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Baird. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 1%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: left; + color: gray; + } /* page numbers */ + + .linenum {position: absolute; top: auto; left: 4%;} /* poetry number */ + .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + .sidenote {width: 20%; padding-bottom: .5em; padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; padding-right: .5em; margin-left: 1em; + float: right; clear: right; margin-top: 1em; + font-size: smaller; color: black; background: #eeeeee; border: dashed 1px;} + + .bb {border-bottom: solid 2px;} + .bl {border-left: solid 2px;} + .bt {border-top: solid 2px;} + .br {border-right: solid 2px;} + .bbox {border: solid 2px;} + + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + .u {text-decoration: underline;} + + .caption {font-weight: bold;} + + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + .figleft {float: left; clear: left; margin-left: 0; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: + 1em; margin-right: 1em; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + .figright {float: right; clear: right; margin-left: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 0; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + .footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + .footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + .footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + .fnanchor {vertical-align: super; font-size: .8em; text-decoration: none;} + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span.i0 {display: block; margin-left: 0em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 4em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i16 {display: block; margin-left: 16em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i6 {display: block; margin-left: 6em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2), by +Henry Martyn Baird + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) + +Author: Henry Martyn Baird + +Release Date: September 24, 2007 [EBook #22762] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RISE OF THE HUGENOTS *** + + + + +Produced by Sigal Alon, Daniel J. Mount, Taavi Kalju and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + +<h1>HISTORY OF THE</h1> + +<h1>RISE OF THE HUGUENOTS.</h1> + +<h3><i>VOLUME I.</i></h3> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>A REVIEW OF THIS WORK,</h2> + + +<p><i>Occupying nearly four columns, appeared in the</i> <span class="smcap">New York Tribune</span> <i>of +Dec. 30th, 1879, from which the following is extracted.</i></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"It embraces the time from the accession of Francis I. in 1515, to +the death of Charles IX. in 1574, at which epoch the doctrines of +the Reformation had become well-grounded in France, and the +Huguenots had outgrown the feebleness of infancy and stood as a +distinct and powerful body before the religious world. In preparing +the learned and elaborate work, which will give the name of the +author an honourable place on the distinguished list of American +historians, Professor Baird has made a judicious use of the +researches and discoveries which, during the last thirty years, +have shed a fresh light on the history of France at the era of the +Reformation. Among the ample stores of knowledge which have been +laid open to his inquiries are the archives of the principal +capitals of Europe, which have been thoroughly explored for the +first time during that period. Numerous manuscripts of great value, +for the most part unknown to the learned world, have been rescued +from obscurity. At the side of the voluminous chronicles long since +printed, a rich abundance of contemporary correspondence and +hitherto inedited memoirs has accumulated, which afford a copious +collection of life-like and trustworthy views of the past. The +secrets of diplomacy have been revealed. The official statements +drawn up for the public may now be tested by the more truthful and +unguarded accounts conveyed in cipher to all the foreign courts of +Europe. Of not less importance, perhaps, than the official +publications are the fruits of private research, among which are +several valuable collections of original documents. While the +author has not failed to enrich his pages with the materials +derived from these and similar sources, he has made a careful and +patient study of the host of original chronicles, histories, and +kindred productions which have long been more or less familiar to +the world of letters. The fruits of his studious labours, as +presented in these volumes, attest his diligence, his fidelity, his +equipoise of judgment, his fairness of mind, his clearness of +perception, and his accuracy of statement.</p> + +<p>"While the research and well-digested erudition exhibited in this +work are eminently creditable to the learning and scholarship of +the author, its literary execution amply attests the excellence of +his taste, and his judgment and skill in the art of composition. +His work is one of the most important recent contributions to +American literature, and is entitled to a sincere greeting for its +manifold learning and scholarly spirit."</p></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h1>HISTORY OF THE<br /> +RISE OF THE HUGUENOTS.</h1> + +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2>HENRY M. BAIRD,</h2> + +<h4>PROFESSOR IN THE UNIVERSITY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK.</h4> + + +<h3><i>IN TWO VOLUMES.</i></h3> + +<h2>VOL. I.</h2> + +<h4><i>FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE FRENCH<br /> +REFORMATION TO THE EDICT OF<br /> +JANUARY (1562).</i></h4> + +<h5>London:<br /> +HODDER AND STOUGHTON,<br /> +27, PATERNOSTER ROW.<br /> +MDCCCLXXX.</h5> + +<p class="center">Hazell, Watson, and Viney, Printers, London and Aylesbury</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[Pg iii]</a></span></p> +<h2>PREFACE.</h2> + + +<p>The period of about half a century with which these volumes are +concerned may properly be regarded as the formative age of the Huguenots +of France. It included the first planting of the reformed doctrines, and +the steady growth of the Reformation in spite of obloquy and +persecution, whether exercised under the forms of law or vented in +lawless violence. It saw the gathering and the regular organization of +the reformed communities, as well as their consolidation into one of the +most orderly and zealous churches of the Protestant family. It witnessed +the failure of the bloody legislation of three successive monarchs, and +the equally abortive efforts of a fourth monarch to destroy the +Huguenots, first with the sword and afterward with the dagger. At the +close of this period the faith and resolution of the Huguenots had +survived four sanguinary wars into which they had been driven by their +implacable enemies. They were just entering upon a fifth war, under +favorable auspices, for they had made it manifest to all men that their +success depended less upon the lives of leaders, of whom they might be +robbed by the hand of the assassin, than upon a conviction of the +righteousness of their cause, which no sophistry of their opponents +could dissipate. The Huguenots, at the death of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[Pg iv]</a></span> Charles the Ninth, +stood before the world a well-defined body, that had outgrown the +feebleness of infancy, and had proved itself entitled to consideration +and respect. Thus much was certain.</p> + +<p>The subsequent fortunes of the Huguenots of France—their wars until +they obtained recognition and some measure of justice in the Edict of +Nantes; the gradual infringement upon their guaranteed rights, +culminating in the revocation of the edict, and the loss to the kingdom +of the most industrious part of the population; their sufferings "under +the cross" until the publication of the Edict of Toleration—these offer +an inviting field of investigation, upon which I may at some future time +be tempted to enter.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p> + +<p>The history of the Huguenots during a great part of the period covered +by this work, is, in fact, the history of France as well. The outlines +of the action and some of the characters that come upon the stage are, +consequently, familiar to the reader of general history. The period has +been treated cursorily in writings extending over wider limits, while +several of the most striking incidents, including, especially, the +Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day, have been made the subject of special +disquisitions. Yet, although much study and ingenuity have been expended +in elucidating the more difficult and obscure points, there is, +especially in the English language, a lack of works upon the general +theme, combining painstaking investigation into the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</a></span> older (but not, +necessarily, better known) sources of information, and an acquaintance +with the results of modern research.</p> + +<p>The last twenty-five or thirty years have been remarkably fruitful in +discoveries and publications shedding light upon the history of France +during the age of the Reformation and the years immediately following. +The archives of all the principal, and many of the secondary, capitals +of Europe have been explored. Valuable manuscripts previously known to +few scholars—if, indeed, known to any—have been rescued from obscurity +and threatened destruction. By the side of the voluminous histories and +chronicles long since printed, a rich store of contemporary +correspondence and hitherto inedited memoirs has been accumulated, +supplying at once the most copious and the most trustworthy fund of +life-like views of the past. The magnificent "Collection de Documents +Inédits sur l'Histoire de France," still in course of publication by the +Ministry of Public Instruction, comprehends in its grand design not only +extended memoirs, like those of Claude Haton of Provins, but the even +more important portfolios of leading statesmen, such as those of +Secretary De l'Aubespine and Cardinal Granvelle (not less indispensable +for French than for Dutch affairs), and the correspondence of monarchs, +as of Henry the Fourth. The secrets of diplomacy have been revealed. +Those singularly accurate and sensible reports made to the Doge and +Senate of Venice, by the ambassadors of the republic, upon their return +from the French court, can be read in the collections of Venetian +Relations of Tommaseo and Albèri, or as summarized by Ranke and Baschet. +The official statements drawn up for the eyes of the public may now be +confronted with and tested by the more truthful and unguarded accounts +conveyed in cipher to all the foreign courts of Europe. Including the +partial collections of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</a></span> despatches heretofore put in print, we possess, +regarding many critical events, the narratives and opinions of such apt +observers as the envoys of Spain, of the German Empire, of Venice, and +of the Pope, of Wurtemberg, Saxony, and the Palatinate. Above all, we +have access to the continuous series of letters of the English +ambassadors and minor agents, comprising Sir Thomas Smith, Sir Nicholas +Throkmorton, Walsingham, Jones, Killigrew, and others, scarcely less +skilful in the use of the pen than in the art of diplomacy. This English +correspondence, parts of which were printed long ago by Digges, Dr. +Patrick Forbes, and Haynes, and other portions by Hardwick, Wright, +Tytler-Fraser, etc., can now be read in London, chiefly in the Record +Office, and is admirably analyzed in the invaluable "Calendars of State +Papers (Foreign Series)," published under the direction of the Master of +the Rolls. Too much weight can scarcely be given to this source of +information and illustration. One of the learned editors +enthusiastically remarks concerning a part of it (the letters of +Throkmorton<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a>): "The historical literature of France, rich as it +confessedly is in memoirs and despatches of the sixteenth and +seventeenth centuries, possesses (as far as I am aware) no series of +papers which can compare either in continuity, fidelity, or minuteness, +with the correspondence of Throkmorton.... He had his agents and his +spies everywhere throughout France."</p> + +<p>Little, if at all, inferior in importance to governmental publications, +are the fruits of private research. Several voluminous collections of +original documents deserve special mention. Not to speak of the +publications of the national French Historical<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span> Society, the "Société de +l'Histoire du Protestantisme Français" has given to the world, in its +monthly Bulletin, so many hitherto inedited documents, besides a great +number of excellent monographs, that the volumes of this periodical, now +in its twenty-eighth year, constitute in themselves an indispensable +library of reference. That admirable biographical work, "La France +Protestante," by the brothers Haag (at present in course of revision and +enlargement); the "Correspondance des Réformateurs dans les Pays de +Langue Française," by M. Herminjard (of which five volumes have come +out), a signal instance of what a single indefatigable student can +accomplish; the collections of Calvin's Letters, by M. Jules Bonnet; and +the magnificent edition of the same reformer's works, by Professors +Baum, Cunitz, and Reuss, a treasury of learning, rich in surprises for +the historical student—all these merit more particular description than +can here be given. The biography of Beza, by Professor Baum, the history +of the Princes of Condé, by the Due d'Aumale, the correspondence of +Frederick the Pious, edited by Kluckholn, etc., contribute a great deal +of previously unpublished material. The sumptuous work of M. Douen on +Clément Marot and the Huguenot Psalter sheds new light upon an +interesting, but until now obscure subject. The writings of Farel and +his associates have been rescued from the oblivion to which the extreme +scarcity of the extant copies consigned them; and the "Vray Usage de la +Croix," the "Sommaire," and the "Manière et Fasson," can at last be read +in elegant editions, faithful counterparts of the originals in every +point save typographical appearance. The same may be said of such +celebrated but hitherto unattainable rarities as the "Tigre" of 1560, +scrupulously reproduced in fac-simile, by M. Charles Read, of Paris, +from the copy belonging to the Hôtel-de-Ville, and the fugi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</a></span>tive songs +and hymns which M. Bordier has gathered in his "Chansonnier Huguenot."</p> + +<p>No little value belongs, also, to certain contemporary journals of +occurrences given to the world under the titles of "Journal d'un +Bourgeois de Paris sous le règne de François Ier," "Cronique du Roy +Françoys, premier de ce nom," "Journal d'un curé ligueur de Paris sous +les trois derniers Valois (Jehan de la Fosse)," "Journal de Jean +Glaumeau de Bourges," etc.</p> + +<p>The revival of interest in the fortunes of their ancestors has led a +considerable number of French Protestants to prepare works bearing upon +the history of Protestantism in particular cities and provinces. Among +these may be noted the works of MM. Douen and Rossier, on Picardy; +Recordon, on Champagne; Lièvre, on Poitou; Bujeaud, on Angoumois; +Vaurigaud, on Brittany; Arnaud, on Dauphiny; Coquerel, on Paris; Borrel, +on Nismes; Callot and Delmas, on La Rochelle; Crottet, on Pons, Gémozac, +and Mortagne; Corbière, on Montpellier, etc. Although these books differ +greatly in intrinsic importance, and in regard to the exercise of +historical criticism, they all have a valid claim to attention by reason +of the evidence they afford of individual research.</p> + +<p>Of the new light thrown upon the rise of the Huguenots by these and +similar works, it has been my aim to make full use. At the same time I +have been convinced that no adequate knowledge of the period can be +obtained, save by mastering the great array of original chronicles, +histories, and kindred productions with which the literary world has +long been acquainted, at least by name. This result I have, accordingly, +endeavored to reach by careful and patient reading. It is unnecessary to +specify in detail the numerous authors through whose writings it became +my laborious but by no means un<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</a></span>grateful task to make my way, for the +marginal notes will indicate the exact line of the study pursued. It may +be sufficient to say, omitting many other names scarcely less important, +that I have assiduously studied the works of De Thou, Agrippa d'Aubigné, +La Place, La Planche; the important "Histoire Ecclésiastique," ascribed +to Theodore de Bèze; the "Actiones et Monimenta" of Crespin; the memoirs +of Castelnau, Vieilleville, Du Bellay, Tavannes, La Noue, Montluc, +Lestoile, and other authors of this period, included in the large +collections of memoirs of Petitot, Michaud and Poujoulat, etc.; the +writings of Brantôme; the Commentaries of Jean de Serres, in their +various editions, as well as other writings attributed to the same +author; the rich "Mémoires de Condé," both in their original and their +enlarged form; the series of important documents comprehended in the +"Archives curieuses" of Cimber and Danjou; the disquisitions collected +by M. Leber; the histories of Davila, Florimond de Ræmond, Maimbourg, +Varillas, Soulier, Mézeray, Gaillard; the more recent historical works +of Sismondi, Martin, Michelet, Floquet; the volumes of Browning, +Smedley, and White, in English, of De Félice, Drion, and Puaux, in +French, of Barthold, Von Raumer, Ranke, Polenz, Ebeling, and Soldan, in +German. The principal work of Professor Soldan, in particular, bounded +by the same limits of time with those of the present history, merits, in +virtue of accuracy and thoroughness, a wider recognition than it seems +yet to have attained. My own independent investigations having conducted +me over much of the ground traversed by Professor Soldan, I have enjoyed +ample opportunity for testing the completeness of his study and the +judicial fairness of his conclusions.</p> + +<p>The posthumous treatise of Professor H. Wuttke, "Zur Vorgeschichte der +Bartholomäusnacht," published in Leipsic since<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[Pg x]</a></span> the present work was +placed in the printer's hands, reached me too late to be noticed in +connection with the narrative of the events which it discusses. +Notwithstanding Professor Wuttke's recognized ability and assiduity as a +historical investigator, I am unable to adopt the position at which he +arrives.</p> + +<p>I desire here to acknowledge my obligation for valuable assistance in +prosecuting my researches to my lamented friend and correspondent, +Professor Jean Guillaume Baum, long and honorably connected with the +Académie de Strasbourg, than whom France could boast no more +indefatigable or successful student of her annals, and who consecrated +his leisure hours during forty years to the enthusiastic study of the +history of the French and Swiss Reformation. If that history is better +understood now than when, in 1838, he submitted as a theological thesis +his astonishingly complete "Origines Evangelii in Gallia restaurati," +the progress is due in great measure to his patient labors. To M. Jules +Bonnet, under whose skilful editorship the Bulletin of the French +Protestant Historical Society has reached its present excellence, I am +indebted for help afforded me in solving, by means of researches among +the MSS. of the Bibliothèque Rationale at Paris, and the Simler +Collection at Zurich, several difficult problems. To these names I may +add those of M. Henri Bordier, Bibliothécaire Honoraire in the +Department of MSS. (Bibliothèque Rationale), of M. Raoul de Cazenove, of +Lyons, author of many highly prized monographs on Huguenot topics, and +of the Rev. John Forsyth, D.D., who have in various ways rendered me +valuable services.</p> + +<p>Finally, I deem it both a duty and a privilege to express my warm thanks +to the librarians of the Princeton Theological Seminary and of the Union +Theological Seminary in this city; and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[Pg xi]</a></span> particularly to the successive +superintendents and librarians of the Astor Library—both the living and +the dead—by the signal courtesy of whom, the whole of that admirable +collection of books has been for many years placed at my disposal for +purposes of consultation so freely, that nothing has been wanting to +make the work of study in its alcoves as pleasant and effective as +possible.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">University of the City of New York</span>,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">September 15, 1879.</span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xiii" id="Page_xiii">[Pg xiii]</a></span></p> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<h4>OF</h4> + +<h3>VOLUME FIRST.</h3> + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> + <td align='center' colspan="3"><b>BOOK I.</b></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='center' colspan="3"><b>CHAPTER I</b></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='right'>Page</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left' colspan="2"><span class="smcap">France in the Sixteenth Century</span></td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_3'>3</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Extent at the Accession of Francis I.