History of the Rise of the Huguenots Volume II Part 14

Leaving the palace of Fontainebleau, the court pa.s.sed through Sens and Troyes to the city of Bar-sur-Seine, where Charles acted as sponsor for his infant nephew, the son of the Duke of Lorraine. The brilliant _fetes_ that accompanied the arrival of the king here and elsewhere could not, however, hide from the world one of the chief results, if not designs, of the journey. It was a prominent part of the queen mother's plan to seize the opportunity for carrying out the system of repression toward the Huguenots which she had already begun. While there is no reason to suppose that as yet she felt any disposition to lend an ear to the suggestions of Spanish emissaries, or of Philip himself, for a general ma.s.sacre, or at least an open war of extermination, she was certainly very willing by less open means to preclude the Protestants from ever giving her trouble, or becoming again a formidable power in the state. The most unfavorable reports, in truth, were in circulation against the Huguenots. At Lyons they were accused of poisoning the wells, or, according to another version of the story, the kitchen-pots, in order to give the impression that the plague was in the city, and so deter the king from coming.[340] Catharine had no need, however, of crediting these calumnious tales in order to be moved to hostile action. Her desire was unabated to reign under her son's name, untrammelled by the restraint of the jealous love of liberty cherished by the Huguenots. Their numbers were large--though not so large as they were then supposed to be. Even so intelligent a historian as Garnier regards them as const.i.tuting nearly one-third of the kingdom.[341]

M. Lacretelle is undoubtedly much more correct in estimating them at fifteen or sixteen hundred thousand souls, or barely one-tenth of the entire population of France--a country at that time much more spa.r.s.ely inhabited, and of which a much larger part of the surface was in inferior cultivation, or altogether neglected, than at present.[342] But, however small their number in proportion to the papists, the Huguenots, from their superior industry and intelligence, from the circ.u.mstance that their strength lay in the st.u.r.dy middle cla.s.s and in the n.o.bility, including little of the rabble of the cities and none of that of Paris,[343] were a party that naturally awakened the jealousy of the queen. We need make little account of any exasperation in consequence of such silly devices as the threatening letter said to have been put in Catharine's bed-room, warning her that if she did not drive the papists from about her, "she and her L'Aubespine" (secretary of state) would feel the dagger.[344] She was too shrewd not to know that a Roman Catholic was more likely to have penned it than a Huguenot.

[Sidenote: Catharine's new zeal.]

In furtherance of the policy to which she had now committed herself, she caused the fortifications of the cities that had been strongholds of the Protestants during the late war to be levelled, and in their place erected citadels whereby the Huguenots might be kept in subjection.[345] As Easter approached, Catharine revealed the altered tone of her mind by notifying her maids of honor that she would suffer none to remain about her but those who were good Catholics and submitted to the ordinary test of orthodoxy. There is said to have been but a single girl who declined to go to ma.s.s, and preferred to return to her home.[346] Well would it have been if the queen had been as attentive to the morals[347] as to the orthodoxy of these pleasure-seeking attendants. But, to belong to the "religion ancienne et catholique" was a mantle large enough to cover a mult.i.tude of sins.

[Sidenote: Interpretative declarations infringing upon the Edict.]

[Sidenote: Declaration of Roussillon.]

