[Sidenote: Catharine's indecision.]

[Sidenote: Queen Elizabeth inspires no confidence.]

For the next two months the Huguenot leaders were indefatigable in their efforts to persuade Charles to take open and decided ground against Spain; but they were met by Anjou and the party in his interest with arguments drawn from the difficulty or injustice of the undertaking, and by the suggestion that Elizabeth, as was her wont, would be likely to withdraw so soon as she saw France once engaged in war with her powerful neighbor, and to use Charles's embarrassments as a means of securing private advantages. In point of fact, Charles was personally unwilling to commit himself until sure of England's support. Meanwhile, Catharine, from whose Argus-eyed inspection nothing that was debated in the royal presence, openly or secretly, ever escaped notice, awaited with her accustomed irresolution Elizabeth's decision, before herself deciding whether to throw her influence into the scale with Coligny (of whose growing favor with her son she had begun to entertain some suspicion), or with Anjou and the Spaniards. But Elizabeth was as ever a riddle, not only to her allies, but even to her most confidential advisers. Certainly she was no friend to Philip and Alva; yet she would not abruptly enter into war against them. She could not help seeing that the interests of her person and of her kingdom, to say nothing of her Protestant faith, were bound up in the success of the Prince of Orange, who was about to cross the Rhine with twenty-five thousand Germans for the relief of Mons, now invested by Alva. For the duke wisely regarded the recapture of this place as the first step in extricating himself from his present embarrassments. In such a strife as that upon which Elizabeth must before long enter, whether with or without her consent, the cordial alliance of France would be valuable beyond computation. And yet, with a fatal perversity, she dallied with the proposal of marriage. One day she would not hear of Alencon, alleging that his age and personal blemishes placed the matter out of all consideration. On another she gave hopes, and agreed to take a month's consideration.[903] Thus she tantalized her suitor. Thus she convinced the cunning Italian woman who, although she made no present show of holding the reins of power in France, was ready at any moment to resume them, that there was no reliance to be placed on England's promise of support against Philip.[904]

[Sidenote: Rout of Genlis.]

The golden opportunity was in truth fast slipping away. Alva had struck promptly at that opponent whose thrust was likely to be most deadly. Mons must soon fall. A French Huguenot force, under command of Jean de Hangest, Sieur de Genlis, was sent forward to relieve it. But the Frenchman was no match for the cooler prudence of his antagonist,[905] and suffered himself, on the march, to be surprised (on the nineteenth of July) and taken prisoner by Don Frederick of Toledo and Chiappin Vitelli. Of his army, barely one hundred foot soldiers found their way into the beleaguered town. Twelve hundred were killed on the field of battle—almost in sight of Mons—and a much larger number butchered by the peasantry of the neighborhood.[906] A handful of officers and men, scarcely more fortunate, shared the captivity of their commander, and were destined to have their fortunes depend for a considerable time upon the fluctuating interests of two unprincipled courts.[907]

The rout of Genlis was not in itself a decisive event. While Coligny could bring forward a far more numerous army, and Orange was in command of a considerable German force, the loss of this small detachment was but one of those many reverses that are to be looked for in every war. But, happening under the peculiar circumstances of the hour, it was invested with a consequence disproportioned to its real importance. The fate of the French Huguenots was quivering in the balance. The papal party was known to be bitterly opposed to the war against Spain, and to be merely awaiting an opportunity to strike a deadly blow at the heretics whom the royal edict still protected. Catharine was undecided; but, with her, indecision was the ordinary prelude to the sudden adoption of some one of many conflicting projects, which had been long brooded over, but between which the choice was, in the end, the result rather of accident, caprice, or temporary impressions, than of calm deliberation.

[Sidenote: It determines Catharine to take the Spanish side.]

[Sidenote: Loss of the golden opportunity.]

This reverse at Mons, limited in its extent as it was, would be likely, so the Huguenot leaders of France foresaw—and they were not mistaken—to determine Catharine to take the Spanish side. With the queen mother in favor of Spain and intolerance, experience had taught them that there was little to expect from her weak son's intentions, however good they might be. The only ground of hope for Orange and the Netherlands, and the only prospect for security and religious toleration at home, lay in the success of the Flemish project at Paris; and of this but a single chance seemed to remain—in Elizabeth's finally espousing their cause with some good degree of resolution. "Such of the religion," wrote Walsingham to Lord Burleigh, inclosing the particulars of the disaster of Genlis, "as before slept in security, begin now to awake and to see their danger, and do therefore conclude that, unless this enterprise in the Low Countries have good success, their cause groweth desperate."[908] To the Earl of Leicester Walsingham was still more explicit in his warnings: "The gentlemen of the religion, since the late overthrow of Genlis, weighing what dependeth upon the Prince of Orange's overthrow, have made demonstration to the king, that, his enterprise lacking good success, it shall not then lie in his power to maintain his edict. They therefore desire him to weigh whether it were better to have foreign war with advantage, or inward war to the ruin of himself and his estate.[909] The king being not here, his answer is not yet received. They hope to receive some such resolution as the danger of the cause requireth. In the meantime, the marshal (Montmorency) desired me to move your lordship to deal with her Majesty to know whether she, upon overture to be made to the king, cannot be content to join with him in assistance of this poor prince." And the faithful ambassador did not forget to remind his mistress that the success of Philip in Flanders was still more dangerous for Elizabeth than for Charles.[910]

[Sidenote: The admiral retains his courage.]