</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_3'>3</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Gradual Territorial Growth</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_4'>4</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Subdivision in the Tenth Century</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_5'>5</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Destruction of the Feudal System</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_5'>5</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The Foremost Kingdom of Christendom</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_6'>6</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Assimilation of Manners and Language</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_8'>8</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Growth and Importance of Paris</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_9'>9</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Military Strength</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_10'>10</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The Rights of the People overlooked</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_11'>11</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The States General not convoked</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_12'>12</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Unmurmuring Endurance of the Tiers État</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_13'>13</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Absolutism of the Crown</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_14'>14</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Partial Checks</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_15'>15</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The Parliament of Paris</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_16'>16</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Other Parliaments</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_17'>17</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The Parliaments claim the Right of Remonstrance</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_17'>17</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Abuses in the Parliament of Bordeaux</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_19'>19</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Origin and Growth of the University</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_20'>20</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Faculty of Theology, or Sorbonne</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_22'>22</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Its Authority and Narrowness</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_23'>23</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Multitude of Students</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_24'>24</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Credit of the Clergy</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_25'>25</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Liberties of the Gallican Church</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_25'>25</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Pragmatic Sanction of. St. Louis (1268)</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_26'>26</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Conflict of Philip the Fair with Boniface VIII.</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_27'>27</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xiv" id="Page_xiv">[Pg xiv]</a></span>The "Babylonish Captivity"</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_28'>28</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges (1438)</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_29'>29</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Rejoicing at the Council of Basle</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_31'>31</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Louis XI. undertakes to abrogate the Pragmatic Sanction</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_32'>32</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>But subsequently re-enacts it in part</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_33'>33</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Louis XII. publishes it anew</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_35'>35</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Francis I. sacrifices the Interests of the Gallican Church</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_35'>35</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Concordat between Leo X. and the French King</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_36'>36</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Dissatisfaction of the Clergy</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_37'>37</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Struggle with the Parliament of Paris</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_37'>37</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Opposition of the University</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_39'>39</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Patronage of the King</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_41'>41</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The "Renaissance"</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_41'>41</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Francis's Acquirements overrated</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_42'>42</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>His Munificent Patronage of Art</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_42'>42</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The Collége Royal, or "Trilingue"</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_43'>43</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>An Age of Blood</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_44'>44</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Barbarous Punishment for Crime</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_45'>45</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>And not less for Heresy</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_46'>46</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Belief in Judicial Astrology</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_47'>47</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Predictions of Nostradamus</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_47'>47</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Reverence for Relics</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_49'>49</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>For the Consecrated Wafer</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_50'>50</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Internal Condition of the Clergy</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_51'>51</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Number and Wealth of the Cardinals</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_51'>51</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Non-residence of Prelates</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_52'>52</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Revenues of the Clergy</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_52'>52</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Vice and Hypocrisy</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_53'>53</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Brantôme's Account of the Clergy before the Concordat</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_54'>54</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Aversion to the Use of the French Language</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_56'>56</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Indecent Processions—"Processions Blanches"</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_59'>59</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The Monastic Orders held in Contempt</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_60'>60</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Protests against prevailing Corruption</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_61'>61</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The "Cathari," or Albigenses</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_61'>61</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Nicholas de Clemangis</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_63'>63</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>John Gerson</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_64'>64</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Jean Bouchet's "Deploration of the Church"</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_65'>65</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='center' colspan="3"><hr style='width: 45%;' /></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Changes in the Boundaries of France during the 16th Century</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_66'>66</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'> </td> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='center' colspan="3"><b>CHAPTER II.</b></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='center' colspan="3"><b>1512-1525.</b></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left' colspan="2"><span class="smcap">The Reformation in Meaux</span></td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_67'>67</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_67'>67</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Restores Letters to France</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_68'>68</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xv" id="Page_xv">[Pg xv]</a></span>Wide Range of his Studies</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_68'>68</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Guillaume Farel, his Pupil</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_68'>68</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Devotion of Teacher and Scholar</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_69'>69</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Lefèvre publishes a Latin Commentary on the Pauline Epistles (1512)</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_70'>70</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Enters into Controversy with Natalis Beda (1518)</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_71'>71</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The Sorbonne's Declaration (Nov. 9, 1521)</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_71'>71</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Briçonnet, Bishop of Meaux</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_72'>72</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>His First Reformatory Efforts</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_72'>72</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Invites Lefèvre and Farel to Meaux</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_73'>73</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Effects of the Preaching of Roussel and others</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_74'>74</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>De Roma's Threat</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_76'>76</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Lefèvre publishes a Translation of the New Testament (1523)</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_77'>77</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The Results surpass Expectation</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_79'>79</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Bishop Briçonnet's Weakness</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_80'>80</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Forbids the "Lutheran" Doctors to preach</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_81'>81</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Lefèvre and Roussel take Refuge in Strasbourg</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_84'>84</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Jean Leclerc whipped and branded</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_87'>87</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>His barbarous Execution at Metz</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_88'>88</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Pauvan burned on the Place de Grève</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_89'>89</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The Hermit of Livry</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_92'>92</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Briçonnet becomes a Jailer of "Lutherans"</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_92'>92</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Lefèvre's Writings condemned by the Sorbonne (1525)</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_93'>93</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>He becomes Tutor of Prince Charles</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_94'>94</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Librarian at Blois</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_94'>94</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Ends his Days at Nérac</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_95'>95</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>His Mental Anguish</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_95'>95</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Michel d'Arande and Gérard Roussel</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_96'>96</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'> </td> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='center' colspan="3"><b>CHAPTER III.</b></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='center' colspan="3"><b>1523-1525.</b></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left' colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Francis I. and Margaret of Angoulême—Early Reformatory Movements and Struggles</span></td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_99'>99</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Francis I. and Margaret of Angoulême</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_99'>99</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The King's Chivalrous Disposition</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_100'>100</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Appreciates Literary Excellence</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_101'>101</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Contrast with Charles V.</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_101'>101</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>His Religious Convictions</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_102'>102</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>His Fear of Innovation</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_102'>102</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>His Loose Morality</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_103'>103</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Margaret's Scholarly Attainments</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_104'>104</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Her Personal Appearance</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_105'>105</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Her Participation in Public Affairs</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_106'>106</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Her First Marriage to the Duke of Alençon</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_106'>106</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Obtains a Safe-Conduct to visit her Brother</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_106'>106</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xvi" id="Page_xvi">[Pg xvi]</a></span>Her Second Marriage, to Henry, King of Navarre</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_107'>107</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Bishop Briçonnet's Mystic Correspondence</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_108'>108</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Luther's Teachings solemnly condemned by the University</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_108'>108</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Melanchthon's Defence</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_109'>109</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Regency of Louise de Savoie</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_109'>109</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The Sorbonne suggests Means of extirpating the "Lutheran Doctrines" (Oct. 7, 1523)</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_110'>110</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Wide Circulation of Luther's Treatises</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_112'>112</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>François Lambert, of Avignon</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_112'>112</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Life among the Franciscans</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_113'>113</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Lambert, the first French Monk to embrace the Reformation</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_113'>113</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>He is also the First to Marry</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_114'>114</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Jean Châtellain at Metz</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_114'>114</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Wolfgang Schuch at St. Hippolyte</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_115'>115</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Farel at Montbéliard</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_117'>117</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Pierre Caroli lectures on the Psalms</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_118'>118</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='center' colspan="3"><hr style='width: 45%;' /></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The Heptameron of the Queen of Navarre</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_119'>119</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'> </td> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='right'></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='center' colspan="3"><b>CHAPTER IV.</b></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='center' colspan="3"><b>1525-1533.</b></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left' colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Increased Severity—Louis de Berquin</span></td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_122'>122</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Captivity of Francis I.</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_122'>122</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Change in the Religious Policy of Louise</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_123'>123</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>A Commission appointed to try "Lutherans"</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_124'>124</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The Inquisition heretofore jealously watched</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_125'>125</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The Commission indorsed by Clement VII.</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_126'>126</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Its Powers enlarged by the Bull</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_128'>128</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Character of Louis de Berquin</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_128'>128</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>He becomes a warm Partisan of the Reformation</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_129'>129</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>First Imprisonment (1523)</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_130'>130</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Released by Order of the King</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_130'>130</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Advice of Erasmus</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_131'>131</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Second Imprisonment (1526)</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_131'>131</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Francis from Madrid again orders his Release</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_132'>132</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Dilatory Measures of Parliament</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_132'>132</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Margaret of Angoulême's Hopes</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_133'>133</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Francis violates his Pledges to Charles V.