point of glory after the Battel of Dreux where it might be said that he was the safeguard of our Religion which depended on that day's success and that all the Council was fill'd with the applause of that Heroe for so memorable a Victory which he had in a manner gain'd singly after the defeat and taking of the Constable he believ'd he had found the favourable occasion he so ardently desir'd to satisfie his ambition to the full by â—aising his Brother to that degree of Honour in which he might enjoy a Supreme and Independent Authority equal to the power of the greatest Kings To this effect he was not wanting to represent to the Heads of that Assembly and by them to the Pope that for the support of Religion against which the Heretiques made so cruel War particularly in France there was no better means than to make a League into which shou'd enter all the Princes and great men whom they cou'd procure and above all the rest the King of Spain who was so powerfull and so zealous for the Catholique Faith He added that it was necessary for the Pope to declare himself the Protectour of it and to elect a Head of it in the Kingdom on whose Piety Prudence Valour and Experience all things might safely be repos'd and whom all Catholiques shou'd be under an obligation to obey till they had totally extirpated the Huguenots This proposal was receiv'd with great applause and as their minds in that juncture of time were wholly prepossess'd with a high character of the wise conduct the perpetual felicity and heroique vertues of the Victorious Duke of Guise there was not the least scruple remaining for them to conclude that he alone was fit to be the Head of â—o glorious an Undertaking But the sad news of his Death arriving in the very upshot of that project made this great design to vanish which the Cardinal who never lost the imagination of it nor the hope to make it succeed at some other time was not able to bring in play again till about ten or eleven years after that accident And then sound the young Duke of Guise Henry of Lorrain his Nephew both of age and of capacity and intirely dispos'd to its accomplishment For at that time he propos'd warmly the same design to the Pope and the King of Spain who both enter'd without difficulty into his opinion though upon motives very different The Pope out of the ardent desire he had to see Heresie altogether exterminated from this most Christian Kingdom and the Spaniard out of a longing appetite to make his advantage of our divisions and those great disorders which he foresaw the League must inevitably cause in France The Duke also on his side who had much more ambition and much less affection to the publique good than his Father embrac'd with all his Soul so fair an occasion as was thereby put into his hand of raising himself immediately to so high a degree of Power and Authority in becoming Head of a Party which in all appearance wou'd ruine all the others and give Law universally to France But the Death of his Uncle the Cardinal which happen'd at the same time broke once more the measures of his ambitious design which notwithstanding he never did forsake as being fully resolv'd to put it into execution on the first opportunity which shou'd be offer'd This he cou'd not find till two years afterwards when Don Iohn of Austria pass'd through France to take possession of his government of the Low Countries That Prince who travell'd incognito and had already made a secret correspondence with the Duke of Guise saw him at Ioinville where after some conferences which they had together without other witness than Iohn d' Escovedo Secretary to Don Iohn they made a Treaty of alliance offensive and defensive mutually to assist each other to their utmost Abilities with their Friends their Power and Forces to render themselves absolute the first in his government of the Neatherlands the second in that party which he always hop'd to form in France according to the project of his Uncle under pretence of maintaining the Catholique Religion in France against the Huguenots Though Historians are silent of this Treaty I suppose notwithstanding that it is undoubtedly true considering what Monsieur de Peiresc a name so celebrated by the learned has written concerning it in his memoires which was grounded on what was related to him by Monsieur du Vair who had it from Antonio Perez For that famous Confident of the Amours betwixt Philip the second and the fair Princess of Eboli acknowledg'd freely to President du Vair that to revenge himself of unfortunate Escovedo who at his return to Spain wou'd have ruin'd him in the favour of the King he gave him so well to understand that this Secretary of Don Iohn was intrusted with all his most secret designs against the State and that having discover'd the love of the King his Master he travers'd his amorous intrigue to serve the Prince of Eboli on whom he had dependance that Philip who made not the least scruple to rid himself of any one whom he suspected as having not spar'd even his Son Don Carlos made him be assassinated After which having seiz'd his Papers he there found this private Treaty together with the memoires and instructions containing the whole foundation and all the minutes of this project with the means which the Duke of Guise intended to make use of to make his Enterprise succeed of which that King who made advantage of every thing most dexterously serv'd himself long time after to engage the Duke so deeply in his Interests that he was never able to disentangle himself as the sequel will declare But in the mean time that Peace so advantageous to the Protestants being made in the manner above mention'd the Duke beleiv'd he had now a fair occasion to begin by making use of the discontents of the Catholiques the forming of that League of which he intended aâ—terwards to declare himself the Head How he manag'd that affair is next to be related Amongst the secret Articles of that Peace so favourable to the Huguenots there was one by which the Prince of Conde had granted to him the full possession of the Government of Picardy and besides it for his farther security the important City of Peronne the Garrison of which shou'd be maintain'd at the King's expence The Governour of Peronne at that time was Iaques Lord of Humieres Encre Bray and many other places who by other large possessions of his own and the Governments of Roye and of Montdidier added to Peronne was without dispute the most considerable the wealthiest and most powerfull Lord of all Picardy Besides that being of an illustrious Birth and Son of the Wise and Valiant Iohn d' Humieres who had been Lieutenant of the King in Piemont and Governour to King Henry the Second he was respected lov'd and obey'd in that Province where
Hosts it was always unsuccesfull in the Battels which it strooke against the lawfull power And at length overwhelm'd with the same Engines which it had rais'd for the destruction of the Government Truly 't is a surprising thing to find both in the design and sequel of the League by a miraculous order of the divine providence revolutions altogether contrary to those which were expected On the one side the majestique House of Bourbon which was design'd for ruine gloriously rais'd to that supreme degree of power in which we now behold it flourishing to the wonder of the World and on the other side that of two eminent Families which endeavour'd their own advancement by its destruction the one is already debas'd to the lowest degree and the other almost reduc'd to nothing So different are the designs of God from those of men and so little is there to be built on the foundations of humane policy and prudence when men have onely passion for their guides under the counterfeit names of Piety and Religion 'T is what I shall make evident by unravelling the secrets and intrigues couch'd under the League by exposing its criminal and ill manag'd undertakings which were almost always unsuccessfull and by shewing in the close the issue it had entirely opposite to its designs by the exaltation of those whom it endeavour'd to oppress But is will be first necessary to consider in what condition France then was when this dangerous Association was first form'd against the supreme Authority of our Kings The â—ury of the Civil Wars which had laid the Kingdom desolate under the reign of Charles the Ninth seem'd to have almost wholly been extinguish'd after the fourth Edict of pacification which was made at the Siege of Rochell and if the State was not altogether in a Calm yet at least it was not toss'd in any violence of Tempest when after the decease of the said King his Brother Henry then King of Poland return'd to France and took possession of a Crown devolv'd on him by the right of Inheritance He was a Prince who being then betwixt the years of 23 and 24 was endu'd with all Qualities and perfections capable of rendring him one of the greatest and most accomplish'd Monarchs in the World For besides that his person was admirably shap'd that he was tall of Stature majestique in his Carriage that the sound of his Voice his Eyes and all the features of his Face were infinitely sweet that he had a solid Judgment a most happy Memory a clear and discerning Understanding that in his behaviour he had all the winning Graces which are requir'd in a Prince to attract the love and respect of Subjects 'T is also certain that no man cou'd possibly be more Liberal more Magnificent more Valiant more Courteous more addicted to Religion or more Eloquent than he was naturally and without Art To sum up all he had wanted nothing to make himself and his Kingdom happy had he followed those wholsome Counsels which were first given him and had he still retain'd the noble ambition of continuing at least what he was formerly under the glorious name of the Duke of Anjou which he had render'd so renown'd by a thousand gallant actions and particularly by the famous Victories of Iarnac and Montcontour The world was fill'd with those high Ideas which it had conceiv'd of his rare merit expecting from him the re-establishment of the Monarchy in its ancient splendour and nothing was capable of weakning that hope but onely the cruel Massacre of St. Bartholomew whereof he had been one of the most principal Authours which had render'd him extremely odious to the Protestants And therefore in his return from Poland the Emperour Maximilian the Second who rul'd the Empire in great tranquillity notwithstanding the diversity of opinions which divided his cares betwixt the Catholiques and the Lutherans the Duke of Venice and the most judicious members of that august Senate which is every where renown'd for prudence and after his return to France the Presidents De Thou and Harlay the two Advocates General Pibraâ— and du Mesnil and generally all those who were most passionate for his greatness and the good of his Estate advis'd him to give peace to his Subjects of the Religion pretendedly Reform'd to heal and cement that gaping wound which had run so much bloud in that fatal day of St. Bartholomew and not to replunge his Kingdom in that gulf of miseries wherein it was almost ready to have perish'd But the Chancellour de Birague the Cardinal of Lorrain and his Nephew the Duke of Guise who at that time had no little part in the esteem and favour of his Master and above all the Queen Mother Catharine de Mediâ—es who entirely govern'd him and who after the Massacre of St. Bartholomew dar'd no longer to trust the Protestants These I say ingag'd him in the War which he immediately made against them and which was unsuccessfull to him So that after he had been shamefully repuls'd from before an inconsiderable Town in Dauphine they took Arms in all places becoming more â—ierce and insolent than ever and made extraordinary progress both in that part in Provence in Languedoc in Guienne and Poitou That which render'd them so powerfull which otherwise they had not been was a party of Malecontents amongst the Catholiques who were call'd the Politiques because without touching on Religion they prâ—tested that they took Arms onely for the publique good for the relief and benefit of the people and to reform those grievances and disorders which were apparent in the State A ground which has always serv'd for a pretence of Rebellion to those men who have rais'd themselves in opposition to their Kings and Masters whom God commands us to obey though they shou'd sometimes even abuse that power which he has given them not to destroy or to demollish as he speaks in his holy Scriptures but to edify that is to say to procure the good and to establish the happiness of their Subjects These Politiques then joyn'd themselves to the Huguenots according to the resolution which they had taken at the Assembly held at Montpellier in the month of November and year of our Lord 1574. Henry de Montmorancy Marshal of Damville and Governour of Languedoc who to maintain himself in that rich Government of which he was design'd to be bereft first form'd this party of the Politiques into which he drew great numbers of the Nobles his partisans and Friends and principally the Seigneurs de Thore and de Meru-Montmorancy his Brothers the Count de Vantadour his Brother in Law and the famous Henry de la Tour d' Auvergn Vicount de Turenne his Nephew who was afterwards Marshal of France Duke of Boüillon Sovereign Prince of Sedan and the great Upholder of the Huguenots But that which made their power so formidable in the last result of things was that Monsieur the Duke of Alanson onely Brother of the King and the
King of Navarre detain'd at Court and not very favourably treated having made their escape the first of them who besides his own followers was joyn'd by a considerable part of Damville's Troops put himself at the head of the Protestant Army which was at the same time reinforc'd by the conjunction of great Succours of Reyters and Lansquenets whom the Prince of Conde had brought from Germany under the conduct of Iohn Casimir second Son to Frederick the Elector Palatine So that in the general Muster which was made of them near Moulins in Bourbonnois their Forces were found to consist of thirty five thousand experienc'd Souldiers which power 't is most certain the King was in no condition to resist in that miserable Estate to which he had reduc'd himself by the prodigious change he had made in his conduct and his carriage immediately after his succeeding to the Crown of France He was no longer that Victorious Duke of Anjou who had gain'd in the world so high a reputation by so many gallant actions perform'd by him in commanding the Armies of the King his Brother in quality of his Lieutenant General through the whole Kingdom but as if in assuming the Crown of the first and most ancient Monarchy of Christendom he had despoil'd himself at the same moment by some fatal enchantment of his Royal perfections he plung'd himself into all the delights of a most ignominious idleness with his favourites and Minions who were the Bloud-suckers the Harpyes and the scandal of all France which he seem'd to have abandon'd to their pillage by the immensness of his prodigality After this he render'd himself equally odious and contemptible to his Subjects both of the one Religion and the other by his inconstant and fantastique manner of procedure For he ran sometimes from the extremity of debauchery into a fit of Religion with processions and exercises of Penance which were taken for Hypocrisie and then again from Devotion into Debauchery as the present humour carried him away and busied himself in a thousand mean employments unworthy I say not of a King but of a man of common sense All which Davila the Historian after his manner of drawing every thing into design and Mystery though at the expence of Truth has endeavour'd to pass upon us for so many effects of a subtile and over-refin'd policy In conclusion to discharge himself of the burthen of Royalty which was grown wholly insupportable to him in that lazy effeminate sort of Life he relinquish'd all the cares of Government to the Queen his Mother who to continue him in that humour and by consequence to make her self absolute Mistress of affairs which was always her predominant passion fail'd not to furnish him from time to time with new baits and allurements of voluptuousness and all that was needfull for the shipwrack of vertue and honour in a Court the most dissolute which had ever been beheld in France Since it therefore pleas'd the Queen that War shou'd be made against the Huguenots to infeeble them as much as was possible that they might give no trouble to her management of Business So also when she saw them strengthen'd with so formidable an Army and her Son Alanson at their head she began immediately to apprehend that at length making themselves Masters they might degrade her from that Authority which she was so ambitious to retain by whatsoever means and consequently she resolv'd to make a peace for the same reasons for which she undertook the War And as she was undoubtedly the most subtile Woman of her time and had so great an Ascendant over all her Children that they were not able to withstand her or to defend themselves against her artifices and withall wou'd spare for nothing to compass her designs she manag'd so dexterously the minds of the Princes and cheif Officers of their Army in granting them with ease extraordinary Conditions even such as were beyond their hope that she conjur'd down the Tempest which was about to have been powr'd upon her head and shelter'd her self at the cost of our Religion by the fifth Edict of Pacification which was as advantageous to the Huguenots as they cou'd desire To whom amongst other privileges was allow'd the free exercise of their pretended Religion in all the Cities of the Kingdom and in all other places excepting onely the Court and Paris and the compass of two Leagues about that City This peace was infinitely distastefull to the Catholiques because it serv'd for a pretence and gave a favourable occasion to the birth of a design long time before premeditated and hatch'd by him who was the first Authour of that League whose History I write and who began to lay the Foundations of it precisely at this point of time in that manner as shall immediately be related 'T is certain that the first persons who were thus Associated under pretence of Religion against their Sovereigns were the Protestants Then when the Prince of Conde made himself their conceal'd head at the Conspiracy of Amboise and afterwards overtly declar'd himself in beginning the first troubles by the surprise of Orleans That League which always was maintain'd by force of Arms by places of caution and security which upon constraint were granted to the Huguenots and by the treasonable intelligence they held with Strangers even till the time wherein it was totally extinguish'd by the taking of Rochell and of their other Cities and fortified places under the Reign of the late King of glorious memory oblig'd some Catholiques oftentimes to unite themselves without the participation of the King in certain Provinces as particularly in Languedoc Guyenne and Poitou not onely to deâ—end themselves against the encroachments of the Huguenots but also to attacque them and to exterminate them if they had been able from all those places of which they had possess'd themselves in those Provinces But he who employ'd his thoughts at the utmost stretch in that affair and was the first who invented the project of a General League amongst the Catholiques under another Head than the King was the Cardinal of Lorrain at that time assisting at the Council of Trent That Prince whose name is so well known in History and who had a most prompt and most piercing understanding fiery by nature impetuous and violent endu'd with a rare natural eloquence more learning than cou'd reasonably be expected from a Person of his Quality and which his eloquence made appear to be much greater than it was the boldest of any man alive in Councils Cabals and in Contrivance of daring and vast designs was also the most pusillanimous and weakest man imaginable when it came to the point of Execution and that he saw there was danger in the undertaking But above all it cannot be denied that through the whole series of his Life he had a most immoderate passion for the greatness of his Family Insomuch that when he saw the great Duke of Guise his Brother at the highest
that Roche-Mort being kill'd with a Musquet shot as he was looking through a Casement the Castle had been surrender'd two days since Notwithstanding this Misfortune which the greatest part of his Souldiers wou'd not believe having joyn'd fifteen hundred men whom Clermont d' Amboise a little before the Siege of Broüage was gone to raise for his service in Anjou he took a resolution to attaque the Suburbs But was vigorously repuls'd by the good Troups which the King had sent thither to assist the Citizens who had retrench'd themselves against the Castle which they held besieg'd After which intending to repass the River he found that not onely all the passages were guarded but that also he was ready to be compass'd round by the Troups of the King and of the League who were gathering together from all parts both on this side the Loyre and beyond it to inclose him Insomuch that not being able either to advance or to retreat without being taken or cut in pieces with all his men they were at length forc'd to disband and dividing themselves into small companies of Seven and Eight or Ten and Twelve together every man being willing to save one march'd onely by night through bye passages out of the common Road and through Woods for fear of being met with either by Souldiers or Peasants who kill'd as many of them as they cou'd find and pursued them as they wou'd so many Wolves when they caught them entring into a Sheepfold The Prince himself had much adoe to escape the tenth man and disguis'd into the Lower Normandy from whence he pass'd in a Fisher's Barque betwixt Auranche and St. Malo into the Isle of Guernsey and from thence aboard an English Vessel into England where he was very well receiv'd by Queen Elizabeth who sent him back to Rochelle the Year following with a considerable supply In the mean time St. Mesme who during this unhappy expedition of the Prince continued the Siege of Broüage â—inding himself too weak to resist the Marshal de Matignon who advanc'd by order from the King to force his Retrenchments with an Army of experienc'd Souldiers truss'd up his Baggage and retir'd with what speed he cou'd but in so much fear and disorder that he lost great numbers of his men in his hastyâ— march and particularly in passing the Charante where St. Luc Governour of Broüage who always shew'd himself as brave in War as he was agreeable at Court in Peace having charg'd him in the Reer cut it entirely off Thus the League and the Calvinism lost on that occasion the one the Castle of Anger 's wherein the King plac'd a Governour on whose fidelity he might rely and the other almost all its Forces which after that shock durst no longer keep the Field This furnish'd the King with an opportunity to publish new Ordinances by which he commanded the Goodâ— of Rebels to be seiz'd and particularly of those who had followed the Prince of Conde with promise nevertheless of restoring them when they shou'd return into the Catholique Church and give good security of remaining in it Ordaining farther in execution of the Edict of Iuly that all such shou'd be forc'd to depart the Realm who refus'd to make abjuration of Calvinism into the hands of the Bishops and it was enjoyn'd them to make it according to the Form which was compos'd by William Ruzè Bishop of Anger 's It was thus practis'd because it had been observ'd that the greatest part of the Huguenots had invented a trick neither to lose their Goods nor to leave the Kingdom but thought it was lawfull for them to accommodate themselves to the times and so deceive men by making a false profession of Faith onely for form sake and in external obedience to the Edicts which they express'd by these words Since it has so pleas'd the King with which they never fail'd to preface the Oath of Abjuration when they took it Now this prudent Bishop having observ'd that intolerable abuse which was follow'd by an infinite number of Sacrileges and most horrible profanation of the Sacraments which those false Converts made no scruple to receive betraying by that damnable imposture both the one Religion and the other wou'd admit none into the Communion of the Church who had not first made his profession of Faith according to his form which much resembled that of Pius the Fourth and which from that time forward was and is presented to be sign'd by all those who abjure Heresie 'T is most certain that these Edicts joyn'd with the extreme weakness in which the Huguenot party then was made in a little time many more converts true or false than had been made by the Massacre of St. Bartholomew But also on the other side they occasion'd the Protestants of Germany whom the King of Navarre cou'd never draw to his party against the Leaguers now to incline to his assistance Two years were almost past since that King who desir'd to shelter himself from the Conspiracy which the League had made principally against him with purpose to exclude him from the Crown against the fundamental Law of the Realm had solicited those Princes by the Sieur de Segur Pardaillan and de Clervant to raise an Army for his assistance and elsewhere by the intermission of Geneva he press'd the Protestant Cantons of Swisserland to make a Counter-League with the Germans for the same purpose Queen Elizabeth who besides the interest of her Protestant Religion had a particular esteem and love for that Prince the Duke of Boüillon a declar'd Enemy of the Lorrain Princes and the Count de Montbeliard Frederick de Wirtemburg a most zealous Calvinist used their utmost endeavours with those German Protestants to stir them up all which notwithstanding they were very loath to resolve on a War with the King of France their Allye saying always that they wou'd never engage themselves in it till it was clearly manifest that the War which was made against the Huguenots was not a War of the Government against its Rebels but purely and onely against the Protestant Religion which they intended to extirpate But when they saw before their eyes those Edicts and Ordinances of the King who was absolutely resolv'd not to suâ—â—er any other Religion beside the Catholique in his Kingdom and that otherways they had given them all the security they cou'd desire for the payment of their Army then they took a Resolution of Levying great Forces and of assisting the King of Navarre powerfully after sending a solemn Embassy to the King to demand of him the Revocation of his Edicts and an entire liberty of Conscience for the Protestants The King of Denmark the Electors of Saxony and Brandenburgh the Prince Palatine Iohn Casimir the Dukes of Saxony of Pomerania and of Brunswick the Landgrave of Hesse and Iohn Frederick Administrator of Magdeburg were the Princes who Asâ—ociated themselves with the Towns of Francford Vlmes Nuremberg and Strasburg to send this Embassy
often proceeds from that good which insensibly is degenerated into corruption it sometimes also happens that good is produc'd out of evil which is rectifi'd by taking from it that which is ill in the practice of Devotion and leaving onely what is wholsome This is what has been observ'd in our present Subject the Brotherhood of Penitentiaries More than four hundred years agoe a certain devout Hermit finding himself to be strongly inspir'd from God to Preach in a Town of Italy as Ionas did at Nineveh began to threaten the Inhabitants that in a short time they shou'd be buried under the Ruines of their Houses which shou'd fall upon their heads and overwhelm them if they appeas'd not the wrath of God by an immediate severe and publique penitence His Auditours after the example of the Ninevites touch'd with so powerfull a Sermon and fearing to feel the effects of so terrible a threatning cloath'd themselves in Sackcloth and arm'd with Whips and Disciplines walk'd in procession through their Streets lashing themselves severely on their Shoulders to expiate their Crimes by their tears and by their Bloud This sort of Penance which sprung out of a good principle and an ardent desire of appeasing the Divine Justice may be very laudable and was afterwards practis'd in other Countries particularly in Hungary dureing the rage of a great Pestilence which made havock of that poor Kingdom But not long after it degenerated into the dangerous sect of the Flagellants who running in great Troops naked to the middle through most of the Provinces of Europe made themselves all over bloudy by the vigorous handselling of their Disciplines saying with horrible impiety that this new Baptism of bloud was more available than that of Water in that it expiated for all their future Sins which from thence forward they might commit with all impunity There was much difficulty in abolishing so pernicious an abuse and therefore with mild usage to reduce those wandring Souls into a regular Penance it was permitted them to retain what ever was good in so austere a Practice From thence are sprung up the fraternities of Penitents which are at this present seen in Italy in the Patrimony of the Church in the County of Avignon and in Languedoc who have their Chapels where they assemble and practise the Exercises of their Devotions and who make their Processions where they go particularly on Holy Thursday cloath'd in Sackcloath with Whips at their Girdles which nevertheless are not for any great execution but for Ceremony to mark out the publique profession which they make of being Penitentiaries and the love they have for Christian Penance When therefore the King who was naturally inclin'd to Devotion had in his return from Poland beheld the Procession of the white Penitents of Avignon and was even then desirous of shewing himself a zealous Catholique he commanded himself to be inroll'd in that Fraternity and about seven or eight years after he establish'd another of the same kind at Paris in the Church of the Augustines under the title of the Annunciation of our Lady The most part of the Princes and great men of the Court and the principal Officers were of it and all his Favorites never fail'd to assist at those Processions wherein he went without his Guards or any mark whereby he might be distinguish'd from the rest Cloath'd in a long white Habit of Holland shap'd like a Sack reaching below his Feet somewhat large with two long Sleeves and a Cowl or Monk's Hood over his Head piqu'd on the Crown and having two great holes in it right against his Eyes sow'd behind to the Collar and coming down before in a sharp point half a foot below the Girdle which was woven of the finest white Thread and little knots in it hanging down below the Knee in the Girdle was hung a jolly little Discipline of the same materials nothing proper to give the penitent a smarting lash On his left shoulder he had a Cross of white Satten upon a ground of tawny Velvet almost wholly circular For the rest he made profession to observe exactly the Rules and Statutes of that Fraternity which Fathâ—â— Edmond Auger a famous Iesuite who was then his Confessour and Chaplain had drawn up by his own Order That good Father entertain'd him with great care in these sorts of Devotions though not altogether so proper for the practice of a great King to whom much more solid instructions shou'd be given of which the principal consists in advising him to apply himself vigoâ—ously to that charge of Government which God to whom he must render an Account has committed to his trust as his Minister and Lieutenant To this purpose 't is said as Busbequius writes from Paris to the Emperour Rodolphus his Master that the Queâ—n Mother seeing the prejudice which this fantastique carriage did to the reputation of the King her Son and to the State the care of which he abandon'd to give himself up to these cloysterly Processions spoke sharply to the Iesuite upbrayding him that he was an ill Guide to his Penitent and that of a King as God had made him he made a Frier to the great prejudice of all his Kingdom And for that very reason time and experience having made it manifest that much disorder had crept into these Fraternities of white Penitents as well as those of the blew and black and that under pretence of practising holy Exercises most dangerous Plots were hatch'd against the Government they were totally abolish'd at Paris about ten or twelve years afterwards It was especially that year 1586 that the King willing to make appear that he had more zeal than ever for the Catholique Faith renew'd these ostentatious Devotions of his Fraternity with so much fervour that not being satisfied with his ordinary Processions which he made in the Habit of a Penitent through the Streets of Paris he made one very extraordinary going on foot in the same Habit with the greatest company he cou'd get together of his most devout and fervent Brothers from the Chartreux quite to our Lady of Chartres from whence he return'd in the same manner in two days to Paris In truth 't is credible that this proceeded from a great Foundation of Piety in this Prince whose nature was infinitely sweet if he had not suffer'd it to be corrupted by his pleasures But as the Leaguers were not throughly perswaded of this truth and that through the hatred which they bore him they interpreted his best actions in the worst Sense they decri'd this with all imaginable spight saying it was nothing but mere Hypocrisie and a ridiculous Mascarade which he had invented to mock God and deceive men by covering his Vices and his no Religion with the veil of Piety Yet the Leaguers were not the onely men who were scandaliz'd at these new forms of Processions which are not much to the humour of the French They were almost generally blam'd by all the World and those who
