History of the Rise of the Huguenots

1018

Mémoires de l'estat, ubi supra, 146

1019

Mém. de l'estat, 146; Tocsain contre les massacreurs, 129, 130; De Thou, iv. (liv. lii.) 592; Claude Haton, ii. 678; Agrippa d'Aubigné, ii. 20.

1020

Tocsain, 136.

1021

Mém. de l'estat, 146.

1022

"Radices, atque etiam radicum fibras, funditus evellas." Pii Quinti Epistolæ, 111. See ante, chapter xvi., p. 308.

1023

Mém. de l'estat, 147. The children of other cities emulated the example of those of Paris. In Provins, in the month of October, 1572, a Huguenot, Jean Crespin, after having been hung by the officers of justice, was taken down from the gallows by "les petis enfans de Provins, de l'âge de douze ans et au dessoubz," to the number of more than one hundred. By these mimic judges he was declared unworthy to be dragged save by his feet, and, his punishment by hanging being reckoned too light, he was roasted in a fire of straw, and presently thrown into the river. Numbers of older persons looked on, approving and encouraging the children; a few good Catholics were grieved to see such cruelty practised on a dead body. Mém. de Claude Haton, ii. 704-706.

1024

Mém. de l'estat, ubi supra, 128.

1025

"On en remarqua qui avoient les yeux attachés sur le corps du Baron du Pont, pour voir si elles y trouveroient quelque cause ou quelque marque de l'impuissance qu'on lui reprochoit." De Thou, iv. (liv. lii.) 587. See Euseb. Philadelphi Dial., i. 45, and Jean de Serres (1575) iv., fol. 39.

1026

"Le Roy, la Royne mère, et leurs courtisans, rioyent à gorge desployée." Mém. de l'estat, ubi supra, 132.

1027

The prévôt, échevins, etc., "du tout, auroient, d'heure en heure, rendu compte et tesmoignage à sadicte Majesté." Extrait des registres et croniques du bureau de la ville de Paris, Archives curieuses, vii. 215.

1028

Mém. de l'estat, ubi supra.

1029

Tocsain contre les massacreurs, Rheims, 1579, p. 140.

1030

Ibid., ubi supra.

1031

Brantôme, Homines illustres français, M. de Thavannes.

1032

"Declarant (Alençon) qu'il ne pouvoit approuver vn tel desordre, ny qu'on rompit si ouvertement la foy promise, qui fut cause que sa mere luy dit en termes clairs que s'il bougeoit elle le feroit ietter dans vn sac aual l'eau." Tocsain contre les massacreurs, 141.

1033

Ib., 133.

1034

De Thou, iv. 592.

1035

His son, Jacques Merlin, at a later time pastor at La Rochelle, although he does not mention the particulars of his father's escape, in the journal published for the first time by M. Gaberel in an appendix to the second vol. of his Histoire de l'église de Genève, pp. 153-207, alludes to it – "fut deliuré par une grace de Dieu spéciale" (p. 155).

1036

Mémoires de Sully (London, 1748), i. pp. 29, 30.

1037

Tocsain contre les massacreurs, 131; Mém. de l'estat, ubi supra, 142, etc. De Thou, iv. (liv. lii.) 592, 593. Strange to say, Von Botzheim was so far misinformed, that he makes Charpentier weep for the fate of Ramus! Archival. Beiträge, p. 117.

1038

De Thou, iv. (liv. lii.) 596; Mémoires de l'estat de France sous Charles IX. (Cimber et Danjou, vii. 137-142, and in M. Buchon's biographical notice prefixed to the "Commentaires"). An appreciative chapter on Pierre de la Place and his works may be read in Victor Bujeaud, Chronique protestante de l'Angoumois (Angoulême, 1860), 50-66.

1039

Cahors is over 300 miles in a straight line from Paris, more than 400 miles – 153 leagues – by the roads.

1040

De Thou, iv. (liv. lii.) 594, 595; Agrippa d'Aubigné, Hist. univ., ii. 23.

