THE ST. BARTHOLOMEW MASSACRE

New Zealand Tablet, 24 July 1919, Page 3

THE ST. BARTHOLOMEW MASSACRE

■ —♦— ——' (Continued). , ■ Paper presented to the Historical Society of St. Kieran’s College, March, 1875, by Right Rev. Patrick F. Moran, Bishop of Ossory, ... Charles > at the request of his mother, signed, Without hesitation, a Royal mandate for the execution of the Huguenot leaders, and to a chosen band of their enemies was allotted the arduous task of carrying it with secrecy into effect. The evening of Saturday, the 3rd rolled on with all the stillness of a summer vigil m the French capital, and not a murmur foretold the storm that was so soon to burst upon the heads of the unsuspecting Huguenots. But no sooner had the clock of Notie Dame struck 3, on the morning of St Bartholomew’s Feast, than the bell of St. Germain d’Auxerre tolled the signal for the massacre. The morning’s sun of August 24 saw completed the work of blood so far as it had been planned by Catherine; but the passions of the populace being once let loose, it was not easy to withdraw them from deeds of violence, and two or three days passed by before order could be fully restored in the capital.* J On the evening of the 24th, the King addressed Royal letters to the governors of the various cities of h ranee, commanding them to maintain tranquillity and to preserve the lives of the Huguenots. But the example of Paris proved too contagious for the excited populace, and as soon as the terrible news reached Orleans, Rouen, Lyons, and other towns, fresh scenes of noting were witnessed, and new names were added to the roll of the murdered Huguenots. Two days after the fatal festival of St. Bartholomew, the King, by a public order, assumed to himself the whole responsibility of the dreadful massacre; and before the Foreign ’ Ambassadors and Parliament, assembled in the Gilded Chamber of the Palace of Justice, he made the solemn announcement that that execution on the leaders of an incorrigible faction which they had witnessed had been done “by his express orders, not horn any religious motive, or in contravention of his edict of pacification, which he still intended to observe, but to prevent the carrying out of a detestable conspiracy, got up by the Admiral and his followers against the person of the King, the Queen Mother, her other sons, and the King of Navarre. ”f Without a dissentient voice, the Parliament passed a vote of thanks, commending the King’s foresight and energy, and adding its official sanction to the Royal sentence already executed against the traitors. To add greater solemnity to the occasion, the whole Parliament and Court, with Charles at their head, walked in procession to the Cathedral of Notre Dame, and there offered up solemn thanksgiving to God that so great and imminent danger had been averted from the kingdom. Medals were struck to commemorate} the event, and it was ordered that the public procession and thanksgiving of Parliament should be annually repeated, to perpetuate the memory of their providential escape from the dreadful conspiracy. § , *lt is amazing to find with what carelessness the standard Protestant historians deal with the events which they profess to register ihus, tor instance Hume, m his account of the St. Bartholomew massacre, writes that it began on the evening of August 24: “On the evening of St. Bartholomew, a few days after the ftiarriage the signal was given for a general massacre of those religionists, and ill- , ing himself in person led the way to these assassinations.” {History of Englandi vol. v., page 147.) For this statement regarding the King there is not even a shadow of authority: and all the contemporary writers are agreed that the massacre took place not on , the evening, but on the morning of August 24. Beza writes that c dint cm point du jour (Mem. de VEtat do Prance, i., 217). M. Puygaillard, in a. letter of August 26, 1572, says ; “Dimancho matin, le Hui a Jaict faire une bien grande execution d rencontre des Huguenots.” (See Revue des Questions Hist., page 340.) To omit omer equally explicit statements, the Duke of Anjou attests that the King and the Queen Mother, with himself and some trusty counsellors, met at the Louvre soon after midnight of August 23, and at early dawn of the 24th, “ainsi quo lo jour commencait a poindre,” sent a messenger to withdraw the order which- had been given for the massacre : but it was too late, the deed was already done (White, ,The Massacre, page 416.) f The Official Declaration, in White, page 449. 1 A facsimile of one of these medals is given in vignette of tiHje page by White in Massacre of Saint Bartholomew. It bears tire motto, “Virtue in rehelles," and serves to confirm the opinion thSt the Huguenots were punished, not as heretics, but as rebels. § Victor, Tableau Historique de Paris, xiii., 210.

