In order to test the state of public feeling and apply a remedy to the great disorders of the realm, the queen-mother decided upon an extensive tour through the south and west of France, which would give her an opportunity of showing the king to his subjects and strengthening him in their affections. It is not necessary to trace the progress of the court step by step; a few incidents, however, may be quoted to show the intolerant temper of the Catholic party. In many of the towns of Burgundy, Charles was received with shouts of “Long live the King!” and “The Mass forever!” At Chalons a medal was struck, representing the monarch trampling on Heresy, depicted as a Fury pouring out torrents of fire. At Lyons the foundations were laid of a citadel intended to crush the heretical tendencies of the inhabitants. The walls of several Protestant towns were demolished, and numerous addresses were presented to the young monarch, praying him to interdict the exercise of any form of religion but the Romish.

In the middle of June, 1565, the court reached the city of Bayonne, near the Spanish frontier, where the famous meeting took place at which it was generally supposed the extirpation of Protestantism was arranged. As early as April, 1561, Catherine had suggested a similar meeting, when she was agitated by the fear of a marriage between the widowed Mary Stuart and Don Carlos. She pretended a great desire to discuss with Philip II. the religious condition of France and the affairs of the King of Navarre, hoping by such an interview to thwart the Scottish matrimonial project.[357]

The ostensible cause of the meeting four years later was the queen’s desire to see her daughter, who had just recovered from a severe illness. Political motives were not forgotten, and among other matters to be considered between the sovereigns of France and Spain—for Catherine hoped that Philip would accompany his wife—was undoubtedly the repression of heresy. There exists among the state papers at Simancas what is called by diplomatists an “identical note” of the subjects to be discussed at Bayonne. In it we read that the two powers engaged not to tolerate the Reformed worship in their respective states, that the canons of the Council of Trent should be enforced, that all nonconformists should be incapacitated for any public office, civil or military, and that heretics should quit the realm within a month, permission being accorded them to sell their property. Although Catherine gave her assent to these declarations, so far as the discussion of them was concerned, we have indisputable evidence that she did not intend to adopt them in the same sense as Philip of Spain, for at this very time she was corresponding with the Bishop of Rennes, the French embassador to the imperial court, on the propriety of making concessions to the Huguenots. A long and tedious negotiation ensued between the two courts of France and Spain—a fencing-match of deceit—which ended in an arrangement that Isabella should go to meet her mother and brothers alone, attended by the Duke of Alva as embassador extraordinary. Fernando Alvarez de Toledo, Duke of Alva, had not yet attained that evil eminence which has linked his name with all that is blood-thirsty. He was now in his fifty-seventh year, and the most successful general in Europe. He had fleshed his maiden sword at the battle of Fontarabia, when he was only sixteen; had served under the emperor Charles V. in Germany; saved the Spanish infantry from destruction at the siege of Metz; and, as viceroy of Naples, foiled all the efforts of the Duke of Guise to recover the throne of that country for France. He had accompanied Philip II. to England during that monarch’s brief matrimonial expedition, and afterward waged a fruitless war in Italy against Francis of Guise and the pope. As a statesman he possessed great capacity, although at Bayonne he entirely failed in the chief object of his mission.[358]

The mother and daughter first met at Irun on the banks of the Bidassoa, and thence proceeded to Bayonne, where the French court had taken up its quarters. The magnificence of the processions and fêtes in that remote corner of France put to shame all modern attempts of a similar kind. Isabella entered Bayonne riding on a milk-white palfrey, whose trappings of velvet, silver, and pearls were estimated at 25,000 ducats.[359] Four of the principal citizens bore a canopy of crimson velvet over her head, as she rode from the gate to the cathedral through streets hung with arras; and as the day was drawing to a close, every house and church was illuminated, and each member of the cortège bore a lighted torch. A Te Deum, “accompanied by excellent cornets,” was sung by choristers from the chapel-royal of the Louvre, Cardinals Guise and Strozzi officiating with a number of French and Spanish bishops. The weather was so intensely hot that six soldiers of the queen’s escort fell dead, the victims of sun-stroke.[360] Other casualties of a similar nature occurring in the small and crowded city, a proclamation was issued ordering that all the sick, aged, and infirm should seek shelter in certain villages specified, at a distance from Bayonne.[361]

Some years later, when Walsingham referred to this meeting as the origin of a “general league” against the Protestants, Catherine affirmed that it “tended to no other end but to make good cheer.”[362] And so it would seem, for fête followed fête in rapid succession, the political business being transacted at odd moments, after those more serious occupations of the day were ended.

One day there was a grand tilting-match, the prize being a valuable diamond given by Isabella. Charles IX. and his brother of Anjou headed one band of noble tilters, all arrayed in fancy costumes; another band was led by the Duke of Nemours, while the horsemen composing that following the Duke of Longueville were dressed in cloth of gold with wings of silver tissue, so as to imitate butterflies. On the evening of another day a masque was performed in a large hall constructed for the purpose. The scene represented a giant’s castle, where a number of beautiful maidens were imprisoned in an enchanted chamber. The entrance, defended by a revolving wheel and guarded by six frightful demons, was attacked by a troop of French and Spanish gentlemen headed by Charles IX., who, after several unsuccessful assaults, overcame every obstacle, killing the giant, routing the demons, and delivering the imprisoned damsels, whom he led as witnesses of his prowess to the feet of his sister Isabella.

A pageant of a more elaborate description followed the next day. It began with a romantic prologue. A herald presented himself at Charles’s apartments in the castle, and having been led into the king’s presence, he related how, during a recent journey, he had fallen in with a gallant company of knights, who, unable to decide on the superiority of Love or Virtue, had agreed to refer the difference to the arbitration of his Majesty of France. A deputation from the supporters of each opinion was waiting below, desirous to plead their cause. The knights were admitted, they made their speeches; but the matter in dispute was so knotty that Charles declared it could only be settled by arms. A tournament was proclaimed, and all proceeded to the lists, the two queens taking their seats in a gallery hung with velvet. And now the pageant began. First came Virtue, seated on a rock, and attended by six nymphs. She wore an azure robe, and carried a lighted torch in her hand. After making the circuit of the arena, the car stopped before Queen Isabella, when Virtue, reciting some appropriate verses, presented her and each of her ladies with a massive gold chain. As soon as the goddess had retired, Love entered the lists in a chariot drawn by four piebald horses. He too halted before the Queen of Spain and sang some verses in praise of the joys and triumphs of love. The tournament now commenced, Charles maintaining the cause of Virtue, the Duke of Anjou that of Love. The two troops first engaged hand to hand, the king and his brother breaking a lance together. Then they divided into fours, until at last the mêlée became general. At the end of about half an hour, the trumpets sounded, the combatants retired to their own side of the list, and Charles and the duke, riding forward, embraced each other, to show “that, Virtue and Love being brother and sister, the triumph of each was the glory of the other.”

