[Sidenote: Conde's last appeal to the king.]

When the news first reached him that the troops sent ostensibly to besiege La Rochelle were recalled, Conde, alarmed by what he heard from every quarter, had begged his mother-in-law, the Marchioness de Rothelin, to go to the court and entreat the king, in his name, to maintain the sanctity of his engagements, confirmed by repeated oaths. Scarcely had she departed, however, before he received fresh and reiterated warnings that his safety depended upon instant escape. He determined, nevertheless, to make a last attempt to avert the horrid prospect of a war which, from the malignant hatred exhibited by all classes of Roman Catholics, he rightly judged would exceed the previous contests both in duration and in destructiveness. He addressed to his young sovereign a letter explaining the necessity of the step he was about to take, accompanied by a long appeal, of which it would be impracticable to give even a brief summary. Every point in the multitudinous grievances of which the Huguenots complained was recapitulated. Every counter-charge with which the court had endeavored to parry the force of previous remonstrances was satisfactorily answered. In eloquent terms the prince indicted Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine, as the enemy alike of the royal dignity and of the liberties of the people, as the author of all the troubles of France, and the advocate and defender of robbers and murderers.[579] He reminded the king of the declaration of Maximilian, the present Emperor of Germany, in a letter written before his election to Charles himself: "All the wars and all the dissensions that are to-day rife among the Christians have originated from two cardinals—Granvelle and Lorraine."[580] And he closed the long and eloquent document by protesting, in the sight of God and of all foreign nations, that the Huguenot nobles sought the punishment of Lorraine and his associates alone, as the guilty causes of all the calamities that portended destruction to the French crown, and would pursue them as perjured violators of the public faith and capital enemies of peace and tranquillity. He therefore hoped that no one would be astonished if he and his allies should henceforth refuse to receive as the king's commands anything that might be decided upon by the royal council, so long as the cardinal might be present at its sessions, but should regard them as fabrications of the cardinal and his fellows. The causes of the misfortunes that might arise must be attributed, not to himself and his Huguenot allies, but to the cardinal and his Roman Catholic confederates.[581]

[Sidenote: The flight of the prince and the admiral.]

[Sidenote: Proves wonderfully successful.]

Having despatched "this testimony of the innocence, integrity, and faith" of himself and of his associates, "to be transmitted to posterity in everlasting remembrance," the Prince of Conde set out on the same day (the twenty-third of August) from Noyers. Coligny had joined him, bringing from Tanlay his daughter, the future bride of Teligny—and, after that nobleman's assassination on St. Bartholomew's Day, of William of Orange, the hero of the revolt of the Netherlands—and his young sons, as well as the wife and infant son of his brother D'Andelot. Conde was himself accompanied by his wife, who was expecting soon to be confined, and by several children. His own servants and those of the admiral, with a few noblemen that came in from the neighborhood, swelled their escort to about one hundred and fifty horse.[582] With such a handful of men, and embarrassed in their flight by the presence of those whom their age or their sex disqualified for the endurance of the fatigues of a protracted journey, Conde and Coligny undertook to reach the friendly shelter of the walls of La Rochelle. It was a perilous attempt. The journey was one of several hundred miles, through the very heart of France. The cities were garrisoned by their enemies. The bridges and fords were guarded. The difficulties, in fact, were apparently so insurmountable, that the Roman Catholics seem to have expected that any attempt to escape would be made in the direction of Germany, where Casimir, their late ally, would doubtless welcome the Protestant leaders. This mistake was the only circumstance in their favor, for it diminished the number and the vigilance of the opposing troops.

The march was secret and prompt. Contrary to all expectation, an unguarded ford was discovered not far from the city of Sancerre,[583] by which, on a sandy bottom, the fugitive Huguenots crossed the Loire, elsewhere deep and navigable as far as Roanne.[584] If the drought which had so reduced the stream as to render the passage practicable was justly regarded as a providential interposition of Heaven in their behalf, the sudden rise of the river immediately afterward, which baffled their pursuers, was not less signal a blessing.[585] Other dangers still confronted them, but their prudence and expedition enabled them to escape them, and on the eighteenth of September[586] the weary travellers, with numbers considerably increased by reinforcements by the way, entered the gates of La Rochelle amid the acclamations of the brave inhabitants.

[Sidenote: The third civil war opens.]

The escape of the prince and the admiral rendered useless all further attempt at the concealment of the treacherous designs of the papal party; and the third religious war dates from this moment.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: The city of La Rochelle and its privileges.]

The city of La Rochelle, said to have become a walled place about 1126, had received many tokens of favor at the hands of its successive masters before the accession of Queen Alienor, or Eleonore, last Duchess of Aquitaine. It was by a charter of this princess, in 1199, that the municipality, or "commune," was established. (Arcere, Hist. de la Rochelle, ii., Preuves, 660, 661.) The terms of the charter are vague; but, as subsequently constituted, the "commune" consisted of one hundred prominent citizens, designated as "pairs," or peers, in whom all power was vested. The first member in dignity was the "maire" or mayor, selected by the Seneschal of Saintonge from the list of three candidates yearly nominated by his fellow-members. The historian of the city compares him, for power and for the sanctity attaching to his person, to the ancient tribunes of Rome. Next were the twenty-four "echevins," or aldermen, one-half of whom on alternate years assisted the mayor in the administration of justice. Last of all came seventy-five "pairs" having no separate designation, who took part in the election of the mayor, and voted, on important occasions, in the "assemblee generale." (See a historical discussion, Arcere, i. 193-199.)

From King John Lackland, of England, the Rochellois are said to have received express exemption from the duty of marching elsewhere in the king's service, without their own consent, and from admitting into their city any troops from abroad. (P. S. Callot, La Rochelle protestante, 1863, p. 6.) When, in 1224, after standing a siege of three weeks, La Rochelle fell into the hands of Louis VIII. of France, its new master engaged to maintain all its privileges—a promise which was well observed, for not only did the city lose nothing, but it actually received new favors at the king's hands. (Arcere, i. 212; Callot, 6.) In 1360, the disasters of the French, consequent upon the battle of Poitiers, compelled the monarch to surrender the city of La Rochelle to his captors in order to regain his liberty. The concession was reluctantly made, with the most flattering testimony to the past fidelity of the inhabitants (see letters of John II. of France, to the Rochellois, Calais, Oct., 1360, Arcere, ii, Preuves, 761), and it was with still greater reluctance that the latter consented to carry it into effect. "They made frequent excuses," says Froissard, "and would not, for upwards of a year, suffer any Englishman to enter their town. The letters were very affecting which they wrote to the King of France, beseeching him, by the love of God, that he would never liberate them of their fidelity, nor separate them from his government and place them in the hands of strangers; for they would prefer being taxed every year one-half of what they were worth, rather than be in the hands of the English." (Froissard, i. c. 214, Johnes's Trans.) When compelled to yield, it was with the words: "We will honor and obey the English, but our hearts shall never change." Edward the Third had solemnly confirmed their privileges (Callot, 8).

But La Rochelle's unwilling subjection to the English crown was of brief duration. By a plot, somewhat clumsily contrived, but happily executed (Aug., 1372), the commander of the garrison, who did not know how to read, was induced to lead his troops outside of the castle wall for a review. The royal order that had been shown him was no forgery, but had been sent on a previous occasion, and the attesting seal was genuine. At a preconcerted signal, two hundred Rochellois rose from ambush, and cut off the return of the English. The latter, finding their antagonists reinforced by two thousand armed citizens under the lead of the mayor himself, soon came to terms, and, withdrawing the few men they had left behind in the castle, accepted the offer of safe transportation by a ship to Bordeaux. (See the entertaining account in Froissard, i. c. 311.) The wary Rochellois took good care, before even admitting into their city Duguesclin, Constable of France, with a paltry escort of two hundred men-at-arms, to stipulate that pardon should be extended to those who immediately after the departure of the English had razed the hateful castle to the ground, and that no other should ever be erected; that La Rochelle and the country dependent upon it should henceforth form a particular domain under the immediate jurisdiction of the king and his parliament of Paris; that its militia should be employed only for the defence of the place; and that La Rochelle should retain its mint and the right to coin both "black and white money." (Froissard, ubi supra, corrected by Arcere, i. 260.) Not only did the grateful monarch readily make these concessions, and confirm all La Rochelle's past privileges, but, for its "immense services," by a subsequent order he conferred nobility upon the "mayor," "echevins" and "conseillers" of the city, both present and future, as well as upon their children forever. (Letters of January 8, 1372/3, Arcere, ii., Preuves, 673-675.)

The extraordinary prerogatives of which this was the origin were recognized and confirmed by subsequent monarchs, especially by Louis the Eleventh, Charles the Eighth, Louis the Twelfth, and Francis the First. (Callot, 11.) The resistance of the inhabitants to the exaction of the obnoxious "gabelle," or tax upon salt, did indeed, toward the end of the reign of the last-named king (1542), bring them temporarily under his displeasure; but, with the exception of a modification in their municipal government, made in 1530, and revoked early in the reign of Henry the Second, the city retained its quasi-independence without interruption until the outbreak of the religious wars.

As we have seen (ante, p. 227), La Rochelle was in 1552 the scene of the judicial murder of at least two Protestants. The constancy of one of the sufferers had been the means of converting many to the reformed doctrines, and among others Claude d'Angliers, the presiding judge, whose name may still be read at the foot of their sentence. (Arcere, i. 329.) So rapidly had those doctrines spread, that on Sunday, May 31, 1562, the Lord's Supper was celebrated according to the fashion of Geneva, not in one of the churches, but on the great square of the hay-market, in a temporary enclosure shut in on all sides by tapestries and covered with an awning of canvas. More than eight thousand persons took part in the exercises. But if the morning's services were remarkable, the sequel was not less singular. "As the disease of image-breaking was almost universal," says an old chronicler, "it was communicated by contagion to the inhabitants of this city, in such wise that, that very afternoon about three or four o'clock, five hundred men, who were under arms and had just received the same sacrament, went through all the churches and dashed the images in pieces. Howbeit it was a folly conducted with wisdom, seeing that this action passed without any one being wounded or injured." (P. Vincent, apud Callot, 34, and Delmas, 61.) As usual, the whole affair was condemned by the ministers.

Although La Rochelle had steadily refused, during the earlier part of the first religious war, to declare for the Prince of Conde, and had maintained a kind of neutrality, the court was in constant fear lest the weight of its sympathies should yet draw it in that direction. It was therefore a matter of great joy when, in October, 1562, the Duke of Montpensier succeeded, by a ruse meriting the designation of treachery, in throwing himself into La Rochelle with a large body of troops. With his arrival the banished Roman Catholic mass returned, and the Protestant ministers were warned to leave at once. (Arcere, i. 339.)

