History of the Rise of the Huguenots

480

Mém. de Fr. de la Noue, c. xv.

481

Ibid., ubi supra.

482

Mémoires de Claude Haton, i. 500-503.

483

Ibid., ii. 517. "Et dès lors fut le pillage mis sus par les gens de guerre des deux partis; et firent tous à qui mieux pilleroit et rançonneroit son hoste, jugeant bien en eux que qui plus en pilleroit plus en auroit. Les gens de guerre du camp catholicque, excepté le pillage des églises et saccagemens des prebstres, estoient au reste aussi meschans, et quasi plus que les huguenotz."

484

Ménard, Hist. de Nismes, apud Cimber et Danjou, vii. 481, etc.; Bouche, Histoire gén. de Languedoc, v. 276, 277. Prof. Soldan, Geschichte des Protestantismus in Frankreich, ii. 274-276, whose account of an event too generally unnoticed by Protestant historians is fair and impartial, calls attention to the following circumstances, which, although they do not excuse in the least its savage cruelties, ought yet to be borne in mind: 1st, That no woman was killed; 2d, that only those men were killed who had in some way shown themselves enemies of the Protestants; and, 3d, that there is no evidence of any premeditation. To these I will add, as important in contrasting this massacre with the many massacres in which the Huguenots were the victims, the fact that the Protestant ministers not only did not instigate, but disapproved, and endeavored as soon as possible to put an end to the murders.

485

De Thou, iv. 33-35.

486

Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 211.

487

Henri Martin (Histoire de France, x. 255), on the authority of Coustureau, Vie du duc de Montpensier, states that the Rochellois had, after the peace of 1563, bought from Catharine de' Medici, for 200,000 francs, the suppression of the garrison placed in their city by the Duke of Montpensier, and remarks: "Ces 200,000 francs coutèrent cher!" The authority, however, is very slender in the absence of all corroborative evidence, and Arcère, more than a century ago, showed (Histoire de la Rochelle, i. 625) how improbable, or, rather, impossible the story is. If any gift was made to Catharine by the city, it must have been far less than the sum, enormous for the times and place, of 200,000 crowns; and, at any rate, it could not have been for the purchase of a privilege already enjoyed for hundreds of years. See the illustrative note at the end of this chapter.

488

Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 218. "Plus absolument et avec plus d'obeïsance que les Rochellois, qui depuis ont tousjours tenu le parti réformé, n'en ont voulu deferer et rendre aux princes mesmes de leur parti, contre lesquels ils se sont souvent picquez, en resveillant et conservant curieusement leurs privileges."

489

Others were beaten and banished, and suffered the other penalties denounced by the Edict of Châteaubriant, as Soulier goes on to show with much apparent satisfaction. Hist. des édits, etc., 67, 68. The text of the joint sentence of Couraud, Constantin, and Monjaud is interesting. It is given by Delmas, L'Église réformée de la Rochelle (Toulouse, 1870), pp. 19-25.

490

Martin, Hist. de France, x. 254.

491

Agrippa d'Aubigné, ubi supra; Davila, bk. iv. 122; De Thou, iv. 27 seq.; Soulier, 69. According to Arcère, Hist. de la Rochelle, i. 352, the mayor's correct name was Pontard, Sieur de Trueil-Charays.

492

The commission was dated from Montigny-sur-Aube, January 27, 1568, Soulier, 70. De Thou's expression (ubi supra), "peu de temps après," is therefore unfortunate.

493

Soulier, Hist. des édits de pacification, 70.

494

Norris to Queen Elizabeth, January 23, 1568, State Paper Office. I retain the quaint old English form in which Norris has couched the marshal's speech. It is plain, in view of the perfidy proposed by Santa Croce, even in the royal council, that Condé was not far from right in protesting against the proposed limitation of Cardinal Châtillon's escort to twenty horse, insisting "que la qualité de mondict sieur le Cardinal, qui n'a acoustumé de marcher par païs avecques si peu de train, ny son eage (age) ne permectent pas maintenant de commencer." Condé to the Duke of Anjou, Dec. 27, 1567, MS. Bibl. nat., Aumale, Prince de Condé, i. 568.

