1572-1574.
THE SEQUEL OF THE MASSACRE, TO THE DEATH OF CHARLES THE NINTH 572
Widespread Terror 572
La Rochelle and other Cities in Huguenot Hands 573
Nismes and Montauban 573
La Rochelle the Centre of Interest 576
A Spurious Letter of Catharine 577
Designs on the City 577
Mission of La Noue 579
He is badly received 580
The Royal Proposals rejected 581
Marshal Biron appears before La Rochelle 582
Beginning of the Fourth Religious War 582
Description of La Rochelle 582
Resoluteness of the Defenders 583
Their Military Strength 584
Henry, Duke of Anjou, appointed to conduct the Siege 585
The Besieged pray and fight 585
Bravery of the Women 586
La Noue retires--Failure of Diplomacy 587
English Aid miscarries 588
Huguenot Successes in the South 589
Sommieres and Villeneuve 589
Beginning of the Siege of Sancerre 589
The Incipient Famine 590
Losses of the Army before La Rochelle 591
Roman Catholic Processions 592
Election of Henry of Anjou to the Crown of Poland 593
Edict of Pacification (Boulogne, July, 1573) 593
Meagre Results of the War 594
The Siege and Famine of Sancerre continue 595
The City capitulates 597
Reception of the Polish Ambassadors 598
Discontent of the South with the Terms of Peace 599
Assembly of Milhau and Montauban 600
Military Organization of the Huguenots 600
Petition to the King 601
"Les Fronts d'Airain" 603
Catharine's Bitter Reply 604
The Huguenots firm 604
Decline of Charles's Health 605
Project of an English Match renewed 606
Intrigues with the German Princes 608
Death of Louis of Nassau 610
Anjou's Reception at Heidelberg 610
Frankness of the Elector Palatine 611
Last Days of Chancellor L'Hospital 613
The Party of the "Politiques" 615
Hotman's "Franco-Gallia" 615
Treacherous Attempt on La Rochelle 616
Huguenots reassemble at Milhau 617
They complete their Organization 618
The Duke of Alencon 619
Glandage Plunders the City of Orange 620
Montbrun's Exploits in Dauphiny 621
La Rochelle resumes Arms (Beginning of the Fifth Religious War) 622
Diplomacy tried in Vain 623
The "Politiques" make an Unsuccessful Rising 625
Flight of the Court from St. Germain 626
Alencon and Navarre examined 627
Execution of La Mole and Coconnas 628
Conde retires to Germany 629
Reasons for the Success of the Huguenots 630
Montgomery lands in Normandy 631
He is forced to Surrender 632
Delight of Catharine 632
Execution of Montgomery 633
Last Days of Charles the Ninth 635
Distress of his Young Queen 636
Death and Funeral Rites of Charles 638
Had Persecution, War and Treachery Succeeded? 639
BOOK SECOND.
_FROM THE EDICT OF JANUARY (1562) TO THE DEATH OF CHARLES THE NINTH
(1574)._
CHAPTER XIII.
THE FIRST CIVIL WAR.
[Sidenote: Inconsistencies of the Edict of January.]
The Edict of January was on its very face a compromise, and as such rested
on no firm foundation. Inconsistent with itself, it fully satisfied
neither Huguenot nor Roman Catholic. The latter objected to the toleration
which the edict extended; the former demanded the unrestricted freedom of
worship which it denied. If the existence of two diverse religions was
compatible with the welfare of the state, why ignominiously thrust the
places of Protestant worship from the cities into the suburbs? If the two
were irreconcilable, why suffer the Huguenots to assemble outside the
walls?
[Sidenote: Huguenot leaders urge the observance of the edict.]
Yet there was this difference between the attitude assumed by the rival
parties with reference to the edict: while the Roman Catholic leaders made
no secret of their intention to insist upon its repeal,[1] the Huguenot
leaders were urgent in their advice to the churches to conform strictly to
its provisions, restraining the indiscreet zeal of their more impetuous
members and exhibiting due gratitude to Heaven for the amelioration of
their lot. To the _people_ it was, indeed, a bitter disappointment to be
compelled to give up the church edifices, and to resort for public service
to the outskirts of the town. Less keen was the regret experienced by
others not less sincerely interested in the progress of the purer
doctrines, who, on account of their appreciation of the violence of the
opposition to be encountered, had not been so sanguine in their
expectations. And so Beza and other prominent men of the Protestant
Church, after obtaining from Chancellor L'Hospital some further
explanations on doubtful points, addressed to their brethren in all parts
of France a letter full of wholesome advice. "God," said they, "has
deigned to employ new means of protecting His church in this kingdom, by
placing those who profess the Gospel under the safeguard of the king, our
natural prince, and of the magistrates and governors established by him.
This should move us so much the more to praise the infinite goodness of
our Heavenly Father, who has at length answered the cry of His children,
and lovingly to obey the king, in order that he may be induced to aid our
just cause." The provisional edict, they added, was not all that might yet
be hoped for. As respected the surrender of the churches, those Huguenots
who had seized them on their own individual authority ought rather to
acknowledge their former indiscretion than deplore the necessity for
restitution. In fine, annoyance at the loss of a few privileges ought to
be forgotten in gratitude for the gain of many signal advantages.[2] The
letter produced a deep impression, and its salutary advice was followed
scrupulously, if not cheerfully, even in southern France, where the
Huguenots, in some places, outnumbered the adherents of the Romish Church.
[Sidenote: Seditious Sermons.]
The papal party was less ready to acquiesce. The Edict of January was,
according to its representative writers, the most pernicious law for the
kingdom that could have been devised. By forbidding the magistrates from
interfering with the Protestant conventicles held in the suburbs, by
permitting the royal officers to attend, by conferring upon the ministers
full liberty of officiating, a formal approval was, for the first time,
given to the new sect under the authority of the royal seal.[3] The
pulpits resounded with denunciations of the government. The King of
Navarre and the queen mother were assailed under scriptural names, as
favoring the false prophets of Baal. Scarcely a sermon was preached in
which they did not figure as Ahab and Jezebel.[4] A single specimen of the
spirited discourses in vogue will suffice. A Franciscan monk--one
Barrier--the same from whose last Easter sermon an extract has already
been given[5]--after reading the royal ordinance in his church of
Sainte-Croix, in Provins, remarked: "Well now, gentlemen of Provins, what
must I, and the other preachers of France, do? Must we obey this order?
What shall we tell you? What shall we preach? 'The Gospel,' Sir Huguenot
will say. And pray, stating that the errors of Calvin, of Martin Luther,
of Beza, Malot, Peter Martyr, and other preachers, with their erroneous
doctrine, condemned by the Church a thousand years ago, and since then by
the holy oecumenical councils, are worthless and damnable--is not this
preaching the Gospel? Bidding you beware of their teaching, bidding you
refuse to listen to them, or read their books; telling you that they only
seek to stir up sedition, murder, and robbery, as they have begun to do in
Paris and numberless places in the realm--is not this preaching 'the
Gospel?' But some one may say: 'Pray, friar, what are you saying? You are
not obeying the king's edict; you are still talking of Calvin and his
companions; you call them and those who hold their sentiments _heretics_
and _Huguenots_; you will be denounced to the courts of justice, you will
be thrown into prison--yes, you will be hung as a seditious person.' I
answer, _that_ is not unlikely, for Ahab and Jezebel put to death the
prophets of God in their time, and gave all freedom to the false prophets
of Baal. 'Stop, friar, you are saying too much, you will be hung.' Very
well, then there will be a gray friar hung! Many others will therefore
have to be hung, for God, by His Holy Spirit, will inspire the pillars of
His church to uphold the edifice, which will never be overthrown until the
end of the world, whatever blows may be struck at it."[6]
[Sidenote: Opposition of the parliaments.]
The parliaments exhibited scarcely less opposition to the edict than did
the pulpits of the Roman Catholic churches. One--the Parliament of
Dijon--never registered it at all;[7] while that of Paris instituted a
long and decided resistance. "_Non possumus, nec debemus," "non possumus,
nec debemus pro conscientia_," were the words in which it replied when
repeatedly pressed to give formal sanction.[8] The counsellors were
equally displeased with the contents of the edict, and with the
irregularity committed in sending it first to the provincial parliaments.
Even when the king, yielding to their importunity, by a supplementary
"declaration," interpreted the provision of the edict relative to the
attendance of royal officers upon the reformed services, as applicable
only to the bailiffs, seneschals, and other minor magistrates, and
strictly prohibited the attendance of the members of parliament and other
high judicatories,[9] the counsellors, instead of proceeding to the
registry of the obnoxious law, returned a recommendation that the
intolerant Edict of _July_ be enforced![10] It was not possible until
March to obtain a tardy assent to the reception of the January Edict into
the legislation of the country, and then only a few of the judges
vouchsafed to take part in the act.[11] The delay served to inflame yet
more the passions of the people.
[Sidenote: New conference.]
Scarcely had the edict which was to adjust the relations of the two
religious parties been promulgated, when a new attempt was made to
reconcile the antagonistic beliefs by the old, but ever unsuccessful
method of a conference between theologians. On the twenty-eighth of
January a select company assembled in the large council-chamber of the
royal palace of St. Germain, and commenced the discussion of the first
topic submitted for their deliberation--the question of pictures or images
and their worship. Catharine herself was present, with Antoine of Navarre
and Jeanne d'Albret, Michel de l'Hospital, and other members of the
council. On the papal side appeared the Cardinals of Bourbon, Tournon, and
Ferrara, and a number of less elevated dignitaries. Beza and Marlorat were
most prominent on the side of the reformed. The discussion was long and
earnest, but it ended leaving all the disputants holding the same views
that they had entertained at the outset. Beza condemned as idolatrous the
practice of admitting statues or paintings into Christian churches, and
urged their entire removal. The Inquisitor De Mouchy, Fra Giustiniano of
Corfu, Maillard, dean of the Sorbonne, and others, attempted to refute his
positions in a style of argument which exhibited the extremes of profound
learning and silly conceit. Bishop Montluc of Valence,[12] and four
doctors of theology--Salignac, Bouteiller, D'Espense, and Picherel--not
only admitted the flagrant abuses of image-worship, but drew up a paper in
which they did not disguise their sentiments. They recommended the removal
of representations of the Holy Trinity, and of pictures immodest in
character, or of saints not recognized by the Church. They reprobated the
custom of decking out the portraits of the saints with crowns and dresses,
the celebration of processions in their honor, and the offering of gifts
and vows. And they yielded so far to the demands of the Protestants as to
desire that only the simple cross should be permitted to remain over the
altar, while the pictures should be placed high upon the walls, where they
could neither be kissed nor receive other objectionable marks of
adoration.[13] It was a futile task to reconcile views so discordant even
among the Roman Catholic partisans. Two weeks were spent in profitless
discussion, and, on the eleventh of February, the new colloquy was
permitted to dissolve without having entered upon any of the more
difficult questions that still remained upon the programme marked out for
it.[14] The cardinals had prevailed upon Catharine de' Medici to refer the
settlement to the Council of Trent.[15] The joy of De Mouchy, the
inquisitor, and of his companions, knew no bounds when Chancellor
L'Hospital declared the queen's pleasure, and requested the members to
retire to their homes, and reduce their opinions to writing for future
use. They were ready to throw themselves on Beza's neck in their delight
at being relieved of the necessity of debating with him![16]
[Sidenote: Defection of Antoine and its results.]
[Sidenote: Constancy of Jeanne.]
But, in truth, the time for the calm discussion of theological
differences, the time for friendly salutation between the champions of the
rival systems of faith, was rapidly drawing to a close. If some rays of
sunshine still glanced athwart the landscape, conveying to the unpractised
eye the impression of quiet serenity, there were also black and portentous
clouds already rising far above the horizon. Those who could read the
signs of the times had long watched their gathering, and they trembled
before the coming of the storm. Although they were mercifully spared the
full knowledge of the overwhelming ruin that would follow in the wake of
that fearful war of the elements, they saw the angry commotion of the sky,
and realized that the air was surcharged with material for the most
destructive bolts of heaven. And yet it is the opinion of a contemporary,
whose views are always worthy of careful consideration, that, had it not
been for the final defection of the King of Navarre at this critical
juncture, the great woes impending over France might still have been
delayed or averted.[17] That unhappy prince seemed determined to earn the
title of the "Julian Apostate" of the French Reformation. Plied by the
arts of his own servants, D'Escars (of whom Mezeray pithily remarks that
he was ready to sell himself for money to anybody, save his master) and
the Bishop of Auxerre; flattered by the Triumvirate, tempted by the
Spanish Ambassador, Cardinal Tournon, and the papal legate, he had long
been playing a hypocritical part. He had been unwilling to break with the
Huguenots before securing the golden fruit with which he was lured on, and
so he was at the same time the agent and the object of treachery. Even
after he had sent in his submission to the Pope by the hands of D'Escars,
he pretended, when remonstrated with by his Protestant friends, that "he
would take care not to go so far that he could not easily extricate
himself."[18] He did not even show displeasure when faithfully rebuked and
warned.[19] Yet he had after long hesitation completely cast in his lot
with the papal party. He was convinced at last that Philip was in earnest
in his intention to give him the island of Sardinia, which was depicted to
him as a terrestrial paradise, "worth four Navarres."[20] It was widely
believed that he had received from the Holy See the promise of a divorce
from his heretical consort, which, while permitting him to retain the
possessions which she had justly forfeited by her spiritual rebellion,
would enable him to marry the youthful Mary of Scots, and add a
substantial crown to his titular claims.[21] But we would fain believe
that even Antoine of Bourbon had not sunk to such a depth of infamy.
