The Lily and the Totem; or, The Huguenots in Florida

IX.
THE SACRIFICE OF THE VICTIMS.

The captured fortress was won with a singular facility, and with so little loss to the assailants, as to confirm them in the conviction that the service was acceptable to God. HE had strengthened their hearts and arms—HE had hung his shield of protection over them—HE had made, through the sting of conscience, the souls of the murderous Spaniards to quake in fear at the very sight of the avengers! The fortress of La Caroline was found to have been as well supplied with all necessaries for defence, as it had been amply garrisoned. It was defended by five double culverins, by four minions, and divers other cannon of smaller calibre suitable for such a forest fortress. “Eighteen great cakes of gunpowder,” (it would seem that this combustible was put up in those days moistened, and in a different form from the present, and hence the frequent necessity for drying it, of which we read,) and every variety of weapon proper to the keeping of the fortress, had been supplied to the Spaniards; so that, but for the unaccountable error of the sortié, and but for the panic which possessed them, and which may reasonably be ascribed to the natural terrors of a guilty conscience, it was scarcely possible that the Chevalier de Gourgues, with all his prowess, could have succeeded in the assault. He transferred all the arms to his vessels, but the gunpowder took fire from the carelessness of one of the savages, who, ignorant of its qualities, proceeded to seethe his fish in the neighborhood of a train, which took fire, and blew up the store-house with all its moveables, destroying all the houses within its sweep! The poor savage himself seems to have been the only human victim. The fortress was then razed to the ground, Gourgues having no purpose to reestablish a colony which he had not the power to maintain.

But his vengeance was not complete. The final act of expiation was yet to take place; and, bringing all his prisoners together, he had them conducted to the fatal tree upon which the Spaniards had done to death their Huguenot captives! This was at a short distance from the fortress.

Mournful was the spectacle that met the eyes of the Frenchmen as they reached the spot. There still hung the withered and wasted skeletons of their brethren, naked, bare of flesh, bleached, and rattling against the branches of the thrice-accursed tree! The tempest had beaten wildly against their wasted forms—the obscene birds had preyed upon their carcasses—some had fallen, and lay in undistinguished heaps upon the earth; but the entire skeletons of many, unbroken, still waved in the unconscious breezes of heaven! For two weary years had they been thus tossed and shaken in the tempest. For two years had they thus waved, ghastly, white, and terrible, in mockery of the blessed sunshine! And now, in the genial breezes of April, they still shook aloft in horrible contrast with the green leaves, and the purple blossoms of the spring around them! But they were now decreed to take their shame from the suffering eyes of day! A solemn service was said over the wretched remains, which were taken down with cautious hands, as considerately as if they were still accessible to hurt, and buried in one common grave! The red-men looked on wondering, and in grave silence; and Holata Cara, leaning upon his spear, might almost be thought to weep at the cruel spectacle.

But his aspect changed when the Spanish captives were brought forth. They were ranged, manacled in pairs, beneath the same tree of sacrifice. Briefly, and in stern accents, did Gourgues recite the crime of which they had been guilty, and which they were now to expiate by a sufferance of the same fate which they had decreed to their victims! Prayers and pleadings were alike in vain. The priest who had performed the solemn rites for the dead, now performed the last duties for the living judged! He heard their confessions. One of the wretched victims confessed that the judgment under which he was about to suffer was a just one; that he himself, with his own hands, had hung no less than five of the wretched Huguenots. With such a confession ringing in their ears, it was not possible for the French to be merciful! At a given signal, the victims were run up to the deadly branches, which they themselves had accursed by such employment; and even while their suspended forms writhed and quivered with the last fruitless efforts of expiring consciousness, the chieftain Holata Cara looked upon them with a cold, hard eye, stern and tearless, as if he felt the dreadful propriety of this wild and unrelenting justice! The deed done—the expiation made—Gourgues then procured a huge plank of pine, upon which he caused to be branded, with a searing iron, in rude, but large, intelligible characters, these words, corresponding to that inscription put by the Spaniards over the Huguenots, and as a fitting commentary upon it:—

How long they hung thus, bleaching in storm and sunshine; how long this terrible inscription remained as a record of their crime and of this history, the chronicle does not show, nor is it needful. The record is inscribed in pages that survive storm, and wreck, and fire;—more indelibly written than on pillars of brass and marble! It hangs on high forever, where the eyes of the criminal may read how certainly will the vengeance of heaven alight, or soon or late, upon the offender, who wantonly exults in the moment of security in the commission of great crimes done upon suffering humanity.

