"By wounding, instead of killing Coligny, the "King"s Killer" ruined the project of the Queen and her son. They had counted upon the murder of the Admiral to incite a great tumult in Paris; their agents were to scatter among the mob the information that the heinous murder was the work of the Guisards; the exasperated Huguenots were expected to run to arms and avenge Coligny"s death with the ma.s.sacre of the whole Guise family and their partisans; that done, the royal troops were in turn to overwhelm the Protestants, on the pretext of being guilty of a flagrant breach of the edict of pacification. The last ma.s.sacre was to extend from Paris all over France, under the guise of a vindication of the outraged edict of pacification. Machiavelli could not have plotted better. The arquebus shot of Maurevert would have rid Charles IX at once of Coligny, the Guises and the Protestants. The "King"s Killer" having missed fire, another course had to be pursued, and, above all, the reformers had to be convinced that Maurevert"s attempt was merely an act of individual vengeance. Accordingly Charles IX hastened to the Admiral"s residence. The tiger-cub wept. He called the old Admiral his "good father." He promised, "upon the word of a King, however high the station of the would-be murderers, they should not escape just punishment." I was an eye-witness of those tears and royal protestations; many of our brothers, myself among them, remained near the bed where Coligny lay while awaiting the surgeon. We were present at that interview with Charles IX--"
"Then you saw him, Louis, that tiger with the face of a man?" asked Cornelia with a curiosity born of disgust and horror. "How does the monster look?"
"Pale and atrabilious of face, with dull, gla.s.sy eyes, and a sleepy look, as if the fervent Catholic and crowned murderer were ever dreaming of crime," answered Louis Rennepont. "Now watch the sanguinary craftiness of that pupil of Machiavelli"s, to whom neither pledge nor oath is aught but a more effective form of perfidy. Would you believe it, that after having expressed sympathy for the wounds of his "good father," and after having pledged his royal word to secure justice, the first words of Charles IX were: "I shall forthwith issue orders to close the gates of Paris, so that none shall leave the city; the murderer will not be able to flee. Moreover, I authorize, or rather I strongly urge the Protestant seigneurs, to whom I have offered the hospitality of the Louvre during the nuptial festivals of my sister Margot, to summon their friends near them for safeguard.""
"I perceive the trick of the tiger," broke in Captain Mirant. "By closing the gates of Paris he prevented the escape of the Huguenots whom he had consigned to death!"
"No doubt," added Master Barbot the boilermaker, "the same as by inducing the Protestant seigneurs, who were lodged at the Louvre, to summon their friends to them, Charles IX only aimed at having them more ready at hand for his butchers!"
"The issue proved that such were the secret designs of the King,"
replied Louis Rennepont. "But haste was urgent. If tidings of the attempted murder of the Admiral reached the provinces, the Huguenots would be put on their guard. The Queen a.s.sembled her council that very night, and presided at its meeting. These were the members at the council: The King Charles IX; his brother, the Duke of Anjou; the b.a.s.t.a.r.d of Angouleme; the Duke of Nevers; Birago and Gondi, the Queen"s messengers of evil. It was decided that the butchery should start at early dawn. The provosts of the merchants, all exemplary Catholics, had, under pretext of taking a general census, drawn up full lists of all the Huguenots in the city. Their places of residence being thus accurately indicated, the a.s.sa.s.sins would know exactly where to go. The next question that came up was whether Henry of Bearn also was to be killed.
Catherine De Medici and her son, the King, were strongly in favor, and urged the necessity of the murder. The other councillors, however, more scrupulous than their monarchs, objected that the whole world would be shocked at the a.s.sa.s.sination of a Prince whose throat was cut, so to say, under the very eyes of the mother and brother of his wife.
Moreover, the young Prince was lightheaded, unsteady of purpose, they thought, and without any rooted religious belief. It would be easy, they concluded, either by means of promises or threats to cause him to abjure the Reformed religion. The death of the Prince of Conde was also long discussed. Twice the decision was in favor. But his brother-in-law, the Duke of Nevers, saved him by guaranteeing the Prince"s abjuration. For the rest, the lad, only the rallying ground of the Huguenots and without personal valor, inspired but little fear, especially if compared with Coligny. Towards one o"clock in the morning, the young Duke of Guise was summoned to the Louvre and introduced to the council. The princ.i.p.al leadership of the carnage was offered to and accepted by him. A strange thing happened. At the last moment, Charles IX was a.s.sailed by some slight qualms of conscience at the thought of the murder of the Admiral, the old man whom that very morning he had addressed with the t.i.tle of "my good father." But the King"s hesitance was short-lived. His last words were: "By the death of G.o.d! Seeing you think the Admiral should be killed, I will it, too; but I demand that all the Huguenots be killed, all, to the last one, that there may not be one left alive to reproach me with the Admiral"s death"!"