</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_134'>134</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Must conciliate the Pope and Clergy</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_135'>135</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Promises to prove himself "Very Christian"</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_137'>137</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The Council of Sens (1528)</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_138'>138</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Cardinal Duprat</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_138'>138</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Vigorous Measures to suppress Reformation</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_139'>139</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The Councils of Bourges and Lyons</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_139'>139</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xvii" id="Page_xvii">[Pg xvii]</a></span>Financial Help bought by Persecution</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_140'>140</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Insult to an Image and an Expiatory Procession</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_141'>141</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Other Iconoclastic Excesses</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_143'>143</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Berquin's Third Arrest</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_143'>143</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>His Condemnation to Penance, Branding, and Perpetual Imprisonment</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_145'>145</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>He Appeals</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_145'>145</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Is suddenly Sentenced to Death and Executed</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_146'>146</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Francis Treats with the Germans</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_147'>147</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>And with Henry VIII. of England</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_148'>148</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Francis meets Clement at Marseilles</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_148'>148</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Marriage of Henry of Orleans to Catharine de' Medici</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_148'>148</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Francis Refuses to join in a general Scheme for the Extermination of Heresy</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_149'>149</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Execution of Jean de Caturce, at Toulouse</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_150'>150</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Le Coq's Evangelical Sermon</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_151'>151</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Margaret attacked at College of Navarre</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_152'>152</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Her "Miroir de l'Ame Pécheresse" condemned</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_152'>152</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Rector Cop's Address to the University</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_153'>153</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Calvin, the real Author, seeks Safety in Flight</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_154'>154</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Rough Answer of Francis to the Bernese</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_155'>155</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Royal Letter to the Bishop of Paris</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_156'>156</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='center' colspan="3"><hr style='width: 45%;' /></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Elegies on Louis de Berquin</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_157'>157</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'> </td> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='right'></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='center' colspan="3"><b>CHAPTER V.</b></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='center' colspan="3"><b>1534-1535.</b></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left' colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Melanchthon's Attempt at Conciliation, and the Year of the Placards</span></td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_159'>159</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Hopes of Reunion in the Church</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_159'>159</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Melanchthon and Du Bellay</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_160'>160</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>A Plan of Reconciliation</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_160'>160</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Its Extreme Concessions</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_161'>161</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Makes a Favorable Impression on Francis</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_162'>162</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Indiscreet Partisans of Reform</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_162'>162</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Placards and Pasquinades</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_163'>163</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Féret's Mission to Switzerland</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_164'>164</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The Placard against the Mass</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_164'>164</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Excitement produced in Paris (Oct. 18, 1534)</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_167'>167</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>A Copy posted on the Door of the Royal Bedchamber</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_167'>167</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Anger of Francis at the Insult</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_167'>167</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Political Considerations</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_168'>168</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Margaret of Navarre's Entreaties</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_168'>168</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Francis Abolishes the Art of Printing (Jan. 13, 1535)</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_169'>169</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xviii" id="Page_xviii">[Pg xviii]</a></span>The Rash and Shameful Edict Recalled</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_170'>170</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Rigid Investigation and many Victims</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_171'>171</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The Expiatory Procession (Jan. 21, 1535)</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_173'>173</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The King's Speech at the Episcopal Palace</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_176'>176</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Constancy of the Victims</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_177'>177</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The Estrapade</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_177'>177</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Flight of Clément Marot and others</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_179'>179</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Royal Declaration of Coucy (July 16, 1535)</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_179'>179</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Alleged Intercession of Pope Paul III.</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_180'>180</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Clemency again dictated by Policy</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_181'>181</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Francis's Letter to the German Princes</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_182'>182</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Sturm and Voré beg Melanchthon to come</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_182'>182</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Melanchthon's Perplexity</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_183'>183</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>He is formally invited by the King</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_184'>184</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Applies to the Elector for Permission to go</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_184'>184</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>But is roughly refused</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_185'>185</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The Proposed Conference reprobated by the Sorbonne</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_187'>187</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Du Bellay at Smalcald</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_188'>188</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>He makes for Francis a Protestant Confession</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_189'>189</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Efforts of French Protestants in Switzerland and Germany</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_191'>191</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Intercession of Strasbourg, Basle, etc.</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_191'>191</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Unsatisfactory Reply by Anne de Montmorency</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_193'>193</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'> </td> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='right'></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='center' colspan="3"><b>CHAPTER VI.</b></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='center' colspan="3"><b>1535-1545.</b></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left' colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Calvin and Geneva—More Systematic Persecution by the King</span></td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_193'>193</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Changed Attitude of Francis</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_193'>193</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Occasioned by the "Placards"</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_194'>194</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Margaret of Navarre and Roussel</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_195'>195</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The French Reformation becomes a Popular Movement</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_196'>196</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Independence of Geneva secured by Francis</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_197'>197</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>John Calvin's Childhood</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_198'>198</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>He studies in Paris and Orleans</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_199'>199</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Change of Religious Views at Bourges</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_199'>199</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>His Commentary on Seneca's "De Clementia"</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_200'>200</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Escapes from Paris to Angoulême</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_201'>201</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Leaves France</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_202'>202</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The "Christian Institutes"</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_202'>202</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Address to Francis the First</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_203'>203</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Calvin wins instant Celebrity</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_204'>204</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The Court of Renée of Ferrara</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_205'>205</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Her History and Character</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_206'>206</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Calvin's alleged Visit to Aosta</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_207'>207</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xix" id="Page_xix">[Pg xix]</a></span>He visits Geneva</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_208'>208</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Farel's Vehemence</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_209'>209</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Calvin consents to remain</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_210'>210</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>His Code of Laws for Geneva</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_210'>210</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>His View of the Functions of the State</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_210'>210</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Heretics to be constrained by the Sword</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_211'>211</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Calvin's View that of the other Reformers</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_212'>212</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>And even of Protestant Martyrs</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_212'>212</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Calvin longs for Scholarly Quiet</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_213'>213</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>His Mental Constitution</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_214'>214</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Ill-health and Prodigious Labors</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_214'>214</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Friendly and Inimical Estimates</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_214'>214</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Violent Persecutions throughout France</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_216'>216</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Royal Edict of Fontainebleau (June 1, 1540)</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_218'>218</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Increased Severity, and Appeal cut off</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_218'>218</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Exceptional Fairness of President Caillaud</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_219'>219</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Letters-Patent from Lyons (Aug. 30, 1542)</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_220'>220</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The King and the Sacramentarians</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_221'>221</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Ordinance of Paris (July 23, 1543)</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_221'>221</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Heresy to be punished as Sedition</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_222'>222</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Repression proves a Failure</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_222'>222</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The Sorbonne publishes Twenty-five Articles</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_223'>223</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Francis gives them the Force of Law (March 10, 1543)</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_224'>224</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>More Systematic Persecution</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_224'>224</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The Inquisitor Mathieu Ory</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_224'>224</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The Nicodemites and Libertines</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_225'>225</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Margaret of Navarre at Bordeaux</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_226'>226</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Francis's Negotiations in Germany</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_227'>227</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Hypocritical Representations made by Charles, Duke of Orleans</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_228'>228</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'> </td> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='center' colspan="3"><b>CHAPTER VII.</b></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='center' colspan="3"><b>1545-1547.</b></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left' colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Campaign against the Vaudois of Mérindol and Cabrières, and Last Days of Francis I.</span></td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_230'>230</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The Vaudois of the Durance</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_230'>230</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Their Industry and Thrift</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_230'>230</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Embassy to German and Swiss Reformers</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_232'>232</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Translation of the Bible by Olivetanus</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_233'>233</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Preliminary Persecutions</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_234'>234</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The Parliament of Aix</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_235'>235</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The Atrocious "Arrêt de Mérindol" (Nov. 18, 1540)</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_236'>236</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Condemned by Public Opinion</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_237'>237</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Preparations to carry it into Effect</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_237'>237</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>President Chassanée and the Mice of Autun</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_238'>238</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xx" id="Page_xx">[Pg xx]</a></span>The King instructs Du Bellay to investigate</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_239'>239</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>A Favorable Report</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_240'>240</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Francis's Letter of Pardon</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_241'>241</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Parliament's Continued Severity</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_241'>241</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The Vaudois publish a Confession</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_242'>242</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Intercession of the Protestant Princes of Germany</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_242'>242</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The new President of Parliament</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_243'>243</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Sanguinary Royal Order, fraudulently obtained (Jan. 1, 1545)</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_244'>244</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Expedition stealthily organized</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_245'>245</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Villages burned—their Inhabitants murdered</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_246'>246</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Destruction of Mérindol</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_247'>247</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Treacherous Capture of Cabrières</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_248'>248</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Women burned and Men butchered</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_248'>248</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Twenty-two Towns and Villages destroyed</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_249'>249</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>A subsequent Investigation</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_251'>251</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>"The Fourteen of Meaux"</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_253'>253</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Wider Diffusion of the Reformed Doctrines</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_256'>256</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The Printer Jean Chapot before Parliament</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_256'>256</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'> </td> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='center' colspan="3"><b>CHAPTER VIII.