The lance-thrust with which Montgomery struck down Henry II in
the tournament of June 29th, 1559, was to change the aspect
of France. The reign so rudely interrupted in the midst of
festivities had not always been happy or brilliant, but it had
maintained an appearance of grandeur. The reigns of which it
led the sorrowful series, could not bring it the same honour
or the same profit. It was no longer the question as to who
should have the first place in Europe, the house of France or
that of Austria; but who in France would gain by the unchained
religious passions--the Guises or the Bourbons. In future
it is no longer a question of fighting the Spanish or the
English; when they are mentioned, it will be to open the French
frontiers to them and have them take part in the country’s
struggles.--DE LACOMBE.[b]
[Sidenote: [1559-1589 A.D.]]
Voltaire--struck with the violent contrast between the misery and
brilliancy of this century, the sudden rise of the arts, the refinement
and chivalry of the court which glittered even in the midst of
crimes--cries out: “It is a robe of silk and gold stained with blood.”
The gold and silk have been shown; now appear the blood and ruin.
Henry II left to Catherine de’ Medici four young sons. Sickly from birth,
and already weakened by excess, three of them rapidly succeeded to the
throne, having themselves no heirs; and thus for a quarter of a century
the weight of absolute power, so difficult to carry, falls into the
hands of children or young men without experience. Grandchildren of one
of the most brilliant of monarchs, and with the blood of the Medici in
their veins, they were able to show happy qualities of spirit and great
defects. They were eloquent speakers, occasionally poets, and always
friends of literature and art, but with vices that endangered the state;
and the crimes which resulted from their characters, at once violent
and perfidious, overshadowed their gifts of mind. The oldest, Francis
II, was not able to show the sad effects of these contradictions in his
nature; he reigned less than a year and a half.[c] His successor, Charles
IX, a child of ten on his accession, reigned fourteen years, but never
ruled, being dominated by the baleful influence of his mother. To Charles
succeeded his weak and perfidious brother Henry III, with whose troubled
and ineffectual reign the house of Valois came to an end. Such are the
reigning monarchs of our present epoch. But the real ruler of France
during this dark period of thirty years is the mother of the kings, the
scheming, pitiless Catherine de’ Medici. It is her story that we tell as
we follow the fortunes of her weakly offspring, the first of whom now
claims attention.[a]
FRANCIS II (1559-1560 A.D.)
[Sidenote: [1559-1560 A.D.]]
The law declared the king a major at thirteen years of age; at sixteen
Francis II was still weak of will and under the tutelage of others. With
a prince feeble both in mind and body at the head of the state, it was
natural that the queen-mother should be called upon to take an active
part in public affairs. The widow of Henry II had not as yet made her
influence strongly felt; with all her superstition she was known to
possess intelligence and a refined taste in art and in matters pertaining
to her personal pleasures, but in moral sense she was notably deficient.
Always kept by her husband in ignorance of public affairs, she had
hitherto revealed no higher qualities than a rare constancy under affront
and a marvellous ability to carry on intrigues. Now passing as she did
without transition from court circles into state factions, and from
minor intrigues into war, she was taken at a disadvantage and did not
at once show herself equal to the requirements of her new rôle; without
convictions of any kind as without scruples, she was not led to adopt the
firm and open policy that would best have served the state, but carried
all the artifices of the boudoir into the conduct of public affairs.
Her method of government consisted in ruling men by their passions, a
method which augments corruption by doubling the strength of the parties
it places in opposition to each other. The many outrages which had been
inflicted upon her by the triumphant Diane de Poitiers had effaced in her
mind all distinction between good and evil, and there was left her but a
single worthy sentiment, her affection for her children. All her efforts
were directed toward keeping the power in the hands of her sons, and to
fulfil this end she unhesitatingly made use of every means, from love
intrigues to assassination. A policy so perverse must inevitably bring
its own punishment, and the blood-stained crown of the Valois, falling
from the hands of this unscrupulous Italian woman, came near to being
irretrievably shattered.
The young Mary Stuart, wife of Francis II, superseded Catherine de’
Medici in power for a brief period. Henry II had wedded his son to
this daughter of James V and Marie de Lorraine in order to make sure
of the aid of Scotland in any future quarrel with England. Beautiful,
gracious, intelligent, and witty, Mary had not yet committed those faults
which were to be expiated by a long term of suffering, that ended only
in death. At the brilliant court of France, surrounded by the poets,
scientists, and artists that attended her every step, Mary threw herself
unrestrainedly into the pleasure of exerting those rare charms of mind
and person which have silenced all adverse criticism on the lips of
modern historians. The influence exercised by the young queen on all
around her, the empire she had gained over the mind of the king, might
have operated powerfully for the welfare of the state had she been
surrounded by disinterested advisers; as it was she gave herself up
completely to pleasure and left the management of affairs in the hands of
her uncles, the cardinal De Lorraine, and Duke Francis of Guise.
The house of Guise, a younger branch of the ducal house of Lorraine,
had, although but newly established in France, rapidly risen to power.
Claude, chief of the house, had obtained in recompense for his services
the governorship of the province of Champagne and the elevation of his
property of Guise into a duchy, his brother John being made a cardinal.
Two of his sons were destined to play a prominent part in the affairs of
France: the elder, Francis, had bravely defended Metz and reconquered
Calais; while another, Charles, had succeeded his uncle John as cardinal
and possessed as many as twelve ecclesiastical sees, among which were
three archbishoprics. The young king left to the first-named, Francis,
all matters pertaining to “the militia,” while Charles was given
jurisdiction in civil affairs. Thus the entire administration of the
state was practically given into the hands of these two brothers, the
“general superintendence” over the government which Catherine de’ Medici
was supposed to retain being only a high-sounding, empty title.
There were other candidates that aspired to power, some by reason of
their birth and others from pure ambition--the Bourbons, for example,
and the Montmorencys. The house of Bourbon had for chiefs at that time
Anthony who married Jeanne d’Albret, heiress of the kingdom of Navarre,
and his two brothers, Charles, Cardinal de Bourbon, and Louis, prince of
Condé. These three were the nearest kindred to the Valois, and Anthony,
in case of minority, could have laid claim to the regency; but since the
treason committed by the constable, the Bourbons had been somewhat in
disgrace, and for the time being were making no demands.
The aged and inflexible constable, De Montmorency, the chief who had met
defeat at St. Quentin, showed himself less disinterested; but the king,
pretexting his advanced years, gradually relieved him of the burden of
affairs. Thus the two Guises remained undisputed masters of the power,
the king, and the court, until a new enemy rose up to challenge their
supremacy. It was forty years since Luther had begun to preach against
the established church, and Europe was now divided into two communions.[c]
_Religious Parties_
In France the religious parties were political factors at the same time.
The Huguenots, as they came to be called, were largely recruited from
among the nobility which was hostile to the Guise party. This must be
kept in mind as we enter upon the long story of crime and civil war which
marks the religious settlement in France. It was particularly unfortunate
that this great question of religious differences came at a time when a
line of weak kings left authority the prize of faction or in the control
of women.[a]
A conspiracy against royalty became the first act of Protestantism in
France; and thus hundreds of loyal subjects and rational minds were
alienated from it, and their dislike was strengthened by prejudice.
The court, with some reason, henceforth declared against it an eternal
war. Many of the noblesse had already joined the party of Coligny and
of Condé, though the king of Navarre and the constable hesitated and
held back. La Rochefoucauld, Jarnac, and the vidame de Chartres declared
for them. An atrocious impertinence on the part of the cardinal De
Lorraine, opportunely occurring, swelled this band of foes to the Guises.
Tormented by demands, some for debts due and some for places promised,
the all-powerful prelate in a fit of spleen published a proclamation by
sound of trumpet, ordering all petitioners, of whatever rank, to quit
Fontainebleau, where the court then was, without delay, and this under
pain of being hanged. The cardinal, perhaps, meant to be facetious; for
the court instantly became a desert. The host of noble suitors, proud
though mendicant, could not forgive the threat, and many joined the
discontented.
