Volume II Part 46 (2/2)

[942] The article on the ma.s.sacre in the North British Review for October, 1869--an article to which I shall have occasion more than once to refer--brings forward a number of pa.s.sages in the diplomatic correspondence, especially of the minor Italian states, pointing in this direction. They can all, I am convinced, be satisfactorily explained, without admitting the conclusion, to which the writer evidently leans, of a _distinct_, though not a _long_ premeditation.

[943] ”Mad. la Regente venuta in differenza di lui, risolvendosi pochi giorni prima, gli la fece tirare, e senza saputa del Re, ma con partic.i.p.atione di M. di Angiu, di Mad. de Nemours, e di M. di Guisa suo figlio; e se moriva subito non si ammazzava altri,” etc. Salviati, desp.

of Sept. 22, 1572, _apud_ Mackintosh, Hist. of England, vol. iii., Appendix K. It will be remembered that these despatches were given to Sir James Mackintosh by M. de Chateaubriand, who had obtained them from the Vatican. I need not say how much more trustworthy are the secret despatches of one so well informed as the nuncio, than the sensational ”Stratagema” of Capilupi, which pretends (ed. of 1574, p. 26) that _Charles_ placed Maurevel in the house from which he shot at Coligny, on discovering that the admiral had formed the plan of firing Paris the next night. To believe these champions of orthodoxy, the Huguenots were born with a special pa.s.sion for incendiary exploits. It does not seem to strike them that burning and pillaging Paris would not be likely to appear to Coligny a probable means of furthering the war in Flanders. Besides, what need is there of any such Huguenot plot, even according to Capilupi's own view, since he carries back the premeditation of the ma.s.sacre on the part of Charles at least four years?

[944] Le Reveille-Matin des Francois, etc., Archives curieuses, vii. 173; Eusebii Philadelphi Dialogi (1574), i. 33. It has been customary to interpret this language and similar expressions as covertly referring to the ma.s.sacre which was then four days off. But this seems absurd.

Certainly, if Charles was privy to the plan for Coligny's murder, he must have expected him to be killed on Friday--that is, within less than two days. If so, what peculiar significance in the _four_ days? For, if a general ma.s.sacre had been at first contemplated, no interval of two days would have been allowed. Everybody must have known that if the arquebuse shot had done its work, and Coligny had been killed on the spot, every Huguenot would have been far from the walls of Paris long before Sunday.

As it was, it was only the admiral's confidence, and the impossibility of moving him with safety, that detained them.

[945] Capilupi, Lo stratagema di Carlo IX., 1574. Orig. ed., pp. 24, 25, and the concurrent French version, pp. 42, 43. This version is incorporated _verbatim_ in the Memoires de l'estat de France sous Charles IX. (Archives curieuses), vii. 89, 90. In like manner the ”Memoires,”

which are in great part a mere compilation, take page after page from the ”Reveille-Matin.”

[946] ”Ainsi qu'il sortoit presentement du Louvre, pour aller disner en son logis.” Charles's letter of the same day to La Mothe Fenelon, Corresp.

dipl., vii. 322.

[947] It is of little moment whether the a.s.sa.s.sin at his window was screened by a lattice, or by a curtain, as De Thou says, or by bundles of straw, as Capilupi states. I prefer the account of the ”Reveille-Matin,”

as the author tells us that he was one of the twelve or fifteen gentlemen in Coligny's suite--”entre lesquels j'estoy” (p. 174). So the Latin ed., Euseb. Philad. Dialogi, i. 34.

[948] The Rue de Bethisy was the continuation of the Rue des Fosses Saint Germain l'Auxerrois, through which he was walking when he was shot. In the sixteenth century the street bore the former name, beginning at the Rue de l'Arbre Sec, at the corner of which Coligny appears to have lodged. In later times the name was confined to the part east of Rue de Roule.

Dulaure, Histoire de Paris, iv. 259. The extension of the Rue de Rivoli, under the auspices of Napoleon III., has not only destroyed the house in which Coligny was murdered, but obliterated the Rue de Bethisy itself.

[949] ”Qu'il n'aviendroit que ce qu'il plairoit a Dieu.” Reveille-Matin, 175; Euseb. Philad. Dialogi (1574), i. 35; Memoires de l'estat, 94.

[950] See _ante_, chapter xvi.

[951] Reveille-Matin, _ubi sup._, 175; and Euseb. Philad. Dialogi. i. 34, 35; Memoires de l'estat, _ubi sup._, 93, etc.; Jean de Serres (1575), iv.

fol. 25; Tocsain contre les Ma.s.sacreurs (orig. ed.), 113, etc.; Registres du Bureau de la ville de Paris (Archives curieuses, vii. 211); despatch of Salviati of Aug. 22. App. F to Mackintosh, Hist. of England, iii. 354; De Thou, iv. (liv. lii.) 574; Jehan de la Fosse, 147, 148; Baschet. La diplomatie venit., 548.

[952] Memoires de l'estat, _ubi sup._, 94; Jean de Serres (1575), iv., fols. 25, 26; Reveille-Matin, 176; Euseb. Philad. Dial., i. 35; De Thou, iv. (liv. lii.) 574.

[953] Tocsain contre les ma.s.sacreurs, Archives cur., vii. 45; Reveille-Matin, 177; Memoires de l'estat, 98.

[954] Gasparis Colinii Vita (1574), 108-110; Memoires de l'estat de Charles IX., _ubi supra_, 94-98. The two accounts are evidently from the same hand.

[955] Memoires de l'estat, _ubi supra_, 98.

[956] Damville, Meru and Th.o.r.e, were sons of the constable. Their eldest brother, Marshal Francis de Montmorency, whose greatest vice was his sluggishness and his devotion to his ease, had left Paris a few days before, on the pretext of going to the chase. His absence at the time of the ma.s.sacre was supposed to have saved not only his life, but that of his brothers. The Guises would gladly have destroyed a family whose influence and superior antiquity had for a generation been obnoxious to their ambitious designs; but it was too hazardous to leave the head of the family to avenge his murdered brothers.

[957] There was no need of going far, Coligny responded, to discover the author. ”Qu'on en demande a Monsieur de Guise, il dira qui est celuy qui m'a preste une telle charite; mais Dieu ne me soit jamais en aide si je demande vengeance d'un tel outrage.” Mem. de l'estat, _ubi supra_, 104, 105.

[958] Gasparis Colinii Vita, 114-121; Memoires de l'estat, _ubi supra_, 102-106. The two accounts agree almost word for word. There is a briefer narrative in Reveille-Matin, 178, 179; and Euseb. Philad. Dialogi, i. 37.

[959] Discours du roy Henry III., _ubi supra_, 502-505.

[960] Le roi a Mandelot, 22 aout, Correspondance du roi Charles IX. et du sieur de Mandelot (Paris, 1830), 36, 37.

[961] Corresp. dipl. de La Mothe Fenelon, vii. 322, 323.

<script>