Volume II Part 42 (1/2)

[911] This doc.u.ment was written by the ill.u.s.trious Philippe du Plessis Mornay, then a youth twenty-three years of age, and bears the impress of his vigorous mind. De Thou gives an excellent summary (iv., liv. li., 543-554); and it may be found entire in the Memoires de Du Plessis Mornay (ii. 20-37). Morvilliers, Bishop of Orleans, and keeper of the seals until Birague's appointment in January, 1571, was requested by the king to prepare the answer of the opposite party in the royal council--a task which he discharged with great ability. Summary in De Thou, iv. (liv. li.) 555-563, and Agrippa d'Aubigne, ii. 9, 10. Jean de Tavannes's memoirs of his father contain arguments of Marshal Tavannes and of the Duke of Anjou.

dictated by the marshal, against undertaking the Flemish war, as both unjust and impolitic.

[912] Memoires de Tavannes (Ed. Pet.i.tot), iii. 290.

[913] In this case the chief spy, according to the Tocsain contre les ma.s.sacreurs, p. 78, and the younger Tavannes, was Phizes, sieur de Sauve, the king's private secretary for the Flemish matter; and Tavannes is certainly correct in making a chief element in Catharine's influence, ”la puissance que ladicte Royne a sur ses enfans par ses creatures qu'elle leur a donne pour serviteurs dez leur enfance.” Memoires, 290, 291.

[914] In fact, Catharine, who spared neither herself nor her attendants in her furious driving in her ”_coche_” on such occasions, lost one or more of the horses, which dropped dead. Tocsain contre les ma.s.sacreurs, p. 78.

[915] Or, only to her estates in Auvergne, according to the Tocsain, pp.

78, 79. It will be remembered that Catharine's mother was a French heiress of the famous family of La Tour d'Auvergne.

[916] The younger Tavannes, in the memoirs of his father (Edit. Pet.i.tot), iii. 291, 292, gives the most complete summary of this remarkable conversation; but it is substantially the same as the briefer sketch in the Tocsain contre les ma.s.sacreurs de France, Rheims 1579, pp. 78, 79--a treatise of which the preface (L'Imprimeur aux lecteurs, dated June 25, 1577) shows that it was written before the death of Charles IX., but the publication of which was from time to time deferred in the vain hope that the authors of the inhuman ma.s.sacre might yet repent. The new and ”more detestable perfidy, fury, and impetuosity” of which the Huguenots were the victims in the first years of Henry III.'s reign, finally brought it to the light. The _Archives curieuses_ contain only a part of the treatise.

[917] Smith to Walsingham, Aug. 22, 1572, Digges, 236.

[918] Walsingham to Burleigh, Aug. 10, 1572, Digges, 233. This news and the interview, which must have taken place about the first week of August, are the burden of three letters written by Walsingham on the same day.

”Herein nothing prevailed so much as the tears of his mother,” he wrote to Leicester, ”who without the army of England cannot consent to any open dealing. And because they are, as I suppose, a.s.sured by their amba.s.sadors that her Majesty will not intermeddle, they cannot be induced to make any overture” (p. 233). Walsingham was disheartened at the loss of so critical an opportunity. ”Pleasure and youth will not suffer us to take profit of advantages, and those who rule under [over] us are fearfull and irresolute.”

[919] Mem. de Tavannes, iii. 291.

[920] Walsingham to Leicester, Aug. 10, 1572, Digges, 233.

[921] ”I am requested to desire your lords.h.i.+p to hold him excused in that he writeth not,” he adds, ”for that at this time he is overwhelmed with affairs.” Walsingham to Leicester, Aug. 10, 1572, Digges, 234.

[922] Sir Thomas Smith's plea in her behalf is interesting and plausible, but will not receive the sanction of any one who takes into account the vast difference in the positions of Elizabeth and Charles, or considers the principles of which the former was, or should have been, the advocate.

