put to torture he will say
anything the questioners want him to. Accordingly, when so tortured, he
accuses them, and when released a moment after the horses have begun to
rend him in pieces, he conjures up a plot of the Huguenots to sack Paris,
etc. May it not properly be asked, what such testimony as this is worth?
For or against Coligny, volumes of it would not affect his character in
our estimation.

[241] The direct testimony of Jacques Auguste de Thou, on a matter with
which he was evidently intimately acquainted through his father, is
unimpeachable, and will outweigh with every unprejudiced mind all the
stories of Davila, Castelnau, etc., founded on mere report. De Thou,
Histoire univ. (liv. xxxiv.), iii. 403.

[242] Poltrot's pretended confession of Feb. 26th, at Camp Saint Hilaire,
near Saint Mesmin, with the replies signed by Coligny, la Rochefoucauld,
and Beza to each separate article, is inserted in full in Mem. de Conde,
iv. 285-303, and the Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., ii. 176-186. Coligny's
letter to Catharine, ibid., ii. 186, 187, Mem. de Conde, iv. 303.

[243] That Catharine de' Medici was no very sincere mourner for Guise is
sufficiently certain; and it is well known that there were those who
believed her to have instigated his murder (See Mem. de Tavannes, Pet.
ed., ii. 394). This is not surprising when we recall the fact that almost
every great crime or casualty that occurred in France, for the space of a
generation, was ascribed to her evil influence. Still the Viscount de
Tavannes makes too great a draft upon our credulity, when he pretends that
she made a frank admission of guilt to his father. "Depuis, au voyage de
Bayonne, passant par Dijon, elle dit au sieur de Tavannes: 'Ceux de Guise
se vouloient faire roys, je les en ay bien garde devant Orleans.'" The
expression "devant Orleans" can hardly be tortured into a reference to
anything else than Guise's assassination.

[244] I entirely agree with Prof. Baum (Theodor Beza, ii. 719) in
regarding "this single circumstance as more than sufficient to demonstrate
both the innocence of Coligny and his associates, and the consciously
guilty fabrication of the accusations."

[245] Besides the authorities already referred to, the Journal of
Bruslart, Mem. de Conde, i. 123, 124; Davila, bk. iii. 86, 87; Claude
Haton, i. 322, etc.; J. de Serres, ii. 343-345; and Pasquier, Lettres
(OEuvres choisies), ii. 258, may be consulted with advantage. Prof. Baum's