The party had numerous meetings in the château of Vendôme, and in other
places. La Renaudie, a gentleman of Périgord, and an agent of Coligny,
was employed by him to be the ostensible leader. A meeting was secretly
convened at Nantes, where the Protestants and enemies of Guise united to
the number of six hundred, and took counsel together. It was agreed to
attack Blois, where the king then was, obtain possession of his person,
and get rid of the odious Guises. Amongst such a host of conspirators
secrecy was almost impossible: the duke received warning of the plot, and
removed the court to the castle of Amboise. The cardinal De Lorraine was
terrified; he proposed to summon the _ban_ and _arrière-ban_, and gather
an army against the rebels. All the anxiety of Guise, on the contrary,
was that his enemies should show themselves; and for that purpose he
affected confidence. Coligny and Condé both repaired to Amboise, where
Guise received them without betraying the least mark of suspicion,
and he appointed them to different posts of defence about the castle;
each, however, watched by his own trusty partisans. The rising had been
appointed for the 15th of March: it took place on the 16th, the baron de
Castelnau seizing the castle of Noizé, not far from Amboise. La Renaudie
was marching to join him: they hoped to surprise the court; when on a
sudden the royal troops sent by Guise made their appearance, attacked La
Renaudie, slew him, and besieged Noizé.
An amnesty was now published in the hope of allaying the insurrection;
but, as if in contempt of it, the château of Amboise was attacked on that
very night. All the vigilance and valour of Guise were required to repel
the rebels. By secret information he had time to prepare for them, and
they were routed. The amnesty was revoked, and no mercy was shown to the
captives. Twelve hundred of them were hanged, or otherwise despatched;
even Castelnau, who had surrendered on the faith of the duke de Nemours,
was executed in the presence of the court. In the confessions forced
from many by the torture, none of the real chiefs of the conspiracy was
mentioned except the prince of Condé. History is even in doubt to decide
if those chiefs were concerned in the attack: the Protestant party will
not admit that they by this rash and unwarrantable act produced the civil
war. Condé was brought to trial in presence of the court: he disdained
to defend himself but as a knight. “Let my accuser appear,” said he,
regarding Guise, “and I will prove upon him, in single combat, that he is
the traitor, not I, and that he is the true enemy of the king and of the
monarchy.” Guise rose to reply to this challenge: “I can no longer suffer
these dark suspicions to weigh upon so valiant a prince; I myself will
be his second in the combat against whoever accuses him.” Most of those
present were as perplexed as no doubt the reader is, to comprehend this
conduct in the duke of Guise. Some called it chivalric generosity, others
the perfection of guile.
In the trouble excited by the conspiracy, the young king, for the first
time, manifested an opinion of his own. He was shocked at finding
himself the object of hatred, and he began to mistrust the Guises. The
queen-mother, Catherine, after the example of her son, also took courage;
and the chancellor Olivier, as well as Vieilleville and other courtiers,
joined her party. Hence arose the first amnesty--a concession on the
part of the Guises which was recompensed by the duke’s appointment
as lieutenant-general of the kingdom. The executions which followed,
especially that of Castelnau, which the court witnessed, shocked the
princesses (the cardinal De Lorraine hoped that the sight of heretic
blood would have had an opposite effect), and they, with the young
queen Mary, flung themselves into the scale of mercy. Guise was unable
to resist this influence; he saw that the prince of Condé must in
consequence be released, and he sought to take to himself full credit for
a generosity that was forced upon him. Here then Catherine de’ Medici,
for the first time, appears as the leader of a party.
The continued mistrust and independence of the Guises shown on the part
of the queen-mother and the young king produced an assembly of notables,
summoned soon afterwards at Fontainebleau to take the affairs of the
kingdom into consideration. In it the Protestant leaders, even prelates,
spoke openly the apology for reformation; and Coligny demanded tolerance
for the sectarians, relying upon the neutrality of the court. Guise could
no longer command his temper, as he did at Amboise: mutual recrimination
and menaces were heard in the assembly of peace. Both parties struggled
in their discourses to convince the monarch of the justice and expediency
of their counsels; but the weakness and indecision of the court were at
the same time seen by both; and an appeal of equal earnestness was made
by them to the people. The Protestants continually cried out for the
states-general and a national council. And now the cardinal De Lorraine
forgot his nature so far as to join in the cry, and make the same demand.
The independent attitude of the queen rather forced the Guises to
strengthen themselves by popularity.
Such appear the true reasons why the states-general were summoned to
meet at Orleans, in October, 1560. Historians in general perceive in
them merely a snare to catch the Protestant chiefs. They served that
purpose indeed, but they had been already summoned ere Condé, just
released, could have recommenced his intrigues. The arrogance and
boldness of the Protestants, and of Coligny, in the assembly of notables
at Fontainebleau, were revolting to Catherine and Francis. Between
August, when that assembly was held, and October, the period for the
assembling of the states, the Guises had completely won the court to
themselves, and regained their influence. The prince of Condé attempted
during that interval to seize Lyons, and convert it into a stronghold
of rebellion. He failed, however; and his traitorous enterprise became
thoroughly known at court. Notwithstanding this, the brothers of Bourbon,
the king of Navarre and the prince, were induced to join the assembly of
the states. Though full of mistrust, they still ventured on the secret
favour or neutrality of Catherine, who joined in enticing them to come.
They were ill received by the king. Catherine was troubled, and shed
tears on beholding them, knowing them to be victims betrayed by their
confidence in her. The king’s mind had been filled with the bitterest
calumnies against them: he accused Condé of having attempted his life,
and ended by committing that prince to prison. The king of Navarre
instantly complained, and expostulated with the queen-mother; but she
could not now retract the consent she had given, or unbend the mind of
the young monarch. Condé was tried by a commission, and refusing to
answer, was condemned to death. The day was appointed for the execution,
and Catherine de’ Medici betrayed to all who approached the agony and
misgivings of her mind.
_Death of Francis II_
Historians will maintain that this sensibility on the part of Catherine
was affected; but it would seem that she was now sincere in wishing to
save the life of Condé, and fortune placed this in her power. The young
king was stricken with sudden illness, arising, it is supposed, from
formation of an abscess in his head. The supreme authority rested with
the queen-mother. The Guises urged her to execute the sentence upon
Condé; but she hesitated, and resolved to save him. She determined,
however, to turn her mercy to advantage; summoning the king of Navarre,
she offered to spare the life of his brother, provided he signed an
agreement renouncing all claims to the regency in case of the young
king’s death. Navarre signed; and Francis II expired on the 5th of
December, 1560.[d]
[Sidenote: [1560-1561 A.D.]]
France would quickly have forgotten this unfortunate young man but for
two ineffaceable memories which were connected with his reign--that of
the rise to power of the Guises, together with the beginning of the
terrible religious wars, and the far pleasanter one of the presence
on the throne of the lovely Mary Stuart. Obliged, after the death
of her husband, to leave the land of her adoption and return to her
native Scotland, she wept long on sailing away from the shores that had
witnessed “evil luck depart from her and good fortune take her by the
hand.” Leaning on the rail in the stern of the ship that was bearing her
westward, she kept her brimming eyes fixed on the receding coast-line of
the country she was leaving, and “remained in this attitude full five
hours,” says Brantôme,[e] “repeating unceasingly, ‘Adieu, France! Adieu,
France!’” When night came she caused rugs to be spread in the same place
and laid herself down there to sleep, refusing all food. At daybreak she
could still perceive a point of land on the horizon, and at the sight
she cried out, “Adieu, dear France, I shall never see you again!” She
was to find a crown, it is true, in the country towards which she was
journeying, but there awaited her chains as well, an eighteen-year period
of captivity, and instead of ascending a throne she mounted the steps of
the scaffold.[c]
THE ACCESSION OF CHARLES IX (1560-1574 A.D.)
Charles IX, a boy ten years of age, succeeded his brother Francis.
