The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863. Various
to the King, Charles IX., a vehement petition for redress; and their memorial recounts many incidents of the tragedy. From these three sources is to be drawn the French version of the story. The following is its substance:—
Famished and desperate, the followers of Ribaut were toiling northward to seek refuge at Fort Caroline, when they found the Spaniards in their path. Some were filled with dismay; others, in their misery, almost hailed them as deliverers. La Caille, the sergeant-major, crossed the river. Menendez met him with a face of friendship, and protested that he would spare the lives of the shipwrecked men, sealing the promise with an oath, a kiss, and many signs of the cross. He even gave it in writing, under seal. Still, there were many among the French who would not place themselves in his power. The most credulous crossed the river in a boat. As each successive party landed, their hands were bound fast at their backs; and thus, except a few who were set apart, they were all driven towards the fort, like cattle to the shambles, with curses and scurrilous abuse. Then, at sound of drums and trumpets, the Spaniards fell upon them, striking them down with swords, pikes, and halberds. Ribaut vainly called on the Adelantado to remember his oath. By the latter's order, a soldier plunged a dagger into his heart; and Ottigny, who stood near, met a similar fate. Ribaut's beard was cut off, and portions of it sent in a letter to Philip II. His head was hewn into four parts, one of which was displayed on the point of a lance at each corner of Fort St. Augustine. Great fires were kindled, and the bodies of the murdered burned to ashes.
Such is the sum of the French accounts. The charge of breach of faith contained in them was believed by Catholics as well as Protestants, and it was as a defence against this charge that the narrative of the Adelantado's brother-in-law was published. That Ribaut, a man whose good sense and bravery were both reputed high, should have submitted himself and his men to Menendez without positive assurance of safety is scarcely credible; nor is it lack of charity to believe that a miscreant so savage in heart and so perverted in conscience would act on the maxim, current among the bigots of the day, that faith ought not to be kept with heretics.
It was night when the Adelantado again entered St. Augustine. Some there were who blamed his cruelty; but many applauded. "Even if the French had been Catholics,"—such was their language,—"he would have done right, for, with the little provision we have, they would all have starved; besides, there were so many of them that they would have cut our throats."
And now Menendez again addressed himself to the despatch, already begun, in which he recounts to the King his labors and his triumphs, a deliberate and business-like document, mingling narratives of butchery with recommendations for promotions, commissary details, and petitions for supplies; enlarging, too, on the vast schemes of encroachment which his successful generalship had brought to nought. The French, he says, had planned a military and naval depot at Los Martires, whence they would make a descent upon Havana, and another at the Bay of Ponce de Leon, whence they could threaten Vera Cruz. They had long been encroaching on Spanish rights at Newfoundland, from which a great arm of the sea—the St. Lawrence—would give them access to the Moluccas and other parts of the East Indies. Moreover, he adds in a later despatch, by this passage they may reach the mines of Zacatecas and St. Martin, as well as every part of the South Sea. And, as already mentioned, he urges immediate occupation of Chesapeake Bay, which, by its supposed water-communication with the St. Lawrence, would enable Spain to vindicate her rights, control the fisheries of Newfoundland, and thwart her rival in her vast designs of commercial and territorial aggrandizement. Thus did France and Spain dispute the possession of North America long before England became a party to the strife.
Some twenty days after Menendez returned to St. Augustine, the Indians, enamored of carnage, and exulting to see their invaders mowed down, came to tell him that on the coast southward, near Cape Canaveral, a great number of Frenchmen were intrenching themselves. They were those of Ribaut's party who had refused to surrender. Retreating to the spot where their ships had been cast ashore, they were endeavoring to build a vessel from the fragments of the wrecks.
In all haste Menendez despatched messengers to Fort Caroline,—named by him San Mateo,—ordering a reinforcement of a hundred and fifty men. In a few days they came. He added some of his own soldiers, and, with a united force of two hundred and fifty, set forth, as he tells us, on the second of November, pushing southward along the shore with such merciless energy that some of his men dropped dead with wading night and day through the loose sands. When, from behind their frail defences, the French saw the Spanish pikes and partisans glittering into view, they fled in a panic, and took refuge among the hills. Menendez sent a trumpet to summon them, pledging his honor for their safety. The commander and several others told the messenger that they would sooner be eaten by the savages than trust themselves to Spaniards; and, escaping, they fled to the Indian towns. The rest surrendered; and Menendez kept his word. The comparative number of his own men made his prisoners no longer dangerous. They were led back to St. Augustine, where, as the Spanish writer affirms, they were well treated. Those of good birth sat at the Adelantado's table, eating the bread of a homicide crimsoned with the slaughter of their comrades. The priests essayed their pious efforts, and, under the gloomy menace of the Inquisition, some of the heretics renounced their errors. The fate of the captives may be gathered from the indorsement, in the handwriting of the King, on the back of the despatch of Menendez of December twelfth.
"Say to him," writes Philip II., "that, as to those he has killed, he has done well, and as for those he has saved, they shall be sent to the galleys."
Thus did Spain make good her claim to North America, and crush the upas of heresy in its germ. Within her bounds the tidings were hailed with acclamation, while in France a cry of horror and execration rose from the Huguenots, and found an echo even among the Catholics. But the weak and ferocious son of Catherine de Médicis gave no response. The victims were Huguenots, disturbers of the realm, followers of Coligny, the man above all others a thorn in his side. True, the enterprise was a national enterprise, undertaken at the national charge, with royal commission, and under the royal standard. True, it had been assailed in time of peace by a power professing the closest amity. Yet Huguenot influence, had prompted and Huguenot hands executed it. That influence had now ebbed low; Coligny's power had waned; and the Spanish party was ascendant. Charles IX., long vacillating, was fast subsiding into the deathly embrace of Spain, for whom, at last, on the bloody eve of St. Bartholomew, he was destined to become the assassin of his own best subjects.
In vain the relatives of the slain petitioned him for redress; and had the honor of the nation rested in the keeping of her king, the blood of hundreds of murdered Frenchmen would have cried from the ground in vain. But it was not so to be. Injured humanity found an avenger, and outraged France a champion. Her chivalrous annals may be searched in vain for a deed of more romantic daring than the vengeance of Dominic de Gourgue.
WEARINESS
O little feet, that such long years
Must wander on through doubts and fears,
Must ache and bleed beneath your load!
I, nearer to the way-side inn
Where toil shall cease and rest begin,
Am weary, thinking of your road.
O little hands, that, weak or strong,
Have still to serve or rule so long,
Have still so long to give or ask!
I, who so much with book and pen
Have toiled among my fellow-men,
Am weary, thinking of your task.
O little hearts, that throb and beat
With such impatient, feverish heat,
Such limitless and strong desires!
Mine, that, so long has glowed and burned,
With passions into ashes turned,
Now covers and conceals its fires.
O little souls, as pure and white
And crystalline as rays of light
Direct from heaven, their source divine!
Refracted through the mist of years,
How red my