History of the Rise of the Huguenots

"The queene returned answer by letters," wrote the English ambassador, Norris, to Elizabeth, "assuringe him" – Condé – "by the faythe of a princesse et d'une femme de bien (for so she termed it), that so long as she might any waies prevayle with the Kinge, her sonne, he should never breake the sayd edicte, and therof required him to assure himselfe; and if he coulde come to the courte, he shoulde be as welcome as his owne harte could devise; if not, to passe the tyme without any suspect or jealousie, protesting that there was nothing ment that tended to his indempnitie, what so ever was bruted abrode or conceyved to the contrary, as he should perceyve by the sequele erst it were long."⁴²⁷

Shall we blame those sturdy, straightforward men, so long fed upon unmeaning or readily-broken promises of redress, if they gave little credit to the royal assurances, and to the more honeyed words of the queen mother? Perhaps there existed no sufficient grounds for the immediate alarm of the Huguenots. Perhaps no settled plan had been formed with the connivance of Philip – no "sacred league" of the kind supposed to have been sketched in outline at Bayonne – no contemplated massacre of the chiefs, with a subsequent assembly of notables at Poitiers, and repeal of all the toleration that had been vouchsafed to the Protestants.⁴²⁸ All this may have been false; but, if false, it was invested with a wonderful verisimilitude, and to Huguenots and Papists it had, so far as their actions were concerned, all the effect of truth. At all events the promises of the king could not be trusted. Had he not been promising, again and again, for four years? Had not every restrictive ordinance, every interpretation of the Edict of Amboise, every palpable infringement upon its spirit, if not upon its letter, been prefaced by a declaration of Charles's intention to maintain the edict inviolate? In the words of an indignant contemporary, "the very name of the edict was employed to destroy the edict itself."⁴²⁹

The Huguenot attempts at colonization in Florida.

The Huguenot expeditions to Florida have been so well sketched by Bancroft and Parkman, and so fully set forth by their latest historian, M. Paul Gaffarel, that I need not speak of them in detail. In fact, they belong more intimately to American than to French history. They owed their origin to the enlightened patriotism of Coligny, who was not less desirous, as a Huguenot, to provide a safe refuge for his fellow Protestants, than anxious, as High Admiral of France, to secure for his native country such commercial resources as it had never enjoyed. "I am in my house," he wrote in 1565, "studying new measures by which we may traffic and make profit in foreign parts. I hope shortly to bring it to pass that we shall have the best trade in Christendom." (Gaffarel, Histoire de la Floride française, Paris, 1875, pp. 45, 46). But, although the project of Huguenot emigration was conceived in the brain of the great Protestant leader, apparently it was heartily approved by Catharine de' Medici and her son. They certainly were not averse to be relieved of the presence of as many as possible of those whom their religious views, and, still more, their political tendencies, rendered objects of suspicion. "If wishing were in order," Catharine (Letter to Forquevaulx, March 17, 1566, Gaffarel, 428) plainly told the Spanish ambassador, on one occasion, "I would wish that all the Huguenots were in those regions" ("si c'estoit souëter, ie voudrois que touts les Huguenots fussent en ce pais-là"). In the discussion that ensued between the courts of Paris and Madrid, the queen mother never denied that the colonists went not only with her knowledge, but with her consent. In fact, she repudiated with scorn and indignation a suggestion of the possibility that such considerable bodies of soldiers and sailors could have left her son's French dominions without the royal privity (Ibid., 427).

1562.

The first expedition, under Jean Ribault, in 1562, was little more than a voyage of discovery. The main body promptly returned to France, the same year, finding that country rent with civil war. The twenty-six or twenty-eight men left behind to hold "Charlesfort" (erected probably near the mouth of the South Edisto river, in what is now South Carolina), disheartened and famishing, nevertheless succeeded in constructing a rude ship and recrossing the Atlantic in the course of the next year.

1564.

A second expedition (1564), under René de Laudonnière, who had taken part in the first, was intended to effect a more permanent settlement. A strong earthwork was accordingly thrown-up at a spot christened "Caroline," in honor of Charles the Ninth, and the colony was inaugurated under fair auspices. But improvidence and mismanagement soon bore their legitimate fruits. Laudonnière saw himself constrained to build ships for a return to Europe, and was about to set sail when the third expedition unexpectedly made its appearance (August 28, 1565), under Ribault, leader of the first enterprise.

