FOOTNOTES:
Reading edition
The etymology of the word “Huguenot,” most commonly accepted is that which derives it from the German word Eidgenossen (confederacy) which designated the Swiss Confederates (see Papiers d’état du cardinal de Granvelle, VII, 660). The word in Geneva was naturally not German but French or Savoyard. It is variously spelled—Eydgenots, Eygenots, Eyguenots. But this derivation, though the best supported, is opposed by the eminent philologist, Littré. Grandmaison, Bulletin Soc. hist. prot. franç., LI (January, 1902), argues against the German origin of the word and gives examples of its appearance as a French surname from the fourteenth century onward. But how it came to be applied to the French Protestants he is unable to say. Cf. Weiss: “La dérivation du nom Huguenot,” Bull. Soc. hist. prot. franç., XLVIII, 12 (December, 1898). A note by A. Mazel states that in Languedoc the word was pronounced “Duganau,” which he conjectures to be a diminutive of “Fugou,” the great owl. If this is so, the origin of the word is akin to that of “Chouan” in the French Revolution. The earliest use of the word “Huguenot” in Languedoc is in Devic and Vaisette, Histoire du Languedoc, XI, 342. It undoubtedly was a term of reproach, ibid., XI, 374, note; cf. Claude Haton, I, 121. Without attempting to pronounce upon the origin of the word, I subjoin some allusions which I have come upon. Castelnau, Book II, chap, vii, says: “qui depuis s’appelèrent huguenots en France, dont l’étymologie fut prise à la conjuration d’Amboise, lors que ceux qui devoient présenter la requeste, comme éperdus de crainte, fuyoient de tous costés. Quelques femmes des villages dirent que c’estoient pauvres gens, qui ne valloient pas des huguenots, qui estoient une forte petite monnoye, encore pire que des mailles, du temps de Hugues Capet d’où vint en usage que par moquerie l’on les appelloit huguenots.” Henri Estienne and La Place, 34, say the word arose from the circumstance that the Calvinists of Tours used to go outside of the Porte du roy Huguon to worship. La Planche’s derivation is a study in folklore (p. 262, col. i).
The Venetian ambassador wrote in 1563: “In quel tempo medesimo fu tra questi principalmente, che cercorno di seminar la false dottrina un predicator della regina di Navarra, madre del presente re di Navarra, nominate Ugo, il quale alienò prima l’animo di quella regina dalla religion cattolica, e poi cercò d’alienare e di corromper, come fece, infiniti altri uomini e donne delli più grandi.”—Rel. vén., II, 50. A unique explanation, which I have not found noticed elsewhere is preserved by Jean de Gaufreton, Chronique bordelaise (1877), I, 92: “En cette année les catholiques commencèrent d’appeller les Luthériens et protestants ‘Huguenots,’ et les autres nomèrent les catholicques papistes à cause, qu’ils tenoyent le parti du pape, et qu’ils soustenoyent son authorité. Mais la raison pourquoy les Luthériens furent appellées Huguenots procède de ce que les princes protestants d’Allemagne et Luthériens ayant envoyé une solemnelle ambassade au roy, à la requête des Luthériens et protestants de France pour demander libre exercice du Luthéranisme en son royaume, en faveur des dits Luthériens français, comme le chef de cette ambassade voulut en sa première audience parler latin devant le roy, assisté des messieurs de son conseil, il ne put jamais dire que les deux mots à sçavait ‘hue nos’ et s’arresta tout court. Despuis les courtisans appellèrent les Luthériens françois ‘hue nos,’ et en suite ‘Huguenots.’”
The cardinal Tournon and the admiral Hennebault had been trusted with the duties of affairs of state after the fall of the constable Montmorency in 1541. When Henry II came to the throne Montmorency was restored to office and Tournon fell. After the death of Henry II the queen mother proposed the return of Cardinal Tournon. The Guises at first hesitated, but soon yielded, first because the cardinal was the personal enemy of the constable, and second, because he was very hostile to the reformed religion (Rev. hist., XIV, 72, 73).
An added element of adventure was the participation of a certain nobleman of wealth who seems to have financially supported the conspiracy for self-advantage. This man imagined that the movement might be converted into a movement for the recovery of Metz from the French (letter of Hotman to Calvin, September 19, 1559). In Hotman’s eyes, to restore Metz to Germany was to restore it to Protestantism, but Calvin was cautious, for his sound policy distinguished between rebellion and constitutional restriction of tyranny. He sent Beza to Strasburg to attempt to prevent such an action. But the Senate of Strasburg seized upon the project, demanded liberty for the Protestants of Metz and Trèves, abolished the Interim, interdicted the Catholic religion, and even expelled the Anabaptists from the city, to the jubilation of radical Protestants, who looked upon it as just reprisal for the repressive policy of the Guises in France.
The duke of Guise and his brother were in such fear that they wore shirts of chain mail underneath their vestments, and at night were guarded by pistoleers and men-at-arms. On the night of March 6, while at Blois, the alarm was so great that the duke, the cardinal, the grand-prior, and all the knights of the order there, watched all night long in the courtyard (C. S. P. For., No. 837, March 7, 1560).
In 1875 M. Charles Read published this famous pamphlet in facsimile from the only existing copy which was rescued from the burning of the Hôtel-de-Ville in 1871. The text is accompanied with historical, literary, and bibliographical notes.
On March 22 the prince of Condé was confronted with one of the condemned conspirators, but to the discomfiture of his enemies, no evidence against the prince could be elicited (C. S. P. For., No. 919, March 29 1560).
The King’s circular letter to the Parlements, bailiffs, and seneschals of the kingdom on March 30 declared that the conspirators “s’estoyent aidés de certains predicans venus de Genève.”—Mem. de Condé, I, 398.
“The embarkment for Scotland hastens. Soldiers arrive daily from Dieppe and New Haven. At Caudebec, Harfleur, and New Haven there is exceeding great store of provision and munitions, sufficient for 25,000 men for six months.”—C. S. P. For., No. 233, June 24, 1560.
The count of Mansfeldt to the Queen, ibid., No. 33, May 5, 1560: “The French continue to raise troops and to buy horses and ammunition. Possibly these preparations are being made against the insurgents of France, but it is doubtful whether under pretense of invading Scotland.”
After the conspiracy of Amboise the duke of Ferrara sent 1,000 harquebusiers and the Pope 4,000 Italians (ibid., No. 952, April 6, 1560).
Montluc, the bishop of Valence, the bishop of Amiens, and MM. de la Brose, d’Oysel, and Randau were the French ambassadors who accepted the terms offered by Cecil. Their commission was issued from Chenonceaux May 2, 1560. Montluc and Randau signed the instrument, an abstract of which is in C. S. P. For., No. 281, July 6, 1560. Castelnau, Book II, chaps, i-vi, gives an account of the Anglo-Scotch war. See the memoir of Montluc upon his mission, in Paulin Paris, Négociations, etc., 392; and Schickler, Hist. de France dans les archives privées de la Grande Bretagne, 6. The treaty may be found in Rymer, XV, 593; Keith, I, 291; Lesley, Hist. of Scotland (1828), 291.
The prince of Condé, during this summer, had repaired to Guyenne to see his brother, the king of Navarre, at Bordeaux where he protested against the Catholic policy of Antoine (La Planche, 276; La Place, 35). The brothers met on June 25 (Rochambeau, Lettres d’Antoine de Bourbon et de Jeanne d’Albret, 202). In his journey he inveighed against the usurpation of the Guises, and found a hearing from the noblesse and gentlemen of the south, who urged him and his brother to assume the place to which their rank entitled them. The Guises were kept informed of this journey of the prince by the marshal St. André, who, under pretense of visiting his brothers, kept watch of Condé (La Planche, 314, 315; La Place, 53). The discovery of the plot was owing to the suspicious vigilance of the duke of Guise, who marked a Basque gentleman who appeared in Paris as a stranger bent on important business, and surmised that he had been sent by the king of Navarre. It was noticed that he had conferred with the vidame of Chartres, and so, “as he was returning ... to ... Navarre, the duke of Guise had him and his valises, with (his) letters and writings, seized at Etampes. In the valise many letters were found, said to have been addressed both to the king of Navarre and to his brother, the prince of Condé. Among them were letters of the constable and his son, Montmorency, though they were merely letters of ceremony; but those of importance were what the vidame wrote to the prince, part in cipher and part without.”—C. S. P. Ven., No. 193, Aug. 30, 1560. Cf. La Planche, 355-58; De Thou, III, 357; Négociations relatives au règne de François II, 367; De Crue, 277, 278. The vidame of Chartres was arrested on August 29, 1560, by the provost-marshal and the lieutenant-criminal, at his lodgings in Paris, and carried through the streets upon a mule, “with a great rout of armed men to the Bastille.”—C. S. P. For., No. 483, September 3, 1560. Castelnau, Book II, chap, vii, says that the letters promised to assist the prince of Condé against all persons whatsoever except the King and the royal family. The Venetian ambassador says that there was enough in them “clearly to indicate that for many months there had been an intrigue.”—Ibid., Ven., No. 193, August 30, 1560. On the other hand, Throckmorton asserts that “the substance of the letter sent by the vidame to the king of Navarre is said to be so wisely written that it is thought that nothing can be laid to his charge.”—Ibid., For., No. 502, September 8, 1560. He was examined by the archbishop of Vienne and the president De Thou. Upon his arrest the vidame said “he was glad of it, for now the King would know of his innocence.”—Ibid., No. 502; La Place, 70.