Meantime, Admiral Coligny, although disappointed at the rout of the vanguard of the expedition which was to have been fitted out for the liberation of the Netherlands, and yet more at the coolness which it had occasioned among those who up to this moment had been not unfriendly, did not yield to despondency, but labored all the more strenuously to engage Charles in an undertaking fitted to call forth the nobler faculties of his soul, and to free him from the thraldom under narrow-minded and interested counsellors to which he had been subject all his life long. Even before Genlis's defeat (in June, 1572), the admiral had presented an extended paper, wherein the justice and the fair prospects of the war had been set forth with rare force and cogency.[911] It may be that now, under the influence of a sincere and unselfish devotion that took no account of personal risks, the admiral distinctly told his young master that he could never be a king in the true sense until he should emancipate himself from his mother's control, and until he should find, outside of France, some occupation for his brother Henry of Anjou, such as the vacancy of the Polish throne seemed to offer.[912] Such frankness would have been patriotic and timely, although a politician, influenced only by a regard for his own safety, would have regarded it as foolhardy in the extreme.

[Sidenote: Charles and Catharine at Montpipeau.]

This advice, promptly and faithfully reported to Catharine by the spies she kept around the king's person,[913] was the last drop in the cup of Coligny's offences. Charles, at the time of her discovery of this fact, was absent from court, seeking a few days' recreation at Montpipeau. Thither his mother, now really alarmed for the continuance of her influence, pursued him in precipitate haste.[914] Shutting herself up with him apart from his followers, she burst into tears and plied Charles with an artful harangue. For this woman, who had a masculine will and a heart as cold and devoid of pity as the most utter scepticism could make it, had the ability to counterfeit the feminine tenderness which she did not possess. "I had not thought it possible," she said amid her sobs to her son, who trembled like a culprit detected in his crime, "I had not thought it possible that, in return for my pains in rearing you—in return for my preservation of your crown, of which both Huguenots and Catholics were desirous of robbing you, and after having sacrificed myself and incurred such risks in your behalf, you would have been willing to make me so miserable a requital. You hide yourself from me, your mother, and take counsel of your enemies. You snatch yourself from my arms that saved you, in order to rest in the arms of those who wished to murder you. I know that you hold secret deliberations with the admiral. You desire inconsiderately to plunge into a war with Spain, and so to expose your kingdom, as well as yourself and us, a prey to 'those of the religion.' If I am so miserable, before compelling me to witness such a sight, give me permission to withdraw to my birthplace,[915] and send away your brother, who may well style himself unfortunate in having employed his life for the preservation of yours. Give him at least time to get out of danger and from the presence of enemies made in your service—the Huguenots, who do not wish for a war with Spain, but for a French war and a subversion of all estates, which will enable them to gain a secure footing."[916]

[Sidenote: Rumors of Elizabeth's desertion of her allies.]

Such was a portion of the queen mother's crafty speech. But there was another point upon which she doubtless touched, and which she used to no little purpose. A report had reached her from England to the effect that Queen Elizabeth had decided to issue a proclamation recalling the English who had gone to Flushing to assist the patriots. The story was false; so the secretary, Sir Thomas Smith, subsequently assured Walsingham. Elizabeth neither had done so, nor intended anything of the kind.[917] But it was wonderfully like the usual practice of Henry the Eighth's daughter, and Catharine believed it, and looked with horror at the precipice before which she stood. Deserted by her faithless ally, France was entering single-handed a contest of life or death with the world-empire of Spain. In fact, the English ambassador ascribed to the receipt of this intelligence alone both the queen mother's tears and entreaties at Montpipeau and the king's altered policy. "Touching Flemish matters," he wrote to Lord Burleigh, "the king had proceeded to an open dealing, had he not received advertisement out of England, that her Majesty meant to revoke such of her subjects as are presently in Flanders; whereupon such of his council here as incline to Spain, have put the queen mother in such a fear, that the enterprise cannot but miscarry without the assistance of England, as she with tears had dissuaded the king for the time, who otherwise was very resolute."[918]

Catharine had not mistaken her power over the feeble intellect and the inconstant will of her son. Terrified less by the prospect of a Huguenot supremacy which she held forth, than by the menace of her withdrawal and that of Anjou, Charles, who was but too well acquainted with their cunning and ambition, admitted his fault in concealing his plans, and promised obedience for the future.[919]

[Sidenote: Charles thoroughly cast down.]

It was a sore disappointment to Admiral Coligny. The young king had, until this time, shown himself so favorable, that "commissions were granted, ready to have been sealed, for the levying of men in sundry provinces." But he had now lost all his enthusiasm, and spoke coldly of the enterprise.[920] Gaspard de Coligny did not, however, even now lose courage or forsake the post of duty to which God and his country evidently called him. In truth, the superiority of his mental and moral constitution, less evident in prosperity, now became resplendent, and chained the attention of every beholder. "How perplexed the admiral is, who foreseeth the mischief that is like to follow, if assistance come not from above," wrote Walsingham, full of admiration, to the Earl of Leicester, "your lordship may easily guess. And surely to say truth, he never showed greater magnanimity, nor never was better followed nor more honored of those of the religion than now he is, which doth not a little appal the enemies. In this storm he doth not give over the helm. He layeth before the king and his council the peril and danger of his estate, and though he cannot obtain what he would, yet doth he obtain somewhat from him."[921]

[Sidenote: Coligny partially succeeds in reassuring him.]