Certain it is, however, that he now openly avowed his new devotion to the
Romish Church, and that the authority of his name became a bulwark of
strength to the refractory parliament in its endeavor to prevent the
execution of the edict of toleration.[22] But he was unsuccessful in
dragging with him the wife whom he had been the instrument of inducing
first to declare herself for the persecuted faith of the reformers. And
when Catharine de' Medici, who cared nothing for religion, tried to
persuade her to arrange matters with her husband, "Sooner," she said,
"than ever go to mass, had I my kingdom and my son in my hand, I would
cast them both into the depth of the sea, that they might not be a
hinderance to me."[23] Brave mother of Henry the Fourth! Well would it
have been, both for her son and for France, if that son had inherited more
of Jeanne d'Albret's devotion to truth, and less of his father's lewdness
and inconstancy!
[Sidenote: Immense crowds at Huguenot preaching.]
[Sidenote: The canons of Sainte Croix.]
As early as in February, Beza was of the opinion that the King of Navarre
would not suffer him to remain longer in the realm to which he himself had
invited him so earnestly only six months before. At all events, he would
be publicly dismissed by the first of May, and with him many others. With
this disquieting intelligence came also rumors of an alliance between the
enemies of the Gospel and the Spaniard, which could not be treated with
contempt as baseless fabrications.[24] But meanwhile the truth was making
daily progress. At a single gathering for prayer and preaching, but a few
days before, twenty-five thousand persons, it was computed, had been in
attendance, representing all ranks of the population, among whom were many
of the nobility.[25] In the city of Troyes, a few weeks later, eight or
nine thousand persons assembled from the neighboring country to celebrate
the Lord's Supper, and the number of communicants was so great that they
could not all partake on a single day; so the services were repeated on
the morrow.[26] Elsewhere there was equal zeal and growth. Indeed, so
rapid was the advance of Protestantism, so pressing the call for
ministers, that the large and flourishing church of Orleans, in a letter
written the last day of February, proclaimed their expectation of
establishing a theological school to supply their own wants and those of
the adjacent regions; and it is no insignificant mark of the power with
which the reformatory movement still coursed on, that the canons of the
great church of Sainte Croix had given notice of their intention to attend
the lectures that were to be delivered![27] In such an encouraging strain
did "the ministers, deacons, and elders" of the most Protestant city of
northern France write on the day before that deplorable massacre of Vassy,
which was to be the signal for an appeal from argument to arms, upon which
the newly enkindled spirit of religious inquiry was to be quenched in
partisan hatred and social confusion. Within less than two months the
tread of an armed host was to be heard in the city which it had been hoped
would be thronged by the pious students of the gospel of peace, and
frenzied soldiers would be hurling upon the floors of Sainte Croix the
statues of the saints that had long occupied their elevated niches.
We must now turn to the events preceding the inauspicious occurrence the
fruits of which proved so disastrous to the French church and state.
[Sidenote: The Guises meet the Duke of Wuertemberg at Saverne.]
Having at length made sure of the co-operation of the King of Navarre in
the contest upon which they had now resolved with the view of preventing
the execution of the Edict of January, the Guises desired to strengthen
themselves in the direction of Germany, and secure, if not the assistance,
at least the neutrality of the Protestant princes. Could the Protestants
on the other side of the Rhine be made indifferent spectators of the
struggle, persuaded that their own creed resembled the faith of the Roman
Catholics much more than the creed of the Huguenots; could they be
convinced that the Huguenots were uneasy and rebellious radicals, whom it
were better to crush than to assist; could, consequently, the "reiters"
and "lansquenets" be kept at home--it would, thought the Guises, be easy,
with the help of the German Catholics, perhaps of Spain also, to render
complete the papal supremacy in France, and to crush Conde and the
Chatillons to the earth. Accordingly, the Guises extended to Duke
Christopher of Wuertemberg an invitation to meet them in the little town of
Saverne (or Zabern, as it was called by the Germans), in Alsace, not far
from Strasbourg.[28] The duke came as he was requested, accompanied by his
theologians, Brentius and Andreae; and the interview, beginning on the
fifteenth of February,[29] lasted four days. Four of the Guises were
present; but the conversations were chiefly with Francis, the Duke of
Guise, and Charles, the Cardinal of Lorraine; the Cardinal of Guise and
the Grand Prior of the Knights of St. John taking little or no active
part. Christopher and Francis had been comrades in arms a score of years
back, for the former had served several years, and with no little
distinction, in the French wars. This circumstance afforded an
opportunity for the display of extraordinary friendship. And what did the
brothers state, in this important consultation, respecting their own
sentiments, the opinions of the Huguenots, and the condition of France?
Happily, a minute account, in the form of a manuscript memorandum taken
down at the time by Duke Christopher, is still extant in the archives of
Stuttgart.[30] Little known, but authentic beyond the possibility of
cavil, this document deserves more attention than it has received from
historians; for it places in the clearest light the shameless mendacity of
the Guises, and shows that the duke had nearly as good a claim as the
cardinal, his brother, to the reputation which the Venetian ambassador
tells us that Charles had earned "_of rarely telling the truth_."
[Sidenote: Lying assurances.]
Duke Christopher made the acquaintance of Charles of Lorraine as a
preacher on the morning after his arrival, when he heard him, in a sermon
on the temptation in the wilderness, demonstrate that no other mediators
or intercessors must be sought for but Jesus Christ, who is our only
Saviour and the only propitiation for our sins. That day Christopher had a
long conversation with Guise respecting the unhappy condition of France,
which the latter ascribed in great part to the Huguenot ministers, whose
unconciliatory conduct, he said, had rendered abortive the Colloquy of
Poissy. Wuertemberg corrected him by replying that the very accounts of the
colloquy which Guise had sent him showed that the unsuccessful issue was
owing to the prelates, who had evidently come determined to prevent any
accommodation. He urged that the misfortunes that had befallen France were
much rather to be ascribed to the cruel persecutions that had been
inflicted on so many guiltless victims. "I cannot refrain from telling
you," he added, "that you and your brother are strongly suspected in
Germany of having contributed to cause the death, since the decease of
Henry the Second--and even before, in his lifetime--of several thousands
of persons who have been miserably executed on account of their faith. As
a friend, and as a Christian, I must warn you. Beware, beware of innocent
blood! Otherwise the punishment of God will fall upon you in this life and
in the next." "He answered me," writes Wuertemberg, "_with great sighs_: 'I
know that my brother and I are accused of that, and of many other things
also. But _we are wronged_,[31] as we shall both of us explain to you
before we leave.'"
The cardinal entered more fully than his brother into the doctrinal
conference, talking now with Wuertemberg, now with his theologian Brentius,
and trying to persuade both that he was in perfect accord with them. While
pressing his German friends to declare the Zwinglians and the Calvinists
heretics--which they carefully avoided doing--and urging them to state the
punishment that ought to be inflicted on heretics, there seemed to be no
limit to the concessions which Lorraine was willing to make. He _adored_
and _invoked_ only Christ in heaven. He merely _venerated_ the wafer. He
acknowledged that his party went too far in calling the mass a sacrifice,
and celebrating it for the living and the dead. The mass was not a
sacrifice, but a commemoration of the sacrifice offered on the altar of
the cross ("non sacrificium, sed memoria sacrificii praestiti in ara
crucis"). He believed that the council assembled at Trent would do no
good. When the Romish hierarchy, with the Pope at its head, as the
pretended vicar of God on earth, was objected to, he replied that that
matter could easily be adjusted. As for himself, "in the absence of a red
gown, he would willingly wear a black one."
[Sidenote: The Guises deceive no one.]
He was asked whether, if Beza and his colleagues could be brought to
consent to sign the Augsburg confession, he also would sign it. "You have
heard it," he replied, "I take God to witness that I believe as I have
said, and that by God's grace I shall live and die in these sentiments. I
repeat it: I have read the Confession of Augsburg, I have also read
Luther, Melanchthon, Brentius, and others; I entirely approve their
doctrines, and I might speedily agree with them in all that concerns the
ecclesiastical hierarchy. _But I am compelled still to dissemble for a
time_, that I may gain some that are yet weak in the faith." A little
later he adverted to Wuertemberg's remarks to Guise. "You informed my
brother," he said, "that in Germany we are both of us suspected of having
contributed to the execution of a large number of innocent Christians
during the reigns of Henry and of Francis the Second. Well! I swear to
you, in the name of God my Creator, and pledging the salvation of my soul,
_that I am guilty of the death of no man condemned for religion's sake_.
Those who were then privy to the deliberations of state can testify in my
favor. On the contrary, whenever crimes of a religious character were
under discussion, I used to say to King Henry or to King Francis the
Second, that they did not belong to my department, that they had to do
with the secular power, and I went away."[32] He even added that, although
Du Bourg was in orders, he had begged the king to spare him as a learned
man. "In like manner," says Wuertemberg, "the Duke of Guise with great
oaths affirmed that he was innocent of the death of those who had been
condemned on account of their faith. 'The attempt,' he added, 'has
frequently been made to kill us, both the cardinal and myself, with
fire-arms, sword, and poison, and, although the culprits have been
arrested, I never meddled with their punishment.'" And when the Duke of
Wuertemberg again "conjured them not to persecute the poor Christians of
France, for God would not leave such a sin unpunished," both the cardinal
and the Duke of Guise gave him their right hands, promising on their
princely faith, and by the salvation of their souls, that they would
neither openly nor secretly persecute the partisans of the "new
doctrines!" Such were the barefaced impostures which this "par nobile
fratrum" desired Christopher of Wuertemberg to publish for their
vindication among the Lutherans of Germany. But the liars were not
believed. The shrewd Landgrave of Hesse, on receiving Wuertemberg's
account, even before the news of the massacre of Vassy, came promptly to
the conclusion that the whole thing was an attempt at deception.
Christopher himself, in the light of later events, added to his manuscript
these words: "Alas! It can now be seen how they have kept these promises!
_Deus sit ultor doli et perjurii, cujus namque res agitur._"[33]
[Sidenote: Throkmorton's account of the French court.]
Meanwhile events of the greatest consequence were occurring at the
capital. The very day after the Saverne conference began, Sir Nicholas
Throkmorton wrote to Queen Elizabeth an account of "the strange issue" to
which affairs had come at the French court since his last despatch, a
little over a fortnight before. His letter gives a vivid and accurate view
of the important crisis in the first half of February, 1562, which we
present very nearly in the words of the ambassador himself. "The Cardinal
of Ferrara," says Throkmorton, "has allured to his devotion the King of
Navarre, the Constable, Marshal St. Andre, the Cardinal of Tournon, and
others inclined to retain the Romish religion. All these are bent to
repress the Protestant religion in France, and to find means either to
range [bring over to their side] the Queen of Navarre, the Prince of
Conde, the Admiral, and all others who favor that religion, or to expel
them from the court, with all the ministers and preachers. The queen
mother, fearing this conspiracy might be the means of losing her authority
(which is as dear to her as one religion or the other), and mistrusting
that the Constable was going about to reduce the management of the whole
affair into the King of Navarre's hands, and so into his own, has caused
the Constable to retire from the court, as it were in disgrace, and
intended to do the like with the Cardinal of Tournon and the Marshal St.
Andre. The King of Navarre being offended with these proceedings, and
imputing part of her doings to the advice of the Admiral, the Cardinal
Chatillon, and Monsieur D'Andelot, intended to compel those personages to
retire also from the court. In these garboils [commotions] the Prince of
Conde, being sick at Paris, was requested to repair to the court and stand
her [Catharine] in stead. In this time there was great working on both
sides to win the house of Guise. So the Queen Mother wrote to them--they
being in the skirts of Almain--to come to the court with all speed. The
like means were made [use of] by the King of Navarre, the Cardinal of
Ferrara and the Constable, to ally them on their part. During these
solicitations the Duke D'Aumale arrived at the court from them, who was
requested to solicit the speedy repair to the court of the Duke of Guise
and the Cardinal of Lorraine.
"The Prince of Conde went from hence in a horse litter to the court of St.
Germain, where he found the Protestant preachers prohibited from preaching
either in the King's house or in the town, and that the King of Navarre
had solemnly vowed to retain and maintain the Romish religion, and had
given order that his son should be instructed in the same. The Prince,
finding the Queen of Navarre and the house of Chatillon ready to leave the
court, fell again dangerously sick. Nevertheless his coming so revived
them, as by the covert aid of the Queen Mother, they attempted to make the
Protestant preachers preach again at the town's end of St. Germain, and
were entreated to abide at the court, where there is an assembly which is
like to last until Easter. The Cardinal of Ferrara assists daily at these
disputes. The King of Navarre persists in the house of Chatillon retiring
from the court, and it is believed the Queen of Navarre, and they, will
not tarry long there."[34]
Such was the picture drawn by the skilful pencil of the English envoy. It
was certainly dark enough. Catharine and Navarre had sent Lansac to assure
the Pope that they purposed to live in and defend the Roman Catholic
religion. Sulpice had gone on a like mission to Spain. It was time,
Throkmorton plainly told Queen Elizabeth, that she should show as great
readiness in maintaining the Protestant religion as Ferrara and his
associates showed in striving to overthrow it. And in a private despatch
to Cecil, written the same day, he urged the secretary to dissuade her
Majesty from longer retaining candles and cross on the altar of the royal
chapel, at a time when even doctors of the Sorbonne consented to the
removal of images of all sorts from over the altar in places of
worship.[35]
From Saverne the Cardinal of Lorraine returned to his archbishopric of
Rheims, while the duke, accompanied by the Cardinal of Guise, proceeded in
the direction of the French capital. On his route he stopped at Joinville,
one of the estates of the family, recently erected in their favor into a
principality. Here he was joined by his wife, Anne d'Este; here, too, he
listened to fresh complaints made by his mother, Antoinette of Bourbon,
against the insolence of the neighboring town of Vassy, where a
considerable portion of the inhabitants had lately had the audacity to
embrace the reformed faith.
