fell like a blight upon the ancient glory of the house of Montmorency--
his enemies destroyed his influence and his popularity--while the
degradation of the kingdom was simultaneous with the downfall of his
illustrious name. On the other hand, the exultation of Philip was as keen
as his cold and stony nature would permit. The magnificent palace-
convent of the Escurial, dedicated to the saint on whose festival the
battle had been fought, and built in the shape of the gridiron, on which
that martyr had suffered, was soon afterwards erected in pious
commemoration of the event. Such was the celebration of the victory.
The reward reserved for the victor was to be recorded on a later page
of history.
The coldness and caution, not to say the pusillanimity of Philip,
prevented him from seizing the golden fruits of his triumph. Ferdinand
Gonzaga wished the blow to be followed up by an immediate march upon
Paris.--Such was also the feeling of all the distinguished soldiers of
the age. It was unquestionably the opinion, and would have been the
deed, of Charles, had he been on the field of Saint Quentin, crippled as
he was, in the place of his son. He could not conceal his rage and
mortification when he found that Paris had not fallen, and is said to
have refused to read the despatches which recorded that the event had not
been consummated. There was certainly little of the conqueror in
Philip's nature; nothing which would have led him to violate the safest
principles of strategy. He was not the man to follow up enthusiastically
the blow which had been struck; Saint Quentin, still untaken, although
defended by but eight hundred soldiers, could not be left behind him;
Nevers was still in his front, and although it was notorious that he
commanded only the wreck of an army, yet a new one might be collected,
perhaps, in time to embarrass the triumphant march to Paris. Out of his
superabundant discretion, accordingly, Philip refused to advance till
Saint Quentin should be reduced.
Although nearly driven to despair by the total overthrow of the French in
the recent action, Coligny still held bravely out, being well aware that
every day by which the siege could be protracted was of advantage to his
country. Again he made fresh attempts to introduce men into the city.
A fisherman showed him a submerged path, covered several feet deep with
water, through which he succeeded in bringing one hundred and fifty
unarmed and half-drowned soldiers into the place. His garrison consisted
barely of eight hundred men, but the siege was still sustained, mainly by
his courage and sagacity, and by the spirit of his brother Andelot. The
company of cavalry, belonging to the Dauphin's regiment, had behaved
badly, and even with cowardice, since the death of their commander
Teligny. The citizens were naturally weary and impatient of the siege.
Mining and countermining continued till the 21st August. A steady
cannonade was then maintained until the 27th. Upon that day, eleven
breaches having been made in the walls, a simultaneous assault was
ordered at four of them. The citizens were stationed upon the walls,
the soldiers in the breaches. There was a short but sanguinary contest.
the garrison resisting with uncommon bravery. Suddenly an entrance was
effected through a tower which had been thought sufficiently strong, and
which had been left unguarded. Coligny, rushing to the spot, engaged the
enemy almost single-handed. He was soon overpowered, being attended only
by four men and a page, was made a prisoner by a soldier named Francisco
Diaz, and conducted through one of the subterranean mines into the
presence of the Duke of Savoy, from whom the captor received ten thousand
ducats in exchange for the Admiral's sword. The fighting still continued
with great determination in the streets, the brave Andelot resisting to
the last. He was, however, at last overpowered, and taken prisoner.
Philip, who had, as usual, arrived in the trenches by noon, armed in
complete harness, with a page carrying his helmet, was met by the
intelligence that the city of Saint Quentin was his own.
To a horrible carnage succeeded a sack and a conflagration still more
horrible. In every house entered during the first day, every human being
was butchered. The sack lasted all that day and the whole of the
following, till the night of the 28th. There was not a soldier who did
not obtain an ample share of plunder, and some individuals succeeded in
getting possession of two, three, and even twelve thousand ducats each.
The women were not generally outraged, but they were stripped almost
entirely naked, lest they should conceal treasure which belonged to their
conquerors, and they were slashed in the face with knives, partly in
sport, partly as a punishment for not giving up property which was not in
their possession. The soldiers even cut off the arms of many among these
wretched women, and then turned them loose, maimed and naked, into the
blazing streets; for the town, on the 28th, was fired in a hundred
places, and was now one general conflagration. The streets were already
strewn with the corpses of the butchered garrison and citizens; while the
survivors were now burned in their houses. Human heads, limbs, and
trunks, were mingled among the bricks and rafters of the houses, which
were falling on every side. The fire lasted day and night, without an
attempt being made to extinguish it; while the soldiers dashed like
devils through flame and smoke in search of booty. Bearing lighted
torches, they descended into every subterrranean vault and receptacle, of
which there were many in the town, and in every one of which they hoped
to discover hidden treasure. The work of killing, plundering, and
burning lasted nearly three days and nights. The streets, meanwhile,
were encumbered with heaps of corpses, not a single one of which had been
buried since the capture of the town. The remains of nearly all the able
bodied male population, dismembered, gnawed by dogs or blackened by fire,
polluted the midsummer air meantime, the women had been again
driven into the cathedral, where they had housed during the siege, and
where they now crouched together in trembling expectation of their fate.'
