Chapter XVIII: The Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day (1)

[Sidenote: The Huguenot nobles reach Paris.]

The marriage of Henry of Navarre and Margaret of Valois had been delayed in consequence of the death of the bridegroom's mother, but could now no longer be deferred. The young queen of Charles the Ninth was soon to become a mother, and it was desirable that she should have the opportunity to leave the crowded and unhealthy capital as soon as possible. Jeanne d'Albret's objection to the celebration of the wedding in Paris had been overruled. The bride herself, indifferent enough, to all appearance, on other points, was resolute as to this matter--she would have her nuptials celebrated in no provincial town. Accordingly, the King of Navarre, followed by eight hundred gentlemen of his party, as well as by his cousin the Prince of Conde, and the admiral, made his solemn entry into the city, which so few of his adherents were to leave alive. Although still clad in mourning for the loss of the heroic Queen of Navarre, they bore no unfavorable comparison with the gay courtiers, who, with Anjou and Alencon at their head, came out to escort them into Paris with every mark of respect.[925]

[Sidenote: Betrothal of Henry and Margaret.]

The betrothal took place in the palace of the Louvre, on Sunday the seventeenth of August. Afterward there was a supper and a ball; and when these came to an end, Margaret was conducted by her mother, her brothers, and a stately retinue, to the episcopal palace, on the Ile de la Cite, adjoining the cathedral, there, according to the immemorial custom of the princesses of the blood, to pass the night before her wedding. No papal dispensation had arrived. Gregory XIII. was as obstinate as his predecessor in the pontifical chair, in denying the requests of the French envoys to Rome.[926] But Charles was determined to proceed; and, in order to silence the opposition of the Cardinal of Bourbon, who still refused to perform the ceremony without the pope's approval, a forged letter was shown to him, purporting to come from the Cardinal of Lorraine, or the royal ambassador at Rome, and announcing that the bull of dispensation had actually been sealed, and would shortly arrive.[927]

Preparations had been made for the wedding in a style of magnificence extraordinary even for that age of reckless expenditure. To show their cordial friendship and fidelity, Charles and his brothers, Anjou and Alencon, and Henry and his cousin of Conde, assumed a costume precisely alike--a light yellow satin, covered with silver embroidery, and enriched with pearls and precious stones. Margaret wore a violet velvet dress with fleurs-de-lis. Her train was adorned with the same emblems. She was wrapped in a royal mantle, and had upon her head an imperial crown glittering with pearls, diamonds, and other gems of incalculable value. The queens were resplendent in cloth of gold and silver.[928] A lofty platform had been erected in front of the grand old pile of Notre Dame. Hither Margaret was brought in great pomp, from the palace of the Bishop of Paris, escorted by the king, by Catharine de' Medici, by the Dukes of Anjou and Alencon, and by the Guises, the marshals, and other great personages of the realm. Upon the platform she met Henry of Navarre, with his cousins Conde and Conty, Admiral Coligny, Count de la Rochefoucauld, and a numerous train of Protestant lords from all parts of the kingdom. In the sight of an immense throng, the nuptial ceremony was performed by the Cardinal of Bourbon, Henry's uncle, according to the form which had been previously agreed upon.[929] The bridal procession then entered the cathedral by a lower platform, which extended through the nave to the choir. Here Henry, having placed his bride before the grand altar to hear mass, himself retired with his Protestant companions to the episcopal palace, and waited for the service to be over. When notified of its conclusion by Marshal Damville, Henry and his suite returned to the choir, and with his bride and all the attending grandees soon sat down to a sumptuous dinner in the episcopal palace.

Among those who had been admitted to the choir of Notre Dame after the close of the mass, was the son of the first president of parliament, young Jacques Auguste de Thou, the future historian. Happening to come near Admiral Coligny, he looked with curious and admiring gaze upon the warrior whose virtues and abilities had combined to raise the house of Chatillon to its present distinction. He saw him point out to his cousin Damville the flags and banners taken from the Huguenots on the fields of Jarnac and Moncontour, still suspended from the walls of the cathedral, mournful trophies of a civil contest. "These will soon be torn down," De Thou heard Coligny say, "and in their place others more pleasing to the eye will be hung up." The words had unmistakable reference to the victories which he hoped soon to win in a war against Spain. It is not strange, however, that the malevolent endeavored to prove that they contained an allusion to the renewal of a domestic war, which it is certain that the admiral detested with his whole heart.[930]

[Sidenote: Entertainment in the Louvre.]

Later in the day, a magnificent entertainment was given by Charles in the Louvre to the municipality of Paris, the members of parliament, and other high officers of justice. Supper was succeeded by a short ball, and this in turn by one of those allegorical representations in which French fancy and invention at this period ran wanton. Through the great vaulted saloon of the Louvre a train of wonderful cars was made slowly to pass. Some were rocks of silver, on whose summits sat in state the king's brothers, Navarre, Conde, the prince dauphin, Guise, or Angouleme. On others sea-monsters disported themselves, and the pagan gods of the water, somewhat incongruously clothed in cloth of gold or various colors, serenely looked on. Charles himself rode in a chariot shaped like a sea-horse, the curved tail of which supported a shell holding Neptune and his trident. When the pageant stopped for a moment, singers of surpassing skill entertained the guests. Etienne le Roy, the king's especial favorite, distinguished himself by the power and beauty of his voice.[931]

The entertainment was prolonged far into the night; but Admiral Coligny, before giving himself repose, snatched from sleep a few minutes to write a letter to his wife, whom he had left in Chatillon. It is the last which has been preserved, and is otherwise important because of the light it throws upon the hopes and fears of the great Huguenot at this critical time.

