HENRY III AND THE POLITIQUES. THE PEACE OF MONSIEUR (1576)

The attention of Europe was fixed upon France by these events. What was going to happen in the absence of the heir to the throne? Would a frightful wave of retaliatory vengeance for the massacre of St. Bartholomew and the process of Vincennes sweep over the land? These were the questions that were asked, not only everywhere in France, but in many quarters of Europe. The Tuscan ambassador wrote that the chÂteaux of the Montmorencys were filled with provisions and munitions of war.[1657]

The Politiques, as a class, being imbued with Hotman’s teachings in the Franco-Gallia, inveighed against Catherine for having assumed the regency without consent of the estates. They and the political Huguenots were at one, and demanded searching reform. It was their hope to prevail upon the queen mother to come to a definite agreement before the arrival of Henry III in France, in the expectation that the King upon his arrival would find it expedient to accept it. They demanded the reorganization of justice and the army; they condemned the alienation of the crown lands, increase of the tithe, and the new taxes; they insisted upon an examination of the accounts of those who had managed the public finances and the royal revenue, this investigation to include not only the ministers who had enriched themselves, but also the superintendents of finance from Henry II down to the present time, not excepting the cardinal of Lorraine. They demanded the expulsion of the “foreigners,” naming the chancellor Biragues, the marshal de Retz, and the duke of Nevers who were all Italians. They hated the Guises as a foreign house and quasi-German.[1658]

It was high time for some sort of settlement. The country was crying out against the thieves and brigands, who frequented the roads in great numbers under the guise of war and pretended to be in the service of the King.[1659]

But Catherine refused to deal with any matter of state until the arrival of the King. She showed an almost feverish anxiety for her son’s coming, fearing that the duke of AlenÇon would be put forward for the crown by the Politiques.[1660] In Germany, at the same time, the Orange party, with the aid of Schomberg, labored to promote the cause of the Politiques and liberal Huguenots, and in September a deputation came from the count palatine to urge the cause of toleration in France.[1661] But it was slow and hard work, for as La Noue had bitterly said the year before: “The iron of the German nation was heavy and hard to work; it was silver that made things move.”[1662] Moreover, the agents of Spain and the Guises were encountered at every turn.

In the meantime Henry III had left Cracow on June 16, running away from his kingdom like a thief in the night,[1663] and came home by way of Italy, via Venice, where he was extravagantly entertained by the senate,[1664] Ferrara (July 29), Mirandola, Mantua, and Turin, which he left on August 28, and arrived at Lyons on September 6.[1665] Catherine, who showed great impatience, met him there (she arrived at Lyons on August 27). So fearful was she lest AlenÇon and Henry of Navarre would escape that the young princes had traveled in the coach with her.[1666] The procession moved as if through a hostile country by way of Burgundy and Chalons-sur-SaÔne, some of the guard marching in advance, the rest bringing up the rear. “Marshal de Retz was always on the wing of her. Some of the guard marched two leagues before and some two leagues after.”[1667]

Those who were at all optimistic had clung to the belief, until the development of events shattered their hopes, that Henry III would endeavor to pacify his subjects, arguing that if he were inclined to war, he would not have refused the assistance proffered him in Italy of men and money, and that the French crown could not further hazard the reduction of the kingdom piecemeal.[1668] Damville had met the King at Turin, having come there under a safe-conduct of the duke of Savoy, to persuade Henry III to adopt a conciliatory policy, which he at first inclined to follow.

But the moment he came under the sinister influence of Catherine de Medici, he cast this prudent advice to the winds. It was she who dissuaded him from what was wisely counseled[1669] and in advance of his arrival had made military preparations to resume the war by importing Swiss mercenaries and German reiters again.[1670] Accordingly, instead of extending the olive branch, the King expressed his determination to wage unremitting war upon the Huguenots and Politiques rather than grant the demands they made. The deputies of La Rochelle who came to Lyons, requesting a surcease of arms, were repulsed by the King and told it was but a scheme of the Huguenots to gain time for preparation. The establishment of three camps was ordered, one in DauphinÉ, the second in Provence and Languedoc, and the third in Poitou. At the same time Schomberg and Fregoso were sent into Germany for assistance.[1671]

When Henry III definitely resolved to follow out a policy of suppression Damville was summoned to Lyons to answer for his governorship. It was a fatal blunder on the part of the King, for the action of the crown hardened the tentative co-operation of the Protestants and the Politiques into a positive alliance. At Milhau, in August, 1574 the Protestants recognized Damville, while he in turn admitted their leaders into his council. The form of government established at Montauban the year before acquired new strength and greater extent. Provincial and general assemblies were formed without distinction between Protestants and Politiques, upon the basis of mutual toleration; in places where the two creeds obtained each side promised to observe the peace and Damville engaged not to introduce the Catholic religion in any town of which the Huguenots were masters.

The men who took this step justified it by alleging that a foreign faction had acquired control over the sovereign; that it was destroying the kingdom, the nobles, the princes of the blood, and with them the very institutions and civilization of France; and that it was their hope to arrest this process. The programme of the Huguenot-Politique party, in addition to complete religious toleration, insisted upon the abolition of the practice of selling offices, the convocation of the States-General, the reduction of the taxes. In this demand they were supported by the provincial states of DauphinÉ, Provence, and Burgundy. The confessional idea was deliberately kept in the background. Men no longer talked of a war of religion, but of a “Guerre du Bien Public” as in the reign of Louis XI.

With the nobles Damville’s was a name to conjure with. A large portion of the Catholic nobility, who for a long time had been severely reproached for not seriously opposing the Huguenots, sympathized with his attitude. If the bench and bar of France was strongly attached to the principles of the Catholic religion, the nobility who were hereditary enemies of the legists, whose teachings had for three centuries tended to abridge their feudal rights, out of sheer self-interest, aside from any other motives, now inclined toward the Calvinists. Only radical Calvinists, like Du Plessis-Mornay, opposed the union and were bitter in denunciation of the overtures made by their more moderate brethren, notably La Noue, to Damville and the Politiques.[1672]

A royal edict let the Huguenots understand what was to be expected. The King’s determination was to clear the valley of the Rhone from Lyons to Avignon with the aid of the Swiss and then to subdue Languedoc on the one side and DauphinÉ on the other. Such a plan was more bold than practicable, and Henry was likely to find it too hard to accomplish, especially by winter sieges. The Protestants had fortified themselves in Livron on the left bank of the Rhone and at Pouzin across the river, which was inaccessible except by one approach and then only four men could advance abreast.

