[695] Castelnau, liv. vii., c. 7; De Thou, iv. 192; Jean de Serres, iii.

327 (who states the Roman Catholic loss as higher than given in the text).

Brantome ascribes the defeat of Strozzi to the circumstance that the

matches of _his_ troops were put out by the rain, and that his infantry,

unsupported by cavalry, was at the mercy of Mouy and the Huguenot

troopers. Colonnels fr., OEuvres, ed. Lalanne, vi. 60. But the "Discours

envoye de la Rochelle a la Royne d'Angleterre" (La Mothe Fenelon, ii. 160)

states that the Huguenots would have done much greater execution and

perhaps put an end to the dispute, "n'eust ete que, tout ce jour la, la

pluye fut si extreme et si grande que noz harquebouziers ne pouvoient plus

jouer." La Roche Abeille, or La Roche l'Abeille, is a hamlet seventeen

miles south of Limoges.

[696] According to J. A. Gabutius, the biographer of Pius V. (sec. 120, p.

646), the Pope sent 4,500 foot and 1,000 horse, and Cosmo, Duke of

Florence, 1,000 foot and 200 horse. Besides these, many nobles attached

themselves to the expedition as volunteers. Santa Fiore was instructed to

leave France _the moment he should perceive that the heretics were treated

with_. "Quod si ipse summus copiarum Dux, vel de pace vel de rerum

compositione quidquam Catholicae religioni damnosum praesentiret; [Pius V.]

imperavit e vestigio aut converso itinere in Italiam remearet, aut ad

Catholicum exercitum in Belgio cum haereticis bellantem sese conferret et

adjungeret."

[697] De Thou, iv. 192; Vie de Coligny, 364; Gasparis Colinii Vita, 81;

Jean de Serres, iii. 331. Charles IX. in a letter to La Mothe Fenelon,

from St. Germains des Pres, July 27, 1569, alludes to the successes of the

Huguenots, whom Anjou cannot resist, "ayant donne conge a la pluspart de

sa gendarmerye de s'en aller faire ung tour en leurs maisons." Corresp.

diplom., vii. 35, 36. The furlough, which was to expire on the 15th of

August, was afterward extended by Anjou to the 1st of October.

[698] See Vie de Coligny, 364; De Thou, iv. 192; Jean de Serres, iii. 345,

346.

[699] Yet the "Guisards" were never tired of asserting the contrary. Sir

Thomas Smith tells us that Cardinal Lorraine maintained to him that "they

[the Huguenots] desired to bring all to the form of a republic, like

Geneva." Smith records the conversation at length in a letter to Cecil,

wishing his correspondent to perceive "how he had need of a long spoon

that should eat potage with the Devil." The discussion must have been an

earnest one. Sir Thomas was not disposed to boast of being a finished

courtier. In fact, he declares that, as to framing compliments, he is "the

verriest calf and beast in the world," and threatens to get one Bizzarro

to write him some, which he will get translated (for all sorts of people),

and learn them by heart. He managed on this occasion to speak his mind to

Lorraine pretty freely respecting the real origin of the war (the

conversation took place in 1562), and told the churchman the

uncomplimentary truth, that his brother's deed at Vassy was the cause of

all the troubles. Smith to Cecil, Rouen, Nov. 7, 1562, State Paper Office.

[700] Not to speak of Noyers, belonging to Conde, Coligny's stately

residence at Chatillon-sur-Loing fell into the hands of the enemy. In

direct violation of the terms of the capitulation, the palace was robbed

of all its costly furniture, which was sent to Paris and sold at auction.

Chateau-Renard, which also was the property of Coligny, was taken by the

Roman Catholics, and became the nest of a company of half-soldiers,

half-robbers, under an Italian--one Fretini--who laid under contribution

travellers on the road to Lyons. De Thou, iv. 198, 199; Agrippa d'Aubigne,

i. 292.

[701] How deeply the Guises felt the taunt that they were strangers in

France, appears from a sentence of the cardinal's to the Bishop of Rennes

(Trent, Nov. 24, 1563), wherein, alluding to the recent birth of a son to

the Duke of Lorraine and Catharine de' Medici's daughter, he says that he

is "merveilleusement aise ... pource que sera occasion aux Huguenots de ne

nous dire plus princes estrangers." Le Laboureur, ii. 313.

[702] "Copie d'une Remonstrance que ceulx de la Rochelle ont mande avoyr

envoyee au Roy, apres l'arrivee du duc de Deux Ponts." La Mothe Fenelon,

ii. 179-188. In Latin, Jean de Serres, iii. 333-345. Gasparis Colinii

Vita, 80.

[703] Mem. de Castelnau, liv. vii., c. 6; Jean de Serres, iii. 345, 346;

De Thou, _ubi supra_.

[704] "Lusignan la pucelle." De Thou, iv. 197; Jean de Serres, iii. 331;

Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 290.

[705] Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 294; De Thou, iv. (liv. xlv.) 200-202; Jean de

Serres, iii. 347.

[706] Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 298: "Presse par les interests et murmures des

Poictevins, il sentit en cet endroit une des incommoditez qui se trouve

aux partis de plusieurs testes; sa prudence donc cedant a sa necessite,"

etc.

[707] Letter of Sept. 8, 1569, Wright, Queen Elizabeth, i. 323.

[708] Jean de Serres, iii. 348, etc.; Castelnau, liv. vii., c. 7; De Thou,

iv. 205-214; Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 297, etc.

[709] Journal d'un cure ligueur (Jehan de la Fosse), 109.

[710] Jean de Serres, iii. 332; Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 292; De Thou, etc.

[711] Agrippa d'Aubigne, liv. v., c. 13 (i. 293); De Thou, iv. (liv. xlv.)

204; Jehan de la Fosse, 108.

[712] That Renee was, like all the other prominent Huguenots, from the

very first opposed to a resort to the horrors of war, is certain. Agrippa

d'Aubigne goes farther than this, and asserts (i. 293) that she had become

estranged from Conde in consequence of her blaming the Huguenots for their

assumption of arms: "blasmant ceux qui portoient les armes, jusques a

estre devenus ennemis, le Prince de Conde et elle, sur cette querelle." I

can scarcely credit this account, of which I see no confirmation, unless

it be in a letter to an unknown correspondent, in the National Library

(MSS. Coll. Bethune, 8703, fol. 68), of which a translation is given in

Memorials of Renee of France (London, 1859), 263, 264. It is dated

Montargis, Aug. 20, 1569: "Praying you ... to employ yourself, as I know

you are accustomed to do, in whatsoever way shall be possible to you, in

striving to arrive at a good peace, in which endeavor I, on my part, shall

put forth all my power, if it shall please God. And if it cannot be a

general one, _at least it shall be to those who desire it, and who belong

to us_." Who, however, was the correspondent? The subscription, "Your good

cousin, Renee of France," would appear to point to Admiral Coligny or some

one of equal rank. Louis de Conde was no longer living.

[713] Letter of Villegagnon to the Duchess of Ferrara, Montereau, March 4,

1569, _apud_ Mem. de Claude Haton, ii. Appendix, 1109.

[714] It must be remembered that this was a different place from

Chatillon-sur-Loing, Admiral Coligny's residence, which was not more than

fifteen miles distant. The places are frequently confounded with each

other. The Loing is a tributary of the Seine, into which it empties below

Montereau, after flowing by Chatillon-sur-Loing, Montargis, and Nemours.

[715] The fullest and most graphic account of this interesting incident I

find in Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 293 (liv. v., c. 13). See De Thou, iv. (liv.

xlv.) 204, and Memorials of Renee of France (London, 1859), 261-263. The

Huguenot horsemen numbered not eight hundred, as the author last quoted

states, but about one hundred and twenty--"six vingts."

[716] The "Discours de ce qui avint touchant la Croix de Gastines, l'an

1571, vers Noel" (Memoires de l'etat de France sous Charles IX., and

Archives curieuses, vi. 475, etc.), contains the quaint decree of the

parliament. See Journal d'un cure ligueur (Jehan de la Fosse), 107. As

actually erected, the monument consisted of a high stone pyramid,

surmounted by a gilt crucifix. Besides the decree in question, there were

engraved some Latin verses of so confused a construction that it was

suggested that the composer intended to cast ridicule both on the Roman

Catholics and on the Huguenots. M. de Thou, who was a boy of sixteen at

the time--and who, as son of the first President of Parliament, and

himself, at a later time, a leading member and president _a mortier_ of

that body, enjoyed rare advantages for arriving at the truth--declares

(iv. 488) that the elder Gastines was a venerable man, beloved by his

neighbors, and, indeed, by the entire city; and that the execution was

compassed by a cabal of seditious persons, who, by dint of soliciting the

judges, of exciting the people, of inducing them to congregate and follow

the judges with threats as they left parliament, succeeded in causing to

be punished with death, in the persons of the Gastines, an offence which,

until then, had been punished only with exile or a pecuniary fine.

[717] Jehan de la Fosse, 107, 108.

[718] Journal d'un cure ligueur, 110; Mem. de Castelnau, liv. vii., c. 8;

De Thou, iv. (liv. l) 216; Gasp. Colinii Vita (1569), 87; Memoirs of G. de

Coligny, 140, etc. The arret of the parliament is in Archives curieuses,

vi. 377, etc. The Latin life of Coligny (89-91) inserts a manly and

Christian letter, in the author's possession, written (Oct. 16, 1569) by

the admiral to his own children and those of his deceased brother,

D'Andelot, who were studying at La Rochelle, shortly after receiving

intelligence of this judicial sentence and of the wanton injury done to

his palace at Chatillon-sur-Loing. "We must follow our Head, Jesus Christ,

who himself leads the way," he writes. "Men have deprived us of all that

it was in their power to take from us, and if it be God's will that we

never recover what we have lost, still we shall be happy, and our

condition will be a good one, inasmuch as these losses have not arisen

from any harm done by us to those who have brought them upon us, but

solely from the hatred they bear toward me for the reason that it has

pleased God to make use of me in assisting His Church."

[719] Jean de Serres, iii. 356, 357; Mem. of Coligny, 136; De Thou, iv.

216, 217; Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 302.

[720] Jean de Serres, iii. 363; De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvi.) 221; Castelnau,

vii., c. 8.

[721] De Thou, iv. 216; Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 302. The place was also

known by the name of Foie la Vineuse.

[722] Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 305.

[723] In the heat of the engagement, the excited imaginations of the

combatants even saw visions of celestial champions, as Theseus was fabled

to have appeared at Marathon. A renegade Protestant captain afterward

assured the Cardinal of Alessandria that on that eventful day he had seen

in mid-air an array of warriors with refulgent armor and blood-red swords,

threatening the Huguenot lines in which he fought; and he had instantly

embraced the Roman Catholic faith, and vowed perpetual service under the

banners of the pontiff. There were others, we are told, to corroborate his

account of the prodigy. Joannis Antonii Gabutii Vita Pii Quinti Papae (Acta

Sanctorum, Maii 5), Sec. 125, pp. 647, 648.

[724] Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 307. "Ne se trouva oncques gens plus fidelles

au camp catholicque que lesditz estrangers, et singulierement les Suisses,

lesquelz ne pardonnerent a ung seul de leur nation germanique de ceux qui

tomberent en leurs mains." Mem. de Claude Haton, ii. 582.

[725] "Che non avesse il comandamanto di lui osservato d'ammazzar subito

qualunque heretico gli fosse venuto alle mani." Catena, Vita di Pio V.,

_apud_ White, Mass. of St. Bartholomew, 305, and De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvi.)

228. With singular inconsistency--so impossible is it generally to carry

out these horrible theories of extermination--the Roman pontiff himself

afterward liberated D'Acier without exacting any ransom. De Thou, _ubi

supra_. "Si Santafiore lui avoit obei," says an annotator, "Jacques de

Crussol (D'Acier) ne se seroit pas converti, et n'auroit pas laisse une si

illustre poterite."

[726] On the battle of Moncontour, consult J. de Serres, iii. 357-362; De

Thou, iv. 224-228; Castelnau, liv. vii., c. 9; Agrippa d'Aubigne, liv. v.,

c. 17; a Roman Catholic relation in Groen van Prinsterer, Archives de la

Maison d'Orange Nassau, iii. 324-326.

[727] "Nihil est enim ea pietate misericordiaque crudelius, quae in impios

et ultima supplicia meritos confertur." Pius V. to Charles IX., Oct. 20,

1569. Pii V. Epistolae (Antwerp, 1640), 242. The French victories of Jarnac

and Moncontour were celebrated by a medal struck at Rome, with the legend,

"_Fecit potentiam in bracchio suo, dispersit superbos_," and a

representation of Pius kneeling and invoking the aid of heaven against the

heretics. In the distance is seen a combat, and above it appears the

Divine Being directing the issue. Figured in "Le Tresor de Numismatique et

de Glyptique, par Paul Delaroche" (Medailles des Papes, plate 15, No. 5),

Paris, 1839.

[728] La Mothe Fenelon, vii. 65, etc., from Simancas MSS. So Claude Haton,

who is rarely behindhand in such matters, makes the Protestants lose

fifteen thousand or sixteen thousand men. Memoires, ii. 582. Admiral

Coligny was for a time believed by the court to be dead or mortally

wounded, "mais ne fut rien." Ibid., _ubi supra_.

[729] If we may credit the curate Claude, Catharine de' Medici alone was

vexed at the completeness of the rout and the number of Huguenots slain,

"inasmuch as she gave them as much support as possible, and encouraged

them in rebellion, that the civil wars might continue, in which she took

pleasure because of the management of affairs they threw into her

hands"--"pour le maniment des affaires qu'elle entreprenoit et manioit."