[Sidenote: Coligny's letter to his wife.]

"My darling," he said, "I write this bit of a letter to tell you that to-day the marriage of the king's sister and the King of Navarre took place. Three or four days will be spent in festivities, masks, and mock combats. After that the king has assured me and given me his promise, that he will devote a few days to attending to a number of complaints which are made in various parts of the kingdom, touching the infraction of the edict. It is but reasonable that I should employ myself in this matter, so far as I am able; for, although I have infinite desire to see you, yet should I feel great regret, and I believe that you would likewise, were I to fail to occupy myself in such an affair with all my ability. But this will not delay so much the departure from this city, but that I think that the court will leave it at the beginning of next week. If I had in view only my own satisfaction, I should take much greater pleasure in going to see you, than in being in this court, for many reasons which I shall tell you. But we must have more regard for the public than for our own private interests. I have many other things to tell you, when I am able to see you, for which I am so anxious that you must not think that I waste a day or an hour. What remains for me to say is that to-day, at four o'clock after noon, the bride's mass was said. Meanwhile, the King of Navarre walked about in a court with all those of the religion who accompanied him. Other incidents occurred which I will reserve to relate to you; but first I must see you. And meantime I pray our Lord, my darling, to keep you in His holy guard and protection. From Paris, this eighteenth day of August, 1572. _Mandez-moy comme se porte le petit ou petite._ ... I assure you that I shall not be anxious to attend all the festivities and combats that are to take place during these next days. Your very good husband and friend, CHATILLON."[932]

[Sidenote: Festivities and mock combats.]

The festivities and combats--so distasteful to a statesman who recognized the critical condition of French affairs, and regarded this merry-making as ill-timed--pursued their uninterrupted course through Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of that eventful week. But the description of most of the elaborate pageants would contribute little to the value of our conceptions of the character of the age. An exception may perhaps be made in favor of an ingenious tournament that took place on Wednesday in the Hotel Bourbon. Here the Isles of the Blessed, the Elysian Fields, and Tartarus were represented by means of costly mechanisms. Charles and his brothers figured as knights defending Paradise, which Navarre and others, dressed as knights-errant, endeavored to enter by force of arms, but were repulsed and thrust into Tartarus. After some time the defeated champions were rescued from their perilous situation by the compassion of their victors, and the performance terminated in a startling, but harmless display of fireworks.[933] As the assailants were mostly Protestants, the defenders Roman Catholics, it was not strange that a sinister interpretation was soon put upon the strange plot; but, unless we are to suppose the authors of the massacre, whose success depended upon the surprise of the victims, so infatuated as to wish to forewarn them of their fate, it is scarcely credible that they intended to prefigure the ruin of the reformed faith in France.

[Sidenote: Huguenot grievances to be redressed.]

The time that had been allotted to pleasure was fast passing. The king was soon to meet Coligny, according to his promise, for the transaction of important business relating both to the internal and to the foreign affairs of France. There were religious grievances to be redressed. The admiral was particularly anxious to bring to the king's notice the flagrant outrage recently perpetrated in Troyes, where a fanatical Roman Catholic populace, indignant that the Huguenots, through the kindness of Marie de Cleves, the betrothed of the Prince of Conde,[934] had been permitted to hold their worship so near the city as her castle of Isle-au-Mont, scarcely three leagues distant,[935] had met the Protestants on their return from service with aggravated insult, and had killed in the arms of its nurse an infant that had just been baptized according to the reformed rites.[936] Catharine and her son Anjou saw with consternation that the impression made by the "tears of Montpipeau" was already in a great degree obliterated, and feared the complete destruction of their influence if Charles were longer permitted to have intercourse with Coligny. In that case a Flemish war would be almost inevitable. Charles's anger against the Spaniards had kindled anew when he heard of Alva's inhumanity to Genlis and his fellow-prisoners. But, when he was informed that Alva had put French soldiers to the torture, in order to extract the admission of their monarch's complicity in the enterprise, his passion was almost ungovernable, as he asked his attendants again and again: "Do you know that the Duke of Alva is putting me on trial?"[937] It seems to have been at this juncture that Catharine and her favorite son came to the definite determination to put the great Huguenot out of the way. Henry of Anjou is here his own accuser. In that strange confession which he made to his physician, Miron,[938] shortly after his arrival in Cracow--a confession made under the influence, not so much of remorse, as of the annoyance occasioned by the continual reminders of the massacre which were thrown in his way as he travelled to assume the throne of Poland--he gives us a partial view of the development of the murderous plot.

[Sidenote: Jealousy of Catharine and Anjou.]

[Sidenote: The Duchess of Nemours and Henry of Guise.]

