THE

ST. BARTHOLOMEW MASSACRE,
24th AUGUST,

1572,

PAPER
PRESENTED TO T H E

Historical Society of St. Kieran's College,
MARCH, 1875,
BY

RIGHT REV. PATRICK F. MORAN,
Bishop of Ossory.

DUBLIN:
BROWNE & NOLAN, NASSAU-STREET.
1875.
Price one shilling.

272.4
M79S
THE

ST. BARTHOLOMEW MASSACRE.

T H E 24th of August, 1572, marks a rubric festival in the
annals of France, for it recalls a terrible deed of vengeance
executed by the Court and by an outraged nation against the
Huguenots. It is also a rubric feast in the calendar of those
who assail the Catholic Church in this kingdom, whilst it
affords a popular theme for declaiming against her persecuting
spirit, for all the crimes and horrors of that bloody day are
laid at the door of the Sovereign Pontiff, and of the Catholics
of France. That no link might be wanting in the terrible
accusation, the French infidels of the last century supplied an'
abundance of imaginary 'details, all of which were accepted
without hesitation by the agents and abettors of the Protestant tradition of England. The words of Chenier were repeated in English pulpits—that the Cardinal de Lorraine had
blessed the poignards of the assassins at the Louvre, and had
given the signal for the massacre ; it mattered but little that
that illustrious Cardinal was, at the time, far away from France,
not having as yet returned from Rome, whither he had gone
to take part in the Conclave for the election of Pope Gregory
the Thirteenth. The words of Voltaire were also accepted as
historic truth—that the clergy were the active agents of this
butchery, and that the assassins immolated their unhappy
victims, wielding a dagger in one hand and holding a crucifix
in the other; and yet it was well known that this wicked
picture rested solely on the fancy of that prince of infidels,
and proceeded from his diabolical hatred against the Catholic
priesthood, and against the cross, the symbol of redemption.
Three years ago the second centenary of this massacre was
not forgotten amongst us, and then these stories were once

4
more eagerly repeated in the pulpit and in the press, with all
the earnestness that Protestant fanaticism could inspire, and
with such variety as each one's imagination could supply.
The Westminster Abbey celebration merits to be specially referred to, though many would, perhaps, expect that at least the
Dean of Westminster would be raised high above such prejudices : nevertheless, he availed himself of his sermon on that
occasion to inform the British public that the massacre was perpetrated "with the express approbation" of the Sovereign
Pontiff. A few years earlier, Froude, in his "History of
England" (vol. x.), had pictured in minute detail all the
particulars that could be imagined connected with that St.
Bartholomew's feast, repeating the most childish tales regarding it. Since then the very same tales have once more
found a place in his pages, whilst he accused the Catholics
of Ireland of a premeditated massacre of their Protestant
neighbours in the memorable year 1641. By such imaginative
writers, the Catholics of France, accused of every crime, are
painted in the darkest colours, and at the same time the
harmless Huguenots are set before us in the light of peaceable
citizens, only desirous of permission to practise the religion
which they professed—innocent victims involved in sudden
ruin by the fell, persecuting spirit and treacherous intolerance
of Rome. And yet why should we complain of Voltaire, or
Froude, or Dean Stanley, or the many other apostles of
the Protestant tradition of England, when we find Lord Acton,
and writers of his school, who, though professing the Catholic
faith, yet seek to give the stamp of history to such calumnies,
and to fan the flame of popular fanaticism against the Holy
See, by accusing it of guilty complicity in this dreadful
massacre ?
You will not expect, however, that in this short paper I
would analyze, much less refute in detail, all the calumnies
that have been uttered, and the misstatements that have been
made on the subject of this St. Bartholomew's bloody festival.
The task which I assume is a much simpler one—to present
a brief but truthful narrative of the leading facts connected
with that terrible day, and in doing so I will endeavour to
arrange my remarks under the three following heads :—•
First—The principal events connected with the Massacre :
Second—The causes of that widespread discontent which
prompted so many persons throughout France to deeds of
violence against the Huguenots:
Third—In fine, a few of the chief questions which have
arisen regarding this festival of St. Bartholomew,,

5

I.
During the first months of the year 1572, the policy of the
French king and court was wholly favourable to the Huguenots. The leaders of the party were summoned to the
capital ; many of the highest offices of state were intrusted to
them, and every civil or religious privilege that they contended for was readily accorded them. In a most special
manner dignities and honours were conferred on the Admiral
Coligny, who was their ablest champion as well in council as
in the field ; and, to crown all, the king, Charles IX., offered
his sister in marriage to the young Prince Henry of Navarre,
on whom the Huguenots had now centred all their hopes of
securing for themselves one day the great prize of the diadem
of France. This marriage, being contrary to the disciplinary
laws of the Catholic Church, met with a stern and uncompromising opposition from the Holy See. Charles, however,
persisted in his design, and in defiance of the most solemn
repeated prohibitions, the marriage was celebrated in Paris
with extraordinary pomp on the 18th of August, 1572.1
Walsingham was at this time English ambassador at the
French court. In his despatches he gives free expression to
the feelings of delight with which he witnessed this happy
course of events, so favourable to the Huguenots, who were
the open friends and secret allies of England. He does not,
however, merely record the favours and privileges accorded to
his friends ; he further attests that the king, being solely intent on enjoying the silly amusements of the court, was wholly
guided by the counsels of Coligny ; and he even ventures to
express a hope that ere long they would witness " the king's
revolt from papistry." 2
Catherine de Medici, the Queen Mother, was not one who
would acquiesce without a struggle in the paramount influence
thus acquired by the Huguenot leaders. She had long been
their friend and patron, but now that they would seek to undermine her power, and set aside her authority, she became
1
2

White, "Massacre of St. Bartholomew," page 358.
See extracts from these despatches in Sir James Mackintosh's " History of
England," iii., 220.

6
at once their most determined and most unscrupulous enemy. 1
Charles the Ninth, her son, being only in his tenth year on his
accession to the throne of France, in 1560, Catherine, with
the approval of the Council of State, assumed the authority,
though without the title, of Regent ; and even after the king
had attained his majority, she continued with supreme and
undisputed power to rule the kingdom. ^ The Guises were at
first her only rivals, and as they were the recognised leaders
of the Catholic party, it became to her a matter of supreme;
political interest to foster the restless followers of the reformed
tenets ; and though she publicly avowed her resolve to administer justice with even balance to all the contending parties,
she never failed, when an opportunity presented itself, to throw
her protecting mantle over the Huguenots, and to sustain them
by all the influence which she could command. Catherine,
from her childhood, had imbibed the notorious principles of
Macchiavellian policy, which then held sway in the court of
Florence, and these were her only guide in the government
of France. It will, therefore, not surprise lis to learn that for
a time the project was seriously entertained by her of adopting
the reformed tenets as the national religion,2 for thus it was
hoped that the Catholic party would be inexorably crushed, and
that Protestant alliances would be secured for France against
the growing power and encroachments of Spain. 3 Catherine,
moreover, allowed sermons to be preached by the Huguenot
ministers in the halls of the palace, and she took care that the
young king would sometimes assist at these instructions.4
Her daughter, Margaret of Valois, does not hesitate to write
in her "Memoirs," that the whole court was "infected with
heresy/' and that her brother, the Duke of Anjou, "had not
escaped the unhappy influence, for he often used to throw her
1
The policy pursued by Catherine whilst Queen Regent of France, during the
minority of Charles, is thus faithfully described by Hume :— " She had formed a
plan of administration more subtle than judicious, and balancing the Catholics with
the Huguenots, the Duke of Guise with the Prince of Conde. she endeavoured to
render herself necessary to both, and to establish her own dominion on their constrained obedience."—History of England, chap, xxxviii.
2
Capefigue, " Histoire de France," torn, iii., chap. 38 and 41.
3
Charles IX. hated Spain. In his confidential correspondence with Noailles,
n t h May, 1572, we read : "All my thoughts are bent on opposing the grandeur
of Spain, and seeing how I can most dexterously do it."
4
Letter of the Nunzio Sanla-Croce, 15th November, 1561, inserted in " Actes
Eccîes. civiles et Synodales," torn. i. The famous Calvinist, Duplessis-Mornay,
says of some of his brother ministers that " se fesoient faire la presche en la
chambre de la royne mere du roy pendant son disner, estant aydès à ce faire par
ces femmes de chambre, qui estoient secrètement de la religion."—Gantû, " Storia
Universale," vol, viii., page 412. "Elle leur donne à entendre qu'elle veut faire
instruire le roi son fils en leur religion."—Discours Merveilleux, page xxi.

7
prayer book into the fire, and give her Huguenot hymns instead." 1 Many French writers are of opinion that Catherine
Herself " was affected with the venom of Calvinism,"2 but Mr.
^hite, after a profound investigation as to her character and
government, concludes that she had but little of any religion,
and that she believed "more in witchcraft and astrology than
m GOD."3 The Spanish ambassador, writing to his court, in
1570, says that in Catherine's royal council of state "five out
of the eight members were Atheists or Huguenots." 4 The
king himself was weak and vacillating, and wholly intent on
the pursuits of pleasure. He was, moreover, impulsive in his
anger ; and a writer whom none will accuse of partiality to the
Catholic cause, does not hesitate to style him " a furious
madman." 5
\Now, however, that the growing influence of Coligny
awakened suspicions and alarm in the mind of Catherine,
and made her fear lest she would lose her hold of the royal
power, she vowed the destruction of the Huguenot leaders.
It was rumoured in court-circles that the administration of
the government would soon pass into more vigorous hands, and
that Coligny would rule supreme as President of the Council
and Captain-General of all the forces of the kingdom. " What
do you learn in your long conversations with the Admiral
Coligny ?" said Catherine one day to the king. " I learn," he
hastily replied, " that I have no greater enemy than my
mother.",6 These words sealed the doom of Coligny.
Most of the leading Huguenots had hastened to Paris to be
present at the marriage festivities of the Prince of Navarre,
and they availed themselves of this opportunity to complete
their political organization, and to make an imposing display
of their numbers and strength in the French capital. The
public festivities had not as yet concluded, when Coligny, passing through the streets, received two gun-shot wounds at the
hands of an assassin, on the evening of the 22nd of August.
The wounds, though dangerous, were not judged mortal. The
public voice instinctively traced the attempt to the Queen
1

" Mémoires de Marguerite de Valois/'* p. 27, seq.
" Laboureur," vol. i., page 167.
3
White, " Massacre," page 167. Ranke writes that Catherine " adopted the policy of the Huguenots because she had hopes that by their aid her youngest son, the
Duke of Alénçon, would mount the throne of England."—(" Hist, de la Papauté,''
in-, 83.)
4
"Simanca's Archives."—Bouille, ii., page 454.
5
"History of the United Netherlands," by John Lothrop Motley (London,
1867), vol. i., page 43.
6
While, page 374.
2

8
Mother, and authentic history has fully justified that verdict.1!
In arranging the details of the attempted assassination;
Catherine had for her only assistants her son, the Duke of
Anjou, and the Duchess of Nemours, whose first husband had
been murdered by the Huguenots.
Had Coligny been slain on the 22nd of August, it is prob-.
able that no further massacre would have taken place, and
Catherine, without opposition, would have at once resumed
her place at the helm of the State. Now, however, that Coligny
still lived, and that their party was strengthened by the universal sympathy which the attempted assassination had awakened, the Huguenots vowed immediate vengeance against the
assassins. They brandished their swords marching past the
Hotel des Guise,2 menacing words were even uttered against the
king, and it became their common boast that the broken arm
of Coligny would cost their enemies forty thousand heads. 3
Above all, angry words were freely used in regard to Catherine.
This artful woman, having failed in this attempt to rid herself
of her defiant rival, saw that not a moment was to be lost to
save herself from utter ruin.
On the morning of the 23rd she hastened to the king, and
unfolded to him the details of a conspiracy4 which the Huguenots had planned against the State, as well as against himself
and the members of the royal family : one course alone was
open to him to anticipate the traitorous designs of the conspirators, and to turn on themselves the ruin they meditated
against France. " T h e Huguenots won over the king (thus
writes the acute historian Ranke), and appeared to supplant
Queen Catherine's influence over him. This personal danger
put an end to all delay. With that resistless and magical
power which she possessed over her children, she reawakened
all the slumbering fanaticism of her son. It cost her but one
word to rouse the populace to arms, and that word she spoke.
1
A number of contemporary authorities will be found in two valuable articles of
the " Revue des Questions Historiques," published by Victor Palmé, Paris, 1866,
livr. I, page 11, and livr. 2, page 322 : also in White, page 400, seqq.
* Lavallée " Histoire des Français," i. page 594: Dargaud, li Histoire de la
liberté religieuse," iii., page 255.
3
Despatch of the Ambassador, Giovanni Michieli, in " La Diplomatie Venetienne," page 548.
4
Froude thus describes the discourse of Catherine to the King : " She told him
that at the moment that she was speaking, the Huguenots were arming. Sixteen
thousand of them intended to assemble in the morning, seize the palace, destroy herself, the Duke of Anjou, and the Catholic noblemen, and carry off Charles. The
conspiracy, she said, extended through France. The chiefs of the congregations
were waiting for a signal from Coligny to rise in every province and town. "—
"History of England," x. 401.