For two months after the restoration of peace, the Huguenots of La Rochelle, embracing almost the entire population, held their religious services, in accordance with the terms of the Edict of Pacification, in the suburbs of the city. But, on the 9th of May, 1563, Charles the Ninth was prevailed to give directions that one or two places should be assigned to the Huguenots within the city. This gracious permission was ratified with greater solemnity in letters patent of July 14th, in which the king declared the motive to be the representations made to him of "the inconveniences and eminent dangers that might arise in our said city of La Rochelle, if the preaching and exercise of the pretended reformed religion should continue to be held outside of the said city, being, as it is, a frontier city in the direction of the English, ancient enemies of the inhabitants of that city, where it would be easy for them, by this means, to execute some evil enterprise." (Commission of Charles IX., to M. de Jarnac. This valuable MS., with other MSS., carried to Dublin at the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, by M. Elie Bouhereau, and placed in the Marsh Library, has recently been restored to La Rochelle, in accordance with M. Bouhereau's written directions. Delmas, 369.)

Two years later, Charles and his court, returning from their long progress through France, came to La Rochelle, and spent three days there (Sept., 1565). A noteworthy incident occurred at his entry. The jealous citizens had not forgotten an immemorial custom which was not without significance. A silken cord had been stretched across the road by which the monarch was to enter, that he might stop and promise to respect the liberties and franchises of La Rochelle. Constable Montmorency was the first to notice the cord, and in some anger and surprise asked whether the magistrates of the city intended to refuse their sovereign admission. The symbolism of the pretty custom was duly explained to him, but for all response the old warrior curtly observed that "such usages had passed out of fashion," and at the same instant cut the cord with his sword. (Arcere, i. 349; Delmas, 80, 81.) Charles himself refused the request of the mayor that he should swear to maintain the city's privileges. After so inauspicious a beginning of his visit, the inhabitants were not surprised to find the king, during his stay, reducing the "corps-de-ville" from 100 to 24 members, under the presidency of a governor invested with the full powers of the mayor; ordering that the artillery should be seized, two of the towers garrisoned by foreign troops, and the magistrates enjoined to prosecute all ministers that preached sedition; or banishing some of the most prominent Protestants from La Rochelle.

It was characteristic of the government of Catharine de' Medici—always destitute of a fixed policy, and consequently always recalling one day what it had done the day before—that scarcely two months elapsed before the queen mother put everything back on the footing it had occupied before the royal visit to La Rochelle.

FOOTNOTES:

[430] The most authentic account of these important interviews is that given by Francois de la Noue in his Memoires, chap. xi. It clearly shows how much Davila mistakes in asserting that "the prince, the admiral, and Andelot persuaded them, without further delay, to take arms." (Eng. trans., London, 1678, bk. iv., p. 110.) Davila's careless remark has led many others into the error of making Coligny the advocate, instead of the opposer, of a resort to arms. See also De Thou, iv. (liv. xlii.) 2-7, who bases his narrative on that of De la Noue, as does likewise Agrippa d'Aubigne, l. iv., c. vii. (i. 209), who uses the expression: "L'Amiral voulant endurer toutes extremitez et se confier en l'innocence."

[431] "Ains avec le fer."

[432] "Une armee gaillarde." La Noue, ubi supra.

[433] Mem. de Castelnau, liv. vi., c. iv., c. v.; La Noue, c. xi.; De Thou, iv. (liv. xlii.) 5, 6. Davila, l. iv., p. 110, alludes to the accusation, extorted from Protestant prisoners on the rack, that "the chief scope of this enterprise was to murder the king and queen, with all her other children, that the crown might come to the Prince of Conde," but admits that it was not generally credited. The curate of Saint Barthelemi is less charitable; describing the rising of the Protestants, he says: "En ung vendredy 27e se partirent de toutes les villes de France les huguenots, sans qu'on leur eust dit mot, mais ils craignoient que si on venoit au dessein de leur entreprise qui estoit de prendre ou tuer le roy Charles neuvieme, qu'on ne les saccagea es villes." Journal d'un cure ligueur (J. de la Fosse), 85.

[434] La Noue, and De Thou, ubi supra.

[435] The historian, Michel de Castelnau, sieur de Mauvissiere, had been sent as a special envoy to congratulate the Duke of Alva on his safe arrival, and the Duchess of Parma on her relief. As he was returning from Brussels, he received, from some Frenchmen who joined him, a very circumstantial account of the contemplated rising of the Huguenots, and, although he regarded the story as an idle rumor, he thought it his duty to communicate it to the king and queen. Memoires, liv. vi., c. iv.

[436] Mem. de Castelnau, ubi supra. It is probable that the French court partook of Cardinal Granvelle's conviction, expressed two years before, that the Huguenots would find it difficult to raise money or procure foreign troops for another war, not having paid for those they had employed in the last war, nor holding the strongholds they then held. Letter of May 7, 1565, Papiers d'etat, ix. 172.

[437] Mem. du duc de Bouillon (Ancienne Collection), xlvii. 421.

[438] La Fosse, p. 86, represents Charles as exclaiming, when he entered the Porte Saint Denis: "Qu'il estoit tenu a Dieu, et qu'il y avoit quinze heures qu'il estoit a cheval, et avoit eust trois alarmes."

[439] Mem. de Castelnau, liv. vi., c. v.; La Noue, c. xiii. (Anc. Coll., xlvii. 180-185); De Thou, iv. 8; J. de Serres, iii. 129-131; La Fosse, 86; Agrippa d'Aubigne, Hist. univ., i. 210.

[440] "Ravi d'avoir allume le feu de la guerre," says De Thou, iv. 9.

[441] De Thou, ubi supra.

[442] The circumstance of two messengers, each bearing letters from the same person, while the letters made no allusion to each other, following one another closely, struck Alva as so suspicious, that he actually placed the second messenger under arrest, and only liberated him on hearing from his own agent on his return that the man's credentials were genuine.

[443] Alva proposed to detach 5,000 men to prevent the entrance of German auxiliaries into France, and protect the Netherlands.

[444] Letter of Alva to Philip, Nov. 1, 1567, Gachard, Correspondance de Philippe II., i., 593.

[445] "Que la ley salica, que dizien, es baya, y las armas la allanarian." Ibid, i. 594.

[446] The price of wheat, Jehan de la Fosse tells us (p. 86) advanced to fifteen francs per "septier."

[447] Journal d'un cure ligueur (J. de la Fosse), 86.

[448] In one of Charles's first despatches to the Lieutenant-Governor of Dauphiny, wherein he bids him restrain, and, if necessary, attack any Huguenots of the province who might undertake to come to Conde's assistance, there occurs an expression that smacks of the murderous spirit of St. Bartholomew's Day: "You shall cut them to pieces," he writes, "without sparing a single person; for the more dead bodies there are, the less enemies remain (car tant plus de mortz, moins d'ennemys!)" Charles to Gordes, Oct. 8, 1567, MS. in Conde Archives, D'Aumale, i. 563.

[449] Davila (i. 113) makes the latter her distinct object in the negotiations: "The queen, to protract the time till supplies of men and other necessary provisions arrived, and to abate the fervor of the enemy, being constrained to have recourse to her wonted arts, excellently dissembling those so recent injuries, etc."

[450] Of course "Sieur Soulier, pretre" sees nothing but perversity in these grounds. "Ils n'alleguerent que des raisons frivolles pour excuser leur armement." Histoire des edits de pacification, 64.

[451] Davila is certainly incorrect in stating that the Huguenots demanded "that the queen mother should have nothing to do in the government" (p. 113).

[452] October 7th, Soulier, Hist. des edits de pacification, 65.

[453] De Thou, iv. (liv. xlii.) 10-15; Jean de Serres, iii. 131, 132; Davila, bk. iv. 113-115; Agrippa d'Aubigne, Hist. universelle, l. iv., c. 6, 7 (i. 211, 212); Castelnau, l. vi., c. 6.

[454] So closely was Paris invested on the north, that, although accompanied by an escort of sixty horse, Castelnau was driven back into the faubourgs when making an attempt by night to proceed by one of the roads leading in this direction. He was then forced to steal down the left bank of the Seine to Poissy, before he could find means to avoid the Huguenot posts. Memoires, l. vi., c. 6.

[455] Castelnau was instructed to ask for three or four regiments of Spanish or Italian foot, and for two thousand cavalry of the same nations.

[456] I have deemed it important to go into these details, in order to exhibit in the clearest light the insincerity of Philip the Second—a prince who could not be straightforward in his dealings, even when the interests of the Church, to which he professed the deepest devotion, were vitally concerned. My principal authority is the envoy, Michel de Castelnau, liv. vi., c. 6. Alva's letter to Catharine de' Medici, Dec., 1567, Gachard, Correspondance de Philippe II., i. 608, 609, sheds some additional light on the transactions. I need not say that, where Castelnau and Alva differ in their statements, as they do in some essential points, I have had no hesitation in deciding whether the duke or the impartial historian is the more worthy of credit. See, also, De Thou, iii. (liv. xli.) 755.

[457] Mem. de Fr. de la Noue, c. xiv. (Ancienne coll., xlvii. 189); Davila, bk. iv. 116; Agrippa d'Aubigne, Hist. universelle, i. 212, 213; De Thou, iv. 22; Martin, Hist. de France, x. 246. There is some discrepancy in numbers. There is, however, but little doubt that those given in the text are substantially correct. D'Aubigne blunders, and more than doubles the troops of the constable.

[458] Agrippa d'Aubigne relates an incident which has often been repeated. Among the distinguished spectators gathered on the heights of Montmartre, overlooking the plain, was a chamberlain of the Turkish sultan, the same envoy who had been presented to the king at Bayonne. When he saw the three small bodies of Huguenots issue in the distance from Saint Denis, and the three charges, in which so insignificant a handful of men broke through heavy battalions and attacked the opposing general himself, the Moslem, in his admiration of their valor, twice cried out: "Oh, that the grand seignior had a thousand such men as those soldiers in white, to put at the head of each of his armies! The world would hold out only two years against him." Hist. univ., i. 217.

[459] "Autant de volontaires Parisiens bien armez et dorez comme calices." Agrippa d'Aubigne, l. iv., c. 8 (i. 213). "Tenans la bataille desja achevee, tout ce gros si bien dore print la fuitte." (Ibid., i. 215.)

[460] At Marignano, in 1515.

[461] He was taken prisoner by the Emperor Charles V. at Pavia, in company with Francis I.; at the battle of Saint Quentin, in 1557; and in 1562, at the battle of Dreux, by the Huguenots. It was rather hard that the story should have obtained currency, according to the cure of Meriot, that Constable Montmorency was shot by a royalist, who saw that he was purposely allowing himself to be enveloped by the troops of Conde, in order that he might be taken prisoner, "comme telle avoit ja este sa coustume en deux batailles!" Mem. de Claude Haton, i. 458.

