United States or Cambodia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
We do not intend to dwell upon any but its leading facts, facts which at the moment when they were accomplished might have been regarded as decisive in respect of the future. In this campaign there were two; the battle of Dreux, on the 19th of December, 1562; and the murder of the Duke of Guise by Poltrot, on the 18th of February, 1563.
Coligny was speedily reinforced; and the assassination of the Duke of Guise, by an enthusiast of the name of Jean Poltrot, more than equalized matters.
The King having learned that Maurevel had made an attempt upon the Admiral's life, by firing a pistol at him through a window, in which attempt he failed, having wounded the Admiral only in the shoulder, and supposing that Maurevel had done this at the instance of M. de Guise, to revenge the death of his father, whom the Admiral had caused to be killed in the same manner by Poltrot, he was so much incensed against M. de Guise that he declared with an oath that he would make an example of him; and, indeed, the King would have put M. de Guise under an arrest, if he had not kept out of his sight the whole day.
On my way down the hill, I stopped at the ruin of a mediaeval castle that belonged to Poltrot de Mere, the assassin of the Due de Guise. All this country of the Angoumois, even more than Perigord, is full of the history of the religious wars of the sixteenth century. The whole of the southwestern region of France might be termed the classic ground of atrocities committed in the name of religion.
It is to be remarked that Poltrot, who fired at the Duc de Guise fifteen months later, confessed under torture that he had been urged to the crime by Theodore de Beze; though he retracted that avowal during subsequent tortures; so that Bossuet, after weighing all historical considerations, felt obliged to acquit Beze of instigating the crime.
The murderer of Duke Francis of Guise was a petty nobleman of Angoumois, John Poltrot, Lord of Mere, a fiery Catholic in his youth, who afterwards became an equally fiery Protestant, and was engaged with his relative La Renaudie in the conspiracy against the Guises.
He exhorted his wife to bow in submission to the will of Heaven, and kissing his son Henry, the Duke of Joinville, who was weeping by his side, gently said to him, "God grant thee grace, my son, to be a good man." Thus died Francis, the second Duke of Guise, on the twenty-fourth of February, 1563. His murderer was a young Protestant noble, Jean Poltrot, twenty-four years of age.
Poltrot, from being an ardent Catholic, had embraced the Protestant faith. This exposed him to persecution, and he was driven from France with the loss of his estates. He was compelled to support himself by manual labor.
There is nothing left of Poltrot de Mere's stronghold but a few fragments of wall much overgrown with ivy and brambles. In order to get a close view of these I had to ask permission of the owner of the land an elderly man, who looked at me with a troubled eye, and while he wished to be polite, considered it his duty to question me concerning my 'quality' and motives.
The King having learned that Maurevel had made an attempt upon the Admiral's life, by firing a pistol at him through a window, in which attempt he failed, having wounded the Admiral only in the shoulder, and supposing that Maurevel had done this at the instance of M. de Guise, to revenge the death of his father, whom the Admiral had caused to be killed in the same manner by Poltrot, he was so much incensed against M. de Guise that he declared with an oath that he would make an example of him; and, indeed, the King would have put M. de Guise under an arrest, if he had not kept out of his sight the whole day.
Word Of The Day