9
Every individual Huguenot of note was delivered over to the
vengeance of his personal enemy." 1
Charles, at the request of his mother, signed, without hesitation, a royal mandate for the execution of the Huguenot
leaders, and to a chosen band of their enemies was allotted the
arduous task of carrying it with secresy into effect. The evening of Saturday, the 23rd, rolled on with all the stillness of a
summer vigil in the French capital, and not a murmur foretold the storm that was so soon to Durst upon the heads of the
unsuspecting Huguenots. But no sooner had the clock of
Notre Dame struck three, on the morning of St. Bartholomew's
feast, than the bell of St. Germain d'Auxerre tolled the signal
for the massacre. ^The morning's sun of the 24th August saw
completed the work of blood, so far as it had been planned by
Catherine ; but the passions of the populace being once let
loose, it was not easy to withdraw them from deeds of violence,
and two or three days passed by before order could be fully
restored in the capital.2
On the evening of the 24th, the King addressed royal letters
to the governors of the various cities of France, commanding
them to maintain tranquillity, and to preserve the lives of the
Huguenots. But the example of Paris proved too contagious
for the excited populace, and as soon as the terrible news
reached Orleans, Rouen, Lyons, and other towns, fresh scenes
of rioting were witnessed, and new names were added to the
roll of the murdered Huguenots.
Two days after the fatal festival of St. Bartholomew, the
king, by a public order, assumed to himself the whole responsibility of the dreadful massacre ; and before the Foreign
1
2

Ranke, il Histoire de la Papauté pendant le i6me siècle," iii. 83.
It is amazing to find with what carelessness the standard Protestant historians
deal with the events which they profess to register. Thus, for instance, Hume,
in his account of the St. Bartholomew massacre, writes that it began on the
evening of the 24th of August : " On the evening of St. Bartholomew,
a few days after the marriage, the signal was given for a general massacre
of those religionists, and the king himself in person led the way to these
assassinations."—("History of England," vol. v., page 147). For this statement
regarding the king there is not even a shadow of authority; and all the contemporary writers are agreed that the massacre took place, not on the evening,
but on the morning of the 24th of August. Beza writes that " c'était au point
du jour" ("Mem. ae VEtat de France" i. 217). M. Puygaillard, in a letter
of the 26th August, 1572, says : "Dimanche matin, le Roi a faict faire une
bien grande execution a l'encontre des Huguenotz."—See "Revue des Questions
Hist." page 340. To omit other equally explicit statements, the Duke of Anjou
attests, that the King and the Queen Mother, with himself and some trusty counsellors, met at the Louvre soon after midnight of the 23rd of August, and at early
dawn of the 24th, '• ainsi que le jour commençait à poindre," sent a messenger to
withdraw the order which had been given for the massacre : but it was too late,
the deed was already done.— White^ " The Massacre," page 416.

10

Ambassadors and Parliament, assembled in the Gilded Chamber of the Palace of Justice, he made the solemn announcement, that that execution on the leaders of an incorrigible
faction which they had witnessed, had been done " by his express orders, not from any religious motive, or in contravention of his edict of pacification, which he still intended to observe, but to prevent the carrying out of a detestable conspiracy, got up by the Admiral and his followers, against the
person of the king, the queen-mother, her other sons, and tfye
King of Navarre." 1 Without a dissentient voice, the parliament passed a vote of thanks, commending the King's foresight and energy, and adding its official sanction to the royal
sentence already executed against the traitors. To add greater
solemnity to the occasion, the whole parliament and court,
with Charles at their head, walked in procession to the Cathedral of Notre Dame, and there offered up solemn thanksgiving
to God that so great and imminent danger had been averted
from the kingdom. Medals were struck to commemorate 2
the event, and it was ordered that the public procession and
thanksgiving of parliament should be annually repeated, to
perpetuate the memory of their providential escape from
the dreadful conspiracy.8
It is almost impossible to form an exact estimate of the
numbers that were massacred in Paris, and throughout France,
on this occasion. Each writer, as impelled by passion or blinded
by prejudice, increases the number of the victims, and varies
the details of the horrible massacre. Thus, for instance,
Perefixe calculates that 6,000 Huguenots were slain in Paris
alone, and that the number of the sufferers throughout France
was 100,000. Claude Haton writes that more than 7,000
were put to death in the city. 4 Davila and others increase
the number to 10,000. Froude 5 states that about two thousand were murdered in Paris, and, " according to the belief of
the times," 100,000 men, women, and children throughout
France. He adds, however, the significant note, that in this
case, as " with all large numbers, when unsupported by exact
statistics," it is safe to divide the number " at least by ten."
Sully reckons the whole number of victims throughout France
1

T h e "Official Declaration," in White, page 449.
A facsimile of one of these medals is given in vignette of title page by White
in " Massacre of Saint Bartholomew." I t bears the motto, " Virtus in rebelles"
and serves to confirm the opinion that the Huguenots were punished, not as
heretics, but as rebels.
3
Saint-Victor,
" Tableau Historique de P a i i s , " xiii., 210.
4
" Plus de 7,000 personnes bien connues, sans autres jetées dans la riviere, qui
5
ne furent connues."—While, page 470.
'*' History of England," x, 408.
2

II

as 70,000. Ranke, in his " History of the Papacy/' had registered them at about 50,000 j 1 but in his History of the Wars in
France, he reduces the number to " about 30,000." Humé
estimates the slain in Paris alone as " five hundred gentlemen
anjd men of condition, and ten thousand of inferior sort." He
does not assign the precise number of the myriads who were
slaughtered elsewhere.
De Thou, writing for the express purpose of promoting infidel Philosophism against the Church, calculates the total
number of the slain in France at 20,000. La Popeliniere, who
flourished at the time, and published his Histoiy 2 a few years
after the event, numbers the Parisian victims at one thousand,
and the sufferers throughout the whole kingdom at 20,000.
Papyr Masson reduces the whole number in France to 10,000;
Alzog, to less than 4,000. Caveirac writes that 1,100 were
slain in Paris, and 2,000 throughout the rest of France. Barthélémy adopts the opinion of La Popeliniere as to the city of
Paris, but reduces the total number of the victims throughout
the kingdom to 2,ooo.3 Lingard, after a minute examination,
concludes that the total number of the Huguenots slain in all
France did not exceed 1,600. The Huguenot Martyrology 4
is perhaps the most important contemporary Huguenot record
connected with the St. Bartholomew massacre. It was published in 1582, with the approval of the whole Huguenot body,
who applauded it as an accurate and authentic register of
their martyred brethren. Its authors had access to several
public documents which have since perished, and every local
return which they sought for was readily forwarded by the
various Calvinistic congregations, that thus the work might
be as full and complete as possible. This official Martyrology,
when presenting to the reader a general statement regarding
the massacre, calculates the total number of the victims at
30,000. Subsequently, however, when setting forth the details
for the various districts, the number is reduced to a little more
than 15,000; and when, again, it proceeds to calendar the
names of the sufferers, the special purpose for which it was
1

" On a tué près de cinquante mille."—Ranke, " Hist, de la Papauté," etc. iii, 84.
" Histoire de France, depuis l'an 1550 jusqu' en 1577," edit. Paris, 1581, livre,
xxix., p. 66.
3
The dissertation of M. Ch. Barthélémy, " La Saint-Barthelemy,"is one of the
best that has appeared on the subject; it is found in "Erreurs et Mensonges
historiques," Paris, 1863. The same dissertation is inserted in ''Dictionnaire de
controverses historiques," par L. F.Jehan (Migne, 1866), but without the name of
M. Barthélémy.
4
The following is the full title of this work, to which we will have to recur
more than once : " Histoire des Martyrs persecutes et mis a mort pour la vérité
de l'Evangile, depuis le temps des Apôtres jusqu' en 1574," printed in 1582.
2

12

composed, it can only discover seven hundred and eighty-six
victims in the whole kingdom.
Amid so many conflicting opinions regarding the number of
the Huguenots who thus fell victims to the perverse policy of
the French court, there is one thing at least which we may
affirm with confidence, that there is great uncertainty as to
the extent of the massacre, and that it is a manifest exaggeration to speak of the St. Bartholomew crime as a general
^slaughter of all the French Huguenots. When, however, we
take into account the perfect organization of the Huguenot
congregations throughout France, and when we consider the
official weight of the Huguenot Martyrology, and the precision with which it registers in its lists the names even of the
humblest sufferers, we cannot be far from the truth when we
'assert that Lingard, in his computation, has allowed a very
wide margin for all possible omissions, and that the total
number of the murdered Huguenots cannot have exceeded
fifteen hundred. 1 Notwithstanding this massacre of August,
I$72, the Huguenots in the following year are found in the
field with regularly equipped armies, and fearlessly setting at
defiance the whole power of the French monarch. For a
while victory even smiled upon them, and when at length they
were overpowered by superior strength, the most honourable
terms were accorded to them. 2 Their independent organization remained unaltered, and indeed it was not till the time
of Richelieu that they at length ceased to form a distinct
military power in the kingdom. XsJBut it was not the St. Bartholomew massacre, nor their defeat in the field of battle, that
effectually broke the power and lessened the numbers of the
French Huguenots. For this result France was indebted far
1
The popular songs of the period point to a very small number of victims. The
following, written at the time by Cappler de Vallay, is published by Cantù :—
* * L'Eternel Diel veritable,
Qui descouvre tous les secretz,
A permis de droit equitable,
Les perfides être massacrez ;
Car la dimanche vingt-quatriesme,
Furent tués plus d'un centième,
Fautueurs de la loi calvinienne,
Depuis on a continué
De punir les plus vicieux," &c.
(" Historia Générale," viii. 754).
2
White, page 179, estimates the number of Huguenots in France in 1561 at
1,500,000. After the massacre in 1572 it was calculated that they numbered
about 2,000,000.—Mackintoshy " History of England," iii., 238. When we take
into account that in the intervening period they had been overcome in three civil
wars, as we will see hereafter, but little room remains for an extensive massacre of
their party on the feast of St. Bartholomew, 1572.

13

r :>re to the spirit of religion that was awakened throughout
t e nation by St. Francis de Sales, St. Vincent de Paul, and
the clergy formed in their school, whose piety and zeal at
length brought back these erring sons into the saving fold
of the one true Church of Jesus Christ.
And now, before we quit this portion of our subject, there
are a few circumstances connected with the St. Bartholomew
massacre which merit our special attention, although they
are generally passed over in silence by modern historians.
In the first place, it is an important fact that no Bishop or
Priest, or other representative of Catholic feelings and Catholic interests, was allowed any part in the Council of Catherine
de Medici, and the massacre was planned and devised solely
as a matter of State policy. Even the Papal Nunzio was left
a stranger to the plot> and, as Sismondi writes, " he only,
learned the death of Coligny and the rest, when all had beeji
accomplished."
Then, again, several Catholics fell victims to the rage bf
their enemies on that bloody festival. Sir James Mackintosh
expressly asserts that "Catholics were involved in the slaughter-:
private interests and personal animosities borrowed the poniard
and the mask of religious fury."1 The Huguenot Martyrology2 cites the following words of Mezeray, an eye witness of
the scenes of slaughter : " Whoever possessed wealth, or held
an enviable post, or had hungry expectant heirs, was put
down as a Huguenot." When recording some individual instances of the massacre, the same Martyrology informs us that
the Governor of Bourdeaux caused wealthy Catholics as well
as Protestants to be thrown into prison : from Catholics and
Protestants alike he demanded a ransom, and he deliberately
put to death all for whom the ransom was not paid. Again,
it states that at Bourges a Priest was thrown into prison and
murdered ; that at the town of La Charité, a Catholic matron
received the assassin's dagger ; and that at Vic the Catholic
Governor was himself murdered. It also states that in Paris
two Ecclesiastics of high dignity, Bertrand de Villemor and
Jean Rouillard, the latter a Canon of Notre-Dame, fell victims in the general massacre. And yet these are only a few
cases incidentally mentioned in this record, otherwise so hostile to everything Catholic.
The Protestant historian, La Popeliniere, further assures us
that the Catholics of France loudly protested against these
deeds of blood being imputed to them, and they readily con1

" History," iii. 225.

2

"Histoire," &c, fol. 731.

