History of the Rise of the Huguenots

61

One of the latest exploits of the populace was the disinterring of a Huguenot buried in the cemetery of the Holy Innocents, and throwing his body into a public sewer! March 15th, Journal de Jehan de la Fosse, 45.

62

"Je cuide que si les novices des couvens et les chambrières des prestres seulement se fussent presentez à l'impourveue avec des bastons de cotterets (cotrets) ès mains, que cela leur eust fait tenir bride." Mém. de la Noue, c. ii.

63

Circular letter dated Paris, March 25th, apud Baum, ii., App., 172.

64

Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 132, 133 (liv. iii., c. 2). This striking incident rests on the sole authority of Agrippa d'Aubigné, who claims to have learned it "de ceux qui estoient de la partie." Hotman, who wrote his Gasparis Colinii Vita (1575) at the earnest request of the admiral's second wife, makes no allusion to a story throwing so much lustre upon the first.

65

Throkmorton to the queen, April 10, 1562, State Paper Office.

66

"Ou il faut que venez avec nous, ou nous emmenerons le Roy sans vous." Letter of Condé to the Emperor Ferdinand, April 20th, Mém. de Condé, iii. 305, etc.

67

"Alors Leurs Majestez, ne pouvant mieux, eurent recours à quelques larmes." Mém. de Castelnau, liv. iii., c. 8.

68

"Le Roy enfant de bonne nature et grande espérance, tesmoignoit non seulement par paroles, mais aussi avec abondance de larmes, extrême dueil et tristesse; et souventefois s'escriant, déploroit sa condition par telles paroles: 'Pourquoy ne me laissez-vous? Pour quelle raison me voy-je circuy et environné de gens armez? Pourquoy contre ma volonté me tirez-vous du lieu où je prenoye mon plaisir? Pourquoy deschirez-vous ainsi mon estat en ce mien aage?'" Letter of Condé, ubi supra, iii. 306.

69

Charles the Ninth's entry into Paris was a sorry pageant compared with that of Guise only a few weeks earlier. "Only the merchants and a few counsellors of the city were present," says Jehan de la Fosse (p. 47). The king rode between the queen mother and the King of Navarre. According to Chamberlain, it was a sober, but not a solemn entry (C. to Chaloner, April 7, 1562, State Paper Office). Either when Guise returned to Paris from Fontainebleau, or on his previous entry into the city – it is difficult from Claude Haton's confused narrative to determine which was intended – the people sang: "Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord." Mémoires, i. 245.

70

The singular name of this building is explained by the sign that hung before it. "Apvril. En ung samedy. M. Anne de Montmorenssy, connétable de France, fut devant brasque en la maison où pendoit pour enseigne la ville de Jérusalem, où preschoient les huguenots, et fist mettre le feu dedans la maison." Journal de J. de la Fosse, 46.

71

La Fosse, ubi supra; J. de Serres, ii. 27; Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., ii. 8; De Thou, iii. 136, 137; Bruslart, Mém. de Condé, i. 80; Santa Croce to Borromeo, April 5 (Aymon, i. 125); Throkmorton to the queen, ubi supra.

72

Santa Croce to Borromeo, April 5th, Aymon, i. 126, and Cimber et Danjou, vi. 74.

73

Chantonnay, ubi supra, ii. 32.

74

Journal de Jehan de la Fosse, 46. The "Porte St. Honoré," before which the Huguenots, after passing north of the city, presented themselves (Bruslart, Mém. de Condé, i. 78), was in Francis I.'s time near the present "Palais Royal," in the time of Louis XIII. near the "Madeleine." See the map in Dulaure, Histoire de Paris.

75

Mém de la Noue, c. i. The letter of Beza to Calvin from Meaux, March 28, 1562, shows, however, that even before the prince left that city it was known that the triumvirs had set out for Fontainebleau. Beza, not apparently without good reason, blamed the improvidence of Condé in not forestalling the enemy. "Hostes, relicto in urbe non magno præsidio, in aulam abierunt quod difficile non erat et prospicere et impedire. Sed aliter visum est certis de causis, quas tamen nec satis intelligo nec probo." Baum, ii., App., 176.

