Chapter XIII: The First CIVIL War (4)

[Sidenote: Orleans invested.]

[Sidenote: Coligny returns to Normandy.]

Of the triumvirs, at whose instigation the war had arisen, one was dead,[220] a second was a prisoner in the hands of the enemy, the third--the Duke of Guise--alone remained. Navarre had died a month before. On the other hand, the Huguenots had lost their chief. Yet the war raged without cessation. As soon as the Duke of Guise had collected his army and had, at Rambouillet, explained to the king and court, who had come out to meet him, the course of recent events, he followed the Admiral toward Orleans. Invested by the king with the supreme command during the captivity of the constable, and leading a victorious army, he speedily reduced Etampes and Pithiviers, captured by Conde on his march to Paris. Meantime, Coligny had taken a number of places in the vicinity of Orleans, and his "black riders" had become the terror of the papists of Sologne.[221] Not long after Guise's approach, fearing that his design was to besiege the city of Orleans, Coligny threw himself into it. His stay was not long, however. His German cavalry could do nothing in case of a siege, and would only be a burden to the citizens. Besides, he was in want of funds to pay them. He resolved, therefore, to strike boldly for Normandy.[222] Having persuaded the reiters to dispense with their heavy baggage-wagons,[223] which had proved so great an incumbrance on the previous march, he started from Orleans on the first of February with four thousand troopers, leaving his brother D'Andelot as well furnished as practicable to sustain the inevitable siege. The lightness of his army's equipment precluded the possibility of pursuit; its strength secured it an almost undisputed passage.[224] In a few days it had passed Dreux and the scene of the late battle, and at Dives, on the opposite side of the estuary of the Seine from Havre, had received from the English the supplies of money which they had long been desirous of finding means to convey to the Huguenots.[225] The only considerable forces of the Guise faction in Normandy were on the banks of the river, too busy watching the English at Havre to be able to spare any troops to resist Coligny. Turning his attention to the western shores of the province, he soon succeeded in reducing Pont-l'Eveque, Caen, Bayeux, Saint Lo, and the prospect was brilliant of his soon being able, in conjunction with Queen Elizabeth's troops, to bring all Normandy over to the side of the prince.[226] Meanwhile, however, there were occurring in the centre of the kingdom events destined to give an entirely different turn to the relations of the Huguenots and papists in France. To these we must now direct our attention.

Francois de Guise, relieved of the admiral's presence, had begun the siege of Orleans four days after the departure of the latter for Normandy (on the fifth of February), and manifested the utmost determination to destroy the capital city, as it might be regarded, of the confederates. Indeed, when the court, then sojourning at Blois, in alarm at the reports sent by Marshal de Brissac from Rouen, respecting Coligny's conquests and his own impotence to oppose him, ordered Guise to abandon his undertaking and employ his forces in crushing out the flames that had so unexpectedly broken forth in Normandy, the duke declined to obey until he should have received further orders, and gave so cogent reasons for pursuing the siege, that the king and his council willingly acquiesced in his plan.[227] From his independent attitude, however, it is evident that Guise was of Pasquier's mind, and believed he had gained as much of a victory in the capture of the constable, his friend in arms, but dangerous rival at court, taken by the Huguenots at Dreux, as by the capture of the Prince of Conde, his enemy, who had fallen into his hands in the same engagement.[228]

[Sidenote: Capture of the Portereau.]

The city of Orleans, on the north bank of the Loire, was protected by walls originally of no great worth, but considerably strengthened since the outbreak of the civil war. On the opposite side of the river, a suburb, known as the _Portereau_, was fortified by weaker walls, in front of which two large bastions had recently been erected. The suburb was connected with Orleans by means of a bridge across the Loire, of which the end toward the Portereau was defended by two towers of the old mediaeval construction, known as the "tourelles," and that toward the city by the city wall and a large square tower.[229] Against the Portereau the duke directed the first assault, hoping easily to become master of it, and thence attack the city from its weakest side. His plan proved successful beyond his expectations. While making a feint of assailing with his whole army the bastion held by the Gascon infantry, he sent a party to scale the bastion guarded by the German lansquenets, who, being taken by surprise, yielded an entrance almost without striking a blow. In a few minutes the Portereau was in the hands of Guise, and the bridge was crowded with fugitives tumultuously seeking a refuge in the city. Orleans itself was nearly involved in the fate of its suburb; for the enemy, following close upon the heels of the fleeing host, was at the very threshold of the "tourelles," when D'Andelot, called from his sick-bed by the tumult, posting himself at the entrance with a few gentlemen in full armor, by hard blows beat back the troops, already sanguine of complete success.[230] A few days later the "tourelles" themselves were scaled and taken.[231]

After so poor a beginning, the small garrison of Orleans had sufficient reason to fear the issue of the trial to which they were subjected. But, so far from abandoning their courage, they applied themselves with equal assiduity to their religious and to their military duties. "In addition to the usual sermons and the prayers at the guard-houses, public extraordinary prayers were made at six o'clock in the morning; at the close of which the ministers and the entire people, without exception, betook themselves to work with all their might upon the fortifications, until four in the evening, when every one again attended prayers." Everywhere the utmost devotion was manifested, women of all ranks sharing with their husbands and brothers in the toils of the day, or, if too feeble for these active exertions, spending their time in tending the sick and wounded.[232]

[Sidenote: "A new and very terrible device."]

