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The
Blessed House of Coligny
And they
overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and
they loved not their lives unto the death. (Re
12:11 AV)
“After his body had been treated to all sorts
of insults, they threw it into a neighboring stable, and finally cut off
his head, which they sent to Rome.[1]
They also shamefully mutilated him, and dragged his body through the streets to
the bank of the Seine….
“As some children were in the act of throwing
the body into the river, it was dragged out and placed upon the gibbet
of Montfaucon, where it hung by the feet in chains of iron; and then they built
a fire beneath, by which he was burned without being consumed; so that he was,
so to speak, tortured with all the elements, since he was killed upon the
earth, thrown into
the water, placed upon the fire, and finally put to hang in the air.”[2]
Thus ended the life of Gaspard
de Coligny,[3] the
great French Admiral and hero of the French Reformation on August 24, 1572, the
date of the infamous St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre.
There was a day when almost the whole of
evangelical Christianity knew the stories of great heroes like Coligny. Their stories were taught in American public
schools and recited from pulpits. But a
new day has arrived, a day when all must pretend that every
religious opinion is of equal value to every other--a day when doubt
masquerades as humility and skepticism wears the face of tolerance. “I would not die for what I believe, for I
might be wrong,” one fainting youth wrote on his blog, thinking he was
very wise and humble, but knowing that he was very politically correct. Coligny was made of much sterner stuff.
How
had France come to a day such as this?
What had fanned the fires of religious hatred so that in one day, August
24, 1572, the brightest and
best of her citizens could be slaughtered?
What was Coligny’s great crime?
He
was a Bible believer who read the Bible and the teachings of an expatriated
Frenchman in Geneva and was a leader of French Calvinists known as
Huguenots. It is a pity that
there are so few Christians today who even know his name.
God,
however, does not forget the blood of his martyrs. Revenge is forbidden to the people of God, and that not because
vengeance is wrong in itself, but because God has reserved it for Himself. “Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather
give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is
mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.” (Ro 12:19 AV) There is nothing more certain in the Bible than that the Lord
hates the “proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood.” (Pr
6:17 AV) The Lord warns us to “be
clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the
humble.” (1Pe 5:5 AV)
It
is not for us to know the secret things of God; it is enough to know that
we may truly know His character from Scripture. Knowing this we may discern His footprints in history and with
some certainty predict something of the future. As Beza said of Calvin, who predicted the awful events that would
overtake France,
Do
you ask,
whence came that prediction? Certainly
not from that most deceptive and profane divination of Astrology, which he of
all others used to condemn from GOD’s Word, but from those very Prophetic Books
which he was then interpreting. Since,
therefore he saw
the same evils prevalent in France, on account of which God was accustomed to
chastise His people most severely, and to take vengeance on his enemies with
just penalties, why should he not pronounce that the same inflictions hung over
the impenitent?[4]
D.
Gaspard de Coligny was born in 1519 to one of France’s most illustrious
families, one that had served the government for more than three hundred
years. One brother became a cardinal
in the church and another a Colonel.
All three brothers at length declared for the
Reformation and suffered for their faith.
Gaspard rose to become Grand Admiral of France, one of her most
distinguished military heroes. His
reputation was gained at the expense of the followers of the Reformation, for
his family was most
Catholic and he grew up in that faith.
His military genius attracted the attention of King Henry II and he was
very close to that monarch. Under the
orders of Henry II, Gaspard launched voyages to the New World, to Brazil and
Florida.
Gaspard
at
length took possession of the family estate and the title Seigneur of
Chatillon. He married Charlotte De La
Val and they began to read the writings of the Reformation, particularly those
of John Calvin from Geneva. They became
convinced of the evangelical
truth and the Admiral became one of Europe’s staunchest defenders of the
Reformation. His children by
Charlotte were the only ones who survived St. Bartholomew Day.
