History of the Rise of the Huguenots

This place, strong by nature, surrounded by low, marshy grounds, rendering it almost unapproachable from the land side, save by the causeways over which the roads ran, with a large and convenient harbor and with easy access to the sea, was already rich and populous. The citizens of La Rochelle were noted for their independent spirit, engendered or fostered by their maritime habits. Although the great importance of the city dates from the civil wars, when its wharves received the commerce driven from older ports, and when its privateers swept the shores of Brittany and the bosom of the English channel, it had long boasted extraordinary privileges, among which the most highly prized was the right to refuse admission to a royal garrison.487 Besides this, the citizens were accustomed to choose three candidates for the office of major, from whom the king or the royal governor made his selection; and the magistrate thus appointed enjoyed an authority which the Rochellois would scarcely concede to their monarch.488 La Rochelle – whose former orthodoxy Father Soulier attempts to establish by instancing the sentence which the "présidial" of the city pronounced in 1552 against some Protestants, condemning them to be dragged on a hurdle with a fagot of sticks bound to their backs, and afterward to be burned, one of them alive489– had been so far affected by the progress of the Reformation, that it was perhaps only the fear of losing its trade and privileges that prevented it from openly siding with Condé in the first religious war.490 By this time, however, Protestantism had struck such deep roots, that one of the three candidates for the mayoralty, at the Easter elections of 1567, was Truchares, a political Huguenot. The king was, indeed, warned of his sentiments; but the royal governor, M. de Jarnac, supported his claims, and Truchares received the requisite confirmation.491 Still La Rochelle hesitated to espouse the Protestant side. It was not until midwinter,492 that Condé, returning from Lorraine, commissioned M. de Sainte-Hermine to assume command of the city in his name; and on the tenth of February, 1568, the mayor and échevins of La Rochelle opened their gates to their new friends, with protestations of their purpose to devote their lives and property to the advancement of the common cause. "The sequel proved only too clearly," writes a Roman Catholic historian, "that they were very sincere in their promises; for, having soon after demolished all the churches, they employed the materials to fortify this city in such a manner that it served from this time forward as a citadel for the Protestants, and as a secure retreat for all the apostates and malcontents of the kingdom until it was reduced by Louis the Thirteenth."493

Spain and Rome oppose the negotiations for peace.

Meantime the irresolute queen mother, always oscillating between war and peace, had again begun to treat with the Huguenots. Between the fifth and twentieth of January she held repeated interviews with Cardinal Châtillon, D'Esternay, and Téligny. The bigots took the alarm. The Papal Nuncio and the ambassadors of Spain and Scotland did their utmost "to impeach the accord." A post arrived from Philip the Second, offering a hundred thousand crowns of gold if Charles would continue the war. The doctors of the Sorbonne remonstrated. All united in a common cry that "it was impossible to have two religions in one realm without great confusion." Poor Charles was so moved by the stale falsehood, as well as by the large promises made him, that he sent the Protestant envoys word that he would treat no further unless Condé and his "complices" would send the reiters back to Germany, and, wholly disarming, come to him with their ordinary retinues to purge themselves of the attempt made at Meaux.

Cardinal Santa Croce demands that Cardinal Châtillon be surrendered to the Pope.

Retort of Marshal Montmorency.

Even this amount of complaisance on the part of the weak monarch, however, did not satisfy Cardinal Santa Croce, who, on one occasion entering the council chamber (on the twentieth of January), boldly demanded the fulfilment of the queen mother's promise to surrender Cardinal Châtillon into the Pope's hands. Catharine did not deny the promise, but interposed the plea that the present was a very unsuitable time, since Châtillon had come to court upon the king's safe-conduct. To this the churchman replied that no respect ought to be had toward the Cardinal, for he was "an excommunicate person," condemned of schism, and dead in the eyes of the law. Up to this point the Duke de Montmorency, who was present, had kept silence; but now, turning to the queen mother, he is reported by the English ambassador to have made a pungent address. "But, madam," he said, "is it possible that the Cardinal Châtillon's delivery should come in question, being warranted by the king and your Majesty to the contrary, and I myself being made a mean therein? Wherefore this matter is odious to be talked of, and against the law of arms and all good civil policy; and I must needs repute them my enemies who go about to make me falsify my promise once made." After these plain words Santa Croce "departed without attaining his most cruel request."494

March of the viscounts to meet Condé.

