; ^ NOV DC^~lTr".B264 1886 v. 1 Baird, Henry Martyn, 1832- 1906. The Huguenots and Henry of Navarre Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2014 https://archive.org/details/huguenotshenryof01 bair THE HUGUENOTS HENRY OF NAVARRE THE HUGUENOTS AND Henry of Navarre BY HENEY M. BAIRD PROFESSOR IN THE UNIVERSITY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK ; AUTHOR OF THE HISTORY OF THE RISE OF THE HUGUENOTS OF FRANCE WITH MAP a VOIv. I. NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1886 COPTRIGHT, 1886, BY CHAELES SCEIBNER'S SONS TROW'3 PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY, NEW YORK. PREFACE. Ix the History of tlie Hise of the Ilngnenots I attempted to trace the progress of tlie Protestant party in France from the feeble and obscure beginnings of the Reformation to the close of the reign of Charles the Xinth ; when, by reason of heroic struggles, and of the fortitude wherewith persecution and treach- ei-y had been endured, the Huguenots had gained an enviable place in the respect and admiration of Christendom. In the present work I have undertaken to portray the subsequent fort- unes of the same valiant people, through a period not less critical and not less replete with varied and exciting incident, down to the formal recognition of their inalienable rights of conscience in a fundamental law of the kingdom, declared to be perpetual and irrevocable. As the Massacre of St. Bartholo- mew's Day constituted the most thrilling occurrence related in the former volumes, so in the volumes now offered to the public the promulgation of the Edict of Nantes is the event toward which the action throughout tends, and in relation to which even transactions of little weight in themselves assume importance. A conflict persistently maintained in vindication of an essential principle of morals is always a noble subject of contemplation. But when the matter at issue is nothing less than the claim to vi PREFACE. liberty of religions thought and expression, the assertion of tlie indefeasible title of all mankind to absolute freedom in the wor- ship of Almighty God, the strife becomes invested with the highest interest ; and the men who, for a long series of years, have stood forth as champions of a doctrine once ignored, or denied, receive the homage due to such as have benefited their race. The fact that their exertions were crowned with success adds lustre to their bravery and perseverance. Nor does it de- tract from the glory of their deeds or the interest of the recital that, possibly in a strange and wholly unlooked-for way, the general course of events was shaped to further their designs, so that the very steps taken by their opponents conduced marvel- lously to hasten the advance of the cause which those opponents sought to retard and overthrow. During the greater part of the period of thirty-six years cov- ered by these volumes (157^^1610), the history of the Hugue- nots was so closeh- interwoven with the general history of France that it would be impracticable to narrate the one with- out the other. The wars by which France was convulsed were waged for the purpose of constraining the Protestant minority in the kingdom to a conformity with the creed and rites ap- proved by the Roman Catholic majority. The " Holy League " found the pretext for its existence in the popular belief that the ancestral religion was in danger of decline and ultimate ruin because of the lukewarmness of the reigning monai-ch and the hetei'odoxy of his prospective successor. The historian of the Huguenots is consequently compelled to be to some extent the historian of the war against the League. For the elected Protector of the Churches" is the same Henry of Bourbon, King of Xavarre, whose sword is to slay the hydra-headed monster of rebellion against the crown of France. More than PREFACE. vii this, the Huguenot noblemen and burgesses are the followers without whose support that sword would have been powerless to perform such prodigies of valor. The figure of Henry is not, it is true, the only heroic figure that comes iipon the stage of action. His cousin Conde was even more devoted to Hugue- not interests ; and Fran9ois de Chatillon, Count of Coligny, a worthy son of the famous admiral, bade fair, had not his life been cut short, to rival the fame, as he already emulated the manly courage and Christian virtues, of a father upon whose greatness the crime of Catharine de' Medici and the Guises had irrevocably set the seal of history. Yet the chivalrous form of Henry of Navarre is that of the chief actor upon whom the eye naturally and unavoidably rests, with the expectation that his words and his actions will exercise an influence leading if not decisive. Next in interest, therefore, to the edict by which he gave liberty of conscience and of worship to the Huguenots of France, stands the act of defection to the faith in which he had been reared — the Abjuration at Saint Denis, which must ever remain the great blot upon his fame as a man and a ruler, be- cause based upon no conscientious convictions, but solely on motives of political expediency. To trace the decadence that led to an act as disastrous to public morality as disgraceful to the king himself must form a portion of my task in the follow- ing pages. The marginal notes will, for the most part, fumish the neces- sary information regarding the authorities consulted. I have aimed to make conscientious use of every available source of accurate knowledge, whether Protestant or Roman Catholic. The extended historical works of De Thou and his continuator Rigault, of Agrippa d'Aubigne, of Jean de Serres, of Davila, of Benoist, and others, have afforded the means of comparison viii PREFACE. with tlie precious collection of fugitive papers and pamphlets contained in the " Memoires de la Ligue,"' the " Menioires de Is'evers," and the " Archives curieuses " of Cimber and Danjon ; with the immensely extended correspondence of Duplessis Mor- nay ; with the Memoires of Sully, and the less familiar Memoires of Saint- Auhan, Bouillon, Groulart, etc.; and with the letters of Hubert Languet, Busbecq, Pasquier, and other contemporaries. I have made constant use of the " Bulletin " of the French Prot- estant Historical Society, and the " France Protestante " of the brothers Haag, to both of which I expressed my indebtedness in the pi-eface to my previous work. Without refei-ring in detail to the collections of State Papers long known to the public, I desire to state the great benefit I have derived from the invaluable " Lettres missives de Henri lY," and from the despatches of the Florentine agents resident at the court of France (Petrucci, Alamanni, Cavriana, Pucellai, etc.), published under the title of " Is egociations diplomatiques avec la Tos- cane ;" as well as from Professor A. Kluckhohn's collection of the letters of Frederick the Pious, and his monograph, " Zwei pfalzische Gesandschaftsberichte," in the Transactions of the Bavarian Poyal Academy, and from the correspondence of the Guises with the ambassadors of Philip the Second and the Duke of Parma, edited by De Croze. Among the more recent con- tributions to historical science that have afforded me important assistance, I shall confine myself to a simple mention of Poirson, on the Reign of Henry the Fourth ; of Picot, on the States General ; of Anquez, on the Political Assemblies of the Hu- guenots ; of Morikofei", on the Refugees in Switzerland ; of Professor Loutchitzky's " Documents inedits pour servir a I'his- toire de la Refonne et de la Ligue ; " of M. Henri Fazy's " Geneve, le Parti huguenot et le Traite de Soleure ; " of the PREFACE. ix Memoires of Gaches, on the Religions Wars at Castres and in Langnedoc; of the Memoires of La Iliiguerye; of Daval, on the History of the Keforniation at Dieppe ; of Count Dela- borde, on Fran9ois de Cliatillon ; of Read, on Daniel Chamier ; of Stahelin, on the Abjuration of Henry the Fourth; and of Nicolas and Bourchenin, on the Protestant Academies, or Universities of France. In the publication of the present volumes I carry out in pai-t the plan I proposed for myself in the preface to the Rise of the Huguenots. Should they be received with the measure of favor extended, on both sides of the ocean, to that work, I hope at some futui'e time to bring the historical series to its natu- ral conclusion in a History of the Revocation of the Edict of Isantes, a theme to which new attention has been drawn by the commemoration, in many countries and in both hemispheres, of the Bicentenary of the promulgation of Louis the Fourteenth's proscriptive ordinance. University of the City of New Youk, August 24, 1886. CONTENTS OF VOLUME FIRST. BOOK I. CHAPTER I. 1574-157G. Page The Accession of Henry of Valois, and the War against the Huguenots S Growth of the Huguenots in the Preceding Reigns .... 3 Catharine de' Medici's Letter ........ 8 Mourning of " La Reine Blanche " ....... 9 Henry's Anxiety ........... 10 The Huguenots in Arms ......... 11 Revival of Feudalism .......... 12 Perplexity of the King of Poland ....... 13 Escape from Cracow .......... 14 Henry at Venice .......... 14 Huguenot Leaders .......... 15 The Prince of Condc ......... 15 Losses in Normandy .......... 16 Marshal Damville and the Parliament of Toulouse .... 17 Capture of Castres .......... 17 First Siege of Livron ......... 18 Conde's Declaration .......... 19 Political Assembly at Milhau ........ 21 Opposition to Alliance with the Politiques ...... 22 The Alliance a Necessity 23 The Question of Religious Toleration . . . ... .23 Henry's Tastes pacific ......... 24 His first Intentions .......... 25 Good Advice of the Emperor and the Doge ..... 26 xii CONTENTS. Page Of thft Elector 2G And of the Prince of Orange 27 Special Instructions of Lord North ....... 27 Intolerant Counsels of the Pope and the Queen Mother ... 28 Catharine's Influence .......... 29 Damville's Interview at Turin ........ 30 The Royal Council deliberates ........ 31 Paul de Foix s Plea for Peace ........ 31 Villequier's Reply ... .... ... 33 Henry resolves to Prepare for War ....... 33 Official Declaration 35 Huguenot Operations ......... 35 IVIontbrun's courageous Answer ........ 36 Henry at Avignon .......... 37 He joins the Flagellants ....... . . 38 Death of the Cardinal of Lorraine ....... 39 His Character ........... 40 His Claim to have caused the Massacre ...... 41 His Responsibility .......... 41 The Huguenots of Livron ........ 42 Capture of Fontenay and Lusignan ....... 43 The Fairy Melusine 44 Henry's Coronation and Marriage ....... 45 His growing Devotion to Pleasure ........ 47 His Lavishness and Penury . . . . . . . .47 Conference of Nismes ......... 47 Negotiations for Peace (April, 1575) ....... 48 Beza's broad Statesmanship ........ 49 Speech of Arenes . ...... ... 51 The Huguenot Demands ......... 52 Surprise and Indignation ......... 54 The Demand for Religious Liberty ....... 55 Maximilian's Example ......... 5G Catharine urges a better Offer ........ 58 Punishment of the Authors of the Massacre demanded . . . 59 Henry asseverates his Innocence ....... CO Coligny's Memory vindicated ........ CO Unpalatable Propositions ........ Gl The Envoy of the Politiques derided ....... 02 Henry offers unacceptable Terms ....... C3 He substitutes better Conditions G3 End of the Negotiations 64 " The prodigious Demand for the Edict of January " . . . .64 Intercessions of Foreign States ....... 65 Treacherous Disguises .......... 66 Capture of Montbruu (July, 1575) 67 CONTENTS. xiii Pnge Henry is resolved that Montbriin shall die ...... 08 Montbnin s Execution ......... G9 Lesdiguieres ........... 69 Alen9on's Escape and Proclamation (September, 1575) ... 70 The Huguenots duped ......... 71 Catharine's Grief genuine ........ 71 Wretched Condition of the Tiers Ltat . 72 " Le Manaut paye tout 74 Corruption of the Court ......... 74 Puerile Extravagance and Lewdness ...... 75 Henry and his Dogs .......... 75 Foreign help for the Huguenots ....... 77 Defeat of Tliore 79 A liollow Truce .......... 80 Vain Efforts of the King to raise Money ...... 81 Henry's whimsical Revenge ........ 81 General Confusion . ... ..... .83 The Truce of Vivarais 82 The honorable Observance .... ... . . 85 Henry of Navarre escapes from Court ...... 85 Entrance of tlie Germans into France ....... 87 Excesses of. the Reiters ......... 88 Stout Demands of the Protestants . 90 The Points which Catharine will not yield ..... 91 Impatience of Henry and of the People ...... 92 Edict of Pacification (Beaulieu, May, 157C) ..... 9.3 Fourquevaulx's Description of the Condition of Languedoc . . 95 CHAPTER II. 1576-1577. The States General of Blois and the Sixth Civil Wak . . 97 Unpopularity of the " Paix de Monsieur " ..... 97 Henry insists on carrying out the Provisions ..... 98 Private Sentiments of tlie King ....... 99 Alencon won from tlie Huguenots ....... 100 Henry and Catliarine indignant at the Guises ..... 101 Royal Instructions to Montpensier ....... 102 Humieres resists the Edict at Peronne ...... 103 Tlie Origin of the League 104 Revival of tlie League after the Massacre ..... . IOC The Fraternities of Penitents contribute thereto lOG Manifesto of the League of Peronne 107 XIV CONTENTS. Page Oath of the League 107 Conde and Navarre IQg Caution of La Rochelle 108 Cardinal Bourbon and the Huguenots of Rouen .... 110 Threatening Indications . . . . . . . , .112 Extension of the League . . . . . ' , . . . 114 A Roman Catholic Reaction II5 Suspicions of the Huguenots aroused ...... 115 Henry's ignoble Pursuits . . 116 A Portrait of Henry of Valois 118 A Pasquinade against the King 118 Elections for the States General . 119 Revolution in the Royal Policy 120 How to be accounted for ......... 120 The Mcmoire of Nicholas David 122 Was the Paper genuine ? . . 126 Henry determines to become Head of the League .... 127 The King's " Little Council " 127 Henry's Letters of December 2, 1576 128 Opening of the States General (December 6) 128 Henry's Speech ........... 129 Address of Chancellor Birague 130 Bold Demands of the States ........ 131 Henry's Activity .......... 133 His Vacillation 134 The Proscriptive Declaration (December 29, 1576) .... 134 Henry asks the Written Opinions of his Council 136 Candor of Morvilliers and Bellievre 137 The Duke of Anjou entrapped 138 Politic Course of Guise and Montpensier ...... 130 I Deputies of the Three Orders before the King (January 17, 1577) . 140 ' The Tiers Etat consents to the Repeal of the Edict .... 141 Huguenot Preparations ......... 141 Envoys sent by the States to Henry of Navarre .... 142 Reply of the King of Navarre ........ 144 Henry's Significant Assurance ........ 145 Condc refuses to recognize the Delegates ...... 146 His Protest 146 Marshal Damville's Reply to the States and to the King . . .147 Progress of Religious Toleration . 148 Opposition to Signing the League in Paris ...... 149 In Amiens and in Provins 149 Distress of the People . . . . •# . . . .150 The Tiers Etat in Favor of Peace ....... 151 Intercession of the Germans . . . . » . . , . 152 The Protestant Counter-League 152 CONTENTS. XV Page The King's Failure to obtain Funds 153 Fresli Consultation respecting the War 154 Nevers proposes a Crusade ......... 154 Catharine speaks out for Peace . . . ' . . . . 155 Henry declares his Change of Purpose ...... ISO Catharine's Raillery .......... 157 The Italian Comedians 157 The Sixth Civil War 158 " Huguenot Reverses and bad Discipline ...... 159 The Reformation and Democracy ....... 159 Contrast with revived Feudalism ....... 100 Misunderstanding between Damville and the Huguenots . . 101 Surprise of Montpellier ......... 102 Charges against Damville ........ 102 The Marshal's Reply 103 Navarro attempts to mediate ........ 104 Tliore becomes Leader in Languedoc ....... 164 End of the Sixth Civil War 105 Edict of Pollers (September, 1577) . 105 CHAPTER III. 1577-1580. The Conference of N^rac, and the Seventh Civil War . . 108 Contrast between the Edict of Poitiers and the Edict of January . 108 The Situation accepted ......... 109 Calumnies against the Huguenots ....... 170 Accused of spreading the Plague . . . . . . .170 The Peace only partially observed . . . . . . . 171 Ninth National Synod (Sainte Foy, 1578) ...... 173 Dispute between Conde and the Consistory of La Rochelle . . 170 Degeneracy of Henry the Third 177 New Favorites and old Feudal Lords 178 Penury and Prodigality of the Court 180 The Provincial States protest . 181 Debts of Henry of Guise . 183 The Duke of Anjou 183 Singular Compact in the Comtat Venaissin ...... 184 Papal Inconsistencies ....... . . 185 The Conference of Nerac 187 "Langage de Canaan'' 187 A Huguenot Retort 188 Henry of Navarre's Revenge ........ 188 The Articles of Ntrac 190 xvi CONTENTS. Page Henry the Third becomes Protector of Geneva .... 190 The King of France's Devotions . 190 He institutes the " Ordre du Saint Esprit" ..... 193 Popular Superstition . . . -. . . . ... 193 Tlie People's Vengeance on the Lazy Priest 193 The Clergy reluctant to help the King 195 Tenth National Protestant Synod (1579) 196 Continuance of the Peace threatened . . . . . . .196 Preparations of the King of Navarre ...... 198 Growing Discontent and Violent Measures ...... 198 Outbreak of the Seventh Civil War (April, 1580) .... 200 The King of Navarre justifies his Course ...... 200 Was the War unavoidable ? . 203 " La Guerre des Amoureux " ........ 204 Most of the Huguenots take no Part ...... 204 The Huguenots at Montaigu 205 Surprise of Cahors (May, 1580) 205 Ravages of the Plague in Paris 208 General Success of the Royal Arms . . . . . . . 209 The Treaty of Fleix (November-December, 1580) . . . .210 Conclusion of the Seventh Civil War ...... 210 CHAPTER IV. 1580-1584. The Uncertain Peace, Protestant Federation and toe Paris- ian League 212 Return of Comparative Quiet ........ 212 Henry of Navarre's Justification ........ 213 His own Court ... . . ..... 214 Political Assembly of Montauban (April, 1581) ..... 21 Checks upon the Authorit}' of the " Protector of the Churches " . 21a National Synod of La Rochelle (June, 1581) 217 Conflict of Civil and Ecclesiastical Authority ..... 218 Ministerial Support 221 National Synod of Vitro (May, 1583) 222 Infractions of the Peace . . . . . . . . . 22; The Duke of Mayenne in Dauphiny 224 St. Bartholomew's Massacre commemorated ..... 22r Henry and his Mignons . . . ' . . . . . 226 Joyeuse and fipernon . . .... ... 226 The King attempts to remove Montmorency ..... 22"" The Nuns of Poissy 228 Infamy of the Royal Morals 229 CONTENTS. xvii Page Financial Embarrassment and Dangerous Expedients . . . 230 Institution of the Fraternity of the Annunciation .... 231 The King's Waning Devotion ........ 232 His Superstition .......... 233 Discontent of the Guises ......... 233 Conspiracy between the Guises, Savoy, and Spain .... 234 Doubtful Loyalty of Montmorency ....... 235 Philip attempts to seduce the King of Navarre .... 235 Henry's Irresolution .......... 236 He still leans to the Guises 237 Discourages the Advances of Navarre ....... 237 The Affront to the King of Navarre 238 The Jesuits promote the League . . . . . . . . 241 Proposed Universal League among Protestants .... 243 The "Formula Concordiae" 245 Scheme of Henry of Navarre ........ 245 Mission of Segur Pardaillan ........ 247 The Envoy's Instructions 248 The Justification of the King of Navarre ...... 250 His reply to the Threats of Henry III. (December, 1583) . . 251 Segur's Mission misrepresented ........ 252 Ungracious Letter of the German Princes (March, 1585) . . . 253 The Scheme receives its Death-Blow ....... 255 Henry's Disappointment ......... 255 His tardy Reply to the Princes (February 15, 1589) .... 255 Contemporary View of Henry's Resources ..... 257 The Protestant Cities and Regions ....... 260 Death of the Duke of Anjou (June 10, 1584) 262 Disastrous Results of this Event 265 The Thought of a Huguenot King repulsive to the Roman Catholics 265 Authorship of the League ......... 266 Philip the Second and the Jesuits ....... 267 Henrj' of Valois recognizes Henry of Navarre as his Successor . . 268 Duplessis Mornay's sound Advice ....... 270 Navarre is entreated to abjure Protestantism ..... 271 His noble Reply 271 Reports of his "incorrigible Obstinacy" . ..... 271 Hostile Rumors .......... 272 A pretended Protestant Confederacy ....... 272 A clumsy Forgery . 273 Tlie League in Paris the Result of a systematic Plan .... 274 Scheme of Charles Hotman ........ 275 The Council and the " Five " 275 Florimond de R;emond's Account of the Huguenot Worship . . 277 xviii CONTENTS. CHAPTER V. 1584-1585. Page The Holy League and the Edict op Nemours . . . . 281 The King's cordial Hatred of the Huguenots 281 His Plan tor the Extinction of Protestantism 282 Ambition of the Duke of Guise ........ 283 Designs upon England ......... 284 Dissension between the Conspirators ....... 284 The Plot laid bare 285 Bernardino de Meudoza ......... 28G The Huguenots and the Cities of Refuge ...... 287 Reasons for the Retention of the Cities ...... 288 The King reluctantlj' prolongs the Term of the Protestant Possession 290 The League circulates alarming Rumors ...... 290 Narrative of Nicholas Poulain 291 Pretended Huguenot Conspiracy ........ 292 Offer of the Sovereignty of the Netherlands to the King . . . 294 A Royal Declaration against the League (November 11, l.';S4) . 295 Conference of the League at Joinville (December, 1584) . . . 296 Terms of the Alliance 297 Designs of Philip IT 298 Duplicity of the Duke of Guise ......... 299 The Duke of Nevers resolves to consult the Pope .... 300 Gregory's Caution as to committing liis Views to Paper . . . 301 His Displeasure at the Duke'.s Pertinacity ..... 302 Consecrated Rosaries in Place of Advice ...... 303 Death of Pope Gregory 803 Sixtus V. censures the League ........ 304 He bitterly condemns Gregory's Course ...... 304 Ambition the Motive of the League ....... 305 Unworthy Treatment of the Dutch Envoys ..... 306 Mendoza tries to prevent an Audience ...... 307 His reported Insolence ......... 307 Magnanimous Reply .ascribed to the King ...... 308 Meanness of his real Speech ........ 309 Insincerity of the King and Queen Mother ...... 309 Failure of the Embassy 310 The Loss to France 310 Queen Elizabeth sends Earl Derby to France ..... 311 Reported Atrocities of the English Persecution ..... 312 New Edict against the League (March 28, 1585) .... 313 Declaration of Cardinal Bourbon (Poronne, March 31,1585) . . 814 Henry of Valois publishes a Counter Declaration (April, 1585) . 317 An undignified Answer . . ....... 318 CONTENTS. xix rnge The King's spasmodic Activity 319 His Hatred of the Guises 320 Tlie Guard of the " Forty- five " 321 His Unconcern ........... 321 He desires to leave Matters of State to his Mother .... 322 General Success of the League ........ 323 Philip the Second's Assurances ....... 32.5 Henry of Valois writes to Henry of Navarre ..... 326 He fails to call in his Assistance ....... 326 Navarre's Offer declined ......... 327 His Letters ........... 327 Tlie War to sift out true Frenchmen ....... 328 Navarre's renewed Offers ......... 328 Forcible Plea of the Bishop of Acqs 329 Remonstrances of Queen Elizabeth ....... 330 And of the German Princes ........ 331 The King's Evil Counsellors ........ 331 His moral Turpitude .......... 331 Navarre holds a Conference of Huguenot Chiefs .... 332 Advice of the Viscount of Turenne ....... 333 Replj' of Agrippa d'Aubigno ........ 334 Henry of Navarre adopts D'Aubigne's View ..... 335 Arrogance of the League ......... 330 Its pretended Petition (June 9, l.'iSS) ....... 336 Insincerity of its Offer ......... 337 Manifesto of Navarre, Bergerac (June 10, l.^S.'i) ..... 337 Navarre challenges Guise ...... • . 340 Favorable Impression produced ........ 341 Guise declines the Challenge ........ 341 Navarre's Willingness to be instructed arouses Suspicion . . 342 His Letter to the King (July 10, 1.58.5) 343 Tlie Conference of Nemours ........ 344 Intolerant Edict of Nemours (July 18, 1585) 345 Conduct of the Guises approved ........ 345 Practical Advantages secured by the League ..... 346 Tlie Guises renounce all Associations ....... 346 The King orders Parliament to register the Edict .... 347 CHAPTER VI. 1.58.5-1.580. Pkoscriptton of the Huguenots. — Henry of Navarre excommuni- cated BY THE Pope 349 A difficult Problem confronts the Huguenots ..... 349 Joint Declaration of Navarre, Conde, and Montmorency . . . 350 XX CONTENTS. Page Secret Correspondence of Henry of Navarre . . . . . 352 Should Colonies be settled in France V . . . . . . 353 Contrast between the two Kings ........ 353 Henry of Valois demands Money from the City of Paris and the Clergy 354 Who excuse themselves ......... 355 Henry's significant Observation ....... 355 The King of France and the Pope ....... 356 Eoj-al Embassy to seek Navarre's Conversion ..... 356 His Readiness to submit to a Council ....... 357 His Message to the Duke of Montpensier ..... 358 Intrigue of Guise with the Spanish Ambassador .... 359 Margaret of Valois an Ally of the League ..... 360 Guise impatient for the Excommunication of Henry of Navarre . . 361 Alliance with Montmorency essential to the Success of the League . 363 Guise bids Mayenne avoid attacking Montmorency .... 363 Philip of Spain procrastinates ........ 363 Protestation of Marshal Montmorency ...... 364 Sixtus V. still opposes the League ....... 365 He excommunicates and deposes the King of Navarre . . . 366 Indignation and Ridicule in France ...... 367 Navarre challenges the Pope to appear before a General Council . 368 Hotman's " Brutum Fulmen " ....... 369 Royal Declaration of October 7, 1585 ....... 370 Remonstrance of the Parliament of Paris . . . . . 370 Forcible Plea for Liberty of Conscience ...... 370 Crime of Proscription ......... 371 Parliament's Opinion of the Papal Bull ...... 372 Displeasure of Catharine de' Medici 373 The Printer punished .......... 374 Henry of Navarre retaliates 374 The Enterprise of Angers 374 The Castle of Angers . 374 A Plot to surprise it 375 The Castle in Huguenot Hands 377 Conde advances to Anjou ......... 377 Peril and Escape of his Army 378 General Discouragement of the Huguenots . . . . . . 380 Numerous Apostacies ......... 382 Flight into foreign Lands ......... 382 The Huguenots in Savoy 383 A general Roll of the Protestants made 384 Perplexity of the Roman Catholic Bishops ' 385 A Confession of Faith imposed on Converts 386 Additional Guarantee of Sincerity 386 Pastoral Remonstrances ......... 387 Jealousy among the Huguenot Leaders 387 CONTENTS. xxi Page Henry of Navarre writes to the City of Paris 388 His Appeal to the Clergy ......... 389 His Remonstrances addressed to the Nobles and Commons . . . 390 Indecisive Warfare . . . . . . . . . . 391 The King's Levies in Germany and Switzerland ..... 392 Guise's Anxiety lest Peace should ensue ...... 392 His Entry into Paris (February, 158(5) . 393 Procrastination of the Duke of Mayenne ...... 394 Huguenot Sarcasm .......... 396 Conde returns to France (January, 1586) ...... 396 Death of D'Andelot's Sons 397 Henry of Valois's Diversions . 397 His injudicious financial Edicts ........ 398 Intercession of the Protestant Cantons of Switzerland . . . 399 Appeal of the German Princes ........ 400 Conference of Montbeliard (March, 1580) 400 The Embassy reaches Paris 401 Speech of Duke Casimir's Envoy ....... 402 The King's rough Answer . . . . . . . . . 404 The Guises determined not to disarm ...... 405 Conference of the League at Ourcanip ...... 405 The League apprehensive ........ 40G Conference between Catharine and Navarre, at Saint Bris (December, 1586) 407 Catharine refuses to grant religious Liberty . . . . .411 The Possibility of Navarre's Conversion ...... 413 Huguenot Distru.st of Garrisons . . . . . . . .415 Frangois de Chatillon and Milhau-en-Rouergue .... 415 Mutual Jealousy between Citizens and Soldiers ..... 416 The Citizens become Masters of the Place . . . . . 416 The " Citadel " demolished 417 CHAPTER VII. 1587. The Battle of Coutr^s, and the Army op the Retters . 418 The War accomplishes nothing ........ 418 Zeal of the Le.ague .at Paris . . ..... 419 Annoyance of the Duke of Guise ....... 420 Huguenot Successes in Poitou 420 Lesdiguieres in Dauphiny 420 Rout of Swiss Auxiliaries 422 Irresolution of the King 423 Parties at Court 423 The Queen Mother's Interview with Guise (May, 1.587) . . - 424 xxii CONTENTS. Page Meeting of the King and Guise (July, 1587) 425 Tlie Duke's Debts 426 Joj'euse marches toward Guyeune ....... 426 The Count of Soissons and the Prince of Conty join Navarre . . 428 Navarre marclies toward the Dordogue ...... 428 He takes jiosition at Coutras 429 Tlie Huguenot Line .......... 430 Battle of Coutras (Octoher 20, 1587) 431 Gabriel d'Amours offers Prayer 431 A Huguenot Battle Psalm . 433 Rout and Death of Joy e use ........ 434 Navarre's Bravery .......... 434 Prayer and Psalm after Battle ........ 435 The first Pitched Battle gained by the Huguenots .... 436 The Fruits of Victory lost 437 Navarre's Justification .......... 438 Queen Elizabeth renders Assistance ....... 440 Tlie Army of the Reiters 441 John Casimir's Compact ......... 441 Baron Dolina 442 The Reiters enter Lorraine 442 Route taken by the German.? . 444 They are joined by Frani;ois de Chatillon ..... 445 Want of Discipline and Loisses ........ 