughts from
the Netherlands to France."
All this and more in the same earnest manner did the envoy urge upon the
consideration of the States-General, concluding with a demand of 100,000
florins as their contribution towards the French campaign.
His eloquence did not fall upon unwilling ears; for the States-General,
after taking time to deliberate, replied to the propositions by an
expression of the strongest sympathy with, and admiration for, the heroic
efforts of the King of France. Accordingly, notwithstanding their own
enormous expenses, past and present, and their strenuous exertions at
that very moment to form an army of foot and horse for the campaign, the
brilliant results of which have already been narrated, they agreed to
furnish the required loan of 100,000 florins to be repaid in a year,
besides six or seven good ships of war to co-operate with the fleets of
England and France upon the coasts of Normandy. And the States were
even better than their word.
Before the end of autumn of the year 1591, Henry had laid siege to Rouen,
then the second city of the kingdom. To leave much longer so important a
place--dominating, as it did, not only Normandy but a principal portion
of the maritime borders of France--under the control of the League and of
Spain was likely to be fatal to Henry's success. It was perfectly sound
in Queen Elizabeth to insist as she did, with more than her usual
imperiousness towards her excellent brother, that he should lose no more
time before reducing that city. It was obvious that Rouen in the hands
of her arch-enemy was a perpetual menace to the safety of her own
kingdom. It was therefore with correct judgment, as well as with that
high-flown gallantry so dear to the heart of Elizabeth, that her royal
champion and devoted slave assured her of his determination no longer to
defer obeying her commands in this respect.
The queen had repeatedly warned him of the necessity of defending the
maritime frontier of his kingdom, and she was not sparing of her
reproaches that the large sums which she expended in his cause had been
often ill bestowed. Her criticisms on what she considered his military
mistakes were not few, her threats to withdraw her subsidies frequent.
"Owning neither the East nor the West Indies," she said, "we are unable
to supply the constant demands upon us; and although we have the
reputation of being a good housewife, it does not follow that we can be a
housewife for all the world." She was persistently warning the king of
an attack upon Dieppe, and rebuking him for occupying himself with petty
enterprises to the neglect of vital points. She expressed her surprise
that after the departure of Parma, he had not driven the Spaniards out of
Brittany, without allowing them to fortify themselves in that country.
"I am astonished," she said to him, "that your eyes are so blinded as not
to see this danger. Remember, my dear brother," she frankly added, "that
it is not only France that I am aiding, nor are my own natural realms of
little consequence to me. Believe me, if I see that you have no more
regard to the ports and maritime places nearest to us, it will be
necessary that my prayers should serve you in place of any other
assistance, because it does not please me to send my people to the
shambles where they may perish before having rendered you any assistance.
I am sure the Spaniards will soon besiege Dieppe. Beware of it, and
excuse my bluntness, for if in the beginning you had taken the maritime
forts, which are the very gates of your kingdom, Paris would not have
been so well furnished, and other places nearer the heart of the kingdom
would not have received so much foreign assistance, without which the
others would have soon been vanquished. Pardon my simplicity as
belonging to my own sex wishing to give a lesson to one who knows better,
but my experience in government makes me a little obstinate in believing
that I am not ignorant of that which belongs to a king, and I persuade
myself that in following my advice you will not fail to conquer your
assailants."
Before the end of the year Henry had obtained control of the, Seine, both
above and below the city, holding Pont de l'Arche on the north--where was
the last bridge across the river; that of Rouen, built by the English
when they governed Normandy, being now in ruins--and Caudebec on the
south in an iron grasp. Several war-vessels sent by the Hollanders,
according to the agreement with Buzanval, cruised in the north of the
river below Caudebec, and rendered much service to the king in cutting
off supplies from the beleaguered place, while the investing army of
Henry, numbering twenty-five thousand foot--inclusive of the English
contingent, and three thousand Netherlanders--and ten thousand cavalry,
nearly all French, was fast reducing the place to extremities.
Parma, as usual, in obedience to his master's orders, but entirely
against his own judgment, had again left the rising young general of the
Netherlands to proceed from one triumph to another, while he transferred
beyond the borders of that land which it was his first business to
protect, the whole weight of his military genius and the better portion
of his well disciplined forces.
