USA > South Carolina > History of the Presbyterian Church in South Carolina, Vol. I pt 1 > Part 3
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As the French were the first to embrace the truths of the Reformation, so were they the first of all the Protestants to turn their eyes to this American continent to find an asylum from oppression, and to conceive the idea of planting here the institutions of the Gospel, and adding a New World to Protestant Christendom. De Coligny, with an anxious eye, saw the increasing troubles of the Huguenots of France, and turned to the project of planting colonies in America as places of refuge. Nicholas Durand de Villegagnon, a Knight of Malta and Vice-Admiral of Brittany, moved rather by avarice and ambition than by any virtuous impulse, offered, in 1555, to plant a Protestant colony on the coast of South America, to people the country, and convert the heathen nations. He represented it to the king as an enterprise which would greatly promote the commerce of France, and, by these representa- tions, obtained the royal assent and the means necessary.
23
JEAN RIBAULT.
Care was taken by Coligny, whose confidence Durand had gained, that the colony should consist of a large majority of Protestants. Durand wrote back for a larger number of colo- nists, and, above all, for "two discreet and active ministers of the Gospel;" and gave a glowing account of his success. Calvin and the Synod of Geneva manifested great interest in the enterprise, and sent out two clergymen, Richer and Char- tier, as missionaries. But Durand threw off the disguise he had assumed to obtain his ends, changed his conduct toward those whom he had drawn thither, persecuted them according to the edict of France, and ordered four of them to be thrown into the sea. Disheartened at these events, the ministers, and many of their flock, obtained leave to return. But they were sent home in an unseaworthy vessel, which many of them refused to enter. Those who intrusted themselves to the mercy of the elements, after nearly perishing with hunger from the deficiency of their naval stores, at length reached the coast of France, and delivered a sealed packet to the nearest magistrates, which Durand had assured them would secure to them hospitable treatment; but which denounced them as heretics, and commended them to the secular arm that they might be destroyed. Fortunately, the magistrates of Hennebon, on the coast of Brittany, the place where they touched, were of their own faith, and revealed the perfidy of Durand to the miserable fugitives .* But the divine Nemesis did not long delay. His colony which remained was attacked and expelled by the Portuguese, in 1565, who founded there the present town of Rio Janeiro, the capital of Brazil; so near did this wealthy kingdom come to being a colony of France, and, perhaps, a Protestant rather than a Papal country.
Before these events were fully known, Coligny sent out an- other band of emigrants, under Jean Ribault, in two vessels of the royal navy, with a company of veterans, and several gentlemen, all of the Huguenot faith, to found another colony, and on our own shores. They sailed from Havre on the 18th of February, 1562, and landed in the St. John's River, in Florida, on the 1st of May, giving it the name of May River on this account. Here he set up a pillar, engraved with the king's arms, and took possession of the country in the name of the king. "The simple natives having beheld the religious worship connected with this ceremony, crowned the pillar with
* Bèze, Hist. Eccles. i., pp. 101-102. Smedley, i., 66. Henry's Life of Cal- vin, ii., p. 360.
24
FORT CHARLES.
garlands of laurel after the departure of their visitors, and long esteemed it an object of superstitious reverence."* Thence he sailed northward for four weeks, till he came to a deep and spacious bay, forming an entrance to a noble river, which he called Port Royal, " one of the fairest and greatest havens in the world," as he says, and which still bears the name he gave it. Here, on the coast of South Carolina, he erected another pillar, similarly engraved, and again took possession of the country in the royal name. Here, also, he built a fort which he called Fort Charles, the traces of whose intrenchments are yet seen;t and having supplied it with tools, provisions, and warlike stores, and left in it a small garrison of twenty-six men-gentlemen, soldiers, and mariners, who had volunteered to remain-he returned to report to Coligny what he had accomplished, and to bring out other colonists to peo- ple a land clothed with fertility and beauty. Thus was planted by the Huguenots of France, in South Carolina, the first Pres- byterian colony in America, forty-five years before the settle- ment of Virginia, and fifty-eight before the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers at Plymouth Rock. How Ribault, on return- ing home, found France involved in civil war, and no one at leisure to attend to the newly planted colony ; how they, relying upon supplies from abroad, took no measures, by culti- vating the soil, to obtain them ; how they were reduced to straits, and became dependent on the friendly Indians for sup- plies ; how dissension arose among them, and their commander was put to death ; how they at length constructed the first vessel built by European hands on this continent, and after dreadful hardships at sea, in which one of their number was selected by lot, and his flesh made to satisfy the hunger of the rest, they reached the shores of Europe ; how Coligny fitted out a new expedition, the king providing three armed vessels for the enterprise, the command of it being given to Laudo- nière, Coligny having advised him to take none with him who were not of his own religion ; how officers, soldiers, mariners, flocked to him, and he left with a picked company, among whom were many young men of ancient and noble families ; how on the 24th of June, 1564, he entered the St. John's river, in Florida, which was regarded by the French as a part of Carolina or New France, and there built a new fort, Arx Caro- lina, and how troubles and dissensions arose among them also;
* Rivers, p. 20.
