History of the Rise of the Huguenots Volume II Part 42

[911] This doc.u.ment was written by the ill.u.s.trious 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 Memoires 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'Aubigne, 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] Memoires de Tavannes (Ed. Pet.i.tot), iii. 290.

[913] In this case the chief spy, according to the Tocsain contre les ma.s.sacreurs, 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 creatures qu'elle leur a donne pour serviteurs dez leur enfance." Memoires, 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 ma.s.sacreurs, 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. Pet.i.tot), 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 ma.s.sacreurs 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 ma.s.sacre 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, a.s.sured by their amba.s.sadors 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] Mem. de Tavannes, iii. 291.

[920] Walsingham to Leicester, Aug. 10, 1572, Digges, 233.

[921] "I am requested to desire your lords.h.i.+p 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 amba.s.sadors, you, I say, which have Regem expertem otii, laboris amantem, cujus gens bellicosa jampridem a.s.sueta est caedibus tam exterioris quam vestri sanguinis, quid faciemus gens otiosa et paci a.s.sueta, 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.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE Ma.s.sACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S DAY.

[Sidenote: The Huguenot n.o.bles reach Paris.]

The marriage of Henry of Navarre and Margaret of Valois had been delayed in consequence of the death of the bridegroom's mother, but could now no longer be deferred. The young queen of Charles the Ninth was soon to become a mother, and it was desirable that she should have the opportunity to leave the crowded and unhealthy capital as soon as possible. Jeanne d'Albret's objection to the celebration of the wedding in Paris had been overruled. The bride herself, indifferent enough, to all appearance, on other points, was resolute as to this matter--she would have her nuptials celebrated in no provincial town. Accordingly, the King of Navarre, followed by eight hundred gentlemen of his party, as well as by his cousin the Prince of Conde, and the admiral, made his solemn entry into the city, which so few of his adherents were to leave alive. Although still clad in mourning for the loss of the heroic Queen of Navarre, they bore no unfavorable comparison with the gay courtiers, who, with Anjou and Alencon at their head, came out to escort them into Paris with every mark of respect.[925]

[Sidenote: Betrothal of Henry and Margaret.]

The betrothal took place in the palace of the Louvre, on Sunday the seventeenth of August. Afterward there was a supper and a ball; and when these came to an end, Margaret was conducted by her mother, her brothers, and a stately retinue, to the episcopal palace, on the ile de la Cite, adjoining the cathedral, there, according to the immemorial custom of the princesses of the blood, to pa.s.s the night before her wedding. No papal dispensation had arrived. Gregory XIII. was as obstinate as his predecessor in the pontifical chair, in denying the requests of the French envoys to Rome.[926] But Charles was determined to proceed; and, in order to silence the opposition of the Cardinal of Bourbon, who still refused to perform the ceremony without the pope's approval, a forged letter was shown to him, purporting to come from the Cardinal of Lorraine, or the royal amba.s.sador at Rome, and announcing that the bull of dispensation had actually been sealed, and would shortly arrive.[927]

Preparations had been made for the wedding in a style of magnificence extraordinary even for that age of reckless expenditure. To show their cordial friends.h.i.+p and fidelity, Charles and his brothers, Anjou and Alencon, and Henry and his cousin of Conde, a.s.sumed a costume precisely alike--a light yellow satin, covered with silver embroidery, and enriched with pearls and precious stones. Margaret wore a violet velvet dress with fleurs-de-lis. Her train was adorned with the same emblems. She was wrapped in a royal mantle, and had upon her head an imperial crown glittering with pearls, diamonds, and other gems of incalculable value.

The queens were resplendent in cloth of gold and silver.[928] A lofty platform had been erected in front of the grand old pile of Notre Dame.

Hither Margaret was brought in great pomp, from the palace of the Bishop of Paris, escorted by the king, by Catharine de' Medici, by the Dukes of Anjou and Alencon, and by the Guises, the marshals, and other great personages of the realm. Upon the platform she met Henry of Navarre, with his cousins Conde and Conty, Admiral Coligny, Count de la Rochefoucauld, and a numerous train of Protestant lords from all parts of the kingdom. In the sight of an immense throng, the nuptial ceremony was performed by the Cardinal of Bourbon, Henry's uncle, according to the form which had been previously agreed upon.[929] The bridal procession then entered the cathedral by a lower platform, which extended through the nave to the choir. Here Henry, having placed his bride before the grand altar to hear ma.s.s, himself retired with his Protestant companions to the episcopal palace, and waited for the service to be over. When notified of its conclusion by Marshal Damville, Henry and his suite returned to the choir, and with his bride and all the attending grandees soon sat down to a sumptuous dinner in the episcopal palace.