[Sidenote: Vassy in Champagne.]
[Sidenote: Origin of the Huguenot Church.]
Vassy, an important town of Champagne--though shorn of much of its
influence by the removal of many of its dependencies to increase the
dignity of Joinville--and one of the places assigned to Mary of Scots for
her maintenance, had apparently for some time contained a few professors
of the "new doctrines." It was, however, only in October, 1561, after the
Colloquy of Poissy, that it was visited by a Protestant minister, who,
during a brief sojourn, organized a church with elders and deacons.
Notwithstanding the disadvantage of having no pastor, and of having
notoriously incurred the special hatred of the Guises, the reformed
community grew with marvellous rapidity. For the Gospel was preached not
merely in the printed sermons read from the pulpit, but by the lips of
enthusiastic converts. When, after a short absence, the founder of the
church of Vassy returned to the scene of his labors, he came into
collision with the Bishop of Chalons, whose diocese included this town.
The bishop, unaccustomed to preach, set up a monk in opposition; but no
one would come to hear him. The prelate then went himself to the
Protestant gathering, and sat through the "singing of the commandments"
and a prayer. But when he attempted to interrupt the services and asserted
his episcopal authority, the minister firmly repelled the usurpation,
taking his stand on the king's edict. Then, waxing warm in the discussion,
the dauntless Huguenot exposed the hypocrisy of the pretended shepherd,
who, not entering the fold by canonical election, but intruding himself
into it without consulting his charge, was more anxious to secure his own
ease than to lead his sheep into green pastures. The bishop soon retired
from a field where he had found more than his match in argument: but the
common people, who had come to witness his triumph over the Huguenot
preacher, remained after his unexpected discomfiture, and the unequal
contest resulted in fresh accessions to the ranks of the Protestants.
Equally unsuccessful was the Bishop of Chalons in the attempt to induce
the king to issue a commission to the Duke of Guise against the
unoffending inhabitants, and Vassy was spared the fate of Merindol and
Cabrieres. At Christmas nine hundred communicants, after profession of
their faith, partook of the Lord's Supper according to the reformed rites;
and in January, 1562, after repeated solicitations, the church obtained
the long-desired boon of a pastor, in the person of the able and pious
Leonard Morel. Thus far the history of Vassy differed little from that of
hundreds of other towns in that age of wonderful awakening and growth, and
would have attracted little attention had not its proximity to the
Lorraine princes secured for it a tragic notoriety.[36]
[Sidenote: Approach of the Duke of Guise.]
On the twenty-eighth of February, Guise, with two hundred armed retainers,
left Joinville. That night he slept at Dommartin-le-Franc. On Sunday
morning, the first of March, he continued his journey. Whether by accident
or from design, it is difficult to say, he drew near to Vassy about the
time when the Huguenots were assembling for worship, and his ears caught
the sound of their bell while he was still a quarter of a league distant.
The ardor of Guise's followers was already at fever-heat. They had seen a
poor artisan apprehended in a town that lay on their track, and summarily
hung by their leader's order, for the simple offence of having had his
child baptized after the reformed rites. When Guise heard the bell of the
Vassy church, he turned to his suite to inquire what it meant. "It is the
Huguenots' preaching," some one replied. "_Par la mort-Dieu_," broke in a
second, "they will soon be huguenotted after another fashion!" Others
began to make eager calculations respecting the extent of the plunder. A
few minutes later an unlucky cobbler was espied, who, from his dress or
manner, was mistaken for a Huguenot minister. It was well that he could
answer the inquiries of the duke, before whom he was hurried, by assuring
him that he was no clergyman and had never studied; otherwise, he was
told, his case had been an extremely ugly one.[37]
[Sidenote: The massacre.]
On entering Vassy Guise repaired to the monastery chapel to hear mass
said. He was followed by some of the gentlemen of his suite. Meantime,
their valets found their way to the doors of the building in which the
Protestants were worshipping, scarcely more than a stone's throw distant.
This motley crowd was merely the vanguard of the Papists. Soon two or
three gentlemen sent by Guise, according to his own account, to admonish
the Huguenot assembly of their want of due obedience, entered the edifice,
where they found twelve hundred persons quietly listening to the word of
God. They were politely invited to sit down: but they replied by noisy
interruption and threats. "_Mort-Dieu_, they must all be killed!" was
their exclamation as they returned to report to Guise what they had seen.
The defenceless Huguenots were thrown into confusion by these significant
menaces, and hastened to secure the entrance. It was too late. The duke
himself was approaching, and a volley from the arquebuses of his troop
speedily scattered the unarmed worshippers. It is unnecessary to describe
in all its details of horror the scene that ensued. The door of the
sheep-fold was open and the wolf was already upon his prey. All the
pent-up hatred of a band of fanatical and savage soldiers was vented upon
a crowd of men, women, and children, whose heterodoxy made them pleasing
victims, and whose unarmed condition rendered victory easy. No age, no sex
was respected. It was enough to be a Huguenot to be a fit object for the
sword or the gun. To escape from the doomed building was only possible by
running the gauntlet of the troops that lay in wait. Those who sought to
climb from the roof to the adjacent houses were picked off by the
arquebuses of the besieging party. Only after an hour and a half had
elapsed were the soldiers of Guise called off by the trumpet sounding a
joyful note of victory. The evidence of their prowess, however, remained
on the field of contest, in fifty or sixty dead or dying men and women,
and in nearly a hundred more or less dangerously wounded.[38]
In a few hours more Guise was resuming his journey toward Paris. He was
told that the Huguenots of Vassy had forwarded their complaints to the
king. "Let them go, let them go!" he exclaimed. "They will find there
neither their Admiral nor their Chancellor."[39]
Upon whose head rests the guilt of the massacre of Vassy? This was the
question asked by every contemporary so soon as he realized the startling
fact that the blow there struck was a signal that called every man to take
the sword, and stand in defence of his own life. It is the question which
history, more calm and dispassionate, because farther removed from the
agitations of the day, now seeks to solve, as she looks back over the
dreary torrents of blood that sprang from that disastrous source. The
inquiry is not an idle one--for justice ought to find such a vindication
in the records of past generations as may have been denied at the time of
the commission of flagrant crimes.
The Huguenots declared Guise to be a murderer. Theodore Beza, in eloquent
tones, demanded the punishment of the butcher of the human race. So
imposing was the cry for retribution that the duke himself recognized the
necessity of entering a formal defence, which was disseminated by the
press far and wide through France and Germany. He denied that the massacre
was premeditated. He averred that it was merely an unfortunate incident
brought about by the violence of the Protestants of Vassy, who had
provided themselves with an abundant supply of stones and other missiles,
and assailed those whom he had sent to remonstrate courteously with them.
He stated the deaths at only twenty-five or thirty. Most of these had been
occasioned by the indignant valets, who, on seeing their masters wounded,
had rushed in to defend them. So much against his will had the affair
occurred, that he had repeatedly but ineffectually commanded his men to
desist. When he had himself received a slight wound from a stone thrown by
the Huguenots, the sight of the blood flowing from it had infuriated his
devoted followers.
The Duke's plea of want of premeditation we may, perhaps, accept as
substantially true--so far, at least, as to suppose that he had formed no
deliberate plan of slaughtering the inhabitants of Vassy who had adopted
the reformed religion.[40] It is difficult, indeed, to accept the argument
of Brantome and Le Laboureur, who conceive that the fortuitous character
of the event is proved by the circumstance that the deed was below the
courage of Guise. Nor, perhaps, shall we give excessive credit to the
asseverations of the duke, repeated, we are told, even on his death-bed.
For why should these be more worthy of belief than the oaths with which
the same nobleman had declared to Christopher of Wuertemberg that he
neither had persecuted, nor would persecute the Protestants of France? But
the Duke of Guise admits that he knew that there was a growing community
of Huguenots at Vassy--"scandalous, arrogant, extremely seditious
persons," as he styles them. He tells us that he intended, as the
representative of Mary Stuart, and as feudal lord of some of their number,
to admonish them of their disobedience; and that for this purpose he sent
Sieur de la Bresse (or Brosse) with others to interrupt their public
worship. He accuses them, it is true, of having previously armed
themselves with stones, and even of possessing weapons in an adjoining
building; but what reason do the circumstances of the case give us for
doubting that the report may have been based upon the fact that those who
in this terror-stricken assembly attempted to save their lives resorted to
whatever missiles they could lay their hands upon? If the presence of his
wife, and of his brother the cardinal, is used by the duke as an argument
to prove the absence of any sinister intentions on his part, how much
stronger is the evidence afforded to the peaceable character of the
Protestant gathering by the numbers of women and children found there? But
the very fact that, as against the twenty-five or thirty Huguenots whom he
concedes to have been slain in the encounter, he does not pretend to give
the name of a single one of his own followers that was killed, shows
clearly which side it was that came prepared for the fight. And yet who
that knows the sanguinary spirit generally displayed by the Roman Catholic
masses in the sixteenth century, could find much fault with the Huguenots
of Vassy if they had really armed themselves to repel violence and protect
their wives and children--if, in other words, they had used the common
right of self-preservation?[41]
The fact is that Guise was only witnessing the fruits of his
instructions, enforced by his own example. He had given the first taste of
blood, and now, perhaps without his actual command, the pack had taken the
scent and hunted down the game. He was avowedly on a crusade to
re-establish the supremacy of the Roman Catholic religion throughout
France. If he had not hesitated to hang a poor pin-dealer for allowing his
child to be baptized according to the forms of Calvin's liturgy; if he was
on his way to Paris to restore the Edict of July by force of arms, it is
idle to inquire whether he or his soldiers were responsible for the blood
shed in peace. "He that sowed the seed is the author of the harvest."
[Sidenote: Conde appeals to the king.]
The news quickly flew to Conde that the arch-enemy of the Protestants had
begun the execution of the cruel projects he had so long been devising
with his fanatical associates; that Guise was on his way toward seditious
Paris, with hands yet dripping with the blood of the inhabitants of a
quiet Champagnese town, surprised and murdered while engaged in the
worship of their God. Indignant, and taking in the full measure of the
responsibility imposed upon him as the most powerful member of the
Protestant communion, the prince, who was with the court at the castle of
Monceaux--built for herself by Catharine in a style of regal
magnificence--laid before the king and his mother a full account of the
tragic occurrence. It was a pernicious example, he argued, and should be
punished promptly and severely. Above all, the perpetrators ought not to
be permitted to endanger the quiet of France by entering the capital.
Catharine was alarmed and embarrassed by the intelligence; but, her fear
of a conjunction between Guise and Navarre overcoming her reluctance to
affront the Lorraine family, induced her to consent; and she wrote to the
Duke, who had by this time reached his castle of Nanteuil, forbidding him
to go to Paris, but inviting him to visit the court with a small escort.
At the same time she gave orders to Saint Andre to repair at once to
Lyons, of which he was the royal governor. But neither of the triumvirs
showed any readiness to obey her orders. The duke curtly replied that he
was too busy entertaining his friends to come to the king; the marshal
promptly refused to leave the king while he was threatened by such
perils.[42]
[Sidenote: Beza's remonstrance.]
[Sidenote: An anvil that has worn out many hammers.]
The King of Navarre now came from Paris to Monceaux, to guard the
interests of the party he had espoused. He was closely followed by
Theodore Beza and Francour, whom the Protestants of Paris had deputed, the
former on behalf of the church, the latter of the nobility, to demand of
the king the punishment of the authors of the massacre. The queen mother,
as was her wont, gave a gracious audience, and promised that an
investigation should be made. But Navarre, being present, seemed eager to
display a neophyte's zeal, and retorted by blaming the Huguenots for going
in arms to their places of worship. "True," said Beza, "but arms in the
hands of the wise are instruments of peace, and the massacre of Vassy has
shown the necessity under which the Protestants were laid." When Navarre
exclaimed: "Whoever touches my brother of Guise with the tip of his
finger, touches my whole body!" the reformer reminded him, as one whom
Antoine had himself brought to France, that the way of justice is God's
way, and that kings _owe_ justice to their subjects. Finally, when he
discovered, by Navarre's adoption of all the impotent excuses of Guise,
that the former had sold himself to the enemies of the Gospel, Theodore
Beza made that noble reply which has become classic as the motto of the
French Reformation: "Sire, it is, in truth, the lot of the Church of God,
in whose name I am speaking, to endure blows and not to strike them. _But
also may it please you to remember that it is an anvil that has worn out
many hammers._"[43]
[Sidenote: Guise's entry into Paris.]
At Nanteuil, Guise had been visited by the constable, with two of his
sons, by Saint Andre, and by other prominent leaders. Accompanied by them,
he now took the decided step of going to Paris in spite of Catharine's
prohibition. His entry resembled a triumphal procession.[44] In the midst
of an escort estimated by eye-witnesses at two thousand horse, Francis of
Guise avoided the more direct gate of St. Martin, and took that of St.
