History of the Rise of the Huguenots

634

"A view of a seditious bull sent into England from Pius Quintus, Bishop of Rome, 1569," etc. Works of Bishop Jewel, edited by R. W. Jelf, vii. 263-265.

635

Despatch of La Mothe Fénélon, Dec. 5, 1568, detailing the justification of Charles, which he had made in an interview with Queen Elizabeth, Correspondance diplomatique, i. 28-33.

636

Yet no one could speak more courageous words than Elizabeth in her own interests. In December, 1560, she requested the ambassador of Francis II. "to write to his master frankly what she was about to say, viz., that she meant to do her best to defend herself: that she was not of such poverty, nor so void of the obedience of her subjects, but she trusted to be able to do this. She came of the race of lions, and therefore could not sustain the person of a sheep." Communication with the French Ambassador, December 13, 1560, State Paper Office.

637

Despatch of La Mothe Fénélon, Dec. 21, 1568, Corresp. dipl., i. 55, 56.

638

"Qu'elle n'avoit rien en si grand horreur, en ce monde, que de voir ung corps s'esmouvoir contre sa teste, et qu'elle n'avoit garde de s'adjoindre à ung tel monstre." Ibid., i. 60.

639

Ibid., i. 36-130.

640

Mém. de Castelnau, liv. vii., c. 2; Agrippa d'Aubigné, liv. v., c. 10 (i. 283); De Thou, iv. (liv. xliv.) 160. La Mothe Fénélon's despatch of January 24, 1569 (Corr. dipl. i. 153, 154), states the assistance at 6 cannon and furniture, 300 barrels of powder, 4,000 balls, and £7,000.

641

Despatch to La Mothe Fénélon, March 8, 1569, and "Articles presantez à la royne d'Angleterre par le Sr de la Mothe, etc," Corresp. diplom., i. 224, 237-241.

642

"Considérant luy-mesmes et toute la flotte des marchands estre en leur pouvoir, il trouva nécessaire pour luy de condescendre en partie à leurs demandes, combien quv ce fût contre sa volonté." Coppie du messaige qui a esté declairé par la Majesté de la Royne et son conseil, par parolle de bouche, à l'amb. du Roy de France, par Jehan Somer, clerc du signet de sa Majesté le IIIe jour de mars, 1568. Corresp. diplom., i. 242-251.

643

Despatch of Dec. 5, 1568, Corresp. diplom., i. 32, 33.

644

In his despatch of March 25, 1569, La Mothe Fénélon admits to Catharine his great perplexity as to how he should act, so as neither to show too little spirit nor to provoke Elizabeth to such a declaration as would compel the king, his master, to declare war at so inopportune a time. Corresp. diplom., i. 281.

645

Jean de Serres, iii. 307, 308; De Thou, iv. (liv. xlv.) 169, 170; Castelnau, liv. vii., c. 3.

646

De Thou, iv. 171, 172; Castelnau, ubi supra.

647

Jean de Serres, iii. 302, 309; De Thou, iv. 161; Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 277.

648

De Thou, iv. (liv. xlv.) 174, 175.

649

The Earl of Leicester gives Charles a more direct part in the war. "The king hathe bene these two monethes about Metz in Lorrayne, to empeache the entry of the Duke of Bipounte, who is set forward by the common assent of all the princes Protestants in Germany, with twelve thousand horsemen, and twenty-five thousand footemen, to assiste the Protestants in France, and to make some final end of their garboyles." Letter to Randolph, ambassador to the Emperor of Muscovy, May 1, 1569, Wright, Queen Elizabeth, i. 313. The facilities, even for diplomatic correspondence, with so distant a country as Muscovy, were very scanty. Leicester's despatch is accordingly an interesting résumé of the chief events that had occurred in Western Europe during the past sixty days.

650

Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 277; De Thou, iv. 172, etc.

651

"Ja Dieu ne plaise qu'on die jamais que Bourbon ait fuyt devant ses ennemis." Lestoile, 21. It is probably to this circumstance that the Earl of Leicester alludes, when he says that "the Prince of Condé, through his overmuche hardines and little regard to follow the Admirall's advise had his arme broken with a courrire shotte," etc. Wright, Queen Elizabeth, i. 313, 314.

652

Agrippa d'Aubigné, Hist. univ., liv. v., c. 8 (i. 280); De Thou, iv. 175.

653

D'Aubigné, ubi supra. A Huguenot patriarch, named La Vergne, was noticed by Agrippa himself fighting in the midst of twenty-five of his nephews and kinsmen. The dead bodies of the old man and of fifteen of his followers fell almost on a single heap, and nearly all the survivors were taken prisoners.

