XXIV. from declaring war against Spain, was withdrawing at CHAP. once from Flushing and from the proposed marriage with Alençon. Coquetry occupied her more than politics; and, instead of supporting the admiral and the French Huguenot party, she was playing fast and loose with the little Duke of Alençon. Amidst this uncertainty arrived the fatal hour for the marriage of the Prince of Condé and the King of Navarre, when the two parties would be in presence, and when it would require all the firmness and determination of the king to keep them from open quarrel. He had compelled them to a kind of apparent reconciliation, and in the incertitude of which way he should eventually turn, Charles bestowed smiles and assurances upon both. He issued an ordonnance forbidding arms or opprobrious words, but he took no essential steps. to prevent the Guises from bringing numbers of followers with them to Paris. The Prince of Condé's marriage took place at a château near Melun, on the 10th. That of the King of Navarre was fixed for the 18th. When Coligny came to Paris to attend it, as well as to hasten, as he said, the reinforcements for Flanders, the king proposed to him to bring in a regiment of the guard, in order to counteract any attempt on the part of the Guises, which he observed was, notwithstanding their assurance, to be feared. Coligny consented to the specious precaution. The Huguenot gentry, who now crowded to Paris in the suite of either the admiral or the King of Navarre, were warned that evil awaited them. The Bishop of Valence, who set off about this time for Poland to endeavour to obtain the crown of that kingdom for the Duke of Anjou, bade several of them significantly to "go home." The magistrates of La Rochelle wrote to the admiral that Strozzi, who was in their neighbourhood at the head of the expeditionary fleet *Her letters and instructions at the critical moment. XXIV. and army, showed manifestly treacherous intentions. On the other hand, Calvin and Beza pressed him to return to the court, "where all went wrong in his absence," and besought him not to lose the occasion.* Some peasantry of his estate warned the admiral, who replied, prophetically, "that he had rather have his body dragged through the streets of Paris than renew the civil war.' In these words spoke the loyal and patriotic gentleman, but not the zealous and determined chief of a new religion. Although Coligny never ceased to press the monarch for the despatch of an army to relieve Mons, which the Duke of Alva held besieged, the cares and festivities of the marriage served as a ready excuse. Charles also pleaded that he had no general whom he could trust. Cossé was avaricious, Tavannes, ambitious; others in the exclusive interest of the Guises. Montmorency appeared the fittest man. The papal dispensation was still not forthcoming, and the Cardinal de Bourbon declined to perform the ceremony without it. Charles, however, practised a deceit upon that prelate by assuring him the dispensation had come. The King of Navarre and the Princess Margaret were accordingly affianced at the Louvre on the 17th August, and on the following day the marriage ceremony was performed at Notre Dame, Navarre and the Huguenots withdrawing during the celebration of the mass. De Thou relates that, enter. ing the choir of the church during the ceremony, he overheard Coligny and the Marechal Damville talking together. The former pointed to the standards taken at Montcontour, which still adorned the church, and observed that he hoped soon to replace them by others won in Flanders more pleasant to behold. Several days were spent in festivities. One of them was a representation of Paradise, which the king and * MSS. Bethune, 8702, f. 76. The letter is dated August 5. XXIV. his brother defended against Navarre and his friends, CHAP. the latter being driven at the close of the contest into a gulf of flame designated as the infernal regions. They were liberated after a time. The spectators saw in this a design to mock the Huguenots, and the Maréchal de Montmorenci, not liking the aspect of the court, withdrew to Chantilly. On the Wednesday there had been a council at the Louvre. When it was over, the admiral accompanied the king to a ball court where he had engaged to play with the Duke of Guise and Téligny. The admiral quitted to return on foot to his hotel, a modest mansion in the Rue Bethizy, not distant.