X.
THE CHIEFS OF THE LILY AND THE TOTEM EMBRACE AND PART.

“SAN AUGUSTINE!”

Such were the words spoken to Gourgues by Holata Cara at the close of this terrible scene of vengeance, and his spear was at once turned in the direction of the remaining Spanish fortress. Gourgues readily understood the suggestion, but he shook his head regretfully—

“I am too feeble! We have not the force necessary to such an effort!”

The red chief made no reply in words, but he turned away and waved his spear over the circuit which was covered by the thousand savages who had collected to the conflict, even as the birds of prey gather to the field of battle.

But Gourgues again shook his head. He had no faith in the alliance with the red-men. He knew their caprice of character, their instability of purpose, and the sudden fluctuations of their moods, which readily discovered the enemy of the morrow in the friend of to-day. Besides, his contemplated task was ended. He had achieved the terrible work of vengeance which he had proposed to himself and followers, and his preparations did not extend to any longer delay in the country. He had neither means nor provisions.

He collected the tribes around him. All the kings and princes of the Floridian gathered at his summons, on the banks of the Tacatacorou, or Seine, where he had left his vessels, some fifteen leagues from La Caroline. Thither he marched by land in battle array, having sent all his captured munitions and arms with his artillerists by sea, in the patache.

The red-men hailed him with songs and dances, as the Israelites hailed Saul and David returning with the spoils of the Philistines.

“Now let me die,” cried one old woman, “now that I behold the Spaniards driven out, and the Frenchmen once more in the country.”

Gourgues quieted them with promises. It may be that he really hoped that his sovereign would sanction his enterprise, and avail himself of what had been done to establish a French colony again in Florida; and he promised the Floridians that in twelve months they should again behold his vessels.

The moment arrived for the embarkation, but where was Holata Cara? The Frenchman inquired after him in vain. Satouriova only replied to his earnest inquiries,—

“Holata Cara is a great chief of the Apalachian! He hath gone among his people.”

A curious smile lurked upon the lips of the Paracoussi as he made this answer; but the inquiries of Gourgues could extract nothing from him further.

They embraced—our chevalier and his Indian allies—and the Frenchmen embarked, weighed anchor, and, with favoring winds, were shortly out of sight. Even as they stretched away for the east, the eyes of Holata Cara watched their departure from a distant headland where he stood embowered among the trees. The graceful figure of an Indian princess stood beside his own, one hand shading her eyes, and the other resting on his shoulder. At length he turned from gazing on the dusky sea.

“They are gone!” she exclaimed.

“Gone!” he answered, in her own dialect. “Gone! Let us depart also!” And thus speaking, they joined their tawny followers who awaited them in the neighboring thicket, within the shadows of which they soon disappeared from sight.

XI.
MORALS OF REVENGE.

Historians have been divided in opinion with regard to the propriety of that wild justice which Dominique de Gourgues inflicted upon the murderers of his countrymen at La Caroline. One class of writers hath preached from the text, “Vengeance is mine saith the Lord;” another from that which, permissive rather than mandatory, declares that “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.”

Charlevoix regrets that so remarkable an achievement as that of Gourgues, so honorable to the nation, and so glorious for himself, should not have been terminated by an act of clemency, which, sparing the survivors of the Spanish forts, should have contrasted beautifully with the brutal behavior of the Spaniards under the like circumstances; as if the enterprise itself had anything but revenge for its object; as if the butcheries which accompanied the several attacks upon the Spanish forts, and the butcheries which followed them—where the victims were trembling and flying men—were any whit more justifiable than the single, terrible act of massacre which appropriately furnished the catastrophe to the whole drama!

If the Spaniards were to be spared at all, why the enterprise at all? No wrong was then in progress, to be defeated by interposition; no design of recovering French territory or re-establishing the French colony was in contemplation, making the enterprise necessary to success hereafter. The entire purpose of the expedition was massacre only, and a bloody vengeance!