But there was another matter, the difficulty of which Henry III underestimated, namely the army. The Protestants were so entrenched in their strongholds as to make the use of horsemen against them impracticable. The Swiss were low-class mercenaries, good as ordinary footmen but useless for a siege. Moreover, all of them, reiters and Swiss, were not disposed to move unless they saw their pay in their hands and were utter strangers to discipline, wasting the country “to make a Christian man’s heart bleed.”[1673] In one case the wretched peasantry followed their despoilers to the confines of Lyons and fell upon them in desperation, recovering what had been taken from them. What did the King do? He actually had to punish these wretched subjects of his in order to retain the services of the reiters at all!

Yet the King for a moment showed some of the old fire he displayed at Moncontour and amazed the Protestants by taking Pouzin after three weeks of siege. The victory was marred, though, by the shameful conduct of the Swiss, the reiters, and the Italians in the royal army, who sacked and burned it. Much the same state of things prevailed wherever these riotous plunderers penetrated—in Picardy, in Champagne, in Poitou. But Henry III having reached Avignon, discovered that he was no better off for his success. Meanwhile Damville, with whom the duke of Savoy had honorably dealt, returned from Turin, and reached the vicinity of Montpellier and Beaucaire before the King was aware of it.[1674]

When the King sent the cardinal of Bourbon to talk with him, Damville sent back word that he thought the example of his brother “too dangerous to come to court where they who sought the ruin of his house had too much credit,”[1675] and advised the King to remove the strangers within his gates, meaning Biragues and De Retz.[1676] Henry III could accomplish nothing at Avignon and yet knew not how to get away. He could not go up-river on account of the current. The Huguenots at Livron barred the road on the left bank; Montbrun was in the hills in Auvergne; La Noue’s men were stopping the King’s post daily and Damville controlled Provence and Languedoc; La Haye, King’s lieutenant in the sÉnÉ-chaussÉe of Poitou seceded to the Politiques.[1677] Vivarais declared its neutrality and refused to side with King or Politiques. The people of Tulle refused to pay taxes either to Catholics or Protestants until overpowered by the latter, and thus the country continued to endure a war which it hated. Henry truly was in a plight. He was without money, too, and could not hope to get any so far from Paris. He even feared that the soldiery with him might be bribed to desert.[1678] To crown the royal anxiety Damville’s declaration was so public and so bold that the King feared that foreign aid would soon be forthcoming in the Protestant service. The fear was not without ground. For the marshal actually proposed to make a league with the Sultan and introduce a Turkish fleet into the harbor of Aigues-Mortes.[1679] Coupled with this possibility was a projected enterprise against Spain in Franche-ComtÉ in which the Huguenots of Champagne and Burgundy were interested, but which was primarily the project of the elector palatine and the prince of Orange.[1680]

It is a significant fact that the war has now lost almost all confessional character and become a factional conflict between the rival houses of Guise and Montmorency. Catholicism and political corruption on the one hand were opposed to administrative reform and religious toleration. After the creation of the Politique party, the Huguenots of state had merged with them. Except in the case of radical Calvinists and bigoted Catholics, religion had become a minor issue with the French unless it were artificially exaggerated.[1681] It was a mortal enmity on either side, and one which there was slight hope of settling. The hostility of the Guises and the Montmorencys was the real seed of the civil war.[1682] It depended upon the individual in almost every case whether his participation one way or the other was motived by convictions as to the public good or by private interests. The number of those who directly or indirectly were attached to the warring houses almost divided the realm between them and the wretched people were badly treated by both parties.[1683] So widespread and deep rooted was this mutual enmity throughout France, that the Venetian ambassador, no mean observer, wondered when it would end, because it was to the interest of each to sustain it. The King was a shuttlecock in this game of political battledore. The ruin of the crown, instead of being feared by them, was regarded as a possible way to give their enmity freer rein. Each party counted not only upon paying its debts, which were enormous, by victory, but in establishing the power of its house more permanently than ever for the future. While the war cost the King and the country Écus par milliers, it cost them nothing, at least of their own. The weakness of the crown was the strength of the rivals. They fattened on war, for peace deprived them of their authority, their power, and their partisans. Until one or the other faction was crushed, the hostility was certain to endure, and thus the war seemed doomed to last indefinitely. If, as the result of fatigue or a truce, a respite was made, the time was brief, and was terminated as soon as one or the other side had accumulated some substance again. The only remedy for such a state of affairs was to be found in a foreign war, either in Flanders or Italy.[1684]

The union of the Huguenots and the Politiques made them very strong, especially in the south. But on the other hand the duke of Guise received much assistance from Flanders. When the successor of Alva, Requesens, learned of the death of Charles IX, he had offered the aid of Spanish troops to Catherine de Medici.[1685] Although the proffer was declined, the practical result was the same, for owing to lack of pay in the Low Countries, thousands of reiters and Walloon and German footmen flocked across the border in the summer and autumn, where they were welcomed by the duke of Guise, who, somewhere and somehow, found the means to pay them.[1686] But below the stratum of professional soldiers in France there was another class in arms which feudal society was not used to see in such a capacity. This was the people; not town militia, for town and provincial leagues had made men familiar with them, but the peasantry. The protracted wars by economically ruining and morally debauching this class had generated a breed of men who sprang from the soil like the dragon’s teeth of Greek fable, men who by observation and practice were used to the matchlock and the sword, brutalized by oppression, long made desperate by burdensome taxes and the wrongs of war.[1687]

The weariness of vigil in the depth of winter and overconfidence seem to have relaxed the alertness of Henry III’s foes. At any rate, having extorted 50,000 francs from the noblemen and gentlemen in his train in order to pay the soldiery around him, the King, raising the siege of Livron on January 24, 1575, managed to slip through the defiles to Rheims for his coronation. The coronation was a triumph of the Guises. For far from being set back by the death of the cardinal of Lorraine on December 29, at Avignon[1688] their star seemed to be higher than before. The cardinal of Guise took the place of his deceased uncle as primate of Rheims; the duke of Guise was grand chamberlain; and the duke of Mayenne and the marquis d’Elboeuf were the chief lay peers. The sole outsider was De Retz who officiated as constable for the occasion. The crowning took place on February 15. Shortly after the event, apparently in a sudden whim of passion, Henry III married Louise de Vaudmont, whose father was uncle of the duke of Lorraine and whose mother had been sister of the unfortunate Egmont. But the marriage was without political significance—indeed the new queen was of so little station that Catherine de Medici, in a letter to Queen Elizabeth, expressed her humiliation at her son’s marriage.[1689]