H
tributed as far as was in their power to secure the Hugueno
from further attacks . ' m a n y more would have been slain," r
,says, "were it not that some of the Catholic nobility, satisfied
with the death of the leaders, used their efforts to appease the
mob; several Italians, too, on horseback, and with swords
drawn, drove back the rioters in the faubourgs and in the
streets, and threw open their houses as a secure refuge for the
sufferers j " 1 he adds the names of several leading Catholics
who thus distinguished themselves by sheltering the Huguenots from danger, as the Dukes D'Aumale, de Biron,
de Bellievre, &c. The British Museum preserves a curious
letter addressed from Paris, in the month of September, 1572,
to the English government, which accurately describes the
feelings of the Catholics of Paris in regard to the massacre :
" it is lamented (it says) to see the King's cruelty, even by
the Papists : many be sorry that so monstrous a murder was
invented, and at present they dread their own lives. The
Duke of Guise himself is not so bloody, neither did he kill
any man himself, but saved diverse. He spoke openly that
for the admiral's death he was glad, but that the King had
put suchHo. death as, if it had pleased him, might have done
good service."2
Nor must we suppose that this sympathy of the Catholic
citizens for the Huguenots was confined to the capital. In
every city of France similar instances were found of that true
charity which has ever characterized the Catholic Church,
and which, on the present occasion, sought to stem the tide
of massacre, and to shield the sufferers by the protecting
mantle of religion. Thus, the Huguenot Martyrology, to
which we have so often referred, attests 3 that very many of
the sufferers were sheltered in the monasteries from the
fury of the populace, and as an instance, it states that " the
monasteries served as a safe shelter for the Huguenots in
Toulouse." Again, it writes that at Bourges " some peaceable Catholics saved the Huguenot sufferers from an infuriated mob." It adds, that in the town of Romans, " sixty
1

La Popeliniere, "Histoire," liv. xix.
MSS., Br. Mus.—"News from France," Sept., 1572: Froude, "History,"
x., 410. There is also a Letter of Walsingham, on the 13th of September, in
which he writes that ' ' this manner of proceeding is, by the Catholics themselves,
utterly condemned." The Venetian Ambassador affirms the same in his "Relazione,"
published in " La Diplomatie Vénitienne :" " Conciossiache dispiaccia oltremodo
tanto ai Cattolici quanto agli ugonotti, non dicono tanto il fatto quanto il modo e
la maniera del fare ; parendo loro di strano che uno la sera si trovi vivo e la mattina morto; e chiamano questa via e modo di procedere con assoluta potestà,
senza via di giudizio, via di tirannide ; attribuendolo alla Regina," &c.
3
" Histoire," &c. fol. 716.
2

is
Huguenots were seized by the mob, but the peaceable Catholics delivered forty of them out of their hands, and the
Gqvernor delivered thirteen others. Trie remaining seven
were murdered by private enemies, because they had been
found with arms in their hands"—(page 718). At Troy es, a
priest was foremost among those who sought to rescue the
unfortunate sufferers ; whilst at Bourdeaux " several were saved
by the clergy and others from whom no such favour could
have been expected"—(fol. 730). This triumph of charity
over hatred and revenge was nowhere more manifest than at
Nismes, notwithstanding the memory of the bitter sufferings
to which the Catholics of that city had been a short time
before subjected by the triumphant Huguenots.
The
Catholic citizens, on the first rumours of a massacre, put
forth all their strength, and invited the Huguenot leaders to
unite with them in order to prevent the shedding of blood.
All the city gates were closed except one, and there a body
of armed Huguenots were stationed, together with the Catholic troops, to repress every attempt at massacre.
It would not be difficult to multiply proofs of the spirit of
charity and forbearance thus shown by the Frei^erf* clergy.
The City of Lyons is often cited as an instance of the activity
of the priests in the work of slaughter,1 but Montfalcon, the
learned librarian of the public library of Lyons, though
writing bitterly against the Catholics, has proved from official
documents that the clergy had no part, direct or indirect, in
the massacre or other disorders of that city.2 Fleury attests
that the clergy, heedless of what they themselves had so often
suffered, used every endeavour to protect the Huguenots :3 he
adds, that the Catholic body in Paris, and throughout all
France, openly avowTed their disapproval of the massacre.
At Lisieux, the Governor, thinking it would please the Court,
gave orders that the Huguenots should be put to death, but
the illustrious Bishop, John Hennyer, preached with all his
zeal against such cruelty, and he not only had the consolation
of preserving his flock from the shedding of a single drop of
blood, but, moreover, the Huguenots, moved by the charity
thus shown them by this good pastor, became docile to his
instructions, and very many of them were restored to the fold of
Christ.4 Throughout Burgundy, as De Thou informs us,
1
As, for instance, by M. Dargaud, in his " Histoire de la liberté religieuse," iii.,
page 362 : notwithstanding its many exaggerations, a prize was awarded to this
work by the French Academy.
2
Montfalcon, " Guerres de religion à Lyon," page 420.
3
"Le clergé, tout maltraité qu il avait été par les hérétiques, en sauva tant qu' il
put en différents endroits."—Fleury, " Hist. Eccles," 16th. century, sect. xii.
^Becchetti, " Istoria degli ultin i quattro socoli délia chiesa," xii., 160.

i6
" little blood was shed, and nearly all the Protestants returned
to the religion of their ancestors."1 When the Governor of
Dauphiny, Bertrand de Gondes, a devoted Catholic, was told
that it was the King's order that the Huguenots should be put
to death, he replied that "the King's power' was abused by
others, and that it was his duty to preserve the King's subjects for him." He, accordingly, issued an order that " any
attempt upon the lives of the Huguenots would be punished
with death." 2 At Dieppe, the Governor assembled the leading
Huguenots in the great hall of the Palace of Justice, and
having announced to them the fate which had fallen on the
rebels in Paris and elsewhere, said he was sure that there
were no rebellious or seditious citizens amongst them, "wherefore," he added, " children of the same Father, let us live
together as brothers, and having for each other the charity of
the Good Samaritan." No blood was shed in Dieppe, and,
touched by the words of charity addressed to them, many of
the Huguenots vowed to live and die in the Catholic faith.3
The question as to whether a royal order was addressed to
the .Governors of the various cities and provinces commanding
them to proceed with the punishment of the Huguenots, is
one of but little importance in our present inquiry\; There
seems to be but little doubt that some such order was addressed to a few of the Governors, if not by the King himself,
at least by some of the courtiers, in his name, v One thing,
however, is now agreed on by friendly as well as by hostile
historians, that no scheme of general massacre had been
arranged by the Court, and communicated to the local
Governors, before the festival of St. Bartholomew. Indeed
it suffices to inspect the dates at which the massacres occurred
in the various districts, to be convinced that they were not
the result of any such preconcerted scheme. ^ At Meaux the
massacre was carried out on the 25 th of August ; at La
Charité on the 26th ; at Orleans.on the 27th ; at Saumur and
Angers on the 29th '; at Lyons on the 30th ; at Troyes on
the 2nd of September ; at Bourges on the n t h ; at Rouen
on the 17th; at Romans on the 20th; at Toulouse on the
25th ; at Bourdeaux, not until the 3rd of October, j Had the
massacre been executed in accordance with any premeditated scheme, these deeds of blood would undoubtedly have
been perpetrated on the same day throughout France, and the
mere recital of the respective dates must suffice to prove that
1

De Thou, torn, vi., page 432 : so also, La Virotte, in " Annales d'Arnay,"
1837.
2
Long, " Guerres de Religion dans la Dauphiné :" Chorier, " Hist. Dauphiné,"
3
ii., page 647.
White, ''Massacre," page 469.

17

the thirst for blood proceeded from the contagious example
of the capital rather than from any orders conveyed to the
whole kingdom. Nay, more, in some instances these local
massacres were in direct opposition to the express command
of the King and Parliament, as at Toulouse, where, some days
befor-e the massacre began, "the Parliament published a royal
order to the effect that no one should be allowed to molest
those of the reformed tenets, but that, on the contrary, every
favor should be extended to them." 1
1
The " Huguenot Martyrology," fol. 730. It adds that in like manner " the king,
by several letters, informed the authorities in Bourdeaux that he did not intend
the massacre to proceed further or to extend beyond Paris,"

B

18

II.
The question will probably have ere this suggested itself:
Why were the passions of the Parisian populace so easily
excited against the Huguenots, and why, in other towns., were
so many people ready, when their hands were loosened, to
commit such deeds of bloodshed against these wretched
sectaries ? Several reasons may be assigned for the bitter
feeling thus displayed by the French nation ; for us it will
suffice to refer to some few of them.
I. In the first place, there was a universal alarm throughout
France, lest the Huguenots should seize the helm of Government and enter on the administration of the kingdom. In a
neighbouring State, from which they were separated only by
the British channel, they had an example of what they might
expect under Protestant rule. They heard of the confiscations
and imprisonments to which the Catholics of England and
Ireland were subjected, the tortures employed to extort
confession of guilt from the confessors of the faith, the savage
cruelty exercised towards them on the scaffold, and even after
death : and they said to one another—Protestantism has
triumphed in England, and this is the result : the era of Nero
and Diocletian has been revived, and unheard of cruelties have
been exercised against the Catholics of that kingdom. Are
we to permit the same intolerant spirit of persecution to rule
in our Catholic nation ? It was not that the Queen-mother
or the Court of France felt aggrieved by the persecuting edicts
of Queen Elizabeth, A few days after the St. Bartholomew
massacre, Catherine addressed a letter to the French Ambassador in London, and when setting forth the reasons of State
why the .death of Coligny and the other factious leaders should
not interrupt the friendly relations that existed between the
two powers, she asks : " Did the Court of France manifest
displeasure when the Queen of England ordered the death of
those who troubled her at home ? No ; and even were she to
order the execution of all the Catholics of England, we would
not allow such a matter to interfere with our mutual friendship. "l Seldom, indeed, are such cynical and heartless words to
? " Nous ne vous en empêcherions ni altérerions aucunement l'amitié d'entre
•
elle et nous."—Correspondance Diplomatique, torn, vii., p. 347.

19
be found even in the annals of diplomacy. On another
occasion, however, Catherine displayed a little more of the
national spirit : for, when Elizabeth instructed the French
Ambassador to convey to the King the expression of her hopes
that he would be friendly to the Huguenots, the Queenmother dictated in reply that her royal son could not follow
a better guide than his good sister of England, and he would
be careful to imitate the example which she would set in her
dealings with her Catholic subjects. 1
The French people felt none of that heartless indifference
which ruled at Court. They were fired with indignation
at the recital of the atrocities to which their fellow Catholics
were subjected in these countries, and it was openly declared
that if the Huguenots were allowed to triumph, then the
same scenes of butchery would be witnessed among themselves. The feeling in Paris was particularly intense. It is
thus described by a modern historian, who, I may remark, is
most repulsively prejudiced against everything Catholic:
" Honest Catholics, they said, would fare no better in France
than they did in England, where, as it was well known, they
were every day subjected to fearful tortures. The shopwindows were filled with coloured engravings, representing,
in exaggerated fashion, the sufferings of the English Catholics
under bloody Elizabeth, or Jezabel as she was called ; and
as the gaping burghers stopped to ponder over these works of
art, there were ever present, as if by accident, some persons
of superior information who would condescendingly explain
the various pictures, pointing out with a long stick the phenomena most worthy of notice. These caricatures proving
highly successful, and being suppressed by order of the
Government, they were repeated upon canvas on a larger
scale, in still more conspicuous situations, as if in contempt
of the royal authority which sullied itself by compromise
with Calvinism."2
1
Digges, p. 246 : Lingard, vi. 139. In 1567, several of the German Princes,
including the Palatine of the Rhine, and the Dukes of Saxony and Wurtemberg,
despatched an embassy to the King of France, also interceding in favor of their coreligionists. Charles replied that he would be a friend of theirs only so long as they
abstained from meddling in the affairs of his kingdom ; and he added : " I might
also pray them to permit the Catholics to worship freely in their own cities."
White, p. 272. How little changed is the attitude of these German Governments
towards their Catholic subjects, even after three hundred years !
?
Motley, " History of the United Netherlands," i. 42. A few years later the
same argument was made use of by the French agent who sought to engage Philip
the Second in a war against England : '* I cannot refrain from placing before your
eyes the terrible persecutions which the Catholics are suffering in Fngland ; the
blood of the martyrs flowing under so many kinds of torments ; the groans of the
prisoners, of the widows and orphans ; the general oppression and servitude, which
is the greatest ever endured by a people of God under any tyrant whatever."
—Memorial of Mendoza, in Motley's " History," i., 129.

20

2. Another alarming example was at their own doors, in
Switzerland, and this came the more closely home to them,
because Calvin was in reality the prime-mover of all the
Huguenot disorders, and from his mountain retreat in Switzerland was accustomed to boast that, before he died, his Reform
would be triumphant in his own native France. Calvinism was
indeed triumphant in Switzerland, but it was triumphant, as
Erasmus attests, " by the slaughter of more than one hundred
thousand, young and old," of the brave Catholic Swiss peasantry. 1 And lest anyone should perchance entertain a doubt as to
the tendency of their principles, the French Huguenots, in theirSynod held at Paris in 1559, had openly adopted the tenets
and discipline of the Swiss Calvinists, and true to the spirit of
their founder, they had further enacted the severe statute that t
" heretics should be punished with death," and that it was
" the duty of the State to enforce such punishment." 2
Protestant writers, whilst accusing their Catholic brethren of
intolerance, should not be unmindful of these decrees of their
Continental co-religionists—decrees the more revolting and intolerable, because they were enacted in the name of liberty,
and under the specious pretence of asserting the outraged
principles of religious equality. 3
3. But there was yet another reason why the French populace
were so easily roused to vengeance, and as it is one of vital
importance for understanding the relative position of parties
in France, at the period of which we treat, you will pardon
me if I dwell on it at some length.
1

Erasmus, " Opera," torn. iii., part 1, p. 900.
2
See the excellent Dissertation by Alzog in Wetzer and Weltés "Dictionnaire
Encyclopédique," ii. 358.
3
Beza writes :—" Those who are unwilling to put heretics to death are more
guilty than those who allow parricides to live with impunity : we desire to exterminate those who disturb the Church."—(" Profession of Faith," point 5th, p. 119).
It was also a saying of Luther that " We live in such peculiar times that a prince
may gain heaven more readily by shedding blood than at other times by prayer. "
When Condé consulted the Calvinist Synod assembled at Orleans about tolerating
the Catholic worship, " that impracticable body, while claiming absolute liberty
for themselves, would have denied it to those whom they called Atheists, libertines,
and anabaptists."—White, p. 230. We need not, however, go beyond' Great
Britain for this teaching of intolerance. John Knox, in his " Appellation, " declared
that it was the duty of subjects to depose a Catholic queen, " and punish her to
death with all the sort of her idolatrous priests." The same intolerance is taught
in the Canons of Convocation of 1640 ; in the solemn League and Covenant ; and
in Jewell's Apology. And what shall we say of the oath taken by William and
Mary as King and Queen of Scotland : " W e swear to root out all heretics and
enemies to the true worship of God, that shall be convicted by the true Kirk of God
of the aforesaid crimes, out of our lands and empire of Scotland." I need say
nothing of Protestant teaching and practice in Ireland. No wonder, indeed, that
Frederic Seebohm should be obliged to acknowledge, in his history of the " Era
of the Protestant Revolution," that "there was one thing especially in which
there seemed to be reaction rather than progress during the era, viz., in toleration."
— p . 219.