"Oh, just G.o.d!" exclaimed Odelin"s widow, raising her hands to heaven.
"Since you consented to the unheard-of deed, Oh, G.o.d of Vengeance, You must have reserved some frightful punishment for him! Oh, You gave Your consent to that palace plot! to that nocturnal council! There Charles IX, armed with sovereign power, and certain of the ferocious obedience of his soldiers and his minions, like an a.s.sa.s.sin in ambush in the edge of a forest, laid in the dark the infamous, b.l.o.o.d.y and cowardly trap into which, when they awoke, so many of our brothers, who went to sleep confiding in the law, in their right and in the oath of that Prince, fell to their death! How many times did he not swear in the presence of G.o.d and man to respect the edict of peace! Yes, You allowed those horrors, O, G.o.d of Vengeance, to the end that this Frankish royalty and the Roman Church, its eternal accomplice, soon may fall under the general execration that the ma.s.sacre of St. Bartholomew will arouse!
Death to Kings! Death to their infamous accomplices, the n.o.bles and priests!"
The Lebrenn family joined with hearts and lips in the widow"s imprecations. When the excitement again subsided Louis Rennepont proceeded:
"Before retiring that night to my inn, I walked through a large number of streets. At least in appearance they were quiet. I met many of our brothers. Alarmed at the attempted murder of the Admiral, several had tried to leave Paris. They found the gates rigorously closed by orders of Charles IX. Back at night in my inn, I did not find the keeper, upon whom I relied for further information. Broken with fatigue and agitated by vague fears, I threw myself in my clothes upon my bed and fell asleep. At about three in the morning I was awakened by my inn-keeper.
He was trembling with terror. "The death of all the Protestants of Paris is decreed," he whispered to me; "the ma.s.sacre is to begin at daybreak.
My niece, the chambermaid of the d.u.c.h.ess of Nevers, overheard some words about the plot; she hastened to warn me. I have notified all our brothers who are lodged here. They have all fled. Your only chance to escape the carnage is to join the first gang of the cut-throats whom you may run across; you must pretend to be of them; you may in that way be able to reach some place of safety. For a sign among themselves they have a white paper cross attached to their hats, and a white shirt sleeve slipped like an armlet over the sleeve of their coats. Their pa.s.sword is: "G.o.d and the King!" Flee! Flee! May the Lord protect you!
Thanks to my niece I have a safe retreat in the palace of Nevers." While the inn-keeper was giving me these last directions, there came through my window, which I had left open on that hot and sultry night of August, the measured tintinnabulation of the large bell in the tower of the palace. The sound seemed to leap strangely from the depths of the silence in which the city was shrouded. "It is the signal for the ma.s.sacre!" cried my inn-keeper, leaving the room precipitately and whispering his last warnings to me: "Flee! You have not a minute to spare; my house is marked! It will be instantly a.s.saulted by the butchers!""
"Great G.o.d!" cried Theresa, Louis Rennepont"s young wife, pressing her child distractedly to her breast, and unable to hold back her tears. And addressing her husband: "You are here, near us, safe and sound, poor friend! and yet I shiver. I weep at the thought of the cruel agonies that you must have undergone. Did you follow the inn-keeper"s advice, and a.s.sume the signs of the Catholics?"
"It was my only safety. I cut a cross of white paper and stuck it in my hat; I cut off a shirt sleeve and thrust my right arm through it; I then sallied out into the street. It was still silent and deserted. But the funeral knell from all the Paris churches had by that time joined the clangor of the tower bell, which then was ringing at its loudest.
Windows were thrown open. Little by little lights appeared in them."
"Malediction upon the people of Paris!" cried Odelin"s widow. "It seems most of them were accomplices in the butchery!"
