Part 391

ALSO IN: _J. A. Froude, History of England: Reign of Elizabeth, chapters 6 and 8 (volume 1-2)._

FRANCE: A. D. 1563-1570. The conference at Bayonne. Outbreak of the Second Civil War. Battle of St. Denis. Peace of Longjumeau. The Third Civil War. Huguenot rally at La Rochelle. Appearance of the Queen of Navarre. Battle of Jarnac. Death of Condé. Henry of Navarre chosen to command. Battle of Moncontour. Peace of St. Germain.

The religious peace established under the Edict of Amboise lasted four years. "Not that the Huguenots enjoyed during these years anything like security or repose. The repeated abridgment even of those narrow liberties conferred by the Edict of Amboise, and the frequent outbreaks of popular hatred in which numbers of them perished, kept them in perpetual alarm. Still more alarming was the meeting at Bayonne [of Catherine de' Medici, the young king, her son, and the Duke of Alva, representing Philip II. of Spain] in the summer of 1565. … Amid the Court festivities which took place, it was known that there had been many secret meetings between Alva, Catherine, and, Charles. The darkest suspicions as to their objects and results spread over France. It was generally believed—falsely, as from Alva's letters it now appears—that a simultaneous extermination of all heretics in the French and Spanish dominions had been agreed upon. To anticipate this stroke, Coligni proposed that the person of the King should be seized upon. The Court, but slenderly guarded, was then at Monceaux. The project had almost succeeded. Some time, however, was lost. The Court got warning and fled to Meaux. Six thousand Swiss arrived, and by a rapid march carried the King to Paris. After such a failure, nothing was left to the Huguenots but the chances of a second civil war. Condé entered boldly on the campaign. Though he had with him but 1,500 horse and 1,200 infantry, he marched to Paris, and offered battle to the royal troops beneath its walls. The Constable [Montmorency], who had 18,000 men at his command, accepted the challenge, and on the 10th of November 1567, the battle of St. Denis was fought. … Neither party could well claim the victory, as both retired from the field. The royal army had to mourn the loss that day of its aged and gallant commander, the Constable. Condé renewed next day the challenge, which was not accepted. The winter months were spent by the Huguenots in effecting a junction with some German auxiliaries, and in the spring they appeared in such force upon the field that, on the 23d March 1568, the Peace of Longjumeau was ratified, which re-established, free from all modifications and restrictions, the Edict of Amboise. It was evident from the first that this treaty was not intended to be kept; that it had been entered into by the government solely to gain time, and to scatter the ranks of the Huguenots. Coligni sought Condé at his château of Noyers in Burgundy. He had scarcely arrived when secret intelligence was given them of a plot upon their lives. They had barely time to fly, making many a singular escape by the way, and reaching Rochelle, which from this time became the head-quarters of the Huguenots, on the 15th September 1568. During the first two religious wars … the seat of war was so remote from her dominions that the Queen of Navarre [Jeanne d'Albret,—see NAVARRE: A.D. 1528-1563] had satisfied herself with opening her country as an asylum for those Huguenots driven thither out of the southern counties of France. But when she heard that Condé and Coligni … were on their way to Rochelle, to raise there once more the Protestant banner, convinced that the French Court meditated nothing short of the extermination of the Huguenots, she determined openly to cast in her lot with her co-religionists, and to give them all the help she could. Dexterously deceiving Montluc, who had received instructions to watch her movements, and to seize upon her person if she showed any intention of leaving her own dominions, after a flight as precipitous and almost as perilous as that of Condé and Coligni, she reached Rochelle on the 29th September, ten days after their arrival. This town, for nearly a century the citadel of Protestantism in France, having by its own unaided power freed itself from the English dominion [in the period between 1368 and 1380] had had extraordinary municipal privileges bestowed on it in return—among others, that of an entirely independent jurisdiction, both civil and military. {1201} Like so many of the great commercial marts of Europe, in which the spirit of freedom was cherished, it had