654

Jeanne d'Albret to Marie de Clèves, April, 1569, Rochambeau, Lettres d'Antoine de Bourbon et de Jehanne d'Albret (Paris, 1877), 297.

655

I regret to say that the current representations as to the termination of Condé's dishonorable attachment to Isabeau de Limueil are proved by contemporary documents to be erroneous. The tears and remonstrances of his wife Éléonore de Roye (see ante, chapter xiv.) may have had some temporary effect. But an anonymous letter among the Simancas MSS., written March 15, 1565 (and consequently more than six months after Éléonore's death, which occurred July 23, 1564), portrays him as "hora più che mai passionato per la sua Limolia." Duc d'Aumale, Pièces justif., i. 552. Just as Calvin (letter of September 17, 1563, Bonnet, Lettres franç., ii. 539) had rebuked the prince with his customary frankness, warning him respecting his conduct, and saying that "les bonnes gens en seront offenséz, les malins en feront leur risée," so now Coligny and the Huguenot gentlemen of his suite united with the Protestant ministers in begging him to renounce his present course of life, and contract a second honorable marriage. The latter held up to him "il pericolo et infamia propria, et il scandalo commune a tutta la relligione per esserne lui capo;" the former threatened to leave him. I have seen no injurious reports affecting Condé's morals after his marriage, November 8, 1565, to Françoise Marie d'Orléans Longueville. Duc d'Aumale, Princes de Condé, i. 263-278.

656

Long the idol of the Huguenots, both of high or of low degree, he enjoyed a popularity perpetuated in a spirited song ("La Chanson du Petit Homme"), current so far back as the close of the first war, 1563, the refrain of which, alluding to the prince's diminutive stature, is: "Dieu gard' de mal le Petit Homme!" Chansonnier Huguenot, 250, etc.

657

The author of the Vie de Coligny (Cologne, 1686) gives more than one instance of a deference on the part of the subject of his biography which may seem to the reader excessive, but which alone could satisfy the chivalrous feeling of the loyal knight of the sixteenth century.

658

Brantôme (Hommes illustres, Œuvres, viii. 163, 164) relates that Honorat de Savoie, Count of Villars, begged the Duke of Anjou to have Stuart given over to him, and, having gained his request, murdered him.

659

"Qui par artifices merveilleusement subtils ont bien sceu vandre le sang de la maison de France contre soy-mesmes."

660

The Earl of Leicester wrote to Randolph: "Robert Stuart, Chastellier, and certaine other worthy gentlemen, to the number of six, were lykewise taken and slayne, as the Frenche tearme it, de sang froid." Wright, Queen Elizabeth, i. 314. See also Cardinal Châtillon's letter to the Elector Palatine, June 10, 1569, in which the writer declares significantly of Condé's murder by Montesquiou, "ce qu'il n'eust osé entreprendre sans en avoir commandement des plus grands." Kluckholn, Briefe Friedrich des Frommen, ii. 336.

661

Letter of Henry of Navarre to the Duke of Anjou, "escript au Camp d'Availle le xiie jour de juillet 1569." Lettres inédites de Henry IV. recueillies par le Prince Augustin Galitzin (Paris. 1860), 4-11.

662

The Huguenot loss is given by Jean de Serres (iii. 316) at 200 killed and 40 taken prisoners. Agrippa d'Aubigné states it at 140 gentilhommes (Hist. univ., i. 280). The Earl of Leicester's words are: "In which conflicte was slayne on both sydes, as we heare, not above foure hundred men" (Wright, Queen Elizabeth, i. 313, 314). Castelnau speaks of over a hundred Huguenot gentlemen slain and an equal number taken prisoners (liv. vii., c. 4). The "Adviz donné par Mr Norrys, ambassadeur pour la royne d'Angleterre, prins de ses lettres, envoyées de Metz, le 18 d'Avril" (La Mothe Fénélon, i. 362), agrees with Leicester, but is unique in making Anjou's loss greater than that of the Huguenots. De Thou makes the Protestants lose 400. The untruthful Davila says, "the Huguenots lost not above seven hundred men, but they were most of them gentlemen and cavaliers of note."

663

Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 281. La Fosse and others have preserved one of the good Catholic stanzas composed on this occasion:

L'an mil cinq cent soixante et neufEntre Congnac et ChâteauneufFust apporté sur une ânesseLe grand ennemi de la messe.(Journal d'un curé ligueur, 104.)

664

"On donna l'honneur de cette défaicte à M. de Tavannes." La Fosse, 104.

