Volume 2 / Book 2 — CHAPTER XVIII.

THE MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S DAY.

The Huguenot nobles reach Paris.

The marriage of Henry of Navarre and Margaret of Valois had been delayed in consequence of the death of the bridegroom's mother, but could now no longer be deferred. The young queen of Charles the Ninth was soon to become a mother, and it was desirable that she should have the opportunity to leave the crowded and unhealthy capital as soon as possible. Jeanne d'Albret's objection to the celebration of the wedding in Paris had been overruled. The bride herself, indifferent enough, to all appearance, on other points, was resolute as to this matter—she would have her nuptials celebrated in no provincial town. Accordingly, the King of Navarre, followed by eight hundred gentlemen of his party, as well as by his cousin the Prince of Condé, and the admiral, made his solemn entry into the city, which so few of his adherents were to leave alive. Although still clad in mourning for the loss of the heroic Queen of Navarre, they bore no unfavorable comparison with the gay courtiers, who, with Anjou and Alençon at their head, came out to escort them into Paris with every mark of respect.[925]

Betrothal of Henry and Margaret.

The betrothal took place in the palace of the Louvre, on Sunday the seventeenth of August. Afterward there was a supper and a ball; and when these came to an end, Margaret was conducted by her mother, her brothers, and a stately retinue, to the episcopal palace, on the Île de la Cité, adjoining the cathedral, there, according to the immemorial custom of the princesses of the blood, to pass the night before her wedding. No papal dispensation had arrived. Gregory XIII. was as obstinate as his predecessor in the pontifical chair, in denying the requests of the French envoys to Rome.[926] But Charles was determined to proceed; and, in order to silence the opposition of the Cardinal of Bourbon, who still refused to perform the ceremony without the pope's approval, a forged letter was shown to him, purporting to come from the Cardinal of Lorraine, or the royal ambassador at Rome, and announcing that the bull of dispensation had actually been sealed, and would shortly arrive.[927]

Preparations had been made for the wedding in a style of magnificence extraordinary even for that age of reckless expenditure. To show their cordial friendship and fidelity, Charles and his brothers, Anjou and Alençon, and Henry and his cousin of Condé, assumed a costume precisely alike—a light yellow satin, covered with silver embroidery, and enriched with pearls and precious stones. Margaret wore a violet velvet dress with fleurs-de-lis. Her train was adorned with the same emblems. She was wrapped in a royal mantle, and had upon her head an imperial crown glittering with pearls, diamonds, and other gems of incalculable value. The queens were resplendent in cloth of gold and silver.[928] A lofty platform had been erected in front of the grand old pile of Notre Dame. Hither Margaret was brought in great pomp, from the palace of the Bishop of Paris, escorted by the king, by Catharine de' Medici, by the Dukes of Anjou and Alençon, and by the Guises, the marshals, and other great personages of the realm. Upon the platform she met Henry of Navarre, with his cousins Condé and Conty, Admiral Coligny, Count de la Rochefoucauld, and a numerous train of Protestant lords from all parts of the kingdom. In the sight of an immense throng, the nuptial ceremony was performed by the Cardinal of Bourbon, Henry's uncle, according to the form which had been previously agreed upon.[929] The bridal procession then entered the cathedral by a lower platform, which extended through the nave to the choir. Here Henry, having placed his bride before the grand altar to hear mass, himself retired with his Protestant companions to the episcopal palace, and waited for the service to be over. When notified of its conclusion by Marshal Damville, Henry and his suite returned to the choir, and with his bride and all the attending grandees soon sat down to a sumptuous dinner in the episcopal palace.

Among those who had been admitted to the choir of Notre Dame after the close of the mass, was the son of the first president of parliament, young Jacques Auguste de Thou, the future historian. Happening to come near Admiral Coligny, he looked with curious and admiring gaze upon the warrior whose virtues and abilities had combined to raise the house of Châtillon to its present distinction. He saw him point out to his cousin Damville the flags and banners taken from the Huguenots on the fields of Jarnac and Moncontour, still suspended from the walls of the cathedral, mournful trophies of a civil contest. "These will soon be torn down," De Thou heard Coligny say, "and in their place others more pleasing to the eye will be hung up." The words had unmistakable reference to the victories which he hoped soon to win in a war against Spain. It is not strange, however, that the malevolent endeavored to prove that they contained an allusion to the renewal of a domestic war, which it is certain that the admiral detested with his whole heart.[930]

Entertainment in the Louvre.

Later in the day, a magnificent entertainment was given by Charles in the Louvre to the municipality of Paris, the members of parliament, and other high officers of justice. Supper was succeeded by a short ball, and this in turn by one of those allegorical representations in which French fancy and invention at this period ran wanton. Through the great vaulted saloon of the Louvre a train of wonderful cars was made slowly to pass. Some were rocks of silver, on whose summits sat in state the king's brothers, Navarre, Condé, the prince dauphin, Guise, or Angoulême. On others sea-monsters disported themselves, and the pagan gods of the water, somewhat incongruously clothed in cloth of gold or various colors, serenely looked on. Charles himself rode in a chariot shaped like a sea-horse, the curved tail of which supported a shell holding Neptune and his trident. When the pageant stopped for a moment, singers of surpassing skill entertained the guests. Étienne le Roy, the king's especial favorite, distinguished himself by the power and beauty of his voice.[931]

The entertainment was prolonged far into the night; but Admiral Coligny, before giving himself repose, snatched from sleep a few minutes to write a letter to his wife, whom he had left in Châtillon. It is the last which has been preserved, and is otherwise important because of the light it throws upon the hopes and fears of the great Huguenot at this critical time.

Coligny's letter to his wife.

"My darling," he said, "I write this bit of a letter to tell you that to-day the marriage of the king's sister and the King of Navarre took place. Three or four days will be spent in festivities, masks, and mock combats. After that the king has assured me and given me his promise, that he will devote a few days to attending to a number of complaints which are made in various parts of the kingdom, touching the infraction of the edict. It is but reasonable that I should employ myself in this matter, so far as I am able; for, although I have infinite desire to see you, yet should I feel great regret, and I believe that you would likewise, were I to fail to occupy myself in such an affair with all my ability. But this will not delay so much the departure from this city, but that I think that the court will leave it at the beginning of next week. If I had in view only my own satisfaction, I should take much greater pleasure in going to see you, than in being in this court, for many reasons which I shall tell you. But we must have more regard for the public than for our own private interests. I have many other things to tell you, when I am able to see you, for which I am so anxious that you must not think that I waste a day or an hour. What remains for me to say is that to-day, at four o'clock after noon, the bride's mass was said. Meanwhile, the King of Navarre walked about in a court with all those of the religion who accompanied him. Other incidents occurred which I will reserve to relate to you; but first I must see you. And meantime I pray our Lord, my darling, to keep you in His holy guard and protection. From Paris, this eighteenth day of August, 1572. Mandez-moy comme se porte le petit ou petite. ... I assure you that I shall not be anxious to attend all the festivities and combats that are to take place during these next days. Your very good husband and friend, Châtillon."[932]

Festivities and mock combats.

The festivities and combats—so distasteful to a statesman who recognized the critical condition of French affairs, and regarded this merry-making as ill-timed—pursued their uninterrupted course through Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of that eventful week. But the description of most of the elaborate pageants would contribute little to the value of our conceptions of the character of the age. An exception may perhaps be made in favor of an ingenious tournament that took place on Wednesday in the Hôtel Bourbon. Here the Isles of the Blessed, the Elysian Fields, and Tartarus were represented by means of costly mechanisms. Charles and his brothers figured as knights defending Paradise, which Navarre and others, dressed as knights-errant, endeavored to enter by force of arms, but were repulsed and thrust into Tartarus. After some time the defeated champions were rescued from their perilous situation by the compassion of their victors, and the performance terminated in a startling, but harmless display of fireworks.[933] As the assailants were mostly Protestants, the defenders Roman Catholics, it was not strange that a sinister interpretation was soon put upon the strange plot; but, unless we are to suppose the authors of the massacre, whose success depended upon the surprise of the victims, so infatuated as to wish to forewarn them of their fate, it is scarcely credible that they intended to prefigure the ruin of the reformed faith in France.

Huguenot grievances to be redressed.

The time that had been allotted to pleasure was fast passing. The king was soon to meet Coligny, according to his promise, for the transaction of important business relating both to the internal and to the foreign affairs of France. There were religious grievances to be redressed. The admiral was particularly anxious to bring to the king's notice the flagrant outrage recently perpetrated in Troyes, where a fanatical Roman Catholic populace, indignant that the Huguenots, through the kindness of Marie de Clèves, the betrothed of the Prince of Condé,[934] had been permitted to hold their worship so near the city as her castle of Isle-au-Mont, scarcely three leagues distant,[935] had met the Protestants on their return from service with aggravated insult, and had killed in the arms of its nurse an infant that had just been baptized according to the reformed rites.[936] Catharine and her son Anjou saw with consternation that the impression made by the "tears of Montpipeau" was already in a great degree obliterated, and feared the complete destruction of their influence if Charles were longer permitted to have intercourse with Coligny. In that case a Flemish war would be almost inevitable. Charles's anger against the Spaniards had kindled anew when he heard of Alva's inhumanity to Genlis and his fellow-prisoners. But, when he was informed that Alva had put French soldiers to the torture, in order to extract the admission of their monarch's complicity in the enterprise, his passion was almost ungovernable, as he asked his attendants again and again: "Do you know that the Duke of Alva is putting me on trial?"[937] It seems to have been at this juncture that Catharine and her favorite son came to the definite determination to put the great Huguenot out of the way. Henry of Anjou is here his own accuser. In that strange confession which he made to his physician, Miron,[938] shortly after his arrival in Cracow—a confession made under the influence, not so much of remorse, as of the annoyance occasioned by the continual reminders of the massacre which were thrown in his way as he travelled to assume the throne of Poland—he gives us a partial view of the development of the murderous plot.

