olonte du Roy_, mon dict
sieur et filz, lequel a delibere d'en faire faire telle pugnition et y
establir bientost ung si bon ordre que ung chascun cognoistra quelle a
este en cest endroit son intantion." Catharine to La Mothe Fenelon, Cor.
dipl., vii. 377.

[1195] Walsingham to Sir Thomas Smith, Sept. 14th, Digges, 242.

[1196] Tocsain contre les massacreurs, 150.

[1197] It is true that when their sentences were read to them, and
particularly that portion which branded with infamy their innocent
children, the courage of the old man of seventy, Briquemault, momentarily
failed, and he condescended to offer to do great services to the king in
retaking La Rochelle whose fortifications he had himself begun; and when
this proposal was rejected, it is said that he made more humiliating
advances. But the constancy and pious exhortations of his younger
companion, who sustained his own courage by repeating many of the psalms
in Latin, recalled Briquemault to himself, and from that moment "he had
nothing but contempt for death." De Thou (iv. 646), a youth of nineteen,
who was present in the chapel when the sentence was read, remembered the
incident well. Cf. Agrippa d'Aubigne, ii. 32 (bk. i., c. 6). Walsingham,
when he says in his letter of Nov. 1, 1572, that "Cavannes (Cavaignes)
showed himself void of all magnanimity, etc.," has evidently confused the
persons. Here is an instance where the later account of an eye-witness--De
Thou--is entitled to far more credit than the contemporary statement of
one whose means of obtaining information were not so good.

[1198] "N'ayant regret sinon que vous ayez voulu profaner le jour de sa
nayssence par ung si fascheus espectacle qu'allastes voir en greve."
Corresp. diplom. de la Mothe Fenelon, v. 205; Tocsain contre les
massacreurs, 151, 152; Reveille-Matin, Arch, cur., vii. 206; Walsingham to
Smith, Nov. 1, 1572, Digges, 278, 279.

[1199] Froude, x. 444, 445.

[1200] "Entre autres choses, il me dist qu'on luy avoit escript de Rome,
n'avoit que trois semaines ou environ, sur le propos des noces du Roy de
Navarre en ces propres termes: 'que a ceste heure que tous les oyseaux
estoient en cage, on les pouvoit prendre tous ensemble.'" M. de Vulcob to
Charles IX., Presburg, Sept. 26th, _apud_ De Noailles, Henri de Valois et
la Pologne en 1572 (Paris, 1867), iii., Pieces just., 214.

[1201] See in Kluckholn, Briefe Friedrich des Frommen, ii. 482, a short
letter of Charles IX. to the elector