THE SEQUEL OF THE MASSACRE, TO THE DEATH OF CHARLES THE NINTH.

The blow had been struck by which the Huguenots were to be exterminated. If a single adherent of the reformed faith still lived in Paris, he dared not show his face. France had, as usual, copied the example of the capital, and there were few districts to which the fratricidal plot had not extended. Enough blood had been shed, it would seem, to satisfy the most sanguinary appetite. After the massacre in which the admiral and all the most noted leaders had perished—after the defection of Henry of Navarre and his more courageous cousin, it was confidently expected that the feeble remnants of the Huguenots, deprived of their head, could easily be reduced to submission. The stipulation of Charles the Ninth, when yielding a reluctant consent to the infamous project, would be fulfilled: not one of the hated sect would remain to reproach him with his crime. And, in point of fact, throughout the greater number of the cities of France, even where there had been no actual massacre, so widespread was the terror, that every Protestant had either fled from the country or sought safety in concealment, if he had not actually apostatized from the faith.[1253]

But when the storm had spent its first fury, and it became once more possible to look around and measure its frightful effects, it was found that the devastation was not universal. A few cities held for the Huguenots. La Rochelle and Sancerre—the former on the western coast, the latter in the centre of France—with Montauban, Nismes, Milhau, Aubenas, Privas, and certain other places of minor importance in the south, closed their gates, and refused to receive the royal governors sent them from Paris.[1254] Not that there were wanting those, even among the Protestants, who interposed conscientious scruples, and denied the right of resistance to the authority of the king;[1255] but with the vast majority the dictates of self-preservation prevailed over the slavish doctrine of unquestioning submission. The right to worship God as He commands cannot, they argued, be abridged even by the legitimate sovereign; and in this case there is even the greatest probability that he acts under constraint, or that wily courtiers forge his name, since the most contradictory orders emanate ostensibly from him.

Such was the attitude assumed by the brave inhabitants of Nismes. Here the Roman Catholics had displayed a more charitable disposition than in many other places. The "juge mage," on receipt of secret orders to massacre the Protestants, instead of complying, gave directions for assembling the extraordinary council, consisting of the magistrates and most notable citizens. By this council, upon his recommendation, it was unanimously resolved to close all the gates of Nismes, with the exception of one. This was to be guarded in turn by the Roman Catholics and the Protestants. All the citizens were directed to take a common oath that they would assist each other without distinction of creed, and maintain order and security, in obedience to the king's authority, and according to the provisions of his edict of pacification. It was a solemn scene when all those present in the great municipal meeting, the vicar-general of the diocese among the number, with uplifted hands called upon God to witness their engagement.[1256] The oath was well observed. The Viscount of Joyeuse, acting as lieutenant-governor of Charles in Languedoc, at first approved the compact; for the king's early letters, as we have seen, expressed indignation at Coligny's murder, and ascribed it to the personal enmity of the Guises. But the viscount took a different view of the matter when the monarch, throwing off the mask, himself accepted the responsibility. Joyeuse now called on the citizens of Nismes to lay down their arms, to expel all the refugees, and to receive a garrison. But the Nismois firmly declined the summons, grounding their refusal partly on their duty to themselves, partly on the manifest inhumanity of surrendering their fellow-citizens to certain butchery. As was true in more than one instance, it was the people that, by their decision, saved the rich from the inevitable results of their own timid counsels. Most of the judges of the royal court of justice, and most of the opulent citizens, advocated a surrender of Nismes to Joyeuse, which must have been the prelude to a fresh and perhaps indiscriminate massacre.[1257]

Scarcely less important to the Protestants of southern France was the refuge they found in Montauban. Regnier, the same Huguenot gentleman who had himself been rescued from slaughter at Paris by the magnanimity of Vezins,[1258] was the instrument of its deliverance. On finding himself safe, his first impulse was to hasten to Montauban and urge his brethren to adopt instant measures for self-defence. But despair had taken possession of the inhabitants. They had heard that the dreaded black cavalry of the ferocious Montluc, the men-at-arms of Fontenille, and other troops, were on the march against them. Their enemies were already reported to be so near the city as Castel-Sarrasin. Not a gate, therefore, would the panic-stricken citizens close; not a sword would they draw. Nothing was left but for Regnier, with the little band of less than forty followers he had gathered, to abandon the devoted place. As he was wandering about the country, uncertain whither to betake himself, he unexpectedly fell in with the very enemy before whom Montauban was quailing. Neither Regnier nor his handful of followers hesitated. It was a glorious opportunity for the display of heroism in a good cause, for there were ten Roman Catholics to one Protestant. Happily the ground was favorable to the display of individual prowess; a river and a tributary brook rendered the field so contracted that only a few men could fight abreast. "Brethren and comrades," cried Regnier, "whether for life or for combat, there is no other road than this." Then putting forward a detachment of ten horsemen headed by an experienced leader, when he saw the enemy pause to put on their helmets, he seized the opportunity in true Huguenot fashion to act as the minister of his followers, and uttered a brief prayer, devout and courageous. Next came the charge, such as those men of iron determination knew well how to make. The van of the enemy made no attempt to resist them; the cavalry in the centre was driven back in confusion upon the mounted arquebusiers of the rear. The fight became in a few minutes a disgraceful rout, and for a whole league the handful of Huguenots continued the pursuit. Of nearly four hundred royalists, eighty were killed and fifty captured. When Regnier, returning to Montauban, brought the flags of the enemy and a body of prisoners outnumbering his own band, the citizens renounced their fears, accepted the omen as a pledge of Divine assistance, and cast in their lot with their brethren of La Rochelle.[1259]

For La Rochelle had now become the centre of interest, and Montauban, Nismes, and even Sancerre, whose brave and obstinate siege will soon occupy us, were for the time almost wholly dismissed from consideration. The strongly fortified Protestant town, the only point upon the shores of the ocean which during the former civil wars had defied every assault of the papal leaders, was now the safe and favorite refuge of the Huguenots, and the coveted prey of the enemy. Within a very short time after the massacre, a stream of fugitives set in toward La Rochelle. It was not long before her hospitable walls sheltered fifty of the Protestant nobles of the neighboring provinces, fifty-five ministers, and fifteen hundred soldiers, chiefly from Saintonge, Aunis, and Poitou. Among the new-comers were not a few who had with difficulty escaped from the bloody scenes at Paris.[1260] All were inspired with the same courage, all possessed by the same determination to sell their lives as dear as possible; for the successive accounts of the cruelties perpetrated in all parts of France left no doubt respecting the fate of the Rochellois should they too succumb.

And there were not wanting circumstances of an alarming nature. At Brouage, then a flourishing port some twenty-five miles south of La Rochelle, a considerable body of troops had been gathered under Philip Strozzi, the chief officer of the French infantry, while a fleet was in course of preparation under the well-known Baron de la Garde. This occurred previously to the massacre. The force, it was given out, was intended for a secret expedition against the Spaniards. While the Huguenots of Coligny, forming a junction with the troops of William of Orange, should attack Alva in Flanders, Strozzi and La Garde were to make a diversion upon the coasts of Spain itself. But the inhabitants of La Rochelle gave little credit to this explanation, and even the personal assurances of the admiral had not entirely removed their fears that their own destruction was intended. It is not strange, therefore, that they accepted the Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day as a complete demonstration of the correctness of their suspicions, and at once took measures for protecting their city against surprise or open assault. Nor is it altogether easy to ascertain how far their apprehensions were unfounded. There were intelligent and well-informed contemporary writers, who felt no doubt that Strozzi was waiting with sealed orders for the coming of the fatal twenty-fourth of August. Two months before, they say, there had been sent him by Catharine de' Medici a packet which he was strictly forbidden to open until that day. It proved to be a letter of instruction couched in these words: "Strozzi, I notify you that this day, the twenty-fourth of August, the admiral and all the Huguenots who were with him here have been slain. Consequently, take diligent measures to make yourself master of La Rochelle, and do to the Huguenots who shall fall into your hands the same that we have done to those who were here. Take good heed that you fail not, insomuch as you fear to displease the king my son, and myself. Catharine."[1261]

If, as I can but believe, this letter be spurious, none the less may it serve to indicate how firmly the persuasion was fixed in the minds of the Protestants that insidious designs were cherished against La Rochelle.

It was not long before those designs began to develop. Strozzi, to whom the inhabitants had sent a deputation, avowedly to obtain explanations respecting the circumstances of the massacre, but in reality to discover the plans of the government, graciously offered some companies of his soldiers for their protection. But the Rochellois with equal politeness declined to accept such help. Meanwhile, they set themselves vigorously at work, and not only organized the inhabitants and refugees into companies for military defence, but repaired and manned the fortifications, and introduced a great abundance of provisions and munitions of war into the city.[1262] A few days later, letters were received from Charles himself, which, while endeavoring to calm the minds of the inhabitants respecting recent occurrences, promised them full protection in their religious rights, proclaimed the king's unaltered determination to maintain his edict, and called upon them to receive with due submission M. de Biron, whom he sent them to be their governor. No better choice could have been made among the Roman Catholics; for Biron, it was currently reported, so far from approving of severity, had himself narrowly escaped being involved in the massacre, and had owed his safety mainly to the fact that he was in command at the arsenal.

The shrewd Rochellois, however, while they greeted the king's assurances with all outward show of credit, were not willing to be duped. They listened respectfully to the king's envoys, and professed themselves his most devoted subjects; but they begged to be excused from receiving Marshal Biron as their governor until the troops of Strozzi should have been removed from their dangerous proximity to the city, and until the fleet should have set sail from Brouage. Nor, indeed, could Biron himself obtain better conditions, when, having sought an interview with the deputies of La Rochelle outside of the walls, he entreated them, with sincere or well-feigned emotion, to forestall the ruin impending over them.[1263] In vain did he humor their claim, dating from regal concessions and long prescription, that La Rochelle need receive no garrison but of her own municipal militia.[1264] In vain did he offer to make his entry with but one or two followers, and promise that, when they had duly submitted, he would secure them from injury at the hands of the royal troops, and would relieve them of the presence of a fleet. The citizens were inflexible. The experience of Castres, where lately the credulous inhabitants had inconsiderately admitted a governor sent them by the king, and had paid for their folly with their lives, confirmed them in the resolution rather to die with sword in hand than to be slaughtered like sheep.[1265]

Two months (September and October) passed in fruitless negotiations—precious time, which the citizens put to good service in preparing for the inevitable struggle. It was not until the eighth of November that the first skirmish took place, in which one of two royal galleys sent to reconnoitre the situation of La Rochelle was captured and brought into harbor by some Huguenot boats that had sailed out intending to secure the neighboring Île de RÉ for the Protestant cause.[1266]

Meantime the court, reluctant to undertake an enterprise so formidable as the regular siege of La Rochelle seemed likely to prove, resorted to pacific measures, and resolved to employ for the purpose a person the most unlikely to be selected by Roman Catholics. This was none other than the famous FranÇois de la Noue, a Protestant leader not less remarkable for generalship than for literary ability, of whose "Political and Military Discourses," written during a later captivity, it has been said with justice that, in perspicuity, force, and good judgment, they are not inferior to the most celebrated commentaries of antiquity.[1267] La Noue was with Louis of Nassau in the city of Mons when the news of Admiral Coligny's murder, and of the consequent failure of the promised support of France, reached him. Mons soon after surrendered to the Duke of Alva, and La Noue scarcely knew whither to turn for refuge, when he received from his old friend, the Duke of Longueville, Governor of Picardy, a cordial invitation to return to France. Not without many misgivings, he visited Paris, where, contrary to his expectations, Charles greeted him very graciously, and even restored to him the confiscated property of his wife's murdered brother, TÉligny. Taking advantage of the moment, the king now requested La Noue to undertake the task of mediating between the government and La Rochelle, and thus preventing the outbreak of a new civil war and the effusion of more blood. At first La Noue positively declined the appointment; but the king was urgent, and the arguments which he adduced coincided with the Huguenot's own impressions of the hopelessness of a struggle undertaken by a single city against the united forces of the most powerful kingdom of Christendom. It was only after the most solemn protestations of Charles, that he would not make use of him as an instrument to deceive and ruin his Protestant brethren, that La Noue reluctantly consented to accept a commission from which he was more likely to reap embarrassment than glory.

