The story of the massacre has been told, but this history would be incomplete if it were not continued to the death of the principal character in that memorable tragedy. As kings are esteemed great and glorious by the noble deeds done in their reigns, so must they bear the odium of the crimes perpetrated under the cloak of their authority. A few pages will suffice for a brief record of the last twenty months of the life of the most wretched Charles.

The court had gained nothing by their treachery. The German Protestant powers were alienated, and the English nation shrank in horror from the French alliance. Charles must now conciliate Spain, a power which he had always disliked, and which he now hated with all the intensity of impotence. Besides which, a reaction had set in: the influence of the Moderate party once more began to be felt. “This manner of proceeding,” wrote Walsingham, on the 13th September, “is by the Catholics themselves utterly condemned.” Cardinal Fabio Orsini (Des Ursins), whom the pope had sent to congratulate the king on the massacre, and urge him to accept the decrees of the Council of Trent, was surprised to find that the atrocities of August were not thought of so highly in France as at Rome. The general feelings of the people, which had been surprised, had recovered their sway, and they were ashamed of themselves and of their rulers, who had played upon their loyalty.

Catherine had gained nothing. She was so entirely at the mercy of the Guise faction, which consisted of all that was most violent in France, that she was forced to follow where they led. She was fully conscious of the terrible mistake she had made, and bitterly must she have repented it in after years; but now her sole aim was to re-assure the disheartened Huguenots, and soften the impression which the news of the massacre had created in foreign courts. Her embassador in London was instructed to make the most lavish protestations of tolerance; and in Paris both Catherine and Charles tried to convince Walsingham that they were hurried away to the committal of a deed necessary to their safety, but entirely unconnected with religion. The far-seeing Englishman was not to be deceived by their fair professions; but wrote home again and again, that “now there is neither regard had to word, writing, or edict,” and that “nothing is meant but extremity toward those of the religion.”[743]

During the massacre and for some time after it, the Huguenots were so panic-stricken that they seemed incapable of the commonest actions for preserving their lives. But as soon as they recovered from their consternation, they once more ran to arms, and France was again exposed to the very evils which the massacre was intended to make impossible. Civil war now became justifiable in the eyes of the Reformed party; for horrible as it might be to draw the sword against a brother, it seemed less horrible than to sit still and suffer that brother to cut your throat. They were not fighting against the crown, but against a tyrant who had stained his hands with the blood of his people. It was a nice distinction, but distinctions equally nice were drawn at the commencement of our Great Rebellion. Each party strove to justify their appeal to arms by showing that law and justice were on their side. When the citizens of Nismes were summoned to admit the royal troops, they were told that firmness alone could save them, and they kept their gates shut. Rochelle and Sancerre, Aubenas, Sommières, Milhaud, Anduze, and scores of other towns, large and small, did the same, so that in a short time the whole country from the Channel to the Mediterranean was again divided into two hostile camps. The Protestants were so exasperated and so desperate, that compromise seemed impossible. Unhappily, most of their leaders had perished in the massacre. La Noue was still left them—himself a host; but Henry of Navarre and the Prince of Condé were prisoners at court. Still there was no shrinking from the unequal strife: the Huguenot veterans left their farms and their shops, and rallied round the gentry of their neighborhood. But their force was small, while the king was soon able to put four armies in the field, one of which was marched against Sancerre, and another against Rochelle. Biron, and afterward Anjou, commanded the latter, which was by far the best appointed. It was composed of veteran troops, and counted the Dukes of Guise and Alençon, Henry and Condé, among its officers.