During the first few months after the assumption of arms, the Huguenots of southern France, surrounded by domestic enemies, had confined themselves to attempting to secure their own safety and that of their neighbors, by taking the most important cities and keeping in check the forces of the provincial governors – an undertaking in which they met with more success in the districts bordering upon the Mediterranean than in those adjoining the Bay of Biscay. These events, although in themselves important and interesting, would usurp a disproportionate place in this history. While Condé was absent from the vicinity of the capital, however, a body of six thousand troops, drawn from the army of the viscounts, under Mouvans and other experienced southern leaders, undertook a hazardous march from Dauphiny, intending to join the prince's army at Orleans.495 The cities were in the possession of the enemy, the fords were carefully guarded, the entire country was hostile. But the perils which might have deterred less resolute men only enhanced the glory of the success of the gallant Huguenots. Abandoned by a considerable number of their comrades, who preferred a life of plunder to a fatiguing journey under arms, they met (on the eighth of January, 1568) and defeated, with a force consisting almost exclusively of infantry, the cavalry which the governor of Auvergne and the local nobility had assembled near the village of Cognac496 to dispute their passage. Continuing their march, they reached Orleans in time to relieve that city, to whose friendly protection against the Roman Catholic bands of Martinengo and Richelieu that infested its neighborhood and threatened its capture Condé and the other Huguenot leaders of the north had entrusted their wives and children.497

Siege of Chartres.

Having stopped a brief time to rest the soldiers after the protracted march, the viscounts turned their victorious arms against the city of Blois. After the surrender of this place, they had proceeded down the valley of the Loire, and were about to take Montrichard, on the Cher, when recalled by Condé. The prince had by forced marches anticipated the army of Anjou, resolving to strike a blow which should be felt at the hostile capital itself, and had selected Chartres, an important city about fifty miles in a south-westerly direction from Paris, as the most convenient place to besiege.498 Rapid, however, as had been his advance – and a part of his army had travelled sixty miles in two days – the enemy had sufficient notice of his intention to throw into the city a small force of soldiers; and when Condé arrived before the walls (on the twenty-fourth of February, 1568), he found the place prepared to sustain an attack, in which the courage of the assailants was equalled by the skill and resolution of the defenders. As usual, the Huguenots were badly off for artillery; the united armies could only muster five siege-pieces and four light culverines. "For, although the Catholics esteem the Huguenots to be 'fiery' men," says a quaint old writer, who was as ready with his sword as with his pen, "they have always been poorly provided with such implements. Nor have they, like the former, a Saint Anthony, who, they say, presides over the element in question."499

The operations of the siege of Chartres were interrupted by fresh negotiations for peace. Half a year had the flames of war been desolating the fairest parts of France; yet the court was no nearer the attainment of its ends than at the outbreak of hostilities. If the Roman Catholic forces had been swollen to about forty thousand men, they were confronted by a Huguenot army of twenty-eight or thirty thousand men in the very neighborhood of the capital. The voice of prudence dictated an immediate settlement of the dispute before more lives were sacrificed, more towns and villages destroyed, more treasure squandered. Catharine, reigning supreme under her son's name, with her usual inconstancy of purpose, was ready to exchange the war, into which she had plunged France by lending too willing an ear to the suggestions of Philip of Spain, as they came to her through the Cardinal of Lorraine and others, and which had produced only bloodshed, devastation of the kingdom, and deeper depression of the finances, for the peace to which Michel de l'Hospital, her better genius, was constantly urging her by every consideration of policy and justice.

Chancellor Michel de l'Hospital's memorial.

