Volume II Part 4 (2/2)
As for Poltrot himself, he had never met him.
The admiral himself was not less frank. Ever since the ma.s.sacre of Va.s.sy he had regarded Guise and his party as common enemies of G.o.d, of the king, and of the public tranquillity; but never, upon his life and his honor, had he approved of such attacks as that of Poltrot. Indeed, he had steadfastly employed his influence to deter men from executing any plots against the life of the duke; until, being duly informed that Guise and Saint Andre had incited men to undertake to a.s.sa.s.sinate Conde, D'Andelot, and himself, he had desisted from expressing his opposition. The different articles of the confession he proceeded to answer one by one; and he forwarded his reply to the court with a letter to Catharine de' Medici, in which he earnestly entreated her that the life of Poltrot might be spared until the restoration of peace, that he might be confronted with him, and an investigation be made of the entire matter before unsuspected judges.
”But do not imagine,” he added, ”that I speak thus because of any regret for the death of the Duke of Guise, which I esteem the greatest of blessings to the realm, to the Church of G.o.d, to myself and my family, and, if improved, the means of giving rest to the kingdom.”[242]
The admiral's frankness was severely criticised by some of his friends. He was advised to suppress those expressions that were liable to be perverted to his injury, but he declared his resolution to abide by the consequences of a clear statement of the truth. And indeed, while the worldly wisdom of Coligny's censors has received a species of justification in the avidity with which his sincere avowals have been employed as the basis of graver accusations which he repelled, the candor of his defence has set upon his words the indelible impress of veracity which following ages can never fail to read aright. That Catharine recognized his innocence is evident from the very act by which she endeavored to make him appear guilty. He had begged that Poltrot might be spared till after the conclusion of peace, that he might himself have an opportunity to vindicate his innocence by confronting him in the presence of impartial judges. It was Catharine's interest, she thought, to confirm her own power by attaching a stigma to the honor of the Chatillons, and so depriving them of much of their influence in the state.[243] Accordingly, on Thursday, the eighteenth of March, Poltrot was put to death and his mouth sealed forever to further explanations. _The next day the Edict of Pacification was signed at Amboise._[244] After all, it is evident that Coligny's innocence or guilt, in this particular instance, must be judged by his entire course and his well-known character. If his life bears marks of perfidy and duplicity, if the blood of the innocent can be found upon his skirts, then must the verdict of posterity be against him. But if the careful examination of his entire public life, as well as the history of his private relations, reveals a character not only above reproach, but the purest, most beneficent, and most patriotic of all that France can boast in political stations in the sixteenth century, the confused and contradictory allegations of an enthusiast who had not counted the cost of his daring attempt--allegations wrung from him by threats and torture--will not be allowed to weigh for an instant against Coligny's simple denial.[245]
[Sidenote: Various estimates of Guise.]
Of the Duke of Guise the estimates formed by his contemporaries differed as widely as their political and religious views. With the Abbe Bruslart he was ”the most virtuous, heroic, and magnanimous prince in Europe, who for his courage was dreaded by all foreign nations.” To the author of the history of the reformed churches his ambition and presumption seemed to have obscured all his virtues.[246] The Roman Catholic preachers regarded his death as a stupendous calamity, a mystery of Divine providence, which they could only interpret by supposing that the Almighty, jealous of the confidence which His people reposed rather in His creature than in Himself, had removed the Duke of Guise in order to take the cause of His own divinity, of His spouse the Church, of the king and kingdom, under His own protection.[247] The Bishop of Riez wrote and published a highly colored account of the duke's last words and actions, in the most approved style of such posthumous records, and introduced edifying specimens of a theological learning, which, until the moment of his wounding, Guise had certainly never possessed, making him, of course, persist to the end in protesting his innocence of the guilt of Va.s.sy.[248] The Protestants, while giving him credit for some compunctions of conscience for his persecuting career, and willingly admitting that, but for his pernicious brother, the Cardinal of Lorraine, he might have run a far different course, were compelled to view his death as a great blessing to France.[249]
[Sidenote: Renee de France at Montargis.]
A famous incident, ill.u.s.trating the perils to which the Huguenots of the central provinces were subjected during the siege, is too characteristic to be pa.s.sed over in silence. More than once, in the course of the war, the town and castle of Montargis, the d.u.c.h.ess of Ferrara's residence, had been threatened on account of the asylum it afforded to defenceless Protestants flocking thither from all quarters. When the minds of the Roman Catholics had become exasperated by nine or ten months of civil war, they formed a settled determination to break up this ”nest of Huguenots.”
Accordingly the Baron de la Garde--Captain Poulain, of Merindol memory--brought an order, in the king's name, from the Duke of Guise, at that time before the walls of Orleans, commanding Renee to leave Montargis, which had become important for military purposes, and to take up her abode at Fontainebleau, St. Germain, or Vincennes. The d.u.c.h.ess replied that it was idle to say that so weak a place as Montargis could, without extensive repairs, be of any military importance; and that to remove to any place in the vicinity of Paris would be to expose herself to a.s.sa.s.sination by the fanatical populace. She therefore sent Poulain back to the king for further instructions. Meantime, Poulain was followed by Malicorne, a creature of the duke's, at the head of some partisan troops.
