e of Paris. I prefer to obey these first letters, as more befitting
the royal dignity. Besides, this last order is so cruel and barbarous,
that even were the king himself in person to command me to put it into
execution, I would not do it." The magnanimity of the count spared
Provence the horrors of a repetition of the massacres of Merindol and
Cabrieres, but perhaps cost him his own life, for he soon after died at
Avignon, and rumor ascribed his death to poison. The infamous Count de
Retz, Catharine's favorite, succeeded him as governor.[1144] Saint Heran,
Governor of Auvergne, is said to have replied in very similar words; but
as he managed to induce a great part of the Protestants within his
jurisdiction to apostatize, less notice was taken of his
insubordination.[1145]

[Sidenote: Viscount D'Orthez at Bayonne.]

Perhaps the most striking instance of a magnanimous refusal to comply with
the bloody mandate of the Parisian court, was that of Viscount
D'Orthez,[1146] Governor of Bayonne. This nobleman was not only of a
violent and imperious temper, but on other occasions so severe in his
treatment of the Protestants of the border city, that the king was obliged
to write to him to moderate his rigor. When, however, the messenger from
Paris (who on his way had caused an indiscriminate slaughter to be made of
all the men, women and children who had taken refuge in the prisons of
Dax) delivered his orders to the viscount, the latter returned the
following laconic answer:

"Sire, I have communicated your Majesty's commands to your faithful
inhabitants and warriors in the garrison. I have found among them only
good citizens and brave soldiers, but not one hangman. For this reason
they and I very humbly beg your Majesty to employ our arms and our lives
in all things possible, however hazardous they may be, as we are, so long
as our lives shall last, your very humble, etc."[1147]

[Sidenote: The municipality of Nantes.]

Nor were the municipal authorities in some places behind the royal
governors in their determination to have no part in the nefarious designs
of the court. At Nantes, the mayor, echevins, and judges received from
Paris, on the eighth of September, a letter of the Duke of
Montpensier-Bourbon, Governor of Brittany, in which, after narrating the
discovery of the pretended conspiracy of Coligny and his adherents, and
their consequent assassination, he added: "By this his Majesty's intention
respecting the treat