The king, or his ministers, fearful of a commotion during his absence from

Paris, answered the letter of the prince with tolerable courtesy, and even

made a pretence of desiring to secure justice to his Protestant subjects;

but the attempt really effected very little. Thus, for instance, while

sojourning in the city of Valence (on the fifth of September, 1564),

Charles received a petition of the Huguenots of Bordeaux, setting forth

some of the grievances under which they were groaning, and gave a

favorable answer. He permitted them, by this patent, to sing their psalms

in their own houses. He declared them free from any obligation to furnish

the "pain benit," and to contribute to the support of Roman Catholic

fraternities. The Protestants were not to be molested for possessing or

selling copies of the Bible. They must not be compelled to deck out their

houses in honor of religious processions, nor to swear on St. Anthony's

arm. They might work at their trades with closed doors, except on Sundays

and solemn feasts. Magistrates were forbidden to take away the children of

Huguenots, in order to have them baptized according to Romish rites.

Protestants could be elected to municipal offices equally with the

adherents of the other faith.[352] In a similar tone of conciliation the

king published an order from Roussillon, remitting the fines that had been

imposed upon the Huguenots of Nantes for neglecting to hang tapestry

before their houses on Corpus Christi Day, and permitting them henceforth

to abstain from an act so offensive to their religious convictions.[353]

[Sidenote: Protestants excluded from judicial posts.]

Such local concessions were, however, only the decoys by which the queen

mother intended to lure the Huguenots on to a fatal security. A few months

later, at Avignon, Catharine caused an ordinance to be published in the

king's name, which Cardinal Santa Croce characterized as an excellent one.

It excluded Protestants from holding judicial seats. Catharine told the

nuncio that her counsellors had been desirous of extending the same

prohibition to all other charges under government, but that she had

deterred them. It would have driven the Huguenots to desperation, and

might have occasioned disturbances. "We shall labor, however," she said,

"to exclude them little by little from all their offices." At the same

time she expressed her joy that everything was succeeding so well, and

privately assured the nuncio "that people were much deceived in her."[354]

And yet such are the paradoxes of history, especially in this age of

surprises, that, at the very moment the king was depriving his own

Protestant subjects of their rights, he was negotiating in behalf of the

Protestant subjects of his neighbors! The king would not leave Avignon--so

wrote the English envoy--without reconciling the inhabitants of the Comtat

Venaissin and the principality of Orange, whom diversity of religion had

brought into collision. And, by the articles of pacification which the

ambassador enclosed, the king was seen "to have had a care for others

also, having provided a certain liberty of religion even to the Pope's own

subjects, which he had much difficulty in obtaining."[355]

[Sidenote: Marshal Montmorency checks the Parisian mob.]

[Sidenote: His encounter with Cardinal Lorraine.]

While the queen mother, under cover of her son's authority, followed the

new policy of opposition to the Huguenots upon which she had now entered,

an incident occurred at Paris showing that even the Roman Catholics were

not unanimous in their support of the Guises and their plan of

exterminating heresy. The governor of the metropolis was Marshal

Montmorency, the most worthy of all the constable's sons. He had

vigorously exerted himself ever since the king's departure to protect the

Huguenots in accordance with the provisions of the treaty. A Protestant

woman, who during the war had been hung in effigy for "huguenoterie," but

had returned from her flight since the conclusion of peace, died and was

secretly buried by friends, one Sunday night, in the "Cimetiere des

Innocents." The next morning a rabble, such as only Paris could afford,

collected with the intention of disinterring the heretic. And they would

have accomplished their design, had not Marshal Montmorency ridden in,

sword in hand, and resolved to hang the culprits that very day. "He would

assist the Huguenots," he is reported to have been in the habit of saying,

"because they were the weaker party."[356] On Monday, the eighth of

January, 1565, the Cardinal of Lorraine approached the city in full

ecclesiastical dress, with the intention of entering it.[357] He was

attended by his young nephew, the Duke of Guise, and by an escort of armed

men, whom Catharine had permitted him to retain in spite of the general

prohibition, because of the fears he undoubtedly felt for his personal

safety. As he neared Paris he was met by a messenger sent by the governor,

commanding him to bid his company lay down their arms, or to exhibit his

pretended authority. The cardinal, accustomed to domineer over even such

old noble families as the Montmorencies, would do neither, and attempted

to ride defiantly into the city. But the marshal was no respecter of

persons. With the troops at his command he met and dispersed the

cardinal's escort. Lorraine fled as for his life into a shop on the Rue

Saint Denis. Thence he was secretly conveyed to his own palace, and

shortly after he left the city in utter discomfiture, but breathing dire

threats against the marshal.[358] The latter, calling into Paris his

cousin the admiral, had no difficulty in maintaining order. Great was the

consternation of the populace, it is true, for the absurd report was

circulated that Coligny was come to plunder the city, and to seize the

Parliament House, the Cathedral, and the Bastile;[359] and even the first

president, De Thou, begged him, when he came to the parliament, to explain

the reasons of his obeying his cousin's summons, and to imitate the

prudence of Pompey the Great when he entered the city of Rome, where

Caesar's presence rendered a sedition imminent. The admiral, in reply,

gracefully acknowledged the honor which parliament had done him in

likening him to Pompey, whom he would gladly imitate, he said, because

Pompey was a patriot. Still he saw no appositeness in the comparison, "as

there was no Caesar in Paris."[360]

[Sidenote: The conference at Bayonne, June, 1565.]

Early in the month of June, 1565, Charles the Ninth and his court reached

the neighborhood of the city of Bayonne, where, on the very confines of

France and Spain, a meeting had been arranged between Catharine and her

daughter Isabella, wife of Philip the Second. Catharine's first proposal

had been that her royal son-in-law should himself be present. She had

urged that great good to Christendom might flow from their deliberations.

Philip the Prudent, however, and his confidential adviser, the Duke of

Alva, were suspicious of the design. Alva was convinced that Catharine

had only her own private ends in view.[361] Granvelle observed that little

fruit came of these interviews of princes but discord and confusion, and

judged that, had not the queen mother strenuously insisted upon improving

perhaps the only opportunity which she and her daughter might enjoy of

seeing each other, even the interview between the two queens would have

been declined.[362] As it was, however, Philip excused himself on the plea

of engrossing occupations.

Such were the circumstances under which the Bayonne conference took

place--a meeting which Cardinal Granvelle assured his correspondents was a

simple visit of a daughter to her mother,[363] but to which

contemporaries, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, ascribed a far deeper

significance. At this meeting, according to Jean de Serres, writing only

four or five years after the event,[364] a holy league, as it was called,

was formed, by the intervention of Isabella, for the purpose of

re-establishing the authority of the ancient religion and of extirpating

the new. France and Spain mutually promised to render each other

assistance in the good work; and both pledged themselves to the support of

the Holy See by all the means in their power. Philip himself was not

present, either, it was conjectured, in order that the league might the

better be kept secret, or to avoid the appearance of lowering his dignity

before that of the French monarch.[365] The current belief--until

recently almost the universal belief of historians--goes farther, and

alleges that in this mysterious conference Catharine and Alva, who

accompanied his master's wife, concocted the plan of that famous massacre

whose execution was delayed by various circumstances for seven years. Alva

was the tempter, and the words with which he recommended his favorite

method of dealing with heresy, by destroying its chief upholders, were

embodied in the ignoble sentence, "Better a salmon's head than ten

thousand frogs."[366]

In fact, a general impression that the conference had led to the formation

of a distinct plan for the universal destruction of Protestantism gained

ground almost immediately. Within about a month after the queen mother and

her daughter had ended their interview, the English ambassador wrote to

Leicester and Cecil that "they of the religion think that there has been

at this meeting at Bayonne some complot betwixt the Pope, the King of

Spain, and the Scottish queen, by their ambassadors, and some say also the

Papists of England."[367]

[Sidenote: No plan of massacre agreed upon.]

Fortunately, however, we are not left to frame by uncertain conjecture a

doubtful story of the transactions of this famous interview. The

correspondence of the Duke of Alva himself with Philip the Second has been

preserved among the manuscripts of Simancas, to dispel many inveterate

misapprehensions. These letters not only prove that no plan for a massacre

of the Huguenots was agreed upon by the two parties, but that Alva did

not even distinctly declare himself in favor of such a plan. They furnish,

however, an instructive view, such as can but rarely be so well obtained,

of the net of treacherous intrigue which the fingers of Philip and his

agents were for many years busy day and night in cautiously spreading

around the throne of France.

[Sidenote: June 14th.]

[Sidenote: June 15th.]

On Thursday, the fourteenth of June, the young Spanish queen, with her

brilliant train of attendant grandees, crossed the narrow stream forming

the dividing line between the two kingdoms, and was conducted by her

mother, her brothers and sister, and a crowd of gallant French nobles, to

the neighboring town of Saint Jean de Luz. On Friday, Catharine and

Charles rode forward to make their solemn entry into Bayonne, where they

were to await their guests' arrival. Before they started, Alva had already

been at work complimenting such good Catholics as the constable, Cardinal

Bourbon, and Prince La Roche-sur-Yon, flattering Cardinal Guise (his

brother of Lorraine was absent from court, not yet being fully reinstated

in favor), the Duke of Montpensier, and vain old Blaise de Montluc. Nor

were his blandishments thrown away. Poor weak Guise--the "cardinal des

bouteilles" he was called, from the greater acquaintance he had with the

wine and good living than with religious or political affairs[368]--was

overcome with emotion and gratitude, and begged Alva to implore the

Catholic king, by the love of God, to look in pity upon an unhappy

kingdom, where religion was fast going to ruin. Montpensier threw himself

into Alva's arms, and told him that Philip alone was the hope of all the

good in France, declaring for himself that he was willing to be torn in

pieces in his behalf, and maintaining the meanwhile, that, should that

pleasant operation be performed, "Philip" would be found written on his

heart. To Blaise de Montluc's self-conceit Alva laid siege in no very

covert manner, assuring him that his master had not given his consent to

Catharine's plan for an interview until he had perused a paper written by

the grim old warrior's hand, in which he had expressed the opinion that

the conference would be productive of wholesome results. The implied

praise was all that was needed to induce Montluc to explain himself more

fully. He was opposed to the exercise of any false humanity. He ascribed

the little success that had attended the Roman Catholic arms in the last

struggle to the half-way measures adopted and the attempt to exercise the

courtesies of peace in time of war. The combatants on either side

addressed their enemies as "my brother" and "my cousin." As for himself,

he had made it a rule to spare no man's life, but to wage a war of

extermination. To this unburdening of his mind Alva replied by giving

Montluc to understand that, as a good Roman Catholic, it should be his

task to discover the means of inducing Charles and his mother to perform

their duty, and, if he failed in this, to disclose to Philip the course

which he must pursue, "since it was impossible to suffer matters to go on,

as they were going, to their ruin."

What the duty of the French king was, in Philip's and Alva's view, is

evidenced by the advice of the "good" Papists which the minister reports

to his master with every mark of approbation. It was, in the first place,

to banish from the kingdom every Protestant minister, and prohibit utterly

any exercise of the reformed religion. The provincial governors, whose

orthodoxy in almost every case could be relied upon, were to be the

instruments in the execution of this work.[369] But, besides this, it

would be necessary to seize a few of the leaders and cut off their heads.

Five or six, it was suggested, would be all the victims required.[370] It

was, in fact, essentially the plan of operations with which Alva undertook

a year or two later the reduction of the Netherlands to submission to

Spanish tyranny and the Papal Church. Treacherous imprisonments of the

most suspected, which could scarcely have been confined within such narrow

numerical limits as Alva laid down, together with a "blood council" to

complete the work, or with a massacre in which the proprieties of judicial

investigation would be less nicely observed--such was the scheme after

Philip's own heart.

But this scheme suited the present frame of mind neither of Charles nor of

Catharine. When the crafty Spaniard, cautiously feeling his way, begged

the young king to be very careful of his life, "for God, he was convinced,

was reserving him to execute a great work by his hands, in the punishment

of the offences which were committed in that kingdom,"[371] Charles

briskly responded: "Oh! to take up arms does not suit me. I have no

disposition to consummate the destruction of my kingdom begun in the past

wars."[372] The duke clearly saw that the king was but repeating a lesson

that had been taught him by others, and contemptuously dismissed the

topic.[373]

[Sidenote: Catharine and Alva.]

Catharine was not less determined than her son to avoid a resort to arms.

It was with difficulty that Alva could get her to broach the subject of

religion at all. Isabella having, at his suggestion, pressed her mother to

disclose the secret communication to make which she had sought this

interview, Catharine referred, with some bitterness, to the distrust of

Charles and of herself evidently entertained by Philip, which would be

likely to lead in the end to a renewal of war between France and Spain.

And she reproached Isabella with having so soon allowed herself to become

"Hispaniolized"[374]--a charge from which her daughter endeavored to clear

herself as best she could. When at last Alva succeeded in bringing up the

subject, which was, ostensibly at least, so near what Philip called his

heart, Catharine's display of tact was such as to elicit the profound

admiration of even so consummate a master in the art of dissimulation as

the duke himself. Her circumspection, he declared, he had never seen

equalled.[375] She maintained that there was no need of alarm at the

condition of religion in France, for everything was going on better than

when the Edict of Pacification was published. "It is your satisfaction at

being freed from war that leads you to take so cheerful a view," urged

Alva. "My master cannot but require the application of a more efficient

remedy, since the cause is common to Spain; for the disease will spread,

and Philip has no inclination to lose his crown, or, perhaps, even his

head." Catharine now insisted upon Alva's explaining himself and

disclosing his master's plan of action. This Alva declined to do. Although

Philip was as conversant with the state of France as she or any other

person in the kingdom, yet he preferred to leave to her to decide upon the

precise nature of the specific to be administered. Catharine pressed the

inquiry, but Alva continued to parry the question adroitly. He asks if,

since the Edict of Toleration, ground has been gained or lost. Decidedly

gained, she replies, and proceeds to particularize. But Alva is confident

that she is deceiving herself or him: it is notorious that things are

becoming worse every day.

