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<h2> CHAPTER IX. </h2>
<h3> 1565-1567. </h3>
<p>CHARLES IX. AND PHILLIP II.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Philip persisted in his attitude of injured innocence; and Forquevaulx,
French ambassador at Madrid, reported that, as a reward for murdering
French subjects, Menendez 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.</p>
<p>Forquevaulx, an old soldier, remonstrated with firmness, declared that no
deeds so execrable had ever been committed within his memory, and demanded
that Menendez 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."</p>
<p>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 Menendez 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 Menendez 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
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