"Alas, yes, mother! To their eternal shame, the fact must be admitted; the people of Paris were the accomplices of Charles IX, and our butchers! The people and a considerable portion of the bourgeoisie, being drugged by the fanaticism of the monks, did take part in the ma.s.sacre. Some, yielding to the fear of being suspected, obeyed the orders of the provosts, and placed lights at their windows at the sound of the first strokes of the bells that they heard. My first thought was to run to the residence of the Admiral and notify him of the projected butchery. As I entered Bethisy Street I saw men emerging from several houses; all carried white crosses in their hats and their arms in shirt sleeves. They brandished pikes, swords and cutla.s.ses, and cried: "G.o.d and the King! Kill! Kill all the Huguenots!" They then gathered into groups, drew themselves up before certain doors that bore the mark of a cross in white chalk, beat upon and broke them down, and rushed in yelling: "Kill! Kill the Huguenots!"
"I was rushing towards the residence of the Admiral when I saw a battalion of Arquebusiers of the Guard turn into Bethisy Street. The troop was headed by the young Duke Henry of Guise, accompanied by his uncle Aumale and the b.a.s.t.a.r.d of Angouleme, brother of Charles IX. All three were clad in war armor. Pages carrying lighted torches preceded them. Among the soldiers were interspersed a large number of Catholic cut-throats, recognizable by the signs which I also wore. I mixed with them. The crowd arrived before Coligny"s residence. The soldiers knocked at the main door with the b.u.t.ts of their arquebuses. It was instantly opened. Despite the prompt obedience shown, all the serving-men of Coligny found in the corridor and the yard were promptly done to death.
The Guises and the b.a.s.t.a.r.d of Angouleme, surrounded by their pages, remained outside in front of the facade of the house at the foot of the porch, the stairs of which led to the vestibule. Duke Henry of Guise made a sign; instantly his equerry Besmes, followed by Captains Cosseins, Cardillac, Altain and Petrucci, rushed forward with a detachment of soldiers and dashed up the stairs to the first floor, on which the Admiral"s room was. I realized the Admiral was lost, and remained un.o.bserved below among the Catholics, where the details of the murder were soon reported. Awakened by the outcry of his servants, and the tumult on the street, the Admiral guessed the fate that awaited him.
His faithful Nicholas Mouche and Pastor Merlin were with him. They had watched all night at his bedside. "Our hour has come; let us commend our souls to G.o.d!" said Coligny, with which words he rose from his bed, threw a morning gown over his shoulders and knelt down. The minister and his old servant knelt down beside him. The three began to pray. The door was broken in. Besmes, the equerry of Henry of Guise, was the first to enter, sword in hand, leading in his captains. He walked straight to Coligny, who, having finished his prayer was rising from the floor serene and dignified. "Is it you who are the Admiral?" shouted Besmes; "Well, you shall die!" "The will of G.o.d be done! Young man, you shorten my life only a few days," answered Coligny. These were that great man"s last words. Besmes seized him by the throat with one hand, and with the other thrust his sword through him. The old man sank on his knees.
Captain Cardillac threw him down, and opened his throat with one slash of his dagger. The other officers despatched Merlin and Nicholas Mouche.
"I had remained below. There I witnessed an even more execrable scene.
Only a minute or two after the murderers had rushed upstairs, the Duke of Guise stepped closer to the facade of the house and called out impatiently in a ringing voice: "Well, Besmes! Is it done?" Thereupon a cas.e.m.e.nt was thrown open on the first floor; the equerry appeared at the window holding his b.l.o.o.d.y sword in his hand, and answered: "Yes, monseigneur! It is done! He is dead!" "Then throw the corpse down to us that we may see it!" commanded Henry of Guise. Besmes vanished, and reappeared dragging, with the aid of Captain Cosseins, the corpse of Admiral Coligny; the two raised it--meseems I still behold the grey head of the venerable old man, pale and limp, as the body was pushed out of the window, with his lifeless arms swinging in s.p.a.ce. Besmes and the captain made a final effort; the corpse was precipitated upon the pavement, where it rolled down at the feet of the Duke of Guise. Coligny was clad only in the morning gown that he had hurriedly put on. Thus half-naked and still warm he was hurled out of the window. The venerable head rebounded upon the cobblestones and reddened them with blood. The victim had fallen on his face. The Duke of Guise stooped down, and, aided by the b.a.s.t.a.r.d of Angouleme, turned the corpse over on its back, wiped with his sash the blood that covered the Admiral"s august visage, contemplated it for a moment with ferocious glee, and then kicked the white head with the tip of his boot, crying: "At last! Dead at last--thoroughly dead!" The Duke then turned to his henchmen: "Comrades, let us proceed with our work! The Pope wills it! the King so orders it!"