1565.

Massacre by Menendez.

Unfortunately the arrival of this fresh reinforcement was closely followed by the approach of a Spanish squadron, commanded by Pedro Menendez, or Melendez, de Abila, sent by Philip the Second expressly to destroy the Frenchmen who had been so presumptuous as to settle in territories claimed by his Catholic Majesty. Nature seemed to conspire with their own incompetency to ruin the French. The French vessels, having gone out to attack the Spaniards, accomplished nothing, and, meeting a terrible storm, were driven far down the coast and wrecked. "Caroline" fell into the hands of Menendez, and its garrison was mercilessly put to death. The same fate befell the shipwrecked French from the fleet. Those who declared themselves Roman Catholics were almost the only persons spared by their pitiless assailants. A few women and children were granted their lives; also a drummer, a hornblower, and a few carpenters and sailors, whose services were valuable. Laudonnière and a handful of men escaped to the woods, and subsequently to Europe. About two hundred soldiers, who threatened to entrench themselves and make a formidable resistance, were able to obtain from Menendez a pledge that they should be treated as prisoners of war, which, strange to say, was observed. The rest – many hundreds – were consigned to indiscriminate slaughter; Ribault himself was flayed and quartered; and over the dead Huguenots was suspended a tablet with this inscription: "Hung, not as Frenchmen, but as Lutherans" (Gaffarel, 229; De Thou, iv. 113; Ag. d'Aubigné, i. 248). Spain and Rome had achieved a grand work. The chaplain Mendoza could piously write: "The greatest advantage from our victory, certainly, is the triumph our Lord grants us, which will cause His Holy Gospel to be introduced into these regions." (Mendoza, apud Gaffarel, 214).

The report of these atrocities, tardily reaching the Old World, called forth an almost universal cry of horror. Fair-minded men of both communions stigmatized the conduct of Menendez and his companions as sheer murder; for had not the French colonists of Florida been attacked before being summoned to surrender, and butchered in cold blood after being denied even such terms as were customarily accorded to Turks and other infidels? Among princes, Philip alone applauded the deed, and seemed only to regret that faith had been kept with any of the detested Huguenots (Gaffarel, 234, 245). It has been commonly supposed that whatever indignation was shown by Catharine de' Medici and her son, was merely assumed in deference to the popular clamor, and that but a feeble remonstrance was really uttered. This supineness would be readily explicable upon the hypothesis of the long premeditation of the massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day. If the treacherous murder of Admiral Coligny and the other great Huguenot leaders had indeed been deliberately planned from the time of the Bayonne conference in 1565, and would have been executed at Moulins in 1566, but for unforeseen circumstances, no protests against the Florida butchery could have been sincere. On the other hand, if Catharine de' Medici was earnest and persistent in her demand for the punishment of Menendez, it is not conceivable that her mind should have been then entertaining the project of the Parisian matins. The extant correspondence between the French queen mother and her envoy at the court of Madrid may fairly be said to set at rest all doubts respecting her attitude. She was indignant, determined, and outspoken.

So slowly did news travel in the sixteenth century, that it was not until the eighteenth of February, 1566, that Forquevaulx, from Madrid, despatched to the King of France a first account of the events that had occurred in Florida nearly five months before. The ambassador seems to have expressed becoming indignation in the interviews he sought with the Duke of Alva, repudiating with dignity the suggestion that the blame should be laid upon Coligny, for having abused his authority as admiral to set on foot a piratical expedition into the territories of a friendly prince; and holding forth no encouragement to believe that Charles would disavow Coligny's acts. He told Alva distinctly that Menendez was a butcher rather than a good soldier ("plus digne bourreau que bon soldat," Forquevaulx to Charles IX., March 16, 1566, Gaffarel, 425). He declared to him that the Turks had never exhibited such inhumanity to their prisoners at Castelnovo or at Gerbes – in fact, never had barbarians displayed such cruelty. As a Frenchman, he assured the Spaniard that he shuddered when he thought of so execrable a deed, and that it appeared to him that God would not leave it unpunished (Ibid., 426).

