[Sidenote: Misgivings of Queen Elizabeth.]

[Sidenote: Her double-dealing and effrontery.]

Queen Elizabeth was less decidedly in their favor. Her court swarmed with creatures of the Spanish king, who openly gloried in the victories of the Guises. The ambassadors of Charles and Philip strove to the utmost to render the Huguenots odious to her mind, and to give a false coloring to the war raging in France. Her jealousy of the royal prerogative was appealed to, by the repeated declaration that the Protestants of France were turbulent men, who, for the slightest occasion and upon the most slender suspicion, were ready to have recourse to arms—enthusiasts, who could not be dissuaded from rash enterprises; sectaries, who employed their consistories and their organized form of church government to levy men, to collect arms, munitions of war, and money—rebels, in fine, who could at any moment rise within an hour, and surprise his most Christian Majesty's cities and provinces. The abrogation of religious liberty was, therefore, not merely advisable, but absolutely necessary. Elizabeth was reminded, also, of her own intolerant measures toward the Roman Catholics of her dominions; and she was assured that her fears of a combined attack on all the Protestants were devoid of foundation—that Charles had neither taken up arms, nor revoked the edicts of toleration at the desire of any other prince, still less because of the instance of any private individuals, but of his own free will, in order to secure his kingdom.[635] These arguments, if they did not convince Elizabeth, gave her a fair excuse for trying to maintain an appearance of non-intervention, which the perilous position of England seemed to her to dictate. With the problem of Scotland and Mary Stuart yet unsolved—with a very considerable part of the lords and commons of her own kingdom scarcely concealing their affection for the Romish faith—she deemed it hazardous to provoke too far the enmity of Philip the Second, her brother-in-law, and a late suitor for her hand. As if any better way could be found of warding off from her island the assaults of Philip than by rendering efficient aid to Conde and Orange! As if England's dissimulation and refusal to support the "Huguenots" and the "Gueux" in any other than an underhand way were likely to retard the sailing of the great expedition that was to turn the Pope's impotent threats against the "bastard of England" into fearful realities! As if Protestantism, everywhere menaced, could hope for glorious success in any other path than a bold and combined defence![636] Unfortunately Elizabeth was fairly launched on a sea of deceitful diplomacy, and not even Cecil could hold her back. She gave La Mothe Fenelon, the French envoy, assurances that would have been most satisfactory could he have closed his eyes to the facts that gave these assurances the lie direct. At one time, with an appearance of sincerity, she told the Spanish ambassador, it is true, that she could not abandon the family of Chatillon, who had long been her friends, whilst she saw the Guises, the declared enemies of her person and state, in such authority, both in the council and the field; that she could not feel herself secure, especially since a member of the French council had inadvertently dropped the hint that, after everything had been settled at home, Charles would turn his arms against England. She had rather, consequently, anticipate than be anticipated.[637] But to La Mothe Fenelon himself she maintained unblushingly that, so far from helping the French Protestants, "there was nothing in the world of which she entertained such horror as of seeing a body rising in rebellion against its head, and that she had no notion of associating herself with such a monster."[638] And again and again she protested that she was not intriguing in France—that she had sent the Huguenots no assistance.[639] At the same time Admiral Winter had been despatched with four or five ships of war and a fleet of merchantmen, to carry to La Rochelle, in answer to the request of Conde and of the Queen of Navarre, 100,000 "angelots" and six pieces of cannon and ammunition.[640] When the ambassador was commissioned to lay before the queen a remonstrance against this flagrant breach of neutrality, and to demand an answer, within fifteen days, respecting her intentions,[641] Elizabeth, in declaring for peace, had the effrontery to assert that the assistance in cannon and powder (for she denied that any money was left at La Rochelle) was involuntary, not only with her, but even with the admiral himself. Having dropped into the harbor to obtain the wine and other commodities with which his fleet of merchantmen were to be freighted, Admiral Winter was approached by the governor of the city, who so strongly pressed him to sell or lend them some pieces of artillery and some powder, which they could not do without, that, considering that he, as well as the ships, were in their power, he thought it necessary to comply with a part of their requests, although it was against his will.[642] Such were the paltry falsehoods to which Elizabeth's insincere course naturally and directly led. La Mothe Fenelon was well aware that Admiral Winter, besides his public commission, had been furnished with a secret order, authorizing him to assist La Rochelle, signed by Elizabeth's own hand, without which the wary old seaman absolutely refused to go, doubtless fearing that he might be sacrificed when it suited his mistress's crooked policy. What the order contained was no mystery to the French envoy.[643] Neither party in this solemn farce was deceived, but both wanted peace. Catharine would have been even more vexed than surprised had Elizabeth confessed the truth, and so necessitated a resort to open hostilities.[644] As the honor of the government was satisfied, even by the notoriously false story of Winter's compulsion, there was no necessity for pressing the question of its veracity to an inconvenient length.

[Sidenote: Fruitless sieges and plots.]

The cold winter of 1568-1569 passed without signal events, excepting the great mortality among the soldiers of both camps from an epidemic disease—consequent upon exposure to the extraordinary severity of the season—and the fruitless siege of the city of Sancerre by the Roman Catholics. Five weeks were the troops of Martinengo detained before the walls of this small place, whose convenient proximity to the upper Loire rendered it valuable to the Huguenots, not only as a means of facilitating the introduction of their expected German auxiliaries into central France, but still more as a refuge for their allies in the neighboring provinces. The bravery of the besieged made them superior to the forces sent to dislodge them. They repulsed, with great loss to their enemies, two successive assaults on different parts of the works, and, at last, gaining new courage from the advantages they had obtained, assumed the offensive, and forced Martinengo and the captains by whom he had been reinforced to retire humiliated from the hopeless undertaking.[645] Meantime, in not less than three important cities which the Huguenots hoped to gain without striking a blow, the plans of those who were to have admitted the Protestants within the walls failed in the execution; and Dieppe, Havre, and Lusignan remained in the power of the Roman Catholic party.[646]

[Sidenote: Growing superiority of Anjou's forces.]

At the opening of the spring campaign the Prince of Conde found his position relatively to his opponents by no means so favorable as at the close of the previous year. His loss by disease equalled, his loss by desertion exceeded, that of the Duke of Anjou; for it was impossible for troops serving at their own expense, however zealous they might be for the common cause, to be kept together, especially during a season of inaction, so easily as the forces paid out of the royal treasury. Besides this, the Duke of Anjou had received considerable reinforcements. Two thousand two hundred German reiters, under the Rhinegrave and Bassompierre, had arrived in his camp. They were the first division of a force of five thousand six hundred men who had crossed the Rhine, near the end of December, under Philibert, Marquis of Baden, and others. The young Count de Tende brought three thousand foot soldiers from Provence and Dauphiny, and smaller bodies came in from other parts of France.[647] Conde, on the contrary, had received scarcely any accessions to his troops. The "viscounts," whose arrival had turned the scale at the conclusion of the last war, lingered in Guyenne, with an army of six thousand foot soldiers and a well-appointed cavalry force, preferring to protect the Protestant territories about Montauban and Castres, and to ravage the lands of their enemies, as far as to the gates of Toulouse, rather than leave their homes unprotected and join Conde. A dispute respecting precedence had not been without some influence in causing the delay, and M. de Piles, who had been twice sent to urge them forward, had only succeeded in bringing a corps of one thousand two hundred arquebusiers and two hundred horse.[648] It was now expected, however, that realizing the vital importance of opposing to Anjou a powerful Protestant army, the viscounts would abandon their short-sighted policy; and it was the intention of Conde and Coligny, after effecting a junction, to march with the combined armies to meet the Duke of Deux-Ponts. Anticipating this plan, the court had despatched the Dukes of Aumale and of Nemours to guard the entrance into France from the side of Germany. There seemed to be danger that the precaution would prove ineffectual through the jealousy existing between the two leaders; but this danger Catharine attempted to avert by removing the royal court to Metz, where she could exert her personal influence in reconciling the ambitious rivals.[649] In order to prevent the threatened union of Conde and the viscounts, the Duke of Anjou now left his winter quarters upon the Loire and moved southward. On the other hand, the Prince of Conde left Niort, and, pursuing a course nearly parallel, passed through St. Jean d'Angely to Saintes, thence diverging to Cognac, on the Charente.[650]

[Sidenote: The armies meet on the Charente.]

The Charente, although by no means one of the largest rivers of France, well deserves to be called one of the most capricious. For about a quarter of its length it runs in a northwesterly direction. At Civray it abruptly turns southward and flows in a meandering course as far as Angouleme, receiving on the way the waters of the Tardouere (Tardoire), and with it almost completely inclosing a considerable tract of land. At Angouleme, the old whim regaining supremacy, the Charente again bends suddenly westward, and finally empties into the ocean below Rochefort, through a narrow arm of the sea known as the Pertuis d'Antioche. The tract of country included between the river and the shores of the Bay of Biscay, comprising a large part of the provinces of Aunis and Saintonge, was in the undisputed possession of the Huguenots. They held the right bank of the river, and controlled the bridges. Here they intended to await the arrival of the viscounts. Jarnac, an important town on this side, a few miles above Cognac, Admiral Coligny with the advance guard of the prince's army had wrested from the enemy. They had also recovered Chateauneuf, a small place situated higher up, and midway between Jarnac and Angouleme.

