Volume II Part 20 (1/2)
[418] The good policy of straightforward dealing on the part of an amba.s.sador is set forth in a n.o.ble letter of Morvilliers, Bishop of Orleans, from which I permit myself to quote a few sentences: ”Il y en a toutesfois qui pensent que, pour estre habille homme, il fault tousjours aller masque, laquelle opinion j'estime du tout erronee, et celluy qui la suit grandement deceu. Le temps m'a donne quelque experience des choses; mais je n'ay jamais veu homme, suivant ces chemins obliques, qui n'ait embrouille les affaires de son maistre, et, luy, perdre beaucoup plus qu'acquerir de reputation; et au contraire ceux, qui se sont conduits prudemment avec la verite, avoir, pour le moins, rapporte de leur negotiation ce fruict et l'honneur d'y avoir faict ce que les hommes, avec le sens et jugement humain, peuvent faire.” Correspondance diplomatique de Bertrand de Salignac de la Mothe Fenelon, vii. 97.
[419] Journal de Jehan de la Fosse, 79, 80; Vie de Coligny (Cologne, 1686), 321-323; Gasparis Colinii Vita, 1575, 55; Agrippa d'Aubigne, Hist.
univ., 1, 207.
[420] Journal d'un cure ligueur (Jehan de la Fosse), 81.
[421] ”December (1566.) Au commencement vinrent plusieurs amba.s.sades a Paris, tant de la part de l'Empereur, que du Pape, que du roy d'Espagne, lesquels manderent au roy de France, qu'il eust a faire ca.s.ser l'esdict de janvier, ou autrement qu'ils se declareroient ennemys.” Ibid., 80. The fanatical party affected to regard the Edict of Amboise, March, 1563, as a mere re-establishment of the edict of January 17, 1562.
[422] Memoires de Castelnau, liv. vi., c. ii. Castelnau was certainly in a favorable position for learning the truth respecting these matters; and yet even he speaks of the ”holy league,” formed at Bayonne, as of something beyond controversy. According to a treaty and renewal of alliance between Charles the Ninth and the Roman Catholic cantons of Switzerland, entered into Dec. 7, 1564, for Charles's lifetime, and seven years beyond, the Swiss were to furnish him, when attacked, not less than six nor more than sixteen thousand men for the entire war. The success of the negotiation occasioned great rejoicing at Paris, and corresponding annoyance in the Spanish dominions. Du Mont, Corps diplomatique, v.
129-131; Jehan de la Fosse, 70; Papiers d'etat du card. de Granvelle, viii. 599.
[423] Mem. de Fr. de la Noue, c. xi.
[424] He did more than this, according to the belief of the times, as expressed by Jean de Serres; for, ”having been present at the Bayonne affair,” he brought him irrefragable proof of the ”holy league entered into by the kings of France and Spain for the ruin of the religion.”
Comment. de statu. rel. et reip., iii. 126.
[425] Yet so much were intelligent observers deceived respecting the signs of the times, that only a little over two months before the actual outbreak of the second civil war (July 4, 1567), Judge Truchon congratulated France on the edifying spectacle of loving accord which the court furnished. ”I have this very day,” he writes, ”seen the king holding, with his left hand, the head of my lord, the prince [of Conde], and with his right the head of my lord the Cardinal of Bourbon, and _playfully trying to strike their foreheads together_. The Duke d'Aumale was paying his attentions to Madame la Mareschale [de Montmorency.] ...
The Cardinal of Chatillon was not far off. In short, all, without distinction, seemed to me to be so harmonious that I wish there may never be greater divisions in France. It was a fine example for many persons of lower rank,” etc. Letter to M. de Gordes, MS. in Archives de Conde, Duc d'Aumale, Princes de Conde, i. 540, Pieces inedites.
[426] Jean de Serres, iii. 128, 129. See, also, Conde's letter of Aug. 23, 1568. Ibid., iii. 201.
[427] Norris to Queen Elizabeth, Aug. 29, 1567, State Paper Office, Duc d'Aumale, Pieces inedites, i. 559.
[428] ”Sed ne frustra laborare viderentur, de Albani consilio, 'Satius esse unic.u.m salmonis caput, quam mille ranarum capita habere,' ineunt rationes de intercipiendis optimatum iis, qui Religionem sequerentur, Condaeo, Amiralio, Andelotio, Rupefocaldio aliisque primoribus viris. Ratio videbatur praesentissima, ut a rege accerserentur, tanquam consulendi de iis rebus quae ad regnum const.i.tuendum facerent,” etc. Jean de Serres, iii.
125. It will be remembered that this volume was published the year before the St. Bartholomew's ma.s.sacre. The persons enumerated, with the exception of those that died before 1572, were the victims of the ma.s.sacre.
[429] ”Ita Edicti nomen usurpabatur, dum Edictum revera pessundaretur.”
Jean de Serres, iii. 60.
CHAPTER XV.
THE SECOND CIVIL WAR AND THE SHORT PEACE.
