Volume II Part 24 (1/2)

[432] ”Une armee gaillarde.” La Noue, _ubi supra_.

[433] Mem. de Castelnau, liv. vi., c. iv., c. v.; La Noue, c. xi.; De Thou, iv. (liv. xlii.) 5, 6. Davila, l. iv., p. 110, alludes to the accusation, extorted from Protestant prisoners on the rack, that ”the chief scope of this enterprise was to murder the king and queen, with all her other children, that the crown might come to the Prince of Conde,” but admits that it was not generally credited. The curate of Saint Barthelemi is less charitable; describing the rising of the Protestants, he says: ”En ung vendredy 27e se partirent de toutes les villes de France les huguenots, sans qu'on leur eust dit mot, mais ils craignoient que si on venoit au dessein de leur entreprise qui estoit de prendre ou tuer le roy Charles neuvieme, qu'on ne les saccagea es villes.” Journal d'un cure ligueur (J. de la Fosse), 85.

[434] La Noue, and De Thou, _ubi supra_.

[435] The historian, Michel de Castelnau, sieur de Mauvissiere, had been sent as a special envoy to congratulate the Duke of Alva on his safe arrival, and the d.u.c.h.ess of Parma on her relief. As he was returning from Brussels, he received, from some Frenchmen who joined him, a very circ.u.mstantial account of the contemplated rising of the Huguenots, and, although he regarded the story as an idle rumor, he thought it his duty to communicate it to the king and queen. Memoires, liv. vi., c. iv.

[436] Mem. de Castelnau, _ubi supra_. It is probable that the French court partook of Cardinal Granvelle's conviction, expressed two years before, that the Huguenots would find it difficult to raise money or procure foreign troops for another war, not having paid for those they had employed in the last war, nor holding the strongholds they then held.

Letter of May 7, 1565, Papiers d'etat, ix. 172.

[437] Mem. du duc de Bouillon (Ancienne Collection), xlvii. 421.

[438] La Fosse, p. 86, represents Charles as exclaiming, when he entered the Porte Saint Denis: ”Qu'il estoit tenu a Dieu, et qu'il y avoit quinze heures qu'il estoit a cheval, et avoit eust trois alarmes.”

[439] Mem. de Castelnau, liv. vi., c. v.; La Noue, c. xiii. (Anc. Coll., xlvii. 180-185); De Thou, iv. 8; J. de Serres, iii. 129-131; La Fosse, 86; Agrippa d'Aubigne, Hist. univ., i. 210.

[440] ”Ravi d'avoir allume le feu de la guerre,” says De Thou, iv. 9.

[441] De Thou, _ubi supra_.

[442] The circ.u.mstance of two messengers, each bearing letters from the same person, while the letters made no allusion to each other, following one another closely, struck Alva as so suspicious, that he actually placed the second messenger under arrest, and only liberated him on hearing from his own agent on his return that the man's credentials were genuine.

[443] Alva proposed to detach 5,000 men to prevent the entrance of German auxiliaries into France, and protect the Netherlands.

[444] Letter of Alva to Philip, Nov. 1, 1567, Gachard, Correspondance de Philippe II., i., 593.

[445] ”Que la ley salica, que dizien, es baya, y las armas la allanarian.”

Ibid, i. 594.

[446] The price of wheat, Jehan de la Fosse tells us (p. 86) advanced to fifteen francs per ”septier.”

[447] Journal d'un cure ligueur (J. de la Fosse), 86.

[448] In one of Charles's first despatches to the Lieutenant-Governor of Dauphiny, wherein he bids him restrain, and, if necessary, attack any Huguenots of the province who might undertake to come to Conde's a.s.sistance, there occurs an expression that smacks of the murderous spirit of St. Bartholomew's Day: ”You shall cut them to pieces,” he writes, ”without sparing a single person; for the more dead bodies there are, the less enemies remain (car tant plus de mortz, moins d'ennemys!)” Charles to Gordes, Oct. 8, 1567, MS. in Conde Archives, D'Aumale, i. 563.

[449] Davila (i. 113) makes the latter her distinct object in the negotiations: ”The queen, to protract the time till supplies of men and other necessary provisions arrived, and to abate the fervor of the enemy, being constrained to have recourse to her wonted arts, excellently dissembling those so recent injuries, etc.”

[450] Of course ”Sieur Soulier, pretre” sees nothing but perversity in these grounds. ”Ils n'alleguerent que des raisons frivolles pour excuser leur armement.” Histoire des edits de pacification, 64.

[451] Davila is certainly incorrect in stating that the Huguenots demanded ”that the queen mother should have nothing to do in the government” (p.

113).

[452] October 7th, Soulier, Hist. des edits de pacification, 65.

[453] De Thou, iv. (liv. xlii.) 10-15; Jean de Serres, iii. 131, 132; Davila, bk. iv. 113-115; Agrippa d'Aubigne, Hist. universelle, l. iv., c.

6, 7 (i. 211, 212); Castelnau, l. vi., c. 6.

[454] So closely was Paris invested on the north, that, although accompanied by an escort of sixty horse, Castelnau was driven back into the faubourgs when making an attempt by night to proceed by one of the roads leading in this direction. He was then forced to steal down the left bank of the Seine to Poissy, before he could find means to avoid the Huguenot posts. Memoires, l. vi., c. 6.

[455] Castelnau was instructed to ask for three or four regiments of Spanish or Italian foot, and for two thousand cavalry of the same nations.

[456] I have deemed it important to go into these details, in order to exhibit in the clearest light the insincerity of Philip the Second--a prince who could not be straightforward in his dealings, even when the interests of the Church, to which he professed the deepest devotion, were vitally concerned. My princ.i.p.al authority is the envoy, Michel de Castelnau, liv. vi., c. 6. Alva's letter to Catharine de' Medici, Dec., 1567, Gachard, Correspondance de Philippe II., i. 608, 609, sheds some additional light on the transactions. I need not say that, where Castelnau and Alva differ in their statements, as they do in some essential points, I have had no hesitation in deciding whether the duke or the impartial historian is the more worthy of credit. See, also, De Thou, iii. (liv.