On the 29th August, at two o'clock in the afternoon, Philip issued an
order that every woman, without an exception, should be driven out of the
city into the French territory. Saint Quentin, which seventy years
before had been a Flemish town, was to be re-annexed, and not a single
man, woman, or child who could speak the French language was to remain
another hour in the place. The tongues of the men had been effectually
silenced. The women, to the number of three thousand five hundred, were
now compelled to leave the cathedral and the city. Some were in a
starving condition; others had been desperately wounded; all, as they
passed through the ruinous streets of what had been their home, were
compelled to tread upon the unburied remains of their fathers, husbands,
or brethren. To none of these miserable creatures remained a living
protector--hardly even a dead body which could be recognized; and thus
the ghastly procession of more than three thousand women, many with
gaping wounds in the face, many with their arms cut off and festering,
of all ranks and ages, some numbering more than ninety years, bareheaded,
with grey hair streaming upon their shoulders; others with nursing
infants in their arms, all escorted by a company of heavy-armed troopers,
left forever their native city. All made the dismal journey upon foot,
save that carts were allowed to transport the children between the ages
of two and six years. The desolation and depopulation were now complete.
"I wandered through the place, gazing at all this," says a Spanish
soldier who was present, and kept a diary of all which occurred," and it
seemed to me that it was another destruction of Jerusalem. What most
struck me was to find not a single denizen of the town left, who was or
who dared to call himself French. How vain and transitory, thought I,
are the things of this world! Six days ago what riches were in the city,
and now remains not one stone upon another."
The expulsion of the women had been accomplished by the express command
of Philip, who moreover had made no effort to stay the work of carnage,
pillage, and conflagration. The pious King had not forgotten, however,
his duty to the saints. As soon as the fire had broken out, he had sent
to the cathedral, whence he had caused the body of Saint Quentin to be
removed and placed in the royal tent. Here an altar, was arranged, upon
one side of which was placed the coffin of that holy personage, and upon
the other the head of the "glorious Saint Gregory" (whoever that glorious
individual may have been in life), together with many other relics
brought from the church. Within the sacred enclosure many masses were
said daily, while all this devil's work was going on without. The saint
who had been buried for centuries was comfortably housed and guarded by
the monarch, while dogs were gnawing the carcases of the freshly-slain
men of Saint Quentin, and troopers were driving into perpetual exile its
desolate and mutilated women.
The most distinguished captives upon this occasion were, of course,
Coligny and his brother. Andelot was, however, fortunate enough to make
his escape that night under the edge of the tent in which he was
confined. The Admiral was taken to Antwerp. Here he lay for many weeks
sick with a fever. Upon his recovery, having no better pastime, he fell
to reading the Scriptures. The result was his conversion to Calvinism;
and the world shudders yet at the fate in which that conversion involved
him.
Saint Quentin being thus reduced, Philip was not more disposed to push
his fortune. The time was now wasted in the siege of several
comparatively unimportant places, so that the fruits of Egmont's valor
were not yet allowed to ripen. Early in September Le Catelet was taken.
On the 12th of the same month the citadel of Ham yielded, after receiving
two thousand shots from Philip's artillery, while Nojon, Chanly, and some
other places of less importance, were burned to the ground. After all
this smoke and fire upon the frontier, productive of but slender
consequences, Philip disbanded his army, and retired to Brussels.
He reached that city on the 12th October. The English returned to their
own country. The campaign of 1557 was closed without a material result,
and the victory of Saint Quentin remained for a season barren.
In the mean time the French were not idle. The army of the Constable had
been destroyed but the Duke de Guise, who had come post-haste from Italy
after hearing the news of Saint Quentin, was very willing to organize
another. He was burning with impatience both to retrieve his own
reputation, which had suffered some little damage by his recent Italian
campaign, and to profit by the captivity of his fallen rival the
Constable. During the time occupied by the languid and dilatory
proceedings of Philip in the autumn, the Duke had accordingly recruited
in France and Germany a considerable army. In January (1558) he was
ready to take the field. It had been determined in the French cabinet,
however, not to attempt to win back the places which they had lost in
Picardy, but to carry the war into the territory of the ally. It was
fated that England should bear all the losses, and Philip appropriate all
the gain and glory, which resulted from their united exertions. It was
the war of the Queen's husband, with which the Queen's people had no
concern, but in which the last trophies of the Black Prince were to be
forfeited. On the first January, 1558, the Duc de Guise appeared before
Calais. The Marshal Strozzi had previously made an expedition, in
disguise, to examine the place. The result of his examination was that
the garrison was weak, and that it relied too much upon the citadel.
