The Lily and the Totem; or, The Huguenots in Florida

by William Gilmore Simms

  XXV.

  DOMINIQUE DE GOURGUES.

  I.--EARLY HISTORY OF GOURGUES.

  The tidings of the fearful massacre of the Huguenots in Florida, as wellin Spanish, as in French accounts, at length reached France. Deep wasthe feeling of horror and indignation which they everywhere excitedamong the people. Catholics, not less than Protestants, felt howterrible was the cruelty thus inflicted upon humanity, how insolent thescorn thus put upon the flag of the country. Wild and bitter was the cryof anguish sent up by the thousand bereaved widows and orphans of themurdered men. But this cry, this feeling, this sense of sufferingand shame, awakened no sympathies in the court of France. The king,Charles IX., heard the "supplication" of the wives and children of thesufferers, without according any answer to their prayer. The bloodof nearly nine hundred victims cried equally to earth and heaven forvengeance, and cried in vain to the earthly sovereign. He had no ear forthe sorrows and the wrongs of heresy; and the plaint of humanity wasstifled in the supposed interests of religion. Charles was most regallyindifferent to a crime which relieved him of so many troublesomesubjects; and was at that very time, meditating the most summaryprocesses for still farther diminishing their numbers. He was yet toprovide an appropriate finish to such a history of massacre in thebloody tragedy of St. Bartholomew. The wrong done to the honor of hisflag and nation, by a rival power, was not felt. We have already hintedthe strong conjecture, urged by historians, that the Spanish expedition,under Melendez, was planned with the full privity and concurrence of theking of France. His conduct, at this period, would seem fully to justifythe suspicion. His existing relations with his brother of Spain were notof a sort to be periled now by the exhibition of his sympathies with acause, and on behalf of a sect, which both monarchs had reason to hateand fear, and were preparing to extirpate.

  But, if the Court of France demanded no redress for the massacre of itspeople, and that of Spain offered none, either redress or apology, therewas yet a deep and intense passion dwelling in the heart of the onenation, and yearning for revenge upon that of the other. There was stilla chivalrous feeling in France which showed itself superior to theexactions of sect or party, and which brooded with terrible intensityover the bloody fortunes of the French in Florida. This moody meditationat length found its fitting exponent. The sentiment that stirs earnestlyin the popular heart will always, sooner or later, obtain a fittingvoice; and where it burns justifiably for vengeance, it will not longbe wanting in a weapon. The avenger arose in due season to satisfy thedemands of justice!