The main issues of France, religious toleration and political reform, were now more obscured than ever by the rivalry of the factions around the throne. The queen mother bore the Guises greater hatred than before because of their new ascendency and had little less spleen toward the Montmorencys, but carefully dissimulated and sought on one pretext and another to remove them from around her son. For this purpose Bellegarde, who was an old attachÉ of the house of Montmorency and owed his popularity with the King to a handsome face and a well-turned leg, was made a special ambassador to Poland in order to get him out of the way. His comrade on the mission was Elboeuf—an ill-matched pair indeed. Their business was to carry 200,000 crowns of the Paris bourgeois to Poland to bribe the Polish diet not to elect a successor to the absent Henry. If the Poles were obdurate, Elboeuf was to advocate the election of the duke of Ferrara, who had Guisard blood in his veins. At the same time Biron and Matignon were made marshals to counterpoise the influence of De Retz who forthwith resigned his office and vowed he would “meddle no more.” There were heart-burnings, also, over the bestowal of the government of Normandy, vacated by the death of the duke of Bouillon. The duke of Nevers claimed that it had been promised him while in Poland; the duchess of Nemours demanded the post for the duke and declared that Nevers was “a foreigner.” Henry III finally sought to compromise by giving the office to his insignificant father-in-law, whereupon the duke of Nevers quit the court in a rage. Squabbles of precedence, too, vexed the King’s mind. Montpensier challenged the claims of the Guises to court precedence before the Parlement, and Madame de Nemours therefore quarreled with her daughter. “They were all bent to preparations of war,” quaintly wrote Dale to Walsingham, “but these domestic discords do tame them. It is a very hell among them, not one content or in quiet with another, nor mother with son, nor brother with brother, nor mother with daughter.”[1690]

The state of the finances was deplorable, and Henry resorted to various devices to provide himself with funds. The mission of Elboeuf and Bellegarde to Poland was delayed, while the King implored the Pope, the duke of Savoy, and Venice for the money needed;[1691] the pay of the King’s household servants was nine months in arrears and the last money wages of his guards had been paid by an assessment levied by the King upon the noblemen and gentlemen of the court. Paris, as usual, was heavily mulcted by a forced loan of 600,000 francs, besides heavy contributions extorted from the foreign merchants there. But the mass of the money had to come from the church lands. A letter-patent in the form of an edict was forced through the Parlement authorizing the alienation of 200,000 livres de rente of the temporalities of the clergy, the King reckoning to raise a million and a half of francs by the process, but few were ready purchasers. In addition to these practices the “parties casuelles” were farmed to a Florentine money-broker named Diaceto for 60,000 francs per month. Henry III resorted to worse expedients than these, though. He sold four seats in his council for 15,000 livres each; forced the collectors of the revenue to anticipate the revenue for a twelve-month and then dispossessed them of their posts after he had deprived them of the profits thereof and sold them to others; and dilapidated the forest domain by selling two trees in each arpent.[1692]

The position and conduct of Damville afforded the greatest hope for the future if Henry III could have been made to see things in the right way. Damville himself dominated all Languedoc and Provence; his lieutenant, Montbrun, controlled DauphinÉ; Turenne was in possession of Auvergne; the Rochellois had agents at court seeking for a firm settlement of affairs; even the cardinal Bourbon and the duke of Montpensier leaned to the side of the Politiques. In 1575 the existence of the old party of Huguenots, the Huguenots of religion, was practically at an end. Individual radical Calvinists there were in plenty but the Protestant organization was that of the political Huguenots.

It was manifest by the spring of 1575 that the prince of CondÉ and Henry of Navarre on the one hand, and Damville and his brother, together with AlenÇon, were bound to join hands in the common purpose to establish permanent religious and greater civil liberty in France. “Liberty and reform” was the policy of the hour, if not the watchword. The declaration of the assembly of Milhau in August of the previous year had been the handwriting on the wall—a message which the misguided Henry III obdurately refused to read. On April 25, 1575, that message was repeated in even clearer terms in the form of a manifesto issued by Damville which defined the joint policy of the Politiques and the political Huguenots. It was the declaration of a patriot, and not a partisan, least of all a rebel, who, like Cromwell, found himself compelled to lead a movement for political reform against an obstinate crown that either would not or could not understand the issues.[1693]

Reading between the lines of the constitution agreed upon at NÎmes, the republican nature of the government therein provided for is noticeable.[1694] The right to exercise the sovereign rights of legislation, of justice, of taxation, of making war and peace, of regulating commerce no longer were vested in the King where the Act of Union prevailed, but in a representative body. Languedoc, Provence, and DauphinÉ were de facto independent of the crown.[1695] Supplementary articles of CondÉ and Damville, and of the Catholics and Protestants of Languedoc, Provence, and DauphinÉ demanded (1) that freedom of exercise of religion without distinction be permitted; (2) that the parlements should be composed half of Catholics, and half of Protestants, the latter to be nominated by the prince of CondÉ; (3) that justice be done upon the authors of the massacre of St. Bartholomew and the forfeit and attainder of the admiral be reversed; (4) that the places at present held by the Huguenots be retained besides Boulogne and La CharitÉ, and that for additional defense the King should give them in each province two out of three towns to be named to him by the prince of CondÉ; (5) that the King pay 200,000 crowns for expenses of the war; (6) that neither the marshal de Retz, nor the chancellor Biragues should have any part in the negotiations for peace; (7) that the duke of Montmorency and the marshal CossÉ should be set at liberty, and their innocence declared in full Parlement “en robe rouge;” (8) that the heirs of those who have been murdered should have their estates returned to them; (9) that the queen of England, the elector palatine, and the dukes of Savoy and Deuxponts should be parties to the peace; (10) that within three months after peace the States-General be assembled to establish good order in France.[1696]

For a while there seemed to be a prospect of the King yielding to these demands. He was growing jealous of the influence of the Guises, and began to perceive that coercion was impossible.[1697] At the first audience Henry received the deputies graciously, saying he “liked their speech, but their articles were hard.” The articles were debated seriatim by the King, both with the deputies and with the council. The chief hitch was upon the fourth demand. The King was willing to permit exercise of Protestant worship in one town in each bailiwick, except closed towns, whereas the deputies demanded freedom of worship in all places in the suburbs as provided by the Edict of January. As a matter of prudence, it would seem to have been better policy for the crown to permit worship in the suburbs of all towns rather than exact a provision requiring concentration of the Protestants in one place in each bailiwick; however, the King probably thought Calvinism would be less likely to spread under such a restriction than if the Huguenots enjoyed numerous places of worship.[1698] The queen mother sought to persuade Montmorency to use his influence to abate the demands with promise of release from the Bastille as his reward. But the duke replied that “if his imprisonment might do the King pleasure or profit he was content to be there all his life; but to meddle in the peace, or to write of that matter, never understanding their doings, were to make himself guilty in it, and to be thought to make himself to be an instrument to their ruin, and therefore it were ill for him.”[1699] Thereupon Henry III broke off the negotiations hoping still, as earlier, to be able to separate the Huguenots and the united Catholics.