On July 28, 1560, Francis II, writing to the bishop of Limoges, says it is unnecessary to do more than inform the king of Spain that he has made peace with Scotland, which will leave him leisure to attend to the internal affairs of the realm and to thank him for his good offices (Teulet, I, 606); cf. C. S. P. For., July 28, 1560, 194, n.
As a matter of fact, at this season, the cardinal was disposed to favor the project of a national council, as he hoped thereby to enlarge the power and dignity of his office as primate of France. His ambition was to become a sort of French pope, so that “he would not have thought it wrong had all obedience to the pontiff ceased.”—Despatches of Suriano (Huguenot Society), September 23, 1560.
The new session of the Council of Trent was to be preceded by a general jubilee, giving power to confessors to absolve from all sins, even from that of having read prohibited books. The bull warmly exhorted the extirpation of heresy. This jubilee was first celebrated at Rome, on Sunday, November 24, 1560, by a procession, with the Pope walking at its head (C. S. P. For., No. 782, §§ 15, 16).
The Venetian ambassador is particular and says he offered to put 3,500 troops in Flanders at the disposal of France, to place 2,000 infantry near Narbonne, and another 4,000 near Bayonne, besides “a large body of Spanish cavalry.”—C. S. P. Ven., No. 199, September 28, 1560. Throckmorton’s figures are 3,000 Spaniards from the Low Countries; 500 men-at-arms and 2,000 footmen, who would enter by way of Narbonne; and 3,000 through Navarre with 500 horses of that country (ibid., For., No. 619, § 13, October 10, 1560).
The people of Orleans were completely disarmed, even to knives, by an edict which required all arms to be deposited in the Hôtel-de-Ville (Despatches of Suriano [Huguenot Society], November 1, 1560).
The petition of the estates of Touraine, assembled at Tours on October 26, 1560, to the King, is a good example of this popular demand. The articles reflect the state of the times (C. S. P. For., No. 681). In connection with this authentic petition compare the imaginary “discours du drapier” in a fancied meeting of the estates-general, as given in Livre des marchands, 427-40, the satirical forerunner of the greatest political satire of the sixteenth century, the Satyre Menippée.
On Sardinia see Rel. vén., I, 555. Even the prospect of becoming emperor was held out to him (ibid., I, 559; II, 76).
The debt of the King to the Genoese, Germans, Milanese, Florentines, and Lucca amounted to 644,287 ducats (ibid., For., No. 1,432, October 5, 1560).
Without attempting to go at length into the intricate subject of the various kinds of money current in France in the sixteenth century, something yet is to be said upon the subject in order to make clear the working of these and other economic sources. In the sixteenth century, as during the Middle Ages, the standard of value was the livre tournois, divided into sous and deniers (1 livre = 20 sous; 1 sou = 12 deniers). The livre tournois was really a hypothetical coin and was merely used as a unit of calculation. The French gold coin was the écu d’or which varied in value between 1 livre, 16 sous, and 2 livres, 5 sous. In 1561 it was equivalent to 2 livres in round numbers. The teston was a silver coin of a value of 10 or 11 sous and was sometimes called a crown or a franc by the English. The sou originally was made of an amalgam of silver and copper and the denier or penny of red copper.
The English during their long occupation of Normandy in the fifteenth century, and owing to their commercial communication with Flanders, introduced the pound sterling or “estrelin” (easterling) (Du Cange, Glossarium, s. v. “Esterlingus;” Ruding, Annals of the Coinage, I, 7; Le Blanc, Traité historique des monnaies de France, 82). Though much more stable than other coinage—except the Venetian ducat and the florin—it nevertheless slowly depreciated. Elizabeth in 1561 rechristened it the gold “sovereign.” It was worth about 8 livres tournois in 1561 (Avenel, “La fortune mobilière dans l’histoire,” Revue des deux mondes, July 15, 1892, 784, 785). The French peasantry still in certain parts of France estimate in terms of ancient coinage. The pistole, by origin a Spanish coin current in Flanders and the Milanais, was forbidden circulation as far back as Louis XIV. Yet the peasants of Lower Normandy at the cattle fairs today will estimate the price of their animals in ancient terms. Similarly the Breton peasantry talk of réaux (real), the last vestige of Brittany’s commercial relations with Spain (Avenel, op. cit., 783).
The actual value of these coins in modern terms has been much debated. M. de Wailly estimated the value of the livre tournois in 1561 at 3 francs, 78 centimes. The vicomte d’Avenel thinks these figures too high and has adopted 3 francs, 11 centimes as a mean value for the years between 1561 and 1572. M. Lavasseur prefers the round number of 3 francs. On the basis of the last estimate one sou would be equivalent to 15 centimes and 1 denier to 1.2 centimes in terms of modern French money. But these figures mean nothing until the purchasing power of money at this time is established. In this particular, estimates have varied all the way from 3 to 12 and even to 17 and 20. M. Lemmonier inclines to the ratio of 5 for the middle of the sixteenth century. For an admirably clear and succinct account of the value of French money in the sixteenth century, see Lavisse, Histoire de France, Vol. V, Part I, pp. 266-69. Larger references will be found in the bibliography appended to the chapter.
But whatever the ratio may have been, the decline in the purchasing power of money was great. Between 1492 and 1544 Europe imported 279 millions worth (in francs) of gold and silver. In the single year 1545, when the famous mines of Potosi were opened, 492,000,000 francs’ worth were brought into Europe. The purchasing power of money is estimated to have fallen one-quarter between 1520 and 1540 and one-half by the year 1600. After the peace of Cateau-Cambrésis when peaceful relations were renewed between France and Spain, France particularly felt the disturbing effect of the new conditions. According to the vicomte d’Avenel (op. cit.), from 1541-61 the livre tournois was valued at 3 francs, 34 centimes; from 1561-72 at 3 francs, 11 centimes; from 1575-79 at 2 francs, 88 centimes. “Un capital de 1,000 livres qui valait 22,000 francs en 1200, n’en valait plus intrinsèquement que 16,000 en 1300; 7,530 en 1400; 6,460 en 1500, et était tombé en 1600 à 2,570 francs.”—Revue des deux mondes, July 15, 1892, 800.
One is astonished not to find greater complaints about the “hard times” in the chronicles and other sources of the period. To be sure, the misery did not reach its acutest stage until the time of the League, when the difference between the price of food stuffs and daily wages was outrageous. For example, since 1500 the wage of the laboring man had increased but 30 per cent., whereas the price of grain had increased 400 per cent. At the accession of Louis XII, wheat had cost four francs per hectolitre and the peasant earned sixteen centimes a day; at the accession of Henry IV (in 1590), wheat sold for twenty francs per hectolitre and the daily wage of the peasant was but seventy-eight centimes (Avenel, “Le pouvoir de l’argent,” Revue des deux mondes, April 15, 1892, 838).
The hospitals of various towns of France and in particular the hôtels-dieu at Paris and Troyes, had already, even before this, been governed by lay commissioners. For a complaint of bad administration of the Hôtel-Dieu at Provins by the lay officers, who enriched themselves at the expense of the poor, and let the house run down, for which reason the King was requested to restore the administration to the clergy, see Claude Haton, I, 223.
Don Juan de Manrique suggested to Antoine—“Que s’il vouloit repudir la reine sa femme, comme hérétique qu’elle estoit, les Seigneurs de Guise luy feroient espouser leur Nièce, veuve de Francis II.”
Rochambeau, Lettres d’Antoine de Bourbon et de Jeanne d’Albret, Inventaire Sommaire, No. CXLIII, 27 juin 1561—“Attestation de Catherine de Médicis et Antoine de Bourbon, pour affirmer que la retraite du duc du Guyse, de conestable de Montmorency, et du mareschal de St. André n’est due qu’au seul respect et affection qu’ils portent au service du roi et au repos de ses sujets.”—Bib. Nat., F. Fr., 3,194, fol. 5.
Charles IX sent the Sieur d’Ozances to Spain to soften Philip’s anger as much as possible. In a letter of July 18, from St. Germain to his ambassador in Spain, after stating the motives which have led him to dispatch D’Ozances, he adds: “Au demeurant, je ne doubte point qu’on sème de beaulx bruictz par delà, touchant le faict de la Religion, et qu’on ne nous face beaucoup plus malades que nous ne sommes; et, pour ceste occasion il m’a semblé qu’il serait fort à propos que le Sr. d’Auzances feist entendre au Roy, mon bon frère, les termes en quoy nous en sommes.” Then follow details upon the edict of pacification. This letter was sold at auction in 1877. It is catalogued in the Inventaire des autographes et des documents historiques composant la collection de M. Benjamin Fillon, Paris, Charavay, 1877 (Series I, 34, No. 132—“Lettre de Charles IX contre-sig. Robertet, à l’évêque de limoges, ambassadeur en espagne; St. Germain, 18 juillet, 1561”).
