By G.A.Henty
St. Bartholomew’s Eve, more than 2000 French Huguenots men, women, and children were massacred for their faith. In Henty vividly depicts Coligny’s unflinching bravery, Queen Elizabeth’s vacillating foreign policy, Catherine de Medici’s vindictive scheming, and the Queen of Navarre’s inner strength as he recounts the adventures of sixteen-year-old Phillip Fletcher, son of an Englishman and a Frenchwoman, who journeys to France to take part in the Huguenots’ struggle for freedom. Intrepid and resourceful, he and his band of soldiers see much combat, and Phillip’s skill as a swordman and a marksman is required innumerable times before he returns as a hero to England.
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Preface
It is difficult in these days of religious toleration to understand why men should, three centuries ago, have flown at each other’s throats in the name of the Almighty, still less how in cold blood they could have perpetrated hideous massacres of men, women, and children. The Huguenot wars were however, as much political as religious. Philip of Spain, at that time the most powerful potentate of Europe, desired to add France to the countries where his influence was all-powerful and in the ambitious house of Guise he found ready instruments. For a time the new faith that had spread with such rapidity in Germany, England, and Holland made great progress m France also. But here the reigning family remained catholic, and the vigorous measures they adopted to check the growing tide drove those of the new religion to take up arms in self-defense. Although under the circumstances the Protestants can hardly be blamed for so doing, there can be little doubt that the first Huguenot war, though the revolt was successful, was the means of France remaining a Catholic country. It gave color to the assertions of the Guises and their friends that the movement was a political one, and that Protestants intended to grasp all power and to overthrow the throne of France. It also afforded an excuse for the cruel persecutions which followed, and rallied to the Catholic cause numbers of those who were at heart indifferent to the question of religion, but were Royalists rather than Catholics. The great organization of the Church of Rome labored among all classes for the destruction of the growing heresy. Every pulpit in France resounded with denunciations of the Huguenots, and passionate appeals were made to the bigotry and fanaticism of the more ignorant classes; so that, while the power of the Huguenots lay in some of the country districts, the mobs of the great towns were everywhere the instruments of the priests. I have not considered it necessary to devote any large portion of my story to details of the terrible massacres of the period, nor to the atrocious persecutions to which the Huguenots were subjected, but have as usual gone to the military events of the struggle for its chief interest. For the particulars of these I have relied chiefly upon the collection of works of contemporary authors published by M. Zeller, of Paris, the Memoirs of Fra^ois de la Noiie, and other French authorities.
G. A. HENTY.
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