CHAP. VIII.] CHARLES IX. AVOWS THE MASSACRE.

267

CHAPTER VIII.

WHEN the massacre had subsided at Paris, the first impulse of the French Court, alarmed at its own deed, was to deny having originated it; and in the instructions sent to the governors of provinces, to the "good towns," and to the ambassadors at Protestant courts, the Guises were designated as the authors of it. It was very far from Catherine's wish to break with the Protestant powers, and thus chain herself to the policy of Rome and Spain. Her first project had been to excite between the Guises and the Hugonot chiefs a strife that should prove fatal to the latter, and in which the King should not appear; and she would willingly have carried out this plan after the massacre had been perpetrated; but it was frustrated by the conduct of Marshal Montmorenci, who, on finding that the King denied all participation in the massacre, was preparing to unite his party of the Politiques with the remnant of the Hugonots, in order to take vengeance on the Guises. This step would have placed Catherine between two parties, neither of which adhered to the King; and it therefore became necessary for Charles to avow an act which he had not feared to perpetrate. Fresh letters contradictory of the former ones were despatched stating that the execution was necessary to prevent an accursed conspiracy of the Admiral and his adherents against the royal family; and on the 26th of August the King, after having heard a solemn mass, proceeded to hold a Lit de Justice, when he declared that all that had occurred on the 24th of August had been done by his command. The Court, however, were heartily ashamed of themselves, and when the legate Orsini, whom the Pope had sent to congratulate them on the occasion, arrived at Paris, he was requested not to talk too much of the "great day,"

1 In a letter to Mondoucet, his envoy in the Netherlands, Charles says: "To prevent the success of the enterprise planned by the Admiral, I have been obliged to permit the said Guises to rush upon (courir sus) him, which they have done; and the said Admiral has been killed, and all his adherents. A very large number of those of the new religion

have also been cut to pieces; and it is probable that the fire thus kindled will spread through all the cities of my kingdom, and that all those belonging to the said religion will be made sure of."-Corr. de Mondoucet, in the Compte Rendu de la Comm. d'Hist. (Belg.) ap. Motley, Dutch Rep. vol. ii. p. 393.

268

CONVERSION OF HENRY OF NAVARRE.

[Book III. and the King and Queen-mother absented themselves when he entered the metropolis. On passing through Lyon, Orsini had complimented the citizens on the zeal which they had displayed for the Catholic faith, and publicly absolved all those who had been concerned in the massacre as they knelt before him at the cathedral.

Although the lives of Henry of Navarre and the Prince of Condé had been spared, a watch was kept over them, and they were importuned to change their religion. Henry, who had early been bred a Catholic, and whose faith always sat easily upon him, went over. Condé at first displayed more firmness. Charles IX. having sent for him and proposed the choice of three things, the mass, death, or the Bastille, Condé replied by refusing the first alternative and leaving the choice of the other two to the King. He subsequently yielded, however, to the exhortations of the Jesuit Maldonato and of Sureau des Rosiers, an apostate Calvinist minister ; and the two" converted" princes wrote to the Pope to receive them back into the fold of the Church (October 3rd). Their conversion was followed by that of many others; but the princes were insincere, and contemplated revoking their compulsory recantation on the first opportunity. Their conduct shows a sad falling off from the earnestness and courage of the early Hugonots. In fact, as M. Michelet well remarks, the French wars of religion terminate with the massacre of St. Bartholomew; the ardour of fanaticism was succeeded by the indifference of scepticism, and the history of the subsequent struggle is only that of political intrigue under religious pretences.

The princes and grandees of the " cause were now for the most part either dead, or in exile, or turned renegades; but the principles of the Reformation found support in the citizen class, among whom they had engendered a spirit of republican liberty, and a desire to revive the municipal institutions of the middle ages; and though the higher classes in the Protestant towns and districts seemed inclined to submit to the royal ordinances, their selfish and timid egotism was borne down by the enthusiasm of their inferiors. La Rochelle, La Charité, Montauban, and Nîmes were the principal towns in the hands of the Hugonots, who likewise held many fortresses in the Cevennes; but La Charité was soon taken by the royal forces. After the St. Bartholomew, a considerable body of Hugonot soldiers, as well as all the reformed ministers of the surrounding country, had thrown themselves into La Rochelle, which seemed capable of sustaining a long siege; and as the Court at this period, being engaged in can

CHAP. VIII.]

SIEGE OF LA ROCHELLE, 1573.

269

vassing for the Polish crown for the Duke of Anjou, were desirous of appearing to treat the Hugonots with moderation and clemency, they employed La Noue to conciliate the Rochellers and negociate the terms of their surrender. That commander, who, as already related, had just escaped from Mons, plainly told the King when he accepted the office that he would do nothing detrimental to the liberties of the citizens; and the ambassador finished by taking the command of those with whom he had been sent to treat. The negociations with the Hugonots continued however till the winter. Meanwhile their towns were agitating the scheme of a federative republic with a sort of Roman dictatorship, and though the plan came to nothing, it served to breed an indomitable spirit of resistance. La Rochelle attracted all eyes. After taking the command, La Noue had strengthened the fortifications; the mayor, Jacques Henri, had stored the town with provisions, and upwards of fifty Calvinist ministers excited by their discourses the religious enthusiasm of the inhabitants. Biron and Strozzi, the commanders of the royal forces, made their first approaches in December; and in February 1573, the Duke of Anjou came to take the command in chief, accompanied by the Duke of Alençon and all the princes, including the King of Navarre and Condé. These latter, however, are said to have given the citizens information of all that was passing in the royal camp.