Catherine de’ Medici, according to her promise, liberated the prince of
Condé; and as the king of Navarre, according to his promise, supported
the queen’s pretensions, she took upon her the office of regent.[d]
The dangerous experiment of a meeting of the states-general was now
unavoidable, and all parties paused to see what the result would be. The
result was not so considerable as either side expected. The universal
voice was for reform in the management of the state and diminution
of taxation. Reform also in the church was strongly advocated; but
the priests voted that it could only be procured by strengthening the
laws against the Protestants; the third estate voted that the object
was to be gained by freedom of conscience; and the nobles were almost
equally divided in their votes. All, however, agreed in re-establishing
the Pragmatic, and diminishing the contributions to the pope. After a
session of six weeks the states-general was prorogued, and factions
breathed again. Guise reconciled himself to his enemies, the constable
and the marshal Saint-André; and the three put themselves under the
protection of Philip of Spain in defence of the Catholic church. This
gave them the name of the “triumvirate.” Condé and Coligny, on the other
hand, strengthened their relations with the Huguenots. They looked in
all quarters for assistance, and the Protestant prospects were not so
desperate abroad as to discourage their hopes at home. In Germany,
indeed, the Huguenots were at that moment triumphant. Not more than one
tenth of the people had retained their allegiance to the pope.
Catherine, the queen-mother, pretending an impartiality she did not
feel, condescended to listen to a controversy carried on in her presence
between the doctors of the contending faiths. She was struck with the
ability of the Huguenot champions, whom she had considered hitherto as
mere fanatical enthusiasts, and the admiration of such an enemy is more
dangerous than her contempt. From this time she brooded over plans for
the extermination of a sect who could argue so well and fight so bravely,
and in the meantime gave them some delusive privileges, which irritated
their opponents and dissatisfied them. They were permitted to worship
outside the walls of a town, but they must go to the meeting unarmed, and
disperse when ordered to do so.
[Sidenote: [1561-1562 A.D.]]
It chanced that Francis de Guise was travelling with a stout escort near
the little town of Vassy, in Champagne, on a Sunday in the March of 1562.
The Protestants were worshipping in and around a barn beside the road,
and the gallant escort drew sword upon the unhappy congregation, slew
sixty of them on the spot, and wounded almost all the rest. Guise, who
had been struck by a stone upon the cheek, rode on and took no notice of
the outrage committed by his guard.[f]
CIVIL WAR (1562-1569 A.D.)
This was the signal for a war which, interrupted seven times by
precarious treaties and as many times renewed, covered the land of France
during a period of thirty-two years with blood and ruins. At the news of
the massacre of Vassy the Huguenots everywhere took up arms; the duke of
Guise seized the king’s person in his castle of Fontainebleau and carried
him, with his mother, to Paris where there were but few Protestants.
[Illustration: CATHERINE DE’ MEDICI]
“As regards the efficient and assured force of the reformers,” says
Michel de Castelnan,[g] “it consisted of three hundred noblemen and
as many soldiers accustomed to arms; besides four hundred volunteers,
students and citizens, utterly without experience. What was this body,
in face of the infinite number of the people, but a fly measuring forces
with an elephant?” Outside of Paris, however, the Protestants thought
they could count upon a tenth of the population, and the greater part of
the provincial nobility was on their side.
They proclaimed Condé[73] defender of the king and protector of the
realm; and at the end of a few weeks they had gained possession of
two hundred towns, among which were Rouen, Lyons, Tours, Montpellier,
Poitiers, Grenoble, Orleans, and Blois. The Guises had not expected such
prompt action on the part of their antagonists. Though ill-prepared for
war, they had the king in their hands, and strong in this advantage they
declared the Calvinists guilty of rebellion and Condé of the crime of
lèse-majesté; whereupon Philip II, the champion of Catholicism over all
Europe, sent them a corps formed of members of those old Spanish bands
that were as noted for their cold-blooded ferocity as for their valour.
Condé on his side appealed for aid to the Protestant Elizabeth, who sent
him an equal number of troops for the defence of Rouen, on condition that
he would deliver over to her Le Havre as a pledge for the sums she had
advanced. Thus was committed by the chiefs of both parties the criminal
error of invoking foreign intervention in their affairs.
It was at the north, where the leaders had taken up their position and
where the fighting was consequently thickest, that the fortunes of the
war were finally decided. The duke of Guise, at the head of the Catholic
army that Anthony de Bourbon had recently rejoined, marched directly
upon Rouen, which, though scarcely tenable by reason of its position in
the midst of commanding heights, offered a brave resistance. Anthony
de Bourbon, king of Navarre, received during this conflict a wound of
which he died. Montaigne[h] relates that during the siege a Protestant
gentleman was apprehended who had been charged with the mission of
assassinating the duke. The latter pardoned and set him free. “I will
show you,” he said, “how much more merciful is my religion than that
which you profess. Your faith inspired you with the project of slaying me
without hearing me in my own defence, and without having received from me
the least cause for offence; mine commands me to pardon you, convinced
though I am that you were preparing to kill me without reason.” These
were noble words, such as are sometimes spoken by ambitious individuals
who aspire to every earthly glory, but are rarely borne out in their
lives. The duke had not behaved with such magnanimity at Vassy and at
Amboise, where he made reply to one of his victims, “My trade is not to
make speeches but to cut off heads;” nor did he show greater clemency
at Rouen when that city was at last obliged to surrender. “This great
city,” says Castelnau,[g] “full of riches of all sorts, was pillaged,
without regard to the religion of either side, in the space of a week,
notwithstanding that the very next day after the capture the crier had
announced that every company or standard-bearer, of whatever nationality,
must at once leave the city on pain of death.” When all the pillaging was
at an end judicial proceedings were begun.
Condé, in the hope of repairing the loss of Rouen, and reinforced by
seven thousand men whom he had received from Germany, set out for Paris,
the outskirts of which it was his purpose to attack. He turned first
in the direction of Le Havre with the intention of joining the English
troops there, but was forced by the duke of Guise to come to a stand at
Dreux, on the 19th of December. There were arrayed against each other
at this place fifteen or sixteen thousand men on either side. For some
time the two armies were directly facing each other--“each man,” says La
Noue,[q] “thinking in his heart that the soldiers he saw coming towards
him were neither Spanish nor Italian but French, that is to say, the
bravest among the brave, and that in their ranks were doubtless many
of his own comrades, relatives, or friends, whom in less than an hour
he must seek to kill. Those reflections lent additional horror to the
situation without diminishing the courage of a soldier.” Condé penetrated
to the centre of the Catholic ranks, wounding and taking captive the
constable; but the Swiss restored the balance of forces, and Guise was
made victor by a successful flank movement which took the prince of Condé
prisoner.
The admiral Coligny made good his retreat, however, with the Germans,
and rallied the fugitives. The marshal Saint-André, in endeavouring to
harass him, was taken and slain. The singularity of the battle of Dreux
was, that each of the two generals became prisoner to the opposite party.
Guise gained both ways--not less by the removal of the constable, whose
rank entitled him always to the superior command, than by the captivity
of Condé. This prince was treated with the utmost generosity by his
rival: they shared the same tent, the same bed; and while Condé remained
wakeful from the strangeness of his position, Guise, he declared, enjoyed
the most profound sleep. There were, indeed, heroic traits about the duke
of Guise, that mark him to have been naturally of a generous and noble
disposition. It appears that, especially when in arms and away from his
brother, he could shake off the hard-heartedness, the guile, and even the
ambition which in the cabinet rose to stifle every better quality.
[Sidenote: [1562-1563 A.D.]]
Guise followed up his victories by laying siege to Orleans. While he was
engaged in reducing this stronghold of his enemies a Huguenot gentleman
named Poltrot treacherously shot the duke with his pistol. He lingered
nine days, and expired with exemplary fortitude and piety. He was a brave
and great man, with such power of nerve and concentrated pride that,
notwithstanding his equivocal rank in France, the stern constable himself
and the princes of the blood quailed before him. His virtues were his
own; his vices those of his party.
_The Edict of Amboise and its Results_
The death and captivity of the chiefs on both sides, Coligny excepted,
necessarily brought on an accommodation. Peace was declared; and the
Edict of Amboise, issued in March, 1563, granted full liberty of worship
to the Protestants within the towns of which they were in possession up
to that day. Thus ended the first religious war, which, in addition to
the events we have recorded, deluged the entire south of France with the
blood of the contending parties.
