History of the Rise of the Huguenots Volume II Part 16

[Sidenote: Ma.s.sacre by Menendez.]

Unfortunately the arrival of this fresh reinforcement was closely followed by the approach of a Spanish squadron, commanded by Pedro Menendez, or Melendez, de Abila, sent by Philip the Second expressly to destroy the Frenchmen who had been so presumptuous as to settle in territories claimed by his Catholic Majesty. Nature seemed to conspire with their own incompetency to ruin the French. The French vessels, having gone out to attack the Spaniards, accomplished nothing, and, meeting a terrible storm, were driven far down the coast and wrecked. "Caroline" fell into the hands of Menendez, and its garrison was mercilessly put to death. The same fate befell the s.h.i.+pwrecked French from the fleet. Those who declared themselves Roman Catholics were almost the only persons spared by their pitiless a.s.sailants. A few women and children were granted their lives; also a drummer, a hornblower, and a few carpenters and sailors, whose services were valuable.

Laudonniere and a handful of men escaped to the woods, and subsequently to Europe. About two hundred soldiers, who threatened to entrench themselves and make a formidable resistance, were able to obtain from Menendez a pledge that they should be treated as prisoners of war, which, strange to say, was observed. The rest--many hundreds--were consigned to indiscriminate slaughter; Ribault himself was flayed and quartered; and over the dead Huguenots was suspended a tablet with this inscription: "Hung, not as Frenchmen, but as Lutherans" (Gaffarel, 229; De Thou, iv. 113; Ag. d'Aubigne, i.

248). Spain and Rome had achieved a grand work. The chaplain Mendoza could piously write: "The greatest advantage from our victory, certainly, is the triumph our Lord grants us, which will cause His Holy Gospel to be introduced into these regions." (Mendoza, _apud_ Gaffarel, 214).

The report of these atrocities, tardily reaching the Old World, called forth an almost universal cry of horror.

Fair-minded men of both communions stigmatized the conduct of Menendez and his companions as sheer murder; for had not the French colonists of Florida been attacked before being summoned to surrender, and butchered in cold blood after being denied even such terms as were customarily accorded to Turks and other infidels? Among princes, Philip alone applauded the deed, and seemed only to regret that faith had been kept with any of the detested Huguenots (Gaffarel, 234, 245). It has been commonly supposed that whatever indignation was shown by Catharine de' Medici and her son, was merely a.s.sumed in deference to the popular clamor, and that but a feeble remonstrance was really uttered. This supineness would be readily explicable upon the hypothesis of the long premeditation of the ma.s.sacre of St. Bartholomew's Day. If the treacherous murder of Admiral Coligny and the other great Huguenot leaders had indeed been deliberately planned from the time of the Bayonne conference in 1565, and would have been executed at Moulins in 1566, but for unforeseen circ.u.mstances, no protests against the Florida butchery could have been sincere. On the other hand, if Catharine de' Medici was earnest and persistent in her demand for the punishment of Menendez, it is not conceivable that her mind should have been then entertaining the project of the Parisian matins. The extant correspondence between the French queen mother and her envoy at the court of Madrid may fairly be said to set at rest all doubts respecting her att.i.tude. She was indignant, determined, and outspoken.

So slowly did news travel in the sixteenth century, that it was not until the eighteenth of February, 1566, that Forquevaulx, from Madrid, despatched to the King of France a first account of the events that had occurred in Florida nearly five months before. The amba.s.sador seems to have expressed becoming indignation in the interviews he sought with the Duke of Alva, repudiating with dignity the suggestion that the blame should be laid upon Coligny, for having abused his authority as admiral to set on foot a piratical expedition into the territories of a friendly prince; and holding forth no encouragement to believe that Charles would disavow Coligny's acts. He told Alva distinctly that Menendez was a butcher rather than a good soldier ("plus digne bourreau que bon soldat," Forquevaulx to Charles IX., March 16, 1566, Gaffarel, 425). He declared to him that the Turks had never exhibited such inhumanity to their prisoners at Castelnovo or at Gerbes--in fact, never had barbarians displayed such cruelty. As a Frenchman, he a.s.sured the Spaniard that he shuddered when he thought of so execrable a deed, and that it appeared to him that G.o.d would not leave it unpunished (Ibid., 426).