[462] Even Henry of Navarre, in a letter of July 12, 1569, published by Prince Galitzin (Lettres inedites de Henry IV., Paris, 1860, pp. 4-11) states that he is unable to say whether it was Stuart, "pour n'en scavoir rien;" but asserts that "il est hors de doubte et assez commung qu'il fut blesse en pleine bataille et combattant, et non de sang froid."

[463] Memoires de Fr. de la Noue, c. xiv.; Jean de Serres, iii. 137, 138; De Thou, iv. 22, etc.; Agrippa d'Aubigne, Hist. univ., i. 214-217; Castelnau, liv. vi., c. 7; Claude Haton, i. 457; Jean de la Fosse, 88, 89; Charles IX. to Gordes, Nov. 11, 1567, Conde MSS., D'Aumale, i. 564.

[464] "La mort dudit connestable fut plaincte de peu de gens du party des catholicques, a cause de la huguenotterie de l'admiral, du card. de Chastillon, et d'Andelot, ses nepveux, qui estoient, apres le Prince de Conde, chefz des rebelles huguenotz francoys et des plus meschant; et avoient plusieurs personnes ceste oppinion du connestable, qu'il les eust bien retirez de ceste rebellion s'il eust voulu, attendu que tous avoient este avancez en leurs estatz par le feu roy Henry, par son moyen." Claude Haton, i. 458.

[465] Charles IX. to Gordes, Nov. 17, 1567, Conde MSS., Duc d'Aumale, i. 565.

[466] This expose, committed to writing by the elector palatine's request, and translated for Frederick's convenience into German, is published by Prof. A. Kluckholn, in a monograph read before the Bavarian Academy of Sciences: "Zur Geschichte des angeblichen Buendnisses von Bayonne, nebst einem Originalbericht ueber die Ursachen des zweiten Religionskriegs in Frankreich." (Abhandlungen, iii. Cl., xi. Bd., i. Abth.) Munich, 1868. The Huguenot envoys were Chastelier Pourtaut de Latour and Francour. The document is probably from the pen of the former (p. 13).

[467] De Thou, iv. 28, 29; Castelnau, liv. vi., c. 8; Jean de Serres, iii. 144, 146. Agrippa d'Aubigne, Hist. univ., i. 217, 218. Wenceslaus Zuleger's Report is printed in full by F. W. Ebeling, Archivalische Beitraege, 48-73, and by A. Kluckholn, Zwei pfaelzische Gesandtschaftsberichte, etc. Abhandl. der Bayer. Akad., 1868, 189-205.

[468] It is needless to say that no authentic coins or medals bearing Conde's head, with the designation of "Louis XIII.," have ever been found. After the direct contradiction by Catharine de' Medici, no other testimony is necessary. The Jesuits, however, impudently continued to speak of Conde's treason as an undoubted truth, and even gave the legend of the supposed coin as "Ludovicus XIII., Dei gratia, Francorum Rex primus Christianus." See "Plaidoye de Maistre Antoine Arnauld, Advocat en Parlement, pour l'Universite de Paris ... contre les Jesuites, des 12 et 13 Juillet, 1594." Memoires de la ligue, 6, 164. Arnauld stigmatizes the calumny as "notoirement fausse."

[469] Frederick, Elector Palatine, to Charles IX., Heidelberg, Jan. 19, 1568. Printed in full in F. W. Ebeling, Archivalische Beitraege, 74-82.

[470] Agrippa d'Aubigne, ubi supra.

[471] November 13th, "Hier au soyr, vers les sept heures," says Charles to Gordes, Nov. 14, 1567, MS. Conde Arch., D'Aumale, i. 565. The king naturally represents the movement as confused—"une bonne fuyte"—and confidently states that he will follow, and, by a second victory, put a speedy end to the war.

[472] Agrippa d'Aubigne, liv. iv., c. 11 (i. 219).

[473] Ibid., i. 219, 220.

[474] La Noue, c. xiv.; De Thou, iv. 37; Jehan de la Fosse, 89, 90; Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 227. Davila, bk. iv., pp. 119, 120, represents Brissac's attack (which, according to him, was not made till after the expiration of the truce) as a part of a projected general assault. Anjou's main body failed to come up, and so Conde was saved. The blame was thrown on Marshal Gonnor (Cosse) and on M. de Carnavalet, the king's tutor, whom some suspected of unwillingness to allow so much noble blood to be shed. Others accused the one of too much friendship with the Chatillons, the other of a leaning to heresy ("de sentir le fagot") Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 227. See also Cl. Haton, i. 503. These two noblemen were accused of advocating other designs which were very obnoxious to the Roman Catholic party. "La verite est," says Jehan de la Fosse, in his journal, p. 90, under date of December, 1567, "que aulcuns grands seigneurs entre lesquels on nomme Gonor [et] Carnavallet donnoient a entendre que si Monsieur, frere du roy, voloit prendre une partie de ces gens et les joindre avec le camp des huguenots, qui [qu'ils] le feroient comte de Flandre."

[475] De Thou, iv. 37-41; Castelnau, liv. vi., c. 8; La Fosse, 91.

[476] Catharine de' Medici to Alva, Dec. 4, 1567, Gachard, Correspondance de Philippe II., i. 607.

[477] Alva to Catharine de' Medici, Dec., 1567, Gachard, Correspondance de Philippe II., i. 608, 609.

[478] It is told of one lackey that he contributed twenty crowns.

[479] The scene is described in an animated manner by Francois de la Noue, c. xv. (Ancienne Collection, xlvii. 199-201); De Thou, iv. 41. "Marque le lecteur," writes Agrippa d'Aubigne, in his nervous style, "un trait qui n'a point d'exemple en l'antiquite, que ceux qui devoient demander paye et murmurer pour n'en avoir point, puissent et veuillent en leur extreme pauvrete contenter une armee avec 100,000 livres a quoi se monta cette brave gueuserie; argument aux plus sages d'aupres du roi pour prescher la paix; tenans pour invincible le parti qui a la passion pour difference, et pour solde la necessite." Hist. univ., i. 228. D'Aubigne is mistaken, however, in making the army contribute the entire 100,000. Davila and De Thou say they raised 30,000; La Noue, over 80,000.

[480] Mem. de Fr. de la Noue, c. xv.

[481] Ibid., ubi supra.

[482] Memoires de Claude Haton, i. 500-503.

[483] Ibid., ii. 517. "Et des lors fut le pillage mis sus par les gens de guerre des deux partis; et firent tous a qui mieux pilleroit et ranconneroit son hoste, jugeant bien en eux que qui plus en pilleroit plus en auroit. Les gens de guerre du camp catholicque, excepte le pillage des eglises et saccagemens des prebstres, estoient au reste aussi meschans, et quasi plus que les huguenotz."

[484] Menard, Hist. de Nismes, apud Cimber et Danjou, vii. 481, etc.; Bouche, Histoire gen. de Languedoc, v. 276, 277. Prof. Soldan, Geschichte des Protestantismus in Frankreich, ii. 274-276, whose account of an event too generally unnoticed by Protestant historians is fair and impartial, calls attention to the following circumstances, which, although they do not excuse in the least its savage cruelties, ought yet to be borne in mind: 1st, That no woman was killed; 2d, that only those men were killed who had in some way shown themselves enemies of the Protestants; and, 3d, that there is no evidence of any premeditation. To these I will add, as important in contrasting this massacre with the many massacres in which the Huguenots were the victims, the fact that the Protestant ministers not only did not instigate, but disapproved, and endeavored as soon as possible to put an end to the murders.

[485] De Thou, iv. 33-35.

[486] Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 211.

[487] Henri Martin (Histoire de France, x. 255), on the authority of Coustureau, Vie du duc de Montpensier, states that the Rochellois had, after the peace of 1563, bought from Catharine de' Medici, for 200,000 francs, the suppression of the garrison placed in their city by the Duke of Montpensier, and remarks: "Ces 200,000 francs couterent cher!" The authority, however, is very slender in the absence of all corroborative evidence, and Arcere, more than a century ago, showed (Histoire de la Rochelle, i. 625) how improbable, or, rather, impossible the story is. If any gift was made to Catharine by the city, it must have been far less than the sum, enormous for the times and place, of 200,000 crowns; and, at any rate, it could not have been for the purchase of a privilege already enjoyed for hundreds of years. See the illustrative note at the end of this chapter.

[488] Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 218. "Plus absolument et avec plus d'obeisance que les Rochellois, qui depuis ont tousjours tenu le parti reforme, n'en ont voulu deferer et rendre aux princes mesmes de leur parti, contre lesquels ils se sont souvent picquez, en resveillant et conservant curieusement leurs privileges."

[489] Others were beaten and banished, and suffered the other penalties denounced by the Edict of Chateaubriant, as Soulier goes on to show with much apparent satisfaction. Hist. des edits, etc., 67, 68. The text of the joint sentence of Couraud, Constantin, and Monjaud is interesting. It is given by Delmas, L'Eglise reformee de la Rochelle (Toulouse, 1870), pp. 19-25.

[490] Martin, Hist. de France, x. 254.

[491] Agrippa d'Aubigne, ubi supra; Davila, bk. iv. 122; De Thou, iv. 27 seq.; Soulier, 69. According to Arcere, Hist. de la Rochelle, i. 352, the mayor's correct name was Pontard, Sieur de Trueil-Charays.

[492] The commission was dated from Montigny-sur-Aube, January 27, 1568, Soulier, 70. De Thou's expression (ubi supra), "peu de temps apres," is therefore unfortunate.

[493] Soulier, Hist. des edits de pacification, 70.

[494] Norris to Queen Elizabeth, January 23, 1568, State Paper Office. I retain the quaint old English form in which Norris has couched the marshal's speech. It is plain, in view of the perfidy proposed by Santa Croce, even in the royal council, that Conde was not far from right in protesting against the proposed limitation of Cardinal Chatillon's escort to twenty horse, insisting "que la qualite de mondict sieur le Cardinal, qui n'a acoustume de marcher par pais avecques si peu de train, ny son eage (age) ne permectent pas maintenant de commencer." Conde to the Duke of Anjou, Dec. 27, 1567, MS. Bibl. nat., Aumale, Prince de Conde, i. 568.

[495] The "seven viscounts"—often referred to about this period—were the viscounts of Bourniquet, Monclar, Paulin, Caumont, Serignan, Rapin, and Montagut, or Montaigu. They headed the Protestant gentry of the provinces Rouergue, Quercy, etc., as far as to the foot of the Pyrenees. Mouvans held an analogous position in Provence, Montbrun in Dauphine, and D'Acier, younger brother of Crussol, in Languedoc. Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 220, 221; De Thou, iv. 33; Duc d'Aumale, Princes de Conde, i. 327. When "the viscounts" consented, at the earnest solicitation of the second Princess of Conde, to part with a great part of their troops, they confided them to Mouvans, Rapin, and Poncenac.