445 The Germans disregard Navarre's Orders, and push on to the Loire 446 They insist on going westward 447 Guise's Correspondence with the Spaniards ..... 447 He attacks the Reiters at Vimory ....... 449 He publishes glowing Accounts of his Victory 449 • The Germans involved in increasing Difficulty . . . • • 450 The Swiss send Deputies to the King 451 They determine to return to Switzerland 451 The Germans begin a Retreat 452 They are surprised by Guise at Auneau ...... 453 Guise accuses the King of throwing Obstacles in his Way . . 453 The Reiters accept a Safe-conduct to Germany ..... 454 Indignation of the League ........ 455 Guise and Du Pout lay waste the County of Montbeliard . . . 455 Magnanimity of Francois de Chatillon ...... 457 His daring Retreat to Languedoc ........ 457 MAP. Southern France at the Accession of Henry the Tuird. 1574. At end of wlu inc. > BOOK FIRST. FROxM THE ACCESSION OF HENRY THE THIRD (1574) TO THE BATTLE OF COUTRAS (1587). BOOK FIRST. FROM THE ACCESSION OF HENRY THE THIRD (1574) TO THE BATTLE OF COUTRAS (1587). CHAPTEE I. THE ACCESSION OF HENRY OF VALOIS, AND THE "WAR AGAINST THE HUGUENOTS. At the date of the accession of the last Valois to the throne of France, more than fifty years had elapsed since the first ap- pearance of that religious and patriotic party whose adherents, after bearing the names of Lutherans, Christaudins, and Cal- vinists, had finally come to be commonly known as the Hague- Huguenots. A movement begun in weakness had preceding gained strength in face of formidable opposition. The reigns. short-Hved favor of Francis the First was succeeded by persecution of the most cruel type. For nearly forty years the gallows, and the " estrapade " with its protracted torture, did their worst, but all in vain. During the short reign of Francis the Second the forces hitherto latent burst forth, and men discovered for the first time that the " new doctrines," as they were called, had enlisted under their banner not only the greater part of the intelligent classes of the population, but a considerable proportion of the nobility and gentry of the realm. It was not, however, until the beginning of the reign of Charles the Ninth that an opportunity was afPorded to the Huguenots, 4 THE HUGUEXOTS AND HENRY OF NAVARRE. Ch. I. at the Colloquy of Poissv, to set forth before the king and his assembled court the true nature of their doctrines and purposes. All France, at this time, -was inflamed with the desire to know for itself the merits of the new reformation. Whole provinces in the South seemed to have embraced Protestantism. The children of many districts " learned religion only in Calvin's catechism;" and vast congregations flocked to the Huguenot pi'eaching. The ferment extended to Central France. The very ecclesiastics of the established church were affected. Bishops left their mitres, priests gave up their cures, monks threw off the cowl. Many of those who had not as yet taken any decided step were asking for more light upon the subject of their duty. When it was proposed to establish a Protestant theological school in Orleans, the canons of the church of the Holy Pood applauded the project and promised to come and listen to the lectures of the professors. Some parts of the isorth were not behind the fervid South in their excitement. In the great fair of Guibray, in Xormandy, no waives sold more rapidly than the books and pamphlets wherein the doctrines of the Reformation were inculcated. A quarter of a century be- fore (in 1534) the appearance of a placard against the papal mass, aflBxed to the door of the king's chamber, had created unparalleled consternation at court and throughout France. In his first transports of anger Francis even went to the length of abolishing the art of printing. When his inflamed passions had had time to cool down he still thought it incum- bent upon him, as the Very Christian King, to appease Heaven for the sacrilege by a pompous procession, during the course of which six Lutherans were publicly burned to death on different squares of the capital. In the banquet held at its close, in the episcopal palace, he had professed such detestation for the Prot- estant doctrine as to boast that, if one of his arms were infected with the poison, he would cut it off, if his children were con- taminated, he would immolate them. But now, in the first year of his grandson's reign, this very placard, whose original pub- lication had cost the lives of printers and readers, was openly distributed by boys who with a loud voice made know^l the hand-bill by its striking title : " True Articles respecting the 1574. ACCESSION OF HENRY OF VALOIS. 5 Horrible, Great, and Insupportable Abuses of the Papal Mass," So much had the times changed.' In the very tribunals of law, accustomed to take cognizance of the Huguenots only when sentencing them to imprisonment or death, they now found advocates or apologists. The Bishop of Paris took occasion, in Parliament (1561), to allude to the friendly arbitration by means of which the Huguenots settled, in their church sessions and otherwise, the disputes arising be- tween members of their own communion, and declared that it was an evidence of the impudence of the Reformers that they thus interfered with the prerogative of the royal courts. But his words were ably answered by the highest judicial officer of France, grave Chancellor L'llospital. He marvelled, he said, at the effrontery and malice of those who blamed men for set- tling their disputes and controversies among friends. "As if," he added, with pardonable contempt for his reverend objector, " as if the whole system of law had not been enacted, and forms of trial had not been instituted for this very purpose — that men at variance with one another might be brought into concord, and induced to live lovingly together ! AVhoever he be that brings about this result deserves reward and not punishment." ^ It was at this favorable conjuncture, and through the efforts of such enlightened men as Michel de I'Hospital, that the " Edict of Jam;ary" (1502) was published. Based on equita- ble principles, this law recognized liberty of conscience as the right of all, and permitted the Huguenots to worship Almighty God, according to the rites of the Reformed religion, eveiy- where throughout France, outside of the walls of the towns and cities. If not a perfect law, it was so well adapted to the cir- cumstances of the case that, perhaps, nothing better, sliort of absolute religious equality, could have been desired. Under this ordinance, well and faithfully executed, Roman Catholics and Protestants might liave lived together long years, until the fuller development of the sense of natural justice should have ' MS. Geneva Library, published in Bulletin de la Societe de I'histoire du Protestantisme franf;ais, xxviii. (1879) 457. • Letter of Hubert Languet, Paris, July 13, 1561, Epistolae secretse, ii. 125, 126. 6 THE HUGUENOTS AND HENRY OF NAVARRE. Ch. 1. abrogated its provisions only to establish in their place a free- dom having its sure sanction in universal charity. Unhappily the age of brotherly love had not yet dawned. There were those who were not inclined to leave the Edict of January to mature its kindly fruits. Within six weeks the massacre of Yassy, perpetrated upon an unoffending congrega- tion of Pi-otestant worshippers in a Champagnese town (March, 1562), kindled a flame which burned with little intermission to the close of the reign of Charles the Kinth. To open warfare were added the further horrors of treacherous assassination. The massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day came as the sequel of three distinct civil wars, and as the precursor of two other wars, all instituted within the brief compass of a reign of little more than twelve years. It was a legacy of bloodshed and confusion that Charles left to his brother, Henry. Thirty thousand Hugue- nots may have fallen victims to the conspiracy of Catharine de' Medici, the Duke of Anjou, and the Guises ; but the Huguenots were not all dead. For every one that had perished by sword there remained fifty of his comrades ready to maintain the cause whose interests he had fought to defend. Admiral Co- ligny was no more, and many other leaders had been assassinated with him ; but the experience of the two years intervening be- tween the massacre and the close of the reign of Charles proved conclusively that all the military genius of the Huguenots had not been buried in their graves. Many of the new conmiand- ers — some of them destined soon to distinguish themselves in the art of warfare — were very young. Henry, King of Xa- varre, was but twenty years of age. His cousin, Henry of Conde, was just a year older. Frangois de Chatillon, Admiral Coligny's son, was a stripling of seventeen. Fran9ois de la Xoue was almost the only survivor of the older Huguenot chieftains of prominent rank. The mantle was certainly fall- ing upon shoulders unaccustomed to bear such weighty respon- sibility ; but the sequel would prove that the men whom cir-' cumstances, strange and unexpected, called to the front line of action were by no means unworthy to be trusted with its de- fence. The crisis was grave, the matters to be settled were of unsurpassed importance. Xot the fortunes of the combatants 1574. ACCESSION OF HENRY OF VALOIS. 7 alone were at stake, but the cause of religious liberty must be sustained. With what fluctuations of success and defeat that cause was prosecuted until the final enactment of the edict of Henry the Fourth, placing Protestantism under the gegis of the public law of the land, is the inquiry that furnishes the main theme of the present volumes. On Sunday, the thirtieth of May, 1574, Charles the Ninth expired in the Castle of the Bois de Yincennes. Two weeks later, the messenger of Catharine de' Medici succeeded, by almost incredible diligence, in reaching Cracow, and brought to Henry of Yalois the grateful intelligence that he had fallen heir to the crown of France. The queen mother had promptly taken every step necessary to secure the peaceful succession of her favorite son. Unmoved by the approaching end of Charles, she had, on his death-bed, prudently procured from him, or in his name, letters patent conferring upon her the regency xmtil Henry's return frona Poland. With more composure than could have been expected from a mother in her fresh bereavement, she had authorized an examination of the late monarch's body, and the next day was careful to despatch letters to all the governors of France, assur- ing them that a sufficient natural cause had been found by the physicians for the fatal termination of his malady. She begged them to write to the new king, and inform him of their purpose to render him the same faithful service that they had displayed to his predecessors. Nor were the Duke of Alen§on and the King of Navarre overlooked, at a moment when maternal grief is wont to induce forgetfulness of everything save its own bitterness. The two state prisoners were summoned into Catharine's presence. They were told that their fate hung upon their submission. " Promise to make no attempt to escape from me, and I will leave Yincennes for Paris; otherwise I shall remain in the castle until my son's return from Poland." The youths not only yielded a most humble assent, but made no objection to signing letters addressed to the governors of all the provinces, commending the queen mother's course, and advocating a loyal 8 THE HUGUENOTS AND HENRY OF NAVARRE. Cu. I. recognition of her authority.' But on reaching the Louvre, the princes scarcely found theii- condition improved. Catha- rine kept her son and the King of Navarre within the castle, with guard upon guard. She had the chamber-windows grated like a prison, and stopped all the back passages into the town. " There is marvellous misliking at this dealing amongst all men," exclaims the indignant English ambassador. None the less did the queen mother maintain with effrontery to all with whom she conversed, that she would not have accepted the regency except at the request of the princes, and that whatever was done was done by their consent. At this very moment every- body knew that in truth Alengon did not dare to speak to any- one and no one dared speak to him. It was a curious com- mentary upon the queen's hypocritical assurances, that, directly after the audience at which she gave utterance to them, Alengon and Navarre sent a messenger to the favored Englishmen, to state that they had been constrained to use the speeches they liad made. They desired Queen Elizabeth to continue her good friendship, and asked that she be informed when the Prince of Conde should be ready to start from Germany. Indeed, they entreated the prudent Queen of England to effect a landing on the coasts of Normandy, and entered into details of so perilous a character that the envoys deemed it the dictate of prudence not to commit them to paper.'' M. de Chemerault, Catharine's messenger to Poland, was en- trusted with a long letter to the absent king. This production — no formal state paper, the work of the pen of her Catharine's . ■ . letter to her Secretaries, but bearing on every line the impress of the queen mother's own mind — reveals the existence of a certain kind of grief, and of a cool calculation that seems never to have forsaken her. The grief is natural enough, but thoroughly selfish in its origin and manifestation, and quite ' Recueil des choses memorables, 508 ; Jean de Serres, Commeutarii de statu religionis et reipublicae, pars v., Henrico tertio rege (Ley den, 1580), fols. 2, 3 ; Vincenzo Alaraanni to Fr. de' Medici, Paris, June 2, 1574, Negocia- tions diplomatiques avec la Toscane, iii. 931. " News from Paris," sent by Dr. Dale to Lord Burleigh, June 7, 1574 ; Dr. Dale to Smith and Walsingham, June 21 ; Dr. Dale to Lord Burleigh, same date. State Paper Office. 1574. ACCESSION OF HENRY OF VALOIS. 9 under the control of the writer's wilL It is a piteous sorrow, she says, that has befallen a mother called so often to wit- ness the successive deaths of her children. She has hut one consolation — the hope of seeing Henry soon return to enjoy his new honors. She warns him that if she were to be called upon to lose him too, she would not consent to survive him. "In • that case," she says, " I should cause myself to be buried alive with you ! " She begs him to select the safest road returning - — rather the way through the dominions of the Emperor and through Italy, than the way through the lands of the German princes, who have too many grounds of quarrel with France. She entreats him above all to make no delay in setting out, to accede to no requests from his Polish subjects who might wish to detain him until he had introduced order into the affairs of their country. At the same time she suggests, with her usual forethought, that it may be well to leave some one to govern temporarily iu his place, in order that the crown of Poland may either be retained by him, or secured for his younger brother, or for the second of his own prospective sons. As for France, she counsels him to govern wisely and prudently, for the honor of God and the welfare of his subjects ; to protect and reward the well-disposed, but to renounce faction, party spirit, and in- timacies. " You are no longer Monsieur .... you are a Kincj who must be served, revered, and loved by all." ' Meantime, while the parent who subscribed herself " your good and affectionate mother, if ever there was one on earth, Cathakine," was pouring forth her measured grief Mourning of , r i i i i "LaKeine aud poiitic advice into the ears or lier best loved son, the young wife of Charles the Ninth indulged in os- tentatious manifestations of sorrow for the untimely death of a prince respecting whom the pope declared that his remark- able piety and singular virtue had been seen in the midst of the greatest dangers and the most trying emergencies.^ In a dark ' Catharine to Henry III., Bois de Vincennes, May 31, 1574, Groen van Prinsterer, Archives de la maison d'Orange-Nassau, v. 13-16. ^ "Cujus insignem pietatem, siugularemque in maximis periculosissimisque ejus regni motibus difficillimisqne temporibus virtutem perspexeramus." Greg- ory XIII. to Fred, de' Medici, June 11, 1574, Negociations avec la Toscane, iii. 'J32. 10 THE HUGUENOTS AND HENRY OF NAVARRE. Ca I. room whence every ray of the light of heaven was carefully excluded, Maximilian's daughter shut herself from the world for forty days to bewail her husband's death. The walls, the ceiling, the floor, were draped in black ; the only light came from two small candles that rather revealed than dispelled the darkness. Elizabeth herself — " La reine blanche " ' — was clad from head to foot in white, the immemorial badge of mourning • of a widowed qneen. Her ladies wore dresses of the same color, in startling contrast with the funereal garb of the gentle- men-in-waiting. The mixture of black and white, with the faces pale as death in the deep gloom," says one that witnessed the scene, " produced a very touching and painful sight." ' The announcement of his brother's fatal illness had created in Henry of Anjou a restless and expectant condition of mind Henry-8 wliich he could not conceal from the eyes of his at- anxiety. teudants ; the tidings of that brother's death occa- sioned a joy that gleamed in every feature. How to get back to France as speedilv as possible, was the problem which he set about solving with the help of the little company of his coun- trymen that formed the inner circle of his confidants. All M'ere agreed that no time must be lost. Delay might be disas- trous to the claims of the absent prince upon his ancestral throne. There was a powerful party that alleged that Henry's acceptance of the Polish crown involved a virtual renunciation of the French crown in favor of his brother, the Duke of Alen- gon. True, Alengon was in safe custody, and had paid for his cowardice by the sacrifice of his accomplices. So far so good. ' The name was derived from Queen Blanche, mother of Saint Louis, a model ruler, according to Etienne Pasquier, " laquelle s'y comporta avec telle sagesse, que tout ainsi que les Empereurs de Rome se faisoient appeller Au- gustes en commemoration de I'heur qui s'estoit trouve au grand Empereur Auguste, aussi toutes les Roynes Meres anciennement, apres le dects des Roys leurs maris vouloient estre nommees Roynes Blanches, par une honorable memoire tiree du bou gouvernement de cette sage Princesse." Recherches de la France, chap. 18, book 2, p. 142. " II che faeeva, con la mistione del color nero e bianco, e con le faccie loro del color della morte in questa obscurita grandissima, un niolto acerbo e doloroso spettacolo a riguardare." Alamauui to the Grand Duke, June 14, 1574, Negociations avec la Toscane, iv. 12. 1574. ACCESSION OF HENRY OF VALOIS. 11 " If ever I felt joy," Ileniy had written to one of his intimate friends, " it was when I learned that La Mole and Coconnas were well caged, but I shall never be fully satisfied till they dance with the rope about their necks." ' But the further wish, which he had confined himself to hinting — that the same fate might also overtake othei's, doubtless referring to the King of Navarre, the Prince of Conde, and above all, the Duke of Alen- 9on — -had not been fulfilled. Alengon still lived, and might at any moment be suppoi-ted as a candidate for the crown, if not by French arms, at least by the arms of the troublesome neigh- bors and allies of France. Indeed, no sooner had William of Orange heard that Charles was dead than he wrote that it was now time that the German princes should put forth every exer- tion to secure the crown for the Duke of Alen9on.- The ambition of his brother was not the only, nor, perhaps, the chief danger to be apprehended by Henry. All France The Hugue- was in commotiou. The Huguenots were in arms, notsinarms. The bloody niassacre of two years before, beginning in Paris, and repeating itself throughout the provinces, had not crushed them. The perfidy of the court had made them more wary, the evident determination of their enemies to compass their destruction had made them more resolute than ever to stand for their defence. Their recent struggle had been insti- tuted rather with the desperation of men determined to sell their lives as dear as possible, than with any distinct hope of success; the fav^orable issue of many of their enterprises had converted the conflict into a war for the recovery of the rights pledged by solemn royal edicts. They were not crouching at tlie feet of a conqueror, and suing for their lives ; but demand- ing liberty of religions worship in their sanctuaries, and satis- faction for the treachery practised upon their brethren in the ' " Si jamais j'eus joye, c'a est6 quand j'ay s^eu que La Mole et Coconas sont en caige, mais jusques a ce que le Seigneur qui les traictoit si doucement a la Rochelle ou un sien compaiguon les halt fait dancer avecque la corde la [votte], je ne seray pas bien satisfait." Henry of Anjou to M. de Nancay, May 10, 1574, Groen van Prinsterer, iv. 375. ■■^ "Et seroit maintenant temps que les Princes d'Allemaigne fissent tout debvoir possible pour faire donner la Couronne an Due d'Alencon." Letter of the Prince of Orange, June, 1574, Groen van Prinsterer, v. 13. 12 THE HUGUENOTS AND HENRY OF NAVARRE. Ch. L faith. Either their demands must be granted, or their armed forces must be met in the field, and their strongholds carried at the point of the sword. And the problem was complicated by Revival of the remarkable revival of the feudal spirit which the feudalism. Jatjer half of the sixteenth century was destined to witness — a revival which, if it obtained its full development only in the reign that was just beginning, must be regarded as deriving its first powerful impulse from the reign of Charles the Xinth. The king that undertook to wage war with a por- tion of his subjects, found himself compelled to purchase the support of the leading nobles in each pi-ovince by the tacit acknowledgment of privileges which, when once conceded, as- sured to them a species of local independence. The vicious system of the transmission of civil and military oflfices from parent to child received a dangerous corroboration. The son was trained from his earliest days to regard the dignities and territorial authority of his father as his own just inheritance; and any attempt or threat of the crown to confer them upon another, no matter how much more competent he might be for the discharge of the functions connected therewith, was re- sented as an insult, and was sure to lead to open resistance. The great nobles were almost sovereign princes in their gov- ernments or provinces, the original gift of the ancestors of the reigning monarch ; ' they could be removed only by a war that might convulse the kingdom. And the consideration which they demanded from their lord paranaount was exacted of them in turn by the members of the inferior nobility, to whom had been entrusted the administration of dioceses, cities, or castles. ' "Many of the greatest lords, some secretly, some openly, were alienated," sa3'S Davila, in speaking of this period ; " and divers of those who had most experience in affairs, most authority with the people, and most reputation in war, were already (if I may use that word), cantomzed in their several prov- inces and governments. ' Eng. trans, (book vi.), p. 203. Cf. Lestoile's desig- nation, in 1583 ( i. 162), of Montmorency, formerly Damville, as " gouverneur ou pour mieux dire roy de Languedoc." So, too ( i. 63), when speaking of the refusal of the Baron de RufFee, Governor of Angouleme, to admit Alengon (1575), despite repeated orders of the king and of Catharine de' Medici, " des- quelles les gouverneurs faisoient fort peu d'estat en ce temps de' guerre, estans rois eux-mesmes." 1574. ACCESSION OF HENRY OF VALOIS. 13 Insubordination was rapidly becoming not the exception but tlie rule. Soon Henry the Third would have occasion to make the bitter remark: " See what civil wars come to! Formerly it would have puzzled a constable, a prince of the blood, to make a party in France ; now the very varlets make one." ' It was almost a necessary consequence of this relaxation of the bonds of the central government that disorder often ran riot, with few to stop its progress/ Evidently Henry must lose no imnecessary time in returning to France, in accordance with the entreaties of his mother. But how should he accomplish his object, in view of the King of the obstacles which the Poles would certainly inter- pose ? The king's most candid and prudent advisers, Bellievre and Pibrac, counselled him to adopt the manly course. Let him consult with his Polish nobles ; let him establish order, and impart that confidence which Poland, so long a prey to dis- cord and confusion, greatly needed ; and then let him, with the consent of his subjects, and followed by their good wishes, re- A'isit France. At the price of a delay which might, indeed, be tedious, and extend over months, but which would save him the loss of a crown for the acquisition of which much trouble and money had been expended not a year ago, Henry would render himself beloved, and gain a power that might be of great im- portance to his own ancestral dominions. On the other hand, Villequier, Souvre, and others — ministers of the king's pleas- ures— recommended an instant i-etreat from a region distasteful to Henry under any circumstances, and now doubly I'epulsive. Since this step could not be taken openly, let it be accomplished in secrecy. The disgrace sure to attach to the cowardly act was set forth by Pibrac, but all in vain. It was a part of the mis- fortune that always seemed to cling to the last Valois king of ' Lestoile (November, 1575), i. 62. ' The incident related by Claude Haton (ii. 770-773), although in some re- spects characteristic of the period, can scarcely be regarded as directly trace- able to the source indicated in the text. Tlie leader of the band of several hundred marauders who, for some days or weeks, struck terror into the in- habitants of the towns and villages of Brie, and killed, plundered, and rav- ished with little armed opposition, had raised his robber-soldiers under the warrant of forged letters of the king. 14 THE HUGUENOTS AND HENRY OF NAVARRE. Ch. L France that he gave a more ready hearing to bad than to good advice.' There is no need that the details of the precipitate and un- kingly flight from Cracow to Vienna should here be repeated. Never did monarch begin his reign by a more inauspicious act, His escape or give clearer proof to the world that pusillanimity from Cracow, jj^^y easily cocxist with exalted station. If the bril- liancy of his entertainment by the emperor could have com- pensated for the ignominy of his own course, Henry might have recovered his self-respect when once he had gotten be- yond the reach of his pursuers. But it may well be doubted whether all the imperial courtesies, accompanied bj' the sug- gestion that Henry should marry his brother's widow, were sufficient to obliterate from his mind the contrast between the circumstances attending his advent to Poland and those of his departure. From Vienna the French king proceeded after a short stay to Venice, where he was received with eveiy mark of profound Henry at respect, and entertained with a pomp that dazzled Venice. ^jjg gygg ^yi spectators. " As Venice surpasses all other cities of Italy," says a contemporary, " so during his sojourn of ten days did Venice seem to have outdone itself in the magnificence of its banquets and spectacles."^ It was, however, but sorry fruit of so much splendor, if, as his own at- tendants asserted, Henry became, from the moment of his visit to the luxurious republic of the Adriatic, a changed per- son, appearing to have lost all manhood, and to have become weakly and effeminate.' If Henry had been in haste to start for his native land, he now showed no disposition to hurry away from the enchantments of Italy. Accompanied by the Duke of Savoy, who had come to do him honor, he leisurely made his progress, stopping successively at Ferrara, at Mantua, ' De Thou, V. 55, 56 ; Jean de Serres, v. fols. 18-20. ^ " Tanta conviviorum et spectaciilorum magnificentia, ut Venetia, quae omnes Italiae urbes superat, seipsam tunc superasse omnino videatur. " Jeau de Serres, v. fol. 24. 2 Ibid., V. fol. 25. The lascivious displaj'S to which Henry was treated were as unworthy of the doge who afforded them as they seem to liave been enervating to the young prince by whom they were witnessed. 1574. ACCESSION OF HENRY OF VALOIS. 