The History of Christianity - John S. C. Abbott (bookstand for reading .txt) 📗

The report of guns and pistols, and of continued volleys of musketry, from all parts of the city, proved the universality of the massacre. Miserable wretches, smeared with blood, swaggered along with ribald jests and fiend-like howlings, hunting for the Protestants; corpses, torn and gory, strewed the streets, and dissevered heads were spurned like footballs along the pavements; priests in sacerdotal robes, and with elevated crucifixes, urged their emissaries not to grow weary in the work of exterminating God’s enemies; the most distinguished nobles of the court and of the camp rode through the streets with gorgeous retinue, encouraging the massacre.

“Let not one single Protestant be spared,” the king proclaimed, “to reproach me hereafter with this deed.”

Charles, with his mother and the high-born profligate ladies who disgraced the court, emerged in the morning light in splendid array into the reeking streets. Many of the women contemplated with merriment the dead bodies piled up before the Louvre. One of the ladies, however, appalled by the spectacle, wished to retire, alleging that the bodies already emitted an offensive odor. Charles brutally replied,—

“The smell of a dead enemy is always pleasant!”

The massacre was continued in the city and throughout the kingdom for a week. On Thursday, after four days spent in hunting out the fugitives from all their hiding-places, the Catholic clergy paraded the streets of Paris in a triumphal procession, and with jubilant prayers and hymns gave thanks to God for their victory. The Catholic pulpits resounded with exultant harangues. A medal was struck off in honor of the event, with the inscription, “La Piété a réveille la Justice,”—“Religion has awakened Justice.”

In some of the distant provinces in France, the Protestants were in the majority; and the Catholics did not venture to attack them. In some others they were so few that they were not feared, and were therefore spared. In the sparsely-settled rural districts, the Catholic peasants, kind-hearted and virtuous, refused to imbrue their hands in the blood of their neighbors. In these ways, several thousand Protestants escaped.

But in nearly all the cities and populous towns the slaughter was indiscriminate and universal. The number who perished in the awful massacre of St. Bartholomew is estimated at from eighty to a hundred thousand.

But there were some noble Catholics, who, refusing to surrender conscience to this iniquitous order of the king, laid down their own lives in adhering to the principle, that they would “obey God rather than man” when God’s law and man’s law came into antagonism.

The governor of Auvergne, an heroic and a noble man, replied in the following terms to the king’s secret missive commanding the massacre:—

“Sire, I have received an order, under your Majesty’s seal, to put all the Protestants of this province to death; and, if (which God forbid!) the order be genuine, I still respect your Majesty too much to obey you.”

The infamous decree of the king was sent to the Viscount Orthez, commandant at Bayonne. The following was his intrepid reply:—

“Sire, I have communicated the commands of your Majesty to the inhabitants of the town, and to the soldiers of the garrison; and I have found good citizens and brave soldiers, but not one executioner. On which account, both they and I humbly beseech your Majesty to employ our arms and our lives in enterprises in which we can conscientiously engage. However perilous they may be, we will willingly shed therein the last drop of our blood.”

Both of these men of intrepid virtue soon after suddenly and mysteriously died. Few entertained a doubt that poison had been administered by the order of Charles.

From these revolting scenes of blood let us briefly glance at the impression which the massacre of St. Bartholomew produced upon Europe.

The pope received the tidings with exultation, and ordered the most imposing religious ceremonies in Rome in gratitude for the achievement. The Papal courts of Spain and of the Netherlands sent thanks to Charles and Catharine for having thus effectually purged France of heresy.

But Protestant Europe was stricken with indignation. As fugitives from France, emaciate, pale, and woe-stricken, recited, in England, Switzerland, and Germany, the story of the massacre, the hearts of their auditors were frozen with horror.

In Geneva, a day of fasting and prayer was instituted, which is observed to the present day. In Scotland, every church resounded with the thrilling tale. John Knox proclaimed, in language of prophetic nerve,—

“Sentence has gone forth against that murderer, the King of France; and the vengeance of God will never be withdrawn from his house. His name shall be in everlasting execration.”

The French court, alarmed by the foreign indignation it had aroused, sent an ambassador to the court of Queen Elizabeth with a poor apology for the crime. The ambassador was received by England’s queen with appalling coldness and gloom. Arrangements were studiously made to invest the occasion with solemnity. The court was shrouded in mourning, and all the lords and ladies appeared in sable weeds. A stern and sombre sadness was upon every countenance. The ambassador, overwhelmed by this reception, was overheard to exclaim to himself,—

“I am ashamed to acknowledge myself a Frenchman!”

He entered, however, the presence of the queen; passed through the long line of silent courtiers, who refused to salute him even with a look; stammered out his miserable apology; and, receiving no response, retired covered with confusion.

It has been said, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.” There are apparent exceptions to this rule. Protestantism in France has never recovered from this blow. But for this massacre, one-half of the nobles of France would have continued Protestant. The reformers would soon have constituted so large a portion of the population, that mutual toleration would have been necessary. Intelligence would have been diffused; religion would have been respected; and, in all probability, the horrors of the French Revolution would have been averted.

