the massacre of Vassy was the signal,
There were already deaths enough;
and as if by consent the Catholics rose
at Cahors, at Sens, Amiens, Noyes, Abbe-
ville, Chalons, at Tours, Marseilles, and
The
woman's instinct was right; but her hus-
Auxerre, killing and destroying.
band knew what was meant by war; he
foresaw the ruined homesteads, the mur-

more than toleration, to the conversion | head the deaths of those three weeks, or I will of the whole country. At all events, myself bear witness against you at the judgthere was breathing-space, and at every ment seat of God." interval of persecution and war the Protestant faith seemed to spread and grow like a luxuriant plant in a congenial soil. Coligny turned his face once more across the Atlantic. This time it was to Florida that he looked, the flowery land of romance claimed by Spain. He sent out an expedition commanded by Jean Ribaud, a stout sailor, who landed on the coast, set up the arms of the king of France, established friendly relations with the natives, and returned with a favourable report, only to find the country plunged into a civil war and no hope of furthering that scheme for a time. The colloquy of Poissy, leaving both. parties more stubborn in their faith, produced at least one effect, the Edict of January, which gave the Huguenots the right to exercise their religion undisturbed. It remained in force for exactly six weeks, and then the Duke de Guise trampled it under foot at the massacre of Vassy. Six weeks were not long, but they gave Coligny time to prepare for

the inevitable struggle, and when Condé issued his orders from Meaux to all the Protestants in France to arm themselves, Coligny was able to promise Catherine that if she would trust the king and herself with the princes of the blood, she should find an army in every province of France. Catherine acceded; she wrote letter after letter to Condé, urging him to hasten to Fontainebleau and seize the king; the dilatory king let the opportunity pass, and the Guises took it. Henceforward Catherine showed no more inclination to become a Protestant. And then, before the clash of arms, there was silence for a space till the last man in France who had not yet taken a side should declare himself. For on him, the admiral, the heavy responsibility lay of declaring civil war; murder, treachery, and persecution, on the one hand, the sin of rebellion on the other. In the night, as he lay awake and pondered, he heard his wife sobbing at his side, and knew

the reason.

"Sound your soul," he said. "Are you prepared to hear of defection, to receive the reproaches of partisans as well as enemies, treasons of your friends, exile, shame, nakedness, hunger, even the hunger of your own children, your own death by an executioner, after that of your husband? I give you three weeks to consider." "They are gone already," replied his wife. "Do not bring upon your

ders and robberies of an unrestrained
hopelessness of the struggle, which would
soldiery. Perhaps he knew already the
have but one issue, unless the English
descendant of the Châtillons and Mont-
came to their help; he saw himself, the
morencys, branded with the name of
rebel, the general of an army which he
hesitated no longer, and with a heavy
was only leading to destruction. But he
He wrote to Catherine that he took up
heart set off the next day to join Condé.
those who hold him captive.
arms not against the king, but against
He wrote,
too, to the old constable-

.. But

I would rather do wrong to myself than enter into any opposition with you. I entreat you to consider into whose hands you have placed yourself. Are they not those who have sworn your own ruin and that of all your house? I beg you to think that the to see you of that party. greatest regret of my brothers and myself is

The constable replied: there was no bitterness between the uncle and his nephew; the former was fighting to prevent "the universal ruin" of the country, and for his petits maitres, his "boys," as he called Catherine's sons; the other, he thought, fought to prevent the universal massacre of his religionists. Coligny began at once with the discipline of his camp. The old rules were rigorously enforced; each regiment had its minister; night and morning there were public prayers, the soldiers praying first for the king and secondly for themselves, that God would keep them "vivans en toute sobriéte et modestie, sans noises, mutinerie, blasphèmes, paillardises." The violation of the rules was punished by certain signal examples, four or five who were caught pillaging being hung up together, booted and spurred, the things they had stolen hanging from their bodies, women's dresses, linen, hams, and poultry. Thus the camp assumed an edifying appearance of virtue and sobriety over which all but the admiral rejoiced greatly.

