Could Elizabeth at this moment have brought herself to a more noble

course, could she for once have forgotten to "deal under hand," and help

secretly while in public she disavowed--could she, in short, have realized

for a single instant her responsibility as a great Protestant princess,

and been willing to expose even her own life to peril in order to secure

to the Reformation a chance of fair play, it might not even now have been

too late. But what was she doing at this very moment? According to the

admission of her own secretary, she was engaged in detaining volunteers

from the Netherlands, on the pretext of "fearing too much disorder there

through lack of some good head;" and "gently answering with a dilatory and

doubtful answer" the Duke of Alva, when he demanded the revocation of the

queen's subjects in Netherlands.[922] Was she projecting anything still

more dishonorable? The Spanish envoy in England, Anton de Guaras, affirms

it, in a letter of the thirtieth of June to the Duke of Alva; and we have

no means of disproving his assertions. In his account of a private

audience granted him by Queen Elizabeth, the ambassador writes: "She told

me that emissaries were coming every day from Flushing to her, proposing

to place the town in her hands. If it was for the service of his Majesty,

and if his Majesty approved, she said that she would accept their offer.

With the English who were already there, and with others whom she would

send over for the purpose, it would be easy for her to take entire

possession of the place, and she would then make it over to the Duke of

Alva or to any one whom the duke would appoint to receive it."[923] Guaras

can scarcely be suspected of misrepresenting the conversation upon so

important a topic and in a confidential communication to the Spanish

Governor of the Netherlands. The most charitable construction of

Elizabeth's words seems to be that they were a clumsy attempt to

propitiate the duke "with a dilatory answer," as Sir Thomas Smith somewhat

euphemistically expresses it, and that she had no intention of making good

her engagements. But it was a sad blunder on her part, and likely to be

ruinous to her friends, the French Protestants. Alva was not slow in

concluding that Elizabeth's offer was of greater value as documentary

proof of her untrustworthy character, than as a means of recovering

Flushing. "There is no positive proof," remarks the historian to whom we

are indebted for an acquaintance with the letter of Guaras, "that Alva

communicated Elizabeth's offers to the queen mother and the King of

France, but he was more foolish than he gave the world reason to believe

him to be if he let such a weapon lie idle in his writing-desk."[924] And

so that inconstant, unprincipled Italian woman, on whose fickle purpose

the fate of thousands was more completely dependent than even her

contemporaries as yet knew, at last reached the definite persuasion that

Elizabeth was preparing to play her false, at the very moment when Coligny

was hurrying her son into war with Spain. Even if France should prove

victorious, Catharine's own influence would be thrown into perpetual

eclipse by that of the admiral and his associates. This result the queen

mother resolved promptly to forestall, and for that purpose fell back upon

a scheme which had probably been long floating dimly in her mind.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Memoires de Michel de la Huguerye.]

The _Memoires inedits de Michel de la Huguerye_, of which the

first volume was recently published (Paris, 1877), under the

auspices of the National Historical Society, present some

interesting points, and deserve a special reference. At first

sight, the disclosures, with which the author tells us he was

favored, would seem to establish the bad faith of the court in

entering upon the peace of St. Germain, and the long

premeditation of the succeeding massacre. A closer examination

of the facts, assuming La Huguerye's thorough veracity, shows

that this is a mistake. La Huguerye may, indeed, have been

informed by companions on the way to Italy, who supposed him

to be a partisan of the Guises, that a great blow would be

struck at the Huguenots when the proper time arrived; and La

Huguerye may have been confident that he was telling the

truth, when, about Martinmas (November 11th), 1570, he stated

to De Briquemault, that "the king, seeing that he could not

attain his object by way of arms without greatly

weakening--nay, endangering his kingdom, had resolved upon

taking another road, by which, in a single day, he would

cleanse his whole state." He may have been assured, on what he

deemed good authority, that the Pope was in the plot, and

would keep the King of Spain from doing anything that might

interfere with the execution, and have inferred that, the

peace being a treacherous one, the only hope of the Huguenots

lay in skilfully enlisting Charles in its maintenance,

contrary to his original purpose. So he was confirmed in his

belief by the contents of the despatches of the Spanish

ambassador at the French court, treacherously submitted to the

Huguenots by an unfaithful agent of the envoy. But the former

statements were, at most, little better than rumors, to which

the circumstances of the hour gave color. The air was full of

dark hints; but, apparently, they had no more solid foundation

than the fact that, in an age abounding in perfidious schemes,

the Protestants had already placed themselves partially in the

power of their great enemies, and were likely soon to be more

completely in their hands. The information received by La

Huguerye was a very different thing from an authoritative

avowal of a concealed purpose made by Catharine or by Charles

himself. On the other hand, the assurances in the Spanish

despatches were just of the same general nature as others with

which the French government endeavored to quiet Philip, Alva,

and the Roman pontiff himself.

The only other peculiarity of La Huguerye to which I shall

allude is his studied misrepresentation of the character of

Jeanne d'Albret, Queen of Navarre. Contrary to the uniform

portraiture given by contemporaries of both religious parties,

she here appears as "an inconsiderate woman (femme legere),

with little forethought," "known to be jealous of the

authority of the admiral," "whom she thwarted by her authority

as much as was possible, at whatever cost or danger it might

be." She had "intermeddled with affairs in the last war,

unsolicited and of her own accord, not so much for conscience'

sake, as because of the hatred her house bore to the popes,

sole cause of the loss of the kingdom of Navarre, and

especially through jealousy of the late Prince of Conde, whom

she saw to be in the enjoyment of such credit, and to be so

well followed, that she suspected great injury might result to

her son in the event of his succession to the throne." She

was, consequently, "not very sorry" to hear of Conde's death

at Jarnac. Having been disappointed in securing for her son

the sole (nominal) command of the Huguenots, she vented her

vengeance upon Coligny, whom she held responsible for the

association of the young Conde in the leadership with his

cousin. From that time forward she took every opportunity to

cross the admiral, with the view of compelling him to retire

in disgust from the management of affairs. In one of the

speeches--Sallustian, I suspect--in which the Memoires abound,

Count Louis of Nassau is represented as lamenting: "It is a

great pity to have to do with a woman who has no other counsel

than her own head, which is too little and light (legere) to

contain so many reasons and precautions, and who is of such

weight in matters of so great consequence. And the mischief is

that she has such an aversion to the admiral through foolish

jealousy," etc. At last the admiral is goaded on to

unpardonable imprudence. In the spring of 1572 he yields to

the importunities of Marshal Cosse, and goes from La Rochelle

to the royal court at Blois: "weary of being near this

princess, he exposed himself to the evident peril, of which

he had had advices and arguments enough."

To all this misrepresentation, the remarks of La Huguerye's

editor, the Baron de Ruble, are a sufficient answer: "No other

historian of the period, Catholic or Huguenot, has accused the

Queen of Navarre of so much jealousy, frivolity, and spite. To

the calumnies of La Huguerye we should oppose the verdict

which every impartial judge can pronounce respecting this

princess, in accordance with the letters published by the

Marquis de Rochambeau and the testimony of contemporaries."

FOOTNOTES:

[792] "La Royne et mons de Morvillier trettent eus deus seulz avecques

eus, _ce sont aujourdhuy les grans cous_." See two important letters of

Lorraine to his sister-in-law, the Duchess of Nemours, April 24th and May

1, 1570, in Soldan, Geschichte d. Prot. in Frank., ii. Appendix, 593, 594,

from MSS. of the Bibliotheque nationale.

[793] "Though of late the Cardinal of Lorrain hath had access to the

king's presence, yet is he not repaired in credit, neither dealeth he in

government." Walsingham to Leicester, Aug. 29, 1570, Digges, Compleat

Ambassador, p. 8.

[794] Ibid., _ubi supra_. Yet it is but fair to add that Walsingham notes

that "the great conference that is between the queen mother and the

cardinal breedeth some doubt of some practise to impeach the same."

[795] Letter of April 23, 1570, Pii Quinti Epistolae, 272.

[796] Relations des Amb. Ven. (Tommaseo), ii. 110. Correro's relation is

of 1569.

[797] Baschet, La diplomatie venitienne, p. 518.

[798] The only account of this striking occurrence which I have seen is

given by Jehan de la Fosse, p. 122.

[799] Walsingham and Norris to Elizabeth, Jan. 29, 1571, Digges, 24.

[800] "The best ground of continuance," he writes to Leicester, "that I

can learn, by those that can best judge, is the king's own inclination,

which is thought sincerely to be bent that way." Jan. 28, 1571, Digges,

28.

[801] "Thus, sir, you see, for that he is not settled in religion, how he

is carried away with worldly respects, a common misery to those of his

calling." Ibid., 30.

[802] Walsingham to Leicester, Aug. 29, 1570, Digges, 8.

[803] De Thou, iv. 330-333. See Digges, 30.

[804] Letter of the Queen of Navarre to the queen mother, Dec. 17, 1570,

Rochambeau, Lettres d'Antoine de Bourbon et de Jehanne d'Albret (Paris,

1877), 306. A few lines of this admirable paper (which is, however, much

mutilated) may be quoted as having an almost prophetic significance: "Et

vous diray, Madame, les larmes aus yeulx, avecq une afection pure et

entiere que, s'il ne plaist au Roy et a vous nous aseureur nos tristes

demandes, que je ne puis esperer qu'une treve ... en ce royaulme par ceste

guerre siville, car nous y mourrons tous plustost que quiter nostre Dieu

et nostre religion, laquelle nous ne pouvons tenir sans exersise, non plus

qu'un corps ne saure vivre sans boire et manger.... Je vous en ay dit le

seul moyen; ayes pitie de tant de sang repandu, de tant d'impietes

commises en la ... de ceste guerre et _que vous ne pourrez bien d'un seul

mot faire cesser_." "Et sur cella, Madame, je supliray Dieu qui tient les

cueurs des Roys en sa main disposer celui du Roi et le vostre a mectre le

repos en ce royaulme a sa gloire et contentement de Vos Majestes, _maugre

le complot de M. le Cardinal de Lorrayne_, dont il a descouvert la trame a

Villequagnon," etc.

[805] Discours du massacre fait a Orange, from the Mem. de l'etat de

France sous Charles IX., Archives curieuses, vi. 459-470; De Thou, iv.

483.

[806] Floquet, Histoire du Parlement du Normandie, iii. 87-112, whose

account is in great part derived from the registers of the parliament and

the archives of the Hotel de Ville of Rouen. De Thou, iv. (liv. l.) 483,

certainly greatly underestimates the number of Protestants killed, when he

limits it to _five_.

[807] See _ante_, chapter xvi.

[808] Jehan de la Fosse (Sept., 1571), 132.

[809] Ibid. (Nov., 1571), 133.

[810] Jehan de la Fosse (Dec., 1571), 134.

[811] Agrippa d'Aubigne, ii. 4 (liv. i., c. 1); De Thou, iv. (liv. l.)

487-489; Discours de ce qui avint touchant la Croix de Gastines (from Mem.

de l'etat de Charles IX.), in Cimber et Danjou, Arch. cur., vi. 475, 476;

Jehan de la Fosse, _ubi supra_. According to the recently published

journal of La Fosse, Charles the Ninth expressed himself to the preachers

of Paris, who had come to remonstrate with him in language which may at

first sight appear somewhat suspicious: "attestant ledict roy vouloir

vivre et mourir en la religion de ses predecesseurs roys, religion

catholique et romaine, toutefois qu'il avoit fait abattre la croix pour

certaine cause laquelle il vouloit taire et avoir faict plusieurs choses

contre sa conscience, toutefois par contrainte a cause du temps, et

supplioit les predicateurs n'avoir mauvaise opinion de luy" (pp. 138,

139). There is good reason, however, to believe that the secret reason

which the king was unwilling to name was not a contemplated massacre of

the Protestants, but rather the Navarrese and English marriages, and the

war with Spain in the Netherlands.

[812] Walsingham to Burleigh, Dec. 7, 1571, Digges, p. 151. "Marshal

Montmorency repaired to this town the third of this moneth accompanied

with 300 horse. The next day after his arrival he and the Marshal de Coss

conferred with the chief of this town about the plucking down of the

cross, which was resolved on, and the same put in execution, the masons

employed in that behalf being guarded by certain harquebusiers."

[813] Queen Elizabeth was born September 7, 1533; Henry was born in

September, 1551 (the day is variously given as the 18th, 19th, and 21st),

and was just nineteen.

[814] Letter of Catharine to La Mothe Fenelon, Oct. 20, 1570,

Correspondance diplomatique, vii. 143-146.

[815] Despatch of La Mothe Fenelon, Dec. 29, 1570. Ibid., vol. iii. 418,

419.

[816] And with a freedom which might be mistaken for Arcadian simplicity,

did we not know that innocence was no characteristic of either court in

that age. "J'en cognoissoys ung," he told her, "qui estoit nay a tant de

sortes de vertu, qu'il ne failloit doubter qu'elle n'en fut fort honnoree

et singulierement bien aymee, et dont j'espererois qu'au bout de neuf mois

apres, elle se trouveroit mere d'ung beau filz," etc. La Mothe Fenelon,

iii. 439, 454, 455.

[817] Despatch to Cecil, Jan. 28, 1571, Digges, 26.

[818] Ibid., 27.

[819] Digges, 27.

[820] Catharine to La Mothe Fenelon, Feb. 2, 1571, Corresp. diplom., vii.

