mistress and not serf of your bad counsellors; and be sure tbat if you spill your kindred blood, according to their desire or their wrath, by that very act you sacrifice your crown and your state."

It is more than probable that Catherine's own views were similar to those of the Chancellor, for we find that she had always kept up a certain degree of intercourse with the King of Navarre, by means of the Duchess of Montpensier, ever since the arrest of his brother f and Vielleville, attached to her own household, had been frequent in his secret visits to the Navarrese prince,t for the express purpose, we are told, of maintaining a friendly feeling between him and his royal mistress. The advice of Del'Hospital, and several others of her most attached friends, led to still further advances towards the King of Navarre, and Catherine, after a brief hesitation, during which the anxiety and apprehensions that she felt, drew from her a bitter fiood of tears, resolved upon taking the decisive step of visiting the King of Navarre by night, and in secret.t- She was conducted to his apartments by the young Dauphin d'Auvergne, son of her friend the Duchess of Montpensier ; and as by this time she had ascertained that no hope could be entertained of the recovery of Francis II., she at once laid the founda-

* Davila.

t Mems. de Vielleville^ lib. viii. cap. 16.

:!: Davila, whose father was long one of her personal attendants, gives the account adopted in the text; but Aubigne, though he mentions the secresy of the interview, says that the King of Navarre was brought to the chamber of the Queen.

tion of a negotiation which was carried on to a conclusion in several subsequent interviews.

In the meanwhile, the house of Guise neither shut their eyes to the approaching death of the King, nor to the imminent danger in which they stood of losing entirely the support of the Queen-mother. They had shewn her too little respect and consideration, during the period of their power, to hope for any favor at her hands; and, when they discovered that the apprehensions in regard to the Bourbon princes, which they had endeavored to instil into her mind, had only the effect of leading her to seek a reconciliation with them, they determined to employ the same means, and made secret overtures for that purpose to the Prince de Conde. His reply was quite of the same character with the whole of his demeanor during his imprisonment. '* There is no better mode of terminating our differences," he answered, "than at the point of the lance."

His brother, however, proved less intractable; and the Queen-mother, whose character had not been justly estimated by the Princes of Lorraine, still maintained their interests from political motives, without retaining any real regard for either of the two brothers. Hitherto Catherine de Medicis, since the death of her husband, seeing that the influence of the Guises over the mind of her son was established on a foundation which she could not hope to shake, had contented herself with watchinc? the

proceedings of all parties, .assuming a tone of perfect neutrality, favoring the Princes of Lorraine only as far as was necessary to maintain her own position, and often without actually opposing their measures, mitigating the ferocity of their ambition by suggesting scruples and doubts to the young monarch. But with the utmost skill and discernment, she had made herself acquainted with the characters of every one who surrounded her, knew all their weaknesses, and serviceable qualities, and collected for herself a party, not equal indeed in importance to either of the other two which she found existing after the death of rienry,'but which was of sufficient weight to give the preponderance to either of the others, as soon as the habitual influence of the house of Guise over the mind of the King, ceased with the reigning monarch's life.

Catherine now saw clearly that the opportunity had arrived for taking into her own hands a greater share of power ; and that so long as she could nicely balance the two factions of Bourbon and Lorraine, during a long minority, the sovereign sway must rest with herself. Thus her personal ambition required, that, though she aided to raise the King of Navarre and his brother from the depressed state into which they had been cast, and to deprive the house of Guise of a portion of the power it had usurped, she should not elevate the one too high nor sink the other too low. But it would be doing less than justice to this extraordinary woman, did

we not allow that the best interests of her son and his people, required exactly the same line of conduct; and there are many reasons for supposing, that the welfare of the state was, at this time, an object of as great consideration to Catherine, as her own advancement to power.

With the most consummate skill, she carried on her negotiations with the King of Navarre; granted a large part of his demands, evaded the rest, persuaded him that she would shew greater favor to his friends, and greater coldness to his enemies than she intended to display, and induced him to resign his claim to the Regency during the minority of her second son, even before the young King's death. She promised, in return, that Anthony of Bourbon should command the provinces as Lieutenant-Gene-ral of the kingdom, that Conde, and all the prisoners who had been implicated in the charges against him, should be enlarged, that his sentence should be annulled, and that the Princes of the blood should have their due place and influence in the council. All these points were openly stipulated and agreed to; and the Queen moreover undertook to negotiate with the King of Spain, for the restoration of Upper Navarre to the husband of Jeanne d'Albret, though she well knew the fact, to which hope blinded the eyes of the King of Navarre, that the negotiations would prove fruitless.

Two of the principal demands of the Bourbon princes, were, that the followers of the Protestant

religion should have entire liberty of conscience, and that the Princes of the house of Lorraine should be stripped of all authority at the court of France.* To the first of these conditions Catherine had no power to accede, without the consent of others ; and the second was repugnant to all her political views ; but she contrived to overcome this difficulty, by making a secret promise to the King of Navarre, from the trammels of which, she trusted to accident and her own skill, to deliver her at some future period. She represented to him the necessity of concealing their views in favor of religious liberty, till they had conjointly taken possession of the sovereign power, when they could bring the parliaments to adopt their measures by degrees ; and she shewed him that it would be most dangerous to attempt the entire overthrow of the Guises at once, though time would enable her to depress them lower and lower, without driving them to resistance. The easy Prince was soon persuaded to an apparent reconciliation with the Duke of Guise, on being solemnly assured by the dying King, that the family of Lorraine were in no degree responsible for the persecution which he and his brother had suffered. He well knew the monarch's assertion to be false ; and yet he aff'ected to believe it; but he had soon

* Davila, who had every opportunity of knowing the truth, details all the facts connected with these demands, and the methods that the Queen took to satisfy the King of Navarre without committing herself.

KING OF FRANCE AND NAVARRE. 187

reason to perceive, that when weak men join with more crafty persons in an attempt to deceive others, they are certain sooner or later to be the victims of one party, if not of both. The most prudent step taken by the King of Navarre, throughout the whole negotiation, was that of refusing to conclude it absolutely before the arrival of the Constable, to whom he had sent messengers, as soon as the King's state became desperate. Without the presence and cooperation of that great man, a party only headed by Anthony of Bourbon would have been of little weight; but with the cautious experience of Mont-morenci to direct its proceedings, and the activity, vigor, and courage of Conde, Coligni, and D'Andelot to carry them on, the faction of the Princes might set the house of Lorraine at defiance.

Before the Constable reached Orleans, Francis II, expired, on the fifth of December, 1560; his malady having proceeded so rapidly to a close, that rumors of his death having been accelerated by poison were current at the time, and have found some writers to countenance them, even in the present day. The town of Orleans instantly became divided between the two great factions; the nobles, the states, and even the military, took part with the Guises or the Bourbons as affection or interest led, and each partv watched the other with jealous suspicion, ready to fly to arms at the first call of its leaders. The approach of Montmorenci was looked for with anxiety by all, and apprehension by many ; but Catherine, whose deep insight into the characters of men, was the

chief guide of her policy, had already despatched a gentleman of the name of Lansac to meet him, with all those promises and expressions of confidence, which were best calculated to win a man, who had always desired to be looked upon as the great stay and support of the state. The Queen, by her messenger, at once restored to Montmorenci all the functions of Constable; and when he reached the gates of Orleans, he found the guard ready to receive his commands as generalissimo of the royal forces. Dismissing them at once from the armed posts that they held, he is said to have exclaimed, *<As the Queen restores me to my functions, I will soon take care that the soldiers shall not have the trouble of mounting guard in time of peace."

He then proceeded to the royal residence, and on seeing the young King, was moved to tears by the manifold thoughts of the past. He shewed himself moderate, though firm, in his dealings with the opposite faction; the party of the Princes gained consistency and strength from his presence; the arrangements entered into between the Queen and the King of Navarre were confirmed by a council held immediately after; and Catherine assumed the regency, with Anthony of Bourbon for Lieutenant-General of the kingdom, and Montmorenci in command of the royal forces. The Duke of Guise was sufi'ered to retain the grand-mastership of the royal household ; and the Cardinal of Lorraine remained at the head of the department of finance. The only person who had cause to complain of his interests

not being attended to, was the Prince de Conde, who was suffered to remain in prison several days after the death of Francis II., and was only liberated on condition of retiring to la Fere, with the promise that he should be speedily justified by a decree of the council and of the parliament.

From this period, to the end of her life, Catherine de Medicis continued to exercise greater power over the councils of France than any other person, leading rather than ruling, guiding rather than commanding. She was at this time in the forty-first year of her age, retaining great traces of that beauty which had distinguished her in youth, tall, well formed, and graceful, with a countenance full of intelligence and variety. Her powers of enduring fatigue were great, and she delighted in exercise carried even to excess. Fond of pleasures, and restrained by no moral principles, she sought enjoyment without scruple, and only covered her licentiousness with a thin veil of grace and wit. From her native country she brought to France a taste for the fine arts and the elegancies of life; but amongst the small courts of Italy she had received that education in a cunning and deceitful policy, which affected in a lamentable manner the whole course of her career. Shrewd, penetrating, and dexterous, she displayed neither great scope of intellect nor profundity of thought. She was always ready to seize and to employ the best means of overcoming existing diflftculties, or obtaining an immediate object; but the operations

of her mind were always confined within a narrow limit, and extended themselves unwillingly to things future or remote. The chief characteristic of her mind was levity, which tends to every sort of vice in private individuals, and to all shades of crime in princes : to it is to he attrihuted her disregard of moral restraint, and her indifi'erence to human suffering, the narrowness of her political views, the frequent changes of her plans, her insincerity towards her friends, even when they were serving her zealously, and her levity towards her enemies whenever the struggle with them was absolutely over. She could feel nothing deeply, neither love nor hate, remorse nor shame, compassion nor rage. When she slew, it was as much to deliver herself from a difficulty, as when she flattered and seduced ; and it was her habitual inaptitude to receive any strong impression, rather than an inherent narrowness of intellect, which appears to have prevented her from forming any general plan of action, or conceiving any vast design. Her chief passion would seem to have been ambition, but even that was greatly aflTected by circumstances ; and we may reasonably doubt, notwithstanding the criminal means which she employed to retain power, whether it was very violent within her; for the existence of strong passions less frequently produces great excesses, than the want of just principles. Passion injures the moral sense but in few points; levity of character extinguishes it altogether.

KING OF FRANCE AND NAVARRE. ]9i

BOOK 11.

The States-general called by Francis II., continued to sit for six weeks after his death ; but it is not necessary in this history to give any account of their proceedings, which ended without much honor to themselves, and with no benefit to the nation.

On the 28th of January, 1561, an amnesty was granted by the young King to all political offenders, except the actual leaders of the conspiracy of Am-boise; and the consideration of the claims of the Protestants to liberty of conscience was delayed, in order to give time for a second assembly of the States, appointed to take place in May, 1561; but in the meantime an edict was published on the 30th of January, prohibiting all religious disputations.

In the month of February, the same year, the Prince de Conde appeared at the court for the first time since his imprisonment, and on the following morning took his place at the council, which immediately pronounced a decree, exculpating him of all the crimes of which it had formerly declared him guilty. He afterwards presented himself before the parliament of Paris, which also proclaimed his innocence of all the acts which had been laid to his

charge; and thus, in the space of a few months, was he arrested, tried, condemned, sentenced to death for high treason, liberated, and declared guiltless of all offence. To complete this extraordinary picture, it was determined to effect an apparent reconciliation between himself and the Duke of Guise, his mortal enemy ; and accordingly, after some difficulty, a set form of explanation was drawn up, and the Prince met Guise before the whole court at St. Germain. The Duke then solemnly assured him that he had brought no charge against him, and that he was in no degree the cause of his imprisonment. The Prince, without affecting to believe him, replied, that he held those who had done so, to be '* wicked and miserable ;" and Guise rejoined, " So do 1 also; but that affects me not." After these words they embraced, with as much sincerity as the Duke of Guise had spoken, and remained at the court watching the moment for mutually injuring each other.

The year 1561 was far advanced before this nominal reconciliation took place, and various events had occurred in the meantime, which I shall briefly notice, before I proceed to touch upon some interesting facts mentioned by contemporaries regarding the early life of Henry IV., who was once more brought by his mother to the court of France, in the early part of the reign of Charles IX.

The coronation of the young King was solemnized at Rheims, in the month of May, and the Duke of

Guise, who took advantage of every opportunity to put forward his claims to the same honors which had been granted to him in the last reign, contested successfully with the Princes of the blood, the first place in the ceremonies which accompanied the con^ secration of the monarch. In this particular the Queen favored his pretensions; and a still more severe mortification was inflicted on the Protestant party in the month of July, by an edict, which restrained them in the public exercise of their religious worship, although it left the consciences of individuals free in all matters of faith. This law, however, was contradictory to itself on various points i and loud and somewhat outrageous clamor was excited against it, which caused it subsequently to be superseded by another, of which more will be said hereafter.

To counterbalance this act, a concession was made to the Reformers, which produced very difierent results from those which the most experienced politi-cians of the court anticipated. The Admiral de Coligni, and other gentlemen attached to the Pro-testant faith, eagerly urged upon the Queen-mother, the necessity of permitting a conference to take place between some of their most celebrated divines and the prelates of the Roman Church. The proposal being debated in the council, the Cardinal de Tour-non raised his voice loudly against it, alleging various good and various specious reasons for avoiding a dis-cussion which could only tend to shake the founda-

VOL. I. ^

tions of the established religion, by the very recog-nition of a right to doubt and to deny the doctrines of Rome. The King of Navarre, vacillating alike in policy and faith, supported the proposal, with Conde and the Admiral; and to the surprise of many, who did not remember that vanity has even a stronger hold of the human mind than policy, the Cardinal of Lorraine rather favored the idea of a conference, in which he hoped to display the eloquence on which he prided himself. With his consent, the petition of the Protestants was agreed to; the place of meeting was appointed at Poissy; and letters of safe-conduct were forwarded to Theodore Beza, Vermeil, Peter Martyr, and other divines of the Reformed church. The Pope in vain attempted to prevent the conference; and in the end sent a legate, together with the general of the Jesuits, James Lainez, to watch the proceedings and endeavor to deprive the Protestants of any advantage they might hope to

gain by the assembly.