he was the person by whom this young man who was under his charge had been advis'd and was afterwards confirm'd in this his execrable resolution For which reason being taken with Arms in his hand three Months after at the assault of the Fauxbourgs of Paris his process was made and though he obstinately deny'd it to his Death which he suffer'd with a wonderfull resolution yet since he cou'd not convince the Witnesses of falsehood who Swore against him he was judg'd according to the forms of Justice as he himself acknowledg'd and drawn in pieces by four Horses according to the decree of the Parliament sitting at Tours Howsoever it were 't is certain that the greatest part of those outrageous Preachers of the League said altogether as much as what was alledg'd against the Prior for Monsieur Anthoine Loysel has left it Written in his Journal that on the very same day whereon the King was Wounded and before the news of it was come to Paris he heard at St. Merry the Sermon of Doctour Boucher who said by way of consolation to his Auditours that as on that day namely the first of August when the Feast of St. Peter in Prison is celebrated God had deliver'd that Apostle from the hands of Herod so they ought to hope he had the like mercy in store for them And immediately made no scruple to maintain this damnable proposition to them that it was an action of great merit to kill an Heretique King or a favourer of Heretiques The rest of the same fraternity of Preachers joyning in the Consort on the same day held forth in the Pulpits with more violence than ever against Henry de Valois and gave the people says the same undeniable Witness a hope almost in the nature of a certainty that God wou'd speedily deliver them which gave just occasion for many to believe that the devilish design of that Assasinate had been communicated to them And when it was known that the Blow was given it was order'd that publique Prayers shou'd be made in all the Churches of the City together with a solemn action of thanksgiving to Almighty God For a whole Week together they made Processions from all the Parishes to the Church of the Iacobins and exhorted the people to distribute their Alms liberally to the Religious of that Cloyster for the sake of Fryer Iaques Clement as also to extend their Charity to his poor Relations To conclude Doctour Roze Bishop of Senlis an old man and most outragious Leaguer Preach'd there according to the direction of the Council of Sixteen which was sent in Tickets to all the Preachers in the City on Sunday the sixth of August wherein they were appointed to insist particularly on three Heads which I will here set down as they are express'd in the Tickets themselves that it may be notorious with what an Egyptian blindness that infamous Cabal of the League was then struck Take them in their own Words 1. You are to justifie the action of the Iacobin because it is a parallel to that of Iudith so much magnifi'd in the Holy Scriptures For he who hears not the Church ought to be accounted as an Heathen or an Holofernes 2. Cry out against those who say that the King of Navarre is to be receiv'd in case he goes to Mass Because he can be but an Usurper of the Kingdom being Excommunicated and also standing excluded from that of Navarre 3. Exhort the Magistracy to publish against all those who shall maintain the King of Navarre that they are attainted of the crime of Heresie and as such to proceed against them But after all these doings this brutal joy of the Leaguers for the Death of Henry the Third was immediately after turn'd into sadness and at the last into despair by the wise management and incomparable valour of his Successour Henry de Bourbon to whom God had preordain'd the Glory of restoring the happiness of France by the utter destruction of the Leagâ—e which had laid it desolate The relation of which is the Business of the fourth and last part of my present History THE HISTORY OF THE LEAGUE LIB IV. THough Henry King of Navarre whom the deceas'd King had at his Death declar'd his Lawful Successor immediately took upon himself the Soveraign Title of King of France yet was he not acknowledg'd for such at the same time by the whole Army The Hugonots whom he had brought to the Assistance of his Predecessor were the first to render him Homage as no ways doubting but that the World was now their own and that Calvinism shou'd be the predominant Religion in France under a Protestant King But this very Consideration gave great trouble and anxiety of Mind to that prudent Prince who plainly saw that the Catholicks foreseeing this Misfortune of which they were extreamly apprehensive might possibly reunite themselves against him and that the Huguenots who were without Comparison the weaker Party cou'd never be able to support him on the Throne In effect there was during all that day and the whole night following a great Contestation of Opinions amongst the Catholique Lords of the Army in relation to this Affair Many of them who consider'd more their private Interest than the publique Good were deâ—irous to make advantage of a Juncture so favourable for the establishment of their Fortunes and to sell their Obedience at the highest Rate they cou'd by raising their Governments into Principalities which had been to cantonize the Monarchy There were great numbers of them led by different Motives some by a true Zeal for Religion others by the Aversion which they had for this new King which they disguis'd with a specious pretence of Zeal who wou'd absolutely have it that he shou'd instantly declare himself a Catholique which cou'd not possibly be done either with the Kings Honour or with Provision of security to the Catholiques because too much of Constraint was evident in such an Action Some there were also who maintain'd that since his Birth and the Fundamental Law of the Land had brought him to the Throne of which his Heroick Virtues had render'd him most worthy it was their Duty to acknowledge him and to obey him chearfully without imposing on him the least Conditions But this was it which the greatest part of them thought too dangerous to Religion which they were unwilling to hazard by such a Complement In conclusion after this important Affair had been throughly examin'd in the Kings Council and in the general Assembly of the Catholique Princes and Lords which was held in the Lodgings of Francis de Luxembourg Duke de Piney they came to an Agreement the next Morning by holding a just Temperament betwixt the two Extreams For without insisting on their private Interests that they might act frankly and like Gentlemen it was determin'd that the King shou'd be acknowledg'd but upon condition that he shou'd cause himself to be instructed within six months time by the most able
faithfully the Treaty of Alliance which they had made with the Crown of France and never more bear Arms against him After which being accompanied by the Prince of Conty the Duke of Montpensier the Count of St. Paul the Marshal d' Aumont and all the rest of the Lords and Gentlemen he pursued the Enemy as far as Rosny leaving the Body of his Army which march'd slowly after him under the Command of the Mareschal de Biron This was the success of that famous Battel of Ivry wherein the League lost both its reputation and its strength Almost all the Infantry of that Party was cut in pieces or taken Prisoners Of their Cavalry more than 1500 were kill'd upon the place or drown'd at the Foord of Ivry the passage of which is extremely dangerous Count Egmont General of the Spanish Troops and VVilliam of Brunswick Colonel of the Reiters Natural Son to Duke Henry were found amongst the slain and a short time after honourably interr'd by the King's Order in the Church of Eureux Besides the French Soldiers whom the King commanded to be spar'd and who took quarter amongst his Troops there were above 400 Prisoners of Quality amongst whom was a Count of East Friezâ—land who fought amongst the Reiters the Baron of Huren the Sieurs of Medavid Bois Dauphin Castelier Fontain Martel Sigogne who yielded himself with the Duke of Mayenne's Standard to Rosny the same who was afterwards Duke de Sully and many other Lords and Gentlemen as well Foreigners as French The Cannon Ammunition Baggage and Standard of the Flemmings twenty Cornets the Standard of the Reiters and above sixty Ensigns of Foot without putting into the reckoning the fourscore Swisse Colours which the King sent back to their Superiours were the illustrious Testimonies of so glorious a Victory which cost the Conquerour but little Blood For there were kill'd on the Kings side of men of Quality only Clermont de Entragues Captain of the Guards who was slain near the Person of his Majesty the Count de Schomberg the Sieurs de Feuquieres de Crenay Cornet to the Duke of Montpensier and de Long auny an old Norman Gentleman aged threescore and twelve years the only man who was slain by the Cannon of the League and five and twenty or thirty Gentlemen more who were kill'd in the Kings Squadron Amongst the Wounded was Francis de Daillon Count de Lude Son to that Prudent and Valiant Guy de Daillon Governour of Poitou who defended Poitiers with so much reputation against the Admiral Coligni and preserv'd that Province to the King with so much Fidelity and Valour against the Hugonots and Leaguers to whom he was always a profest Enemy Henry de Laval Marquess de Nesle the Count of Choisy the Sieurs d'O de Rosny Lauvergne Monloüet and about twenty other Gentlemen who were all cur'd of their Wounds That which was yet more wonderfully remarkable and which demonstrates the peculiar care which God Almighty took of his Majesties rightful Cause was that on the same day Iean Louis de Rouchefoucault Count of Randan General of the League in Auvergne who besieg'd the Town of Issoire lost both his Life and his little Army which was entirely defeated by the Marquess of Curton Head of the Royalists and that the Sieur de Lansac who endeavour'd to have surpris'd Man 's for the League whose Party after having once abandon'd it he had again espous'd was bravely repuls'd from before the Town To conclude since that happy day the Royal Party had a continu'd series of prosperity in every Province of France and in a multitude of occasions which it is not my business to relate paticularly because my Design is only to relate the most essential affairs of the League and not to involve my self too far in the History of France which comprehends much more than I have undertaken Following therefore this Model which I have propos'd to my self that which I ought to observe on this occasion is that this glorious Victory had caus'd the immediate and total ruine of the League if after the Surrender of Vernon and Mant which yielded the next day the King who was now Master of all the Passages of the Seine as far up as Paris had presented himself with his victorious Army before that Capital City of his Kingdom which at that time was neither provided with Victuals nor Ammunition nor Governour nor Garrison and wherein the People who found themselves destitute of all these things were already wavering in a general Consternation For 't is exceeding probable that the Politiques doubly encourag'd by his Victory and by his Presence had carry'd it over the Sixteen and had open'd the Gates to him And indeed this very Counsel was given him by the wise La Noüe but whether it were that the Marshal de Biron who had no great inclinations to retire to his Country-House and mind his Gardening desir'd to spin out the War and therefore gave him a contrary Advice or that perhaps it was his own Opinion as not believing himself yet strong enough for such an Attempt he continued fifteen days at Mante without enterprising any thing against the Leaguers to whom he gave leisure by that means to recover Courage and put themselves into a condition of Resistance In effect the false Relations which were spread amongst the People to sooth them into a Belief that the Loss which they had receiv'd was not so considerable as was at first reported the Sermons of their Preachers the Promises of the Spaniards the Presence of the Legate and of the Arch-bishop of Lyons who not long before had been ransom'd by the League and the good order which the Duke of Mayenne had caus'd to be establish'd in Paris which he left well garrison'd with his Souldiers before he went from St. Dennis to draw near to the Law-Countries from whence he expected new supplies all these Considerations put together buoyd up their sinking spirits and gave them new courage so that there appear'd no manner of commotion in the Town but all was hush'd and peaceable and a resolution taken to defend themselves to the last Extremity As indeed they did not long time after during the Siege of Paris so much to the wonder and amazement of Mankind that it may be plac'd in the number of those extraordinary and admirable accidents which may be call'd the Miracles of History and which wou'd never enter into the belief of men if they were not supported with an infinite number of most credible witnesses For in conclusion the King well knowing that the end of the War and of the League depended absolutely on the taking of Paris resolv'd to defer no longer the laying hold on that occasion which he believ'd to be still within his reach not perceiving that already he had let it slip by his long delay He departed therefore out of Mante on the last of March with his Army consisting at that time of 12000 Foot and betwixt 3 and 4000 Horse
of the League was at that time too strong to think of submitting to him even though he had declar'd himself a Catholick and the People not being yet made sensible of the Extremities of War and their sufferings by reason of it were obstinately resolv'd to maintain it against him and consequently he cou'd not then compass what he so ardently desir'd which was to restore the Quiet of his Kingdom and to settle it in peace by embracing the Religion of his Predecessors But somewhat before the beginning of the Conference at Surenne after making a sober Reflection on the present estate of his Affairs he plainly saw that all things at that time concurr'd to oblige him not to defer his Conversion any longer For on the one side he was assur'd of the Leading men amongst the Hâ—gonots who had the power of raising new Disturbances many of whom and such as were men of the greatest Interest made no scruple to acknowledge that in good policy he ought to go to Mass and that the peaceable possession of a Great Kingdom was worth the pains it wou'd cost him in going Add to this that the Heads of the Union were so much weakned and so little united amongst themselves that they were in no condition of making any long resistance to his Arms though they shou'd refuse to acknowledge him And for the common people of the League they were so overburden'd by the War which wasted them that they desir'd nothing so much as Peace On the other side he observ'd the Spaniards us'd all imaginable means and did their utmost to perswade the States to create a Catholique King That there was great danger lest the Third Party which not long before had laid a Plot to have surpris'd him in Mante and carried him away now joyning with the Catholique Leaguers who were against the Spaniards shou'd elect a King on their side which wou'd be to embroyl France in worse confusions And to conclude that even they who were not of that Party and who had always serv'd him with inviolable faith now besought him to defer no longer his conversion and besought him in such a manner that they gave him easily to understand they wou'd forsake him in case he forsook not his false Religion All these Considerations put together by the Grace of God who makes use of second causes put an end to his delays and brought him to resolve on accomplishing what he had so long design'd by making a publick profession of the Catholique Faith Insomuch that when the Sieur Francis D O who of all the Court-Lords spoke to him with the greatest freedom went to press him somewhat bluntly on behalf of the Catholiques of his Party that he wou'd make good his promise to them He with great calmness gave him those three Reasons which I have already set down why he had till that time deferr'd his Conversion and afterwards gave him his positive word that within three months at the farthest when he had seen what the Conference of Surenne would produce he wou'd make an abjuration of Heresie after he had receiv'd the instruction of the Bishops and Doctors which according to the forms of the Church ought to precede so great an action farther ordering him to assure the Archbishop of Bourges of those his intentions before he went to that Conference being then on his departure And on that account it was that the Archbishop after having receiv'd the Answer which he well knew wou'd be sent from Mante where the Court then was spoke as he did at Surenne and believing that he had now brought the business to a conclusion on the seventeenth of May and at the seventh Session gave the Deputies of the League a full assurance of the Kings Conversion His Majesty also on his part having firmly resolv'd on that holy action fail'd not to write a Letter on the sixteenth of the same Month to many Prelates and Doctors both of his own side and of the League in which he invited them to be with him on the fifteenth of Iuly to the end he might receive those good instructions which he expected from them Assuring them in these very words That they shou'd find him most inclinable to be inform'd of all that belongs to a Most Christian King to know having nothing so lively engraven in his heart as the Zeal for Gods Service and the maintenance of his true Church In the mean time the Ministers and the old rigid Huguenots those false Zealots of their Sect fearing this blow wou'd be fatal to their pretended Religion made frequent Assemblies in private to invent some means of diverting him from this pious resolution And there were some of them who had the impudence to tell him publickly of it in their Sermons and to threaten him with a judgment from Heaven if he forsook the Gospel for it has pleas'd them to honour their Errors with that venerable Name This occasion'd him to assemble all the principal Lords of that new Religion together with their Preachers who were at that time in great numbers at the Court and who to the great grief of the Catholiques perpetually besieg'd him and to tell them plainly that he might free himself once for all from that troublesome persecution That after he had in the presence of Almighty God made all necessary reflections on an affair of that importance he had in conclusion resolv'd to return into the Catholique Church from which he ought never to have been separated And when La Faye the Minister had adjur'd him in the name of all his Brethren Not to suffer they are his very words that so great a scandal shou'd come to them If said he I shou'd follow your advice in a little time there wou'd be neither King nor Kingdom left in France I desire to give peace to all my Subjects and quiet to my own Soul and you shall have also from me all the provisions which you can reasonably desire Thus being without comparison the strongest and in much better condition than he had ever been formerly immediately after he had taken the Town of Dreux which the League though it was of great consequence to them yet durst never attempt to relieve he assign'd the place where he wou'd receive the Instruction which ought to precede the act of Abjuration to be at St. Denis on the twenty second of Iuly The Cardinal of Piacenza caus'd a Declaration to be publish'd in which taking upon him as Legat from the Holy See to pronounce that whatsoever shou'd be done in relation to that Conversion was to be accounted void and null he exhorted all Catholiques both of the one and the other Party not to suffer themselves to be deluded in an Affair of that consequence Prohibiting all men and especially the Ecclesiasticks on pain of Excommunication and privation of their Benefices from going to St. Denis and assisting at that Action But notwithstanding all these prohibitions which were thought to be made by the sollicitation of
of a Popular Faction Since which time it has pleas'd Almighty God so to prosper Your Affairs that without searching into the secrets of Divine Providence 't is evident Your Magnanimity and Resolution next under him have been the immediate Cause of Your Safety and our present Happiness By weathering of which Storm may I presume to say it without Flattery You have perform'd a Greater and more Glorious work than all the Conquests of Your Neighbours For 't is not difficult foâ— a Great Monarchy well united and making use of Advantages to extend its Limits but to be press'd with wants surrounded with dangers Your Authority undermined in Popular Assemblies Your Sacred Life attempted by a Conspiracy Your Royal Brother forc'd from Your Arms in one word to Govern a Kingdom which was either possess'd or turn'd into a Bedlam and yet in the midst of ruine to stand firm undaunted and resolv'd and at last to break through all these difficulties and dispell them this is indeed an Action which is worthy the Grandson of Henry the Great During all this violence of Your Enemies Your Majesty has contended with Your natural Clemency to make some Examples of Your Justice and they themselves will acknowledge that You have not urg'd the Law against them but have been press'd and constrain'd by it to inflict punishments in Your own defence and in the mean time to watch every Opportunity of shewing Mercy when there was the least probability of Repentance so that they who have suffer'd may be truly said to have forc'd the Sword of Justice out of Your hand and to have done Execution on themselves But by how much the more You have been willing to spare them by so much has their Impudence increas'd and if by this Mildness they recover from the Great Froâ—t which has almost blasted them to the roots if these venemous plants shoot out again it will be a sad Comfort to say they have been ungratefull when 't is Evident to Mankind that Ingratitude is their Nature That sort of pity which is proper for them and may be of use to their Conversion is to make them sensible of their Errors and this Your Majesty out of Your Fatherly Indulgence amongst other Experiments which You have made is pleas'd to allow them in this Book which you have Commanded to be Translated for the publique benefit that at least all such as are not wilfully blind may View in it as in a Glass their own deformities For never was there a plainer Parallel than of the Troubles of France and of Great Britain of their Leagues Covenants Associations and Ours of their Calvinists and our Presbyterians they are all of the same Family and Titian's famous Table of the Altar piece with the Pictures of Venetian Senatours from Great-Grandfather to Great-Grandson shews not more the Resemblance of a Race than this For as there so here the Features are alike in all there is nothing but the Age that makes the difference otherwise the Old man of an hundred and the Babe in Swadling-clouts that is to say 1584 and 1684. have but a Century and a Sea betwixt them to be the same But I have presum'd too much upon Your Majesty's time already and this is not the place to shew that resemblance which is but too manifest in the whole History 'T is enough to say Your Majesty has allow'd our Rebels a greater Favour than the Law You have given them the Benâ—fit of their Clergy if they can but read and will be honest enough to apply it they may be sav'd God Almighty give an answerable success to this Your Royal Act of Grace may they all repent and be united as the Body to their Head May that Treasury of Mercy which is within Your Royal Breast have leave to be powr'd forth upon them when they put themselves in a condition of receiving it And in the mean time permit me to Implore it humbly for my self and let my Presumption in this bold Address be forgiven to the Zeal which I have to Your Service and to the publique good To conclude may You never have a worse meaning Offender at Your feet than him who besides his Duty and his Natural inclinations has all manner of Obligations to be perpetually Sir Your Majesty's most humble most Obedienâ— and most faithfull Subject and Servant John Dryden THE AUTHOUR'S Dedication to the French King SIR FRance which being well united as we now behold it under the Glorious Reign of your Majesty might give law to all the World was upon the point of self Destruction by the division which was rais'd in it by two fatal Leagues of Rebels the one in the middle and the other towards the latter end of the last Age. Heresie produc'd the first against the true Religion Ambition under the Masque of Zeal gave birth to the second with pretence of maintaining what the other wou'd have ruin'd and both of them though implacable Enemies to each other yet agreed in this that each of them at divers times set up the Standard of Rebellion against our Kings The crimes of the former I have set forth in the History of Calvinism which made that impious League in France against the Lord and his Anointed and I discover the Wickedness of the latter in this Work which I present to your Majesty as the fruit of my exact Obedience to those commands with which you have been pleas'd to honour me I have endeavour'd to perform them with so much the greater satisfaction to my self because I believ'd that in reading this History the falsehood of some advantages which the Leaguers and Huguenots have ascrib'd to themselves may be easily discern'd These by boasting as they frequently do even at this day that they set the Crown on the Head of King Henry the Fourth those that their League was the cause of his conversion I hope the world will soon be disabus'd of those mistakes and that it will be clearly seen that they were the Catholiques of the Royal Party who next under God produc'd those two effects so advantageous to France We are owing for neither of them to those two unhappy Leagues which were the most dangerous Enemies to the prosperity of the Kingdom And 't is manifest at this present time that the glory of triumphing over both of them was reserv'd by the Divine Providence to our Kings of the Imperial Stem of Bourbon Henry the Fourth subdued and reduc'd the League of the false Zealots by the invincible Force of his Arms and by the wonderfull attractions of his Clemency Lewis the Iust disarm'd that of the Calvinists by the taking of Rochelle and other places which those Heretiques had moulded into a kind of Common-wealth against their Soveraign And Lewis the Great without employing other Arms than those of his Ardent Charity and incomparable Zeal for the Conversion of Protestants accompanied by the Iustice of his Laws has reduc'd it to that low condition that we have reason to
I Write found all things sufficiently dispos'd to the execution of his enterprise For he found the Catholiques provok'd to his hand by those advantages which newly were granted to the Huguenots the people dissatisfi'd and weary of the Government not able to endure that the wealth of the Nation shou'd be squander'd on the King's Favourites whom they called the Minions the genius of Queen Catharine pleas'd with troubles and even procuring them to render her self necessary to the end that recourse might be had to her for Remedies the Princes of the bloud become suspected and odious to the three orders of the Kingdom either for favouring the Huguenots or for being publiquely declar'd Calvinists thereby renouncing the Catholique faith as the King of Navarre and the Prince of Conde had openly done the King faln into the contempt of his Subjects after having lost their love himself on the contrary lov'd and ador'd by the people worship'd by the Parisians follow'd by the Nobility indear'd to the Soldiers having in his Interests all the Princes of his Family powerfull in Offices and Governments the multitude of his Creatures whom his own generosity and that of his Father had acquir'd him the favour of the Pope the assistance of the Spaniard ready at hand to bear him up and above all the seeming Justice of his cause which he industriously made known to all the world to be that of Religion alone whereof in the general opinion he was the Protectour and the Pillar and for the maintenance of which it was believ'd that he had devoted himself against the Huguenots who had enterpriz'd to abolish it in the Kingdom But the last motive which fix'd his resolution was the extreme rancour he had against the King one of whose intimate Confidents he had been formerly and who had now abandon'd him by changing on the sudden the whole manner of his Conduct and giving himself entirely up to his Minions who omitted no occasion of using the Duke unworthily For disdain which is capable of hurrying to the last extremities the greatest Souls and the most sensible in point of Honour made hatred to succeed his first inclinations against him whom already he despis'd and hatred and contempt being joyn'd with Ambition incessantly push'd him forwards to make himself the head of a Party so powerfull as that of the League which pass'd for Holy in the minds of the people and to avail himself of so fair an opportunity to form it For this effect he immediately caus'd a project to be formally drawn which his Emissaries shou'd endeavour to spread about the Kingdom amongst those Catholiques who appear'd the most zealous and most simple and those who were known to be the most addicted to the House of Guise in this Breviate which they were oblig'd to subscribe they promis'd by Oath to obey him who shou'd be elected head of that holy Confederacy which was made for maintaining of the Catholique Religion to cause due obedience to be render'd to the King and his Successours yet without prejudice to what shou'd be ordain'd by the three Estates and to restore the Kingdom to its original Liberties which it enjoy'd under the Reign of Clovis At the first there were found few Persons of Quality and substantial Citizens of Paris who wou'd venture to subscribe to that Association because it was not precisely known who wou'd dare to declare himself the Head of it besides that by the vigilance of the first President Christopher de Thou it was first discover'd then dissipated and at last dissolv'd with ease with all those secret Assemblies which were already held in several quarters of the Town for entring such persons into that infant League whom either their Malice their false Zeal or their Simplicity cou'd ingage But the Duke of Guise having sent his project to the Sieur d' Humieres of whom he held himself assur'd that Lord who besides his obligation to the House of Guise had also his particular interest and that of no less Consequence than the maintaining himself in his Government of Peronne which was taken from him by the Edict of May and that important place order'd to be put into the hands of the Prince of Conde manag'd the affair so well by the credit he had in that Province that as the Picards have always been zealous for the ancient Religion he ingag'd almost all the Towns and all the Nobility of Picardy to declare openly that they wou'd not receive the Prince of Conde because as it was urg'd in the Manifesto which was publish'd to justifie their refusal of him that they certainly knew he was resolv'd to abolish the Catholique Faith and establish Calvinism throughout all Picardy 'T is most certain that they wou'd never be induc'd to receive that Prince into Peronne or any other part of that Government and that to maintain themselves against all those who wou'd undertake to oblige them by force to observe that Article of the Peace which they never wou'd accept the Picards were the first to receive by common agreement and to publish in Peronne tâ—e Treaty of the League in twelve Articles in which the most prudent of the Catholiques themselves together with the Illustrious President Christopher de Thou observ'd many things which directly shock'd the most Holy Laws both Divine and Humane For 't is obvious in the first Article that the Catholique Princes Lords and Gentlemen invoking the name of the Holy Trinity make an Association and League offensive and defensive betwixt themselves without the permission privity or consent of their King and a King who was a Catholique as well as they which is directly opposite to the Law of God who ordains that Subjects should submit themselves and be united to their Sovereign as members to their Head even though he shou'd exceed his bounds and be a Tyrant provided that there be no manifest sin in what they are commanded to obey In the second they refuse to render obedience to the King unless it be conformable to the Articles which shall be presented to him by the States which it shall not be lawfull for him to contradict or to act any thing in prejudice of them 'T is evident that this overthrows the constitution of the Monarchy to establish in its place a certain kind of Aristocracy against one of our fundamental Laws which ordains that the States shou'd have onely a deliberative voice for the drawing up of their Petitions into Bills and then to present them with all humility to the King who examines them in his Council and afterwards passes what he finds to be just and reasonable They give not Law to him who is their Master and their Head as the Electours of the Empire by certain capitulations do to the Emperours of Germany who are indeed the Heads but not the Masters of the Empire but on the contrary they receive it from their King to whom they onely make most humble Addresses in the Bills which they present to him