Not only did the Huguenots, when they found their supply of lead falling short, make their cannon-balls of bell-metal--of which the churches and monasteries were doubtless the source--and of brass, but they turned this last material to a use till now, it would appear, unheard of. "I have learned this day, the fifteenth instant, of the Spaniards," wrote the English ambassador from the royal court, which was at a safe distance, in the city of Blois, "that they of Orleans shoot brass which is hollow, and so devised within that when it falls it opens and breaks into many pieces with a great fire, and hurts and kills all who are about it. Which is a new device and very terrible, for it pierces the house first, and breaks at the last rebound. Every man in Portereau is fain to run away, they cannot tell whither, when they see where the shot falls."[233]

[Sidenote: Huguenot reverses.]

It could not, however, be denied that there was much reason for discouragement in the general condition of the Protestant cause throughout the country. Of the places so brilliantly acquired in the spring of the preceding year, the greater part had been lost. Normandy and Languedoc were the only bright spots on the map of France. Lyons still remained in the power of the Huguenots, in the south-east; but, though repeated assaults of the Duke of Nemours had been repulsed, it was threatened with a siege, for which it was but indifferently prepared.[234] Des Adrets, the fierce chieftain of the lower Rhone, had recently revealed his real character more clearly by betraying the cause he had sullied by his barbarous advocacy, and was now in confinement.[235] Indeed, everything seemed to point to a speedy and complete overthrow of an undertaking which had cost so much labor and suffering,[236] when an unexpected event produced an entire revolution in the attitude of the contending parties and in the purposes of the leaders.

[Sidenote: Assassination of Francois de Guise.]

This event was the assassination of Francois de Guise. On the evening of the eighteenth of February, 1563, in company with a gentleman or two, he was riding the round of his works, and arranging for a general attack on the morrow. So confident did he feel of success, that he had that morning written to the queen mother, it is said, that within twenty-four hours he would send her news of the capture of Orleans, and that he intended to destroy the entire population, making no discrimination of age or sex, that the very memory of the rebellious city might be obliterated.[237] At a lonely spot on the road, a man on horseback, who had been lying in wait for him, suddenly made his appearance, and, after discharging a pistol at him from behind, rode rapidly off, before the duke's escort, taken up with the duty of assisting him, had had time to make any attempt to apprehend the assassin. Three balls, with which the pistol was loaded, had lodged in Guise's shoulder, and the wound, from the first considered dangerous, proved mortal within six days. The murderer had apparently made good his escape; but a strange fatality seemed to attend him. During the darkness he became so confused that, after riding all night, he found himself almost at the very place where the deed of blood had been committed, and was compelled to rest himself and his jaded horse at a house, where he was arrested on suspicion by some of Guise's soldiers. Taken before their superior officers, he boldly avowed his guilt, and boasted of what he had done. His name he gave as Jean Poltrot, and he claimed to be lord of Merey, in Angoumois; but he was better known, from his dark complexion and his familiarity with the Spanish language, by the sobriquet of "L'Espagnolet." He was an excitable, melancholy man, whose mind, continually brooding over the wrongs his country and faith had experienced at the hands of Guise, had imbibed the fanatical notion that it was his special calling of God to rid the world of "the butcher of Vassy," of the single execrable head that was accountable for the torrents of blood which had for a year been flowing in every part of France.

After having been a page of M. d'Aubeterre, father-in-law of the Huguenot leader Soubise, Merey, at the beginning of the civil war, had been sent by the daughter of D'Aubeterre to her husband, then with Conde at Orleans. Subsequently he had accompanied Soubise on his adventurous ride with a few followers from Orleans to Lyons, when the latter assumed command in behalf of the Huguenots. Soubise appears to have valued him highly as one of those reckless youths that court rather than shun personal peril, while he shared the common impression that the lad was little better than a fool. True, for years--ever since the tumult of Amboise, where his kinsman, La Renaudie and another relative had been killed--Merey had been constantly boasting to all whom he met that he would kill the Duke of Guise; but those who heard him "made no more account of his words than if he had boasted of his intention to obtain the imperial crown."[238]

He had given expression to his purpose at Lyons, in the presence of M. de Soubise, the Huguenot governor, and again to Admiral Coligny before he started on his expedition to Normandy. But the Huguenot generals evidently imagined that there was nothing in the speech beyond the prating of a silly braggart. Soubise, indeed, advised him to attend to his own duties, and to leave the deliverance of France to Almighty God; but neither the admiral nor the soldiers, to whom he often repeated the threat, paid any attention to it. In short, he was regarded as one of those frivolous characters, of whom there is an abundance in every camp, who expect to acquire a cheap notoriety by extravagant stories of their past or prospective achievements, but never succeed in earning more, with all their pains, than the contempt or incredulity of their listeners. Still, Poltrot was a man of some value as a scout, and Coligny had employed him[239] for the purpose of obtaining information respecting the enemy's movements, and had furnished him at one time with twenty crowns to defray his expenses, at another with a hundred, to procure himself a horse. The spy had made his way to the Roman Catholic camp, and, by pretending to follow the example of others in renouncing his Huguenot associations, had conciliated the duke's favor to such an extent that he excited no suspicion before the commission of the treacherous act.

[Sidenote: Execution of Poltrot.]

But, if Poltrot was a fanatic, he was not of the stuff of which martyrs are made. When questioned in the presence of the queen and council to discover his accomplices, his constancy wholly forsook him, and he said whatever was suggested. In particular he accused the admiral of having paid him to execute the deed, and Beza of having instigated him by holding forth the rewards of another world. La Rochefoucauld, Soubise, and others were criminated to a minor degree. During his confinement in the prisons of the Parisian parliament, to which he was removed, he continually contradicted himself. But his weakness did not save him. He was condemned to be burned with red-hot pincers, to be torn asunder by four horses, and to be quartered. Before the execution of this frightful sentence, he was, by order of the court, put to torture. But, instead of reiterating his former accusations, he retracted almost every point.[240] To purchase a few moments' reprieve, he sought an interview with the first president of the parliament, Christopher de Thou; and we have it upon the authority of that magistrate's son, the author of an imperishable history of his times, that, entering into greater detail, Poltrot persisted constantly in exculpating Soubise, Coligny, and Beza. A few minutes later, beside himself with terror and not knowing what he said in his delirium, he declared the admiral to be innocent; then, at the very moment of execution, he accused not only him, but his brother, D'Andelot, of whom he had said little or nothing before.[241]

[Sidenote: Beza and Coligny are accused, but vindicate themselves.]

