Note 907 — Chapter X

Commentaires et lettres de Montluc, III, 80-86. I have used the seventeenth-century translation of Cotton, 274, 275, which preserves something of the spirit of the original. De Thou, never having seen the document in question, expresses his doubt of Montluc’s veracity in the matter, and argues the improbability of the King’s having followed Montluc’s advice on the ground that the crown had condemned all secret associations as destructive of domestic tranquillity. “Why should the King make a league with his subjects?” asks De Thou. “Far from deriving any advantage from it, would it not diminish his authority? Would the King not incite his subjects to do exactly what he wanted to avoid, and by his own example accustom them to town factions; to foment and support parties in the kingdom?”—De Thou, IV, Book XXXVII, 33. Unfortunately for the truth of De Thou’s hypothesis, the facts are the other way, for there is documentary proof that Charles IX followed out Montluc’s suggestion, and sent the declaration to all his officers requesting their adherence to it. The baron de Ruble discovered the proof in F. Fr. 20,461, fol. 58. See his edition of Montluc, III, 86, note; cf. D’Aubigné, II, 218, and n. 6.