* As he passed, some one presented a letter which he stopped to read; when a shot was fired with an arquebus at him from the ground story of the nearest house, wounding him in the hand and shoulder. The admiral pointed to the window and the house whence the shot came; it was instantly broken open, but the assassin had mounted a horse held ready for him in the street behind, and escaped. Two domestics were however seized, who confessed that the murderer, known afterwards as one Maurevert, had been placed there by a follower of the Duke of Guise. Coligny led back to his hotel, had his finger amputated by Ambroise Paré, whose scissors ill performed the operation. "Such is the fine reconciliation," exclaimed the admiral, "that the king has guaranteed. It is in God's cause, however, that I suffer these wounds -may He not forget me in His goodness and mercy." When word of the event was brought to Charles, he flung down the raquette with which he was playing, and exclaiming, "Shall I never be left at peace?" shut himself up in his apartment. Damville soon after brought word that Coligny desired to see his majesty, whereupon the king after dinner proceeded to the Hotel of * The house was standing a few years since, and the spot is still marked by the name of Coligny, in CHAP. the Rue Bethizy, Catherine and Anjou taking care to XXIV. accompany him. When the Duke of Anjou, a few years after, traversed Germany to assume the crown of Poland, he met every where upon his journey such marks of public execration as perfectly to astonish and greatly to disgust him. Rendered sleepless and ill by so just a castigation, which in the Court of France could not have reached him, the prince called up one night his physician, and unbosomed himself of what he stated to be a true account of the massacre of St. Bartholomew. As in this the unhappy prince does not deny his guilt, and scarcely exculpates, though he strives to excuse himself, what he says on behalf of the king, his brother, is credible. He declared that on several occasions Charles had been so worked upon by the representations and counsels of the admiral that he was on the point of poignarding him, the Duke of Anjou, and regarded his mother with feelings equally hostile. This led them to conspire against the admiral's life, and he admits that it was they who suborned Maurevert to fire upon Coligny.* When Charles entered the room where the wounded chief lay, and the court remained without, the admiral asked to speak with the king in private, on which the monarch drew close to his bed, and Catherine and Anjou stood apart in the middle of the room. Then no doubt Coligny expressed to the king those truths which De Thou puts into his mouth, of their policy being counteracted and their secrets betrayed to Alva by Catherine and by Anjou, who thus usurped the government and nullified the influence and orders of his majesty. In this manner Genlis had been surprised and defeated. Charles heard without replying, at least aloud, to these complaints of the admiral, but with * Account of Miron, published in Mathieu, Histoire de France. XXIV. respect to the attempt to take his life, the king declared CHAP. he considered the wound to be inflicted on himself, and that he would take such vengeance for it as should not be blotted from the memory of man. Catherine adroitly interfered to interrupt a conversation so menacing, by observing that prolonged speech must be dangerous to the admiral. The royal party then withdrew amidst scowls and threats directed by the Huguenots upon Anjou and his mother. These questioned the king as to what might have been Coligny's secret communication, when he admitted the admiral to have told him that a king in France could never make his power felt and be considered a king, unless he conducted his own affairs, and took care that his authority did not slip from his hands. After this royal visit both parties took council as to the wisest plan to pursue. Amongst the Huguenots the Vidame de Chartres declared that the attempt upon the admiral's life was a plot of the whole court, and would be followed by a massacre of them all; which they could only escape by at once withdrawing from the capital. Téligny replied that they had a good and honest king, whose word it would be injurious to mistrust. Captain Blosset observed that the king was far too good; that for this reason he was suspicious and was resolved to depart. Catherine de Medicis and the Duke of Anjou felt themselves equally menaced. A judicial prosecution of the assassin of the admiral, or of Guise as his suborner, could not but show the queen and her son as equally guilty, and expose them to the vengeance of the Huguenots. And even short of such extremity, the further adherence of the king to the admiral threatened to deprive them of all power and influence, and consign them to exile. Charles, returning to the solitude of his palace, remained irresolute. The Huguenots left him to that irresolution and did not intrude. But De Retz, the |