21

The Huguenots had been labouring for many years, partly
by intrigue and partly by force of arms, to overthrow the
religion of the nation and to establish the tenets of Calvin in
its stead. To attain this great object of their ambition, all
means seemed lawful to them. They sought by turns to
oppress the Catholics, to revolutionize the State, and to dismember the kingdom. The result was faithfully sketched, a
few years later, by the Duke of Burgundy : " I do not now
speak," he said, " of the calamities produced by the new doctrines
in Germany, England, Scotland, or Ireland : I speak only of
France. Nor shall I enumerate one by one the evils of which
it was the theatre, which are recorded in so many authentic
documents : the secret assemblies ; the leagues formed with
foreign enemies ; the attempts against the government ; the
seditious threats, open revolts, conspiracies, and bloody wars ;
the plundering and sacking of towns ; the deliberate massacres and atrocious sacrileges :—suffice it to say, that from
Francis I. to Louis XIV., during seven successive reigns, all
these evils, and many others, with more or less violence,
desolated the French monarchy. This is a point of history
which, although it may be variously related, can neither be
denied nor called in question."
4. As early as the reign of Francis I., many of the French
courtiers had adopted the reformed tenets. In the religious
wars which ravaged Europe in the first half of the sixteenth
century• we frequently find the French monarch the ally of the
Protestant German States. The purport indeed of such an
alliance was a purely political one, to counterbalance the overwhelming influence of Catholic Spain,,but it indirectly served
to swell the numbers and to increase the authority of the French
reformers. Soon after the accession of Charles IX., the
Huguenot leaders reckoned themselves sufficiently powerful
to attempt to supplant the Duke of Guise and the Catholic
party at Court, and under the guidance of Throckmorton, the
English Ambassador m Paris, they entered into a plot known
as the Conspiracy of Amboise, to seize the helm of State and
take the government into their own hands. Owing to the
energy of the Duke of Guise, their plans were frustrated. A
far more serious attempt, however, was made in 1562, and once
more it was the English Ambassador that urged them to draw
the sword. Their envoys negotiated a formal treaty with Elizabeth, and English troops, under the command of the Earl of
Warwick, landed on the coasts of France, whilst another army
of German mercenaries ravaged the fair plains of Normandy.
Relying on this powerful aid, the Huguenots rose in arms, and
almost on the same day made themselves masters of eighteen

22

cities and several towns. 1 We will refer just now to some
of the terrible scenes of pillage and bloodshed which ensued ;
for the present, suffice it to remark, that the flame of civil war
was kindled throughout all France. The Catholic troops,
however, 'soon obtained a mastery in the battlefield, several
victories crowned their arms, and the fall of Orleans, the last
stronghold of the Huguenots, was hourly expected, when the
Duke of Guise was treacherously assassinated in the Catholic
camp. The Queen-mother availed herself of this opportunity
to conciliate the contending parties, and conditions of peace,
most favourable to the Huguenots, were accorded by the
crown.
There was one special feature in this Huguenot revolt which;
awakened the indignation of the French people. As the
price of English support, the Huguenot leaders had surrendered
Havre and Dieppe into the hands of Queen Elizabeth, and
consented to admit an English garrison into Rouen. Such
treasonable measures indeed excited the displeasure, not only
of France, but of all Catholic Europe, and were hailed with
delight only by the German Lutherans and the Turks. They
failed, however, to secure success for the traitors. Two-thirds
of the English garrison were slain at the capture of Rouen ;
Dieppe was almost immediately abandoned as incapable
of defence ; and more than half of the Earl of Warwick's
army being wasted by disease and the sword, in the hopeless
defence of Havre, that city, too, after a short siege, was
restored to the crown of France. This unsuccessful attempt
of the Huguenots to recall a hated rival power to the French
coasts, made their revolt doubly offensive to the nation : it was
an outrage, at the same time, against patriotism and against
religion.
5. By the terms of the treaty, sanctioned by the Court, the
Huguenots were allowed the free exercise of their reformed
worship, and no penalty was imposed for their past treasons.
This, however, was far from satisfying the restless ambition
of their leaders. In 1567, 2 they again rose in revolt. " O n
the same day (writes Ranke), the insurrection burst forth all
over France. The writers of the period are obliged to go back
to Mithridates, King of Pontus, to find an historical parallel
1
White,li Massacre," p. 202, gives the names of several of the cities and districts
thus occupied by the Huguenots.
2
The Protestant Sismondi writes : " A la fin de Septembre 1567, les Huguenots se
rendirent maîtres des villes de Montauban, Castres, Montpellier, Nimes, Viviers,
Saint-Point, Uzès, Pont-Saint-Esprit, et Bagnolles ; partout ils chassèrent des
convents et des églises les prêtres, les moines et les religieuses. Ils dépouillèrent
les sanctuaires de leurs ornaments, et quelquefois ils démolirent les edifices sacrés."
" Histoire des Français," torn, xviii., p. 16.

23

for the secresy with which this revolt was organized, and for
the precision and rapidity with which it was carried into effect/'1
The signal of the war was a treacherous attempt to seize on
the King and the Court in the neighbourhood of Meaux. The
plot, however, was betrayed a moment before its execution,
and the King, with difficulty, escaped to Paris.2 All France
was again in flames, and once more the English Ambassador,
Norris, is the instigator of the revolt, and the chief support of
the rebels. Queen Elizabeth, indeed, wrote to the King, congratulating him on his providential escape ; ' but her crafty
minister, Cecil, accompanied her letter by a private despatch
to Norris, instructing him " to comfort the insurgents, and
exhort them to persevere."3 The Catholic troops, however,
were everywhere victorious ; the government again stepped in
to negotiate terms of pacification, and favourable conditions,
with full liberty of worship, were readily accorded to the
Huguenots. All this only served to convince, more and
more, the Huguenot leaders of the political advantages which
the Government derived from their support, and to increase
their défiant boldness.
6. A third time they rose in arms in 1569. They had now
increased their strength by the aid of German mercenaries,
who were paid with English gold.4 They were known as
Reiters, and Davila describes them as devastating France
like a frightful hurricane. " Fierce in demeanour, brutal in
habits, as intractable as they w^ro insolent, and a nuisance
alike to friend and foe, they were insatiable pillagers, and their
long train of wagons, filled with plunder, often caused irremediable delay in the march of the Huguenot army." 5 Some
of these had been engaged by the Huguenots in the former
wars, but now they came in' increased numbers. Nev.er1

Ranke, " Histoire de France," vol, i., p. 259.
The King Owed his safety to a select body of Swiss troops, with whom he
marched to Paris. They were attacked on the way by Condé and 500 horse, but
without waiting to give battle they continued their march, " standing fast awhile,
and then retiring, still turning their head as doth the wild boar whom the hunters
pursue."—La Noue, p. 395. White, p. 277.
3
See further details in Lingard, viii. 61. It was stated at the time, and was
generally believed, that had the Huguenots succeeded they would have burnt Paris.
For proofs, see J. Cretineau Joly, " Hist, relig; polit. &c, delà Comp. de Jesus,"
vol ii-, p. 85.
4
Queen Elizabeth forwarded to Rochelle six pieces of artillery, with their
ammunition. She also sent ^50,000 in gold, with a promise of more. She
required, however, a guarantee for repayment, and in the Cotton MSS. [Caligula,
E. vi., fol. 90) there is an inventory of jewels and trinkets mortgaged to her by Joan
of Navarre, Condé, and Coligny, on I2th June, 1569.
5
White " Massacre," p. 289.
2

24

theïess, the decisive battles of Montcontour l and Jarnac broke
the power of the Huguenot party, and crushed all their hopes
for the present. They did not, however, cease to conspire,
and though a general edict of pacification was published in
1570, they availed themselves of it only to renew their secret
military organization, and to mature their plans for future
struggles.
7. All this time the Huguenots were but one in ten of the
French population, and the question was asked in every hamlet and town in France : Is this turbulent faction to be allowed
thus continually to disturb our peace, to seek aid from the
enemies of our nation, to make treaties, and to arm themselves"
for our destruction ? Of what use are our victories in the field,
when the jealousy of the Court robs us of their fruit, and each
overthrow of the Huguenots is only the signal for new favours
to be lavished on them by the Queen-mother and the Government ? As a consequence of the prolonged civil wars, the
pursuits of agriculture had been almost entirely abandoned,
and commerce was ruined. In Paris itself " the anarchy seems
to have been complete, each man being a law to himself. Not
even in the terrible revolution that closed the eighteenth
century were the bonds of society more thoroughly relaxed/' 2
A few incidents will best-serve to illustrate the state of popular
feeling that prevailed at this time in Paris. On the 27th of
December, 1561, while the Huguenots were attending service
in the church of St. Marcellus, in Paris, the bells of the neighbouring parish church of St. Medard were rung to summon
the Catholics to vespers. This was considered by the Huguenots to be a studied insult, and, accompanied by Beza, 1,500
of their number fully armed, headed by Audelot on horseback,
burst into the church of St. Medard, massacred fifty of the
unoffending congregation, overturned the altar, carried away
the sacred vestments, and trampled under foot the most Holy
Sacrament. The next day the Huguenots assembled again
in St. Marcellus's church, in great numbers, to celebrate their
triumph, but 4,000 citizens, unable to restrain their rage,
attacked the church, dispersed the congregation, tore the pulpit
to pieces, and burned the church to the ground. 3 When the
news of the death of Condé reached the city, after the battle
of Jarnac, in 1569, the Lent-preacher declared it to be a divine
1. The battle of Montcontour, fought on 3rd Oct., 1569, was the most brilliant of
the whole campaign. The Huguenots went into battle 18,000 strong, and before
night it was a difficult matter to collect 1,000 of them to cover their retreat.
— White, p. 312.
2
White, p. 232.
*Becchetti, " Istoria," x. 338 : White, "Massacre," p. 86.

25
judgment, and described the fallen leader of the Huguenots
as " the chief of robbers, murderers, thieves, rebels, and
heretics, in France': a prince degenerated from the virtues and
religion of his ancestors, a man foresworn, guilty of treason
against God and the King, a profaner of temples, a breaker
of images, a destroyer of altars, a contemner of the sacraments,
a disturber of the peace, a betrayer of his country, and a renegade Frenchman." 1
Again, when the arrangements were
being made for the marriage of the King's sister with Henry
of Navarre, Joan of Navarre objected to its being celebrated
in the capital, on account of the fanatical temper of the inhabitants ; whilst, on the other hand, the Parisians were
equally averse to it, fearing, says Claude Haton, " that they
would be robbed and despoiled in their houses by the seditious
Huguenots." 2
Throughout the marriage festivities the
Huguenots were regarded as aliens—" aliens in language,
costume, and religion."
Both parties "were armed and
equipped as if about to enter upon a campaign." The Huguenots looked on the city as a volcano, yet " there were bigots
and fanatics among them who seemed to court rather than
avoid an explosion." 8
8. But it is time that I should give some instances of the
Satanic cruelty which the Huguenots displayed towards the
Catholics, and the vandalism with which they raged against
everything held sacred in Catholic faith, wherever a momentary success placed the sword of authority in their hands. In
the three wars of 1562, 1567, and 1569, no fewer than fifty
cathedrals and ÛVQ hundred Catholic churches were plundered,
the sacred vessels desecrated, the altars destroyed, the
paintings and vestments torn to shreds, or applied to profane
uses. The principality of Beam was one of the first to adopt
the Genevan tenets, and what was the result ? All public acts
of Catholic worship were interdicted, the clergy were exiled,
and religious toleration was denied to the Catholic subjects.
A decree was published in 1571, banishing all superstition and
idolatry from the territory, and commanding all to assist at
the Calvinist sermons, under penalty of fine or imprisonment. 4
And yet it was in the name of religious liberty that such
enactments were made. A t Venez, a small town in Languedoc, more than a hundred Catholic prisoners were massacred
in cold blood, and their bodies thrown into a well,5 A plan
1

2
3
White, p. 306.
Clattde Haton " Mémoires," ii., p. 663.
White, p. 380.
See * ' Declaration pour servir de règlement pour la discipline des églises de
li
Béarn," ap. Soulier, Hist, du Calvinisme," p. 119.
5
Mémoires de Jacques Gâche, p. 17, seqq.
4