powers to restore and to maintain the exercise of our said Catholique Apostolique and Roman Religion in which we and our Predecessours have béen educated and in which we resolve to live and die And we swear and promise also all obedience honour and most humble service to King Henry now reigning whom God has given us for our Sovereign King and Lord lawfully called by the Law of the Kingdom to the succession of his Predecessours and after him to all the Posterity of the House of Valois and others who after those of the said house of Valois shaâ—â— be called by the Law of the Realm to the Crown And upon the obedience and service which we are obliged by all manner of rights to render to our said King Henry now reigning we farther promise to employ our lives and fortunes for the preservation of his Authority and execution of such commandments as by him and his Lieutenant Generals or others having power from him shall be made to us as well for maintaining the onely exercise of the Catholique Apostolique and Roman Religion in France as for bringing to reason and full submission his Rebellious Subjects without acknowledging any other whomsoever than himself and such as shall be by him set in command over us And forasmuch as by the goodness of our said King and Sovereign Lord it hath pleased him to doe so much good to all his Subjects of his Realm as to convoke them to a general Assembly of all the Orders and Estates of it thereby to vnderstand all the complaints and grievances of his said Subjects and to make a good and holy Reformation of the abuses and disorders which have continued of a long time in the said Realm hoping that God will give us some good resolutions by the means of so good and great an Assembly we promise and swear to employ our lives and fortunes for the entire performance of the Resolution of the said Estates in that especially which shall depend on the retention of our Catholique Apostolique and Roman Religion the preservation of the greatness and authority of our King the good and quiet of our Countrey all of this notwithstanding without prejudice to our Liberties and ancient Franchises which we understand to be always maintain'd and preserv'd fully and entirely And farther to the effect abovesaid all of us who have hereunto subscrib'd promise to kéep our selves in a readiness well arm'd mounted and accompanied according to our Qualities immediately upon advertisement given us to put in Execution that which shall be commanded on the part of the King our said Sovereign Lord by his Lieutenant Generals or others having from him Power and Authority as well for the preservation of our Province as for going otherwhere if it be néedfull for the preservation of our said Religion and service of his said Majesty Without its being lawfull or permitted to Gentlemen to place themselves or take employment under other Cornets than those of the Head or the Baily-wéeks in which they shall be resident unless by permission and leave of the King or his Lieutenant or at least of the Head Elect of the said Association who is Monsieur de Humieres to whom we promise to render all honour and obedience To the Council or assistance of whom shall be be call'd and employ'd six of the Principal Gentlemen of the Province and others of quality and fidelity requisite with the advice of whom to provide for the execution of the said matters for the expence entertainment and other charges convenient and necessary for such effect according as the said Countrey can furnish and supply For which said Countrey we offer for such effect even to the number of four Cornets men on horseback well mounted and arm'd and eleven Ensigns of Foot as well for preservation of the said Province as to be otherwhere employed as néed shall be yet no ways comprehending the Companies of the old establishment in consideration that they are obliged to serve otherwhere So that for every of the said Companies be they Horse or Foot thrée Gentlemen of the Countrey men of valour and experience shall be named to the King's Lieutenant or to him who shall be impower'd for that purpose from his Majesty out of the said thrée to make election and choice of one And because such Levies cannot be made without great costs and expences and that it is most just in such an Emergency and necessity to employ all means which are in the power of any man there shall be levied and collected upon the Countrey the sums of money convenient and necessary for this by the advice of the King's Lieutenant or other empowered from his Majesty which he shall afterwards be petition'd to authorize and make valid as being for an occasion so holy and so express as is the service of God and that of his said Majesty in which levying of Money nevertheless no Gentlemen are or shall be meant to be comprehended considering that they will do personal service or set out Men with Horses and Arms according as it shall be ordain'd for them to doe by the Head of the League or by others deputed by him And for the more easie execution of the said employments there shall be in every Baily-wick or Seneschals Court of the said Countrey deputed one or two Gentlemen or others of capacity and fidelity requisite to give information of the means and understand particularly upon the places that which shall be néedfull to be done to report it afterwards and instruct coâ—cerning it those who shall be employed by the Governour or Lieutenant from the King or some other impower'd from him And if any of the said Catholiques of the said Province after having béen requir'd to enter into the present Association shall make difficulty or use delays considering that it is onely for the honour of God the service of the King the good and quiet of our Countrey he shall be held in all the Province for an Enemy of God and a Desertour of his Religion a Rebel to his King a betrayer of his Countrey and by common agréement and consent of all good men shall be abandon'd by all and left and expos'd to all injuries and oppressions which can come upon him without ever being receiv'd into company friendship and alliance of the underwritten Associats and Confederates who have all promis'd friendship and good intelligence amongst themselves for the manutention of their Religion service of the King and preservation of their Countrey with their Persons Fortunes and Families We promise farthermore to kéep one another under the obedience and authority of his Majesty in all surety and quiet and to preserve and defend our selves from all oppression of others And if there shall happen any difference or quarrel amongst us it shall be compos'd by the Lieutenant General of the King and those who by him shall be called who shall cause to be executed under the good plâ—asure and Authority of his said Majesty that
which shall be advised to be just and reasonable for our reconciliation And in case it be advised for the service of the King the good and quiet of the said Province and to compass the ends of our intentions that it be necessary to hold correspondence with other neighbouring Provinces we promise to succour and aid them with all our power and means in such manner as shall be order'd by the Lieutenant of the King or other having power from his Majesty And we also promise to employ our selves with all our power and means to preserve and kéep the State Ecclesiastique from all oppression and injury and if by way of action or otherwise any one attempts to doe them damage be it in their persons or their goods to oppose such person and defend them as being united and Associated with them for the defence and preservation of the Honour of God and our Religion And because it is not our intention any ways to molest those of the new opinion who will contain themselves from enterprizing any thing against the Honour of God the Service of the King the good and quiet of his Subjects we promise to preserve them without their being any ways put in trouble for their Consciences or molested in their persons goods honours and families Provided that they do not contravene in any sort that which shall be by his Majesty ordain'd after the conclusion of the General Estates or any thing whatsoever of the said Catholique Religion And forasmuch as this cause ought to be common indifferently to all persons who make profession to live in the Catholique Religion we the Under-written admit and receive into the present Union all persons placed in Authority and Estate of Iudicature and Iustice Corporations of Towns and Commonalties of the same and generally all others of the third Estate living Catholiquely as it hath béen said promising in like manner to maintain preserve and kéep them from all violence and oppression be it in their persons or their goods every one in his quality and vocation We have promised and sworn to kéep these Articles abovesaid and to observe them from point to point without ever contravening them and without having regard to any â—riendship kindred and alliance which we may have to any person of any quality and Religion whatsoever who shall oppose or break the Commandments and Ordinances of the King the good and quiet of this Kingdom and in like manner to kéep secret the present Association without any communication of it or making any person whomsoever privy to it but onely such as shall be of the present Association The which we will swear and affirm also upon our Consciences and Honours and under the penalties here abovementioned The whole under the Authority of the King renouncing all other Associations if any have béen heretofore made J. Humieres L. Chaulnes F. de Poix A. de Monchy S. de Monchy De Payllart Mailly Anthonie de Gouy Loys de Querecques Lovis d' Estournel Adrian de Boufflers F. de St. Blymond De Rouveroy Jehan de Baynast L. de Warluzer C. de Trerquefmen Philippes de Marle Loys de Belloy A. du Caurel Pierre de Trouville A. Ravye J. de Baynast De Callonne De Lancry F. d' Aumalle A. de La Riviere A. de Humieres Du Biez Lameth F. Ramerelle Boncourt De Glisy A. du Hamel De Prouville L. de Valpergue Raul de Ponquet L. de Margival De Lauzeray M. Relly Francois Hanicque J. de Belloy Claude d' Ally Loys de Festart Du Chastellet P. de Mailleseu Charles de Croy. N. Le Roy. Jehan du Bos. N. de la Warde V. de Brioys Claude de Buâ—y J. Lamire Dessosses N. de Amerval Philippes de Toigny Guy Damiette Jehap de Flavigny N. de Hangest De Forceville P. de Canrry Charles d' Offay J. de Belleval A. de La Chapelle Loys d' Ancbont P. Truffier J. de Senicourt De Mons. Du Plassier Nicholas de Lontines N. de St. Blymon J. d' Amyens De Forceville De Monthomer P. de Bernettz De Rambures F. d' Acheu Flour de Baynast Ogier de Maintenant F. de Bacouel De Pende D. Aumalle Montoyvry De Sailly Aseuillers Francois de Conty O. de Poquesolle Sainte Maure De Rambures Claude de Crequy Jacque d' Ally Adrien de Jrin Jherosme de Fertin Le Caron De Montehuyot P. de La Roche R. de Mailly J. de Forceville La Gualterye N. de la Vieufville A. de la Vieufville A. de Mercatel De Perrin De Milly Josse de Saveuses Jehan de Bernetz A. de Boves Jehan d' Estourmal E. de St. Omer Belleforiere Antoine d' Ardre De la Vieufville A. de Monchy J. de Maulde J. de la Pasture L. Du Moulin A. du Quesnoy J. de Milly Francois de Saveuses De Lauzeray Loys de Moy. J. de Hallencourt De Sainte Anne De Villers J. de Happlaincourt A. de Broye Claude de Warsusell Jehan de Caron Charles de Caron A. De Lameth A. de Camousson M. Destourmel Anthoine de Hamel Gilles de Boffles P. de Saint Deliz Heilly J. de Belloy A. de Biencourt Jehan de Biencourt Claude de Pontaine De Nointel Pierre de Bloletiery Adrian Picquet Anthoine Le Blond Jehan Picquet Le Grand De Basincourt Augustin d' Auxy J. de Verdellot E. Tassart J. de Montain Genvoys Du Menil J. Dey J. Tassart Assevillers Charles de Pontaine Du Breulle De Hauteville A. de Mousquet J. du Nas. Sebastien de Hangre J. de la Motte De Hacqueville A. Noyelle C. de Pas. Charles du Plessier Saint Leu Simon Du Castel Francois du Castel A. de Ptolly A. de Estourmel A. de L' Orme Jehan du Bosc. Jehan de Bernetz De Louchart De Warmade A. de Guiery Du Caurell De Sericourt Du Mesnis De Cambray A. de Lancry Du Puids Domons A. de Bithisy De Marmicourt Berton Pierre Le Cat. This day being the thirteenth of February in the year one thousand five hundred seventy seven We the Underwritten being congregated and Assembled in the Town-House of Peronne according to the appointment of the High and Puissant Lord Messire Iaques de Humieres Knight of the order of the King our Sovereign Counsellour in his Privy Council his Chamberlain in Ordinary Captain of fifty men of Arms of the Establishment Governour anâ— Lieutenant for his Majesty of Peronne Montdidier and Roye and Head of the Holy League and Catholique Association in Picardy have to the said Lord made Oath and Sworn upon the Holy Evangelists to keep inviolably and punctually the Articles here above written of the said Association and Holy League and that for the Body and Inhabitants of the said Town representing them Done in the Chamber of the said Town the day c. abovesaid and we have all sign'd it Claude Le Fevre Register of the said Town L. Desmerliers F. de Hen. L. Le Fevre F. Morel De Flamicourt Le Caron
to restore the Princes of Lorrain to their rights who are as that Advocate pretends and as the people were made to believe the true Posterity of Charlemain After this he makes a fulsome panegyrique of them extolling them infinitely above the Princes of the Bloud against whom he most satyrically declaims Farther he proposes the means which ought to be employ'd to animate the people against them and to oppress them in the States as well as the Huguenots advising that the King shou'd be oblig'd to declare War against them and to give the command of his Arms to the Duke of Guise Then adds that when the Duke who will quickly have suppress'd and rooted out the Huguenots shall have made himself Master of the principal Towns of the Kingdom and that all things shall bend under the power of the League he shall cause the process of Monsieur the King's Brother to be made as a manifest abetter of the Huguenots and after having shav'd the King and confin'd him to a Covent he shall receive the Crown with the benediction of the Pope shall make the Council of Trent to be receiv'd shall subject the French without any restriction to the obedience of the Holy See and abolish all the pretended liberties of the Gallicane Church It must be acknowledg'd with all ingenuity that it is not credible as some have vainly imagin'd that the Huguenots forg'd those horrible Memoires and caus'd them to be printed to blacken and make odious the name of the League amongst all good Catholiques For 't is most certain that this Advocate who hated mortally the Huguenots by whom he had been ill us'd and upon that account had entirely devoted himself to the League undertook of his own head a Voyage to Rome to carry thither those Memoires and to present them to the Pope in hopes to ingage him in that party and that having been kill'd by some accident in his Journey those papers were found in his Portmantue Besides that the Lord Iohn de Vivonne the King's Ambassadour in Spain sent him a copy of them assuring him that they had been shewn to King Philip. But in plain truth there is great probability that those Memoires were onely the product of the foolish crack'd brain'd Advocate who being discompos'd by his passion discharg'd upon the paper all his furious imaginations and chimerique dreams in forming this ridiculous project which no man can reade without discovering at the same time all the signs of a distracted mind The Duke though full of ambition was not so weak to fall into the Snare of those extravagances and if he were so haughty as to soare in his imagination to the possession of a Crown it was not till of a long time afterwards and when he saw that Monsieur being dead and the King without appearance of having any Children the succession was of course to fall on the King of Navarre whom the Duke under pretence that the said King was a relaps'd Heretique believ'd that he might easily cause to be excluded from the Crown and that in his place he might himself obtain it What I may lay down for a certain truth is that there was never any piece so black so malicious and so gross as was that of a certain Protestant Writer who has compil'd the Memoires of the League and who wou'd have it that those Articles which are contain'd in the miserable Writings of David the Advocate were onely the extract of a secret Council held at Rome in the Consistory by Pope Gregory the thirteenth to exterminate the Royal race and to set the Princes of Lorrain upon the Throne For it is so false that this Pope who was always very prudent and moderate shou'd doe any thing of that nature that he constantly persisted in refusing to approve the League whatever instance was made to him though it was promis'd him to ingage him by his interest that they wou'd begin the execution of this great project by chasing the Huguenots out of the County of Avignon and Dauphine to take from them all means of troubling the possessions of the Church and of passing into Italy Nay farther he repli'd to those who were plying him incessantly and proposing the welfare and security of Religion thereby to make him countenance the League that it was in his opinion but a pretext and that those who made it had other secret designs which they had no mind to publish in the Articles of their Association In the mean time those pernicious Memoires with those impudent propositions of the Associators induc'd the King to a strong apprehension that the League was not form'd more against the Huguenots than it was for the subversion of his Authority And as he wanted magnanimity of to take up a bold and generous resolution of oppressing so dangerous a Faction in its infancy which he might have perform'd so to deliver himself from that formidable danger he took indirect courses and much unworthy of a King following the timorous Counsels of the Sieur de Morvillier That famous Iohn de Morvillier who was Bishop of Orleans and afterwards Garde de Sceaux of France after the disgrace and retirement of the Chancellour de l' Hospital was undoubtedly one of the greatest men of those times and he who had the greatest credit and Authority in Council generally valued and belov'd for his excellent qualities and above all for the mildness of his temper and his rare moderation joyn'd with an exact prudence and large capacity not onely in the management of affairs but also in all sorts of Sciences proper for a man of his profession and even in the studies of Humanity Poetry and Eloquence This he frequently made appear in those excellent Speeches which he drew up for our Kings and principally that which Henry the third pronounc'd with so much applause in the first Estates at Blois For this reason he was extremely importun'd to write the History of his times because it was the general belief that no man cou'd acquit himself of so noble an employment with so much eloquence judgment and politeness as himself But as that Subject was not very favourable to the two last Kings Charles the Ninth and Henry under whom he liv'd that on the one side he was too generous and too gratefull to write any thing which might dishonour and blast the memory of those two Princes his Benefactours and that on the other side he was too sincere and too honest to betray and suppress the truth with any shamefull baseness or to alter and corrupt it with mean flatteries altogether unworthy of the majesty and noble freedom of History he said pleasantly to his friends in excusing himself from their solicitations that he was too much a Servant of the Kings his good Masters to undertake the writing of their Lives A notable saying the sense of which examin'd to the bottom ought to oblige great Princes to doe great things thereby to furnish a sincere Historian with materials
whereby to render their Memory immortal and to fill the World with the glory of their names But on the otherside it gives an Historian to understand that when he is oblig'd to write a History neither fear nor hope nor threatnings nor rewards nor hatred nor love nor partiality nor prejudice to any person ought to turn him one single step out of the direct road of truth for which he is accountable to his Reader if he intends not to draw upon himself the contempt and indignation of posterity which will never fail to condemn him for an Impostor and a publick poisoner Thus you have the Character of this great Man in whom nothing cou'd be censur'd but that he was somewhat too timorous and that he had not firmness and resolution enough to give generous and bold advice in pressing emergencies so to have cut up by the root those great evils which threatned the Government Therefore when he saw the King who was yet more fearfull than himself amaz'd at the audaciousness of the Associators And likewise was of opinion that if he wou'd have ventur'd it was not in his power to have suppress'd the League knowing also full well that the Queen Mother who was his Master's Oracle and who underhand supported the League would never consent that the ruine of it shou'd be endeavour'd and that on the other side he was very desirous to draw the King out of this present plunge betwixt both he took a trimming kind of way by which he thought he shou'd be able to preserve the Royal Authority without the destruction of the League To this effect not doubting but that in case it were not prevented they wou'd chuse a Head who had power to turn it against the King himself he advis'd him to declare in that Assembly that far from opposing the League of the Cathâ—liques against the Huguenots he was resolv'd to make himself the Head of it which they dar'd not to refuse him and by that means wou'd make himself the disposer of it and provide that nothing shou'd be enterpris'd against him And truly this was no ill expedient to check and give a stop for some time to the execution of those vast designs which were form'd by the Authours of the League But it must also be confess'd that by signing this and causing it to be sign'd by others as he did when he declared himself the Head of it he authoris'd those very Articles which manifestly shock'd his Royal Authority put the League in condition and even gave it a lawfull right according to that Treaty which he approv'd to act against himself in case he shou'd disturb it or finally break with it which was impossible not to happen in some time he infring'd the Peace which he had given his Subjects by the Edict of Pacification granted to the Huguenots and precipitated France into that bottomless gulf of miseries that are inseparable from a Civil War which himself renew'd and which was of small advantage to him I shall not describe the particularities of it because they belong to the History of France and have no relation to the League which on that occasion acted not on its own account against the Authority of the King By whose orders two Armies the one commanded by the Duke d' Alanson the other by the Duke de Mayenne attacqu'd the Huguenots from whom they took La Charite Issoite Broüage and some other places of less importance I shall onely say that the King quickly growing weary of the Cares of War which were not â—uitable to his humour loving as he passionately did his ease and pleasures A new Peace ensued which was granted to the Huguenots at the end of September in the same year by the Edict of Poitiers little different from that of May onely with this reservation that the exercise of Calvinism was restrain'd within the limits of the former pacifications and that it was forbidden in the Marquisate of Salusses and the County of Avignon Farther it was during this interval of Peace which was highly displeasing to the Leaguers that the King to strengthen himself against the League by making himself Creatures who shou'd inviolably be ingag'd to his Service by an Oath more particular and more solemn than that which universally oblig'd his Subjects establish'd and solemnis'd his new Order of the Holy Ghost which is even at this day and after the entire revolution of an Age one of the most illustrious marks of Honour wherewith our Kings are accustom'd to reward the merit and service of the Princes and the most signaliz'd Nobility It has been for a long time believ'd that Henry the Third was the Institutour and Founder of this Order and himself us'd whatever means he cou'd to have this opinion establish'd in the World But at length the truth is broken out which with whatever arts it is suppress'd can never fail either sooner or later to exert it self and to render to a man's person or his memory the blame or praise that he deserves For it has been found out by a way which cannot be suspected of forgery and which leaves no farther doubt concerning this Subject that the beginning of this Order is to be referr'd to another Prince of the Imperial bloud of France I mean Louis d' Anjou styl'd of Tarento King of Ierusalem and Sicily who in the year one thousand three hundred fifty two instituted in the Castle Del Vovo at Naples the Order of the Knights of the Holy Ghost on the precise day of Pentecost by its constitution containing 25 chapters and which in the style of those times thus begins We Lewis by the Grace of God King of Jerusalem and Sicily to the Honour of the Holy Ghost on whose day we were by Grace Crown'd King of our Realms for the exaltation of Chivalry and increase of Honour have ordaind to make a Society of Knights who shall be call'd the Knights of the Holy Ghost of right intention and the said Knights shall be to the Number of three hundred of which we as beginner and founder of that said Order shall be Prince as also ought to be all our Successours King of Jerusalem and Sicily But seeing he died without Children by Queen Iane the first his Wife and that after his death there happen'd strange revolutions in that Kingdom that order so far perish'd with him that the memory of it had not remain'd if the Original of that constitution of King Lewis had not by some accident fallen into the possession of the Republique of Venice who made a present of it to Henry the third at his return from Poland as of a piece that was very rare and which coming from a Prince of the bloud Royal of our Kings deserv'd well to be preserv'd in the Archives of France which was not the intention of King Henry For finding this Order to be excellent and besides that it was exactly calculated for him because being born on Whitsunday he had been Crown'd
of Navarre demanded of the term prescrib'd them for the surrender of those cautionary places which they had allow'd them for their security by the last Edict of Peace upon this pretence the Factious cast off all manner of respect to him They clamour'd publiquely on all occasions the Preachers from their Pulpits the Curats from their Desks the Confessours from their Seats the Professours in their Lectures and the Doctours in their Resolutions which they gave that they were oblig'd to oppose themselves with all their power against the King who supported the Navarrois and resolv'd that Heretical and stubborn as he was he shou'd nevertheless succeed to the Crown which ought never to be suffer'd they being assur'd that this Prince if ever he shou'd mount the Throne wou'd abolish the Catholique Religion in France This was that terrible machine of which they made use to stir up the people over whom there is nothing has so great a power as the motive of Religion when once they are perswaded that it will be forceably taken from them And to bind them inseparably to the interests and party of the Duke of Guise whom they believ'd to have no other aim in all his undertakings than the maintenance and defence of it against Heretiques and the favourers â— of Heresie But because that Prince who was extremely dextrous had no mind that it shou'd be perceiv'd he acted for himself under so specious a pretence besides that he believ'd not that it was safe for him as yet to attempt the exclusion of the other Princes of the bloud from the Succession they being good Catholiques he endeavour'd to draw subtilely into his party the good old Man Charles Cardinal of Bourbon And indeed having with great Presents gain'd the Sieur de Rubempre who absolutely govern'd him he perswaded him without much trouble that he being by one degree of kindred nearer to the King than was the King of Navarre his Nephew it was to him that the Kingdom belong'd of right in case the King shou'd dye without Children and that the whole Catholique League wou'd stand by him in his claim with all their power were it onely to hinder an Huguenot Prince from succeeding to the Crown There needed not more to shake a Soul so weak as was that of the Cardinal de Bourbon who devout as he was yet suffer'd himself to be seduc'd with the vain hopes of Reigning He was so much dazled with the false glittering of an imaginary Crown that without considering he had already one of Cardinalship that threescore and ten came fast upon him and that the King was not yet thirty five he quitted his Habit of Cardinal and appear'd in publique like the General of an Army which gave men occasion to believe that his great age had at least craz'd his understanding if it had not quite destroy'd it Yet this opinion of the world hinder'd him not from calling himself the Heir presumptive of the Crown nor from declaring himself openly the Head of the League against his Nephew the King of Navarre especially when he saw that party in which he thought himself already so firmly rooted become every day more powerfull and formidable by the conjunction of the particular League of the Parisians which caus'd such furious disorders under the famous name of the sixteen and which was fram'd in Paris about this time in that manner which I am â—ow going to relate After that by the vigilance of the â—â—rst President Christopher de Thou and some other Magistrates the course of the League was stopp'd at Paris where it had begun to make some impression after it had been sign'd by the Picards all things were in a peaceable condition there none daring to hold any secret Cabals against the State till such time as on occasion of the Conference betwixt the King of Navarre and the Duke d' Espernon in Guyenne a malicious report was rais'd that the King protected the Huguenots who so soon as their Head should mount the Throne which he pretended to be his right wou'd not fail to abolish the Catholique Religion in France For then it was that a mean Citizen of Paris call'd La Roche Blond a man rather weak and silly than wicked prejudic'd by the calumnies which the factious publish'd against the King got it into his head through a false zeal of Religion that the good Catholiques of Paris shou'd unite themselves together and oppose with all their force the King's designs who as it was imagin'd favour'd the Heretiques and hinder the King of Navarre from his Succession to the Crown To this purpose he address'd himself immediately to one Mr. Matthew de Launoy who having first been a Priest was afterwards the Minister of Sedan from whence he had escap'd in his own defence being there taken in Adultery and thereupon renouncing his Calvinism was made Canon of Soissons and at that time preach'd at Paris He also communicated his design to two noted Doctours and Curats the one of Saint Severin nam'd Iohn Prevost and the other of Saint Benet who was the famous Mr. Iohn Boucher one of the most follow'd Preachers of Paris but whose talent chiefly consisted in his extreme boldness which stretch'd even to impudence a man more proper as it appear'd to raise a great Sedition by his violent and furious declamations than to preach the Gospel of Iesus Christ which inspires onely humility obedience and submission to the higher Powers These men being united all four in the same opinion which the Spirit of Division and Rebellion disguis'd under the specious appearance of Zeal inspir'd into them communicated to each other the names of all their several acquaintance in Paris who were most proper to enter into Society with them and to lay the foundations of an Holy Union of Catholiques in that great City which without farther deliberation they coucluded to be of absolute necessity to preserve Religion in France and to extinguish Tyranny for by that name it was that those factious Bygots took the licence to call the Government But for fear of being too soon discover'd by their multitude as it had happen'd formerly in Paris when the project of the League was first broach'd they agreed each of them to name two Associats of the most conâ—iding men they knew to whom they shou'd communicate the whole secret of their enterprise Upon which La roche Blond chose the Sieur Lewis d' Orleans a famous Advocate and the Sieur Acarie Master of the Accompts who was afterwards ironically call'd the Lacquay of the League because that being lame he was one of those who went and came and acted with most earnestness for the interest of his party The same man who was Husband to that pious Mary of the Incarnation of whose good example he profited so ill The Curat of St. Benet nam'd Mignager an Advocate and Crucè a Procureur of Parlament He of St. Severin gave his voice for the Sieur de Caumont an Advocate and a Merchant call'd