Events thereafter thickened rapidly. Narbonne, Perigueux, and Tournon in Lyonnais were taken by the Huguenot-Politique armies. The last place was got by Damville himself. Tournon was an especially strong town on the Rhone about three leagues from Valence, with Livron to the south of it. The capture so discouraged the duke d’Uzes that he requested leave to resign on account of the desertions among his following.[1700] Instead command was given him, “to spoil Languedoc in order to famish them against winter.” But the duke was too wise to obey and Damville was permitted to gather in the harvest without molestation. For if the King had tried ravaging, the whole country would have risen against him. St. Jean-d’AngÉly, AngoulÊme, and NÉrac revolted so far as to expel the garrisons in the town. In Burgundy, where Tavannes had founded the League of the Holy Spirit, a Politique league was formed.[1701] The narrow escape Damville had at this time from death by poison drew men more than ever to him. As a climax to the woes of Henry III on July 15, 1575, the Polish diet declared the throne vacant, absolving all from allegiance to him.[1702]

The spontaneous nature of the rising of the country in the summer of 1575 is an interesting historical phenomenon. It was by no means confined to the south of France. In Champagne, the nobles, some of them vassals of Guise, and peasants united to fall upon the reiters. Madame de Guise fled from Joinville in fear of being surprised by a sixteenth-century Jacquerie. In Brittany there was a similar stir when the King attempted to confiscate the extensive lands of the duke of Rohan upon his death. Certain things remind one of happenings in the French Revolution. Many in Champagne left the land and went into the borders of Germany like the “ÉmigrÉs” after August 4, 1789. In Paris there were house-to-house visits not unlike those of September, 1793. There was universal feeling against the reiters. In Normandy an association of gentlemen was formed for the special purpose of protecting the country from them.[1703]

The anxiety of the government was all the greater because it was not exactly known what relations existed between the Huguenots and Politiques and the English. The treaty which had obtained between Charles IX and Elizabeth was renewed by the latter on April 1, 1575, and confirmed by Henry III on May 4.[1704] But Elizabeth was not the person to be bound by official word. On the Picardy-Flemish border mutual distrust prevailed. In December, 1574, Requesens had advised Philip II of his fear of the renewal of Huguenot activity in the Low Countries, which had been dead since the Genlis disaster,[1705] and the garrisons on the frontiers had been increased accordingly. The marriage of Henry III to Louise de Vaudemont gave the Spanish governor great inquietude, for the unfortunate Egmont was her uncle, and Egmont’s eldest son, in March, visited his royal cousin of France.[1706] Requesens was apprehensive, too, of a marriage between the duke of AlenÇon and the daughter of William of Orange,[1707] and over the fact that the French envoy in Flanders, the sieur de Mondoucet, prudently avoided using the official post, but employed his own couriers in dispatching missives to Paris.[1708] “All the neighboring states are actuated by malicious intentions,” he wailed to Philip II. “The French and the English are in correspondence, and both are inspired by the same spirit of hostility against the Catholic religion and against your majesty, as the sole protector thereof.”[1709]

The arrest of a secretary of Montmorency at Boulogne in March, as he arrived from England, and who admitted he was going to find Damville,[1710] coupled with the absence of the prince of CondÉ and Charles de Meru, the youngest Montmorency, in Germany, so disquieted the King that early in June Schomberg was dispatched across the Rhine to discover what CondÉ was doing; if he found that levies of cavalry were being made for service in France, he was instructed to enroll 8,000 soldiers for the service of the King.

Schomberg proved a good agent, for he shortly afterward wrote that he believed a secret engagement existed between Queen Elizabeth, some of the German princes, and the enemies of the French King at home; and that CondÉ, having expended 30,000 crowns, had raised 8,000 cavalry which might be expected to arrive at the frontier by the middle of August, although it was given out, and believed by some, that these reiters were intended for service in the Netherlands.[1711] On the strength of these suspicions, especially when the duke of Guise sent word in the first week of September that 2,500 reiters had crossed the Rhine, the English ambassador, Dr. Dale, who hitherto had lodged in the Faubourg St. Germain, was advised to remove into the city, ostensibly for his greater security, but really to prevent him from receiving unknown persons secretly at night, as was possible where he resided.[1712]

At this juncture, when everything was tense and everybody was on edge, the duke of AlenÇon managed to make his escape from the court (September 15). While not actually confined, like the duke of Montmorency, he and Henry of Navarre had both been kept under continuous surveillance for months and various efforts made by them to get away had failed. Dismay prevailed at court when the escape was known. The King was “as a man out of courage,” and betook himself to extravagant religious demonstration, as before, when at Avignon, “going from church, as though deserted by all his people.”[1713] He knew that his brother’s presence would draw many of the gentry, who were yet hesitating, to the ranks of the Politiques.[1714] He had no means to levy an army, nor the resources to sustain it.

In this crisis Catherine de Medici kept the clearest head of all at the court. While she sought to wheedle the runaway prince with smooth words, going as far as Dreux to meet him, detachments were ordered out from Rouen, Orleans, and Chartres to surround him. But AlenÇon was not to be trapped and rode swiftly off toward the Loire in the hope of falling in with La Noue or the viscount of Turenne. At the same time the duke of Guise was ordered to make a vigorous resistance against the coming of CondÉ’s reiters. But even his army was in a bad state on account of the defection of officers and men, who had gone over to AlenÇon, so that new troops had to be sent him.[1715] Almost all the soldiery in the service of the King was withdrawn from DauphinÉ and Languedoc and concentrated in Burgundy and Champagne.[1716] Much depended upon the result of the coming battle with the reiters. If the King’s troops were beaten, Paris would be in a serious strait between the King’s enemies. Already, in consequence of the withdrawal of troops, all Auvergne, Bourbonnais, Nivernais, GÂtinais, and the Beauce were in arms, and the gentlemen of these regions had gone over to the duke of AlenÇon. Only the vigilance of the garrisons at Orleans and Tours, Moulins and Nevers, enabled the crown to maintain the line of the Loire river.

The reiters attempted to evade Guise and find another way of entrance into France, so that the duke left his artillery in Lorraine and by forced marches went to Sedan, with the intention of giving battle there. But the reiters, about 2,500, under ThorÉ, avoided an engagement and maneuvered to join a Protestant force of 2,000 Picards, and Guise fell back on Rheims in order to hold the crossing of the Aisne, meantime asking the King for reinforcements which were so slow in coming that the duke was compelled to retire to the Marne. On October 9 he established his headquarters between ChÂteau-Thierry and Epernay, near Port-À-Pinson. The encounter took place near Fismes, on the Marne, above Dormans, on October 10. Not more than fifty were killed on either side and the combat did not deter the reiters from continuing their course and crossing the Seine near Nogent-sur-Seine, which they were able to do on account of low water. Their chief loss was of two or three cornets of reiters whom Guise bribed to desert. De ThorÉ owed his easy escape, however, to the serious wound which the duke of Guise sustained. For a bullet struck him in the side of the face, tearing his ear clear away and so mangling the cheek that he was fearfully scarred for the rest of his life and always wore a velvet mask.[1717]

The insignificance of the victory of the duke, however, did not deter the King from proclaiming a solemn procession and Te Deum in honor of the day. The “victory” also was made the justification of a new tax. On October 12, 1575, by command of the King, the burgesses of Paris assembled in the grand room of the HÔtel-de-Ville where the provost of the merchants, Charron, made known a new demand of the King for aid in the form of a capitation tax upon the burgesses of the city and other places in the prÉvÔtÉ of Paris for the payment of 3,000 Swiss, making half of the 6,000 which the King required for defense of the realm, in addition to the sum of 15,000 francs expected for each of the ensuing months.