"Would you have me understand," interrupts Catharine, "that we must resort

to arms again?"

"I see no present need of assuming them," answers Alva, "and my master

would not advise you to take them up, unless constrained by other

necessity than that which I now see."

"What, then, would Philip have me do?" asks Catharine. "Apply a prompt

remedy," answers Alva; "for sooner or later your enemies will, by their

own action, compel you to accept the wager of war, and that, probably,

under less favorable circumstances than at present. All Philip's thoughts

are intent upon the expulsion of that wretched sect of the Huguenots, and

upon restoring the subjects of the French crown to their ancient

obedience, and maintaining the queen mother's legitimate authority." "The

king, my son," responds Catharine, "publishes whatever edicts he pleases,

and is obeyed." "Then, if he enjoys such authority over his vassals,"

breaks in Isabella, "why does he not punish those who are rebels both

against God and against himself?"

That question Catharine did not choose to answer. Instead of it she had

some chimerical schemes to propose--a league between France, Spain, and

Germany, that should give the law to the world, and a confirmation of the

bonds that united the royal houses of France and Spain by two more

marriages, viz.: of Don Carlos to Margaret, her youngest daughter, and of

the Duke of Anjou to the Princess of Portugal. Alva, however, making light

of such projects, which could, according to his view, effect nothing more

than the bond already connecting the families, was not slow in bringing

the conversation back to the religious question. But he soon had reason to

complain of Catharine's coldness. She had already expressed her mind

fully, she said; and she resented, as a want of the respect due to her,

the hint that she was more indifferent than previously. She would not fail

to do justice, she assured him. That would be difficult, rejoined Alva,

with a chancellor at the head of the judiciary who could not certainly be

expected to apply the remedy needed by the unsound condition of France.

"It is his personal enemies," promptly replied Catharine, "who, out of

hatred, accuse L'Hospital of being a bad Catholic." "Can you deny that he

is a Huguenot?" asked the Spaniard. "I do not regard him as such," calmly

answered the French queen. "Then you are the only person in the kingdom

who is of that opinion!" retorted the duke. "Even before I left France,

and during the lifetime of my father, King Henry," said Isabella,

interrupting with considerable animation, "your Majesty knows that that

was his reputation; and you may be certain that so long as he is retained

in his present office the good will always be kept in fear and in

disfavor, while the bad will find him a support and advocate in all their

evil courses. If he were to be confined for a few days only in his own

house, you would at once discover the truth of my words, so much better

would the interests of religion advance."[376] But this step Catharine was

by no means willing to take. Nor, when again pressed by Alva, who dwelt

much on the importance to Philip of knowing her intentions as to applying

herself in earnest to the good work, so as to be guided in his own

actions, would she deign to give any clearer indications. Yet she

avowed--greatly shocking the orthodox duke thereby[377]--that she

designed, instead of securing the acceptance of the decrees of Trent by

the French, to convene a council of "good prelates and wise men," to

settle a number of matters not of divine or positive prescription, which

the Fathers of Trent had left undecided. Alva expressed his extreme

astonishment, and reminded her of the Colloquy of Poissy--the source, as

he alleged, of all the present disgraceful situation of France.[378] But

Catharine threw the whole blame of the failure of that conference upon the

inordinate conceit of the Cardinal of Lorraine,[379] and persisted in the

plan. The Spaniard came to the conclusion that Catharine's only design was

to avoid having recourse to salutary rigor, and indulged in his

correspondence with his master in lugubrious vaticinations respecting the

future.[380]

[Sidenote: Catharine rejects all violent plans.]

[Sidenote: Cardinal Granvelle's testimony.]

So far, then, was the general belief which has been adopted by the

greater number of historians up to our own days from being correct--the

belief that Catharine framed, at the Bayonne conference, with Alva's

assistance, a plan for the extermination of the Protestants by a massacre

such as was realized on St. Bartholomew's Day, 1572--that, on the

contrary, the queen mother refused, in a peremptory manner that disgusted

the Spanish fanatics, every proposition that looked like violence. That we

have not read the correspondence of Alva incorrectly, and that no letter

containing the mythical agreement of Catharine ever reached Philip, is

proved by the tone of the letters that passed between the great agents in

the work of persecution in the Spanish Netherlands. Cardinal Granvelle,

who, in his retreat at Besancon, was kept fully informed by the King of

Spain, or by his chief ministers, of every important event, and who

received copies of all the most weighty documents, in a letter to Alonso

del Canto expresses great regret that Isabella and Alva should have failed

in their endeavor to induce Catharine de' Medici to adopt methods more

proper than she was taking to remedy the religious ills of France. She

promised marvels, he adds, but was determined to avoid recourse to arms,

which, indeed, was not necessary, if she would only act as she should. He

was persuaded that the plan she was adopting would entail the ruin of

religion and of her son's throne.[381]

[Sidenote: Festivities and pageantry.]

While the policy of two of the most important nations on the face of the

globe, in which were involved the interests, temporal and eternal, of

millions of men, women, and children, formed the topic of earnest

discussion between two women--a mother and her daughter, the mother yet to

become infamous for her participation in a bloody tragedy of which she as

yet little dreamed--and a Spanish grandee doomed to an equally unenviable

immortality in the records of human suffering and human crime, the city of

Bayonne was the scene of an ephemeral gayety that might well convey the

impression that such merry-making was not only the sole object of the

conference, but the great concern of life.[382] Two nations, floundering

in hopeless bankruptcy, yet found money enough to lavish upon costly but

unmeaning pageants, while many a noble, to satisfy an ostentatious

display, made drafts which an impoverished purse was little able to honor.

The banquets and jousts, the triumphal arches with their flattering

inscriptions, the shows in which allegory revelled almost to madness--all

have been faithfully narrated with a minuteness worthy of a loftier

theme.[383] This is, however, no place for the detailed description which,

though entertaining, can be read to advantage only on the pages of the

contemporary pamphlets that have come down to us.

Yet, in the discussion of the more serious concerns of a great religious

and political party, we may for a moment pause to gaze at a single show,

neither more magnificent nor more dignified than its fellows; but in which

the youthful figure of a Bearnese destined to play a first part in the

world's drama, but up to this time living a life of retirement in his

ancestral halls, first makes his appearance among the pomps to which as

yet he has been a stranger. The pride of the grandfather whose name he

bore, Henry of Navarre had been permitted, at that whimsical old man's

suggestion, to strengthen an already vigorous constitution by athletic

sports, and by running barefoot like the poorest peasant over the sides of

his native hills. "God designed," writes a companion of his later days who

never rekindles more of his youthful fire than when descanting upon his

master's varied fortunes, "to prepare an iron wedge wherewith to cleave

the hard knots of our calamities."[384] Later in childhood, when both

father and grandfather were dead, he was the object of the unremitting

care of a mother whose virtues find few counterparts or equals in the

women of the sixteenth century; and Jeanne d'Albret, in a remarkable

letter to Theodore Beza, notes with joy a precocious piety,[385] which,

there is reason to fear, was not hardy enough to withstand the withering

atmosphere of a court like that with which he was now making his first

acquaintance.

One evening there was exhibited in a large hall, well lighted by means of

blazing torches, a tournament in which the knights fought on foot.[386]

From a castle where they held an enchanted lady captive, the knights

challengers issued, and "received all comers with a thrust of the pike,

and five blows with the sword." Each champion, on his arrival, endeavored

to enter the castle, but was met at the portal by guards "dressed very

fantastically in black," and repelled with "lighted instruments." Not a

few of the less illustrious were captured here. The more exalted in rank

reached the donjon, or castle-keep, but as they thought to set foot within

it, a trap-door opened and they too found themselves prisoners. It fared

better with the princes; for the success of each champion was measured by

a rigid heraldic scale. These passed the donjon, but, on a bridge leading

to the tower where slept the enchanted lady, a giant confronted them, and

in the midst of the combat the bridge was lowered, and they were taken, as

had been their predecessors. "The Duke of Vendome,[387] son of the late

duke, whom they call in France the Prince of Navarre--a boy apparently ten

or eleven years of age--crossed the bridge, and the giant pretended to

surrender; but he too was afterward repulsed like the rest." The Duke of

Orleans--whom the reader will more readily recognize under the title of

Duke of Anjou, which he, about this time, received--next entered the

lists. Naturally he penetrated further than his namesake of Navarre, and

"the giant showed more fear of him than of the other;" but a cloud

enveloped them both, and "thus the duke vanished from sight." King Charles

was the last to fight, and for his prowess it was reserved for him to

defeat the giant and deliver the lady.[388]

[Sidenote: The confraternities.]

The author of the pompous show had made a serious mistake. The giant

"League," before whom so many a champion failed, it was the lot not of

Charles, nor of Henry of Valois, but of the other Henry, of Navarre, to

overcome. That giant was already in existence, although still in his

infancy. For some time past the zealous papists, impatient of the sluggish

devotion of the court, had been forming "confreries," or fraternities,

whose members, bound together by a common oath, were pledged to the

support of the Roman Catholic religion.[389] The plan was a dangerous one,

and it shortly excited the apprehension of the king and his mother. "I am

told," Charles wrote in July, 1565, to one of his governors, "that in a

number of places in my realm there is a talk of establishing an

association amongst my subjects, who invite one another to join it. I beg

you to take measures to prevent that any be made for any purpose

whatsoever; but keep my subjects so far as possible united in the desire

to render me duty and obedience."[390] And to prove the sincerity of his

intentions, the French king ordered the late Edict of Pacification again

to be proclaimed by public crier in the streets of the seditious city of

Paris--a feat which was successfully performed under Marshal Montmorency's

supervision, by the city provost, accompanied by so strong a detachment of

archers and arquebusiers, as effectually to prevent popular

disturbance.[391] Already there were restless spirits that saw in another

civil war fresh opportunity for the advancement of their selfish

interests. Months ago Villegagnon, the betrayer of the Brazilian colony of

Coligny, had written to Cardinal Granvelle, telling him that he had

resigned his dignities and offices in the French court, and had informed

Catharine de' Medici, "that until Charles was the declared enemy of the

enemies of God and of His church, he would never again bear arms in his

service."[392] The vice-admiral, of whom modesty was never a conspicuous

virtue, went so far as to draw a flattering portrait of himself as a

second Hannibal, vowing eternal enmity to the Huguenots.[393] And Nicole

de St. Remy, whose only claim to honorable mention was found in her

oft-paraded boast that, as a mistress of Henry the Second, she had borne

him a son, and who held in France the congenial post of a Spanish spy,

suggested the marriage of the Cardinal of Bourbon in view of the possible

contingency of the death of all Catharine's sons.[394] The centre of all

intrigue, the storehouse from which every part of France was supplied with

material capable of once more enkindling the flames of a destructive civil

war, was the house of the Spanish resident envoy, Frances de Alava,

successor of the crafty Chantonnay, the brother of Granvelle. It was he

that was in constant communication with all the Roman Catholic malcontents

in France.[395] Catharine endeavored to check this influence, but to no

purpose. The fanatical party were bound by a stronger tie of allegiance to

Philip, the Catholic king, than to her, or to the Very Christian King her

son. Catharine had particularly enjoined upon the Cardinal of Lorraine to

have no communication with Granvelle or with Chantonnay, but the prelate's

relations with both were never interrupted for a moment.[396]

[Sidenote: Siege of Malta, and French civilities to the Sultan.]

The fact was that, so far from true was it that a cordial understanding

existed between the courts of France and Spain, such as the mythical

league for the extirpation of heresy presupposes, the distrust and

hostility were barely veiled under the ordinary conventionalities of

diplomatic courtesy. While Catharine and Philip's queen were exchanging

costly civilities at Bayonne, the Turks were engaged in a siege of Malta,

which has become famous for the obstinacy with which it was prosecuted and

the valor with which it was repelled. Spain had sent a small detachment of

troops to the assistance of the grand master, Jean de la Valette, and his

brave knights of St. John, and the Pope had contributed ten thousand

crowns to their expenses.[397] Yet at this very moment an envoy of the

Sultan was at the court of the Very Christian King of France, greatly to

the disgust of the Spanish visitors and pious Catholics in general,[398]

and only waited for the departure of Isabella and Alva to receive formal

presentation to the monarch and his mother.[399]

[Sidenote: The constable espouses Cardinal Chatillon's defence.]

Meantime, although the queen mother continued her policy of depriving the

Huguenots of one after another of the privileges to which they were

entitled, and replaced Protestant governors of towns and provinces by

Roman Catholics, her efforts at repression seemed, for the time at least,

to produce little effect. "The true religion is so rooted in France,"

wrote one who accompanied the royal progress, "that, like a fire, it

kindles daily more and more. In every place, from Bayonne hither, and for

the most part of the journey, there are more Huguenots than papists, and

the most part of men of quality and mark be of the religion." If the

writer, as is probable, was over-sanguine in his anticipations, he could

not be mistaken in the size of the great gathering of Protestants--full

two thousand--for the most part gentlemen and gentlewomen, which he

witnessed with his own eyes, brought together at Nantes to listen to the

preaching of the eloquent Perucel.[400] And it was not an insignificant

proof of the futility of any direct attempt to crush the Huguenots, that

Constable Montmorency pretty plainly intimated that there were limits

which religious proscription must not transcend. The English ambassador

wrote from France, late in November, that the Pope's new nuncio had within

two days demanded that the red cap should be taken from the Cardinal of

Chatillon. But the latter, who chanced to be at court, replied that "what

he enjoyed he enjoyed by gift of the crown of France, wherewith the Pope

had nothing to do." The old constable was even more vehement. "The Pope,"

said he, "has often troubled the quiet of this realm, but I trust he shall

not be able to trouble it at this time. I am myself a papist; but if the

Pope and his ministers go about again to disturb the kingdom, _my sword

shall be Huguenot_. My nephew shall leave neither cap nor dignity which he

has for the Pope, seeing the edict gives him that liberty."[401]

[Sidenote: The court at Moulins.]

