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  That was the month Jeanne d'Albret summoned the saviour of the Protestants, Gabriel de Montgomery, to La Rochelle. She named him Lieutenant General of the Kingdom of Navarre and ordered him to bring her subjects back "under the obedience of Her Majesty [herself] and punish the rebels, who had revolted and pillaged the reformed churches and imprisoned their ministers." It was the sort of job for which the merciless Montgomery was ideally suited.

  Montgomery, dressed entirely in black with a glacial look in his mournful blue eyes, led an army into the little kingdom of Navarre, covering over 150 leagues in ten days. By August he had restored the lands to their Protestant sovereigns. It had been a brutal campaign. Montgomery's handling of the Carmelite monastery at Trie was typical: all the monks were slaughtered and their bodies chucked into the wells. The prior claimed to be a distant relative of Montgomery's. "Very well then," replied the regicide; "I shall render you the honours due to your birth and you shall be hanged from the main gate." The sentence was executed without further delay.

  In Henri de Navarre, the Huguenots now had at their head a powerful contender for the French throne, while the future looked increasingly bleak for Catherine's sickly litter of children. The reign of Francis II had lasted barely a year. It was no secret that Charles IX, aged nineteen when Montgomery recovered Navarre, lay at death's door. He cut a poor figure for a warrior king.

  By the following spring, 1570, Henri de Navarre was advancing on Paris, with Montgomery at his side. In Paris, a mood of nervous foreboding developed. Catherine dispatched her top diplomats to La Rochelle and another peace was finally signed at Saint-Germain-en-Laye on 29 July 1570. Both sides were exhausted by war. The terms were much the same as the Peace of Amboise several years earlier. But there was a secret clause which created some novelty: Henri de Navarre was to marry Catherine's only healthy offspring, Marguerite, who would be remembered in history, fiction and film as the tragic Queen Margot.

  There was, in fact, around 1570, a spate of dynastic marriage proposals throughout Western Europe. Though no guarantee, it remained in a world that was still in many ways medieval the surest route to peace: marry the leading opponent and, in the good feelings generated by the feast and the princely honeymoon, old rivalries could be buried. In 1570 the Spanish and German Habsburgs were busy arranging marriages into French, English and Scottish royalty. The Guises hoped Margot would marry Henri, the young duke—who was caught in her bedroom one morning in spring. The most hopeless project of the time was between Elizabeth of England and Catherine's youngest son, the Due d'Alencon. When negotiations began in 1572, the Queen was entering her fortieth year while the mad, pockmarked duke was exactly half her age. The Montgomery family enjoyed greater success. Shortly after the Peace of Saint-Germain was signed his wife, Isabelle, travelled to England and negotiated the marriage of their daughter, Roberte, to the Vice Admiral of the English Fleet, Sir Arthur Champernowne, who also happened to be Governor of Jersey. The wedding was celebrated on 15 December 1571 in the Royal Chapel of Greenwich before the Virgin Queen.

  The marriage in December 1570 of King Charles IX to the exquisitely beautiful Elisabeth of Austria, daughter of the Emperor, enchanted the crowds in Paris and guaranteed the peace between the houses of Habsburg and Valois. But the critical marriage between Catholic and Huguenot, Margot and Henri de Navarre, did not look at all promising. Margot was revolted by the idea. She had been severely beaten up by her elder brothers, the King and the Due d'Anjou, for her flirtation with the Due de Guise. Henri de Navarre may have looked athletic but Margot had scented that, unwashed, he smelled of the southern sun and garlic.

  The events leading to the marriage did not augur well either. Jeanne d'Albret died in Paris on 4 June 1572 after exhausting herself in the preparations. There was talk in Paris of poisonings and murder; and thoughts of la sonoria were not far from the minds of those who governed. Others were worried. Paris, with its narrow unlit streets, its dead-end alleys, its walls and moats, along with its fanatically Catholic population seemed a perfect trap.

