History of the Rise of the Huguenots

875

The Guises, in the same spirit, had at one time proposed as a candidate for Margaret's hand the Cardinal of Este, for whom they hoped easily to obtain from the Pope a dispensation from his vow of celibacy. Walsingham to Cecil, Feb. 18, 1571, Digges, 42.

876

Capilupi, Lo stratagema di Carlo IX., 1573, Orig. edit., p. 11; Gabutius, Vita Pii Quinti, ubi supra, § 244-246, p. 676.

877

So also says Tavannes: "Il est renvoyé avec paroles générales que Sa Majesté ne feroit rien au prejudice de l'obéissance de Sa Saincteté." Mémoires (ed. Petitot), iii. 198. Tavannes is explicit in his declarations that the massacre was not premeditated. "Tant s'en faut que l'on pensast faire la Sainct Barthélemy à ces nopces, que sans Madame, fille du Roy, qui y avoit inclination, il se deslioit" (iii. 194). "L'entreprise de la Sainct Barthélemy, qui n'estoit pas seulement pourpensée, et dont la naissance vint de l'imprudence huguenotte." Ibid., iii. 198.

878

E.g.: "Si j'avois quelque autre moyen de me vanger de mes ennemis, je ne ferois point ce mariage; mais je n'en ai point d'autre moyen que cetui-ci." Cardinal D'Ossat's letter of Sept. 22, 1599, to Villeroy, Lettres (ed. of 1698), ii. 100. It must be noticed that D'Ossat had a particular purpose in producing testimony to show that Charles IX. constrained his sister to marry, as it would assist him in obtaining a divorce for Henry IV. If, as D'Ossat affirms, the Cardinal of Alessandria exclaimed, on hearing of the massacre, "God be praised! The King of France has kept his word to me," this would agree equally well with the supposition that Charles IX. had contented himself with general promises.

879

"The foolish cardinal," wrote Sir Thomas Smith, English ambassador at the French court during Walsingham's temporary absence (March 3, 1571/2), "went away as wise as he came; he neither brake the marriage with Navarre, nor got no dismes of the Church of France, nor perswaded the King to enter into the League with the Turk, nor to accept the Tridentine, or to break off Treaty with us; and the foolishest part of all, at his going away, he refused a diamond which the King offered him of 600 crowns, yet he was here highly feasted. He and his train cost the King above 300 crowns a day, as they said." Digges, 193. Gabutius adds that after the death of Pius V. – probably after the massacre – Charles IX. sent the ring to the cardinal with this inscription upon the bezel: "Non minus hæc solida est pietas, ne pietas possit mea sanguine solvi." Vita Pii Quinti, ubi supra, § 246, p. 676. The inscription had doubtless been cut since the first proffer of the ring. It appears to me most probable that the ring was offered by Charles to the cardinal with the idea that its acceptance would bind him to support the king in his suit for a dispensation for the marriage of Henry and Margaret, and that the prudent churchman declined it for the same reason. Subsequently, with the same view, Charles sent it to his ambassador at Rome, M. de Ferralz, instructing him to give it to the Cardinal of Alessandria. But Ferralz, on consultation with the Cardinal of Ferrara and others in the French interest, came to the conclusion that the gift would be useless, and so retained it, at the same time notifying his master. The reason may have been either that Alessandria had too little influence, since his uncle's death, to effect what was desired, or that the matter was of less consequence when once Charles had resolved to go on with the marriage without waiting further for the dispensation. So I understand Charles's words to Ferralz (Aug. 24, 1572): "J'ai aussi sceu par vostre dicte mémoire, que par l'avis de mon cousin le cardinal de Ferrare, vous avez retenu le diamant que je vous avois envoyé pour le donner de ma part au cardinal Alexandrin, puisque mon dict cousin et mes autres ministres trouvent que le don seroit inutile et perdu." Mackintosh, iii., App. C., p. 348.

880

Despatch of March 29, 1572, Digges, 182, 183. It must be noticed that the permission to have mass celebrated in Béarn had been purposely left out in the original basis.

881

Jeanne d'Albret to Henry of Navarre, Tours, Feb. 21, 1572, Rochambeau, Lettres d'Antoine de Bourbon et de Jehanne d'Albret (Paris, 1877), 340.

882

Jeanne d'Albret to M. de Beauvoir, Blois, March 11, 1572, ibid., 345.