to the King who not being resolv'd what to answer them for fear of provoking the League in case he shou'd grant them their demands or of drawing on himself the united Forces of almost all the Protestants of Germany in case of a refusal to gain time took a Progress as far as Lyons while the Deputies of those Princes were at Paris which caus'd the Count of Montbeliard and the Count of Isembourg who were the chief of that Embassy to return But so did not the rest as being obstinately set down to wait the King's return who was at last constrain'd being overcome by their extreme persistance whom he well hop'd to have tir'd first to give them the Audience which they demanded He who was spokesman for the rest loosing all manner of respect made a blunt and haughty Speech reproching him in certain terms which were but too intelligible that against his Conscience and his Honour he had violated his faith so solemnly given to his most faithfull Subjects of the Protestant Religion to whom he had promis'd the free exercise of it they remaining as since that time they had always done in that perfect obedience which is due from Subjects to their Sovereigns That Prince who at other times was but too meek and patient or rather too weak and timorous was so much offended at this brutal insolence that he was not able to curb himself from breaking out into choler on this occasion For he repli'd smartly to them with that air of Majesty and fierceness which he knew well to take up whensoever it pleas'd him that as he had not taken the liberty to give Laws to their Masters of ruling their Estates according to their own liking and changing the Civil and Religious constitution of their Government so neither on his side wou'd he suffer them to intermeddle in those alterations which he thought fit to make in his Edicts according to the diversity of times and of occasions for the good of his People of whom the greatest part depended on the true Roman Catholique Religion which the most Christian Kings his Predecessours had ever maintain'd in France to the exclusion of all others Afterwards retiring into his Cabinet where after he had revolv'd in his mind what had been said on either part he was of opinion that his Answer had not been sharp enough he sent them by one of the Secretaries of State a Paper written with his own hand which was read to them and in which he gave the Lie in formal terms to all those who said he had done against his Honour or violated his Faith in revoking the Edict of May by that of Iuly after which it was told them from him that they had no more to doe than to return home without expecting any farther Audience This was certainly an Answer worthy of a great Monarch had he maintain'd it by his actions as well as by his words and had he not shewn by his after conduct the fear he had of this irruption of the Germans For in order to prevent it he seem'd to descend too much from that high and Supreme Majesty of a King by treating almost upon terms of equality with the Duke of Guise and offering him besides whatever advantages he cou'd wish in Honours and in Pensions and many Towns for his security which had made him a kind of Independant Royalty in the Kingdome on this onely condition that he would be reconcil'd to the King of Navarre and give him leave to live in quiet as if it were the Duke and not the King who had the power of giving Peace Though these advantageous proffers were sufficient to have tempted the Duke's ambition nevertheless he wou'd not accept them because he hop'd to satisfie it much better by continuing the War in which he had engag'd the King who was not able to recall his promise besides he was not willing to destroy the opinion which the people had conceiv'd of him that he acted by no motive of self-interest but onely for the Cause of God and of Religion This expedient of Peace therefore failing the King who had ardently desir'd it he employ'd another which was to intreat Q. Katharine de Medices to confer with the King of Navarre her Son-in-Law to try if by her usual arts she cou'd induce him to some accommodation which might be satisfactory to the League and stop the Germans of whose Succours his peace once made that King wou'd have no farther use The Queen Mother who at that time desir'd the peace at least as much as he because she fear'd to be left at the discretion of either of the two parties by whom she was equally hated willingly accepted that Commission grounding her hopes on those tricks and artificial ways by which she had so often succeeded on the like occasions Having then advanc'd as far as Champigny a fair house belonging to the Duke of Montpensier she manag'd the matter in such sort by the mediation of that Prince who went to visit the King of Navarre from her that it was agreed there shou'd be a Conference After many difficulties which were rais'd concerning it and which with much canvasing they got over the place was appointed to be St. Brix a Castle near Cognac belonging to the Sieur de Fo rs who was of the King's party She came thither attended by the Dukes of Montpensier and of Nevers Marshal Biron and some other Lords who were no friends to the Guises or the Leaguers to the end that Conference might be the more amicable The King of Navarre came also thither with the Prince of Condè Vicount de Turenne and some others the most considerable of their Party It appear'd manifestly at this Enterview that the Queen held no longer that Authority which had been yielded to her in the former Conferences wherein she had carried all things according to her own desire by the wonderfull Ascendant which she had over their minds And she understood but too well from the very beginning that she had to doe with such as were distrustfull of her subtilties and who wou'd not suffer themselves to be surpris'd easily as some of them had been on St. Bartholomew's day whereof they had not yet worn out the remembrance For they wou'd never adventure themselves all three together in the Chamber appointed for the Conference when the King of Navarre was there the Prince and Vicount well accompanied made a guard at the door and when either of the other two enter'd the King of Navarre and the other did the like for him that they might not put themselves unwarily into her hands on whose word they had no reason to rely and who dar'd not to arrest any of them singly the two remaining being at liberty and in condition to give themselves satisfaction on the Aggressours Thus being too suspicious and their minds too much embitter'd to act calmly and reasonably in this Conference it went off in three Enterviews which were made in resenting
spoke the least harm of them cou'd not hold from open Laughter The most ridiculous part of them and which made a kind of Tragicomedy wherein there was matter of Mirth and Mourning was that the Lacquies of these Courtiers who in compliance to the King had inroll'd themselves in this Brotherhood of Penitents had the insolence to mimick it in derision of their Masters even in the Court of the Louvre making shew of lashing themselves lustily as if they had been Flagellants in earnest But the King having heard of it before the Farce was quite play'd out caus'd fourscore of them to be seiz'd whom they drew into the Cour des Cuisines where they were so well belabour'd with Whips that they were left in a way representing to the Life that condition into which the ancient Flagellants put their bodies by their bloudy penance This notwithsâ—anding hinder'd not others from doing somewhat much more criminal than the poor Lacquies had attempted For some malicious Wits there were amongst the Leaguers who had the impudence to expose publiquely a Picture where the King was seen cloath'd in his penitential Robes pulling the Honey combs out of an Hive saying these words which were written over his Head as the Motto of the Embleme Sic eorum aculeos evito 'T is thus I cover my self from their Stings As if they desir'd to be understood in this witty but very spightfull expression That as a man who intends to rob a Hive must cover his Face and Hands to avoid Stinging from the Bees who Associate themselves against the Thief So the King who drew the vital nourishment of his Kingdom to lavish it prodigally on his Minions and who endeavour'd to ruine Religion by the secret intelligence he held with the King of Navarre and the Huguenots disguis'd himself in this Habit of a Penitent to cheat the League and to shelter himself from the just indignation of the Catholiques united against him But they who were more clamorous than all the rest were certain Preachers of the League who profaneing their Sacred Function of Preaching the Gospel by their Seditious Tongues and dealing out a thousand impostures from the Chair of Truth declaim'd venemously against the Lord 's Annointed all whose actions they bespatter'd even those which were adorn'd with the greatest Piety Of all those Satyrists he who roar'd the most insolently against those Devotions of the King was Doctour Poncet Curate of St. Peter des Arsis who was accustom'd to relate blunderingly in his Sermons the sillyest things which the most violent Leaguers us'd to say and preach'd them without fear or wit to his Congregation as if they had been as true as Gospel 'T was not that he wanted good natural parts as once he made it sufficiently appear when the Duke of Ioyeuse the King's Favourite having told him that he was glad to know a man who had so noble a Talent as to divert the people and set them on the merry pin of Laughing at his Sermons He drily answer'd him 't is but reasonable that I shou'd make them laugh sometimes since you have made them cry so often for the extraordinary Subsedies which were impos'd for the defraying of the excessive charges of your sweet Marriage For the report went that the King had expended on them more than twelve hundred thousand Crowns Now this Seditious Preacher declaim'd so outragiously against those Processions and told so many scandalous lies of the King himself and the fraternity of Penitents whom he call'd the Brotherhood of Hypocrites and Atheists that the King clap'd him up in Prison for some days after which he set him at liberty thinking that this light Correction wou'd teach him better manners But it was to little purpose for the Fellow having heard it reported that he â—ad chaâ—â—â—â— his note after having smarted for it had the impudence to say publiquely in the Pulpit that he was no Parrot to be taught his Lesson and thereupon he fell to his old trade of railing more violently than ever Yet it was not long e'er he inflicted on himself the punishment which he had so well deserv'd As the Licence of speaking evil of the Higher Powers was now become the common practice of the Leaguers a certain Advocate of Poitiers call'd Le Breton who had lost his Suit at Poitiers and at Paris in pleading for a Widow enrag'd that the Duke of Guise and Mayenne the King of Navarre and the King himself to whom he had made his addresses going from one to the other and making so many fruitless Journies to complain of his hard Usage had always shaken him off and treated him like a Fool or Madman made a Libell full of Villanous reproaches and calumnies against the King and the Members of the Parlament The Writing having been seiz'd together with the Authour it was thought fit to make an example of him to stop the fury of that licentious way of Writing and of Speaking Upon which short work was made in the process of this audacious Advocate he had Justice roundly done him and was fairly hang'd before the Steps of the Palace None are so wretchedly fearfull and cowardly at the point of danger as those who are the most fool-hardy in railing when they believe they are out of reach When our noble Doctour Poncet was told of this Execution on the Lawyer and that he saw by this terrible example they were punish'd with death who dar'd to affront the Sovereign Majesty with Scandalous and Seditious Invectives he was taken so violently with a sudden fright and apprehension that it seiz'd on his Heart and stop'd the circulation of his Bloud he betook himself immediately to his Bed from whence this tongue Bravo did never rise for he died some few days after of pure imagination that the same distributive Justice wou'd reach him which had overtaken the miserable Advocate In the mean time the King who had always earnestly desir'd to have peace in his Kingdom made another attempt though without Success to oblige on one side the Duke of Guise to accommodate matters with the King of Navarre on Conditions more advantageous than he had yet offer'd him and on the other side to cause the King of Navarre to return into the Catholique Church promising him in case he wou'd to declare him Lieutenant General in all the Realm to impower him yet with more Authority than he himself had possess'd when he Commanded the Armies of the late King his Brother to make him President of the Council and even at last which that King most passionately desir'd to Disâ—olve his Marriage with Queen Margaret and to give him the Princess of Lorrain Grand-Daughter to the Queen Mother who was willing to consent to this Marriage which might one day make that Princess Queen of France whom she always lov'd with so much tenderness These undoubtedly were most advantageous offers and very capable of tempting a man of that King's Character who to say the truth was none of the
resolution as generous as his and much more daring was also much more fortunate in the execution of it For having perceiv'd the Prince of Condè at a distance and distinguishing him from the rest while that Prince was eagerly pursuing his Victory he comes up to him at a round Gallop and couching his Lance overturns him to the Ground with a great stroke which he gave him full in the middle of his Cuirasse after which immediately throwing himself from his Horse he presented him his hand with extreme respect to lift him from the Earth and at the same time beg'd him to receive him as his Prisoner which the brave Prince admireing the courage and prudence of his Enemy perform'd embracing him with all the generosity of which he made profession This Victory was complete the Colours the Cannon the Baggage remain'd in possession of the Conquerour and with these the Field of Battel cover'd with betwixt four and five thousand Souldiers and four hundred Gentlemen of the Dukes Army who lay extended on the Plain amongst whom besides the Duke of Ioyeuse and his young Brother Monsieur de St. Sauveur were the Counts de La Suze d' Avaugour d' Aubijoux the Sieurs de Neuvy du Bordet de Mailly-Bressay de Roussay youngest Brother of Piennes Guidon to Ioyeuse de Vaux Lieutenant to Bellegarde d' Alluin de Fumel de Roche fort de Croissotte de Tiercelin Saveuse who was Mestre de Camp and the Sieur de St. Lary-Bellegarde Son to the Marshal of the same Name and Governour of Saintonge and of Angoumois who being mortally wounded died not long after of his hurts Almost all the remainders of the Army were made Prisoners excepting onely the Albanois who forsaking the pillage about which they were busied at Coutras preserv'd themselves by flight and the Marquis of Lavardin who not being able to Rally his men who had pursu'd the Runnaways too far retir'd almost alone to Roche-Chalais with one Ensign which he sav'd out of the Regiment of Picardy This retreat way very Honourable to that Valiant Gentleman who having renounc'd Calvinism which his Father had embrac'd combated that day against the King of Navarre as against the Head of the Huguenots but not long after casting himself into his party for the defence of the State and the Rights of the Crown he always fought for him against the League with so much Valour Conduct and Fidelity that at length he receiv'd in Recompence of his long Services the Baston of Marshal de France To conclude this memorable Victory cost not the Conquerours above five or six Gentlemen and what added to the lustre of it was the wonderfull Clemency of the King of Navarre By his own presence he stop'd the fury of the Souldiers who were putting all the Infantry to the Sword He receiv'd all Prisoners of Quality with infinite Courtesie he chear'd them for their loss by extolling their Courage he sent almost every man home without paying Ransome he reâ—â—or'd to the Parents and Relations the Bodies of such as had died Honourably in the Field of Battel and beyond all this the Corps of the Duke de Ioyeuse for whom the King in continuance of his favour even after Death perform'd a most magnificent Funeral with Royal Pomp. In â—ine this Generous Conquerour had so much moderation that he sent his immediate protestations to the King that aftâ—r this advantage he demanded nothing more than the Honour of his favour and the restoring of that Peace which his Majesty had graciously given him and which their common Enemies had broken But after all it must be ingenuously acknowleg'd that as he had the conduct and valour of Hannibal in this Battel so he had his misfortune too in not understanding the art of managing his Victory or in his unwillingness to use it For were it that the Conquerours enrich'd with the Spoils of their Enemies long'd for Quiet that they might enjoy their Booty at their ease or that the Noblesse who had serv'd under him as Volunteers had not oblig'd themselves to longer Duty than till that time or that having weaken'd by his Victory the party of the League he desir'd not that the Huguenots who confided more in the Prince of Condè than himself shou'd encrease their strength or to speak more plainly that certain amorous ingagements somewhat unworthy of a Victorious Heroe recall'd him into Bearne most certain it is that he dissolv'd his Army and licens'd them to the time he had appointed then repass'd the Garonne speedily with part of the Ensigns and Colours he had taken from the Enemy which he was ambitious to present to the fair one whom he lov'd instead of putting himself into a condition of reaping that Fruit which he might reasonably expect from so great a Victory and of going speedily to joyn the great Army of Germans which was Marching to his Assistance and concerning which it will now be necessary that I speak For while these things were acting in France the Protestant Princes of Germany who were furiously incens'd against the King for that disdainfull and rough answer which he had made to their Ambassadours set on foot a more powerfull Army than ever they had sent into this Kingdom for the succour of the Huguenots There were in this Body which was rais'd eight thousand five hundred Reyters betwixt five and six thousand Lansquenets and sixteen thousand Swissers whom the Sieur de Clervant had obtain'd from the Protestants for the King of Navarre besides four thousand others whom he had left behind him in his paâ—â—age through Dauphinè to reinforce the Army of Lesdiguieres but before they were able to joyn him they were totally defeated by the famous Colonel of Corsica Alphonso d' Ornano Duke Iohn Casimir of whom I have frequently made mention in my History of Calvinism ought to have commanded these Germans in his own Person but immediately before they were to March he excus'd his going with them because he was oblig'd to stay in Germany having taken upon him the Government of the Palatinate during the minority of the young Electour his Nephew whereupon they were constrain'd to receive the Baron of Dona his Favourite whom long before he had resolv'd to substitute in his room Justice ought in reason to he render'd to every man's desert in speaking the naked truth without taking up a prejudice on trust from receiv'd Opinions which often have very false Foundaâ—â—ons Though the greatest part of the French and Italian Historians have spoken little to the advantage of this Baron 't is nevertheless most certain that he was of a Birth Noble enough to sustain the Quality of a General and that he was not at all below the Dignity of that Employment being descended from one of the most illustrious Families of Prussia and his Ancestours having possess'd for many Ages the Honour of Burgraves which is one of the most considerable of the Empire He was a man who wanted neither Sense nor good
Carriage and was besides extremely brave but on the other side he had neither Authority nor experience enough to command so great an Army the greater part of whose Officers were commonly at variance amongst themselves and never willing to obey his Orders Thus to speak properly he was onely the General of the Reyters though the Lansquenets and Swissers acknowledg'd him for their Chief in the room of Prince Casimir But the young Duke of Bouillon was he whom the King of Navarre had nam'd for his Lieutenant and who had the Title of General of that Army Notwithstanding which he had no absolute Command over it because there was a Council compos'd of six French Officers and as many Germans joyn'd with him who together with the Baron of Dona decided all things by plurality of Voices which was the occasion of much disorder For the Germans seldom or never joyn'd in opinion with the French and on the other side the French were jealous both of them and of one another so that there cou'd be no good intelligence amongst them Besides all whâ—ch there were some of their number whom the Duke of Guise the most artfull of Mankind had gain'd into his Interests and who underhand gave him notice of all the resolutions which were taken in the Council For the rest after the Strangers had receiv'd some part of their Pay which the Queen of England had suppli'd after they had been assur'd of the remainder and also promis'd that the King of Navarre wou'd joyn them in a little time and that they shou'd have onely the League upon their hands and not the King who had Arm'd for no other purpose but to assist them in the destruction of the Guises they pass'd the Rhine about the twentieth of August and in the Plain of Strasburg found William Robert de la Mark Duke of Bouillon and his Brother Iohn Robert Count de la Mark who had waited there for their coming about fifteen days with two thousand Foot and between three and four hundred French Horse Thus this Army in the general review which was made of it near Strasburg was found to consist of thirty three thousand men effective all experienc'd Souldiers and well equipp'd without reckoning into the number the fifteen or sixteen hundred foot and two hundred Horse which the Count of Chastillon Son of the late Admiral brought thither in a small time after and about two thousand others who joyn'd them in their march Insomuch that when they enter'd France they were not less than forty thousand Men with eighteen or twenty pieces of Artillery which undoubtedly was sufficient to strike a terrour into those against whom they march'd in favour of the King of Navarre And indeed this distant thunderclap which was heard as far as Paris alarm'd the Council of Sixteen so teâ—ribly that to shelter themselves from the ensuing Storm they sent fresh instructions to the principal Cities of the Kingdom and a new form of Oath to unite them more straitly to themselves in their common defence endeavouring maliciously to make them believe that it was the King himself who had call'd in these Heretique Foreigners with intention of destroying those who defended the Catholique Religion and with design that hereafter Heresie it self and the Promoter of it shou'd Reign in France But the Duke of Guise whose undaunted heart was not capable of the least cowardise took ways much different from theirs in pursuance of the same design viz. the destruction of that formidable Army which menac'd him with inevitable ruine And he compass'd his intentions happily and gloriously by his admirable conduct readiness of wit and daring resolution performing one of the noblest actions which were ever done and which alone may justly rank him with the greatest Heroes of Antiquity He had almost nothing of all that had been promis'd him at Meaux when there was made the partition of the Forces which by appointment were to serve in the King's Army and in his Of twenty Troups of Men at Arms which were order'd him not one appear'd at the Rendesvouz that was assign'd at Chaumont there was neither Money nor Ammunition nor Cannon sent him so that having assembled at Vaucoleur on the twenty second of August all the forces he could get together by the means of his friends and partly by the money of the Parisians there were found no more than a body of three thousand Men that is to say about six hundred Cuirassiers of his own company and those of the Prince of Ioinville's his Son of the Count of Chaligny the Chevalier d' Aumale the Sieurs of La Chastre and D' Amblize three hundred Horse which were sent him from the Garrison of Cambray by Balagny who had made himself a Leaguer to change his Government into a Principality under protection of the League besides almost as many light Horsemen some Italians some Albanois which were sent him by the Duke of Parma Governour of the Low-Countries As for Infantry he had no more than the two Regiments of Captain St. Paul and of Iohannes on whom he very much rely'd With these inconsiderable Forces he went to joyn himself with those of Charles Duke of Lorrain who with the Succours which he had receiv'd out of Flanders under the conduct of the Marquis d' Avre and the Marquis de Varambon and all he cou'd Levy in Germany had no more than seven thousand Foot and about fifteen hundred Horse Insomuch that both in conjunction cou'd not make above twelve or thirteen thousand Men at most to oppose against thirty five thousand who were coming to fall on them The Duke of Lorrain who foresaw this Tempest had done what lay in him to provide against it and to put himself in a state of defence by fortifying the greatest part of his Towns And observing that Nancy his Capital City was of too little compass to receive those great numbers of Persons of Quality and Clergy-men who ran thither for refuge from every quarter some from their Countrey-houses others from their small Castles and unfortified Towns he took this opportunity to enlarge that great and beautifull part of it which is call'd the New Town on the Fortifications of which being without dispute the fairest and the strongest of that time he employ'd his Workmen with so much diligence that it was already in condition of making a stout defence against that Army which as numerous and as powerfull as it was had never thâ— courage to attempt it These two Armies being one of them on this side the Mountains of Vauge in Lorrain and the other beyond those Mountains in Alsace a Council was held in both of them at the same time and it so happen'd by an accident seldom known that the same resolution was taken by them both In the German Army the Duke of Bouillon and one part of the Council wou'd have it that the War shou'd be made in Lorrain to compass as they urg'd at one onely blow the ruine of that
