History of the Rise of the Huguenots

Louis of Nassau confers with the king.

Count Louis of Nassau, ever since the conclusion of peace, had remained with the Huguenots within the walls of La Rochelle. At the repeated solicitations of his brother, the Prince of Orange, he had entered into correspondence with the king, and urged him to embrace an opportunity such as might never return, to endear himself to the Netherlanders, and add materially to the extent and power of France by espousing the cause of constitutional rights. His advances were so favorably received that he now came in disguise, accompanied by La Noue, Téligny, and Genlis, to confer with Charles upon the subject. They met at Lumigny-en-Brie, whither the king had gone to indulge in his favorite pastime of the chase, and on several consecutive days held secret conferences.836 Louis was a nobleman whose history and connections entitled him to respect; but his frank and sincere character was a still more powerful advocate in his behalf.837 He proved to the king how justly he might interfere in defence of the Low Countries, where Philip was seeking "to plant, by inquisition, the foundation of a most horrible tyranny, the overthrow of all freedoms and liberties." He traced the course of events since the humiliating treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis, and added: "If you think in conscience and honor you may not become the protector of this people, you should do well to forbear, for otherwise the success cannot be gained. If you think you may, then weigh in policy how beneficial it will be for you, and how much your father would have given, to have had the like opportunity offered unto him that is now presented unto you gratis; which, if you refuse, the like you must never look for."

Both Charles and his mother appeared well pleased with the proposal, and the king, who had listened attentively to the recital of the follies into which Philip had fallen in consequence of listening to evil advice, exclaimed: "Similar counsellors, by violating my edict, wellnigh brought me into like terms with my subjects, wherefrom ensued the late troubles; but now, thank God, He has opened my eyes to discern what their meaning was." Next, Louis showed that success was not difficult. The Roman Catholics and the Protestants in the Netherlands equally detested the tyranny of the Spaniards. The towns were ready to receive garrisons. Philip had not in the whole country over three thousand troops upon whose fidelity he could rely. The addition of a dozen ships to those already possessed by the patriots would enable them effectually to prevent the landing of Spanish reinforcements. In short, the Netherlands were ripe for a division which would amply recompense France and the German princes, as well as Queen Elizabeth, should she, as was hoped, consent to take part in the enterprise: for the provinces of Flanders and Artois, which had once belonged to the French crown, would gladly give themselves up to Charles; Brabant, Gelderland, and Luxemburg would be restored to the empire; and Holland, Zealand, and the rest of the islands would fall to the share of the queen.838

Admiral Coligny consulted.

He marries Jacqueline d'Entremont.

So favorably did Charles and his mother, with those counsellors to whom the secret was intrusted, receive the count's advances, that it was clearly advisable to bring them into communication with Admiral Coligny, to whose conduct the enterprise, if adopted, must be confided, and for whom the young king expressed great esteem. Indeed, so urgently was the admiral invited, and so intimately did the success or failure of the attempt to enlist France in the Flemish war seem to be dependent upon his personal influence, that Gaspard de Coligny, despite the ill-concealed solicitude of many of his more suspicious friends, consented to trust himself in the king's hands. As for himself, the admiral had little desire to leave the secure retreat of La Rochelle. Here he was surrounded by friends. Here his happiness had been enhanced by two marriages which promised to add greatly to the wealth and influence he already possessed. Jacqueline d'Entremont, the widow of a brave officer killed in the civil wars, had long entertained an admiration, which she made no attempt to disguise, for the bravery and piety of the stern leader of the Huguenots. Possessed of very extensive estates in the dominions of the Duke of Savoy, she had also the qualities of mind and disposition which fitted her to become the wife of so upright and magnanimous a man. The proposals of marriage are said to have come from her relatives, nor did the lady herself hesitate to express the wish before her death to become the Marcia of the new Cato.839 The nuptials were celebrated with great pomp at La Rochelle, whither Jacqueline, after having been married by proxy,840 was escorted by a goodly train of Huguenot nobles. Great were the rejoicings of the people, but not less great the anger of the Duke of Savoy, who, as Jacqueline's feudal lord, claimed the right to dispose of her hand, and had peremptorily forbidden her to marry the admiral. The barbarous revenge which Emmanuel Philibert too soon found it in his power to inflict upon the unfortunate widow of Coligny forms the subject for one of the darkest pages of modern history.841 Under no less auspicious circumstances was consummated the union of Coligny's daughter, Louise de Châtillon, to Téligny, a young noble whose skill as a diplomatist seemed to have destined him to hold a foremost rank among statesmen. Scarcely less unhappy, however, than her step-mother, Louise was to behold both her father and her husband perish in a single hour by the same dreadful catastrophe.