More direct infringements upon the liberty guaranteed by the Edict of Amboise had already been made or were yet in store. The legislation which could not conveniently be repealed by formal enactment could be rendered null by interpretative declarations. Charles was made to proclaim that by the Edict he had not intended to permit preaching in places previously belonging to the patrimony of the Church, or held as benefices. This was aimed at such prelates of doubtful catholicity as Saint Romain, Archbishop of Aix, or the Cardinal Bishop of Beauvais, Odet de Chatillon. He was made to say, that by the places where Protestant wors.h.i.+p could be held within the walls, by virtue of its having been exercised on the seventh of March, 1563, were meant only those that had been garrisoned by Protestants, and had undergone a successful siege. This stroke of the pen cut off several cities in which Protestantism had been maintained without conflict of arms. The Huguenot counsellors of the parliament were deprived of the enjoyment of their right to attend the "a.s.semblee," or "Protestant congregation," by a gloss which forbade the inhabitants of Paris from attending the reformed wors.h.i.+p in the neighboring districts. When the court reached Lyons, a city which, as we have seen, had been among the foremost in devotion to the Protestant cause, a fresh edict, of the twenty-fourth of June, prohibited the reformed rites from being celebrated in any city in which the king might be sojourning. Five or six weeks later, at the little town of Roussillon, a few miles south of Vienne, on the Rhone, another and more flagrant violation of the letter and spirit of the edict of pacification was incorporated in a declaration purporting to remove fresh uncertainties as to the meaning of its provisions. It forbade the n.o.blemen who might possess the right to maintain Protestant services in their castles, to permit any persons but their own families and their va.s.sals to be present. It prohibited the convocation of synods and the collection of money, and enjoined upon ministers of the gospel not to leave their places of residence, nor to open schools for the instruction of the young. But the most vexatious and unjust article of all was that which constrained all priests, monks, and nuns, who during or since the troubles had forsaken their vows and had married, either to resume their monastic profession and dismiss their consorts, or to leave the kingdom.

As a penalty for the violation of this command, the men were to be sentenced to the galleys for life, the women to close confinement in prison. I omit in this list of grievances suffered by the Huguenots some minor annoyances such as that which compelled the artisan to desist from working in his shop with open doors on the festivals of the Roman Catholic Church.[348]

[Sidenote: a.s.saults upon unoffending Huguenots.]

These legal infractions were not all. Everywhere the Huguenots had to complain of acts of violence, committed by their papist neighbors, at the instigation of priests and bishops, and not infrequently of the royal governors. Little more than a year had pa.s.sed since peace was restored, and already the victims of religious a.s.sa.s.sination rivalled in number the martyrs of the days of open persecution. At Crevant the Protestants were attacked on their way to their "temple;" at Tours they were attacked while engaged in wors.h.i.+p. At Mans the fanatical bishop was the chief instigator of a work of mingled murder and rapine. At Vendome it was the royal governor himself, Gilbert de Curee, who fell a victim to the hatred of the Roman Catholic n.o.blesse, and was treacherously killed while hunting.[349]

If anything more was needed to render the violence insupportable, it was found in the fact that any attempt to obtain judicial investigation and redress resulted not in the condemnation of the guilty, but in the personal peril of the complainant.[350]

[Sidenote: Conde appeals for redress.]

Smarting under the repeated acts of violence to which at every moment they were liable, and under the successive infringements upon the Edict of Amboise, the Huguenots urged the Prince of Conde to represent their grievances to the monarch, in the excellence of whose heart they had not yet lost confidence. The Protestant leader did not repel the trust. His appeal to Charles and to the queen mother was urgent. He showed that, even where the letter of the edict was observed, its spirit was flagrantly violated. The edict provided for a place for preaching in each prefecture, to be selected by the king. In some cases no place had yet been designated. In others, the most inconvenient places had been a.s.signed.

Sometimes the Huguenots of a district would be compelled to go _twenty or twenty-five leagues_ in order to attend divine wors.h.i.+p. The declaration affecting the monks and nuns who had forsaken their habit was a violation of the general liberty promised. So also was the prohibition of synods, which, though not expressly mentioned, were implied in the toleration of the religion to which they were indispensably necessary. But it was the prejudice and ill-will, of which the Huguenots were the habitual victims at the hands of royal governors and other officers, which moved them most deeply. The evident desire was to find some ground of accusation against them. The ears of the judges were stopped against their appeals for justice. It was enough that they were accused. Decrees of confiscation, of the razing of their houses, of death, were promptly given before any examination was made into the truth of their culpability. On a mere rumor of a commotion in the Protestant city of Montauban, an order was issued to demolish its walls. The case was far otherwise with turbulent Roman Catholic towns. The people were encouraged to acts of violence toward the Huguenots by the impunity of the perpetrators of similar crimes, and by the evident partiality of those who were set to administer justice. Out of six or seven score murders of Protestants since the peace, not two of the abominable acts had been punished. Under such circ.u.mstances it would not be surprising if the victims of inordinate cruelty should at length be driven in desperation to take their defence into their own hands.[351]