And certainly his first reception by the Rochellois was far from flattering. In a conference with the deputies of the city, in the suburban village of Tadon[1268]—for La Noue was not permitted to enter the walls—the burghers clearly revealed the suspicion with which they viewed him. They bluntly told him, after listening to the propositions he brought from the king, "that they had come to confer with M. de la Noue, but that they did not recognize him in the person before them. The brave warrior so closely bound to them in former years, and who had lost an arm in their defence, had a different heart, never came to them with vain hopes, nor, under the guise of friendship, invited them to conferences destined only to betray them."[1269] But, in spite of this somewhat uncourteous reception, the well-known and trusted integrity of the great Huguenot captain soon broke through the thin crust of coolness, which, after all, was rather assumed than really felt. La Noue was suffered to enter the city, and at the Échevinage, or city hall, was permitted to lay before the general assembly, or municipal government, as well as the other citizens, the full extent of the king's concessions. Amnesty for the past, confirmation of the city's privileges, passports for any who might wish to remove to England or Germany, safe return for those whom fear had banished, free exercise of the Protestant religion in two quarters of the city, with three ministers to be chosen by the people and approved by the governor—all this he offered. On the other hand, a new church must be built for the Roman Catholics, the strangers who had lately come must remove elsewhere, and, of course, the governor must be admitted, although the king kindly consented to let them designate any other sufficiently distinguished and capable person, if they preferred to do so.[1270]

Neither the exposition of the terms of the royal clemency, nor the dark picture drawn of the ruin overhanging the city, shook the constancy of its brave advocates. They replied that they would consent to receive neither garrison nor royal governor, and they exhibited to La Noue their charters granted by Charles the Fifth, and ratified both by Louis the Eleventh and by the reigning monarch. They added, "that, with God's help, they hoped not to be caught in their beds as their brethren had been at the Parisian matins."[1271] Yet, even after this conference, the Rochellois were so far from losing their respect for La Noue, that they made him three propositions: either he might remain in La Rochelle as a private citizen; or he might assume the military command, as their commander-in-chief; or, if he should prefer so to do, he might pass over into England in one of their vessels. La Noue went to consult with Marshal Biron and others, and shortly returned. With their full concurrence he accepted the military command—the unparalleled anomaly being thus exhibited of a general of great experience and high reputation voluntarily given by the besiegers to the besieged, because of the confidence they entertained that by his moderation and pacific inclination he would restrain the excesses of the mob and hasten the return of peace.[1272]

And now the siege, which the court had long hesitated to undertake, began in earnest. On the fourth of December, Marshal Biron approached La Rochelle with seven ensigns of horse and eighteen companies of foot, and two larger cannon.[1273] Meantime the most strenuous efforts were put forth to collect an adequate besieging force. When milder measures failed to secure prompt obedience, recourse was had to threats, and the nobles were summoned on pain, in case of disobedience, of losing their privileges, and being reduced to the rank of "roturiers." The menace had its effect, and in the month of January, 1573, the force under Biron had swollen to sixty companies of foot, with not less than thirty-seven large cannon—a considerable provision of artillery for that period.[1274]

The city of La Rochelle occupies the head of a deep bay, stretching in a north-easterly direction from the ocean, and serving at present as the large and convenient harbor for its extensive commerce. The old town, whose origin is lost in the mists of antiquity, covered only a small part of the area since inclosed by walls. A narrow peninsula, protected on the one side by a sheet of water and on the other by marshes, offered a tempting site, and was first occupied. The larger inlet on the west was the old, and probably for a long time the only haven; but long before the middle of the sixteenth century the action of the tide, which washes in great quantities of sand, combining with the gradual deposit of alluvium made by the neighboring springs, had converted this inlet into a marsh—"les Marais Salans"—intersected by ditches and used only in the manufacture of salt. The marsh itself has since been entirely reclaimed. The "new" harbor, as the smaller inlet was still called, at the period of which I am speaking, was of much inferior capacity, and was included within the circuit of the walls.[1275] A chain, extended between the two towers guarding its narrow entrance, effectually precluded the passage of hostile vessels.

For considerably more than one-half of their circuit, the walls of La Rochelle were inaccessible to the land forces; and the deep foss skirting them was full of water, except on the north and north-east. The fortifications, everywhere formidable, had, therefore, been constructed with extraordinary care in these directions; for it was here that the brunt of the attack must be borne. With Puritan simplicity and faith, the reformed inhabitants of La Rochelle had named the strong work at the northwestern angle of the circuit the "Bastion de l'Évangile," or the "Bastion of the Gospel." It was appropriately supported on the right by the "Cavalier de l'ÉpÎtre." Other forts, such as that of Cognes at the north-eastern angle, were but little inferior in importance; it was evident, however, that upon the ability of the Rochellois to defend the Bastion de l'Évangile must depend the salvation of the city.[1276]

But the chief strength of the city was to be found in the manly resolution of the inhabitants to secure for themselves and their children the right to worship God according to the purer faith, or perish in the attempt. An incident occurring about this time served to illustrate and to confirm their courage. A short distance in advance of the Bastion de l'Évangile there stood a solitary windmill, which, on account of its advantageous position, the Rochellois were anxious to retain. The captain to whose guard it was intrusted, recognizing the ease with which he might be surprised and cut off, took the precaution to draw off at dusk the small detachment which he had placed there by day, leaving but a single soldier to act as sentry. Meantime, Strozzi had determined to capture the mill. This he attempted to do, taking advantage of a moonlight night. To the two culverines brought to play upon him, the solitary defender could answer only with his arquebuse; but so briskly did he fire, and so well did he counterfeit the voices of others, that the assailants believed an entire company to be present. At last, when he no longer could hold out, the soldier only surrendered after stipulating for the life of himself and his entire band. Notwithstanding his promise, Strozzi, when once his astonishment at the appearance of the single actor who had played so many parts had given place to anger at the deceit practised upon him, was in favor of hanging the Huguenot for his audacity. But Biron would only consent to have him sent to the galleys, a punishment which he escaped by finding means to slip away from the hands of the royalists.[1277]

The entire military force of the besieged comprised about thirteen hundred regular troops, besides two thousand citizens, well armed and drilled, and under competent captains. There was an abundance of powder, of wine, biscuit, and other provisions, although of wheat there was but little.[1278] Meantime assistance was anxiously expected from England, and the courage of the common people, incited by the exhortations of the ministers, did not flag, notwithstanding the feebler spirit of the rich and the actual desertion of a few leaders.[1279]

The besiegers were not idle. Besides occupying positions north, east, and south of the city, which effectually cut off communication from the land side, they built forts on opposite sides of the outer harbor, and stranded at the entrance a large carack, which was made firm in its position with stones and sand. The work, when provided with guns and troops, commanded the passage, and was christened "le Fort de l'Aiguille." In vain did the Rochellois attempt to destroy or capture it; the carack, while it proved unavailing to prevent the entrance of an occasional vessel laden with grain or ammunition, remained the most formidable point in the possession of the enemy.

In order to give her favorite son a new opportunity to acquire military distinction, the queen mother now persuaded Charles to permit the Duke of Anjou to conduct the siege. He arrived before La Rochelle about the middle of February,[1280] with a brilliant train of princes and nobles, among whom were AlenÇon, Guise, Aumale, and Montluc, besides Henry of Navarre and his cousin CondÉ, who, as they had to sustain the rÔle of good Roman Catholics, could scarcely avoid taking part in the campaign against their former brethren. In the ordinances soon after published by Anjou, he seems to have hoped to weaken the Huguenots by copying their own strictness of moral discipline. The very Catholic practice of profane swearing, in which his Majesty was so proficient, was prohibited on pain of severe punishment; and it was prescribed that a sermon should daily be preached in the camp.[1281] A good round oath none the less continued to be received by the soldiers, in all doubtful cases, as a sufficient proof of loyalty to Mother Church, nor did they cease because of the ordinance from ridiculing the idea that such good Christians as they needed preaching, which was well enough for unevangelized pagans.[1282]

In view of the impending peril, the Protestants had recourse, as their custom was, to prayer and fasting. The sixteenth and eighteenth of February were days of public humiliation. From their knees the Huguenots went with redoubled courage to the ramparts. The crisis had at length arrived. A series of furious assaults were given, directed principally against the northern wall and the Bastion de l'Évangile. It was in one of these attacks, on the third of March, that the Duke of Aumale was killed. By the besieged the death of so eminent a member of the house of Lorraine was interpreted as a signal judgment of God upon the most cruel member of a persecuting family—another presage that the sword should never depart from the princely stock which had begun the war, until it should be altogether destroyed. The royalists, on the other hand, found in it a great source of regret; while Catharine, terrified at the danger to which her son might be exposed, wrote one of her ill-spelt letters to Montpensier, entreating him and the other veterans not to suffer any of the princes to go imprudently near the walls.[1283]

It does not enter into the plan of this history to detail the progress of the siege. Let it suffice to say that the enemy was met at every point and repulsed. Not content with simply defending their walls, the Huguenots made sorties, in which many of Anjou's followers were slain. Sometimes dressing in the uniform of those they had killed or taken prisoners, they returned and penetrated into the hostile camp, learned the plans of the assailants, and cut off more than one man of note. The presence of women among them became an element of strength; for these, surmounting the weakness of their sex, did good service in the mines, or, donning armor, defended the breach and drove the enemy into the ditch.[1284] It was remarked that, as the supply of fresh provisions diminished, the lack was in some degree compensated by such an abundance of cockles on the sands as had never before been known. If the Protestants regarded this incident as a providential interposition in their behalf,[1285] the Roman Catholics sought to account for it by supposing that the operations of the siege had permitted the fish to multiply undisturbed.[1286] However this might be, the women of La Rochelle sallied forth to husband this new resource; but their imprudence in straying beyond the range of the guns was rewarded with insolent outrage on the part of such of the enemy as were in the vicinity. Even this circumstance the Huguenots knew how to turn to advantage. Disguising themselves in feminine attire, a troop of Huguenot soldiers, a day or two later, issued from the city when the tide was out, apparently bent on the same errand. It was not long before the royalists undertook to repeat a diversion which seemed to offer little danger to them. Scarcely, however, had they approached when the clumsy costume was hastily thrown aside, and the assailants discovered too late the trap into which they had fallen. Many a hot-headed soldier of Anjou atoned for his temerity with his life.[1287]

The ordinary wiles of Catharine were not left untried; but she effected little or nothing by negotiation. The people were not so easily cajoled and duped as their leaders had often been, and would accept no terms except such as the court utterly refused to offer—the restoration of the privileges conferred by the edict, its confirmation by oath, and the interchange of hostages, to be kept in some neutral state in Germany, with entire liberty of worship and exemption from royal garrison in and around La Rochelle, Montauban, Nismes, and Sancerre.[1288] Even FranÇois de la Noue became impatient at the excessive caution which the Huguenots seemed to him to display, and, redeeming the promise he had given the king before he took command, retired from the city (on the eleventh of March) when all hope of reconciliation had apparently disappeared. With wonderful prudence he had managed to forfeit the confidence of neither party. Yet on some occasions, it must be admitted, his self-control was sorely tried. For example, at one time a minister—not long after deposed from the sacred office—so far forgot himself in the heat of angry discussion as to give La Noue a sound box upon the ear. Even then the great captain refused to order the offender's punishment, and confined himself to sending him, under guard, to his wife, with directions to keep him carefully until he should recover his reason.[1289]

The assistance which La Rochelle had counted upon receiving from England never came. Count Montgomery was a skilful negotiator. If he was unable to prevail upon Elizabeth to give open countenance to the Huguenots, on account of the league recently entered into, which Retz had been specially sent by Charles to confirm, he at least succeeded in obtaining a sum of forty thousand francs from various English, French, and Flemish sympathizers, with which he was permitted, notwithstanding protests from Paris, to fit out a fleet. Elizabeth, indeed, so far overcame her scruples as to allow a large vessel of her own to follow. But when Montgomery's squadron reached the roads of La Rochelle, the fifty-three ships of which it was composed, and which carried eighteen hundred or two thousand men, were so small and badly-appointed—in short, so inferior in strength to the fewer vessels of the king standing off the entrance—that they avoided coming to close quarters, stood off to Belle Isle, and finally returned to England. Queen Elizabeth, at all times very doubtful respecting the propriety of assisting subjects against their monarch, had meantime disowned the enterprise as piratical, and expressed the hope the culprits might be destroyed. It was not, in this case, merely her customary dissimulation. The plundering by some French and Netherland sailors of the vessel on which the Earl of Worcester was proceeding, in the queen's name, to stand as sponsor at the baptism of Charles's infant daughter, had greatly incensed her.[1290] Not, however, that Elizabeth lost any of that remarkable interest which she had always taken in Count Montgomery, or felt at all inclined to give him up to the French government for his breach of the peace. For when, a little later, a demand was made for the culprit, she assured the ambassador of Charles that she could swear she was ignorant that the count was in her dominions. "But," she added, "were he to come, I would answer your master as his father answered my sister, Queen Mary, when he said, 'I will not consent to be the hangman of the Queen of England.' So his Majesty, the King of France, must excuse me if I can no more act as executioner of those of my religion than King Henry would discharge a similar office in the case of those that were not of his religion."[1291]