Jealousy of Catharine and Anjou.

The Duchess of Nemours and Henry of Guise.

Several times had Anjou and Catharine perceived that, whenever Charles had conversed in private with the admiral, his demeanor was visibly changed toward them. He no longer exhibited his accustomed respect for his mother or his wonted kindness for his brother. Once, in particular—and it was, so Anjou tells us, only a few days before St. Bartholomew's Day—Henry happened to enter the room just after Coligny had gone out. Instantly the king's countenance betrayed extreme anger. He began to walk furiously to and fro, taking great strides, and keeping his eyes fixed upon his brother with an expression that boded no good, but without uttering a word. Again and again he placed his hand on his dagger, and Anjou expected nothing less than that his brother would attack him. At last, taking advantage of an opportunity when Charles's back was turned, he hastily retreated from the room. This circumstance led Catharine and Anjou to compare their observations and their plans. "Both of us," says Henry, "were easily persuaded, and became, as it were, certain that it was the admiral who had impressed some evil and sinister opinion of us upon the king. We resolved from that moment to rid ourselves of him, and to concert the means of doing so with the Duchess of Nemours. To her alone we believed that we might safely disclose our purpose, on account of the mortal hatred which we knew that she bore to him."[939] The Duchess of Nemours was born of an excellent mother; for she was Anne d'Este, daughter of Renée of France, the younger child of Louis the Twelfth. In her youth, at the court of her father, the Duke of Ferrara, and in society with that prodigy of feminine precocity, Olympia Morata, she had shown evidences of extraordinary intellectual development and of a kindly disposition.[940] Although she subsequently married Francis of Guise, the leading persecutor of the Protestants, she had not so lost her sympathy with the oppressed as to witness without tears and remonstrances the atrocious executions by which the tumult of Amboise was followed. But the assassination of her husband turned any affection or compassion she may have entertained for Protestantism into violent hatred. Against Coligny, whom, in spite of his protestations, she persisted in believing to be the instigator of Poltrot's crime, she bore an implacable enmity; and now, having so often failed in obtaining satisfaction from the king by judicial process, she eagerly accepted the opportunity of avenging herself by a deed more dastardly than that which she laid to the charge of her enemy. Entering heartily into the project which Catharine and Anjou laid before her, the Duchess of Nemours enlisted the co-operation of her son, Henry of Guise, and her brother-in-law, the Duke of Aumale, and herself arranged the details of the plan, which was at once to be put into execution.[941]

Was the massacre long premeditated?

Salviati's testimony.

Such was the germ of the massacre as yet not resolved upon, which, rapidly developing, was to involve the murder of thousands of innocent persons throughout France. In opposition to the opinion that became almost universal among the Protestants, and gained nearly equal currency among the Roman Catholics—that the butchery had long been contemplated, and that Charles was privy to it—and notwithstanding the circumstances that seem to give color to this opinion,[942] I am compelled to acquiesce in the belief expressed by the Papal Nuncio, Salviati, who, in his despatches, written in cipher to the cardinal secretary of state, could certainly have had no motive to disguise his real sentiments, and whom it is impossible to suppose ignorant of any scheme for the general extirpation of the Protestants, had such a scheme existed for any considerable length of time: "As to all the statements that will be made respecting the firing upon the admiral and his death, different from that which I have written to you, you will in time find out how true they are. Madame the regent, having come to be at variance with him [the admiral], and having decided upon this step a few days before, caused him to be fired upon. This was without the knowledge of the king, but with the participation of the Duke of Anjou, the Duchess of Nemours, and her son, the Duke of Guise. If the admiral had died at once, no others would have been slain. But, inasmuch as he survived, and they apprehended that some great calamity might happen should he draw closer to the king, they resolved to throw aside shame, and to have him killed together with the rest. And this was put into execution that very night."[943]

The king's cordiality.

As the hour approached, Coligny exhibited no apprehension of special danger. Others, however, more suspicious, or possessed of less faith in Heaven, felt alarm; and some acted upon their fears. The very "goodness" of the king terrified one. Another said that he had rather be saved with fools than perish with the wise, and hastily forsook the capital. Dark hints had been thrown out by courtiers—such surmises were naturally bred by the defenceless position of the Protestants in the midst of a population so hostile to their faith as the population of Paris—that more blood than wine would be spilled at this wedding. And there were rumors of some mysterious enterprise afloat; so, at least, it was said after the occurrence. But Coligny moved not from the post which he believed had been assigned to his keeping. On Wednesday Charles assured him, with laughing countenance, that if the admiral would but give him four days more for amusement, he would not stir from Paris until he had contented him;[944] and the sturdy old Huguenot made no objection when the king, in order to prevent any disturbance which the partisans of Guise might occasion in seeking a quarrel with the followers of the house of Châtillon, proposed to introduce a considerable force of soldiers into the city. "My father," said Charles, with his usual appearance of affection, "you know that you have promised not to give any cause of offence to the Guises so long as you remain here; and they have in like manner promised to respect you and all yours. I am fully persuaded that you will keep your word; but I am not so well assured of their good faith as of yours; for, besides the fact that it is they that would avenge themselves, I know their bravadoes and the favor this populace bears to them."[945]

Coligny is wounded, August 22.

On Friday morning, the twenty-second of August, Admiral Coligny went to the Louvre, to attend a meeting of the royal council, at which Henry of Anjou presided. It was between ten and eleven o'clock, when, according to the more primitive hours then kept, he left the palace to return home for dinner.[946] Meeting Charles just coming out of a chapel in front of the Louvre, he retraced his steps, and accompanied him to the tennis-court, where he left him playing with Guise, against Téligny and another nobleman. Accompanied by about a dozen gentlemen, he again sallied forth, but had not proceeded over a hundred paces when from behind a lattice an arquebuse was fired at him.[947] The admiral had been walking slowly, intently engaged in reading a petition which had just been handed to him. The shot had been well aimed, and might have proved fatal, had not the victim at that very moment turned a little to one side. As it was, of the three balls with which the arquebuse was loaded, one took off a finger of his right hand, and another lodged in his left arm, making an ugly wound. Supported by De Guerchy and Des Pruneaux, between whom he had previously been walking, Coligny was carried to his house in the little Rue de Béthisy,[948] only a few steps farther on. As he went he pointed out to his friends the house from which the shot had been fired. To a gentleman who expressed the fear that the balls were poisoned, he replied with composure: "Nothing will happen but what it may please God to order."[949]

The attempted assassination had happened in front of the cloisters of St. Germain l'Auxerrois. The house was recognized as one belonging to the Duchess Dowager of Guise, in which Villemur, the former tutor of young Henry of Guise, had lodged. The door was found locked; but the indignant followers of Coligny soon burst it open. They found within only a woman and a lackey. The assassin, after firing, had fled to the rear of the house. There he found a horse awaiting him; this he exchanged at the Porte Saint Antoine for a fresh Spanish jennet. He was out of Paris almost before pursuit was fairly undertaken. Subsequent investigation left no doubt as to his identity. It was that same Maurevel of infamous memory, who during the third civil war had traitorously shot De Mouy, after insinuating himself into his friendship, and sharing his room and his bed. The king's assassin, "le tueur du roi"—a designation he had obtained when Charles or his advisers gave a special reward for that exploit[950]—had been selected by Catharine, Anjou and the Guises, as possessing both the nerve and the experience that were requisite to make sure of Coligny's death. It was found that he had been placed in the house by De Chailly, "maître d'hôtel" of the king, and that the horse by means of which he effected his escape had been brought to the door by the groom of the Duke of Guise.[951]

Agitation of the king.

Charles was still in the tennis-court, when De Piles came in, sent by Coligny, to inform him of the bloody infraction of the Edict of Pacification. On hearing the intelligence, the king was violently agitated. Throwing down his racket, he exclaimed: "Am I, then, never to have peace? What! always new troubles?" and retired to his room in the Louvre, with a countenance expressive of great dejection.[952] And when, later in the day, the King of Navarre, the Prince of Condé, and La Rochefoucauld, after seeing Coligny's wounds dressed, came to the palace and begged him for permission to leave a city in which there was no security for their lives, Charles swore to them, with his accustomed profanity, that he would inflict upon the author and abettors of the crime so signal a punishment that Coligny and his friends would be satisfied, and posterity have a warning example. Coligny had received the wound, he said, but the smart was his. Catharine, who was present, chimed in, and declared the outrage so flagrant, that just retribution must speedily be meted out, or insolence would be pushed so far as that the king would be attacked in his own palace.[953]

Coligny courageous.