[Sidenote: Conciliatory reply of the king.]

The king, or his ministers, fearful of a commotion during his absence from Paris, answered the letter of the prince with tolerable courtesy, and even made a pretence of desiring to secure justice to his Protestant subjects; but the attempt really effected very little. Thus, for instance, while sojourning in the city of Valence (on the fifth of September, 1564), Charles received a pet.i.tion of the Huguenots of Bordeaux, setting forth some of the grievances under which they were groaning, and gave a favorable answer. He permitted them, by this patent, to sing their psalms in their own houses. He declared them free from any obligation to furnish the "pain benit," and to contribute to the support of Roman Catholic fraternities. The Protestants were not to be molested for possessing or selling copies of the Bible. They must not be compelled to deck out their houses in honor of religious processions, nor to swear on St. Anthony's arm. They might work at their trades with closed doors, except on Sundays and solemn feasts. Magistrates were forbidden to take away the children of Huguenots, in order to have them baptized according to Romish rites.

Protestants could be elected to munic.i.p.al offices equally with the adherents of the other faith.[352] In a similar tone of conciliation the king published an order from Roussillon, remitting the fines that had been imposed upon the Huguenots of Nantes for neglecting to hang tapestry before their houses on Corpus Christi Day, and permitting them henceforth to abstain from an act so offensive to their religious convictions.[353]

[Sidenote: Protestants excluded from judicial posts.]

Such local concessions were, however, only the decoys by which the queen mother intended to lure the Huguenots on to a fatal security. A few months later, at Avignon, Catharine caused an ordinance to be published in the king's name, which Cardinal Santa Croce characterized as an excellent one.

It excluded Protestants from holding judicial seats. Catharine told the nuncio that her counsellors had been desirous of extending the same prohibition to all other charges under government, but that she had deterred them. It would have driven the Huguenots to desperation, and might have occasioned disturbances. "We shall labor, however," she said, "to exclude them little by little from all their offices." At the same time she expressed her joy that everything was succeeding so well, and privately a.s.sured the nuncio "that people were much deceived in her."[354]

And yet such are the paradoxes of history, especially in this age of surprises, that, at the very moment the king was depriving his own Protestant subjects of their rights, he was negotiating in behalf of the Protestant subjects of his neighbors! The king would not leave Avignon--so wrote the English envoy--without reconciling the inhabitants of the Comtat Venaissin and the princ.i.p.ality of Orange, whom diversity of religion had brought into collision. And, by the articles of pacification which the amba.s.sador enclosed, the king was seen "to have had a care for others also, having provided a certain liberty of religion even to the Pope's own subjects, which he had much difficulty in obtaining."[355]

[Sidenote: Marshal Montmorency checks the Parisian mob.]

[Sidenote: His encounter with Cardinal Lorraine.]

