History of the Rise of the Huguenots

710

Jean de Serres, iii. 332; Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 292; De Thou, etc.

711

Agrippa d'Aubigné, liv. v., c. 13 (i. 293); De Thou, iv. (liv. xlv.) 204; Jehan de la Fosse, 108.

712

That Renée was, like all the other prominent Huguenots, from the very first opposed to a resort to the horrors of war, is certain. Agrippa d'Aubigné goes farther than this, and asserts (i. 293) that she had become estranged from Condé in consequence of her blaming the Huguenots for their assumption of arms: "blasmant ceux qui portoient les armes, jusques à estre devenus ennemis, le Prince de Condé et elle, sur cette querelle." I can scarcely credit this account, of which I see no confirmation, unless it be in a letter to an unknown correspondent, in the National Library (MSS. Coll. Béthune, 8703, fol. 68), of which a translation is given in Memorials of Renée of France (London, 1859), 263, 264. It is dated Montargis, Aug. 20, 1569: "Praying you … to employ yourself, as I know you are accustomed to do, in whatsoever way shall be possible to you, in striving to arrive at a good peace, in which endeavor I, on my part, shall put forth all my power, if it shall please God. And if it cannot be a general one, at least it shall be to those who desire it, and who belong to us." Who, however, was the correspondent? The subscription, "Your good cousin, Renée of France," would appear to point to Admiral Coligny or some one of equal rank. Louis de Condé was no longer living.

713

Letter of Villegagnon to the Duchess of Ferrara, Montereau, March 4, 1569, apud Mém. de Claude Haton, ii. Appendix, 1109.

714

It must be remembered that this was a different place from Châtillon-sur-Loing, Admiral Coligny's residence, which was not more than fifteen miles distant. The places are frequently confounded with each other. The Loing is a tributary of the Seine, into which it empties below Montereau, after flowing by Châtillon-sur-Loing, Montargis, and Nemours.

715

The fullest and most graphic account of this interesting incident I find in Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 293 (liv. v., c. 13). See De Thou, iv. (liv. xlv.) 204, and Memorials of Renée of France (London, 1859), 261-263. The Huguenot horsemen numbered not eight hundred, as the author last quoted states, but about one hundred and twenty – "six vingts."

716

The "Discours de ce qui avint touchant la Croix de Gastines, l'an 1571, vers Noel" (Mémoires de l'état de France sous Charles IX., and Archives curieuses, vi. 475, etc.), contains the quaint decree of the parliament. See Journal d'un curé ligueur (Jehan de la Fosse), 107. As actually erected, the monument consisted of a high stone pyramid, surmounted by a gilt crucifix. Besides the decree in question, there were engraved some Latin verses of so confused a construction that it was suggested that the composer intended to cast ridicule both on the Roman Catholics and on the Huguenots. M. de Thou, who was a boy of sixteen at the time – and who, as son of the first President of Parliament, and himself, at a later time, a leading member and president à mortier of that body, enjoyed rare advantages for arriving at the truth – declares (iv. 488) that the elder Gastines was a venerable man, beloved by his neighbors, and, indeed, by the entire city; and that the execution was compassed by a cabal of seditious persons, who, by dint of soliciting the judges, of exciting the people, of inducing them to congregate and follow the judges with threats as they left parliament, succeeded in causing to be punished with death, in the persons of the Gastines, an offence which, until then, had been punished only with exile or a pecuniary fine.

717

Jehan de la Fosse, 107, 108.

718

Journal d'un curé ligueur, 110; Mém. de Castelnau, liv. vii., c. 8; De Thou, iv. (liv. l) 216; Gasp. Colinii Vita (1569), 87; Memoirs of G. de Coligny, 140, etc. The arrêt of the parliament is in Archives curieuses, vi. 377, etc. The Latin life of Coligny (89-91) inserts a manly and Christian letter, in the author's possession, written (Oct. 16, 1569) by the admiral to his own children and those of his deceased brother, D'Andelot, who were studying at La Rochelle, shortly after receiving intelligence of this judicial sentence and of the wanton injury done to his palace at Châtillon-sur-Loing. "We must follow our Head, Jesus Christ, who himself leads the way," he writes. "Men have deprived us of all that it was in their power to take from us, and if it be God's will that we never recover what we have lost, still we shall be happy, and our condition will be a good one, inasmuch as these losses have not arisen from any harm done by us to those who have brought them upon us, but solely from the hatred they bear toward me for the reason that it has pleased God to make use of me in assisting His Church."