Coligny heard in Normandy the report of the atrocious charges that had been wrung from Poltrot. Copies of the assassin's confession were industriously circulated in the camp, and he thus became acquainted with the particulars of the accusation. With Beza and La Rochefoucauld, who were with him at Caen, he published, on the twelfth of March, a long and dignified defence. The reformer for himself declared, that, although he had more than once seen persons ill-disposed toward the Duke of Guise because of the murders perpetrated by him at Vassy, he had never been in favor of proceeding against him otherwise than by the ordinary methods of law. For this reason he had gone to Monceaux to solicit justice of Charles, of his mother, and of the King of Navarre. But the hopes which the queen mother's gracious answer had excited were dashed to the earth by Guise's violent resort to arms. Holding the duke to be the chief author and promoter of the present troubles, he admitted that he had a countless number of times prayed to God that He would either change his heart or rid the kingdom of him. But he appealed to the testimony of Madame de Ferrare (Renee de France, the mother-in-law of Guise), and all who had ever heard him, when he said that never had he publicly mentioned the duke by name. As for Poltrot himself, he had never met him.

The admiral himself was not less frank. Ever since the massacre of Vassy he had regarded Guise and his party as common enemies of God, of the king, and of the public tranquillity; but never, upon his life and his honor, had he approved of such attacks as that of Poltrot. Indeed, he had steadfastly employed his influence to deter men from executing any plots against the life of the duke; until, being duly informed that Guise and Saint Andre had incited men to undertake to assassinate Conde, D'Andelot, and himself, he had desisted from expressing his opposition. The different articles of the confession he proceeded to answer one by one; and he forwarded his reply to the court with a letter to Catharine de' Medici, in which he earnestly entreated her that the life of Poltrot might be spared until the restoration of peace, that he might be confronted with him, and an investigation be made of the entire matter before unsuspected judges. "But do not imagine," he added, "that I speak thus because of any regret for the death of the Duke of Guise, which I esteem the greatest of blessings to the realm, to the Church of God, to myself and my family, and, if improved, the means of giving rest to the kingdom."[242]

The admiral's frankness was severely criticised by some of his friends. He was advised to suppress those expressions that were liable to be perverted to his injury, but he declared his resolution to abide by the consequences of a clear statement of the truth. And indeed, while the worldly wisdom of Coligny's censors has received a species of justification in the avidity with which his sincere avowals have been employed as the basis of graver accusations which he repelled, the candor of his defence has set upon his words the indelible impress of veracity which following ages can never fail to read aright. That Catharine recognized his innocence is evident from the very act by which she endeavored to make him appear guilty. He had begged that Poltrot might be spared till after the conclusion of peace, that he might himself have an opportunity to vindicate his innocence by confronting him in the presence of impartial judges. It was Catharine's interest, she thought, to confirm her own power by attaching a stigma to the honor of the Chatillons, and so depriving them of much of their influence in the state.[243] Accordingly, on Thursday, the eighteenth of March, Poltrot was put to death and his mouth sealed forever to further explanations. _The next day the Edict of Pacification was signed at Amboise._[244] After all, it is evident that Coligny's innocence or guilt, in this particular instance, must be judged by his entire course and his well-known character. If his life bears marks of perfidy and duplicity, if the blood of the innocent can be found upon his skirts, then must the verdict of posterity be against him. But if the careful examination of his entire public life, as well as the history of his private relations, reveals a character not only above reproach, but the purest, most beneficent, and most patriotic of all that France can boast in political stations in the sixteenth century, the confused and contradictory allegations of an enthusiast who had not counted the cost of his daring attempt--allegations wrung from him by threats and torture--will not be allowed to weigh for an instant against Coligny's simple denial.[245]

[Sidenote: Various estimates of Guise.]

Of the Duke of Guise the estimates formed by his contemporaries differed as widely as their political and religious views. With the Abbe Bruslart he was "the most virtuous, heroic, and magnanimous prince in Europe, who for his courage was dreaded by all foreign nations." To the author of the history of the reformed churches his ambition and presumption seemed to have obscured all his virtues.[246] The Roman Catholic preachers regarded his death as a stupendous calamity, a mystery of Divine providence, which they could only interpret by supposing that the Almighty, jealous of the confidence which His people reposed rather in His creature than in Himself, had removed the Duke of Guise in order to take the cause of His own divinity, of His spouse the Church, of the king and kingdom, under His own protection.[247] The Bishop of Riez wrote and published a highly colored account of the duke's last words and actions, in the most approved style of such posthumous records, and introduced edifying specimens of a theological learning, which, until the moment of his wounding, Guise had certainly never possessed, making him, of course, persist to the end in protesting his innocence of the guilt of Vassy.[248] The Protestants, while giving him credit for some compunctions of conscience for his persecuting career, and willingly admitting that, but for his pernicious brother, the Cardinal of Lorraine, he might have run a far different course, were compelled to view his death as a great blessing to France.[249]

[Sidenote: Renee de France at Montargis.]

