, iv. (liv. lii.) 600. The Reveille-Matin calls
attention (p. 196) to the circumstance that in the first copies of the
document the name of Navarre did not occur; but that in the next issue the
admiral's unhappy and detestable conspiracy was represented as directed
against "la personne dudit sieur roy et contre son estat, la royne sa
mere, messieurs ses freres, _le roy de Navarre_, princes et seigneurs
estans pres d'eulx." The policy of introducing Navarre, and, by
implication, Conde, among the proposed victims of the Huguenots, was
certainly sufficiently bold and reckless. See _ante_, p. 490.
[1073] See De Thou, iv. (liv. liii.), 630; Jean de Serres, iv., fols. 53,
54.
[1074] Euseb. Philadelphi Dial., i. 52.
[1075] Digges, 239, 240.
[1076] Ibid., 245
[1077] Documents historiques inedits, i. 713-715.
[1078] Agrippa d'Aubigne, Hist. univ., ii. 30; Jean de Serres (1575), iv.,
fol. 55.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE MASSACRE IN THE PROVINCES, AND THE RECEPTION OF THE TIDINGS ABROAD.
[Sidenote: The massacre in the provinces.]
The massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day would have been terrible enough had
it been confined to Paris, for its victims in that single city were to be
reckoned by thousands. Charles the Ninth himself, on the third day,
admitted in a letter to Mondoucet, his envoy in the Netherlands, that "a
very great number of the adherents of the new religion who were in this
city had been massacred and cut to pieces."[1079] But this was little in
comparison with the multitudes that were yet to lose their lives in other
parts of France. Here, however, the enterprise assumed a different
character. Not only did it not commence on the same day as in the capital,
but it began at different dates in different places. It is evident that
there had been no well-concerted plan long entertained and freely
communicated to the governors of the provinces and cities. On the
contrary, the greatest variety of procedure prevailed--all tending,
nevertheless, to the same end of the total destruction of the Protestants.
And this was intended from the very moment the project of the Parisian
butchery was hastily and inconsiderately adopted by the king. Charles
meant to be as good as his word when he announced his determination that
not a single Huguenot should survive to reproach him with what he had
done. More frightful than his most passionate outburst of bloodthirsty
frenzy is the cool calculation with which he, or the mini
|