Volume I Part 51 (2/2)
[Footnote 904: Sommaire recit de la calomnieuse accusation de M. le prince de Conde, Memoires de Conde, ii. 373; Languet, ii. 66.]
[Footnote 905: Throkmorton to Cecil, Sept. 3, 1560, State Paper Office; La Place, 68, 69; La Planche, 345, 346; De Thou, ii. 804-806; Castelnau, 1. ii., c. 7.]
[Footnote 906: La Planche, p. 375. Instructions to M. de Crussol, going by order of the king to the King of Navarre, Aug. 30, 1560, _apud_ Negoc. sous Francois II., pp. 482-486. The beginning of this paper, directing Crussol to express regret that Navarre had not come to the council of Fontainebleau, and to announce the result of its recommendations, is sufficiently conciliatory. If, however, Navarre should hesitate to obey the summons, the agent was bidden to frighten him into compliance. On the first show of resistance, Francis would collect his own troops, consisting of thirty thousand or forty thousand foot, and seven hundred or eight hundred horse, expected levies of ten thousand Swiss, and six thousand or seven thousand German lansquenets.
Philip had a.s.sured him of the a.s.sistance of all his forces, foot and horse, both from the side of Netherlands and of Spain. The Dukes of Lorraine, Savoy, and Ferrara would bring fourteen thousand to sixteen thousand foot and one thousand five hundred horse. The king's arrangements were complete, and he was resolved to make an example. The arrest of La Sague was, however, not to be mentioned. Letter of Francis to the King of Navarre, Aug. 30, in Recueil des choses mem. (1565), 75, 76, and Mem. de Conde, i. 573.]
[Footnote 907: See the message in cipher appended to a despatch to the French amba.s.sador at Madrid, Aug. 31, 1560, _apud_ Neg. sous Francois II., pp. 490-497. The discovery is said to have been made within five or six days. Conde is implicated. Against Navarre there is as yet no proof.
The Queen of England, is suspected of complicity, despite the recent treaty (of July 23d, by which Mary, Queen of Scots, renounced her claims upon the crown of England). The affright of the Guises may be judged from the circ.u.mstance that two copies of the despatch were forwarded--one by Guyenne, the other by Languedoc--so that at least one might reach its destination.]
[Footnote 908: Thomas Shakerly, the Cardinal of Ferrara's organist, sent him budgets of news not less regularly than the secretary of the Duke of Savoy's amba.s.sador at Venice supplied the English agent copies of all the most important letters his master received. See the interesting letter of John Shers to Cecil, Venice, Jan. 18, 1561, State Paper Office.]
[Footnote 909: Throkmorton to queen, Poissy, Oct. 10, 1560, State Paper Office.]
[Footnote 910: In a despatch to his amba.s.sador at Madrid, Sept. 18, 1560 (Negoc. sous Francois II., 523, etc.), Francis states that 1,000 or 1,200 armed soldiers had been posted in sixty-six houses, ready to sally out by night, capture the city, and open the gates to 2,000 men waiting outside. Of course, according to the king or his ministers, the object was plunder, and the enterprise a fair specimen of Huguenot sanct.i.ty.]
[Footnote 911: La Planche, 365-368; La Place, 69; Neg. sous Francois II., _ubi supra_; Mem. de Castelnau, 1. ii., c. 9; Languet, ii. 70; De Thou, ii. 806. Calvin, in a letter to Beza (Sept. 10, 1560), seems to allude, though not by name, to Maligny, and to condemn his rashness; but the pa.s.sage is purposely too obscure to throw much light upon the matter. Bonnet, iv. 126, etc.]
[Footnote 912: Letter of the king, _apud_ Negoc. sous Francois II., 580, 581.]
[Footnote 913: The curious reader may task his ingenuity in deciphering the somewhat remarkable spelling in which the count quaintly relates the occurrence in question: ”Aytant o Pont-Sainct-Esperit, je trouvis entre les mains de Rocart, capitayne de la, deux charges de mulles de _livres de Genaive, fort bien reliez_: toutefoys cela ne les en carda que je ne les fice toux bruler, comensent le prumier a les maytre o fu; de coe je fu bien suivi de monsieur de Joyeuse, vous a.s.seurent qu' _ill i en avoet beocoup de la copagnie qu'il les playnoet fort_, les estiment plus de mille aycus: pour sayte foys-la je ne les voullus croere.” Letter of Villars to the constable, Oct. 12, 1560, _apud_ Negoc. sous Francois II., p. 655.]
[Footnote 914: On Sunday, the 28th of July, a gathering composed almost entirely of women was discovered. Nothing daunted, 1,200 persons met the next night, with torches and open doors, in the large school-rooms, where their pastor, Maupeau, preached an appropriate sermon from Rev.
vi. 9, on ”the souls of them that were slain for the word of G.o.d.” Soon the same place was resorted to by day. Summoned before the magistrates, judge, and consuls, the Huguenots declared their loyalty, but said that they had no idea that the king wanted to dictate to the conscience, which belongs to G.o.d. Presently the church of St. Michael was seized.
Then the Cardinal of Lorraine (Oct. 14th) wrote to the bishop, telling him to call upon M. de Villars for aid in suppressing a.s.semblies and the preaching. Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., i. 207-210.]
[Footnote 915: They are Nismes, Montpellier, Montagnac, Annonay, Castres, Marsillargues, Aigues Mortes, Pezenas, Gignac, Sommieres, St.
Jean de Gardonnenches, Anduze, Vauvers (Viviers?), Uzes, and Privas.]
[Footnote 916: Sommaire des instructions donnees a Pignan envoye au roy par Honorat de Savoye, Cte. de Villars, Oct. 15, 1560, _apud_ Negoc.
sous Francois II., 659-661.]
[Footnote 917: On hearing of the seizure of Aigues Mortes by treachery.
Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., i. 211.]
[Footnote 918: Letters of De Villars to the Guises, Oct. 27 and 29, 1560. Neg. sous Francois II., 671.]
[Footnote 919: Letter of the king to the Cte. de Villars, November 9, 1560. Ib., p. 673.]
[Footnote 920: H. Barnsleye to Cecil, August 28, 1560, State Paper Office.]
[Footnote 921: I know of no more scathing exposure of the morals of the clergy than that given by Francois Grimaudet, the representative of the Tiers etat of Anjou, and inserted _verbatim_ in La Planche, 389-396. It was honored by being made the object of a special censure of the Sorbonne!]
[Footnote 922: La Planche, 387-397; Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., i.
199.]
[Footnote 923: Remonstrances, plaintes, et doleances de l'estat eccles., MSS. Arch. du depart, de la Vienne, Hist. des Protestants et des eglises ref. du Poitou, par A. Lievre (Poitiers, 1856), i. 84, 85.]
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