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The plot which I wrote to you on the 30th ultimo as having been discovered at La Rochelle is a fact, and in exact accordance with what was told me by the English Ambassador, and I have since heard further details as follows. Some days ago the President of Poitiers, whose name is La Haie (Lae), promised these Majesties to place La Rochelle in their power by a strategem of his own invention. He was then most gratefully embraced by the most Christian King, and promises, and also offers of large sums of money, were made to him to accomplish this deed. The President therefore at once endeavoured to obtain the confidence of those whom he intended to deceive, by, in the first instance, professing to turn Huguenot, and subsequently by procuring himself to be nominated one of the Ambassadors sent from Provence to approach the King upon the matters in dispute. When the negotiation was being treated, the President spoke with so much insolence and haughtiness in the presence of the King and Queen Mother that everyone was astounded that he should be suffered to do so, but their Majesties, knowing that all this behaviour was for another purpose, took no offence; and when the President returned to Poitiers with the answer which had been given, he showed still further insolence towards their Majesties, and then went to La Rochelle to consolidate his friendship with the citizens there. He promised, amongst other things, within a very short time to procure three or four cities to rebel against the King. Upon the faith of these professions he obtained an opportunity for introducing
a certain number of his accomplices into the city, and appointed one of them, a captain of great valour and judgment, to be his agent, and secretly commissioned him to suborn some of the guards so as to obtain possession of one of the gates. Meanwhile the President collected soldiers, and made believe that he intended to take Poitiers; and the most Christian King, the better to confirm this report to the Huguenots, gave orders to Count de Lude, the governor of the city, to take the President either alive or dead. The President and his forces approached near to the city, and then, pretending that he was not sufficiently strong for the purposes of a siege, retreated towards La Rochelle, and arranged that on the 15th of last month his partizans were to take possession of the gate by night; and the following day, after being reinforced by several companies of soldiers who had been assembled in the neighbourhood, he thoroughly believed that the undertaking would succeed. But the day previously one of the Huguenots who had been suborned, repented that he had consented to such an act, and his conscience being moved by his religion and by the shame of betraying the city which he had so lately defended with his blood, he revealed the whole plot to the principal magistrate, who immediately arrested as many of the conspirators as he could find, and these persons, after very slight torture, confessed all, and were put to death in various ways. After the execution, the citizens of La Rochelle sent a copy of the proceedings to the King, complaining greatly of the mode in which they had been treated, when his Majesty affirmed most positively that he knew nothing of this matter, and said that they had done right in putting these people to death, and that if the President fell into his hands that he would surrender him in order that they might deal with him as they pleased, because it was his intention to observe his promises, and he begged them not to put an end to the agreement, which he desired to carry into effect. In conformity with these words his Majesty had ordered Marshal Damville to meet the Huguenots at Meliort on the 15th, and to come to terms with them if possible. |
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The English who are resident at Rouen, Dieppe, and at other places in France for the purposes of trade, are under great apprehension on account of the conspiracy at La Rochelle, and fear a general massacre such as took place when the Admiral was killed, and consequently the Ambassador of the Queen of England, by command of the King, spoke lately in the Privy Council concerning
the security and guarantee for traders, and he was then answered by the Chancellor in most reassuring terms that the King would do all in his power to gratify the English nation. Your Serenity can hardly credit the stupendous indignation which the report of the conspiracy at La Rochelle has kindled in the minds of the Huguenots, and unexpected consequences may follow. Indeed I hear that the agreement will now encounter many difficulties, and will not easily be concluded. |