Almost fainting with sickening horror and unable to move, I witnessed this cannibal scene--it was only the prelude for another and still more horrifying one. The Dukes of Guise and of Aumale and the b.a.s.t.a.r.d of Angouleme departed with their soldiers from Monsieur Coligny"s courtyard. Almost immediately the same was invaded by a band of men, women and children in rags. They were a troop hideous to look upon, as they brandished their sticks, butcher knives and iron bars, under the leadership of a Cordelier monk who held a jagged cutla.s.s in one hand and a crucifix in the other, yelling at the top of his voice: "G.o.d and the King!" The howlings of the mob kept time to the monk"s yells. Two men with hang-dog looks carried torches before the monk. The moment that he recognized the corpse of our martyr, the Cordelier emitted a screech of infernal glee, threw himself upon the lifeless body of the Admiral, squatted down upon its chest, sawed at the neck with his cutla.s.s, severed the head from the trunk, seized it by its grey locks, and held it up to the mob, crying in a resonant, though cracked voice: "This is the share of the Holy Father! I shall send him Coligny"s head to Rome!"[77]--That monk," added Louis Rennepont in a tremulous voice, and answering a cry of execration that leaped from the hearts of his listeners, "that monk, O shame and O misfortune!--that monk was the a.s.sa.s.sin of Odelin! Oh, may G.o.d have pity upon us!"
"Fra Herve!" exclaimed all the members of the Lebrenn family in chorus.
A silence of terror and horror reigned in the armorer"s hall.
"I wish to come quickly to an end with these monstrosities," proceeded Louis Rennepont, catching his voice. "After the tiger come the jackals, after the ferocious beasts the unclean ones. Hardly had Fra Herve severed the Admiral"s head from his trunk, amid the hideous acclamations of the ragged crew, when they fell upon the corpse. Its feet and hands were cut off. The entrails were torn out of the abdomen and were struggled for by the human jackals. The sacrilegious mutilations seemed to go beyond the boundaries of the horrible, and yet the limit was not reached. Women, veritable furies, pounced upon the bleeding limbs, and--but I dare say no more before mother, or before Cornelia, nor before you, my wife. The stentorian voice of Fra Herve finally silenced the tumult and quelled the anthropophagous orgie. "Brothers!" he cried, "to the Pope I shall send the head of this Huguenot carrion, but let us carry the stripped carca.s.s to the gibbet of Montfaucon! It is there that should be exposed the remains of the villain who has infested France with his heresy, and lacerated the bosom of our holy mother the Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church!" "To Montfaucon with the Huguenot carrion!" howled the ferocious band. A procession was improvised. Fra Herve sheathed his cutla.s.s, planted the Admiral"s head on the point of a pike, and raised the trophy in one hand. In the other he waved aloft his crucifix, and, lighted by his two torch-bearers, headed the procession.
The now shapeless remnants of the corpse were tied to a rope, a team of cut-throats harnessed to it, and the b.l.o.o.d.y lump was dragged through the gutters. The procession marched to the cry of "To Montfaucon with the Huguenot carrion! G.o.d and the King!" At that moment, and despite the terror that held me rooted to the ground, my inn-keeper"s last suggestions occurred to me. Montfaucon was situated outside of the walls of Paris. No doubt some city gate would be opened to the Cordelier"s band. I joined it, in the hope of escaping from Paris. We left the courtyard of Monsieur Coligny"s house. It was now broad day. Before proceeding to Montfaucon, Fra Herve wished to exhibit his b.l.o.o.d.y trophy to the eyes of Charles IX and his mother. We directed our course to the Louvre. Other scenes of carnage were taking place there. The Protestant seigneurs and officers who came in the suite of the Princes of Bearn and Conde to partic.i.p.ate in the wedding festivities of the King"s sister, were lodged at the palace. Relying upon the royal hospitality, they were taken by surprise while asleep, dragged half naked to the courtyard, and there either brained or stabbed to death. Among others whom I recognized at a distance were Morge, Pardillan, St. Martin, besides the brave veterans Piles, Baudine and Puy-Vaud. They struggled in their shirts against the soldiers who beat them down with their halberds, and then stripped the corpses of their last shreds of clothing. The moanings, the imprecations of the victims, the streams of steaming blood through which we tramped, and that often reached our ankles, made my head reel. The butchers laid the corpses out in rows in front of the facade of the Louvre. The bodies were yet warm; many a b.l.o.o.d.y limb still seemed to palpitate; the corpses lay stripped naked, upon their backs. I counted over four hundred. Suddenly there appeared Catherine De Medici accompanied by her maids of honor and other ladies of the court. She mounted a terrace from which a full sight of the carnage could be had.