In pursuance of his plan, the Duke of Anjou, after crossing the Charente near Ruffec, had moved around to the south side, determined to prevent the junction of the two Huguenot armies. Once more Chateauneuf fell into his hands; but the garrison, after retreating to the opposite bank, had destroyed the bridge behind them. This bridge the Roman Catholics set themselves at once to repair. At the same time they began the construction of a bridge of boats in the immediate vicinity. While these constructions were pushed forward with great vigor, the royal army marched down as far as Cognac and made a feint of attack, but retired after drawing from the walls a furious cannonade. It was now that prudence demanded that the Protestant army should withdraw from its advanced position with only the Charente between its vanguard and the far superior forces of the enemy. This was the advice of Coligny and of others in the council of war. But Conde prevented its prompt execution, exclaiming: "God forbid that it should ever be said that a Bourbon fled before his enemies!"[651]

[Sidenote: Battle of Jarnac, March 13, 1569.]

The bridges being now practicable, almost the whole army of Anjou was thrown across the Charente under cover of the darkness, during the night of the twelfth and thirteenth of March, only a small force remaining on the left bank to protect Chateauneuf and the passage. So skilfully was this movement effected that it escaped the observation even of those divisions of the Protestant army that were close to the point of crossing. When at length the admiral was advised that the enemy were in force on the northern bank, he at once issued the order to fall back toward Conde and the main body of the Huguenots. Unfortunately, the divisions of Coligny's command were scattered; some had been discontented with the posts assigned them, and had on their own responsibility exchanged them for others that better suited their fancy. The very command to concentrate was obeyed with little promptness, and the afternoon was more than half spent before Coligny, and D'Andelot, who was with him, could begin the retreat. Never was dilatoriness more ill-timed. The handful of men with the admiral, near the abbey and hamlet of Bassac, fought with desperation, but could not ward off the superior numbers of the enemy. La Noue, in command of the extreme rear, with great courage drove back the foremost of the Roman Catholics, but was soon overpowered and taken prisoner. His men were thrown in disorder upon D'Andelot, who, by an almost superhuman effort, not only sustained the shock, but retook and for a short time held the abbey. D'Andelot was, however, in turn forced to yield the ground.

Meantime Coligny had called upon Conde for assistance, and the prince, leaving his infantry to follow, had hurried back with the few horse that were within reach, and now took position on the left. But it was impossible for so unequal a struggle to continue long. The Huguenots were outflanked and almost enclosed between their adversaries and the Charente. It was a time for desperate and heroic venture. Coligny's forces had lost the ground which they had been contesting inch by inch about a raised causeway.

Conde himself had but three hundred knights. One of his arms he carried in a sling, because of a recent injury. To render his condition yet more deplorable, his thigh had just been broken, as he rode up, by a kick from the unmanageable horse of his brother-in-law, La Rochefoucauld. The prince was no coward. Turning to his little company of followers, he exclaimed: "My friends, true noblesse of France, here is the opportunity we have long wished for in vain! Our God is the God of Battles. He loves to be so called. He always declares Himself for the right, and never fails to succor those who serve Him. He will infallibly protect us, if, after having taken up arms for the liberty of our consciences, we put all our hope in Him. Come and let us complete what the first charges have begun; and remember in what a state Louis of Bourbon entered into the combat for Christ and for his native land!" Thus having spoken, he bent forward, and, at the head of his devoted band, and under an ensign bearing for device the figure of the Roman hero Marcus Curtius and the singularly appropriate motto, "Doux le peril pour Christ et le Pays," he dashed upon a hostile battalion eight hundred strong.[652]

[Sidenote: Death of Louis, Prince of Conde.]

The conflict was, in the judgment of that scarred old Huguenot warrior, Agrippa d'Aubigne, the sharpest and most obstinate in all the civil wars.[653] At last Conde's horse was killed under him, and the prince was unable to extricate himself. The day was evidently lost, and Conde, calling two of the enemies' knights with whom he was acquainted, and the life of one of whom he had on a former occasion saved, raised his visor, made himself known, and surrendered. His captors pledged him their word that his life should be spared, and respectfully endeavored to raise him from the ground. Just at that moment another horseman rode up. It was Montesquiou, captain of Anjou's guards, who came directly from his master, and was charged—so it was said—with a secret commission. He drew a pistol as he approached, and, without inquiring into the terms of the capture, shot Conde in the back. The shot penetrated between the joints of his armor, and caused almost instantaneous death.

So perished a prince even more illustrious for his courage and intrepidity than for his exalted rank—a prince who had conscientiously espoused the reformed faith, and had felt himself constrained by his duty to his God and to his fellow-believers to assert the rights of the oppressed Huguenots against illegal persecution. "Our consolation," wrote Jeanne d'Albret a few weeks later, "is that he died on the true bed of honor, both for body and soul, for the service of his God and his king, and the quiet of his fatherland."[654] So magnanimous a hero could not be insensible to the invasion of his claims as the representative of the family next in the succession to the Valois; but I cannot agree with those who believe that, in his assumption of arms in three successive wars, he was influenced solely, or even principally, by selfish or ambitious motives. His devotion to the cause which he had espoused was sincere and whole-souled. If his love of pleasure was a serious blot upon his character, let charity at least reflect upon the fearful corruption of the court in which he had been living from his childhood, and remember that if Conde yielded too readily to its fascinations, and fell into shameful excesses, he yet bore with meekness the pointed remonstrances of faithful friends, and in the end shook off the chains with which his enemies had endeavored to bind him fast.[655] As a soldier, no one could surpass Conde for bravery.[656] If his abilities as a general were not of the very first order, he had at least the good sense to adopt the plans of Gaspard de Coligny, the true hero of the first four civil wars. The relations between these two men were well deserving of admiration. On the part of Conde there was an entire absence of jealousy of the resplendent abilities and well-earned reputation of the admiral. On the part of Coligny there was an equal freedom from desire to supplant the prince either in the esteem of his followers or in military rank. Coligny was inflexible in his determination to accept no honors or distinctions that might appear to prejudice the respect due by a Chatillon to a prince of royal blood.[657]

The Prince of Conde was, unfortunately, not the only Huguenot leader murdered in cold blood at the battle of Jarnac. Chastelier-Pourtaut de Latour, who, having lately brought his flotilla back in safety to La Rochelle, had hastened to take the field with the Protestants, was recognized after his capture as the same nobleman who, five years before, had killed the Sieur de Charry at Paris, and was killed in revenge by some of Charry's friends. Robert Stuart, the brave leader descended from the royal house of Scotland, who was said to have slain Constable Montmorency in the battle of St. Denis, was assassinated after he had been talking with the Duke of Anjou, within hearing and almost in sight of the duke, by one of the constable's adherents.[658]

[Sidenote: Henry of Navarre remonstrates against the perfidy.]

These flagrant violations of good faith incurred severe animadversion. A letter is extant, written by young Prince Henry of Navarre, or in his name, to Henry of Anjou, on the twelfth of July, 1569, about four months after the battle of Jarnac. He begins by answering the aspersions cast upon his mother and himself, and by asserting that, if his age (which, however, is not much less than that of Anjou) disqualifies him from passing a judgment upon the present state of affairs, he has lived long enough to recognize the instigators of the new troubles as the enemies of the public weal. It is not Henry of Navarre, whose honors and dignities are all dependent upon the preservation of France, who seeks the ruin of the kingdom; but, rather, they seek its ruin who, in their eagerness to usurp the crown, have gone the length of making genealogical searches to prove their possession of a title superior to that of the Valois, "and have learned how to sell the blood of the house of France against itself,[659] constraining the king, as it were, to make use of his left arm to cut off his right, so as more easily to wrest his sceptre from him afterward." In reply to the statement of Anjou that Stuart alone was killed in cold blood, Henry of Navarre affirms that he can enumerate many others.[660] "But I shall content myself with merely reminding you of the manner in which the late Prince of Conde was treated, inasmuch as it touches you, Sir, and because it is a matter well known and free of doubt. For his death has left to posterity an example of as noted treachery, bad faith and cruelty as was ever shown, seeing that those, Sir, who murdered him could not be deterred from the perpetration of so wicked an act by the respect they owed to the greatness of your blood, to which he had the honor of being so nearly related, and that they dealt with him as they would have done with the most miserable soldier of the whole army."[661]

The Huguenot loss in the battle of Jarnac was surprisingly small in the number of men killed. It is probable that, including prisoners, they lost about four hundred men, or about twice as many as the Roman Catholics.[662] But the loss was in effect much more considerable. The dead and the prisoners were the flower of the French nobility. Among those that had fallen into the enemy's hands were the bastard son of Antoine of Navarre, Francois de la Noue, Soubise, La Loue, and others of nearly equal distinction. Of infantry the Huguenot army lost but few men, as the regiments, with the exception of that of Pluviaut, did not enter the engagement at all. Coming up too late, and finding themselves in danger of falling into the hands of the enemy's victorious cavalry, they evacuated Jarnac, crossed to the left bank of the Charente, and, after breaking down the bridge, retreated leisurely toward Cognac. Admiral Coligny, meantime, upon whom the command in chief now devolved, diverged to the right, and conducted the cavalry in safety to Saintes. The Roman Catholic army, apparently satisfied with the success it had gained, made no attempt at pursuit.