Ruble, Antoine de Bourbon et Jeanne d’Albret, III, 245-50; De Crue, Anne de Montmorency, 315, 316. The official inquiry entitled, “Enquête sur l’enlèvement du duc d’Orleans,” is in F. Fr. 6,608.
The Edict of January is sometimes wrongly dated January 17, 1561. The error arises from the confusion of the calendar in the sixteenth century. In 1561 the year in France legally began at Easter, which, of course threw January 17, into the year 1561. But in 1564 a royal ordonnance abolished this usage and established January 1 as the beginning of the year, which brought forward January 17 into its proper year, 1562. The reform of the calendar by Gregory XIII would alter the date of the month also, according to modern reckoning. But it is simpler to let established dates stand. Henry III authorized the use of the Gregorian calendar in France in 1582. For a lucid account of these changes see Commentaires et lettres de Montluc, IV, Introd., x-xi by the baron de Ruble.
On March 16, 1562, an ordinance of the king of Navarre enjoined the captains and lieutenants of each quarter of Paris who were elected by the bourgeoisie to appoint ensigns, corporals, and sergeants, and to enlist all the men capable of bearing arms in their divisions, both masters and servants (Capefigue, 234, 235).
The prince of Condé is said to have issued a coinage of his own at this time with the superscription, “Louis XIII.” Chantonnay, however, says that they were medals (K. 1,497, No. 27, May 2, 1562). See the memoir of Secousse: “Dissertation où l’on examine s’il est vrai qu’il ait été frappé, pendant la vie de Louis Ier, prince de Condé, une monnie sur laquelle on lui ait donné le titre de roi de France,” Mém. de l’Acad. roy. des inscrip. et bell. lettres, XVII (1751); Poulet, Correspondance du cardinal de Granvelle, III, 85. Whitehead, Gaspard de Coligny, 303, is convinced the story is a fabrication.
His letter of May 5 (K. 1,497, No. 28) describes the adventure of a courier bearing a dispatch of the bishop of Limoges. He was given twenty blows with a knife, but managed to escape. St. Sulpice reports a similar experience of “le chevaucher de Bayonne” in a letter to Catherine, June 30, 1562. D’Andelot intercepted a letter from the duke of Alva (K. 1,497, No. 26, April 28, 1562) and the prince of Condé one from the bishop of Limoges to Catherine de Medici (K. 1,497, No. 33). The activity of the Huguenots in Gascony gave the French and Spanish governments special disquietude because they continually overhauled the couriers bearing official dispatches between Paris and Madrid. The letters of St. Sulpice contain many complaints because of the rifling of his correspondence (see pp. 30, 35, 37, 38, 41, 59). But the Huguenots were not the only ones who scrutinized letters unduly. Philip II frequently asked to be shown the letters of Charles IX and his mother to his wife, so that St. Sulpice advised Catherine always to send two letters, one of which was to be a “dummy” to be shown to the King (L’Ambassade de St. Sulpice, 136). The Spanish ambassador told Philip he would have to come out into the open and declare war to protect his own interests (K. 1,497, No. 26, April 25, 1562). He anticipated as early as this the probable combination of the French Huguenots and the Dutch rebels, and warned Margaret of Parma to be on her guard (Correspondance de Chantonnay, K. 1,497, Nos. 30, 33, to Philip II).
He promised to send 10,000 foot and 3,000 cavalry, chiefly Italians and Germans; cf. De Ruble, Antoine de Bourbon et Jeanne d’Albret, IV, 214. At about the same time the constable appealed to Rome through Santa Croce, for a loan of 200,000 écus and a body of soldiers (Arch. cur., VI, 86).
Rambouillet and D’Oysel, the agents of France in these countries (St. Sulpice, 77; Corresp. de Catherine de Médicis, I, 364) made much of the King of Spain’s aid and carried credentials from Chantonnay. The duke of Guise even sent an agent, the count of Roussy, to England, to discover Elizabeth’s intentions, and to ascertain the military state of her kingdom (cf. Beza, Hist. des églises réformées, ed. of Toulouse, I, 373; De Ruble, IV, 103 ff.; L’Ambassade de St. Sulpice, 13; C. S. P. For., No. 1,037, April 21, 1562).
The argument of the Catholics with the German Protestant princes and imperial cities was that the Huguenots were political dissidents and rebels, and that religion was a pretext with them (L’Ambassade de St. Sulpice, 65). In order to counteract this teaching the Huguenots circulated a pamphlet written by Hotman throughout the Rhine provinces which attempted to neutralize the differences between Calvinism and Lutheranism. (This curious pamphlet is printed in Mém. de Condé, II, 524; La Popelinière, I, 325. In this capacity Hotman was invaluable. Some of his letters at this time are in Mém. de l’Acad., CIV, 662-65.)
The German princes as a whole tried to prevent soldiers from going out of Germany. The landgrave Philip of Hesse arrested an officer of cavalry who was secretly enlisting horsemen in Hesse and who said he was doing so for Roggendorf, tore up the officer’s commission before his face, and made him swear to leave his castle without a passport. The duke of Württemberg also took care that no volunteers should march through Montbéliard into France, and Strasburg forbade anyone to enlist under severe penalties. The bishops of the Rhine kept quiet; only in Lorraine and the Three Bishoprics was Catholic enlisting unimpeded. The recruiting-sergeant of the Guises in Germany was the famous Roggendorf, a Frisian by birth who had been driven out of his native land in 1548 and since then had lived the life of an adventurer, part of the time in Turkey. (See an interesting note in Poulet, I, 542, with references.) On April 8 the king of Navarre in the name of Charles IX, signed a convention with him engaging the services of 1,200 German mounted pistoleers and four cornettes of footmen of 300 men each (D’Aubigné, II, 33, n.). These forces entered France late in July and reached the camp at Blois on August 7 (D’Aubigné, II, 76, n. 3).
One reason why the Protestant princes of Germany were unable immediately to make strong protest to the French crown was that the envoys of the elector palatine, the dukes of Deuxponts and Württemberg, the landgrave of Hesse and the margrave of Baden, were unprovided for a month with letters of safe conduct, by the precaution of the Guises, with the result that Roggendorf led 1,200 cavalry in the first week in May across the Rhine and through Trèves into France for the Guises, though the Protestant princes did all they could to hinder the passage and expostulated with the bishops of Trèves and Cologne for allowing them to be levied in their territories. Failing greater things, the Protestant princes of Germany, in July, 1562, put Roggendorf under the ban in their respective states (cf. C. S. P. For., Nos. 244 and 269, June 13 and July, 1562). In the end, despite the enterprise of the Guises, the French Catholics may be said to have been unsuccessful beyond the Rhine, that is in Germany proper, but not in Switzerland or the episcopal states. D’Oysel, who was sent by Charles IX in July to Heidelberg (D’Aubigné, II, 97, and n. 1; Le Laboureur, I, 430) received a short and definite answer “which showed him how groundless were his hopes of aid from that quarter, a document to which so much importance was attributed that it was forthwith printed for wider circulation” (C. S. P. For., No. 414, August 3, 1562, and the Introduction, xi).
The king of Spain’s captains had money and were ordered that as soon as soldiers were taken from Germany into France they should enlist men for the defense of his territories (C. S. P. For., No. 11, May 2, 1562). In the bishopric of Trèves soldiers were enrolled easily, as the passage from thence to France was short (ibid., No. 74, May 19, 1562).
In Switzerland the Huguenots endeavored to prevail upon the Protestant cantons to prevent the Catholic cantons from lending support to Guise (C. S. P. Ven., No. 285, April 29, 1562). The Guises asked for a levy of foot from the papist cantons of Switzerland in the King’s name (Corresp. de Catherine de Médicis, I, 289, April 8, 1562). The cantons promised to send 15 ensigns; but the Protestant cantons especially Bern, told the prince of Condé that they would not suffer any soldiers to be levied against him in their territory, on pain of confiscation of goods. Nevertheless the Catholic Swiss managed to make some enrolments, the men quitting home on July 8. On August 7 these mercenaries arrived at Blois, having come by way of Franche Comté (De Thou, Book XXX). They were commanded by Captain Froelich (see D’Aubigné, II, 148; Zurlauben, Hist. milit. des Suisses, IV, 287 ff.; Letter of Hotman in Rev. hist., XCVII, March-April, 1908, 307).
Gellibert des Seguins, Aubeterre en 1562; “Enquête sur le passage des protestants en cette ville, le pillage de l’église Saint-Jacques et la destruction des titres et papiers du chapitre,” Bull. de la Soc. arch., etc., 1862, 3e sér., IV (Angoulême, 1864).