179; and Walsingham to Cecil, Feb. 18, 1571, Digges, 43.

[821] Catharine, _ubi supra_.

[822] La Mothe Fenelon, March 6, 1571, ibid., iv. 11, 12. The ambassador

exhibits his own incredulity respecting the stories circulated to the

queen's disadvantage.

[823] To La Mothe Fenelon, Feb. 18, 1571, ibid., vii. 183.

[824] To the same, March 2, 1571, ibid., vii. 190.

[825] Walsingham to Burleigh, May 25, 1571, Digges, 101.

[826] Digges, 96.

[827] Ibid., 55.

[828] "So it doth appear, if he would omit that demand, and put it in

silence, yet will her Majestie straitly capitulate with him, that he shall

in no way demand it hereafter at her hands. Which scruple, I believe, will

utterly break off the matter; wherefore I am in small hope that any

marriage will grow this way." Leicester to Walsingham, July 7, 1571,

Digges, 116.

[829] Digges, 119, 120.

[830] A league with France, Walsingham maintained, would be an advancement

of the Gospel there and everywhere, and "though it yieldeth not so much

_temporal_ profit, yet in respect of the _spiritual fruit_ that thereby

may insue, I think it worth the imbracing." Ibid., p. 121.

[831] Digges, 120.

[832] Anjou's humor, she told him, "me faict bien grande peyne." Letter of

July 25, 1571, Corresp. diplom., vii. 234.

[833] Ibid., _ubi supra_. This expression deserves to be noticed

particularly, inasmuch as it effectually disposes of the story--which can

scarcely be regarded otherwise than as a fable--that the assassination of

Lignerolles, a little over four months later (December, 1571), was

compassed by Charles IX. and his mother, because they discovered that he

had become possessed of the secret of the projected massacre of St.

Bartholomew. If these royal personages had anything to do with the murder,

which is very improbable, they hated Lignerolles for marring the plan of

the English match, which they so much desired.

[834] "Je suis resolue de faire tous mes efforts pour reheussir pour mon

fils d'Alencon, qui ne sera pas si difficile." Ibid., vii. 235.

[835] It must be admitted that some indignation on Queen Elizabeth's part

was pardonable, if, as we learn from La Mothe Fenelon (despatch of May 2,

1571), she had heard that a certain person of high rank in the French

court had recommended Anjou to marry the English "granny"--"ceste

vieille"--and administer to her, under some pretext, a "French

potion"--"un breuvage de France"--so as to become a widower within six

months of the wedding day. Then he might marry Mary, Queen of Scots, and

reign with her peaceably over the whole island! Correspondance

diplomatique, iv. 84. However sincere or zealous Elizabeth may have been

previously, I doubt whether she ever forgave the suggestion, or the fair

princess whose charms were thus exalted above her own.

[836] De Thou, iv. (liv. l.) 492.

[837] "I would your lordship knew the gentleman," enthusiastically writes

Walsingham (August 12th, 1571) to the Earl of Leicester. "For courage

abroad and counsell at home they give him here the reputation to be

another [name in cipher]. He is in speech eloquent and pithy; but which is

chiefest, he is in religion, as religious in life as he is sincere in

profession. I hope God hath raised him up in these days, to serve for an

instrument for the advancement of His glory." Digges, 128. In another

letter, without date, the ambassador speaks of him as "surely the rarest

gentleman which I have talked withal since I came to France," Ibid., 176.

[838] The substance of Louis of Nassau's secret interviews is best given

by Walsingham in a long communication, of August 12, 1571, to Lord

Burleigh, Digges, 123-127.

[839] "Contre les deffences et proscriptions de son duc, qui a plat avoit

refuse le Roi de souffrir ce mariage, elle s'en vint a la Rochelle pour

avoir nom avant de mourir (ainsi qu'elle disoit) la Martia de Caton."

Agrippa d'Aubigne, ii. 5.

[840] "A quoi ses ennemis trouverent a redire, publiant qu'il n'apartenoit

qu'aux _princes_ d'epouser par procurateur. Mais ceux qui parloient des

choses sans passion, imputoient ces sortes de discours a medisance,

soutenant de leur cote qu'il ne pouvoit faire autrement, puisqu'il n'y

avoit pas de surete pour lui a l'aller epouser," etc. Vie de Coligny, 386.

[841] A very interesting account of the long imprisonment of Coligny's

widow is to be found in Count Jules Delaborde's monograph, "Jacqueline

d'Entremont," _apud_ Bulletin de la Societe de l'hist. du prot. fr., xvi.

(1867) 220-246.

[842] A few months before the admiral's departure from La Rochelle, there

had been held in this Huguenot asylum a convocation of historical

importance. The sessions of the seventh national synod, lasting from the

second to the eleventh of April, 1571, were consumed in important

deliberations respecting the doctrines and discipline of the reformed

church (see Aymon, Tous les synodes, i. 98-111). The Queen of Navarre, the

Princes of Navarre and Conde, Count Louis of Nassau, and Admiral Coligny

were present. At the request of the synod, they added their signatures to

those of the ministers and elders, upon three copies of the Confession of

Faith, engrossed on parchment, which were to be kept at La Rochelle, in

Bearn, and at Geneva respectively (see the eighth general article). The

moderator on this occasion was Theodore Beza, who had been specially

invited to France. The reformer was certainly not destitute of courage,

for he could not have forgotten the dangers to which he had been exposed

on previous visits to France. They were even greater than Beza himself

probably knew. In June, 1563, after the conclusion of the first civil war,

there was a rumor at Brussels that Beza could not return to Geneva,

because of a quarrel he had had with Calvin. Thereupon, the Duchess of

Parma, Regent of the Netherlands, suspecting that he might be tempted to

come through the Spanish dominions, issued secret orders that the

frontiers should be watched, and offered a reward of one thousand florins

to any one who should bring him, dead or alive. He was described as "homme

de moienne stature, ayant barbe a demy blanche, et le visage hault et

large." Letters of the Duchess of Parma, June 11th and 25th, 1563, _apud_

Charles Paillard, Histoire des troubles religieux de Valenciennes (Paris

and Brussels, 1875, 1876), iii. 339, 340, 356.

[843] Walsingham to Burleigh, Aug. 12, 1571, Digges, 122. The ambassador

informs Elizabeth, in this letter, of the intense desire of the French

Protestants that she should express to the French envoy her approval of

the invitation extended to the princes and Coligny, and should say "that

so rare a subject as the admiral is was not to be suffered to live in such

a corner as Rochelle." It was thought that her commendations would greatly

advance his credit with the king.

[844] I know not on what authority Miss Freer states (Henry III. of

France, his Court and Times, i. 70) that "even Coligny was startled at the

ominous significance of these words; the shadow, however, vanished before

the warmth and frankness of Charles's manner." Compare Agrippa d'Aubigne,

ii. 5.

[845] Walsingham's account in a letter of La Mothe Fenelon (Corresp.

dipl., iv. 245, 246), its accuracy being vouched for by a letter of

Charles IX. himself (ibid., vii. 268); Tocsain contre les massacreurs,

Cimber et Danjou, vii. 34, 35; De Thou, iv. (liv. l.) 493.

[846] Charles IX. to Emmanuel Philibert, Blois, Sept. 28, 1571, _apud_

Leger, Hist. gen. des eglises vaudoises (Leyden, 1669), i. 47, 48.

[847] "Durant ce moys, Gaspard de Coligny, remis par l'edit de

pacification en l'estat d'admiral, fut mande par le roy et vint de la

Rochelle trouver le Roy a Bloys, et se retira hors de la cour toute la

maison de Guise, de sorte que le Roy estoit gouverne par ledit admiral et

Montmorency." Jehan de la Fosse, Journal d'un cure ligueur, 132.

[848] Walsingham to Cecil, March 5, 1571. Digges, 48, 49.

[849] "And as for conference had with the Count Lewis of Nassau, he told

him, that he was misinformed;" first letter of Walsingham to Burleigh, of

Aug. 12th, Digges, 122. Yet the second letter of the same date gives a

detailed account of this conference. It must be admitted that the

diplomacy of the sixteenth century was sufficiently barefaced in its

impostures. Louis of Nassau told Walsingham of an enterprise of Strozzi

against Spain, determined upon by Charles IX. "onely to amaze the king

there;" but, as to Strozzi, "the king here meaneth notwithstanding to

disallow [him] openly." Ibid., 125.

[850] Digges, 122.

[851] Jehan de la Fosse, 134.

[852] "Et que ceulx qui estoient a la fenestre estoient bien aises de

veoir jouer le jeu a mes despens." It is scarcely necessary to say that

this characteristic expression alludes primarily to the King of Spain and

the Duke of Alva in the Netherlands.

[853] Charriere, Negociations de la France dans le Levant, Documents

inedits (publ. by the Imperial Government), Paris, 1853, iii. 200. Cf. Sir

James Mackintosh, Hist. of England, vol. iii., App. A., pp. 345, 346,

audience of Sr. de la Bourdaiziere at Rome, cir. Sept., 1571.

[854] Margaret being born May 14, 1552, and Henry of Navarre, Dec. 13,

1553.

[855] Letter of March 21, 1556/7, Rochambeau, Lettres d'Antoine de Bourbon

et de Jehanne d'Albret (Paris, 1877), 145. The story of the promise of

Margaret by her father to Henry of Navarre is confirmed by a letter of

Charles IX., now in the National Library, dated October 5, 1571. "The

Queen of Navarre," he writes to Ferralz (Ferrails), at Rome, "has several

times invited me to do her son the honor to marry him to my sister,

_whereby also the promise would be fulfilled which my father gave to the

late King of Navarre_." Fr. von Raumer, Briefe aus Paris (Leipsic, 1830),

i. 290.

[856] Mlle. Vauvilliers, Hist. de Jeanne d'Albret (Paris, 1818), i. 106.

[857] Soldan, Gesch. des Prot. in Frankreich, ii. 413.

[858] "I thinke," wrote Sir Thomas Smith, as early as January 17, 1563,

"your Majestie hath understood of the marriage practized betwixt the

Prince of Portugall and Madame Margaret, the king's sister." Forbes, State

Papers, ii. 287.

[859] Memoires et Lettres de Marguerite de Valois, edited by M. F.

Guessard (Publications of the French Historical Society), Paris, 1842, 23.

[860] De Thou, iv. (liv. l.) 491, 492. Notwithstanding the frequent

assertions in royal letters (as, for instance, in one which I have already

quoted), that the Queen of Navarre herself urged the marriage, it is

certain that she did not initiate it, while it is even maintained that she

was only brought to consent by threats. "La reine fut ouie un temps sans

vouloir approuver ledit mariage, jusqu'a cette extremite qu'on la menaca

de faire declarer son fils illegitime, a cause du mariage qui avoit ete

contracte entre elle et le Duc de Cleves. Enfin vaincue, elle declare

qu'elle n'en esperait que tout malheur." Fr. von Raumer, Briefe aus Paris,

i. 291.

[861] Memoires de Marg. de Valois, 24. The absurdity of the story that

Margaret was averse to this marriage, because of a romantic attachment to

young Henry of Guise, is sufficiently clear from the circumstance that the

Duke of Guise had been married for some time when the match between the

Prince of Navarre and Margaret of Valois was first talked of in earnest.

He married, on the 17th of September, 1570, Catharine of Cleves, widow of

Prince Porcien. ("_Hodie_ celebrantur Lutetiae Ducis Guisii, qui ducit in

uxorem viduam principis Portiani," etc. Languet, Sept. 17, 1570, Epist.

secr., i. 163.) It is not probable that Margaret would object to the

advantageous marriage with Henry of Navarre on account of her affection

for a former lover, who, at the time of her nuptials, had been for two

years married to another woman.

[862] Digges, 122.

[863] "La Reyna mi madre," said Anjou one day to a lady, "muestra tener

pena de que esta desbaratado mi casamiento, y yo estoy el mas contento

hombre del mundo de haber escapado de casar con una puta publica." Francis

de Alava to Philip, May 11, 1571, _apud_ Froude, Hist. of Eng., x. 224.

[864] She gravely proposed to her council to have a stipulation for the

restitution of Calais inserted in the articles of marriage, and Burleigh,

Sussex, and Leicester had some difficulty in persuading her to omit the

mention. Lord Burleigh, June 5, 1571, Digges, 104.

[865] Froude, Hist. of England, x. 230. This statement, in itself

sufficiently credible in view of Leicester's subsequent career, rests on a

passage in a MS. from Simancas, which Mr. Froude inserts in a foot-note.

[866] Despatch of March 22, 1572, Digges, 197.

[867] Unless by means of La Mothe Fenelon's arithmetic, who, in

conversation with Queen Elizabeth, maintained that, since her majesty was

at least _nine_ years younger in her _disposition_, and Alencon _eight_

years older _in manly vigor_, both parties were of precisely the same age,

namely, twenty-seven! Corresp. diplom., v. 91, etc.

[868] La Mothe Fenelon, vii. 289; Dumont, Corps diplomatique, v., 211-215.

It cannot but be regarded as a singular instance of Elizabeth's

irresolution and of that perversity with which she was wont to try the

patience of her council almost beyond endurance, that she gravely proposed

to include in the treaty an article providing for the _protection_ of the

King of Spain--a stipulation against which Walsingham earnestly protested

as the climax of folly, since it was certain "that the end of this league

is onely to bridle his greatness." Digges, 175.

