X. Madam de Feuquerres.

THE foregoing narrative of the escape of De Mornay is derived from the account* given us by Madame de Feuqueres, who afterwards became his wife. This lady, the widow of M. de Feuqueres, was also in Paris during the St. Bartholomew, and the dangers to which she was her self exposed, were still more formidable. Her husband had died of a wound received in battle about three years before, leaving with his young widow a daughter six months old. Soon after this she lost her father and her sister, and the father of her late husband.

*Memoires et Correspondance de Duplessis-Mornay. Paris, 1824

To add to her distresses, she had been stripped of all her property by the civil confusions of the time, and was almost without the mean's of existence. This load of suffering broke down her health, which she never afterwards entirely recovered. At length, on the conclusion of the peace of 1570, she came to Paris with her daughter, on the invitation of her mother, who continued in the profession of the ancient religion, although the rest of the family had embraced the principles of the Reformation. From this time she had remained in the French capital.

On the morning of the Sunday on which the massacre commenced, she was still in bed, when one of the maid-servants, who was a Protestant, came running into her room in a state of great terror, to inform her that in the heart of the town, where she had just been, the mob were killing everybody. Without feeling any great alarm, Madame de Feuqueres- who had intended to go that day to the Louvre, to take leave of the Princess of Condé, and some others of her friends, preparatory to her proposed departure to the provinces- rose and put on her dress, when looking from her window, she perceived the whole street in commotion. Parties of military were mixed with the crowd, and all wore white crosses in their hats.

Convinced now of the reality of her danger, she sent off to her mother, with whom her brother also lived, to inquire the meaning of the disturbance. Meanwhile, a message was brought her from her maternal uncle, the Bishop of Senlis, who desired her to put out of the way whatever articles she had of greatest value, and, promised that he would immediately send some one to find her.

This, however, the Bishop forgot to do, or else found it impossible. After waiting, therefore, for about half an hour, and seeing the rioters fast approaching, she deemed it best to send off her daughter by a female servant to an officer in the king's household, who was a relation and one of her best friends. This gentleman received the child, and also, sent to its mother to say that, if she chose, he would give her too an asylum. She gladly accepted this offer, and leaving her lodgings for that purpose, about eight o'clock, she had scarcely gone when a part of the mob entered her house, in search of her.

When they could not find their expected victim, they proceeded to pillage the house. In the meantime, other Protestant friends came one after another, to claim the protection of the same roof, which sheltered her, till at length about forty persons were concealed in the house. Lest suspicion should be excited by the purchase of the unusual quantity of provisions required for so many guests, they sent for what articles they wanted to another part of the town. All these precautions, however, proved eventually insufficient to ward off the apprehended danger.

On Tuesday it was ordered that the house should be searched. By this time, fortunately, the greater number of those who had crowded to it on the first breaking out of the massacre, had left, and taken refuge elsewhere, so that there only remained Madame de F. and another lady, with their attendants. In the extremity which had now arrived, she was forced to conceal herself in a loft above a granary, where her ears were pierced by the wild cries of men, women, and children, whom they were butchering in the streets, and she was thrown, she tells us, into such perplexity and despair that she was at times tempted to rush down from her hiding-place, and deliver herself up at once into the hands of the infuriated populace.

What principally distracted her was the thought of her daughter, whom she had been obliged to leave below, in the charge of a servant. This person, however, succeeded in conveying the child, through the midst of numerous dangers, to the house of a relation of its mother, with whom it remained in safety. But it was now judged advisable that Madame de F. also should, as soon as possible, leave her present asylum. It was impossible for her to venture to her mother's residence, as a guard had been placed round the house. She therefore resolved, as her only resource, to throw herself upon the compassion of a person who had, some time before, married one of her maid-servants, and who was now captain of the watch in his quarters, and in that character one of the commissioned agents of the massacre. This man gave her admission, and permitted her to remain in his house all the night, though not without making her listen to many violent invectives against the Huguenots, and insisting with her in warm terms to go to mass.

