by G Lawrence
A royal surgeon was dispatched to Coligny. He snipped off the shattered finger, and extracted a copper ball lodged in the Admiral’s arm, but declared he was not in danger of his life.
He should not have spoken so soon.
In the palace of the King, in secret meetings held between Catholic nobles and the King’s mother, it had been agreed that Coligny held too much sway over the King. The King was young, inexperienced and increasingly hard to predict. Catherine feared that her good work in establishing peace in France would come to an end if Coligny was allowed to persuade the King to get involved in the Civil War in the Netherlands. Terrified of his influence, Catherine de Medici had given an order… one that was to change the course of French history. She had ordered a Guise assassin to murder the Admiral. Sometimes those who are the power behind the throne are more dangerous than the one who sits upon it.
But the order had gone awry, and now Catherine feared repercussions would come. Her name would be found out, and Huguenots would desire revenge.
She did not fear without cause. The city was packed with Huguenots. They gathered together, fearing that this assassination attempt was not the end. Aware that reprisals might ensue, King Charles and his mother went to Coligny’s bedside, swearing to find the culprits and make them pay. Later that same day, King Charles wrote to his ambassador in London. He told his ambassador to explain the situation to his English allies, and to press that the act had stemmed from “the enmity between Coligny’s house and the Duc of Guise”. He assured his ambassador that tolerance of Huguenots would continue, and that nothing had altered. Maintaining that all the strife came from two warring houses, King Charles added “they shall not drag my subjects into their quarrels.”
But whilst the King spoke of peace and tolerance, many were not listening. Coligny’s brother led a party of Huguenots, four thousand men strong, to the walls of Paris. They camped outside, waiting for signs of trouble. Catholics, many of them starving and discontent, watched the roving gangs of Huguenots and feared them. They liked not that these heretics were allowed free rein in Paris, and their anger, brought about from hunger and desperation, began to wend towards these Huguenots, rather than settling upon the King, or the nobility, who imposed such harsh taxes.
Some chose to hide in their houses, unwilling to see the trouble that was coming. Others headed into the street, to exchange insults and blows with those who followed the other side of the Christian faith. The hot, sweaty, sultry streets ignited with heat and the stink of fear. Tales were told of preachers who had predicted blood would come of this marriage. More stories were spun of Catholics who had stuffed the leaves of Protestant Bibles into the mouths of Huguenot corpses, slain in massacres and in battle. Catholics told how Huguenots had murdered innocent priests, who attempted to guard holy wafers from them. Both sides told tales of cruelty, sedition, murder, rape and sexual incontinence, labelling their foes as monsters.
Rumours ran as dogs through the streets. Huddled people muttered; Huguenots were going to rise up; Catholics meant to murder; war was certain; rebellion was coming; the King was doing nothing; the King was doing everything.
Anjou rode through the streets, trying to ascertain the mood of France. As he passed, crowds cheered the names of Catholic victories in the late religious wars at him. Whilst pleased to hear so many of his triumphs being lauded, he returned to the palace to tell his brother that Paris was on the verge of rebellion. Catholic leaders were going to put their own captain-general in place if the King did not act, he told his brother. Something had to be done.
As dusk fell, a royal order came from the palace forbidding the people to take up arms. A detachment of fifty Swiss Guards were sent to guard Coligny’s house. Governors of the Provinces were commanded to keep order.
That night, Catherine de Medici made a choice.
It was a decision which would have repercussions for many, one which would see blood spilt as it had never been before in a time of peace. Catherine de Medici called her loyal supporters and together, they made a plan.
They were in danger. If Catherine was suspected to be behind the assassination, she might face all the gathered Huguenots of Paris, baying for her blood. They might also turn on the King. Catherine and her followers would act again, quickly, before the Huguenots realised who was responsible. They would move against the Huguenots, so swift and so brutally, that there would be none left to stand against them.
They took their plan to the King, who, until this moment, had been apparently unaware that his mother was behind the assassination attempt on the man many said he considered his second father.
Although aghast to hear his mother had been behind this, the King agreed that the present threat to the royal family outweighed the need for justice. Catherine de Medici and her son issued orders; targeted killings were to occur, taking out the Huguenots most likely to seek revenge. The names on Catherine’s list were all nobles; men well placed to do damage to her, and her son. Officers of Paris were summoned, ordered to shut the city gates and arm the citizenry. The King’s Swiss Guard, highly trained soldiers, were handed the list of those who were to be targeted.
More orders went out: district militia captains were to arm one man in every household; the boats of the Seine were gathered in; artillery was shifted to the Hotel de Ville, seat of the French government; none of Navarre’s retinue were permitted to leave the palace, and last of all, the man sent to lead the detachment guarding Coligny was Captain Cosseins, an old, sworn, and personal enemy of the Admiral’s.
