Chapter XVI: The Third CIVIL War (5)

[738] This number, given by Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 313, and by De Thou, iv. (liv. xlv.) 242, seems the most probable. La Popeliniere swells it to near 10,000 (Soldan, ii. 375), while Castelnau, liv. vii., c. 10, reduces it to "over 8,000." Strange to say, Jean de Serres, who, writing and publishing this portion of his history within a year after the conclusion of the third civil war, almost uniformly gives the highest estimates of the Roman Catholic losses, here makes them about 2,000, or lower than any one else.

[739] Agrippa d'Aubigne, who was generous enough to appreciate valor even in an enemy, calls him "celui qui entamoit toutes les parties difficiles, a qui rien n'estoit dur ny hazardeux, qui en tous les exploits de son temps avoit fait les coups de partie" (i. 312). Lestoile in his journal (p. 22, Ed. Mich.) affirms that he was killed just as he had uttered a blasphemous inquiry of the Huguenots, where was now their "Dieu le Fort," and taunted them with his having become "a ceste heure leur Dieu le Faible." "Le Dieu, le Fort, l'Eternel parlera," was the first line of a favorite Huguenot psalm.

[740] On the siege of Saint Jean d'Angely, see J. de Serres, iii. 369, 370; Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 311-313; De Thou, iv. 238-242; Castelnau, liv. vii., c. 10. It scarcely needs to be mentioned that Davila, bk. v., p. 166, knows nothing of any treachery on the part of the Roman Catholics, but duly mentions that De Piles did not observe his promise.

[741] Davila, bk. v. (Eng. tr., p. 163 and 167); De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvi.) 250. Gabutius, in his life of Pius V., transcribes the exultant inscription, dictated by the pontiff himself (Sec. 126, p. 648), and claims for the canonized subject of his panegyric the chief credit of the victory. According to him the Italians were the first to engage with the heretics, and the last to desist from the pursuit.

[742] Davila, bk. 5th (Eng. tr., p. 167); Mem. de Claude Haton, ii. 591.

[743] "L'hiver arriva, il fallut mettre les troupes en quartier; et le fruit d'une victoire si complette, l'effort d'une armee royale si formidable, fut la prise de quelques places mediocres, pendant que La Rochelle, la plus utile de toutes, restoit aux vaincus, et que les princes retablissoient les affaires, a l'aide d'un delai qu'ils n'avoient point ose se promettre." Anquetil, L'Esprit de la ligue, i. 317.

[744] J. de Serres, iii. 372; De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvi.) 234, 235, who makes the loss in the first siege 300 men, and in the second over 1,000 horsemen; Agrippa d'Aubigne, Hist. univ., l. v., c. 19 (i. 315, 316), who states the total at 1,400 foot and near 400 horse; while Castelnau, l. vii., c. 10, speaks of but 300 in all. Vezelay, famous in the history of the Crusades (see Michaud, Hist. des Croisades, ii. 125) as the place where St. Bernard in 1146 preached the Cross to an immense throng from all parts of Christendom, is equidistant from Bourges and Dijon, and a little north of a line uniting these two cities.

[745] De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvi.) 246, 247; Agrippa d'Aubigne, liv. v., c. 19 (i. 317); J. de Serres, iii. 370. About twenty prisoners were taken, to whom their captors promised their lives. Afterward there were strenuous efforts made, especially by the priests, to have them put to death as rebels and traitors. M. de la Chastre resisted the pressure, disregarding even a severe order of the Parliament of Paris, accompanied by the threat of the enormous fine of 2,000 marks of gold, which bade him send them to the capital. (Hist. du Berry, etc., par M. Louis Raynal, 1846, iv, 104, _apud_ Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. fr., iv. (1856) 27.) Even Charles IX. wrote to him, but the governor was inflexible. His noble reply has come to light, dated Jan. 21, 1570, just one month after the failure of the Protestant scheme. After urging the danger of retaliation by the Huguenots of La Charite and Sancerre upon the prisoners they held, to the number of more than forty, and the inexpediency of accustoming the people of Bourges to bloody executions which they would not fail to repeat, he concludes his remonstrance in these striking words: "Nevertheless, Sire, if you should find it expedient, for the good of your service, to put them to death, the channel of the courts of justice is the most proper, without recompensing my services, or sullying my reputation with a stain that will ever be a ground of reproach against me. And I beg you, Sire, to make use of me in other matters more worthy of a gentleman having the heart of his ancestors, who for five hundred years have served their king without stain of treachery or act unworthy of a gentleman." Inedited letter, _apud_ Bulletin, _ubi supra_, 28, 29. M. de la Chastre became one of the marshals of France. He conducted, three years later, the terrible siege of Sancerre, famous in history. He had the reputation among the Huguenots of being very severe, if not bloodthirsty--a reputation which he deserved, if he was, as Henry of Navarre styles him, "un des principaux executeurs de la Sainct Barthelemy." (Deposition in the trial of La Mole, Coconnas, etc. Archives curieuses, viii. 150.) La Chastre tried to clear himself of the imputation, by recalling the events of 1569. To Jean de Lery he maintained "qu'il n'est point sanguinaire, ainsi qu'on a opinion, comme aussi il l'avoit desja bien monstre aux autres troubles, lorsqu'il avoit en sa puissance les sieurs d'Espeau, baron de Renty, et le capitaine Fontaine, qui est en son armee: car encores que la cour du parlement de Paris luy fist commandement de les representer, a peine de 2,000 marcs d'or, il ne le voulut faire." Jean de Lery, "Discours de l'extreme famine ... dans la ville de Sancerre," Archives curieuses, viii. 67.