In other parts of France it had fared no better with the attempt to crush the Huguenots. Montauban and Nismes still held out. Various places in the south-east fell into Huguenot hands. The siege of SommiÈres, near Nismes, by the Roman Catholics, was so obstinate, and the garrison capitulated on such favorable terms, that the Protestants were rather elated than discouraged. Marshal Damville had assailed it only in order to save his credit, and the little town detained him nearly two months,—from the eleventh of February to the ninth of April. Every device was employed to retard his success. Streams of boiling oil were poured upon the heads of the assailants, and red-hot hoops of iron were dexterously tossed over their shoulders. In the end the garrison marched out with all the honors of war.[1292] The Huguenots surprised Villeneuve, near the RhÔne, by effecting an entrance, much as they had entered Nismes in 1569, through the grated opening by which the waters of a sewer issued from the walls.[1293]

But it was Sancerre which, next to La Rochelle, occasioned the court the greatest annoyance, both because of its central position[1294] and because of its comparative proximity to Paris. Here the Protestants of Berry and the adjacent provinces had found a welcome refuge. Citizens and refugees refused to admit a royal garrison, and foiled the attempt to capture the place by escalade. Treachery was at work, and, as usual, it was most rife among the richer class. By their connivance the citadel or castle was surprised by the troops sent by the governor of the province, M. de la Chastre; but it was retaken on the same day.[1295] Notwithstanding this warning, the people of Sancerre took none of the precautions which their situation demanded, apparently unable to believe that, when such a city as La Rochelle was in revolt, the king would undertake to subdue so small a place as Sancerre. There were no stores of provisions, and the buildings in proximity to the walls, from which an enemy could incommode the city, had not been torn down, when, between the third and ninth of January, 1573, a force of five thousand foot and five hundred horse, under La Chastre, besides many nobles and gentlemen of the vicinage, made its appearance before the walls. The inhabitants now discovered their capital mistakes, but it was too late to remedy them. Hunger began almost immediately to make itself felt, while the places they had neglected to destroy or preoccupy proved very convenient to the royalists for the next two or three months, during which it was attempted to take Sancerre by assault. Yet the direct attack proved a failure, and, on the twentieth of March, the siege was changed to a blockade. Forts were erected in the most advantageous spots, and a wide trench was dug around the entire city.[1296] Sancerre was to be tried by the severe ordeal of hunger; and certainly the most frightful among ancient sieges can scarcely be said to have surpassed in horror that of this small city.[1297]

Did not the sufferings of the heroic inhabitants claim our sympathy, we might read with entertainment the singular devices they resorted to in grappling with a terrible foe whose insidious advances were more difficult to oppose than the open assaults of the enemy. For the famine of Sancerre boasts of a historian more copious and minute than Josephus or Livy. In reading the narrative of the famous Jean de LÉry[1298]—the same writer to whom we are indebted for an authentic account of Villegagnon's unfortunate scheme of American colonization—we seem to be perusing a great pathological treatise. Never was physician more watchful of his patient's symptoms than LÉry with his hand upon the pulse of famishing Sancerre. It would almost seem that the restless Huguenot, who united in his own person the opposite qualifications of clergyman and soldier, desired to make his little work a useful guide in similar circumstances, for a portion of it, at least, has been appropriately styled "a cookery book for the besieged."[1299]

Early in the siege, not without some qualms, the inhabitants made trial of the flesh of a horse accidentally killed. Next an ass, and then the mules, of which there was a considerable number, were brought to the shambles. The butchers were now ordered to sell this new kind of meat, and a maximum price was fixed. For a fortnight the supply of cats held out, after which rats and mice became the chief staple of food. Dog-flesh was next reluctantly tasted, and found, as our conscientious chronicler observes, to be somewhat sweet and insipid.[1300] And so the spring of 1573 passed away, and summer came; but no succor arrived for the beleaguered city. On the contrary, there came the disheartening tidings from the west that a peace had been concluded by the Huguenots of La Rochelle, in which no mention was made of Sancerre.

So successful had been the defence of the citadel of Protestantism on the shores of the ocean, so unexpectedly large the royal losses, that the court was only waiting for a decent pretext to abandon the unfortunate siege. Pestilence added its victims to those of the sword, and it was currently reported that forty thousand of the besiegers were swept away by their combined assaults.[1301] A more careful enumeration, however, shows that, while the Rochellois, out of thirty-one hundred soldiers, lost thirteen hundred, including twenty-eight "pairs," the king, out of a little more than forty thousand troops, had lost twenty-two thousand, ten thousand of whom died in the breach or in engagements elsewhere. Nor was the loss of officers trifling; two hundred had died, including fifty of great distinction, and five "maÎtres de camp."[1302] And, with all this expenditure of life, and with the heavy drafts upon the public treasure, little or nothing had been accomplished. Meanwhile, in other parts of France there existed a scarcity of food amounting almost to a famine; nor had the solemn processions to the shrines of the saints—processions for the most part rendered contemptible by the irreverent conduct both of the clergymen and the laity that took part in them[1303]—averted the wrath of heaven. The poor suffered extremely. Selfishness gained such ascendancy in some towns, that cruel ruses were adopted to remove the destitute that had taken refuge within their walls. It was not strange that the extraordinary mortality which soon fell upon the well-to-do burghers was viewed by many as a direct punishment sent by the Almighty.[1304]

The event which came just in time to free the court from its embarrassment was the election of Henry of Anjou to the vacant throne of Poland. We have already witnessed the perplexity of Bishop Montluc when the tidings of the massacre first reached him.[1305] If he could have denied its reality, he would have done so. This being impossible, he was forced to content himself with misrepresenting the origin of the slaughter, slandering the admiral and the other victims, and circulating the calumnies of Charpentier and others who prated about a Huguenot conspiracy. A judicious distribution of French gold assisted his own eloquent sophistry; and the Duke of Anjou, portrayed as a chivalric prince and one who was not ill-affected to religious liberty, was chosen king over his formidable rivals. Charles and Catharine were alike delighted. The former could scarcely find words to express his joy[1306] at the prospect of being freed from the presence of a brother whom he feared, and perhaps hated; while the queen mother's gratification was even more intense at the peaceful solution of the prophecy of Nostradamus, than at the elevation of her favorite son.

The peace between the king and the Rochellois was concluded in June, and was formally promulgated in July, 1573, in a royal edict from Boulogne. The chief provision was that the Protestants in the cities of La Rochelle, Montauban, and Nismes should enjoy entire freedom of public worship, while their brethren throughout the kingdom should have liberty of conscience and the right to sell their property and remove wherever they might choose, whether within or without the realm. Only gentlemen and others enjoying high jurisdiction, who had remained constant in their faith, and had taken up arms with the three cities, were to be allowed to collect their friends to the number of ten to witness their marriages and baptisms, according to the custom of the Reformed Church. Even this privilege could not be exercised within the distance of two leagues from the royal court or from the city of Paris; nor did the edict confer the right to preach or celebrate the Lord's Supper.[1307] La Rochelle, Nismes, and Montauban gained their point, and were to be exempted from receiving garrisons or having citadels built, with the condition that they should for two years constantly keep four of their principal citizens at court as pledges of their fidelity. All promises of abjuration were declared null and void. Amnesty was proclaimed, and, to cap the climax of absurdity, the brave Huguenots who had defended their homes for months against Charles were solemnly declared to be held the king's "good, loyal, and faithful subjects and servants."

The results of the war on the king's side were certainly very meagre. To have fought for the greater part of a year with the miserable Huguenots that had escaped the massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day, and then to conclude the war by such a peace, was certainly ignominious enough for Charles and his mother. For the Huguenot party was now, more than ever, a recognized power in the state, with three strongholds—one in the west and two in the south. Into no one of these could a royal garrison be introduced. La Rochelle, in particular, having repulsed every assault of the best army that could be brought against it, was acknowledged invincible by the exemptions accorded to it in common with Nismes and Montauban. It was hardly by such expectations that Charles had been prevailed upon to throw down the gage of war to his subjects of the reformed faith.

Meanwhile, the inhabitants of Sancerre, not even named in the edict,[1308] had been sustained under appalling difficulties by the confident hope of assistance from the south. But the hope was long deferred, and they grew sick at heart. The prospect was already dark enough, when, on the second of June, a Protestant soldier, who had made his way into the city through the enemy's lines, brought the depressing announcement that no aid must be expected from Languedoc for six weeks. As but little wheat remained in Sancerre, the immediate effect of the intelligence was that liberty was given to some seventy of the poor to leave the city walls. At the same time the daily ration was limited to half a pound of grain. A week later it was reduced to one-quarter of a pound. Not long after only a single pound was doled out once a week, and by the end of the month the supply entirely gave out. The beginning of July reduced the besieged to the necessity of tasking their ingenuity to make palatable food of the hides of cattle, next of the skins of horses, dogs, and asses. The stock of even this unsavory material soon became exhausted; whereupon, not very unnaturally, parchment was turned to good account. Manuscripts a good century old were eaten with relish. Soaked for a couple of days in water, and afterward boiled as much longer, when they became glutinous they were fried, like tripe, or prepared with herbs and spices, after the manner of a hodge-podge. The writer who is our authority for these culinary details, informs us that he had seen the dish devoured with eagerness while the original letters written upon the parchment were still legible.[1309] But the urgent necessities of their situation did not suffer the half-famished inhabitants to stop here. With the proverbial ingenuity of their nation, they turned their attention to the parchment on old drums, and subjected to the skilful hands of cooks the discarded hoofs, horns, and bones of animals, the harness of horses, and even refuse scraps of leather. There seemed to be nothing they could not lay under contribution to furnish at least a little nutriment.

And yet ghastly hunger little by little tightened her relentless embrace. Almost all the children under twelve years of age died. In the universal reign of famine there were at last found those who were ready to repeat the horrible crime of feeding upon the flesh of their own kindred. It was discovered that a husband and wife, with a neighboring crone, had endeavored to satisfy the gnawings of hunger by eating a newly dead child. Their guilt came speedily to light, and was punished according to the severe code of the sixteenth century. The father was sentenced by the council to be burned alive; his wife to be strangled and her body consigned to the flames; while the corpse of the old woman who had instigated the foul deed but had meanwhile died, was ordered to be dug up and burned. But the feeling of the great majority of the besieged was far removed from that despair which prompts to an inhuman disregard of natural decency and affection. Near the close of July a boy of barely ten years, as he lay on his death-bed, said to his weeping parents: "Why do you weep thus at seeing me die of hunger? I do not ask bread, mother; I know you have none. But since God wills that I die thus, we must accept it cheerfully. Was not that holy man Lazarus hungry? Have I not so read in the Bible?"[1310]

The catastrophe could not much longer be deferred. Within the city speedy death stared every man in the face. Permission had, we have seen, been accorded to the poor, early in June, to go forth from the city walls; but the besieging force had mercilessly driven them back when they attempted to gain the open country. Numbers, unwilling to accept a second time the fatal hospitality of the city, preferred to remain in their exposed situation, miserably dragging out a precarious existence by subsisting upon snails, buds of trees and shrubs—even to the very grass of the field.

