The Memoirs of the Duke of Sully: Prime-minister to Henry the Great, Volume 1E. Earle, 1817 - France |
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admiral affairs afterwards amongst Anjou arms army attack baron battle besieged Bethune Biron brother cardinal of Bourbon Catherine Catholics cause Cayet Charles commanded conduct count of Soissons court crown danger death declared duke of Anjou duke of Guise duke of Maïenne duke of Nemours duke of Sully endeavoured enemy enemy's Epernon favour force gave give governor Henry Henry III Henry IV historians honour Huguenots hundred horse Joyeuse king of Navarre king's kingdom league lord Lorrain majesty Mante marshal marshal de Biron Matthieu Memoirs messieurs Monsieur negociations never night obliged occasion opinion Paris party person present prince of Condé prince of Parma princess Protestants queen queen-mother received religion resolved retreat Rosny Rouen says seized sent siege soldiers soon Spaniards suffered thing thither Thou thought thousand tion took town treaty troops Villars Villeroy viscount whole wounded
Popular passages
Page 30 - I know not what has happened to me these two or three days past ; but I feel my mind and body as much at enmity with each other, as if I was seized with a fever ; sleeping or waking, the murdered Huguenots seem ever present to my eyes, with ghastly faces, and weltering in blood. I wish the innocent and helpless had been spared...
Page 25 - I should in this place enlarge upon the number, the quality, the virtues, and great talents of those who were inhumanly murdered on this horrible day, as well in Paris as in every part of the kingdom : I should mention at least the ignominious treatment, the fiendlike cruelty, and savage insults, these miserable victims suffered from their butchers, and which in death were a thousand times more terrible than death itself.
Page lxxviii - Bearn ; it must be confessed that he is a charming youth. At thirteen years of age he has all the riper qualities of eighteen or nineteen ; he is agreeable, polite, obliging, and behaves to every one with an air so easy and engaging, that wherever he is there is always a crowd. He mixes in conversation like a wise and prudent man...
Page 25 - I prefer the honour of the nation to the satisfying a malignant pleasure, which many persons would take, in lengthening out a recital, wherein might be found the names of those who were so lost to humanity as to dip their hands in the blood of their fellow-citizens, and even of their own relations.
Page 249 - ... continued half an hour with equal animosity on both sides. We used our utmost endeavours to gain the brink, and the besieged repulsed us several times. I was twice thrown to the ground, my halbert broke, and my armour loosened or broken in pieces. Marignan, [his secretary,] whom I had obtained permission to keep near me, raised me, put my armour again in order, and gave me his halbert. The trench was at last carried by main force, and we cleared it of more than fifty dead or dying enemies, whom...
Page 28 - Princes to take their swords with them; who, as they passed, beheld several of their gentlemen massacred before their eyes. The King waited for them and received them with a countenance and eyes, in which fury was visibly painted ; he ordered them, with oaths and blasphemies, which were familiar with him, to quit a religion that had been only taken up, he said, to serve as a cloak to their rebellion.
Page 27 - Conde, two hours before day, by a great number of soldiers, who rushed boldly into a chamber in the Louvre where they lay, and insolently commanded them to dress themselves and attend the king. They would not suffer the two princes to take their swords with them, who, as they passed, beheld several of their gentlemen* massacred before their eyes. The king waited for them, and received them with a countenance and...
Page 255 - ... to Sully, (but he keeps no dates,) " Villars made a sally at the head of a hundred horse, with whom he overthrew the guard ; and would have been the cause of much greater confusion, if the king, armed only with a cuirass, had not ran thither, followed by the baron de Biron, an English officer (whose name I have forgot), Grillon, and some others who were about him : these three gentlemen especially gained immortal glory there. Grillon's arm was broke by a shot from an arquebuse. As for the king,...
Page 30 - It was not long before Charles felt the most violent remorse for the barbarous action to which they had forced him to give the sanction of his name and authority. From the evening of the 24th of August, he was observed to groan involuntarily at the recital of a thousand strokes of cruelty, which every one boasted of in his presence.
Page 250 - Yi liars did not expect to have seen his outworks carried in so short a time. When he was told it, and that it was the king himself who had conducted the enterprise, ' By heavens!' said he, ' this prince deserves a thousand crowns for his valour. I am sorry that, by a better religion, he does not inspire us with as strong an inclination to gain him new ones as to detain him from his own ; but it shall never be said, that I have failed to attempt in my own person what a great king has performed in...