gallows, and drew them about the streets, thrusting them through with daggers and shooting of dags [pistols] at them, cutting off their ears, and omitting no other kind of villainous and barbarous cruelty." There were others to be executed, but the queen-mother "with no small difficulty," persuaded her son to respite them for awhile. "The king is now grown so blooody-minded," concludes Walsingham, “that they who advised him thereto do repent the same, and do fear that the old saying will prove true-malum consilium consultori pessimum."* After this we can well believe the story that Charles ordered torches to be held near the faces of his two victims, that he might the clearer see their dying agonies. When the cruel tragedy on the Grève was over, the royal spectators, including Henry of Navarre, retired to a magnificent supper provided for them at the Hotel-de-Ville, at the windows of which they had been sitting.t

About a month after the massacre, Henry of Navarre and the Prince of Condé both abjured. The instrument of their conversion to orthodoxy was Sureau du Rozier, at one time minister at Orleans, and the fanatic apologist of Poltrot's crime; but yielding to temptation, and partly also to fear, he abjured Protestantism, and, like all new converts, was eager to show his zeal by converting his late brethren. The two princes listened to his arguments, and professed themselves convinced; but they only temporized with a king who was ca pable, in one of his mad bursts of passion, of ordering them to execution. At the beginning of October the princes wrote to the pope, expressing sorrow for their past errors and promising to be faithful sons of the Catholic Church in future. The pope graciously accepted their recantations, and returned them the necessary dispensations for their marriages. Henry

*Walsingham to Smith, November 1, 1572. Digges, p. 278. The cost of this banquet is given by Sauval, iii. 368.

The Bull (6 Kal. November, 1572) was never registered in Parliament. I may add that Sureau, unable to stifle his conscience, fled to Germany, recanted, and died neglected by all.

went farther than was necessary to show his new zeal, by abolishing the Reformed religion in his maternal states. “M. Grammont hath commission from the king," writes Walsingham, "to suppress all preaching in Bearn, and to plant there the Catholic religion, which is a verification of the king's [Charles] intention touching the observation of his edict irrevocable for the toleration of religion."* But the Bearnese stoutly refused to act upon the order, on the ground that the king was a prisoner in Paris and under constraint.

* Digges, p. 267. Letter to Smith, October 8. On September 7 he had written, "that there is a compact to destroy all persons that be of the religion. Archæologia, xxii. 1829, p. 325.

CHAPTER XIV.

MASSACRE IN THE PROVINCES.

[August to October, 1572.]

Instructions to the Governors-The Count of Tende-Nantes and Alençon -Massacres at Saumur, Angers, Lyons, Orleans, Troyes, Rouen, Meaux, Bordeaux, and Toulouse-St. Hérem's letter-The stolen Dispatch—The Governor of Bayonne-The Bishop of Lisieux-Chabot at Arnay-le-Duc -Senlis, Provins, Château-Thierry, Dieppe, and Nismes spared- The Number of Victims-Contemporary Judgments-Dorat's Panegyric— Jean Le Masle-Pierre Charpentier and Sorbin-Rejoicings at Rome-Exultation of Philip II.—Horror in England—John Knox's Denunciation— The Emperor Maximilian's regret.

THE writers who maintain that the tragedy of St. Bartholomew's Day was the result of long premeditation, support their opinions by what occurred in the provinces; but it will be found after careful examination, that these various incidents tend rather to prove the absence of any such premeditation. Unless we suppose Catherine and her Italian advisers to have been the clumsiest of conspirators, they would naturally have made arrangements for a general massacre of the Huguenots throughout the kingdom to take place on the same day; but it did not, and the murders committed were in many instances the consequences of popular commotions that broke out after the arrival of the news from Paris.* There is indeed a wellknown letter from the queen-mother to Strozzi, which he was not to open until the 24th of August, and in which he

*See Martyrologue, respecting Orleans, p. 712 recto; respecting Bourges, 724 recto; respecting Bordeaux, "il n'entendait pas que cette exécution passât outre et s'étendît plus avant que Paris,” p. 730 recto.