"All this holiness," he said, "will be even if they were hidden in the bones of their thrown to the winds in two months' legs. time." And so the event proved. Most of the cruelties and murders were com- debt, cleared himself by the confiscation The king, again, who was deeply in mitted by the Catholics, because they of church monuments, by special permiswere the stronger party; but not all; sion of the pope; and even the priests wherever the Huguenots were strong enriched themselves by selling their enough, they showed that the role of treasures secretly, and then pretending martyrs was no longer to their taste, and that the Huguenots had pillaged them. retaliated in the usual way, by destroy- All this led to the multiplication of coin, ing churches, killing priests, shattering and therefore, Brantôme thinks, of wealth. shrines and relics, and turning the costly "So that we now see in France more vessels and ornaments of the churches to doubloons than fifty years ago there were their own use. Brantôme enters upon a little pistolets." And as to the cities defence of the civil war, which is most which were pillaged, they recovered their quaint and remarkable. The first good misfortunes, and five years later were effect, he tells us, was the conversion into richer than those that escaped, coin of the gold ornaments in “bien qu'il the n'y en a guieres de pucelles." Sixteen churches; one seigneur, de par le monde, months after Havre was sacked, the king coined the silver vessels and ornaments found no trace of it in the prosperity of presented by Louis XI. to St. Martin de the city; Angoulême was sacked twice, Tours into a great caskful of testors. and yet, after the war was over, was the Another was the enrichment of the gen-richest city in Guienne next to La Rotlemen who in a foreign war would have chelle. impoverished themselves by borrowing money,

for the merchants, usurers, bankers, and other racquedeniers, down to the very priests who keep their crowns hidden away in their coffers, would have lent nothing without great interest and excessive usury, either by purchase or mortgages of land, goods, and houses, at low price; but this bonne guerre civile repaired all their fortunes, so much so that I have seen a gentleman who before it rode through the country with a pair of horses and a little lackey, ride with six or seven good horses, and this of both parties, so much did they augment their fortunes, especially by the ransoms of the fat usurers when once they caught them, making their lovely crowns drop out of their purses whether they liked it or not, and

Il faut dire de la France ce que disait ce de Milan, qui ressembloit à une oye bien grand Capitaine Prosper Colonne de la Duché grasse qui tant plus ou la plumoit tant plus la plume luy revenoit. La cause donc en est deue à cette bonne guerre civile tant bien inventée et introduicte de ce grand Admiral.

So the bonne guerre civile began, to the enrichment of the gentlemen. And though the last to join it was the admiral, it was he who, by correspondence with the German princes, by an elaborate network of agencies, the threads of which he held himself, rendered the movement possible. His policy was always the same. He would keep the Huguenots ready to rise; he would inspire them with "Je remarquay alors quatre ou cinq chose nota- confidence in themselves by letting them bles: la première est qu'entre cette grande troupe on feel their strength when combined; he n'eust pas ouy un blasphème du nom de Dieu: car lorsque quelqu'un plus encore par contresens que par would prepare the way for German levies vrai malice, s'y abandonnoit, ou se courrouçoit aspre- if necessary; he would awe the Catholics ment contre luy, ce qui en reprimoit beaucoup. La seconde, on n'eust pas trouvé une paire de dez ny un by the feeling that they were facing an jeu de cartes en tous les quartiers, qui sont des sources enemy whose numbers were unknown, de tant de querelles et de larcins. Tiercement, les femmes en étoient bannies, lesquelles ordinairement ne and whose allies were perhaps the whole hantent en tels lieux, sinon pour servir à la dissolution. of Protestantism. But he would defer En quatrième lieu, nul ne s'escartoit des enseignes pour till the latest moment possible actual realler fourrager ainsi tous estoient satisfaits des vivres qui leur estoient distribuez ou du peu de solde qu'ils bellion. The Huguenots had everything l'assiette et lévement des gardes, les prières publiques the cause, had everything to lose by preFinalement, au soir et au matin, to gain by delay; he himself, as well as se faisoient, et le chant des psalmes retentissoient en l'air. Plusieurs s'esbahissoient de voir une si belle cipitate action. It is absurd to speak of disposition et mesmement une fois feu mon frère le Coligny as a conspirator who made capsieur de Teligny et moy en discourant avec M. l'Admiral la prisions beaucoup. Sur cela il nous dit, 'C'est ital out of his reluctance to take up arms; voirement une belle chose moyennant qu'elle dure: it is equally absurd to find in this relucmais je crains que ces gens icy ne jettent toute leur tance all the virtues of a Christian hero. bonte à la fois et que d'icy à deux mois il ne leur sera demeuré que la malice. J'ay commandé à l'infanterie Coligny was unwilling to have the appearlongtemps, et la conois: elle accomplit souvent le ance of fighting against the king. Thereproverbe qui dit de jeune hermite vieux diable."-Lafore when war was inevitable he urged on

