prisoner. The body was thrown across an ass, and brought to Anjou, who, with his friends, laughed and joked; while the reformed captives sobbed and wept and kissed the hands and disfigured face. However, the corpse was restored to the family, and buried at Vendôme, the castle of the Bourbons.

A Te Deum was sung at Paris, and the captured standards were sent to Rome, where the Pope, Pius V., himself attended the presentation at St. Peter's, while a popular song at Paris rejoiced over the death of "the great foe of the Mass." Condé was but thirty-nine, a small, slight, dark man, with an engaging manner which won him much love; but a Calvinist more by policy than religion, and without adopting its stern morality.

Another prisoner killed in cold blood was Robert Stewart, who was recognised by the Marquis de Villars as having given his brother, the Constable, his death wound. Begging the prisoner from the young Duke of Anjou, he had him led a little apart and literally hacked to pieces. The usages of chivalrous and Christian warfare were getting set aside and forgotten. Heretics, like infidels, were supposed to be out of the pale of humanity, and it was actually preached that no faith was to be kept with them; while on their side, they regarded the Catholics as idolaters, Canaanites, or Amalekites, against whom all cruelty was praiseworthy. Thus such honourable and merciful actions as did take place on either side arose either from the old hereditary instincts of gentlemen, from family connection or friendship, or from an exceptional sense of Christian duty; and these French wars of religion were probably the most horrible on record. Henri of Anjou, the favourite son of Catherine, was a great promoter of their savagery. He was still so young that he had probably not outgrown the boyish fancy that violence and cruelty mean strength and courage, and the notion was encouraged by the spirit of the time. He was also an exceedingly fine and dainty gentleman, after the fashion of the day, which loved elaborate finery and splendour, and he thought that gallantry consisted in rude and coarse attentions; but what his mother preferred him for was, that he was the only one of her sons whom she could wholly influence, and he was as perfect in dissimulation as herself.

of his own.

He

François had been chiefly under Guise influence, but would not be accessory to a murder, even at their bidding; Charles was helplessly obedient, and durst not resist his mother; yet he too had a conscience The two people he loved best in the world were his old nurse, Philipote, and the surgeon, Ambroise Paré, both Huguenots; and he loathed her policy, the persecutions, and the civil war. could not stop her, so he threw his whole soul into hunting, and into Ronsard's poetry; sometimes lamenting bitterly that he had never had a kingly education, but without energy to make up the deficiency. She must have been constantly afraid that as he grew up he would break from her, and take the government into his own hands.

Henri, on the other hand, had no scruples, and plenty of ambition,

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Death of Condé. 1569.

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Courage of Jeanne d'Albret.

1569.

and was ready to fight, deceive, murder, or persecute, just as she told him. All the religion he had at this time was outward observance and hatred of heretics, and thus he was a willing instrument of his mother, and rose to her Medicean and Machiavellian notions of a youth of promise as a soldier and statesman.

So few Huguenots had been engaged, that but for Conde's death the battle of Jarnac would not have been a great loss. Coligny fell back to Tonnay Charente, and there, lest his army should be discouraged, Queen Jeanne hurried to meet him, bringing her own son Henri, Prince of Béarn, and his cousin Henri, now Prince of Condé, and seventeen years old. "Your cause is my cause, your interests are I swear on my soul, honour,

my interests," said the Prince of Béarn.

and life, to be wholly yours!"

66

The other Henri took the same oath. Coligny was named lieutenantgeneral, but all official acts were signed by the two young princes, who were called the Admiral's Pages.

Another great loss to the Reformed cause was that of Coligny's brave brother, François d'Andelot, who died of a fever shortly after Jarnac. However, a junction was effected with a body of Germans under Count Mansfield, and the Huguenots gained the advantage in a skirmish with the young Duke of Guise at a place called Roche Aveille.

For two months Coligny besieged Poitiers in vain, and then was forced by the Royalists to retreat. In the beginning of October the two armies were opposite to one another on the banks of the river Dive, near Moncontour, in Poitou. Two gentlemen came in the evening from the Royalist army, and had a conversation in secret with some of their Huguenot acquaintance. They bade them strenuously advise the Admiral not to risk a battle, as Monsieur's army was then very numerous with the reinforcements that had come in. "Let the Admiral only temporise for a month, for all the nobility have sworn to Monseigneur that they will not stay with him any longer, though they will do their duty while they are with him. Let the Admiral remember that it is dangerous to encounter the French fury, but it soon passes away, and if they have not a victory, they will disperse. He will get a peace, and an advantageous one."