495

The "seven viscounts" – often referred to about this period – were the viscounts of Bourniquet, Monclar, Paulin, Caumont, Serignan, Rapin, and Montagut, or Montaigu. They headed the Protestant gentry of the provinces Rouergue, Quercy, etc., as far as to the foot of the Pyrenees. Mouvans held an analogous position in Provence, Montbrun in Dauphiné, and D'Acier, younger brother of Crussol, in Languedoc. Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 220, 221; De Thou, iv. 33; Duc d'Aumale, Princes de Condé, i. 327. When "the viscounts" consented, at the earnest solicitation of the second Princess of Condé, to part with a great part of their troops, they confided them to Mouvans, Rapin, and Poncenac.

496

The village of Cognac, or Cognat, near Gannat, in the ancient Province of Auvergne (present Department of Allier), must not, of course, be confounded with the important city of the same name, on the river Charente, nearly two hundred miles further west.

497

Jean de Serres, iii. 146, 147; De Thou, iv. 48-51; Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 226.

498

Opinions differed respecting the propriety of the movement. According to La Noue, Chartres in the hands of the Huguenots would have been a "thorn in the foot of the Parisians;" while Agrippa d'Aubigné makes it "a city of little importance, as it was neither at a river crossing, nor a sea-port;" "but," he adds, "in those times places were not estimated by the standard now in vogue."

499

"Car encore que les Catholiques estiment les Huguenots estre gens à feu, si sont-il toujours mal pourveus de tels instrumens," etc. Mém. de la Noue, c. xviii. For the siege of Chartres, besides La Noue, see Jean de Serres, iii. 148; De Thou, iv., 51-53; Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 229-232.

500

"Ils eussent esté par trop lourds et stupides, s'ils n'en eussent évité la feste."

501

"Cessons donc de nous esbahir s'ils ont un pied en l'air et l'œil en la campagne."

502

The whole of this remarkable memorial is inserted in the older Collection universelle de mémoires, xlv. 224-260. Its importance is so great, as reflecting the views of a mind so impartial and liberal as that of Chancellor L'Hospital, that I make no apology for the prominence I have given to it. Besides the omission of much that might be interesting, I have in places rather recapitulated than translated literally the striking remarks of the original.

503

La Noue, c. xviii.

504

Castelnau, who was behind the scenes, assures us that had "the Huguenots insisted upon keeping some places in their own hands, for the performance of what was promised, it would have been granted, and, in all probability, have prevented the war from breaking out so soon again," etc. Mém., liv. vi., c. 11.

505

Jean de Serres, iii. 149-154; De Thou, iv. 54, 55; Davila, bk. iv. 124; Castelnau, ubi supra; Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 260, etc.

506

"L'Amiral maintenoit et remonstroit que cette paix n'estoit que pour sauver Chartres, et puis pour assommer separez ceux qu'on ne pourroit vaincre unis." Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 232.

507

"Le Prince de Condé plus facile, desireux de la cour, où il avoit laissé quelque semence d'amourettes, se servit de ce que plusieurs quittoient l'armée," etc. Ibid., ubi supra.

508

La Noue, c. xviii.

509

La Noue, c. xix.

510

"La paix fourrée," Soulier, Histoire des édits de pacification, 73. "Ceste meschante petite paix," La Noue, c. xix. Agrippa d'Aubigné, Hist. universelle, i. 260, and, following him, Browning, Hist. of the Huguenots, i. 220, and De Félice, Hist. of the Protestants of France, 190, say that this peace was wittily christened "La paix boiteuse et mal-assise;" but, as we shall see, this designation belongs to the peace of Saint Germain-en-Laye, in 1570, concluding the third religious war.

511

Leopold Ranke, Civil Wars and Monarchy in France in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (New York, 1853), 234.

512

Norris to Cecil, Paris, March 30, 1568, State Paper Office.

513

La Noue, c. xviii. (Anc. coll., 214).

514

A fortnight had not elapsed since the date of the Edict of Pacification when Condé was compelled to call the king's attention to a flagrant outrage committed by Foissy, a royalist, against the Sieur d'Esternay. After having burned Esternay's residence at Lamothe during the preliminary truce, Foissy subsequently to the conclusion of peace returned and completed his work of devastation. Condé to Charles IX., April 5, 1568, MS., Archives du dép. du Nord, apud Duc d'Aumale, i. 572.

515

"Nous avons fait la folie, ne trouvons donc estrange si nous la beuvons. Toutefois il y a apparence que le breuvage sera amer." La Noue, ubi supra.