It is almost impossible to form an exact estimate of the numbers that were massacred in Paris, and throughout France, on this occasion. Each writer, as impelled by passion or blinded by prejudice, increases the number of the victims, and varies the details of the horrible massacre. Thus, for instance, Perefixe calculates that 6000 Huguenots were slain in Paris alone, and that the number of the sufferers throughout France was 100,000. Claude Haton writes that more than 7000 were put to death in the city.f Davila and others increase the number to 10,000. Fronde} states that • about 2000 were murdered in Paris, and, “according •to the belief of the times,” 100,000 men, women, and children throughout France. He adds, however, the significant note, that in this case, as “with all large numbers, when unsupported by exact statistics,” it is safe to divide the number “at least by 10.” Sully reckons the whole number of victims throughout France as 0,000. Ranke, in his History of the. Papacy, had registered them at about 50,000 ;§ but in his History of the Wars in France he reduces the number to “about 30.000. Hume estimates the slain in Paris alone as ' ”500 gentlemen and men of condition and 10,000 of inferior sort.” He does not assign the precise number of the myriads who were slaughtered elsewhere. De Thou, writing for the express purpose of promoting infidel Philosophism against the Church, calculates the total number of the slain in France at 20.000. La Popeliniere, who flourished at the time, and published' his History ** a few years after the event, numbers the Parisian victims at 1000, and the sufferers throughout the whole kingdom at 20,000. Papyr Masson reduces the whole number in France to 10,000 Alzog, to less than 4000. Caveirac writes that 1100 were slain in Paris and 2000 throughout the rest of France. i Barthelemy adopts the opinion of La Popeliniere as to the city of Paris, but reduces the total number of the victims throughout the kingdom to 2000. ff Lingard, after a minute examination, concludes that the total number of the Huguenots slain in all France did not exceed 1600. The Huguenot Martyrologi /J| is perhaps - the most important contemporary Huguenot record con- : nected with the St. Bartholomew massacre. It was ; published in 1582, with the approval of the whole Huguenot body, who applauded it as-an accurate and ; authentic register of their martyred brethren. Its •authors had access to several public documents which shave since perished, and every local return which they •sought for was readily forwarded by the various Calvin•iistic congregations, that thus the work might be as full •and complete as possible. This official Martyrology , ■when presenting to the reader a' general statement regarding the massacre, calculates the total number of ithe victims at 30,000. Subsequently, however, when .'setting forth the details for the various districts, the number is reduced to a little more than 15,000 ; and •when, again, it proceeds to calendar the names of the sufferers, the special purpose for which it was composed, it can only discover seven hundred and eighty-six victims in the whole kingdom. Amid so many conflicting opinions regarding the number of the Huguenots who thus fell victims to the perverse policy of the French Court, there is one thing at least which we may affirm with confidence, that there is great uncertainty as to the extent- of the massacre, and that it is a manifest exaggeration to speak of the St. Bartholomew crime as a general slaughter of all the French Huguenots. When however, we take into account the perfect organisation of the Huguenot, congregations throughout France, and when we consider

t “Plus dp. 7000 personnel s hi on con trues, sons mitres jetees dans la riviere, qui no furent connues.” (White, page 470.) 5, i History of England, x., 408. § ‘‘On a tue pres de cinquanto mille.” (Ranke, Hist, da la Fnpaute, etc., iii., 84.) ■* Histoire do Franco, d opals Van 1550 jusqu’ cn 1577, edit. Paris, 1581, livre xxix., page . 66. II The dissertation of M. Ch. Barthelemy, La Saint-Barthelemy, is one of the best .that has appeared on the subject; it is found in Erreurs et Mensongos historiques, Paris, 1863. The same dissertation is inserted in Dictionnaire de controverses historiques, par L. P. Jehan (Migne, 1866), but without the name of M. Barthelemy. t-The following is the full title of this work, to which we will have to recur more than once: Histoire dos Martyrs persecutes et inis a mart pour la verite de VEvangile, dopuis In temps dos Apdtres .jusqu’- cn\ 1574, printed in 1582.

