Volume II Part 10 (2/2)

[180] It is to be noted, however, that the order of the Prince of Conde, in the case of Sapin (November 2, 1562), makes no mention of the judicial murder of Marlorat, but alleges only his complicity with parliament in imprisoning the king, his mother, and the King of Navarre, in annulling royal edicts by magisterial orders, in constraining the king's officers to become idolaters, in declaring knights of the Order of St. Michael and other worthy gentlemen rebels, in ordering the tocsin to be rung, and inciting to a.s.sa.s.sination, etc. Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., ii. 115, 116.

See Bruslart, Mem. de Conde, i. 100. When Conde was informed that the Parisian parliament had gone in red robes to the ”Sainte Chapelle,” to hear a requiem ma.s.s for Counsellor Sapin, he laughed, and said that he hoped soon to multiply their _litanies_ and _kyrie eleysons_. Hist.

eccles., _ubi supra_.

[181] As early as October 27th, Navarre sent a gentleman to Jeanne d'Albret, then at Pau in Bearn, ”desiring to have her now to cherish him, and do the part of a wife;” and the messenger told Sir Thomas Smith, with whom he dined that day in Evreux, ”that the king pretendeth to him, that this punishment [his wounds] came to him well-deserved, for his unkindness in forsaking the truth.” Forbes, State Papers, ii. 167. The authenticity of the story of Antoine of Navarre's death-bed repentance is sufficiently attested by the letter written, less than a year later (August, 1563), by his widow, Jeanne d'Albret, to the Cardinal of Armagnac: ”Ou sont ces belles couronnes que vous luy prometties, et qu'il a acquises a combattre contre la vraye Religion et sa conscience; comme la confession derniere qu'il en a faite en sa mort en est seur tesmoignage, et les paroles dites a la Royne, en protestation de faire prescher les ministres par tout s'il guerissoit.” Pierre Olhagaray, Histoire de Foix, Bearn, et Navarre (Paris, 1609), p. 546. See also Brantome (edition Lalanne), iv. 367, and the account, written probably by Antoine's physician, De Taillevis, among the Dupuy MSS. of the Bibliotheque nationale, ibid., iv. 419.

[182] Lestoile (Collection Michaud et Poujoulat), 15; Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., ii. 397, 406-408; De Thou, 336, 337; Relation de la mort du roi de Navarre, Cimber et Danjou, iv. 67, etc.

[183] I am convinced that the historian De Thou has drawn of this fickle prince much too charitable a portrait (iii. 337). It seems to be saying too much to affirm that ”his merit equalled that of the greatest captains of his age;” and if ”he loved justice, and was possessed of uprightness,”

it must be confessed that his dealings with neither party furnish much evidence of the fact. (I retain these remarks, although I find that the criticism has been antic.i.p.ated by Soldan, ii. 78). Recalling the earlier relations of the men, it is not a little odd that, when the news of Navarre's death reached the ”holy fathers” of the council then in session in the city of Trent, the papal legates and the presidents paid the Cardinal of Lorraine a formal visit to _condole_ with him on the decease of his dear relative! (Acta Conc. Tridentini, _apud_ Martene et Durand, Amplissima Collectio, tom. viii. 1299). The farce was, doubtless, well played, for the actors were of the best in Christendom.

[184] Letter of Beza to Bullinger, Sept. 1, 1562, Baum, iii., App., 190.

The Huguenots had sustained a heavy loss also in the utter defeat and dispersion by Blaise de Montluc of some five or six thousand troops of Gascony, which the Baron de Duras was bringing to Orleans.

[185] The sentiments of well-informed Huguenots are reflected in a letter of Calvin, of September, 1562, urging the Protestants of Languedoc to make collections to defray the expense entailed by D'Andelot's levy. ”D'entrer en question ou dispute pour reprendre les faultes pa.s.sees, ce n'est pas le temps. Car, quoy qu'il en soit, Dieu nous a reduicts a telle extremite que si vous n'estes secourus de ce coste-la, on ne voit apparence selon les hommes que d'une piteuse et horrible desolation.” Bonnet, Lettres franc., ii. 475.

[186] Hist. eccles., ii. 421.

[187] See ”Capitulation des reytres et lansquenetz levez pour monseigneur le prince de Conde, du xviii. d'aoust 1562,” Bulletin, xvi. (1867), 116-118. The reiters came chiefly from Hesse.