Early in the following year, Charles the Ninth convoked in the city of

Moulins, in Bourbonnais, near the centre of France, an assembly of

notables to deliberate on the interests of the kingdom, which had not yet

fully recovered from the desolations of the first civil war. The extensive

journey, which had occupied a large part of the two preceding years, had

furnished him abundant evidence of the grievances under which his subjects

in the various provinces were laboring, and he now summoned all that was

most illustrious in France, and especially those noblemen whom he had

dismissed to their governments when about to start from his capital, to

assist him in discovering the best mode of relief. If the Florentine

Adriani could be credited, there were other and sinister designs in the

mind of the court, or, at least, in that of Catharine. According to this

historian, the plan of the second "Sicilian Vespers," resolved upon at

Bayonne, was to have been put into execution at Moulins, which, from its

strength, was well suited for the scene of so sanguinary a drama; but,

although the Huguenot chiefs assembled in numbers, their actions betrayed

so much suspicion of the Roman Catholics, and it seemed so difficult to

include all in the blow, that the massacre was deferred until the arrival

of a more propitious time, which did not come until St. Bartholomew's Day,

1572.[402] I need not stop to refute a story which presupposes the

adoption of resolutions in the conference of Bayonne, which we now know,

from documentary evidence, were never for a moment entertained by

Catharine and her son the king.

[Sidenote: Feigned reconciliation of the Guises and Coligny.]

So far from having any such treacherous design, in point of fact the

assembly of Moulins was intended in no small degree to serve as a means of

healing the dissensions existing among the nobles. The most serious

breaches were the feud between the Chatillons and the Guises on account of

the suspected complicity of Admiral Coligny in the murder of the late

duke, and that between Marshal Montmorency and the Cardinal of Lorraine,

arising out of the affray in January, 1565. Both quarrels were settled

amicably in the king's presence, with as much sincerity as generally

characterizes such reconciliations. Coligny declared on oath, in the royal

presence, that he was guiltless of Guise's murder, neither having been its

author nor having consented to it; whereupon the king declared him

innocent, and ordered the parties to be reconciled. The command was

obeyed, for Anne d'Este, Guise's widow, and Cardinal Charles of Lorraine

in turn embraced the admiral, in token of renewed friendship. How much of

meaning these caresses contained was to be shown six years later by the

active participation of the one in the most famous massacre which the

annals of modern history present, and by the exultant rejoicings in which

the other indulged when he heard of it. Young Henry of Guise, less

hypocritical than his mother and his uncle, held aloof from the

demonstration, and permitted the beholders to infer that he was quietly

biding his time for vengeance.[403]

[Sidenote: The chancellor introduces a measure for the relief of the

Protestants.]

[Sidenote: A new altercation between Lorraine and the chancellor.]

An event of principal importance that occurred during the stay of the

court at Moulins was a fresh altercation between Lorraine and L'Hospital.

A tolerant but apparently unauthorized act of the chancellor furnished the

occasion. The Edict of Pacification had made provision for the worship of

the Huguenots in but a small number of places through the kingdom. If

living out of reach of these more favored localities, what were they to

do, that they might not be compelled to exist without the restraints of

religion during their lifetime, and to die without its consolations, nor

leave their children unbaptized and uninstructed in the articles of their

faith? L'Hospital proposed to remedy the evil by permitting the

Protestants, in such cases, to institute a species of private worship in

their houses, and had procured the royal signature to an edict permitting

them to call in, as occasion might require, ministers of the Gospel from

other cities where their regular ministrations were tolerated by the law

of Amboise.[404] This edict he had sent forthwith to the different

parliaments for registration. The Parliament of Dijon, in Burgundy,

however, instead of obeying, promptly despatched two counsellors with a

remonstrance to the king.[405] On arriving at court, the delegation at

first found it impossible to gain the royal ear. In such awe did the

"maitres de requetes"--to whom petitions were customarily entrusted--stand

of the grave and severe chancellor--that venerable old man with the white

beard, whom Brantome likened to another Cato--that none was found bold

enough to present the Burgundian remonstrance. At last the delegates went

to the newly-arrived cardinal, and Lorraine readily undertook the task.

Appearing in the royal council he introduced the matter by expressing "his

surprise that the Catholics had no means of making themselves heard

respecting their grievances." The objectionable edict was read, and all

the members of the council declared that they had never before seen or

heard of it. Cardinal Bourbon was foremost in his anger, and declared

that if the chancellor had the right to issue such laws on his own

responsibility, there was no use in having a council. "Sir," said

L'Hospital, turning to the Cardinal of Lorraine, "you are already come to

sow discord among us!" "I am not come to sow discord, but to prevent you

from sowing it as you have done in the past, scoundrel that you are!" was

the reply.[406] "Would you prevent these poor people, whom the king has

permitted to live with freedom of conscience in the exercise of their

religion, from receiving any consolation at all?" asked L'Hospital. "Yes,

I intend to prevent it," answered the cardinal, "for everybody knows that

to suffer such things is to tolerate secret preaching; and I shall prevent

it so long as I shall have the power, in order to give no opportunity for

the growth of such tyrannical practices. And," continued he, "do you, who

have become what you now are by my means, dare to tell me that I come to

sow discord among you? I shall take good care to keep you from doing what

you have done heretofore." The council rose in anger, and passed into the

adjoining apartment, where Catharine, who had not recovered from a

temporary illness, strove to appease them as best she could. Charles

ordered a new meeting, and, after hearing the deputies from Dijon, the

king, conformably to the advice of the council, revoked the edict, and

issued a prohibition of all exercise of the Protestant religion or

instruction in its doctrines, save where it had been granted at Amboise.

The chancellor was strictly enjoined to affix the seal of state to no

papers relating to religious affairs without the consent of the royal

council.

[Sidenote: Protestantism on the northern frontier.]

[Sidenote: Progress of the reformation at Cateau-Cambresis.]

For several years the Protestants in the northern provinces of France had

been busily communicating the religious views they had themselves embraced

to their neighbors in Artois, Flanders, and Brabant. This intercourse

became exceedingly close about the beginning of the year 1566; and its

result was a renunciation of the papal church and its worship, which was

participated in by such large numbers, and effected so instantaneously,

that the friends and the foes of the new movement were almost equally

surprised. The story of this sudden outburst of the reformatory spirit in

Valenciennes, Tournay, and other places, accompanied--as are all movements

that take a strong hold upon the popular feelings--with a certain amount

of lawlessness, which expended itself, however, upon inanimate images and

held sacred the lives and honor of men and women, has been well told in

the histories of the country whose fortunes it chiefly affected.[407] I

may be permitted, therefore, to pass over these indirect results of

Huguenot influence, and glance at the fortunes of a border town within the

present bounds of France, and closely connected with the history of France

in the sixteenth century, of which little or no notice has been taken in

this connection.[408] Cateau-Cambresis, famous for the treaty by which

Henry the Second bartered away extensive conquests for a few paltry places

that had fallen into the hands of the enemy, was, as its name--Chastel,

Chateau or Cateau--imports, a castle and a borough that had grown up about

it, both of them on lands belonging to the domain of Maximilian of Bergen,

Archbishop and Duke of Cambray, and Prince of the Holy Roman Empire. It

was smaller, but relatively far more important three hundred years ago

than at the present day. For several years a few "good burgesses," with

their families, had timidly studied the Holy Scriptures in secret,

restrained from making an open profession of their faith by the terrible

executions which they saw inflicted upon the Protestants in the

Netherlands. But, encouraged by the toleration prevailing in France, they

began to cross the frontier, and to frequent the Huguenot "assemblees" at

Crespy, Tupigny, and Chauny. The distance was not inconsiderable, and the

peril was great. The archbishop had not only written a letter, which was

read in every parish church, forbidding the singing of Marot's psalms and

the frequenting of French conventicles, but he had sent his spies to the

conventicles to discover cases of disobedience. The Huguenots of Cateau

multiplied in spite of these precautions. "The eyes of the aforesaid

spies," writes a witness of the events, "were so holden that they did not

even recognize those with whom they conversed." Yet, although the

Huguenots met at home to read the Bible and to "sing the psalms which were

most appropriate to the persecution and dispersion of the children of

God," the town was as quiet as it had ever been. A slight incident,

however, revealed the intensity of the fire secretly burning below the

surface. A Huguenot minister was discovered on Whitsunday, in an adjoining

village, and brought to Cateau. His captors facetiously told the suspected

Protestants whom they met, that they had brought them a preacher, and that

they would have no further occasion for leaving the town in quest of one.

But the joke was not so well appreciated as it might have been by the

adherents of the reformed faith, who seem by this time to have become

extremely numerous. The excitement was intense. When the bailiff of

Cambresis was detected, not long after, stealing into the place by night,

accompanied by some sixty men, with the intention of carrying the preacher

off to Cambray, he met with unexpected resistance. A citizen, on his way

to his garden outside the walls, was the first to notice the guard of

strange arquebusiers at the gate, and ran back to give the alarm. The

tocsin was rung, and the inhabitants assembled in arms. It was now the

turn of the bailiff to be astonished, and to listen humbly to the

remonstrances of the people, indignant that he should have presumed to

seize their gates and usurp the functions of the local magistrates.

However, the intruders, after being politely informed that, according to

strict justice, the whole party might have been summarily put to death,

were suffered to beat a hasty retreat; not that so perfect a control could

be put upon the ardor of some, but that they "administered sundry blows

with the flat of their swords upon the back of the bailiff and a few of

his soldiers."

[Sidenote: Interference of the Archbishop of Cambray.]

The incident itself was of trifling importance, for the Huguenot minister

was promptly given up to the baron of the village where he had been

captured, and was taken by his orders to Cambray. But it led to serious

consequences. Threatened by the archiepiscopal city, the Protestants of

Cateau, afraid to go to the French preaching-places, sent for Monsieur

Philippe, minister of Tupigny, and held the reformed services just outside

of their own walls. Alarmed at the progress of Protestant doctrines in his

diocese, the Archbishop convened the estates of Cambray, and, on the

eighteenth of August, 1566, sent three canons of the cathedral to persuade

his subjects of Cateau to return to the Papal Church, and to threaten them

with ruin in case of refusal. Neither argument nor menace was of any

avail. The Protestants, who had studied their Bibles, were more than a

match for the priests, who had not; and, as for the peril, the Huguenots

quaintly replied: "Rather than yield to your demand, we should prefer to

have our heads placed at our feet." When asked if they were all of this

mind, they reiterated their determination: "Were the fires made ready to

burn us all, we should enter them rather than accede to your request and

return to the mass." These were brave words, but the sturdy Huguenots made

them good a few months later.

[Sidenote: The images and pictures overthrown.]

Scarcely a week had passed before the news reached Cateau (on the

twenty-fifth of August) that the "idols" had been broken in all the

churches of Valenciennes, Antwerp, Ghent, Tournay, and elsewhere. Although

stirred to its very depths by the exciting intelligence, the Protestant

population still contained itself, and merely consulted convenience by

celebrating Divine worship within the city walls, in an open cemetery.

Unfortunately, however, the minister whom the reformed had obtained was

ill-suited to these troublous times. Monsieur Philippe, unlike Calvin and

the great majority of the ministers of the French Protestant church, was

rash and impetuous. Early the next morning he entered the church of St.

Martin, in company with three or four other persons, and commenced the

work of destruction. Altars, statues, pictures, antiphonaries, missals,

graduals--all underwent a common fate. From St. Martin's the iconoclasts

visited in like manner the other ecclesiastical edifices of the town and

its suburbs. Upon the ruins of the Romish superstition the new fabric

arose, and Monsieur Philippe preached the same day in the principal church

of Cateau, to a large and attentive audience.

[Sidenote: The Protestant claims.]

And now began an animated interchange of proclamations on the one hand,

and of petitions on the other. The archbishop demanded the unconditional

submission of his subjects, and gave no assurances of toleration. The

Protestants declared themselves ready to give him their unqualified

allegiance, as their temporal sovereign, but claimed the liberty to

worship God. Maximilian referred to the laws and constitutions of the

Empire of which they formed an integral part. The burgesses answered by

showing that they had always been governed in accordance with the

"placards" issued by the King of Spain for his provinces of the

Netherlands, and that, whenever they had appealed in times past to the

chamber of the Empire, as for example at Spires, they had not only been

repelled, but even punished for their temerity.[409] They claimed,

therefore, the benefit of the "Accord" made by the Duchess of Parma at

Brussels a few days previously, guaranteeing the exercise of the reformed

religion wherever it had heretofore been practised;[410] while the

archbishop, when forced to declare himself, plainly announced that he

would not suffer the least deviation from the Roman Catholic faith. In

their perplexity, the Protestants had recourse to the Count of Horn, at

Tournay, by whom they were received with the utmost kindness. The count

even furnished them with a letter to the archbishop, entreating him to be

merciful to them.[411]

[Sidenote: The Archbishop's vengeance.]