883

"'Il m'a donc dit quelque chose.' 'Je croy bien qu'ouy, Madame, mais c'est quelque chose qui n'approche point de cela.' Elle se prist à rire, car nottez qu'elle ne parle à moy qu'en badinant." Same letter, ibid., 348. How keenly Jeanne felt this treatment may be inferred from a characteristic sentence: "Je vous diray encores que je m'esbahis comme je peux porter les traverses que j'ay, car l'on me gratte, l'on me picque, l'on me flatte, l'on me brave, l'on me veult tirer les vers du nez, sans se laisser aller, bref je n'ay que Martin seul qui marche droict, encores qu'il ait la goutte, et M. le comte (Nassau) qui me faict tous les bons offices qu'il peut." Same letter, ibid., 353.

884

The letter is inserted entire in La Laboureur, Additions aux Mém. de Castelnau, i. 859-861. There is much in this letter that lends probability to Miss Freer's view (Henry III., i. 89) that Catharine had at this time begun to be opposed to an alliance which she feared might result in the diminution of her influence at court, and that she therefore "sought, by denying all that had before been conceded, and by proposing in lieu conditions which she knew Jeanne could not accept, to throw the odium of a rupture on the Queen of Navarre."

885

The contract of marriage was signed at Blois, April 11th.

886

Jehan de la Fosse (Journal d'un curé ligueur), 143, 144.

887

See an interesting account of the Queen of Navarre's last days, her will, etc., in Vauvilliers, Hist. de Jeanne d'Albret, iii. 179-188.

888

He is said already to have obtained the surname of "l'empoisonneur de la reine." Vauvilliers, iii. 193.

889

Vauvilliers, Hist. de Jeanne d'Albret, ubi supra. Unfortunately for the "glove" theory, the Reveille-Matin des Massacreurs, written within the next year (see p. 172, Cimber and Danjou, "du mois d'aoust dernier passé"), makes Jeanne to have died in consequence of a drink (un boucon) given her at a festival at which Anjou was present. So in the Eusebii Philadelphi Dialogi, 1574 (the same book virtually), Jeanne dies, "veneno in quibusdam epulis propinato, quibus Dux Andegavensis intererat, ut quidem mihi a domestico ipsius aliquo narratum est," i. 25, 26. The testimony of the physicians, who seem to have been unprejudiced, is given in a note in Cimber et Danjou, Archives curieuses, vii. 170, 171.

890

It is said that Charles IX. suggested to him the propriety of this visit, accompanying the suggestion by the words: "I know that you are fond of gardening" – a sly reference to the occasion when Coligny, just before the explosion of the second civil war, was found by the royal spies busily engaged in his vineyards, pruning-hook in hand, and, by his apparent engrossment in the labors of the field, dispelled the suspicions of a Huguenot rising. It was ominous, according to these writers, that Charles should at this moment recall the circumstances of that narrow escape at Meaux from falling into the hands of the Huguenots. Agrippa d'Aubigné, Hist. univ., ii. 6.

891

"Estant nostre vouloir et intention le retenir près de nous pour nous servir de luy en nos plus graves et importans affaires, comme ministre digne, la vertu duquel est assez cogneue et expérimentée." MS. passport dated September 24, 1571, Biblioth. nat., apud Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. français, xvi. (1867) 220.

892

Le Tocsain contre les massacreurs (orig. ed., Rheims, 1579), 77.

893

Le Reveille-Matin des François et de leurs voisins. Composé par Eusebe Philadelphe Cosmopolite, en forme de Dialogues. A Edinbourg, de l'imprimerie de Jaques James. Avec permission. 1574. Apud Cimber et Danjou, Archives curieuses, vii. 171. Dialogi Euseb. Philadelphi. Edimburgi, 1574, i. 26.

894

Le Tocsain contre les massacreurs, 40 (Archives curieuses). So Jean de Tavannes – a writer certainly not prejudiced in Coligny's favor – gives him credit for preferring to hazard his life rather than renew the civil war. Yet he adds: "Il ne voyoit ny ne prevoyoit ce qui n'estoit pour lors, d'autant plus qu'il n'y avoit encor rien de resolu contre luy, quoy que les ignorans des affaires d'estat ayent escrit ou dit." Mémoires de Gaspard de Tavannes (Ed. Petitot), iii. 257.