Memoires, ii. 583.

[730] Journal d'un cure ligueur (Jehan de la Fosse), 110.

[731] Jehan de la Fosse, 112. The date is stated as "about Oct. 17th."

[732] Ranke, Civil Wars and Monarchy in France, i. 241.

[733] De Thou, iv. 230; Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 310. The murderer's name is

variously written Maurevel, Moureveil, Montrevel, etc.

[734] This letter, respecting which I confess that I find some

difficulties, possesses a history of its own. On the 13th of Ventose, in

the second year of the republic, the original was sent to the national

convention, which, the next day, ordered its insertion in the official

bulletin, and its preservation in the national library, as emanating "from

one of the Neros of France." See App. to Journal de Lestoile, ed. Michaud,

pt. i., p. 307, 308, and the revolutionary bulletins.

[735] "Ut sese Montalbani cum Vicecomitibus conjungerent, et sperantes

Andium, dum se persequeretur, ab San-Jani oppugnandae instituto

destiturum." De statu rel. et reip., iii. 365.

[736] See Soldan, iii. 372, 373; Anquetil, Esprit de la ligue, i. 317,

etc.

[737] With his usual inaccuracy, Davila speaks of Saint Jean d'Angely as

"excellently fortified" (Eng. trans., p. 166).

[738] This number, given by Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 313, and by De Thou, iv.

(liv. xlv.) 242, seems the most probable. La Popeliniere swells it to near

10,000 (Soldan, ii. 375), while Castelnau, liv. vii., c. 10, reduces it to

"over 8,000." Strange to say, Jean de Serres, who, writing and publishing

this portion of his history within a year after the conclusion of the

third civil war, almost uniformly gives the highest estimates of the Roman

Catholic losses, here makes them about 2,000, or lower than any one else.

[739] Agrippa d'Aubigne, who was generous enough to appreciate valor even

in an enemy, calls him "celui qui entamoit toutes les parties difficiles,

a qui rien n'estoit dur ny hazardeux, qui en tous les exploits de son

temps avoit fait les coups de partie" (i. 312). Lestoile in his journal

(p. 22, Ed. Mich.) affirms that he was killed just as he had uttered a

blasphemous inquiry of the Huguenots, where was now their "Dieu le Fort,"

and taunted them with his having become "a ceste heure leur Dieu le

Faible." "Le Dieu, le Fort, l'Eternel parlera," was the first line of a

favorite Huguenot psalm.

[740] On the siege of Saint Jean d'Angely, see J. de Serres, iii. 369,

370; Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 311-313; De Thou, iv. 238-242; Castelnau, liv.

vii., c. 10. It scarcely needs to be mentioned that Davila, bk. v., p.

166, knows nothing of any treachery on the part of the Roman Catholics,

but duly mentions that De Piles did not observe his promise.

[741] Davila, bk. v. (Eng. tr., p. 163 and 167); De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvi.)

250. Gabutius, in his life of Pius V., transcribes the exultant

inscription, dictated by the pontiff himself (Sec. 126, p. 648), and claims

for the canonized subject of his panegyric the chief credit of the

victory. According to him the Italians were the first to engage with the

heretics, and the last to desist from the pursuit.

[742] Davila, bk. 5th (Eng. tr., p. 167); Mem. de Claude Haton, ii. 591.

[743] "L'hiver arriva, il fallut mettre les troupes en quartier; et le

fruit d'une victoire si complette, l'effort d'une armee royale si

formidable, fut la prise de quelques places mediocres, pendant que La

Rochelle, la plus utile de toutes, restoit aux vaincus, et que les princes

retablissoient les affaires, a l'aide d'un delai qu'ils n'avoient point

ose se promettre." Anquetil, L'Esprit de la ligue, i. 317.

[744] J. de Serres, iii. 372; De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvi.) 234, 235, who

makes the loss in the first siege 300 men, and in the second over 1,000

horsemen; Agrippa d'Aubigne, Hist. univ., l. v., c. 19 (i. 315, 316), who

states the total at 1,400 foot and near 400 horse; while Castelnau, l.

vii., c. 10, speaks of but 300 in all. Vezelay, famous in the history of

the Crusades (see Michaud, Hist. des Croisades, ii. 125) as the place

where St. Bernard in 1146 preached the Cross to an immense throng from all

parts of Christendom, is equidistant from Bourges and Dijon, and a little

north of a line uniting these two cities.

[745] De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvi.) 246, 247; Agrippa d'Aubigne, liv. v., c.

19 (i. 317); J. de Serres, iii. 370. About twenty prisoners were taken, to

whom their captors promised their lives. Afterward there were strenuous

efforts made, especially by the priests, to have them put to death as

rebels and traitors. M. de la Chastre resisted the pressure, disregarding

even a severe order of the Parliament of Paris, accompanied by the threat

of the enormous fine of 2,000 marks of gold, which bade him send them to

the capital. (Hist. du Berry, etc., par M. Louis Raynal, 1846, iv, 104,

_apud_ Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. fr., iv. (1856) 27.) Even

Charles IX. wrote to him, but the governor was inflexible. His noble reply

has come to light, dated Jan. 21, 1570, just one month after the failure

of the Protestant scheme. After urging the danger of retaliation by the

Huguenots of La Charite and Sancerre upon the prisoners they held, to the

number of more than forty, and the inexpediency of accustoming the people

of Bourges to bloody executions which they would not fail to repeat, he

concludes his remonstrance in these striking words: "Nevertheless, Sire,

if you should find it expedient, for the good of your service, to put them

to death, the channel of the courts of justice is the most proper, without

recompensing my services, or sullying my reputation with a stain that will

ever be a ground of reproach against me. And I beg you, Sire, to make use

of me in other matters more worthy of a gentleman having the heart of his

ancestors, who for five hundred years have served their king without stain

of treachery or act unworthy of a gentleman." Inedited letter, _apud_

Bulletin, _ubi supra_, 28, 29. M. de la Chastre became one of the marshals

of France. He conducted, three years later, the terrible siege of

Sancerre, famous in history. He had the reputation among the Huguenots of

being very severe, if not bloodthirsty--a reputation which he deserved, if

he was, as Henry of Navarre styles him, "un des principaux executeurs de

la Sainct Barthelemy." (Deposition in the trial of La Mole, Coconnas, etc.

Archives curieuses, viii. 150.) La Chastre tried to clear himself of the

imputation, by recalling the events of 1569. To Jean de Lery he maintained

"qu'il n'est point sanguinaire, ainsi qu'on a opinion, comme aussi il

l'avoit desja bien monstre aux autres troubles, lorsqu'il avoit en sa

puissance les sieurs d'Espeau, baron de Renty, et le capitaine Fontaine,

qui est en son armee: car encores que la cour du parlement de Paris luy

fist commandement de les representer, a peine de 2,000 marcs d'or, il ne

le voulut faire." Jean de Lery, "Discours de l'extreme famine ... dans la

ville de Sancerre," Archives curieuses, viii. 67.

[746] De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvi.) 235-237; Agrippa d'Aubigne, liv. v., c. 19

(i. 316, 317); Jean de Serres, iii. 368, 369.

[747] "Si est-ce que Dieu est tres-doux."

[748] Agrippa d'Aubigne, l. v., c. 18 (i. 309). The words were, as M.

Douen reminds us (Clement Marot et le Psautier huguenot, 1878, 13) the

first line of the seventy-third psalm of the Huguenot psalter.

[749] De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvi.) 232; Jean de Serres, iii. 366.

[750] Ibid., iii. 372, etc.

[751] Even in December, Languet could scarcely imagine that Coligny would

not return and winter at La Rochelle. Letter of Dec. 12, 1569, Epist.

secr., i. 130.

[752] Mem. de Castelnau, liv. vii., c. 12.

[753] At least, so says Agrippa d'Aubigne, liv. v., c. 18 (i. 309).

[754] De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvi.) 233; Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 309, 318 (liv.

v., cs. 18 and 20). The two authorities are not in exact agreement, De

Thou stating that Coligny went to Montauban before his march to meet

Montgomery, while D'Aubigne makes him follow the left bank of the Dordogne

down to Aiguillon. Gasparis Colinii Vita (1575), 91, 92, supports De Thou.

[755] De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvi.) 249; Agrippa d'Aubigne, liv. v., c. 20 (i.

318); Gasparis Colinii Vita (1575), 94. The author of this valuable and

authentic life of the admiral gives a full description of the bridge.

Professor Soldan is mistaken in saying that the bridge was not yet

completed (Geschichte des Prot. in Frank., ii. 377). It had been

completed, and two days had been spent in taking over the German cavalry

("opere effecto, biduoque in traducendis Germanis equitibus consumpto")

when the disaster occurred.

[756] Languet, Letter of January 3, 1570, Epist. secretae, i. 133.

[757] Gasparis Colinii Vita (1576), 91; Vie de Coligny (Cologne, 1686),

378, where the account of the expedition, however, is full of blunders.

Mr. Browning, following this untrustworthy authority, makes Admiral

Coligny cross the Garonne and pass through Bearn, on his way from Saintes

to Montauban! A glance at the map of France will show that this would have

required a much greater bend to the right than he in reality made to the

left, since Bearn lay entirely south of the river Adour. To reach Bearn by

land _before_ crossing the Garonne, as the "Vie" evidently imagines he

did, would almost have required Aladdin's lamp. In fact, the entire

passage is a jumble of the exploits of Montgomery and Coligny.

[758] La Popeliniere, _apud_ Soldan, ii. 378.

[759] De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvii.) 303-306; Agrippa d'Aubigne, liv. v., c.

20 (i. 319, 320); Davila, bk. v., p. 168; Raoul de Cazenove,

"Rapin-Thoyras, sa famille," etc., 49, 50.

[760] La Mothe Fenelon, vii. 81.

[761] "L'imprudence des Catholiques, lesquels laissant rouler, sans nul

empeschement, ceste petite pelote de neige, en peu de temps elle _se fit

grosse comme une maison_." Mem. de la Noue, c. xxix.

[762] Of course, Davila (bk. v., p. 167, 168), who rarely rejects a good

story of intrigue, especially if there be a dainty bit of treachery

connected with it, adopts unhesitatingly the popular rumor of Marshal

Damville's infidelity to his trust.

[763] St. Etienne possessed already, at the time the "Vie de Coligny" was

written, that branch of industry which still constitutes one of its chief

sources of wealth. It was described as a "petite ville fameuse par la

quantite d'armes qui s'y fait, et qui se transportent dans les pais

etrangers, en sorte que c'est ce qui nourrit presque toute la province."

P. 381.

[764] Agrippa d'Aubigne, liv. v., c. 21 (i. 322).

[765] Gasparis Colinii Vita, 97, 98.

[766] Arnay-le-Duc, or Rene-le-Duc, as the place was indifferently called,

is situated about thirty miles south-west of Dijon, on the road to Autun.

[767] De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvii.) 312-314; Agrippa d'Aubigne, liv. v., c.

22 (i. 321-325); Castelnau, liv. vii., c. 12; Davila, bk. v. 169.

[768] De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvii.) 315. Davila attributes to the connivance

of Marshal Cosse the escape of the Protestants from Arnay-le-Duc. This is

consistent with the same writer's statement that it was the marshal's

intentional slowness that enabled Coligny to seize upon Arnay-le-Duc and

post himself so advantageously.

[769] Castelnau, liv. vii., c. 10.

[770] De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvii.) 301.

[771] De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvii.) 302.

[772] The articles, a copy of which was sent to the ambassador at the

court of Elizabeth, in a letter from Angers, Feb. 6, 1570, are printed in

La Mothe Fenelon, vii. 86-88. I omit reference in the text to the articles

prohibiting foreign alliances and the levy of money, prescribing the

dismissal of foreign troops, etc. The two cities referred to in the fifth

article are rather to be regarded as places of worship--the only places in

the kingdom where Protestant worship would be tolerated--than as pledges

for the performance of the projected edict, as Prof. Soldan apparently

regards them chiefly, if not exclusively. Geschichte des Prot. in

Frankreich, ii. 379.

[773] Charles to ambassador, Jan. 14th; letter of Catharine, same date; La

Mothe Fenelon, vii. 77, 78.

[774] See Froude, History of England, x. 9. etc.

[775] De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvii.) 305. Cf. Soulier, Hist. des edits de

pacification, 92.

[776] De Thou, iv. 311. It was at St. Etienne in Forez, that the incident

occurred.

[777] For a fuller discussion of these circumstances than the limits of

this history will permit me to give, I must refer the reader to the work

of Prof. Soldan, Geschichte des Protestantismus in Frankreich, ii. 385.

[778] La Noue was one of the most modest, as well as one of the most

capable of generals. "I have felt myself so much the more obliged to speak

of it," writes the historian De Thou respecting the battle of Sainte

Gemme, "as La Noue, the most generous of men, who has written on the civil

wars with as much fidelity as judgment, always disposed to render

conspicuous the merit of others, and very reserved respecting his own, has

not said a word of this victory." De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvii.) 320.

[779] Brantome has written the eulogy of this personage, whose true name

was Antoine Escalin. He was first ambassador at Constantinople, where his

good services secured his appointment as general of the galleys. After

undergoing the displeasure of the king, and a three years' imprisonment

for his participation in the massacre of the Vaudois, he was reinstated in

office. Subsequently he was temporarily displaced by the grand prior, and

by the Marquis of Elbeuf. It is an odd mistake of Mr. Henry White (Mass.

of St. Bartholomew, p. 14, note) when he says: "In the religious wars he

sided with the Huguenots." Brantome says: "Il haissoit mortellement ces

gens-la."

