"O my brother, I do now perceive that I am indeed beloved of my God, since for his most holy sake I am wounded."
Although the Vidam advised him to fly, yet he abode in Paris, and was soon after slain by Bemjus; who afterward
declared he never saw a man meet death more valiantly than
the admiral. The soldiers were appointed at a certain signal to burst
out instantly to the slaughter in all parts of the city. When they
had killed the admiral, they threw him out at a window into the street,
where his head was cut off, and sent to the pope. The savage papists,
still raging against him, cut off his arms and private members, and,
after dragging him three days through the streets, hung him up by the
heels without the city. After him they slew many great and honourable
persons who were protestants; as count Rochfoucault, Telinius,
the admiral's son-in-law, Antonius, Clarimontus, marquis of Ravely,
Lewes Bussius, Bandineus, Pluvialius, Burneius, &c. &c. and falling
upon the common people, they continued the slaughter for many days;
in the three first, they slew of all ranks and conditions to the number
of 10,000. The bodies were thrown into the rivers, and blood ran
through the streets with a strong current, and the river appeared
presently like a stream of blood. So furious was their hellish rage,
that they slew all papists whom they suspected to be not very staunch
to their diabolical religion. From Paris the destruction spread to all
quarters of the realm.
At Orleans, a thousand were slain of men, women, and children,
and 6000 at Rouen.
At Meldith, two hundred were put into prison, and brought out by
units, and cruelly murdered.
At Lyons, eight hundred were massacred. Here children hanging
about their parents, and parents affectionately embracing their
children, were pleasant food for the swords and blood-thirsty minds of
those who call themselves the catholic church. Here 300 were slain
only in the bishop's house; and the impious monks would suffer none
to be buried.
At Augustobona, on the people hearing of the massacre at Paris, they
shut their gates that no protestants might escape, and searching diligently
for every individual of the reformed church, imprisoned and then barbarously murdered them. The same cruelty they practised at
Avaricum, at Troys, at Thoulouse, Rouen and many other places, running
from city to city, towns, and villages, through the kingdom.
As a corroboration of this horrid carnage, the following interesting
narrative, written by a sensible and learned Roman catholic, appears
in this place, with peculiar propriety.
"The nuptials (says he) of the young king of Navarre with the French king's sister, was solemnized with pomp; and all the endearments, all the assurances of friendship, all the oaths sacred among men, were profusely lavished by Catharine, the queen-mother, and by the king; during which, the rest of the court thought of nothing but festivities, plays, and masquerades. At last, at twelve o'clock at night, on the eve of St. Bartholomew, the signal was given. Immediately all the houses of the protestants were forced open at once. Admiral Coligni, alarmed by the uproar jumped out of bed; when a company of assassins rushed in his chamber. They were headed by one Besme, who had been bred up as a domestic in the family of the Guises. This wretch thrust his sword into the admiral's breast, and also cut him in the face. Besme was a German, and being afterwards taken by the protestants, the Rochellers would have bought him, in order to hang and quarter him; but he was killed by one Bretanville. Henry, the young duke of Guise, who afterwards framed the catholic league, and was murdered at Blois, standing at the door till the horrid butchery should be completed, called aloud, 'Besme! is it done?' Immediately after which, the ruffians threw the body out of the window, and Coligni expired at Guise's feet.
Count de Teligny also fell a sacrifice. He had married, about ten months before, Coligni's daughter. His countenance was so engaging, that the ruffians, when they advanced in order to kill him, were struck with compassion; but others, more barbarous, rushing forward, murdered him.
In the meantime, all the friends of Coligni were assassinated throughout Paris; men, women, and children, were promiscuously slaughtered; every street was strewed with expiring bodies. Some priests, holding up a crucifix in one hand, and a dagger in the other, ran to the chiefs of the murderers, and strongly exhorted them to spare neither relations nor friends.
Tavannes, marshal of France, an ignorant, superstitious soldier, who joined the fury of religion to the rage of party, rode on horseback through the streets of Paris, crying to his men, 'Let blood! let blood! bleeding is as wholesome in August as in May.' In the memoirs of the life of this enthusiastic, written by his son, we are told, that the father, being on his death-bed, and making a general confession of his actions, the priest said to him, with surprise, 'What! no mention of St. Bartholomew's massacre?' to which Tavannes replied, 'I consider it as a meritorious action, that will wash away all my sins.' Such horrid sentiments can a false spirit of religion inspire!