On another occasion, Isabella was entertained at a rural fête, where the collation was spread under the leafy branches of an oak-tree, from whose root issued a fountain, the construction of which cost a sum equivalent to £400 sterling. Another day the pageant took the singular form of a whale fishery. A turtle, on which sat six Tritons, floated down the Adour; then came Neptune in a car drawn by sea-horses, with Arion on a dolphin. When the company landed, there followed a pastoral ballet, in which the dancing of the French ladies and gentlemen so delighted the Spaniards that it was repeated again and again until midnight.[363]

One of the masques given at Bayonne is remarkable for the curious picture it presents of a “wild Scotchman.” After the Prince-dauphin of Auvergne and his train of six gentlemen, all dressed like women, had filed off, the Duke of Guise and another six followed, all dressed “à l’écossais sauvage.” Over a white satin shirt embroidered with gold lace and crimson silk, they wore a casaquin of yellow velvet with short skirts closely plaited “according to the custom of the savages”—it appears to have been a kilt—trimmed with a border of crimson satin, and ornamented with gold, silver, pearls, and other jewels of various colors. Their yellow satin hose was similarly adorned, and their silk boots were trimmed with silver fringe and rosettes. On their heads they wore a cap à l’antique of cloth of gold, and for crest a thunder-bolt pouring out a fragrant jet of perfumed fire—the said thunder-bolt being twined round by a serpent reposing on a pillow of green and satin. Each cavalier wore on his arm a Scotch shield or targe covered with cloth of gold and bearing a device. The horses’ trappings were of crimson satin with plumes of yellow, white, and carnation. So much for the Frenchman’s ideal of a Scotchman! The suite of the Duke of Longueville was still more extraordinary: it consisted of six winged demons whose head-dresses were all flames of fire.[364]

While the younger and fairer portion of the court were indulging in these gayeties, Catherine and Alva did not entirely forget more important matters, though the queen-mother seems to have put them off as long as possible. She would probably have evaded them altogether had not Cardinal Granvelle urged his royal mistress to take the initiative. At a private interview, on the 19th June, Isabella urged her mother to make known the important business which she had declared could only be told to Philip or to herself. Catherine replied: “It would be useless to do so, for I have been informed that his Catholic majesty shows such signs of distrust toward me and my son as must inevitably lead to war ere long.” As this was shifting the ground, and Isabella could not get her mother to talk of any thing else, she ended the interview by saying: “Your majesty must excuse me. As the king my husband has not commanded me to take an active share in the negotiations, I must refer you, madam, to the embassadors.” At a second meeting, two days later, Alva was present when the closer union of the royal houses of France and Spain by the marriage of Margaret of Valois to Don Carlos was advocated by the queen-mother, as “the best means of healing the differences everywhere prevailing, and also of placing the affairs of religion on a stable foundation.” In his account of this interview, Don Francisco of Alava wrote to his royal master: “Never was princess in greater embarrassment than this queen. One person advises her majesty to act this way, another quite the contrary; and she herself dares not decide nor even evince a preference.... The principal Roman Catholics of this court show much zeal, but they are men of words more than of deeds.” In the evening of the 23d, Alva was again summoned to the queen’s presence; he found her walking alone with her daughter in a long gallery. Isabella pressed her to dismiss L’Hopital, the chancellor: “I am persuaded,” she continued, “that so long as he is maintained in his present post, your good subjects alone will have reason to dread and fear, while the bad will find shelter and countenance.” To which Catherine replied: “I can not admit the truth of my daughter’s observations.” Alva, to excuse her, added: “The queen my mistress has only pressed your majesty thus hardly because the king my master wishes to ascertain positively from your majesty and the king your son whether it is the intention of your majesties to put down heresy or not, as in either case my master will know how to govern his conduct.” To this Catherine replied, with no little haughtiness: “The council will give the reply demanded by my son the Catholic king.”

The last conference was held on the 28th June, and at it were present the king and the two queens, Anjou, Alva, Don Juan Manrique, Don Francisco Alava, Montpensier, the Cardinals of Bourbon, Guise, and Lorraine, and the Constable Montmorency. After some remarks about accepting the canons of the Council of Trent, the discussion turned on the best mode of settling the religious differences. The Duke of Alva said: “It seems to me that this is not the moment to root out the evil with the sword, or to treat it merely with mildness and dissimulation; for, on the one hand, my master can hardly approve that your majesty should raise an army and lead it against your own subjects, and, on the other, there seems no sufficient reason for leaving those unpunished who are too audacious. I would not set religion on the uncertain footing of the chances of a war, in which one evil accident may throw all into the greatest danger.... Some persons, as I have been told, have advised your majesty to take up arms against those of the religion. I have not come to France to do it so bad a service, nor would the king my master have sent me for such a purpose.”[365] Cardinal Granvelle was of the same opinion; there were safer ways of getting rid of troublesome enemies than by war: the government had only to seize five or six of the chief Huguenots and cut off their heads.[366] That the King of Spain entertained similar views we learn from his remarks to Sigismond Cavalli, the Venetian embassador, that the French troubles were owing to the neglect of the advice he had given them years before.[367] Neither Charles nor Catherine would make any promises; they thought the state of France was satisfactory, but would willingly listen to any suggestions and deliberate very carefully upon them. For one incident of the conference we are indebted to Prince Henry of Navarre, who was allowed to visit Bayonne, because, said Philip, “he is still a child, whom God will not allow to remain in ignorance.” One day when the Duke of Alva and Catherine were conversing together, the former, putting Tarquin’s gesture into words, advised her to get rid of the Huguenot nobles, after which all would be easy work: “Ten thousand frogs,” he said, “are not worth the head of one salmon.”[368] Henry overheard him, and the words struck him so much that he repeated them to Soffrey de Calignon, one of his attendants, by whom they were transmitted to the Queen of Navarre. They soon became known to the Huguenot leaders, and aroused a suspicion, which it would have been well for them had they never laid aside. The words produced a deep impression upon Catherine, and more than once she tried to act upon them, until at last she succeeded but too well. Giovanni Correro, the Venetian envoy, writing to his government in 1569, gives us a little insight into the queen-mother’s opinions about this time. Being one day in a confidential mood, she said to her fellow-countryman: “While at Carcassone, on my way back from Bayonne, I read a manuscript chronicle about the mother of St. Louis, a boy only eleven years old. She had to contend against malcontent nobles, but with time the king grew up and crushed his enemies beneath the vengeance they had drawn upon themselves. I applied the case to myself.” Correro observed: “Your majesty must have found comfort therein, for as the present is an image of the past, so you may be sure the end will not be unlike.” At this the queen began to laugh, as was her custom when she heard any thing that pleased her, and replied: “But I should not like any body to know that I have read that chronicle, for they would say that I am taking Queen Blanche of Castile for my pattern.”[369] It was not likely this precedent would be forgotten when opportunity served.