15 and at Turin, It was not until the second anniversary of the massacre of St. Bartholomew's day (the twenty-fourth of Au- gust, ISTi), that he reached the capital of the Duke of Savoy, whose devoted services to the French monarch were amply re- warded by the impolitic cession of Pignerol and Savillian, with the Valley of Perouse. These places had been left in the hands of the French, according to the terms of the Treaty of Cateau Cambresis, as security for the restitution of those pos- sessions of France which were still in the power of the Duke of Savoy. They were now given up without an equivalent, con- trary to the advice of the best generals of France.' It is time, however, that we should turn to the operations of the Huguenots during the months that elapsed between the Huguenot death of Charles and the arrival of Henry in French leaders. territory. When the luckless " Enterprise of Saint Germain " came to an inglorious end, through the treachery or cowardice of Alen9on, about three months before the conclu- sion of the last reign, the Prince of Conde, more fortunate than his cousin, the King of Kavarre, succeeded in making good his escape from Picardy into Germany. The younger Montmorencies, the Sieurs de Thore and Meru, joining him in his exile, added to his authority the prestige of the name of the oldest noble family in France. Conde, in view of the in- voluntary restraint of Alen9on and ls"avarre, assumed the dig- nity of the first prince of the blood. With the restless activity characteristic of that impetuous prince, Henry of Conde wrote or sent messengers in every di- The Prince I'Gction, whcncc help for the persecuted Huguenots of Conde. might be expected. Again and again, feeling the need of good advice, he begged the magistrates of Geneva to " lend " him Theodore Beza, their most prominent religious teacher, scarcely less highly valued as a priadent counsellor in political affairs than prized as a learned theologian and an elo- quent preacher. In fact, so frequent and inconvenient did his calls become that at last even the self-denying Genevese grew tired, and suggested that Conde should henceforth obtain the desired counsel from the pen rather than from the lips of the ' De Thou, V. 100, 116-118 ; Jean de Serres, v. foL 27. 16 THE HUGUENOTS AND HENRY OF NAVARRE. Ch. 1. reformer. Ou one occasion the prince came in person to Geneva, and there received a flattering welcome. The Coun- cil, whose notions of the sanctity of the Lord's Day seem to have been somewhat lax, among other tokens of good will, voted to " feast " Conde and his principal attendants ; and the banquet, at which, we are told with great precision, six tables were spread, was set down for Sunday, the third of October.' There, by letters and messages, aroused the dormant energies of his brother. Marshal Damville, and impressed upon him the necessity of instituting a vigorous struggle to rescue from life- long imprisonment, if not from death, the captive head of the family, Marshal Montmorency, the Constable's oldest son.^ From Strasbourg and Basle, as from a centre, went forth the influences that for two years maintained the Huguenots in the field, enlisted in their behalf the sympathy and substantial sup- port of the Protestant Princes of Germany, and finally secured very favorable terms of peace. The importance of the Prot- estant court on the banks of the Rhine may best be ganged by the care taken by Catharine de' Medici to maintain a body of salaried spies about Conde and his Huguenot companions, to keep her well informed respecting all their movements. She could scarcely have exhibited more solicitude to learn the secrets of a rival capital.' The Huguenot arms fared differently in the Is orth and in the South. Everything went ill with the Protestants in Normandy Losses in siuce the capture of Coimt Montgomery at the sur- Normandy. pender of Douifront, three days before the decease of King Charles. In her glee at having finally gotten posses- sion of the unfortunate knight who had been the instrument of the death of her husband, Catharine de' Medici did not wait for Henry's return from Poland, but hastened Montgom- > Henri Fazy, Geneve, le Parti Huguenot et le Traite de Soleure, 16, 28. - Jean de Serres, v. fol. 8. ' " Neque obscuri runiores serebantur, Politicorum illorum uon paucos pri- marife notse, ReginK opere et artibus succenturiatos, ad Condaeum in eum finem accedere, wt illius consilia explorarent." Jean de Serres, v. fols. 17, 18. Agrippa d' Aubigne (Hist, imiv., ii. ITG, 177) pretends to give the number of the paid spies kept by Catharine about her sou Aleuijou and Navarre as exactly twenty-six. 1574. ACCESSION OF HENRY OF VALOIS. 17 ei-j's trial, and had the satisfaction of seeing hiui beheaded for treason on the Place de Greve, while Henry was still in Vi- enna.' Deprived of their leader, and overwhelmed by superior numbers, the ]S^orman Huguenots lost one place after another. Saint-L6 was taken by assault, and two hundred men of its garrison were piit to the edge of the sword ; Carentan obtained honorable terms and surrendered without a blow," It was otherwise in Languedoc and Dauphiny. Marshal Damville, Governor of Languedoc, althoiigh he apprehended that he might soon be compelled to make common cause with the Hu- sruenots, at first merely concluded a ti'uce with them : Marshal o ? t/ ? Damville and for, if he distrustcd the Roman Catholic partv, he th6 Pari 13- V-i ment of had certainly no affection for the Protestants. Even the truce, however, displeased the bigots of Toulouse ; especially as the truce was to be followed by a convocation of the three estates of the province at Montpellier. So the Par- liament of Toulouse ventured upon the bold step of defying tlitJ marshal's authority by two public declarations. By the one the judges declared the truce to be null and void ; while by the other they forbade all persons, of whatever rank or sta- tion, from attending an assembly called by the marshal without the king's permission, on pain of being declared rebels and transgressors of the laws of the realm.' It was not long, how- ever, before the judges had more substantial i-easons for solici- tude in the capture of the important city of Castres, situated Capture of Igss than forty miles eastward of the seat of their castrea. parliament. Four times had the Protestant exiles from Castres sought to recover their homes from tlie hands of the enemy, and four times had they signally failed. Now, on the eve of a day of mournful associations for French Protes- tants (the twenty-third of August, 1574), a fifth attempt, planned and carried out with equal shrewdness and daring, proved altogether successful. The chronicler of the exploit has noted as worthy of everlasting remembrance the humble but glorious names of the thirteen braves, who, under the leader- ' Rise of the Huguenots, ii. 631-634. - De Thou, v. 63. ' Recueil des choses memorables, 511 : Jean de Series, v. fols. 5, 6; De Thou, V. 65. Vol. I.— 2 18 THE HUGUENOTS AND HENRY OF NAVARRE. Ch. I. ship of the gallant Jean de Bouffard, Sieur de la Grange, forced their way in, through dangers that might well have appalled less determined men. It was one of the most glorious enterprises of a time abounding in venturesome undertakings.' In Dau- phiny, where the experienced Huguenot Montbrun was con- fronted by the Roman Catholic Prince Dauphin, eldest son of the Duke of Bourbon-Montpensier,'' success perched alternately on the one and the other standard. Here a town of small size and of no previous or subsequent importance suddenly acquired celeb- rity in consequence of the two sieges which it underwent. Li- First siege of vron, a place scarcely deserving a more pretentious Livron. designation than that of a simple village, was situated on tjie northern bank of tlie river Drome near its confluence with the Rhone, not more than ten or twelve miles sonth of the episcopal city of Yalence. Its very proximity to Yalence, ■ See the long and interesting account in Jacques Gaclies, " Memoires sur las guerres de religion a Castres et dans le Languedoc " (first published by Charles Pradel in 1879), 174, etc. Among the most conspicuous of the thirteen w^re two brothers Jacques and Antoine Mascarenc, or Mascarene, one of whom may Jiave been the progenitor of the Huguenot confessor and refugee for religion's sake, Jean Mascarene, whose story is told, iind whose remarkable letters are printed, in the History of the Huguenot Emigration to America, by Charles AV. Baird, ii. 124-127, and Appendix, 344-377. - Francjois de Bourbon, Prince Dauphin d'Auvergne (such was the terri- torial designation of the eldest son of the Duke of Montpensier), was a half- brother of the Princess Charlotte de Bourbon, whom, about a year subsequent to these occurrences (June 12, 157.5), the Prince of Orange married after the divorce of the iiuhappy Anne of Saxony. (See Groen van Prinsterer, v. 812 ; Motley, Dutch Republic, iii. 21.) Charlotte had been secretly brought up by her mother, Jacqueline de Longwy, in the Protestant faith. This faith she never renounced. In 1559, an aunt having resigned in her favor the rich abbacy of Jouarre, Charlotte was forced to obey her father and enter the con- vent ; not, however, before she had signed before a notary a protest against the act as one of constraint. The abbess embraced, in 1572, the first oppor- tunity to escape from the convent and from France, taking refuge at the court of the elector palatine in Heidelberg. The elector refused to give her up to her father, unless the promise were first given that she should enjoy her religious liberty. De Thou, iv. .533, 534 ; Haag, La France protestante t2nd edit.), art. Bourbon-Montpensier, ii. 1088, 1089. Her brother became Duke of Montpensier on the death of his father (Louis), in September, 1582 (De Thou, vi. 205). He was, like his father, a devout Roman Catholic ; but, unlike him, he was fair and conciliatory in liis sentiments toward the Protes- tants. His son, Henry, died without male heirs iu 1608. 1574. ACCESSION OP HENRY OP VALOIS. 19 while causing it to be overlooked by the Roman Catholics, added to its attractions for the adventurous Montbrun. This sagacious general, finding that Livi-on had become the refuge of many of the Huguenots of the neighborhood, labored to strengthen its weak fortifications, and worked to such good pur- pose that, when the Prince Dauphin undertook the siege, the Huguenots not only held their own, but sallying forth captured an ensign, spiked a lai-ge cannon brought to bear against their walls, and compelled the assailants to suspend for the time their offensive operations.' In tlie West of France tranquillity seemed for a time to be secured. A truce was effected by La None between the Roman Catholics and the Huguenots of Poitou, Saintonge, and Angoumois, according to the terms of which the Protestant garrisons were to receive a considerable monthly subsidy. It was stipulated that the truce should last for two months, by which time the return of Henry was ex- pected ; scarcely had a month elapsed when Catharine had set on foot a powerful army to overwhelm the Huguenots taken at unawares." It was fortunate that the eye of La Noue had descried the danger fi-om afar, and that he had adopted meas- ures accordingly. Meanwhile, before engaging in active hostilities, the Prince of Conde published to the world a statement of the causes which oonde's had led him to retire from the French court with a deciar,.tion. ^^^^ noUes and gentlemen of both religions. The " Declaration " was an impeachment of the house of Guise for all the high crimes and misdemeanors of which it had been ' Recueil des choses memorables, 512 ; De Thou, v. 65, 66 ; Jean de Serres, V. fol. 9. The first siege of Livron began June 23, and lasted only a few days. ^ Recueil des choses memorables, 514, 518 ; De Thou, v. 64, 09 ; Inventaire general de I'Histoire de France (Geneva, 1619), ii. 472. Although the name of Jean de Serres is upon the title-page of the " Inventaire," it must be re- membered that Serres is the autlior of the work only so far as page 598 of the first volume (to the death of Charles VI.). The continuation was written by the inferior liand of Jean de Montlyard (Anquetil, Esprit de la Ligue, i. p. Ixvi.), who drew, however, so largely upon the "Recueil,"' and the " Com- mentarii "—genuine works of Serres — that the "Inventaire,'" in the period now imder consideration, is substantially the production of the voluminous and invaluable historian to whom we are so greatly indebted for our close knowledge of the events of the reigns of Charles IX. and Henry III. 20 THE HUGUENOTS AM) HENRY OF NAVARRE. Ch. I. guilty during the last fifteen years. Everv feature of the course of the duke and his brothers was passed in review. The snrvej began with the abuse of their power over their nephew Francis the Second, to secure the total extinction of the royal family. It was God, not jnau, said Conde, that saved the Bour- bons from destruction. Xext came the massacre of Yassy, whereby Francis of Guise paved the way for every subsequent outrage. Four successive wars had been ended by as many edicts of pacification, each edict perfidiously violated at the in- stigation and by the acts of the Guises. The massacre of St. Bartholomew's day, not limited to the murder of Admiral Coligny nor confined to the capital, deluged the whole of France with innocent blood. It was a crime perpetrated in the king's name, after the commission of which letters, as from him, were despatched in every direction to princes and to commonwealths, letters infamous both for France and for Charles himself. The climax of crime was reached when the memory of Gaspard de Coligny was branded as that of a traitor, when Xavarre and Conde were compelled to abjure the purer faith in which they had been educated, and when, afterward, they were forced against their will to take part at the siege of La Rochelle in a warfare against their fellow-believers. Before this city the Guises had, in fact, entered into a plot to assassinate Alengon, Xavarre, and the writer himself — a plot that would have been carried into execu- tion had not Anjou, the present King of Poland and the legiti- mate successor to the French crown, interfered to save him. At length, when Alen9on found himself not only the object of the murderous attacks of the Guises, but defrauded of the posi- tion of lieutenant-general of the kingdom lawfully belonging to him on Anjou's departure, and treated with studied indignity, the duke resolved to withdraw from France and to seek refuge with old and tried allies of the realm. The plan having been discovered, Alengon had been thrown into confinement, as though he had plotted to take the life of his own brother, Charles the Ninth. Conde alone had succeeded, by the kind providence of the Almighty, in making his escape, and avoiding the still more terrible fate in preparation against himself. While distinctly recognizing Henry the Third as his rightful 1574. ACCESSION OP HENRY OP VALOIS. 21 sovereign, the prince declared the demands of the Huguenots to be briefly comprehended in three : The provisional conces- sion of universal religious liberty ; the satisfaction of the honor of the victims of the massacre of St. Bartholomew's day ; and the convocation of the states general of the kingdom in a free and legitimate manner. Such, with sundry complaints, somewhat stale it nuist be confessed, respecting the prevalence of immorality, blasphemy, and dissoluteness of dress, the op- pressive taxation of the people, and kindred topics, constitute the chief contents of a paper Avhich may well be regarded as the most authoritative declaration of the principles for which the Huguenots were in arms.' At the very moment when the prince was giving to the world this public announcement of his designs, the Huguenots held in the city of Milhau-en-Rouergue a political assembly Smwr'at^ of more than ordinary importance. The South of Miihau. France alone was directly represented — Languedoc, Daupliiny, and Guyenne ; from the Is orth and West no delegates were able to come on account of the desolations of war. In the deliberations now held, the terms of alliance with Marshal Damville were settled, subject only to the acceptance of the latter ; while, on the other hand, the Prince of Conde was recognized as generalissimo, on condition that he should appear before the elector palatine, his son John Casimir, and the deputies of the churches, at the close of divine worship, and there take a solemn oath of fidelity to the Protestant cause. The prince was to promise in particular to live and die in the faith of the Reformed churches, and to exert all his powers for the defence of that faith and for the procuring of a public peace without religious distinctions. He was to engage never to lay down his arms without the consent of his co-religionists. He was to labor assiduously for the liberation of Alen9on, Navarre, and Marshals Montmorency and Cosse, for the removal of foreigners from office, and for the appeasing of all controversies by the convocation of the states general." ' Jean de Serres, v. fols. 11-14 ; Recueil des choses niL-morables, 515. The latter gives the date, July 12, 1574. ^ De Then, v. G8 ; Recueil des choses memorables, 510, 517 ; Jean de Serres, 22 THE HUGUENOTS AND HENRY OF NAVARRE. Ch. L It cannot be said that the new relations into which the Huguenots were on the point of entering were altogether satis- factory to the maiority of the adherents of the party. Opposition to , . i , • i . , alliance with 1 hc stru£rme which they had carried on with coin- the rolitiques. / , paratively brier intermissions tor the past fourteen years was a struggle not so much to defend civil rights as to maintain religious life. Reluctant as the Protestants had been to draw the sword in so holy a cause, they had been recon- ciled to this wretched necessity by the hope that they might be able to maintain, in the midst of the horrors of warfare and the temptations of the camp, a discipline so strict and exemplary as to elicit the approval of the most prejudiced of their opponents. For a time, under really devout and conscientious leaders, the Huguenot armies had in some measure realized this exalted ideal. The lapses from the religious and moral standard had, however, been deplorably numerous ; and if it might still be asserted with truth that the Huguenot soldiers could generally be distinguished from the Roman Catholic troops by a higher tone of morals, by a closer adherence to truth, by an absence of profane oaths and blasphemous expressions, and by the fact that they were less addicted to the crying sin of the times, a foulness of speech and of writing almost beyond conception — if all this might be asserted with truth, yet it must be admitted that the contrast, altogether honorable to their faith, was at- tained only by the application of ecclesiastical laws and regula- tions whose severity the Roman Catholics derided as absurd and tyrannical. What, then, could be expected from an alliance with Damville and the Roman Catholics of his suite who made no pretence of affection for Protestantism ? It is true that the marshal was to pledge his word not to introduce the Romish service into any town of which the Huguenots were masters ; but could he promise that his soldiers would not introduce Roman Catholic manners and practices into Huguenot armies ? Among warriors fighting under the same colors how could different standards of discipline be established for the different corps ? V. fols. 8, 14-17. In complaining of the unlawful participation of foreigners in the public administration, the Huguenots stated that they did not mean to include the queen mother. 1574. ACCESSION OF HENRY OF VALOIS. 23 Besides, the marshal himself was not above reproach, and his dissolute life, even if temporarily veiled by an appearance of decency and self-control, could not be forgotten by those ac- quainted with his past history.' And yet we cannot be astonished, nor can we condemn ^vith severity the Huguenot leaders if they accepted the proffered help of the great Montmorency of the South. Huguenot and The alliance Politique had a common enemy and, partly, common a necessity, grievaiices. Botli denied the legitimacy of the system under which France had been governed for many years ; both demanded that foreigners be deprived of the imdue share of the administration which they held, and that the wall of the nation be consulted through the states general ; both were in- dignant that a regent should pretend to detain in confinement the nearest princes of the blood and the noblest subjects of the crown. Those that ai-e smarting under the same injuries read- ily join in measures for mutual defence, and often scan each other's character with less particularity than might really be advisable. Meantime, while the confederates were justifying themselves by a public manifesto declaring their reasons and designs, and while the success of the Roman Catholic army under Mont- pensier in the West was balanced by the sui-prise of Castres, in the South, all France looked with eager anxiety for the young king's decision. It was early in autumn (tlie sixth of September) when Henry reached Lyons. In the vicinity he had been met by his mother.' Jsow that he was once more on his native The question •■, • ■ i iiiin ii> of religious soil it was time that he should adopt some deti- toleration. . , . . , pi- i nite policy respecting the government of his ancestral kingdom. Peace or w'ar, the toleration of dissent from the established Church, or the continuation of the old course of ' " Et ipso et ipsius comitatu nihil erat libidinosius neque effoeminatius, ipse spurcis ainoribus deditissimus, ' etc. Jean de Seri es, v. fol. 37. I quite agree with Ranke (Civil Wars and Monarchy in France, Amer. ed. 291) that Jean de Serres, or Serranus, is probably the best authority for this period. ' "The king came to this town on the sixtli, the queen mother, the Dukes of Alengon and Savoy being with him in the coach, and the King of Navarr j 24 THE HUGUENOTS AXD HENTIY OF XAVARRE. Ch. L persecution : the liberation of Marshal Montmorency, or a re- lentless conflict with the younger sons of the late constable — with Thore now engaged in collecting forces in Germany : above all. with Damville, the most powerful governor of South- ern France, having nnder control the resources of the rich pro- \'ince of Languedoc from the gates of Toulouse to the banks of the river Ehone — such were the alternatives confronting the returning king, and between them he must make a prompt decision. AYhat Henry desired is not doubtful. The last Yalois was no lover of warfare. Xot that he was either deticieut in a cer- tain sort of bravery or altogether insensible to the attractions of military distinction. Ilis campaign against the Huguenots had won him glory, when acting as his brother's lieutenant-general, and at the siege of La Rochelle he had exposed himself to dan- ger to an extent that raised the apprehensions of his mother. !Xow, however, martial aspirations were altogether a thing of Henrvs tastes psLSt. His tastes wcre all pacific. If he had pacific. sighed when forsaking the delights of the French court and turning his reluctant steps toward the frozen north, his sojourn among the rough and uncultivated Poles had not tended to make Paris less dear. His escape fi-om his late un- congenial surroundings appeared to be a true emancipation from bondage. Every stage in his homeward progress had con- firmed these impressions. Vienna, Venice, Turin had only been stations on the way to the terrestrial paradise awaiting him in France. For its fruition, however, peace was an indis- pensable condition, ^ar was too expensive. War would des- olate the country, and render whole provinces incapable of fur- nishing their accustomed tribute. War swallowed up the treasure which royal luxury demanded for its own use. War distracted the minds of men fi'ora pleasure, the only proper pursuit of rational beings, and especially of kings and courtiers. on horseback bv the coach. The queen mother and most of the court went to meet him twelve leagues in his way. He keeps far greater state than has been used heretofore." Dr. Dale to Sir Thomas Smith and Francis Wal- singham, Lyons, September 11, 157-L State Paper Office. 1574. ACCESSION OP HENRY OF V ALOIS. 25 ■Accordingly, no sooner had Henry collected his thoughts and begun to realize the wonderful piece of good fortune that had befallen him in his accession to the throne, though only the fourth son and the sixth child of his father,' than he resolved to have peace at any cost. " Use every exertion," he had writ- ten to Catharine de' Medici, " to find the means of coming to an arrangement with the rebels, and, if possible, to quiet my kingdom." ' In fact, if we may credit implicitly the king's own statements made in a very remarkable letter to Villeroy, writ- ten just ten years later, Henry had found time, on his jour- ney, to reflect maturely upon the real wants of France, and His first in- i^^^, from a consideration of these, and independently tentions. jjjg q^^^ persoual preferences, reached the very same conclusions. It was with deep regret that he afterward recognized the mistake he had made in permitting himself to follow a different course. The pivotal point in his plan was the immediate convocation of the states general of the kingdom. This body would naturally devise the best measures for the interests of France entire, and its determinations would com- mand obedience both from Huguenot and from Roman Cath- olic ; or, if defied, could easily be enforced by royal authority. By the States, too, arrangements could be made for the pay- ment of the debt, and for tlie thorough reform of the financial system. Finally, when the domestic affairs of the kingdom, both religious and civil, had been placed on a firm and equita- ble basis, Henry would himself demand of foreign nations so definite a settlement by treaty of their mutual relations as to preclude future interference in the concerns of France on the part of any of its neighbors.^ ' Besides Francis and Charles he had another elder brother, Louis, who died in infancy. His sisters, Elizabeth (Isabella), who married Philip the Second, and Claude, wife of Charles the Third, Duke of Lorraine, were also older than Henry. • "II Re ha scritto alia Regina, madre sua, che si faccia ogni opera, per tro- var modi di accordarsi con li ribelli, e per quietare, si e possibile, questo regno.'' Alamanni to Grand Duke, Paris, August 5, 1574, Negociations di- plomatiques avec la Toscane, iv. IS. ■Henry III. to Villeroy, Lyons, August 14, 1584, Groen van Prinsterer, Archives de la maison d Oraiige-Nassau, Premiere serie. Supplement, 233. 26 THE HUGUENOTS AND HENRY OF NAVARRE. Ch. L If, indeed, Heniy really devised so wise a plan, liis good reso- lutions ought to have been confinned by the advice he received. Good advice Vienna the emperor warned him that there is no %Tot&ni great as that of treating with violence the con- doge, victions of others. " Those who undertake to make themselves masters of men's consciences," Maximilian signifi- cantly added, " while they think to conquer heaven, often lose the earth." ' So, too, at Venice the doge, Mocenigo, had not confined himself to congratulating Henry in the presence of the senate, upon his accession to the throne, and wishing him a liappy return to his native land ; he also added a suggestion to the effect that the most appropriate manner of restoring peace to France was to abolish the unfortunate memory of the crimes and errors committed on both sides, by an edict not more sol- emnly given than scrupulously observed by the king. This politic course, he said, would conduce both to the dignity and to the safety of the monarch himself. That was not all. "When the public services of Henry's reception by the senate wei-e over, and all witnesses were removed, Mocenigo proceeded to give the young king, in the name of the senate, the advice to apply his mind seriously to peace, and to disregard the warlike counsels given to Henry, as he had learned, by the papal legate.^ More- over, long before the king reached France, an envoy of the Of the elector clcctor palatine was in Paris on his way to meet palatine, Heury and inform him that unless certain conditions were granted — the liberation of marshals, the restoration of Damville, his brothers, and the Prince of Conde, to favor, etc. — it would be impossible to keep back the reiters ; an invasion of France from the side of Germany was inevitable.' William of ' Recueil des choses memorables, 523. - This incident is vouched for by Jean de Series, an nnimpeachable author- ity. He states that he had the account directly from a very illustrious person- age who was in Venice at the time and was acquainted with the most intimate affairs of state. Commentarii de statu rel. et reipubl., v. fol. 24. Agrippa d'Au- bigne also (ii. 132) makes the doge give good counsel as to keeping faith with subjects. ' Alamanni to the Grand Duke, August 5, 1574, ubi supra. The elector pala- tine, had, in fact, given virtually this advice in the last days of Charles IX. " Le dit Sr. Electeur a mande a S. M. par le dit Fregouse qu'il ne voit que 1574 ACCESSION OF HENRY OF VALOIS. 