early welcomed the teaching of the Reformers, and at the time now before us nearly the whole of its inhabitants were Huguenots. … About the very time that the Queen of Navarre entered Rochelle a royal edict appeared, prohibiting, under pain of death, the exercise of any other than the Roman Catholic religion in France, imposing upon all the observance of its rites and ceremonies; and banishing from the realm all preachers of the doctrine of Calvin, fifteen days only being allowed them to quit the kingdom. It was by the sword that this stern edict was to be enforced or rescinded. Two powerful armies of nearly equal strength mustered speedily. One was nominally under the command of the Duke of Anjou, but really led by Tavannes, Biron, Brissac, and the young Duke of Guise, the last burning to emulate the military glory of his father; the other under the command of Condé and Coligni. The two armies were close upon one another; their generals desired to bring them into action; they were more than once actually in each other's presence; but the unprecedented inclemency of the weather prevented an engagement, and at last, without coming into collision, both had to retire to winter quarters. The delay was fatal to the Huguenots." In the following spring (March 13, 1569), while their forces were still scattered and unprepared, they were forced into battle with the better-generaled Royalists, at Jarnac, and were grievously defeated. Condé, wounded and taken prisoner, was treated at first with respect by the officers who received his sword. But "Montesquiou, captain of the Swiss Guard of the Duke of Anjou, galloped up to the spot, and, hearing who the prisoner was, deliberately levelled his pistol at him and shot him through the head. The Duke passed no censure on his officer, and expressed no regret at his deed. The grossest indignities were afterwards, by his orders, heaped upon the dead body of the slain. The defeat of Jarnac, and still more the death of Condé, threw the Huguenot army into despair. … The utter dissolution of the army seemed at hand. The Admiral sent a messenger to the Queen of Navarre at Rochelle, entreating her to come to the camp. She was already on her way. On arrival, and after a short consultation with the Admiral, the army was drawn up to receive her. She rode along the ranks—her son Henry on one side, the son of the deceased Condé on the other." Then she addressed to the troops an inspiring speech, concluding with these heroic words: "Soldiers, I offer you everything I have to give,—my dominions, my treasures, my life, and, what is dearer to me than all, my children. I make here solemn oath before you all—I swear to defend to my last sigh the holy cause which now unites us." "The soldiers crowded around the Queen, and unanimously, as if by sudden impulse, hailed young Henry of Navarre as their future general. The Admiral and La Rochefoucauld were the first to swear fidelity to the Prince; then came the inferior officers and the whole assembled soldiery; and it was thus that, in his fifteenth year, the Prince of Béarn was inaugurated as general-in-chief of the army of the Huguenots." In June the Huguenot army effected a junction at St. Yriex with a division of German auxiliaries, led by the Duc de Deux-Ponts, and including among its chiefs the Prince of Orange and his brother Louis of Nassau. They attacked the Duke of Anjou at La Roche-Abeille and gained a slight advantage; but wasted their strength during the summer, contrary to the advice of the Admiral Coligny, in besieging Poitiers. The Duke of Anjou approached with a superior army, and, again in opposition to the judgment of Coligny, the Huguenots encountered him at Moncontour (October 3, 1569), where they suffered the worst of their defeats, leaving 5,000 dead and wounded on the field. Meanwhile a French army had entered Navarre, had taken the capital and spread destruction everywhere through the small kingdom; but the Queen sent Count de Montgomery to rally her people, and the invaders were driven out. Coligny and Prince Henry wintered their troops in the far south, then moved rapidly northwards in the spring, up the valley of the Rhone, across the Cevennes, through Burgundy, approaching the Loire, and were met by the Marshal de Cosse at Arnay-le-Duc, where Henry of Navarre won his first success in arms—Coligny being ill. Though it was but a partial victory it brought about a breathing time of peace. "This happened in the end of June, and on the 8th of August [1570] the Peace of St. Germain-en-Laye was signed, and France had two full years of quiet."