The Duke of Anjou entered Jarnac in triumph. With him was brought the corpse of the Prince of Conde, tied to an ass's back, to be afterward exposed by a pillar of the house where Anjou lodged—the butt of the sneers and low wit of the soldiers.[663] In the first glow of exultation over a victory, the real credit of which belonged to Gaspard de Tavannes,[664] Anjou contemplated erecting a chapel on the spot where Conde fell. The better counsels of M. de Carnavalet, however, induced him to abandon a design which would have confirmed all the sinister rumors respecting his complicity in the assassination.[665] The prince's dead body was given up for interment to the Prince of Navarre, and found a resting-place in the ancestral tomb at Vendome.[666]

[Sidenote: Exaggerated bulletins.]

Henry of Anjou was not inclined to suffer his victory to pass unnoticed. Almost as soon as the smoke of battle had cleared away, a careful description of his exploit was prepared for circulation, and it was no fault of the compiler if the account he gave was not sufficiently flattering to the young prince's vanity. Conde's body had not been four days in the hands of the Roman Catholics, before Anjou wrote to his brother, the King of France, announcing the fact that he had already despatched messengers with the precious document to the Pope and the Duke of Florence, to the Dukes of Savoy, Ferrara, Parma, and Urbino, to the Republic of Venice and the Duke of Mantua, and to Philip of Spain; while copies were also under way, intended for the French ambassadors in England and Switzerland, for the Parliaments of Paris, Bordeaux, and Toulouse, the "prevot des marchands," and the "echevins" of the capital, and others.[667]

[Sidenote: The Pope's sanguinary injunctions.]

The exaggerated bulletins of the Duke of Anjou were received with great demonstrations of joy by all the Roman Catholic allies of France. Pope Pius the Fifth in particular sent warm congratulations to the "Most Christian King" and to Catharine de' Medici. But he was very careful to couple his expressions of thanks with an earnest recommendation to pursue the work so auspiciously begun, even to the extermination of the detested heretics. "The more kindly God has dealt with you and us," he promptly wrote to Charles, "the more vigorously and diligently must you make use of the present victory to pursue and destroy the remnants of the enemy, and wholly tear up, not only the roots of an evil so great and which had gathered to itself such strength, but even the very fibres of the roots. Unless they be thoroughly extirpated, they will again sprout and grow up (as we have so often heretofore seen happen), where your Majesty least expects it." Pius pledged his word that Charles would succeed in his undertaking, "if no respect for men or for human considerations should be powerful enough to induce him to spare God's enemies, who had spared neither God nor him." "In no other way," he added, "will you be able to appease God, than by avenging the injuries done to God with the utmost severity, by the merited punishment of most accursed men." And he set as a warning before the eyes of the French monarch the example of King Saul, who, when commanded by God, through Samuel the Prophet, so to smite the Amalekites, an infidel people, that none should escape, neither man nor woman, neither infant nor suckling, incurred the anger and rejection of the Almighty by sparing Agag and the best of the spoil, instead of utterly destroying them.[668]

Two weeks later the pontiff received the unwelcome tidings that some of the Huguenot prisoners taken in the battle of Jarnac had been spared. La Noue, Soubise, and other gentlemen had actually been left alive, and were likely to escape without paying the forfeit due to their crimes. At this dreadful intelligence the righteous indignation of Pius was kindled. On one and the same day (the thirteenth of April) he wrote long letters to Catharine, to Anjou, to the Cardinal of Lorraine, to the Cardinal of Bourbon, as well as to Charles himself.[669] Of all these letters the tenor was identical. Such slackness to execute vengeance would certainly provoke God's patience to anger; the king must visit condign punishment upon the enemies of God and the rebels against his own authority. To the victor of Jarnac he was specially urgent, supplicating him to counteract any leanings that might be shown to an impious mercy. "Your brother's rebels have disturbed the public tranquillity of the realm. They have, so far as in them lay, subverted the Catholic religion, have burned churches, have most cruelly slain the priests of Almighty God, have committed numberless other crimes; consequently they deserve to receive those extreme penalties (supplicia) that are ordained by the laws. And if any of their number shall attempt, through the intercession of your nobles with the king your brother, to escape the penalties they deserve, it is your duty, in view of your piety to God and zeal for the divine honor, to reject the prayers of all that intercede for them, and to show yourself equally inexorable to all."[670]

[Sidenote: The sanguinary action of the Parliament of Bordeaux.]

Was it in consequence of the known desire of the occupant of the Holy See that the policy of the French courts of justice became more and more sanguinary? We can scarcely doubt that the Pope's injunctions had much to do with these increasing severities. Beginning in March, 1569, the Parliament of Bordeaux issued a series of decrees condemning a crowd of Protestants to death. The names that appear upon the records within the compass of one year number not less than twelve hundred and seventeen. The victims were taken out of all grades of society—from noblemen, military men, judges, priests and monks, down to humble mechanics and laborers. The lists made out by their enemies prove at least one fact which the Huguenots had long maintained: that they counted in their ranks representatives of the first families of the country, as well as of every other class of the population. Happily sentence was pronounced generally upon the absent, and the barbarous punishment of beheading, quartering, and exposing to the popular gaze, remained unexecuted. But the incidental penalty of the confiscation of the property of reputed Huguenots, which, so far from being a mere formal threat, was in fact the principal object contemplated by the prosecution, proved to be sober reality, and the goods of the banished Protestants afforded rich plunder to the informers.[671]

[Sidenote: Queen Elizabeth becomes colder.]

Upon Elizabeth of England the first effect of the reported victory at Jarnac was clearly marked. Her favorite, the Earl of Leicester, assured the French ambassador that, although the queen was sorry to see those professing her religion maltreated, yet, as queen, she would arm in behalf of Charles when fighting against his own subjects.[672] Her own declarations, however, were not so strong, or perhaps, after a little reflection, she took a more hopeful view of the fortunes of the Huguenots. For, although she exhibited curiosity to hear the "true" account, which a special messenger from Charles the Ninth was commissioned to bring her, and received the tidings in a manner satisfactory to the French ambassador, she would not rejoice at the death of Conde, whom she held to be a very good and faithful servant of his Majesty's crown, and deplored a war which, whether victory inclined to one side or the other, must lead to the diminution of Charles's best forces and the ruin of his noblesse.[673]

[Sidenote: Spirit of the Queen of Navarre.]

In point of fact, however, the defeat which the royalists had flattered themselves would terminate the war, and over which they had sung Te Deums, weakened the Huguenots very little.[674] The Queen of Navarre, on hearing the intelligence, hurried to Cognac, where she presented herself to the army, and reminded the brave men who heard her voice that, although the Prince of Conde, their late leader, was dead, the good cause was not dead; and that the courage of such good men ought never to fail. God had provided, and ever would provide, fresh instruments to uphold His own chosen work. Her brief address restored the flagging spirits of the fugitives. When she returned to La Rochelle, to devise new means of supplying the necessities of the army, she left behind her men resolved to retrieve their recent losses. They did not wait long for an opportunity. The Roman Catholics, advancing, laid siege to Cognac, confident of easy success. But the garrison, which included seven thousand infantry newly levied, received them with determination. Sallies were frequent and bloody, and when, at last, the siege was raised, the army of Anjou had sacrificed nearly as many men before the walls of a small provincial city as the Huguenots had lost on the much vaunted field of Jarnac.[675]

[Sidenote: The Huguenots recover strength.]

The events of the next two or three months certainly exhibited no diminution in the power or in the spirit of the Huguenots. St. Jean d'Angely, into which Count Montgomery had thrown himself, defied the entire army of Anjou, and the siege was abandoned. Angouleme, an equally tempting morsel, he tried to obtain, but failed. At Mucidan, a town somewhat to the south-west of Perigueux, he was more successful. But he effected its capture at the expense of the life of Brissac, one of his bravest officers—a loss which he attempted to avenge by murdering the garrison, after it had surrendered on condition that life and property should be spared.[676] Within a month or two after the battle of Jarnac the Protestants at La Rochelle wrote, for Queen Elizabeth's information, that they were more powerful than ever, that Piles had brought them 4,000 recruits, that D'Andelot was soon to bring the viscounts with a large force.[677]

[Sidenote: Death of D'Andelot.]