Catharine's own language to the Spanish ambassador, Don Francez de Alava, was not less frank. "As their common mother," she said, "I can but have an incredible grief at heart, when I hear that between princes so closely bound as friends, allies, and relations, as these two kings, and in so good a peace, and at a time when such great offices of friendship are observed between them, so horrible a carnage has been committed on the subjects of my son, the King of France. I am, as it were, beside myself when I think of it, and cannot persuade myself that the king, your master, will refuse us satisfaction" (Catharine to Forquevaulx, Moulins, March 17th, Gaffarel, 427). Not content with this plain talking to Alava, she "prayed and ordered" Forquevaulx to make Philip himself understand her desires respecting "the reparation demanded by so enormous an outrage." He was to tell his Catholic Majesty that Catharine would never rest content until due satisfaction was made; and that she would feel "marvellous regret" should she not only find that all her pains to establish perpetual friendship between the two kings had been lost, but one day be reproached by Charles for having suffered such a stain upon his reputation ("que … j'aye laissé faire une telle escorne à sa reputation." Gaffarel, 429).

Forquevaulx fulfilled his instructions to the very letter, adding, on his own account, that in forty-one years of military service he had never known so execrable an execution. He seems also to have disposed effectually of the Spanish claim to Florida through right of ancient discovery, by emphasizing the circumstance that Menendez, after his victory, thought it necessary to take formal possession of the land. He informed Philip that no news could be more welcome to the Huguenots than that the subjects of Charles had been murdered by those very persons who were expected to strengthen him by their friendship and alliance (Forquevaulx to Catharine, April 9th, Gaffarel, 432). His words had little effect upon any one at the Spanish court, save the young queen, who felt the utmost solicitude lest her brother and her husband should become involved in war with each other. ("Me sembla qu'il tint à peu qu'elle ne pleurast son soul de crainte qu'il ne survienne quelque alteration." Forquevaulx, ubi supra, 430.)

But, although no progress was made toward obtaining justice, the French government did not relax its efforts. Charles wrote from Saint Maur, May 12, 1566, that his will was that Forquevaulx should renew his complaint and insist with all urgency upon a reparation of the wrong done him. "You will not cease to tell them," said the king, "that they must not hope that I shall ever be satisfied until I see such a reparation as our friendship demands." (Gaffarel, 437.)

Sanguinary revenge of De Gourgues, April, 1568.

The French ambassador continued to press his claim, and, in particular, to demand the release of the French prisoners, even up to near the time when a private citizen, Dominique de Gourgues, undertook to avenge his country's wrongs while satisfying his thirst for personal revenge. De Gourgues was not, as has usually been supposed, a Huguenot; he had even been an adherent of Montluc and of the house of Guise (Gaffarel, 265). But, having been captured in war by the Spaniards, in 1566, he had been made a galley-slave. From that time he had vowed irreconcilable hatred against the Catholic king. He obtained a long-deferred satisfaction when, in April, 1568, he surprised the fort of Caroline, slew most of the Spanish soldiers, and placed over the remainder – spared only for the more ignominious punishment of hanging upon the same trees to which Huguenots had been suspended – the inscription, burned with a hot iron on a pine slab: "I do this not as to Spaniards, nor as to seamen, but as to traitors, robbers, and murderers." (The words are given with slight variations. See "La Reprinse de la Floride par le Cappitaine Gourgue," reprinted by Gaffarel, 483-515; Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 354-356; De Thou, iv. 123-126.)

CHAPTER XV.
THE SECOND CIVIL WAR AND THE SHORT PEACE

Coligny's pacific counsels.

Rumors of plots to destroy the Huguenots.

D'Andelots warlike counsels prevail.

Cardinal Lorraine to be seized and King Charles liberated.