The good secretary, I need not remind my reader, was never reluctant to parade his Latinity: ”If you there [in France] do _tergiversari_ and work _tam timide_ and underhand with open and outward edicts, besides excuses at Rome and at Venice by your amba.s.sadors, you, I say, which have Regem expertem otii, laboris amantem, cujus gens bellicosa jampridem a.s.sueta est caedibus tam exterioris quam vestri sanguinis, quid faciemus gens otiosa et paci a.s.sueta, quibus imperat Regina, et ipsa pacis atque quietis amantissima.” Smith to Walsingham, Aug. 22, 1572, Digges, 237.

[923] Puntos de Cartas de Anton de Guaras al Duque de Alva, June 30th: MS.

Simancas, _apud_ Froude, x. 383.

[924] Froude, x. 385.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE Ma.s.sACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S DAY.

[Sidenote: The Huguenot n.o.bles reach Paris.]

The marriage of Henry of Navarre and Margaret of Valois had been delayed in consequence of the death of the bridegroom's mother, but could now no longer be deferred. The young queen of Charles the Ninth was soon to become a mother, and it was desirable that she should have the opportunity to leave the crowded and unhealthy capital as soon as possible. Jeanne d'Albret's objection to the celebration of the wedding in Paris had been overruled. The bride herself, indifferent enough, to all appearance, on other points, was resolute as to this matter--she would have her nuptials celebrated in no provincial town. Accordingly, the King of Navarre, followed by eight hundred gentlemen of his party, as well as by his cousin the Prince of Conde, and the admiral, made his solemn entry into the city, which so few of his adherents were to leave alive. Although still clad in mourning for the loss of the heroic Queen of Navarre, they bore no unfavorable comparison with the gay courtiers, who, with Anjou and Alencon at their head, came out to escort them into Paris with every mark of respect.[925]

[Sidenote: Betrothal of Henry and Margaret.]

The betrothal took place in the palace of the Louvre, on Sunday the seventeenth of August. Afterward there was a supper and a ball; and when these came to an end, Margaret was conducted by her mother, her brothers, and a stately retinue, to the episcopal palace, on the ile de la Cite, adjoining the cathedral, there, according to the immemorial custom of the princesses of the blood, to pa.s.s the night before her wedding. No papal dispensation had arrived. Gregory XIII. was as obstinate as his predecessor in the pontifical chair, in denying the requests of the French envoys to Rome.[926] But Charles was determined to proceed; and, in order to silence the opposition of the Cardinal of Bourbon, who still refused to perform the ceremony without the pope's approval, a forged letter was shown to him, purporting to come from the Cardinal of Lorraine, or the royal amba.s.sador at Rome, and announcing that the bull of dispensation had actually been sealed, and would shortly arrive.[927]

Preparations had been made for the wedding in a style of magnificence extraordinary even for that age of reckless expenditure. To show their cordial friends.h.i.+p and fidelity, Charles and his brothers, Anjou and Alencon, and Henry and his cousin of Conde, a.s.sumed a costume precisely alike--a light yellow satin, covered with silver embroidery, and enriched with pearls and precious stones. Margaret wore a violet velvet dress with fleurs-de-lis. Her train was adorned with the same emblems. She was wrapped in a royal mantle, and had upon her head an imperial crown glittering with pearls, diamonds, and other gems of incalculable value.

The queens were resplendent in cloth of gold and silver.[928] A lofty platform had been erected in front of the grand old pile of Notre Dame.

Hither Margaret was brought in great pomp, from the palace of the Bishop of Paris, escorted by the king, by Catharine de' Medici, by the Dukes of Anjou and Alencon, and by the Guises, the marshals, and other great personages of the realm. Upon the platform she met Henry of Navarre, with his cousins Conde and Conty, Admiral Coligny, Count de la Rochefoucauld, and a numerous train of Protestant lords from all parts of the kingdom. In the sight of an immense throng, the nuptial ceremony was performed by the Cardinal of Bourbon, Henry's uncle, according to the form which had been previously agreed upon.[929] The bridal procession then entered the cathedral by a lower platform, which extended through the nave to the choir. Here Henry, having placed his bride before the grand altar to hear ma.s.s, himself retired with his Protestant companions to the episcopal palace, and waited for the service to be over. When notified of its conclusion by Marshal Damville, Henry and his suite returned to the choir, and with his bride and all the attending grandees soon sat down to a sumptuous dinner in the episcopal palace.