History of the Rise of the Huguenots. Baird Henry Martyn
dizien, es baya, y las armas la allanarian." Ibid, i. 594.
446
The price of wheat, Jehan de la Fosse tells us (p. 86) advanced to fifteen francs per "septier."
447
Journal d'un curé ligueur (J. de la Fosse), 86.
448
In one of Charles's first despatches to the Lieutenant-Governor of Dauphiny, wherein he bids him restrain, and, if necessary, attack any Huguenots of the province who might undertake to come to Condé's assistance, there occurs an expression that smacks of the murderous spirit of St. Bartholomew's Day: "You shall cut them to pieces," he writes, "without sparing a single person; for the more dead bodies there are, the less enemies remain (car tant plus de mortz, moins d'ennemys!)" Charles to Gordes, Oct. 8, 1567, MS. in Condé Archives, D'Aumale, i. 563.
449
Davila (i. 113) makes the latter her distinct object in the negotiations: "The queen, to protract the time till supplies of men and other necessary provisions arrived, and to abate the fervor of the enemy, being constrained to have recourse to her wonted arts, excellently dissembling those so recent injuries, etc."
450
Of course "Sieur Soulier, prêtre" sees nothing but perversity in these grounds. "Ils n'alleguèrent que des raisons frivolles pour excuser leur armement." Histoire des édits de pacification, 64.
451
Davila is certainly incorrect in stating that the Huguenots demanded "that the queen mother should have nothing to do in the government" (p. 113).
452
October 7th, Soulier, Hist. des édits de pacification, 65.
453
De Thou, iv. (liv. xlii.) 10-15; Jean de Serres, iii. 131, 132; Davila, bk. iv. 113-115; Agrippa d'Aubigné, Hist. universelle, l. iv., c. 6, 7 (i. 211, 212); Castelnau, l. vi., c. 6.
454
So closely was Paris invested on the north, that, although accompanied by an escort of sixty horse, Castelnau was driven back into the faubourgs when making an attempt by night to proceed by one of the roads leading in this direction. He was then forced to steal down the left bank of the Seine to Poissy, before he could find means to avoid the Huguenot posts. Mémoires, l. vi., c. 6.
455
Castelnau was instructed to ask for three or four regiments of Spanish or Italian foot, and for two thousand cavalry of the same nations.
456
I have deemed it important to go into these details, in order to exhibit in the clearest light the insincerity of Philip the Second – a prince who could not be straightforward in his dealings, even when the interests of the Church, to which he professed the deepest devotion, were vitally concerned. My principal authority is the envoy, Michel de Castelnau, liv. vi., c. 6. Alva's letter to Catharine de' Medici, Dec., 1567, Gachard, Correspondance de Philippe II., i. 608, 609, sheds some additional light on the transactions. I need not say that, where Castelnau and Alva differ in their statements, as they do in some essential points, I have had no hesitation in deciding whether the duke or the impartial historian is the more worthy of credit. See, also, De Thou, iii. (liv. xli.) 755.
457
Mém. de Fr. de la Noue, c. xiv. (Ancienne coll., xlvii. 189); Davila, bk. iv. 116; Agrippa d'Aubigné, Hist. universelle, i. 212, 213; De Thou, iv. 22; Martin, Hist. de France, x. 246. There is some discrepancy in numbers. There is, however, but little doubt that those given in the text are substantially correct. D'Aubigné blunders, and more than doubles the troops of the constable.
458
Agrippa d'Aubigné relates an incident which has often been repeated. Among the distinguished spectators gathered on the heights of Montmartre, overlooking the plain, was a chamberlain of the Turkish sultan, the same envoy who had been presented to the king at Bayonne. When he saw the three small bodies of Huguenots issue in the distance from Saint Denis, and the three charges, in which so insignificant a handful of men broke through heavy battalions and attacked the opposing general himself, the Moslem, in his admiration of their valor, twice cried out: "Oh, that the grand seignior had a thousand such men as those soldiers in white, to put at the head of each of his armies! The world would hold out only two years against him." Hist. univ., i. 217.
459
"Autant de volontaires Parisiens bien armez et
460
At Marignano, in 1515.
461
He was taken prisoner by the Emperor Charles V. at Pavia, in company with Francis I.; at the battle of Saint Quentin, in 1557; and in 1562, at the battle of Dreux, by the Huguenots. It was rather hard that the story should have obtained currency, according to the curé of Mériot, that Constable Montmorency was shot by a royalist, who saw that he was purposely allowing himself to be enveloped by the troops of Condé, in order that he might be taken prisoner, "comme telle avoit jà esté sa coustume en deux batailles!" Mém. de Claude Haton, i. 458.
462
Even Henry of Navarre, in a letter of July 12, 1569, published by Prince Galitzin (Lettres inédites de Henry IV., Paris, 1860, pp. 4-11) states that he is unable to say whether it was Stuart, "pour n'en sçavoir rien;" but asserts that "il est hors de doubte et assez commung qu'il fut blessé en pleine bataille et combattant, et non de sang froid."
463
Mémoires de Fr. de la Noue, c. xiv.; Jean de Serres, iii. 137, 138; De Thou, iv. 22, etc.; Agrippa d'Aubigné, Hist. univ., i. 214-217; Castelnau, liv. vi., c. 7; Claude Haton, i. 457; Jean de la Fosse, 88, 89; Charles IX. to Gordes, Nov. 11, 1567, Condé MSS., D'Aumale, i. 564.
464
"La mort dudit connestable fut plaincte de peu de gens du party des catholicques, à cause de la huguenotterie de l'admiral, du card. de Chastillon, et d'Andelot, ses nepveux, qui estoient, après le Prince de Condé, chefz des rebelles huguenotz françoys et des plus meschant; et avoient plusieurs personnes ceste oppinion du connestable, qu'il les eust bien retirez de ceste rebellion s'il eust voulu, attendu que tous avoient esté avancez en leurs estatz par le feu roy Henry, par son moyen." Claude Haton, i. 458.