They came--"
Louis Rennepont stopped short. He hid his face in his hands. "Alas! I have to inform you of something still more horrible than anything I have yet said! The furies who profaned the corpse of Coligny were beings, who, depraved by misery and ignorance, and besotted by a brutish paganism, yielded obedience to fanatic promptings. But Catherine De Medici and the women of her suite were brought up in the splendors of court life, and yet they came to mock and insult the bodies of the dead.
And would you believe it--" but again Louis Rennepont found it impossible to proceed. "No!" he cried; "I shall not soil your ears with the nameless infamies of those worse than harpies.[78] While Catherine De Medici, her maids of honor and a bevy of court ladies were amusing themselves on the terrace, Fra Herve, still carrying Coligny"s head on the point of the pike, addressed to the Queen a few words that I did not hear, my attention being at that moment diverted by the appearance of Charles IX at the balcony of one of the windows of the Louvre. The King held a long arquebus in his hand; a page carried another of identical shape and stood behind his master ready to pa.s.s it over to him. Suddenly I saw the King lower the arm, take aim, blow upon the fuse on the c.o.c.k, approach it to the pan--and the shot departed. Charles IX raised his arquebus, looked into the distance, and started to laugh--pleased as a hunter who has brought down his game. The monster with a human face was firing upon the Huguenots who were fleeing from the butchery in the St.
Germain quarter, and were attempting to escape death by swimming across the Seine.
"After haranguing Catherine De Medici, Fra Herve resumed his march to Montfaucon at the head of his band, dragging behind them the now shapeless remains of the Admiral. I had to cross Paris almost from one end to the other in the wake of Fra Herve"s procession. In the course of the march my eyes encountered fresh horrors. We ran across Marshal Tavannes, the commander of the royal army at the battle of Roche-la-Belle. At the head of a regiment of the guards he was urging his men and the mobs to ma.s.sacre, shouting to them: "Kill! Bleed them!
Bleed them! A bleeding is good in August as well as in May!" And his men did the bleeding. They bled so well that the gutters ran no longer water but blood. The smoldering hatreds of neighbors against neighbors were now given a loose to, under the pretext of religious fervor. Among a thousand atrocities that I witnessed on that frightful day, I shall mention but one, because it exceeds any other that I have yet mentioned.
When I first arrived in Paris, and despite the apprehensions that were uppermost on my mind, I often went to the lectures of the ill.u.s.trious scientist Remus. The man"s renown, he being one of the most celebrated professors at the University, besides enjoying the reputation of a foremost philanthropist of these days, attracted me. I found students, grown-up men and even greyheads crowding around his chair. Well, holding close to Fra Herve"s band, I pa.s.sed by the house of Remus, which the cut-throats had invaded. A large concourse of people blocked our way, and interrupted our march for awhile. The mob clamored aloud for the life of the celebrated scientist. The most frantic in their cries for the murder were a bunch of pupils, between fourteen and fifteen years of age, whom two monks--a Carmelite and a Dominican--had in lead. The a.s.sa.s.sins finally pushed Remus, half naked, out of his house. The unhappy man, already wounded in many places, and blinded by the blood that streamed down his face, staggered like a drunken man, and held his hands before him. I see him yet--he falls to the ground, they despatch him, and thereupon the pupils, boys yet, throw themselves upon the corpse of the scientist, rip his bowels open, tear out the steaming entrails, turn the body around, raise the b.l.o.o.d.y shirt that barely covered it, and thrash the corpse with its own intestines amid roars of laughter, while they shout: "Remus has whipped enough of us, it is now our turn to whip him."