It is certain that nothing was settled at the Bayonne meeting, Catherine being steadfast in her purpose to maintain her power by holding the balance between the two hostile parties. “She has promised to do wonders,” wrote Granvelle (20th August, 1565), “but will do nothing of any service.” The king, young as he was, proved equally immovable. “It is easy to see that he has been tutored,” wrote Alva contemptuously to his master. And thus terminated the interview from which so much had been expected.[370] It left, however, a very bitter feeling among the Huguenots, who believed that some devilish plot had been contrived against them, and tended to alienate them from the crown, although they still professed great loyalty to the king, not confounding him with the government, as the Parliamentarians expressed their devotion to Charles I.

As soon as Isabella had recrossed the Spanish frontier, the French court proceeded to Nerac in Gascony to visit Joan, the widowed Queen of Navarre. When her husband apostatized, he would have made her apostatize also; but she refused, and took refuge in Bearn. Anthony ordered Montluc to stop her and keep her prisoner—a danger she happily escaped, as also a conspiracy entered into by some of her Catholic subjects to seize and deliver her to the King of Spain. Joan abolished popery in her hereditary states, and confiscated the church property for the benefit of the new clergy and of education. For this the pope summoned her to appear at Rome to answer a charge of heresy, on pain of being excommunicated and deprived of her territories (1564).[371] In this Pius IV. overshot the mark: his proceedings endangered every crowned head in Europe. He had also about the same time issued a citation against the Cardinal of Chatillon,[372] the Bishop of Valence, and four other prelates. The papal citation being a gross infringement of the privileges of the Gallican Church, a special embassador was sent to Rome to remonstrate with the Holy Father, and the opinions of the government may be gathered from a letter written by the queen-mother to the Bishop of Rennes, her embassador in Germany: “We acknowledge no authority or jurisdiction on the pope’s part over those who bear the title of king or queen, and that it is not for him to give away states and kingdoms to the first conqueror.... Let me know how the emperor takes this matter, for it concerns all rulers to understand whether it is for the pope at his own pleasure to assume authority and jurisdiction over them, and to make a prey of their territories and dominions. We for our part are determined never to submit to it.” The pope retreated: the citations against the bishops were abandoned, the bull against the Queen of Navarre was revoked. But a more formidable danger than this threatened Joan not long after, Philip II. having concerted a plan with Montluc to seize her and her two children, and carry them to Spain, where they would be committed to the cruel mercies of the Inquisition. Treatment like this confirmed the queen in her faith; she swept her dominions of every vestige of Romanism, and denied to her Catholic subjects that religious liberty which she claimed for her co-religionists in France.

In some respects the province of Gascony, through which the court was now traveling, had suffered more than any part of France from the effects of the war. The Protestants had succeeded in putting down Romanism, and at every step he took Charles was reminded of the outrages offered to his religion; he restored the old form of worship, but the scenes he then witnessed appear never to have been forgotten. As he rode along by the side of the Queen of Navarre, who accompanied him to Blois, he pointed to the ruined monasteries, the broken crosses, the polluted churches; he showed her the mutilated images of the Virgin and the saints, the desecrated grave-yards, the relics scattered to the winds of heaven. The impression of that day’s ride long haunted the Protestant queen and filled her with a distrust of the king and his mother which she never entirely shook off.

At the end of the year the king summoned an assembly of Notables to meet at Moulins for the purpose of remedying many grievances that had become known during the recent progress, and also of reconciling the chiefs of the rival factions. The ambiguities of the Edict of Amboise and the obstacles to carrying it out fully in many places had already called forth several interpretative edicts, one of which had been published at Roussillon in Dauphiny (August, 1564), restraining the hitherto unlimited freedom of worship in private dwellings. The nobles were to admit to their chapels none but members of their household or their vassals; no synods were to be held or collections made in the temples; and the pastors were forbidden to open schools or preach out of their districts. It farther renewed the injunction for the married priests and nuns to return to their cloisters or leave the kingdom—the latter alternative being generally preferred.

Moulins in the Bourbonnais is one of the neatest and prettiest towns in France. Of the magnificent castle where Charles and Catherine de Medicis sat in council very little remains save a fragment of a tower, strangely named Malcoiffée, which rises high above the brick buildings, and a small pavilion built by the queen-mother. Beside the banks of the smiling Allier, and in those irregular streets where many a house of variegated brick, red and white, still dates back beyond this period, were crowded the princes of the blood, several cardinals and bishops, the chief nobility, and the principal officers of the parliaments of France. The resolutions they adopted were merely administrative, reforming many judicial abuses, but they remained a landmark in French jurisprudence until all law was swept away in the great Revolution. But law reform was merely a secondary object with Catherine. With every motive for desiring a continuance of peace, she saw that this was impossible unless the hostile leaders would agree to lay aside their private feuds and become friends. Between the Guises and Coligny there could be no amity, so long as they held him to be the instigator of the late duke’s murder. At the signing of the treaty of Amboise, the Prince of Condé had come forward as a compurgator—to adopt a well-known Anglo-Saxon term—and taken oath that Coligny was innocent. The family were still dissatisfied. One day a funeral procession was seen in the streets of Meulan,[373] where the court then resided. It was Antoinette of Bourbon, mother of the murdered duke, and Anne of Este, his wife, accompanied by her four children, and attended by their friends and partisans, who in long mourning robes and with veiled faces were going to the king to sue for justice. In gloomy silence, broken only by their sobs, the two ladies entered the palace and fell at the king’s feet, demanding justice. Charles raised them graciously and promised what they asked. Their case was laid before the Parliament of Paris, from which it was transferred to the privy-council, with the injunction that no farther steps should be taken within three years. Various attempts at reconciliation were made during the interval, and as this blood-feud had indisputably very much to do with the massacre of St. Bartholomew, it may not be a waste of time to show the progress of the quarrel. In December, 1563, Morvilliers, Bishop of Orleans, wrote to the Bishop of Rennes, embassador to the emperor: “One would willingly find a way of arrangement between them; but the means are very difficult considering the offense and the particulars of the feud. It is impossible but at last this should burst (crève) under some dagger (coustel), and that the one party for revenge or the other for security, should attempt something.” Eleven days later the same writer continues: “We are in great trouble through the difference between the family of the late Duke of Guise and the admiral, and many people would be pleased to see a disturbance. The queen-mother does all she can to prevent it: the poor lady watches and toils incessantly.”?[374] On the 23d December, Morvilliers writes again: “The king and queen are always in trouble through the discords of the Guises and the admiral. No court can settle it, for the admiral objects to the parliaments and the others to the great council.”