It is objected to this expedition of Gourgues, that reprisals are rarely possible without working some injustice. This would be an argument against all law and every social government. But it is said that revenge does not always find out the right victim, particularly in such a case as the present, and that the innocent is frequently made to suffer for the guilty.

Gourgues could not, it would seem, have greatly mistaken his victims, when we find one of them confessing to the murder of five of the Huguenots by his own hand, and none of them disclaiming a participation in the crime. But there is a better answer even than this instance affords, and it conveys one of those warning lessons to society, the neglect of which too frequently results in its discomfiture or ruin.

That society or nation which is unable or unwilling to prevent or punish the offender within its own sphere and province, must incur his penalties; and this principle once recognized, it becomes imperative with every citizen to take heed of the public conduct of his fellow, and the proper exercise of right and justice on the part of his ruler. There are, no doubt, difficulties in the way of doing this always; but what if it were commonly understood and felt that each citizen had thus at heart the wholesome administration of exact justice on the part of the society in which he lived, and the Government which can exist only by the sympathies of the people? How prompt would be the remedy furnished by the ruler to the suffering party! how slow the impulse to wrong on the part of the criminal!

The suggestion that magnanimity and mercy shown to the Spaniards by Gourgues, after his victory, would have had such a beautiful effect upon the consciences of those guilty wretches, is altogether ridiculous. The idea exhibits a gross ignorance of the nature of the Spaniards at the time. Gourgues knew them thoroughly. A more base, faithless, treacherous and murderous character never prevailed among civilized nations, and never could prevail among any nation of warlike barbarians. We do not mean to justify Gourgues; but may say that it is well, perhaps, for humanity, that heroism sometimes puts on the terrors of the avenger, and visits the enormous crime, which men would otherwise fail to reach, with penalties somewhat corresponding with the degree and character of the offence! There are sometimes criminals whom it is a mere tempting of Providence to leave only to the judgments of eternity and their own seared, cold, and wicked hearts. The murderer whose hands you cannot bind, you must cut off; not because you thirst for his blood, but because he thirsts for yours! But ours is not the field for discussion, and we may well leave the question for decision to the instincts of humanity. The vengeance which moves the nations to clap hands with rejoicing has, perhaps, a much higher guaranty and sanction than the common law of morals can afford.

XII.
THE CHEVALIER AT HOME—MONTLUC COUNSELS GOURGUES FROM HIS COMMENTARIES.

Having taken his farewell of the Floridians, and embarked with all his people, it was on board of his vessels, with their wings spread to the breeze, that the Chevalier De Gourgues offered up solemn acknowledgments to Heaven, for the special sanction which he had found in its favor for the enterprise achieved. It was with a heart full of gratitude, that he bowed down on the deck of his little bark, and offered up his prayer to the God of Battles for the succor afforded him in his extremity. It was with a light heart that he meditated upon the sanguinary justice done upon the cruel enemies of his people; the honor of his country’s flag redeemed by a poor soldier of fortune, when disgraced and deserted by the monarch and the court, who derived all their distinction from its venerable and protecting folds. It was with a just and honorable pride that he felt how certainly he had made the record of his name in the pages of history, by an action grateful to the fame of the soldier, and still more grateful to the fears and sympathies of outraged humanity. The acclamations of the wild Floridian—their praises and songs of victory, however wild and rude—were but a foretaste of those which he had a right to expect from the lips of his countrymen in la Belle France! Alas! the hand of power covered the lips of rejoicing! The despotism of the land shook a heavy rod over the people, silencing the voice of praise, and chilling the heart of sympathy. But let us not anticipate.

The Chevalier De Gourgues sailed from the mouth of the Tacatacorou, on the third of May, 1568. For seventeen days the voyage was prosperous, and his vessels ran eleven hundred leagues; and on the sixth of June, thirty-four days after leaving the coast of Florida, he arrived at Rochelle. The latter half of his voyage had been far different from the first. As at his departure from France, he suffered severely from head winds and angry tempests. His provisions were nearly exhausted, and his people began to suffer from famine. His consorts separated from him in the storm, one of them, the patache, being lost with its whole complement of eight men; the other not reaching port for a month after himself. His escape was equally narrow from other and less merciful enemies than hunger and shipwreck. The bruit of his adventure, to his great surprise, had reached the country before him. The Spanish court, well served, in that day, by its emissaries, had been advised of his progress, and that he had appeared at Rochelle. A fleet of eighteen sail, led by one large vessel, was instantly despatched in pursuit of him.