665

De Thou, iv. (liv. xlv.) 177. Claude de Sainctes, afterward Bishop of Evreux, who, it will be remembered, figured at the colloquy of Poissy, is credited with the suggestion of the chapel.

666

The principal authorities consulted for the battle of Jarnac, or of Bassac, as it is also frequently called, from the abbey near which it raged, are: Jean de Serres, iii. 309-315; De Thou, iv. (liv. xlv.) 173-176; Castelnau, liv. vii., c. 4; Ag. d'Aubigné, i. 278-281; Le vray discours de la bataille donnée par monsieur le 13. iour de Mars, 1569, entre Chasteauneuf et Jarnac, etc., avec privilege (Cimber et Danjou, Archives curieuses, vi. 365, etc.); Discours de la bataille donnée par Monseigneur, Duc d'Anjou et de Bourbonnoys, … contre les rebelles … entre la ville d'Angoulesme et Jarnac, près d'une maison nommée Vibrac appartenant à la Dame de Mezières; an inaccurate official account, drawn up at Metz by Neufville on the first reception of the news, and sent by the Spanish ambassador, Alava, to Philip II.; La Mothe Fénélon, Corr. dip., vii. 3-11; Davila, bk. iv.; the "Relation originale" in Documents inédits tirés des coll. MSS. de la bibliothèque royale (Fr. gov.), iv. 483, etc. Compare the excellent narratives of the Duc d'Aumale and Prof. Soldan. The Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. fr., i. (1853) 429, gives a representation of a monument, in the form of an obelisk, about eleven feet in height, erected by the Department of the Charente, in 1818, on the spot where Condé fell. A somewhat similar monument, raised in 1770 by the Count de Jarnac, was destroyed during the first French revolution.

667

Anjou to Charles IX., March 17, 1569, Duc d'Aumale, Les Princes de Condé, ii. 399.

668

Apostolicarum Pii Quinti, P. M., Epistolarum libri quinque. Antverpiæ, 1640, 152.

669

Pii Quinti Epist., 157-166.

670

Ibid., 160, 161.

671

Boscheron des Portes, Hist. du Parlement de Bordeaux (Bordeaux, 1877), i. 214, 216. As the Huguenots were condemned, not for heresy, but for rebellion, sacrilege, etc., the learned author finds no mention of fagot and flame.

672

La Mothe Fénélon. i. 288-294.

673

Despatch of April 12, 1569, ibid., i. 303.

674

It is evident that the results of the battle were designedly exaggerated by the Roman Catholics at the time, and have been overrated ever since. Agrippa d'Aubigné alleges that, out of 128 cornets of cavalry in the Huguenot army, only fifteen were engaged; and that of over 200 ensigns of infantry, barely six– those under Pluviaut – came within a league of the battle-field. Hist. univ., ubi supra.

675

Jean de Serres, iii. 317, 318; De Thou, iv. (liv. xlv.) 178, 179. De Thou reckons the losses of the Roman Catholics before Cognac at more than 300 men.

676

De Thou, iv. 180, 181; Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 282; J. de Serres, iii. 318, 319.

677

La Mothe Fénélon, i. 367. And now, to the insulting quatrain already quoted à propos of Condé's death, the Huguenot soldiers of Angoumois replied in rough verses of their own:

Le Prince de CondéIl a été tué;Mais Monsieur l'AmiralEst encore à cheval,Avec La RochefoucauldPour achever tous ces Papaux.

V. Bujeaud, Chronique protestante de l'Angoumois, 40.

678

Discours merveilleux de la vie de Catherine de Medicis (Cologne, 1683), 645. See the atrocious letter to Catharine, which the queen found upon her bed, Nov. 8, 1575, and which purports to have been written from Lausanne. In the copy published by Le Laboureur (ii. 425-429), it is signed "Grand Champ;" in that which the editor of Claude Haton gives in an appendix (p. 1111-1115) the name is "Emille Dardani." The date is doubtful. Le Laboureur is apparently more correct in giving it as "le troisième mois de la quatrième année après la trahison" (St. Bartholomew's Day).

679

The Vie de Coligny (Cologne, 1686), p. 360, 361, says nothing to indicate that the author regarded D'Andelot's death as other than natural. But Hotman's Gasparis Colinii Vita (1575), p. 75, mentions the suspicion, and considers it confirmed by the saying attributed to Birague, afterward chancellor, that "the war would never be terminated by arms alone, but that it might be brought to a close very easily by cooks." Cardinal Châtillon, in a letter to the Elector Palatine, June 10, 1569, alludes to his brother's having died of poison as a well-ascertained fact, "comme il est apparent tant par l'anatomie," etc. Kluckholn, Briefe Frederick des Frommen, ii 336.

