into the
subject with technical minuteness. The destruction by his royal murderers
of the admiral's papers (including diaries that would have thrown great
light upon the transactions of the last two years of his life), see Vita
Gasparis Colinii (1575), i. 138, was an irretrievable loss to history. We
are told also of a much more recent act of vandalism, not even palliated
by the miserable excuse of political expediency: "In 1810, an inhabitant
of Chatillon having discovered in the solitary remaining tower of the old
castle a walled chamber wherein were the archives of the Coligny family
and of the family of Luxemburg, burned all the papers from motives of
private interest. Some fragments that escaped this conflagration, and
which are preserved in the mairie, prove that a correspondence between
Catharine de' Medici and Coligny had been laid away in this repository."
Bulletin de la Societe de l'histoire du prot. francais, iii. (1854) 351.

[994] _Ante_, chapter xiii.

[995] Testament olographe de l'amiral Coligny, Bulletin de la Soc. de
l'hist. du prot. francais, i. (1852) 263, etc. The authenticity of this
document, though called in question on historical grounds, has been
conclusively established by M. Jules Bonnet, Bulletin, xxiv. (1875)
332-335.

[996] Alberi, Relazioni Venete, vol. iv., 1st series, _apud_ Baschet, La
diplomatie venitienne, i. 536, 537. There is, however, the greatest
improbability in the story that Coligny advanced such claims in his own
behalf as his admirers made for him. We may reject as apocryphal--for they
stand in palpable contradiction with the whole tenor of his
utterances--the words ascribed by Lord Macaulay to the great Huguenot hero
(History of England, New York, 1879, iv. 488): "'In one respect,' said the
Admiral Coligni, 'I may claim superiority over Alexander, over Scipio,
over Caesar. They won great battles, it is true. I have lost four great
battles; and yet I show to the enemy a more formidable front than ever.'"
Cf. Davila, bk. v., p. 179.

[997] Vita Gasparis Colinii (1575), pp. 133-137, translated by D. D.
Scott, under the title, "Memoirs of the Admiral de Coligny," 183-187. I
have abridged the account by omitting some less important particulars.

[998] Discours sur les causes de l'execution faicte es personnes de ceux
qui avoient conjure contre le Roy et son estat. A Paris, a l'olivier de P.
l'Huillier, rue St. Jacques. 1572. _Avec privilege._ (Archives curieuses,
vii. 231-2