Received with good cheer and great applause by the people of Rochelle, it was fortunate that he did not linger there. He set forth with his vessel for Bordeaux; there he went to render an account to his friend, the Marechal Blaize de Montluc, of his adventures. This timely movement saved him. The pursuing Spaniards reached Che-de-Bois the very day that he had left it, and continued the chase as far as Blaze. He reached Bordeaux in safety, and made his report to the king’s lieutenant.

Montluc was one of those glorious Gascons who would always much prefer to fight than eat. He was proud of the chevalier as a Gascon, and he loved him as a friend. But the approbation that he expressed in private, he did not venture openly to speak.

“You have done a famous thing, Monsieur De Gourgues, you have saved the honor of France, and won immortal glory for yourself; but the king’s lieutenant must not say this to the king’s people. I praise God that you are a Gascon like myself, and no race, I think, Monsieur De Gourgues, was ever quite so valiant as our own; but my friend, I fear they do not love us any the better that they have not the soul to rival us. I fear that the glory thou hast won will bring thee to the halter only. Hearken, my friend, Dominique, dost thou know that, at this very moment, thy vessel is pursued by a host of Spanish caravels? the winds rend and the seas sink them to perdition! Thou knowest, how I hate, and scorn, and spit upon the cut-throat scoundrels! Well! That is not all. I tell thee, Dominique, my friend, there is a courier already on his way to the ambassador of Spain, who will demand thy head from our sovereign, that it may give pleasure to his sovereign, the black-hearted and venomous Philip. What would he with thy head, my friend? I tell thee, it is his wretched selfishness that would take thy head—not that it may be useful to him, but that it shall no longer be of use to thee! Was there ever such a fool and monster! Thou shouldst keep thy head, my friend, so long as thou hast a use for it thyself, even though it ache thee many times after an unnecessary bottle!”

“Think’st thou, Montluc, that there is any danger that the court of France will give ear to the king of Spain?”

“Give ear! Ay, give both ears, my friend! Our head is in the lap of Spain already. She hath the shears with which she shall clip the hair by which our strength is shorn; and, if she will, me thinks, she may clip head as well as hair, when the humor suits. It is not now, my friend, as when we fought against the bloody dogs at Sienna, remembering only to outdo the famous deeds of the stout men-at-arms that followed Bayard and La Palisse in the generation gone before. Ah! Monsieur, thou wast with me in those days. Thou rememberest, I trow, the famous skirmish which we had before the little town of Sêve. But I will read thee from my commentaries, which I have been writing in imitation of Roman Cæsar, of the wonderful wars and sieges in which I have fought, and in which I have evermore found most delight.”

And he drew forth from his cabinet, as he spoke, the great volume of manuscripts, afterwards destined to become the famous depository of his deeds.

“I have written like a Gascon, Monsieur De Gourgues, but let none complain who is not able to do battle like a Gascon! He who fights well, my friend, may surely be allowed the privilege of showing how goodly were his deeds. I will read thee but a passage from that famous skirmish at Sêve; not merely that thou shouldst see the spirit of what I have written, and bear witness to the truth, but that thou mayst find for thyself a fitting lesson for thy own conduct in the straight which is before thee.”

Having found the passage, Montluc read as follows:

“As the Signior Francisco Bernardin and myself, who, for that time were the Marshals of the camp, drew nigh to the place, and were beginning to lodge the army, there sallied forth from fort, and church, and trench, a matter of two or three hundred men, who charged upon us with the greatest fury. I had with me at that time, but the Captain Charry—a most brave captain, whom thou must well remember—”

Gourgues nodded assent—

“——with fifty arquebusiers and a small body of horse. Knowing this my weakness, the Baron de Chissy, our camp-master, sent me a reinforcement of one hundred arquebusiers. But my peril was such, that I sent to him straightway for other help, telling him that we were already at it, and close upon the encounter. At this very moment, Monsieur de Bonnivet, returning post from court, and hearing of the fighting, said to the Baron de Chissy, without alighting from his horse—

“‘Do thou halt here till the Marechal shall arrive, and, meanwhile, I will go and succor Monsieur de Montluc.’