La Rochelle was left entirely to its own resources, and received no assistance from England; for Elizabeth found it necessary at this period to keep on good terms with the Court of France. The party of Mary was becoming troublesome in Scotland; they had seized and fortified themselves in the castle of Edinburgh; Elizabeth was fearful that they might obtain the assistance, of the French King, and she was obliged to send an army into Scotland to reduce them. With a view to conciliate Charles IX. she consented to become godmother to his infant daughter, and despatched the Earl of Worcester with the present of a gold font to be used at the baptism. The French Hugonots, enraged at what they considered an act of apostasy, intercepted the English squadron, killed some of Worcester's suite, and captured and plundered one of his ships. While Elizabeth was still irritated by this hostile conduct, Charles sent De Retz to London, who in a great measure succeeded in pacifying her respecting the late massacre, and persuaded her to refuse a loan which some envoys from La Rochelle were soliciting. But her ministers would not consent to arrest the ships which the Count of Montgomeri was collecting at Plymouth for the succour of La Rochelle: an expedition, however, which proved almost

270

DEATH OF SIGISMUND II. OF POLAND.

[Book III. abortive; for though Montgomeri succeeded in throwing some provisions into the place, he was prevented by the royal fleet from entering the harbour; and as he was forbidden to return to the English ports, he was obliged to take refuge in the roads of

Belle Isle.

The heroic defence of the Rochellers has been minutely described by De Thou. Their town, naturally very strong, the ramparts being surrounded with marshes, was assailable at only one point, so that four thousand men could repel five times their number. The garrison were animated with the most courageous spirit; even women and children took part in the defence. On the other hand Anjou was now deprived of the military talent of Tavannes; a great many of the nobility were slain or wounded in the trenches; and the royal army was decimated by a terrible malady, whose symptoms resembled those of the cholera morbus. Under these circumstances the French Court were glad of the pretence of the Duke of Anjou's election to the crown of Poland, in order to renew the negociations for a peace.

Sigismund Augustus, or Sigismund II., the last king of the House of Jagellon, had died in the preceding year. During a reign of nearly a quarter of a century, Sigismund had ruled the half republican, half monarchical Poland with considerable glory; he had augmented its territory by the acquisition of Livonia, and had reduced the Dukes of Courland to acknowledge the supremacy of the Polish crown. The kingdom, however, was distracted both by the restless turbulence of the nobility and by religious quarrels. The Protestant doctrines, which had been particularly furthered and protected by Prince Radzivill, had made great progress in the Polish dominions; Courland and Livonia were altogether of that persuasion; and although a religious toleration had been agreed on, the Papal nuncios and the numberless priests, who had considerable influence in the Senate, were constantly sowing the seeds of dissension. When Catherine de' Medici learnt that the Poles were at variance respecting the election of a king, she recommended her favourite son the Duke of Anjou, and despatched Schomberg, a German in the service of France, and Montluc, Bishop of Valence, to canvass in his interest. His competitors were a son of the King of Sweden, the Duke of Prussia, a son of the Czar of Muscovy, Stephen Bathori, Voyvode of Transylvania, and, the most formidable of all, the Archduke Ernest, son of the Emperor Maximilian. Montluc, a prelate whose moderation caused him to be suspected of heresy, secured the Protestant party among the Poles by concessions which the French Court was afterwards

CHAP. VIII.] ANJOU ELECTED TO THE POLISH CROWN.

271

obliged to disavow, even engaging among other things that vengeance should be taken on the perpetrators of the St. Bartholomew.2 The Turks, the Pope, and the German Lutheran princes, fearful of seeing an Austrian archduke seated on the throne of Poland, united in recommending Anjou; and after an interregnum of ten months the French Prince was elected for their sovereign by 30,000 or 40,000 armed and mounted Polish nobles assembled in the field of Wold, near Warsaw, the place of election (May 9th 1573). They had previously made him sign an agreement prepared by the States that nobody should be punished or persecuted on account of his religious tenets, although the Polish bishoprics and prebends were to remain in the hands of the Catholics. They had also required him to subscribe a capitulation, or Pacta Conventa, which, as in most instances of the same kind, augmented the power of the nobles, while it encroached upon that of the crown. The prevailing anarchy was increased by its regulations, by which it was provided that no king should ever be chosen during the lifetime of another, and that even the form and order of election should remain unsettled.

In September, Montluc returned to Paris accompanied by a numerous and splendid deputation of Polish nobles, who had come to escort their new sovereign to his dominions. The Poles, who entered Paris in fifty carriages-and-four, excited the astonishment of the Parisians by their half fantastic, half oriental costume. Their dresses were adorned with costly furs and numerous jewels; their red beards and heads shaved behind after the Tartar fashion gave them a half savage aspect, which was still further increased by their bows, their enormous quivers, and their grotesque crests of wide-spread eagle's wings with which both themselves and their horses were accoutred. But if their outward appearance provoked the wonder of the multitude, the French Court was still more surprised at the variety and extent of their intellectual attainments, which formed so strong a contrast with the ignorance of the young courtiers. The liberal toleration of the Polish government, and the cosmopolitan spirit of the people, assisted by that facility for acquiring foreign languages which distinguishes the Sclavonic had rendered Poland the centre of the intellectual movement of Europe; and even the disciples of Socinus and Servetus, who met at Geneva only persecution and death, found there a refuge and a home.

races,

The French Court had hastened to conclude a peace with the

2 La Popelinière, Hist. de France, t. ii. fol. 177.