</b></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='center' colspan="3"><b>1547-1559.</b></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left' colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Henry the Second and the Organization of the French Protestant Churches</span></td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_258'>258</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Impartial Estimates of Francis the First</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_258'>258</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Henry, as Duke of Orleans</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_259'>259</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>His Sluggish Mind</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_260'>260</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>His Court</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_261'>261</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Diana of Poitiers</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_262'>262</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The King's Infatuation</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_262'>262</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Constable Anne de Montmorency</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_263'>263</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>His Cruelty</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_264'>264</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Disgraced by Francis, but recalled by Henry</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_265'>265</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Duke Claude of Guise, and John, first Cardinal of Lorraine</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_266'>266</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Marriage of James the Fifth of Scotland to Mary of Lorraine</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_268'>268</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Francis the Dauphin affianced to Mary of Scots</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_268'>268</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Francis of Guise and Charles of Lorraine</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_268'>268</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Various Estimates of Cardinal Charles of Lorraine</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_270'>270</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Rapacity of the new Favorites</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_272'>272</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Servility toward Diana of Poitiers</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_273'>273</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Persecution to atone for Moral Blemishes</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_274'>274</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>"La Chambre Ardente"</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_275'>275</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Edict of Fontainebleau against Books from Geneva (Dec. 11, 1547)</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_275'>275</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Deceptive Title-pages</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_275'>275</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The Tailor of the Rue St. Antoine</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_276'>276</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xxi" id="Page_xxi">[Pg xxi]</a></span>Other Victims of Intolerance</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_278'>278</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Severe Edicts and Quarrels with Rome</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_278'>278</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Edict of Châteaubriand (June 27, 1551)</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_279'>279</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The War against Books from Geneva</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_280'>280</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Marshal Vieilleville refuses to profit by Confiscation</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_282'>282</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The "Five Scholars of Lausanne"</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_283'>283</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Interpositions in their Behalf ineffectual</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_284'>284</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Activity of the Canton of Berne</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_286'>286</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Progress of the Reformation in Normandy</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_287'>287</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Attempt to establish the Spanish Inquisition</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_287'>287</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Opposition of Parliament</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_288'>288</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>President Séguier's Speech</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_289'>289</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Coligny's Scheme of American Colonization</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_291'>291</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Villegagnon in Brazil</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_292'>292</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>He brings Ruin on the Expedition</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_293'>293</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>First Protestant Church in Paris</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_294'>294</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The Example followed in the Provinces</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_296'>296</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Henry the Second breaks the Truce</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_297'>297</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Fresh Attempts to introduce the Spanish Inquisition</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_298'>298</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Three Inquisitors-General</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_299'>299</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Judges sympathize with the Victims</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_300'>300</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Edict of Compiègne (July 24, 1557)</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_301'>301</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Defeat of St. Quentin (August 10, 1557)</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_302'>302</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Vengeance wreaked upon the Protestants</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_302'>302</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Affair of the Rue St. Jacques (Sept. 4, 1557)</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_303'>303</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Treatment of the Prisoners</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_304'>304</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Malicious Rumors</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_305'>305</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Trials and Executions</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_307'>307</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Intercession of the Swiss Cantons and Others</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_308'>308</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Constancy of Some and Release of Others</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_311'>311</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Controversial Pamphlets</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_311'>311</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Capture of Calais (January, 1558)</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_312'>312</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Registry of the Inquisition Edict</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_312'>312</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Antoine of Navarre, Condé, and other Princes favor the Protestants</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_313'>313</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Embassy of the Protestant Electors</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_313'>313</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Psalm-singing on the Pré aux Clercs</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_314'>314</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Conference of Cardinals Lorraine and Granvelle</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_315'>315</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>D'Andelot's Examination before the King</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_317'>317</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>His Constancy in Prison and temporary Weakness</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_318'>318</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Paul IV.'s Indignation at the King's Leniency</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_320'>320</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Anxiety for Peace</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_321'>321</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis (April 3, 1559)</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_322'>322</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Sacrifice of French Interests</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_323'>323</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Was there a Secret Treaty for the Extermination of Protestants?</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_324'>324</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The Prince of Orange learns the Designs of Henry and Philip</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_325'>325</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Danger of Geneva</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_320'>320</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Parliament suspected of Heretical Leanings</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_329'>329</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xxii" id="Page_xxii">[Pg xxii]</a></span>The "Mercuriale"</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_330'>330</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Henry goes in Person to hear the Deliberations (June 10, 1559)</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_332'>332</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Fearlessness of Du Bourg and Others</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_334'>334</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Henry orders their Arrest</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_335'>335</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>First National Synod (May 26, 1559)</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_335'>335</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Ecclesiastical Discipline adopted</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_336'>336</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Marriages and Festivities of the Court</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_338'>338</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Henry mortally wounded in the Tournament (June 30, 1559)</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_339'>339</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>His Death (July 10, 1559)</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_340'>340</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='center' colspan="3"><hr style='width: 45%;' /></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>"La Façon de Genève"—the Protestant Service</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_341'>341</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Farel's "Manière et Fasson" (1533)</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_342'>342</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Calvin's Liturgy (1542)</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_343'>343</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'> </td> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='center' colspan="3"><b>CHAPTER IX.</b></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='center' colspan="3"><b><span class="smcap">July, 1559-May, 1560.</span></b></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left' colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Francis the Second and the Tumult of Amboise</span></td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_346'>346</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Epigrams on the Death of Henry</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_346'>346</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The Young King</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_347'>347</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Catharine de' Medici</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_348'>348</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Favors the Family of Guise</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_350'>350</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Who make themselves Masters of the King</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_351'>351</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Constable Montmorency retires</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_352'>352</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Antoine, King of Navarre</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_354'>354</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>His Remissness and Pusillanimity</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_355'>355</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The Persecution continues</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_359'>359</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Denunciation and Pillage at Paris</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_360'>360</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The Protestants address Catharine</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_362'>362</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Pretended Orgies in "La Petite Genève"</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_365'>365</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Cruelty of the Populace</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_366'>366</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Traps for Heretics</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_367'>367</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Trial of Anne du Bourg</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_368'>368</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Intercession of the Elector Palatine</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_370'>370</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Du Bourg's Last Speech</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_371'>371</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>His Execution and its Effect</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_372'>372</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Florimond de Ræmond's Observations</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_374'>374</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Revulsion against the Tyranny of the Guises</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_375'>375</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Calvin and Beza discountenance Armed Resistance</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_377'>377</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>De la Renaudie</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_379'>379</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Assembly of Malcontents at Nantes</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_380'>380</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Plans well devised</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_381'>381</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Betrayed by Des Avenelles</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_382'>382</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The "Tumult of Amboise"</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_383'>383</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Coligny gives Catharine good Counsel</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_384'>384</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xxiii" id="Page_xxiii">[Pg xxiii]</a></span>The Edict of Amnesty (March, 1560)</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_385'>385</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>A Year's Progress</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_386'>386</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Confusion at Court</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_387'>387</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Treacherous Capture of Castelnau</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_388'>388</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Death of La Renaudie</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_389'>389</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Plenary Commission given to the Duke of Guise</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_389'>389</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>A Carnival of Blood</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_391'>391</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The Elder D'Aubigné and his Son</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_393'>393</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Francis and the Prince of Condé</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_393'>393</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Condé's Defiance</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_394'>394</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='center' colspan="3"><hr style='width: 45%;' /></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>An alleged Admission of Disloyal Intentions by La Renaudie</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_394'>394</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'> </td> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='center' colspan="3"><b>CHAPTER X.</b></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='center' colspan="3"><b><span class="smcap">May-December, 1560.