This presumptuous officer had the impertinence to demand the immediate surrender of the castle, and went so far as to threaten to turn some cannon against it, in case of her refusal. But he little understood the virile courage of the woman with whom he had to do. ”Malicorne,” she answered him, ”take care what you undertake. There is not a man in this kingdom that can command me but the king. If you attempt what you threaten, I shall place myself first upon the breach, that I may find out whether you will be audacious enough to kill a king's daughter. Moreover, I am not so ill-connected, nor so little loved, but that I have the means of making the punishment of your temerity felt by you and your offspring, even to the very babes in the cradle.” The upstart captain was not prepared for such a reception, and, after alleging his commission as the excuse for the insolence of his conduct, delayed an enterprise which the wound and subsequent death of Guise entirely broke off.[250] Montargis continued during this and the next civil wars to be a safe refuge for thousands of distressed Protestants.
A great obstacle to the conclusion of peace was removed by Guise's death.
There was no one in the Roman Catholic camp to take his place. The panegyric p.r.o.nounced upon the duke by the English amba.s.sador, Sir Thomas Smith, may perhaps be esteemed somewhat extravagant, but has at least the merit of coming from one whose sympathies were decidedly adverse to him.
”The papists have lost their greatest stay, hope, and comfort. Many n.o.blemen and gentlemen did follow the camp and that faction, rather for the love of him than for any other zeal or affection. He was indeed the best captain or general in all France, some will say in all Christendom; for he had all the properties which belong [to], or are to be wished in a general: a ready wit and well advised, a body to endure pains, a courage to forsake no dangerous adventures, use and experience to conduct any army, much courtesy in entertaining of all men, great eloquence to utter all his mind. And he was very liberal both of money and honor to young gentlemen, captains, and soldiers; whereby he gat so much love and admiration amongst the n.o.bility and the soldiers in France, that I think, now he is gone, many gentlemen will forsake the camp; and they begin to drop away already. Then he was so earnest and so fully persuaded in his religion, that he thought nothing evil done that maintained that sect; and therefore the papists again thought nothing evil bestowed upon him; all their money and treasure of the Church, part of their lands, even the honor of the crown of France, they could have found in their hearts to have given him. And so all their joy, hope, and comfort one little stroke of a pistolet hath taken away! Such a vanity G.o.d can show men's hope to be, when it pleaseth Him.”[251]
Of the four generals on the Roman Catholic side under whose auspices the war began, three were dead and the fourth was in captivity. The treasury was exhausted. The interest of old debts was left unpaid; new debts had been contracted. Less than half the king's revenues were available on account of the places which the Huguenots held or threatened. The alienation of one hundred thousand livres of income from ecclesiastical property had been recently ordered, greatly to the annoyance of the clergy. The admiral's progress had of late been so rapid that but two or three important places of lower Normandy remained in friendly hands.
After the reduction of these he would move down through Maine and Anjou to Orleans, with a better force than had been marshalled at Dreux;[252]
the English would gain such a foothold on French soil as it would be difficult to induce them to relinquish. And where could competent generals be secured for the prosecution of hostilities? The post of lieutenant-general, now vacant, had, indeed, been offered to the Duke Christopher of Wurtemberg; but what prospect was there that a Protestant would consent to conduct a war against Protestants?[253]
[Sidenote: Deliberations for peace.]
Catharine was urgent for an immediate conclusion of peace. For the purpose of fixing its conditions, Conde was brought, under a strong guard, to the camp of the army before Orleans, and, on the small ”Isle aux Bouviers” in the middle of the Loire, he and the constable, released on their honor, held a preliminary interview on Sunday, the seventh of March, 1563.[254]
At first there seemed little prospect of harmonizing their discordant pretensions; for, if the question of the removal of the triumvirs had lost all its practical importance, the old bone of contention remained in the re-establishment of the Edict of January. On this point Montmorency was inflexible. He had been the prime instrument in expelling Protestantism from Paris, and had distinguished himself by burning the places of wors.h.i.+p. It could hardly be expected that he should rebuild what he had so laboriously torn down. And, whatever had been his first intentions, Conde proved less tenacious than might have been antic.i.p.ated from his previous professions. The fact was, that the younger Bourbon was not proof against the wiles employed with so much success against his elder brother.
Flattered by Catharine, he was led to suppose that after all it made little difference whether the full demands of the Huguenots were expressly granted in the edict of pacification or not. The queen mother was resolved, so he was a.s.sured, to confer upon him the dignity and office of lieutenant-general, left vacant by Navarre's death. When this should be his, it would be easy to obtain every practical concession to which the Huguenots were ent.i.tled. So much pleased was the court with the ardor he displayed, that he was at last permitted to go to Orleans on his own princely parole, in order to consult his confederates.
