History of the Rise of the Huguenots

1264

"Affirmabant vero haudquaquam se facere contra officium et antiqua sua privilegia, per quæ illis tribueretur exemptio ab omni præterquam ex sua civitate delecto ab ipsis præsidio, et facultas sese suis armis custodiendi." Such was the claim of the Rochellois in answer to Strozzi's summons. Jean de Serres, iv. 63.

1265

Arcère, i. 412.

1266

Ibid., i. 422; De Thou, iv. (liv. liii.) 654; J. de Serres, iv., fols. 75, 76.

1267

Delmas, Église réf. de la Rochelle, 105, 106. The same author cites Henry IV.'s eulogy: "Il était grand homme de guerre, et plus grand homme de bien." See also De Thou's strong expressions, viii. (liv. cii.) 8.

1268

See the detailed "Carte du Pays d'Aulnis, avec les Isles de Ré, d'Oléron, et Provinces voisines, dressée en 1756," prefixed to the first volume of Arcère, Histoire de la Rochelle.

1269

Agrippa d'Aubigné, ii. 34, 35 (liv. i., c. 6); De Thou, iv. (liv. liii.) 655-656; Jean de Serres, iv., fol. 75; Arcère, i. 427-429.

1270

Arcère, i. 429, partly on MS. authority.

1271

Ibid., i. 430.

1272

The attitude of the Huguenot general had been and yet was one of the strangest. That he was able in the end to extricate himself without a stain attaching to his honor is still more remarkable. Both king and Protestants understood full well that he would counsel nothing which was not for the interest of both; and it was, therefore, no violation of his duty as envoy of Charles, if, as Jean de Serres informs us, when urging an amicable arrangement, he privately advised the Rochellois to admit no one into the city in the king's name, before receiving ample provisions for their security. Commentarii de statu religionis et reipublicæ, iv., fol. 75.

1273

Jean de Serres, iv., fol. 76.

1274

Ibid., iv., fol. 81.

1275

See the very clear account in the "Description chorographique de l'Aulnis," by Arcère, prefixed to his history of La Rochelle, i. 97, etc.

1276

Compare Arcère, i. 418, etc., and, especially, his plan of the city in 1573. See also Jean de Serres, iv., fol. 83; De Thou, iv. (liv. lv.) 759-761; D'Aubigné, ii. 36, 37 (liv. i., c. 7).

1277

De Thou, iv. (liv. lv.) 765; Arcère, i. 436.

1278

De Thou, iv. 761; Jean de Serres, iv., fol. 68.

1279

E.g., of Virolet, Jean de Serres, iv., fol. 76.

1280

Feb. 15th, according to J. de Serres, iv., fol. 83. Arcère (i. 452) says Feb. 12th.

1281

Arcère, i. 458.

1282

So, at least, Brantôme expressed himself. He was with the army before La Rochelle.

1283

Letter of Catharine, March 17th, Arcère, i. 466.

1284

De Thou, iv. (liv. lvi.) 789; Arcère, i. 489, 490; Jean de Serres, iv., fol. 99, etc.

1285

The poor, according to Jean de Serres, came to use the shell-fish in lieu of bread. If, as he assures us on the authority of men deserving credit, the supply ceased almost on that precise day upon which the royal army left the neighborhood, after the conclusion of peace, the reformed may be pardoned for regarding the fact as a miracle little inferior to that of the manna which never failed the ancient Israelites until they set foot in Canaan. Commentarii de statu religionis et reipublicæ, iv. 104 verso. "Dont lez reformez ont encores les tableaux en leurs maisons pour mémoire comme d'un miracle," writes Agrippa d'Aubigné, about forty years later (Hist. universelle, 1616, ii. 53).

1286

Arcère, i. 504, 505.

1287

Arcère, ubi supra.

1288

Arcère, i. 477, 480.

1289

De Thou, iv. (liv. lvi.) 780; Arcère, i. 477; D'Aubigné, ii. 45 (liv. i., c. 9).

1290

Jean de Serres, iv., fol. 102; Agrippa d'Aubigné, ii. 48 (liv. i., c. 9); De Thou, iv. 767, 786, 787, etc.

1291

La Mothe Fénélon to Charles IX., June 3, 1573. Corresp. diplom., v. 339.

1292

Jean de Serres (iv., fol. 87) states the length of the siege of Sommières as four months, and the loss of men as five thousand killed. The Recueil des choses mémorables, 1598 (p. 485), ascribed to the same author, reduces the loss one-half. Cf. De Thou, iv. 746-748.