We need not pause to examine closely all that took place in the conferences which ensued, and which obtained the name of the Colloquy of Poissy. At the time appointed, the court of France, accompanied by a vast number of cardinals and bishops, met twelve ministers of the Protestant faith. Beza and the Cardinal of Lorraine led the discussion, the one on the part of the Protestants, and the other on that of the Romish Church. Both displayed great elo-quence and high powers of mind, and both claimed

the Victory in argument; but though the simplicity force, and sincerity of Beza produced a great effect upon many, the skill of the Cardinal, in bringing into prominent light the diflFerence of opinion between Calvin.sts and Lutherans, on the article of the i-uchanst. shook the confidence of some of the principal personages present in the Protestant divines The conferences terminated without any direct result; but the French reformers gained courage and vigor from the impulse given to their exertions, and pressed the court vehemently for the right of holding their religious assemblies in public.

The state of parties at the French court, shortly after the accession of Charles IX., was hi<.hly favorable to the rapid progress of the ReformaUon m France; but accidental circumstances, skilfully taken advantage of by the house of Guise, had, before the end of the first year of that Kino-'s reign, restored the preponderance of the Rom°an Catholic party. Of the leading personages who sided at first with the Protestants, one was only bound to them by political and family attachments, and a second was of so unstable a character that his support could not be reasonably counted upon for any great length of time. The Constable de Mont-morenci, who, though now advanced in vears, was by h,s rank, his services, and his great possessions, the only person competent to counterbalance the power of the house of Guise, was a firm and zealous Papist, abhorring all innovation, and only restrained

o 2

from actually persecuting the Huguenots* by the strong affection which he entertained for his nephews of the house of ChatiUon, and hy his hatred of the family of Lorraine. The King of Navarre, on the other hand, had always shewn himself a zealous protector of the Protestants, although he had not actually professed himself a convert to their doctrines. The prudent self-restraint which he displayed, in this respect, was generally attributed to the influence of his wife, who feared that the loss of their territories would ensue, if they openly avowed their adherence to the doctrines of the Reformation.t By every other consideration, however, which could influence a wise or a politic man, he was bound to maintain the cause of religious toleration, being himself imbued with principles opposed to the established church, connected by the nearest ties with the leaders of the Huguenots, and opposed, in the fiercest manner, to the two chiefs of the Roman

Catholic party. .

Many circumstances, indeed, rendered it as

* It was about this time that the name of Huguenots was first ri^en to the Protestants of France. Innumerable writers have given as many different explanations of this singular appellation; some saying that it eame from one of the gates of Tours, under which the Protestants used to assemble, some from the name of one of their teachers, and others from a small piece of money. Montluc, however, who is one of the first to mention them by this name, acknowledges, that even then it was not known whence the word was derived.-See Commentaires de Montluc, liv. V. See also Mem. de Castelnau.

f Brantome.

likely, at the beginning of the reign of Charles, that oil and water should mix, as that Montmorenci and the King of Navarre should go over to the faction of Lorraine ; and one of their first acts, after the government had been settled, was to threaten to quit the court and to cause the Parliament of Paris to declare Anthony of Bourbon regent, unless the Guises were excluded from all share in the manage-ment of affairs. Their purpose was frustrated by Catherine de Medicis, who, by advice of de I'Hos-pital, caused the King to lay his express commands upon Montmorenci to remain in attendance upon his person. The veteran soldier did not venture to disobey ; and the rest of his party followed his example. But very shortly afterwards, events occurred which changed entirely the posture of aflPairs, and enlisted all the passions and prejudices of the Constable on the side of his ancient enemies. In the first place, Catherine de Medicis, whether from conviction or policy, shewed a strong inclination to embrace the doctrines of the Reformation. Protestant ministers were admitted to the court, the Catholic churches were deserted, the dogmas of Rome were openly censured and assailed, and the Constable clearly perceived that the principles of Calvin were daily gaining ground. The Bishop of Valence,^ we are assured, preached in one of the halls of the palace without his episcopal dress, which ex-

• He was brother to the famous Montluc, one of the bravest and most distinguished soldiers of France, but one of the most sanguinary and bigoted of persecutors.

cited the indignation of Montmorenci so bigWy, that he ordered his soldiers, with threats of even more violent conduct, '' to pull that Protestant minister out of the pulpit."* Another passion, almost as strong as religious fanaticism, was soon added to the motives which induced the Constable to make common cause with the family of Guise. The greatest reproach against his character was the avaricious greediness which he so frequently displayed ; and a great mistake, committed by Coligni and Conde, soon brought this overpowering induce-ment to act against themselves.

At the death of Francis IL the finances of the state were in the most lamentable condition. A debt of forty-three millions of livres had been contracted without the slightest apparent means either of discharging the principal or interest, or of meeting the current expenses of the year. After the breaking up of the States-general, which had been summoned to meet at Orleans, a new assembly was convened in the month of May following, but upon a more limited plan, only three persons being chosen from each of the thirteen provinces of France : one to represent the nobles, another the clergy, and another the commons of the kingdam. Either after the meeting of this body itself, as some authors assert,i' or in the preparatory assemblies of electors, as others declare,J it was suggested, as a means of remedying the financial difiiculties of the state, that * Auvigny. t Davila, liv, ii.

% Anquetil, vol. vi. page 166.

all those persons, who, for well nigh half a century, had fattened upon the favor of Francis I., Henry II., and Francis II., should be forced to dis-gorge the immense sums of which they had drained the country. It is strongly asserted that the Ad-miral de Coligni and the Prince de Conde were the authors of this proposal, and that they were animated by the desire of stripping the house of Guise of a portion of its vast wealth. Three other persons, however, of no slight importance in the state, were implicated in the danger of confiscation, which threatened the house of Lorraine. These were Mont-morenci, the friend of Henry II., the Marshal St. Andre, that monarch's favorite, and Diana of Poitiers, his mistress. Each of these personages had accumulated immense riches by the favor of their sovereign and all were unwilling to refund any portion of that which they had obtained.

The principal movers, in the course suggested, had always proposed to themselves, to shield Montmorenci from the results which they intended to bring upon the heads of others; and they assured him, with every protestation of regard and reverence, that he should not suffer in the slightest degree. But Montmorenci was not to be thus satisfied. He felt highly indignant at the very proposal; he called to mind the services he had performed, the sacrifices he had made, the sums he had paid for the ransom of himself and various members of his family; and while his mind was in this state of irritation two other

persons, equally interested with himself, applied themselves zealously to heal his differences with the house of Guise, in order that the great power of the several parties, thus to be leagued together, might frustrate the attempt from which they had all so much to fear. Marshal St. Andre, luxurious, ostentatious, brave, skilful, and cunning, united with Diana of Poitiers, to excite in the mind of the Constable the highest indignation against his nephews, for the proposal which was attributed to them, and to move him by fears for the safety of the Roman Catholic religion. At the same time, every means were taken to soften and remove his enmity towards the Duke of Guise, and to produce strict co-operation between himself and the house of Lorraine, for the purpose of resisting strenuously, any attempt to strip the favorites of Henry II. of their wealth, or to grant farther concessions to the Protestants of France.

Diana of Poitiers, who had considerable power over his niind, was supported by the Duchess of Montmorenci, who had always shewn herself inimical to her husband's nephews. The efforts of both, however, might have been frustrated by the influence of the Constable's eldest son, had not the sudden illness of a wife, to whom he was deeply attached, called Marshal Montmorenci to Chantilly. During his absence, the representations of Diana of Poitiers proved successful, and the Constable bound himself for ever to the interests of the house of Guise. A treaty was drawn up between the two Dukes, in

KING OF FRANCE AND NAVARRE. 201

which Marshal St. Andre was admitted to share, and the parties to it thence derived the name of the Triumvirate.*

Such a powerful accession to the faction of Lorraine, naturally alarmed the Queen-mother, by overthrowing the balance which she had endeavored to establish, between the two great parties in the kingdom ; and she saw no means of restoring the equipoise, but by casting the whole weight of her authority into the opposite scale. The policy of the house of Guise, however, aided by the shrewd suggestions of the Church of Rome, and the powerful mfluence of the Spanish ambassador, over-reached even the artful woman to whom they were opposed. She courted the King of Navarre eagerly, indeed,flattered his vanity, yielded to his wishes, and appeared to confide in his judgment; but she had not those inducements to hold out, which the other party proffered without the slightest intention of realising; and her afi^ected dependence upon him, was not a sufficient compensation to the vanity of that vacillating Prince, for the too open contempt with which he was regarded by the Huguenot party. Bran-tome assures us that the Colloquy of Poissy, by displaying to the King of Navarre the great discrepancies which existed in matters of faith between various sects in the Protestant church, determined his doubts, and fixed him in the unvarying dogmas

* Immediately after this league was formed, the Constable and the Duke of Guise bound themselves to each other by oath, and took the Communion together.

of Rome. But we find so manj^ other motives suggested for abandoning the Huguenot party, and attaching himself to the Triumvirate, that we can scarcely admit the influence of religious opinions, in a man who had not the faculty of receiving deep convictions.

Knowing how easily he was persuaded to believe any thing that he hoped, the family of Guise scrupled not to entertain him with the most extravagant and even contradictory expectations. At one moment, with the advice and assistance of the Papal legate, they led him to believe, that if he shewed himself zealously devoted to the Roman Catholic faith, he might obtain the dissolution of his marriage with Jeanne d'Albret, and exchange the jewelless crown of Navarre for the richer one of Scotland, by a marriage with the beautiful Mary Stuart. At another time they engaged the Spanish ambassador to enter into negotiations, apparently serious, for the cession of the island of Sardinia,* by the crown of Spain, as an equivalent for the important districts, which the Spanish monarchs had dismembered from the kingdom of Navarre. Nor did they fail to represent to him, that the young King of France and his brothers, being feeble and sickly of constitution, might be expected ere long to follow Francis II. to the grave, when his rights to the throne of France, indisputable in themselves, might be risked by the suspicion of heresy.t It is not

* Belleforests. Davila, &c. Memoires de la Maison de Bourbon. t Auvigny.

necessary in this place to inquire which of all these inducements proved the most powerful with the King of Navarre. It is sufficient to sav that his weak mind gave way before the artifices of the Roman Catholic party ; and after considerable doubt and hesitation, he joined himself to the Triumvirate, and became, for the short remainder of his life, a mere tool in the hands of the house of Lorraine.

Apostacy is always bigoted, and the King of Navarre now sought eagerly to force his wife to enter the Roman Catholic church, and to shake oflFall connexion with the Protestants. The Colloquy of Poissy, however, had produced a very different effect upon her mind from that which it is said to have wrought upon her husband.* The reasoning of Theodore Beza seemed to her perfectly conclusive ; and her grief, we are told, was poignant at seeing her husband abandon what she considered the true faith, and place himself in the ranks of its persecutors. An effort which he made towards the end of the year 156J, to force her to attend the mass, decided her conduct; and she determined to retire into Beam for the purpose of following in peace the ceremonies of her own religion.

The Princess herself was suffered to depart, and her daughter the Princess Catherine was permitted to accompany her; but Anthony of Bourbon, and those with whom he was now allied, insisted that the vouno-Prmce should be left behind, to be educated at the court of France. The strong tendency towards the * Brantome. Beuault.

Protestant faith which the Queen-mother shewed at this time, rendered the sacrifice required of Jeanne d'Albret less painful to her than it might otherwise have been ; and, in quitting Paris, she left her son under the charge of a learned man, named La Gaucherie, himself firmly attached to the Reformed religion. About this period also, or a little later, Victor Cayet, who afterwards became his chrono-loger, was first placed in attendance upon his person, and from him we derive some of the most interesting facts regarding the early life of the future monarch. We learn that he was at this time a very lively, quick, and beautiful boy, full of vigor and activity of mind and body, apt to receive instruction, and giving every promise of attaining great proficiency in letters.* La Gaucherie took every pains to render the study of the learned languages agreeable to him ; not teaching him in the ordinary method by filling his mind with long and laborious rules, difficult to remember, and still more difficult to apply, but following more the common course by which we acquire our maternal language, and storing his mind with a number of Greek and Latin sentences, which the Prince afterwards wrote down and analysed.! The first work which he seems to have translated regularly was Caesar's Commentaries; a version of several books of which was seen by the biographer of the Duke of Nevers in his own handwriting; and his familiarity with the Greek was fre-

* Memoires du Due de Nevers. -f Chronologie Novenaire.

quently shewn in the sports and pastimes of the court, where mottoes in the learned languages were frequently required.

It is customary for the historians and eulogists of great men, to point out, after their acts have rendered them famous, those slight indications which sometimes in youth give promise of future eminence ; and thus, we are told, the favorite motto of Henry in his boyhood, was rj vlkolv rj aTroOavelv to conquer, or to die. The fact, however, is worthy of remark, not so much perhaps, because it shewed the boy's aspirations for military glory, as because his frequent use of this sentence seems to have created some uneasiness in the mind of Catherine de Medicis, who forbade his masters to teach him such apophthegms for the future, saying that they were only calculated to render him obstinate.