[869] "The like hath not been seen in any man's memory," wrote Lord

Burleigh. Montmorency received "a Cupboard of Plate Gilt," "a great cup of

gold of 111 ounces," etc. Digges, 218; De Thou, iv. (liv. li.) 537, 538.

[870] La Mothe Fenelon, vii. 292.

[871] Ibid., v. 13.

[872] Ibid., vii. 317-319.

[873] "Que Monseigneur le Duc vienne!" Despatch of Aug. 28, 1572. Corresp.

diplom., v. 111.

[874] Pius the Fifth--Saint Pius, for his name is commemorated in the

prayers of the Church on the 5th of May--was, we are told by his

biographer, a model of severity to his own kindred; and, if the fact that

he elevated his grand-nephew, Michael Bonelli, to the sacred college

should be alleged as casting some doubt upon this characteristic of his,

we must hasten to add that he did so, we are assured, only in consequence

of the urgent solicitations of Cardinal Farnese and others. He deserves

the credit, however, of yielding to their persuasions with reasonable

promptness, for the nomination of his nephew took place within two months

of the Pope's accession. Michael, being like his uncle a native of the

vicinity of Alessandria, in Piedmont, naturally succeeded to the

designation of "il cardinale Alessandrino," which Pius relinquished on

assuming the tiara. Gabutius, Vita Pii Quinti Papae, _apud_ Acta Sanctorum

(Bolandi) Maii, Sec. 48, p. 630.

[875] The Guises, in the same spirit, had at one time proposed as a

candidate for Margaret's hand the Cardinal of Este, for whom they hoped

easily to obtain from the Pope a dispensation from his vow of celibacy.

Walsingham to Cecil, Feb. 18, 1571, Digges, 42.

[876] Capilupi, Lo stratagema di Carlo IX., 1573, Orig. edit., p. 11;

Gabutius, Vita Pii Quinti, _ubi supra_, Sec. 244-246, p. 676.

[877] So also says Tavannes: "Il est renvoye avec paroles generales que Sa

Majeste ne feroit rien au prejudice de l'obeissance de Sa Sainctete."

Memoires (ed. Petitot), iii. 198. Tavannes is explicit in his declarations

that the massacre was not premeditated. "Tant s'en faut que l'on pensast

faire la Sainct Barthelemy a ces nopces, que sans Madame, fille du Roy,

qui y avoit inclination, il se deslioit" (iii. 194). "L'entreprise de la

Sainct Barthelemy, qui n'estoit pas seulement pourpensee, et dont la

naissance vint de l'imprudence huguenotte." Ibid., iii. 198.

[878] _E.g._: "Si j'avois quelque autre moyen de me vanger de mes ennemis,

je ne ferois point ce mariage; mais je n'en ai point d'autre moyen que

cetui-ci." Cardinal D'Ossat's letter of Sept. 22, 1599, to Villeroy,

Lettres (ed. of 1698), ii. 100. It must be noticed that D'Ossat had a

particular purpose in producing testimony to show that Charles IX.

_constrained_ his sister to marry, as it would assist him in obtaining a

divorce for Henry IV. If, as D'Ossat affirms, the Cardinal of Alessandria

exclaimed, on hearing of the massacre, "God be praised! The King of France

has kept his word to me," this would agree equally well with the

supposition that Charles IX. had contented himself with general promises.

[879] "_The foolish cardinal_," wrote Sir Thomas Smith, English ambassador

at the French court during Walsingham's temporary absence (March 3,

1571/2), "went away as wise as he came; he neither brake the marriage with

Navarre, nor got no dismes of the Church of France, nor perswaded the King

to enter into the League with the Turk, nor to accept the Tridentine, or

to break off Treaty with us; and _the foolishest part of all, at his going

away, he refused a diamond which the King offered him of 600 crowns_, yet

he was here highly feasted. He and his train cost the King above 300

crowns a day, as they said." Digges, 193. Gabutius adds that after the

death of Pius V.--probably after the massacre--Charles IX. sent the ring

to the cardinal with this inscription upon the bezel: "Non minus haec

solida est pietas, ne pietas possit mea sanguine solvi." Vita Pii Quinti,

_ubi supra_, Sec. 246, p. 676. The inscription had doubtless been cut since

the first proffer of the ring. It appears to me most probable that the

ring was offered by Charles to the cardinal with the idea that its

acceptance would bind him to support the king in his suit for a

dispensation for the marriage of Henry and Margaret, and that the prudent

churchman declined it for the same reason. Subsequently, with the same

view, Charles sent it to his ambassador at Rome, M. de Ferralz,

instructing him to give it to the Cardinal of Alessandria. But Ferralz, on

consultation with the Cardinal of Ferrara and others in the French

interest, came to the conclusion that the gift would be useless, and so

retained it, at the same time notifying his master. The reason may have

been either that Alessandria had too little influence, since his uncle's

death, to effect what was desired, or that the matter was of less

consequence when once Charles had resolved to go on with the marriage

without waiting further for the dispensation. So I understand Charles's

words to Ferralz (Aug. 24, 1572): "J'ai aussi sceu par vostre dicte

memoire, que par l'avis de mon cousin le cardinal de Ferrare, _vous avez

retenu le diamant que je vous avois envoye pour le donner de ma part au

cardinal Alexandrin_, puisque mon dict cousin et mes autres ministres

trouvent que _le don seroit inutile et perdu_." Mackintosh, iii., App. C.,

p. 348.

[880] Despatch of March 29, 1572, Digges, 182, 183. It must be noticed

that the permission to have mass celebrated in Bearn had been purposely

left out in the original basis.

[881] Jeanne d'Albret to Henry of Navarre, Tours, Feb. 21, 1572,

Rochambeau, Lettres d'Antoine de Bourbon et de Jehanne d'Albret (Paris,

1877), 340.

[882] Jeanne d'Albret to M. de Beauvoir, Blois, March 11, 1572, ibid.,

345.

[883] "'Il m'a donc dit quelque chose.' 'Je croy bien qu'ouy, Madame, mais

c'est quelque chose qui n'approche point de cela.' Elle se prist a rire,

car nottez qu'elle ne parle a moy qu'en badinant." Same letter, ibid.,

348. How keenly Jeanne felt this treatment may be inferred from a

characteristic sentence: "Je vous diray encores que je m'esbahis comme je

peux porter les traverses que j'ay, car _l'on me gratte, l'on me picque,

l'on me flatte, l'on me brave, l'on me veult tirer les vers du nez_, sans

se laisser aller, bref je n'ay que Martin _seul qui marche droict, encores

qu'il ait la goutte_, et M. le comte (Nassau) qui me faict tous les bons

offices qu'il peut." Same letter, ibid., 353.

[884] The letter is inserted entire in La Laboureur, Additions aux Mem. de

Castelnau, i. 859-861. There is much in this letter that lends probability

to Miss Freer's view (Henry III., i. 89) that Catharine had at this time

begun to be opposed to an alliance which she feared might result in the

diminution of her influence at court, and that she therefore "sought, by

denying all that had before been conceded, and by proposing in lieu

conditions which she knew Jeanne could not accept, to throw the odium of a

rupture on the Queen of Navarre."

[885] The contract of marriage was signed at Blois, April 11th.

[886] Jehan de la Fosse (Journal d'un cure ligueur), 143, 144.

[887] See an interesting account of the Queen of Navarre's last days, her

will, etc., in Vauvilliers, Hist. de Jeanne d'Albret, iii. 179-188.

[888] He is said already to have obtained the surname of "l'empoisonneur

de la reine." Vauvilliers, iii. 193.

[889] Vauvilliers, Hist. de Jeanne d'Albret, _ubi supra_. Unfortunately

for the "glove" theory, the Reveille-Matin des Massacreurs, written within

the next year (see p. 172, Cimber and Danjou, "du mois d'aoust _dernier

passe_"), makes Jeanne to have died in consequence of a drink (un boucon)

given her at a festival at which Anjou was present. So in the Eusebii

Philadelphi Dialogi, 1574 (the same book virtually), Jeanne dies, "veneno

in quibusdam epulis propinato, quibus Dux Andegavensis intererat, ut

quidem mihi a domestico ipsius aliquo narratum est," i. 25, 26. The

testimony of the physicians, who seem to have been unprejudiced, is given

in a note in Cimber et Danjou, Archives curieuses, vii. 170, 171.

[890] It is said that Charles IX. suggested to him the propriety of this

visit, accompanying the suggestion by the words: "I know that you are fond

of gardening"--a sly reference to the occasion when Coligny, just before

the explosion of the second civil war, was found by the royal spies busily

engaged in his vineyards, pruning-hook in hand, and, by his apparent

engrossment in the labors of the field, dispelled the suspicions of a

Huguenot rising. It was ominous, according to these writers, that Charles

should at this moment recall the circumstances of that narrow escape at

Meaux from falling into the hands of the Huguenots. Agrippa d'Aubigne,

Hist. univ., ii. 6.

[891] "Estant nostre vouloir et intention le retenir pres de nous pour

nous servir de luy en nos plus graves et importans affaires, comme

ministre digne, la vertu duquel est assez cogneue et experimentee." MS.

passport dated September 24, 1571, Biblioth. nat., _apud_ Bulletin de la

Soc. de l'hist. du prot. francais, xvi. (1867) 220.

[892] Le Tocsain contre les massacreurs (orig. ed., Rheims, 1579), 77.

[893] Le Reveille-Matin des Francois et de leurs voisins. Compose par

Eusebe Philadelphe Cosmopolite, en forme de Dialogues. A Edinbourg, de

l'imprimerie de Jaques James. Avec permission. 1574. _Apud_ Cimber et

Danjou, Archives curieuses, vii. 171. Dialogi Euseb. Philadelphi.

Edimburgi, 1574, i. 26.

[894] Le Tocsain contre les massacreurs, 40 (Archives curieuses). So Jean

de Tavannes--a writer certainly not prejudiced in Coligny's favor--gives

him credit for preferring to hazard his life rather than renew the civil

war. Yet he adds: "Il ne voyoit ny ne prevoyoit ce qui n'estoit pour lors,

d'autant plus qu'il n'y avoit encor rien de resolu contre luy, quoy que

les ignorans des affaires d'estat ayent escrit ou dit." Memoires de

Gaspard de Tavannes (Ed. Petitot), iii. 257.

[895] These were four in number: that Navarre should make a secret

profession of the Catholic faith, express a desire for the dispensation,

restore ecclesiastical property in his domains, and marry Margaret before

the Church. Charles IX. to Ferralz (Ferrails), July 31, 1572, _apud_

Mackintosh, iii., Appendix III.; Fr. von Raumer, Briefe aus Paris

(Leipsic, 1831), i. 292.

[896] Journal de Lestoile, p. 24; Le Reveille-Matin des Francais, etc.;

Arch. curieuses, vii. 172; Dialogi Eusebii Philadelphi, i. 31;

Vauvilliers, iii. 177; Agrippa d'Aubigne, ii. 12:--"Ce vieux bigot avec

ses cafarderies fait perdre un bon temps a ma grosse soeur Margot."

[897] Charles IX. to Mandelot, Blois, May 3, 1572, Correspondance du roi

Charles IX. et du sieur de Mandelot, Gouverneur de Lyons, edited by P.

Paris (Paris, 1830), pp. 9-11. Also Charriere, Negociations du Levant,

iii. 228.

[898] "Toutes mes fantaisies sont bandees pour m'opposer a la grandeur des

Espagnols," etc. Henri de Valois et la Pologne en 1572, par le Marquis de

Noailles (3 vols., Paris, 1867), i. 8.

[899] De Noailles, i. 10.

[900] "De tenir le Roy Catholique en cervelle, et donner hardiesse a ces

gueulx des Pais-Bas de se remuer et entreprendre," etc. Ibid., i. 9.

[901] De Thou, iv. 674; Motley, Dutch Republic, ii. 369, etc.

[902] "Thence with great celerity the Count Lodovick should send 500 horse

to Bruxels under the conduct of M. de la Nue (Noue), where if he hap to

find the Duke of Alva, it will grow to short wars, in respect of the

intelligence they have with the town, who undertook with the aid of 100

soldiers to take the duke prisoner. If he retires to Antwerp, as it is

thought he wil, then it is likely that all the whole country will revolt.

I the rather credit this news for that it agreeth with the plot laid by

Count Lodovick, before his departure hence," etc. Walsingham to Burleigh,

Paris, May 29, 1572, Digges, 204.

[903] Queen Elizabeth to Walsingham, July 23, 1572, Digges, 226-230.

[904] "More tremendous issues," Mr. Froude forcibly remarks, "were hanging

upon Elizabeth's decision than she knew of. But she did know that France

was looking to her reply--was looking to her general conduct, to ascertain

whether she would or would not be a safe ally in a war with Spain, and

that on her depended at that moment whether the French government would

take its place once for all on the side of the Reformation." History of

England, x. 370.

[905] In fact, he was acting in violation of the instructions of Louis of

Nassau, by whom he had been despatched for aid to France. Apprehending

danger, Nassau repeatedly bid him avoid the direct road to Mons, and make

a circuit through the territory of Cambray, and effect a junction with the

Prince of Orange. Genlis justified his neglect of these directions by

alleging the orders of Admiral Coligny. De Thou, iv. 680.

[906] Motley, Dutch Republic, ii. 383, 384; De Thou, iv. 680, etc.

[907] It may be noted, by way of anticipation, that Genlis, after an

imprisonment of over a year, was secretly strangled by Alva's command, in

the castle of Antwerp. With characteristic mendacity, the duke spread the

report that the prisoner had died a natural death. Ibid., _ubi supra_.

