"These execrable outrages," adds the chronicler who gives us this

interesting information, "did not in the least unnerve the Protestants,

who died with great constancy; and, if some were shaken (as were some, but

in very small numbers), this in no wise lessened the patience and

endurance of the rest."[1095] The number of the killed was great. The

murderers themselves boasted of the slaughter of more than twelve hundred

men and of one hundred and fifty women, besides a large number of children

of nine years old and under. And there was a dreary uniformity in the

method of their death. They were shot with pistols, then stripped, and

dragged to the river, or thrown into the city moat.[1096] But it is, after

all, not the numbers of nameless victims whose honorable deaths leave no

distinct impression upon the mind, but the individual instances of

Christian heroism, teaching lessons of imitable human virtues, that speak

most directly to the sympathies of the reader of an age so long posterior.

The records of French Protestantism are full of these, and one or two of

the most striking that occurred in Orleans deserve mention. M. de

Coudray--whom the Roman Catholics had in vain endeavored on previous

occasions to shake--seeing his house beset and no prospect of deliverance,

himself opened the door of his dwelling to the murderers, telling them,

with wonderful assurance of faith: "You do but hasten the coming of that

blessedness which I have long been expecting."[1097] Whereupon they killed

him, in the midst of his invocation of his God. Another Huguenot, De St.

Thomas, a schoolmaster, died uttering words as courageous as ever fell

from lips of early Christian martyrs: "Why! do you think that you move me

by your blasphemies and acts of cruelty? It is not within your power to

deprive me of the assurance of the grace of my God. Strike as much as you

please; I fear not your blows."[1098] Sometimes the dying men were allowed

a few moments to utter a final prayer; but, if their zeal led them too

far, their impatient murderers cut short their devotions with oaths and

curses, and exclaimed: "Here are people that take a great while to pray to

their God!"[1099] Of resistance there was little, so far were the

Huguenots from having collected arms and prepared for such a conspiracy as

was imputed to them. If a Huguenot teacher of fencing killed one or two of

his assailants, or if a few gentlemen at different places kept them at bay

awhile with stones or other missiles, this, so far from proving their evil

intentions, on the contrary, furnishes undeniable proof of the very

different results that might have ensued had their means of defence been

equal to their courage. For fifteen days after the principal massacre the

work went on more quietly, the dead bodies being still thrown into the

ditch--where wolves, which in the sixteenth century abounded in the valley

of the Loire, were permitted to feed upon them undisturbed--or into the

river, of whose fish, fattened upon this human carrion, the people feared

to eat.[1100]

[Sidenote: Massacre at Bourges.]

At Bourges the news of the massacre was received late on Tuesday.

Meantime, some of the more sagacious of the Huguenots (among others, the

celebrated Francis Hotman, at this time a professor of law in the

University of Bourges), alarmed by the wounding of Admiral Coligny, had

fled from the city. Even after the news came, the massacre was but

partial. Although the mayor, Jean Joupitre, had received sealed orders

(lettres de cachet) instructing him as to the part he was to take, the

municipal officers, knowing the ill-will the Guises had always borne to

the Huguenots, were in doubt how far the king countenanced the bloody

work. But the royal letter of the thirtieth of August, accompanying the

declaration of the twenty-eighth, to which reference was made above,[1101]

so far from putting an end to the disorder, only rendered it more general.

Bourges became the scene of another of those butcheries of Huguenots first

gathered in the public prisons, of which there are so many similar

instances that it seems impossible to avoid the conclusion that the orders

to effect them emanated from a single source at court.[1102]

[Sidenote: At Angers.]

We have already been admitted to the secret of the instructions sent by

the Duke of Anjou, through Puigaillard, to M. de Montsoreau, for the

destruction of the Huguenots of Saumur and Angers. Certainly there was on

his part no lack of readiness to fulfil his sanguinary commission; but the

local officers were less zealous, and many of the Protestants were merely

thrown into prison. Montsoreau's first exploit at Angers deserves

particular mention. M. de la Riviere, the first reformed pastor of Paris,

of whom I have spoken in a previous chapter, was at this time residing in

Angers, and Montsoreau seems to have been acquainted with him. Going

straight to his house, the governor met the pastor's wife, whom, according

to the gallant custom prevailing, especially among the Trench courtiers,

he first kissed, and then inquired for her husband. He was told that he

was walking in his garden, and thither his hostess led him. After

courteously embracing him, Montsoreau thus abruptly disclosed the object

of his visit: "Monsieur de la Riviere, do you know why I am come? The king

has ordered me to kill you, and that at once. I have a special commission

to this effect, as you will know from these letters." While saying this he

exhibited a pistol which he held in his hand. "I know of no crime that I

have done," calmly replied De la Riviere; and then, after obtaining

permission to offer a brief prayer to God, he fearlessly presented his

breast to the cowardly assassin. Montsoreau did not complete the

extermination of the Huguenots of Angers, and Puigaillard soon after

arrived to prosecute it; but the Protestant prisoners whom he was to have

murdered knew his venal disposition, and found little difficulty in

purchasing their liberation.[1103]

[Sidenote: Butchery at Lyons.]

The important city of Lyons, inhabited by a population intensely hostile

to the Reformation, had for its governor M. de Mandelot, a decided

partisan of the Roman Catholic faction. The municipal authorities,

however, either surpassed him in zeal, or, as is more probable, were less

apprehensive of the dangers to be incurred by assuming the responsibility

of a massacre; for of all the "echevins," only two opposed the violent

measures of their associates. The written protest which they insisted upon

entering on the official records is still extant.[1104] The first tidings

of the wounding of Coligny by Maurevel reached Lyons on Wednesday morning,

the twenty-seventh of August, in a letter from Charles the Ninth to

Governor Mandelot, similar in tenor to those which were despatched to

every other part of France.[1105] Although the king spoke only of

displeasure at the outrage, and of his determination to avenge it, the

populace interpreted the event according to their wishes, and instantly

circulated reports of the murder of the admiral and all his adherents. The

Roman Catholics, long discontented with the toleration extended to those

who dissented from the creed of the dominant church, were jubilant and

menacing; the Protestants were disheartened, but exhibited a self-control

only to be accounted for by the long years of oppression which had

wellnigh broken their spirit. The next day came the news of the events of

Sunday, and, in the afternoon, letters from Masso and Rubys, prominent

citizens of Lyons then at Paris, who said that they had been instructed by

the king to order the authorities to copy the example of the capital. The

fanatical party was now clamorous; but Mandelot, cautious and politic,

would act on no such instructions, although he had taken the precaution of

closing the gates, and of commanding the Protestants, on pain of

imprisonment, to remain in their houses. Friday morning came, and with it

the arrival of Sieur du Peyrat from court, bearing the royal letter

written on the day of the massacre, in which it was represented as the

exclusive work of the Guises, and the king strenuously enjoined the

maintenance of the Edict of Pacification.[1106] These were the _public_

instructions sent to Mandelot; but they were not all. There is a

suspicious little postscript to the letter: "Monsieur de Mandelot, you

will give credit to the bearer respecting the matter which I have charged

him to tell you."[1107] What these verbal orders were which the king, not

venturing to commit to paper, commissioned Du Peyrat to communicate, the

reply of the governor himself distinctly reveals; it was the arrest of the

Protestants and the confiscation of their property.[1108] Still more

perplexed as to what course to pursue, Mandelot held a long private

conference with the messenger, while the echevins impatiently awaited its

conclusion. The governor now called in the municipal officers for

consultation, and with them agreed to order the immediate imprisonment of

the Huguenots. He was not, however, even yet fully convinced of the

propriety of this step, for scarcely had he given the order when he

recalled it.[1109] Fearing that the troops at his disposal might prove

insufficient, and dreading with good reason lest the employment of the

city militia for this purpose might lead to scenes of disorder which he

would find himself powerless to control, he preferred to send for such

reinforcements as the neighboring noblemen of the province could

furnish.[1110] Meantime, the commotion throughout Lyons had rapidly

increased. On Thursday and Friday nights many members of the Reformed

Church had been dragged from their houses as if to prison, but most of

them had been barbarously despatched by the way. Among others, one of the

ministers, Monsieur Jacques l'Anglois, was stabbed and thrown into the

river. On Saturday morning Mandelot, seeing the confusion hourly

increasing, deemed it impolitic to wait any longer for the troops he was

expecting, and resolved upon effecting his purpose by ruse. He therefore

published a proclamation by sound of trumpet, bidding all the Huguenots to

assemble at his house to hear the good pleasure of the king. The

Huguenots, deceived by the professions of his Majesty, came in great

numbers; but no sooner had they all arrived, than they were seized by the

soldiers and hurried away to prison. The common prison, "La Roanne," being

too contracted to contain so large a multitude, three hundred or more were

placed in that of the Archbishop's palace, and others in the cloisters of

the Celestine Monks and the Gray Friars. At the same time an inventory was

being made of all the goods belonging to Protestants throughout the city.

These measures, instead of allaying, only inflamed the passions of the

populace the more. That night the murders surpassed those of the previous

nights in number and atrocity, and when Sunday morning dawned the people

were ready for still greater excesses. At about eight o'clock they entered

unopposed the Gray Friars, and butchered every Huguenot they found. Two

hours later, assuming the forms of law, a self-constituted commission,

headed by Andre Mornieu, one of the echevins or aldermen, presenting

themselves successively at the archiepiscopal prison and at the Roanne,

summoned the inmates to abjure their faith and go to mass. Only thirty

persons in the one, and about twenty in the other, consented. These were

sent to the Celestine monastery and afterward released. Of the others a

careful list was drawn up. Their fate was sealed; but an unexpected

difficulty arose. The public hangman refused to execute the sentence of an

unauthorized tribunal. So did the soldiers. At last assassins were

obtained from the ranks of the turbulent inhabitants. About three o'clock

that afternoon the archbishop's prison was visited. To describe with

minuteness the scene of horror that ensued would scarcely be possible. Two

hundred and sixty-three persons,[1111] of the very best and most

industrious part of the population of Lyons,[1112] called by name

according to the roll previously made, were murdered in rapid succession.

Never was there an exhibition of more pitiless cruelty. Meanwhile, where

was the governor? He had gone, in company with the commandant of the

citadel, to suppress a threatened disturbance in the Faubourg de la

Guillotiere, on the left bank of the Rhone. He returned only in time to

find the deed done, and to disperse those who had gone to the Roanne to

repeat it there. His demonstrations of anger were loud, and a liberal

reward was offered for the detection of any that had participated in the

slaughter.[1113] But this did not prevent the same body of cutthroats from

visiting the Roanne, soon after nightfall, and despatching all the

Protestants that were there, to the number of about seventy. Many of them,

by an excess of barbarity, the assassins tied together by a single rope,

and threw, while yet alive, into the water. On the following day the

bodies which had not yet found a watery grave were carried to the other

side of the Saone, where, stripped and mangled, they were about to be

buried in the cemetery of the Abbaye d'Esnay, when the monks refused them

admission into the consecrated ground, and pointed to the Rhone as a more

fitting destination. Even now they were not spared further mutilation; for

an apothecary of Lyons, having initiated the murderers into the valuable

properties of human fat as a medicinal substance, the miserable remains

were put to new use before being consigned to the river. Down to the

Mediterranean these ghastly witnesses of the ferocity of the passions of

the Lyonnese Roman Catholics carried fear and disgust, and for weeks the

inhabitants of Arles and other places carefully abstained from drinking

the water of the polluted stream.[1114]

[Sidenote: Responsibility of Mandelot.]

The part which Mandelot took in this awful tragedy has been very

differently estimated, but I am inclined to think that the governor is not

chargeable with any direct responsibility for the butchery in the prisons

of Lyons. Certainly this seems to be established by his letter to the

king, written in the morning of the day on which it occurred; for he would

scarcely have expressed his great desire and hope to be able to prevent

any outbreak, if he had planned, or even foreseen, the events of the

evening.[1115] The story must therefore be apocryphal, that Mandelot, in

commissioning one of the chief assassins to execute the bloody work,

blasphemously said: "I intrust the whole to you, and, as Jesus Christ said

to Saint Peter, whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in

heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in

heaven."[1116] It was, however, no conscientious scruple that deterred the

governor from actively taking part. Mandelot was scandalously anxious to

obtain his part of the plunder, and was not ashamed to appear as a

suppliant for the confiscated property of the Huguenots almost before

their bodies were cold.[1117] But he was unwilling, without the express

orders of his sovereign, written with his own hand, to commit an act

which, the more successful it might be, was the more certain to be

disavowed and punished. He was right: a subordinate could not be too

careful in dealing with so treacherous a court.

[Sidenote: The massacre at Rouen.]

