History of the Rise of the Huguenots Volume II Part 33

10 (i. 283); De Thou, iv. (liv. xliv.) 160. La Mothe Fenelon's despatch of January 24, 1569 (Corr. dipl. i. 153, 154), states the a.s.sistance at 6 cannon and furniture, 300 barrels of powder, 4,000 b.a.l.l.s, and 7,000.

[641] Despatch to La Mothe Fenelon, March 8, 1569, and "Articles presantez a la royne d'Angleterre par le Sr de la Mothe, etc," Corresp. diplom., i.

224, 237-241.

[642] "Considerant luy-mesmes et toute la flotte des marchands estre en leur pouvoir, il trouva necessaire pour luy de condescendre en partie a leurs demandes, _combien quv ce fut contre sa volonte_." Coppie du messaige qui a este declaire par la Majeste de la Royne et son conseil, par parolle de bouche, a l'amb. du Roy de France, par Jehan Somer, clerc du signet de sa Majeste le IIIe jour de mars, 1568. Corresp. diplom., i.

242-251.

[643] Despatch of Dec. 5, 1568, Corresp. diplom., i. 32, 33.

[644] In his despatch of March 25, 1569, La Mothe Fenelon admits to Catharine his great perplexity as to how he should act, so as neither to show too little spirit nor to provoke Elizabeth to such a declaration as would compel the king, his master, to declare war at so inopportune a time. Corresp. diplom., i. 281.

[645] Jean de Serres, iii. 307, 308; De Thou, iv. (liv. xlv.) 169, 170; Castelnau, liv. vii., c. 3.

[646] De Thou, iv. 171, 172; Castelnau, _ubi supra_.

[647] Jean de Serres, iii. 302, 309; De Thou, iv. 161; Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 277.

[648] De Thou, iv. (liv. xlv.) 174, 175.

[649] The Earl of Leicester gives Charles a more direct part in the war.

"The king hathe bene these two monethes about Metz in Lorrayne, to empeache the entry of the Duke of Bipounte, who is set forward by the common a.s.sent of all the princes Protestants in Germany, with twelve thousand hors.e.m.e.n, and twenty-five thousand footemen, to a.s.siste the Protestants in France, and to make some final end of their garboyles."

Letter to Randolph, amba.s.sador to the Emperor of Muscovy, May 1, 1569, Wright, Queen Elizabeth, i. 313. The facilities, even for diplomatic correspondence, with so distant a country as Muscovy, were very scanty.

Leicester's despatch is accordingly an interesting resume of the chief events that had occurred in Western Europe during the past sixty days.

[650] Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 277; De Thou, iv. 172, etc.

[651] "Ja Dieu ne plaise qu'on die jamais que Bourbon ait fuyt devant ses ennemis." Lestoile, 21. It is probably to this circ.u.mstance that the Earl of Leicester alludes, when he says that "the Prince of Conde, through his overmuche hardines and little regard to follow the Admirall's advise had his arme broken with a courrire shotte," etc. Wright, Queen Elizabeth, i.

313, 314.

[652] Agrippa d'Aubigne, Hist. univ., liv. v., c. 8 (i. 280); De Thou, iv.

175.

[653] D'Aubigne, _ubi supra_. A Huguenot patriarch, named La Vergne, was noticed by Agrippa himself fighting in the midst of twenty-five of his nephews and kinsmen. The dead bodies of the old man and of fifteen of his followers fell almost on a single heap, and nearly all the survivors were taken prisoners.

[654] Jeanne d'Albret to Marie de Cleves, April, 1569, Rochambeau, Lettres d'Antoine de Bourbon et de Jehanne d'Albret (Paris, 1877), 297.