A treacherous peace or an open war was now apparently the only alternative offered to the Huguenots. In reality, however, they believed themselves to be denied even the unwelcome choice between the two. The threatening preparations made for the purpose of crushing them were indications of coming war, if, indeed, they were not properly to be regarded, according to the view of the great Athenian orator in a somewhat similar case, as the first stage in the war itself. The times called for prompt decision. Within a few weeks three conferences were held at Valéry and at Châtillon. Ten or twelve of the most prominent Huguenot nobles assembled to discuss with the Prince of Condé and Coligny the exigencies of the hour. Twice was the impetuosity of the greater number restrained by the calm persuasion of the admiral. Convinced that the sword is a fearful remedy for political diseases – a remedy that should never be applied except in the most desperate emergency – Coligny urged his friends to be patient, and to show to the world that they were rather forced into war by the malice of their enemies than drawn of their own free choice. But at the third meeting of the chiefs, before the close of the month, they were too much excited by the startling reports reaching them from all sides, to be controlled even by Coligny's prudent advice. A great friend of "the religion" at court had sent to the prince and the admiral an account of a secret meeting of the royal council, at which the imprisonment of the former and the execution of the latter was agreed upon. The Swiss were to be distributed in equal detachments at Paris, Orleans, and Poitiers, and the plan already indicated – the repeal of the Edict of Toleration and the proclamation of another edict of opposite tenor – was at once to be carried into effect. "Are we to wait," asked the more impetuous, "until we be bound hand and foot and dragged to dishonorable death on Parisian scaffolds? Have we forgotten the more than three thousand Huguenots put to violent deaths since the peace, and the frivolous answers and treacherous delays which have been our only satisfaction?" And when some of the leaders expressed the opinion that delay was still preferable to a war that would certainly expose their motives to obloquy, and entail so much unavoidable misery, the admiral's younger brother, D'Andelot, combated with his accustomed vehemence a caution which he regarded as pusillanimous, and pointedly asked its advocates what all their innocence would avail them when once they found themselves in prison and at their enemy's mercy, when they were banished to foreign countries, or were roaming without shelter in the forests and wilds, or were exposed to the barbarous assaults of an infuriated populace.⁴³⁰ His striking harangue carried the day. The admiral reluctantly yielded, and it was decided to anticipate the attack of the enemy by a bold defensive movement. Some advocated the seizure of Orleans, and counselled that, with this refuge in their possession, negotiations should be entered into with the court for the dismissal of the Swiss; others that the party should fortify itself by the capture of as many cities as possible. But to these propositions the pertinent reply was made that there was no time for wordy discussions, the controversy must be settled by means of the sword;⁴³¹ and that, of a hundred towns the Protestants held at the beginning of the last war, they had found themselves unable to retain a dozen until its close. Finally, the prince and his companions resolved to make it the great object of their endeavors to drive the Cardinal of Lorraine from court and liberate Charles from his pernicious influence. This object was to be attained by dispersing the Swiss, and by conducting hostilities on a bold plan – rather by the maintenance of an army that could actively take the field,⁴³² than by seizing any cities save a few of the most important. On the twenty-ninth of September, the feast-day of St. Michael, the Huguenots having suddenly risen in all parts of France, Condé and Coligny, at the head of the troops of the neighboring provinces, were to present themselves at the court, which would be busy celebrating the customary annual ceremonial of the royal order. They would then hand to the king a humble petition for the redress of grievances, for the removal of the Cardinal of Lorraine, and for the dispersion of the Swiss troops, which, instead of being retained near the frontiers of the kingdom which they had ostensibly come to protect, had been advanced to the very vicinity of the capital.⁴³³ It might be difficult to prevent the enterprise from wearing the appearance of a plot against the king, in whose immediate vicinity the cardinal was; but the event, if prosperous, would demonstrate the integrity of their purpose.⁴³⁴

The secret slowly leaks out.

The plan was well conceived, and better executed than such schemes usually are. The great difficulty was to keep so important a secret. It was a singular coincidence that, as in the case of the tumult of Amboise, over seven years before, the first intimations of their danger reached the Guises from the Netherlands.⁴³⁵ But the courtiers, whose minds were taken up with the pleasures of the chase, and who dreamed of no such movement, were so far from believing the report, that Constable Montmorency expressed vexation that it was imagined that the Huguenots could get together one hundred men in a corner of the kingdom – not to speak of an army in the immediate vicinity of the capital – without the knowledge of himself, the head of the royal military establishment; while Chancellor de l'Hospital said that "it was a capital crime for any servant to alarm his prince with false intelligence, or give him groundless suspicions of his fellow-subjects."⁴³⁶

The news, however, being soon confirmed from other sources, a spy was sent to Châtillon-sur-Loing to report upon the admiral's movements. He brought back word that he had found Coligny at home, and apparently engrossed in the labors of the vintage – so quietly was the affair conducted until within forty-eight hours of the time appointed for the general uprising.⁴³⁷ It was not until hurried tidings came from all quarters that the roads to Châtillon and to Rosoy – a small place in Brie, where the Huguenots had made their rendezvous – were swarming with men mounted and armed, that the court took the alarm.