Meantime the admiral bore his sufferings with serenity, and, far from needing any comfort his friends could give him, himself administered consolation to the noblemen around his bed. His sufferings were acute. Amboise Paré, the famous surgeon of the king, himself a Huguenot, was called in; but the instruments at hand were dull, and it was not until the third attempt that he could satisfactorily amputate the wounded finger. "My friends," said Coligny to Merlin, his minister, and to other friends, "why do you weep? As for me, I think myself happy in having received these wounds for the name of God." And when Merlin exhorted him "to thank God for His mercy in preserving his mental faculties sound and entire, and to continue to divert his thoughts and feelings from his assassin and his wounds, and to turn them, as he was doing, from all things else to God, since it was from His hands that he had received them," the admiral's reply was, that sincerely and from the heart he forgave the person who had wounded him, and those who had instigated him, holding it for certain that it was beyond their power to injure him, since, should they even kill him, death would be an assured passage to life.[954] Thus, with quiet submission, and with edifying prayers which it would be too long to insert, the Admiral de Coligny passed those hours which his enemies subsequently, in their desperate attempts to justify or palliate the most abominable of crimes, represented as given up to infamous plots against king and state.

He is visited by the king and his mother.

That afternoon, between two and three o'clock, Charles visited the wounded man, at the suggestion of Téligny and Damville; for Coligny had expressed a desire to see the monarch, that he might communicate certain matters which concerned him greatly, but of which he feared there was no one else that would inform him.[955] The king came, accompanied by his mother, his brothers, the Duke of Montpensier, Cardinal Bourbon, Marshals Damville, Tavannes and Cossé, Count de Retz, and the younger Montmorencies, Thoré and Méru.[956] The interview was kind and reassuring. The admiral, who lay upon his bed, heartily thanked the king for the honor he had deigned to do him, and for the measures he had already taken in his behalf. And Charles praised the patience and magnanimity exhibited by Coligny, and bade him be of good courage. Then more important topics were introduced. There were three points respecting which the admiral wished to speak to Charles. The first was his own loyalty, which, however much it had been maligned by his enemies, he desired now solemnly to reaffirm, in the presence of Him before whose bar he might soon be called to stand, and he declared that the sole cause of the hostility he had aroused was his attempt to set bounds to the fury of those who presumed to violate royal edicts. Next, he commended to the king the Flemish project. Never had any predecessor of Charles enjoyed so splendid an opportunity as now offered, when several cities of the Netherlands had declared their desire for his favor and protection. But these advances were openly derided by some of the courtiers about the king; while state secrets were so badly kept, that "one could not turn an egg, nor utter a word in the council, but it was forthwith reported to the Duke of Alva." And, indeed, what else could be expected, since those who were present, and even his own brothers, communicated to foreigners and enemies the king's most confidential deliberations? He earnestly begged Charles to apply a prompt remedy to this matter in future. The last point was the observance of the Edict of Pacification. What opinion would foreign nations form of the king, if he suffered a law solemnly made, and frequently confirmed by oath, to be openly trampled upon? In proof of this assertion, he alleged the recent attack upon the Protestants of Troyes returning from their place of worship, the tragic termination of which has already been noticed.

To that part of Coligny's remarks which related to the war in Flanders, it is said that Charles made no direct reply; but he declared that he had never suspected the admiral's loyalty, and that he accounted him a good man, and a great and generous captain. There was not another man in the kingdom whom he would prefer to him. And he again asseverated his intention to enforce a religious observance of his edicts; for which purpose, indeed, he had recently despatched commissioners into all the provinces, as the queen could inform him. "That is true, Monsieur l'amiral," said Catharine, "and you know it." "Yes, madam," he replied, "commissioners have been sent, among whom are some that condemned me to be hung, and set a price of fifty thousand crowns on my head." "Then," rejoined Charles, "we must send others who are open to no suspicion." Again he promised with his accustomed oath to see that the attempt upon the admiral's life should be so punished that the retribution would be forever remembered;[957] after which he inquired whether Coligny were satisfied with the judges whom he had appointed to conduct the investigation. Coligny replied that he committed himself in this matter to the king's prudence, but suggested that Cavaignes, the recently appointed maître de requêtes, and two other Huguenots be added to the commission.

The king and De Retz both endeavored to persuade the admiral to permit himself to be transported, for safety's sake, to the Louvre; but Coligny's friends would not consent to a removal which might endanger his life. Charles requested, before he left, to see the ball extracted from the wounded arm, and examined it with apparent curiosity. Catharine took it next, and said that she was glad that it had been removed, for she remembered that, when the Duke of Guise was shot, the physicians repeatedly said that, even if the ball were poisoned, there was no danger to be apprehended when once the ball was taken out. Many afterward regarded it as a significant circumstance that the queen mother's mind should have reverted on this occasion to the murder of which the Lorraine family still persisted in accusing Coligny of having been the instigator.[958]

Catharine attempts to break up the conference.

Such was, according to the solitary Huguenot who was present by Coligny's bed, and who survived the subsequent massacre, the substance of the conversation at this celebrated interview. But, if we may credit the account which purports to have been given by Henry of Anjou, there was an incident which he failed to mention. At a certain point in the conversation Coligny asked to be allowed to speak to the king in private, a request which Charles willingly granted, motioning Henry and Catharine to withdraw. They accordingly retired to the middle of the room, where they remained standing during the suspicious colloquy. Meanwhile their apprehensions were awakened as they noticed that there were more than two hundred gentlemen and captains of the admiral's party in this and an adjacent room and below stairs. The sad looks of the Huguenots, their gestures expressive of discontent, their suppressed whispers, as they passed to and fro, before and behind the queen and her favorite son, with less respect than the latter thought was due to them, impressed them with the idea that they were objects of distrust. Catharine afterward admitted to Henry that never in her life was she so glad to get out of any other place. Her impatience soon impelled her to cut short the conference between Charles and Coligny—much to the regret of Charles—on the pretext that longer conversation might retard the sick man's recovery.

Scarcely had the royal party left the admiral's lodgings, when Catharine began to ply Charles with questions respecting Coligny's private communication. Several times he absolutely refused to satisfy her curiosity. But at last, losing all patience, he roughly answered her with an oath: "What the admiral told me was true: kings are recognized as such in France only so far as they have the power to reward or punish their subjects and servants; and this power and the management of the affairs of the entire state have insensibly slipped into your hands. But this authority of yours, the admiral told me, may some day become highly prejudicial both to me and to my whole kingdom, and I ought to look upon it with suspicion, and to be on my guard. Of this he had desired, as one of my best and most faithful subjects, to warn me before he died. Well then, mon Dieu, since you will know it, this is what the admiral was telling me." "This was uttered," Anjou subsequently said, "with so much passion and fury, that the speech cut us to the heart. We concealed our emotion as best we could, and vindicated ourselves. This discourse we pursued from the admiral's lodgings to the Louvre. There, after having left the king in his own room, we retired to that of the queen, my mother, who was nettled and offended in the highest degree by this language of the admiral to the king, and still more by the credit the king seemed to give it, fearing that this might occasion some change in our affairs and in the conduct of the state. To be frank, we found ourselves so unprovided with counsel and understanding, that, being unable to come to any determination at that time, we separated, deferring the matter until the morrow."[959]

Charles writes letters expressing his displeasure.

Meantime, Charles, not content with closing all the gates of Paris, save two, which were to be strictly guarded, and with ordering a speedy judicial investigation, despatched, on the very day of the attempt on Coligny's life, a circular letter to all the governors of the provinces, and a similar letter to his ambassadors at foreign courts, declarative of his profound displeasure at this audacious crime. In the former he said: "I am at once sending in every direction in pursuit of the perpetrator, with a view to catch him and inflict such punishment upon him as is required by a deed so wicked, so displeasing, and, moreover, so inconvenient; for the reparation of which I wish to forget nothing." And lest any persons, whether Protestants or Roman Catholics, should be aroused by this news to make a disturbance of the peace, he called upon all the governors to explain the full circumstances of the case. "Assure every one," he wrote, "that it is my intention to observe inviolate my edict of pacification, and so strictly to punish those who contravene its provisions, that men may judge how sincere is my will."[960] In a similar strain he wrote to his ambassador in England, that he was "infinitely sorry" (infiniment marry), and that he desired him to acquaint Queen Elizabeth with his determination to cause such signal justice to be executed, that every one in his realm might take example therefrom. "Monsieur de la Mothe Fénélon," he added in a postscript, "I must not forget to tell you that this wicked act proceeds from the enmity between his [the admiral's] house and the Guises. I shall know how to provide that they involve none of my subjects in their quarrels; for I intend that my edict of pacification be observed in all points."[961]

The Vidame de Chartres advises the Huguenots to leave Paris.