Happily for Sancerre, the political exigencies of the royal court insured for the besieged Protestants, in the inevitable capitulation, more favorable terms than they might otherwise have obtained. As early as the eighteenth of July, LÉry had been informed at a parley, by a former acquaintance on the Roman Catholic side, that a general peace had been concluded, and that Henry of Anjou had been elected to the throne of Poland. This first intimation was discredited by the cautious Protestants, not unused to the wiles of the enemy. But when, some twenty days later (on the sixth of August), the statement was confirmed, and the Sancerrois received the additional assurance that they would be mildly treated, their surprise knew no bounds. The terms of surrender were easily arranged. A ransom of forty thousand livres was to be exacted from the city. On the thirty-first of August, M. de la Chastre made his solemn entry into Sancerre, accompanied by a band of Roman Catholic priests chanting a Te Deum over his success. As was too frequently the case, the promise of immunity to the inhabitants was but poorly kept. Scarcely had two weeks passed before the "bailli" Johanneau,[1311] summoned from his house by the archers of the prÉvÔt, on the plea that M. de la Chastre desired his presence, was treacherously murdered on the way to the governor's house. Besides assassination, other infractions of the capitulation were committed; the gates of the city were burned, the walls dismantled, many of the houses torn down. In fact, so unmercifully was Sancerre harried, partly by the troops, partly by the peasantry of the neighborhood, and by the "bailli" of Berry, that the reformed church of this place seems to have been, for the time, completely dispersed.[1312]

Thus ended a siege which had lasted some eight months. The besieged had lost only eighty-four men by the direct effects of warfare; but more than five hundred persons perished during the last six weeks of sheer starvation.[1313]

Sancerre owed its release from the horrors of the siege in great part to the same causes that had powerfully contributed to the conclusion of the peace. The Polish ambassadors, coming to proffer the crown to the king's brother, Henry of Anjou, were about to reach the French court. They were already not a little surprised at the discovery that the statements and promises made in the king's name by that not over-scrupulous negotiator, Montluc, Bishop of Valence, were impudent impostures, fabricated for no other purpose than to secure at all hazards the success of the French candidate for the Polish throne. To exhibit to them at this critical juncture the edifying spectacle of a royal governor of the province of Berry engaged in the reduction of a city the only crime of which was its desire to enjoy religious liberty—this would have been a dangerous venture. Consequently it was no fortuitous coincidence that Sancerre capitulated the very day the Polish ambassadors made their appearance.

We shall not dwell upon the pomp attending their reception. The banquet held in the new palace of the Tuileries was brilliant. In the pageant succeeding it was displayed a massive rock of silver, with sixteen nymphs in as many niches, personating the provinces of the French kingdom. When, after some verses well sung but indifferently composed, these nymphs descended from their elevation, and took part in an intricate maze of dance, the Polish spectators remarked, in the excess of their admiration, that the French ballet was something that could be imitated by none of the kings of the earth. "I would rather," dryly adds a contemporary historian, "that they had said as much respecting our armies."[1314]

The Protestants of Southern France had been included in the Edict of Pacification. In fact, Nismes and Montauban were as distinctly referred to by name as La Rochelle.[1315] But the terms of peace were not to the taste of the enterprising and self-reliant Huguenots of Languedoc and Guyenne. They had learned, during the last ten years, to distrust all assurances emanating from the court, even when claiming the authority of the king's name. Experience had taught them that previous edicts were framed simply to secure the destruction of those whom open warfare had failed to destroy.[1316] Without, therefore, either definitely accepting or rejecting the terms offered them, the Protestants of Nismes applied to Marshal Damville, who, at the conclusion of the peace, found himself with the royal troops at the hamlet of Milhaud, a league or two from their gates,[1317] for a fortnight's suspension of hostilities. The request being granted, a truce was established which was extended by successive prolongations beyond the beginning of the next year.[1318]

Meantime the Protestants, notified by the Duke of Anjou of the conclusion of the peace, sent messengers to his camp requesting that as the matter was one vitally affecting the entire Protestant population, they might receive permission to meet, under protection of the royal authority, and deliberate respecting it. The king's consent having been obtained, Protestant deputies from almost all parts of the kingdom came together, late in the month of August, 1573, in the city of Milhau-en-Rouergue, from which they shortly transferred their sessions to Montauban.

This important assembly resolved to accept no peace unless based upon equitable terms and secured by ample guarantees. In view of the possibility of the recurrence of war, provision was made for a complete military organization of the Huguenot resources in the south of France. For this purpose Languedoc was divided into two "gÉnÉralitÉs" or governments—the government of Nismes, or Lower Languedoc, placed under command of M. de Saint Romain, and that of Upper Languedoc, with Montauban for its chief city, to which the Viscount de Paulin was assigned as military chief. Both governments were in turn subdivided into dioceses or particular governments, each furnished with a governor and a deliberative assembly. It was provided that in Nismes and Montauban respectively a council should be convened consisting of deputies from all the dioceses of the government, and that to this council, together with the governor, should be intrusted the administration of the finances, with authority to impose taxes alike upon Protestants and Roman Catholics. The organization, it was estimated, could readily place twenty thousand men in the field.[1319]

Such were the first attempts to perfect a system of warfare forced upon the Huguenots by the treacherous assaults of their enemies—a fatal necessity of instituting a state within a state, foreboding nothing but ruin to France.

One of the chief results of the deliberations at Montauban was the preparation of a petition to be laid before the king. This paper, which has come down to us with the signatures of the viscounts, barons, and other adherents of the Huguenot party, was intended to be an expression not only of their own individual views, but also of the sentiments of the churches they represented.[1320] The language is sharp and incisive, the demands are unmistakably bold. For a sufficient justification of their recent words and actions, the Huguenots of Guyenne point the monarch to his own letter of the twenty-fourth of August, 1572, by which constraint was laid upon them to assume arms. They call upon Charles, in accordance with the promise contained in that letter, to follow up the traces there alleged to have been found regarding the murder of Gaspard de Coligny, to appoint impartial judges for this purpose, and to execute exemplary justice upon the guilty. Not satisfied with claiming the annulling of all judicial proceedings, the destruction of all monuments erected to perpetuate the memory of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day, and the abolition of processions instituted by the parliaments of Paris and Toulouse with the same end in view, they call on Charles to make a declaration "that justly and for good reasons have 'those of the religion' taken arms, resisting and warring in these last troubles, as constrained thereto by the violent acts with which they have been assailed and driven to distraction." They next demand those concessions which alone can make the position of the Protestants in France secure and endurable—freedom of worship and church discipline established by perpetual provision, irrespective of place or time; the right of honorable burial; immunity from taxation for the support of Roman Catholic ceremonies; admission to schools and colleges; just regulations as to marriage; amnesty; the power to hold civil office, etc. They request permission to levy a sum of one hundred and twenty thousand livres among themselves to pay off the indebtedness incurred by them in past wars. And they go so far as not only to stipulate that the King of France shall renounce all leagues he may have contracted with the enemies of his Protestant subjects for their destruction, but even to propose that he shall conclude a defensive alliance with the Protestant states of Germany, Switzerland, England, and Scotland. Meanwhile, in order to prevent the recurrence of "a conspiracy and Sicilian Vespers," of which the Huguenots would be the victims, they ask to be permitted to hold forever the guard of those cities which they now have in their possession, and in addition some other cities in each of the provinces of the realm. The Protestant cities, it is stipulated, shall retain their walls and munitions, and the royal governors shall enter them accompanied only by a small retinue. The observance of these articles the Huguenots insist shall be solemnly sworn in privy and public council, and by the inhabitants of all places, the oath to be renewed every five years.[1321]

Such stout demands did the Protestants of the south and south-west address to Charles the Ninth on the first anniversary of the fatal matins of Paris. They were, it must be admitted, somewhat different from what might have been expected, a brief year before, from the fugitives who made their escape from the bloody sword of their enemies. Moreover, the terms laid down by the Huguenots of Lower Languedoc and Nismes were conceived in the same brave language, and their demands were virtually identical. Huguenot troops, paid by the king, to garrison both the cities now in the hands of the Protestants, and two cities in each of the sixteen provinces required for additional protection; free worship irrespective of place; new parliaments in all the provinces, with Protestant judges to administer justice to Protestants; liberty to levy tithes for the support of reformed churches; punishment of the instigators and perpetrators of the atrocities of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day, as robbers and disturbers of the public peace.[1322] The Tiers État of Provence and Dauphiny added to the demands of Languedoc and Guyenne an urgent petition in favor of the reduction of the onerous imposts under which the country was groaning.[1323]

The bearers of these demands were well able to give them forcible and fearless enunciation—Yolet, Philippi, Chavagnac, and others of the men known by the expressive designation of "Les fronts d'airain."[1324] Assuredly a brow of brass was not out of place, when the Protestant deputies, after a delay of some weeks, were reluctantly admitted to an audience. Charles the Ninth and his court were at this time at Villers-Cotterets, on their way to the eastern frontiers of France, accompanying the newly elected King of Poland as he slowly and unwillingly journeyed toward the capital of a kingdom regarded by him in the light of a detestable place of exile. Contemporary writers inform us that Yolet and his companions were in no degree overawed by the splendor of the scene, and made no weak abatement in the terms they had been instructed to propose. Charles heard them through with patient attention. He was not a little astonished at the extent of their demands, we may be certain; but he made no comment upon the courageous assertion of Protestant rights. Not so with the queen mother. When the deputies had at length finished their harangue, Catharine could no longer contain her indignation. "Why," she exclaimed with marked bitterness of tone, "if your CondÉ himself were alive and in the heart of the kingdom with twenty thousand horse and fifty thousand foot, and held the chief cities in his power, he would not make half so great demands!"[1325]

Despite the unwelcome character of the claims of the Huguenot deputies, some answer must be given. It was found impossible to induce the envoys to modify them. They denied that they had the power, even if they had the inclination, to alter the action of those who had sent them. They were therefore dismissed with expressions of good-will and the assurance that two royal commissioners, the Duc d'UzÈs and the Chevalier de Caylus, would be sent to treat with the delegates whom the Huguenots might choose. Marshal Damville, governor of the province, was to participate in the negotiations and to appoint some city in the vicinity of Montauban where they might be held. Charles was to hear the result of their conference on his return from the German borders. Meanwhile he promised to instruct Damville to put an end to all hostilities, provided the Huguenots should desist from everything tending to provoke retaliation.[1326] The Tiers État received the answer to their petition more promptly. It was naturally to the effect that a return to the meagre scale of imposts under Louis XI. was utterly impracticable, in view of the burdens of the treasury arising from recent wars and the pensions yearly payable to various members of the royal family.[1327]

It would be out of place to describe here at any length the slow progress of the French court as it escorted the King of Poland to the borders of the realm. To none of the principal personages taking part was it the occasion of much satisfaction. Catharine was as reluctant to part from Henry, her favorite son, as he was himself averse to exchange the pleasures of the Louvre and Saint Germain for the crown of an unruly and half-civilized kingdom. As for Charles, the gratification he could not conceal at the prospect of being soon freed from the presence of a brother whom he both disliked and feared was more than counterbalanced by the rapid decline of his own health. The boy of eleven, whom the Venetian ambassador had described about the time of his accession to the throne as handsome, amiable, and graceful in appearance, quick, vivacious, and humane—in short, as possessing every quality from which a great prince and a great king might be expected,[1328] was now a man of twenty-three. But his constitution, never robust, had gained nothing. The violent exercises to which he had been addicted even as a child, and which, though princely, had been pronounced dangerous by the ambassador, had been incessantly practised—the ball, horsemanship, arms—and bodily feebleness, not strength, had been the result. Other excesses had contributed to hasten the catastrophe. More than all, if we may believe the testimony of those who were familiar with the young monarch's later life, the mental and moral experience of the last eighteen months left their impress on his physical system. Charles, with the Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day, had lost all the elasticity of youth. Remorse for complicity in the crime then perpetrated co-operated with the persuasion of the uselessness and complete failure of the attempt to exterminate the Huguenots, and the consciousness of having incurred the indelible mark of hatred and detestation of an impartial posterity. Even in his sleeping hours the curse of the murdered victims pursued him and disturbed his rest. Neither by day nor by night could he banish the remembrance of the time when blood ran so freely in the streets of Paris.