Few cities were so ripe for the massacre of the Protestants as the capital

of Normandy. There the passions of the Roman Catholics, inflamed by the

civil wars, had not been suffered to cool. Even in the provincial

parliament the papists could hardly submit to receive into their

deliberations again the five or six Huguenot counsellors who had been

expelled or had fled at the outbreak of hostilities, but whom the Edict of

Pacification restored to their ancient functions and dignity; and the

secret registers, among other unfortunate scenes, chronicle particularly a

violent discussion, degenerating into angry altercation between President

Vialard and the Huguenot member Maynet.[1118] The bloody assault of the

populace of Rouen upon the reformed in March, 1571, mentioned in a

previous page,[1119] had been but slightly punished. Few of the guilty

failed to escape from the city, and the sole penalty suffered had been an

execution in effigy. These turbulent men had ever since that time been

watching an opportunity to return. They were now burning with a desire to

signalize their advent by bloody reprisals. Monsieur de Carouge, governor

of the city, was, however, a just and upright man,[1120] and they could

not hope for countenance in their plans from him. In fact, the

contemporary accounts inform us that he received from the king repeated

orders to exterminate the Huguenots of Rouen,[1121] which he could not

bring himself to execute, and that he sent messengers to remonstrate with

his Majesty who returned without succeeding in shaking his determination;

and hereupon the governor found himself obliged to shut himself up in the

castle, and permit the work which had been intrusted to others also, to

take its course.[1122] The secret records of parliament, however, reveal

the fact that Carouge received from Paris the order to leave Rouen and

visit other portions of Normandy, in order to restore the quiet and peace

which had been much disturbed of late. The real, though perhaps not the

ostensible object of this commission was to rid the city of the presence

of a magistrate whose well known integrity might render it futile to

attempt a massacre of the innocent. The records also show that, contrary

to the current report, both the municipal authorities and the parliament,

greatly alarmed at the danger menacing Rouen in case of his departure,

implored him to remain;[1123] but that the king's peremptory commands left

him no discretion, and he was obliged to leave the unhappy city to its

fate. The able historian of the Norman Parliament has rightly observed

that the governor, whether he left Rouen because he could not consent to

execute the barbarous injunctions that were sent him, or because his

character was so well known that the court was unwilling to intrust them

to him, is equally deserving of praise; and not without reason does this

writer claim similar respect for the judicial body which manifested its

desire to save everything, by retaining him at Rouen.[1124] Here, as

elsewhere, a great part of the Protestants had been arrested and placed in

the prisons, to shield them from popular violence. The governor believed

this to be the safest place for them; and at least one instance is known

of a father who was so convinced of it that he brought thither his

Huguenot son, whom he might have sent out of the city.[1125]

The storm, so long delayed, broke out at last on Wednesday, the

seventeenth of September, and lasted four entire days. The gates were

closed, and the organized bands of murderers, under the leadership of

Laurent de Maromme, one of the most sanguinary of the turbulent men who

had returned from banishment, and of a priest, Claude Montereul, curate of

the church of St. Pierre, had undisputed possession of the city. First

they slaughtered like sheep the prisoners in the spacious "conciergerie"

of the parliament house and in the other prisons of the city. Next they

burst into the houses, and nearly every atrocity which history is

compelled at any time reluctantly to chronicle, was perpetrated on

unresisting men, on tender women, on unoffending children. Not less than

five hundred persons, and perhaps even more, perished in a butchery, whose

details I gladly pass over in silence.[1126] Grim humor and charity were

incongruously mingled with the most brutal inhumanity. The assassins

jocularly denominated their work one of "accommodating" their

victims;[1127] and the clothes of the Protestants--whose bodies were

buried in great ditches outside of the Porte Cauchoise--after having been

carefully washed, were piously distributed among the poor.[1128] The

tragedy finished, the farce of an investigation was instituted by the

officers of justice, but no punishment was ever inflicted upon any Roman

Catholic, other than that which could be recognized in the retributive

judgments befalling a few of the most notable, and especially the cruel

Maromme, at the hand of God.[1129]

[Sidenote: At Toulouse.]

The previous character of Toulouse, as among the most sanguinary cities of

France, was already sufficiently well established. If behind some of the

rest on this occasion in the number of victims, Toulouse was inferior only

because its previous massacres had rendered it a suspicious place of

sojourn in the eyes of the Huguenots. Here, too, notwithstanding deceitful

proclamations guaranteeing safety and protection, the Protestants were

gathered into the public prisons and jails attached to monasteries; and

after having been reserved for several weeks, on receipt of orders from

Paris were butchered to the number of two or three hundred. Among others,

some Protestant members of parliament were hung in their long red gowns to

the branches of a great elm growing in the court of the parliament

house.[1130] The miscreants that voluntarily assumed the functions of

executioners were in this case drawn in great part from the more unruly

class of the law students of the university.[1131] It is needless to add

that here, as elsewhere, the opportunity for plunder was by no means

neglected.

[Sidenote: At Bordeaux.]

The procedure in Bordeaux was so extraordinary, and is so authentically

related in a letter of a prominent judicial officer who was present, as

well as in the records of the Parliament of Guyenne, that the story of its

massacre must be added to the notices already given. At first the city was

quiet, and the friends of order congratulated themselves that their

efforts had been successful in removing the stigma which previous

transactions had affixed to its escutcheon. Meantime this policy, united

to the fear of a fate similar to that which had befallen their

fellow-believers elsewhere, is said to have led to a great number of

conversions to the Roman Catholic Church.[1132] But there were those who

were unwilling that their prey should so easily escape them. On the fifth

of September, M. de Montferrand, Governor of Bordeaux, affecting to have

information of a general plot on the part of the Huguenots of the city,

had sought and obtained permission of the parliament to introduce three

hundred soldiers from abroad. He had thereupon forbidden the celebration

of Protestant worship, hitherto held at a distance of three leagues from

Bordeaux, on the plain between the Garonne and the Jalle.[1133] Meantime

the churches resounded with the violent denunciations of a famous

preacher, Friar Edmond Auger or Augier, "a great scourge for heresy," as

his partisans styled him. He exhorted his hearers to imitate the example

of Paris, and accused the royal officers of indolence and pusillanimity.

At this juncture the governor received a visit from Monsieur de Montpezat,

son-in-law of Villars, the newly appointed admiral. What the latter told

him is unknown. But, on the third of October, Montferrand having given out

that he had received from the king a roll of names of forty of the chief

men of the place, whom he was commissioned to put to death without judge

or trial, set about his bloody work. Persistently refusing to exhibit his

warrant, for three days the governor butchered the citizens at will.[1134]

One member of parliament, against whom he bore a personal grudge, he

stabbed with his own hand. The murderers wore red bonnets supplied by one

of the "jurats" or aldermen of the city. They executed their commission so

thoroughly that the number of the slain was reported as two hundred and

sixty-four persons, all Protestants. If any one be mercifully inclined to

regard this statement as an exaggeration, and to base upon this instance a

general theory that throughout France the number of the victims has been

grossly over-estimated, let him read the following entry made in the

records of the Parliament of Bordeaux, and recently brought to light; he

will learn from this not only the approximate number of the slain as given

by the chief agent in the bloody work, but the anxiety which the latter

felt that he should receive due credit for his share in the great

undertaking of the destruction of the French Protestants: "On the ninth of

October, the Sieur de Montferrand, having been summoned to the court,

among other things said, 'that he had been informed that there were some

members of the court who had written to the Sieur Admiral de Villars,

royal lieutenant in Guyenne, that the said De Montferrand had killed, on

the day of the execution by him made, October the third, only ten or

twelve men, a thing (under correction of the court) wholly false, inasmuch

as there had been more than two hundred and fifty slain; and he would show

the list to any one who might desire to see it.'"[1135]

The same hand that placed upon the parliamentary registers this shameless

and atrocious boast, for the benefit of those that should come after, has

briefly noted the assassination of two members of parliament itself, with

an absence of comment in which we can read the evidence of fear. "From the

talk of to-day it appears that Messieurs Jean de Guilloche and Pierre de

Sevyn were killed as belonging to the new religion."[1136] The tardy and

flagrantly unnecessary effusion of blood at Bordeaux exercised no mean

influence in emboldening the Huguenots of La Rochelle to persevere in

their refusal to admit the emissaries of Charles the Ninth.

[Sidenote: Why the massacre was not universal.]

The massacre was, however, neither universal throughout France, nor

equally destructive in all places where it occurred. The reason for this

is to be found partly in the geographical distribution of the Huguenots,

partly in the temper of the people, partly in the policy or the humanity

of the governors of cities and provinces. Where the number of Protestants

was small, and especially where they had never rendered themselves

formidable, it was not easy for the clergy to excite the people to that

frenzy of sectarian hatred under the influence of which they were willing

to imbrue their hands in the blood of peaceable neighbors. In such

places--in Provins, for instance--the Huguenots generally kept themselves

as far as possible out of sight, while a few of the more timid consented

to place a white cross on their hats, a convenient badge of Roman

Catholicism which some were willing to assume, when they would rather have

died than go to mass.[1137]

[Sidenote: Policy of the Guises.]

In the province of Champagne the Protestants were spared any general

massacre by the prudent foresight of the Guises, to whom its government

was confided. The duke, in order to free himself from the imputation of

being the author of the bloody plot, and to prove that his private

resentment did not extend beyond Admiral Coligny and a few other chiefs,

had himself taken several Huguenots in Paris under his special protection.

With the same object in view, he made his province an exception to the

widespread slaughter.[1138]

[Sidenote: Spurious accounts of clemency.]

[Sidenote: Bishop Le Hennuyer, of Lisieux.]

Others, however, were, merciful from more honorable motives. A number of

instances of clemency are mentioned. It is not, indeed, always safe to

accept the stories, some of which are suspicious from their very form,

while others are manifest inventions of an age when tolerance had become

more popular than persecution. To the category of fable we are compelled

to assign the famous response which Le Hennuyer, Bishop of Lisieux, is

reported, by authors writing long after the event, as having returned to

the lieutenant sent to him by Charles the Ninth. History is occasionally

capricious, but she has rarely indulged in a more remarkable freak than

when putting into the mouth of an advocate of persecution, a courtier and

the almoner of the king, who was not even in his diocese, but undoubtedly

in Paris itself, at the time the incident is said to have occurred, this

declamatory speech: "No, no, sir; I oppose, and shall always oppose, the

execution of such an order. I am the shepherd of the church of Lisieux,

and the people I am commanded to slaughter are my flock. Although at

present wanderers, having strayed from the fold intrusted to me by Jesus

Christ the great shepherd, they may, nevertheless, return. I do not read

in the Gospel that the shepherd should suffer the blood of his sheep to

be shed; on the contrary, I find there that he is bound to pour out his

own blood and give his own life for them. Take the order back, for it

shall never be executed so long as I live."[1139]

[Sidenote: Kind offices of Matignon at Caen and Alencon;]

[Sidenote: of Longueville and Gordes;]

Fortunately, there are other instances on record which are not apocryphal.

Monsieur de Matignon seems to have saved Caen and Alencon from becoming

the scenes of general massacres, and thus to have endeared himself to the

Protestants of both places.[1140] The Duke of Longueville prevented the

massacre from extending to his province of Picardy.[1141] Gordes, Governor

of Dauphiny, who had obtained advancement by the assistance of the

Montmorency influence, excused himself, when repeatedly urged to kill the

Huguenots, on the plea that Montbrun and others of their leaders were

alive and out of his reach, and that any attempt of the kind would only

lead to still greater difficulties. He therefore waited for more direct

instructions. When, in his letter of the fifth of September, in reference

to a clause in the king's letter just received, he stated that he had

received no verbal orders, but merely his letters of the twenty-second,

twenty-fourth, and twenty-eighth of August, Charles replied bidding him

give himself no solicitude as to them, as they were addressed only to a

few persons who happened to be near him,[1142] and enjoined upon him to

enforce the royal "declaration," and cause all murder and rapine to cease

in his government. Yet even here a number of Huguenots were imprisoned,

and a few lost their lives at Romans.[1143]

[Sidenote: of Tende in Provence.]

The manly boldness of the Comte de Tende is said in like manner to have

saved the Protestants of Provence. Receiving from the hands of La Mole, a

gentleman of Arles and servant of the Duke of Alencon, a letter from the

secret council ordering him to massacre all the Huguenots in his province,

the governor replied: "I do not believe that such commands have emanated

from the king's free will; but some of the members of his council have

usurped the royal authority in order to satisfy their own passions. I need

no more conclusive testimony than the letters which his Majesty sent me a

few days ago, by which he threw upon the Guises the blame for this

massacre of Paris. I prefer to obey these first letters, as more befitting

the royal dignity. Besides, this last order is so cruel and barbarous,

that even were the king himself in person to command me to put it into

execution, I would not do it." The magnanimity of the count spared

Provence the horrors of a repetition of the massacres of Merindol and

Cabrieres, but perhaps cost him his own life, for he soon after died at

Avignon, and rumor ascribed his death to poison. The infamous Count de

Retz, Catharine's favorite, succeeded him as governor.[1144] Saint Heran,

Governor of Auvergne, is said to have replied in very similar words; but

as he managed to induce a great part of the Protestants within his

jurisdiction to apostatize, less notice was taken of his

insubordination.[1145]

[Sidenote: Viscount D'Orthez at Bayonne.]

Perhaps the most striking instance of a magnanimous refusal to comply with

the bloody mandate of the Parisian court, was that of Viscount

D'Orthez,[1146] Governor of Bayonne. This nobleman was not only of a

violent and imperious temper, but on other occasions so severe in his

treatment of the Protestants of the border city, that the king was obliged

to write to him to moderate his rigor. When, however, the messenger from

Paris (who on his way had caused an indiscriminate slaughter to be made of

all the men, women and children who had taken refuge in the prisons of

Dax) delivered his orders to the viscount, the latter returned the

following laconic answer:

"Sire, I have communicated your Majesty's commands to your faithful

inhabitants and warriors in the garrison. I have found among them only

good citizens and brave soldiers, but not one hangman. For this reason

they and I very humbly beg your Majesty to employ our arms and our lives

in all things possible, however hazardous they may be, as we are, so long

as our lives shall last, your very humble, etc."[1147]

[Sidenote: The municipality of Nantes.]

