“The wicked walk on every side, when the vilest men are
exalted.”—PSALM xii. 8.
THUS happily occupied with the pursuits he loved, but taking no share in
the turmoils of the time, Palissy prospered and cheerfully pursued his
way. He could not, indeed, be an unconcerned observer of the events that
were transpiring around. Having eyes, he doubtless saw the clouds that
were gathering over his country, and from time to time, heard the
thunders that threatened before long to burst in a terrific storm. For a
season, however, the evil day was deferred, and the hymns of the
rejoicing Huguenots continued to gladden his heart. We have already had
sufficient evidence that he did not spare his remonstrances against those
who, while they enjoyed the revenues of the church, neglected the
performance of its duties. Nor did he stop there, and as his censures
extended from the highest to the lowest matters, his shafts were often
pointed against those who could ill endure the test of common sense,
which he unceremoniously applied to them. His criticisms on the follies
and vices of his neighbours had too much the character of home-thrusts
not to be felt. In his lively way he relates that, on one occasion, he
remonstrated with a certain high dame upon the absurdities and
improprieties of feminine attire; but “after I had made her this
remonstrance,” he quietly adds, “the silly woman, instead of thanking me,
called me Huguenot, seeing which—I left her.” At another time, he
relates that, being on a visit to the neighbouring town of Rochelle, he
earnestly remonstrated with a tradesman, of whom he inquired what he had
put into his pepper which enabled him, though buying it in that place at
thirty-five sols the pound, to make a great profit by selling it again,
at the fair of Niord, at seventeen sols, in consequence of the
adulteration of the article. In reply to the man’s excuse of poverty,
Bernard replied, that, by such criminal acts he was heaping up to himself
fearful punishments, “and surely,” said he, “you can better afford to be
poor than be damned.” Strong, though faithful language, which was wholly
ineffectual upon this “poor insensate, who declared he would not be poor,
follow what might.” Plain speaking of this sort was evidently very
characteristic of Palissy, who uttered his remonstrances without
reckoning on the consequences. The same originality and force of
intellect which procured him patrons in his art, undoubtedly, when
applied in a different direction, served to multiply enemies around him,
and their time was not long in coming.
Happily and swiftly flew the years of prosperity, but (as we have already
seen) the clouds were gathering in the horizon, and soon the cruel hounds
of war were let slip, and most frightful were the results. Two great
parties had involved in their disputes the passions of the whole French
nation. One, which included all the Huguenots, was headed by the high
old French nobility; while the leaders of the others, embracing all the
Roman Catholics, were the Guises. These opposing factions, with their
strong deep passions, rapidly precipitated themselves into a fierce and
bloody contest. One of the young sons of Catherine de Medici had died,
after a few months of nominal rule, and a child no more than ten years
old, called Charles IX. had succeeded to the throne. The queen mother,
who, as regent for her son, assumed the government of affairs, was
anxious, as far as possible, to offend neither of the contending parties,
but to hold them so well balanced, as to preserve the power in her own
hands. For a short time, there was a cessation of disputes, and efforts
at conciliation. The policy of Catherine was the maintenance of peace,
and she spoke fair to the Huguenots, feigning so well and so successfully
that she was even accused by those of the Roman Catholic party, of being
in heart one with the new sect. The Reformers took courage, and were
full of fervour and hope; the enthusiasm spreading throughout the
provinces and awakening everywhere the hope that the triumph of the
Reformed faith was at hand. It was but a passing gleam, presently
followed by a darker gloom, which finally deepened into the thick night
of the Black Bartholomew. In vain did the queen and the chancellor, De
l’Hôpital, labour to secure peace by colloquies and edicts of toleration.
The Guises fiercely stirred the fires of contention, and employed
themselves in active preparations for a struggle. At length, the first
signal for the outbreak of the civil war was given.