719

Jean de Serres, iii. 356, 357; Mem. of Coligny, 136; De Thou, iv. 216, 217; Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 302.

720

Jean de Serres, iii. 363; De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvi.) 221; Castelnau, vii., c. 8.

721

De Thou, iv. 216; Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 302. The place was also known by the name of Foie la Vineuse.

722

Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 305.

723

In the heat of the engagement, the excited imaginations of the combatants even saw visions of celestial champions, as Theseus was fabled to have appeared at Marathon. A renegade Protestant captain afterward assured the Cardinal of Alessandria that on that eventful day he had seen in mid-air an array of warriors with refulgent armor and blood-red swords, threatening the Huguenot lines in which he fought; and he had instantly embraced the Roman Catholic faith, and vowed perpetual service under the banners of the pontiff. There were others, we are told, to corroborate his account of the prodigy. Joannis Antonii Gabutii Vita Pii Quinti Papæ (Acta Sanctorum, Maii 5), § 125, pp. 647, 648.

724

Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 307. "Ne se trouva oncques gens plus fidelles au camp catholicque que lesditz estrangers, et singulièrement les Suisses, lesquelz ne pardonnèrent à ung seul de leur nation germanique de ceux qui tombèrent en leurs mains." Mém. de Claude Haton, ii. 582.

725

"Che non avesse il comandamanto di lui osservato d'ammazzar subito qualunque heretico gli fosse venuto alle mani." Catena, Vita di Pio V., apud White, Mass. of St. Bartholomew, 305, and De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvi.) 228. With singular inconsistency – so impossible is it generally to carry out these horrible theories of extermination – the Roman pontiff himself afterward liberated D'Acier without exacting any ransom. De Thou, ubi supra. "Si Santafiore lui avoit obéï," says an annotator, "Jacques de Crussol (D'Acier) ne se seroit pas converti, et n'auroit pas laissé une si illustre poterité."

726

On the battle of Moncontour, consult J. de Serres, iii. 357-362; De Thou, iv. 224-228; Castelnau, liv. vii., c. 9; Agrippa d'Aubigné, liv. v., c. 17; a Roman Catholic relation in Groen van Prinsterer, Archives de la Maison d'Orange Nassau, iii. 324-326.

727

"Nihil est enim ea pietate misericordiaque crudelius, quæ in impios et ultima supplicia meritos confertur." Pius V. to Charles IX., Oct. 20, 1569. Pii V. Epistolæ (Antwerp, 1640), 242. The French victories of Jarnac and Moncontour were celebrated by a medal struck at Rome, with the legend, "Fecit potentiam in bracchio suo, dispersit superbos," and a representation of Pius kneeling and invoking the aid of heaven against the heretics. In the distance is seen a combat, and above it appears the Divine Being directing the issue. Figured in "Le Trésor de Numismatique et de Glyptique, par Paul Delaroche" (Médailles des Papes, plate 15, No. 5), Paris, 1839.

728

La Mothe Fénélon, vii. 65, etc., from Simancas MSS. So Claude Haton, who is rarely behindhand in such matters, makes the Protestants lose fifteen thousand or sixteen thousand men. Mémoires, ii. 582. Admiral Coligny was for a time believed by the court to be dead or mortally wounded, "mais ne fut rien." Ibid., ubi supra.

729

If we may credit the curate Claude, Catharine de' Medici alone was vexed at the completeness of the rout and the number of Huguenots slain, "inasmuch as she gave them as much support as possible, and encouraged them in rebellion, that the civil wars might continue, in which she took pleasure because of the management of affairs they threw into her hands" – "pour le maniment des affaires qu'elle entreprenoit et manioit." Mémoires, ii. 583.

730

Journal d'un curé ligueur (Jehan de la Fosse), 110.

731

Jehan de la Fosse, 112. The date is stated as "about Oct. 17th."

732

Ranke, Civil Wars and Monarchy in France, i. 241.

733

De Thou, iv. 230; Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 310. The murderer's name is variously written Maurevel, Moureveil, Montrevel, etc.