While the queen mother, under cover of her son's authority, followed the new policy of opposition to the Huguenots upon which she had now entered, an incident occurred at Paris showing that even the Roman Catholics were not unanimous in their support of the Guises and their plan of exterminating heresy. The governor of the metropolis was Marshal Montmorency, the most worthy of all the constable's sons. He had vigorously exerted himself ever since the king's departure to protect the Huguenots in accordance with the provisions of the treaty. A Protestant woman, who during the war had been hung in effigy for "huguenoterie," but had returned from her flight since the conclusion of peace, died and was secretly buried by friends, one Sunday night, in the "Cimetiere des Innocents." The next morning a rabble, such as only Paris could afford, collected with the intention of disinterring the heretic. And they would have accomplished their design, had not Marshal Montmorency ridden in, sword in hand, and resolved to hang the culprits that very day. "He would a.s.sist the Huguenots," he is reported to have been in the habit of saying, "because they were the weaker party."[356] On Monday, the eighth of January, 1565, the Cardinal of Lorraine approached the city in full ecclesiastical dress, with the intention of entering it.[357] He was attended by his young nephew, the Duke of Guise, and by an escort of armed men, whom Catharine had permitted him to retain in spite of the general prohibition, because of the fears he undoubtedly felt for his personal safety. As he neared Paris he was met by a messenger sent by the governor, commanding him to bid his company lay down their arms, or to exhibit his pretended authority. The cardinal, accustomed to domineer over even such old n.o.ble families as the Montmorencies, would do neither, and attempted to ride defiantly into the city. But the marshal was no respecter of persons. With the troops at his command he met and dispersed the cardinal's escort. Lorraine fled as for his life into a shop on the Rue Saint Denis. Thence he was secretly conveyed to his own palace, and shortly after he left the city in utter discomfiture, but breathing dire threats against the marshal.[358] The latter, calling into Paris his cousin the admiral, had no difficulty in maintaining order. Great was the consternation of the populace, it is true, for the absurd report was circulated that Coligny was come to plunder the city, and to seize the Parliament House, the Cathedral, and the Bastile;[359] and even the first president, De Thou, begged him, when he came to the parliament, to explain the reasons of his obeying his cousin's summons, and to imitate the prudence of Pompey the Great when he entered the city of Rome, where Caesar's presence rendered a sedition imminent. The admiral, in reply, gracefully acknowledged the honor which parliament had done him in likening him to Pompey, whom he would gladly imitate, he said, because Pompey was a patriot. Still he saw no appositeness in the comparison, "as there was no Caesar in Paris."[360]

[Sidenote: The conference at Bayonne, June, 1565.]

Early in the month of June, 1565, Charles the Ninth and his court reached the neighborhood of the city of Bayonne, where, on the very confines of France and Spain, a meeting had been arranged between Catharine and her daughter Isabella, wife of Philip the Second. Catharine's first proposal had been that her royal son-in-law should himself be present. She had urged that great good to Christendom might flow from their deliberations.

Philip the Prudent, however, and his confidential adviser, the Duke of Alva, were suspicious of the design. Alva was convinced that Catharine had only her own private ends in view.[361] Granvelle observed that little fruit came of these interviews of princes but discord and confusion, and judged that, had not the queen mother strenuously insisted upon improving perhaps the only opportunity which she and her daughter might enjoy of seeing each other, even the interview between the two queens would have been declined.[362] As it was, however, Philip excused himself on the plea of engrossing occupations.

Such were the circ.u.mstances under which the Bayonne conference took place--a meeting which Cardinal Granvelle a.s.sured his correspondents was a simple visit of a daughter to her mother,[363] but to which contemporaries, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, ascribed a far deeper significance. At this meeting, according to Jean de Serres, writing only four or five years after the event,[364] a holy league, as it was called, was formed, by the intervention of Isabella, for the purpose of re-establis.h.i.+ng the authority of the ancient religion and of extirpating the new. France and Spain mutually promised to render each other a.s.sistance in the good work; and both pledged themselves to the support of the Holy See by all the means in their power. Philip himself was not present, either, it was conjectured, in order that the league might the better be kept secret, or to avoid the appearance of lowering his dignity before that of the French monarch.[365] The current belief--until recently almost the universal belief of historians--goes farther, and alleges that in this mysterious conference Catharine and Alva, who accompanied his master's wife, concocted the plan of that famous ma.s.sacre whose execution was delayed by various circ.u.mstances for seven years. Alva was the tempter, and the words with which he recommended his favorite method of dealing with heresy, by destroying its chief upholders, were embodied in the ign.o.ble sentence, "Better a salmon's head than ten thousand frogs."[366]

