Martyrs and Murderers: The Guise Family and the Making of Europe (38 page)

Guise himself pointed the finger at his father’s old foe, the Duke of Alva. Was Maurevert ingratiating himself rather than executing a direct order?

Maurevert’s story is worth telling because it answers the question why so many Frenchmen wanted Coligny dead. It begins in the Brie, a region whose proximity to the city and fertile pastures made it particularly attractive to Paris’s nouveaux riches. There were social tensions as the wealthy newcomers jostled with established families for power. More significantly, the local gentry were strongly attracted to Protestantism. Their high profile in the cause can be gauged by the trip made by Charles IX in July 1571 to the château of Lumigny in the Brie for a secret meeting with the Protestants. The hostess, a rich widow called Marie de Luzé, was a senior figure in the Protestant leadership and had only just returned from England, where she had been kept hostage as security for money borrowed by the Huguenots.

But being a Protestant in the Brie was not like being a Protestant elsewhere in France. Many were servants of the Guise and traditional family and neighbourhood ties were thrown into confusion by the high rate of conversion, causing a large number of internecine family feuds. The civil war in the Brie had a particularly brutal character.

Marie de Luzé personified these conflicts. Marie’s step-father was a senior Guise counsellor. But she was a Protestant and her husband was a senior Protestant captain during the civil wars. In 1569 Maurevert was serving as an officer in his cavalry company. One day on campaign, the captain had to dismount in order to do ‘his necessities’ and he wandered off from his troop. Maurevert followed him and shot him in the back. He rode off with the body to the Catholic camp.

His motive for treachery was money: a price had recently been put on the heads of the Protestant leadership. The Duke of Anjou gave him 2,000 crowns and, in an act that showed chivalry to have become utterly debased, the collar of the Order of Saint Michel.

Maurevert therefore already had one paid assassination under his belt when he took it upon himself, or was contracted, to kill Coligny.

He was descended from a wealthy Parisian family and had been raised as a page in the household of François, Duke of Guise. He was probably still in Guise service in September 1561, because he made a great marriage to Marguerite Acquino, the daughter of Neapolitan exiles and supporters of the Angevin cause, soon after which he converted to Protestantism. The marriage was childless and at her death in 1579 she bequeathed her property and titles in France to Henri de Guise. 30 This may have been gratitude for longstanding protection: at the time of her marriage not only was her husband already in trouble with the law but her uncle, the Bishop of Troyes, had been forced to resign his see after presenting himself to the Reformed Church in the town and asking to be its Pastor. The subsequent investigation by the Roman Inquisition was a serious affair for a family with interests in Naples.

Even by the standards of the age, Maurevert was a violent man. He murdered one of his cousins in 1574 and lost an arm in an encounter with a nephew in 1579. He knew that he was a marked man and was accompanied everywhere by armed heavies and took to wearing chain mail under his clothes in case of attack. He needed protection and this came in the form of the Guise. In April 1571 he signed over all his goods to his half-brother, Pierre de Foissy. By cutting out the lawful heirs of his inheritance Maurevert was announcing a break with the rest of his family—no wonder he soon came under attack from his cousin and his nephew. Maurevert was making a statement the implications of which could only be fully understood by people from the Brie: the Foissy were the most important of all Guise servants in the region. But even Guise protection was not enough.

His past caught up with him on 14 April 1583 when Marie de Luzé’s son finally cornered him in Paris and had his revenge. Maurevert died ‘regretted by none, hated by all’.

To sum up: by 1572 Maurevert was an outsider, who severed ties to one side of the family only to betray the other side when he returned to the Catholic fold. His marginal status made him the perfect assassin.

After Coligny’s murder he became a pariah. Wherever he turned up people scattered, according to Brantôme, as if the arrival of the plague had been announced. Maurevert pulled the trigger; but he was not alone. He was a desperate, hunted man, whose sole prospect of a career depended on his ability to kill before he was killed. Maurevert relied on the Guise for protection, but this did not come without favours in return, and meant he could never speak out or tell the truth about the conspiracy to kill Coligny. Maurevert was the perfect patsy.