[780] De Thou, iv. 316-325; Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 325-335.

[781] Ibid., _ubi supra_.

[782] La Mothe Fenelon, iii. 210, 215. Despatch of June 21st.

[783] De Thou, iv. 287, 288; Kluckholn, Briefe Friedrich des Frommen, ii.

398.

[784] La Mothe Fenelon, iii. 256, 257.

[785] Letter of April 17, 1570, Rochambeau, Lettres d'Antoine de Bourbon

et de Jehanne d'Albret (Paris, 1877), 299.

[786] Chassanee in his "Consuetudines ducatus Burgundiae, fereque totius

Galliae" (Lyons, 1552), 50, defines the "haute justice" by the possession

of the power of life and death: "De secundo vero gradu meri imperii, seu

altae justiciae, est habere gladii potestatem ad animadvertendum in

facinorosos homines."

[787] See the edict itself in Jean de Serres, iii. 375-390; summaries in

De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvii.) 328, 329, and Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 364, 365.

[788] Journal d'un cure ligueur, 120.

[789] Ibid., _ubi supra_.

[790] Castelnau, liv. vii., c. 12. The work of this very fair-minded

historian terminates with the conclusion of the peace. De Thou, iv. (liv.

xlvii.) 327.

[791] "On la disoit boiteuse et mal-assise," says Henri de Mesmes himself

in his account of these transactions, adding with a delicate touch of

sarcasm: "Je n'en ay point vu depuis vingt-cinq ans qui ait guere dure."

Le Laboureur, Add. aux Mem. de Castelnau, ii. 776. Prof. Soldan has

already exposed the mistake of Sismondi and others, who apply the popular

nickname to the preceding peace of Longjumeau. See _ante_, chap. xv.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE PEACE OF SAINT GERMAIN.

[Sidenote: Sincerity of the peace.]

A problem of cardinal importance here confronts us, in the inquiry whether

the peace which had at length dawned upon France was or was not concluded

in good faith by the young king and his advisers. Was the treaty a

necessity forced upon the court by the losses of men and treasure

sustained during three years of almost continual civil conflict? Were the

queen mother and those in whose hands rested the chief control of affairs,

really tired of a war in which nothing was to be gained and everything was

in jeopardy, a war whose most brilliant successes had been barren of

substantial fruits, and had, in the sequel, been stripped of the greater

part of their glory by the masterly conduct of a defeated opponent? Or,

was the peace only a prelude to the massacre--a skilfully devised snare to

entrap incautious and credulous enemies?

The latter view is that which was entertained by the majority of the

contemporaries of the events, who, whether friends or foes of Charles and

Catharine, whether Papists or Protestants, could not avoid reading the

treaty of pacification in the light of the occurrences of the "bloody

nuptials." The Huguenot author of the "Tocsin against the murderers" and

Capilupi, author of the appreciative "Stratagem of Charles the

Ninth"--however much they may disagree upon other points--unite in

regarding the royal edict as a piece of treachery from beginning to end.

It was even believed by many of the most intelligent Protestants that the

massacre was already perfected in the minds of its authors so far back as

the conference of Bayonne, five years before the peace of St. Germain, in

accordance with the suggestions of Philip the Second and of Alva. This

last supposition, however, has been overthrown by the discovery of the

correspondence of Alva himself, in which he gives an account of the

discussions which he held with Catharine de' Medici on that memorable

occasion. For we have seen that, far from convincing the queen mother of

the necessity for adopting sanguinary measures to crush the Huguenots, the

duke constantly deplores to his master the obstinacy of Catharine in still

clinging to her own views of toleration. It seems equally clear that the

peace of St. Germain was no part of the project of a contemplated massacre

of the Protestants. The Montmorencies, not the Guises, were in power, and

were responsible for it. The influence of the former had become paramount,

and that of the latter had waned. The Cardinal of Lorraine had left the

court in disgust and retired to his archbishopric of Rheims, when he found

that the policy of war, to which he and his family were committed, was

about to be abandoned. Even in the earlier negotiations he had no part,

while the queen mother and the moderate Morvilliers were omnipotent.[792]

And when Francis Walsingham made his appearance at the French court, to

congratulate Charles the Ninth upon the restoration of peace, he found his

strongest reasons of hope for its permanence, next to the disposition and

the necessities of the king, in the royal "misliking toward the house of

Guise, who have been the nourishers of these wars,"[793] and in the

increase of the royal "favor to Montmorency, a chief worker of this peace,

who now carrieth the whole sway of the court, and is restored to the

government of Paris."[794]

At home and abroad, the peace was equally opposed by those who could not

have failed to be its warmest advocates had it been treacherously

designed. We have already seen that both Pope Pius the Fifth, and the King

of Spain insisted upon a continuance of the war, and offered augmented

assistance, in case the government would pledge itself to make no compact

with the heretical rebels. The pontiff especially was unremitting in his

persuasions and threats; denouncing the righteous judgment of God upon the

king who preferred personal advantage to the claims of religion, and

reminding him that the divine anger was wont to punish the sins of rulers

by taking away their kingdoms and giving them to others.[795] The project

of a massacre of Protestants, had it in reality been entertained by the

French court while adopting the peace, could scarcely have been kept so

profound a secret from the king and the pontiff who had long been urging a

resort to such measures, nor would Pius and Philip have been suffered

through ignorance to persist in so open a hostility to the compact which

was intended to render its execution feasible.

[Sidenote: The designs of Catharine de' Medici.]

If the Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day, as enacted on the fatal Sunday

of August, was not premeditated in the form it then assumed--if the peace

of St. Germain was not, as so many have imagined, a trick to overwhelm the

Huguenots taken unawares--are we, therefore, to believe that the idea of

such a deed of blood was as yet altogether foreign to the mind of

Catharine de' Medici? I dare not affirm that it was. On the contrary,

there is reason to believe that the conviction that she might some day

find herself in a position in which she could best free herself from

entanglement by some such means had long since lodged in her mind. It was

not a strange or repulsive notion to the careful student of the code of

morality laid down in "Il Principe." Alva had familiarized her with it,

and the civil wars had almost invested it in her eyes with the appearance

of justifiable retaliation. She had gloated in secret over the story of

the Queen Blanche, mother of Louis the Ninth, and her successful struggle

with her son's insubordinate nobles, telling her countryman, the Venetian

ambassador Correro, with a significant laugh such as she was wont

occasionally to indulge in, that she would be very sorry to have it known

that she had been reading the old manuscript chronicle, for they would at

once infer that she had taken the Castilian princess as her pattern.[796]

More unscrupulous than the mother of St. Louis, she had revolved in her

mind various schemes for strengthening her authority at the expense of the

lives of a few of the more prominent Huguenot chiefs, convinced, as she

was, that Protestantism would cease to exist in France with the

destruction of its leaders. But, despite pontifical injunctions and

Spanish exhortations, she formed no definite plans; or, if she did, it was

only to unravel on the morrow what she had woven the day before. What

Barbaro said of her at one critical juncture was true of her generally in

all such deliberations: "Her irresolution is extreme; she conceives new

plans from hour to hour; within the compass of a single day, between

morning and evening, she will change her mind three times.[797]"

[Sidenote: Charles the Ninth in earnest.]

[Sidenote: He tears out the record against Cardinal Chatillon.]

While it is scarcely possible to believe Catharine to have been more

sincere in the adoption of this peace than in any other event of her life,

we may feel some confidence that her son was really in favor of peace for

its own sake. He was weary of the war, jealous of his brother Anjou,

disgusted with the Guises, and determined to attempt to conciliate his

Huguenot subjects, whom he had in vain been trying to crush. Apparently he

wished to make of the amnesty, which the edict formally proclaimed, a

veritable act of oblivion of all past offences, and intended to regard the

Huguenots, in point of fact as well as in law, as his faithful subjects.

An incident which occurred about two months after the conclusion of peace,

throws light upon the king's new disposition. Cardinal Odet de Chatillon,

deprived by the Pope of his seat in the Roman consistory, had, on motion

of Cardinal Bourbon, been declared by the Parisian parliament to have lost

his bishopric of Beauvais, on account of his rebellion and his adoption

of Protestant sentiments. All such judicial proceedings had indeed been

declared null and void by the terms of the pacification, but the

parliaments showed themselves very reluctant to regard the royal edict. In

October, 1570, Charles the Ninth happening to be a guest of Marshal

Montmorency at his palace of Ecouen, a few leagues north of Paris, sent

orders to Christopher de Thou, the first president, to wait upon him with

the parliamentary records. Aware of the king's object, De Thou, pleading

illness, sent four of his counsellors instead; but these were

ignominiously dismissed, and the presence of the chief judge was again

demanded. When De Thou at last appeared, Charles greeted him roughly.

"Here you are," he said, "and not very ill, thank God! Why do you go

counter to my edicts? I owe our cousin, Cardinal Bourbon, no thanks for

having applied for and obtained sentence against the house of Chatillon,

_which has done me so much service, and took up arms for me_." Then

calling for the records, he ordered the president to point out the

proceedings against the admiral's brother, and, on finding them, tore out

with his own hand three leaves on which they were inscribed; and on having

his attention directed by the marshal, who stood by, to other places

bearing upon the same case, he did not hesitate to tear these out

also.[798]

[Sidenote: His assurances to Walsingham.]

[Sidenote: Gracious answer to the German electors.]

To all with whom he conversed Charles avowed his steadfast purpose to

maintain the peace inviolate. He called it his own peace. He told

Walsingham, "he willed him to assure her Majesty, that the only care he

presently had was to entertain the peace, whereof the Queen of Navarre and

the princes of the religion could well be witnesses, as also generally the

whole realm."[799] And the shrewd diplomatist believed that the king spoke

the truth;[800] although, when he looked at the adverse circumstances

with which Charles was surrounded, and the vicious and irreligious

education he had received, there was room for solicitude respecting his

stability.[801] There was, indeed, much to strengthen the hands of Charles

in his new policy of toleration. On the twenty-sixth of November he

married, with great pomp and amid the display of the popular delight,

Elizabeth, daughter of the Emperor Maximilian the Second. This union, far

from imperilling the permanence of the peace in France,[802] was likely to

render it more lasting, if the bridegroom could be induced to copy the

conciliatory and politic example of his father-in-law. Not long after

Charles received at Villers-Cotterets an embassy sent by the three

Protestant electors of Germany and the other powerful princes of the same

faith. They congratulated him upon the suppression of civil disorder in

France, and entreated him to maintain freedom of worship in his dominions

such as existed in Germany and even in the dominions of the Grand Turk;

lending an ear to none who might attempt to persuade him that tranquillity

could not subsist in a kingdom where there was more than one religion.

Charles made a gracious answer, and the German ambassadors retired,

leaving the friends of the Huguenots to entertain still better hopes for

the recent treaty.[803]

[Sidenote: Catharine warned by the Huguenots.]

[Sidenote: Infringement on the edict at Orange.]

It cannot be denied, however, that the Huguenots could see much that was

disquieting and calculated to prevent them from laying aside their

suspicions. There were symptoms of the old constitutional timidity on the

part of Catharine de' Medici. She showed signs of so far yielding to the

inveterate enemies of the Huguenots as to abstain from insisting upon the

concession of public religious worship where it had been accorded by the

Edict of St. Germain. No wonder that the Huguenots, on their side, warned

her, with friendly sincerity and frankness, that, should she refuse to

entertain their just demands, _the present peace would be only a brief

truce, the prelude to a relentless civil war_. "We will all die," was

their language, "rather than forsake our God and our religion, which we

can no more sustain without public exercise than could a body live without

food and drink."[804] Not only did the courts throw every obstacle in the

way of the formal recognition of the law establishing the rights of the

Huguenots, but the outbreaks of popular hatred against the adherents of

the purer faith were alarming evidence that the chronic sore had only been

healed over the surface, and that none of the elements of future disorder

and bloodshed were wanting. Thus, in the little city and principality of

Orange, the Roman Catholic populace, taking advantage of the supineness of

the governor and of the consuls, introduced within the walls, under cover

of a three days' religious festival, a large number of ruffians from the

adjoining Comtat Venaissin. This was early in February, 1571. Now began a

scene of rapine and bloodshed that might demand detailed mention, were it

not that at the frequent repetition of such ghastly recitals the stoutest

heart sickens. Men, and even mere boys, of the reformed faith were

butchered in their homes, in the arms of their wives or their mothers. The

goods of Protestants were plundered and openly sold to the highest

bidder. Of many, a ransom was exacted for their safety. The work went on

for two weeks. At last a deputy from Orange reached the Huguenot princes

and the admiral at La Rochelle, and Count Louis of Nassau, who was still

there, wrote to Charles with such urgency, in the name of his brother, the

Prince of Orange, that measures were taken to repress and punish the

disorder.[805]

[Sidenote: The Protestants at Rouen attacked, March 4, 1571.]

A much more serious infringement upon the protection granted to the

Protestants by the edict, took place at Rouen about a month later.

