ure he would have been lower than him- | St. Quentin prevented him. The post self had he pretended to be sorry at his of colonel of the infantry was, however, death. In 1547 came the new reign. With it Montmorency regained his favour, and though Henry was more rigorous than his father against "ceux de la religion," the brothers Châtillon were in high favour at court. Gaspard and Andelot married, the latter to Claudine de Rieux, a rich heiress, the former her cousin, Charlotte de Laval, who had already embraced the new doctrines. And in 1552 the king gave Coligny his first great command, making him colonel-general of the French infantry. This was principally composed of Swiss mercenaries, who might be hired for any cause. There was no discipline among them; in time of war they pillaged, murdered, and destroyed without restraint; in time of peace they roamed about the country like so many brigands. It was Coligny's first care to bring these disorderly troops to discipline, and he subjected them to a code of rules originally drawn up during the siege of Boulogne. They show us the austere side of his character, now fully developed. He would have no quarrelling among the soldiers; no duel was to be fought or cartel to be sent without special leave of the captain or colonel; for nearly all military offences the soldier was "passé par les picques," everything was to be paid for; honour of women was to be respected, under penalty of hanging and strangling; the "enormous and execrable blasphemies" of the soldiers were to be heard no more, under penalties for the first offence of eight days' prison, on bread and water; for the second, to make the amende honorable on knees and in shirt, with a lighted torch in hand; and for the third, to have the tongue cut out. There was to be no roving about the country in search of forage, on pain of hanging, and he who used his arms in town or garrison was to have his hand struck off publicly. These rules he enforced among his own men with a rigour which gave him the character of cruelty. They saved, Brantôme says, the lives of a million of persons, "for before there was nothing but pillage, robbery, plunder, ransoming, murder, quarrels, and ravishing among the bands, so that they resembled rather companies of Arabs and brigands than noble soldiers." This code of Coligny was, indeed, the beginning of modern military discipline. He wanted to follow it up by the establishment of a military hospital, but the disaster of the real commencement of his career; the constable asked for him the command in Italy, which was refused, owing to the influence of Diane de Poitiers. He received in place of this, the governorship of Montreuil, Selaques, Blacquay, "et tout le comté du Boullonnais, tant conquis qu' à conquérir;” and in 1552 he was nominated to the great and important post of admiral of France.* Hitherto he has outstripped Guise, who has gained no reputation but that of a good cavalry officer. But then came Guise's masterly defence of Metz, which put him on a level, at least, with Coligny. Next the admiral was appointed governor of Ile Adam; in the following year governor of Picardy, on the resignation of the king of Navarre; and in 1556 he negotiated with Philip the truce of Vaucelles. It was the highest point of his greatness at court; but henceforth the days of Coligny are to be full of disaster and disappointment. For, against his will, the truce was violated; war broke out again with Spain, and fortune left him forever. He had already earned the reputation of being a favourer of heretics; his brother Andelot had been imprisoned for proclaiming himself a Protestant, but he had formed a scheme, which received the king's approbation, for relieving France of her religious dissensions. We must remember that kings were not always anxious to persecute, and that even the doctors of the Sorbonne were not always longing to burn and torture heretics. Coligny pointed across the Atlantic Ocean at those broad lands over which Spain and Portugal arrogantly claimed exclusive right. There, with no limit to the acres waiting to be occupied, no limit to the wealth that might be accumulated, might rise a new France, loyal to the old, whose colonists should be the persecuted followers of the new religion. There they should have liberty of conscience, with self-government, subject to such laws as might be imposed by the king. There should be freedom of religion, in itself so great a boon as to be worth exile, loss of lands and property, a hard and uncertain life, a dangerous climate. More than this, the colony should drain the old country of disturbing influences; should render tol *He wished to resign the command of the infantry in favour of his brother, but as Andelot was a prisoner in Italy, he kept both charges, issuing his