But here the evidence of a lone desperado, driven to kill for existential or financial reasons breaks down. The investigation that followed the attempted assassination revealed that the plot went to the heart of the Guise inner sanctum. The house from which the arquebus was fired was owned by a Parisian servant of the Guise, François de Pilla, whose career really took off
after
the assassination. In early 1574 ‘he had charge of the affairs of Monseigneur the Duke of Guise and by 1580 was superintendent of the ducal finances’. 31 Evidence for his involvement is however circumstantial. After all, in August 1572 he was out of town and the house was being used by the servants of Anne d’Este. More significantly Maurevert had accomplices who helped him to plan the operation. A lookout post was prepared: the trellised window overlooking the rue des Poulies was hung with garments in order to obscure those watching Coligny’s movements.

The getaway was well planned. Two of Coligny’s men gave hot pursuit, but the assassin changed mounts at Charenton, crossed the river Seine and made for the château of Chailly, near Fontainebleau, where his pursuers had to give up chase. ‘The drawbridge being raised and the walls filled with arquebuses.’ The château belonged to Jean de la Boissière. 32 La Boissière was the most important man in our story and has good claim to be the mastermind behind the assassination.

He had been a senior counsellor since at least 1550, when he was master of François de Guise’s household. In 1556, Guise procured him a post in the royal household and he also became , Master of the Royal Wolf Hunt. Like Pilla, he was now a senior counsellor to Henri de Guise. 33 The counsel they gave to their young charge was informed by their own experience of civil war:

many of the colleagues, kinsmen and friends who had shared with them the successes of the 1550s had betrayed the family and its followers in joining the Protestant cause.34 The current state of research does not permit us to state with any certainty whether Henri de Guise had ultimate responsibility for ordering Coligny’s assassination. His retinue was full of retainers who had a motive, thought the risks acceptable, and were willing to do the dirty work themselves.

No orders were necessary. Civil war had overturned old certainties and hierarchy and lesser gentlemen could act autonomously: faith required them to do so. Maurevert and his accomplices were quite capable of destroying the hated peace of their own volition. They were fulfilling their duty to the memory of the dead duke, but their motives were also personal. By killing Coligny they were taking revenge on those who had betrayed them and done wrong to their families.

* * * *

Coligny’s political position, which had become so precarious since his determination to march on Brussels, was given an immense boost by the shooting. This was why he was determined to remain in the city, despite pleas from his supporters to retire to safety. At 2 pm Charles IX hurried to see the admiral in his bed and promised that the investigation would leave no stone unturned. Anjou’s guard were stationed around the admiral’s lodging. The investigation could only work to the advantage of Coligny: it would unmask his enemies and advance his plans for an invasion of the Low Countries. He demanded that Guise be arrested. Charles’s verbal assurances were not enough for many around the admiral. They were angry and they were frightened. Some of the language used when addressing the king was threatening; some hotheads went as far as giving the king an ultimatum. Many Catholics feared Protestant reprisals. On the afternoon of Saturday, 23 August, an informal meeting of Catherine’s faction was held at which Anjou was also present. The talk was of impending civil war, since the current investigation was likely to implicate any privy councillors involved in a conspiracy. It was suggested that now, while the Protestant leadership was gathered together, was the time to strike. A quick strike would entail a minimum of violence and obviate the need for civil war. For Louis Gonzaga, Duke of Nevers, it was not a matter of faith, but rather about curbing Coligny’s ambition. All that was required was a list of targets and a coordinated plan of attack.

At around 11 pm a second meeting took place, this time with the king present, in which the urgent need to slay the hydra of civil war was put to him. It was agreed to proceed. We cannot be sure that Henri de Guise was present. At midday the duke and his uncle, Claude d’Aumale, had been preparing to leave the city as tensions mounted. They did not do so. To leave would have been an admission of guilt. It is possible they were summoned to remain. The duke was certainly present at the third and final meeting of the day which took place in the Louvre at around midnight—he did not have to walk far from the Hôtel d’Aumale, which was round the corner. This was a council of war at which the dukes of Guise, Aumale, Angoulême, Anjou, and Montpensier drew up the definitive list of targets—about seventy men in all—and divided up their men into assassination squads. Guise would take care of Coligny before crossing over to the Left Bank and striking at targets in the faubourg Saint-Germain.