Assembly of the Estates was open'd on Sunday the sixteenth of that Month in the great Hall of the Castle of Blois As it is not my business to say any thing of this Assembly which relates not precisely to the History of the League I shall not trouble my self with every particular which pass'd in it I shall onely say that the King who was naturally eloquent open'd the Assembly with an excellent Oration wherein after he had in a most Majestique manner and with most pathetique words exhorted the Deputies to their duty he either cou'd not or wou'd not conceal from them that he had not so far forgotten the past actions but that he had taken up a firm resolution to inflict an exemplary punishment on such who shou'd persist in acting against his Authority and continue to be still possest with that spirit of Leaguing and Caballing which was upon the point of ruining the State neither wou'd he henceforth spare those who shou'd have any other union than that which the Members ought to have with their Head and Subjects with their Soveraign This touch'd so sensibly the Leaguers of that Assembly and principally their Head who look'd on this Speech as particularly address'd to himself that they proceeded even to threatning that they wou'd break off the Estates by their departure if the King who had commanded his Speech to be Printed wou'd not give order to suppress it or at least correct that passage There are some who affirm that after a rough dispute concerning it the King permitted at last that something shou'd be alter'd and the harshness of his expressions a little mollifi'd But there are others and even of their number who heard it spoken who assure us that it came out in publique in the same terms it was pronounc'd However it were 't is certain that this complaint of theirs much exasperated the King's mind who saw clearly by this proceeding that the League notwithstanding its Reunion with him had still a separate interest of its own and extremely opposite to his I will adventure to say farther that he was then fully perswaded of it when he perceiv'd that the Duke of Guise who was the true Head of it was evidently more powerfull than himself in those Estates For besides that the greatest part of the Deputies had been elected by the factious intrigues of his dependants in the Provinces those who were chosen to preside over the several Orders that is to say the Cardinals of Bâ—urbon and of Guise for the Clergy the Count of Brissac and the Baron of Magnac for the Nobility and the Provost of Merchants La Chapelle Martau for the third order were all of them entirely at the Duke's devotion Insomuch that at the second Session after the Edict of Reunion had been solemnly confirm'd sworn to again and pass'd into a fundamental Law of the State when the Petitions of the three Orders were read he saw that under pretence of desiring to reform some abuses which were crept into the State they were fill'd with an infinite number of Propositions which tended to the manifest diminution or rather the annihilation of the Royal Authority and to reduce the Government to that pass that there shou'd remain to the King no more than the empty name and vain appearance of a Soveraign Monarch and that all the real and essential part of Soveraignty shou'd be in the League which absolutely depended on the Duke of Guise Yet farther they were not satisfied barely to propose these things leaving to the King according to the Ancient Laws and Constitution of the Monarchy the power of either passing or refusing them according to his pleasure â—after they had been well examin'd in his Council but they pretended that after they had been receiv'd by the consent of the three Orders they shou'd become Laws of course and be inviolable so that the King shou'd not have the power either to change or abrogate them in his Council Then they wou'd have an abatement of Taxes and Imposts but so much out of measure that they took away from the King the means of making that War in which themselves had ingag'd him They wou'd also that the Council of Trent shou'd be receiv'd absolutely and without modification And the famous Attorney General Iaques de Faye d' Espesses who in a great Assembly held on that occasion maintain'd with strength of reason against some decrees of that Council the Prerogatives of the King or Regalia and the Immunities of the Gallicane Church was so ill treated there though he had baffled the Arch-Bishop of Lyons who undertook to destroy those Privileges that the King who was affronted in the person of his Attorney was not a little displeas'd at their proceedings But above all things they were urgent with him and press'd it with incredible obstinacy that the King of Navarre who at the same time had assembled the Estates of his Party at Rochelle and from thence had sent to those at Blois intimating his desire of a General Council to be summon'd where all things might be accommodated shou'd from that time forward be declar'd uncapable of ever succeeding to the Crown They had made a Decree concerning this by consent of the three Orders at the particular instance of the Order of the Clergy And the King who clearly foresaw the terrible consequences of this unparallel'd injustice and who was ply'd incessantly to subscribe it was not able to defend himself otherwise than by amusing them with delays and rubbs which he dextrously caus'd to be thrown in their way on sundry pretences It was not doubted but that the Duke of Guise who having two thirds of the Estates for him was consequently the Master there was Authour of all these Propositions so contrary to the true Interests and Authority of the King especially when it was evident that he employ'd all his Managers to cause himself to be declar'd in the Estates Lieutenant General through the whole Kingdom as if he wou'd possess himself of that Supreme Command without dependance on the King and that he pretended his Prince to be no more his Master as not having power to deprive him of a dignity which he was to hold from a Commission given him by others All these things so unworthy of the Majesty of a great King at the length quite weari'd out his patience which after so long dissembling his injuries on the sudden broke out into the extremity of rage Insomuch that those among his Confidents who ardently desir'd the destruction of the Duke for their own advantage found not the least trouble in passing on the King for truths many reports and oftentimes very groundless rumours which ran of the Duke adding to them that it was he who underhand had drawn the Duke of Savoy to possess himself of the Marquisate of Saluces as he had lately done And this they confidently affirm'd though the Duke by his own interest in the Estates had procur'd them to vote a War against the
than a bare conjecture and the impulse of his inborn generosity which his bloudy and lamentable death as things are commonly judg'd by their event has caus'd to pass in the World for an effect of the greatest rashness It ought not here to be expected that I shou'd dwell on an exact and long description of all the circumstances of that tragical action which has been so unfortunate to France and so ill receiv'd in the World Besides that they are recounted in very different manners by the Historians of one and the other Religion according to their different passions and that the greatest part of them are either false or have little in them worth observation the thing was done with so great facility and precipitation and withall in so brutal a manner that it cannot be too hastily pass'd over this then is the plain and succinct relation of it After that the Brave Grillon Mestre de Camp of the Regiment of Guards had generously refus'd to kill the Duke of Guise unless in single Duel and in an honourable way the King had recourse to Lognac the first Gentleman of his Chamber and Captain of the forty five who promis'd him eighteen or twenty of the most resolute amongst them and for whom he durst be answerable They were of the number of those whom the Duke of Guise who had always a distrust of those Gascons as creatures of the Duke of Espernon had formerly demanded that they might be dismiss'd from which request he had afterwards desisted Insomuch that it may be said he foresaw the misfortune that attended him without being able to avoid it For on Friday the twenty third of December being enter'd about eight of the Clock in the Morning into the great Hall where the King had intimated on Thursday night that he intended to hold the Council very early that he might afterwards go to Nostre dame de Clery some came to tell him that His Majesty expected him in the old Closset yet he was not there but in the other which looks into the Garden Upon this he arose from the fire side where finding himself somewhat indispos'd he had been seated and pass'd through a narrow Entry which was on one side the Hall into the Chamber where he found Lognac with seven or eight of the forty five the King himself having caus'd them to enter into that room very secretly before day-break the rest of them were posted in the old Closset and all of them had great Ponyards hid under their Cloaks expecting onely the coming of the Duke of Guise to make sure work with him whether it were in the Chamber or in the Closset in case he shou'd retire thither for his defence There needed not so great a preparation for the killing of a single man who came thither without distrust of any thing that was design'd against him and who holding his Hat in one hand and with the other the lappet of his Cloak which he had wrapt under his left Arm was in no condition of defence In this posture he advanc'd towards the old Closset saluting very civilly as his custome was those Gentlemen who made shew of attending him out of respect as far as the door And as in lifting up the Hangings with the help of one of them he stoop'd to enter he was suddenly seiz'd by the Arms and by the Legs and at the same instant struck into the Body before with five or six Ponyards and from behind into the Nape of the Neck and the Throat which hinder'd him from speaking one single word of all that he is made to say or so much as drawing out his Sword All that he cou'd do was to drag along his Murtherers with the last and strongest effort that he cou'd make strugling and striving till he fell down at the Beds-Feet where some while after with a deep Groan he yielded up his breath The Cardinal of Guise and Arch-Bishop of Lyons who were in the Council Hall rising up at the Noise with intention of running to his aid were made Prisoners by the Marshals D' Aumont and de Retz At the same time the Cardinal of Bourbon was also seiz'd in the Castle together with Anne d' Este Duchess of Nemours and Mother of the Guises and the Prince of Ioinville the Dukes of Elbeuf and Nemours Brissac and Boisdauphin with many other Lords who were Confidents of the Duke and Pericard his Secretary And in the mean time the Grand Prevost of the King's House went with his Archers to the Chamber of the third Estate in the Town-House and there arrested the President Neuilly the Prevost of Merchants the Sheriffs Compan and Cotte-Blanch who were Deputies for Paris and some other notorious Leaguers This being done the King himself brought the News of it to the Queen Mother telling her that now he was a real King since he had cut off the Duke of Guise At which that Princess being much surpris'd and mov'd asking him if he had made provision against future accidents he answer'd her in an angry kind of tone much differing from his accustom'd manner of speaking to her that she might set her heart at rest for he had taken order for what might happen and so went out surlily to go to Mass yet before he went he sent particularly to Cardinal Gondi and to the Cardinal Legat Morosini and inform'd them both of what had pass'd with his reasons to justify his proceedings Davila the Historian reports that before he went to Mass the King met the Legat and walking with him a long time gave him all his reasons for that action which he takes the pains to set down at large as if he had been present at that long Conference and that he had heard without loosing one single word all the King said to the Cardinal together with the Cardinal 's politique reflexions upon it and his reply to the King's discourse For he tells us that the Legat fearing to lesten Henry's affection to the Holy See assur'd him that the Pope as being a common Father wou'd listen favourably to his excuses and withall exhorted him to make War against the Huguenots that he might make demonstrations of his sincerity and that it might be evident he kill'd not the Duke of Guise the great Enemy of the Heretiques out of intention to favour the King of Navarre and that party He adds that the King promis'd him and confirm'd it with an Oath that provided the Pope wou'd joyn with him he wou'd proceed to make War against them with more eagerness than ever and wou'd not sufâ—er any other Religion but the Roman Catholique in his Kingdom That after this solemn Protestation the Legat judg'd it not expedient to proceed any farther in the Conference and that without saying any thing for the present in favour of the Prelates who were Prisoners he continued to treat with him in the same manner he had us'd formerly There are those also who are bold enough to affirm that by
and had not fail'd whensoever it had pleas'd them to have given the Law to him To this effect he weaken'd that Council by augmenting it to a greater number of the most qualifi'd of the party on whom he knew he might safely rely as being of his own Election For under pretence that it was necessary that this Assembly which ought to be the General Council of the Union shou'd be inlarg'd and be authoriz'd by the whole Party he caus'd an Order to be pass'd that all the Princes might assist in it whensoever they pleas'd and that all the Bishops the Presidents the Procureurs and the Advocates General of Parliaments fifteen Counsellors whom he nam'd the Prevost of Merchants the Sheriffs the Town Solicitor and the Deputies of the three Orders of all the Provinces of the League shou'd have places in it and deliberative Votes Thus being always the strongest in that Assembly by the great number of voices which were for him he caus'd whatsoever he pleas'd to pass in spigâ—t of the Sixteen and procur'd an authority to himself near approaching to the Soveraign Power of a King For the first thing which was order'd in this new Council was that in sign of this absolute Dominion which either they suffer'd him to take or they gave him he shou'd have from thenceforth till the holding of the Estates the most extraordinary and unexampled quality of Lieutenant General not of the King for the League acknowledg'd none at that time but of the Estate and Crown of France As if he who commands and governs cou'd represent a Kingdom and hold in quality of Lieutenant the place of an Estate which is not that which governs but what is or ought to be govern'd Notwithstanding which he took his Oath for that new fantastique dignity on the thirteenth of March in the Parliament which verifi'd the Letters Patents of it under the new Seals made instead of those of the King which were broken by them And to begin the Exercise of his Office by an act of Soveraignty he caus'd immediately to be publish'd his new Laws contain'd in one and twenty Articles for the uniting under one form of Government all the Towns which were enter'd into the League and those which in process of time shou'd enter the number of which in a short space grew very great For there is nothing more surprising than to see with what rapidity that torrent of Rebellion spreading from the Capital City into the Provinces drew along with it the greatest Towns which under pretence of revenging the death of the pretended Patrons of the Faith and of preserving Religion associated themselves against God's Anointed either to make themselves a new Master or to have none at all Almost all the Towns of Burgundy of Champaign of Picardy and of the Isle of France the greater part of those of Normandy Mayne Bretagne Anjou Auvergne Dauphine Provence Berry and the greatest Cities of the Kingdom next to Paris as Roüen Lyons Tholouse and Poitiers had put themselves under the protection of the Vnion and were members of it before the end of March and in every place were committed the like disorders as were at Paris But principally at Tholouse where the furious Rabble having set upon the first President Duranti and Daphis the Advocate General two men of great understanding singular Vertue and uncommon fidelity to the King's Service Massacred them in the open Street After which their faculty of Divines confirm'd the decree of the Sorbonne which was propos'd in a general Assembly at the Town-House by which they authoris'd the Revolt The greatest part of Provence had also thrown it self with the same impetuosity into the League under the leading of the famous Hubert de Garde Sieur de Vins who by his courage and extraordinary Valour accompanied with his great prudence and the wonderfull talent he had of gaining the affections of the people had acquir'd more reputation and power than any Gentleman not supported by the Royal Authority had ever obtain'd in his own Countrey He had formerly sav'd the Life of Henry the Third at Rochelle when that Prince who was then but Duke of Anjou approaching too near to a Retrenchment a Souldier who had singled him out from all the rest had just taken aim at him which the Sieur de Vins perceiving threw himself before him in the Bullets way and receiv'd the Musquet shot which wanted little of costing him his Life He expected as he had reason some great preferment from the Duke when he was King in recompence of so generous an action but perceiving that all was play'd into the Minions hands without so much as taking the least notice of his worth the indignation of being slighted caus'd him to enter into the Duke of Guise's Interests and to ingage in the League of which he was Head in Provence the Count of Carcas his Uncle his Brother-in-Law the Count de Sault a great part of the Nobility and the Parliament of Aix as also to expose the whole Province to the manifest danger of being lost by calling in the Duke of Savoy who nevertheless was constrain'd at last to retire with shame into his own Dominions In the mean time the King who from time to time receiv'd the unpleasant News of the Rebellion of his Subjects had been forc'd to send back the Deputies of the Estates to their several Provinces where the greatest part of them being hot Leaguers blew up the Fire to that height that he was constrain'd at the length to lay aside the ways of Clemency and Mildness and to take up though somewhat of the latest those of Rigour and Compulsion He began by sending a Herald to Paris who bore an Injunction to the Duke of Aumale the pretended Governour immediately to depart the Town an Interdiction to the Parliament to the Exchequer and the Court of Aydes with prohibition to all other Officers of any farther exercise of their employments But he was remanded without an hearing loaded with affronts and threatn'd with an Halter if he presum'd to return on such an Errant He declar'd the Dukes of Mayenne and Aumale the Citizens of Paris Orleans Amiens Abbeville and the other Associated Towns to be guilty of High Treason if within a time prefix'd they return not to their Duty He transferr'd the Parliament of Paris to Tours and all the Courts of Judicature which were in the Cities of the League to other Towns which continu'd faithfull to him But they without being concern'd at his angry Declarations reveng'd themselves in all places on such as were of the Royal Party by all manner of ill usage He did in the month of March what he ought to have done in December He call'd together his Gendarmery and Rendevouz'd what Forces he cou'd raise in the Neighbourhood of Tours to which place he had retir'd as not thinking himself secure in so open and weak a Town as Blois but first he secur'd his Prisoners whom he caus'd to be carried from
by the Memoires of Du Plessis Mornay yet the King to make it evident that it was onely through necessity that he enter'd into this Union with the Huguenots against the League was consenting that before the publication of it there shou'd be made a last attempt on the inclinations of the Duke of Mayenne to induce him to a reconcilement To this effect he gave in writing to the Legat the same Articles which he had already propos'd to the Duke of Lorrain and which were as advantageous to his Family as he cou'd reasonably desire For there was offer'd to the Duke of Mayenne his Government of Burgundy with full power of placing such Governours in the Towns as he himself shou'd chuse of disposing all vacant Offices and levying on the Province forty thousand Crowns yearly To the young Duke of Guise his Nephew the Government of Champaigne with two Cities at his choice therein to keep what Garrisons he pleas'd twenty thousand Crowns of Pension and thirty thousand Livres of Income in Benifices for his Brother To the Duke of Nemours the Government of Lyons with a Pension of ten thousand Crowns to the Duke of Aumale the Government of Picardy and two Cities in that Province to the Duke of Elbeuf a Government and five and twenty thousand Livres of Pension and what was of greatest importance for that Family to the Marquis du Pont eldest Son of the Duke of Lorrain the Government of Toul Metz and Verdun with assurance that if his Majesty had no Issue Male those three Bishopricks shou'd remain to the Duke of Lorrain To all which the King caus'd this addition to be made that to remove all difficulties which might arise in the execution of this Treaty he wou'd remit himself to the Arbitration of his Holiness who might please to joyn in the Umpirage with him the Senate of Venice the great Duke of Thuscany the Duke of Ferrara and the Duke of Lorrain himself who had so great an interest in those Articles With these conditions the Legat went from Tours on the tenth of April towards the Duke of Mayenne who was already advanc'd with his Army as far as Chasteaudun He was receiv'd with all manner of respect and dureing the two days conference he had with the Duke employ'd the most powerfull considerations he cou'd propose to win his consent to a Peace so advantageous for all his House and so necessary to Religion and the publique welfare or at least to gain thus far upon him that if any thing were yet wanting to his entire satisfaction he wou'd remit his interests and those of his Party into the hands of the Pope as the King on his side was already dispos'd to refer his own But after all his endeavours he cou'd not work him to any condescension And whatever arguments he us'd he always answer'd with great respect as to the Pope and the person of the Legat but with extreme contempt for the King whom he perpetually call'd that Wretch that he and his wou'd ever be obedient to the Pope but that he was very well assur'd that his Holiness wou'd never lay his Commands upon him to make any agreement to the prejudice of Religion with a man who had none at all and who was united with the Huguenots against the Catholiques That he cou'd not bear the mention of a reconcilement with a perjur'd man who had neither Faith nor Honour and that he cou'd never trust his word who had Murther'd his Brothers so inhumanely and violated so perâ—idiously not onely the publique Faith but also the Oath which he had taken on the Evangelists at the most holy Sacrament of the Altar After this the Cardinal farther observing what he cou'd not otherways have believ'd that even more opprobrious terms than these were us'd of the King through all the Army and in every City which own'd the League where no man durst presume to give him the name of King wrote him word that he cou'd do him no Service with the Duke and himself not daring to be near his person while the King of Navarre continued with him went to Bourbonnois where he waited the Orders which he receiv'd from the Pope not long after to return to Rome and there to give an account of his Legation Thus after all hope was utterly lost of concluding any peace with the Leaguers the Treaty with the King of Navarre took place He was put into possession of Saumur the Government of which he gave to the Sieur du Plessis-Mornay who had so well succeeded in his Negotiation And it was from that very place that he publish'd his Declaration concerning his intended passage over the Loyre for the Service of his Majesty where he protests amongst other things that being first Prince of the Bloud whom his Birth oblig'd before all others to defend his King he holds none for Enemies but such as are Rebels forbidding most strictly all his Souldiers to commit any manner of offence against those Catholiques who were faithfull Subjects to his Majesty and particularly against the Clergy whom he takes into his protection The King also made his own at large wherein he declares the reasons that oblig'd him to joyn with the King of Navarre for the preservation of his person and the Estate without any prejudice which cou'd thence ensue to the Catholique Religion which he wou'd always maintain in his Kingdom even with the hazard of his Life But that which at length completed the Happiness of this Union betwixt the two Kings was their Enterview which was made in the Park of Plessis on the thirtieth day of April amidst the acclamations of a multitude of people there assembled and with all the signs of an entire confidence on both sides Though the old Huguenot Captains who had not yet forgot St. Bartholomew us'd their best endeavours that their Master shou'd not have put himself in the King's Power as he did with all frankness and generosity He did yet more for being gone back with his Guards and the Gentlemen who attended him to the Fauxbourgs of St. Simphorian beyond the Bridges on the next Morning which was the first of May he repaâ—s'd the River follow'd onely by one Page and return'd to Tours to be present at the King 's Levè who was infinitely pleas'd with this generous procedure and clearly saw by it that he had no occasion to suspect him and that he had reason to hope all things from a Prince who reli'd so fully on his word though he had broken it more than once to him by revoking the Edicts which he had made in favour of him onely to content the League In this manner they pass'd two days together and held a Council where the King of Navarre caus'd a resolution to be taken that for the speedy ending of the War they shou'd assemble their whole Forces with all possible diligence and March directly on to Paris which was the Head of the League and on which the body of it
from which they can never be absolv'd except onely in the article of death by giving security that they will obey the Mandats of the Church Farthermore he cites them to make their appearance within two months before his Tribunal the King himself in person or by his Proctor and the rest personally to give in their reasons why they believe they have not incurr'd the censures and why the King's Subjects are not absolv'd from their Oath of Allegiance and in fine invalidates all Privileges to the contrary which the King himself or his Predecessours have formerly obtain'd from the Holy See This Monitory was posted up at Rome on the twenty fourth of May and the Leaguers Printed it at Paris and publish'd it with all the formalities accustom'd at Paris Chartres and Meaux on the twenty third of Iune and I have seen the Acts of it which were Printed immediately after at Paris with the Monitory by Nicholas Nivelle and Rolin Thierry Stationers and Printers for the Holy Union with the Privilege of the Body of the Council General of the same Holy Union Signed by Senault their Secretary It was then at Estampes that the King receiv'd this information that he was prosecuted in this manner both at Rome and in France by the Arms of the Church at the same time when the Rebels assaulted him with theirs to pull him from the Throne It was told him indeed that there were contain'd in that Monitory many heads which were nullities in their own nature and which consequently made the whole invalid even though it were against a private person But when notwithstanding all these reasons he still answer'd that it gave him exceeding trouble the King of Navarre who desir'd nothing more than speedily to prosecute the design of besieging Paris told him pleasantly as well as truly that he had found out a sure expedient for him And Sir said he with his accustom'd quickness 't is onely this that we overcome and the sooner the better for if we succeed you may assure your self of your Absolution but in case we are beaten we shall be still Excommunicated over and over and damn'd with three pil'd curses on our heads This saying was much of a piece with what the Bishop of Mans had written to the King from Rome that if he were desirous of the Absolution which was refus'd him in that Court he had no more to doe but to make himself the strongest in his own Kingdom Thus the King thinking it his best course to dissemble his knowledge of the Monitory never own'd that he had seen or heard of it but march'd still forward to pass the Seine at the Bridge of Poissy which he forc'd after which having taken Pontoise which was surrender'd on the 25th of Iuly after a fortnights siege having been vigorously defended by the Sieur d' Alincour who was there grievously wounded and the Sieur de Hautefort who lost his life he went to Constans and there receiv'd the Army of the Swisses which was conducted to him by Nicholas de Harlay Sieur de Sancy who by performing so great and seasonable a service to the King his Master has deserv'd the praise of all posterity At the beginning of this War there being a Council held wherein were propos'd the most speedy and efficacious means that cou'd be found to carry it on the King being then reduc'd to a very low condition Sancy who had been formerly his Ambassadour in Swisserland maintain'd that there was no better expedient than to treat with the Cantons who to defend themselves from the Arms of Savoy which threatned Geneva and design'd to shut it up on the side of France wou'd willingly permit a great Levy of their Subjects to be made in favour of the King who might hereafter be in a condition to succour them in case they shou'd be driven to extremity But because the Exchequer was wholly drain'd and No Money no Swisse was the common Proverb his proposition was turn'd into ridicule and he was ask'd if he knew the man who wou'd undertake to raise an Army without any other ingredient than Pen and Paper Then Sancy who though he was of the long Robe had a Souldiers heart for at that time he was onely a Master of Requests Since said he not one of all those who have been enrich'd by the King's bounty will make offer of himself to serve him I declare that I will be the man And thereupon accepted a very ample Commission which was given him by the King but without a penny to bear his charges to treat with the Swisses and Germans for the raising of an Army To go through with his business he Mortgag'd all he had and took up what he coud procure upon his Credit and in sequel acted with so much fortune and such good management with the Magistrates of Bern of Basile of Soleure and of Geneva that after having taken from the Duke of Savoy the Baily-wicks of Gex and Thonon the Fort of Ripaille and some other places thereby to employ him for some time and to hinder him from molesting of his neighbours he put himself at the head of the Royal Army compos'd of ten or twelve thousand Foot Swisses Grisons and Genevians with near two thousand Reyters and twelve pieces of Cannon With these Forces he travers'd all the Countrey from Geneva by Swisserland as far as the County of Montbelliard from whence crossing the French County and passing the Saone towards Ioinville he came to Langres which held for the King and thence to Chastillon on the Seine to joyn the Duke of Longueville and La Noüe From whence marching through Champaigne all three in company with twenty thousand men they passed the Seine at Poissy and in conclusion arriv'd happily at the King's Army His Majesty receiv'd Sancy with tears in his eyes and protested in presence of all the Officers of his Army that he wept for joy and grief together that he had not wherewithall at present to reward the greatest service which a Subject cou'd perform to his King and that what he had done for him in making him Colonel of the Swisses was nothing in comparison of what he intended him being resolv'd that one day he wou'd make him so great that there shou'd not be a man in his Kingdom who might not have occasion to envy him But fortune which is pleas'd with persecuting of vertue dispos'd quite otherwise of the matter by that deplorable accident which happen'd three days after and by the misery which his own noble heartedness had drawn upon him For instead of those large recompences which he might reasonably expect after having done so worthy an action he was reduc'd so low that he was constrain'd at last to sell all he had therewith to pay the debts which he had contracted by Levying at his own charges that gallant Army which put the King in a condition of conquering his Rebels and by consequence of triumphing over the League In effect after the