_W. Hanna, The Wars of the Huguenots, chapter 4._

ALSO IN: _Duc d'Aumale, History of the Princes de Condé, book 1, chapter 4-5 (volume 1-2)._

_M. W. Freer, Life of Jeanne d'Albret, chapters 8-10._

_C. M. Yonge, Cameos of English History, 5th series, chapter 8._

FRANCE: A. D. 1570-1572. Coligny at court and his influence with the King. Projected war with Spain. The desperate step of Catharine de' Medici, and its consequence in the plot of Massacre.

"After the Peace of 1570, it appeared as if a complete change of policy was about to take place. The Queen pretended to be friendly with the Protestants; her relations with the ambitious Guises were distant and cold, and the project of uniting the Houses of Bourbon and Valois by marriage [the marriage of Henry of Navarre with the king's sister, Marguerite] really looked as if she was in earnest. The most distinguished leader of the Huguenot party was the Admiral Caspar de Coligny. It is quite refreshing at this doleful period to meet with such a character. He was a nobleman of the old French school and of the best stamp; lived upon his estates with his family, his little court, his retainers and subjects, in ancient patriarchal style, and on the best terms, and regularly went with them to the Protestant worship and the communion; a man of unblemished morality and strict Calvinistic views of life. Whatever this man said or did was the result of his inmost convictions; his life was the impersonation of his views and thoughts. In the late turbulent times he had become an important person as leader and organizer of the Protestant armies. At his call, thousands of noblemen and soldiers took up arms, and they submitted under his command to very strict discipline. He could not boast of having won many battles, but he was famous for having kept his resources together after repeated defeats, and for rising up stronger than before after every lost engagement. … Now that peace was made, 'why,' he asked, 'excite further dissensions for the benefit of our common enemies? Let us direct our undivided forces against the real enemy of France—against Spain, who stirs up intrigues in our civil, wars. Let us crush this power, which condemns us to ignominious dependence.' {1202} The war against Spain was Coligny's project. It was the idea of a good Huguenot, for it was directed against the most blindly fanatical and dangerous foe of the new doctrines; but it was also that of a good Frenchman, for a victory over Spain would increase the power of France in the direction of Burgundy. … From September, 1571, Coligny was at court. On his first arrival he was heartily welcomed by the King, embraced by Catharine, and loaded with honours and favours by both. I am not of opinion that this was a deeply laid scheme to entrap the guileless hero, the more easily to ruin him. Catharine's ideas did not extend so far. Still less do I believe that the young King was trained to play the part of a hypocrite, and regarded Coligny as a victim to be cherished until the fête day. I think, rather, that Catharine, in her changeableness and hatred of the Guises, was now really disposed to make peace with the Protestants, and that the young King was for the time impressed by this superior personage. No youthful mind is so degraded as to be entirely inaccessible to such influence. … I believe that the first and only happy day in the life of this unfortunate monarch was when he met Coligny, who raised him above the degradation of vulgar life; and I believe further, that this relation was the main cause of the massacre of St. Bartholomew. A new influence was threatening to surround the King and to take deep root, which Catharine, her son Henry of Anjou, and the strict Catholic party, must do their utmost to avert; and it was quite in accordance with the King's weak character to allow the man to be murdered whom he had just called 'Father.' … It appears that about the middle of the year [1572] the matter [of war with Spain and help to the revolting Netherlands] was as good as decided. The King willingly acceded to Coligny's plan … [and] privately gave considerable sums for the support of the Flemish patriots, for the equipment of an army of 4,000 men, composed of Catholics and Protestants, who marched towards Mons, to succour Louis of Nassau. When in July this army was beaten, and the majority of the Huguenots were in despair, Coligny succeeded in persuading the King to equip a fresh and still larger army; but the opposition then bestirred itself. …The Queen … had been absent, with her married daughter in Lorraine, and on her return she found everything changed; the Guises without influence, herself thrust on one side. Under the impression of the latest events in Flanders, which made it likely that the war with Spain would be ruinous, she hastened to the King, told him with floods of tears that it would be his ruin; that the Huguenots, through Coligny, had stolen the King's confidence, unfortunately for himself and the country. She made some impression upon him, but it did not last long, and thoughts of war gained the upper hand again. The idea now (August, 1572), must have been matured in Catharine's mind of venturing on a desperate step, in order to save her supremacy and influence. … The idea ripened in her mind of getting rid of Coligny by assassination. … Entirely of one mind with her son Henry, she turned to the Guises, with whom she was at enmity when they were in power, but friendly when they were of no more consequence than herself. They breathed vengeance against the Calvinists, and were ready at once to avenge the murder of Francis of Guise by a murderous attack upon Coligny. An assassin was hired, and established in a house belonging to the Guises, near Coligny's dwelling, and as he came out of the palace, on the 22nd of August, a shot was fired at him, which wounded but did not kill him. Had Coligny died of his wound, Catharine would have been content. … But Coligny did not die; the Huguenots defiantly demanded vengeance on the well-known instigator of the deed; their threats reached the Queen and Prince Henry of Anjou, and the personal fascination which Coligny had exercised over King Charles appeared rather to increase than to diminish. Thus doubtless arose, during the anxious hours after the failure of the assassination, the idea of an act of violence on a large scale, which should strike a blow at Coligny and his friends before they had time for revenge. It certainly had not been in preparation for months, not even since the time that Coligny had been at Court; it was conceived in the agony of these hours."

_L. Hausser, The Period of the Reformation, chapter 27._

ALSO IN: _J. L. Motley, The Rise of the Dutch Republic, part 3, chapters 6-7 (volume 2)._

_L. von Ranke, Civil Wars and Monarchy in France, chapter 15._

FRANCE: A. D. 1572 (August). The Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day.