But nothing was further from the heart of Maximilian than mercy. He was

the same blind adherent of Cardinal Granvelle and his policy, whom, a year

or two before, Brederode, Hoogstraaten, and their fellow-revellers had

grievously insulted at a banquet given to Egmont before his departure for

Spain; the same treacherous, sanguinary priest who wrote to Granvelle

respecting Valenciennes: "We had better push forward and make an end of

all the principal heretics, whether rich or poor, without regarding

whether the city will be entirely ruined by such a course."[412] On

Monday, the twenty-fourth of March, 1567, the troops of the archbishop

appeared before Cateau, and the same day the place was surrendered by the

treachery of some of the inhabitants. At once Cateau became a scene of

bloody executions. All that had taken part in the Protestant worship were

brought before a tribunal, which often tried, condemned, and punished with

death upon one and the same day. Monsieur Philippe, the rash preacher, and

one of his deacons seem to have been the first victims. There was no lack

of food for the gallows. To have been present at the "preachings," to have

partaken of the communion, to have maintained that the Protestant was

better than the Roman Catholic religion, to have uttered a jest or drawn a

caricature reflecting upon the Papal Church and its ceremonies--any of

these was sufficient reason for sending a man to be hung or beheaded. The

duchess's "moderation" had effected thus much, that no one seems to have

been burned at the stake. And so, at last, by assiduous but bloody work,

the Reformation was completely extirpated from Cateau Cambresis. It was,

at least, a source of mournful satisfaction that scarce one of the

sufferers failed to exhibit great constancy and pious resignation in view

of death.[413]

[Sidenote: The idea of toleration is not understood.]

Let us return from the Flemish borders to France proper, where,

notwithstanding attempts at external reconciliation, the breach between

the Protestants and their Roman Catholic neighbors was daily widening,

where, in fact, the elements of a new war were gathering shape and

consistency. It was becoming more and more difficult--especially for a

government of temporary shifts and expedients--to control the antagonistic

forces incessantly manifesting themselves. The idea of toleration was

understood by neither party. The Roman Catholics of Provins were so slow

to comprehend the liberty of conscience and religious profession of which

the Huguenots had wrung a concession in the last edict by force of arms,

that they undertook to prosecute the Protestants for eating roast lamb and

capons during Lent. With little more appreciation of the altered posture

of affairs, the Archbishop of Sens (Cardinal Guise) initiated a trial

against a heretical curate of Courtenay, according to the rules of canon

law, and the latter might have stood but a poor chance to recover his

freedom had not the Huguenot lord of Courtenay seized upon the

archbishop's "official" as he was passing his castle, and held him as a

hostage to secure the curate's release.[414]

[Sidenote: Huguenot pleasantries.]

It would be asserting too much to say that the Protestants were innocent

of any infraction upon the letter or spirit of the Edict of Amboise. They

would have been angels, not men, had they been proof against the

contagious spirit of raillery that infected the men of the sixteenth

century. Where they dared, they not unfrequently held up their opponents

to ridicule in the coarse style so popular with all classes.[415] Thus a

contemporary Roman Catholic recounts with indignation how Prince Porcien

held a celebration in Normandy, and among the games was one in which a

"paper castle" was assaulted, and the defenders, dressed as _monks_, were

taken prisoners, and were afterward paraded through the streets on asses'

backs.[416] But these buffooneries were harmless sallies contrasted with

the insults with which the Protestants were treated in every town where

they were not numerically preponderating; nor were they anything more than

rare occurrences in comparison with the latter. This page of history is

compelled to record no violent commotion on the part of the reformed

population, save in cases where, as at Pamiers (a town not far south of

Toulouse, near the foot of the Pyrenees), they had been goaded to madness

by the government deliberately trampling upon their rights of worship, at

the instigation of the ecclesiastical authorities.[417] A trifling

accident might then, however, be sufficient to cause their inflamed

passions to burst out; and in the disturbances that were likely to ensue,

little respect was usually paid to the churches or the monasteries. Such

are wont to be the unhappy effects of the denial of justice according to

the forms of established law. They would have been a hundred-fold more

frequent had it not been for the persistent opposition interposed by the

Huguenot ministers--many of them with Calvin carrying the doctrine of

passive submission to constituted authority almost to the very verge of

apparent pusillanimity.

[Sidenote: Alarm of the Protestants.]

[Sidenote: Attempts to murder the admiral and Prince Porcien.]

From month to month the conviction grew upon the Protestants that their

destruction was agreed upon. There was no doubt with regard to the desire

of Philip the Second; for his course respecting his subjects in the

Netherlands showed plainly enough that the extermination of heretics was

the only policy of which his narrow mind could conceive as pleasing in the

sight of heaven. The character of Catharine--stealthy, deceitful,

regardless of principle--was equally well understood. Between such a queen

and the trusted minister of such a prince, a secret conference like that

of Bayonne could not be otherwise than highly suspicious. It is not

strange that the Huguenots received it as an indubitable fact that the

court from this time forward was only waiting for the best opportunity of

effecting their ruin; for even intelligent Roman Catholics, who were not

admitted into the confidence of the chief actors in that celebrated

interview, came to the same conclusion. Those who knew what had actually

been said and done might assure the world that the rumors were false; but

the more they asseverated the less they were believed. For it is one of

the penalties of insincere and lying diplomacy, that when once appreciated

in its true character--as it generally is appreciated in a very brief

space of time--it loses its persuasive power, and is treated without much

investigation as uniform imposture.[418] With a suspicious vigilance, bred

of the very treachery of which they had so often been the victims, the

Huguenots saw signs of dangers that perhaps were not actually in

preparation for them. And certainly there was enough to alarm. Not many

months after the assembly of Moulins a cut-throat by the name of Du May

was discovered and executed, who had been hired to murder Admiral Coligny,

the most indispensable leader of the party, near his own castle of

Chatillon-sur-Loing.[419] The last day of the year there was hung a

lackey, who pretended that the Cardinal of Lorraine had tried to induce

him to poison the Prince of Porcien; and, although he retracted his

statements at the time of his "amende honorable,"[420] his first story was

generally credited. The rumor was current that in December, 1566, Charles

received special envoys from the emperor, the Pope, and the King of Spain,

warning him that, unless he should revoke his edict of toleration, they

would declare themselves his open enemies.[421] This was certainly

sufficiently incredible, so far as the tolerant Maximilian was concerned;

but stranger mutations of policy had often been noticed, and, as to Pius

the Fifth and Philip, nothing seemed more probable.

[Sidenote: Alva in the Netherlands.]

[Sidenote: The Swiss levy.]

With the opening of the year 1567 the portentous clouds of coming danger

assumed a more definite shape. In the neighboring provinces of the

Netherlands, after a long period of procrastination, Philip the Second had

at length determined to strike a decisive blow. The Duchess of Parma was

to be superseded in the government by a man better qualified than any

other in Europe for the bloody work assigned him to do. Ferdinando de

Toledo, Duke of Alva, in his sixtieth year, after a life full of brilliant

military exploits, was to undertake a work in Flanders such as that which,

two years before, he had recommended as the panacea for the woes of

France--a work with which his name will ever remain associated in the

annals of history. The "Beggars" of the Low Countries, like the Huguenots

in their last war, had taken up arms in defence of their religious, and,

to a less degree, of their civil rights. The "Beggars" complained of the

violation of municipal privileges and compacts, ratified by oath at their

sovereign's accession, as the Huguenots pointed to the infringement upon

edicts solemnly published as the basis of the pacification of the country;

and both refused any longer to submit to a tyranny that had, in the name

of religion, sent to the gallows or the stake thousands of their most

pious and industrious fellow-citizens. The cause was, therefore, common to

the Protestants of the two countries, and there was little doubt that

should the enemy of either prove successful at home, he would soon be

impelled by an almost irresistible impulse to assist his ally in

completing his portion of the praiseworthy undertaking. It is true that

the Huguenots of France were not now in actual warfare with the

government; but, that their time would come to be attacked, there was

every reason to apprehend. Hence, when the Duke of Alva, in the memorable

summer of 1567, set out from Piedmont at the head of ten thousand

veterans, to thread his way over the Alps and along the eastern frontiers

of France, through Burgundy and Lorraine, to the fated scene of his bloody

task in the Netherlands, the Protestants of France saw in this neighboring

demonstration a new peril to themselves. In the first moments of

trepidation, their leaders in the royal council are said to have

acquiesced in, if they did not propose, the levy of six thousand Swiss

troops, as a measure of defence against the Spanish general; and Coligny,

the same contemporary authority informs us, strongly advocated that they

should dispute the duke's passage.[422] Even if this statement be true,

they were not long in detecting, or believing that they had detected,

proofs that the Swiss troops were really intended for the overthrow of

Protestantism in France, rather than for any service against the Duke of

Alva. Letters from Rome and Spain were intercepted, we learn from Francois

de la Noue, containing evidence of the sinister designs of the court.[423]

The Prince of La Roche-sur-Yon, a prince of the blood, a short time

before his death, warned his cousin of Conde of the impending danger.[424]

Conde, who, within the past few months, had repeatedly addressed the king

and his mother in terms of remonstrance and petition for the redress of

the oppression under which the Huguenots were suffering, but to no

purpose, again supplicated the throne, urging in particular that the levy

of the Swiss be countermanded, since, if they should come, there would be

little hope of the preservation of the peace;[425] while Admiral Coligny,

who found Catharine visiting the constable, his uncle, at his palace of

Chantilly, with faithful boldness exposed to them both the impossibility

of retaining the Protestants in quiet, when they saw plain indications

that formidable preparations were being made for the purpose of

overwhelming them. To these remonstrances, however, they received only

what they esteemed evasive answers--excuses for not dismissing the Swiss,

based upon representations of the danger of some Spanish incursion, and

promises that the just requests of the Huguenots should receive the

gracious attention of a monarch desirous of establishing his throne by

equity.[426]

"The queene returned answer by letters," wrote the English ambassador,

Norris, to Elizabeth, "assuringe him"--Conde--"by the faythe of a

princesse _et d'une femme de bien_ (for so she termed it), that so long as

she might any waies prevayle with the Kinge, her sonne, he should never

breake the sayd edicte, and therof required him to assure himselfe; and if

he coulde come to the courte, he shoulde be as welcome as his owne harte

could devise; if not, to passe the tyme without any suspect or jealousie,

protesting that there was nothing ment that tended to his indempnitie,

what so ever was bruted abrode or conceyved to the contrary, as he should

perceyve by the sequele erst it were long."[427]

Shall we blame those sturdy, straightforward men, so long fed upon

unmeaning or readily-broken promises of redress, if they gave little

credit to the royal assurances, and to the more honeyed words of the queen

mother? Perhaps there existed no sufficient grounds for the immediate

alarm of the Huguenots. Perhaps no settled plan had been formed with the

connivance of Philip--no "sacred league" of the kind supposed to have been

sketched in outline at Bayonne--no contemplated massacre of the chiefs,

with a subsequent assembly of notables at Poitiers, and repeal of all the

toleration that had been vouchsafed to the Protestants.[428] All this may

have been false; but, if false, it was invested with a wonderful

verisimilitude, and to Huguenots and Papists it had, so far as their

actions were concerned, all the effect of truth. At all events the

promises of the king could not be trusted. Had he not been promising,

again and again, for four years? Had not every restrictive ordinance,

every interpretation of the Edict of Amboise, every palpable infringement

upon its spirit, if not upon its letter, been prefaced by a declaration of

Charles's intention to maintain the edict inviolate? In the words of an

indignant contemporary, "the very name of the edict was employed to

destroy the edict itself."[429]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: The Huguenot attempts at colonization in Florida.]

The Huguenot expeditions to Florida have been so well sketched

by Bancroft and Parkman, and so fully set forth by their

latest historian, M. Paul Gaffarel, that I need not speak of

them in detail. In fact, they belong more intimately to

American than to French history. They owed their origin to the

enlightened patriotism of Coligny, who was not less desirous,

as a Huguenot, to provide a safe refuge for his fellow

Protestants, than anxious, as High Admiral of France, to

secure for his native country such commercial resources as it

had never enjoyed. "I am in my house," he wrote in 1565,

"studying new measures by which we may traffic and make profit

in foreign parts. I hope shortly to bring it to pass that we

shall have the best trade in Christendom." (Gaffarel, Histoire

de la Floride francaise, Paris, 1875, pp. 45, 46). But,

although the project of Huguenot emigration was conceived in

the brain of the great Protestant leader, apparently it was

heartily approved by Catharine de' Medici and her son. They

certainly were not averse to be relieved of the presence of as

many as possible of those whom their religious views, and,

still more, their political tendencies, rendered objects of

suspicion. "If wishing were in order," Catharine (Letter to

Forquevaulx, March 17, 1566, Gaffarel, 428) plainly told the

Spanish ambassador, on one occasion, "I would wish that all

the Huguenots were in those regions" ("si c'estoit soueter, ie

voudrois que touts les Huguenots fussent en ce pais-la"). In

the discussion that ensued between the courts of Paris and

Madrid, the queen mother never denied that the colonists went

not only with her knowledge, but with her consent. In fact,

she repudiated with scorn and indignation a suggestion of the

possibility that such considerable bodies of soldiers and

sailors could have left her son's French dominions without the

royal privity (Ibid., 427).

[Sidenote: 1562.]

The first expedition, under Jean Ribault, in 1562, was little

more than a voyage of discovery. The main body promptly

returned to France, the same year, finding that country rent

with civil war. The twenty-six or twenty-eight men left behind

to hold "Charlesfort" (erected probably near the mouth of the

South Edisto river, in what is now South Carolina),

disheartened and famishing, nevertheless succeeded in

constructing a rude ship and recrossing the Atlantic in the

course of the next year.

[Sidenote: 1564.]

A second expedition (1564), under Rene de Laudonniere, who had

taken part in the first, was intended to effect a more

permanent settlement. A strong earthwork was accordingly

thrown-up at a spot christened "Caroline," in honor of Charles

the Ninth, and the colony was inaugurated under fair auspices.

But improvidence and mismanagement soon bore their legitimate

fruits. Laudonniere saw himself constrained to build ships for

a return to Europe, and was about to set sail when the third

expedition unexpectedly made its appearance (August 28, 1565),

under Ribault, leader of the first enterprise.