A famous incident, illustrating the perils to which the Huguenots of the central provinces were subjected during the siege, is too characteristic to be passed over in silence. More than once, in the course of the war, the town and castle of Montargis, the Duchess of Ferrara's residence, had been threatened on account of the asylum it afforded to defenceless Protestants flocking thither from all quarters. When the minds of the Roman Catholics had become exasperated by nine or ten months of civil war, they formed a settled determination to break up this "nest of Huguenots." Accordingly the Baron de la Garde--Captain Poulain, of Merindol memory--brought an order, in the king's name, from the Duke of Guise, at that time before the walls of Orleans, commanding Renee to leave Montargis, which had become important for military purposes, and to take up her abode at Fontainebleau, St. Germain, or Vincennes. The duchess replied that it was idle to say that so weak a place as Montargis could, without extensive repairs, be of any military importance; and that to remove to any place in the vicinity of Paris would be to expose herself to assassination by the fanatical populace. She therefore sent Poulain back to the king for further instructions. Meantime, Poulain was followed by Malicorne, a creature of the duke's, at the head of some partisan troops. This presumptuous officer had the impertinence to demand the immediate surrender of the castle, and went so far as to threaten to turn some cannon against it, in case of her refusal. But he little understood the virile courage of the woman with whom he had to do. "Malicorne," she answered him, "take care what you undertake. There is not a man in this kingdom that can command me but the king. If you attempt what you threaten, I shall place myself first upon the breach, that I may find out whether you will be audacious enough to kill a king's daughter. Moreover, I am not so ill-connected, nor so little loved, but that I have the means of making the punishment of your temerity felt by you and your offspring, even to the very babes in the cradle." The upstart captain was not prepared for such a reception, and, after alleging his commission as the excuse for the insolence of his conduct, delayed an enterprise which the wound and subsequent death of Guise entirely broke off.[250] Montargis continued during this and the next civil wars to be a safe refuge for thousands of distressed Protestants.

A great obstacle to the conclusion of peace was removed by Guise's death. There was no one in the Roman Catholic camp to take his place. The panegyric pronounced upon the duke by the English ambassador, Sir Thomas Smith, may perhaps be esteemed somewhat extravagant, but has at least the merit of coming from one whose sympathies were decidedly adverse to him. "The papists have lost their greatest stay, hope, and comfort. Many noblemen and gentlemen did follow the camp and that faction, rather for the love of him than for any other zeal or affection. He was indeed the best captain or general in all France, some will say in all Christendom; for he had all the properties which belong [to], or are to be wished in a general: a ready wit and well advised, a body to endure pains, a courage to forsake no dangerous adventures, use and experience to conduct any army, much courtesy in entertaining of all men, great eloquence to utter all his mind. And he was very liberal both of money and honor to young gentlemen, captains, and soldiers; whereby he gat so much love and admiration amongst the nobility and the soldiers in France, that I think, now he is gone, many gentlemen will forsake the camp; and they begin to drop away already. Then he was so earnest and so fully persuaded in his religion, that he thought nothing evil done that maintained that sect; and therefore the papists again thought nothing evil bestowed upon him; all their money and treasure of the Church, part of their lands, even the honor of the crown of France, they could have found in their hearts to have given him. And so all their joy, hope, and comfort one little stroke of a pistolet hath taken away! Such a vanity God can show men's hope to be, when it pleaseth Him."[251]

Of the four generals on the Roman Catholic side under whose auspices the war began, three were dead and the fourth was in captivity. The treasury was exhausted. The interest of old debts was left unpaid; new debts had been contracted. Less than half the king's revenues were available on account of the places which the Huguenots held or threatened. The alienation of one hundred thousand livres of income from ecclesiastical property had been recently ordered, greatly to the annoyance of the clergy. The admiral's progress had of late been so rapid that but two or three important places of lower Normandy remained in friendly hands. After the reduction of these he would move down through Maine and Anjou to Orleans, with a better force than had been marshalled at Dreux;[252] the English would gain such a foothold on French soil as it would be difficult to induce them to relinquish. And where could competent generals be secured for the prosecution of hostilities? The post of lieutenant-general, now vacant, had, indeed, been offered to the Duke Christopher of Wuertemberg; but what prospect was there that a Protestant would consent to conduct a war against Protestants?[253]

[Sidenote: Deliberations for peace.]

Catharine was urgent for an immediate conclusion of peace. For the purpose of fixing its conditions, Conde was brought, under a strong guard, to the camp of the army before Orleans, and, on the small "Isle aux Bouviers" in the middle of the Loire, he and the constable, released on their honor, held a preliminary interview on Sunday, the seventh of March, 1563.[254] At first there seemed little prospect of harmonizing their discordant pretensions; for, if the question of the removal of the triumvirs had lost all its practical importance, the old bone of contention remained in the re-establishment of the Edict of January. On this point Montmorency was inflexible. He had been the prime instrument in expelling Protestantism from Paris, and had distinguished himself by burning the places of worship. It could hardly be expected that he should rebuild what he had so laboriously torn down. And, whatever had been his first intentions, Conde proved less tenacious than might have been anticipated from his previous professions. The fact was, that the younger Bourbon was not proof against the wiles employed with so much success against his elder brother. Flattered by Catharine, he was led to suppose that after all it made little difference whether the full demands of the Huguenots were expressly granted in the edict of pacification or not. The queen mother was resolved, so he was assured, to confer upon him the dignity and office of lieutenant-general, left vacant by Navarre's death. When this should be his, it would be easy to obtain every practical concession to which the Huguenots were entitled. So much pleased was the court with the ardor he displayed, that he was at last permitted to go to Orleans on his own princely parole, in order to consult his confederates.

