1560.

ACCESSION OF CHARLES IX.

235 ended by committing that prince to prison. The king of Navarre instantly complained, and expostulated with the queenmother; but she could not now retract the consent she had given, or unbend the mind of the young monarch. Condé was tried by a commission, and refusing to answer, was condemned to death. The day was appointed for the execution, and Catherine of Medicis betrayed to all who approached the agony and misgivings of her mind. Historians will maintain that this sensibility on the part of Catherine was affected they think, with Davila, that it would be a dishonor, or a least an inconsistency, in the queen, that she should have felt a particle of the natural tenderness of her sex, even in the commencement of her political career. I beg to think that she was sincere in now wishing to save the life of Condé; and fortune placed this in her power. The young king was stricken with sudden illness, arising, it is supposed, from the formation of an abscess in his head. The supreme authority rested with the queen-mother. The Guises urged her to execute the sentence upon Condé; but she hesitated, and resolved to save him. She determined, however, to turn her mercy to advantage; summoning the king of Navarre, she offered to spare the life of his brother, provided he signed an agreement renouncing all claim to the regency in case of the young king's death. Navarre signed; and Francis II. expired on the 5th of December, 1560.

Charles IX., a boy of ten years of age, now succeeded his brother Francis. Catherine of Medicis, according to her promise, liberated the prince of Condé; and as the king of Navarre, according to his promise, supported the queen's pretensions, she took upon her the office of regent. The Guises, though shorn of their paramount influence, and mortified by the escape of Condé, were still formidable as a party. To make the balance more even, Catherine recalled to court the veteran constable, Montmorency. Nothing could be more successful or happy than the policy of this princess hitherto, nor was it as yet made subservient to her own cruel measures: her interest as well as that of the kingdom recommended to her a middle course, between the extremes of contending parties. This was a task that required infinite prudence, and led to the necessary vices of dissimulation and guile: these, combined with the measures of blood in which she was afterwards induced to join, have rendered her in the eyes of posterity a very monster of cruelty and deceit. Her enemies have exaggerated their representations from hate; her friend and secretary, Davila, has done the same from a preposterous desire to raise the intellectual character of his mistress at the expense of her moral worth. Whatever differences there

may be on this point, there can be none as to the talents of Catherine: her choice of followers is an ample proof of them. One of the first uses she made of her incipient influence was to raise de l'Hôpital to the chancellorship, against the wishes of Guise; and when we record that this upright man was now her friend and counsellor, the fact goes far to prove, that she was not at this early stage such a demon of guile as she has been represented.

There is no task more impracticable than that of holding the balance between two zealous and active parties. The states now assembled leaned against the Guises. The king of Navarre proposed, as a measure of offence, to extinguish the debts of the crown, now considerable, by resuming the grants of the two last reigns. This blow was chiefly aimed at the Guises, but it also reached the mareschal St. André and the constable. Catherine in vain endeavored to stifle the imprudent proposal. Montmorency was avaricious: he felt himself in the same predicament with Guise, in being forced to render up his acquisitions. Sympathy united them. The constable abandoned the party of his nephews, and also that of the reformation to which he ever had a repugnance; and thus was formed of the constable, the mareschal, and Guise, a triumvirate that disquieted Catherine and menaced the Protestants. The queen immediately determined to strengthen the Protestant side; and an edict appeared, granting them some slight favor, and substituting the plan of banishment for that of death in common cases of heresy. The Guises, on their part, having secured the constable, and opened a communication with Spain, resolved no longer to trouble themselves with petty court intrigue, but leaving Catherine to pursue her own plans, wait till some flagrant blunder of hers would afford them an opportunity to interfere with advantage. The queen took the quiet and apparent content of the Guises to be real. She proposed an accommodation between the duke and Condé, which took place in form, the princes separating as enemies no less bitter than before. The queen then flattered herself that all went on admirably. In concert with her counsellor, de l'Hôpital, she pursued, and sincerely pursued, the beneficent work of establishing religious peace and toleration. The divines of both persuasions met at Poissy. The cardinal of Lorraine and Theodore Beza disputed, and, as usual, separated each more bigoted than he was when he came. A deputation from the different parliaments met at the same time at St. Germain. Under the influence of the chancellor, they approved of toleration; and, strengthened by their approval, the government issued the famous edict of January, 1562, granting tolerance to the

CIVIL WAR COMMENCED.

237

1561. Huguenots, and allowing them to assemble outside the walls of towns..

This was the signal for the Guises. They departed from the capital in indignation, and retired to Lorraine, that they might not be witnesses of the triumph of heresy. While Catherine had been engaged in her philanthropic endeavors at toleration, they were not idly employed in winning over to their side the weak-minded king of Navarre. Catherine, on other occasions, had courted him, and long held him by the charms of one of her maids of honor, a culpable mode of influence much practised by the queen-mother. At the present conjuncture she could not have suspected that Anthony of Bourbon, unfixed as he was in his religious opinions, could desert his brother, his family, and the Huguenot party, with which he had so long acted. But the promise of their restoring that part of Navarre beyond the Pyrenees, which Spain had conquered, was held out by the Guises and Philip; and the king was dupe enough to trust to it.