orders, "De par monsieur l'Admirai couronnel général de l'infanterie Française.” eration possible, by the banishment of waiting in Brittany for a chance of going the weaker party; if that could be called out. At sight of the returned emigrants banishment which threw the exiles into they resolved to remain at home, and the arms of their brothers in religion. the colony was lost. Villegagnon came Remember that at this time there was no home, and the handful that remained bequestion of toleration in Europe. Uni- hind were massacred by the Portuguese. formity of religion was the common plat- It will be seen, later on, that Coligny, in form of all discussion; England and spite of this failure, never ceased to reGeneva, and Lutheran Germany would gard his scheme as practicable, and renot tolerate the Roman Catholics; Spain turned to it again and again in after and France would not tolerate the Re-years, when an occasion presented itself. formers. Coligny, who foresaw the long But the truce of Versailles was broken, train of disasters ushered in by a few and there were other things to do. years of persecution, conceived and tried" Since," says the admiral, "it pleases the to carry into execution a plan which an- king that I serve him in the government ticipated that of the English Puritans of Picardy, it is right that I should forget and was far greater, because he made it a everything else, to accommodate myself, national movement, backed at first by the and follow his will." The admiral, whose king's own encouragement. In 1555 the headquarters are at Abbeville, multiplies first expedition set sail from Havre, which himself; it is he who, single-handed, prowas to create a Protestant France in vides for everything, studies economy of America. For some reason, probably expenditure, protects the private interthrough ignorance of geography, the ad-ests of cities and all private persons, and miral chose Brazil as the site of the new is careful that the poor shall not be colony. The little fleet, of two men-of- robbed and ill-treated. Then came the war and a brig, commanded by Durand enemy into his province, and the disasde Villegagnon, landed on the 10th of trous day of St. Quentin, when the French November in a small island in the bay of lost ten thousand men, and left the road Rio Janeiro, which had been already set- open all the way to Paris. To stop the tled, but abandoned by the Portuguese. enemy Montmorency ordered Coligny to The island, only half a league in circum-hold the town. How he held the place, ference, was easy of defence, for which dismantled as it was, with troops disreason Villegagnon chose it for his estab-heartened and almost mutinous, how his lishment, and giving it the name of Coli- brother Andelot came to his assistance gny, began to build his fortress on a rock... "bien puys je dire que sans luy je in the centre. The news of the settlement fusse demeuré sous le faix" - how the reached France, and hundreds, excited by place was taken, and he himself made the reports, volunteered to join the col- prisoner, is told by himself in his "Disony. The next year a second fleet was cours sur le Siége de St. Quentin," the despatched, but, owing to a sudden cool- only thing that remains of Coligny's writing of the early zeal, with only three hun-ings, except his letters. It is plain, dred emigrants on board, among whom clear, and remarkably modest; he tells us were several ministers from Geneva. how he lost the place; with characteristic Then came quarrels, discussions, and forbearance he spares his cowardly and seditions. Those who had emigrated for mutinous soldiers, because he will not pleasure or for fighting found themselves condemn them "sans qu'ils soient diz et compelled to work all day in the construc-alleguent leurs raisons." The "Distion of the fort. Those who had emigrat-cours" was written in his prison at Ghent, ed for religious freedom found themselves and Coligny discovered, on returning from under the rule of Genevan intolerance, his exile, that he had entirely lost the more narrow and rigid, more grievous to king's favour, which was now transferred bear than the persecution at home. Life to Guise. But he had gained a more had no pleasures, and cooped up in this important thing, religious conviction. islet, a mile long and half a mile broad, the hapless emigrants had no change but from work to preaching, and from preaching to work. The Genevese were the first to rebel against the life they led, and, after a year or so managed to desert the island in a body, and to gain the mainland, whence they got back to France in 1558. Six or eight hundred men were He went into prison with a mind full of doubt; he came out of it with certainty. Like his brother Andelot, like his wife, he crossed the fatal stream which separates the Catholic