Several times had Anjou and Catharine perceived that, whenever Charles had conversed in private with the admiral, his demeanor was visibly changed toward them. He no longer exhibited his accustomed respect for his mother or his wonted kindness for his brother. Once, in particular--and it was, so Anjou tells us, only a few days before St. Bartholomew's Day--Henry happened to enter the room just after Coligny had gone out. Instantly the king's countenance betrayed extreme anger. He began to walk furiously to and fro, taking great strides, and keeping his eyes fixed upon his brother with an expression that boded no good, but without uttering a word. Again and again he placed his hand on his dagger, and Anjou expected nothing less than that his brother would attack him. At last, taking advantage of an opportunity when Charles's back was turned, he hastily retreated from the room. This circumstance led Catharine and Anjou to compare their observations and their plans. "Both of us," says Henry, "were easily persuaded, and became, as it were, certain that it was the admiral who had impressed some evil and sinister opinion of us upon the king. We resolved from that moment to rid ourselves of him, and to concert the means of doing so with the Duchess of Nemours. To her alone we believed that we might safely disclose our purpose, on account of the mortal hatred which we knew that she bore to him."[939] The Duchess of Nemours was born of an excellent mother; for she was Anne d'Este, daughter of Renee of France, the younger child of Louis the Twelfth. In her youth, at the court of her father, the Duke of Ferrara, and in society with that prodigy of feminine precocity, Olympia Morata, she had shown evidences of extraordinary intellectual development and of a kindly disposition.[940] Although she subsequently married Francis of Guise, the leading persecutor of the Protestants, she had not so lost her sympathy with the oppressed as to witness without tears and remonstrances the atrocious executions by which the tumult of Amboise was followed. But the assassination of her husband turned any affection or compassion she may have entertained for Protestantism into violent hatred. Against Coligny, whom, in spite of his protestations, she persisted in believing to be the instigator of Poltrot's crime, she bore an implacable enmity; and now, having so often failed in obtaining satisfaction from the king by judicial process, she eagerly accepted the opportunity of avenging herself by a deed more dastardly than that which she laid to the charge of her enemy. Entering heartily into the project which Catharine and Anjou laid before her, the Duchess of Nemours enlisted the co-operation of her son, Henry of Guise, and her brother-in-law, the Duke of Aumale, and herself arranged the details of the plan, which was at once to be put into execution.[941]

[Sidenote: Was the massacre long premeditated?]

[Sidenote: Salviati's testimony.]

Such was the germ of the massacre as yet not resolved upon, which, rapidly developing, was to involve the murder of thousands of innocent persons throughout France. In opposition to the opinion that became almost universal among the Protestants, and gained nearly equal currency among the Roman Catholics--that the butchery had long been contemplated, and that Charles was privy to it--and notwithstanding the circumstances that seem to give color to this opinion,[942] I am compelled to acquiesce in the belief expressed by the Papal Nuncio, Salviati, who, in his despatches, written in cipher to the cardinal secretary of state, could certainly have had no motive to disguise his real sentiments, and whom it is impossible to suppose ignorant of any scheme for the general extirpation of the Protestants, had such a scheme existed for any considerable length of time: "As to all the statements that will be made respecting the firing upon the admiral and his death, different from that which I have written to you, you will in time find out how true they are. Madame the regent, having come to be at variance with him [the admiral], and having decided upon this step a few days before, caused him to be fired upon. This was _without the knowledge of the king_, but with the participation of the Duke of Anjou, the Duchess of Nemours, and her son, the Duke of Guise. If the admiral had died at once, no others would have been slain. But, inasmuch as he survived, and they apprehended that some great calamity might happen should he draw closer to the king, they resolved to throw aside shame, and to have him killed together with the rest. And this was put into execution that very night."[943]

[Sidenote: The king's cordiality.]

As the hour approached, Coligny exhibited no apprehension of special danger. Others, however, more suspicious, or possessed of less faith in Heaven, felt alarm; and some acted upon their fears. The very "goodness" of the king terrified one. Another said that he had rather be saved with fools than perish with the wise, and hastily forsook the capital. Dark hints had been thrown out by courtiers--such surmises were naturally bred by the defenceless position of the Protestants in the midst of a population so hostile to their faith as the population of Paris--that more blood than wine would be spilled at this wedding. And there were rumors of some mysterious enterprise afloat; so, at least, it was said after the occurrence. But Coligny moved not from the post which he believed had been assigned to his keeping. On Wednesday Charles assured him, with laughing countenance, that if the admiral would but give him four days more for amusement, he would not stir from Paris until he had contented him;[944] and the sturdy old Huguenot made no objection when the king, in order to prevent any disturbance which the partisans of Guise might occasion in seeking a quarrel with the followers of the house of Chatillon, proposed to introduce a considerable force of soldiers into the city. "My father," said Charles, with his usual appearance of affection, "you know that you have promised not to give any cause of offence to the Guises so long as you remain here; and they have in like manner promised to respect you and all yours. I am fully persuaded that you will keep your word; but I am not so well assured of their good faith as of yours; for, besides the fact that it is they that would avenge themselves, I know their bravadoes and the favor this populace bears to them."[945]

[Sidenote: Coligny is wounded, August 22.]