But the course of that indefatigable warrior was now run. D'Andelot's excessive labors and constant exposure had brought on a fever to which his life soon succumbed. There were not wanting those, it is true, who ascribed his sudden death, like most of the deaths of important personages in the latter part of this century, to poison; and Huguenot and loyal pamphleteers alike laid the crime at the door of Catharine de' Medici.[678] But there is no sufficient evidence to substantiate the accusation, and we must not unnecessarily ascribe this base act to a woman already responsible for too many undeniable crimes.[679] The death of so gallant and true-hearted a nobleman, a faithful and unflinching friend of the Reformation from the time when it first began to spread extensively among the higher classes of the French population, and who had amply atoned for a momentary act of weakness, in the time of Henry the Second, by an uncompromising profession of his religion on every occasion during the reigns of that monarch's two sons, was deeply felt by his comrades in arms. As "colonel-general of the French infantry," he had occupied the first rank in this branch of the service,[680] and his experience was as highly prized as his impetuous valor upon the field of battle. The brilliancy of his executive abilities seemed to all beholders indispensable to complement the more calm and deliberative temperament of his elder brother. It was natural, therefore, that the admiral, while pouring out his private grief for one who had been so dear to him, in a touching letter to D'Andelot's children,[681] should experience as deep a sorrow for the loss of his wise and efficient co-operation. He might be pardoned a little despondency as he recalled the prophetic words that had dropped from D'Andelot's lips during a brief respite from his burning fever: "France shall have many woes to suffer with you, and then without you; but all will in the end fall upon the Spaniard!"[682] The prospect was not bright. Peace was yet far distant—peace, which Coligny preferred a thousand times to his own life, but would not purchase dishonorably by the sacrifice of civil liberty and of the right to worship his God according to the convictions of his heart and conscience. The burden of the defence of the Protestants had appeared sufficiently heavy when Conde, a prince of the blood, was alive to share it with him. But now, with the entire charge of maintaining the party against a powerful and determined enemy, who had the advantage of the possession of the person of the king, and thus was able to cloak his ambitious designs with the pretence of the royal authority, and deprived of a brother whom the army had appropriately surnamed "le chevalier sans peur,"[683] the task might well appear to demand herculean strength.

[Sidenote: New responsibility imposed on Admiral Coligny.]

Henry of Navarre had, indeed, just been recognized as general-in-chief, and he was accompanied by his cousin, Henry of Conde; but Navarre was a boy of little more than fifteen, and his cousin was not much older. Nothing could for the present be expected from such striplings; and the public, ever ready to look upon the comical side of even the most serious matters, was not slow in nicknaming them the "admiral's two pages."[684] Coligny, however, was not crushed by the new responsibility which devolved upon him. No longer hampered by the authority of one whose counsels often verged on foolhardiness, he soon exhibited his consummate abilities so clearly, that even his enemies were forced to acknowledge that they had never given him the credit he deserved. "It was soon perceived," observes an author by no means friendly to the Huguenots, "that the accident (of Conde's death) had happened only in order to reveal in all its splendor the merits of the Admiral de Chatillon. The admiral had had during his entire life very difficult and complicated matters to unravel, and, nevertheless, he had never had any that were not far below his abilities, and in which, consequently, he had no need of exerting his full capacity. Thus those qualities that were rarest, and that exalted him most above others, remained hidden, through lack of opportunity, and would apparently have remained always concealed during the lifetime of the Prince of Conde, because the world would have attributed to the prince all those results to whose accomplishment it could not learn that the admiral had contributed more than had the former. But, after the battle of Jarnac had permitted the admiral to exhibit himself fully on the most famous theatre of Europe, the Calvinists perceived that they were not so unhappy as they thought, since they still had a leader who would prevent them from noticing the loss they had experienced, so many singular qualities had he to repair it."[685]

[Sidenote: The Duke of Deux Ponts comes with German auxiliaries.]

Wolfgang, Duke of Deux Ponts, had at length entered France, and was bringing to the Huguenots their long-expected succor. He had seven thousand five hundred reiters from lower Germany, six thousand lansquenets from upper Germany, and a body of French and Flemish gentlemen, under William of Orange and his brother, Mouy, Esternay and others, which may have swelled his army to about seventeen thousand men in all.[686] In vain did his cousin, the Duke of Lorraine, attempt to dissuade him, offering to reimburse him the one hundred thousand crowns he had already spent upon the preparations for the expedition. Even Conde's death did not discourage him. He came, he said, to fight, not for the prince, but for "the cause."[687] When about entering his Most Christian Majesty's dominions, he had published the reasons of his coming to assist the Huguenots. In this paper he treated as pure calumnies the accusations brought by their enemies against Conde, Coligny, and their associates, and proved his position by quoting the king's own express declaration, in the recent edicts of pacification, "that he recognized everything they had attempted as undertaken by his orders and for the good of the kingdom."[688] The point was certainly well taken. Charles's various declarations were not remarkably consistent. In one, Conde was "his faithful servant and subject," and his acts were prompted by the purest of motives. In the next, he and his fellow-Huguenots were incorrigible rebels, with whom every method of conciliation had signally failed. But Charles did not trouble himself to attempt to smooth away these contradictions. He is even said to have replied to the envoy whom Deux Ponts sent him (April, 1569), demanding the restitution of the Edict of January and the payment of thirty thousand crowns due to Prince Casimir, that "Deux Ponts was too insignificant a personage (trop petit compagnon) to undertake to dictate laws to him, and that, as to the money, he would deliberate about that when the duke had laid down his arms."[689]

The secret of this arrogant demeanor is found in the fact that the court believed it impossible for the Germans to join Coligny. Even so late as the middle of May, when Deux Ponts had penetrated to Autun in Burgundy, Charles regarded the attempt as well nigh hopeless. The fortunes of the Huguenots were desperate. "There remains for them as their last resort," he wrote to one of his ambassadors, "but the single hope that the Duke of Deux Ponts will venture so far as to go to find them where they are. But there is little likelihood that an army of strangers, pursued by another of about equal strength—an army destitute of cities of its own, without means of passing the rivers, favored by no one in my kingdom, dying of hunger, so often harassed and put to inconvenience—should be able to make so long a journey without being lost and dissipated of itself, even had I no forces to combat it." "The duke," continued the king, "will soon repent of his mad project of entering France, and attempting to cross the Loire, where such good provision has been made to obstruct him."[690]

[Sidenote: They overcome all obstacles and join Coligny.]

[Sidenote: Death of Deux Ponts.]

Charles had not exaggerated the difficulties of the undertaking; but Deux Ponts, under the blessing of Heaven, surmounted them all. The discord between Aumale and Nemours rendered weak and useless an army that might, in the hands of a single skilful general, have checked or annihilated him.[691] Mouy and his French comrades were good guides. The Loire was reached, while Aumale and Nemours followed at a respectful distance. Guerchy, an officer lately belonging to Coligny's army, discovered a ford by which a part of the Germans crossed. The main body laid siege to the town of La Charite, which was soon reduced (on the twentieth of May), the Huguenots thus gaining a bridge and stronghold that proved of great utility for their future operations. Six days after the king had demonstrated the impossibility of the enterprise, Deux Ponts was on the western side of the Loire.[692] Meantime, Coligny and La Rochefoucauld were advancing to meet him with the elite of their army and with all the artillery they had. On approaching Limoges on the Vienne, they learned that the Germans had crossed the river and were but two leagues distant. Coligny at once took horse, and rode to their encampment, in order to greet and congratulate their leader. He was too late. The general, who had conducted an army five hundred miles through a hostile country, was in the last agonies of death, and on the next day (the eleventh of June) fell a victim to a fever from which he had for some time been suffering. "It is a thing that ought for all time to be remarked as a singular and special act of God," said a bulletin sent by the Queen of Navarre to Queen Elizabeth, "that He permitted this prince to traverse so great an extent of country, with a great train of artillery, infantry, and baggage, and in full view of a large army; and to pass so many rivers, and through so many difficult and dangerous places, of such kind that it is not in the memory of man that an army has passed through any similar ones, and by which a single wagon could not be driven without great trouble, so that it appears a dream to those who have not seen it; and that being out of danger, and having arrived at the place where he longed to be, in order to assist the churches of this realm, God should have been pleased, that very day, to take him to Himself; and, what is more, that his death should have produced no change or commotion in his army."[693]

Duke Wolfgang of Deux Ponts was quietly succeeded in the command of the German troops by Count Wolrad of Mansfeld. A day later the two armies met with lively demonstrations of joy. In honor of the alliance thus cemented a medal was struck, bearing on the one side the names and portraits of Jeanne and Henry of Navarre, and on the other the significant words, "Pax certa, victoria integra, mors honesta"—the triple object of their desires.[694]

[Sidenote: Huguenot success at La Roche Abeille.]