“He was followed by certain captains and arquebusiers on horseback. We had but an instant for embrace when he arrived, for the enemy were already charging our men.

“‘You are welcome, Monsieur de Bonnivet,’ I said to him quickly; ‘but alight, and let us set upon these people, and beat them back again into their fortress.’

“Whereupon, he and his followers instantly alighted, and he said to me, ‘do you charge directly upon those, who would recover the fort.’

“Which said, he clapped his buckler upon his arm, while I caught up an halbert, for I ever (as thou knowest) loved to play with that sort of cudgel. Then I said to Signior Francisco Bernardin—

“‘Comrade, whilst we charge, do you continue to provide the quarters.’

“But to this he answered—

“‘And is that all the reckoning you make of the employment the Marechal hath entrusted to our charge? If it must be that you will fight thus—I will be a fool for company, and, once in my life, play Gascon also.’

“So he alighted and went with me to the charge. He was armed with very heavy weapons, and had, moreover, become unwieldy from weight of years. This kept him from making such speed as I. At such banquets, my body methought did not weigh an ounce. I felt not that I touched the ground; and, for the pain of my hip (greatly hurt as thou knowest by a fall at the taking of Quiers) that was forgotten! I thus charged straightway upon those by the trench upon one side, and Monsieur de Bonnivet did as much upon his quarter; so that we thundered the rogues back with such a vengeance, that I passed over the trench, pell-mell, amidst the route, pursuing, smiting and slaying, all the way, till we reached the church! I never so laid about me before, or did so much execution at any one time. Those within the church, seeing their people in such disorder, and so miserably cut to pieces, in a great terror, fled from the place, taking, in flight, a little pathway that led along the rocky ledges of the mountain, down into the town. In this route, one of my men caught hold upon him who carried their ensign; but the fellow nimbly and very bravely disengaged himself from him, and leapt into the path; making for the town as fast as he could speed. I ran after him also, but he was too quick even for me, as well he might be,—for he had fear in both his heels!”

Here Montluc paused, and closed the volume.

“It is enough that I have read; for thou wilt see the counsel that I design for thee. It is not easy for thee to take it, being a Gascon; but such it is, borrowed from the wisdom of that same ensign. Thou sawest him scamper, for thou wert on that very chase;—now, if thou wouldst save thy head from the affections of the king of Spain, take fear in both thy heels, and run as nimbly as that ensign.”

“Verily, it is not easy, Monsieur de Montluc, seeing that I am conscious of no wrong, but rather of a great service done to my country; and if my own king deliver me not up, wherefore should I fear him of Spain.”

“That is it, my friend! Our king will, not from his own nature, but from that of others, who love not this service to thy country. The Queen-mother will deliver thee up, the Princes of Lorraine will deliver thee up, and the devil will deliver thee up—all having a great affection for the king of Spain—if thou trust not the counsel of thy friends, and wilfully put thy head in one direction where the wisdom of thy heels would show thee quite another. Hast thou forgotten that good proverb of the Italians, which we heard so much read from their lips and honored in their actions,—‘No te fidar, et no serai inganato?’ Above all, mon ami, trust nothing to thy hope, when it builds upon thy service done to kings. It is a hope that has hung a thousand good fellows who might be living to this day. Now, in counselling thee to flight and secrecy, I counsel thee against my own pride and pleasure. It would be a great delight to me to have thee near me, while I read thee all mine history;—the beginning, even to the end thereof;—the thousand sieges, battles and achievements, in which I have shown good example to the young valor of France, and made the Gascon name famous throughout the world.”

The heart of the Chevalier Gourgues was not persuaded. He could not believe that his good deeds for his country’s good and honor, would meet with ill-return and disgrace.

“The king will do me justice.”

“Verily, should he even give thee to him of Spain, or hang thee himself, they will call it by no other name,” answered the other drily.