895

These were four in number: that Navarre should make a secret profession of the Catholic faith, express a desire for the dispensation, restore ecclesiastical property in his domains, and marry Margaret before the Church. Charles IX. to Ferralz (Ferrails), July 31, 1572, apud Mackintosh, iii., Appendix III.; Fr. von Raumer, Briefe aus Paris (Leipsic, 1831), i. 292.

896

Journal de Lestoile, p. 24; Le Reveille-Matin des Français, etc.; Arch. curieuses, vii. 172; Dialogi Eusebii Philadelphi, i. 31; Vauvilliers, iii. 177; Agrippa d'Aubigné, ii. 12: – "Ce vieux bigot avec ses cafarderies fait perdre un bon temps à ma grosse sœur Margot."

897

Charles IX. to Mandelot, Blois, May 3, 1572, Correspondance du roi Charles IX. et du sieur de Mandelot, Gouverneur de Lyons, edited by P. Paris (Paris, 1830), pp. 9-11. Also Charrière, Négociations du Levant, iii. 228.

898

"Toutes mes fantaisies sont bandées pour m'opposer à la grandeur des Espagnols," etc. Henri de Valois et la Pologne en 1572, par le Marquis de Noailles (3 vols., Paris, 1867), i. 8.

899

De Noailles, i. 10.

900

"De tenir le Roy Catholique en cervelle, et donner hardiesse à ces gueulx des Païs-Bas de se remuer et entreprendre," etc. Ibid., i. 9.

901

De Thou, iv. 674; Motley, Dutch Republic, ii. 369, etc.

902

"Thence with great celerity the Count Lodovick should send 500 horse to Bruxels under the conduct of M. de la Nue (Noue), where if he hap to find the Duke of Alva, it will grow to short wars, in respect of the intelligence they have with the town, who undertook with the aid of 100 soldiers to take the duke prisoner. If he retires to Antwerp, as it is thought he wil, then it is likely that all the whole country will revolt. I the rather credit this news for that it agreeth with the plot laid by Count Lodovick, before his departure hence," etc. Walsingham to Burleigh, Paris, May 29, 1572, Digges, 204.

903

Queen Elizabeth to Walsingham, July 23, 1572, Digges, 226-230.

904

"More tremendous issues," Mr. Froude forcibly remarks, "were hanging upon Elizabeth's decision than she knew of. But she did know that France was looking to her reply – was looking to her general conduct, to ascertain whether she would or would not be a safe ally in a war with Spain, and that on her depended at that moment whether the French government would take its place once for all on the side of the Reformation." History of England, x. 370.

905

In fact, he was acting in violation of the instructions of Louis of Nassau, by whom he had been despatched for aid to France. Apprehending danger, Nassau repeatedly bid him avoid the direct road to Mons, and make a circuit through the territory of Cambray, and effect a junction with the Prince of Orange. Genlis justified his neglect of these directions by alleging the orders of Admiral Coligny. De Thou, iv. 680.

906

Motley, Dutch Republic, ii. 383, 384; De Thou, iv. 680, etc.

907

It may be noted, by way of anticipation, that Genlis, after an imprisonment of over a year, was secretly strangled by Alva's command, in the castle of Antwerp. With characteristic mendacity, the duke spread the report that the prisoner had died a natural death. Ibid., ubi supra.

908

Walsingham to Burleigh, July 26, 1572, Digges, 225.

909

It was such arguments as these that afterward, when everything that might be so employed as to justify or palliate the atrocity of Coligny's assassination was eagerly laid hold of, were construed as threats of a Huguenot rising, in case Charles should refuse to engage in the Flemish war. Compare, e. g., the unsigned extract found by Soldan (ii. 433) in the National Library of Paris, No. 8702, fol. 68. But does it need a word to prove that the reference was to a papal rising, or, at least, papal compulsion to violate the edict of toleration?

910

Walsingham to Leicester, July 26, 1572, Digges, 225, 226.

911

This document was written by the illustrious Philippe du Plessis Mornay, then a youth twenty-three years of age, and bears the impress of his vigorous mind. De Thou gives an excellent summary (iv., liv. li., 543-554); and it may be found entire in the Mémoires de Du Plessis Mornay (ii. 20-37). Morvilliers, Bishop of Orleans, and keeper of the seals until Birague's appointment in January, 1571, was requested by the king to prepare the answer of the opposite party in the royal council – a task which he discharged with great ability. Summary in De Thou, iv. (liv. li.) 555-563, and Agrippa d'Aubigné, ii. 9, 10. Jean de Tavannes's memoirs of his father contain arguments of Marshal Tavannes and of the Duke of Anjou. dictated by the marshal, against undertaking the Flemish war, as both unjust and impolitic.

