Volume II Part 33 (2/2)

Wright, Queen Elizabeth, i. 314. See also Cardinal Chatillon's letter to the Elector Palatine, June 10, 1569, in which the writer declares significantly of Conde's murder by Montesquiou, ”ce qu'il n'eust ose entreprendre sans en avoir commandement _des plus grands_.” Kluckholn, Briefe Friedrich des Frommen, ii. 336.

[661] Letter of Henry of Navarre to the Duke of Anjou, ”escript au Camp d'Availle le xiie jour de juillet 1569.” Lettres inedites de Henry IV.

recueillies par le Prince Augustin Galitzin (Paris. 1860), 4-11.

[662] The Huguenot loss is given by Jean de Serres (iii. 316) at 200 killed and 40 taken prisoners. Agrippa d'Aubigne states it at 140 gentilhommes (Hist. univ., i. 280). The Earl of Leicester's words are: ”In which conflicte was slayne on both sydes, as we heare, not above foure hundred men” (Wright, Queen Elizabeth, i. 313, 314). Castelnau speaks of over a hundred Huguenot gentlemen slain and an equal number taken prisoners (liv. vii., c. 4). The ”Adviz donne par Mr Norrys, amba.s.sadeur pour la royne d'Angleterre, prins de ses lettres, envoyees de Metz, le 18 d'Avril” (La Mothe Fenelon, i. 362), agrees with Leicester, but is unique in making Anjou's loss greater than that of the Huguenots. De Thou makes the Protestants lose 400. The untruthful Davila says, ”the Huguenots lost not above seven hundred men, but they were most of them gentlemen and cavaliers of note.”

[663] Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 281. La Fosse and others have preserved one of the good Catholic stanzas composed on this occasion:

L'an mil cinq cent soixante et neuf Entre Congnac et Chateauneuf Fust apporte sur une anesse Le grand ennemi de la messe.

(Journal d'un cure ligueur, 104.)

[664] ”On donna l'honneur de cette defaicte a M. de Tavannes.” La Fosse, 104.

[665] De Thou, iv. (liv. xlv.) 177. Claude de Sainctes, afterward Bishop of Evreux, who, it will be remembered, figured at the colloquy of Poissy, is credited with the suggestion of the chapel.

[666] The princ.i.p.al authorities consulted for the battle of Jarnac, or of Ba.s.sac, as it is also frequently called, from the abbey near which it raged, are: Jean de Serres, iii. 309-315; De Thou, iv. (liv. xlv.) 173-176; Castelnau, liv. vii., c. 4; Ag. d'Aubigne, i. 278-281; Le vray discours de la bataille donnee par monsieur le 13. iour de Mars, 1569, entre Chasteauneuf et Jarnac, etc., avec privilege (Cimber et Danjou, Archives curieuses, vi. 365, etc.); Discours de la bataille donnee par Monseigneur, Duc d'Anjou et de Bourbonnoys, ... contre les rebelles ...

entre la ville d'Angoulesme et Jarnac, pres d'une maison nommee Vibrac appartenant a la Dame de Mezieres; an inaccurate official account, drawn up at Metz by Neufville on the first reception of the news, and sent by the Spanish amba.s.sador, Alava, to Philip II.; La Mothe Fenelon, Corr.

dip., vii. 3-11; Davila, bk. iv.; the ”Relation originale” in Doc.u.ments inedits tires des coll. MSS. de la bibliotheque royale (Fr. gov.), iv.

483, etc. Compare the excellent narratives of the Duc d'Aumale and Prof.

Soldan. The Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. fr., i. (1853) 429, gives a representation of a monument, in the form of an obelisk, about eleven feet in height, erected by the Department of the Charente, in 1818, on the spot where Conde fell. A somewhat similar monument, raised in 1770 by the Count de Jarnac, was destroyed during the first French revolution.

[667] Anjou to Charles IX., March 17, 1569, Duc d'Aumale, Les Princes de Conde, ii. 399.

[668] Apostolicarum Pii Quinti, P. M., Epistolarum libri quinque.

Antverpiae, 1640, 152.

[669] Pii Quinti Epist., 157-166.

[670] Ibid., 160, 161.

[671] Boscheron des Portes, Hist. du Parlement de Bordeaux (Bordeaux, 1877), i. 214, 216. As the Huguenots were condemned, not for heresy, but for rebellion, sacrilege, etc., the learned author finds no mention of f.a.got and flame.

[672] La Mothe Fenelon. i. 288-294.

[673] Despatch of April 12, 1569, ibid., i. 303.

[674] It is evident that the results of the battle were designedly exaggerated by the Roman Catholics at the time, and have been overrated ever since. Agrippa d'Aubigne alleges that, out of 128 cornets of cavalry in the Huguenot army, only fifteen were engaged; and that of over 200 ensigns of infantry, barely _six_--those under Pluviaut--came within a league of the battle-field. Hist. univ., _ubi supra_.

[675] Jean de Serres, iii. 317, 318; De Thou, iv. (liv. xlv.) 178, 179. De Thou reckons the losses of the Roman Catholics before Cognac at more than 300 men.

[676] De Thou, iv. 180, 181; Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 282; J. de Serres, iii.

318, 319.

[677] La Mothe Fenelon, i. 367. And now, to the insulting _quatrain_ already quoted a propos of Conde's death, the Huguenot soldiers of Angoumois replied in rough verses of their own:

Le Prince de Conde Il a ete tue; Mais Monsieur l'Amiral Est encore a cheval, Avec La Rochefoucauld Pour achever tous ces Papaux.

V. Bujeaud, Chronique protestante de l'Angoumois, 40.

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