27 Orange joined in the advice so unanimously given by the most trusty allies of the king, and gave to the bearer of a letter con- ffratulatino- Henry upon his accession special instruc- Prince of tious to Urge him to rollow the promptings or adispo- orange. gition kindly by nature, and, remembering that he was now the " father of his country," to use all clemency and ten- derness toward his subjects. The prince even went so far as to hint that thus Henry might, in time, reach the Imperial dignity to which his ancestors and predecessors had so long aspired.' To these advocates of peace must be added Henry's late host, the Duke of Savoy, who was one of the most urgent." Is or did Queen Elizabeth, slowly as she was apt to move in such matters, refi-ain from giving the young king some good advice. She sent Lord Xorth on a special embassy to influence Henry to pacific and tolerant measures. " If he sa}- " — so ran Special in- . . n • • i structionsof jS oi'tli s lustructioiis — it IS iiot honoraolc tor princes Lord North. . . , , . , . . , . . to capitulate with their subjects, or permit diversity of religion, or that large offers have been made to ' them of the religion ' which they refuse to accept, he is to declare to him how much more honorable it would be for him to remit part of that worldly respect of honor for the benefit of his realm and of all Christendom, and to think that the true honor of a loving prince is to recover his subjects rather by mildness than the sword." And the queen not only fortified her position by his- torical examples, but boldly combated prevailing misapprehen- sions by asserting " that the permission of diversity of religion ^ leads not to the unquietness that is pretended." She even de- fended the Huguenots from the charge of unreasonable suspi- cion, and frankly told Henry that " why they of the religion deux moyens de bien composer toutes choses, S(^avoir une liberty d'exercice de la religion generalement partout, et apres qu'on sera retire, chacun chez soy, une convocation d'Estatz pour entendre les plaintes des subjects et les y pour- voir." La Huguerye to tbe Prince of Orange, May, 1574, Groeu van Prinsterer, Archives de la maison d'Orange-Nassau, Supplement, 165*. ' Instruction accompanying a letter of the Prince of Orange to Henry III., September 27, 1574, Groeu van Prinsterer, v. 61. - "The Duke of Savoy is a great furtherer of the peace, and the queen mother and her chancellor the greatest persuaders to war. '' Dr. Dale to Smith and Walsingham, September 11, 1574, State Paper Office. 28 THE HUGUENOTS AND HENRY OF NAVARRE. Ch. I. refuse without greater assurance sucli offers as he made to them, she takes to proceed for that the edicts of the late king were not as well observed as was his intention." ' It was an excellent state paper. Dr. Dale declared to Walsingham that he never had seen a thing better done in his life than his penning of Lord Xortli's instructions ; significantly adding that, " if it would please the queen to work somewhat in deeds withal, it might work some good effect." ' Unfortunately, these were not Henry's only counsellors. Others beset his ears who were all for war ; and these had both greater facilities for reaching him, and sufficiently specious Intolerant rcasous to allege. If the papal legate urged the old i>ope'lnd°the arguments against an^- compacts made with heretics, queen mother, reminding Ilcnrv of the sanguinarj' precepts so often reiterated by Pius the Fifth, there were plenty besides to call his attention to the dishonor which, they said, would attach to a peace conceded by a sovereign to subjects in rebellion. Before Henry reached Lyons, it was known by well-informed diploma- tists that Catharine de' Medici and Chancellor Birague, above all, were leaving no stone unturned to prevent the conclusion of peace with the Huguenots and Politiques. Xor were their motives obscure. The chancellor, as the author of the arrests of the marshals, had good reason to fear that, with the end of the war and the restoration of the Montmorencies to power, would come his own disgrace and fall. The queen mother, alarmed for her own ascendency, had again resigned herself to the direction of the Cardinal of Lorraine. It is quite true that the prelate avoided all parade of his influence, and employed the chancellor as the instrument of accomplishing his designs ; but the latter never ventured to take a step without consulting him. As for Catharine, " she trusted the cardinal more than she trusted herself," and made little account of the general dis- satisfaction created by her course. It was only a few days after the meeting of mother and son that the Florentine envoy wrote home that Henry professed to be desirous of doing everytliing ' lustructious to Lord North, in special embassage to the French king, Oc- tober 5, 1574, State Paper Office. ■' Dr. Dale to Walsingham, November 3, 1574, State Paper Office. 1574. ACCESSION OF HENRY OF VALOIS. 29 that Catharine might want. But to this statement lie added another not less significant, which may serve to throw light on much of this unhappy king's subsequent mistakes and errors. " If he were disposed to do otherwise, I know not whither he could turn for counsel." ' An intelligent agent of Queen Elizabeth gave much the same account. The queen mother's authority he declared to be as ample as ever. Henry's travels had added little to his knowledge, and, though more in show and countenance " than liis late brother, he was in reality "far more simple" than Charles. The greatest matters of state were " carried away " by Catharine and Chancellor Birague, with Chiverny support- ing whatever they chose to agree upon. The rest of the coun- cil, indeed, advocated peace, but these three were urgent for war, so that the poor king " floated between the storm and the rock." Though appalled by the present misery of himself and of his country, the queen mother's " pestiferous " advice had cast a spell over him.^ Catharine had not waited for Henry's arrival to begin to exert over him that nefarious influence of which it seemed catharine-s f^tcd that cacli of licr SOUS successively should be the influence. victim. Fearful of the effect of the tolerant counsels he had received from foreign princes, alarmed at the influence which Pibrac and other advocates of toleration among the French themselves were acquiring, apprehensive of a mutation amounting to little less than a revolution should her son return and i-epudiate the policy pursued by his mother during the re- gency, Catharine had despatched to Turin, Chiverny, Yille- quier, and others, agents well adapted to the work of prejudic- ing Henry's mind against the best class of his subjects.' And the task imposed upon them was not a difficult one. Henry had been nurtured in hatred and jealousy of the Montmorencies and of their cousins the Chatillous. He had been a boon com- ' See the important letters of Alamanni to the Grand Duke, September 6, and September 18, 1574, Negociations avec la Toscaue, iv. 18, 25. - Thomas Wilkes to Walsingham, Lyons, November 4, 1547, State Paper Office. 2 De Thou, V. (book 58) 98, 99. 30 THE HUGUENOTS AND HENRY OF NAVARRE. Ch. 1 panion of Heniy of Guise. True, all three of the Chatillons — the married cardinal, the indomitable admiral, and the " fear- less knight"- — were in their graves. But the Montmorencies still lived. What Henry of Guise — the former comrade of Anjou's mad antics — was to prove himself to be, did not yet appear. A year's absence from France had not lifted Henry of Valois above the petty factions of the court. Besides, when his very mother had forgotten the sound advice she had given him only a few weeks before, was it astonishing that his maj- esty should take sides in a quarrel of which he ought to have been content to be the umpire ? On the morrow of that Sun- day on which his brother died, Catharine had written him, as we have seen, a letter full of maternal solicitude, and had begged him not to permit himself to be led by the passions of his servants. A few short weeks had passed, and the mother was advocating the very partisanship which she had previously condemned. Damville, ruler with almost viceregal powers of one of the fairest parts of the kingdom, had been urged to visit the king and by personal interview to seal the much de- sired pacification.' The marshal was not desirous of war, least of all of a war with the Huguenots for allies ; and, in interview at the liope of securing the release of his elder brother, Turin. I » ' he consented to go to meet Henry at Turin. Before leaving Languedoc he did, indeed, use ordinary prudence by committing the reins of government to a faithful follower of his house, in preference to Joyeuse, a man of more than doubt- ful loyalty, whom the court had suggested as a proper depos- itory of the trust. He had been equally careful to travel only by the sure roads, in order to avoid the possible pitfalls pre- pared by his enemies. But his reception by the king, when at last he reached his destination, scarcely rewarded him for the pains he had taken. While Henry professed an earnest desire for peace, he declared that it was below his dignity to treat re- specting it with his own subjects; and his demeanor was in all respects so unsatisfactory, if not positively unfriendly, that the ' See Damville's message, received by Henry at Ferrara, and Henry's flatter- ing reply conveying an invitation, as well as Duke Emmanuel Pliilibert's pledge of safety, in Jean de Serres, v. fol. 25. 1574. ACCESSION OF HENRY OF VALOIS. 31 marshal deemed it best to make a hasty retreat to his own gov- ernment. It was fortunate for him, some said, that he discov- ered the preparations made to attack him on his return through the Alps, and was able to find a vessel sailing directly to a port of Languedoc' The unsuccessful result of his visit to court decided the position of Damville. He threw in his lot with the Protestants, and signed the articles of agreement. Still the court had not committed itself irrevocably to the policy of war. The question was first definitely submitted for The royal discussiou iu the royal council and in the king's own erates'on''''''" pi'escnce, upou the arrival of Henry at Lyons. But peace or war. ^j^g deliberation was rather for show than for real utility. Two champions had been selected, and to them the opportunity to speak was restricted. Paul de Foix was the spokesman for peace and toleration — Paul de Foix, said to be a scion of the noble house that once exercised sway over broad territories at the foot of the Pyrenees, and enjoying more sub- stantial claims to consideration because he had been one of the bold advocates of milder measures in the famous " Mercuriale " of 1559, and because since then he had consistently followed the counsels of Chancellor Michel de THospital.' His carefully Paul de Foil's prepared argument was worthy of its author and of plea for peace, ^j^^ occasiou. By Unanswerable proofs he showed that a civil war — the most disastrous of all wars — was neither desirable nor necessary ; that its success was moi"e than doubt- ful. " Granting," said he, "that the Huguenots lack money, the sinews of war, how faithfully and well have they handled the little they have hitherto had. Besides, they have allies that will not desert them, and, as for themselves, they spare neither life nor property. They are men inured to the hard- ships of war, and bound together by the indissoluble chain of necessity. Among them reign order and discipline ; licence and debauchery are unknown. In the armies of the king, on the contrary, what jealousy, what avarice, what ambition, what disunion prevail ! Even the loss of a sanguinary battle, of two or three sanguinary battles, will not dishearten the Huguenots. ' Jean de Serres, v. fols. 26, 27, 28; De Thou, ubi supra. ' See his eulogy in the Memoires de la vie de De Thou, liv. i. pp. 13-15. 32 THE HUGUENOTS AND HENRY OF NAVARRE. Ch. L Experience has taught that they are less sensible to the most cruel torture, to the most appalling dangers, than to the fear of the loss of liberty of conscience and the dread of incurring; the contempt of their fellow-believers. Such a faction has never been so thoroughly extinguished but that from the ashes of those that were driven into banishment or butchered a new conflagration has arisen more terrible than the first. After all, what have the Protestants always demanded ? Liberty of con- science. That was first provided for by the Edict of January, an edict too soon violated by an incident which, far irom recall- ing to memory, I would that I could bury in eternal oblivion. Thence arose, not in a few provinces, but throughout the entire state and in every family, a most cruel and disastrous war." In glowing terms the orator proceeded to depict the horrors of which France had for ten or twelve years been the victim, hor- rors that culminated in a massacre on St. Bartholomew's day, which he preferred to regard as rather the result of necessity or chance than of premeditated design, lie begged the king to wait for the coming of the deputies sent by the Protestants, and daily expected, and Avhen they should have arrived to grant them those reasonable concessions with which they would be satisfied. " May your prudence, Sire, guard you against stum- bling on the first step you take in ascending the throne of your ancestors." To this harangue the champion of war made a brief and brutal reply. Affecting to disdain any attempt to refute the viiiequier's argumcuts brought forward by his opponent — he was reply. barrister, he said, but a man nurtured in arms, and knew better how to act than how to speak — Yillequier loudly asserted that to establish peace with heretics Avas to declare war with God, and to pronounce rebels those who had devoted their lives and means to so holy a war. The conflict had been well begun ; a single blow would suffice to prostrate the enemy. Instead of waiting for the deputies to arrive, he counselled instant action. He bade Henry gather the laurels of which an untimely death had robbed his brother Charles, and, after two crowns so legitimatelj' obtained, to earn the third crown now offered to him, by giving peace to the Church through 1574. ACCESSION OF HENRY OF VALOIS. 33 the overthrow of the enemies of God. " Either your Majesty," said lie, " must perish, witli the entire State, or the Protestants must be utterly destroyed." Rene de Yillequier was as little a match for Paul de Foix in argument as in purity of morals, but the easy composure with which he had borne himself, and the sneer with whicli he treated the emotion betrayed by his predecessor, showed plainly enough that he understood full well that the king had already made up his mind. And, in truth, no sooner had Yillequier ended, than Henry and his mother rose without giving any other member of the council an opportunity to express his sentiments. The next day the council was again assembled, but only to hear the announcement of the absurd determination which solves to pre- Henry had been persuaded to adopt. He would lis- ''"^ ' ' ten to the propositions of the Protestant delegates, should they come, but meantime he would prepare for war and prosecute it with vigor.' After this there was evidently little prospect of peace. Henry, indeed, gave audience to the envoys of the elector palatine and otlier German princes whom Conde had interested in the cause of his fellow Huguenots, and heard their intercessions that the Protestants should have permission to exercise their religion and should have their property and dignities restored to them. But he replied that as his predecessors had always maintained the name and character of " Very Christian," he intended to live and die in the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman religion, which ' I follow the detailed account given by De Tliou, v. 10.5-115. Although Ranke seems to question whether any such consultation was lield (Civil Wars and Monarchy in France, Amer. ed., 28!)), I deem the authority of De Thou conclusive. The future historian, then a young man, had just returned from an extensive and very instructive journey through Italy, in the suite of the vet- eran jurist and diplomatist, Foix, with whom lie was in the most intimate rela- tions. A very full account of the trip is given in the Memoires de la vie de De Thou, liv. i., pp. 14-27. In this work, written, it is well known, by De Thou himself, he explicitly states (p. 27) that he was at court in Lyons when the dis- cussion took place. "II [De Thou] y resta quelque tems pour apprendre la resolution de la cour. On y delibera d'abord de la guerre centre les Protes- tans. De Foix, dans le Conseil, eut une dispute avec Yillequier sur ce sujet; mais en secret cette guerre etoit rosolue. De Thou disoit avoir vu de Foix en soupirer de regret," etc. Vol. I.— 3 34 THE HUGUENOTS AND HENRY OP NAVARRE. Ch. I. he expected to be accepted by all his subjects. He would, however, pardon the sins of the past, should the Huguenots restore to him the arms and the cities which they had ap- propriated, and return to the religion of the state ; or, should they prefer so to do, he would freely permit them to leave the kingdom, taking their goods with them, and would pro- vide them with letters to secure their safety.' To the Hu- guenots themselves that came from Provence and Dauphiny Henry gave a sharp answer, telling them that he would not speak of peace until his cities and castles should have been re- stored to his hands." The conclusions thus reached were set forth in official form. By letters patent of the tenth of September, Henry announced ■ Lestoile, under date of September 10, 1574, i. 42. The documents pub- lished by Kluckhohn are of great interest. Henry, it appears, had written to the elector palatine from Cracow, soliciting his good offices in the discovery of the means of pacifying France (Letters of June 15, in Brief e Friedrich des From- men, ii. G94, G95), and Frederick the Pious had accordingly despatched Dr. Weyer. The envoy made his way to Paris, but failed to obtain any satisfac- tion as to the plans of tlie government from the queen mother, who urged him to see the new king liimself. Of the results of his interviews with the latter, whom he met coming from Turin to Lyons, Dr. Weyer has left us a full rela- tion. (Published by Kluckhohn in his " Zwei pfalzische Gesandtschaftsberiche iiber den franzosichen Hof und die Hugenotten," Abhandlungen der kon. bayer. Akad. der Wissenschaften, xi. Bd. ii. Abth. , Munich, 1870.) Henry did indeed declare to the ambassador that he did not intend to be the ' hangman ' of his subjects (" Ich will meiner underthonen henker nichtsein"), but he gave no assurances of toleration to be extended to the Huguenots. He even showed his anno}-ance at the elector's interference in their behalf in a letter to Frederick, of October 26 (Brief e, etc., ii. 727, 728). This drew forth a noble reply from the palatine (November 27, ibid., ii. 760-762). In the course of it he reminded Henry that in the promise of liberty of conscience which he made to the Protestants lie granted them nothing at all, since he had no power over the souls of men, that power being reserved by God for Himself alone : while, as to the permission to retire to their houses and enjoy their temporal goods, the Huguenots derived no security therefrom, inasmuch as, not to .speak of past massacres, even at the present moment the same humors and desires en- tertained by the royal council and the royal governors and officers, in every province and place, held them in fear and distrust. Besides, how could they subsist without worship of God, without baptism, without the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, without burial, without discipline ? ' Alamanni to the Grand Duke, September 13, 1574, Negociations avec la Toscane, iv. 24. 1574. ACCESSION OF HENRY OP VALOIS. 35 his " paternal " purpose to pardon all his subjects who had borne arms against the will of their sovereign, or who, in disobe- . , , , dience to his commands, had left the kingdom. The Olficml decla- ' o ration. single condition was that they should lay down their arms and return and live peaceably in their homes. Not a word was said about liberty of conscience or religious rights. It was not until about a month later (the thirteenth of Oc- tober), that, finding that his first assurances had produced little effect, Henry wrote another letter, in which he promised the returning Huguenots that their consciences and religion should not be interfered with. Still there was no hint of the toleration of their worship, or of the convocation of a national council, or of tlie states general, for which they had called.' It was clear that Henry was determined upon a resort to the arbitrament of war. Catharine had persuaded herself and him that the campaign would be easy, short, and decisive.' It cannot be said that the Huguenots were unprepared for the issue. In Dauphiny and Vivarais they had not suspended Huguenot op- their military operations. Insignificant towns were erations. gmall garrisous at fearful odds. Le Pouzin, little more than a village, but advantageously situated on the western bank of the Rhone,'' was bravely defended for ten days against an army of twelve, or, as others assert, of eighteen thousand men — French, Swiss, Germans, and Piedmontese — abundantly furnished with artillery, according to the ideas of the times, and fighting under the colors of the Prince Dauphin. The small Huguenot garrison first repulsed a general assault so decisively that all hope of taking the place save by the slower methods of a siege was abandoned ; and when no longer able to maintain itself in the shattered walls against the enemy, ef- ' Jean de Serres, v. fols. 29, 32 ; Recueil des choses m6morables, 521, 522 ; De Thou, V. 119. Jean de Serres, v. fol. 28. ^ "The Protestants have fortified themselves in Livron, a strong place on the Rhone, and in Pouzin, upon the other side of the river, inaccessible but in one place, and that not above four men in front. They in Dauphiny have fortified themselves in tlie mountains very strongly." Dr. Dale to Smith and Walsiiigham, Lyons, September 29, 1574. State Paper Office. 36 THE HUGUENOTS AND HENRY OF NAVARRE. Ch. L fected a safe retreat by night to the neighboring city of Privas.' Brave Montbrun, who was in command, received calmly, almost defiantly, the king's summons to lay down his arms and retire to his home, if he wished to enjoy the benefits of the royal grace. He boldly vindicated the justice of his cause, and ex- pressed his confident hope that God would not desert His own servants. '"Whatever result, however, may follow," he added, "we shall put forth every endeavor, God willinor, Montbrun's . - ' °' conrageous that the perfidious and degenerate Italians who abuse answer. , , , • i t t the royal and the rrench name may in deed acknowl- edge that they have to do with true Frenchmen, who regard a glorious death as the most excellent recompense of their faith and valor." ^ The final arrangements for an offensive and defensive al- liance with Marshal Damville were effected not long after. In answer to a summons of the latter, the States of Languedoc convened in Montpellier, on the sixth of Xovember. Of the twenty-three districts into which the extensive province was divided, the greater number were represented by Protestants, but not a few Poman Catholics were also there. Toulouse, Union with however, sent no delegates. The union being formed, Dam\iue. Marshal Damville was recognized as roval governor, and it was resolved, under his leadership, to make common cause against a common foe. In the long and not inappropriate declaration which the marshal thereupon published, only a single sentiment deserves especial notice, as indicative of the world's progress toward the recognition of the rights of man — Religious controversy cannot be settled by arms, but by a fi'ee council, be it general or national.'' ' It was well understood by the whole nation that Damville repudiated the name of reli- ' De Thou, V. 110, gives a brief, Jean de Series, v. fols. 29-31, a much more circumstantial account of this brilliant affair, which lasted from the oth to the 15th of October. ' Jean de Serres, v. fol. 33. ^ '• Perspiciens controversiam religionis non armis sed libero Concilio, sive generali sive nationali, compoui posse." Jean de Serres, v. fols. 34-36. Of course, Damville, as a Montmorency, made much of the fact that he was " vere et genuine Callus, et e primis Christianis et baronibus Francis."' 1574. ACCESSION OF HENRY OP VALOIS. 37 gion, and styled liimself " Liberator of the Commonwealth ; " or, as others said, " Reformer of the King's Comicil." ' Yet, for a time, the politic marshal seemed himself to have under- gone a moral reformation which, he was acute enough to per- ceive, brought him into closer sympathy with the religious party whose interests he espoused." It was the middle of Isovember when the king, instead of pressing on toward the capital whither the great interests of his kingdom called him, again turned southward to Henry at » ' O Avignon. spcud the scasou of Advent in the city of Avignon. The finances of his state were in extreme confusion, the ex- chequer was empty, the very pages of the king, it was said, were driven to tlie necessity of pawning their cloaks to get food, and, but for a timely advance of five thousand francs which she obtained from a royal officer of the treasury, Catharine her- self could not have provided for the wants of her own maids of honor.^ Jsone the less, however, did Henry and his court dismiss the wearisome consideration of the means of restor- ing prosperity to France, that they might engage in a form of devotion whose absurdity would create amusement did not its puerility awaken disgust. This most inconstant and profligate of princes was destined, at various stages of his reign, to hold forth hopes of a personal reformation of morals, only to disappoint his subjects by relapses into the most shameless debauchery. One of these spasmodic and short-lived changes was witnessed about this time. " At his being at Avignon," quaintly writes a correspondent of Lord Burleigh, " certain Jesuits came unto him, and persuaded him to leave that loose life of his, and to forsake such dames as he brought with him out of Venice, otherwise God would not prosper hijn. And hereupon he, being touched, hath confessed his sinful life to ' Alamanni to the Grand Duke, Lyons, November 9, 1574, Negociations avec la Toscane, iv. 29. . "Inito foedere, ipse quidem quasi sempiternum voluptati iiidixisset bel- lum, mulierculas amandat, severe autem interdicit suis ue secum habeant scorta, ne cui impuue liceat blasphemare," etc. Jeau de Serres, v. fol. 37. Lestoile, i. 47. 38 THE HUGUENOTS AND HENRY OF NAVARRE. Ch. L those Jesuits, with f nil purpose to live better, and so hath given himself to marry.'" ' But Henry's improvement in external morality was less strik- ing and more transient than his newly conceived passion for the Flagellants. The " Flagellants " of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, had been in turn held up foj- popular admiration by the clergy, anathematized by papal authority, and committed to the flames by the Inquisition. The supersti- tion for which they had received such opposite treatment was subsequently discovered to be a profitable delusion, and under the name of " Penitents " the new fiagellants were associated, with the Church's sanction, in confraternities which attracted, by reason of their singularity, not a little attention and surprise. It was in the papal city of Avignon that the Penitents first made their appearance on French soil. Clothed in long gowns reaching from head to foot, with no part of the face visible save the eyes, they pai-aded the streets, sometimes by day but more frequently by night, chanting lustily the mournful verses of the " Miserere." To express the idea of sorrow for sin more forcibly, each penitent was provided with a whip well knotted or fur- nished with metal points, by means of which he lashed the ex- posed back and shoulders of the brother whom he followed. It was a weird but loathsome spectacle, from which sensible men turned away with mingled shame and indignation. But Henry He joins the Yalois was both interested and pleased. The Flagellants, novcl practicc might prove a pleasant diversion, and if it could atone for moral delinquencies, the pain endured would be a cheap price to pay for the purchase of absolution. Was it not likely that the whip, in the hands of courtiers, would be more tolerable than the scourge of his own con- science ? However this may be, the frivolous monarch no sooner saw the performance than he expressed a desire to take part in it. His example was at once followed by the courtiers. The king having become a member of that part of the confra- ternity which clothed itself in white — the " Blancs Battus " — ■ ' Thomas Wylson to Lord Burleigh, February 14, 1575 ; Wright, Queen Elizabeth and her Times, ii. 5. 1574. ACCESSION OF HENRY OF VALOIS. 39 Catharine made herself the patron of the " black penitents," and the Cardinal of Armagnac joined the "blue." It was not long before every seigneur or gentilhomme of the court was enrolled in one of the confraternities, whose cause he espoused with an ardor that would have done no discredit to the parti- sans of the factions of the circus in the imperial times of Rome or Constantinople.' To one person the silly farce proved of tragic importance. Car- dinal Charles, of Lorraine, had the imprudence to take a prom- inent part in the show, walking with bare, or nearly cardinairf" bare fect through the cold and wintry streets. The Lorraine. exposure brought on a fever to which he soon suc- cumbed.