+ On Paris Island, below Beaufort .- Rivers' South Carolina, p. 52.
25
ARX CAROLINA.
how, in the following year, January, 1565, Ribault again sailed with four vessels and a large company, many of them with their wives and children, seeking that freedom in religion which was denied them at home ; how he was followed by a Spanish fleet under Don Pedro Menendez, who landed at the site of St. Augustine, which was then founded by him, and who had orders to propagate the Roman Catholic faith, and destroy all heretics-all these things are matters of history.
The disastrous issue is well known. Ribault placed the women and children in Fort Carolina, leaving there with Lau- donière a garrison of eighty men, only twenty of whom were effective, and, crowding nearly all his force aboard the few ships he had, resolved to attack Menendez, and deliver Fort Carolina from so dangerous an enemy. But while he was waiting for the tide to favor, a storm arose and drove the armament of Ribault down the Florida Gulf. Menendez imme- diately took 500 well-armed men, and came on Fort Carolina before Laudonière knew of his leaving St. Augustine. The Huguenot settlement had been doomed to destruction from the very commencement of the expedition. There were zeal- ous Papists enough at the French Court to inform their Span- ish neighbors of the whole armament and expectations of the Huguenot colony. And now, before his attack on the feeble garrison, his men were summoned to an act of worship of the most high God. From their bended knees they rushed to immolate their victims. The garrison, after a short defence, was forced to surrender. So sudden, however, was the attack, that some were slain in their beds, and others in the act of flight. Women, and boys under fifteen, say the Spanish writers, were spared ; but the French speak of the massacre as indiscriminate. After the battle was over, the living and dead were hung alike on the branches of one tree, and their bodies left a prey to the birds of heaven. At the root of the tree, Menendez set up a stone witli the inscription : " I do not do this as to Frenchmen, but as to Lutherans." Laudonière, and twenty more, leaped from the parapet, and escaped to the woods, and, at length, on board some small vessels yet in the stream. Menendez hastened back to St. Augustine with a part of his force, to defend it against Ribault, was received with triumph, and with chants of Te Deum at his victory. But the unfortunate Ribault was in no condition to attack liim. His vessels were dashed in pieces on the Florida coast, their arms and a supply of provisions alone being saved. Their only hope was to thread the shore and reach Fort Carolina,
2
26
CRUELTY OF MENENDEZ.
of whose fate they were not aware. The first party arrived at a stream about twelve miles below St. Augustine, when Me- nendez heard of their situation. Negotiations were entered into, and they resolved to surrender. Menendez had them brought over the river by tens, with their hands tied behind them, and marched to a line drawn by him in the sand with his cane, and there slaughtered in cold blood. "Seeing they were Lutherans,"* says Mendoza, the priest, " the general con- demned them all to death." After some days, Ribault, with the rest of his party, were met at the same stream by Menendez with a large escort. Negotiations were entered into, and the French writers tell us that Menendez promised to spare their lives ; that the promise was in writing under his hand and seal, and confirmed by an oath. Ribault and his followers advanced to the bank of the river, and were taken across, ten at a time, with their arms pinioned. Ribault was asked whether they were Catholics or Lutherans. He replied, " that he and his companions were of the new religion." Orders were imme- diately given for their slaughter. The whole number of French, men, women, and children, slain by the Spaniards, is stated in the petition to the king, by the widows, children, and relations of the victims, to have been more than 900. The Huguenots plead with Menendez that their sovereigns were at peace, and that they should not be treated as enemies. He replied, "The Catholic French are, indeed, our allies and friends ; but it is not so with heretics. With these I wage a war of extermination, and in this I serve both monarchs." Though the knowledge of these events aroused the indigna- tion of the people, and touched the national honor, and the friends of these murdered men approached the throne with supplications, the court looked upon the whole with perfect apathy. The rumor even became current that this infamous perfidy was perpetrated with the connivance of the king. Cer- tain it is that no remonstrance was ever sent to the Spanish court.+
But while the king refused to redress this great wrong, the Chevalier de Gourgues, a gentleman of Gascony, of an ancient
* By this name were the French Protestants then known, though not affiliated with the Church as established by Luther.