In fact, a general impression that the conference had led to the formation of a distinct plan for the universal destruction of Protestantism gained ground almost immediately. Within about a month after the queen mother and her daughter had ended their interview, the English amba.s.sador wrote to Leicester and Cecil that "they of the religion think that there has been at this meeting at Bayonne some complot betwixt the Pope, the King of Spain, and the Scottish queen, by their amba.s.sadors, and some say also the Papists of England."[367]

[Sidenote: No plan of ma.s.sacre agreed upon.]

Fortunately, however, we are not left to frame by uncertain conjecture a doubtful story of the transactions of this famous interview. The correspondence of the Duke of Alva himself with Philip the Second has been preserved among the ma.n.u.scripts of Simancas, to dispel many inveterate misapprehensions. These letters not only prove that no plan for a ma.s.sacre of the Huguenots was agreed upon by the two parties, but that Alva did not even distinctly declare himself in favor of such a plan. They furnish, however, an instructive view, such as can but rarely be so well obtained, of the net of treacherous intrigue which the fingers of Philip and his agents were for many years busy day and night in cautiously spreading around the throne of France.

[Sidenote: June 14th.]

[Sidenote: June 15th.]

On Thursday, the fourteenth of June, the young Spanish queen, with her brilliant train of attendant grandees, crossed the narrow stream forming the dividing line between the two kingdoms, and was conducted by her mother, her brothers and sister, and a crowd of gallant French n.o.bles, to the neighboring town of Saint Jean de Luz. On Friday, Catharine and Charles rode forward to make their solemn entry into Bayonne, where they were to await their guests' arrival. Before they started, Alva had already been at work complimenting such good Catholics as the constable, Cardinal Bourbon, and Prince La Roche-sur-Yon, flattering Cardinal Guise (his brother of Lorraine was absent from court, not yet being fully reinstated in favor), the Duke of Montpensier, and vain old Blaise de Montluc. Nor were his blandishments thrown away. Poor weak Guise--the "cardinal des bouteilles" he was called, from the greater acquaintance he had with the wine and good living than with religious or political affairs[368]--was overcome with emotion and grat.i.tude, and begged Alva to implore the Catholic king, by the love of G.o.d, to look in pity upon an unhappy kingdom, where religion was fast going to ruin. Montpensier threw himself into Alva's arms, and told him that Philip alone was the hope of all the good in France, declaring for himself that he was willing to be torn in pieces in his behalf, and maintaining the meanwhile, that, should that pleasant operation be performed, "Philip" would be found written on his heart. To Blaise de Montluc's self-conceit Alva laid siege in no very covert manner, a.s.suring him that his master had not given his consent to Catharine's plan for an interview until he had perused a paper written by the grim old warrior's hand, in which he had expressed the opinion that the conference would be productive of wholesome results. The implied praise was all that was needed to induce Montluc to explain himself more fully. He was opposed to the exercise of any false humanity. He ascribed the little success that had attended the Roman Catholic arms in the last struggle to the half-way measures adopted and the attempt to exercise the courtesies of peace in time of war. The combatants on either side addressed their enemies as "my brother" and "my cousin." As for himself, he had made it a rule to spare no man's life, but to wage a war of extermination. To this unburdening of his mind Alva replied by giving Montluc to understand that, as a good Roman Catholic, it should be his task to discover the means of inducing Charles and his mother to perform their duty, and, if he failed in this, to disclose to Philip the course which he must pursue, "since it was impossible to suffer matters to go on, as they were going, to their ruin."