1293

Jean de Serres, iv., fols. 88, 89; De Thou, iv. (liv. lvi.) 749, 750.

1294

"In ipso regni umbilico." Jean de Serres, iv., fol. 92.

1295

Ibid., iv., fols. 72, 77, 79; Ag. d'Aubigné, ii. 40, 41; De Thou, iv. (liv. liv.) 660-663.

1296

Jean de Serres, iv., fol. 93, 94.

1297

"Ut Ierosolymitanæ, Samaritanæ, Saguntinæ famis memoriam exæquare, nisi et exsuperare videatur." Ibid., iv., fol. 92.

1298

"Discours de l'extrême famine, cherté de vivre, chairs, et autres choses non acoustumées pour la nourriture de l'homme, dont les assiégez dans la ville de Sancerre ont été affligez." 1574. Reprinted in Archives curieuses, viii. 19-82.

1299

Edward Smedley, History of the Reformed Religion in France (London, 1834), ii. 88.

1300

"Fade et douceastre," p. 24.

1301

De Thou, iv. (liv. lvi.) 796. As early as on the twelfth of April, such was the discouragement felt in Paris, that orders were published to make "Paradises" in each parish, and to institute processions, to supplicate the favor of heaven, in view of the repulses experienced by the Roman Catholics before La Rochelle. Journal d'un curé ligueur (Jehan de la Fosse), p. 158.

1302

Histoire du siége de La Rochelle par le duc d'Anjou en 1573, par A. Genet, capitaine du génie; apud Bulletin de la Société de l'histoire du prot. français, ii. (1854) 96, 190.

1303

Mémoires de Claude Haton, ii. 722.

1304

At Troyes, for instance, where the poor who had flocked to the city were invited to meet at one of the gates, to receive each a loaf of bread and a piece of money. This done, they saw the gates closed upon them, and were informed from the ramparts that they must go elsewhere to find their living until the next harvest. Claude Haton, ii. 729.

1305

Ante, chapter xix., p. 552.

1306

Here is his letter to Henry: "Mon frère. Dieu nous a fait la grasse que vous estes ellu roy de Poulogne. J'en suis si ayse que je ne sçay que vous mander. Je loue Dieu de bon cœur; pardonnés moy, l'ayse me garde d'escrire. Je ne sceay que dire. Mon frère, je avons receu vostre lestre. Je suis vostre bien bon frère et amy, Charles." MS. Bibliothèque nationale, apud Haton, ii. 733.

1307

The edict says expressly (Art. 5th): "Et y faire seulement les baptesmes et mariages à leur façon accoustumée sans plus grande assemblée, outre les parens, parrins et marrines, jusques au nombre de dix." Text in Agrippa d'Aubigné, ii. 98, etc., and Haag, France protestante, x. (Documents) 110-114. Jean de Serres (iv., fol. 107, etc.) and Von Polenz (Gesch. des Franz. Calvinismus, ii. 632) give a correct synopsis; but Soldan is wrong in including among the concessions "den Hausgottesdienst" (ii. 536), and De Thou still more incorrect when he speaks of "les prêches et la Cène" (iv., liv. lvi. 796).

1308

According to Davila, Sancerre was not comprehended in the terms made with the Rochellois, "because it was not a free town under the king's absolute dominion as the rest, but under the seigniory of the Counts of Sancerre." London trans. of 1678, 193.

1309

Jean de Léry, Discours de l'extrême famine, etc., 25-27.

1310

Jean de Léry, 38.

1311

Styled also, in the articles of capitulation, "le gouverneur par élection de ladite ville." He was an able and influential magistrate, who had been elected to the governorship of his native city at the time of the former troubles. Léry, 78-80.

1312

Agrippa d'Aubigné (Hist. univ., ii. 104) distinctly represents La Chastre as desirous of destroying the entire city; while Léry (p. 77) and Davila (p. 193) are in doubt whether Johanneau's murder was not effected by his orders. Yet Léry himself records a conversation he held about this time with La Chastre (p. 67), in which the latter protested that he was not, as commonly reported, of a sanguinary disposition, and appealed for corroboration to his merciful treatment of some Huguenot prisoners that fell into his hands in the third civil war, whom he refused to surrender to the Parisian parliament when formally summoned to do so. Claude de la Chastre's noble letter to Charles IX., of January 21, 1570 (Bulletin, iv. 28), seems to be a sufficient voucher for his veracity. See ante, chapter xvi., p. 345.