The Huguenot ministers whose advice he first asked, seeing his irresolution, were the more decided in opposing any terms that did not expressly recognize the Edict of January. Seventy-two united in a letter (on the ninth of March, 1563), in which they begged him not to permit the cause to suffer disaster at his hands, and rather to insure an extension, than submit to an abridgment of the liberty promised by the royal ordinance.[255] From the ministers, however, Conde went to the Huguenot "noblesse," with whom his arguments of expediency had more weight, and who, weary of the length and privations of the war, and content with securing their own privileges, readily accepted the conditions reprobated by the ministers. The pacification was accordingly agreed upon, on the twelfth of March, and officially published in the form of a royal edict, dated at Amboise, on the nineteenth of March, 1563.

[Sidenote: Edict of Pacification, March 12, 1563.]

Charles the Ninth, by advice of his mother, the Cardinal of Bourbon, the Princes of Conde and La Roche-sur-Yon, the Dukes of Montmorency, Aumale, and Montpensier, and other members of his privy council, grants, in this document, to all barons, chatellains, and gentlemen possessed of the right to administer "haute justice," permission to celebrate in their own houses the worship of "the religion which they call reformed" in the presence of their families and retainers. The possessors of minor fiefs could enjoy the same privilege, but it extended to their families only. In every bailiwick or senechaussee, the Protestants should, on petition, receive one city in whose suburbs their religious services might be held, and in all cities where the Protestant religion was exercised on the seventh of March of the present year, it should continue in one or two places _inside_ of the walls, to be designated hereafter by the king. The Huguenots, while secured in their liberty of conscience, were to restore all churches and ecclesiastical property which they might have seized, and were forbidden to worship according to their rites in the city of Paris or its immediate neighborhood. The remaining articles of the peace were of a more personal or temporary interest. Foreign troops were to be speedily dismissed; the Protestant lords to be fully reinstated in their former honors, offices, and possessions; prisoners to be released; insults based upon the events of the war to be summarily punished. And Charles declared that he held his good cousin, the Prince of Conde, and all the other lords, knights, gentlemen, and burgesses that had served under him, to be his faithful subjects, believing that what they had done was for good ends and for his service.[256]

[Sidenote: Sir Thomas Smith's remonstrance.]

Such was the Edict of Amboise--a half-way measure, very different from that which was desired on either side. The English ambassador declared he could find no one, whether Protestant or papist, that liked the "accord," or thought it would last three weeks. And he added, by way of warning to Coligny and Conde: "What you, who are the heads and rulers, do, I cannot tell; but every man thinketh that it is but a traine and a deceipt to sever the one of you from another, and all of you from this stronghold [Orleans], and then thei will talke with you after another sorte."[257] He urged the Huguenots to learn a lesson from the fate of Bourges, Rouen, and other cities which had admitted the "papists," and to consider that these fine articles came from the queen mother, the Cardinals of Bourbon, Ferrara, and Guise, and others like them, who desired to take the Protestants like fish in a net. And he gave D'Andelot the significant hint--very significant it was, in view of what afterwards befell his brother Gaspard--that the report spread by the enemy respecting Poltrot's confession was only a preparation that, _in case any of the Huguenot noblemen should be assassinated, it might be said that the deed had been done in just revenge by the Guises_, who would not hesitate to sacrifice them either by force or by treason.[258]

[Sidenote: Coligny's disappointment.]

Of the other party, Catharine de' Medici alone was jubilant over the edict. On the contrary, the Roman Catholic people of Paris regarded it as an approval of every sort of impiety and wicked action, and the parliament would register it only after repeated commands (on the twenty-seventh of March), and then with a formal declaration of its reluctance.[259] But no one was so much disappointed as the admiral. Hastening from Normandy to Orleans, he reached that city on the twenty-third of March, only to find that the peace had been fully concluded several days before. In the council of the confederates, the next day, he spoke his mind freely. He reminded Conde that, from the very commencement of hostilities, the triumvirs had offered the restoration of the Edict of January with the exclusion of the city of Paris; and that never had affairs stood on a better footing than now,[260] when two of the three chief authors of the war were dead, and the third was a prisoner. But the poor had surpassed the rich in devotion; the cities had given the example to the nobles. In restricting the number of churches to one in a bailiwick, the prince and his counsellors had ruined more churches by a single stroke of the pen than all the forces of their enemies could have overthrown in ten years. Coligny's warm remonstrance was heard with some regret for the precipitancy with which the arrangement had been made; but it was too late. The peace was signed. Besides, Conde was confident that he would soon occupy his brother's place, when the Huguenots would obtain all their demands.

But while the prince refused to draw back from the articles of peace to which he had pledged himself, he consented to visit the queen mother in company with the admiral, and endeavor to remove some of the restrictions placed upon Protestant worship. And Catharine was too well satisfied with her success in restoring peace, to refuse the most pressing of the admiral's requests. However, she took good care that none of her promises should be in writing, much less be incorporated in the Edict of Pacification. "The prince and the admyrall," wrote the special envoy Middlemore to Queen Elizabeth, "have bene twice with the quene mother since my commynge hyther, where the admirall hath bene very earnest for a further and larger lybertye in the course of religion, and so hath obtayned that there shall be preachings within the townes in every balliage, wheras before yt was accordyd but in the suburbs of townes only, and that the gentylmen of the visconte and provoste of Parys shall have in theyr houses the same libertye of religion as ys accordyd elzwhere. So as the sayd admyrall doth now seame to lyke well inoughe that he shewyd by the waye to mislyke so muche, which was the harde articles of religion concludyd upon by the prince in his absence."[261]

On Sunday, the twenty-eighth of March, 1563--the anniversary of that Sunday which they had kept with so much solemnity at Meaux, on the eve of their march to Orleans--the Huguenot nobles and soldiers celebrated the Lord's Supper, in the simple but grand forms of the Geneva liturgy, within the walls of the church of the Holy Rood, long since stripped of its idolatrous ornaments, and on the morrow began to disperse to the homes from which for a year they had been separated.[262] The German reiters, at the same time, set out on their march toward Champagne, whence they soon after retired to their own country.