Most bitterly and indignantly did he express himself, both at the outset
and during the whole progress of the expedition, concerning the utter
disproportions between the king's means and aims. The want of money was
the cause of wholesale disease, desertion, mutiny, and death in his
slender army.
Such great schemes as his master's required, as he perpetually urged,
liberality of expenditure and measures of breadth. He protested that he
was not to blame for the ruin likely to come upon the whole enterprise.
He had besought, remonstrated, reasoned with the king in vain. He had
seen his beard first grow, he said, in the king's service, and he had
grown gray in that service, but rather than be kept longer in such a
position, without money, men, or means to accomplish the great purposes
on which he was sent, he protested that he would "abandon his office and
retire into the woods to feed on roots." Repeatedly did he implore his
master for a large and powerful army; for money and again money. The
royal plans should be enforced adequately or abandoned entirely. To
spend money in small sums, as heretofore, was only throwing it into the
sea.
It was deep in the winter however before he could fairly come to the
rescue of the besieged city. Towards the end of January, 1592, he moved
out of Hainault, and once more made his junction at Guise with the Duke
of Mayenne. At a review of his forces on 16th January, 1592, Alexander
found himself at the head of thirteen thousand five hundred and sixteen
infantry and four thousand and sixty-one cavalry. The Duke of Mayenne's
army, for payment of which that personage received from Philip 100,000
dollars a month, besides 10,000 dollars a month for his own pocket, ought
to have numbered ten thousand foot and three thousand horse, according to
contract, but was in reality much less.
The Duke of Montemarciano, nephew of Gregory XIV., had brought two
thousand Swiss, furnished by the pontiff to the cause of the League,
and the Duke of Lorraine had sent his kinsmen, the Counts Chaligny and
Vaudemont, with a force of seven hundred lancers and cuirassiers.
The town of Fere was assigned in pledge to Farnese to hold as a
convenient: mustering-place and station in proximity to his own borders,
and, as usual, the chief command over the united armies was placed in his
hands. These arrangements concluded, the allies moved slowly forward
much in the same order as in the previous year. The young Duke of Guise,
who had just made his escape from the prison of Tours, where he had been
held in durance since the famous assassination of his father and uncle,
and had now come to join his uncle Mayenne, led the vanguard. Ranuccio,
son of the duke, rode also in the advance, while two experienced
commanders, Vitry and De la Chatre, as well as the famous Marquis del
Vasto, formerly general of cavalry in the Netherlands, who had been
transferred to Italy but was now serving in the League's army as a
volunteer, were associated with the young princes. Parma, Mayenne, and
Montemarciano rode in the battalia, the rear being under command of the
Duke of Aumale and the Count Chaligny. Wings of cavalry protected the
long trains of wagons which were arranged on each flank of the invading
army. The march was very slow, a Farnese's uniform practice to guard
himself scrupulously against any possibility of surprise and to entrench
himself thoroughly at nightfall.
By the middle of February they reached the vicinity of Aumale in Picardy.
Meantime Henry, on the news of the advance of the relieving army, had
again the same problem to solve that had been presented to him before
Paris in the summer of 1590. Should he continue in the trenches,
pressing more and more closely the city already reduced to great straits?
Should he take the open field against the invaders and once more attempt
to crush the League and its most redoubtable commander in a general
engagement? Biron strenuously advised the continuance of the siege.
Turenne, now, through his recent marriage with the heiress, called Duc
de Bouillon, great head of the Huguenot party in France, counselled as
warmly the open attack. Henry, hesitating more than was customary with
him, at last decided on a middle course. The resolution did not seem a
very wise one, but the king, who had been so signally out-generalled in
the preceding campaign by the great Italian, was anxious to avoid his
former errors, and might perhaps fall into as great ones by attempting
two inconsistent lines of action. Leaving Biron in command of the
infantry and a portion of the horse to continue the siege, he took the
field himself with the greater part of the cavalry, intending to
intercept and harass the enemy and to prevent his manifest purpose of
throwing reinforcements and supplies into the invested city.