After a tremendous cannonade, which lasted a week, and was heard in
Antwerp, the city was taken by assault. Thus the key to the great Norman
portal of France, the time-honored key which England had worn at her
girdle since the eventful day of Crecy, was at last taken from her.
Calais had been originally won after a siege which had lasted a
twelvemonth, had been held two hundred and ten years, and was now lost in
seven days. Seven days more, and ten thousand discharges from thirty-
five great guns sufficed for the reduction of Guines. Thus the last
vestige of English dominion, the last substantial pretext of the English
sovereign to wear the title and the lilies of France, was lost forever.
King Henry visited Calais, which after two centuries of estrangement had
now become a French town again, appointed Paul de Thermes governor of the
place, and then returned to Paris to celebrate soon afterwards the
marriage of the Dauphin with the niece of the Guises, Mary, Queen of
Scots.
These events, together with the brief winter campaign of the Duke, which
had raised for an instant the drooping head of France, were destined
before long to give a new face to affairs, while it secured the
ascendancy of the Catholic party in the kingdom. Disastrous eclipse had
come over the house of Montmorency and Coligny, while the star of Guise,
brilliant with the conquest of Calais, now culminated to the zenith.
It was at this period that the memorable interview between the two
ecclesiastics, the Bishop of Arras and the Cardinal de Lorraine, took
place at Peronne. From this central point commenced the weaving of that
wide-spread scheme, in which the fate of millions was to be involved.
The Duchess Christina de Lorraine, cousin of Philip, had accompanied him
to Saint Quentin. Permission had been obtained by the Duc de Guise and
his brother, the Cardinal, to visit her at Peronne. The Duchess was
accompanied by the Bishop of Arras, and the consequence was a full and
secret negotiation between the two priests. It may be supposed that
Philip's short-lived military ardor had already exhausted itself. He had
mistaken his vocation, and already recognized the false position in which
he was placed. He was contending against the monarch in whom he might
find the surest ally against the arch enemy of both kingdoms, and of the
world. The French monarch held heresy in horror, while, for himself,
Philip had already decided upon his life's mission.
The crafty Bishop was more than a match for the vain and ambitious
Cardinal. That prelate was assured that Philip considered the captivity
of Coligny and Montmorency a special dispensation of Providence, while
the tutelar genius of France, notwithstanding the reverses sustained by
that kingdom, was still preserved. The Cardinal and his brother, it was
suggested, now held in their hands the destiny of the kingdom, and of
Europe. The interests of both nations, of religion, and of humanity,
made it imperative upon them to put an end to this unnatural war, in
order that the two monarchs might unite hand and heart for the
extirpation of heresy. That hydra-headed monster had already extended
its coils through France, while its pestilential breath was now wafted
into Flanders from the German as well as the French border. Philip
placed full reliance upon the wisdom and discretion of the Cardinal. It
was necessary that these negotiations should for the present remain a
profound secret; but in the mean time a peace ought to be concluded with
as little delay as possible; a result which, it was affirmed, was as
heartily desired by Philip as it could be by Henry. The Bishop was soon
aware of the impression which his artful suggestions had produced. The
Cardinal, inspired by the flattery thus freely administered, as well as
by the promptings of his own ambition, lent a willing ear to the Bishop's
plans. Thus was laid the foundation of a vast scheme, which time was to
complete. A crusade with the whole strength of the French and Spanish
crowns, was resolved upon against their own subjects. The Bishop's task
was accomplished. The Cardinal returned to France, determined to effect
a peace with Spain. He was convinced that the glory of his house was to
be infinitely enhanced, and its power impregnably established, by a
cordial co-operation with Philip in his dark schemes against religion and
humanity. The negotiations were kept, however, profoundly secret. A new
campaign and fresh humiliations were to precede the acceptance by France
of the peace which was thus proffered.
Hostile operations were renewed soon after the interview at Peronne.
The Duke of Guise, who had procured five thousand cavalry and fourteen
thousand infantry in Germany, now, at the desire of the King, undertook
an enterprise against Thionville, a city of importance and great strength
in Luxemburg, upon the river Moselle. It was defended by Peter de
Quarebbe, a gentleman of Louvain, with a garrison of eighteen hundred
men. On the 5th June, thirty-five pieces of artillery commenced the
work; the mining and countermining-continuing seventeen days; on the
22nd the assault was made, and the garrison capitulated immediately
afterwards. It was a siege conducted in a regular and business-like way,
but the details possess no interest. It was, however, signalized by the
death of one of the eminent adventurers of the age, Marshal Strozzi.