[655] I regret to say that the current representations as to the termination of Conde's dishonorable attachment to Isabeau de Limueil are proved by contemporary doc.u.ments to be erroneous. The tears and remonstrances of his wife eleonore de Roye (see _ante_, chapter xiv.) may have had some temporary effect. But an anonymous letter among the Simancas MSS., written March 15, 1565 (and consequently more than six months after eleonore's death, which occurred July 23, 1564), portrays him as "hora piu che mai pa.s.sionato per la sua Limolia." Duc d'Aumale, Pieces justif., i.

552. Just as Calvin (letter of September 17, 1563, Bonnet, Lettres franc., ii. 539) had rebuked the prince with his customary frankness, warning him respecting his conduct, and saying that "les bonnes gens en seront offensez, les malins en feront leur risee," so now Coligny and the Huguenot gentlemen of his suite united with the Protestant ministers in begging him to renounce his present course of life, and contract a second honorable marriage. The latter held up to him "il pericolo et infamia propria, et il scandalo commune a tutta la relligione per esserne lui capo;" the former threatened to leave him. I have seen no injurious reports affecting Conde's morals after his marriage, November 8, 1565, to Francoise Marie d'Orleans Longueville. Duc d'Aumale, Princes de Conde, i.

263-278.

[656] Long the idol of the Huguenots, both of high or of low degree, he enjoyed a popularity perpetuated in a spirited song ("La Chanson du Pet.i.t Homme"), current so far back as the close of the first war, 1563, the refrain of which, alluding to the prince's diminutive stature, is: "_Dieu gard' de mal le Pet.i.t Homme!_" Chansonnier Huguenot, 250, etc.

[657] The author of the Vie de Coligny (Cologne, 1686) gives more than one instance of a deference on the part of the subject of his biography which may seem to the reader excessive, but which alone could satisfy the chivalrous feeling of the loyal knight of the sixteenth century.

[658] Brantome (Hommes ill.u.s.tres, OEuvres, viii. 163, 164) relates that Honorat de Savoie, Count of Villars, begged the Duke of Anjou to have Stuart given over to him, and, having gained his request, murdered him.

[659] "Qui par artifices merveilleus.e.m.e.nt subtils ont bien sceu vandre le sang de la maison de France contre soy-mesmes."

[660] The Earl of Leicester wrote to Randolph: "Robert Stuart, Chastellier, and certaine other worthy gentlemen, to the number of six, were lykewise taken and slayne, as the Frenche tearme it, de sang froid."

Wright, Queen Elizabeth, i. 314. See also Cardinal Chatillon's letter to the Elector Palatine, June 10, 1569, in which the writer declares significantly of Conde's murder by Montesquiou, "ce qu'il n'eust ose entreprendre sans en avoir commandement _des plus grands_." Kluckholn, Briefe Friedrich des Frommen, ii. 336.

[661] Letter of Henry of Navarre to the Duke of Anjou, "escript au Camp d'Availle le xiie jour de juillet 1569." Lettres inedites de Henry IV.

recueillies par le Prince Augustin Galitzin (Paris. 1860), 4-11.

[662] The Huguenot loss is given by Jean de Serres (iii. 316) at 200 killed and 40 taken prisoners. Agrippa d'Aubigne states it at 140 gentilhommes (Hist. univ., i. 280). The Earl of Leicester's words are: "In which conflicte was slayne on both sydes, as we heare, not above foure hundred men" (Wright, Queen Elizabeth, i. 313, 314). Castelnau speaks of over a hundred Huguenot gentlemen slain and an equal number taken prisoners (liv. vii., c. 4). The "Adviz donne par Mr Norrys, amba.s.sadeur pour la royne d'Angleterre, prins de ses lettres, envoyees de Metz, le 18 d'Avril" (La Mothe Fenelon, i. 362), agrees with Leicester, but is unique in making Anjou's loss greater than that of the Huguenots. De Thou makes the Protestants lose 400. The untruthful Davila says, "the Huguenots lost not above seven hundred men, but they were most of them gentlemen and cavaliers of note."

