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Dromo's Den
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[Up] [Dromo's Den] Jacques Clement Biography CLÉMENT, JACQUES (1567-89). The assassin of Henry III of France. He was born at Sorbon, in the Department of Ardennes, and in early life seems to have been a soldier. Later he entered a Dominican convent in Paris. Ignorant, passionate, and probably also demented, Clément became a fanatic partisan of the League in its struggle against the French King and Henry of Navarre. After the murder of the Duke of Guise and his brother, at Blois, in 1588, Clément began to think of himself as the instrument selected by Heaven to overthrow the "tyrant," i.e., Henry of Valois, and to avenge the death of the two great leaders of the League. He is said to have confided his plan to assassinate the King to Bourgoing, the prior of his convent, and to have received the latter's approbation. It is asserted also by historians friendly to the cause of Henry of Navarre that the plan was brought to the knowledge of the Cardinal of Mayenne and his sister, the Duchesse de Montpensier, and that it was, in fact, carried out with their assistance but historians friendly to the League deny that its leaders had any previous knowledge whatever of Clément's murderous scheme. Letters of introduction to the King were obtained for Clément from the president, Harlay, and the Count de Brienne, who were then prisoners of the League in Paris. On .July 31, 1589 Clément set out for Saint-Cloud, from where Henry III was directing the operations against the capital. On the morning of August 1 he was admitted to the presence of the King as the bearer of an important letter and, while the King was reading it, stabbed him. Henry threw the knife into the assassin's face, exclaiming: "Oh! the wicked monk; be has killed me! Put him to death!" Clément was immediately cut down, and his body was subsequently quartered and burned. The King died the next day. By the zealots among the Leaguers the decd was received with undisguised rejoicing, and according to Daubigne, a Protestant, the act of Clément was praised from the pulpit, and the monk declared a martyr. De Thou, a partisan of Henry IV, asserts that Pope Sixtus V lauded Clément, but both Daubigne's and De Thou's statements have no authority beyond their own assertion. For a defense of the assassination of Henry III, consult Pinselet, Le martyre du frère Jacques Clément (Paris, 1589). Consult also Baird, The Huguenots and Henry of Navarre, vol. ii, chap. 10 (New York, 1886), and authorities cited under HENRY III. The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. V (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920). 442 |