[908] Walsingham to Burleigh, July 26, 1572, Digges, 225.

[909] It was such arguments as these that afterward, when everything that

might be so employed as to justify or palliate the atrocity of Coligny's

assassination was eagerly laid hold of, were construed as threats of a

Huguenot rising, in case Charles should refuse to engage in the Flemish

war. Compare, _e.g._, the unsigned extract found by Soldan (ii. 433) in

the National Library of Paris, No. 8702, fol. 68. But does it need a word

to prove that the reference was to a _papal_ rising, or, at least, papal

compulsion to violate the edict of toleration?

[910] Walsingham to Leicester, July 26, 1572, Digges, 225, 226.

[911] This document was written by the illustrious Philippe du Plessis

Mornay, then a youth twenty-three years of age, and bears the impress of

his vigorous mind. De Thou gives an excellent summary (iv., liv. li.,

543-554); and it may be found entire in the Memoires de Du Plessis Mornay

(ii. 20-37). Morvilliers, Bishop of Orleans, and keeper of the seals until

Birague's appointment in January, 1571, was requested by the king to

prepare the answer of the opposite party in the royal council--a task

which he discharged with great ability. Summary in De Thou, iv. (liv. li.)

555-563, and Agrippa d'Aubigne, ii. 9, 10. Jean de Tavannes's memoirs of

his father contain arguments of Marshal Tavannes and of the Duke of Anjou.

dictated by the marshal, against undertaking the Flemish war, as both

unjust and impolitic.

[912] Memoires de Tavannes (Ed. Petitot), iii. 290.

[913] In this case the chief spy, according to the Tocsain contre les

massacreurs, p. 78, and the younger Tavannes, was Phizes, sieur de Sauve,

the king's private secretary for the Flemish matter; and Tavannes is

certainly correct in making a chief element in Catharine's influence, "la

puissance que ladicte Royne a sur ses enfans par ses creatures qu'elle

leur a donne pour serviteurs dez leur enfance." Memoires, 290, 291.

[914] In fact, Catharine, who spared neither herself nor her attendants in

her furious driving in her "_coche_" on such occasions, lost one or more

of the horses, which dropped dead. Tocsain contre les massacreurs, p. 78.

[915] Or, only to her estates in Auvergne, according to the Tocsain, pp.

78, 79. It will be remembered that Catharine's mother was a French heiress

of the famous family of La Tour d'Auvergne.

[916] The younger Tavannes, in the memoirs of his father (Edit. Petitot),

iii. 291, 292, gives the most complete summary of this remarkable

conversation; but it is substantially the same as the briefer sketch in

the Tocsain contre les massacreurs de France, Rheims 1579, pp. 78, 79--a

treatise of which the preface (L'Imprimeur aux lecteurs, dated June 25,

1577) shows that it was written before the death of Charles IX., but the

publication of which was from time to time deferred in the vain hope that

the authors of the inhuman massacre might yet repent. The new and "more

detestable perfidy, fury, and impetuosity" of which the Huguenots were the

victims in the first years of Henry III.'s reign, finally brought it to

the light. The _Archives curieuses_ contain only a part of the treatise.

[917] Smith to Walsingham, Aug. 22, 1572, Digges, 236.

[918] Walsingham to Burleigh, Aug. 10, 1572, Digges, 233. This news and

the interview, which must have taken place about the first week of August,

are the burden of three letters written by Walsingham on the same day.

"Herein nothing prevailed so much as the tears of his mother," he wrote to

Leicester, "who without the army of England cannot consent to any open

dealing. And because they are, as I suppose, assured by their ambassadors

that her Majesty will not intermeddle, they cannot be induced to make any

overture" (p. 233). Walsingham was disheartened at the loss of so critical

an opportunity. "Pleasure and youth will not suffer us to take profit of

advantages, and those who rule under [over] us are fearfull and

irresolute."

[919] Mem. de Tavannes, iii. 291.

[920] Walsingham to Leicester, Aug. 10, 1572, Digges, 233.

[921] "I am requested to desire your lordship to hold him excused in that

he writeth not," he adds, "for that at this time he is overwhelmed with

affairs." Walsingham to Leicester, Aug. 10, 1572, Digges, 234.

[922] Sir Thomas Smith's plea in her behalf is interesting and plausible,

but will not receive the sanction of any one who takes into account the

vast difference in the positions of Elizabeth and Charles, or considers

the principles of which the former was, or should have been, the advocate.

The good secretary, I need not remind my reader, was never reluctant to

parade his Latinity: "If you there [in France] do _tergiversari_ and work

_tam timide_ and underhand with open and outward edicts, besides excuses

at Rome and at Venice by your ambassadors, you, I say, which have Regem

expertem otii, laboris amantem, cujus gens bellicosa jampridem assueta est

caedibus tam exterioris quam vestri sanguinis, quid faciemus gens otiosa et

paci assueta, quibus imperat Regina, et ipsa pacis atque quietis

amantissima." Smith to Walsingham, Aug. 22, 1572, Digges, 237.

[923] Puntos de Cartas de Anton de Guaras al Duque de Alva, June 30th: MS.

Simancas, _apud_ Froude, x. 383.

[924] Froude, x. 385.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S DAY.

[Sidenote: The Huguenot nobles reach Paris.]

The marriage of Henry of Navarre and Margaret of Valois had been delayed

in consequence of the death of the bridegroom's mother, but could now no

longer be deferred. The young queen of Charles the Ninth was soon to

become a mother, and it was desirable that she should have the opportunity

to leave the crowded and unhealthy capital as soon as possible. Jeanne

d'Albret's objection to the celebration of the wedding in Paris had been

overruled. The bride herself, indifferent enough, to all appearance, on

other points, was resolute as to this matter--she would have her nuptials

celebrated in no provincial town. Accordingly, the King of Navarre,

followed by eight hundred gentlemen of his party, as well as by his cousin

the Prince of Conde, and the admiral, made his solemn entry into the city,

which so few of his adherents were to leave alive. Although still clad in

mourning for the loss of the heroic Queen of Navarre, they bore no

unfavorable comparison with the gay courtiers, who, with Anjou and Alencon

at their head, came out to escort them into Paris with every mark of

respect.[925]

[Sidenote: Betrothal of Henry and Margaret.]

The betrothal took place in the palace of the Louvre, on Sunday the

seventeenth of August. Afterward there was a supper and a ball; and when

these came to an end, Margaret was conducted by her mother, her brothers,

and a stately retinue, to the episcopal palace, on the Ile de la Cite,

adjoining the cathedral, there, according to the immemorial custom of the

princesses of the blood, to pass the night before her wedding. No papal

dispensation had arrived. Gregory XIII. was as obstinate as his

predecessor in the pontifical chair, in denying the requests of the French

envoys to Rome.[926] But Charles was determined to proceed; and, in order

to silence the opposition of the Cardinal of Bourbon, who still refused to

perform the ceremony without the pope's approval, a forged letter was

shown to him, purporting to come from the Cardinal of Lorraine, or the

royal ambassador at Rome, and announcing that the bull of dispensation had

actually been sealed, and would shortly arrive.[927]

Preparations had been made for the wedding in a style of magnificence

extraordinary even for that age of reckless expenditure. To show their

cordial friendship and fidelity, Charles and his brothers, Anjou and

Alencon, and Henry and his cousin of Conde, assumed a costume precisely

alike--a light yellow satin, covered with silver embroidery, and enriched

with pearls and precious stones. Margaret wore a violet velvet dress with

fleurs-de-lis. Her train was adorned with the same emblems. She was

wrapped in a royal mantle, and had upon her head an imperial crown

glittering with pearls, diamonds, and other gems of incalculable value.

The queens were resplendent in cloth of gold and silver.[928] A lofty

platform had been erected in front of the grand old pile of Notre Dame.

Hither Margaret was brought in great pomp, from the palace of the Bishop

of Paris, escorted by the king, by Catharine de' Medici, by the Dukes of

Anjou and Alencon, and by the Guises, the marshals, and other great

personages of the realm. Upon the platform she met Henry of Navarre, with

his cousins Conde and Conty, Admiral Coligny, Count de la Rochefoucauld,

and a numerous train of Protestant lords from all parts of the kingdom. In

the sight of an immense throng, the nuptial ceremony was performed by the

Cardinal of Bourbon, Henry's uncle, according to the form which had been

previously agreed upon.[929] The bridal procession then entered the

cathedral by a lower platform, which extended through the nave to the

choir. Here Henry, having placed his bride before the grand altar to hear

mass, himself retired with his Protestant companions to the episcopal

palace, and waited for the service to be over. When notified of its

conclusion by Marshal Damville, Henry and his suite returned to the choir,

and with his bride and all the attending grandees soon sat down to a

sumptuous dinner in the episcopal palace.

Among those who had been admitted to the choir of Notre Dame after the

close of the mass, was the son of the first president of parliament, young

Jacques Auguste de Thou, the future historian. Happening to come near

Admiral Coligny, he looked with curious and admiring gaze upon the warrior

whose virtues and abilities had combined to raise the house of Chatillon

to its present distinction. He saw him point out to his cousin Damville

the flags and banners taken from the Huguenots on the fields of Jarnac and

Moncontour, still suspended from the walls of the cathedral, mournful

trophies of a civil contest. "These will soon be torn down," De Thou heard

Coligny say, "and in their place others more pleasing to the eye will be

hung up." The words had unmistakable reference to the victories which he

hoped soon to win in a war against Spain. It is not strange, however, that

the malevolent endeavored to prove that they contained an allusion to the

renewal of a domestic war, which it is certain that the admiral detested

with his whole heart.[930]

[Sidenote: Entertainment in the Louvre.]

Later in the day, a magnificent entertainment was given by Charles in the

Louvre to the municipality of Paris, the members of parliament, and other

high officers of justice. Supper was succeeded by a short ball, and this

in turn by one of those allegorical representations in which French fancy

and invention at this period ran wanton. Through the great vaulted saloon

of the Louvre a train of wonderful cars was made slowly to pass. Some were

rocks of silver, on whose summits sat in state the king's brothers,

Navarre, Conde, the prince dauphin, Guise, or Angouleme. On others

sea-monsters disported themselves, and the pagan gods of the water,

somewhat incongruously clothed in cloth of gold or various colors,

serenely looked on. Charles himself rode in a chariot shaped like a

sea-horse, the curved tail of which supported a shell holding Neptune and

his trident. When the pageant stopped for a moment, singers of surpassing

skill entertained the guests. Etienne le Roy, the king's especial

favorite, distinguished himself by the power and beauty of his voice.[931]

The entertainment was prolonged far into the night; but Admiral Coligny,

before giving himself repose, snatched from sleep a few minutes to write

a letter to his wife, whom he had left in Chatillon. It is the last which

has been preserved, and is otherwise important because of the light it

throws upon the hopes and fears of the great Huguenot at this critical

time.

[Sidenote: Coligny's letter to his wife.]

"My darling," he said, "I write this bit of a letter to tell you that

to-day the marriage of the king's sister and the King of Navarre took

place. Three or four days will be spent in festivities, masks, and mock

combats. After that the king has assured me and given me his promise, that

he will devote a few days to attending to a number of complaints which are

made in various parts of the kingdom, touching the infraction of the

edict. It is but reasonable that I should employ myself in this matter, so

far as I am able; for, although I have infinite desire to see you, yet

should I feel great regret, and I believe that you would likewise, were I

to fail to occupy myself in such an affair with all my ability. But this

will not delay so much the departure from this city, but that I think that

the court will leave it at the beginning of next week. If I had in view

only my own satisfaction, I should take much greater pleasure in going to

see you, than in being in this court, for many reasons which I shall tell

you. But we must have more regard for the public than for our own private

interests. I have many other things to tell you, when I am able to see

you, for which I am so anxious that you must not think that I waste a day

or an hour. What remains for me to say is that to-day, at four o'clock

after noon, the bride's mass was said. Meanwhile, the King of Navarre

walked about in a court with all those of the religion who accompanied

him. Other incidents occurred which I will reserve to relate to you; but

first I must see you. And meantime I pray our Lord, my darling, to keep

you in His holy guard and protection. From Paris, this eighteenth day of

August, 1572. _Mandez-moy comme se porte le petit ou petite._ ... I assure

you that I shall not be anxious to attend all the festivities and combats

that are to take place during these next days. Your very good husband and

friend, CHATILLON."[932]

[Sidenote: Festivities and mock combats.]

The festivities and combats--so distasteful to a statesman who recognized

the critical condition of French affairs, and regarded this merry-making

as ill-timed--pursued their uninterrupted course through Tuesday,

Wednesday, and Thursday of that eventful week. But the description of most

of the elaborate pageants would contribute little to the value of our

conceptions of the character of the age. An exception may perhaps be made

in favor of an ingenious tournament that took place on Wednesday in the

Hotel Bourbon. Here the Isles of the Blessed, the Elysian Fields, and

Tartarus were represented by means of costly mechanisms. Charles and his

brothers figured as knights defending Paradise, which Navarre and others,

dressed as knights-errant, endeavored to enter by force of arms, but were

repulsed and thrust into Tartarus. After some time the defeated champions

were rescued from their perilous situation by the compassion of their

victors, and the performance terminated in a startling, but harmless

display of fireworks.[933] As the assailants were mostly Protestants, the

defenders Roman Catholics, it was not strange that a sinister

interpretation was soon put upon the strange plot; but, unless we are to

suppose the authors of the massacre, whose success depended upon the

surprise of the victims, so infatuated as to wish to forewarn them of

their fate, it is scarcely credible that they intended to prefigure the

ruin of the reformed faith in France.