Prelates of the Kingdom that he shou'd restore the Exercise of the Catholique Religion in all places from whence it had been banish'd and remit the Ecclesiastiques into the full and entire Possession of all their Goods that he shou'd bestow no Governments on Hugonots and that this Assembly might have leave to depute some persons to the Pope to render him an account of their Proceedings This Accommodation was sign'd by all the Lords excepting only the Duke of Espernon and the Sieur de Vitry who absolutely refus'd their Consent to it Vitry went immediately into Paris and there put himself into the Service of the League which he believ'd at that time to be the cause of Religion As for the Duke of Espernon he had no inclination to go over to the League which had so often solicited his Banishment from Court But whether it were that being no longer supported since his Masters Death he fear'd the Hatred and Resentment of the greatest Persons about the King and even of the King himself whom he had very much offended during the time of his Favour in which it was his only business to enrich himself or were it that he was afraid he shou'd be requir'd to lend some part of that great Wealth which he had scrap'd together he very unseasonably and more unhandsomly began to raise Scruples and seem'd to be troubled with Pangs of Conscience which never had been thought any great grievance to him formerly so that he took his leave of the King and retir'd to his Government with 2 or 3000 Foot and 500 Horse which he had brought to the Service of his late Master This pernicious Example was follow'd by many others who under pretence of ordering their Domestick Affairs ask'd leave to be gone which the King dar'd not to refuse them or suffer'd themselves to be seduc'd by the Proffers and Solicitations of the League so that the King not being in a condition any longer to besiege Paris was forc'd to divide his remaining Troops comprehending in that number those which Sancy still preserv'd for his Use and Service Of the whole he form'd three little Bodies one for Picardy under the Command of the Duke of Longuevillâ— another for Champaigne under the Marshal d' Aumont and himself led the third into Normandy where he was to receive Supplies from England and where with that small Remainder of his Forces he gave the first Shock to the Army of the League which at that time was become more powerful than ever it had been formerly or than ever it was afterwards In effect those who after the Barricades had their eyes so far open'd as to discover that the League in which they were ingag'd was no other than a manifest Rebellion against their King seeing him now dead believ'd there was no other Interest remaining on their side but that of Religion and therefore reunited themselves with the rest to keep out a Heretick Prince from the Possession of the Crown And truly this pretence became at that time so very plausible that an infinite number of Catholiques of all Ranks and Qualities dazled with so specious an appearance made no doubt but that it was better for them to perish than to endure that he whom they believ'd obstinate in his Heresie shou'd ascend the Throne of St. Lewis and were desirous that some other King might be elected Nay farther there were some of them who took this occasion once more to press the Duke of Mayenne that he wou'd assume that Regal Office which it wou'd be easie for him to maintain with all the Forces of the united Catholiques of which he already was the Head but that Prince who was a prudent man fearing the dangerous consequences of so bold an Undertaking lik'd better at the first to retain for himself all the Essentials of Kingship and to leave the Title of it to the old Cardinal of Bourbon who was a Prisoner and whom he declar'd King under the Name of Charles the Tenth by the Council of the Union At this time it was that there were scatter'd through all the Kingdom a vast number of scandalous Pamphlets and other Writings in which the Authors of them pretended to prove that Henry of Bourbon stood lawfully excluded from the Crown those who were the most eminent of them were the two Advocates general for the League in the Parliament of Paris Lewis d'Orlâ—ans and Anthony Hotman The first was Author of that very seditious Libel call'd The English Catholique And the second wrote a Treatise call'd The Right of the Vncle against the Nephew in the Succession of the Crown But there happen'd a pleasant Accident concerning this Francis Hotman a Civilian and Brother to the Advocate seeing this Book which pass'd from hand to hand in Germany where he then was maintain'd with solid Arguments and great Learning The Right of the Nephew against the Vncle and made manifest in an excellent Book which he publish'd on this Subject the Weakness and false Reasoning of his Adversaries Treatise without knowing that it was written by his Brother who had not put his Name to it The League having a King to whom the Crown of right belong'd after Henry the Fourth his Nephew in case he had surviv'd him by this Pretence increas'd in Power because the King of Spain and the Duke of Lorrain and Savoy who during the Life of the late King their Ally durst not declare openly against him for his Rebellious Subjects now after his Death acknowledging this Charles the Tenth for King made no difficulty to send Supplies to the Duke of Mayenne insomuch that he after having publish'd through all France a Declaration made in August by which he exhorts all French Catholicks to reunite themselves with those who would not suffer an Heretique to be King had rais'd at the beginning of September an Army of 25000 Foot and 8000 Horse With these Forces he pass'd the Seine at Vernon marching directly towards the King who after he had been receiv'd into Pont del ' Arch and Diepe which Captain Rolâ—t and the Commander de Chates had surrendred to him made a show of besieging Rouen not having about him above 7 or 8000 Men. This so potent an Army of the Leaguers compos'd of French and Gâ—rmans Lorrainers and Walloons which he had not imagin'd cou'd have been so soon assembled and which was now coming on to overwhelm him constrain'd him to retire speedily towards Diepe where he was in danger to have been incompass'd round without any possibility of Escape but only by Sea into England if the Duke of Mayenne had taken up the resolution as he ought to have done from the first moment when he took the Field to pursue him eagerly and without the least delay But while he proceeding with his natural slowness which was his way of being wise trifled out his time in long deliberations when he shou'd have come to Action he gave leisure to the King to fortifie his Camp at Arques a League
that part of his Parliament which was established at Chaalons He had the happiness to be Son to a Counsellor who acquir'd so much reputation in the exercise of his Office that the Chancellor de l' Hospital has said of him in one of his Poems that he deserv'd the Court shou'd erect his Statue in the Temple of Justice and at this day after his death has the honour to be Grandfather to another Nicholas de Potier whom the Wisest and Greatest of all Kings who understands the merit of Men and understands also to reward it has plac'd at the Head of his Parliament of Peers All things then being well dispos'd by means of the Intelligence which was held with the President De Blanc Mesnil to make the Kings Enterprise succeed on All Saints day very early in the morning and under covert of a thick mist the Fortifications and the Head of the Fauxbourgs were attacqu'd at once in three several parts with so much vigor and resolution that they were all carryed by plain force in less than an hour Seven or Eight Hundred of the Defendants were slain in the Assault Thirteen Pieces of Cannon were taken and if the Kings Artillery had come up at the time which he design'd 't is certain that this great Prince who at Seven of the Clock entred the Fauxbourg of St. Iacques and was there receiv'd with the loud acclamations of Vive Le Roy had made himself Master of the Quarter of the University without much difficulty or hazard But the Sieur de Rosne who commanded at that time in Paris having had the leisure to fortifie the Gates by reason of that delay and the Duke of Mayenne to whom he had given notice of the Kings approach being entred into the Town the next morning with all his Forces the King satisfied himself with letting the Parisians know by what he had done that the News which was industriously spread amongst them of his defeat at Diepe was notoriously false And after having staid three long hours in Battalia before the Town as it were to reproach the weakness or cowardise of their Commanders who durst not venture without their Walls he went to retake during the Winter in Vandomois Tourain Anjou Mayne Perche and the Lower Normandy the greatest part of the Towns and Strong Places which held for the League which now began to destroy it self by the same means which were intended for its preservation In this following manner Those of the Vnion endeavour'd all they cou'd to oblige his Holiness and the King of Spain that they wou'd openly espouse their Party in which at length they succeeded through the protestations which were made by their Agents at Rome and at Madrid that in case they were not speedily and powerfully assisted by both of them they must of necessity make an Accommodation with the King of Navarre which neither the Pope nor King Philip cou'd bear with patience The First for fear that France shou'd fall under the Dominion of a Prince who was an Heretick And the Second because he was desirous to foment the divisions which were amongst us hoping to make his advantage of them either by reducing the whole Kingdom into his power or at least by dismembring a great part of it In this manner Pope Sixtus as intelligent as he was being deluded by the Commander of Diu and by his Partners who made him believe that the Navarrois cou'd not possibly escape from the hands of the Duke of Maâ—enne who had coop'd him up and surrounded him in a corner of Normandy sent Cardinal Cajetan his Legat into France who was born Subject to the King of Spain and was also a Spaniard in his Principles and by his Obligations who came to Paris in the beginning of Ianuary bringing with him Bills of Exchange for 300000 Crowns together with an Express Order to cause a Catholick King to be Elected On the other side Don Bernardin de Mâ—ndoza King Philip's Embassador being supported by the Faction of the Sixteen the Preachers of the League and the Monks of which the greatest part were intirely devoted to the Spaniard made in the General Council of the Vnion on the part of his Master very plausible and advantageous Propositions for the ease of the People with promise of assisting them with all the Forces of that Monarchy Protesting also that his King who was Master of so many Countries the Titles of which he haughtily set forth pretended not to that of France either for himself or for his Son and that in recompence of those great Succours which he intended to give the Catholicks he demanded nothing more than the honour to be solemnly declar'd The Protector of France Now this was in effect the very thing which most contributed to the ruin of the League and the safeguard of the State because this artificial Proposition joyn'd with the Instructions of the Legat fully opened the Duke of Mayenne's Eyes and gave him the means of discovering the intentions of the Spaniards whose design was to establish their Kings Authority on the ruins of his and consequently he took up a firm resolution of opposing their endeavours as he always did from that time forward by the advice of some honest men about him and particularly Monsieur de Villeroy That wise and able Minister of State who serv'd five of our Kings with so much Fidelity and Reputation having observ'd that by reason of some ill Offices which were done him to the Late King his Master he cou'd no longer remain with safety in the Towns which obeyed him nor at his own House during the War and that he had not been able to procure so much as a Passport for his departure out of the Kingdom was constrained to make his retreat to Paris with his Father and to enter into the Party of the Vnion But it may be truly said of him that he entred into it as did the Loyal and Wise Hushai into that of Absalom at Ierusalem there to destroy all the devices and pernicious Counsels of the wicked Achitophel which only tended to the total ruin of David the lawful King against whom the Capital City of his Kingdom was revolted In the same manner the Sieur de Villeroy embrac'd not out of pure necessity the Party of the League and plac'd not himself with the Duke of Mayenne in Paris who was in Actual War with his King but only to obtain the means by his good Counsels to undermine the purposes of the Spaniards who under pretence of endeavouring the preservation of Religion in France design'd the Subversion of the State And as David thought it fitting that Hushai shou'd continue at Ierusalem without leaving Absalom because he well knew that he would be more serviceable to him there than if he kept him near his Person in like manner Henry the Fourth who knew the dexterity and faithfulness of Monsieur de Villeroy wou'd not that he shou'd go out from Paris after the death of his
Predecessor or be with him because he was satisfied that this Great Man would be able to do him greater Service by staying with the Duke of Mayenne where by his wise Remonstrations and the credit which he had acquir'd with that Prince he might break the measures of the Spaniards and their Adherents He continued this politique management to the end and principally on that occasion whereon depended either the felicity or the unhappiness of this Kingdom according to the resolution which shou'd be taken For the Duke of Mayenne having ask'd him his opinion in relation to what the Legat and Mendoza had propos'd he gave him easily to understand that all those plausible Propositions which were made by the Legat by Mendoza and the Sixteen were intended only to deprive him of his Authority and to subject him and the whole Party of the Vnion under the domination of the Spaniards who wou'd not fail to usurp upon the French and to perpetuate the War thereby to maintain their own greatness That in his present condition without suffering an Head to be constituted above him he had War and Peace at his disposing together with the glory of having sustain'd himself alone both Religion and the State but by acknowledging the King of Spain for Protector of the Kingdom he shou'd only debase himself under the proud Title of a powerful Master who wou'd serve his own interests too well to leave him the means of either continuing the War or of concluding a Peace to the advantage of his Country There needed no more to perswade a man so knowing and so prudent as was the Duke of Mayenne 'T is to be confess'd that he was a Self lover which is natural to all men but he was also a Lover of the Common Good which is the distinguishing character of an Honest Man Since he cou'd not himself pretend to the Crown which he clearly saw it was impossible for him to obtain for many reasons he was resolv'd no Foreigner should have it nor even any other but that only Person to whom it belong'd rightfully Religion being first secur'd He thereupon firmly purpos'd from that time both in regard of his particular interest and that of the State to oppose whatsoever attempts should be made by the Spaniards or by his own nearest Relations under any pretence or colour which was undoubtedly one great cause of the preservation of the State For which reason that he might for ever cut off the Spaniards from all hope of procuring their Master to be made Protector of the Realm of France and consequently of having in his hands the Government of the Kingdom and the concernments of the League under this new Title as the Sixteen who were already at his Devotion had design'd he politickly told them in a full Assembly that since the cause of Religion was the only thing for which the Vnion was ingage'd in this War which they had undertaken it wou'd be injurious to the Pope to put themselves under any other protection than that of his Holiness Which Proposition was so gladly receiv'd by all excepting only the Faction of Sixteen that the Spaniards were constrain'd to desist and to let their pretensions wholly fall And to obviate the design of causing any other King to be Elected besides the Old Cardinal of Bourbon under whose Name he govern'd all things he procur'd the Parliament to verifie the Ordinance of the Council General of the Vnion by which that Cardinal was declar'd King and caus'd him so to be Proclaim'd in all the Towns and Places of their party retaining for himself by the same Ordinance the Quality and Power of Lieutenant General of the Crown till the King shou'd be deliver'd from Imprisonment And at the same time to ruin the Faction of Sixteen which was wholly Spaniardiz'd he broke the Council of the Vnion Saying That since there was a King Proclaim'd whose Lieutenant he also was there ought to be no other Council but his which in duty was to follow him wheresoever he shou'd be Thus the Duke of Mayenne having possess'd himself of all Royal Authority under the imaginary Title of another and having overcome all the designs of the Spaniards took the Field and after having taken in the Castle of Bois de Vincennes by composition which had been invested for a year together he retook Pontoise and some other places which hindred the freedom of commerce and being afterwards willing to regain all the passages of the Seine thereby to establish the communication of Paris with Rouen and to have the Sea open he went to besiege the Fort of Meulan where he lost much time to little purpose while the Legat against whom the Kings Parliament at Tours had made a terrible Decree was labouring at Paris with all his might that no accommodation shou'd be made with the King not even though he shou'd be converted To this effect seeing that the Faction of Sixteen and the Spaniards were extremely weaken'd after what the Duke of Mayenne had done against them and that the Royalists who were generally call'd Politiques had resum'd courage and began to say openly that it was the common duty of all good Subjects to unite themselves with the Catholicks who follow'd the King he oppos'd them with a Declaration lately made against them by the factious Doctors of the Sorboâ—ne on the tenth of February in the same year 1590. For by that Decree it was ordain'd That all Doctors and Batchelors shou'd have in abhorrence and strongly combat the pestilential and damnable Opinions which the Workers of Iniquity endeavour'd with all their force to insinuate daily into the Minds of Ignorant and Simple Men principally these Propositions That Henry de Bourbon might and ought to be honour'd with the Title of King That it Conscience men might hold his Party and Pay him Taxes and acknowledge him for King on condition he turn'd Catholick c. And then they added That in case any one shall refuse to obey this Decree the Faculty declares him an Enemy to the Church of God Perjur'd and Disobedient to his Mother and in conclusion cuts him off from her Body as a gangreen'd Member which corrupts the rest A Decree of this force was of great service to the Bigots of the League because it depriv'd the wiser sort of the License they had taken to perswade the people to make peace And the Legat that he might hinder any from taking it for the time to come bethought himself that a new Oath should be impos'd on the Holy Evangelists betwixt his hands in the Church of the Augustines to be taken by all the Officers of the Town and the Captains of the several Wards which was That they shou'd always persevere in the Holy Union that they shou'd never make Peace or Truce with the King of Navarre and that they shou'd employ their Lives and Fortunes in deliverance of their King Charles the Tenth Which was also enjoyn'd to be taken by all the Officers of
he had publish'd against him and who afterwards oppos'd his being King of France had very much alter'd his opinion after he had been better inform'd of the French affairs For having made solid reflections on the past without suffering himself to be prepossess'd he clearly understood the great merits of the King whom he then endeavour'd to reconcile to the Church by gentle usage The Ambition of the Heads of the League the indirect dealing and cousenages of their Agents who had so often deceiv'd him by false Relations and more than all the rest the pernicious designs of the Spaniards who that they might irrevocably ingage him in their Interests were vehemently urgent with him to Excommunicate all the Catholiques who follow'd the King and that he shou'd bind himself by Oath never to receive him into the Bosom of the Church what submission soever he should make had opened his eyes and caus'd him to take much other measures For they proceeded at length to plain threatnings that if he deny'd them this satisfaction they wou'd protest in a full Assembly against him and make provision of other means for the preservation of the Church which he had abandon'd This so far inrag'd him as he was the Man amongst all the Popes who was the least capable of bearing such affronts that opposing threatnings to threatnings he told the Embassador Olivares in plain terms he wou'd out off his Head if he shou'd presume to stir any farther in that matter Which fair warning he was wise enough to take as well knowing the fiery temper of the Pope who was like enough to have kept his word Nay there are some who are apt to think that far from joyning with the League against the King to which the Spaniards perpetually solicited him for their own interest he had resolv'd to employ the five Millions of Gold which he had heap'd up in the Castle of St. Angelo during his Popedom to make War against them and to beat them out of the Kingdom of Naples But his measures were all broken by a sudden death which carry'd him off on the twenty seventh day of August in the Year precedent The Leaguers who observ'd not even common decency so little dissembled their joy for his death that the news of it being brought to Paris on the fifth of September Aubry the Curate of St. Andrè des Arcs an hare-brain'd Fool declaring it to the people in his Sermon was impudent enough to say that his death came by miracle betwixt the two Feasts of our Lady And added these his very words God has deliver'd us from a wicked Pope and an ill Politician If he had liv'd longer you wou'd have been all amaz'd to hear Sermons Preach'd in Paris against a Pope and yet it must of necessity have been done Behold how much these Preachers of the League were intoxicated with their passions which they easily infus'd into the people who followed quietly like blind men their Guides who were blinder than themselves and who led them to the Precipice where they all perish'd Gregory the Fourteenth a Milanois who was exalted to the Papacy after Vrban the seventh who enjoyed that honour but thirteen days proceeded in direct opposition to the conduct of Sixtus the Fifth He joyn'd with the Spaniards and declar'd openly in favour of the League according to the manner they desir'd For laying aside the Duke of Mayenne and the other Princes of his House for whom the Spaniards little car'd he writ immediately to the Sixteen to encourage them to persevere in the resolution which they had always testified and never to submit themselves to Henry de Bourbon He promised them fifteen thousand Crowns by the Month for so long a time as he shou'd judge it necessary for their supply and an Army of 12000 men to be rais'd and entertain'd at his own charges which he wou'd suddenly send them under the Conduct of Hercules Sfondrato his Nephew whom he made Duke of Montemarciano And that he might joyn his Spiritual Arms with his Temporal he sent into France by the Referendary Marcelin Landriano a Monitory by which he Excommunicated all Prelates and all other Ecclesiasticks of the Kings Party depriving them of their Benefices if within a certain short space of time they did not forsake him and retire out of all places under his obedience He oblig'd the Nobility and Gentry the Magistracy and the People to do the same and in conclusion declar'd Henry of Bourbon to be a relaps'd Heretique Excommunicated and to have forfeited the Crown and all his Possessions and Lordships There are sometimes Thunders which make a ratling noise and do no harm because the fiery exhalation which breaks out of the Clouds is evaporated whether by the thinness of its body or by the violent agitation of the Air which disperses it before it reaches us Of all the Thunderbolts which have been darted from the Vatican against Sovereign Princes there will be found but few which have been so noisy as this which was accompanied with an Army that was to Act in conjunction with the League and Spaniards All which notwithstanding it had little or no effect by the care which was taken to make evident by many Writings which were spread abroad the nullities of this Bull and by the vigorous resolutions of the Kingâ—s Council of Parliament sitting at Tours and at Chaalons and of the Clergy of France assembled at Mante who condemn'd it as erroneous every one of them after their own manner Insomuch that not a Man of all the Catholicks on that account forsook the Party of the King whose conversion was continually hop'd as soon as he had the means and opportunity of causing himself to be instructed So strongly were our Ancestors perswaded that the power of Popes as Heads of the Church extends not at all upon the temporal and much less on the Rights of the Crown and that it can ordain nothing to the prejudice of that Fidelity and Allegiance which is due to Princes in those things which are not manifestly against God 'T is true that the Parliament at Paris being for the Leâ—guâ— receiv'd that Bull and repeal'd the Decrees of Chaalons and Tours But 't is manifest it was then no free Court as being at that time oppress'd under the Tyranny of the Sixteen who had fetter'd it as I may say by the fear which every Member of it had to be led Captives in Triumph to the Bastile In this manner those turbulent Spirits who may justly be call'd the sixteen Tyrants of Paris finding themselves supported by the Protection of a Pope became daily more insolent and haughty in opposition to the Duke of Mayenne's Authority and their Boldness was increas'd yet more by a most surprising Answer which the King of Spain made to the Deputies of the Lorrain Princes Those Princes being assembled at Rheims where was present the Cardinal of Pelvè whom the Duke of Mayenne had made Archbishop of that Place found themselves in
that low Condition to which they were reduc'd unable by their own Power to resist the King or to procure their safety by any other means than obtaining from King Philip the Assistance of all his Forces to the end that they might be able to maintain that King who was to be elected in the States General which were to be assembled for that purpose each of them in his own Person pretending to that Honour yet none of them daring to own his Ambition openly for fear of drawing on himself the Hatred of his Rivals who wou'd certainly unite and band themselves together to exclude him The Person who was chosen to negotiate in Spain was the famous Peter Iannin President of the Parliament of Bourgogne a man of great Integrity exquisite Understanding rare Prudence and inviolable Fidelity which had caus'd the Duke of Mayenne to repose an absolute Confidence in him who for his own part in the Honesty of his well meaning Soul had follow'd him and the Party of the League with an implicit Faith that it was for the safety of Religion and of the State for on the one side he believ'd not that Religion couâ—d be preserv'd in France if the King were not a Catholique and therefore he argu'd that he ought to be such and on the other side being an honest French-man he wou'd like his Master make use of the Spaniards to compass his ends but not serve them by favouring their unjust Designs in the least circumstance to the prejudice of the State Being such as I have here describ'd him it was not hard for him to discover the Intentions of King Philip who holding himself assur'd of the Sixteen which he believ'd to be the prevailing Faction and much more powerful than in effect it was lay'd himself so open as to make his Intentions be clearly understood which the great Prudence and Policy whereon he so much valued himself shou'd have kept undiscover'd for a longer time in expectation of a fitting opportunity to make them known when all things were dispos'd and in a due readiness for the Execution of his Designs After the President had represented to him in his Audiences the weakness and necessities of the League the Forces and Progress of the King the extream danger in which Religion then was and the immortal glory which he might acquire by preserving it in the most Christian Kingdom by the Assistance which was expected from his Zeal and Power that Prince who was willing to sell his Aid at a higher Price than bare Glory without more advantage open'd his mind without any reserve after a most surprizing manner For he caus'd him to be told by his Secretary Don Iohn D' Idiaques that he had resolv'd to marry his only Daughter the Infanta Isabella to the Archduke Ernestus and to give him in Dowry the Low-Countries and since that for the Preservation of Religion in France it was necessary they shou'd have a Catholick King they cou'd not make a better Choice than of that Princess who being Neece to the three last Kings and Grand-daughter to Henry the Second was without contradiction more nearly related to them than the Bourbons that with her Person all the Low-Countries wou'd be re united to the Crown and that having besides these Advantages the whole Forces of the House of Aâ—stria in favour of her the Hereticks wou'd soon be exterminated and the Prince of Bearn expell'd from the Kingdom The President overjoy'd that he had wherewithal to disabuse the Duke of Mayenne by means of this strange Proposition and confirm him in those good Opinions which the Sieur de Villeroy had infus'd into him answer'd King Philip with great Prudence and no less Policy and faintly putting him in mind of the Salique Law on which he did not much insist seem'd rather to encourage than dash his Hopes in the prosecution of of his Purpose Insomuch that he drew him to a Promise of great Supplies both in Men and Money which he fail'd not to send with more speed than usual And the Duke being satisfy'd that according to that ambitious Design of the Spaniards he cou'd never pretend to the Kingdom us'd all his Endeavours for the future that the Election might not fall on any other not even on a Prince of his own Family who might marry the Infanta On the contrary the Sixteen who were altogether at the Devotion of the Spaniards by whom they were powerfully protected against him wrote to King Philip by one Father Matthew not the Jesuite of that Name a large Letter the Original of which being intercepted near Lyons was brought to the King in which after their humble Acknowledgments to his Catholick Majesty of the many Favours and Benefits which they had receiv'd from him they earnestly petition him that in case he shou'd refuse to accept the Crown of France he wou'd give them a King of his own Family or at least some other Prince whom he shou'd please to elect for his Son in Law 'T is farther observable that the Division which was betwixt the Duke of Mayenne and his nearest Relations exceedingly increas'd the Power and by consequence the Audacity and Insolence of those factious men For on one side the Duke of Nemours who was much incens'd that after he had so bravely defended Paris the Government of Normandy shou'd be refus'd him which Province he thought to have erected into a Principality like that of Bretagne of which the Duke of Mercoeur had made himself a Soveraign Prince was retir'd with a good part of the Forces into Lionnois and by the Correspondence which he held with the Sixteen did his best endeavours to supplant him and cause himself to be chosen Head of the Party on the other side the young Duke of Guise who had made his escape from the Castle of Tours where he was detain'd Prisoner having been receiv'd with great Acclamations by the Leaguers who believ'd that in his Person they had recover'd his dead Father their great Patron and Protector gave him much anxiety and fill'd his mind with jealous apprehensions especially when he observ'd that the great Name of Guise so much reverenc'd by the Parisians drew after it not only the Crowd of common People but also the Nobility and Gentlemen of the League But above all things it grated him that his Nephew had made a strict Alliance with the Faction of Sixteen who were overjoy'd to have him at their Head in opposition to his Uncle whom they hated All these Considerations put together swell'd them to so great an arrogance that they resolv'd to rid their hands of all such as were in a Condition of hindring them from being Absolute in Paris To this effect they bethought themselves of inventing a new kind of Oath which excluded from the Crown all the Princes of the Blood and presenting it to such whom they knew to be too well principled to sign it on their Refusal they made Seizure of their Estates and banish'd them In