Another detachment was earmarked for the rue Saint-Honoré. The Duke of Montpensier would proceed with the killing in the Louvre and be responsible for the task of forcing Navarre and Condé to attend Mass on pain of death. At this juncture a fateful decision was made, which would send the clinical strike spiralling of control.

The former and current mayors of the city were summoned and told that the city militia was to be mobilized to maintain order. It was a highly risky policy. The rationale among the military men was simple:

Paris and its 300,000 citizens were notoriously difficult to control.

But the militia was a recent creation, formed during the tumultuous days after the Massacre of Wassy. It had never proved an unqualified success as a peacekeeping force. Many of the 30,000 militiamen were ordinary folk who begrudged bearing arms, and this allowed the fanatics to take the lead. The Paris militia had always been keener on hunting heretics than on repressing Catholic sedition. There is good evidence to suggest that radical Catholics had infiltrated and were over-represented among the ranks of the junior officers. When they were informed that the king was under threat from the Huguenots and that they were to stand to the following day, many saw it as an opportunity not to be missed. The royalists hurriedly stitched white crosses to their hats or put on white armbands: anyone not wearing this insignia was a potential enemy.

Guise had no idea of the impending catastrophe as he mustered his troops at the Hôtel d’Aumale in the early hours of the 24th. As around sixty men, including his uncle Claude and the Duke of Angoulême, prepared to ride the short distance to the rue de Béthisy, he assured them that it was at ‘the king’s command’. In the duke’s mind, he was dispensing justice. The assault began just before dawn.

Anjou’s guard withdrew and the admiral’s bodyguard were easily overcome. Coligny ordered his household to escape across the roof.

The first man to burst into the upstairs room was a German, Johann von Janowitz, called Besme, who was married to the Cardinal of Lorraine’s bastard daughter: ‘Oh Admiral, Admiral, You sleep too deeply...Are you not the Admiral?’ Coligny replied: ‘Yes, I am him.

But you are too young a soldier to speak thus to an old captain. At least have respect for my age.’ The last words he heard were: ‘I am old enough to put you to rest.’35 Coligny’s body was then pushed out of the window and fell onto the courtyard below.

What happened next is a matter of some debate. There are claims that the corpse, in a feature common to contemporary sectarian and ethnic conflicts, was mutilated. Protestants claimed that Guise wiped blood from Coligny’s face and then pushed it with his boot saying, ‘Venomous beast no longer will you spit your venom.'36 One story has it that Coligny’s head was then severed and sent to the Queen Mother, who then had it embalmed for presentation to the Pope. All these stories wished to associate the Duke of Guise with the mob; to show that the vendetta and the Massacre were one and the same thing. But these actions are not consistent with the conventions of aristocratic revenge, nor with the duke’s subsequent behaviour. One Protestant, Jean de Mergey, who witnessed the scene, does not make mention of mutiliation and was certain that Guise did not get off his horse. It seems more likely, as Sassetti claims, that once he identified the corpse, he prevented his men from plunging their daggers into it, ‘saying enough to the poor man’. The duke then left the scene and the corpse became a plaything to the mob, who cut off the hands, genitals and head, which was then sold for ten crowns to an Italian gentleman.

The trunk was dragged around the streets for the next three days (as they had done to his effigy three years before). It was then displayed like that of a common criminal on the gibbet at Montfaucon, where the crowds flocked to see it. The vendetta was over; the Massacre was about to begin.

As dawn broke, residents in the neighbourhood, frightened by rumours of a Protestant rising, were stirred into action by the commotion in the rue de Béthisy. Alarm bells were sounded. Terror and confusion spread like a brushfire throughout the city. A similar episode had occurred in 1567 when the Huguenots had set light to windmills on the edge of Paris—even the Venetian ambassador had felt the need to buckle on his armour. As the duke and his men remounted and headed for their next mission across the river, he may have inadvertently set the touch paper to the powder keg, shouting words of encouragement to his men: ‘Let us go on to the others, for the king commands it’, which he repeated in a loud voice, ‘the king commands it; it is his will; it is his express commandment.’37 These words transformed a private feud into a public duty. It was precisely the order that many militiamen were waiting for. Instead of standing guard for the aristocrats, they turned imitator and formed their own death squads. With shouts of ‘Kill, Kill’, the time had come to clear God’s city entirely of the Huguenot pestilence. The murder of the women and children is described in more detail than that of the men.