</span></b></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left' colspan="2"><span class="smcap">The Assembly of Notables at Fontainebleau, and the Close of the Reign of Francis the Second</span></td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_397'>397</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Rise of the Name of the Huguenots</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_397'>397</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Their Sudden Growth</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_399'>399</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>How to be accounted for</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_400'>400</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Progress of Letters</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_400'>400</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Marot's and Beza's Psalms</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_402'>402</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Morality and Martyrdom</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_402'>402</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Character of the Protestant Ministers</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_402'>402</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Testimony of Bishop Montluc</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_403'>403</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Preaching in the Churches of Valence</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_404'>404</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The Reformation and Morals</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_406'>406</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Francis orders Extermination</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_406'>406</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Large Congregations at Nismes</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_407'>407</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Mouvans in Provence</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_407'>407</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>A Popular Awakening</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_408'>408</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Pamphlets against the Guises</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_409'>409</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Catharine consults the Huguenots</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_409'>409</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Edict of Romorantin (May, 1560)</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_410'>410</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>No Abatement of Rigorous Persecution</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_411'>411</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Spiritual Jurisdiction differing little from the Inquisition</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_411'>411</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Chancellor Michel de l'Hospital</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_412'>412</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Continued Disquiet—Montbrun</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_414'>414</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Assembly of Notables at Fontainebleau (Aug. 21, 1560)</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_415'>415</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The Chancellor's Address</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_416'>416</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The Finances of France</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_416'>416</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Admiral Coligny presents the Petitions of the Huguenots</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_416'>416</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Bishop Montluc ably advocates Toleration</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_418'>418</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Bishop Marillac's Eloquent Speech</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_420'>420</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Coligny's Suggestions</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_421'>421</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xxiv" id="Page_xxiv">[Pg xxiv]</a></span>Passionate Rejoinder of the Duke of Guise</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_422'>422</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The Cardinal of Lorraine more calm</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_423'>423</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>New Alarms of the Guises</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_424'>424</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The King of Navarre and Condé summoned to Court</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_425'>425</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Advice of Philip of Spain</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_426'>426</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Navarre's Irresolution embarrasses Montbrun and Mouvans</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_427'>427</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The "Fashion of Geneva" embraced by many in Languedoc</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_428'>428</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Elections for the States General</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_430'>430</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The King and Queen of Navarre</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_431'>431</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Beza at the Court of Nérac</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_432'>432</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>New Pressure to induce Navarre and Condé to come</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_433'>433</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Navarre Refuses a Huguenot Escort</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_434'>434</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Disregards Warnings</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_435'>435</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Is refused Admission to Poitiers</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_435'>435</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Condé arrested on arriving at Orleans</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_436'>436</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Return of Renée de France</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_437'>437</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Condé's Intrepidity</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_437'>437</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>He is Tried and Condemned to Death</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_439'>439</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Antoine of Navarre's Danger</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_440'>440</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Plan for annihilating the Huguenots</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_441'>441</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Sudden Illness and Death of Francis the Second</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_442'>442</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='center' colspan="3"><hr style='width: 45%;' /></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The "Epître au Tigre de la France"</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_445'>445</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'> </td> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='right'></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='center' colspan="3"><b>CHAPTER XI.</b></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='center' colspan="3"><span class="smcap"><b>December, 1560-September, 1561.</b></span></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left' colspan="2"><span class="smcap">The Reign of Charles the Ninth, to the Preliminaries of the Colloquy of Poissy</span></td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_449'>449</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Sudden Change in the Political Situation</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_449'>449</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The Enemy of the Huguenots buried as a Huguenot</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_450'>450</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Antoine of Navarre's Opportunity</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_451'>451</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Adroitness of Catharine de' Medici</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_452'>452</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Financial Embarrassments</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_453'>453</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Catharine's Neutrality</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_453'>453</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Opening of the States General of Orleans</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_454'>454</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Address of Chancellor L'Hospital</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_455'>455</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Cardinal Lorraine's Effrontery</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_457'>457</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>De Rochefort, Orator for the Noblesse</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_457'>457</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>L'Ange for the Tiers État</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_458'>458</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Arrogant Speech of Quintin for the Clergy</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_458'>458</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>A Word for the poor, down-trodden People</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_459'>459</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Coligny presents a Huguenot Petition</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_461'>461</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The States prorogued</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_461'>461</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xxv" id="Page_xxv">[Pg xxv]</a></span>Meanwhile Prosecutions for Religion to cease</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_462'>462</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Return of Fugitives</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_463'>463</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Charles writes to stop Ministers from Geneva</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_463'>463</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Reply of the Genevese</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_464'>464</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Condé cleared and reconciled with Guise</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_465'>465</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Humiliation of Navarre</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_466'>466</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The Boldness of the Particular Estates of Paris</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_467'>467</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Secures Antoine more Consideration</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_467'>467</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Intrigue of Artus Désiré</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_468'>468</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>General Curiosity to hear Huguenot Preaching</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_468'>468</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Constable Montmorency's Disgust</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_469'>469</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The "Triumvirate" formed</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_471'>471</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>A Spurious Statement</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_471'>471</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Massacres of Protestants in Holy Week</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_474'>474</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The Affair at Beauvais</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_474'>474</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Assault on the House of M. de Longjumeau</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_476'>476</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>New and Tolerant Royal Order</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_476'>476</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Opposition of the Parisian Parliament</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_477'>477</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Popular Cry for Pastors</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_479'>479</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Moderation of the Huguenot Ministers</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_479'>479</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Judicial Perplexity</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_481'>481</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The "Mercuriale" of 1561</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_481'>481</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The "Edict of July"</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_483'>483</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Its Severity creates extreme Disappointment</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_484'>484</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Iconoclasm at Montauban</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_485'>485</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Impatience with Public "Idols"</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_487'>487</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Calvin endeavors to repress it</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_487'>487</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Re-assembling of the States at Pontoise</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_488'>488</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Able Harangue of the "Vierg" of Autun</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_489'>489</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Written Demands of the Tiers État</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_490'>490</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>A Representative Government demanded</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_492'>492</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The French Prelates at Poissy</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_493'>493</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Beza and Peter Martyr invited to France</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_494'>494</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Urgency of the Parisian Huguenots</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_496'>496</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Beza comes to St. Germain</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_497'>497</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>His previous History</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_497'>497</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Wrangling of the Prelates</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_498'>498</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Cardinal Châtillon communes "under both Forms"</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_499'>499</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Catharine and L'Hospital zealous for a Settlement of Religious Questions</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_499'>499</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>A Remarkable Letter to the Pope</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_500'>500</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Beza's flattering Reception</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_502'>502</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>He meets the Cardinal of Lorraine</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_503'>503</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Petition of the Huguenots respecting the Colloquy</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_505'>505</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Informally granted</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_507'>507</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Last Efforts of the Sorbonne to prevent the Colloquy</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_508'>508</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'> </td> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='center' colspan="3"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xxvi" id="Page_xxvi">[Pg xxvi]</a></span><b>CHAPTER XII.</b></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='center' colspan="3"><span class="smcap"><b>September, 1561-January, 1562.</b></span></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left' colspan="2"><span class="smcap">The Colloquy of Poissy and the Edict of January</span></td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_509'>509</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The Huguenot Ministers and Delegates</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_509'>509</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Assembled Princes in the Nuns' Refectory</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_510'>510</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The Prelates</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_511'>511</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Diffidence of Theodore Beza</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_512'>512</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Opening Speech of Chancellor L'Hospital</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_512'>512</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The Huguenots summoned</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_513'>513</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Beza's Prayer and Address</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_514'>514</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>His Declaration as to the Body of Christ</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_519'>519</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Outcry of the Theologians of the Sorbonne</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_519'>519</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Beza's Peroration</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_520'>520</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Cardinal Tournon would cut short the Conference</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_521'>521</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Catharine de' Medici is decided</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_522'>522</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Advantages gained</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_522'>522</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The Impression made by Beza</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_522'>522</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>His Frankness justified</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_524'>524</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The Prelates' Notion of a Conference</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_526'>526</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Peter Martyr arrives</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_527'>527</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Cardinal Lorraine replies to Beza</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_528'>528</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Cardinal Tournon's new Demand</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_529'>529</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Advancing Shadows of Civil War</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_530'>530</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Another Session reluctantly conceded</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_531'>531</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Beza's Reply to Cardinal Lorraine</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_532'>532</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Claude d'Espense and Claude de Sainctes</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_532'>532</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Lorraine demands Subscription to the Augsburg Confession</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_533'>533</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Beza's Home Thrust</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_534'>534</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Peter Martyr and Lainez the Jesuit</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_536'>536</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Close of the Colloquy of Poissy</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_537'>537</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>A Private Conference at St. Germain</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_538'>538</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>A Discussion of Words</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_540'>540</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Catharine's Premature Delight</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_541'>541</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The Article agreed upon Rejected by the Prelates</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_541'>541</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Catharine's Financial Success</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_543'>543</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Order for the Restitution of Churches</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_544'>544</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Arrival of Five German Delegates</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_544'>544</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Why the Colloquy proved a Failure</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_546'>546</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Catharine's Crude Notion of a Conference</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_547'>547</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Character of the Prelates</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_547'>547</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Influence of the Papal Legate, the