[Sidenote: 1565.]

[Sidenote: Massacre by Menendez.]

Unfortunately the arrival of this fresh reinforcement was

closely followed by the approach of a Spanish squadron,

commanded by Pedro Menendez, or Melendez, de Abila, sent by

Philip the Second expressly to destroy the Frenchmen who had

been so presumptuous as to settle in territories claimed by

his Catholic Majesty. Nature seemed to conspire with their own

incompetency to ruin the French. The French vessels, having

gone out to attack the Spaniards, accomplished nothing, and,

meeting a terrible storm, were driven far down the coast and

wrecked. "Caroline" fell into the hands of Menendez, and its

garrison was mercilessly put to death. The same fate befell

the shipwrecked French from the fleet. Those who declared

themselves Roman Catholics were almost the only persons spared

by their pitiless assailants. A few women and children were

granted their lives; also a drummer, a hornblower, and a few

carpenters and sailors, whose services were valuable.

Laudonniere and a handful of men escaped to the woods, and

subsequently to Europe. About two hundred soldiers, who

threatened to entrench themselves and make a formidable

resistance, were able to obtain from Menendez a pledge that

they should be treated as prisoners of war, which, strange to

say, was observed. The rest--many hundreds--were consigned to

indiscriminate slaughter; Ribault himself was flayed and

quartered; and over the dead Huguenots was suspended a tablet

with this inscription: "Hung, not as Frenchmen, but as

Lutherans" (Gaffarel, 229; De Thou, iv. 113; Ag. d'Aubigne, i.

248). Spain and Rome had achieved a grand work. The chaplain

Mendoza could piously write: "The greatest advantage from our

victory, certainly, is the triumph our Lord grants us, which

will cause His Holy Gospel to be introduced into these

regions." (Mendoza, _apud_ Gaffarel, 214).

The report of these atrocities, tardily reaching the Old

World, called forth an almost universal cry of horror.

Fair-minded men of both communions stigmatized the conduct of

Menendez and his companions as sheer murder; for had not the

French colonists of Florida been attacked before being

summoned to surrender, and butchered in cold blood after being

denied even such terms as were customarily accorded to Turks

and other infidels? Among princes, Philip alone applauded the

deed, and seemed only to regret that faith had been kept with

any of the detested Huguenots (Gaffarel, 234, 245). It has

been commonly supposed that whatever indignation was shown by

Catharine de' Medici and her son, was merely assumed in

deference to the popular clamor, and that but a feeble

remonstrance was really uttered. This supineness would be

readily explicable upon the hypothesis of the long

premeditation of the massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day. If the

treacherous murder of Admiral Coligny and the other great

Huguenot leaders had indeed been deliberately planned from the

time of the Bayonne conference in 1565, and would have been

executed at Moulins in 1566, but for unforeseen circumstances,

no protests against the Florida butchery could have been

sincere. On the other hand, if Catharine de' Medici was

earnest and persistent in her demand for the punishment of

Menendez, it is not conceivable that her mind should have been

then entertaining the project of the Parisian matins. The

extant correspondence between the French queen mother and her

envoy at the court of Madrid may fairly be said to set at rest

all doubts respecting her attitude. She was indignant,

determined, and outspoken.

So slowly did news travel in the sixteenth century, that it

was not until the eighteenth of February, 1566, that

Forquevaulx, from Madrid, despatched to the King of France a

first account of the events that had occurred in Florida

nearly five months before. The ambassador seems to have

expressed becoming indignation in the interviews he sought

with the Duke of Alva, repudiating with dignity the suggestion

that the blame should be laid upon Coligny, for having abused

his authority as admiral to set on foot a piratical expedition

into the territories of a friendly prince; and holding forth

no encouragement to believe that Charles would disavow

Coligny's acts. He told Alva distinctly that Menendez was a

butcher rather than a good soldier ("plus digne bourreau que

bon soldat," Forquevaulx to Charles IX., March 16, 1566,

Gaffarel, 425). He declared to him that the Turks had never

exhibited such inhumanity to their prisoners at Castelnovo or

at Gerbes--in fact, never had barbarians displayed such

cruelty. As a Frenchman, he assured the Spaniard that he

shuddered when he thought of so execrable a deed, and that it

appeared to him that God would not leave it unpunished (Ibid.,

426).

Catharine's own language to the Spanish ambassador, Don

Francez de Alava, was not less frank. "As their common

mother," she said, "I can but have an incredible grief at

heart, when I hear that between princes so closely bound as

friends, allies, and relations, as these two kings, and in so

good a peace, and at a time when such great offices of

friendship are observed between them, so horrible a carnage

has been committed on the subjects of my son, the King of

France. I am, as it were, beside myself when I think of it,

and cannot persuade myself that the king, your master, will

refuse us satisfaction" (Catharine to Forquevaulx, Moulins,

March 17th, Gaffarel, 427). Not content with this plain

talking to Alava, she "prayed and ordered" Forquevaulx to make

Philip himself understand her desires respecting "the

reparation demanded by _so enormous an outrage_." He was to

tell his Catholic Majesty that Catharine would never rest

content until due satisfaction was made; and that she would

feel "marvellous regret" should she not only find that all her

pains to establish perpetual friendship between the two kings

had been lost, but one day be reproached by Charles for having

suffered such a stain upon his reputation ("que ... j'aye

laisse faire une telle escorne a sa reputation." Gaffarel,

429).

Forquevaulx fulfilled his instructions to the very letter,

adding, on his own account, that in forty-one years of

military service he had never known so execrable an

execution. He seems also to have disposed effectually of the

Spanish claim to Florida through right of ancient discovery,

by emphasizing the circumstance that Menendez, after his

victory, thought it necessary to take formal possession of the

land. He informed Philip that no news could be more welcome to

the Huguenots than that the subjects of Charles had been

murdered by those very persons who were expected to strengthen

him by their friendship and alliance (Forquevaulx to

Catharine, April 9th, Gaffarel, 432). His words had little

effect upon any one at the Spanish court, save the young

queen, who felt the utmost solicitude lest her brother and her

husband should become involved in war with each other. ("Me

sembla qu'il tint a peu qu'elle ne pleurast son soul de

crainte qu'il ne survienne quelque alteration." Forquevaulx,

_ubi supra_, 430.)

But, although no progress was made toward obtaining justice,

the French government did not relax its efforts. Charles wrote

from Saint Maur, May 12, 1566, that his will was that

Forquevaulx should renew his complaint and insist with all

urgency upon a reparation of the wrong done him. "You will not

cease to tell them," said the king, "that they must not hope

that I shall ever be satisfied until I see such a reparation

as our friendship demands." (Gaffarel, 437.)

[Sidenote: Sanguinary revenge of De Gourgues, April, 1568.]

The French ambassador continued to press his claim, and, in

particular, to demand the release of the French prisoners,

even up to near the time when a private citizen, Dominique de

Gourgues, undertook to avenge his country's wrongs while

satisfying his thirst for personal revenge. De Gourgues was

not, as has usually been supposed, a Huguenot; he had even

been an adherent of Montluc and of the house of Guise

(Gaffarel, 265). But, having been captured in war by the

Spaniards, in 1566, he had been made a galley-slave. From that

time he had vowed irreconcilable hatred against the Catholic

king. He obtained a long-deferred satisfaction when, in April,

1568, he surprised the fort of Caroline, slew most of the

Spanish soldiers, and placed over the remainder--spared only

for the more ignominious punishment of hanging upon the same

trees to which Huguenots had been suspended--the inscription,

burned with a hot iron on a pine slab: "I do this not as to

Spaniards, nor as to seamen, but as to traitors, robbers, and

murderers." (The words are given with slight variations. See

"La Reprinse de la Floride par le Cappitaine Gourgue,"

reprinted by Gaffarel, 483-515; Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 354-356;

De Thou, iv. 123-126.)

FOOTNOTES:

[265] Froude, Hist. of England, vii. 519. Seethe courteous summons of

Charles, April 30, 1563, Forbes, State Papers, ii. 404, 405, and

Elizabeth's answer, May 7th, ibid., ii. 409-411; Conde's offer in his

letter of June 26, 1563, Forbes, ii. 442. See also the extended

correspondence of the English envoys, in the inedited documents published

by the Duc d'Aumale, Princes de Conde, i. 423-500.

[266] Froude, vii. 520; Castelnau, liv. v., c. ii. Compare Forbes, ii.

422.

[267] "The plage dothe increace here dayly, wherby our nombres are decayde

within these fowr days in soche sorte, as we have not remayning at this

present (in all our judgements) 1500 able men in this towne. They dye nowe

in bothe these peces upon the point of 100 a daye, so as we can not geyt

men to burye theym," etc. Warwick to the Privy Council, July 11, 1563.

Forbes, ii. 458.

[268] De Thou, iii. (liv. xxxv.) 417-420; Mem. de Castelnau, liv. v., c.

ii. and iii.; Cimber et Danjou, v. 229; Stow's Annals (London, 1631), 655,

656; Agrippa d'Aubigne, liv. iv., c. ii. (i. 198-200); Davila, bk. iii.

(Eng. trans., London, 1678), p. 89; Froude, vii. 519-528. Consult

especially Dr. Patrick Forbes, Full View of the Public Transactions in the

Reign of Queen Elizabeth (London, 1741), vol ii. pp. 373-500. This

important collection of letters, to which I have made such frequent

reference under the shorter title of "State Papers," ends at this point.

Peace was definitely concluded between France and England by the treaty of

Troyes, April 11, 1564 (Mem. de Conde, v. 79, 80). Sir Nicholas

Throkmorton, who had long been a prisoner, held to be exchanged against

the hostages for the restitution of Calais, given in accordance with the

treaty of Cateau-Cambresis, now returned home. Before leaving, however, he

had an altercation with his colleague, Sir Thomas Smith, of which the

latter wrote a full account. Sir Nicholas, it seems, in his heat applied

some opprobrious epithets to Smith, and even called him "traitor"--a

charge which the latter repudiated with manly indignation. "Nay, thou

liest, quoth I; I am as true to the queen as thou any day in the week, and

have done her Highness as faithful and good service as thou." Smith to

Cecil, April 13, 1564, State Paper Office.

[269] Mem. de Claude Haton, i. 356, 357.

[270] See the order of the fanatical Parliament of Toulouse, which it had

the audacity to publish with, or instead of, the king's edict. It contains

this clause: "Ce que estant veu par nous, avons ordonne et ordonnons que,

en la ville de Thoulouse ni aultres du ressort du parlement d'icelle, ne

se fera publicquement ni secrettement aulcun exercice de la nouvelle

pretendue religion, en quelque sorte que ce soit, sous peine de la hart.

Item, que tous ceux qui vouldront faire profession de laditte pretendue

religion reformee ayent a se retirer," etc. Mem. de Claude Haton, i. 358,

359.

[271] Recordon, Le Protestantisme en Champagne, 132, 133.

[272] M. Floquet, in his excellent history of the Norman Parliament (ii.

571), repudiates as "une de ces exagerations familieres a De Beze," the

statement of the Histoire eccles. des eglises reformees, "that in the

Parliament of Rouen, whatever the cause might be, whoever was known to be

of the (reformed) religion, whether plaintiff or defendant, was instantly

condemned." Yet he quotes below (ii. 571, 573, 574), from Chancellor de

l'Hospital's speech to that parliament, statements that fully vindicate

the justice of the censure. "Vous pensez bien faire d'adjuger la cause a

celuy que vous estimez plus homme de bien ou meilleur chrestien; comme

s'il estoit question, entre les parties, lequel d'entre eux est meilleur

poete, orateur, peintre, artisan, et enfin de l'art, doctrine, force,

vaillance, ou autre quelconque suffisance, non de la chose qui est amenee

en jugement." And after enumerating other complaints: "Ne trouvez point

estrange ce que je vous en dy: car souvent sont apportez au roy de vos

jugements qui semblent, de prime face, fort esloignez de toute droicture

et equite."

[273] Chron. MS. du xvi. siecle, Registres, etc., _apud_ Floquet, Hist. du

parlement de Normandie, ii. 525-547.

[274] Ibid., ii. 548.

[275] The father of Agrippa d'Aubigne was, as his son informs us, one of

the commissioners sent on this occasion to Guyenne. Memoires d'A.

d'Aubigne, ed. Buchon, 474.

[276] What else can be said, in view of such well authenticated statements

as the following? On his progress through France, to which reference will

soon be made, Charles the Ninth stopped with his court at Troyes, where no

expense was spared in providing tournaments and games for his amusement.

Just as he was about to leave the city, and was already booted for his

journey, he was detained for a little while that he might witness a novel

entertainment. He was taken to a garden where a number of young girls,

selected for their extraordinary beauty and entirely nude, executed in his

presence the most obscene dances. It was two churchmen that are said to

have provided the boy-king with this infamous diversion--Cardinal Charles

of Bourbon and Cardinal Louis of Guise. Recordon, 143.

[277] "Il est notoire qu'au temps du colloque de Poissy la doctrine

evangelique y fut proposee en liberte; ce qui causa que plusieurs, tans

grands que petits, prindrent goust a icelle. Mais, tout ainsi qu'un feu de

paille fait grand' flamme, et puis s'esteint incontinent d'autant que la

matiere defaut, apres que ce qu'ils avoient receu comme une nouveaute se

fut un peu envieilly en leur coeur, les affections s'amortirent, et la

pluspart retourna a l'ancienne cabale de la cour, qui est bien plus propre

pour faire rire et piaffer, et pour s'enrichir." Mem. de Franc. de la

Noue, c. ii. (Ed. Mich, et Pouj., 591).

