Volume II Part 34 (1/2)

[678] Discours merveilleux de la vie de Catherine de Medicis (Cologne, 1683), 645. See the atrocious letter to Catharine, which the queen found upon her bed, Nov. 8, 1575, and which purports to have been written from Lausanne. In the copy published by Le Laboureur (ii. 425-429), it is signed ”Grand Champ;” in that which the editor of Claude Haton gives in an appendix (p. 1111-1115) the name is ”Emille Dardani.” The date is doubtful. Le Laboureur is apparently more correct in giving it as ”le troisieme mois de la quatrieme annee apres la trahison” (St. Bartholomew's Day).

[679] The Vie de Coligny (Cologne, 1686), p. 360, 361, says nothing to indicate that the author regarded D'Andelot's death as other than natural.

But Hotman's Gasparis Colinii Vita (1575), p. 75, mentions the suspicion, and considers it confirmed by the saying attributed to Birague, afterward chancellor, that ”the war would never be terminated by arms alone, but that it might be brought to a close very easily by _cooks_.” Cardinal Chatillon, in a letter to the Elector Palatine, June 10, 1569, alludes to his brother's having died of poison as a well-ascertained fact, ”comme il est apparent tant par l'anatomie,” etc. Kluckholn, Briefe Frederick des Frommen, ii 336.

[680] Since the outbreak of the present war, the court had undertaken to deprive D'Andelot of his rank, and had divided his duties between Brissac and Strozzi. Brissac had been killed, and Strozzi was now recognized by the court as colonel-general.

[681] The letter written from Saintes, May 18, 1569, is inserted in Gasparis Colinii Vita (1575) pp. 75-78, the author remarking, ”quam ipsius manum, atque chirographum prae manibus jam habeo.” The possession of so many family ma.n.u.scripts on the part of the anonymous writer of this valuable contemporary account, is explained by the fact that he was no other than the distinguished Francis Hotman, in whose hands the admiral's widow, Jaqueline d'Entremont, or Antremont, had placed all the doc.u.ments she possessed, entreating him to undertake the pious task of compiling a life of her husband. In a remarkable letter which has but lately come to light, dated January 15, 1572 (new style 1573), after an exordium full of those cla.s.sical allusions of which the age was so fond, she writes: ”Ne trouvez etrange, je vous supplie, si j'ai essaye de reveiller vostre plume pour laisser a la posterite autant de temoignages de la vertu de feu monseigneur et mari, que nos ennemis la veulent designer,” etc. Bulletin, vi. 29.

[682] ”La France aura beaucoup de maux avec vous, et puis sans vous; mais en fin tout tombera sur l'Espagnol.” Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 283.

[683] Agrippa d'Aubigne, _ubi supra_.

[684] Berger de Xivrey, Lettres missives de Henri IV. (Paris, 1843), i. 7.

[685] Histoire de Charles IX. par le sieur Varillas (Cologne, 1686), ii.

161, 162. I am glad to embrace this opportunity of quoting a historian in whose statements of facts I have as seldom the good fortune to concur as in his general deductions of principles. M. de Thou (iv. 182) remarks in a similar spirit: ”Il fit voir a la France (et ses ennemis meme en convinrent) qu'il etoit capable de soutenir lui seul tout le parti Protestant dont on croyoit auparavant qu'il ne soutenoit qu'une partie.”

[686] Ranke (Civil Wars and Monarchy), 241; the statement of Jean de Serres, iii. 325, would make the total number a little larger; the accounts of Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 285, and De Thou, iv. 185, make it somewhat smaller.

[687] Adviz, etc., La Mothe Fenelon, i. 363.

[688] De Thou, iv. 184; Jean de Serres, iii. 320-323. This was in February. It was the more natural for Wolfgang to defend his course, as he was himself an ancient ally of the King of Spain. In the Papiers d'etat du card. de Granvelle, ix. 567, we have the text of a compact formed Oct. 1, 1565: ”Lettres de Service accordees par le roi d'Espagne a Wolfgang, comte Palatin et duc de Deux Ponts.” According to this doc.u.ment, the duke was bound for three years to obey Philip's summons, although he refused to pledge himself to do anything directly or indirectly against the Augsburg Confession or its supporters.

[689] Journal d'un cure ligueur (Jehan de la Fosse), 104.

[690] Letter of Charles IX. to La Mothe Fenelon, May 14, 1569, Corresp.

dipl., vii. 20, 21. The same incredulity respecting the possibility of Deux Ponts's enterprise is expressed by the anonymous author of a memorandum of a journey through France, in Doc.u.ments inedits tires des MSS. de la bibl. royale, iv. 493. It is alluded to in the ”Remonstrance”

of the Protestant princes presented after the junction of the armies. Jean de Serres, iii. 337.

[691] Castelnau, liv. vii., c. 5.

[692] De Thou, iv. 185-188; Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 285; Anquetil, Esprit de la ligue, i. 297.

[693] Discours envoye de La Roch.e.l.le a la Royne d'Angleterre. La Mothe Fenelon, ii. 158, etc.

[694] De Thou, iv. 188; Lestoile, 22; J. de Serres, iii. 524; Castelnau, liv. vii., c. 6.

[695] Castelnau, liv. vii., c. 7; De Thou, iv. 192; Jean de Serres, iii.

327 (who states the Roman Catholic loss as higher than given in the text).

Brantome ascribes the defeat of Strozzi to the circ.u.mstance that the matches of _his_ troops were put out by the rain, and that his infantry, unsupported by cavalry, was at the mercy of Mouy and the Huguenot troopers. Colonnels fr., OEuvres, ed. Lalanne, vi. 60. But the ”Discours envoye de la Roch.e.l.le a la Royne d'Angleterre” (La Mothe Fenelon, ii. 160) states that the Huguenots would have done much greater execution and perhaps put an end to the dispute, ”n'eust ete que, tout ce jour la, la pluye fut si extreme et si grande que noz harquebouziers ne pouvoient plus jouer.” La Roche Abeille, or La Roche l'Abeille, is a hamlet seventeen miles south of Limoges.

[696] According to J. A. Gabutius, the biographer of Pius V. (sec. 120, p.

646), the Pope sent 4,500 foot and 1,000 horse, and Cosmo, Duke of Florence, 1,000 foot and 200 horse. Besides these, many n.o.bles attached themselves to the expedition as volunteers. Santa Fiore was instructed to leave France _the moment he should perceive that the heretics were treated with_. ”Quod si ipse summus copiarum Dux, vel de pace vel de rerum compositione quidquam Catholicae religioni d.a.m.nosum praesentiret; [Pius V.]

imperavit e vestigio aut converso itinere in Italiam remearet, aut ad Catholic.u.m exercitum in Belgio c.u.m haereticis bellantem sese conferret et adjungeret.”

[697] De Thou, iv. 192; Vie de Coligny, 364; Gasparis Colinii Vita, 81; Jean de Serres, iii. 331. Charles IX. in a letter to La Mothe Fenelon, from St. Germains des Pres, July 27, 1569, alludes to the successes of the Huguenots, whom Anjou cannot resist, ”ayant donne conge a la pluspart de sa gendarmerye de s'en aller faire ung tour en leurs maisons.” Corresp.

diplom., vii. 35, 36. The furlough, which was to expire on the 15th of August, was afterward extended by Anjou to the 1st of October.