[Sidenote: Huguenot grievances to be redressed.]

The time that had been allotted to pleasure was fast passing. The king was

soon to meet Coligny, according to his promise, for the transaction of

important business relating both to the internal and to the foreign

affairs of France. There were religious grievances to be redressed. The

admiral was particularly anxious to bring to the king's notice the

flagrant outrage recently perpetrated in Troyes, where a fanatical Roman

Catholic populace, indignant that the Huguenots, through the kindness of

Marie de Cleves, the betrothed of the Prince of Conde,[934] had been

permitted to hold their worship so near the city as her castle of

Isle-au-Mont, scarcely three leagues distant,[935] had met the Protestants

on their return from service with aggravated insult, and had killed in the

arms of its nurse an infant that had just been baptized according to the

reformed rites.[936] Catharine and her son Anjou saw with consternation

that the impression made by the "tears of Montpipeau" was already in a

great degree obliterated, and feared the complete destruction of their

influence if Charles were longer permitted to have intercourse with

Coligny. In that case a Flemish war would be almost inevitable. Charles's

anger against the Spaniards had kindled anew when he heard of Alva's

inhumanity to Genlis and his fellow-prisoners. But, when he was informed

that Alva had put French soldiers to the torture, in order to extract the

admission of their monarch's complicity in the enterprise, his passion was

almost ungovernable, as he asked his attendants again and again: "Do you

know that the Duke of Alva is putting me on trial?"[937] It seems to have

been at this juncture that Catharine and her favorite son came to the

definite determination to put the great Huguenot out of the way. Henry of

Anjou is here his own accuser. In that strange confession which he made to

his physician, Miron,[938] shortly after his arrival in Cracow--a

confession made under the influence, not so much of remorse, as of the

annoyance occasioned by the continual reminders of the massacre which were

thrown in his way as he travelled to assume the throne of Poland--he gives

us a partial view of the development of the murderous plot.

[Sidenote: Jealousy of Catharine and Anjou.]

[Sidenote: The Duchess of Nemours and Henry of Guise.]

Several times had Anjou and Catharine perceived that, whenever Charles had

conversed in private with the admiral, his demeanor was visibly changed

toward them. He no longer exhibited his accustomed respect for his mother

or his wonted kindness for his brother. Once, in particular--and it was,

so Anjou tells us, only a few days before St. Bartholomew's Day--Henry

happened to enter the room just after Coligny had gone out. Instantly the

king's countenance betrayed extreme anger. He began to walk furiously to

and fro, taking great strides, and keeping his eyes fixed upon his brother

with an expression that boded no good, but without uttering a word. Again

and again he placed his hand on his dagger, and Anjou expected nothing

less than that his brother would attack him. At last, taking advantage of

an opportunity when Charles's back was turned, he hastily retreated from

the room. This circumstance led Catharine and Anjou to compare their

observations and their plans. "Both of us," says Henry, "were easily

persuaded, and became, as it were, certain that it was the admiral who had

impressed some evil and sinister opinion of us upon the king. We resolved

from that moment to rid ourselves of him, and to concert the means of

doing so with the Duchess of Nemours. To her alone we believed that we

might safely disclose our purpose, on account of the mortal hatred which

we knew that she bore to him."[939] The Duchess of Nemours was born of an

excellent mother; for she was Anne d'Este, daughter of Renee of France,

the younger child of Louis the Twelfth. In her youth, at the court of her

father, the Duke of Ferrara, and in society with that prodigy of feminine

precocity, Olympia Morata, she had shown evidences of extraordinary

intellectual development and of a kindly disposition.[940] Although she

subsequently married Francis of Guise, the leading persecutor of the

Protestants, she had not so lost her sympathy with the oppressed as to

witness without tears and remonstrances the atrocious executions by which

the tumult of Amboise was followed. But the assassination of her husband

turned any affection or compassion she may have entertained for

Protestantism into violent hatred. Against Coligny, whom, in spite of his

protestations, she persisted in believing to be the instigator of

Poltrot's crime, she bore an implacable enmity; and now, having so often

failed in obtaining satisfaction from the king by judicial process, she

eagerly accepted the opportunity of avenging herself by a deed more

dastardly than that which she laid to the charge of her enemy. Entering

heartily into the project which Catharine and Anjou laid before her, the

Duchess of Nemours enlisted the co-operation of her son, Henry of Guise,

and her brother-in-law, the Duke of Aumale, and herself arranged the

details of the plan, which was at once to be put into execution.[941]

[Sidenote: Was the massacre long premeditated?]

[Sidenote: Salviati's testimony.]

Such was the germ of the massacre as yet not resolved upon, which, rapidly

developing, was to involve the murder of thousands of innocent persons

throughout France. In opposition to the opinion that became almost

universal among the Protestants, and gained nearly equal currency among

the Roman Catholics--that the butchery had long been contemplated, and

that Charles was privy to it--and notwithstanding the circumstances that

seem to give color to this opinion,[942] I am compelled to acquiesce in

the belief expressed by the Papal Nuncio, Salviati, who, in his

despatches, written in cipher to the cardinal secretary of state, could

certainly have had no motive to disguise his real sentiments, and whom it

is impossible to suppose ignorant of any scheme for the general

extirpation of the Protestants, had such a scheme existed for any

considerable length of time: "As to all the statements that will be made

respecting the firing upon the admiral and his death, different from that

which I have written to you, you will in time find out how true they are.

Madame the regent, having come to be at variance with him [the admiral],

and having decided upon this step a few days before, caused him to be

fired upon. This was _without the knowledge of the king_, but with the

participation of the Duke of Anjou, the Duchess of Nemours, and her son,

the Duke of Guise. If the admiral had died at once, no others would have

been slain. But, inasmuch as he survived, and they apprehended that some

great calamity might happen should he draw closer to the king, they

resolved to throw aside shame, and to have him killed together with the

rest. And this was put into execution that very night."[943]

[Sidenote: The king's cordiality.]

As the hour approached, Coligny exhibited no apprehension of special

danger. Others, however, more suspicious, or possessed of less faith in

Heaven, felt alarm; and some acted upon their fears. The very "goodness"

of the king terrified one. Another said that he had rather be saved with

fools than perish with the wise, and hastily forsook the capital. Dark

hints had been thrown out by courtiers--such surmises were naturally bred

by the defenceless position of the Protestants in the midst of a

population so hostile to their faith as the population of Paris--that more

blood than wine would be spilled at this wedding. And there were rumors of

some mysterious enterprise afloat; so, at least, it was said after the

occurrence. But Coligny moved not from the post which he believed had been

assigned to his keeping. On Wednesday Charles assured him, with laughing

countenance, that if the admiral would but give him four days more for

amusement, he would not stir from Paris until he had contented him;[944]

and the sturdy old Huguenot made no objection when the king, in order to

prevent any disturbance which the partisans of Guise might occasion in

seeking a quarrel with the followers of the house of Chatillon, proposed

to introduce a considerable force of soldiers into the city. "My father,"

said Charles, with his usual appearance of affection, "you know that you

have promised not to give any cause of offence to the Guises so long as

you remain here; and they have in like manner promised to respect you and

all yours. I am fully persuaded that you will keep your word; but I am not

so well assured of their good faith as of yours; for, besides the fact

that it is they that would avenge themselves, I know their bravadoes and

the favor this populace bears to them."[945]

[Sidenote: Coligny is wounded, August 22.]

On Friday morning, the twenty-second of August, Admiral Coligny went to

the Louvre, to attend a meeting of the royal council, at which Henry of

Anjou presided. It was between ten and eleven o'clock, when, according to

the more primitive hours then kept, he left the palace to return home for

dinner.[946] Meeting Charles just coming out of a chapel in front of the

Louvre, he retraced his steps, and accompanied him to the tennis-court,

where he left him playing with Guise, against Teligny and another

nobleman. Accompanied by about a dozen gentlemen, he again sallied forth,

but had not proceeded over a hundred paces when from behind a lattice an

arquebuse was fired at him.[947] The admiral had been walking slowly,

intently engaged in reading a petition which had just been handed to him.

The shot had been well aimed, and might have proved fatal, had not the

victim at that very moment turned a little to one side. As it was, of the

three balls with which the arquebuse was loaded, one took off a finger of

his right hand, and another lodged in his left arm, making an ugly wound.

Supported by De Guerchy and Des Pruneaux, between whom he had previously

been walking, Coligny was carried to his house in the little Rue de

Bethisy,[948] only a few steps farther on. As he went he pointed out to

his friends the house from which the shot had been fired. To a gentleman

who expressed the fear that the balls were poisoned, he replied with

composure: "Nothing will happen but what it may please God to order."[949]

The attempted assassination had happened in front of the cloisters of St.

Germain l'Auxerrois. The house was recognized as one belonging to the

Duchess Dowager of Guise, in which Villemur, the former tutor of young

Henry of Guise, had lodged. The door was found locked; but the indignant

followers of Coligny soon burst it open. They found within only a woman

and a lackey. The assassin, after firing, had fled to the rear of the

house. There he found a horse awaiting him; this he exchanged at the Porte

Saint Antoine for a fresh Spanish jennet. He was out of Paris almost

before pursuit was fairly undertaken. Subsequent investigation left no

doubt as to his identity. It was that same Maurevel of infamous memory,

who during the third civil war had traitorously shot De Mouy, after

insinuating himself into his friendship, and sharing his room and his bed.

The king's assassin, "le tueur du roi"--a designation he had obtained when

Charles or his advisers gave a special reward for that exploit[950]--had

been selected by Catharine, Anjou and the Guises, as possessing both the

nerve and the experience that were requisite to make sure of Coligny's

death. It was found that he had been placed in the house by De Chailly,

"maitre d'hotel" of the king, and that the horse by means of which he

effected his escape had been brought to the door by the groom of the Duke

of Guise.[951]

[Sidenote: Agitation of the king.]

Charles was still in the tennis-court, when De Piles came in, sent by

Coligny, to inform him of the bloody infraction of the Edict of

Pacification. On hearing the intelligence, the king was violently

agitated. Throwing down his racket, he exclaimed: "Am I, then, never to

have peace? What! always new troubles?" and retired to his room in the

Louvre, with a countenance expressive of great dejection.[952] And when,

later in the day, the King of Navarre, the Prince of Conde, and La

Rochefoucauld, after seeing Coligny's wounds dressed, came to the palace

and begged him for permission to leave a city in which there was no

security for their lives, Charles swore to them, with his accustomed

profanity, that he would inflict upon the author and abettors of the crime

so signal a punishment that Coligny and his friends would be satisfied,

and posterity have a warning example. Coligny had received the wound, he

said, but the smart was _his_. Catharine, who was present, chimed in, and

declared the outrage so flagrant, that just retribution must speedily be

meted out, or insolence would be pushed so far as that the king would be

attacked in his own palace.[953]

[Sidenote: Coligny courageous.]

Meantime the admiral bore his sufferings with serenity, and, far from

needing any comfort his friends could give him, himself administered

consolation to the noblemen around his bed. His sufferings were acute.

Amboise Pare, the famous surgeon of the king, himself a Huguenot, was

called in; but the instruments at hand were dull, and it was not until the

third attempt that he could satisfactorily amputate the wounded finger.

"My friends," said Coligny to Merlin, his minister, and to other friends,

"why do you weep? As for me, I think myself happy in having received these

wounds for the name of God." And when Merlin exhorted him "to thank God

for His mercy in preserving his mental faculties sound and entire, and to

continue to divert his thoughts and feelings from his assassin and his

wounds, and to turn them, as he was doing, from all things else to God,

since it was from His hands that he had received them," the admiral's

reply was, that sincerely and from the heart he forgave the person who had

wounded him, and those who had instigated him, holding it for certain that

it was beyond their power to injure him, since, should they even kill him,

death would be an assured passage to life.[954] Thus, with quiet

submission, and with edifying prayers which it would be too long to

insert, the Admiral de Coligny passed those hours which his enemies

subsequently, in their desperate attempts to justify or palliate the most

abominable of crimes, represented as given up to infamous plots against

king and state.

[Sidenote: He is visited by the king and his mother.]

That afternoon, between two and three o'clock, Charles visited the wounded

man, at the suggestion of Teligny and Damville; for Coligny had expressed

a desire to see the monarch, that he might communicate certain matters

which concerned him greatly, but of which he feared there was no one else

that would inform him.[955] The king came, accompanied by his mother, his

brothers, the Duke of Montpensier, Cardinal Bourbon, Marshals Damville,

Tavannes and Cosse, Count de Retz, and the younger Montmorencies, Thore

and Meru.[956] The interview was kind and reassuring. The admiral, who lay

upon his bed, heartily thanked the king for the honor he had deigned to do

him, and for the measures he had already taken in his behalf. And Charles

praised the patience and magnanimity exhibited by Coligny, and bade him be

of good courage. Then more important topics were introduced. There were

three points respecting which the admiral wished to speak to Charles. The

first was his own loyalty, which, however much it had been maligned by his

enemies, he desired now solemnly to reaffirm, in the presence of Him

before whose bar he might soon be called to stand, and he declared that

the sole cause of the hostility he had aroused was his attempt to set

bounds to the fury of those who presumed to violate royal edicts. Next, he

commended to the king the Flemish project. Never had any predecessor of

Charles enjoyed so splendid an opportunity as now offered, when several

cities of the Netherlands had declared their desire for his favor and

protection. But these advances were openly derided by some of the

courtiers about the king; while state secrets were so badly kept, that

"one could not turn an egg, nor utter a word in the council, but it was

forthwith reported to the Duke of Alva." And, indeed, what else could be

expected, since those who were present, and even his own brothers,

communicated to foreigners and enemies the king's most confidential

deliberations? He earnestly begged Charles to apply a prompt remedy to

this matter in future. The last point was the observance of the Edict of

Pacification. What opinion would foreign nations form of the king, if he

suffered a law solemnly made, and frequently confirmed by oath, to be

openly trampled upon? In proof of this assertion, he alleged the recent

attack upon the Protestants of Troyes returning from their place of

worship, the tragic termination of which has already been noticed.