* Whether the prelate died iu the odor of sanctity, having discoursed, during his last hours, most learnedly and piously respecting religion — as his friends and adherents gave out — or passed away from the scene of his restless and nefarious activity after having spent whole days and nights, without sleep and uttering furious outcries — as his enemies asserted with equal positiveness — is a point which it is useless to discuss.' And so this bustling actor passed off the stage upon whicli he ' Lesstoile, i. 47 ; Recueil des clioses memorables, 533 ; De Tliou, v. 124. The Florentine envoy Alamanni, writing from Lyons, December 14, 1574, stands in admiration of tlie French king's piety: "fi entrato iu una com- pagnia di Battuti, che e iu Avignoue, e va agli uffizi sacri, vestito pare da Bat- tuto, dando a ciascuno de' suoi popoli un ottimo esempio di se, e monstrandosi in ogni cosa sua religioso e molto cattolico principe." Negociations diploma- tiques avec la Toscane, iv. 33. - If the date December 23, 1574, as given by Jean de Serres, were correct. Cardinal Lorraine would have died on the day of the month upon wliich his nephew, Henry of Guise, was murdered at Blois fourteen years later. But the true date was Sunday, December 2Gth. See Jean de Serres, v. fols. 45, 46 ; Jehan de la Fosse, Journal d'un cure ligueur, 172; Lestoile, etc., ubi supra. 'Agrippa d'Aubigne, ii. 143 ; Recueil des choses memorables, 535 ; Languet, Epistolae secretae, i. 68. As if his imprudent exposure did not sufficiently account for Lorraine's fatal illness, De Thou, Agrippa d'Aubigne, Olhagaray, and others discuss the absurd story of the cardinal's assassination by poison, ad- ministered, as some said, in a purse that was presented to him. For a con- temporary account of his furious death and the fierce storm that raged through- out France at the time (" et I'appelle-t-on le vent du cardinal "), see Beza to Gabriel Schlusselberger, March 25, 1575; Berne MS., apud Bulletin de la Societe de I'histoire du Prot. fran^., xvi. (1867), 270. 40 THE HUGUENOTS AND HENRY OF NAVARRE. Cn. I. had long played a leading part. Was it because the world had learned to know him so thoroughly, or because new characters so soon engrossed the undivided attention of the specta- His cti&r&ctcr* * — ' tors, that his removal produced less commotion, to use the expressive words of a contemporary, than would have fol- lowed the death of a simple village curate ? ' Of the person and work of Charles of Lorraine there is no need to speak at length. What he was is more clearly shown in the events of the quarter of a century preceding his death than could be set forth in any portrait, however skilfully delineated. That he was possessed of eminent abilities not even his enemies could deny. If neither profound nor learned, he was certainly shrewd, polished, versa- tile, and capable of turning to his own advantage every op- portunity that presented itself for acquiring distinction or for amassing wealth. With the help of others, cleverly appropri- ated, he had on more than one occasion contrived to present a good appearance both for scholarship and for eloquence. At the Colloquy of Poissy no orator upon the Roman Catholic side had acquitted himself so creditabh' ; it had proved no difficult thing to persuade the multitudes that had not been present at the discussion that he had carried off the palm in a contest with the elegant and courtly Theodore Beza himself. He was the most plausible man in France. Until the refutation came, no one's assertions seemed more like the very truth than his. Presently, however, it was discovered that a man could be safe only when he believed just the opposite of what the cardinal said.' It made no matter whither he went ; everywhere he practised the same arts of deception. What the Venetian am- bassador Suriano had depicted him as being in his earlier years,' he was to the very end of life. When the news of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day reached Rome, the cardinal, who had not had the slightest knowledge of the impending blow, and had, of course, taken no part either in the plan or in the execu- ' Memoires de Henry III., 12. - The tree is known by its fruit — remarks Lestoile — and in his case the fruit was, according to the testimony of his own adherents, ''que pour n'estre jamais trompe il faloit croire tousjours tout le contraire de ce qu'il vous disoit." Memoires de Henry III., 11. = See Rise of the Huguenots, i. 270. 1574. ACCESSION OF HENRY OF V ALOIS. il tion, at once began to state that the destruction of the Huguenots was mainly due to his activity. The Tuscan agent at the French court visited Catharine de' Medici and informed her of the boast. Catharine was indignant at the unwar- have caused ranted assumption. " The Cardinal of Lorraine," she said, " knew no more about the massacre than you did. But for me nothing would have been done. In con- sequence of certain advices I resolved upon it suddenly-. Lor- raine and the admiral are on a par for lies, inventions, and malignity." ' " Perhaps it would be well, since he has an uneasy brain, to recall him to France," suggested Peti-ucci. " Oh, no ! " Catharine promptly replied, " let us leave him there. If he were here, he would turn the world upside down."'' Before the interview was over the queen and the ambassador showed that they were of one mind : this conduct of the cardinal was hateful in the extreme. " At Rome," said Petrucci, " he wishes to give the impression that, though ab- sent, he governs the kingdom. In France, he pretends that he is the greatest favorite of the pope." ' It is not possible to determine the precise share which be- longed to the cardinal in the disasters of France during this Hisresponsi- ovcutful pcriod. Other hands besides his were em- biiity. brued in the blood of the persecuted reformers ; other tongues were busy in defence of the sanguinarj^ doctrine that heresy must be exterminated by exterminating its profes- sors. Many a clergyman advocated the use of faggot and gal- lows, with no such attempts as Lorraine more than once put forth to shield himself from the imputation of inhumanity. And yet, despite his disclaimers at Saverne and elsewhere, the Huguenots held him, above all others, directly responsible for that relentless system of persecution which had its legiti- mate outcome in the civil wars that filled the latter half of ' "Ella mi disce che non ne sapeva [sc. Lorraine] pifi die ne sapessi io, e che senza lei non se ne faceva altro ; ma che per certi avvisi se ne risolve subito, e che Lorena e TAmmiraglio andavono al pari di bugie e d'invenzioni e di malignita." Petrucci to Fr. de' Medici, September 29, 1572, Negociations diplomatiques de la France avec la Toscane, iii. 842. ' " Lasciamolo pure star la, perche qua metterebbe sotto sopra il mondo." Ibid., ubi supra. ^ Ibid., ubi supra. 42 THE HUGUENOTS AND HENRY OF NAVARRE. Ch. I. the sixteenth century. In this estimate they were not alone. It will be remembered that a secretary of state, who had often met him at the council-board, and who belonged to the same religious communion, had long since associated his name with that of the bloodthirsty Diana of Poitiers, exclaiming, with reference to these two partners in infamy: "It were to be de- sired that this woman and the cardinal had never been born : for they two alone have been the spark that kindled our mis- fortunes." ' Chary of his own life, Lorraine had been lavish of the lives of others ; ' consequently, few bewailed his loss. Such a man, in an age much given to plain-speaking, was likely to be handled with uncomplimentary frankness. Ten 3-ears be- fore the cardinal's death, the reformer Farel expressed, in his private correspondence, the estimate which his fellow Protes- tants had formed of their arch-persecutor. He described him as " the man who surpasses all other men on the face of the earth in wickedness and malice." And, more forcibly than politely, he declared it to be his opinion that the prelate had usual recourse for counsel and help, not to a single evil spirit — he was never without one or more imps ]-eady to come to him at his call — but to the prince of fiends himself, from whom he received all aid and comfort in his efforts to serve Satan effec- tually and to destroy the whole work of God.' Soon after tlie beginning of the new year the court left Avignon for the north. If the audacity of the Huguenots in TheHugue- taking Saint Gilles almost within hearing of the ron^°*^'*^" surprising Aigues-mortes before Henry had gotten well under way,'' had been an annoyance, the rebuff he now received at Livron — " but a very little up- ' Claude de I'Aiibespine. See Rise of the Huguenots, i. 271. ' Agrippa d'Aubigne, ii. 143. " Tres chiche et craintif de sa vie, prodigue de celle d'autrui, pour le seul but qu'il a eu en vivant, assavoir d'eslever sa race a une demesuree grandeur." ' Farel to Christopher Fabri, Neuchatel, June 6, 1564, in the letters of the reformer appended to Fick's edition of " Du Vray Usage de la Croix," 315. ■* Jean de Serres, v. fol. 47. * The surprise of Aigues-mortes occurred January 12. The licence of the Protestant soldiers in plundering the place for the next seven days furnished a dangerous precedent, of which it would seem that advantage was soon taken. Jean de Serres, v. fols. 52, 53. 1575. WAR AGAINST THE HUGUENOTS. 43 landish town " ' — was still harder to be borne with equanimity. The Protestant inhabitants of Livron had again been forced to take refuge behind their strengthened works ; they soon shoNved themselves true Huguenots, better acquainted with the art of defence than with the art of assault." Henry was tempted to stop before the presumptuous town that had dared to deny ad- mission to the royal troops. But his presence only incited the garrison to greater displays of courage. He was saluted at his approach by a discharge of artillery, and when the deafening report had ceased there succeeded a still more startling shout from the throats of hundreds of soldiers whom the Huguenot oflBcers strove in vain to repress. " You will not butcher us in our beds, as you bi;tchered the admiral ! " was a cry that fell upon Henry's ears, mingled with other derisive words that told too clearly the depth of contempt to which the ci'own had fallen in the popular estimation.' A few days after the king's departure the siege of Livron was for a second time abandoned in disgust. Meanwhile in the west the royal arms had purchased success at a heavy cost. The powerful army of the Duke of Mont- pensier captured the important city of Fontenay after Capture of Fontenay and a sliort but vigorous rcsistauce ; but the loss of the assailants in dead and wounded much exceeded that of the garrison. The castle of Lusignan was next attacked, but proved a more difficult place to master. The massive walls, ' Dr. Dale to Lord Burleigh, Lyons, January 16, 1575, State Paper Office. - " Monstrerent bien qu'ils estoient vrais huguenos, qui S(;avoient mieux le mestier de se defFendre que d'assaillir," Lestoile, i. 48. The second siege of Livron, begun December 17, 1574, and prosecuted with marked steadfast- ness of purpose by a powerful army under the direct command of Marshal de Bellegarde, is described at great length by Jean de Serres, v. fols. 42-52. ^ " Hsec vero frequentius increbescebant : ' Haudquaquam nos in lecto, sicuti Amiralium, mactabis : educito in aciem cincinnatos illos tuos, veniant ad nostras uxores, et intelligent quam facile sui copiam sint facturae.' '' Jean de Serres, v. fol. 55. This writer contrasts the unfortunate licence then prev- alent with the strict discipline of tlie Protestant armies in the time of Coligny and Louis de Conde ; when a disrespectful word respecting the king would have cost a soldier his life. The Recueil des choses memorables, p. 538, and the Inventaire general, ii. 481, give a very similar form to the taunts of the Huguenot garrison : " Hau, massacreurs, vous ne nous poignarderez pas dedans nos licts, comme vous avez fait I'Amiral,'' etc. See De Thou, v. 122, 184. THE HUGUENOTS AND HENRY OF NAVARRE. Cu. 1. wliich had defied for centuries the strength of successive assail- ants, were commonly reputed to be guarded by the spell of the most potent fairy of medi{)eval fable. The beautiful but unfoi- The fairy Me- tuuatc Melusiue, fated by her mother's curse to as- lusme. surae the form of a serpent every Saturday until the Day of the last Judgment, unless she should find a husband too generous to pry into the awful secret of her life, had miracu- lously caused the fabric to arise for the abode of Raymondin, son of the Count of Forez. When her spouse broke liis pledged faith, she fled from his embrace with a piercing wail, and, issuing from a window, was seen to fly through the air in monstrous shape. Thrice did she circle i-ound the fated castle, then disappear forever from human sight. Only when Lusig- nan changed its masters, or when some member of the lordly family was about to die, did the occupants of the castle hear her piteous cry, repeated on three successive nights, sure pre- sage of coming disaster.' This fortress had in the Middle Ages given title to a distinguished family. In the twelfth cen- tury Guy de Lusignan, after wearing the thorny crown of Je- rusalem, had obtained the more substantia] sovereignty of the kingdom of Cyprus. In the thirteenth century Ungues de Lu- signan took part in the first crusade of Saint Louis and lost his life on the banks of the Kile. In the fourteenth century, Pierre de Lusiijnan was aniono; the most strenuous advocates of the renewal of the effort to rescue the Holy Sepulchre from the liands of the infidel." The fortress from which these stout war- riors derived their name, although seized by the Huguenots in ' The story of the fairy is most fully told in the tale " Melusine," written hy Jehan d' Arras for the delectation of the Count of Berry and Auvergne, in 1387, and recently edited afresh by M. Brunet (Paris, 1854). Brantome vou- ches for the statement that divers washerwomen at the fountain below the tower had heard Melusine's cries, and that many soldiers and "men of honor '' could testify to her loud lament when the castle was besieged. The name of Melusine is supposed to bean abbreviation of " Mere des Lusignans," " Mere Lusigne," or simple " Merlusine." The fairy had the credit of having built a number of other castles 'among them Partlienay, Issoudun, and Sou- bise), from whose ruinous walls spectral apparitions or hideous cries issued from time to time. = Michaud, Histoire des Croisades, ii. 439; iv. 125, 17G ; v. 184. 1575. WAR AGAINST THE HUGUENOTS. 45 1569,' during the course of the third civil war, had the reputa- tion of being nearly, if not quite impregnable. Besides, the garrison had the advantage of being commanded by Rene de Rohan, Sieur de Frontenay, who, on the approach of the royal army, threw himself into the place, with forty gentlemen and six hundred picked troops. Well did general and soldiers prove the wisdom of the movement and exhibit their own valor. One assault after another was bravely met and foiled. It M'as not until the siege had lasted nearly four months that the Huguenots could be brought to surrender Lusignan, and then they secured the most honorable terms. On the twenty- fifth of January, 1575, the small garrison that had so long held at bay a large army conunanded by a prince of tlie blood, marched out with arms and baggage. The Protestants only lost twenty-five gentlemen and two hundred soldiers. Mont- pensier's loss was variously estimated at eight hundred or twelve hundred men. He satisfied his resentment against the castle that had so long detained him by razing the walls to the ground. Xot even the famous " tour de Melusine " was spared.' While his armies in Poitou and in Dauphiny were meeting with such indifferent success, Henry the Third was preparing to receive the rite of anointing and coronation at the hands of the Church. The ceremony took place, according to custom, in the city of Rheims. There, too, Henry was married to nation and Louise de Vaudemout, a princess of the family of marriage. . . . . Lorrame. JN either event M'as altogether auspicious. Henry, whose mistake it was that he generally attended to sec- ular affairs while he should have been absorbed in the offices of religion, and gave himself up to superstitious observances just as the claims of his kingdom were most imperative, exhibited the utmost irreverence when the time came for the acts that ' Rise of the Huguenots, ii. 323. Tlie castle of Lusignan, described by Froissard (Johues's trans, i. 489) as " very grand and handsome," defied the iirms of tlie Earl of Derby in his victorious expedition from Bordeaux soon ufterthe battle of Crecy (ibid. i. 171). Recueil des choses memorables, r)24-527 ; Lestoile, i. 51 ; De Thou, v. 128- 132; > ,'rippa d'Aubigne, li. 147-157, whose account is very full, and who gives the text of the articles of capitulation. 46 THE HUGUENOTS AND HENRY OF NAVARRE. Ch. I. were to set the approval of the Eoman Catholic Church upon his succession to the throne. lie slept instead of keeping vigil during the night preceding the coronation. He spent, in at- tending to his own attire and in inspecting the jewels to be worn by his bride, so large a portion of the day, that, contrary to all ecclesiastical precedent, the mass was necessarily deferred until afternoon, and the solemn Te Deuni was either forgotten or purposely omitted. "When the crown was placed upon his head, he interrupted the officiating prelate by impatient and ill- omened exclamations — that the crown hurt him, that it was slipping off. At the close of the service he had no time to per- mit the archbishop to divest him of garments consecrated by contact with the holy oil, but passed with perfect unconcern from the cathedral to the supper-room, and took part in the fes- tivities dressed in his coronation robes.' The marriage of Henry with a princess of Lorraine, a relation of the Guises — a family already far too powerful in French affairs — was more in- auspicious than the violation of churchly usage. Henry had broken off negotiations for the hand of a daughter of the good Gustavus Yasa, King of Sweden, to espouse a portionless girl belonging to a younger branch of a hated and dangerous race.° The match was unequal ; the accession of power it was likely to bring to Henry of Guise and his brother could not be viewed by calm observers without serious apprehension. True, the restless Cardinal of Lorraine was dead, and it was not yet suspected that the eldest son of Francis of Guise had inherited the ambition both of his father and of his uncle. Yet it might have been supposed that the perils attaching to matrimonial al- ' For this last incident see Miss Freer, Henry III., ii. 17. Cf. also De Thou (who was an eye-witness of the coronation), v. 186, 187 ; Recueil des choses memorables, 540 ; Lestoile, i. 51. - Miss Freer, ubi supra, ii. 5, 6. According to the author of the Recueil des choses memorables, 541, Catharine was a warm supporter of the Lorraine mar- riage alliance, by means of which she hoped to confirm her authority in France. And, indeed, Henry was profuse in his declarations to foreign am- bassadors to that effect. " Elle me fit et elle me maria," he said. But com- mon report made it quite otherwise, and the English envoy called attention to the king's own contradictory statements. See Dr. Dale's letters to Lord Burleigh, March 5 and 18, 1575, State Paper Office. 1575. WAR AGAINST THE HUGUENOTS. 47 liances with any branch of the House of Lorraine would readily suggest themselves, in view of the troubles introduced by the marriage of Francis the Second and Mary of Scots. Mean- while, for the present, the marriage made little change in Henry, unless it were that he became even more averse to seri- ous occupations ; more engrossed alternately in puerile devotion to devotion and frivolous pleasures, and more impecu- pieahure. jjjQ^jg because of his lavish gifts.' During the whole of the Lenten season immediately following upon his coronation and marj'iage he went daily to mass and listened to sermon after sermon, each day in a new church. At the same time he resorted to every petty device to relieve his poverty. New taxes were imposed ; new offices were put up for sale ; money was raised by giving the privilege of cutting down two trees in every " arpent " of all the forests of France. One day Henry was reported not to have enough money to purchase an'tUavisS a dinner, and the king actually sent to beg a loan from all the counsellors, advocates, and procureurs of the Parliament and Chatelet of Paris, obtaining from each a few hundred francs. Some days later the public, including the king's reluctant creditors, were treated to the information that Henry had turned the whole of this collection to account in the way of making a present of over fifty thousand livres to satisfy the rapacity of a single ravenous favorite." The Huguenots, while ably conducting their military opera- tions in Dauphiny and Languedoc, had been drawing more close the bands of their alliance with Daniville and the Hu"/uenots °* PoHtiques. At a conference lield in Nismes, about atNfames?"^'' the beginning of the year, another perilous step was taken in the course to which the Protestants seemed driven, as by a fatal necessity, of establishing a commonwealth of their own, with its organized forms and its laws of action. ' On his way from Avignon to Rheims, Henry was in such straits for money that he had to compel one " Ludovico da Diagetto, a Florentyue," much against his will, to loan him one hundred thousand francs, " or else the king could not have gone from Avignon to be sacred at Rheims, nor yet to be married." Thomas Wylson to Lord Burleigh, February 14, 157jS, Wright, Queen Elizabeth and her Times, ii. 5. ' Lestoile, i. 52. 48 THE HUGUENOTS AND HENRY OF NATARRE. Ch. L The union was signed by Damville, in the name of the Roman Catholics, and by Viscount Paulin and Baron Terrides, on the part of the Protestants. The marshal engaged upon oath to abstain from every act contrary to the laws and statutes adopted by the allies, and promised, in any sudden emergency render- ing it impossible to obtain their opinion, to obey implicitly the advice of the council with which he had been provided.' Meantime, in the spring of 1575, negotiations were in prog- ress at the French court which, althougli they have received scanty notice from historians, throw a brilliant light upon the purposes and the temper of the various parties in the State. From the pursuit of war or of pleasure the court now seemed disposed to turn its attention for a little while to the methods of obtaining the peace so ardently desired by the im- forpeaoe._ fortunatc classBS of the population upon whom the burdens of the state rested most heavily. The queen mother, not many months since an advocate of war, had, with her usual variableness, veered round and become anxious for the restoration of peace. She had discovered to her great an- ' De Thou, V. 18o ; Jean de Serres, v. fols. 33, 54, where a portion, and Vaissete, Histoire du Languedoc, v. 241-244, where the whole of Damville's proclamation, dated January 12th, 1575, is given. It is interesting to note that as Marshal Damville had, from an enemy, become the leader of the Prot- estants of Languedoc. so the royal army with which the Protestants were con- fronted was commanded by the Due d'Uzes, one of their best generals in former wars. In changing sides the duke was also accused of having developed a character for inhumanity previously unperceived in him. It was he that gave the disastrous example of mercilessly burning the gathered crops of the un- happy peasants of Languedoc. Jean de Serres, v. fols. 105, 113. - The peace negotiations of 1575 are briefly described or referred to by Les- toile, i. 53 ; the Recueil des choses memorables, 542-544 ; Inventaire general, ii. 483 ; De Thou, v. 186-188 ; Davila, 212 ; also by Agrippa d'Aubigne, ii. 173-175, whose sketch, if short, is verj- graphic. In comparison with these writers, however, Jean de Serres gives, in the concluding volume of his in- valuable Commentarii de statu religionis et reipublicae (v. fols. 63-101 i a far more trustwortln- and detailed account of this highly interesting episode in the history of the fifth civil war. In the Memoires de Xevers (Paris, 1665). a work of almost equal rarity, the long report of the Protestant envoys themselves is inserted (i. 308-434), under the title "Negotiation de la paix faite par les depntez du Prince de Conde, en la presence du Hoy Henry III. et de la Reine sa mere," etc. The two nan-atives supplement and corroborate each other. 1575. THE PEACE NEGOTIATIONS. 49 noyance that her influence over the king was mucli diminished, and that many things passed by her mill more than were wont." Besides, even her restless spirit was appalled by the indescribable jealousy and confusion reigning at court, and now she declared that she would have an end of the struggle with the Huguenots, cost what it might. In the words of an eye- witness of the deplorable scene : " They were all bent to prep- arations of war, but these domestic discords do tame them. It is a very hell among them, not one content or in quiet with another — -not mother with son, nor brother with brother, nor mother with daughter." ' The king, too, professed a desire for reconciliation with his subjects of Southern France. He had gone so far as to permit both Damville and the Protestants to send deputies to the Prince of Conde at Basle, with the view of deliberating with him re- specting the terms they ought jointly to insist upon. On their way the deputies stopped at Geneva and, under pledge of strict secrecy, consulted the council of that faithful city respecting the propriety of their proposed demands, "for, gentlemen," said they, " the Protestants of Languedoc trust you as much as they trust themselves." Xor was this all. The Prince of Conde sought and again secured permission that The- „ . ^ , odore Beza should be present at the conference, and Beza s broad i ' itatesraan- much did tliB reformer's sturdy oood sense and clear ship. •' perceptions contribute to the adoption of the manly course that was ultimately adopted. A statesman of large and liberal views, Beza, notwithstanding his long period of residence on the banks of the Leman, had not forgotten that he was the citizen of a larger commonwealth than the little republic of Geneva, or even the extensive kingdom of France. For him the whole of Christendom, at least the whole of that part of Christendom which had espoused the Reformation, constituted his greater country, whose interests were to be preferred far above the interests of any one city or state ; while, as for Geneva, ' Dale to Walsingham, two letters, both dated March 23, 1575, State Paper Office. " Parce que, disaient ils, ils se fient en Messieurs comme eu eux mesmes." Fazv, Geneve, le Parti Huguenot, etc. 25. Vol. I.— 4 50 THE HUGUENOTS AND HENRY OF NAVARRE. Ch. I. to her belonged, in the truest sense, the honor of being the holy city, with the high privilege of serving as the secure refuge of all that were persecuted in other parts for righteousness' sake. The broad policy of the reformer might make Beza a somewhat unsafe adviser for a place in itself so weak and so beset with ene- mies as Geneva ; ' it certainly adapted him in a singular degree to comprehend the larger diplomacy of European Protestantism. It commended him above all others to the sympathy and the esteem of so chivalrous a prince as Conde, with whom duty out- weighed considerations of danger, and who always preferred a boldness that might be confounded with rashness to a prudence verging upon cowardice. So it was that, when at length the duties which twice called Beza to Basle in the spring of 1575 were fully discharged, and he was able to return to the scene of his accustomed labors, he was followed by letters from Conde to the magistrates of Geneva, full of expressions of thanks for having permitted their eminent theologian to take part in an enterprise so necessary for the glory of God and the quiet of poor France, wherein the Huguenots had need of the prudence which he so well displayed. "I assure you, gentlemen," said the grateful prince, in conclusion, " that besides the general es- teem which his rare virtues have engraven on the hearts of all good men, I entertain a more special esteem for him on my own account, in accordance with which I shall make known to any person that may be so venturesome as to attack him, that he has assailed one of my greatest friends." ' ' Witli all their deep reverence for his character and resplendent merits, the magistrates occasionally found it necessary to remonstrate with Beza for con- duct which they deemed imprudent and likely to involve their city in trouble. It would appear, for example, that in December, 1574, some Huguenot exiles undertook a fruitless enterprise of a military character in the direction of Macon and Chalons. Discovering, upon the return of the refugees to Geneva, that Beza had been privy to the undertaking, the council commissioned the eminent Michel Roset kindly to set forth to him that he ought not to consent to such things, still less take part in them — "qu'il ne doit consentir a telles choses, moins s'en mesler." Fazy, 21. See, also, this author's valuable re- marks, ibid. 11. ■ " Qu'il se sera adresse a un de mes plus grands amis." Conde to the Coun- cil, Basle, June 22, 1575, MS. Geneva Archives, in Fazy, 135, 136. 