Among those who had been admitted to the choir of Notre Dame after the close of the ma.s.s, was the son of the first president of parliament, young Jacques Auguste de Thou, the future historian. Happening to come near Admiral Coligny, he looked with curious and admiring gaze upon the warrior whose virtues and abilities had combined to raise the house of Chatillon to its present distinction. He saw him point out to his cousin Damville the flags and banners taken from the Huguenots on the fields of Jarnac and Moncontour, still suspended from the walls of the cathedral, mournful trophies of a civil contest. "These will soon be torn down," De Thou heard Coligny say, "and in their place others more pleasing to the eye will be hung up." The words had unmistakable reference to the victories which he hoped soon to win in a war against Spain. It is not strange, however, that the malevolent endeavored to prove that they contained an allusion to the renewal of a domestic war, which it is certain that the admiral detested with his whole heart.[930]

[Sidenote: Entertainment in the Louvre.]

Later in the day, a magnificent entertainment was given by Charles in the Louvre to the munic.i.p.ality of Paris, the members of parliament, and other high officers of justice. Supper was succeeded by a short ball, and this in turn by one of those allegorical representations in which French fancy and invention at this period ran wanton. Through the great vaulted saloon of the Louvre a train of wonderful cars was made slowly to pa.s.s. Some were rocks of silver, on whose summits sat in state the king's brothers, Navarre, Conde, the prince dauphin, Guise, or Angouleme. On others sea-monsters disported themselves, and the pagan G.o.ds of the water, somewhat incongruously clothed in cloth of gold or various colors, serenely looked on. Charles himself rode in a chariot shaped like a sea-horse, the curved tail of which supported a sh.e.l.l holding Neptune and his trident. When the pageant stopped for a moment, singers of surpa.s.sing skill entertained the guests. etienne le Roy, the king's especial favorite, distinguished himself by the power and beauty of his voice.[931]

The entertainment was prolonged far into the night; but Admiral Coligny, before giving himself repose, s.n.a.t.c.hed from sleep a few minutes to write a letter to his wife, whom he had left in Chatillon. It is the last which has been preserved, and is otherwise important because of the light it throws upon the hopes and fears of the great Huguenot at this critical time.

[Sidenote: Coligny's letter to his wife.]

"My darling," he said, "I write this bit of a letter to tell you that to-day the marriage of the king's sister and the King of Navarre took place. Three or four days will be spent in festivities, masks, and mock combats. After that the king has a.s.sured me and given me his promise, that he will devote a few days to attending to a number of complaints which are made in various parts of the kingdom, touching the infraction of the edict. It is but reasonable that I should employ myself in this matter, so far as I am able; for, although I have infinite desire to see you, yet should I feel great regret, and I believe that you would likewise, were I to fail to occupy myself in such an affair with all my ability. But this will not delay so much the departure from this city, but that I think that the court will leave it at the beginning of next week. If I had in view only my own satisfaction, I should take much greater pleasure in going to see you, than in being in this court, for many reasons which I shall tell you. But we must have more regard for the public than for our own private interests. I have many other things to tell you, when I am able to see you, for which I am so anxious that you must not think that I waste a day or an hour. What remains for me to say is that to-day, at four o'clock after noon, the bride's ma.s.s was said. Meanwhile, the King of Navarre walked about in a court with all those of the religion who accompanied him. Other incidents occurred which I will reserve to relate to you; but first I must see you. And meantime I pray our Lord, my darling, to keep you in His holy guard and protection. From Paris, this eighteenth day of August, 1572. _Mandez-moy comme se porte le pet.i.t ou pet.i.te._ ... I a.s.sure you that I shall not be anxious to attend all the festivities and combats that are to take place during these next days. Your very good husband and friend, CHaTILLON."[932]

[Sidenote: Festivities and mock combats.]

The festivities and combats--so distasteful to a statesman who recognized the critical condition of French affairs, and regarded this merry-making as ill-timed--pursued their uninterrupted course through Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of that eventful week. But the description of most of the elaborate pageants would contribute little to the value of our conceptions of the character of the age. An exception may perhaps be made in favor of an ingenious tournament that took place on Wednesday in the Hotel Bourbon. Here the Isles of the Blessed, the Elysian Fields, and Tartarus were represented by means of costly mechanisms. Charles and his brothers figured as knights defending Paradise, which Navarre and others, dressed as knights-errant, endeavored to enter by force of arms, but were repulsed and thrust into Tartarus. After some time the defeated champions were rescued from their perilous situation by the compa.s.sion of their victors, and the performance terminated in a startling, but harmless display of fireworks.[933] As the a.s.sailants were mostly Protestants, the defenders Roman Catholics, it was not strange that a sinister interpretation was soon put upon the strange plot; but, unless we are to suppose the authors of the ma.s.sacre, whose success depended upon the surprise of the victims, so infatuated as to wish to forewarn them of their fate, it is scarcely credible that they intended to prefigure the ruin of the reformed faith in France.