To that part of Coligny's remarks which related to the war in Flanders, it

is said that Charles made no direct reply; but he declared that he had

never suspected the admiral's loyalty, and that he accounted him a good

man, and a great and generous captain. There was not another man in the

kingdom whom he would prefer to him. And he again asseverated his

intention to enforce a religious observance of his edicts; for which

purpose, indeed, he had recently despatched commissioners into all the

provinces, as the queen could inform him. "That is true, Monsieur

l'amiral," said Catharine, "and you know it." "Yes, madam," he replied,

"commissioners have been sent, among whom are some that condemned me to be

hung, and set a price of fifty thousand crowns on my head." "Then,"

rejoined Charles, "we must send others who are open to no suspicion."

Again he promised with his accustomed oath to see that the attempt upon

the admiral's life should be so punished that the retribution would be

forever remembered;[957] after which he inquired whether Coligny were

satisfied with the judges whom he had appointed to conduct the

investigation. Coligny replied that he committed himself in this matter to

the king's prudence, but suggested that Cavaignes, the recently appointed

maitre de requetes, and two other Huguenots be added to the commission.

The king and De Retz both endeavored to persuade the admiral to permit

himself to be transported, for safety's sake, to the Louvre; but Coligny's

friends would not consent to a removal which might endanger his life.

Charles requested, before he left, to see the ball extracted from the

wounded arm, and examined it with apparent curiosity. Catharine took it

next, and said that she was glad that it had been removed, for she

remembered that, when the Duke of Guise was shot, the physicians

repeatedly said that, even if the ball were poisoned, there was no danger

to be apprehended when once the ball was taken out. Many afterward

regarded it as a significant circumstance that the queen mother's mind

should have reverted on this occasion to the murder of which the Lorraine

family still persisted in accusing Coligny of having been the

instigator.[958]

[Sidenote: Catharine attempts to break up the conference.]

Such was, according to the solitary Huguenot who was present by Coligny's

bed, and who survived the subsequent massacre, the substance of the

conversation at this celebrated interview. But, if we may credit the

account which purports to have been given by Henry of Anjou, there was an

incident which he failed to mention. At a certain point in the

conversation Coligny asked to be allowed to speak to the king in private,

a request which Charles willingly granted, motioning Henry and Catharine

to withdraw. They accordingly retired to the middle of the room, where

they remained standing during the suspicious colloquy. Meanwhile their

apprehensions were awakened as they noticed that there were more than two

hundred gentlemen and captains of the admiral's party in this and an

adjacent room and below stairs. The sad looks of the Huguenots, their

gestures expressive of discontent, their suppressed whispers, as they

passed to and fro, before and behind the queen and her favorite son, with

less respect than the latter thought was due to them, impressed them with

the idea that they were objects of distrust. Catharine afterward admitted

to Henry that never in her life was she so glad to get out of any other

place. Her impatience soon impelled her to cut short the conference

between Charles and Coligny--much to the regret of Charles--on the pretext

that longer conversation might retard the sick man's recovery.

Scarcely had the royal party left the admiral's lodgings, when Catharine

began to ply Charles with questions respecting Coligny's private

communication. Several times he absolutely refused to satisfy her

curiosity. But at last, losing all patience, he roughly answered her with

an oath: "What the admiral told me was true: kings are recognized as such

in France only so far as they have the power to reward or punish their

subjects and servants; and this power and the management of the affairs of

the entire state have insensibly slipped into your hands. But this

authority of yours, the admiral told me, may some day become highly

prejudicial both to me and to my whole kingdom, and I ought to look upon

it with suspicion, and to be on my guard. Of this he had desired, as one

of my best and most faithful subjects, to warn me before he died. Well

then, _mon Dieu_, since you will know it, this is what the admiral was

telling me." "This was uttered," Anjou subsequently said, "with so much

passion and fury, that the speech cut us to the heart. We concealed our

emotion as best we could, and vindicated ourselves. This discourse we

pursued from the admiral's lodgings to the Louvre. There, after having

left the king in his own room, we retired to that of the queen, my mother,

who was nettled and offended in the highest degree by this language of the

admiral to the king, and still more by the credit the king seemed to give

it, fearing that this might occasion some change in our affairs and in the

conduct of the state. To be frank, we found ourselves so unprovided with

counsel and understanding, that, being unable to come to any determination

at that time, we separated, deferring the matter until the morrow."[959]

[Sidenote: Charles writes letters expressing his displeasure.]

Meantime, Charles, not content with closing all the gates of Paris, save

two, which were to be strictly guarded, and with ordering a speedy

judicial investigation, despatched, on the very day of the attempt on

Coligny's life, a circular letter to all the governors of the provinces,

and a similar letter to his ambassadors at foreign courts, declarative of

his profound displeasure at this audacious crime. In the former he said:

"I am at once sending in every direction in pursuit of the perpetrator,

with a view to catch him and inflict such punishment upon him as is

required by a deed so wicked, so displeasing, and, moreover, so

inconvenient; for the reparation of which I wish to forget nothing." And

lest any persons, whether Protestants or Roman Catholics, should be

aroused by this news to make a disturbance of the peace, he called upon

all the governors to explain the full circumstances of the case. "Assure

every one," he wrote, "that it is my intention to observe inviolate my

edict of pacification, and so strictly to punish those who contravene its

provisions, that men may judge how sincere is my will."[960] In a similar

strain he wrote to his ambassador in England, that he was "infinitely

sorry" (infiniment marry), and that he desired him to acquaint Queen

Elizabeth with his determination to cause such signal justice to be

executed, that every one in his realm might take example therefrom.

"Monsieur de la Mothe Fenelon," he added in a postscript, "I must not

forget to tell you that this wicked act proceeds from the enmity between

his [the admiral's] house and the Guises. I shall know how to provide that

they involve none of my subjects in their quarrels; for I intend that my

edict of pacification be observed in all points."[961]

[Sidenote: The Vidame de Chartres advises the Huguenots to leave Paris.]

Not long after the king had left Coligny's room, the admiral Was visited

by Jean de Ferrieres, Vidame de Chartres, a leading Huguenot, who came to

condole with him. He also had a more practical object in view. In a

conference of the great nobles of the reformed faith, held in the room

adjoining the admiral's, he advocated the instant departure of the

Protestants from Paris, and urged it at considerable length. He saw in the

event of the day the first act of a tragedy whose catastrophe could not be

long deferred. The Huguenots had thrust their head into the very jaws of

the lion; it were prudent to draw it out while it was yet time. But this

sensible advice, based less upon any distinct evidence of a plot for their

destruction than upon the obvious temptation which their defenceless

situation offered to a woman proverbially unscrupulous, was overruled by

the majority of those present. Teligny, in particular, the accomplished

and amiable son-in-law of Coligny, opposed a scheme which not only might

endanger the admiral's life, but would certainly displease the king, by

betraying distrust of his ability or his inclination to defend his

Protestant subjects.[962]

Saturday morning came, and with it a report from Coligny's physicians,

announcing that his wounds would not prove serious. Meanwhile the

investigation into the attempted assassination was pursued, and disclosed

more and more evidence of the complicity of the Guises. The young duke and

his uncle Aumale, conscious of the suspicion in which they were held, and

fearful perhaps of the king's anger, should the part they had taken become

known, prepared to retire from Paris, and came to Charles to ask for leave

of absence, telling him at the same time that they had long noticed that

their services were not pleasing to him. Charles, with little show of

courtesy, bade them depart. Should they prove guilty, he said, he would

find means to bring them to justice.[963]

[Sidenote: Catharine and Anjou come to a final decision.]

And now the time had arrived when Catharine and the Duke of Anjou must

come to a final decision respecting the means of extricating themselves

from their present embarrassments. Maurevel's shot had done no execution.

Coligny was likely to recover, to be more than ever the idol of the

Huguenots, to become more than ever the favorite of the king. In that case

the influence of Catharine and her younger son would be irretrievably

lost; especially if the judicial investigation now in progress should

reveal the fact that they were the prime movers in the plan of

assassination. Certainly neither Henry of Guise nor his mother would

consent to bear the entire responsibility. More than that, the Huguenots

were uttering loud demands for justice, which to guilty consciences

sounded like threats of retribution.

We must here recur to Henry of Anjou's own account of this critical

period; for that strange confession throws the only gleam of light upon

the process by which the young king was moved to the adoption of a course

whereby he earned the reputation--of which it will be difficult to divest

him--of a monster of cruelty. "I went," says Anjou, "to see my mother, who

had already risen. I was filled with anxiety, as also she was on her side.

We adopted at that time no other determination than to despatch the

admiral by whatever means possible. As artifice and cunning could no

longer be employed, we must proceed by open measures. But, to do this, we

must bring the king to this same resolution. We decided that we would go

in the afternoon to his private room, and would bring in the Duke of

Nevers, Marshals Tavannes and Retz, and Chancellor Birague, solely to

obtain their advice as to the means we should employ in executing the plan

upon which my mother and I had already agreed.

[Sidenote: They ply Charles with arguments.]

"As soon as we had entered the room in which the king my brother was, my

mother began to represent to him that the party of the Huguenots was

arming against him on account of the wounding of the admiral, the latter

having sent several despatches to Germany to make a levy of ten thousand

horse, and to the cantons of Switzerland for another levy of ten thousand

foot; that most of the French captains belonging to the Huguenot party had

already left in order to raise troops within the kingdom; and that the

time and place of assembling had been fixed upon. Let so powerful an army

as this once be joined to their French troops--a thing which was only too

practicable--and the king's forces would not be half sufficient to resist

them, in view of the intrigues and leagues they had, inside and outside of

the kingdom, with many cities, communities, and nations. Of this she had

good and certain advices. Their allies were to revolt in conjunction with

the Huguenots under pretext of the public good; and for him (Charles),

being weak in pecuniary resources, she saw no place of security in France.

And, indeed, there was besides a new consequence of which she wished to

warn him. It was that all the Catholics, wearied by so long a war, and

vexed by so many sorts of calamities, were determined to put an end to

them. In case he refused to follow their counsel, they also had determined

among themselves to elect a captain-general to undertake their protection,

and to form a league offensive and defensive against the Huguenots. Thus

he would remain alone, enveloped in great danger, and without power or

authority. All France would be seen armed by two great parties, over which

he would have no command, and from which he could exact just as little

obedience. But, to ward off so great a danger, a peril impending over him

and his entire state, so much ruin, and so many calamities which were in

preparation and just at hand, and the murder of so many thousands of

men--to avert all these misfortunes, a single thrust of the sword would

suffice--the admiral, the head and author of all the civil wars, alone

need be put to death. The designs and enterprises of the Huguenots would

perish with him; and the Catholics, satisfied with the sacrifice of two or

three men, would remain obedient to him (the king)."

Such arguments, and many more of a similar character, does Henry tell us

that he and his wily mother addressed to the unhappy Charles. At first

their words irritated him, and, without convincing, drove him into a

frenzy of excitement. A little later, giving credit to the oft-repeated

assertions of his false advisers, and his imagination becoming inflamed by

the picture of the dangers surrounding him which they so skilfully

painted, he would, nevertheless, hear nothing of the crime to which he was

urged, but began anxiously to consult those who were present whether there

were no other means of escape. Each man gave his opinion in succession;

and each supported Catharine's views, until it came to the turn of Retz,

who, contrary to the expectation of the conspirators, gave expression to

more noble sentiments.[964] If any one were justified in hating Coligny

and his faction, he said, it was himself, maligned, as he had been, both

in France and abroad; but he was unwilling, in avenging private wrongs, to

involve France and its royal family in dishonor. The king would justly be

taxed with perfidy, and all confidence in his word or in public faith

would be lost. Henceforth it would be impossible to treat for terms of

peace in those new civil wars in which the French must be involved, and of

which their children would not see the end.

[Sidenote: The king consents reluctantly.]

These wholesome words at first struck speechless the advocates of murder.