[496] The village of Cognac, or Cognat, near Gannat, in the ancient Province of Auvergne (present Department of Allier), must not, of course, be confounded with the important city of the same name, on the river Charente, nearly two hundred miles further west.

[497] Jean de Serres, iii. 146, 147; De Thou, iv. 48-51; Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 226.

[498] Opinions differed respecting the propriety of the movement. According to La Noue, Chartres in the hands of the Huguenots would have been a "thorn in the foot of the Parisians;" while Agrippa d'Aubigne makes it "a city of little importance, as it was neither at a river crossing, nor a sea-port;" "but," he adds, "in those times places were not estimated by the standard now in vogue."

[499] "Car encore que les Catholiques estiment les Huguenots estre gens a feu, si sont-il toujours mal pourveus de tels instrumens," etc. Mem. de la Noue, c. xviii. For the siege of Chartres, besides La Noue, see Jean de Serres, iii. 148; De Thou, iv., 51-53; Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 229-232.

[500] "Ils eussent este par trop lourds et stupides, s'ils n'en eussent evite la feste."

[501] "Cessons donc de nous esbahir s'ils ont un pied en l'air et l'oeil en la campagne."

[502] The whole of this remarkable memorial is inserted in the older Collection universelle de memoires, xlv. 224-260. Its importance is so great, as reflecting the views of a mind so impartial and liberal as that of Chancellor L'Hospital, that I make no apology for the prominence I have given to it. Besides the omission of much that might be interesting, I have in places rather recapitulated than translated literally the striking remarks of the original.

[503] La Noue, c. xviii.

[504] Castelnau, who was behind the scenes, assures us that had "the Huguenots insisted upon keeping some places in their own hands, for the performance of what was promised, it would have been granted, and, in all probability, have prevented the war from breaking out so soon again," etc. Mem., liv. vi., c. 11.

[505] Jean de Serres, iii. 149-154; De Thou, iv. 54, 55; Davila, bk. iv. 124; Castelnau, ubi supra; Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 260, etc.

[506] "L'Amiral maintenoit et remonstroit que cette paix n'estoit que pour sauver Chartres, et puis pour assommer separez ceux qu'on ne pourroit vaincre unis." Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 232.

[507] "Le Prince de Conde plus facile, desireux de la cour, ou il avoit laisse quelque semence d'amourettes, se servit de ce que plusieurs quittoient l'armee," etc. Ibid., ubi supra.

[508] La Noue, c. xviii.

[509] La Noue, c. xix.

[510] "La paix fourree," Soulier, Histoire des edits de pacification, 73. "Ceste meschante petite paix," La Noue, c. xix. Agrippa d'Aubigne, Hist. universelle, i. 260, and, following him, Browning, Hist. of the Huguenots, i. 220, and De Felice, Hist. of the Protestants of France, 190, say that this peace was wittily christened "La paix boiteuse et mal-assise;" but, as we shall see, this designation belongs to the peace of Saint Germain-en-Laye, in 1570, concluding the third religious war.

[511] Leopold Ranke, Civil Wars and Monarchy in France in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (New York, 1853), 234.

[512] Norris to Cecil, Paris, March 30, 1568, State Paper Office.

[513] La Noue, c. xviii. (Anc. coll., 214).

[514] A fortnight had not elapsed since the date of the Edict of Pacification when Conde was compelled to call the king's attention to a flagrant outrage committed by Foissy, a royalist, against the Sieur d'Esternay. After having burned Esternay's residence at Lamothe during the preliminary truce, Foissy subsequently to the conclusion of peace returned and completed his work of devastation. Conde to Charles IX., April 5, 1568, MS., Archives du dep. du Nord, apud Duc d'Aumale, i. 572.

[515] "Nous avons fait la folie, ne trouvons donc estrange si nous la beuvons. Toutefois il y a apparence que le breuvage sera amer." La Noue, ubi supra.

[516] De Thou, iv. 55, 56; Jean de Serres, Comm. de statu, etc., iii. 160; Conde's petition of Aug. 23d, ibid., iii. 218; Mem. de Claude Haton, i. 357-359, who, however, makes the singular blunder of placing the incident of Rapin's death after the peace of Amboise in 1563. The cure's description of the zeal of the Toulouse parliament for the Roman Catholic Church confirms everything that Protestant writers have said on the subject: "Laditte court de parlement avoit tousjours resiste a laditte pretendue religion et faict executer ceux qui en faisoient profession, nonobstant edict a ce contraire faict en faveur d'iceux huguenotz." See also Raoul de Cazenove, Rapin-Thoyras, sa famille, sa vie, et ses oeuvres (Paris, 1866), 47-49—a truly valuable work, and a worthy tribute to a distinguished ancestry.

[517] "Edictum promulgant, hac addita exceptione, Reservatis clausulis quae secreto Senatus commentario continentur." J. de Serres, iii. 160, 161; De Thou, ubi supra. See the petition of Conde of Aug. 23d. J. de Serres, iii. 220, etc.

[518] Mem. de Claude Haton, ii. 527, etc.

[519] "Sire," said a nobleman, after listening to the arguments against the peace made by some of the remonstrants, and to Charles's replies, "it is too much to undertake to dispute with these canting knaves; it were better to have them strapped in the kitchen by your turnspits." Ibid., ii. 530.

[520] Playing upon the chancellor's name, Sainte Foy, one of the court preachers, exclaimed in the pulpit: "Be not astonished if the Huguenots demolish the churches, for they have turned all France into a hospital instead"—"donnant a entendre que par le chancelier nomme Hospital, la France estoit pauvre, pourtant qu'il a par trop encore de douceur pour les huguenots qui ont ruine le pais de France." Jehan de la Fosse, 93, 94.

[521] Floquet, Hist. du parlement de Normandie, iii. 36-42.

[522] Memoires de Claude Haton, ii. 533, 534. Similar regulations were made in many other places "cumplurimis in locis." Jean de Serres, iii. 156.

[523] Jean de Serres, iii. 158, 159.

[524] De Thou, iv. 77, 78; Castelnau, l. vii., c. 1; D'Aubigne, i. 260; La Fosse, 97; Motley, Dutch Republic, ii. 184.

[525] Charles was, however, near experiencing trouble with the reiters of Duke Casimir. He had, by the terms of the agreement with the Huguenots, undertaken to advance the 900,000 francs which were due, and on failing to fulfil his engagements his unwelcome guests threatened to turn their faces toward Paris. Mem. de Castelnau, liv. vi., c. 11. At last, with promises of payment at Frankfort, the Germans were induced to leave France. Du Mont, Corps diplomatique, v. 164, gives a transcript of Casimir's receipt, May 21, 1568, for 460,497 livres, etc.

[526] Memoires de Castelnau, liv. vi., c. 9, c. 10. Duke John William of Saxe-Weimar was even more vexed at the issue of his expedition than Castelnau himself. It was with difficulty that he could be persuaded to accept an invitation to make a visit to the French court.

[527] Paris MS., apud Soldan, Gesch. des Prot. in Frankreich, ii. 300. Rumor, as is usual in such cases, outstripped even the unwelcome truth, and Norris wrote to Queen Elizabeth that the king had sent secret letters to two hundred and twelve places, charging the governors "to runne uppon them [the Huguenots] and put them to the sword." "Your Majestie will judge," adds Norris, "ther is smale place of surety for them of the Religion, either in towne or felde." Letter of June 4, 1568, apud D'Aumale, Les Princes de Conde, ii. 363, Pieces inedites.

[528] When the Protestants at Rouen begged protection, the king sent four companies of infantry, which the citizens at first refused to admit. At last they were smuggled in by night, and quartered upon the Huguenots. Floquet, Hist. du parlement de Normandie, iii. 43.

[529] Jean de Serres, iii. 157, 158.

[530] Ibid., ubi supra.

[531] Jean de Serres, iii. 161; Soldan, ii. 303.

[532] Soldan, ii. 306.

[533] Letter to Catharine, April 27, 1568, MS., apud Soldan, ii. 303.

[534] Jean de Serres, iii. 163, 164. Petition of Conde of Aug. 23d. Ibid., iii. 215, etc.

[535] MS. Bibl. nat., apud Mem. de Claude Haton, ii. App., 1152, 1153. Less correctly given in Lestoile's Memoires. The title is "Sermens des Associez de la Ligue Chrestienne et Roiale," and the date is June 25, 1568.

[536] Prof. Soldan is certainly right (ii. 305) in his interpretation of the passage, "tant et si longuement qu'il plaira a Dieu que nous serons par eux regis en nostredicte religion apostolique et romaine," which Ranke (Civil Wars and Monarchy, p. 236), and, following him, Von Polenz (Gesch. des franz. Calvinismus, ii. 361), have construed as referring to "la maison de Valois." Involved as is the phraseology, I do not see how the word "eux" can designate any other person or persons than "ledit sr. lieutenant avec mesditz sieurs de la noblesse de cedit gouvernement et autres associez."

[537] Jean de Serres, iii. 164.

[538] "Den Erfolg des letzten Krieges," well observes Prof. Soldan, "hatten die Hugenotten nicht ihrer Anzahl, sondern der Organisation und dem Geiste ihres Gemeindewesens zu verdanken. Diese bewegliche, weitverzweigte, aus einem festen Mittelpunkte gleichmaessig gelenkte und von Eifer fuer die gemeinsame Sache belebte Vereinsgliederung hatte ueber den lahmen und stockenden Mechanismus vielfach groesserer, aber in sich selbst uneiniger Kraefte einen beschaemenden Triumph erlangt." Geschichte des Protestantismus in Frankreich, ii. 303.

[539] Relations des Amb. Ven., ii. 116.

[540] Cipierre, a young nobleman only twenty-two years of age, was returning, with a body-guard of about thirty-five men, from a visit to his cousin, the duke, at Nice, where he had been treated with great honor. When approaching Frejus he perceived signs of treachery in a body of men lurking under cover of a grove, and betook himself for safety into the city, now, since his father's death, a part of the province of which his eldest brother was royal governor. The tocsin was rung, and his enemies, originally a band of three hundred men, being swollen by constant accessions to four times that number, the house in which Cipierre had taken refuge was assailed. After a heroic defence the small party of defenders surrendered their arms, on assurance that their opponents would at once retire. The papists, however, scarcely made a pretence of fulfilling their compact, for they speedily returned and massacred every one whom they found in the house. Cipierre himself was not among the number. To secure him a new breach of faith was necessary. The captain of the murderers pledged his own word to the magistrate that if Cipierre would come forth from his hiding-place he would spare his life. He discharged the obligation, so soon as Cipierre presented himself, by plunging a dagger into his breast. J. de Serres, iii. 166-168; Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 262.