Not long after the king had left Coligny's room, the admiral Was visited by Jean de Ferrières, Vidame de Chartres, a leading Huguenot, who came to condole with him. He also had a more practical object in view. In a conference of the great nobles of the reformed faith, held in the room adjoining the admiral's, he advocated the instant departure of the Protestants from Paris, and urged it at considerable length. He saw in the event of the day the first act of a tragedy whose catastrophe could not be long deferred. The Huguenots had thrust their head into the very jaws of the lion; it were prudent to draw it out while it was yet time. But this sensible advice, based less upon any distinct evidence of a plot for their destruction than upon the obvious temptation which their defenceless situation offered to a woman proverbially unscrupulous, was overruled by the majority of those present. Téligny, in particular, the accomplished and amiable son-in-law of Coligny, opposed a scheme which not only might endanger the admiral's life, but would certainly displease the king, by betraying distrust of his ability or his inclination to defend his Protestant subjects.[962]

Saturday morning came, and with it a report from Coligny's physicians, announcing that his wounds would not prove serious. Meanwhile the investigation into the attempted assassination was pursued, and disclosed more and more evidence of the complicity of the Guises. The young duke and his uncle Aumale, conscious of the suspicion in which they were held, and fearful perhaps of the king's anger, should the part they had taken become known, prepared to retire from Paris, and came to Charles to ask for leave of absence, telling him at the same time that they had long noticed that their services were not pleasing to him. Charles, with little show of courtesy, bade them depart. Should they prove guilty, he said, he would find means to bring them to justice.[963]

Catharine and Anjou come to a final decision.

And now the time had arrived when Catharine and the Duke of Anjou must come to a final decision respecting the means of extricating themselves from their present embarrassments. Maurevel's shot had done no execution. Coligny was likely to recover, to be more than ever the idol of the Huguenots, to become more than ever the favorite of the king. In that case the influence of Catharine and her younger son would be irretrievably lost; especially if the judicial investigation now in progress should reveal the fact that they were the prime movers in the plan of assassination. Certainly neither Henry of Guise nor his mother would consent to bear the entire responsibility. More than that, the Huguenots were uttering loud demands for justice, which to guilty consciences sounded like threats of retribution.

We must here recur to Henry of Anjou's own account of this critical period; for that strange confession throws the only gleam of light upon the process by which the young king was moved to the adoption of a course whereby he earned the reputation—of which it will be difficult to divest him—of a monster of cruelty. "I went," says Anjou, "to see my mother, who had already risen. I was filled with anxiety, as also she was on her side. We adopted at that time no other determination than to despatch the admiral by whatever means possible. As artifice and cunning could no longer be employed, we must proceed by open measures. But, to do this, we must bring the king to this same resolution. We decided that we would go in the afternoon to his private room, and would bring in the Duke of Nevers, Marshals Tavannes and Retz, and Chancellor Birague, solely to obtain their advice as to the means we should employ in executing the plan upon which my mother and I had already agreed.

They ply Charles with arguments.

"As soon as we had entered the room in which the king my brother was, my mother began to represent to him that the party of the Huguenots was arming against him on account of the wounding of the admiral, the latter having sent several despatches to Germany to make a levy of ten thousand horse, and to the cantons of Switzerland for another levy of ten thousand foot; that most of the French captains belonging to the Huguenot party had already left in order to raise troops within the kingdom; and that the time and place of assembling had been fixed upon. Let so powerful an army as this once be joined to their French troops—a thing which was only too practicable—and the king's forces would not be half sufficient to resist them, in view of the intrigues and leagues they had, inside and outside of the kingdom, with many cities, communities, and nations. Of this she had good and certain advices. Their allies were to revolt in conjunction with the Huguenots under pretext of the public good; and for him (Charles), being weak in pecuniary resources, she saw no place of security in France. And, indeed, there was besides a new consequence of which she wished to warn him. It was that all the Catholics, wearied by so long a war, and vexed by so many sorts of calamities, were determined to put an end to them. In case he refused to follow their counsel, they also had determined among themselves to elect a captain-general to undertake their protection, and to form a league offensive and defensive against the Huguenots. Thus he would remain alone, enveloped in great danger, and without power or authority. All France would be seen armed by two great parties, over which he would have no command, and from which he could exact just as little obedience. But, to ward off so great a danger, a peril impending over him and his entire state, so much ruin, and so many calamities which were in preparation and just at hand, and the murder of so many thousands of men—to avert all these misfortunes, a single thrust of the sword would suffice—the admiral, the head and author of all the civil wars, alone need be put to death. The designs and enterprises of the Huguenots would perish with him; and the Catholics, satisfied with the sacrifice of two or three men, would remain obedient to him (the king)."

Such arguments, and many more of a similar character, does Henry tell us that he and his wily mother addressed to the unhappy Charles. At first their words irritated him, and, without convincing, drove him into a frenzy of excitement. A little later, giving credit to the oft-repeated assertions of his false advisers, and his imagination becoming inflamed by the picture of the dangers surrounding him which they so skilfully painted, he would, nevertheless, hear nothing of the crime to which he was urged, but began anxiously to consult those who were present whether there were no other means of escape. Each man gave his opinion in succession; and each supported Catharine's views, until it came to the turn of Retz, who, contrary to the expectation of the conspirators, gave expression to more noble sentiments.[964] If any one were justified in hating Coligny and his faction, he said, it was himself, maligned, as he had been, both in France and abroad; but he was unwilling, in avenging private wrongs, to involve France and its royal family in dishonor. The king would justly be taxed with perfidy, and all confidence in his word or in public faith would be lost. Henceforth it would be impossible to treat for terms of peace in those new civil wars in which the French must be involved, and of which their children would not see the end.

The king consents reluctantly.

These wholesome words at first struck speechless the advocates of murder. Then they undertook, by repeating their arguments, to destroy the effect of the prophetic warning to which the king had just listened. They succeeded but too well. "That instant," says Henry of Anjou, "we perceived a sudden change, a strange and wonderful metamorphosis in the king. He placed himself on our side, and adopted our opinion, going much beyond us and to more criminal lengths; since, whereas before it was difficult to persuade him, now we had to restrain him. For, rising and addressing us, while imposing silence upon us, he told us in anger and fury, swearing by God's death that, 'since we thought it good that the admiral should be killed, he would have it so; but that with him all the Huguenots of France must be killed, in order that not one might remain to reproach him hereafter; and that we should promptly see to it.' And going out furiously, he left us in his room, where we deliberated the rest of the day, during the evening, and for a good part of the night, and decided upon that which seemed advisable for the execution of such an enterprise."[965]

This is the strange record of the change by which Charles, from being the friend of Admiral Coligny, became the accomplice in his murder and in countless other assassinations throughout France. The admission of his guilt by one of the principal actors in the tragedy is so frank and undisguised that we find it difficult to believe that the narrative can have emanated from his lips. But the freaks of a burdened conscience are not to be easily accounted for. The most callous or reticent criminal sometimes is aroused to a recognition of his wickedness, and burns to communicate to another the fearful secret whose deposit has become intolerable to himself. And fortunately the confession of the princely felon does not stand alone. The son of another of the wretches who persuaded Charles to imbrue his hands in the blood of his subjects has given us the account which he undoubtedly received from his father shortly before his death, and we find the two statements to be in substantial agreement. Tavannes says: "The king notified (of the attempt upon Coligny's life), is offended, and threatens the Guises, not knowing whence the blow came. After a while, he is appeased by the queen, assisted by the sieur de Retz. They make his Majesty angry with the Huguenots—a vice peculiar to his Majesty, who is of choleric humor. They induce him to believe that they have discovered an enterprise of the Huguenots directed against him. He is reminded of the designs of Meaux and of Amboise. Suddenly gained over, as his mother had promised herself that he would be, he abandons the Huguenots, and remains sorry, with the rest, that the wound had not proved mortal."[966]

Few victims selected at first.

And now, the assassination of the admiral having received the king's approval, it only remained to decide upon the number of Protestants who should be involved with him in a common destruction, and to perfect the arrangements for the execution of the murderous plot. How many, and who were the victims whose sacrifice was predetermined? This is a question which, with our present means of information, we are unable to answer. Catharine, it is true, used to declare in later times that she contemplated no general massacre; that she took upon her conscience the blood of only five or six persons;[967] and, although the unsupported assertion of so perfidious a woman is certainly not entitled to any great consideration, we can readily see that the heads of half a dozen leaders might have fully contented her. She was not seeking for revenge so much as paving the way for her ambition. There were few Huguenots who were apparently so powerful as to interfere with her projects. Coligny, their acknowledged head; the Count of Montgomery, personally hated as the occasion of the death of her husband, Henry the Second, in the ill-fated tournament; the Vidame of Chartres; and La Rochefoucauld—these were doubtless of the number. Would she have desired to include the King of Navarre and the Prince of Condé? Not the former, on account of his recent marriage with her daughter. Yet to whom the Bourbons were indebted for the omission of their names from the proscriptive roll we cannot tell. After the accession of Henry the Fourth, it became the interest of all the families concerned to put the conduct of their ancestors in the most favorable light. Thus, Jean de Tavannes states that his father saved the life of the Bearnese in that infamous conclave; but so little did the latter believe him, that, on the contrary, he persistently refused to confer upon him the marshal's baton, which he would otherwise have received, on the ground that Gaspard de Tavannes was an instigator of the massacre.[968]

Religious hatred.

Thus much must be held to be clearly established: that fancied political exigencies demanded the assassination of only very few persons; that personal hatred, on the part of the principal or of the minor conspirators, added many more; that a still greater number were murdered in cold blood, simply that their spoils might enrich the assassins. What part must be assigned to religious zeal?[969] To any true outgrowth of religion, none at all; but much to the malice and the depraved moral teachings of its professed representatives. The hatred of Protestantism, engendered in the minds of the people by long years devoted to traducing the character and designs of the reformers, now bore fruit after its own kind, in revolting crimes of every sort; while the lesson, sedulously inculcated by priests, bishops, and monks, that obstinate heretics might righteously be, and ought to be exterminated from the face of the earth, permitted many a Parisian burgess to commit acts from which any but the most diabolic nature would otherwise have recoiled in horror. But of the measure of the responsibility of the Roman pontiff and his clergy for this stupendous crime, it will be necessary to speak in the sequel.