t See on this subject the following authorities. Histoire de la Nouvelle France, par Marc Lescarbot, Avocat en Parlement, Témoin Oculaire d'une Partie des Choses ici Recitees. Trois edition. A Paris, MDCXVIII., pp. 40-225 .- Mémoire, par Francisco Lopez Mendoza, Chapelaine de l'Expé- dition de Pedro Menendez de Abiles, from a manuscript in the Bibliothèque Royale, with other original narratives, edited by H. Ternaux. Paris,
27
NEMESIS OF GOURGUES.
family, and attached to the Papal faith, roused and indignant at the apathy of the court, undertook with his own hand to punish the enormous perfidy. By the sale of his property, and by borrowing from his friends, he fitted out an expedition, keeping his purpose secret until he arrived at the island of Cuba. He then addressed his men, told them of the great wrong which he had come to avenge, and roused their enthusi- asm to the highest pitch. Thence he sailed for Fort Carolina. He found that the Spaniards had erected three forts of dif- ferent degrees of strength. Having arranged with the native Indians, who lent their assistance, each of these was taken in succession. And now came the last act in this drama of retalia- tion. Gourgues took his prisoners to the place where the com- panions of Ribault and Laudonière had been hung, reminded them of that act of treachery, and that he had come to avenge it, and hung them on the same tree on which his own country- men had been hung by Menendez, leaving behind an inscrip- tion on a pine plank, " I did not do this as to Spaniards, nor as to infidels, but as to traitors, thieves, and murderers." After demolishing the forts, Gourgues returned to France. Instead of being rewarded and honored by his own government, he was persecuted by it. Though himself a Roman Catholic, and bent only upon revenging the wrong done to Frenchmen, and to himself as a citizen of France, he had, in fact, avenged the wrong of those persecuted Huguenots whom his govern- ment hated. He was pursued, too, with bitter malice by Spain, and impoverished by the expenses of the expedition he had fitted out .*
Thus ended the efforts of the French to establish a colony on the Atlantic coast of these Southern States, while the un- successful attempt of Velasquez d'Ayllon, in 1520 and 1524, whose treachery to the natives received a signal retribution, kept the Spaniards in the most southern portion of North America. If the Huguenots of France could have been trans- ported to these shores, with the wealth, education, skill in the arts of war and peace, which belonged to them in the days of Henry IV., and with their religious faith, if unmolested,
MDCCCXLI .- Hackluyt's Voyages, iii., pp. 300-360 .- Sparks' American Biography, vol. xvii .; Life of John Ribault, and the authorities there quoted. According to Mendoza, who learned the fact from one of the French captives, there were in the expedition two Protestant clergymen .- Ternaux, p. 214. One of these appears to have borne the name of Robert, who is men- tioned as the chaplain ; the other was Challeux, whose narrative is found in Ternaux, Comp. Barcia.
* La Reprinse de la Florida .- Ternaux, i., p. 301.
28
AFFAIRS IN FRANCE.
they would have thriven and flourished here, and converted the wilderness into a garden. But this could not be. Their own country sought to destroy them. Even the colony which was established by the king of France he did not foster and protect. He desired its overthrow rather than its preserva- tion, and allowed his Spanish ally cruelly to destroy what he had not yet resolved to destroy with his own hand. Had France protected this colony she would soon have added to it colonists of another faith, and the Huguenot would have been persecuted here as he was persecuted on his own shores. And had Spain established herself in these territories, we should have had here the worthless and paralyzing institutions of Rome. A pure faith would never have been tolerated, nor our free institutions have existed. Under better auspices and other influences was it the will of Providence that this land should be peopled. And for this we are thankful. God forbid that we should ever bow our necks under the cruel super- stitions of the Papal Church; that we should lose aught of that pure doctrine, that healthy spirit of individual freedom, that right of private judgment, that sense of direct responsibility to God alone, as Lord of the conscience, and that submission to the majesty of law, which we have received from that noble ancestry from which we sprung, and which could have been fostered in us by no other nation than that under whose aus- pices our country was colonized.