[541] Petition of Conde, Aug. 23, 1568, J. de Serres, iii. 210, 211.

[542] Vie de Coligny (Cologne, 1686), 349, 350; J. de Serres, iii. 166.

[543] Ibid., iii. 165; Recordon, from MSS. of N. Pithou, 155-157; MS. Mem. historiques des Antiquites de Troyes, by Duhalle, apud Bulletin de l'hist. du prot. fr., xvii. (1868) 376. Of the royal edicts guaranteeing the Protestants, the last author remarks that "ils firent plus de bruit que de fruit."

[544] Duc d'Aumale, Princes de Conde, ii. 364, Pieces justificatives.

[545] J. de Serres, iii. 168; Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 262.

[546] Jean de Serres does not expressly state that he refers to the combatants, but I presume this to be his meaning.

[547] Relazione di Correro, Rel. des Amb. Ven., ii. 120.

[548] "Montauban, etc., faisoient conter les cloux de leurs portes aux garnisons qu'on leur envoyoit." Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 261. It was the garrisons only that were refused; the royal governors were promptly accepted. M. de Jarnac, for instance, had no difficulty in securing recognition at La Rochelle; but he was not permitted to introduce troops to distress and terrify the citizens. See the letters of the "Maire, Echevins, Conseilliers et Pairs," of La Rochelle to Charles the Ninth, April 21st, June 6th and 30th, etc. Le Laboureur, Add. aux Mem. de Castelnau, ii. 547-551. They deny the slanderous accusation that the Roman Catholics have not been permitted to return since the peace, asserting, on the contrary, that they have greeted them as brethren and fellow-citizens. They appeal to M. de Jarnac himself for testimony to the good order of La Rochelle. "Meanwhile," they say, "we are preserving this city of yours in all tranquillity, and maintain it, under your obedience, with much greater security, devotion, affection, fidelity and loyalty, such as we have received from our predecessors, than would do all others who were strangers and mercenaries, and not its natural subjects and inhabitants." Norris to Queen Elizabeth, June 23, 1568: "The towne of Rochelle hathe now the thirde time bin admonished to render itself to the king." State Paper Office, Duc d'Aumale, ii. 367.

[549] His wife, Charlotte de Laval, whose brave Christian injunctions, as we have seen, decided the reluctant admiral to take up arms in the first religious war (see ante, chapter xiii., p. 35), lay dying of a disease contracted in her indefatigable labors for the sick and wounded soldiers at Orleans, whilst the admiral was at the siege of Chartres. On the conclusion of the peace he hastened to her, but was too late to find her alive. In a touching letter, written to her husband after all hope of seeing him again in this world had fled, a letter the substance of which is preserved by one of his biographers (Vie de Coligny, Cologne, 1686, p. 342), she lamented the loss of a privilege that would have alleviated the sufferings of her last hours, but consoled herself with the thought of the object for which he was absent. She conjured him, by the love he bore her and to her children, to fight to the last extremity for God and religion; warning him, lest through his habitual respect for the king—a respect which had before made him reluctant to take up arms—he should forget the obligations he owed to God as his first Master. She begged him to rear the children she left him in the pure religion, that they might one day be capable of taking his place; and, for their sakes, implored him not to hazard his life unnecessarily. She bade him beware of the house of Guise. "I do not know," she added, "whether I ought to say the same thing of the queen mother, as we are forbidden to judge evil of our neighbor; but she has given so many marks of her ambition that a little distrust is excusable." The earlier biographer of Coligny (Gasparis Colinii Vita, 1575, p. 63, etc.) gives an affecting picture of the deep sorrow and pious resignation of the admiral.

[550] Somewhat hyperbolically, the biographer of the admiral (Vie de Coligny, p. 346) says that the concourse at Chatillon and Noyers was so great that the Louvre was a desert in comparison! When ten gentlemen left by one gate, twenty entered by another. The churches raised a purse of 100,000 crowns, one-half of which was to go to him, and the other half to the Prince of Conde; but, though nearly ruined by the enormous expenses of his hospitality, he declined to receive his portion.

[551] Noyers and Tanlay are ten or twelve miles from each other, in the modern department of the Yonne.

[552] Jean de Serres, ubi supra. Cf. De Thou, iv. 142; Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. fr. (1854), iii. 239. This valuable periodical is mistaken in stating, vii. (1858) 120, that "D'Andelot s'etait retire dans ses terres de Bretagne a la conclusion de la paix." He did not leave Tanlay until after writing the letter referred to below, and shortly before Coligny's arrival: "partant de chez lui, pour se rendre chez son frere Andelot, il trouva qu'il etoit alle en Bretagne." Vie de Coligny, 350. D'Andelot was in Brittany at the outbreak of the third war. His adventures in escaping to La Rochelle will be narrated in the next chapter. Mr. Henry White is, of course, equally wrong when he says (Massacre of St. Bartholomew, New York, 1868, p. 291): "The admiral had gone to this charming retreat [Tanlay], to consult with his brother, to whom it belonged, and who had joined him there," and when he mentions D'Andelot as in the suite of Conde and Coligny in their celebrated flight (p. 292); "besides which, he (the prince) was accompanied by the admiral and his family, by Andelot and his wife," etc.

[553] Lettre de Francois d'Andelot a la Royne mere du Roy, de Tanlay, co 8me juillet, 1568. MS. Library of Berne. This letter has been twice printed in the Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. francais, iv. (1856) 329-331, and vii. (1858) 121-123. The first reproduction is in one important part more correct than the second. It is not impossible, after all, that the author of the letter was not D'Andelot, but his brother, Admiral Coligny himself; for M. J. Tessier mentions (Bulletin, xxii. (1873) 47), that it exists in manuscript in the Paris National Library (MSS. Vc. Colbert, 24, f. 161), in the admiral's own handwriting, and signed with his usual signature, Chastillon. The whole tone, I must confess, seems rather to be his.

[554] Journal d'un cure ligueur (Jehan de la Fosse), 96.

[555] Norris to Queen Elizabeth, May 12, 1568, State Paper Office.

[556] Jean de Serres, iii. 170; Davila, bk. iv. 128; Conde to the king, Noyers, June 11, 1568, MS. Paris Lib., apud D'Aumale, ii. 351-353.

[557] As the prince had described the state of affairs in a letter to the king, of July 22, 1568: "Nous nous voions tuez, pillez, saccagez, les femmes forcees, les filles ravies des mains de leurs peres et meres, les grands mis hors de leurs charges," etc. All this injustice had been committed with complete impunity. In fact, to use his own forcible words, were the king to attempt to punish the outrages done to the Protestants, "the trees in France would have more men than leaves upon them"—"tous les arbres seroient plus couvertz d'hommes que de feuilles." MS. Paris Lib., apud D'Aumale, ii. 355, 356.

[558] J. de Serres, iii. 171-173; Davila, bk. iv. 128.

[559] The Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. francais, ix. (1860) 217-219, published from MSS. in the Library of the British Museum, the letter of Charles the Ninth to the first president of the Parisian parliament, dated "du chateau de Bolongne, ce premier jour d'aoust," enclosing the formula. The pretext is "afin d'oster tout ce doubte et differend qui regne aujourd'huy parmi nos subjectz." The president is to associate with himself the seigneur de Nantouillet, provost of the city, and the seigneur de Villeroy, "prevot des marchands."

[560] Bulletin, etc., ix. (1860) 218, 219; Jean de Serres, iii. 175, etc.

[561] Jean de Serres (Comm. de statu rel. et reipublicae, iii. 174-183) inserts the reply of the Protestants to the proposed oath, article by article.

[562] Built by Francis I., and so named because constructed on the plan of the palace in which he lived when a captive in Spain.

[563] It is true the writer carefully avoids mentioning the cardinal's name, but there is no difficulty in discovering that he is intended.

[564] "Uti nimirum detur opera ut vires penes Regem sint, primoresque religionis illius occupentur, omnes conveniendi rationes illis demantur: ut ad illas angustias redacti, quemadmodum facillimum erit, possit hujusmodi colluvies regi regnoque adversaria, plane pessundari, omnesque adeo reliquiae profligari: quoniam semen profecto esset in dies egerminaturum, nisi ea ratio observaretur, cujus a vicinis nostris adeo luculenta exempla demonstrentur." Jean de Serres, iii. 187.

[565] The letter is given entire, with the exception of some matters of no general interest, in the valuable chronicle of this period, by Jean de Serres (s. l. 1571), iii. 185-190.

[566] "Haec sunt propemodum ipsa illius verba, quae conatus sum memoriae mandare, ut possem ad te de rerum omnium statu certius perscribere." Ib., iii. 188.

[567] "Et quoniam tunc vehementius quam assuevisset, rem illam mihi commemoravit, et fortasse regis domini sui, qui ibi tunc erat, mandatu, volui hac de causa te istarum rerum facere certiorem."

[568] This letter, which was also intercepted by the Huguenots, is preserved by Jean de Serres, iii. 184, 185. It bears unmistakable marks of authenticity.

[569] Conde himself alludes to these words of Charles the Ninth to his mother, in his letter of August 23d. Referring to the king's aversion to a resort to violence, he says: "Quod mihi repetitis literis saepissime demonstrasti, et nuper quidem Reginae matri, ex eo sermone quem cum illa habebas, quo significabas quantum odiosa tibi esset turbarum renovatio cum nimirum illam orabas, daret operam ut omnia pacificarentur, efficeretque ne rursus ad bella civilia rediretur, quae non possent non extremum exitium afferre." Jean de Serres, iii, 193.

[570] Letter apud J. de Serres, iii. 188-190.

[571] De Thou, iii. 136; Castelnau, liv. vii., c. 1, where the sum is erroneously trebled; Davila, bk. iv., p. 130. See also Soldan, ii., 324, and Von Polenz, ii. 365.

[572] Norris, in a letter to Cecil, Sept. 25, 1568, gives almost the very words of the angry contestants. State Paper Office.

[573] Davila, bk. iv. 130; De Thou, iv. (liv. xliv.) 136.

[574] Ranke, Civil Wars and Monarchy in France, 236, 237.