What the duty of the French king was, in Philip's and Alva's view, is evidenced by the advice of the "good" Papists which the minister reports to his master with every mark of approbation. It was, in the first place, to banish from the kingdom every Protestant minister, and prohibit utterly any exercise of the reformed religion. The provincial governors, whose orthodoxy in almost every case could be relied upon, were to be the instruments in the execution of this work.[369] But, besides this, it would be necessary to seize a few of the leaders and cut off their heads.

Five or six, it was suggested, would be all the victims required.[370] It was, in fact, essentially the plan of operations with which Alva undertook a year or two later the reduction of the Netherlands to submission to Spanish tyranny and the Papal Church. Treacherous imprisonments of the most suspected, which could scarcely have been confined within such narrow numerical limits as Alva laid down, together with a "blood council" to complete the work, or with a ma.s.sacre in which the proprieties of judicial investigation would be less nicely observed--such was the scheme after Philip's own heart.

But this scheme suited the present frame of mind neither of Charles nor of Catharine. When the crafty Spaniard, cautiously feeling his way, begged the young king to be very careful of his life, "for G.o.d, he was convinced, was reserving him to execute a great work by his hands, in the punishment of the offences which were committed in that kingdom,"[371] Charles briskly responded: "Oh! to take up arms does not suit me. I have no disposition to consummate the destruction of my kingdom begun in the past wars."[372] The duke clearly saw that the king was but repeating a lesson that had been taught him by others, and contemptuously dismissed the topic.[373]

[Sidenote: Catharine and Alva.]

Catharine was not less determined than her son to avoid a resort to arms.

It was with difficulty that Alva could get her to broach the subject of religion at all. Isabella having, at his suggestion, pressed her mother to disclose the secret communication to make which she had sought this interview, Catharine referred, with some bitterness, to the distrust of Charles and of herself evidently entertained by Philip, which would be likely to lead in the end to a renewal of war between France and Spain.

And she reproached Isabella with having so soon allowed herself to become "Hispaniolized"[374]--a charge from which her daughter endeavored to clear herself as best she could. When at last Alva succeeded in bringing up the subject, which was, ostensibly at least, so near what Philip called his heart, Catharine's display of tact was such as to elicit the profound admiration of even so consummate a master in the art of dissimulation as the duke himself. Her circ.u.mspection, he declared, he had never seen equalled.[375] She maintained that there was no need of alarm at the condition of religion in France, for everything was going on better than when the Edict of Pacification was published. "It is your satisfaction at being freed from war that leads you to take so cheerful a view," urged Alva. "My master cannot but require the application of a more efficient remedy, since the cause is common to Spain; for the disease will spread, and Philip has no inclination to lose his crown, or, perhaps, even his head." Catharine now insisted upon Alva's explaining himself and disclosing his master's plan of action. This Alva declined to do. Although Philip was as conversant with the state of France as she or any other person in the kingdom, yet he preferred to leave to her to decide upon the precise nature of the specific to be administered. Catharine pressed the inquiry, but Alva continued to parry the question adroitly. He asks if, since the Edict of Toleration, ground has been gained or lost. Decidedly gained, she replies, and proceeds to particularize. But Alva is confident that she is deceiving herself or him: it is notorious that things are becoming worse every day.

"Would you have me understand," interrupts Catharine, "that we must resort to arms again?"

"I see no present need of a.s.suming them," answers Alva, "and my master would not advise you to take them up, unless constrained by other necessity than that which I now see."

"What, then, would Philip have me do?" asks Catharine. "Apply a prompt remedy," answers Alva; "for sooner or later your enemies will, by their own action, compel you to accept the wager of war, and that, probably, under less favorable circ.u.mstances than at present. All Philip's thoughts are intent upon the expulsion of that wretched sect of the Huguenots, and upon restoring the subjects of the French crown to their ancient obedience, and maintaining the queen mother's legitimate authority." "The king, my son," responds Catharine, "publishes whatever edicts he pleases, and is obeyed." "Then, if he enjoys such authority over his va.s.sals,"

breaks in Isabella, "why does he not punish those who are rebels both against G.o.d and against himself?"