No attentive observer could doubt that the end was drawing near. The court had gone no farther on its way to Lorraine than the little town of Vitry-le-FranÇais, on the river Marne, when Charles fell so seriously ill as to be unable to prosecute his journey. As was usual in such cases, while the physicians alleged as a sufficient explanation of the attack the king's immoderate exercise in the chase and in blowing the trumpet, the more suspicious frequenters of the court and the credulous people did not hesitate to invent the story that he had been poisoned. But by whom the crime had been committed was not settled. Some ascribed it to Catharine, others to Henry of Anjou, while others still laid the guilt at the door of a person of less note, whose honor the licentious king had offended.[1329]

Meanwhile, neither the monarch's feeble health, nor the journeying of the court, interrupted the prosecution of those diplomatic intrigues from which Catharine still looked for valuable results. The election of Henry to the Polish crown left but one of her sons upon whom the regal dignity had not been conferred. The prophecy of Nostradamus might have its complete fulfilment if only a kingdom could be found for AlenÇon.[1330] Otherwise the superstitious queen mother did not doubt that she was fated to see not only Charles, but Henry also die, to make place for her youngest child on the throne of France. La Mothe FÉnÉlon was therefore instructed to put forth every exertion to bring Queen Elizabeth to the point of consenting definitely to wed a prince her junior by about a score of years. Nor did the negotiations appear altogether hopeless. The suitor was, indeed, we have seen, as insignificant in body as he was contemptible in intellectual ability. Moreover, the deep traces left on his face by the small-pox rendered him sufficiently ungainly. The blemish was said to be increasing, instead of diminishing, with his years.[1331] But the French courtiers might perhaps have overcome this impediment had Elizabeth been able to see it to be her interest to contract such close relations with her neighbors across the channel. As it was, an agreement was actually made that AlenÇon should visit England and press his suit in person; but when the time arrived for him to cross to Dover, Catharine justified the despatch of Marshal de Retz in his place, on the plea of her son's illness. The excuse may have contained some truth,[1332] for, albeit Francis of AlenÇon had received the baptismal name of Hercules, he was a puny weakling, from whom no labors could ever be expected, but rather a dull existence of sloth and imbecility. It was, however, a stretch even of diplomatic assurance, for La Mothe FÉnÉlon to suggest to the virgin queen of England, as he deliberately reports that he did, that AlenÇon's malady was probably due to his disappointment at Elizabeth's failure to reciprocate his honest affection![1333] Possibly his mother and his brother the king may about this time have begun to realize how impolitic it would be to strengthen overmuch the personal consideration of the young prince. Disgusted with the subordinate position assigned him at court, and especially with the failure of his efforts to obtain the appointment of lieutenant-general of the kingdom, lately held by Henry of Anjou, AlenÇon was even now drifting into an association with the political and religious malcontents whose existence could not altogether be ignored. The French ambassador at the English court was, however, instructed by no means to let the projected marriage drop.[1334]

With the patriots in the Low Countries and with the Protestant princes of Germany, the French agents were in even more active conference. In the Netherlands there was a possibility of securing some high position for Anjou or AlenÇon, in Germany a chance to divert the imperial crown from the Hapsburg to the Valois family, it may reasonably be doubted whether the project was ever distinctly entertained, as the historian De Thou asserts,[1335] of conferring upon Anjou the command in chief of the confederates in Flanders, where it was expected that he would have a well equipped fleet at his disposition; for the correspondence of Gaspard de Schomberg, the French agent, contains no allusion to the proposal. Certainly, however, France was, at least, anxious that England should gain no advantage over her in this part of Europe. In fact, nothing but the natural fear entertained of the great power and apparently limitless resources of Spain deterred both Elizabeth and Charles from attempting to secure the sovereignty of the revolted Netherlands.

In Germany the field for intrigue was more open. The imperial dignity had not yet become purely hereditary. In choosing a new King of the Romans, the presumptive heir of the German Empire, the three Protestant Electors, if they could but secure the concurrence of one of the four Roman Catholic Electors, might have it in their power to correct the mistake committed by Frederick the Wise of Saxony, a half-century earlier, in declining the crown in favor of Charles of Spain. Schomberg was therefore instructed to recommend to the Protestants of Germany and the Low Countries, that one of their own number should be placed in the line of succession to the Empire, or, if they could find no German Protestant prince sufficiently powerful to oppose the Hapsburgs, that the dignity should be offered to the King of France. This was a somewhat startling suggestion to emanate from a king who, but a brief twelvemonth before had been butchering his Protestant subjects by tens of thousands. But the sixteenth century furnishes not a few paradoxes equally remarkable. Both Protestants and Roman Catholics often found it convenient to have very short memories. In this case, however, the proposal to set aside the son of the tolerant Maximilian the Second in behalf of a son of Catharine de' Medici met with little favor at the hands of one at least of the Protestant leaders. The Landgrave of Hesse declared he would have nothing to do with a project intended solely to sow divisions in the empire. The French, since the successful issue of their intrigues in Poland, he said, had become so arrogant that they thought they must be nothing less than masters of the whole world.[1336] As for himself, he was quite satisfied with the present emperor, whom he prayed that God might long preserve, and then graciously provide them in his place with a pious Christian leader who should rule the empire well and faithfully.[1337]

At Blamont, in the duchy of Lorraine, Catharine took leave of the King of Poland. Here the old ally of the Huguenots, Louis of Nassau, accompanied by Duke Christopher, younger son of the elector palatine, met them. Louis had been unremitting in his efforts to obtain French assistance in the desperate struggle in which he and his brother were engaged. If words and assurances could be of any worth, he was successful. Catharine promised in Charles's name that France would not be behind the German Protestant princes in rendering assistance to the Dutch patriots. Louis was so cordially received by the queen mother, and especially by AlenÇon, that he departed greatly encouraged with the prospect. AlenÇon had pressed the Dutch patriot's hand, and whispered in his ear: "I now have the government, as my brother, the King of Poland formerly had it, and I shall devote myself wholly to seconding the efforts of the Prince of Orange."[1338] The promised succor from France Nassau never received. Four months later (on the fourteenth of April, 1574) the brave young count, in company with his friend and comrade, Duke Christopher, lost his life in the fatal battle of Mook, on the banks of the Meuse.[1339] Not the Prince of Orange nor Holland alone, but the entire Protestant world deplored the untimely death of one of the boldest and most unselfish of the champions of religion and liberty.

With the details of the journey of Henry of Anjou to take possession of his new kingdom, we cannot here concern ourselves. One incident, however, naturally connects itself with the fortunes of the French Huguenots.

After traversing Alsace, Henry and his suite presented themselves, unwelcome guests, at Heidelberg, capital of the palatinate. The Elector, Frederick the Third, and his subjects were, perhaps, equally displeased at the arrival of the prime mover in the Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day. But, while the people felt some freedom in the expression of their disgust, motives of state policy prevented their prince from openly displaying his antipathy. However, he neither could nor would conceal the lively remembrance in which the events of August, 1572, were still held by him. It was on Friday, the eleventh of December, that the French party, under the escort of a large body of soldiers sent out to do them honor, ascended to the castle, then as now occupying a commanding site overlooking the valley of the Neckar.[1340] The King of Poland was somewhat surprised when, on entering the portal, instead of the elector, the rhinegrave, with two French refugees escaped from the massacre, came to escort him to the rooms prepared for his reception. Frederick had directed the rhinegrave to request Henry to excuse this apparent discourtesy on the ground of his feeble health. It is more probable that the true motive was the elector's desire to avoid incurring, by too great complaisance, the displeasure of the emperor, who was naturally much irritated at the success of the French intrigues in Poland. When, later, Frederick made his tardy appearance, it was only to greet Anjou in a brief address, reserving for the morrow their more extended conference. On Saturday the elector politely conducted his guest through his extensive picture gallery. Pausing before one painting the face of which was protected from sight, he ordered an attendant to draw aside the curtain. To his astonishment, Henry found himself confronted with a life-like portrait of Gaspard de Coligny. To the question, "Does your Royal Highness recognize the subject?" Henry replied with sufficient composure: "I do; it is the late Admiral of France." "Yes," rejoined Frederick, "it is the admiral—a man whom I have found, of all the French nobles, the most zealous for the glory of the French name; and I am not afraid to assert that in him the king and all France have sustained an irreparable loss." Elsewhere Henry's attention was directed to a large painting representing the very scenes of the massacre, and he was asked whether he could distinguish any of the victims. Nor did Frederick confine himself to these casual references. In pointed terms he exposed to the young Valois both the sin and the mistaken policy of the events of a twelvemonth since. The slaughter of the admiral and of so many other innocent men and women had not only provoked the Divine retribution, but had diminished not a little the reputation and influence of the French with all orders of persons in Germany.[1341] Henry listened with commendable patience to the old elector's denunciations, alleging by way of excuse that the French court had been under the influence of the passions then running high, and readily promised great caution and tolerance in future.[1342] He did, indeed, strike on his breast and begged Frederick to believe him that things had occurred otherwise than had been reported. But his auditor dryly remarked that he was fully informed of what had taken place in France.[1343] As the elector also took occasion to remind Anjou of sundry miserable deaths of notorious persecutors, such as Herod the Great, Herod Agrippa, and Maxentius; as he openly ridiculed the absurd suggestion that Coligny, a wounded man, with both arms disabled in consequence of Maurevel's shot, planned on his bed an attack on the king; and as, furthermore, he plainly denounced the shocking immorality of Catharine de' Medici's court ladies—it must be confessed that Frederick the Pious, on the present occasion, made more of a virtue of frankness than of diplomacy.[1344]

On Sunday the French left Heidelberg, with little regret on their own part or on that of their hosts. Not to speak of their treatment by the elector, which even the historian De Thou regarded as scarcely comporting with the dignity with which Henry was invested,[1345] the followers of the Polish king met with frequent insults, both in coming and in going. One of them relates how he heard cries of "Those dogs from Lorraine! Those Italian traitors!" And a German eye-witness of the scenes expresses it as his opinion that the French nobles would not have been safe had they not been escorted by the palatine troops. The sight of "that notable cut-throat, the Duke of Nevers," of the Marshal de Retz, of Captain Du Gast, and "very many others of that band of villains who so cruelly butchered the admiral and other nobles in Paris," provoked the populace almost beyond endurance. The very diamonds and jewels presented by Henry on his departure, to the elector and to the ladies of his court, aroused the popular indignation; for they were known, as we have already seen, to have constituted a part of the plunder of a certain rich Huguenot jeweller, whose shop had been robbed at the time of the Parisian matins.[1346] There were not wanting those who would even have counselled the worthy elector to follow the course indicated by the Spanish grandee, who informed Charles the Fifth that he intended to burn his castle to the ground so soon as the traitorous Constable de Bourbon had relieved it of his polluting presence.[1347]

Meantime, within the borders of France all was ferment and disquiet. The Roman Catholic element, comprising the overwhelming majority of the people, had become split into two factions, both animated by inextinguishable hatred, and each resolved to compass the destruction of the other. Of conciliatory measures there was a dearth. Among the men of wide influence there was no one to take the place of the virtuous Michel de l'Hospital. That truly great statesman had died nine months before (on the thirteenth of March, 1573). The storm of war at that moment raging about La Rochelle was a fit expression of the utter failure of the aged chancellor's policy. For a dozen years there had not been a candid and sincere effort made to restore tranquillity to France which had not either originated with him or received his cordial support. But of the sanguine hopes of ultimate success entertained in the earlier stages of his political career, he retained little toward its close. The last years of his presence at court witnessed an uninterrupted struggle between the chancellor and that family of Guise which he had come to regard as the prime cause of the misery afflicting the kingdom. More than once the latent personal hostility had broken out in an open quarrel between L'Hospital and the Cardinal of Lorraine. Two or three exciting scenes of recrimination, which the tact of Catharine de' Medici was scarcely able to allay, have met us in this history. At length, when the third civil war burst forth, L'Hospital, seeing himself altogether powerless to resist the more violent counsels then in the ascendant, had received permission to retire from the royal court to his estate in the vicinity of Étampes.[1348] It was none the less an exile that it wore the appearance of a voluntary withdrawal. Birague discharged the real functions of the chancellor's office. Finally, after barely escaping a violent death in the Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day, the chancellor received, in January, 1573, the formal order to give up the guardianship of the seals, which for more than four years had been only nominally under his control. His touching reply to the royal summons is the last production of the chancellor's pen that has come down to us. Interposing no obstacle to the execution of the king's will, the writer invoked the testimony of the queen mother that, in all things pertaining to the royal interests, "he had been forgetful rather of his own advantage than of the king's service, and had always followed the great royal road, turning neither to the right hand nor to the left, and giving himself to no private faction." "And now," he added, "that my maladies and my age have rendered me useless to do you service, just as you have seen the old galleys in the port of Marseilles, which, though dismantled, are yet regarded with pleasure, so I very humbly beg you to view me both in my present state and my past, which shall be an instruction and an example to all your subjects to do you good service. God give you grace to choose servants and counsellors more competent than I have been, and as affectionate and devoted to your service as I am." The closing words were characteristic of the life-long advocate of toleration: a recommendation of gentleness and clemency, in imitation of a long-suffering and pardoning God.[1349] Two months later Michel de l'Hospital ended his eventful life. France could ill afford to lose at this juncture a magistrate[1350] so upright—a statesman who "had the lilies of France in his heart."[1351]