So wrote that shrewd observer, Sir Francis Walsingham, just two weeks before the bloody Sunday of the massacre, and eight days before the marriage of Navarre, little suspecting, in spite of his anxiety, the flood of misery which was so soon to burst upon that devoted land. To all human foresight there was still hope that Charles, weak, nerveless, addicted to pleasure, but not yet quite lost to a sense of honor, might yet be induced to adopt a policy which would place France among the foremost champions of intellectual and civil liberty, and transfer to the north of the Pyrenees the prosperity which the Spanish monarchs had misused and had employed only as an instrument of oppression and degradation. And, indeed, Coligny was partially successful; for the impression made upon Charles by his mother's complaints and menaces at Montpipeau gradually wore away, and again he listened with apparent interest to the manly arguments of the great Huguenot leader.

[Sidenote: Elizabeth toys with dishonorable proposals from Netherlands.]

[Sidenote: Fatal results.]

Could Elizabeth at this moment have brought herself to a more noble course, could she for once have forgotten to "deal under hand," and help secretly while in public she disavowed—could she, in short, have realized for a single instant her responsibility as a great Protestant princess, and been willing to expose even her own life to peril in order to secure to the Reformation a chance of fair play, it might not even now have been too late. But what was she doing at this very moment? According to the admission of her own secretary, she was engaged in detaining volunteers from the Netherlands, on the pretext of "fearing too much disorder there through lack of some good head;" and "gently answering with a dilatory and doubtful answer" the Duke of Alva, when he demanded the revocation of the queen's subjects in Netherlands.[922] Was she projecting anything still more dishonorable? The Spanish envoy in England, Anton de Guaras, affirms it, in a letter of the thirtieth of June to the Duke of Alva; and we have no means of disproving his assertions. In his account of a private audience granted him by Queen Elizabeth, the ambassador writes: "She told me that emissaries were coming every day from Flushing to her, proposing to place the town in her hands. If it was for the service of his Majesty, and if his Majesty approved, she said that she would accept their offer. With the English who were already there, and with others whom she would send over for the purpose, it would be easy for her to take entire possession of the place, and she would then make it over to the Duke of Alva or to any one whom the duke would appoint to receive it."[923] Guaras can scarcely be suspected of misrepresenting the conversation upon so important a topic and in a confidential communication to the Spanish Governor of the Netherlands. The most charitable construction of Elizabeth's words seems to be that they were a clumsy attempt to propitiate the duke "with a dilatory answer," as Sir Thomas Smith somewhat euphemistically expresses it, and that she had no intention of making good her engagements. But it was a sad blunder on her part, and likely to be ruinous to her friends, the French Protestants. Alva was not slow in concluding that Elizabeth's offer was of greater value as documentary proof of her untrustworthy character, than as a means of recovering Flushing. "There is no positive proof," remarks the historian to whom we are indebted for an acquaintance with the letter of Guaras, "that Alva communicated Elizabeth's offers to the queen mother and the King of France, but he was more foolish than he gave the world reason to believe him to be if he let such a weapon lie idle in his writing-desk."[924] And so that inconstant, unprincipled Italian woman, on whose fickle purpose the fate of thousands was more completely dependent than even her contemporaries as yet knew, at last reached the definite persuasion that Elizabeth was preparing to play her false, at the very moment when Coligny was hurrying her son into war with Spain. Even if France should prove victorious, Catharine's own influence would be thrown into perpetual eclipse by that of the admiral and his associates. This result the queen mother resolved promptly to forestall, and for that purpose fell back upon a scheme which had probably been long floating dimly in her mind.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Memoires de Michel de la Huguerye.]

The Memoires inedits de Michel de la Huguerye, of which the first volume was recently published (Paris, 1877), under the auspices of the National Historical Society, present some interesting points, and deserve a special reference. At first sight, the disclosures, with which the author tells us he was favored, would seem to establish the bad faith of the court in entering upon the peace of St. Germain, and the long premeditation of the succeeding massacre. A closer examination of the facts, assuming La Huguerye's thorough veracity, shows that this is a mistake. La Huguerye may, indeed, have been informed by companions on the way to Italy, who supposed him to be a partisan of the Guises, that a great blow would be struck at the Huguenots when the proper time arrived; and La Huguerye may have been confident that he was telling the truth, when, about Martinmas (November 11th), 1570, he stated to De Briquemault, that "the king, seeing that he could not attain his object by way of arms without greatly weakening—nay, endangering his kingdom, had resolved upon taking another road, by which, in a single day, he would cleanse his whole state." He may have been assured, on what he deemed good authority, that the Pope was in the plot, and would keep the King of Spain from doing anything that might interfere with the execution, and have inferred that, the peace being a treacherous one, the only hope of the Huguenots lay in skilfully enlisting Charles in its maintenance, contrary to his original purpose. So he was confirmed in his belief by the contents of the despatches of the Spanish ambassador at the French court, treacherously submitted to the Huguenots by an unfaithful agent of the envoy. But the former statements were, at most, little better than rumors, to which the circumstances of the hour gave color. The air was full of dark hints; but, apparently, they had no more solid foundation than the fact that, in an age abounding in perfidious schemes, the Protestants had already placed themselves partially in the power of their great enemies, and were likely soon to be more completely in their hands. The information received by La Huguerye was a very different thing from an authoritative avowal of a concealed purpose made by Catharine or by Charles himself. On the other hand, the assurances in the Spanish despatches were just of the same general nature as others with which the French government endeavored to quiet Philip, Alva, and the Roman pontiff himself.