Nor were the municipal authorities in some places behind the royal

governors in their determination to have no part in the nefarious designs

of the court. At Nantes, the mayor, echevins, and judges received from

Paris, on the eighth of September, a letter of the Duke of

Montpensier-Bourbon, Governor of Brittany, in which, after narrating the

discovery of the pretended conspiracy of Coligny and his adherents, and

their consequent assassination, he added: "By this his Majesty's intention

respecting the treatment which the Huguenots are to receive in the other

cities is sufficiently evident, as well as the means by which some assured

rest may be expected in our poor Catholic Church."[1148] But the municipal

and judicial officers of Nantes, instead of following the bloody path thus

marked out for them by the governor of their province, "held a meeting in

the town hall, and swore to maintain their previous oath not to violate

the Edict of Pacification published in favor of the Calvinists, and

forbade the inhabitants from indulging in any excess against them."[1149]

[Sidenote: Uncertain number of the victims.]

Such are the general outlines and a few details of a massacre the full

horrors of which it is outside of the province and beyond the ability of

history to relate. Nor is it even possible to set down figures that may be

relied upon as expressing the true number of those who were unjustly put

to death. The difficulty experienced by a well informed contemporary, has

not been removed; notwithstanding the careful investigations of those who

earnestly desired "that posterity might not-be deprived of what it needed

to know, in order that it might become wiser at the expense of

others."[1150] We shall be safe in supposing that the number of Huguenot

victims throughout France was somewhere between twenty thousand, as

conjectured by De Thou and La Popeliniere, and thirty thousand, as stated

by Jean de Serres and the Memoires de l'estat de France, rather than in

adopting the extreme views of Sully and Perefixe, the latter of whom

swells the count of the slain to one hundred thousand men, women, and

children.[1151] It can scarcely have been much less than the lower number

I have suggested.

[Sidenote: News of the massacre received at Rome.]

[Sidenote: Public thanksgivings.]

While the massacre begun on St. Bartholomew's Day was spreading with the

speed of some foul contagion to the most distant parts of France, the

tidings had been carried beyond its boundaries, and excited a thrill of

delight, or a cry of execration, according to the character and sympathies

of those to whom they came. Nowhere was the surprise greater, nor the joy

more intense, than at Rome. Pope Gregory, like his predecessor, had been

very sceptical respecting the pious intentions of the French court.

Nuncios and legates brought them, it is true, a great profusion of

brilliant assurances, on the part of Catharine and Charles, of devotion to

the Roman Church, and to the interests of the Pontifical See, but

accompanied by lugubrious vaticinations of their own, based upon the

tolerant course on which the king, under Coligny's guidance, had entered.

The Cardinal of Alessandria had made little account of the ring offered

him by Charles as a pledge of his sincerity, and preferred to wait for the

proof which the sequel might exhibit. The last defiant act of the French

monarch, in marrying his sister to a professed heretic, and within the

degrees of consanguinity prohibited by the Church, without obtaining the

Pope's dispensation, served to confirm all the sinister suspicions

entertained at Rome. Under these circumstances the papal astonishment and

rejoicing can well be imagined, when couriers sent by the Guises brought

the intelligence of the massacre to the Cardinal of Lorraine, and when

letters from the King of France and from the Nuncio Salviati in Paris to

the Pope himself confirmed its accuracy. Salviati's letters having been

read in the full consistory, on the sixth of September, the pontiff and

the cardinals resolved to go at once in solemn procession to the church of

San Marco, there to render thanks to God for the signal blessing conferred

upon the Roman See and all Christendom. A solemn mass was appointed for

the succeeding Monday, and a jubilee published for the whole Christian

world. In the evening the cannon from the Castle of San Angelo, and

firearms discharged here and there throughout the city, proclaimed to all

the joy felt for so signal a victory over the enemies of the Church. For

three successive nights there was a general illumination. Cardinal Orsini,

who seems to have been on the point of starting for France as a special

legate to urge the court to withdraw from the course of toleration, now

received different instructions, and was commissioned to congratulate

Charles, and to encourage him to pursue the path upon which he had

entered. Charles of Lorraine, as was natural, distinguished himself for

his demonstrations of joy. He made a present of one thousand crowns to the

bearer of such glad tidings.[1152] Under his auspices a brilliant

celebration of the event took place in the church of San Luigi de'

Francesi, which was magnificently decorated for the occasion. Gregory

himself, attended by his cardinals and bishops, by princes, foreign

ambassadors, and large numbers of nobles and of the people, walked thither

under the pontifical canopy, and high mass was said. The Cardinal of

Lorraine had affixed above the entrance a pompous declaration, in the form

of a congratulatory notice from Charles the Ninth to Gregory and the

"sacred college of cardinals," wherein the Very Christian King renders

thanks to Heaven that, "inflamed by zeal for the Lord God of Hosts, like a

smiting angel divinely sent, he had suddenly destroyed by a single

slaughter almost all the heretics and enemies of his kingdom." The

latinity of the placard might not be above reproach; but it is certain

that its sentiments received the cordial approval of the assembled

prelates.[1153] Set forth in golden characters, and decorated with festive

leaves and ribbons,[1154] it proclaimed that the hierarchy of the Roman

Church had no qualms of conscience in indorsing the traitorous deed of

Charles and Catharine. But still more unequivocal proofs were not wanting.

A well known medal was struck in honor of the event, bearing on the one

side the head of the Pope and the words "Gregorius XIII. Pont. Max. An.

I.," and on the other an angel with cross and sword pursuing the heretics,

and the superscription, "Ugonottorum strages, 1572."[1155]

[Sidenote: Paintings by Vasari in the Vatican.]

By the order of the Pope, the famous Vasari painted in the Sala Regia of

the Vatican palace several pictures representing different scenes in the

Parisian massacre. Upon one an inscription was placed which tersely

expressed the true state of the case: "Pontifex Colinii necem

probat."[1156] The paintings may still be seen in the magnificent room

which serves as antechamber to the Sistine Chapel.[1157]

To the French ambassador, M. de Ferralz, Gregory expressed in the most

extravagant terms his satisfaction, and that of the college of cardinals,

not only with the events of Paris, but with the news daily coming to Rome

of similar massacres in progress in different cities of France. He

convinced Ferralz that no more delightful tidings could have reached the

pontifical court. The battle of Lepanto could not compare with it. "Tell

your master," said he to the envoy at the conclusion of his audience,

"that this event has given me a hundred times more pleasure than fifty

victories like that which the League obtained over the Turk last year." In

the excess of his joy he did not forget to enjoin on every one he spoke

to, especially all Frenchmen, to light bonfires in honor of the massacre,

hinting that whoever should fail to do so must be unsound in the

faith.[1158] A few weeks later, the pontiff shocked even some devout Roman

Catholics by allowing Cardinal Lorraine and the French ambassador to

present to him Maurevel, the assassin who had fired the arquebuse shot at

Admiral Coligny.[1159]

[Sidenote: French boasts go for nothing.]

"The pontiff," says his countryman, the historian Adriani, "and all Italy

universally rejoiced greatly, and forgave the king and queen their

previous dissimulation."[1160] For the French at Rome now pretended that

the massacre had long been planned by their monarch, and that every favor

to the Huguenots for the past two years had been shown to them merely for

the purpose of lulling them into a false security. The Pope accepted the

plea without troubling himself much whether it were true or not, satisfied

as he was with the event. But not so the Spanish envoy at the Roman court,

Don Juan de Cuniga. "The French wish to give the impression," he wrote to

his master, "that the king meditated this blow from the time he made peace

with the Huguenots; and, in order that it may be believed that he was

capable of preparing it and concealing it until the proper time for the

execution, they attribute to him stratagems which do not seem allowable

even against heretics and rebels. I deem it certain that, if the shooting

of the arquebuse at the admiral was a thing projected a few days

beforehand, and authorized by the king, all the rest was inspired by

circumstances."[1161] Equally positive, though not at all doubtful

respecting the morality of the transaction, and more jubilant, was the

Nuncio Salviati, in Paris. While desiring that the cardinal secretary

"should kiss the feet of his Holiness in his name," and "rejoicing with

him in the bowels of his heart at the blessed and honorable commencement

of his pontificate,"[1162] while declaring that, despite his previous

belief that the court of France would not much longer tolerate the

admiral's arrogance, he would never have imagined the tenth part of what

he now saw with his own eyes, he also stated he could not bring himself to

believe that, had the admiral been killed by Maurevel's shot, so much

would have been done by a great deal.[1163] Now, however, "the queen

intended not only to revoke the Edict of Pacification, but by means of

justice to restore the ancient observance of the Catholic faith."

[Sidenote: Catharine writes to Philip, her son-in-law.]

There was another monarch whose joy was not less sincere than Gregory's.

This was Philip of Spain. Catharine had not delayed writing to her royal

son-in-law. In her endeavor to make capital out of the massacre she

betrayed great satisfaction at her supposed masterly stroke of policy. Her

letter--a misspelled scrawl--furnishes a fresh illustration of the fact

that singular shrewdness in planning and executing criminal projects is

not incompatible with a trust, amounting almost to fatuity, in the

unsuspecting credulity of others. Catharine actually imagined that she

could, by her counterfeit piety, impose upon one who knew her character so

well as Philip of Spain. Therefore she was lavish of the use of the name

of the Deity to cover her own villainy. "Monsieur my son," she wrote, "I

entertain no doubt that you will appreciate, as we do, the happiness God

has conferred upon us in giving the king, my son, the means of ridding

himself of his subjects, rebels against God and himself, and [rejoice]

that it has pleased Him graciously to preserve him and us all from the

cruelty of their hands. For this we are assured that you will praise God

with us, as well on our account as for the advantage that will accrue to

all Christendom, and to the service, and honor, and glory of God. This, we

hope, will soon be made known, and the fruit thereof be perceived.[1164]

By this event we afford the testimony of our good and upright intentions,

which have never tended but to His honor. And I rejoice still more that

this occasion will confirm and augment the friendship between your Majesty

and the king your brother--which is the thing I desire most of all in this

world."[1165]

[Sidenote: The delight of Philip the Second.]

Philip had good reason to be glad. To all human appearance it had depended

only upon the word of Charles to secure, at once and forever, the

independence from the Spanish tyranny of the provinces on the lower

Rhine, which, under William of Orange, were battling for religious and

civil freedom. True, Genlis and his small forces had been captured or

destroyed; but what were they in comparison with the men whom the French

king could have marshalled under the command of Coligny, La Noue, and

other experienced leaders? And now Charles, at a single stroke, had cut

off all prospect of obtaining the sovereignty of the Netherlands or of any

part, had assassinated his own generals in their beds, had butchered in

cold blood those who would gladly have marched as soldiers to achieve his

conquests, and had freed Philip from all fear of French interference in

behalf of the Dutch patriots. No wonder then, that, when a courier, sent

by the Spanish ambassador at Paris, with tidings of the events of St.

Bartholomew's Day, reached Madrid, on the evening of Saturday, the seventh

of September--so slowly did news travel in those days--Philip was almost

beside himself with joy.[1166] "He showed so much gayety, contrary to his

native temperament and custom," the French envoy, St. Goard, wrote to his

master, "that he was evidently more delighted than with all the pieces of

good fortune that had ever befallen him; and he called to him his

familiars to tell them that he knew that your Majesty was his good

brother, and that he saw that there was no one else in the world that

deserved the title of 'Very Christian.'" Not content with gloating over

the bloody bulletin with his cronies, he promptly sent his secretary,

Cayas, to congratulate the French ambassador, and to inform him that "the

king his master was going that very hour to St. Jerome, to render all

manner of thanks to God, and to pray that in matters of so great

importance his Majesty might be sustained by His hand." When, the next

morning, St. Goard had been very graciously admitted to an audience, he

tells us that Philip--the man who rarely or never gave a hearty or manly

expression to his feelings--"began to laugh, and, with demonstrations of

extreme pleasure and satisfaction, praised your Majesty as having earned

your title of 'Very Christian,' telling me there was no king that could

claim to be your companion, either in valor or in prudence." It was

natural that Philip should chiefly extol Charles's alleged dissimulation,

and dwell on the happiness of Christendom saved from a frightful war. It

was equally politic for St. Goard to chime in, and echo his master's

praise. But there was sound truth in the concluding remark he made to

Philip: "However this may be, _Sire, you must confess that you owe your

Netherlands to his Majesty, the King of France_."[1167]

[Sidenote: Charles instigates the murder of French prisoners.]

[Sidenote: The Duke of Alva jubilant but wary.]

