A RELATION Of the Barbarous and Bloody MASSACRE Of about an hundred thousand PROTESTANTS BEGUN At PARIS and carried on over all FRANCE by the PAPISTS in the Year 1572. Collected out of Mezeray Thuanus and other approved Authors LONDON Printed for Richard Chiswel at the Rose and Crown in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1678. A Relation of the Massacre of the Protestants begun in Paris and carried on over all France in the Year 1572. THere are no Principles of Morality more universally received and that make deeper impressions on the minds of all Men that are more necessary for the good of humane Society and do more resemble the Divine Perfections than Truth and Goodness So that if our Saviour denounced a Woe against those who teach Men to break the least of his Commandments what may they look for who design to subvert these that may be justly called the greatest of them That the Church of Rome teaches Barbarity and Cruelty against all who receive not their Opinions and that Hereticks are to be delivered to secular Princes who must burn them without mercy or if they have either Bowels or Conscience so that they will not be the Instruments of their Cruelty that they shall lose their Kingdoms or Dominions is known to all that have read the Decrees of the 4th Council in the Lateran The violation of Publick Faith was also decreed by another of their General Councils at Constance in which notwithstanding the safe conduct that Sigismund had granted to Iohn Husse and Ierome of Prague care was not only taken that they should be burnt but they made it a standing Rule for the time to come That tho Hereticks came to the place of Judgment trusting to their safe conduct and would not have come without it yet the Prince who granted it was under no Obligation by it but the Church might proceed to Censures and Punishment By these Decrees Cruelty and Treachery are become a part of their Doctrine and they may join them to their Creed upon as good Reasons as they can shew for many of their other Additions The Nature of Man is not yet sunk so low as easily to hear these things without horror therefore it is fit they should be kept among the Secrets of their Religion till a fit opportunity appear in which they may serve a turn and then we need not doubt but they will be made use of If any will be so charitable to their Church as not easily to believe this the History of the Parisian Massacre may satisfie them to the full which Thuanus says was a Pitch of Barbarity beyond any thing that former Ages had ever seen And if the Irish Massacre flowing from the same Spirit and the same Principles had not gone beyond it we might have reasonably concluded that it could never be matched again But we may be taught from such Precedents what we ought to expect when ever we are at the mercy of Persons of that Religion who if they be true Sons of the Church of Rome must renounce both Faith and Mercy to all Hereticks I shall give the Relation of this Massacre from that celebrated late Writer of the French History Mr. de Mezeray only adding some Passages out of Thuanus Davila and others where he is defective But I shall premise a short representation of the Civil Wars of France which are made use of as the Arguments for justifying that Cruelty and by which they do still blemish the Protestant Religion as teaching Rebellion against Princes During the Reign of Francis the 1st and Henry the 2d the Protestant Religion got great footing in France the usual severities of the Church of Rome were then employed to extirpate it yet tho their Numbers were very great and the Persecution most severe they made no resistance But upon the death of Henry the 2d Catherine de Medici the Queen Mother with the Cardinal of Lorrain and the Duke of Guise took the Government in their Hands pretending that the King Francis the 2d was of Age being then sixteen The Princes of the Blood on the other hand alleadged That the Kingdom ought to be under a Regency till the King was at least 22 Years of Age Since Charles the 6th had been admitted at that Age to the Government as a particular mark of their esteem of him So that tho the Age of Majority was at 25 Years and that was a singular exception from a general Rule yet at furthest it shewed that the King could not assume the Government before he was two and twenty It was also an undoubted Right of the Princes of the Blood to hold the Regency during the Minority of their Kings and to administer it by the Direction of the Parliaments and the Assembly of the States Upon these Points many things were written on both sides The Princes of the Blood pretended they were excluded from the Government against Law and upon that were projecting how to possess themselves of the Power which with the Person of the King were violently kept from them But the Prince of Conde being advised to it by Coligny then Admiral of France did also declare for mitigating the Severities against the Protestants This being the Case that the Point was truly disputable no Man can blame the Protestants for joining with their Friends against their Enemies And yet this Plot was driven no further than an endeavour to take the King out of the Hands of his Mother and the Brothers of Lorrain who were all Foreigners The chief Promoter of it was a Papist Renaudy and it