Proceeding to Neufchatel and Aumale, he soon found himself in the
neighbourhood of the Leaguers, and it was not long before skirmishing
began. At this time, on a memorable occasion, Henry, forgetting as
usual, in his eagerness for the joys of the combat that he was not a
young captain of cavalry with his spurs to win by dashing into every mad
adventure that might present itself, but a king fighting for his crown,
with the welfare of a whole people depending on his fortunes, thought
proper to place himself at the head of a handful of troopers to
reconnoitre in person the camp of the Leaguers. Starting with five
hundred horse, and ordering Lavardin and Givry to follow with a larger
body, while the Dukes of Nevers and Longueville were to move out, should
it prove necessary, in force, the king rode forth as merrily as to a
hunting party, drove in the scouts and pickets of the confederated
armies, and, advancing still farther in his investigations, soon found
himself attacked by a cavalry force of the enemy much superior to his
own. A skirmish began, and it was necessary for the little troop to beat
a hasty retreat, fighting as it ran. It was not long before Henry was
recognised by the enemy, and the chase became all the more lively; George
Basti, the famous Albanian trooper, commanding the force which pressed
most closely upon the king. The news spread to the camp of the League
that the Bearnese was the leader of the skirmishers. Mayenne believed
it, and urged the instant advance of the flying squadron and of the whole
vanguard. Farnese refused. It was impossible that the king should be
there, he said, doing picket duty at the head of a company. It was a
clumsy ambush to bring on a general engagement in the open field, and he
was not to be drawn out of his trenches into a trap by such a shallow
device. A French captain, who by command of Henry had purposely allowed
himself to be taken, informed his captors that the skirmishers were in
reality supported by a heavy force of infantry. This suggestion of the
ready Bearnese confirmed the doubts of Alexander. Meantime the
skirmishing steeplechase went on before his eyes. The king dashing down
a hill received an arquebus shot in his side, but still rode for his
life. Lavardin and Givry came to the rescue, but a panic seized their
followers as the rumour flew that the king was mortally wounded--was
already dead--so that they hardly brought a sufficient force to beat back
the Leaguers. Givry's horse was soon killed under him, and his own thigh
crushed; Lavardin was himself dangerously wounded. The king was more
hard pressed than ever, men were falling on every side of him, when four
hundred French dragoons--as a kind of musketeers who rode on hacks to the
scene of action but did their work on foot, were called at that day--now
dismounted and threw themselves between Henry and his pursuers. Nearly
every man of them laid down his life, but they saved the king's. Their
vigorous hand to hand fighting kept off the assailants until Nevers and
Longueville received the king at the gates of Aumale with a force before
which the Leaguers were fain to retreat as rapidly as they had come.
In this remarkable skirmish of Aumale the opposite qualities of Alexander
and of Henry were signally illustrated. The king, by his constitutional
temerity, by his almost puerile love of confronting danger for the
danger's sake, was on the verge of sacrificing himself with all the hopes
of his house and of the nobler portion of his people for an absolute
nothing; while the duke, out of his superabundant caution, peremptorily
refused to stretch out his hand and seize the person of his great enemy
when directly within his, grasp. Dead or alive, the Bearnese was
unquestionably on that day in the power of Farnese, and with him the
whole issue of the campaign and of the war. Never were the narrow limits
that separate valour on the one side and discretion on the other from
unpardonable lunacy more nearly effaced than on that occasion.'
When would such an opportunity occur again?
The king's wound proved not very dangerous, although for many days
troublesome, and it required, on account of his general state of health,
a thorough cure. Meantime the royalists fell back from Aumale and
Neufchatel, both of which places were at once occupied by the Leaguers:
In pursuance of his original plan, the Duke of Parma advanced with his
customary steadiness and deliberation towards Rouen. It was his
intention to assault the king's army in its entrenchments in combination
with a determined sortie to be made by the besieged garrison. His
preparations for the attack were ready on the 26th February, when he
suddenly received a communication from De Villars, who had thus far most
ably and gallantly conducted the defence of the place, informing him that
it was no longer necessary to make a general attack. On the day before
he had made a sally from the four gates of the city, had fallen upon the
besiegers in great force, had wounded Biron and killed six hundred of his
soldiers, had spiked several pieces of artillery and captured others
which he had successfully brought into the town, and had in short so
damaged the enemy's works and disconcerted him in all his plans, that he
was confident of holding the place longer than the king could afford to
stay in front of him. All he wished was a moderate reinforcement of men
and munitions. Farnese by no means sympathized with the confident tone
of Villars nor approved of his proposition. He had come to relieve Rouen
and to raise the siege, and he preferred to do his work thoroughly.