76

Yet, if we may credit the unambiguous testimony of Jean de Tavannes, Catharine did not cease to endeavor to favor the Huguenots. He assures us that, a few months later, during the summer, his father, Gaspard de Tavannes, intercepted at Châlons a messenger whom Catharine had despatched to her daughter the Duchess of Savoy ("qui agréoit ces nouvelles opinions") ostensibly as a lute-player. Among his effects the prying governor of Burgundy found letters signed by the queen mother, containing some rather surprising suggestions. "La Royne luy escrivoit qu'elle estoit resolue de favoriser les Huguenots, d'où elle espéroit son salut contre le gouvernement du triumvirat … qu'elle soupçonnoit vouloir oster la couronne à ses enfans; et prioit madame de Savoye d'aider lesdits Huguenots de Lyon, Dauphiné et Provence, et qu'elle persuadast son mary d'empescher les Suisses et levée d'Italie des Catholiques." Mém. de Tavannes (Petitot ed.), ii. 341, 342. Tavannes did not dare to detain the messenger, nor to take away his letters; and if, as his son asserts, the enmity of Catharine, which the discovery of her secret gained for him, delayed his acquisition of the marshal's baton for ten years, he certainly had some reason to remember and regret his ill-timed curiosity.

77

Mém. de la Noue, c. iii.; De Thou, iii. 138; Letter of Beza, of April 5th, Baum, ii., App., 177; Jean de Serres, ii. 24, 25; Bruslart, Mém. de Condé, i. 79. Chamberlain (to Chaloner, April 7, 1562), who on his way from Orleans met the first detachment within a mile of that city – "a thousand handsome gentlemen, well mounted, each having two or three daggs, galloping towards him." State Paper Office.

78

Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., ii. 7.

79

April 7th. Mém. de Condé, iii. 221; Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., ii., 9; J. de Serres, ii. 58, 59; De Thou, iii. 139. The historian of the reformed churches, as well as Beza in his letter of March 28th (Baum, ii., App., 176), complains bitterly of the slowness and parsimony of the Parisian Protestants, who seemed to be unable to understand that war was actually upon them.

80

April 8th. "Déclaration faicte par M. le prince de Condé, pour monstrer les raisons qui l'ont contraint d'entreprendre la défence de l'authorité du Roy," etc. Mém. de Condé, iii. 222-235; Jean de Serres, ii. 42-57; Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., ii. 9, 10; De Thou, iii. 139-141.

81

Traicté d'association, etc., April 11th. Mém. de Condé, iii. 258-262; J. Serres, ii. 31-37; De Thou, iii. 141.

82

See Pasquier's letter to Fonssomme, already referred to, which contains a vivid picture of the confusion reigning in Paris, the surprise of the papal party, and the delight of the untrained populace at the prospect of war. Œuvres (ed. Feugère), ii. 246-250.

83

Mém. de Castelnau, liv. iii., c. 8.

84

Ibid., liv. iii., c. 9.

85

Even so late as May 8, 1562, the English minister resident at the court, than whom probably no other person in France felt obliged to keep himself better informed, wrote to Cecil respecting the Prince of Condé's strength: "I can assur you att thys dyspatche he ys the strongest partie, and in suche state his matter standeth, that these men [the court] wold fayne have a reasonable end, thoughe yt were with some dishonnour." MSS. State Paper Office, Duc d'Aumale, Princes de Condé, Pièces justif., i. 370.

86

It is strange that a historian at once so conscientious and generally so well-informed as M. Rosseeuw Saint-Hilaire should, in his Histoire d'Espagne, ix. 60, 61, have made the grave mistake of holding Calvin responsible for the excesses of the iconoclasts. See the Bulletin, xiv. 127, etc., for a complete refutation.

87

Like the undeceived dupe in the old Athenian comedy, who mournfully laments that he had been led to worship a bit of earthenware as a god:

Οἴμοι δείλαιος,

Ὅτε καὶ σὲ χυτρεοῦν ὄντα θεὸν ἡγησάμην.

(Aristophanes, Clouds, 1473, 1474.)

On the other hand, the zealous Roman Catholic had his arguments for the preservation and worship of images, some of which may strike us as sufficiently whimsical. "I confess," says one, "that God has forbidden idols and idolatry, but He has not forbidden the images (or pictures) which we hold for the veneration of the saints. For if that were so, He would not have left us the effigy of his holy face painted in His likeness, on the cloth which that good lady Veronica presented Him, which yet to-day is looked upon with so much devotion in the church of St. Peter at Rome, nor the impression of His holy body represented in the 'saint suaire' which is at Chambéry. Is it not found that Saint Luke thrice made with his own hand the portrait of Our Lady?.. That holy evangelist ought certainly to have known the will of his Lord and Master better than you, my opponent, who wish to interpret the Scripture according to your sensuality." Discours des Guerres de Provence (Arch. curieuses, iv. 501, 502). Of course, the author never dreamed that his facts might possibly be disputed.