Several temporary arrangements had been made, and at last, when the three years had nearly expired, the Guises, whose desire for vengeance had grown all the stronger for being repressed, appeared at Moulins and renewed their cries for justice. On the 12th January, 1566, Charles published a declaration that “it was his desire to bring the difference about the homicide to a happy issue, and that he forbade each of the two houses to attempt any thing against the other.” After a wearisome series of explanations, more worthy of pettifogging attorneys than of brave soldiers, Coligny, in the presence of the king, declared “that he had not committed the murder or abetted it, and that he had never approved of it, then or now.”[375] With this the widow and the Cardinal of Lorraine expressed themselves satisfied, and declared they would no longer entertain revengeful feelings. Thereupon the two parties embraced; but the young Duke Henry of Guise still held out, and in the very presence of the queen challenged Coligny to single combat. “The admiral charges me,” he said, “with plotting his assassination. I will not deny it, but shall esteem it a singular favor to be shut up with him in a room, when I will show him that I am quite capable of defending myself, and need not employ other people to settle my quarrels.”

So far the queen-mother’s plans were frustrated, and she was hardly more successful in arranging the difference between Marshal Montmorency and the Cardinal of Lorraine. In consequence of the quarrels between the partisans of the two religions, the possession and carrying of arms—especially fire-arms—had been strictly prohibited in Paris. Montmorency, “a wise man and loving the public peace,”[376] who after Marshal Brissac’s death had been made governor of Paris, enforced the edict in a manner never contemplated by the king. The Cardinal of Lorraine, returning from the Council of Trent, was escorted to the capital by a number of gentlemen and relatives, but they were forbidden to enter unless they laid aside their spears and arquebuses (8th January, 1565). The prelate paid no attention to the order, upon which Montmorency fell upon his escort at the Innocents’ Cemetery in the Rue St. Denis, killed some, wounded others, and so frightened the churchman that he leaped off his horse and took refuge in a neighboring house, whence he safely reached his own hotel during the night,

The cardinal said he had permission under the king’s letters patent to travel with an armed retinue. “Then he ought to have shown them to me,” said Montmorency, “and I would have allowed him to pass.” The governor, rendered uneasy by the threatening posture of the Lorraine party in the city, invited the assistance of Coligny, who entered Paris with 1200 gentlemen, greatly to the terror of the citizens, who feared their streets would be converted into a battle-field; but the admiral conducted himself so prudently, that he was complimented by the University and the trade guilds.

But nothing that the king or his mother could do was effectual to dissipate the mutual distrust with which Catholics and Huguenots still regarded each other. Every act was viewed with suspicion, and to a great extent the misgivings of the Protestants were justified by the way in which the edicts of toleration were strained against them. “The Huguenots,” says Pasquier, who was no friend to them, “have lost more by edicts in time of peace than by force in time of war.”[377]

At Lyons they were accused of an attempt to blow up the city with gunpowder, and on this idle charge the governor prevented their assembling for public worship. Every Protestant was expelled from Avignon, and the city and surrounding districts were put under martial law. At Foix a number of Huguenots were murdered; at Toulouse many were judicially put to death. These are but a small sample of the Protestant grievances.

A remonstrance presented to the king by the nobles of the Reformed religion in Maine displays a terrible picture of the disturbed state of that province. The Dame de la Guynandière was murdered, with her son, three daughters, and two waiting-women, by a troop of ruffians from Le Mans, who afterward turned the pigs into the house to devour the dead bodies. The bishop of the diocese, a man of dissolute life, used to ride about attended by one hundred and fifty men armed with pistols or arquebuses. One Hélie, a priest, was accused of indescribable acts of brutality toward nine little girls. That and many other such horrors fill a pamphlet of more than one hundred pages, and the perpetrators (as was usually the case) escaped punishment.[378]

On the other hand, the Catholics had their complaints. At Pamiers the Huguenots attacked a procession, killed some of the clergy and burned their houses.[379] At Soissons they pillaged the churches, demolished the beautiful painted windows, broke the organ, melted the bells, stripped the lead off the roofs, plundered the shrines of their gold and jewels, burned the relics of the saints, and tore up the charters and title-deeds belonging to the clergy. Similar tumults occurred at Montauban and other towns. Where the Catholics were the strongest, they fell upon the Huguenots; where the latter, they attacked the Catholics. At one time there is a rumor of an attempt to assassinate the king; at another, of an atrocious book ascribed to Sureau, a Protestant pastor, in which the doctrine is boldly affirmed that “it is lawful to slay a king or a queen who resists the Gospel Reformation.” Then an anonymous letter is found at the door of Catherine’s bed-chamber, threatening her with the fate of President Minard and the Duke of Guise, unless she permits complete liberty of conscience to the Reformed party.

Many of the atrocities we have recorded were owing to the weakness of the central government. It must be remembered that the several provinces of France were under their own governors, who held their offices by an almost hereditary right, and that the king had not always the power, even when he had the inclination, to preserve peace. There were few like that rough warrior Montluc, who kept Gascony so quiet that for three years “horseman or footman did not steal so much as a pullet.” He hanged two Catholic soldiers for infringing the edict, and two Huguenots who had committed a similar offense “were shortly strung up to keep the others company.” And he continues: “When these good people saw that neither one side nor the other would meet with any indulgence if they transgressed, they began to like and associate with one another. I believe if every one had done the same, without favor to either side, we should never have had so many troubles.”

Charles, whose dislike toward “those of the religion” needed no stimulus, occasionally indulged in bursts of irritation which he was too young to repress. One day when the admiral remonstrated with him on the restrictions put upon the last edict, he replied: “Not long ago you were satisfied to be tolerated by the Catholics, now you want to be their equals; in a short time, I suppose you will desire to be alone and to drive us from the kingdom.” Coligny made no reply, as indeed no reply would have satisfied the angry boy, who burst into his mother’s apartments, and added, after telling her what had passed: “The Duke of Alva was right: such heads are too tall in a state. We must put them down by force.”[380] Catherine appears at this time to have been exceedingly ill-disposed toward Coligny. Writing to her daughter Isabella, she says: “Although the admiral remains at court, he will be as one dead;[381] because, with God’s help, I shall not suffer myself to be governed by either party, for I know they all love God, the king, and your mother less than their own advantage and ambition; and as they know full well that I will not permit the king or the kingdom to be ruined by them, they love me in words only.”