† It is given in Olagharray, p. 628, and the Réveille-Matin.

read: "This is to inform you that to-day the admiral and all the Huguenots in this place are killed." But the letter is manifestly spurious, and with it falls the principal item of evidence to show premeditation.

It would appear that on the 23d, as soon as the king's assent had been gained, instructions to massacre the Protestants were forwarded to various parts of the country. Alberi* emphatically says that there remain no traces in any provincial registers of orders received to this effect; but even were there no such record, there is abundant evidence that such instructions were sent. Davila says that messengers were dispatched on the 23d. De Thou, who was in a position to know the truth, declares that verbal orders were sent; which is confirmed by a letter to the governor of Chartres withdrawing all verbal orders. There is álso a letter from Charles to Matignon, canceling all the orders he may have given by word of mouth. § Writing to Longueville on the 26th of August, he recalls "le mandement verbal," || and the next day he reminds the mayor of Troyes of the "letters he had received" ordering the extermination of the heretics. Puygaillard, writing in the king's name (August 26) to the governor of Angers, to put the principal Huguenots to death, bids him wait for no farther orders, as he will have none. It is clear, therefore, that Charles desired to act up to his resolution, to permit no Huguenot to survive to reproach him with his breach of faith. That his orders were not carried out, depended in many cases upon the character of the governors or municipalities to whom they were addressed. A messenger, named La Molle, was sent to the Count of Tende, governor of Provence, with a letter ordering him to massacre all the Huguenots. A postscript, however, bade him neither do nor believe what La Molle told him. The count, unable to reconcile these contradictory instructions, sent his secretary to the king, who told him to "put a few

*Vita di C. de' Medici, p. 155. Paris: Cabinet Hist. ii. 258.

†Tom. vi. lib. 52, p. 421. § Raumer, i. 282.

|| Revue rétrospect. v. (1834) p. 359.

Huguenots to death." But Tende dying in the interval, his successor, the Count of Courcis, refused to act without farther instructions, and the result was an order, which the messenger was directed on peril of his life to communicate to none but De Courcis, "not to execute the massacre.'

Louis, Duke of Bourbon-Montpensier, governor of Brittany, wrote to the municipal officers of Nantes, desiring them to carry out the massacre. They refused, and their refusal is commemorated in the following inscription:

"L'an MDLXXII, le 8 jour de septembre, le Maire de Nantes, les échevins, et les suppôts de la ville avec les jugesconsuls, réunis à la Maison Commune, font le serment de maintenir celui précédemment fait de ne point contrevenir à l'Edit de Pacification rendu en faveur des Calvinistes, et font défense aux habitants de se porter à aucun excès contre eux."

At Alençon there was no massacre, owing to the energy of the governor, who, observing that the Catholics were arming with a murderous intent, closed the city gates, strengthened the posts, and issued a severe proclamation, forbidding any injury to the Huguenots. The latter were ordered to assemble, to give up their arms, to send in thirty-two hostages, and to take a new oath of fidelity. This they did, and all were spared. Matignon's name was long revered as a household word among the people of Alençon.t

At Angers the massacre had some distinct characteristics. After Montsoreau, the governor of Saumur, had killed all the Huguenots in that town according to the instructions from an agent of the Duke of Anjou, he hastened to Angers (29th August), which he reached at day-break. Ordering the gates to be shut, he went to the house of La Barbée, a Huguenot

*Raumer: Hist. 16th and 17th Cent., Letter 31.

When the Duke of Alençon revolted against Henry III., and the city rose in arms, Matignon was sent to reduce it, and as soon as the Protestants saw his banners, they opened the gates to him. Odolant Desnos: Mém. Hist. d'Alençon, ii. p. 285 (8vo. Alençon, 1787).