A rare memorial to the Wars of Religion: Soual remembers an assassination

This calvary in Soual may be unremarkable at first sight, but it is highly unusual. It is the only memorial I have been able to find to those who died in the Wars of Religion (if you know of any others, please let me know!). And if the mairie hadn’t recently pinned a helpful sign to the iron railings, passers-by like me would have had no clue as to its importance.
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When I reflect on the numbers of war dead, I find this lack of memorials surprising, Nearly every French community has its monument des morts in memory of the 1.4 million soldiers who died in the Great War (3.5 percent of the population), but the Wars of Religion are largely forgotten, even though they left between two and four million dead, or between ten and twenty-five per cent of the population (if my maths seems odd, it is because the exact size of the population is unknown).

The calvary in Soual honours the memory of Charles d’Alric, lord of Farinières, who was assassinated nearby in 1575. His death, and the death of his son three weeks later, are typical examples of just how personal this conflict often was, particularly in my part of south-west France. Elsewhere in the kingdom there were major battles – Jarnac, Moncontour and Coutras for example – but the area to the west of Toulouse suffered an endless succession of skirmishes and sieges which were never decisive and always bloody. There was no frontline, no geographic logic to which town, village or château was Catholic and which was Protestant.
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Charles d’Alric and his family were Catholics, and their home was the Château de Farinières on the road between the Protestant strongholds of Puylaurens and Castres. The Protestants of Puylaurens knew that every Saturday Charles d’Alric was in the habit of making the journey from Labruguière, where he was governor, to Soual, where he kept a mistress. On Sunday morning, 25 December 1575, they lay in ambush in a ruined mill on the outskirts of Soual and waited for him to emerge after his Christmas Eve of pleasure. Before long, Charles d’Alric rode out of town through a gate near the calvary-memorial accompanied by the governor of Soual and three soldiers who were armed only with swords. Under cover of thick fog, the assassins took the Catholic party by surprise and brought Alric to the ground with a pistol shot. He rose to his knees, and with sword in hand he defended himself courageously until one of the attackers ran him through with a Protestant blade. The governor of Soual and the escort were taken prisoner.

When news of the assassination reached Labruguière, Charles d’Alric’s son was appointed governor in his place. Three weeks later, on 17 January 1576, the young Alric decided to avenge his father’s murder by attacking a passing troop of Protestant cavalry and musketeers. He and his men killed thirty of their enemies. The others fled except for their commander, Captain Daves, who was carried off to Labruguière a prisoner. For some unexplained reason, one of the Catholic soldiers then decided to take a sword swipe at the captive. Fearing he was mortally wounded, Daves decided to use his final moments on earth to further the Protestant cause. He still had his pistol, and the young Alric was standing right in front of him, so he shot him dead. Predictably this earned Daves a second sword strike which killed him instantly. Two more men lay dead on the ground, two more victims of the murderous hatred that divided two versions of Christianity.

I have translated and adapted this account from a book written by a Protestant from Castres called Jacques Gaches. He was born around 1555, took an active part in the conflict and wrote his memoirs twenty or so years after the wars were over. His book is freely available on the internet in digitised form from https//archive.org (in the original early 17th century French) and, along with the journal kept by another Protestant from Castres, Monsieur Faurin, was among my main sources when I wrote about this tragic period of French history in my book ‘Lauragais: Steeped in History, Soaked in Blood.’ But apart from written reminders of the past such as these, I failed to track down any other physical memorials like Charles d’Alric’s cross, despite searching extensively online and always keeping an eye open whenever I was out and about in my part of France.
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If you live in the area and want to find the memorial, it’s in the centre of Soual on a corner half-way along the Rue du Barry.

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