Unable to celebrate their worship within the city walls, the

Protestants had gone out one Sunday morning to the place assigned them

for this purpose in the suburbs. Meantime a body of four hundred Roman

Catholics posted themselves in ambush near the gates to await their

return. When the unsuspecting Huguenots, devoutly meditating upon the

solemnities in which they had been engaged, made their appearance,

they were greeted first with imprecations and blasphemies, then with a

murderous attack. Between one hundred and one hundred and twenty are

said to have been killed or wounded. The punishment of this audacious

violation of the rights of the Protestants was at first left by

parliament to the inferior or presidial judges, and the investigation

dragged. The judges were threatened as they went to court: "Si l'on

scavoit que vous eussiez informe, on vous creveroit les yeux; si vous

y mectez la main, on vous coupera la gorge!" The people broke into the

prisons and liberated the accused. The civic militia refused to

interfere. It was evident that no justice could be obtained from the

local magistrates. The king, however, on receiving the complaints of

the Huguenots, displayed great indignation, and despatched Montmorency

to Rouen with twenty-seven companies of soldiers, and a commission

authorized to try the culprits. The greater part of these, however,

had fled. Only five persons received the punishment of death; several

hundred fugitives were hung in effigy. Montmorency attempted to secure

the Protestants against further aggression by disarming the entire

population, with the exception of four hundred chosen men, and by

compelling the parliament, on the fifteenth of May, to swear to

observe the Edict of Pacification--precautions whose efficacy we shall

be able to estimate more accurately by the events of the following

year.[806]

[Sidenote: The "Croix de Gastines" again.]

The strength of the popular hatred of the Huguenots was often too great

for even the government to cope with. The rabble of the cities would hear

of no upright execution of the provisions respecting the oblivion of past

injuries, and resisted with pertinacity the attempt to remove the traces

of the old conflict. The Parisians gave the most striking evidence of

their unextinguished rancor in the matter of the "Croix de Gastines," a

monument of religious bigotry, the reasons for whose erection in 1569 have

been sufficiently explained in a previous chapter.[807]

More than a year had passed since the promulgation of the royal edict of

pacification annulling all judgments rendered against Protestants since

the death of Henry the Second; and yet the Croix de Gastines still stood

aloft on its pyramidal base, upon the site of the Huguenot place of

meeting. Several times, at the solicitation of the Protestants, the

government ordered its demolition. The municipal officers of Paris

declined to obey, because it had not been erected by them; the parliament,

because, as they alleged, the sentence was just and they could not

retract; the Provost of Paris, because he was not above parliament, which

had placed it there.[808] Charles himself wrote with his own hand to the

provost: "You deliberate whether to obey me, and whether you will have

that fine pyramid overturned. I forbid you to appear in my presence until

it be cast down."[809] The end was not yet. The monks preached against the

sacrilege of lowering the cross. Maitre Vigor, on the first Sunday of

Advent, praised the people of Paris for having opposed the demolition,

maintaining that they had acted "only from zeal for God, who upon the

cross suffered for us." "The people," he declared, "had never murmured

when they had taken down Gaspard de Coligny, who had been hung in effigy,

and _would soon, God willing, be hung in very deed!_"[810] Meantime, the

mob of Paris exhibited its zeal for the honor of the cross by assailing

the soldiers sent to tear down the "Croix de Gastines," and by breaking

open and plundering the contents of several Huguenot houses. It was not

until the provost had called in the assistance of Marshal Montmorency, and

the latter had killed a few of the seditious Parisians who opposed his

progress, and hung one man to the windows of a neighboring house, that the

disturbance ceased. The pyramid was then destroyed, and the cross

transferred to the Cimetiere des Innocents, where it is said to have

remained until the outbreak of the French Revolution.[811] The "plucking

down of the cross" was a distasteful draught to the fanatics. "The common

people," wrote an eye-witness, "ease their stomacks onely by uttering

seditious words, which is borne withal, for that was doubted. The

Protestants by the overthrow of this cross receive greater comfort, and

the papists the contrary."[812]

[Sidenote: Projected marriage of Anjou to Queen Elizabeth.]

The Huguenot leaders, rejoicing at any evidence of the royal favor,

desired to strengthen it and render it more stable. For this purpose they

found a rare opportunity in projecting matrimonial alliances. Queen

Elizabeth, of England, was yet unmarried, a princess of acknowledged

ability, and reigning over a kingdom, which, if it had not at that time

attained the wealth of industry and commerce which it now possesses, was,

at least, one of the most illustrious in Christendom. Where could a more

advantageous match be sought for Henry of Anjou, the French monarch's

brother? True, the Tudor princess was no longer young, and her personal

appearance was scarcely praised, except by her courtiers. She had been a

candidate for many projected nuptials, but in none had the disparity of

age been so great as in the present case, for, being a maiden of

thirty-seven, she lacked but a single year of being twice as old as

Anjou.[813] Besides these objections, and independently of the difference

of creed between the queen and Anjou, she had the unenviable reputation of

being irresolute, fickle, and capricious. And yet, in spite of all these

difficulties, the match was seriously proposed and entertained in the

autumn and winter succeeding the ratification of peace.

It is worthy of notice that the scheme originated with the French

Protestants. Cardinal Chatillon, the admiral's brother, and the Vidame of

Chartres, both of them zealous partisans of the Reformation, and at this

time engaged in negotiations in England, were the first to make mention of

the plan, and probably it took its rise in their minds. Their object was

manifest: if France could be united to Protestant England by so

distinguished a marriage, the permanence of the peace of St. Germain might

be regarded as secure. Under such auspices, the Huguenots, long proscribed

and persecuted, might hope for such favor and toleration as they had never

yet enjoyed.

Catharine de' Medici, when approached on the subject, gave indications of

hearty acquiescence. Of late there had been a growing estrangement between

the French and Spanish courts. The selfishness and arrogance of Philip and

his ministers had been particularly evident and offensive during the late

war. It was sufficiently clear that the Catholic king opposed the peace

less from hatred of heresy or of rebellion, than because of his scarcely

disguised hope of profiting by the misfortunes of France. The queen mother

was consequently quite inclined to tighten the bonds of amity and

friendship with England, when those that had previously existed with Spain

were loosened. The prospect of a crown for her favorite son was an

alluring one--doubly so, because of Nostradamus's prophecy that she would

see all her sons upon the throne, to which she gave a superstitious

credence, trembling lest it should involve in its fulfilment their

untimely death. It is true that, in view of Elizabeth's age, she would

have preferred to marry the Duke of Anjou to some princess of the royal

house of England, whom Elizabeth might first have proclaimed her heir and

successor.[814] However, as the English queen was, perhaps, even more

reluctant than the majority of mankind to be reminded of her advancing

years and of her mortality, Catharine's ambassador may have deemed it

advisable to be silent regarding the suggestion of so palpable a "memento

mori," and contented himself with offering for her own acceptance the hand

of one whom he recommended as "the most accomplished prince living, and

the most deserving her good graces."[815] Elizabeth received the proposal

with courtesy, merely alluding to the great difference between her age and

Anjou's, but admitted her apprehension lest, since "she was already one

whose kingdom rather than herself was to be wedded," she might marry one

who would honor her as a queen rather than love her as a woman. In fact,

the remembrance of the amours of the father and grandfather made her

suspicious of the son, and the names of Madame d'Estampes and of Madame de

Valentinois (Diana of Poitiers) inspired her with no little fear. All

which coy suggestions La Mothe Fenelon, astute courtier that he was, knew

well how to answer.[816]

[Sidenote: Machinations to dissuade Anjou.]

Soon, however, the difficulty threatened to be the unwillingness of the

suitor, rather than the reluctance of the lady. Henry of Anjou was the

head of the Roman Catholic party in France. Charles's orthodoxy might be

suspected; there was no doubt of his brother's. His intimacy with the

Guises, his successes as general of the royal forces in what was styled a

war in defence of religion, were guarantees of his devotion to the papal

cause. All his prestige would be lost if he married the heretical daughter

of Henry the Eighth and Anne Boleyn. Hence desperate efforts were made to

deter him--efforts which did not escape the Argus-eyed Walsingham. "The

Pope, the King of Spain, and the rest of the confederates, upon the doubt

of a match between the queen, my mistress, and monsieur, do seek, by what

means they can, to dissuade and draw him from the same. They offer him to

be the head and chief executioner of the league against the Turk, a thing

now newly renewed, though long ago meant; which league is thought to

stretch to as many as they repute to be Turks, although better Christians

than themselves. The cause of the Cardinal of Lorraine's repair hither

from Rheims, as it is thought, was to this purpose."[817]

[Sidenote: Charles indignant at the interference.]

Charles the Ninth was indignant at this interference, and said: "If this

matter go forward, it behooveth me to make some counter-league," having

his eye upon the German Protestant princes and Elizabeth.[818] Besides,

there were at this juncture other reasons for displeasure, especially with

Spain. Charles and his mother had received a rebuff from Sebastian of

Portugal, to whom they had offered Margaret of Valois in marriage. The

young king had replied, through Malicorne, "that they were both young,

and that therefore about eight years hence that matter might be better

talked of," "which disdainful answer," the English ambassador wrote from

the French court, "is accepted here in very ill part, and is thought not

to be done without the counsel of Spain."[819]

[Sidenote: Alencon to be substituted as suitor.]

With Henry of Anjou, however, much to the disgust and disappointment of

his mother, the "league" succeeded too well. Scarcely had a month passed,

before Catharine was compelled to write to the envoy in England, telling

him that Henry had heard reports unfavorable to Elizabeth's character, and

positively declined to marry her.[820] In her extreme perplexity at this

unexpected turn of events, the queen mother suggested to La Mothe Fenelon

that perhaps the Duke of Alencon would do as well, and might step into the

place which his brother had so ungallantly abandoned.[821] Now, as this

Alencon was a beardless boy of sixteen, and, unlike Charles and Henry,

small for his age, it is not surprising that La Mothe declared himself

utterly averse to making any mention of him for the present, lest the

queen should come to the very sensible conclusion that the French were

"making sport of her."[822]

[Sidenote: Anjou's new ardor.]

[Sidenote: Elizabeth interposes obstacles.]

But there was at present no need of resorting to substitution. For a time

the ardor of Anjou was rekindled, and rapidly increased in intensity.

Catharine first wrote that Anjou "condescended" to marry Elizabeth;[823]

presently, that "he desired infinitely to espouse her."[824] A month or

two later he declared to Walsingham: "I must needs confess that, through

the great commendation that is made of the queen your mistress, for her

rare gifts as well of mind as of body, being (as even her very enemies

say) the rarest creature that was in Europe these five hundred years; my

affection, grounded upon so good respects, hath now made me yield to be

wholly hers."[825] On the other hand, Elizabeth began to exhibit such

coldness that her most intimate servants doubted her sincerity in the

entire transaction. With more candor than courtiers usually exhibit in

urging a suit which they suspect to be distasteful to their sovereign,

Lord Burleigh, the Earl of Leicester, and Sir Francis Walsingham used

every means of persuading the queen to decisive action. "My very good

Lord," wrote Walsingham, on the fourteenth of May, 1571, "the Protestants

here do so earnestly desire this match; and on the other side, the papists

do so earnestly seek to impeach the same, as it maketh me the more earnest

in furthering of the same. Besides, when I particularly consider her

Majesty's state, both at home and abroad, so far forth as my poor eyesight

can discern; and how she is beset with foreign peril, the execution

whereof stayeth only upon the event of this match, I do not see how she

can stand if this matter break off."[826] Lord Burleigh, in perplexity on

account of Elizabeth's conduct, exclaimed that "he was not able to discern

what was best;" but added: "Surely I see no continuance of her quietness

without a marriage, and therefore I remit the success to Almighty

God."[827] The situation of Elizabeth's servants was, indeed, extremely

embarrassing. Their mistress had laid an insuperable obstacle in the way.

She did not, indeed, require Anjou to abjure his faith, but her demands

virtually involved this. Not only did she refuse to grant the duke, by the

articles of marriage, public or even private worship for himself and his

attendants, according to the rites of the Roman Catholic Church, but she

wished to bind him to make no request to that effect after marriage.[828]

In vain did Catharine protest that this was to require him to become an

atheist, and her own advisers solemnly warn her that this could but lead

to an entire rupture of the negotiations. Under the pretence of excluding

all exercise of Popery from England, the queen disappointed the ardent

hopes of thousands of sincere and thorough Protestants in France and of

many more in England, who viewed the marriage as by far the most advisable

cure--far better than a simple treaty of peace--for the ills of both

kingdoms. "If you find not in her Majesty," wrote Walsingham to Leicester,

"a resolute determination to marry--a thing most necessary for our

staggering state--then were it expedient to take hold of amity, which may

serve to ease us for a time, though our disease requireth another remedy;"

and again, a few days later (on the third of August, 1571): "My lord, if

neither marriage nor amity may take place, the poor Protestants here do

think then their case desperate. They tell me so with tears, and therefore

I do believe them. And surely, if they say nothing, beholding the present

state here, I could not but see it most apparent."[829]

[Sidenote: Papal and Spanish efforts.]

The fears of the Protestants were not baseless. As the marriage, and the

consequent close friendship with England, seemed to insure the growth and

spread of the reformed faith,[830] the failure of both was an almost

unmistakable portent of the triumph of the opposite party and of the

renewal of persecution and bloodshed. And so also the fanatical Roman

Catholics read the signs of the times, and again they plied Anjou with

their seductions. "Great practices are here for the impeachment of this

match," wrote the English ambassador, near the end of July, 1571. "The

Papal Nuncio, Spain, and Portugal, are daily courtiers to dissuade this

match. The clergy here have offered Monsieur a great pension, to stay him

from proceeding. In conclusion, there is nothing left undone, that may be

thought fit to hinder."[831]

[Sidenote: Vexation of Catharine at Anjou's fresh scruples.]