was discovered by Avennelles who tho he was most firm to his Religion being a Protestant yet having an aversion to all Plots revealed it out of scruple of Conscience Soon after this Discovery Francis the 2d died and his Brother that succeeded him Charles the 9th was without dispute under Age he not being then full eleven years old And according to the resolution of many great Lawyers in the case of his Brother the Kingdom ought to have been under a Regency during all the Wars that preceded the Massacre for he was then but two and twenty At first it was agreed to that the King of Navarre as the first Prince of the Blood ought to be Regent but he being wrought on by the Queen Mother and her Party and drawn over to them the Lawyers were again set to examine How far the Power of the Regent did extend Many published their Opinions That the other Princes of the Blood ought to have their share in the Regency and that the Regents might be checkt by the Courts of Parliaments and were subject to an Assembly of the States The chief Point of State then under Consideration was What way to proceed with the Protestants whose Numbers grew daily and were now more considerable having such powerful Heads A severe Edict came out against them in Iuly 1561 condemning all Meetings for Religious Worship except those that
murdered but those were chiefly Monorancy his Friends who were thought cold in the matter of Religion The most enraged of their Blood-hounds were Tanchou Pesou and Crosier a Goldsmith the two former drove many to the Mills and forced them to leap from thence into the River Pesou boasted to the King himself that he had made an hundred and fifty leap that night And Thuanus says he often heard Crosier say That with that Hand he had killed 400 by which it seems he was thought so sanctified that he would live no longer a common life but as a sacred Person went to an Hermitage where yet his cruelty left him not for during the Warrs of the League he drew a Flemish Merchant into his Cell and murdered him there Thus were the Protestants destroyed in Paris with a Treachery and Cruelty that the uncivilized Nations had never shewed to one another nor had the Heathens been ever guilty of any thing like it towards the Christians The Precedent which the Church of Rome had formerly given in the Massare of the Albigenses was the likest thing in History to it for Barbarity but never had Treachery and Cruelty met together in such a manner before this execrable day At Court all those generous Impressions which follow noble Blood seemed extinguished Men threw off Humanity and Women had neither compassion nor modesty The Queen-Mother and her Ladies took pleasure to look upon the most detestable Objects and greedily beheld some obscene and indecent sights but it is not fit to write all that was then done About nine of the Clock the King sent for the King of Navarre and the Prince of Conde and told them he was forced to use that severe Remedy to put an end to War and Rebellion and had therefore destroyed those whom he could not induce to obey And for them tho he had good reason to hate them mortally since they had led on a Rebellion against him yet in consideration of their Blood and Alliance he was resolved to spare them if they would change their Religion otherwise they must look for no better usage than their Servants had met with The King spake this with great rage so that the King of Navarre being terrified said That if the King would save their lives and leave them their Consciences free they should in all other things be commanded by him But the Prince of Conde answered more boldly That he might dispose of his Life and Estate as he pleased but for his Religion he owed an account of it to God alone from whom he had received the knowledg of it This resolute Answer put the King in such a rage that after he had treated him with most abusive language he swore That if he did not change within three days he should hang for it And so ordered them to be strictly guarded At the same time there were Expresses dispatched over all France to set on the People both in the Towns and Country to imitate the example of the Parisians and destroy the Hereticks Yet the King either out of some remorse or shame wrote to his Ambassadours and the Governours of the Provinces that same day That the Duke of Guise and others that adhered him having a great interest in the City of Paris and apprehending that the Admirals Friends were resolved to revenge his Wound had therefore both to secure themselves and to prosecute their former Quarrels raised the City of Paris and had broke through the Guards set to defend the Admiral and killed him and many other Persons of Quality the rage of the People being such that the King's Guards could do nothing to repress it Therefore he was forced to keep himself within the Louvre but had as soon as was possible quieted the Town so that all things were put in order again and he was resolved still to maintain his Edict made for the free Exercise of their Religion Veremundus has printed the Copies of the Letters directed to the Governours of Burgundy and Tourain and to the Town of Bourges with the Memorial sent to the Swiss Cantons all to the same purpose bearing date the 24th of August And in another Letter the King wrote That he had made up a