Rochelle was admirably adapted for a place of refuge where the Huguenots could make a last stand in defense of religious freedom. On the land side it was protected by marshes, which allowed of only one narrow approach from the north. Toward the sea it was hardly more accessible. The stormy nature of the coast prevented a successful blockade, and the gales that drove off a hostile fleet were favorable to the entrance of friends. The city itself was fortified according to the best rules of the military art of that day, with broad ditches, thick ramparts, and threatening bastions. But strong as it was by its position among the marshes of Poitou, it had been made stronger still during the interval left its inhabitants by the tardy and irresolute movements of the court. The garrison consisted of 1500 veteran soldiers and 2000 well-trained citizens, the stores of all kinds were ample, and aid was coming from England. The commander of the city was the brave and upright La Noue—the chevalier sans peur et sans reproche of the Huguenot party, and not unworthy successor of the great Coligny. Being a prisoner in the hands of Alva at the time of the massacre, he fortunately escaped death; and, on his restoration to liberty, he went to court, where the king received him with open arms and gave him the confiscated estates of Teligny. When the Rochellers closed their gates, he was commissioned by Charles IX. to treat with them and try to procure their submission. The result was not what the king expected, for La Noue joined the citizens, and was made governor. Here, while fighting bravely and doing his best to preserve the city, he never lost an opportunity of recommending conciliatory measures.

The Catholic party made it a point of honor to reduce the capital of Protestantism. The siege was begun with a vigor that would have honored a better cause. From the hills which commanded the defenses a continual storm of fire was poured upon the devoted city. Assault after assault was gallantly made and repelled with equal spirit and determination. Even the women mounted the walls, cheering the combatants, tending the wounded, carrying ammunition, water and food to the soldiers, and sometimes with a boldness beyond their sex wielding the weapons that had fallen from dying hands. These alone, occasionally aided by the ministers, hurled from huge caldrons floods of boiling water and melted pitch upon the assailants in the breach. For five months Anjou attacked the place in vain—each month diminishing the ardor of the besiegers.

The siege would probably have been more closely pressed (instead of being relaxed) as time went on, had there been unity of purpose in the royal army. Cabals were formed among the officers, some of whom refused to obey the orders of a man who was openly charged with the murder of the admiral. Strange stories circulated through the camp. Men told one another with a shudder how one day, when the Duke of Guise was playing at hazard, blood dropped from his hand as he threw the dice on the table.[744] But there was perfect harmony among the besieged, although La Noue had quitted the city where his courage, military ability, and simple character had been poorly appreciated. The pastors and he were constantly at variance; they thwarted his plans and excited the people against him. Brave as were the Rochellers, they must have yielded at last but for the election of Anjou to the crown of Poland. This made him listen readily to pacific counsels, and on the 11th July, 1573, a treaty was concluded by which the inhabitants surrendered on the following conditions: That there should be a complete amnesty for the past; that the cities of Montauban, Nismes, and La Rochelle should retain their old privileges; that the Reformed should enjoy freedom of worship, provided they met in small numbers and unarmed; that the gentry might celebrate marriages and baptisms in their own houses, provided not more than ten persons were present; that all prisoners for religious offenses should be set at large; and that all who desired to leave the kingdom might sell their goods freely and go where they pleased, except into enemy’s country. Such good terms might not have been obtained but for two things: the siege had cost 40,000 men in battle or by disease, and the king had neither money nor credit to pay his troops.

When the inhabitants of Sancerre heard that they were not included in the treaty of Rochelle, they determined to perish rather than surrender. The little town was excepted, because the Catholics imagined its fall to be near and inevitable; but another motive was assigned, namely, that as the city belonged to a particular seigneur, the king (who had suddenly become scrupulous) would not prejudice the rights of the superior lord. In January, 1573, an army of 5000 infantry, 500 horse, and 1600 sappers sat down before this petty town, whose garrison consisted of about 800 men. After summoning the place to surrender, La Châtre opened the trenches, and from two batteries of sixteen guns discharged 2000 shot in two months. By the middle of March he had made a breach 300 paces wide, but failed to carry it by storm. Drawing his lines still closer, he entirely cut off all external relief, so that in the beginning of April the towns-folk began to run short of food. They eat the asses and mules, and afterward fell to horses, dogs, cats, mice, moles, and leather, and, sinking lower still, tried horns, harness, wild roots, and parchment. “I have seen some served up,” writes an eye-witness, “on which the writing was still visible, and one might read from the pieces placed upon the table to be eaten.” By the end of June, three-fourths of the inhabitants had no bread to eat. Some attempted substitutes of flax-seed, others of all kinds of herbs, mixed with bran, others even tried straw, nut-shells, and slate, by which the stomach was distended and the pangs of hunger were temporarily assuaged. Grease and tallow served for soups and for frying: “Yea, some (a strange thing and never heard of) labored to encounter the cruelty of their hunger by the excrements of horses and men.” But there is worse to be told. On the 19th June a laboring man and his wife “satisfied their hunger with the head and entrails of their young daughter, about three years old.” They were tried and executed for the murder, for which there was the less excuse, as that very day they had been “relieved with a pottage made of herbs and wine.”[745] The young children under twelve almost all died. A boy only ten years old, seeing his parents weeping over him, said: “Mother, why do you cry because I am hungry? I do not ask you for bread, for I know you have none. But as it is God’s will that I should die, I must be content. Did not holy Lazarus suffer hunger?” And with these words, adds De Serres, “he gave back his soul to God.” The historian sums up in this short but pregnant sentence: “During the siege, fourscore men died by the sword, but of starvation above five hundred.” On the 19th August, through the intervention of the Polish deputies, the inhabitants were granted honorable terms of capitulation.[746]