On the following day, at noon, she left this retreat, and set out to find her way to the house of the President Tambonneau, in the cloister of Notre Dame, who had been apprized of her situation by her mother, and solicited to afford her protection. She effected her entry into the house without being observed, and being placed in the study, she remained there unmolested during the rest of that day and the greater part of the next.

On the evening of Thursday, however, information reached the family that the mob were about to visit them. There was not a moment to be lost, and the hunted fugitive was again transferred to the house of a corn-merchant, an acquaintance of her protector, and a person on whose fidelity they could rely. Here she remained till the following Wednesday. She was concealed in an upper chamber, and her food was brought to her by one of the females of the family, who concealed it in her apron for fear of being discovered by other inmates of the house. During this time her mother had sent to implore her to go to mass, but she steadily refused to yield to the proposal.

At last she determined to make an attempt by herself to escape from Paris. On Wednesday, about eleven o'clock in the morning, she descended from her lurking-place, walked down to the river, and stepped on board of a boat which was going to Sens. She soon, however, found herself exposed to more imminent danger than ever. When they reached the Pont de la Tournelle, the boat was stopped by the guard, and their passports demanded from them on board.

The others showed theirs, but Madame de F. had none. On this the soldiers, eagerly exclaiming that she was a Huguenot, and must be drowned, forced her to leave the boat. Seeing herself thus on the point of being put to death, she besought them to conduct her to the house of M. de Voisenon, Auditor of Accounts, who was one of her friends, assuring them that he would answer for her.

They at last agreed to comply with her request, and two of their number were sent with her. When they arrived at the house, the soldiers remained at the door, and allowed her to walk up stairs alone. She had thus an opportunity of hastily intimating to her friend the situation in which she was, and entreating his interference to save her life.

He immediately went down to the soldiers, and assured them that he had often seen the person they had brought to him in the house of Madame d'Eprunes, the mother of the Bishop of Senlis, whose family were well known to be good Catholics. The men, however, told him it was not about Madame d'Eprunes and her family they came to inquire, but about the female now present. All the reply of the Auditor to this was, that he had known her to be a good Catholic formerly, but what she might be now he could not say.

Fortunately, at this point of the conversation a woman who was known to the soldiers came up, and asked them what they were going to do with the person they had got in their hands. "Pardieu," they answered, "she is a Huguenot, and she must be drowned, for we see she is frightened." "Why," replied the woman, " you know me; I am no Huguenot; I go to mass every day ; and yet I have been so frightened, that for these eight days past I have been in a fever." "In truth," exclaimed one of the soldiers ; " I have been in the same state myself." The two men at last consented to conduct their prisoner back to the boat, merely remarking, as they put her again on board, that if she had been a man she should not have escaped so easily.

We must sum up very briefly the remaining hazards which Madame de Feuqueres ran in effecting her escape. The house of the corn-merchant in which she had lain so long concealed, was pillaged immediately after she left it. At the place where they landed for the night there was only one sleeping chamber at the inn, which she was obliged to occupy with two other women. She greatly feared that their suspicions would. be excited by her clothes, a part of which were fine and rich, while the rest of her attire was that of a servant. Her apprehensions here, however, proved vain.

On Thursday she left the boat, and proceeded on foot to the residence of the Chancellor l'Hospital, a distance of about five leagues. They found the Chancellor's house occupied by the guard which the King had sent for his protection. She therefore determined to take up her residence in the cottage of his vine-dresser- a poor man who treated her with the kindest hospitality. Here she remained for fifteen days, during which time the soldiers came to the village, searching every suspected house. But they were prevented from entering that in which she was concealed, in consequence of its being considered under the Chancellor's guard.

At last, when matters seemed to be some what tranquillized, she set out, accompanied by the vine-dresser, to Eprunes, a property belonging to her grandmother, which she reached in safety. She was received here as one returned from the dead. From this she went to Buhy, now in possession of her eldest brother. Here she was exposed to new persecutions.