the.official weight of the Huguenot Martyrology, and the precision with ; which it registers in its lists the names even of - the . humblest sufferers, we cannot be far from the truth when we assert that Liugard, in his computation, has allowed a very wide margin for all possible omissions, and that the total number of the murdered Huguenots cannot have exceeded 1500.* Notwithstanding this massacre of August, 1572, the Huguenots in the following year are found in the field with regularly equipped armies, and fearlessly setting at defiance the whole power of the French Monarch. For a while victory even smiled upon them, and when at length they were overpowered by superior strength, the most honorable terms were accorded to them, f Their independent organisation remained unaltered, and indeed it was not till the time of Richelieu that they at length ceased to form a distinct military power in the kingdom. But it was not the St. Bartholomew massacre nor their defeat in the field of battle that effectually broke the power and lessened the numbers of the French Huguenots. For this result France was indebted far more to the spirit of religion that was awakened throughout the nation by St. Francis do Sales, St. Vincent do Paul, and the clergy formed in their school, whose piety and zeal at length brought back these erring sons into the saying fold of the one true Church of Jesus Christ.

And now, before we quit this portion of our subject, there are a few circumstances connected with the St. Bartholomew massacre which merit our special attention, although they are generally passed oyer in silence by modern historians. In the first place, it is an important fact that no bishop or priest, or other representative of Catholic feelings and Catholic interests, was allowed any part in the Council of Catherine de Medici, and the massacre was planned and devised solely as” a matter of State policy. Even the Papal Nunzio was left a stranger to the plot, and, as Sismondi writes, “he only learned the death of Coligny and the rest when all had been accomplished.” ■ Then again,- several Catholics fell victims to the rage of their enemies on that bloody festival. Sir James Mackintosh expressly asserts that “Catholics were involved in the slaughter : private interests and personal animosities borrowed the poniard and the mask of religious fury. The Huguenot cites the following words of Mezeray, an eye-witness of the scenes of slaughter: ‘‘Whoever possessed wealth, or held an enviable post, or had hungry expectant heirs, was put down as a Huguenot.” When recording some individual instances of the massacre, the same Martyr ologg informs us that the Governor of Bourdeaux caused wealthy Catholics as well as Protestants to be thrown into prison : from Catholics and Protestants alike he demanded a ransom, and he deliberately put to death all for whom the ransom was not paid. Again, it states that at Bourges a priest was thrown into prison and murdered; that at the town of La Charite a Catholic matron received the assassin’s dagger; and that at Vic the Catholic Governor was himself murdered. It also states that in Paris two Ecclesiastics of high dignity, Bertrand de Villemor and Jean'Rouillard, the latter a Canon of Notre Dame, fell victims in the general massacre. And yet these are only a few cases incidentally mentioned in this record, otherwise so hostile to everything Catholic.

* The popular songs of the period point to a very small number of victims. The following, written at the time by Cappler de Vallay, is published by Cantu:— “ Eternal Dieu veritable, Qui descouvro tons les secretz, A permis de droit equitable, * Les perfides litre massacres ; Car la dimanche vingt-quatriesme, Furent tuts plus d’un centieme, , Fautueurs de la lot ealvinienne, Depuis on- a continue Do punir les plus viciqux,” etc. Historia Generate, viii., 754.) 1 White, page 179, estimates the number of Huguenots in France in 1561 at 1,500,000. After the massacre in 1572 it was calculated that they numbered about 2,000,000. (Mackintosh, History of England, iii., 238.) When we take into account that in the intervening period they had been overcome in three civil wars, as wo will see hereafter, but little room remains for an extensive massacre of their party on the Feast of St. Bartholomew, 1572. y I History, iii., 225. , ‘. § Histoire, etc., fol. 731.