Accepts the invitation to court.

Was it foolish rashness or overweening presumption that led the admiral to leave the new home he had made within the strong defences of La Rochelle; or was he moved solely by a conscientious persuasion that he had no right to consider personal danger when the great interests of his country and his faith were at stake? The former view has not been without its advocates, some of whom have gloried in finding the proofs of a judicial blindness sent by Heaven to hasten the self-induced destruction of the Huguenots. A more careful consideration of all the circumstances of the case, illustrated by a better appreciation of Coligny's character, rather induces me to adopt the opposite conclusion. Certainly the noble language of Coligny in reply to the warnings of his friends, both now and later, when he was about to venture within the walls of Paris, displayed no unconsciousness of the perils by which he was environed. "Better, however, were it," he said, "to die a thousand deaths, than by undue solicitude for life to be the occasion of keeping up distrust throughout an entire kingdom."

About the beginning of September, 1571, Charles and his court repaired to Blois, on the banks of the Loire.842 The avowed object of the movement was to meet Coligny and the Protestant princes. "There are many practices (intrigues) to overthrow this journey," wrote Walsingham, about the middle of the preceding month, "but the king sheweth himself to be very resolute. I am most constantly assured that the king conceiveth of no subject that he hath, better than of the admiral, and great hope there is that the king will use him in matters of greatest trust; for of himself he beginneth to see the insufficiency of others – some, for that they are more addicted to others than to himself; others, for that they are more Spanish than French, or else given more to private pleasures than public. There is none of any account within this realm, whose as well imperfections as virtues, he knoweth not. Those that do love him, do lament that he is so much given to pleasure: they hope the admiral's access unto the court will yield some redress in that case. Queen mother, seeing her son so well affected towards him, laboreth by all means to cause him to think well of her. She seemeth much to further the meeting."843

His honorable reception.

Nothing could surpass the honorable reception of the admiral, when, on the twelfth of September, he arrived with a small retinue at court in the city of Blois. On first coming into the royal presence, he humbly kneeled, but Charles graciously lifted him up, and embraced him, calling him his father, and protesting that he regarded this as one of the happiest days of his life, since he saw the war ended and tranquillity confirmed by Coligny's return. "You are as welcome," said he, "as any gentleman that has visited my court in twenty years." And in the same interview, he expressed his joy in words upon which subsequent events placed a sinister construction, but which nevertheless appear to have been uttered in good faith: "At last we have you with us, and you will not leave us again whenever you wish."844 Nor was Catharine behind her son in affability. She surprised the courtiers by honoring the Huguenot leader with a kiss. And even Anjou, who chanced to be indisposed, received him in his bedchamber with a show of friendliness. More substantial tokens of favor followed. The same person, who, as the principal general of the rebels, had been attainted of treason, his castle and possessions being confiscated or destroyed by decree of the first parliament of France, and a reward of fifty thousand gold crowns being set upon his head, now received from the king's private purse the unsolicited gift of one hundred thousand livres, to make good his losses during the war. Moreover, he was presented with the revenues of his lately deceased brother, the Cardinal Odet de Châtillon, for the space of one year, and was intrusted with the lucrative office of guardian of the house of Laval during the minority of its heir. Indeed, throughout his stay at Blois, which was protracted through several weeks, Coligny was the favored confidant of Charles, who sometimes even made him preside in the royal council.845

Moreover, it was doubtless at Coligny's suggestion that the king at this time wrote to the Duke of Savoy interceding for those Waldenses who in the recent wars had aided the French Protestants in arms, and who since their return to the ducal dominions had experienced severe persecution on that account. "I desire," he says in this letter, "to make a request of you, a request of no ordinary character, but as earnest as you could possibly receive from me – that, just as for the love of me you have treated your subjects in this matter with unusual rigor, so you would be pleased, for my sake, and by reason of my prayer and special recommendation, to receive them into your benign grace, and reinstate them in the possessions which have for this cause been confiscated." He added that he desired not only to exhibit to his Protestant subjects his intention to execute his edict, but to extend to their allies from abroad the same love and protection.846

Disgust of the Guises and of Alva.