That question Catharine did not choose to answer. Instead of it she had some chimerical schemes to propose--a league between France, Spain, and Germany, that should give the law to the world, and a confirmation of the bonds that united the royal houses of France and Spain by two more marriages, viz.: of Don Carlos to Margaret, her youngest daughter, and of the Duke of Anjou to the Princess of Portugal. Alva, however, making light of such projects, which could, according to his view, effect nothing more than the bond already connecting the families, was not slow in bringing the conversation back to the religious question. But he soon had reason to complain of Catharine's coldness. She had already expressed her mind fully, she said; and she resented, as a want of the respect due to her, the hint that she was more indifferent than previously. She would not fail to do justice, she a.s.sured him. That would be difficult, rejoined Alva, with a chancellor at the head of the judiciary who could not certainly be expected to apply the remedy needed by the unsound condition of France.

"It is his personal enemies," promptly replied Catharine, "who, out of hatred, accuse L'Hospital of being a bad Catholic." "Can you deny that he is a Huguenot?" asked the Spaniard. "I do not regard him as such," calmly answered the French queen. "Then you are the only person in the kingdom who is of that opinion!" retorted the duke. "Even before I left France, and during the lifetime of my father, King Henry," said Isabella, interrupting with considerable animation, "your Majesty knows that that was his reputation; and you may be certain that so long as he is retained in his present office the good will always be kept in fear and in disfavor, while the bad will find him a support and advocate in all their evil courses. If he were to be confined for a few days only in his own house, you would at once discover the truth of my words, so much better would the interests of religion advance."[376] But this step Catharine was by no means willing to take. Nor, when again pressed by Alva, who dwelt much on the importance to Philip of knowing her intentions as to applying herself in earnest to the good work, so as to be guided in his own actions, would she deign to give any clearer indications. Yet she avowed--greatly shocking the orthodox duke thereby[377]--that she designed, instead of securing the acceptance of the decrees of Trent by the French, to convene a council of "good prelates and wise men," to settle a number of matters not of divine or positive prescription, which the Fathers of Trent had left undecided. Alva expressed his extreme astonishment, and reminded her of the Colloquy of Poissy--the source, as he alleged, of all the present disgraceful situation of France.[378] But Catharine threw the whole blame of the failure of that conference upon the inordinate conceit of the Cardinal of Lorraine,[379] and persisted in the plan. The Spaniard came to the conclusion that Catharine's only design was to avoid having recourse to salutary rigor, and indulged in his correspondence with his master in lugubrious vaticinations respecting the future.[380]

[Sidenote: Catharine rejects all violent plans.]

[Sidenote: Cardinal Granvelle's testimony.]

So far, then, was the general belief which has been adopted by the greater number of historians up to our own days from being correct--the belief that Catharine framed, at the Bayonne conference, with Alva's a.s.sistance, a plan for the extermination of the Protestants by a ma.s.sacre such as was realized on St. Bartholomew's Day, 1572--that, on the contrary, the queen mother refused, in a peremptory manner that disgusted the Spanish fanatics, every proposition that looked like violence. That we have not read the correspondence of Alva incorrectly, and that no letter containing the mythical agreement of Catharine ever reached Philip, is proved by the tone of the letters that pa.s.sed between the great agents in the work of persecution in the Spanish Netherlands. Cardinal Granvelle, who, in his retreat at Besancon, was kept fully informed by the King of Spain, or by his chief ministers, of every important event, and who received copies of all the most weighty doc.u.ments, in a letter to Alonso del Canto expresses great regret that Isabella and Alva should have failed in their endeavor to induce Catharine de' Medici to adopt methods more proper than she was taking to remedy the religious ills of France. She promised marvels, he adds, but was determined to avoid recourse to arms, which, indeed, was not necessary, if she would only act as she should. He was persuaded that the plan she was adopting would entail the ruin of religion and of her son's throne.[381]

[Sidenote: Festivities and pageantry.]

