Volume II Part 60 (2/2)

Upon Sorbin, the king's confessor, devolved the duty of administering to Charles the last rites of religion--Sorbin, who was accustomed to speak of the perfidy and cruelty of the ma.s.sacre as true magnanimity and gentleness. It has been well remarked that, in all the dark drama of guilt and retribution upon which the curtain was about to fall, no part is more tragic than the scene in which the last words preparing the soul for judgment were spoken by such a confessor as Sorbin to such a penitent as Charles.[1394] Under such spiritual guidance the unhappy boy-king may possibly have expressed the sentiment which the priest ascribes to him at the hour of death: that his greatest regret was that he had not seen the Reformation wholly crushed.[1395]

On Sunday, May the thirtieth, 1574, the festival of Pentecost, Charles died, late in the afternoon.[1396] Almost his last words had been of congratulation that he left no son to inherit the throne, since he knew very well that France had need of a man, and that under a child both king and kingdom were wretched.[1397]

[Sidenote: Death of Charles.]

The general usage was not violated in the present instance. Charles, like a host of prominent princes and statesmen of the sixteenth century, was currently reported to have fallen a victim to the poisoner's art, then in its prime. Nor did the examination made after his death, though clearly proving that the event had a natural cause, suffice to clear away the unhappy impression.[1398] The Huguenots had, perhaps, more reason than others to regard the circ.u.mstances attending it as strange, if not miraculous. That the king, whose guilty acquiescence in the murderous scheme of Catharine, Anjou, and Guise, had deluged his realm in blood, should himself have perished of a malady that caused blood to exude from every pore in his body,[1399] was certainly sufficiently singular to arrest the attention of the world. The phenomenon has been shown beyond all question to have many parallels in the annals of medicine.[1400] But the coincidence was so remarkable that we scarcely wonder that, in the eyes of many, it partook of a supernatural character.

Thus perished, in the twenty-fourth year of his age, a prince whom fair natural endowments seemed to have destined to play a creditable, if not a resplendent part in the history of his period; but whom the evil counsels and examples of his mother, and the corrupt education which, designedly or through an unfortunate accident, she had given him, had so depraved, that his morals were regarded with disgust and reprobation by an age by no means scrupulously pure.[1401]

[Sidenote: The funeral rites.]

The forty days' funeral rites were performed in honor of the deceased king with all the detail of pomp customary on such occasions. For forty days, on a bed of cloth of gold, lay in state the life-like effigy of Charles of Valois, dressed in crimson and blue satin, and in ermine, with a jewelled crown upon its head, and with sceptre and other emblems of royalty at its side. For forty days the service of the king's table remained unchanged, and the pleasing fiction was maintained that the monarch was yet alive.

The gentlemen in waiting, the cupbearer, the pantler, the carver, and all the retinue of servants who, as in feudal times, appeared at the royal meals, discharged each his appointed office with punctilious precision.

Courses of viands were brought on in regular succession, and as regularly removed from the board. A cardinal or prelate blessed the table before the empty show of a meal, and rendered thanks at its conclusion. Only at the close, by the sad repet.i.tion of the De profundis, and other psalms appropriate to funeral occasions, did the pageant differ materially from many a scene of convivial entertainment in which Charles had taken part.

When the prescribed term of waiting was at length over, the miserable show ended, the effigy was replaced by the bier, funeral decorations took the place of festive emblems, and the body of the late king was laid in its last resting-place.[1402]

[Sidenote: Had persecution, war, and treachery succeeded?]

The courtiers had already turned their eyes from the dead monarch to the successor whose speedy return from Poland all eagerly awaited. Henry the Third had already precipitately fled from Cracow, and was on his way to a.s.sume his ancestral throne. He was to find the kingdom plunged in disquiet, a prey to internal discord fostered by foreign princes. Neither Huguenot nor Roman Catholic was satisfied. A full half-century from the first promulgation of the reformed doctrines by Lefevre d'etaples found the friends of the purer faith more resolute than ever in its a.s.sertion, despite fire, ma.s.sacre, and open warfare. No candid beholder could deny that the system of persecution had thus far proved an utter failure. It remained to be seen whether the new king would choose to repeat a dangerous experiment.

FOOTNOTES:

[1253] Jean de Serres, Commentaria de statu rel. et reipublicae, iv., fol.

60 _verso_. I have made use, up to 1570, of the first edition of this work, published in three volumes in 1571, my copy being one formerly belonging to the library of Ludovico Manini, the last doge of Venice. From 1570 on I refer to the edition of 1575, which comprises a fourth and rarer volume, bringing down the history to the close of the reign of Charles. A comparison between this edition and the later edition of 1577 brings out the interesting circ.u.mstance that many Huguenots of little courage, who at first apostatized, afterward returned to their old faith. Thus, the edition of 1575 reads (iv. 51 _v._): ”Vix enim dici possit, quam multi ad primum illum impetum a Religione resiluerint, mortis amittendarumque facultatum metu, _quorum plerique etiamnum haerent in luto_.” The words I have italicized are omitted in the edition of 1577, as quoted by Soldan, ii. 473.

[1254] Jean de Serres, iv., fol. 61.

[1255] Ib., _ubi supra_.

[1256] Borrel, Histoire de l'eglise reformee de Nimes (Toulouse, 1856), pp. 77, 78, from Archives of the Hotel-de-ville.

[1257] J. de Serres, iv., fols. 68-70; Borrel, Hist. de l'egl. ref. de Nimes, 78, 79; De Thou, iv. 663.

[1258] See _ante_, chapter xviii., p. 480.

[1259] Agrippa d'Aubigne, Hist. univ., ii. 38 (liv. i., c. 8). Neither De Thou, iv. (liv. liii.) 659, nor J. de Serres (either in his Commentaria de statu rel. et reip., iv. 68, or in his Inventaire general de l'histoire de France, Geneve, 1619), makes any allusion to Regnier's combat, while the former expressly, and the latter by implication, refer to his agency in persuading the inhabitants of Montauban to espouse the Protestant cause in arms. I incline to think, nevertheless, that D'Aubigne has neither misplaced nor exaggerated a brilliant little affair which was certainly to his taste.

[1260] J. de Serres, De statu, etc., iv., fol. 63; De Thou, iv. (liv.

liii.) 647.

[1261] Reveille-Matin, 200; Eusebii Philadelphi Dialogi (1574), i. 57.

[1262] Arcere, Histoire de la Roch.e.l.le, i. 405. The records of the customs showed that 30,000 casks of wine were brought in. An ample supply of powder was also secured by offering a bonus of ten per cent, to all that imported it from abroad.

[1263] Jean de Serres, iv., fol. 65; De Thou, iv. 649.

[1264] ”Affirmabant vero haudquaquam se facere contra officium et antiqua sua privilegia, per quae illis tribueretur exemptio ab omni praeterquam ex sua civitate delecto ab ipsis praesidio, et facultas sese suis armis custodiendi.” Such was the claim of the Roch.e.l.lois in answer to Strozzi's summons. Jean de Serres, iv. 63.

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