History of the Rise of the Huguenots Volume II Part 55

349; see also another letter of the same date, p. 348.

[1171] "Estant _l'un plus grands services_ que se puisse faire pour la Chrestiente, que de la _prendre et pa.s.ser tout au fil de l'espee_." St.

Goard to Charles IX., Sept. 19th, Supp. to Archives de la maison d'Orange Na.s.sau, 127.

[1172] Philip to Alva, _ubi supra_.

[1173] Alva to Philip, Oct. 13th, Gachard, Correspondance de Philippe II.

(Brux., 1848), ii. 287.

[1174] Mondoucet to Charles IX., Aug. 29th, Bull. de l'acad. roy. de Brux.

[1175] Bulletin de l'acad. roy. de Bruxelles, ix. (1842), 561.

[1176] Philip to Alva, _ubi supra_.

[1177] Bulletin of Alva from the report of his agent, the Seigneur de Gomicourt, published by M. Gachard, from MSS. of Mons, in Bull. de l'acad.

de Bruxelles, ix. (1842), 560, etc.

[1178] Despatch of Sept. 14, 1572, Correspondance diplomatique, v, 121.

[1179] Charles IX. to La Mothe Fenelon, Aug. 22, 1572, Corresp. dipl., vii. 322, 323.

[1180] See _ante_, chap, xviii., p. 490.

[1181] "Ni que j'y aye aucune volonte."

[1182] "C'est bien la chose que je deteste le plus."

[1183] Despatch of Aug. 24th, Corresp. diplom., vii. 324, 325.

[1184] Charles IX. to La Mothe Fenelon, Aug. 25, 1572, ibid., 325, 326.

[1185] Charles IX., Aug. 26th and 27th, Corresp. dipl., vii. 331, etc., and a justificatory "Instruction a M. de la Mothe Fenelon."

[1186] Letter of Burleigh, etc., Sept. 9th, to Walsingham, Digges, 247.

The truth of the statement is called in question by M. Cooper, editor of La Mothe Fenelon's Correspondance diplomatique.

[1187] The interview is described both by La Mothe Fenelon (Corresp.

diplom., v. 122-126), and by the English council, despatch of Sept. 9th to Walsingham (Digges, 247-249). Hume has a graphic account, History of England, chap. xl.

[1188] This striking, and, certainly, somewhat undiplomatic speech is reported by the amba.s.sador himself in his despatches (Corresp. dipl., v.

127). It looks as if the honest Frenchman was not sorry to let the court know some of the severe criticisms that were uttered respecting a crime with which he had no sympathy. La Mothe Fenelon tells of the impression, proved erroneous by the king's letter, "qu'ilz avoient que ce fut ung acte projecte de longtemps, et que vous heussiez accorde avecques le Pape et le Roy d'Espaigne de faire servir les nopces de Madame, vostre seur, avec le Roy de Navarre, a une telle execution pour y atraper, a la foys, toutz les princ.i.p.aulx de la dicte religion a.s.sembles." La Mothe Fenelon to Charles, Sept. 2, 1572, _ubi supra_, v. 116.

[1189] La Mothe Fenelon endeavored, he says, to persuade the English that there were not over five thousand, and that Catharine and Charles were sorry that one hundred could not have answered. Corr. diplom., v. 155.

[1190] See the despondent despatch of October 2d, Corresp. diplom., v., 155-162.

[1191] La Mothe Fenelon to Catharine, ibid., v. 164.

[1192] Letter of Sept. 26th, Digges, 262.

[1193] See _ante_, chapter xviii., p. 495.

[1194] As well as by the queen mother's a.s.surances respecting the ma.s.sacre in the provinces--too heavy a draft upon the credulity of her royal sister. "Pour ce qu'ilz disent que, voyant les meurtres qui ont este faictz en plusieurs villes de ce royaume par les Catholiques contre les Huguenotz, ils ne se peuvent a.s.seurer de l'intantion et volonte du Roy, qu'ilz n'en voyent quelque punission et justice et ses edictz mieux observes, _elle cognoistra bientost que ce qui est advenu es autres lieux que en ceste ville, a este entierement contre la volonte du Roy_, mon dict sieur et filz, lequel a delibere d'en faire faire telle pugnition et y establir bientost ung si bon ordre que ung chascun cognoistra quelle a este en cest endroit son intantion." Catharine to La Mothe Fenelon, Cor.

dipl., vii. 377.