Precautionary measures.

In devising the plan for the destruction of the Huguenots, the queen mother and her council were greatly assisted by the course pursued by the Huguenots themselves, and by the very circumstances of the case. Under pretence of taking measures to secure the safety of the Protestants, the "quarteniers" could go, without exciting suspicion, from house to house, and make a complete list of all belonging to the reformed church.[970] The same excuse served to justify the court in posting a body of twelve hundred arquebusiers, a part along the river, a part in the immediate neighborhood of Coligny's residence.[971] And now the Protestants themselves, startled by the unusual commotion which they noticed in the city, and by the frequent passage to and fro of men carrying arms, sent a gentleman to the Louvre to ask the king for a few guards to protect the dwelling of their wounded leader. The request was only for five or six guards; but Charles, feigning astonishment and deep regret that there should be any reason for such apprehensions, insisted, at the suggestion of his brother Anjou, who stood by, upon despatching fifty, under command of Cosseins. So well known was the captain's hostility to Coligny and the Protestants, that Thoré, Montmorency's brother, whispered to the Huguenot messenger as he withdrew: "You could not have been given in guard to a worse enemy;" but the royal direction was so positive that no remonstrance seemed possible. Accordingly, Cosseins and his arquebusiers took possession, in the king's name, of two shops adjoining Coligny's abode.[972] With as little ceremony, Rambouillet, the "maréchal des logis," turned the Roman Catholic gentlemen out of the lodgings he had previously assigned them in the Rue de Béthisy, and gave the quarters to the Protestant gentlemen instead.[973] The reason assigned for this action was that the Huguenots might be nearer to each other and to the admiral, for mutual protection; the real object seems to have been to sweep them more easily into the common net of destruction.

And yet the majority of the Huguenot leaders were not alive to the dangers of their situation. In a second conference held late on Saturday, the Vidame of Chartres was almost alone in urging instant retreat. Navarre, Condé, and others thought it sufficient to demand justice, and the departure of the Guises, as possessing dangerous credit with the common people. Téligny again dwelt upon the wrong done to Charles in distrusting his sincerity, and deprecated a course that might naturally irritate him. One Bouchavannes was noticed in the conference—a professed Protestant, but suspiciously intimate with Catharine, Retz, and other avowed enemies of the faith. He said nothing, but listened attentively. So soon as the meeting was over, Bouchavannes went to the Louvre and related the discussion to the queen mother.[974] The traitor's report, doubtless grossly exaggerated, is supposed to have decided Catharine to prompt action. It is certain, at least, that the calumnious perversion of the speeches and resolutions of the Huguenot conference was employed to inflame the passions of the mob, as well as to justify the atrocities of the morrow in the eyes of the world.

Orders issued to the prévôt des marchands.

It was now late in the evening of Saturday, the twenty-third of August. Coligny had been writing to his friends throughout France, recommending them to be quiet, and informing them of the investigations now in progress. God and the king, he said, would do justice. His wounds were not mortal, thank God. If his arm was wounded, his brain was yet sound.[975] Meantime, the original framers of the murderous plot had called in the Guises, who in reality had not left Paris.[976] It had been arranged that the execution should be intrusted to them, in conjunction with the Bastard of Angoulême, Charles's natural brother, and Marshal Tavannes. And now at last we emerge from the mist that envelops many of the preliminaries of the night of horrors. The records of the Hôtel de Ville contain the first documentary evidence of the coming massacre. There is no longer any doubt, unfortunately, of Charles's approval and complicity. "This day, the twenty-third day of August, very late in the evening," Charles sends for Charron, "prévôt des marchands," to come to the Louvre. Here, in the presence of the queen mother, the Duke of Anjou and other princes and lords, his Majesty "declares that he has received intelligence that those of the new religion intend to make a rising by conspiracy against himself and his state, and to disturb the peace of his subjects and of his city of Paris; and that this very night some great personages of the said new religion and rebels have conspired against him and his said state, going to such lengths as to send his Majesty some arrogant messages which sounded like menaces." Consequently, in order to protect himself and the royal family, Charles directs the prévôt to seize the keys of all the gates of the city, and to keep them carefully closed, in order to prevent any one from entering or leaving Paris. He also commands him to remove all the boats moored along the Seine, so as to prevent any one from crossing the river; and to put under arms all captains, lieutenants, ensigns, and burgesses capable of doing military duty.[977] The orders were faithfully and promptly obeyed. Long before morning dawned they had been transmitted successively to the lower municipal officers, quarteniers, dizainiers, etc.; the wherry-men had been stopped, and the troops and burgesses of Paris having armed themselves as best they could, were assembled ready for action in front of the Hôtel de Ville, on that famous Place de Grève, so often drenched in martyr's blood.[978]

The first shot and the bell of St. Germain l'Auxerrois.

To the guilty plotters that was a sleepless night. Unable to rest quietly, at a little before dawn, Catharine with her two elder sons found her way to the portal of the Louvre, adjoining the tennis court. There, in a chamber overlooking the "bassecour," they sat down to await the beginning of their treacherous enterprise. If we may believe Henry of Anjou, none of them as yet realized its full horrors; but as they quietly watched in that hour of stillness for the first signs of the coming outbreak, the report of a pistol-shot reached their ears. Instantly it wrought a marvellous revulsion in their feelings. Whether the shot wounded or killed any one, they knew not; but it brought up vividly to their imaginations the results of the terrible deluge of blood whose flood-gates they had raised. Hastily they send a servant to the Duke of Guise, and countermand the instructions of the evening, and bid him do no injury to the admiral. It is too late! The messenger soon returns with the tidings that Coligny is already dead, that the work is about to begin in all the rest of the city. This news produces a fresh change. With one of those fluctuations which are so easy for souls that have no firm or established principles, but shift according to the deceptive, ever-varying tide of apparent interest, the mother and her sons return heartily to their former purpose. The die is cast, the deed is half done; let it be fully and boldly consummated. No room now for pity or regret.[979]

It was a Sunday morning, the twenty-fourth of August—a day sacred in the Roman calendar to the memory of Saint Bartholomew. Torches and blazing lights had been burning all night in the streets, to render the task easy. The houses in which Protestants lodged had been distinctly marked with a white cross. The assassins themselves had agreed upon badges for mutual recognition—a white cross on the hat, and a handkerchief tied about the right arm. The signal for beginning was to be given by the great bell of the "Palais de Justice" on the island of the old "cité."[980]

The preparations had not been so cautiously made but that they attracted the notice of some of the Huguenots living near Coligny. Going out to inquire the meaning of the clash of arms, and the unusual light in the streets, they received the answer that there was to be a mock combat in the Louvre—a pleasure castle was to be assaulted for the king's diversion.[981] But, as they went farther and approached the Louvre, their eyes were greeted by the sight of more torches and a great number of armed men. The guards, full of the contemplated plot, could not refrain from insults. It soon came to blows, and a Gascon soldier wounded a Protestant gentleman with his halberd. It may have been at this time that the shot was fired which Catharine and her sons heard from the open window of the Louvre. Declaring that the fury of the troops could no longer be restrained, the queen now gave orders to ring the bell of the neighboring church of St. Germain l'Auxerrois.[982]

Murder of Admiral Coligny.

Meantime Henry of Guise, Henry of Valois, the Bastard of Angoulême, and their attendants, had reached the admiral's house. The wounded man was almost alone. Could there be any clearer proof of the rectitude of his purpose, of the utter falsity of the charges of conspiracy with which his enemies afterward attempted to blacken his memory?[983] Guerchy and other Protestant gentlemen had expressed the desire to spend the night with him; but his son-in-law, Téligny, full of confidence in Charles's good intentions, had declined their offers, and had, indeed, himself gone to his own lodgings, not far off, in the Rue St. Honoré.[984] With Coligny were Merlin, his chaplain, Paré, the king's surgeon, his ensign Cornaton, La Bonne, Yolet, and four or five servants. In the court below there were five of Navarre's Swiss guards on duty.[985] Coligny, awakened by the growing noise in the streets, had at first felt no alarm, so implicitly did he rely upon the protestations of Charles, so confident was he that Cosseins and his guards would readily quell any rising of the Parisians.[986] But now some one knocks at the outer door, and demands an entrance in the king's name. Word is given to La Bonne, who at once descends and unlocks. It is Cosseins, followed by the soldiers whom he commands. No sooner does he pass the threshold than he stabs La Bonne with his dagger. Next he seeks the admiral's room, but it is not easy to reach it, for the brave Swiss, even at the risk of their own lives, defend first the door leading to the stairs, and then the stairs themselves. And now Coligny could no longer doubt the meaning of the uproar. He rose from his bed, and, wrapping his dressing-gown about him, asked his chaplain to pray; and while Merlin endeavored to fulfil his request, he himself in audible petitions invoked Jesus Christ as his God and Saviour, and committed to His hands again the soul he had received from Him. It was then that the person to Whom we are indebted for this account—and he can scarcely have been another than Cornaton—rushed into the room. When Paré asked him what the disturbance imported, he turned to the admiral and said: "My lord, it is God that is calling us to Himself! The house has been forced, and we have no means of resistance!" To whom the admiral, unmoved by fear, and even, as all who saw him testified, without the least change of countenance, replied: "For a long time have I kept myself in readiness for death. As for you, save yourselves, if you can. It were in vain for you to attempt to save my life. I commend my soul to the mercy of God." Obedient to his directions, all that were with him, save Nicholas Muss or de la Mouche, his faithful German interpreter, fled to the roof, and escaped under cover of the darkness.

