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Updated: May 10, 2025
The Huguenots had just made their fatal peace in France, to the prophetic dissatisfaction of Coligny. The leading men of liberal sentiments in the Netherlands were captive or in exile. All were embarrassed by the confiscations which, in anticipation of sentence, had severed the nerves of war.
They easily induced Catherine de' Medici to believe that she was being deceived by Coligny, and an assassin was engaged to put him out of the way; but the scoundrel missed his aim and only wounded his victim. Fearful lest the young king, who was faithful to Coligny, should discover her part in the attempted murder, the queen mother invented a story of a great Huguenot conspiracy.
I noticed that his sword and belt were propped against a chair at his elbow, and a dag, apparently loaded, lay close to his hand by the candlestick. Two lackeys waited behind his chair, wearing the badge we had remarked in the inn yard. We began to talk, speaking in low tones that we might not disturb him. The attack on Coligny had, if true, its bearing on our own business.
But I have a son yonder not much younger than you, young gentlemen. And if you had understood, I should have said to you, 'Do not go! There are enough sheep for the shearer!" He was turning away with this oracular saying when Croisette touched his sleeve. "Pray can you tell us if it be true," the lad said eagerly, "that the Admiral de Coligny was wounded yesterday?"
Meanwhile the prospects of those of the Religion began to brighten: the king was apparently throwing off the influence of his mother and brother; it was reported that he relied more and more on the advice of Coligny, and in spite of the Pope and the Guises, he was still stubbornly bent on marrying his sister to Henry of Bearn.
In the morning he reappeared among the Spaniards, and reported that two hundred of his men had retreated from the spot, but that the remaining hundred and fifty would surrender. At the same time he gave into the hands of Menendez the royal standard and other flags, with his sword, dagger, helmet, buckler, and the official seal given him by Coligny.
The French revolution had, as Lamartine says, Plutarch's Lives for its Bible, and the great unchaining of human passion had no element of religious control. Plad France, in the time of her revolution, had leaders like Admiral Coligny, her revolution might have prospered as did England's under Cromwell.
On the 11th of August, Coligny had written thus hopefully of his movements towards the Netherlands, sanctioned and aided by his King.
He was even accused of having manifested an unseemly panic at Philippeville, and of having only been restrained by the expostulations of his officers, from abandoning both that fortress and Charlemont to Admiral Coligny, who had made his appearance in the neighborhood, merely at the head of a reconnoitring party.
At Coligny's suggestion, Charles wrote to the Duke of Savoy interceding for the Waldenses, who were being persecuted cruelly for having assisted the Huguenots of France. So angered were the Guises, by the favour with which the king treated the Admiral, that they retired from court; and the king was thus left entirely to the influence of Montmorency and Coligny.
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