The only other peculiarity of La Huguerye to which I shall allude is his studied misrepresentation of the character of Jeanne d'Albret, Queen of Navarre. Contrary to the uniform portraiture given by contemporaries of both religious parties, she here appears as "an inconsiderate woman (femme legere), with little forethought," "known to be jealous of the authority of the admiral," "whom she thwarted by her authority as much as was possible, at whatever cost or danger it might be." She had "intermeddled with affairs in the last war, unsolicited and of her own accord, not so much for conscience' sake, as because of the hatred her house bore to the popes, sole cause of the loss of the kingdom of Navarre, and especially through jealousy of the late Prince of Conde, whom she saw to be in the enjoyment of such credit, and to be so well followed, that she suspected great injury might result to her son in the event of his succession to the throne." She was, consequently, "not very sorry" to hear of Conde's death at Jarnac. Having been disappointed in securing for her son the sole (nominal) command of the Huguenots, she vented her vengeance upon Coligny, whom she held responsible for the association of the young Conde in the leadership with his cousin. From that time forward she took every opportunity to cross the admiral, with the view of compelling him to retire in disgust from the management of affairs. In one of the speeches—Sallustian, I suspect—in which the Memoires abound, Count Louis of Nassau is represented as lamenting: "It is a great pity to have to do with a woman who has no other counsel than her own head, which is too little and light (legere) to contain so many reasons and precautions, and who is of such weight in matters of so great consequence. And the mischief is that she has such an aversion to the admiral through foolish jealousy," etc. At last the admiral is goaded on to unpardonable imprudence. In the spring of 1572 he yields to the importunities of Marshal Cosse, and goes from La Rochelle to the royal court at Blois: "weary of being near this princess, he exposed himself to the evident peril, of which he had had advices and arguments enough."

To all this misrepresentation, the remarks of La Huguerye's editor, the Baron de Ruble, are a sufficient answer: "No other historian of the period, Catholic or Huguenot, has accused the Queen of Navarre of so much jealousy, frivolity, and spite. To the calumnies of La Huguerye we should oppose the verdict which every impartial judge can pronounce respecting this princess, in accordance with the letters published by the Marquis de Rochambeau and the testimony of contemporaries."

FOOTNOTES:

[792] "La Royne et mons de Morvillier trettent eus deus seulz avecques eus, ce sont aujourdhuy les grans cous." See two important letters of Lorraine to his sister-in-law, the Duchess of Nemours, April 24th and May 1, 1570, in Soldan, Geschichte d. Prot. in Frank., ii. Appendix, 593, 594, from MSS. of the Bibliotheque nationale.

[793] "Though of late the Cardinal of Lorrain hath had access to the king's presence, yet is he not repaired in credit, neither dealeth he in government." Walsingham to Leicester, Aug. 29, 1570, Digges, Compleat Ambassador, p. 8.

[794] Ibid., ubi supra. Yet it is but fair to add that Walsingham notes that "the great conference that is between the queen mother and the cardinal breedeth some doubt of some practise to impeach the same."

[795] Letter of April 23, 1570, Pii Quinti Epistolae, 272.

[796] Relations des Amb. Ven. (Tommaseo), ii. 110. Correro's relation is of 1569.

[797] Baschet, La diplomatie venitienne, p. 518.

[798] The only account of this striking occurrence which I have seen is given by Jehan de la Fosse, p. 122.

[799] Walsingham and Norris to Elizabeth, Jan. 29, 1571, Digges, 24.

[800] "The best ground of continuance," he writes to Leicester, "that I can learn, by those that can best judge, is the king's own inclination, which is thought sincerely to be bent that way." Jan. 28, 1571, Digges, 28.

[801] "Thus, sir, you see, for that he is not settled in religion, how he is carried away with worldly respects, a common misery to those of his calling." Ibid., 30.

[802] Walsingham to Leicester, Aug. 29, 1570, Digges, 8.

[803] De Thou, iv. 330-333. See Digges, 30.

[804] Letter of the Queen of Navarre to the queen mother, Dec. 17, 1570, Rochambeau, Lettres d'Antoine de Bourbon et de Jehanne d'Albret (Paris, 1877), 306. A few lines of this admirable paper (which is, however, much mutilated) may be quoted as having an almost prophetic significance: "Et vous diray, Madame, les larmes aus yeulx, avecq une afection pure et entiere que, s'il ne plaist au Roy et a vous nous aseureur nos tristes demandes, que je ne puis esperer qu'une treve ... en ce royaulme par ceste guerre siville, car nous y mourrons tous plustost que quiter nostre Dieu et nostre religion, laquelle nous ne pouvons tenir sans exersise, non plus qu'un corps ne saure vivre sans boire et manger.... Je vous en ay dit le seul moyen; ayes pitie de tant de sang repandu, de tant d'impietes commises en la ... de ceste guerre et que vous ne pourrez bien d'un seul mot faire cesser." "Et sur cella, Madame, je supliray Dieu qui tient les cueurs des Roys en sa main disposer celui du Roi et le vostre a mectre le repos en ce royaulme a sa gloire et contentement de Vos Majestes, maugre le complot de M. le Cardinal de Lorrayne, dont il a descouvert la trame a Villequagnon," etc.

[805] Discours du massacre fait a Orange, from the Mem. de l'etat de France sous Charles IX., Archives curieuses, vi. 459-470; De Thou, iv. 483.