It is not probable that the Queen-mother would have taken notice of such a sentence on the lips of any ordinary child ; but it is evident, not only from the accounts of those biographers, whose works were composed after the Prince of Beam had risen into renown as King of France, but by letters written while he was yet in extreme youth, that there was something in his whole manner and demeanor, which impressed all those who knew him, with a conviction of his future greatness. We shall have hereafter to cite several of these epistles, which give an accurate picture of the Prince at the age of thirteen years ; but before that time he had undergone a long course of desultory instruction. At one period his educa-

tion was carried on in the chateau of Vincennes, where he remained for more than a year with the royal children ; and at another we find him studying in the college of Navarre, together with the Duke of Anjou, who afterwards became king under the name of Henry III., and with Henry, eldest son of the Duke of Guise, against whom he was destined to take so prominent a part in arms. At this early age, however, no enmity or rivalry was apparent between the three Princes; but on the contrary, to use the words of the memoirs of Nevers, the three Henrys had the same affection and the same pleasures, and always displayed for one another, so uncommon a degree of complaisance, that not the slightest dispute took place between them, during the whole time they were at the college. In regard to the course of instruction pursued with the Prince of Beam we have no farther information, and only know that he acquired a sufficient knowledge of the Latin language to translate with ease all the best writers of Rome ; and that he applied himself, though apparently with no great perseverance, to the art of drawing, in which he displayed a considerable degree of talent, the Duke of Nevers, or his biographer,* having seen an antique vase which he had sketched in pen and ink with a mas-

* It does not appear clear to me whether the person speaking, in the part of the memoirs of Nevers in which this fact is mentioned, be Jomberville or Nevers himself. I am inclined, however, to suppose it is the former. The same difficulty presents itself in many other passages.

terly hand, and under which he had written, Opus principis otiosi,

Henry was not long permitted to carry on his studies at the college of Navarre, though Catherine de Medicis continued to detain him for some years at the court of France, as a sort of honorable hostage for the conduct of Jeanne d'Albret, of whose genius and commanding character she Jived in constant apprehension. Before he was withdrawn from that institution, however, various events of importance took place, strongly affecting the condition of France, which I must now proceed to detail.

The adhesion of the King of Navarre to the party of the Triumvirate alarmed the Queen-mother, and caused her to throw herself completely upon the Prince de Conde for support. Her principal counsellors at this time were the famous Chancellor de I'Hospital and Montluc bishop of Valence; the former, one of the greatest lawyers and most upright magistrates that France ever produced ; the latter, a prelate of high talents and great skill, who, conscious of the corruptions and superstitions of the Roman Church, was anxiously desirous of seeing a reformation effected therein, without shaking the foundations of the whole fabric. Both of these distinguished personages were suspected by the Popish party of favoring the Protestant religion ; and by their advice a new edict was issued in the month of January, 156^, by which the edict of July was virtually overthrown and full liberty of conscience granted to the followers of the Re-

formed Church. The principal regulations contained in this famous decree were as follows : that all Protestant bodies, who had taken possession of any Roman Catholic churches, should immediately restore them to the ecclesiastics whom they had ejected; that the Protestants should abstain from the demolition of crosses stnd images, and all other scandalous and seditious acts, which they had been too much accustomed to commit; that they should not attempt to hold their assemblies in the interior of towns, but that they should be permitted, for the purposes of preaching and prayer, to assemble where they pleased without the walls, unmolested. They were, however, strictly forbidden to appear in these assemblies with any other than the ordinary arms of sword and dagger, carried by all gentlemen in those days ; but at the same time strict injunctions were laid upon all the royal officers, to protect the Huguenots in the peaceable exercise of their religion, and to punish severely those, of either of the two religious parties, who should attempt to injure or disturb the other. The organisation of the Protestant population, as a military body, was also strictly forbidden j and the ministers of the Reformed church were directed, for very obvious reasons, to observe, in cases of marriage, the existing laws regarding consanguinity. They were also called upon to swear that they would obey the edict, and that they would not preach any thing contrary to the pure word of God, as expressed in the Nicene creed, and the canonical books of the

Old and New Testaments. Several regulations were added to secure the due execution of the law, and to prevent, if possible, any hostile collision between the followers of the two religions.* This famous edict of January, was decide.l upon by a body of deputies from all the parliaments of the realm, assembled at St. Germain on the seventeenth of January, 1562, and solemnly announced in the fol-owing month ; but it was with great difficulty that the Parliament of Paris consented to register it: and even then that body attached to the decree, a note which virtually formed a protest against it The name of the King of Navarre appears in the pre-amble, as one of those by whose advice it was given ; but the Constable and the Duke of Guise were not present at the deliberations. Guise havincr quitted the court of France in apparent indignation at the favor shewn by Catherine de Medicis to the Huguenots, and the Constable refusing to attend at a conference, the object of which he did not approve.!

Guise, however, was not inactive, although he seemed to be merely amusing himself with the pleasures of the country. He had now secured the support of the two most distinguished persons in the King's council; popular favor had Ion- been his; and by putting himself at the head o°f the Roman Catholic party, he had ensured the zealous co-operation of the great majority of the nation.

* Aubigne, lib. ii. t Auvigny, tome x and xi.

VOL. I.

P

All the astute energies of the Papal court, were in busy operation to second his schemes; and the eyes of the Spanish ambassador, who had played a very conspicuous part in French politics ever since the death of Henry II., were occupied in watching the movements of his enemies, and taking advantage of every accident to advance his interests. Knowing, however, that arrayed against him, were to be found, the cunning of Catherine de Medicis, the wisdom and skill of Coligni, the fire and genius of Conde, and the vigor and perseverance of D'Andelot, with a large body of men ready at any moment to ' die in defence of their religious faith, and eager to destroy their oppressors, he endeavored to give overpowering preponderance to his own party, by the treasonable and unjustifiable act of negotiating with a foreign power, even in a time of internal peace, for armed assistance in his efforts to restore himself to that exuberant degree of authority which was always the object of his ambition. How long the negotiations had been going on, or how far they were carried, will probably never be known ; but it is certain that one of the Duke's emissaries was stopped by order of the Admiral de Coligni, on his way back from Spain, disguised as a pilgrim, and that in a hollow staff, which he carried in his hand, were found despatches from Philip II., which clearly implicated the Duke of Guise in acts which amounted to nothing short of high treason.^

* Vie de Coligni.

Various other proofs of the Duke's negotiations with foreigners, are said to have been in the hands of the Protestant Princes; but, instead of boldly accusing their enemies of the criminal proceedings which they were carrying on, the party of the Prince de Conde had recourse to similar acts, and entertained a correspondence with the Reformers of Germany, in order to obtain assistance in case of need. This was not the only error committed by the French Huguenots. Elated by the Colloquy of Poissy, by the favor of the court, and by a letter which the Queen-mother ventured to write to the Pope, demanding, in terms in no degree ambiguous, the reformation of the principal abuses in the church which had been so loudly denounced by the disciples of Calvin and Luther, the chiefs of the Huguenot party assumed a high and authoritative tone, and the inferior Protestants did not scruple to irritate the Popish population by acts of intemperate violence. Thus, in the month of December, 1561, the church of St. Medard, with the Romish priests and congregation which it contained, was tumultuously invaded by a party of Calvinists from a neighboring conventicle, in consequence of the ringing of the vesper bell during the sermon of one of their ministers. It is alleged that some distinct insult was offered by the officers of the church to the members of the Huguenot congregation, who begged them to desist; but it is clear that no provocation, sufficient even

p 2

to palliate the conduct of the Protestants, was given, before they rushed into the church, and committed some of the most scandalous outrages which had ever taken place in Paris. Several persons were killed and many others wounded, so that justice could not overlook the crime committed, and several of the ringleaders were arrested and executed.

The Roman Catholics, on their part, did not fail to display as furious a spirit; and, besides much bloodshed which took place in several parts of France, the Popish preachers scrupled not to inculcate the most dangerous doctrines affecting the crown itself. One of these personages, of the name of Tanquerel, sustained in public that the Pope had a right to depose heretic princes ; and, although he was prosecuted for his audacity, the protection of the Catholic party turned aside from his head the punishment he merited.

During January and February, it became evident to all men, that the struggle between the two great parties in the state must soon come to the decision of arms; and, while the court, now ruled by the Prince de Conde and the Admiral de Coligni, retired to Monceaux in Brie, the Prince, taking advantage of the absence of the Duke of Guise, and probably not without the consent of the Queen-mother, remained in Paris, endeavoring to strengthen the Huguenot party in the capital.^ D'Andelot, 'i^ Some writers assert that Conde did not enter Paris till after Guise had arrived.

and others attached to Conde, we are assured by Roman Catholic writers, proceeded, in manifest violation of the edict of January, to raise considerable bodies of troops in various parts of the neighboring country; till at length the King of Navar°re, alarmed at the menacing aspect of the Protestants, and unequal to support the weight of great affairs, despatched messengers to the Duke of Guise at Join-ville, beseeching him to return immediately to Paris,, and aid in ejecting his brother from the capital.

The Protestant writers, on the contrary, assure us most solemnly that the leaders of their party had not yet taken arms, and were most reluctant to have recourse to such a measure ; so that, even after the whole face of the country was stained with the blood of their brethren, it required the strongest persuasions and entreaties to induce Coligni to draw the sword. They also assert that the object for which the Duke of Guise was called to Paris, was simply to annul the edict of January, and to deprive the Protestants of the toleration which they enjoyed.* It is scarcely possible to arrive at the "exact truth, in a matter where the most violent party spirit is busy on all sides to distort the facts ; but certainly the words of the Duke of Guise, which are reported by both Huguenot and Papistical writers with very little variation, would seem to shew that his party entertained the determination of compelling the council, by force, to recall the decree in favor of the Protestants. After the massacre of Vassi, which we are about to

* Aubigne.

speak of, he is said to have laid his hand on the hilt of his sword, exclaiming : " Patience ! This shall rescind that detestable edict?'*

When the messenger of the King of Navarre reached the Duke of Guise at Joinville, that Prince had just returned from a conference with some of the German leaders at Saverne, whither he had gone for the express purpose of detaching them from the cause of the French Protestants; and the whole of his movements at this time display a calm and systematic course, towards the re^attainment of that supreme authority in France, which he had possessed during the reign of Francis II., raising high our opinion of his political skill, hut leaving no possible doubt of his purposes, or his motives. No sooner did he learn the state of Paris, and the King of Navarre's desire for his presence, than he mounted his horse, and, accompanied by the Cardinal, his brother,! a considerable body of gentlemen attached to his household, and two companies of cavalry, his right to retain which, in time of peace, and after he had been deprived of the Lieutenant-generalcy of the kingdom, does not appear, he set out for the capital, passing by the small town of Vassi on his way.

It unfortunately happened, that as the multitude of valets and attendants, with which the Duke * Some writers place this speech before the massacre of Vassi; but, as I only receive it as an indication of the Duke's views and feeHngs, the question of when it was spoken is of no great importance.

■\ Davila. Aubigne. The Journal de Bruslart states, that when he entered Paris, Guise was accompanied by at least three thousand horse.

marched, entered the town, a Protestant assembly was descried, consisting of some thousands of people. The servants ran up to hear the preaching, in a manner which even the Roman Catholics admit to have been tumultuous and disorderly. Little doubt can exist that they went with feelings of contempt and hatred, and that they proceeded to insult, though, perhaps, not to injury. The Protestants repelled them with a shower of stones; the Duke's attendants then took to arms, and the Duke cast himself into the crowd, in order, we are assured, to restore peace. In the attempt, however, he was wounded in the face by a stone ; and it is easy to suppose, that at the sight of the blood of their leader, the Roman Catholic party lost all further restraint. The Cardinal then ordered Monsieur de Brosse, who commanded the cavalry, to charge ; and a terrible massacre of the unarmed Protestants ensued, in which, according to the statement of Aubigne, three hundred persons fell by the edge of the sword.*

The Duke, whose wound was trifling, pursued his way; and the news of this bloody act, which preceded him, only caused him to be received in Paris with the greater honor and distinction. All sorts of applause were bestowed upon him by the Roman Catholics for this deed, which it is probable he did not intend to commit: the King of Navarre and the mem-

* Davila only admits the number to have been sixty, and Belieforests quietly passes over the event with the words ** Si fureut ils estrillez gentiment."—Mem. cZe Condcy torn. 3.

bers of the University went out to meet him; the people shouted, '*Long live the Duke of Guise j" and twenty-nine towns in France took example by what had occurred at Vassi, and murdered in crowds the unfortunate followers of the Reformation. Every barbarity was added that superstitious fanaticism could suggest, and we are even assured that the infant children of the slaughtered Protestants were sold at Tours and other places for a crown.*

A cry for redress rose up from every part of the kingdom ; and a minister of the name of Francourt and Theodore Beza, were sent to the court, as deputies, to represent with all the powers of their eloquence the iniquities which had been committed, and to demand security for the future, if not vengeance for the past. The council of Charles IX. did not venture to justify the barbarous acts which had been perpetrated; but the King of Navarre took upon himself that odious task, and, with the true zeal of apos-tacy, put himself foremost in the ranks of the persecutors. Beza crushed the weak Prince under reproaches, but was forced to retire without any satisfaction. In the meantime, the Roman Catholic party became somewhat alarmed at the aspect assumed by the Huguenots. The Princes assembled in Paris affected to discountenance the butcheries that were daily committed, but at the same time they forced Conde, by their superior power, to evacuate the capital; and the Constable Montmorenci, at the head of a body of troops, as if going to battle, issued forth

* Aubigne, lib. iii.

into the suburbs, pulled down the meeting houses of the Protestants, burning the seats and the pulpits amidst the acclamations of the people.*

The Queen-mother, terrified at the ascendancy of the house of Guise, and probably not ignorant that language was held by the Triumvirate in regard to herself, of a disrespectful and menacing character, took alarm for her own life and liberty, and for thJ throne of her son. She knew the overpowering ambition of the Duke of Guise, the weakness of the King of Navarre, the bigotry of the Constable, and she saw no resource, but to cast herself into the arms of the Huguenot party, to put the King at their head, and to counterbalance the advantage possessed by the Guises in having the religion of the majority upon their side, by exciting the general loyalty of the French people in defence of their monarch. That this plan would have succeeded, if she had been enabled to put it in execution, few can doubt. Many of the most zealous Roman Catholics would have sacrificed their zeal for their religion, rather than the chivalrous spirit of attachment to the throne, which at that time existed in France. The energies of others would have been paralyzed by the prospect of fighting against their King; Montmorenci himself would not have ventured to draw the sword in opposition to the royal authority; and the Duke of Guise would probably have seen himself abandoned bv some, and only timidly supported by others. But

* Belleforests.

unfortunate circumstances, and the only instance of tardy caution that the Prince de Conde was ever known to display, frustrated this well-conceived plan.