There was in Champagne, a small fortified town, called Vassy, containing
about three thousand inhabitants, a third of whom, not reckoning the
surrounding villages, professed the Reformed religion. It happened, on
the 28th of February, 1562, that the Duke of Guise, journeying on his way
to Paris, accompanied by his cousin, the cardinal of Lorraine, with an
escort of gentlemen, followed by some two hundred horsemen, visited the
château de Joinville, which was situated in the neighbourhood, on an
estate belonging to the Lorraines.
The mistress of the castle was a very old lady, the dowager Duchess of
Guise, whose bigoted attachment to the faith of her ancestors made the
very name of Huguenot an offence to her. Sorely indignant was she at the
audacity of the inhabitants of Vassy, who had no right, she declared, as
vassals of her granddaughter, Mary Stuart, to adopt a new religion
without her permission. Often had she threatened vengeance upon them,
and the time was now come to inflict it. And the aged woman urged her
son, the fierce Duke Francis, to make a striking example of these
insolent peasants. As he listened to her angry words, he swore a deep
oath, and bit his beard, which was his custom, when his wrath waxed
strong.
[Picture: “Heretic dogs! Huguenot rebels! Kill, kill!”]
The next morning, resuming his march, he arrived at a village not far
from the obnoxious town; and the morning breeze, as it came sweeping up
the hills, brought to his ears the sound of church bells. “What means
that noise?” he asked of one of his attendants. “It is the morning
service of the Huguenots,” was the reply. It was, in fact, the sabbath
day, and the Reformers, assembled to the number of some hundreds, were
performing their worship in a barn, under the protection of a recent
edict of toleration. Unsuspicious of danger, there was not a man among
them armed, with the exception of some ten strangers, probably gentlemen,
who wore swords.
Suddenly, a band of the duke’s soldiers approached the place, and began
shouting—“Heretic dogs! Huguenot rebels! Kill, kill!” The first person
whom they laid hands on was a poor hawker of wine. “In whom do you
believe?” they cried. “I believe in Jesus Christ,” was the answer; and
with one thrust of the pike he was laid low. Two more were killed at the
door, and instantly the tumult raged. The duke, hastening up at the
sound of arms, was struck by a stone, which drew blood from his cheek.
Instantly the rage of his followers redoubled, and his own fury knew no
bounds. A horrible butchery followed; men, women, and children were
attacked indiscriminately, and sixty were slain in the barn or in the
street, while more than two hundred were grievously wounded.
The pastor, Leonard Morel, at the first sound of alarm, kneeled down in
the pulpit and implored the divine aid. He was fired at; and then
endeavoured to escape, but, as he approached the door, he stumbled over a
dead body, and received two sabre cuts on the right shoulder and on his
head. Believing himself to be mortally wounded, he exclaimed, “Into thy
hands I commend my spirit, O Lord; for thou hast redeemed me.” He was
captured, and carried, being unable to walk, into the presence of the
duke. “Minister, come this way,” he said, “what emboldens thee to seduce
this people?” “I am no seducer,” said Morel, “but I have faithfully
preached the gospel of Jesus Christ.” “Does the gospel teach sedition,
sirrah?” said M. de Guise, with his usual blasphemous oath; “thou hast
caused the death of all these people; and thou shalt thyself be hanged
immediately. Here, Provôt, make ready a gallows for him on the spot!”
But even among that fierce crew none seemed willing to obey the savage
mandate, and no one came forward to enact the part of hangman. This
delay saved the life of the captive, who was removed under good guard,
but eventually escaped.
The following year, as the blood-thirsty duke lay on his death-bed,
mortally wounded by the hand of an assassin, he protested that he had
neither premeditated nor commanded the massacre of Vassy. This may be
true; but his consent at the moment of its perpetration is beyond
question.
