History of the Rise of the Huguenots. Baird Henry Martyn
on ne voit apparence selon les hommes que d'une piteuse et horrible désolation." Bonnet, Lettres franç., ii. 475.
186
Hist. ecclés., ii. 421.
187
See "Capitulation des reytres et lansquenetz levez pour monseigneur le prince de Condé, du xviii. d'aoust 1562," Bulletin, xvi. (1867), 116-118. The reiters came chiefly from Hesse.
188
Claude Haton, no friend to Catharine, makes the Duke d'Aumale, in command of eight or nine thousand troops, avoid giving battle to D'Andelot, and content himself with watching his march from Lorraine as far as St. Florentin, in obedience to secret orders of the queen mother, signed with the king's seal. Mémoires, i. 294, 295. The fact was that D'Andelot adroitly eluded both the Duke of Nevers, Governor of Champagne, who was prepared to resist his passage, and Marshal Saint André, who had advanced to meet him with thirteen companies of "gens-d'armes" and some foot soldiers. Davila, bk. iii. 76; De Thou, iii. (liv. xxxiii.) 356.
189
Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., ii. 114, 115. The writer ascribes the fall of Rouen to the delay of the reiters in assembling at their rendezvous. Instead of being ready on the first of October, it was not until the tenth that they had come in sufficient numbers to be mustered in.
190
Eighty thousand, according to the Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., ii. 91, 92; twenty-five thousand, according to Claude Haton, Mémoires, 332, 333.
191
Letter of Beza to Bullinger, Sept. 1st, Baum, ii., App., 191; Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., ii. 114, 115; Davila, bk. iii., 77; De Thou, iii. 355, 356.
192
Letter of Beza to Calvin, Dec. 14, 1562, Baum, ii., App., 196. The authority of Beza, who had recently returned from a mission on which he had been sent by Condé to Germany and Switzerland and who wrote from the camp, is certainly to be preferred to that of Claude Haton, who states the Huguenot forces at 25,000 men (Mémoires, i. 298). The prince's chief captains – Coligny, Andelot, La Rochefoucauld, and Mouy – Haton rates as the best warriors in France after the Duke of Guise. According to Throkmorton's despatches from Condé's camp near Corbeil, the departure from Orleans took place on the 8th of November, and the prince's French forces amounted only to six thousand foot soldiers, indifferently armed, and about two thousand horse. Forbes, State Papers, ii. 195. But this did not include the Germans – some seven thousand five hundred men more. Ibid., ii. 196. Altogether, he reckons the army at "6,000 horsemen of all sorts and nations, and 10,000 footmen." Ibid., ii. 202.
193
Mém. de La Noue, c. viii., p. 602.
194
The Protestants of Languedoc held in Nismes (Nov. 2-13, 1562) the first, or at least one of the very first, of those "political assemblies" which became more and more frequent as the sixteenth century advanced. Here the Count of Crussol, subsequently Duke d'Uzès, was urged to accept the office of "head, defender, and conservator" of the reformed party in Languedoc. To the count a council was given, and he was requested not to find the suggestion amiss that he should in all important matters, such as treaties with the enemy, consult with the general assembly of the Protestants, or at least with the council. By this good office he would demonstrate the closeness of the bond uniting him as head to the body of his native land, besides giving greater assurance to a people too much inclined to receive unfounded impressions ("ung puple souvent trop meticulleux et de legiere impression"). Procès-verbal of the Assembly of Nismes, from MS. Bulletin, xxii. (1873), p. 515.
195
Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., ii. 117; De Thou, iii. 357. Calvin's, or the Geneva liturgy, was probably used but in part. Special prayers, adapted to the circumstances of the army, had been composed, under the title of "Prières ordinaires des soldatz de l'armée conduicte par Monsieur le Prince de Condé, accomodées selon l'occurrence du temps." Prof. Baum cites a simple, but beautiful evening prayer, which was to be said when the sentinels were placed on guard for the night. Theodor Beza, ii. 624, note.