And these intrigues were not fruitless. Anjou now declared to his mother

that he would not go to England without public assurances that he should

enjoy the liberty to exercise his own religion. He was unwilling even to

trust the queen's word, as Catharine and Charles would have wished him to

do. Catharine meantime expressed her vexation in her despatches to La

Mothe Fenelon.[832] "We strongly suspect," she said, "that Villequier,

Lignerolles, or Sarret, or possibly all three, may be the authors of these

fancies. If we succeed in obtaining some certainty respecting this matter,

I assure you that they will repent of it."[833] But she added that, should

the negotiation unfortunately fail, she was resolved to put forth all her

efforts in behalf of her son Alencon, who would be more easily

suited.[834]

In fact, while Anjou was indifferent, or perhaps disgusted at the

obstacles raised in the way of the marriage, and was unwilling to

sacrifice his attachment to the party in connection with which he had

obtained whatever distinction he possessed; and while Elizabeth, who was

by no means blind, saw clearly enough that she was likely to get a husband

who would regard his bride rather as an incumbrance than as an

acquisition,[835] there were two persons who were as eager as Elizabeth's

advisers, or the Huguenots themselves, to see the match effected. These

were Charles the Ninth and Catharine de' Medici, both of whom just now

gave abundant evidence of their disposition to draw closer to England and

to the Huguenots of France and the Gueux of Holland, while suffering the

breach between France and Spain to become more marked.

[Sidenote: Louis of Nassau confers with the king.]

Count Louis of Nassau, ever since the conclusion of peace, had remained

with the Huguenots within the walls of La Rochelle. At the repeated

solicitations of his brother, the Prince of Orange, he had entered into

correspondence with the king, and urged him to embrace an opportunity such

as might never return, to endear himself to the Netherlanders, and add

materially to the extent and power of France by espousing the cause of

constitutional rights. His advances were so favorably received that he now

came in disguise, accompanied by La Noue, Teligny, and Genlis, to confer

with Charles upon the subject. They met at Lumigny-en-Brie, whither the

king had gone to indulge in his favorite pastime of the chase, and on

several consecutive days held secret conferences.[836] Louis was a

nobleman whose history and connections entitled him to respect; but his

frank and sincere character was a still more powerful advocate in his

behalf.[837] He proved to the king how justly he might interfere in

defence of the Low Countries, where Philip was seeking "to plant, by

inquisition, the foundation of a most horrible tyranny, the overthrow of

all freedoms and liberties." He traced the course of events since the

humiliating treaty of Cateau-Cambresis, and added: "If you think in

conscience and honor you may not become the protector of this people, you

should do well to forbear, for otherwise the success cannot be gained. If

you think you may, then weigh in policy how beneficial it will be for you,

and how much your father would have given, to have had the like

opportunity offered unto him that is now presented unto you gratis; which,

if you refuse, the like you must never look for."

Both Charles and his mother appeared well pleased with the proposal, and

the king, who had listened attentively to the recital of the follies into

which Philip had fallen in consequence of listening to evil advice,

exclaimed: "Similar counsellors, by violating my edict, wellnigh brought

me into like terms with my subjects, wherefrom ensued the late troubles;

but now, thank God, He has opened my eyes to discern what their meaning

was." Next, Louis showed that success was not difficult. The Roman

Catholics and the Protestants in the Netherlands equally detested the

tyranny of the Spaniards. The towns were ready to receive garrisons.

Philip had not in the whole country over three thousand troops upon whose

fidelity he could rely. The addition of a dozen ships to those already

possessed by the patriots would enable them effectually to prevent the

landing of Spanish reinforcements. In short, the Netherlands were ripe for

a division which would amply recompense France and the German princes, as

well as Queen Elizabeth, should she, as was hoped, consent to take part in

the enterprise: for the provinces of Flanders and Artois, which had once

belonged to the French crown, would gladly give themselves up to Charles;

Brabant, Gelderland, and Luxemburg would be restored to the empire; and

Holland, Zealand, and the rest of the islands would fall to the share of

the queen.[838]

[Sidenote: Admiral Coligny consulted.]

[Sidenote: He marries Jacqueline d'Entremont.]

So favorably did Charles and his mother, with those counsellors to whom

the secret was intrusted, receive the count's advances, that it was

clearly advisable to bring them into communication with Admiral Coligny,

to whose conduct the enterprise, if adopted, must be confided, and for

whom the young king expressed great esteem. Indeed, so urgently was the

admiral invited, and so intimately did the success or failure of the

attempt to enlist France in the Flemish war seem to be dependent upon his

personal influence, that Gaspard de Coligny, despite the ill-concealed

solicitude of many of his more suspicious friends, consented to trust

himself in the king's hands. As for himself, the admiral had little desire

to leave the secure retreat of La Rochelle. Here he was surrounded by

friends. Here his happiness had been enhanced by two marriages which

promised to add greatly to the wealth and influence he already possessed.

Jacqueline d'Entremont, the widow of a brave officer killed in the civil

wars, had long entertained an admiration, which she made no attempt to

disguise, for the bravery and piety of the stern leader of the Huguenots.

Possessed of very extensive estates in the dominions of the Duke of Savoy,

she had also the qualities of mind and disposition which fitted her to

become the wife of so upright and magnanimous a man. The proposals of

marriage are said to have come from her relatives, nor did the lady

herself hesitate to express the wish before her death to become the Marcia

of the new Cato.[839] The nuptials were celebrated with great pomp at La

Rochelle, whither Jacqueline, after having been married by proxy,[840] was

escorted by a goodly train of Huguenot nobles. Great were the rejoicings

of the people, but not less great the anger of the Duke of Savoy, who, as

Jacqueline's feudal lord, claimed the right to dispose of her hand, and

had peremptorily forbidden her to marry the admiral. The barbarous revenge

which Emmanuel Philibert too soon found it in his power to inflict upon

the unfortunate widow of Coligny forms the subject for one of the darkest

pages of modern history.[841] Under no less auspicious circumstances was

consummated the union of Coligny's daughter, Louise de Chatillon, to

Teligny, a young noble whose skill as a diplomatist seemed to have

destined him to hold a foremost rank among statesmen. Scarcely less

unhappy, however, than her step-mother, Louise was to behold both her

father and her husband perish in a single hour by the same dreadful

catastrophe.

[Sidenote: Accepts the invitation to court.]

Was it foolish rashness or overweening presumption that led the admiral to

leave the new home he had made within the strong defences of La Rochelle;

or was he moved solely by a conscientious persuasion that he had no right

to consider personal danger when the great interests of his country and

his faith were at stake? The former view has not been without its

advocates, some of whom have gloried in finding the proofs of a judicial

blindness sent by Heaven to hasten the self-induced destruction of the

Huguenots. A more careful consideration of all the circumstances of the

case, illustrated by a better appreciation of Coligny's character, rather

induces me to adopt the opposite conclusion. Certainly the noble language

of Coligny in reply to the warnings of his friends, both now and later,

when he was about to venture within the walls of Paris, displayed no

unconsciousness of the perils by which he was environed. "Better, however,

were it," he said, "to die a thousand deaths, than by undue solicitude for

life to be the occasion of keeping up distrust throughout an entire

kingdom."

About the beginning of September, 1571, Charles and his court repaired to

Blois, on the banks of the Loire.[842] The avowed object of the movement

was to meet Coligny and the Protestant princes. "There are many practices

(intrigues) to overthrow this journey," wrote Walsingham, about the middle

of the preceding month, "but the king sheweth himself to be very resolute.

I am most constantly assured that the king conceiveth of no subject that

he hath, better than of the admiral, and great hope there is that the king

will use him in matters of greatest trust; for of himself he beginneth to

see the insufficiency of others--some, for that they are more addicted to

others than to himself; others, for that they are more Spanish than

French, or else given more to private pleasures than public. There is none

of any account within this realm, whose as well imperfections as virtues,

he knoweth not. Those that do love him, do lament that he is so much given

to pleasure: they hope the admiral's access unto the court will yield some

redress in that case. Queen mother, seeing her son so well affected

towards him, laboreth by all means to cause him to think well of her. She

seemeth much to further the meeting."[843]

[Sidenote: His honorable reception.]

Nothing could surpass the honorable reception of the admiral, when, on the

twelfth of September, he arrived with a small retinue at court in the city

of Blois. On first coming into the royal presence, he humbly kneeled, but

Charles graciously lifted him up, and embraced him, calling him his

father, and protesting that he regarded this as one of the happiest days

of his life, since he saw the war ended and tranquillity confirmed by

Coligny's return. "You are as welcome," said he, "as any gentleman that

has visited my court in twenty years." And in the same interview, he

expressed his joy in words upon which subsequent events placed a sinister

construction, but which nevertheless appear to have been uttered in good

faith: "At last we have you with us, and you will not leave us again

whenever you wish."[844] Nor was Catharine behind her son in affability.

She surprised the courtiers by honoring the Huguenot leader with a kiss.

And even Anjou, who chanced to be indisposed, received him in his

bedchamber with a show of friendliness. More substantial tokens of favor

followed. The same person, who, as the principal general of the rebels,

had been attainted of treason, his castle and possessions being

confiscated or destroyed by decree of the first parliament of France, and

a reward of fifty thousand gold crowns being set upon his head, now

received from the king's private purse the unsolicited gift of one hundred

thousand livres, to make good his losses during the war. Moreover, he was

presented with the revenues of his lately deceased brother, the Cardinal

Odet de Chatillon, for the space of one year, and was intrusted with the

lucrative office of guardian of the house of Laval during the minority of

its heir. Indeed, throughout his stay at Blois, which was protracted

through several weeks, Coligny was the favored confidant of Charles, who

sometimes even made him preside in the royal council.[845]

Moreover, it was doubtless at Coligny's suggestion that the king at this

time wrote to the Duke of Savoy interceding for those Waldenses who in the

recent wars had aided the French Protestants in arms, and who since their

return to the ducal dominions had experienced severe persecution on that

account. "I desire," he says in this letter, "to make a request of you, a

request of no ordinary character, but as earnest as you could possibly

receive from me--that, just as for the love of me you have treated your

subjects in this matter with unusual rigor, so you would be pleased, for

my sake, and by reason of my prayer and special recommendation, to receive

them into your benign grace, and reinstate them in the possessions which

have for this cause been confiscated." He added that he desired not only

to exhibit to his Protestant subjects his intention to execute his edict,

but to extend to their allies from abroad the same love and

protection.[846]

[Sidenote: Disgust of the Guises and of Alva.]

These and other marks of honorable distinction shown to the acknowledged

head of the Huguenots, must have been excessively distasteful both to the

Guises and to the Spaniard. The former now retired from court, and left

Charles completely in the hands of the Montmorencies and the admiral.[847]

Earlier in the year, the Duke of Alva had met with a signal rebuff at the

hands of the French, when, in return for the aid furnished to Charles by

his Catholic Majesty during the late wars, he requested him to supply him

with German reiters, to allow him to levy in France troops to serve

against the Prince of Orange, and to detain the fleet which was said to be

preparing for the prince at La Rochelle. The first two demands were

peremptorily refused, while the ships, it was replied, were intended

merely to make reprisals upon the Spaniards, who had taken some Protestant

vessels, drowned a part of their crew in the ocean, and delivered others

into the power of the Inquisition, and could not be interfered with.[848]

The Spanish ambassador had borne with the offensiveness of this answer;

but the favor with which the Huguenots were now received, and the openness

with which the Flemish war was discussed, rendered his further stay

impossible. It is true that the interviews of Louis of Nassau with the

king were held with great secrecy, and that Charles even had the

effrontery to deny that he had met the brother of Orange at all.[849] It

was impossible to deny that Philip's subjects were despoiled by vessels

which issued with impunity from La Rochelle. But, although the ambassador

declared that these grievances must be redressed, or war would ensue, he

was bluntly informed by Charles that "Philip might not look to give laws

to France." Catharine partook of her son's indignation, the more so as she

seems at this time to have shared in the current belief that her daughter

Elizabeth had been poisoned by her royal husband.[850] At last, in

November, the ambassador withdrew from court, without taking leave of the

king, after having, in scarcely disguised contempt,[851] given away to the

monks the silver plate which Charles had presented to him.

[Sidenote: Charles gratified.]

While the new policy of conciliation and toleration thus disgusted one, at

least, of those foreign powers which had spurred on the government to

engage in suicidal civil contests, it was at home producing the beneficent

results hoped for by its authors. Charles himself appeared to be daily

more convinced of its excellence. In a letter to President Du Ferrier,

the French envoy at Constantinople, written during the admiral's stay at

Blois, he exposed for the sultan's benefit the reasons for the mutation in

his treatment of the Huguenots, and for the cordial reception he had given

Coligny at his court. "You know," he said, "that this kingdom fell into

discord and division, in which it still is involved. I forgot no

prescription which I thought might cure it of this ulcerous wound; at one

time trying mild remedies, at others applying the most caustic, without

sparing my own person, or those whom nature made most dear to me.... But,

having at length discovered that only time could alleviate the ill, and

_that those who were at the windows were very glad to see the game played

at my expense_,[852] I had recourse to my original plan, which was that of

mildness; and by good advice I made my Edict of Pacification, which is the

seal of public faith, under whose benign influence peace and quiet have

been restored." And referring to Coligny's arrival, he added: "You know

that experience is dearly bought and is worth much. I must therefore tell

you that the chief result which I hoped from his coming begins already to

develop, inasmuch as the greater part of my subjects, who lately lived in

some distrust, have by this demonstration gained such assurance of my

kindness and affection, that all partisan feeling and faction are visibly

beginning to fade away."[853]

[Sidenote: Proposed marriage of Henry of Navarre and the king's sister.]

Besides the Flemish project, an important domestic affair engaged the

attention of the king and his counsellors at the time of Coligny's visit.