These and other marks of honorable distinction shown to the acknowledged head of the Huguenots, must have been excessively distasteful both to the Guises and to the Spaniard. The former now retired from court, and left Charles completely in the hands of the Montmorencies and the admiral.847 Earlier in the year, the Duke of Alva had met with a signal rebuff at the hands of the French, when, in return for the aid furnished to Charles by his Catholic Majesty during the late wars, he requested him to supply him with German reiters, to allow him to levy in France troops to serve against the Prince of Orange, and to detain the fleet which was said to be preparing for the prince at La Rochelle. The first two demands were peremptorily refused, while the ships, it was replied, were intended merely to make reprisals upon the Spaniards, who had taken some Protestant vessels, drowned a part of their crew in the ocean, and delivered others into the power of the Inquisition, and could not be interfered with.848 The Spanish ambassador had borne with the offensiveness of this answer; but the favor with which the Huguenots were now received, and the openness with which the Flemish war was discussed, rendered his further stay impossible. It is true that the interviews of Louis of Nassau with the king were held with great secrecy, and that Charles even had the effrontery to deny that he had met the brother of Orange at all.849 It was impossible to deny that Philip's subjects were despoiled by vessels which issued with impunity from La Rochelle. But, although the ambassador declared that these grievances must be redressed, or war would ensue, he was bluntly informed by Charles that "Philip might not look to give laws to France." Catharine partook of her son's indignation, the more so as she seems at this time to have shared in the current belief that her daughter Elizabeth had been poisoned by her royal husband.850 At last, in November, the ambassador withdrew from court, without taking leave of the king, after having, in scarcely disguised contempt,851 given away to the monks the silver plate which Charles had presented to him.

Charles gratified.

While the new policy of conciliation and toleration thus disgusted one, at least, of those foreign powers which had spurred on the government to engage in suicidal civil contests, it was at home producing the beneficent results hoped for by its authors. Charles himself appeared to be daily more convinced of its excellence. In a letter to President Du Ferrier, the French envoy at Constantinople, written during the admiral's stay at Blois, he exposed for the sultan's benefit the reasons for the mutation in his treatment of the Huguenots, and for the cordial reception he had given Coligny at his court. "You know," he said, "that this kingdom fell into discord and division, in which it still is involved. I forgot no prescription which I thought might cure it of this ulcerous wound; at one time trying mild remedies, at others applying the most caustic, without sparing my own person, or those whom nature made most dear to me… But, having at length discovered that only time could alleviate the ill, and that those who were at the windows were very glad to see the game played at my expense,852 I had recourse to my original plan, which was that of mildness; and by good advice I made my Edict of Pacification, which is the seal of public faith, under whose benign influence peace and quiet have been restored." And referring to Coligny's arrival, he added: "You know that experience is dearly bought and is worth much. I must therefore tell you that the chief result which I hoped from his coming begins already to develop, inasmuch as the greater part of my subjects, who lately lived in some distrust, have by this demonstration gained such assurance of my kindness and affection, that all partisan feeling and faction are visibly beginning to fade away."853

Proposed marriage of Henry of Navarre and the king's sister.