Denis, through which the kings of France were accustomed to pass. Vast
crowds turned out to meet him, and the cries of "_Vive Monsieur de
Guise!_" sounding much like regal acclammations, were uttered without
rebuke on all sides. The "prevost des marchands" and other members of the
municipal government received him with great demonstrations of joy, as the
defender of the faith. At the same hour the Prince of Conde, surrounded by
a large number of Protestant noblemen, students, and citizens, was riding
to one of the preaching-places.[45] The two cavalcades met, but no
collision ensued. The Huguenot and the papist courteously saluted each
other, and then rode on. It is even reported that between the leaders
themselves less sincere amenities were interchanged. Guise sent word to
Conde that he and his company, whom he had assembled only on account of
the malevolent, were at the prince's commands. Conde answered by saying
that his own men were armed only to prevent the populace of Paris from
making an attack upon the Protestants as they went to their place of
worship.[46]
[Sidenote: Anxieties of Catharine de' Medici.]
For weeks the position of the queen mother had been one of peculiar
difficulty and anxiety. That she was "well inclined to advance the true
religion," and "well affected for a general reformation in the Church," as
Admiral Coligny at this time firmly believed,[47] is simply incredible.
But, on the other hand, there can be little doubt that Catharine saw her
interest in upholding the Huguenot party, of which Conde and the three
Chatillon brothers were acknowledged leaders. Unfortunately, the King of
Navarre, "hoping to compound with the King of Spain for his kingdom of
Navarre," had become the tool of the opposite side--he was "_all Spanish
now_"[48]--and Chantonnay, Philip's ambassador, was emboldened to make
arrogant demands. The envoy declared that, "unless the house of Chatillon
left the court, he was ordered to depart from France." Grave diplomatists
shook their heads, and thought the menace very strange, "the rather that
another prince should appoint what counsellors should remain at court;"
and sage men inferred that "to such princes as are afraid of shadows the
King of Spain will enterprise far enough."[49] None the less was Catharine
deeply disturbed. She felt distrust of the heads of the Roman Catholic
party, but she feared to break entirely with them, and was forced to
request the Protestant leaders to withdraw for a time from the vicinity of
Paris. That city itself presented to the eye a sufficiently strange and
alarming aspect, "resembling more a frontier town or a place besieged than
a court, a merchant city, or university." Both sides were apprehensive of
some sudden commotion, and the Protestant scholars, in great numbers,
marched daily in arms to the "sermons," in spite of the opposition of the
rector and his council.[50] The capital was unquestionably no place for
Catharine and her son, at the present moment.
[Sidenote: She removes the king to Melun.]
[Sidenote: and thence to Fontainebleau.]
[Sidenote: Her painful indecision.]
At length, Catharine de' Medici, apprehensive of the growing power of the
triumvirate, and dreading lest the king, falling into its hands, should
become a mere puppet, her own influence being completely thrown into the
shade, removed the court from Monceaux to Melun, a city on the upper
Seine, about twenty-five miles south-east of Paris.[51] She hoped
apparently that, by placing herself nearer the strongly Huguenot banks of
the Loire, she would be able at will to throw herself into the arms of
either party, and, in making her own terms, secure future independence.
But she was not left undisturbed. At Melun she received a deputation from
Paris, consisting of the "prevost des marchands" and three "echevins,"
who came to entreat her, in the name of the Roman Catholic people of the
capital, to return and dissipate by the king's arrival the dangers that
were imminent on account of Conde's presence, and to give the people the
power to defend themselves by restoring to them their arms. Still
hesitating, still experiencing her old difficulty of forming any plans for
the distant future, and every moment balancing in her mind what she should
do the next, she nevertheless pushed on ten miles farther southward, to
the royal palace of Fontainebleau, and found herself not far from half the
way to Orleans. But change of place brought the vacillating queen mother
no nearer to a decision. Soubise, the last of the avowed Protestants to
leave her, still dreamed he might succeed in persuading her. Day after
day, in company with Chancellor L'Hospital, the Huguenot leader spent two
or three hours alone with her in earnest argument. "Sometimes," says a
recently discovered contemporary account, "they believed that they had
gained everything, and that she was ready to set off for Conde's camp;
then, all of a sudden, so violent a fright seized her, that she lost all
heart." At last the time came when the triumvirs were expected to appear
at Fontainebleau on the morrow, to secure the prize of the king's person.
Soubise and the indefatigable chancellor made a last attempt. Five or six
times in one day they returned to the charge, although L'Hospital
mournfully observed that he had abandoned hope. He knew Catharine well:
she could not be brought to a final resolution.[52] It was even so.
Soubise himself was forced to admit it when, at the last moment--almost
too late for his own safety--he hurriedly left, Catharine still begging
him to stand by her, and made his way to his friends.
[Sidenote: She implores Conde's aid.]
It seems to have been during this time of painful anxiety that Catharine
wrote at least the last of those remarkable letters to Conde which that
prince afterward published in his own justification, and respecting the
authenticity of which the queen would have been glad had she been able to
make the world entertain doubts. They breathed a spirit of implicit
confidence. She called herself his "good cousin," that was not less
attached to him than a mother to a son. She enjoined upon him to remember
the protection which he was bound to give to "the children, the mother,
and the kingdom." She called upon him not to desert her. She declared
that, in the midst of so many adverse circumstances, she would be driven
almost to despair, "were it not for her trust in God, and the assurance
that Conde would assist her in preserving the kingdom and service of the
king, her son, in spite of those who wished to ruin everything." More than
once she told him that his kindness would not go unrequited; and she
declared that, if she died before having an opportunity to testify her
gratitude, she would charge her children with the duty.[53]
In Paris events were rapidly succeeding each other. Marshal Montmorency,
the constable's eldest son, was too upright a man to serve the purposes of
the triumvirs; and, with his father's consent and by Navarre's authority,
he was removed, and Cardinal Bourbon installed in his place as governor of
the city.[54] A few days after Antoine himself came to Paris and lodged in
the constable's house. Here, with Guise, Saint Andre, and the other chief
statesmen who were of the same party, conferences were held to which
Conde and his associates were not invited; and to these irregular
gatherings, notwithstanding the absence of the king, the name of the
_royal council_ was given.[55]
[Sidenote: Conde retires to Meaux.]
There were nine or ten thousand horse--Papist and Huguenot--under arms in
Paris.[56] It was evident that Conde and Guise could not longer remain in
the city without involving it in the most bloody of civil contests. Under
these circumstances the prince offered, through his brother, the Cardinal
of Bourbon, to accede to the wish of Catharine, and leave Paris by one
gate at the same moment that the triumvirs should leave by another.
Indeed, without waiting to obtain their promise, he retired[57] with his
body of Protestant noblesse to Meaux, where he had given a rendezvous to
Admiral Coligny and others whom he had summoned from their homes. This
step has generally been stigmatized as the first of Conde's egregious
mistakes. Beza opposed it at the time, and likened the error to that of
Pompey in abandoning Rome;[58] and the "History of the Reformed Churches"
has perpetuated the comparison.[59] The same historical parallel was drawn
by Etienne Pasquier.[60] But the judicious Francois de la Noue, surnamed
_Bras-de-Fer_, thought very differently; and we must here, as in many
other instances, prefer the opinion of the practical soldier to that of
the eminent theologian or the learned jurist. Parliament, the clergy, the
municipal government, the greater part of the university, and almost all
the low populace, with the partisans and servants of the hostile princes
and noblemen, were intensely Roman Catholic.[61] The three hundred
resident Protestant gentlemen, with, as many more experienced soldiers,
four hundred students, and a few untrained burgesses, were "but as a fly
matched with an elephant." The novices of the convents and the priests'
chambermaids, armed only with sticks, could have held them in check.[62]
It were better to lose the advantages of the capital than to be
overwhelmed within its walls by superior forces, being completely cut off
from that part of France where the main strength of the Protestants lay.
[Sidenote: The Huguenot summons.]
From Meaux messengers were sent to the Protestant churches in all parts of
France to request their aid, both in money and in men. "Since," said the
letter they bore, "God has brought us to such a point that no one can
disturb our repose without violating the protection it has pleased our
king to accord us, and consequently without declaring himself an enemy of
his Majesty and of this kingdom's peace, there is no law, divine or human,
that does not permit us to take measures for defence, calling for help on
those whom God has given the authority and the will to remedy these
evils."[63]
[Sidenote: Admiral Coligny's reluctance.]
Happily for the Huguenot cause, however, the nobles and gentry that
favored it had not waited to receive this summons, but had, many of them,
already set out to strengthen the forces of the prince. Among others, and
by far more important than all the rest, came Gaspard de Coligny, whose
absence from court during the few previous weeks has been regarded as one
of the most untoward circumstances of the time. At his pleasant castle of
Chatillon-sur-Loing, surrounded by his young family, he received
intelligence, first, of the massacre, then of the ominous events that had
occurred at the capital. Conde sent to solicit his support; his brothers
and many friends urged him to rush at once to the rescue. But still, even
after the threatening clouds had risen so high that they must soon burst
over the devoted heads of the Huguenots, the admiral continued to
hesitate. Every instinct of his courageous nature prompted the skilful
defender of St. Quentin to place himself at once at the post of danger.
But there was one fear that seemed likely to overcome all his martial
impulses. _It was the fear of initiating a civil war._ He could not refer
to the subject without shuddering, for the horrors of such a contest were
so vividly impressed upon his mind that he regarded almost anything as
preferable to the attempt to settle domestic difficulties by an appeal to
the sword. But the tears and sighs of his wife, the noble Charlotte de
Laval, at length overmastered his reluctance. "To be prudent in men's
esteem," she said, "is not to be wise in that of God, who has given you
the science of a general that you might use it for the good of His
children." When her husband rehearsed again the grounds of his hesitation,
and, calling upon her seriously to consider the suffering, the privations,
the anxiety, the bereavements, the ignominy, the death which would await
not only those dearest to her, but herself, if the struggle should prove
unsuccessful, offered her three weeks to make her decision, with true
womanly magnanimity she replied: "The three weeks are already past; you
will never be conquered by the strength of your enemies. Make use of your
resources, and bring not upon your head the blood of those who may die
within three weeks. I summon you in God's name not to defraud us any more,
or I shall be a witness against you at His judgment." So deep was the
impression which these words made upon Coligny, that, accepting his wife's
advice as the voice of heaven, he took horse without further delay, and
joined Conde and the other Protestant leaders.[64]
[Sidenote: The king seized and brought to Paris.]
It was unfortunate that the prince, for a week after leaving Paris, should
have felt too feeble to make any movement of importance. Otherwise, by a
rapid march, he might, according to his plan,[65] have reached
Fontainebleau in advance of his opponents, and, with the young king and
his mother under his protection, have asserted his right as a prince of
the blood to defend Charles against those who had unjustly usurped the
functions of royalty. As it was, the unlucky delay was turned to profit by
his enemies. These now took a step that put further deliberation on
Catharine's part out of the question, and precluded any attempt to place
the person of the king in Conde's hands. Leaving a small garrison in
Paris, Guise proceeded with a strong body of troops to Fontainebleau,
determined to bring the king and his mother back to Paris. Persuasion was
first employed; but, that failing, the triumvirate were prepared to resort
to force. Navarre, acting at Guise's suggestion, at length told Catharine
distinctly that, as guardian of the minor king, he must see to it that he
did not fall into his brother's hands; as for Catharine, she might remain
or follow him, as she pleased.[66] Tears and remonstrances were of no
avail.[67] Weeping and sad, Charles is said to have repeatedly exclaimed
against being led away contrary to his will;[68] but the triumvirs would
not be balked of their game, and so brought him with his mother first to
Melun, then, after a few days, to the prison-like castle of Vincennes, and
finally to the Louvre.[69]
[Sidenote: The constable's exploits at the "temples."]
[Sidenote: D'Andelot and Conde throw themselves into Orleans.]
The critical step had been taken to demonstrate that the reign of
tolerance, according to the prescriptions of the Edict of January, was at
an end. The constable, preceding the king to Paris, immediately upon his
arrival instituted a system of arbitrary arrests. On the next morning (the
fourth of April) he visited the "temple of Jerusalem,"[70] one of the two
places which had been accorded to the Huguenots for their worship outside
of the walls. Under his direction the pulpit and the benches of the
hearers were torn up, and a bonfire of wood and Bibles was speedily
lighted, to the great delight of the populace of Paris. In the afternoon
the same exploits were repeated at the other Huguenot church, known from
its situation, outside of the gate of St. Antoine, as "_Popincourt_."