Across the Seine, in the Faubourg St Germain, just across from the Notre Dame where the marriage of Margot and Henri had taken place, Walsingham and his wife and young daughter waited for news of the assassin. They believed the man would be found, no doubt a Guise agent sent to kill Coligny. One of their guests, Phillip Sidney, the pox-scarred son of Lady Mary Sidney and her husband, waited with them. Sidney had managed to escape the Louvre, where he had been staying, and had made it to Walsingham’s house.
Walsingham told his guests to keep faith; the King was devoted to his Admiral, and would see justice prevail. Yet Walsingham was anxious. The streets were full of roaming, heavily armed men. The mood upon Paris was heated. Walsingham was no fool. Something was coming.
In the small, grey hours of the next day, bells rang for Matins. Walsingham had ordered his men to guard his house, all the doors had been locked, and as the day dawned, he had good cause to thank his caution.
The bells were a sign. As they rang, the killings began.
The Duc of Guise went to Coligny’s house with his men at four in the morning. Demanding to be admitted in the name of the King, they stabbed the man who answered the door and shot Coligny’s guards with a showering rain of arquebus fire. Racing into the Admiral’s bedchamber, they ran him through with a pike. Guise, saying he meant to ensure the job was done this time, picked up the corpse and flung it from the window. As he came from the house, he stood near the body of his fallen foe, stared at it for a moment, and then kicked it in the face.
“It is the King’s command,” said the Duc.
Coligny’s head was cut off so it might be taken to the King. A group of people who had gathered to cheer on the Duc rushed upon the body as he left. They tore Coligny to pieces. What was left of his torso, they took up, as a standard, and paraded it through the streets.
Huguenots saw Coligny fall. They took to their heels and tried to flee, but the gates of Paris were shut.
There was no escape.
False word went out that another attempt had been made on Coligny’s life, but the King was working to restore order. It was said the Admiral was still being guarded, but as that lie was spoken, the mob was desecrating his corpse. Guise’s men, along with the King’s Swiss Guard, divided their forces and went into the streets, hunting down Huguenot leaders.
Inside the King’s palace, as Coligny was hurled from his window, Swiss Guards went room to room, surprising Huguenot nobles in bed with their mistres
ses or wives. They were disarmed, and marched to the inner courtyard of the palace where they were run through with pikes. A pile of corpses grew, larger and larger, blood running from bodies, trailing across the white marble floor.
Paris swiftly ran to chaos. What had begun as targeted assassinations quickly spiralled wildly out of control. Mobs took to the streets, hunting Huguenots, and went house to house, methodical in their grisly task. Writers, printers and booksellers were highly sought-after targets, since they had helped to spread heretical notions. Chains were employed to block streets, so they could not escape. Bodies were left where they fell, or thrown into the Seine. Some fleeing people hurled themselves into the water, thinking to escape death, but they were hunted down by Catholics in boats, who pushed them under the water, drowning them. Everywhere the mob went, the same words were shouted. “It is the King’s command! It is the King’s command!”
No one was spared.
Huguenots, their dark clothing easy to recognise, were cut down in their thousands. Pregnant women were stabbed through the belly. Men were beaten to death. Children were slaughtered.
Walsingham suddenly found his house besieged by people seeking sanctuary. Desperate, pleading, clawing hands raked his gates and battered at his doors. From his windows, he could see the Seine, clogged with floating bodies and blood. He could hear the screaming, the sound of gunshot, horses galloping and roaming mobs gloating as they found another victim. The city was in a state of full and ungoverned riot. Any control the King had once possessed was his no more.
Knowing he was offering shelter to many, the mob came for his house, but the King had sent guards to protect my ambassador. At first Walsingham had feared they meant to kill him. But amidst the fug of fear and madness upon the King of France was the understanding that to allow England’s Ambassador to be murdered would bring about not only the end of the Treaty of Blois, but possibly war as well. The guards did their task, joining Walsingham’s nervous men, not keen to have potential assassins at their sides, in guarding the house.
Englishmen, Frenchmen and foreigners all came to Walsingham, and then Coligny’s own lieutenant, Briquemault, arrived. He seen his two sons murdered before his eyes, and had fled, crawling over the rooftops of Paris, fearing the bloody streets too greatly to run through them. He had made it across the river, and had pretended to be a delivery man, carrying mutton on his back, in order to make it past the King’s guards and into the sanctuary of the house of the English Ambassador. Walsingham could have refused to shelter him. Briquemault was a target for the mob. But Walsingham took him in, as he did with many others.
What Briquemault had to say made no easy listening. Walsingham learned the extent of the horror he was now living in.
Massacre, on a scale that none had ever seen… sanctioned by the King.
Roads were littered with corpses, and some were taken up, used as banners by the mob. Body parts were offered in mock sales, and killers stopped at ale houses and inns to drink and celebrate. Laughter rang in the streets alongside the din of screaming. Houses were being looted. Women were raped before their children. People were dragged out of their homes, their children clinging to their clothes, and they were all murdered. Blood ran in the streets, pools, puddles and streams, converging to slip into the Seine, where the waters turned pale pink, bobbing about bloated corpses.