Condé further justified the revolt of the Huguenots on the ground that the King and his mother were “prisoners” in the hands of the Triumvirate, but the statement was too transparent to be believed. Catherine herself, in order to disprove it, took the King to Monceaux with her (Corresp. de Chantonnay, May 28, 1562, K. 1,497, No. 36), whence she wrote to the Parlement of Paris explaining the reason of her action. The Parlement promptly approved her course. Mém.—journaux du duc de Guise, 495, col. 2: “Acte par lequel la Reinemère et le Roy de Navarre declarent que la retraite voluntaire que font de la cour du duc de Guise, le Connestable et le mareschal de St. André, ne pourra porter préjudice à leur honneur” (May 28, 1562).
“For levying 6,000 lansknechts: for their levying, a crown per month. The pay of every ensign of 300 men per month, 3,500 livres tournois. The whole expense for four months 395,000 livres tournois equals 263,337 florins. Sum total with other expenses, 1,759,792 livres tournois equals 211,174,175, 2d.”
The alliance between the prince of Condé and the English, with the implied loss of Calais to France, more than any other fact, reconciled Catherine de Medici to Spanish assistance. After August she personally urged this aid (L’Ambassade de St. Sulpice, 58, 59). Still Philip emphatically gave her to understand that “si l’ambassadeur de Espagne avait fait espérer que son maître déclarerait la guerre aux Anglais il avait dépassé ses instructions, car les Espagnols étaient depuis si longtemps liés avec ces peuples qu’il était impossible de rompre cette alliance.”—St. Sulpice to Charles IX, November 12, 1562 (L’Ambassade de St. Sulpice, 93).
The constable was at Yvetot in October, 1562, at the time of the descent of the English upon Havre and wrote to Charles IX that he was unable to take the field. At a later season he complains to Catherine of the calumnies heaped upon him, and bluntly says “that he is not in the humor to endure such things.”—Coll. de St. Pétersbourg, CIII, letters pertaining to the house of Montmorency; La Ferrière, Rapport, 46.
On the siege of Rouen, see Claude Haton, I, 286-89. The city was taken October 26 (Floquet, Hist. du Parlement de Normandie, II, 435).
On Huguenot excesses in Rouen, see an arrêt of the Parlement of Rouen, August 26, 1562, in Mém. de Condé, III, 613, and another ordering prayers for the capture of Fort St. Catherine, October 7 (ibid., IV, 41).
Among those in Rouen who were officially executed were a Huguenot pastor by the name of Marlorat, with two elders of the church, a merchant and burgess of the city, named Jean Bigot, and one Coton; Montreville, chief president of Rouen, De Cros, some time governor of Havre-de-Grace, eight Scotchmen who had passports of Mary Stuart to serve under Guise, and some French priests (D’Aubigné, II, 88; C. S. P. For., No. 950, §14, October 31, 1562; No. 984, §2, November 4, 1562).
Condé first proposed the following three articles: (1) liberty of conscience with free exercise of religion where demanded; (2) security of life and property unto all; (3) the summons of a free council within six months, or, if that were impossible, then a general assembly of the realm. To these proposals the government replied that Calvinist preaching would not be permitted under any circumstances in Lyons and other frontier towns, which were defined, nor near those with a governor and garrison, nor in those towns which were seats of the parlements. Condé then modified the Huguenot demands, as follows: (1) That Calvinist preaching be permitted in the suburbs of frontier towns, or in certain ones so appointed; (2) that it should obtain only in those other places where it was practiced before the war began; (3) except that it should be lawful for all gentlemen and all nobles to have private service in their own houses; (4) all persons residing in places where preaching was not permitted should be suffered to go to the nearest towns or other places for the exercise of their religion, without molestation. In reply, the government excepted Paris and the banlieue from these stipulations. All these conditions the government and Condé accepted on December 3, 1562, Lyons being declared not to be a frontier city within the construction of the articles. Certain minor stipulations followed as to amnesty, recovery of property, etc. Cf. C. S. P. For., No. 1,219, December 9, 1562; Beza, Hist. des églises réformées, II, 121 ff., ed. 1841.
Montaigne has an interesting essay upon some peculiar incidents of the battle. Two curious occurrences happened. The duke of Guise was the first to alight from his horse and courteously receive the prince of Condé (C. S. P. For., No. 1,326, December 26, 1562); the two slept in the same bed that night (ibid., Ven., December 21, 1562). The duke of Aumale was unhorsed and nearly the whole army rode and trampled over him, yet he was unhurt, owing to the heavy suit of armor he wore (ibid., For., No. 375, §3, 1563; cf. No. 400, §2).
Poltrot was put to death on March 18; for the trial, see Mém.-journ. de François, de Lorraine (Michaud Coll.), 506, 537 ff.; Paulin Paris, Cabinet hist., Ière part., III, 49 ff. A conspicuous instance of the high-mindedness of Jeanne d’Albret is the letter of consolation she wrote to the duchess of Guise after the assassination of the duke (La Ferrière, Rapport, 39).
Biron was sent into Provence in 1563 with instructions to give an account to the King of the manner in which justice was administered there and how the edict was executed. He was also to find the count of Tendes and Sommerive and express the King’s displeasure of their conduct. The royal instructions are evidence of the sincerity with which the government started to execute the edict (La Ferrière, Rapport, 46; cf. Collection Trémont, sér. 3, p. 124).
In the first week of May the King summoned the members of the Parlement of Paris and the authorities of the city to St. Germain, commanding them before the week was out to obey the Edict of Toleration, to release those imprisoned for religion, and to lay down their arms (C. S. P. For., No. 703, §3, May 4, 1563). Paris finally published the edict, but observed it slightly, the Parlement admitting the “graces” of the edict, but saying it could not in its conscience allow two religions (ibid., No. 1190, 835, June 2, 1563). For an example of the violence of the capital see No. 895, June 15, 1562. The public criers and the very horses which they used in the crying of the edict in the city of Paris were in danger of being killed by the populace, which poured out of the mouths of the streets (Claude Haton, I, 328).
On April 15, 1563, the King wrote to the cardinal of Lorraine to inform him that, having grown impatient at the slowness of the Council of Trent, he was sending the president Biragues to Trent and then to the Emperor with a mission to have the council transferred to a freer place if possible. The King declared that if the reforms demanded by Christianity were not accorded and confirmed by the council, France would not hesitate to convoke a national council. (See the instruction to D’Oysel in Corresp. de Catherine de Médicis, II, 1-3, note.)
The cardinal of Lorraine, while agreeing with Philip II, as to religion and heresy, looked with resentment upon the King’s attempt to appropriate the political destiny of Mary Stuart to his own ends (St. Sulpice to Lansac, December 15, 1562, p. 103). The whole council was filled with disaffection; 150 out of the 230 members present were Italians, most of these pensioners of Rome, so that the others resented their preponderance (Lansac to St. Sulpice, February 10, 1563, L’Ambassade de St. Sulpice, 115).
There were conflicts as to precedence; some of the ambassadors like Lansac and Du Ferrier believed in qualified toleration of Protestants (St. Sulpice, 115); many of the members, while believing in the enlargement of the Pope’s prerogatives in religious affairs, were opposed to a reduction of governmental rights of control over ecclesiastical temporalities. Philip II’s attitude in this respect was identical with that of Charles IX—each wanted to exercise political control over the church within his kingdom (St. Sulpice, 198). Even the cardinal of Lorraine was an advocate of temporal independence (St. Sulpice, 161). See Baschet, Journal du Concile de Trente; the Appendix has a valuable bibliography of the history of the Council of Trent. M. Baguenault de la Puchesse’ article in R. Q. H., 1869, may be added. The cardinal of Lorraine left Trent on March 23. M. Baschet questions (p. 214): “Que sont devenues toutes les dépêches qu’il a du écrire à la Reine mère, tant sur sa négociation avec l’Empereur, que sur sa visite à la Republique de Venise et son voyage en Cour de Rome, pour l’accomplissement desquels il s’était deplacé de sa résidence au Concile?” He was not aware of the fact, when he wrote in 1870, that Count Hector de la Ferrière had shortly before discovered them in the archives at St. Petersburg (La Ferrière, Deux années de mission à Saint Petersbourg, 51). For the cardinal’s mission to Venice see R. Q. H., October 1869, 349, 350, and 385, note.
Coligny was so fearful of suffering violence in Paris from the bigotry of the populace or at the instigation of the Guises, that he would not enter the city.
The declaration, by a technicality, contravened the testament of Charles V (1374), which for centuries had been the law regulating the King’s majority. Charles IX was born on June 17, 1550, so that he was in his fourteenth year, though not yet fourteen years old. The Parlement of Paris for more than a month refused to register the edict, not on political, but on religious grounds. It objected to “la mention de l’édit de pacification d’Amboise, introduite sans motif dans la déclaration de l’édit de la majorité, ce que semblait reconnaître deux religions.”—Correspondance de Catherine de Médicis, II, Introd., xxiv. The Venetian ambassador gives an interesting character-sketch of Charles IX at this time (Rel. vén., I, 419).
In the town of Provins there were but a few Huguenots. Among them were 1 doctor; 2 lawyers; a notary; 1 barber and surgeon; 1 dyer; 3 apothecaries; 1 draper; 1 fuller; 1 salt dealer.—Claude Haton, I, 124, 125.