Catharine's own language to the Spanish amba.s.sador, Don Francez de Alava, was not less frank. "As their common mother," she said, "I can but have an incredible grief at heart, when I hear that between princes so closely bound as friends, allies, and relations, as these two kings, and in so good a peace, and at a time when such great offices of friends.h.i.+p are observed between them, so horrible a carnage has been committed on the subjects of my son, the King of France. I am, as it were, beside myself when I think of it, and cannot persuade myself that the king, your master, will refuse us satisfaction" (Catharine to Forquevaulx, Moulins, March 17th, Gaffarel, 427). Not content with this plain talking to Alava, she "prayed and ordered" Forquevaulx to make Philip himself understand her desires respecting "the reparation demanded by _so enormous an outrage_." He was to tell his Catholic Majesty that Catharine would never rest content until due satisfaction was made; and that she would feel "marvellous regret" should she not only find that all her pains to establish perpetual friends.h.i.+p between the two kings had been lost, but one day be reproached by Charles for having suffered such a stain upon his reputation ("que ... j'aye laisse faire une telle escorne a sa reputation." Gaffarel, 429).

Forquevaulx fulfilled his instructions to the very letter, adding, on his own account, that in forty-one years of military service he had never known so execrable an execution. He seems also to have disposed effectually of the Spanish claim to Florida through right of ancient discovery, by emphasizing the circ.u.mstance that Menendez, after his victory, thought it necessary to take formal possession of the land. He informed Philip that no news could be more welcome to the Huguenots than that the subjects of Charles had been murdered by those very persons who were expected to strengthen him by their friends.h.i.+p and alliance (Forquevaulx to Catharine, April 9th, Gaffarel, 432). His words had little effect upon any one at the Spanish court, save the young queen, who felt the utmost solicitude lest her brother and her husband should become involved in war with each other. ("Me sembla qu'il tint a peu qu'elle ne pleurast son soul de crainte qu'il ne survienne quelque alteration." Forquevaulx, _ubi supra_, 430.)

But, although no progress was made toward obtaining justice, the French government did not relax its efforts. Charles wrote from Saint Maur, May 12, 1566, that his will was that Forquevaulx should renew his complaint and insist with all urgency upon a reparation of the wrong done him. "You will not cease to tell them," said the king, "that they must not hope that I shall ever be satisfied until I see such a reparation as our friends.h.i.+p demands." (Gaffarel, 437.)

[Sidenote: Sanguinary revenge of De Gourgues, April, 1568.]

The French amba.s.sador continued to press his claim, and, in particular, to demand the release of the French prisoners, even up to near the time when a private citizen, Dominique de Gourgues, undertook to avenge his country's wrongs while satisfying his thirst for personal revenge. De Gourgues was not, as has usually been supposed, a Huguenot; he had even been an adherent of Montluc and of the house of Guise (Gaffarel, 265). But, having been captured in war by the Spaniards, in 1566, he had been made a galley-slave. From that time he had vowed irreconcilable hatred against the Catholic king. He obtained a long-deferred satisfaction when, in April, 1568, he surprised the fort of Caroline, slew most of the Spanish soldiers, and placed over the remainder--spared only for the more ignominious punishment of hanging upon the same trees to which Huguenots had been suspended--the inscription, burned with a hot iron on a pine slab: "I do this not as to Spaniards, nor as to seamen, but as to traitors, robbers, and murderers." (The words are given with slight variations. See "La Reprinse de la Floride par le Cappitaine Gourgue,"

reprinted by Gaffarel, 483-515; Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 354-356; De Thou, iv. 123-126.)

FOOTNOTES:

[265] Froude, Hist. of England, vii. 519. Seethe courteous summons of Charles, April 30, 1563, Forbes, State Papers, ii. 404, 405, and Elizabeth's answer, May 7th, ibid., ii. 409-411; Conde's offer in his letter of June 26, 1563, Forbes, ii. 442. See also the extended correspondence of the English envoys, in the inedited doc.u.ments published by the Duc d'Aumale, Princes de Conde, i. 423-500.

[266] Froude, vii. 520; Castelnau, liv. v., c. ii. Compare Forbes, ii.

422.

[267] "The plage dothe increace here dayly, wherby our nombres are decayde within these fowr days in soche sorte, as we have not remayning at this present (in all our judgements) 1500 able men in this towne. They dye nowe in bothe these peces upon the point of 100 a daye, so as we can not geyt men to burye theym," etc. Warwick to the Privy Council, July 11, 1563.

Forbes, ii. 458.

[268] De Thou, iii. (liv. x.x.xv.) 417-420; Mem. de Castelnau, liv. v., c.

ii. and iii.; Cimber et Danjou, v. 229; Stow's Annals (London, 1631), 655, 656; Agrippa d'Aubigne, liv. iv., c. ii. (i. 198-200); Davila, bk. iii.