Once again were the people of Champagne made the victims of the spoiler. All the horses of the poor laborers whom the reiters encountered on the road were forcibly seized, as was also the case in the hostelries where they lodged. A single parish lost thirty horses. The only payment the poor peasantry got was to be beaten for their protests.

For the space of three or four days one might see along the roads and in the villages soldiers all of the time, making for the crossing of the Seine at La Motte de Tilly. Two troopers rode one horse and their presence was hard upon the merchants and the priests, whom they met in the way. The smaller merchants were despoiled of their property, and those known to be wealthy had their riches extorted from them by force, or else were held prisoner until ransomed. To make matters worse, in the wake of the army came a rabble of looters and plunderers, mostly French.[1718]

It was obvious that as long as the reiters were in the field, the King could send no force against his brother. He blamed the queen mother for everything that had happened, especially for the escape of AlenÇon, and Catherine, by way of reply, is said to have sent him a copy of Commines to read with the advice to emulate the policy of his crafty predecessor. But as a contemporary scornfully observed, Henry of Valois was not Louis XI. What could be expected from a King who spent his time “going from abbey to abbey and devising with women.”[1719] In sorrow and anxiety, sustained by the dukes of Montmorency and Montpensier and the fine old marshal CossÉ, Catherine made earnest efforts to negotiate a truce with the duke of AlenÇon.

Prefacing his demands by the caution that he could not negotiate finally without CondÉ or Damville, AlenÇon demanded surrender of Pont-de-CÉ on the Loire, besides La CharitÉ, Bourges, AngoulÊme, Niort, Saumur, and Angers for the Huguenots; and MeziÈres in Champagne, Langres in Burgundy, or La FÈre in Picardy for the prince of CondÉ;[1720] a large settlement for himself; a promise that the States-General should be convened for the Politiques; the crown to pay 200,000 crowns to the Protestant reiters; the exercise of Calvinist worship in as ample terms as obtained in 1570 (till more fully provided for in the ultimate articles of peace); the revolted provinces to remain in arms, except in the case of mercenaries, it being understood that no acts of hostility be done and commerce and trade to be free during the interim. The King’s council, when these sweeping terms were laid before it, advised the King to yield, seeing no way out on account of lack of means to carry on the war. But Henry III was furious and threw the articles in the fire. In defiance of the advice of his friends, who told him to employ what few funds he had in corrupting the reiters with CondÉ, he sent 30,000 crowns more to Germany to purchase assistance.

In this strait, money came suddenly, as from heaven. The papal nuncio proffered 100,000 crowns at once and promised 200,000 more, while the Venetian government, in memory of his visit there in the year previous, made him a gift of his jewels that were in pawn. Finally, to crown the King’s jubilation at this sudden turn of events, word came from Germany that the reiters hired by Schomberg and Bassompierre were coming “and would not be stayed by the truce.” Henry III at once broke off negotiations. The hope was to sever AlenÇon from the prince of CondÉ and then, preferably by bribery, by war if necessary, overcome the latter, for Schomberg persuaded the King that this course was practicable. To this end commissioners were sent abroad to levy new taxes.[1721] Great ingenuity was shown in the devising of new forms of taxation. In June, 1575, two edicts had been issued, one requiring the fixing of new seals to bolts of woolen cloth and the establishment of a greffier des tailles in each parish;[1722] the other creating the office of four arpenteurs (land commissioners) in each jurisdiction of the realm. The number of notaries was also augmented.[1723] In December the King made a pretext of the coming of the reiters to demand a new subsidy from the pliant and obedient people of France, under cover of raising men for the war. Of the Parisians he demanded the sum of 200,000 livres, to pay three thousand Swiss. Another pretext was the repair of the bridge at Charenton, which the Huguenots had broken in 1567.[1724] These taxes fell all the more heavily because in addition to the ruin of the country by war, the crops were short throughout the land on account of the dry summer. “The rivers everywhere were so low that in many places one could wade them. Every morning the sun rose and every evening it set red and inflamed.”[1725]

In the meantime, fear prevailed in Paris lest the forces of Damville and the viscount of Turenne would effect a junction with those of the duke of AlenÇon and the united body march upon Paris, and garrisons were hastily put in Montereau, Corbeil, Charenton, St. Cloud, and St. Denis. The old trenches on both sides of the river were repaired and platforms erected in the fields around the city. Montmartre especially was fortified. The townspeople of the capital as well as villagers from the outside were impressed into the work with picks, shovels, and baskets. Mills were erected within the city, and the city was provisioned. The King issued an edict ordering the peasantry within thirty leagues around the capital to thrash their grain and to store it in fortified towns known to be faithful to the crown, unless they were dwelling within nine leagues of Paris, in which case the grain was to be brought into the city. All the passages of the Loire were guarded. The result of all this was a reign of terror in the Ile-de-France. The soldiery indulged in all sorts of brigandage, so that in sheer desperation the villagers sometimes fired their towns. Provisions were commandeered without recompense. To such outrages were the poor people subjected that the inhabitants of one town, Jogny, begged the commander to have mercy upon them. But instead of so doing, Puygaillard loaded the little deputation with reproaches and had them beaten by the soldiers in the presence of all.[1726]

With the memory of the elder prince of CondÉ’s presence before the walls of Paris, and the battle of St. Denis, where the constable Montmorency was killed, the Parisians were willing to labor in the trenches for the safety of Paris. But they were not willing to be taxed further. In a remarkable remonstrance, joined in by the clergy, the Parlement, the Chambre des Comptes, the Cour des Aides, the provost of Paris, and the bourgeois and citizens of every quarter of the city, protest was made against the extortion of 200,000 livres, which Henry III proposed to raise in this hour of extremity. After reciting that civil discord had prevailed in France since 1560, and that during the space of fifteen years the crown had obtained 36,000,000 francs from Paris and other towns, and 60,000,000 from the clergy, besides other gifts and subsidies, with little progress to show either in politics or religion, the memorial proceeded to point out some of the causes of this universal corruption in scathing terms:

Simony is openly permitted. Benefices are held by married gentlewomen who employ the revenues far differently to the intention of the founders. The people are left without religious instruction and thus stray from the true religion. There is but little justice to be obtained through the venality of the tribunals, causing their neighbors to hold them in abomination. The number of those holding office is very great and part of them notoriously incapable and the rest poor, being thereby prone to evil actions. Justice is further impeded by the impunity with which murder is committed. Great cruelties and barbarities are committed by the foot soldiers and by the gendarmerie, which does not now consist of gentlemen but of persons of vile condition. Not only by these, but by the soldiers of his guard, is pillage made on the houses of his people, ecclesiastical holdings, and hospitals even in Paris itself, so that the poor cannot obtain common necessaries.[1727]

During these weeks Montmorency had earnestly labored in favor of peace, pleading, arguing, expostulating both with his own younger brothers and AlenÇon. He was as earnestly supported by Catherine de Medici, now converted to a peace policy by the force of events,[1728] but both were continually thwarted either by the King’s inconstancy or the machinations of the Guises.

