Note 1312 — Chapter XX

Agrippa d'Aubigné (Hist. univ., ii. 104) distinctly represents La Chastre as desirous of destroying the entire city; while Léry (p. 77) and Davila (p. 193) are in doubt whether Johanneau's murder was not effected by his orders. Yet Léry himself records a conversation he held about this time with La Chastre (p. 67), in which the latter protested that he was not, as commonly reported, of a sanguinary disposition, and appealed for corroboration to his merciful treatment of some Huguenot prisoners that fell into his hands in the third civil war, whom he refused to surrender to the Parisian parliament when formally summoned to do so. Claude de la Chastre's noble letter to Charles IX., of January 21, 1570 (Bulletin, iv. 28), seems to be a sufficient voucher for his veracity. See ante, chapter xvi., p. 345.