It was about this time also that several German princes, including the Palatine of the Rhine and the Dukes of Saxony and Wurtemberg, dispatched an embassy to Charles, interceding in behalf of their French co-religionists. With expressions of great attachment, they prayed him to observe the Edict of Pacification; to permit the ministers to preach as well at Paris as elsewhere, and to allow the people to listen to them in any number. He answered them sharply that he could be friends with his cousins of Germany only so long as they abstained from meddling in the domestic affairs of his kingdom. After a pause he continued in a still more angry tone: “I might also pray them to permit the Catholics to worship freely in their own cities.” It was an apt retort, for so far as concerned public worship the Romanists in many parts of Protestant Germany and Switzerland were very little, if at all, better off than the Huguenots of France.

Every thing seemed tending toward an explosion. The Huguenots and the Catholics, like two hostile nations on the same soil, were ready to fly at each other, and the treacherous truce, which substituted riots and assassination for open war, could not last much longer. Still the actual rupture might have been deferred, but for circumstances connected with the state of the Netherlands. The Protestants of that country had been goaded into rebellion by the infamous persecutions of Philip II. of Spain. William, Prince of Orange, put himself at their head, and although unsuccessful, the movement was considered so dangerous that the ferocious and uncompromising Alva was commissioned to crush it utterly. For this purpose it was necessary to increase the Spanish army in Flanders; and as that could not be done by sea, on which the rebels were superior, a force of ten thousand picked veterans[382] was transported from Carthagena to Genoa, whence they made their way through the passes of Mont Cenis into Burgundy and Lorraine. Catherine, who distrusted Philip, thought it prudent to watch their march, and for that purpose collected all the forces she could muster to form an army of observation. These being insufficient for the purpose, Condé and the admiral advised the enrolment of 6000 Swiss mercenaries.[383] The queen, delighted at such an opportunity of raising soldiers without offending the susceptibility of the Huguenots, promptly acted upon the advice. But when the prince asked for the command of the troops with the quality of lieutenant-general of the kingdom, the constable withdrawing his claim on account of his age, she fenced and prevaricated, although the appointment was promised in one of the secret articles of the late treaty of peace. The Duke of Anjou, Catherine’s favorite son, aspired to the same office, and hearing of Condé’s application, the insolent boy said to him: “If ever I catch you failing in respect to me, I will make you as little as you aspire to be great.”[384] Surprised at such language, the prince left the court.[385]

As soon as the Spanish troops had crossed the frontier and entered the Netherlands, it was expected that the royal army would be disbanded; but, instead of that, it was marched to the neighborhood of Paris. This was of itself quite enough to excite the alarm of the Huguenot leaders, who were farther startled by information of a plot to seize both Condé and the admiral; to imprison the former for life, and put the other to death; and to place garrisons in the towns favorable to the Reformed religion, the exercise of which was to be prohibited all over the kingdom.[386] The heads of the Huguenot party immediately took council with the admiral at his castle of Chatillon. Their deliberations were long and serious. No doubt seems to have been entertained regarding the truth of the report. The suspicions aroused by the Bayonne meeting, corroborated by stories of the projected massacre at Moulins, which failed only because the Huguenots were present in too great number, were strengthened by the insolence of Anjou and the queen-mother’s insincerity. The edicts of toleration had not been fairly brought into operation; new interpretation edicts were continually encroaching upon the privileges of the Reformed; Alva was at hand in Flanders to assist in carrying out the scheme he had suggested only a few months before. Men in a panic never reason fairly, never indeed examine into the truth of the rumors by which their alarm has been roused. It was so in the present instance when the more violent party said: “Shall we tarry until they come and bind us hand and foot, and so draw us unto their scaffold at Paris, there by our shameful deaths to glut others’ cruelty? Do we not see the foreign enemy marching armed toward us, and threatening to be revenged on us for Dreux? Have we forgotten that about 3000 of our religion have, since the peace, endured violent deaths, for whom we can have no redress? If it were our king’s will we should be thus injured, we might perhaps the better bear it; but shall we bear the insolence of those who shroud themselves under his name and try to alienate his good-will from us? For more than forty years our fathers professed the true religion in secret, and endured all sorts of tortures and injuries with patience inexhaustible. If we who are so numerous, and who are able to profess our religion openly, should betray a righteous cause by a disgraceful silence and unseasonable moderation, we should fall into an apostasy unworthy of the two goodly titles of Christian and gentleman. We should be wanting not only to ourselves but to God, and besides losing our own souls should be the cause of ruin to others.”[387] Coligny advised them to be patient: “I see clearly how we may rekindle the fire,” he said; “but not where we may find water to quench it.” His brother Andelot was for more vigorous measures: “If we wait until we are shut up in prison, what will our patience avail us? If we give our enemies the advantage of striking the first blow, we shall never recover from it.” But before coming to a final decision, a deputation of the Huguenot nobility waited upon Catherine and entreated her to be more just to their co-religionists. Their reception was such that there seemed no alternative left them but to draw the sword.

It was an unfortunate decision, and not justified by the real facts. But the mistake committed by the Huguenot chiefs is patent enough, and they were thought by their contemporaries to have acted very wisely. La Popelinière, whose evidence on this point is of great weight, speaks of “the approach of the Swiss who had been levied under color of preventing the entrance of the King of Spain and the Queen of England; and since then, the necessity having passed, the declaration made to them by Barbazieux, the king’s lieutenant in Champagne, that they were to be employed against those of the religion.”[388] Alva, in a letter to his royal master, written on the 28th June, 1567, testifies to the satisfaction felt in France at the vicinity of the Spanish troops.[389] Languet writes from Strasburg on the 22d October, that the Huguenot chiefs knew for certain that the pope and the other princes who had conspired against the true religion, had determined, as soon as it was put down in Lower Germany, to do the same in France, and for that purpose the king had raised a strong force of Swiss.”[390]