We have also more direct testimony to Philip's delight at the Parisian

massacre, in the form of a letter from the monarch to the Duke of Alva. In

this extraordinary communication, worthy of the depraved source from which

it emanated, the bloodthirsty king does not attempt to conceal the

satisfaction with which he has received the tidings of Charles's

"honorable and Christian resolution to rid himself of the admiral and

other important personages," both for religion's sake and because the King

of France will now be a firmer friend to the Spanish crown--since neither

the German Protestants nor Elizabeth will trust him any longer--a

circumstance which will have a decided influence upon the restoration of

his authority in the Netherlands. Another matter upon which he touches,

places in the clearest light the infamy to which Charles and his council

had sunk, and the hypocrisy of Philip the Catholic himself. Until the very

moment of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day, Charles had been

earnestly desirous of saving the lives of the French Huguenots who had

been taken prisoners with Genlis near Mons; while, by the most barefaced

assumptions of innocence, he endeavored to induce the Spaniard to believe

that he was in no way responsible for Genlis's undertaking.[1168] Now,

however, it is Charles himself who, by his envoys at Madrid and Brussels,

begs from Philip the murder of his own French subjects, lest they return

to do mischief in France. Not only the soldiers taken with Genlis, but the

garrison of Mons, if that city, as now seemed all but certain, should fall

into Alva's hands, must be put to death.[1169] "If Alva object," he wrote

to Mondoucet, "that your request is the same thing as tacitly requiring

him to kill the prisoners and cut to pieces the garrison of Mons, you will

tell him that that is precisely what he ought to do, and that he will

inflict a very great wrong upon himself and upon all Christendom if he

shall do otherwise."[1170] Drawing his inspiration from the same source,

St. Goard said to Philip himself: "One of the greatest services that can

be done for Christendom, will be to capture Mons and put everybody to the

edge of the sword."[1171] And so Philip thought too; for he not only wrote

to Alva that the sooner the earth were freed of such bad plants, the less

solicitude would be necessary in future, but he scribbled with his own

hand on the draft of the letter: "I desire, if you have not already rid

the world of them, you should do it at once and let me know, for I see no

reason for delay."[1172] The more clear-headed Alva, however, saw reasons

not only for delay, but for extending to some of the prisoners a

counterfeit mercy; for he soon replied to his master, that "he was not at

all of opinion that it was best to cut off the heads of Genlis and the

other French prisoners, as the King of France asked him to do. He had

resolved to do so before the admiral's death, but now things had changed.

Charles must know that Philip has in his power men capable of giving him

great trouble."[1173] None the less, however, did Alva communicate the

glad tidings to all parts of the Netherlands, and cause solemn Te Deums to

be sung in the churches.[1174] "These occurrences," he wrote to Count

Bossu, Governor of Holland, "come so marvellously apropos in this

conjunction for the affairs of the king our master, that nothing could be

more timely. For this we cannot sufficiently render thanks to the Divine

goodness."[1175] Philip promptly sent the Marquis d'Ayamonte to

congratulate Charles and the queen mother.[1176] Alva had already a

special envoy at the French court, who returned soon after the massacre to

Brussels. On asking Catharine what reply he should carry back, the Italian

princess, intoxicated with her success, impiously said: "I do not know

that I can make any other answer than that which Jesus Christ gave to St.

John's disciples, 'Go and show again those things which ye have seen and

heard--the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are

cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the

gospel preached to them.'" "And do not forget," she added, "to say to the

Duke of Alva, 'Blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in

me.'"[1177] Such was the new gospel of blood and rapine with which it was

proposed to replace the Bible in the vernacular, and the Psalms of David

translated by Marot and Beza!

[Sidenote: England's horror.]

[Sidenote: Perplexity of the French ambassador at London.]

But Spain and Rome were only exceptions. From almost every part of the

civilized world there arose a loud and unanimous cry of execration. It was

natural, however, that the feeling of horror should be deepest in the

neighboring Protestant countries, whose religion and liberties seemed to

be menaced with destruction by the treacherous blow. Above all, in England

with whose queen a matrimonial treaty had for months been pending, the

abhorrence of the crime and its perpetrators was the more intense because

of the violence of the revulsion. Resident Frenchmen were startled at the

sudden change. The warmest friends of France became its open enemies,

loudly reproaching the broken faith of the king, and pouring curses upon

the people that had exercised such indignities upon unoffending citizens.

If we may believe La Mothe Fenelon, the men who customarily wore arms

indulged in much insulting bravado and in threats directed against any one

that dared to gainsay them.[1178] The French ambassador has himself left

on record the description of a remarkable interview which he had with

Queen Elizabeth. Rarely had a diplomatic agent been placed in a more

embarrassing position. His letters and despatches from home were of the

most contradictory character. Scarcely had he, with protestations of

sincerity and truthfulness, published the account of events in Paris which

was sent him, when new instructions arrived recalling, modifying, or

contradicting the former. First, with the startling news of the

disturbance of the peace, by Admiral Coligny's wounding, came a letter

from the king, expressing "infinite displeasure" at the "bad" and

"unhappy" act, and a resolution to inflict "very exemplary justice." To

which this postscript was appended: "Monsieur de la Mothe Fenelon, I will

not forget to tell you that this wicked act proceeds from the enmity

between the admiral's house and the Guises, and that I have taken steps to

prevent their involving my subjects in their quarrels, for I intend that

my edict of pacification shall be observed in every point."[1179] Two days

later Charles wrote again, communicating intelligence of the massacre,

beginning with the murder of Coligny, in almost the identical words of the

circular he was sending to Mandelot and other governors of provinces and

important cities.[1180] Still it is the work of the Guises, and he himself

has had enough to do in protecting his own person in the castle of the

Louvre. He wishes Queen Elizabeth to be assured that he has no part in the

deed,[1181] and, in fact, that all should know that he entertains great

displeasure for what has so unfortunately happened, and that it is the

thing which he detests more than anything else.[1182] And he adds in a

tone of well counterfeited innocence: "I have near me my brother the King

of Navarre, and my cousin the Prince of Conde, to share in the same

fortune with me."[1183] After receiving and spreading abroad these

explanations, what must have been the unfortunate ambassador's perplexity

and annoyance, when he received, but too late, a brief letter written on

Monday, the day after the massacre began, containing these words: "As we

are beginning to discover the conspiracy which the adherents of the

pretended reformed religion had entered into against me, my mother and my

brothers, you will not speak of the particulars of the disturbance, nor of

its occasion until you receive fuller and more certain intelligence from

me; for, by to-night or to-morrow morning, I hope to have cleared up the

whole matter."[1184] No wonder the courier to whom the last letter was

intrusted was bidden ride with all speed to overtake the other; nor that

La Mothe Fenelon hardly knew how to extricate himself from the dilemma in

which the king his master had placed him. Had not Charles, by throwing

all the blame, in his first letter, upon the Guises and by positively

denying any participation of his own, unambiguously proclaimed his

ignorance up to that moment of any Huguenot conspiracy? How, then, could

the French envoy go to the same Englishmen to whom he had made known the

contents of this despatch, and tell them that the king was the author of

the deed he had stigmatized as most detestable, and that the motive that

had impelled him reluctantly to order the slaughter of the Huguenots was a

conspiracy which he did not discover until a day or two after he gave the

order? Yet this was the contradictory story which was sketched in the

letter of the twenty-fifth of August, and more fully elaborated in

subsequent despatches.[1185]

[Sidenote: His cold reception by Queen Elizabeth.]

The crestfallen ambassador is said--and the authority for the disputed

statement is no less than that of the members of the queen's council,

Burleigh, Leicester, Knowles, Thomas Smith, and Croft--to have exclaimed

bitterly "that he was ashamed to be counted a Frenchman."[1186] At first

he believed that an audience would be denied him; and when the queen at

last vouchsafed to see him at Woodstock, it was only after he had waited

three days in Oxford, while Elizabeth and her council met frequently to

deliberate upon the contents of Walsingham's despatches. He was admitted

to the private apartments of the queen, where he found her Majesty

surrounded by the lords of the council and the principal ladies of the

court, awaiting his coming in profound silence. Elizabeth advanced to meet

him, and greeted him with a countenance on which sorrow and severity were

mingled with more kindly feelings. Drawing the ambassador aside to a

window, she began the discourse with a dignity which few sovereigns have

ever known better how to assume. She gave particular expression to the

regret she felt in hearing such tidings from a prince in whom she had had

more confidence than in any other living monarch. And when the ambassador

had stammered out the lying excuse based upon "the horrible ingratitude

and perverse intentions of the Huguenots" against his master, and had

tragically recounted the sorrow of Charles at being constrained to cut off

an arm to save the rest of the body, she replied that she hoped that if

the informations against the admiral and his were confirmed by

investigation, the king "might be excused in some part, both toward God

and the world, in permitting the admiral's enemies by force to prevent his

enterprises." But she would not admit that even then the cruelty of the

mode of punishment was capable of defence, most of all in the case of

Coligny, who, "being in his bed, lamed both on the right hand and left

arm, lying in danger under the care of chyrurgions, being also guarded

about his private house with a number of the king's guard, might have

been, by a word of the king's mouth, brought to any place to have answered

when and how the king should have thought meet." But she preferred to

ascribe the fault, not to Charles, but to those around him whose age and

knowledge "ought in such case to have foreseen how offenders ought to be

justified with the sword of the prince, and not with the bloody swords of

murderers, being also the mortal enemies of the party murdered."[1187]

Elizabeth's council was even more outspoken. "Doubtless," said they, "the

most heinous act that has occurred in the world, since the crucifixion of

Jesus Christ, is that which has been recently committed by the French; an

act which the Italians and the Spaniards, ardent as they are, are far from

applauding in their heart, since it was a deed too full of blood, for the

greater part innocent, and too much suspected of fraud, which had violated

the pledged security of a great king, and disturbed the serenity of the

royal nuptials of his sister, insupportable to be heard by the ears of

princes, and abominable to all classes of subjects, perpetrated contrary

to all law, divine or human, and without a parallel among all acts ever

undertaken in the presence of any prince, and which has even rather

involved the King of France in danger than rescued him from it."[1188]

[Sidenote: The ambassador disheartened.]

The success of the French ambassador, therefore, was not flattering. The

most that he could do was to correct the impression that the massacre was

only a part of a more general plan for the extirpation of Protestantism

everywhere. But when the news came of the barbarous butchery of Huguenots

in Lyons and elsewhere; when Villiers, Fuguerel, and other Protestant

ministers escaping from France, brought to London the report that one

hundred thousand victims to religious intolerance had fallen since St.

Bartholomew's Day;[1189] when English merchants who had witnessed the

scenes of horror at Rouen returned, bringing a true account of what had

occurred; when they overturned the audacious assertion that religion had

nothing to do with the deed, by declaring that the Huguenots whose lives

were spared were constrained to go to mass; that numbers had lost their

lives who might have saved them by consenting to take part in services

which they regarded as idolatrous; that there were instances of children

taken from their parents, and forcibly rebaptized; when, in short, every

assertion of La Mothe Fenelon was disproved, the irritation of the English

grew deeper. And at last the French ambassador was forced to confess that

they would believe neither him nor the despatches that he occasionally

produced, saying that the event, which is wont to give the lie to words

and letters, showed them what they had to fear.[1190] The life of Mary,

Queen of Scots, was in danger. There were many who regarded it as a

measure of self-defence to put to death so open a sympathizer with the

work of persecution. La Mothe Fenelon, disheartened, promised Catharine

de' Medici to do all that he could to promote the interests of France, but

the chief influence must come from the king and herself. "Otherwise," he

said, "your word will come to be of no authority, and I shall become

ridiculous in everything that I tell them or promise them in your

name."[1191]

[Sidenote: Letter of Sir Thomas Smith.]

About the same time one of the most acute statesmen, one of the most

vigorous writers of the age, Sir Thomas Smith, himself a former ambassador

at the French court, correctly and eloquently expressed the universal

feeling of true Protestants in England, in a letter to Walsingham which

has become deservedly famous. "What warrant can the French make, now seals

and words of princes being traps to catch innocents and bring them to the

butchery? If the admiral and all those murdered on that bloody Bartholomew

day were guilty, why were they not apprehended, imprisoned, interrogated,

and judged, but so much made of as might be, within two hours of the

assumation? Is that the manner to handle men either culpable or suspected?

So is the journeyer slain by the robber; so is the hen of the fox; so is

the hind of the lion; so Abel of Cain; so the innocent of the wicked; so

Abner of Joab. But grant they were guilty--they dreamt treason that night

in their sleep; what did the innocent men, women, and children at Lyons?

What did the sucking children and their mothers at Roan (Rouen) deserve?

at Cane (Caen)? at Rochel?... Will God, think you, still sleep? Will not

their blood ask vengeance; shall not the earth be accursed that hath

sucked up the innocent blood poured out like water upon it?... I am glad

you shall come home, and would wish you were at home, out of that country

so contaminate with innocent blood, that the sun cannot look upon it but

to prognosticate the wrath and vengeance of God. The ruin and desolation

of Jerusalem could not come till all the Christians were either killed

there or expelled thence."[1192]

[Sidenote: Catharine's unsuccessful representations.]

Neither Catharine nor Charles was insensible to the impression made upon

the English court by the French atrocities. It became important to

furnish, if possible, some more convincing proofs of the existence of a

Huguenot plot, since the assurances of both monarch and ambassador had

lost all weight. The papers of the admiral, both in Paris and in his

castle of Chatillon-sur-Loing, had been searched in vain for anything

which, even after the murder, might seem to justify the king in violating

his pledged word and every principle of law and right. Not a scrap of a

letter could be found inculpating him. Not the slightest approach to a

hint that it would be well to make way with the king or any of the royal

family. The most private manuscripts of the admiral, unlike those of many

courtiers even in our own day, contained not a disrespectful expression,

nothing that could be twisted into a mark of disaffection or treason.

Catharine could lay her hand upon nothing that suited her purpose better

than the paper, which, as stated in a former chapter,[1193] she showed to

Walsingham, wherein he advised Charles to keep Elizabeth and Philip "as

low as he could, as a thing that tended much to the safety and maintenance

of his crown." But the finesse of the queen mother failed of accomplishing

its object; for neither Elizabeth nor Walsingham would think less of

Coligny for proving himself faithful to his own sovereign's interests.