Here, however, not only the benches, but the building itself was burned,
and several adjacent houses were involved in the conflagration. Having
accomplished these outrages and encouraged the people to imitate his
lawless example, the aged constable returned to the city. He had well
earned the contemptuous name which the Huguenots henceforth gave him of
"Le Capitaine _Brulebanc_."[71] If the triumvirate succeeded, it was plain
that all liberty of worship was proscribed. It was even believed that the
Duchess of Guise had been sent to carry a message, in the king's name, to
her mother, the aged Renee of France, to the effect that if she did not
dismiss the Huguenot preachers from Montargis, and become a good Catholic,
he would have her shut up for the rest of her life in a convent.[72]
Whatever truth there may have been in this story, one thing was certain:
in Paris it would have been as much as any man's life was worth to appear
annoyed at the constable's exploit, or to oppose the search made for arms
in suspected houses. Every good Catholic had a piece of the Huguenots'
benches or pulpit in his house as a souvenir; "so odious," says a
contemporary, "is the new religion in this city."[73] Meantime, on Easter
Monday (the thirtieth of March) Conde left Meaux at the head of fifteen
hundred horse, the flower of the French nobility, "better armed with
courage than with corselets"--says Francois de la Noue. As they approached
the capital, the whole city was thrown into confusion, the gates were
closed, and the chains stretched across the streets.[74] But the host
passed by, and at St. Cloud crossed the Seine without meeting any
opposition. Here the news of the seizure of the person of Charles by the
triumvirs first reached the prince, and with it one great object of the
expedition was frustrated.[75] The Huguenots, however, did not delay, but,
instead of turning toward Fontainebleau, took a more southerly route
directly for the city of Orleans. D'Andelot, to whom the van had been
confided, advanced by a rapid march, and succeeded by a skilful movement
in entering the city, of which he took possession in the name of the
Prince of Conde, acting as lieutenant of the king unlawfully held in
confinement. Catharine de' Medici, who, having been forced into the party
of the triumvirs, had with her usual flexibility promptly decided to make
the most of her position, sent messengers to Conde hoping to amuse him
with negotiations while a powerful Roman Catholic detachment should by
another road reach Orleans unobserved.[76] But the danger coming to
Andelot's knowledge, he succeeded in warning Conde; and the prince, with
the main body of the Protestant horse, after a breakneck ride, threw
himself, on the second of April, into the city, which now became the
headquarters of the religion in the kingdom.[77] The inhabitants came out
to meet him with every demonstration of joy, and received him between
double lines of men, women, and children loudly singing the words of the
French psalms, so that the whole city resounded with them.[78]
[Sidenote: Conde's justification.]
No sooner had the Prince of Conde established himself upon the banks of
the Loire, than he took measures to explain to the world the necessity and
propriety of the step upon which he had ventured. He wrote, and he induced
the Protestant ministers who were with him to write, to all the churches
of France, urging them to send him reinforcements of troops and to fill
his empty treasury.[79] At the same time he published a "declaration" in
justification of his resort to arms. He recapitulated the successive steps
that revealed the violent purposes of the triumvirs--the retreat of the
Guises and of the constable from court, Nemours's attempt to carry the
Duke of Orleans out of the kingdom, the massacre at Vassy, Guise's refusal
to visit the royal court and his defiant progress to the capital, the
insolent conduct of Montmorency and Saint-Andre, the pretended _royal_
council held away from the king, the detention of Charles and of his
mother as prisoners. And from all these circumstances he showed the
inevitable inference to be that the triumvirs had for one of their chief
objects the extirpation of the religion "which they call new," "either by
open violence or by the change of edicts, and the renewal of the most
cruel persecutions that have ever been exercised in the world." It was not
party interest that had induced him to take up arms, he said, but loyalty
to God, to his king, and to his native land, a desire to free Charles from
unlawful detention, and a purpose to insist upon the execution of the
royal edicts, especially that of January, and to prevent new ministers of
state from misapplying the sums raised for the payment of the national
debts. He warned all lovers of peace not to be astonished at any edicts
that might emanate from the royal seal so long as the king remained a
prisoner, and he begged Catharine to order the triumvirs to lay down their
arms. If they did so, he declared that he himself, although of a rank far
different from theirs, would consent to follow their example.[80]
[Sidenote: Stringent articles of association.]
The Huguenots had thrown off the shackles which a usurping party about the
king endeavored to fasten upon them; but they had not renounced the
restraints of law. And now, at the very commencement of a great struggle
for liberty, they entered into a solemn compact to banish licentious
excesses from their army. Protesting the purity of their motives, they
swore to strive until the king's majority to attain the objects which had
united them in a common struggle; but they promised with equal fervor to
watch over the morals of their associates, and to suffer nothing that was
contrary to God's honor or the king's edicts, to tolerate no idolatrous or
superstitious practices, no blasphemy, no uncleanness or theft, no
violation of churches by private authority. They declared their intention
and desire to hear the Word of God preached by faithful ministers in the
midst of the camps of war.[81]
[Sidenote: Huguenot nobles and cities.]
The papal party was amazed at the opposition its extreme measures had
created. In place of the timid weakling whom the triumvirate had expected,
they saw a giant spring from the ground to confront them.[82] To Orleans
flocked many of the highest nobles of the land. Besides Conde--after
Navarre and Bourbon, the prince of the blood nearest to the crown--there
were gathered to the Protestant standard the three Chatillons, Prince
Porcien, Count de la Rochefoucauld, the Sieurs de Soubise, de Mouy, de
Saint Fal, d'Esternay, Piennes, Rohan, Genlis, Grammont, Montgomery, and
others of high station and of large influence and extensive landed
possessions.[83] And, what was still more important, the capture of
Orleans was but the signal for a general movement throughout France. In a
few weeks the Huguenots, rising in their unsuspected strength, had
rendered themselves masters of cities in almost every province. Along the
Loire, Beaugency, Blois, Tours, and Angers declared for the Prince of
Conde; in Normandy, Rouen, Havre, Dieppe, and Caen; in Berry and the
neighboring provinces, Bourges, La Rochelle, Poitiers; along the Saone and
Rhone, Chalons, Macon, Lyons, Vienne, Valence, Montelimart, Tournon,
Orange; Gap and Grenoble in Dauphiny; almost the whole of the papal
"Comtat Venaissin;" the Vivarais; the Cevennes; the greater part of
Languedoc and Gascony, with the important cities of Montauban, Castres,
Castelnaudary, Beziers, Pezenas, Montpellier, Aiguesmortes, and
Nismes.[84] In northern France alone, where the number of Protestants was
small, the Huguenots obtained but a slight foothold.[85]
[Sidenote: Can iconoclasm be repressed?]
In the midst of this universal movement there was one point in the compact
made by the confederates at Orleans, which it was found impossible to
execute. How could the churches, with their altars, their statues, their
pictures, their relics, their priestly vestments, be guaranteed from
invasion? To the Huguenot masses they were the temples and instruments of
an idolatrous worship. Ought Christians to tolerate the existence of such
abominations, even if sanctioned by the government? It was hard to draw a
nice line of distinction between the overthrow of idolatry by public
authority and by personal zeal. If there were any difference in the merit
of the act, it was in favor of the man who vindicated the true religion at
the risk of his own life. Nay, the Church itself had incontrovertibly
given its sanction to this view by placing among the martyrs those
primitive Christians who had upon their own responsibility entered heathen
temples and overthrown the objects of the popular devotion. In those early
centuries there had been manifested the same reckless exposure of life,
the same supreme contempt for the claims of art in comparison with the
demands of religion. The Minerva of Phidias or Praxiteles was no safer
from the iconoclastic frenzy of the new convert from heathenism than the
rude idol of a less cultivated age. The command, "Thou shalt not make unto
thee any graven image," had not excepted from its prohibition the
marvellous products of the Greek chisel.
It was here, therefore, that the chief insubordination of the Huguenot
people manifested itself--not in licentious riot, not in bloodshed, not in
pillage. Calvin, with his high sense of law and order, might in his
letters reiterate the warnings against the irregularity which we have seen
him uttering on a previous occasion;[86] the ministers might threaten the
guilty with exclusion from the ordinances of the Church; Conde might
denounce the penalty of death. The people could not restrain themselves or
be restrained. They must remove what had been a stumbling-block to them
and might become a snare to others. They felt no more compunction in
breaking an image or tearing in pieces a picture, than a traveller, whom a
highwayman has wounded, is aware of, when he destroys the weapons dropped
by his assailant in his hurried flight. Indeed, they experienced a strange
satisfaction in visiting upon the lifeless idol the punishment for the
spiritual wrongs received at the hands of false teachers of religion.[87]
[Sidenote: It bursts out at Caen.]
We have an illustration of the way in which the work of demolition was
accomplished in events occurring about this time at Caen. Two or three
inhabitants of this old Norman city were at Rouen when the churches were
invaded and sacked by an over-zealous crowd of sympathizers with the "new
doctrines." On their return to their native city, they began at once to
urge their friends to copy the example of the provincial capital. The news
reaching the ears of the magistrates of Caen, these endeavored--but to no
purpose, as the sequel proved--to calm the feverish pulse of the people.
On a Friday night (May eighth), the storm broke out, and it raged the
whole of the next day. Church, chapel, and monastery could testify to its
violence. Quaint windows of stained glass and rich old organs were dashed
in pieces. Saints' effigies, to employ the quaint expression of a Roman
Catholic eye-witness, "were massacred." "So great was the damage
inflicted, without any profit, that the loss was estimated at more than a
hundred thousand crowns." Still less excusable were the acts of vandalism
which the rabble--ever ready to join in popular commotions and always
throwing disgrace upon them--indulged. The beautiful tombs of William,
Duke of Normandy and conqueror of England, and of the Duchess-queen
Mathilda, the pride of Caen, which had withstood the ravages of nearly
five hundred years, were ruthlessly destroyed. The monument of Bishop
Charles of Martigny, who had been ambassador under Charles the Eighth and
Louis the Twelfth, shared the same fate. The zealous Roman Catholic who
relates these occurrences claims to have striven, although to no purpose,
to rescue the ashes of the conqueror from dispersion.[88]
[Sidenote: The "idol" of Sainte Croix.]
The contagion spread even to Orleans. Here, as in other places where the
Huguenots had prevailed, there were but few of the inhabitants that had
not been drawn over to the reformed faith, or at least pretended to
embrace it. Yet Conde, in his desire to convince the world that no
partisan hatred moved him, strictly prohibited the intrusion of
Protestants into the churches, and assured the ecclesiastics of protection
so long as they chose to remain in the city. For a time, consequently,
their services continued to be celebrated in the presence of the faithful
few and with closed doors; but soon, their fears getting the better of
their prudence, the priests and monks one by one made their retreat from
the Protestant capital. On the twenty-first of April, word was brought to
Conde that some of the churches had been broken into during the preceding
night, and that the work of destruction was at that very moment going
forward in others. Hastening, in company with Coligny and other leaders,
to the spacious and imposing church of the Holy Rood (Sainte Croix), he
undertook, with blows and menaces, to check the furious onslaught. Seeing
a Huguenot soldier who had climbed aloft, and was preparing to hurl from
its elevated niche one of the saints that graced the wall of the church,
the prince, in the first ebullition of his anger, snatched an arquebuse
from the hands of one of his followers, and aimed it at the adventurous
iconoclast. The latter had seen the act, but was in no wise daunted. Not
desisting an instant from his pious enterprise, "Sir," he cried to Conde,
"have patience until I shall have overthrown this idol; and then let me
die, if that be your pleasure!"[89]
The Huguenot soldier's fearless reply sounded the knell of many a sacred
painting and statue; for the destruction was accepted as God's work rather
than man's.[90] Henceforth little exertion was made to save these objects
of mistaken devotion, while the greatest care was taken to prevent the
robbery of the costly reliquaries and other precious possessions of the
churches, of which inventories were drawn up, and which were used only at
the last extremity.[91]
[Sidenote: Massacre of Huguenots at Sens.]
Far different in character from the bloodless "massacres" of images and
pictures in cities where the Huguenots gained the upper hand, were the
massacres of living men wherever the papists retained their superiority.
One of the most cruel and inexcusable was that which happened at Sens--a
city sixty-five or seventy miles toward the south-east from Paris--where,
on an ill-founded and malicious rumor that the reformed contemplated
rising and destroying their Roman Catholic neighbors, the latter, at the
instigation, it is said, of their archbishop, the Cardinal of Guise, and
encouraged by the violent example of Constable Montmorency at Paris,[92]
fell on the Protestants, murdered more than a hundred of both sexes and of
every age, and threw their dead bodies into the waters of the Yonne.[93]
While these victims of a blind bigotry were floating on under the windows
of the Louvre toward the sea, Conde addressed to the queen mother a letter
of warm remonstrance, and called upon her to avenge the causeless murder
of so many innocent men and women; expressing the fear that, if justice
were denied by the king and by herself, the cry of innocent blood would
reach high heaven, and God would be moved to inflict those calamities
with which the unhappy realm was every day threatened.[94]
A few days before Conde penned this appeal, the English ambassador had
written and implored his royal mistress to seize the golden opportunity to
inspirit the frightened Catharine de' Medici, panic-stricken by the
violent measures of the Roman Catholic party; assuring her that "not a day
passed but that the Spanish ambassador, the Bishop of Rome, or some other
papist prince's minister put terror into the queen mother's mind."[95] But
Throkmorton's words and Cecil's entreaties were alike powerless to induce
Elizabeth to improve her advantage. The opportunity was fast slipping by,
and the calamities foretold by Conde were coming on apace.
[Sidenote: Disorders in Provence and Dauphiny.]
In truth, few calamities could exceed in horror those that now befell
France. In the south-eastern corner of the kingdom, above all other parts,
civil war, ever prolific in evil passions, was already bearing its
legitimate fruits. For several years the fertile, sunny hills of Provence
and Dauphiny had enjoyed but little stable peace, and now both sides
caught the first notes of the summons to war and hurried to the fray.
Towns were stormed, and their inhabitants, whether surrendering on
composition or at the discretion of the conqueror, found little justice or
compassion. The men were more fortunate, in being summarily put to the
sword; the women were reserved for the vilest indignities, and then shared
the fate of their fathers and husbands. The thirst for revenge caused the
Protestant leaders and soldiers to perpetrate deeds of cruelty little less
revolting than those which disgraced the papal cause; but there was, at
least, this to be said in their favor, that not even their enemies could
accuse them of those infamous excesses of lewdness of which their
opponents were notoriously guilty.[96] Their vengeance was satisfied with
the lives, and did not demand the honor of the vanquished.