One of Coligny's Swiss guards had been shot at the foot of the stairs. When Cosseins had removed the barricade of boxes that had been erected farther up, the Swiss in his own company, whose uniform of green, white, and black, showed them to belong to the Duke of Anjou, found their countrymen on the other side, but did them no harm. Cosseins following them, however, no sooner saw these armed men, than he ordered his arquebusiers to shoot, and one of them fell dead. It was a German follower of Guise, named Besme, who first reached and entered Coligny's chamber, and who for the exploit was subsequently rewarded with the hand of a natural daughter of the Cardinal of Lorraine. Cosseins, Attin, Sarlaboux, and others, were behind him. "Is not this the admiral?" said Besme of the wounded man, whom he found quietly seated and awaiting his coming. "I am he," Coligny calmly replied. "Young man, thou oughtest to have respect for my old age and my feebleness; but thou shalt not, nevertheless, shorten my life."[987] There were those who asserted that he added: "At least, would that some man, and not this blackguard, put me to death." But most of the murderers—and among them Attin, who confessed that never had he seen any one more assured in the presence of death—affirmed that Coligny said nothing beyond the words first mentioned. No sooner had Besme heard the admiral's reply, than, with a curse, he struck him with his sword, first in the breast, and then on the head.[988] The rest took part, and quickly despatched him.

In the court below, Guise was impatiently waiting to hear that his mortal enemy was dead. "Besme," he cried out at last, "have you finished?" "It is done," the assassin replied. "Monsieur le Chevalier (the Bastard of Angoulême) will not believe it," again said Guise, "unless he sees him with his own eyes. Throw him out of the window!" Besme and Sarlaboux promptly obeyed the command. When the lifeless remains lay upon the pavement of the court, Henry of Guise stooped down and with his handkerchief wiped away the blood from the admiral's face. "I recognize him," he said; "it is he himself!" Then, after ignobly kicking the face of his fallen antagonist, he went out gayly encouraging his followers: "Come, soldiers, take courage; we have begun well. Let us go on to the others, for so the king commands!" And often through the day Guise repeated the words, "The king commands; it is the king's pleasure; it is his express command!" Just then a bell was heard, and the cry was raised that the Huguenots were in arms to kill the king.[989]

As for Admiral Coligny's body, after the head had been cut off by an Italian of the guard of the Duke de Nevers, the trunk was treated with every indignity. The hands were cut off, and it was otherwise mutilated in a shameless manner. Three days was it dragged about the streets by a band of inhuman boys.[990] Meantime the head had been carried to the Louvre, where, after Catharine and Charles had sufficiently feasted their eyes on the spectacle, it was embalmed and sent to Rome, a grateful present to the Cardinal of Lorraine and Pope Gregory the Thirteenth.[991] It has been questioned whether the ghastly trophy ever reached its destination. Indeed, the French court seems to have become ashamed of its inhumanity, and to have regretted that so startling a token of its barbarous hatred had been allowed to go abroad. Accordingly, soon after the departure of the courier, a second courier was despatched in great haste to Mandelot, governor of Lyons, bidding him stop the first and take away from him the admiral's head. He arrived too late, however; four hours before Mandelot received the king's letter, "a squire of the Duke of Guise, named Pauli," had passed through the city, doubtless carrying the precious relic.[992] That it was actually placed in the hands of the Cardinal of Lorraine at Rome, need not be doubted.

Coligny's character and work.

Gaspard de Coligny was in his fifty-sixth year at the time of his death. For twelve years he had been the most prominent man in the Huguenot party, occupying a position secured to him not more by his resplendent abilities as a general than by the respect exacted by high moral principles. With the light and frivolous side of French character he had little in common. It was to a sterner and more severe class that he belonged—a class of which Michel de l'Hospital might be regarded as the type. Men who had little affinity with them, and bore them still less resemblance, but who could not fail to admire their excellence, were wont to liken both the great Huguenot warrior and the chancellor to that Cato whose grave demeanor and imposing dignity were a perpetual censure upon the flippancy and lax morality of his countrymen. Although not above the ordinary height of men, his appearance was dignified and commanding. In speech he was slow and deliberate. His prudence, never carried to the extreme of over-caution, was signalized on many occasions. Success did not elate him; reverses did not dishearten him. The siege of the city of St. Quentin, into which he threw himself with a handful of troops, and which he long defended against the best soldiers of Spain, displayed on a conspicuous stage his military sagacity, his indomitable determination, and the marvellous control he maintained over his followers. It did much to prevent Philip from reaping more substantial fruits from the brilliant victory gained by Count Egmont on the feast-day of St. Lawrence.[993] It was, however, above all in the civil wars that his abilities shone forth resplendent. Equally averse to beginning war without absolute necessity, and to ending it without securing the objects for which it had been undertaken, he was the good genius whose wholesome advice was frequently disregarded, but never without subsequent regret on the part of those who had slighted it. We have seen, in a former chapter,[994] the touching account given by Agrippa d'Aubigné of the appeal of the admiral's wife, which alone was successful in moving him to overcome his almost invincible repugnance to taking up arms, even in behalf of a cause which he knew to be most holy. I find a striking confirmation of the accuracy of the report in a passage of his will, wherein he defends himself from the calumnies of his enemies.[995] "And forasmuch as I have learned that the attempt has been made to impute to me a purpose to attack the persons of the king, the queen, and the king's brothers, I protest before God that I never had any such will or desire, and that I never was present at any place where such plans were ever proposed or discussed. And as I have also been accused of ambition in taking up arms with those of the reformed religion, I make the same protestation, that only zeal for religion, together with fear for my own life, compelled me to assume them. And, indeed, I must confess my weakness, and that the greatest fault which I have always committed in this respect has been that I have not been sufficiently alive to the acts of injustice and the slaughter to which my brethren were subjected, and that the dangers and the traps that were laid for myself were necessary to move me to do what I have done. But I also declare before God, that I tried every means in my power, in order so long as possible to maintain peace, fearing nothing so much as civil disturbances and wars, and clearly foreseeing that these would bring after them the ruin of this kingdom, whose preservation I have always desired and labored for to the utmost of my ability."

To Coligny's strategy too much praise could scarcely be accorded. The Venetian ambassador, Contarini, in the report of his mission to the senate, in the early part of the year 1572, expressed his amazement that the admiral, a simple gentleman with slender resources, had waged war against his own powerful sovereign, who was assisted by the King of Spain and by a few German and several Italian princes; and that, in spite of many battles lost, he preserved so great a reputation that the reiters and lansquenets never rebelled, although their wages were much in arrears, and their booty was often lost in adverse combats. He was, in fact, said the enthusiastic Italian, entitled to be held in higher esteem than Hannibal, inasmuch as the Carthaginian general retained the respect of foreign nations by being uniformly victorious; but the admiral retained it, although his cause was almost always unsuccessful.[996]

But all Coligny's military achievements pale in the light of his manly and unaffected piety. It is as a type of the best class among the Huguenot nobility that he deserves everlasting remembrance. From his youth he had been plunged in the engrossing pursuits of a soldier's life; but he was not ashamed, so soon as he embraced the views of the reformers, to acknowledge the superior claims of religion upon his time and his allegiance. He gloried in being a Christian. The influence of his faith was felt in every action of his life. In the busiest part of an active life, he yet found time for the recognition of God; and, whether in the camp or in his castle of Châtillon-sur-Loing, he consecrated no insignificant portion of the day to devotion. Of the ordinary life of Admiral Coligny, the anonymous author of his Life, who had himself been an inmate in his house, has left an interesting description, derived from what he himself saw and heard:

"As soon as he had risen from bed, which was always at an early hour, putting on his morning-gown, and kneeling, as did those who were with him, he himself prayed in the form which is customary with the churches of France. After this, while waiting for the commencement of the sermon, which was delivered on alternate days, accompanied with psalmody, he gave audience to the deputies of the churches who were sent to him, or devoted the time to public business. This he resumed for a while after the service was over, until the hour for dinner. When that was come, such of his domestic servants as were not prevented by necessary engagements elsewhere, met in the hall where the table was spread, standing by which, with his wife at his side, if there had been no preaching service, he engaged with them in singing a psalm, and then the ordinary blessing was said.

"On the removal of the cloth, rising and standing with his wife and the rest of the company, he either returned thanks himself or called on his minister to do so. Such, also, was his practice at supper, and, finding that the members of his household could not, without much discomfort, attend prayers so late as at bedtime—an hour, besides, which the diversity of his occupations prevented from being regularly fixed—his orders were that, so soon as supper was over, a psalm should be sung and prayer offered. It cannot be told how many of the French nobility began to establish this religious order in their own families, after the example of the admiral, who used often to exhort them to the practice of true piety, and to warn them that it was not enough for the father of a family to live a holy and religious life, if he did not by his example bring all his people to the same rule.