912

Mémoires de Tavannes (Ed. Petitot), iii. 290.

913

In this case the chief spy, according to the Tocsain contre les massacreurs, p. 78, and the younger Tavannes, was Phizes, sieur de Sauve, the king's private secretary for the Flemish matter; and Tavannes is certainly correct in making a chief element in Catharine's influence, "la puissance que ladicte Royne a sur ses enfans par ses créatures qu'elle leur a donné pour serviteurs dez leur enfance." Mémoires, 290, 291.

914

In fact, Catharine, who spared neither herself nor her attendants in her furious driving in her "coche" on such occasions, lost one or more of the horses, which dropped dead. Tocsain contre les massacreurs, p. 78.

915

Or, only to her estates in Auvergne, according to the Tocsain, pp. 78, 79. It will be remembered that Catharine's mother was a French heiress of the famous family of La Tour d'Auvergne.

916

The younger Tavannes, in the memoirs of his father (Edit. Petitot), iii. 291, 292, gives the most complete summary of this remarkable conversation; but it is substantially the same as the briefer sketch in the Tocsain contre les massacreurs de France, Rheims 1579, pp. 78, 79 – a treatise of which the preface (L'Imprimeur aux lecteurs, dated June 25, 1577) shows that it was written before the death of Charles IX., but the publication of which was from time to time deferred in the vain hope that the authors of the inhuman massacre might yet repent. The new and "more detestable perfidy, fury, and impetuosity" of which the Huguenots were the victims in the first years of Henry III.'s reign, finally brought it to the light. The Archives curieuses contain only a part of the treatise.

917

Smith to Walsingham, Aug. 22, 1572, Digges, 236.

918

Walsingham to Burleigh, Aug. 10, 1572, Digges, 233. This news and the interview, which must have taken place about the first week of August, are the burden of three letters written by Walsingham on the same day. "Herein nothing prevailed so much as the tears of his mother," he wrote to Leicester, "who without the army of England cannot consent to any open dealing. And because they are, as I suppose, assured by their ambassadors that her Majesty will not intermeddle, they cannot be induced to make any overture" (p. 233). Walsingham was disheartened at the loss of so critical an opportunity. "Pleasure and youth will not suffer us to take profit of advantages, and those who rule under [over] us are fearfull and irresolute."

919

Mém. de Tavannes, iii. 291.

920

Walsingham to Leicester, Aug. 10, 1572, Digges, 233.

921

"I am requested to desire your lordship to hold him excused in that he writeth not," he adds, "for that at this time he is overwhelmed with affairs." Walsingham to Leicester, Aug. 10, 1572, Digges, 234.

922

Sir Thomas Smith's plea in her behalf is interesting and plausible, but will not receive the sanction of any one who takes into account the vast difference in the positions of Elizabeth and Charles, or considers the principles of which the former was, or should have been, the advocate. The good secretary, I need not remind my reader, was never reluctant to parade his Latinity: "If you there [in France] do tergiversari and work tam timide and underhand with open and outward edicts, besides excuses at Rome and at Venice by your ambassadors, you, I say, which have Regem expertem otii, laboris amantem, cujus gens bellicosa jampridem assueta est cædibus tam exterioris quam vestri sanguinis, quid faciemus gens otiosa et paci assueta, quibus imperat Regina, et ipsa pacis atque quietis amantissima." Smith to Walsingham, Aug. 22, 1572, Digges, 237.

923

Puntos de Cartas de Anton de Guaras al Duque de Alva, June 30th: MS. Simancas, apud Froude, x. 383.

924

Froude, x. 385.

925

Mémoires de Marguerite de Valois, 25, 26.

926

No dispensation was ever granted until after the marriage, and after Henry of Navarre's simulated conversion to Roman Catholicism. Then, of course, there was no need of further hesitation, and the document was granted, of which a copy is printed in Documents historiques inédits, i. 713-715. The bull is dated Oct. 27, 1572. There is, then, no necessity for Mr. Henry White's uncertainty (Massacre of St. Bartholomew, 370): "The new pope, Gregory XIII., appears to have been more compliant, or the letter stating that a dispensation was on the road must have been a forgery."