Flight of the court to Paris.

It was almost too late. The Huguenots had possession of Lagny and of the crossing of the river Marne. The king and queen, with their suite, at Meaux, were almost entirely unprotected, the six thousand Swiss being still at Château-Thierry, thirty miles higher up the Marne. Instant orders were sent to bring them forward as quickly as possible, and the night of the twenty-eighth of September witnessed a scene of abject fear on the part of the ladies and not a few of the gentlemen that accompanied Charles and his mother. At three o'clock in the morning, under escort of the Swiss, who had at last arrived, the court started for Paris, which was reached after a dilatory journey that appeared all the longer because of the fears attending it.⁴³⁸ The Prince of Condé, who had been joined as yet only by the forerunners of his army, engaged in a slight skirmish with the Swiss; but a small band of four or five hundred gentlemen, armed only with their swords, could do nothing against a solid phalanx of the brave mountaineers, and he was forced to retire. Meanwhile Marshal Montmorency, sent by Catharine to dissuade the prince, the admiral, and Cardinal Châtillon from prosecuting their enterprise, had returned with the message that "the Huguenots were determined to defeat the preparations made to destroy them and their religion, which was only tolerated by a conditional edict, revocable by the king at his pleasure."⁴³⁹

Cardinal Lorraine invites Alva to invade France.

The Cardinal of Lorraine did not share in the flight of the court to Paris. Never able to boast of the possession of overmuch courage, he may have feared for his personal safety; for it was not impossible that he might be sacrificed by a queen rarely troubled with any feelings of humanity, to allay the storm raging about the ship of state; or he may have hoped to be of greater service to his party away from the capital.⁴⁴⁰ However this may be, the Cardinal betook himself in hot haste to the city of Rheims, but reached his palace only after an almost miraculous escape from capture by his enemies.⁴⁴¹ Once in safety, he despatched two messengers in rapid succession⁴⁴² to Brussels, and begged Alva to send him an agent with whom he might communicate in confidence. The proposals made when that personage arrived at Rheims were sufficiently startling; for, after calling attention to Philip's rightful claim to the throne of France, in case of the death of Charles and his brothers, he offered in a certain contingency to place in the Spanish monarch's hands some strong places that might prove valuable in substantiating that claim. In return, the Cardinal wished Philip to assume the defence of the papal church in France, and particularly desired him to undertake the protection of his brothers and of himself. The message was not unwelcome either to Alva or to his royal master. They were willing, they said, to assist the King of France in combating the Huguenots,⁴⁴³ and they made no objection to accepting the cities. At the worst, these cities would serve as pledges for the repayment of whatever sums the King of Spain might expend in maintaining the Roman Catholic faith in France. With respect to the propriety of Philip's becoming the formal guardian of the Guises, Alva felt more hesitation, for who knew how matters might turn out? And Philip, never quite ready for any important decision, praised his lieutenant's delay, and inculcated further procrastination.⁴⁴⁴ But the succession to the throne of France was worthy of deep consideration. As Alva intimated, the famous Salic law, under which Charles's sister Isabella was excluded from the crown, was merely a bit of pleasantry, and force of arms would facilitate the acknowledgment of her claims.⁴⁴⁵

Condé at Saint Denis.