[806] Floquet, Histoire du Parlement du Normandie, iii. 87-112, whose account is in great part derived from the registers of the parliament and the archives of the Hotel de Ville of Rouen. De Thou, iv. (liv. l.) 483, certainly greatly underestimates the number of Protestants killed, when he limits it to five.

[807] See ante, chapter xvi.

[808] Jehan de la Fosse (Sept., 1571), 132.

[809] Ibid. (Nov., 1571), 133.

[810] Jehan de la Fosse (Dec., 1571), 134.

[811] Agrippa d'Aubigne, ii. 4 (liv. i., c. 1); De Thou, iv. (liv. l.) 487-489; Discours de ce qui avint touchant la Croix de Gastines (from Mem. de l'etat de Charles IX.), in Cimber et Danjou, Arch. cur., vi. 475, 476; Jehan de la Fosse, ubi supra. According to the recently published journal of La Fosse, Charles the Ninth expressed himself to the preachers of Paris, who had come to remonstrate with him in language which may at first sight appear somewhat suspicious: "attestant ledict roy vouloir vivre et mourir en la religion de ses predecesseurs roys, religion catholique et romaine, toutefois qu'il avoit fait abattre la croix pour certaine cause laquelle il vouloit taire et avoir faict plusieurs choses contre sa conscience, toutefois par contrainte a cause du temps, et supplioit les predicateurs n'avoir mauvaise opinion de luy" (pp. 138, 139). There is good reason, however, to believe that the secret reason which the king was unwilling to name was not a contemplated massacre of the Protestants, but rather the Navarrese and English marriages, and the war with Spain in the Netherlands.

[812] Walsingham to Burleigh, Dec. 7, 1571, Digges, p. 151. "Marshal Montmorency repaired to this town the third of this moneth accompanied with 300 horse. The next day after his arrival he and the Marshal de Coss conferred with the chief of this town about the plucking down of the cross, which was resolved on, and the same put in execution, the masons employed in that behalf being guarded by certain harquebusiers."

[813] Queen Elizabeth was born September 7, 1533; Henry was born in September, 1551 (the day is variously given as the 18th, 19th, and 21st), and was just nineteen.

[814] Letter of Catharine to La Mothe Fenelon, Oct. 20, 1570, Correspondance diplomatique, vii. 143-146.

[815] Despatch of La Mothe Fenelon, Dec. 29, 1570. Ibid., vol. iii. 418, 419.

[816] And with a freedom which might be mistaken for Arcadian simplicity, did we not know that innocence was no characteristic of either court in that age. "J'en cognoissoys ung," he told her, "qui estoit nay a tant de sortes de vertu, qu'il ne failloit doubter qu'elle n'en fut fort honnoree et singulierement bien aymee, et dont j'espererois qu'au bout de neuf mois apres, elle se trouveroit mere d'ung beau filz," etc. La Mothe Fenelon, iii. 439, 454, 455.

[817] Despatch to Cecil, Jan. 28, 1571, Digges, 26.

[818] Ibid., 27.

[819] Digges, 27.

[820] Catharine to La Mothe Fenelon, Feb. 2, 1571, Corresp. diplom., vii. 179; and Walsingham to Cecil, Feb. 18, 1571, Digges, 43.

[821] Catharine, ubi supra.

[822] La Mothe Fenelon, March 6, 1571, ibid., iv. 11, 12. The ambassador exhibits his own incredulity respecting the stories circulated to the queen's disadvantage.

[823] To La Mothe Fenelon, Feb. 18, 1571, ibid., vii. 183.

[824] To the same, March 2, 1571, ibid., vii. 190.

[825] Walsingham to Burleigh, May 25, 1571, Digges, 101.

[826] Digges, 96.

[827] Ibid., 55.

[828] "So it doth appear, if he would omit that demand, and put it in silence, yet will her Majestie straitly capitulate with him, that he shall in no way demand it hereafter at her hands. Which scruple, I believe, will utterly break off the matter; wherefore I am in small hope that any marriage will grow this way." Leicester to Walsingham, July 7, 1571, Digges, 116.

[829] Digges, 119, 120.

[830] A league with France, Walsingham maintained, would be an advancement of the Gospel there and everywhere, and "though it yieldeth not so much temporal profit, yet in respect of the spiritual fruit that thereby may insue, I think it worth the imbracing." Ibid., p. 121.

[831] Digges, 120.

[832] Anjou's humor, she told him, "me faict bien grande peyne." Letter of July 25, 1571, Corresp. diplom., vii. 234.

[833] Ibid., ubi supra. This expression deserves to be noticed particularly, inasmuch as it effectually disposes of the story—which can scarcely be regarded otherwise than as a fable—that the assassination of Lignerolles, a little over four months later (December, 1571), was compassed by Charles IX. and his mother, because they discovered that he had become possessed of the secret of the projected massacre of St. Bartholomew. If these royal personages had anything to do with the murder, which is very improbable, they hated Lignerolles for marring the plan of the English match, which they so much desired.

[834] "Je suis resolue de faire tous mes efforts pour reheussir pour mon fils d'Alencon, qui ne sera pas si difficile." Ibid., vii. 235.