Mayenne was however most heartily in favour of taking the advice of
Villars. He urged that it was difficult for the Bearnese to keep an army
long in the field, still more so in the trenches. Let them provide for
the immediate wants of the city; then the usual process of decomposition
would soon be witnessed in the ill-paid, ill-fed, desultory forces of the
heretic pretender.
Alexander deferred to the wishes of Mayenne, although against his better
judgment. Eight hundred infantry, were successfully sent into Rouen.
The army of the League then countermarched into Picardy near the confines
of Artois.
They were closely followed by Henry at the head of his cavalry, and
lively skirmishes were of frequent occurrence. In a military point of
view none of these affairs were of consequence, but there was one which
partook at once of the comic and the pathetic. For it chanced that in a
cavalry action of more than common vivacity the Count Chaligny found
himself engaged in a hand to hand conflict with a very dashing swordsman,
who, after dealing and receiving many severe blows, at last succeeded in
disarming the count and taking him prisoner. It was the fortune of war,
and, but a few days before, might have been the fate of the great Henry
himself. But Chaligny's mortification at his captivity became intense
when he discovered that the knight to whom he had surrendered was no
other than the king's jester. That he, a chieftain of the Holy League,
the long-descended scion of the illustrious house of Lorraine, brother of
the great Duke of Mercoeur, should become the captive of a Huguenot
buffoon seemed the most stinging jest yet perpetrated since fools had
come in fashion. The famous Chicot--who was as fond of a battle as of a
gibe, and who was almost as reckless a rider as his master--proved on
this occasion that the cap and bells could cover as much magnanimity as
did the most chivalrous crest. Although desperately wounded in the
struggle which had resulted in his triumph, he generously granted to the
Count his freedom without ransom. The proud Lorrainer returned to his
Leaguers and the poor fool died afterwards of his wounds.
The army of the allies moved through Picardy towards the confines of
Artois, and sat down leisurely to beleaguer Rue, a low-lying place on the
banks and near the mouth of the Somme, the only town in the province
which still held for the king. It was sufficiently fortified to
withstand a good deal of battering, and it certainly seemed mere trifling
for the great Duke of Parma to leave the Netherlands in such confusion,
with young Maurice of Nassau carrying everything before him, and to come
all the way into Normandy in order, with the united armies of Spain and
the League, to besiege the insignificant town of Rue.
And this was the opinion of Farnese, but he had chosen throughout the
campaign to show great deference to the judgment of Mayenne. Meantime
the month of March wore away, and what had been predicted came to pass.
Henry's forces dwindled away as usual. His cavaliers rode off to forage
for themselves, when their battles were denied them, and the king was now
at the head of not more than sixteen thousand foot and five thousand
horse. On the other hand the Leaguers' army had been melting quite as
rapidly. With the death of Pope Sfondrato, his nephew Montemarciano had
disappeared with his two thousand Swiss; while the French cavalry and
infantry, ill-fed and uncomfortable, were diminishing daily. Especially
the Walloons, Flemings, and other Netherlanders of Parma's army, took
advantage of their proximity to the borders and escaped in large numbers
to their own homes. It was but meagre and profitless campaigning on both
sides during those wretched months of winter and early spring, although
there was again an opportunity for Sir Roger Williams, at the head of two
hundred musketeers and one hundred and fifty pikemen, to make one of his
brilliant skirmishes under the eye of the Bearnese. Surprised and
without armour, he jumped, in doublet and hose, on horseback, and led his
men merrily against five squadrons of Spanish and Italian horse, and six
companies of Spanish infantry; singled out and unhorsed the leader of the
Spanish troopers, and nearly cut off the head, of the famous Albanian
chief George Basti with one swinging blow of his sword. Then, being
reinforced by some other English companies, he succeeded in driving the
whole body of Italians and Spaniards, with great loss, quite into their
entrenchments. "The king doth commend him very highly," said Umton,
"and doth more than wonder at the valour of our nation. I never heard
him give more honour to any service nor to any man than he doth to Sir
Roger Williams and the rest, whom he held as lost men, and for which he
has caused public thanks to be given to God."