avaient reçeu.

Noue.

Tavannes tells that Catherine, jealous of the honour won by Guise, wrote privately to Coligny entreating him not to relax in his efforts.

Condé the seizure of Charles and Cath- prisoner. Saint André was killed. Next erine. Prudence, loyalty, self-interest, day the admiral was ready to renew the demanded delay; self-preservation de- battle, and would have surprised the royal manded an organization throughout army, but his men refused to follow. France, which should enable every Huguenot to join the army when called upon. When his party could no longer be kept quiet, even by himself, Coligny gave the word, and an army sprang up, as if by magic, from the ground.* The first exploit was the taking of Orleans, into which Condé rode with two thousand cavalry, all shouting like schoolboys, and racing for six miles who should get into the city first. Its churches were pillaged and the Catholic inhabitants expelled. "Ceux qui furent mis ci jour la hors de la ville plorèrent Catholiquement, pour avoir esté depossesdez du magasin des plus delicieux vins de la France." A dire misfortune for the Catholics that all the best claret-districts in the country fell into the hands of the Huguenots.t

66

The admiral, leaving Andelot in charge of Orleans, marched into Normandy at the head of four thousand men, with a double object to receive English money and men at Havre, and to effect a diversion in the north. Guise led his victorious army straight upon Orleans. The fate of that city seemed sealed, but the admiral was passing from one success to another. Then occurred the third of those incidents which give these wars so dramatic an interest. Just as the unexpected death of Francis restored Condé to life and liberty, the assassination of Guise by Poltrot gave the Huguenots Orleans taken, the Huguenots pro- peace and religious freedom. It was an ceeded to issue protestations and mani- accident, says La Noue, qui troubla festoes, in all of which the hand of the toute la feste." In his last moments the admiral is visible. They are not fighting murdered man breathed no word of susagainst the king, who is a prisoner; the picion against the friend of his youth, war was begun by the Guises — and what though Poltrot in his tortures accused right has a Guisard to the kingdom of the admiral and Theodore Beza of having France? And they are not the first to instigated the crime. Reading the accucontract foreign alliances. The Hugue-sation by the light of the lives of these nots experienced at the outset one disas-two men, it is simply impossible and ter after the other. Rouen was sur-absurd. Prince Caraman Chimay, it is prised, Bourges was taken. Then Ande- true, in his zeal to blacken the character lot brought about six thousand Germans of Coligny, finds in his departure for to Orleans, and with this powerful reinforcement the battle of Dreux was fought. But the admiral was outgeneralled by his rival, Guise, who kept himself in reserve, and when, after four hours' hard fighting, the battle seemed lost, and the Huguenots were already shouting for victory, led a flank charge, with new men, fresh and eager, and sent the Protestants, exhausted with the day's fighting, flying from the field. Coligny rallied some of the fugitives and led them back, but the day was lost. Condé was a prisoner; on the other side Montmorency was a

Normandy a proof of complicity. It is, on the other hand, a proof of innocence. Had Coligny been cognizant of Poltrot's intention, he would have remained on the spot, to take advantage of the confusion caused by its success. But the rumour once started very likely it was invented by the Catholics grew and spread. At first the admiral took no notice of it. But it was too much in the interests of his enemies to let it die; forced to notice it, he wrote at last to the queen a characteristic, stubborn, honest, letter

I

Do not think [he says] that I speak in regret of Monsieur de Guise, for I think his death the greatest good that could happen to this kingdom and to the Church of God, and particularly to myself and to my house. have looked for my enemy on the field of battle; if I could have pointed a cannon at him I would have done it. I would have spared no means allowed by the laws of war to rid myself of so great an enemy, but I have not armed the hand of a murderer.