1313

Jean de Léry, 42.

1314

Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 104. It would be a great relief could we believe that inordinate fondness for the dance was the chief vice of the French court. Unfortunately the moral turpitude of the king and his favorites rests upon less suspicious grounds than the revolting stories told on hearsay by the unfriendly writer of the Eusebii Philadelphi Dialogi (Edinburgi, 1574), ii. 117, 118. The "Affair of Nantouillet," occurring just about the time of the Polish ambassadors' arrival in Paris, is only too authentic. The "Prévôt de Paris," M. de Nantouillet (cf. ante, chapter xv., page 258, note), grandson of Cardinal du Prat, Chancellor of France under Francis I., offended Anjou by somewhat contemptuously declining the hand of the duke's discarded mistress, Mademoiselle de Châteauneuf. The lady easily induced her princely lover to avenge her wounded vanity. One evening Charles IX., the new king of Poland, the King of Navarre, the Grand Prior of France, and their attendants, presented themselves at the stately mansion of Nantouillet, on the southern bank of the Seine, opposite the Louvre, and demanded that a banquet be prepared for them. Though the royal party was masked, the unwilling host knew his guests but too well, and dared not deny their peremptory command. In the midst of the carousal, at a preconcerted signal, the king's followers began to ransack the house, maltreating the occupants, wantonly destroying the costly furniture, appropriating the silver plate, and breaking open doors and coffers in search of money. The next day even Paris itself was indignant at the base conduct of its king. To the first president of parliament, who that day visited the palace and informed Charles of the current rumors respecting his having been present and conniving at the pillage, the despicable monarch denied their truth with his customary horrible imprecation. But when the president expressed his great satisfaction, and said that parliament would at once institute proceedings to discover and punish the guilty, Charles promptly responded: "By no means. You will lose your trouble;" and he added a significant threat for Nantouillet, that, should he pursue his attempt to obtain satisfaction, he would find that he had to do with an opponent infinitely his superior. Euseb. Phil. Dialogi, ii. 117, 118; Jean de Serres, iv., fol. 114, verso; D'Aubigné, ii. 104; De Thou, iv. (liv. lvi.) 821.

1315

Article 4th. Text in Agrippa d'Aubigné, ii. 98.

1316

J. de Serres, iv., fol. 112.

1317

This hamlet must not be confounded with the important town of Milhaud, or Milhau-en-Rouergue, mentioned below, nearly seventy miles farther west.

1318

Histoire du Languedoc, v. 321.

1319

Jean de Serres, iv., fols. 113, 114; De Thou, v. (liv. lvii.) 12, 13; Agrippa d'Aubigné, ii. 107; Histoire du Languedoc, v. 322. It ought to be noted that the Montauban assembly in reality did little more than confirm the regulations drawn up by previous and less conspicuous political assemblies of the Huguenots held at Anduze in February, and at Réalmont, in May, 1573. This clearly appears from references to that earlier legislation contained in the more complete "organization" adopted four months later at Milhau. See the document in Haag, France Protestante, x. (Pièces justificatives) 124, 125. M. Jean Loutchitzki has published in the Bulletin, xxii. (1873) 507-511, a list of the political assemblies much fuller than given by any previous writer.

1320

As it is of interest to fix the geographical distribution of the provinces represented, I give the list contained in the preamble: "Guyenne, Vivaretz, Gevaudan, Sénéschaussée de Toloze, Auvergne, haute et basse Marche, Quercy, Périgord, Limosin, Agenois, Armignac, Cominges, Coustraux, Bigorre, Albret, Foix, Lauraguay, Albigeois, païs de Castres et Villelargue, Mirepoix, Carcassonne, et autres païs et provinces adjacentes."

1321

Requête de l'assemblée de Montauban, in Haag, La France Protestante, x. (Pièces just.) 114-121.

1322

Jean de Serres, iv., fols. 113, 114; De Thou, v. (liv. lvii.) 12, 13; Agrippa d'Aubigné, ii. 106.

1323

Histoire du Languedoc, v. 322.

1324

Agrippa d'Aubigné, ubi supra.

1325

Jean de Serres, iv. (lib. xii.) fol. 114; D'Aubigné and De Thou, ubi supra. See also Languet (Epistolæ secretæ, i. 216), who, writing November 14, 1573, considers the Huguenots to be virtually demanding the re-enactment of the edict of January, 1562.