Since the siege of La Rochelle, or more properly since the day of the massacre, a new party had been forming, of those who could not bring themselves to approve the cruel acts of the court, or who, for any reason, were jealous of the faction now in power. As opposed to the Italian counsellors by whom the queen mother had surrounded the throne, it was pre-eminently a French or patriotic party. It demanded the expulsion of Florentines and of Lorrainers from the kingdom, or at least from the management of public affairs. The "Malcontents," or "Politiques," as they now began to be called,[1352] demanded a return to the former usages of the kingdom, in accordance with which the most important decisions were never made without consulting the States General. Two books appearing about this time made a deep impression. In an anonymous treatise entitled "Franco-Gallia," the authorship of which was speedily traced to the eminent jurist Francis Hotman, attention was drawn to the original constitution of the kingdom; and the writer showed by irrefragable proofs that the regal dignity was not hereditary like a private possession, but was a gift of the people, which they could as lawfully transfer from one to another, as originally confer. The participation of women in the administration of the government was declared to be abhorrent to the ideas of the founders of the French monarchy.[1353] In another work appearing not long after, the principle was enunciated that an unbounded obedience is due to the Almighty alone, while obedience to human magistrates is in its very nature subject to limitations and exceptions. The supreme authority of kings and other high magistrates was explained to be of such a nature "that if they violate the laws, to the observance of which they have bound themselves by oath, and become manifest tyrants, giving no room for better counsels, then it is lawful for the inferior magistrates to make provision both for themselves and for those committed to their charge, and oppose the tyrant."[1354] The circumstance is not without significance that in a Huguenot work, published early in the succeeding year, the guilty king who authorized the butchery of his innocent subjects on St. Bartholomew's Day, is for the first time distinctly designated as the "tyrant."[1355]

The lesson that no trust could be reposed in Charles and his court was one which the world had learned pretty thoroughly before this; and the events at La Rochelle during the month of December, 1573, were well calculated to prevent it from being forgotten. The definite peace, made five months before, guaranteed the safety of the Protestants, and secured to them the free exercise of their religious rights. None the less was a project set on foot to introduce a royal garrison into the city by treachery. M. de Biron and other captains had been unable to conceal their disgust at the abandonment of the siege of La Rochelle, when, as they pretended, it must very shortly have fallen into the king's hands, and Biron had been soundly berated by Anjou for his pains. He had not, however, given up the notion of making himself master of the Huguenot stronghold, and there were others in the royal army intent upon the same end. A scheme to smuggle soldiers through the gates, in wagons covered with branches of trees, was so freely talked of that it reached the citizens' ears, and only augmented their suspicions. A more serious plot was set on foot, in accordance with which one Jacques du Lyon, Seigneur de Grandfief, prominent in the late defence of La Rochelle, was to gain possession of one of the city gates, and admit Puigaillard, who, for this purpose, had massed considerable numbers of royal soldiers at NuaillÉ, on the east, and at Saint-Vivien, on the south of La Rochelle. Happily the treacherous design was itself betrayed by an accomplice. Grandfief was killed while defending himself against those who had been sent to arrest him. Several of the supposed leaders[1356] were condemned to be broken on the wheel, and the barbarous sentence was executed. The papers discovered in the house of Grandfief clearly proved that the plot had received the full approval not only of Biron, but of the queen mother herself. After inflicting summary vengeance on the miserable instruments of perfidy, the Rochellois, therefore, addressed their complaints to the French court. It need not surprise us, however, to learn that they received in reply letters from Charles not only disowning the conspiracy, but assuring them that he heartily detested it, and approved the rigorous measures adopted.[1357]

Shortly before the discovery of the conspiracy at La Rochelle, the Huguenots had again assembled at Milhau-en-Rouergue. The delegates, about one hundred in number, represented very fully the gentry and tiers État of the south and south-west of France, while a few names from the central and northern provinces indicated the weaker hold gained by Protestantism in that portion of the kingdom.[1358] Ostensibly meeting, with the royal permission, to receive the report of the commissioners sent to the king, and to entertain the terms proposed by Marshal Damville, the Huguenots availed themselves of the opportunity to perfect the organization of their party which had been sketched in previous political assemblies. Accepting it as notorious that, whether in time of peace, or of open war, or of truce, the Protestants were in peril from the daily intrigues and assaults of their enemies, all tending to their complete ruin, the Huguenot assembly renewed and swore to maintain a permanent union comprising all their brethren of the same faith not only in France proper, but in the papal ComtÂt Venaissin, the principality of Orange, and other districts less closely united to the crown. To this end they determined that the "States General," composed of a delegate from the nobility, the tiers État, and the magistracy of each "gÉnÉralitÉ" or government, should meet every six months; while the particular assemblies of the governments should be convened at least as often as once in three months. The functions of the generals and their councils were expressly limited to the military and financial concerns of the Huguenots, with other matters of public interest. They were strictly forbidden from intermeddling, under any pretext, with the discharge of civil or criminal justice. This last function was to be referred to the royal courts, save that, instead of appealing to the parliaments, known to be too hostile to Protestantism to afford hope of obtaining justice, arbitrators were to be chosen by the Protestants among themselves.[1359] Not forgetting their common religious bond, the Huguenots at Milhau declared it to be the duty of the ministers of God's word and of the consistories to keep watch over criminal and dissolute behavior, and denounce it for punishment to the civil magistrate. At the same time, in order that the ministers might be the better able to devote themselves to their sacred functions, it was directed that they be regularly paid from the common funds "without making any further use of notices (billettes) or other unworthy and illusory methods, as has been done heretofore, to the great scandal of all good people." The levy of imposts and the creation of loans were made the exclusive right of the particular states, while the administration of the funds arising from the royal revenues was to be intrusted to the provincial councils.[1360]

Such were the chief features in a plan for organization evidently looking to the speedy renewal of the warfare temporarily suspended by virtue of the truce.

While the revelation of the treacherous attempt of the royal party upon La Rochelle proved to the Politiques, or Malcontents, the impossibility of relying upon the assurances given in the name of Charles the Ninth, the resolutions of the Huguenots in Milhau encouraged them in their project to remove the present advisers of the king. In the absence of any better leader, they looked to the Duke of AlenÇon as their head. He alone of the royal family was guiltless of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day. His antagonism to Anjou and to his mother was well known. It was even reported that he had himself been exposed to serious danger by reason of his avowed sympathy with the imprisoned King of Navarre and his cousin of CondÉ. In fact, he was himself little better than a captive at the court of Charles—eyed with suspicion, unable to obtain favors for his friends, and vainly suing to be appointed to the office of lieutenant-general of the kingdom. It was perhaps not strange that, in looking about for a nominal head, the Politiques should have settled upon AlenÇon, who received their overtures with undisguised satisfaction and large promises of support. And yet there could scarcely have been a more unhappy selection. Of the feeble children of Catharine de' Medici, he was undoubtedly the feeblest. He possessed neither the courage to undertake nor the fortitude to prosecute any really bold enterprise. All who had the misfortune at any time to credit his plighted word discovered in their own cases a fresh and pointed application of the warning against putting trust in princes. Of him Busbec, the emperor's ambassador, gave a life-like delineation when he characterized him as "a prince who allowed himself to be ensnared by the bad counsels of unskilful ministers, who could not distinguish friends from flatterers, nor a great from a good reputation; ready to undertake, still more ready to desist; always inconstant, restless, and frivolous; always prepared to disturb the best established tranquillity."[1361]

Circumstances almost beyond their control seemed now to be forcing the Huguenots to make common cause with the Malcontents. Yet there were not wanting those who looked upon the alliance as more likely to retard than to advance their true interests, and who pointed with convincing force to the disastrous results of a similar union in the time of the tumult of Amboise, fourteen years before. The cloak of the reformed name, they argued, would certainly be assumed by men having no desire for a reformation of manners or morals—men whose lives would only dishonor the cause with which they were supposed to be identified. Nor was the fear an idle one, as was shown by an incident that occurred about this very time. The truce which had been made for Languedoc did not extend to the ComtÂt Venaissin. Naturally enough, there were many in the Huguenot ranks who, remembering past injuries received at the hands of the troops of the Pope, were not unwilling to turn their arms in this direction. But their leader was no Huguenot. M. de Glandage, a gentleman of Dauphiny, was a soldier of fortune, and would doubtless have fought with as little reluctance against the Protestants as for them, had it been to his advantage to enlist under the papal standard. As it was otherwise, he made himself master of the city of Orange, with the assistance of a party of citizens, and expelled Berchon, who, in the name of William the Silent, had strictly abstained from acts of hostility against the neighboring pontifical towns. Not so with the new governor of Orange. The city became the starting-point for a continuous series of incursions. It was not war, but open rapine. The very traders were plundered of their wares when they fell into his hands. One might have fancied that a mediÆval robber-baron had reappeared on the banks of the RhÔne. It was true that Glandage, making a virtue of bluntness, was wont to say that "there was nothing Huguenot about him but the point of his sword." None the less did his violent acts bring discredit upon the Huguenots.[1362]

Although war had not yet been formally resumed, there were parts of France in which it already raged, or rather where peace had never been restored. This was the case in particular on both banks of the RhÔne, in Dauphiny and in Vivarez and the adjoining districts. So rapid had been the movements of the veteran Huguenot chief Montbrun, and so successful every blow he struck, that terror spread far and wide. Important towns fell into his hands; a rich abbey but a few miles from Grenoble was plundered, and the silent monks of St. Bruno, in the secluded retreat of the Grande Chartreuse—the mother house of their order—were glad to summon troops to defend their rich fields from a similar fate.[1363] From Lyons to Avignon the Huguenots were stronger than the king's forces.[1364]

But the time for hollow truce and a desultory and irregular warfare was rapidly passing away. It was but little more than a month after the beginning of the new year before the conflagration again burst forth. The Protestants of all parts of the kingdom were at length of one mind; there was no room for doubt that any hopes offered them had as their sole object to sow discord among the adherents of the reformed faith. If anything had been wanting to prove this, it was made clear by the refusal of the court to extend the benefits of the Edict of Pacification of July, 1573, to the whole of France. The limitation of the liberty of worship by the provisions of that edict to La Rochelle, Montauban, and Nismes, was evidently intended to render the inhabitants of the three strongest Huguenot cities selfishly indifferent to the injustice done to their brethren in other parts of France. In fact, this result was partially effected in the first of the cities named. The Rochellois were at first very reluctant to resume hostilities, and began to plead conscientious scruples forbidding them to break the compact made with the king. Happily their hesitation was removed by FranÇois de la Noue, who, returning in a capacity entirely different from that in which he had last appeared, used all the arts of persuasion to induce the Huguenot stronghold by the sea to become again the rallying-point for the Protestants of the west. It was not difficult to show the citizens, when once they would listen to reason, that the starving of Sancerre and numberless murders of adherents of the reformed doctrine throughout France were violations of the peace quite sufficient to justify its formal abrogation by the injured party. The fears dictated by apparent weakness were dispelled by pointing to the signal success that had crowned the arms of Montbrun in Dauphiny,[1365] while the reluctance of loyal subjects to rise in arms against their lawful sovereign, even in order to redress great wrongs, unless authorized by the leadership of a prince of the blood, was answered by the assurance that they would have a head of much higher rank than any under whose protection the Huguenots had heretofore taken the field.[1366] It was clear that the personage thus hinted at could be no other than the king's brother. No wonder that the Rochellois yielded to La Noue's arguments, for almost every Roman Catholic whose hands were clean of the blood shed in the massacre applauded the justice of the new uprising.[1367]

The city of La Rochelle began again to repair its shattered walls, and La Noue was unanimously appointed to the chief command of the Huguenots in Saintonge and the adjacent regions. In the effort next made to prevent the great Protestant leader from espousing the side of his brethren, and to persuade the city of La Rochelle to rest content with the guarantees offered by the edict of 1573, and remain neutral in the coming conflict, Catharine and her advisers signally failed. The royal envoys—Biron, Strozzi and Pinart—were, indeed, courteously treated by La Noue, Frontenay, and Mirambeau, who repeatedly came out to meet them at the village of Ernandes. But the Huguenots, in reply to their reiterated request, declined absolutely to abate a single important point in their demands. They would not hear the suggestion that by the Edict of Boulogne, in 1573, previous ordinances had been repealed, but persisted in assuming that Charles had always intended that the edict of 1570 should remain in force, and, in proof of this, they alleged one of the king's own declarations after the massacre. They insisted that the privileges accorded to the three privileged cities of La Rochelle, Montauban, and Nismes, should be extended to the Protestant nobility throughout the kingdom; and when Biron and his companions reluctantly consented that the right to have baptism and marriage celebrated in their houses be conceded to all Protestant noblemen who enjoyed the right of "haute justice," and who had always remained constant in their religious opinions, La Noue protested against the restriction to baptism and marriage. "We desire to worship God freely," he said, "and you give only a part of what we need for the exercise of our religion. What you offer is a snare to catch us again and expose us to greater peril than we were ever in before. But we would much rather die with arms in our hands than be involved again in such disasters."