The illness of the queen mother—she suffered so much from sciatica that often she was unable to leave her chamber—and the frivolity of the King were a positive advantage to the Guises’ policy.

It will be remembered that the fortress of La FÈre had been tentatively demanded of the King for the prince of CondÉ. Henry III had replied offering Doulens in Picardy instead of either La FÈre or Peronne, which was later suggested, on the plea that he could not exact obedience from the inhabitants of the latter places. This demand for a border fortress near Flanders was made by the duke of AlenÇon, in reality to further his own advantage in the Spanish Netherlands, and he took the method of having CondÉ take title to it as a means of concealing his purpose.

The possible disposal of any border fortress in Picardy in such a way tremendously alarmed the king of Spain and the Guises who concerted to break the peace.[1729] This plan is the true origin of the formation of the famous Holy League, which, although it assumed organized form only after the peace of Bergerac (September 17, 1576), nevertheless existed in a tentative state this early, in the combined action of the dukes of Guise, Nemours, Mayenne, and Nevers, Biragues the chancellor, and other satellites of the house of Guise to prevent peace being made on such terms, and to break it in event of its being made.[1730] Twice this cabal called upon the King to give battle before all the forces of the opposition were united and twice the queen mother foiled their purpose by securing delay. On February 22 a violent scene took place between her and the council—Henry III was sick—in which Catherine branded those who said her son was a traitor as liars and declared that in spite of opposition “it shall be peace.”

The indifference of Henry III to the gravity of the situation and his supreme egotism are remarkable, yet thoroughly in keeping with his character. For hours together he would prate of poetry and philosophy—“de primis causis, de sensu et sensibili and such like questions”—with his favorites, in the retirement of a cabinet, while the realm was going to rack and ruin. The Venetian ambassador describes one of these symposiums with minute care in a dispatch of February 3, 1576.

For the last few days [he says] his Majesty has taken his pleasure by retiring into a small apartment which has no window, and to his apartment his Majesty summons four or five youths of the city who follow the profession of poets and light literature, and to meet these people his Majesty invites the Duke of Nevers, the Grand Prior, Biragues, Monseigneur, De Soure, the queen of Navarre, his sister, Madame de Nevers, and the marshal de Retz, all of whom profess to delight in poetry. When they are thus assembled his Majesty orders one of these youths to speak in praise of one of the virtues, exalting it above all the others, and as soon as he has concluded his reasoning each person in turn argues against the proposal which has been made. His Majesty consumes many hours in this exercise, to the small satisfaction of the queen mother and everybody else, who would desire to see in times so calamitous his Majesty attending to his urgent affairs, and not to amusements, which, however praiseworthy at other times, are now from the necessity of the case condemned by all, seeing that the King for this cause fails to be present at his council and there to discuss matters which are of the greatest importance and which having regard to his own position and that of his kingdom can easily be imagined to require attention.[1731]

Strange as it may seem, the Guises’ determination to continue the war comported with the wishes of some of their enemies—a circumstance which illustrates how singular was the alliance existing between the Huguenots and the Politiques. The religious Huguenots already, in the middle of December, had remonstrated against the terms of peace proposed on the ground that the offers made did not promise as much of advantage or security as a continuation of the war. It was argued that the truce would result in greater prejudice to them since the King would still be prepared for war and that if they now let the opportunity pass of establishing their fortune by the aid of the reiters, the result would bring calamity to them.[1732] These narrow-minded dissidents looked with ill favor upon the politic course of the duke of AlenÇon in avoiding the pillage of the towns he took, even of trusting to their loyalty and refraining from putting garrisons in them (some of these towns were Dreux, Romorantin, Thouars, and Loudun), and censured him for his pacific overtures to the Parlement of Paris.[1733] Accordingly they hailed with delight the escape of Henry of Navarre (February 5, 1576), and his immediate abjuration[1734] of the Catholic faith which he had been forced to confess on St. Bartholomew’s Day, and the renewed advance of the reiters into Burgundy and Auvergne and thence across the Loire into Bourbonnais, notwithstanding the fact that these mounted mercenaries “made a terrible spoil with fire and fagots” wherever they went.

The reiters took the road toward Langres, crossed the Seine above ChÂtillon into Auxerre, making for the passage of the Loire River at La CharitÉ, in order to effect a junction with the duke of AlenÇon, who was in Berry, not far from Bourges. Champagne and Brie were filled with robbers in the wake of their advance, who, pretending that they were soldiers, plundered the townspeople and robbed wayfarers and travelers. There were regular bands of these freebooters, the members of which were paid regular wages by their captains. But the anarchy in the provinces did not compel the King to stop his dallying with philosophy, or his love for mad-cap pranks. He went off on a Shrovetide frolic in March, “riding about the town to cast eggs and such other disorders,” leaving Mayenne to labor with those nobles who refused to be commanded “by a boy that never saw wars and a soldiery whose pay was a whole quarter in arrears.”[1735] Mayenne made his headquarters at Moulins to prevent the reiters uniting with AlenÇon and the Huguenots of Poitou and Guyenne. It required all the address of the marshal Biron to restrain the young commander from throwing himself upon them, almost careless of the outcome, for defeat could have been little worse than the daily shrinkage of his army from desertion.[1736]

Henry III at first had pretended to make light of the escape of his cousin. But the presence of Henry of Navarre in the field soon had an important influence. It was the one thing needful to complete the organization of the Huguenots, many of whom looked upon the prince of CondÉ more as a Politique than as one of them. The harmonious working of the two parties opposed to the crown was now possible in greater degree than before. Henry of Navarre, the prince of CondÉ, the duke of AlenÇon, and Damville united, were in a position to bring things to a focus. The actual territory controlled by Henry III at this time was little, if any, greater than the ancient Ile-de-France, Burgundy, and Champagne of his ancestors in the twelfth century. The Huguenots and Politiques so divided the realm among themselves that a map of the kingdom at this time reminds one of that of France in the feudal age. Henry of Navarre had made his headquarters at Saumur and thus was able easily to control Anjou; the allegiance of Guyenne, BÉarn, and Poitou was certain; the duke of AlenÇon was in occupation of the “midlands”—Berry (except Bourges) and most of Bourbonnais and Nivernais. Young Coligny, who had succeeded Montbrun, was in DauphinÉ, and his fealty to the religion was unswerving; Damville and his lieutenants controlled all Languedoc, Provence, and Auvergne; young Montgomery was in Lower Normandy where English assistance secretly helped him, while the prince of CondÉ, backed by the count palatine, endangered Picardy.