The Huguenot counterplot was to seize the king and his mother, then residing at her castle of Monceaux in Brie, just as the Guise faction had seized them five years before. Indistinct rumors of a Protestant rising reached the court, and a messenger was sent to watch the admiral. On his return he reported that he had found the old warrior busily engaged in getting in his vintage.[391] Two days later (28th September, 1567), all France was in flames. Fifty towns were seized, and a strong force of Huguenot cavalry was preparing for a dash upon Meaux, about ten leagues east of Paris, whither the court had proceeded upon the first intelligence of the outbreak. Confusion prevailed in that little city: Catherine feared to leave it lest she should be intercepted by the Huguenots, and the Swiss troops, though not far off, were not so near as the cavalry under Condé. The Swiss were ordered to be brought up with all speed; but L’Hopital suggested that the wiser plan would be to disband those mercenaries—a concession which would satisfy the Huguenots, and induce them to lay down their arms. “Will you guarantee that they have no other aim than to serve the king?” asked Catherine. “I will,” he replied, “if I am assured there is no intention of deceiving them.” But either the queen was meditating treachery, as L’Hopital’s remark would almost imply, or the risk appeared too great. The Swiss made their appearance, and, under their safeguard, the king reached Paris in twelve hours. “But for Nemours and my good friends the Swiss, I should have lost both liberty and life,” said Charles. The Duke of Nemours, who, from his marriage with Anne of Este, widow of the murdered Duke Francis, was held in great respect by the Guises, commanded a body of volunteers composed of gentlemen attached to the court, who acted as a sort of light cavalry, and covered the king’s retreat. More than once Charles turned upon his pursuers and fought at the head of his gallant little body-guard. The constable, seeing the unnecessary danger to which he exposed himself, caught his horse by the bridle and stopped him, saying: “Your majesty should not risk your person like this: it is too dear to us to permit you to be accompanied by a troop of less than 10,000 French gentlemen.”

But Condé with his five hundred horse could do nothing against the 6000 Swiss, who “stood fast awhile and then retired close, still turning their head as doth the wild boar whom the hunters pursue.”[392] The prince had lost his opportunity. While he was wasting time in an idle conference with Montmorency, whom the queen-mother had ostensibly sent to demand the cause of his arming, the Swiss were hurrying to Meaux with the utmost speed. His irresolution was a great mistake: he ought never to have made the attempt to seize the king’s person, or to have risked every thing to clutch the prize within his reach. His failure made him a traitor as well as a rebel, and inflamed the anger of Charles against the Huguenots more than success could have done.[393] In the latter case the king would, in spite of appearances, have found them to be loyal and faithful subjects, and would have had the best of evidence that in their hands neither his life nor his liberty were imperiled. As it was, he never forgave their attempt to seize him, and he swore with one of his usual blasphemous oaths, that he would some day be revenged on them.

The Cardinal of Lorraine, knowing that he had little to hope for should he fall into the hands of the Huguenot chiefs, fled in another direction, losing his baggage on the road, and got safe to Rheims, where he entered into a traitorous correspondence with the King of Spain, offering to place several frontier towns in his hands, and support his claims to the throne of France in right of his wife.[394] But his plots were frustrated by the course of events.

Both parties now made the most strenuous exertions to increase their forces. The king, writing to Simiane de Gordes, governor of Dauphiny, instructing him to raise troops and keep down the heretics, uses language worthy of the St. Bartholomew: “You will cut them in pieces, not sparing one, for the more dead the fewer enemies.”[395] Before the actual outbreak of hostilities, attempts were made by the Moderates, or Parti Politique, to effect a reconciliation. Condé demanded complete toleration of the Reformed religion all over the kingdom, without distinction of place or person; to which Charles IX. replied, through Marshal Montmorency, that “he would not tolerate two religions in his kingdom.” There was nothing more to be done: the sword must decide between them. The train-bands of Paris were called out; new taxes were imposed; the clergy made a voluntary gift of 250,000 crowns, a loan of 100,000 crowns was raised at Venice, and one to a similar amount at Florence.

Although the Huguenot force was very small—1200 foot and 1500 horse—the chiefs boldly marched to Paris, which they hoped to blockade and starve into submission before any help could reach that city from the more distant provinces. But here again Catherine’s wonderful talent for negotiation was exerted to keep the Protestant leaders in check, until the reinforcements—impetuously summoned from various quarters—were hurriedly marched into the capital. Condé had placarded the walls of Paris with a protest that he had taken up arms only to deliver the king’s subjects from the oppression of Italian favorites; but he was no match for those wily Italians who, now feeling safe, broke off the negotiations. On the 10th November, the Huguenots found themselves in the presence of the royal forces on the great plain of St. Denis. It was then quite open and highly cultivated, the only buildings on it were a solitary farm-house and a few windmills. Across it ran that broad highway, along which travelers from the north used to pass before the railroad had diverted the living stream. The troops under Constable Montmorency were five times more numerous than those under Condé, and had the advantage of artillery. The scene of the contest was about a mile from Paris, between Montmartre, Pantin, and St. Denis. The gibbet of Montfauçon was on the edge of the field. Being so near the walls, crowds of idlers, including many women, went to look on.[396] Ballad singers were already celebrating Montmorency’s victory, quacks on their frail platforms were extolling their salves and plasters for wounds; the swindlers and ruffians, the cheats and rogues, who live by the vices, or prey upon the weaknesses of society—all the vermin of a great city—were there in crowds; monks mingled in the throng, chanting their litanies and selling beads; and more numerous than all was that foul horde which always gathers, like birds of prey, upon a battle-field.

There was not much time to lose in manœuvring, for the day was drawing to a close. Condé charged furiously upon the advancing enemy, sweeping every thing before him, so much to the admiration of the spectators that they loudly applauded the gallant Huguenots. “If my master had only 6000 horsemen like those white-coats[397] yonder,” exclaimed the sultan’s envoy, who had been watching the fight from the city walls, “he would soon be master of the world.” But the Huguenots were so outnumbered that they were gradually hemmed in by the larger masses of the enemy, and compelled to retreat. The approach of night saved them from farther disaster. The battle was fatal to the constable, who seems to have fallen a victim to private malice. In the heat of a charge, when wounded and separated from his troops, he saw one Robert Stuart ride up to him and present a pistol. The constable, expecting to be made a prisoner, called out: “You do not know me!” “It is just because I do know you,” replied the Scotchman, “that I give you this.” And he fired,[398] the ball shattering Montmorency’s shoulder and throwing him to the ground, not however before he had broken Stuart’s jaw with the fragment of the sword he still grasped in his warlike hand. His death was like his life. When a priest approached to administer religious consolation, he smilingly begged to be left in peace, “for it would be a shameful thing,” he added, “to have known how to live fourscore years, and not know how to die one short quarter of an hour.” The queen-mother went to visit him before his death, and, as she bent over his bed to console him, he advised her to make peace as soon as possible, adding that “the shortest follies are the best.”[399] Marshal Vieilleville was of the same opinion. “It was not your majesty that gained the battle,” said he to the king, “much less the Prince of Condé!” “Who then gained it?” asked Charles. “The King of Spain,” answered Vieilleville; “for on both sides valiant captains and brave soldiers have fallen, enough to conquer Flanders and the Low Countries.” The united loss was nearly six hundred.

