History of the Rise of the Huguenots

Insincerity of Alva's offers of aid.

The simultaneous rising of the Huguenots in every quarter of the kingdom, and the immediate seizure of many important cities, had surprised and terrified the court; but it had also stimulated the Roman Catholic leaders to put forth extraordinary efforts to bring together an army superior to that of their opponents. Besides the Parisian militia and the troops that flocked in from the more distant provinces, it was resolved to call for the help repeatedly promised by Philip of Spain and his minister, the Duke of Alva, when urging Charles to break the compacts he had entered into with his reformed subjects. But the assistance actually furnished fell far short of the expectations held forth. When Castelnau, after two efforts, the first of which proved unsuccessful,454 reached Brussels by a circuitous route, he found Alva lavish of good wishes, and urgent, like his master, that no arrangement should be made with the rebels before they had suffered condign punishment. But the envoy soon convinced himself that all these protestations meant little or nothing, and that the Spaniards were by no means sorry to see the French kingdom rent by civil war. Ostensibly, Alva was liberal above measure in his offers. He wished to come in person at the head of five thousand horse and fifteen thousand foot, and make short work of the destruction of Condé and his followers – a proposition which Castelnau, who knew that Catharine was quite as jealous of Spanish as of Huguenot interference in her schemes, felt himself compelled politely to decline; especially as the very briefest term within which Alva professed himself ready to move was a full month and a half. For seven or eight days the duke persisted in refusing the Spanish troops that were requested,455 and in insisting upon his own offer – precious time which, had it been husbanded, might have changed the face of the impending battle before the walls of Paris. When, at length, pressed by the envoy for a definite answer or for leave to return, the duke offered to give him, in about three weeks' time, a body of four or five thousand German lansquenets – troops that would have been quite useless to Charles, who already had at his disposition as many pikemen as he needed, in the six thousand Swiss. All that Castelnau was finally able to bring home was an auxiliary force of about seventeen hundred horse, under Count Aremberg. Even now, however, the officer in command was bound by instructions which prevented him from taking the direct road to the beleaguered capital of France, and compelled him to pass westward by Beauvais and Poissy.456

Battle of Saint Denis, Nov. 10, 1567.

The constable is mortally wounded.

The impatience of the Parisians, who for more than a month had been inactive spectators, while their city was besieged by an insignificant force and they were deprived of the greater part of their ordinary supplies of food, could scarcely be restrained. They were the more anxious for battle since they had received encouragement by the recapture of a few points of some military importance along the course of the lower Seine. Unable to resist the pressure any longer, Constable Anne de Montmorency led out his army to give battle to the Huguenots on the tenth of November, 1567. Rarely has such an engagement been willingly entered into, where the disproportion between the contending parties was so considerable. The constable's army consisted of sixteen thousand foot soldiers (of whom six thousand were Swiss, and the remainder in part troops levied in the city of Paris) and three thousand horse, and was provided with eighteen pieces of artillery. To meet this force, Condé had barely fifteen hundred hastily mounted and imperfectly equipped gentlemen, and twelve hundred foot soldiers, gathered from various quarters and scarcely formed as yet into companies. He had not a single cannon. Of his cavalry, only one-fifth part were provided with lances, the rest having swords and pistols. The greater number had no defensive armor; and not a horse was furnished with the leathern barbe with which the knight continued, as in the middle ages, to cover his steed's breast and sides. The constable had wisely chosen a moment when the prince had weakened himself by detaching D'Andelot, with five hundred horse and eight hundred arquebusiers, to seize Poissy and intercept the Count of Aremberg.457 In the face of such a disparity of numbers and equipment, the Huguenots exhibited signal intrepidity.458 With Coligny thrown forward on the right, in front of the village of Saint Ouen, and Genlis on the left, near Aubervilliers, they opened the attack upon the overwhelming numbers of the enemy, who descended from higher ground to meet them. Marshal de Montmorency, the constable's eldest son, commanding a part of the royal army, alone was successful, and had the valor of his troops been imitated by the rest, the defeat of the Huguenots would have been decisive; but the "Parisian regiment," despite its gilded armor,459 yielded at the first shock of battle and fled in confusion to the walls of Paris. Their cowardice uncovered the position of the constable, and the cavalry of the Prince penetrated to the spot where the old warrior was still fighting hand to hand, with a vigor scarcely inferior to that which he had displayed more than fifty years earlier, in the first Italian campaign of Francis the First.460 A Scottish gentleman, according to the most probable account – for the true history of the affair is involved in unusual obscurity – Robert Stuart by name, rode up to Montmorency and demanded his surrender. But the constable, maddened at the suggestion of a fourth captivity,461 for all reply struck Stuart on the mouth, with the hilt of his sword, so violent a blow that he broke three of his teeth. At that very moment he received, whether from Stuart or from another of the Scottish gentlemen is uncertain,462 a pistol-shot that entered his shoulder and inflicted a mortal wound. At a few paces from him, Condé, with his horse killed under him, nearly fell into the hands of the enemy. At last, however, his partisans succeeded in rescuing him, and, while he retired slowly to Saint Denis, the dying constable was carried to Paris, whither the Roman Catholic army returned at evening.463

