Marie Durand — Part 3: The Indelible Legacy of the 1572 Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre
Prisonnières huguenotes à la Tour de Constance (salon de 1892); image from Wikimedia Commons.
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Editor’s note: This is part three of a BCL series on Marie Durand by pastor and author Campbell Markham. Campbell’s translations of Durand's letters are included at the end of each installment. Click here to read part one and here to read part two.
The memory of those rivers of blood…makes nature tremble. — Antoine Court, 1756
A boulder toppling into a stream may alter and direct its course ever after. In the same way, certain historical events have changed and channelled the culture and mindset of entire peoples for many centuries. You cannot understand the English apart from 1066, Gloriana, Waterloo, and the Blitz. You cannot understand an American apart from the Pilgrim Fathers, the War of Independence, Gettysburg, and Pearl Harbor. You cannot understand an Australian apart from the Endeavour, Burke and Wills, the Ashes, and Gallipoli.
Marie Durand’s eighteenth-century church community cannot be understood apart from the sixteenth-century French Religious Wars, the Saint Bartholomew’s Massacre of 1572, the Edict of Nantes in 1598, the Dragonnades, the Revocation in 1685, and the Camisard Rebellion of 1702–1704.
The “French Religious Wars” describes a series of eight civil wars fought out between 1562 and 1598. An estimated three million people perished, fifteen percent of the French population. Although the antagonists wore their inherited religious labels of “Protestant” or “Catholic,” social and political struggles were the true causes of these wars. A right devotion to the religion of the Bible—which brings reconciliation with God and our enemies—would have extinguished the flames of war.
French Protestants saw these wars as the necessary armed defense of their property and lives from Catholic aggression, of their right to live and worship as Protestants. French Protestant scholars agonized over God’s purposes in these violent struggles and what form resistance should take: whether to passively and patiently suffer persecution, whether to take up arms against tyranny, or whether to flee. This practical-theological struggle continued well into the eighteenth century and is manifest in a number of Marie Durand’s letters and the dreadful decisions that she was required to make.
The Fourth Religious War erupted from the Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, which commenced on August 24, 1572. This tragedy needs special mention because of the deep mark it left on both the Huguenot psyche and Catholic-Protestant relations for many generations. Certainly, its reverberations were felt by Marie Durand’s community in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Antoine Court, for example, the leader of the restoration of the Protestant church in France from 1715, wrote in 1756 about “the memory of those rivers of blood […] of that Saint Bartholomew’s Day, the thought alone of which makes nature tremble.” Louis Bourgeon, a specialist on the Massacre, wrote in 1987 how its scale and ferocity had left its mark well beyond the eighteenth century: “The history of Saint Bartholomew’s continues to this day to be the cause of a spirit of passion, conscious or not.”[1]
A number of causes underlay the tragedy. From 1560, three mutually hostile religio-political movements divided France: the Huguenots (French Protestants), moderate Catholics represented more or less by Catherine de’ Medici and her second son Charles IX (r. 1560–74), and the reactionary Catholic League associated with the house of Guise. Amplifying this hostility was the military threat of Protestant nations to the north of France, which had the potential to turn the Huguenots into a fifth column.
In August 1572, thousands of Protestants assembled in Paris for the marriage of Marguerite de Valois to the Protestant Henri III of Navarre. On August 22, Gaspard de Coligny (1519–1572), prominent Huguenot nobleman and Admiral of the French navy, was shot and wounded by a pro-Guise assassin. Coligny refused to leave Paris, putting Catherine and Charles in a bind. A Huguenot army stood to the north, and Protestants within the city threatened retaliation. Catholic Parisians, long antipathetic to the Huguenots, and perhaps fearing for the life of the King and the royal family, took up arms. Catherine and Charles agreed to a pre-emptive strike against Coligny and twenty to thirty Huguenot leaders.
The killing spiralled out of control, and some three thousand Huguenots were slain in Paris and tens of thousands in the provinces, including a thousand in Lyons, the so-called Vêpres lyonnaises. It was said that “the Seine ran red with blood”: the blood of murdered Protestant men, women, and children.
Pope Gregory XIII celebrated the butchery by having a special medal cast with the motto, Ugonottorum strages, “Slaughter of the Huguenots.” Many came to think that King Charles had personally joined in with the killing, shooting Huguenots from a first-floor window. Such memories, some real and some possibly not, have scarred the Huguenot mindset to this day.