[Sidenote: Huguenot grievances to be redressed.]

The time that had been allotted to pleasure was fast pa.s.sing. The king was soon to meet Coligny, according to his promise, for the transaction of important business relating both to the internal and to the foreign affairs of France. There were religious grievances to be redressed. The admiral was particularly anxious to bring to the king's notice the flagrant outrage recently perpetrated in Troyes, where a fanatical Roman Catholic populace, indignant that the Huguenots, through the kindness of Marie de Cleves, the betrothed of the Prince of Conde,[934] had been permitted to hold their wors.h.i.+p so near the city as her castle of Isle-au-Mont, scarcely three leagues distant,[935] had met the Protestants on their return from service with aggravated insult, and had killed in the arms of its nurse an infant that had just been baptized according to the reformed rites.[936] Catharine and her son Anjou saw with consternation that the impression made by the "tears of Montpipeau" was already in a great degree obliterated, and feared the complete destruction of their influence if Charles were longer permitted to have intercourse with Coligny. In that case a Flemish war would be almost inevitable. Charles's anger against the Spaniards had kindled anew when he heard of Alva's inhumanity to Genlis and his fellow-prisoners. But, when he was informed that Alva had put French soldiers to the torture, in order to extract the admission of their monarch's complicity in the enterprise, his pa.s.sion was almost ungovernable, as he asked his attendants again and again: "Do you know that the Duke of Alva is putting me on trial?"[937] It seems to have been at this juncture that Catharine and her favorite son came to the definite determination to put the great Huguenot out of the way. Henry of Anjou is here his own accuser. In that strange confession which he made to his physician, Miron,[938] shortly after his arrival in Cracow--a confession made under the influence, not so much of remorse, as of the annoyance occasioned by the continual reminders of the ma.s.sacre which were thrown in his way as he travelled to a.s.sume the throne of Poland--he gives us a partial view of the development of the murderous plot.

[Sidenote: Jealousy of Catharine and Anjou.]

[Sidenote: The d.u.c.h.ess of Nemours and Henry of Guise.]

Several times had Anjou and Catharine perceived that, whenever Charles had conversed in private with the admiral, his demeanor was visibly changed toward them. He no longer exhibited his accustomed respect for his mother or his wonted kindness for his brother. Once, in particular--and it was, so Anjou tells us, only a few days before St. Bartholomew's Day--Henry happened to enter the room just after Coligny had gone out. Instantly the king's countenance betrayed extreme anger. He began to walk furiously to and fro, taking great strides, and keeping his eyes fixed upon his brother with an expression that boded no good, but without uttering a word. Again and again he placed his hand on his dagger, and Anjou expected nothing less than that his brother would attack him. At last, taking advantage of an opportunity when Charles's back was turned, he hastily retreated from the room. This circ.u.mstance led Catharine and Anjou to compare their observations and their plans. "Both of us," says Henry, "were easily persuaded, and became, as it were, certain that it was the admiral who had impressed some evil and sinister opinion of us upon the king. We resolved from that moment to rid ourselves of him, and to concert the means of doing so with the d.u.c.h.ess of Nemours. To her alone we believed that we might safely disclose our purpose, on account of the mortal hatred which we knew that she bore to him."[939] The d.u.c.h.ess of Nemours was born of an excellent mother; for she was Anne d'Este, daughter of Renee of France, the younger child of Louis the Twelfth. In her youth, at the court of her father, the Duke of Ferrara, and in society with that prodigy of feminine precocity, Olympia Morata, she had shown evidences of extraordinary intellectual development and of a kindly disposition.[940] Although she subsequently married Francis of Guise, the leading persecutor of the Protestants, she had not so lost her sympathy with the oppressed as to witness without tears and remonstrances the atrocious executions by which the tumult of Amboise was followed. But the a.s.sa.s.sination of her husband turned any affection or compa.s.sion she may have entertained for Protestantism into violent hatred. Against Coligny, whom, in spite of his protestations, she persisted in believing to be the instigator of Poltrot's crime, she bore an implacable enmity; and now, having so often failed in obtaining satisfaction from the king by judicial process, she eagerly accepted the opportunity of avenging herself by a deed more dastardly than that which she laid to the charge of her enemy. Entering heartily into the project which Catharine and Anjou laid before her, the d.u.c.h.ess of Nemours enlisted the co-operation of her son, Henry of Guise, and her brother-in-law, the Duke of Aumale, and herself arranged the details of the plan, which was at once to be put into execution.[941]

[Sidenote: Was the ma.s.sacre long premeditated?]