The combined army, now numbering about twenty-five thousand men, soon came to blows with the enemy. The Duke of Anjou, whose forces were somewhat superior in numbers, had approached within a very short distance of Coligny, but, unwilling to risk a general engagement, had intrenched himself in an advantageous position. A part of his army, commanded by Strozzi, lay at La Roche Abeille, where it was furiously assaulted by the Huguenots. Over four hundred royalists were left dead upon the field, and Strozzi himself was taken prisoner. The disaster had nearly proved still more serious; but a violent rain saved the fugitives by extinguishing the lighted matches upon which the infantry depended for the discharge of their arquebuses, and by seriously impeding the pursuit of the cavalry.[695]

[Sidenote: Furlough of Anjou's troops.]

Although the Duke of Anjou had recently received considerable reinforcements—about five thousand pontifical troops and twelve hundred Florentines, under the command of Sforza, Count of Santa Fiore[696]—it was now determined in a military council to disband the greater part of the army, giving to the French forces a short furlough, and, for the most part, trusting to the local garrisons to maintain the royal supremacy in places now in the possession of the Roman Catholics. In adopting this paradoxical course, the generals seem to have been influenced partly by a desire to furnish the "gentilhommes," serving at their own expense, an opportunity to revisit their homes and replenish their exhausted purses, and thus diminish the temptation to desertion which had thinned the ranks; partly, also, by the hope that the new German auxiliaries of the Huguenots would of themselves melt away in a climate to which they were unaccustomed.[697]

[Sidenote: Huguenot petition to the king.]

Meanwhile, the admiral, whose power had never been so great as it now was, exhibited the utmost anxiety to avert, if possible, any further effusion of blood. Under his auspices a petition was drawn up in the name of the Queen of Navarre, and the Princes, Seigneurs, Chevaliers, and gentlemen composing the Protestant army. A messenger was sent to the Duke of Anjou to request a passport for the deputies who were to carry it to the court. But the duke was unwilling to terminate a war in which he had (whether deservedly or not) acquired so much reputation, and reluctant to be forced to resume the place of a subject near a brother whose capricious and jealous humor he had already experienced. He therefore either refused or delayed compliance with the admiral's demand.[698] Coligny succeeded, however, in forwarding the document to his cousin Francis, Marshal of Montmorency—a nobleman who, although he had not taken up arms with the Huguenots, virtually maintained, on his estates near Paris, a neutrality which, from the suspicion it excited, was not without its perils. Montmorency laid the petition before Catharine and the king.

[Sidenote: The single purpose of the Huguenots.]

The voluminous state papers of the period would possess little claim to our attention, were it not for the singleness of purpose which they exhibit as animating the patriotic party through a long succession of bloody wars. The Huguenots were no rebels seeking to undermine the authority of the crown, no obstinate democrats striving to carry into execution an impracticable scheme of government,[699] no partisans struggling to supplant a rival faction. They were not turbulent lovers of change. They had for their leaders princes and nobles with interests all on the side of the maintenance of order, men whose wealth was wasted, whose magnificent palaces were plundered of their rich contents,[700] whose lives, with the lives of their wives and children, were jeoparded in times of civil commotion. Even the unauthorized usurpations of the foreigners from Lorraine[701] would not have been sufficient to move the greater part of them to a resort to the sword. Their one purpose, the sole object which they could not renounce, was the securing of religious liberty. The Guises—even that cruel and cowardly cardinal with hands dripping with the blood of the martyrs of a score of years—were nothing to them, except as impersonations of the spirit of intolerance and persecution. Liberty to worship their God in good conscience was their demand alike after defeats and after successes, under Louis de Bourbon or under Gaspard de Coligny. They did, indeed, sympathize with the first family of the blood, deprived of the position near the throne to which immemorial custom entitled it—and what true Frenchman did not? But Admiral Coligny, rather than the Prince of Conde, was the type of the Huguenot of the sixteenth century—Coligny, the heroic figure that looms up through the mist of the ages and from among the host of meaner men, invested with all the attributes of essential greatness—pious, loyal, truthful, brave, averse to war and bloodshed, slow to accept provocation, resolute only in the purpose to secure for himself and his children the most important among the inalienable prerogatives of manhood, the freedom of professing and practising his religious faith.

The present petition differed little from its predecessors. It reiterated the desire of the Huguenots for peace—a desire evidenced on so many occasions, sometimes when prudence might have dictated a course opposite to that which they adopted. The return they had received for their moderation could be read in broken edicts, and in "pacifications" more sanguinary than the wars they terminated. The Protestant princes and gentlemen, therefore, entreated Charles "to make a declaration of his will respecting the liberty of the exercise of the reformed religion in the form of a solemn, perpetual, and irrevocable edict." They begged him "to be pleased to grant universally to all his subjects, of whatever quality or condition they might be, the free exercise of that religion in all the cities, villages, hamlets, and other places of his kingdom, without any exception, reservation, modification, or restriction as to persons, times, or localities, with the necessary and requisite securities." True, however, to the spirit of the age, which dreaded unbridled license of opinion as much as it did the intolerance of the papal system, the Huguenots were careful to preclude the "Libertines" from sheltering themselves beneath this protection, by calling upon Charles to require of all his subjects the profession of the one or the other religion[702]—so far were even the most enlightened men of their country and period from understanding what spirit they were of, so far were they from recognizing the inevitable direction of the path they were so laboriously pursuing!

It scarcely needs be said that the petition received no attention from a court not yet tired of war. Marshal Montmorency was compelled to reply to Coligny, on the twentieth of July, that Charles refused to take notice of anything emanating from the admiral or his associates until they should submit and return to their duty. Coligny answered in a letter which closed the negotiations; protesting that since his enemies would listen to no terms of accommodation, he had, at least, the consolation of having done all in his power to avert the approaching desolation of the kingdom, and calling upon God and all the princes of Europe to bear witness to the integrity of his purpose.[703]

[Sidenote: Coligny's plans overruled.]

[Sidenote: Disastrous siege of Poitiers.]

The Huguenots now took some advantage of the temporary weakness of the enemy in the open field. On the one hand they reduced the city of Chatellerault and the fortress of Lusignan, hitherto deemed impregnable.[704] On the other, they despatched into Bearn the now famous Count Montgomery, who, joining the "viscounts," was successful in wresting the greater part of that district from the hands of Terrides, a skilful captain sent by Anjou, and in restoring it to the Queen of Navarre.[705] Respecting their plan of future operations a great diversity of opinion prevailed among the Huguenot leaders. Admiral Coligny was strongly in favor of pressing on to the north, and laying siege to Saumur. With this place in his possession, as it was reasonable to suppose it soon might be, he would enjoy a secure passage across the river Loire into Brittany, Anjou, and more distant provinces, as he already had access by the bridge of La Charite to Burgundy, Champagne, and the German frontier. Unfortunately the majority of the generals regarded it as a matter of more immediate importance to capture Poitiers, a rich and populous city, said at that time to cover more ground than any other city in France, with the single exception of Paris. They supposed that their recent successes at Chatellerault and Lusignan, on either side of Poitiers, and the six pieces of cannon they had taken at Lusignan would materially help them. Coligny reluctantly yielded to their urgency, and the army which had appeared before Poitiers on the twenty-fourth of July, 1569,[706] began the siege three days later. It was a serious blunder. The Huguenots succeeded, indeed, in capturing a part of the suburbs, and in reducing the garrison to great straits for food; but they were met with great determination, and with a singular fertility of expedient. The Count de Lude was the royal governor. Henry, Duke of Guise (son of the nobleman assassinated near Orleans in 1563), with his brother Charles, Duke of Mayenne, and other good captains, had thrown himself into Poitiers two days before Coligny made his appearance. It was Guise's first opportunity to prove to the world that he had inherited his father's military genius; and the glory of success principally accrued to him. He met the assailants in the breach, and contested every inch of ground. Their progress was obstructed by chevaux-de-frise and other impediments. Boiling oil was poured upon them from the walls. Burning hoops were adroitly thrown over their heads. Pitch and other inflammable substances fell like rain upon their advancing columns. They were not even left unmolested in their camp. A dam was constructed on the river Clain, and the inundation spread to the Huguenot quarters. To these difficulties raised by man were added the ravages of disease. Many of the Huguenot generals, and the admiral himself, were disabled, and the mortality was great among the private soldiers.