  The Huguenots rode straight into it. Henri, whose mother's death would make him King of Navarre, left his seat at Pau on 23 May 1572. On his way north he gathered around him all the major Protestant leaders of France. News of Jeanne's death did not delay the procession's progress. Montgomery left his estate of Ducey around 20 June and joined Henri at Blois from where a retinue of nine hundred Huguenot gentlemen, all dressed in black, headed directly for Paris. At the Porte Saint-Jacques the entire corps of the city's militia were there to greet them. They rode up a street called Hell to join Catherine's court at the Louvre. For the Catholic denizens this black procession must have been an awesome sight. For Montgomery, who rode immediately behind Navarre, the stifling summer's heat must have carried a few memories.

  There can be no doubt about Catherine's plans to murder the Huguenots, though just how extreme was her first intention will never be known. Her most recent biographer, Leonie Frieda, attempts to shift the blame for what followed to the bellicose Huguenot leader, Admiral de Coligny, who not only encouraged King Charles to invade the Spanish Netherlands but sent in a preliminary force of 5,000 on 17 July. The Spanish trapped and slaughtered most of them at Mons; only a few hundred escaped to tell their tale. In Catherine's view, a war with Spain would have destroyed her kingdom and delivered what remained to the Protestants. Blame a warmongering victim for the atrocities committed by the murderer: historically, this has never been a good argument— every modern tyrant has used it.

  An emergency meeting of the Royal Council on 10 August voted against an invasion of the Netherlands. Coligny's was the only dissenting vote. That is what sealed his fate. The next day Catherine and her soldier son, the Due d'Anjou, were plotting his assassination. The Huguenots rode straight into it. Henri, whose mother's death would make him King of Navarre, left his seat at Pau on 23 May 1572.

  Catherine's original project seems to have been simple: first the marriage and celebrations, which were to last until Thursday night, 21 August; then the murder, Friday morning, as Coligny stepped out of the first Council meeting after political business had been resumed. The Guises selected for the job their favourite murderer, a Gascon captain named Charles Louvier de Maurevert, who had shot his own tutor in the back. Anne d'Este, Duchesse de Nemours, whose first husband had been the assassinated Due de Guise, selected the house from where the shots would be fired: a nice quiet little place just north of the Église Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois, overlooking Rue des Pouillies, which Coligny would take to get back to his palatial lodging on the corner of Rue Béthisy (today at the level of No. 144, Rue de Rivoli). The Guise family tutor lived there. According to the memoirs of the Due d'Anjou this simple plot had been hatched several days before the marriage. But history is never simple.

  The rituals of marriage were pushed through with great haste. Margot became the King of Navarre's fiancee in a betrothal ceremony held at the Louvre on Saturday afternoon, 16 August. On Monday morning she was his queen.

  Montgomery had been refused the right to be present at court, so he took up residence on the left bank in the Faubourg Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Site of the greatest fair in Paris, Saint-Germain had become the quartier of the Huguenots, many of whom were recruited from the commercial classes. Indeed, this was where Calvinism had been invented before its master, Jean Calvin, took flight for Switzerland. Heretics lived here (it was not perhaps a pure accident that, four hundred years later, this would be the birthplace of Existentialism). It was the one part of town where Huguenots felt safe.

  Temperatures soared during that third week of August. The atmosphere was oppressive, muggy In the churches Catholic priests denounced the royal wedding and the presence of the anti-Christs within the city walls. There were fights in the streets, duels in the alleys. Montgomery, forbidden to attend court festivities, reported to Coligny all that he heard and saw in the streets: this was no town for gentlemen in black to go walking. Coligny thanked the Lieutenant General, replying that his
presence in the city was required to avert another civil war. But as a precaution he did ask Montgomery, on Thursday night, to accompany him to the King's Council the next morning. The alleys around the Louvre were very narrow.

  Coligny was still intent on pursuing his war in the Netherlands, but he got no support in the Council; the King, his only potential ally, was attending mass. The session ended a little before 11 a.m. Montgomery, with other attendants, was there at the exit. On their way across the courtyard they met the King on his way to a match of tennis; there was a bowing and a swirling of caps. Then they proceeded along Rue d'Autriche, down Rue des Pouillies to where it turned into Rue des Fossés-Saint-Germain. Maurevert was waiting with his twin-barrelled harquebus. He squeezed on one trigger—at that very instant Coligny bent down to tighten a leather lace that had loosened on one of his boots. Then he squeezed at the other—the second bullet nearly severed Coligny's left index finger and ran up his arm to lodge in his elbow. "You see how one treats decent men in France!" screamed the Admiral. "The shot came from that window. There's the smoke!"