On Friday morning, the twenty-second of August, Admiral Coligny went to the Louvre, to attend a meeting of the royal council, at which Henry of Anjou presided. It was between ten and eleven o'clock, when, according to the more primitive hours then kept, he left the palace to return home for dinner.[946] Meeting Charles just coming out of a chapel in front of the Louvre, he retraced his steps, and accompanied him to the tennis-court, where he left him playing with Guise, against Teligny and another nobleman. Accompanied by about a dozen gentlemen, he again sallied forth, but had not proceeded over a hundred paces when from behind a lattice an arquebuse was fired at him.[947] The admiral had been walking slowly, intently engaged in reading a petition which had just been handed to him. The shot had been well aimed, and might have proved fatal, had not the victim at that very moment turned a little to one side. As it was, of the three balls with which the arquebuse was loaded, one took off a finger of his right hand, and another lodged in his left arm, making an ugly wound. Supported by De Guerchy and Des Pruneaux, between whom he had previously been walking, Coligny was carried to his house in the little Rue de Bethisy,[948] only a few steps farther on. As he went he pointed out to his friends the house from which the shot had been fired. To a gentleman who expressed the fear that the balls were poisoned, he replied with composure: "Nothing will happen but what it may please God to order."[949]

The attempted assassination had happened in front of the cloisters of St. Germain l'Auxerrois. The house was recognized as one belonging to the Duchess Dowager of Guise, in which Villemur, the former tutor of young Henry of Guise, had lodged. The door was found locked; but the indignant followers of Coligny soon burst it open. They found within only a woman and a lackey. The assassin, after firing, had fled to the rear of the house. There he found a horse awaiting him; this he exchanged at the Porte Saint Antoine for a fresh Spanish jennet. He was out of Paris almost before pursuit was fairly undertaken. Subsequent investigation left no doubt as to his identity. It was that same Maurevel of infamous memory, who during the third civil war had traitorously shot De Mouy, after insinuating himself into his friendship, and sharing his room and his bed. The king's assassin, "le tueur du roi"--a designation he had obtained when Charles or his advisers gave a special reward for that exploit[950]--had been selected by Catharine, Anjou and the Guises, as possessing both the nerve and the experience that were requisite to make sure of Coligny's death. It was found that he had been placed in the house by De Chailly, "maitre d'hotel" of the king, and that the horse by means of which he effected his escape had been brought to the door by the groom of the Duke of Guise.[951]

[Sidenote: Agitation of the king.]

Charles was still in the tennis-court, when De Piles came in, sent by Coligny, to inform him of the bloody infraction of the Edict of Pacification. On hearing the intelligence, the king was violently agitated. Throwing down his racket, he exclaimed: "Am I, then, never to have peace? What! always new troubles?" and retired to his room in the Louvre, with a countenance expressive of great dejection.[952] And when, later in the day, the King of Navarre, the Prince of Conde, and La Rochefoucauld, after seeing Coligny's wounds dressed, came to the palace and begged him for permission to leave a city in which there was no security for their lives, Charles swore to them, with his accustomed profanity, that he would inflict upon the author and abettors of the crime so signal a punishment that Coligny and his friends would be satisfied, and posterity have a warning example. Coligny had received the wound, he said, but the smart was _his_. Catharine, who was present, chimed in, and declared the outrage so flagrant, that just retribution must speedily be meted out, or insolence would be pushed so far as that the king would be attacked in his own palace.[953]

[Sidenote: Coligny courageous.]

Meantime the admiral bore his sufferings with serenity, and, far from needing any comfort his friends could give him, himself administered consolation to the noblemen around his bed. His sufferings were acute. Amboise Pare, the famous surgeon of the king, himself a Huguenot, was called in; but the instruments at hand were dull, and it was not until the third attempt that he could satisfactorily amputate the wounded finger. "My friends," said Coligny to Merlin, his minister, and to other friends, "why do you weep? As for me, I think myself happy in having received these wounds for the name of God." And when Merlin exhorted him "to thank God for His mercy in preserving his mental faculties sound and entire, and to continue to divert his thoughts and feelings from his assassin and his wounds, and to turn them, as he was doing, from all things else to God, since it was from His hands that he had received them," the admiral's reply was, that sincerely and from the heart he forgave the person who had wounded him, and those who had instigated him, holding it for certain that it was beyond their power to injure him, since, should they even kill him, death would be an assured passage to life.[954] Thus, with quiet submission, and with edifying prayers which it would be too long to insert, the Admiral de Coligny passed those hours which his enemies subsequently, in their desperate attempts to justify or palliate the most abominable of crimes, represented as given up to infamous plots against king and state.

[Sidenote: He is visited by the king and his mother.]