[Illustration: CHARLES IX
(From an old French print)]
The conclusion of peace restored Catherine de’ Medici to the supreme
authority. In order to exercise it under a less invidious title than that
of regent, the parliament of Rouen, by her order, declared King Charles,
now thirteen years of age, to have attained his majority. Reared by the
crafty and prudent Catherine, he early acquired, in perfection, the power
of dissimulation; but he never imbibed that utter indifference to both
religious parties which distinguished his mother, and which allowed her
to consult her own interest or the public good in leaguing with either,
or in balancing and alternating between them. On the contrary, Charles,
thrown among the Catholic party at an age when a bias is soon and
strongly gained, amidst the bustle of war and of a camp, which pleased
him, soon imbibed the zeal of the partisans of Guise. He had the sagacity
to perceive that orthodoxy was much more favourable than the doctrines
of the reformers to his kingly authority. A worse effect on his character
was produced by sights of cruelty; for at this tender age he beheld
the atrocities practised on the Protestants at the siege of Rouen, and
during the campaign. The young king was thus led to adopt, in his sober
counsels, the sanguinary measures that the heat of war engendered but
could not excuse.
[Sidenote: [1563-1564 A.D.]]
This decision of her son in favour of the Catholics had a very great
influence in finally drawing over Catherine to that party. Other causes
also impelled her: the Catholics were without leaders; there was a
place, therefore, for her at their head; and, in a little time, the pope
and Philip of Spain both declared so strongly against the Protestants,
that the queen was driven, from a principle of self-preservation, to
adopt the winning side. This abandonment of her impartiality Catherine,
however, delayed as long as it was in her power. After the conclusion
of peace, she endeavoured to soothe Condé, and win him over to moderate
demands; thus preparing the way for an accommodation. Condé was a man of
pleasure, prone to indolence, in which he gladly indulged whenever an
interval occurred in war or in business. Catherine held out to him her
usual bait, the charms of her maids of honour; and Condé loitered, like
another Rinaldo, in the toils of this Armida, until the ministers of the
reformed religion recalled him from licentiousness and compelled him to
marry. These stern disciplinarians were said to have hanged one of their
flock for the crime of adultery. This alone was enough to alienate the
courtiers of France and the demoiselles of Catherine.
The Edict of Amboise had not long been issued, when a modification of
it was found necessary. That edict had allowed to the Protestants the
celebration of their worship in towns which they possessed. It was
found that several bishops and clergy, construing its terms in their
favour, had established the new rites in their cathedrals and churches.
This would have outraged the pope and the Catholic princes. Indeed,
notwithstanding the clamours of the Protestants, so great a concession
was not to be expected; and accordingly the privilege was withdrawn. The
ancient cathedrals were not allowed to become temples of the reformed
religion. New differences consequently arose: the Guises accused Coligny
of instigating the murder of the duke; and the admiral arrived to answer
the charge with his suite, which amounted almost to an army. Either
Catherine or Charles himself took this opportunity of increasing the
usual royal guard of 100 Swiss to upwards of 1,000 men. The old constable
came to instigate the Parisians, and a tumult ensued, in which lives were
lost.
In the following year, 1564, the young king resolved on making a progress
through his dominions, especially in the south. The cardinal of Lorraine
went to Rome at the same time, and Charles was met at Bayonne by his
sister, the queen of Spain, and the duke of Alva. This meeting, in which
the minister of Philip communicated the views of his master, completed
in the mind of Charles his hatred of the Reformation, and instructed him
concerning the means by which it might be eventually crushed. The Edict
of Roussillon,[74] which appeared while the court was in the south,
imposed new restrictions on the toleration granted by that of Amboise;
so that, as Pasquier observes, “edicts took more from the Protestants in
peace than force could take from them in war.” The Huguenots, therefore,
despairing of impartiality or justice from the court, already began to
look forward to another struggle.
[Sidenote: [1564-1567 A.D.]]
During this state of things an assembly of notables was held at Moulins.
Catherine, who, notwithstanding her sagacity, very often mistook the form
for the reality, insisted on a public reconciliation between the Guises
and Coligny. It took place at her bidding; the cardinal and the admiral
embraced; but young Henry duke of Guise showed even there, by his cold
and mistrustful demeanour, that his first ideas were those of vengeance
and hatred. It was in this assembly that the chancellor De l’Hôpital
proposed his improvements in the administration of justice. Whilst all
others, prince, noble, and functionary, were absorbed in the spirit of
religious party, De l’Hôpital alone, professing at once Catholicism and
tolerance, but unable to obtain attention, followed the unambitious track
of judicial amelioration.
Religious troubles, similar to those of France, began to agitate the
Low Countries. Philip, resolving to present a high example to France,
established the Inquisition among his Belgic subjects in all its vigour;
and as this only made matters worse, the duke of Alva was despatched to
those provinces with an army in 1567. The French court affected to fear
this course, and raised an army as if against it. When the duke of Alva,
however, appeared on the frontiers of France, he was treated as a friend;
and the Huguenots immediately perceived that the troops were levied, not
for the defence of the kingdom, but for the oppression of themselves.
They accordingly leagued and armed in secret, determined to meet the
perfidy of the court with corresponding guile. Their consultations ended
in a project to surprise the court at Monceaux, and get possession of
the king. It failed, however, as a similar plot had previously failed at
Amboise, through the postponement of a single day. The queen had warning;
the Swiss were summoned; and the court retired to Meaux, and from thence
to Paris, pursued and menaced by the disappointed Condé.
THE SECOND RELIGIOUS WAR
Thus commenced the second religious war, in September, 1567. “Catherine,”
says Henault, “caused the first civil strife by favouring the reformers,
and the second by irritating them.” She was now at least zealously
hostile to them. She had been provoked by the numerous calumnies and
libels which the Huguenots directed against her, and she accordingly
joined in the opinions of her young son, and of his and her ally, Philip.
She no longer sought an habitual adviser in the moderate De l’Hôpital,
who was of opinion that the reformers were unfairly treated. The
chancellor always asserted their loyalty. After their attempt to surprise
Meaux, the queen asked De l’Hôpital: “Would you now answer that their
sole aim is to serve the king?”--“Yes, madam,” replied he, “if you assure
me that they will be treated with good faith.”
Condé took up his quarters at St. Denis. The Catholics under Montmorency
were posted at La Chapelle, a village that is now the suburb of Paris
on that side. The constable wished as usual to procrastinate, but the
impatience of the Parisians forced him to attack. The battle was fought
in the plain of St. Denis: it began with a cannonade; but the Huguenots,
to avoid the destructive effects of the artillery, charged the Parisians
furiously, and routed them. Their flight left the constable unsupported;
Condé turned on him his victorious cavalry, and Montmorency defended his
position, when Stuart, the captain of the Scotch company in the service
of the Huguenots, coming up close to the constable, against whom he had
cause for hatred, fired his pistol and shot him. A furious and confused
_mêlée_, somewhat like a Homeric fight, immediately took place around
the dead body of the constable--the Huguenots with savage zeal seeking
to carry it off. They were beaten, however, and driven from the field
in the attempt. Thus fell, in civil strife, and engaged against his own
nephews, the veteran warrior of France. His years, his hardihood, and his
name, have rendered him deservedly celebrated. His defence of Provence
against Charles V is particularly memorable. By French historians he
is characterised in terms of the highest encomium: they commend his
sternness, his courage, his orthodoxy, and forget that avarice and
selfishness sullied and almost neutralised all of his virtues.
[Sidenote: [1567-1568 A.D.]]