The blow which the Huguenots had aimed at the tyrannical government of the Cardinal of Lorraine had missed its mark, through premature disclosure; but they still hoped to accomplish their design by slower means. Shut up in Paris, the court might be frightened or starved into compliance before the Roman Catholic forces could be assembled to relieve the capital. With this object the Prince of Condé moved around to the north side of the city, and took up his quarters, on the second of October, in the village of Saint Denis. With the lower Seine, which, in one of its serpentine coils, here turns back upon itself, and retreats from the direction of the sea, in his immediate grasp, and within easy striking distance of the upper Seine, and its important tributary the Marne – the chief sources of the supply of food on which the capital depended – the Prince of Condé awaited the arrival of his reinforcements, and the time when the hungry Parisians should compel the queen to submit, or to send out her troops to an open field. At the same time he burned the windmills that stretched their huge arms on every eminence in the vicinity. It was an ill-advised measure, as are all similar acts of destruction, unless justified by urgent necessity. If it occasioned some distress in Paris,⁴⁴⁶ it only embittered the minds of the people yet more, and enabled the municipal authorities to retaliate with some color of equity by seizing the houses of persons known or suspected to be Huguenots, and selling their goods to defray part of the expense incurred in defending the city.⁴⁴⁷

The Huguenot movement alienates the king.

The attempt "to seize the person of the king" – for such the movement was understood to be by the Roman Catholic party – was even more unfortunate. It produced in Charles an alienation⁴⁴⁸ which the enemies of the Huguenots took good care to prevent him from ever completely forgetting. They represented the undertaking of Meaux as aimed, not at the counsellors of the monarch, but at the "Sacred Majesty" itself, and Condé and Coligny, with their associates, were pictured to the affrighted eyes of the fugitive boy-king as conspirators who respected none of those rights which are so precious in the view of royalty.

Negotiations opened. The Huguenots gradually abate their demands.

Constable Montmorency the mouthpiece of intolerance.

Meantime Catharine was not slow in resorting to the arts by which she was accustomed to seek either to avert the evil consequences of her own short-sighted policy, or to gain time to defeat the plans of her opponents.⁴⁴⁹ The Huguenots received a deputation consisting of the chancellor, the Marshal de Vieilleville, and Jean de Morvilliers – three of the most influential and moderate adherents of the court – through whom Charles demanded the reason of the sudden uprising which causelessly threatened his own person and the peace of the realm. The Huguenot leaders replied by denying any evil design, and showing that they had armed themselves only in self-defence against the manifested malice of their enemies.⁴⁵⁰ Subsequent interviews between Condé and the envoys of Charles seemed to hold forth some hopes of peace. The king declared himself ready to furnish the Protestants with proofs of the uprightness of his intentions, and L'Hospital even exhibited the draft of an edict in which their rights should be guaranteed. As this proved unsatisfactory, the prince, at the chancellor's suggestion, submitted the requests of his associates. These related to the banishment of the foreign troops, the permission to come and present their petitions to the king, the confirmation and maintenance of the past edicts, with the repeal of all restrictive interpretations, the assembling of the states general, and the removal of the burdensome imposts under which the people groaned, and which were of advantage only to the crowd of Italians and others enjoying extraordinary credit at court.⁴⁵¹ If the first of these demands were sufficiently bold, the last demand was little calculated to conciliate Catharine, who naturally conceived herself doubly insulted by the covert allusion to her own prodigality and by the reference to her countrymen. She found no difficulty in inducing Charles to answer through a proclamation sent by a herald to the confederates, commanding Condé, Coligny, D'Andelot, La Rochefoucauld, Genlis, and the other leaders, by name, to lay down the arms which they had taken up without his consent.⁴⁵² Perceiving the mistake they had committed in making requests which, although just and appropriate, were in part but ill-suited to the times, the Protestants began to abate their demands. Confining themselves to the matter of religion, they now petitioned only for an unrestricted liberty of conscience and worship, confirmed by the repeal of all ordinances or parliamentary decisions conflicting with it. Their moderation inspired fresh hopes of averting the resort to arms, and a new conference was held, between the Huguenot position and the city of Paris, at the hamlet of La Chapelle Saint Denis. It was destined to be the last. Constable Montmorency, the chief spokesman on the Roman Catholic side, although really desirous of peace, could not be induced to listen to the only terms on which peace was possible. "The king," he said, "will never consent to the demand for religious toleration throughout France without distinction of persons or places. He has no intention of permanently tolerating two religions. His edicts in favor of the Protestants have been intended only as temporary measures; for his purpose is to preserve the old faith by all possible means. He would rather be forced into a war with his subjects than avoid it by concessions that would render him an object of suspicion to neighboring princes."⁴⁵³