Character of Anne de Montmorency.

The battle of Saint Denis was indecisive, and the victory was claimed by both sides. The losses of the Huguenots and the Roman Catholics were about equal – between three and four hundred men – although the number of distinguished Huguenot noblemen killed exceeded that of the slain belonging to the same rank in the royal army. If the possession of the field at the end of the day, and the relief of Paris, be taken as sufficient evidence, the honor of success belonged to the Roman Catholic army. But the loss of their chief commander far more than counterbalanced any advantage they may have gained. Not that Anne de Montmorency was a general of remarkable abilities. Although he had been present in a large number of important engagements ever since the reign of Louis the Twelfth, and had proved himself a brave man in all, he was by no means a successful military leader. The late Duke of Guise had eclipsed his glory, and in a much briefer career had exhibited much more striking tactical skill. The battle of Saint Denis, it was alleged by many, had itself been marred by his clumsy disposition of his troops. Proud and overbearing in his deportment, he alienated even those with whom his warm attachment to the Roman Catholic Church ought to have made him popular. Catharine de' Medici, we have seen, had long been his enemy. In like manner, even the bigoted populace of Paris forgot the pious exploits that had earned him the surname of "le Capitaine Brûlebanc," and remembered only his suspicious relationship to Cardinal Châtillon, Admiral Coligny, and D'Andelot, those three intrepid brothers whose uncompromising morality and unswerving devotion to their religious convictions made them, even more than the Prince of Condé, true representatives of the dreaded Huguenot party.464

But the loss of the principal general at this important juncture in military affairs dealt a severe blow to the Roman Catholic cause. There was no other leader of sufficient prominence to put forth an indisputable claim to succeed him. Catharine, not sorry to be relieved of so formidable a rival, was resolved that he should have no troublesome successor. Accordingly she induced the king to leave the office of constable vacant, and to confer upon her second surviving son, Henry, Duke of Anjou, whose unscrupulous character had already made him her favorite, the supreme command of the army, with the less ambitious title of royal lieutenant-general.465

The death of the constable, who survived his wound only a single day, and the subsequent divisions of the court, furnished the Prince of Condé with an immunity from attack, of which, in view of his great inferiority in number of troops, he deemed it most prudent to take advantage by promptly retiring from his exposed position. Besides this, he had now an imperative summons to the eastern frontier of the kingdom.

The Protestant princes of Germany determine to aid the Huguenots.