1041

The incident of Charles IX.'s firing upon the Huguenots has been of late the subject of much discussion. M. Fournier and M. Méry have denied the existence, in 1572, of the pavilion at which tradition makes the king to have stationed himself. See Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. français, v. (1857) 332, etc. It has, I think, been conclusively shown that they are mistaken. The pavilion was in existence. But, besides, there is no reason why an incident should be deemed apocryphal because of a popular mistake in assigning the spot of its occurrence. The "Reveille-Matin" and the Eusebii Philadelphi Dialogi, published in 1574, are the earliest documents that refer to it. They place Charles at the window of his own room. So does Brantôme, writing considerably later. Jean de Serres (in the fourth vol. of his Commentaria de statu, etc. (fol. 37), published in 1575) says: "Regem quoque ex hypæthrio (i. e., from a covered gallery) aiunt, adhibitis, ut solebat, diris contenta voce conclamare, et tormento etiam ipsum ejaculari." Agrippa d'Aubigné alludes to it not only in his Histoire universelle (ii. 19, 21), but in his Tragiques (Bulletin, vii. 185), a poem which he commenced as early as in 1577 (See Bulletin, x. 202). M. Henri Bordier has been so fortunate as to discover and has reprinted a contemporary engraving of the massacre, in which Charles is represented as excitedly looking on the slaughter from a window in the Louvre, while behind him stand two halberdiers and several noblemen (Bulletin, x. 106, 107). The question is discussed in an able and exhaustive manner by MM. Fournier, Ludovic Lalanne, Bernard, Berty, Bordier, and others, in the Bulletin, v. 332-340; vi. 118-126; vii. 182-187; x. 5-11, 105-107, 199-204.

1042

The Porte de Bussy, or Bucy, was the first gate toward the west on the southern side of the Seine. During the reign of Francis I. and his successors of the house of Valois, the walls of Paris were of small compass. In this quarter their general direction is well marked out by the Rue Mazarine. The circuit started from the Tour de Nesle, which was nearly opposite the eastern front of the Louvre – the short Rue de Bussy fixes the situation of the gate where Guise was delayed. A little west of this is the abbey church of St. Germain-des-Prés, which gave its name to the suburb opposite the Louvre and the Tuileries. This quaint pile – the oldest church, or, indeed, edifice of any kind in Paris – after being built in the sixth century, and injured by the Normans in the ninth, was rebuilt and dedicated in 1163 A.D., by Alexander III. in person. On that occasion the Bishop of Paris was not even permitted by the jealous monks to be present, on the ground that the abbey of St. Germain-des-Prés was exempt from his jurisdiction. The pontiff confirmed their position, and his sermon, instead of being an exposition of the Gospel, was devoted to setting forth the privileges accorded to the abbey by St. Germain, Bishop of Paris, in 886. Dulaure, Histoire de Paris, ii. 79-84.

1043

Tocsain contre les massacreurs, 138, 139; Reveille-Matin, 186-188; Mém. de l'estat, 129-131.

1044

See Henry White, Massacre of St. Bartholomew, p. 460.

1045

Valued at from 100,000 to 200,000 crowns, Reveille-Matin, 190; Mém. de l'estat, 151. The interesting anonymous letter from Heidelberg, Dec. 22, 1573, published first by the Marquis de Noailles in his "Henri de Valois et la Pologne en 1572" (Paris, 1867), iii. 533, from the MSS. of Prince Czartoryski, alludes to the costly jewels which Henry, now king-elect of Poland, made to the elector palatine, his host, and remarks: "Fortasse magna hæc fuisse videbitur liberalitas et rege digna, at parva certe vel nulla potius fuit, si vel sumptibus quos illustrissimus noster princeps in deducendo et excipiendo hoc hospite sustinuit conferamus, vel si unde hæc dona sint profecta expendamus. Ipse siquidem rex (Henry) ne teruncium pro iis solvisse, sed ex taberna cujusdam prædivitis aurifabri Parisiensis, quam scelerati sui ministri in strage illa nobilium ut alias multas diripuerunt, accepisse ea fertur."

1046

Mémoires de l'estat, ubi supra, 150. Versailles, which thus passed into the hands of the family of Marshal Retz – the Gondi family – was an old castle situated in the midst of an almost unbroken forest. The Gondi family sold it to Louis XIII., who built a hunting lodge, afterward transmuted by Louis XIV. into the magnificent palace, which, for more than a century, was the favorite residence of the most splendid court in Europe. The mode in which the title was acquired did not augur well for the justice or the morality which was to reign there. M. L. Lacour has contributed an animated sketch, "Versailles et les protestants de France," to the Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. fr., viii. (1859) 352-367.

1047

Discours sur les causes de l'exécution, ubi supra, 249.

1048

Royal orders of Aug. 25th, Aug. 27th, etc. Order of the Prévôt des marchands, Aug. 30th. Registres du bureau de la ville, Archives curieuses, vii. 222-230. Euseb. Philadelphi Dialog., i. 45.

1049

Registres du bureau de la ville, pp. 222, 223.

1050

Ibid., p. 227.