In vain did the royalists assure them that the king was ready to grant the Protestants complete liberty of conscience and protection against their enemies, but could not give them what they demanded. In vain did they repeat in substance the famous exclamation of Catharine de' Medici, and say, among other arguments: "You could make no greater demands if the king had nothing ready, and you had a large and powerful army, with all the advantages you could desire; whereas, we know full well that you are feeble in every direction, and that the king has great forces, as you yourselves must be aware." The Huguenots had the Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day on their tongues continually,[1368] and could not be fed with fair promises. They required securities. First, Charles must give them a city in each province of the kingdom, as a refuge in case they were assailed. Next, the maintenance of the promises made to them must be guaranteed by the signatures of the princes of the blood and all the chief nobles, by governors, by lieutenants-general, and by the gentry of the provinces, as well as by the chief inhabitants of the towns. Hostages must be interchanged. While the last and most remarkable proposal of all was, "that his Majesty, on his part, and the Huguenots, on theirs, should place a large sum of money in the hands of some German prince, who should promise to employ it in levying and paying a body of reiters to be used against that party which should violate the peace." All this was to be registered in the various parliaments and in the inferior courts of the bailiwicks and sÉnÉchaussÉes. The king was further requested to call the States General within three months, to give the royal edict of pacification their formal sanction.[1369]

We need not be surprised that a conference to which the two parties brought views so diametrically opposed, should have proved utterly abortive.

It scarcely falls within the province of this history to narrate in detail the unsuccessful attempt of the Malcontents, made some weeks before the negotiations just described, to overthrow the government, whose bad counsels were believed to be the cause of the misery under which France was groaning; for the alliance between the Malcontents and the Huguenots was only fortuitous and partial. A few words of explanation, however, seem to be necessary. The plan contemplated a simultaneous uprising on the tenth of March. The day had been selected by La Noue himself, who rightly judged that the license and uproar indulged in by the populace up to a late hour in the night of "Mardi Gras" (Shrove Tuesday) would greatly facilitate the military undertaking.[1370] AlenÇon and the King of Navarre, who, since the massacre immediately succeeding his nuptials, had found himself less a guest than a captive at court, were to flee secretly to Sedan, where they would find safety under the protection of the Duc de Bouillon. For the influence of this great nobleman, together with the still more powerful support of the Montmorency family, was given to the projected movement. But the timidity and vacillation of AlenÇon frustrated the well-conceived design. Ten days or a fortnight before the set time for the escape of the princes from court, Navarre, who, under pretext of hunting, had been allowed to leave the royal palace of Saint Germain, received a secret visit from M. de Guitry, a gentleman who had succeeded in bringing into the vicinity an armed body of the confederates. The meeting took place by night, in Navarre's bedchamber, in the little hamlet of St. Prix.[1371] On the morrow Guitry found means to confer with M. de ThorÉ, Turenne, and La Nocle, "all in despair by reason of AlenÇon's variable moods."[1372] This feeble prince, it would seem, was not even yet decided, and trembled at the peril he might run in attempting to reach Sedan. Under these circumstances the plan of flight was modified. Guitry was instructed to bring his force nearer to St. Germain, and wait for AlenÇon and Navarre, who, under his escort, were to gain Mantes, a little farther down the Seine, and perhaps ultimately join the confederates near La Rochelle. Guitry waited in vain: AlenÇon and Navarre never came.

Either AlenÇon himself, or La Mole, his favorite, in his name, betrayed the project to the queen mother. The discovery of a body of armed men in the vicinity, albeit they gave assurance that they meant no injury to the king, threw the entire court into consternation. Catharine, reminding Charles that her soothsayers had long since warned her of Saint Germain as a place that boded no good to her or hers, was among the first to flee, leaving the king, who was ill with quartan fever, to follow the next day.[1373] The court partook of Catharine's terror, and imitated her example. Layman and churchman vied in haste to gain Paris, whence in a few days they retreated in a more leisurely manner to the safer refuge of the castle of Vincennes. While some hurried by the main road, or picked their way along the banks of the Seine, others took to boats as a less dangerous means of conveyance. But, among those who joined in the disorderly flight, there were some who retained their composure sufficiently to note the ludicrous features of the scene. Long after they recalled with undisguised amusement the terror-stricken countenances of the new chancellor and of three French cardinals, as, mounted on fiery Italian or Spanish steeds, they clung with both hands to the saddle-bow, evidently fearing their horses even more than the dreaded Huguenot.[1374] It was a very pretty farce; but the tragedy was yet to come.

A second attempt at flight made by AlenÇon and Navarre also failed, through the treachery of one of those to whom the secret had been confided. AlenÇon and Navarre were now placed under close guard, and subjected to long and repeated examinations before a royal commission. AlenÇon was sufficiently craven in his bearing, and did not hesitate by his admissions to involve in ruin the minor instruments in the execution of the plan. Navarre, in his answers to the interrogatories, displayed a courageous frankness. He was not, in truth, content with a simple denial of the evil designs attributed to him. On the contrary, he availed himself of the opportunity to rehearse the grievances under which he had been suffering for nearly two years. Detained at court only to find himself an object of suspicion, his ears had been filled with successive rumors of an approaching massacre, a second St. Bartholomew's Day, when he would not be spared in the general destruction. These rumors had, indeed, been declared false by the Duke of Anjou, before the walls of La Rochelle, but that prince had failed to keep the promises made before his departure for Poland—to commend Navarre to the royal favor. Consequently he had been subjected to the indignity of frequently being refused admission to the presence of Charles, while seeing La Chastre, and others of those who had figured most prominently among the actors in the Parisian matins, freely received at the king's rising. He had at length resolved to leave the court in company with his cousin of AlenÇon, partly in order to consult his own safety, partly that he might restore order in his estates of BÉarn and Navarre, now suffering from his protracted absence. When his design had come to the queen mother's knowledge, he had explained the motives of his action to her, and obtained the promise of her protection. Subsequently there had reached him the intelligence that he was to be imprisoned with AlenÇon in the castle of Vincennes; whereupon he had renewed the attempt to escape the impending peril. In his second examination, in the presence of Catharine de' Medici and his uncle, Cardinal Bourbon, Henry reiterated his statements respecting the alarming reports that continually reached him. At one time he learned that it was decided that, should Margaret of Navarre bear a son, the luckless father would be put out of the way, in order that the child might inherit his dignities. At another time, in the very chamber of King Charles, the opinion had been boldly uttered, that, so long as a single member of the house of Bourbon should survive, there would always be war in France. Nor had the young prince dared to complain of these menaces.[1375]

It was no part of Catharine de' Medici's plan, at this juncture, to wreak her vengeance for the blow that had been aimed at her authority, either upon her son or upon her son-in-law. The Montmorencies, also, though suspected and long since the objects of jealousy, ultimately escaped with little difficulty. It is true that the eldest brother, Marshal FranÇois de Montmorency, was enticed to the court, as was also another marshal, M. de CossÉ, and that both were thrown into the Bastile. But the younger Montmorencies, ThorÉ and MÉru, had escaped, while their more energetic brother Marshal Damville, was too firmly fixed in the governorship of Languedoc, to be removed without a struggle. It was hardly prudent to drive so influential a family to extremities. Moreover, Catharine was too wise to desire the utter destruction of a clan whose authority might on occasion be employed, as it had often been in the past, as a counterpoise to the formidable power of the Guises.

Some victims of inferior rank were needed. They were found in the persons of Joseph Boniface de la Mole and Hannibal, Count de Coconnas, who, with one M. de Tourtray, expiated their error and that of their superiors, on the Place de GrÈve. The cruel procedure known as the administration of justice in the sixteenth century has no more striking illustration than in the barbarous torture, including the terrible trial by water, inflicted upon these wretched men. By such means it was not difficult to extort admissions which the prisoner was likely to retract at a subsequent time. Consequently it is not quite clear, even with the full record before us, how far La Mole and Coconnas were really implicated. As for the sufferers themselves, there was little about them to call forth our special sympathy. La Mole, of handsome appearance, but of cowardly disposition, was a firm believer in the magic that passed current in his day, and was questioned on the rack respecting the object of a waxen figure found among his effects. He admitted he had employed it for sorcery, to advance his suit with a lady whose love he sought. Coconnas, an Italian, instead of inviting contempt for his poltroonery, inspires aversion for his crimes. No assassin had distinguished himself more at the Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day. We are inclined to believe the contemporary chronicler, who states that Charles the Ninth himself averred that he had never liked Coconnas since hearing the latter's sanguinary boast that he had redeemed as many as thirty Huguenots from the hands of the populace, only that he might induce them to abjure their religion, under promise of life, and afterward enjoy the satisfaction of murdering them by inches under his dagger.[1376]

Had Coconnas and La Mole been persons more entitled to our respect, we might have pitied their misfortune in falling into the hands of a royal commission with whom the evidence of the guilt of the prisoners was apparently of less weight than the desire to gratify the court by their condemnation. The first president of parliament, Christopher de Thou, again headed the commission. The same pliant tool of despotism who had signed the death-warrant of Prince Louis of CondÉ, just before the sudden close of the brief reign of Francis the Second, and had congratulated Charles the Ninth, twelve years later, in the name of the judiciary of the kingdom, on the "piety" he had displayed in butchering his unoffending subjects, again obeyed with docility the instructions of his superiors, and suppressed those more generous sentiments, which, if we may credit his son's account, he secretly entertained.

Meantime the arrests and judicial proceedings at the capital did not delay the military enterprise in which the Huguenots and Malcontents were alike embarked. More fortunate than his cousin of Navarre, the Prince of CondÉ, chancing to be in Picardy at the outbreak of the pretended conspiracy of St. Germain, took ThorÉ's advice and fled out of the kingdom to Strasbourg.[1377] Himself free from the dangers encompassing his confederates in France, he was able to assist them materially by addressing personal solicitations to the German princes, and by superintending the levy of auxiliary troops.