But the Huguenots were not intimidated. On the anniversary of the massacre in Paris, they assembled at Montauban, and demanded the strict fulfillment of the treaty of St. Germains. They went farther, indeed, and required, among other things, that the open exercise of their religion should be permitted everywhere in France; that they should pay tithes to their own ministers only; that such of the clergy as had embraced the Reformed doctrines and married should be allowed the privileges of citizenship; that the authors and perpetrators of the August massacres should be punished; and that a parliament or supreme court of justice, composed of Huguenots only, should be appointed to try all causes in which they were concerned.

When their petition was presented to the king, he listened and made no remark; but Catherine haughtily replied: “If Condé were alive and in the heart of France with 100,000 horse and foot, he would not ask one-half of what these people demand.” Their prayer was refused; and had it been granted, we may doubt whether the condition of the Huguenots would have been much improved. France seemed to be given over to all the evils that misgovernment, which is rarely unaccompanied with other and more damning vices, can bring upon a nation. Although the Duke of Anjou had been elected King of Poland, and had departed for his kingdom, his evil influence remained behind. The court was the arena of the most disgraceful intrigues: honor among men, chastity among women, had become unmeaning words. The Duke of Alençon, a poor weak fool, gaining courage by the absence of the more resolute Anjou, entered into all sorts of schemes to prevent his brother’s return to France and secure the reversion of Charles’s throne to himself. Two parties looked up to him as their head; the Politicians and the Huguenots. The threads of the intrigues, in which he was a mere stalking-horse, are difficult to unravel, and it is scarcely within the scope of this history to make the attempt. It is sufficient to say that the result was a plot for a general rising of the Huguenot party on Shrove-Tuesday, 22d February, 1574, with the object of driving Catherine from court, excluding Anjou from the succession, and making Monsieur—as Alençon was now called—lieutenant-general of the kingdom and heir to the throne. Great was the consternation at St. Germains when the news arrived that La Noue had surprised Lusignan; that Fontenay, Royau, Talmont, Coulombier, and other places had opened their gates to the Huguenots; and that a body of cavalry under Guitry was almost at the palace gates. All fled; Charles alone refusing to move: “Why could they not have waited for my death?” he asked, as he lay on his sick-bed—to him the bed of death. The ministers and their followers hurried away as soon as possible, some in disguise, some by land, others by the river, others by circuitous routes. Agrippa d’Aubigné gives an amusing though exaggerated description of the “flight of the courtiers.” It was a race who should reach Paris first, he says. “Half-way from St. Germains, the cardinals of Bourbon, Lorraine, and Guise, with Birague the chancellor and Morvilliers, were met mounted on spirited chargers, grasping the pommels of their saddles to keep themselves steady; and feeling as much affrighted at their horses as they did at the enemy. They were followed by two retainers only of all their sumptuous trains.” The movement ended in complete failure, and cost the lives of several persons, the best known being La Mole and Coconnas, whose fate alone has rescued them from oblivion. Joseph Boniface, Lord of La Mole, was a vain, frivolous intriguer, whom Charles IX. so detested that he is reported to have twice commanded Anjou to strangle the wretched sycophant who preyed upon the weakness of Alençon.[747] He is said also to have been in the good graces of Queen Margaret, who desired his bleeding head to be brought to her. On seeing the hideous sight, she burst into a violent transport of rage and grief, kissing the lifeless features and bathing them with her tears.[748] Coconnas was a Piedmontese noble and captain of the guard to Monsieur. When on the scaffold, he stamped with vexation, exclaiming to the spectators: “You see how it is; the little ones are caught, and the big ones are left.” There was an attempt to implicate Henry of Navarre in the plot; and though it failed,[749] he was still kept prisoner at the court. Marshals Montmorency and Cossé were in like manner detained in the Bastile for many months. The charlatan Ruggieri, who lent himself to any vile scheme, was sent to the galleys, but was soon released by Catherine, and rewarded by the gift of the rich abbey of St. Mahé.