26

was organized in Geneva by Calvin, Beza, and others, for the
seizure of the city of Lyons, on the 5th September, 1561. The
attempt was frustrated by the Catholics, who, however,
exercised no violence towards the conspirators. In 1562 the
treason of De Sault, the governor, gave possession of the city
to the Huguenots. Then the most revolting scenes were
witnessed. The destruction of everything sacred was decreed
and carried into execution with the greatest violence. " Never
did the Goths rage with such fury against the city of Rome as
was shown by these sectaries against the desolate city of
Lyons ; " thus writes de Rubys in his " Histoire veritable de laville de Lyon," published in 1640. All who refused to fight
under the Protestant banner were despoiled of their property,
and banished from the city. The life-size silver crucifix in the
Cathedral was thrown down by the Huguenot minister, Ruffi,
who cried out, "Behold the idol is cast down," and then cutoff
the head, which he carried to his own house. The silver shrine,
in which the body of St. Justus was preserved, was also broken
open and carried off: the statues which adorned the façade and
portico of the Cathedral were demolished : the tombs were
violated in search of treasure : the church of St. Irenseus, and
the sanctuary of Notre Dame de Fourvière were sacked :
everywhere the relics of the saints were thrown into the fire,
or trampled under foot: and an or^yer was published by the
commander, Baron des Adrets, that every citizen, under the
severest penalties, should assist at the sermons of ^he Reformed
ministers, " since it is the will of God that idolatry should be
banished from amongst us." 1
This Baron d'Adrets was one of the most active of the
Huguenot military leaders. He was, at the same time, preeminent among them for his cruelty. a He was, in regard to
the Catholics," writes Feller, "what Nero was to the early
Christians. He sought out and invented the most novel
punishments, which he took pleasure in seeing inflicted on
those who fell into his hands. This monster, wishing to make
his children as cruel as himself, forced them to bathe in the
blood of Catholics whom he had butchered." 2
A t Pamiers, in 1566, as Heylin informs us, the Huguenots
fell on the clergy who were engaged in a procession of the
Blessed Sacrament, on the festival of Corpus Christi, and
massacred them. Similar outrages were witnessed at Mon1
" Discours des premiers troubles advenus a Lyon," par Gabriel de Saconay^
praecenteur et Comte de l'Eglise de Lyon : printed in Lyons in 1569, in 120. Revue
des Questions Hist. i. 34.
2
Fellery " Dictionnaire Historique," a. n.

2/

tauban, Rodez, and Valence. In 1562, Languet, who was one
of the leading Huguenots, wrote to the Elector of Saxony,
that in Gascogne and the Lower Languedoc, as, also, in
Provence, and as far as the Pyrenees, within a range of forty
miles, no Catholic priest dared to show himself.1 A t Montpellier, the same year, two hundred Catholics were put to
death, the cathedral was pillaged, and Catholic worship
was prohibited throughout the district. In 1569, the fanaticism of the Huguenot preachers was pushed to such extremes, that at Orthez three thousand Catholics were
butchered ; and in the neighbourhood of St. Sever, two
hundred priests, who had been arrested in various towns,
were cast headlong from a precipice.
9. A few extracts, however, from Mr. White's History 2 of this
period, which is derived almost exclusively from Huguenot
sources, will best enable us to form an accurate idea of the
outrages which were thus perpetrated throughout France, in the
name of religion, by the Huguenot disciples of Calvin. Writing of the years 1561 and 1562, he says that the Huguenots
"seized upon the churches, drove the monks from their convents,
made bonfires of the crosses, images, and relics, and demanded
an enlargement of their privileges. During the procession of
the Fête Dieu at Lyons, 5th June, 1561, a Huguenot tried to
snatch the Host out of the priest's hand. These indiscreet
Reformers were the dread of the moderate Beza :3 ' I fear our
friends more than our enemies/ he wrote"—(page 185).
A t Tours everything most sacred was outraged: " For some
weeks the town was in the hands of the Huguenots, who
seized upon the churches, stole the plate, brok ) the images
and ornaments, burnt the service books, desecrated the relics,
and ordered every ecclesiastic to leave the place in twentyfour hours, under pain of imprisonment. Contemporary records
describe the destruction of a Calvary of gold and azure, one of
the wonders of the world, which sixty years before had cost
the large sum of ten thousand ducats. The plunder of the
churches served to keep up the war. That of St. Martin
1

Gandy, " Revue des Questions Historiques," i. 30.
" The Massacre of St. Bartholomew : preceded by a History of the Religious
Wars in the Reign of Charles IX.,5' by Henry White. London, 1868. Mr. White,
at every page, betrays his feelings of deep hostility against the Catholics, and
adopts, most unfairly, the most atrocious tales and accusations against them, on the
assertion of their Huguenot enemies. We are, on that account, the more justified
in accepting his narrative of the atrocities committed by the Huguenots.
3
" Nostros potius quam adversarios metuo," 4th Nov., 1561.—Baums " Beza.3'
In another Letter to Calvin, the same Reformer wrote : " you will scarcely believe
how intemperate our people are." (18th Jan., 1562).
2

28
at Tours furnished Condé (the Huguenot leader) with
1,200,000 livres, without counting the jewels in the shrines.
When the King's authority was restored in Tours, Mass was
ordered to be sung in St. Martin's Church, but everything in
it had been broken or destroyed, except the stalls in the
choir and a few of the painted windows"—(page 216).
At Rouen, " one Sunday in May, the Huguenots, in the
exultation of their triumph, sacked and defaced the cathedral
and thirty-six parish churches. They made such work, says
Beza, ' that they left neither altar nor image, font nor beni-'
tier.' 1 That this was not the act of a lawless mob, nor ot
a sudden excitement, but of calmness and deliberation, is
probable from what happened about the same time at Caen,
in the same province, where the minister, Cousin, told the
judges that 'this idolatry had been put up with too long, and
that it must be trampled down.' And here the destroyers,
after scattering the ashes of William the Conqueror, breaking
organs, pictures, pulpits, and statues, to the estimated value
of 100,000 crowns, had the impudence to ask the Town
Council to pay them for their two days' work, which was
done" 2 —(page 220.)
In the little town of Montbrison, in August, 1562, under the
command of the notorious Baron des Adrets, / ' the slaughter
was fearful: more than eight hundred men, women, and
children were murdered ; the streets were strewn with corpses,
and the gutters looked as if it had rained blood," says a
contemporary. All through the south of France, "at the first
outbreak of hostilities, the Huguenots seized upon the churches,
which they purified of all marks of idolatry, destroying the
relics, and making a jest of the consecrated wafer. In some
towns they entirely forbade the Catholic worship/' A t Lyons,
whilst "liberty of conscience was proclaimed, every convent
was broken open, and the Mass was abolished. The Huguenots committed devastations that would have disgraced
the Vandals. Churches were ravaged, tombs broken open,
coffins stripped of their lead, and their gold and silver plates ;
the bells were broken up, and the Basilica of the Maccabees
destroyed by gunpowder "—(page 242).
A t La Rochelle, the people, excited " by the violence of the
preachers, rushed to the churches, threw down the altars,
and burnt the images. Some priests who had been shut up
1
Another writer of the time says*. " Il a fait piller, ne laissant que les murailles et
que les terres qui ne se pouvaient emporter."—Canton tfAthts, p. 44.
2
This rests on the authority of De Bras de Bourgeuille, a contemporary.—See
" Mémoires de V Académie de Caen," 1852.

29

in the lantern tower were stabbed, and thrown half dead into
the sea. One Stephen Chamois, a Carmelite monk, had
escaped from the ' city, but being recognised at Aunai, in
Saintonge, he was called upon to abjure, and on his refusing
to do so, was murdered on the spot" 1 —(page 242).
A t Dieppe (the Rochelle of northern France), the Huguenots
are found "pillaging and defacing churches, and melting down
the sacred vessels, from which they collected 1,200 pounds of
silver. In bands of 200 and 300 they made forays into the adjacent districts, to* Eu and Arques, from which they never
returned empty-handed. We read of their dragging priests! ito
Dieppe tied to their horses' tails, and flogging them at beat of
drum in the market place. Some were thrown into the. sea in
their sacerdotal robes ; some were fastened to a cross and
dragged through the streets by ropes round their necks ; and to
crown all, some were buried in the ground up to the shoulders,
while the Huguenots, as if playing a game of nine-pins, flung
huge wooden balls at their heads. A few weeks after the war
broke out, the Protestants of Bayeux rose against the clergy,
committing the customary devastations, besides violating the
tombs, and throwing out the mouldering corpses. They
gutted the bishop's palace, and made a bonfire of the chapter
library, then the richest in all France. The priests and others
who opposed them were barbarously murdered, and tossed
from the walls into the ditch. Once more, in March, 1565,
the Huguenots gained the upper hand, when the troops under
Coligny refused to be bound by the terms of the capitulation.
Private houses were stripped of all the gold, silver, copper,
and lead that could be found ; priests who resisted were
flogged, dragged up and down the streets by a rope at their
necks, and then killed. Children were murdered in their
mothers' arms ; one Thomas Noel, a lawyer, was hanged at
his own window; and an unhappy woman had her face stained
with the blood of her own son, who had been killed before
her eyes. Here, too, more priests were buried up to the
neck, and their heads made to serve as targets for the soldiers'
bullets ; others were disembowelled, and their bodies filled
with straw (that they might burn the better). The priest of
St. Ouen—we shudder as we record such horrors—was seized
by four soldiers, who roasted him, cut him up, and threw his
flesh to the dogs. It would have been well had these deeds
of brutality been confined to Normandy, but they were repeated all over France. One Friar Viroleau died of the
1
Arcere, " Histoire de la ville de Rochelle," i.} p. 358.
sur les commencements de Rochelle."

Vincent, «' Recherches

30

consequences of barbarous mutilation. Other priests or Catholic people were killed by hanging, speared to death, left to
die of hunger, sawn in two, or burnt at a slow fire. -AH this
happened in Angouleme. At Montbrun a woman was burnt
on her legs and feet with red hot tongs. At Chasseneuil, in
the vicinity, a priest, one Louis Fayard, was shot to death
after having been tortured, by having his hands plunged in boiling oil, some of which had been poured into his mouth. The
vicar of St, Ausanni was mutilated, shut up in a chest, and
| t burnt to death. In the parish of Rivieres others had their
i tpngues cut off, their feet burned, and their eyes torn out ;
[
they were hung up by the legs or thrown from the walls 'n—
^page 248).
< Towards the close of 1565, the King and Court paid a visit
'
to J/^tn, Queen of Navarre. She had " swept her dominions
of l e ^ r y vestige of. Romanism, and denied to her Catholic
svjBjf 4ts that religious liberty which she claimed for her coreligtbhists in France. When returning through the Province
ofiflrasebny, Charles, at every step, was reminded of the outrages offered to his religion. As he rode along by the side of
.tfeQueen of Navarre, who accompanied him to Blois, he
/pointed to the ruined monasteries, the broken crosses, the
^polluted churches ; he showed her the mutilated images of
the Virgin' and the saints, the desecrated grave-yards, the
relics scattered to the winds of heaven."—(page 265).
"At Soissons the Huguenots pillaged the churches, demolished the beautiful painted windows, broke the organ, melted
the bells, stripped the lead off the roofs, plundered the shrines
of their gold and jewels, burned the relics of the saints, and
tore up the charters and title deeds belonging to the clergy.
Similar tumults occurred at Montauban and other towns " 2
—(page 270).
At Nismes, in particular, the Catholics were repeatedly
subjected to persecution. As early as 1562, "the municipal
council decided that the cathedral, with some other churches,
should be made over to the Reformers, and further ordered
the bells of the convents to be cast into cannon, the convents
to be let 'for the good of the state/ the relics and their
shrines to be sold, and the non-conforming priests to leave
the city." It was in 1567, however, on the 30th of September,
that the terrible massacre occurred, which is known as the
Michelade, on account of the pious people of Nismes being
^Vitet, "Hist. Dieppe," p. 77: De Bras, "Antiquités de Caen," p. 170:
Archives Curieuses de France (Cimber and Danjou), torn, vi., ser. i., p . 299.
2
Cimber, vi., 309 : " Discours des troubles," 51I1 June, 1566.