[835] It must be admitted that some indignation on Queen Elizabeth's part was pardonable, if, as we learn from La Mothe Fenelon (despatch of May 2, 1571), she had heard that a certain person of high rank in the French court had recommended Anjou to marry the English "granny"—"ceste vieille"—and administer to her, under some pretext, a "French potion"—"un breuvage de France"—so as to become a widower within six months of the wedding day. Then he might marry Mary, Queen of Scots, and reign with her peaceably over the whole island! Correspondance diplomatique, iv. 84. However sincere or zealous Elizabeth may have been previously, I doubt whether she ever forgave the suggestion, or the fair princess whose charms were thus exalted above her own.

[836] De Thou, iv. (liv. l.) 492.

[837] "I would your lordship knew the gentleman," enthusiastically writes Walsingham (August 12th, 1571) to the Earl of Leicester. "For courage abroad and counsell at home they give him here the reputation to be another [name in cipher]. He is in speech eloquent and pithy; but which is chiefest, he is in religion, as religious in life as he is sincere in profession. I hope God hath raised him up in these days, to serve for an instrument for the advancement of His glory." Digges, 128. In another letter, without date, the ambassador speaks of him as "surely the rarest gentleman which I have talked withal since I came to France," Ibid., 176.

[838] The substance of Louis of Nassau's secret interviews is best given by Walsingham in a long communication, of August 12, 1571, to Lord Burleigh, Digges, 123-127.

[839] "Contre les deffences et proscriptions de son duc, qui a plat avoit refuse le Roi de souffrir ce mariage, elle s'en vint a la Rochelle pour avoir nom avant de mourir (ainsi qu'elle disoit) la Martia de Caton." Agrippa d'Aubigne, ii. 5.

[840] "A quoi ses ennemis trouverent a redire, publiant qu'il n'apartenoit qu'aux princes d'epouser par procurateur. Mais ceux qui parloient des choses sans passion, imputoient ces sortes de discours a medisance, soutenant de leur cote qu'il ne pouvoit faire autrement, puisqu'il n'y avoit pas de surete pour lui a l'aller epouser," etc. Vie de Coligny, 386.

[841] A very interesting account of the long imprisonment of Coligny's widow is to be found in Count Jules Delaborde's monograph, "Jacqueline d'Entremont," apud Bulletin de la Societe de l'hist. du prot. fr., xvi. (1867) 220-246.

[842] A few months before the admiral's departure from La Rochelle, there had been held in this Huguenot asylum a convocation of historical importance. The sessions of the seventh national synod, lasting from the second to the eleventh of April, 1571, were consumed in important deliberations respecting the doctrines and discipline of the reformed church (see Aymon, Tous les synodes, i. 98-111). The Queen of Navarre, the Princes of Navarre and Conde, Count Louis of Nassau, and Admiral Coligny were present. At the request of the synod, they added their signatures to those of the ministers and elders, upon three copies of the Confession of Faith, engrossed on parchment, which were to be kept at La Rochelle, in Bearn, and at Geneva respectively (see the eighth general article). The moderator on this occasion was Theodore Beza, who had been specially invited to France. The reformer was certainly not destitute of courage, for he could not have forgotten the dangers to which he had been exposed on previous visits to France. They were even greater than Beza himself probably knew. In June, 1563, after the conclusion of the first civil war, there was a rumor at Brussels that Beza could not return to Geneva, because of a quarrel he had had with Calvin. Thereupon, the Duchess of Parma, Regent of the Netherlands, suspecting that he might be tempted to come through the Spanish dominions, issued secret orders that the frontiers should be watched, and offered a reward of one thousand florins to any one who should bring him, dead or alive. He was described as "homme de moienne stature, ayant barbe a demy blanche, et le visage hault et large." Letters of the Duchess of Parma, June 11th and 25th, 1563, apud Charles Paillard, Histoire des troubles religieux de Valenciennes (Paris and Brussels, 1875, 1876), iii. 339, 340, 356.

[843] Walsingham to Burleigh, Aug. 12, 1571, Digges, 122. The ambassador informs Elizabeth, in this letter, of the intense desire of the French Protestants that she should express to the French envoy her approval of the invitation extended to the princes and Coligny, and should say "that so rare a subject as the admiral is was not to be suffered to live in such a corner as Rochelle." It was thought that her commendations would greatly advance his credit with the king.

[844] I know not on what authority Miss Freer states (Henry III. of France, his Court and Times, i. 70) that "even Coligny was startled at the ominous significance of these words; the shadow, however, vanished before the warmth and frankness of Charles's manner." Compare Agrippa d'Aubigne, ii. 5.

[845] Walsingham's account in a letter of La Mothe Fenelon (Corresp. dipl., iv. 245, 246), its accuracy being vouched for by a letter of Charles IX. himself (ibid., vii. 268); Tocsain contre les massacreurs, Cimber et Danjou, vii. 34, 35; De Thou, iv. (liv. l.) 493.

[846] Charles IX. to Emmanuel Philibert, Blois, Sept. 28, 1571, apud Leger, Hist. gen. des eglises vaudoises (Leyden, 1669), i. 47, 48.

[847] "Durant ce moys, Gaspard de Coligny, remis par l'edit de pacification en l'estat d'admiral, fut mande par le roy et vint de la Rochelle trouver le Roy a Bloys, et se retira hors de la cour toute la maison de Guise, de sorte que le Roy estoit gouverne par ledit admiral et Montmorency." Jehan de la Fosse, Journal d'un cure ligueur, 132.

[848] Walsingham to Cecil, March 5, 1571. Digges, 48, 49.