[Sidenote: The city of Orange.]
The little city of Orange, capital of William of Nassau's principality,
contained a growing community of Protestants, whom the prince had in vain
attempted to restrain. About a year and a half before the outburst of the
civil war, William the Silent, then a sincere Roman Catholic,[97] on
receiving complaints from the Pope, whose territories about Avignon--the
Comtat Venaissin--ran around three sides of the principality, had
expressed himself "_marvellously sorry_ to see how those _wicked heresies_
were everywhere spreading, and that they had even penetrated into his
principality of Orange."[98] And when he received tidings that the
Huguenots were beginning to preach, he had written to his governor and
council, "to see to it by all means in the world, that no alteration be
permitted in our true and ancient religion, and in no wise to consent that
those wicked men should take refuge in his principality." As Protestantism
advanced in Orange, he purposed to give instructions to use persuasion and
force, "in order to remedy a disorder so pernicious to all
Christendom."[99] While he was unwilling to call in French troops, lest he
should prejudice his sovereign rights, he declared his desire to be
authorized to employ the pontifical soldiers in the work of
repression.[100] But in spite of these restrictive measures, the reformed
population increased rather than diminished, and the bishop of the city
now called upon Fabrizio Serbelloni, a cousin of Pope Pius the Fourth, and
papal general at Avignon, to assist him by driving out the Protestants,
who, ever since the massacre of Vassy, had feared with good reason the
assault of their too powerful and hostile neighbors, and had taken up arms
in self-defence. They had not, however, apprehended so speedy an attack as
Serbelloni now made (on the fifth of June), and, taken by surprise, were
able to make but a feeble resistance. The papal troops entered the city
through the breach their cannon had effected. Never did victorious army
act more insolently or with greater inhumanity. None were spared; neither
the sick on their beds, nor the poor in their asylums, nor the maimed that
hobbled through the streets. Those were most fortunate that were first
despatched. The rest were tortured with painful wounds that prolonged
their agonies till death was rather desired than dreaded, or were hurled
down upon pikes and halberds, or were hung to pot-hooks and roasted in the
fire, or were hacked in pieces. Not a few of the women were treated with
dishonor; the greater part were hung to doors and windows, and their dead
bodies, stripped naked, were submitted to indignities for which the annals
of warfare, except among the most ferocious savages, can scarcely supply a
parallel. That the Almighty might not seem to be insulted in the persons
only of living creatures formed in His own image, the fresh impiety was
perpetrated of derisively stuffing leaves torn from French Bibles into the
gaping wounds of the dead lying on this field of carnage. Nor did the
Roman Catholics of Orange fare much better than their reformed neighbors.
Mistaken for enemies, they were massacred in the public square, where they
had assembled, expecting rather to receive a reward for their services in
assisting the pontifical troops to enter, than to atone for their
treachery by their own death.[101]
[Sidenote: Francois de Beaumont, Baron des Adrets.]
But the time for revenge soon came around. The barbarous warfare initiated
by the adherents of the triumvirate in Dauphiny and Provence bred or
brought forward a leader and soldiers who did not hesitate to repay
cruelty with cruelty. Francois de Beaumont, Baron des Adrets, was a
merciless general, who affected to believe that rigor and strict
retaliation were indispensable to remove the contempt in which the
Huguenots were held, and who knew how by bold movements to appear where
least expected, and by vigor to multiply the apparent size of his army.
Attached to the Reformation only from ambition, and breathing a spirit
far removed from the meekness of the Gospel, he soon awakened the horror
of his comrades in arms, and incurred the censure of Conde for his
barbarities; so that, within a few months, becoming disgusted with the
Huguenots, he went over to the papal side, and in the second civil war was
found fighting against his former associates.[102] Meantime, his brief
connection with the Huguenots was a blot upon their escutcheon all the
more noticeable because of the prevailing purity;[103] and the injury he
inflicted upon the cause of Protestantism far more than cancelled the
services he rendered at Lyons and elsewhere. At Pierrelate he permitted
his soldiers to take signal vengeance on the garrison for the recent
massacre. At Mornas the articles of the capitulation, by which the lives
of the besieged were guaranteed, were not observed; for the Protestant
soldiers from Orange, recognizing among them the perpetrators of the
crimes which had turned their homes into a howling desert, fell upon them
and were not--perhaps could not be--restrained by their leader.[104] The
fatal example of Orange was but too faithfully copied, and precipitating
the prisoners from the summit of a high rock became the favorite mode of
execution.[105] Only one of the unfortunates, who happened to break his
fall by catching hold of a wild fig-tree growing cut of the side of the
cliff, was spared by his enemies.[106] A number of the naked corpses were
afterward placed in an open boat without pilot or tiller, and suffered to
float down the Rhone with a banner on which were written these words: "O
men of Avignon! permit the bearers to pass, for they have paid the toll at
Mornas."[107]
[Sidenote: Blaise de Montluc.]
[Sidenote: Massacre at Toulouse.]
The atrocities of Des Adrets and his soldiers in the East were, however,
surpassed by those which Blaise de Montluc inflicted upon the Huguenots of
the West, or which took place under his sanction. His memoirs, which are
among the most authentic materials for the history of the wars in which he
took part, present him to us as a remorseless soldier, dead to all
feelings of sympathy with human distress, glorying in having executed
more Huguenots than any other royal lieutenant in France,[108] pleased to
have the people call the two hangmen whom he used to take about with him
his "lackeys."[109] It is not surprising that, under the auspices of such
an officer, fierce passions should have had free play. At Toulouse, the
seat of the most fanatical parliament in France, a notable massacre took
place. Even in this hot-bed of bigotry the reformed doctrines had made
rapid and substantial progress, and the great body of the students in the
famous law-school, as well of the municipal government, were favorable to
their spread.[110] The common people, however, were as virulent in their
hostility as the parliament itself. They had never been fully reconciled
to the publication of the Edict of January, and had only been restrained
from interference with the worship of the Protestants by the authority of
the government. Of late the Huguenots had discovered on what treacherous
ground they stood. A funeral procession of theirs had been attacked, and
several persons had been murdered. A massacre had been perpetrated in the
city of Cahors, not far distant from them. In both cases the entire
authority of parliament had been exerted to shield the guilty. The
Huguenots, therefore, resolved to forestall disaster by throwing Toulouse
into the hands of Conde, and succeeded so far as to introduce some
companies of soldiers within the walls and to seize the "hotel de ville."
They had, however, miscalculated their strength. The Roman Catholics were
more numerous, and after repeated conflicts they were able to demand the
surrender of the building in which the Protestants had intrenched
themselves. Destitute alike of provisions and of the means of defence, and
menaced with the burning of their retreat, the latter accepted the
conditions offered, and--a part on the day before Pentecost, a part after
the services of that Sunday, one of the chief festivals of the Reformed
Church--they retired without arms, intending to depart for more hospitable
cities. Scarce, however, had the last detachment left the walls, when the
tocsin was sounded, and their enemies, respecting none of their promises,
involved them in a horrible carnage. It was the opinion of the best
informed that in all three thousand persons perished on both sides during
the riot at Toulouse, of whom by far the greater number were Huguenots.
Even this effusion of blood was not sufficient. The next day Montluc
appeared in the city. And now, encouraged by his support, the Parliament
of Toulouse initiated a system of judicial inquiries which were summary in
their character, and rarely ended save in the condemnation of the accused.
Within three months two hundred persons were publicly executed. The
Protestant leader was quartered. The parliament vindicated its orthodoxy
by the expulsion of twenty-two counsellors suspected of a leaning to the
Reformation; and informers were allured by bribes, as well as frightened
by ecclesiastical menaces, in order that the harvest of confiscation might
be the greater.[111]
Such were the deeds which the Roman Catholics of southern France have up
to our times commemorated by centenary celebrations;[112] such the pious
achievements for which Blaise de Montluc received from Pope Pius the
Fourth the most lavish praise as a zealous defender of the Catholic
faith.[113]
[Sidenote: Foreign alliances sought.]
Meanwhile, about Paris and Orleans the war lagged. Both sides were
receiving reinforcements. The ban and rear-ban were summoned in the king's
name, and a large part of the levies joined Conde as the royal
representative in preference to Navarre and the triumvirate.[114] Charles
the Ninth and Catharine had consented to publish a declaration denying
Conde's allegation that they were held in duress.[115] The Guises had sent
abroad to Spain, to Germany, to the German cantons of Switzerland, to
Savoy, to the Pope. Philip, after the abundant promises with which he had
encouraged the French papists to enter upon the war, was not quite sure
whether he had better answer the calls now made upon him. He was by no
means confident that the love of country of the French might not, after
all, prove stronger than the discord engendered by their religious
differences, and their hatred of the Spaniard than their hatred of their
political rivals.[116] "Those stirrings," writes Sir Thomas Chaloner from
Spain, "have here gevyn matter of great consultation day by day to this
king and counsaile. One wayes they devise howe the Gwisans may be ayded
and assisted by them, esteming for religion sake that the prevaylment of
that syde importithe them as the ball of theire eye. Another wayes they
stand in a jelousie whither theis nombers thus assembled in Fraunce, may
not possibly shake hands, and sett upon the Lowe Countries or Navarre,
both peecs, upon confidence of the peace, now being disprovided of
garisons. So ferfurthe as they here repent the revocation of the Spanish
bands owt of Flanders.... So as in case the new bushops against the
people's mynd shall need be enstalled, the Frenche had never such an
opertunyte as they perchauns should fynd at this instant."[117] To the
Duke of Wuertemberg the Guises had induced Charles and Catharine to write,
throwing the blame of the civil war entirely upon Conde;[118] but
Christopher, this time at least, had his eyes wide open, and his reply was
not only a pointed refusal to join in the general crusade against the
Calvinists, but a noble plea in behalf of toleration and clemency.[119]
[Sidenote: Queen Elizabeth's aid invoked.]
The Huguenots, on the other hand, had rather endeavored to set themselves
right in public estimation and to prepare the way for future calls for
assistance, than made any present requisitions. Elizabeth's ambassador,
Throkmorton, had been carefully instructed as to the danger that overhung
his mistress with all the rest of Protestant Christendom. He wrote to her
that the plot was a general one, including England. "It may please your
Majesty the papists, within these two days at Sens in Normandy, have slain
and hurt two hundred persons--men and women. Your Majesty may perceive how
dangerous it is to suffer papists that be of great heart and enterprise to
lift up their crests so high."[120] In another despatch he warned her of
her danger. "It standeth your Majesty upon, for the conservation of your
realm in the good terms it is in (thanks be to God), to countenance the
Protestants as much as you may, until they be set afoot again, I mean in
this realm; for here dependeth the great sway of that matter."[121]
[Sidenote: Cecil's urgency and schemes.]
[Sidenote: Divided sympathies of the English.]
Cecil himself adopted the same views, and urged them upon Elizabeth's
attention. Not succeeding in impressing her according to his wish, he
resorted to extraordinary measures to compass the end. He instructed
Mundt, his agent in Germany, to exert himself to induce the Protestant
princes to send "special messengers" to England and persuade Elizabeth to
join in "a confederacy of all parts professing the Gospel." In fact, the
cunning secretary of state went even farther, and dictated to Mundt just
what he should write to the queen. He was to tell her Majesty "that if she
did not attempt the furtherance of the Gospel in France, and the keeping
asunder of France and Spain, she would be in greater peril than any other
prince in Christendom," for "the papist princes that sought to draw her to
their parts meant her subversion"--a truth which, were she to be informed
of by any of the German princes, might have a salutary effect.[122] But
the vacillating queen could not be induced as yet to take the same view,
and needed the offer of some tangible advantages to move her. No wonder
that Elizabeth's policy halted. Every occurrence across the channel was
purposely misrepresented by the emissaries of Philip, and the open
sympathizers of the Roman Catholic party at the English court were almost
more numerous than the hearty Protestants. A few weeks later, a
correspondent of Throkmorton wrote to him from home: "Here are daily
bruits given forth by the Spanish ambassador, as it is thought, far
discrepant from such as I learn are sent from your lordship, and the
papists have so great a voice here as they have almost as much credit, the
more it is to be lamented. I have not, since I came last over, come in any
company where almost the greater part have not in reasoning defended
papistry, allowed the Guisians' proceedings, and seemed to deface the
prince's quarrel and design. How dangerous this is your lordship doth
see."[123] The Swiss Protestant cantons were reluctant to appear to
countenance rebellion. Berne sent a few ensigns to Lyons at the request of
the Protestants of that city, but wished to limit them strictly to the
defensive, and subsequently she yielded to the urgency of the Guises and
recalled them altogether.[124] But as yet no effort was made by Conde to
call in foreign assistance. The reluctance of Admiral Coligny, while it
did honor to the patriotism which always moved him, seems to have led him
to commit a serious mistake. The admiral hoped and believed that the
Huguenots would prove strong enough to succeed without invoking foreign
assistance; moreover, he was unwilling to set the first example of
bringing in strangers to arbitrate concerning the domestic affairs of
France.[125] And, indeed, had his opponents been equally patriotic, it is
not improbable that his expectation would have been realized. For, if
inferior to the enemy in infantry, the Huguenots, through the great
preponderance of noblemen and gentlemen in their army, were at first far
superior in cavalry.
[Sidenote: Diplomatic manoeuvres.]
The beaten path of diplomatic manoeuvre was first tried. Four times were
messengers sent to Conde, in the king's name, requiring his submission.