“La corruption des bonnes mœurs a continué en tous estatz, tant ecclesiastique que aultres, depuis les cardinaux jusques aux simples prebstres, et depuis le roy jusques aux simples villagloix. Chascun a voulu suyvre son plaisir; on a délaissé mesme l’ancienne coustume de s’habiller. De temps immémorial, nul homme de France n’avoit esté tondu ni porté longue barbe avant le régne dudit feu roy; ains tous les hommes, garçons et campagnons portoient longs cheveux et la barbe rasée au menton.... Les prebstres et évesques se sont faict tondre des derniers; et ont porté longue barbe, ce qui a esté trouve fort estranger depuis le commencement du règne dudit feu roy, ont commencé les nouvelles façons aux habillemens toutes contraires à l’antiquité, et a semblé la France estre ung nouveau peuple ou ung monde renouvelé.”—Claude Haton, I, 112.
“En face des Protestants, qui s’associaient et s’organisaient contre les catholiques, ceux-ci avaient de bonne heure formé des unions locales pour résister aux entreprises des hérétiques. Ces premières ligues ont seulement un but religieux. Elles sont généralement composées de bourgeois dévoué à la royauté et sincèrement émus des dangers auxquels est exposé la catholicisme.”—La grande encyc., XXII, 234, s. v. “Ligue,” article by M. de Vaissière.
“La jalousie entre les deux Religions ne se borna pas l’émulation d’une plus grande régularité; elles cherchèrent s’appuyer l’une contre l’autre de la force des confédérations et des serments. Depuis longtemps la Romaine entretenoit dans son sein des associations connues sous le nom de confréries. Elles avoient des lieux et des jours d’assemblée fixés, une police, des repas, des exercices, des deniers communs. Il ne fut question que d’ajouter à ce la un serment d’employer ses biens et sa vie pour la défense de la Foi attaquée. Avec cette formule, les confréries devinrent comme d’elles-mêmes, dans chaque ville, des corps de troupes prêtes à agir au gré des chefs, et leur bannières, des étendarts militaires.”—Anquetil, I, 213.
The third article provides for implicit obedience to the prince of Condé, “chef et conducteur de toute la Compagnie,” i. e., the army; there was no league. Minute regulations follow for the government of the camp, for services of prayer both morning and evening, etc. The fourth article, which has to do with the ways and means of raising revenue, is the nearest approach to political organization: “ ... nous jurons and promettons devant Dieu et ses Anges nous tenir prests de tout ce qui fait en nostre pouvoir, comme d’argent; d’armes, chevaux de service, et toutes les autres choses requises, pour nous trouver au premier Mandement du dict Seigneur Prince.”—Mém. de Condé, III, 210-15. Cf. La Popelinière, Book VIII, 582 ff., upon the same subject.
Smith declared that Lyons was the “most fearful and inhuman town he had ever seen. Men show themselves more fearful and inhuman than pagans.”—C. S. P. For., No. 553, July 12, 1564.
Randolph to the earl of Leicester: “The prince of Condé is become a suitor here, supported by the cardinal.”—C. S. P. Scotland, IX, 67, November 7, 1564. Mary Stuart expressed her repugnance at such a prospect by saying: “Trewlye I am beholding to my uncle: so that yt be well with hym, he careth not what becommethe of me.”—Randolph to Cecil, C. S. P. Scot., II, 117, November 9, 1564. Another match, proposed simply for the purpose of leading Condé along, was between the young duke of Guise and the prince’s daughter, Margaret, who was a little child.—C. S. P. For., No. 642, §3; Smith to Cecil from Valence, September 1, 1564; No. 650, ibid., September 3, 1564; No. 784, November 7, 1564. Smith to Cecil: “News is that the prince of Condé and the cardinal of Lorraine have intervisited each other.” Cf. Papiers d’état du cardinal de Granvelle, VIII, 127. Bolwiller who disapproved of these plans in the interest of Philip II (ibid., VIII, 381, note) evidently believed the prince won over to Catholicism (ibid., VIII, 156). A propos of Condé’s relapse he sarcastically wrote to Granvella on July 8, 1564: “Ce que l’on est en oppinion que L’Admiral et D’Andelot se doibvent renger et hanger leur robbe, si le font, lors me semblera-il veoir une vraye farce, et pourront les femmes dire lors estre dadvantaige constante que les hommes, mesme madame de Vandosme et duchesse de Ferrare demeurans en l’oppinion où l’on les void.”—Ibid., VIII, 129.
On this liaison see Corresp. de Cath. de Méd., II, 189, note; Louis Paris, Négociations, Introd. XXVI, XXVII; Nég. Tosc., III, 572, and especially La Ferrière, “Isabel de Limeuil,” Revue des deux mondes, December 1, 1883, 636 and the duc d’Aumale, Histoire des princes de Condé, I, Appendix, xix. A suggestion of the manners prevailing at court is found in the following information: “Orders are taken in the court that no gentleman shall talk with the queen’s maids, except it is in the queen’s presence, or in that of Madame la Princesse de la Roche-sur-Yon, except he be married; and if they sit upon a form or stool, he may sit by her, and if she sits in the form, he may kneel by her, but not lie long, as the fashion was in this court.”—C. S. P. For., 1091, April 11, 1565.
St. Sulpice to Catherine de Medici, June 12, 1564; L’Ambassade de St. Sulpice, 711; Papiers d’état du cardinal de Granvelle, VII, 592. For some correspondence between Philip II and Granvella, and Granvella and Antonio Perez regarding Chantonnay’s recall see Gachard, Correspondance de Philippe II sur les Pays-Bas, I, 251-53. Upon Chantonnay’s successor, Alava, see L’Ambassade de St. Sulpice, 227, 228, 236; Papiers d’état du cardinal de Granvelle, VIII, 393; Correspondance de Catherine de Médicis, II, 359, 534; Poulet, I, 570, n. 1; Forneron, Histoire de Philippe II, II, 256.
On the secret service of Philip II, see Forneron, I, 218, 290, 334; II, 304, 305; Papiers d’état du cardinal de Granvelle, VII, 498, 499; VIII, 128, 182.
Alava exceeded his instructions in threatening France with war. Philip II, far from wishing war with France, repudiated his ambassador’s statements (R. Q. H., January, 1879, p. 23).
The anxiety of the French Protestants over the King’s visit of Lorraine is well expressed in the letter of Lazarus Schwendi to the Prince of Orange, August 22, 1564, in Arch. d’Orange-Nassau, I, 191.
In Papiers d’état du cardinal de Granvelle, VIII, 600-2, is an account from the pen of Don Louis del Rio, an attaché of the Spanish embassy at Paris; and on pp. 655, 656 is the “Harangue de l’admiral de France à MM. de la court du parlement de Paris du 27 janvier 1565 avec la réponse.” The baron de Ruble has written the history of this incident in Mém. de la Soc. de l’hist. de Paris de l’Ile-de-France, Vol. VI.
According to a letter of Mary Stuart to Queen Elizabeth, February 12, 1565, the resentment due to the old law-suit over Dammartin flashed out at this time. But it must have been a conjecture on her part, for she adds: “I have heard no word of the duke of Guise or monsieur d’Aumale.”—C. S. P. Scot., II, 146. The prince of Condé’s Catholic leanings at this critical moment are manifested in a letter to his sister, the abbess of Chelles, in which he states that he is annoyed at the outrage committed on the cardinal of Lorraine by the marshal Montmorency; that the union of these two houses is more than necessary; that if he had been with the cardinal, he would have given proof of his good-will by deeds. See Appendix VII.
For the King’s sojourn at Condom (1565) see Barrère (l’abbé), ibid., 476.
“Et pour ceste cause, mon frere, je trouverais merveilleusement bon que les dicts Sieurs y voulsissent entendre, laissant les villes, d’autant qu’il n’y a nulle asseurance en peuple, comme je l’ay dernièrement encore cogneut. Mais avec la Noblesse, de ma part je suis tout resolu et prest, et n’y veux espargner aucune chose, et le plustost sera le meilleur. Qui me fait vous prier, de regarder et en bien adviser tous parensemble, et mesmes avec le seigneur de Montpensier, et de m’en mander ce que vous aurez deliberé, à fin que par là je resolue avec les Seigneurs et Noblesse qui sont de deça et mes Gouverneurs, qui feront tout ce que je vouldray.
“Au demeurant, vous avez bien entendu le nombre de Chevaliers de l’Ordre qui ont esté faicts, qui sont bien pres de trente ou plus, dont monsieur de Brion en est des premiers. Aussi des preparatifs que lon fuit à la Court pour aller à Bayonne recevoir festoyer la Roine d’Espaigne.”
In Collection Godefroy, XCIV, No. 16, will be found a “sommaire de la négociation de Calais, entre le président Séguier et le conseiller du Faur, députés de Charles IX, et les ambassadeurs de Philippe II;” original, signed by Séguier and Du Faur. In the same collection, XCVI, No. 6, is a delimitation treaty pertaining to the Picard frontier, signed by Harlay and Du Drac, at Gravelines, December 29, 1565. Charles IX refused to ratify it.