927

De Thou, iv. (liv. lii.), 569; Lo stratagema di Carlo IX. rè di Francia, contro gli Ugonotti, rebelli di Dio e suoi; descritto dal signor Camillo Capilupi, e mandato di Roma al signor Alfonzo Capilupi. Ce stratageme est cy après mis en François avec un avertissement au lecteur. 1574. Orig. ed., p. 22.

928

Mémoires de l'estat de France sous Charles IX. (Cimber et Danjou, vii. 78.)

929

"Avec certain formulaire que les uns et les autres n'improuvoyent point." Mém. de l'estat, ubi supra, vii. 79.

930

As De Thou here speaks as an eye-witness of the marriage, I follow his description very closely. Histoire univ., iv. (liv. lii.) 469, 470. Agrippa d'Aubigné was not in Paris (Mémoires, édit. Panthéon, p. 478), and his account is meagre and deficient in originality. Hist. univ., ii. 12 (liv. i., c. 3). It is quite in keeping with the brave Gascon's character, that, having come to Paris some days before, in order to obtain a commission to command a company of soldiers which he had raised for the war in Flanders, he had been obliged to leave almost instantly upon his arrival, because he had acted as the second of a friend in a duel, and wounded in the face an archer who endeavored to arrest him. Tavannes makes Coligny suggest the removal of the ensigns taken from the Protestants as "marques de troubles," and playfully claim for himself the 50,000 crowns promised to any one who should bring the admiral's head. Mémoires, éd. Petitot, iii. 293.

931

Mémoires de l'État, ubi supra, pp. 79, 80; De Thou, ubi supra. I have not deemed it out of place to describe some of the diversions with which the French court occupied itself on the eve of the massacre. The connection between reckless merriment and cold-blooded cruelty is often startlingly close. Besides this, the finances of the country were so hopelessly involved, as the consequence of the late civil wars, that this lavish expenditure was particularly ill-timed. If old Gaspard de Tavannes was as blunt as his son represents him to have been, he gave Charles some good, but, like most good, unheeded advice. "Sire," said he, à propos of the extravagance of the court at Guise's marriage in 1570, "you should make a feast, and instead of the singers who are brought in artificial clouds, you should bring those who would tell you this truth: 'You are dolts! You spend your money in festivals, in pomps and masks, and do not pay your men-at-arms nor your soldiers; foreigners will beat you!'" Mémoires, éd. Petitot, iii. 183.

932

I had translated this letter from the copy given by the Mémoires de l'estat de France (apud Archives curieuses, vii. 80, 81), which agrees substantially with, and was probably derived from, the version given in Hotman's Gasparis Colinii Vita (1575), 106, 107. On comparing it, however, with the transcript of the original autograph in the remarkable collection of the late Col. Henri Tronchin, given by M. Jules Bonnet in the Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. français, i. (1853), 369, I discover extraordinary discrepancies, and find that, in addition to a different phraseology in every sentence, one clause is inserted by Hotman of which there is not a trace in the Tronchin MS. I refer to the words: "Soyez asseurée de ma part que, parmi ces festins et passe-temps, je ne donneray fascherie à personne" – which would, of course, point to the prevailing fears of a collision between the admiral and the young Duke of Guise, or his retainers, whose hatred of Coligny was so well known that Charles IX. had issued a special injunction to the parties to keep the peace. The letter contains at the commencement of the postscript a playful allusion to the hope of his wife soon to be a mother.

933

Mém. de l'estat, ubi supra, 88, 89; De Thou, iv. (liv. lii.) 570. The mechanical part of these exhibitions was well executed. In the "enfer" there were "un grand nombre de diables et petis diabloteaux faisans infinies singeries et tintamarres avec une grande roue tournant dedans ledit enfer, toute environnée de clochettes." The singer, Étienne le Roy, was again the "deus ex machina," coming from heaven and returning thither, in the character of Mercury mounted upon a gigantic bird. The final explosion inspired so much consternation among the spectators, that it effectually cleared the hall.

934

They were married at Blandy, a castle belonging to the Marquise de Rothelin, near Melun, where its ruins are still to be seen (Saint-Fargeau, Dict. des communes de France, s. v.), about a week before the marriage of Navarre, August 10, 1572. Tocsain contre les massacreurs (Arch. curieuses, vii. 42). Marie of Cleves was a daughter of the Duke of Nevers, and sister of Catharine of Cleves, Prince Porcien's widow, whom Henry of Guise had married in Sept., 1570. Journal de Jehan de la Fosse, 146.