“But the baseness and the cowardice of flight! This confiding one’s courage and counsel to one’s heels, Montluc!”

“Is wisdom, as thou shouldst know from the story of Achilles. Verily, it requires that the secret meaning of this vulnerableness of the heel on the part of the son of Thetis, is neither more nor less than that he was a monstrous coward—that he would have been the bravest man of the world, but for the weakness that always made him fly from danger. It was in the form of allegory that the satirical poet stigmatised a man in authority. You see nothing in the treatment of Hector by Achilles, but what will confirm this opinion. He will not fight with him himself, but makes his myrmidons do so. What is this, but the case of one of our own plumed and scented nobles, who procures his foe, whom he fears, to be murdered by the Biscayan bully whom he buys?—But, let me read thee a passage from my commentaries bearing very much upon this history.”

XIII.
FALL OF THE CURTAIN.

We need not listen to this passage. The reader will find it, with other good things, in the huge tome of the braggart, and garrulous, but very shrewd and valiant old Gascon. Enough to say, that this counsel did not prevail with his friend. Gourgues determined to persevere in his original intention of presenting himself at court. His reasons for this resolution were probably not altogether shown to Montluc. Gourgues was a bankrupt, and needed employment. His expedition had absorbed his little fortune, and left him a debtor, without the means of repayment. With the highest reputation as a captain, by land and sea,—and with his name honored by the sentiment of the nation, which was not permitted to applaud,—he still fondly hoped that his friend had mistaken his position, and that he should be honored and welcomed to the favor and service of his sovereign. He was one of those to hope against hope.

“As thou wilt! Unbolt the door for the man who is wilful. If thy resolution be taken, I say no more. But thou shalt have letters to the Court, and if the words of an old friend and brother in arms may do thee good, thou shalt have the sign-manual of Montluc, to as many missives as it shall please thee to despatch.”

The letters were written; and, with a full narrative of his expedition prepared, the Chevalier de Gourgues made his appearance at court. He had anticipated the ambassador of Spain; but he was received coldly. The Queen Mother, and the Princes of Lorraine, with all who worshipped at their altars, turned their backs upon the heroic enthusiast. The king forebore to smile. In his secret heart, he really rejoiced in the vengeance taken by his subject upon the Spaniards, but he was not in a situation to declare his true sentiments. Meanwhile, the Spanish ambassador demanded the offender, and set a price upon his head. The Queen Mother and her associates denounced him. A process was initiated to hold him responsible, in his life, for an enterprise undertaken without authority against the subjects of a monarch in alliance with France; and our chevalier was compelled to hide from the storm which he dared not openly encounter. For a long time he lay concealed in Rouën, at the house of the President de Marigny, and with other ancient friends. In this situation, the Queen of England, Elizabeth, made him overtures, and offered him employment in her service; but the tardy grace of his own monarch, at length, enabled him to decline the appointments of another and a hostile sovereign. But, nevertheless, though admitted to mercy by the king of France, he was left without employment. Fortune, in the end, appeared to smile. Don Antonio, of Portugal, offered him the command of a fleet which he had armed with the view to sustaining his right to the crown of that country, which Philip of Spain was preparing to usurp. Gourgues embraced the offer with delight. It promised him employment in a familiar field, and against the enemy whom he regarded with an immortal hate; but the Fates forbade that he should longer listen to the plea of revenge. While preparing to render himself to the Portuguese prince, he fell ill at Tours, where he died, universally regretted, and with the reputation of being one of the most valiant and able captains of the day—equally capable as a commander of an army and a fleet. We cannot qualify our praise of this remarkable man by giving heed to the moral doubts which would seek to impair the glory, not only of the most remarkable event of his life, but of the century in which he lived. We owe it to his memory to write upon his monument, that his crimes, if his warfare upon the Spaniards shall be so considered, were committed in the cause of humanity!

Our chronicle is ended. The expedition of Dominique de Gourgues concludes the history of the colonies of France in the forests of the Floridian.

APPENDIX.

Originally, it was the design of the Author, to write a religious narrative poem on the subject of the preceding history. The following sections, however, were all that were written.

I.
THE VOICE.

II.
COLIGNY’S RESOLVE.

III.
THE VOYAGE.