Condé and those who sided with him. If Catherine was well-informed of the projects of the prince, he was not without friends in her cabinet council who told him of what was proposed, if not intended, against himself and his party. He communicated them to his brother Huguenots, and Coligny, in presence of such evidence, was compelled to admit that the fate of Egmont and Horn was prepared for the prince and for himself. The admiral then threw the weight of his council to the side of extreme measures; he proposed and strenuously insisted on the expediency of seizing the king's person, thus nullifying at once the authority of Catherine and Guise, and at the same time precluding the necessity of civil war by becoming possessed of the paramount authority of the king. The Huguenots were universally blamed for having failed to accomplish this at the commencement of the former war, and they now determined to be no longer open to the same reproach. A simultaneous attack upon the Swiss was also contemplated, as well as a general rising of the Huguenots in the provinces. Michaelmas 1567 was the day appointed. But Catherine had early suspicion of what was meditated.† Castelnau avers that he especially warned the court of its danger, and that the courtiers mocked him. A decree, nevertheless, was issued on the 10th against the muster of troops and levy of funds. A body of armed Huguenots having tried to get entrance into Metz, and marched south on being ejected from thence, added to the alarm, and on the 24th the court precipitately left Monceaux, intending to go to the Castle of *De l'Hôpital (personaggio principallissimo, as Davila says) is supposed to be the member who betrayed them to Condé. She writes to Cossé on the 10th September, that she was going to Monceaux, but begs him not to say so, lest there should be an at- On the 4th she asked him СНАР. XXIV. XXIV. CHAP. Vincennes. Learning that the Huguenots were in force to intercept them, they resolved to await the 6000 Swiss that were hourly expected at Meaux. The Maréchal de Montmorency was sent to parley with the Huguenot chiefs, and so managed to delay them that the king had nearly reached Paris before they could advance to intercept him. They still made several attempts upon the royal cortége, which Charles rode to repel in person*, but the Swiss made too bold a front, and easily repulsed the foe. Charles the Ninth succeeded in reaching Paris in a high state of choler and excitement, swearing that he should never be put in such peril again, and that he would take care to make himself more respected by great and small.† The Huguenots having missed their prey, mustered their forces at Claye. Some of them coming to the rendezvous, well nigh surprised the Cardinal of Lorraine, then on his return to Rheims. He escaped by the fleetness of his horse, leaving his plate and baggage to be plundered. From Claye, Condé and Coligny approached Paris and invested it on the north side, burning the mills and occupying positions up and down the river to stop the conveyance of provisions. Their headquarters were fixed at St. Denis. The first act of Catherine of Medicis in her alarm at the Huguenot onslaught was to apply to the Duke of Alva, who instantly despatched Gonzaga with promises that the request should be attended to. Later, he offered 5000 infantry and a large number of horse for twenty or thirty days. * Mémoires du Duc de Bouillon, who, yet a boy, was present. † Letters of Bouchefort to the Duchess of Ferrara, giving an account of their retreat. MSS. Bethune, 8686. That Charles was not previously inclined to violent measures appears in a letter of his to Faverolles, his agent in the Low Countries. It is dated September 13, and expresses surprise and disapprobation of the cruel acts with which the Duke of Alva inaugurated his government. Fontanieu, portf. 313. Navarréte Collecione, tom. iv. Alva's letters of Oct. 4. If their services were required for a longer time he could only spare 1000 horse with Burgundian and Walloon infantry.* But as Alva accompanied these offers by a demand that certain fortresses be delivered to him, Catherine sent Ligneroles to say that 2000 would suffice. Later, on the 17th, when the Huguenots invested the north of Paris, she besought 3000 Spanish arquebusiers in addition, but Alva refused to send more than 1400 men under D'Arenberg, unless Catherine would consent "to make an end of the enemies of the Catholic religion."