The Huguenot ministers whose advice he first asked, seeing his irresolution, were the more decided in opposing any terms that did not expressly recognize the Edict of January. Seventy-two united in a letter (on the ninth of March, 1563), in which they begged him not to permit the cause to suffer disaster at his hands, and rather to insure an extension, than submit to an abridgment of the liberty promised by the royal ordinance.[255] From the ministers, however, Conde went to the Huguenot ”n.o.blesse,” with whom his arguments of expediency had more weight, and who, weary of the length and privations of the war, and content with securing their own privileges, readily accepted the conditions reprobated by the ministers. The pacification was accordingly agreed upon, on the twelfth of March, and officially published in the form of a royal edict, dated at Amboise, on the nineteenth of March, 1563.
[Sidenote: Edict of Pacification, March 12, 1563.]
Charles the Ninth, by advice of his mother, the Cardinal of Bourbon, the Princes of Conde and La Roche-sur-Yon, the Dukes of Montmorency, Aumale, and Montpensier, and other members of his privy council, grants, in this doc.u.ment, to all barons, chatellains, and gentlemen possessed of the right to administer ”haute justice,” permission to celebrate in their own houses the wors.h.i.+p of ”the religion which they call reformed” in the presence of their families and retainers. The possessors of minor fiefs could enjoy the same privilege, but it extended to their families only. In every bailiwick or senechaussee, the Protestants should, on pet.i.tion, receive one city in whose suburbs their religious services might be held, and in all cities where the Protestant religion was exercised on the seventh of March of the present year, it should continue in one or two places _inside_ of the walls, to be designated hereafter by the king. The Huguenots, while secured in their liberty of conscience, were to restore all churches and ecclesiastical property which they might have seized, and were forbidden to wors.h.i.+p according to their rites in the city of Paris or its immediate neighborhood. The remaining articles of the peace were of a more personal or temporary interest. Foreign troops were to be speedily dismissed; the Protestant lords to be fully reinstated in their former honors, offices, and possessions; prisoners to be released; insults based upon the events of the war to be summarily punished. And Charles declared that he held his good cousin, the Prince of Conde, and all the other lords, knights, gentlemen, and burgesses that had served under him, to be his faithful subjects, believing that what they had done was for good ends and for his service.[256]
[Sidenote: Sir Thomas Smith's remonstrance.]
Such was the Edict of Amboise--a half-way measure, very different from that which was desired on either side. The English amba.s.sador declared he could find no one, whether Protestant or papist, that liked the ”accord,”
or thought it would last three weeks. And he added, by way of warning to Coligny and Conde: ”What you, who are the heads and rulers, do, I cannot tell; but every man thinketh that it is but a traine and a deceipt to sever the one of you from another, and all of you from this stronghold [Orleans], and then thei will talke with you after another sorte.”[257] He urged the Huguenots to learn a lesson from the fate of Bourges, Rouen, and other cities which had admitted the ”papists,” and to consider that these fine articles came from the queen mother, the Cardinals of Bourbon, Ferrara, and Guise, and others like them, who desired to take the Protestants like fish in a net. And he gave D'Andelot the significant hint--very significant it was, in view of what afterwards befell his brother Gaspard--that the report spread by the enemy respecting Poltrot's confession was only a preparation that, _in case any of the Huguenot n.o.blemen should be a.s.sa.s.sinated, it might be said that the deed had been done in just revenge by the Guises_, who would not hesitate to sacrifice them either by force or by treason.[258]
[Sidenote: Coligny's disappointment.]
Of the other party, Catharine de' Medici alone was jubilant over the edict. On the contrary, the Roman Catholic people of Paris regarded it as an approval of every sort of impiety and wicked action, and the parliament would register it only after repeated commands (on the twenty-seventh of March), and then with a formal declaration of its reluctance.[259] But no one was so much disappointed as the admiral. Hastening from Normandy to Orleans, he reached that city on the twenty-third of March, only to find that the peace had been fully concluded several days before. In the council of the confederates, the next day, he spoke his mind freely. He reminded Conde that, from the very commencement of hostilities, the triumvirs had offered the restoration of the Edict of January with the exclusion of the city of Paris; and that never had affairs stood on a better footing than now,[260] when two of the three chief authors of the war were dead, and the third was a prisoner. But the poor had surpa.s.sed the rich in devotion; the cities had given the example to the n.o.bles. In restricting the number of churches to one in a bailiwick, the prince and his counsellors had ruined more churches by a single stroke of the pen than all the forces of their enemies could have overthrown in ten years.
Coligny's warm remonstrance was heard with some regret for the precipitancy with which the arrangement had been made; but it was too late. The peace was signed. Besides, Conde was confident that he would soon occupy his brother's place, when the Huguenots would obtain all their demands.
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