(Eng. trans., London, 1678), p. 89; Froude, vii. 519-528. Consult especially Dr. Patrick Forbes, Full View of the Public Transactions in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth (London, 1741), vol ii. pp. 373-500. This important collection of letters, to which I have made such frequent reference under the shorter t.i.tle of "State Papers," ends at this point.

Peace was definitely concluded between France and England by the treaty of Troyes, April 11, 1564 (Mem. de Conde, v. 79, 80). Sir Nicholas Throkmorton, who had long been a prisoner, held to be exchanged against the hostages for the rest.i.tution of Calais, given in accordance with the treaty of Cateau-Cambresis, now returned home. Before leaving, however, he had an altercation with his colleague, Sir Thomas Smith, of which the latter wrote a full account. Sir Nicholas, it seems, in his heat applied some opprobrious epithets to Smith, and even called him "traitor"--a charge which the latter repudiated with manly indignation. "Nay, thou liest, quoth I; I am as true to the queen as thou any day in the week, and have done her Highness as faithful and good service as thou." Smith to Cecil, April 13, 1564, State Paper Office.

[269] Mem. de Claude Haton, i. 356, 357.

[270] See the order of the fanatical Parliament of Toulouse, which it had the audacity to publish with, or instead of, the king's edict. It contains this clause: "Ce que estant veu par nous, avons ordonne et ordonnons que, en la ville de Thoulouse ni aultres du ressort du parlement d'icelle, ne se fera publicquement ni secrettement aulcun exercice de la nouvelle pretendue religion, en quelque sorte que ce soit, sous peine de la hart.

Item, que tous ceux qui vouldront faire profession de laditte pretendue religion reformee ayent a se retirer," etc. Mem. de Claude Haton, i. 358, 359.

[271] Recordon, Le Protestantisme en Champagne, 132, 133.

[272] M. Floquet, in his excellent history of the Norman Parliament (ii.

571), repudiates as "une de ces exagerations familieres a De Beze," the statement of the Histoire eccles. des eglises reformees, "that in the Parliament of Rouen, whatever the cause might be, whoever was known to be of the (reformed) religion, whether plaintiff or defendant, was instantly condemned." Yet he quotes below (ii. 571, 573, 574), from Chancellor de l'Hospital's speech to that parliament, statements that fully vindicate the justice of the censure. "Vous pensez bien faire d'adjuger la cause a celuy que vous estimez plus homme de bien ou meilleur chrestien; comme s'il estoit question, entre les parties, lequel d'entre eux est meilleur poete, orateur, peintre, artisan, et enfin de l'art, doctrine, force, vaillance, ou autre quelconque suffisance, non de la chose qui est amenee en jugement." And after enumerating other complaints: "Ne trouvez point estrange ce que je vous en dy: car souvent sont apportez au roy de vos jugements qui semblent, de prime face, fort esloignez de toute droicture et equite."

[273] Chron. MS. du xvi. siecle, Registres, etc., _apud_ Floquet, Hist. du parlement de Normandie, ii. 525-547.

[274] Ibid., ii. 548.

[275] The father of Agrippa d'Aubigne was, as his son informs us, one of the commissioners sent on this occasion to Guyenne. Memoires d'A.

d'Aubigne, ed. Buchon, 474.

[276] What else can be said, in view of such well authenticated statements as the following? On his progress through France, to which reference will soon be made, Charles the Ninth stopped with his court at Troyes, where no expense was spared in providing tournaments and games for his amus.e.m.e.nt.

Just as he was about to leave the city, and was already booted for his journey, he was detained for a little while that he might witness a novel entertainment. He was taken to a garden where a number of young girls, selected for their extraordinary beauty and entirely nude, executed in his presence the most obscene dances. It was two churchmen that are said to have provided the boy-king with this infamous diversion--Cardinal Charles of Bourbon and Cardinal Louis of Guise. Recordon, 143.

[277] "Il est notoire qu'au temps du colloque de Poissy la doctrine evangelique y fut proposee en liberte; ce qui causa que plusieurs, tans grands que pet.i.ts, prindrent goust a icelle. Mais, tout ainsi qu'un feu de paille fait grand' flamme, et puis s'esteint incontinent d'autant que la matiere defaut, apres que ce qu'ils avoient receu comme une nouveaute se fut un peu envieilly en leur coeur, les affections s'amortirent, et la pluspart retourna a l'ancienne cabale de la cour, qui est bien plus propre pour faire rire et piaffer, et pour s'enrichir." Mem. de Franc. de la Noue, c. ii. (Ed. Mich, et Pouj., 591).