[Sidenote: Salviati's testimony.]

Such was the germ of the ma.s.sacre as yet not resolved upon, which, rapidly developing, was to involve the murder of thousands of innocent persons throughout France. In opposition to the opinion that became almost universal among the Protestants, and gained nearly equal currency among the Roman Catholics--that the butchery had long been contemplated, and that Charles was privy to it--and notwithstanding the circ.u.mstances that seem to give color to this opinion,[942] I am compelled to acquiesce in the belief expressed by the Papal Nuncio, Salviati, who, in his despatches, written in cipher to the cardinal secretary of state, could certainly have had no motive to disguise his real sentiments, and whom it is impossible to suppose ignorant of any scheme for the general extirpation of the Protestants, had such a scheme existed for any considerable length of time: "As to all the statements that will be made respecting the firing upon the admiral and his death, different from that which I have written to you, you will in time find out how true they are.

Madame the regent, having come to be at variance with him [the admiral], and having decided upon this step a few days before, caused him to be fired upon. This was _without the knowledge of the king_, but with the partic.i.p.ation of the Duke of Anjou, the d.u.c.h.ess of Nemours, and her son, the Duke of Guise. If the admiral had died at once, no others would have been slain. But, inasmuch as he survived, and they apprehended that some great calamity might happen should he draw closer to the king, they resolved to throw aside shame, and to have him killed together with the rest. And this was put into execution that very night."[943]

[Sidenote: The king's cordiality.]

As the hour approached, Coligny exhibited no apprehension of special danger. Others, however, more suspicious, or possessed of less faith in Heaven, felt alarm; and some acted upon their fears. The very "goodness"

of the king terrified one. Another said that he had rather be saved with fools than perish with the wise, and hastily forsook the capital. Dark hints had been thrown out by courtiers--such surmises were naturally bred by the defenceless position of the Protestants in the midst of a population so hostile to their faith as the population of Paris--that more blood than wine would be spilled at this wedding. And there were rumors of some mysterious enterprise afloat; so, at least, it was said after the occurrence. But Coligny moved not from the post which he believed had been a.s.signed to his keeping. On Wednesday Charles a.s.sured him, with laughing countenance, that if the admiral would but give him four days more for amus.e.m.e.nt, he would not stir from Paris until he had contented him;[944]

and the st.u.r.dy old Huguenot made no objection when the king, in order to prevent any disturbance which the partisans of Guise might occasion in seeking a quarrel with the followers of the house of Chatillon, proposed to introduce a considerable force of soldiers into the city. "My father,"

said Charles, with his usual appearance of affection, "you know that you have promised not to give any cause of offence to the Guises so long as you remain here; and they have in like manner promised to respect you and all yours. I am fully persuaded that you will keep your word; but I am not so well a.s.sured of their good faith as of yours; for, besides the fact that it is they that would avenge themselves, I know their bravadoes and the favor this populace bears to them."[945]

[Sidenote: Coligny is wounded, August 22.]

On Friday morning, the twenty-second of August, Admiral Coligny went to the Louvre, to attend a meeting of the royal council, at which Henry of Anjou presided. It was between ten and eleven o'clock, when, according to the more primitive hours then kept, he left the palace to return home for dinner.[946] Meeting Charles just coming out of a chapel in front of the Louvre, he retraced his steps, and accompanied him to the tennis-court, where he left him playing with Guise, against Teligny and another n.o.bleman. Accompanied by about a dozen gentlemen, he again sallied forth, but had not proceeded over a hundred paces when from behind a lattice an arquebuse was fired at him.[947] The admiral had been walking slowly, intently engaged in reading a pet.i.tion which had just been handed to him.

The shot had been well aimed, and might have proved fatal, had not the victim at that very moment turned a little to one side. As it was, of the three b.a.l.l.s with which the arquebuse was loaded, one took off a finger of his right hand, and another lodged in his left arm, making an ugly wound.

Supported by De Guerchy and Des Pruneaux, between whom he had previously been walking, Coligny was carried to his house in the little Rue de Bethisy,[948] only a few steps farther on. As he went he pointed out to his friends the house from which the shot had been fired. To a gentleman who expressed the fear that the b.a.l.l.s were poisoned, he replied with composure: "Nothing will happen but what it may please G.o.d to order."[949]