While the policy of two of the most important nations on the face of the globe, in which were involved the interests, temporal and eternal, of millions of men, women, and children, formed the topic of earnest discussion between two women--a mother and her daughter, the mother yet to become infamous for her partic.i.p.ation in a b.l.o.o.d.y tragedy of which she as yet little dreamed--and a Spanish grandee doomed to an equally unenviable immortality in the records of human suffering and human crime, the city of Bayonne was the scene of an ephemeral gayety that might well convey the impression that such merry-making was not only the sole object of the conference, but the great concern of life.[382] Two nations, floundering in hopeless bankruptcy, yet found money enough to lavish upon costly but unmeaning pageants, while many a n.o.ble, to satisfy an ostentatious display, made drafts which an impoverished purse was little able to honor.

The banquets and jousts, the triumphal arches with their flattering inscriptions, the shows in which allegory revelled almost to madness--all have been faithfully narrated with a minuteness worthy of a loftier theme.[383] This is, however, no place for the detailed description which, though entertaining, can be read to advantage only on the pages of the contemporary pamphlets that have come down to us.

Yet, in the discussion of the more serious concerns of a great religious and political party, we may for a moment pause to gaze at a single show, neither more magnificent nor more dignified than its fellows; but in which the youthful figure of a Bearnese destined to play a first part in the world's drama, but up to this time living a life of retirement in his ancestral halls, first makes his appearance among the pomps to which as yet he has been a stranger. The pride of the grandfather whose name he bore, Henry of Navarre had been permitted, at that whimsical old man's suggestion, to strengthen an already vigorous const.i.tution by athletic sports, and by running barefoot like the poorest peasant over the sides of his native hills. "G.o.d designed," writes a companion of his later days who never rekindles more of his youthful fire than when descanting upon his master's varied fortunes, "to prepare an iron wedge wherewith to cleave the hard knots of our calamities."[384] Later in childhood, when both father and grandfather were dead, he was the object of the unremitting care of a mother whose virtues find few counterparts or equals in the women of the sixteenth century; and Jeanne d'Albret, in a remarkable letter to Theodore Beza, notes with joy a precocious piety,[385] which, there is reason to fear, was not hardy enough to withstand the withering atmosphere of a court like that with which he was now making his first acquaintance.

One evening there was exhibited in a large hall, well lighted by means of blazing torches, a tournament in which the knights fought on foot.[386]

From a castle where they held an enchanted lady captive, the knights challengers issued, and "received all comers with a thrust of the pike, and five blows with the sword." Each champion, on his arrival, endeavored to enter the castle, but was met at the portal by guards "dressed very fantastically in black," and repelled with "lighted instruments." Not a few of the less ill.u.s.trious were captured here. The more exalted in rank reached the donjon, or castle-keep, but as they thought to set foot within it, a trap-door opened and they too found themselves prisoners. It fared better with the princes; for the success of each champion was measured by a rigid heraldic scale. These pa.s.sed the donjon, but, on a bridge leading to the tower where slept the enchanted lady, a giant confronted them, and in the midst of the combat the bridge was lowered, and they were taken, as had been their predecessors. "The Duke of Vendome,[387] son of the late duke, whom they call in France the Prince of Navarre--a boy apparently ten or eleven years of age--crossed the bridge, and the giant pretended to surrender; but he too was afterward repulsed like the rest." The Duke of Orleans--whom the reader will more readily recognize under the t.i.tle of Duke of Anjou, which he, about this time, received--next entered the lists. Naturally he penetrated further than his namesake of Navarre, and "the giant showed more fear of him than of the other;" but a cloud enveloped them both, and "thus the duke vanished from sight." King Charles was the last to fight, and for his prowess it was reserved for him to defeat the giant and deliver the lady.[388]

[Sidenote: The confraternities.]