At last Villars, who had so peremptorily rejected assistance at the end
of February, sent to say that if he were not relieved by the middle of
April he should be obliged to surrender the city. If the siege were not
raised by the twentieth of the month he informed Parma, to his profound
astonishment, that Rouen would be in Henry's hands.
In effecting this result the strict blockade maintained by the Dutch
squadron at the mouth of the river, and the resolute manner in which
those cruisers dashed at every vessel attempting to bring relief to
Rouen, were mainly instrumental. As usual with the stern Hollanders and
Zeelanders when engaged at sea with the Spaniards, it was war to the
knife. Early in April twelve large vessels, well armed and manned,
attempted to break the blockade. A combat ensued, at the end of which
eight of the Spanish ships were captured, two were sunk, and two were set
on fire in token of victory, every man on board of all being killed and
thrown into the sea. Queen Elizabeth herself gave the first news of this
achievement to the Dutch envoy in London. "And in truth," said he, "her
Majesty expressed herself, in communicating these tidings, with such
affection and extravagant joy to the glory and honour of our nation and
men-of-war's-men, that it wonderfully delighted me, and did me good into
my very heart to hear it from her."
Instantly Farnese set himself to the work which, had he followed his own
judgment, would already have been accomplished. Henry with his cavalry
had established himself at Dieppe and Arques, within a distance of five
or six leagues from the infantry engaged in the siege of Rouen.
Alexander saw the profit to be derived from the separation between the
different portions of the enemy's forces, and marched straight upon the
enemy's entrenchments. He knew the disadvantage of assailing a strongly
fortified camp, but believed that by a well-concerted, simultaneous
assault by Villars from within and the Leaguers from without, the king's
forces would be compelled to raise the siege or be cut up in their
trenches.
But Henry did not wait for the attack. He had changed his plan, and,
for once in his life, substituted extreme caution for his constitutional
temerity. Neither awaiting the assault upon his entrenchments nor
seeking his enemy in the open field, he ordered the whole camp to be
broken up, and on the 20th of April raised the siege.
Farnese marched into Rouen, where the Leaguers were received with
tumultuous joy, and this city, most important for the purposes of the
League and for Philip's ulterior designs, was thus wrested from the grasp
just closing upon it. Henry's main army now concentrated itself in the
neighbourhood of Dieppe, but the cavalry under his immediate
superintendence continued to harass the Leaguers. It was now determined
to lay siege to Caudebec, on the right bank of the Seine, three leagues
below Rouen; the possession of this place by the enemy being a constant.
danger and difficulty to Rouen, whose supplies by the Seine were thus cut
off.
Alexander, as usual, superintended the planting of the batteries against
the place. He had been suffering during the whole campaign with those
dropsical ailments which were making life a torture to him; yet his
indomitable spirit rose superior to his physical disorders, and he
wrought all day long on foot or on horseback, when he seemed only fit to
be placed on his bed as a rapid passage to his grave. On this occasion,
in company with the Italian engineer Properzio, he had been for some time
examining with critical nicety the preliminaries, for the siege, when it
was suddenly observed by those around him that he was growing pale. It
then appeared that he had received a musket-ball between the wrist and
the elbow, and had been bleeding profusely; but had not indicated by a
word or the movement of a muscle that he had been wounded, so intent was
he upon carrying out the immediate task to which he had set himself. It
was indispensable, however, that he should now take to his couch. The
wound was not trifling, and to one in his damaged and dropsical condition
it was dangerous. Fever set in, with symptoms of gangrene, and it became
necessary to entrust the command of the League to Mayenne. But it was
hardly concealed from Parma that the duke was playing a double game.
Prince Ranuccio, according to his father's express wish, was placed
provisionally at the head of the Flemish forces. This was conceded;
however, with much heart-burning, and with consequences easily to be
imagined.
