History of the Rise of the Huguenots. Baird Henry Martyn

---

Скачать книгу

---

called out, "Voylà ung Huguenot," for straightway the idle vagabonds, the pedlers, and porters would set upon him with stones. Then came out the handicraftsmen and idle apprentices with swords, and thrust him through with a thousand wounds. His dead body, having been robbed of clothes, was afterward taken possession of by troops of boys, who asked nothing better than to "trail" him down to the Seine and throw him in. If the victim chanced to be a "town-dweller," the Parisians entered his house and carried off all his goods, and his wife and children were fortunate if they escaped with their lives. With the best intentions, Marshal Montmorency could not put a stop to these excesses; he scarcely succeeded in protecting the households of foreign ambassadors from being involved in the fate of French Protestants.218 Yet the same men that were ready at any time to imbue their hands in the blood of an innocent Huguenot, were full of commiseration for a Roman Catholic felon. A shrewd murderer is said to have turned to his own advantage the religious feeling of the people who had flocked to see him executed. "Ah! my masters," he exclaimed when already on the fatal ladder, "I must die now for killing a Huguenot who despised our Lady; but as I have served our Lady always truly, and put my trust in her, so I trust now she will show some miracle for me." Thereupon, reports Sir Thomas Smith, the people began to murmur about his having to die for a Huguenot, ran to the gallows, beat the hangman, and having cut the fellow's cords, conveyed him away free.219

      Orleans invested.

      Coligny returns to Normandy.

      Of the triumvirs, at whose instigation the war had arisen, one was dead,220 a second was a prisoner in the hands of the enemy, the third – the Duke of Guise – alone remained. Navarre had died a month before. On the other hand, the Huguenots had lost their chief. Yet the war raged without cessation. As soon as the Duke of Guise had collected his army and had, at Rambouillet, explained to the king and court, who had come out to meet him, the course of recent events, he followed the Admiral toward Orleans. Invested by the king with the supreme command during the captivity of the constable, and leading a victorious army, he speedily reduced Étampes and Pithiviers, captured by Condé on his march to Paris. Meantime, Coligny had taken a number of places in the vicinity of Orleans, and his "black riders" had become the terror of the papists of Sologne.221 Not long after Guise's approach, fearing that his design was to besiege the city of Orleans, Coligny threw himself into it. His stay was not long, however. His German cavalry could do nothing in case of a siege, and would only be a burden to the citizens. Besides, he was in want of funds to pay them. He resolved, therefore, to strike boldly for Normandy.222 Having persuaded the reiters to dispense with their heavy baggage-wagons,223 which had proved so great an incumbrance on the previous march, he started from Orleans on the first of February with four thousand troopers, leaving his brother D'Andelot as well furnished as practicable to sustain the inevitable siege. The lightness of his army's equipment precluded the possibility of pursuit; its strength secured it an almost undisputed passage.224 In a few days it had passed Dreux and the scene of the late battle, and at Dives, on the opposite side of the estuary of the Seine from Havre, had received from the English the supplies of money which they had long been desirous of finding means to convey to the Huguenots.225 The only considerable forces of the Guise faction in Normandy were on the banks of the river, too busy watching the English at Havre to be able to spare any troops to resist Coligny. Turning his attention to the western shores of the province, he soon succeeded in reducing Pont-l'Evêque, Caen, Bayeux, Saint Lo, and the prospect was brilliant of his soon being able, in conjunction with Queen Elizabeth's troops, to bring all Normandy over to the side of the prince.226 Meanwhile, however, there were occurring in the centre of the kingdom events destined to give an entirely different turn to the relations of the Huguenots and papists in France. To these we must now direct our attention.

      François de Guise, relieved of the admiral's presence, had begun the siege of Orleans four days after the departure of the latter for Normandy (on the fifth of February), and manifested the utmost determination to destroy the capital city, as it might be regarded, of the confederates. Indeed, when the court, then sojourning at Blois, in alarm at the reports sent by Marshal de Brissac from Rouen, respecting Coligny's conquests and his own impotence to oppose him, ordered Guise to abandon his undertaking and employ his forces in crushing out the flames that had so unexpectedly broken forth in Normandy, the duke declined to obey until he should have received further orders, and gave so cogent reasons for pursuing the siege, that the king and his council willingly acquiesced in his plan.227 From his independent attitude, however, it is evident that Guise was of Pasquier's mind, and believed he had gained as much of a victory in the capture of the constable, his friend in arms, but dangerous rival at court, taken by the Huguenots at Dreux, as by the capture of the Prince of Condé, his enemy, who had fallen into his hands in the same engagement.228

      Capture of the Portereau.

      The city of Orleans, on the north bank of the Loire, was protected by walls originally of no great worth, but considerably strengthened since the outbreak of the civil war. On the opposite side of the river, a suburb, known as the Portereau, was fortified by weaker walls, in front of which two large bastions had recently been erected. The suburb was connected with Orleans by means of a bridge across the Loire, of which the end toward the Portereau was defended by two towers of the old mediæval construction, known as the "tourelles," and that toward the city by the city wall and a large square tower.229 Against the Portereau the duke directed the first assault, hoping easily to become master of it, and thence attack the city from its weakest side. His plan proved successful beyond his expectations. While making a feint of assailing with his whole army the bastion held by the Gascon infantry, he sent a party to scale the bastion guarded by the German lansquenets, who, being taken by surprise, yielded an entrance almost without striking a blow. In a few minutes the Portereau was in the hands of Guise, and the bridge was crowded with fugitives tumultuously seeking a refuge in the city. Orleans itself was nearly involved in the fate of its suburb; for the enemy, following close upon the heels of the fleeing host, was at the very threshold of the "tourelles," when D'Andelot, called from his sick-bed by the tumult, posting himself at the entrance with a few gentlemen in full armor, by hard blows beat back the troops, already sanguine of complete success.230 A few days later the "tourelles" themselves were scaled and taken.231

      After so poor a beginning, the small garrison of Orleans had sufficient reason to fear the issue of the trial to which they were subjected. But, so far from abandoning their courage, they applied themselves with equal assiduity to their religious and to their military duties. "In addition to the usual sermons and the prayers at the guard-houses, public extraordinary prayers were made at six o'clock in the morning; at the close of which the ministers and the entire people, without exception, betook themselves to work with all their might upon the fortifications, until four in the evening, when every one again attended prayers." Everywhere the utmost devotion was manifested, women of all ranks sharing with their husbands and brothers in the toils of the day, or, if too feeble for these active exertions, spending their time in tending the sick and wounded.232

      "A new and very terrible device."

      Not only did the Huguenots, when they found their supply of lead falling short, make their cannon-balls of bell-metal – of which the churches and monasteries were doubtless the source – and of brass, but they turned this last material to a use till now, it would appear, unheard of. "I have learned this day, the fifteenth instant, of the Spaniards," wrote the English ambassador from the royal court, which was at a safe distance, in the city of Blois, "that they of Orleans shoot brass which is hollow, and so devised within that when it falls it opens and breaks into many pieces with a great fire,

---

Скачать книгу