Loing, Montargis, and Nemours.

[715] The fullest and most graphic account of this interesting incident I
find in Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 293 (liv. v., c. 13). See De Thou, iv. (liv.
xlv.) 204, and Memorials of Renee of France (London, 1859), 261-263. The
Huguenot horsemen numbered not eight hundred, as the author last quoted
states, but about one hundred and twenty--"six vingts."

[716] The "Discours de ce qui avint touchant la Croix de Gastines, l'an
1571, vers Noel" (Memoires de l'etat de France sous Charles IX., and
Archives curieuses, vi. 475, etc.), contains the quaint decree of the
parliament. See Journal d'un cure ligueur (Jehan de la Fosse), 107. As
actually erected, the monument consisted of a high stone pyramid,
surmounted by a gilt crucifix. Besides the decree in question, there were
engraved some Latin verses of so confused a construction that it was
suggested that the composer intended to cast ridicule both on the Roman
Catholics and on the Huguenots. M. de Thou, who was a boy of sixteen at
the time--and who, as son of the first President of Parliament, and
himself, at a later time, a leading member and president _a mortier_ of
that body, enjoyed rare advantages for arriving at the truth--declares
(iv. 488) that the elder Gastines was a venerable man, beloved by his
neighbors, and, indeed, by the entire city; and that the execution was
compassed by a cabal of seditious persons, who, by dint of soliciting the
judges, of exciting the people, of inducing them to congregate and follow
the judges with threats as they left parliament, succeeded in causing to
be punished with death, in the persons of the Gastines, an offence which,
until then, had been punished only with exile or a pecuniary fine.

[717] Jehan de la Fosse, 107, 108.

[718] Journal d'un cure ligueur, 110; Mem. de Castelnau, liv. vii., c. 8;
De Thou, iv. (liv. l) 216; Gasp. Colinii Vita (1569), 87; Memoirs of G. de
Coligny, 140, etc. The arret of the parliament is in Archives curieuses,
vi. 377, etc. The Latin life of Coligny (89-91) inserts a manly and
Christian letter, in the author's possession, written (Oct. 16, 1569) by
the admiral to his own children and those of his deceased brother,
D'Andelot, who were studying at La Rochelle, shortly after receiving
intelligence of this judicial sentence and of the wanton injury done to
his palace at Chatillon-sur-Loing. "We must follow our Head, Jesus Christ,
who himself leads the way," he writes. "Men ha