1051

"Aucuns malades languissans, ayant ouy ce miracle, se firent porter audit cymetière pour veoir laditte espine; lesquelz, estans là avec ferme foy, firent leur prière à Dieu en l'honneur de nostre dame la vierge Marie et devant son ymage qui est en laditte chapelle, pour recouvrer leur santé, et, après leur oraison faicte, s'en retournèrent en leurs maisons sains et guaris de leur maladie, chose très-véritable et bien approuvèe." Mém. de Claude Haton, ii. 682.

1052

Ibid., ubi supra; Tocsain contre les massacreurs, 146; Reveille-Matin, 193, 194; Mém. de l'estat, 155; Jean de Serres, iv., fol. 41; De Thou, iv. (liv. lii.) 596.

1053

Dr. White (Massacre of St. Bartholomew, 459) has tabulated the estimates, nine in number, afforded by twenty-one distinct authorities. The lowest estimate – 1,000 victims – is that of the Abbé Caveyrac, whose undisguised aim was to place the number as low as possible, so as to palliate the atrocity of the massacre. Being based apparently upon the number of the names of victims that have been recorded, it may be dismissed as unworthy of consideration. The highest estimate, of 10,000, though adopted by such writers as the authors of the Reveille-Matin and the Mémoires de l'estat de France, is vague or excessive. The Tocsain and Agrippa d'Aubigné are, perhaps, too moderate in respectively stating the number as 2,000 and 3,000. On the whole, it appears to me, the contribution of Paris to the massacre of the Huguenots may be set down with the greatest probability at between 4,000 and 5,000 persons of all ages and conditions. Von Botzheim, who estimates the total at 8,000 (F. W. Ebeling, Archivalische Beiträge, p. 120), makes 500 of these to be women (Ibid., p. 119).

1054

In other letters Charles had even the effrontery to represent the King of Navarre as having been in like danger with his brothers and himself. See Eusebii Philadelphi Dialog. (1574), i. 45: "se quidem metu propriæ salutis in arcem Luparam (the Louvre) compulsum illic se continuisse, una cum fratre charissimo Rege Navarræ, et dilectissimo Principe Condensi, ut in communi periculo eundem fortunæ exitum experirentur!"

1055

Correspondance du roi Charles IX. et du sieur de Mandelot, 39-41. Letter to the Governor of Burgundy, apud Mém. de l'estat, ubi sup., 133-135.

1056

It was undoubtedly with the object of showing that they were not the prime movers in the massacre, or, as the author of the Mém. de l'estat expresses himself, that they had no particular quarrel save with Admiral Coligny, that Henry of Guise and his uncle actually rescued a few Huguenots from the hands of those who were about to put them to death. Reveille-Matin, 188; Mémoires de l'estat, 150.

1057

Mém. de l'estat, ubi supra, 154, from Reveille-Matin, 192; De Thou, iv. (liv. lii.) 597, 598; Euseb. Philad. Dial., i. 47.

1058

It was while Charles was on his way to the Palais de Justice that a gentleman in his train, and not far from him, was recognized as being a Protestant, and was killed. The king, hearing the disturbance, turned around; but, on being informed that it was a Huguenot whom they were putting to death, lightly said: "Let us go on. Would to God that he were the last!" Reveille-Matin, 194 (copied in Mém. de l'estat, 157); Euseb. Philad. Dial., i. 50.

1059

De Thou, whom I have chiefly followed, iv. (liv. lii.) 599; Tocsain contre les massacreurs, 142; Reveille-Matin, 193, 194; Euseb. Phil. Dial., i. 49; Mém. de l'estat, 156; Jean de Serres (1575), iv., fol. 43; Capilupi, 45; Relation of Olaegui, secretary of Don Diego de Cuñiga, Spanish ambassador at Paris, to be laid before Philip II., Simancas MSS., apud Bulletins de l'Acad. Roy. des Sciences, etc., de Belgique, vol. xvi. (1849) 254.

1060

De Thou, Tocsain, etc., ubi supra.

1061

Returning to the unpleasant theme in a subsequent book of his noble history (iv. (liv. liii.) 644), Jacques Auguste de Thou remarks, with an integrity which cannot swerve even out of consideration for filial respect: "Ce qu'il y avoit de déplorable, étoit de voir des personnes respectables par leur piété, leur science, et leur intégrité, revêtues des premières charges du Royaume, ennemies d'ailleurs de tout déguisement et de tout artifice, tels que Morvilliers, de Thou, Pibrac, Montluc et Bellièvre, louer contre leurs sentimens, ou excuser par complaisance une action qu'ils détestoient dans le cœur, sans y être engagés par aucun motif de crainte ou d'espérance; mais dans la fausse persuasion où ils étoient que les circonstances présentes et le bien de l'État demandoient qu'ils tinssent ce langage."