[575] Davila and De Thou, ubi supra. De Thou seems certainly to be wanting in his accustomed accuracy when he represents—iv. (liv. xliv.) 136, 137—the submission of the test-oath to the Protestants as posterior to, and consequent upon the fall of L'Hospital: "La reine delivree du Chancelier, et n'ayant plus personne qui s'opposat a ses volontes, ne songea plus qu'a brouiller les affaires, etc." I have shown that the papal bull which L'Hospital opposed was dated at Rome on the same day (August 1, 1568) on which Charles sent his orders to the president of the Parisian parliament to administer the oath to the Protestants of the capital. Yet, as early as on the 12th of May, 1568, the English ambassador, Norris, wrote to Cecil that Anjou, a cruel enemy of the Protestants, had a privy council of which Cardinal Lorraine was the "chiefest" member, and his own chancellor, who sealed everything submitted to him, "which thing he [the good olde chauncelor of the Kinges] hathe so to harte as he is retirid him to his owne house in the towne of Paris; and wheras the King's chauncelor I meane, who nether for love nor dread wolde seal enything against the statutes of the realme, or that might be prejudiciall to the same, this of Mr. d'Anjou's refusithe nothing that is proferid to him." State Paper Office, Duc d'Aumale, ii. 360.

[576] Jean de Serres, iii. 191; Davila, bk. iv., p. 128.

[577] See Soldan, Gesch. des Prot. in Frankreich, ii. 327, note 63. Yet Conde himself, shortly before the flight from Noyers, expressed himself in strikingly confident terms as to Tavannes's probity. In a letter to the king, complaining of the treacherous plots formed against himself, July 22, 1568, the prince says he is sure that Tavannes is not privy to these designs, "car je le cognois de trop longue main ennemy de ceulx qui ne veullent qu'entretenir les troubles. Parquoy je croy que cecy se faict a son desceu." MS. Paris Lib., apud D'Aumale, ii. 356.

[578] "Le cerf est aux toiles, la chasse est preparee." See Anquetil, Esprit de la ligue, i. 278.

[579] "Turbarum causas imputamus adversario illi tuo ac tuae dignitatis hosti Cardinali Lotharingo et sociis, quorum nimirum pravis consiliis et arcta necessitudine et familiaritate quam cum Hispano habent, dissensiones et simultates inter tuos subjectos ab hinc sex annis continuantur, et misere foventur atque aluntur per caedes atque strages, quae ipsorum nutu quotidie ubique perpetrantur." Jean de Serres, iii. 194. "Impurusne Presbyter, tigris, tyrannus," etc., ibid., iii. 196. "Cardinalis Lotharingus, quasi sicariorum ac praedorum patronus," etc., ibid., iii., 210.

[580] "Quodnam item de illo judicium tulerit Caesar Maximilianus hodie imperans, cum ad te prescripsit, omnia bella et omnes dissensiones, quae inter Christianos hodie vagantur, proficisci a Granvellano et Lotharingo Cardinalibus." Jean de Serres, iii. 234.

[581] This petition or protestation of Conde is among the longest public papers of the period, occupying not less than forty-three pages of the invaluable Commentarii de statu religionis et reipublicae of Jean de Serres. It well repays an attentive perusal, for it contains, in my judgment, the most important and authentic record of the sufferings of the Huguenots during the peace. The reader will notice that I have made great use of its authority in the preceding narrative.

[582] Jean de Serres, iii. 241.

[583] The place is sufficiently designated by Ag. d'Aubigne (Hist. univ., i. 263) "a Bonni pres Sancerre;" by Jean de Serres (iii. 242) "ad Sangodoneum vicum (Saint Godon) qui tribus ferme milliaribus distat ab ea fluminis parte, qua transiit Condaeus;" by Hotman, Gasparis Colinii Vita, 1575 (p. 68), "ad flumen accessit, quo Sancerrani collis radices alluuntur," and by the "Vie de Coligny" (p. 351), "vis a vis de Sancerre." It will surprise no one accustomed to the uncertainties and perplexities of historical investigation, that while one author, quoted by Henry White (Mass. of St. Bartholomew, 292), puts the crossing "near les Rosiers, four leagues below Saumur," Davila (p. 129) places it at Roanne. The two spots are, probably, not less than 230 miles apart in a straight line.

[584] See De Thou, etc.

[585] Recueil des choses mem. (Hist. des Cinq Rois), 336. The Life of Coligny (1575), p. 68, states that the rise took place within three hours after the Huguenots crossed.

[586] Jean de Serres, iii. 192, and De Thou, iv. (liv. xliv.) 140. The dates of Conde's departure from Tanlay and arrival at La Rochelle are, as usual, given differently by other authorities.



CHAPTER XVI.

THE THIRD CIVIL WAR.

[Sidenote: Relative advantages of the Roman Catholics and Huguenots.]

[Sidenote: Enthusiasm of Huguenot youth.]

[Sidenote: Enlistment of Agrippa d'Aubigne.]

Having narrowly escaped falling into the hands of their treacherous enemies, and finding themselves compelled once more to take up arms in defence of their own lives and the liberties of their fellow-believers, the Prince of Conde and Admiral Coligny resolved to institute a vigorous contest. A single glance at the situation, the full dangers of which were now disclosed by the tidings coming from every quarter, was sufficient to convince them that in a bold and decided policy lay their only hope of success. The Roman Catholics had, it is true, enjoyed rare opportunities for maturing a comprehensive plan of attack; although the sequel seemed to prove that they had turned these opportunities to little practical use. But the Huguenots possessed countervailing advantages, in close sympathy with each other, in fervid zeal for their common faith, as well as in an organization all but perfect. Simultaneously with their flight from Noyers, the prince and the admiral had sent out a summons addressed to the Protestants in all parts of the kingdom, and this was responded to with enthusiasm by great numbers of those who had been their devoted followers in the two previous wars. Multitudes of young men, also, with imaginations inflamed by the recital of the exploits of their fathers and friends, burned to enroll themselves under such distinguished leaders. Many were the stratagems resorted to by these aspirants for military honors. Among others, the eminent historian, Theodore Agrippa d'Aubigne, has left an amusing account of the adventures he passed through in reaching the Huguenot recruiting station. His prudent guardian had taken the precaution to remove Agrippa's clothes every evening, in order to prevent him from carrying out his avowed purpose of entering the army; but one night, on hearing the report of the arquebuse—which a number of his companions, bent on the same course, had fired as a signal near his place of confinement—the youth boldly lowered himself to the ground by the sheets of his bed, and, with bare feet and no other clothing than a shirt, made his way to Jonzac. There, after receiving an outfit from some Protestant captains, he jotted down at the bottom of the receipt which he gave them in return, the whimsical declaration "that never in his life would he blame the war for having stripped him, since he could not possibly leave it in a sorrier plight than that in which he entered it."[587]

[Sidenote: The court proscribes the reformed religion.]

The resolution and enthusiasm of the Huguenots were greatly augmented by the imprudent course of the court. Notwithstanding their own guilty designs, Catharine and the Cardinal of Lorraine were taken by surprise when the news reached them that Conde and Coligny had escaped, and that the Huguenots were everywhere arming. So sudden an outbreak had not been expected; and, while awaiting the muster of that portion of the troops that had been dismissed, but was now summoned to assemble at Etaples on the 10th of September,[588] it was thought best to quiet the agitated minds of the people. A declaration was accordingly published, assuring all the adherents of the reformed faith who remained at home and furnished no assistance to the enemy, of the royal protection, Charles promising, at the same time, to give a gracious hearing to their grievances.[589] But, as soon as the Roman Catholic forces began to collect in large numbers, and the apprehension of a sudden assault by the Huguenots died away, the court threw off the mask of conciliation, and Charles was made to sign two laws unsurpassed for intolerance. The first purported to be "an irrevocable and perpetual edict." It rehearsed the various steps taken by Charles the Ninth and his brother Francis in reference to the "so-called reformed religion," from the time of the tumult of Amboise. It alluded to the edicts of July and of January—the latter adopted by the queen mother, by advice of the Cardinals of Bourbon and Tournon, of the constable, of Saint Andre, and others, because less objectionable than an edict tolerating the worship of that religion within the walls of the cities. None of these concessions, it asserted, having satisfied the professors of the new faith, who had collected money and raised troops with the intent of establishing another government in place of that which God had instituted, the king now repealed the edicts of toleration, and henceforth prohibited his subjects, of whatever rank and in all parts of his dominions, on pain of confiscation and death, from the exercise of any other religious rites than those of the Roman Catholic Church. All Protestant ministers were ordered to leave France within fifteen days. Quiet and peaceable laymen were promised toleration until such time as God should deign to bring them back to the true fold; and pardon was offered to all who within twenty days should lay down their arms.[590] The second edict deprived all Protestant magistrates of the offices they held, reserving, however, to those who did not take part in the war, a certain portion of their former revenues.[591]

In order to give greater solemnity to the transaction, Charles, clothed in robes of state and with great pomp, repaired to the parliament house, to be present at the publication of the new edicts, and with his own hands threw into the fire and burned up the previous edicts of pacification. "Thus did his Royal Highness of France," writes a contemporary German pamphleteer with intense satisfaction, "as was seemly and becoming to a Christian supreme magistrate, pronounce sentence of death upon all Calvinistic and other heresies."[592]

[Sidenote: Impolicy of this course.]

Nothing devised by the papal party could have been better adapted to further the Huguenot cause than the course it had adopted. The wholesale proscription of their faith united the Protestants, and led every able-bodied man to take up arms against a perfidious government, whose disregard of treaties solemnly made was so shamefully paraded before the world. "These edicts," admits the candid Castelnau, "only served to make the whole party rise with greater expedition, and furnished the Prince of Conde and the admiral with a handle to convince all the Protestant powers that they were not persecuted for any disaffection to the government, but purely for the sake of religion."[593]

[Sidenote: Attempts to make capital of the proscriptive measures.]

Efforts were not spared by the Guisard party to make capital abroad out of the new proscriptive measures. Copies of the edicts, translated from the French, were put into circulation beyond the Rhine, accompanied by a memorial embodying the views presented by an envoy of Charles to some of the Roman Catholic princes of the empire. The king herein justified himself for his previous clemency by declaring that he had entertained no other idea than that of allowing his subjects of the "pretended" reformed faith time and opportunity for returning to the bosom of the only true church. Lovers of peace and good order among the Germans were warned that they had no worse enemies than the insubordinate and rebellious Huguenots of his Very Christian Majesty's dominions, while the adherents of the Augsburg Confession were distinctly given to understand that Lutheranism was safer with the Turk than where Calvin's doctrines were professed.[594]

To influence the princes the offices of skilled diplomatists were called into requisition, but to no purpose. When Blandy requested the emperor, in Charles's name, to prevent any succor from being sent to Conde from Germany, Maximilian replied by counselling his good friend the king to seek means to restore concord and harmony among his subjects, and professing his own inability to restrain the levy of auxiliary troops. And from Duke John William, of Saxony, the same envoy only obtained expressions of regret that the war so lately suppressed had broken out anew, and of discontent on the part of the German princes at the rumor that Charles had been so ill advised as to join in a league made by the Pope and the King of Spain, with the view of overwhelming the Protestants.[595]

[Sidenote: A "crusade" preached at Toulouse.]