His whole life, his correspondence,

the opinions formed of him by his great- The peace, broken by continual disest enemies acquit him of it. And yet turbances, lasted for four years. During his rejoicing at the death of an enemy this time the admiral was in the highest jars upon modern ears, and the hatred favour at court; Charles approved of his breathed in his letter to the queen shows colonial schemes; the meeting of the the great admiral at his worst. Never-petits états" at Moulins pronounced theless, as we have said before, if ever him guiltless of Guise's death. Andelot man had a right to rejoice at the death of was restored to his charge of the infantry, his enemy it was Coligny. Guise had and the Huguenots had a period of combrought about this war; Guise was the parative rest, during which, however, man who made him chargeable with re- they stood harnessed, as it were, and bellion and lèse-majesté; it was Guise ready for battle, if the occasion should who broke the Edict of January; Guise arise again. Most of Coligny's time was had robbed him of the favour of Henry, spent at Châtillon, in the society of his and it was Guise who kept him from the wife and children. He read and studied; favour of Charles. he established and maintained at his own The death of Guise brought the peace expense a college in Châtillon, where of Amboise, signed by Condé. It gave Latin, Greek, and Hebrew were taught, terms less favourable than those of the " declaring always that education was the Edict of January to the Reformed, but greatest gift that can be bestowed upon a still granted liberty of conscience, and nation." He set an example of toleration, Coligny for a third time resumed his so that there was no place in France schemes for the establishment of French where a priest was so safe as in Châtilcolonies in America. One of Ribaud's lon; he governed his household by strict companions, Laudronnière, was chosen religious rule, holding prayers morning to command a new expedition, which, and evening, with singing and preaching; like the last, consisted entirely of Hugue- he gave daily audience to the deputies of nots. They sailed, arrived in Florida, the churches; he restrained the zeal of and settled down on good terms with the the ministers, whose enthusiasm was alnatives, from whom at first they received ways threatening difficulties; and he orsupplies of food. When these failed and ganized his great plan for carrying aid to it became necessary to cultivate the soil, the revolted Netherlands. Of all Colithe old soldiers, who mostly formed the gny's schemes this was the nearest to his settlement, grew impatient. It was a heart. War with Spain would disconquite and monotonous life; they wanted cert the fanatic Catholics; it would prethe excitement of fighting, and were set vent Catherine from looking to Philip for to till the earth. Finally, half of them assistance; it would rid the country of embarked on one of the ships, and went the turbulence of idle soldiers; it would buccaneering on the Spanish Main, to be be a safety-valve for the zeal of his own no more heard of. Coligny, to set things party; it would drown religious differright, sent out another fleet under Ri-ences in patriotism. And for himself, baud, recalling Laudronnière. The ill- the honour gained in civil contest was luck which followed all the admiral's nothing to that gained against a foreign American enterprises caused Ribaud's enemy. He had not forgotten St. Quenfleet to be shattered and dispersed by a tin, and longed to oppose a French army storm. The Spaniards attacked the set- to the Duke of Alva. Charles listened; tlement and murdered every man, woman at Philip's request he forbade French and child in it, except a few who escaped subjects fighting for the revolted provinin the only vessel left. With his usual ces, but looked on quietly while French tenacity of purpose, the admiral immedi- money raised six thousand men for their ately fitted out another expedition of assistance. It was part of the cowardly three ships and one thousand two hun- and selfish policy of Catherine to play dred men, which he intrusted to Pierre with both sides, waiting to see which Bertrand, son of Baron de Montluc, the should prove the stronger. So, to please savage persecutor of Guienne. This Condé, Coligny represented the king as time he left the choice of the men to the godfather to his son. A passage through captain, who picked out all the rascals Provence was refused the Spaniards. and dare-devils of Guienne, and went off Coligny even proposed to lead the Huguegasconading of the great things he was nots himself against Alva, and recomgoing to do. Nothing was done, because mended raising six thousand Swiss for Bertrand was killed in an attack on the war. The Swiss were raised, but inMadeira, and the rest came home. stead of remaining on the frontier they