But the Admiral was much in the same case. Nothing but a victory could save his army from disbanding; and besides, he did not quite trust the advice. So the battle began on the morrow, the 5th of October, and lasted two days. The first might be considered as only a great skirmish, and was indecisive. Coligny tried to retreat the next morning, but the Germans would not move without pay, and the delay made the battle inevitable. Young Henri of Navarre rode up and down the lines, speaking and giving his hand to the leaders and nobles, but he did not take any part in the battle. He was only fifteen, and, like Charles V. and some others who afterwards became great captains, he was still a prey to strong nervous timidity.

The French fury was terrible. The onset was fierce on both sides. The Admiral was wounded, and could hardly be dragged out of the throng; and the Duke of Anjou had a horse killed under him. All the German landsknechts, 4,000 in number, were killed except 200, by the Swiss in the royal pay, and 2,000 Huguenot foot; and the retreat of the army was covered by Prince Louis of Nassau, brother to the Prince of Orange.

As Coligny was being carried along, another severely wounded Huguenot gentleman, finding himself near, caused his litter to be carried close up to the Admiral's, withdrew the curtain, and looking at him fixedly, said, “Ni est ce que Dieu est très doux ?" The Admiral declared that nothing had ever done him more good than these few words; and at Niort, the Queen of Navarre came to meet the broken army with all the encouragement her high spirit could give.

The Royalists did not gain much advantage from their victory. It made Charles IX. inclined to be jealous of his younger brother's fame, and two months were spent in taking the little fort of S. Jean d'Angely, which was held out to the very last extremity.

In the winter, Nismes was won by the Huguenots in a curious manner. This ancient Roman city, full of wonderful ruins, had been taken in the early part of the war by the Royalists, and the garrison had expelled the Huguenot inhabitants, or forced them into conformity. One of these expelled citizens, a carpenter named Madaron, devised a plan for regaining the city. A stream of water flows through the town, and the place, where it issues, was protected by a strong iron grating, a little below the spot where a sentinel stood on guard. The guard was relieved every hour of the night, but the sentinel did not wait for the new comer to arrive-only struck a few notes on the city bell, and then walked off, so that the station was always left unwatched for a short interval. Having observed this, Madaron came at night and climbed down into the gorge by the grating, with a rope round his waist, held by a companion on the top of the bank, who was to jerk it on any token of danger. Then he began to file the bars, trusting to the noise of the wind and water to veil the sound, or that if heard, it might be taken for the gnawing of a bone by a dog. He had to stand knee deep in mud, and the wettest nights were the safest ; he could not work when it was calm and moonlight, and he always had to hide the marks of the file with a composition of wax and clay. After fifteen nights' work the grating was movable, and only then did he confide his plan to his fellows. A troop of Huguenot soldiers was in the neighbourhood, who willingly put themselves under his guidance. Three hundred were hidden in an olive wood, accompanied by a minister, who was to guide them in prayer and meditation; but a severe thunderstorm had nearly disconcerted everything, for some took it as a sign that Heaven was unfavourable to their enterprise, and others thought the lightning must have betrayed them. However,

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Battle of Moncontour.

1569.

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Nismes..

1570.

the minister found precedent for converting it into an omen of good promise, and, while they were thus impressed, the captain and a few Surprise of others climbed down the ravine, removed the grate, stole into the city, and opened the gates! Shouts and trumpet blasts rang through the streets, the garrison were overpowered, the governor fell and broke his leg, and was disgracefully slaughtered, as were many others of those who should have been received to quarter. A few were able to gain the citadel, where they held out for three months, but were at last obliged to surrender.

Coligny came thither and refreshed his army. He meant to advance upon Paris, and straiten the city, and had proceeded as far as Forez, when he fell ill of a malignant fever. He wished the army to press forward with Louis of Nassau, but they had no confidence in a foreigner, and nothing could be done, though in Saintogne several cities were taken. At Fontenaye, the commander, La Noue, was shot in the right arm. Its place was supplied by another, on account of which he was called Bras de Fer; and he not only used the sword but the pen, for he is the chief historian, on the Huguenot side, in these earlier wars, as Blaise de Monluc is on the Royalist side.