The king's palace was one of the chief scenes of the butchery: the king of Navarre had his lodgings in the Louvre, and all his domestics were protestants. Many of these were killed in bed with their wives; others, running away naked, were pursued by the soldiers through the several rooms of the palace, even to the king's antichamber. The young wife of Henry of Navarre, awaked by the dreadful uproar, being afraid for her consort, and for her own life, seized with horror, and half dead, flew from her bed, in order to throw herself at the feet of the king her brother. But scarce had she opened her chamber-door, when some of her protestant domestics rushed in for refuge. The soldiers immediately followed, pursued them in sight of the princess, and killed one who had crept under her bed. Two others, being wounded with halberds, fell at the queen's feet, so that she was covered with blood.
Count de la Rochefoucault, a young nobleman, greatly in the king's favour for his comely air, his politeness, and a certain peculiar happiness in the turn of his conversation, had spent the evening till eleven o'clock with the monarch, in pleasant familiarity; and had given a loose, with the utmost mirth, to the sallies of his imagination. The monarch felt some remorse, and being touched with a kind of compassion, bid him, two or three times, not to go home, but lie in the Louvre. The count said, he must go to his wife; upon which the king pressed him no farther, but said, 'Let him go! I see God has decreed his death.' And in two hours after he was murdered.
Very few of the protestants escaped the fury of their enthusiastic persecutors. Among these was young La Force (afterwards the famous Marshal de la Force) a child about ten years of age, whose deliverance was exceedingly remarkable. His father, his elder brother, and himself were seized together by the Duke of Anjou's soldiers. These murderers flew at all three, and struck them at random, when they all fell, and lay one upon another. The youngest did not receive a single blow, but appearing as if he was dead, escaped the next day; and his life, thus wonderfully preserved, lasted four score and five years.
Many of the wretched victims fled to the water-side, and some swam over the Seine to the suburbs of St. Germaine. The king saw them from his window, which looked upon the river, and fired upon them with a carbine that had been loaded for that purpose by one of his pages; while the queen-mother, undisturbed and serene in the midst of slaughter, looking down from a balcony, encouraged the murderers and laughed at the dying groans of the slaughtered. This barbarous queen was fired with a restless ambition, and she perpetually shifted her party in order to satiate it.
Some days after this horrid transaction, the French court endeavoured to palliate it by forms of law. They pretended to justify the massacre by a calumny, and accused the admiral of a conspiracy, which no one believed. The parliament was commanded to proceed against the memory of Coligni; and his dead body was hung in chains on Montfaucon gallows. The king himself went to view this shocking spectacle; when one of his courtiers advising him to retire, and complaining of the stench of the corpse, he replied, 'A dead enemy smells well.' — The massacres on St. Bartholomew's day are painted in the royal saloon of the Vatican at Rome, with the following inscription: Pontifex Coligni necem probat, i. e. 'The pope approves of Coligni's death.'
The young king of Navarre was spared through policy, rather than from the pity of the queen-mother, she keeping him prisoner till the king's death, in order that he might be as a security and pledge for the submission of such protestants as might effect their escape.
This horrid butchery was not confined merely to the city of Paris. The like orders were issued from court to the governors of all the provinces in France; so that, in a week's time, about one hundred thousand protestants were cut to pieces in different parts of the kingdom! Two or three governors only refused to obey the king's orders. One of these, named Montmorrin, governor of Auvergne, wrote the king the following letter, which deserves to be transmitted to the latest posterity.
Sire — I have received an order, under your majesty's seal, to put to death all the protestants in my province. I have too much respect for your majesty, not to believe the letter a forgery; but if (which God forbid) the order should be genuine, I have too much respect for your majesty to obey it."
At Rome the horrid joy was so great, that they appointed a day of
high festival, and a jubilee, with great indulgence to all who kept it
and showed every expression of gladness they could devise! and the
man who first carried the news received 1000 crowns of the
cardinalof Lorrain for his ungodly message. The king also commanded the day to be kept with every demonstration of joy, concluding now that the whole race of Huguenots was extinct.
cardinalof Lorrain for his ungodly message. The king also commanded the day to be kept with every demonstration of joy, concluding now that the whole race of Huguenots was extinct.