[278] "Quelque chose qu'il sut dire avec blasphemes horribles--moyen

ordinaire a telles gens pour prouver leur religion." Hist. eccles. des

eglises reformees, ii. 458. To stuff leaves torn from French Bibles into

the mouths or wounds of dying or dead Huguenots, as we have seen, was a

diversion not unknown to their opponents. Of course, there is nothing

astonishing in the circumstance that the invocation of Calvin's

liturgy--"Notre aide soit au nom de Dieu qui a fait le ciel et la

terre"--should have been a favorite formula for the beginning of a game of

chance, or that the doxology--"Louange a Dieu de tous ses biens"--["Praise

God from whom all blessings flow."]--should have been esteemed a fitting

ejaculation for the winner. Ibid., ii. 310, 431.

[279] "'Double mort Dieu' a vaincu 'Certes'; entendant par ce dernier mot

ceux de la religion qui condamnent ces juremens et blasphemes." Hist.

eccles. des egl. ref., ii. 507.

[280] De Thou, iii. (liv. xxxv.) 409.

[281] Declaration dated Chatillon-sur-Loing, May 5, 1563. Mem. de Conde,

iv. 339-349; and Jean de Serres, iii. 15-29.

[282] Martin, Hist. de France, x. 164.

[283] De Thou, iii. (liv. xxxv.), 415, 416. Catharine had been the

involuntary instrument of renewing the old friendship between the

constable and his nephews, when, on Guise's death, she conferred the

office of grand master upon his young son, instead of restoring it to Anne

de Montmorency, to whom the dignity had formerly belonged. Three months

later (Aug. 30, 1563) Conde drew up another paper, assuming the entire

responsibility for all the acts of the Chatillon brothers during the war:

"Acte par lequel M. le prince de Conde declare que tout ce que M. l'amiral

de Coligny et M. D'Andelot son frere ont fait pendant les troubles, ils

ont fait a sa requisition et par ses ordres." Mem. de Conde, iv. 651.

[284] See Martin, x. 174, 175.

[285] Davila, bk. iii. 92, and D'Aubigne, liv. iv., c. iii. (i. 201), both

of whom mistake the place of the occurrence, supposing it to have been

Paris.

[286] Copie de la requeste presentee au Roy tres-chrestien par ceulx de la

mayson de Guyse, etc. Mem. de Conde, iv. 667, 668.

[287] Ibid., iv. 668.

[288] "C'est un vray moyen pour destruire et gaster en une heure tout le

fondement de ce qu'elle a prins grand' peine de bastir depuis six mois."

Memoire presente a la Reine-mere, pour empecher que la maison de Guyse

n'allat demander justice au parlement de Paris, de l'assassinat de

Francois duc de Guise. Mem. de Conde, iv. 493-495.

[289] Arret du conseil du Roy, par lequel il evoque a sa personne le

proces meu entre les maisons de Guyse et de Chastillon, etc. Mem. de

Conde, iv. 495.

[290] "Ne parlez encore a personne," writes Catharine to M. de Gonnor

(March 12, 1563), "des conditions, car j'ay toujours peur qu'ils ne nous

trompent; encore que le Prince de Conde leur a declare que s'ils

n'acceptent ces conditions et s'ils ne veulent la paix, qu'il s'en viendra

avec le Roy mon fils, et se declarera leur ennemy, chose que je trouve

tres-bonne." Le Laboureur, ii. 241.

[291] Not September 15th, as Davila states, nor September 24th, as

D'Aubigne seems to assert; but his narrative is confused.

[292] The two documents--address and edict--in Mem. de Conde, iv. 574-581.

[293] Floquet, Hist. du parlement de Normandie, ii. 584. The entire scene

is very vividly portrayed, ibid., ii. 561-586. Bruslart, Mem. de Conde, i.

132; De Thou, iii. (liv. xxxv.) 421-424; Jean de Serres, iii. 32; Mem. de

Castelnau, liv. v., c. iv., etc.; Agrippa d'Aubigne, Hist. univ., liv.

iv., c. iii. (i. 200-202); Davila, bk. iii. 90.

[294] "Les Parisiens furent fort presses qu'ils eussent a mettres les

armes bas," says the metropolitan curate, Jean de la Fosse, under date of

May, 1563, "mais ils n'en volurent jamais rien faire." Mem. d'un cure

ligueur, 63, 64.

[295] A town on the left bank of the Seine, four leagues beyond Meulan.

[296] Mem. de Conde (Bruslart), Sept., 1563, i. 133-135.

[297] Ibid., _ubi supra_. "Ces parolles la sont venues de la boutique de

Monsieur le Chancellier et non du Roy."

[298] Ibid., i. 136. Even after Charles's lecture and a still more

intemperate address of Montluc, Bishop of Valence, when parliament came to

a vote there was a tie. To please Catharine, whose entire authority was at

stake, the royal council of state gave the extraordinary command that the

minute of this vote should be erased from the records of parliament, and

the edict instantly registered. This last was forthwith done. De Thou,

iii. (liv. xxxv.) 426, 427. Bruslart (_ubi supra_, i. 136) denies that the

erasure was actually made as Charles had commanded.

[299] De Thou, iii. (liv. xxxv.) 441, etc.

[300] Letter of Card. de la Bourdaisiere, Rome, Oct. 23, 1563, in which

sentence is said to have been pronounced, the day before, on the

Archbishop of Aix, and the bishops of Uzes, Valence, Oleron, Lescar,

Chartres, and Troyes. Le Laboureur, i. 863, 864.

[301] Monitorium et citatio officii sanctae Inquisitionis contra

illustrissimam et serenissimam dominam Joannam Albretiam, reginam Navarrae,

Mem. de Conde, iv. 669-679; and Vauvilliers, Histoire de Jeanne d'Albret,

iii. Pieces justif., 221-240. It is dated Tuesday, September 28, 1563. De

Thou, iii. (liv. xxxv.) 442. The Card. de la Bourdaisiere (_ubi supra_)

merely says: "Tout le monde dit a Rome, que la Reine de Navarre fut aussi

privee audit Consistoire, mais il n'en est rien, bien est-elle citee."

Mem. de Castelnau, liv. v., c. ix.

[302] It needed no very extraordinary penetration to read "Philip" under

the words of the monitorium: "Ita ut in casu contraventionis (quod Deus

avertat) et contumaciae, regnum, principatus, ac alia cujuscunque status et

dominia hujuscemodi, dentur et dari possint _cuilibet illa occupanti, vel

illi aut illis quibus Sanctitati suae et successoribus suis dare et

concedere magis placuerit_."

[303] Summary of the protest in De Thou, iii. (liv. xxxv.) 441-447; and

Vauvilliers, ii. 7-17; in full in Mem. de Conde, iv. 680-684. "Quant au

fait de la Reine de Navarre, qui est celuy qui importe le plus, ledit

sieur d'Oysel aura charge de luy faire bien entendre," says Catharine in a

long letter to Bishop Bochetel (_ubi infra_), "qu'il n'a nulle autorite et

jurisdiction sur ceux qui portent titre de Roy ou de Reine, et que ce

n'est a luy de donner leur estats et royaumes en proye au premier

conquerant."

[304] See the interesting letter of Catharine to Bochetel, Bishop of

Rennes, French ambassador at Vienna, Dec. 13, 1563, in which the papal

assumption is stigmatized as dangerous to the peace of Christendom. "De

nostre part nous sommes deliberez de ne le permettre ny consentir," she

says, and she is persuaded that neither Ferdinand nor Maximilian will

consent. Le Laboureur, i. 783.

[305] De Thou, iii. (liv. xxxv.) 447. Castelnau (liv. v., c. ix.) gives a

wrong impression by his assertion that "the Pope could never be induced to

reverse the sentence against the Queen of Navarre."

[306] Le Laboureur, ii. 610, 611; Brantome, Hommes illustres (OEuvres, ix.

259). We cannot accept, without much caution, the portraits drawn of the

prince by the English while they were still smarting with resentment

against him for concluding peace with the king without securing the claims

of Elizabeth upon Calais. "The Prince of Conde," wrote Sir Thomas Smith,

April 13, 1563, "is thought ... to be waxen almost a new King of Navarre.

So thei which are most zelous for the religion are marvelously offendid

with him; and in great feare, that shortly all wil be worse than ever it

was. Et quia nunc prodit causam religionis, as they say, dia ten

rhathumian autou kai psychroteta pros ta kala, and begynnes even now

gunaikomanein, as the other did; they thinke plainly, that he will declare

himself, ere it be long, unkiend to God, to us, and to himself; being won

by the papists, either with reward of Balaam, or ells with Cozbi the

Midianite, to adjoigne himself to Baal-peor." Forbes, State Papers, ii.

385.

[307] "Le bon prince," says Brantome, "estoit aussi mondain qu'un autre,

et aimoit autant la femme d'autruy que la sienne, tenant fort du naturel

de ceux de la race de Bourbon, qui ont este fort d'amoureuse complexion."

Hommes illustres, M. le Prince de Conde. Granvelle wrote to the Emperor

Ferdinand from Besancon (April 12, 1564), that word had come from France,

"que le prince de Conde y entendoit au service des dames plus qu'en aultre

chose, et assez froid en la religion des huguenotz." Papiers d'etat, vii.

467.

[308] See Bayle's art. on Isabeau de Limueil; J. de Serres, iii. 45, 46;

De Thou, iii. (liv. xxxv.) 42.

[309] Jean de Serres, iii. 50, 51; De Thou, iii. (liv. xxxv.) 412, 413.

Cf. Bolwiller to Cardinal Granvelle, Sept. 4, 1564, Papiers d'etat du

cardinal de Granvelle, viii. 305. See, however, the statements in chapter

xvi. of this history.

[310] His revenue from his county of Soissons was not 1,000 crowns a year,

and he had little from his other possessions (Le Laboureur, ii. 611).

Secretary Courtewille, in his secret report (Dec., 1561), states that the

Huguenot nobles of the first rank were in general poor--Vendome, Conde,

Coligny, etc.--and that were it not for a monthly sum of 1,200 crowns,

which the Huguenots furnished to Conde, and 1,000 which the admiral

received in similar manner, they would hardly know how to support

themselves. Papiers d'etat du card. de Granv., vi. 440.

[311] Mary herself, however, writing to her aunt, the Duchess of Aerschot

(Nov. 6, 1564), represents the offer of marriage as made by Conde, both to

her grandmother and to her uncle the cardinal: "a qui il a fait toutes les

belles offres du monde." Papiers d'etat du card. de Granv., viii. 481.

[312] Jean de Serres, iii. 32, 33.

[313] Ibid., iii. 45, 46; De Thou, iii. (liv. xxxv.) 414; D'Aubigne, Hist.

univ., i. 197.

[314] On the upper Tarn, in the modern department of the Aveyron.

[315] The very important documents which exhibit these facts at great

length are in the archives of the "Mairie" of Milhau and in the

Bibliotheque nationale, and were inedited until printed in the Bulletin,

ix. (1860) 382-392. Among the names of the Huguenots of Milhau figuring

here is that of Benoit Ferragut, apothecary.

[316] Graignan, pour l'eglise de Someyre, a la Venerable Compagnie, 19

juin, 1563, Gaberel, Hist. de l'eglise de Geneve, i., Pieces

justificatives, 153. "Et pourtant, je ne peux pas suffire a tout. Les

paysans se baptisent les enfants les ungs les autres, ou sont contraincts

de les laisser a baptiser."

[317] Les consuls de Montpellier a la Ven. Comp., 30 janvier, 1563 (1564),

ibid., i., Pieces just., 179.

[318] I know of no more beautiful monument of Jeanne's courage and piety

than the letter she wrote to the Cardinal of Armagnac, in reply to a

letter of the cardinal, dated August 18, 1563, intended to frighten her

into a return to the papal church. It was sent by the same messenger who

had brought the letter of Armagnac, and it has every mark of having been

Jeanne's own composition. Both letters are given in full by Olhagaray,

Hist. de Foix, Bearn, et Navarre, 536-543, and 544-551; a summary in

Vauvilliers, i. 347-362. The Queen of Navarre boldly avowed her

sentiments, but declared her policy to be pacific: "Je ne fay rien par

force; il n'y a ny mort ny emprisonnement, ny condemnation, qui sont les

nerfs de la force." But she refused to recognize Armagnac--who was papal

legate in Provence, Guyenne, and Languedoc--as having any such office in

Bearn, proudly writing: "Je ne recognois en Bearn que Dieu auquel je dois

rendre conte de la charge qu'il m'a baillee de son peuple." The

publication of these letters produced a deep impression favorable to the

Reformation.

[319] Letter of Jehan Reymond Merlin to Calvin, Pau, July 23, 1563,

printed for the first time in the Bulletin, xiv. (1865) 233, 234.

[320] Olhagaray, Hist. de Foix, Bearn, et Navarre, p. 535; Vauvilliers,

Hist. de Jeanne d'Albret, i. 319.

[321] Letter of Merlin, _ubi supra_, 237, 238; Vauvilliers, i. 320.

[322] Ibid., 238. "Dont plusieurs, voire des grands, s'en allerent fort

mal contens, et singulierement quelques-uns qu'elle rabroua plus rudement

que je n'eusse desire." Merlin adds that all now saw the excellence of his

advice, for, had it been followed, "il y auroit apparence que la

reformation eust este faite en ce pays par l'authorite des estats;

maintenant il faut qu'elle se fasse de seule puissance absolue de la

royne, voyre avec danger." In other parts of France, as well as in Bearn,

Jeanne's reformatory movements were looked upon with great disfavor. Upon

a glass window at Limoges (made about the year 1564, and still in

existence, I believe) she is represented, by way of derision, as herself

in the pulpit, and preaching to a congregation of eight Huguenots seated.

Underneath is the bitter couplet,

"Mal sont les gens endoctrines

Quand par femme sont sermones."