1575. THE PEACE NEGOTIATIONS. 51 At the conference the debate was long and earnest. What measure of religious liberty should be deemed sufficient ? What satisfaction required for the late massacre ? What security ex- acted to avoid the possibility of being cheated in the future as in the past ? 'No wonder that the resolution was finally reached " to make good and stout demands on all these points, and to persist in them to the very end." For the Huguenots had excellent grounds of encouragement. Since the renewal of the war they liad been almost uniformly victorious. " Never," wrote Beza, " even when we had large armies in the field, had we one-tenth part of the success which God has vouchsafed to us as against His enemies since the beginning of these last troubles." ' Early in the month of April the deputies from Languedoc, together with other delegates commissioned by Conde himself, found themselves in Paris. A few days later (on the eleventh of April) an audience was granted them at the Louvre. Henry of Valois was attended by his wife and mother, by his brother Alen9on, by the King of Navarre, and by the members of the royal council, among whom figured Cardinal Bourbon, the Duke of Montpensier, Marshal Retz, Morvilliers, Sebastian de I'Aubes- pine. Bishop of Limoges, and others, drawn to the queen mother's apartments not merely by the duty of their office, but by curi- osity to learn the conditions which the confederates would pro- pose. One of the secretaries of state was present to make an official record of the proceedings. In behalf of the little knot of envoys, some deputed by the prince, othei-s by Damville, and still others by the Protestant churches — they may have been eight or ten in all — a former Speech of meinber of the Parliament of Paris, the courageous d' Annes. gicur d' Arcucs, was put forward to speak. Beauvoir la Node and such "fronts d' airain" as Yolet, Duchelar, and Clausonne stood by in silence. The long speech of Arenes was ' " Mais quant k nos freres des Eglises de France, la guerre va tousjours en avant, et vous puis dire que lorsque nous avons eu grosses armees, nous n'a- vions point la dixiesme partie de ce que Dieu a fait centre ses ennemys depuis les derniers troubles.'' Beza to Galiriel Schlusselberger Geneva, March 35, 1575, Bulletin de la Societc de I'histoire du Protestantisme francais, xvi. (18G7j 269. 52 THE HUGUEXOTS AND HEXRY OF NAVARRE. Ch. I. in every way worthy of a man distinguished alike for his elo- quence and for his learning.' He expressed an earnest longing for peace, but warned the king that if France now presented the mournful spectacle of irreligion, discord, and insubordina- tion to constituted authority, if the French name had come to be covered with opprobrium, as Henry might himself testify from his personal experience on his way to Poland, the cause was to be sought in no fatal conjunction of heavenly constella- tions or influences, but in the violation of " Piety and Justice " — his deceased brother's motto. The royal faith had been pi'ostituted in the butchery of St. Bartholomew's Day, a butch- ery of which Charles the Xinth had proclaimed his detestation in public letters, but which he had been impotent to prevent ; for young and reckless advisers, like those whom Kehoboam trusted, had prescribed remedies repudiated by older and wiser comisellors. To re-establish " Piety and Justice," those two pillars of the monarchy, was the object of the Prince of Conde and Marshal Damville in their present attempt. Hereupon Ai-enes handed to the king a document in which the prince and the marshal had distinctly set forth their views. Henry, after assuring the envoys that he fully reciprocated the desire for peace so eloquently expressed by Arenes, bade them retire to the adjoining antechamber, and there await his an- swer to their demands.* It was no ordinary letter that M. de Fizes, the secretary, now proceeded to read, nor was it altogether calculated to ^ please the ears that listened. Conde and Damville The Hugue- i not demands, ^egau by tlic usual complimentary phrases, but soon came to sober and unpalatable truths. They assured Henry that both Protestants and Roman Catholics had been driven to take up arms by the same violence. As to the former, the chief cause of war was that they had not been suffered to en- joy the benefits of the Edict of January, so solenmly enacted and promulgated. Hence had arisen conflicts that culminated ' "Arennius, Condaei legatorum unus, vir cumprimis eruditus et eloquens." Jean de Serres, v. fol. 73. ' Negotiation de la paix, Mem. de Nevers, i. 308-313. 1575. THE PEACE NEGOTIATIONS. 53 in the horrible massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day. As to the latter, the pernicious counsels which had been followed, and in accordance with which the first pi-inces of the blood and the chief nobles were either to be executed or to be consigned to perpetual imprisonment, suflSciently explained their action. To put an end to this state of things, the prince and the mar- shal, in the name of their confederated followers, had reduced to writing their demands. The document that followed began by an article in which the king was requested to permit the free and public exercise of the Reformed religion throughout the entire extent of the French dominions, without distinction of persons or places, and including the celebration of Divine worship, prayers, the administration of the holy saci'aments and of marriage, the visitation of the sick, the burial of the dead in the common cemeteries, schools, the printing and sale of books, the discipline of the Church, the holding of consistories, col- loquies, and synods, collections for the poor, and, in general, all else necessary to the proper observance of the rites of the Eeformed religion. So much for the first article. The re- maining sixty-seven articles were not inferior in boldness. They stipulated for the right to build and own churches, for safe residence in every part of the kingdom, for the application of the tithes paid by Protestants to the support of their own ministers, for the re-establishment of the salutary ordinances of Jeanne d'Albret in the Kingdom of Navarre, and for the punishment of blasphemy. They did not, however, forget to suggest that the toleration sought for must not be extended to Epicureans and atheists, for these should be visited with all forms of punishment. After providing for an equality in religion, the confederates proposed a plan for securing the impartial administration of justice. So far as possible the same number of judges ought to be appointed from both religions. But as that result could not at once be attained, a temporary expedient was recom- mended. It was proposed that the greater royal council be in- creased by adding to its members, on Conde's nomination, as many Protestants as it now contained Roman Catholics ; and that forty judges chosen from this entire college and taken .54: THE HUGUENOTS AND HENRY OF NAVARRE. Cu. I. equally from the two religions should sit, one-half at Montpel- lier and one-half at Cadours, to entertain appeals from the par- liaments. Among many other provisions all tending to the same end, we need only notice two demands — the one for the punishment of the perpetrators of the Paris massacre, as the most satisfactory proof of the king's detestation of that crime, and as the firmest basis of a lasting peace ; ' the other for the annulling of all sentences for religion's sake pronounced since the time of Heniy the Second, and especially the sentences of Admiral Coligny and Count Montgomery. As a pledge for the execution of the edict of pacification, the confederates begged to be allowed not only to retain the cities now in their possession, but to add to this mmiber two other cities in each province of the kingdom. There were other demands, of a scarcely less startling character, which must be passed over for the sake of brevity." When the articles had been read, the envoys were recalled into the royal presence. Xeither Henry nor Catharine wore the benignant looks of a brief hour ago. " I am amazed," ex- siirprise and claimed the former, "at the new and strange con- of'ife'!rry°and tcnts of your articles, and that you have dared to Catharine. 'bring tlieui to me ; ^ for you must have been present when they were concocted and have known what they were. This leads me to think that you do not by any means care so nnich for peace as you professed. Well ! what else is there that you wish ? " In vain did Arenes excuse himself and his comrades as ambassadors confined by their instructions to the tenor of the articles they had presented. Henry insisted that ' The Southern Huguenots had been in favor of even stouter demands. " They of Languedoc would have had put in that tlie authors of tlie slaughter of Paris should be put in their hands to be executed, and the death of the admiral revenged ; but this was thought b^' common assent to be an impossi- ble thing, and therefore without purpose to be asked." R. StaflEord to Bur- leigh, Basle, March 29, 1575. State Paper Office. - Jean de Serres, v. fols. 65-73. The text of the Protestant articles is not given in the relation in the Memoires de Nevers. ' " Lesquels il trouvoit fort estranges et s'esbahissoit comment nous les avions ose presenter." Mem. de Nevers, i. 313. 1575. THE PEACE NEGOTIATIONS. 55 Arenes was a leader in the councils of the confederates.' The Huguenot turned to Catharine de' Medici to entreat her kind offices with her son, and she graciously promised to employ them, meanwhile protesting that she would be far from advis- ing Henry to grant unreasonable demands. " I know full well," she added, "that your Huguenots are cats that always alight on their feet ; but even had they fifty thousand men in the field, with the admiral alive and all their leaders at their head, they could not talk more arrogantly than they do now." '' Two days latei-, in a second audience, the king's ministers undertook to explain the reasons why Heniy could not grant the first and chief article of the demands of the con- for religious federated Politiques and Huguenots. "The king, be- ing a Roman Catholic," said Morvilliers, " wishes all his subjects to belong to that faith. It is only right that the Protestants should renounce a religion that has been the cause of tumults and discord." " The Protestants," replied Arenes, " will obey the king in everything, save in religion, where God prefers obedience rather than sacrifice. Events have proved our loyalty ; for so often as King Charles accorded us religious lib- erty, we laid down our arms and restored the cities that had fallen into our hands. The charge of insubordination is a stale calumny, long since refuted. The Protestants, indeed, teach that, so far as religion is concerned, we must simply follow the voice of God. If, therefore, the authority of the Roman re- ligion rest on an antiquity of five hundred, or even a thousand years — a thing utterly out of the question — we shall appeal to the authority of centuries much more remote. "We shall turn back to the times of Christ and his apostles, upon whose teach- ing our religion is founded. Against the Truth thei'e is no pre- scription of antiquity." ' " We do not demand the actual exer- ' "Que je s<;ai estre de leur conseil et des plus avant." Lestoile, i. 53. ' Ibid., ubi supra. ' " La coustume generale du royaume de France," said Arenes, "est que le seigneur ne prescrit point centre le vassal, ny le vassal centre le seigneur, et moins centre le roy. Done a plus forte raison les hommes ue peuvent ac- querir ny prescription ny possession contre le Roy des Rois, et Seigneur des Seigneurs, mesmement au droit de vassalite, qui est le droit de legitime ser- 5G THE HUGUENOTS AND HENRY OF NAVARRE. Ch. I. cise of our religion all over France ; for that we must abide a more opportune time. But there can be no firm concord where distinctions are made between citizens ; for if the one class be- come more fierce and overbearing, the other will become more distrustful." The arguments of Arenes were reinforced by those of Clau- sonne, who in the matter of toleration adduced the example of the Emperor Charles the Fifth, and showed that Henry's con- science could scarcely interfere with his grant of religious liberty to the Fluguenots, in view of the engagements into which he had entered for the purpose of obtaining the crown of Poland. So, too, another ambassador, Beauvoir la Xocle, pointed to the liberality of the Emperor Maximilian who iiaximiiian-s granted religious liberty in his hereditary dominions, example. g^^j evcu iu Yienua itself, upon receiving a payment of one hundred thousand crowns of gold. "Would to God, Sire," he added, turnmg to the king, " that we had paid you a million crowns at a time when we could have furnished them ! "We should have saved a far greater sum of money than that, and the lives of a hundred thousand of our brethren ! " ' Thus it was that, the Parisian Matins being yet recent, their scenes of carnage could not be effaced from the minds of the Protestants, whose delegates seemed forced as by some uncon- trollable impulse, to call up the unwelcome apparition even iu the presence of royalty itself. A little while after the occur- rence of the episode that has just been narrated, another in- cident happened, no less striking in character. The Huguenot demand for the exercise of the Peformed worship ev^erywhere throughout France was under consideration. Holy Baptism, the king was reminded, is a divine ordinance, administered in vice que devons a Dieti, regie par regie de fief, qui est sa volonte expresse, et non par iios inventions et traditions depuis survenues." Mem. de Nevers, i. 318. ' " Pleust a Dieu (dit-il) que nous en eussions bailie un million, Sire, du temps que nous le pouvions faire, pour espargner cent mil de nos freres, qu'on a depuis tuez et meurtriz pour la religion.'' M6m. de Nevers, 1. 324. "At utinam tibi (inquit) Rex, C X M dependissemus, eo tempore quum nobis fa- cultas prsestandi erat. Longe majorem summam et C M fratrum necem re- demissemus.'' Jean de Serres, v. fol. 82. 1575. THE PEACE I^EGOTIATIONS. 57 the Protestant churches only at public service and at the con- clusion of the preaching. Great, therefore, said the deputies, are the dangers to which the infant children of the faithful are exposed, when they have to he taken long distances, often in the dead of winter or through inclement rains, to the " tem- ple," that tliey may receive the sacred rite. Henry of Yalois whose ignorance of the religious usages of a considerable body of his southern subjects was as profound as was his indifference to their interests, remembered only the easy method by which a similar difficulty could be met in the Church of Rome. " Comment," he asked in some astonishment, " comment ne les ondoyez-vous pas, comme icy ? " The majority of the delegates, uninitiated into such refinements, in place of answei-ing the king's question, were compelled to turn to one another and ask in some perplexity the meaning of the strange verb " ondoyer" which his majesty had been pleased to use ; while M. de Beau- voir, for all reply, exclaimed in a tone loud enough to be heard in every part of the room : " We have been only too much deluged both with blood and with water " — " On ne nous a <]ue trop ' ondoyes ' en sang et en eau." ' The theme was undoubtedly an exciting one both for the king and for his mother ; and presently Henry of Yalois, warming with the debate, called for wine, and, when he had drunk it, urged the Huguenots to trust him. " If I l)e not compelled," he said, "I will give you peace and see that it be observed." " That," replied Beauvoir la Kocle, " will be very necessary ; for hitherto your ministers have acted as if their instructions were simply to harry us by every means, in utter contempt for your edicts." ' Memoires de Nevers, i. 325. Littre (Dictionnaire de laLangue fran jects m his service ; although the envoys had no diin- culty in finding precedents for this somewhat inconsistent dec- laration in the pacificatory edicts of Charles the Ninth, He was still more incensed when mention was made of the states general, and it was proposed to reduce the taxes to the scale of the times of Louis the Twelfth. The demand of towns as pledges for the execution of the royal edict of peace met with no greater favor in Henry's eyes ; even when he was reminded that, for lighter reasons than the Huguenots might allege, God had granted the Jews cities of refuge.^ But the king was pro- voked above measure when his attention was called to the re- quest of the Protestants that foreign princes — the Queen of England, the elector palatine, and the Duke of Savoy, not to speak of the Swiss cantons — should take part in the contract, and that a copy of it should be placed in their hands with all due solemnity. "What is the object of this demand?" said Henry with unusual irritation. " If the edict should be vio- lated by me, what will these princes undertake to do against me ? I have no authority over their dominions, nor have they any in turn over mine. Let them attend to their affairs, and command their subjects ; I shall manage my own kingdom and my own people." ' ' Negotiation de la paix, Mem. de Nevers, i. 354 ; Jean de Serres, v. fol. 94. ' Mem. de Nevers, i. 358-365 ; Jean de Serres, v. fols. 95, 96. 'Jean de Serres, v. fol. 98. " Sembia que le roy s'esmeut aucunement ; demandant par deux ou trois, que luy feroient ceux-la, s'il contrevenoit a la paix ? Qu'ils n'avoient que voir sur luy, ni a se mesler de ses affaires, non plus qu'il ne se mesloit en tel cas des leurs. " Mem. de Nevers, i. 365. 62 THE HUGUENOTS AND HENRY OF NAVARRE. Ch. I. Through the long discussion the envoys of Conde and of the Huguenots had, day after day, defended the articles entrusted to their charge, and, unwelcome at every point as ?ieVoMti'qnes Were the terms proposed, the king and his court had deris^n.'"^'' listened with respectful attention. It was otherwise when Monsieur de Saux, the deputy of Marshal Dam- ville, undertook to dilate upon the necessity of reforming the abuses of the Church. The drama had been serious enough, in places even pathetic ; it now turned into a broad farce. It was one thing to listen to those brave, scarred Huguenots, whose right arms had often dealt on the battle-field blows as steady and crushing as the arguments that now dropped from their lips ; it was quite another to sit quietly and hear a studied and insincere harangue on the trite subject of church reformation from the representative of one of the most dissolute of Roman Catholic noblemen. The orator had not advanced far before the company began to fidget and yawn. Old Cardinal Bourbon muttered some indignant exclamation. Then Catharine de' Medici, whom no one could surpass in bitter raillery, broke out upon the deputy of the Politiques. " Those are fine words, Saux I You want to make a speech, forsooth. As if you could instruct us ! We know all that you know. "We are of the same religion as you. We listen patientlj- to ' those of the re- ligion,'because from them we can learn somethino:; but can any one endure you with quietness ? " In vain poor Saux en- deavored to secure a hearing, demanding it in the name of Damville and his associates ; as often as he opened his lips he was greeted by the jeers of the entire company.' ' Jean de Serres, v. fol. 99 ; Mem. de Nevers, i. 368. It must be confessed that the envoys of the Politiques found themselves more thau once in an em- barrassing situation ; especially when it appeared by the statement of one of their own number (in spite of Saux's denial) that they had not only approved but signed with their own hands the Huguenot " cahier,'' including, among other things, a stipulation for the liberty of nuns to marry. " What ! " said Henry, who had an inherited taste for sarcasm. " You wish and demand, on the one hand, that the Catholic Church be reformed, and, on the other, that the nuns maybe suffered to marry." And both the kinff and his mother laughed heartily at the discomfiture of the Politiques. Mem. de Nevers, i. 385^ 1575. THE PEACE NEGOTIATIONS. 63 About a fortnight had been spent in negotiation, profitless save as exhibiting the aims and temper of the parties. Both sides were quite ready to conclude a bargain ; the fers unaccept- difficulty fvas that they were too far apart in their views to give much hope of an amicable agreement.' At last on the twenty-third of April, the king offered his terms : The Protestants to have sixteen cities — eight in Lan- guedoc, six in Guyenne, and two in Dauphiny^ — and, in turn, to restore to the king the cities now in their possession in the state in which they were before the war. The king to appoint four new judges in the Parliament of Paris and select sixteen from the existing body, who should together administer justice for the benefit of the Huguenots. So, also, at Montpellier. Elsewhere the Huguenots to have the right to challenge peremptorily four judges.'' These conditions the Protestant envoys promptly de- clared to be inadmissible, Beauvoir la Node begging Henry to remember that the people must be satisfied. Thereupon the He substitutes monarch deigned, the next day, to enlarge the terms, better terms, j jg conseutcd that the Huguenots should enjoy liberty to reside unmolested in any part of the kingdom, and to worship in all places now in their possession, excepting the four cities of Montpellier, Castres, Aigues-mortes, and Beaucaire. Besides this, the same right was to be enjoyed by all noblemen holding fiefs of the first rank, for themselves and for all visitors ; while nobles of inferior jurisdiction were allowed the same privilege for themselves and their families, but not in walled cities and their suburbs, especially cities belonging to the queen mother or to Anjou, nor within ten leagues of Paris or two leagues of the court.' ' To Jean de Serres, v. fol. 99, the whole transaction was wonderfully like the haggling of shrewd hucksters, " making a small offer at first, then adding a little, asking, detaining, throwing in vague hints of threats, feigning to go away, returning." Jean de Serres, v. fol. 100 ; Mem. de Nevers, i. 368, 369. ^ The written answer given by Henry to the Huguenot demands, article by article, was dated Paris, May 5, 1575. To this he appended, under date of May 18th, two short sentences slightly enlarging his concessions. The only ad- ditional point of importance was that the Protestants should have in each baili? 64 THE HUGUENOTS AND HENRY OF NAVARRE. Ch. 1 These were almost the concluding scenes of the negotiations. The envoys would neither accept nor refuse the proposals of End of the the court. They could only promise to report the negotiations, ^gj.jjjg tlioso wlio had SBut them. It was with re- luctance that they obtained permission to withdraw from Paris. But, if the wrangle between Henry and Catharine, on the one hand, and the Huguenots and their allies, on the other, had proved fruitless of good so far as the immediate re- sults aimed at were concerned, it had not been without its moral effect. It was something, within the very walls of the Louvre, and a stone's throw from the window from which Charles amused himself, less than three years before, with fir- ing his arquebuse at the miserable Huguenots, as though they had been game — it was something, I say, for Huguenot envoys The "prodig- ^^nblushingly to make " a strange and prodigious de- forthe'^Edict "i^'id for the Edict of January." It was proof posi- oi January, ^jyg ^j^^t the boy-klug's adviscrs and instigators had failed to fulfil their part of the bargain ; more than one Hu- guenot remained, if not to reproach, at least to require satis- faction for the crime perpetrated on that wretched Sunday of August. The Protestant ranks had been thinned by the assas- sin's dagger, but their spirit was not broken. They exacted neither more nor less than they had claimed as their right in previous negotiations. There were, indeed, those among them that doubted the expediency of insisting at this time so strenu- ously upon terms which they could scarcely hope by any possi- bility to obtain ; but the judgment of the leaders was A'indicated by the issue ; the very rigidity of the conditions from which they declined to recede determined the wavering and strength- ened the party.' Even La Roclielle, in the vicinity of which Huguenot arms had met with little success, holding scarcely wick of the kingdom au enclosed place, and that among these places should be one city in each of the ancient governments, to be selected by his majesty. The document in full is printed at the end of the narrative of the Huguenot envoys, Mem. de Nevers, i. 435-433. ' " Comme plusieurs interpretoient la durete des articles avoir este telle pour monstrer leur fermete, et par la tirer a soi ceux qui marchaudoient en- cores ; comme il aviut. '' Agrippa d'Aubigne, ii. 176. 1575. THE PEACE NEGOTIATIONS. 65 an inch of ground on the mainland, and scantily supplied with bread, was now induced, through brave La Noue's persuasive words, to assume a bold front.' Just as the Huguenot envoys were on the point of returning to their homes, with the excep- tion of Arenes and a companion, left behind to avoid the appear- ance of relinquishing all hope of peace, there ap- Iiitercessions i • -r-> • i i r i r • of foreign pcai'ed 111 1 aris ambassadors from several foreign states, sent to enforce upon Henry the wholesome coun- sel that he should come to an understanding with his subjects and quench the flames of war. The Swiss legation was specially imposing, with a magistrate of Berne, not less eminent in sta- tion than distinguished for eloquence, at its head. Almost the same day came the ambassador of Duke Emmanuel Philibert, of Savoy. Both urged Henry to grant the petitions of his Protestants for religious liberty, and the Savoyard pointed as an example to the partial toleration he had accorded in his own dominions. Queen Elizabeth added her intercessions to those of the continental allies of France, using her ambassador. Dr. Dale, as her mouthpiece. All these efforts, however, proved as abortive as those of the Huguenots themselves.' Not lonor after, the Prince of Orange, to whom it would seem that Henry had himself sent an envoy, about the end of April, requesting his good offices in allaying the commotions in France, in turn despatched one Dr. Junius, Governor of Veere, to Paris, with instructions to gratify the king's laudable desire. Dr. Junius arrived too late to be of much service, for the Protestant dep- uties were gone. But he elicited at least a frank avowal from his majesty. " Thereupon," says the governor, " the king ex temjyore gave me this answer . . . that he saw distinctly from the results that nothing has been gained by the attempt to take from the Protestants of his kingdom of France the exer- cise of their religion, and that he has consequently made up his mind to govern his subjects with all gentleness and fatherly af- ' Ibid., ubi supra. The Huguenot envoys give a very minute and circumstantial account of the Swiss and Savoyard efforts in their long narrative of their mission. " Negotiation de le paix," Mem. de Nevers, i. 388-424. See also Jean de Serres, v. fols. 102, 103 ; Agrippa d'Aubigue, ii. 175; De Thou, v 188. Vol. I.— 5 66 THE HUGUENOTS AND HENRY OF NAVARRE. Cu. L fection, and to give tliem reason to love and obey him." To all which, and to the king's request that he should labor with the Prince of Conde to bring him to his way of thinking, the worthy governor doubtless listened with courtesy and appar- ently with implicit confidence. Xone the less, however, did he express to Conde, with pardonable scepticism, his suspicion re- specting peace negotiations, of whose progress the Pope was said to be kept advised, and which met with approval at Rome. The horrible acts were yet fresh in men's memories by which former edicts of pacification had been violated.' Throughout the summer, uninterrupted by the progress of the fruitless negotiations to which we have been attending, the Treacherous desolatiug plague of War continued its ravages. 'Not disguises. ^i^^i tjjg conflict was without its exciting adventures. In the struggle, which often narrowed itself down to an attempt to take city by city, treachery and stratagem had a rare op- portunity for display. Many were the disguises adopted, many the cunning plans devised. Mont Saint Michel, commonly called " Mont Saint Michel au peril de la mer," in the extreme southwestern corner of Xormandy, was a stronghold much cov- eted by the Huguenots of that province. The prospect of gaining those massive walls by open warfare was not encour- aging. But a party of five-and-twenty Protestants, dressed in the rough garb of pilgrims, found ready admission at the gates. Slowly and with well-simulated devotion they climbed the six- score steps that led to the abbey church, situated on an em- inence commanding the town. Here, after paying for a mass, and buying consecrated candles, they concluded the solemn farce by stabbing the priest when he turned to present the plate for their offerings, and made themselves masters of the holy place." But whatever military advantages the Huguenots obtained ' Dr. J. Junius to the Prince of Conde, June, 1575, Groen van Prinsterer, V. 237-243. "De Thou, V. 192, 196; Lestoile, 1. 