The Protestant historian, La Popeliniere, further assures us that the Catholics of France loudly protested against these deeds of blood being imputed to them, and they readily contributed as far as was in their power to secure the Huguenots from further attacks: “many more would have been slain,” he says, “were it not that some of the Catholic nobility, satisfied with the death of the leaders, used their efforts to appease the mob; several Italians, , too, on horseback, and with swords drawn, drove back idle rioters in the faubourgs and in the streets, and threw open their houses as a secure refuge for the sufferers” ;* he adds the names of several leading Catholics who thus distinguished themselves by sheltering the Huguenots from danger, as the Dukes D Aumale, de Biron, de Bellievre, etc. The British Museum preserves a curious letter addressed from Paris, in the month of September, 1572, to the English Government, which accurately describes the feelings of the Catholics of Paris in regard to the massacre : “it is lamented (it says) to see the King’s cruelty, even by the Papists; many be sorry that so monstrous a murder was invented, and at present they dread their own lives. The Duke of Guise himself is not so bloody, neither did he kill any man himself, but saved diverse. He spoke openly that for the Admiral s death he was glad, but that the King had put such to death as, if it had pleased him, might have done good service.

Nor must we suppose that this sympathy of the Catholic citizens for the Huguenots was confined to the capital. In every city of France similar instances were found of that true charity which has ever characterised the Catholic Church, and which, on the present occasion, sought to stem the tide of massacre, and to shield the sufferers by the protecting mantle of religion. Thus, the Huguenot Martyrology, to which we have so often referred, attests]: that very many of the sufferers were sheltered in the monasteries from the fury of the populace. and as an instance, it states that “the monasteries served as a safe shelter for the Huguenots in Toulouse.” Again, it writes that at Bourges “some peaceable Catholics saved the Huguenot sufferers from an infuriated mob.” It adds, that in the town of Romans, “sixty Huguenots were seized by the mob, but the peaceable Catholics delivered 40 of them out of their hands, and the Governor delivered 13 others. The remaining seven were murdered by private enemies, because they had been found with arms in their hands”—(page 718). At Troyes, a priest was foremost among those who sought to rescue the unfortunate sufferers; whilst at Bourdeaux “several were saved by the clergy and others from whom no such favor could have been expected”— (fol. 730). This triumph of charity over hatred and revenge was nowhere more manifest than at Nismes, notwithstanding the memory of the bitter sufferings to which the Catholics of that city had been a short time before subjected by the triumphant Huguenots. The Catholic citizens, on the first rumors of a massacre, put forth all their strength, and invited the Huguenot leaders to unite with them in order to prevent the shedding of blood. All the city gates were closed except one, and there a body of armed Huguenots were stationed, together with the Catholic troops, to repress every attempt at massacre. *La Popeliniere, Histoirc, liv. xix. t MSS., Br. Mus.— Hews from France, Sept., 1572: Fronde, History, x., 410. There is also a Letter of Walsingham, on Sept. 13, in which he writes that “this manner of proceeding is, by the Catholics themselves, utterly condemned.” The Venetian Ambassador aJnrms the same in his Rolnzinne, published in La- Diplomatic Venitienno : "Condossiachc <Hspi.ar.cin. oltrcmodo tanto ai Cattolici quanto agli ngonotti, non. clicono tanto il fatio quanto il modo c la maniera del fare; parendo loro dl strano chc uno la sera si trovi vivo e la mattina ■ morto; e chiamano questn via e modo di procederc con assoluta potestd, sema via di giudisio,' via di tirannide; attrihuendolo alia uegina etc. -=- , : I . Histoirc, etc., fol. 716. / " (To be continued.) -