In spite of every obstacle, however, it seemed probable that Coligny would carry the day. "The admiral's power exceedeth the king's," wrote Cecil to Nicholas White: "he is sieging of Poitiers, the winning or losing whereof will make an end of the cause. He is entered within the town by assault, but the Duke of Guise, etc., are entrenched in a stronger part of the town; and without the king give a battle, it is thought that he cannot escape from the admiral."[707] Just at this moment, the Duke of Anjou, assembling the remnants of his forces, appeared before Chatellerault; and the peril to the Huguenot city seemed so imminent, that Coligny was compelled to raise the siege of Poitiers, on the ninth of September, and hasten to its relief. Seven weeks of precious time had been lost, and more than two thousand lives had been sacrificed by the Huguenots in this ill-advised undertaking. The besieged lost but three or four hundred men.[708] Great was the delight manifested in Paris, where, during the prevalence of the siege, solemn processions had gone from Notre Dame to the shrine of Sainte Genevieve, to implore the intercession of the patron of the city in behalf of Poitiers.[709]

Meanwhile the Huguenots had been more fortunate on the upper Loire, where La Charite sustained a siege of four weeks by a force of seven thousand Roman Catholics under Sansac. Its works were weak, its garrison small, but every assault was bravely met. In the end the assailants, after severe losses experienced from the enemy and from a destructive explosion of their own magazine, abandoned their enterprise in a panic, on hearing an ill-founded rumor of Coligny's approach.[710]

[Sidenote: Cruelties to the Huguenots in the prisons of Orleans.]

It was fortunate for the Protestants of the north and east that they still had Sancerre and La Charite as asylums from the violence of their enemies. Far from their armed companions, there was little protection for their lives or their property. The edict of the preceding September, assuring to peaceable Protestants freedom from molestation in their homes, was as much a dead letter as any of its predecessors. The government, the courts of justice, and the populace, were equally eager to oppress them. At Orleans the "lieutenant-general" placed all the Huguenots of the city, without distinction of age or sex, in the public prisons, upon pretext of providing for the public security. A few days after (on the twenty-first of August) the people, inflamed to fanaticism by seditious priests, attacked these buildings. They succeeded in breaking into the first prison, and every man, woman, and child was murdered. The door of the second withstood all their attempts to gain admission. But the bloodthirsty mob would not be balked of its prey. The whole neighborhood was ransacked for wood and other combustible materials, and willing hands kindled the fire. As the flames rose high above the doomed house, parents who had lost all hope of saving their own lives sought to preserve the lives of their infant children by throwing them to relatives or acquaintances whom they recognized among their persecutors. But there are times when the heart of man knows no pity. The laymen who had been taught that heretics must be exterminated, even to the babe in the cradle, now put into practice the savage lesson they had learned from their spiritual instructors. Fathers and brothers took a cruel pleasure in receiving the hapless infants on the point of their pikes, or in despatching them with halberds, reserving the same fate for any of more mature age who might venture to appeal from the devouring flames to their merciless fellow-men. The number of the victims of sword and fire is said to have reached two hundred and eighty persons.[711]

[Sidenote: Montargis a safe refuge.]

[Sidenote: Flight of the refugees to Sancerre.]

The tragic end of the Huguenots at Orleans warned the Protestants of the villages and open country of the dangers to which they were exposed. Many fled with their wives and children to Montargis, where the aged Renee of Ferrara was still living, the unwilling spectator of commotions which she had foreseen and predicted, and which she had striven to prevent. Her palace was still what Calvin had called it in the time of the first war, "God's hostelry." Renee's royal descent, her connection by marriage with the Guises—for Henry, the present duke, was her grandson—her well-known aversion to civil war,[712] and, added to these, that demeanor which ever betrayed a consciousness that she was a king's daughter, had thus far protected her from direct insult, staunch and avowed Protestant as she was, and had enabled her to extend to a host of fugitives for religion's sake a hospitality which had not yet been invaded. But, the rancor entertained by the two parties increasing in bitterness as the third conflict advanced, it became more and more difficult to repress the impatience felt by the fanatics of Paris to rid themselves of an asylum for the adherents of the hated faith within so short a distance—about seventy miles—of the orthodox capital. Montargis was narrowly watched. Early in March the duchess was warned, in a letter, of pretended plans formed by the refugees on her lands to succor their friends elsewhere in the vicinity—the writer being no other than the adventurer Villegagnon, the former vice-admiral, the betrayer of Coligny's Huguenot colony to Brazil, who was now in the Roman Catholic service, under the Duke of Anjou.[713] But the fresh flood of refugees to Montargis rendered further forbearance impossible. The preachers stirred up the people, and the people incited the king. Renee was told that she must dismiss the Huguenot preachers, or submit to receiving a Roman Catholic garrison in her castle; that the exercise of the Protestant religion could no longer be tolerated, and the fugitives must find another home. The duchess could no longer resist the superior forces of her enemies, and tearfully she provided the miserable Huguenots for their journey with such wagons as she could find. The company consisted of four hundred and sixty persons, two-thirds women and infants in the arms of their mothers. Scarcely knowing whither to direct their steps, they fled toward the Loire, and hastened to place the river between them and their pursuers. The precaution availed them little. They had barely reached the vicinity of Chatillon-sur-Loire,[714] when the approach of Cartier with a detachment of light horse and mounted arquebusiers was announced; and the defenceless throng, knowing that no pity could be expected from men whose hands had already been imbrued in the blood of their fellow-believers, and being exhorted by their ministers to meet death calmly, knelt down upon the ground and awaited the terrible onset. At that very instant, between the hillocks in another direction, and somewhat nearer to the fugitives, a band of cavalry made its appearance. They numbered some one hundred and twenty men, and, as they rode up, were taken for the advance guard of their persecutors. But, on coming nearer and recognizing some of the kneeling suppliants, the knights threw off their cloaks and displayed their white cassocks, the badge of the adherents of the house of Navarre. They were two cornets of Huguenot horse, on their way from Berry to La Charite, under the command of Bourry, Teil, and other captains. In the midst of the tearful acclamations of the women, their new friends turned upon the exultant pursuers, and so bravely did they fight that the Roman Catholics soon fled, leaving eighty men and two standards on the field. The Huguenot knights, who had so providentially become their deliverers, escorted the fugitives from Montargis to Sancerre and La Charite, where they remained in safety until the conclusion of peace.[715]

[Sidenote: The "Croix de Gastines."]

Meantime the courts of justice emulated the example of cruelty set them by the government and the mob. In May they began by sending to the gallows on the Place Maubert, in Paris, a student barely twenty-two years of age, for having taught some children the Huguenot doctrines (huguenoterie), "without any other crime," the candid chronicler adds. After so fair a beginning there was no difficulty in finding good subjects for hanging. Accordingly, on the thirtieth of June, three victims more were sacrificed on the old Place de Greve, "partly for heresy and for celebrating the Lord's Supper in their house; partly"—so it was pretended—"for having assisted in demolishing altars." In the great number of similar executions with which the sanguinary records of Paris abound, the fate of Nicholas Croquet and the two De Gastines—father and son—would have been forgotten, but for the extraordinary measures taken in respect to the house where the impiety had been committed of celebrating the Lord's Supper according to the simple scheme of its first institution. The Parisian parliament ordered that "the house of the Five White Crosses, belonging to the De Gastines, situated in the Rue Saint Denis," should be razed to the ground, and that upon the site a stone cross should be placed, with an inscription explanatory of the occasion of its erection. That spot was to serve as a public square for all time, and a fine of 6,000 livres, with corporal punishment, was imposed upon any one who should ever undertake to build upon it.[716] It was not foreseen that military exigencies might presently render imperative a reconciliation with the Huguenots, and that the "perpetual" decree of parliament, like the "irrevocable" edicts of the king, might be somewhat abridged by stern necessity.

[Sidenote: Ferocity of parliament against Coligny and others.]

[Sidenote: A price set on the head of the admiral.]

The work of blood continued. In July two noblemen were decapitated—the Baron de Laschene and the Baron de Courtene—and denunciation of reputed heretics was vigorously prosecuted, by command of parliament and of the city curates.[717] Two months later a cowardly but impotent blow was struck at a more distinguished personage. Parliament undertook to try Gaspard de Coligny, and, having found him guilty of treason (on the thirteenth of September), pronounced him infamous, and offered a reward of fifty thousand gold crowns for his apprehension, with full pardon for any offences the captor might have committed. Lest the exploit, however, should be deemed too difficult for execution, a few days later (on the twenty-eighth of September) the same liberal terms were held out to any one who should murder him. As it was not so easy to capture or assassinate a general who was at that moment in command of an army not greatly inferior to that of the Duke of Anjou, the court gave the Parisian populace the cheaper spectacle of a hanging of the admiral in effigy. It was the eve of the festival of "the Exaltation of the Cross"—Tuesday, the thirteenth of September—and the time was deemed appropriate for the execution of so determined an enemy of the worship of that sacred emblem. While Coligny's escutcheon was dragged in dishonor through the streets by four horses, the hangman amused the mob by giving to his effigy the traditional tooth-pick, which he was said to be in the habit of continually using—a facetious trait which the curate of St. Barthelemi, of course, does not forget to insert in his brief diary.[718] Nevertheless, that the decree of parliament setting a price upon the admiral's head was no child's play, appeared about this time from the abortive plot of one Dominique d'Albe, who confessed that he had been hired to poison the Huguenot chief, and was hanged by order of the princes.[719] Nor was it without practical significance that the decree itself had been translated into Latin, Italian, Spanish, German, Flemish, English, and Scotch, and scattered broadcast through Europe by the partisans of Guise.