3i
accustomed to celebrate the festival of St. Michael the Archangel on the 29th September, and the two following days.
The whole of that terrible day the Catholics of the city were
plundered and put to death by a merciless band of Huguenots.
The bishop succeeded " in escaping from the mob, who, in their
angry disappointment, sacked his palace, and killed the vicargeneral. A number of Catholics, including the consul and his
brother, had been shut up in the cellars of the episcopal
residence. About an hour before midnight they were dragged
out, and led into that grey old courtyard, where the imagination can still detect the traces of that cruel massacre. One
by one the victims came forth : a few steps, and they fell
pierced by sword or pike. Some struggled with their murderers, and tried to escape, but only prolonged their agçri'y.
By the dim light of a few torches between seventy and eighty
of the principal citizens were butchered in cold blood£and
their bodies, some only half dead, were thrown into thff Jyell
in one corner of the yard, not far from an orange t r ^ ' f t i e
leaves of which, says local tradition, were ever aftelrw'^ijs
marked with the bloodstains of this massacre.1 In t h e S q i ^
tember of the following year, these brutal scenes of violence1
were renewed : the city was again plundered, and its streets
were dyed with Catholic blood. The governor was shot and
thrown out of the window, and his corpse was torn in pieces
by the lawless mob. In the country round Nismes, forty-eight
unresisting Catholics were murdered ; and at Alais, in the
neighbourhood, the Huguenots massacred seven canons, two
grey friars, and several other churchmen...Even the dead
were not left in peace : in more than one instance the corpses
were exhumed and treated with savage barbarity." 2 —(page 285).
In 1568 and 1569, the Huguenots, "in their fury, once
more defiled the altars, destroyed the churches, and perpetrated a thousand atrocities. Briquemaut, one of their leaders,
cheered them on to murder, wearing a string of priests' ears
1
" Le vicaire général, Jean Peberan, est livré aux insultes de la populace, trainé
avec une grosse corde et précipité dans le puits ; il avait voulu mourir à la place
de F êvêque. Le massacre avait commencé à onze heures du soir ; il dura toute la
nuit et continua le lendemain. Ce jour-la, toutes les maisons des Catholiques sont
recherchées ; ceux qu'on arrête sont égorgés ec jetés au puits. Bien qu'il ait plus
de sept toises de profondeur et quatre pieds de diamètre, il est presque comblé de
cadavres; l'eau, mêlée'de sang, y surnage ; des gémissements étouffés s'en exhalent ; cent cinquante, suivant les uns, trois cents, suivant les autres, furent égorgés."
—Revue des Quest- Hist. i. 45.
8
Baragnon, "Histoire des Nimes," torn. ii. See also Valssette " Histoire
Gen. de Languedoc,'' v. p. 298 ; and Menard, "Histoire de la ville de Nismes,"
torn. v. p. 16. This last named writer states that most of the authorities in
Nismes were secretly favourable to the Huguenots, and hence permitted them to
rage with impunity against the Catholics.

32

round his neck.1 When the town of Orthez was stormed, so
many of the inhabitants were put to death, without distinction
of age or sex, that the river Gave was dammed up by the
number of bodies thrown into it. The monasteries and nunneries were burnt, not one inmate escaping, the total slaughter
being estimated at three thousand. When the citadel was
taken, every ecclesiastic who was proved to have borne arms,
and the proof was none of the strictest, was bound hand and
foot, and tossed over the bridge into th ; river. At Aurillac
they buried some Catholics alive vp to the chin, and after a
series of filthy outrages, used their heads as targets for their
muskets. Four hundred persons were put to death there, of
whom one hundred and thirty were heads of families"2
—(page 29s).
This recital of atrocities will, I am sure, suffice to explain
how it was that the French populace, especially in the districts
which were the theatres of such crimes, were so ready to
engage in deeds of retaliation and it will also prove that it
was the aim of the Huguenots to exterminate if possible the
Catholics of France. The Huguenot blood, shed on the feast
of St. Bartholomew, 1572, was only as a drop in the ocean
when compared with the torrents of the blood of Catholics
shed by their relentless enemies in almost every city of France.
1
This fact of Briquemaut wearing a necklace of the ears of the priests whom he
had massacred, is mentioned by all the contemporary writers. The same savage
ornament was also worn by another Huguenot in 1562, but his name is not given.
— White, p. 248.
2
De Thou, vol. v., p. 610.

33

III.
It now only remains to make some comments on a few
of the many questions which have arisen in connection with
the St. Bartholomew Massacre.
i. And first of all it will be asked what sympathy was
shown by the government of England to their Huguenot
friends in the terrible disaster which had thus befallen them ?
England, during the preceding years, had entered into secret
treaties with the Huguenots, and they were publicly regarded
as her allies. We would, therefore, expect that she would
now avenge the St. Bartholomew outrage, or at least resent,
as done to herself, the injury and insult offered to the
Huguenot cause. Nothing, however, of all this occurred.
A few days after the Massacre the King of France commissioned his ambassador in London, La Motte Fenelon,
to explain to Queen Elizabeth the peculiar circumstances of
the sad event, and in obedience to these instructions he set
before her Majesty that his Sovereign, quite against the royal
wishes, had been compelled to act with seventy against
Coligny and his adherents, on account of a wicked plot they
had entered into against the - throne, and that if some few
innocent persons had suffered with the guilty, this was owing
to circumstances which his Majesty was unable to control,
and which occasioned him the most heartfelt grief. Elizabeth
received the ambassador at Woodstock. The court chronicler
records that she was arrayed in the deepest mourning, and
that all the lords and ladies who attended her were dressed in
black. The whole sympathy, however, of England for the
unfortunate dupes of her deceitful policy ended here. Amicable relations were almost immediately re-established, and the
friendship of the two courts seemed more closely cemented
than ever in the blood of the Huguenots. The English
C

34
ambassador was instructed to proceed with the negotiations
for the marriage of Queen Elizabeth with the Duke d'Alençon,
brother of Charles IX., as if nothing had occurred to mar
the harmony between their respective courts ; and when, a
few months later, a daughter was born to the French King,
Elizabeth consented to become godmother to the infant
princess. She sent the Earl of Worcester on this occasion
to present a font of gold as a baptismal gift, and to assist at
the ceremony of baptism in her name. 1
So completely, indeed, did Queen Elizabeth and the English government seem to have overlooked the St. Bartholomew outrage, that the Huguenots regarded their proceedings as a studied insult offered to themselves. They
pushed their resentment so far as to attack the English
ambassador whilst sailing from England to France. One
of the ships in his suite was taken and plundered, some
of his attendants were slain, and he himself was, for a time,
in jeopardy of his life. A little later the Marshal de Retz
was sent as a special envoy from Charles to the English
court, and the report was generally credited at the time
that he received an express acknowledgment from the
Queen that Coligny and his associates had deserved their
fate.
2. And now a few words as to the question which
was warmly debated in former times? whether the St.
Bartholomew massacre formed part of a long premeditated'
scheme of the French court, or was merely prompted by the/
difficulties which, in consequence of the failure of the attempt
on the life of Coligny, had suddenly beset Catherine.de
Medici and her friends. There are some, indeed, who go so
far as to affirm that the plan for the extirpation of the
Huguenots was long before arranged by the King and his
council ; that the honours and caresses shown to Coligny, and
even the marriage of the princess Marguerite, formed part of
the scheme, the better to lull the suspicions of the intended
victims, and to attract them to the capital. This opinion,
however, rests on no historical grounds. Everything leads to
the conclusion that Coligny had acquired a real mastery over
the affections of Charles IX., and it is preposterous to suppose
that that young monarch, so weak, and vacillating, and impulsive, could have been such a master of dissimulation as to
deceive Walsingham and the other foreign ambassadors, as
1
Camden, page 275 : De Thou, iii. 244 : Castlenau, torn. xlvi. 55 : Lingard,
vi. 142.

35
well as his own courtiers, into the belief that he was favourable to the Huguenots, whilst in reality he meditated their
destruction. There perhaps is somewhat more of probability
in the opinion that Catherine de Medici had, for some months
at least, planned in her own mind this plot for cutting off the
leaders of the Huguenots, and possibly she had not forgotten
the remarkable advice given to her by the Duke of Alva, who,
at the conference of Bayonne, in 1565, as Henry of Navarre
attests, put Tarquin's gesture into words, and counselled
Catherine to rid herself of the obnoxious noblemen by the
curious Spanish proverb that "one salmon's head is better
than a hundred frogs."1 Catherine, however, was not a person to
readily suppose that the Spanish statesman was disinterested
in his counsel, and that his advice was solely given her in the
interests of France. Whether or not, however, the Spanish
proverb may have lingered in her mind, it is now generally
supposed that, if any such plot existed, the Catholic leaders
were likely to share in the fate of the Huguenots, and that
had she been successful in the first attempt on the life of
Coligny, the Duke of Guise would have been her next victim.
But now, that that attempt had failed, she needed the strong
arm of this brave nobleman to sustain the government against
the Huguenots, and to this circumstance alone he owed his
safety. Be this as it may, Catherine, a few days after the
massacre, avowed that she had given orders for the death
only of a half dozen of the Huguenot leaders, and that
" she was responsible in conscience only for that number."2
. For us this is not a question of great moment, and we
will readily leave it to be settled by the friends and admirers
of Catherine de Medici, and of the court of Charles IX.
\^Vhether the massacre was premeditated or not, it is manifest
from the line of policy pursued by Catherine, and from the
principles which guided the French court, that the Catholic
Church and the Holy See had no part in it, and are in no
way responsible for its terrible excesses. Paris witnessed
other bloody scenes in 1792 and 1793. Religion was not
responsible for them. They were decreed by an Atheistic
policy in the name of the sovereign people. The St. Bartholomew massacre was the result of an equally irreligious
intrigue, although it was,3 nominally at least, carried into exe1
2
3

Davila, lib. 3 : Mathieu, " [list, de France," i. 283 : White, page 262.
Ranke, " Hist, de la Papauté," iii 83.
" The Massacre of St. Bartholomew, in 1572, was the diabolical work of the
queen, Catherine de Medici, to maintain her political power."—Seebohm, " The
Era of the Protestant Revolution" (Longmans, 1874), page. 211.

36
cution in the interests of the crown. It was the age of classic
studies, and it is possible that amid the peculiar difficulties
which now beset her, Catherine may have recalled to mind the
massacre so famous in Roman literature, when Scylla sought by
one blow to rid himself of all his enemies, and, at his command,
the streets of Rome on one day flowed with the blood of 6,000
citizens. But whether or not this vision flitted before the
mind of Catherine, it is unquestionable that the Catholic
Church had as little part in the Parisian crime as in that of
Scylla ; and an eloquent writer has well remarked, that were
a Blanche of Castile, or a St. Louis on the throne of France
ih 1572, such a massacre would have been impossible.
; 3. The important question now presents itself: How was
the intelligence of the St. Bartholomew massacre received in
Rome? The news, as conveyed to the eternal city, was to the
effect that a widespread conspiracy of the Huguenots had
been discovered only a moment before their plans were matured, that their wicked designs had recoiled upon their own
heads, and that the Huguenot power was now for ever broken
in France. This intelligence was hailed with the greatest
delight. The city bells rang out their merriest peals, a royal
salute was given from the cannon of St. Angelo's, the Pontiff,
with the court and clergy, walked in procession from the
Basilica of San Marco to the French Church of St. Louis, and
the Te Deum was solemnly chanted in thanksgiving. In addition to all this, a gold medal was struck to commemorate
the happy event, and the whole scene, by command of Pope
Gregory the Thirteenth, was represented among the fresco decorations with which Vassari was then adorning the Sala Regia
in the Vatican. All this, however, does not prove what the
enemies of the Holy See contend, that the Sovereign Pontiff,
or the citizens of Rome, gave expression to their joy for a
cold-blooded massacre of the French Huguenots.
To fully appreciate the course pursued by the Roman court,
we must bear in mind the official intelligence relative to the
massacre, which was conveyed by Charles IX. to His Holiness.
A special agent was sent to Rome, and his instructions were
in substance a mere repetition of the King's discourse in parliament on the 26th August, setting forth the conspiracy of
Coligny and his associates, and how their wicked attempt had
recoiled on their own heads. The French agent also brought
with him a letter to the Pope from Louis de Bourbon, Duke
of Montpensier, which attested that the Huguenots had conspired against the life of the King, the Queen mother, the
King's brothers, and all the princes and Catholic gentlemen

3?
of their suite, " to the end that Coligny might create a king of
his own religion, and abolish every other religion in the
kingdom: that, providentially, the conspiracy was discovered,
and on the day they had designed to carry out their enterprise,
execution fell upon them and their accomplices, so that all the
chiefs of the sect, and several of their party, were slain."1
The Nunzio, Salviati, sent at the same time a full account of
the massacre, and transmitted with it the substance of the
King's discourse in parliament: " that his Majesty, thanks
to Christ, detected a plot which Admiral Gaspar de Coligny
had prepared against the royal authority, so that a terrible
destruction and death threatened the whole family of thé
King ; and, therefore, he inflicted on the Admiral and his
followers the punishment which they deserved/' 2
J
Indeed this account was persistently repeated by the French
envoys at every court, and those who wished to maintain
friendly relations with France were of necessity obliged to
accept it as an official statement of the facts and circumstances
of the case. The Duke of Alva was at this time carrying
on the siege of Mons, in the Netherlands : when he received
the official despatch from Paris, he at once embodied it
in a circular to all the governors of the Provinces, declaring
that "the Huguenots had resolved to murder the King
and the royal family, and to seize on the government:
that for this purpose Coligny had organized a body of 4,000
men in the faubourg St. Germain, but, the secret being betrayed, the King had anticipated their wicked designs, and
thus secured the peace of the kingdom. Four hours later the
storm would have fallen upon the King and the leaders of the
Catholics of France." 3 The French Ambassador in Switzerland, M. de Bellievre, was also commissioned to lay before
the Swiss Diet, then assembled in Baden, the motives which
prompted him to such severity against the Huguenots. His
discourse on the occasion is still extant» He declares that
the execution ordered by the King was an act of justice,
rendered imperative by the conduct of Coligny and his associates. "They had formed a plot, he said, to introduce a
dangerous tyranny into the kingdom. His Majesty, therefore,
seeing the imminent danger to which his crown and life were
exposed, took the advice of the princes and officers of state,
1
This letter is published from the Vatican Archives, in continuation of the
Annals of Baronius, by Theiner, vol. i., page 336.
2
Theiner, i. 45.
3
This document was discovered in 1842, in the State Archives of Mons, and
was read by M. Gachard for the Academy of Sciences, in Brussels, on the 4th of
June ; 1842.