[188] Claude Haton, no friend to Catharine, makes the Duke d'Aumale, in command of eight or nine thousand troops, avoid giving battle to D'Andelot, and content himself with watching his march from Lorraine as far as St. Florentin, in obedience to secret orders of the queen mother, signed with the king's seal. Memoires, i. 294, 295. The fact was that D'Andelot adroitly eluded both the Duke of Nevers, Governor of Champagne, who was prepared to resist his pa.s.sage, and Marshal Saint Andre, who had advanced to meet him with thirteen companies of ”gens-d'armes” and some foot soldiers. Davila, bk. iii. 76; De Thou, iii. (liv. x.x.xiii.) 356.

[189] Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., ii. 114, 115. The writer ascribes the fall of Rouen to the delay of the reiters in a.s.sembling at their rendezvous. Instead of being ready on the first of October, it was not until the tenth that they had come in sufficient numbers to be mustered in.

[190] Eighty thousand, according to the Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., ii.

91, 92; twenty-five thousand, according to Claude Haton, Memoires, 332, 333.

[191] Letter of Beza to Bullinger, Sept. 1st, Baum, ii., App., 191; Hist.

eccles. des egl. ref., ii. 114, 115; Davila, bk. iii., 77; De Thou, iii.

355, 356.

[192] Letter of Beza to Calvin, Dec. 14, 1562, Baum, ii., App., 196. The authority of Beza, who had recently returned from a mission on which he had been sent by Conde to Germany and Switzerland and who wrote from the camp, is certainly to be preferred to that of Claude Haton, who states the Huguenot forces at 25,000 men (Memoires, i. 298). The prince's chief captains--Coligny, Andelot, La Rochefoucauld, and Mouy--Haton rates as the best warriors in France after the Duke of Guise. According to Throkmorton's despatches from Conde's camp near Corbeil, the departure from Orleans took place on the 8th of November, and the prince's French forces amounted only to six thousand foot soldiers, indifferently armed, and about two thousand horse. Forbes, State Papers, ii. 195. But this did not include the Germans--some seven thousand five hundred men more. Ibid., ii. 196. Altogether, he reckons the army at ”6,000 hors.e.m.e.n of all sorts and nations, and 10,000 footmen.” Ibid., ii. 202.

[193] Mem. de La Noue, c. viii., p. 602.

[194] The Protestants of Languedoc held in Nismes (Nov. 2-13, 1562) the first, or at least one of the very first, of those ”political a.s.semblies”

which became more and more frequent as the sixteenth century advanced.

Here the Count of Crussol, subsequently Duke d'Uzes, was urged to accept the office of ”head, defender, and conservator” of the reformed party in Languedoc. To the count a council was given, and he was requested not to find the suggestion amiss that he should in all important matters, such as treaties with the enemy, consult with the general a.s.sembly of the Protestants, or at least with the council. By this good office he would demonstrate the closeness of the bond uniting him as head to the body of his native land, besides giving greater a.s.surance to a people too much inclined to receive unfounded impressions (”ung puple souvent trop meticulleux et de legiere impression”). Proces-verbal of the a.s.sembly of Nismes, from MS. Bulletin, xxii. (1873), p. 515.

[195] Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., ii. 117; De Thou, iii. 357. Calvin's, or the Geneva liturgy, was probably used but in part. Special prayers, adapted to the circ.u.mstances of the army, had been composed, under the t.i.tle of ”Prieres ordinaires des soldatz de l'armee conduicte par Monsieur le Prince de Conde, accomodees selon l'occurrence du temps.” Prof. Baum cites a simple, but beautiful evening prayer, which was to be said when the sentinels were placed on guard for the night. Theodor Beza, ii. 624, note.

[196] Throkmorton (Forbes, ii. 195, 197) represents the executions as more general, and as an act of severity, ”chiefly in revenge of the great cruelty exercised by the Duke of Guise and his party at Rouen against the soldiers there, but specially against your Majesty's subjects.”

[197] Throkmorton was convinced of the practicability of capturing Paris by a rapid movement even from before Corbeil: ”The whole suburbes on this syde the water is entrenched, where there is sundry bastions and cavaliers to plante th' artillerye on, which is verey daungerous for th'

a.s.saylantes. Nevertheles, if the Prince had used celeritie, in my opinion, with little losse of men and great facilitie he might have woon the suburbes; and then the towne coulde not longe have holden, somme parte of the sayd suburbes havinge domination therof.” Forbes, ii. 217.

[198] Memoires de Francois de la Noue, c. ix., p. 603 (Collection Michaud et Poujoulat). See also Davila (bk. iii. 77), who represents the advice of the admiral rather to have been to employ the army in recapturing the places along the Loire, while Conde insisted on trying to become master of Paris. De Thou, iii. 358. Beza, in his letter of Dec. 14th, says: ”Quum enim urbs repentino impetu facile capi posset, etc.” So also the Hist.

eccles. des egl. ref., ii. 118.

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