History of the Rise of the Huguenots Volume II Part 24

[432] "Une armee gaillarde." La Noue, _ubi supra_.

[433] Mem. de Castelnau, liv. vi., c. iv., c. v.; La Noue, c. xi.; De Thou, iv. (liv. xlii.) 5, 6. Davila, l. iv., p. 110, alludes to the accusation, extorted from Protestant prisoners on the rack, that "the chief scope of this enterprise was to murder the king and queen, with all her other children, that the crown might come to the Prince of Conde," but admits that it was not generally credited. The curate of Saint Barthelemi is less charitable; describing the rising of the Protestants, he says: "En ung vendredy 27e se partirent de toutes les villes de France les huguenots, sans qu'on leur eust dit mot, mais ils craignoient que si on venoit au dessein de leur entreprise qui estoit de prendre ou tuer le roy Charles neuvieme, qu'on ne les saccagea es villes." Journal d'un cure ligueur (J. de la Fosse), 85.

[434] La Noue, and De Thou, _ubi supra_.

[435] The historian, Michel de Castelnau, sieur de Mauvissiere, had been sent as a special envoy to congratulate the Duke of Alva on his safe arrival, and the d.u.c.h.ess of Parma on her relief. As he was returning from Brussels, he received, from some Frenchmen who joined him, a very circ.u.mstantial account of the contemplated rising of the Huguenots, and, although he regarded the story as an idle rumor, he thought it his duty to communicate it to the king and queen. Memoires, liv. vi., c. iv.

[436] Mem. de Castelnau, _ubi supra_. It is probable that the French court partook of Cardinal Granvelle's conviction, expressed two years before, that the Huguenots would find it difficult to raise money or procure foreign troops for another war, not having paid for those they had employed in the last war, nor holding the strongholds they then held.

Letter of May 7, 1565, Papiers d'etat, ix. 172.

[437] Mem. du duc de Bouillon (Ancienne Collection), xlvii. 421.

[438] La Fosse, p. 86, represents Charles as exclaiming, when he entered the Porte Saint Denis: "Qu'il estoit tenu a Dieu, et qu'il y avoit quinze heures qu'il estoit a cheval, et avoit eust trois alarmes."

[439] Mem. de Castelnau, liv. vi., c. v.; La Noue, c. xiii. (Anc. Coll., xlvii. 180-185); De Thou, iv. 8; J. de Serres, iii. 129-131; La Fosse, 86; Agrippa d'Aubigne, Hist. univ., i. 210.

[440] "Ravi d'avoir allume le feu de la guerre," says De Thou, iv. 9.

[441] De Thou, _ubi supra_.

[442] The circ.u.mstance of two messengers, each bearing letters from the same person, while the letters made no allusion to each other, following one another closely, struck Alva as so suspicious, that he actually placed the second messenger under arrest, and only liberated him on hearing from his own agent on his return that the man's credentials were genuine.

[443] Alva proposed to detach 5,000 men to prevent the entrance of German auxiliaries into France, and protect the Netherlands.

[444] Letter of Alva to Philip, Nov. 1, 1567, Gachard, Correspondance de Philippe II., i., 593.

[445] "Que la ley salica, que dizien, es baya, y las armas la allanarian."

Ibid, i. 594.

[446] The price of wheat, Jehan de la Fosse tells us (p. 86) advanced to fifteen francs per "septier."

[447] Journal d'un cure ligueur (J. de la Fosse), 86.

[448] In one of Charles's first despatches to the Lieutenant-Governor of Dauphiny, wherein he bids him restrain, and, if necessary, attack any Huguenots of the province who might undertake to come to Conde's a.s.sistance, there occurs an expression that smacks of the murderous spirit of St. Bartholomew's Day: "You shall cut them to pieces," he writes, "without sparing a single person; for the more dead bodies there are, the less enemies remain (car tant plus de mortz, moins d'ennemys!)" Charles to Gordes, Oct. 8, 1567, MS. in Conde Archives, D'Aumale, i. 563.

[449] Davila (i. 113) makes the latter her distinct object in the negotiations: "The queen, to protract the time till supplies of men and other necessary provisions arrived, and to abate the fervor of the enemy, being constrained to have recourse to her wonted arts, excellently dissembling those so recent injuries, etc."

[450] Of course "Sieur Soulier, pretre" sees nothing but perversity in these grounds. "Ils n'alleguerent que des raisons frivolles pour excuser leur armement." Histoire des edits de pacification, 64.