That afternoon, between two and three o'clock, Charles visited the wounded man, at the suggestion of Teligny and Damville; for Coligny had expressed a desire to see the monarch, that he might communicate certain matters which concerned him greatly, but of which he feared there was no one else that would inform him.[955] The king came, accompanied by his mother, his brothers, the Duke of Montpensier, Cardinal Bourbon, Marshals Damville, Tavannes and Cosse, Count de Retz, and the younger Montmorencies, Thore and Meru.[956] The interview was kind and reassuring. The admiral, who lay upon his bed, heartily thanked the king for the honor he had deigned to do him, and for the measures he had already taken in his behalf. And Charles praised the patience and magnanimity exhibited by Coligny, and bade him be of good courage. Then more important topics were introduced. There were three points respecting which the admiral wished to speak to Charles. The first was his own loyalty, which, however much it had been maligned by his enemies, he desired now solemnly to reaffirm, in the presence of Him before whose bar he might soon be called to stand, and he declared that the sole cause of the hostility he had aroused was his attempt to set bounds to the fury of those who presumed to violate royal edicts. Next, he commended to the king the Flemish project. Never had any predecessor of Charles enjoyed so splendid an opportunity as now offered, when several cities of the Netherlands had declared their desire for his favor and protection. But these advances were openly derided by some of the courtiers about the king; while state secrets were so badly kept, that "one could not turn an egg, nor utter a word in the council, but it was forthwith reported to the Duke of Alva." And, indeed, what else could be expected, since those who were present, and even his own brothers, communicated to foreigners and enemies the king's most confidential deliberations? He earnestly begged Charles to apply a prompt remedy to this matter in future. The last point was the observance of the Edict of Pacification. What opinion would foreign nations form of the king, if he suffered a law solemnly made, and frequently confirmed by oath, to be openly trampled upon? In proof of this assertion, he alleged the recent attack upon the Protestants of Troyes returning from their place of worship, the tragic termination of which has already been noticed.

To that part of Coligny's remarks which related to the war in Flanders, it is said that Charles made no direct reply; but he declared that he had never suspected the admiral's loyalty, and that he accounted him a good man, and a great and generous captain. There was not another man in the kingdom whom he would prefer to him. And he again asseverated his intention to enforce a religious observance of his edicts; for which purpose, indeed, he had recently despatched commissioners into all the provinces, as the queen could inform him. "That is true, Monsieur l'amiral," said Catharine, "and you know it." "Yes, madam," he replied, "commissioners have been sent, among whom are some that condemned me to be hung, and set a price of fifty thousand crowns on my head." "Then," rejoined Charles, "we must send others who are open to no suspicion." Again he promised with his accustomed oath to see that the attempt upon the admiral's life should be so punished that the retribution would be forever remembered;[957] after which he inquired whether Coligny were satisfied with the judges whom he had appointed to conduct the investigation. Coligny replied that he committed himself in this matter to the king's prudence, but suggested that Cavaignes, the recently appointed maitre de requetes, and two other Huguenots be added to the commission.

The king and De Retz both endeavored to persuade the admiral to permit himself to be transported, for safety's sake, to the Louvre; but Coligny's friends would not consent to a removal which might endanger his life. Charles requested, before he left, to see the ball extracted from the wounded arm, and examined it with apparent curiosity. Catharine took it next, and said that she was glad that it had been removed, for she remembered that, when the Duke of Guise was shot, the physicians repeatedly said that, even if the ball were poisoned, there was no danger to be apprehended when once the ball was taken out. Many afterward regarded it as a significant circumstance that the queen mother's mind should have reverted on this occasion to the murder of which the Lorraine family still persisted in accusing Coligny of having been the instigator.[958]

[Sidenote: Catharine attempts to break up the conference.]

Such was, according to the solitary Huguenot who was present by Coligny's bed, and who survived the subsequent massacre, the substance of the conversation at this celebrated interview. But, if we may credit the account which purports to have been given by Henry of Anjou, there was an incident which he failed to mention. At a certain point in the conversation Coligny asked to be allowed to speak to the king in private, a request which Charles willingly granted, motioning Henry and Catharine to withdraw. They accordingly retired to the middle of the room, where they remained standing during the suspicious colloquy. Meanwhile their apprehensions were awakened as they noticed that there were more than two hundred gentlemen and captains of the admiral's party in this and an adjacent room and below stairs. The sad looks of the Huguenots, their gestures expressive of discontent, their suppressed whispers, as they passed to and fro, before and behind the queen and her favorite son, with less respect than the latter thought was due to them, impressed them with the idea that they were objects of distrust. Catharine afterward admitted to Henry that never in her life was she so glad to get out of any other place. Her impatience soon impelled her to cut short the conference between Charles and Coligny--much to the regret of Charles--on the pretext that longer conversation might retard the sick man's recovery.

Scarcely had the royal party left the admiral's lodgings, when Catharine began to ply Charles with questions respecting Coligny's private communication. Several times he absolutely refused to satisfy her curiosity. But at last, losing all patience, he roughly answered her with an oath: "What the admiral told me was true: kings are recognized as such in France only so far as they have the power to reward or punish their subjects and servants; and this power and the management of the affairs of the entire state have insensibly slipped into your hands. But this authority of yours, the admiral told me, may some day become highly prejudicial both to me and to my whole kingdom, and I ought to look upon it with suspicion, and to be on my guard. Of this he had desired, as one of my best and most faithful subjects, to warn me before he died. Well then, _mon Dieu_, since you will know it, this is what the admiral was telling me." "This was uttered," Anjou subsequently said, "with so much passion and fury, that the speech cut us to the heart. We concealed our emotion as best we could, and vindicated ourselves. This discourse we pursued from the admiral's lodgings to the Louvre. There, after having left the king in his own room, we retired to that of the queen, my mother, who was nettled and offended in the highest degree by this language of the admiral to the king, and still more by the credit the king seemed to give it, fearing that this might occasion some change in our affairs and in the conduct of the state. To be frank, we found ourselves so unprovided with counsel and understanding, that, being unable to come to any determination at that time, we separated, deferring the matter until the morrow."[959]

[Sidenote: Charles writes letters expressing his displeasure.]