At the very commencement of the war the Protestants had sent a deputation to the German princes to solicit their support in a struggle in which the adherents of the Augsburg Confession were no less vitally interested than the reformed. But Bochetel, Bishop of Rennes, the envoy of Charles the Ninth, had so skilfully misrepresented the true character of the contest, that the Landgrave of Hesse, and the Electors of Saxony and Brandenburg, persuaded that political motives, rather than zeal for religion, were the occasion of the revolt, had refused to assist the Huguenots, while permitting William of Saxony and the Marquis of Baden to levy troops for the king. To the Elector Palatine, Frederick the Third, surnamed "the Pious," who from a Lutheran had become a Calvinist, a special ambassador was despatched in the person of M. de Lansac. This gentleman, by more than usually reckless misstatements, sought to persuade the elector to abandon the enterprise of assistance which he had intended to intrust to his second son, John Casimir. But his falsehoods were refuted by the straightforward exposé of the prince's agents,466 and Lansac was only so far successful that the elector consented to delay the departure of the troops until he had sent a messenger to France to acquaint himself with the true state of the case. It needed no more than this to determine him; for the minister whom the elector had intrusted with the commission, after visiting successively the court of the king and the camp of the prince of Condé, returned with certain proofs that the representations of Bochetel and of Lansac were altogether false.467 Consequently the army which John Casimir had gathered was speedily despatched to furnish Condé the support the Huguenots so much needed.

In the letter which the elector palatine sent about the same time to the King of France, the motives of this apparently inimical action are vividly set forth. His envoy, the Councillor Zuleger, says the elector, has made a careful examination. Lansac and his companion have industriously circulated throughout Germany the report that the Edict of Toleration is kept entire, that Condé and the Protestants have no other object in view but a horrible rebellion against Charles to deprive him of his crown, and that the prince has had money struck as if he were king himself.468 But Zuleger has, on the contrary, reported that when, in the presence of the royal council, he asked for proofs of Condé's intention to make himself king, Catharine de' Medici replied that it was a "mockery," and that, though Condé had struck money, both in the late and in the present troubles, it was with the king's inscription and arms, and not as though he were himself king. So far from that, Zuleger declares that, during the eleven days of his stay in the prince's camp, he heard prayers offered morning and night for the preservation of the state and for the king's safety. As to the maintenance of the edict, the constable before his death openly affirmed that Charles would not permit a free exercise of religion, and never intended the Edict of Orleans to be other than provisional. Indeed, the queen-mother remarked to Zuleger that it is a privilege of the French monarchs never to make a perpetual edict; to which Charles, who was present, promptly responded, "Pourquoi non?"469

It was to form a junction with the force brought by John Casimir that the prince now raised the siege of Paris, two or three days subsequently to the battle of Saint Denis,470 and after that D'Andelot, disappointed in having had no share in the engagement, had scoured the field, driving back into Paris an advanced guard of the enemy, and burning, by way of bravado, some windmills in the very suburbs.471

The Huguenots go to meet the Germans.

Treacherous diplomacy.

The purpose of the Huguenot leaders could not be mistaken, and Catharine was determined to frustrate it. The chief object at which all her intrigues now aimed was to delay the Protestant army in its march toward Lorraine, until the Duke of Anjou, at the head of a force which was daily gaining new accessions of strength from the provinces, should be able to overtake Condé and bring on a general and decisive action. From Saint Denis the Huguenots had first followed the course of the upper Seine to Montereau. Crossing the stream at this point, Coligny, as usual commanding the vanguard, had, at Pont-sur-Yonne, received a powerful detachment, under the Count of La Rochefoucauld, which had made its way from the provinces of Poitou, Saintonge, and Guyenne, across the valley of the Loire, to reinforce the Prince of Condé's army.472 Having effected a junction, the united body had changed its course, recrossed the Seine, and countermarched to the river Marne, at Épernay and Châlons. Coligny's skilful manœuvre had disappointed the queen's plan, and she resorted to her accustomed arts of negotiation. So flattering, indeed, were her promises, that Condé, had he not been restrained by the more prudent counsels of his associates (among whom the Vidame of Chartres was most urgent in his protests against so suicidal a policy), would instantly have relaxed the sinews of war.473 A petty act of treachery served to open his eyes, and to prevent the Protestants from involving themselves in more serious disaster; for the Count de Brissac took advantage of a three days' armistice to fall unexpectedly upon an outpost of the prince's army and gain an advantage, which was duly magnified by report at Paris into a brilliant victory.474 Unabashed by this incident, Catharine soon after renewed her seductive offers (on the twentieth of December, 1567). She invited a conference with the Cardinal of Châtillon and other Protestant leaders, and herself went so far as Châlons to meet them. Thence the scene of the negotiations was transferred to Vincennes, in the vicinity of Paris, and for a time the prospect of reconciliation was bright and encouraging. The king's envoys consented to the re-establishment of the Edict of Amboise, without any past or future restrictions, until the decision of the religious question by that mythical assembly which, like a mirage of the desert, ever and anon arose to entrance and disappoint the longing eyes of thoughtful men in this century – a free, universal, and legitimate council of the Church. But the hopes founded on these promises were as illusory as any previously conceived. Instead of a formal and unambiguous ratification of the terms by Charles himself, the Cardinal of Châtillon was treated only to complaints about the causeless rising of the Protestants, and expressions of astonishment that Condé had not instantly countermanded the approach of the German auxiliaries on receiving the king's gracious proffers.475