Cardinal of Ferrara</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_548'>548</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Anxiety of Pius the Fourth</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_548'>548</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The Nuncio Santa Croce</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_549'>549</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xxvii" id="Page_xxvii">[Pg xxvii]</a></span>Master Renard turned Monk</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_551'>551</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Opposition of People and Chancellor</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_551'>551</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The Legate's Intrigues</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_552'>552</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>His Influence upon Antoine of Navarre</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_554'>554</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Contradictory Counsels</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_555'>555</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The Triumvirate leave in Disgust</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_556'>556</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Hopes entertained by the Huguenots respecting Charles</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_557'>557</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Beza is begged to remain</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_559'>559</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>A Spanish Plot to kidnap the Duke of Orleans</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_559'>559</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The Number of Huguenot Churches</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_560'>560</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Beza secures a favorable Royal order</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_560'>560</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Rapid Growth of the Reformation</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_561'>561</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Immense Assemblages from far and near</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_562'>562</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The Huguenots at Montpellier</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_563'>563</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The Rein and not the Spur needed</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_565'>565</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Marriages and Baptisms at Court "after the Geneva Fashion"</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_565'>565</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Tanquerel's Seditious Declaration</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_566'>566</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Jean de Hans</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_567'>567</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Philip threatens Interference in French Affairs</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_567'>567</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>"A True Defender of the Faith"</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_568'>568</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Roman Catholic Complaints of Huguenot Boldness</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_570'>570</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The "Tumult of Saint Médard"</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_571'>571</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Assembly of Notables at St. Germain</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_574'>574</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>Diversity of Sentiments</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_575'>575</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The "Edict of January"</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_576'>576</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'>The Huguenots no longer Outlaws</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#Page_577'>577</a></td> +</tr> +</table></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>BOOK FIRST.</h2> + +<h3><i>FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE FRENCH REFORMATION TO THE EDICT OF JANUARY +(1562).</i></h3> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER I.</h2> + +<h3>FRANCE IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.</h3> + + +<div class="sidenote">Extent of France at the accession of Francis the First.</div> + +<p>When, on the first day of the year 1515, the young Count of Angoulême +succeeded to the throne left vacant by the death of his kinsman and +father-in-law, Louis the Twelfth, the country of which he became monarch +was already an extensive, flourishing, and well-consolidated kingdom. +The territorial development of France was, it is true, far from +complete. On the north, the whole province of Hainault belonged to the +Spanish Netherlands, whose boundary line was less than one hundred miles +distant from Paris. Alsace and Lorraine had not yet been wrested from +the German Empire. The "Duchy" of Burgundy, seized by Louis the Eleventh +immediately after the death of Charles the Bold, had, indeed, been +incorporated into the French realm; but the "Free County" of +Burgundy—<i>la Franche Comté</i>, as it was briefly designated—had been +imprudently suffered to fall into other hands, and Besançon was the +residence of a governor appointed by princes of the House of Hapsburg. +Lyons was a frontier town; for the little districts of Bresse and Bugey, +lying between the Saône and Rhône, belonged to the Dukes of Savoy. +Further to the south, two fragments of foreign territory were completely +enveloped by the domain of the French king.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> The first was the sovereign +principality of Orange, which, after having been for over a century in +the possession of the noble House of Châlons, was shortly to pass into +that of Nassau, and to furnish the title of William the Silent, the +future deliverer of Holland. The other and larger one was the Comtât +Venaissin, a fief directly dependent upon the Pope. Of irregular shape, +and touching the Rhone both above and below Orange, the Comtât Venaissin +nearly enclosed the diminutive principality in its folds. Its capital, +Avignon, having forfeited the distinction enjoyed in the fourteenth +century as the residence of the Roman Pontiffs, still boasted the +presence of a Legate of the Papal See, a poor compensation for the loss +of its past splendor. On the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, the +Spanish dominions still extended north of the principal chain of the +Pyrenees, and included the former County of Roussillon.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Territorial development.</div> + +<p>But, although its area was somewhat smaller than that of the modern +republic, France in the sixteenth century had nearly attained the +general dimensions marked out for it by great natural boundaries. Four +hundred years had been engrossed in the pursuit of territorial +enlargement. At the close of the tenth century the Carlovingian dynasty, +essentially foreign in tastes and language, was supplanted by a dynasty +of native character and capable of gathering to its support all those +elements of strength which had been misunderstood or neglected by the +feeble descendants of Charlemagne. But it found the royal authority +reduced to insignificance and treated with open contempt. By permitting +those dignities which had once been conferred as a reward for +pre-eminent personal merit to become hereditary in certain families, the +crown had laid the foundation of the feudal system; while, by neglecting +to enforce its sovereign claims, it had enabled the great feudatories to +make themselves princes independent in reality, if not in name. So low +had the consideration of the throne fallen, that when Hugh Capet, Count +of Paris, in 987 assumed the title of king of France, basing his act +partly on an election by nobles, partly on force of arms, the +transaction elicited little opposition from the rival lords who might +have been expected to resent his usurpation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Excessive subdivision in the tenth century.</div> + +<p>France contained at this time six principal fiefs—four in the north and +two in the south—each nearly or fully as powerful as the hereditary +dominions of Hugh, while probably more than one excelled them in extent. +These limited dominions, on the resources of which the new dynasty was +wholly dependent in the struggle for supremacy, embraced the important +cities of Paris and Orleans, but barely stretched from the Somme to the +Loire, and were excluded from the ocean by the broad possessions of the +dukes of Normandy on both sides of the lower Seine. The great fiefs had +each in turn yielded to the same irresistible tendency to subdivision. +The great feudatory was himself the superior of the tenants of several +subordinate, yet considerable, fiefs. The possessors of these again +ranked above the viscounts of cities and the provincial barons. A long +series of gradations in dignity ended at the simple owners of castles, +with their subject peasants or serfs. In no country of Europe had the +feudal system borne a more abundant harvest of disintegration and +consequent loss of power.<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Decline of the feudal system.</div> + +<p>The reduction of the insubordinate nobles on the patrimonial estates of +the crown was the first problem engaging the attention of the early +Capetian kings. When this had at length been solved, with the assistance +of the scanty forces lent by the cities—never amounting, it is said, to +more than five hundred men-at-arms<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a>—Louis the Fat, a prince of +resplendent ability, early in the twelfth century addressed himself to +the task of making good the royal title to supremacy over the +neighboring provinces. Before death compelled him to forego the +prosecution of his ambitious designs, the influence of the monarchy had +been extended over eastern and central France—from Flanders, on the +north, to the volcanic mountains of Auvergne, on the south. Meanwhile +the oppressed subjects of the petty tyrants, whether within or around +his domains, had learned to look for redress to the sovereign<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> lord who +prided himself upon his ability and readiness to succor the defenceless. +His grandson, the more illustrious Philip Augustus (1180-1223), by +marriage, inheritance, and conquest added to previous acquisitions +several extensive provinces, of which Normandy, Maine, and Poitou had +been subject to English rule, while Vermandois and Yalois had enjoyed a +form of approximate independence under collateral branches of the +Capetian family.</p> + +<p>The conquests of Louis the Fat and of Philip Augustus were consolidated +by Louis the Ninth—Saint Louis, as succeeding generations were wont to +style him—an upright monarch, who scrupled to accept new territory +without remunerating the former owners, and even alienated the affection +of provinces which he might with apparent justice have retained, by +ceding them to the English, in the vain hope of cementing a lasting +peace between the rival states.<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">France the foremost kingdom of Christendom.</div> + +<p>The same pursuit of territorial aggrandizement under successive kings +extended the domain of the crown, in spite of disaster and temporary +losses, until in the sixteenth century France was second to no other +country in Europe for power and material resources. United under a +single head, and no longer disturbed by the insubordination of the +turbulent nobles, lately humbled by the craft of Louis the Eleventh, +this kingdom awakened the warm admiration of political judges so shrewd +as the diplomatic envoys of the Venetian Republic. "All these +provinces," exclaimed one of these agents, in a report made to the Doge +and Senate soon after his return, "are so well situated, so liberally +provided with river-courses, harbors, and mountain ranges, that it may +with safety be asserted that this realm is not only the most noble in +Christendom, rivalling in antiquity our own most illus<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span>trious +commonwealth, but excels all other states in natural advantages and +security."<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> Another of the same distinguished school of statesmen, +taking a more deliberate survey of the country, gives utterance to the +universal estimate of his age, when averring that France is to be +regarded as the foremost kingdom of Christendom, whether viewed in +respect to its dignity and power, or the rank of the prince who governs +it.<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> In proof of the first of these claims he alleges the fact that, +whereas England had once been, and Naples was at that moment dependent +upon the Church, and Bohemia and Poland sustained similar relations to +the Empire, France had always been a sovereign state. "It is also the +oldest of European kingdoms, and the first that was converted to +Christianity," remarks the same writer; adding, with a touch of +patriotic pride, the proviso, "if we except the Pope, who is the +universal head of religion, and the State of Venice, which, as it first +sprang into existence a Christian commonwealth, has always continued +such."<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">France contrasted with England.</div> + +<p>Other diplomatists took the same view of the power and resources of this +favored country. "The kingdom of France," said Chancellor Bacon, in a +speech against the policy of rendering open aid to Scotland, and thus +becoming involved in a war with the French, "is four times as large as +the realm of England, the men four times as many, and the revenue four +times as much, and it has better credit. France is full of expert +captains and old soldiers, and besides its own troops it may entertain +as many Almains as it is able to hire."<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Assimilation of language and manners.</div> + +<p>Meantime France was fast becoming more homogeneous than it had ever been +since the fall of the Roman power. As often as the lines of the great +feudal families became extinct, or these families were induced or +compelled to renounce their pretensions, their fiefs were given in +appanage to younger branches of the royal house, or were more closely +united to the domains of the crown, and entrusted to governors of the +king's appointment.<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> In either case the actual control of affairs was +placed in the hands of officers whose highest ambition was to reproduce +in the provincial capital the growing elegance of the great city on the +Seine where the royal court had fixed its ordinary abode. The provinces, +consequently, began to assimilate more and more to Paris, and this not +merely in manners, but in forms of speech and even in pronunciation. The +rude <i>patois</i>, since it grated upon the cultivated ear, was banished +from polite society, and, if not consigned to oblivion, was relegated to +the more ignorant and remoter districts. Learning held its seat in +Paris, and the scholars who returned to their homes after a sojourn in +its academic halls were careful to avoid creating doubts respecting the +thoroughness of their training by the use of any dialect but that spoken +in the neighborhood of the university. As the idiom of Paris asserted +its supremacy over the rest of France, a new tie was constituted, +binding together provinces diverse in origin and history.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">The nobles flock to Paris.</div> + +<p>The spirit of obedience pervading all classes of the population +contributed much to the national strength. The great nobles had lost +their excessive privileges. They no longer attempted, in the seclusion +of their ancestral estates, to rival the magnificence or defy the +authority of the king. They began to prefer the capital to the freer +retreat of their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> castles. During the reign of Francis the First, and +still more during the reign of his immediate successors, costly palaces +for the accommodation of princely and ducal families were reared in the +neighborhood of the Louvre.<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> It was currently reported that more than +one fortune had been squandered in the hazardous experiment of +maintaining a pomp befitting the courtier. Ultimately the poorer +grandees were driven to the adoption of the wise precaution of spending +only a quarter of the year in the enticing but dangerous vicinity of the +throne.<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The cities.</div> + +<p>The cities, also, whose extensive privileges had constituted one of the +most striking features of the political system of mediæval Europe, had +been shorn of their exorbitant claims founded upon royal charters or +prescriptive usage. The kings of France, in particular, had favored the +growth of the municipalities, in order to secure their assistance in the +reduction of refractory vassals. Flourishing trading communities had +sprung up on the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea and of the ocean, and +on the banks of the navigable rivers emptying into them. These +corporations had secured a degree of independence proportioned, for the +most part, to the weakness of their neighbors. The policy of the crown +had been, while generously conferring privileges of great importance +upon the cities lying within the royal domain, to make still more lavish +concessions in favor of the municipalities upon or contiguous to the +lands of the great feudatories.<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The capital.</div> + +<p>No sooner, however, did the humiliation of the landed nobility render it +superfluous to conciliate the good-will of the proud and opulent +citizens, than the readiest means were sought for reducing them to the +level of ordinary subjects. Paris especially, once almost a republic, +had of late learned submission and docility.<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> By the change, however, +the capital<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> had lost neither wealth nor inhabitants, being described as +very rich and populous, covering a vast area, and wholly given up to +trade.<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> In the absence of an accurate census, the number of its +inhabitants was variously stated at from 300,000 souls to nearly thrice +as many; but all accounts agreed in placing Paris among the foremost +cities of the civilized world.<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Military resources.</div> + +<p>With the military resources at his command, the king had the means of +rendering himself formidable abroad and secure at home. The French +cavalry, consisting of gentlemen whose duty and honorable distinction it +was to follow the monarch in every expedition, still sustained the +reputation for the impetuous ardor and the irresistible weight of its +charges which it had won during the Middle Ages. If it had encountered +unexpected rebuffs on the fields of Crécy, Poitiers and Agincourt, the +chivalry of France had been too successful in other engagements to lose +courage and enthusiasm. The nobles, both old and young, were still ready +at any time to flock to their prince's standard when unfurled for an +incursion into Naples or the Milanese. Never had they displayed more +alacrity or self-sacrificing devotion than when young Francis the First +set out upon his campaigns in Italy.<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> French infantry was less +trustworthy. The troops raised in Normandy, Brittany, and Languedoc were +reported to be but poorly trained to military exercises; but the +foot-soldiers supplied by some of the frontier provinces were sturdy and +efficient, and the gallant conduct of the Gascons at the disastrous +battle of St. Quentin was the subject of universal admiration.<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Foreign mercenary troops.</div> + +<p>What France lacked in cavalry was customarily supplied by the Reiters, +whose services were easily purchased in Germany. The same country stood +ready to furnish an abundance of Lansquenets (Lanzknechten), or pikemen, +who, together with the Swiss, in a great measure replaced the native +infantry. A Venetian envoy reported, in 1535, that the French king +could, in six weeks at longest, set on foot a force of forty-eight +thousand men, of whom twenty-one thousand, or nearly one-half, would be +foreign mercenaries. His navy, besides his great ship of sixty guns +lying in the harbor of Havre, numbered thirty galleys, and a few other +vessels of no great importance.<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The rights of the people overlooked.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">The States General an object of suspicion.