As soon as Catherine de Medicis heard of the triumphal entrance of the Duke of Guise into Paris, and the measures adopted by the Triumvirate, she despatched a letter to the Prince de Conde, beseeching him " to hasten to the deliverance of the mother and her child."* She wrote letter after letter to the Swiss Cantons, entreating them to send aid to the Protestants of France ;t and in the course of the events which followed, during the next three or four days, she sent no less than seven epistles to Conde,j: begging him to come to her aid without a moment's delay. At the same time, she retired from Monceaux to Fon-tainebleau, in order to"be at a greater distance from the Duke of Guise and his faction.

In the meanwhile Conde had dispatched messengers to D'Andelot, Coligni, and all the other leaders of the Protestant party, requiring their immediate presence with all the troops they could,collect; but,in retiring from Paris, instead of keeping as near the Queen as possible, and directing the advance of the Huguenot troops towards a spot whence they could give succor to Catherine without loss of time, he pro-

* Brantome.

f Memoirs de Tavannes, page 249,

X Memoirs de Conde, tome iii. page 213-

KING OF FRANCE AND NAVARRE. QiQ

ceeded first to Meaux, a small town upon the Marne, and thence to his castle of la Ferte, still farther up the same river. What was his motive is very difficult to discover, for we find that about this time D'Andelot and the Admiral, with a number of the Protestant leaders, were collected at Chatillon sur Loing, quite on the other side of Fontainebleau.^ Time was thus lost which could never be regained; and though a small body of troops would have been sufficient to escort the court to a place of safety, Conde waited to collect an army, when every hour was worth a thousand men.

The Duke of Guise was more active, and his party was in a better state of preparation. Either discovering or divining the intentions of the Queen, he took counsel with Montmorenci and the King of Navarre ; and it was determined to proceed in force to Fontainebleau, for the purpose of bring, ing the young King and his brothers to Paris. On the appearance of the three leaders at the palace, Catherine, though terrified, did not lose her presence of mind. She remonstrated, she argued, she endeavored to gain time ; she even persuaded the King of Navarre, who was first sent to announce to her the determination which had been taken of removing the King to Paris, that there was both indecency and danger in the proceeding to which he had lent himself. But the bold ambition of the Duke of Guise, and the stern determi-

* Aubigne.

nation of Montmorenci, frustrated her arts, and overruled the weakness of their companion. She was informed by those who were now the dictators of her fate, that not an hour's delay would he granted to her, and that she must decide at once, either upon seeing her children removed from her care, or upon accompanying them to Paris.

As Catherine always acted from expediency, and allowed conviction to have little influence in her conduct, she submitted at once to necessity; and, though she remonstrated loudly against the violence employed, she professed her strong attachment to the Roman Catholic faith, and only objected to its standard being raised as the ensign of civil war. She agreed to accompany the Triumvirate to Paris ; and before her decision was formed, the baggage of the royal household was packed up and on the way. She was then forced to follow with her children in the train of the Duke of Guise ; the young King weeping in her arms, and the Queen herself shedding tears from time to time, plainly indicating her indignation at the conduct of the Triumvirate, and her grief at seeing all her expectations frustrated. She found the opportunity, however, before she was forced from Fontainebleau, of writing once more to the Prince de Conde, giving him notice that she and the King had been forcibly seized upon by the leaders of the adverse party, and were, in fact, captives in their hands j* and she thus gave him direct encourage-

* Davila.

menfc to oppose the Triumvirate in arms. Her whole conduct on the road told the same tale to those who saw her ; but the Duke of Guise, having obtained his object, scoffed alike at her tears and remonstrances, merely observing, that *^ an advan-tage, whether it is won by love or by force, is not the less an advantage."

In the meantime, Conde, having been joined by a number of his friends and supporters, was advancing upon Fontainebleau at the head of three thousand horse ; and the first news he seems to have had of the movements of his enemies was given him by the Queen's letter, which he received in the midst of his march. Suddenly drawing up his horse, he remained for a moment or two in consternation ; but on the Admiral, who was at some distance behind, coming up, the Prince exclaimed, with a sigh, " We are now so far in the water that we must drink or be drowned."

After a short consultation it was determined to gain the town of Orleans, and make it the Place d'armes of the Huguenot party. D'Andelot had in-structions to hurry thither, and render himself master of the town ; and the only obstacle in the way of the Prince himself seemed to be the passage of the river Seine. Marching boldly up to the walls of Paris, however, he threatened the capital itself, and by this daring manoeuvre gained command of the bridge of St. Cloud, which was willingly granted to him by the terrified Parisians.

The party of the Duke of Guise, by making use of the name of the Queen-mother, in negotiating with the Prince during a short halt at An-gerville, now endeavored to delay Conde on the march, while troops were secretly introduced into Orleans to wrest it from the hands of D'Andelot, who had got possession of the gate of St. John. But the Prince having received intelligence that his friend, with only three hundred men, was actually engaged with a superior enemy in the streets of Orleans, and that the numerous Huguenots in the place dared not shew themselves in arms on account of the Catholic forces which were flocking up every hour, cast away all other considerations, and putting his cavalry into a gallop, arrived at the scene of combat just in time to save D'Andelot from defeat. The party of the Duke of Guise was soon driven out, the Huguenots appeared in multitudes ; and Conde established his head-quarters in the city, publishing a proclamation, by which he announced that he had taken arms for the deliverance of the King and the Queen-mother, who were captives in the hands of the house of Lorraine.

We are told by a Roman Catholic writer that the reply of the family of Guise to the accusations of the Protestant party was very simple. It certainly was so, if that which is grossly false can deserve the name of simplicity ; for it is as clearly proved, as the most undoubted fact of history, that Catherine and her son had been carried to Paris against their will, and

KING OF FHANCE AND NAVARRE. 223

were at that moment as much under restraint as if they had been in the Bastille. Yet the Duke of Guise and his companions issued an edict in the King's name declaring them to be perfectly free.

Notwithstanding the boldness of the stroke by which the Triumvirate possessed themselves of the persons of the young King and Queen-mother, from some cause, of which we are not aware, doubt and irresolution seems to have taken possession of the councils of that party, from the moment of the seizure of Orleans by the Prince de Cond^. It is probable that the very different motives and interests of the persons combined unnaturally together in the faction which held the King in their hands had some effect in producing this vacillation; nor is It impossible that the skill and cunning of Ca therine de Medicis, supported by the wisdom of the Chancellor de I'Hospital, were exerted strenuously to avert if possible, the greatest evil that can afHict the body politic. The opinion of de I'Hospital however, was overruled in almost all instances, and had nierely the effect of making the leaders hesitate, and drawing their anger and hatred upon himself. The Prince de Conde, in the meantime, published manifesto after manifesto, wrote letters to all the principal towns and parliaments of France, to the i.mperor, and to most of the Princes of Germanv formed a council for himself in Orleans, and, by a well conducted series of operations, drew an immense number of noblemen and gentlemen into his party. He likewise got possession of Rouen, Dieppe

and Havre, Blois, Poitiers, Tours, Vendome, Valence, and Lyons. A number of other towns, though they did not entirely fall into the hands of the Huguenots, were divided between them and the Papists ; in some instances the citadels being possessed by the Roman Catholics, and the city by the Protestants, and in others the reverse ; while an immense number of fortified houses and villages, scattered all over the face of the country, declared in favor of the Reformers.

Money was wanting on both parts ; for, as w^e have already shewn, the finances of the state were at the lowest possible point, and the private fortune of the Huguenot nobles, though they all contributed to the utmost of their power, was but a feeble resource in carrying on the great operations of a war. Conde, however, had recourse to means for supplying funds which but exasperated the hatred of the Papists, seizing upon all the money contained in the treasury of the churches, and taking possession of the plate^ and images of gold and silver, with which, the ecclesiastical buildings of the Roman Catholics were richly endowed, for the purpose of coining money. In many of the towns which had been taken, large stores of ammunition, cannon, and other weapons of war were found, and brought to Orleans ; so that, in fact, the Huguenots were prepared to commence the campaign at an earlier period than their opponents.

It must be remarked, as one of the peculiar characteristics of the war that ensued, that

KING OF FRANCE AND NAVARRE. ^O.j

during the whole course of the military movements, negotiations were going on, and truces were granted every day. Taking advantage of the natural unwil-hngness of the Huguenot party to strike the first blow, the Duke of Guise and his friends contrived to gam time, by means of specious offers, while a ge-neral summons to all the Roman Catholic gentlemen of France, brought daily reinforcements to the army of the Triumvirate.

At length both parties took the field; the royal troops under the command of the King of Navarre amounting to four thousand horse, and six thousand foot ; the Protestant army led by the Prince de Conde and the Admiral, consisting of three thousand cavalry, and six thousand infantry. The Huguenot leaders, however, fixed themselves in a strong posi-t.on, four leagues from Orleans, which town was menaced by the royal forces, and the King of Navarre hesitated to attack them. In this state of affairs the Queen-mother was brought to the Roman Catholic camp ; and an interview took place between her and the Prince de Conde, half way between the two armies. The particulars of the conference are so differently reported by the historians of the time that It is impossible to arrive at any certainty re' garding them. All that we really know, is, that after some angry speeches on both sides, the conversation terminated by a jest. The Queen, looking at the followers of the Prince, whose arms were covered with white cassocks, observed, " Your people are

VOL. I.

millers, my good cousin." '' That is to drive your asses, madam,'' replied Conde; and thus they parted : hut as a number of friends and relations ranged on opposite sides, there met, perhaps, for the last time, it was remarked that the gentlemen, who had accompanied the Queen and the Prince de Conde, separated from each other with tears in their eyes.

Each faction now denounced the other in the most violent terms. Conde still insisted that the King and the Queen were held prisoners by the Triumvirate,* the members of which, he declared, were animated alone by views of ambition and self-interest, and by no zeal for religion,' or for the good of the state. He recited in his manifestoes the massacres which had been committed by them or their partizans ; he pointed out that all their edicts and proclama-tions were dictated by the Papal nuncio and the Spanish ambassador; he asserted that they had threatened to exile the Queen, or to put her to death ; and he demanded as the condition of his immediate submission, that the Duke of Guise, the Constable, and Marshal St. Andre, should quit the court, and give security not to return till the King reached the period of his majority. On these terms he offered to lay down his arms, and to retire at once to one of his own houses, giving his eldest son, the Marquis de Conti, and his other children, as hostages for his future conduct.!

The Guises, on their part,replied, putting forward the maintenance of the Catholic religion as their * Castelnaii, tome i. liv. iii. t Auvigny, tome iii.

KINO OF FRANCE AND NAVARRE. Q,^n

only motive ; and, after some further negotiations, the Triumvirate on the one hand offered t°o quit the realm, while the Prince do Conde proposed to place himself in the hands of the Queen and the King of Navarre, as a guarantee for the submission of Ao Protestants. It was subsequently determined that the leaders of both parties should leave the kingdom, and that entire liberty of conscience should be' granted to all men; but, at a third interview between the Prince and Catherine de Medicis, a tumult took place amongst Condi's followers, on the question of his quitting the realm beingdiscussed; and, declaring that they would not permit him to abandon them" they carried him off apparently by force, placed him on horseback, and brought him back to the camp. It has generally been supposed, that the Prince was not an unwilling victim of this apparent violence, but we have no absolute proof of the fact; though it IS clear that he was soon persuaded once more to take the command of the Huguenot army, at the head of which he attempted to surprise the' royal camp, during the temporary absence of the Constable and the Duke of Guise, who had retired to favor the negotiations for peace. Misled by his guides he failed in the enterprise ; and a series of manoeuvres followed, with which it is not necessary to embarrass this history.

While so much time had been spent in negotiations, the party of the Duke of Guise had not been idle in strengthening its militarv means;

Q 2

six thousand Swiss, and a body of German cavalry, under the Rhinegrave, were already on their march to support the Triumvirate ; nor can it be doubted, that if the stipulations made in the conference between Catherine and the Prince had been carried into effect, they would have been violated almost as soon as made. Conde would have remained a prisoner in the hands of his enemies, and Guise, at the head of a large army, would, once more, have ruled the country.