734

This letter, respecting which I confess that I find some difficulties, possesses a history of its own. On the 13th of Ventôse, in the second year of the republic, the original was sent to the national convention, which, the next day, ordered its insertion in the official bulletin, and its preservation in the national library, as emanating "from one of the Neros of France." See App. to Journal de Lestoile, ed. Michaud, pt. i., p. 307, 308, and the revolutionary bulletins.

735

"Ut sese Montalbani cum Vicecomitibus conjungerent, et sperantes Andium, dum se persequeretur, ab San-Jani oppugnandæ instituto destiturum." De statu rel. et reip., iii. 365.

736

See Soldan, iii. 372, 373; Anquetil, Esprit de la ligue, i. 317, etc.

737

With his usual inaccuracy, Davila speaks of Saint Jean d'Angely as "excellently fortified" (Eng. trans., p. 166).

738

This number, given by Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 313, and by De Thou, iv. (liv. xlv.) 242, seems the most probable. La Popelinière swells it to near 10,000 (Soldan, ii. 375), while Castelnau, liv. vii., c. 10, reduces it to "over 8,000." Strange to say, Jean de Serres, who, writing and publishing this portion of his history within a year after the conclusion of the third civil war, almost uniformly gives the highest estimates of the Roman Catholic losses, here makes them about 2,000, or lower than any one else.

739

Agrippa d'Aubigné, who was generous enough to appreciate valor even in an enemy, calls him "celui qui entamoit toutes les parties difficiles, à qui rien n'estoit dur ny hazardeux, qui en tous les exploits de son temps avoit fait les coups de partie" (i. 312). Lestoile in his journal (p. 22, Ed. Mich.) affirms that he was killed just as he had uttered a blasphemous inquiry of the Huguenots, where was now their "Dieu le Fort," and taunted them with his having become "à ceste heure leur Dieu le Faible." "Le Dieu, le Fort, l'Éternel parlera," was the first line of a favorite Huguenot psalm.

740

On the siege of Saint Jean d'Angely, see J. de Serres, iii. 369, 370; Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 311-313; De Thou, iv. 238-242; Castelnau, liv. vii., c. 10. It scarcely needs to be mentioned that Davila, bk. v., p. 166, knows nothing of any treachery on the part of the Roman Catholics, but duly mentions that De Piles did not observe his promise.

741

Davila, bk. v. (Eng. tr., p. 163 and 167); De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvi.) 250. Gabutius, in his life of Pius V., transcribes the exultant inscription, dictated by the pontiff himself (§ 126, p. 648), and claims for the canonized subject of his panegyric the chief credit of the victory. According to him the Italians were the first to engage with the heretics, and the last to desist from the pursuit.

742

Davila, bk. 5th (Eng. tr., p. 167); Mém. de Claude Haton, ii. 591.

743

"L'hiver arriva, il fallut mettre les troupes en quartier; et le fruit d'une victoire si complette, l'effort d'une armée royale si formidable, fut la prise de quelques places médiocres, pendant que La Rochelle, la plus utile de toutes, restoit aux vaincus, et que les princes rétablissoient les affaires, à l'aide d'un délai qu'ils n'avoient point osé se promettre." Anquetil, L'Esprit de la ligue, i. 317.

744

J. de Serres, iii. 372; De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvi.) 234, 235, who makes the loss in the first siege 300 men, and in the second over 1,000 horsemen; Agrippa d'Aubigné, Hist. univ., l. v., c. 19 (i. 315, 316), who states the total at 1,400 foot and near 400 horse; while Castelnau, l. vii., c. 10, speaks of but 300 in all. Vézelay, famous in the history of the Crusades (see Michaud, Hist. des Croisades, ii. 125) as the place where St. Bernard in 1146 preached the Cross to an immense throng from all parts of Christendom, is equidistant from Bourges and Dijon, and a little north of a line uniting these two cities.