The death of the constable was a serious blow to the Moderate party, although he did not actually belong to them. He had learned wisdom as he advanced in life, showing himself one of those rare men—rare at all times, but especially so in the sixteenth century—who could accommodate themselves to altered circumstances. His deep loyalty to the crown made him suspicious of the Lorraine faction; and his relationship to Condé and the Chatillons tempered the zeal of his orthodoxy. He saw clearly that no one would gain by the war, except the enemies of France. Languet adds that, taught by experience, Montmorency had learned that the Huguenots could not be crushed without the ruin of the kingdom; and he labored strenuously to carry out the Pacification of Amboise to the great disgust of the pope and Philip of Spain.[400]

Before the end of the year, a body of 2000 foot and 1500 horse, dispatched by Alva from Flanders under the Count of Aremberg, accompanied by a choice band of the Catholic nobility of the Low Countries, had joined the royal camp of Paris. At the same time the Huguenots were expecting reinforcements from Germany, and, in order to meet them, Condé left his head-quarters at Chalons, marched above twenty leagues in three days, through the rain and over bad roads, losing neither wagons nor artillery. There was some doubt whether the royal forces would not intercept the Germans before they could join the Huguenots. “And what will you do, in case they do not come to the rendezvous?” asked some one of Condé. “I think we should have to blow on our fingers,” he jestingly replied, “for the weather is very cold.” But they were not reduced to such extremity, having formed a successful junction with the German auxiliaries, commanded by John Casimir, son of the elector-palatine. This force consisted of 7000 cavalry and 4000 infantry—all mercenary troops who fought solely for pay and plunder. Before they would move another step, the reiters (as they were called) demanded a bounty of 100,000 crowns; and as the military chest was empty, the French force voluntarily subscribed money, jewels, rings, gold chains, and other ornaments to the amount of 30,000 crowns, with which the Germans, astonished at so much self-denial, were momentarily satisfied. “Even soldiers, lackeys, and boys gave every one somewhat,” says La Noue, “so as in the end it was accounted a dishonor to have given a little.” The old warrior takes the opportunity furnished by this incident to describe some of the difficulties with which the Huguenot chiefs had to contend. It required “great art and diligence to feed an unpaid army of above 20,000 men.” The admiral was remarkably careful in all the arrangements of his commissariat department, and acted up to the spirit of the old saying, that “a soldier fights upon his belly.” Whenever there was any question of forming an army, he used to say: “Let us begin the shaping of this monster by the belly.” “This devouring animal,” continues La Noue, “passing through so many provinces, could still find some pasture wherewith was sometimes mixed the poor man’s garment, yea, and the friend’s too; so sore did necessity and desire to catch incite those that wanted no excuses to color their spoil.”

Civil war now raged with increased fury all over France. Although the two main armies did not again come into collision, there were little partisan campaigns in every province and almost every large town. It was during this period that Nismes became the theatre of that terrible tragedy known as the Michelade, from its occurring at the feast of St. Michael in 1567. The new doctrines had made such progress in the old Roman city that, in the year 1562, the municipal council decided that the cathedral with some other churches should be made over to the Reformed, and farther ordered the bells of the convents to be cast into cannon, the convents to be let “for the good of the state,” the relics and their shrines to be sold, and the non-conforming priests to leave the city. Damville, governor of Languedoc, and second son of the Constable Montmorency, was sent to Nismes to restore order, which he succeeded in doing by severe and arbitrary measures. At Uzès, a person named Mouton having ventured to blame these high-handed proceedings, was taken and hanged on the spot without any form of trial.[401] If such was the beginning, we may imagine what the Reformed had to suffer afterward. At length a trifling circumstance led to an explosion. About six in the morning of the 30th September, 1567, the second day of St. Michael’s fair, some Albanians belonging to Damville’s guard, lounging outside the city gates, stopped several women bringing vegetables to market, and in mere wantonness upset the baskets and trampled upon their contents. There was an immediate uproar: the women screamed, the neighbors ran to their assistance, and the crowd was swelled by the peasants coming from the country, at whose menacing gestures the foreigners drew their swords to defend themselves. On a sudden there was a shout: “To arms! to arms! Kill the Papists!” Hundreds rushed out of their houses and collected on the esplanade. The Consul Gui Rochette tried to calm them, but they violently rejected his prudent advice. When the news of the tumult reached the bishop he exclaimed: “This is the prince of darkness! blessed be the holy name of Heaven!” and then knelt down in prayer, momentarily expecting martyrdom. He succeeded, however, in escaping from the mob, who, in their angry disappointment, sacked his palace and killed the vicar-general. A number of Catholics, including the consul and his brother, had been shut up in the cellars of the episcopal residence. About an hour before midnight they were dragged out and led into that grey old court-yard, where the imagination can still detect the traces of that cruel massacre.[402] One by one the victims came forth; a few steps, and they fell pierced by sword or pike. Some struggled with their murderers, and tried to escape, but only prolonged their agony. By the dim light of a few torches between seventy and eighty unhappy wretches were butchered in cold blood, and their bodies, some only half-dead, were thrown into the well in one corner of the yard, not far from an orange-tree, the leaves of which (says local tradition) were ever afterward marked with the blood-stains of this massacre.

The Michelade has been contrasted with the St. Bartholomew, but there is this difference between the two crimes: the former was committed in despite of the exhortations of the pastors, and no one has attempted to justify it. After the peace of Longjumeau, the Parliament of Toulouse prosecuted all who had taken any part in the murders. More than a hundred persons were condemned by default to be hanged and to pay 200,000 livres, of which 60,000 were allotted to the repair of the churches, 6000 to Gui’s widow, and the remainder to the families of the victims. Only four were caught, who, after being dragged through the city at the horse’s tail, were beheaded, and their quarters hung up over the principal gates. In the September of the following year, the brutal scenes of violence were renewed: the city was plundered, and its streets were dyed with Catholic blood. The governor, St. André, was shot and thrown out of the window, and his corpse was torn in pieces by the lawless mob.