56; Agrippa d'Aubigne, ii. 158-160; Claude Haton, ii. 895. The latter refers the incident to a date about two years later. 1575. THE WAR CONTINUED. 6Y in various parts of tlie realm were more than outweighed by the death of " the brave Montbrun." This daring and ener- getic leader, the terror of the enemy in Danphinv,' Capture of ? , . , ,. t , , ^ j- o • . , . / Montbrun, had ]ust defeated a large body of fewiss auxiliaries, upon whom he inflicted a loss of eight or nine hun- dred men and eighteen ensigns, while that of the Huguenots scarcely amounted to half a dozen men. But his brilliant suc- cess in this and other engagements had made Montbrun and his soldiers more incautious than usual. They attacked a strong detachment of men-at-arms, and mistaking the con- fusion into which they threw the advance guard for a rout of the entire body, dispersed to gather the booty and offered a tempting opportunity to the Roman Catholics as they came up. Montbrun, who, too late, discovered the danger of his troops, and endeavored to rally them, was at one time enveloped by the enemy, but would have made good his escape had there not been a broad ditch in his way. Here his horse missed its footing, and in the fall the leader's thigh was broken. In this pitiable plight he surrendered his sword to a Roman Catholic captain, from whom he received the assurance that his life would be spared.' The king and his mother had other views. Henry, on re- ceiving the grateful news of Montbrun's capture, promptly gave orders that the prisoner be taken to Grenoble and tried by the Parliament of Dauphiny on a charge of treason. Vain were the efforts of the Huguenots, equally vain the intercession of the Duke of Guise, who wished to have Montbrun exchanged for Besme, Coligny's murderer, recently fallen into Huguenot hands. Henry and Catharine de' Medici were determined that Montbrun should die. They urged the reluctant judges by reiterated commands ; they overruled the objection that to put the prisoner to death would be to violate good faith and the laws of honorable warfare. Catharine had not forgotten the honest ' "Ex praecipuis ducibus Huguenotorum, qui multa fortiter et feliciter in his bellis civilibus fecit." Languet, Epistolae senretae, i. 114. -' Jean de Serres, v. fols. 106, seq. ; Recueil des choses memorables, 546, etc. ; De Thou, v. 203 ; Agrippa d'Aubigne, ii. 137. 68 THE HUGUENOTS AND HENRY OF NAVARRE. Ch. L Frenchman's allusion to her " perfidious and degenerate " coun- trymen.' As for Henry, an insult received at Montbrun's hands ran- kled in his breast and made forgiveness impossible. Some Henry res- months bcfore, the king had sent a message to him in Montbran ^ somewliat liauglitv toue, demanding the restoration must die. ^£ ^YiQ royal baggage and certain prisoners taken by the Huguenots. " What is this ! " exclaimed the general. The king writes to me as a kins:, and as if I were bound to obey him ! I want him to know that that would be very well in time of peace ; I should then recognize his royal claim. But in time of war, when men are armed and in the saddle, all men are equal." On hearing this, we are told, Henry swore that Mont- bruu should repent his insolence. In his glee over the Hugue- not's mishap he recalled the prophecy and broke out with the exclamation, " Montbrun will now see whether he is my equal." ' Under these cii'cumstances there was little chance for a Hu- guenot, were he never so innocent, to be acquitted by a servile ' See above, page 36. Catharine and the knot of Italians whom she had gathered about her were very sensitive on the point of nationality. Lestoile ( i. 57) tells us that, Tuesday, July 5, 1575, a captain La Vergerie was hung and quartered by order of Chancellor Birague and some maitres de requetes named by the queen mother, for merely saying, in a conversation respecting a quarrel between the University students and some Italians at Paris, that his friends ought to espouse the side of the former " et saccager et couper la gorge a tous ces b. d'ltaliens qui estoient cause de la ruine de la France." The popular indignation vented itself in a multitude of sonnets and pasquinades against Catharine de' Medici. - " Estant en Avignon, il [Henry III.] escrivit une lettre audit Monsieur de Montbrun, un peu brave, haute et digne d'un roy, sur quelques prisonniers qu'il avoit pris, et sur I'insolenee faite. II respondit (si) outrecuj-demment que eela luy cousta la vie. ' Comment,' dit-il ; ' le Roy m'escrit comme Roy, et comme si je le devois reconnoistre ! Je veux qu'il s^ache que cela seroit bon en temps de paix, et qu'alors je le reconnoistraj- pour tel ; mais en temps de guerre, qu'on a le bras arme, et le cul sur la selle, tout le monde est com- pagnon.' Telles paroles irriterent tellement le Roy, qu'il jura un bon coup, qu'il s'en repentiroit." Brantome, Mestres de Camp Huguenots de I'lnfan- terie Francoise, CEuvres, xi. 151. Brantome was at court when, over a year later, news came of Montbrun's capture. Henry, he tells us, was greatly pleased, and said : " Je scavois bien qu 'il s'en repentiroit, et mourra ; et verra bien a cette heure s'il est men compagnon." Ibid., p. 152. 1575. THE WAR CONTINUED. 69 parliament. Accordingly Montbrun was condemned to be be- headed as a rebel against the king and a disturber of the public peace. The execution was hastened lest natural death from the injury received should balk the malice of his relentless enemies. A contemporary, who may even have been an eye-witness, describes the closing scene in words eloquent from their unaf- fected simplicity. " lie was dragged, half dead, from the prison, Montbrun-s ^'^^ Carried in a chair to the place of execution, execution. exhibiting in his affliction an assured countenance ; while the Parliament of Grenoble trembled and the entire city lamented. He had been enjoined not to say a word to the peo- ple, unless he wished to have his tongue cut off. Nevertheless he complained, in the presence of the whole parliament, of the wrong done to him, proving at great length his innocence and contemning the fury of his enemies who were attacking a man as good as dead. He showed that it was without cause that he was charged with being a rebel, since never had he had any design but to guarantee peaceable Frenchmen from the violence of strangers who abused the name and authority of the king. His death was constant and Christian. He was a gentleman held in high esteem, inasmuch as he was neither avaricious nor i-apacious, but on the contrary devoted to religion, bold, moder- ate, upright ; yet he was too indulgent to his soldiers, whose license and excesses gained him much ill-will and many enemies in Dauphiny. His death so irritated these soldiers that they ravaged after a strange fashion the environs of Grenoble." ' The death of so pi-ominent and energetic a Huguenot captain was likely to embolden the Roman Catholic party, not only in Dauphiny but in the rest of the kinn!' septem- ^he suburbs ; but one day while his escort patiently ber, 1575. waited f or his return at the front door of the resi- dence of his mistress, the prince quietly took horse on the op- posite side of the house and rode off southward at full speed. A day or two later, when quite beyond reach of his pursiiers, he sat down and indited a manifesto, or at least published such a paper to the world, in which he declaimed with violence against his brother's favorites, and, while professing the inten- tion to maintain the riglits of the nobles and the clergy, prom- ised to secure those of the people, and demanded the convoca- tion of the states general. Nothing was more specious than were these assurances. The only difficulty was in the character of him that uttered them. Could the selfish boy, who, tired of the monotony and insignificance of his position at court, fled ' Reoueil, De Thou, etc., ubi supra. ' The king had, some weeks earlier, received warning of such a plan, and liad brought the matter before the royal council ; but Catharine expressed her incredulit3', and advocated that Henry should rather assure himself of his brother by winning his heart. His Majesty was not pleased at this. "Well,'' quoth the king, " it is you, mother, that do liold him up by the chin, and without you he would not be so bold as he is ; but I will have my reason of him." Memorandum, in Dr. Dale's handwriting, without date, but seut from Paris in the summer of 1575, State Paper Office. 1575. THE WAR CONTINUED. 71 to the arms of the Protestants and Politiques, be really in ear- nest ? Strange as it may appear, many of the best citizens imagined it to be so. Both Ilugnenots and upright Roman TheHuffuc- CatlioHcs, ignorant of Alengon's true nature, suffered not3 duped, tliemselves to be amused by a sheet of paper. Some ministers of religion went further, and, in the churches of La Rochelle and Montauban, public thanksgiving was made to God over the happy escape of the prince from imprisonment. At that very moment, we are told, Alengon was excusing him- self at Rome and trying to persuade the Pope that he had taken the step only from necessity. The time was to come when the instincts of Catharine's youngest son would be fully understood, the time when the pseudo-patriot would turn out to be an arrant coward, with no solicitude save for his own petty interests, with no aptitude ex- cept an inherited capacity of no stinted measure for dissimu- lation and deceit. When that time arrived it was not unnat- ural for the Huguenots to pass from credulous trust to the opposite extreme of unreasonable suspicion, nor was it strange that they came to believe the escape of Alen9on from court to be but a subtle device of Catharine to lure the Protestants on to their ruin. The queen mother's agitation they insisted was assumed only for the moment ; in her heart she rejoiced that Alengon would soon be at the head of the German army which Conde and Casimir were brino-ins', at so great a cost Catharine's Do' o grief gen- of troublc and treasure, to dictate peace at the gates of Paris. In truth, however, this conclusion was as ill-founded as the first hasty rejoicing was premature. Cath- arine's grief was sincere. The Florentine envoy was no heretic to be hoodwinked, and there was no profit to be derived from deceiving his master the Grand Duke of Tuscany. "We may, therefore, conclude with safety that Catharine was altogether unprepared for Alen9on's escape and, at first, utterly cast down by it. Alamaimi declared that, on calling upon the queen mother, he found her marvellously depressed. He had never seen her so disheartened by any occurrence since his arrival in France. She spoke in few and broken words, as if fearing to touch the wound, and, almost with tears in her eyes and appar- 72 THE HUGUENOTS A^^D HENRY OF NAVARRE. Ch. L ently forgetful of her royal dignity, declared that she never would have thought such a thing possible.' Meantime the court did not waste its time in useless regrets. The union of Alengon with Damville and the Huguenots made a formidable combination. It was important to avoid driving the younger Montmorencies to extremities. So Marshal Francis, the head of the family, was formally liberated (on the second of October) from the imprisonment in which he had been languishing for over a year. After a few days more of hesitation, the king gave him audience, greeted him with warmth, and begged him to forget past injuries.'' Happy had been the lot of France if selfishness had been the supreme characteristic of Alengon alone. Unfortunately this weak prince was but a type of the nobleman of the period. In the incessant contests waged between the privileged classes, Wretched '^^^^ wretclicd " tiers etat that was forced to the^'-tiers*** ^^^^ brunt of all the misfortunes befalling the land. " It will be found in the end," says the cure of Meriot, " that the seigneur will come to an agreement with the king, without giving himself any further solicitude for the ' Alamanni to the Grand Duke, September 22, 1575, Negociations avec la Toscane, iv. 45. Dr. Dale says almost the same thing. " The king was very heavy and sorrowful and the queen mother as one dismayed. They spake both very lowly for their degree.'' Letter to Smith and Walsingham, Septem- ber 28,1575, State Paper Office. Recueil des choses memorables, 550-553; Lestoile, i. 60; De Thou, v. 214, 215 ; La Fosse (Journal d'un cure ligueur), 174; Agrippa d'Aubigno, ii. 177, 178; Jean de Serres, v. fols. 116, seq. ; Davila, 214. The correspondence of the English ambassador gives a vivid im- pression of the " marvellous perplexity '' at Paris— the court amazed, the king tormenting himself upon his bed, the chancellor and others going home to utter laments over the untoward incident among their familiars, all men find- ing fault with the queen mother, because she was the let that Monsieur was not stayed, almost all the kings' followers booted in the court, and those that were not noted as not read}' to do loyal service. The king knew not what to do, fearing that his troops would refuse to obey any of the generals that he might send to reduce Alencon by force of arms ; fearing, also, that should lie go in person, liis troops would desert him. He concluded, however, promptly to send to his fugitive brother the plate, jewels, apparel, household stuff, and servants he had left behind him in his precipitate flight. Dr. Dale to Smith and Walsingham, September, 1575, State Paper Office. ^ Alamanni to the Grand Duke, November, 1575, Negociations, iv. 47. 1575. THE WAR CONTINUED. 73 general weal, especially in what concerns the interest of the poor people of the towns and villages. Such is the condition of the princes of France that they always put forward the puhlic welfare when they desire to avenge their quarrels upon each other, but they force the misei'able commoner to endure tlie discomfort of the war, under the burden of which he is overwhelmed, and in return he gains nothing from the fine promises made by the princes. Instead of the relief which they promise the people, they open the door to all sorts of brigandage, to theft, robbery, and assassination. So it hap- pened at this time, by reason of Alengon's declaration and pro- testation. In consequence of the prince's withdrawal from court, for the security, as was alleged, of his own person, the war was rendered worse by the half than it was in previous years for the poor laborers and villagers, by larcenj', theft, extortion, rape, murder, and every other form of outi'age, with- out rebuke or interposition of law or justice. And it cannot be otherwise ; for, if one of the princes that are at war with each other were to undertake to punish the armed men of his party for the injuries they commit, instantly all his followers would leave him and go over to his enemy, and he would thus remain alone and without support." ' Claude Haton spoke only of what he had seen with his own eyes in the fertile province of Champagne. For had he not witnessed with indignation the perfect imconcern with which, for example, the Duke of Aumale, when on his way to join the Duke of Guise and help to repel the German reiters, had stopped in Provins and spent a day in playing tennis with the nobles of the place, while his followers scoured the neighbor- hood and devoured the scanty property of the villagers, depriv- ing them even of the very necessaries of life?'' But the cu- rate's bitter words were equally true of a great part of France. The reckless prodigality of the upper and ruling classes was > Memoires de Claude Haton, ii. 782. Ibid., ii. 779. The reader curious to know the heart-rending details of popular suffering may study the document printed in the appendix to the same work (pages 1141-4), entitled "Remonstrances tres humbles des villes de Troyes, Reins, Chaalons," etc. THE HUGUENOTS AKD HENRY OF NAVARRE. Ch. I. every day increasing the load under which tlie peasantry stag- gered. ]S'ot a linger was raised to lighten the crushing burden. "Lemanant The scoHiful exclamatlon had passcd into a proverb, payetout." li j^q luauaut paye tout."' None dreamed that the rustic clown had a long memory, in which the full budget of his grievances, through the centuries, was faithfully stored up, and that he wo;;ld one day importunately demand his reckon- ing at a time and in a manner very distasteful to his chronic debtor. " Le manant paye toi;t," said every member of the privileged orders, from the king down to the most insignificant baron who had contrived to avoid the forfeiture of his pre- scriptive rights, that would have resulted from engaging in the plebeian pursuits of trade or manual labor. In vain did the general distress call forth murmurs from all parts of the king- dom, cries to the effect that the king; must do something to re- lieve the universal distress, loud protests from Roman Catho- lics that those under the protection of the Huguenots were better treated than the subjects of the king that had not taken up arms.' Isever had the court been more thoughtless of the welfare of the nation, moi-e wholly given up to riotous excess. Serious- minded men stood aghast, superstitious men thought comiptionof ^^^J ^^^^ uubridlcd licentiousness of the times the court. sigus of the approacliiug end of all things. " It had seemed," said they, " in the time of Charles the Isintli, that the dissoluteness of the court could go to no greater lengths ; but since the accession of Henry the Third, and especially since his marriage, it has passed all bounds and become so outrageous that all that was once practised under those ancient Roman emperors, masters of corruption and detestable lasciviousness, appears now to be revived. To specify would be to rehearse each most shameful statement contained in Suetonius, Herodian, Lampridius, and other similar historians of antiquity."^ ' Dialogue du malieustre et du manant, in Satyre Menippee (Ratisbon, 1726), iii. 551. ' " Allegande che quelli che stanno sotto la protezione delli ugonotti sono meglio trattati." Alamanni to the Grand Duke, 1575, Negociations avec la Toscane, iv. 37. ' The language is substantially that of the author of the Recueil des choses memorables (Dordrecht, 1598), 541. 1575. THE WAR CONTINUED. 75 A modern may well beg to be excused from giving a detailed account of enormities from a recital of which the chronicler of the sixteenth century drew back in horror : especially Puerile ex- ' i ./ travagiince iu vlcw of the fact that the reference to the strange and lewdness. . . _c i t i i mixture oi puerile extravagance, loul lewdness, and absurd devotion to which the king and his favorites were ad- dicted is only germane to the theme of this history in so far as light may be thrown upon the motives of the policy exercised toward the Hus;uenots. Prudent counsellors had no standing witli the young king. Their place had been usurped by the wild ministers to his pleasures. Among such bastard statesmen loud and angry disputes passed for an equivalent of rational discussion. Low broils and even assassination of rivals, whether in political or in amorous intrigue, abounded. M. du Gast, one of the chief participators in the bloody scenes of St. Bartholo- mew's Day, was found dead in his bed, six weeks after Alen- 9on's escape. Although the instigator of the murder was shrewdly suspected, no attempt was made to discover and pun- ish the culprit. Xone the less did the king indulge in extrava- gant displays of sorrow at the death of - his favorite, bury him with great pomp by the grand altar in the church of Saint Ger- main I'Auxerrois, and assume the dead man's debts, said to amount to more than one hundred thousand francs.' A few days later, the monarch so recently plunged in grief was seen in his " coche," traversing the streets of Paris, in company with Henry and ^lii^ jo^^ig quccn, visitiug private houses and especially his dogs. convents, and laying his hands on all the little dogs of a certain prized breed that he could find." Great was the annoyance of the nuns and the ladies thus robbed of their pets ; still greater the indignation of the more sober part of the popu- lation at the ridicule which was sure to attach to the royal name in the estimate of foreigners. For it was not a passing whim that led Henry to lavish upon his dogs the care that might advantageously have been expended upon his miserable sub- jects. Ten years later, when Chancellor Leoninus and his asso- ' Lestoile (October 31, 1575), i. 61. « Ibid. (November, 1575), i. 02. 76 THE HUGUENOTS AND HEXRY OF NAVARRE. Ch. L ciates came to the Louvre, bringing with them a magnificent offer to Henry — nothing less than the sovereignty of the Low Countries, quite equal by themselves to a kingdom — even, as one diplomatist dryly remarks, to the kingdom of Poland ' — the as- tonished envoys, at their soleimi reception, found the monarch of France standing in the midst of his minions with " a little basket, full of puppies, suspended from his neck by a broad ribbon." ' Devout Roman Catholics were still more shocked when they beheld Henry nonchalantly come up to the altar to receive the consecrated wafer, after having frolicked all through the service of the mass with his canine companions ; while the sick who presented themselves to be touched for the king's evil scarcely ever saw him go through the mystic ceremonial without a dog resting upon his arms/ Meanwhile, if Henry of Yalois was sinking into effeminacy, surrounded by favorites who from men seemed to have been changed into women, in another part of France at least one of his subjects, laj-ing aside the natural timidity of her sex, had seized the sword and was battling for her faith in right manly fashion. The virtuous Madeleine de Miraumont, sister of the Bishop of Le Puy, was a young widow of large possessions in Auvergne and as ardent a partisan of the reformed as her brother was of the papal cause. It was not a difficult matter for a woman of remarkable beauty, who betrayed no marked preference for any one of her many admirers, to gather about her a band of gallant young noblemen. "When she took horse ' Morillon to Cardinal Granvelle, December 11, 1575, Groen van Prinsterer, V. 326. ■-' See the graphic account of the interview in Jlotley, United Netherlands, i. 96. ^ "II recevoit Dieu, qui scait en quelle conscience! Car, ou tout affuble, ou tenant xm chien, ou ayant folastre, tout duraut la messe, quelquefois avec des chiens, il s'y presentoit hardiment. Aussi touchoit-il les escrouelles presque toujours charge d"un chien sur im bras." Les moeurs, humeurs et eom- portemens de Henry de Valois (1589), Cimber et Danjou, Archives curieuses, xii. 468. Henry's irreverence on such occasions was of less importance if, as the writer of another libellous tract asserts, this monarch, in consequence of the fact that, at his anointing, the " sainte ampoule " was not disposed " as usual, never acquired the inestimable prerogative of curing the king's evil. La vie et fails notables de Henry de Valois, Archives curieuses, xii 492. 1575. THE WAR CONTINUED. 77 in person, armed cap-a-pie, full sixty knights gladly enrolled themselves under her banner, which, to use the expression of an appreciative historian, they esteemed to be no less the standard of love. With such a following, the exploits of the fair Amazon were as extraordinary as her warfare was novel. Isot only did she repeatedly defeat superior forces of the enemy, but when besieged in her own castle by M. de Montal, royal lieutenant for Lower Auvergne, she boldly charged the Roman Catholics with scarce two score cavaliers, turning them into flight and mortally wounding their leader. No wonder that, in after times, as often as the Huguenot gentlemen from other parts of the kingdom would undertake in playful banter to reproach their comrades of Auvergne with having been soldiers of the Lady of Miraumont, the Auvergnese accepted the intended taunt as a compliment and bewailed the misfortune of those whom fortune had denied the privilege of so honorable a service.' To add to the coniusion reigning throughout France there came the report of the approach of foreign arms. The Prince of Conde had prevailed upon the elector palatine and Foreign help - 'i tt for the Hu- his SOU agaui to give the iiuguenots a much-needed support.^ Duke John Casimir promised to enroll a considerable force, consisting of eight thousand reiters (two thousand in his own name and the rest in the name of Conde) and eight thousand Swiss foot soldiers. The invading army was to be provided with a supply of artillery, regarded, according to the notions of the sixteenth century, as quite sufficient — four large cannon, and twelve or fifteen field-pieces, and an abun- dant store of ammunition. On his side, the prince engaged that Marshal Damville would raise and bring from Languedoc a force of twelve thousand foot and two thousand horse. The treaty now signed included provisions to the effect that Jolm Casimir should be consiilted upon all questions of peace and war, and that the claims of his German troops for wages should ' Agrippa d'Aubigne, ii. 164. ' See Conde's long letter to John Casimir respecting the cause.s of the war, Jean de Serres, v. fols. 123-127. 78 THE HUGUENOTS AND HENRY OF NAVARRE. Ch. I. be paid in full before tlieir final discbarge. It was also stipu- lated that John Casimir should sign the compact existing be- tween Damville and the Protestants, and that an essential arti- cle of any future treaty of peace with the King of France should be that John Casimir be placed in command of the three bishoprics — Metz, Toul, and Yerdun — as royal governor.' It was always the misfortune of the Huguenots that their geographical distribution was such as to separate them from their allies by wide distances. Between the German frontier and the provinces in which the Protestants were numerous, in- tervened other provinces in which the Protestants had little or no foothold. In its consternation at the sudden flight of Alengon, the court had not forgotten to take measures for pre- venting that prince, so far as possible, from obtaining the sup- port of the nobility, and had renewed its efforts to intercept any assistance from abroad. Unfortunately, the leaders of the Huguenot army of reinforcement made the capital mistake of dividing their troops. Since John Casimir was not yet ready to march with the main body, they permitted Thore-Montmo- rency to lead a detachment to the help of his brother, Dam- ville. Thore's entire force consisted of only twelve or fifteen liundred German horse, with a few mounted French gentlemen, and five hundred arquebusiers. It was sheer madness to attempt, with such insignificant numbers, to penetrate so far through ' Recueil des clioses mcmorables, 554 ; Jean de Serres, v. fols. 127-129 ; De Thou, V. 217. See the text of the treaty, published for the first time in full, from that one of the two extant copies which was sent by the elector palatine to the magistrates of Geneva, by Henri Fazj-, Geneve, le Parti Huguenot et le Traite de Soleure, 146-157. The treaty is dated November 27, 1575 ; the elector palatine's letter four days later. The Duke of Aumale (Histoire des Princes de Conde, ii. 110), with true French pride, stigmatizes the agreement as odious, and its provisions as both absurd and impossible of execution. He hardly knows which to admire most — the extravagance of the palatine's claims, or the simplicity wherewith he seems to accept the chimerical en- gagements of his Huguenot allies. Without going to this length, we may certainly be permitted to deplore the necessity to which the French Protest- ants were driven by the fur}' of their enemies, of calling in, like their Ro- man Catholic fellow citizens, the help of foreign troops, and of exposing themselves to the taunt of caring less for the integrity of their country's territory than for their religious privileges. 1575. THE WAR CONTINUED. 79 a region in which defensible elevations abounded, which was intersected by rivers, and whose population was in arms to pre- clude the passage.' When to these difficulties was added the fact that, while the Germans had an inexperienced leader, and soon were mutinous for the payment of their wages, the court had collected a greatly superior force ^ to oppose their entrance, under such skilled captains as Henry of Guise, his brother, the Duke of Mayenne, Armand de Biron, and Philip Strozzi, no wonder that the expedition ended in disaster. After having suffered great annoyance from the skirmishing attacks of the enemy, Thore was met and signally defeated, on the tenth of October, upon the banks of the Marne, not far from Chateau Thierry. It was with difficulty that the incompetent young Defeat of i^iau, witli a haudful of his reiters, succeeded in ex- Thore. tricatiug himself from the meshes of his enemies and joining Alengon at La Chatre, after a break-neck ride of seventy leagues. On the other hand, Henry of Guise fought bravely, received a severe wound in the cheek, and fell to the ground half dead. The honorable scar (balafre) borne by him to the day of his death was the occasion of the epithet of " Le balafre," by which his followers gloried in designating him.