Four times he responded that he could not lay down his arms until Guise
should have retired from court and been punished for the massacre of
Vassy, until the constable and Saint Andre should have returned to their
governments, leaving the king his personal liberty, and until the Edict of
January should be fully re-established.[126] These demands the opposing
party were unwilling to concede. It is true that a pretence was made of
granting the last point, and, on the eleventh of April, an edict,
ostensibly in confirmation of that of January, was signed by Charles, by
the advice of Catharine, the King of Navarre, the Cardinals of Bourbon and
Guise, the Duke of Guise, the constable, and Aumale. But there was a
glaring contradiction between the two laws, for Paris was expressly
excepted from the provisions. In or around the capital no exercises of the
reformed religion could be celebrated.[127] Such was the trick by which
the triumvirs hoped to take the wind out of the confederates' sails.
Though the concession could not be accepted by the Protestants, it might
be alleged to show foreigners the unreasonableness of Conde and his
supporters. Meantime, in reply to the prince's declaration as to the
causes for which he had taken up arms, the adherents of Guise published in
their own vindication a paper, wherein they gravely asserted that, but for
the duke's timely arrival, fifteen hundred Huguenots, gathered from every
part of the kingdom, would have entered Paris, and, with the assistance of
their confederates within the walls, would have plundered the city.[128]
The month of May witnessed the dreary continuation of the same state of
things. On the first, Conde wrote to the queen mother, reiterating his
readiness to lay down the arms he had assumed in the king's defence and
her's, on the same conditions as before. On the fourth, Charles,
Catharine, and Antoine replied, refusing to dismiss the Guises or to
restore the Edict of January in reference to Paris, but, at the same time,
inviting the prince to return to court, and promising that, after he
should have submitted, and the revolted cities should have been restored
to their allegiance, the triumvirs would retire to their governments.[129]
On the same day two petitions were presented to Charles. Both were signed
by Guise, Montmorency, and Saint Andre. In the first they prayed his
Majesty to interdict the exercise of every other religion save the "holy
Apostolic and Roman," and require that all royal officers should conform
to that religion or forfeit their positions; to compel the heretics to
restore the churches which had been destroyed; to punish the sacrilegious;
to declare rebels all who persisted in retaining arms without permission
of the King of Navarre. Under these conditions they would consent, they
said, to leave France--nay, to go to the ends of the world. In the second
petition they demanded the submission of the confederates of Orleans, the
restitution of the places which had been seized, the exaction of an oath
to observe the royal edicts, both new and old, and the enforcement of the
sole command of Navarre over the French armies.[130]
[Sidenote: Conde's reply to the pretended petition.]
Conde's reply (May twentieth) was the most bitter, as well as the ablest
and most vigorous paper of the initiatory stage of the war. It well
deserves a careful examination. The pretended _petition_, Louis of Bourbon
wrote to the queen mother, any one can see, even upon a cursory perusal,
to be in effect nothing else than a _decree_ concocted by the Duke of
Guise, Constable Montmorency, and Marshal Saint Andre, with the assistance
of the papal legate and nuncio and the ministers of foreign states.
Ambition, not zeal for the faith, is the motive. In order to have their
own way, not only do the signers refuse to have a prince of the blood near
the monarch, but they intend removing and punishing all the worthy members
of the royal privy council, beginning with Michel de l'Hospital, the
chancellor. In point of fact, they have already made a ridiculous
appointment of six new counsellors. The queen mother is to be banished to
Chenonceaux, there to spend her time in laying out her gardens. La
Roche-sur-Yon will be sent elsewhere. New instructors are to be placed
around the king to teach him riding, jousting, the art of love--anything,
in short, to divert his mind from religion and the art of reigning well.
The conspiracy is more dangerous than the conspiracy of Sulla or Caesar, or
that of the Roman triumvirs. Its authors point to their titles, and allege
the benefits they have conferred; but their boasts may easily be answered
by pointing to their insatiable avarice, and to the princely revenues they
have accumulated during their long connection with the public
administration. They speak of the present dangerous state of the country.
What was it before the massacre of Vassy? After the publication of the
Edict of January universal peace prevailed. That peace these very
petitioners disturbed. What means the coalition of the constable and
Marshal Saint Andre? What mean the barbarities lately committed in Paris,
but that the peace was to be broken by violent means? As to the obedience
the petitioners profess to exhibit to the queen, they showed her open
contempt when they refused to go to the provinces which they governed
under the king's orders; when they came to the capital contrary to her
express direction, and that in arms; when by force they dragged the king,
her son, and herself from Fontainebleau to the Louvre. They have accused
the Huguenots of treating the king as a prisoner, because these desire
that the decree drawn up by the advice of the three estates of the realm
should be made irrevocable until the majority of Charles the Ninth; but
how was it when three persons, of whom one is a foreigner and the other
two are servants of the crown, dictate a _new_ edict, and wish that edict
to be absolutely irrevocable? There is no need of lugging the Roman
Catholic religion into the discussion, and undertaking its defence, for no
one has thought of attacking it. The demand made by the petitioners for a
compulsory subscription to certain articles of theirs is in opposition to
immemorial usage; for no subscription has ever been exacted save to the
creed of the Apostles. It is a second edict, and in truth nothing else
than the introduction of that hateful Spanish inquisition. Ten thousand
nobles and a hundred thousand soldiers will not be compelled either by
force or by authority to affix their signatures to it. But, to talk of
enforcing submission to a Roman Catholic confession is idle, so long as
the Duke of Guise and the Cardinal of Lorraine do not retract their own
adhesion to the Augsburg Confession lately given in with such
protestations to a German prince. The charge of countenancing the breaking
of images the prince would answer by pointing to the penalties he has
inflicted in order to repress the irregularity. And yet, if it come to the
true desert of punishment, what retribution ought not to be meted out for
the crimes perpetrated by the petitioners, or under their auspices and
after their examples, at Vassy, at Sens, at Paris, at Toulouse, and in so
many other places? For the author of the petition should have remembered
that it is nowhere written that a dead image ever cried for vengeance;
but the blood of man--God's living image--demands it of heaven, and draws
it down, though it tarry long. As for the accusation brought against Conde
and the best part of the French nobility, that they are rebels, the prince
hopes soon to meet his accusers in the open field and there decide the
question whether a foreigner and two others of such a station as they are
shall undertake to judge a prince of the blood. To allege Navarre's
authority comes with ill-grace from men who wronged that king so openly
during the late reign of Francis the Second. Finally, the Prince of Conde
would set over against the petition of the triumvirate, one of his own,
containing for its principal articles that the Edict of January, which his
enemies seek to overturn, shall be observed inviolate; that all the king's
subjects of every order and condition shall be maintained in their rights
and privileges; that the professors of the reformed faith shall be
protected until the majority of Charles; that arms shall be laid down on
either side; above all, that _foreign_ arms, which he himself, so far from
inviting to France, has, up to the present moment, steadfastly declined
when voluntarily offered, and which he will never resort to unless
compelled by his enemies, shall be banished from the kingdom.[131]
[Sidenote: Third National Synod.]
While the clouds of war were thus gathering thick around Orleans, within
its walls a synod of the reformed churches of France had assembled on the
twenty-fifth of April, to deliberate of matters relating to their
religious interests. Important questions of discipline were discussed and
settled, and a day of public fasting and prayer was appointed in view of
the danger of a declared civil war.[132]
[Sidenote: Interview of Catharine and Conde.]
The actual war was fast approaching. The army of the Guises, under the
nominal command of the King of Navarre, was now ready to march in the
direction of Orleans. Before setting out, however, the triumvirs resolved
to make sure of their hold upon the capital, and royal edicts (of the
twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh of May) were obtained ordering the
expulsion from Paris of all known Protestants.[133] Then, with an army of
four thousand foot and three thousand horse, the King of Navarre marched
toward the city of Chateaudun.[134] On hearing of the movement of his
brother's forces, the Prince of Conde advanced to meet him at the head of
six thousand foot and two thousand horse. There were those, however, who
still believed it to be possible to avert a collision and settle the
matters in dispute by amicable discussion. Of this number was Catharine
de' Medici. Hastily leaving the castle of Vincennes, she hurried to the
front, and at the little town of Toury, between the two armies, she
brought about an interview between Conde, the King of Navarre, and
herself. Such was the imbittered feeling supposed to animate both sides,
that the escorts of the two princes had been strictly enjoined to avoid
approaching each other, lest they should be tempted to indulge in
insulting remarks, and from these come to blows. But, to the great
surprise of all, they had no sooner met than papist and Huguenot rushed
into each other's arms and embraced as friends long separated. While the
principals were discussing the terms of union, their followers had already
expressed by action the accord reigning in their hearts, and the white
cloaks of Conde's attendants were to be seen indiscriminately mingled with
the crimson cloaks of his brother's escort. Yet, after all, the interview
came to nothing. Neither side could accept the only terms the other would
offer, and Catharine returned disappointed to Paris, to be greeted by the
populace with the most insulting language for imperilling the orthodoxy
of the kingdom.[135] Not, however, altogether despairing of effecting a
reconciliation, Conde addressed a letter to the King of Navarre,
entreating him, before it should be too late, to listen to his brotherly
arguments. The answer came in a new summons to lay down his arms.[136]
[Sidenote: The "loan" of Beaugency.]
Yet, while they had no desire for a reconciliation on any such terms as
the Huguenots could accept, there were some substantial advantages which
the Roman Catholic leaders hoped to reap under cover of fresh
negotiations. All the portion of the valley of the Loire lying nearest to
Paris was in the hands of the confederates of Orleans. It was impossible
for Navarre to reach the southern bank, except by crossing below Amboise,
and thus exposing the communications of his army with Paris to be cut off
at any moment. To attain his end with less difficulty, Antoine now sent
word to his brother that he was disposed to conclude a peace, and proposed
a truce of six days. Meanwhile, he requested Conde to gratify him by the
"loan" of the town of Beaugency, a few miles below Orleans, where he might
be more comfortably lodged than in his present inconvenient quarters. The
request was certainly sufficiently novel, but that it was granted by Conde
may appear even more strange.
[Sidenote: Futile negotiations.]
This was not the only act of folly in which the Huguenot leaders became
involved. Under pretence of showing their readiness to contribute their
utmost to the re-establishment of peace, the constable, Guise, and Saint
Andre, after obtaining a declaration from Catharine and Antoine that their
voluntary retreat would do no prejudice to their honor,[137] retired from
the royal court, but went no farther than the neighboring city of
Chateaudun. The Prince of Conde, swallowing the bait, did not hesitate a
moment to place himself, the very next day, in the hands of the queen
mother and his brother, and was led more like a captive than a freeman
from Beaugency to Talsy, where Catharine was staying. Becoming alarmed,
however, at his isolated situation, he wrote to his comrades in arms, and
within a few hours so goodly a company of knights appeared, with Coligny,
Andelot, Prince Porcien, La Rochefoucauld, Rohan, and other distinguished
nobles at their head, that any treacherous plans that may have been
entertained by the wily Italian princess were rendered entirely futile.
She resolved, therefore, to entrap them by soft speeches. With that utter
disregard for consistency so characteristic both of her actions and of her
words, Catharine publicly[138] thanked the Huguenot lords for the services
they had rendered the king, who would never cease to be grateful to them,
and recognized, for her own part, that her son and she herself owed to
them the preservation of their lives. But, after this flattering preamble,
she proceeded to make the unpalatable proposition that they should consent
to the repeal of the edict so far as Paris was concerned, under the
guarantee of personal liberty, but without permission to hold public
religious worship. The prince and his associates could listen to no such
terms. Indeed, carried away by the fervor of their zeal, they protested
that, rather than surrender the rights of their brethren, they would leave
the kingdom. "We shall willingly go into exile," they said, "if our
absence will conduce to the restoration of public tranquillity." This
assurance was just what Catharine had been awaiting. To the infinite
surprise of the speakers themselves, she told them that she appreciated
their disinterested motives, and accepted their offer; that they should
have safe-conducts to whatever land they desired to visit, with full
liberty to sell their goods and to receive their incomes; but that their
voluntary retirement would last only until the king's majority, which
would be declared so soon as he had completed his fourteenth year![139] It
needs scarcely be said that, awkward as was the predicament in which they
had placed themselves, the prince and his companions had little
disposition to follow out Catharine's plan. On their return to the
Protestant camp, the clamor of the soldiers against any further exposure
of the person of their leader to peril, and the opportune publication of
an intercepted letter said to have been written by the Duke of Guise to
his brother, the Cardinal of Lorraine, on the eve of his departure for
Chateaudun, and disclosing treacherous designs,[140] decided the Huguenot
leaders to break off the negotiations.[141]
The long period of comparative inaction was now succeeded by a spasmodic
effort at energetic conduct. The six days' truce had scarcely expired when
the prince resolved to throw himself unexpectedly upon the neighboring
camp of the Roman Catholics, before Montmorency, Guise, and Saint Andre
had resumed their accustomed posts. One of those nocturnal attacks, which,
under the name of _camisades_, figure so frequently in the military
history of the period, was secretly organized, and the Protestant
soldiers, wearing white shirts over their armor, in order that they might
easily recognize each other in the darkness of the night, started with
alacrity, under D'Andelot's command, on the exciting adventure. But their
guides were treacherous, or unskilful, and the enterprise came to
naught.[142] Disappointed in this attempt, and unable to force the enemy
to give battle, Conde turned his attention to Beaugency, which the King
of Navarre had failed to restore, and carried it by storm. He would gladly
have followed up the advantage by laying siege to Blois and Tours, which
the triumvirate had taken and treated with the utmost cruelty; but heavy
rains, and the impossibility of carrying on military operations on account
of the depth of the mud, compelled him to relinquish his project, and
reduced the main army to renewed inactivity.[143]
The protracted delays and inexcusable sluggishness of the leaders had
borne their natural fruits. Many of the Protestant gentlemen had left the
camp in disgust at the mistakes committed; others had retired to their
homes on hearing that their families were exposed to the dangers of war
and stood in need of their protection; a few had been corrupted by the
arts of the enemy. For it was a circumstance often noticed by
contemporaries, that no envoy was ever sent from Orleans to the court who
did not return, if not demoralized, yet so lukewarm as to be incapable of
performing any good service in future.[144] Yet the dispersion of the
higher rank of the reformed soldiers, and the consequent weakening of
Conde's army in cavalry, were attended with this incidental advantage,
that they contributed greatly to the strengthening of the party in the
provinces, and necessitated a similar division of the opposing
forces.[145]
[Sidenote: Huguenot discipline.]