Meantime, Charles, not content with closing all the gates of Paris, save two, which were to be strictly guarded, and with ordering a speedy judicial investigation, despatched, on the very day of the attempt on Coligny's life, a circular letter to all the governors of the provinces, and a similar letter to his ambassadors at foreign courts, declarative of his profound displeasure at this audacious crime. In the former he said: "I am at once sending in every direction in pursuit of the perpetrator, with a view to catch him and inflict such punishment upon him as is required by a deed so wicked, so displeasing, and, moreover, so inconvenient; for the reparation of which I wish to forget nothing." And lest any persons, whether Protestants or Roman Catholics, should be aroused by this news to make a disturbance of the peace, he called upon all the governors to explain the full circumstances of the case. "Assure every one," he wrote, "that it is my intention to observe inviolate my edict of pacification, and so strictly to punish those who contravene its provisions, that men may judge how sincere is my will."[960] In a similar strain he wrote to his ambassador in England, that he was "infinitely sorry" (infiniment marry), and that he desired him to acquaint Queen Elizabeth with his determination to cause such signal justice to be executed, that every one in his realm might take example therefrom. "Monsieur de la Mothe Fenelon," he added in a postscript, "I must not forget to tell you that this wicked act proceeds from the enmity between his [the admiral's] house and the Guises. I shall know how to provide that they involve none of my subjects in their quarrels; for I intend that my edict of pacification be observed in all points."[961]

[Sidenote: The Vidame de Chartres advises the Huguenots to leave Paris.]

Not long after the king had left Coligny's room, the admiral Was visited by Jean de Ferrieres, Vidame de Chartres, a leading Huguenot, who came to condole with him. He also had a more practical object in view. In a conference of the great nobles of the reformed faith, held in the room adjoining the admiral's, he advocated the instant departure of the Protestants from Paris, and urged it at considerable length. He saw in the event of the day the first act of a tragedy whose catastrophe could not be long deferred. The Huguenots had thrust their head into the very jaws of the lion; it were prudent to draw it out while it was yet time. But this sensible advice, based less upon any distinct evidence of a plot for their destruction than upon the obvious temptation which their defenceless situation offered to a woman proverbially unscrupulous, was overruled by the majority of those present. Teligny, in particular, the accomplished and amiable son-in-law of Coligny, opposed a scheme which not only might endanger the admiral's life, but would certainly displease the king, by betraying distrust of his ability or his inclination to defend his Protestant subjects.[962]

Saturday morning came, and with it a report from Coligny's physicians, announcing that his wounds would not prove serious. Meanwhile the investigation into the attempted assassination was pursued, and disclosed more and more evidence of the complicity of the Guises. The young duke and his uncle Aumale, conscious of the suspicion in which they were held, and fearful perhaps of the king's anger, should the part they had taken become known, prepared to retire from Paris, and came to Charles to ask for leave of absence, telling him at the same time that they had long noticed that their services were not pleasing to him. Charles, with little show of courtesy, bade them depart. Should they prove guilty, he said, he would find means to bring them to justice.[963]

[Sidenote: Catharine and Anjou come to a final decision.]

And now the time had arrived when Catharine and the Duke of Anjou must come to a final decision respecting the means of extricating themselves from their present embarrassments. Maurevel's shot had done no execution. Coligny was likely to recover, to be more than ever the idol of the Huguenots, to become more than ever the favorite of the king. In that case the influence of Catharine and her younger son would be irretrievably lost; especially if the judicial investigation now in progress should reveal the fact that they were the prime movers in the plan of assassination. Certainly neither Henry of Guise nor his mother would consent to bear the entire responsibility. More than that, the Huguenots were uttering loud demands for justice, which to guilty consciences sounded like threats of retribution.

We must here recur to Henry of Anjou's own account of this critical period; for that strange confession throws the only gleam of light upon the process by which the young king was moved to the adoption of a course whereby he earned the reputation--of which it will be difficult to divest him--of a monster of cruelty. "I went," says Anjou, "to see my mother, who had already risen. I was filled with anxiety, as also she was on her side. We adopted at that time no other determination than to despatch the admiral by whatever means possible. As artifice and cunning could no longer be employed, we must proceed by open measures. But, to do this, we must bring the king to this same resolution. We decided that we would go in the afternoon to his private room, and would bring in the Duke of Nevers, Marshals Tavannes and Retz, and Chancellor Birague, solely to obtain their advice as to the means we should employ in executing the plan upon which my mother and I had already agreed.

[Sidenote: They ply Charles with arguments.]