38
and with their counsel proceeded to exercise strict justice
against the leading conspirators." 1
We are not, however, without direct proof that the motive
of the rejoicings in the eternal city was the providential discovery and extinction of a dangerous conspiracy which aimed
at the lives and liberties of the Catholics of France. Soon
after the news of the massacre had reached Rome, the famous
latinist, Muretus, was selected to deliver the usual sermon at
one of the thanksgiving ceremonies, in presence of the Pope
and the Papal court, and his discourse has happily been preserved. A few of its sentences will suffice to set before us in
its true light the whole matter of this solemn thanksgiving :
" The Huguenots (he says) did not hesitate to conspire against
the life and liberty of that King, from whom, notwithstanding
thein atrocious deeds, they had received not only pardon, but
lfripfdness and affection. In which conspiracy, at the very time
tl$at they had marked out and decreed for carrying into effect
• t|ieir 'wicked design? the destruction which they had plotted
againsÇ the King, and against almost all of the royal house
and family, was turned upon the heads of the wicked
traitors themselves. Oh ! memorable the night which, by the
execution of a few seditious men, thus freed the sovereign
from imminent danger of murder, and the whole kingdom
from the incessant alarms of civil war."2
With these words before us, the whole course pursued by
the Sovereign Pontiff and the Roman people becomes clear
and intelligible. Were the deluded conspirators Catholics
instead of Huguenots, the same thanksgiving would have
been offered up, that God had vouchsafed to strengthen the
Most Christian King, and to avert so great a calamity from
his devoted Catholic nation. The Abbate di San Salvatore
was at this time in Rome, as agent of P^manuel Filibert, Duke
of Savoy. He writes to the Duke on the 5th of September,
1

M S S . National. St. Germain, 1247.
" Veritinon sunt ad versus illius regis caput ac salutem conjurare, a quo, post
tot atrocia facinora, non modo veniam consecuti erant, sed etiam bénigne et
amanter excepti. Qua conjuratione sub id ipsum tempus, quod patrando sceleri
dicatum ac constitutum est, in illorum sceleratorum ac foedifragorum capita id
quod ipsi in regem et in totam prope domum ac stirpem regiam machinabantur.
O noctem illam memorabilem, quae paucorum seditiosorum interitu regem a praesenti caedis periculo, regnum a perpétua civilium bellorum formidine liberavit...
O diem denique ilium plenum laetitiae et hilaritatis, quo tu, Beatissime Pater, hoc
ad t e nuncio allato, D e o immortali et divo Ludovico regi, cujus haec in ipso pervigilio evenerant, gratias acturus, indictas a te supplicationes pedestris obiisti. Quis
optabilior ad te nuncius adferri poterat ? aut nos ipsi quod felicius optare poteramus
principium Pontificatus tui, quam ut primis illius mensibus tetram caliginem,
quasi exorto sole, discussam cerneremus." {Opera M U R E T I , torn, i., page 197,
edit. Ruhnken).
2

39
157.2, informing him that the official news of the massacre had
that day reached Rome, and was received with unbounded
delight by all, " on account of the interests of the King of
France, and of the kingdom and the Church being at stake."
He adds, however, and his words abundantly prove that the
rejoicings in the eternal city were not the result of frenzy or
savage exultation at the wilful shedding of innocent blood ;
that " far greater would have been the satisfaction of everyone if his Majesty could, with safety, have attained his purpose without dispensing with the formalities of law. Nevertheless, everyone returns thanks to God, being persuaded of
the just intentions of his Majesty."1
It would be easy to add other testimonies to prove that
such was, indeed, the opinion prevalent in Rome, and such the
motive of the rejoicings and thanksgiving of the Papal court.
Early in the following century the celebrated Strada^ e x posed, in Rome, his History of the War in Flanders. Trèatjnjg
of the St. Bartholomew massacre, he styles it " a signal déèd
and a punishment deservedly incurred by a faction of consiM
rators against their sovereign."2 Pagi, in his Life of <Srego|y
XIII., also writes that that Pontiff viewed the massacre aâ: à
necessary act of self-defence of the French court, and, therefore, ordered the thanksgiving: " actis publiée Deo gratiis de
periculo a Colinii conjuratione evitato^
There were not wanting, indeed, some special reasons why
Rome should not regret that a just retribution had fallen on
Coligny and his associates. It had been for centuries the
anxious care of the Roman Pontiffs to combine the sovereigns of Europe in a holy league to check the advance
of the Moslem armies. The leaders of the so-called Reformation pursued a different course. Luther even went so far
as to avow his desire to enter into league with the Turks
against the Catholic powers, that thus he might in some way
weaken the influence of Rome, and he publicly preached that
to fight against the Turks was to war against God.4 True to
this evil policy of the Reformers, Coligny presented to the
King, in 1572, a memorial to dissuade him from attending to
the counsels of Rome, and urging him to marshal his armies
1

Archivio Storico Italiano, appendix, torn, iii., page 169.
" Insigne facinus sed meritum conjuratae in regem factioni supplicium.—Strada,
" De Bello Belgico," lib. vii. page 250.
3
Brev. Gest. Rom. Pontif. vi. 729.
4
Among the propositions which Luther refused to retract at the Diet of Worms,
1521, was the following, viz. : " Proeliari adversus Ttircas est repugnare Deo."
Opera Lutheri^ torn, ii., page 3 : Aztdin, " Life of Luther," page 174.
2

40

against Spain rather than against the Turks.T The Huguenot
leaders were also known to bë in secret league with the banditti who at this time infested the several states of Italy. So
numerous were these bands of freebooters, that their united
strength was supposed to be a match for an army df 30,000
men. Their attacks were principally directed against the
States of the Church, and their ravages often filled the citizens
of Rome with alarm. By the destruction which now fell upon
the Huguenots, the Italian bandits lost their chief support,
and being deprived of their war material and other resources,
the field soon became clear for their final overthrow.
Kotwithstanding these various motives, the Sovereign Pontiff, Gregory XIII., when freely treating of the occurrence
with his private friends, was far from approving of the St.
Bartholomew massacre : he even burst into tears, and said to
those around him : " Alas ! how can I be sure that some innocent souls may not have suffered with the guilty?" Maffei,
the annalist of this Pontiff's reign, having stated that Coligny's
death was announced to His Holiness, as "ordered by the
King, in defence of his own life and kingdom," 2 further assures
that although Rome was thus freed from a sworn enemy, yet
"the Pope showed a tempered joy, as when a diseased limb is
cut off with pain from the body." 3 Brantome's testimony is
equally conclusive; he thus writes: "touching the joy and
content the good and holy Pope showed concerning the massacre, I heard from a man of honour who was then in Rome,
and who knew the matter well, that when the news was
brought him he shed tears, not for joy, as men ordinarily do
in such cases, but through grief: and when some of those who
were present remonstrated that he should weep and be sad
on the news of the goodly execution of wicked men, enemies
of God and of His Holiness, 'Ah!' he said, 'I weep at the
course which the King has pursued, illegal and forbidden by
God, to inflict punishment in such a manner, and I fear lest
the like shall fall, and that before long, upon himself. I also
weep because, among so many victims, as many innocent as
guilty may have fallen.' " 4
Twelve days after the news of the massacre had reached the
1
De Thou, torn, vi., page 34. The Calvinists continued for a long time to
pursue the same policy. Even under Louis XIV. their great preacher, Jurieu,
declared that the Turks had received a divine mission to co-operate with the
Reformers in the great work of the Gospel : ' ' pour travailler avec les Reformés
au grand œuvre de Dieu."
2
" Per sicurezza della sua persona e quiete del regno."
3
Maffei, " Annali," lib. i., sec. 20.
4
Brantôme, "Mémoires de l'Amiral de Chatillon," torn, viii., p. 176,

41

Vatican, a partial Jubilee, with its special devotions and indulgences, was celebrated in the eternal city. Lord Acton,
and the enemies of the Holy See, assure us that this Jubilee
was granted by the Pope that the faithful might return thanks
to God fTor the murder of the Huguenots," and implore
courage and strength for Charles IX. to complete his good
work " by exterminating all the heretics that yet remainedin
the kingdom."1 You will deem it unnecessary for me to
remark that no such motives were assigned by His Holiness
for this Jubilee, and, indeed, no contemporary document, or
other ancient record, has dared to impute such motives to the
Pontiff. The whole statement rests on an artful interpretation of a passage in the Jubilee Bull, which invites the
faithful " to return thanks for the happy victory of the King
of France over his Huguenot enemies, and to pray that these
most noxious heresies may be entirely banished from that
kingdom, once so renowned for its religion and piety."2 It
needs no great acumen to understand how great a difference
there exists between " extirpating the heretics" and " banish*
ing heresy" from a Catholic kingdom : the latter alone, and
not the former, was commended to the prayers of the Roman
citizens. It is fortunate, however, in the interests of historic
truth, that one authentic document has come down to us
connected with this Jubilee, which of itself suffices to remove
all doubts as to the purposes for which it was granted. This
is the contemporary Diary of Francesco Mucanzio, Pontifical
Master of Ceremonies,3 who registered, day by day, the religious ceremonies as they were celebrated in Rome in 1572.
He informs us that on the 17th September, in that year, the
Jubilee began, which was ordered by His Holiness " for the
conversion of heretics, the success of the Christian armies
against the Turks, and the election of a king for Poland." 4
Thus it was not to rejoice in the murder of the Huguenots
that the Jubilee was celebrated, but to promote three great
religious purposes, dear to the heart of Pope Gregory X I I I .
The Turks, notwithstanding the overthrow at Lepanto, were
1
2

Lord Acton's Letters to the Times, November, 1874.
" Ad regnum antea religiosissimum a pestilentissimis haeresibus omnino expurgandum."
3
" Diaria Francisci Mucantii Caeremoniarum magistri." MS. preserved in the
Archives of the Gesù, Rome.
4
See "Revue des Questions Hist." 2dc livrais, p. 381. The Papal Medal,
which was struck on this occasion, bears the inscription, " In perduellos iterumque
nova molientes haereticos."—Bonanni, " Numismata Pontificia," i., 336. Thus it
was not the murder of the Heretics that was commemorated, but the triumph of
the King over his rebel subjects. Capefigue mentions another medal struck at this
time in France, with the French motto : " Charles IX. dompteur des rebelles,"
chap. 44.

42

at that moment menacing a new invasion of Europe; whilst the
election of a King of Poland was to take place in a few weeks,
and from it, too, depended, in a manner, the fate of all Catholic
Europe: no wonder, indeed, that the Pope should ask the
faithful to redouble their fervent prayers in such à crisis of
^fciety as of the Church. Moreover, it was hoped that as the
Huguenots relied on the arm of the flesh for their religious
tenets, their conversion might result from their recent humiliation, and, therefore, His Holiness makes this, too, one of the
great intentions of the Jubilee, and urges the citizens to offer
their prayers that God would look down in mercy upon
France, and restore its straying sons to the one true fold.
From all this it must be sufficiently manifest that it is a
vile calumny against the Roman Pontiffs to assert that the
Papal court and the people of Rome rejoiced at the coldblooded assassination of the French Huguenots.
4. There is one other matter which merits our attention
before we close : it is the principle which guided the conduct,
and subsequently became the plea of justification, of the
French monarch, Charles IX. This was none other than the
principle of assassination legalized by the command of the
sovereign. At the present day, as in the ages of Faith, the
bare mention of such a principle suffices to excite a thrill of
horror, but it was far otherwise in the first century of the
Reformed creed, when the influence of religion was weakened,
and passion and frenzy obtained full mastery over men's
minds.
It is not too much to say, that that foul principle of assassination had become a recognised rule of the degenerate
diplomacy and corrupt court life of the period of which we
treat, a principle, moreover, of which the Huguenots of France
and the Protestants of England had but little reason to
complain. Indeed, as well in theory as in practice, it was
adopted by the Huguenots themselves, and throughout all
Europe none were found to reject the assassin's ministry save
those who, not merely in fancy and in name, but in reality
and in truth, were loyal children of the Catholic Church.
But before I enter on this subject I wish to cite for you the
words of Baron Hubner, who, in our own days, has been
distinguished alike as historian and diplomatist. In his " Life
of Sixtus the Fifth" he thus writes : " What would now-a-days
be said of a government which would allow a man's life to be
taken without having him previously tried ? It would be
universally condemned, or rather such a contingency is no
longer possible. It was not always so. Even in the time of
the Guises, the Sovereign was looked upon as the supreme

