[239] Not without some hesitation, however. So little confidence in his good judgment did his frivolous appearance inspire, that Coligny observed: "I would not trust him, without knowing him better than I do, had not Monsieur de Soubise sent him to me." Mem. de Soubise, Bulletin, xxiii. (1874) 502. [240] The Proces verbal of Poltrot's examination just before his death, March 18th, is inserted in the Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., ii. 187-198. In this he declares that his first testimony was _false_ and extorted by the fear of death, and exculpates Soubise, Beza, Coligny, etc., from having instigated him. He says that when put to torture he will say anything the questioners want him to. Accordingly, when so tortured, he accuses them, and when released a moment after the horses have begun to rend him in pieces, he conjures up a plot of the Huguenots to sack Paris, etc. May it not properly be asked, what such testimony as this is worth? For or against Coligny, volumes of it would not affect his character in our estimation. [241] The direct testimony of Jacques Auguste de Thou, on a matter with which he was evidently intimately acquainted through his father, is unimpeachable, and will outweigh with every unprejudiced mind all the stories of Davila, Castelnau, etc., founded on mere report. De Thou, Histoire univ. (liv. xxxiv.), iii. 403. [242] Poltrot's pretended confession of Feb. 26th, at Camp Saint Hilaire, near Saint Mesmin, with the replies signed by Coligny, la Rochefoucauld, and Beza to each separate article, is inserted in full in Mem. de Conde, iv. 285-303, and the Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., ii. 176-186. Coligny's letter to Catharine, ibid., ii. 186, 187, Mem. de Conde, iv. 303. [243] That Catharine de' Medici was no very sincere mourner for Guise is sufficiently certain; and it is well known that there were those who believed her to have instigated his murder (See Mem. de Tavannes, Pet. ed., ii. 394). This is not surprising when we recall the fact that almost every great crime or casualty that occurred in France, for the space of a generation, was ascribed to her evil influence. Still the Viscount de Tavannes makes too great a draft upon our credulity, when he pretends that she made a frank admission of guilt to his father. "Depuis, au voyage de Bayonne, passant par Dijon, elle dit au sieur de Tavannes: 'Ceux de Guise se vouloient faire roys, je les en ay bien garde devant Orleans.'" The expression "devant Orleans" can hardly be tortured into a reference to anything else than Guise's assassination. [244] I entirely agree with Prof. Baum (Theodor Beza, ii. 719) in regarding "this single circumstance as more than sufficient to demonstrate both the innocence of Coligny and his associates, and the consciously guilty fabrication of the accusations."