"As soon as we had entered the room in which the king my brother was, my mother began to represent to him that the party of the Huguenots was arming against him on account of the wounding of the admiral, the latter having sent several despatches to Germany to make a levy of ten thousand horse, and to the cantons of Switzerland for another levy of ten thousand foot; that most of the French captains belonging to the Huguenot party had already left in order to raise troops within the kingdom; and that the time and place of assembling had been fixed upon. Let so powerful an army as this once be joined to their French troops--a thing which was only too practicable--and the king's forces would not be half sufficient to resist them, in view of the intrigues and leagues they had, inside and outside of the kingdom, with many cities, communities, and nations. Of this she had good and certain advices. Their allies were to revolt in conjunction with the Huguenots under pretext of the public good; and for him (Charles), being weak in pecuniary resources, she saw no place of security in France. And, indeed, there was besides a new consequence of which she wished to warn him. It was that all the Catholics, wearied by so long a war, and vexed by so many sorts of calamities, were determined to put an end to them. In case he refused to follow their counsel, they also had determined among themselves to elect a captain-general to undertake their protection, and to form a league offensive and defensive against the Huguenots. Thus he would remain alone, enveloped in great danger, and without power or authority. All France would be seen armed by two great parties, over which he would have no command, and from which he could exact just as little obedience. But, to ward off so great a danger, a peril impending over him and his entire state, so much ruin, and so many calamities which were in preparation and just at hand, and the murder of so many thousands of men--to avert all these misfortunes, a single thrust of the sword would suffice--the admiral, the head and author of all the civil wars, alone need be put to death. The designs and enterprises of the Huguenots would perish with him; and the Catholics, satisfied with the sacrifice of two or three men, would remain obedient to him (the king)."

Such arguments, and many more of a similar character, does Henry tell us that he and his wily mother addressed to the unhappy Charles. At first their words irritated him, and, without convincing, drove him into a frenzy of excitement. A little later, giving credit to the oft-repeated assertions of his false advisers, and his imagination becoming inflamed by the picture of the dangers surrounding him which they so skilfully painted, he would, nevertheless, hear nothing of the crime to which he was urged, but began anxiously to consult those who were present whether there were no other means of escape. Each man gave his opinion in succession; and each supported Catharine's views, until it came to the turn of Retz, who, contrary to the expectation of the conspirators, gave expression to more noble sentiments.[964] If any one were justified in hating Coligny and his faction, he said, it was himself, maligned, as he had been, both in France and abroad; but he was unwilling, in avenging private wrongs, to involve France and its royal family in dishonor. The king would justly be taxed with perfidy, and all confidence in his word or in public faith would be lost. Henceforth it would be impossible to treat for terms of peace in those new civil wars in which the French must be involved, and of which their children would not see the end.

[Sidenote: The king consents reluctantly.]

These wholesome words at first struck speechless the advocates of murder. Then they undertook, by repeating their arguments, to destroy the effect of the prophetic warning to which the king had just listened. They succeeded but too well. "That instant," says Henry of Anjou, "we perceived a sudden change, a strange and wonderful metamorphosis in the king. He placed himself on our side, and adopted our opinion, going much beyond us and to more criminal lengths; since, whereas before it was difficult to persuade him, now we had to restrain him. For, rising and addressing us, while imposing silence upon us, he told us in anger and fury, swearing by God's death that, 'since we thought it good that the admiral should be killed, he would have it so; but that with him all the Huguenots of France must be killed, in order that not one might remain to reproach him hereafter; and that we should promptly see to it.' And going out furiously, he left us in his room, where we deliberated the rest of the day, during the evening, and for a good part of the night, and decided upon that which seemed advisable for the execution of such an enterprise."[965]

This is the strange record of the change by which Charles, from being the friend of Admiral Coligny, became the accomplice in his murder and in countless other assassinations throughout France. The admission of his guilt by one of the principal actors in the tragedy is so frank and undisguised that we find it difficult to believe that the narrative can have emanated from his lips. But the freaks of a burdened conscience are not to be easily accounted for. The most callous or reticent criminal sometimes is aroused to a recognition of his wickedness, and burns to communicate to another the fearful secret whose deposit has become intolerable to himself. And fortunately the confession of the princely felon does not stand alone. The son of another of the wretches who persuaded Charles to imbrue his hands in the blood of his subjects has given us the account which he undoubtedly received from his father shortly before his death, and we find the two statements to be in substantial agreement. Tavannes says: "The king notified (of the attempt upon Coligny's life), is offended, and threatens the Guises, not knowing whence the blow came. After a while, he is appeased by the queen, assisted by the sieur de Retz. They make his Majesty angry with the Huguenots--a vice peculiar to his Majesty, who is of choleric humor. They induce him to believe that they have discovered an enterprise of the Huguenots directed against him. He is reminded of the designs of Meaux and of Amboise. Suddenly gained over, as his mother had promised herself that he would be, he abandons the Huguenots, and remains sorry, with the rest, that the wound had not proved mortal."[966]

[Sidenote: Few victims selected at first.]