[849] "And as for conference had with the Count Lewis of Nassau, he told him, that he was misinformed;" first letter of Walsingham to Burleigh, of Aug. 12th, Digges, 122. Yet the second letter of the same date gives a detailed account of this conference. It must be admitted that the diplomacy of the sixteenth century was sufficiently barefaced in its impostures. Louis of Nassau told Walsingham of an enterprise of Strozzi against Spain, determined upon by Charles IX. "onely to amaze the king there;" but, as to Strozzi, "the king here meaneth notwithstanding to disallow [him] openly." Ibid., 125.

[850] Digges, 122.

[851] Jehan de la Fosse, 134.

[852] "Et que ceulx qui estoient a la fenestre estoient bien aises de veoir jouer le jeu a mes despens." It is scarcely necessary to say that this characteristic expression alludes primarily to the King of Spain and the Duke of Alva in the Netherlands.

[853] Charriere, Negociations de la France dans le Levant, Documents inedits (publ. by the Imperial Government), Paris, 1853, iii. 200. Cf. Sir James Mackintosh, Hist. of England, vol. iii., App. A., pp. 345, 346, audience of Sr. de la Bourdaiziere at Rome, cir. Sept., 1571.

[854] Margaret being born May 14, 1552, and Henry of Navarre, Dec. 13, 1553.

[855] Letter of March 21, 1556/7, Rochambeau, Lettres d'Antoine de Bourbon et de Jehanne d'Albret (Paris, 1877), 145. The story of the promise of Margaret by her father to Henry of Navarre is confirmed by a letter of Charles IX., now in the National Library, dated October 5, 1571. "The Queen of Navarre," he writes to Ferralz (Ferrails), at Rome, "has several times invited me to do her son the honor to marry him to my sister, whereby also the promise would be fulfilled which my father gave to the late King of Navarre." Fr. von Raumer, Briefe aus Paris (Leipsic, 1830), i. 290.

[856] Mlle. Vauvilliers, Hist. de Jeanne d'Albret (Paris, 1818), i. 106.

[857] Soldan, Gesch. des Prot. in Frankreich, ii. 413.

[858] "I thinke," wrote Sir Thomas Smith, as early as January 17, 1563, "your Majestie hath understood of the marriage practized betwixt the Prince of Portugall and Madame Margaret, the king's sister." Forbes, State Papers, ii. 287.

[859] Memoires et Lettres de Marguerite de Valois, edited by M. F. Guessard (Publications of the French Historical Society), Paris, 1842, 23.

[860] De Thou, iv. (liv. l.) 491, 492. Notwithstanding the frequent assertions in royal letters (as, for instance, in one which I have already quoted), that the Queen of Navarre herself urged the marriage, it is certain that she did not initiate it, while it is even maintained that she was only brought to consent by threats. "La reine fut ouie un temps sans vouloir approuver ledit mariage, jusqu'a cette extremite qu'on la menaca de faire declarer son fils illegitime, a cause du mariage qui avoit ete contracte entre elle et le Duc de Cleves. Enfin vaincue, elle declare qu'elle n'en esperait que tout malheur." Fr. von Raumer, Briefe aus Paris, i. 291.

[861] Memoires de Marg. de Valois, 24. The absurdity of the story that Margaret was averse to this marriage, because of a romantic attachment to young Henry of Guise, is sufficiently clear from the circumstance that the Duke of Guise had been married for some time when the match between the Prince of Navarre and Margaret of Valois was first talked of in earnest. He married, on the 17th of September, 1570, Catharine of Cleves, widow of Prince Porcien. ("Hodie celebrantur Lutetiae Ducis Guisii, qui ducit in uxorem viduam principis Portiani," etc. Languet, Sept. 17, 1570, Epist. secr., i. 163.) It is not probable that Margaret would object to the advantageous marriage with Henry of Navarre on account of her affection for a former lover, who, at the time of her nuptials, had been for two years married to another woman.

[862] Digges, 122.

[863] "La Reyna mi madre," said Anjou one day to a lady, "muestra tener pena de que esta desbaratado mi casamiento, y yo estoy el mas contento hombre del mundo de haber escapado de casar con una puta publica." Francis de Alava to Philip, May 11, 1571, apud Froude, Hist. of Eng., x. 224.

[864] She gravely proposed to her council to have a stipulation for the restitution of Calais inserted in the articles of marriage, and Burleigh, Sussex, and Leicester had some difficulty in persuading her to omit the mention. Lord Burleigh, June 5, 1571, Digges, 104.

[865] Froude, Hist. of England, x. 230. This statement, in itself sufficiently credible in view of Leicester's subsequent career, rests on a passage in a MS. from Simancas, which Mr. Froude inserts in a foot-note.

[866] Despatch of March 22, 1572, Digges, 197.

[867] Unless by means of La Mothe Fenelon's arithmetic, who, in conversation with Queen Elizabeth, maintained that, since her majesty was at least nine years younger in her disposition, and Alencon eight years older in manly vigor, both parties were of precisely the same age, namely, twenty-seven! Corresp. diplom., v. 91, etc.

[868] La Mothe Fenelon, vii. 289; Dumont, Corps diplomatique, v., 211-215. It cannot but be regarded as a singular instance of Elizabeth's irresolution and of that perversity with which she was wont to try the patience of her council almost beyond endurance, that she gravely proposed to include in the treaty an article providing for the protection of the King of Spain—a stipulation against which Walsingham earnestly protested as the climax of folly, since it was certain "that the end of this league is onely to bridle his greatness." Digges, 175.