  Montgomery and his men, after checking that the wound was not fatal, raced over to the house. They found the gun, still smoking, and two servants; but the culprit had made a quick getaway out the back by horse. They returned to their master and carried him to his home on Rue Bethisy At his bedside Montgomery proclaimed that he would put every Guise in town to death—he had little doubt who was responsible. Coligny calmed him down.

  The Spanish ambassador Diego de Zuñiga was present at the meal which Catherine had just begun when the news was brought of the attempted assassination. She remained expressionless, though secretly she must have realized that she and her whole family were now in mortal danger; she calmly got up and retired to her chamber. King Charles, unaware of his mother's intrigue, was still playing tennis. On hearing the news he squealed, 'Am I never to be left in peace? More trouble! More trouble!" He decided to go and see Coligny himself. When Catherine heard this, she hypocritically suggested that all the senior members of the court go over to Rue Béthisy that afternoon.

  Huguenots were already on the rampage. All the Guise properties were stoned. There was skirmishing in the streets and a murder or two. The court arrived at Rue Béthisy shortly after the royal surgeon Ambroise Pare—the same surgeon who had attended to Henri IPs fatal wounds-had succeeded in cutting off Coligny's finger, with scissors that "were not well sharpened," and retrieving the bullet from his elbow. Montgomery diplomatically took leave and Coligny stoically received his royal visitors. "You, Admiral, must support the pain while I, I have to support the shame," said a distraught King Charles bending over the bed. The King returned to the Louvre and ordered an immediate enquiry into the affair; by Saturday the complicity of the Guises was evident. The Queen Mother meanwhile determined, in the words of Anjou, to "finish the Admiral by whatever means we could"; on Saturday afternoon a "war council" of plotters met in the Tuileries Garden and determined to put an end to all the Huguenot leaders, so conveniently gathered in Paris. That evening the gates of the city were closed, chains were laid in the river to prevent boats from crossing the Seine and the Prévôt des Marchands ordered the city rnllitia to collect at the Hôtel de Ville to prevent pillaging should the mobs run amok that night.

  King Charles could not be kept out of the picture forever. Catherine asked the Comte de Retz to go to his study to explain. The King's dismay was great. He burst into tears, protesting that the Admiral loved him as he would his own son, but after Retz had noted that the lives of him and his family were in peril, he cried out, "Then kill them all! Kill them all!" The number of Huguenots to be murdered increased with every hour.

  Assassins were selected for specific victims. The young Due de Guise was responsible for putting Coligny to death. Captain Claude Marcel of the bourgeois militia had the task of killing Montgomery. The slaughter was to begin at 3 a.m. with Coligny's death and the sound of the grand bell at the Palais de Justice, the death knell, la sonoria. Sunday was 24 August, the day dedicated to the memory of Saint Bartholomew, one of the twelve apostles, the one flayed alive by the Armenians.

  On Saturday evening Montgomery, having supped in Saint-Germain, crossed the river to visit Coligny at Rue Bethisy. The Admiral was cheerful and seemed to be recuperating well from his wounds. Montgomery suggested that he and some of his soldier friends guard the building that night, for the assassins were still at large. One of the Huguenot captains assured him that there were already enough guards in the house. So Montgomery returned to Saint-Germain. He took his time. It was a beautiful summer's night when one could stare in wonder at the stars of heaven and down through the empty, quiet streets. A few of the Paris militia were on patrol; Montgomery noticed for the first time that they had white scarves tied around their left arms—no doubt to identify themselves, he thought. At Saint-Germain he paid a short visit to the English ambassador Sir Francis Walsingham, who lived in the neighbourhood. Walsingham was pleased with the rapid progress being made by the King's enquiry and was sure the guilty men would soon be rounded up. Montgomery got back to his own lodgings by the Tour de Nesle at around midnight. He was anxious and had difficulty sleeping.