Meantime Caudebec fell at once. Henry did nothing to relieve it, and the
place could offer but slight resistance to the force arrayed against it.
The bulk of the king's army was in the neighbourhood of Dieppe, where
they had been recently strengthened by twenty companies of Netherlanders
and Scotchmen brought by Count Philip Nassau. The League's headquarters
were in the village of Yvetot, capital of the realm of the whimsical
little potentate so long renowned under that name.
The king, in pursuance of the plan he had marked out for himself,
restrained his skirmishing more than was his wont. Nevertheless he lay
close to Yvetot. His cavalry, swelling and falling as usual like an
Alpine torrent, had now filled up its old channels again, for once more
the mountain chivalry had poured themselves around their king. With ten
thousand horsemen he was now pressing the Leaguers, from time to time,
very hard, and on one occasion the skirmishing became so close and so
lively that a general engagement seemed imminent. Young Ranuccio had a
horse shot under him, and his father--suffering as he was--had himself
dragged out of bed and brought on a litter into the field, where he was
set on horseback, trampling on wounds and disease, and, as it were, on
death itself, that he might by his own unsurpassed keenness of eye and
quickness of resource protect the army which had been entrusted to his
care. The action continued all day; young Bentivoglio, nephew of the
famous cardinal, historian and diplomatist, receiving a bad wound in the
leg, as he fought gallantly at the side of Ranuccio. Carlo Coloma also
distinguished himself in the engagement. Night separated the combatants
before either side had gained a manifest advantage, and on the morrow it
seemed for the interest of neither to resume the struggle.
The field where this campaign was to be fought was a narrow peninsula
enclosed between the sea and the rivers Seine and Dieppe. In this
peninsula, called the Land of Caux, it was Henry's intention to shut up
his enemy. Farnese had finished the work that he had been sent to do,
and was anxious, as Henry was aware, to return to the Netherlands. Rouen
was relieved, Caudebec had fallen. There was not food or forage enough
in the little peninsula to feed both the city and the whole army of the
League. Shut up in this narrow area, Alexander must starve or surrender.
His only egress was into Picardy and so home to Artois, through the base
of the isosceles triangle between the two rivers and on the borders of
Picardy. On this base Henry had posted his whole army. Should Farnese
assail him, thus provided with a strong position and superiority of
force, defeat was certain. Should he remain where he was, he must
inevitably starve. He had no communications with the outside. The
Hollanders lay with their ships below Caudebec, blockading the river's
mouth and the coast. His only chance of extrication lay across the
Seine. But Alexander was neither a bird nor a fish, and it was
necessary, so Henry thought, to be either the one or the other to cross
that broad, deep, and rapid river, where there were no bridges, and where
the constant ebb and flow of the tide made transportation almost
impossible in face of a powerful army in rear and flank. Farnese's
situation seemed, desperate; while the shrewd Bearnese sat smiling
serenely, carefully watching at the mouth of the trap into which he had
at last inveigled his mighty adversary. Secure of his triumph, he seemed
to have changed his nature, and to have become as sedate and wary as, by
habit, he was impetuous and hot.
And in truth Farnese found himself in very narrow quarters. There was no
hay for his horses, no bread for his men. A penny loaf was sold for two
shillings. A jug of water was worth a crown. As for meat or wine, they
were hardly to be dreamed of. His men were becoming furious at their
position. They had enlisted to fight, not to starve, and they murmured
that it was better for an army to fall with weapons in its hands than to
drop to pieces hourly with the enemy looking on and enjoying their agony.
It was obvious to Farnese that there were but two ways out of his
dilemma. He might throw himself upon Henry--strongly entrenched as he
was, and with much superior forces to his own, upon ground deliberately
chosen for himself--defeat him utterly, and march over him back to the
Netherlands. This would be an agreeable result; but the undertaking
seemed difficult, to say the least. Or he might throw his army across
the Seine and make his escape through the isle of France and Southern
Picardy back to the so-called obedient provinces. But it seemed,
hopeless without bridges or pontoons to attempt the passage of the Seine.