Then they undertook, by repeating their arguments, to destroy the effect

of the prophetic warning to which the king had just listened. They

succeeded but too well. "That instant," says Henry of Anjou, "we perceived

a sudden change, a strange and wonderful metamorphosis in the king. He

placed himself on our side, and adopted our opinion, going much beyond us

and to more criminal lengths; since, whereas before it was difficult to

persuade him, now we had to restrain him. For, rising and addressing us,

while imposing silence upon us, he told us in anger and fury, swearing by

God's death that, 'since we thought it good that the admiral should be

killed, he would have it so; but that with him all the Huguenots of France

must be killed, in order that not one might remain to reproach him

hereafter; and that we should promptly see to it.' And going out

furiously, he left us in his room, where we deliberated the rest of the

day, during the evening, and for a good part of the night, and decided

upon that which seemed advisable for the execution of such an

enterprise."[965]

This is the strange record of the change by which Charles, from being the

friend of Admiral Coligny, became the accomplice in his murder and in

countless other assassinations throughout France. The admission of his

guilt by one of the principal actors in the tragedy is so frank and

undisguised that we find it difficult to believe that the narrative can

have emanated from his lips. But the freaks of a burdened conscience are

not to be easily accounted for. The most callous or reticent criminal

sometimes is aroused to a recognition of his wickedness, and burns to

communicate to another the fearful secret whose deposit has become

intolerable to himself. And fortunately the confession of the princely

felon does not stand alone. The son of another of the wretches who

persuaded Charles to imbrue his hands in the blood of his subjects has

given us the account which he undoubtedly received from his father shortly

before his death, and we find the two statements to be in substantial

agreement. Tavannes says: "The king notified (of the attempt upon

Coligny's life), is offended, and threatens the Guises, not knowing whence

the blow came. After a while, he is appeased by the queen, assisted by the

sieur de Retz. They make his Majesty angry with the Huguenots--a vice

peculiar to his Majesty, who is of choleric humor. They induce him to

believe that they have discovered an enterprise of the Huguenots directed

against him. He is reminded of the designs of Meaux and of Amboise.

Suddenly gained over, as his mother had promised herself that he would be,

he abandons the Huguenots, and remains sorry, with the rest, that the

wound had not proved mortal."[966]

[Sidenote: Few victims selected at first.]

And now, the assassination of the admiral having received the king's

approval, it only remained to decide upon the number of Protestants who

should be involved with him in a common destruction, and to perfect the

arrangements for the execution of the murderous plot. How many, and who

were the victims whose sacrifice was predetermined? This is a question

which, with our present means of information, we are unable to answer.

Catharine, it is true, used to declare in later times that she

contemplated no general massacre; that she took upon her conscience the

blood of only five or six persons;[967] and, although the unsupported

assertion of so perfidious a woman is certainly not entitled to any great

consideration, we can readily see that the heads of half a dozen leaders

might have fully contented her. She was not seeking for revenge so much

as paving the way for her ambition. There were few Huguenots who were

apparently so powerful as to interfere with her projects. Coligny, their

acknowledged head; the Count of Montgomery, personally hated as the

occasion of the death of her husband, Henry the Second, in the ill-fated

tournament; the Vidame of Chartres; and La Rochefoucauld--these were

doubtless of the number. Would she have desired to include the King of

Navarre and the Prince of Conde? Not the former, on account of his recent

marriage with her daughter. Yet to whom the Bourbons were indebted for the

omission of their names from the proscriptive roll we cannot tell. After

the accession of Henry the Fourth, it became the interest of all the

families concerned to put the conduct of their ancestors in the most

favorable light. Thus, Jean de Tavannes states that his father saved the

life of the Bearnese in that infamous conclave; but so little did the

latter believe him, that, on the contrary, he persistently refused to

confer upon him the marshal's baton, which he would otherwise have

received, on the ground that Gaspard de Tavannes was an instigator of the

massacre.[968]

[Sidenote: Religious hatred.]

Thus much must be held to be clearly established: that fancied political

exigencies demanded the assassination of only very few persons; that

personal hatred, on the part of the principal or of the minor

conspirators, added many more; that a still greater number were murdered

in cold blood, simply that their spoils might enrich the assassins. What

part must be assigned to religious zeal?[969] To any true outgrowth of

religion, none at all; but much to the malice and the depraved moral

teachings of its professed representatives. The hatred of Protestantism,

engendered in the minds of the people by long years devoted to traducing

the character and designs of the reformers, now bore fruit after its own

kind, in revolting crimes of every sort; while the lesson, sedulously

inculcated by priests, bishops, and monks, that obstinate heretics might

righteously be, and ought to be exterminated from the face of the earth,

permitted many a Parisian burgess to commit acts from which any but the

most diabolic nature would otherwise have recoiled in horror. But of the

measure of the responsibility of the Roman pontiff and his clergy for this

stupendous crime, it will be necessary to speak in the sequel.

[Sidenote: Precautionary measures.]

In devising the plan for the destruction of the Huguenots, the queen

mother and her council were greatly assisted by the course pursued by the

Huguenots themselves, and by the very circumstances of the case. Under

pretence of taking measures to secure the safety of the Protestants, the

"quarteniers" could go, without exciting suspicion, from house to house,

and make a complete list of all belonging to the reformed church.[970] The

same excuse served to justify the court in posting a body of twelve

hundred arquebusiers, a part along the river, a part in the immediate

neighborhood of Coligny's residence.[971] And now the Protestants

themselves, startled by the unusual commotion which they noticed in the

city, and by the frequent passage to and fro of men carrying arms, sent a

gentleman to the Louvre to ask the king for a few guards to protect the

dwelling of their wounded leader. The request was only for five or six

guards; but Charles, feigning astonishment and deep regret that there

should be any reason for such apprehensions, insisted, at the suggestion

of his brother Anjou, who stood by, upon despatching fifty, under command

of Cosseins. So well known was the captain's hostility to Coligny and the

Protestants, that Thore, Montmorency's brother, whispered to the Huguenot

messenger as he withdrew: "You could not have been given in guard to a

worse enemy;" but the royal direction was so positive that no remonstrance

seemed possible. Accordingly, Cosseins and his arquebusiers took

possession, in the king's name, of two shops adjoining Coligny's

abode.[972] With as little ceremony, Rambouillet, the "marechal des

logis," turned the Roman Catholic gentlemen out of the lodgings he had

previously assigned them in the Rue de Bethisy, and gave the quarters to

the Protestant gentlemen instead.[973] The reason assigned for this action

was that the Huguenots might be nearer to each other and to the admiral,

for mutual protection; the real object seems to have been to sweep them

more easily into the common net of destruction.

And yet the majority of the Huguenot leaders were not alive to the dangers

of their situation. In a second conference held late on Saturday, the

Vidame of Chartres was almost alone in urging instant retreat. Navarre,

Conde, and others thought it sufficient to demand justice, and the

departure of the Guises, as possessing dangerous credit with the common

people. Teligny again dwelt upon the wrong done to Charles in distrusting

his sincerity, and deprecated a course that might naturally irritate him.

One Bouchavannes was noticed in the conference--a professed Protestant,

but suspiciously intimate with Catharine, Retz, and other avowed enemies

of the faith. He said nothing, but listened attentively. So soon as the

meeting was over, Bouchavannes went to the Louvre and related the

discussion to the queen mother.[974] The traitor's report, doubtless

grossly exaggerated, is supposed to have decided Catharine to prompt

action. It is certain, at least, that the calumnious perversion of the

speeches and resolutions of the Huguenot conference was employed to

inflame the passions of the mob, as well as to justify the atrocities of

the morrow in the eyes of the world.

[Sidenote: Orders issued to the prevot des marchands.]

It was now late in the evening of Saturday, the twenty-third of August.

Coligny had been writing to his friends throughout France, recommending

them to be quiet, and informing them of the investigations now in

progress. God and the king, he said, would do justice. His wounds were not

mortal, thank God. If his _arm_ was wounded, his _brain_ was yet

sound.[975] Meantime, the original framers of the murderous plot had

called in the Guises, who in reality had not left Paris.[976] It had been

arranged that the execution should be intrusted to them, in conjunction

with the Bastard of Angouleme, Charles's natural brother, and Marshal

Tavannes. And now at last we emerge from the mist that envelops many of

the preliminaries of the night of horrors. The records of the Hotel de

Ville contain the first documentary evidence of the coming massacre. There

is no longer any doubt, unfortunately, of Charles's approval and

complicity. "This day, the twenty-third day of August, very late in the

evening," Charles sends for Charron, "prevot des marchands," to come to

the Louvre. Here, in the presence of the queen mother, the Duke of Anjou

and other princes and lords, his Majesty "declares that he has received

intelligence that those of the new religion intend to make a rising by

conspiracy against himself and his state, and to disturb the peace of his

subjects and of his city of Paris; and that this very night some great

personages of the said new religion and rebels have conspired against him

and his said state, going to such lengths as to send his Majesty some

arrogant messages which sounded like menaces." Consequently, in order to

protect himself and the royal family, Charles directs the prevot to seize

the keys of all the gates of the city, and to keep them carefully closed,

in order to prevent any one from entering or leaving Paris. He also

commands him to remove all the boats moored along the Seine, so as to

prevent any one from crossing the river; and to put under arms all

captains, lieutenants, ensigns, and burgesses capable of doing military

duty.[977] The orders were faithfully and promptly obeyed. Long before

morning dawned they had been transmitted successively to the lower

municipal officers, quarteniers, dizainiers, etc.; the wherry-men had been

stopped, and the troops and burgesses of Paris having armed themselves as

best they could, were assembled ready for action in front of the Hotel de

Ville, on that famous Place de Greve, so often drenched in martyr's

blood.[978]

[Sidenote: The first shot and the bell of St. Germain l'Auxerrois.]

To the guilty plotters that was a sleepless night. Unable to rest quietly,

at a little before dawn, Catharine with her two elder sons found her way

to the portal of the Louvre, adjoining the tennis court. There, in a

chamber overlooking the "bassecour," they sat down to await the beginning

of their treacherous enterprise. If we may believe Henry of Anjou, none of

them as yet realized its full horrors; but as they quietly watched in that

hour of stillness for the first signs of the coming outbreak, the report

of a pistol-shot reached their ears. Instantly it wrought a marvellous

revulsion in their feelings. Whether the shot wounded or killed any one,

they knew not; but it brought up vividly to their imaginations the results

of the terrible deluge of blood whose flood-gates they had raised. Hastily

they send a servant to the Duke of Guise, and countermand the instructions

of the evening, and bid him do no injury to the admiral. It is too late!

The messenger soon returns with the tidings that Coligny is already dead,

that the work is about to begin in all the rest of the city. This news

produces a fresh change. With one of those fluctuations which are so easy

for souls that have no firm or established principles, but shift according

to the deceptive, ever-varying tide of apparent interest, the mother and

her sons return heartily to their former purpose. The die is cast, the

deed is half done; let it be fully and boldly consummated. No room now for

pity or regret.[979]

It was a Sunday morning, the twenty-fourth of August--a day sacred in the

Roman calendar to the memory of Saint Bartholomew. Torches and blazing

lights had been burning all night in the streets, to render the task easy.

The houses in which Protestants lodged had been distinctly marked with a

white cross. The assassins themselves had agreed upon badges for mutual

recognition--a white cross on the hat, and a handkerchief tied about the

right arm. The signal for beginning was to be given by the great bell of

the "Palais de Justice" on the island of the old "cite."[980]

The preparations had not been so cautiously made but that they attracted

the notice of some of the Huguenots living near Coligny. Going out to

inquire the meaning of the clash of arms, and the unusual light in the

streets, they received the answer that there was to be a mock combat in

the Louvre--a pleasure castle was to be assaulted for the king's

diversion.[981] But, as they went farther and approached the Louvre, their

eyes were greeted by the sight of more torches and a great number of armed

men. The guards, full of the contemplated plot, could not refrain from

insults. It soon came to blows, and a Gascon soldier wounded a Protestant

gentleman with his halberd. It may have been at this time that the shot

was fired which Catharine and her sons heard from the open window of the

Louvre. Declaring that the fury of the troops could no longer be

restrained, the queen now gave orders to ring the bell of the neighboring

church of St. Germain l'Auxerrois.[982]

[Sidenote: Murder of Admiral Coligny.]

Meantime Henry of Guise, Henry of Valois, the Bastard of Angouleme, and

their attendants, had reached the admiral's house. The wounded man was

almost alone. Could there be any clearer proof of the rectitude of his

purpose, of the utter falsity of the charges of conspiracy with which his

enemies afterward attempted to blacken his memory?[983] Guerchy and other

Protestant gentlemen had expressed the desire to spend the night with him;

but his son-in-law, Teligny, full of confidence in Charles's good

intentions, had declined their offers, and had, indeed, himself gone to

his own lodgings, not far off, in the Rue St. Honore.[984] With Coligny

were Merlin, his chaplain, Pare, the king's surgeon, his ensign Cornaton,

La Bonne, Yolet, and four or five servants. In the court below there were

five of Navarre's Swiss guards on duty.[985] Coligny, awakened by the

growing noise in the streets, had at first felt no alarm, so implicitly

did he rely upon the protestations of Charles, so confident was he that

Cosseins and his guards would readily quell any rising of the

Parisians.[986] But now some one knocks at the outer door, and demands an

entrance in the king's name. Word is given to La Bonne, who at once

descends and unlocks. It is Cosseins, followed by the soldiers whom he

commands. No sooner does he pass the threshold than he stabs La Bonne with

his dagger. Next he seeks the admiral's room, but it is not easy to reach

it, for the brave Swiss, even at the risk of their own lives, defend first

the door leading to the stairs, and then the stairs themselves. And now

Coligny could no longer doubt the meaning of the uproar. He rose from his

bed, and, wrapping his dressing-gown about him, asked his chaplain to

pray; and while Merlin endeavored to fulfil his request, he himself in

audible petitions invoked Jesus Christ as his God and Saviour, and

committed to His hands again the soul he had received from Him. It was

then that the person to Whom we are indebted for this account--and he can

scarcely have been another than Cornaton--rushed into the room. When Pare

asked him what the disturbance imported, he turned to the admiral and

said: "My lord, it is God that is calling us to Himself! The house has

been forced, and we have no means of resistance!" To whom the admiral,

unmoved by fear, and even, as all who saw him testified, without the least

change of countenance, replied: "For a long time have I kept myself in

readiness for death. As for you, save yourselves, if you can. It were in

vain for you to attempt to save my life. I commend my soul to the mercy of

God." Obedient to his directions, all that were with him, save Nicholas

Muss or de la Mouche, his faithful German interpreter, fled to the roof,

and escaped under cover of the darkness.