  He was wakened at three or four in the morning by a stranger in his room. He reached for his sabre. "The whole town is in commotion," came a haggard reply; "they're Protestant bashing, I only escaped by diving into the river." The man ran to the window: "Sound the alarm! Sound the alarm!" Montgomery heard a bell tolling—it was actually Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois—the screams of men and women and the pattering bursts of harquebus shot. His first thought was to get to his colleagues on the other side of the river. He and a few friends managed to find a small dinghy and get out to mid-river where they were turned back by a rain of gunfire. Many of his colleagues, he realized, must already be dead. It was a question of saving his own skin.

  Coligny had died bravely. Hearing the commotion below as Guise's men forced their way into the house, Coligny knew his time had come. He told the men about him, "For a long time now I have been preparing for death, save yourselves for you cannot save me." And pausing, "I will commend my soul to God's mercy "The door, blocked by a chest of drawers, was forced open; a rough Swiss guardsman thrust his sword into Coligny's breast, beat him on the head and then threw him through the window. Coligny's fingers were seen grabbing at a ledge before he fell two storeys at the feet of the Due de Guise, who kicked the corpse with delight. The Duke then galloped about the Louvre—where Huguenots were dragged into the courtyard and impaled on Swiss pikes—until he heard the bad news: Montgomery had got away Guise joined the pursuit.

  Montgomery and his companions had charged through a line of irulitia blocking the road at Vaugirard and continued west through the countryside, passing Issy-les-Mouilneaux, Saint-Cloud and the Versailles Forest. Guise and his men gave up the chase at Montfort-l'Amaury Montgomery and company were hiding among the trees. At the forest crossroads of Bel-air they separated; country ramblers today will find a stone monument there, known as "Montgomery's Cross."

  In Paris the slaughter continued for at least three days. As many as three thousand perished, many of them not even Huguenots. Mass murder spread into the provinces, finally petering out in Provence in October. How many died in those three months will always be one of the mysteries of history; estimates vary from ten thousand to thirty thousand. "But yet the King to destroy and utterly root out of his Realm all those of that Religion that we profess," grieved Queen Elizabeth of England, "and to desire us in marriage for his brother, must needs seem unto us at the first a thing very repugnant." All the senior officers of the Huguenot forces had been wiped out, save one, Sieur Gabriel de Montgomery.

  Just as he had done after the jousting accident, he fled to Jersey But this time he did not get the support of Elizabeth. The Queen, despite the "thing very repugnant," not only maintained relations with Catherine's court but, incredibly, continued to negotiate a marriage with Catherine's revolting youngest son, the Due d'Alen
con. At home she had started to move against Puritanism and "prophesyings." Abroad she had to deal with the consequences of Catholic terrorism, not in France but in the Netherlands, which the Spanish were subjecting to a regime of mass starvation and slaughter. An unexpected offshoot of this was a rapid rise in Protestant piracy in the Channel and the Atlantic; William the Silent's "Sea Beggars" were using fifty- or sixty-ton man-o'-wars to rob boats of their cargo and murder their crews—and unfortunately many of their victims were English. Elizabeth closed all English ports to the Dutch privateers and threatened to form an alliance against them with Philip of Spain, the Holy Roman Emperor, Maximilian, and the German princes. So the pirates had to go elsewhere for support. And it was obvious where: the French Huguenot ports. And who would be their principal collaborator? Sieur de Montgomery at his base in Jersey.

  There was another "Flight from Egypt" on to La Rochelle. Charles IX declared war on the port on 5 November 1572 and sent his brother, the Due d'Anjou, with an army of 5,000 to introduce its inhabitants to a little Spanish treatment. After five months of siege the town showed no sign of yielding so Anjou attempted a frontal assault, which cost his army many lives. Then, in April 1573, Montgomery and a fleet of international pirates appeared on the horizon; they took on Anjou's naval force and nearly lost their flagship, the Primrose, in the process— Montgomery did not make a very talented buccaneer. But he did manage to seize the offshore islands of Belle-Île and Îie d'Yeu, which made it impossible for the French royal fleet to supply their army: it was Anjou's army that was starved out of action, not La Rochelle, which, thanks to Montgomery, received ample food and booty estimated at two million gold écus. Catherine sued for another peace, granting the same religious liberties as all the previous ones. Montgomery set sail for the Isle of Wight, where he anchored on 26 May.