</div> + +<p>The power gained by the crown through the consolidation of the monarchy +had been acquired at the expense of the popular liberties. In the +prolonged struggle between the king, as lord paramount, and his +insubordinate vassals, the rights of inferior subjects had received +little consideration. From the strife the former issued triumphant, with +an asserted claim to unlimited power. The voice of the masses was but +feebly heard in the States General—a convocation of all three orders +called at irregular intervals. Upon the ordinary policy of government, +this, the only representative body, exercised no permanent control. If, +in its occasional sessions, the deputies of the <i>Tiers État</i> exhibited a +disposition to intermeddle in those political concerns which the crown +claimed as its exclusive prerogative, the king and his advisers found in +their audacity an additional motive for postponing as long as possible a +resort to an expedient so disa<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>greeable as the assembling of the States +General. Already had monarchs begun to look with suspicion upon the +growing intelligence of untitled subjects, who might sooner or later +come to demand a share in the public administration.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">And rarely convoked.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">A long break in the history of representative government.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Compensating advantages.</div> + +<p>It was, therefore, only when the succession to the throne was contested, +or when the perils attending the minority of the prince demanded the +popular sanction of the choice of a regent, or when the flames of civil +war seemed about to burst forth and involve the whole country in one +general conflagration, that the royal consent could be obtained for +convening the States General. During the first half of the sixteenth +century the States General were not once summoned, unless the +designation of States be accorded to one or two convocations partaking +rather of the character of "Assemblies of Notables," and intended merely +to assist in extricating the monarch from temporary embarrassment.<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> +The repeated wars of Louis the Twelfth, of Francis the First, and of +Henry the Second were waged without any reference of the questions of +their expediency and of the mode of conducting them to the tribunal of +popular opinion. Thousands of brave Frenchmen found bloody graves beyond +the Alps; Francis the First fell into the hands of his enemies, and +after a weary captivity with difficulty regained his freedom; a new +faith arose in France, threatening to subvert existing ecclesiastical +institutions; yet in the midst of all this bloodshed, confusion and +perplexity the people were left unconsulted.<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> From the accession of +Charles<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> the Eighth, in 1483, to that of Charles the Ninth, in 1560, the +history of representative government in France is almost a complete +blank. So long was the period during which the States General were +suspended, that, when at length it was deemed advisable to convene them +again, the chancellor, in his opening address, felt compelled to enter +into explanations respecting the nature and functions of a body which +perhaps not a man living remembered to have seen in session.<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> Yet, +while the desuetude into which had fallen the laudable custom of holding +the States every year, or, at least, on occasion of any important matter +for deliberation, might properly be traced to the flood of ambition and +pride which had inundated the world, and to the inordinate covetousness +of kings,<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> there were not wanting considerations to mitigate the +disappointment of the people. Chief among them, doubtless, in the view +of shrewd observers, was the fact that the assembling of the States was +the invariable prelude to an increase of taxation, and that never had +they met without benefiting the king's exchequer at the expense of the +purses of his subjects.<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The endurance of the Tiers État.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Absolutism of the crown.</div> + +<p>Meanwhile the nation bore with exemplary patience the accumulated +burdens under which it staggered. Natives and foreigners alike were lost +in admiration of its wonderful pow<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>ers of endurance. No one suspected +that a terrible retribution for this same people's wrongs might one day +overtake the successor of a long line of kings, each of whom had added +his portion to the crushing load. The Emperor Maximilian was accustomed +to divert himself at the expense of the French people. "The king of +France," said he, "<i>is a king of asses</i>; there is no weight that can be +laid upon his subjects which they will not bear without a murmur."<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> +The warrior and historian Rabutin congratulated the monarchs of France +upon God's having given them, in obedience, the best and most faithful +people in the whole world.<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> The Venetian, Matteo Dandolo, declared to +the Doge and Senate that the king might with propriety regard as his own +all the money in France, for, such was <i>the incomparable kindness of the +people</i>, that whatever he might ask for in his need was very gladly +brought to him.<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> It was not strange, perhaps, that the ruler of +subjects so exemplary in their eagerness to replenish his treasury as +soon as it gave evidence of being exhausted, came to take about the same +view of the matter. Accordingly, it is related of Francis the First +that, being asked by his guest, Charles the Fifth, when the latter was +crossing France on his way to suppress the insurrection of Ghent, what +revenue he derived from certain cities he had passed through, the king +promptly, replied: "<i>Ce que je veux</i>"—"<i>What I please.</i>"<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Fruits of the abasement of the people.</div> + +<p>Yet it must be noted, in passing, that the studied abasement of the +<i>Tiers État</i> had already begun to bear some fruit that should have +alarmed every patriotic heart. It was, as we have seen, impossible to +obtain good French infantry except from Gascony and some other border +provinces. The place that should have been held by natives was filled by +Germans and Swiss. What was the reason? Simply that the common people +had lost the consciousness of their manhood, in consequence of the +degraded position into which the king, and the privileged classes, +imitating his example, had forced them. "Because of their desire to rule +the people with a rod of iron," says Dandolo, "the gentry of the kingdom +have deprived them of arms. They dare not even carry a stick, and <i>are +more submissive to their superiors than dogs</i>!"<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> No wonder that all +efforts of Francis to imitate the armies of free states, by instituting +legions of arquebusiers, proved fruitless.<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> Add to this that trade +was held in supreme contempt,<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> and the picture is certainly +sufficiently dark.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Checks upon the king's authority.</div> + +<p>Yet, while, through the absence of any effectual barrier to the exercise +of his good pleasure, the king's authority was ultimately unrestricted, +it must be confessed that there existed, in point of fact, some powerful +checks, rendering the abuse of the royal prerogative, for the most part, +neither easy nor expedient. Parliament, the municipal corporations, the +university, and the clergy, weak as they often proved in a direct +struggle with the crown, nevertheless exerted an influence that ought +not to be overlooked. The most headstrong prince hesitated to disregard +the remonstrances of any one of these bodies, and their united protest +sometimes led to the abandonment of schemes of great promise for the +royal treasury. It is true that parliament, university, and char<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span>tered +borough owed their existence and privileges to the royal will, and that +the power that created could also destroy. But time had invested with a +species of sanctity the venerable institutions established by monarchs +long since dead, and the utmost stretch of royal displeasure went not in +its manifestation further than the mere threat to strip parliament or +university of its privileges, or, at most, the arrest and temporary +imprisonment of the more obnoxious judges or scholars.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">The Parliament of Paris</div> + +<p>The Parliament of Paris was the legitimate successor of that assembly in +which, in the earlier stage of the national existence, the great vassals +came together to render homage to the lord paramount and aid him by +their deliberations. This <i>feudal</i> parliament was transformed into a +<i>judicial</i> parliament toward the end of the thirteenth century. With the +change of functions, the chief crown officers were admitted to seats in +the court. Next, the introduction of a written procedure, and the +establishment of a more complicated legislation, compelled the +illiterate barons and the prelates to call in the assistance of +graduates of the university, acquainted with the art of writing and +skilled in law. These were appointed by the king to the office of +counsellors.<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> In 1302, parliament, hitherto migratory, following the +king in his journeys, was made stationary at Paris. Its sessions were +fixed at two in each year, held at Easter and All Saints respectively. +The judicial body was subdivided into several "chambers," according to +the nature of the cases upon which it was called to act.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Becomes the supreme court.</div> + +<p>From this time the Parliament of Paris assumed appellate jurisdiction +over all France, and became the supreme court of justice. But the burden +of prolonged sessions, and the necessity now imposed upon the members of +residing at least four months out of every year in the capital, proved +an irksome restraint both to prelates and to noblemen. Their attendance, +therefore, began now to be less constant. As early as in 1320 the +bishops and other ecclesiastical officers were excused, on the ground +that their duty to their dioceses and sacred functions demanded their +presence elsewhere. From<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> the general exemption the Bishop of Paris and +the Abbot of St. Denis alone were excluded, on account of their +proximity to the seat of the court. About the beginning of the fifteenth +century, the members, taking advantage of the weak reign of Charles the +Sixth, made good their claim to a life-tenure in their offices.<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Provincial parliaments.</div> + +<p>The rapid increase of cases claiming the attention of the Parliament of +Paris suggested the erection of similar tribunals in the chief cities of +the provinces added to the original estates of the crown. Before the +accession of Francis the First a provincial parliament had been +instituted at Toulouse, with jurisdiction over the extensive domain once +subject to the illustrious counts of that city; a second, at Grenoble, +for Dauphiny; a third, at Bordeaux, for the province of Guyenne +recovered from the English; a fourth, at Dijon, for the newly acquired +Duchy of Burgundy; a fifth, at Rouen, to take the place of the inferior +"exchequer" which had long had its seat there; and a sixth, at +Aix-en-Provence, for the southeast of France.<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Claim to the right of remonstrance.</div> + +<p>To their judicial functions, the Parliament of Paris, and to a minor +degree the provincial parliaments, had insensibly added other functions +purely political. In order to secure publicity for their edicts, and +equally with the view of establishing the authenticity of documents +purporting to emanate from the crown, the kings of France had early +desired the insertion of all important decrees in the parliamentary +records. The registry was made on each occasion by express order of the +judges, but with no idea on their part that this form was essential to +the validity of a royal ordinance. Presently, however, the novel theory +was advanced that parliament had the right of refusing to record an +obnoxious law, and that, without the formal recognition of parliament, +no edict<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> could be allowed to affect the decisions of the supreme or of +any inferior tribunal.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Indulgence of the crown.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">The Chancellor's oath.</div> + +<p>In the exercise or this assumed prerogative, the judges undertook to +send a remonstrance to the king, setting forth the pernicious +consequences that might be expected to flow from the proposed measure if +put into execution. However unfounded in history, the claim of the +Parliament of Paris appears to have been viewed with indulgence by +monarchs most of whom were not indisposed to defer to the legal +knowledge of the counsellors, nor unwilling to enhance the consideration +of the venerable and ancient body to which the latter belonged. In all +cases, however, the final responsibility devolved upon the sovereign. +Whenever the arguments and advice of parliament failed to convince him, +the king proceeded in person to the audience-chamber of the refractory +court, and there, holding a <i>lit-de-justice</i>, insisted upon the +immediate registration, or else sent his express command by one of his +most trusty servants. The judges, in either case, were forced to +succumb—often, it must be admitted, with a very bad grace—and admit +the law to their records. We shall soon have occasion to note one of the +most striking instances of this unequal contest between king and +parliament, in which power rather than right or learning won the day. In +spite, however, of occasional checks, parliament manfully and +successfully maintained its right to throw obstacles in the way of hasty +or inconsiderate legislation. In this it was often efficiently assisted +by the Chancellor of France, the highest judicial officer of the crown, +to whom, on his assuming office, an oath was administered containing a +very explicit promise to exercise the right of remonstrance with the +king before affixing the great seal of state to any unjust or +unreasonable royal ordinance.<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Abuses in the administration of justice.</div> + +<p>Not that either the Parliament of Paris or the provincial parliaments +were free of grave defects deserving the severe animadversion of +impartial observers. It was probably no worse with the Parliament of +Bordeaux than with its sister courts;<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> yet, when Charles the Ninth +visited that city in 1564, honest Chancellor L'Hospital seized the +opportunity to tell the judges some of their failings. The royal +ordinances were not observed. Parliamentary decisions ranked above +commands of the king. There were divisions and violence. In the civil +war some judges had made themselves captains. Many of them were +avaricious, timid, lazy and inattentive to their duties. Their behavior +and their dress were "dissolute." They had become negligent in judging, +and had thrown the burden of prosecuting offences upon the shoulders of +the king's attorney, originally appointed merely to look after the royal +domain. They had become the servants of the nobility for hire. <i>There +was not a lord within the jurisdiction of the Parliament of Bordeaux but +had his own chancellor in the court to look after his interests</i>.<a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> It +was sufficiently characteristic that the same judicial body of which +such things were said to its face (and which neither denied their truth +nor grew indignant), should have been so solicitous for its dignity as +to send the monarch, upon his approach to the city, an earnest petition +that its members <i>should not be constrained to kneel</i> when his Majesty +entered their court-room! To which the latter dryly responded, "their +genuflexion would not make him any less a king than he already +was."<a name="FNanchor_38_38" id="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The University of Paris.</div> + +<p>Among the forces that tended to limit the arbitrary exercise of the +royal authority, the influence of the University of Paris is entitled to +a prominent place. Nothing had added more lustre to the rising glory of +the capital than the possession of the magnificent institution of +learning, the foundation of which was lost in the mist of remote +antiquity. Older than the race of kings who had for centuries held the +French sceptre, the university owed its origin, if we are to believe the +testimony of its own annals, to the munificent hand of Charlemagne, in +the beginning of the ninth century. Careful historical criticism must +hesitate to accept as conclusive the slender proof offered in support of +the story.<a name="FNanchor_39_39" id="FNanchor_39_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> It is, perhaps, safer to regard one of the simple schools +instituted at an early period in connection with cathedrals and +monasteries as having contained the humble germ from which the proud +university was slowly developed. But, by the side of this original +foundation there had doubtless grown up the schools of private +instructors, and these had acquired a certain prominence before the +confluence of scholars to Paris from all quarters rendered necessary an +attempt to introduce order into the complicated system, by the formation +of that union of all the teachers and scholars to which the name of +<i>universitas</i> was ultimately given.</p> + +<p>If the origin of the University of Paris, like that of the greater +number of human institutions, was insignificant when viewed in the light +of its subsequent growth, the meagreness of the early course of +instruction was almost incredible to those who, in an age of richer +mental acquisitions, listened to the prelections of its numerous and +learned doctors. The <i>Trivium</i> and the <i>Quadrivium</i> constituted the +whole cycle of human knowledge. Grammar, logic, and rhetoric were +embraced in the one; music, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy in the +other. He was indeed a prodigy of erudition whose compre<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>hensive +intellect had mastered the details of these, the seven liberal arts, or, +to use a familiar line of the period,</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Qui tria, qui septem, qui omne scibile novit.</p></div> + +<p>But the ignorant pedagogues of the eleventh century gave place, in the +early part of the twelfth, to instructors of real merit—to Peter +Abelard, among others, and to his pupil Peter Lombard, the fame of whose +lectures attracted to Paris great crowds of youth eager to become +proficient in philosophy and</p> + +<div class="sidenote">The four nations.</div> + +<p>Hitherto there had been but one faculty—the Faculty of Arts; but among +the students a distribution into four "nations" had been effected. The +<i>Nation of France</i> embraced the students coming from the royal +dominions, which then comprised a limited territory, with Paris as its +capital, together with the students of Italy, Spain, and the east. The +<i>Nation of Picardy</i> consisted of students from the province of that name +and from the neighboring County of Flanders. The <i>Nation of Normandy</i> +received youths belonging to the rich provinces of Normandy and +Brittany, and to the west. The <i>Nation of England</i> gathered those who +came from the British Isles, as well as from the extensive territories +in southwestern France long held by the kings of England. After the +reconquest of Guyenne, however, the German students became the +controlling element in the fourth nation, and the designation was +changed to the <i>Nation of Germany</i>. The <i>Rector</i> of the university and +the four <i>Procurators</i> of the nations were entrusted with the +administration of the general interests of the vast scholastic +community.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">The faculties.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Chancellor and rector.</div> + +<p>With the rise of new branches of science to contest the supremacy of the +old, the institution of other faculties was called for. The demand was +not conceded without a determined struggle of so serious a character as +to require the intervention of two popes for its settlement. +Nevertheless, before the end of the thirteenth century, the three new +faculties of theology, medicine, and law had assumed their places by the +side of the four original nations. The faculties were represented in the +rector's council by three <i>Deans</i>,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> invested with power equal to that +enjoyed by the procurators of the nations. While the rector, always +chosen from the faculty of arts, was the real head of this republic of +letters in all that concerned its inner life and management, the +honorable privilege of conferring the degrees that gave the right to +teach belonged to the chancellor of the university.