Her brother-who had saved his life by consenting to go to mass was still so alarmed that he refused to allow her to remain in his house, on her persisting in declining to accompany him to chapel. With a very scanty supply of money she was obliged once more to set out on her travels. She went to Sedan, where she arrived on the first of November, and received the warmest welcome, and the supply of all her wants, from numerous friends, most of whom had, - like herself, taken refuge here, after escaping from the Parisian massacre. She continued to reside in Sedan till her marriage with Philip de Mornay, in January, 1576.

 

XI. The Escape Of Marshal de la Force.

Isa 13:18 … and they shall have no pity on the fruit of the womb; their eye shall not spare children.

PERHAPS the most extraordinary deliverance from the St. Bartholomew, of which an account has come down to us, was that of the Marshal de la Force.

The Sieur de la Force, the father of the Marshal, was one of the Protestant gentlemen who were lodged, when the massacre broke out, in the Faubourg St. Germain. The first notice he received, on the morning of the fatal Sunday, of what was passing in the city, was from a person who had swam across the river to apprize him of his danger. There were living with La Force his two sons, the youngest of whom, afterwards the Marshal, was now in his thirteenth year. Had the father thought but of his own safety, he probably might have been able, like many of his friends, to have effected his escape. But some time was lost in getting his two boys in readiness to fly with him, and before they had left the house, it was broken into by the murderers.

A man of the name of Martin was at the head of the party, who having made his men instantly disarm the prisoners, addressed himself to La Force, and told him with the most violent oaths, that his last moment was come. On La Force, however, offering him two thousand crowns to save the lives of himself and children, the ruffian and his band agreed to accept of this bribe. After having pillaged the house, they desired the father and his two sons to tie their handkerchief in the form of crosses around their hats, and to turn up the right sleeves of their coats, and then they all set out together. The river, as they crossed it, was already covered with dead bodies, and the same frightful tokens of the tragedy acting around them, strewed the courts of the Louvre and the other places through which they passed. At last they arrived at Martin's house, and here La Force having been first bound by an oath not to attempt to withdraw either himself or his sons until he should have paid the two thousand crowns, they were left in charge of two Swiss soldiers.

Madame de Brissembourg, the sister-in-law of La Force, who resided in the Arsenal, of which her relation, the Marshal de Biron, was grandmaster, upon being applied to for the money to pay the promised ransom, engaged to send the requisite sum by the evening of the following day. La Force and his sons were therefore obliged to remain till then where they were.

At last, when the appointed time arrived, a messenger was despatched for the money. While he was yet absent, the Count de Coconas suddenly presented himself at the head of a party of soldiers, bringing orders, as he said, to conduct the prisoners immediately to the Duke of Anjou. He had no sooner intimated the purpose of his visit, than his men, laying hold of the father and his sons, pulled off their bonnets and mantles, and by the rough manner in which they used them, afforded them a sufficient presage of the fate prepared for them. They led them, however, some distance down the street without offering them violence. They then halted, and making a sudden assault upon them, they despatched first the eldest son, and the next instant the father, by multiplied blows with their daggers.

By a singular chance, the youngest son, in the confusion of the encounter, escaped untouched. The wildly-directed blows of the murderers had all missed him, having fallen upon his father and his brother. He had the presence of mind to throw himself down on the ground beside them, and as he lay bathed in their blood, to call out that he was mortally wounded, and then to counterfeit the appearance of death.

The murderers, supposing their deed done, after hastily stripping the three bodies, left the spot. It was not long before a number of the neighbors approached, and among the rest a poor man belonging to the tennis-court in the Rue du Verdelet. This person, on beholding the body of the youngest son, happened to remark, loud enough for the words to reach the ear of the boy, "Alas! this one is but a mere child." Hearing these expressions of compassion, young La Force ventured gently to raise his head and to whisper that he was still alive. The man desired him to remain still a little longer till he could come to remove him without being observed. As soon as everybody was out of sight he returned, and throwing an old ragged cloak over the boy, he took him on his back, and set out with him for his own house.

