Volume II Part 54 (1/2)

[1129] Ibid., 379. The story of the ma.s.sacre is well told in the Mem. de l'estat, and by M. Floquet, whose original sources of information throw a flood of light upon the transactions; also by De Thou, iv. (liv. lii.) 606; Agrippa d'Aubigne, ii. 27; Jean de Serres (1575), iv., fol. 50.

[1130] One of them, Jean Coras, had committed an unpardonable offence.

When pa.s.sing in 1562 with the Protestant army through Roquemadour, in the province of Quercy, he had taken advantage of the opportunity to examine the relics of St. Amadour, of whom the monks boasted that they possessed not only the bones, but also some of the flesh. He was never forgiven for having exhibited the close resemblance of the holy remains to a shoulder of mutton. De Thou, iv. 606, note.

[1131] Mem. de l'estat, Archives curieuses, vii. 381-385; De Thou, _ubi supra_; Agrippa d'Aubigne, ii. 27, 28 (liv. i., c. 5); Jean de Serres (1575), iv., fol. 50.

[1132] President Lagebaston even says that, had this been suffered to go on a week longer--so rapidly were the Protestants flocking to the ma.s.s--there would not have been eight Huguenots in town.

[1133] Registers of Parliament, in Boscheron des Portes, Hist. du parl. de Bordeaux (Bordeaux, 1877), i. 241.

[1134] Letter of President Lagebaston to Charles IX., October 7, 1572, Mackintosh, Hist. of England, iii., App. E, 351-353. See also De Thou, iv.

651, 652, and Agrippa d'Aubigne, ii. 27. Lagebaston was ”first president”

of the Bordalese parliament, but, so far from being able to prevent the ma.s.sacre, received information that his own name was on Montferrand's list, and fled to the castle of Ha, whence he wrote to the king. His remonstrances against a butchery based upon a pretended order which was not exhibited, his delineation of the impolitic and disgraceful work, and his reasons why an execution, that might have been necessary to crush a secret conspiracy at Paris, was altogether unnecessary in a city ”six or seven score leagues distant,” where there could be no thought of a conspiracy, render his letter very interesting.

[1135] Registres du Parlement, Boscheron des Portes, i. 246, 247.

[1136] Boscheron des Portes, _ubi supra_.

[1137] Claude Haton waxes facetious when describing the sudden popularity acquired by the sign of the cross, and the numbers of rosaries that could be seen in the hands, or tied to the belt, of fugitive Huguenot ladies.

[1138] Tocsain contre les ma.s.sacreurs, 156. See _ante_, chapter xviii., p.

491.

[1139] De Felice, Hist. of the Protestants of France (New York, 1859), 214, and Henry White, 455, from Maimbourg, Histoire du Calvinisme, 486. I refer the reader to Mr. L. D. Paumier's exhaustive discussion of the story in his paper, ”La Saint-Barthelemy en Normandie,” Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. francais, vi. (1858), 466-470. Mr. Paumier has also completely demolished the scanty foundation on which rested the similar story told of Sigognes, Governor of Dieppe, pp. 470-474. See also M. C.

Osmont de Courtisigny's monograph, ”Jean Le Hennuyer et les Huguenots de Lisieux en 1572,” in the Bulletin, xxvi. (1877) 145, etc.

[1140] Tocsain contre les ma.s.sacreurs, 156; Odolant Desnos, Memoires historiques sur la ville d'Alencon, ii. 285, _apud_ Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. francais, viii. (1859), 68. The truth of the story as to Alencon seems to be proved by the circ.u.mstance that when, in February, 1575, Matignon marched against Alencon, in order to suppress the conspiracy which the duke, Charles's youngest brother, had entered into to prevent Henry of Anjou from succeeding peaceably to the throne of France, the grateful Protestants at once opened their gates to him. Ibid., 305, Bulletin, _ubi supra_.

[1141] Tocsain, 156.

[1142] ”Par lesquelles vous me mandez n'avoir receu aucun commandement verbal de moy, ains seulement mes lettres du 22, 24 et 28 du pa.s.se, dont ne vous mettrez en aucune peine, car elles s'adressoyent seulement a quelques-uns qui s'estoyent trouvez pres de moy.” Charles IX. to Gordes, Sept. 14, 1572, Archives curieuses, vii. 365, 366.