The Saint Bartholomew’s massacre, decades of civil war, and deep cultural and religious aversion constituted the brittle context within which the throne descended upon the Protestant Henri Bourbon, King of Navarre from 1572, and sponsor of the Edict of Nantes.
The Edict of Nantes, so critical to Huguenot and European history, will be described in Part 4.
Marie Durand Letter 6 — to Anne Durand
[Written to her orphaned niece Anne, born 1729, after twenty-one years of imprisonment. It describes clothes that Marie had made for Anne and instructions about some complicated family finances. She assures Anne of her love.]
To Monsieur Chiron, at the Taconnerie, in Geneva,
to pass on, please, to Mademoiselle Durand,
in Onex, Geneva, with a package
The Tour de Constance, June 22, 1751
You are no doubt surprised, my darling daughter, that I have been so slow to reply to you. I wanted to sew you six blouses, and this was the cause of the delay. Be assured that I love you as much as if you were my own child, and so long as you are always very modest, you will find in me all the tenderness of a true mother. I have plans for you that you cannot imagine, and I hope, with the help of God, to make you happy one day. Pray to the Lord that he will bless and meet the needs of those who work for my freedom, and then I will bring you near to me. And I will do my utmost to ensure that you do not lack anything.
Your letter gave me great pleasure, for I feared that you no longer lived. The Lord returned you to full health; I am told. I give him thanks and pray that he will continue to do this for you.
You will receive six new blouses of white cloth, decorated with muslin. They are not elegant but will be useful. You will also receive a skirt of satin poplin, and a dress with two silk ribbons, two pairs of cotton stockings, and two woollen camisoles. If they fit you, let me know so that I can make you some more winter woollens. Moreover, you will receive a taffeta vest embroidered with silk lace. This is all I can say for the moment. Everything is folded in towelling and oil cloth, well packed.
I will give you, my darling child, all the help that I am able to give you. If I can retrieve some funds from my property, I assure you that it will only be for you, for I would not even withhold my heart to support you. But, my darling daughter, I must pay what is owed. I wait for God to provide these things.
I will make sure to order you a dress, a skirt and a vest, and stockings for winter. Tell me if what I have sent you fits; or if you would prefer things smaller, or whatever suits you. I will go without many things for this; but it doesn’t matter. I will do this for you, my darling child. I will also make sure to get you some blouses by what I earn from spinning.
I learned that you had sent to our lawyers the bill of exchange that you had with Rey. Urge them to pay you, to honour this bill. If you would like me to repay that which is owed you, I would give it to you with interest; and with your interest and whatever else I could add, this would relieve you. At the very least I would preserve your funds for you. But if you believe your relatives, you will get nothing of it, for I know that they are scarcely inclined to please you. Do not think that this is to pay my debts; I want only that they be paid from the sale of my goods. But I would like to preserve these funds for you, because with this sum and that which I could give you, I could set you up quite decently. While waiting, as I told you, for the interest, or as much as I can give you, the little pension or your little job could maintain you. As for me, I vow to you on my conscience that I do not want to profit from anything that is yours. After that, do as you like; but as I hope that God will deliver me, and if God gives me this grace, I will not leave you in a strange land. I would not want you to spend what is yours without benefit to yourself.
I have a favour to ask of you: to write to M. Peirot or to M. Blachon, to oblige M. Riou de Jarja to send me the receipt of the payment of a loan of four-hundred livres that my late father had borrowed in your favour. The said Riou only gave to your dear father one-hundred livres; and he wants me to pay him the full four hundred. He made it clear that the three-hundred livres will be for you. But you cannot trust in a conscience that you do not know; and this applies to Rey. Besides, he gave me very bad excuses, especially considering how badly this upset my affairs, because my debts would have been paid earlier if this had been settled. In which case I could have helped you sooner. So I plead with you to write to these lawyers to oblige that gentleman [Riou] to send me a receipt; that you claim nothing of this sum, and that you do not want anyone to make me repay anything that your dear father had not received. Plead with them again not to send a receipt in the name of the one who administers my goods, but only in my own name. I hope that you will give me this pleasure, and I swear to you on my conscience that you will have no cause to regret this, for I yearn only for you.
In reply, tell me how much it would cost for enough thread for a piece of lace, for something which will suit you. One of my friends, of great distinction, pleaded with me for this information. I will send you the money for the thread; and as for the style, she wanted to choose this for me; but I said that we had to know how much this would cost. We want to make quite fine lace, two fingers wide. Work out the cost and write it down for me. My friend produces good work, in my opinion; friends are always good.
