The battle of St. Denis, in which the Countable Montmorenci was killed (1567), led to no decisivo result. Peace was made in 1568, but it was soon after broken : neither party had confidence in the other ; and the king issued a decree declaring that he would have only one religion in France, and ordering all the ministers of the reformed party to leave the kingdom. The battle of Jarnac in Angoumois was fought in 1569, and the Protestants lost both the victory and their leader the Prince of Conde, who was taken and shot in cold blood after the battle by Monteequiou, captain of the Guards to the king's brother, the Duke of Anjou, who commanded the Catholic army. Henri of Bourbon, prince of Warn, afterwards Henri IV. was now recognised a, head of the Protestant party, bet he was yet only a youth of sixteen, and the command remained in the bands of Capri. The king was jealous of the rising reputation of his brother; the Protestants w ere reinforced from Germany. and gained an advantage at La Roche Abeille in Liznouain ; however the vain attempt upon Poitiers, and a second bloody defeat which they sustained from the Duke of Anjou at Mon widow in Poitou in 1509, would perhaps have been fatal to their party but for the ruolutioo of Caged, and the reviving jealousy of the king towards Lis brother. Peace was soon afterwards (1570) made on terms more favourable to the Huguenot' than the events of the war would lead us to expect An amnesty was granted to them, and liberty of ennacience; their worship was allowed in all places held by them during the war, mid at any rate in two towns of each province; and four strong Rochelle, Montauban, Cognac, and La Charitd, were to be garrisoned by them as securities for the faithful performance of the treaty. In the tarns year Charles married Elizabeth, daughter of the Emperor Maximilian II.
For the mastacre of St. Bartholomew we refer below. This dreadful event, if it for • moment paralysed the Protestants. roused them, after the first utoolshment had passed away, to resistance and vengeance. They held Rochelle, which the royal forces besieged in vain • the tourer. had alienated many of the Catholics from the court, and led to the formation of a middle party, will Les Politiques, headed by the family of Montmoreoci. The Protestant courts and nations, and many even of the Catholic, recoiled with horror and loathing from the perpetrators of so foul a deed. Charles felt that he had covered himself with eternal infamy. Conscience-stricken at the part he had taken in the massacre, be granted peace to the Huguenots. The short remainder of his reign was troubled by the contest* of parties at the court, by plots and rumours of plots. Charles died May 80, 1574, having lived nearly twenty-four years, and reigned thirteen years and a heir.
Tilt Kasuctie or Sr. BARTHOLOMEW is so important an event in connection with the life of Charles IX., and with the history of France, that we append here a separate account of It, and the circumstances which led to its perpetration. It is called the 'Bartholomew Massacre,' or simply ' the Bartholomew,' because it occurred on the 24th of August, St. Bartholomew's day. Huguenot ' was the name by which the French Protestants are invariably designated by contemporary writers. There has been much discussion as to the origin of the term. According to some, it comes from a German word used in Switzerland, which signifies sworn (' eidgeposs), or bound by oath. Others, with Castleuau, who lived at the time it first came into use, tell us that it was an epithet of contempt, derived from a very small coin inferior even to the unlike, the smallest coin then in use in France, which had been in circulation since Hugo Capet.
As the Bartholomew massacre is one of the most contested passages in history, and as there is no historical question upon which it is more difficult to form an opinion not open to objections, it will be conve nient to divide this article into two portions : 1st, a simple narrative of the transactions; • 2nd, a brief summary of the opinions of historians with reference to the probable motives of those who planned and executed it.
I I. The progress of the reformation in France was different from what it was in England, where, being the act of the civil magistrate, it was conducted with more moderation : in France, on the contrary, the ruling powers were strongly opposed to it, and its progress was wholly owing to the zeal and courage of individuals. In England
there was a sort of compromise with the feelings and opinions of the adherents of the ancient faith ; while in France a Protestant meant not inertly one who shook off the papal authority, but one who denounced the pope as anti-Christ, and the ceremonies of the Romish Church as the worship of Belial. In their tensile and political condition the linguenota closely resembled the English puritans of the 17th century. Like them, discountenanced and at length persecuted by the court, the French Huguenots became a distinct people in their native country, abhorring and abhorred by their Catholic) feliowsubjecta; united to each other by the closest ties of religion and a common temporal interest, and submitting solely and implicitly, In peace and in war, to the guidance of their own leaders. The wars between these irrecon cileable parties wore, as might be expected, frequent and bloody.
In August 1570 a treaty of peace was concluded between the French king. Charles IX., and his Huguenot subjects. This was the third contract of the kind that had been entered into between these parties eight years. The two first were shamefully violated as it suited the purpose of the stronger party. It was natural therefore that the Protestant leaden should feel very distrustful as to the motives of the Court with regard to the new act of pacification; and this distrust was far from being lessened by the circumstance that the overtures to peace proceeded from the Court, and that the terms of the treaty were unusually favourable to the Huguenots. The veteran Coligny [MO COLIOIT], admiral of France, however lent all the influence of his authority, as the leader of the Linguenota, towards promoting the avowed object of the treaty. He was earnestly pressed to court ; but suspicious of the queen-mother, the celebrated Catherine de Medici, and of the party of the Duke of Guise, he refused the invitation, and retired to the strong Huguenot fortress of Rochelle. lie was accompanied by the young Prince of Navarre (afterwards Henri IV.), C,ond6, and other chiefs of the Proteataut party. This distrust, however, of the admiral, was entirely effaced before the end of the second year from the date of the treaty. Charles IX. was but twenty years of ago when he eateutetiously sought to be reconciled with his Huguenot subjects. The peace was emphatically called his °en peace, and ho boasted that he had made it In opposition to his mother and other counsellors, saying, that he was tired of civil dissensions, and ;convinced, from experience, of the impossibility of reducing all his subjects to the saute religion. His extreme youth— his impetuous and open tamper—and, if we may believe Waleaughem, who was the English ambassador at Paris at the time, the unsettled state of his religious opinions, inclining "to those of the new religion," —naturally operated in removing the distrust of Coligny, Contrary to what had happened after former treaties, pains were taken to observe the articles of pacification, and to punish those who Infringed them. Charles spoke of the admiral in terms of praise and admira tion; the complaints of the Huguenots were listened to with attention, and their reasonable requests granted; and their friends were iu favour, while their enemies were in apparent disgrace at court. Early in 1571 Charles offered his sister in marriage to the Prince of Navarre, the acknowledged head of the Huguenot party ; and though the pope refused to grant a dispensation for the marriage, and the Spanish Court and the Guises strongly opposed it, he persisted in bringing it about, threatening the papal nuncio that ho would have the ceremony performed without a dispensation, if the pope continued obstinate in withholding it. He enlisted the personal ambition of the admiral on his side, by offering to send an army, under his command, into Flanders, to co-operate with the Prince of Orange against the King of Spain.