516

De Thou, iv. 55, 56; Jean de Serres, Comm. de statu, etc., iii. 160; Condé's petition of Aug. 23d, ibid., iii. 218; Mém. de Claude Haton, i. 357-359, who, however, makes the singular blunder of placing the incident of Rapin's death after the peace of Amboise in 1563. The curé's description of the zeal of the Toulouse parliament for the Roman Catholic Church confirms everything that Protestant writers have said on the subject: "Laditte court de parlement avoit tousjours résisté à laditte prétendue religion et faict exécuter ceux qui en faisoient profession, nonobstant édict à ce contraire faict en faveur d'iceux huguenotz." See also Raoul de Cazenove, Rapin-Thoyras, sa famille, sa vie, et ses œuvres (Paris, 1866), 47-49 – a truly valuable work, and a worthy tribute to a distinguished ancestry.

517

"Edictum promulgant, hac addita exceptione, Reservatis clausulis quæ secreto Senatus commentario continentur." J. de Serres, iii. 160, 161; De Thou, ubi supra. See the petition of Condé of Aug. 23d. J. de Serres, iii. 220, etc.

518

Mém. de Claude Haton, ii. 527, etc.

519

"Sire," said a nobleman, after listening to the arguments against the peace made by some of the remonstrants, and to Charles's replies, "it is too much to undertake to dispute with these canting knaves; it were better to have them strapped in the kitchen by your turnspits." Ibid., ii. 530.

520

Playing upon the chancellor's name, Sainte Foy, one of the court preachers, exclaimed in the pulpit: "Be not astonished if the Huguenots demolish the churches, for they have turned all France into a hospital instead" – "donnant à entendre que par le chancelier nomme Hospital, la France estoit pauvre, pourtant qu'il a par trop encore de douceur pour les huguenots qui ont ruiné le pais de France." Jehan de la Fosse, 93, 94.

521

Floquet, Hist. du parlement de Normandie, iii. 36-42.

522

Mémoires de Claude Haton, ii. 533, 534. Similar regulations were made in many other places "cumplurimis in locis." Jean de Serres, iii. 156.

523

Jean de Serres, iii. 158, 159.

524

De Thou, iv. 77, 78; Castelnau, l. vii., c. 1; D'Aubigné, i. 260; La Fosse, 97; Motley, Dutch Republic, ii. 184.

525

Charles was, however, near experiencing trouble with the reiters of Duke Casimir. He had, by the terms of the agreement with the Huguenots, undertaken to advance the 900,000 francs which were due, and on failing to fulfil his engagements his unwelcome guests threatened to turn their faces toward Paris. Mém. de Castelnau, liv. vi., c. 11. At last, with promises of payment at Frankfort, the Germans were induced to leave France. Du Mont, Corps diplomatique, v. 164, gives a transcript of Casimir's receipt, May 21, 1568, for 460,497 livres, etc.

526

Mémoires de Castelnau, liv. vi., c. 9, c. 10. Duke John William of Saxe-Weimar was even more vexed at the issue of his expedition than Castelnau himself. It was with difficulty that he could be persuaded to accept an invitation to make a visit to the French court.

527

Paris MS., apud Soldan, Gesch. des Prot. in Frankreich, ii. 300. Rumor, as is usual in such cases, outstripped even the unwelcome truth, and Norris wrote to Queen Elizabeth that the king had sent secret letters to two hundred and twelve places, charging the governors "to runne uppon them [the Huguenots] and put them to the sword." "Your Majestie will judge," adds Norris, "ther is smale place of surety for them of the Religion, either in towne or felde." Letter of June 4, 1568, apud D'Aumale, Les Princes de Condé, ii. 363, Pièces inédites.

528

When the Protestants at Rouen begged protection, the king sent four companies of infantry, which the citizens at first refused to admit. At last they were smuggled in by night, and quartered upon the Huguenots. Floquet, Hist. du parlement de Normandie, iii. 43.

529

Jean de Serres, iii. 157, 158.

530

Ibid., ubi supra.

531

Jean de Serres, iii. 161; Soldan, ii. 303.

532

Soldan, ii. 306.

533

Letter to Catharine, April 27, 1568, MS., apud Soldan, ii. 303.