"Fra Herve"s band again resumed its march. It arrived at one of the city gates that leads to the gibbet of Montfaucon. As I had hoped, the gate was thrown open before the Cordelier. I slackened my pace, fell to the rear of the procession, and, at the first practicable turn on the road, I jumped aside and blotted myself out of sight in a wheat field. The tall stalks concealed me completely. I waited till Fra Herve"s band was a safe distance away. I crept to the road that encircles the ramparts and towards sunset I arrived, worn out with fatigue, at an inn where I spent the night, giving myself out for a good Catholic. Early in the morning I started for Etampes. They had just finished the carnage when I arrived! It was still going on in Orleans when I pa.s.sed that city. At Blois, at Angers, at Poitiers--the same ma.s.sacres of our brothers. Thus, after long years of hypocrisy and craftiness, the pact of the triumvirate inspired by Francis of Guise, the butcher of Va.s.sy, was finally carried out. Oh, my friends! Not for nothing did Catherine De Medici say to the Jesuit Lefevre: "Induce the Holy Father and Philip II to be patient; let us lull the reformers with a false sense of safety; I shall hatch the b.l.o.o.d.y egg that the Guise laid--on one day, at the same hour, the Huguenots will be exterminated in France." The Italian woman kept her promise. The sh.e.l.l of the egg, nursed in her bosom, has broken, and the extermination has leaped out full armed."
Odelin"s widow rose to her feet pale and stately. She raised one of her venerable hands to heaven, and with a gesture of malediction she uttered these words, solemnly, amidst the profound silence of her family:
"Be they eternally accursed of G.o.d and man, who, from this day or in the centuries to come, do not repudiate the Church of Rome, that infamous Church, the only Church that has ever given birth to such misdeeds!"
"By my sister"s death!" cried the Franc-Taupin. "Shall the voice of Estienne of La Boetie be hearkened to at last? Shall we at last see _all_ leagued _against one?_ the oppressed, the artisans, the plebs, finally annihilate the oppressor and crush royalty?"
Hardly had the Franc-Taupin finished speaking when James Henry, the Mayor of La Roch.e.l.le, entered precipitately, and addressing Louis Rennepont, said: "My friend, the few words dropped by you to some of the people whom you met on your arrival, have flown from mouth to mouth and thrown the city into a state of alarm! Is it true that Monsieur Coligny has been a.s.sa.s.sinated?"
"Monsieur Coligny has been a.s.sa.s.sinated! All the Protestant leaders are murdered!" answered Louis Rennepont. "All the Protestants of Paris were ma.s.sacred on St. Bartholomew"s night! At Etampes, at Orleans, at Blois, at Tours, at Poitiers, the work of extermination is still in progress.
It was expected to steep in blood the rest of France as well. It is a fact!"
"To arms! And may the Lord protect us!" shouted James Henry vigorously.
"Let us make ready for a desperate defense. La Roch.e.l.le is now the only safe city left to the Huguenots. Charles IX will not be long in laying siege to us. I shall order the belfry to ring. The City Council shall be in session within an hour. It shall proclaim La Roch.e.l.le in a state of danger. To arms! War to the knife against the King and his Catholics, against the a.s.sa.s.sins of our brothers! To arms!"
CHAPTER IX.
THE SIEGE OF LA ROCh.e.l.lE.
For the first time in their lives did Charles IX, his mother and her priests discover that there was a limit to endurance. The crime so long elaborated, so skilfully planned, and carried out with incredible audacity, so far from annihilating the Reformation gave it fresh life, steeled its nerves, and rendered it unconquerable. Hardly had two months elapsed since the ma.s.sacres of St. Bartholomew, when, not Huguenots only, but a considerable portion of the Catholic party itself, in open revolt at the cruel excesses of the court, the fanaticism of the papacy and the subjection of France to the exactions of Philip II, took up arms, and made common cause with the Huguenots in order to bring about the triumph not only of the religious but of a political reformation also. The new adversaries of Charles IX and his mother took the name of the "Politicals." Alarmed at the renewed and more threatening att.i.tude of the now so unexpectedly reinforced Huguenots, the King endeavored once more to beguile them with false promises. He doubled and twisted, sought to deal and compromise. It was too late. A fourth religious war broke out. Several provinces federated together upon a republican plan.
La Roch.e.l.le became the fortified center of the Protestants. Against that city Charles IX concentrated and directed all his forces in the course of the last month of the year 1572--less than six months after St.
Bartholomew"s night.