Meanwhile, the affairs of France underwent a great change. Weary, apparently, of civil war, peace was concluded at St. Germain in 1570, three years after the events just described, on the basis of amnesty for the past, the free exercise of the Protestant religion in the suburbs of two towns in each prov- ince, restoration of confiscated property, and the possession of four cautionary cities for two years, as security for the observance of the treaty. This peace, so grateful to France, caused great sorrow to the Pope. It had been the policy of government to persecute the Huguenots. Now, all is flattery and pretended affection. A marriage was projected between the King of Navarre, the Protestant prince, and Margaret, sister of the King, which was urged by the King upon the Protestants as the surest means of cementing the amity between the two dissentient parties, and, at the same time, apologized for to the Pope as the only means of avenging him- self on his and God's enemies, and chastising these great rebels. The facts of this consummate treachery are all well known. The Queen of Navarre, with her children, the Prince Conde
29
MURDER OF COLIGNY.
and the King of Navarre, were drawn to Paris to be present at the august ceremony ; the Admiral de Coligny, in spite of many warnings, also was drawn there with the chief nobility attached to the Protestant cause, and was received with every demonstration of friendship by the King and the Duke of Guise, his ancient enemy ; troops were introduced into the city, ostensibly to protect the Huguenots, but, in truth, for another purpose. As he had been fired at and wounded by an assassin, the Protestant gentlemen were invited to gather around the hotel of Coligny for his greater security, and the King of Navarre was advised to strengthen himself by as- sembling in his apartments persons most attached to his ser- vice. These preparations, for the most consummate perfidy that is found on the pages of history, were duly made. At two o'clock on Sunday morning, the 24th of August, 1572, being the eve of St. Bartholomew's, the church bell of St. Germain was rung, which was the concerted signal. The Duke of Guise, attended by his brother and other gentlemen, went to Coligny's house, which was broken open, the Swiss guards at the foot of the stairs were killed, and the hired assassins of Guise, Besme, and Pestrucci penetrated to the chamber of the Admiral. Awaked by the noise, he asked his attendant what it was : he replied, "My Lord, God calls us to Himself." Coligny then said to his attendants, "Save yourselves, my friends. I have long been prepared for death." They all left him but one. He betook himself to prayer, awaiting his murderers. Every door was burst open, and Besme appeared before him, " Art thou Coligny ?" said he. "I am," said the Admiral : " Young man, you should respect my gray hairs ; but do what you will, you can shorten my life but a few days." Besme plunged his sword into Coligny's body : his compan- ions stabbed him with their daggers. Besme then called from the window to Guise that it was done. "Very well," was the reply ; "but M. d'Angouleme will not believe it unless he sees him at his feet."
The body was then thrown from the window, and the blood spirted on the faces and dress of the Princes. Guise wiped its face to recognize it, spurned it with his foot, and ordered the head to be cut off. Then was one branch of our Presby- terian Church receiving its baptism of blood. Armed men, and priests with a crucifix in one hand and a sword in the other, preceded the murderers, urging them to spare neither relatives nor friends. When daylight came, headless bodies were falling from the windows, the gateways were blocked up
30
ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S.
with the dead and dying, the streets were filled with carcasses, which were dragged along the pavement to the river. The palace of the Louvre was itself filled with blood. The Prot- estant gentlemen whom the King of Navarre and the Prince of Conde were advised to assemble around their persons, were called forth into the courtyard, one by one, and killed. Most died without complaining, others appealed to the public faith, and the promise of the King. " Great God !" they cried, " be the defence of the oppressed !" "Just Judge! avenge this perfidy." For three days, and to some extent for a week, the massacre continued. The body of Coligny was tossed into a stable, then drawn through the streets for two or three days, then thrown into the Seine, then drawn out and hung in chains by one foot from the gibbet of Montfaucon ; a slow fire being kindled beneath, also greatly disfigured it. The King visited these mangled remains, and when some of the courtiers stopped their noses at the offensive smell, he remarked, "The smell of a dead enemy is always sweet." Even the ladies of the court were seen to descend into the square of the Louvre to view the dead bodies of the gentlemen who had cheerfully conversed with them the day before, which they did with un- feeling merriment and wanton curiosity. This massacre was repeated in other cities, till 30,000, or, as some say, 100,000, were put to death. Yet at Rome there were great rejoicings. The Pope went in grand procession and performed high mass. A Te Deum was sung, and a medal struck, bearing on one side the head of Gregory XIII. and on the other the Destroying Angel smiting the Protestants, with the legend Huguenotorum Strages, 1572.
After this perfidious and cruel act, the Huguenot Churches were brought to a stand. Many of the Reformed took refuge in England, in the Palatinate, and in Switzerland. Others retired to the fortified cities of Cevennes, Sancerre, Montau- ban, Nismes, and Rochelle, determined to defend their faith with their lives and treasure. Rochelle was one of the stron- gest places in France. It was attacked by a mighty army, and by the chief nobility of the French monarchy, but such was the valor of the besieged, that this numerous host, after a loss of 40,000 men, were obliged to come to an understanding with the beleaguered city, and to secure privileges of worship, and restoration of offices and dignities to the confederates. San- cerre suffered more than Rochelle during the siege which it underwent. The inhabitants were reduced to such straits as to satisfy the cravings of appetite with the most revolting food.