534

Jean de Serres, iii. 163, 164. Petition of Condé of Aug. 23d. Ibid., iii. 215, etc.

535

MS. Bibl. nat., apud Mém. de Claude Haton, ii. App., 1152, 1153. Less correctly given in Lestoile's Mémoires. The title is "Sermens des Associez de la Ligue Chrestienne et Roiale," and the date is June 25, 1568.

536

Prof. Soldan is certainly right (ii. 305) in his interpretation of the passage, "tant et si longuement qu'il plaira à Dieu que nous serons par eux régis en nostredicte religion apostolique et romaine," which Ranke (Civil Wars and Monarchy, p. 236), and, following him, Von Polenz (Gesch. des franz. Calvinismus, ii. 361), have construed as referring to "la maison de Valois." Involved as is the phraseology, I do not see how the word "eux" can designate any other person or persons than "ledit sr. lieutenant avec mesditz sieurs de la noblesse de cedit gouvernement et autres associez."

537

Jean de Serres, iii. 164.

538

"Den Erfolg des letzten Krieges," well observes Prof. Soldan, "hatten die Hugenotten nicht ihrer Anzahl, sondern der Organisation und dem Geiste ihres Gemeindewesens zu verdanken. Diese bewegliche, weitverzweigte, aus einem festen Mittelpunkte gleichmässig gelenkte und von Eifer für die gemeinsame Sache belebte Vereinsgliederung hatte über den lahmen und stockenden Mechanismus vielfach grösserer, aber in sich selbst uneiniger Kräfte einen beschämenden Triumph erlangt." Geschichte des Protestantismus in Frankreich, ii. 303.

539

Relations des Amb. Vén., ii. 116.

540

Cipierre, a young nobleman only twenty-two years of age, was returning, with a body-guard of about thirty-five men, from a visit to his cousin, the duke, at Nice, where he had been treated with great honor. When approaching Fréjus he perceived signs of treachery in a body of men lurking under cover of a grove, and betook himself for safety into the city, now, since his father's death, a part of the province of which his eldest brother was royal governor. The tocsin was rung, and his enemies, originally a band of three hundred men, being swollen by constant accessions to four times that number, the house in which Cipierre had taken refuge was assailed. After a heroic defence the small party of defenders surrendered their arms, on assurance that their opponents would at once retire. The papists, however, scarcely made a pretence of fulfilling their compact, for they speedily returned and massacred every one whom they found in the house. Cipierre himself was not among the number. To secure him a new breach of faith was necessary. The captain of the murderers pledged his own word to the magistrate that if Cipierre would come forth from his hiding-place he would spare his life. He discharged the obligation, so soon as Cipierre presented himself, by plunging a dagger into his breast. J. de Serres, iii. 166-168; Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 262.

541

Petition of Condé, Aug. 23, 1568, J. de Serres, iii. 210, 211.

542

Vie de Coligny (Cologne, 1686), 349, 350; J. de Serres, iii. 166.

543

Ibid., iii. 165; Recordon, from MSS. of N. Pithou, 155-157; MS. Mém. historiques des Antiquités de Troyes, by Duhalle, apud Bulletin de l'hist. du prot. fr., xvii. (1868) 376. Of the royal edicts guaranteeing the Protestants, the last author remarks that "ils firent plus de bruit que de fruit."

544

Duc d'Aumale, Princes de Condé, ii. 364, Pièces justificatives.

545

J. de Serres, iii. 168; Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 262.

546

Jean de Serres does not expressly state that he refers to the combatants, but I presume this to be his meaning.

547

Relazione di Correro, Rel. des Amb. Vén., ii. 120.

548

"Montauban, etc., faisoient conter les cloux de leurs portes aux garnisons qu'on leur envoyoit." Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 261. It was the garrisons only that were refused; the royal governors were promptly accepted. M. de Jarnac, for instance, had no difficulty in securing recognition at La Rochelle; but he was not permitted to introduce troops to distress and terrify the citizens. See the letters of the "Maire, Echevins, Conseilliers et Pairs," of La Rochelle to Charles the Ninth, April 21st, June 6th and 30th, etc. Le Laboureur, Add. aux Mém. de Castelnau, ii. 547-551. They deny the slanderous accusation that the Roman Catholics have not been permitted to return since the peace, asserting, on the contrary, that they have greeted them as brethren and fellow-citizens. They appeal to M. de Jarnac himself for testimony to the good order of La Rochelle. "Meanwhile," they say, "we are preserving this city of yours in all tranquillity, and maintain it, under your obedience, with much greater security, devotion, affection, fidelity and loyalty, such as we have received from our predecessors, than would do all others who were strangers and mercenaries, and not its natural subjects and inhabitants." Norris to Queen Elizabeth, June 23, 1568: "The towne of Rochelle hathe now the thirde time bin admonished to render itself to the king." State Paper Office, Duc d'Aumale, ii. 367.