Elizabeth's incredulity was, doubtless, enhanced by the hypocritical

pretence of Catharine that her son intended to maintain his edict of

pacification in full force.[1194] "The king's meaning is," the queen

mother once said to the English envoy, "that the Huguenots shall enjoy the

liberty of their conscience." "What, Madam," observed Walsingham, "and the

exercise of their religion too?" "No," Catharine replied, "my son will

have exercise but of one religion in his realm." "Then, how can it agree,

that the observation of the edict, whereof you willed me to advertise the

queen my mistress, that the same should continue in his former strength?"

interposed Walsingham. To that Catharine answered "that they had

discovered certain matters of late, that they saw it necessary to abolish

all exercise of the same." "Why, Madam," said the puzzled and somewhat

pertinacious diplomatist, "will you have them live without exercise of

religion?" "Even," quoth Catharine, who fancied that she had discovered a

pertinent retort, "even as your mistress suffereth the Catholics of

England." But the ambassador could not be so easily silenced. Parrying the

home thrust, and trenching on an uncourtly bluntness of speech, he quietly

called attention to a distinction which her Majesty had not perhaps

observed. "My mistress did never promise them anything by edict; if she

had, she would not fail to have performed it." After that, there was

plainly nothing more to be said, and Catharine resorted to the usual

refuge of worsted argument, and said: "The queen your mistress must direct

the government of her own country, and the king my son his own."[1195]

[Sidenote: Briquemault and Cavaignes hung for alleged conspiracy.]

Some victims were needed to be immolated upon the altar of justice to

atone for the alleged Huguenot conspiracy. They were found in Briquemault

and Cavaignes, two distinguished Protestants. The former, a knight of the

royal order, had, contrary to all rules of international law, been

forcibly taken from the house of the English ambassador, whither he had

fled for refuge.[1196] It was not difficult for the court to obtain what

was desired from the cowardly parliament over which Christopher de Thou

presided. Convicted by false testimony, and complaining that even their

own words were falsified by their partial judges, the two Protestants were

publicly hung on the Place de Greve. It was noticed that they both died

exhibiting great fortitude,[1197] and protesting to the last that they had

neither taken part in, nor even heard of any plot against the king or the

state. Charles, hardened by the sight of so much blood, wished to witness

in person this new spectacle also, and not only looked on from a

neighboring window, but, as it was too dark to see the sufferers

distinctly, ordered torches to be lighted, and diverted himself with great

laughter in observing their expiring agonies. The King of Navarre and the

Prince of Conde were likewise forced to be present, in order to give color

to the absurd story that one or both had been included among those whom

Coligny and the Huguenots had intended to murder. An hour after, and the

Parisian populace cut down the bodies, dragged them in contumely through

the streets, and amused themselves by stabbing them, shooting at them, and

maiming them. It was an additional aggravation of the judicial crime and

the king's ill-timed merriment, that the execution took place on the

evening of the day upon which the young Queen of France gave birth to

Charles's only legitimate child--a daughter, whom the Salic law excluded

from the succession to the throne. Still unconvinced of Coligny's guilt,

even by the conviction and death of Briquemault and Cavaignes, Queen

Elizabeth very frankly expressed to La Mothe Fenelon her deep regret that

her brother, the French king, had profaned the day of his daughter's birth

by the sanguinary spectacle he had that evening gone to behold.[1198]

[Sidenote: The news in Scotland;]

In Scotland, when the news of the massacre arrived, the aged reformer,

John Knox, summoned all his remaining energy to preach a last time before

the regent and the estates. In the midst of his sermon, turning to Du

Croc, the French ambassador, who was present, he sternly addressed to him

these prophetic words: "Go tell your king that sentence has gone out

against him, that God's vengeance shall never depart from him nor his

house, that his name shall remain an execration to the posterities to

come, and that none that shall come of his loins shall enjoy that kingdom

unless he repent." The indignant ambassador called upon the regent "to

check the tongue which was reviling an anointed king;" but the regent

refused to silence the minister of God, and suffered Du Croc to leave

Edinburgh in anger.[1199]

[Sidenote: in Germany;]

Monsieur de Vulcob, the French ambassador at the court of the Emperor of

Germany, was equally unsuccessful in convincing that monarch of the truth

of the story contained in his despatches from Paris. The emperor did not

disguise his great disappointment and sorrow, nor his belief that the

murderous project had been known for weeks before at Rome.[1200] It need

scarcely be said that the negotiations of Schomberg, who had been sent to

procure an offensive and defensive alliance between the Protestant princes

of Germany and the crown of France, were rendered abortive by the advent

of tidings of the treacherous massacre at Paris. Like the rest of the

diplomatists sent out from France, the able envoy to Germany had been left

in profound ignorance of the blow that was to disturb all his

calculations. He had even been empowered to promise that Charles would

assume toward the enterprise of William of Orange the same position that

the princes would take; and he seemed likely to be successful in inducing

the princes to make common cause with his master.

To Schomberg, as to the rest, there had been despatched, on the very day

that Coligny was wounded, a narrative of that event to be laid before the

Protestant princes--a narrative wherein the occurrence was deplored;

wherein Charles stated that he had taken just such measures for the

apprehension of the perpetrator of the crime as he would have taken had

the victim been one of his own brothers; wherein he promised to spare

neither diligence nor trouble, and to inflict condign punishment, "in

order that all men might know that no greater misdeed could have been

committed in his kingdom, nor more displeasing to himself;" wherein he

protested his unalterable determination to maintain completely and

sedulously his edict of pacification.[1201] But to Schomberg, as to the

other French ambassadors, there had come subsequent tidings and despatches

giving the lie to all these assurances.

And now, as he wrote home with some bitterness, "all his negotiations had

ended in smoke."[1202] Their Highnesses "could not get it out of their

heads" that the events of St. Bartholomew's Day were premeditated, with

the view of enabling the Duke of Alva to make way with the forces of the

Prince of Orange. So high did feeling run, that the rumor prevailed that

Schomberg had been thrown into prison as an accomplice in the perfidy,

and that Coligny's death was about to be avenged upon him.[1203]

Instead of forming an alliance with Charles, the Landgrave of Hesse and

the three Protestant electors began instantly to concert measures of

defence against what they verily believed to be a general war of

extermination, set on foot by the Pope and his followers, in pursuance of

the resolutions of the Council of Trent. "The princes of the Augsburg

Confession," wrote Landgrave William to the Electors of Saxony and

Brandenburg, "can see in this inhuman incident, as in a mirror, how the

papists are disposed toward all the professors of the pure doctrine. The

Pope and his party follow even at this day the rule which they followed

respecting John Huss in the Council of Constance. When it is their

interest so to act, they do not deem themselves bound to keep any faith

with heretics.... Last year the Pope and his followers obtained a glorious

victory over the Turk. It is of the very nature of victories that they

commonly make the victors more insolent." To Frederick the Pious, elector

palatine, the landgrave wrote a day later: "There is nothing better for us

Germans than to have nothing to do with them; for neither credit nor

confidence can be reposed in them." "I marvel greatly," he added, "that

the admiral and the other Huguenot gentlemen, although they, too, had

doubtless studied Macchiavelli's 'Il Principe'--_the Italian

bible_[1204]--should have been so trustful, and should not have been too

much upon their guard to suffer themselves to be enticed unarmed into so

suspicious a place."[1205]

[Sidenote: In Poland.]

Montluc, Bishop of Valence, had just been sent to Poland to endeavor to

secure the vacant throne for Henry of Anjou. His ultimate success and its

consequences will be seen in another place. But now the attempt seemed

desperate. The bishop, who was the most wily and experienced negotiator

the French court possessed, and was fully conscious of his rare

qualifications, was vexed almost beyond endurance at the stupidity of the

king and queen who had employed him. "By the despatch I send the king, and

by what the Dean of Die will tell you," he wrote (on the twentieth of

November) to one of the secretaries of state, "you will learn how this

unfortunate blast from France has sunk the ship which we had already

brought to the mouth of the harbor. You may imagine how well pleased the

person who was in command of it has reason to be when he sees that by

another's fault he loses the fruit of his labors. I say another's fault,

for, since a desire was felt for this kingdom, the execution which has

been made might and ought to have been deferred."[1206] Again and again

Montluc begged that there might be no repetition of such cruelties,

suggesting that an edict, guaranteeing that no one's conscience should be

constrained, might be made or fabricated. If the king had no intention of

carrying it into effect, he could at least send it to the governors, with

private orders to make such disposition of it as he pleased.[1207] But,

above all, there must be no fresh outrages done to the Protestants. "If

between this and the day of the election there were to come the news of

some cruelty," he wrote in midwinter, "we could do nothing, even had we

here ten millions in gold with which to gain men over. The king and the

Duke of Anjou will have to consider whether a purpose of revenge is of

more moment to them, than the acquisition of a kingdom."[1208]

[Sidenote: Sympathy of the Genevese.]

The ministers of Geneva, somewhat removed from the mists that prevented

the greater part of the Huguenot leaders from descrying the perils

environing them, had long foreseen the coming catastrophe, and had in vain

implored Admiral Coligny, in particular, to have a greater care for his

safety. "How often have I predicted it to him! How often have I warned

him!" exclaimed Theodore Beza, in the first paroxysm of grief at the

assassination of his noble friend.[1209] The city government,

participating in the same apprehensions, early in the fatal month of

August, 1572, instructed some of the reformed ministers who had occasion

to revisit their native land on private business, to hasten out of a

country where they were exposed to the treachery of a Florentine

woman.[1210] Their solicitude was only too well grounded. On Saturday, the

thirtieth of August, some merchants arrived in Geneva from Lyons, with the

appalling intelligence that their Protestant countrymen were everywhere

the victims of unparalleled cruelty. From the inn they went on without

delay to the city hall, and narrated to the magistrates the revolting

atrocities of which they had been eye-witnesses. They besought the city to

prepare hospitable shelter and food for the throng of refugees who would

soon make their appearance, having scarce escaped the bloody snares in

which their brethren in great numbers had lost their lives.[1211] "The

frightful news," writes the historian of the Genevan church, describing

the scene, "courses through the city with the speed of lightning: the

shops are closed, and the citizens assemble on the public squares. They

know, by past experience, the burdens and sacrifices that await men of

good-will. Within doors, the women get in readiness an abundance of

clothing, of medicines, and of food. The magistrates send wagons and

litters to the villages of the district of Gex; and the peasants with

their pastors take their station upon the border, to obtain intelligence

and to render assistance to the first that may arrive. They have not long

to wait. On the first of September a few travellers make their

appearance, pale, worn out with fatigue, scarcely answering the greeting

they receive. They cannot credit the reality of their deliverance. For

days death has been lying in wait for them at the threshold of every

village. Soon their numbers increase. The wounded uncover the wounds they

have carefully concealed, that they might not be taken for reformers. They

declare that, since the twenty-sixth of August, the country and the cities

have been deluged with the blood of their brethren."[1212]

Nobly did the citizens of the little commonwealth welcome the scarred and

bleeding confessors of their faith, contending with magnanimous rivalry

for the most cruelly mangled, and carrying them in triumph into their

homes and to their frugal boards. Not one refugee was suffered to find his

way to the city hall; and there was no need of any public distribution of

alms.[1213] Within a few days twenty-three hundred families of French

Protestants were gathered in the hospitable inclosure of Geneva. Besides

those that subsequently returned to France, on the arrival of more

propitious times, more than two hundred of these families yet remain,

comprising the most honorable citizens of the republic.[1214]

A solemn fast was instituted. In the presence of the remarkable assembly

gathered in the old cathedral of Saint Pierre, no word of threatening, no

prayer for vengeance was uttered. But a firm conviction of the power and

goodness of God seemed to dwell in every heart, and was uttered in

impressive words by Theodore Beza--since Calvin's death, eight years

before, the leading theologian of Geneva. "The hand of the Lord is not

shortened," said the reformer. "He will not suffer a hair of our head to

fall to the ground without His will. Let us not, therefore, be at all

affrighted because of the plot of the men who have unjustly devised to put

us all to death with our wives and our children. Let us rather be assured,

that, if the Lord has ordained to deliver all or any of us, none shall be

able to resist Him. If it shall please Him that we all die, let us not

fear; for it is our Father's good pleasure to give us another home, which

is the heavenly kingdom, in which there is no change, no poverty, no want,

no tear, no crying, no mourning, no sorrow, but, on the contrary, eternal

joy and blessedness. It is far better to be lodged with the beggar Lazarus

in the bosom of Abraham, than with the rich man, with Cain, with Saul,

with Herod, or with Judas, in hell. Meanwhile, we must drink the cup which

the Lord has prepared for us, each according to his portion. We must not

be ashamed of the Cross of Christ, nor be loth to drink the gall of which

He has first drunk: knowing that our sorrow shall be turned into joy, and

that we shall laugh in our turn, when the wicked shall weep and gnash

their teeth."[1215]

Twenty Huguenot pastors from France were among the refugees, and were

kindly invited to take part in the honorable office of preaching in the

churches. They preferred, however, to sit among the hearers, and listen to

the sermons of Beza and his venerated colleagues.[1216]

[Sidenote: Their generosity and danger.]