This was the proposed marriage of young Henry, the Prince of Bearn, and

after his mother's death heir of the crown of Navarre, to Margaret of

Valois, the youngest sister of Charles the Ninth. Margaret, who had lately

entered upon her twentieth year, was a year and a half older than the

prince.[854] In a court and a state of society where the birth of a

daughter was the signal for the initiation of an unlimited number of

matrimonial projects, it is not surprising that this match, among many

others, was talked of in the very infancy of the parties, perhaps with

little expectation that anything would ever come of it. The prince was a

sprightly boy, and, it is said, so delighted his namesake, Henry the

Second, that the monarch playfully asked him whether he would like to be

his son-in-law--a question which the boy found no difficulty in answering

in the affirmative. In fact, the matter went so far that, when the young

Bearnese was little over three years of age, Antoine of Bourbon wrote to

his sister, the Duchess of Nevers, with undisguised delight, of "the favor

the king has been pleased to show me by the agreement between us for the

marriage of Madam Margaret, his daughter, with my eldest son--a thing

which I accept as so particular a token of his good grace, that I am now

at rest and satisfied with what I could most ardently desire in this

world."[855] But the boy's mother had not been inclined to accept the

king's offer to take and educate him with his own children.[856] She was

not very familiar with the disorders of the royal court; but she had seen

enough to convince her that the quiet plains at the foot of the Pyrenees

could furnish a safer school of manners and morals. More than once the

idea of the connection between the crowns of France and Navarre was

revived, and in 1562 Catharine bethought herself of it as a means of

detaching the unfortunate Antoine from the triumvirs, whose cause he had

espoused with such strange infatuation.[857] But other plans soon

diverted the ambitious mind of the Italian queen. Moreover, the civil wars

between Protestants and Roman Catholics made the marriage of the daughter

of the "Very Christian King" to the son of the most obstinate Huguenot in

France appear to be out of the range of propriety or likelihood. Meantime,

Margaret's union with Sebastian of Portugal was seriously discussed.[858]

The tiresome negotiations ended in January, 1571, with a haughty refusal

of her hand, dictated, as we have seen, by Philip himself. A few weeks

later, as Margaret informs us in her Memoires--which may generally be

credited, except where the fair author's love affairs are concerned--the

Prince of Navarre began again to be mentioned as an available candidate

for her hand. She expressly states that it was from the Montmorencies that

the first suggestion came[859]--that is, from Francois de Montmorency, the

constable's oldest son. This nobleman, while he had inherited a great part

of his father's influence, as the head of one of the most honorable feudal

families in France, having its seat in the very neighborhood of the

capital, had ranged himself with the party opposed to that with which Anne

had been identified, and, although in outward profession a Roman Catholic,

was in full sympathy with the liberal political views of his cousin,

Admiral Coligny. This fact effectually disposes of the story that the

marriage was proposed, however much it may subsequently have been

entertained, as a trap to ensnare the Huguenots, thus thrown off their

guard.

Marshal Biron, another statesman of the same type, was the messenger to

carry the royal proposals to La Rochelle. He pictured to the Queen of

Navarre in glowing colors the advantages that would flow from this

alliance, the strength it would impart to the friends of mutual

toleration, the consternation and dismay it would carry into the camp of

the enemy. At the same time he declared that Charles the Ninth felt

confident that, although he had not as yet obtained from the Pope the

dispensation which the relationship subsisting between the parties, as

well as their religious differences, rendered necessary, Pius the Fifth

would ultimately place no obstacle in the way. Jeanne d'Albret gratefully

acknowledged the honor offered by the king to her son, but, before

accepting it, professed herself compelled to consult her spiritual

advisers respecting the question whether such a marriage might in good

conscience be entered into by a member of the reformed church.[860] As for

Margaret herself, she gives us in her Memoires little light as to the

state of her own feelings at this time. If we may imagine her so

indifferent, she demurely expressed her acquiescence in whatever her

mother might decide, but begged her to remember that "she was very

Catholic," and that "she would be very sorry to marry any one who was not

of her religion."[861] A few months later, however, when the prospects of

the marriage became less bright, because of the difficulties arising from

religion, it would seem that, with a perversity not altogether

unexampled, Margaret became more anxious to have it consummated. At least,

Francis Walsingham writes to Lord Burleigh: "The gentlewoman, being most

desirous thereof, falleth to reading of the Bible, and to the use of the

prayers used by them of the religion."[862]

[Sidenote: The Anjou match abandoned.]

Meanwhile, the project of a marriage between Elizabeth and Anjou had, as

we have seen, been virtually abandoned. The matter of religion was the

ostensible stumbling-block; it can scarcely have been the real difficulty

on either side. As to Anjou, the sincerity of his religious convictions is

certainly not above suspicion. But he was the head of a party in his

brother's kingdom, a party that professed unalterable devotion to the

"Holy See" and the old faith. If the eternal rewards of his fidelity to

the papacy were at all problematical, there was no doubt whatever in his

mind of the advantage of so powerful support as that which the

ecclesiastics of France could give him. He was resolved not to throw away

this advantage by openly agreeing to renounce all exercise of his own

religion in England, and this, too, without the certainty that the

concession would secure to him the hand of the queen. And, unfortunately,

it was impossible for him to gain this certainty. Elizabeth was already

pretty well understood. Her fancies and freaks it was beyond the power of

the most astute of her ministers to predict or to comprehend. If the

barrier of religion were demolished, there was no possibility of telling

what more formidable works might be unmasked. And so Henry, rather more

sensible upon this point than even Catharine and Charles, who would have

had him shrink from no concessions, made a virtue of necessity, definitely

withdrew from competition for the hand of a woman for whose personal

appearance it was impossible for him to entertain any admiration; whose

moral character, he had often been told and he more than half suspected,

was bad;[863] and told his friends, and probably believed, that he had

had a narrow escape. The queen, on the other hand, was perhaps not

conscious of insincerity of purpose. She must marry, if not from

inclination, for protection's sake--the protection of her subjects and

herself--so all the world told her; and a marriage that would secure to

England the support of France against Spain was the best. But that she

sought excuses for not taking the Duke of Anjou is evident, even though

she strove to make it appear to others, as well as to herself, that the

refusal came at last from him.[864] And she had her advisers--subjects who

in secret aspired to her hand, or others--who, in an underhand way,

stimulated her aversion to Henry. It is not unlikely that the Earl of

Leicester, despite his ardent protestations of zealous support of the

match, was the most insidious of its opponents. "While 'the poor

Huguenots' were telling Walsingham in tears that an affront from England

would bring back the Guises, and end in a massacre of themselves,

Leicester was working privately upon the queen, who was but too willing to

listen to him, feeding her through the ladies of the bedchamber with

stories that Anjou was infected with a loathsome disease, and assisting

his Penelope to unravel at night the web which she had woven under Cecil's

direction in the day."[865]

[Sidenote: The praise of Alencon.]

So the negotiation of a marriage between Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of

Anjou, after being virtually dead for about a half-year, breathed its last

in January, 1572. But the full accord between the two kingdoms was too

important to the interests of both, and the opportunity of obtaining a

crown for one of her sons too precious in the eye of Catharine.

Accordingly the discussion of the terms of the treaty of amity was pressed

with still greater zeal, while the French envoy to England was instructed

to offer Alencon to Elizabeth in place of his brother. And now were the

wits of the statesmen on both sides of the channel exercised to find good

reasons why the match would be no incongruous one. Unfortunately, Alencon,

as already stated, was short even for his age; but this was no insuperable

obstacle. "Nay," said Catharine de' Medici to Sir Thomas Smith, when she

was sounding him respecting his mistress's disposition, "he is not so

little; he is so high as you, or very near." "For that matter, madam,"

replied Smith, "I for my part make small account, if the queen's majestie

can fancie him. For _Pipinus Brevis_, who married _Bertha_, the King of

Almain's daughter, was so little to her, that he is standing in

Aquisgrave, or Moguerre, a church in Almain, she taking him by the hand,

and his head not reaching to her girdle; and yet he had by her Charlemain,

the great Emperor and King of France, which is reported to be almost a

giant's stature."[866] It was not so easy to dispose of the disparity in

years,[867] and perhaps still less of Alencon's disfigurement by

small-pox; for that unlucky prince added this to the long catalogue of his

misfortunes. The course of the treaty for mutual defence was, happily,

somewhat smoother than that of the matchmaking. On the eighteenth of April

the treaty was formally concluded,[868] and shortly after, Marshal

Montmorency and M. de Foix were despatched to administer the oath to Queen

Elizabeth. This solemn ceremony was performed on Sunday, the fifteenth of

June. The deputies were received with every mark of distinction, and the

marshal was publicly presented by the queen with the insignia of the

Order of the Garter.[869] The commission of the French envoys instructed

them to press upon Elizabeth the Alencon marriage as a powerful means of

cementing the alliance; and it empowered them to expend money to the

extent of ten or twelve thousand crowns in buying the consent of those

lords who had hitherto opposed the union. The Earl of Leicester, whose

straightforwardness may have been suspected, was to be tempted by the

special offer of some French heiress in marriage, the name of Mademoiselle

de Bourbon being suggested.[870] But the marriage was not destined to be

accomplished, although the negotiations were kept up until the very time

of the massacre, and Elizabeth sent to Catharine de' Medici her hearty

acknowledgment of the honor she had done her _in offering her all her sons

successively_.[871] At the very moment when the fearful blow fell which

was to render any such marriage impossible, Catharine was planning and

proposing an interview between Elizabeth on the one side, and herself and

Alencon on the other. That the dignity of neither party might be

compromised, it was suggested that the meeting might take place some calm

day on the water between Dover and Boulogne.[872] Elizabeth had

reconsidered her partial refusal, and encouraged the project; the nobles,

the ladies of the court, the council, all favored it; and in a letter

written four days after the streets of Paris flowed with blood, but before

the appalling intelligence had reached him, the French ambassador wrote to

Catharine: "All who are well affected cry to us, 'Let my Lord the Duke

come!'"[873]

[Sidenote: Pope Pius the Fifth alarmed.]

[Sidenote: The Cardinal of Alessandria sent to Paris.]

[Sidenote: The king's assurances.]

It cannot be supposed that such a leaning could be manifested toward the

Huguenot party, and such amity concluded with the Protestant kingdom of

England, without arousing grave solicitude on the part of the Pope and

other Roman Catholic sovereigns of Europe. Pius the Fifth determined, if

possible, to deter Charles from permitting the hateful marriage between

his sister and the heretical Prince of Navarre. He therefore promptly

despatched his nephew, the Cardinal of Alessandria,[874] first to

Sebastian of Portugal, whom he found no great difficulty in persuading

again to entertain the project of a marriage with Margaret of Valois, and

thence, with the utmost haste, to the court of Charles the Ninth.[875] The

legate, when admitted to an audience, unfolded at great length the

grievances of the pontiff--the mission of a heretic, formerly a bishop, as

envoy to Constantinople, the rumored opposition of the king to the Holy

League against the Turk, but especially the contemplated nuptials of a

daughter of France with the son of Jeanne d'Albret. Charles replied to

these charges in the most politic manner. He prayed that the earth might

open and swallow him up, rather than that he should stand in the way of so

illustrious and holy league as that against the infidel. As to his zeal

for the Christian faith, he demonstrated it--albeit some might object that

the fraternal affection which was reported to subsist between the parties

hardly rendered this argument convincing--by the fact of his having

exposed, in its defence, his dearest brother, the Duke of Anjou, to all

the perils of war. By civil war the resources of his kingdom had been so

weakened that they barely sufficed for its protection. He justified the

Navarrese marriage by alleging the remarkable traits which made Henry

superior to any other prince of the Bourbon family, and by the great

benefit which religion would gain from his conversion. In short, Charles

was profuse in protestations of his sincere determination to maintain the

Catholic faith; and, drawing a valuable diamond ring from his finger, he

presented it to the legate as a pledge, he said, of his unalterable

fidelity to the Holy See, and a token that he would more than redeem his

promises. The cardinal legate, however, declined to receive the gift,

saying that he was amply satisfied with the plighted word of so great a

king, a security more firm than any other pledge that could be given to

him.[876] Such seem to have been the assurances given by Charles on this

celebrated occasion, vague and indefinite, but calculated to allay to a

certain extent the anxiety of the head of the papal church.[877] There is

good reason to believe that the king's intention of fulfilling them, not

to say his plan for doing so, was equally undefined; although, so far as

his own faith was concerned, he had no thought of abandoning the church of

his fathers. The expressions by means of which Charles is made to point

with unmistakable clearness to a contemplated massacre,[878] of which,

however the case may stand with respect to his mother, it is all but

certain that he had at this time no idea, can only be regarded as fabulous

additions of which the earliest disseminators of the story were altogether

ignorant. The fact that the cardinal legate's rejection of the ring was

publicly known[879] seems to be a sufficient proof that it was offered

simply as a pledge of the king's general fidelity to the Holy See, not of

his intention to violate his edict and murder his Protestant subjects. The

government made the attempt in like manner to quiet the people, whom even

the smallest amount of concession and favor to the Huguenots rendered

suspicious; and the words uttered for this purpose were often so

flattering to the Roman Catholics, that, in the light of subsequent

events, they seem to have a reference to acts of treachery to which they

were not intended to apply.

[Sidenote: Jeanne d'Albret becomes more favorable to her son's marriage.]