This brave, but always unlucky soldier was slain by a musket ball while
assisting the Duke of Guise--whose arm was, at that instant, resting upon
his shoulder--to point a gun at the fortress.
After the fall of Thionville, the Due de Guise, for a short time,
contemplated the siege of the city of Luxemburg, but contented himself
with the reduction of the unimportant places of Vireton and Arlon. Here
he loitered seventeen days, making no exertions to follow up the success
which had attended him at the opening of the campaign. The good fortune
of the French was now neutralized by the same languor which had marked
the movements of Philip after the victory of Saint Quentin. The time,
which might have been usefully employed in following up his success, was
now wasted by the Duke in trivial business, or in absolute torpor. This
may have been the result of a treacherous understanding with Spain, and
the first fruits of the interview at Peronne. Whatever the cause,
however, the immediate consequences were disaster to the French nation,
and humiliation to the crown.
It had been the plan of the French cabinet that Marshal de Thermes, who,
upon the capture of Calais, had been appointed governor of the city,
should take advantage of his position as soon as possible. Having
assembled an army of some eight thousand foot and fifteen hundred horse,
partly Gascons and partly Germans, he was accordingly directed to ravage
the neighboring country, particularly the county of Saint Pol. In the
mean time, the Due de Guise, having reduced the cities on the southern
frontier, was to move in a northerly direction, make a junction with the
Marshal, and thus extend a barrier along the whole frontier of the
Netherlands.
De Therlries set forth from Calais, in the beginning of June, with his
newly-organized army. Passing by Gravelines and Bourbourg, he arrived
before Dunkerk on the 2d of July. The city, which was without a
garrison, opened negotiations, during the pendency of which it was taken
by assault and pillaged. The town of Saint Winochsberg shared the same
fate. De Thermes, who was a martyr to the gout, was obliged at this
point temporarily to resign the command to d'Estonteville, a ferocious
soldier, who led the predatory army as far as Niewport, burning, killing,
ravishing, plundering, as they went. Meantime Philip, who was at
Brussels, had directed the Duke of Savoy to oppose the Due de Guise with
an army which had been hastily collected and organized at Maubeuge, in
the province of Namur. He now desired, if possible, to attack and cut
off the forces of De Thermes before he should extend the hand to Guise,
or make good his retreat to Calais.
Flushed with victory over defenceless peasants, laden with the spoils of
sacked and burning towns, the army of De Thermes was already on its
homeward march. It was the moment for a sudden and daring blow. Whose
arm should deal it? What general in Philip's army possessed the
requisite promptness, and felicitous audacity; who, but the most
brilliant of cavalry officers, the bold and rapid hero of St. Quentin?
Egmont, in obedience to the King's command, threw himself at once into
the field. He hastily collected all the available forces in the
neighborhood. These, with drafts from the Duke of Savoy's army, and with
detachments under Marshal Bigonicourt from the garrisons of Saint Omer,
Bethune, Aire, and Bourbourg, soon amounted to ten thousand foot and two
thousand horse. His numbers were still further swollen by large bands of
peasantry, both men and women, maddened by their recent injuries, and
thirsting for vengeance. With these troops the energetic chieftain took
up his position directly in the path of the French army. Determined to
destroy De Thermes with all his force, or to sacrifice himself, he posted
his army at Gravelines, a small town lying near the sea-shore, and about
midway between Calais and Dunkerk. The French general was putting the
finishing touch to his expedition by completing the conflagration at
Dunkerk, and was moving homeward, when he became aware of the lion in his
path. Although suffering from severe sickness, he mounted his horse and
personally conducted his army to Gravelines. Here he found his progress
completely arrested. On that night, which was the 12th July, he held a
council of officers. It was determined to refuse the combat offered,
and, if possible, to escape at low tide along the sands toward Calais.
The next morning he crossed the river Aa, below Gravelines. Egmont, who
was not the man, on that occasion at least, to build a golden bridge for
a flying enemy, crossed the same stream just above the town, and drew up
his whole force in battle array. De Thermes could no longer avoid the
conflict thus resolutely forced upon him. Courage was now his only.
counsellor. Being not materially outnumbered by his adversaries, he had,
at least, an even chance of cutting his way through all obstacles, and of
saving his army and his treasure. The sea was on his right hand, the Aa
behind him, the enemy in front. He piled his baggage and wagons so as to
form a barricade upon his left, and placed his artillery, consisting of
four culverines and three falconeta, in front. Behind these he drew up
his cavalry, supported at each side by the Gascons, and placed his French
and German infantry in the rear.