In a paper, wherein about this time the chancellor committed to writing the arguments he had often ineffectually employed to persuade the king and his mother, he combats with patriotic indignation the flimsy pretexts of which the priests and the Spaniard made use in pressing the continuance of hostilities. "'The king has more men than the Huguenots.' True, but we find twice as many battles on record gained by the smaller as by the greater number; in consequence of which fact all princes and nations have recognized the truth that victory is the gift of God. 'The king's cause is the more just.' Grant it – yet God makes use of such instruments as He wills to punish our iniquities – the Babylonians, for instance, of old, the Turks in our own days. The Huguenots have thus far succeeded beyond all expectation. They have little money, but what they have they use well, and they can get more. Their devotion to their cause is conspicuous. They are not a rabble hastily gotten together, which has risen imprudently, in disorder, without a leader, without discipline. They are experienced, resolute, desperate warriors, with plans formed long ago – men ready to risk everything for the attainment of their matured designs. Necessity and despair render them docile and wonderfully subject to discipline; and with this cooperates the high esteem they have conceived of their leaders, whose ambition is restrained, whose union is cemented by the same necessity which the ancients called 'the bond of concord.' On the contrary, the king's camp is rent by quarrels, envy, and rivalry; ambition is unbridled, avarice reigns supreme. With the termination of so wretched a war, there will shine forth a joyous and blessed peace, which I can justly term a 'precious conquest,' since it will render his Majesty redoubtable to all Europe, which has learned the greatness of the two powers which the king will restore to his own subjection.

"The true method of breaking up the leagues of the Huguenots is to remove the necessity for forming them. This must be done by treating the Huguenots no longer as enemies, but as friends. For, if we examine carefully into the matter, we shall find that hitherto they have been dealt with as rebels; and this has compelled them to resort to all means of self-preservation. This has placed arms in their hands; this has engendered the horrible desolation of France. For the intrigues set on foot against them in all quarters were conducted with so little attempt at secrecy – the disfavor was so evident, the disdain was so apparent, the threats of the rupture of the Edict of Pacification and of the publication of the decrees of the Council of Trent were so open, and the injustice of their handling was so manifest, that they had been too dull and stupid, had they not avoided the treachery in store for them.500 Even brute beasts perceive the coming of the storm, and seek the covert; let us not find fault if men, perceiving it, arm themselves for the encounter. Our menaces have been the messengers of our plots, as truly as the lightning is the messenger of the thunderbolt. We have shown them our preparatives; let us, therefore, cease to wonder that they stand ready to start on the first intimation of danger.501 When they see that they have no longer anything to fear, they will certainly return to their accustomed occupations."502

Edict of Pacification, Longjumeau, March 23, 1568.

L'Hospital was right. The Huguenots wanted nothing but security of person and conscience – the latter even more than the former. And they were ready to lay down their arms so soon as the court could bring itself to concede the restoration of the Edict of Amboise, without the restrictive ordinances and interpretations which had shorn it of most of its value. On this basis negotiations now recommenced. The more prudent Huguenots suggested that the party ought to receive at the king's hands some of the cities in their possession, to be held as pledges for the execution of the articles of the compact. But Charles and his counsellors resented the proposal as insulting to the dignity of the crown,503 and the Huguenots, not yet fully appreciating the fickleness or treachery of the court, did not press the demand – a fatal weakness, soon to be atoned for by the speedy renewal of the war on the part of the Roman Catholics.504 After brief consultation the terms of peace were agreed upon, and were incorporated in the royal edict of the twenty-third of March, 1568, known, from the name of the place where it was signed, as the "Edict of Longjumeau." The cardinal provisions were few: they re-established the supremacy of the Edict of Amboise, expressly repealing all the interpretations that infringed upon it; and permitted the nobles, who under that law had been allowed to have religious exercises in their castles, to admit strangers as well as their own vassals to the services of the reformed worship. Condé and his followers were, at the same time, recognized as good and faithful servants of the crown, and a general amnesty was pronounced covering all acts of hostility, levy of troops, coining of money, and similar offences. On the other hand, the Huguenots bound themselves to disband and lay down their arms, to surrender the places they held, to renounce foreign alliances, and to eschew in future all meetings other than those religious gatherings permitted under the last peace. The new edict was not a final and irrevocable law, but was granted "until, by God's grace, all the king's subjects should be reunited in the profession of one and the same religion."505

Condé favors and Coligny opposes the peace.