Heaven smiled on the generous hospitality of the little republic. The

plague, which had been raging in Geneva, disappeared simultaneously with

the arrival of the fugitives from France.[1217] Still the burden which

their hosts had assumed was by no means light. They were not rich, and the

rigorous winter that followed would have reduced them to great straits

even without this additional drain upon their resources. Besides, they had

incurred the dangerous enmity of the King of France. While professing deep

gratitude to the Genevese for the advice they had given to the Protestants

of Nismes to liberate the agents of the royal court, who had been sent to

procure their destruction, but had been discovered and incarcerated,

Charles the Ninth was in secret plotting the ruin of the city which

furnished an asylum to so many of his persecuted subjects. At one time the

danger was imminent. The Duke of Savoy was reported to have collected an

army of eighteen thousand men near Chambery and Annecy, while rumors of

domestic treachery took so definite a form, that it was said that two

hundred papal soldiers in the disguise of Protestant refugees were lurking

in Geneva itself. On the other hand, the Roman Catholic cantons of

Fribourg and Soleure, when on the point of joining Berne and Zurich in

sending assistance, undertook to stipulate for the reinstatement of the

mass within the walls of Geneva; and the Genevese, who, whatever other

faults they might possess, were no cowards, declined an alliance upon such

conditions.[1218] But the threatened contest of arms never came. By one of

those strange turns of affairs, which, from their frequent recurrence in

the history of Geneva, an impartial beholder can scarcely interpret

otherwise than as interpositions of providence in behalf of a city that

was destined for ages to be a safe refuge for the oppressed confessors of

a purer faith, the storm was dissipated as rapidly as it had gathered. The

bodily ailments of Charles the Ninth were, humanly speaking, the salvation

of Geneva.[1219]

In other parts of Switzerland the King of France made great efforts to

counteract the injurious influence upon his interests which the

intelligence of the massacre could but exert. Almost immediately after the

events of the last week of August, the royal ambassador, Monsieur de la

Fontaine, and the treasurer whom the French monarch was accustomed to keep

in Switzerland, were instructed to write out an account for the benefit of

his Majesty's "best and perfect friends," "the magnificent seigniors,"

wherein among the numerous falsehoods with which they attempted to feed

the unsophistical mountaineers, was at least a single truth: "This young

and magnanimous prince, since his accession to the throne, has, so to

speak, reaped only thorns in place of a sceptre."[1220]

[Sidenote: Impression at Baden.]

A little later M. de Bellievre, his special envoy at the diet of Baden,

was profuse in assurances to the effect that the deed was not

premeditated, but had been rendered necessary by the machinations of the

admiral--"a wretched man, or rather, not a man, but a furious and

irreconcilable beast who had lost all fear of God and man." He

particularly defended the king from all responsibility for the excesses

that had been committed, insisting that it was the people that "had taken

the bit in its teeth," while Charles, Anjou, and Alencon, did their best

to check its mad impetuosity, and Catharine felt "unspeakable

regret."[1221] But the envoy had little reason to congratulate himself

upon his success. "Sire," he wrote with some disgust to his master, "it is

all but impossible to get it out of the heads of the Protestants, that

your Majesty's intention is to join the rest of the Catholic princes, in

order by force to put (the decrees of) the Council of Trent into execution

in their countries." They would not be satisfied entirely by Bellievre's

plausible explanations. "Simple and rude people are violently excited by

such things, and are very difficult to be reassured."[1222]

[Sidenote: Medals and vindications.]

Charles the Ninth stood convicted in the eyes of the world of a great

crime. No elaborate vindications, by their sophistry, or by barefaced

misstatements of facts, could clear him, in the judgment of impartial men

of either creed, from the guilt of such a butchery of his subjects as

scarcely another monarch on record had ever perpetrated. Medals were early

struck in honor of the event, upon which "valor and piety"--the king's

motto--were represented as gloriously exhibited in the destruction of

rebels and heretics.[1223] But the wise regarded it as "a cruelty worse

than Scythian," and deplored the realm where "_neither piety nor justice_

restrained the malice and sword of the raging populace."[1224] The

Protestants of all countries--and they were his natural allies against

Spanish ambition for world-empire--had forever lost confidence in the

honor of Charles of Valois.

Multis minatur, qui uni facit, injuriam.

"If that king be author and doer of this act," wrote the Earl of

Leicester, expressing the common judgment of the civilized world, "shame

and confusion light upon him; be he never so strong in the sight of men,

the Lord hath not His power for naught.... If he continue in confirming

the fact, and allowing the persons that did it, then must he be a prince

detested of all honest men, what religion soever they have; for as his

fact was ugly, so was it inhumane. For whom should a man trust, if not his

prince's word; and these men he hath put to slaughter, not only had his

word, but his writing, and not public, but private, with open

proclamations and all other manner of declarations that could be devised

for the safety, which now being violated and broken, who can believe and

trust him?"[1225]

[Sidenote: Disastrous effects of the massacre on Charles himself.]

Upon the king himself the results of the fearful atrocities which he had

been induced by his mother and brother to sanction, were equally lasting

and disastrous. The change was startling even to those who were its chief

cause: from a gentle boy he had become transformed into a morose and cruel

man. "The king is grown now so bloody-minded," writes one who enjoyed good

opportunities of observing him, "as they that advised him thereto do

repent the same, and do fear that the old saying will prove true," "_Malum

consilium consultori pessimum_."[1226] The story of the frenzy of Charles

who, on one occasion, seemed to be resolved to take the lives of Navarre

and Conde, unless they should instantly recant, and was only prevented by

the entreaties of his young wife, may be exaggerated.[1227] But certain it

is that the unhappy king was the victim of haunting memories of the past,

which, while continually robbing him of peace of mind, sometimes drove him

to the borders of madness. Agrippa d'Aubigne tells us, on the often

repeated testimony of Henry of Navarre, that one night, a week after the

massacre, Charles leaped up in affright from his bed, and summoned his

gentlemen of the bedchamber, as well as his brother-in-law, to listen to a

confused sound of cries of distress and lamentations, similar to that

which he had heard on the eventful night of the butchery. So convinced was

he that his ears had not deceived him, that he gave orders that the new

attack which he fancied to be made upon the partisans of Montmorency

should at once be repressed by his guards. It was not until the soldiers

returned with the assurance that everything was quiet throughout the city,

that he consented to retire to his rest again. For an entire week the

delusive cries seemed to return at the self-same hour.[1228] These

fancies--the creations of his fevered brain--may soon have left him, not

to return until the general closing in at the death-bed. But there were

marks of the violence of the passions of which he was the victim in his

altered mien and deportment. Even before the event that has fixed upon him

an infamous notoriety, he acted at times like a madman in the indulgence

of his whims and coarse tastes. Sir Thomas Smith, five months before the

fatal St. Bartholomew's Day, wrote of "his inordinate hunting, so early in

the morning and so late at night, without sparing frost, snow or rain, and

in so desperate doings as makes her (his mother) and them that love him to

be often in great fear."[1229] But now the picture, as faithfully drawn by

the friendly hand of the Venetian ambassador, early in the year 1574, is

still more pitiful. His countenance had become sad and forbidding. When

obliged to give audience to the representatives of foreign powers, as well

as in his ordinary interviews, he avoided the glance of those who

addressed him. He bent his head toward the ground and shut his eyes. At

short intervals he would open them with a start, and in a moment, as

though the effort caused him pain, he would close them again with no less

suddenness. "It is feared," adds the writer, "that the spirit of vengeance

has taken possession of him; formerly he was only severe, now his friends

dread lest he will become cruel." He must at all hazards find hard work to

do. He was on horseback for twelve or fourteen consecutive hours, and

pursued the same deer for two or three days, stopping only to take

nourishment, or snatch a little rest at night. His hands were scarred and

callous. When in the palace, his passion for violent exercise drove him to

the forge, where for three or four hours he would work without

intermission, with a ponderous hammer fashioning a cuirass or some other

piece of armor, and exhibiting more pride in being able to tire out his

gentle competitors, than in more royal accomplishments.[1230] We have no

means of tracing accurately the influence of the massacre upon others. The

Abbe Brantome, however, early pointed out the remarkable fact that of

those who took a principal part in the work of murder and rapine many soon

after met with violent deaths, either at the siege of La Rochelle or in

the ensuing wars, and that the riches they had so iniquitously accumulated

profited them little.[1231]

[Sidenote: How far was the Roman Church responsible?]

Before dismissing the consideration of the stupendous crime for which

Divine vengeance--to use the words of Sully--"made France atone by

twenty-six consecutive years of disaster, carnage, and horror,"[1232] it

is at once interesting and important to glance at a historical question

which still agitates the world, and for a correct and impartial solution

of which we are, perhaps, more favorably situated than were even the

contemporaries of the event. I allude to the inquiry respecting the extent

to which the Roman Church, and the Pope in particular, must be held

responsible for the Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day.

So far as Queen Catharine was concerned (and the same is true of some of

her advisers), it is admitted by all that no zeal for religion controlled

her conduct. A dissolute and ambitious woman, and, moreover, almost an

avowed atheist, she could not have acted from a sincere but mistaken

belief that it was her duty to exterminate heresy. But among the inferior

agents it can scarcely be doubted that there were some who believed

themselves to be doing God service in ridding the world of the enemies of

His church. Had not the preachers in their sermons extolled the deed as

the most meritorious that could be performed, and as furnishing an

unquestionable passport to paradise? The number, however, of these

_religious_ assassins--if so we may style them--could be but small in

comparison with the multitude of those to whom religion served merely as a

pretext, while cupidity or partisan hatred was the true motive; men who,

nevertheless, derived their incentive from the lessons of their spiritual

guides, and who would never have dreamed of giving loose rein to their

passions, but for the suggestions of these sanguinary teachers. At the bar

of history the priesthood that countenanced assassination must be held no

less accountable for the actions of this class than for the deeds of more

sincere devotees.

It is immaterial to the question of the responsibility of the Papal

Church, whether the queen mother and the king's ministers were honest, or

were Roman Catholics, or, indeed, Christians only in name. If the Pope had

for years, by letter and by his accredited agents, been insinuating that

the life of a heretic was a thing of little value; if he systematically

advocated a war of extermination, and opposed every negotiation for peace,

every truce, every edict of pacification that did not look to the

annihilation of the Huguenots; if he had familiarized the minds of king

and queen with the thought of justifiable massacre, it is of little

importance to ascertain whether his too ready pupils executed the

injunction from a pure desire to further the interests of the Papal See,

or with more selfish designs. Unfortunately for humanity and for religion,

the course I have indicated was that which had been consistently and

indefatigably pursued during the entire pontificate of Pius the Fifth,

and during the few months that had elapsed since the election of his

successor.

[Sidenote: Gregory probably not aware of the intended massacre.]

Contrary to the firm persuasion of the Protestants who wrote contemporary

accounts of the massacre, we must in all probability, as we have already

seen,[1233] acquit Gregory the Thirteenth of any knowledge of the disaster

impending over the admiral and the Huguenots. It was what he wished for

and prayed for, but with little hope of seeing the accomplishment. In

fact, he was brought to the verge of despair in respect to the hold of the

papacy upon the kingdom of France. Nuncio Salviati, at Paris, had, indeed,

conceived the hope that some disaster would befall the Huguenots in

consequence of Coligny's imprudence and the desperation of the queen

mother and of the Roman Catholic party at finding the authority slipping

from their hands. But his astonishment and that of the pontiff at the

general massacre of the Protestants was surpassed only by their common

delight. The fragments of the despatches from Salviati to the Roman

secretary of state, which have been suffered to find their way into print,

seem to settle this point beyond all controversy.

[Sidenote: Pius the Fifth instigates the French court.]

[Sidenote: He indorses the cruelties of Alva.]

We have in previous chapters seen the Pope assisting Charles with money

and troops in the prosecution of the last two wars against the Huguenots.

But this aid was accompanied with perpetual exhortations to do the work

thoroughly, and not to repeat the mistakes committed by his predecessors.

"That heresy cannot be tolerated in the same kingdom with the worship of

the Catholic religion," writes Pius the Fifth to Sigismund Augustus of

Poland, "is proved by that very example of the kingdom of France, which

your Majesty brings up for the purpose of excusing yourself. If the former

kings of France had not suffered this evil to grow by neglect and

indulgence, they would easily have been able to extirpate heresy and

secure the peace and quiet of their realm."[1234] Of all the leaders of

the day, the Duke of Alva alone earned, by his unrelenting destruction of

heretics, the unqualified approval of the pontiff. When the tidings of the

successes of the "Blood Council" reached Rome, Pius could not contain

himself for joy. He must congratulate the duke, and spur him on in a

course upon which the blessing of Heaven so manifestly rested. "Nothing

can occur to us," said he, "more glorious for the dignity of the Church,

or more delightful to the truly paternal disposition of our mind to all

men, than when we perceive that warriors and very brave generals, such as

we previously knew you to be and now find you in this most perilous war,

consult not their own interest, nor their own glory alone, but war in

behalf of that Almighty God who stands ready to crown His soldiers

contending for Him and His glory, not with a corruptible crown, but with

one that is eternal and fadeth not away."[1235]

[Sidenote: He repeatedly counsels exterminating the Huguenots.]