[Sidenote: Results of the war.]

The war that had just closed undoubtedly constituted a turning-point in the Huguenot fortunes. The alliance between the persecuted reformers, on the one hand, and the princes of the blood and the nobility of France, on the other, had borne fruit, and it was not altogether good fruit. The patient confessors, after manfully maintaining their faith through an entire generation against savage attack, and gaining many a convert from the witnesses of their constancy, had grasped the sword thrust into their hands by their more warlike allies. In truth, it would be difficult to condemn them; for it was in self-defence, not against rightful authority, but against the tyranny of a foreign and hostile faction. Candidly viewing their circumstances at the distance of three centuries, we can scarcely see how they could have acted otherwise than as they did. Yet there was much that, humanly speaking, was unfortunate in the conjuncture. War is a horrible remedy at any time. Civil war super-adds a thousand horrors of its own. And a civil war waged in the name of religion is the most frightful of all. The holiest of causes is sure to be embraced from impure motives by a host of unprincipled men, determined in their choice of party only by the hope of personal gain, the lust of power, or the thirst for revenge--a class of auxiliaries too powerful and important to be altogether rejected in an hour when the issues of life or death are pending, even if by the closest and calmest scrutiny they could be thoroughly weeded out--a process beyond the power of mortal man at any time, much more in the midst of the tumult and confusion of war. The Huguenots had made the attempt at Orleans, and had not shrunk from inflicting the severest punishments, even to death, for the commission of theft and other heinous crimes. They had endeavored in their camp to realize the model of an exemplary Christian community. But they had failed, because there were with them those who, neither in peace nor in war, could bring themselves to give to so strict a moral code any other obedience than that which fear exacts. Such was the misery of war. Such the melancholy alternative to which, more than once, the reformed saw themselves reduced, of perishing by persecution or of saving themselves by exposing their faith to reproach through alliance with men of as little religion or morality as any in the opposite camp.

[Sidenote: It prevents France from becoming Huguenot.]

The first civil war prevented France from becoming a Huguenot country. This was the deliberate conclusion of a Venetian ambassador, who enjoyed remarkable opportunities for observing the history of his times.[263] The practice of the Christian virtue of patience and submission under suffering and insult had made the reformers an incredible number of friends. The waging of war, even in self-defence, and the reported acts of wanton destruction, of cruelty and sacrilege--it mattered little whether they were true or false, they were equally credited and produced the same results--turned the indifference of the masses into positive aversion. It availed the Huguenots little in the estimate of the people that the crimes that were almost the rule with their opponents were the exception with them; that for a dozen such as Montluc, they were cursed with but one Baron des Adrets; that the barbarities of the former received the approbation of the Roman Catholic priesthood, while those of the latter were censured with vehemence by the Protestant ministers. Partisan spirit refused to hold the scales of justice with equal hand, and could see no proofs of superior morality or devotion in the adherents of the reformed faith.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Huguenot ballads and songs.]

Besides their psalms, hallowed by so many thrilling
associations, the Huguenots possessed a whole cycle of song.
The meagre portion of this that has come down to us is among
the most valuable of the monuments illustrative of their modes
of thought and their religious and political aspirations. At
the same time it brings vividly before us the great crises of
their history. M. Henri Bordier has done a service not easily
estimated at its full worth, by the publication of a
considerable collection of the popular songs of the
Protestants, under the title, "Le Chansonnier Huguenot du XVIe
Siecle" (Paris, 1871). These songs are grouped in four
divisions: religious songs, polemic and satirical songs, songs
of war, and songs of martyrdom.

The three oldest Huguenot songs known to exist belong to the
first two divisions, and have been saved from destruction by
the enemies of their authors, in the very attempt to secure
their suppression. They have recently been found upon the
records of the Parliament of Paris, where they obtained a
place, thanks to the zeal of the "lieutenant general" of Meaux
in endeavoring to ferret out the composers of anti-papal
ballads. They were entered, without regard to metre, as so
much prose. A stanza or two of the song entitled _Chanson
nouvelle sur le chant: "N'allez plus au bois jouer,"_ and
evidently adapted to the tune of a popular ballad of the day,
may suffice to indicate the character of the most vigorous of
these compositions. It is addressed to Michel d'Arande, a
friend of Farel, whom Bishop Briconnet had invited to preach
the Gospel in his diocese of Meaux, and begins:

Ne preschez plus la verite,
Maistre Michel!
Contenue en l'Evangille,
Il y a trop grand danger
D'estre mene
Dans la Conciergerie.
Lire, lire, lironfa.

Il y a trop grand danger
D'estre mene
Dans la Conciergerie
Devant les chapperons fourrez
Mal informez
Par gens plains de menterie.
Lire, lire, lironfa.

The "chants religieux," of which M. Bordier's collection
reproduces twenty-five, are partly poetical paraphrases of the
Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, etc., and partly original
compositions on a variety of themes, such as patient endurance
of insult, etc. They display great familiarity with the Holy
Scriptures, and sometimes not a little poetic fire.

