Volume I Part 52 (2/2)

[Footnote 946: La Planche, 402.]

[Footnote 947: Ib., 401; La Place, 75; Sommaire recit, _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 948: La Planche, 400; Castelnau, liv. ii., c. 10.]

[Footnote 949: Sommaire recit, _ubi supra_. ”For, being a prince of the blood, he said, his process was to be adjudged either by the Princes of the blood or by the twelve Peers; and therefore willed the Chancellor and the rest to trouble him no further.” Throkmorton, Nov. 28, 1560, Hardwick, State Papers, i. 151. Castelnau (liv. ii., c. 11) has, by a number of precedents, proved the validity of this claim.]

[Footnote 950: Memoires de Conde, i. 619, containing the royal _arret_ of Nov. 20th, rejecting Conde's demand; Sommaire recit. The (subsequent) First President of parliament, Christopher de Thou, was, after Chancellor L'Hospital, the leading member of the commission. His son, the historian, may be pardoned for dismissing the unpleasant subject with careful avoidance of details. La Planche makes no mention of the chancellor in connection with the case, but records Conde's indignant remonstrance against so devoted a servant of the Guises as the first president acting as judge.]

[Footnote 951: La Planche, 399.]

[Footnote 952: La Planche, 401; Davila, 37, 38; Castelnau, l. ii., c.

12. The unanimous voice of contemporary authorities, and the accounts given by subsequent historians, are discredited by De Thou alone (ii.

835, 836), who expresses the conviction, based upon his recollection of his father's statement, that the sentence was drawn up, but never signed. He also represents Christopher de Thou as suggesting to Conde his appeal from the jurisdiction of the commission, and opposing the violent designs of the Guises.]

[Footnote 953: La Planche, 401; Castelnau, liv. ii., c. 12.]

[Footnote 954: La Planche, 405, 406, has preserved this striking speech, which I have somewhat condensed in the text. Agrippa d'Aubigne, Histoire universelle, _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 955: La Planche, it may be noticed, leans to this supposition.

Ibid., 405.]

[Footnote 956: Ibid., 406; D'Aubigne, _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 957: See Michele Suriano's account, Rel. des Amb. Ven., i.

528. The amba.s.sador seems to have entertained no doubt of the complete success that would have crowned the movement had Francis's life been spared: ”Il quale, se vivea un poco piu, non solamente averia ripresso, _ma estinto dal tutto_ quell' incendio che ora consuma il regno.” The Spanish amba.s.sador, Chantonnay, writing to his master, Nov., 1560, confirms the statements of Protestant contemporaries respecting the plan laid out for the destruction of the Bourbons, and then of the admiral and his brother D'Andelot; but the wily brother of Cardinal Granvelle, much as he would have rejoiced at the destruction of the heads of the Huguenot faction, was alarmed at the wholesale proscription, and expressed grave fears that so intemperate and violent a course would provoke a serious rebellion, and perhaps give rise to a forcible intervention in French affairs, on the part of Germany or England. ”Pero a mi paresce que seria mas acertado castigar poco a poco los culpados que prender tantos de un golpe, porque a.s.si se podrian meter en desesperacion sus parientes, y causar alguna grande rebuelta y admitir mas facilmente las platicas de fuera del reyno ... o de Alemania o de Inglaterra.” Papiers de Simancas, _apud_ Mignet, Journal des Savants, 1859, p. 39.]

[Footnote 958: Mem. de Castelnau, liv. ii., c. 12; La Planche, 404; Memoires de Mergey (Collection Michaud and Poujoulat), 567. The Count of La Rochefoucauld, hearing through the d.u.c.h.ess of Uzes--a bosom confidant of Catharine, but a woman who was not herself averse to the Reformation--that Francis had remarked that the count ”must prepare to say his _Credo_ in Latin,” had made all his arrangements to pa.s.s from Champagne into Germany with his faithful squire De Mergey, both disguised as plain merchants.]

[Footnote 959: La Planche, 404; De Thou, ii. 835 (liv. xxvi.). The latter does not place implicit confidence in these reports, while conceding that subsequent events would induce a belief that they were not dest.i.tute of a foundation. According to Throkmorton, also, writing to Cecil, Sept. 3, 1560, the chief burden was to rest with the clergy, who gave eight-tenths of the whole subsidy. State Paper Office.]

[Footnote 960: Ibid., 403; De Thou, iii. 82.]

[Footnote 961: Throkmorton's despatches from Orleans, several frequently sent off on a single day, acquaint us with the rapid progress of the king's disease, and the cold calculations based upon it. ”The const.i.tution of his body,” he writes in the third of his letters that bear date Nov. 28th (Hardwick, State Papers, i. 156), ”is such, as the physicians do say he cannot be long-lived: and thereunto he hath by his too timely and inordinate exercise now in his youth, added an evil accident; so as there be that do not let to say, though he do recover this sickness, he cannot live two years; _whereupon there is plenty of discourses here of the French Queen's second marriage_; some talk of the Prince of Spain, some of the Duke of Austrich, others of the Earl of Arran.” No wonder that cabinet ministers and others often grew weary of the interminable debates respecting the marriages of queens regnant, and that William Cecil, as early as July, 1561, wrote respecting Queen Bess: ”Well, G.o.d send our Mistress a husband, and by time a son, that we may hope our posterity shall have a masculine succession. This matter is too big for weak folks, and too deep for simple.” Hardwick, State Papers, i.

174.]

[Footnote 962: Throkmorton to Chamberlain, Nov. 21, 1560. British Museum.]

[Footnote 963: De Thou, ii. 833, etc. (liv. 26); D'Aubigne, liv. ii., c.

20, p. 103.]

[Footnote 964: On the 17th of Nov. Throkmorton had written: ”The house of Guise practiseth by all the means they can, _to make the Queen Mother Regent of France_ at this next a.s.sembly; _so as they are like to have all the authority still in their hands, for she is wholly theirs_.”

Hardwick, State Papers, i. 140. D'Aubigne (_ubi supra_), who attributes to the sagacious counsel of Chancellor de l'Hospital the credit of influencing Catharine to take this course.]

[Footnote 965: I must refer the reader for the details of this remarkable interview and its results, which, it must be noted, Catharine insisted on Antoine's acknowledging over his signature, to the _Histoire de l'Estat de France, tant de la republique que de la religion, sous le regne de Francois II._, commonly attributed to Louis Regnier de la Planche (pp. 415-418)--a work whose trustworthiness and accuracy are above reproach, and respecting which my only regret is that its valuable a.s.sistance deserts me at this point of the history.]

[Footnote 966: Ibid., 413.]

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