The two parties were by this time excited throughout France to the highest pitch of mutual exasperation. Already numbers of petty insurrections, skirmishes, murders, the usual preludes to civil war,--had occurred. The court having retired to the queen's country-house of Monceaux, the duke of Guise determined to try the pulse of the Parisian population; and for that purpose set out thither. During his journey an event occurred, which fell like a spark upon the combustible minds of the Huguenots, and served as a signal for war. In passing through the little town of Vassy, on the borders of Champagne, at an hour when the Protestants were assembled, outside the walls according to the edict, in prayer, the duke felt especially indignant; his suite partook of his resentment, and began to insult the crowd. From insults, blows ensued. The duke ran to quell or to see the disturbance, and was struck in the cheek. The sight of his blood called forth fresh anger on the part of his followers: troops joined him; and a massacre of the unfortunate inhabitants of Vassy took place, which the duke was either unable or unwilling to stop. The Protestants were aroused by accounts of this event. They began, however, by sending a deputation to the queen. The king of Navarre, in his stupid zeal, insulted them, and excused the massacre. Theodore Beza answered him, with a happy allocution, "that the Protestants, if they could not defend themselves, had, at least, the strength to endure; and that religious liberty was an anvil which had worn out many hammers."

The entry of the duke of Guise excited the greatest en thusiasın among the Parisians. They declared with one voice

against the Huguenots; and he was now assured that Catholic opinion would find a fortress in the capital. Their demonstrations of zeal were so extreme, that Catherine of Medicis thought it best to retire to Melun, and thence to Fontainebleau. But even here she was not safe. The triumvirate marched to Fontainebleau, and brought back the king and the queen-mother to Paris. The prince of Condé at the news took possession of Orleans, summoned his partisans, and made that town the head-quarters of the Huguenots, as the capital was of the Catholics. In the south and west of France, the Huguenots had the advantage: these provinces declared for them. The superiority of the Catholics consisted in the possession of the king, the capital, and the greater part of the regular troops. There was still a hesitation in commencing the war. Catherine, who clung tenaciously to power, and who, in order to retain it, now joined, or affected to join, the triumvirate, tried to negotiate with Condé. The prince was weak enough to listen to her; but his followers would not allow of his becoming a dupe. Dandelot uttered a piece of advice, that might be true of any quarrels save religious disputes. "We can never be friends with the Catholics," said he, "till we fight our quarrel out." Unhappily, it was not by combat, but by massacre, that the war commenced. The Huguenots took Beaugenci, and committed every atrocity: their enemies retaliated; and thus a religious war at once assumed all that savage character which usually distinguishes it, At the same time the prince of Condé, to counterbalance the aid which Philip of Spain now openly held out to the Guises, concluded a treaty with queen Elizabeth, to whom he delivered Havre-de-Grace in return for a corps of 6000 men.

The Catholics opened the campaign in the autumn witn the siege of Rouen, where Montgomeri commanded. The chiefs would not lose sight of Catherine and the king, who accordingly accompanied them; and the queen, surrounded by gaiety and beauty, showed every sign of contentment and zealous orthodoxy. The town was vigorously attacked and gallantly defended. Many women of the Protestants were slain. In one of the assaults, Anthony of Bourbon, king of Navarre, received a wound which proved mortal. This weak prince, slain in the ranks of the Catholics, left an infant son, who, under the care of his mother, Jeanne d'Albret, was reared to be the support and glory of the Protestant cause. This infant was the future Henry IV. Rouen at length surrendered. Montgomeri escaped; but ten of the principal Huguenot inhabitants were executed. Condé used reprisals

1561

BATTLE OF DREUX.

239 at Orleans; and thus the parties warred, each spilling blood upon scaffolds of its own erection.

The prince, however, having received a reinforcement of 7000 Germans under his brother Dandelot, at length marched out of Orleans. He first insulted the capital, burning the villages in its vicinity, and then turned towards Normandy, in order to draw near to the English. He was followed by the constable; and the first battle was fought on the 19th of December, at Dreux. The principal force of Condé was in cavalry, his infantry being chiefly Germans,--a circumstance which indicates that it was among the middling class, or the wealthy burgesses, that the soldiers of the reformation were recruited. Vieilleville corroborates this. The royal army was composed chiefly of infantry, in number about 18,000, and in this respect superior to the enemy. The two armies contemplated each other for a considerable time, till at last Condé, with the courage of a captain, but with none of the method or foresight of the general, fell upon the main body under the constable. He routed it after an obstinate struggle, in which the Swiss, of whom it was chiefly composed, rallied at each opportunity. The constable, however, was taken, and led off the field,-Guise, who was on the right, never moving to his succor. The duke waited until the Huguenots were completely wearied and exhausted with the resistance of the Swiss, and then advanced with his fresh division to restore the action. This he effected with the utmost success. The undisciplined cavalry of Condé were in total disorder; Guise swept them before him, and took the prince prisoner. The admiral Coligny made good his retreat, however, with the Germans, and rallied the fugitives. The mareschal St. André, in endeavoring to harass him, was taken and slain. The singularity of the battle of Dreux was, that each of the two generals became prisoner to the opposite party. Guise gained both ways; not less by the removal of the constable, whose rank entitled him always to the superior command, than by the captivity of Condé. This prince was treated with the utmost generosity by his rival: they shared the same tent, the same bed; and while Condé remained wakeful from the strangeness of his position, Guise, he declared, enjoyed the most profound sleep. There were, indeed, heroic traits about the duke of Guise, that mark him to have been naturally of a generous and noble disposition. It appears that, especially when in arms and away from his brother, he could shake off the hard-heartedness, the guile, and even the ambition, which in the cabinet rose to stifle every better quality. But we are now engaged with scenes and men that would demand, if full justice were to be done to them, the