from the Protestant. His conversion was before the writing of the “Discours," if we are to judge by certain phrases which point to other changes than loss of liberty. Ce petit homme tant jolly Tels mystères ne se jouent point sans la faith. His position as prince of the permission et volonté de Dieu, laquelle est blood made him nominal chief of the toujours bonne, sainte, et raisonable, et qui ne party; his connection, as a kind of fait rien sans juste occasion, dont toutesfois nephew, with Coligny, placed him under je ne sçay pas la cause et dont aussi peu je his guardianship. He was as popular as me dois enquérir mais plustost m'humilier Guise, and as easy in his manner. devant Luy en me conformant à sa volonté. spite of his religion, says Brantôme, "le Deprived of the royal favour, he re-bon prince estoit bien aussy mondain qu'un treated to his château of Châtillon sur autre, et aymoit autant la femme d'autrui Loing, where he occupied himself in col- que la sienne." They sang a song about lecting pictures, books, and works of art. him All the world knew that he belonged to the "religion," as well as his two brothers; but the admiral of France, the governor of Picardy, the colonel of French infantry, was not a man like some poor cobbler to be hung up in chains and slowly roasted. Moreover, though the Reformers did not yet know their own strength, their spirit was slowly rising; rumours ran about the country that they might be numbered by tens of thousands; the psalms of Marot were sung again in the Pré aux Clercs; the king threatened a new and greater persecution, and then, the first of all the dramatic surprises which crowd the history of the French religious wars, the lance of Montgomery gave France a new king, and the Protestants had a further breathing-space. Francis II. was nephew to the Guises, but the queen-mother hated the Guises, who kept her from power. She began, perhaps in earnest, to hold out hopes that she, too, might become a Protestant, guided by the Duchess de Montpensier and Madeleine de Roye, Coligny's halfsister, both of the Reform: and she expressed to Coligny her sorrow for the religious persecutions, recognizing already that it was to Coligny that all eyes turned. The nominal head of the party was the Prince of Condé, the real head was the admiral. Better men have fought for a noble cause, but the Prince of Condé was at least loyal to the cause for which he gave his life. As for Catherine, we must acknowledge the difficulties of her position. She had one purpose, to maintain her power, and, through herself, the royal authority. To do this she had but one weapon, her duplicity; as for her religion, it was that of a cultivated Italian. She was ready to become Protestant, or to remain Catholic, as either party seemed to offer greater safety, with a preference for the former, because it gave a chance of emancipation from the Guises. Coligny, who had by this time organized his party and knew his strength, offered her fifty thousand lances, but they were scattered about the face of the country, for Protestantism in France was sporadic. And then came acts of violence. Protestant fanatics murdered President Minard, the Catholics executed De Bourg; other murders followed, and the Huguenots, exasperated and terrified, met in solemn council at Vendôme. All the leaders of the party were present, the king of Navarre, The three brothers of the Bourbon Condé, the Châtillon brothers, La Rochehouse were entirely unlike each other. foucauld, Rohan, Chartres, and Porcian, The eldest, Antony, king of Navarre, while to show the political nature of the vacillated between the Catholics and the gathering, Montmorency, premier ChrisProtestants, leaning to the latter, but tian of France, and the staunchest Cathtempted by the former; the second, the olic in the world, was represented by Cardinal de Bourbon, as weak as Antony deputy. Should they take up arms against but not so brave, was a bigot and fanatic the Guises? Behind them, ready to move of the deepest dye. In the third, Louis, at a word, lay, murmuring and growling, Prince of Condé, all the worth and dignity of the family was concentrated. Louis was a little, round-shouldered man, short of stature, stout of heart, and greedy of pleasure. His religion was a partycry, but he was loyal to it, and no doubt his relations with the Châtillons, whose niece, Eleonore de Roye, was his first wife, gave him some idea of a higher an enormous mass, how great only Coligny knew, the Reformed party, from whom their armies could be drawn. Their strength was such as to promise them a force equal, or little inferior, to any that could be brought against them: their weakness lay in the scattering of their power. In the west and in the south the Protestants were strong. They were not to extenuate himself, not to clear away any suspicion, but to save, if he could, the life of Castelnau. For in spite of Tavannes and the Catholic historians, no one did suspect him- no one who knew Coligny ever suspected him of any treachery at all.