new agreement with the King of Navarre and the Prince of Conde and was resolved to run the same hazard with them for revenging the death of his Cousin the late Admiral But the House of Guise would not bear this and made the King own that all was done by his express Orders So on the 26th of August the King went to the Court of Parliament and after an invidious repetition of all the Troubles of his Reign which yet he said he intended to have quieted by the late Treaty of Peace he discovered that the Admiral had conspired to kill him his Brothers and the King of Navarre and to set up the young Prince of Conde whom he also designed afterwards to kill that so the whole Royal Family being destroyed he might make himself King and since extream Diseases required extream Remedies he was forced to do what he had done and concluded that all was done by his express Order and Command Thuanus the Father tho he abhorred the thing yet out of fear and compliance made a base flattering Speech of the necessity of dissimulation in Princes and did much commend that saying of Lewis the 11th He who knows not how to Dissemble knows not how to Reign And Pibrac the Attourney General ' moved the King that the Declaration he had made ' might be entred in their Registers and that strict Orders might be given to put an end to the Blood and Confusion with which the City was filled Both which the King ordered to be done The Declaration which was thereupon published on the 28th is printed by Veremundus By it the King charged all Persons under pain of Death through the whole Kingdom to do no injury to the Protestants And at the same time declared it Capital for the Protestants to have any Assemblies This was believed to be done rather on design to destroy than save the Hugonets That they being out of apprehension of danger might stay all at Home and so be more easily Massacred On the 28th of August a Jubilee was granted to all who had been in this Butchery and they were commanded to go every where to Church and bless God for the success of that Action So little relenting had they after all these black Crimes that they imagined they had done God good service And to that height did their Impudence rise that they presumed to address to that Merciful Being who abhors cruel and blood-thirsty Men and that with hands not only defiled with Blood but boasting of it as a Sacrifice offered to God which had been a fitter Oblation to him that was a Lyar and a Murderer from the beginning than the God of Truth and Father of Mercies One remarkable Passage fell out which occasioned much Discourse and was variously
constructed by the several Parties On the day of the Massacre about Noon a white Thorn in the Church-yard of the Innocents that was almost dead and had no Leaves on it flourished all of a sudden This was published through the Streets of Paris as a Sign that Heaven approved their actions and was made use of to animate them to new heats in their Cruelty For every one was set on to kill one or other that he might be honoured with the sight of so unusual a thing Some thought it might come from the nature of the Tree and it was said such things were not extraordinary in Trees of that kind a little before they became quite dead Others believed it might be the Trick of some Monk who pouring either hot Water or some prepared Water at the Root of it might have done the feat But the Rable did universally ascribe it to some miraculous Cause only they differed about that to which it referred The Protestants said it signified their Innocence and that a new Troop of Innocents were sent to Heaven and therefore the Tree in the Church-yard of the Innocents flourished afresh The Papists said is signified the joy in Heaven at that days work and that the Church was to flourish again by the death of the Hereticks But leaving these discantings on this seeming Miracle Morvillier that was Lord-Keeper advised That for justifying or at least mitigating the Censures that might be made on these proceedings there should be a Process carried on against the dead Admiral to prove him guilty of a Conspiracy against the King and the Royal Blood and there were some few Protestants kept Prisoners who had been taken out of the English Ambassadors Lodgings who to save themselves they hop'd might be brought to accuse the Admiral But while this Mock-Process was making there was a real prosecution of the like Cruelties in many other parts of France At Meaux a little Town not far from Paris they began on the 25th of August being Monday and spent the whole Week in shedding more Blood They killed two hundred many of those were Women whom they Forced before they Murdered them At Troye in Champaigne about the same number was killed At Orleans a thousand were also killed Six or seven hundred at Roan tho the Governour did what he could to hinder it At Bourges Nevers and Charite all they found were killed At Tholouse two hundred were killed At Burdeaux they were for some time in suspence being afraid of the Rochellers but the Priests did so inflame the Multitude that the Governour could not restrain their rage longer than the beginning of October so then they Massacred all that they could find This beginning was followed by all the Towns on the Garvinne But next to Paris Lions was the place where the most barbarous