With this express indorsement of Alva's merciless cruelty before us, it is

not difficult to understand what Pius demanded of Charles of France. Early

in 1569, while sending the Duke of Sforza with auxiliaries, he wrote to

the king: "When God shall by His kindness have given to you and to us, as

we hope, the victory, it will be your duty to punish the heretics and

their leaders with all severity, and thus justly to avenge not only your

own wrongs, but those of Almighty God: in order that, by your execution of

the righteous judgment of God, they may pay the penalty which they have

deserved by their crimes."[1236] After the battle of Jarnac and Conde's

death, we have seen that Pius wrote promptly, bidding Charles "pursue and

destroy the remnants of the enemy, and wholly tear up not only the roots

of an evil so great and which had gathered to itself such strength, but

even the very fibres of the roots." He begged him not to spare those who

had not spared God nor their king.[1237] To Catharine and to the Duke of

Anjou, to the Cardinal of Bourbon, and to the Cardinal of Lorraine, the

same language was addressed. Again and again the Pope held up the example

of Saul, who disregarded the commands of the Lord through Samuel and

spared the Amalekites, as a solemn warning against disobedience. To the

queen mother he said: "Under no circumstances and from no considerations

ought the enemies of God to be spared.[1238] If your Majesty shall

continue, as heretofore, to seek with right purpose of mind and a simple

heart the honor of Almighty God, and shall assail the foes of the Catholic

religion openly and freely even to extermination,[1239] be well assured

that the Divine assistance will never fail, and that still greater

victories will be prepared by God for you and for the king your son,

until, _when all shall have been destroyed_, the pristine worship of the

Catholic religion shall be restored to that most illustrious realm."[1240]

The Duke of Anjou was urged to incite his brother to punish the rebels

with great severity, and to be inexorable in refusing the prayers of all

who would intercede for them.[1241] Charles was given to understand that

if, induced by any motives, he should defer the punishment of God's

enemies, he would certainly tempt the Divine patience to change to

anger.[1242]

The victory of Moncontour furnished an occasion for fresh exhortations to

the king not to neglect to inflict upon the enemies of Almighty God the

punishments fixed by the laws. "For what else would this be," said Pius,

"than to make of no effect the blessing of God, namely, victory itself,

whose fruit indeed consists in this, that by just punishment the execrable

heretics, common enemies, having been taken away, the former peace and

tranquillity should be restored to the kingdom. And do not allow yourself,

by the suggestion of the empty name of pity, to be deceived so far as to

seek, by pardoning Divine injuries, to obtain false praise for compassion;

for nothing is more cruel than that pity and compassion which is extended

to the impious and those who deserve the worst of torments."[1243] The

work begun by victories in the field was, therefore, to be completed by

the institution of inquisitors of the faith in every city, and the

adoption of such other measures as might, with God's help, at length

create the kingdom anew and restore it to its former state.[1244]

As often as rumors of negotiations for peace reached him, Pius was in

anguish of soul, and wrote to Charles, to Catharine, to Anjou, to the

French cardinals, in almost the same words. He protested that, as light

has no communion with darkness, so no compact between Catholics and

heretics could be other than feigned and full of treachery.[1245] As the

prospect of peace grew more distinct, his prognostications of coming

disaster grew darker, and sounded almost like threats. Even if the

heretics, in concluding the peace, had no intention of laying snares, God

would put it into their minds as a punishment to the king. "Now, how

fearful a thing it is to fall into the hands of the living God, who is

wont not only to chastise the corrupt manners of men by war, but, on

account of the sins of kings and people, to dash kingdoms in pieces, and

to transfer them from their ancient masters to new ones, is too evident to

need to be proved by examples."[1246] When at last the peace of Saint

Germain was definitely concluded, the Pope did not cease to lament over "a

pacification in which the conquered heretics imposed upon the victorious

king conditions so horrible and so pernicious that he could not speak of

them without tears." And he expressed at the same time his paternal fears

lest the young Charles and those who had consented to the unholy compact

would be given over to a reprobate mind, that seeing they might not see,

and hearing they might not hear.[1247]

To his last breath Pius retained the same thirst for the blood of the

heretics of France. He violently opposed the marriage of the king's sister

to Henry of Navarre, and instructed his envoy at the French court to bring

up again that "matter of conciliation so fatal to the Catholics."[1248]

His last letters are as sanguinary as his first. Meanwhile his acts

corresponded with his words, and left the King of France and his mother in

no doubt respecting the value which the pretended vicegerent of God upon

earth, and the future Saint,[1249] set upon the life of a heretic; for,

when the town of Mornas was on one occasion captured by the Roman Catholic

forces, and a number of prisoners were taken, Pius--"such," his admiring

biographer informs us, "was his burning zeal for religion"--ransomed them

from the hands of their captors, that he might have the satisfaction of

ordering their public execution in the pontifical city of Avignon![1250]

And when the same holy father learned that Count Santa Fiore, the

commander of the papal troops sent to Charles's assistance, had accepted

the offer of a ransom for the life of a distinguished Huguenot nobleman,

he wrote to him complaining bitterly that he had disobeyed his orders,

which were that every heretic that fell into his hands should straightway

be put to death.[1251] As, however, Pius wanted not Huguenot treasure, but

Huguenot blood, with more consistency than at first appears, he ordered

the captive nobleman whose head had been spared to be released without

ransom.[1252]

With such continual papal exhortations to bloodshed, before us, with such

suggestive examples of the treatment which heretics ought, according to

the pontiff, to receive, and in the light of the extravagant joy displayed

at Rome over the consummation of the massacre, we can scarcely hesitate to

find the head of the Roman Catholic Church guilty--if not, by a happy

accident, of having known or devised the precise mode of its execution, at

least of having long instigated and paved the way for the commission of

the crime. Without the teachings of Pius the Fifth, the conspiracy of

Catharine and Anjou would have been almost impossible. Without the

preaching of priests and friars at Lent and Advent, the passions of the

low populace could not have been inflamed to such a pitch as to render it

capable of perpetrating atrocities which will forever render the reign of

Charles the Ninth infamous in the French annals.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: A German account of the massacre at Orleans.]

One of the most vivid accounts of the massacre in any city

outside of Paris is the contemporary narrative of Johann

Wilhelm von Botzheim, a young German, who was at the time

pursuing his studies in Orleans. It forms the sequel to the

description of the Parisian massacre, to which reference has

already been made several times, and was first published by

Dr. F. W. Ebeling, in his "Archivalische Beitraege zur

Geschichte Frankreichs unter Carl IX." (Leipsic, 1872),

129-189. It was also translated into French by M. Charles

Read, for the number of the Bulletin de la Societe de

l'histoire du protestantisme francais issued on the occasion

of the tercentenary of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day.

The chief interest of the narration centres in the anxieties

and dangers of the little community of Germans in attendance

upon the famous law school. Besides this, however, much light

is thrown upon the general features of the bloody

transactions. The first intimation of Coligny's wounding

reached the Protestants as they were returning from the

preche, but created less excitement because of the statement

accompanying it, that Charles was greatly displeased at the

occurrence. That night a messenger arrived with letters

addressed to the provost of the city, announcing the death of

the admiral and the Huguenots of Paris, and enjoining the like

execution at Orleans. Although the letters bore the royal

seal, the information they contained appeared so incredible

that the provost commanded the messenger to be imprisoned

until two captains, whom he at once despatched to Paris,

returned bringing full confirmation of the story. The provost,

a man averse to bloodshed, issued, early on Monday morning as

a precautionary measure, an order to guard the city gates. But

the control of affairs rapidly passed out of his hands, and,

threatened with death because of his moderate counsels, the

provost was himself forced to take refuge for safety in the

citadel. Ten captains at the head of as many bands of

soldiers, ruled the city, and were foremost in the work of

murder and rapine that now ensued. But there were other bands

engaged in the same occupation, not to speak of single persons

acting strictly on their own account. Moreover, four hundred

ruffians came in from the country, intent upon making up for

losses which they pretended to have sustained during the late

civil wars. They showed no mercy to the Huguenots that fell

into their hands. Of the Protestants scarcely one made

resistance, so hopeless was their situation. Pierre Pillier, a

bell founder, had indeed barred his door with iron, but,

finding that his assailants were on the point of forcing the

entrance, he first threw his money from a window, and then,

seizing his opportunity when the miscreants were scrambling

for their prize, deluged them with molten lead, after which he

set fire to his house, and perished, with his wife and

children, in the flames.

There is, happily, no need of repeating here the shocking

details of the butchery told by the student. As a German, and

not generally known to be a Protestant, he managed to escape

the fate of his Huguenot friends, but he witnessed, and was

forced to appear to applaud, the most revolting exhibitions

both of cruelty and of selfishness. His favorite professor,

the venerable Francois Taillebois, after having been twice

plundered by bands of marauders, was treacherously conducted

by the second band to the Loire, despatched with the dagger,

and thrown into the river. "The last lecture, which he gave on

Monday at nine o'clock," says his pupil, "was on the _Lex

Cornelia_ [de sicariis] of which he made the demonstration by

the sacrifice of his own life." It is pitiful to read that

even professors in the university were not ashamed to enrich

their libraries by the plunder of the law-books of their

colleagues, or of their scholars. The writer traced his own

copies of Alciat, of Mynsinger and "Speculator," to the

shelves of Laurent Godefroid, Professor of the Pandects, and

the entire library of his brother Bernhard to those of his

neighbor, Dr. Beaupied, Professor of Canon Law.

In the midst of the almost universal unchaining of the worst

passions of human or demoniacal nature, it is pleasant to note

a few exceptions. Some Roman Catholics were found not only

unwilling to imbrue their hands in the blood of their Huguenot

neighbors and friends, but actually ready to incur personal

peril in rescuing them from assassination. Such magnanimity,

however, was very rare. All respect for authority human or

divine, all sense of shame or pity, all fear of hell and hope

of heaven, seemed to have been obliterated from the breasts of

the murderers. The blasphemous words of the furious Captain

Gaillard, when opposed in his plan to destroy Botzheim and his

fellow Germans, truly expressed the sentiments which others

might possibly have hesitated to utter so distinctly. "Par la

mort Dieu! il faut qu'il soit.... Il n'y a ny Dieu, ny

diable, ny juge qui me puisse commander. Vostre vie est en ma

puissance, il fault mourir.... Baillez-moy mon espee, je

tuerai l'ung apres l'autre, je ne saurois tuer trestous a la

fois avec la pistolle." Men, with blood-stained hands and

clothes, boasted over their cups of having plundered and

murdered thirty, forty, fifty men each. At last, on Saturday

afternoon, after the Huguenots had been almost all killed, an

edict was published prohibiting murder and pillage on pain of

death. Gallows, too, were erected in nearly every street, to

hang the disobedient; but not a man was hung, and the murders

still continued. Soon after a second edict directed the

restoration of stolen property to its rightful owners; it was

a mere trick to entice any remaining Huguenot from his refuge

and secure his apprehension and death. The Huguenots were not

even able to recover, at a later time, the property they had

intrusted to their Roman Catholic friends in time of danger,

and did not dare to bring the latter before courts of justice.

The Huguenots killed at Orleans, in this writer's opinion,

were at least fifteen hundred, perhaps even two thousand, in

number.

FOOTNOTES:

[1079] Charles IX. to Mondoucet, August 26th, Compte rendu de la com. roy.

d'histoire, Brussels, 1852, iv. 344.

[1080] "Estant croiable que ce feu ainsy allume ira courant par toutes les

villes de mon royaume, lesquelles, a l'exemple de ce qui s'est faict en

cestedite ville, s'assureront de tous ceulx de ladite religion." Charles

to Mondoucet, Aug. 26th, _ubi supra_, iv. 345

[1081] "Car puisqu'il a pleu a Dieu conduire les choses es termes ou elles

sont, je ne veulx negliger l'occasion, non seulement pour remectre, s'il

m'est possible, ung perpetuel repos en mon royaume, mais aussy servir a la

chrestiente."

[1082] "Au surplus, quelque commandement verbal que j'aye peu faire a

ceulx que j'aye envoye tant devers vous que autres gouverneurs ... j'ay

revocque et revocque tout cela, ne voulant que par vous ne autres en soit

aucune chose execute." Charles IX. to Mandelot, Governor of Lyons,

Correspondance, etc. (Paris, 1830), 53, 54; the same to the Mayor of

Bourges, Mem. de l'estat (Archives curieuses), vii. 313. The variations of

language are trifling.

[1083] He seems at this time to have been at his castle of Montsoreau,

situated six or seven miles above Saumur, on the left bank of the Loire,

and within a short distance of Candes. M. de Montsoreau himself is

described as "gentilhomme de Poictou fort renomme pour beaucoup de

pillages et violences, qui finalement luy ont fait perdre la vie, ayant

este tue depuis en qualite de meurtrier." Mem. l'estat, 349.

[1084] These letters, and some others relating to the massacre at Angers,

contained in the archives of the municipality, are printed in the Bulletin

de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. francais, xi. (1862) 120-124.

[1085] I know, however, of no letters of this kind signed by Charles IX.

himself. They all seem to have been written by his inferior agents, such

as Puigaillard in the case of Saumur, or Masso and Rubys in that of Lyons.

The advantage of this course was apparent. The king could not be _proved_

to have ordered any massacre; he could throw off the responsibility upon

others. On the other hand, such politic governors as Mandelot were

naturally reluctant to act upon instructions which could at any moment be

disavowed. The verbal messages of Charles himself would seem, from the

Mandelot correspondence, to have been less definite--perhaps going to no

greater lengths than to order the arrest of the persons and the

sequestration of the effects of the Huguenots. May we not naturally

suppose that the king and his council counted upon such subsequent

massacres of the imprisoned Protestants as occurred in many places?

[1086] Memoires de l'estat, 132, 133. Compare De Thou, iv. (liv. lii.)

601.

[1087] Relation of Olaegui, Simancas MSS., Bulletins de l'academie royale

de Belgique, xvi. (1849) 254, 255.

[1088] The names of nine are given. Archives curieuses, vii. 264.

[1089] The procureur Cosset did not neglect his own interests, if, as we

are informed, his house and courtyard were so full of stolen furniture

that it was scarcely possible to enter the premises.

[1090] Memoires de l'estat, _apud_ Archives curieuses, vii. 261-270.

[1091] See _ante_, chapter xviii., p. 432.

[1092] Recordon, le Protestantisme en Champagne (from the MSS. of N.

Pithou, seigneur de Chamgobert), Paris, 1863, 174-192; Mem. de l'estat,

Archives curieuses, vii. 271-292.

