Note 1023 — Chapter XI

This document first appears in the Mémoires de Condé, under the title "Sommaire des choses premièrement accordées entre les Ducs de Montmorency Connestable, et De Guyse Grand Maistre, Pairs de France, et le Mareschal Sainct André, pour la Conspiration du Triumvirat, et depuis mises en déliberation à l'entrée du Sacré et Sainct Concile de Trente, et arrestée entre les Parties, en leur privé Conseil faict contre les Hérétiques, et contre le Roy de Navarre, en tant qu'il gouverne et conduit mal les affaires de Charles neufiesme Roy de France, Mineur; lequel est Autheur de continuel accroissement de la nouvelle Secte qui pullule en France." The principal provisions are given by De Thou, iii. (liv. xxix.) 142, 143, under date of 1562, who explicitly states his disbelief of its authenticity. Neither, indeed, does the compiler of the Mém. de Condé vouch for it. Among other objections that have been urged with force against the genuineness of the document, are the following: The improbability that the Triumvirs would mature a plan involving all the Catholic sovereigns of Europe without previously obtaining their consent, of which there is no trace; the inconsistency of the project with the well-known policy and character of the German Emperor Ferdinand; the improbability that the Council of Trent would indorse a plan aimed at the humiliation of Navarre, who, when the council actually reassembled in January, 1562, was completely won over to the Roman party. In favor of the document may be urged: First, that M. Capefigue (Histoire de la réforme, de la ligue, etc., ii. 243-245) asserts: "J'ai trouvé cette pièce, qu'on a crue supposée, en original et signée dans les MSS. Colbert, bibl. du roi." Prof. Soldan, who has devoted an appendix to the first volume of his Gesch. des Prot. in Frankreich, to a discussion of this reported agreement between the Triumvirs, was unsuccessful in finding any trace of such a paper. Secondly, that the Mémoires de Guise, the manuscript of which, according to the statement of the editor, M. Aimé Champollion, fils (Notice sur François de Lorraine, due d'Aumale et de Guise, prefixed to his Mémoires, first published in the Collection Michaud-Poujoulat, 1851, p. 5), is partly in the handwriting of the duke himself, partly in that of his secretary, Millet, insert the "Sommaire" precisely as it stands in the Mémoires de Condé, without any denial of its authenticity. This would appear, at first sight, to settle the question beyond cavil. But it must be borne in mind that many of the mémoires of the sixteenth century are compiled on the plan of including all contemporary papers of importance, whether written by friend or by foe. Frequently the most contradictory narratives of the same event are placed side by side, with little or no comment. This is precisely the case with those of Guise, in which, for example, no less than four accounts—three of them from Huguenot sources—are given of the massacre of Vassy. Now we have the testimony of De Thou (ubi supra) that this agreement, industriously circulated by the Prince of Condé and the Huguenots, made a powerful impression not only in France, but in Germany and all Northern Europe. So important a document, even if a forgery, would naturally find a place in such a collection as the Mémoires of Guise. Altogether the matter is in a singularly interesting position. Could the manuscript seen by M. Capefigue be found and re-examined critically, the truth might, perhaps, be reached. M. Henri Martin, in his excellent Histoire de France, x. 79, note, accepts the document as genuine.