31
DEATH OF CHARLES IX.
The skins of animals macerated in water were in great esteem, and literary repasts, not figuratively but literally, were often indulged in. Not only blank parchments, but letters, title- deeds, books, printed or manuscripts, after having undergone this process, were eaten as food. Old and valuable records and deeds thus contributed to sustain life. "One could still read," says Lery, pastor of La Charité, and former historian of Ville- gagnon's expedition, "the characters printed or manuscript in the morsels which were on the plate ready to be eaten." Charles IX. seems to have declined in health from the night of St. Bartholomew. Sleep often fled from his eyes, his nights were disturbed by horrid dreams of the blood, murder, and perfidy of those awful scenes. Blood is said to have ex- uded from every pore, and his frame to have been torn with strong convulsions. He died in 1574, in the 24th year of his age and the 13th of his reign, the victim of remorse. His death was followed by that of the brave Montgomery, the general of the Huguenots, who was first subjected to the tor- ture and then executed by the cruel Catharine of Aragon, the queen-mother. Henry III. succeeded to the throne, a disso- lute monarch, of low and brutal tastes, and of blind devotion to the Church of Rome.
The Prince Conde had raised an army in Germany, the Duke of Alençon and the King of Navarre, brothers of the reigning monarch, had escaped from Paris and joined the Huguenot forces, and the mightiest confederacy and the good- liest army which had ever supported the cause of the Reformed were now arrayed against the oppressions of the court. But it melted away before the genius and duplicity of Catharine. She granted an amnesty for the past, freedom of worship everywhere but in Paris and two leagues around, the right to build churches, erect schools, print books, administer sacra- ments, solemnnize marriages, hold consistories and synods. Courts half Catholic and half Protestant were granted, and cautionary towns were given up to the Reformed. By these measures the Huguenot league was disarmed, though neither Henry nor his mother intended to observe the conditions of the peace. The flames of war were again rekindled in 1577, and raged till 1580, when the Huguenots regained the con- cessions they had before enjoyed. In 1583 they attempted to form a general union of the Protestant States of Europe, and with this intent undertook negotiations with Queen Elizabeth, to induce her to put herself at the head of a Protestant League. They represented the patrimonial revenues of Henry
32
STRENGTH OF THE HUGUENOTS.
of Navarre, at that time, to amount to 300,000 crowns annually, and that from his patrimonial domain he could fur- nish 300 gentlemen, handsomely accompanied, and 6,000 well- armed arquebusiers. Among the fiefs which he held as vassal of the French crown, the county of Foix could furnish 6,000 more. The district from the Spanish frontier to Dordogne, six days' journey, abounding in noble estates and rich cities, a numerous population, and chivalrous nobles, was wholly de- voted to thie Protestant cause. The whole of Languedoc, with the exception of two or three places, was devoted to the Huguenots. In Provence, their churches had greatly in- creased. Dauphiné could give 4,000 arquebusiers, and 400 veteran gentlemen who had been in the saddle since the com- mencement of their religious struggles. Through the whole length of France, from the Savoy to the Pyrenees, at every three leagues, a traveller might lodge in some town which either belonged to the patrimony or was under the protection of the King of Navarre. In the district between the Garonne and the Dordogne, 4,000 arquebusiers might be collected any time in four days, and 6,000 more and 500 gentlemen would flock to the banners of the Prince of Conde from Angouleme, Saintonge, Poictou, and Aunix. And, though in the northern provinces the Huguenots had been scattered since the massa- cre of St. Bartholomew's, they were yet secretly banded to- gether, and there was not a corner where some gentleman did not reside, at whose summons the Huguenots of all classes would take the field, if the occasion should demand. The Uni- versity of Orthes also was under the care of learned men, and there were always in attendance as many as fifty students, pre- paring, by a ten years' course of study, for the holy ministry. Elizabeth, however, could not be induced to declare for this alliance, and rejected, also, the personal suit of the Duc d'Anjou, who had been suing for her hand the last ten years. Their efforts were unsuccessful also in Germany. In 1584, the Duke of Guise, with the other Popish chiefs, formed a league with Philip of Spain for the extermination of the Huguenots, and the transference of the French crown to the family of the Guises .* The irresolute King Henry III., for his own
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