The £reat addition which the forces of the Tri-umvirate now received, overawed their opponents, and drove them to' apply eagerly to the Protestant Princes of Germany, and to the Queen of England, for the means of carrying on the war. A body of German auxilaries were already enlisted, and about to march ; and Elizabeth of England offered to send to their aid eight thousand men completely equipped; but only on condition that they would put into her hands the town of Havre, both as a sure retreat for her troops in case of a reverse, and as a guarantee for the restitution of Calais. She also required that English garrisons should be received in Dieppe and Rouen. To these hard conditions the Protestant leaders were induced to consent; and, not having troops sufficient to keep the field against the superior army of the enemy, while two of their number were sent to England to conclude the treaty with Elizabeth, D'Andelot and the Prince de Porcian, hastened into Germany to take the command of the forces raised for their service in that country, and

the other leaders were distributed amongst the principal towns which they had gained, in order to defend them till the foreign auxiliaries should arrive. Many of the noblemen, however, of the party, justly alarmed at the idea of introducing English troops into the kingdom, abandoned the cause in which they had before been zealous ; and the Duke of Guise lost no time in taking advantage of the preponderance which he had acquired, by the temporary superiority of his forces. Not venturing to attack" Orleans, he directed his first efforts against Blois, which was taken and pillaged without the slightest attempt to restrain the soldiery. Tours capitulated immediately afterwards upon favorable conditions ; Poitiers was captured in three days by Marshal St. Andre, in consequence of the base treachery of the governor who turned the cannon of the castle upon the defenders of the town. Bourges surrendered after considerable resistance; and it was determined by the Roman Catholic leaders to follow up their sue cesses by the siege of Rouen.

The treaty between the Huguenot chiefs and the Queen of England had now become public ; and, whatever might be the advantages which they expected ultimately to derive from it, the benefit was more than counterbalanced by the odium, which the principal articles drew down upon their heads, and by the violent indignation which it excited in the breast of Catherine de Medicis. That Princess alarmed for the safety of her son's kingdom, and apprehensive lest, under her government, the nation

which for so many years had retained possession of a French fortress, should once more gain footing in the country, now detached herself entirely from the party, she had hitherto undoubtedly favored, and joined herself in good faith to those she had previously reo-arded as her enemies. From this moment she never sincerely attached herself to any of the Protestant leaders, and always regarded them with a jealous and distrustful eye, even while she took advantage of their influence, to counterbalance that of the house of Lorraine. It was clearly with her full consent and approbation, that Coligni, D'Andelot, and their brother Odet de Chatillon,* were declared rebels by the parliament of Paris; and the determination of besieging Rouen, immediately after the fall of Bourges, is also very generally attributed to her anxious desire to drive the English out of France. By this time, Havre was in the hands of Elizabeth's troops, and although the governments of Dieppe and Rouen had been left in the hands of two French noblemen, the British garrison which each contained was too strong for the governor to have any real command in the place. The enterprise against Rouen was peculiarly agreeable to the great body of the French nobility ; and although the more experienced members of the council, strongly urged the necessity of attacking Orleans in the first place, the wishes of the Queen

* Formerly known as the Cardinal de Chatillon and Bishop of Beaiivais, but who had now renounced the Roman Cathohc religion, and taken the name of Count of Beauvais.

at length prevailed, and on the twenty-fifth of September, the royalist army, as I shall now call that of the Triumvirate, assembled at Darnetal within two leagues of the Norman capital.

In the mean time, careful preparations had been made for the defence of the place. The Count of Montgomery, from whose hand Henrv II. had met his death, had cast himself into the town ; and supported by two thousand English troops, twelve hundred regular French infantry, four squadrons of cavalry, more than a hundred Protestant gentlemen, and an immense crowd of armed citizens, he set the royal forces at defiance, and hoped to hold out the city, till the approach of winter drove the enemy from the field. He neglected no precautions, however ; and a half moon, which he caused to be constructed on one of the neighborinir hei^dits, oave great trouble to the besieging force, and greatly delayed their progress in the siege. The attack began on the side of Mount St. Catherine, on the summit of which, an old monastery, strongly fortified, afforded a sort of citadel to the besieged. For some time, all the efforts of the royalist army proved vain against this fort; but the over-confidence of the Huguenots proved their destruction. Though they interrupted the progress of the assailants, by frequent and vigorous sallies, so certain did they feel of the safety of Mount St. Catherine, that a great part of the garrison in the monastery, usually quitted it about mid-day, to enjoy themselves with their friends and companions in

Q3'2 THE LIFE OF HENRY IV.

the town. This fact having been discovered by Monsieur de Villars, brother-in-law of Davila the historian, he communicated the intelligence to the Duke of Guise and Montmorenci, and the fortress was accordingly taken by surprise, during the absence of a number of those, whose duty it was to defend it. The suburb of' St. Hilary, which had also been strongly fortified, was then destroyed by an incessant fire from Mount St. Catherine ; and Montgomery, seeing the rapid progress of the assailants, applied to his English allies in Havre, to send him immediate succor. Neither delay nor hesitation took place in acceding to his demand, and vessels were instantly sent up the Seine, charged with money, provisions, ammunition, and a strong reinforcement of British foot.

The royalist army attempted to obstruct the approach of the flotilla, by a stockade and by a number of vessels filled with sand and sunk in the river, joining the whole together by enormous chains, while the batteries commanded the line of advance, and fire-rafts were prepared to destroy the English ships, if they ventured to come near. Notwithstanding these terrible obstacles, the determined gallantry of the British commanders proved successful. The stockade was attacked under a tremendous cannonade ; and though some of the ships were burnt, the rest broke through the chains ; and a reinforcement of seven hundred infantry, with a large quantity of ammunition was thrown into Rouen.

f-^'^ri_iii-

KING OF FRANCE AND NAVARRE. QS3

Nevertheless the attack was continued with the utmost fury, and the approaches having been carried on with great skill by Italian engineers, a practicable breach was effected in the curtain, between the gates of St. Hilary and Martinville. Three regiments were ordered to prepare to storm; but while they were under arms in the trenches, the King of Navarre, who had just re-viewed them preparatory to the attack, received a musket ball in the shoulder, and instantly fell. For some time he was supposed to be dead, and the assault was suspended in consequence; but he shortly after recovered his senses, and lingered for some days, till death put an end to his sufferings at the neighboring village of Andelys, on the seven-teenth of November, 1562. His family always believed, and Henry IV. himself continued to assert, that the ball which caused his father's death did not come from the besieged town, but rather from the royalist camp.* It is certain, however, that this event produced great consternation in the army, and that the proposed assault upon the breach, was in consequence deferred till the following day! The cannonade was continued more furiously than

* Memoires de Nevers. It is not necessary to point out tlie errors committed by the good Bishop Perefixe, which are numei--ous regarding the life of Henry IV., and have been copied by many other authors. He places the retirement of Jeanne d'Al-bret from the court of France at the period of the death of her husband, but Cayet and others, personally attached to the House of Navarre, shew that she had retired into Beam long before.

Q3i< THE LIFE OF HENRY IV.

ever; Catherine herself appeared on horseback in the trenches ; and, on the twenty-sixth of October, Rouen was taken by storm, and given up to all the fury of the soldiery, for two days, every sort of crime and barbarity being committed in the town. The Count of Montgomery contrived to effect his escape in one of the English vessels which had broken through the stockade ; having, with the greatest coolness and devotion, placed his wife and children on board, before he quitted the town, which was then in full possession of the enemy.

We are assured that the Duke of Guise and Catherine de Medicis, had hesitated long and anxiously ere they would consent to the storming of the city.* Rouen was at that period one of the most important places of the kingdom, both by the number and riches of its inhabitants, and by its extensive commerce; and the pillage and destruction which inevitably follow a successful assault, was naturally dreaded by the besiegers, though their conduct after the capture of the town, does not permit us to suppose, that any feelings of pity for the citizens had a share in their reluctance. The Duke of Guise undoubtedly did all that was in his power to prevent the irregularities, which take place on such occasions. He harangued the troops before they marched to the attack, he endeavored to restrain them, both by exciting their fears, and bv holding out the prospect of full compensation * Anquetil. Castelriau, lib. iii. cap. 13.

KING OF FRANCE AND NAVARRE. Q35

for the loss of their plunder. But the effort was vain, and probably on no occasion was more merciless cruelty displayed, more brutal licentiousness, or more fierce rapacity. Four thousand persons are said to have been slaughtered in cold blood;* and the only body of troops which shewed any thing like subordination was the Swiss infantry,f famous at all times, alike for their courage, their devotion, and their discipline. Amongst the many extraordinary and lamentable events which took place during the siege of Rouen, we cannot refrain from pausing for a moment upon the strange fate of a Protestant gentleman named Francis Sevile.t

A few days before the fall of the city, this officer was wounded on the face by the shot of an arquebus, and having fallen, apparently dead, was carried away and buried with fifteen or sixteen others. At night his servant brought a horse for his master at the foot of the rampart, where, meeting the Count of Montgomery, he was informed that Sevile was dead and buried. The groom, an old and faithful servant of the house, insisted upon having the body to carry back to the relations of the dead officer 5 and Montgomery accordingly sent one

* Aubigne. Castelnau, who was present, says the pillage continued eight days. f Castelnau.

:|: Anquetil spells this name Civil. I do not know why; but I have adopted the orthography of Aubigne, who knew this gentleman personally, and declares that he had seen him write his name.

Qo6 THE LIFE OF HENRY IV.

of his suite to shew him where the corpses had heen interred. The groom immediately caused them to be taken out of their hasty graves, but finding them so disfigured with wounds, blood, and clay, that it was impossible to recognise the features of any one, he replaced the bodies, and cast the earth lightly over them again. While returning to his quarters, a feeling of remorse at the careless manner in which he and his companions had reinterred the dead, took possession of him, and he returned to the spot to cover their remains more completely, lest the dogs should disturb their last resting place in the night. The sun had by this time set, but in recovering one of the bodies, he saw, by the light of the moon, a diamond ring, of a peculiar form, on the hand, and instantly by that token recognised the corpse of his master. Being carried to an inn, Sevile displayed some signs of life, and his faithful servant having called several surgeons, besought them to employ their skill upon his master. The number of wounded, however, did not allow them to occupy their time with a hopeless case, and they refused to give him any attention. The groom subsequently brought a physician, and one of Sevile's friends, who saw, that though three days had by this time elapsed since that officer had been buried as dead, he still breathed; and, his teeth having been forced open, some wine and other nourishment was administered to him. While they were laboring earnestly to restore him to health, the town was

stormed and taken ; and a party of the enemy search-ing the house for Sevile's brother, whom they put to death without mercy, found the wounded man, and brutally threw him out of the window. He fell upon a dunghill, and some straw having been accidentally thrown over him, from a loft above, he remained three days in this unwholesome bed, where he was at length found, still living, by one of his cousins. He was then carried secretly out of the town, and under skilful treatment perfectly recovered. He lived for more than forty years after these events ; and whenever called upon to sign his name, he wrote, '* Francis Sevile, thrice dead, thrice buried, and thrice brought to life by the grace of God."*

Dieppe and Caen surrendered immediately after the fall of Rouen ; and a large body of German troops in the service of the court, with a small French force, was detached to keep Havre m check. These reverses spread consternation amongst the Protestants assembled at Orleans ; for though in the course of the civil war, which was proceeding with the most sanguinary barbarities on both sides in every province of the kingdom, some advantages had been gained by the Baron des Adrets and ^ other Protestant leaders, yet Montluc was making immense progress in Guienne, and in Pro-vence and Languedoc, the Count of Somariva, and the Count of Suza were carrying all before them.

* Aubigne. De Thou gives the same storv T^rith very slight variations ; but the account of Aubigne who knew him, is to be preieried.

The whole land was desolated by the plundering propensities of the foreign troops enlisted on both parts, by the bloody fury of civil war, and by the fiery zeal of religious fanaticism. Not a town but was the scene of strange and horrible cruelties, not a village but its inhabitants were subjected to pillage and massacre and persecution ; and reprisals in cold blood gave additional horrors to this lamentable scene of confusion and massacre.*= The Roman Catholic part of the parliament of Rouen, having been re-established in its functions, immediately commenced the work of butchery, by putting to death a number of the Protestant gentlemen who had been captured and four counsellors from its own body ;t and the parliament of Paris followed this sad example by the slaughter of a number of Protestants in the capital.

In retaliation for these acts, the Prince de Conde and his companions put to death two prisoners, who had been arrested a short time before ; one of whom was a member of the parliament of Paris, and the other a monk, abbot of Gastines in Tou-raine.J This act, which absolute necessity could hardly justify, seems first to have awakened the Roman Catholic party to a sense of the dangers, as w^ell as of the barbarity of the course they were pursuing ; but it produced no effect upon the furious bigotry of the commanders in the different

* Montluc, Castelnau, Aubigne, Le Laboureur. f Aiibigne. t Le Laboureur.

provinces, and a war of extermination was carried on; Montluc and his companions seeming to calculate with cold-blooded determination, that as the Protestants were in about the proportion of one, to a hundred Catholics, the party must be ultimately annihilated, if slaughtered wherever they were found. The Huguenots, however, at the moment of the greatest depression, were re-invigorated by fresh hopes; and Conde found himself in a condition to take the field, when it was least expected. Nothing had reached him for some weeks but tidings of misfortune, when, late in October, or the beginning of November, La Rochefoucault joined him, after having taken two small towns, and gathered together the remains of a considerable force, which, und°er the command of the Count de Duras, had been defeated by Montluc. A great number of other Protestants also hastened to support the Prince de Conde from all parts of the south and west; but, althouah their arrival tended greatly to increase the stren<Hh of the army, the cause of their hasty junction v,^th the Prince, was a sign of the weakness of the Protestant party in the provinces. The cities from which they came, were generally those which had shewn themselves very eager in the cause of the Reformation, so long as there appeared a prospect of establishing liberty of conscience bv force of arms; but the disasters wliich had lately occurred crowned by the fall of Rouen, had sti'uck terror into all but the most devoted and the most enthu-

siastic. The white cassock, the distinguishing sign of the Protestant party, was thrown aside ; one half of the Huguenots in the principal communes, hastened to rejoin the Papists, and the whole country, to use the expression of Aubigne, was full of those in whom ** fear made conscience." The rest of the Protestants, finding themselves no longer in security at home, took the field under diff'erent leaders, and in general marched towards Orleans.