But the end was at hand. Charles, whose health had been slowly declining since the massacre, now became seriously ill. He suffered extreme pain, and had frequent fainting fits; yet from hatred of Anjou and abhorrence of his mother, he still clung to the royal power. A few days before his death, when the English embassador, Leyton, arrived at Vincennes, he insisted upon giving him audience, and for three-quarters of an hour listened patiently to the envoy’s harangue, replying to it in a few pertinent remarks. Much of his suffering was mental; his conscience was smitten with an incurable wound. As he felt his last fatal illness coming on, he sent for Henry of Navarre, who had to pass through the vaults of the castle between a double line of guards under arms ready to dispatch him. Henry started back a few paces, clapped his hand on his sword, and refused to advance. It was a sensational trick of Catherine’s. Being assured there was no danger, he proceeded and entered the king’s room, where Charles received him affectionately. “I have always loved you,” he said; “and to your care I confide my wife and daughter—I commend them to your love.” The king went on cautioning him to distrust—: the name was not distinctly heard by the persons in the chamber; but Catherine, who still hovered like an evil genius over her son, remarked: “Sire, you should not say that.” “Why not?” asked Charles, “is it not true?” Probably he was speaking of his brother of Anjou. Henry had no opportunity of obeying the king’s dying injunctions: the child did not live, and the mother returned to Germany.

Charles could not sleep at night, and often when he had closed his eyes from very weakness, he would start up, exclaiming that he heard strange sounds in the air. Music was employed to soothe his irritability, and the voice of his favorite chorister, Lassus, or Étienne le Roi, chanting the penitential Psalms, often lulled him to sleep. He saw nothing but blood around him, and the ghosts of those he had caused to be murdered stood threateningly at his bedside. As his malady increased, he began to spit and vomit blood; and in the paroxysms of his pain, the blood would ooze through his skin at every pore[750]—a symptom which the Huguenots regarded as a mark of the divine displeasure.

His nurse, Philippe Richarde, was a Huguenot, who had reared him when an infant, and whom he loved to the last. One night as she sat watching by his bedside, she heard him sobbing, and as she drew aside the curtains to learn what was the matter, he exclaimed through his tears: “Oh nurse, my dear nurse, what bloodshed and murder! Oh! that I should have followed such wicked advice. Pardon me, O God, and have mercy on me.... What shall I do? I am lost.... I am lost.” The nurse soothed him, and bade him trust in the Lord. “The blood is upon those who caused you to shed it,” she added. “If you repent of the murders, God will not impute them to you, but cover them with the mantle of his Son’s righteousness, in which alone you must seek refuge. But for God’s sake let your majesty cease weeping.” Hereupon she went to get a dry handkerchief, for the king’s was all wet with tears. When he had taken it, he made a sign to her to go away and let him sleep.[751]

The next day Catherine hurried into the sick-chamber with good news: Montgomery was a prisoner in her hands—Montgomery, whom she had never forgiven as the innocent cause of her husband’s death. But to Charles all such earthly passions were now indifferent. “Madame,” he said to his mother, “such things affect me no longer: I am dying.” On Whitsunday, 30th May, 1574, Charles received the last rites of the Church from the hands of Sorbin and the learned Amyot, Bishop of Auxerre.[752] Catherine, Alençon, Henry, and Margaret, with the officers of state, were present, and partook of the consecrated elements. It does not appear that his queen was there, but we learn that she was often seen kneeling, and in tears, before the altar of the castle chapel, where “she was still to be found when the soul of her husband and lord passed from this world.” After confession, Charles rallied a little, and had strength to direct his ministers to obey the queen-mother as they would have obeyed himself. But his weakness soon returned: he breathed with such difficulty that he could scarcely bid a tender farewell to his mother, after which he faintly whispered: “If Jesus my Saviour should number me among his redeemed!”—a late and involuntary testimony to the exhortations of his pious nurse. Thrice he repeated these words, and then spoke no more.