There was; however, no time left, for hesitation. Secretly he took his
resolution and communicated it in strict confidence to Mayenne, to
Ranuccio, and to one or two other chiefs. He came to Caudebec, and
there, close to the margin of the river, he threw up a redoubt. On the
opposite bank, he constructed another. On both he planted artillery,
placing a force of eight hundred Netherlanders under Count Bossu in the
one, and an equal number of the same nation, Walloons chiefly, under
Barlotte in the other. He collected all the vessels, flatboats,--
wherries,--and rafts that could be found or put together at Rouen, and
then under cover of his forts he transported all the Flemish infantry,
and the Spanish, French, and Italian cavalry, during the night of 22nd
May to the 22 May, opposite bank of the Seine. Next morning he sent up
all the artillery together with the Flemish cavalry to Rouen, where,
making what use he could by temporary contrivances of the broken arches
of the broken bridge, in order to shorten the distance from shore to
shore, he managed to convey his whole army with all its trains across the
river.
A force was left behind, up to the last moment, to engage in the
customary skirmishes, and to display themselves as largely as possible
for the purpose of imposing upon the enemy. The young Prince of Parma
had command of this rearguard. The device was perfectly successful. The
news of the movement was not brought to the ears of Henry until after it
had been accomplished. When the king reached the shore of the Seine, he
saw to his infinite chagrin and indignation that the last stragglers of
the army, including the garrison of the fort on the right bank, were just
ferrying themselves across under command of Ranuccio.
Furious with disappointment, he brought some pieces of artillery to bear
upon the triumphant fugitives. Not a shot told, and the Leaguers had the
satisfaction of making a bonfire in the king's face of the boats which
had brought them over. Then, taking up their line of march rapidly
inland, they placed themselves completely out of the reach of the
Huguenot guns.
Henry had a bridge at Pont de l'Arche, and his first impulse was to
pursue with his cavalry, but it was obvious that his infantry could never
march by so circuitous a route fast enough to come up with the enemy, who
had already so prodigious a stride in advance.
There was no need to disguise it to himself. Henry saw himself for the
second time out-generalled by the consummate Farnese. The trap was
broken, the game had given him the slip. The manner in which the duke
had thus extricated himself from a profound dilemma; in which his
fortunes seemed hopelessly sunk, has usually been considered one of the
most extraordinary exploits of his life.
Precisely at this time, too, ill news reached Henry from Brittany and the
neighbouring country. The Princes Conti and Dombes had been obliged, on
the 13th May, 1592, to raise the siege of Craon, in consequence of the
advance of the Duke of Mercoeur, with a force of seven thousand men.
They numbered, including lanzknechts and the English contingent, about
half as many, and before they could effect their retreat, were attacked
by Mercoeur, and utterly routed. The English, who alone stood to their
colours, were nearly all cut to pieces. The rest made a disorderly
retreat, but were ultimately, with few exceptions, captured or slain.
The duke, following up his victory, seized Chateau Gontier and La Val,
important crossing places on the river Mayenne, and laid siege to
Mayenne, capital city of that region. The panic, spreading through
Brittany and Maine, threatened the king's cause there with complete
overthrow, hampered his operations in Normandy, and vastly encouraged the
Leaguers. It became necessary for Henry to renounce his designs upon
Rouen, and the pursuit of Parma, and to retire to Vernon, there to occupy
himself with plans for the relief of Brittany. In vain had the Earl of
Essex, whose brother had already been killed in the campaign, manifested
such headlong gallantry in that country as to call forth the sharpest
rebukes from the admiring but anxious Elizabeth. The handful of brave
Englishmen who had been withdrawn from the Netherlands, much to the
dissatisfaction of the States-General, in order to defend the coasts of
Brittany, would have been better employed under Maurice of Nassau. So
soon as the heavy news reached the king, the faithful Umton was sent for.
"He imparted the same unto me," said the envoy, "with extraordinary
passion and discontent. He discoursed at large of his miserable estate,
of the factions of his servants, and of their ill-dispositions, and then
required my opinion touching his course for Brittan, as also what further
aid he might expect from her Majesty; alleging that unless he were
presently strengthened by England it was impossible for him, longer to
resist the greatness of the King of Spain, who assailed his country by
Brittany, Languedoc, the Low Countries by the Duke of Saxony and the Duke
of Lorraine, and so ended his speech passionately." Thus adjured, Sir
Henry spoke to the king firmly but courteously, reminding him how,
contrary to English advice, he had followed other counsellors to the
neglect of Brittany, and had broken his promises to the queen. He
concluded by urging him to advance into that country in person, but did
not pledge himself on behalf of her Majesty to any further assistance.