brisk Charge which he made on them severally at the same time he possest himself of the Trenches and all the Camp which was on that side where during almost two hours that he was Master of them his Infantry beat down overthrew wasted and burnt the Tents Gabions Batteries Utensils Ammunition Powder and Baggage fill'd up the Trenches spoil'd the Mines nail'd the Cannon destroy'd or made useless almost all their Labour while himself advancing with four Squadrons of chosen men against the Marshal de Biron who was hasting thither though somewhat of the latest from his Quarters at Dernetal to the Succour of his Men made good his Retreat with great bravery returning often to the Charge that his Infantry might have leisure to make havock of all things and afterwards to retire with him which they did and he re-enter'd the Town in triumph with more than an hundred Prisoners and five great pieces of Cannon having kill'd above five hundred men twelve Captains two Colonels and disorder'd and routed the greatest part of the Camp without the loss of more than thirty men After this great Success Villars held himself to be in so good a Condition of defence that he sent to desire of the two Dukes to supply him only with Money for Payment of the Garrison as believing that he shou'd need no other Succours But the King who at his return soon redress'd the Disorders and forwarded the Siege having shut up the River both above and below the Town with a great number of Barques which were well equipp'd and ten great Holland Vessels which were brought him by Count Philip of Nassau the Town was reduc'd to a want of Provisions in two moneths time Insomuch that Villars was constrain'd to give notice to the Dukes who were refreshing their Army beyond the Somme that the Citizens were not of the same mind with the Parisians to dye of Famine and that therefore he shou'd be forc'd to capitulate in case he was not reliev'd within eight days At this News the Dukes who on the other hand understood that the Kings Army was much weaken'd with hard Duty and Suffering at so long a Siege in one day reassembled all their Forces march'd without their Baggage re-pass'd the Somme made thirty Leagues in four days time and on the twentieth of April appear'd in Battalia within a League of Rouen The Head-officers enter'd the City that Evening because the King who was not able to make Ressistance at one time against a great Army which lay without and a Garrison within the Town encourag'd by the presence of so powerful a Relief was constrain'd to raise the Siege and to retire to Pont de l' Arch where the Nobility and the Troops which he had before sent off to refresh themselves in the adjacent Country reassembled within five or six days to the number of three thousand Horse and six thousand Foot Then finding himself superiour in strength to the Army of the Dukes who having taken the small Town of Caudebec were gone to take up their Quarters at Yvetot and to cover it he march'd directly towards them with a Resolution either to force them to a Battel or to enclose them within a little corner of the Countrey of Caux cutting them off from all manner of Provisions and taking from them all means of their Retreat And truly his Design in all probability must have succeeded for having forc'd them after many small Skirmishes wherein he had still the advantage to forsake their Quarters at Yvetot and to retire by night to a more secure Post within a quarter of a League of Caudebec he surrounded them and shut them up so straightly that they cou'd neither subsist any longer all the Passages for Victuals being seiz'd nor yet retire having at their Back an Arm of the Sea and before them an Enemy who was stronger than themselves nor cou'd they fight without being evidently expos'd to a total Overthrow But the good Fortune the Skill and great Genius of the Duke of Parma overcame all these Difficulties and in one night drew them out of that imminent Danger of perishing when no appearance of safety was remaining to them For under protection of two great Forts which he had rais'd on the two Banks of the River with Redoubts which commanded the Water and great Out-works which on his side were advanc'd towards the Kings Army as if he had intended to have expected them within his Retrenchments on the twelfth of May at night he pass'd over his whole Army his Baggage and his Cannon in a great number of large Boats cover'd with Beams and Boards which he had order'd to be convey'd down from Roâ—en Insomuch that at break of Day every thing was in safety on the other side the Seine and the King who discover'd this wonderful Stratagem too late was not able to hinder the Prince Ranuccio Farnese who with fourteen or fifteen hundred men had cover'd this Retreat in the great Fort and in the Out-works from filing off with his Men and passing them them all over together with his four pieces of Cannon on the Boats and Ferry-boats which he afterwards set on fire Thus the Duke of Parma found the means in one night to put a great River which in that place was a mile and a half broad betwixt his Army and that of the King who admir'd that Action as the Masterpiece of one of the greatest Captains in the World And without giving the King leisure to pursue him by Pont de l' Arche he prevented him in such manner by his diligence that in four days he was got into La Brie by repassing the Seine on a Bridge of Boats right over against Charenton After which having re-inforc'd Paris with fifteen hundred Walloons and taken the Town of Epernay where he pass'd the Marne he re-conducted his Forces into the Low-Countries having acquir'd immortal Glory by performing his Designs at two several times against a great King without hazarding his Army and forcing him to raise his Sieges from before two the greatest Cities in the Kingdom Paris and Roüen Now as it often happens that evil is the unexpected occasion of good so the Siege of Roüen which succeeded not happily to the King produc'd a Negotiation which dispos'd all things so well in order to his Conversion that it may be said to have sow'd the Seeds which not long afterwards produc'd so excellent a Fruit. The Duke of Mayenne mortally hated the Spaniards who had openly declar'd they wou'd not succour him in case he did not oblige himself to act in such manner that the States shou'd elect the Infanta with that Person who shou'd be given her for Husband of which he had been constrain'd to give them Hopes though he had resolv'd before-hand to do nothing in it He had likewise joyn'd with the Politicks who were now the strongest in Paris against the shatter'd remnants of the Faction of Sixteen Those Politicks had also admitted him to be their Head
Archbishop of Bourges answering in order to those three points which were propos'd by that Prelate said in the name of all his Colleagues That they acknowledg'd they ought to own for King Soveraign Lord and Head of the French Monarchy Him to whom the Kingdom belongâ—d by a lawful Succession But since Religion ought to be preferr'd before Flesh and Blood this Monarch of necessity must be a Most Christian King both in name and reality and that according to all Laws both Divine and Humane it was not permitted them to give obedience to an Heretique King in a Kingdom subjected to Jesus Christ by receiving and professing the Catholique Religion That God in the Old Testament had forbidden a King to be set up who was not of the number of the Brethren that is to say of the same Religion which constitutes a true Brotherhood That in prosecution of this order the Priests and Sacrificers of Israel had withdrawn themselves from the obedience of King Ieroboam as soon as he had renounc'd the worship of the true God That the Towns of and Libnah which were the portion of the Levites who were the best instructed in the Law of God had forsaken Ioram King of Iudah for the same reason That Amaziah and Queen Athaliah having abandon'd the Religion of their Forefathers had been depos'd by the general consent of all the Orders of the Kingdom and that the Macchabees were renown'd and prais'd through all the World as the last Heroes of the ancient Law because they had taken Arms against Antiochus their Soveraign Prince for the defence of their Religion That the people of the Iews did indeed obey the King of the Chaldeans but they had bound themselves by Oath so to do according to the express command which God had given them by his Prophets for pupunishment of their abominations for which reason he subjected them to the dominion of an Infidel But as for themselves they were so far from having entred into such an engagement that they had made one by the Authority of his Holiness quite to the contrary that they wou'd never acknowledge an Heretique for their King And as for the Christians who threw not off their obedience to their Emperors and Kings who were Heretiques 't is most certain that they obey'd only out of pure necessity and because they wanted power but that their Hearts and Affections had no part in it Witness the harshness with which the Holy Fathers have treated them in their Writings where they call them Wolves Dogs Serpents Tygers Dragons Lyons and Antichrists in conformity to the Gospel which wills that he who is revolted from the Church should be held and treated like a Pagan so far it is from authorising us to hold him for a King much less a Most Christian King For what remains besides the Councils receiv'd in France and the Imperial Laws which declare Heretiques to be unworthy of any kind of honour dignity or publick office much more of Royalty The Fundamental Law of the French Monarchy is most express in this particular by the Oath which the Most Christian Kings take at their Coronation to maintain the Catholique Religion and to exterminate all Heresies in consideration of which they receive the Oath of Allegiance from their Subjects and that the last States had decreed with the general applause of all good Frenchmen that they wou'd never depart from that Law which was accepted and sworn to solemnly as a fundamental of the State In fine to close up all which he had to say in relation to this first point he added That without this it was impossible to preserve Religion in France because an Heretique Prince wou'd not be wanting to establish Heresie in his States as well by his example which would be leading to his Subjects as by his authority which cou'd not long be resisted As it was too manifest in the Kingdom of Israel which Ieroboam turn'd to Idolatry and as it has since been seen in Denmark Sweden the Protestant States of Germany and in England where the people following the example of their Princes and bending under their authority have suffer'd themselves to be unhappily drawn into that Abyss of Heresies in which they are plung'd at this very day And thereupon passing to the other points of the Archbishop of Bourges his Speech he said in few words That it cou'd not be doubted but the King of Navarre was an obstinate Heretique and no way inclin'd to be converted since for so long a time he had continued to maintain Errors condemn'd for Heresies by General Councils and that he still favour'd the Huguenots more than ever and especially his Preachers that he had been often invited but still in vain to reconcile himself to the Church after which it wou'd be lost labour for them to exhort him particularly after being first acknowledg'd as he thought to be that therefore they wou'd never endeavour it and that they had all sworn not only not to acknowledge him but also to have no manner of commerce with him so long as he shou'd remain an Heretique Now when the Archbishop of Bourges who was pre-acquainted with the Kings secret purpose saw that after a strong reply which he had made to that noisy Harangue they still held fast to that one point from which it was impossible to remove them he was of opinion that by yielding it to them the business wou'd soon come to an happy conclusion For which reason having demanded time to consult thereupon the Princes and Lords by whom they were deputed as soon as he had receiv'd the answer which he knew before hand they wou'd make he told the Deputies of the League at the seventh Session which was the seventeenth of May That God had at the last heard their prayers and vows and that they shou'd have whatsoever they had requir'd for the safety of Religion and the State by the conversion of the King which they had been encourag'd to hope and which at present was assur'd to them since the King who was resolv'd to abjure his Heresie had already assembled the Prelates and the Doctors from whom he wou'd receive the instruction which ought to precede that great action which all good Catholiques of both Parties had so ardently desir'd for the reunition of themselves in a lasting peace And to the end that it might be to the satisfaction of every man in particular they might treat with them concerning the securities and other conditions which they shou'd demand for their interests Assuring them that in order to remove all occasion of distrust nothing shouâ—d be done on their side till the King had dâ—clar'd himself effectually to be a Catholique This Proposition which the Deputies of the Union little expected and which ruin'd all the pretensions of their Heads disorder'd them so much that after they had consulted amongst themselves for an Answer not being able to conclude on any they thought themselves bound to report it to the Assembly
of the Estates at Paris And then it was clearly to be seen that the Heads of the Party who thought on nothing but how to satisfie each man his Ambition under the specious pretence of great Zeal for the Catholick Faith were much more afraid than desirous of the king's Conversion Though it had been made evident to them by invincible Reasons supported by the Authority of the most learned Doctors that Absolution might be given to the King in France without recourse to Rome especially since it wou'd be given only ad Cautelam and that afterwards they wou'd send to the Pope for his Confirmation of it they return'd this Answer by the Archbishop of Lyons That they ardently dâ—sir'd the Conversion of the King of Navarre but that they cou'd not believe it sincere till his Holiness to whose Iudgment they submitted themselves and who alone had the power of absolving him had reconcil'd him to the Church before which time it was not permitted them to enter into any Treaty of Peace or to take any Securities because that wou'd be to prevent the Judgment of the Pope and to treat at least indirectly with him who was yet out of the Pale of the Church which wou'd be directly against the Oath which they had taken And thereupon the Duke of Mayenne who only â—ought the means of retaining as long as possibly he cou'd that almost soveraign Authority which he had usurp'd together with the greatest part of the Princes and Lords of his Party took a new Oath betwixt the Hands of the Legat that they wou'd never acknowledge the King of Navarre even though he shou'd turn Catholick unless by the Commandment of the Pope Thus remaining always fix'd in that Resolution which absolutely hindred any farther progress in the Conference after seven or eight Sessions held at Surenne and two more at Roquette an House belonging to the Chancellor de Chiverny without St. Anthonies Gate and at La Villette betwixt Paris and St. Denis they concluded on nothing that was tending to the Peace while the Spaniards still imploy'd all their Cunning and their Friends in the Estates to perpetuate the War by the election of a King For even before the Conference of Surenne was begun the Duke of Feria Ambassador Extraordinary from the King of Spain to the General Estates at Paris accompanied by Don Bernardin Mendoza Ambassador in Ordinary Don Diego d' Ibarra and Iohn Baptista Tassis presented in a full Assembly where he was receiv'd with great Honour his Masters Letters in which he exhorted them to proceed without delay to the election of a Catholick King 'T was that indeed which King Philip infinitely desir'd as well thereby to continue the Enmity betwixt the two Parties which doubtless wou'd have been effected by the choice of a new King as to procure the Crown for his Daughter the Inâ—anta as he had explain'd himself more than once already In effect those Spaniards were not wanting some time after to propose her pretended Right of Proximity as being issued from the Daughter of King Henry the Second But seeing afterwards that they were bent upon a King they renew'd the Proposal of marrying her to the Archduke Ernestus till at last perceiving that both these Propositions were ill relish'd even by their most zealous Partisans who adher'd to all the rest in the election of a King who shou'd be a Frenchman and to whom the King of Spain might give his Daughter in Marriage they made a new Overture after they had taken time to deliberate on an Affair of that importance and said That the King their Master that he might give them full satisfaction was ready to agree on the Marriage of the Infanta with some French Prince whom he wou'd nominate therein comprehending the Family of Lorrain since it was but reasonable that himself shou'd have the choice of the Person whom he intended for his Son in-law but that it was also necessary that the Estates shou'd elect them and shou'd declare both of them King and Queen of France for the whole and every part of it and that he wou'd imploy the whole Forces of his Kingdoms to maintain them in it As almost all the Deputies were desirous of nothing more than to elect a new King who shou'd be a Frenchman this Proposition which seem'd very advantagious was receiv'd by them with so great Applause that the Duke of Mayenne who was newly return'd to the Estates there to frustrate the Designs of the Spaniards durst not undertake to oppose it directly though he was strongly resolv'd to hinder it from taking effect by all the ways in his power because the Election cou'd not possibly fall on him And while he was ploâ—ting the means in order to it that part of the Parliament of Peers which was at Paris for the League having still retain'd notwithstanding the division of their Members those generous Thoughts and inviolable Maximes which they have always made appear on all occasions and in whatsoever condition they were to maintain the fundamental Laws and Prerogatives of the French Monarchy furnish'd him with an excellent Expedient For that Court being inform'd that the Proposition of the Spaniards seem'd to be approv'd by the Estates on the 18th day of Iune made this memorable Decree which contains in substance That not having as indeed they never had any other intention than the maintenance of the Catholick Apostolick and Roman Religion in France under the Protection of a Most Christian King who shou'd be both Catholick and French they have ordain'd and do hereby ordain that it shall be this day remonstrated to Monsieur de Mayenne Lieutenant-General of the State and Crown of France in the presâ—nce of the Princes and Officers of the Crown being now at Paris that no Treaty shall be made for the transferring of the Crown into the Hands of foreign Princes or Princesses and that he shou'd imploy the Aâ—thority committed to him to hinder the Crown from being transferr'd into a foreign Hand against the Laws of the Realm under the pretence of Religion and that the said Court has from this present time declar'd and does hereby declare all those Treaties which are made and which shall be hereafter made for the establishment of any foreign Prince or Princess to be null and of no effect and value as made in prejudice to the Salique Law and other fundamental Laws of the Realm of France The Duke of Mayenne seem'd to be very much incens'd that they had made this Ordinance without his Participation and vehemently upbraided Monsieur the first President Iean le Maistre whom he had constituted in that Office who not being acquainted with his secret intentions answer'd him with that Gravity and Resolution which is becoming the Head of so venerable a Company when he performs his Duty But in reality that dextrous Prince was glad of such an occasion because he well hop'd this Ordinance wou'd at least put a block in the Spaniard's way But he found
the contrary for when they saw by this Decree and by the taking of Dreux which the King had besieg'd and after carried by force during these Agitations that if they made not haste in their election of a King 't was very probable that it wou'd be out of their power to elect one afterwards they us'd their utmost Endeavours to have one chosen in the same manner as they had first propos'd it To put by this Blow the Duke of Mayennâ— who believ'd the Spaniards had been impowr'd only with general Instructions and not to name him whom they judg'd most proper for their Interests told them that of necessity they were to expect a more particular Order from their Master wherein he shou'd declare the individual Person whom he chose for his Son in law But he was much surpriz'd when they who in all appearance had many Blanks which were ready sign'd and which they cou'd fill up with any Name to serve their occasions show'd him before the Cardinal Legat and the principal Members of the Assembly at a meeting in his House that they were impowr'd in due form to name the Duke of Guise yet he strove in the best manner he cou'd to conceal his inward Trouble and Anxiety for this Nomination which his Wiâ—e the Dutchess was not able to endure but counseâ—l'd him rather to make a Peace with the King than to be so mean-spirited as to acknowledge that raw young Creature for so by way of contempt she call'd her Nephew for his King and Master But the Duke of Mayennâ— who at that time cou'd not bear any Master whomsoever took another course and requir'd eight days time to give in writing his Demands for his own indemnifying which the Spaniards allow'd him as fully as he cou'd desire And in the mean time he knew so well to manage the Minds of the greatest part of the Deputies the Lords and Princes and even of the Duke of Guise himself by making them comprehend how unseasonable it was to create a King before they had Forces sufficient to support him against a powerful and victorious Prince that in spight of all those who were of the Spanish Interest the Ministers of Spain were answer'd that the Estates were resolv'd to proceed no farther in their Election till they had receiv'd those great Supplies which had been promis'd them by the King their Master In this manner the Election was deferr'd by the Address of the Duke of Mayenne which Dr. Mauclere a great Leaguer most bitterly bewail'd in a Letter which he wrote from Paris to Dr. de Creil another stiff Leaguer then residing at Rome to manage the Interests of that Party and therein discov'rd the whole Secret which in effect overthrew all the Cabals of the Spaniards and the League and utterly destroy'd their whole Fabrick For many things afterwards happen'd which broke off all speech of an Election of which the first and most principal was the Conversion of the King which is next in order to be related Above 9 years were already past since he though Head of the Hugonots had been endeavouring the means of reuniting himself together with his whole Party to the Catholick Church For in the year 1584. a little before the Associated Princes of the League had taken Arms the late King having sent Monsieur de Bellievre to Pamiers to declare to him that he wou'd have the Mass re establish'd in the County of Foix and in all the other Countreys which he held under the Soveraignty of the Crown of France he caus'd one of the Ministers of his Family who was already well inclin'd to sound the Dispositions of the other Ministers of that Countrey and to try if there were any hope that they would use their Endeavours uprightly and sincerely to find the means of making a general Reunion with the Catholick Church They gave up without any great difficulty all the Points in Controversie excepting one which they laid to heart namely their Interest demanding such vast proportions of Maintenance as he was not then in a condition to give them saying with great simplicity these very words That they wou'd not go a begging for their Living or live upon charity like so many poor Scholars Many of his Counsel and amongst others the Sieur de Segur one of those in whom he most confided were of opinion nevertheless that he shou'd not give over that Undertaking and that he shou'd endeavour to bring it about quietly and without any bustle by gaining the leading men of his Party And he was so well inclin'd to do it that he cou'd not curb himself from protesting frequently after his coming to the Crown and particularly after the Battel of Ivry that he wish'd with all his heart they were reunited with that Church from which they had separated and that he shou'd believe that he had done more than any of his Predecessors if God wou'd one day enable him to make that Reunion which was so necessary that he might live to see all Frenchmen united under the same Faith as well as under the same King But there is great probability for us to hope that God had reserv'd that Glory for King Louis the Great his Grandson whose unbloody Victories which he daily obtains in full Peace over Heresie by his prudent management and his Zeal which have found the means of reducing the Protestants in crowds and without violence into the Church may under his Reign show us the final accomplishment of that great Work which his Grandfather so ardently desir'd It is also known that this Prince being then only King of Navarre at the time when he projected that Re-union of which I have spoken said one day in private to one of the Ministers That he cou'd see no manner of devotion in his Religion which all consisted in hearing a Sermon deliver'd in good French and that he had always an opinion that the Body of our Lord is in the holy Sacrament for otherwise the Communion was but an exterior Ceremony which had nothing real and essential in it 'T is in this place that I cannot hinder my self from rendring Justice to the merit of one of the greatest Men whom any of our Kings have imploy'd in their most important Negotiations and who most contributed to the infusing these good Inclinations into the King of Navarre namely Francis de Noailles Bishop of Acq's who has gain'd an immortal Reputation by those great Services which he perform'd for France during 35 years under four of our Kings in fifteen Voyages out of the Kingdom and four solemn Embassies into England Venice Rome and Constantinople In which last Employment he did so much for the interest of our Religion with Selim the Grand Signior the 2d of that Name and by travelling into Syria Palestine and Aegypt where he procur'd great Advantages and Comfort to the poor Christians that the greatest Princes of Christendom thought themselves oblig'd to make their thankful Acknowledgements of his labour to
the Spaniards the Princes the Officers of the Crown the principal Members of the Parliaments the Lords of the Court the Bishops and many Doctors not only of the Royal Party but also of the League went thither and amongst others three famous Curats of Paris Rene Benoist of St. Eustache Charignac of St. Sulpice and Morennes of St. Merry who far from being tainted with the seditious principles of their fellows the Curats of St. Severin St. Cosme St. Iaques St. Gervais St. Nicholas in the Fields and St. André who had ran riot in their scandalous Satyrs as I may call them more properly than Sermons against the Person of the King had the honour of bearing their parts in the Conversion of so Great a Prince Being therefore arriv'd at St. Denis from Mante on the twenty second of Iuly the next morning he entred into Conference and held close at it from six in the Morning to one in the Afternoon with the Archbishop of Bourges and seven or eight Bishops amongst whom was Monsieur du Perron nominated to the Bishoprick of Evreux Many Doctors of great reputation were present in that Assembly with the three Curats of Paris and Father Oliver Beranger a Learned Iacobin Chaplain in Ordinary to the late King The Instruction was made particularly touching three points concerning which the King propos'd some scruples The first was on the Invocation of Saints to know if it were absolutely necessary for us to pray to them On which point they easily satisfied him by giving him to understand the Doctrine of the Church concerning it viz. That as it is profitable for us to recommend our selves to the prayers of our living Brethren without derogating thereby from the Office of Jesus Christ our Mediator in like manner it is very advantageous for us to have recourse to Saints and pray them to intercede for us to the end we may obtain benefits and favour from God by Jesus Christ God imparting to them the knowledge of our necessities and of our prayers by some way best pleasing to himself as he makes known to the Angels according to the Scripture what is done here below and foretels to the Prophets future things though they are more particularly reserv'd to his own knowledge The second was concerning Auricular Confession And it was clearly prov'd to him That Jesus Christ having given commission to his Ministers in general terms of binding and of loosing sins that power cou'd not be restrain'd only to publick sins and by consequence it was necessary that Penitents shou'd give the Priests full knowledge of all the sins they had committed to the end they may make a just distinction betwixt those offences which they ought to remit and those they ought not The third Particular in which he desir'd to be throughly instructed was concerning the Authority of the Pope To which he submitted without difficulty after it was made out to him that according to the Gospels the Councils and the Holy Fathers it extended no farther than to things that were purely spiritual and nothing relating to temporals not at all interfering with the Rights and Prerogatives of Kings or the Liberties of Kingdoms When they wou'd have proceeded from this to the Point of the real Presence of Christ's Body in the Holy Sacrament which of all other Articles is the most contested betwixt Catholicks and Huguenots and in which they never come to an agreement he stopp'd the Bishops by telling them that he was intirely perswaded of that Truth that he had no manner of scruple concerning it and that he always had believ'd it 'T is also said that having appointed a Conference betwixt the Doctors and the Ministers when one of the Huguenot Preachers had yielded that Salvation might be had in the Church of Rome for at that time they granted it he said with great reason There is then no longer deliberation to be us'd I must of necessity be a Catholique and take the surest side as every prudent man wou'd do in a business of so great importance as that of Salvation Since according to the joynt opinion of both Parties I may be sav'd being a Catholique and if I still continue a Huguenot I shall be damn'd according to the opinion of the Catholiques But whether this be true indeed or only a report 't is certain that being perfectly instructed and well assur'd of all points of belief which are held by the Roman Church they drew up a form of the Profession of Faith which was sign'd by him After which there remain'd no more but only to make his profession solemnly according to the custom of the Church and to receive Absolution from his Heresie and from the sentence of Excommunication which had been given against him But it was first to be examin'd anew in a regular Conference which wou'd make the Decision more authentick whether the Bishops had power to absolve him in France of the Excommunication which he had incurr'd in a Case reserv'd by the Popes to the Holy See For not only the Legat and those Doctors who were devoted to the League and above all others the Archbishop of Lyons as he had made appear at the Conference of Surenne but also the Cardinal of Bourbon who had much ado to part with his imaginary Headship of a third Party maintain'd openly and boldly that the Pope alone had power to absolve him and that all other Absolution wou'd be null because the Pope had solely and positively made a reservation of that Power to the Holy See Notwithstanding which in a great Assembly of Bishops and learned Doctors which was held for the resolving of this Case the contrary opinion pass'd nemine contradicente in spight of the Remonstrances of that Cardinal who was indeed no very able man The Curat of St. Eustache himself René Benoist who was afterwards Bishop of Troyes Monsieur de Morennes Curat of St. Merry who dy'd Bishop of Seâ—z those I say who had been of the League till that very time and some other knowing Doctors gave an account to the Publick in their printed Writings of the Reasons on which they grounded their opinion and they are reducible to this ensuing Argumentation which the Reader will not be unwilling to understand as I have extracted it from their Books without interposing my own Judgement in the Matter because I write not as a Divine who declares and maintains a Doctrine but as an Historian who makes a faithful Relation of Actions done as he finds them in the best Accounts 'T is indubitable say these Doctors according to the most knowing Canonists that he who is excommunicated for a Case reserv'd to the Holy See if he have any Canonical hindrance that is to say express'd and approv'd by the Canons which permits him not to go and present himself before the Pope may be absolv'd by some other without being bound to send to Rome for his Absolution provided nevertheless that when the hindrance if it endures not always