[1093] Dr. Henry White, besides mistaking the Huguenot for the Papist, has

incorrectly stated the circumstances. Massacre of St. Bartholomew, 450.

See Mem. de l'estat, _ubi supra_, 295, and De Thou, iv. (liv. lii.) 601.

[1094] Memoires de l'estat, _ubi supra_, 295. "Le mesme fut fait a Paris

et en d'autres lieux aussi," writes the same historian.

[1095] Ibid., _ubi supra_.

[1096] Ibid., 296.

[1097] Memoires de l'estat de France, _ubi supra_, 297.

[1098] Mem. de l'estat, 298, 299.

[1099] Ibid., 299, 300.

[1100] A horrible story is told of the discovery of some human relics

several weeks later. Ibid., 305.

[1101] See _ante_, p. 502.

[1102] Mem. de l'estat, 309-315.

[1103] Mem. de l'estat, _ubi supra_, 349-351. "Puigaillard ... homme au

reste indigne de vivre pour l'acte detestable par luy commis en la

personne de sa premiere femme tuee a sa sollicitation pour en espouser une

autre qu'il entretenoit." (P. 351.)

[1104] Registres consulaires, _apud_ "La Saint-Barthelemy a Lyon et le

gouverneur Mandelot," by M. Puyroche, p. 311. This monograph which I quote

from the Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. francais, in which it

first appeared (vol. xviii., 1869, pp. 305-323, 353-367, and 401-420), is

by far the most accurate and complete treatise on this subject, and

contains a fund of fresh information based upon unpublished manuscripts,

especially the local records.

[1105] Charles IX. to Mandelot, Aug. 22, 1572, Correspondance du roi

Charles IX. et du sieur de Mandelot, published by P. Paris, 1830 (pp. 36,

37). A portion of this letter has already been given.

[1106] Charles IX. to Mandelot, Aug. 24, 1572, Correspondance, etc.,

39-42.

[1107] "Monsieur de Mandelot, vous croirez le present porteur de ce que je

luy ay donne charge de vous dire." Ibid., 42.

[1108] "Suivant icelles (the king's letters of Aug. 22d and 24th) et _ce

que le sieur du Perat m'auroit dict de sa part_, je n'auroit failly

pourveoir par toutz moyens a la seurete de ceste ville: _sy bien, Sire,

que et les cors_ (corps) _et les biens de ceulx de la relligion auroient

este saisiz et mis soubz votre main_ sans aucun tumulte ny scandale."

Mandelot to Charles IX., Sept. 2, 1572, Correspondance, etc., 45.

[1109] Puyroche, 319.

[1110] "Il n'etait pas d'avis," dit-il, "que tout le peuple s'en melat,

craignant quelque desordre, memement un sac." Puyroche, 320.

[1111] "Quelques deux cens," says Mandelot to Charles IX., Sept. 2d; but

he was anxious to make the number as small as possible. Jean de Masso,

"receveur general" (Sept. 1st), says, "sept a huit vingt," and sieur

Talaize (Sept. 2d), "deux cent soixante et trois." So also Coste (Sept.

3d). Puyroche, 365, 366.

[1112] Mandelot tells Charles IX. (Sept. 17th) that he had sent all the

_poorer_ Huguenots to other prisons; that he had left here only the rich

and those who had borne arms for the Protestant cause. To exhibit his own

incorruptibility, he added that there were among them, of his own certain

knowledge, at least twenty who would have paid a ransom of thirty thousand

or even forty thousand crowns, "qui estoit assez," he significantly adds,

"pour tenter ung homme corruptible." Correspondance du roi Charles IX. et

du Sieur de Mandelot, 71, 72.

[1113] Correspondance, etc., p. 46, 47.

[1114] Puyroche, La Saint-Barthelemy a Lyon et le gouverneur Mandelot,

_ubi supra_; Mem. de l'estat, _ubi supra_, 321-343; Crespin, Hist. des

martyrs, 1582, p. 725, etc., _apud_ Epoques de l'eglise de Lyon (Lyon,

1827), 173-185; De Thou, iv. (liv. lii.) 602-604, etc.; Jean de Serres

(1575), iv., fol. 45, etc. The number of Huguenots killed is variously

estimated, by some as high as from twelve hundred to fifteen hundred

(Crespin, _ubi supra_). It must have been not less than seven hundred or

eight hundred; for private letters written immediately after the

occurrence by prominent and well-informed Roman Catholics state it at

about seven hundred, and they would certainly not be inclined to

exaggerate. The rumor at Paris even then set it at twelve hundred. See the

letters in Puyroche, 365-367. Among the one hundred and twenty-three names

that have been preserved, the most interesting is that of Claude Goudimel,

who set Marot's and Beza's psalms to music, and who was killed by envious

rivals. At the time of his death he was engaged in adapting the psalms to

a more elaborate arrangement, according to a contemporary writer:

"Excellent musicien, et la memoire duquel sera perpetuelle pour avoir

heureusement besogne les psaumes de David en francais, la plupart desquels

il a mis en musique en forme de motets a quatre, cinq, six et huit

parties, et sans la mort eut tot apres rendu cette oeuvre accomplie."

Sommaire et vrai discours de la Felonie. etc, Puyroche, 402.

[1115] "Faisant cependant contenir ce peuple par toutes les remontrances

et raisons que je puis leur persuader de ne s'emouvoir a aucune sedition

ni tumulte, comme je m'apercois qu'il y en peut avoir quelque danger

auquel toutes fois j'espere prevenir." Mandelot to Charles IX., Aug. 31,

1572, Puyroche, 356. This letter is not contained in Paulin Paris,

Correspondance de Charles IX. et du sieur de Mandelot.

[1116] Mem. de l'estat, 330; De Thou, iv. (liv. lii.) 603.

[1117] "Je ne veulx estre le premier a en demander a votre Majeste;

m'asseurant que si elle a commence par quelques autres, elle me faict tant

d'honneur de ne m'oblier (oublier)." Mandelot to Charles IX., September 2,

1572, Correspondance, p. 49. I find the clearest evidence both of

Mandelot's having had no hand in the massacres of August 31st, and of his

utter want of principle, in the craven apology he makes, in his letter of

September 17th, for not having done more, on the ground that he only knew

his Majesty's pleasure as it were in a shadow, and very late, and that he

had rather feared the king would be angry at what the people had done,

than that so little had been done! "La pouvant asseurer sur ma vie que si

elle n'a este satisfaitte en ce faict icy, je n'en ay aucune coulpe,

n'ayant sceu quelle estoit sa volunte que par umbre, encores bien tard et

a demy; et ay craint, Sire, que votre Majeste fust plustost courroucee de

ce que le peuple auroit faict, que de trop peu, d'aultant que par toutes

les autres provinces circonvoysines il ne s'est rien touche."

Correspondance, etc., 72, 73.

[1118] It is given word for word, from the MS. registers of the

parliament, by Floquet, Hist. du parlement de Normandie, iii. 81-85.

[1119] _Ante_, chapter xvii., p. 374.

[1120] "Encor qu'il se soit tousjours monstre fort peu amy de telles

inhumanitez." Memoires de l'estat, 371.

[1121] "Receut lettres du Roy qui luy mandoit et commandoit expressement

d'exterminer tous ceux qui faisoyent profession de la religion audit lieu,

sans en excepter aucun." Mem. de l'estat, Arch. cur., vii. 370.

[1122] Ibid., 371.

[1123] "Il n'y a aultre que vous," said they, "qui puisse commander aux

armes ceans, contenir le peuple en l'obeissance au roy, et la ville en

paix." Reg. secr. du parlement, 9 Septembre, 1572, _apud_ Floquet, 120.

See also Reg. de l'hotel-de-ville de Rouen, 7 Septembre, _ibid._

[1124] Floquet, 122.

[1125] Mem. de l'estat, _apud_ Archives curieuses, vii. 373.

[1126] Memoires de l'estat, _apud_ Arch. curieuses, vii. 372; Floquet,

iii. 127. Floquet is incorrect in stating that the names of only about a

hundred are known. We have (Mem. de l'estat. Archives curieuses, vii.

372-378) a partial list of 186 men, whose names and trades are generally

given, and of 33 women--that is 219, besides a reference to many others

whose names the writer did not obtain.

[1127] "Les autres estoyent _accommodez_ a coups de dague. Les massacreurs

usoyent de ce mot _accommoder_, l'accommodans a leur bestiale et

diabolique cruaute." Mem. de l'estat, _ubi sup._, 372.

[1128] Mem. de l'estat, _ubi sup._, 378.

[1129] Ibid., 379. The story of the massacre is well told in the Mem. de

l'estat, and by M. Floquet, whose original sources of information throw a

flood of light upon the transactions; also by De Thou, iv. (liv. lii.)

606; Agrippa d'Aubigne, ii. 27; Jean de Serres (1575), iv., fol. 50.

[1130] One of them, Jean Coras, had committed an unpardonable offence.

When passing in 1562 with the Protestant army through Roquemadour, in the

province of Quercy, he had taken advantage of the opportunity to examine

the relics of St. Amadour, of whom the monks boasted that they possessed

not only the bones, but also some of the flesh. He was never forgiven for

having exhibited the close resemblance of the holy remains to a shoulder

of mutton. De Thou, iv. 606, note.

[1131] Mem. de l'estat, Archives curieuses, vii. 381-385; De Thou, _ubi

supra_; Agrippa d'Aubigne, ii. 27, 28 (liv. i., c. 5); Jean de Serres

(1575), iv., fol. 50.

[1132] President Lagebaston even says that, had this been suffered to go

on a week longer--so rapidly were the Protestants flocking to the

mass--there would not have been eight Huguenots in town.

[1133] Registers of Parliament, in Boscheron des Portes, Hist. du parl. de

Bordeaux (Bordeaux, 1877), i. 241.

[1134] Letter of President Lagebaston to Charles IX., October 7, 1572,

Mackintosh, Hist. of England, iii., App. E, 351-353. See also De Thou, iv.

651, 652, and Agrippa d'Aubigne, ii. 27. Lagebaston was "first president"

of the Bordalese parliament, but, so far from being able to prevent the

massacre, received information that his own name was on Montferrand's

list, and fled to the castle of Ha, whence he wrote to the king. His

remonstrances against a butchery based upon a pretended order which was

not exhibited, his delineation of the impolitic and disgraceful work, and

his reasons why an execution, that might have been necessary to crush a

secret conspiracy at Paris, was altogether unnecessary in a city "six or

seven score leagues distant," where there could be no thought of a

conspiracy, render his letter very interesting.

[1135] Registres du Parlement, Boscheron des Portes, i. 246, 247.

[1136] Boscheron des Portes, _ubi supra_.

[1137] Claude Haton waxes facetious when describing the sudden popularity

acquired by the sign of the cross, and the numbers of rosaries that could

be seen in the hands, or tied to the belt, of fugitive Huguenot ladies.

[1138] Tocsain contre les massacreurs, 156. See _ante_, chapter xviii., p.

491.

[1139] De Felice, Hist. of the Protestants of France (New York, 1859),

214, and Henry White, 455, from Maimbourg, Histoire du Calvinisme, 486. I

refer the reader to Mr. L. D. Paumier's exhaustive discussion of the story

in his paper, "La Saint-Barthelemy en Normandie," Bulletin de la Soc. de

l'hist. du prot. francais, vi. (1858), 466-470. Mr. Paumier has also

completely demolished the scanty foundation on which rested the similar

story told of Sigognes, Governor of Dieppe, pp. 470-474. See also M. C.

Osmont de Courtisigny's monograph, "Jean Le Hennuyer et les Huguenots de

Lisieux en 1572," in the Bulletin, xxvi. (1877) 145, etc.

[1140] Tocsain contre les massacreurs, 156; Odolant Desnos, Memoires

historiques sur la ville d'Alencon, ii. 285, _apud_ Bulletin de la Soc. de

l'hist. du prot. francais, viii. (1859), 68. The truth of the story as to

Alencon seems to be proved by the circumstance that when, in February,

1575, Matignon marched against Alencon, in order to suppress the

conspiracy which the duke, Charles's youngest brother, had entered into to

prevent Henry of Anjou from succeeding peaceably to the throne of France,

the grateful Protestants at once opened their gates to him. Ibid., 305,

Bulletin, _ubi supra_.

[1141] Tocsain, 156.

[1142] "Par lesquelles vous me mandez n'avoir receu aucun commandement

verbal de moy, ains seulement mes lettres du 22, 24 et 28 du passe, dont

ne vous mettrez en aucune peine, car elles s'adressoyent seulement a

quelques-uns qui s'estoyent trouvez pres de moy." Charles IX. to Gordes,

Sept. 14, 1572, Archives curieuses, vii. 365, 366.

[1143] Ibid., 367, 368.

[1144] Memoires de l'estat, Archives curieuses, vii. 366, 367; De Thou,

iv. 605. The Tocsain contre les massacreurs, however, p. 156, gives credit

instead to M. de Carces.

[1145] Dr. White has shown some reasons for doubting the accuracy of the

story. Among the Dulaure MSS. is preserved a full account of the manner in

which a Protestant, fleeing from Paris, fell in with the messenger who was

carrying the order to St. Herem or Heran, and robbed him of his

instructions. The Protestant hastened on to warn his brethren of their

danger, while the messenger could only relate to the governor the contents

of the lost despatch. Notwithstanding this, eighty Huguenots were murdered

in one city (Aurillac) of this province. Massacre of St. Bartholomew, 454,

455.

[1146] Adiram d'Aspremont.