[869] "The like hath not been seen in any man's memory," wrote Lord Burleigh. Montmorency received "a Cupboard of Plate Gilt," "a great cup of gold of 111 ounces," etc. Digges, 218; De Thou, iv. (liv. li.) 537, 538.

[870] La Mothe Fenelon, vii. 292.

[871] Ibid., v. 13.

[872] Ibid., vii. 317-319.

[873] "Que Monseigneur le Duc vienne!" Despatch of Aug. 28, 1572. Corresp. diplom., v. 111.

[874] Pius the Fifth—Saint Pius, for his name is commemorated in the prayers of the Church on the 5th of May—was, we are told by his biographer, a model of severity to his own kindred; and, if the fact that he elevated his grand-nephew, Michael Bonelli, to the sacred college should be alleged as casting some doubt upon this characteristic of his, we must hasten to add that he did so, we are assured, only in consequence of the urgent solicitations of Cardinal Farnese and others. He deserves the credit, however, of yielding to their persuasions with reasonable promptness, for the nomination of his nephew took place within two months of the Pope's accession. Michael, being like his uncle a native of the vicinity of Alessandria, in Piedmont, naturally succeeded to the designation of "il cardinale Alessandrino," which Pius relinquished on assuming the tiara. Gabutius, Vita Pii Quinti Papae, apud Acta Sanctorum (Bolandi) Maii, Sec. 48, p. 630.

[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, Sec. 244-246, p. 676.

[877] So also says Tavannes: "Il est renvoye avec paroles generales que Sa Majeste ne feroit rien au prejudice de l'obeissance de Sa Sainctete." Memoires (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 Barthelemy a ces nopces, que sans Madame, fille du Roy, qui y avoit inclination, il se deslioit" (iii. 194). "L'entreprise de la Sainct Barthelemy, qui n'estoit pas seulement pourpensee, 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 haec solida est pietas, ne pietas possit mea sanguine solvi." Vita Pii Quinti, ubi supra, Sec. 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 memoire, que par l'avis de mon cousin le cardinal de Ferrare, vous avez retenu le diamant que je vous avois envoye 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 Bearn 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 a rire, car nottez qu'elle ne parle a 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 Mem. 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 cure 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 passe"), 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'Aubigne, Hist. univ., ii. 6.

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

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

[893] Le Reveille-Matin des Francois et de leurs voisins. Compose 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." Memoires 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 Francais, etc.; Arch. curieuses, vii. 172; Dialogi Eusebii Philadelphi, i. 31; Vauvilliers, iii. 177; Agrippa d'Aubigne, ii. 12:—"Ce vieux bigot avec ses cafarderies fait perdre un bon temps a ma grosse soeur 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 Charriere, Negociations du Levant, iii. 228.

[898] "Toutes mes fantaisies sont bandees pour m'opposer a 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 a ces gueulx des Pais-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 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. 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 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 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] Mem. 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 caedibus 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.



CHAPTER XVIII.

THE MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S DAY.

[Sidenote: The Huguenot nobles 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 pass 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 ambassador 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 friendship and fidelity, Charles and his brothers, Anjou and Alencon, and Henry and his cousin of Conde, assumed 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 mass, 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 mass, 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 municipality 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 pass. 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 gods 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 shell holding Neptune and his trident. When the pageant stopped for a moment, singers of surpassing 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, snatched 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 assured 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 mass 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 petit ou petite. ... I assure 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 compassion of their victors, and the performance terminated in a startling, but harmless display of fireworks.[933] As the assailants 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 massacre, 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 passing. 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 worship 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 passion 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 massacre which were thrown in his way as he travelled to assume 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 Duchess 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 circumstance 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 Duchess 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 Duchess 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 assassination of her husband turned any affection or compassion 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 Duchess 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 massacre long premeditated?]

[Sidenote: Salviati's testimony.]

Such was the germ of the massacre 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 circumstances 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 participation of the Duke of Anjou, the Duchess 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 assigned to his keeping. On Wednesday Charles assured him, with laughing countenance, that if the admiral would but give him four days more for amusement, he would not stir from Paris until he had contented him;[944] and the sturdy 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 assured 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 nobleman. 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 petition 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 balls 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 balls were poisoned, he replied with composure: "Nothing will happen but what it may please God to order."[949]

The attempted assassination had happened in front of the cloisters of St. Germain l'Auxerrois. The house was recognized as one belonging to the Duchess Dowager of Guise, in which Villemur, the former tutor of young Henry of Guise, had lodged. The door was found locked; but the indignant followers of Coligny soon burst it open. They found within only a woman and a lackey. The assassin, after firing, had fled to the rear of the house. There he found a horse awaiting him; this he exchanged at the Porte Saint Antoine for a fresh Spanish jennet. He was out of Paris almost before pursuit was fairly undertaken. Subsequent investigation left no doubt as to his identity. It was that same Maurevel of infamous memory, who during the third civil war had traitorously shot De Mouy, after insinuating himself into his friendship, and sharing his room and his bed. The king's assassin, "le tueur du roi"—a designation he had obtained when Charles or his advisers gave a special reward for that exploit[950]—had been selected by Catharine, Anjou and the Guises, as possessing both the nerve and the experience that were requisite to make sure of Coligny's death. It was found that he had been placed in the house by De Chailly, "maitre d'hotel" of the king, and that the horse by means of which he effected his escape had been brought to the door by the groom of the Duke of Guise.[951]