On the other hand, the new direction taken by Catharine met with the most decided favor on the part of the fanatical populace, and the pulpits resounded with praise of the complete abrogation of all compacts with heresy. The Roman Catholic party in Toulouse acted so promptly, anticipating even the orders of the royal court, as to make it evident that they had been long preparing for the struggle. On Sunday, the twelfth of September, a league for the extermination of heresy was published, under the name of a crusade. A priest delivered a sermon with the consent of the Parliament of Toulouse. Next day all who desired to join in the bloody work met in the cathedral dedicated to St. Stephen—the Christian protomartyr having, by an irony of history, more than once been made a witness of acts more congenial to the spirit of his persecutors than to his own—and prepared themselves for their undertaking by a common profession of their faith, by an oath to expose their lives and property for the maintenance of the Roman Catholic religion, and by confession and communion. This being done, they adopted for their motto the words, "Eamus nos, moriamur cum Christo," and attached to their dress a white cross to distinguish them from their Protestant fellow-citizens. Of success they entertained no misgivings. Had not Attila been defeated, with his three hundred thousand men, not far from Toulouse? Had not God so blessed the arms of "our good Catholics" in the time of Louis the Eighth, father of St. Louis, that eight hundred of them had routed more than sixty thousand heretics? "So that we doubt not," said the new crusaders, "that we shall gain the victory over these enemies of God and of the whole human race; and if some of us should chance to die, our blood will be to us a second baptism, in consequence of which, without any hinderance, we shall pass, with the other martyrs, straight to Paradise."[596] A papal bull, a few months later (on the fifteenth of March, 1569), gave the highest ecclesiastical sanction to the crusade, and emphasized the complete extermination of the heretics.[597]

[Sidenote: Fanaticism of the Roman Catholic preachers.]

The faithful, but somewhat garrulous chronicler, who has left us so vivid a picture of the social, religious, and political condition of the city of Provins during a great part of the second half of this century, describes a solemn procession in honor of the publication of the new ordinance, which was attended by over two thousand persons, and even by the magistrates suspected of sympathy with the Protestants. Friar Jean Barrier, when pressed to preach, took for his text the song of Moses: "I will sing unto the Lord, for He hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath He thrown into the sea." His treatment of the verse was certainly novel, although the exegesis might not find much favor with the critical Hebraist. The Prince of Conde was the horse, on whose back were mounted the Huguenot ministers and preachers—the riders who drove him hither and thither by their satanic doctrine. Although they were not as yet drowned, like Pharaoh and his army in the Red Sea, France had great reason to rejoice and praise God that the king had annulled the Edict of January, and other pernicious laws made during his minority. As for himself, said the good friar, he was ready to die, like another Simeon, since he had lived to see the edicts establishing "the Huguenotic liberty" repealed, and the preachers expelled from France.[598]

[Sidenote: The Huguenot places of refuge.]

Similar rejoicings with similar high masses and sermons by enthusiastic monks, were heard in the capital[599] and elsewhere. But the jubilant strains were sounded rather prematurely; for the victory was yet to be won. The Huguenot nobles, invited by Conde, were flocking to La Rochelle; the Protestant inhabitants of the towns, expelled from their homes, were generally following the same impulse. But others, reluctant, or unable to traverse such an expanse of hostile territory, turned toward nearer places of refuge. Happily they found a number of such asylums in cities whose inhabitants, alarmed by the marks of treachery appearing in every quarter of France, had refused to receive the garrisons sent to them in the king's name. It was a wonderful providence of God, the historian Jean de Serres remarks. The fugitive Huguenots of the centre and north found the gates of Vezelay and of Sancerre open to them. Those of Languedoc and Guyenne were safe within the walls of Montauban, Milhau, and Castres. In the south-eastern corner of the kingdom, Aubenas, Privas, and a few other places afforded a retreat for the women and children, and a convenient point for the muster of the forces of Dauphiny.[600]

[Sidenote: Jeanne d'Albret and D'Andelot reach La Rochelle.]

Meantime, the Queen of Navarre, with young Prince Henry and his sister Catharine, started from her dominions near the Pyrenees. The court had in vain plied her with conciliatory letters and messages sent in the king's name. Gathering her troops together, and narrowly escaping the forces despatched to intercept her, she formed a junction with a very considerable body of troops raised in Perigord, Auvergne, and the neighboring provinces, under the Seigneur de Piles, the Marquis de Montamart, and others, and, after meeting the Prince of Conde, who came as far as Cognac to receive her, found safety in the city of La Rochelle.[601]

From an opposite direction, Francois d'Andelot, whom the outbreak of hostilities overtook while yet in Brittany, was warned by Conde to hasten to the same point. With his accustomed energy, the young Chatillon rapidly collected the Protestant noblemen and gentry, not only of that province, but of Normandy, Touraine, Maine, and Anjou, and with such experienced leaders as the Count of Montgomery, the Vidame of Chartres, and Francois de la Noue, had reached a point on the Loire a few miles above Angers. It was his plan to seize and hold the city and bridge of Saumur, and thus secure for the Huguenots the means of easy communication between the two sides of the important basin intervening between the smaller basins of the Seine and the Garonne. His expectations, however, were frustrated principally by the good fortune of M. de Martigues, who succeeded in making a sudden dash through D'Andelot's scattered divisions, and in conveying to the Duke of Montpensier at Saumur so large a reinforcement as to render it impossible for the Huguenots to dream of dislodging him.[602] For a time D'Andelot was in great peril. With only about fifteen hundred horse and twenty-five hundred foot,[603] he stood on the banks of a river swollen by autumnal rains and supposed to be utterly impassable, and in the midst of a country all whose cities were in the hands of the enemy. He had even formed the desperate design of retiring twenty or thirty miles northward, in hope of being able to entice Montpensier to follow him so incautiously that he might turn upon him, and, after winning a victory, secure for himself a passage to the sources of the Loire or to his allies in Germany. At this moment the joyful announcement was made by Montgomery that a ford had been discovered. The news proved to be true. The crossing was safe and easy. Not a man nor a horse was lost. The interposition of heaven in their behalf was so wonderful, that, as the Huguenot troopers reached the southern bank, the whole army, by common and irresistible impulse, broke forth in praise to Almighty God, and sang that grand psalm of deliverance—the seventy-sixth.[604] Never had those verses of Beza been sung by more thankful hearts or in a nobler temple.[605]

[Sidenote: Success in Poitou, Angoumois, etc.]

Full of courage, the exultant troops of D'Andelot now pressed southward. First the city of Thouars fell into their hands; then the more important Partenay surrendered itself to the Huguenots. Here, according to the cruel rules of warfare of the sixteenth century, they deemed themselves justified in hanging the commander of the place, who had thrown himself into the castle, for having too obstinately insisted upon standing an assault in a spot incapable of defence, together with some priests who had shared his infatuation.[606] Admiral Coligny now met his brother, and the united army, with three cannon brought from La Rochelle, forming his entire siege artillery, demanded and obtained the surrender of Niort, the size and advantageous position of which made it a bulwark of La Rochelle toward the east. Angouleme, Blaye, Cognac, Pons, and Saintes, were still more valuable acquisitions. In short, within a few weeks, so large a number of cities in the provinces of Poitou, Angoumois, and Saintonge had fallen under the power of the Protestants, that they seemed fully to have retrieved the losses they had experienced through the treacherous peace of Longjumeau. "In less than two months," writes La Noue of his fellow-soldiers, "from poor vagabonds that they were, they found in their hands sufficient means to continue a long war."[607] And the veteran Admiral Coligny, amazed at the success attending measures principally planned by himself, was accustomed to repeat with heartfelt thankfulness the exclamation attributed to Themistocles: "I should be lost, if I had not been lost!"[608]

[Sidenote: Affairs in Dauphiny, Provence, and Languedoc.]

[Sidenote: Powerful Huguenot army in the south.]

[Sidenote: It effects a junction with Conde's forces.]

Meantime, in the south-eastern part of France, the provinces of Dauphiny, Provence, and Lower Languedoc, the Huguenots had not been slow in responding to the call of the Prince of Conde. The difficulty was rather in assembling their soldiers than in raising them; for there was little lack of volunteers after the repeal of the royal edicts in favor of the Protestants. With great trouble the contingents of Dauphiny and Provence were brought across the Rhone, and at Alais the Baron d'Acier[609] mustered an army to go to the succor of the Prince of Conde at La Rochelle. A Roman Catholic historian expresses his profound astonishment that the Huguenots of this part of the kingdom, when surprised by the violation of the peace, should so speedily have been able to mass a force of twenty-five thousand men, well furnished and equipped, and commanded by the most excellent captains of the age—Montbrun, Mouvans, Pierre-Gourde, and others.[610] The abbe's wonder was doubtless equalled by the consternation which the news spread among the enemies of the Huguenots. The Roman Catholics could bring no army capable of preventing the junction of D'Acier's troops with those of Conde; but the Duke of Montpensier succeeded, on the twenty-fifth of October, in inflicting a severe loss upon one of the divisions at Messignac, near Perigueux. Mouvans and Pierre-Gourde, who were distant from the main body, were attacked in their quarters, by a force under Brissac, which they easily repulsed. D'Acier, suspecting the design of the enemy, had commanded the Huguenot captains to make no pursuit, and to await his own arrival. But brave Mouvans was as impatient of orders as he was courageous in battle. Disregarding the authority which sat so lightly upon him, he fell into an ambuscade, where he atoned for his rashness by the loss of his own life and the lives of more than a thousand of his companions. After this disaster, D'Acier experienced no further opposition, and, on the first of November, he met the advancing army of Conde at Aubeterre, on the banks of the Dronne.[611]

With the new accessions to his army, the prince commanded a force very considerably larger than any he had led in the previous wars. Among the conflicting statements, we may find it difficult to fix its numbers. Agrippa d'Aubigne says that, after the losses consequent upon the defeat of Messignac and those resulting from camp diseases, Conde's army consisted of only seventeen thousand foot soldiers, and two thousand five hundred horsemen.[612] A Huguenot bulletin, sent from La Rochelle for the information of Queen Elizabeth and the Protestants of England, may have given somewhat too favorable a view of the prince's prospects, but was certainly nearer the truth, in assigning him twenty-five thousand arquebusiers and a cavalry force of five or six thousand men.[613] On the other hand, Henry of Anjou, who had been placed in nominal command of the Roman Catholic army, had not yet been able to assemble a much superior, probably not an equal, number of soldiers. The large forces which, according to his ambassador at the English court, Charles the Ninth could call out,[614] existed only on paper. The younger Tavannes, whose father was the true head of the royal army, gives it but about twenty thousand men.[615]