The doubt propounded by Jeanne d'Albret to the reformed ministers,

respecting the lawfulness of a mixed marriage, having been satisfactorily

answered, and the devout queen being convinced that the union of Henry and

Margaret would rather tend to advance the cause to which she subordinated

all her personal interests, than retard it by casting reproach upon it,

the project was more warmly entertained on both sides. Yet the subject was

not without serious difficulty. Of this the religious question was the

great cause. To the English ambassadors, Walsingham and Smith, Jeanne

declared (on the fourth of March, 1572) in her own forcible language,

"that now she had the wolf by the ears, for that, in concluding or not

concluding the marriage, she saw danger every way; and that no matter

(though she had dealt in matters of consequence) did so much trouble her

as this, for that she could not tell how to resolve." She could neither

bring herself to consent that her son with his bride should reside at the

royal court without any exercise of his own religion--a course which would

not only tend to make him an atheist, but cut off all hope of the

conversion of his wife--nor that Margaret of Valois should be guaranteed

the permission to have mass celebrated whenever she came into Jeanne's own

domains in Bearn, a district which the queen "had cleansed of all

idolatry." For Margaret would by her example undo much of that which had

been so assiduously labored for, and the Roman Catholics who had remained

would become "more unwilling to hear the Gospel, they having a staff to

lean to."[880]

[Sidenote: Her solicitude.]

It was this uncertainty about Margaret's course, and the consequent gain

or loss to the Protestant faith, that rendered it almost impossible for

Jeanne d'Albret to master her anxiety. "In view," she wrote to her son,

"of Margaret's judgment and the credit she enjoys with the queen her

mother and the king and her brothers, if she embrace 'the religion,' I can

say that we are the most happy people in the world, and not only our house

but all the kingdom of France will share in this happiness.... If she

remain obstinate in her religion, being devoted to it, as she is said to

be, it cannot be but that this marriage will prove the ruin, first, of our

friends and our lands, and such a support to the papists that, with the

good-will the queen mother bears us, we shall be ruined with the churches

of France." It would almost seem that a prophetic glimpse of the future

had been accorded to the Queen of Navarre. "My son, if ever you prayed

God, do so now, I beg you, as I pray without ceasing, that He may assist

me in this negotiation, and that this marriage may not be made in His

anger for our punishment, but in His mercy for His own glory and our

quiet."[881]

But there were other grounds for solicitude. Catharine de' Medici was the

same deceitful woman she had always been. She would not allow Jeanne

d'Albret to see either Charles or Margaret, save in her presence. She

misrepresented the queen's words, and, when called to an account, denied

the report with the greatest effrontery. She destroyed all the hopes

Jeanne had entertained of frank discussion.

[Sidenote: The Queen of Navarre is treated with tantalizing insincerity.]

"You have great reason to pity me," the Queen of Navarre wrote to her

faithful subject in Bearn, "for never was I so disdainfully treated at

court as I now am.... Everything that had been announced to me is changed.

They wish to destroy all the hopes with which they brought me."[882]

Catharine showed no shame when detected in open falsehood. She told Jeanne

d'Albret that her son's governor had given her reason to expect that Henry

would consent to be married by proxy according to the Romish ceremonial.

But when she was hard pressed and saw that Jeanne did not believe her, she

coolly rejoined: "Well, at any rate, he told me something." "I am quite

sure of it, madam, but it was something that did not approach that!"

"Thereupon," writes Jeanne in despair, "she burst out laughing; for,

observe, she never speaks to me without trifling."[883]

[Sidenote: She is shocked at the morals of the court.]

But it was particularly the abominable immorality of the royal court that

alarmed the Queen of Navarre for the safety of her only son, should he be

called to sojourn there. The lady Margaret, she wrote--and her words

deserve the more notice on account of the infamy into which the life as

yet apparently so guileless was to lead--"is handsome, modest, and

graceful; but nurtured in the most wicked and corrupt society that ever

was. I have not seen a person who does not show the effects of it. Your

cousin, the marquise, is so changed in consequence of it, that there is no

appearance of religion, save that she does not go to mass; for, as for her

mode of life, excepting idolatry, she acts like the papists, and my sister

the princess still worse.... I would not for the world that you were here

to live. It is on this account that I want you to marry, and your wife and

you to come out of this corruption; for although I believed it to be very

great, I find it still greater. Here it is not the men that solicit the

women, but the women the men. Were you here, you would never escape but by

a remarkable exercise of God's mercy.... I abide by my first opinion, that

you must return to Bearn. My son, you can but have judged from my former

letters, that they only try to separate you from God and from me; you will

come to the same conclusion from this last, as well as form some idea

respecting the anxiety I am in on your account. I beg you to pray

earnestly to God; for you have great need of His help at all times, and

above all at this time. I pray to Him that you may obtain it, that He may

give you, my son, all your desires."[884]

[Sidenote: Death of Jeanne d'Albret, June 9, 1572.]

Such were the anxieties of the Queen of Navarre in behalf of a son whom

she had carefully reared, hoping to see in him a pillar of the Protestant

faith. She was to be spared the sight both of those scenes in his life

which might have flushed her cheek with pride, and of other scenes which

would have caused her to blush with shame. At length the last difficulties

in the way of Henry of Navarre's marriage, so far as the court and the

queen were concerned, were removed.[885] Charles and Catharine no longer

insisted that Margaret should be allowed the mass when in Bearn; while

Jeanne reluctantly abandoned her objections to the celebration of the

marriage ceremony in the city of Paris. Accordingly, about the middle of

May the Queen of Navarre left Blois and came to the capital for the

purpose of devoting her attention to the final arrangements for the

wedding. She had not, however, been long in Paris before she fell sick of

a violent fever, to which it became evident that she must succumb. We are

told by a writer who regards this as a manifest provocation of Heaven,

that one of her last acts before her sudden illness had been a visit to

the Louvre to petition the king that, on the approaching festival of

Corpus Christi (Fete-Dieu), the "idol," as she styled the wafer, might not

be borne in solemn procession past the house in which she lodged; and that

the king had granted her request.[886] During the short interval before

her death she exhibited the same devotion as previously to the purer

Christianity she had embraced, mingled with affectionate solicitude for

her son and daughter, so soon to be left orphans. Her constancy and

fortitude proved her worthy of all the eulogies that were lavished upon

her.[887] On Monday, the ninth of June, she died, sincerely mourned by the

Huguenots, who felt that in her they had lost one of their most able and

efficient supports, the weakness of whose sex had not made her inferior to

the most active and resolute man of the party. Even Catharine de' Medici,

who had hated her with all her cowardly heart, made some show of admiring

her virtues, now that she was no longer formidable and her straightforward

policy had ceased to thwart the underhanded and shifting diplomacy in

which the queen mother delighted. Yet the report gained currency that

Jeanne had been poisoned at Catharine's instigation. She had, it was said,

bought gloves of Monsieur Rene, the queen mother's perfumer[888]--a man

who boasted of his acquaintance with the Italian art of poisoning--and had

almost instantly felt the effects of some subtle powder with which they

were impregnated. To contradict this and other sinister stories, the king

ordered an examination of her remains to be made; but no corroborative

evidence was discovered. It is true that the physicians are said to have

avoided, ostensibly through motives of humanity, any dissection of the

brain, where alone the evidence could have been found.[889] Be this as it

may, the charge of poisoning is met so uniformly in the literature of the

sixteenth century, on occasion of every sudden death, that the most

credulous reader becomes sceptical as to its truth, and prefers to indulge

the hope that perhaps the age may not have been quite so bad as it was

represented by contemporaries.

The Prince of Bearn now became King of Navarre; and, as the court went

into mourning for the deceased queen, his nuptials with Margaret of Valois

were deferred until the month of August.

[Sidenote: Coligny and the boy king.]

Admiral Coligny, instead of returning to La Rochelle after his friendly

reception at the court at Blois, had gone to Chatillon, where his ruined

country-seat and devastated plantations had great need of his

presence.[890] Here he was soon afterward joined by his wife, travelling

from La Rochelle with a special safe-conduct from the king, the preamble

of which declared Charles's will and intention to retain Coligny near his

own person, "in order to make use of him in his most grave and important

affairs, as a worthy minister, whose virtue is sufficiently known and

tried."[891] Coligny was not left long in his rural retirement. Charles

expressed, and probably felt, profound disgust with his former advisers,

and knew not whom to trust. On one occasion, about this time, he held a

conversation with Teligny respecting the Flemish war. Teligny had just

entreated his Majesty not to mention to the queen mother the details into

which he entered--a promise which Charles readily gave, and swore with his

ordinary profanity to observe. And then the poor young king, with a

desperation which must enlist our sympathy in his behalf, undertook to

explain to Coligny's son-in-law his own solitude in the midst of a

crowded court. There was no one, he said, upon whom he could rely for

sound counsel, or for the execution of his plans. Tavannes was prudent,

indeed; but, having been Anjou's lieutenant, and almost the author of his

victories, would oppose a war that threatened to obscure his laurels.

Vieilleville was wedded to his cups. Cosse was avaricious, and would sell

all his friends for ten crowns. Montmorency alone was good and

trustworthy, but so given to the pleasures of the chase that he would be

sure to be absent at the very moment his help was indispensable.[892] It

is not strange, under these circumstances, that Charles should have turned

with sincere respect, and almost with a kind of affection, to that stern

old Huguenot warrior, upright, honorable, pious, a master of the art of

war, never more to be dreaded than after the reverses which he accepted as

lessons from a Father's hands.

As for Coligny himself, his task was not one of his own seeking. But he

pitied from his heart the boy-king--still more boyish in character than in

years--as he pitied and loved France. Above all, he was unwilling to omit

anything that might be vitally important for the progress of the Gospel in

his native land and abroad. His eyes were not blind to his danger. When,

at the king's request, he came to Paris, he received letters of

remonstrance for his imprudence, from all parts of France. He was reminded

that other monarchs before Charles had broken their pledges. Huss had been

burned at Constance notwithstanding the emperor's safe conduct, and the

maxim that no faith need be kept with heretics had obtained a mournful

currency.[893] To these warnings Admiral Coligny replied at one moment

with some annoyance, indignant that his young sovereign should be so

suspected; at another, with more calmness, magnanimously dismissing all

solicitude for himself in comparison with the great ends he had in view.

When he was urged to consider that other Huguenots, less hated by the

papists than he was, had been treacherously assassinated--as was the

general opinion then--Andelot, Cardinal Chatillon, and lately the Queen of

Navarre--his reply was still the same: "I am well aware that it is against

me principally that the enmity is directed. And yet how great a misfortune

will it be for France, if, for the sake of my individual preservation, she

must be kept in perpetual alarm and be plunged on every occasion into new

troubles! Or, what benefit will it be to me to live thus in continual

distrust of the king? If my prince wishes to slay me, he can accomplish

his will in any part of the realm. As a royal officer, I cannot in honor

refuse to comply with the summons of the king, meantime committing myself

to the providence of Him who holds in his hand the hearts of kings and

princes, and has numbered my years--nay, the very hairs of my head. If I

succeed in going in arms to the Low Countries, I hope that I may do signal

service, and change hatred into good-will. But, if I fall there, at least

the enmity against me will cease, and perhaps men will live in peace,

without its being needful to set a whole world in commotion for the

protection of the life of a single man."[894]

[Sidenote: The dispensation delayed.]

[Sidenote: The king's earnestness.]

The juncture was critical, although the future still looked auspicious.

Charles was resolved that the marriage of his sister should go forward,

and seemed almost as resolute, when he had thus secured peace at home

between Papist and Huguenot, to embark in a war against Spain--the natural

enemy of French repose and greatness. Gregory the Thirteenth--for Pius the

Fifth had died on the first of May, 1572, although his maxims and his

counsels were unhappily still alive, and endowed with a mischievous

activity--refused to grant the dispensation for the marriage except on

impossible conditions.[895] But Charles was too impatient to await his

caprice. "My dear aunt," he once said to the Queen of Navarre, a short

time before her death, "I honor you more than the Pope, and I love my

sister more than I fear him. I am not indeed a Huguenot, but neither am I

a blockhead; and if the Pope play the fool too much, I will myself take

Margot," his common nickname for his sister, "by the hand, and give her

away in marriage in full preche."[896]

Charles was apparently equally in earnest in his intention to maintain his

edict for the advantage of the Huguenots. Accordingly he published a new

declaration to this effect, and sent it to his governors, accompanied with

a letter expressive of his great gratification that the spirit of distrust

was everywhere giving place to confidence, a proof of which was to be

found in the recent restitution of the four cities of La Rochelle,

Montauban, La Charite, and Cognac, by those in whose hands they were

intrusted by the edict of St. Germain.[897] And Charles's correspondence

shows still further that the projects urged by Coligny, Louis of Nassau,

and other prominent patriots, had made a deep impression upon his

imagination, now that for the first time the prospect of a truly noble

campaign opened before him. In carrying out the extensive plan against the

Spanish king, it was indispensable--so thought the wisest politicians of

the time--to secure the co-operation of the Turk. The extent of Philip's

dominions in the Old and the New World, the prestige of his successes, the

enormous treasure he was said to derive yearly from his colonial

establishments in the Indies, all gave him a reputation for power which a

more critical examination would have dissipated; but the time for this had

not yet arrived. Consequently Charles had sent his ambassador to

Constantinople, intending through him to conclude an alliance offensive

and defensive with the Moslems. And his declarations to the

half-Protestant prelate were explicit enough: "All my humors conspire to

make me oppose the greatness of the Spaniards, and I am deliberating how I

may therein conduct myself the most skilfully that I can."[898] "I have

concluded a league with the Queen of England--a circumstance which, with

the understanding I have with the Princes of Germany, puts the Spaniards

in a wonderful jealousy."[899] Not only so, but he instructs the

ambassador to inform the Grand Seignior that he has a large number of

vessels ready, with twelve or fifteen thousand troops about to embark,

ostensibly to protect his own harbors, "but in reality intended to keep

the Catholic king uneasy, and to give boldness to those Beggars of the

Netherlands to bestir themselves and form such enterprises as they already

have done."[900] If these assurances had been addressed to a Protestant

prince, it would readily be comprehended that they might have had for

their object to lull his co-religionists into a fatal security. But, as

they were intended only for a Mohammedan ruler, I can see no room for the

suspicion that Charles was at this time animated by anything else than an

unfeigned desire to realize the plan of Coligny, of a confederacy that

should shatter the much-vaunted empire of Philip the Second.