Never, perhaps, was there an army that exhibited such excellent discipline
as did the army of the Protestants in this the first stage of its warfare.
Never had the morals and religion of soldiers been better cared for. It
was the testimony of a soldier, one of the most accomplished and
philosophical writers of his times--the brave "Bras de Fer"--that the
preaching of the Gospel was the great instrument of imbuing the army with
the spirit of order. Crimes, he tells us, were promptly revealed; no
blasphemy was heard throughout the camp, for it was universally frowned
upon. The very implements of gambling--dice and cards--were banished.
There were no lewd women among the camp-followers. Thefts were unfrequent
and vigorously punished. A couple of soldiers were hung for having robbed
a peasant of a small quantity of wine.[146] Public prayers were said
morning and evening; and, instead of profane or indelicate songs, nothing
was heard but the psalms of David. Such were the admirable fruits of the
careful discipline of Admiral Coligny, the true leader of the Protestant
party; and they made a deep impression upon such enthusiastic youths as
Francois de la Noue and Teligny. Their more experienced author, however,
was not imposed upon by these flattering signs. "It is a very fine thing,"
he told them, "if only it last; but I much fear that these people will
spend all their goodness at the outset, and that, two months hence,
nothing will remain but malice. I have long commanded infantry, and I know
that it often verifies the proverb which says: '_Of a young hermit, an old
devil!_' If this army does not, we shall give it a good mark."[147] The
prediction was speedily realized; for, although the army of the prince
never sought to rival the papal troops in the extent of its license, the
standard of soldierly morality was far below that which Coligny had
desired to establish.[148]
[Sidenote: Severities of the parliament.]
So far as cruelty was concerned, everything in the conduct of their
antagonists was calculated to provoke the Protestants to bitter
retaliation. The army of Guise was merciless. If the infuriated Huguenots
selected the priests that fell into their hands for the especial monuments
of their retribution, it was because the priesthood as a body had become
the instigators of savage barbarity, instead of being the ministers of
peace; because when they did not, like Ronsard the poet, themselves buckle
on the sword, or revel in blood, like the monks of Saint Calais,[149] they
still fanned, as they had for years been fanning, the flame of civil war,
denouncing toleration or compromise, wielding the weapons of the church to
enforce the pious duty of exterminating every foul calumny invented to the
disadvantage of the reformers. No wonder, then, that the ecclesiastical
dress itself became the badge of deadly and irreconcilable hostility, and
that in the course of this unhappy war many a priest was cut down without
any examination into his private views or personal history. Parliament,
too, was setting the example of cruelty by reckless orders amounting
almost to independent legislation. By a series of "arrets" succeeding each
other rapidly in the months of June and July, the door was opened wider
and wider for popular excess. When the churches of Meaux were visited by
an iconoclastic rabble on the twenty-sixth of June, the Parisian
parliament, on the thirtieth of June, employed the disorder as the pretext
of a judicial "declaration" that made the culprits liable to all the
penalties of treason, and permitted any one to put them to death without
further authorization. The populace of Paris needed no fuller powers to
attack the Huguenots, for, within two or three days, sixty men and women
had been killed, robbed, and thrown into the river. Parliament, therefore,
found it convenient to terminate the massacre by a second order
restricting the application of the declaration to persons taken in the
very act.[150] A few days later (July, 1562), other arrets empowered all
inhabitants of towns and villages to take up arms against those who
molested priests, sacked churches, or "held conventicles and unlawful
assemblies," whether public or secret; and to arrest the ministers,
deacons, and other ecclesiastical functionaries for trial, as guilty of
treason against God as well as man.[151] Not content with these appeals to
popular passion,[152] however, the Parisian judges soon gave practical
exemplifications of their intolerant principles; for two royal
officers--the "lieutenant general" of Pontoise, and the "lieutenant" of
Senlis--were publicly hung; the former for encouraging the preaching of
God's word "in other form than the ancient church" authorized, the latter
for "celebrating the Lord's Supper according to the Genevese fashion."
These were, according to the curate of St. Barthelemi, the first
executions at Paris for the simple profession of "Huguenoterie" since the
pardon proclaimed by Francis the Second at Amboise.[153] A few days
later, a new and more explicit declaration pronounced all those who had
taken up arms, robbed churches and monasteries, and committed other
sacrilegious acts at Orleans, Lyons, Rouen, and various other cities
mentioned by name, to be rebels, and deprived them of all their offices.
Yet, by way of retaliation upon Conde for maintaining that he had entered
upon the war in order to defend the persons of the king and his mother,
unjustly deprived of their liberty, parliament pretended to regard the
prince himself as an unwilling captive in the hands of the confederates;
and, consequently, excepted him alone from the general attainder.[154] But
the legal fiction does not seem to have been attended with the great
success its projectors anticipated.[155] The people could scarcely credit
the statement that the war was waged by the Guises simply for the
liberation of their mortal enemy, Conde, especially when Conde himself
indignantly repelled the attempt to separate him from the associates with
whom he had entered into common engagements, not to add that the
reputation of the Lorraine family, whose mouthpiece parliament might well
be supposed to be, was not over good for strict adherence to truth.
Meanwhile the triumvirs were more successful in their military operations
than the partisans of the prince. Their auxiliaries came in more promptly,
for the step which Conde now saw himself forced to take, in consequence of
his opponents' course, they had long since resolved upon. They had
received reinforcements from Germany, both of infantry and cavalry, under
command of the Rhinegrave Philip of Salm and the Count of Rockendorf;
while Conde had succeeded in detaching but few of the Lutheran troopers by
a manifesto in which he endeavored to explain the true nature of the
struggle. Soldiers from the Roman Catholic cantons had been allowed a free
passage through the Spanish Franche-Comte by the regent of the Low
Countries, Margaret of Parma. The Pope himself contributed liberally to
the supply of money for paying the troops.[156] But the Protestant
reinforcements from the Palatinate and Zweibruecken (Deux-Ponts), and from
Hesse, which D'Andelot, and, after him, Gaspard de Schomberg, had gone to
hasten, were not yet ready; while Elizabeth still hesitated to listen to
the solicitations of Briquemault and Robert Stuart, the Scotchman, who had
been successively sent to her court.[157]
[Sidenote: Military successes of the triumvirs.]
[Sidenote: Fall of Bourges.]
After effecting the important capture of the city of Poitiers, Marshal
Saint Andre, at the head of a Roman Catholic army, had marched, about the
middle of August, toward Bourges, perhaps the most important place held by
the Protestants in central France. Beneath the walls of this city he
joined the main army, under Navarre's nominal command, but really led by
the Duke of Guise. The siege was pressed with vigor, for the king was
present in person with the "Guisards." To the handful of Huguenots their
assailants appeared to be "a marvellous army of French, Germans, reiters,
Spaniards, and other nations, numbering in all eighty or a hundred
thousand men, with the bravest cavalry that could be seen."[158] And, when
twenty or twenty-five cannon opened upon Bourges with balls of forty or
fifty pounds' weight, and when six hundred and forty discharges were
counted on a single day, and every building in the town was shaken to its
very foundations, the besieged, numbering only a few hundred men, would
have been excusable had they lost heart. Instead of this, they obstinately
defended their works, repaired the breach by night, and inflicted severe
injury on the enemy by nocturnal sallies. To add to the duke's
embarrassment, Admiral Coligny, issuing from Orleans, was fortunate enough
to cut off an important convoy of provisions and ammunition coming from
Paris to the relief of the besiegers.[159] Despairing of taking the city
by force, they now turned to negotiation. Unhappily, M. d'Ivoy, in command
of the Huguenot garrison, was not proof against the seductive offers made
him. Disregarding the remonstrances of his companions in arms, who pointed
to the fact that the enemy had from day to day, through discouragement or
from sheer exhaustion, relaxed their assaults, he consented (on the
thirty-first of August) to surrender Bourges to the army that had so long
thundered at its gates. D'Ivoy returned to Orleans, but Conde, accusing
him of open perfidy, refused to see him; while the Protestants of Bourges
shared the usual fate of those who trusted the promises of the Roman
Catholic leaders, and secured few of the religious privileges guaranteed
by the articles of capitulation.[160]
With the fall of Bourges, the whole of central France, as far as to the
gates of Orleans, yielded to the arms of Guise. Everywhere the wretched
inhabitants of the reformed faith were compelled to submit to gross
indignities, or seek safety in flight. To many of these homeless fugitives
the friendly castle of Montargis, belonging to the Duchess of Ferrara, to
which reference will shortly be made, afforded a welcome refuge.[161]
[Sidenote: Help from Queen Elizabeth.]
The necessity of obtaining immediate reinforcements had at length brought
Conde and the other great Huguenot lords to acquiesce in the offer of the
only terms upon which Elizabeth of England could be persuaded to grant
them actual support. As the indispensable condition to her interference,
she demanded that the cities of Havre and Dieppe should be placed in her
hands. These would be a pledge for the restoration of Calais, that old
English stronghold which had fallen into the power of the French during
the last war, and for whose restoration within eight years there had been
an express stipulation in the treaties Cateau-Cambresis. This humiliating
concession the Huguenots reluctantly agreed to make. Elizabeth in turn
promised to send six thousand English troops (three thousand to guard each
of the cities), who should serve under the command of Conde as the royal
lieutenant, and pledged her word to lend the prince and his associates one
hundred and forty thousand crowns toward defraying the expenses of the
war.[162] On the twentieth of September the Queen of England published to
the world a declaration of the motives that led her to interfere, alleging
in particular the usurpation of the royal authority by the Guises, and the
consequent danger impending over the Protestants of Normandy through the
violence of the Duke of Aumale.[163]
The tidings of the alliance and of some of its conditions had already
reached France, and they rather damaged than furthered the Protestant
cause. As the English queen's selfish determination to confine her
assistance to the protection of the three cities became known, it alarmed
even her warmest friends among the French Protestants. Conde and Coligny
earnestly begged the queen's ambassador to tell his mistress that "in case
her Majesty were introduced by their means into Havre, Dieppe, and Rouen
with six thousand men, only to keep those places, it would be unto them a
great note of infamy." They would seem wantonly to have exposed to a
foreign prince the very flower of Normandy, in giving into her hands
cities which they felt themselves quite able to defend without assistance.
So clearly did Throkmorton foresee the disastrous consequences of this
course, that, even at the risk of offending the queen by his presumption,
he took the liberty to warn her that if she suffered the Protestants of
France to succumb, with minds so alienated from her that they should
consent to make an accord with the opposite faction, the possession of the
cities would avail her but little against the united forces of the French.
He therefore suggested that it might be quite as well for her Majesty's
interests, "that she should serve the turn of the Huguenots as well as her
own."[164] Truly, Queen Elizabeth was throwing away a glorious opportunity
of displaying magnanimous disinterestedness, and of conciliating the
affection of a powerful party on the continent. In the inevitable struggle
between Protestant England and papal Spain, the possession of such an ally
as the best part of France would be of inestimable value in abridging the
contest or in deciding the result. But the affection of the Huguenots
could be secured by no such cold-blooded compact as that which required
them to appear in the light of an unpatriotic party whose success would
entail the dismemberment of the kingdom. To make such a demand at the very
moment when her own ambassador was writing from Paris that the people "did
daily most cruelly use and kill every person, no age or sex excepted, that
they took to be contrary to their religion," was to show but too clearly
that not religious zeal nor philanthropic tenderness of heart, so much as
pure selfishness, was the motive influencing her.[165] And yet the English
queen was not uninformed of, nor wholly insensible to, the calls of
humanity. She could in fact, on occasion, herself set them forth with
force and pathos. Nothing could surpass the sympathy expressed in her
autograph letter to Mary of Scots, deprecating the resentment of the
latter at Elizabeth's interference--a letter which, as Mr. Froude notices,
was not written by Cecil and merely signed by the queen, but was her own
peculiar and characteristic composition. "Far sooner," she wrote, "would I
pass over those murders on land; far rather would I leave unwritten those
noyades in the rivers--those men and women hacked in pieces; but the
shrieks of the strangled wives, great with child--the cries of the infants
at their mothers' breasts--pierce me through. What drug of rhubarb can
purge the bile which these tyrannies engender?"[166]
The news of the English alliance, although not unexpected, produced a very
natural irritation at the French court. When Throkmorton applied to
Catharine de' Medici for a passport to leave the kingdom, the queen
persistently refused, telling him that such a document was unnecessary in
his case. But she significantly volunteered the information that "some of
his nation had lately entered France without asking for passports, who she
hoped would speedily return without leave-taking!"[167]
[Sidenote: Siege of Rouen, October.]