680

Since the outbreak of the present war, the court had undertaken to deprive D'Andelot of his rank, and had divided his duties between Brissac and Strozzi. Brissac had been killed, and Strozzi was now recognized by the court as colonel-general.

681

The letter written from Saintes, May 18, 1569, is inserted in Gasparis Colinii Vita (1575) pp. 75-78, the author remarking, "quam ipsius manum, atque chirographum præ manibus jam habeo." The possession of so many family manuscripts on the part of the anonymous writer of this valuable contemporary account, is explained by the fact that he was no other than the distinguished Francis Hotman, in whose hands the admiral's widow, Jaqueline d'Entremont, or Antremont, had placed all the documents she possessed, entreating him to undertake the pious task of compiling a life of her husband. In a remarkable letter which has but lately come to light, dated January 15, 1572 (new style 1573), after an exordium full of those classical allusions of which the age was so fond, she writes: "Ne trouvez étrange, je vous supplie, si j'ai essayé de réveiller vostre plume pour laisser à la postérité autant de témoignages de la vertu de feu monseigneur et mari, que nos ennemis la veulent désigner," etc. Bulletin, vi. 29.

682

"La France aura beaucoup de maux avec vous, et puis sans vous; mais en fin tout tombera sur l'Espagnol." Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 283.

683

Agrippa d'Aubigné, ubi supra.

684

Berger de Xivrey, Lettres missives de Henri IV. (Paris, 1843), i. 7.

685

Histoire de Charles IX. par le sieur Varillas (Cologne, 1686), ii. 161, 162. I am glad to embrace this opportunity of quoting a historian in whose statements of facts I have as seldom the good fortune to concur as in his general deductions of principles. M. de Thou (iv. 182) remarks in a similar spirit: "Il fit voir à la France (et ses ennemis même en convinrent) qu'il étoit capable de soutenir lui seul tout le parti Protestant dont on croyoit auparavant qu'il ne soutenoit qu'une partie."

686

Ranke (Civil Wars and Monarchy), 241; the statement of Jean de Serres, iii. 325, would make the total number a little larger; the accounts of Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 285, and De Thou, iv. 185, make it somewhat smaller.

687

Adviz, etc., La Mothe Fénélon, i. 363.

688

De Thou, iv. 184; Jean de Serres, iii. 320-323. This was in February. It was the more natural for Wolfgang to defend his course, as he was himself an ancient ally of the King of Spain. In the Papiers d'état du card. de Granvelle, ix. 567, we have the text of a compact formed Oct. 1, 1565: "Lettres de Service accordées par le roi d'Espagne à Wolfgang, comte Palatin et duc de Deux Ponts." According to this document, the duke was bound for three years to obey Philip's summons, although he refused to pledge himself to do anything directly or indirectly against the Augsburg Confession or its supporters.

689

Journal d'un curé ligueur (Jehan de la Fosse), 104.

690

Letter of Charles IX. to La Mothe Fénélon, May 14, 1569, Corresp. dipl., vii. 20, 21. The same incredulity respecting the possibility of Deux Ponts's enterprise is expressed by the anonymous author of a memorandum of a journey through France, in Documents inédits tirés des MSS. de la bibl. royale, iv. 493. It is alluded to in the "Remonstrance" of the Protestant princes presented after the junction of the armies. Jean de Serres, iii. 337.

691

Castelnau, liv. vii., c. 5.

692

De Thou, iv. 185-188; Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 285; Anquetil, Esprit de la ligue, i. 297.

693

Discours envoyé de La Rochelle à la Royne d'Angleterre. La Mothe Fénélon, ii. 158, etc.

694

De Thou, iv. 188; Lestoile, 22; J. de Serres, iii. 524; Castelnau, liv. vii., c. 6.

695

Castelnau, liv. vii., c. 7; De Thou, iv. 192; Jean de Serres, iii. 327 (who states the Roman Catholic loss as higher than given in the text). Brantôme ascribes the defeat of Strozzi to the circumstance that the matches of his troops were put out by the rain, and that his infantry, unsupported by cavalry, was at the mercy of Mouy and the Huguenot troopers. Colonnels fr., Œuvres, ed. Lalanne, vi. 60. But the "Discours envoyé de la Rochelle à la Royne d'Angleterre" (La Mothe Fénélon, ii. 160) states that the Huguenots would have done much greater execution and perhaps put an end to the dispute, "n'eust été que, tout ce jour là, la pluye fut si extrême et si grande que noz harquebouziers ne pouvoient plus jouer." La Roche Abeille, or La Roche l'Abeille, is a hamlet seventeen miles south of Limoges.