Undoubtedly Spain’s harsh commercial policy toward France was also influenced in part by jealousy of the commercial relations of France and England, for the treaty of Troyes established freedom of trade between the two nations. For the great importance of this treaty in the history of commerce see De Ruble, Le traité de Cateau-Cambrésis, 193-95.
The doctrine of assassination for heresy originally proceeded from the mediaeval church, in which it can be traced back as far as the beginning of the Crusades. Urban II asserted that it was not murder to kill an excommunicated person, provided it was done from religious zeal. (“Non enim eos homicidas arbitramur quod adversus excommunicatos zelo catholicae matris ardentes, eorum quoslibet trucidasse contigerit.”—Migne, Epistolae Urbani, CLI, No. 122; Mansi, XX, 713; the same words are used by Ivo of Chartres, X, 331, and by Gratian in the Decretum [causa 32, quaestio 2, canon: De neptis].) The passage stands in the revised edition, to which Gregory XIII prefixed the injunction that nothing should be omitted, and the gloss gives the following paraphrase: “Non putamus eos esse homicidas qui zelo justitiae eos occiderunt.”
In 1208 Innocent III proscribed the count of Toulouse (Teulet, Trésor des Chartes, I, 316), and in the same pontificate the Fourth Lateran Council declared that the Pope might depose anyone who neglected the duty of exterminating heresy and might bestow his state on others (Harduin, Concilia, VII, 19). The same canon reappears in the Decreta of Gregory IX (Lib. iv, tit. 7. cap. 13). St. Thomas Aquinas declared that the loss of political rights was incurred by excommunication (Summa [ed. 1853], III, 51). The teaching that faith need not be kept with a heretic was well established by the church in the thirteenth century. It was pleaded by the Emperor in the case of Huss—“quoniam non est frangere fidem ei qui Deo fidem frangit.”—Palacky, Documenta Joannis Hussi, I, 540.
The spirit of this teaching survived in the sixteenth century. In 1561 some citizens of Lucca, having embraced the Protestant belief, were obliged to flee from the city. The government of the republic, under suggestion from Rome, passed a law on January 9, 1562, that whoever killed one of these refugees, though he had been outlawed, yet would his outlawry be reversed; and that if he himself needed not this privilege, it could be transferred to another (Archivio storico italiano, X, app. 176, 177). On January 20, Pope Pius IV wrote to congratulate the city on this pious legislation: “Legimus pia laudabiliaque decretaque civitatis istius Generale Consilium nuper fecit ad civitatem ipsam ab omni heresum labe integram conservandam.... Nec vero quicquam fieri potuisse judicamus, vel ad tuendum Dei honorem sanctius, vel ad conservandam vestre patrie salutem prudentius.”—Ibid., 178, 179.
When Henry of Valois made oath to respect liberty of conscience in Poland he was informed that it would be sin to observe the oath, but that if he broke it, the sin of making it would be regarded as a venial offense: “Minor fuit offensio, ubi mens ea praestandi quae pelebatur, defuit.”—Hosii, Opera, II, 367.
The Ridolfi plot, it may be added, casts a very clear light upon the teaching and conduct of Pius V.
[I owe some of the information given above to a curious accident. In 1899, among a number of books which I purchased in London, I found a number of fragmentary notes dealing with this question. There is nothing to indicate their authorship, but in recognition of the assistance of some scholar to me unknown this acknowledgment is made. It may be added that the books purchased dealt with France in the fourteenth century].
The boisseau (Med. Latin, boissellus [Du Cange, s. v.]) was an ancient measure of capacity equivalent to 13.01 litres, approximately 12 quarts. In remote parts of France the term is still sometimes used to indicate a décalitre. The boisseau was used for both dry and liquid measure. On the other hand the bichet (Med. Latin, bisselus and busellus, whence the English bushel) was a dry measure, representing from one-fifth to two-fifths of a hectolitre (from 4.4 to 8.8 gallons) according to the province. The setier, was a larger dry measure of 6 pecks (Paris measure). The muid (Latin modius) also was of variable capacity. That of Paris equaled 36 gallons. The queue du creu was a large wooden cask, about equivalent to a hogshead and a half, and was used only for wine. The calculations of terms of American money are on the theory that the livre tournois in 1565 was equivalent to 3.11 francs, according to the estimate of the vicomte d’Avenel in Revue des deux mondes, June 15, 1892, p. 795.
According to an estimate of January 15, 1572, the income from the “Parties Casuelles,” that is to say, from offices vacated by the death of particular possessors thereof, and from the “Paulette,” was two million francs and yet the corruption in the administration was so great that the King received but a quarter of this amount (Cheruel, I, 208).
Mingled with this fear was apprehension lest even the Turk might become an ally of the Flemings and the Protestant French (Poulet, I, 357, Morillon to Granvelle). That it was not an utterly fantastic notion of him alone, see the letter of Margaret of Parma to Philip II, in Corresp. de Philippe II, I, No. 411, and Gachard, Corresp. de Guillaume le Taciturne, VI, 408.
Metz was early famous for its interest in the Reformation. The laxness of the episcopal discipline in the first part of the sixteenth century contributed to the growth of this spirit, and finally led to a Catholic reaction. The city was more inclined, however, to Calvinism than to Lutheranism. Charles V prohibited the exercise of the Lutheran faith, but nevertheless, the Protestants of Metz made an alliance with the Smalkald League. Under the French domination the city passed definitely from Lutheranism to Calvinism. The French governor, Vieilleville, was a moderate in policy and granted the Huguenots a church in the interior of the town. During the first civil war the Protestants in Metz remained tranquil, but soon afterward Farel visited the city for the third time, and thereafter the city’s religious activity was considerable. The cardinal of Lorraine suppressed Protestant preaching in the diocese and closed the church. When Charles IX visited Metz in 1564 the edifice was destroyed and Protestant worship was forbidden. After the death of the Marshal Vieilleville, the count de Retz was made governor. One of the motives of the support of the Huguenot cause by John Casimir, the prince palatine, was a promise made by the Huguenots that he would be given the governorship of Metz. On the subject as a whole see Thirion, Etude sur l’histoire du protestantisme à Metz et dans le pays Messin, Nancy, 1885; Le Coullon, Journal (1537-87) d’après le manuscrit original, publié pour la première fois et annoté par E. de Bouteiller, Paris, Dumoulin, 1881.
Two years later we find the tricky cardinal of Lorraine still protesting his innocence to Catherine and praying her not to be suspicious of him (Letter of December 6, 1567, Fillon Collection, No. 316).
Brantôme’s statement is more graphic: “Il fut luy le premier qui leur donna en main les gros mousquetz, et que l’on veid les premiers en guerre et parmy les compagnies; et n’en avions point veu encores parmy leurs bandes, lors que nous allasmes pour le secours de Malte; dont despuis nous en avons pris l’usage parmy nos bandes, mais avec de grandes difficultéz à y accoustumer nos soldats comme j’en parle au livre des couronnelz. Et ces mousquetz estonnzarent fort les Flamans, quand ilz les sentirent sonner à leurs oreilles; car ilz n’en avoient veu non plus que nous: et ceux qui les portoient les nommoit-on Mousquetaires; très bien appoinctéz et respectéz, jusques à avoir de grands et forts gojatz qui les leur portoient, et avoient quatre ducats de paye; et ne leur portoient qu’en cheminant par pays: mais quand ce venoit en une faction, ou marchans en battaille, ou entrans en garde ou en quelque ville, les prenoient. Et eussiez dict que c’estoient des princes, tant ils estoient rogues et marchoient arrogamment et de belle grace: et lors de quelque combat ou escarmouche, vous eussiez ouy crier ces mots par grand respect: Salgan, salgan los mosqueteros! Afuera, afuera, adelante los mosqueteros! Soudain on leur faisoit place; et estoient respectéz, voire plus que capitaines pour lors, à cause de la nouveauté, ainsy que toute nouveauté plaist.”—Brantôme, Vies des Grands Capitaines: “Le Grand Duc d’Albe.”
The only instance of plundering seems to have been in the case of the property of the prince of Orange in Burgundy (C. S. P. For., 1562, August 7, 1567). This discipline is all the more remarkable, considering the fact that there were fifteen hundred women with the army. “Lon a sceu le passaige du duc d’Albe et de sa trouppe; quon dict estre de six mille espaignolz et quinze cens femmes.”—Guyon to M. de Gordes, July 11, 1567. Cited by the duc d’Aumale, Histoire des princes de Condé, I, Appendix XVI.
The Gueux even had a branch organization, though one historically different in origin, in Franche Comté, in the Confrérie de Ste. Barbe. The seigneurs of the house of Rye enjoyed high civil and ecclesiastical station in both Burgundies in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Marc and Claude François of Rye, father and son, were rivals and political enemies of the Perrenots—the family of Granvella and Chantonnay—and regarded them as upstarts. The Confrérie de Ste. Barbe was organized by them in Franche Comté on lines similar to the Gueux and had dealings with the latter—the members even wearing their emblem. Cardinal Granvella accused the seigneurs of Rye of aiming to establish Protestantism, in Franche Comté from Flanders. This probably was true but in a less degree. Protestant agitation was a means to an end, not an end in itself, it seems to me. If otherwise, such a catholic title for the association is very singular. On the Confrérie de Ste. Barbe consult Poulet, I, 29; II, 44, 141. I am somewhat inclined to think that Tavanne’s Confraternity of the Holy Spirit in ducal Burgundy may not impossibly have been influenced by the Confrérie de Ste. Barbe in the adjoining county of Burgundy, for Tavannes had a long political conflict with the Parlement of Dôle in Franche-Comté (see Collection Godefroy, CCLVII, Nos. 22, 23), and was familiar with things there.