^ The loss on the Protestant side, if small in killed, was great in the number of wounded. ' So it appeared to Hubert Languet, himself a Bungundian by birth, when he first lieard of the design. "Via est adeo longa et adeo impedita inontibus et fluminibus, ut putem pcene esse impossible ut eo perveniant quo constitue- runt, cum praesertim dicantur esse tantum duomillia et paucos peditessint se- cum habituri et forte duces imperitos. Nam audio ipsorum ducem praecipu- um fore Thoraium, filium connestabilis natu minimum." Epistolae secretae, i. (2) 124. It would appear, however, that Languet was misinformed respect- ing the route Thore was to take, and supposed he would traverse Burgundy instead of Champagne. - 10,000 to 12,000 foot, and 1,200 horse, besides the troops sent by the Dukes of Uzes and Montpensier. ^ Lestoile (under date of October 11th), i. 61 ; Memoires de Claude Haton, ii. 789; Agrippa d'Aubigne, ii. 179-183; Jean de >Serres, v. fols. 140, 141; De Thou, V. 221, 222; Kecueil des choses memorables, r)5G. See also tlie ac- count of the "Skirmish between the Reiters and Guise," sent by Dale to Bur- leigh, October 11, 1575, State Paper Office. Agrippa d'Aubigno devotes an entire chapter to this engagement, which he calls " Defifaitte de Dormans" — 80 THE HUGUENOTS AND HENRY OF NAVARRE. Cn. I. Meanwhile, Catliarine de' Medici had forgotten none of the arts by means of which she had, single-handed, more than once frustrated the well-devised counsels of statesmen and the care- fully-laid schemes of war. In carrying into execution her in- trigues she had never been sparing of time, fatigue, or expos- ure. She now left Henry to his puerile occupations and his dogs, while she posted to Touraine to confer with Alengon, and was rewarded by her success in patching up a hollow truce. It A hollow ^^^^ ^^^^ about seven months,' and the conditions truce. were very favorable to her youngest son — among other things, payment to the Germans, and the transfer of six places of security — Angonleme, Isiort, Saiunur, Bourges, and La Charite to the Duke of Alengon, and Mezieres to the Prince of Conde." But, after all, the truce amounted to little or nothing. Conde and John Casimir refused to ratify the ar- rangements, and neither the court nor xVlengon took the trouble to observe it. As the queen-mother had had no other end in view than to prevent or delay the entrance of John Casimir into France, there remained nothing to be done for the present but to oppose him with an armed force of mercenary troops. For by December the army of John Casimir, which recognized the Prince of Conde's joint authority, had swollen in size, and in- cluded ten thousand liorse, six thousand Swiss, two thousand lansquenets, and three thousand French arquebusiers. It was only waiting in the neighborhood of Saverne to receive tidings of the advance of Damville with troops and ready money.' Hereupon Henry ordered a levy of six thousand Swiss and made arrangements for a suitable niimber of Germans. But a levy required money, and of money he had none. So the king Dormans is ten or twelve miles east of Chateau Thierry — and remarks, some- what hyperbolically, that the battle is " presque inconnue a tousceux qui ont escrit, et de ceux qui I'ont veue estimee plus digne du nom de bataille que plusieurs a qui on a donne ce titre." ' November 22, 1575, to June 25, 1576. - Recueil des choses memorables, 558 ; De Thou, v. 222 ; Jean de Serres, v. fols. 143, 144; Davila, 216 ; Agrippa d'Aubigne, ii. 178, 179 ; "Accord be- tween Monsieur and the Queen Mother," Magny, November 8, 1575, State Pa- per Office. " Recueil des uhoses memorables, 559. 1575. THE WAR CONTINUED. SI betook himself to the Hotel de Yille, and begged tlie city of Paris to furnish him with two hundred thousand livres where- with to hire the troops that might defend the citi- of the king to zeus agaiust the dreaded Huguenots. But the pru- raise money. ^^^^ mercliauts of the Capital were more suspicious of the king, who seemed to have instituted from close at hand an irreconcilable war against their purses,' than afraid of Conde and John Casimir, who were yet a good distance off. Instead of money came an answer in the foi'm of a vexatious array of figures. The burghers broadly hinted that the king wanted their hard-earned gold for his favorites rather than for his armies, and they very distinctly pointed out the bottomless abyss of the king's prodigality, which no wealth of theirs could hope to fill. Paris had, in the past fifteen years, furnished the crown with thirty-six millions of livres, besides the sixt}' millions contributed by the clergy. What was there to show for an enormous expenditure which, rightly applied, might have se- cured the extension of the kingdom by lawful conquest ? France had gained no honors ; it had only incurred the ridicule of strangei'S. Other remarks there were, equally distasteful to the king, on the universal corruption of clergy and judiciary, and the wastefulness pervading every branch of the administra- tion.^ It is not surprising that Henry was provoked beyond endurance. He adopted, however, a strange method of revenge. Bringing the roval troops to the immediate vicinitv, Henry's i • " • i i . t • • o • -r>. whimsical he posted (juise with his division at feaint Denis, revenge. Birou at Moutiiiartre, Retz at Charenton, and so on, encircling the city in every direction, and compelled the citizens who had refused him ready money for his levies — or his favor- ites—to loosen their close-drawn purse-striiigs for the payment of the beleaguering forces."* ' " Ita peroratio semper de pecunia erat et Parisiorum criimenis bellum iu- dicebatur." Jean de Serres, v. fol. 165. - Recueil des choses memorables, 560 ; Jean de Serres, v. fols. 153, 158 ; Agrippa d'Aubigne, ii. 217-219 ; De Thou, v. 223, 224. ^The incident is detailed by Jean de Serres, v. 159; Recneil des choses memorables, 561, and luveutaire gt-nural, ii. 491. It is not mentioned by De Thou. Vol. I.— 0 82 THE HUGUENOTS AXD HENRY OF NAVARRE. Ch. I. Isever had France presented a scene of greater inconsisten- cies and more widespread confusion than it did about this time. General con- Everywhere deceit and contradictory purposes seemed fusion. j.gign. The king had made a truce, and was pre- paring for war. Alen9on chose almost the same moment for the publication of the armistice in his court and for the con- firmation of the agreements entered into by Co'nde with John Casimir ; ' and, while he assured the Pope of his unimpeach- able orthodoxy and upright intentions, was begging the Prot- estant city of La Rochelle to furnish him money, and assever- ating his purpose to espouse the quarrels of the Keformed Church of France.'' Meanwhile, this excellent prince and worthy son of Catharine de' Medici took possession of such of the cities pledged to him as consented to admit his troops, and accepted the substitutes offered for the other cities wliose au- dacious governors defiantly refused to obey the king's com- mands, troubling himself little about the failure of the court to fulfil its engagement to entrust Mezieres to the Prince of Conde.' In fact, the only compact about whose honest observance any solicitude was exhibited was an agreement made, not by The truce of ^ings or princes, but by the untitled inhabitants of a vivarais. small proviucc. The people of Vivarais — that frag- ment of Languedoc, on the right bank of the Klione, of which Yiviers was the most considerable town — were wearied of the relentless progress of a confiict raging at their very hearths. Here had the misery of the civil war become most conspicuous because the drama was seen enacted on so contracted a stage. There were two governors of Languedoc, both claiming royal appointment : the Protestants respected the authority of Mar- shal Damville, the Roman Catholics the authority of the Due d'Uzes. Under the governor of Languedoc, the Protestants ' The truce was proclaimed in Alengon's court, December 23, 1575, according to De Thou, v. 227, 228. Alengon confirmed Conde's engagements, December 22, 1575, according to Jean de Serres, v. fol. 152, 153. The self-reliant and prudent city reluctantly made Alen9on a present of 10,000 francs. Lestoile, 63 ; De Thou, v. 228, 239. 3 Ibid., V. 227, 228. 1575. THE WAR CONTINUED. 83 obeyed two lieutenants, Pierregourde and Ciigieres, governors of the upper and lower divisions of Vivarais respectively ; while the Roman Catholics recognized Du Bourg as governor of the whole district. Each party had its own provincial estates. Some of the towns held for the Protestants, some for the Koman Catholics. Four thousand soldiers, living in idle- i ness, not only consumed the scanty resources of the inhabi- ants, but inflicted on them a thousand insolences such as troops are wont to indulge in when unrestrained by strict discipline. Agriculture and trade were suspended. Townsmen and vil- lagers alike groaned under their burdens, while the military leaders alone made light of grievances in which they found a source of profit for themselves. Under these circiiinstances the people took tlie matter into their own hands. Men of both re- ^ ligious communions, deputed by the two provincial estates, came together, and, after mature deliberation, entered into a compact for mutual protection. The document setting forth this agreement is so singular, and has been so little noticed by historians, that its contents must be alluded to. It began by a joint profession of loyalty. Both parties declared that they persevered constantly iu their obedience to Henry, and recog- nized as his representatives, the Roman Catholics the Due d'Uzes, the Protestants Marshal Damville. They maintained that their sole aim in taking the present step was to ward off disaster from their common country. The Protestants, in par- ticular, solemnly afiirmed that, in the new league into which dire necessity had driven them to enter, they had no intention of forsaking the common alliance of the Reformed Churches of France. After this preamble the terms of the truce were given. " All hostile attempts, either by open force of arms or by secret counsels, shall henceforth cease within the bounds of Vivarais. Xo one, whether native-born or stranger, shall be exposed to any danger. No injury shall be done by any one, whosoever he be, to agriculture or commerce, to persons or property. Xo hostile attack shall be made against the cities ; there shall be no hostile gatherings, no inroads into the country. Discord having been allayed, there shall be free in- tercourse between the towns and the country. Whoever shall 84 THE HUGUENOTS AND HENRY OF NAVARRE. Cu. I. do otherwise, shall be held an eueiiiy, and shall be punished as a plunderer and a disturber of the public peace, according to the severity of the laws, with the unanimous consent of all the orders." There were other provisions, respecting the remission of unpaid taxes, the release of prisoners, the restoration of cattle, and the diminution of garrisons. The treaty was to be submitted for approval by both sides to the governors whom they recognized, and indeed to the king himself ; but, even should it ultimately be found impossible to secure their sanc- tion, no recourse was to be had to arms until the expiration of at least a month's interval after due notice of the failure. As to any nobles or cities that might decline to endorse the com- pact, both Protestants and Iloman Catholics agreed to proceed against them in arms, as enemies of their common country and unworthy of the common alliance.' Great as was the delight of the wretched burghers and peas- ants of Vivarais ; equally great was the indignation of the king, of both governors, in fact of every captain and scheming pub- lic man interested in the war. Even some of the neio'liborins^ Protestant churches complained of the irregularity of the action of their brethren, in thus providing for their own safety. As for the royalists, they saw in the movement a dangerous inno- vation, the introduction of an " imperium in imperio," threat- ening the royal authority. It was from such beginnings, for- sooth, that the Swiss cantons had thrown off the yoke of their princes, claimed popular liberty, and founded commonwealths of their own. There was an end to all possibility of carrying on war, if money could be refused by the people. Meanwhile the truce of Vivarais boi-e wholesome fruit in the relief of the impoverished inhabitants, now freed from the presence of the greater part of the late garrisons, and in the revival of trade and husbandry.'' If the compact between the Protestants and the Roman Catho- lics had been remarkable for its origin, it was still more notable for the honorable observance of its conditions. Geydan, a neigh- ' Jean de Serres, v. fols. 167-170 ; De Tliou, v. 304, 305. ' Jean de Serres, ubi .supra. 157(5. THE WAR CONTINUED. 85 boring Huguenot captain of great activity, much given to bold enterprises, conceived the notion of taking advantage of the security felt by the Eoinan Catholic garrison of Vi- able observ- viers, and made a sudden and successful attack upon ance. rjy^^Q Rouiau CatlioHcsat once carriedtothe Protes- tants their complaints because of this infraction of the treaty. The Protestants disclaimed all complicity in a movement which had originated beyond the boundaries of the province, but promised to execute their engagements to the letter. They summoned Geydan to surrender his prize and withdraw from Vivarais ; and, when he returned an insolent answer and vindi- cated his action as legitimate, they promptly began prepara- tions, in conjunction with the Poman Catholics, to expel him by force. Happily, however, Geydan was persuaded by his friends to recede from his position, and the town of Viviers w^as re- stored to the Roman Catholics. It was, indeed, a signal instance of good faith in a perfidious age.' Henry of !Kavarre chose this time of general confusion to make his escape. For nearly four years had he been detained The king of ''^■tthe royal court. Ever since his bloody nuptials he rapet'^7rom ^^^^ bccn, to all appcaraucc, a sufficiently devout Ro- court. ijjan Catholic. Yet, if he occasionally attended mass and exhibited no very great desire again to listen to Hugueiiot preaching, he was as loose in his ideas of morality as most of the young nobles of the day. In ignoble rivalry with Alen9on and Guise for the good graces of Madame de Sauve, the Bear- nese seemed utterly to have forgotten the quarrel of the religion of his mother, and of his own childhood, as well as the interests of the party of which he was the natural head. " The King of Navarre was never so merry nor so much made of," wrote the English ambassador, just after Alen9on's stealthy withdrawal from Paris.^ His neglect of his Huguenot conn-ades in arms was, however, more apparent than real. He was only abiding ' Jean de Serres (who gives the date of the restoration as February 27, 1576), V. fols. 172, 173; Recueil des choses raemorables, 505, 5(56 ; De Thou, v. 306, 307. ' Dale to Burleigh, September 28, 1575, State Paper Office. 86 THE HUGUENOTS AND HENRY OF NAVARRE. Ch. I. the time to break his prison bars and seek more congenial asso- ciations. The opportunity he sought at last arrived. Henry of Navarre had prudently dissembled his indignation at the hu- miliating position he was forced to occupy at court. Little fear was entertained that he might venture on the dangerous attempt to make his way to his distant friends. lie was therefore per- mitted to indulge in his favorite pastime of the chase with the less suspicion, because, as he customarily resorted in the direc- tion of Senlis and Chantilly, places north of Paris, the capital lay between him and the only practicable line of flight. Of the freedom thus obtained he made good use. Early in February, 1576, having contrived to rid himself of those who had been placed about him to watch his movements, he suddenly started M'ith a few trusty horsemen, and making a wide circuit to avoid Paris, crossed the Seine near Poissy. So prompt had been his actions that, before his enemies were fully aware of his design, he was beyond pursuit. Avoiding the highways on which he might have been stopped, he reached the city of Alen9on, and thence made his way with little delay to Saumur and placed the Loire between himself and the court.' Once safe and within easy distance of his Protestant allies, Henry, who had thus far been taciturn beyond his wont, raised his eyes to heaven and exclaimed : " Praised be God who has delivered me ! They killed the queen, my mother, in Paris. There, too, they slew the ad- miral and all my best servants, and they intended to do the same by me. Is ever shall I return unless I be dragged thither." And then, resuming his usual cheery tone, he assured his suite, with a good-natured laugh, that he had left in Paris only ' Dale to the secretaries, February 6, 1576, State Paper Office. Agrippa d'Aubignc, who both planned and accompanied Henry s Hight, gives by far the fullest account in his Histoire universelle, ii. 183-189, supplemented by hisMemoires, 482, 483. See also Memoires de Sully, chap. vii. ; Davila, 217, 218 ; Jean de Serres, v. fol. KiG ; Recueil de choses memorables, 564, 565 ; De Thou, V. 304. Alamanni's letter announcing to the Tuscan court the es- cape of Navarre "yesterday" (Negociations avec la Toscane, iv. 40) must have been dated February 4th, and not 1st. The account of a recent writer (Miss Freer, Henry III., ii. 83), who makes Henry, in his escape, fir.st cross the Seine and subsequently flee to La Fere and thence to Veudome, is singularly in- volved. 1570. THE WAR CONTINUED. 87 two things that he regretted — the mass and the queen his wife — the latter he would have again, the former he would try to do without.' The King of Xavarre had not waited to reach the Loire before renouncing the outward profession of the faith that had been forced upon him. At Alen9on he stood godfather for a Protestant child," and the little court of Henry at Saumur and Thouars resounded once more svith the sermons of Hugue- not preachers. If Henry himself and his chief adherents showed little evidence of fervent religious feeling, and were not seen at the solemn celebration of the Lord's Supper, according to the rites of the Reformed Church, the reason may be found with quite as great probability in the worldly engrossments of the king himself as in any alleged intrigue of the Duke of Alen9on to prevent Isavarre from supplanting him in the esteem of the Huguenot party." Meantime the auxiliaries whom the Prince of Conde had been at such pains to collect w'ere steadily making their w aj into the heart of the kingdom, in perfect contempt for the truce concluded between Catharine de' Medici and Entrance of t . . i t i i i the Germans her vouiioiest SOU, aud ffiviug; not the sliglitest heed into France. , i , *t ni -, i,. to the letters that Alengon pretended to despatch for the purpose of preventing their march. The expedition, John Casimir informed the king, in most polite terms, was not in- tended against his Majesty's person. " It is directed," said he, " against the murderers and persecutors of our true religion, and in general against those who create commotion and work ' Lestoile, i. G6. ^ Ibid., i. 66 ; Agrippa d'Aubigne, ii. 188. Tlie latter mentions the coin- cidence that, at the Huguenot on tlie morrow after Henry's arrival, the 21.st Psalm was sung in regular course, much to the king's surprise, beginning with the lines. Seigneur, le Roy s'esjouira D'avoir eu delivrance. 2 See the tempting offers of the younger brother of the King of France to secure as an irrevocable appanage the whole of Guyenne, with ample securi- ties, Agrippa d'Aubigne, ii. 190. Agrippa asserts that only two gentlemen of the court, including himself, presented themselves at the Holy Communion. Compare the passage just cited of his Histoire universelle with his Memoires, p. 483. 88 THE HUGUENOTS AND HENRY OF NAVARRE. Ch. I. folly in your kingdom." ' The forces under the joint com- mand of the prince and Duke John Casimir had become a formidable army. Henry in vain attempted to hinder its ad- vance by promising the leaders a good and stable peace, and the German reiters a handsome sum of money in the way of wages, while endeavoring to secure the recall of the Swiss by their own cantons. Conde, John Casimir, and the Germans rejected his offers, and, though Berne consented to issue a sum- mons to its subjects to return, the mercenaries paid no atten- tion to the order. The Germans entered France through the upper part of Champagne, and passing by Langres, penetrated into Burgundy and Bourbonnois. Everywhere their course was marked with bloodshed and pillage. The environs of Langres were laid waste ; the movable goods of the poor peas- ants were heaped up in the wagons which the reiters insisted on taking with them wherever they themselves went ; the vil- lages were then set on fire. Kear Dijon they captured the venerable abbey of Citeaux, the original home of the monks hence called Cistercians, and in a few hours had stripped the monastery of everything valuable that had not previously been carried away for safety to Dijon. At Citeaux the reiters had Excesses of defied the express commands of the Prince of Conde, the reiters. -with, whom the mouks had entered into a compact and from whom they had obtained a promise of innnunity ; at Is uits, a small town but a few miles farther on, they acted with equal insolence and with more flagrant inhumanity. The place had the temerity to deny admission to the invaders, but had yielded after a brief cannonade. Duke John Casimir promised the inhabitants that their lives should be spared and their prop- erty respected, and Conde not only ratified the terms of sur- render but introduced a small body of nobles and of his own troops to preclude the danger he apprehended from the Germans. Even then the reiters rose in open meeting and demanded the pillage of Nuits as their due. When it was refused by the prince, they attacked and dispersed or killed the guard which ' John Casimir to Henry III., Heidelberg, November 17, 1575, Kluckhohn, TJriefe Friedricb des Frommen, iii. 913. 1576. THE WAR CONTINUED. 89 he had set, and then ruthlessly put to the sword every man, woman, and child that came in their way. The town was thor- oughly sacked.' It was a butchery, the report of which carried terror far in advance of the army which it disgraced. A little later the reiters again became clamorous for money, and threat- ened Conde that unless their demands were met they would elect a new leader.' At length the invading army and the forces commanded by the Duke of Alengou effected a junction, and the latter was proclaimed general-in-cliief of the combined troops. His united army, reviewed on the plain of Soze, numbered thirty thousand men.^ Catharine, at no time idle since the escape of Alengon from court, now saw that no time must be lost in breaking the force of the great preparations of the Huguenots. Henry trembled for his sluggish repose. Paris, whose citizens would have preferred to see their king in arms rather than engaged in processions to supplicate Heaven for the restoration of peace,' trembled for its walls. The tortuous paths of diplomacy must again be tried, and this time with more real earnestness. An- other year of war had proved how fruitless the attempt was likely to be to coerce the Huguenots into submission. Not only were they as strong as ever, but a large army of strangers had entered France, and the king was powerless to check or to expel them. The treasury was empty ; the taxes were wrung from the impoverished people with extreme difficulty. Henry was resolved to have peace at any cost. True, he would put on ' Jolin Casimir to Frederick the Pious, Argilly, January 26, 1576, Kluck- hohn, Briefe, etc., iii. 943 ; Jean de Serres, v. fols. 1G3, 164 ; De Thou, v. 303, 304 ; Reeueil des choses memorables, 563. Reeueil, ubi supra. ^Reeueil des clioses memorables, 566; Jean de Serres, v. fols. 174, 175; De Thou, V. 307 ; Wilkes to Burleigh, Vichy, February 13, 1576, State Paper Office. ■* "The people of France,'' says Claude Haton, "would have been more grateful to the king had he gone to the war in person than it was when it saw him go or lieard that he went in the procession ; for his presence in the war would have been worth a thousand men. But he would not liear of such a thing, and he had greatly changed since he became king," etc., Memoires, ii. 825. 90 THE HUGUENOTS AND HENRY OF NAVARRE. Cu. I. a bold face, and scout the terms thej suggested as absurd ; but be bad no serious intention of bolding out. From Moulius the confederates sent their demands to the , king. Tlie Protestants made about the same requests as they liad made a year before, with a special provision that The stout de- . '' • i i i i i mands of the the titlics they paid should o-o to the support of their Protestants i o i i own ministers. The count palatine would have had them stipulate that the churches should be used in common by the Roman Catholics and the Protestants. The King of Kavarre set forth his claims to a restitution of his rights, to the dower of Margaret of Valois, and to possible support in reconquering his kingdom beyond the Pyrenees.' The Duke of Alenyon's chief aim was to secure for himself an appanage worthy of his rank. Duke John Casimir sought to be put in possession of the " Three Bishoprics " — Metz, Toul, and Yerdun — as royal gov- ernor ; and the Protestants supported him in the application. The three fortresses would be substantial guarantees of the stability of the coming peace. I may be excused from entering with detail into the story of negotiations in which " the ingenuity of a single woman proved more than a match for the calm judgment of the most illustrious men, supported by the weapons of powerful armies." ^ There were the usual eloquent pleas for toleration, and the usual in- consistencies in urging them. There was also a full proportion of sensible suggestions, which, had they been acted upon, might have changed the history of France for the next three centuries. Again the Sieur d' Arenes spoke eloquently and forcibly. " A single religion in a state is, indeed, desirable ; but, when a re- ligion cannot be exterminated without public offence, prudent men agree that it must be tolerated until the minds of men be ' The remarks of Jean de Serres (v. fol. 185) respecting the surprise gener- ally felt at the character of the King of Navarre's first demands are worthy of notice : " Haec erant Navarrsei postulata louge diversa quam et rumor dissemi- nasset et complures rerum aulicarum nou imperiti arbitrarentur, qui nervo- siora et magis virilia expectabant a Navarraeo. " ' "Mulieris versutia plus potuit quam clarissimorum virorum sobrium con- silium, ingentibus etiam viribus armatum. " Jean de Serres, v. fol. 175. The course of this protracted and important negotiation is traced at great length by this author, v. fols. 175-202. 1576. THE WAR CONTINUED. 91 changed by a Power superior to the power of man." ' Beutrich, the envoy of John Casimir, declared tliat the Protestant religion not only exacts obedience to legitimate authority, but seeks to restore to the king the authority usurped by the Poman Pon- tiffs. And he added, in explanation of the demand for the three cities for his master : " We distrust, Sire, not you, but the counsellors about you, who, because the lion's tail is not long enough, would add the wolf's." ° Count Yentadour, brother- in-law of Marshal Damville, and an ally whose accession to the ranks of the confederates had added great moral weight, pro- posed, through a special embassy, that only two i-eligions should be authorized, while all others should be proscribed as before. And he advocated several reforms, including regular meetings of the states general every two years, the application of one- fourth of all ecclesiastical revenues to the support of hospitals, and the abolition of the system of purchase of judicial offices. " For," said he, " what has been purchased at wholesale will in- fallibly be sold again at retail." ' The negotiations had also their ludicrous side. The Protestant envoys were still so de- ceived regarding the character of Alen9on and the attitude of Catharine de' Medici toward him, that they exhibited an anxiety, amounting almost to apprehension, lest the poor prince's rights should be overlooked ; and Catharine assured the envoys, with becoming gravity, that she would pledge her word that Alencon should be satisfied.* It may be affirmed with safety that rarely did Catharine keep her word so well as in the present instance. One point after another was conceded by the court at the ur- gent pressure of the confederates, till it seemed that everything The two would be yielded. But there were two petitions {^atharine'^'' Catharine would not concede. One respected the will not yield, {-jtijgg . gjjg .^^gg yesolute that the Huguenots should not be relieved of their financial embarrassments. The other was the confiding of Metz, Toul, and A^erdun to Duke John Casimir : the Huguenots could not be suffered to obtain such security against future assaults, or the favorable edict now to ' Jean de Serres, v. fol. 179. 3 Ibid., V. fol. 187. = Ibid., V. fols. 183, 184.