[451] Davila is certainly incorrect in stating that the Huguenots demanded "that the queen mother should have nothing to do in the government" (p.

113).

[452] October 7th, Soulier, Hist. des edits de pacification, 65.

[453] De Thou, iv. (liv. xlii.) 10-15; Jean de Serres, iii. 131, 132; Davila, bk. iv. 113-115; Agrippa d'Aubigne, Hist. universelle, l. iv., c.

6, 7 (i. 211, 212); Castelnau, l. vi., c. 6.

[454] So closely was Paris invested on the north, that, although accompanied by an escort of sixty horse, Castelnau was driven back into the faubourgs when making an attempt by night to proceed by one of the roads leading in this direction. He was then forced to steal down the left bank of the Seine to Poissy, before he could find means to avoid the Huguenot posts. Memoires, l. vi., c. 6.

[455] Castelnau was instructed to ask for three or four regiments of Spanish or Italian foot, and for two thousand cavalry of the same nations.

[456] I have deemed it important to go into these details, in order to exhibit in the clearest light the insincerity of Philip the Second--a prince who could not be straightforward in his dealings, even when the interests of the Church, to which he professed the deepest devotion, were vitally concerned. My princ.i.p.al authority is the envoy, Michel de Castelnau, liv. vi., c. 6. Alva's letter to Catharine de' Medici, Dec., 1567, Gachard, Correspondance de Philippe II., i. 608, 609, sheds some additional light on the transactions. I need not say that, where Castelnau and Alva differ in their statements, as they do in some essential points, I have had no hesitation in deciding whether the duke or the impartial historian is the more worthy of credit. See, also, De Thou, iii. (liv.

xli.) 755.

[457] Mem. de Fr. de la Noue, c. xiv. (Ancienne coll., xlvii. 189); Davila, bk. iv. 116; Agrippa d'Aubigne, Hist. universelle, i. 212, 213; De Thou, iv. 22; Martin, Hist. de France, x. 246. There is some discrepancy in numbers. There is, however, but little doubt that those given in the text are substantially correct. D'Aubigne blunders, and more than doubles the troops of the constable.

[458] Agrippa d'Aubigne relates an incident which has often been repeated.

Among the distinguished spectators gathered on the heights of Montmartre, overlooking the plain, was a chamberlain of the Turkish sultan, the same envoy who had been presented to the king at Bayonne. When he saw the three small bodies of Huguenots issue in the distance from Saint Denis, and the three charges, in which so insignificant a handful of men broke through heavy battalions and attacked the opposing general himself, the Moslem, in his admiration of their valor, twice cried out: "Oh, that the grand seignior had a thousand such men as those soldiers in white, to put at the head of each of his armies! The world would hold out only two years against him." Hist. univ., i. 217.

[459] "Autant de volontaires Parisiens bien armez et _dorez comme calices_." Agrippa d'Aubigne, l. iv., c. 8 (i. 213). "Tenans la bataille desja achevee, tout ce gros si bien dore print la fuitte." (Ibid., i.

215.)

[460] At Marignano, in 1515.

[461] He was taken prisoner by the Emperor Charles V. at Pavia, in company with Francis I.; at the battle of Saint Quentin, in 1557; and in 1562, at the battle of Dreux, by the Huguenots. It was rather hard that the story should have obtained currency, according to the cure of Meriot, that Constable Montmorency was shot by a royalist, who saw that he was purposely allowing himself to be enveloped by the troops of Conde, in order that he might be taken prisoner, "comme telle avoit ja este sa coustume en deux batailles!" Mem. de Claude Haton, i. 458.

[462] Even Henry of Navarre, in a letter of July 12, 1569, published by Prince Galitzin (Lettres inedites de Henry IV., Paris, 1860, pp. 4-11) states that he is unable to say whether it was Stuart, "pour n'en scavoir rien;" but a.s.serts that "il est hors de doubte et a.s.sez commung qu'il fut blesse en pleine bataille et combattant, et non de sang froid."

[463] Memoires de Fr. de la Noue, c. xiv.; Jean de Serres, iii. 137, 138; De Thou, iv. 22, etc.; Agrippa d'Aubigne, Hist. univ., i. 214-217; Castelnau, liv. vi., c. 7; Claude Haton, i. 457; Jean de la Fosse, 88, 89; Charles IX. to Gordes, Nov. 11, 1567, Conde MSS., D'Aumale, i. 564.