Some person whom he met on the way having asked him who it was he was carrying, "It is my nephew," said he, "who has got drunk; I shall give him a good whipping this evening."

He soon reached his garret with his burden, and here La Force spent the night. The next morning, Tuesday, his preserver, at his request, agreed to conduct him to the Arsenal, the boy gladly engaging to pay him thirty crowns for this service. They set out together at break of day, and in a short time reached the gate of the Arsenal without having met with any interruption.

The difficulty now was for La Force, in the beggarly attire he had on, to get in, but leaving his guide, he at last found an opportunity, when the gate was open for the admission of another person, to pass through without being observed by the porter. He met no one till he reached the part of the building in which his aunt resided. When Madame de Brissembourg beheld him, her astonishment and emotion was great, for she had already been informed that all the three had perished. The thirty crowns were immediately sent out to his preserver, and La Force was placed in bed that he might recover from the effects of the terror and agitation he had undergone.

He had remained concealed in the Arsenal for the two following days, but at the end of this time information was brought to Marshal Biron that the building was about to be searched by order of the King, in consequence of reports that were in circulation, of some Huguenots having taken refuge there. It was deemed advisable, therefore, that he should be immediately transferred to some other hiding-place, and accordingly on Thursday morning, attired as a page, he was confided to the care of a gentleman with whom he remained seven or eight days.

But even at that distance of time after the massacre, the report of his singular escape having got abroad, fears were still entertained that an attempt would be made to gain possession of him. By some management it was contrived to convey him beyond the walls of the capital, and after several other hazardous adventures, he reached the house of his uncle, the Sieur de Caumont, in the South of France, by whom he was received with great joy. The boy thus miraculously rescued from destruction, and who eventually rose to the rank of Marshal, lived for more than eighty years after this escape, having died in 1653, at the age of ninety-four.

 

XII. The St. Bartholomew Ends.

Ge 4:10 And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground.

THESE narratives of individual adventure and suffering may serve to convey more correctly than any merely general description could do, a representation of the terrors and inhumanities of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. They set before us vividly and truly the unrestrained riot of the slaughterers, the furious excitement and fever of
public opinion, and the bewilderment and dismay of the unhappy beings who were scattered before the whirlwind of Papal persecution and popular wrath.

The judgment passed upon this massacre by all reflecting persons, even those least favorable to Protestantism, must be that no example of any such enormous atrocity can be found in the national annals of all the world. Nor shall we think this judgment harsh or undeserved, when we view in their full dimensions certain of the more remarkable characteristics of the transaction- its elaborate treachery- the royal and female hands that washed themselves in the bloodshed- the hour of reconcilement and festive rejoicing in which the victims were attacked- the number of the noble, the beautiful, and the virtuous who perished- the indiscriminate and unsparing comprehensiveness, the wild fury, the savage cruelty, the abominable brutality and extravagance of outrage, carried, in many cases, not only beyond the extinction of the last throb of life, but to the utmost limits of humiliation- and disfigurement with which the slaughtering knife could do its office!

The whole story is a terrific illustration of what human nature is capable of becoming and of perpetrating, under the power of bigotry and religious hatred, aided by the hardening and depraving influence of barbarous institutions and manners. May God save our land, and our homes, from such enormities, whether done in the holy name of religion, or from the impulse of other motives!

"The same spirit which in the Dark Ages consigned men and women to prison, to exile, and to death, which conceived the exquisite torture of the Inquisition, which planned and executed the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, and which kindled the fires of Smithfield, is still at work with malignant energy in unregenerate hearts. The history of truth has ever been the record of a struggle between right and wrong. The proclamation of the gospel has ever been carried forward in this world in the face of opposition, peril, loss, and suffering." {AA 84.3}

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