[746] De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvi.) 235-237; Agrippa d'Aubigne, liv. v., c. 19 (i. 316, 317); Jean de Serres, iii. 368, 369.

[747] "Si est-ce que Dieu est tres-doux."

[748] Agrippa d'Aubigne, l. v., c. 18 (i. 309). The words were, as M. Douen reminds us (Clement Marot et le Psautier huguenot, 1878, 13) the first line of the seventy-third psalm of the Huguenot psalter.

[749] De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvi.) 232; Jean de Serres, iii. 366.

[750] Ibid., iii. 372, etc.

[751] Even in December, Languet could scarcely imagine that Coligny would not return and winter at La Rochelle. Letter of Dec. 12, 1569, Epist. secr., i. 130.

[752] Mem. de Castelnau, liv. vii., c. 12.

[753] At least, so says Agrippa d'Aubigne, liv. v., c. 18 (i. 309).

[754] De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvi.) 233; Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 309, 318 (liv. v., cs. 18 and 20). The two authorities are not in exact agreement, De Thou stating that Coligny went to Montauban before his march to meet Montgomery, while D'Aubigne makes him follow the left bank of the Dordogne down to Aiguillon. Gasparis Colinii Vita (1575), 91, 92, supports De Thou.

[755] De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvi.) 249; Agrippa d'Aubigne, liv. v., c. 20 (i. 318); Gasparis Colinii Vita (1575), 94. The author of this valuable and authentic life of the admiral gives a full description of the bridge. Professor Soldan is mistaken in saying that the bridge was not yet completed (Geschichte des Prot. in Frank., ii. 377). It had been completed, and two days had been spent in taking over the German cavalry ("opere effecto, biduoque in traducendis Germanis equitibus consumpto") when the disaster occurred.

[756] Languet, Letter of January 3, 1570, Epist. secretae, i. 133.

[757] Gasparis Colinii Vita (1576), 91; Vie de Coligny (Cologne, 1686), 378, where the account of the expedition, however, is full of blunders. Mr. Browning, following this untrustworthy authority, makes Admiral Coligny cross the Garonne and pass through Bearn, on his way from Saintes to Montauban! A glance at the map of France will show that this would have required a much greater bend to the right than he in reality made to the left, since Bearn lay entirely south of the river Adour. To reach Bearn by land _before_ crossing the Garonne, as the "Vie" evidently imagines he did, would almost have required Aladdin's lamp. In fact, the entire passage is a jumble of the exploits of Montgomery and Coligny.

[758] La Popeliniere, _apud_ Soldan, ii. 378.

[759] De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvii.) 303-306; Agrippa d'Aubigne, liv. v., c. 20 (i. 319, 320); Davila, bk. v., p. 168; Raoul de Cazenove, "Rapin-Thoyras, sa famille," etc., 49, 50.

[760] La Mothe Fenelon, vii. 81.

[761] "L'imprudence des Catholiques, lesquels laissant rouler, sans nul empeschement, ceste petite pelote de neige, en peu de temps elle _se fit grosse comme une maison_." Mem. de la Noue, c. xxix.

[762] Of course, Davila (bk. v., p. 167, 168), who rarely rejects a good story of intrigue, especially if there be a dainty bit of treachery connected with it, adopts unhesitatingly the popular rumor of Marshal Damville's infidelity to his trust.

[763] St. Etienne possessed already, at the time the "Vie de Coligny" was written, that branch of industry which still constitutes one of its chief sources of wealth. It was described as a "petite ville fameuse par la quantite d'armes qui s'y fait, et qui se transportent dans les pais etrangers, en sorte que c'est ce qui nourrit presque toute la province." P. 381.

[764] Agrippa d'Aubigne, liv. v., c. 21 (i. 322).