There were rumors of poison, and people remembered how Catherine, in bidding farewell to Anjou, told him to be of good cheer, for he would not be away long. Poisoning in that day had been raised to the dignity of a science; and ignorant as the alchemists were of the true principles of their art, they had extorted certain secrets from nature which modern chemists can not recover. The criminal annals of recent years do not permit us to doubt of the efficacy of slow poisoning; and the symptoms under which Charles suffered strongly remind us of those produced by minute doses of hemlock alternating with arsenic. Unfortunately, in those days, detection was difficult, because tests for poison were unknown. There were so many interested in getting rid of the king, that his early death was regarded as a certainty. If he had lived, the influence of his amiable wife might have grown stronger, he might have thrown off his mother’s trammels, and placing himself in the hands of the Politicians, might have driven Catherine and her friends from power. Then what would have become of Henry of Anjou, now reigning in barbarous and distant Poland? Ambrose Paré declared the king’s death was caused by injuries done to his lungs from the immoderate use of his hunting-horn in the chase.[753] The explanation was rejected at the time, and although we are unwilling to believe that a mother would coldly speculate upon the death of her son and connive at his murder, Catherine never was the woman to allow scruples of conscience or morality to stand in her way. There is a well-known anecdote of Louis XIII., who, on being cautioned against too violent exercise and frequent use of the hunting-horn, replied: “Stuff! Charles IX. died after dining with Gondi, immediately after a quarrel with his mother.”

Thus died Charles at the early age of twenty-four, rejoicing that he had left no son to wear that crown which had wrought him so much sorrow; for, he added from his own bitter experience, “France needs a man to govern her, and not a babe in swaddling-clothes, with a woman for his support.”[754] How differently soever his character may be estimated by different writers, there are some points on which all must agree. His virtues were his own, his vices the result of his training.[755] He had a great capacity of affection. His mistress, Marie Touchet, and the boy she bore him were anxiously cared for as he lay dying. His love for his mother was strong, but mingled with fear: he submitted to her, not merely as the weak mind submits to the stronger, but because he felt that she loved him after her animal fashion, and that it was his duty to honor her. We know but little of his married life, but from the few glimpses we catch of it, he seems to have been attached to his young wife Elizabeth, and she to him. When she heard of the murders of St. Bartholomew’s Day, she asked, with horror in every feature: “Does the king, my husband, know of this?” On being told that Charles had commanded it, she burst into tears, exclaiming: “Oh God! what councilors hast thou given him! Pardon this crime, I implore thee, oh God! for if thou shouldst exact vengeance, it is a sin never to be forgiven.” Thereupon she retired into her oratory, and passed the remainder of the day in prayer, and refused to join the procession that traversed the blood-stained streets. There are coarse stories recorded of the last days of Charles, which (if they were true) would throw great doubt upon his conjugal fidelity; but they are mere back-stairs scandal.

Charles IX. was a compound of the most opposite qualities. He was a firm friend to the few whom he loved; fond of rough pleasures; not without a taste for poetry and music, and master of that graceful eloquence so captivating on the lips of princes. But he had great defects, made greater by the peculiarity of his character, which his friends, both true and false, knew so well how to play upon. He could be as violent in action as in language: his anger was fearful to withstand. He could be false and treacherous, so that his admirers actually praise him for his duplicity.[756] A contemporary Juvenal describes him as

For three hundred years Charles has been the execration of mankind, and after carefully weighing the evidence of contemporaries, the historian can find no solid grounds for reversing the judgment. But he was not the chief criminal. French writers, even while they condemn the barbarous deed that has cast so foul a stain upon their annals, may justly plead that the chief contriver was an Italian woman brought up in the school of Machiavelli, and that the chief instruments were all foreigners.