October 07, 2012
***NOTE: I will not be available tomorrow, so there will be
no post on October 08th***
A friend recently posed a question concerning how the
French Catholics of 1565 felt about French Protestants being France’s representation
in the New World. I immediately got the feeling that, as France wanted a
toehold in Florida, they might have sent the “dregs of society” to the front
lines, so to speak . . . like sending out the least-well-liked of a group of
friends to scout for danger. If the colony failed, many might have shown less
concern for these social and religious misfits than for their own people. That
is not to say many French Catholics did not support the venture and perhaps
even wish their countrymen well, however . . . it varied from family to family,
and likely from region to region.
The French Crown did support the venture militarily and
financially, but only with the promise that Spain would have no idea of the
colony’s whereabouts. This, of course, would not be the case. I was also asked
how the majority of Frenchmen reacted after the slaughters of La Caroline and
Matanzas. Did they breathe a sigh of relief that “only Protestants” had been
wiped out? Did they feel angry, betrayed, confused? (France and Spain were
supposedly in a time of peace, though Spain admitted that such promises were
not for Huguenots). There was in actuality a great public outcry, and many
French Catholics were upset that such massacres had been enacted. Whether or
not the majority felt the Protestants “deserved what they got,” they saw it as
a stain on national honor, and they wanted revenge.
Family members of the slain men demanded reparations or
at least some kind of memorial recognition. They got none. Queen Mother
Catherine de’ Medici did express dismay and went to the king of Spain with her
chastisements. Fearing war, she eventually let the matter drop. Friends and
loved ones of the New World’s Huguenot martyrs were forced to bear their grief
alone. In 1568 Dominique de Gourgues, acting less on Christian principle and
more on a personal desire for revenge-his-way, led a reconnaissance mission
that wiped out the Spanish settlement of San Mateo. San Mateo had been build
over the ruins of the wrecked Fort de la Caroline near present-day Jacksonville,
Florida.
(c) 2012 Joyously Saved
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