Cruelties were acted The Governour had a mind to save the Protestants and gathered together about six or seven hundred of them whom he lodged in several Prisons that so he might preserve them And to give the People some content he granted them the pillage of their Houses But they were so heated by the Clergie and by some that were sent from the Court to promote the Massacre every where that they broke open the Prisons and murdered them all dragged their Bodies through the Streets and opened the Bellies of the fattest of them to sell their Greese to Apothecaries And when they could do no more they threw them into the River of Rhosne which was coloured with the Blood and filled with the Carcases of the slain These Examples were followed in many more places but detested by others who were not Papists enough to overcome Nature and all Morality The Governours in some places restrained the People and in many places the Souldiers tho more inured to Blood defended the Protestants from the Rable that were set on by the Priests The Answer the Governour of Bayonne made deserves to be remembred who wrote to the King in these Words SIR I Have communicated your Majesty's Command to the Inhabitants of the Town and the Souldiers of the Garrison I find many good Citizens and brave Souldiers but never a Hangman here And therefore in their Name and my own I humbly beg your Majesty would employ our Arms and Lives in things which are possible for us to do how dangerous soever they may be and we will spend the last drop of our Blood in your Service This gave great Offence at Court and soon after both he and the Count of Tendes Governour of Provence who had also given Orders that there should be no Massacre made within his Jurisdiction died very suddenly And it was believed they were both poisoned In all there were as Thuanas says Thirty thousand massacred over France tho he believes they were not quite so many Mezeray estimates them at five and twenty Thousand But Perefixè says that over all France near an hundred thousand were butchered And Veremundus says that besides those who were killed an hundred Thousand Persons were set a begging most of those being Widows and Orphans Many of them fled to the places of strength in France and great numbers went out of the Kingdom For when they had escaped the first rage of the Massacre they clearly perceived the design of their Enemies was to extirpate them Root and Branch And tho the King at first declared he would observe the Edict inviolably they had learned from sad experience how little his Faith was to be depended on and they were further convinced of it by fresh Proofs For the King pressed the King of Navarre and the Prince of Conde very hard to change their Religion the former was tractable and hearkned to instruction but the latter continued resolute and would hear nothing This put the King once into such a Rage that he called for his Arms and was going in Person either to kill him or see him killed had not his vertuous Queen who had been instructed by her Father to abhor all cruel Proceedings about Religion cast her self at his Feet and with many Tears diverted him from so ignominious an Action But he sent for him and said only these three words to him Mass Death or the Bastil Yet he generously resolved to suffer Death or perpetual Imprisonment rather than go to Mass had they not found out a Tool fit to work on him One Sureau-des Rosiers that had been Minister of the Protestants at Orleans had now to save his Life changed his Religion But to have some reputation in it pretended that he had resolved to have done it sooner tho when that fear was over he returned to them again but was never much considered after that He was therefore employed to perswade the Prince of Conde and what by his endeavours and what by fear of Death both the King of Navarre and he went to Mass and wrote Letters full of Submission and Obedience to the Pope tho they were no sooner out of that
Snare than they declared that what had been obtained of them was extorted by force This being done the King sent his Orders over all France bearing date the 22d of September to turn all Persons out of any considerable Imployments that would not renounce their Religion and a long form of Abjuration was sent with it which was to be the Test both which are printed by Veremundus The Process against the Admiral was carried on before the Parliament of Paris and without any proofs that ever were published they on the 27th of October judged him guilty of a Conspiracy against the King and his Crown And therefore ordained his Body to be hanged if it could be found or if not that he should be hanged in Effigie his House of Chastilion to be razed and a Pillar set up with an Inscription to defame his Memory his Blood was also attainted and his Children declared ignoble and incapable of any Priviledges in France And the Sentence concluded with an Order for celebrating St. Bartholomews day in all time coming with Processions and publick Thanksgivings for the Discovery and Punishment of that Conspiracy There were also two other Persons of Quality Cavagnes and Briquemaut who had been dealt with to accuse the Admiral but they would not save themselves by so base a ransom so they were both condemned as Complices with him But when the Sentence was