Montluc’s repeated warnings to Philip II, in the course of their secret correspondence, of the succor French Calvinists were giving to his Flemish rebels (K. 1,506, Nos. 46-48) led the King to enlarge the system of espionage which he maintained in France. The movements of the admiral, the prince of Condé, and other leaders, were carefully reported (Commentaires et lettres de Montluc, V, 75, note). On the whole practice see Forneron, I, chap. xi.
Thenceforward it was of interest to the prince to stir up doubt and distrust among the Huguenots by misrepresenting the true reasons for the crown’s military preparation (Correspondance de Catherine de Médicis, III, Introd., vi; C. S. P. For., anno 1567, p. 305).
The first consistorial regulation which we possess has been published by the Protestant pastor, Eugene Arnaud, from a manuscript at Grenoble. It bears the title “Articles Polytiques par l’Eglise Réformée selon le S. Evangile, fait à Poitiers 1557.” See Synode général de Poitiers 1557, Synodes provinciaux de Lyon, Die, Peyraud, Montelimar et Nîmes en 1561 et 1562, assemblée des Etats du Dauphiné en 1563, etc., par E. Arnaud. Grenoble, ed. Allier, 1872, 91 pages.
At the synod of Lyons (1563) the canons of the three preceding national synods held at Paris, Poitiers, and Orleans, were reduced to a single series of articles. The deliberations of most of the provincial synods still remain in manuscript or are lost (Frossard, Etude historique et bibliographique sur la discipline ecclésiastique des églises réformées de France, 18).
The Huguenots fired guns instead of ringing bells as a signal of alarm (ibid., 107). The tocsin, even before St. Bartholomew, was the Catholic signal.
On the other hand the landgrave was hostile to the prince of Condé and was fearful also of compromising himself with the Emperor and Spain.—Archives de la maison d’Orange-Nassau, III, 128, 164; Languet, Epist. secr., I, 35.
The duke of Guise was criticized for not having pursued the Huguenots more hotly and cut the road by Charenton, or Corbeil, or at the ford of Lagny, which might have been done, for their army was in great disorder and depressed on account of the losses which it had suffered. The reason of the delay is probably to be found in the fact that the breach between the Guises and the Montmorencys was wider than ever at this moment. For the duke of Montpensier and the duke of Montmorency each claimed command of the vanguard. The King finally decided in favor of the former, whereupon Montmorency laid down his command. See Claude Haton, I, 461, 462 and note; Bulletin de la Societé d’histoire de Normandie, 1875-80, p. 279; C. S. P. For., No. 1,833, November 24; No. 1,837, November 29, 1567; Nég. Tosc., III, 557.
The peace of Longjumeau put an end to Montluc’s plan for the seizure of La Rochelle, for which he had received the King’s sanction in February. See the documents in F. Fr. 15,544, fol. 187; 15,548, foll. 163 ff.
All the records abound with allusions to the rapacity of the reiters: “La nazione tedesca, nazione avara” (Rel. vén., II, 125 and notes).
“Les reîtres trouvaient beaucoup meilleur l’argent qu’on leur promettait d’Angleterre que les cidres de Normandie.”—La Noue.
“L’importunità dei Tedeschi che mai cessavano de domandare donazioni o paghe.”—Davila, I, 137.
“Ils consommeraient un gouffre d’argent—Facheux, avares, importuns.”—Brantôme, III, 196, 310.
On June 17 Norris wrote to Cecil: “Montmorency has come to the court. The process between him and the duke of Guise for the county of Dammartin will in the end break into open enmity.”—Ibid., No. 2,273.
The presence of the royal army in Anjou, under the command of the duke of Anjou, was a heavy burden upon the people of the province, which already had suffered heavily from the depredations of the Huguenots in the preceding year. The municipal council of Angers, on November 4, was called upon to furnish 800 pairs of stockings, 1,500 pairs of shoes, powder, bread, hay, straw, oats, pikes, shovels, mattocks, and other implements. The town was filled with sick and wounded soldiers (Joubert, Les misères de l’Anjou, etc., 36).
The correspondence of the duke of Alençon pertaining to the second civil war is in two volumes listed Nos. 36, 36 bis, in the St. Petersburg collection. The duke remained in Paris, and attended to the forwarding of powder, provisions, and money. In a letter of November 17, 1569, he writes to Charles IX that it is impossible for him to send the sums demanded unless he sells the plate and jewels of the King. In another he sends information of the duke of Tuscany, who was ready to loan 100,000 écus upon the jewels of the crown. He advises that this be done. According to his estimate they were worth 500,000 livres (La Ferrière, Rapport sur les recherches faites à la Bibliothèque imperiale de St. Pétersbourg, 27).
The temper of the Catholic army is shown in a dispatch of the duke of Montpensier to Catherine, May 1, 1569, from the camp at Villebois, reciting the death of young Brissac, the marshal’s son before Mussidan. The town was taken by storm. “J’en trouve meilleu est qu’ils n’ont laissé reschapper ung tout seul de tous ceuls qui estoyent dedans que tout n’ayt esté passé par le fil de l’épée, ce qui semble être le vray droict de ceste guerre.”—Collection Fillon, No. 2,656.
“On l’appela arquebuse à croc quand on l’eut munie d’un axe de rotation reposant sur une fourchette ou croc et facilitant le pointage. L’arquebuse à croc était souvent d’un poids considérable. Elle lançait parfois des balles de plomb de 8, 12 et 13 livres. Jusqu’au commencement du XVIe siècle, on mettait le feu à la charge au moyen d’une mèche allumée que le coulevrinier portait enroulée autour du bras droit. A Pavie, les Espagnols se servirent d’une arquebuse perfectionnée par eux, dans laquelle la mèche était mise en contact avec l’amorce pour faire partir le coup, au moyen d’un serpentin, sorte de pince qu’une détente faisait agir, sans que le pointage en fût dérangé. Disposer la mèche à la longueur voulue, en aviver le feu avant de tirer constituait l’opération de maniement d’arme designée sous ce nom compasser la mèche.”—La grande encyclopédie, III, art. “Arquebuse.”
The following summary from Sir Henry Norris’ letter to Queen Elizabeth sets forth the government’s fiscal policy at this time: “On the 1st instant the king went to the Palais, where in the end, the Parlement made a general arrest of all the goods, lands, and offices of those who bore arms against the king, and that all their lands held in fee—or knight-service—should revert to the crown; and that for the other lands, first there should be alienated for the sum of 50,000 crowns by the year, and given to the clergy, in recompense of their demesne, which the king had license to sell, and the remainder bestowed on such as had suffered loss by the religion and done service in these wars. It is accounted that this attainture will amount to 2,000,000 francs a year. The same day they made sale, by sound of trumpet, of the admiral’s goods in Paris. Some moved to have him executed in effigy, which was thought unmeet, as serving only to irritate him to proceed the more extremely. The king borrows 300,000 £ and offers to perpetuate the Councillors of Parlement’s offices to their children, on their giving a certain sum of money; besides this they tax all citizens throughout the realm to make great contributions. The cardinals of Bourbon and Lorraine, to show an example to the clergy, have offered to sell 4,000 £ rent of the monasteries of St. Germain and St. Denis” (C. S. P. For., No. 375, August 5, 1569).
In State Papers, Foreign, Elizabeth, Vol. CXV, No. 990 is a document showing the provinces held by the Protestants. It is undated but the mention of the viscounts in it shows that it is of this time (printed in Appendix XXI).
The two parts of Montgomery’s expedition south of the Dordogne, first the union with the viscounts, and second, the campaign against Terride are to be distinguished, although they have been much confounded.
The sources and authorities for the history of this brief war are: Communay, Les Huguenots dans le Béarn et la Navarre; Durier, Les Huguenots en Bigorre; Bordenave, Hist. de Béarn et de Navarre, Book VII; Montluc, Comment. et Lettres, III, Book VII, pp. 254-89, and his letters for September, 1569 in Vol. V, pp. 164 ff.; D’Aubigné, Book V, chap. xiv; La Popelinière, Book XVIII; Hist. du Lang., V, 578-87; Dupleix, Histoire de France—his father was one of Montluc’s captains and for some time marshal of the camp to Biron in Guyenne; Marlet, Le comte de Montgomery; Courteault, Blaise de Montluc, chap. xi. The baron de Ruble, ed. Montluc, V, 211, note, says: “Les documents inédits sont presque innombrables. Outre les lettres conservées à la Bibliothèque Nationale, principalement dans la collection Harlay, St. Germain, vol. 323 et suivants, nous citerons, aux archives de Pau la série B 952 à 958: les registres consulaires d’Auch, les registres de Larcher aux archives de Tarbes, les registres consulaires de Bagnères-de-Bigorre.” The local archives of Bigorre contain many of Montgomery’s letters. Some of them have been published in Arch. de la Gascogne, VI.