1062

The case stands much worse if we accept the statement of the author of the Mémoires de l'estat de France sous Charles IX., who, after contrasting the honorable conduct of President La Vaquerie, in the time of Louis XI., with that of Christopher de Thou, adds: "Mais cestui-ci n'avoit garde de faire le semblable; il prend trop de plaisir à toute sorte d'injustice pour s'y vouloir opposer." (Ubi supra, pp. 156, 157.) So, also, Euseb. Philad. Dial., i. 50: "Nam quomodo sese injustitiæ viriliter opponeret, qui ex ea tam uberes fructus colligit?" The Mém. de l'estat accuse him of having instigated the murder of Rouillard – a counsellor of parliament and canon of Notre Dame, and one of a very few Roman Catholics that were assassinated – because the latter loved justice, and had prosecuted one of the first president's friends (p. 148). According to the historian De Thou, on the other hand (iv. 593), Rouillard was "homme inquiet, querelleux, et ennemi des officiers des compagnies de ville."

1063

The passage is not in the will in the admiral's own handwriting, dated Archiac, June 5, 1569, a facsimile of which has been accurately lithographed by the French Protestant Historical Society, and which has also been printed in the Bulletin, i. (1852) 263-268. See ante, p. 461, 462.

1064

Mémoires de l'estat, ubi supra, 153; Gasparis Colinii Vita (1575), 131.

1065

"The said discourse was all written with his own hand." Walsingham to Smith, Sept. 14, 1572; Digges, 241, 242; Mém. de l'estat, ubi supra, 153; Gasparis Colinii Vita, 131, 132.

1066

Jean de Serres (1575), iv., fols. 57, 58; Eusebii Philadelphi Dial. (1574), i. 82, 83; Reveille-Matin, 203-205; De Thou, iv. (liv. liii.) 645, 646. For many years the disgraceful commemorative procession was faithfully observed.

1067

The slight eminence of Montfaucon, the Tyburn of Paris, was between the Faubourg St. Martin and the Faubourg du Temple, near the site of the Hôpital St. Louis. See Dulaure, Atlas de Paris.

1068

"Il les en reprit et leur dist: 'Je ne bousche comme vous autres, car l'odeur de son ennemy est très-bonne' – odeur certes point bonne et la parolle aussi mauvaise." Brantôme, Le Roy Charles IX., edit. Lalanne, v. 258. The original authority for this odious remark is Papyrius Masson (1575) in his life of Charles IX., which Brantôme had under his eyes: "Servis fœtorem non ferentibus, hostis mortui odor bonus est inquit." Le Laboureur, iii. 16.

1069

Le deluge des Huguenots avec leur Tumbeau, 1572. Reprinted in Archives curieuses, vii. 251-259.

1070

Tocsain contre les massacreurs, Rheims, 1579, p. 143. It has been well remarked by a writer in the Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. français (iii. 346) as one of the paradoxes of history, that Coligny's mangled remains, "after being carefully subjected to the most ignominious treatment, were saved from the annihilation to which they appeared to be infallibly condemned, and have been transmitted from place to place, and from hand to hand, until our own days, and better preserved for three centuries than many other illustrious corpses carefully laid up in costly mausoleums!" Marshal Montmorency placed the admiral's body in a lead coffin in his castle of Chantilly, whence he sent it to Montauban. François de Coligny brought it back to Châtillon-sur-Loing, when, in 1599, the sentence of parliament was formally rescinded. In 1786 it was taken to Maupertuis and placed in a black marble sarcophagus. Since 1851 it has been resting in its new tomb under the ruins of that part of the castle of Châtillon where Coligny was probably born. Bulletin, iii. 346-351.

1071

Tocsain contre les Massacreurs, 146; Reveille-Matin, 195; Euseb. Philadelphi Dial., i. 51; Mém. de l'estat, 161; Jean de Serres, iv., fol. 44 verso.

