History of the Rise of the Huguenots Volume II Part 25

[475] De Thou, iv. 37-41; Castelnau, liv. vi., c. 8; La Fosse, 91.

[476] Catharine de' Medici to Alva, Dec. 4, 1567, Gachard, Correspondance de Philippe II., i. 607.

[477] Alva to Catharine de' Medici, Dec., 1567, Gachard, Correspondance de Philippe II., i. 608, 609.

[478] It is told of one lackey that he contributed twenty crowns.

[479] The scene is described in an animated manner by Francois de la Noue, c. xv. (Ancienne Collection, xlvii. 199-201); De Thou, iv. 41. "Marque le lecteur," writes Agrippa d'Aubigne, in his nervous style, "un trait qui n'a point d'exemple en l'antiquite, que ceux qui devoient demander paye et murmurer pour n'en avoir point, puissent et veuillent en leur extreme pauvrete contenter une armee avec 100,000 livres a quoi se monta cette brave gueuserie; argument aux plus sages d'aupres du roi pour prescher la paix; tenans pour invincible le parti qui a la pa.s.sion pour difference, et pour solde la necessite." Hist. univ., i. 228. D'Aubigne is mistaken, however, in making the army contribute the entire 100,000. Davila and De Thou say they raised 30,000; La Noue, over 80,000.

[480] Mem. de Fr. de la Noue, c. xv.

[481] Ibid., _ubi supra_.

[482] Memoires de Claude Haton, i. 500-503.

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

[484] Menard, Hist. de Nismes, apud Cimber et Danjou, vii. 481, etc.; Bouche, Histoire gen. 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 ma.s.sacre with the many ma.s.sacres 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'Aubigne, i. 211.

[487] Henri Martin (Histoire de France, x. 255), on the authority of Coustureau, Vie du duc de Montpensier, states that the Roch.e.l.lois 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 couterent cher!" The authority, however, is very slender in the absence of all corroborative evidence, and Arcere, more than a century ago, showed (Histoire de la Roch.e.l.le, 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 ill.u.s.trative note at the end of this chapter.

[488] Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 218. "Plus absolument et avec plus d'obesance que les Roch.e.l.lois, qui depuis ont tousjours tenu le parti reforme, n'en ont voulu deferer et rendre aux princes mesmes de leur parti, contre lesquels ils se sont souvent picquez, en resveillant et conservant curieus.e.m.e.nt leurs privileges."

[489] Others were beaten and banished, and suffered the other penalties denounced by the Edict of Chateaubriant, as Soulier goes on to show with much apparent satisfaction. Hist. des edits, etc., 67, 68. The text of the joint sentence of Couraud, Constantin, and Monjaud is interesting. It is given by Delmas, L'eglise reformee de la Roch.e.l.le (Toulouse, 1870), pp.

19-25.

[490] Martin, Hist. de France, x. 254.

[491] Agrippa d'Aubigne, _ubi supra_; Davila, bk. iv. 122; De Thou, iv. 27 seq.; Soulier, 69. According to Arcere, Hist. de la Roch.e.l.le, 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 apres," is therefore unfortunate.

[493] Soulier, Hist. des edits 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 Conde was not far from right in protesting against the proposed limitation of Cardinal Chatillon's escort to twenty horse, insisting "que la qualite de mondict sieur le Cardinal, qui n'a acoustume de marcher par pas avecques si peu de train, ny son eage (age) ne permectent pas maintenant de commencer." Conde to the Duke of Anjou, Dec. 27, 1567, MS. Bibl. nat., Aumale, Prince de Conde, 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 a.n.a.logous position in Provence, Montbrun in Dauphine, and D'Acier, younger brother of Crussol, in Languedoc. Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 220, 221; De Thou, iv. 33; Duc d'Aumale, Princes de Conde, i. 327. When "the viscounts" consented, at the earnest solicitation of the second Princess of Conde, 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'Aubigne, 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'Aubigne 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 a feu_, si sont-il toujours mal pourveus de tels instrumens," etc. Mem. 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'Aubigne, i. 229-232.

[500] "Ils eussent este par trop lourds et stupides, s'ils n'en eussent evite la feste."

[501] "Cessons donc de nous esbahir s'ils ont un pied en l'air et l'oeil en la campagne."

[502] The whole of this remarkable memorial is inserted in the older Collection universelle de memoires, 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, a.s.sures 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.

Mem., 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'Aubigne, i. 260, etc.

[506] "L'Amiral maintenoit et remonstroit que cette paix n'estoit que pour sauver Chartres, et puis pour a.s.sommer separez ceux qu'on ne pourroit vaincre unis." Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 232.

[507] "Le Prince de Conde plus facile, desireux de la cour, ou il avoit laisse quelque s.e.m.e.nce d'amourettes, se servit de ce que plusieurs quittoient l'armee," etc. Ibid., _ubi supra_.

[508] La Noue, c. xviii.

[509] La Noue, c. xix.

[510] "La paix fourree," Soulier, Histoire des edits de pacification, 73.

"Ceste meschante pet.i.te paix," La Noue, c. xix. Agrippa d'Aubigne, Hist.

universelle, i. 260, and, following him, Browning, Hist. of the Huguenots, i. 220, and De Felice, Hist. of the Protestants of France, 190, say that this peace was wittily christened "La paix boiteuse et mal-a.s.sise;" 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 Conde 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. Conde to Charles IX., April 5, 1568, MS., Archives du dep. 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; Conde's pet.i.tion of Aug. 23d, ibid., iii. 218; Mem. 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 cure'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 resiste a laditte pretendue religion et faict executer ceux qui en faisoient profession, non.o.bstant edict a ce contraire faict en faveur d'iceux huguenotz." See also Raoul de Cazenove, Rapin-Thoyras, sa famille, sa vie, et ses oeuvres (Paris, 1866), 47-49--a truly valuable work, and a worthy tribute to a distinguished ancestry.

[517] "Edictum promulgant, hac addita exceptione, _Reservatis clausulis quae secreto Senatus commentario continentur_." J. de Serres, iii. 160, 161; De Thou, _ubi supra_. See the pet.i.tion of Conde of Aug. 23d. J. de Serres, iii. 220, etc.

[518] Mem. de Claude Haton, ii. 527, etc.

[519] "Sire," said a n.o.bleman, 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 a 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 ruine le pais de France." Jehan de la Fosse, 93, 94.