An extraordinary effect was produced throughout the whole kingdom, by the
tidings of this cruel slaughter. Among the Reformed party it created a
universal feeling of indignant horror and alarm. It was like the
war-whoop of the Indians, which precedes the rush to battle. Each party
flew to arms, after putting forth manifestoes, asserting the merits of
their respective causes. The Prince of Condé hastened to Orleans, which
he succeeded in occupying, and there the army of the Huguenots
established their headquarters. In that town the Calvinist lords
assembled, on the 11th of April, 1562, and after partaking the Lord’s
supper together, bound themselves in an alliance, to maintain the Edicts,
and to punish those who had broken them. They took a solemn oath to
repress blasphemy, violence, and whatever was forbidden by the law of
God, and to set up good and faithful ministers to instruct the people;
and lastly, they promised, by their hope of heaven, to fulfil their duty
in this cause.
And thus the fearful work began, and tumult, massacre, battle, and siege
prevailed. Every town in France was filled with the riot of contending
factions. “It was a grand and frightful struggle of province against
province, city with city, quarter with quarter, house with house, man
with man,” says a recent historian. “Fanaticism had reduced France to a
land of cannibals; and the gloomiest imagination would fail to conceive
of all the varieties of horrors which were then practised.”
We have to do with the town of Saintes. There were few places in which
the Huguenots were so numerous, and had multiplied so rapidly, as in
Saintonge. Passions were nowhere stronger; no place was more trampled by
combatants; it was the scene of many of the maddest contests during the
days of the religious warfare. At the invitation of the Duke de La
Rochefoucault, all the Protestant leaders of the district gathered
themselves together at Angoulême, and betook themselves, under his
guidance, to Orleans, in order to join the Prince of Condé, who was his
brother-in-law. After the departure of these forces, the various towns
in that neighbourhood, Angoulême, Saintes, Pons, and others, remained
indeed in the possession of the Huguenots, but without defence, nearly
all the Reformers of the district, capable of bearing arms, having
followed the march of De La Rochefoucault, “especially” we are told,
“those of Saintes.” Consequently, the town, deprived of its soldiers,
presented an easy prey to the enemy, and in a short time, fell into the
hands of a hostile leader, named Nogeret, who treated with harsh severity
all that remained in the place, in execution of a decree from Bordeaux,
by which the Reformers were abandoned, without appeal, to the mercy of
any royal judge.
Among those thus given over to the power of these miscreants, was
Palissy. In few but emphatic words he has recorded the terrors of that
fearful time. “Deeds so wretched were then done,” he said afterward,
“that I have horror in the mere remembrance. To avoid those dreadful and
execrable sights, I withdrew into the secret recesses of my house, and
there, by the space of two months, I had warning that hell was broke
loose, and that all the spirits of the devils had come into this town of
Saintes. For where, a short time before, I had heard psalms, and holy
songs, and all good words of edification, now mine ears were assailed
only with blasphemies, blows, menaces, and tumults, all miserable words,
and lewd and detestable songs. Those of the Reformed religion had all
disappeared, and our enemies went from house to house, to siege, sack,
gluttonize, and laugh; jesting and making merry with all dissolute deeds
and blasphemous words against God and man.”
Very terrible is this truth-breathing description of the miseries of a
city given over to the license of an unbridled soldiery; but the most
affecting picture is that which he draws when closing his short narrative
of those “evil days.” “I had nothing at that time but reports of those
frightful crimes that, from day to day, were committed; and of all those
things, that which grieved me most within myself was, that certain little
children of the town, who came daily to assemble in an open space near
the spot where I was hidden (always exerting myself to produce some work
of my art), dividing themselves into two parties, fought and cast stones
one side against another, while they swore and blasphemed in the most
execrable language that ever man could utter, so that I have, as it were,
horror in recalling it. Now, that lasted a long time, while neither
fathers nor mothers exercised any rule over them. Often I was seized
with a desire to risk my life by going out to punish them; but I said in
my heart the 79th Psalm, which begins, ‘O God, the heathen are come into
thine inheritance.’”