88

Les Recherches et Antiquitez de la ville de Caen, par Charles de Bourgueville, sieur du lieu, de Bras, et de Brucourt. À Caen, 1588. Pt. ii. 170-172. From page 76 onward the author gives us a record of notable events in his own lifetime. So also at Cléry, it is to be regretted that, not content with greatly injuring the famous church of Our Lady, the Huguenot populace, inflamed by the indiscretion of the priests, desecrated the monuments of the brave Dunois, and of Louis the Eleventh and his queen. Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., ii. 23. According to the author of the "Horribles cruautés des Huguenots en France" (Cimber et Danjou, vi. 304), they even burned the bones of Louis; nor did they respect those of the ancestors of the Prince of Condé.

89

"Monsieur, ayez patience que j'aie abattu cette idole, et puis que je meure, s'il vous plaît."

90

"Comme étant ce fait plutôt œuvre de Dieu que des hommes." Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., ii. 20. "L'impétuosité des peuples était telle contre les images, qu'il n'était possible aux hommes d'y résister." Ibid. ii. 23.

91

Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., ii. 20-22.

92

"Ledict moys," says Jehan de la Fosse in his journal (p. 47), "des citoyens de Sens tuèrent beaucoup de huguenots, voyant que monsieur le connétable avoict faict brûler Popincourt."

93

Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., ii. 242-245; Jean de Serres, ii. 40; De Thou, iii. 144. The massacre commenced on Sunday, April 12th (not 14th, as the Hist. ecclés. states), and was continued the next day or two. According to De Serres, the horrors of Sens seemed to efface those of Vassy itself. Read the really terrible paragraph on the subject in the contemporary "Remonstrance au Roy sur le faict des Idoles abbatues et déjettées hors des Temples" (Mém. de Condé, iii. 355-364), beginning "Où sont les meurtres, les boucheries des hommes passés au fil de l'espée, par l'espace de neuf jours en la ville de Sens?" The address to the Cardinal of Guise is not less severe than the address to his brother in the famous "Tigre": "Te suffisoit-il pas, Cardinal, que le monde sceust que tu es Atheiste, Magicien, Nécromantien, sans le publier davantage, et faire ouvrir en pleine rue les femmes grosses pour voir le siége de leurs enfans?" P. 360. White (Mass. of St. Bartholomew, 200) confounds in his account the two brother cardinals, and makes Lorraine to have been Archbishop of Sens.

94

Letter of Condé of April 19th, Mém. de Condé, iii. 300, 301; Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., ii. 246, 247; J. de Serres, ii. 40-42.

95

Throkmorton to Cecil, April 10, 1562. State Paper Office.

96

I will not sully these pages even by a reference to the unnatural and beastly crimes which De Thou and other trustworthy historians ascribe to the Roman Catholic troops, especially the Italian part.

97

So late as January, 1561, he wrote: "Quant à la religion, que sa Majesté se peult asseuré que je viveray et moreray en icelle." Gachard, Correspondance de Guillaume le Taciturne, ii. 6.

98

"Et suis mervilleusement mari de veoir comme ces méchantes hérésies se augmente partout," etc.

99

"Qu'il fasse tout debvoir du monde, tant par puplication, comme par force (autant qui j'en porrois la avoir) de remédier à telle désordre, qui est si domagable à tout la christienté."

100

Letter to Card. Granvelle, Oct. 21, 1560, Gachard, i. 461-463.

101

De Thou (whose graphic account I have principally followed), iii. 226-228; J. de Serres, ii. 183, 184; Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., iii. 164-167.