But a much more important accession of strength arrived nearly at the same time with La Rochefou-cault. Both parties had eagerly courted the Protestant Princes of Germany, in the hope of obtaining that armed assistance, which would give them the superiority over their adversary; and the German troops under the command of the Rhinegrave had, as we have seen, done good service at the siege of Rouen' and already menaced Havre. On the part of the Prince de Conde and his companions, D'Andelot had been sent to the banks of the Rhine, to negotiate for the levy of auxiliaries ; and, notwithstanding all the effbrts of the French court to deter the German Princes from acceding to his views, he had completely gained the Landgrave of Hesse, who aided him stre-nuously. After some difiiculties with the Duke of Wurtemburg and the Elector Palatine, he succeeded in raising a considerable body of men,* and also induced several of the petty sovereigns of Germany, to send messengers to such of their subjects as had taken

Aubigne. Castelnau.

service with the court of France, commanding them to retire on pain of being put to the ban.* He even seems to have acquired great power over the mind of the Duke of Wurtemberg; that Prince, as well as the Landgrave and several others, being highly irritated at the conduct of the Rhinegrave ; who, not content with entering into the service of the Catholic party in France, though himself a Protestant, had persecuted the Huguenots at Bourges and other places, with all the fury of a religious opponent.! In the midst of his negotiations, D'An-delot was attacked by a severe return of quartan fever, with which he had been seized some time before, and was detained in a weak state at Stras-burg for several days. He there, however, received a supply of money to pay the troops which he had raised, and, anxious to lose no time, caused himself to be carried in a litter to Bacharach, where he reviewed a body of three thousand reiters, (the name then given to the German cavalry,) and four thousand lanzknechts, with whom he began his march m the middle of October, having previously concluded an arrangement with the Duke of Lorraine for a peaceable passage through his dominions.

Nevertheless, numerous dangers awaited him in his advance; for, on the frontiers of Champagne were stationed the Duke of Nevers and Marshal M. Andre, at the head of a large force of well disciplined horse and foot, with orders to oppose his

* Ustelnau, 116. f Auvigny.

VOL. I. ' S ^

a

progress, and, if necessary, to give him battle. Well served by his scouts, D'Andelot seems to have been made aware of all the movements of the enemy ; and, turning suddenly from his direct course, he entered Burgundy just above the source of the Seine. Thence hurrying on by forced marches, he got into the rear of those who had been stationed to oppose him. The rest of his course towards Orleans was easy, and the news of his rapid approach reached Conde, unexpectedly, at the very time he was rejoicing at the arrival of La Rochefoucault.*

Thus, suddenly strengthened beyond their hopes, the Protestant princes determined immediately to march upon Paris, notwithstanding the approach of winter. D'Andelot, who was still suffering from fever, being left for the time in Orleans, Conde and the Admiral commenced their advance in the beginning of November, 1562 ; and, taking four small towns by the way, they reached, unopposed, the village of Arceuil, within a short distance of the capital, and there fixed their head-quarters.

The court and the principal leaders of the Roman Catholic army, had by this time returned to Paris ; and the Constable and the Duke of Guise took vigorous measures for the defence of the city. The troops which had been sent to cat off D'Andelot, were recalled from Champagne ; other forces were sum-moned from Guienne and the southern disti'icts of France ; and messengers were sent to hasten the advance of a considerable body of Spanish troops, * Auvigny. Aubigne. La Noue.

which had been put at the disposal of the Duke of Guise, by the most Catholic King. But while Guise himself quitted the town, and took up a posi-tion in the suburbs, fortifying them with stockades and entrenchments, the Queen-mother employed her usual arms of negotiation and duplicity, to amuse the Protestant leaders, till such time as all the expected reinforcements had arrived.*

Though so often deceived, and by no means without suspicion of the real purposes of the Queen, Conde and the Admiral suffered themselves to fall into the trap. Several gallant skirmishes took place, indeed; and the cannon of the Huguenot army thundered at the gates of Paris; but no vigorous movement was made to compel the town to surrender, or to take it by assault. Many days were wasted in negotiation, during which time reinforcements continually poured in to the support of the court; and on the tenth of December, 1562, Conde, finding his force greatly lessened by desertion, whilst that of the enemy was infinitely augmented, decamped from before the walls of Paris, and began his retreat upon Normandy.

^ In that province he expected to find time to refresh his troops, and also to receive assistance of men and money from England.f But the army of the court, under the chief command of the Constable, followed

* Castelnau does not conceal that there was no sincerity in the overtures made by the court, and admits tliat they were put forward solely with a view to amuse the Hugueuot leaders till the Roman Catholic party was in a condition to oppose them in arms Castelnau, 118. + Castelnau.

R 2

him in his retreat; and many of his partisans, disappointed at the result of the siege of Paris, abandoned him by the way, so that of nine thousand foot and four thousand horse with which he commenced his retreat from Arceuil, he had lost nearly two thousand of the infantry before the battle of Dreux.

Pausing at the town of St. Arnoul, on the way to Chartres, the Huguenot leaders received intelligence of the exact position of the army of the court; and, finding that Guise and Montmorenci had left the capital almost entirely destitute of troops, (Jonde proposed to the council of war, a plan worthy of his genius and his courage. He shewed that by a rapid march, they could turn the flank of the enemy, and in all probability, reach the crates of Paris before Montmorenci was aware of their movements. The undefended town might, either be forced to capitulate at once, or be taken by storm if it pretended to resist; and, in possession of the capital with all its resources, and having a multitude of their principal enemies in their power, the Protestant chiefs might give law to the rest of France, and fix their authority upon a basis, from which it would be impossible afterwards to throw it

down.

The cautious prudence of Coligni, however, was opposed to the rash energy of Conde. He represented the dangers attending such an enterprise ; the chance of Paris making a successful resistance, during the short space that was necessary for the

KING OF FRANCE AND NAVARRE. 245

army of the court to retread its steps ; the certainty, m such a case, of being hemmed in between two enemies; the risk of losing Orleans, and all the stores and ammunition which it contained. The opinion of Conde was overruled ;* and, much against his inclination, he continued his march in retreat, the Admiral asserting, there was no probability that the Catholic army would seek a battle, and, if we are to believe the account of the Marquis de Castelnau. neglecting some of those precautions which his experience and foresight ought to have suggested.

In the meanwhile, it was eagerly debated in the Catholic camp, whether a general engagement should be hazarded or not; and Montmorenci and Guise despatched two messengers to the court at Vincennes, to ask the opinion of the Queen and her counsellors. Catherine was greatly embarrassed by this application, which was communicated to her as she was rising. There can be little doubt, that she had no great wish to see the houses of Montmorenci and Guise, elevate themselves too high by a brilliant victory, and still less that they should fall before the sword of Conde and the Admiral As she was about to lead Castelnau, who brought her the intelligence, to the chamber of her son, the young Prince's nurse entered the room ; and, pointing to her, Catherine exclaimed, «' It is very extra ordinary that three great and veteran commanders, should send for the advice of women and children

upon a point of war. Ask the nurse, ask the nurse, she will tell you what to do."^

The woman, who was a peasant of considerable abilities, and accustomed to speak her opinions boldly, replied without hesitation, though herself a Huo-uenot, " Since the Protestants will not be con-tented with reasonable terms, you have nothing left but to fight them." The matter was afterwards referred to the council, but from them Castelnau could draw no opinion, the whole body prudently declaring that no one could judge of the necessity or the expediency of a battle, except those who commanded in the field. On receiving this message from the court, the three leaders of the Roman Catholic army determined to risk an engagement. A movement was immediately made in order to pass the river Eure ; but it would seem that some unnecessary delay took place, and that the Prince was suffered to extricate himself from the difficult ground in the neighborhood of the small town of Trion, where the narrowness of the roads, and the number of trees, would have impeded the manoeuvres of his cavalry, and given great advantage to the superior infantry of the royalists. On the other hand, a great mistake was committed by the Admiral and the Prince de Conde,in allowing the Roman Catholic forces to pass the river unopposed;* and indeed, it would seem that they were perfectly ignorant of the movements of their adversaries after quitting Arnoul.

The troops of Montmorenci, however, advanced

'^ Castelnau.

in good order upon their flank, both armies tending towards the town of Dreux, a battle having become inevitable after the movements of the eighteenth of December. Nevertheless, although Conde still persisted in his opinion, that the generals of the court were advancing to engage them, the Admiral, for reasons which have never been discovered, continued to maintain to the last that no combat would take place ; and even on the very morning of the battle, he was not in the field till several hours after the Prince de Conde had mounted his horse. His obstinacy, and the high opinion entertained of his sagacity, misled a great number of the Protestant gentlemen, who made no preparations for the approaching engagement, so that many of them were forced to fight through the whole day, with nothing but their ordinary clothes and arms, against enemies covered with complete armour.

The march having commenced across the large elevated plains, which characterize that part of the country, the Huguenot army was joined by D'Andelot from Orleans, who, it would seem, was as fully convinced that a battle was approaching, as his brother was that none would occur. He arrived, suffferinff severely from the fever* by which he was affected ; but nevertheless he immediately mounted a horse, and proceeded to reconnoitre the enemy, whose drums were already to be heard. From the corner of a small wood he gained a full view of their position, which was in the form of a crescent, each winef beinir

* Aubigne.

S48 THE LIFE OF HENRY IV.

flanked by a village occupied by the royalist troops. The main body of the army was seen through the opening between the two hamlets, in a line, fifteen hundred paces long; while the advanced guard, commanded by Marshal St. Andre, was at first placed somewhat behind the village on the left, with a reserve commanded by the Duke of Guise, consisting in the whole of about two thousand five hundred men ; but this order was afterwards changed, and the several corps brought nearly on a line.*

The numbers of the Catholic force are variously stated. That it was inferior in cavalry to the Huguenot army is clear, and according to the account of Castelnau, who was present on the side of the court, the royalist troops amounted to not more than fourteen thousand foot, two thousand horse, and a considerable train of artillery. Aubigne, on the contrary, calculated the whole at twenty-four thousand men. He names the different companies of which it was composed, and which, had they been at their full complement, would undoubtedly have given the number he states : but in all probability, neither the companies of foot, nor the cornets of horse had been completed. The Protestant force was very inferior in strength, comprising between seven and eight thousand foot, and four thousand horse, with only five guns ; while the reiters were embarrassed with baggage, and the foreign lanzknechts were not

* Such is shewn to have been the case by the account dictated by Guise himself, though he does not admit that they were attacked before their arrangements were complete.

much to be depended upon. The sight of the formidable force arrayed to oppose their progress, Uruck D'Andelot with considerable alarm; andpro-ceedmg in haste to the Prince de Conde, he told him what he had seen, and strongly advised him to re-treat, and avoid the battle, while it was yet possible Cond^ determined to follow this prudent advice, and for that purpose ordered the head of the column to turn upon Trion. But a small body of the reiters in front, having exposed themselves to the enemy turned from the fire which was opened upon them • and the Constable immediately ordered his forces to advance, imagining that Conde' was by this time in full retreat.

Finding that the battle could not be avoided, how ever, the Prince had made up his mind to become the attacking party, and was disposing his forces for that purpose, at the moment when Montmorenci at the head of the main body of Catholics, advanced with great rapidity, between the two villages of Ble ville and Epine,* and took up a new position in front ot that which he formerly occupied. The Marshal St. Andre at the same time, having received orders to advance, hastened forward also by the same path which was taken by the Constable. The movement of Montmorenci, however, had been so rapid, that the greater part of the ground was occupied by his troops, when St. Andre arrived at the position which

* I find the name of tins village written Pigne in two contemporary p aus of the battle in my possession ; but when I my.df vsued the field the place was called by the villagers Epine

he intended to take up, and the advanced guard was left somewhat in the rear of the main hody.

The serious error which had been committed, was instantly perceived by Conde, who hastened to take advantage of it. Wheeling his whole force, he presented a new face to the enemy ; and outflanking the battalions of the Constable, who by this manoeuvre was placed in front of the Admiral, with the advanced guard of the Huguenots, Conde himself appeared upon the flank of St. Andre. But, instead of paying any attention to that ofiicer, who remained motionless, and apparently hesitating what to do, the Prince at once began the battle by an attack upon the main body of the enemy, charging furiously the Swiss infantry, which formed the bulk of Montmorenci's force. The Swiss were instantly broken by the fierceness of the onset ; but, with their characteristic discipline and resolution, they speedily rallied ; and, supported by the Duke de Damville, Montmorenci's son, with a considerable body of well disciplined horse, they ultimately repelled the first attack, but were again and again broken, by the repeated charges of the enemy. In this part of the field, very early in the day, the Constable lost his fourth son, the Baron de Mont-brun, who fell while supporting the eff'orts of his brother Damville.

In the meantime, while such events were taking place on the flank of Montmorenci's division, he himself was attacked in front with the utmost fury, bv the Huguenot advanced guard under Coligni.