696

According to J. A. Gabutius, the biographer of Pius V. (sec. 120, p. 646), the Pope sent 4,500 foot and 1,000 horse, and Cosmo, Duke of Florence, 1,000 foot and 200 horse. Besides these, many nobles attached themselves to the expedition as volunteers. Santa Fiore was instructed to leave France the moment he should perceive that the heretics were treated with. "Quod si ipse summus copiarum Dux, vel de pace vel de rerum compositione quidquam Catholicæ religioni damnosum præsentiret; [Pius V.] imperavit e vestigio aut converso itinere in Italiam remearet, aut ad Catholicum exercitum in Belgio cum hæreticis bellantem sese conferret et adjungeret."

697

De Thou, iv. 192; Vie de Coligny, 364; Gasparis Colinii Vita, 81; Jean de Serres, iii. 331. Charles IX. in a letter to La Mothe Fénélon, from St. Germains des Prés, July 27, 1569, alludes to the successes of the Huguenots, whom Anjou cannot resist, "ayant donné congé à la pluspart de sa gendarmerye de s'en aller faire ung tour en leurs maisons." Corresp. diplom., vii. 35, 36. The furlough, which was to expire on the 15th of August, was afterward extended by Anjou to the 1st of October.

698

See Vie de Coligny, 364; De Thou, iv. 192; Jean de Serres, iii. 345, 346.

699

Yet the "Guisards" were never tired of asserting the contrary. Sir Thomas Smith tells us that Cardinal Lorraine maintained to him that "they [the Huguenots] desired to bring all to the form of a republic, like Geneva." Smith records the conversation at length in a letter to Cecil, wishing his correspondent to perceive "how he had need of a long spoon that should eat potage with the Devil." The discussion must have been an earnest one. Sir Thomas was not disposed to boast of being a finished courtier. In fact, he declares that, as to framing compliments, he is "the verriest calf and beast in the world," and threatens to get one Bizzarro to write him some, which he will get translated (for all sorts of people), and learn them by heart. He managed on this occasion to speak his mind to Lorraine pretty freely respecting the real origin of the war (the conversation took place in 1562), and told the churchman the uncomplimentary truth, that his brother's deed at Vassy was the cause of all the troubles. Smith to Cecil, Rouen, Nov. 7, 1562, State Paper Office.

700

Not to speak of Noyers, belonging to Condé, Coligny's stately residence at Châtillon-sur-Loing fell into the hands of the enemy. In direct violation of the terms of the capitulation, the palace was robbed of all its costly furniture, which was sent to Paris and sold at auction. Château-Renard, which also was the property of Coligny, was taken by the Roman Catholics, and became the nest of a company of half-soldiers, half-robbers, under an Italian – one Fretini – who laid under contribution travellers on the road to Lyons. De Thou, iv. 198, 199; Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 292.

701

How deeply the Guises felt the taunt that they were strangers in France, appears from a sentence of the cardinal's to the Bishop of Rennes (Trent, Nov. 24, 1563), wherein, alluding to the recent birth of a son to the Duke of Lorraine and Catharine de' Medici's daughter, he says that he is "merveilleusement aise … pource que sera occasion aux Huguenots de ne nous dire plus princes estrangers." Le Laboureur, ii. 313.

702

"Copie d'une Remonstrance que ceulx de la Rochelle ont mandé avoyr envoyée au Roy, après l'arrivée du duc de Deux Ponts." La Mothe Fénélon, ii. 179-188. In Latin, Jean de Serres, iii. 333-345. Gasparis Colinii Vita, 80.

703

Mém. de Castelnau, liv. vii., c. 6; Jean de Serres, iii. 345, 346; De Thou, ubi supra.

704

"Lusignan la pucelle." De Thou, iv. 197; Jean de Serres, iii. 331; Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 290.

705

Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 294; De Thou, iv. (liv. xlv.) 200-202; Jean de Serres, iii. 347.

706

Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 298: "Pressé par les interests et murmures des Poictevins, il sentit en cet endroit une des incommoditez qui se trouve aux partis de plusieurs testes; sa prudence donc cedant à sa nécessité," etc.

707

Letter of Sept. 8, 1569, Wright, Queen Elizabeth, i. 323.

708

Jean de Serres, iii. 348, etc.; Castelnau, liv. vii., c. 7; De Thou, iv. 205-214; Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 297, etc.

709

Journal d'un curé ligueur (Jehan de la Fosse), 109.