Part 12 (2/2)
Ferocity of the combatants.--Liberality of Henry.--Preparations for a battle.--Striking phenomenon.--The omen.--Manoeuvres.--Night before the battle.--Morning of the battle.--Henry's address to his army.--The prayer of Henry.--Anecdote.--Magnanimity of Henry.--The battle of Ivry.--Heroism of Henry.--The Leaguers vanquished.--Flight of the Leaguers.--Detestable conduct of Mayenne.--Lines on the battle of Ivry.--Paris in consternation.--Inexplicable delay.--Magnanimity to the Swiss Catholics.--Paris blockaded.--Death of the Cardinal of Bourbon.--Horrors of famine.--Kindness of Henry.--Murmurs in Paris.--The a.s.sault.--The suburbs taken.--The d.u.c.h.ess of Montpensier.--Great clemency of Henry.--Murmurs in the camp.--Desultory warfare.--Awful condition of France.--Attempts to conciliate the Catholics.--Curious challenge.--A new dynasty contemplated.--Trouble in the camp of Henry.--Motives for abjuring Protestantism.
Civil war seems peculiarly to arouse the ferocity of man. Family quarrels are notoriously implacable. Throughout the whole kingdom of France the war raged with intense violence, brother against brother, and father against child. Farm-houses, cities, villages, were burned mercilessly. Old men, women, and children were tortured and slain with insults and derision. Maiden modesty was cruelly violated, and every species of inhumanity was practiced by the infuriated antagonists. The Catholic priests were in general conspicuous for their brutality. They resolved that the Protestant heresy should be drowned in blood and terror.
Henry IV. was peculiarly a humane man. He cherished kind feelings for all his subjects, and was perfectly willing that the Catholic religion should retain its unquestioned supremacy. His pride, however, revolted from yielding to compulsory conversion, and he also refused to become the persecutor of his former friends. Indeed, it seems probable that he was strongly inclined toward the Catholic faith as, on the whole, the safest and the best. He consequently did every thing in his power to mitigate the mercilessness of the strife, and to win his Catholic subjects by the most signal clemency. But no efforts of his could restrain his partisans in different parts of the kingdom from severe retaliation.
Through the long months of a cold and dreary winter the awful carnage continued, with success so equally balanced that there was no prospect of any termination to this most awful of national calamities. Early in March, 1590, the armies of Henry IV. and of the Duke of Mayenne began to congregate in the vicinity of Ivry, about fifty miles west of Paris, for a decisive battle. The snows of winter had nearly disappeared, and the cold rains of spring deluged the roads. The Sabbath of the eleventh of March was wet and tempestuous. As night darkened over the bleak and soaked plains of Ivry, innumerable battalions of armed men, with spears, and banners, and heavy pieces of artillery, dragged axle-deep through the mire, were dimly discerned taking positions for an approaching battle. As the blackness of midnight enveloped them, the storm increased to fearful fury. The gale fiercely swept the plain, in its loud wailings and its roar drowning every human sound. The rain, all the night long, poured down in torrents. But through the darkness and the storm, and breasting the gale, the contending hosts, without even a watch-fire to cheer the gloom, waited anxiously for the morning.
In the blackest hour of the night, a phenomenon, quite unusual at that season of the year, presented itself. The lightning gleamed in dazzling brilliance from cloud to cloud, and the thunder rolled over their heads as if an aerial army were meeting and charging in the sanguinary fight. It was an age of superst.i.tion, and the s.h.i.+vering soldiers thought that they could distinctly discern the banners of the battling hosts. Eagerly and with awe they watched the surgings of the strife as spirit squadrons swept to and fro with streaming banners of fire, and hurling upon each other the thunderbolts of the skies. At length the storm of battle seemed to lull, or, rather, to pa.s.s away in the distance. There was the retreat of the vanquished, the pursuit of the victors. The flash of the guns became more faint, and the roar of the artillery diminished as farther and still farther the embattled hosts vanished among the clouds. Again there was the silence of midnight, and no sounds were heard but the plas.h.i.+ng of the rain.
The Royalists and the insurgents, each party inflamed more or less by religious fanaticism, were each disposed to regard the ethereal battle as waged between the spirits of light and the spirits of darkness, angels against fiends. Each party, of course, imagined itself as represented by the angel bands, which doubtless conquered. The phenomenon was thus, to both, the omen of success, and inspired both with new energies.
The morning dawned gloomily. Both armies were exhausted and nearly frozen by the chill storm of the night. Neither of the parties were eager to commence the fight, as each was anxious to wait for re-enforcements, which were hurrying forward, from distant posts, with the utmost possible speed. The two next days were pa.s.sed in various manoeuvres to gain posts of advantage. The night of the 13th came.
