the
satisfaction with which he has received the tidings of Charles's
"honorable and Christian resolution to rid himself of the admiral and
other important personages," both for religion's sake and because the King
of France will now be a firmer friend to the Spanish crown--since neither
the German Protestants nor Elizabeth will trust him any longer--a
circumstance which will have a decided influence upon the restoration of
his authority in the Netherlands. Another matter upon which he touches,
places in the clearest light the infamy to which Charles and his council
had sunk, and the hypocrisy of Philip the Catholic himself. Until the very
moment of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day, Charles had been
earnestly desirous of saving the lives of the French Huguenots who had
been taken prisoners with Genlis near Mons; while, by the most barefaced
assumptions of innocence, he endeavored to induce the Spaniard to believe
that he was in no way responsible for Genlis's undertaking.[1168] Now,
however, it is Charles himself who, by his envoys at Madrid and Brussels,
begs from Philip the murder of his own French subjects, lest they return
to do mischief in France. Not only the soldiers taken with Genlis, but the
garrison of Mons, if that city, as now seemed all but certain, should fall
into Alva's hands, must be put to death.[1169] "If Alva object," he wrote
to Mondoucet, "that your request is the same thing as tacitly requiring
him to kill the prisoners and cut to pieces the garrison of Mons, you will
tell him that that is precisely what he ought to do, and that he will
inflict a very great wrong upon himself and upon all Christendom if he
shall do otherwise."[1170] Drawing his inspiration from the same source,
St. Goard said to Philip himself: "One of the greatest services that can
be done for Christendom, will be to capture Mons and put everybody to the
edge of the sword."[1171] And so Philip thought too; for he not only wrote
to Alva that the sooner the earth were freed of such bad plants, the less
solicitude would be necessary in future, but he scribbled with his own
hand on the draft of the letter: "I desire, if you have not already rid
the world of them, you should do it at once and let me know, for I see no
reason for delay."[1172] The more clear-headed Alva, however, saw reasons
not only for delay, but for extending to some of the prisoners a
counterfeit mercy; for he soon replied to his master, that "he was not at
all