It was already nearly winter when the armies were collected, and their operations during the remainder of the campaign were indecisive. In the numerous skirmishes that occurred the Huguenots usually had the advantage, and sometimes inflicted considerable damage upon the enemy. But the Duke of Anjou, or the more experienced leaders commanding in his name, studiously avoided a general engagement. The instructions from the court were to wear out the courage and enthusiasm of Conde's adherents by protracting a tame and monotonous warfare.[616] The prince's true policy, on the contrary, lay in decided action. His soldiers were inferior to none in France. The flower of the higher nobility and the most substantial of the middle classes had flocked to his standard so soon as it was unfurled. But, without regular commissariat, and serving at their own costs, these troops could not long maintain themselves in the field.[617] The nobles and country gentlemen, never too provident in their habits, soon exhausted their ready funds, with their crowd of hungry retainers, and became a more pitiable class than even the burgesses. The latter, whom devotion to their religious convictions, rather than any thirst for personal distinction, had impelled to enter the service, could not remain many months away from their workshops and counting-rooms without involving their families in great pecuniary distress. It was not, however, possible for Conde and Coligny to bring about a combat which the duke was resolved to decline, and the unparalleled severity of the season suspended, at the same time, their design of wresting from his hands the city of Saumur, a convenient point of communication with northern France. Early in December the vines were frozen in the fields,[618] disease broke out in either camp, and the soldiers began to murmur at a war which seemed to be waged with the elements rather than with their fellow-men. While Anjou's generals, therefore, drew off their troops to Saumur, Chinon on the Vienne, and Poitiers, Conde's army went into winter quarters a little farther west, at Montreuil-Bellay, Loudun and Thouars, but afterward removed, for greater commodity in obtaining provisions, to Partenay and Niort.[619]

[Sidenote: Huguenot reprisals and negotiations.]

It was while the Huguenots lay thus inactive that their leaders deliberated respecting the best means of providing for their support during the coming campaign. Jeanne d'Albret, whose masculine vigor[620] had never been displayed more conspicuously than during this war, was present, and assisted by her sage counsels. It was determined, in view of the cruelties exercised upon the Protestants in those parts of the kingdom where they had no strongholds, and of the confiscation of their property by judicial decisions, to retaliate by selling the ecclesiastical possessions in the cities that were now under Huguenot power, and applying the proceeds to military uses. The order of sale was issued under the names of the young Prince of Navarre, of Conde, Coligny, D'Andelot and La Rochefoucauld, and a guarantee was given by them. As a reprisal the measure was just, and as a warlike expedient nothing could be more prudent; for, while it speedily filled the coffers of the Huguenot army, it cut off one great source of the revenues of the court, which had been authorized both by the Pope and by the clergy itself to lay these possessions under contribution.[621]

Already the temper of the Protestant leaders had been sounded by an unaccredited agent of Catharine de' Medici, who found Conde at Mirebeau, and entreated him to make those advances toward a peace which would comport better with his dignity as a subject than with that of Charles as a king. But the prince, who saw in the mission of an irresponsible mediator only a new attempt to impede the action of the confederates, had dismissed him, after declaring, in the presence of a large number of his nobles, that he had been compelled to resort to arms in order to provide for his own defence. The war was, therefore, directed not against the king, but against those capital enemies of the crown and of the realm, the Cardinal of Lorraine and his associates. All knew his own vehement desire for peace, of which his late excessive compliance was a sufficient proof; but, since the king was surrounded by his enemies, he intended, with God's favor, to come and present his petitions to his Majesty in person.[622]

[Sidenote: William of Orange attempts to aid the Huguenots.]

Abroad the Huguenots had not been idle in endeavoring to secure the support of advantageous alliances. So early as in the month of August, after the disastrous defeat of Louis of Nassau, at Jemmingen, the Prince of Orange had contemplated the formation of a league for common defence with the Prince of Conde and Admiral Coligny. A draft of such an agreement has been preserved; but it is unsigned, and may be regarded rather as indicative of the friendly disposition of the French and Dutch patriots than as a compact that was ever formally adopted.[623] That same autumn William of Orange had undertaken an expedition intended to free the Netherlands from the tyranny of Alva. He had been met with consummate skill. The duke refused to fight, but hung remorselessly on his skirts. The inhabitants of Brabant extended no welcome to their liberator. The prince's mercenaries, vexed at their reception, annoyed by the masterly tactics of their enemy, and eager only to return to their homes, clamored for pay and for plunder. Orange, outgeneralled, was compelled to abandon the campaign, and would gladly have turned his arms against the oppressors of his fellow-believers in France; but his German troops had enlisted only for the campaign in the Netherlands, and peremptorily declined to transfer the field of battle to another country. However, the depth of the Meuse, which had become unfordable, furnished more persuasive arguments than could be brought forward by Genlis and the Huguenots who with him had joined the Prince of Orange, and the army of the patriots was forced to direct its course southward and to cross the French frontier.

[Sidenote: Consternation and devices of the court.]

[Sidenote: Declaration of the Prince of Orange.]

Great was the consternation at the court of Charles. Paris trembled for its safety, and vigorous were the efforts made to get rid of such dangerous guests. Marshal Cosse, who commanded for his Majesty on the Flemish border, was too weak to copy successfully the tactics of Alva; but he employed the resources of diplomacy. His secretary, the Seigneur de Favelles, not content with remonstrating against the prince's violation of the territory of a king with whom he was at peace, endeavored to terrify him by exaggerating the resources of Charles the Ninth and by fabricating accounts of Huguenot reverses. Conde, he said, had been forced to recross the river Vienne in great confusion; and there was a flattering prospect that he would be compelled to shut himself up in La Rochelle; for "Monseigneur the Duke of Anjou" had an irresistible army of six thousand horse and twenty-five or thirty thousand foot, besides the forces coming from Provence under the Count de Tende, the six thousand newly levied Swiss brought by the Duke d'Aumale, and other considerable bodies of troops.[624] Gaspard de Schomberg[625] was despatched on a similar errand by Charles himself, and offered the prince, if he came merely desiring to pass in a friendly manner through the country, to furnish him with every facility for so doing. In reply, William of Orange, although the refusal of his soldiers to fight against Charles[626] left him no alternative but to embrace the course marked out for him, did not disguise his hearty sympathy with his suffering brethren in France. In view of the attempts made, according to his Majesty's edict of September last, to constrain the consciences of all who belonged to the Christian religion, and in view of the king's avowed determination to exterminate the pure Word of God, and to permit no other religion than the Roman Catholic—a thing very prejudicial to the neighboring nations, where there was a free exercise of the Christian religion—the prince declared his inability to credit the assertions of his Majesty, that it was not his Majesty's intention to constrain the conscience of any one. He avowed his own purpose to give oppressed Christians everywhere all aid, comfort, counsel, and assistance; asserting his conviction that the men who professed "the religion" demanded nothing else than the glory of God and the advancement of His Word, while in all matters of civil polity they were ready to render obedience to his Majesty. He averred, moreover, that if he should perceive any indications that the Huguenots were pursuing any other object than liberty of conscience and security for life and property, he would not only withdraw his assistance from them, but would use the whole strength of his army to exterminate them.[627] After this declaration, the prince prosecuted his march to Strasbourg, where he disbanded his troops, pawning his very plate and pledging his principality of Orange, to find the means of satisfying their demands. Great was the delight of the royalists, great the disappointment of the Huguenots, on hearing that the expedition had vanished in smoke. "The army of the Prince of Orange," wrote an agent of Conde in Paris, "after having thrice returned to the king's summons a sturdy answer that it would never leave France until it saw religion re-established, has retreated, in spite of our having given it notice of your intention to avow it. I know not the cause of this sudden movement, for which various reasons are alleged."[628] William the Silent had not, however, relinquished the intention of going to the assistance of the Huguenots, whose welfare, next to that of his own provinces, lay near his heart. Retaining, therefore, twelve hundred horsemen whom he found better disposed than the rest, he patiently awaited the departure of the new ally of the French Protestants, Wolfgang, Duke of Deux-Ponts (Zweibruecken), in whose company he had determined to cross France with his brothers Louis and Henry of Nassau.[629]

[Sidenote: Aid sought from England.]

[Sidenote: Generous response of the English people.]

[Sidenote: Bishop Jewel's noble plea.]

The Prince of Conde received more immediate and substantial assistance from beyond the Channel. When Tavannes undertook to capture Conde and Coligny at Noyers, it was in contemplation to seize Odet, Cardinal of Chatillon, the admiral's elder brother,[630] in his episcopal palace at Beauvais. He received, however, timely warning, and made his escape through Normandy to England, where Queen Elizabeth received him at her court with marks of distinguished favor.[631] His efforts to enlist the sympathies and assistance of the English monarch in behalf of his persecuted countrymen were seconded by Cavaignes, who soon arrived as an envoy from Conde. Cavaignes was instructed to ask material aid—money to meet the engagements made with the Duke of Deux-Ponts, and ships with their armaments to increase the small flotilla of privateersmen, which the Protestants had, for the first time, sent out from La Rochelle. Soon after appeared the vice-admiral, Chastelier-Pourtaut de Latour, under whose command the flotilla had been placed, bearing a letter from the Queen of Navarre to her sister of England, in which she was entreated to espouse a quarrel that had arisen not from ambition or insubordination, but from the desire, in the first place, to defend religion, and, next, to rescue a king who was being hurried on to ruin by treacherous advisers.[632] To these reiterated appeals, and to the solicitations for aid addressed to them by other refugees from papal violence who had found their way to the shores of Great Britain, the subjects of the queen returned a more gracious answer than the queen herself. The exiled Huguenot ministers were received with open arms by men who regarded them as champions of a common Christianity,[633] and some Protestant noblemen had in a few weeks after their arrival raised for their relief, the sum—considerable for those days—of one hundred pounds sterling. Not only the laity, but even the clergy of the Church of England, took a tender pride in receiving the "few servants of God"—some three or four thousand—whom Providence had thrown upon their shores. They welcomed them to their cities, and resented the attempts of Pope and king to secure their extradition. Could the Pope, who harbored six thousand usurers and twenty thousand courtesans in his own city of Rome, call upon the Queen of England to deny the right of asylum to "the poor exiles of Flanders and France, and other countries, who either lost or left behind them all that they had—goods, lands, and houses—not for adultery, or theft, or treason, but for the profession of the Gospel?" "It pleased God," wrote Bishop Jewel, "here to cast them on land: the queen of her gracious pity hath granted them harbor. Is it become so heinous a thing to show mercy?" "They are our brethren," continued their noble-minded advocate, "they live not idly. If they have houses of us, they pay rent for them. They hold not our grounds but by making due recompense. They beg not in our streets, nor crave anything at our hands, but to breathe our air, and to see our sun. They labor truly, they live sparefully. They are good examples of virtue, travail, faith, and patience. The towns in which they abide are happy, for God doth follow them with His blessings."[634]