[Sidenote: The Huguenots weakened.]

Meantime the condition of the rival armies in western France promised again, in the view of the court, a speedy solution of the military problem. The Duke of Anjou had of late been heavily reinforced. With the old troops that had returned to his standard, and the new troops that poured in upon him, he had a well-appointed army of about twenty-seven thousand men, of whom one-third were cavalry. Coligny, on the contrary, had been so weakened by his losses at the siege of Poitiers, and by the desertion of those whom disappointment at the delays and the expense of the service had rendered it impossible to retain, that he was inferior to his antagonist by nine or ten thousand men. He had only eleven or twelve thousand foot and six thousand horse.[720] The Roman Catholic general resolved to employ his preponderance of forces in striking a decisive blow. This appeared the more desirable, since it was known that Montgomery was returning from the reduction of Bearn, bringing with him six or seven thousand veterans—an addition to the Huguenot army that would nearly restore the equilibrium.

Leaving Chinon, where he had been for some time strengthening himself, the Duke of Anjou crossed the swollen river Vienne, on the twenty-sixth of September, and started in pursuit of the Huguenots. Coligny had been resting his army at Faye, a small town about midway between Chinon and Chatellerault. It was here that the attempt upon his life, to which allusion has just been made, was discovered. And it was from this point that the Prince of Orange started in disguise, and undertook, with forty mounted companions, a perilous journey across France by La Charite to Montbeliard, for the purpose of raising in Germany the fresh troops of which the admiral stood in such pressing need.[721]

[Sidenote: Battle of Moncontour, October 3, 1569.]

The Huguenot general had moved westward, secretly averse to giving battle before the arrival of Montgomery, but forced to show a readiness to fight by the open impatience of his southern troops, and by the murmurs of the Germans, who openly threatened to desert unless they were either paid or led against the enemy. Within a couple of leagues of the town of Moncontour, soon to gain historic renown, Coligny, believing the Roman Catholics to be near, drew up his own men in order of battle (on the thirtieth of September); but, receiving from his scouts the erroneous information that there were no considerable bodies of the enemy in the neighborhood, he resumed his march toward the town of which La Noue had rendered himself master. The army was scarcely in motion before Mouy, commanding the rear, was attacked by a heavy detachment of the Duke of Anjou's vanguard, under the Duke of Montpensier. Mouy's handful of men stood their ground well, now facing the enemy and driving him off, now slowly retreating, and gave the rest of the Huguenot army the opportunity of gaining the opposite side of a marshy tract, through which there flowed a small stream. Then they themselves crossed, after losing about a hundred of their number. Anjou neglected the chance here afforded him of gaining an entire victory; and Coligny, after halting for a short time, drew off toward Moncontour, which he reached on the next day without further obstruction. The duke spent the night on the battle-field in token of victory, and then started in pursuit; but, in order to avoid attack while crossing the short, but deep river Dive, a tributary of the Loire which flows by the walls of Moncontour, he turned to the left, and, rapidly ascending to its sources, descended again on the opposite bank.

[Sidenote: Coligny wounded.]

[Sidenote: Heavy losses of the Huguenots.]

The admiral might still have succeeded in avoiding a capital engagement, and in reaching Partenay or some other point of safety, had he not been again embarrassed by the mutiny of the Germans, who, as usual, were most urgent for pay on the eve of battle. As it was, before they could be quieted, the duke had made up for his considerable detour, and overtook the Protestants a short distance beyond Moncontour. Coligny, having given command of the right wing to Count Louis of Nassau, interposed the left, of which he himself assumed command, between the main body and the enemy, hoping to get off with a mere skirmish.[722] In this he was disappointed. Attacked in force, his troops made a sturdy resistance. The fight resembled in some of its incidents the conflicts of the paladins of a past age. The elder rhinegrave rode thirty paces in front of his Roman Catholic knights; Coligny as far in advance of the Protestants. The two leaders met in open field. The rhinegrave was killed on the spot. The admiral received a severe injury in his face. The blood, gushing freely from the wound, nearly strangled him before his visor could be raised. Reluctantly he was compelled to retire to the rear of the army. Still the tide of battle ran high. The Swiss troops of Anjou displayed their accustomed valor. It was matched by that of the Huguenots, who several times seemed on the point of winning the day, and already shouted, "Victory! Victory!" The Duke of Anjou, who, however little he was entitled to the credit of planning the engagement, certainly displayed great courage in the contest itself, was at one time in extreme peril, and the Marquis of Baden was killed while riding near him. On the other side, the Princes of Bearn and Conde, who had come to the army from Partenay, to encourage the soldiers by their presence, endeavored by word and example to sustain the courage of the outnumbered Huguenots.[723] But at the critical moment, when the Roman Catholic line had begun to give way, Marshal Cosse, who as yet had not been engaged, advanced with his fresh troops and changed the fortunes of the day. The personal valor of Louis of Nassau was unavailing. The German reiters, routed and panic-stricken, fled from the field. Encountering their own countrymen, the lansquenets or German infantry, they broke through their ranks and threw them into confusion. Into the breach thus made the Swiss poured in an irresistible flood. Inveterate hatred now found ample opportunity for satisfaction. The helpless lansquenets were slaughtered without mercy. No quarter was given. One of the German colonels, who had been the foremost cause of the morning's mutiny, and who had prevented his soldiers from fighting until their wages were paid, now made them tie handkerchiefs to their pikes to show that they surrendered; but they fared no better than the rest.[724] Others kneeled and begged for mercy of their savage foes, crying in broken French, "Bon papiste, bon papiste moi!" It was all in vain. Of four thousand lansquenets that entered the action, barely two hundred escaped with their lives. Three thousand French, enveloped by Anjou's cavalry, were spared by the duke's express command, but not before one thousand of their companions had been killed. In all, two thousand French foot soldiers and three hundred knights perished on the field, while with the valets and camp-followers the loss was much more considerable. La Noue was again a prisoner in the enemy's hands. So also was the famous D'Acier. His captor, Count Santa Fiore, received from Pius the Fifth a severe letter of rebuke for "having failed to obey his commands to slay at once every heretic that fell into his hands."[725]

The battle of Moncontour, fought on Monday, the third of October, 1569, was a thorough success on the side of the Guises and of Catharine de' Medici. Compared with it, the battle of Jarnac was only an insignificant skirmish. Although, under the skilful conduct of Louis of Nassau and of Wolrad of Mansfeld, the remnants of the army drew off to Airvault and thence to Partenay, escaping the pursuit of Aumale and Biron, the Huguenot losses were enormous, and the spirit of the soldiers was, for the time, entirely crushed.[726] The Roman Catholics, on the contrary, had lost scarcely any infantry, and barely five hundred horse, although among the cavalry officers were several persons of great distinction.

[Sidenote: The Roman Catholics exulting.]

[Sidenote: Extravagance of parliament.]

Fame magnified the exploit, and exalted the Duke of Anjou into a hero. Charles himself became still more jealous of his brother's growing reputation. Pius the Fifth, on receipt of the tidings, sent the latter a brief, congratulating him upon his success, renewing his advice to make thorough work of exterminating the heretics, and warning him against a mercy than which there was nothing more cruel.[727] To foreign courts—especially to those which betrayed a leaning to the Protestant side—the most exaggerated accounts of the victory were despatched. A "relation" of the battle of Moncontour, with which Philip the Second was furnished, stated the Huguenot loss at fifteen thousand men, eleven cannon, three thousand wagons belonging to the reiters, and eight hundred or nine hundred horses.[728] For a moment the court believed that the Protestants were ruined, and that their entire submission must inevitably ensue.[729] The Parisian parliament, in the excess of its joy, added the third of October to the number, already excessive, of its holidays, declaring that henceforth no pleadings should be held on the anniversary of so glorious a triumph.[730] About the same time, in order to exhibit more clearly the spirit by which it was animated, the same dignified tribunal gave the order that the bodies of Francis D'Andelot and his wife should be disinterred and hanged upon a a gibbet![731]

[Sidenote: Murder of De Mouy by Maurevel.]

[Sidenote: The assassin rewarded with the collar of the order.]