At this period of the battle the superiority of the Protestant cavalry told considerably. Finding his troops shaken and alarmed, and the enemy penetrating into the very heart of his battalions, the Constable displayed as much fiery courage as the youngest of his companions, mingling fiercely with the enemy hand to hand ; and while not the slightest assistance was offered to him, either by St. Andre or the Duke of Guise, he protracted the combat, till, at length, after having had two horses killed under him, he received a severe wound in the face, and was forced to surrender to a gentleman of the name of Bussy. By this time, the Swiss, though completely defeated, were making their way to the division of Marshal St. Andre ; and Damville, finding his father taken, the infantry in retreat, and the force to which he was attached irretrievably lost, hastened to the Duke of Guise, beseeching him to advance to the rescue of the Constable. But Guise still refused to move, saying, it was not yet time ;* and much to the mortification of his son, Montmo-renci was left in the hands of the enemy, without one effort being made to save him.f

In the meanwhile, the Huguenot troops were preparing the way for their own defeat. The resistance offered by the Swiss, and the efforts of Damville at the head of his cavalry, had greatly scattered the Huguenot forces j and though the Admiral and

* Lc Labourcur.

t Guise, in liis own account of the battle, acknowledges this fact.

Conde had now joined each other, they were separated from a large body of French foot, which formed their principal infantry, and also from the reiters who had done such good services against the Swiss of the royalist army. Suddenly, Marshal St. Andre and the Duke of Guise began to move. The latter had, at the beginning of the battle, aifected to hold no command in the army, except that of his own company of gens d'armes and a small body of Spanish troops, which had been placed under his orders. With these, however, he now advanced, and by a well conducted and determined charge upon the confused masses of Huguenot infantry, he drove them before him in flight and disarray ; while St. Andre, leading on the advanced guard and a battalion of lanzknechts against the reiters of Conde's army, struck such terror into them by his sudden attack, that they began to fly precipitately from the

field.

The consternation of Conde and the Admiral, on seeing the day thus unexpectedly turn against them was very great; and while the Prince remained to maintain the ground, Coligni hastened after the fugitives, who, having passed the small corps com-manded bv D'Andelot in spite of all that officer's efforts to rally them, and crossed a little valley in his rear, halted on the top of the hill till the Admiral arrived.

Before he could bring them back to the charge, however, various changes had come over the state of aff*airs. St. Andre himself had been taken, and

instantly put to death by a Protestant gentleman, whose estates he had caused to be confiscated with that greedy spirit for which he was notorious. But the Duke of Guise pursuing his advantage, had advanced against the Prince de Conde, who, though destitute of forces to resist the body that was moving to attack him, would not consent to quit the field. Damville, in the meanwhile, eager to obtain some guarantee for the speedy liberation of his father, kept his eyes fixed upon tbe Prince, and as soon as the order was given to charge, directed his whole efibrts to make him prisoner, assailed him in person, at the head of his company, and forced him to sur-render.

Damville, in common with the other royalist officers, it would seem, had requested the Duke of Guise, on the death of Marshal St. Andre, to take the command of the army ;* though Martigues and himself were both superior in military rank,t to the Lorrainese Prince, since he had been stripped of the title of Lieutenant-General. He now shewed the best spirit of subordination, by leading Conde to Guise, and placing his prisoner at the Duke's disposal.

The battle was not yet concluded, however, for by this time Coligni had rallied the reiters ; and with them and the French horse under La Roche-foucault, he made one more great effort to retrieve the day. The most furious cavalry fight that had yet taken place now ensued ; the Admiral himself lead-* Castelnau. ^ Le Laboui-eur.

ing the charge against Guise, with such fury, that not a hundred of the royalist cavaliers were left together. But the infantry decided the fate of the field. Martigues, in command of the arquebusiers, advanced to the support of Guise, and opened a terrible fire upon Coligni; while the Duke rallied his cavalry, and once more presented a firm face to the enemy.

Night was now coming on ; the scattered forces of the court were reassembling in all parts of the plain ; and finding that any further efibrts could but end in his own destruction, the Admiral retreated in good order, carrying ofi* the greater part of his cannon and baggage, and accompanied by his uncle Montmorenci as a prisoner. Guise made a show of following, but the superior cavalry of the Huguenots rendered the pursuit vain ; and Coligni took up his quarters for the night at the village of Neufville, not two leagues from the field of battle. He was there joined in the morning by D'Andelot, with a considerable body of infantry ; and although the ground had remained in possession of the Duke of Guise, so little did the Admiral look upon the result of the battle as a complete defeat, that he proposed to return and risk another combat, while the enemy were in the midst of their rejoicings.* He could not induce the German auxiliaries, however, to follow him to the field, and was consequently obliged to continue his retreat.

* Castelnau. The same trait of pertinacity i^ mentioned in the account dictated by Guise.

As usual, upon this occasion neither party would admit that the other had won the battle. The Huguenots alleged that the Duke of Guise had retired to Dreux,* and consequently had not actually maintained the field. They also pointed out, that the slaughter had been much greater amongst the Catholics than amongst themselves ; only about two thousand five hundred being found missing at Neuf-ville on the following day, while from six to eight thousand men undoubtedly remained dead upon the field.t The number of men of distinction, who had fallen, was likewise much more terrible on the part of the court. The Constable's son, Marshal St. Andre, La Brosse, lieutenant of the Duke of Guise, the Duke of Nevers, Marshal Annebaut, the Lord of Givri, the Count de Rochefort, Beauvais, Nangis, Des Bordes,t and many others were lost to the

* Aubigne. Coligni himself published an account of the battle of Dreux, which was sent round to all the principal Protestant towns.

t Catherine de Medicis herself, in a letter to the Bishop of Rennes, calculates the total loss on both parts, at from six to seven thousand. Aubigne declares that, at least, eight thousand fell; and Castelnau assures us that he heard the report of the dead made to the Duke of Guise, of the numbers found upon the field of battle, which amounted to between eight and nine thousand.

X It is told that Des Bordes, who was attached to tlie Duke of Nevers, shot that prince accidentally in the battle, while lookin<-at one of his pstols to see that it was properly charged, and i°t IS supposed that, in consequence of this unhappy event, that gentleman afterwards sought death and found it, upon the plain 01 Dreux. ^

Roman Catholic party. Very few leaders fell on the part of the Protestants ; and on either side the commander-in-chief was taken. But although the Huguenot writers have endeavored to shew, that the combat at Dreux might be considered as a drawn battle, yet impartial posterity has decided the question differently, and attributed the victory to those who obtained the fruits of success.

The Duke of Guise displayed, in the hour of triumph, great and laudable moderation. He received the Prince de Conde with the greatest kindness and courtesy; and in the difficulty of finding accommodation in the town of Dreux, he shared his own bed with his illustrious captive, who, as may well be supposed, closed not his eyes during the whole night, though Guise slept soundly upon the downy pillow of success.

Nevertheless, the conduct of the Duke in the battle did not pass without censure. It was remarked, that he who had been able to turn the fortune of the day, and wrest the meed of victory from the hands of a triumphant enemy, after the main body of the army had been utterly routed and the commander-in-chief taken prisoner, had stood by, an unmoved spectator, till the defeat of Montmorenci was complete, and had given not the slightest assistance to him, whom it was his duty to support. It is clear, also, that by this course of proceeding, he obtained all the glory of the day, and raised his fame as a leader, at the expense of his reputation for candor and honesty. The friends of

KING OF FRANCE AND NAVARRE. S57

Montmorenci did not scruple to declare, that the Constable had been shamefully abandoned, by those who were jealous of his authority and renown ; nor have we seen any full justification of the Duke of Guise's conduct upon this occasion.*

Each party had captured several prisoners of rank, and each had taken a quantity of baggage, standards, and arms, which were displayed as trophies of victory. But the first news, indeed, which reached the court of France, were those of defeat, some fugitives having carried to Vincennes, the tidings of Montmorenci's disaster and the rout of the main body. Many hours of consternation fol-lowed, before the Queen and her companions were made aware of the favorable termination of the battle ;t and even then, the joy which this intelli-gence afiPorded, was sadly mingled with regret, when the number of distinguished persons who had fallen, came to be mentioned.

While the Duke of Guise proceeded to Ram-bouillet, (whither the court almost immediately removed,) and received commendation, honor, and reward from Catherine and her son, Coligni, sending his illustrious prisoner to Orleans, marched

* Montaigne has written an essay upon tlie subject; which, however, leaves the conduct of the Duke as doubtful as'beforej and Guise in his statement admits that he made not the slightest effort to support Montmorenci till the whole main body and part of St. Andre's division had been routed.

t Catherine, in her letter to the Bishop of Rennes, says four and twenty hours.

VOL. r. ^

boldly through the country, attacking and taking a number of small towns, almost within sight of the royal army ; and then, learning that the court had removed to Chartres with the intention of laying siege to Orleans, he visited the latter city, and took every precaution for its defence; after which he retired into Normandy, in order to re-open his communication with England. By the way, he made himself master of several important places, the principal of which was Caen. The re-capture of that town from the hands of the royalists, was of greater importance from the money which it contained, than from'its military strength, as the reiters in the pay of the Huguenot party were beginning to murmur for their arrears.

In the course of a few weeks, Coligni, with the forces now at his command, made himself master of Bayeux, St. Lo, Avranches, Vire, Honfieur, and other places ; and then, retreading his steps, as if with the intention of drawing nearer to Orleans, he took Falaise, Berne, Argentan, L'Aigle, Mortagne, and La Charite. But while he had been engaged in these proceedings, most important events had taken place on the banks of the Loire, which brought hostilities to a much more speedy conclusion, than the gain of a battle or the capture of a

city.

Advancing at the head of considerable forces, the Duke of Guise commenced the siege of Orleans, in the beginning of February. Many difficulties op-

posed themselves to the first movements of the royal army; and one of the suburbs, which was attacked and taken, cost the Duke some of his best troops. D'Andelot, though still suffering from fever, exerted himself vigorously and effectually for the defence of the place ; and the royal forces had to pay dear for every advantage they attained. The weakest side of Orleans, seemed to the Duke of Guise and his companions to be the water front of the city; and there, it was determined to make a great effort, by bringing down boats filled with troops, and dislodging the Huguenots, from the small islands, which they occupied. The preparation of these boats, however, required time ; and, while Guise kept up a fierce cannonade upon the walls, determined to take the fox's hole, as he called it, Catherine de Medicis, jealous of the extraordinary power he had acquired since the defeat and capture of the Constable, w^as not only listening to overtures for peace, but was employing the charms of her licentious maids of honor (a means not at all uncommon with that sagacious but unscrupulous Queen,) to seduce the Prince de Conde from the party he had espoused.

The knowledge that such secret negotiations were going on, had no other effect upon the mind of Guise, than to incite him to more vigorous action ; but the spirits and energies of the Protestants, were kept up by the successes of Coligni in Normandy, and the still more extraordinary exploits of a

s 2

gentleman named De Piles, in the south. It had been the custom of Montluc and his barbarous companions, not content with slaughtering the Huguenots in the field, or putting them to death one by one in cold blood, to gather a number of prisoners together in various towns and fortresses, for the purpose of giving the Catholic population, from time to time, the spectacle of a grand execution. These brutal acts on the part of the persecutors of his religion, filled with indignation the breast of De Piles, then a mere boy, fresh from school,* and putting himself at the head of thirty of his companions, he entered the town of Bergerac in the middle of the day, attacked the garrison in the streets, killed and made prisoners a great number of the enemy, and opening the gates of the prisons, delivered his fellow Protestants from the fate for which they had been reserved. Hurrying thence to Sainte Foi, he met with the same success, leaving eighty of the Catholics dead in the town ; and his forces, increasing by the prisoners whom he liberated, he was enabled to take both the city and citadel of Mucidan by escalade. He then gained a still more important advantage over the governor of Peri-gueux, who was marching to attack him, and subsequently forced his way once more into Bergerac; where, after a desperate resistance, he made himself master likewise of the castle, and, I regret to add, displayed a degree of ferocity little less

* Aubigne.

brutal than that of Montluc himself. It must always be remembered, however, in considering the cruelties committed by both parties in these wars, that aggression and persecution were upon the part of the Roman Catholics, and that the sanguinary acts of the Protestants, though deeply to be lamented, were committed in retaliation for still more terrible evils already endured.

Although the successes of this young and daring leader, had no very great effect on the military position of the contending parties in Guienne, they served to restore confidence to the Huguenots, both in the districts where they were achieved, and in the besieged city of Orleans. But the deliverance of that place, and the temporary restoration of tranquillity, were destined to be accomplished by a private hand and a great and detestable crime.

The negotiations, which Catherine de Medicis had commenced with the Huguenot party, were proceeding slowly, and the operations against the town of Orleans were considerably advanced, when a rumor was suddenly spread through the Roman Catholic army, that the Duke of Guise had been wounded by one of his attendants.* This report, though it was, as usual with the first tidings of great events, inaccurate in some particulars, was nevertheless true regarding the principal fact, and consternation spread through the forces occupied in the siege.

* Letter of the Spanish ambassador. Memoires de Conde, vol. ii. p. 132.

The person who inflicted the wound could scarcely be called an attendant of the Duke; but it would seem, that some time before, he had applied to be taken into the service of that Prince, and had been received by him into the royal army, though in what capacity does not clearly appear. His name was John Poltrot, lord of the small fief of Maire, or Mere, near Aubeterre: he was bankrupt in fortune, adventurous in disposition, and wild and braggart in his demeanor and language. Educated by the Spaniards, and having passed, we are told, some years in the Peninsula, he had acquired so completely the manners and the speech of Spain, that it was impossible to distinguish him from the natives of that country, to whom he bore a considerable resemblance in features and complexion.* These circumstances qualified him well for the task of a spy upon the movements of the royalist generals, and in that capacity he had been employed by the Admiral, who furnished him with a small sum to purchase a horse and other necessaries for his enterprise.f With these he had joined the Duke of Guise, after having publicly declared, in conversation with his Protestant comrades, that it was his determination to shoot that Prince upon the first occasion. No importance was attached to his words, however, as his braggart disposition was well known ; and it appears, that when the deed was accomplished, it excited as much * Aubigne. f Castelnau.

astonishment in the Huguenot camp, as in that of the Papists.