721

were marched to Paris. Then suddenly the Huguenots sent back their German auxlight clouds of suspicion which had beeniliaries, and dispersed to their homes. It for four years floating about the sky was a peace intended by the court to efrolled themselves into a great thundercloud; it was known that Catherine was in secret treaty with Alva, and through all the country the order ran to be up and armed. It was whispered that Philip and Catherine had organized a simultaneous massacre of all the heretics at once, and a meeting was hastily called at Valery, attended by all the Huguenot leaders. Andelot, as usual, clamoured for war, the admiral persuaded patience.

fect this dispersion; it had been signed by Condé, without any guarantee but the word of Catherine, and against the admiral's advice. But he was not then able to advise or to protest against the offered terms. For his eldest son, Gaspard, a boy of the brightest promise, was taken from him. The father writes to his wife in words which do not try to conceal the anguish of his soul:

Remember, ma bien aimée, that he is happy in dying at an age when he was free of crime. God has willed it; I offer Him all the rest if it be His will. Do thou the same if thou wishest for His blessing, for in Him alone is all our hope. Adieu, I hope to see thee soon, which is now my only joy.

It is a hope that will not be realized, for his wife is to leave him too. She writes from her death-bed in noble language, that she

is unhappy indeed in dying far from the sight of him whom she has always loved better than herself: that she conjures him, for her own sake, if he has ever loved her, for the sake of the children, pledges of her love, to fight to the end in the service of God, and for the adaffection for the king, she prays him to revancement of religion: that as she knows his member that God is the first Master, that He must first be served even to the prejudice of any other.

So saying, the good wife died.

The last words are clearly apocryphal, and added by some over-zealous biographers. Peace, always peace, if possible, was the admiral's constant policy. Peace strengthened the Huguenots; peace brought them fresh recruits; peace gave them organization and enthusiasm ; peace enabled Coligny to stretch into every corner of the country his electric wires of secret intelligence. And he was too strong even for the court. Catherine, who knew what was coming, sent spies to report on the admiral's movements. They could only report, on the 26th of September, that he was gathering in his vintage; on the 28th fifty towns were in the power of the Protestants, and the "Mon Dieu!" cried Coligny, "mon Dieu, war was begun. It was this rapidity and que t'ai-je fait? quel péché ai-je commis pour secrecy which made the admiral so for-estre si rudement chastié et accablé de tant de midable. Condé again failed in an attempt to seize the king's person. Had that attempt succeeded, the future of France would have been written in very different colours, for Coligny knew his power over the king, and a week after Charles should fall into his hands he would have been leading the Huguenots in person. But the project failed. Then came the battle of St. Denys, the most skilful, the most audacious, and the most successful that Coligny ever fought. Though he had but three thousand men against eighteen thousand, led by the constable, the battle was drawn, and the next day the Catholics refused to renew it. Three months later came the treaty of Longjumeau, in virtue of which the

maux ?

tired to Châtillon, protesting in a letter Peace came, but no rest. Coligny reto Catherine his undiminished loyalty. fused to leave France without payment. Then fresh troubles. The Reiters reA sum of fifty thousand francs was raised, and sent by the admiral within the promChâtillon stands the town of Auxerre, ised time. About twenty miles east of then garrisoned by troops belonging to the Duke of Anjou. By some of these the admiral's messengers, bearing the money, were set upon and robbed of the whole. Nor was there any redress. He Duke of Anjou, claiming justice. He wrote to Charles, to Catherine, to the was put off with promises. Then he was ordered to reduce his personal escort from a hundred to fifty lances; one of his gentlemen was murdered by soldiers of the same garrison of Auxerre that had