The Huguenots were entering in good earnest upon the fifth religious war, and used their successes with such moderation as to conciliate even hostile populations. Their enemies, judging only from superficial indications, might wonder at their strange recuperative energies. Catharine might exclaim, in amazement at their progress and presumption, that "the Huguenots were like cats, for, in falling, they always alighted on their feet."[1378] But those who looked into the matter more closely saw that this was no mere accident. A contemporary writer, who is also a declared antagonist, praises their prudence and good conduct at the present juncture. "We must not be astonished," he remarks, "if in a short time the Protestants carry through such great repairs and so difficult to be believed. No sooner have they set foot in a place than they consider its position and deliberate as to what can be done to render it strong, or at least tenable. In all diligence they execute their decisions and enterprises, however great and difficult they may be, by the good order they practise and by a prompt obedience to the commands given them. So that I confess that they surpass us in prudence and conduct. Moreover, so soon as they are in a place, they appoint persons in whom they have the greatest confidence, to collect the king's revenues, as well as the income of the ecclesiastics and of those bearing arms against them, without regard for any save the gentilhommes. Their receipts are faithfully applied to the benefit of their cause, and they know how to employ these sums so well, that with little money they carry on great enterprises. So far as possible they relieve the poor husbandmen. In this they conform to the fashion of the Indians, who, in time of war, do not injure the laborers, their families, their beasts of burden, and the implements used in cultivating the earth, but abstain from burning their houses and villages, and leave them in peace, deeming the tillers of the ground to be ministers of the common weal and the nursing fathers of the other estates.[1379] ... If necessity constrain them to make use of the husbandmen, they bring them to it as freely and graciously as possible, more by fair words than by force, employing caresses, and meantime protecting their cattle, their harvests, and all their property. When marching through the country, without indulging in insolence, abusive language, or plunder, they eat what they find in the houses, and keep their soldiers under good control. They instantly establish in the places they hold a council of the most capable and experienced persons.... This they convene daily and for so long a time as their affairs demand, and here they listen to the complaints made to them, whether by word of mouth or by written petition, and answer as well as they can to the satisfaction of the plaintiffs."[1380]

About the same time that CondÉ was leaving France for Germany, another Huguenot leader was entering it from the opposite quarter. Count Montgomery, who from England had come to the island of Jersey, suddenly made his appearance in western Normandy. In this province the Huguenots had lately made themselves masters of the important town of Saint LÔ, as well as of Domfront on the borders of the province of Maine.[1381] To these gains Montgomery soon added Carentan, an important point on the north, which he took care to provision. He seemed likely, indeed, to bring all this extensive territory under the power of the Protestants. His brilliant career was, however, destined to be very brief. The royal forces sent against him under Matignon were strong, his own troops were few. From Saint LÔ, where he was besieged, he succeeded by a bold dash in escaping with a small company of horse; but at Domfront, whither he betook himself in hope of receiving reinforcements from the south, his manly defence availed nothing. Against an army of four thousand foot and one thousand horse, besides a large number of Roman Catholic gentlemen serving at their own charges, the little band of not over ninety arquebusiers and fifty horse could offer no protracted resistance. Domfront, strong in itself, was commanded by neighboring heights, and the walls, through long neglect, had become so weak that they crumbled and fell at the very first cannonade. Montgomery, deserted by some of his soldiers and enfeebled by the loss of others, was compelled to surrender to the besieging army. The story was current that he had received a pledge of life and liberty at the hands of Matignon.[1382] But Agrippa d'AubignÉ is undoubtedly correct in declaring that the report was a mistaken one, and that Montgomery barely received the assurance that he would be placed in the hands of the king alone. "There have been only too many acts of perfidy in France, without the invention of others," says this historian. "If there were any infractions of the capitulation, they were in the case of some other gentlemen and soldiers, who were maltreated or slain."[1383]

There was one person to whom the capture of Count Montgomery was peculiarly gratifying. Catharine de' Medici had never forgotten the murderous wound Montgomery's lance had inflicted upon her husband in the rough tournament held in honor of Isabella's nuptials. True, the count had entered the lists with Henry only by the king's express command, and the fatal effects of the blow that shattered Henry's visor and drove the splintered stock into his eye, were due to no malicious intent. Nevertheless, Montgomery was never sincerely forgiven; and when the slayer of the father was captured fighting against the son, Catharine resolved that no considerations of pity should prevent his expiating his unintended crime. Nor was the Roman Catholic party loth to see summary punishment inflicted upon Montgomery in revenge for the blow he had struck the "noblesse" of BÉarn and the frightful slaughter of their partisans he had authorized, five years before, during the third civil war, at the storming of Orthez.[1384] On the other hand, the Parisian populace was excited by the revival of the false rumor already referred to, that Count Montgomery, glorying in the mischance whereby France was robbed of her king, had substituted for his ancestral coat of arms a novel escutcheon of his own device, whereon was figured a broken lance.[1385] It need not surprise us, therefore, that though guiltless of any crime of which the law of even that cruel age ordinarily took cognizance, the Huguenot leader, after being placed on the rack in the vain attempt to obtain from him admissions criminating his associates, was condemned, as a traitor found in arms against his king, to be beheaded and quartered, on the Place de GrÈve, on the twenty-sixth of June, 1574.

Both enemies and friends unite in testifying to the fortitude with which Count Montgomery underwent the execution of his severe sentence. Roman Catholic writers, indeed, hint that he may have received profit from the ministrations of five or six theological doctors, to whom they represent him as gladly listening.[1386] But Protestant historians give us a circumstantial account that seems better entitled to credit, and leaves no room for doubt that Gabriel de Montgomery died constant to the faith which he had embraced in his retirement, after the death of Henry the Second. He refused to confess to the famous Vigor, Archbishop of Narbonne, and would neither kiss the crucifix offered to him by the priest who rode with him in the tumbrel, nor listen to his words, nor even look at him. To a Gray Friar, who attempted to convince him that he was in error and had been deceived, he replied: "How deceived? If I have been deceived, it was by members of your own order; for the first person that ever gave me a Bible in French, and bade me read it, was a Franciscan like yourself. And therein I learned the religion that I now hold, which is the only true religion. Having lived in it ever since, I wish, by the grace of God, to die in it to-day." On the scaffold, after a touching address to the spectators, he recited in a loud voice the Apostles' Creed, in the confession of which he protested that he died, and then, "having made his prayer to God after the manner of those of the (reformed) religion,"[1387] manfully offered his neck to the executioner's sword.[1388]

But the scene just described belongs strictly to the reign of the next French monarch. The capture of Montgomery at Domfront had been followed, within three days, by the death of the young king against whom the count had been fighting.

It is difficult to determine the exact proportions in which physical weakness and remorse for the past entered as ingredients of the malady that cut short the life of Charles the Ninth. It may not be prudent to accept implicitly all the stories told by contemporaries respecting the wretched fancies to which the king became a victim. But it would be carrying historical scepticism to the very verge of absurdity to reject the whole series of reports that come down to us respecting the strange hallucinations of Charles during the last months of his life. De Thou, perhaps the most candid and dispassionate historian of the period, has left the statement on record that, ever since St. Bartholomew's Day, Charles, who at no time slept well, used frequently to have his rest broken by the sudden recollection of its dreadful scenes. To lull him to repose, his attendants had no resource but singing, the king being passionately fond of music and of poetry.[1389] Agrippa d'AubignÉ corroborates the statement, adding, on the authority of high noblemen who had been present, that the king would awake trembling and groaning, and that his agitation was sure to find expression in frightful imprecations and words expressive of utter despair.[1390]

With the growing certainty of his approaching death, the mental distress of Charles proportionately increased. His old Huguenot nurse, to whom he talked without reserve, was the witness of the startling conflict through which he was passing in his last hours. While sitting near his bedside on one occasion, she was suddenly recalled from a revery by the sound of the sighs and sobs of the royal patient. To her solicitous questions as to the cause of his distress, she received the most piteous exclamations, interrupted by weeping: "Ah, my nurse, my friend, how much blood! how many murders! Ah, what wicked counsels have I had! My God, have pity upon me and pardon me! I know not where I am; so perplexed and agitated have they made me. What will become of me? What shall I do? I am lost; I know it full well." The pious attendant's earnest exhortations and consoling words had little effect in dispelling the gloom that had settled on the termination of a life so auspiciously begun. She might pray, in his hearing, that the blood of the murdered Huguenots might be on the heads of those who gave the young king such treacherous advice. She might encourage and urge him to rest in the confidence that, in view of his penitence, God would not impute to him his crime, but cover him with the mantle of Christ's righteousness.[1391] Her words had little power to dissipate his extreme despondency.

For months the life of Charles had been despaired of. Now he was visibly dying. The news of the capture of Montgomery, which his mother came to announce to him with a delight she neither was able nor anxious to hide, brought him no pleasure. He had, he said, ceased to care for these things. Meanwhile, Catharine, if not altogether devoid of natural affection—if not experiencing unmingled satisfaction at the prospect that the sceptre was likely to pass into the hands of her favorite son, the King of Poland—at least took care to provide for the contingency of Charles's speedy death, by obtaining, on the twenty-ninth of May, letters to the governors of provinces, and the next day the more authoritative letters patent conferring upon her the regency until the return of Henry from Poland.[1392] More sincere in her sorrow, the young Queen Elizabeth, Charles's wife, endeavored to ward off the stroke of Heaven by solemn processions. For nine successive days, laying aside all tokens of her royal rank, simply clad, and with uncovered face, she walked barefooted, and accompanied by a large number of poor boys and girls, from the wood of Vincennes, where the court still lingered, to the city of Paris. After devoutly praying for the king's recovery at the Sainte-Chapelle and at the shrine of Notre Dame, she returned from her pilgrimage in the same painful and humble manner, her ladies and the officers of her court following at a respectful distance.[1393]

Upon Sorbin, the king's confessor, devolved the duty of administering to Charles the last rites of religion—Sorbin, who was accustomed to speak of the perfidy and cruelty of the massacre as true magnanimity and gentleness. It has been well remarked that, in all the dark drama of guilt and retribution upon which the curtain was about to fall, no part is more tragic than the scene in which the last words preparing the soul for judgment were spoken by such a confessor as Sorbin to such a penitent as Charles.[1394] Under such spiritual guidance the unhappy boy-king may possibly have expressed the sentiment which the priest ascribes to him at the hour of death: that his greatest regret was that he had not seen the Reformation wholly crushed.[1395]

On Sunday, May the thirtieth, 1574, the festival of Pentecost, Charles died, late in the afternoon.[1396] Almost his last words had been of congratulation that he left no son to inherit the throne, since he knew very well that France had need of a man, and that under a child both king and kingdom were wretched.[1397]

The general usage was not violated in the present instance. Charles, like a host of prominent princes and statesmen of the sixteenth century, was currently reported to have fallen a victim to the poisoner's art, then in its prime. Nor did the examination made after his death, though clearly proving that the event had a natural cause, suffice to clear away the unhappy impression.[1398] The Huguenots had, perhaps, more reason than others to regard the circumstances attending it as strange, if not miraculous. That the king, whose guilty acquiescence in the murderous scheme of Catharine, Anjou, and Guise, had deluged his realm in blood, should himself have perished of a malady that caused blood to exude from every pore in his body,[1399] was certainly sufficiently singular to arrest the attention of the world. The phenomenon has been shown beyond all question to have many parallels in the annals of medicine.[1400] But the coincidence was so remarkable that we scarcely wonder that, in the eyes of many, it partook of a supernatural character.

Thus perished, in the twenty-fourth year of his age, a prince whom fair natural endowments seemed to have destined to play a creditable, if not a resplendent part in the history of his period; but whom the evil counsels and examples of his mother, and the corrupt education which, designedly or through an unfortunate accident, she had given him, had so depraved, that his morals were regarded with disgust and reprobation by an age by no means scrupulously pure.[1401]

The forty days' funeral rites were performed in honor of the deceased king with all the detail of pomp customary on such occasions. For forty days, on a bed of cloth of gold, lay in state the life-like effigy of Charles of Valois, dressed in crimson and blue satin, and in ermine, with a jewelled crown upon its head, and with sceptre and other emblems of royalty at its side. For forty days the service of the king's table remained unchanged, and the pleasing fiction was maintained that the monarch was yet alive. The gentlemen in waiting, the cupbearer, the pantler, the carver, and all the retinue of servants who, as in feudal times, appeared at the royal meals, discharged each his appointed office with punctilious precision. Courses of viands were brought on in regular succession, and as regularly removed from the board. A cardinal or prelate blessed the table before the empty show of a meal, and rendered thanks at its conclusion. Only at the close, by the sad repetition of the De profundis, and other psalms appropriate to funeral occasions, did the pageant differ materially from many a scene of convivial entertainment in which Charles had taken part. When the prescribed term of waiting was at length over, the miserable show ended, the effigy was replaced by the bier, funeral decorations took the place of festive emblems, and the body of the late king was laid in its last resting-place.[1402]

The courtiers had already turned their eyes from the dead monarch to the successor whose speedy return from Poland all eagerly awaited. Henry the Third had already precipitately fled from Cracow, and was on his way to assume his ancestral throne. He was to find the kingdom plunged in disquiet, a prey to internal discord fostered by foreign princes. Neither Huguenot nor Roman Catholic was satisfied. A full half-century from the first promulgation of the reformed doctrines by LefÈvre d'Étaples found the friends of the purer faith more resolute than ever in its assertion, despite fire, massacre, and open warfare. No candid beholder could deny that the system of persecution had thus far proved an utter failure. It remained to be seen whether the new king would choose to repeat a dangerous experiment.