God is an avenger. In the mysterious government which he wields,—mysterious only to our feeble vision,—“he visits the iniquities of the fathers upon the children even unto the third and fourth generation.”

As we see the priests of Paris and of France, during the awful tragedy of the Revolution, massacred in the prisons, shot in the streets, hung upon the lamp-posts, and driven in starvation and woe from the kingdom, we cannot but remember the day of St. Bartholomew. The 24th of August, 1572, and the 2d of September, 1792, though far apart in the records of time, are consecutive days in the government of God.

Henry of Navarre, by stratagem, soon escaped from Paris, renounced the Catholicism which he had accepted from compulsion, and was accepted as the military leader of the Protestant party throughout Europe. The surviving Protestants rallied in self-defence, and implored aid from all the courts which had embraced the principles of the Reformation. England and Germany sent troops to their aid. Catholic Spain, the Netherlands, and Italy sent armies to assist the Papists. Again France was deluged in the woes of civil war, and years of unutterable misery darkened the realm.

Charles IX., as weak as he was depraved, became silent, morose, and gloomy. Secluding himself from all society, month after month he was gnawed by the scorpion fangs of remorse. A bloody sweat, oozing from every pore, crimsoned his bedclothes. His aspect of misery drove all companionship from his chamber. He groaned and wept, exclaiming incessantly,—

“Oh, what blood! oh, what murders! Alas! why did I follow such evil counsels?”

He saw continually the spectres of the slain with ghastly wounds stalking about his bed; and demons, hideous and threatening, waited to grasp his soul. As the cathedral bell was tolling the hour of midnight on the 30th of May, 1574, his nurse heard him convulsively weeping. Gently she drew aside the bed-curtains. The dying monarch turned his dim and despairing eye upon her, and exclaimed,—

“O my nurse, my nurse! what blood have I shed! what murders have I committed! Great God, pardon me, pardon me!”

A convulsive shuddering for a moment agitated his frame: his head fell upon his pillow, and the wretched man was dead. He was then but twenty-four years of age. He expressed satisfaction that he left no heir to live and suffer in a world so full of misery.

The order of knighthood deserves record, as one of the outgrowths of Christianity. This institution, originating in the eleventh century, was continued through several hundred years as one of the most potent of earthly influences. Guizot, speaking of its origin, says,—

“It was at this period when in the laic world was created and developed the most splendid fact of the middle ages,—knighthood, that noble soaring of imaginations and souls towards the ideal of Christian virtue and soldierly honor. It is impossible to trace in detail the origin and history of that grand fact, which was so prominent in the days to which it belonged, and which is so prominent still in the memories of men; but a clear notion ought to be obtained of its moral character, and of its practical worth.”212

The young candidate for knighthood was first placed in a bath,—the symbol of moral and material purification. After having undergone a very thorough ablution, he was dressed in a white tunic, a red robe, and a close-fitting black coat. The tunic was the emblem of purity; the red robe, of the blood he was bound to shed in the service of his order; and the black coat was a reminder of death, to which he, as well as all others, was doomed. Thus purified and clothed, the candidate underwent a rigid fast for twenty-four hours. He then, it being evening, entered a church, usually accompanied by a clergyman, and passed the whole night in prayer.

The next morning, after a full confession of his sins, he received from the father-confessor the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. A sermon was then preached to him directly, usually in the presence of a large assembly, enforcing the duties of the new life of knighthood upon which he was about to enter. The candidate then approached the altar with a sword suspended at his side. The officiating priest took the sword, implored God’s blessing upon it, and returned it to the young man. The young knight then kneeled before his sovereign, or the lord of high degree, who was to initiate him into the honors of knighthood; and the following questions were proposed to him:—

“Why do you purpose to become a knight? If it be that you may become rich, or to take your ease, or to acquire honor, without performing deeds worthy of renown, you are unworthy of the sacred order.”

The young man replies, “I desire to acquit myself honorably of all the noble deeds of knighthood, without regard to wealth or ease.”

A number of beautiful ladies then approached the candidate: and one buckled upon his feet the spurs; another girded around his chest the coat of mail; a third placed upon his breast the cuirass; a fourth brought the highly-polished and glittering helmet; while a fifth presented him the armlets and gauntlets. Thus clothed by the fair hands of ladies, he again kneeled at the altar; and his sovereign, or the officiating lord, supported by a splendid retinue of veteran knights, approached him, and, giving him three slight blows with the flat of the sword, said, “In the name of God, St. Michael, and St. George, I make thee knight. Be valiant, bold, and true.”

The young man, thus arrayed as a knight, went from the church, and mounted a magnificent horse held by a groom. Brandishing both sword and lance, he displayed to the assembled multitude the wonderful feats of horsemanship to which he had been trained.

Such was, in brief, the ceremony in the admission of knights. It will be seen that the religious element entered largely into its spirit. Indeed, the knight took a solemn oath to serve God religiously, and to die a thousand deaths rather