La Roch.e.l.le, situated at the further extremity of a wide and safe bay, presented the aspect of an elongated trapezium, the wide side of which was about three thousand feet in length, while the narrow one was only twelve hundred feet, and faced the sea. The city extended from north-east to southwest, and stretched between the salt marshes of Rompsai, Maubec and Tasdon, on the east, and those of the New Gate, on the west. These marshes, then partly dried or turned into meadows, were intersected by a large number of ca.n.a.ls the locks of which enabled the land to be readily inundated, and presented an impa.s.sable barrier to any hostile force. The entrance of the port was at the Center of the sea frontage, and at the further end of the bay. It was defended by the two large towers of Chaine and St. Nicholas, both built of brick, equipped with cannon, and also used for powder magazines. To the right and left of the two towers, and leaving between them the narrow port entrance, extended a wall made of cut stone which at high tide was washed by the waves. The wall reached, to the east, the St. Nicholas Gate, and, to the west, the Lantern Gate, at the summit of which was a beacon to guide the sailors by night. From that side the city was unapproachable by an armed force except along a narrow tongue of land which joined the suburb of Tasdon with the St. Nicholas Gate. Furthermore, besides the water-filled fosse, Scipio Vergano, a skilful Italian engineer, employed by us, the Rochelois, had raised an additional protection to this gate by a sort of double counter-guard made of earth, and flanking the entrance of the port. The eastern front which extended from the St. Nicholas Gate to the Congues Gate, was along its whole extent but a poor wall, flanked by two round towers. It was one of the weak sides of our city. The western front ran in a straight line from the Lantern Tower to the bastion that we called the Bastion of the Evangelium. This portion of the fortifications consisted of a wall flanked by a large number of small and closely built towers, with occasional terraces. In the middle of this long line of defenses, which the large number of ca.n.a.ls rendered almost unapproachable, Scipio Vergano cut the New Gate, flanked with a solid bastion. Finally the north front extended from the Bastion of the Evangelium to the Congues Gate, a distance of nearly two thousand five hundred feet. The left extremity of that vast and very vulnerable front was defended by the Bastion of the Evangelium, which was itself protected by a terrace of earth. In the center and the highest spot of the line rose the demi-bastion of the Old Fountain. True enough, it commanded the whole plain, but both the slightness of its projection and the insufficiency of its flanks unfitted it for real purposes of defense. This bastion covered the ramparts but imperfectly.
Such, Oh, sons of Joel, was the aspect of the fortifications of La Roch.e.l.le, the bulwark of the Reformation and of freedom, the holy city against which Charles IX was about to hurl his Catholic hordes and the most powerful army ever commanded by his generals.
I, Antonicq Lebrenn, kept a sort of diary of the siege of La Roch.e.l.le, and of the defense made by its inhabitants, among whom our own family combated gloriously.
SEPTEMBER 1, 1572.--Informed of the ma.s.sacre of St. Bartholomew, and foreseeing that the Huguenots would once more take up arms, the Rochelois placed their city in a state of defense. James Henry, the Mayor, took an accurate census of the inhabitants. The serviceable part was divided into eight companies, exclusive of the Colonel, the name given to the ninth, in which the Mayor and aldermen, all anxious to share the perils of the other citizens, are enrolled. The respective captains elected over these bodies are: James David, Louis Gargouillaud, Peter Portier, John Colin, Charles Chalemont, Marie Mari, Mathurin the elder, and Bonneaud. These are all made members of the Council of the Commune. The aldermen and other Councilmen who command no company, are charged with inspecting the posts, and shall be on guard, day and night, in the ranks of the Colonel. Besides these, six other companies are formed of volunteer foot-soldiers, each a hundred and twenty men strong.
The chiefs of these are: Dessarts, Montalembert, La Riviere, De Lys, Bretin, called the Norman, and Virolet. All these captains, men well known for their bravery, took a glorious part in the last civil wars.
The magistrates are engaged in increasing the food supply of the city, so long as the sea is still open to them. Captain Mirant, the father of Cornelia, my betrothed, is charged with the command of a foraging flotilla. He is to go for wheat to the coast of Brittany, and for ammunitions to England. The daring sailor will know how to elude the royalist corsairs, or to give them battle. Cornelia is to accompany her father on the voyage, and will combat like a true Gallic woman. We bade each other good-bye this morning.