[278] "Quelque chose qu'il sut dire avec blasphemes horribles--moyen ordinaire a telles gens pour prouver leur religion." Hist. eccles. des eglises reformees, ii. 458. To stuff leaves torn from French Bibles into the mouths or wounds of dying or dead Huguenots, as we have seen, was a diversion not unknown to their opponents. Of course, there is nothing astonis.h.i.+ng in the circ.u.mstance that the invocation of Calvin's liturgy--"Notre aide soit au nom de Dieu qui a fait le ciel et la terre"--should have been a favorite formula for the beginning of a game of chance, or that the doxology--"Louange a Dieu de tous ses biens"--["Praise G.o.d from whom all blessings flow."]--should have been esteemed a fitting e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n for the winner. Ibid., ii. 310, 431.

[279] "'Double mort Dieu' a vaincu 'Certes'; entendant par ce dernier mot ceux de la religion qui cond.a.m.nent ces juremens et blasphemes." Hist.

eccles. des egl. ref., ii. 507.

[280] De Thou, iii. (liv. x.x.xv.) 409.

[281] Declaration dated Chatillon-sur-Loing, May 5, 1563. Mem. de Conde, iv. 339-349; and Jean de Serres, iii. 15-29.

[282] Martin, Hist. de France, x. 164.

[283] De Thou, iii. (liv. x.x.xv.), 415, 416. Catharine had been the involuntary instrument of renewing the old friends.h.i.+p between the constable and his nephews, when, on Guise's death, she conferred the office of grand master upon his young son, instead of restoring it to Anne de Montmorency, to whom the dignity had formerly belonged. Three months later (Aug. 30, 1563) Conde drew up another paper, a.s.suming the entire responsibility for all the acts of the Chatillon brothers during the war: "Acte par lequel M. le prince de Conde declare que tout ce que M. l'amiral de Coligny et M. D'Andelot son frere ont fait pendant les troubles, ils ont fait a sa requisition et par ses ordres." Mem. de Conde, iv. 651.

[284] See Martin, x. 174, 175.

[285] Davila, bk. iii. 92, and D'Aubigne, liv. iv., c. iii. (i. 201), both of whom mistake the place of the occurrence, supposing it to have been Paris.

[286] Copie de la requeste presentee au Roy tres-chrestien par ceulx de la mayson de Guyse, etc. Mem. de Conde, iv. 667, 668.

[287] Ibid., iv. 668.

[288] "C'est un vray moyen pour destruire et gaster en une heure tout le fondement de ce qu'elle a prins grand' peine de bastir depuis six mois."

Memoire presente a la Reine-mere, pour empecher que la maison de Guyse n'allat demander justice au parlement de Paris, de l'a.s.sa.s.sinat de Francois duc de Guise. Mem. de Conde, iv. 493-495.

[289] Arret du conseil du Roy, par lequel il evoque a sa personne le proces meu entre les maisons de Guyse et de Chastillon, etc. Mem. de Conde, iv. 495.

[290] "Ne parlez encore a personne," writes Catharine to M. de Gonnor (March 12, 1563), "des conditions, car j'ay toujours peur qu'ils ne nous trompent; encore que le Prince de Conde leur a declare que s'ils n'acceptent ces conditions et s'ils ne veulent la paix, qu'il s'en viendra avec le Roy mon fils, et se declarera leur ennemy, chose que je trouve tres-bonne." Le Laboureur, ii. 241.

[291] Not September 15th, as Davila states, nor September 24th, as D'Aubigne seems to a.s.sert; but his narrative is confused.

[292] The two doc.u.ments--address and edict--in Mem. de Conde, iv. 574-581.

[293] Floquet, Hist. du parlement de Normandie, ii. 584. The entire scene is very vividly portrayed, ibid., ii. 561-586. Bruslart, Mem. de Conde, i.

132; De Thou, iii. (liv. x.x.xv.) 421-424; Jean de Serres, iii. 32; Mem. de Castelnau, liv. v., c. iv., etc.; Agrippa d'Aubigne, Hist. univ., liv.

iv., c. iii. (i. 200-202); Davila, bk. iii. 90.

[294] "Les Parisiens furent fort presses qu'ils eussent a mettres les armes bas," says the metropolitan curate, Jean de la Fosse, under date of May, 1563, "mais ils n'en volurent jamais rien faire." Mem. d'un cure ligueur, 63, 64.

[295] A town on the left bank of the Seine, four leagues beyond Meulan.