* The Duke of Guise, his enemy, had been his friend, and knew the man whom he spared, not because he was too powerful - he was not so powerful as Condé, and yet Condé's name and rank did not save him from arrest a little later on but because he knew his loyalty. Only a few days before the Amboise affair Coligny is sent to Paris to allay the popular excitement. And immediately after draw up a mémoir on the position of affairs in Normandy. He did so, taking the opportunity to advise the dismissal of the Guises. The mémoir led at last to the edict of Romorantin, and to the grand assembly of Fontainebleau. Catherine, the real ally of Coligny in one thing only, desired to rid herself of the Guises. But she was afraid to trust herself wholly to the admiral, or to any one else, being already involved in that tangled mesh of concession, deceit, compromise, and intrigue, which drove France blindly mad for thirty years. She was afraid. It is the key-note of Catherine's character. What would have been the history of France if Jeanne D'Albret had strong in Normandy; in many towns they were an actual majority, but in most they were a small minority, trembling at every moment for life and liberty. It was Andelot who cried for war, and at all risks; it was Coligny, more prudent, who held his party back. Let them first try to reach the queen-mother by the king of Navarre. Antony went to court to be treated with neglect, coldness, and even contumely, and a second meeting, more indignant, more stormy, was held at La Ferté sur Marne. Again, while Condé and Andelot loudly called for war, Coligny stood in the breach, resolved to keep the peace so long as it could be kept. He argued that they had everything to gain by waiting: the Reform was spread-it he was called by the queen-mother to ing. The king was yet a boy who would grow impatient of his uncles. Catherine might be won; relations might be established, if necessary, with Germany and England. Above all, let it not be said that princes of the royal blood and nobles of such rank as those who constituted the assembly of La Ferté had drawn the sword upon their king. The advice of Coligny was adopted. There may have been another reason for the postponement of hostilities the conspiracy of Amboise. In this plot the conspirators proposed to seize on the young king, arrest the Guises, and make the Bourbon princes the governors and advisers of the crown. The chief in the business was one La Renauldie, a sol-been in her place? dier of great ability and experience. He Fontainebleau was going to make the went from place to place organizing his impossible possible, to heal the evils of plans and gaining recruits. Behind him France, fill the treasury, compose aniwas an unnamed chief called "le capi- mosities, and reunite opposite partisans, taine muet." Who was this chief, never and, as in every great meeting, people mentioned by the conspirators save un- hoped that out of a grand national palader torture? Tavannes says that the ver something might be struck out for conspiracy was organized by Condé, Co- the public good. No more imposing asligny, and Catherine of Medici. Bran-sembly was ever held. At the king's tôme declares that the admiral had never heard of it-"they never dared to tell him of it." The extraordinary secrecy and boldness of the plot make one incline to the belief that it belonged to the head of Renauldie alone, his capitaine muet having no existence, and the details of the conspiracy being also known only to himself. But the design failed, Renauldie falling among the first; and his secretary gave the names of Condé and Coligny to save himself from torture. In the bloody time of reprisals that followed, when the shallow waters of the sparkling Loire ran red and turbid with the blood of the executed, even in the first heat of rage, Coligny repaired quietly to court, side were his mother, his wife, the cardinals of Bourbon, Lorraine, and Guise, the dukes of Guise and Aumale, the constable, the admiral, and the chancellor. Montmorency, for the protection of his nephews and himself, was accompanied by an escort of eight hundred gentlemen and men-at-arms, a following by which their confidence in the Guises might be fairly measured. At the first sitting the king pronounced a discourse, and the "The Guises, doubting that the Châtillons were presence at court. They came, and at once, ce qui of the conspiracy, sent them letters entreating their asseura fort ceux de Guise! Many persons thought that if the admiral and Andelot had mixed themselves up with the conspiracy it would not have turned out so badly."