"To this," said Umton, "the king gave a willing ear, and replied, with
many thanks, and without disallowing of anything that I alleged, yielding
many excuses of his want of means, not of disposition, to provide a
remedy, not forgetting to acknowledge her Majesty's care of him and his
country, and especially of Brittany, excusing much the bad disposition of
his counsellors, and inclining much to my motion to go in person thither,
especially because he might thereby give her Majesty better satisfaction;
. . . . and protesting that he would either immediately himself make
war there in those parts or send an army thither. I do not doubt," added
the ambassador, "but with good handling her Majesty may now obtain any
reasonable matter for the conservation of Brittany, as also for a place
of retreat for the English, and I urge continually the yielding of Brest
into her Majesty's hands, whereunto I find the king well inclined, if he
might bring it to pass."
Alexander passed a few days in Paris, where he was welcomed with much
cordiality, recruiting his army for a brief period in the land of Brie,
and then--broken in health but entirely successful--he dragged himself
once more to Spa to drink the waters. He left an auxiliary force with
Mayenne, and promised--infinitely against his own wishes--to obey his
master's commands and return again before the winter to do the League's
work.
And thus Alexander had again solved a difficult problem. He had saved
for his master and for the League the second city of France and the whole
coast of Normandy. Rouen had been relieved in masterly manner even as
Paris had been succoured the year before. He had done this, although
opposed by the sleepless energy and the exuberant valour of the quick-
witted Navarre, and although encumbered by the assistance of the
ponderous Duke of Mayenne. His military reputation, through these
two famous reliefs and retreats, grew greater than ever.
No commander of the age was thought capable of doing what he had thus
done. Yet, after all, what had he accomplished? Did he not feel in his
heart of hearts that he was but a strong and most skilful swimmer
struggling for a little while against an ocean-tide which was steadily
sweeping him and his master and all their fortunes far out into the
infinite depths?
Something of this breathed ever in his most secret utterances. But, so
long as life was in him, his sword and his genius were at the disposal of
his sovereign, to carry out a series of schemes as futile as they were
nefarious.
For us, looking back upon the Past, which was then the Future, it is
easy to see how remorselessly the great current of events was washing
away the system and the personages seeking to resist its power and to
oppose the great moral principles by which human affairs in the long run
are invariably governed. Spain and Rome were endeavouring to obliterate
the landmarks of race, nationality, historical institutions, and the
tendencies of awakened popular conscience, throughout Christendom,
and to substitute for them a dead level of conformity to one regal
and sacerdotal despotism.
England, Holland, the Navarre party in France, and a considerable part of
Germany were contending for national unity and independence, for vested
and recorded rights. Much farther than they themselves or their
chieftains dreamed those millions of men were fighting for a system
of temperate human freedom; for that emancipation under just laws from
arbitrary human control, which is the right--however frequently trampled
upon--of all classes, conditions, and races of men; and for which it is
the instinct of the human race to continue to struggle under every
disadvantage, and often against all hope, throughout the ages, so long
as the very principle of humanity shall not be extinguished in those
who have been created after their Maker's image.
It may safely be doubted whether the great Queen, the Bearnese, Alexander
Farnese, or his master, with many of their respective adherents, differed
very essentially from each other in their notions of the right divine and
the right of the people. But history has shown us which of them best
understood the spirit of the age, and had the keenest instinct to keep
themselves in the advance by moving fastest in the direction whither it
was marshalling all men. There were many, earnest, hard-toiling men in
those days, men who believed in the work to which they devoted their
lives. Perhaps, too, the devil-worshippers did their master's work as
strenuously and heartily as any, and got fame and pelf for their pains.
Fortunately, a good portion of what they so laboriously wrought for has
vanished into air; while humanity has at least gained something from
those who deliberately or instinctively conformed themselves to her
eternal laws.