History of the Rise of the Huguenots. Baird Henry Martyn
in the narration of purely English occurrences. If he desired to avoid the labor, from which he might well wish to be excused, of mastering the great accumulation of contemporary and original French authorities, he might have resorted with propriety, as he has done in the case of the massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day, to Henri Martin's noble history, or to the history of Sismondi, not to speak of Soldan, Von Polenz, and a host of others. Varillas wrote, about a century after the events he described, a number of works of slender literary, and still slighter historical value. His "Histoire de Charles IX." (Cologne, 1686) – the work which Mr. Froude has but too often followed – begins with an adulatory dedication to Louis XIV., the first sentence of which sufficiently reveals the author's prepossessions: "Sire, it is impossible to write the history of Charles IX. without beginning the panegyric of your Majesty." No wonder that Mr. Froude's account of the massacre of Vassy (History of England, vii. 401, 402), derived solely from this source (Hist. de Charles IX., i. 126, etc.), is as favorable to Guise as his most devoted partisan could have desired. But where in the world – even in Varillas – did the English historian ever find authority for the statement (vii. 402) that, in consequence of the necessity felt by Guise for temporizing, a little later "
42
Jean de Serres, ii. 17, 18; De Thou, iii. 132, 133.
43
"Sire, c'est à la vérité à l'Église de Dieu, au nom de laquelle je parle, d'endurer les coups, et non pas d'en donner. Mais aussi vous plaira-t-il vous souvenir que
44
Journal de Jehan de la Fosse, 45, 46; Santa Croce to Borromeo, Aymon, i. 96, 97; Jean de Serres, ii. 18; Chantonnay,
45
This was not by accident. It had been planned by Condé, to show that the Huguenots were brave and determined, and it succeeded so well that it not only made an impression on the party of Guise, but also largely augmented the courage of his own men. Letter of Beza to Calvin, March 22, 1562,
46
Letter of Chastaigner,
47
Throkmorton to the queen, March 6th, State Paper Office.
48
"The King of Navarre was never so earnest on the Protestant side as he is now furious on the papists' part, insomuch as men suspect he will become a persecutor." Throkmorton to Cecil, March 9th, State Paper Office. Summary in Calendar.
49
Throkmorton to the queen, March 6, 1562, State Paper Office.
50
The same to Cecil, same date, State Paper Office.
51
"Whilst these assemblies were in the town, the queen mother conceived great jealousy (the King of Navarre being allied to the said duke [Guise]), lest she should be put from the government and the king taken from her hands, to prevent which she left Monceaux, her own house,
52
"Combien que le Chancelier luy dict, qu'il n'y espéroit plus rien, qu'elle n'avoit point de résolution, qu'il la congnoissoit bien." Mémoires de la vie de Jehan l'Archevesque, Sieur de Soubise, printed from the hitherto unknown MS. in the Bulletin, xxiii. (1874), 458, 459.
53
Four of the seven letters that constituted the whole correspondence are printed in the Mém. de Condé, iii. 213-215. Jean de Serres gives two of them in his Comment. de statu rel. et reip., ii. 38, 39. They were laid by Condé's envoy before the princes of Germany, as evidence that he had not taken up arms without the best warrant, and that he could not in any way be regarded as a rebel. They contain no allusion to any promise to lay down his arms so soon as she sent him word – the pretext with which she strove at a later time to palliate, in the eyes of the papal party at home and abroad, a rather awkward step. The curé of Mériot, while admitting the genuineness of the letters, observes: "La cautelle et malice de la dame estoit si grande, qu'elle se délectoit de mettre les princes en division et hayne les ungs contre les aultres, affin qu'elle régnast et qu'elle demeurast gouvernante seulle de son filz et du royaume." Mém. de Cl. Haton, i. 269. The queen mother's exculpatory statements may be examined in Le Laboureur, Add. aux Mém. de Castelnau, i. 763, 764.
54
Bruslart, in Mém. de Condé, i. 75, 76; J. de Serres, ii. 20; La Fosse, 46; De Thou, iii. 134. The date is variously given – March 17th or 18th.
55
J. de Serres, ii. 21; De Thou,
56
Throkmorton to the queen, March 20, State Paper Office.
57
March 23d. "Ce même jour (lundi xxiii.) le Prince de Condé s'en partit de Paris pour s'en aller à une sienne maison, combien qu'il avoit dict qu'il ne bougeroit de Paris que M. de Guise ne s'en fut parti." Journal anonyme de l'an 1562,
58
Letter of March 28th, Baum, ii., App., 175, 176.
59
Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., ii. 3.
60
Letter to Fonssomme, Œuvres choisies, ii. 248.
61
One of the latest exploits of the populace was the disinterring of a Huguenot buried in the cemetery of the Holy Innocents, and throwing his body into a public sewer! March 15th, Journal de Jehan de la Fosse, 45.
62
"Je cuide que si les novices des couvens et les chambrières des prestres seulement se fussent presentez à l'impourveue avec des bastons de cotterets (cotrets) ès mains, que cela leur eust fait tenir bride." Mém. de la Noue, c. ii.
63
Circular letter dated Paris, March 25th,
64
Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 132, 133 (liv. iii., c. 2). This striking incident rests on the sole authority of Agrippa d'Aubigné, who claims to have learned it "de ceux qui estoient de la partie." Hotman, who wrote his