-Castelnau. for the 10th of December. Before the day arrived the young king was dead and the Guises dethroned from power. Duke de Guise gave an account of his administration. At the second the admiral rose to perform the most solemn and the most decisive action of his life. He be- To the Protestants the king's death gan by saying that, having been in Nor- was nothing short of a miracle; for the mandy by command of the queen-mother plans had been so well laid, the time for to investigate into the troubles there, he action was so near, the plot contrived for had discovered that they were due to the their destruction was so secret, that no persecution of the Huguenots. He then other event could have saved them. The advanced to the throne, and presented on Cardinal de Guise had invented a form of his knee two petitions, one to the king, words called his rat-trap, by which every the other to the queen-mother, from the Protestant in the country would be caught. Protestants. They were alike in sub- This oath was on a fixed day to be substance, and prayed that, as loyal subjects, mitted to every man in the country; those they might be allowed the free exercise who refused were to be instantly executof their religion. The act struck the ed. Meantime Condé was to be executed court with surprise and alarm. The king as a conspirator; Navarre was to be asked the admiral from whom he had re- secretly murdered; Coligny and Andelot ceived the petition. He replied that he were to be assassinated in the streets. did not know. Guise pointed out that It is uncertain whether Coligny was in it was not signed. The admiral replied Orleans at the time. His half-sister, that he would get fifty thousand signa- Madeleine de Roye, was there, and was tures. And then he continued his speech, arrested at the same time as Condé, her asking for the suspension of persecu- son-in-law. We hear of him at Havre, tion, the assemblage of the States-Gen- busy in organizing another expedition to eral, and the dismissal of the newly- found a French colony in the New World; formed royal guard. This act of Coligny, which had doubt-leans. Tavannes says in one place that less been previously resolved upon, was the first open attempt made by the Reformers to assert themselves. They had previously dragged on an obscure and hunted-down existence. Suddenly they spring to light, no longer a cowed herd of submissive victims, but an army resolute to have no more burning and murdering, an army with leaders; and Coligny, who has restrained the violence of the chiefs at Vendôme and La Ferté, now steps to the front, and tells the king, almost in so many words, that there is to be civil war, or a cessation of persecution. The States were convoked at Meaux for December, four months after the assembly of Fontainebleau; but the place of meeting was changed to Orleans, whither the court adjourned. In this interval the Guises resolved on taking a decided step. They concentrated forces round the city; they received promises from the king of Spain to act with them, if necessary; and, their preparations made, they forced the king to summon the Bourbon princes to court. Blinded -the elder by a confidence that the king would not touch a prince of the blood, and the younger, M. d'Aumale thinks, by a passion for Mary-both obeyed the summons, and entered Orleans. Condé was instantly arrested, tried, and sentenced to death, his execution being fixed we hear that he was summoned to Or Coligny was with the constable at the court, and in another that they were all away; De Thou says that the admiral and the Cardinal de Châtillon were the only two gentlemen who did not desert the king of Navarre. We incline to think that Coligny was at Orleans; it seems inconsistent with all the rest of his life were he at any time to show mistrust of the king. But the poor boy died, promising with his last breath to murder every Huguenot in the kingdom, if life be spared; the cardinal's rat-trap was not wanted; and the Spaniards rolled back sullenly from the frontier. The new reign opened well for the Reformers. Catherine listened to the Châtillons, whose half-sister, Madeleine de Mailly, with the Duchess de Montpensier, was her chief favourite, the chancellor, Michel de l'Hôpital, made a long and moving appeal in favour of toleration, declaring that another year of persecution would kindle the flames of civil war. The admiral christened his newly-born son after the Genevan rite; and at the coronation of Charles, Odet de Châtillon appeared dressed in cardinal's robes, and with him his wife. Catherine even, for it was not yet certain which side was the stronger, held out hopes of joining the Reformed ranks. Then came the colloquy at Poissy, to which the Reformers trusted, in the hope that it would lead to |