The constable’s death was a victory to Condé, who was able to offer
battle to the Catholics on the following day. He denied having lost
that of St. Denis. Young Charles, who was witness to a dispute on this
point, asked Vieilleville who had won the battle. “Neither Catholic nor
Protestant,” responded the marshal; “it is the king of Spain who has
won by our discord.” The Huguenots had neither pay nor provisions, and
were therefore obliged to quit the vicinage of Paris, directing their
course across Lorraine towards the frontier of Germany, as they expected
a body of auxiliaries from that country. They were pursued, but not much
harassed in their retreat. Catherine endeavoured incessantly to decoy
them into negotiations, the department of warfare which she felt herself
most competent to direct. She restrained the warlike disposition of the
king; arguing with truth that, from the violent animosities of the time,
the leaders of armies marched to meet a certain fate, either in battle
or at the hand of the assassin. The king’s brother, Henry duke of Anjou,
was created lieutenant-general. Catherine, who knew the weak and yielding
nature of her second son, would gladly have made him the hero of the
Catholic party in preference to young Guise, whose name she dreaded.
After much privation, during a march in winter, the Huguenots fell in
with their German auxiliaries; and as they now outnumbered their enemies,
they marched back into France. They laid siege to Chartres, which, being
stoutly defended, kept the army fixed before it, and gave the queen full
opportunity for employing her favourite efforts at negotiation. Coligny
saw plainly the perfidy of these overtures; but their followers and
supporters, anxious for peace, obliged them to listen to terms. A treaty
was concluded at Longjumeau, in March, called the Lame Peace, as well
from its infirm and uncertain nature as from the accidental lameness of
its two negotiators. Its terms were a medium between the Edict of Amboise
and that of Roussillon.
THE THIRD RELIGIOUS WAR
The peace was, as Coligny already saw, but a trap to ensnare the Huguenot
chiefs as soon as their army should be disbanded. They were on their
guard, however, keeping away from the court, and far apart from each
other, that at least one might escape in case of treason. Notwithstanding
this resolve, Condé and the admiral found it necessary to consult
together, and for this purpose met at Noyers, a little town in Burgundy.
The court was soon informed of it; and orders were instantly despatched
to Tavannes, and to the other governors in the south, to arrest them.
Tavannes was not vigilant in the execution of their commands, and
Condé and Coligny escaped. By this order the queen had thrown off the
mask; though, indeed, without such an indication, the executions and
murders throughout the south sufficiently proved that the Lame Peace was
never intended to be observed by the Catholics. Through inconceivable
difficulties, the two chiefs traversed the country, and reached Rochelle
in safety, where the Protestants now found themselves obliged, for the
third time, to raise the standard of revolt. Troops did not fail to join
them from all quarters; but the most welcome aid came from Béarn, the
queen of Navarre and her young son [the future Henry IV] arriving at the
head of 3,000 of their subjects.
[Sidenote: [1568-1569 A.D.]]
This young prince, destined to run so glorious a career, was born at Pau,
in 1553. His father was Anthony of Bourbon, king of Navarre, slain at the
siege of Rouen. Chroniclers never forget to relate that his mother sang
at the birth, and that old Henri d’Albret, the infant’s grandfather, held
up the child in delight, rubbing its lips with garlic, and moistening
them with wine. Excepting a short period spent at court, the boy lived
the rude and healthy life of a mountaineer, and imbibed from his mother
the rigid principles of the Reformation. It was in September, 1568, that
he accompanied her to Rochelle.
As if to add to the horrors of civil war, winter was always chosen as
the period of operations. The duke of Anjou was at the head of the
Catholic army, with the marshal Tavannes for his adviser. When Condé and
the Huguenots approached, the cold was so extreme as to chill the zeal
of both armies. They found it impossible to engage in battle. Mutual
pillage and cruelties too horrid in many instances for the pen to record
were the only feats of the soldiery. During the inaction that ensued
(for the winter grew to that extreme rigour which is seldom known even
in France), a great part of the Huguenot army dispersed: the bourgeois
and volunteers, of whom it was principally composed, each betook himself
to his own home. The Catholic troops, on the contrary, were soldiers
by profession, paid and disciplined. Hence, in the spring, Condé was
far inferior in force to his enemies, before whom he was obliged to
retire towards La Rochelle. In his retreat, the prince, having crossed
the Charente, took post at Jarnac, determined to keep the river between
himself and the enemy, and to dispute his passage.[d]
There was some preliminary manœuvring on the banks of the Charente; at
last Tavannes surprised the rearguard of the admiral [Coligny] near
Jarnac (March 13th, 1569). Condé, on receiving news of the attack, rushed
up with three thousand cavalry, but at the moment of charging a kick
from a horse broke his leg. Oblivious of this, however, as of the wound
he had received in the arm the previous day, he continued to rush upon
the enemy, crying out to those behind him: “Remember in what condition
Louis de Bourbon does battle for Christ and his country!” This impetuous
onslaught at first made a breach in the enemy’s ranks, but Condé’s horse
being shot under him, he fell, and a terrific combat immediately ensued
around him. An old warrior, De la Vergne, who had brought with him into
battle twenty-five men-at-arms, all sons, grandsons, or nephews, made
heroic efforts to protect the prostrate body of the prince, but he was
himself killed, and fifteen of his followers fell with him, “all in one
heap.”
Condé was in the act of giving his gauntlet to a gentleman when
Montesquieu, the duke of Anjou’s captain of the guards, fired his pistol
point-blank at his head. Thus perished a prince as energetic as he was
brave, whose loss was irreparable to the party of which for nine years he
had been the head that plans and the arm that executes. The Protestants
talked of abandoning the campaign and shutting themselves up in La
Rochelle, but a woman caused them to change their plan. Jeanne d’Albret,
accompanied by her son Henry of Béarn and the young prince of Condé,
presented herself in the midst of the discouraged army at Saintes. “My
friends,” she said, addressing the soldiers, “here are two new chiefs
that God sends you, and two orphans that I confide to your care.” Prince
Henry,[75] the future king of France, up to his present age of fifteen
years had been brought up with all the severity that went to the training
of a country gentleman. Brave, intellectually brilliant, and with the
faculty of carrying away his auditors by his words, he pleased all with
whom he came in contact. He was appointed general-in-chief of the army,
and Coligny was given him as counsellor and lieutenant.
_Admiral Coligny; the Peace of St. Germain_
[Sidenote: [1569-1570 A.D.]]
Coligny possessed many of the qualities necessary to a party-leader
in a war such as was then waging. A Protestant of exemplary piety and
austerity, he was beloved and respected by ministers and soldiers alike.
He fell short of being a general of the very first rank, perhaps,
and Catherine in common with the other Italians at her court did not
attribute to him great depth as a politician; but he could never be
made to accept defeat, which is in itself one form of power, and he
had the faculty of rendering just judgment, which is another. He was a
master of limitless resource, and if no particularly brilliant victory
was to be expected under his leadership there was at least to be feared
no irremediable defeat. In two respects his name is entitled to come
down with distinction to posterity: the first of these claims is the
great deed which opened his career, the defence of St. Quentin; and the
second is his last political aim, the ambition to conquer the Spanish
Netherlands, whither he wished to conduct his Huguenot bands that France
might enjoy the double blessing of rich provincial possession and
internal peace. In his deep desire to avert domestic dissensions and
to assure religious liberty he had conceived still another method of
accomplishing this end; namely, the Protestant colonisation of America.
The very purpose which the Puritans of Great Britain brought into effect
in the seventeenth century had been cherished by him. Had he succeeded,
French blood and French speech might to-day dominate in the New World.
Jarnac had been nothing but a rearguard action in which the Protestants
had lost no more than four hundred men. Coligny was still strong enough
to defend Cognac and Angoulême; having been joined by 13,000 Germans
he even assumed the offensive and inflicted a check on the Catholic
army near La Roche-Abeille. But Tavannes repaired the harm done. German
Catholics, Spaniards sent by the duke of Alva, Italians sent by Pius V,
increased the forces of the duke of Anjou. Already pushed back to the
Loire, the duke returned on his steps by means of a diversion, relieved
Poitiers which Coligny had been besieging for the last six weeks, and
succeeded in surprising the Protestant army between the Dive and the
Thoué, near Moncontour. The position was a wretched one; six hundred
Huguenot soldiers were left on the battle-field (October the 3rd).
