Note 1147 — Chapter XIX

Agrippa d'Aubigné, 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'Aubigné himself notices when he tells the story), partly because it rests on the sole authority of D'Aubigné. 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'Aubigné narrates considerably later in his history, and from personal knowledge. Hist. univ., ii. 291, 292 (liv. iii., c. 13). In 1577, D'Aubigné, having lost much of Henry of Navarre's favor through his fidelity or his bluntness (see Mém. de d'Aubigné, éd. Panth., p. 486), retired from Nérac 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 horsemen 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'Aubigné called to him all those who came from Bayonne and then cried out to his followers to treat the rest in memory of the massacre 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'Aubigné was one. The table was sumptuous, the presents were rare and costly. D'Aubigné 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'Aubigné 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. franç. is full, xi. 13-15, 116, etc., xii. 240.