M. Hennin, Monuments de l'hist. de France, Paris, 1863, tome ix.

(1559-1589) 76. The statement that this and a somewhat similar

representation, also described in this work, came from an old abbey, whose

monks thus revenged themselves upon the queen for removing their pulpit,

seems to be a mistake.

[323] Letter of Merlin, _ubi supra_, 239: "Brief c'est merveille que ceste

princesse puisse persister constamment en son sainct vouloir." Cf. letter

of same, Dec. 25, 1563, 245.

[324] Letter of Merlin, Dec. 25, 1563, _ubi supra_, 245.

[325] "Recit d'une entreprise faite en l'an 1565 contre la Reine de

Navarre et messeigneurs les enfans," etc., etc.; Cimber et Danjou,

Archives curieuses, vi. 281-295. The year should be 1564. The best

authority is, however, that of De Thou, iii. (liv. xxxvi.) 496-499, who

states that he simply gives the account as he had it from the lips of

Secretary Rouleau, who brought the tidings to France, and from the

children of the domestic of Isabella who detected the conspiracy. See,

also, Leon Feer, in Bulletin, xxvi. (1877), 207, etc., 279, etc.

[326] Michel de l'Hospital frankly told Santa Croce that the misfortunes

of France came exclusively from the French themselves, "e della vita dei

preti, molto sregolata, i quali non vogliono esser riformati, e

principalmente quelli del Concilio, e poi nelle loro lettere rejiciunt

culpam in Papam." "Io so," adds the nuncio himself, "che sono loro che non

vogliono esser riformati, e hanno mandati di qua certi articoli che hanno

parimente mandati a Roma, circa gli quali io vi posso dir che se Sua

Santita li accordasse, conformamente alle loro petitioni, sariano i piu

malcontenti del mondo; ma no le hanno fatte ad altro fine che per haver

occasione di mostrar di qua, che il Papa e quello che non vuole, mentre

che sono loro che non vogliono quella riformatione del clero." Santa Croce

to Borromeo, March 28, 1563, Aymon, i. 230, 231; Cimber et Danjou, vi.

138.

[327] "Il quale (Cardinal di Lorreno) con la morte del suo fratello,

havera manco spiriti, e credo io che terra piu conto della satisfattione

di Sua Santita che di qua." Santa Croce to Borromeo, Blois, March 28,

1563, shortly after Guise's death. Aymon, i. 233; Cimber et Danjou, vi.

140.

[328] "Sed hae nugae ipsi nequaquam placebant." Languet, letter of Feb. 3,

1564, Epist. secr., ii. 283.

[329] Letter of Santa Croce to Borromeo, Melun, Feb. 25, 1564, Aymon, i.

258, 259; Letter of Beza to Bullinger, Geneva, March 6, 1564, Simler Coll.

(Zurich) MSS.; Languet, March 6, 1564, Epist. secr., ii. 286, 287. There

has been great confusion respecting this altercation between Lorraine and

L'Hospital. According to Henri Martin (Histoire de France, x. 194), it

took place "a propos d'un nouvel edit qui accordait aux reformes quelques

facilites pour l'enseignement et l'exercise de leur religion en maisons

privees dans les villes ou le culte public leur etait interdit." M. Jules

Bonnet has kindly made search for me in the Zurich and Paris libraries,

and obtained corroborative proof of what I already suspected, that M.

Martin and others had confounded the scene at _Melun_ in February, 1564,

with another quarrel between the same persons in March, 1566, at

_Moulins_. See the documents, including the letter of Beza referred to

above, published together with my inquiries, in the Bulletin de la Soc. du

prot. fr., xxiv. (1875) 409-415.

[330] "Conseil sur le fait du Concile de Trente," etc. Mem. de Conde, v.

81-129. The dedication to Prince Porcien is dated May 29, 1564. See De

Thou, iii. (liv. xxxvi.) 501.

[331] Du Moulin was ordered by a royal letter to be set at large, Lyons,

June 24, 1564.

[332] Conclusion of "Conseil," etc. Mem. de Conde, v. 129.

[333] De Thou, iii. (liv. xxxvi.), 499, 500; Ag. d'Aubigne, Hist. univ.,

i. 203 (liv. iv., c. iv.); Mem. de Castelnau, liv. v., c. vi.

[334] Prof. Soldan has discussed the matter at great length. Gesch. des

Prot. in Frank., ii. 197, etc.

[335] As early as Dec. 13, 1563, the queen mother had announced to the

French ambassador in Vienna her son's expected journey, toward the end of

February or the beginning of March, to visit his sister, the Duchess of

Lorraine, and her infant son. Letter to Bochetel, Bishop of Rennes, Le

Laboureur, i. 784. See, too, Languet's letter of Nov. 16, 1563, Epist.

secr., ii. 268.

[336] Lorraine to Granvelle, _ubi infra_. The progress was resolved upon,

it will be seen, before Lorraine's return from Trent.

[337] "I am going to meet their Majesties at Chalons," wrote the Cardinal

of Lorraine from Tou-sur-Marne, between Rheims and Chalons, April 20,

1564; "thence they are to leave for Bar, where they will, I think, remain

no more than four or five days. I hope that the voyage will be honorable

and profitable for our house.... As to our court, it was never so empty of

persons belonging to the opposite religion as it is now. The few that are

there show very great regret at this voyage, in which I can assure you

that I have not meddled at all, either to further or to retard it; only a

short time after my return from Trent, I succeeded in having Nancy changed

for Bar." Papiers d'etat du card. de Granvelle, vii. 511.

[338] Smith to Cecil, Tarascon, Oct. 21, 1564, State Paper Office,

Calendar.

[339] "Assuredly, sir," wrote the cardinal in the letter just cited, "the

queen my mistress shows, daily more and more, a strong and holy affection.

This evening I have heard, by the Cardinal of Guise, my brother, who has

reached me, many holy intentions of their Majesties, which may God give

them grace to put into good execution." Ibid., _ubi supra_. In a somewhat

similar strain Granvelle about this time wrote: "I am so strongly assured

that religion is going to take a favorable turn in France, that I know not

what to say of it. The world in that quarter is so light and variable,

that no great grounds of confidence can be assumed. But it is at any rate

something that matters are not growing worse." Letter to Bolwiller, April

9, 1564, Papiers d'etat, etc., vii. 461.

[340] Letter of Granvelle to the Emperor Ferdinand, May 8, 1564, Papiers

d'etat, vii. 613; also 622, 631.

[341] "Les reformes qui formoient presque le tiers du royaume." Garnier,

Hist. de France, xxx. 453.

[342] "On peut presumer qu'il n'y eut jamais en France plus de quinze on

seize cent mille reformes.... La France possedait a peine quinze millions

d'habitans. Ainsi les protestans n'en formaient guere que le dixieme."

Lacretelle, Histoire de France pendant les guerres de religion, ii. 169,

170. The entire passage is important.

[343] Giov. Michiel, Rel. des Amb. Ven., i. 412.

[344] Capefigue, from MS., Hist. de la reforme, de la ligue, etc., ii.

408.

[345] Jean de Serres, iii. 47, 48; De Thou, iii., liv. xxxvi. 504; Mem. de

Castelnau, l. v., c. x.; Pasquier, Lettres, iv., 22, _ap._ Capefigue, ii.

410.

[346] Granvelle to the Emperor Ferdinand, April 12, 1564, Pap. d'etat,

vii. 467.

[347] Of solicitude on this score, the only evidence I have come across is

furnished by the following passage of one of the "Occurrences in France,"

under date of April 11, 1565, sent to the English Government. "Orders are

also taken in the court that no gentleman shall talk with the queen's

maids, except it is in the queen's presence, or in that of Madame la

Princesse de Roche-sur-Yon, except he be married; and if they sit upon a

form or stool, he may sit by her, and if she sit upon the ground he may

kneel by her, but not lie long, as the fashion was in this court." State

Paper Office, Calendar, 331.

[348] Edict of Vincennes, June 14, 1563, and Declarations of Paris, Dec.

14, 1563; of Lyons, June 24, 1564; and of Roussillon, Aug. 4, 1564.

Isambert, Recueil des anc. lois. franc., xiv. 141, 159, 170-172, and

Drion, Hist. chronol., i. 102-108. See Jean de Serres, iii. 35-41, 55-63,

and after him, De Thou, iii. (liv. xxxv.) 411, 412, 504, 505.

[349] Jean de Serres, iii. 54, 55, 64, 65, etc. De Thou, iii. (liv.

xxxvi.) 503, etc.

[350] Ibid., _ubi supra_. There are no similar cases of assassination on

the part of Huguenots at this period. That of Charry at court seems to

have resulted partly from revenge for personal wrongs, partly from

mistaken devotion on the part of one of D'Andelot's followers to his

master's interests. See Languet, letter of Feb. 3, 1564, Epist. secr., ii.

284.

[351] Jean de Serres, iii. 65-82; De Thou, iii. (liv. xxxvi.) 505; Lettres

de Monseigneur le Prince de Conde a la Roine Mere du Roy, avec

Advertissemens depuis donnez par ledit Seigneur Prince a leurs Majestez,

etc, (Aug. 31, 1564, etc.), Mem. de Conde, v. 201-214.

[352] "Articles respondus par le Roy en son Conseil prive, sur la requeste

presentee par plusieurs habitans de la ville de Bourdeaux," etc. The

signature of the secretary, Robertet, was affixed Sept. 5, 1564; but such

was the obstinacy of the judges of Bordeaux, that the document was not

published in the parliament of that city until nearly eight months later

(April 30, 1565). Mem. de Conde, v. 214-224. Cimber et Danjou, Archives

curieuses, vi. 271-278. The Protestants petitioned for another town in

place of St. Macaire, which had been assigned them for their religious

worship--the most inconveniently situated in the entire "senechaussee."

They desired a city which they could go to and return from on the same

day. They stated that "la plus grande partie des plus notables familles de

la ville de Bourdeaux est de la religion reformee." This part of their

request the king referred to the judgment of the governor.

[353] Ordonnance du roi Charles IX., 6 aout, 1564, Nantes MS., Bulletin,

xiii. (1864), 203, 204.

[354] Aymon, i. 277, 278, and Cimber et Danjou, Archives cur., vi. 167. As

by this time both Papists and Huguenots knew Catharine de' Medici to be a

woman utterly devoid of moral principle, it may fairly be considered an

open question whether there was any one in France more deceived than she

was in supposing that she had deceived others.

[355] Sir Thomas Smith to the queen, from Tarascon (near Avignon), Oct.

21, 1564, enclosing "Articles of pacification for those of the religion in

Venaissin and Avignon agreed to by the ministers of the Pope and those of

the Prince of Orange, Oct. 11, 1564." Signed by the vice-legate, Bishop of

Fermo, and Fabrizio Serbellone, State Paper Office.

[356] Journal d'un cure ligueur (Jehan de la Fosse), 55, 56, 68.

[357] "Lundi passe, viiie du present mois, ung peu avant les trois heures

apres midy, monsieur le reverendissime cardinal de Lorraine, vestu du

robbon et chappeau, ... est entre en Paris." Account written two days

after the occurrence by Del Rio, attached to the Spanish embassy in Paris.

Papiers d'etat du card. de Granvelle, viii. 600-602.

[358] Mem. de Castelnau, liv. vi., c. iii.; Jean de Serres, iii. 85, 86;

De Thou, iii. (liv. xxxvii.) 533-537; Mem. de Claude Haton, i. 381-383;

Journal de Jehan de la Fosse, 70-72; Conde MSS., in Duc d'Aumale, Princes

de Conde, i. 518; Le Livre des Marchands (Ed. Pantheon) 424, 425, where

the ludicrous features of the scene are, of course, most brightly colored.

"J'espere bien aussi m'en resentir ung jour," wrote the cardinal himself,

a few weeks later, from Joinville. Pap. d'etat du card. de Granvelle,

viii. 681.

[359] Jehan de la Fosse, 72.

[360] Harangue de l'Admiral de France a Messieurs de la Cour de Parlement

de Paris, du 27 janvier 1565, avec la reponse. Papiers d'etat du card. de

Granvelle, viii. 655-657. M. de Crussol, in a letter of February 4, 1565,

alludes to the admiral's flattering reception by the clergy and by the

Sorbonne, "qui sont alle le visiter et offert infiny service;" and states

that both parties were gratified by the interview. Conde MSS., in Duc

d'Aumale, Princes de Conde, Pieces inedits, i. 520.

[361] Philip II. to Alva, Dec. 14, 1563, Pap. d'etat du card. de

Granvelle, vii. 269; Alva to Philip II., Dec. 22, 1563, ib., vii. 286,

287.

[362] Granvelle to the Baron de Bolwiller, March 13, 1565, ib., ix. 61,

62.

[363] Ibid., _ubi supra_. "Je vous asseure, comme il est veritable, qu'il

n'y a aultre chose en cecy que simple visitation de fille a mere."

[364] Prof. Kluckholn, strangely enough, speaks of Jean de Serres's

Commentarii de statu relig., etc., as "zuerst im Jahre, 1575, erschienen"

(Zur Geschichte des angeb. Buendnisses von Bayonne, Abhand. der k. bayer.

Akademie, Muenchen, 1868, p. 151). I have before me the earlier edition of

1571, containing verbatim the passage he quotes, with a single unimportant

exception--"ecclesiarum" instead of "religiosorum."

[365] J. de Serres, Comment, de statu reipublicae et religionis in Gallia

regno, Carolo IX. rege (1571), iii. 92. The Prince of Conde, in his long

petition sent to Charles, Aug. 23, 1568, at the outbreak of the Third

Civil War, says expressly in reference to events a year preceding the

Second War: "Quandoquidem ego et alii Religionis reformatae viri fuerimus

jampridem admoniti de inito Baionae consilio cum Hispano, ad eos omnes

plane delendos atque exterminandos qui Religionem reformatam in tuo regno

profiteantur." Ibid., iii. 200.