"On the approach of the time for the celebration of the Lord's Supper, calling together all the members of his household, he told them that he had to render an account to God, not only of his own life, but also of their behavior, and reconciled such of them as might have had differences.... Moreover, he regarded the institution of colleges for youth, and of schools for the instruction of children, a singular benefit from God, and called the school a seminary of the church and an apprenticeship of piety; holding that ignorance of letters had introduced into both church and state that thick darkness in which the tyranny of the Pope had had its birth and increase.... This conviction led him to lay out a large sum in building a college at Châtillon, and there he maintained three very learned professors of Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, respectively, and a number of students.

"There could not be a stronger proof of his integrity, and of the moderation of his desires with respect to the possession of property, than that, notwithstanding the high offices he held, and the opportunities they afforded, as is usual with courtiers, of attending to his own interests and acquiring great wealth, he did not increase his patrimonial estates by a single acre; and, although he was an excellent economist, yet the number of persons of high rank, and, indeed, of all conditions, that came to consult him on public affairs from all parts of France, obliged him to draw largely on the savings effected by his good management; so that he left to his heirs not less than forty thousand livres of debts, besides six thousand livres of interest which he paid annually to his creditors."[997]

Such was the Christian hero whom his enemies represented as breathing out menaces upon the bed on which Maurevel's arquebuse had laid him, and as exclaiming: "If my arm is wounded, my head is not. If I have to lose my arm, I shall get the head of those who are the cause of it. They intended to kill me; I shall anticipate them." Such was the disinterested patriot whom, in the infatuation of their lying fabrications, the murderers of Paris, their hands still reeking with the blood of thousands of women and children incontestably innocent of any crime laid to the charge of their husbands or fathers, pictured as plotting the wholesale assassination of the royal family—even to the very Henry of Navarre whose wedding he had come to honor by his presence—that he might place upon the throne of France that stubborn heretic, the Prince of Condé![998]

Murder of Huguenot nobles in the Louvre.

While the murder of Coligny was in course of execution, or but shortly after, a tragedy not less atrocious was enacted in the royal palace itself. A number of Huguenot gentlemen of the highest distinction were lodged in the Louvre. Charles, after the admiral's wound, had suggested to the King of Navarre that he would do well to invite some of his friends to act as a guard against any attack that might be made upon him by the Duke of Guise, whom he characterized as a "mauvois garçon."[999] Late on Saturday night, as Margaret of Valois informs us in her Memoirs, and long after she and her husband had retired, these Huguenot lords, gathered around Henry of Navarre's bed to the number of thirty, had discussed the occurrences of the last two eventful days, and declared their purpose to go to the king on the morrow and demand the punishment of the Guises. Margaret herself had been purposely kept in ignorance of the plan for the extirpation of the Protestants. For, if the Huguenots suspected her, because she was a Roman Catholic, the papists suspected her equally because she had married a Protestant. On parting with her mother for the night, her elder sister Claude, Duchess of Lorraine, who happened to be on a visit to the French court, had vainly attempted to detain Margaret, expressing with tears the apprehension that some evil would befall her. But Catharine had peremptorily sent her to bed, assuring her with words which, seen in the light of subsequent revelations, approach the climax of profanity: "That, if God pleased, she would receive no injury."[1000] So deep was the impression of impending danger made upon Margaret's mind, that she remained awake, she tells us, until morning, when her husband arose, saying that he would go and divert himself with a game of tennis until Charles should awake. After his departure, the Queen of Navarre, relieved of her misgivings, as the night was now spent, ordered her maid to lock her door, and composed herself to sleep.[1001]

Meantime the Protestant gentlemen who accompanied Navarre, and all the others who lodged in the Louvre, had been disarmed by Nançay, captain of the guard. In this defenceless condition ten or twelve of their number were conducted, one by one, to the gate of the building. Here soldiers stood in readiness, and despatched them with their halberds as they successively made their appearance. Such was the fate of the brave Pardaillan, of St. Martin, of Boursis, of Beauvais, former tutor of Henry of Navarre, and of others; some of whom in a loud voice called upon Charles, whom they saw at a window, an approving spectator of the butchery, to remember the solemn pledges he had given them. M. de Piles—that brave Huguenot captain, whose valor, if it did not save St. Jean d'Angely in the third civil war, had at least detained the entire Roman Catholic army for seven weeks before fortifications that were none of the best, and rendered Moncontour a field barren of substantial fruits[1002]—was the object of special hatred, and his conduct was particularly remarked for its magnanimity. Observing among the bystanders a Roman Catholic acquaintance in whose honor he might perhaps confide, he stripped himself of his cloak, and would have handed it to him, with the words: "De Piles makes you a present of this; remember hereafter the death of him who is now so unjustly put to death!" "Mon capitaine," answered the other, fearful of incurring the enmity of Catharine and Charles, "I am not of the company of these persons. I thank you for your cloak; but I cannot take it upon such conditions." The next moment M. de Piles fell, pierced by the halberd of one of the archers of the guard. "These are the men," cried the murderers at their bloody work, "who resorted to violence, in order to kill the king afterward."[1003] One of the victims marked out for the slaughter escaped the death of his fellows. Margaret of Valois had not been long asleep, when her slumbers were rudely disturbed by loud blows struck upon the door, and shouts of "Navarre! Navarre!" Her attendant, supposing it to be Henry himself, hastily opened the door; when there rushed in instead, a Huguenot nobleman, the Viscount de Léran,[1004] wounded in the arm by sword and halberd, and pursued by four archers. In his terror he threw himself on Margaret's bed, and when she jumped up, in doubt of what could be the meaning of this strange incident, he clung to her night-dress which was drenched with his blood. Nançay angrily reproved the indiscretion of his soldiers, and Margaret, leaving the Huguenot in her room to have his wounds dressed, suffered herself to be conducted to the chamber of her sister, the Duchess of Lorraine. It was but a few steps; but, on the way, a Huguenot was killed at three paces' distance from her, and two others—the first gentleman of the King of Navarre, and his first valet-de-chambre—ran to her imploring her to save their lives. She sought and obtained the favor on her knees before Catharine and Charles.[1005] A few other Huguenots who were in the Louvre were ready to purchase their lives at any price, even to that of abjuring their faith. They obtained pardon on promising the king to comply with all his commands; and this, we are told, "the more easily, as Charles very well knew that they had little or no religion."[1006]

Navarre and Condé spared.

The King of Navarre and the Prince of Condé were spared, although there were not wanting those who would gladly have seen the ruin of the family of Bourbon. Navarre was brother-in-law of Charles, and Condé of the Duke of Nevers; this may have guaranteed their safety. Both of the young princes, however, were summoned into the king's presence, where Charles, acknowledging the murder of Coligny, the great cause of disturbances, and the similar acts then perpetrated throughout the city, as sanctioned by his authority, sternly told the two youths that he intended no longer to tolerate two religions in his dominions. He desired them, therefore, to conform to that creed which had been professed by all his predecessors, and which he intended to uphold. They must renounce the profane doctrines they had embraced, and return to the Catholic and Roman religion. If they refused, they must expect to suffer the treatment which had just been experienced by so many others.[1007]

The replies of the two princes were singularly unlike. Henry of Navarre, bold enough where only physical bravery was demanded, exhibited for the first time that lamentable absence of moral courage which was to render his life, in its highest relations, a splendid failure. His countenance betrayed agitation and faint-heartedness.[1008] With great "humility"—almost whining, it would appear—he begged that his own life and the life of Condé might be spared, and reminded Charles of his promised protection. "He would act," he said, "so as to satisfy his Majesty; yet he besought him to remember that conscience was a great thing, and that it was hard to renounce the religion in which one had been brought up from infancy." On the other hand, Henry of Condé, in no way abashed,[1009] declared "that he could not believe that his royal cousin intended to violate a promise confirmed by so solemn an oath. As to fealty, he had always been an obedient subject of the king, and would ever be. Touching his religion, if the king had given him the exercise of its worship, God had given him the knowledge of it; and to Him he must needs give up an account. So far as his body and his possessions were concerned, they were in the king's hands to dispose of as he might choose. Yet it was his own determination to remain constant in his religion, which he would always maintain to be the true religion, even should he be compelled to lay down his life for it." So stout an answer kindled the anger of Charles, who was in no mood to meet with opposition. He called Condé "a rebel," "a seditious man," and "the son of a seditious father," and warned him that he would lose his head, if, within three days, he should not think better of the matter.[1010]

The massacre becomes general.

And now the great bell of the "Palais de Justice" pealed forth the tocsin. About the Louvre the work of blood had begun when Catharine, impatient, and fearful lest Charles's resolution should again waver at the last moment, gave orders to anticipate the appointed time by ringing the bell of the neighboring church of St. Germain l'Auxerrois. But now the loud and unusual clangor from the tower of the parliament house carried the warning far and wide. All Paris awoke. The conspirators everywhere recognized the stipulated signal, and spread among the excited townsmen the wildest and most extravagant reports. A foul plot, formed by the Huguenots, against the king, his mother, and his brothers, had come to light. They had killed more than fifteen of the royal guards. The king, therefore, commanded that quarter should not be given to a single Huguenot.[1011]

Nothing more was needed to inflame the popular hatred of the Huguenots, nor to prepare the rabble for an indiscriminate slaughter of the Protestants.