The winning cards were all in the hands of the Huguenots and the Politiques. Without territory, without funds, with an unpaid army or hireling mercenaries only, the crown had no other recourse than to accept the situation and make peace unless Henry III and the queen mother stooped to the worse humiliation of receiving the support of Philip II. And so it came to pass that while Paris daily expected to withstand a siege and the faubourgs and gates were so crowded with those living outside the walls and refugees from the environs “that a man could scarce enter the gates for the people, carriages, and cattle,”[1737] Henry III signed the Act of Peace, May 2, 1576.

The peace of 1576, sometimes called the Peace of Monsieur, from the duke of AlenÇon’s prominent part in its formation, was the most complete and elaborate charter yet given the Huguenots, embodying the wisdom that experience had taught. It is to be noticed that the settlement involved both toleration of the religion and political reform. The provisions of this composite peace may be classified under four heads, each of which was an essential element in the late opposition to the crown, viz:—the Huguenots, Henry of Navarre, the duke of AlenÇon, the Politiques.

The King granted to the Huguenots public exercise of the Calvinist religion throughout France except within two leagues of the court and four leagues of Paris. The Huguenots were declared eligible to all offices and dignities without discrimination on account of religion. As a security for the King’s justice against possible abuse of these rights, the crown engaged to establish mixed parlements, half Catholic, half Protestant, at Poitiers, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Montpellier, Grenoble, Aix, Dijon, Rheims, and Rouen, and a new chamber in the Parlement of Paris with two presidents and eighteen councilors, nine of them Catholic, nine Protestant. Protestant advocates, procureurs-gÉnÉraux and greffiers civil and criminal were to be connected with each of these mixed parlements.

For further protection of the Huguenots, eight cautionary towns were to be ceded to them, to wit: Aigues-Mortes and Beaucaire in Languedoc; PÉrigueux and Le Mas de Verdun in Guyenne; La Rochelle in Poitou; Yssoire in Auvergne; Nions and Serres (chÂteau included) in DauphinÉ; Cennes “la grande tour et le circuit” in Provence. Additional demands were for general oblivion for all conduct and action by persons of either side; revocation of all decrees, judgments, and proclamations hitherto made; rehabilitation of the memory of Admiral Coligny and restoration of their livings and honors to his children as well as in the cases of Montgomery, Montbrun, Bricquemault, and Cavagnies. No prosecution was to be made with regard to the actions done at St. Germain-en-Laye and Bois de Vincennes.

Two of these provisions were received with great dissatisfaction by the Huguenot deputies and when published were decried by many of the Protestants. The first of them was the prohibition of Protestant worship within the faubourgs of Paris, the act specifically declaring that St. Denis, St. Maur-des-Fosses, Pont-de-Charenton, Bourg-la-Reine and Port de Neuilly were within the prohibited confines. The other one which met with great objection was that touching the security towns.[1738] The deputies demanded two towns in every government (there were fourteen governments). But the King would yield only eight, these to be chosen from the towns already in possession of the Huguenots, a proviso which eliminated such important points as Niort, AngoulÊme, and Cognac. In the case of La CharitÉ and Saumur, over which the longest discussion arose, a compromise was reached by giving them to AlenÇon in appanage. Long and acrimonious debate was made over this article, and at one stage the negotiations were so nearly broken off that Paris was notified to be prepared for a renewal of the war. The crown’s demands in this matter were really not unreasonable, for these eight towns were not included in the number given to Henry of Navarre or the prince of CondÉ, or in the appanage of the duke of AlenÇon.[1739]

If the demands of the Huguenots were excessive, those of Henry of Navarre were still more sweeping. He not only aimed to live like a king in the future in his own country of BÉarn, but sought to commit the crown to the recovery of the kingdom of Navarre as well. All the past claims and grievances of his ancestry were embodied. He demanded: That the King of Navarre command in his government of Guyenne extending from Pilles to Bayonne, in such manner as his ancestors had done; that all captains and governors obey him as the governor and lieutenant-general of the King; that he have the providing of the necessary garrisons; that all his lands and seignories should recognize no other government than he appointed and that all towns and fortresses belonging to him should be at once surrendered; that his right to his kingdom be preserved, and that his subjects should not be taxed for the services of the king of France, according to their ancient immunities; that all gentlemen being his servants, officers, or subjects should come and go and traffic freely through all France without molestation; that his officers and servants should enjoy such privileges as if they served the royal family of France; that he and his heirs should be discharged from the guarantee given by himself and his mother toward the purchases of ecclesiastical property, and for the payment of the reiters; that in view of the fact that the late king had granted 200,000 livres to his mother, the late queen of Navarre, for the celebration of the nuptials of himself and his queen, the King’s sister, which has never been paid, and furthermore, because there was also yet due 120,000 livres, arrears of the pension of the late king of Navarre, he prayed the King to deal with him as favorably as he could for payment; that if any offices or benefices fell vacant in seignories of the king of Navarre, he should have the nominating and presenting of such persons; that the King would preserve to him in his lands and seignories his privileges and accustomed sources of revenue, such as the droit de tabellionage and de sceaux.