The "chants polemiques" treat of a number of subjects,
prominent among which are the monks and nuns, and the
doctrines of the papal church. In one the expiring papacy is
represented as summoning to her bedside cardinals, bishops,
and other members of the clergy, to witness her last
struggles. In another the Sorbonne is held up to ridicule, in
company with all the mediaeval doctors of theology. In a third
the poet more seriously combats the belief in purgatory as
unscriptural. But it is the mass that bears the brunt of
attack. The Host figures under the designation, current in the
literature of the sixteenth century,[264] of _Le Dieu de
Pate_, or _Le Dieu de Farine_. The pompous and complicated
ceremonial, with its repetitions devoid of meaning for the
illiterate spectator, is, on the whole, the favorite object of
satire. In strict accordance with the spirit of the rough
controversy of the times, little mercy is shown to religious
antagonists. There is a good specimen of this style of
treatment in an interesting song dating from about 1564,
entitled "Noel nouveau de la description ou forme et maniere
de dire la Messe, sur ce chant: Hari, bouriquet." Of the
fifteen stanzas of which it is composed, two or three may
serve as samples. The preliminary service over, the priest
comes to the consecration of the wafer:

Un morceau de paste
Il fait adorer;
Le rompt de sa patte
Pour le devorer,
Le gourmand qu'il est.
Hari, hari l'asne, le gourmand qu'il est,
Hari bouriquet!

Le Dieu qu'il faict faire,
La bouche le prend;
Le coeur le digere,
Le ventre le rend,
Au fond du retrait!
Hari, hari l'asne, au fond du retrait,
Hari bouriquet!

Le peuple regarde
L'yvrongne pinter
Qui pourtant n'a garde
De luy presenter
A boire un seul traict.
Hari, hari l'asne, a boire un seul traict,
Hari bouriquet!

Acheve et despouille
Tous ses drapeaux blancs,
En sa bourse fouille
Et y met six blancs.
C'est de peur du frais.
Hari, hari l'asne, c'est de peur du frais,
Hari bouriquet!

A somewhat older song (written before 1555) purports to be the
dirge of the Mass uttered by itself--_Desolation de la Messe
expirant en chantant_. The Mass in perplexity knows not how to
begin the customary service:

_Spiritus_, _Salve_, _Requiem_,
Je ne scay si je diray bien.
Quel _Introite_, n' _Oremus_
Je prenne; _Sancti_, _Agimus_.
Feray-je des Martyrs ou Vierges?
_De ventre ad te clamamus!_
Sonnez la, allumez ces cierges:
Y a-t-il du pain et du vin?

Ou est le livre et le calice
Pour faire l'office divin?
Ca, cest autel, qu'on le tapisse!
Helas, la piteuse police.
Ame ne me vient secourir.
Sans Chapelain, Moine, Novice,
Me faudra-il ainsi perir?

Pope and cardinals are summoned in vain. No one comes, no one
will bring reliquary or consecrated wafer. The Mass must
finally resign all hope and die:

Helas chantant, brayant, virant,
Tant que le crime romp et blesse
Puis que voy tost l'ame expirant,
Dites au moins adieu la Messe.
A tous faisant mainte promesse
Ore ai-je tout mon bien quitte
Veu qu'a la mort tens et abaisse
_Ite Missa est_; donc _Ite_,
_Ite Missa est_.

The "chants de guerre" furnish a running commentary upon the
military events of the last forty years of the sixteenth
century, which is not devoid of interest or importance. The
hopeful spirit characterizing the earlier ballads is not lost
even in the latest; but the brilliant anticipations of a
speedy triumph of the truth, found before the outbreak of the
first civil war, or immediately thereafter, are lacking in
other productions, dating from the close of the reign of Henry
the Third. In a spirited song, presumably belonging to 1562,
the poet, adopting the nickname of Huguenots given to the
Protestants by their opponents, retaliates by applying an
equally unwelcome term to the Roman Catholics, and forecasting
the speedy overthrow of the papacy:

Vous appellez Huguenots
Ceux qui Jesus veullent suivre,
Et n'adorent vos marmots
De boys, de pierre et de cuyvre.
Hau, Hau, Papegots,
Faictes place aux Huguenots.

Nostre Dieu renversera
Vous et vostre loy romaine,
Et du tout se mocquera
De vostre entreprise vaine.
Hau, Hau, Papegots,
Faictes place aux Huguenots.

Vostre Antechrist tombera
Hors de sa superbe place
Et Christ partout regnera
Et sa loy pleine de grace.
Hau, Hau, Papegots,
Faictes place aux Huguenots.

The current expectation of the Protestants is attested in a
long narrative ballad by Antoine Du Plain on the siege of
Lyons (1563), in which Charles the Ninth figures as another
Josiah destined to abolish the idolatrous mass:

Ce Roy va chasser l'Idole
Plain de dole
Cognoissant un tel forfait:
Selon la vertu Royale,
Et loyale,
Comme Iosias a fait.

It is noticeable that the words "va chasser l'Idole" are an
anagram of the royal title _Charles de Valois_--an anagram
which gave the Huguenots no little comfort. The same play upon
words appears with a slight variation in a "Huictain au Peuple
de Paris, sur l'anagrammatisme du nom du tres-Chrestien Roy de
France, Charles de Valois IX. de ce nom" (Recueil des Choses
Memorables, 1565, p. 367), of which the last line is,

"O Gentil Roy qui _chassa leur idole_."

But after the massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day the hopes of
the Huguenots were blighted. If the king is not referred to by
name, his mother figures as the guilty cause of all the
misfortune of France. She is a second Helen born for the ruin
of her adopted country, according to Etienne de Maisonfleur.

Helene femme estrangere
Fut la seule mesnagere
Qui ruina Ilion,
Et la reine Catherine
Est de France la ruine
Par l'Oracle de Leon.