La Rochefoucauld and Téligny fall.

Among the earliest victims of this day of carnage was Count de la Rochefoucauld. This witty and lively young noble had been in the Louvre until a late hour on Saturday night, diverting himself with the king, with whom he was a great favorite. Apparently in his anxiety to save La Rochefoucauld's life, Charles invited, and even urged him, to spend the night in the royal "garde-robe;" but the count, suspecting no danger, insisted on returning to his lodgings, while the king reluctantly abandoned his boon companion to his fate, rather than betray his secret. Early awakened from his sleep at his lodgings by loud knocking at the door and by demands for admission in the king's name, and seeing a band of masked men enter, he recalled Charles's threat at parting, that he would come and administer to him a whipping. The practical joke would not have been unlike many of the mad antics of the royal jester, and La Rochefoucauld, addressing himself to the person whom he supposed to be his Majesty in disguise, begged him to treat him with humanity. His deception was not long continued; for the maskers, after rifling his trunks, drew him from his place of concealment and murdered him. His lifeless body was dragged through the streets of Paris.[1012]

Téligny was, perhaps, even more unfortunate than the rest, because he awoke too late to the fact that his own blind confidance in the word of a faithless prince had been a chief instrument of involving his father-in-law and his friends in destruction. He was among the first to pay the penalty of his credulity. More than one of the parties sent to destroy him, it is said, overcome by compassion for his youth and manly beauty, or by respect for his graceful manners and extraordinary learning, left their commission unexecuted. To avoid further peril, he ascended to the roof, from which he made his way to an adjoining house; but he had not gone far before he was seen and shot with an arquebuse by one of the Duke of Anjou's guards.[1013]

Self-defense of a few nobles.

The Huguenots, attacked in the midst of their slumbers by the courtiers and the soldiers of the royal guard,[1014] among whom were prominent the Swiss of Charles or his brother, or by the people of Paris, who every moment swelled the ranks of the assassins, were too much taken by surprise to offer even the slightest resistance. Guerchy, the same gentleman who had offered his services to Coligny the night before, is almost the only man reported to have fought for his life. With his sword in his right hand, and winding his cloak around his left arm, he defended himself for a long time, though the breastplates of his enemies were proof against his blows. At last, he fell, overborne by numbers.[1015] The Lieutenant de la Mareschaussée, if not more determined, was better prepared for the combat. All day long, with a single soldier as his comrade, he defended his house against the assailants, expecting at every moment to be relieved from his perilous situation by the king. But, far from meriting such confidence on the part of his subjects, Charles was indignant at his prolonged resistance, and sent a powerful detachment of guards, with orders to bring him the lieutenant's head. The brave Huguenot, however, still maintained the unequal siege, and fought till his last breath. The soldiers had only the poor satisfaction of pillaging his house, of dragging his sick daughter naked through the streets until she died of maltreatment, and of wounding and imprisoning his wife.[1016]

Victims of personal hatred.

Personal hatred, jealousy, cupidity, mingled with religious and political zeal, and private ends were attained in fulfilling the king's murderous commands. Bussy d'Amboise, meeting his Protestant cousin, the Marquis de Renel (half-brother of the late Prince of Porcien), by a well-directed blow with his poniard rid himself of an unpleasant suit at law which Renel had come to Paris to prosecute.

Adventure of young La Force.

The case of Caumont de la Force was still more revolting. His daughter, Madame de la Châtaigneraie, in accordance with the shameless code of morals in vogue at the French court, had taken for her lover Archan, captain of the guard of Henry of Anjou; and it was to gratify her covetousness that Archan obtained from the Duke the order to despatch La Force and his two sons. The plan was successfully executed so far as the father and his elder son were concerned. The second, a boy of twelve, escaped by his remarkable presence of mind and self-control. Certain that his youth would excite no pity in the breast of his inhuman assailants, when his father and his brother fell at his side and he perceived himself covered with their blood, he dropped down with the exclamation that he was dead. So perfectly did he counterfeit death, all that long day, that, although his body was examined by successive bands of plunderers, and deprived not only of every valuable, but even of its clothing, he did not by a motion betray that he was alive. Most of these persons applauded the crime. It was well, they said, to kill the little wolves with the greater. But, toward evening, a more humane person came, who, while engaged in drawing off a stocking which had been left on the boy's foot, gave expression to his abhorrence of the bloody deed. To his astonishment the boy raised his head, and whispered, "I am not dead." The compassionate man at once commanded him not to stir, and went home; but as soon as it was dark he returned with a cloak, which he threw about young La Force's shoulders, and bade him follow. It was no easy matter to thread the streets unmolested; but his guide dispelled the suspicions of those who questioned him respecting the boy by declaring that it was his nephew whom he had found drunk, and was going to whip soundly for it. In the end the young nobleman reached the arsenal, where his relative, Marshal Biron, was in command. Even there, however, the avarice of his unnatural sister pursued him. Vexed that, on account of his preservation, she must fail to secure the entire inheritance of the family, Madame de la Châtaigneraie tried to effect herself what she had not been able to do by means of another; she visited the marshal in the arsenal, and, after expressing great joy that her brother had been saved, begged to be permitted to see and care for him. Biron thought it necessary, in order to preserve the boy's life, to deny her request.[1017]

Pitiless butchery.

The frenzy that had fallen upon Paris affected all classes alike. Every feeling of pity seemed to have been blotted out. Natural affection disappeared. A man's foes were those of his own household. On the plea of religious zeal the most barbarous acts were committed. Spire Niquet, a poor bookbinder, whose scanty earnings barely sufficed to support the wants of his seven children, was half-roasted in a bonfire made of his own books, and then dragged to the river and drowned.[1018] The weaker sex was not spared in the universal carnage, and, as in a town taken by assault, suffered outrages that were worse than death. Matron and maiden alike welcomed as merciful the blow that liberated them from an existence now rendered insupportable. Women approaching maternity were selected for more excruciating torments, and savage delight was exhibited in destroying the unborn fruit of the womb. Nor was any rank respected. Madame d'Yverny, the niece of Cardinal Briçonnet, was recognized, as she fled, by the costly underclothing that appeared from beneath the shabby habit of a nun which she had assumed; and, after suffering every indignity, upon her refusal to go to mass, was thrown from a bridge into the Seine and drowned.[1019] Occasionally the women rivalled the cruelty of the men. A poor carpenter, of advanced age, with whom the author of the "Tocsain contre les massacreurs" was personally acquainted, had been taken by night and cast into the river. He swam, however, to a bridge, and succeeded in climbing up by its timbers, and so fled naked to the house of a relative near the "Cousture Sainte Catherine," where his wife had taken refuge. But, instead of welcoming him, his wife drove him away, and he was soon recaptured and killed.[1020] It is related that the daughter of one Jean de Coulogne, a mercer of the "Palais," betrayed her own mother to death, and subsequently married one of the murderers.[1021] The very innocence of childhood furnished no sufficient protection—so literally did the pious Catholics of Paris interpret the oft-repeated exhortations of their holy father to exterminate not only the roots of heresy, but the very fibres of the roots.[1022] Two infants, whose parents had just been murdered, were carried in a hod and cast into the Seine. A little girl was plunged naked in the blood of her father and mother, with horrible oaths and threats that, if she should become a Huguenot, the like fate would befall her. And a crowd of boys, between nine and ten years of age, was seen dragging through the streets the body of a babe yet in its swaddling-clothes, which they had fastened to a rope by means of a belt tied about its neck.[1023]

Shamelessness of the court ladies.

Anjou encourages the assassins.

The bodies of the more inconspicuous victims lay for hours in whatever spot they happened to be killed; but the court required ocular demonstration that the leaders of the Huguenots who had been most prominent in the late wars were really dead. Accordingly the naked corpses of Soubise, of Guerchy, of Beaudiné, d'Acier's brother, and of others, were dragged from all quarters to the square in front of the Louvre. There, as an indignant contemporary writes, extended in a long row, they lay exposed to the view of the varlets, of whom when alive they had been the terror.[1024] Cruelty and lust are twin sisters: when the one is at hand, the other is generally not far distant. The court of Catharine de' Medici was noted for its impurity, as it was infamous for its recklessness of human life. It was not out of keeping with its general reputation that toward evening a bevy of ladies—among them the queen mother—tripped down the palace stairs to feast their eyes upon the sight of the uncovered dead.[1025] Indeed, the king, the queen mother, and their intimate friends seemed to be in an ecstasy of joy. They indulged in boisterous laughter[1026] as the successive reports of the municipal authorities, from hour to hour, brought in tidings of the extent of the massacre.[1027] "The war is now ended in reality," they were heard to say, "and we shall henceforth live in peace."[1028] The Duke of Anjou took a more active part. In the street and on the Pont de Notre Dame he was to be seen encouraging the assassins.[1029] The Duke of Montpensier was surpassed by no one in his zealous advocacy of the murderous work. "Let every man exert himself to the utmost," he cried, as he rode through the streets, "if he wishes to prove himself a good servant to the king."[1030] Tavannes, if we may believe Brantôme's account, endeavored to rival him, and, all day long, as he rode about amid the carnage, amused himself by facetiously crying to the people: "Bleed! Bleed! The doctors say that bleeding is as good in the month of August as in May."[1031]