Coligny joined with Calvin in 1555 to bring
missionaries to newly-
attempted
French
colonies in Brazil and Florida. Peter
Richer and William Chartier were the first Protestant missionaries there.[5] Coligny, like Peter Minuit who had
compassion for those persecuted in the Palatinate, hoped to secure a refuge for
French Protestants
being persecuted in France. His name
appears again and again in the history of that era and the eras that followed,
for in his descendants and influence Coligny would continue to affect the
events of Europe. [Among others, Calvin’s introductions to his commentaries
written during this time and his letters to contemporaries provide a rich
source.] Persecution would snuff out
Coligny’s family in France, but his descendants would live on and contribute to
the Reformed faith in other countries for many years. The spiritual poverty of France would be the
enrichment of Holland, Germany, England, and America.
The tragedy of St. Bartholomew’s Day must be
seen against the larger background of the rivalry and struggle for power
between two powerful families of France, Montmorency and Guise. It was said that the Guise’s would have no
equals, and that the Montmorencys would have no superiors.[6] Between them stood the house of Bourbon and
Diana of Poitiers, the mistress of Henry II.
One
of the great mysteries of history is the friendship of Gaspard Coligny to
King Henry II. Before he became king
the Dauphin showed a marked attachment to the young future Lord of
Chatillon. The favor of the king never
left Coligny, even as the leader of the Protestant opposition. This friendship for a time tipped the balance
in favor of the Montmorencys. Anne of
Montmorency, the uncle of Coligny, was Grand Marshall and Constable of France. The success of the Montmorencys in a number
of military adventures was the despair of the Guises who hoped and
plotted for the defeat of France in order to advance their own political
agenda.
The Guises were led by two fanatical Roman
Catholic brothers, the Duke of Guise [Francis] and the Cardinal Lorraine
[Charles], who had gathered influence to themselves in the
court of Henry II [1519-1559] and his wife Catherine of the infamous Medicis of
Italy. Henry inconveniently died
before the plans of the brothers and Catherine had come to fruition, but they tried
to make the best of a bad situation by arranging the marriage of the fifteen- year
old heir, Francis, to their niece, Mary Queen of Scots. Francis II was crowned, but did not live
long, and while he did was completely under the control of Mary, who in turn
was the pawn of the Guises. Upon his
death, instead of a life of ease in France, Mary chose to return to Scotland to
be bested by John Knox and would find death at the mercies of Queen Elizabeth
in England, and
bequeath her son James I to the Stuart line of English Protestant monarchs.
The House of Guise was primarily an
international and ecclesiastical house, their power centered in three
cardinalates and the two Queen Marys, of England and Scotland.[7]
The
French defeat that the Guise’s hoped for finally came at the hands of the
Spanish
and Philip II in 1557 at the battle of San Quentin. Anne of Montmorency and Coligny were both captured and
imprisoned, Coligny in Savoy, the
ally of the Spanish. Many have wondered
if this was the spiritual turning point in Coligny, opening his soul to the
teachings of the Reformation.
The
Guise brothers, stirred by the Queen Mother Catherine, who
served as regent for Charles IX,
determined to stamp out the Reformed faith from France. But Charles was not easy to convince. Coligny gained influence at the
court of Charles who hoped to gain a workable compromise to the religious
quarrels in France. The French
Protestants, known as Huguenots, contended on every level. They used diplomacy, armed conflict,
theology and philosophy, influence of high noblemen like L’Hopital and
Coligny. There were hundreds of
thousands of Huguenots in France and their influence was increasing by leaps
and bounds. On one occasion Coligny
said he would be able to get fifty thousand signatures in one day in Normandy
alone. Beza had numerous
followers near Paris and L’Hopital gave Catherine a list of 2150 Reformed
Congregations, each under a separate pastor.
He claimed that the number of the Reformed was at least one-third the
number of Romanists.
Catherine
and the brothers knew
that something had to be done and what was done was bloody. She well knew the arts of winning by
compromise and sought to do so with a great conference at Paris in 1560
attended by leading Protestants, but this was sabotaged by the Guises and
persecution
and wars broke out. Beza said that more
than three thousand Protestants were “stabbed, stoned, beheaded, strangled,
burned, buried alive, starved, drowned, suffocated.” The Duke of Guise blamed the Calvinists for the failure of the
council and turned
to war, winning city after city from the Huguenots, until he met his death at
Orleans in 1663, the same year that saw the death of Calvin and the retirement
of Coligny to his estates at Chatillon.