102

Agrippa d'Aubigné has inserted in his history (i. 154-156) an interesting conversation which he held with the Baron des Adrets, then an old man, a dozen years later, in the city of Lyons. In answer to the question, Why he had resorted to acts of cruelty unbecoming to his great valor? the baron replied that no one commits cruelty in avenging cruelty; for, if the first measures are cruelty, the second are justice. His severities, he urged, were needed in order to show proper spirit in view of the past, and proper regard for the future. His soldiers must be forced to commit themselves beyond hope of pardon – they must, especially in a war in which their opponents cloaked themselves with the royal authority, fight without respect of persons. "The soldier cannot be taught," said he with characteristic bluntness, "to carry his sword and his hat in his hand at the same time." When asked what motive he had in subsequently leaving his old comrades in arms, he explained that it was neither fear nor avarice, but disgust at their timid policy and at seeing himself superseded. And to D'Aubigné's third question – a somewhat bold one, it must be confessed – Why success had never attended his recent undertakings, he answered "with a sigh": "Mon enfant, nothing is too warm for a captain who has no greater anxiety for victory than have his soldiers. With the Huguenots I had soldiers; since then I have had only hucksters, who cared for nothing but money. The former were moved by apprehension unmingled with fear, and revenge, passion, and honor were the wages they fought for. I could not give those Huguenot soldiers reins enough; the others have worn out my spurs."

103

And yet I agree with Von Polenz, Gesch. des Franz. Calvinismus (Gotha, 1859), ii. 188, 189, note, in regarding the Roman Catholic accounts of Des Adrets's cruelties and perfidy as very much exaggerated, and in insisting upon the circumstance that the barbarity practised at Orange had furnished him not only the example, but the incentive.

104

According to Jean de Serres, this leader was the Baron des Adrets in person; according to De Thou, Montbrun commanded by the baron's appointment. So also Histoire ecclés., iii. 171.

105

So at Montbrison, the Baron des Adrets reserved thirty prisoners from the common slaughter to expiate the massacre of Orange by a similar method. One of them was observed by Des Adrets to draw back twice before taking the fatal leap. "What!" said the chief, "do you take two springs to do it?" "I will give you ten to do it!" the witty soldier replied; and the laugh he evoked from those grim lips saved his life. De Thou (iii. 231, 232) and others.

106

J. de Serres, ii. 188; Castelnau, liv., iv. c. ii. But the "Discours des Guerres de la comté de Venayscin et de la Prouence … par le seigneur Loys de Perussiis, escuyer de Coumons, subiect uassal de sa saincteté" (dedicated to "Fr. Fabrice de Serbellon, cousin-germain de N. S. P. et son général en la cité d'Avignon et dicte comté,") Avignon, 1563, and reprinted in Cimber (iv. 401, etc.), makes no mention of the fig-tree, and regards the preservation as almost miraculous. There is a faithful representation of the ruined Château of Mornas above the frightful precipice, in Count Alexander de Laborde's magnificent work, Les Monuments de la France (Paris, 1836), plate 179.

107

Discours des Guerres de la comté de Venayscin, etc., 453; De Thou, iii. 240.

108

Mém. de Blaise de Montluc, iii. 393 (Petitot ed.): "pouvant dire avec la vérité qu'il n'y a lieutenant de Roy en France qui ait plus faict passer d'Huguenots par le cousteau ou par la corde, que moy."

109

"Me deliberay d'user de toutes les cruautez que je pourrois." Ib., iii. 20. "Je recouvray secrettement deux bourreaux, lesquels on appella depuis mes laquais, parce qu'ils estoient souvent après moy." Ib., iii., 21. Consult the succeeding pages for an account of Montluc's brutality, which could scarcely be credited, but that Montluc himself vouches for it.

110

Since the publication of the Edict of January at Toulouse (on the 6th of February), the Protestant minister had sworn to observe its provisions before the seneschal, viguier, and capitouls, and, when he preached, these last had been present to prevent disturbance. A place of worship, twenty-four cannes long by sixteen in width (174 feet by 116), had been built on the spot assigned by the authorities. Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., iii. 1.

111

De Thou, iii. 294; Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., iii. 1-32.

112

Even in 1762, Voltaire remonstrated against a jubilee to "thank God for four thousand murders." Yet a century later, in 1862, Monseigneur Desprez, Archbishop of Toulouse, gave notice of the recurrence of the celebration in these words: "The Catholic Church always makes it a duty to recall, in the succession of ages, the most remarkable events of its history – particularly those which belong to it in a special manner. It is thus that we are going to celebrate this year the jubilee commemorative of a glorious act accomplished among you three hundred years ago." The archbishop was warm in his admiration of the last centennial procession, "at which were present all the persons of distinction – the religious orders, the officiating minister under his canopy, the red robes, and the members of parliament pressing behind the university, the seneschal, the bourgeoisie, and finally a company of soldiers." But the French government, not agreeing with the prelate in the propriety of perpetuating the reminiscence, forbade the procession and all out-door solemnities, and declared "the celebration of a jubilee of the 16th to the 23d of May next, enjoined by the Archbishop of Toulouse, to be nothing less than the commemoration of a mournful and bloody episode of our ancient religious discords." See a letter from a correspondent of the New York Evening Post, Paris, April 10, 1862.