Charge the bill for this letter to me, so that it doesn’t fall into your aunt’s hands, nor those of your uncle Brunel, so that you will not owe them a cent. As I told you, they are not by any means on your side, not even your grandmother. Do not repeat anything of what I tell you; do this for your own good; you only have me to support you. It will be better if I repay your grandmother, supposing they haven’t paid.
They tell me that you have married. I don’t believe this at all, and I will not advise you about this again. God will provide. Only be modest, and I will never abandon you. Be totally convinced of this my darling child, for my whole life I will make it my inviolable obligation to be your good and sincere aunt,
La Durand.
All my companions give you a thousand compliments. They pray for you with all their heart. Give my personal regards to all your friends. Your grandmother sends you her regards. She is very thin and is always the same. Reply as soon as you have received the package and pay attention to all that I have told you.
Don’t think that your grandmother cares a cent for you. She is very disgruntled but doesn’t act as if this were the case. Send her your regards, as you were accustomed to in whatever you write to me. And plead with her to insist that your uncle pay you. Make her really feel your misery. Tell her to return to me each […], whatever she can. Burn my letter.
Translation © 2022 Campbell Markham | All rights reserved
Marie Durand Letter 7 – to Anne Durand
[After twenty-two years of imprisonment. Marie offers to manage Anne’s finances, urges her to work hard, to be wise and godly, and not to rush into marriage.]
to Mademoiselle
Mademoiselle [Anne] Durand, at Onex, near Geneva
The Tour de Constance, April 27, 1752
The time must seem very long to you, my darling daughter, and no doubt you think that I have entirely forgotten you. But if that is the case, banish the thought. It does me a great injustice, for I would sooner forget myself. Know for certain that I have engraved you in the depths of my heart.
Always be very modest, my darling daughter. Let love for God, and fear of him, rule your conduct. Be assiduous in your work, for those who do not work must not eat, says Saint Paul. Besides, idleness is the mother of every vice.
I have not yet been able to do what I promised you, but with God’s help I will do it. For your sake I will deprive myself even of necessities.
About what is owed you, matters have been put right; they must give you a hundred pistoles. I spoke to your uncle Brunel; he says that if you would like him to, he will give me your money, and I will invest it for you, and you will receive the interest. If you agree with this plan you can be certain that I would not deprive you of a mite; on the contrary I will use what I have to help you more than I could help myself. If you judge this suitable, you can write to your uncle or to whomever you like; but at least take care not to do this badly. For since God wanted very much to favour you with this little inheritance do not lose it by your mistakes. In this way I leave you free to take account of whatever seems good to you, provided that it benefits you. Follow these instructions carefully.
Writing to you, I felt troubled by the thought that if I pay postage for these letters that they might not reach you. A woman promised to deliver this to you.
About the points you raised, I couldn’t yet order you the money. But if I can, believe me I will do it. Reply first with a receipt of my letter, for I ache to know your news. You can write to me by return post.
Your grandmother is still the same, she pays her compliments. All my poor companions kiss you. I repeat this to you again, my darling child: love virtue, be gentle, patient, and humble, genial to everyone you know. Moderate that vivacity which sometimes harms the body, and salvation. I swear to you that I will always love you more than myself. Pay full attention to all that I tell you.
Adieu, my darling child. I wish you stronger health with heaven’s gracious gifts and all kinds of favours; and I will never cease to have for you the same feelings of tenderness and friendship.
Your good and affectionate aunt,
La Durand.
Pay close attention to all that I say to you and send me your earliest reply. Let me know how you are going. You delighted me when you told me that you have no desire to marry. Always conduct yourself in this way. God will by his grace change the situation, and with his help we may yet be together.
Adieu, my darling child, adieu. Love me always.
Translation © 2022 Campbell Markham | All rights reserved
Related Articles:
Marie Durand — Part 2: Daughter of the French Reformation (part two of BCL’s series on Marie Durand)
Marie Durand (1711–1776), the Famous Prisoner of Faith — Introduction (part one of BCL’s series on Marie Durand)
Do You Have the Guts to Remain in the Church? — Revelation 21:1-8
Notes:
[1] Jean-Louis Bourgeon, "Les Légendes ont la vie dure: à propos de la Saint-Barthélemy et de quelques livres récents," Revue d'histoire moderne et contemporaine (1954-) 34, no. 1 (1987): 102.
