A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times, Volume 4Guizot, François
History
A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times, Volume 4
Guizot, François
France -- History
[_Memoires de Francois de La Noue,_ in the _Petitot_ collection; 1st
series, t. xxxiv. pp. 172-178.]
The results of the battle of Dreux were serious, and still more serious
from the fate of the chiefs than from the number of the dead. The
commanders of the two armies, the Constable de Montmorency, and the
Prince of Conde, were wounded and prisoners. One of the triumvirs,
Marshal de Saint-Andre, had been killed in action. The Catholics’
wavering ally, Anthony de Bourbon, King of Navarre, had died before the
battle of a wound which he had received at the siege of Rouen; and on his
death-bed had resumed his Protestant bearing, saying that, if God granted
him grace to get well, he would have nothing but the gospel preached
throughout the realm. The two staffs (_etats-majors_), as we should now
say, were disorganized: in one, the Duke of Guise alone remained unhurt
and at liberty; in the other, Coligny, in Conde’s absence, was elected
general-in-chief of the Protestants. At Paris, for a while, it was
believed that the battle was lost. “If it had been,” says Montluc,
“I think that it was all over with France, for the state would have
changed, and so would the religion; a young king can be made to do as
you please;” Catherine de’ Medici showed a facile resignation to such a
change. “Very well,” she had said, “then we will pray to God in French.”
When the victory became known there was general enthusiasm for the Duke.
of Guise; but he took only a very modest advantage of it, being more
anxious to have his comrades’ merits appreciated than his own. At Blois,
as he handed the queen-mother her table-napkin at dinner-time, he asked
her if he might have an audience of her after the repast. “Jesu! my dear
cousin,” said Catherine, “whatever are you saying?” “I say it, madame,
because I would fain show you in the presence of everybody what I have
done, since my departure from Paris, with your army which you gave in
charge to me together with the constable, and also present to you all the
good captains and servants of the king and of yourself who have served
you faithfully, as well your own subjects as also foreigners, and
horsemen and foot;” whereupon he discoursed about the battle of Dreux,
“and painted it so well and so to the life,” says Brantome, “that you
would have said that they were still about it, whereat the queen felt
very great pleasure. . . . Every one listened very attentively,
without the least noise in the world; and he spoke so well that there was
none who was not charmed, for the prince was the best of speakers and
eloquent, not with a forced and overladen eloquence, but simple and
soldierly, with a grace of his own to match; so much so that the
queen-mother said that she had never seen him in such good form.”
[Brantome, _Tries des Brands Capitaines,_ t. ii. pp. 247-250.] The good
form, however, was not enough to prevent the ill-humor and jealousy felt
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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