The
flashpoint came with the sudden death of the Duke of Guise. His family suspected poison, a not uncommon
way of dying in those days. The
innocence of Coligny in the death of the Duke has been thoroughly established
by history, but the Catholics unjustly blamed Coligny and the Huguenots. Catherine and the Cardinal persuaded the
king [Charles IX] to a final solution.
The Spanish Duke of Alva gained influence over the Queen and her Council
and persecution and civil war broke out.
Coligny came out of retirement to conduct the battle of Moncontour,
which
was
lost October 1, 1569, and Coligny was severely wounded. An attempt was made on his life under the
orders of Catherine, resulting in injuries at the very palace of the king. Coligny was now a marked man, although the
King and Queen visited him with condolences and smiles.
And
so the determined deed was done.
Coligny’s corpse was given up to public desecration and blood ran in the
street of Paris for seven long days.
The king attended public prayers with his family to give thanks to God
for the success of
their policy. The blood of the
Huguenots not only stained the streets of Paris but defiled the land throughout
France. Merle d’Aubigne
recorded it years later:
When
the day of St. Bartholomew saw the streets of the capital of the Valois run
with blood,
— when ruffians glutted their savage passions on the corpse of that best and
greatest of Frenchmen, Coligny — immense was the enthusiasm at Rome, and a
fierce shout of exultation rang through the pontifical city. Wishing
to perpetuate the glory of the massacre of the Huguenots, the pope ordered a
medal to be struck, representing that massacre and bearing the device: Hugonotorum
strages. The officers of the Roman court still sell (as
we know personally) this medal to all who desire to carry away some remembrance
of their city. Those times are remote; milder manners prevail, but it is the
duty of Protestantism to remind the world of the use made by the court of Rome,
on emerging from the middle ages, of that preeminence
in
catholic countries, which she contends belongs to her always, and which she is
still ready to claim ‘with the greatest vigor.’ Resistance to this cruel
preeminence cost the Reformation torrents of the purest blood; and it is this
blood which gives us the right to protest against it.[8]
It
is well beyond the scope of this work to explore the intricacies of the clash
of interests in Coligny’s France or to describe the brutality of Bartholomew’s
Day. That has been done in a previous
issue of Leben. Emotions and hatred ran high. Enemies were demonized and the voices of
moderation were few. The sudden death
of Henry II gave the catholic Guise’s what appeared to be the opportunity to
“save” France for the Pope. The blood
of the Protestants would be of small value in that cruel age
and the Guises sowed the seeds that brought Huguenot resistance, led by
Coligny, the Prince of Condé,
and many of the most distinguished French noblemen. The resistance and the service of these great and good men to
France came to an end. The blood of the
martyrs is not always the seed of the church; sometimes other bitter fruit
grows.
One
thing seems certain. Illustrious
service was rendered to other nations—some the enemies of France—by the
descendents of that one family alone, the family of Gaspard de
Coligny. Good reports that one
descendant, the wife of Duke George of Monteliard, actively supported her
husband’s efforts to bring peace between the Lutherans and the Reformed in the
Palatinate. Coligny’s granddaughter,
Louisa Henrietta, wife of the Great Elector,
is
the saint and songstress of the German Reformed Church. What Miriam was among the Israelites, she
was to the Reformed—the sweet singer of Israel. She was a Dutch Princess
descended from the great families of Coligny and Orange. Her father,
Count Frederick Henry of Orange-Nassau, was governor of the Netherlands from
1625 to 1647. Her mother was a German Princess, Countess Amalie of Solms
[immortalized by Rembrandt in 1632 cwp]. She was thus of noble blood, but made
nobler by grace. She
was born at The
Hague, November 27, 1627. Both of her parents were of the Reformed faith. Her
mother, a woman of unusual intelligence, piety and beauty, educated her with
great care. Although French fashions were popular at the court, she did not
think it
beneath her to train her daughter in the mysteries of housekeeping. Louisa grew
up tall, fair-haired and graceful. Her religious training she received from
Rivet, a Reformed theologian. She loved her Bible, and it became her constant
companion. Many
passages,
especially from Isaiah, remained in her memory as the result of her early
training.[9]
She
was descended from both Coligny and William of Orange. Good also notes that Emperor William I,
descended from Coligny through the Palatinate and the House of
Orange, was crowned at Versailles after his defeat of France in the
Franco-Prussian War. William’s staff
included 80 descendants of the Huguenots that had been exiled. The bitterness between these two nations
has been the cause of much unrest in Europe over the centuries.