What was the cause of his enmity towards the Duke, and whether he was driven by party zeal, stimulated by religious fury, or incited by the persuasions of others and the hope of reward, to the commission of this crime; or, on the contrary, whether he was moved only by the vain desire of obtaining an unenviable distinction, through an act as bold and resolute, as it was detestable, must remain ever in doubt. But, however that may be, he pursued his purpose with a degree of coolness, determination, and courage, which could not have failed to obtain honor and applause, had it been exercised for a better object. Watching his opportunity, when the Duke of Guise had gone out with Philip Strozzi and Monsieur de Rostaing, one of the king's officers, to reconnoitre the besieged place, previous to the grand attack which he meditated, Poltrot waited patiently on horseback behind a hedge, till his victim returned. Guise was accompanied by few attendants, Strozzi having gone on before; and the assassin shot him with a pistol loaded with three balls, the moment he had passed his place of concealment. The bullets struck the unfortunate Prince on the right shoulder, a little above the arm-pit; and one, if not more, passed out in front without entering the chest or breaking any bone. He immediately fell from his horse, and was raised by de Rostaing and his servants.

While the assassin was permitted to ride away

g64 THE LIFE OF HENRY IV.

unpursued, the Duke was carried into the nearest house, and surgeons were sent for, who, on examining the wound, rashly pronounced that no danger was to he apprehended. But a suspicion having arisen that the halls might be poisoned. Guise, according to the foolish superstition of the day, caused charms to be employed to counteract the venom.* The expectations of his recovery, however, speedily diminished ; and the surgeons had recourse to various operations, which probably, in the lamentable state of medical knowledge at that time, only served to aggravate his sufferings. Nevertheless, hopes were entertained to the last; but, six days after he received the wound, the Duke terminated his career, on the twenty-fourth of February, 1563, in violent convulsions-t We are assured, by a Protestant writer,:]: that on his death-bed, the Duke expressed extreme regret for the massacre of Vassi; and with his last breath besought the Queen to conclude a peace, as soon as possible, with the Huguenots; pronouncing those who should turn her from such a course to be the real enemies of France.

Thus died, in the prime of life, Francis of Lorraine, Duke of Guise, beyond all doubt one of the greatest men of his age. At once dignified and affable, courteous though proud, liberal though grasping, generous though ostentatious ; though occasionally cruel, not generally severe ; though unbounded in ambition, not without indications of a

* Letter of the Spanish amhassador before cited, t Castehiau. Aubigne. % Aubigne.

patriotic spirit and noble self-devotion. To his friends and supporters, his bounties knew no limit. To his rivals his conduct was less magnanimous, so long as they retained any power to injure him. Appreciating great qualities, even when they were different from those which he himself possessed, he admired the high genius and fiery ardor of the Prince de Conde; but esteemed less, perhaps, than they merited, the calmer and more calculatincr skill of the Admiral de Coligni, and the rude and domineering, though powerful, mind of the Constable de Montmorenci. His conduct towards the latter, at the battle of Dreux, as well as the severities which he exercised upon those who had been entrapped into his hands at Amboise, have left his character upon the page of history, stained with the charge of faithlessness and treachery, which even his generous treatment of the Prince de Conde, and the chivalrous courtesy which he displayed on many other occasions, have not been able to efface. Nevertheless, the higher points of his character so far predominated over the baser, that, while he was loved and mourned with intense affection and profound grief by his friends and companions, he was admired and even regretted by his political enemies, and his rivals in the career of ambition. **Thus died,'* says the celebrated Protestant historian of those days, '*this great captain, excellent as a soldier in all points, but above all, in the reconnoitring of fortresses; whose genius would have tended, not to the ruin, but to

the aggrandizement of France, in another season, and under another reign."*

Numerous other epitaphs, laudatory and condemnatory, commemorated the virtues and the faults of this commander; but few, excepting a brief Latin poem, attributed to the pen of the famous Chancellor de L'Hospital, did justice alike to the good and bad qualities of the dead. Perhaps it may be said, that both were carried to an extraordinary height in the Duke of Guise, and the circumstances in which he was placed called them equally into operation.

The fate of his assassin was that which usually overtakes the murderer. With every opportunity of escape,-—mounted on a powerful horse, unpursued durinof several hours, and but a short distance from a large body of Huguenot forces,—^^he wandered about till the following morning, when, brought back, as if by some irresistible power, to the scene of his crime, he was accidentally found, sleeping in a barn very near the spot where he had fired upon the Duke. He was arrested immediately upon suspicion,! and without the slightest hesitation confessed the deed. He also at first declared, not only that he had been

* I have ventured to change the last word of this quotation, in order to restore what I beheve the real sense of the author : for the word, "frere, brother," for which I have substituted, reign, is evidently a misprint; Guise, having only served under one brother of Charles IX. during whose reign he could not be said to have done any thing for the aggrandizement of France.

f Castelnau. Aubigne. Memoiresde Conde.

KING OF FRANCE AND NAVARRE. S67

instigated to assassinate Guise, by the Admiral and Theodore Beza, but that there were a number of other persons spread over the country, and bound by oath, to put the principal leaders of the Roman Catholic party to death.* Little credit was attached to this tale even at the time, especially as the reward which he asserted that Coligni had given him, was a very inadequate inducement for the commission of so criminal and hazardous an act. All that he even pretended to have received, was two hundred crowns ; and, although the Admiral at once admitted that he had paid him that sum, to act as spy in the royal camp, both that great leader and Beza, indignantly denied that they had done anything to persuade him to commit the crime which he had perpetrated ; adding, that they were sure, the accusation had been wrung from him, either by torture or by promise of pardon. Such, however, was not the fact; and when subsequently a cruel and horrible death was presented to him, after having undergone all that a barbarous age could inflict,t he retracted the charge, exculpated every one but himself; and acknowledging, that if the deed were still to be done, he would perform it, he was torn to pieces by four horses, with this singular avowal on his lips.

Some demonstrations were made of a desifirn to continue the siege of Orleans j but the death of the

* Letter of the Spanisli ambassador.

t The word used by Aubigae is Teaaille, which gives a horrible idea of the torture to which he was subjected.

Duke of Guise, together with the successes of the Admiral in Normandy, and his rapid approach towards the royal camp, spread such consternation amongst the counsellors of the Queen, that she hastened the negotiations for peace, which had been commenced. The Constable and the Prince de Conde, having taken part therein, their natural desire to recover their freedom, as well as the anxiety of the Princess de Conde to withdraw her husband from a state of imprisonment, not less detrimental to her domestic happiness, than to his own honor and comfort, facilitated the measures of Catherine, and brought about a treaty of peace, which promised but few advantages to the Protestants, and no very stable tranquillity to the realm. A general amnesty, with liberty of conscience, were the principal features of the treaty. Certain towns were named in various parts of France, in which the Protestants might exercise the ceremonies of their religion openly ; no persecution whatsoever was to take place in regard to points of faith ; all persons were to be restored to their property, honors, and offices; all prisoners were to be liberated on both parts, and all foreign troops were immediately to be paid and sent out of the country. A concluding article provided, that the treaty was to be verified by the various Parliaments of France ; but at the very moment of its signature, the most clear-sighted persons of the realm, perceived that on this point much opposition would arise; and we find by one

KING OF FRANCE AND NAVARRE. 269

of the letters of the Spanish ambassador, that while Catherine de Medicis was bestowing all sorts of caresses on the Huguenot leaders, she insinuated to the friends of her most Catholic ally, that she only yielded to circumstances, and, to use her own expression, '' Drew back, but to take her spring the better." The terms which were granted, gave but little satisfaction to either party ; and Coligni did not hesitate to declare, though he ultimately accepted the conditions agreed upon, that the interests of the Protestants had been sacrificed for the liberation of the Prince de Conde. Doubts and animosities of every kind remained unextinguished ; each faction was divided in itself, as well as irritated against the other; no one entertained the least expectation that the articles of the treaty would be sincerely executed ; and each hesitated to perform the part which it had undertaken, lest it should give an advantage to a treacherous opponent: and thus in gloom and discontent on all sides, commenced a temporary cessation of hostilities, during which the young King of Navarre first emerged from the retirement of the college, to take a part in the gay and licentious scenes which covered over, like o-Ht-tering dross, the volcano that lay beneath the feet of the French people.

^rjO THE LIFE OF HENRY IV.

BOOK III.

That article of the treaty of peace, to the accomplishment of which Catherine de Medicis looked forward with the greatest satisfaction, was the expulsion of all foreign troops from the land, and to the same object tended the wsh es and hopes of all the best men in her son's dominions. The state of the country, from the ravages of the reiters, and the internal dissensions of the people themselves, had become the most lamentable that it is possible to conceive; and as it has been eloquently depicted by a contemporary author, who took a part in all that he relates, I will, according to my usual custom, give his own words, that the reader may learn, from the impressions of an eye-witness, the fearful condition to which a short period of civil dissension had reduced a flourishing and abundant land.

" After the publication of the edict of peace," says Monsieur de Castelnau, "which took place on the seventh day of March, 1562, (1563),*

* Castelnau apparently commenced the year at Easter; but it is to be remarked, that the edict is dated the nineteenth of March.

KING OF FRANCE AND NAVARRE. Qji

although it greatly displeased many Catholics, to behold such a change in the Roman religion authorized by an ordinance of the King, nevertheless they were compelled to accommodate themselves to the terms, and yield to fate, which not being subject to human laws, had reduced the affairs of France to this state ; seeing that one year of civil war had brought about such misfortunes and calamities, that it was scarcely possible, that by its continuation the country could ever recover. For agriculture, which is the most necessary thing to maintain the body of a state, and which was formerly better exercised in France than in any other kingdom, as the most fertile garden in the world, was now entirely abandoned therein ; an incalculable number of towns and villages sacked, pillaged, and burnt, were becomino-deserts, and the poor labourers driven from their houses, spoiled of their goods and their cattle, robbed, and put to ransom, to-day by the one, tomorrow by the other, of whatever religion or faction they might be, fled like wild beasts, abandonino- all that they had, not to remain at the mercy of those who were without pity.

" And as to the traffic which is verv great in this kingdom, it was also given up, as well as the mechanical arts ; for the tradesmen and artizans quitted their shops and their employments to put on the cuirass. The nobility was divided, the church oppressed, no one being certain of his property or his life ; and as to justice which is the foundation of

kingdoms and of republics, and of all human society, it could not be administered, seeing that where every thing is a matter of force and violence, one can no longer exercise the office of the magistrate, nor administer the laws. In a word, the civil war was an inexhaustible source of all wickedness, of thieving, robbery, murder, incest, adultery, parricide, and every other enormous vice that can be imagined, for which there was neither any check nor any punishment; and the worst of all was, that in this war, the arms which had been taken for the defence of religion, annihilated all religion and piety, and produced a body, rotten and wasted with the burning pestilence of an infinity of atheists. The churches were sacked and demolished, the ancient monasteries destroyed, the monks driven forth, the nuns violated, and that which had taken four hundred years to build was destroyed in a day, without exempting even the sepulchres of our kings, and of our fathers."

There can be but little doubt, that all the evils here depicted, were severely aggravated by the large bodies of foreign troops engaged on both sides, who were without anv moral tie or restraint, in the midst of a country given up to anarchy, and indulged their habits of pillage without remorse, amongst a people who set them the example, by mutually destroying and plundering each other. Great difficulties, however, opposed themselves to the discharge of the reiters, as the finances of both parties were

KING OF FRANCE AND NAVARRE. ^JS

exhausted, and considerable arrears had become due. But the means were at length found, and the principal part of the foreign troops were sent out of the kingdom.

Havre de Grace still remained in^ the hands of the English, and it was now the desire of all parties in France that they should be expelled from that strong position. Nor can we altogether exculpate some of the leaders of the Huguenot faction from the charge of deserting the ally who had rendered them such good service in time of need ; for we find that the Prince de Conde rivalled the Duke of Montpensier in the siege of Havre, which was commenced as soon as possible after the signature of the treaty.

In a letter from Cecil to Sir Thomas Smith, dated the seventeenth of November, 156^, it is stated that the Queen of England had solemnly engaged her word to the Prince, not to make peace without him ; and on the twenty-first of March, in the following year, Cecil remarks, with some bitterness, - The negotiations are going on at Orleans, without any consideration for the Queen of England : If it be so," he adds, " I know the worst, which is, by stout and stiflP dealing to make our own bargain • and so is the Queen's Majesty fully bent and intended.''

A great part of the Huguenot armv was also en-gaged by Catherine de Medicis in the operations aganist Havre ; but that place was vigorously de-

VOL. I.

T

fended by the Earl of Warwick, although the plague was raging in the town, so that the number of his efficient soldiers was greatly reduced. Succor, however, was daily expected from England; and it is probable that Havre would have been preserved for some time, had not the want of fresh water become intolerable, the supply having been cut off by the besieging army. Another circumstance likewise tended to hasten the surrender. The secretary of Sir Thomas Smith, the English ambassador, charged with letters from his master to the Earl of Warwick, was taken, while endeavoring to eifect his entrance into the^ town, and his despatches having been decyphered, were found to contain the information, that a large fleet and army might be daily looked for, to effect the deliverance of the place. Other letters were immediately forged in the cypher used by Smith, warning the Earl that no assistance was to be expected from England; and the Earl, deprived by this false intelligence of all hope of relief, seeing the enemy in possession of most of the outworks, his troops so enfeebled by pestilence, that the dead were left unburied where they expired, and nothing but brackish water to be obtained in the town, during the height of an intensely hot summer, determined to capitulate, if he could do so upon favorable terms. Those which were granted, may be considered highly honorable to himself and to his country. The prisoners on both sides were to be exchanged, the garrison was to be permitted to