It was not only those who wanted to slaughter Huguenots who were busy that day. Some took the excuse to be rid of men whom they owed money to, landlords they did not like, tenants who would not pay. There was no rule and no law. Every man was judge, jury and executioner.
Through the streets the militia roamed, crying out, “Kill! Kill!”
The King took to his chamber, apparently out of his seething mind, and took up a pistol to shoot struggling people drowning in the Seine.
Two nobles in the palace were spared; Navarre and the Prince de Conde, his cousin. Some said they had only been spared so Catherine de Medici could prevent the Guise from becoming too powerful. Others claimed the Princess Margot had put her own life at risk by pleading for them. To save their lives, Navarre and Conde converted to Catholicism. They had no other choice.
To be a Huguenot in Paris that day, was to be a dead man.
That night Walsingham, his family, and the many he had saved, huddled together, prayed to be delivered from this nightmare. Despite the presence of the King’s guards, Walsingham expected Death to come for them at any moment. Neither the King nor his mother were in control of the mob anymore. The monster was unleashed. It would have to fill its belly on the gluttony of blood before it was sated.
The next day, it seemed as though the thirst for blood might have abated, but then there was a miracle. A friar declared that an old hawthorn tree had burst into new life and bud in the Catholic cemetery of the Holy Innocents. Some years before, Coligny had asked that a cross there be taken away. It had marked and celebrated the place where a Huguenot family had been hanged for their faith. Although the first attempt to remove the cross had caused a riot, the King had eventually shut the street down and taken it away. But now, the cemetery itself was celebrating the bloody work of the people.
Crowds gathering to witness the words of the friar were infused with fresh energy. That they could not see the tree due to a group of soldiers blocking the way did not matter. God was on their side. He approved of this cleansing of their city and country. More Huguenots should die.
The King was sending out wildly contradictive orders. One said the militia should be disbanded and the mob disarmed, another said that all the trouble had come about for rivalry. Another said the slaughter had been intended to prevent a wicked plot dreamed up by Coligny from taking place. The King said all Huguenots would live in peace in his Kingdom under his protection and their rights would be respected. The next day he banned Huguenot worship.
The King was clearly not of one mind. The people decided to follow the sign of God instead.
The King came to the sacred hawthorn tree to pray, then went to the gibbet where the remains of Coligny were hanging. “The smell of a dead enemy is sweet,” said the King.
The mobs went on through Paris, hunting down those who were hiding, attempting to flee, or were being hidden by neighbours. Anyone concealing someone was also killed. The King sent out orders that the attacks were to stop, but he had lost control over his city long ago.
Within days, the massacre had spread to other cities and towns. News of the killings had spread. Catholics took up arms against their neighbours. There was word that some had received instructions to do this from their King. Exact figures for deaths remained unknown, and were still growing, but some said that ten thousand had died, both in Paris and beyond. Over one thousand bodies were dragged from the Seine alone.
Walsingham did not move from his house for days. He knew if he were seen, the mob would take him. He was easily recognised, not only as a Protestant, but an Englishman. But his wife and daughter he sent from his house as soon as possible. Not able to guarantee their safety in his home, he sent them with Phillip Sidney and a detachment of guards, ordering them to get out of Paris and ride for the coast. Ursula was heavily pregnant, and as they left they saw two Englishmen hacked to death at the gates of the city.
Ursula, her unborn child, and her daughter Frances, who was just five years old, escaped unharmed. Sidney made for the Netherlands, meaning to warn Protestant neighbours of the slaughter that might come for them. Ursula took passage on a ship. She made it to England, as did her children.
When Walsingham did venture out, he had to do so with a huge contingent of guards. As he rode through Paris, mobs turned out to jeer and threaten him.
As blood began to seep into the earth, both sides prepared for war.
Upon hearing of the massacre, Phillip of Spain laughed, in what was said to be his only chuckle ever recorded. He rejoiced, dancing a little jig in his chambers. Mary of Scots stayed up all night, celebrating with her women. Coligny’s head was sent to the Pope
, and the Holy Father called the massacre a blessed event, called for celebratory Masses to be sung and had a medal struck to commemorate this hallowed event. The Pope said that in slaying the enemies of Christ, Charles had finally lived up to his hereditary papal title of “Most Christian.” The Pope had a series of frescos painted, depicting the death of Coligny.
Huguenots who could, fled, pouring into England as refugees.
But as it became clear that the slaughter had started as murder, and ended as mob rule, the Pope was less enthused. Realising that this had not been a targeted, controlled, mass killing, and innocents had died along with heretics, he later refused to receive Charles de Maurevert, who was said to be the assassin who had shot Coligny. This did not stop celebrations going on in Rome and the rest of Italy. Churches were packed as triumphant Masses were sung, signs of devotion were everywhere, and as the host was raised in the Mass, people beat their breasts and wept for joy.