Yet this victory of Moncontour was as useless as that of Jarnac.
Charles IX, jealous of the laurels which were being gathered for his
brother, came to the army, and instead of pressing the Protestants to
the Pyrenees wasted his time in besieging Niort and St. Jean d’Angély.
Coligny traversed the whole breadth of the south, replenishing his army
as he went; and he suddenly appeared in Burgundy, at the head of all the
Protestant nobility of Dauphin and Provence. A Catholic army of 12,000
men tried to stop him at Arnay-le-Duc; he held his own against them and
reached the Loing, a short distance from Paris.
Catherine de’ Medici now triumphed in the council, events having proved
the justness of her views. Some other means than war must be devised to
gain control over a party that rose up in renewed strength after each
defeat. In order to disarm the Protestants, she caused the Peace of St.
Germain to be proclaimed, with terms extremely favourable to their side.
They were to be allowed full liberty of worship in two towns in every
province, and in all those in which the reformed religion had already
been established; Calvinists were to be admitted to all kinds of office,
and four fortified towns, La Rochelle, Cognac, Montauban, and La Charité,
were to be given up to them as strongholds in which to place a garrison
(August 8th, 1570). “A traitorous, violated peace, the perdition of those
who trusted in it.”[c]
A TROUBLED PEACE; THE MARRIAGE OF HENRY OF NAVARRE
What were the real intentions of Catherine at the moment when she
concluded the agreement of St. Germain? She had conceived a policy in
1563, which she tried to carry out by fraud from 1563-1567, then by force
mingled with fraud from 1567 to 1569. She certainly had still the same
views, the same desires, but no longer the same confidence. As she had
firmly believed that her object was attained after the murder of Condé,
the defeat of Coligny, and the triumph of her favourite son the duke of
Anjou, so she was proportionately stupefied and discouraged at seeing
the final victory escape her and the unforeseen powers of those moral
forces which she could not understand defeat the calculations of her
Macchiavellian wisdom.
It is almost certain that in 1570, when she entered into negotiations,
she desired, above all, time to breathe and to look about her, and had
no fixed plan; this is what appears from the diplomatic documents. There
is however no doubt that she continued to meditate the ruin of Coligny,
the man who was the great obstacle in her way; the idea of destroying
the leaders of the party was never absent from her mind; but in 1570 her
hopes on this subject were very weak and very vague. As to the general
extermination of heretics planned two years in advance by this “great
queen” and pursued without deviation to the dénouement with “an admirable
dissimulation,” it is a romance invented by the depraved fanaticism or
the cynical Macchiavellianism of Catherine’s Italian panegyrists, and
accepted by the resentment of the Huguenots.
The historians of Catherine have associated Charles IX with the two
years of plotting and with “the admirable dissimulation” of his mother:
they have done more than the Protestants themselves to draw on the name
of this unfortunate and guilty prince the immense execration which has
descended on him. Here it is no longer a question of mere exaggeration,
but of complete error. It was not by sentiments of morality that Charles
IX was incapable of deserving the hideous praises which posterity has
changed into maledictions; the lessons of the masters whom his mother
had imposed upon him had destroyed in him all principles; in his eyes
good faith was but folly, compassion nothing but cowardice; but the
passion and inequality of his humour would not have permitted him such a
long perfidy, and above all he was absolutely without bias: the grudge
which he nourished against the Protestants for the attempt of Meaux
was balanced by the jealous hatred he bore his brother Henry, and by
his distrust of his mother and the Guises. He submitted to Catherine’s
skilful domination as to a sort of fatality, but at times he chafed at
the curb in anger, and he was quite as capable of proceeding to final
acts of violence against the house of Lorraine or even against the duke
of Anjou as against Coligny. Although Catherine held him by chains
scientifically forged, he might well end by turning against her the
lessons she had given him.
What should he do? Whither should he turn? He had no idea. He received
the schemes of betrayal laid before him by Tavannes, the adviser of his
brother who desired to become his; but immediately he gave ear to the
most opposite projects.
Meantime, at court the politicians had got the better of the Catholic
zealots: little was wanting in order that a bloody tragedy should
exhibit this at the expense of the house of Lorraine. Even before the
peace was signed, the partisans of toleration had worked to prepare a
complete understanding between the court and the Protestant leaders: the
Montmorencys had proposed the marriage of Prince Henry of Navarre with
the king’s third sister, Marguerite of France. This marriage had been
talked of almost ever since the birth of the two young people; Charles IX
eagerly recurred to the idea, but Marguerite, then aged eighteen years,
had made another choice; she was beginning the series of her innumerable
gallantries and had surrendered to the young duke of Guise, the most
brilliant cavalier in France, all possible rights over her heart. Henry
of Guise, encouraged by the cardinal De Lorraine, wished to turn the
victory of his love to the profit of his ambition and aspired to the hand
of the princess. In the month of May, 1570, the marriage of Marguerite
and Guise was regarded at court as a thing decided on: suddenly, in the
middle of June, the king, the queen-mother, and the duke of Anjou turned
indignantly against the bold pretensions of Guise; the king, who knew
no half measures, gave orders to his brother the bastard d’Angoulême to
kill the duke of Guise at the hunt. The bastard, not from repugnance to
the crime, but from cowardice, missed the opportunity for action: the
reproaches made to him by the king were heard by a courtier who, perhaps
at Catherine’s instigation, warned Guise: the murder of Guise would have
thrown the king into the arms of the Huguenots and overturned the power
of the queen-mother. The young duke, forced to renounce Marguerite, found
no better expedient to appease the king than to marry another woman; he
espoused Catherine of Cleves, countess d’Eu, sister of the duchess de
Nevers and widow of the prince de Portien.
At this price Guise was restored to favour and followed the court to
Champagne where the king, in his turn, was to be married: after long
negotiations the emperor Maximilian II had granted Charles IX the hand
of his second daughter, Elizabeth, without further insisting on the
restoration of the Three Bishoprics to the empire. This alliance with
the house of Austria in no way impelled France towards Spain: it made
Charles IX for the second time brother-in-law of Philip II, who, the
widowed husband of Elizabeth of France, had just taken as his fourth wife
his niece, the eldest daughter of the emperor; but on the other hand
it gave Charles a father-in-law from whom he had to expect no counsels
but those of toleration and humanity. However, Elizabeth of Austria, a
gentle, simple, and modest young woman, did not have, or seek to have,
any share of influence in the events of her husband’s reign. The wedding
was celebrated, November 26th, 1570, at Mézières, whither the archduchess
Elizabeth had been conducted by the archbishop elector of Treves,
chancellor of the empire. The princes and the great Huguenots had been
invited to the marriage festivities. They excused themselves, and did not
quit their refuge at La Rochelle, although the admiral had written in
respectful terms to the queen-mother to protest his forgetfulness of the
past and his devotion.[l]
[Sidenote: [1570-1572 A.D.]]
Almost two years of relative quiescence followed, during which the
Huguenot party gained an increasing influence at court, chiefly through
the favour shown Coligny by the king. The admiral, ever mindful of the
interests of his fellow-Huguenots, attempted once more to put into
execution a colonisation scheme that had long been a favourite project
with him. He had made an effort to establish a colony in Brazil as
early as 1555; and in 1562 and again in 1564 Charles IX had given him
permission to found colonies in Florida; but all of these colonies had
failed, nor did anything tangible come of his present effort.
This colonisation project tended to bring France into antagonism with
Spain. But another plan of Coligny’s still more directly menaced that
power; this plan involved nothing less than a direct attack upon the
Spanish forces in the Netherlands. Charles IX lent an attentive ear to
this idea, actuated in part, perhaps, by the desire for military glory,
in part by Coligny’s belief that a foreign war would be the best possible
means to harmonise the political factions at home. It will be understood
that the Huguenot question at this time had come to be quite as much
a political as a religious problem. The antagonism between the Guise
faction and the Coligny faction, which led to the appalling scenes we are
now fast approaching, was based by no means exclusively--perhaps not even
prominently--upon differences of opinion regarding questions of doctrine.