The
influence of the exiled descendants of Coligny goes far beyond Germany. Coligny’s daughter Louisa was married to a
Huguenot leader, Charles de Teligny.
She and her husband went to Paris that fateful St. Bartholomew’s Day to
attend
the wedding of Henry
of Navarre. Both Coligny and Teligny
were slain, but Louisa somehow managed to escape. She made her way alone and on foot to her home at Chatillon and
was able to warn her step-mother and brothers, even before the news of the massacre
had arrived. She was nineteen.
After
some time at Bern and Geneva, where many Huguenots found shelter, she went to
the refuge for Huguenots at Heidelberg, refusing the offer of safety and
treasure from the French. Good recounts
a touching incident:
Some
time after, the Duke of Anjou, who was the leader of the band that put her
father and her husband to death, passed through Heidelberg on his way to take
the throne of Poland. Elector Frederick was conducting him through the picture
gallery of kings,
queens and princes in the castle, when the Elector pointed to Coligny’s
portrait and asked the Duke if he knew whose it was. “Yes,” he replied, “the
Admiral.” Frederick could no longer control himself, but said, “It is he, the
best of men, the wisest
and greatest captain of Europe, whose children I have under my protection, lest
the dogs of France should tear them to pieces, as they have done their father.”
The Duke became very much confused under these words, as well he might be. But
the Elector continued,
“Of all the lords of France whom I have known, that is the one I have found
most zealous for the glory of the French name, and I am not afraid to affirm
that the King and all France have suffered in him a loss that can never be
repaired.” The Duke tried
to apologize for the assassination of Coligny by suggesting that the Huguenots
were forming a conspiracy at the time. But the Elector cut him short by saying,
“We know all about that, sir.”
After
the death of his wife, Charlotte de Bourbon, William the
Silent proposed marriage to Louisa. She
was poor and without dowry, but she was the daughter of Coligny, and the blood
of Coligny mingled with the blood of Orange to produce Emperors of Germany,
Rulers of the Netherlands, and through William and Mary, the
Kings and Queens of Britain.
The
blood of Huss made it necessary for Charles V to honor the safe conduct given
to Luther. In somewhat the same way the
sacrifices of the Huguenots in France watered the political soil of Western
Europe so that the flowers
of religious liberty could grow. The
influence and power of these rulers were a major spur to what has become known
as Western Civilization for they gave protection to the Reformation and to her
preachers and churches.
Except
the LORD build the house,
they labor in vain that build it: except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waked but in
vain. (Ps
127:1 AV)
[1] The head never got to Rome. The grisly present was intercepted by the mayor of Lyons. Like the head of Cromwell in England, it seems that only God knows the final destination of the head of the great Coligny.
[2] http://history.hanover.edu/texts/barth.html
[3] Coligny is pronounced cul-in-YEE.
[4] Calvin’s unfinished commentary on Ezekiel was dedicated to Admiral Coligny and published in 1565 after the death of Calvin. This dedication was written by Theodore Beza. Meyers, Thomas. Translation of John Calvin’s Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, Michigan. Vol. I, p. xliii-xliv. 1948
[5] Good, J.I. Famous Missionaries of the Reformed Church. Electronic Version Edited by Eric D. Bristley, Th.M for The Synod Of The Reformed Church In The United States, 2004.
[6] Whitehead, A. W. Gaspard de Coligny, Admiral of France. Methune & Co., London, 1904. p.33. This is perhaps the best book on Coligny It is out of print, as are the works cited by Whitehead, and expensive
[7] Whitehead, op. cit. p. 32.
[8] D’Aubigne, J. H. Merle. History of the Reformation in Europe in the Time of Calvin. London. Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, & Green, 1864. Vol. III, Chaper 1, page 3.
[9]Good, J.I. Famous Women of the Reformed Church. Electronic Version Edited by Eric D. Bristley, Th.M for The Synod Of The Reformed Church In The United States, 2004. Page 139