pronounced against them Thuanus that was an Eye-Witness says Briquemaut cried out when that part of the Judgment was read that concerned his Children Ah Innocents what have they done And then he who for 50 years together had served in the Warrs with a high and approved Valour being then 70 what for fear of Death what out of pity to his Children would have done any thing to have saved himself He sent the King word first that he would put Rochel in his Hands if he would spare his Life But that being rejected he offered to accuse the Admiral to preserve himself But neither was that considered All that while his Fellow-Sufferer Cavagnes continued most serious in his Devotions and for three hours together was either Praying or reciting some Psalms and expressed no concern for his Life his thoughts being wholly employed about Eternity He encouraged Briquemaut to die as he had lived and to turn himself to God and not to stain so honourable a Life as he had led with an ignominious end And he seeing he must die recollected his Thoughts and seemed ashamed of his former abject behaviour and composed and prepared himself for Death They both were carried to the place of Execution in Hurdles where they not only suffered the reptoches of the Multitude as they went along who threw Filth and Clay at them with their most scurrilous Language but Death it self with much Christian Patience and Magnanimity They were hanged at the Greve and their Bodies after they were dead were barbarously mangled by the cruel Multitude With them the brave Admiral was hanged in Effigie whose Innocence as well as their own they did to their last Breath assert The King who delighted in such bloody Spectacles did not only look on himself with the Queen-Mother and the Court but forced the King of Navarre likewise to be a Witness of it It is needless to say much for evincing the Admiral 's Innocence for all the Writers of the time acknowledg the Process was only to cover the infamy of the Massacre And Thuanus has so fully demonstrated it that none can so much as doubt of it If the Admiral had any such design why came he to Court Why to Paris where he knew he had few Friends and a vast number of mortal Enemies and why did he desire a Guard from the King But since they could not find a better colour for so foul a Business they must make use of the best they had They took another course to stop the Queen of Englands resentments who besides the common Cause of Religion had a particular esteem for the Admiral for they shewed a Memorial which he had given the King to perswade the War of Flanders to Walsingham the ever renowned Secretary of State then her Ambassador in France In which one of the reasons was That if the King would not receive these oppressed Provinces into his Protection they would throw themselves into the Queen of Englands Hands and if the English made themselves Masters of them or of any considerable Ports in them they would be again uneasy and formidable Neighbours to France which would thereby lose the great security they had in taking Calice out of their Hands When Walsingham read this and was asked what he thought of the Admirals Friendship to his Mistress he answered as became so great a Man That he could not say much of his Friendship to the Q of England but he was sure it appeared from that what a faithful Subject he was to the King of France A Week after this was done the King compleated the Treachery of this Precedure for by his Letters directed to the Governours of the Provinces bearing date the 3d of November He declared he would Tollerate no Religion but the Roman Catholick in all his Dominions Upon which the following Civil Wars began and in excuse of them I shall only say that besides the barbarous and persidious Treatment the Protestants had now received they had this legal Warrant for standing on their own defence That by the former Treaty the King granted them Cautionary Towns for Pledges of the observation of the Edict And it is certain that if a Prince grants his Subjects Cautionary Towns for their Security he does thereby relax their Alleagiance to him and gives them a right to defend themselves if the Agreement upon which these Pledges were given should come to be broken This is the true and just account of that foul and treacherous Massacre even as it is represented by the Historians of that Age and Church who can neither deny nor excuse the Infamy of it tho some rejoyced at it and others wrote in defence of it The King gloried so much in it that three Meddals were struck to perpetuate the memory of it In one Hercules is both with his Club and a Flambeau fighting against the seven-headed Serpent with this Motto Ne ferrum temnat simul ignis obsto On the reverse the King with his Hand supports two Crowned Pillars ready to fall with this Motto Mira fides lapsas relevat manus una Columnas Hereby intimating that Heresy was the Serpent which was to be destroyed by main Force and by Fire And that by this Act the King had supported Religion and Justice In the second the King sits in his Chair of State with a Sword in his right Hand and an Hand on the Head of a Scepter in his left And many Heads lying about his Feet with this Motto Virtus in Rebelles On the Reverse were the Arms of France between two Pillars and two Lawrel Branches with this Motto