The Roman Catholics were, nevertheless, entirely mistaken in their anticipations of the speedy subjugation of their opponents. The latter were disheartened for a few days, but not in the least disposed to give over the struggle. "The reformed were too numerous," a modern historian well remarks, "too well organized, and had struck their roots too deeply, to be subdued by the loss of a few pitched battles."[732] The prospect at first was, indeed, very dark. It seemed almost impossible for the Huguenots to maintain themselves in the region which for a whole year had been the chief field of operations. As Anjou advanced southward, Partenay was abandoned without a blow, and after occupying it he pushed on toward Niort. Of this important place the intrepid De Mouy had been placed by Coligny in command. Not content with a bare defence, he sallied out and repulsed the enemy. But his boldness proved fatal to him. There was a Roman Catholic "gentilhomme," Maurevel by name, who, allured by the reward of fifty thousand crowns offered by parliament for the capture or assassination of Admiral Coligny, had entered the Protestant camp with protestations of great disgust with his former patrons the Guises, and had vainly sought an opportunity to take the great chieftain's life. Three years later that opportunity was to present itself in the streets of Paris itself. Loth to return to his friends without accomplishing any noteworthy exploit, Maurevel joined De Mouy, with whom he so ingratiated himself that the general not only supplied him from his purse, but made him a companion and a bed-fellow. As the Huguenots were returning to Niort, the traitor found the conjuncture he desired. Chancing to be left alone with De Mouy, he drew a pistol and shot him in the loins; then putting spurs to his horse, reached with ease the advancing columns of Anjou. De Mouy was taken back to Niort mortally wounded. His friends, contrary to his earnest desire, insisted on taking him by boat down the Sevre to La Rochelle, where he died. Meanwhile Niort, in discouragement, surrendered to the Roman Catholic army.[733] The assassin was well rewarded. A letter is extant, written by Charles the Ninth to the Duke of Anjou, from Plessis-lez-Tours, on the tenth of October, 1569, in which the king begs his brother to confer on "Charles de Louvier, sieur de Moureveil, being the person who killed Mouy," the collar of the royal order of Saint Michael, to which he had been elected by the knights companions, as a reward for "his signal service;" and to see that he receive from the city of Paris a present commensurate with his merits![734]

[Sidenote: Fatal error of the court.]

Catharine de' Medici and the Cardinal of Lorraine came from Tours, where they had been watching the course of the war, Niort, and the plan of future operations was discussed in their presence. Almost every place of importance previously held by the Huguenots toward the north and east of La Rochelle had fallen, even to the almost impregnable Lusignan. Saint Jean d'Angely, on the Boutonne, was the only remaining outwork, whose capture must precede an attack on the citadel itself. Should the victorious army of the king lay siege to Saint Jean d'Angely, or should it continue the pursuit of Coligny and the princes, who, in order to divert it from the undertaking, had retired from Saint Jean d'Angely to Saintes, and thence, not long after, in the direction of Montauban? This was the question that demanded an instant answer. Jean de Serres informs us that the Protestant leaders were extremely anxious that their enemies should adopt the latter course;[735] yet the best military authorities on both sides declare without hesitation that the failure of the Roman Catholics to follow it was the one capital error that saved the Huguenots, perhaps, from utter destruction. "Hundreds of times have I been amazed," says the Roman Catholic Blaise de Montluc, "that so many great and wise captains who were with Monsieur (the Duke of Anjou) should have adopted the bad plan of laying sieges, instead of pursuing the princes, who were routed and reduced to such extremities that they had no means of getting to their feet again." And the Protestant Francois de la Noue devotes an entire chapter of his "discourses" to the proof of the assertion that "as the siege of Poitiers was the beginning of the mishaps of the Huguenots, so that of Saint Jean was the means of arresting the good fortune of the Catholics."

What, it may be asked, led to the commission of so fatal an error? The memoirs of Tavannes, who advocated the immediate pursuit of the admiral, ascribe it to the reluctance of the Montmorencies to permit their cousin to be overwhelmed; to the jealousy felt by Cardinal Lorraine of the military successes which threw his brother, the Duke of Aumale, and his nephew, the Duke of Guise, into obscurity; and to the suggestions of De Retz, the king's favorite, who persuaded Charles that it was dangerous to permit the renown of Anjou to increase yet further.[736] It must, however, be remembered that the younger Tavannes is not always a good authority; and that where, as in the present instance, the glory of his father is affected, he becomes altogether untrustworthy. If we reject his account as apocryphal, which apparently we must do, there still remains good reason to believe that the siege of Saint Jean d'Angely was agreed to by the majority of the Roman Catholic leaders from the sincere conviction that its reduction, to be followed by the still more important capture of La Rochelle, would annihilate the Huguenot party in the west, its stronghold and refuge, and that it could then subsist but little longer in other parts of the kingdom.

[Sidenote: Siege of Saint Jean d'Angely.]

The defence of Saint Jean d'Angely had been intrusted by Coligny to competent hands. De Piles had found the fortifications weak and imperfect; he completed and strengthened them.[737] With a small garrison of Huguenots he repaired by night the breaches made by the enemy's cannon during the day, and repelled every attempt to storm the place. When the siege had advanced about two weeks, Charles himself, who was resolved not to suffer Henry of Anjou any longer to win all the laurels of the war, made his appearance in the Roman Catholic camp, on the twenty-sixth of October, and summoned the garrison to surrender. De Piles, however, declined to listen to the commands of the king, even as he had disobeyed those of the duke, taking refuge in the feudal theory that he could give up the place only to the Prince of Navarre, the royal governor of the province of Guyenne, at whose hands he had received it. Yet the position of the Protestants was growing extremely perilous. During one of the assaults upon the wall, De Piles himself became so thoroughly convinced that Saint Jean would be carried, that he caused a breach to be made in the fortifications in his rear, in order to facilitate the withdrawal of his troops. Happily, he had no need of this mode of escape on the present occasion. Meanwhile the most honorable terms were offered him. These he refused to accept; but, finding his stock of ammunition rapidly becoming exhausted, he agreed to a truce of ten days, that he might have time to send a messenger to the princes to obtain their orders; promising, in case he received no succor in the interval, to surrender the city on condition that the garrison should be permitted to retire with their horses, arms and personal effects, and that religious liberty should be granted to all the residents. But, before the armistice had quite expired, Saint Surin, and forty other brave horsemen from Angouleme, succeeded in piercing the enemy's lines, and relieved De Piles from an engagement into which he had entered with great reluctance. The hostages on both sides were given up, and the siege was renewed with greater fury than ever. In the end, seeing no prospect of sufficient reinforcement to enable him to maintain his position, De Piles capitulated (on the second of December) on similar terms to those that he had before declined, and the garrison marched out with flying banners. Seven weeks had they detained the entire army of the victors of Moncontour before an ill-fortified place. More than six thousand men had died under its walls, by the casualties of war and by the scarcely less destructive diseases that raged in the camp.[738] One of the ablest and most enterprising of the royal generals—Sebastian of Luxemburg, Viscount of Martigues and governor of Brittany—had been killed.[739] Of the Protestants, only about a hundred and eighty persons perished, nearly the half of them inhabitants of the town; for the men of Saint Jean d'Angely, and even the women and children, had labored industriously in defending their firesides.

It was a part of the compact, that, while neither De Piles nor his soldiers should serve on the Huguenot side for four months, they should be safely conducted without the Roman Catholic lines. The Duc d'Aumale and other leaders seem to have endeavored conscientiously to execute the stipulation; but their followers could not resist the temptation to attack the Huguenots as they were traversing the suburbs. Nearly all were robbed, and a considerable number—as many, according to Agrippa d'Aubigne, as fell during the siege—were murdered. De Piles, on his arrival at Angouleme, wrote to demand the punishment of those who had committed so flagrant a breach of faith, and, when he could obtain no satisfaction, sent a herald to the king to declare that he held himself and his fellow-combatants absolved from all obligations, and that they would at once resume their places in the Huguenot army.[740]

Nearly three months of precious time elapsed since the disastrous rout of Moncontour before the royalists completed the reduction of the region adjoining La Rochelle. Outside of that citadel of French Protestantism only the little town of Tonnay, on the Charente, still held for the Prince of Navarre. Yet so long as La Rochelle itself stood firm, the Duke of Anjou had accomplished little; and La Rochelle had made good use of the respite to strengthen its works. Every effort to gain a lodgement in its neighborhood had signally failed. The end of December came, and with it cold and discouragement. Anjou's army was dwindling away. The King of Spain and the Pope recalled their troops, as if the battle of the third of October had ended the war, and Santa Fiore, the pontifical general, sent to Rome twenty-six standards, taken by the Italians at Moncontour—a present from Charles the Ninth, which Pius accepted with great delight, and dedicated as a trophy in the Basilica of St. John Lateran.[741] Henry of Anjou himself was ill, or was unwilling any longer to endure separation from a court of whose pleasures he was inordinately fond; and, resigning the command of the army into the hands of the eldest son of the Duke of Montpensier, Francois de Bourbon—generally known as the prince dauphin—he hastened, at the beginning of the new year, to join Charles and Catharine de' Medici at Angers. The French troops, meantime, were either furloughed or scattered, and the generals condemned to inaction, while the German reiters and lansquenets and the Swiss pikemen were permitted to return to their own homes.[742] Such was the suicidal policy of the Roman Catholic party—a policy which saved the Huguenots from prostration; for it may with truth be affirmed that the errors committed in the siege of Saint Jean d'Angely, and in disbanding the powerful army of Anjou, completely obliterated the advantage which had been won on the bloody field of Moncontour.[743]