9: Part 1: Chapter IX.
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The state of international relations in the sixteenth century is hardly
conceivable at this day. The Puritans of England and the Huguenots of
France regarded Spain as their natural enemy, and on the high seas and
in the British Channel they joined hands with godless freebooters to
rifle her ships, kill her sailors, or throw them alive into the sea.
Spain on her side seized English Protestant sailors who ventured into
her ports, and burned them as heretics, or consigned them to a living
death in the dungeons of the Inquisition. Yet in the latter half of the
century these mutual outrages went on for years while the nations
professed to be at peace. There was complaint, protest, and occasional
menace, but no redress, and no declaration of war.
Contemporary writers of good authority have said that, when the news of
the massacres in Florida reached the court of France, Charles the Ninth
and Catherine de Medicis submitted to the insult in silence; but
documents lately brought to light show that a demand for redress was
made, though not insisted on. A cry of horror and execration had risen
from the Huguenots and many even of the Catholics had echoed it; yet the
perpetrators of the crime, and not its victims, were the first to make
complaint. Philip the Second resented the expeditions of Ribaut and
Laudonniere as an invasion of the American domains of Spain, and ordered
D'Alava, his ambassador at Paris, to denounce them to the French King.
Charles, thus put on the defensive, replied, that the country in
question belonged to France, having been discovered by Frenchmen a
hundred years before, and named by them Terre des Bretons. This alludes
to the tradition that the Bretons and Basques visited the northern
coasts of America before the voyage of Columbus. In several maps of the
sixteenth century the region of New England and the neighboring states
and provinces is set down as Terre des Bretons, or Tierra de los
Bretones, and this name was assumed by Charles to extend to the Gulf of
Mexico, as the name of Florida was assumed by the Spaniards to extend to
the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and even beyond it. Philip spurned the claim,
asserted the Spanish right to all Florida, and asked whether or not the
followers of Ribaut and Laudonniere had gone thither by authority of
their King. The Queen Mother, Catherine de Medicis, replied in her son's
behalf, that certain Frenchmen had gone to a country called Terre aux
Bretons, discovered by French subjects, and that in so doing they had
been warned not to encroach on lands belonging to the King of Spain. And
she added, with some spirit, that the Kings of France were not in the
habit of permitting themselves to be threatened.
Philip persisted in his attitude of injured innocence; and Forquevaulx,
French ambassador at Madrid, reported that, as a reward for murdering
French subjects, Menéndez was to receive the title of Marquis of
Florida. A demand soon followed from Philip, that Admiral Coligny should
be punished for planting a French colony on Spanish ground, and thus
causing the disasters that ensued. It was at this time that the first
full account of the massacres reached the French court, and the Queen
Mother, greatly moved, complained to the Spanish ambassador, saying that
she could not persuade herself that his master would refuse reparation.
The ambassador replied by again throwing the blame on Coligny and the
Huguenots; and Catherine de Medicis returned that, Huguenots or not, the
King of Spain had no right to take upon himself the punishment of French
subjects. Forquevaulx was instructed to demand redress at Madrid; but
Philip only answered that he was very sorry for what had happened, and
again insisted that Coligny should be punished as the true cause of it.
Forquevaulx, an old soldier, remonstrated with firmness, declared that
no deeds so execrable had ever been committed within his memory, and
demanded that Menéndez and his followers should be chastised as they
deserved. The King said that he was sorry that the sufferers chanced to
be Frenchmen, but, as they were pirates also, they ought to be treated
as such. The ambassador replied, that they were no pirates, since they
bore the commission of the Admiral of France, who in naval affairs
represented the King; and Philip closed the conversation by saying that
he would speak on the subject with the Duke of Alva. This was equivalent
to refusal, for the views of the Duke were well known; "and so, Madame,"
writes the ambassador to the Queen Mother, "there is no hope that any
reparation will be made for the aforesaid massacre."
On this, Charles wrote to Forquevaulx "It is my will that you renew your
complaint, and insist urgently that, for the sake of the union and
friendship between the two crowns, reparation be made for the wrong done
me and the cruelties committed on my subjects, to which I cannot submit
without too great loss of reputation." And, jointly with his mother, he
ordered the ambassador to demand once more that Menéndez and his men
should be punished, adding, that he trusts that Philip will grant
justice to the King of France, his brother-in-law and friend, rather
than pardon a gang of brigands. "On this demand," concludes Charles,
"the Sieur de Forquevaulx will not fail to insist, be the answer what it
may, in order that the King of Spain shall understand that his Majesty
of France has no less spirit than his predecessors to repel an insult."
The ambassador fulfilled his commission, and Philip replied by referring
him to the Duke of Alva. "I have no hope," reports Forquevaulx, "that
the Duke will give any satisfaction as to the massacre, for it was he
who advised it from the first." A year passed, and then he reported that
Menéndez had returned from Florida, that the King had given him a warm
welcome, and that his fame as a naval commander was such that he was
regarded as a sort of Neptune.
In spite of their brave words, Charles and the Queen Mother tamely
resigned themselves to the affront, for they would not quarrel with
Spain. To have done so would have been to throw themselves into the arms
of the Protestant party, adopt the principle of toleration, and save
France from the disgrace and blight of her later years. France was not
so fortunate. The enterprise of Florida was a national enterprise,
undertaken at the national charge, with the royal commission, and under
the royal standard; and it had been crushed in time of peace by a power
professing the closest friendship. Yet Huguenot influence had prompted
and Huguenot hands executed it. That influence had now ebbed low;
Coligny's power had waned; Charles, after long vacillation, was leaning
more and more towards the Guises and the Catholics, and fast subsiding
into the deathly embrace of Spain, for whom, at last, on the bloody eve
of St. Bartholomew, he was to become the assassin of his own best
subjects.
In vain the relatives of the slain petitioned him for redress; and had
the honor of the nation rested in the keeping of its King, the blood of
hundreds of murdered Frenchmen would have cried from the ground in vain.
But it was not to be so. Injured humanity found an avenger, and outraged
France a champion. Her chivalrous annals may be searched in vain for a
deed of more romantic daring than the vengeance of Dominique de
Gourgues.
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