An Enemy to the King: From the Recently Discovered Memoirs of the Sieur de la TournoireStephens, Robert Neilson
History
An Enemy to the King: From the Recently Discovered Memoirs of the Sieur de la Tournoire
Stephens, Robert Neilson
France -- History -- Henry IV, 1589-1610 -- Fiction
In Guienne, my master considered as enemies those who did not acknowledge
his authority, and he provisioned his army at their expense. Inasmuch as
the province of Berry was making war on our party, I treated it as
hostile country, subject to pillage, according to the customs of war. It
is true, some of its people were friendly to our cause, but it was as
much their duty to contribute to our maintenance, since we were fighting
in their behalf, as it was our right to take from those to whom our
relation was one of warfare. So I gave my men permission to forage,
putting but one condition upon them,--that of losing their lives rather
than allow our hiding-place to be disclosed. Thus, by virtue of many
nightly visits to farms in the vicinity of Clochonne and Narjec, we
contrived to avoid the pangs of an empty stomach.
Having established my company on a living basis at Maury, I began with
relish the work of annoying M. de la Chatre. I sent out certain of my
men, severally, to different parts of southern Berry as seekers of
information. In the guise of peasants, or of soldiers going to serve in
the army which the Governor, La Chatre, was then augmenting, they learned
much that was valuable to me. It is written, under the title of "How the
Lord Protected His Own and Chastised His Enemies in Berry," in the book
called "The Manifold Mercies of God to His Children," by the pastor
Laudrec, who has reported rightly what I related to him: how we made
recruits for Henri of Navarre by finding out Huguenots in towns and
villages and convincing them that they were sure to be arrested should
they remain in Berry; how we guided these out of the province by various
ways of our own discovery, across the mountain; how we interrupted the
hanging of several men at Issoudun, who had been condemned for heresy and
treason, and sent them in safety to Guienne; how certain of my men,
without my authority, despoiled Catholic churches of their instruments of
idolatry, and thus helped to replenish the treasury of our master; how I
once marched my company by night to a wood near Bourges, lay in wait
there until a guard came, conducting captured Huguenots for trial,
attacked the guard, rescued the prisoners, and protected them in a
hurried flight to the border, whence they proceeded to swell the army of
our Henri; and how we served our cause in numerous other exploits, which
I need not relate here, as you may read them in Laudrec's book, printed
in Geneva.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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