196
Throkmorton (Forbes, ii. 195, 197) represents the executions as more general, and as an act of severity, "chiefly in revenge of the great cruelty exercised by the Duke of Guise and his party at Rouen against the soldiers there, but specially against your Majesty's subjects."
197
Throkmorton was convinced of the practicability of capturing Paris by a rapid movement even from before Corbeil: "The whole suburbes on this syde the water is entrenched, where there is sundry bastions and cavaliers to plante th' artillerye on, which is verey daungerous for th' assaylantes. Nevertheles, if the Prince had used celeritie, in my opinion, with little losse of men and great facilitie he might have woon the suburbes; and then the towne coulde not longe have holden, somme parte of the sayd suburbes havinge domination therof." Forbes, ii. 217.
198
Mémoires de François de la Noue, c. ix., p. 603 (Collection Michaud et Poujoulat). See also Davila (bk. iii. 77), who represents the advice of the admiral rather to have been to employ the army in recapturing the places along the Loire, while Condé insisted on trying to become master of Paris. De Thou, iii. 358. Beza, in his letter of Dec. 14th, says: "Quum enim urbs repentino impetu facile capi posset, etc." So also the Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., ii. 118.
199
See Motley, United Netherlands, iii. 59.
200
"The Prince of Condé and his campe having approched the towne of Corbeille, and being ready to batter the same, the queene mother sente her principal escuyer, named Monsieur de Sainte-Mesme, with a lettre to the sayd prince, advertisinge him of the deathe of the kinge, his brother. The sayd de Sainte-Mesme had also in credence to tell the prince from the queene, that she was verey desirous to have an ende of theise troubles: and also that she was willinge that the sayd prince should enjoy his ranke and aucthorité due unto him in this realme… This the queene mother's lettre and sweete words hathe empeached the battrye and warlyke procedings against Corbeill; the prince therby beeing induced to desist from using any violence against his ennemyes. I feare me, that this delaying will torne much to the prince's disadvantage; and that there is no other good meaning at this time in this faire speeche, then there was in the treaty of Bogeancy (Beaugency) in the monethe of July last." Throkmorton to the queen, from Essonne, opposite Corbeil, Nov. 22, 1562, Forbes, ii. 209.
201
Letter of Beza to Calvin, Dec. 14th, Baum, ii., App., 197.
202
Ib.,
203
Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., ii. 120; De Thou, iii. 359.
204
Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., ii. 132; De Thou, iii. 361; Mém. de Castelnau, liv. iv., c. iv.; Forbes, ii. 227, 228. Even in September, the English ambassador wrote from Orleans, "there is greate practise made by the queene mother and others to winne Monsieur de Janlis and Monsieur de Grandmont from the prince." Forbes, ii. 41.
205
"Par ce moyen, un chacun de nous trainera son licol, jusques à ce que les dessusdits le serrent à leur appetit." Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., ii. 126. The details of the conferences, with the articles offered on either side, are given at great length, pp. 121-136.
206
"The queene mother and hyr councelours," wrote Throkmorton to Elizabeth, four or five days later (Dec. 13, 1562), "have at the length once agayne showed, howe sincerely they meane in their treatyes. For when their force out of Gascoigne together with two thousand five hundred Spainardes were arrived, and when they had well trenched and fortefyed the faulxbourges and places of advantage of Paris; espienge, that the prince coulde remayne no longer with his campe before Paris for lack of victuaill and fourrage, having abused him sufficiently with this treaty eight or ten dayes: the sayd queene mother … refused utterly the condicions before accorded." Forbes, State Papers, ii. 226. It is not strange that the ambassador, after the meagre results of the past five weeks, "could not hope of any great good to be done, until he saw it;" although he was confident that "if matters were handled stoutly and roundly, without delay," the prince might constrain his enemies to accord him favorable conditions.
207
Mém. de Castelnau, liv. iv., c. iv.
208
Five thousand, according to the Duke