The Huguenots gained by this peace all their immediate demands, and so far the edict might be deemed satisfactory. But what better security had they for its observance more than they had had for the observance of that which had preceded it? Coligny, prudent and far-sighted, had shown himself as averse to concluding it without sufficient guarantees for its faithful execution, as he had been opposed to beginning the war a half-year before. The peace, he urged, was intended by the court only as a means of saving Chartres, and of afterward overwhelming the reformers;506 and he attempted to prove his assertions by the signal instances of bad faith which had provoked the recourse to arms. But Condé was impatient. If we may believe Agrippa d'Aubigné, his old love of pleasure was not without its influence;507 but he covered his true motives under the specious pretext afforded him by the Huguenot nobles, who, fatigued with the incessant toils of the campaign, reduced to straits by a warfare which they had carried on at their own expense, and longing to revisit homes which had been repeatedly threatened with desolation, had abandoned their standards and scattered to their respective provinces at the first mention of peace.508 François de la Noue, more charitable to the prince, regards the universal desire for peace, without much concern respecting its conditions, as the wild blast of a hurricane which the Huguenot captains could not resist if they would.509 When whole cornets of cavalry started without leave, before the siege of Chartres was actually raised, what could generals, deserted by volunteers who had come of their own accord and had served for six months without pay, expect to accomplish?

Was the court sincere?

A treacherous plot detected. The king indignant.

Was the peace of Longjumeau – "the patched-up peace," or "the short peace," as it was called; that "wicked little peace," as La Noue styles it510– a compact treacherously entered into by the court? This is the old, but constantly recurring question respecting every principal event of this unhappy period; and it is one that rarely admits of an easy or a simple answer. So far as the persons who had been chiefly instrumental in forwarding the negotiations which ended in the peace of Longjumeau were concerned, they were Chancellor L'Hospital and the Bishops of Orleans and Limoges – the most moderate members of the royal council,511 whose fair spirit was so conspicuous that for years they had been exposed to insult and open hostility as supposed Huguenots. Nothing is clearer than that the purpose of these men was the sincere and entire re-establishment of peace on a lasting foundation. The arguments of L'Hospital which I have laid before the reader furnish sufficient proof. This party had, through the force of circumstances, temporarily obtained the ascendancy in the council, and now had the ear of the queen mother. But there were by the side of its representatives at the council-board men of an entirely different stamp – advocates of persecution, of extermination; a few, from conscientious motives, preferring, with Alva, a kingdom ruined in the attempt to root out heresy, to one flourishing, with heresy tolerated; a larger number – and Cardinal Lorraine, who had now resumed his seat and his influence, must be classed with these – counting upon deriving personal advantage from the supremacy of the papal faction. It is equally manifest that this party could have acquiesced in the peace, which again formally acknowledged the principle of religious toleration, only with the design of embracing the first favorable opportunity for crushing the Huguenots, when scattered and disarmed. Their desires, at least, deceived no one of ordinary perspicacity. Indeed, the peace came near failing to go into effect at all, in consequence of the discovery of the fact that a "privy council" had been held in the Louvre, to which none but sworn enemies of the Huguenots were admitted, "wherein was conspired a surprise of Orleans, Soissons, Rochelle, and Auxerre," to be executed by four designated leaders, while the Protestants were laying down their arms. In an age of salaried spies, it is not astonishing that by ten o'clock the next morning the whole plot was betrayed to Cardinal Châtillon, who immediately sent word to stay the publication of the peace. When Charles heard of it, we are told that he swore, by the faith of a prince, that, if there had been any such conspiracy, it had been formed wholly without his knowledge, and, laying his hand on his breast, said: "This is the cardinal and Gascoigne's practice. In spite of them, I will proceed with the peace;" and, commanding pen and ink to be brought, he wrote Condé a letter promising a good and sincere observance of the articles agreed upon.512

Short-sightedness of Catharine.