shall be remov'd he shall go and present himself before His Holiness submitting in all humility to what he shall reasonably ordain Now 't is most manifest they say that there are three sorts of Canonical Hindrances which dispence the King from going and consequently from sending to Rome to desire Absolution from the Pope The first is the manifest danger wherein he is continually of losing his Life in so many Battels and Sieges where he is forc'd to expose it daily for the preservation of the Crown which is devolv'd to him by the invioable Right of Succssion according to the fundamental Law of the Kingdom and which one half of his Subjects who are in Rebellion against him do their utmost to take away A Danger of this nature and many of the same which are included under it as that of Conspiracies Enmities Robbers a long Voyage by Sea are esteem'd according to right Reason and by the Doctors to be of that number which is comprehended in what we call the Article of Death which is not to be understood alone of that fatal moment when we give up our Breath but also of any another time when we are visibly expos'd to Death And it is on these occasions as in the Article of Death that not only the Bishops but also all Priests can give Absolution from all Sins and Ecclesiastick Censures with this Proviso that he shall afterwards present himself before the Pope if there be not some other Hindrance as for example that which follows And that is the greatness and dignity of the Persons excommunicated and particularly of Soveraign Princes who cannot leave the People whom they govern to go to Rome without manifest prejudice to their Crown For if a Father of a Family or suppose an ordinary Servant may be dispenc'd with from going thither in case his absence would inconvenience his Family much more strongly may it be concluded in the Person of a great King whose presence is always necessary or at least wise very advantagious to his Kingdom Therefore it ought to be presum'd that Persons of that eminent Dignity are perpetually hindred from leaving their Countrey and taking such a Journey In conclusion the third Hindrance which the Doctors call Periculum in morâ the danger of delay is the great hazard which the Nation might run For by deferring that Absolution so long till it were given at Rome a thousand ill Accidents might intervene and the happy opportunity be lost of preserving in France our Religion the State and the fundamental Laws of the Kingdom by the conversion of the King For all these Reasons it was concluded in that Assembly that they not only might but ought also to absolve him and afterwards send a solemn Embassy to Rome to desire the fatherly Benediction of the Pope and the Approbation of what had been so justly done in France in relation to his Conversion It being resolv'd in this manner the publick and solemn Act of this Conversion which was so much the wish of all good men was perform'd on the Sunday following being the 25th of Iuly with Magnificence worthy of so great an Action and of the Majesty of him who made it The King cloath'd all in white excepting only his Cloak and Hat which were black came forth from his Lodgings betwixt the hours of 8 and 9 in the morning preceded by the Swiss the French and the Scottish Guards and the Officers of his House with beat of Drum accompanied by the Princes the Crown Officers and those of the Soveraign Courts the Bishops and Prelats and all those who had assisted at his Instruction twelve Trumpets going before him and five â—r six hundred Gentlemen following him all magnificently cloath'd the Streets were hung with Tapissery and the Pavements strow'd with Flowers and Greens there were present an infinite multitude of People and principally of Parisians who notwithstanding all the Prohibitions of the Legat and the Duke of Mayenne were come in Crowds to St. Denis and joyn'd heartily with the rest in the loud Cries of Vive le Roy while his Majesty walk'd through the midst of them to the Church Porch of St. Denis There he found the Archbishop of Bourges who was to perform the Ceremony sitting on a great Chair in his pontifical Habit. Immediately he ask'd the King according to the form Who he was and what he wou'd have To which Questions the King having answer'd I am the King who desire to be receiv'd into the bosom of the Catholick Apostolick and Roman Church He fell upon his Knees and presented the Confession of his Faith sign'd with his Hand to the Archbishop saying these words I swear and protest before the Face of Almighty God that I will live and die in the Catholick Apostolick and Roman Church that I will protect and defend it with the hazard of my Blood and Life renouncing all Heresies which are contrary to it After which he receiv'd from that Prelat an Absolution from the Censures which he had incurr'd immediately the whole Church resounded with the often repeated Cryes of Vive le Roy and he was conducted by the Bishops before the great Altar where he renew'd his Oath upon the holy Evangelists and after having confess'd himself to the Archbishop behind the Altar while they were singing the Te Deum he heard High Mass which was celebrated by the Bishop of Nantes and then the Musick sang Vive le Roy with several repetitions of it At which the Parisians who were present in great numbers at that triumphal Ceremony breaking out into tears drown'd the voices of the Musicians with their Cryes of Vive le Roy which makes it evident that the People of Paris excepting only the Rabble of the Faction were only Leaguers by reason of that invincible Aversion which they have always had for Hugonotism For so soon as they saw the King converted they no longer call'd him the Bearnois or the King of Navarre but plainly the King whom already they desir'd to see in Paris as appear'd not long afterwards by the peaceable reduction of that capital City of the Kingdom Truly after this day which by the Effects it produc'd may properly be call'd the last day of the League when the Piety of the King was observ'd at Mass at Vespers at the Archbishop's Sermon and after it in the Visit which he made to the Tombs of the Martyrs at Montmartre all which Actions were well known to proceed from the Sincerity of a Soul which was too great to be capable of Hypocrisie the People did but laugh at what the Spaniards the remainders of the Sixteen their Preachers and above all others the fiery Doctor Boucher publish'd in their Libels and in their Sermons which were but Libels against this Conversion which they labour'd in vain to decry by many impudent and forg'd Defamations 'T was almost every mans business as secretly as he cou'd to make Peace with the King and deliver up the Towns without noise
same time with that party of its Officers which held their Sessions at Manosque under the authority of the King In sequel of this the greatest part of the Provençals being reunited and strengthen'd by the Succours which they receiv'd from Monsieur de Lesdiguieres manag'd their undertakings with so much prudence courage and good fortune that at length they constrain'd both the Savoyards and the Duke of Espernon to depart out of that Country and to leave the Government of it free to the Duke of Guise And that Prince by the deliverance of Marseilles finish'd that great work which the four Lords of Fourbin had so generously begun and so well carried on immediately after the Kings Conversion and when he had made his entry into Paris which in a very short time was follow'd by the reduction of all the remaining parts of the Kingdom Many Months were already past since the Parliament and Magistrates of that Town by the care of the President Le Maistre the Counsellors du Vair D'Amours and Molé who exercis'd the Office of Procureur General the Sieur Huillier Provost of the Merchants the Sieurs Beaurepaire L'Anglois and Neret the Sheriffs the Colonels and Captains of the several Wards had dispos'd the minds of all the Persons of Quality the Officers and good Citizens of Paris openly to renounce the League without regarding either the Spanish Garrison or the Faction of Sixteen which consisted of not above 3 or 4000 seditious People who were the very Scum of all the Rabble whom the Colonels and Captains of the Wards cou'd easily cut in pieces in case they shou'd presume to take up Arms. The Treaty was also already concluded for the safety of the Parisians and all necessary Measures taken with the Count of Belin Governour of Paris for the bringing in of the King particularly after he had been Crown'd at Chastres on the 17th of February and nothing hindred the execution of so noble Design but only the presence of the Duke of Mayenne who beginning to have the Count of Belin in distrust had put the Count of Brissac in his place whom he believ'd to be the most confiding man of all his Followers But that Count the King being now converted and his Affairs in a flourishing condition consider'd that he had a stronger tye of Fidelity to him than to any other Person without exception and therefore made his Treaty betimes on the most advantagious terms he cou'd procure So that the Duke who had sworn never to treat with the King whatsoever Conditions might be offer'd before he had receiv'd Absolution from the Pope foreseeing that he cou'd be no longer Master of Paris and fearing to be apprehended in the Town departed out of it with the Dutchess his Wife and his Children whom he brought to Soissons and leaving them there went into Picardy to order his Affairs in that Province and to retain the Cities in his obedience In the mean time the King who had drawn his Army together at St. Denis hasten'd so well the execution of the Treaty that the day was appointed to be the 22d of March at which time advancing as far as Montmartre and afterwards within 200 paces of the Town towards the lower part of the River near the Tuilleries with the choice of his Cavalry the â—â—fantry was let in by the new Gate and the Gate of St. Denis very early in the morning so that the Ramparts were seiz'd without the least tumult or any manner of Resistance after which they possess'd themselves of all the principal Places the two Chastelets the Palace and the Avenues of the Bridges At the same time the King's Garrisons of Melun and Corbeil marching down by the River side till they came right against the Celestines were receiv'd by Captain Grossier into the Arsenal and on the other side the loyal Citizens secur'd their own Wards by strong Corps de guard and scattering among the multitude many printed Tickets containing a general Indemnity rais'd loud Acclamations and Cryes of Vive le Roy through the whole City This caus'd so great an amazement in those who were the hottest Leaguers and in the Spaniards that after the King's Party had either cut in piâ—ces or thrown into the River a Corps de guard of 25 or 30 Lansquenets who made an offer of resistance on the Kay not a man of them durst afterwards appear so that all things being now in great Tranquility and the whole City secur'd for the King he enter'd at the New Gate as it were in Triumph attended by all his Nobility and Gentry after he had receiv'd from the Count of Brissac the Keys of the Town and a magnificent imbroider'd Scarf instead of which he put his own upon the Count and made him Mareshal of France upon the place Then with 5 or 600 men arm'd Cap a pe before him their Pikes being trail'd in show that the Town was voluntarily surrender'd he march'd directly to the Church of Nostre-dame the Trumpets on every side sounding the Bells ringing and innumerable multitudes of People continually ecchoing each other from all parts of the Town with incessant Acclamations and Shouts of Vive le Roy. From thence when the Te Deum was sung during the Mass which he heard with such demonstrations of Piety as overjoy'd the Parisians he went to the Louvre where after Dinner having receiv'd the Submissions of all the Companies at Three of the Clock he went to see the dismission of the Spanish Garrison at the Gate of St. Denis they were not in number above 3 or 4000 men at most in the midst of them was the Duke of Feria Don Diego d' Ybarra and the Lord Iuan Baptista Taxis who all three of them with the whole Body of their Souldiers bowing lowly to him with infinite Respect were safely convoy'd till they came to Guise About 30 of the most violent Leaguers amongst whom were Dr. Boucher and the Petit Feuillant believing like Cain that their horrible Impieties were uncapable of Pardon departed with that foreign Garrison and retir'd into Flanders where they pass'd the rest of their days some of them in extream misery some others well rewarded by the Spaniards to the end that Example might be serviceable to them on some other occasion and that their Liberality might encourage others to be like them wholly at their Devotion It seems they were little acquainted with the King's Temper who was Goodness and Clemency it self for he lost the memory of all that was past as soon as ever he set Foot in Paris He even sent to offer his Protection and all manner of Security to the Cardinal of Piacenza the Pope's Legat and to Cardinal Pellevè his greatest Enemies the first of whom to whom he had given his safe Conduct died by the way on his return to Rome the second who was then desperately sick expir'd not at the very moment of the King's entrance into Paris as the greatest part of our Historians have written but
from retiring which one wou'd have thought he shou'd have endeavour'd as being able to have done it without danger while the Enemies were employed either in fighting those who yet made resistance or in pursuing those who fled he march'd straight forward bearing his Sword aloft and calling by their names the most considerable Persons who attended him as the Duke of Elbeuf the Marquess of Pisany de Treinel de Roquelaure de Chasteau Vieux De Liencour de Montigny d' Inteville and de Mirepoix and inviting them to act like himself he made so furious a charge on those who believ'd themselves to be already in possession of the Victory that he stop'd them short and broke into them follow'd by all his brave Attendants whoafter his example fought like Lyons and push'd the Enemy with so much vigor that those six Squadrons fell back in confusion upon each other In the heat of this Combat he kill'd with his own hand the valiant Colonel Sanson who was using his uttermost endeavours though in vain to restore the Fight and being seconded by Biron who had rallyed about an hundred and twenty Horse and by the Duke of Trimouille who was come up to the Charge in the midst of the action with his Company of Gendarmes he pursu'd them at full spur as far as the great Body of Cavalry which the Duke of Mayenne commanded in the Vanguard And doubtless he had not fail'd to attaque him as he was very desirous to have done seeing his valour seconded with such good fortune if that gross had not been flank'd with two little Copses lin'd with Musqueteers and sustain'd by the whole Spanish Army which had certainly overwhelm'd him in case they had taken that critical opportunity In effect the Duke of Mayenne having observ'd during the Combat the extreme danger in which the King had involv'd himself which according to his heavy maxim might pass for inconsideration and rashness sent three or four times with all imaginable earnestness to the Constable to desire him not to let slip that favourable minute but to march as to a certain victory giving him to understand that the King having neither Foot nor Cannon cou'd not possibly escape either from being kill'd or at least from being taken But whether the Castillian fear'd the fortune of the King and much more apprehended that his whole Army was not far behind or were it the Hatred which the Spaniards bore the Duke who for his part hated them not less or perhaps the Vanity and Pride of the Constable who cou'd not endure to be taught his Duty 't is certain that he absolutely refus'd to move but only on his Retreat the same day to his Quarters at St. Seyne and the next morning to Grey The King who in the mean time had rallied all his Troops having still pursued him till he had repass'd the Saone Thus it may be said that in this famous Skirmish at Fontain Francoise the happy success of which is wholly to be attributed to the incomparable Valour of the King he perform'd an Action not unlike that of the great Macchabee who with 800 men durst bear up against a numerous Army with this difference notwithstanding that the Iewish Hero was lost in the too eager prosecution of his Victory but ours on the contrary return'd from the pursuit of his flying Enemies cover'd with Glory after he had driven a powerful Army out of his Kingdom with an handful of men not exceeding the number of 6 or 700. This was the last Enterprize of the League which was then gasping in the pangs of death and expir'd immediately after it For the Duke of Mayenne in despair to see himself abandon'd by the Constable with no hope of recovery in his Affairs was upon the point of taking a Journey into Spain and throwing himself into the Arms of King Philip with intention to inform him of the Malice and Cowardise of those whom he intrusted with the Command of his Armies when the King willing by an admirable effect of his Goodness to withdraw his vanquish'd Enemy from the steep of that Precipice where he was seeking his destruction let him understand that he was ready to receive him into Grace and grant him in that his low estate very advantagious Conditions that while the Treaty betwixt them was depending he might stay at Châ—lon on the Saone the only good Town remaining to him in Bourgogne and take his word for his security And the Duke to answer this Generosity as much as lay in him accepting this Offer gave immediate Order that the Castles of Dijon and Talant shou'd be surrendred But what was most admirable in this procedure of the King was that to save the Honour of that Prince who had engag'd himself by Oath not to acknowledge him till he had receiv'd Absolution from the Pope he deferr'd the conclusion of his Treaty till he had obtain'd it from his Holiness after which in the beginning of the year ensuing he made an Edict in his Favour It was not indeed so advantagious as it might have been if he cou'd have resolv'd to have accepted those Propositions sooner which were offer'd him more than once at a time when he might have treated not only for himself but for all that powerful Party which he hâ—aded Yet it was infinitely beyond what he cou'd reasonably have expected at that time for in consideration that he had always oppos'd the pernicious Designs of the Sixteen and of the Spaniards and that making War like a man of Honour he had constantly spoken of the King with great Respect as one who infinitely esteem'd his Person his Merit and his Quality the King who valued him exceedingly granted in his favour even against the opinion of the greatest part of his Counsel that Edict in which making very honourable mention of him and commending the Zeal which he always had for the preservation of the Catholick Religion and the Monarchy in its entire estate he granted him amongst other things besides an Amnesty of the past the re-establishment of himself and his Friends in all their Possessions the Towns of Soissons Sâ—urre and Chalon on the Saone for his security a Declaration importing that he had no Accusation either against himself or the Princes and Princesses of his Family touching the Parricide committed on the Persoâ— of the late King and that he bound himself and his Successors to the payment of all Debts which he had contracted as well without the Kingdom as within it to make War against him After this the Duke going to pay his Respects to him at Mâ—nceaux was receiv'd with great Honour and testimony of Affection and it happening that the King in walking with him at his ordinary rate which was very swift that poor Prince who was fat and unwieldy grew out of breath freely told him That he was quite spent and cou'd go no farther The King embracing him said only this For my oâ—n part Cousin I 〈◊〉 to you this
misled But in the end when by these specious pretences they had gather'd strength they who had before concluded that Christ was the only King on Earth and at the same time assum'd to themselves that Christ was theirs inferr'd by good consequence that they were to maintain their King and not only so but to propagate that belief in others for what God wills man must obey And for that reason they entred into a League of Association amongst themselves to deliver their Israel out of Egypt to seize Canaan and to turn the Idolaters out of possession Thus you see by what degrees of Saintship they grew up into Rebellion under their Successive Heads Muncer Phifer Iohn of Leyden and Knipperdolling where what Violences Impieties and Sacriledges they committed those who are not satisfied may read in Sleydan The general Tradition is that after they had been besieg'd in Munster and were forc'd by assault their Ringleaders being punish'd and they dispers'd two Ships-lading of these precious Saints was disembogu'd in Scotland where they set up again and broach'd anew their pernicious Principles If this be true we may easily perceive on what a Noble stock Presbytery was grafted From Scotland they had a blessed passage into England or at least arriving here from other parts they soon came to a considerable increase Calvin to do him right writ to King Edward the Sixth a sharp Letter against these People but our Presbyterians after him have been content to make use of them in the late Civil Wars where they and all the rest of the Sectaries were joyn'd in the Good Old Cause of Rebellion against His Late Majesty though they cou'd not agree about dividing the Spoyls when they had obtain'd the Victory And 't is impossible they ever shou'd for all claiming to the Spirit no Party will suffer another to be uppermost nor indeed will they tolerate each other because the Scriptures interpreted by each to their own purpose is always the best weapon in the strongest hand Observe them all along and Providence is still the prevailing Argument They who happen to be in power will ever urge it against those who are undermost as they who are depress'd will never fail to call it Persecution They are never united but in Adversity for cold gathers together Bodies of contrary Natures and warmth divides them How Presbytery was transplanted into England I have formerly related out of good Authors The Persecution arising in Queen Mary's Reign forc'd many Protestants out of their Native Country into Foreign parts where Calvinism having already taken root as at Francfort Strasburg and Geneva those Exiles grew tainted with that new Discipline and returning in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's Reign spread the contagion of it both amongst the Clergy and Laity of this Nation Any man who will look into the Tenets of the first Sectaries will find these to be more or less embued with them Here they were supported underhand by Great Men for private interests What trouble they gave that Queen and how she curb'd them is notoriously known to all who are conversant in the Historiâ—s of those times How King Iames was plagu'd with them is known as well to any man who has read the Reverend and Sincere Spotswood And how they were baffled by the Church of England in a Disputation which he allowed them at Hampton-Court even to the Conversion of Dr. Sparks who was one of the two Disputants of their Party and afterwards writ against them any one who pleases may be satisfied The Agreement of their Principles with the fiercest Jesuits is as easie to be demonstrated and has already been done by several hands I will only mention some few of them to show how well prepar'd they came to that solemn Covenant of theirs which they borrow'd first from the Holy League of France and have lately copied out again in their intended Association against his present Majesty Bellarmine as the Author of this History has told you was himself a Preacher for the League in Paris during the Rebellion there in the Reign of King Henry the Fourth Some of his Principles are these following In the Kingdoms of Men the Power of the King is from the People because the People make the King Observing that he says In the Kingdoms of Men there is no doubt but he restrains this Principle to the subordination of the Pope For his Holiness in that Rebellion as you have read was declar'd Protector of the League So that the Pope first Excommunicates which is the Outlawry of the Church and by virtue of this Excommunication the People are left to their own natural liberty and may without farther Process from Rome depose him Accordingly you see it practis'd in the same Instance Pope Sixtus first thunderstruck King Henry the Third and the King of Navarre then the Sorbonne make Decrees that they have successively forfeited the Crown the Parliament verifies these Decrees and the Pope is petition'd to confirm the sence of the Nation that is of the Rebels But I have related this too favourably for Bellarmine for we hear him in another place positively affirming it as matter of Faith If any Christian Prince shall depart from the Catholick Religion and shall withdraw others from it he immediately forfeits all Power and Dignity even before the Pope has pronounc'd Sentence on him and his Subjects in case they have power to do it may and ought to cast out such an Heretick from his Soveraignty over Christians Now consonant to this is Buchanan 's Principle That the People may confer the Government on whom they please And the Maxim of Knox That if Princes be Tyrants against God and his Truth their Subjects are releas'd from their Oath of Obedience And Goodman 's That when Magistrates cease to do their Duties God gives the Sword into the Peoples hands evil Princes ought to be depos'd by inferior Magistrates and a private man having an inward Call may kill a Tyrant 'T is the work of a Scavenger to rake together and carry off all these Dunghills they are easie to be found at the Doors of all our Sects and all our Atheistical Commonwealths men And besides 't is a needless labour they are so far from disowning such Positions that they glory in them and wear them like Marks of Honour as an Indian does a Ring in his Nose or a Souldanian a Belt of Garbidge In the mean time I appeal to any impartial man whether men of such Principles can reasonably expect any Favour from the Government in which they live and which Viper-like they wou'd devour What I have remark'd of them is no more than necessary to show how aptly their Principles are suited to their Practices The History it self has sufficiently discover'd to the unbiass'd Reader that both the last Rebellion and this present Conspiracy which is the mystery of Iniquity still working in the three Nations were originally founded on the French League that was their Model according to
our King Pope Gregory the 13th commanded his Nuncio himself to thank the Ambassador from him at his passage from Venice on his return to France and to desire him that he wou'd use his Interest with his Brother the Abbot of L' Isle who had succeeded him in many of his Negotiations and in that Embassy as he also did in the Bishoprick of Acq's that he wou'd follow the worthy Examples which he had given him 'T is true that Pope Pius the 5th Predecessor to Gregory thought it very strange at first that a Bishop shou'd be Ambassador for the most Christian King at the Ottoman Port. But besides that the Bishop of Agria a most prudent and vertuous Prelat had exercis'd that Charge during five years for the Emperor Maximilian the 2d without the least fault found with it he very much chang'd his opinion after the Bishop of Acq's by his credit with the Grand Signior had obtain'd from him that an express Prohibition shou'd be made to Piali Bassa General of his Navy of making any descent on the Territories of the Church in consideration of which Benefit his Holiness made him a promise to promote him to the highest Dignities with which a Pope can recompence the greatest Services that are render'd to the Church These were the Employments of that Bishop whose Deserts were not less eminent than those of his elder Brother Anthony de Noailles Head of that illustrious Family which is one of the most ancient and remarkable in Limousin who was Ambassador in England Governour of Bourdeaux and Lieutenant for the King in Guyenne where he serv'd the State and Religion with the same Zeal which appears at this day with so much Success and Glory in his Posterity It was then by the Motives of the same Zeal for Religion that Francis de Noailles after he had reduc'd 100 Hugonot Families which he found in Acq's at his coming to that Bishoprick to the number of 12 was not wanting to make use of so fair an opportunity as he had to work upon the King of Navarre's Inclinations which good advice in God's due time had the desir'd effect For having conferr'd with him at Nerac by the King's Orders twice or thrice with endeavours to procure from him the re-establishment of the Catholick Religion in Bearn when he found that new Difficulties were still started he laid aside that particular Point and coming to the Spring-head whereon all the rest depended he told him in the presence of Segur with all the sincerity of a faithful Minister That his Majesty cou'd not reasonably hope to support himself by that Party which how powerful soever it appear'd wou'd always be too weak to bear him up in spight of the Catholicks who were infinitely more strong to that pitch of heighth to which his Birth and Fortune might one day carry him that whatsoever Wonders his Valour might perform yet they wou'd never be of any advantage to him till he reconcil'd himself sincerely to the Catholick Church and that it was impossible they were his very words that he cou'd ever raise any thing that was durable for the establishment of his Fortune either within the Realm or without it unless he built on this Foundation This was what he said when he took his leave of the King of Navarre And some few days after this writing from Agen to the Sieur de Segur he protested to him That his Master cou'd never arrive to the possession of that Crown to which he might lawfully pretend if he made not his entrance by the Gate of the Catholick Religion and pray'd him therefore that he wou'd think seriously of that Matter for if he follow'd not his Counsel he shou'd one day speak to him in Petrarch 's Verse When Error goes before Repentance comes behind This Discourse startled Segur who had much power over his Masters Inclinations and it was principally on this account that he gave him the Counsel above-mention'd which consequently caus'd the King of Navarre to consider of the means of reuniting himself to the Catholicks But it happening that in the midst of these Agitations the Leaguers began openly to rebel and afterwards capitulating with Arms in their hands obtain'd an Edict by which the King oblig'd himself to make War with all his Power against the Hugonots Segur whom the King of Navarre had lately sent into Germany to desire assistance writ to him after he had obtain'd it that this was not a time to think of turning Catholick though he himself had formerly advis'd it and that since his Enemies wou'd make him change his Religion by force almost in the same manner as they had us'd him at the Massacre of St. Barthol'mew he ought to stand bent against them and defend his Liberty by Arms that it might not be said he was basely plyant to their will and that he might change freely with safeguard to his Honour at some other time which now he cou'd not without shame as being by constraint He follow'd this Advice which was also seconded by his Counsel He made the War and always appear'd at the Head of the Hugonots with the success which has already been related But being a man of a sprightly and piercing Wit he was not wanting in the mean time to instruct himself and that by a very artificial way Sometimes by proposing difficult Points to his Ministers or to speak more properly his own Doubts and Scruples in matters of Religion to understand on what Foundations their Opinions were built sometimes by conferring with knowing Catholicks and maintaining against them with the strongest Reasons he cou'd urge the Principles which had been infus'd into him by his Ministers on purpose to discover by their Answers which he compar'd with what had been told him on the other side what was real and solid truth betwixt them And he always continued in this manner of Instruction clearing and fathoming the principal Points of the Controversie and causing them to give in writing what they had to argue pro or con which produc'd this effect that the Hugonots never believ'd him to be sound at bottom and settled in their Religion but repos'd much greater confidence in the late Prince of Conde who was in reality a better Protestant than he And truly it appears exceeding credible that when at his coming to the Crown he made a promise to the Catholick Princes and Lords that he wou'd cause himself to be instructed within six months he was already resolv'd on his Conversion there remaining but very few things which he then scrupled and for which he demanded some longer time in order to his fuller satisfaction But as he afterwards acknowledg'd he thought himself oblig'd to defer that good action to some more convenient opportunity because the Hugâ—nots wou'd certainly have cantoniz'd themselves and set up under the protection of some powerful Foreigner whom they wou'd have chosen for their Head which must have occasion'd new Troubles in the Kingdom Besides which the Head