Besides the Flemish project, an important domestic affair engaged the attention of the king and his counsellors at the time of Coligny's visit. This was the proposed marriage of young Henry, the Prince of Béarn, and after his mother's death heir of the crown of Navarre, to Margaret of Valois, the youngest sister of Charles the Ninth. Margaret, who had lately entered upon her twentieth year, was a year and a half older than the prince.854 In a court and a state of society where the birth of a daughter was the signal for the initiation of an unlimited number of matrimonial projects, it is not surprising that this match, among many others, was talked of in the very infancy of the parties, perhaps with little expectation that anything would ever come of it. The prince was a sprightly boy, and, it is said, so delighted his namesake, Henry the Second, that the monarch playfully asked him whether he would like to be his son-in-law – a question which the boy found no difficulty in answering in the affirmative. In fact, the matter went so far that, when the young Bearnese was little over three years of age, Antoine of Bourbon wrote to his sister, the Duchess of Nevers, with undisguised delight, of "the favor the king has been pleased to show me by the agreement between us for the marriage of Madam Margaret, his daughter, with my eldest son – a thing which I accept as so particular a token of his good grace, that I am now at rest and satisfied with what I could most ardently desire in this world."855 But the boy's mother had not been inclined to accept the king's offer to take and educate him with his own children.856 She was not very familiar with the disorders of the royal court; but she had seen enough to convince her that the quiet plains at the foot of the Pyrenees could furnish a safer school of manners and morals. More than once the idea of the connection between the crowns of France and Navarre was revived, and in 1562 Catharine bethought herself of it as a means of detaching the unfortunate Antoine from the triumvirs, whose cause he had espoused with such strange infatuation.857 But other plans soon diverted the ambitious mind of the Italian queen. Moreover, the civil wars between Protestants and Roman Catholics made the marriage of the daughter of the "Very Christian King" to the son of the most obstinate Huguenot in France appear to be out of the range of propriety or likelihood. Meantime, Margaret's union with Sebastian of Portugal was seriously discussed.858 The tiresome negotiations ended in January, 1571, with a haughty refusal of her hand, dictated, as we have seen, by Philip himself. A few weeks later, as Margaret informs us in her Mémoires – which may generally be credited, except where the fair author's love affairs are concerned – the Prince of Navarre began again to be mentioned as an available candidate for her hand. She expressly states that it was from the Montmorencies that the first suggestion came859– that is, from François de Montmorency, the constable's oldest son. This nobleman, while he had inherited a great part of his father's influence, as the head of one of the most honorable feudal families in France, having its seat in the very neighborhood of the capital, had ranged himself with the party opposed to that with which Anne had been identified, and, although in outward profession a Roman Catholic, was in full sympathy with the liberal political views of his cousin, Admiral Coligny. This fact effectually disposes of the story that the marriage was proposed, however much it may subsequently have been entertained, as a trap to ensnare the Huguenots, thus thrown off their guard.

Marshal Biron, another statesman of the same type, was the messenger to carry the royal proposals to La Rochelle. He pictured to the Queen of Navarre in glowing colors the advantages that would flow from this alliance, the strength it would impart to the friends of mutual toleration, the consternation and dismay it would carry into the camp of the enemy. At the same time he declared that Charles the Ninth felt confident that, although he had not as yet obtained from the Pope the dispensation which the relationship subsisting between the parties, as well as their religious differences, rendered necessary, Pius the Fifth would ultimately place no obstacle in the way. Jeanne d'Albret gratefully acknowledged the honor offered by the king to her son, but, before accepting it, professed herself compelled to consult her spiritual advisers respecting the question whether such a marriage might in good conscience be entered into by a member of the reformed church.860 As for Margaret herself, she gives us in her Mémoires little light as to the state of her own feelings at this time. If we may imagine her so indifferent, she demurely expressed her acquiescence in whatever her mother might decide, but begged her to remember that "she was very Catholic," and that "she would be very sorry to marry any one who was not of her religion."861 A few months later, however, when the prospects of the marriage became less bright, because of the difficulties arising from religion, it would seem that, with a perversity not altogether unexampled, Margaret became more anxious to have it consummated. At least, Francis Walsingham writes to Lord Burleigh: "The gentlewoman, being most desirous thereof, falleth to reading of the Bible, and to the use of the prayers used by them of the religion."862

The Anjou match abandoned.