Having so far required everything that could conceivably be based upon things present, Henry endeavored to revive the ancient claims of his house in a startling fashion. The old feudal spirit of William of Aquitaine and Raymond of Toulouse seems to have been reincarnated in his person at this time. For Henry demanded further that he be recompensed for the 6,000 livres promised in time past, in virtue of the right that FranÇoise de Bretagne, wife of Aleyne, sieur d’Albret, father of John of Navarre, had had to the duchy of Brittany.[1740] But even this was not all, for Henry of Navarre finally made the demand that the pension of 46,000 livres which his grandfather had enjoyed in recompense for the loss of Navarre, from which his great grandfather had been expelled in 1512 by Ferdinand of Aragon, be continued to him, and that the King of France should promise to help him to recover Navarre![1741]

In the nature of things, not a tithe of these demands could be granted by the crown, least of all the last. The massacre of St. Bartholomew had proved how perilous it was to try to drive Catholic France into a war with Spain, and France was less ready now than in 1570-72 to join battle with Philip. Perforce Henry of Navarre had to be content with a restoration of things as they were on August 24, 1572.[1742]

The duke of AlenÇon had created for him a position stronger than that of Henry of Navarre. As a prince of the blood and as a Politique he occupied middle ground between the crown and the Huguenots; in consequence, many of the places which neither of the chief principals was willing to resign were included in the grant to him. While technically all the territories so concerned were regarded as appanages,[1743] it is plain that a distinction may easily be made between the duchies of AlenÇon, Maine, Anjou, Touraine, and La Roche—which had originally been given him as a prince of the blood—and places like Bourges, Moulins, Loches, Saumur, La CharitÉ, Pont-de-Sel, Amiens, Moulans, and Mantes. These latter possessions were practically a class apart of security cities intrusted by compromise to the duke. This was particularly true of Saumur and La CharitÉ, which insured the Protestants of passage across the lower and upper Loire, and so linked the South with Normandy on the North and the Palatinate and the German Protestant states to the east. Moreover, Moulins in Bourbonnais and Bourges in Berry assured the Protestants of position there, so that the whole left bank of the Loire from Auvergne to Nantes was in their control. Mantes was meant to compensate the Huguenots in the vicinity of Paris for the loss of Charenton.

The King yielded the government of Picardy again to the prince of CondÉ, but the matter of what town should be his created much heated argument. The prince himself at first stoutly contended for Boulogne, although he did not say that its convenience to England was the chief reason for his desire. But Henry III as stoutly refused. Then Amiens was suggested, and as compromise this city was given to the King’s brother. CondÉ then demanded Peronne. Although the King would have preferred Doulens or even St. Quentin to this concession, he yielded. The only other detail concerning the prince was the obligation to pay his and his father’s debts in Germany, which the crown assumed.

Damville did not come in for as much honor as his colleagues, but was far from being ignored. As the chief of the Politiques or “les catholiques associez,” as they were defined in the interest of peace, Damville was and remained the leading man in Languedoc. Aside from the retention of Damville in his government, promise was made the Politiques to summon the States-General at Blois within six months for the reformation and reorganization of the administration.[1744]

It follows as a matter of course that the maintenance and protection of the multitude of social and civil rights that made the web and woof of a civilized society was guaranteed, such as the validity of Protestant marriage, land and property titles, freedom of education, commerce and trade, etc.

A very delicate matter to adjust was the future relation of the electoral count palatine and the duke John Casimir, his son. A secret alliance had existed between the count palatine, England, and the prince of CondÉ since July, 1575. In November, AlenÇon and the Politiques joined the alliance. One of the terms of that alliance was that Metz, Toul, and Verdun were to pass to Casimir as the price of his support and both Huguenots and Politiques—at least AlenÇon—stood pledged to assist him in securing these Three Bishoprics. But it was manifestly impossible to expect the French crown to grant such a cession, nor is it probable, now that peace had come, that any in France looked with amiability upon this article of the contract of Heidelberg. It were too great a humiliation to have this brilliant conquest of 1552 thus passively surrendered. Fortunately it was found possible to placate John Casimir with less distinguished sacrifices. His claims were purchased for an enormous sum of money—or at least the promise of it; no less than two million florins (three million francs), part to be paid in the coming June and the balance at the next two fairs at Frankfurt, in addition to which he received the whole seigneury of ChÂteau-Thierry[1745]—worth 20,000 francs per annum—a perpetual colonelcy of 4,000 horse, a company of 100 men-at-arms and 12 reitmeisters, all of which was confirmed by Henry III’s declaration that he would “repute and esteem the count palatine and Duke Casimir as good neighbors.”

The terms of the Peace of Monsieur[1746] were exceedingly unpopular in Paris, whose citizens had been the heaviest contributors to the expenses of the war thus closed and who had made strenuous military preparations in defense of the capital, and the unpopularity of Henry III was not enhanced in the eyes of the Parisians by the King’s repudiation of a part of the rentes, the incomes of which were the chief means of support with many. But when Charron, the provost of the merchants, and the counselor Abot, at the head of a deputation of the foremost citizens of the capital protested against this high-handed action to the King’s own face, Henry III with a sneer which carried with it a covert threat rejoined: “Hang a man and he tells no tales.”[1747]

The camps of the duke of AlenÇon and the Protestants were broken up when the peace was published. The soldiery around La Rochelle and in Poitou, Anjou, and Berry, returned home, except some troops which were reserved until it was seen what Casimir and his reiters, who were near Langres, would do. These marauders with many French of Champagne and Brie, crossed the Yonne above Sens and arrived in Champagne between May 10 and 11 and remained there for a week, living on the land. After having sojourned six or seven days between the Seine and the Vauluisant, on the 16th they moved on to a place between Troyes and the village of Mery-sur-Seine, where they remained for fifteen days to the distress of the people and absolutely destroyed the little village of Marigny, which had but two persons left in it. In order to find food they foraged for miles. The peasantry turned their cattle loose or drove them, together with their possessions, into the fortified towns or chÂteaux. But the gentry were less safe than the peasantry even, for the latter had already been so despoiled that nothing was left to be taken. Out of this frightful state of affairs rose an organized resistance which is very interesting to observe, for the nobility and gentry of the region and the local peasantry, forgetting their class antagonism, made common cause together. Whenever these “vigilance committees” found themselves to be stronger or happened upon stragglers from the main band, they threw themselves upon them; sometimes the victims were bound and cast alive in the river Aube or Seine. Between St. Loup-de-la-Fosse-Gelane and St. Martin-de-Bossenay, a group of ten or twelve reiters were thus set upon and only one escaped. But the vengeance their comrades meted out upon the offenders was terrible, for the troopers, numbering over a hundred horsemen, the next night burned all the villages round about.[1748]

Not until September was this scourge removed from the land. By that time they were bought off and were conducted to the frontier by Bassompierre, the Alsatian gentleman in the King’s service, who was well rewarded, as he deserved to be, for the accomplishment of the perilous task. But the licensing of the regular troops immediately afterward still prolonged the agony of the province for a season.[1749]

The Peace of Monsieur may fittingly be said to have terminated the period of the religious wars of France. The dominant issue of the succeeding years of conflict from 1576 to 1598 was not a religious, but a political one. Why permanent peace did not result it is not the work of this volume to narrate. Suffice to say that Spain and Spain’s instrument, the Holy League, were to blame for the ensuing years of strife.

The germ of the provincial Catholic leagues had been the desire, on the part of the Catholics of France, to resist the progress of Calvinism. But in the hands of the French nobles these local leagues, controlled by the aristocracy and welded into one mighty organization under the leadership of the duke of Guise, backed by Spanish gold, became a new league of the public weal, which, under the cloak of religion revived the feudal ambition of the French nobility to acquire power at the expense of the crown.