And now, the assassination of the admiral having received the king's approval, it only remained to decide upon the number of Protestants who should be involved with him in a common destruction, and to perfect the arrangements for the execution of the murderous plot. How many, and who were the victims whose sacrifice was predetermined? This is a question which, with our present means of information, we are unable to answer. Catharine, it is true, used to declare in later times that she contemplated no general massacre; that she took upon her conscience the blood of only five or six persons;[967] and, although the unsupported assertion of so perfidious a woman is certainly not entitled to any great consideration, we can readily see that the heads of half a dozen leaders might have fully contented her. She was not seeking for revenge so much as paving the way for her ambition. There were few Huguenots who were apparently so powerful as to interfere with her projects. Coligny, their acknowledged head; the Count of Montgomery, personally hated as the occasion of the death of her husband, Henry the Second, in the ill-fated tournament; the Vidame of Chartres; and La Rochefoucauld--these were doubtless of the number. Would she have desired to include the King of Navarre and the Prince of Conde? Not the former, on account of his recent marriage with her daughter. Yet to whom the Bourbons were indebted for the omission of their names from the proscriptive roll we cannot tell. After the accession of Henry the Fourth, it became the interest of all the families concerned to put the conduct of their ancestors in the most favorable light. Thus, Jean de Tavannes states that his father saved the life of the Bearnese in that infamous conclave; but so little did the latter believe him, that, on the contrary, he persistently refused to confer upon him the marshal's baton, which he would otherwise have received, on the ground that Gaspard de Tavannes was an instigator of the massacre.[968]

[Sidenote: Religious hatred.]

Thus much must be held to be clearly established: that fancied political exigencies demanded the assassination of only very few persons; that personal hatred, on the part of the principal or of the minor conspirators, added many more; that a still greater number were murdered in cold blood, simply that their spoils might enrich the assassins. What part must be assigned to religious zeal?[969] To any true outgrowth of religion, none at all; but much to the malice and the depraved moral teachings of its professed representatives. The hatred of Protestantism, engendered in the minds of the people by long years devoted to traducing the character and designs of the reformers, now bore fruit after its own kind, in revolting crimes of every sort; while the lesson, sedulously inculcated by priests, bishops, and monks, that obstinate heretics might righteously be, and ought to be exterminated from the face of the earth, permitted many a Parisian burgess to commit acts from which any but the most diabolic nature would otherwise have recoiled in horror. But of the measure of the responsibility of the Roman pontiff and his clergy for this stupendous crime, it will be necessary to speak in the sequel.

[Sidenote: Precautionary measures.]

In devising the plan for the destruction of the Huguenots, the queen mother and her council were greatly assisted by the course pursued by the Huguenots themselves, and by the very circumstances of the case. Under pretence of taking measures to secure the safety of the Protestants, the "quarteniers" could go, without exciting suspicion, from house to house, and make a complete list of all belonging to the reformed church.[970] The same excuse served to justify the court in posting a body of twelve hundred arquebusiers, a part along the river, a part in the immediate neighborhood of Coligny's residence.[971] And now the Protestants themselves, startled by the unusual commotion which they noticed in the city, and by the frequent passage to and fro of men carrying arms, sent a gentleman to the Louvre to ask the king for a few guards to protect the dwelling of their wounded leader. The request was only for five or six guards; but Charles, feigning astonishment and deep regret that there should be any reason for such apprehensions, insisted, at the suggestion of his brother Anjou, who stood by, upon despatching fifty, under command of Cosseins. So well known was the captain's hostility to Coligny and the Protestants, that Thore, Montmorency's brother, whispered to the Huguenot messenger as he withdrew: "You could not have been given in guard to a worse enemy;" but the royal direction was so positive that no remonstrance seemed possible. Accordingly, Cosseins and his arquebusiers took possession, in the king's name, of two shops adjoining Coligny's abode.[972] With as little ceremony, Rambouillet, the "marechal des logis," turned the Roman Catholic gentlemen out of the lodgings he had previously assigned them in the Rue de Bethisy, and gave the quarters to the Protestant gentlemen instead.[973] The reason assigned for this action was that the Huguenots might be nearer to each other and to the admiral, for mutual protection; the real object seems to have been to sweep them more easily into the common net of destruction.

And yet the majority of the Huguenot leaders were not alive to the dangers of their situation. In a second conference held late on Saturday, the Vidame of Chartres was almost alone in urging instant retreat. Navarre, Conde, and others thought it sufficient to demand justice, and the departure of the Guises, as possessing dangerous credit with the common people. Teligny again dwelt upon the wrong done to Charles in distrusting his sincerity, and deprecated a course that might naturally irritate him. One Bouchavannes was noticed in the conference--a professed Protestant, but suspiciously intimate with Catharine, Retz, and other avowed enemies of the faith. He said nothing, but listened attentively. So soon as the meeting was over, Bouchavannes went to the Louvre and related the discussion to the queen mother.[974] The traitor's report, doubtless grossly exaggerated, is supposed to have decided Catharine to prompt action. It is certain, at least, that the calumnious perversion of the speeches and resolutions of the Huguenot conference was employed to inflame the passions of the mob, as well as to justify the atrocities of the morrow in the eyes of the world.

[Sidenote: Orders issued to the prevot des marchands.]