745

De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvi.) 246, 247; Agrippa d'Aubigné, liv. v., c. 19 (i. 317); J. de Serres, iii. 370. About twenty prisoners were taken, to whom their captors promised their lives. Afterward there were strenuous efforts made, especially by the priests, to have them put to death as rebels and traitors. M. de la Chastre resisted the pressure, disregarding even a severe order of the Parliament of Paris, accompanied by the threat of the enormous fine of 2,000 marks of gold, which bade him send them to the capital. (Hist. du Berry, etc., par M. Louis Raynal, 1846, iv, 104, apud Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. fr., iv. (1856) 27.) Even Charles IX. wrote to him, but the governor was inflexible. His noble reply has come to light, dated Jan. 21, 1570, just one month after the failure of the Protestant scheme. After urging the danger of retaliation by the Huguenots of La Charité and Sancerre upon the prisoners they held, to the number of more than forty, and the inexpediency of accustoming the people of Bourges to bloody executions which they would not fail to repeat, he concludes his remonstrance in these striking words: "Nevertheless, Sire, if you should find it expedient, for the good of your service, to put them to death, the channel of the courts of justice is the most proper, without recompensing my services, or sullying my reputation with a stain that will ever be a ground of reproach against me. And I beg you, Sire, to make use of me in other matters more worthy of a gentleman having the heart of his ancestors, who for five hundred years have served their king without stain of treachery or act unworthy of a gentleman." Inedited letter, apud Bulletin, ubi supra, 28, 29. M. de la Chastre became one of the marshals of France. He conducted, three years later, the terrible siege of Sancerre, famous in history. He had the reputation among the Huguenots of being very severe, if not bloodthirsty – a reputation which he deserved, if he was, as Henry of Navarre styles him, "un des principaux exécuteurs de la Sainct Barthélemy." (Deposition in the trial of La Mole, Coconnas, etc. Archives curieuses, viii. 150.) La Chastre tried to clear himself of the imputation, by recalling the events of 1569. To Jean de Léry he maintained "qu'il n'est point sanguinaire, ainsi qu'on a opinion, comme aussi il l'avoit desjà bien monstré aux autres troubles, lorsqu'il avoit en sa puissance les sieurs d'Espeau, baron de Renty, et le capitaine Fontaine, qui est en son armée: car encores que la cour du parlement de Paris luy fist commandement de les représenter, à peine de 2,000 marcs d'or, il ne le voulut faire." Jean de Léry, "Discours de l'extrême famine … dans la ville de Sancerre," Archives curieuses, viii. 67.

746

De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvi.) 235-237; Agrippa d'Aubigné, liv. v., c. 19 (i. 316, 317); Jean de Serres, iii. 368, 369.

747

"Si est-ce que Dieu est très-doux."

748

Agrippa d'Aubigné, l. v., c. 18 (i. 309). The words were, as M. Douen reminds us (Clément Marot et le Psautier huguenot, 1878, 13) the first line of the seventy-third psalm of the Huguenot psalter.

749

De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvi.) 232; Jean de Serres, iii. 366.

750

Ibid., iii. 372, etc.

751

Even in December, Languet could scarcely imagine that Coligny would not return and winter at La Rochelle. Letter of Dec. 12, 1569, Epist. secr., i. 130.

752

Mém. de Castelnau, liv. vii., c. 12.

753

At least, so says Agrippa d'Aubigné, liv. v., c. 18 (i. 309).

754

De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvi.) 233; Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 309, 318 (liv. v., cs. 18 and 20). The two authorities are not in exact agreement, De Thou stating that Coligny went to Montauban before his march to meet Montgomery, while D'Aubigné makes him follow the left bank of the Dordogne down to Aiguillon. Gasparis Colinii Vita (1575), 91, 92, supports De Thou.

755

De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvi.) 249; Agrippa d'Aubigné, liv. v., c. 20 (i. 318); Gasparis Colinii Vita (1575), 94. The author of this valuable and authentic life of the admiral gives a full description of the bridge. Professor Soldan is mistaken in saying that the bridge was not yet completed (Geschichte des Prot. in Frank., ii. 377). It had been completed, and two days had been spent in taking over the German cavalry ("opere effecto, biduoque in traducendis Germanis equitibus consumpto") when the disaster occurred.

756

Languet, Letter of January 3, 1570, Epist. secretæ, i. 133.

757

Gasparis Colinii Vita (1576), 91; Vie de Coligny (Cologne, 1686), 378, where the account of the expedition, however, is full of blunders. Mr. Browning, following this untrustworthy authority, makes Admiral Coligny cross the Garonne and pass through Béarn, on his way from Saintes to Montauban! A glance at the map of France will show that this would have required a much greater bend to the right than he in reality made to the left, since Béarn lay entirely south of the river Adour. To reach Béarn by land before crossing the Garonne, as the "Vie" evidently imagines he did, would almost have required Aladdin's lamp. In fact, the entire passage is a jumble of the exploits of Montgomery and Coligny.

