Note 39 — Chapter XIII

Besides a brief Latin memoir of minor importance, there were published two detailed accounts of the massacre written by Huguenots. The one is entitled "Destruction du Saccagement, exerce cruellement par le Duc de Guise et sa cohorte, en la ville de Vassy, le premier jour de Mars, 1561. À Caens. M.D.LXII.," and having for its epigraph the second verse of the 79th psalm in Marot's poetical version, "The dead bodies of thy servants have they given to be meat unto the fowls of the heaven, the flesh of thy saints unto the beasts of the earth." (The year 1562, it will be remembered, did not commence in France until Easter Sunday, March 29th.) The account seems to have been composed on the spot and within a very few days of the occurrence. This may be inferred from the list of those who died being given only up to Tuesday, March 3d. The other narrative: "Discours entier de la persecution et cruauté exercée en la ville de Vassy," etc., enters into much greater detail, and is preceded by a full account of the early history of the Church. It was written and published a little later in the spring of 1562. Both memoirs are reprinted in the invaluable Archives curieuses of Messrs. Cimber et Danjou, iv. 103-110, and 123-156, as well as in the Mémoires de Condé, iii. 111-115, 124-149 (the former document with the title "Relation de l'occasion"), etc. Another contemporary account was written in Guise's interest, and contains a long extract of a letter of his to the Duke of Würtemberg: "Discours au vray et en abbregé de ce qui est dernièrement aduenu à Vassi, y passant Monseigneur le Duc de Guise. A Paris. M.D.LXII.... Par priuilege expres dudict Seigneur." (Cimber, iv. 111-122; Mém. de Condé, iii. 115-122). To these authorities must be added Guise's vindication in parliament (Cimber, iv. 157, etc., from Reg. of Parl.; Mém. de Guise, 488, etc.), and his letter and that of the Cardinal of Lorraine to Christopher of Würtemberg, March 22 (Ib. 491, 492). Compare J. de Serres, De statu rel. et reip. (1571), ii. 13-17; De Thou, iii. 129, etc.; Jehan de la Fosse, 45. Davila, bk. iii. in init., is more accurate than Castelnau, iii., c. 7. Claude Haton's account (Mémoires, i. 204-206) may be classed with the curiosities of literature. This veracious chronicler would have it that a crowd of Huguenots, with stones in their hands, and singing at the top of their voices, attempted to prevent the passage of the duke and his company through the outskirts of Vassy, where they were apparently worshipping in the open air! Of course they were the aggressors.