43
judge, who, it is true, had bequeathed his rights to compete&t
tribunals, but who could dispense with their aid whenever'lthe
public safety, or that of his own person, seemed to require it" 1
When v the Duke of Guise, the leader of the French Catholics, had taken the city of Rouen, in 1562, a^Huguen^t
gentleman attempted to stab him with a poignard, but vm$
taken in the act. In excuse he pleaded that he made this
attempt, not through any personal spite, but solely ia, the
interests of his religion. "Well," replied the Duke, "I will
show you that my religion is more generous than yours. '¥ou
say that your religion bids you kill me, who have done you
no harm ; now mine commands me to pardon you, who have
sought my life :" and so saying, he set him at liberty. Two
months later this great Catholic leader was assassinated by
another Huguenot, named Poltrot, who, before execution,
avowed that he was employed to perpetrate this deed of blood
by the Admiral Coligny,2 and that the Calvinist preacher,
Beza, had commended and encouraged him in its execution.
Sismondi is forced to admit this fact, but he seeks to exculpate
the great Calvinist Reformer by the principles and maxims of
the age.3
The next Duke of Guise, who also was the life %nd soul of
the Catholic party, met his death in like manner at the hands
of an assassin. We have seen that in the terrible deeds of
the St. Bartholomew massacre, the Duke of Anjou, brother'of
the King, took a leading part. He subsequently mounted
the French throne as Henry the Third, and jealous of the
popularity of the Duke of Guise, and the success which everywhere attended his arms, caused him to be assassinated,
together with his brother the Cardinal de Guise. He even
wrote to his ambassador in Rome to justify the horrid deed,
1

Hubner,
" Sixtus the Fifth," i. 22. English edition. London, 1872.
7rognojt, though an admirer of Coligny, writes that " l a haute raison de
Coligny était à ce point troublée par le fanatisme, qu'elle ne désavouait point la
doctrine perverse du tyrannicide."
' ' H i s t o i r e de France," torn. 3, p . 280.
Martin makes a somewhat similar apology for Coligny: " Coligny n'avait pas
suggéré le fait consommé, mais il croyait à la légitimité du tyrannicide inspiré par
le ciel." " H i s t o i r e de F r a n c e , " ix. 154. Lavallee, however, w r i t e s : " Coligny
laissa comprendre qu'il connaissait les menaces de Poltrot, qu'il l'avait mis à
même de les accomplir et qu'il n'en ressentait pas d'horreur." " Histoire des
Français," i., 570. Revue des Questions Hist., i., 35.
3
White, " Massacre," p. 228, contends that the statement of Poltrot in regard
to Coligny was made in the hope of pardon, but admits '"that Coligny assented, if
he did not consent, to the crime." H e adds : " This may diminish the lofty
moral pedestal on which some writers have placed the Protestant hero ; but he
was a man, and had all a man's failings... T h e murder was openly defended (by
the Huguenots), Poltrot was compared to Judith, and ballads were sung in his
praise." T h e " H i s t o i r e de l'Eglise Gallicane," liv. xix., p . 956, proves that
Poltrot was the agent of the whole Huguenot body.
2

44
^sclaring that it was " not only lawful but pious, seeing, that
itlfed for its object to insure the peace of the public by the
death of a private individual."—(Letter of Henry to the
French Ambassador, Pisany, December 24th, 1588). Seven
months later, Henry the Third was himself assassinated, and
Hfgiry of Navarre, the hope of the Huguenots, became sovereign of France.
Neither can it be said that the English reformed courtiers
were strangers to the use of the secret dagger and to the principle
of assassination. When the youthful Reginald Poole, having
completed his studies on the Continent, paid his first visit to
his near kinsman Henry VIII., and when the hum of flattery
was heard around him on every side, and the highest dignities
of the Church of England were marked out as already within
his reach, Thomas Cromwell, taking him aside, presented to
him a copy of the Prince of Macchiavelli, telling him that
that precious work should be his guide and text-book if he
aspired to be a true servant of his royal master.1 Happy
for Poole that he chose higher and nobler principles, but yet
Cromwell had stated the truth, for Macchiavelli's teaching
was adopted as the rule of the English Court, and marked out
the only high road to honours and emoluments in Church
and State. I need not add that the principle of assassination,
when judged expedient by the royal authority, is broadly and
openly justified in the pages of the unprincipled Florentine.
Let us see, however, how his teaching was put into practice
by the courtiers of Elizabeth at the period of which we
treat.
A few days after the St. Bartholomew massacre, the
English Ambassador, Walsingham, wrote to Queen Elizabeth,
suggesting that Mary Queen of Scots, now a prisoner in her
hands, should be privately assassinated—" certain unsound
members," he says, " must be cut off, for violent diseases will
have violent remedies." The Bishop of London, Edwin Sandys,
added his prayer to Burleigh in the same strain: " furthwith
to cutte off the Scottish quene's heade : ipsa est nostri fundi
calamitas." 2 Nor did her Majesty lend an unwilling ear to
these suggestions. She, without delay, sent her trusty agent
Killigrew into Scotland, ostensibly to compose some differences that had arisen between the Regent and the Earl of Huntley,
but in reality, as the State Papers have placed beyond the
reach of doubt, to make arrangements with the reformed
1
This fact is mentioned by Cardinal Quirini in the preface to his noble edition
of the letters of Cardinal Poole.
2
Ellis, " Original Letters," 2nd series, iii. 25.

45
leaders in Scotland for the assassination of her august prisoner:,
Mary Stuart. 1
The same principle held a prominent place in' the polity of
Elizabeth in regard to Ireland, and every student of our
history isj?now familiar with the repeated efforts of assassination
directed against Florence MacCarthy, Hugh O'Neil, and the
other Irish chieftains. The State Papers make s t r a n g l e velations on this head. At one time we have an Englishman,
in the pay of Sir Robert Cecyl, obtaining letters of introduction
to the leading Jesuits in Ireland, and then with their commendation enrolling himself in the order of St. Francis, and all
this that he might " get an opportunity of poisoning Hugh
O'Neil." Another time, with the sanction and approval of her
Majesty's Council, an assassin receives £10 from the Lord
President of Munster, and being " furnished with a pistol out
of the Queen's store, loaded by an experienced hand," sets
out to murder John Fitz-Thomas, brother of the Earl of
Desmond. Again, we have John Annyas set free from London
Tower, and starting for Cork, with letters from her Majesty's
ministers to administer poison to Florence MacCarthy. 2 And
so in innumerable other cases. Indeed, the history of the
policy of the English court towards Ireland, throughout the
long reign of Elizabeth, may be traced in an endless series of
such attempts at assassination and other legalized crimes of
the deepest dye.
What a contrast is presented to us by the policy of the
successor of St. Peter, who rules on the seven hills ! Whilst
Elizabeth was employing all her power against the Church of
God, both at home and on the Continent, the agents of some
great European powers suggested to the then reigning Pontiff,
Sixtus V., that the hand of the assassin would without trouble
rid the world of such a monster, but he indignantly spurned the
suggestion: " He told Pisany/'thus writes Baron Hubner, "that
several times it had been proposed to him to assassinate her,
1
" Of Marr the Regent, it has been said that he was too honest a man to pander
to the jealousies or resentments of the English queen, and resolutely turned a deaf
ear to the hints and suggestion of the envoy. Recent discoveries have, however,
proved that, if at the first he affected to look upon the project as attended with
difficulty and peril, he afterwards entered into it most cordially, and sought to
drive a profitable bargain with Elizabeth."—Lingard, vi. 140. Full details of this
assassination policy of the English Court, in reference to the Queen of Scots, will
be found in " T h e Letter-Books of Sir Amias Poulet," edited by Rev. J . Morris,
S.J. London, 1874.
2
Extracts from the State Papers and other contemporary records, to illustrate the
examples given in the text, will be found in the " L i f e and Letters of Florence
MacCarthy Mor," by Daniel MacCarthy.
London, 1867, pp. 286-307.

46

and for a small sum, but that he had rejected such proposals,
devesting and abhorring means of that kind. ,n
5. *Ahd here a few words may not be out of place, as to a
càlumnjous attack which has been rashly made against the
memory of another great and holy Pope, St. Pius V. Lord
Acton does - not hesitate to write of that illustrious Pontiff:
" Jpus V., the only Pope who has been proclaimed a saint for
marîy centuries, having deprived Elizabeth, commissioned an
assassin to take her life." He was asked to assign his proofs
for such an accusation, and in his reply he gives the case of
Ridolfi as his only proof. Now the whole rase of Ridolfi has
been a long time well known to English historians, and yet
not one of them has ever dared to ground on it such a charge
against the cherished memory of Pope St. Pius V. We are
told that even Elizabeth esteemed the virtues of that sainted
Pontiff, and when he issued the sentence of excommunication
against her, she stated that her only regret was, that it had
proceeded from a Pope of such well known piety as Pius V.2
Ridolfi was an Italian merchant resident in London. The
friends of Mary Stuart and the Duke of Norfolk chose him
as their agent to solicit aid in men and arms from the Pope and
from Philip II. of Spain. His chief commission; addressed to
the Pope and the King of Spain, was signed by the Duke of
Norfolk, a Protestant nobleman, then a prisoner in the
Tower. It is published by Labanofif, and has not one syllable
that even indirectly could be supposed to hint at the assassination of the Queen. Ridolfi was coldly received in Rome. 3
The Pontiff could not hold out a promise of the desired
aid, but he wrote to Philip II. commending to his protection
this mission of Ridolfi. The King of Spain smiled at the
idea of such a commission being addressed to him by one who
was a prisoner in Elizabeth's hands, and summoned Ridolfi
to explain in person before his council what hopes could be
entertained of success, and how far the friends of the Duke of
Norfolk would be able on their part to co-operate with the
troops of Spain. Ridolfi was so vague and extravagant in his
statements, that Philip at once supposed him to be a secret
agent of Elizabeth. It was on this occasion that Ridolfi
spoke of a project which had been suggested by some friends
of the imprisoned nobleman, to seize on the person of the
Queen, and to keep her as a hostage for the safety of Mary
Stuart, and if necessary to put her to death. So manifest
was it, however, that this formed no part of his commission,
1

Hubner, " Life of Sixtus V.," i. 350.
z
Lineard, vi. 128.

2

Bechetti, xii. 108.

47
that although the details of RidolfVs interview with '-the
Spanish council were quickly conveyed to Elizabeth, yet in^he
subsequent trials of the Duke of Norfolk an;d the Qûeèn of
Scots, and so many of her friends, no such commission \yas
referred to, and no such project of assassination was laid t4their
charge. I will not detain you with further details <0 th;s
subject. Suffice it to say, that in all the documents conneçÊcl
with Ridolfi, whether in the British Museum or at Simarfcas,
there is not the slightest trace of any rumour or suspicion that
the Pope had approved of a scheme of assassination ; no' hint
is even given that Ridolfi was himself an intended assassin,
and much less is there to be found the shadow of a suspicion
that " St. Pius V. commissioned an assassin to take the life of
Elizabeth."
6. There are many other points on which it would be interesting to dwell in connection with the St. Bartholomew Massacre»
But it is time that I should bring this tedious paper to a close ;
and I trust that enough has been said to convince you that
that terrible deed of blood was not decreed by the Holy See,
nor carried into execution in the interests of the Catholic
Church. The punishment which fell upon the Huguenots
was a just retribution for their long career of conspiracies and
assassinations, but it proceeded solely from the intrigues of
the court, and was conformable to the false maxims of Protestant and Macchiavellian policy which then'prevailed.
And now, in conclusion, allow me to congratulate you on
the ardour with which you have entered on the historical
pursuits of your Society, from which I trust that each one of
you will derive the most abundant fruits. For three centuries
history in these countries has been little more than a conspiracy against truth. You will, therefore, need great caution
in accepting the statements of English historians, even when
their statements seem to be only remotely connected with the
Catholic Church, but much more so when they openly assail
those illustrious Pontiffs who steered the bark of Peter amid
the shoals and quicksands of the heresies that arose in the sixteenth century. Listen not to their assertions until you have
closely examined them in the light of authentic contemporary
records ; and even when supposed documents are presented
to you, as sometimes happens, replete with calumnies against
the Holy See, be still upon your guard ; accept them not on
the word of anyone, no matter how eminent may be his name,
but test their genuineness, and apply to them the critical
rules which must be our guide in historical research. Take
one instance to justify this counsel which I have given you.
There was a class of men in the Italian schools of the seven-

48

teenth century, who being enamoured of the latitudinarian
maxims which sprang up in the reformed sects, secretly bid
adieu to morality and divine Faith, and became in their turn
active propagandists of irreligion. One of the arts to which
they had recourse in order to discredit the Holy See, which
they instinctively recognised as the mainstay of religion and
social order, was the following:—They invented a number of
Papal Briefs and official despatches, in which the style of the
supposed authors was carefully imitated, and dates were
attached corresponding to the matters of which they treated.
In these documents, copies of which were industriously circulated in the various schools of Italy and Germany, lying
tales were told which had no foundation except in the
wicked fancy of these propagandists of impiety; and it is
to such sources that we may trace most of: the charges which
are repeated at the present day against some of our greatest
Pontiffs. It is on such documents that the enemies of the Holy
See rely ; and yet, as a German historian, to whom I have
already more than once referred, describes them : " They present to us mere idle fables which bear the print of vulgar ignorance, and resemble the popular tales which are generally told
in Germany at country fairs, but notwithstanding their
absurdity, eminent authors have actually reproduced them."?
1

Huhner, " Life of Sixtus V.," vol. i., p. 15.

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