[765] Gasparis Colinii Vita, 97, 98.

[766] Arnay-le-Duc, or Rene-le-Duc, as the place was indifferently called, is situated about thirty miles south-west of Dijon, on the road to Autun.

[767] De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvii.) 312-314; Agrippa d'Aubigne, liv. v., c. 22 (i. 321-325); Castelnau, liv. vii., c. 12; Davila, bk. v. 169.

[768] De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvii.) 315. Davila attributes to the connivance of Marshal Cosse the escape of the Protestants from Arnay-le-Duc. This is consistent with the same writer's statement that it was the marshal's intentional slowness that enabled Coligny to seize upon Arnay-le-Duc and post himself so advantageously.

[769] Castelnau, liv. vii., c. 10.

[770] De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvii.) 301.

[771] De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvii.) 302.

[772] The articles, a copy of which was sent to the ambassador at the court of Elizabeth, in a letter from Angers, Feb. 6, 1570, are printed in La Mothe Fenelon, vii. 86-88. I omit reference in the text to the articles prohibiting foreign alliances and the levy of money, prescribing the dismissal of foreign troops, etc. The two cities referred to in the fifth article are rather to be regarded as places of worship--the only places in the kingdom where Protestant worship would be tolerated--than as pledges for the performance of the projected edict, as Prof. Soldan apparently regards them chiefly, if not exclusively. Geschichte des Prot. in Frankreich, ii. 379.

[773] Charles to ambassador, Jan. 14th; letter of Catharine, same date; La Mothe Fenelon, vii. 77, 78.

[774] See Froude, History of England, x. 9. etc.

[775] De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvii.) 305. Cf. Soulier, Hist. des edits de pacification, 92.

[776] De Thou, iv. 311. It was at St. Etienne in Forez, that the incident occurred.

[777] For a fuller discussion of these circumstances than the limits of this history will permit me to give, I must refer the reader to the work of Prof. Soldan, Geschichte des Protestantismus in Frankreich, ii. 385.

[778] La Noue was one of the most modest, as well as one of the most capable of generals. "I have felt myself so much the more obliged to speak of it," writes the historian De Thou respecting the battle of Sainte Gemme, "as La Noue, the most generous of men, who has written on the civil wars with as much fidelity as judgment, always disposed to render conspicuous the merit of others, and very reserved respecting his own, has not said a word of this victory." De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvii.) 320.

[779] Brantome has written the eulogy of this personage, whose true name was Antoine Escalin. He was first ambassador at Constantinople, where his good services secured his appointment as general of the galleys. After undergoing the displeasure of the king, and a three years' imprisonment for his participation in the massacre of the Vaudois, he was reinstated in office. Subsequently he was temporarily displaced by the grand prior, and by the Marquis of Elbeuf. It is an odd mistake of Mr. Henry White (Mass. of St. Bartholomew, p. 14, note) when he says: "In the religious wars he sided with the Huguenots." Brantome says: "Il haissoit mortellement ces gens-la."

[780] De Thou, iv. 316-325; Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 325-335.

[781] Ibid., _ubi supra_.

[782] La Mothe Fenelon, iii. 210, 215. Despatch of June 21st.

[783] De Thou, iv. 287, 288; Kluckholn, Briefe Friedrich des Frommen, ii. 398.

[784] La Mothe Fenelon, iii. 256, 257.

[785] Letter of April 17, 1570, Rochambeau, Lettres d'Antoine de Bourbon et de Jehanne d'Albret (Paris, 1877), 299.

[786] Chassanee in his "Consuetudines ducatus Burgundiae, fereque totius Galliae" (Lyons, 1552), 50, defines the "haute justice" by the possession of the power of life and death: "De secundo vero gradu meri imperii, seu altae justiciae, est habere gladii potestatem ad animadvertendum in facinorosos homines."

[787] See the edict itself in Jean de Serres, iii. 375-390; summaries in De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvii.) 328, 329, and Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 364, 365.

[788] Journal d'un cure ligueur, 120.

[789] Ibid., _ubi supra_.

[790] Castelnau, liv. vii., c. 12. The work of this very fair-minded historian terminates with the conclusion of the peace. De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvii.) 327.

[791] "On la disoit boiteuse et mal-assise," says Henri de Mesmes himself in his account of these transactions, adding with a delicate touch of sarcasm: "Je n'en ay point vu depuis vingt-cinq ans qui ait guere dure." Le Laboureur, Add. aux Mem. de Castelnau, ii. 776. Prof. Soldan has already exposed the mistake of Sismondi and others, who apply the popular nickname to the preceding peace of Longjumeau. See _ante_, chap. xv.