Many who gave great sums of money for their ransom were immediately
after slain; and several towns, which were under the king's
promise of protection and safety, were cut off as soon as they delivered
themselves up, on those promises, to his generals or captains.
At Bordeaux, at the instigation of a villanous monk, who used to
urge the papists to slaughter in his sermons, 264 were cruelly
murdered; some of them senators. Another of the same pious fraternity
produced a similar slaughter at Agendicum, in Maine, where the
populace at the holy inquisitors' satanical suggestion, ran upon the
protestants, slew them, plundered their houses, and pulled down their church.
The duke of Guise, entering into Bloise, suffered his soldiers to fly
upon the spoil, and slay or drown all the protestants they could find.
In this they spared neither age nor sex; defiling the women, and then
murdering them; from whence he went to Mere, and committed the
same outrages for many days together. Here they found a minister
named Cassebonius, and threw him into the river.
At Anjou, they slew Albiacus, a minister; and many women were
defiled and murdered there; among whom were two sisters, abused before
their father, whom the assassins bound to a wall to see them, and
then slew them and him.
The president of Turin, after giving a large sum for his life, was cruelly
beaten with clubs, stripped of his clothes, and hung feet upwards,
with his head and breast in the river: before he was dead, they opened
his belly, plucked out his entrails, and threw them into the river; and
then carried his heart about the city upon a spear.
At Barre great cruelty was used, even to young children, whom they
cut open, pulled out their entrails, which through very rage they knawed
with their teeth. Those who had fled to the castle, when they yielded,
were almost all hanged. Thus they did at the city of Matiscon;
counting it sport to cut off their arms and legs and afterward kill them;
and for the entertainment of their visiters, they often threw the protestants
from a high bridge into the river, saying, "Did you ever see men leap so well?"
At Penna, after promising them safety, 300 were inhumanly
butchered; and five and forty at Albin, on the Lord's day. At
Nonne, though it yielded on conditions of safeguard, the most horrid
spectacles were exhibited. Persons of both sexes and conditions
were indiscriminately murdered; the streets ringing with doleful
cries, and flowing with blood; and the houses flaming with fire, which
the abandoned soldiers had thrown in. One woman, being dragged
from her hiding place with her husband, was first abused by the
brutal soldiers, and then with a sword which they commanded her
to draw, they forced it while in her hands into the bowels of her
husband.
At Samarobridge, they murdered above 100 protestants, after promising
them peace; and at Antisidor, 100 were killed, and cast part
into a jakes, and part into a river. One hundred put into prison at Orleans,
were destroyed by the furious multitude.
The protestants at Rochelle, who were such as had miraculously
escaped the rage of hell, and fled there, seeing how ill they fared who
submitted to those holy devils, stood for their lives; and some other
cities, encouraged thereby, did the like. Against Rochelle, the king
sent almost the whole power of France, which besieged it seven
months, though, by their assaults, they did very little execution on
the inhabitants, yet, by famine, they destroyed eighteen thousand out
of two and twenty. The dead being too numerous for the living to
bury, became food for vermin and carnivorous birds. Many taking
their coffins into the church yard, laid down in them, and breathed
their last. Their diet had long been what the minds of those in
plenty shudder at; even human flesh entrails, dung, and the most
loathsome things, became at last the only food of those champions for
that truth and liberty, of which the world was not worthy. At every
attack, the besiegers met with such an intrepid reception, that they
left 132 captains, with a proportionate number of men, dead in the
field. The siege at last was broken up at the request of the duke of
Anjou, the king's brother, who was proclaimed king of Poland, and the
king, being wearied out, easily complied, whereupon honourable conditions
were granted them.
It is a remarkable interference of Providence, that, in all this dreadful
massacre, not more than two ministers of the gospel were involved
in it.
The tragical sufferings of the protestants are too numerous to detail;
but the treatment of Philip de Deux will give an idea of the
rest. After the miscreants had slain this martyr in his bed, they went
to his wife, who was then attended by the midwife, expecting every moment
to be delivered. The midwife entreated them to stay the murder,
at least till the child, which was the twentieth, should be born. Notwithstanding
this, they thrust a dagger up to the hilt into the poor woman.
Anxious to be delivered, she ran into a corn loft; but hither they
pursued her, stabbed her in the belly, and then threw her into the street.
By the fall, the child came from the dying mother, and being caught
up by one of the catholic ruffians, he stabbed the infant, and then threw
it into the river.
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