[Sidenote: Mons and Valenciennes captured.]

An event now occurred which for a time raised high the hopes of the French

Huguenots. This was the capture of the important cities of Mons and

Valenciennes. To Count Louis of Nassau the credit of this bold and

successful stroke was due. With the secret connivance of Charles, he had

recruited in France a body of five hundred horsemen and a thousand foot

soldiers, among whom, as was natural, the Huguenot element predominated.

With these he now set foot again in the Netherlands. The success that

first attended his enterprise was owing, however, rather to a well

executed trick than to any practical exhibition of generalship; for the

gates of Mons were opened from within by a party that had entered on the

previous day in the disguise of wine-merchants.[901] Nevertheless the

capture of Mons, the capital of the province of Hainault (on Saturday, the

twenty-fourth of May), was so brilliant an exploit, coming as it did close

upon the heels of other reverses of the Duke of Alva, that the French

Huguenots and all who sympathized with them may be pardoned for having

indulged even in somewhat extravagant demonstrations of joy. They seem to

have believed that it was pretty nearly over with that hated instrument of

Spanish tyranny. They fancied that, with his five hundred horse, Louis

might penetrate the country by a rapid movement, and either take Alva

prisoner, or, if the duke should retire to Antwerp, raise the whole

country in revolt.[902]

[Sidenote: Catharine's indecision.]

[Sidenote: Queen Elizabeth inspires no confidence.]

For the next two months the Huguenot leaders were indefatigable in their

efforts to persuade Charles to take open and decided ground against Spain;

but they were met by Anjou and the party in his interest with arguments

drawn from the difficulty or injustice of the undertaking, and by the

suggestion that Elizabeth, as was her wont, would be likely to withdraw so

soon as she saw France once engaged in war with her powerful neighbor, and

to use Charles's embarrassments as a means of securing private advantages.

In point of fact, Charles was personally unwilling to commit himself until

sure of England's support. Meanwhile, Catharine, from whose Argus-eyed

inspection nothing that was debated in the royal presence, openly or

secretly, ever escaped notice, awaited with her accustomed irresolution

Elizabeth's decision, before herself deciding whether to throw her

influence into the scale with Coligny (of whose growing favor with her son

she had begun to entertain some suspicion), or with Anjou and the

Spaniards. But Elizabeth was as ever a riddle, not only to her allies, but

even to her most confidential advisers. Certainly she was no friend to

Philip and Alva; yet she would not abruptly enter into war against them.

She could not help seeing that the interests of her person and of her

kingdom, to say nothing of her Protestant faith, were bound up in the

success of the Prince of Orange, who was about to cross the Rhine with

twenty-five thousand Germans for the relief of Mons, now invested by Alva.

For the duke wisely regarded the recapture of this place as the first step

in extricating himself from his present embarrassments. In such a strife

as that upon which Elizabeth must before long enter, whether with or

without her consent, the cordial alliance of France would be valuable

beyond computation. And yet, with a fatal perversity, she dallied with the

proposal of marriage. One day she would not hear of Alencon, alleging that

his age and personal blemishes placed the matter out of all consideration.

On another she gave hopes, and agreed to take a month's

consideration.[903] Thus she tantalized her suitor. Thus she convinced the

cunning Italian woman who, although she made no present show of holding

the reins of power in France, was ready at any moment to resume them, that

there was no reliance to be placed on England's promise of support against

Philip.[904]

[Sidenote: Rout of Genlis.]

The golden opportunity was in truth fast slipping away. Alva had struck

promptly at that opponent whose thrust was likely to be most deadly. Mons

must soon fall. A French Huguenot force, under command of Jean de Hangest,

Sieur de Genlis, was sent forward to relieve it. But the Frenchman was no

match for the cooler prudence of his antagonist,[905] and suffered

himself, on the march, to be surprised (on the nineteenth of July) and

taken prisoner by Don Frederick of Toledo and Chiappin Vitelli. Of his

army, barely one hundred foot soldiers found their way into the

beleaguered town. Twelve hundred were killed on the field of

battle--almost in sight of Mons--and a much larger number butchered by the

peasantry of the neighborhood.[906] A handful of officers and men,

scarcely more fortunate, shared the captivity of their commander, and were

destined to have their fortunes depend for a considerable time upon the

fluctuating interests of two unprincipled courts.[907]

The rout of Genlis was not in itself a decisive event. While Coligny could

bring forward a far more numerous army, and Orange was in command of a

considerable German force, the loss of this small detachment was but one

of those many reverses that are to be looked for in every war. But,

happening under the peculiar circumstances of the hour, it was invested

with a consequence disproportioned to its real importance. The fate of the

French Huguenots was quivering in the balance. The papal party was known

to be bitterly opposed to the war against Spain, and to be merely awaiting

an opportunity to strike a deadly blow at the heretics whom the royal

edict still protected. Catharine was undecided; but, with her, indecision

was the ordinary prelude to the sudden adoption of some one of many

conflicting projects, which had been long brooded over, but between which

the choice was, in the end, the result rather of accident, caprice, or

temporary impressions, than of calm deliberation.

[Sidenote: It determines Catharine to take the Spanish side.]

[Sidenote: Loss of the golden opportunity.]

This reverse at Mons, limited in its extent as it was, would be likely, so

the Huguenot leaders of France foresaw--and they were not mistaken--to

determine Catharine to take the Spanish side. With the queen mother in

favor of Spain and intolerance, experience had taught them that there was

little to expect from her weak son's intentions, however good they might

be. The only ground of hope for Orange and the Netherlands, and the only

prospect for security and religious toleration at home, lay in the success

of the Flemish project at Paris; and of this but a single chance seemed to

remain--in Elizabeth's finally espousing their cause with some good degree

of resolution. "Such of the religion," wrote Walsingham to Lord Burleigh,

inclosing the particulars of the disaster of Genlis, "as before slept in

security, begin now to awake and to see their danger, and do therefore

conclude that, unless this enterprise in the Low Countries have good

success, their cause groweth desperate."[908] To the Earl of Leicester

Walsingham was still more explicit in his warnings: "The gentlemen of the

religion, since the late overthrow of Genlis, weighing what dependeth upon

the Prince of Orange's overthrow, have made demonstration to the king,

that, his enterprise lacking good success, it shall not then lie in his

power to maintain his edict. They therefore desire him to weigh whether it

were better to have foreign war with advantage, or inward war to the ruin

of himself and his estate.[909] The king being not here, his answer is not

yet received. They hope to receive some such resolution as the danger of

the cause requireth. In the meantime, the marshal (Montmorency) desired

me to move your lordship to deal with her Majesty to know whether she,

upon overture to be made to the king, cannot be content to join with him

in assistance of this poor prince." And the faithful ambassador did not

forget to remind his mistress that the success of Philip in Flanders was

still more dangerous for Elizabeth than for Charles.[910]

[Sidenote: The admiral retains his courage.]

Meantime, Admiral Coligny, although disappointed at the rout of the

vanguard of the expedition which was to have been fitted out for the

liberation of the Netherlands, and yet more at the coolness which it had

occasioned among those who up to this moment had been not unfriendly, did

not yield to despondency, but labored all the more strenuously to engage

Charles in an undertaking fitted to call forth the nobler faculties of his

soul, and to free him from the thraldom under narrow-minded and interested

counsellors to which he had been subject all his life long. Even before

Genlis's defeat (in June, 1572), the admiral had presented an extended

paper, wherein the justice and the fair prospects of the war had been set

forth with rare force and cogency.[911] It may be that now, under the

influence of a sincere and unselfish devotion that took no account of

personal risks, the admiral distinctly told his young master that he could

never be a king in the true sense until he should emancipate himself from

his mother's control, and until he should find, outside of France, some

occupation for his brother Henry of Anjou, such as the vacancy of the

Polish throne seemed to offer.[912] Such frankness would have been

patriotic and timely, although a politician, influenced only by a regard

for his own safety, would have regarded it as foolhardy in the extreme.

[Sidenote: Charles and Catharine at Montpipeau.]

This advice, promptly and faithfully reported to Catharine by the spies

she kept around the king's person,[913] was the last drop in the cup of

Coligny's offences. Charles, at the time of her discovery of this fact,

was absent from court, seeking a few days' recreation at Montpipeau.

Thither his mother, now really alarmed for the continuance of her

influence, pursued him in precipitate haste.[914] Shutting herself up with

him apart from his followers, she burst into tears and plied Charles with

an artful harangue. For this woman, who had a masculine will and a heart

as cold and devoid of pity as the most utter scepticism could make it, had

the ability to counterfeit the feminine tenderness which she did not

possess. "I had not thought it possible," she said amid her sobs to her

son, who trembled like a culprit detected in his crime, "I had not thought

it possible that, in return for my pains in rearing you--in return for my

preservation of your crown, of which both Huguenots and Catholics were

desirous of robbing you, and after having sacrificed myself and incurred

such risks in your behalf, you would have been willing to make me so

miserable a requital. You hide yourself from me, your mother, and take

counsel of your enemies. You snatch yourself from my arms that saved you,

in order to rest in the arms of those who wished to murder you. I know

that you hold secret deliberations with the admiral. You desire

inconsiderately to plunge into a war with Spain, and so to expose your

kingdom, as well as yourself and us, a prey to 'those of the religion.'

If I am so miserable, before compelling me to witness such a sight, give

me permission to withdraw to my birthplace,[915] and send away your

brother, who may well style himself unfortunate in having employed his

life for the preservation of yours. Give him at least time to get out of

danger and from the presence of enemies made in your service--the

Huguenots, who do not wish for a war with Spain, but for a French war and

a subversion of all estates, which will enable them to gain a secure

footing."[916]

[Sidenote: Rumors of Elizabeth's desertion of her allies.]

Such was a portion of the queen mother's crafty speech. But there was

another point upon which she doubtless touched, and which she used to no

little purpose. A report had reached her from England to the effect that

Queen Elizabeth had decided to issue a proclamation recalling the English

who had gone to Flushing to assist the patriots. The story was false; so

the secretary, Sir Thomas Smith, subsequently assured Walsingham.

Elizabeth neither had done so, nor intended anything of the kind.[917] But

it was wonderfully like the usual practice of Henry the Eighth's daughter,

and Catharine believed it, and looked with horror at the precipice before

which she stood. Deserted by her faithless ally, France was entering

single-handed a contest of life or death with the world-empire of Spain.

In fact, the English ambassador ascribed to the receipt of this

intelligence alone both the queen mother's tears and entreaties at

Montpipeau and the king's altered policy. "Touching Flemish matters," he

wrote to Lord Burleigh, "the king had proceeded to an open dealing, had he

not received advertisement out of England, that her Majesty meant to

revoke such of her subjects as are presently in Flanders; whereupon such

of his council here as incline to Spain, have put the queen mother in such

a fear, that the enterprise cannot but miscarry without the assistance of

England, as she with tears had dissuaded the king for the time, who

otherwise was very resolute."[918]

Catharine had not mistaken her power over the feeble intellect and the

inconstant will of her son. Terrified less by the prospect of a Huguenot

supremacy which she held forth, than by the menace of her withdrawal and

that of Anjou, Charles, who was but too well acquainted with their cunning

and ambition, admitted his fault in concealing his plans, and promised

obedience for the future.[919]

[Sidenote: Charles thoroughly cast down.]

It was a sore disappointment to Admiral Coligny. The young king had, until

this time, shown himself so favorable, that "commissions were granted,

ready to have been sealed, for the levying of men in sundry provinces."

But he had now lost all his enthusiasm, and spoke coldly of the

enterprise.[920] Gaspard de Coligny did not, however, even now lose

courage or forsake the post of duty to which God and his country evidently

called him. In truth, the superiority of his mental and moral

constitution, less evident in prosperity, now became resplendent, and

chained the attention of every beholder. "How perplexed the admiral is,

who foreseeth the mischief that is like to follow, if assistance come not

from above," wrote Walsingham, full of admiration, to the Earl of

Leicester, "your lordship may easily guess. And surely to say truth, he

never showed greater magnanimity, nor never was better followed nor more

honored of those of the religion than now he is, which doth not a little

appal the enemies. In this storm he doth not give over the helm. He layeth

before the king and his council the peril and danger of his estate, and

though he cannot obtain what he would, yet doth he obtain somewhat from

him."[921]

[Sidenote: Coligny partially succeeds in reassuring him.]

So wrote that shrewd observer, Sir Francis Walsingham, just two weeks

before the bloody Sunday of the massacre, and eight days before the

marriage of Navarre, little suspecting, in spite of his anxiety, the flood

of misery which was so soon to burst upon that devoted land. To all human

foresight there was still hope that Charles, weak, nerveless, addicted to

pleasure, but not yet quite lost to a sense of honor, might yet be induced

to adopt a policy which would place France among the foremost champions of

intellectual and civil liberty, and transfer to the north of the Pyrenees

the prosperity which the Spanish monarchs had misused and had employed

only as an instrument of oppression and degradation. And, indeed, Coligny

was partially successful; for the impression made upon Charles by his

mother's complaints and menaces at Montpipeau gradually wore away, and

again he listened with apparent interest to the manly arguments of the

great Huguenot leader.

[Sidenote: Elizabeth toys with dishonorable proposals from Netherlands.]

[Sidenote: Fatal results.]