[366] The remark is said to have been accidentally overheard by Henry of

Navarre, afterward Henry the Fourth, of whose presence little account was

taken in consequence of his youth. (He was just eleven years and a half

old.) But his intimate follower, Agrippa d'Aubigne, would have been likely

to give him as authority, had this been the case. He only says: "Les plus

licentieux faisoient leur profit d'un terme du Duc d'Alve a Baionne, que

dix mille grenouilles ne valloient pas la teste d'un saumon." Hist. univ.,

liv. iv., c. v. (i. 206). Jean de Serres, _ubi supra_, iii. 125, gives the

expression in nearly the same words: "Satius esse unicum salmonis caput,

quam mille ranarum capita habere."

[367] Smith to Leicester and Cecil, July 2-29, 1565, State Paper Office,

Calendar, 403.

[368] "On apelloit ce bon prelat 'le cardinal des bouteilles,'" says

Lestoile, "pource qu'il les aimoit fort, et ne se mesloit gueres d'autres

affaires que de celles de la cuisine, ou il se connoissoit fort bien, et

les entendoit mieux que celles de la religion et de l'estat." In

chronicling the death of Louis, Cardinal of Guise, at Paris, March 29,

1578, he records the suggestive fact that "he was the last of the six

brothers of the house of Guise; yet died he young, at the age of

forty-eight years." Journal de Henri III., p. 96 (edit. Michaud). So

closely is the scriptural warning fulfilled, that "bloody and deceitful

men shall not live out half their days." Cardinal Guise (not Cardinal

Lorraine, as Mr. Henry White seems to suppose, Massacre of St.

Bartholomew, Am. edit., 187, 188) was the abettor of the massacre of

Vassy.

[369] Cartas que el Duque de Alba scrivio, etc. Papiers d'etat du cardinal

de Granvelle, ix. 296.

[370] "Con no mas personas que con cinco o seys que son el cabo de todo

esto, los tomasen a su mano y les cortasen las cabecas," etc. Ibid., ix.

298.

[371] "Que mirase mucho por su salud, pues que della dependia todo el bien

de la christiandad, y creya que le tenia Dios guardado para venir por su

mano un gran servicio, que era el castigo de las offensas que en este su

reyno se le hazian." Cartas que el Duque de Alba scrivio a su Magestad ...

que contienen las vistas en Bayona, etc. Papiers d'etat du card. de

Granvelle, ix. 291.

[372] "Salto luego con dezirme: 'o, el tomar las armas no conviene, que yo

destruya mi reyno como se comenco a hazer con las guerras passadas.'"

Ibid., _ubi supra_.

[373] "Como es, descubri lo que le tenian pedricado; passe a otras

materias," etc. Ibid., _ubi supra_.

[374] "Que venia muy Espanola." Ibid., ix. 300.

[375] "Ella comenco cierto la platica con el mayor tiento que yo he visto

tener jamas a nadie en cosa." Ibid., ix. 303.

[376] Cartas que el Duque de Alba scrivio, etc. Papiers d'etat du card. de

Granvelle, ix. 315.

[377] "Yo me altere _terriblemente_ de oirselo, y le dixe que me

maravillava mucho." Ibid., ix. 317.

[378] "La junta passada de adonde comencaron todas las desverguencas que

al presente ay en este reyno." Ibid., ix. 317.

[379] "En la otra el cardenal de Lorena havia sido el que avia hecho todo

el dano, pensando poder persuadir a los ministros." Ibid., _ubi supra_.

[380] "Parecenos que quiere con esta semblea (i.e., assemblee), que ellos

llaman, remendar lo que falta en el rigor necessario al remedio de sus

vasallos, y plega a Dios no sea," etc. Ibid., ix. 318.

[381] Letter of Granvelle, Aug. 20, 1565, Papiers d'etat, ix. 481.

[382] "Depuis l'arrivee n'y eust mention que de festins, recreations et

passe-temps de diverses manieres." Relation du voyage de la reine Isabelle

d'Espagne a Bayonne, MSS. Belgian Archives, Compte Rendu de la commission

royale d'histoire, seconde serie, ix. (1857) 159. This paper was drawn up

by the Secretary of State Courtewille, and sent to President Viglius.

[383] Over the first triumphal arch was a representation of Isabella (or

Elizabeth) trampling Mars under foot, with the mottoes _Sacer hymen pacem

nobis contulit_ and _Deus nobis haec otia fecit_, and below the lines:

Elizabeth, de roy fille excellente,

Vous avez joint ung jour deux rois puissans;

France et l'Espaigne, en gloire permanente,

Extolleront voz ages triumphans, etc.

Over a second arch at the palace gate, which was reached by a street hung

with tapestry and decorated with the united arms of France and Spain, was

suspended a painting of Catharine with her three sons and three daughters,

and the inscription:

C'est a l'entour de royalle couronne

Que le jardin hesperien floronne:

Ce sont jardins de si belle feconde,

Qui aujourd'huy ne trouve sa seconde;

Ce sont rameaux vigoureux et puissans;

Ce sont florons de vertu verdissans.

Royne sans per (paire), de grace decoree,

Vous surmontez Pallas et Cytheree.

Catharine's portraits scarcely confirm the boast of her panegyrist that

she surpassed Venus, however well she might match Minerva in sagacity.

[384] Agrippa d'Aubigne, Histoire universelle, i. 1.

[385] "Le feu bon homme Monsieur de La Gaucherie y marchoit en rondeur de

conscience, et mesme mon filz lui doibt et aux siens cette rasine (racine)

de piete qui lui est, par la grasse de Dieu, si bien plantee au cueur par

bonnes admonitions, que maintenant, dont je loue ce bon Dieu, elle produit

et branches et fruitz. Je lui suplie qu'il luy fasse ceste grasse qu'il

continue de bien en mieulx." Letter of Dec. 6, 1566, MSS. Geneva Library,

Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. francais, xvi. (1867) 65.

[386] "Ung tournoy a pied."

[387] It will be remembered that the Spaniards never acknowledged the

claim of Antoine or his wife to the title of sovereigns of Navarre. In all

Spanish documents, therefore, such as that which we are here following,

their son Henry is designated only by the dukedom of Bourbon-Vendome which

he inherited from his father.

[388] Relation du voyage de la reine Isabelle a Bayonne, MSS. Belgian

Archives, _ubi supra_, ix. 161, 162.

[389] See Jean de Serres, iii., 53, for the fraternities of the Holy Ghost

in Burgundy. Blaise de Montluc's proposition of a league with the king as

its head had been declined; the monarch needed no other tie to his

subjects than that which already bound them together. Agrippa d'Aubigne,

Hist. univ., liv. iv., c. v. (i. 206.)

[390] Letter of Charles IX. to M. de Matignon, July 31, 1565, _apud_

Capefigue, Hist. de la Reforme, de la Ligue, etc., ii. 419, 420. The same

letter stipulated for the better protection of the Protestants by freeing

them from domiciliary visits, etc.

[391] Maniquet to Gordes, August 1, 1565, Conde MSS. in Aumale, i. 528.

[392] Letter of Villegagnon to Granvelle, May 25, 1564, Papiers d'etat,

vii. 660. The Huguenots figure as "les _Aygnos_, c'est-a-dire, en langue

de Suisse, rebelles et conjures contre leur prince pour la liberte."

[393] Letter of May 27, 1564, Ibid., vii., 666.

[394] Letter of N. de St. Remy, June 5, 1564. Ibid., viii. 24, 25. "Le

peuple l'aymeroit trop mieulx pour roy que nul aultre de Bourbon."

[395] Catharine never forgave Ambassador Chantonnay for having boasted

that, with Throkmorton's assistance, he could overturn the State. "Jusqu'a

dire que Trokmarton, qui estoit ambassadeur d'Angleterre au commencement

de ces troubles, pour l'intelligence qu'il a avec les Huguenots, et luy

pour celle qu'il a avec les Catholiques de ce royaume, sont suffisans pour

subvertir cet Estat." Letter to the Bishop of Rennes, Dec. 13, 1563, La

Laboureur, i. 784.

[396] Granvelle to Philip II., July 15, 1565. Papiers d'etat, ix. 399,

402, etc.

[397] See Alex. Sutherland's Achievements of the Knights of Malta (Phila.,

1846), ii. 121, which contains an interesting popular account of this

memorable leaguer.

[398] Papiers d'etat du card. de Granvelle, ix. 545, etc.

[399] Giovambatista Adriani, Istoria de' suoi tempi (Ed. of Milan, 1834),

ii. 221.

[400] Sir Thomas Smith to Cecil, Nantes, Oct. 12, 1565, State Paper

Office, Calendar.

[401] Sir Thomas Smith to Leicester, Nov. 23, 1565, State Paper Office.

[402] "Al qual tempo si riservo tale esecuzione per alcuni sospetti, che

apparivano negli Ugonotti, e per difficolta di condurvegli tutti, e ancora

perche piu sicuro luogo era Parigi che Molino." Giovambatista Adriani,

Istoria de' suoi tempi (lib. decimottavo), ii. 221.

[403] De Thou, iii. (liv. xxxix.) 660-664; Castelnau, liv. vi., c. ii.;

Jehan de la Fosse, 76; Davila, bk. iii. 98.

[404] The edict, of course, is not to be found in Isambert, or any other

collection of French laws; but a letter in Lestoile (ed. Michaud, p. 19),

to whom we are indebted for most of our knowledge of the event, refers to

the very wording of the document ("ce sont les mots de l'edict"). The

letter is entitled "Memoire d'un differend meu a Moulins en 1566, entre le

Cardinal de Lorraine et le Chancellier de l'Hopital," and begins with the

words: "Je vous advise que _du jour d'hier_," etc. M. Bonnet has

discovered and published, in the Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot.

franc., xxiv. (1875) 412-415, a second and fuller account, dated Moulins,

March 16, 1566 (MS. French Nat. Library, Dupuy, t. lxxxvi., f. 158). As

was seen above (p. 155), this altercation has been generally confounded

with that of two years earlier. The letter given by Lestoile (see above)

is also published in Mem. de Conde, v. 50, but is referred to the wrong

event by the editor. Prof. Soldan (Gesch. des Prot. in Fr., ii. 199),

follows the Mem. de Conde in the reference.

[405] Not many months before this occurrence a guest at the Prince of

Orange's table told Montigny that there were no Huguenots in

Burgundy--meaning the Spanish part, or Franche-Comte. "If so," replied the

unfortunate nobleman, "the Burgundians cannot be men of intelligence,

since those who have much mind for the most part are Huguenots;" a saying

which, reported to Philip, no doubt made a deep impression on his bigoted

soul. Pap. d'etat du card. de Granvelle, vii. 187, 188. The Burgundians of

France were equally intolerant of the reformed doctrines.

[406] "Je ne suis venu pour troubler; mais pour empescher que ne

troubliez, comme avez faict par le passe, belistre que vous estes."

Lestoile and Mem. de Conde, _ubi supra_.

[407] See Prescott, Philip II., and Motley, Rise of the Dutch Republic.

[408] M. Charles L. Frossard, of Lille, discovered the MSS. on which the

following account is wholly based, in the Archives of the Department du

Nord, preserved in that city. As these papers appear to have been

inedited, and are referred to, so far as I can learn, by no previous

historian, I have deemed it proper to deviate from the rule to which I

have ordinarily adhered, of relating in detail only those events that

occurred within the ancient limits of the kingdom of France. However, the

reformation at Cateau-Cambresis received its first impulses from France.

Mr. Frossard communicated the papers to the Bulletin de la Societe de

l'histoire du protestantisme francais, iii. (1854), 255-264, 396-417,

525-538. They are of unimpeachable accuracy and authenticity.

[409] Lille MSS., _ubi supra_, 403.

[410] "De sorte qu'ils esperent que lesdits de la requeste et du compromis

les adsisteront suyvant leur promesse, a ce qu'ils puissent jouyr de la

mesme liberte accordez a Bruxelles, ascavoir, que l'exercise de la

religion aye lieu par tout ou il a este usite auparavant, comme ceulx du

Chastel en Cambresis ont eue aussy, et ce seulement par maniere de

provision, jusques a ce que aultrement il y soict pourveu par le Roy avec

l'advis des estatz, estimans que le Roy ne souffrira rien en son pays qui

ne soict conforme ausdites ordonnances de l'empire." Lille MSS., _ubi

supra_.

[411] Letter of P. de Montmorency, Sept. 11, 1566, Lille MSS., _ubi

supra_.

[412] Motley, Dutch Republic, i. 458-462.

[413] Lille MSS., _ubi supra_.

[414] Memoires de Claude Haton, i. 416, 417.

[415] The satirical literature of the period would of itself fill a

volume. The Huguenot songs in derision of the mass are particularly

caustic. See M. Bordier, Le Chansonnier Huguenot, and the note to the last

chapter. The Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. franc., x. (1861),

40, reprints a "dizain" commencing--

"Nostre cure est un fin boulanger,

Qui en son art est sage et bien appris:

Il vend bien cher son petit pain leger,

Combien qu'il ait le froment a bon prix."

[416] "Chose indigne d'un prince tel qu'il se disoit." Journal d'un cure

ligueur (Jehan de la Fosse), 73.

[417] See the moderate account of the dispassionate Roman Catholic De

Thou, iii. (liv. xxxix.) 666-670. Also Agrippa d'Aubigne, liv. iv., c. vi.

(i. 208), and Discours des troubles advenus en la ville de Pamiers, le 5

juin 1566, Archives curieuses (Cimber et Danjou), vi. 309-343. The

massacre of Protestants at Foix was caused by an exaggerated and false

account of the commotion at Pamiers, carried thither by a fugitive

Augustinian monk.