113

Papal brief of April 23, 1562: "Ista sunt vere catholico viro digna opera, ista haud dubie divina sunt beneficia. Agimus omnipotenti Deo gratias, qui tam præclaram tibi mentem dedit," etc. Soldan, ii. 61.

114

De Thou, iii. 149-151.

115

Ibid., iii. 143, April 7th.

116

Catharine de' Medici stated to Sir Harry Sydney, the special English envoy, in May, 1562, that her son-in-law, the King of Spain, had offered Charles thirty thousand foot and six thousand horse "payd of his owne charge," besides what the Duke of Savoy and others were ready to furnish. Letter of Sidney and Throkmorton to Queen Elizabeth, May 8, 1562, MSS. State Paper Office. Duc d'Aumale, Princes de Condé, Pièces justif., i. 363.

117

Sir T. Chaloner, ambassador in Spain, to Sir Nicholas Throkmorton, May 1, 1562, Haynes, State Papers, 382, 383.

118

April 17th. Mém. de Condé, iii. 281-284.

119

May 15th and 16th, Mém. de Condé, iii. 284-287.

120

Froude, History of England, vii. 404.

121

Throkmorton to the queen, April 1, 1562, State Paper Office.

122

Cecil to Mundt, March 22, 1562, State Paper Office.

123

Wm. Hawes to Throkmorton, July 15, 1562, State Paper Office.

124

Hist. ecclés., iii. 143-145; De Thou, iii. 233, 234.

125

Almost all the members of Condé's council favored a call upon the German Protestant princes for prompt support. But "the admiral broke off this plan of theirs, saying that he would prefer to die rather than consent that those of the religion should be the first to bring foreign troops into France." It was, therefore, concluded to send two gentlemen to Germany, to remain there until the conclusion of the war, in order to explain the position of the Huguenots. Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., ii. 23.

126

Mém. de Condé, i. 79, 80. Cf. Baum, ii., App., 177.

127

Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., ii. 14; Mém. de Condé, i. 81-83, and iii. 256; De Thou, iii. 143.

128

"Que sans sa venue à Paris, il fust arrivé vers les Pasques, plus de quinze centz chevaulx de tous costez du royaume, pour saccager la ville," etc. Response à la Déclaration que faict le Prince de Condé, etc. Mém. de Condé, iii. 242.

129

Mém. de Condé, iii. 388-391; Hist, ecclés. des égl. réf., ii. 30, 31; Jean de Serres, ii. 63; De Thou, iii. 152.

130

J. de Serres, ii. 112-117; Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., ii. 27-29; Mém. de Condé, iii. 392, 393; De Thou, iii. 153, 154.

131

Jean de Serres, ii. 118-150; Mém. de Condé, iii. 395-416; Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., ii. 32-46; De Thou, iii. 154-157. It is incredible that, as De Thou suggests, this answer should have been penned by Montluc, Bishop of Valence. On the other hand, it bears every mark of having proceeded from the pen of that learned, eloquent, and sprightly writer, Theodore Beza. As a literary production it fully deserves the warm encomium passed upon it by Professor Baum: "It is a masterpiece in respect both to the arrangement and to the treatment of the matter; and, with its truly Demosthenian strength, may, with confidence, be placed by the side of the most eloquent passages to which the French language can point." Baum, Theodor Beza, ii. 642.

132

J. de Serres, ii. 93, etc.; De Thou, iii. 158. See the acts of the third National Synod in Aymon, Tous les Synodes, i. 23-31. The Second National synod had been held at Poitiers, on the tenth of March, 1561. Its acts are in Aymon, i. 13-22.

133

J. de Serres, ii. 170; De Thou, iii. 160; Jehan de la Fosse, 50; Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf. ii. 47.

134

De Thou, iii. 160.

135

Journal de Bruslart, Mémoires de Condé, i. 87; Claude Haton, i. 284; Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf. ii. 48.