Ndexic Massacre— Wikipedia

The seat then Nègrepelisse massacre is an event having taken place from 10 to June 11, 1622 , and produced by the troops of King Louis XIII, in the small city of Nègrepelisse, during the first of the three Huguenot rebellions ^{[ first ]} .

After having pacified Poitou and Saintonge, Louis XIII entrusted the blockade of La Rochelle to his cousin Louis, count of Soissons, while he walks towards Languedoc, in order to rescue the Duke of Montmorency, governor of the region ^{[ 2 ]} . The king’s army left Royan on May 16 and sleeps in Mortagne. On the 17th she lay in Mirambeau, stayed on 18 and 19 in Montlieu, arrived in Saint-Aulaye on 20, in Guitres on 21, in Saint-Émilion on 22, Castillon on 23 and Sainte-Foy-la-Grande on May 25 that Jacques Nompar de Caumont, Duke of the Force, seems to want to defend (the place goes however without fight) ^{[ 2 ]} .

Continuing his ride, Louis XIII arrived on May 28 in Monségur and on the 29th in Marmande, passed in front of Tonneins that the Duke of Elbeuf and the Marshal of Themines had taken on May 4 and Ruine Ras-Terre ^{[ 2 ]} . On May 30, the royal troop is in Aiguillon and June 1 in Agen and then went up the Garonne by Valence-d’Agen to Moissac.

Approaching Montauban, which he had failed to take the previous year, Louis XIII sends the Marquis de Valençay with the gendarmerie de la Garde and the Condé-lighters in recognition to the Glacis de la Cité Huguenote, to protect himself from an attack from the city ^{[ 3 ]} . On June 7, he passed Aveyron, near Piquecos, to his bivouac army, in battle, in front of Villemade, 2 leagues from Montauban, hoping that they would come to offer him his revenge. These, although reinforced by the Duke of Rohan of 500 men, remained cautiously behind their walls ^{[ 3 ]} .

On June 10, royal troops arrived in front of Negrepelisse.

• 

  Huguenot revolts in the Protestant Bastion of Tarn-et-Garonne (1621-1628)

Nègrepelisse was a small square surrounded by an old wall and dominated by a castle located on the left bank of Aveyron. The place, which had been taken by the royal troops in August 1621 , had been taken up by the Montalbanian Huguenots in December ^{[ 4 ]} By massacring the royal garrison of 400 soldiers from the Vaillac regiment ^{[ 3 ] , [ 5 ]} .

Louis XIII had not forgotten the offense. Once the royal army in front of the city, the inhabitants shot the King’s camps and armies and the carabins who escorted it.

The troops were organized to launch three attacks at the same time:

The seven cannons of the royal army were put in battery in front of the wall which linked the castle to the city. 12 officers and 20 Swiss were killed in the battery by Protestant shooters ^{[ 6 ]} .

Louis de Pontis, lieutenant of the 2 ^{It is} company of Picardy, sent to the king to take his instructions, found him “In a wicked thatched cottage, where smoke was stifled.
Here is the order, said Louis XIII. We will attack the city by both ends, as I ordered it. You will all have something white attached to the cords of your hats, for fear that, joining you in the city, you did not shoot each other, without recognizing yourself. I order you not to make neighborhoods to any man, because these people have irritated me and they deserve to be treated as they treated my 400 soldiers ” ^{[ 6 ]} .

The June 10, 1622 , the white handkerchiefs were put in the hats and the assault was given. The defenders of Negrepelisse withdrew in a corner of the city and asked for neighborhood ; The king refused ^{[ 6 ]} . Nègrepelisse was then fully burnt down the next day, after a generalized looting and ransacking; only a few buildings escaped destruction ^{[ 7 ]} . According to an anonymous author of XIX ^{It is} century, only a dozen men would have survived the capture of the city; Louis XIII made them hang them, at their request, to the trees of their gardens. According to an eyewitness, the Marshal of Bassompierre, only the men who had not been able to take refuge in the castle were killed during the assault; After the latter’s surrender the next day, 12 to 15 of the leaders were then hanged ^{[ 8 ]} . According to Bassompierre, the ladies and young ladies of the city would have subsequently had sex (granted or not depending on the case) with the soldiers ^{[ 8 ]} . One of the valets of the king’s chamber, by compassion, bought about forty with the soldiers who kept them against their will ^{[ 9 ]} .

In front of this barbarism, Cardinal Jean-François de Gondi, archbishop of Paris, would have said to Louis XIII: “Sire, the leniency is the favorite virtue of the great princes, in the midst of their most beautiful triumphs, they make glory to give in to compassion. When you travel to your provinces, you should look like these rivers that carry abundance everywhere. To God only pleases your passage can compare itself to that of torrents whose impetuous waters ravage and ruin everything.
The Prince of Condé who enters the King at the moment would have found him shaken by these touching truths. He then took a breviary who is with the monarch, opens it, and points out that, in the lessons of the day learned from the Old Testament, the Prophet Samuel criticizes Saul for having spared the amalecites ” ^{[ 9 ]} .

After taking Negrepelisse, Louis XIII went to Saint-Antonin-Noble-Val, took the city and then headed for Montpellier in order to take it too.

Six pamphlets relate shortly after the fate of the city, presented as a divine punishment mediated by royal justice falling as lightning on the rebels ^{[ ten ]} .

• Anonymous, New historical dictionary of seats and battles , vol. 5, Paris, Gilbert / Fantin, 1809 ( read online ) , p. ten
• General Édouard Hardÿ de Périni , French battles: Louis XIII and Richelieu – 1621 to 1643 , vol. 3, Paris, Ernest Flammarion, 1894-1906 ( read online )
• The big and just chastiment of the rebels of Negrepelisse on June 10 and 11, 1622 On BNF Gallica.