Catharine implores Alva's assistance.

Alva's view of accommodations with heretics.

Meantime Catharine was not idle in soliciting foreign aid. The Duke d'Aumale – who had also marched to Lorraine, in order to meet the Germans coming to the assistance of the Roman Catholics, under command of the Marquis of Baden – not being strong enough to block the passage of Condé's troops, Catharine wrote to Alva, begging him to send to the duke, in this emergency, two thousand arquebusiers. She warned him that if, through the failure to procure them, the German reiters of John Casimir should be permitted to enter the kingdom, she would hold herself exonerated, in the sight of God and of all Christian princes, from the blame that might otherwise attach to her for the peace which she would be compelled to make with the heretics.476 Alva, in reply, declined to send the Spanish arquebusiers, who, he said, were needed by him, and could do little good in France; but he added that, if Aumale, who was a soldier, would guarantee with this accession to stop the reiters, he would let them go, useful as they were in the Netherlands. As to the accommodation with the Huguenots, which Catharine suggested, he viewed it as a frightful evil, and exclaimed "that it was better to have a kingdom ruined in preserving it for God and the king, than to retain it whole, but without religion, for the advantage of the devil and his partisans, the heretics."477

Condé and John Casimir meet in Lorraine.

Generosity of the Huguenot troops.

About the beginning of the new year the foot-sore Huguenot army, after nearly two months of tedious marches through a hostile country, and no less tedious negotiations, reached Lorraine, only to find that their German allies had not yet arrived. Sick at heart, with a powerful enemy hanging on their rear, and seeking only an opportunity to make a sudden descent upon them, many of the Huguenots were disposed to take advantage of the proximity of the German cities to disperse and find a refuge there. But Condé, with his never-failing vivacity and cheerfulness, and Coligny, with his "grave words," succeeded in checking their despondency until the welcome news of John Casimir's approach was announced. He brought six thousand five hundred horse, three thousand foot, and four cannon of moderate size. His arrival did not, however, prove an occasion of unmingled satisfaction. The reiters, serving from purely mercenary motives, demanded the immediate payment of one hundred thousand crowns, promised as a first instalment on account of their wages, and were resolved to go no farther without receiving it. The Prince of Condé had but two thousand crowns to meet the engagement. In this new perplexity the Huguenots, from the leaders down to the very lowest, gave a noble illustration of devotion to their religion's cause. Condé and Coligny set the example by giving up their plate to replenish the empty coffers of the army. The captains urged, the ministers of the gospel preached, a generous sacrifice of property in the common interest. Their exhortations did not fall upon dull ears. Money, gold chains, silver, articles of every description, were lavishly contributed. An unpaid army sacrificed its own private property, not only without a murmur, but even joyfully. The very camp-servants vied with their masters, and put them to shame by their superior liberality.478 In a short time a sum was raised which, although less than what had been pledged, contented the reiters, who declared themselves ready to follow their Huguenot fellow-soldiers into the heart of the kingdom.479 Well might an army capable of such heroic contempt for personal gain or loss be deemed invincible!

The march toward Orleans.