It was essentially a personal and political rivalry that actuated the
chief personages in the drama. This, of course, does not necessarily
impugn the sincerity of their religious differences; it was merely that
these differences were not sufficient in themselves to supply motives for
the bitter and ineradicable hatred with which Catherine de’ Medici and
the Guises regarded Coligny.
The fact that the negotiations for the marriage of the king’s sister
Marguerite with the Protestant Henry of Navarre were carried forward,
sufficiently illustrates the superficiality of the religious element as
a source of political jarrings. This marriage was, indeed, opposed by
the pope, who declined to give to a heretic the dispensation necessary
to legalise the marriage of second cousins. None the less were the
negotiations carried forward at court in open defiance of the papal
decision. Jeanne d’Albret, the mother of Henry, came to Paris and was
received at court with at least the outward appearance of friendliness.
Her death there in 1572 was probably due to natural causes, though the
usual intimations of foul play--which the partisanship of that time
never neglected as an aid to practical politics, however shadowy the
evidence--were not wanting. The marriage of Henry, now king of Navarre,
with the not over-willing Marguerite, took place on a specially erected
platform in front of the cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris on the 22nd of
August, 1572. The story goes that the bride refused to make the customary
affirmations, and that her brother, Charles IX, pushed her head forward
with his own hands; but this most likely is an embellishment suggested
by the known preference of Marguerite for another lover, and by the
uncongenial wedded life that followed the spectacular nuptials.
It may well be supposed that the Huguenots looked upon the marriage of
their leader with the sister of the king of France as a great political
triumph. Doubtless a large number of Huguenot nobles who had long been
conspicuous by their absence from court came to Paris in honour of the
occasion. To many of them it proved a fatal visit, for the awful tragedy
of St. Bartholomew’s day followed hard upon the wedding, turning the
seeming triumph of the Huguenots into disaster and threatening actual
annihilation of their party. Such being the sequence of events, it is
but natural that the surviving Huguenots should have tried to trace
a causal connection between the marriage of Henry of Navarre and the
massacre of St. Bartholomew. It has been alleged that the real pretext
for the marriage was to beguile the Huguenot nobles into visiting Paris
that they might be caught, as it were, in a trap and the more readily
massacred. No one doubts that Catherine de’ Medici was quite capable of
such a plan. But, on the other hand, it must not be overlooked that King
Charles was most anxious for the consummation of the marriage; and all
historical evidence tends to exonerate him from early complicity in the
plot, if plot existed. Still the fact of so many enemies being at hand
may no doubt have influenced Catherine to carry into effect an idea which
had at least been dear to her heart. Just how much she was influenced
by this; just when the first thought of it all came to her--these are
questions which Catherine herself probably could not have answered, and
which it is quite futile for any interpreter of her actions to attempt to
solve. Here, as so often elsewhere, the threads of design make a web too
intricate for disentangling. This much, however, seems sure: the tangled
mesh, whatever relations of designs and of accident in its structure,
was one of which Catherine de’ Medici was the main artificer; her chief
assistants being her son the duke of Anjou, and the Guises.[a]
THE ATTACK ON COLIGNY
[Sidenote: [1572 A.D.]]
A murderous coil had been woven around the king and the admiral.
Catherine had been for some time torn between her natural timidity and
her ardent desire to free herself from Coligny: at one time she had
hoped to obtain the admiral’s destruction from the king; after a first
success she had failed; a scene of an opposite kind drove her to the
last extremities. The duke of Anjou himself has revealed these mysteries
of crime: in a night of trouble and fear if not of remorse he dictated
with his own lips the history of his own and his mother’s guilt. “Every
time,” he says, “that the queen had conferred privately with the admiral,
the queen-mother and I had found him marvellously angry and sullen,
rough in countenance and aspect and still more in his answers. One day
when I entered the king’s room, without saying anything to me he walked
up and down with long strides, often looking at me askance and putting
his hand on his dagger with so much animosity that I expected to be
poniarded. I managed so dexterously that while he was walking about and
with his back turned to me I retreated to the door which I opened and,
with a brief reverence, I made my exit.” Charles IX was nearer striking
at Anjou than Coligny; the admiral certainly did not urge him to raise
the dagger against his brother, but he conjured him to despatch him with
all speed to Poland that there might no longer be two kings in France.
Catherine and Anjou, brought to bay, took their resolution. They secretly
sent for the duchess de Nemours, widow of the great Guise, the woman
in whose veins flowed the blood of Louis XI mingled with that of the
Borgia. She had continually professed an implacable hatred for Coligny.
Catherine declared to her that she placed in her hands the vengeance so
long pursued by the house of Guise. Catherine desired to profit by the
murder but to impose the execution and the responsibility on someone
else. Her Macchiavellian mind went further: she did not doubt that the
Huguenots would rush to arms to avenge the murdered Coligny and attack
the Guises even in their palaces; the people of Paris would go to the
help of the Guises, the Montmorencys and their friends to the help of the
Huguenots, all the great nobles, partisans of Lorraine, Huguenots and
politicians, would cut each other’s throats; the Huguenots would finally
be overwhelmed by numbers, the Guises would be exhausted by their very
victory; and royalty, held in reserve during the conflict, would remain
mistress of a field strewn with dead.
Whatever _arrière-pensées_ there may have been, an agreement was arrived
at as to the action to be taken. Young Guise, in his furious joy, at
first wished that his mother should herself kill the admiral with
an arquebusade in the midst of the court; more practical means were
resorted to; the blow was intrusted to a hand more expert in crime,
that of the same Maurevert who had already been hired during the last
war to assassinate Coligny, and who in his stead had killed one of
his lieutenants under the most odious circumstances. He was sent for
mysteriously and the duke d’Aumale’s maître d’hôtel concealed him in the
house of a canon, a former tutor of the duke of Guise, in the cloister
of St. Germain-l’Auxerrois, on the road from the Louvre to the rue de
Béthisi, where the admiral was staying. Maurevert remained there three
days on watch. On the morning of Friday the 22nd of August, as the
admiral was returning from the Louvre on foot, walking slowly and reading
a petition, a shot from an arquebuse came from behind the curtain of a
window, carried off the first finger of his right hand, and lodged a ball
in his left arm.
Coligny, with his mutilated hand indicating the place whence the shot
had come, sent to tell the king what had occurred and to ask him to
judge what fine fidelity that was, considering the understanding between
him and the duke of Guise; then he returned to his hôtel, supported by
some gentlemen, whilst his suite broke down the door of the dwelling
in which the assassin had lain in wait; the arquebuse was found still
smoking; “but not the arquebusier.” Maurevert had flung himself on a
horse belonging to the duke of Guise which was held in readiness for him,
and had fled by the rear of the house. He left Paris by the porte St.
Antoine; two Protestant gentlemen had discovered his track and pursued
him for several leagues, but without being able to come up with him.[l]
The king was playing at tennis when he was told that Coligny was wounded,
and that the king of Navarre and the prince of Condé were coming to him
to demand justice against the Guises. The circumstance both surprised and
alarmed him. He threw away his racket in a passion, and after giving vent
to a number of oaths, he declared he would have the assassin sought for,
even in the recesses of Guise’s hôtel. Charles succeeded in satisfying
the young princes that the assassins should meet with exemplary
punishment, and immediately ordered the president De Thou, the provost
of Morsan, and Veale, a counsellor, to commence an investigation; this
calmed them in some measure, and made them give up the plan, which they
had agreed on, of leaving Paris immediately.
But the king felt convinced that something more must be done. He
announced his intentions of visiting the admiral in the afternoon. He
could not with prudence go among the Huguenots unprotected, nor could he
consistently be attended by his guards; he therefore desired that all the
court should visit Coligny also.