"Leon" is Catharine's uncle, Pope Leo the Tenth, who was said
to have predicted the total destruction of whatever house she
should be married into. See also the famous libel "Discours
merveilleux de la vie de Catherine de Medicis" (Ed. of
Cologne, Pierre du Marteau, 1693), p. 609.

The massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day naturally contributes a
considerable fund of laments, etc., to the Huguenot popular
poetry of the century. A poem apparently belonging to a more
remote date, discovered by Dr. Roullin, and perhaps the only
Breton song of the kind that has come down to us, is as simple
and unaffected a narrative as any of the modern Greek
_moerologia_ (Vaurigaud, Essaie sur l'hist. des eglises ref.
de Bretagne, 1870, i. 6). It tells the story of a Huguenot
girl betrayed to the executioner by her own mother. In spite
of a few dialectic forms, the verses are easily understood.

Voulz-vous ouir l'histoire
D'une fille d'espit
Qui n'a pas voulu croire
Chose que l'on lui dit.

--Sa mere dit: "Ma fille,
A la messe allons donc!"
--"Y aller a la messe,
Ma mere, ce n'est qu'abus.

Apportez-moi mes livres
Avec mes beaux saluts.
J'aimerais mieux etre brulee
Et vantee au grand vent

Que d'aller a la messe
En faussant mon serment."
--Quand sa tres-chere mere
Eut entendu c' mot la,

Au bourreau de la ville
Sa fille elle livra.
"Bourreau, voila ma fille!
Fais a tes volontes;

Bourreau, fais de ma fille
Comme d'un meurtrier."
Quand elle fut sur l'echelle,
Trois rollons ja montee,

Elle voit sa mere
Qui chaudement pleurait.
"Ho! la cruelle mere
Qui pleure son enfant

Apres l'avoir livree
Dans les grands feux ardents.
Vous est bien fait, ma mere,
De me faire mourir.

Je vois Jesus, mon pere,
Qui, de son beau royaume,
Descend pour me querir.
Son royaume sur terre
Dans peu de temps viendra,
Et cependant mon ame
En paradis ira."

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The nuncio alone seems to have thought that the edict would work so well, that "in six months, or a year at farthest, there would not be a single Huguenot in France!" His ground of confidence was that many, if not most of the reformed, were influenced, not by zeal for religion, but by cupidity. Santa Croce to Card. Borromeo, Jan. 17, 1562, Aymon, i. 44; Cimber et Danjou, vi. 30.

[2] Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., i. 428, 429. The letter is followed by an examination of the edict, article by article, as affecting the Protestants. Ib. i. 429-431.

[3] Abbe Bruslart, Mem. de Conde. i. 70. Barbaro spoke the universal sentiment of the bigoted wing of the papal party when he described "the decree" as "full of concealed poison," as "the most powerful means of advancing the new religion," as "an edict so pestiferous and so poisonous, that it brought all the calamities that have since occurred." Tommaseo, Rel. des Amb. Ven., ii. 72.

[4] Claude Haton, 211. "Et longtemps depuis ne faisoient sermon qu'ilz _Acab_ et _Hiesabel_ et leurs persecutions ne fussent mis par eux en avant," etc. In fact, Catharine seemed fated to have her name linked to that of the infamous Queen of Israel. A Protestant poem, evidently of a date posterior to the massacre of Saint Bartholomew, is still extant in the National Library of Paris, in which the comparison of the two is drawn out at full length. The one was the ruin of Israel, the other of France. The one maintained idolatry, the other papacy. The one slew God's holy prophets, the other has slain a hundred thousand followers of the Gospel. Both have killed, in order to obtain the goods of their victims. But the unkindest verses are the last--even the very dogs will refuse to touch Catharine's "carrion."

"En fin le jugement fut tel
Que les chiens mengent Jhesabel
Par une vangeance divine;
Mais la charongne de Catherine
Sera differente en ce point,
Car les chiens ne la vouldront point."

Appendix to Mem. de Claude Haton, ii. 1, 110.

[5] _Ante_, i. 477.

[6] Mem. de Claude Haton, 211, 212.

[7] Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., i. 431.

[8] Abbe Bruslart, Mem. de Conde. i. 70, 71.

[9] Declaration of Feb. 14, 1561/2, Du Mont, Corps diplomatique, v. 91, 92.

[10] And, indeed, with modifications which were to render it still more severe. Letter of Beza to Calvin, Feb. 26, 1562, Baum, ii., App., 167.

[11] The registry took place on Friday, March 6th. Isambert, xiv. 124; La Fosse, 45, who says "Ledict edict fut publie en la salle du palais en ung vendredy, 5e [6e] de ce moys, _la ou il y eut bien peu de conseillers et le president Baillet qui signerent_."

[12] The same prelate to whom Cardinal Lorraine doubtless referred in no complimentary terms, when, at the assembly of the clergy at Poissy, he said, "qu'il estoit contrainct de dire, _Duodecim sumus, sed unus ex nobis Diabolus est_, et passant plus outre, qu'il y avoit ung evesque de la compagnie ... qui avoit revele ce qui se faisoit en laditte assemblee," etc. Journal de Bruslart, Mem. de Conde, i. 50.

[13] See the document in Schlosser, Leben des Theodor de Beze, App., 359-361; Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., i. 436, 437.

[14] Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., i. 436-450; Baum, ii. 512-545. In connection with Prof. Baum's long and thorough account of the colloquy, Beza's correspondence, printed in the appendix, is unusually interesting.

[15] "Cardinalium intercessione ac precibus mox soluta sunt omnia." Beza to Bullinger, March 2, 1562. Baum, ii., App., 169.