[663] Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 281. La Fosse and others have preserved one of the good Catholic stanzas composed on this occasion:

L'an mil cinq cent soixante et neuf Entre Congnac et Chateauneuf Fust apporte sur une anesse Le grand ennemi de la messe.

(Journal d'un cure ligueur, 104.)

[664] "On donna l'honneur de cette defaicte a M. de Tavannes." La Fosse, 104.

[665] De Thou, iv. (liv. xlv.) 177. Claude de Sainctes, afterward Bishop of Evreux, who, it will be remembered, figured at the colloquy of Poissy, is credited with the suggestion of the chapel.

[666] The princ.i.p.al authorities consulted for the battle of Jarnac, or of Ba.s.sac, as it is also frequently called, from the abbey near which it raged, are: Jean de Serres, iii. 309-315; De Thou, iv. (liv. xlv.) 173-176; Castelnau, liv. vii., c. 4; Ag. d'Aubigne, i. 278-281; Le vray discours de la bataille donnee par monsieur le 13. iour de Mars, 1569, entre Chasteauneuf et Jarnac, etc., avec privilege (Cimber et Danjou, Archives curieuses, vi. 365, etc.); Discours de la bataille donnee par Monseigneur, Duc d'Anjou et de Bourbonnoys, ... contre les rebelles ...

entre la ville d'Angoulesme et Jarnac, pres d'une maison nommee Vibrac appartenant a la Dame de Mezieres; an inaccurate official account, drawn up at Metz by Neufville on the first reception of the news, and sent by the Spanish amba.s.sador, Alava, to Philip II.; La Mothe Fenelon, Corr.

dip., vii. 3-11; Davila, bk. iv.; the "Relation originale" in Doc.u.ments inedits tires des coll. MSS. de la bibliotheque royale (Fr. gov.), iv.

483, etc. Compare the excellent narratives of the Duc d'Aumale and Prof.

Soldan. The Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. fr., i. (1853) 429, gives a representation of a monument, in the form of an obelisk, about eleven feet in height, erected by the Department of the Charente, in 1818, on the spot where Conde fell. A somewhat similar monument, raised in 1770 by the Count de Jarnac, was destroyed during the first French revolution.

[667] Anjou to Charles IX., March 17, 1569, Duc d'Aumale, Les Princes de Conde, ii. 399.

[668] Apostolicarum Pii Quinti, P. M., Epistolarum libri quinque.

Antverpiae, 1640, 152.

[669] Pii Quinti Epist., 157-166.

[670] Ibid., 160, 161.

[671] Boscheron des Portes, Hist. du Parlement de Bordeaux (Bordeaux, 1877), i. 214, 216. As the Huguenots were condemned, not for heresy, but for rebellion, sacrilege, etc., the learned author finds no mention of f.a.got and flame.

[672] La Mothe Fenelon. i. 288-294.

[673] Despatch of April 12, 1569, ibid., i. 303.

[674] It is evident that the results of the battle were designedly exaggerated by the Roman Catholics at the time, and have been overrated ever since. Agrippa d'Aubigne alleges that, out of 128 cornets of cavalry in the Huguenot army, only fifteen were engaged; and that of over 200 ensigns of infantry, barely _six_--those under Pluviaut--came within a league of the battle-field. Hist. univ., _ubi supra_.

[675] Jean de Serres, iii. 317, 318; De Thou, iv. (liv. xlv.) 178, 179. De Thou reckons the losses of the Roman Catholics before Cognac at more than 300 men.

[676] De Thou, iv. 180, 181; Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 282; J. de Serres, iii.

318, 319.

[677] La Mothe Fenelon, i. 367. And now, to the insulting _quatrain_ already quoted a propos of Conde's death, the Huguenot soldiers of Angoumois replied in rough verses of their own:

Le Prince de Conde Il a ete tue; Mais Monsieur l'Amiral Est encore a cheval, Avec La Rochefoucauld Pour achever tous ces Papaux.

V. Bujeaud, Chronique protestante de l'Angoumois, 40.