1326

De Thou and D'Aubigné, ubi supra. Hist. du Languedoc, v. 322: "pourvû que lesdits de la religion donnent ordre de leur part, qu'il ne soit entrepris aucune chose au contraire, comme il est avenu ces jours passés, ce que je leur défens très-expressement." Charles IX. to Damville, Oct. 18, 1573. Unfortunately, neither the promise nor the condition was observed over scrupulously.

1327

The king's aunt, the Duchess of Savoy, his mother, and his brothers of Anjou and Alençon.

1328

Relazione di Giov. Michiel, 1561, Tommaseo, i. 418-420.

1329

De Thou, v. (liv. lvii.) 18.

1330

Of this Queen Elizabeth reminded La Mothe Fénélon in a conversation reported by him June 3, 1573, Corr. dipl., v. 345, 346.

1331

La Mothe Fénélon to Charles IX., July 26, 1573, Corr. dipl., v. 382.

1332

The story was certainly not invented by his mother, "comme il estoit sorty de sa dernière maladye aussy jaune que cuyvre, tout bouffy, deffiguré, bien fort petit et mince." No wonder that Leicester, while expressing the hope that the account might be false, hinted that it operated against the proposed marriage. La Mothe Fénélon to Charles IX., November 11, 1573, Correspondance diplomatique, v. 443.

1333

Despatch of Aug. 20, ibid., v. 394.

1334

The correspondence of La Mothe Fénélon, as preserved, is not destitute of interest. See volumes v. and vi., passim; as also Le Laboureur, Additions à Castelnau, vol. iii., pp. 350, seq.

1335

De Thou, v. 12.

1336

"Achten's dafür dieweil es den Franzosen gelungen das sie das Königreich Polen ann sich practicirt, das sie darvon so hochmüthig wordenn das sie müssen nun Hern der ganze weltt werdenn."

1337

Letters of Landgrave William, Sept. 8th, Oct. 17th and Nov. 6th, 1573, Groen van Prinsterer, iv. 116*, 118*, 123*. See also Soldan, ii. 552-556, who, as usual, is very full and satisfactory in everything bearing upon the relations of France to Germany. Rudolph, Maximilian's son, who succeeded his father three years later, was unfortunately far from embodying the excellences desired by the landgrave. It may be questioned whether the Protestants of Germany would have fared worse even under a Valois than under this degenerate Hapsburger.

1338

Louis of Nassau to William of Orange, December, 1573. Groen van Prinsterer, iv. 278-281.

1339

Motley, Rise of the Dutch Republic, ii. 534-538. J. de Serres, iv., fol. 134, gives the date as April 17th. This volume of Serres was published in the succeeding year, 1575.

1340

The writer of an anonymous letter (now in the library of Prince Czartoryski), who saw Henry as he rode into Heidelberg, with Louis of Nassau on his right hand, and Duke Christopher, the elector's son, on his left, thus describes his personal appearance: "Homo procera statura, corpore gracili, facie oblonga pallida, oculis paululum prominentibus, vultu subtruculento, indutus pallio holoserico rubri coloris." Heidelberg letter "de transitu Henrici," etc., Dec. 22, 1573, apud Marquis de Noailles, Henri de Valois et la Pologne (Paris, 1867), iii. (Pièces justif.), 532.

1341

Germany seems to have been full of blind rumors of treacherous designs on the part of its French neighbors. I have before me a pamphlet of little historical value, and evidently intended for popular circulation, entitled "Entdeckung etlicher heimlichen Practicken, so jetzund vorhanden wider unser geliebtes Vatterland, die Teutsche Nation, was man gäntzlich willens und ins werck zubringen, gegen den Evangelischen fürgenommen habe, durch einen guthertzigen und getrewen Christen unserm Vatterland zu gütem an tag geben. M.D.LXXIII."

1342

De Thou, v. (liv. lvii.), 22; Mém. de Pierre de Lestoile (éd. Michaud et Poujoulat), i. 27.

1343

"Was sich in Franckreich zugetragen, weiss man auch."

1344

The minute of the conversation drawn up by the elector palatine with his own hand, and printed by Lalanne in the appendix to the fourth volume of his edition of Brantôme's Works (411-418), is by far the most trustworthy source of information we possess. On the last count of the elector's indictment, Anjou's defence was certainly very lame: "Dass ich selbst an seines Altvatters Hof gesehen que ç'a été une Cour fort dissolue, aber seines Brudern und Frau Mutter Hof demselbigen bey weitem nicht zu vergleichen." Ibid., 414.