[Sidenote: Coligny's pacific counsels.]
[Sidenote: Rumors of plots to destroy the Huguenots.]
[Sidenote: D'Andelots warlike counsels prevail.]
[Sidenote: Cardinal Lorraine to be seized and King Charles liberated.]
A treacherous peace or an open war was now apparently the only alternative offered to the Huguenots. In reality, however, they believed themselves to be denied even the unwelcome choice between the two. The threatening preparations made for the purpose of crus.h.i.+ng them were indications of coming war, if, indeed, they were not properly to be regarded, according to the view of the great Athenian orator in a somewhat similar case, as the first stage in the war itself. The times called for prompt decision.
Within a few weeks three conferences were held at Valery and at Chatillon.
Ten or twelve of the most prominent Huguenot n.o.bles a.s.sembled to discuss with the Prince of Conde and Coligny the exigencies of the hour. Twice was the impetuosity of the greater number restrained by the calm persuasion of the admiral. Convinced that the sword is a fearful remedy for political diseases--a remedy that should never be applied except in the most desperate emergency--Coligny urged his friends to be patient, and to show to the world that they were rather forced into war by the malice of their enemies than drawn of their own free choice. But at the third meeting of the chiefs, before the close of the month, they were too much excited by the startling reports reaching them from all sides, to be controlled even by Coligny's prudent advice. A great friend of ”the religion” at court had sent to the prince and the admiral an account of a secret meeting of the royal council, at which the imprisonment of the former and the execution of the latter was agreed upon. The Swiss were to be distributed in equal detachments at Paris, Orleans, and Poitiers, and the plan already indicated--the repeal of the Edict of Toleration and the proclamation of another edict of opposite tenor--was at once to be carried into effect.
”Are we to wait,” asked the more impetuous, ”until we be bound hand and foot and dragged to dishonorable death on Parisian scaffolds? Have we forgotten the more than three thousand Huguenots put to violent deaths since the peace, and the frivolous answers and treacherous delays which have been our only satisfaction?” And when some of the leaders expressed the opinion that delay was still preferable to a war that would certainly expose their motives to obloquy, and entail so much unavoidable misery, the admiral's younger brother, D'Andelot, combated with his accustomed vehemence a caution which he regarded as pusillanimous, and pointedly asked its advocates what all their innocence would avail them when once they found themselves in prison and at their enemy's mercy, when they were banished to foreign countries, or were roaming without shelter in the forests and wilds, or were exposed to the barbarous a.s.saults of an infuriated populace.[430] His striking harangue carried the day. The admiral reluctantly yielded, and it was decided to antic.i.p.ate the attack of the enemy by a bold defensive movement. Some advocated the seizure of Orleans, and counselled that, with this refuge in their possession, negotiations should be entered into with the court for the dismissal of the Swiss; others that the party should fortify itself by the capture of as many cities as possible. But to these propositions the pertinent reply was made that there was no time for wordy discussions, the controversy must be settled by means of the sword;[431] and that, of a hundred towns the Protestants held at the beginning of the last war, they had found themselves unable to retain a dozen until its close. Finally, the prince and his companions resolved to make it the great object of their endeavors to drive the Cardinal of Lorraine from court and liberate Charles from his pernicious influence. This object was to be attained by dispersing the Swiss, and by conducting hostilities on a bold plan--rather by the maintenance of an army that could actively take the field,[432] than by seizing any cities save a few of the most important. On the twenty-ninth of September, the feast-day of St. Michael, the Huguenots having suddenly risen in all parts of France, Conde and Coligny, at the head of the troops of the neighboring provinces, were to present themselves at the court, which would be busy celebrating the customary annual ceremonial of the royal order. They would then hand to the king a humble pet.i.tion for the redress of grievances, for the removal of the Cardinal of Lorraine, and for the dispersion of the Swiss troops, which, instead of being retained near the frontiers of the kingdom which they had ostensibly come to protect, had been advanced to the very vicinity of the capital.[433] It might be difficult to prevent the enterprise from wearing the appearance of a plot against the king, in whose immediate vicinity the cardinal was; but the event, if prosperous, would demonstrate the integrity of their purpose.[434]
[Sidenote: The secret slowly leaks out.]
The plan was well conceived, and better executed than such schemes usually are. The great difficulty was to keep so important a secret. It was a singular coincidence that, as in the case of the tumult of Amboise, over seven years before, the first intimations of their danger reached the Guises from the Netherlands.[435] But the courtiers, whose minds were taken up with the pleasures of the chase, and who dreamed of no such movement, were so far from believing the report, that Constable Montmorency expressed vexation that it was imagined that the Huguenots could get together one hundred men in a corner of the kingdom--not to speak of an army in the immediate vicinity of the capital--without the knowledge of himself, the head of the royal military establishment; while Chancellor de l'Hospital said that ”it was a capital crime for any servant to alarm his prince with false intelligence, or give him groundless suspicions of his fellow-subjects.”[436]