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  The Chevalier, Dominique de Gourgues, was a Gascon gentleman, bornat Mont de Marsan, in the County of Cominges. His family was one ofconsiderable distinction. It had always been devotedly attached to theCatholic religion, nor had he ever for a moment faltered in the samefaith. His career had been a remarkable one, signalized by great valor,and the most extreme vicissitudes of fortune. He had served in thearmies of France during the long and capricious struggles in Italy,which had been the chief arena for conflict in the reigns of Charles theEighth, of Louis XII., of Francis the First, and down to the presentperiod. Here he had associated, under the command of Brissac and others,with that valiant brother Gascon, Blaize de Montluc, who, in hiscommentaries, would probably have told us much about the prowess ofGourgues, if he had not been so greatly occupied with the narrative ofhis own.[24] But the forbearance of Montluc has not deprived us of allthe testimony which belongs to the fame of the chevalier. Of all thesubaltern officers of his time, no one achieved a more brilliantreputation. Among the Gascons, confessedly distinguished above allothers by their reckless daring, and headlong eagerness after glory inbattle, the courage of Gourgues was such as raised him to the rank of ahero of romance. His youthful eyes had opened upon the latest fieldsof that race of heroes of whom Bayard was the superior and perhaps thelast. He was one of the Sampsons of that wondrous band, whose wars,according to Trivulcio--one not the least remarkable among them,--werethose of the giants;--the Swiss, in the fullest vigor of their martialfame, and at the height of their insolence;--the Spaniards, with Hernande Cordova, the great captain, at their head, and crowning the careerof Charles V. with a power and a lustre which his own merits did notdeserve;--the Italians, under the sway of, and deriving their spiritfrom, the fierce martial pontiff, Julius II., and the French, boastingof a cavalry, headed by Bayard, La Palisse and others, worthy of suchassociates, and such as the armies of Europe had never beheld before.Montluc, who had been trained in part in the same house with Bayard, andBoiteres, who, as a page of the knight _sans peur et sans reproche_,makes a famous figure in the chronicles of _le loyal serviteur_, beingamong the leaders whom the Chevalier de Gourgues followed into battle.He partook of their spirit, and proved himself worthy to sustain thedeclining honors of chivalry. But his fortunes were as adverse as hismerits were distinguished. With thirty men, near Sienna, in Tuscany, hesustained, for a long time, the shock of a large division of the Spanisharmy. He saw, at length, every man of his command fall around him, andwas made a prisoner. The captive of the Spaniard, in that day, whenthe emperor of the country and his favorite generals showed themselvesutterly and equally insensible to good faith and generosity, was to be aslave. They conducted war with little regard to the rules that prevailedamong civilized nations. The valor that Gourgues displayed, instead ofcommending him to their admiration and favor, only provoked their fury;and they punished, with shameful bonds, those brave actions which thenoble heart prefers to applause and honor. Gourgues was transferred inchains to the gallies. In this degrading condition, chained to the oar,he was captured by the links off the coast of Sicily; the Turks thenbeing in alliance, to the shame of Christendom, with the French monarch,and against the Spaniards. He was conducted by his new captors to Rhodesand thence to Constantinople. Sent once more to sea, under his newmaster, he was retaken by a Maltese galley, and thus recovered hisliberty. But his latter adventures had given him a taste for the sea.His progresses brought him to the coast of Africa, to Brazil, and,according to Lescarbot, though the point is doubted, to the PacificOcean. The details of this career are not given to us, but the resultsseem to have been equally creditable to the fame, and of benefit tothe fortunes of our chevalier. He returned to Mont de Marsan, with thereputation of being one of the most able and hardy of all the navigatorsof his time. He had scarcely established himself fairly in his ancienthome, where he had invested all the fruits of his toils and enterprise,when the tidings came of the capture of La Caroline, and the massacre ofthe French in Florida by Melendez. He felt for the honor of France,for the grief of the widows and orphans thus cruelly bereaved, and waskeenly reminded of that brutal nature of the Spaniard, under which hehad himself suffered so long, and in a condition so humiliating to anoble spirit. He had his own wrongs and those of his country to avenge.He brooded over the necessity before him, with a passion that acquirednew strength from contemplation, and finally resolved never to givehimself rest till he had exacted full atonement, in the blood of theusurpers in Florida, for the crime of which they had been guilty to hispeople and himself.

  [24] The Chevalier de Gourgues is only twice mentioned, but both times with favor, in the chronicles of Montluc. The instances occur in Italy, in 1556; one of which describes the capture of Gourgues, the other his rescue from captivity. "_La il fut prius douze ou quatorze chevaux legers de ma compagnie, dont le Capitaine Gourgues, qui estoit a la suite de Strassi, estoit du nombre_," _&c._ Montluc was not the Gascon to leave his people in captivity. He prepares to scale the fort in which they are confined, and, his attempt begun, Gourgues was Gascon enough to help himself. The Spaniards had a guard of eighteen or twenty men over their prisoners, who were sixty or eighty in number, the latter being tied in pairs, to make them more secure. As soon as the prisoners heard the cry of "_France, France!_" from their friends without, they began the struggle within--"_ils commencerent a se secouer les uns et les autres, et mesmes le Capitaine Gourgues, qui se deslia l
e premier_," _etc._ The prisoners, led by Gourgues, assail their guards with naked arms, wrest from them their weapons, and where these are wanting, employ paving stones, actually killing the greater number, and taking the rest captive. Such was the success of the surprise, and the spirit which they displayed.