[1143] Ibid., 367, 368.

[1144] Memoires de l'estat, Archives curieuses, vii. 366, 367; De Thou, iv. 605. The Tocsain contre les ma.s.sacreurs, however, p. 156, gives credit instead to M. de Carces.

[1145] Dr. White has shown some reasons for doubting the accuracy of the story. Among the Dulaure MSS. is preserved a full account of the manner in which a Protestant, fleeing from Paris, fell in with the messenger who was carrying the order to St. Herem or Heran, and robbed him of his instructions. The Protestant hastened on to warn his brethren of their danger, while the messenger could only relate to the governor the contents of the lost despatch. Notwithstanding this, eighty Huguenots were murdered in one city (Aurillac) of this province. Ma.s.sacre of St. Bartholomew, 454, 455.

[1146] Adiram d'Aspremont.

[1147] Agrippa d'Aubigne, Hist. univ., ii. 28 (liv. i., c. 5). The authenticity of this letter has been much disputed, partly because of the Viscount's severe and cruel character (which, however, D'Aubigne himself notices when he tells the story), partly because it rests on the sole authority of D'Aubigne. It is to be observed, however, that although he alone relates it, he alludes to it in several of his works, as _e.g._, in his Tragiques. But the truth of the incident is apparently placed beyond all legitimate doubt by its intimate and necessary connection with an event which D'Aubigne narrates considerably later in his history, and from personal knowledge. Hist. univ., ii. 291, 292 (liv. iii., c. 13). In 1577, D'Aubigne, having lost much of Henry of Navarre's favor through his fidelity or his bluntness (see Mem. de d'Aubigne, ed. Panth., p. 486), retired from Nerac to the neighboring town of Castel-jaloux, of which he was in command. Making a foray at the head of a small detachment of Huguenot soldiers, he fell in with and easily routed a Roman Catholic troop, consisting of a score of light hors.e.m.e.n belonging to Viscount D'Orthez, and a number of men raised at Bayonne and Dax, who were conducting three young ladies condemned at Bordeaux to be beheaded. The vanquished Roman Catholics threw themselves on the ground and sued for mercy. On hearing who they were, D'Aubigne called to him all those who came from Bayonne and then cried out to his followers to treat the rest in memory of the ma.s.sacre in the prisons of Dax. The Huguenots needed no further reminder. It was not long before they had cut to pieces the twenty-two men from Dax who had fallen into their hands. On the other hand they restored to the soldiers of Bayonne their horses and arms, and, after dressing their wounds in a neighboring village, sent them home to tell their governor, Viscount D'Orthez, ”that they had seen the different treatment the Huguenots accorded to _soldiers_ and to _hangmen_.” A week later, a herald from Bayonne arrived at Castel-jaloux, with worked scarfs and handkerchiefs for the entire Huguenot band. Nor did the exchange of courtesies end here. The mad notion seized Henry of Navarre to accept an invitation to a feast extended to him by the Bayonnese. Six Huguenots accompanied him, of whom D'Aubigne was one. The table was sumptuous, the presents were rare and costly. D'Aubigne being recognized, was overwhelmed with thanks, ”his courtesy being much more liberally repaid than he had deserved;” while the King of Navarre and his Huguenots, at the table, ”at the expense of the rest of France, extolled to heaven the rare and unexampled act and glory of the men of Bayonne.” It is certainly an easier supposition that D'Aubigne has faithfully reproduced D'Orthez's letter to Charles IX., than that he has manufactured so long and consistent a story.

The discussion in the Bulletin de la Soc. de l'histoire du prot. franc. is full, xi. 13-15, 116, etc., xii. 240.

[1148] Letter of Louis de Bourbon, Duke of Montpensier, Aug. 26th (it should evidently be the 25th; for the Duke speaks of Coligny as killed ”ledit jour d'hier,” and the mythical Huguenot plot was to have been executed ”hier ou aujourd'hui”). Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot.

fr., i. (1852) 60, and Soldan, Geschichte des Prot. in Frankreich, ii., App., 599.

[1149] The words are those of an inscription of the seventeenth or the early part of the eighteenth century, in the Hotel de Ville of Nantes.

Bulletin, i. (1852) 61.

[1150] Mem. de l'estat, Archives cur., vii. 385, 386.