came from Bayonne and then cried out to his followers to treat the rest in
memory of the massacre in the prisons of Dax. The Huguenots needed no
further reminder. It was not long before they had cut to pieces the
twenty-two men from Dax who had fallen into their hands. On the other hand
they restored to the soldiers of Bayonne their horses and arms, and, after
dressing their wounds in a neighboring village, sent them home to tell
their governor, Viscount D'Orthez, "that they had seen the different
treatment the Huguenots accorded to _soldiers_ and to _hangmen_." A week
later, a herald from Bayonne arrived at Castel-jaloux, with worked scarfs
and handkerchiefs for the entire Huguenot band. Nor did the exchange of
courtesies end here. The mad notion seized Henry of Navarre to accept an
invitation to a feast extended to him by the Bayonnese. Six Huguenots
accompanied him, of whom D'Aubigne was one. The table was sumptuous, the
presents were rare and costly. D'Aubigne being recognized, was overwhelmed
with thanks, "his courtesy being much more liberally repaid than he had
deserved;" while the King of Navarre and his Huguenots, at the table, "at
the expense of the rest of France, extolled to heaven the rare and
unexampled act and glory of the men of Bayonne." It is certainly an easier
supposition that D'Aubigne has faithfully reproduced D'Orthez's letter to
Charles IX., than that he has manufactured so long and consistent a story.
The discussion in the Bulletin de la Soc. de l'histoire du prot. franc. is
full, xi. 13-15, 116, etc., xii. 240.

[1148] Letter of Louis de Bourbon, Duke of Montpensier, Aug. 26th (it
should evidently be the 25th; for the Duke speaks of Coligny as killed
"ledit jour d'hier," and the mythical Huguenot plot was to have been
executed "hier ou aujourd'hui"). Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot.
fr., i. (1852) 60, and Soldan, Geschichte des Prot. in Frankreich, ii.,
App., 599.

[1149] The words are those of an inscription of the seventeenth or the
early part of the eighteenth century, in the Hotel de Ville of Nantes.
Bulletin, i. (1852) 61.

[1150] Mem. de l'estat, Archives cur., vii. 385, 386.

[1151] See a table in White, Massacre of St. Bartholomew, 461.

[1152] Narrative appended to Capilupi, Stratagema di Carlo IX. (1574). The
cardinal's adulatory letter to Charles IX., on receipt of the king's
missive, is strongly corroborative of the view to which everything forces
us, that the massacre