In the country round Nismes forty-eight unresisting Catholics were murdered; and at Alais the Huguenots massacred seven canons, two grey-friars, and several other churchmen. Even at the little town of Gap, far away among the Upper Alps, the followers of the two religions, who had hitherto lived together on friendly terms, now sought each other’s blood. The outbreak was occasioned by the attempt of the Catholics to wear a white cross—a badge of distinction recently adopted among the Romanists. The two parties came to blows, and, says their historian, “they vied with one another in cruelty.”[403] It was the same wherever the two armies marched. “Our people,” writes Languet, “burn all the monasteries and destroy all the churches they come near: but the Germans (that is, the reiters) spoil friends and enemies alike.” Castelnau confirms this statement: “When Blois capitulated, faith was not kept with the governor and inhabitants on the ground that the Catholics boasted of not keeping their promise to the Huguenots. So that on both sides the droit des gens was violated without any shame.... What the Huguenots spared was plundered by the Catholics.”[404] Even the dead were not left in peace; in more than one instance the corpses were exhumed and treated with savage barbarity.

But these scattered hostilities, much as they increased the misery of France, had very little influence on the main course of events. So long as Condé and Coligny were in the field, the cause of independence was safe. The young Duke of Anjou, who, as lieutenant-general of the kingdom, had been put at the head of the royal forces, was no match for his experienced antagonists; nor could he always check the dissensions between the veteran generals who, nominally under his orders, were really the directors of all his movements. The Huguenot leaders saw the favorable opportunity, and, with unexpected caution and rapidity, Condé moved his army toward Chartres, in the hope of securing it as a base of operations against Paris. But the Royalists were too quick for him, and the garrison was reinforced before he could reach the city. Determined to take the town at all hazards—for it was on the main line of communication between Paris and the west and south—Coligny pressed the siege, when Catherine, seeing that affairs had reached a crisis, took the bold step of appearing in the enemy’s camp.

A timely remonstrance from the pen of Chancellor L’Hopital had a marked effect in turning the minds of the people toward peace. Beginning with a comparison of the two parties he says, “The Huguenots are not a mob hastily collected together, but men, warlike, resolute, and in despair ... ready to venture all that men hold most dear in defense of their wives and children. The Catholic party is ill-constructed, all are tired of the war, and, even among the common people, there is nothing but murmuring.... To exterminate the enemy is impossible, unless you would fill the country with pestilence, famine, and starvation. Look at Champagne—a desert, so utterly wretched that there is nothing left the poor inhabitants but to die of hunger and despair.... But if we could destroy them all, what will you do with their innocent children? If you, spare them, will they not grow up to avenge their fathers? If the king should lose a battle, he would be deserted by thousands who now follow him through fear or love of plunder: it would be the destruction of his throne.” After combating the arguments of those who contend that the king is bound to punish rebels, and that he can not capitulate with his subjects, he advises Charles “to use clemency, as he shall meet it from God; to forget his own resentment toward his subjects, and they will forget their evil dispositions toward him, and forget their very selves to honor and obey him.”[405] If the queen-mother was not influenced by these arguments, she saw at least that it was time to put an end to the war. She had often boasted that her tongue and her pen were more than a match for the lances of her enemies; and their power was never more strikingly shown than in the present instance. She offered an amnesty for all past offenses, and an unconditional acquiescence in the demands of her son’s “loyal though misguided subjects.” The admiral was suspicious, and hesitated. “They have not forgiven us the surprise of Meaux,” he said. “But the desire of all for peace,” observes La Noue, “was as a whirlwind which they could not resist.”[406] Meanwhile the Huguenot army melted away, whole bodies going off without asking leave, and Condé hurriedly signed the Treaty of Longjumeau (20th March, 1568),[407] which restored the Edict of Amboise, bound the court to pay the foreign auxiliaries in the rebel service, and left the Reformed party, says Mezeray, “at the mercy of their enemies, with no other guarantee than the word of an Italian woman.”[408]

While the admiral was negotiating the treaty of Longjumeau his wife fell ill and died at Orleans of a fever contracted in the course of her charitable labors in that crowded and unhealthy city. As soon as she felt the approaches of death, she wrote the following pathetic letter to her husband: “I feel very unhappy in dying so far from you, whom I have always loved more than myself; but I take comfort from the knowledge that you are kept away from me by the best of motives. I entreat you, by the love you bear me, and by the children I leave you as pledges of my love, to fight to the last extremity for God’s service and the advancement of religion.... Train up our children in the pure religion, so that if you fail them, they may one day take your place; and as they can not yet spare you, do not expose your life more than is necessary. Beware of the house of Guise; I know not whether I ought to say the same of the queen-mother, being forbidden to judge evilly of my neighbor; but she has given so many marks of her ambition that a little distrust is pardonable.” It was two or three days before the admiral could leave the army, and when he reached Orleans all was over. His wife had been dead twenty-four hours, leaving him with three boys and one girl. For a time the bereaved husband was inconsolable: “Oh, God, what have I done?” he exclaimed, in the anguish of his heart; “what have I done that I should be so severely chastised, so overwhelmed with calamities?” At last the consolations of religion began to temper his sorrow. “Would that I might lead a holier life and present a better example of godliness! Most Holy Father, look upon me, if it please thee, and in the multitude of thy mercies, relieve my sufferings!”[409] As soon as the state of affairs permitted he retired to his estate at Chatillon, but was not long permitted to enjoy the rest and privacy he sought. In a short time he became the centre of a little court. The crowd was so great that, “when two gentlemen left by one door, twenty entered by another.” The admiral was so beloved that he was overwhelmed with presents, the members of his party forcing them upon him notwithstanding his protests. “It is only right,” they urged, “to help the man who is ruining himself for love of us.”

Peace found the finances of the kingdom in a very dilapidated condition. The expenditure was eighteen millions of livres, and the revenue less than half that amount; besides which there were arrears due to the foreign auxiliaries—not only those whom Condé had enrolled, but a large body under the Duke of Saxony, who claimed five months’ pay, although they had not drawn a sword and scarcely entered the French territory. These reiters were a terrible scourge to France, and it was necessary to get rid of them at any sacrifice. Davila paints them as sweeping through the country like a frightful hurricane (spaventosa tempesta). Armed to the teeth in black mail, drawn up in squadrons sixteen deep and with a front of thirty, they rode down the weak lines of the French cavalry. Fierce in demeanor, brutal in habits, as intractable as they were insolent, and a nuisance alike to friend and foe, they were insatiable pillagers, and their long train of wagons filled with plunder often caused irremediable delay in the march of the Huguenot army. None knew how to drive a hard bargain better than they did. Castelnau gives a curious account of his negotiations with these men, who, in the true spirit of mercenary soldiers, were ready to turn their arms against any body, if they were paid for it. The only means of raising money to meet the various claims upon the treasury was to sell church property, which was done to the amount of 100,000 crowns rental. Although the pope had given his consent to this alienation, provided the money was employed to extirpate heresy, the Parliament of Paris long refused to register the decree authorizing the sale, on the factious ground that “things consecrated to God could not be touched.”