+ To gain time for the arrival of such succours, Catherine opened negotiations with Condé, who replied by a demand for the convocation of the states-general in order to diminish the burdens that pressed upon the people; he asked that the nobles of the kingdom should not be sacrificed to strangers, and Italians preferred to them for every employ. Further. attempts to negotiate made by the constable met with a similar result. The king, said the latter, could never definitively admit the existence of two religions in the country. The court exerted itself to muster forces. Strozzi, with his regiment, had joined it from Picardy. The Duke of Nemours was bidden to bring his bands from Piedmont. The Parisians raised 4400 men. The Duke of Savoy was asked for troops, and more Swiss were ordered to be raised. The constable thus found himself in Paris at the head of a force much superior to the Huguenots, whose camp Andelot had left with some 1500 of its best troops. They had not more than 1500 horse and 1200 foot, disseminated over a large space of ground, Coligny occupying St. Ouen, Condé himself St. Denis, and Genlis Aubervilliers. The constable * Navarréte Collecione, tom. iv. Alva's letters of Oct. 10. † Gachard, correspondence of Philip the Second, tom. i. p. 591. Philip the Second added a note of Letters Patent. MSS. Colbert, CHAP. XXIV. -7 XXIV. CHAP. being informed the Huguenots were about to withdraw determined to attack them. Condé was advised by several of his officers to concentrate his small forces in St. Denis. He replied that he could not afford to be besieged, and that such an army as the constable's would take many hours to marshal, which in these November days would render the combat a brief one, and soon bring darkness as a cover for retreat. He was right; for the attack not commencing till within two hours of sunset on the 10th of November†, the constable ordered his son, the maréchal, to advance with the Swiss upon St. Denis, directing his artillery against Genlis at Aubervilliers, whilst the Parisians in gilded arms and gallant accoutrements were posted towards St. Ouen. Against these masses the Huguenots drew up their soldiers in single line, en haie, the number not allowing to double their ranks. When his arquebusiers had caused the Parisians some damage and confusion, Coligny charged into their phalanx and routed it. A Turkish ambassador, who viewed the battle from the heights of Montmartre, bore witness to the gallantry of the "Huguenot cavaliers, clad in white, who did not fear to attack or put to flight whole regiments."‡ The defeat of the Parisians allowed Coligny to fall upon the rear of the Swiss, which made their front ranks recoil from pressing Condé, whilst the latter, imitating Coligny's impetuous charge, the constable himself was entangled in the flight of the Parisians, overthrown and slain. His son, withdrawn from before St. Denis, came up in time to renew the battle, and caused the dying constable to be transported to Paris. The contest lasted till nightfall, when both sides withdrew, the royalists into the capital and the Huguenots to St. Denis.§ * Norreys. † Charles the Ninth's account of the battle in a letter to the Duke of Nevers. MSS. Bethune, 8702. "The whyte coats passed cleane through and through the king's battel of horse." Norreys' account of the battle, with a sketch descriptive of it, in State Papers, France, 41. § The king in his letter claims XXIV. Immediately after the battle of St. Denis, Count CHAP. d'Arenberg arrived with the succours sent by the Duke of Alva, rendering it vain for the Huguenots to linger before the walls of Paris. They therefore marched by Montereau eastward to meet the reistres, whom the second son of the Count Palatine was bringing to the aid of the Protestant cause. The loss of their commander at first paralysed the royalists. The Guises held aloof, and made few exertions to interrupt the passage of the reistres, a service that Catherine demanded of them.* She appointed her second son, the Duke of Anjou, lieutenant-general of the kingdom, and of course of its armies (Nov. 17), with Tavannes and Strozzi† for his military masters. He followed the Huguenots as far as Vitry, but, owing to the dissensions of his officers, could not prevent their junction with Prince Casimir, Jan. 1568. The instant demand of the reistres was for money, of which the Huguenot chief had scant provision. The religionists, however, made a collection, and sacrificed whatever jewels and valuables they possessed to satisfy their greedy auxiliaries. The reinforcement restored superiority to the Huguenots, and Catherine, being informed that the reistres could not be forced in their position, immediately recommenced her negotiations.§ There was urgent need of this, for whilst Condé kept the royal army in check, the towns and provinces of the south universally fell off from their allegiance. The Prince of Condé came to the Loire, recaptured Blois, and after a time laid siege to Chartres. The Duke of Anjou and his army, unable to recover the victory, as his gens de pied passed + Davila mentions Carnavalet and Cossé as his guides. Tavannes no doubt exaggerated his own influence. Castelnau gives the same chaVOL. III. H racter of the reistres as of their § MSS. Colbert, 24, fol. 130, |