Henry took but two hours of repose upon a mattress, and then, every thing being arranged according to his wishes, spent nearly all the rest of the night in prayer. He urged the Catholics and the Protestants in his army to do the same, each according to the rites of his own Church. The Catholic priests and the Protestant clergy led the devotions of their respective bands, and there can be no doubt whatever that they implored the aid of G.o.d with as perfect a conviction of the righteousness of their cause as the human heart can feel.
And how was it in the army of the Duke of Mayenne? They also looked to G.o.d for support. The Pope, Christ's vicar upon earth, had blessed their banners. He had called upon all of the faithful to advocate their cause. He had anathematized their foes as the enemies of G.o.d and man, justly doomed to utter extermination. Can it be doubted that the ecclesiastics and the soldiers who surrounded the Duke of Mayenne, ready to lay down their lives for the Church, were also, many of them, sincere in their supplications? Such is bewildered, benighted man.
When will he imbibe the spirit of a n.o.ble toleration--of a kind brotherhood?
The morning of the 14th of March arrived. The stars shone brilliantly in the clear, cold sky. The vast plain of Ivry and its surrounding hills gleamed with the camp-fires of the two armies, now face to face.
It is impossible to estimate with precision the two forces. It is generally stated that Henry IV. had from ten to twelve thousand men, and the Duke of Mayenne from sixteen to twenty thousand.
Before the first glimmer of day, Henry mounted his horse, a powerful bay charger, and riding slowly along his lines, addressed to every company words of encouragement and hope. His spirit was subdued and his voice was softened by the influence of prayer. He attempted no lofty harangue; he gave utterance to no clarion notes of enthusiasm; but mildly, gently, with a trembling voice and often with a moistened eye, implored them to be true to G.o.d, to France, and to themselves.
”Your future fame and your personal safety,” said he, ”depend upon your heroism this day. The crown of France awaits the decision of your swords. If we are defeated to-day, we are defeated hopelessly, for we have no reserves upon which we can fall back.”
Then a.s.sembling nearly all his little band in a square around him, he placed himself upon an eminence where he could be seen by all, and where nearly all could hear him, and then, with clasped hands and eyes raised to Heaven, offered the following prayer--a truly extraordinary prayer, so humble and so Christian in its spirit of resignation:
”O G.o.d, I pray thee, who alone knowest the intentions of man's heart, to do thy will upon me as thou shalt judge necessary for the weal of Christendom. And wilt thou preserve me as long as thou seest it to be needful for the happiness and the repose of France, and no longer. If thou dost see that I should be one of those kings on whom thou dost lay thy wrath, take my life with my crown, and let my blood be the last poured out in this quarrel.”
Then turning to his troops, he said,
”Companions, G.o.d is with us. You are to meet His enemies and ours. If, in the turmoil of the battle, you lose sight of your banner, follow the white plume upon my casque. You will find it in the road to victory and honor.”
But a few hours before this, General Schomberg, who was in command of the auxiliaries furnished to Henry by Germany, urged by the importunity of his troops, ventured to ask for their pay, which was in arrears. Henry, irritated, replied,
”A man of courage would not ask for money on the eve of a battle.”
The words had no sooner escaped his lips than he regretted them. Henry now rode to the quarters of this veteran officer, and thus magnanimously addressed him:
”General Schomberg, I have insulted you. As this day may be the last of my life, I would not carry away the honor of a gentleman and be unable to restore it. I know your valor, and I ask your pardon. I beseech you to forgive me and embrace me.”
This was true magnanimity. General Schomberg n.o.bly replied,
”Sire, you did, indeed, wound me yesterday, but to-day you kill me.
The honor you have done me will lead me to lay down my life in your service.”
A terrible battle immediately ensued. All fought bravely, ferociously, infernally. Love and peace are the elements of heaven. Hatred and war are the elements of h.e.l.l. Man, upon the battle-field, even in a good cause, must call to his aid the energies of the world of woe. Rus.h.i.+ng squadrons swept the field, crus.h.i.+ng beneath iron hoofs the dying and the dead. Grapeshot mowed down the crowded ranks, splintering bones, and lacerating nerves, and extorting shrieks of agony which even the thunders of the battle could not drown. Henry plunged into the thickest of the fight, every where exposing himself to peril like the humblest soldier. The conflict was too desperate to be lasting. In less than an hour the field of battle was crimson with blood and covered with mangled corpses.
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