The recent work of M. Courteault, Blaise de Montluc, 538-40, 551-53, 557-59, goes at length into this feud between Montluc and Damville. In the main the author sides with the marshal—“Damville acceptait les faits accomplis et ne jugeait pas utile de combattre Mongonmery” (p. 551). He declares that “prudemmement, il [Montluc] a passé dans son livre ce grave incident sous silence” (p. 551). He admits, however, that if the King had ordered an investigation Damville would have had something to answer for (p. 559).
There are numerous letters of Charles IX to Montluc in the St. Petersburg archives. In them Charles harps upon the disagreeable conduct of Montluc toward Jeanne d’Albret, and tries at one and the same time to repress the queen’s indefatigable propaganda lest it anger Spain, and to restrain Montluc because of his outrageous conduct and the illustrious blood of the queen of Navarre (La Ferrière, Rapport, 22.) Letters of the marshal Montmorency and of marshal Damville are also in this volume. Those of the latter cover the history of all the campaigns of Montgomery in Béarn. He condemns Montluc for the death of Terride. The marshal’s laconic language is strikingly in contrast with Montluc’s rhetorical complaint (La Ferrière, Rapport, 44). If we may believe Brantôme, “dans toutes les guerres Montluc gagna la pièce d’argent; auparavant il n’avoit pas grandes finances, et se trouva avoir dans ses coffres cent mille escus.” Charles IX once sharply reminded Montluc in a letter of November, 1562, that he was getting 500 livres per month for his table. (La Ferrière, Blaise de Montluc d’après sa correspondance inédite, Mém. lus à la Sorbonne, 1864.)
For the Merchant Adventurers in the sixteenth century see Burgon, Life and Times of Sir Thomas Gresham, I, 185-89.
For the preliminaries of the marriage of Marguerite of Valois and Henry of Navarre see Revue des deux mondes, October 1, 1884, pp. 560-64.
In the spring of 1572 Schomberg was dispatched to Germany to contract alliances with the Lutheran princes (Arch. de la maison d’Orange-Nassau, III, 403; C. S. P. For., No. 189, March 25, 1572). The German princes anticipated that if the Low Countries were united to the crown of France that power would become too formidable. They wanted France to content herself with Flanders and Artois. As for Brabant and the other provinces that were once dependent upon the empire, their purpose was to put them upon their old footing and to give the government of them to some prince of Germany, who could not be other than the prince of Orange. Holland and Zealand were to be united to the crown of England (Walsingham, 143, French ed., letter of August 12, 1572 to Leicester). Yet momentous as the French project in the Low Countries was, it was but part of a grander scheme, for France aimed also to acquire a decisive influence in Germany, with the ultimate purpose of acquiring so great ascendency over the German states as to be able to transfer the crown of the empire, for centuries hereditary in the house of Hapsburg, to the head of the French prince (Rel. vén., I, 445). This project was part of the mission of Schomberg in Germany (Arch. de la maison d’Orange-Nassau, IV, Introd., 23, 268-73). In Germany the elector of Saxony and the landgrave of Hesse were strong partisans of France (ibid., IV, Introd., 25).
The strongest advocate of France for the imperial crown was the elector palatine, who burned with an ambition to “Calvinize the world,” and embraced with ardor a project which could not fail to redound to the honor of the Huguenots. The elector of Saxony and the landgrave were less complacent. The first was a friend of the emperor Maximilian and expressed his indignation at the imperial pretensions of Charles IX. Even William of Hesse, in spite of his hereditary attachment to the crown of France, returned a guarded reply (ibid., IV, Introd., 28 and 123).
Text of the treaty of Blois in Dumont, Corps diplomatique, V, Part I, 211. The letter of the King to Elizabeth after the signature is in Bulletin de la société du prot. français, XI, 72.
2. The massacre was premeditated by Charles IX and his mother from the time of the Bayonne conference.
3. The massacre was intended to be a military stroke, the government preferring to attempt their overthrow in this way rather than by battle on the open field.
Salviati, the papal nuncio, who ought to have known, explicitly denies the rumor that a conspiracy was on foot by the Huguenots. In a dispatch of September 2 (I quote the French translation of Chateaubriand who copied them for the Paris archives) he says: “Cela n’en demeurera pas moins faux en tous points, et ce sera une honte pour qui est à même de connaître quelques choses aux affaires de ce monde de le croire.” In reply to the Pope’s urgency to extirpate the Protestants, he wrote on September 22: “Je lui fis part de la très grand consolation qu’avaient procuré au Saint Père les succès obtenus dans ce royaume par une grace singulière de Dieu, accordée à toute la Chrétienté sous son pontificat. Je fis connaître le désir qu’avait sa Sainteté, de voir pour la plus grande gloire de Dieu, et le plus grand bien de France, tous les hérétiques extirpés du royaume, et j’ajoutai que dans cette vue le Saint Père estimait que très à propos que l’on revoqua l’édit de pacification.” On October 11th, he writes: “Le Saint Père, ai je dit en éprouve une joie infinie, et a ressenti une grande consolation d’apprendre que sa Majesté avait commandé d’écrire qu’elle espérait qu’avant peu la France n’aurait plus d’Huguenots.” Cardinal Orsini, who was dispatched as legate from Rome to congratulate Charles IX and to support the exhortations of Salviati, describes his audience with the King on December 19. Orsini assured the King that he had eclipsed the glory of all his house, but urged him to fulfil his promise that not a single Huguenot should be left alive in France: “Se si rigardavva all’objetto della gloria, non potendo niun fatto de suoi antecessori, se rettamente si giudicava, agguagliarsi al glorioso ac veramente incomparabili di sua Maesta, in liberar con tanta prudentia et pietà in un giorno solo il suo regno da cotanta diabolica peste.... Esortai ... che con essendo servitio ni di Dio, ni di sua Maesta, lasciar fargli nuovo piede a questa maladetta setta, volesse applicare tutto il suo pensiero e tutte le forze sue per istirparla affatto, recandosi a memoria quelle che ella haveva fatto scrivere a sua Santità da Monsignor il Nuntio, che infra pochi giorni non sarebbe pi un ugonotto in tutto il suo regno.”—Bibliothèque Nationale, MSS Ital., 1,272. The Pope proclaimed a jubilee in honor of the massacre.
Subjoined is a list of the leading authors and articles upon this subject. The most recent consideration which sifts all preceding investigation is that by Whitehead, Gaspard de Coligny, Admiral of France, London, 1904, chaps. xv, xvi; Phillipson, “Die römische Curie und die Bartholomaüsnact,” West Europa, II, 255 ff.; Baguenault de Puchesse, “La St. Barthélemy: ses origines, son vrai caractère, ses suites,” R. Q. H., July-October, 1866; “La premeditation de St. Barthélemy,” R. Q. H., XXVII, 272 ff.; Boutaric, “La St. Barthélemy d’après les Archives du Vatican,” Bib. de l’école des Chartes, sér. III, 3; Theiner, Continuation of Baronius, I (Salviati’s letters); Gandy, “Le massacre de St. Barthélemy,” Revue hist., July, 1879; cf. review in Bull. de la Soc. prot. français; Rajna, in Archivio storico ital., sér. V, No. XXIII, January 15, 1899; Michiel et Cavalli, “La Saint-Barthélemy devant le sénat de Venise. Relation des ambassadeurs ... traduite et ann. par W. Martin,” Paris, 1872; Soldan, Hist. Taschenbuch, 1854; G. P. Fisher, “The Massacre of St. Bartholomew,” New Englander, January, 1880; Loiseleur, “Les nouvelles controverses sur la St. Barthélemy,” Rev. hist., XV, 1883, p. 83; “Nouveaux documents sur la St. Barthélemy,” Rev. hist., IV, 1877, p. 345; Tamizey de Larroque, “Deux lettres de Charles IX,” R. Q. H., III, 1867, p. 567; “La St. Barthélemy, lettres de MM. Baguenault de Puchesse et G. Gandy,” R. Q. H., XXVIII, 1880, p. 268; Dareste, “Un incident de l’histoire diplomatique de Charles IX,” Acad. des sc. moral. etc., LXXI-II, 1863, p. 183; Laugel, “Coligny,” Revue des deux mondes, September, 1883, pp. 162-85.
“En 1576 les paysans du Dauphiné s’étant soulevés, entreprirent vainement ce qu’ils ont exécuté plus de deux siècles après cette époque. Ils se rassemblèrent en un corps considérable pour piller et brûler les châteaux, et exterminer les gentilshommes. Mandalot, à la tête d’une troupe déterminée, dissipa avec promptitude ce rassemblement qu’on appela la ‘Ligue des Vilains.’”—Histoire ou mémoire de ce qui se passa à Lyons pendant la ligue, appelée la Sainte-Union, jusqu’à la reddition de la ville sous l’obeissance du roi Henri IV, Bibliothèque de Lyon, No. 1,361.