[1195] Walsingham to Sir Thomas Smith, Sept. 14th, Digges, 242.

[1196] Tocsain contre les ma.s.sacreurs, 150.

[1197] It is true that when their sentences were read to them, and particularly that portion which branded with infamy their innocent children, the courage of the old man of seventy, Briquemault, momentarily failed, and he condescended to offer to do great services to the king in retaking La Roch.e.l.le whose fortifications he had himself begun; and when this proposal was rejected, it is said that he made more humiliating advances. But the constancy and pious exhortations of his younger companion, who sustained his own courage by repeating many of the psalms in Latin, recalled Briquemault to himself, and from that moment "he had nothing but contempt for death." De Thou (iv. 646), a youth of nineteen, who was present in the chapel when the sentence was read, remembered the incident well. Cf. Agrippa d'Aubigne, ii. 32 (bk. i., c. 6). Walsingham, when he says in his letter of Nov. 1, 1572, that "Cavannes (Cavaignes) showed himself void of all magnanimity, etc.," has evidently confused the persons. Here is an instance where the later account of an eye-witness--De Thou--is ent.i.tled to far more credit than the contemporary statement of one whose means of obtaining information were not so good.

[1198] "N'ayant regret sinon que vous ayez voulu profaner le jour de sa nayssence par ung si fascheus espectacle qu'allastes voir en greve."

Corresp. diplom. de la Mothe Fenelon, v. 205; Tocsain contre les ma.s.sacreurs, 151, 152; Reveille-Matin, Arch, cur., vii. 206; Walsingham to Smith, Nov. 1, 1572, Digges, 278, 279.

[1199] Froude, x. 444, 445.

[1200] "Entre autres choses, il me dist qu'on luy avoit escript de Rome, n'avoit que trois semaines ou environ, sur le propos des noces du Roy de Navarre en ces propres termes: 'que a ceste heure que tous les oyseaux estoient en cage, on les pouvoit prendre tous ensemble.'" M. de Vulcob to Charles IX., Presburg, Sept. 26th, _apud_ De Noailles, Henri de Valois et la Pologne en 1572 (Paris, 1867), iii., Pieces just., 214.

[1201] See in Kluckholn, Briefe Friedrich des Frommen, ii. 482, a short letter of Charles IX. to the elector palatine, Aug. 22, 1572, referring him for details to the account which Schomberg would give him verbally; and, ibid., ii. 483, 484, the narrative signed by Charles IX. and Brulart, secretary of state, in a translation evidently made at the time for the elector's use.

[1202] "Toute ma negociation s'en estoit allee en fumee." Schomberg to M.

de Limoges, Nov. 8th, De Noailles, iii. 300.

[1203] A large number of Schomberg's despatches are inserted in De Noailles, iii. 286, etc.

[1204] "Als die sonder zweifel _die welsche bibel_ 'El principe Macchiavelli' auch studirt."

[1205] Landgrave William to the Electors of Saxony and Brandenburg, Ca.s.sel, Sept. 5, 1572; same to Frederick, elector palatine, Sept, 6th. A.

Kluckholn, Briefe Friedrich des Frommen, ii. 496-498.

[1206] Bp. of Valence to M. Brulart, Konin, Nov. 20th, Colbert MSS. _apud_ De Noailles, iii. 218.

[1207] Montluc to Charles IX., January 22, 1573, De Noailles, iii. 220.

Does not the frank suggestion furnish a clue to the method which was sometimes practised in other cases?

[1208] Montluc to Brulart, Jan. 20, 1573, De Noailles, iii. 223. The worthy bishop, who was certainly at any time more at home in the cabinet than in the church, did not intermit his toil or yield to discouragement.

If we may believe him, he "had not leisure so much as to say his prayers."

The panegyrists of the ma.s.sacre, and especially Charpentier, had done him good service by their writings, and at one time he greatly desired that the learned doctor might be sent to his a.s.sistance, particularly as (to use his own words) "all the suite of Monsieur de l'Isle and myself do not know enough of Latin to admit a deacon to orders, even at Puy in Auvergne." _Ubi supra._

[1209] Beza to Thomas Tilius, Sept. 10, 1572, Bulletin, vii. 16.

[1210] Registres de la compagnie, 1er aout, 1572, _apud_ Gaberel, Histoire de l'eglise de Geneve, ii. 320.

[1211] Reg. du conseil, 30 aout, 1572; Reg. de la compagnie, Gaberel, ii.

321.

[1212] Gaberel, ii. 321, 322.