Charles entered the admiral’s dwelling, accompanied by his mother,
the duke of Anjou, De Retz, and his other counsellors, the marshals
of France, and a numerous suite. He began by consoling the admiral,
and then swore that the crime should be punished so severely that his
vengeance should never be effaced from the memory of man. Coligny thanked
his sovereign for such testimonials of his kindness, and conjured him
to support with his authority the execution of the different edicts
in favour of the Protestants, many points of which were violated, or
misunderstood. “My father,” answered the king, “depend upon it, I shall
always consider you a faithful subject, and one of the bravest generals
in my kingdom; confide in me for the execution of my edicts, and for
avenging you when the criminals are discovered.” “They are not difficult
to find out,” said Coligny, “the traces are very plain.” “Tranquillise
yourself,” said the king, “a longer emotion may hurt you and retard
your cure.” The conversation then turned upon the war with Spain, and
lasted nearly an hour. Coligny complained of the Spanish government
being informed of whatever was decided on; and as the intimacy between
the queen-mother and the Spanish ambassador was very great and caused
suspicion, he spoke to the king in a low voice. The war in Flanders was a
subject of great alarm for Catherine; she knew her son’s secret wishes,
and she dreaded the effect which Coligny’s remarks might have upon him;
she interrupted the conversation and prevailed upon the king to leave
the place. Charles, who was exerting himself to efface any suspicion
which might have arisen in Coligny’s mind, became vexed at the anxiety
displayed by his mother; and as they were returning to the Louvre, being
pressed to tell what Coligny had said, he declared, with an oath, that
the admiral had said what was true--that he had suffered the authority
to fall from his hands, and that he ought to become master of his own
affairs. When the king and his suite retired, the admiral’s friends
expressed great astonishment at his affability, and the desire he showed
to bring the crime to justice. “But,” says Brantôme,[e] “all these fine
appearances afterwards turned to ill, which amazed everyone very much
how their majesties could perform so counterfeit a part, unless they had
previously resolved on this massacre.”[k]
PREPARING FOR THE MASSACRE
Catherine and Anjou returned in consternation: “We remained,” said
Anjou, “so bereft of counsel and knowledge of how to act that being, for
the moment, unable to resolve on anything we retired, putting off our
decision until the next day.” Meantime they despatched to the king the
count de Retz, Gondi, the man who best knew how to manipulate that fiery
and pliable mind, to endeavour to appease him. Retz made him uneasy,
agitated him, but got nothing from him.
The king’s attitude towards the Huguenots remained the same: Charles
IX launched great threats against the Guises, who were more and more
compromised by the information collected by the commissioners: orders
were given to arrest certain servants of their house. On the morning of
Saturday the 23rd the dukes of Guise and Aumale came to seek the king and
said to him, that it seemed to them that his majesty had not been well
pleased with their service for some time, and that they would retire from
court if their withdrawal was agreeable to him. The king “with an ill
countenance and worse words,” answered that they might go whither they
would, and that he would always be well disposed towards them if they
were recognised as guilty of what had been done to the admiral. They left
the Louvre about mid-day, mounted on horseback and with a good following
took their way towards the porte St. Antoine; but they did not quit
Paris, and shut themselves up in the hôtel de Guise.
Meantime the king was giving the Reformed fresh tokens of interest: he
had a general list made of the Protestants who were present in Paris; he
offered lodging to the Huguenot nobility about the admiral; he invited
the king of Navarre and the prince of Condé to accommodate their friends
at the Louvre. The security of the Protestant princes, of Téligny and
almost all those about the admiral, was complete: the vidame de Chartres
(Ferrières-Maligni) twice endeavoured to persuade them to leave Paris;
his advice was rejected with impatience. Ambroise Paré answered for
the life of the wounded man, and this great failure in crime seemed to
promise the ruin of its authors.
Most of the Huguenots indulged in vain clamours against the house of
Lorraine, passing and repassing “in great companies, in cuirasses, before
the lodging of MM. de Guise and d’Aumale,” but they took no precautions
for the night, trusting to the protection of a detachment of the king’s
guard and in the tranquillity of the first night which had followed the
wounding of the admiral.
In the afternoon the queen-mother and the duke of Anjou summoned the
count de Retz, the chancellor Birague, Marshal de Tavannes, and the duke
de Nevers to the garden of the Tuileries. Of the three advisers who
helped the widow and sons of Henry II to soil the annals of France with
an ineffaceable stain, three were foreigners. They arranged their plan,
and then all six went to seek the king in his cabinet in the Louvre.
Fatal hour, which decided for Charles IX between glory with Coligny and
eternal shame with Catherine; between the redemption of his misguided
youth and his eternal damnation in history. The destiny of France hung
on a word, on the motion of a weak head, of a mind without compass and
without curb, of one who was almost a madman. And the unhappy man was
alone, abandoned, in the midst of these demons!
We have the account of this infernal council dictated by that one of
the accomplices who became Henry III. A few other writings of the time
almost complete our knowledge on the subject. We see this impious mother
artfully distilling the poison into the shuddering soul of her son, and
closing round him every other issue save that of crime. “The Huguenots,”
she said to him, “are everywhere arming, not to serve you but to make
themselves your masters: the admiral has sent for six thousand _reiters_
and ten thousand Swiss; at home their leaders have an understanding with
a number of towns, communities, and peoples, all agreed to reduce your
authority to nothingness under pretext of the public advantage. The
Catholics, on the other hand, are resolved to put an end to this state
of affairs. If you refuse their advice they have decided to elect a
captain-general and to form an offensive and defensive league against the
Huguenots. You will be left alone between the two. Already Paris is under
arms.”
“How is that? I had forbidden them to arm in the _quartiers_.”
“The _quartiers_ are armed.”
In fact the demonstrations of the Huguenots and the rumour circulated
by Anjou and the Guises that the marshal De Montmorency, who after the
wedding had returned to his château of Chantilly for a few days, was
about to re-enter Paris “with a great force,” had greatly excited the
masses, and had brought out the citizen militia.
Fear began to take possession of the king. Anjou and others ardently
supported Catherine. She continued, “One man is the leader and author of
all this ruin and calamity; the admiral is deluding the king, making him
the instrument of his ambitions and of his party, urging the state to its
downfall while pretending to aggrandise it! Let the king remember the
attempt of Amboise against his brother, and that of Meaux against himself
when he saw himself constrained to flee before his revolted subjects!”
The memory of Meaux, as Catherine knew too well, always acted on the
pride of Charles IX as a hot iron on a wound.
“The Huguenots,” she resumed, “demand vengeance on the Guises. Well,
you cannot sacrifice the Guises; for they will exonerate themselves by
accusing your mother and your brother! And they will accuse us with good
reason. It was we who struck the admiral to save the king! The king must
finish the work or he and we are lost!”
Charles IX seems to have lost his head. He was seized with a fit of
blind, mad fury against all and everything; his only clear idea was that
he would not “have the admiral touched”; then, sinking into a melancholy
dejection, he conjured all these sinister advisers to seek some other
means of salvation.
Tavannes, Birague, Nevers insisted on the death of the admiral and of all
the principal leaders. Retz, if Anjou is to be believed, opposed himself,
contrary to all expectation, to the execution of a design which he,
more than anyone, had contributed to prepare. Was it fear or was it an
awakening of conscience in this corrupt man? “You will dishonour the king
and the French nation; you will plunge again into civil wars, and you
will be able to speak no more of peace! You will summon again the arms
of the foreigner, and calamities and ruin whose end we, and perhaps our
children, shall never see.”
There was a moment of stupor amongst the conspirators. The man who had
ruined the youth of Charles IX was holding out to him the plank of
safety. The king was to escape!
They recovered themselves and made a simultaneous and desperate effort.
“It is too late! The Guises are on the verge of denouncing the king
himself with his mother and his brother! The Huguenots will not believe
in the king’s innocence. They will turn their arms against all the royal
family! War is inevitable! Better to gain a battle in Paris where we have
all the leaders than to risk it in the open country!”
Retz was silent. The king resisted for more than an hour and a half. “But
my honour!--but my friends! the admiral!--La Rochefoucauld!--Téligny--”
Catherine saw that he was panting and exhausted: “Sire, you refuse. Give
us, myself and your brother, permission to take our leave of you--to go.”
He realised that Catherine and Anjou would not go far, and that the
“captain-general” of the Catholics was already found. He shuddered.