And now, with feelings widely different from those which had possessed them in the journey toward Lorraine – a movement too nearly akin to a flight to inspire anything but disgust – the Huguenot soldiers, over twenty thousand strong, turned their faces once more westward. Their late pursuers, no longer seeking an engagement where the result might be worse than doubtful, confined themselves to watching their progress from a safe distance. As all the cities upon their route were in the hands of the Roman Catholics, the Huguenots were forced to take more circuitous and difficult paths through the open country. But the dispositions made by Coligny are said to have been so thorough and masterly, that they travelled safely and in comfort.480 Not that the soldiers, dispersed at night through the villages, were freed from the necessity or the temptation to pillage;481 for the poor farmers, robbed of the fruits of their honest toil, frequently had good reason to complain that those who had recently dispensed their own treasure with so liberal a hand were even more lavish of the property of others. But they were far more merciful and considerate toward their enemies than the Roman Catholic army to its friends. Even a curate of Brie – no very great lover of the Huguenots, who relates with infinite gusto the violation of Huguenot women by Anjou's soldiers482– admits that, excepting in the matter of the plundering of the churches and the distressing of priests, the Roman Catholics were a little worse than the heretics.483

The "Michelade" at Nismes.

Leaving the Huguenot army on its march toward Orleans, let us glance at the operations of the party in other quarters of the kingdom. Southern France, where the Protestants were most numerous, and where the excitable character of the people disposed them more easily than elsewhere to sudden outbreaks, was not behind the north in rising at the appointed time (September, 1567). At Nismes, indeed, a furious commotion broke out – the famous "Michelade," as it was called, because it immediately followed the feast-day of St. Michael – a commotion whose sanguinary excesses gave it an unenviable notoriety, and brought deep disgrace upon the Protestant cause. Here the turbulent populace was encouraged by the report that Lyons was in friendly hands, and maddened by the intelligence that, besides the common dangers impending over all the Huguenots of France, the Huguenots of Nismes had more particular occasion for fear in the troops of the neighboring Comtât Venaissin. These troops, it was said, had been summoned by the bishop and chapter of the cathedral of Nismes. The mob accordingly took possession of the city, closing the gates, and imprisoning a large number of persons – consuls, priests, and other obnoxious characters. That night the cathedral and the chapter-house witnessed a wild scene of destruction. Pictures of the saints, and altars, including everything associated with Roman Catholic worship, were ruthlessly destroyed. But the most terrible event occurred in the episcopal palace. The bishop was saved from capture and certain death by the intervention of a courageous man, himself a Protestant; but others were less fortunate. No fewer than eighty prisoners, brought in detachments to the court of the palace, were butchered in rapid succession, and their corpses thrown promiscuously into a well. The next morning the Protestant pastors and elders assembled, and, sending to the ringleaders a minister and a deacon, begged them to discontinue their horrible work. Already, however, had returning shame made everybody unwilling to avow his complicity in the crime. Quiet was restored. The Protestant seneschal and council released such prisoners as had escaped the fate of their comrades, and the bishop himself was sent away under an escort to a place of safety, by order of the very judge whom the clergy had, a year before, sought to deprive of his office as a heretic.484 Nismes remained in the hands of the Protestants through the war.

Huguenot successes in the south and west.

La Rochelle secured for Condé.

Meanwhile more important movements took place. René of Savoy, son of the Count de Tende, but better known as Cipierre, was Condé's agent in assembling the Huguenots of Provence; but Paul de Mouvans, whom we have met with before in this history, was the real hero of the region. In Dauphiny, Montbrun commanded. In Bourbonnais and the neighboring provinces west of the Rhône, Parcenac and Verbelai raised three thousand foot and five hundred horse, but sustained so severe a loss while passing through Forez, that the number was soon reduced to barely twelve hundred. Nearer the Pyrenees, seven thousand men were assembled, known as "the army of the viscounts," to which further reference will shortly be made. Lyons, one of the Huguenot strongholds in the first war, the Protestants failed to capture.485 But Orleans was secured by the skill of François de la Noue, a young champion whose name was destined long to figure in the most brilliant deeds of arms of his party, both in France and in the Low Countries.486 In the west, too, the Huguenots made the most important gain of the war in the city of La Rochelle, for the next half-century and more their secure refuge on approach of danger.