One of Coligny's Swiss guards had been shot at the foot of the stairs.

When Cosseins had removed the barricade of boxes that had been erected

farther up, the Swiss in his own company, whose uniform of green, white,

and black, showed them to belong to the Duke of Anjou, found their

countrymen on the other side, but did them no harm. Cosseins following

them, however, no sooner saw these armed men, than he ordered his

arquebusiers to shoot, and one of them fell dead. It was a German follower

of Guise, named Besme, who first reached and entered Coligny's chamber,

and who for the exploit was subsequently rewarded with the hand of a

natural daughter of the Cardinal of Lorraine. Cosseins, Attin, Sarlaboux,

and others, were behind him. "Is not this the admiral?" said Besme of the

wounded man, whom he found quietly seated and awaiting his coming. "I am

he," Coligny calmly replied. "Young man, thou oughtest to have respect for

my old age and my feebleness; but thou shalt not, nevertheless, shorten my

life."[987] There were those who asserted that he added: "At least, would

that some man, and not this blackguard, put me to death." But most of the

murderers--and among them Attin, who confessed that never had he seen any

one more assured in the presence of death--affirmed that Coligny said

nothing beyond the words first mentioned. No sooner had Besme heard the

admiral's reply, than, with a curse, he struck him with his sword, first

in the breast, and then on the head.[988] The rest took part, and quickly

despatched him.

In the court below, Guise was impatiently waiting to hear that his mortal

enemy was dead. "Besme," he cried out at last, "have you finished?" "It is

done," the assassin replied. "Monsieur le Chevalier (the Bastard of

Angouleme) will not believe it," again said Guise, "unless he sees him

with his own eyes. Throw him out of the window!" Besme and Sarlaboux

promptly obeyed the command. When the lifeless remains lay upon the

pavement of the court, Henry of Guise stooped down and with his

handkerchief wiped away the blood from the admiral's face. "I recognize

him," he said; "it is he himself!" Then, after ignobly kicking the face of

his fallen antagonist, he went out gayly encouraging his followers: "Come,

soldiers, take courage; we have begun well. Let us go on to the others,

for so the king commands!" And often through the day Guise repeated the

words, "The king commands; it is the king's pleasure; it is his express

command!" Just then a bell was heard, and the cry was raised that the

Huguenots were in arms to kill the king.[989]

As for Admiral Coligny's body, after the head had been cut off by an

Italian of the guard of the Duke de Nevers, the trunk was treated with

every indignity. The hands were cut off, and it was otherwise mutilated in

a shameless manner. Three days was it dragged about the streets by a band

of inhuman boys.[990] Meantime the head had been carried to the Louvre,

where, after Catharine and Charles had sufficiently feasted their eyes on

the spectacle, it was embalmed and sent to Rome, a grateful present to the

Cardinal of Lorraine and Pope Gregory the Thirteenth.[991] It has been

questioned whether the ghastly trophy ever reached its destination.

Indeed, the French court seems to have become ashamed of its inhumanity,

and to have regretted that so startling a token of its barbarous hatred

had been allowed to go abroad. Accordingly, soon after the departure of

the courier, a second courier was despatched in great haste to Mandelot,

governor of Lyons, bidding him stop the first and take away from him the

admiral's head. He arrived too late, however; four hours before Mandelot

received the king's letter, "a squire of the Duke of Guise, named Pauli,"

had passed through the city, doubtless carrying the precious relic.[992]

That it was actually placed in the hands of the Cardinal of Lorraine at

Rome, need not be doubted.

[Sidenote: Coligny's character and work.]

Gaspard de Coligny was in his fifty-sixth year at the time of his death.

For twelve years he had been the most prominent man in the Huguenot party,

occupying a position secured to him not more by his resplendent abilities

as a general than by the respect exacted by high moral principles. With

the light and frivolous side of French character he had little in common.

It was to a sterner and more severe class that he belonged--a class of

which Michel de l'Hospital might be regarded as the type. Men who had

little affinity with them, and bore them still less resemblance, but who

could not fail to admire their excellence, were wont to liken both the

great Huguenot warrior and the chancellor to that Cato whose grave

demeanor and imposing dignity were a perpetual censure upon the flippancy

and lax morality of his countrymen. Although not above the ordinary height

of men, his appearance was dignified and commanding. In speech he was slow

and deliberate. His prudence, never carried to the extreme of

over-caution, was signalized on many occasions. Success did not elate him;

reverses did not dishearten him. The siege of the city of St. Quentin,

into which he threw himself with a handful of troops, and which he long

defended against the best soldiers of Spain, displayed on a conspicuous

stage his military sagacity, his indomitable determination, and the

marvellous control he maintained over his followers. It did much to

prevent Philip from reaping more substantial fruits from the brilliant

victory gained by Count Egmont on the feast-day of St. Lawrence.[993] It

was, however, above all in the civil wars that his abilities shone forth

resplendent. Equally averse to beginning war without absolute necessity,

and to ending it without securing the objects for which it had been

undertaken, he was the good genius whose wholesome advice was frequently

disregarded, but never without subsequent regret on the part of those who

had slighted it. We have seen, in a former chapter,[994] the touching

account given by Agrippa d'Aubigne of the appeal of the admiral's wife,

which alone was successful in moving him to overcome his almost invincible

repugnance to taking up arms, even in behalf of a cause which he knew to

be most holy. I find a striking confirmation of the accuracy of the report

in a passage of his will, wherein he defends himself from the calumnies of

his enemies.[995] "And forasmuch as I have learned that the attempt has

been made to impute to me a purpose to attack the persons of the king, the

queen, and the king's brothers, I protest before God that I never had any

such will or desire, and that I never was present at any place where such

plans were ever proposed or discussed. And as I have also been accused of

ambition in taking up arms with those of the reformed religion, I make the

same protestation, that only zeal for religion, together with fear for my

own life, compelled me to assume them. And, indeed, I must confess my

weakness, and that the greatest fault which I have always committed in

this respect has been that I have not been sufficiently alive to the acts

of injustice and the slaughter to which my brethren were subjected, and

that the dangers and the traps that were laid for myself were necessary to

move me to do what I have done. But I also declare before God, that I

tried every means in my power, in order so long as possible to maintain

peace, fearing nothing so much as civil disturbances and wars, and clearly

foreseeing that these would bring after them the ruin of this kingdom,

whose preservation I have always desired and labored for to the utmost of

my ability."

To Coligny's strategy too much praise could scarcely be accorded. The

Venetian ambassador, Contarini, in the report of his mission to the

senate, in the early part of the year 1572, expressed his amazement that

the admiral, a simple gentleman with slender resources, had waged war

against his own powerful sovereign, who was assisted by the King of Spain

and by a few German and several Italian princes; and that, in spite of

many battles lost, he preserved so great a reputation that the reiters and

lansquenets never rebelled, although their wages were much in arrears, and

their booty was often lost in adverse combats. He was, in fact, said the

enthusiastic Italian, entitled to be held in higher esteem than Hannibal,

inasmuch as the Carthaginian general retained the respect of foreign

nations by being uniformly victorious; but the admiral retained it,

although his cause was almost always unsuccessful.[996]

But all Coligny's military achievements pale in the light of his manly and

unaffected piety. It is as a type of the best class among the Huguenot

nobility that he deserves everlasting remembrance. From his youth he had

been plunged in the engrossing pursuits of a soldier's life; but he was

not ashamed, so soon as he embraced the views of the reformers, to

acknowledge the superior claims of religion upon his time and his

allegiance. He gloried in being a Christian. The influence of his faith

was felt in every action of his life. In the busiest part of an active

life, he yet found time for the recognition of God; and, whether in the

camp or in his castle of Chatillon-sur-Loing, he consecrated no

insignificant portion of the day to devotion. Of the ordinary life of

Admiral Coligny, the anonymous author of his Life, who had himself been an

inmate in his house, has left an interesting description, derived from

what he himself saw and heard:

"As soon as he had risen from bed, which was always at an early hour,

putting on his morning-gown, and kneeling, as did those who were with him,

he himself prayed in the form which is customary with the churches of

France. After this, while waiting for the commencement of the sermon,

which was delivered on alternate days, accompanied with psalmody, he gave

audience to the deputies of the churches who were sent to him, or devoted

the time to public business. This he resumed for a while after the service

was over, until the hour for dinner. When that was come, such of his

domestic servants as were not prevented by necessary engagements

elsewhere, met in the hall where the table was spread, standing by which,

with his wife at his side, if there had been no preaching service, he

engaged with them in singing a psalm, and then the ordinary blessing was

said.

"On the removal of the cloth, rising and standing with his wife and the

rest of the company, he either returned thanks himself or called on his

minister to do so. Such, also, was his practice at supper, and, finding

that the members of his household could not, without much discomfort,

attend prayers so late as at bedtime--an hour, besides, which the

diversity of his occupations prevented from being regularly fixed--his

orders were that, so soon as supper was over, a psalm should be sung and

prayer offered. It cannot be told how many of the French nobility began to

establish this religious order in their own families, after the example of

the admiral, who used often to exhort them to the practice of true piety,

and to warn them that it was not enough for the father of a family to live

a holy and religious life, if he did not by his example bring all his

people to the same rule.

"On the approach of the time for the celebration of the Lord's Supper,

calling together all the members of his household, he told them that he

had to render an account to God, not only of his own life, but also of

their behavior, and reconciled such of them as might have had

differences.... Moreover, he regarded the institution of colleges for

youth, and of schools for the instruction of children, a singular benefit

from God, and called the school a seminary of the church and an

apprenticeship of piety; holding that ignorance of letters had introduced

into both church and state that thick darkness in which the tyranny of the

Pope had had its birth and increase.... This conviction led him to lay out

a large sum in building a college at Chatillon, and there he maintained

three very learned professors of Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, respectively,

and a number of students.

"There could not be a stronger proof of his integrity, and of the

moderation of his desires with respect to the possession of property, than

that, notwithstanding the high offices he held, and the opportunities they

afforded, as is usual with courtiers, of attending to his own interests

and acquiring great wealth, he did not increase his patrimonial estates by

a single acre; and, although he was an excellent economist, yet the number

of persons of high rank, and, indeed, of all conditions, that came to

consult him on public affairs from all parts of France, obliged him to

draw largely on the savings effected by his good management; so that he

left to his heirs not less than forty thousand livres of debts, besides

six thousand livres of interest which he paid annually to his

creditors."[997]

Such was the Christian hero whom his enemies represented as breathing out

menaces upon the bed on which Maurevel's arquebuse had laid him, and as

exclaiming: "If my arm is wounded, my head is not. If I have to lose my

arm, I shall get the head of those who are the cause of it. They intended

to kill me; I shall anticipate them." Such was the disinterested patriot

whom, in the infatuation of their lying fabrications, the murderers of

Paris, their hands still reeking with the blood of thousands of women and

children incontestably innocent of any crime laid to the charge of their

husbands or fathers, pictured as plotting the wholesale assassination of

the royal family--even to the very Henry of Navarre whose wedding he had

come to honor by his presence--that he might place upon the throne of

France that stubborn heretic, the Prince of Conde![998]

[Sidenote: Murder of Huguenot nobles in the Louvre.]

While the murder of Coligny was in course of execution, or but shortly

after, a tragedy not less atrocious was enacted in the royal palace

itself. A number of Huguenot gentlemen of the highest distinction were

lodged in the Louvre. Charles, after the admiral's wound, had suggested to

the King of Navarre that he would do well to invite some of his friends to

act as a guard against any attack that might be made upon him by the Duke

of Guise, whom he characterized as a "mauvois garcon."[999] Late on

Saturday night, as Margaret of Valois informs us in her Memoirs, and long

after she and her husband had retired, these Huguenot lords, gathered

around Henry of Navarre's bed to the number of thirty, had discussed the

occurrences of the last two eventful days, and declared their purpose to

go to the king on the morrow and demand the punishment of the Guises.

Margaret herself had been purposely kept in ignorance of the plan for the

extirpation of the Protestants. For, if the Huguenots suspected her,

because she was a Roman Catholic, the papists suspected her equally

because she had married a Protestant. On parting with her mother for the

night, her elder sister Claude, Duchess of Lorraine, who happened to be on

a visit to the French court, had vainly attempted to detain Margaret,

expressing with tears the apprehension that some evil would befall her.

But Catharine had peremptorily sent her to bed, assuring her with words

which, seen in the light of subsequent revelations, approach the climax of

profanity: "That, if God pleased, she would receive no injury."[1000] So

deep was the impression of impending danger made upon Margaret's mind,

that she remained awake, she tells us, until morning, when her husband

arose, saying that he would go and divert himself with a game of tennis

until Charles should awake. After his departure, the Queen of Navarre,

relieved of her misgivings, as the night was now spent, ordered her maid

to lock her door, and composed herself to sleep.[1001]