Volume II Part 34 (2/2)

[698] See Vie de Coligny, 364; De Thou, iv. 192; Jean de Serres, iii. 345, 346.

[699] Yet the ”Guisards” were never tired of a.s.serting the contrary. Sir Thomas Smith tells us that Cardinal Lorraine maintained to him that ”they [the Huguenots] desired to bring all to the form of a republic, like Geneva.” Smith records the conversation at length in a letter to Cecil, wis.h.i.+ng his correspondent to perceive ”how he had need of a long spoon that should eat potage with the Devil.” The discussion must have been an earnest one. Sir Thomas was not disposed to boast of being a finished courtier. In fact, he declares that, as to framing compliments, he is ”the verriest calf and beast in the world,” and threatens to get one Bizzarro to write him some, which he will get translated (for all sorts of people), and learn them by heart. He managed on this occasion to speak his mind to Lorraine pretty freely respecting the real origin of the war (the conversation took place in 1562), and told the churchman the uncomplimentary truth, that his brother's deed at Va.s.sy was the cause of all the troubles. Smith to Cecil, Rouen, Nov. 7, 1562, State Paper Office.

[700] Not to speak of Noyers, belonging to Conde, Coligny's stately residence at Chatillon-sur-Loing fell into the hands of the enemy. In direct violation of the terms of the capitulation, the palace was robbed of all its costly furniture, which was sent to Paris and sold at auction.

Chateau-Renard, which also was the property of Coligny, was taken by the Roman Catholics, and became the nest of a company of half-soldiers, half-robbers, under an Italian--one Fretini--who laid under contribution travellers on the road to Lyons. De Thou, iv. 198, 199; Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 292.

[701] How deeply the Guises felt the taunt that they were strangers in France, appears from a sentence of the cardinal's to the Bishop of Rennes (Trent, Nov. 24, 1563), wherein, alluding to the recent birth of a son to the Duke of Lorraine and Catharine de' Medici's daughter, he says that he is ”merveilleus.e.m.e.nt aise ... pource que sera occasion aux Huguenots de ne nous dire plus princes estrangers.” Le Laboureur, ii. 313.

[702] ”Copie d'une Remonstrance que ceulx de la Roch.e.l.le ont mande avoyr envoyee au Roy, apres l'arrivee du duc de Deux Ponts.” La Mothe Fenelon, ii. 179-188. In Latin, Jean de Serres, iii. 333-345. Gasparis Colinii Vita, 80.

[703] Mem. de Castelnau, liv. vii., c. 6; Jean de Serres, iii. 345, 346; De Thou, _ubi supra_.

[704] ”Lusignan la pucelle.” De Thou, iv. 197; Jean de Serres, iii. 331; Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 290.

[705] Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 294; De Thou, iv. (liv. xlv.) 200-202; Jean de Serres, iii. 347.

[706] Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 298: ”Presse par les interests et murmures des Poictevins, il sent.i.t en cet endroit une des incommoditez qui se trouve aux partis de plusieurs testes; sa prudence donc cedant a sa necessite,”

etc.

[707] Letter of Sept. 8, 1569, Wright, Queen Elizabeth, i. 323.

[708] Jean de Serres, iii. 348, etc.; Castelnau, liv. vii., c. 7; De Thou, iv. 205-214; Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 297, etc.

[709] Journal d'un cure ligueur (Jehan de la Fosse), 109.

[710] Jean de Serres, iii. 332; Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 292; De Thou, etc.

[711] Agrippa d'Aubigne, liv. v., c. 13 (i. 293); De Thou, iv. (liv. xlv.) 204; Jehan de la Fosse, 108.