1072

The text of the declaration is to be found in the Mémoires de Claude Haton, ii. 683-685, in the Recueil des anciennes lois françaises (Isambert), xiv. 257, etc., and in the Mémoires de l'estat, ubi supra, 162-164. See De Thou, iv. (liv. lii.) 600. The Reveille-Matin calls attention (p. 196) to the circumstance that in the first copies of the document the name of Navarre did not occur; but that in the next issue the admiral's unhappy and detestable conspiracy was represented as directed against "la personne dudit sieur roy et contre son estat, la royne sa mère, messieurs ses frères, le roy de Navarre, princes et seigneurs estans près d'eulx." The policy of introducing Navarre, and, by implication, Condé, among the proposed victims of the Huguenots, was certainly sufficiently bold and reckless. See ante, p. 490.

1073

See De Thou, iv. (liv. liii.), 630; Jean de Serres, iv., fols. 53, 54.

1074

Euseb. Philadelphi Dial., i. 52.

1075

Digges, 239, 240.

1076

Ibid., 245

1077

Documents historiques inédits, i. 713-715.

1078

Agrippa d'Aubigné, Hist. univ., ii. 30; Jean de Serres (1575), iv., fol. 55.

1079

Charles IX. to Mondoucet, August 26th, Compte rendu de la com. roy. d'histoire, Brussels, 1852, iv. 344.

1080

"Estant croiable que ce feu ainsy allumé ira courant par toutes les villes de mon royaume, lesquelles, à l'exemple de ce qui s'est faict en cestedite ville, s'assureront de tous ceulx de ladite religion." Charles to Mondoucet, Aug. 26th, ubi supra, iv. 345

1081

"Car puisqu'il a pleu à Dieu conduire les choses ès termes où elles sont, je ne veulx négliger l'occasion, non seulement pour remectre, s'il m'est possible, ung perpétuel repos en mon royaume, mais aussy servir à la chrestienté."

1082

"Au surplus, quelque commandement verbal que j'aye peu faire à ceulx que j'aye envoyé tant devers vous que autres gouverneurs … j'ay révocqué et révocque tout celà, ne voulant que par vous ne autres en soit aucune chose exécuté." Charles IX. to Mandelot, Governor of Lyons, Correspondance, etc. (Paris, 1830), 53, 54; the same to the Mayor of Bourges, Mém. de l'estat (Archives curieuses), vii. 313. The variations of language are trifling.

1083

He seems at this time to have been at his castle of Montsoreau, situated six or seven miles above Saumur, on the left bank of the Loire, and within a short distance of Candes. M. de Montsoreau himself is described as "gentilhomme de Poictou fort renommé pour beaucoup de pillages et violences, qui finalement luy ont fait perdre la vie, ayant esté tué depuis en qualité de meurtrier." Mém. l'estat, 349.

1084

These letters, and some others relating to the massacre at Angers, contained in the archives of the municipality, are printed in the Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. français, xi. (1862) 120-124.

1085

I know, however, of no letters of this kind signed by Charles IX. himself. They all seem to have been written by his inferior agents, such as Puigaillard in the case of Saumur, or Masso and Rubys in that of Lyons. The advantage of this course was apparent. The king could not be proved to have ordered any massacre; he could throw off the responsibility upon others. On the other hand, such politic governors as Mandelot were naturally reluctant to act upon instructions which could at any moment be disavowed. The verbal messages of Charles himself would seem, from the Mandelot correspondence, to have been less definite – perhaps going to no greater lengths than to order the arrest of the persons and the sequestration of the effects of the Huguenots. May we not naturally suppose that the king and his council counted upon such subsequent massacres of the imprisoned Protestants as occurred in many places?

1086

Mémoires de l'estat, 132, 133. Compare De Thou, iv. (liv. lii.) 601.

1087

Relation of Olaegui, Simancas MSS., Bulletins de l'académie royale de Belgique, xvi. (1849) 254, 255.

1088

The names of nine are given. Archives curieuses, vii. 264.

1089

The procureur Cosset did not neglect his own interests, if, as we are informed, his house and courtyard were so full of stolen furniture that it was scarcely possible to enter the premises.

1090

Mémoires de l'estat, apud Archives curieuses, vii. 261-270.

1091

See ante, chapter xviii., p. 432.

1092

Recordon, le Protestantisme en Champagne (from the MSS. of N. Pithou, seigneur de Chamgobert), Paris, 1863, 174-192; Mém. de l'estat, Archives curieuses, vii. 271-292.

1093

Dr. Henry White, besides mistaking the Huguenot for the Papist, has incorrectly stated the circumstances. Massacre of St. Bartholomew, 450. See Mém. de l'estat, ubi supra, 295, and De Thou, iv. (liv. lii.) 601.

1094

Mémoires de l'estat, ubi supra, 295. "Le mesme fut fait à Paris et en d'autres lieux aussi," writes the same historian.