[464] "La mort dudit connestable fut plaincte de peu de gens du party des catholicques, a cause de la huguenotterie de l'admiral, du card. de Chastillon, et d'Andelot, ses nepveux, qui estoient, apres le Prince de Conde, chefz des rebelles huguenotz francoys et des plus meschant; et avoient plusieurs personnes ceste oppinion du connestable, qu'il les eust bien retirez de ceste rebellion s'il eust voulu, attendu que tous avoient este avancez en leurs estatz par le feu roy Henry, par son moyen." Claude Haton, i. 458.

[465] Charles IX. to Gordes, Nov. 17, 1567, Conde MSS., Duc d'Aumale, i.

565.

[466] This expose, committed to writing by the elector palatine's request, and translated for Frederick's convenience into German, is published by Prof. A. Kluckholn, in a monograph read before the Bavarian Academy of Sciences: "Zur Geschichte des angeblichen Bundnisses von Bayonne, nebst einem Originalbericht uber die Ursachen des zweiten Religionskriegs in Frankreich." (Abhandlungen, iii. Cl., xi. Bd., i. Abth.) Munich, 1868. The Huguenot envoys were Chastelier Pourtaut de Latour and Francour. The doc.u.ment is probably from the pen of the former (p. 13).

[467] De Thou, iv. 28, 29; Castelnau, liv. vi., c. 8; Jean de Serres, iii.

144, 146. Agrippa d'Aubigne, Hist. univ., i. 217, 218. Wenceslaus Zuleger's Report is printed in full by F. W. Ebeling, Archivalische Beitrage, 48-73, and by A. Kluckholn, Zwei pfalzische Gesandtschaftsberichte, etc. Abhandl.

der Bayer. Akad., 1868, 189-205.

[468] It is needless to say that no authentic coins or medals bearing Conde's head, with the designation of "Louis XIII.," have ever been found.

After the direct contradiction by Catharine de' Medici, no other testimony is necessary. The Jesuits, however, impudently continued to speak of Conde's treason as an undoubted truth, and even gave the legend of the supposed coin as "Ludovicus XIII., Dei gratia, Francorum Rex primus Christia.n.u.s." See "Plaidoye de Maistre Antoine Arnauld, Advocat en Parlement, pour l'Universite de Paris ... contre les Jesuites, des 12 et 13 Juillet, 1594." Memoires de la ligue, 6, 164. Arnauld stigmatizes the calumny as "notoirement fausse."

[469] Frederick, Elector Palatine, to Charles IX., Heidelberg, Jan. 19, 1568. Printed in full in F. W. Ebeling, Archivalische Beitrage, 74-82.

[470] Agrippa d'Aubigne, _ubi supra_.

[471] November 13th, "Hier au soyr, vers les sept heures," says Charles to Gordes, Nov. 14, 1567, MS. Conde Arch., D'Aumale, i. 565. The king naturally represents the movement as confused--"une bonne fuyte"--and confidently states that he will follow, and, by a _second_ victory, put a speedy end to the war.

[472] Agrippa d'Aubigne, liv. iv., c. 11 (i. 219).

[473] Ibid., i. 219, 220.

[474] La Noue, c. xiv.; De Thou, iv. 37; Jehan de la Fosse, 89, 90; Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 227. Davila, bk. iv., pp. 119, 120, represents Brissac's attack (which, according to him, was not made till after the expiration of the truce) as a part of a projected general a.s.sault. Anjou's main body failed to come up, and so Conde was saved. The blame was thrown on Marshal Gonnor (Cosse) and on M. de Carnavalet, the king's tutor, whom some suspected of unwillingness to allow so much n.o.ble blood to be shed.

Others accused the one of too much friends.h.i.+p with the Chatillons, the other of a leaning to heresy ("de sentir le f.a.got") Agrippa d'Aubigne, i.

227. See also Cl. Haton, i. 503. These two n.o.blemen were accused of advocating other designs which were very obnoxious to the Roman Catholic party. "La verite est," says Jehan de la Fosse, in his journal, p. 90, under date of December, 1567, "que aulcuns grands seigneurs entre lesquels on nomme Gonor [et] Carnavallet donnoient a entendre que si Monsieur, frere du roy, voloit prendre une partie de ces gens et les joindre avec le camp des huguenots, qui [qu'ils] le feroient comte de Flandre."