758

La Popelinière, apud Soldan, ii. 378.

759

De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvii.) 303-306; Agrippa d'Aubigné, liv. v., c. 20 (i. 319, 320); Davila, bk. v., p. 168; Raoul de Cazenove, "Rapin-Thoyras, sa famille," etc., 49, 50.

760

La Mothe Fénélon, vii. 81.

761

"L'imprudence des Catholiques, lesquels laissant rouler, sans nul empeschement, ceste petite pelote de neige, en peu de temps elle se fit grosse comme une maison." Mém. de la Noue, c. xxix.

762

Of course, Davila (bk. v., p. 167, 168), who rarely rejects a good story of intrigue, especially if there be a dainty bit of treachery connected with it, adopts unhesitatingly the popular rumor of Marshal Damville's infidelity to his trust.

763

St. Étienne possessed already, at the time the "Vie de Coligny" was written, that branch of industry which still constitutes one of its chief sources of wealth. It was described as a "petite ville fameuse par la quantité d'armes qui s'y fait, et qui se transportent dans les païs étrangers, en sorte que c'est ce qui nourrit presque toute la province." P. 381.

764

Agrippa d'Aubigné, liv. v., c. 21 (i. 322).

765

Gasparis Colinii Vita, 97, 98.

766

Arnay-le-Duc, or René-le-Duc, as the place was indifferently called, is situated about thirty miles south-west of Dijon, on the road to Autun.

767

De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvii.) 312-314; Agrippa d'Aubigné, liv. v., c. 22 (i. 321-325); Castelnau, liv. vii., c. 12; Davila, bk. v. 169.

768

De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvii.) 315. Davila attributes to the connivance of Marshal Cossé the escape of the Protestants from Arnay-le-Duc. This is consistent with the same writer's statement that it was the marshal's intentional slowness that enabled Coligny to seize upon Arnay-le-Duc and post himself so advantageously.

769

Castelnau, liv. vii., c. 10.

770

De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvii.) 301.

771

De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvii.) 302.

772

The articles, a copy of which was sent to the ambassador at the court of Elizabeth, in a letter from Angers, Feb. 6, 1570, are printed in La Mothe Fénélon, vii. 86-88. I omit reference in the text to the articles prohibiting foreign alliances and the levy of money, prescribing the dismissal of foreign troops, etc. The two cities referred to in the fifth article are rather to be regarded as places of worship – the only places in the kingdom where Protestant worship would be tolerated – than as pledges for the performance of the projected edict, as Prof. Soldan apparently regards them chiefly, if not exclusively. Geschichte des Prot. in Frankreich, ii. 379.

773

Charles to ambassador, Jan. 14th; letter of Catharine, same date; La Mothe Fénélon, vii. 77, 78.

774

See Froude, History of England, x. 9. etc.

775

De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvii.) 305. Cf. Soulier, Hist. des édits de pacification, 92.

776

De Thou, iv. 311. It was at St. Étienne in Forez, that the incident occurred.

777

For a fuller discussion of these circumstances than the limits of this history will permit me to give, I must refer the reader to the work of Prof. Soldan, Geschichte des Protestantismus in Frankreich, ii. 385.

778

La Noue was one of the most modest, as well as one of the most capable of generals. "I have felt myself so much the more obliged to speak of it," writes the historian De Thou respecting the battle of Sainte Gemme, "as La Noue, the most generous of men, who has written on the civil wars with as much fidelity as judgment, always disposed to render conspicuous the merit of others, and very reserved respecting his own, has not said a word of this victory." De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvii.) 320.

779

Brantôme has written the eulogy of this personage, whose true name was Antoine Escalin. He was first ambassador at Constantinople, where his good services secured his appointment as general of the galleys. After undergoing the displeasure of the king, and a three years' imprisonment for his participation in the massacre of the Vaudois, he was reinstated in office. Subsequently he was temporarily displaced by the grand prior, and by the Marquis of Elbeuf. It is an odd mistake of Mr. Henry White (Mass. of St. Bartholomew, p. 14, note) when he says: "In the religious wars he sided with the Huguenots." Brantôme says: "Il haïssoit mortellement ces gens-là."

780

De Thou, iv. 316-325; Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 325-335.

781

Ibid., ubi supra.

782

La Mothe Fénélon, iii. 210, 215. Despatch of June 21st.