But, besides the two parties, and wavering between them – fluctuating in her own purposes, as false to her own plans as she was to her promises, with no principles either of morality or of government, intent only on grasping power, the enemy of every one that stood in the way of this, even if it were her son or her daughter – was that enigma, Catharine de' Medici, whose secret has escaped so many simply because they looked for something deep and recondite, when the solution lay almost upon the very surface. Was Catharine sincerely in favor of peace? She was never sincere. Her Macchiavellian training, the enforced hypocrisy of her married life, the trimming policy she had thought herself compelled to pursue during the minority of the kings, her two sons, had eaten from her soul, even to its root, truthfulness – that pure plant of heaven's sowing. Loving peace only because it freed her from the fears, the embarrassments, the vexations of war – not because she valued human life or human happiness – she embraced it as a welcome expedient to enable her to escape the present perplexities of her position. It is improbable that Catharine distinctly premeditated a treacherous blow at the Huguenots, simply because she rarely premeditated anything very long. I am aware that this estimate of the queen is quite at variance with the views which have obtained the widest currency; but it is the estimate which history, carefully read, seems to require us to adopt. Catharine's plans were proverbially narrow in their scope, never extending much beyond the immediate present. After the catastrophe, which had perhaps been the result of the impulse of the moment, she was not, however, unwilling to accept the homage of those who deemed it a high compliment to her prudence to praise her consummate dissimulation. She probably entered upon the peace of Longjumeau without any settled purpose of treachery – unless that state of the soul be in itself treachery that has no fixed intention of upright dealing. But she had not, in adopting the advice of Chancellor de l'Hospital, renounced the policy of the Cardinal of Lorraine, in case that policy should at some future time appear to be advantageous; and it was much to be feared that the contingency referred to would soon arrive. Catharine, not less than Charles himself, resented "the affair of Meaux" of the preceding September. It was studiously held up to their eyes by the enemies of the Huguenots as an attempt upon the honor, and indeed even upon the personal liberty and life of their Majesties. Might not Catharine and Charles be tempted to retaliate by trying the effect of a surprise upon the Huguenots themselves?

Imprudence of the Huguenots.

The Huguenots had certainly been grossly imprudent in putting themselves at the mercy of a woman whom they had greatly offended, and whose natural place, according to those mysterious sympathies which bind men of similar natures, was with their adversaries. They had been warned by their secret friends at court, some of them by Roman Catholic relatives.513 But the caution was little heeded. It was not long514 before those who had been the most strenuous advocates of peace began to admit that the draught they had put to their own lips, and now must needs drink, was likely to prove little to their taste.515

Judicial murder of Rapin, at Toulouse.

The parliaments made serious objections to the reception of the edict. Toulouse was, as usual, pre-eminent for its intolerance. The king sent Rapin, a Protestant gentleman who had served with distinction under Condé in Languedoc, to carry the law to the parliament, and require its official recognition. The choice was unfortunate, for it awakened all the hatred of a court proverbial for its hostility to the Reformation. An accusation of matters quite foreign to his mission was trumped up against Rapin, and, contrary to all the principles of justice, and notwithstanding the privileged character he bore as the king's envoy, he was arrested, condemned to death, and executed. So atrocious a crime might perhaps have been punished, had not the new commotions to which we shall soon be obliged to pay attention, intervened and screened the culprits from their righteous retribution.516 Not content with murdering Rapin, the Parliament of Toulouse still refused to register the edict, and not less than four successive orders were sent by the king before his refractory judges yielded an unwilling consent, even then annexing restrictive clauses which they took care to insert in their secret records.517