1345

"C'est ce qui fit croire à bien des gens, que l'Electeur n'avoit pas recu un hôte comme Henri aussi poliment qu'il le devoit." De Thou, v. (liv. lvii.) 22.

1346

Heidelberg letter of Dec. 22, 1573, Czartoryski MSS., De Noailles, Pièces justif., iii. 533. See ante, p. 485.

1347

Heidelberg letter, ubi supra, iii. 534.

1348

Jean de Serres (edit. 1571), iii. 284; A. d'Aubigné, i. 264, "Pource que le Chancelier de l'Hospital ne pouvoit travailler de cœur en mesme temps aux violentes depesches de Thavanes, de Montluc et autres, et aux douceurs du Mareschal de Cossé, il ne fallut qu'un souspir de probité pour lui faire oster les sceaux; ce que fit la Roine en le relegant en sa maison près Estampes jusques à la fin de ses jours." See also Languet's letter of September 20, 1568.

1349

Chancellor de l'Hospital to Charles IX., January 12, 1573, copy discovered in the MSS. of the National Library, Paris, by Prof. Soldan, and printed in Appendix XI. of his history.

1350

Ante, chapter xv., p. 264, note.

1351

"M. le chancelier de l'Hospital qui avoit les fleurs de lys dans le cœur." Journal de Lestoile, p. 16.

1352

"Politici (novum enim hoc nomen ex novo negotio sub hoc tempus natum)." Jean de Serres, iv., fol. 132.

1353

Jean de Serres, iv., fols. 115-117. The dedication of Hotman's Franco-Gallia to the elector palatine is dated August 21, 1573.

1354

Jean de Serres, iv., fol. 122. Serres gives an extended summary of the work, whose author is unknown to him, fols. 119-128.

1355

Eusebii Philadelphi Dialog., ii. 117, et passim. See also the Tocsain contre les massacreurs, which, although published as late as 1579, was written before the death of Charles the Ninth (see the address of the printer, dated June 25, 1577), where the king is directly compared to the Emperor Nero. Archives curieuses, vii. 162.

1356

They had, however, generally retracted their admissions of complicity made on the rack.

1357

Jean de Serres, iv., fol. 118; De Thou, v. (liv. lvii.) 19, 20; Arcère, Histoire de la ville de la Rochelle, i. 533-540; Languet, Letter of Feb. 8, 1574, i. 229.

1358

See the list of members in the protocol of the proceedings first published in the Bulletin de la Société de l'hist. du prot. français, x. (1862) 351-353.

1359

In this, as in other particulars, the political assembly of Milhau merely re-enacted the provisions of the assembly of Réalmont. For the dates of the early political assemblies of the Huguenots, which must of course be carefully distinguished from their synods or ecclesiastical assemblies, see the list in the Bulletin, etc., xxii. (1873) 508.

1360

Text of the document embodying the resolutions of the political assembly of Milhau, in Haag, La France protestante (vol. x.), Pièces justificatives, 121-126. The correct date seems to be Dec. 17th, instead of 16th; Bulletin, as above, x. 351. Cf. also Léonce Anquez, Histoire des assemblées politiques des réformés de France (1573-1622), Paris, 1859, 7-11.

1361

Lettres d'Auger Gislen, seigneur de Busbec, amb. de l'emp. Rodolphe II. auprès de Henri III. Cimber et Danjou, Archives curieuses, x. 115.

1362

"Dictitabat se Religionem reformatam minime probare; ensis tantum sui mucronem esse Religiosum: id est, se non Religionis doctrinam, sed Religiosorum causam sequi. Hujusmodi exemplis magnæ offensiones adversus Religiosos conflabantur." Jean de Serres, iv., fol. 118. The reader needs perhaps to be reminded that Religiosi here stands as the equivalent for the French designation of the Huguenots as "ceux de la Religion."

1363

Agrippa d'Aubigné, ii. 113, 114 (liv. ii., c. 4); Jean de Serres, iv., fol. 117. Of "La Grande Chartreuse," which lies ten miles north of Grenoble, see a good account in R. Töpffer, Voyages en Zigzag, seconde série.

1364

Languet, Epistolæ secretæ, i. 214, etc.

1365

E. Arnaud, Histoire des protestants du Dauphiné aux xvie, xviie et xviiie siècles, Paris, 1875, i. 277-281; Ch. Charronet, Les guerres de religion et la société protestante dans les Hautes-Alpes (1560-1789), Gap., 1861, p. 75, etc.