The Court was weary of the war. The two defeats of Jarnac and Moncontour had not materially weakened the rebels, and had made the King jealous of his brother's fame. Catherine could deal with the Huguenots much better in peace than in war, and she was determined to come to terms once more. The Pope, Pius V., strongly remonstrated, and Philip II. offered 9,000 soldiers if she would go on to exterminate the heretics, but her mind was made up, and by the peace of St. Germain en Laye, most favourable terms were granted.

On condition that the Huguenots restored the Church of France in all the places where they had suppressed her worship, they were tolerated everywhere, and allowed to hold any secular office. Everywhere but in Paris and ten leagues round, and for two leagues round any places where the Court was, they might have services in the châteaux of Huguenot nobles, and in the suburbs of the provincial cities where they were numerous.

Moreover, the cities of La Rochelle, La Charité, Montauban, and Cognac were to be held by the Princes of Béarn and Condé for two years as securities for the performance of the terms. The treaty was signed at St. Germain en Laye in August, 1570, and was again called a halting peace, and indeed it was the third within seven years.

The Huguenots took advantage of it to hold a great synod at La Rochelle, at which were present the two young Princes of Béarn and Condé, and Count Louis of Nassau. It condemned the doctrines of Socini, and very impertinently admonished the English Bishops to examine and condemn Les Tables de Couzain, namely, a work of Richard Cosin, Dean of Arches, called Ecclesiæ Anglicana Politicia in Tabulus Digesta, which told strongly against Presbyterianism. It also gave the Queen of Navarre a very wholesome admonition against selling magis

tracies and other offices, according to the frequent custom in France. The Count de Montgommeri took refuge in England, and Catherine desired to have him either put to death, or delivered up, but Elizabeth would do neither, saying she had no mind to become hangman to the King of France, and Montgommeri became a pirate, with Jersey for his chief haven.

This year of peace was also a year of marriages. Good man as Maximilian II. was, papal dispensations prevented him from having any scruple in giving his eldest daughter Anna to her uncle, Philip II. as his fourth wife. The second, Elizabeth, was promised to Charles IX., and his first gentleman of the bedchamber, Albert de Gondi, Count of Rex, was sent to Spain to fetch the bride. She was one of the softest and gentlest of beings, and Brantôme says that the pair were like fire and water together, for the young King was violent in all his ways, full of strange oaths and furious gestures, passionately fond of the chase, active and clever in all manly sports, and even able to forge armour and weapons..

The Queen also wished her next son, Henri, Duke of Anjou, to wed Queen Elizabeth, and a long and very ridiculous courtship on his behalf was carried on by La Mothe Fenélon. Elizabeth highly enjoyed his civilities, and was the more ready to keep him in play that this negotiation was the best security against the French taking up the cause of Mary of Scotland. So she exchanged letters and presents, chattered a great deal in a foolish unguarded way to the ambassador, and took him with her in great state to dine with Sir Thomas Gresham on the occasion of the opening of the Royal Exchange.

Marguerite, the King's youngest sister, and Henri, Duke of Guise, were deeply in love with each other, but the Queen Mother and the King had made up their minds that Marguerite should marry the Prince of Béarn. When she persisted in her promises to Guise, Charles flew into a passionate state of fury, and even talked of having Guise assassinated at a hunting-party. He was overheard, Guise was told, and his mother persuaded him to espouse in great haste, Catherine of Cleves, widow of the Prince de Porcienz-by way of saving his life; but it was always an unhappy, unloving marriage.

At the same time, Guise's sister married Louis de Bourbon, Duke of Montpensier, head of a fiercely Roman Catholic branch of the house of Bourbon; and Marie of Cleves, a Huguenot lady of the same family as Madame de Guise, was given to the young Prince of Condé.

The most curious wedding was, however, that of the Admiral. He had been three years a widower, when he received a letter from a great lady in Savoy, Jacqueline de Montbel, daughter of the Count d'Entrémont, a widow of thirty years old, who wrote that she desired to marry a hero and a saint, and that hero and saint was the Admiral! Coligny, who was sixty-two, replied that he was only a tomb; but the lady persisted. The Duke of Savoy, who disapproved of his vassals marrying out of his duchy, was not likely to make an exception

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Treaty of St.Germain. 1570.