[712] That Renee was, like all the other prominent Huguenots, from the very first opposed to a resort to the horrors of war, is certain. Agrippa d'Aubigne goes farther than this, and a.s.serts (i. 293) that she had become estranged from Conde in consequence of her blaming the Huguenots for their a.s.sumption of arms: ”blasmant ceux qui portoient les armes, jusques a estre devenus ennemis, le Prince de Conde et elle, sur cette querelle.” I can scarcely credit this account, of which I see no confirmation, unless it be in a letter to an unknown correspondent, in the National Library (MSS. Coll. Bethune, 8703, fol. 68), of which a translation is given in Memorials of Renee of France (London, 1859), 263, 264. It is dated Montargis, Aug. 20, 1569: ”Praying you ... to employ yourself, as I know you are accustomed to do, in whatsoever way shall be possible to you, in striving to arrive at a good peace, in which endeavor I, on my part, shall put forth all my power, if it shall please G.o.d. And if it cannot be a general one, _at least it shall be to those who desire it, and who belong to us_.” Who, however, was the correspondent? The subscription, ”Your good cousin, Renee of France,” would appear to point to Admiral Coligny or some one of equal rank. Louis de Conde was no longer living.

[713] Letter of Villegagnon to the d.u.c.h.ess of Ferrara, Montereau, March 4, 1569, _apud_ Mem. de Claude Haton, ii. Appendix, 1109.

[714] It must be remembered that this was a different place from Chatillon-sur-Loing, Admiral Coligny's residence, which was not more than fifteen miles distant. The places are frequently confounded with each other. The Loing is a tributary of the Seine, into which it empties below Montereau, after flowing by Chatillon-sur-Loing, Montargis, and Nemours.

[715] The fullest and most graphic account of this interesting incident I find in Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 293 (liv. v., c. 13). See De Thou, iv. (liv.

xlv.) 204, and Memorials of Renee of France (London, 1859), 261-263. The Huguenot hors.e.m.e.n numbered not eight hundred, as the author last quoted states, but about one hundred and twenty--”six vingts.”

[716] The ”Discours de ce qui avint touchant la Croix de Gastines, l'an 1571, vers Noel” (Memoires de l'etat de France sous Charles IX., and Archives curieuses, vi. 475, etc.), contains the quaint decree of the parliament. See Journal d'un cure ligueur (Jehan de la Fosse), 107. As actually erected, the monument consisted of a high stone pyramid, surmounted by a gilt crucifix. Besides the decree in question, there were engraved some Latin verses of so confused a construction that it was suggested that the composer intended to cast ridicule both on the Roman Catholics and on the Huguenots. M. de Thou, who was a boy of sixteen at the time--and who, as son of the first President of Parliament, and himself, at a later time, a leading member and president _a mortier_ of that body, enjoyed rare advantages for arriving at the truth--declares (iv. 488) that the elder Gastines was a venerable man, beloved by his neighbors, and, indeed, by the entire city; and that the execution was compa.s.sed by a cabal of seditious persons, who, by dint of soliciting the judges, of exciting the people, of inducing them to congregate and follow the judges with threats as they left parliament, succeeded in causing to be punished with death, in the persons of the Gastines, an offence which, until then, had been punished only with exile or a pecuniary fine.

[717] Jehan de la Fosse, 107, 108.

[718] Journal d'un cure ligueur, 110; Mem. de Castelnau, liv. vii., c. 8; De Thou, iv. (liv. l) 216; Gasp. Colinii Vita (1569), 87; Memoirs of G. de Coligny, 140, etc. The arret of the parliament is in Archives curieuses, vi. 377, etc. The Latin life of Coligny (89-91) inserts a manly and Christian letter, in the author's possession, written (Oct. 16, 1569) by the admiral to his own children and those of his deceased brother, D'Andelot, who were studying at La Roch.e.l.le, shortly after receiving intelligence of this judicial sentence and of the wanton injury done to his palace at Chatillon-sur-Loing. ”We must follow our Head, Jesus Christ, who himself leads the way,” he writes. ”Men have deprived us of all that it was in their power to take from us, and if it be G.o.d's will that we never recover what we have lost, still we shall be happy, and our condition will be a good one, inasmuch as these losses have not arisen from any harm done by us to those who have brought them upon us, but solely from the hatred they bear toward me for the reason that it has pleased G.o.d to make use of me in a.s.sisting His Church.”

[719] Jean de Serres, iii. 356, 357; Mem. of Coligny, 136; De Thou, iv.

216, 217; Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 302.

[720] Jean de Serres, iii. 363; De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvi.) 221; Castelnau, vii., c. 8.

[721] De Thou, iv. 216; Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 302. The place was also known by the name of Foie la Vineuse.

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