Meanwhile, the project of a marriage between Elizabeth and Anjou had, as we have seen, been virtually abandoned. The matter of religion was the ostensible stumbling-block; it can scarcely have been the real difficulty on either side. As to Anjou, the sincerity of his religious convictions is certainly not above suspicion. But he was the head of a party in his brother's kingdom, a party that professed unalterable devotion to the "Holy See" and the old faith. If the eternal rewards of his fidelity to the papacy were at all problematical, there was no doubt whatever in his mind of the advantage of so powerful support as that which the ecclesiastics of France could give him. He was resolved not to throw away this advantage by openly agreeing to renounce all exercise of his own religion in England, and this, too, without the certainty that the concession would secure to him the hand of the queen. And, unfortunately, it was impossible for him to gain this certainty. Elizabeth was already pretty well understood. Her fancies and freaks it was beyond the power of the most astute of her ministers to predict or to comprehend. If the barrier of religion were demolished, there was no possibility of telling what more formidable works might be unmasked. And so Henry, rather more sensible upon this point than even Catharine and Charles, who would have had him shrink from no concessions, made a virtue of necessity, definitely withdrew from competition for the hand of a woman for whose personal appearance it was impossible for him to entertain any admiration; whose moral character, he had often been told and he more than half suspected, was bad;863 and told his friends, and probably believed, that he had had a narrow escape. The queen, on the other hand, was perhaps not conscious of insincerity of purpose. She must marry, if not from inclination, for protection's sake – the protection of her subjects and herself – so all the world told her; and a marriage that would secure to England the support of France against Spain was the best. But that she sought excuses for not taking the Duke of Anjou is evident, even though she strove to make it appear to others, as well as to herself, that the refusal came at last from him.864 And she had her advisers – subjects who in secret aspired to her hand, or others – who, in an underhand way, stimulated her aversion to Henry. It is not unlikely that the Earl of Leicester, despite his ardent protestations of zealous support of the match, was the most insidious of its opponents. "While 'the poor Huguenots' were telling Walsingham in tears that an affront from England would bring back the Guises, and end in a massacre of themselves, Leicester was working privately upon the queen, who was but too willing to listen to him, feeding her through the ladies of the bedchamber with stories that Anjou was infected with a loathsome disease, and assisting his Penelope to unravel at night the web which she had woven under Cecil's direction in the day."865

The praise of Alençon.

So the negotiation of a marriage between Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Anjou, after being virtually dead for about a half-year, breathed its last in January, 1572. But the full accord between the two kingdoms was too important to the interests of both, and the opportunity of obtaining a crown for one of her sons too precious in the eye of Catharine. Accordingly the discussion of the terms of the treaty of amity was pressed with still greater zeal, while the French envoy to England was instructed to offer Alençon to Elizabeth in place of his brother. And now were the wits of the statesmen on both sides of the channel exercised to find good reasons why the match would be no incongruous one. Unfortunately, Alençon, as already stated, was short even for his age; but this was no insuperable obstacle. "Nay," said Catharine de' Medici to Sir Thomas Smith, when she was sounding him respecting his mistress's disposition, "he is not so little; he is so high as you, or very near." "For that matter, madam," replied Smith, "I for my part make small account, if the queen's majestie can fancie him. For Pipinus Brevis, who married Bertha, the King of Almain's daughter, was so little to her, that he is standing in Aquisgrave, or Moguerre, a church in Almain, she taking him by the hand, and his head not reaching to her girdle; and yet he had by her Charlemain, the great Emperor and King of France, which is reported to be almost a giant's stature."866 It was not so easy to dispose of the disparity in years,867 and perhaps still less of Alençon's disfigurement by small-pox; for that unlucky prince added this to the long catalogue of his misfortunes. The course of the treaty for mutual defence was, happily, somewhat smoother than that of the matchmaking. On the eighteenth of April the treaty was formally concluded,868 and shortly after, Marshal Montmorency and M. de Foix were despatched to administer the oath to Queen Elizabeth. This solemn ceremony was performed on Sunday, the fifteenth of June. The deputies were received with every mark of distinction, and the marshal was publicly presented by the queen with the insignia of the Order of the Garter.869 The commission of the French envoys instructed them to press upon Elizabeth the Alençon marriage as a powerful means of cementing the alliance; and it empowered them to expend money to the extent of ten or twelve thousand crowns in buying the consent of those lords who had hitherto opposed the union. The Earl of Leicester, whose straightforwardness may have been suspected, was to be tempted by the special offer of some French heiress in marriage, the name of Mademoiselle de Bourbon being suggested.870 But the marriage was not destined to be accomplished, although the negotiations were kept up until the very time of the massacre, and Elizabeth sent to Catharine de' Medici her hearty acknowledgment of the honor she had done her in offering her all her sons successively.871 At the very moment when the fearful blow fell which was to render any such marriage impossible, Catharine was planning and proposing an interview between Elizabeth on the one side, and herself and Alençon on the other. That the dignity of neither party might be compromised, it was suggested that the meeting might take place some calm day on the water between Dover and Boulogne.872 Elizabeth had reconsidered her partial refusal, and encouraged the project; the nobles, the ladies of the court, the council, all favored it; and in a letter written four days after the streets of Paris flowed with blood, but before the appalling intelligence had reached him, the French ambassador wrote to Catharine: "All who are well affected cry to us, 'Let my Lord the Duke come!'"873