549

His wife, Charlotte de Laval, whose brave Christian injunctions, as we have seen, decided the reluctant admiral to take up arms in the first religious war (see ante, chapter xiii., p. 35), lay dying of a disease contracted in her indefatigable labors for the sick and wounded soldiers at Orleans, whilst the admiral was at the siege of Chartres. On the conclusion of the peace he hastened to her, but was too late to find her alive. In a touching letter, written to her husband after all hope of seeing him again in this world had fled, a letter the substance of which is preserved by one of his biographers (Vie de Coligny, Cologne, 1686, p. 342), she lamented the loss of a privilege that would have alleviated the sufferings of her last hours, but consoled herself with the thought of the object for which he was absent. She conjured him, by the love he bore her and to her children, to fight to the last extremity for God and religion; warning him, lest through his habitual respect for the king – a respect which had before made him reluctant to take up arms – he should forget the obligations he owed to God as his first Master. She begged him to rear the children she left him in the pure religion, that they might one day be capable of taking his place; and, for their sakes, implored him not to hazard his life unnecessarily. She bade him beware of the house of Guise. "I do not know," she added, "whether I ought to say the same thing of the queen mother, as we are forbidden to judge evil of our neighbor; but she has given so many marks of her ambition that a little distrust is excusable." The earlier biographer of Coligny (Gasparis Colinii Vita, 1575, p. 63, etc.) gives an affecting picture of the deep sorrow and pious resignation of the admiral.

550

Somewhat hyperbolically, the biographer of the admiral (Vie de Coligny, p. 346) says that the concourse at Châtillon and Noyers was so great that the Louvre was a desert in comparison! When ten gentlemen left by one gate, twenty entered by another. The churches raised a purse of 100,000 crowns, one-half of which was to go to him, and the other half to the Prince of Condé; but, though nearly ruined by the enormous expenses of his hospitality, he declined to receive his portion.

551

Noyers and Tanlay are ten or twelve miles from each other, in the modern department of the Yonne.

552

Jean de Serres, ubi supra. Cf. De Thou, iv. 142; Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. fr. (1854), iii. 239. This valuable periodical is mistaken in stating, vii. (1858) 120, that "D'Andelot s'était retiré dans ses terres de Bretagne à la conclusion de la paix." He did not leave Tanlay until after writing the letter referred to below, and shortly before Coligny's arrival: "partant de chez lui, pour se rendre chez son frère Andelot, il trouva qu'il étoit allé en Bretagne." Vie de Coligny, 350. D'Andelot was in Brittany at the outbreak of the third war. His adventures in escaping to La Rochelle will be narrated in the next chapter. Mr. Henry White is, of course, equally wrong when he says (Massacre of St. Bartholomew, New York, 1868, p. 291): "The admiral had gone to this charming retreat [Tanlay], to consult with his brother, to whom it belonged, and who had joined him there," and when he mentions D'Andelot as in the suite of Condé and Coligny in their celebrated flight (p. 292); "besides which, he (the prince) was accompanied by the admiral and his family, by Andelot and his wife," etc.

553

Lettre de François d'Andelot à la Royne mère du Roy, de Tanlay, co 8me juillet, 1568. MS. Library of Berne. This letter has been twice printed in the Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. français, iv. (1856) 329-331, and vii. (1858) 121-123. The first reproduction is in one important part more correct than the second. It is not impossible, after all, that the author of the letter was not D'Andelot, but his brother, Admiral Coligny himself; for M. J. Tessier mentions (Bulletin, xxii. (1873) 47), that it exists in manuscript in the Paris National Library (MSS. Vc. Colbert, 24, f. 161), in the admiral's own handwriting, and signed with his usual signature, Chastillon. The whole tone, I must confess, seems rather to be his.