<a name="FNanchor_40_40" id="FNanchor_40_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a> The former, +elected every three months, began and ended his office with solemn +processions, the first to invoke the blessing of heaven upon his labors, +the second to render thanks for their successful termination. The +chancellor, holding office for life, was an ecclesiastic of the church +of Paris, originally the bishop or some one appointed by him, who, if he +enjoyed less direct control over the scholars in their studies, was yet +the chief censor of their morals,<a name="FNanchor_41_41" id="FNanchor_41_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> and the representative of the +university in its dealings with foreign bodies, and especially with the +Roman See.<a name="FNanchor_42_42" id="FNanchor_42_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The Sorbonne.</div> + +<p>No other mediæval seat of learning attained so enviable a reputation as +Paris for completeness of theological training. From all parts of +Christendom students resorted to it as to the most abundant and the +purest fountain of sound learning. In 1250, Robert de Sorbonne, the +private confessor of Louis the Ninth, emulating the munificence of +previous patrons of letters, founded a college intended to facilitate +the education of secular students of theology. The college took<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> the +name of its author, and, becoming famous for the ability of its +instructors, the Sorbonne soon engrossed within its walls almost the +entire course of theological teaching given in the University of Paris. +Although the students in the colleges of Navarre and Plessis devoted +themselves to the acquisition of the same science, they had little +public instruction save that for which they resorted to the Sorbonne. By +reason of the prominence thus gained as the seat of the principal +instruction in theology, the Sorbonne became synonymous with the +theological faculty itself.<a name="FNanchor_43_43" id="FNanchor_43_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Its great authority.</div> + +<p>A body of theologians of admitted eminence necessarily spoke with +authority. In France the decisions of the Sorbonne were accepted as +final upon almost all questions affecting the doctrine and practice of +the Church. Abroad its opinions were esteemed of little less weight than +the deliberate judgments of synods. Difficulties in church and state +were referred to it for solution. In the age of the reformation the +Sorbonne was invited to pronounce upon the truth or falsity of the +propositions maintained by Martin Luther, and, a few years later, upon +the validity of the grounds of the divorce sought by Henry the Eighth of +England. But, unhappily, the reputation of the faculty was tarnished by +scholastic bigotry. Slavish attachment to the past had destroyed freedom +of thought. With a species of inconsistency not altogether without a +parallel in history, the very body which had been active in the +promotion of science during the Middle Ages assumed the posture of +resistance the moment that the advocates of substantial reform urged the +necessity of immediate action. Abuses which had provoked the indignation +of Gerson, once Chancellor of the University of Paris, and employed the +skilful pen of the bold Rector Nicholas de Clemangis, met with no word +of condemnation from the new generation of theologians.</p> + +<p>Such was the Sorbonne of the beginning of the sixteenth century, when +intriguing doctors, such as Beda and Quercu, ruled in its deliberations. +An enemy of liberal studies as well<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> as of the "new doctrines," the +faculty of theology was as ready to attack Erasmus for his devotion to +ancient literature, or Jacques Lefèvre for establishing the existence of +the "three Marys," as to denounce the Bishop of Meaux for favoring +"Lutheran" preachers in his diocese. Against all innovators in church or +state, the sentiments of the Sorbonne, which it took no pains to +conceal, were that "their impious and shameless arrogance must be +restrained by chains, by censures—nay, by fire and flame—rather than +vanquished by argument!"<a name="FNanchor_44_44" id="FNanchor_44_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_44_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Number of students.</div> + +<p>Meanwhile, in the external marks of prosperity the University of Paris +was still in its prime at the period of which I speak. The colleges, +clustered together in the southern quarter of the city—the present +<i>Quartier Latin</i>—were so numerous and populous that this portion +continued for many years after to be distinguished as <i>l' +Université</i>.<a name="FNanchor_45_45" id="FNanchor_45_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_45_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a> The number of students, it is true, had visibly +diminished since one hundred years before. The crowd of youth in +attendance was no longer so great as in 1409, when, according to a +contemporary, the head of a scholastic procession to the Church of Saint +Denis had already reached the sacred shrine before the rector had left +the Church of the <i>Mathurins</i> in the Rue Saint Jacques, a point full six +miles distant.<a name="FNanchor_46_46" id="FNanchor_46_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> Yet the report of Giustiniano, in 1535, stated it as +the current belief that the university still had twenty-five thousand +students in attendance, although this seemed to be an exaggerated +estimate. "For the most part," he added, "they are young, for everybody, +however poor he may be, learns to read and write."<a name="FNanchor_47_47" id="FNanchor_47_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_47_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a> Another +ambassador, writing eleven years later, represents the students, now +numbering sixteen or twenty thousand, as extremely poor. Their +instructors, he tells us, received very modest salaries;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> yet, so great +was the honor attaching to the post of teacher within the university +walls, that the competition for professorial chairs was marvellously +active.<a name="FNanchor_48_48" id="FNanchor_48_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_48_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a></p> + +<p>The influence of the clergy fell little short of that of the university +in moderating the arbitrary impulses of the monarch.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">The Gallican liberties.</div> + +<p>The Gallican Church had for many centuries been distinguished for a +manly defence of its liberties against the encroachments of the Papal +court. Tenacious of the maintenance of doctrinal unity with the See of +Rome, the French prelates early met the growing assumption of the Popes +with determined courage. At the suggestion of the clergy, and with their +full concurrence, more than one French king adopted stringent +regulations intended to protect the kingdom from becoming the prey of +foreigners. Church and State were equally interested in the successful +prosecution of a warfare carried on, so far as the French were +concerned, in a strictly defensive manner. The Papal treasury, under +guise of <i>annats</i>, laid claim to the entire income of the bishopric or +other benefice for the first year after each new appointment. It seized +upon the revenues of vacant ecclesiastical offices, which the king +specially affected. Every bull or brief needed to secure induction into +office—and the number of these articles was almost unlimited—was +procured at a heavy expense. Further sums were exacted for pronouncing a +dispensation in favor of those appointees whom youth or some other +canonical impediment incapacitated for the acceptance and discharge of +the requisite functions.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Objects of the Gallican party.</div> + +<p>The main objects of both crown and clergy were, consequently, to secure +the kingdom from the disastrous results of the interference of Italians +in the domestic affairs of France; to preserve the treasure of the realm +from exhaustion resulting from the levy of arbitrary imposts fixed by +irresponsible aliens, and exacted through the terrors of ecclesiastical +penalties; to prevent the right of election to lucrative livings from +falling into the hands of those who would use the privilege only as a +means of acquiring<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> riches; and to rescue clergymen themselves from +being hurried away for trial beyond the confines of their native land, +and possibly from suffering hopeless confinement in Roman dungeons. In a +word, it was the aim of the Gallican party to prove that "the government +of the church is not a despotism."<a name="FNanchor_49_49" id="FNanchor_49_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_49_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Pragmatic Sanction of St. Louis.</div> + +<p>It is a somewhat anomalous circumstance that the first decided step in +repressing the arrogant claims of the Papal See was taken by a monarch +whose singular merits have been deemed worthy of canonization by the +Roman Church. Louis the Ninth had witnessed with alarm the rapid strides +of the Papacy toward universal dominion. His pride was offended by the +pretension of the Pontiff to absolute superiority; his sovereign rights +were assailed when taxes were levied in France at the pleasure of a +foreign priest and prince. He foresaw that this abuse was likely to take +deep root unless promptly met by a formal declaration placing the rights +of the French monarch and nation in their true light. For this reason he +issued in 1268 a solemn edict, which, as emanating from the +unconstrained will of the king, took the name of the "<i>Pragmatic +Sanction</i> of Saint Louis."</p> + +<p>The preamble of this famous ordinance, upon the authenticity of which +doubts have been unnecessarily cast,<a name="FNanchor_50_50" id="FNanchor_50_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_50_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a> declares the object of the king +to be to secure the safety and tranquillity of the church of his realm, +the advancement of divine worship, the salvation of the souls of +Christ's faithful people, and the attainment of the favor and help of +Almighty God. To his sole jurisdiction and protection had France ever +been subject, and so did Louis desire it to remain. The provisions of +the Pragmatic Sanction were directed chiefly to guarding the freedom of +election and of collation to benefices, and to prohibiting the +imposition of any form of taxes by the Pope upon ecclesias<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>tical +property in France, save by previous consent of the prince and +clergy.<a name="FNanchor_51_51" id="FNanchor_51_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_51_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a></p> + +<p>In this brief document had been laid the foundation of the liberties of +the Gallican Church, not under the form of novel legislation, but of a +summary of previous usage.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Philip the Fair and Boniface.</div> + +<p>Political reasons, not long after the death of Louis, gave new vigor to +the policy of opposition to which this king had pledged France. His +grandson, the resolute Philip the Fair, found fresh incitement in the +extravagant conduct of a contemporary Pope, Boniface the Eighth. The +bold ideas advanced by Hildebrand in the eleventh, and carried into +execution by Innocent the Third in the thirteenth century, were wrought +into the very texture of the soul of Boniface, and could not be +concealed, in spite of the altered condition of mediæval society. +Intolerant, headstrong, and despotic, he undertook to exercise a +theocratic rule, and commanded contending monarchs to lay down their +arms, and submit their disputes to his arbitrament. To such a summons +Philip was not inclined to submit. The crafty and unscrupulous prince, +whose contempt for divine law was evidenced by his shameless practice of +injustice, whose coffers were filled indifferently by the confiscation +of the rich spoils of the commanderies of the Templars, and by +recklessly debasing the national currency, did not hesitate to engage in +a contest with the most presumptuous of Popes. He appealed to the States +General, and all three orders indignantly repudiated the suggestion that +their country had ever stood to the Papacy in the relation of a fief. +The disastrous example of the English John Lackland had found no +imitator on the southern side of the channel. The Pope was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> declared a +heretic. Emissaries of Louis seized him in his native city of Anagni, +within the very bounds of the "Patrimony of St. Peter," and the rough +usage to which he was then subjected hastened his death. His successors +on the pontifical throne proved somewhat more tractable.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">The Popes at Avignon.</div> + +<p>During his short and unimportant pontificate, Benedict the Eleventh +restored to the chapters of cathedrals the right of electing their own +bishops. Upon his death, Philip secured the elevation to the pontifical +dignity of an ecclesiastic wholly devoted to French interests, the +facile Clement the Fifth, who, in return for the honor conferred upon +him, removed the seat of the Papacy to Avignon. Here for the seventy +years of the so-called "Babylonish Captivity," the Popes continued to +reside, too completely subject to the influence of the French monarchs +to dream of resuming their tone of defiance, but scarcely less exacting +than before of homage from other rulers. In fact, the burden of the +pecuniary exactions of the Popes rather grew than diminished with the +change from Rome to Avignon, and with the institution of rival claimants +to the tiara, each requiring an equal sum to support the pomp of his +court, but recognized as legitimate by only a portion of Christendom. +The devices for drawing tribute from all quarters were multiplied to an +almost insupportable extent. So effectual did they prove, that no +pontiff, perhaps, ever left at his death a more enormous accumulation of +treasure than one of the Popes of Avignon, John the Twenty-second. Much +of this wealth was derived from the rich provinces of France.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">The Schism.</div> + +<p>Close upon the "Captivity" followed the "Schism," during which the +generally acknowledged Popes, who had returned to Rome, were opposed by +pretenders at Avignon and elsewhere. A double incentive was now given to +the monarchs of Europe for setting bounds to the ambition of the Papacy. +For while the Popes, through the loss of a great part of their authority +and prestige, had become less formidable antagonists, their financial +extortions had waxed so intolerable as to suggest the strongest +arguments appealing to the self-interest of kings. Hence the frequency +with which the demand<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> for "a reformation in the head and the members" +resounded from all parts of the Western Church. And hence, too, those +memorable councils of Pisa, Constance, and Basle, which, coming in rapid +succession at the commencement of the fifteenth century, bade fair to +prove the forerunners of a radical reformation. It does not belong here +to discuss the causes of their failure to answer this reasonable +expectation. Yet with one of these assemblages is closely connected a +very important incident in the history of the Gallican Church.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">The Council of Bourges.</div> + +<p>The Council of Basle had not yet concluded its protracted sessions when +Charles the Seventh summoned the clergy of France to meet him in the +city of Bourges. The times were troublous. The kingdom was rent with +intestine division. A war was still raging, during the progress of which +the victorious arms of the English had driven the king from his capital +and deprived him of more than one-half of his dominions. The work of +reinstating the royal authority, though well begun by the wonderful +interposition of the Maid of Orleans, was as yet by no means complete. +Undaunted, however, by the unsettled aspect of his affairs, Charles—the +"King of Bourges," as he was contemptuously styled by his +opponents—made his appearance in the national council convened in his +temporary capital. He was attended by the dauphin, the Dukes of Burgundy +and Brittany, the Count of Maine, and many other noblemen, as well as by +a goodly train of doctors of civil and canon law. Awaiting his arrival +were five archbishops, twenty-five bishops, and a host of abbots and +deputies of universities and chapters of cathedrals. In the presence of +this august convocation, in which all that was most prominent in church +and state was represented, Charles published, on the seventh of July, +1438, an ordinance which has become celebrated under the name of the +"Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges"—by far the more important of the two +documents of similar nature emanating from the French throne.<a name="FNanchor_52_52" id="FNanchor_52_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_52_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges.</div> + +<p>The Pragmatic Sanction, as it is often called by way of pre-eminence, is +the magna charta of the liberties of the Gallican<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> Church. Founded upon +the results of the discussions of the Council of Basle, it probably +embodies all the reformatory measures which the hierarchy of France was +desirous of effecting or willing to accept. How far these were from +administering the needed antidote to the poison which was at work and +threatened to destroy all true religious life—if, indeed, that life was +not already too near extinction—may readily be understood when it is +discovered that, with the exception of a few paragraphs relating to +ecclesiastical discipline and worship, the following comprise all the +important provisions:</p> + +<p>The Pragmatic Sanction establishes the obligation of the Pope to convene +a general council of the church at least every ten years. The decisions +of the Council of Basle are declared to be of perpetual force. Far from +deriving its authority from the Holy See, the Œcumenical Council, it +is affirmed, depends immediately upon Christ, and the Pope is no less +bound than all other Christians to render due obedience to its +decisions. The right of appeal from the Pope to the future council—a +claim obnoxious in the last degree to the advocates of papal +supremacy—is distinctly asserted. The Pope is declared incapable of +appointing to any high ecclesiastical dignities, save in a few specified +cases; in all others recourse is to be had to election. The pontiff's +pretensions to confer minor benefices are equally rejected. No abuse is +more sharply rebuked and forbidden than that of <i>expectatives</i>—a +species of appointment in high favor with the papal chancery, whereby a +successor to ecclesiastical dignities was nominated during the lifetime +of the incumbent, and in view of his decease.</p> + +<p>The Pragmatic Sanction restricts the troublesome and costly appeals to +Rome to cases of great importance, when the parties in interest reside +at a distance of more than four days' journey from that city. At the +same time it prescribes that no one shall be vexed by such appeals after +having enjoyed actual possession of his rank for three years. Going +beyond the limits of the kingdom, it enters into the constitution of the +"Sacred College," and fixes the number of the cardinals at twenty-four, +while placing the minimum age of candidates for the hat at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> thirty +years. The exaction of the <i>annats</i> is stigmatized as simony. Priests +living in concubinage are to be punished by the forfeiture of one-fourth +of their annual stipend. Finally the principle is sanctioned that no +interdict can be made to include in its operation the innocent with the +guilty.<a name="FNanchor_53_53" id="FNanchor_53_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_53_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a></p> + +<p>So thorough a vindication of the rights of the Gallican Church had never +before been undertaken. The axe was laid at the root of formidable +abuses; freedom of election was restored; the kingdom was relieved of a +crushing burden of tribute; foreigners were precluded from interfering +with the systematic administration of the laws. The clergy, both regular +and secular, received the greatest benefits, for, while they could no +longer be plundered of so large a part of their incomes, their persons +were protected from arbitrary arrest and hopeless exile beyond the Alps.</p> + +<p>The council had not adjourned when the tidings of the transactions at +Bourges reached the city of Basle. The members were overjoyed, and +testified their approval in a grateful letter to the Archbishop of +Lyons. But their exultation was more than equalled by the disgust of +Pope Eugenius the Third. Indeed, the pontificates of this pope and his +immediate successors were filled with fruitless attempts to effect the +repeal of the Pragmatic Sanction. A threat was made to place France +under an interdict; but this was of no avail, being answered by the +counter-threat of the king's representative, who proposed to make a +practical application of the instrument, by appealing from his Holiness +to a future general council. So the Pope, having a vivid recollection of +the perils attending a contest with the French crown, wisely avoided the +hazardous venture.<a name="FNanchor_54_54" id="FNanchor_54_54"></a><a href="#Footnote_54_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Louis XI. consents to its abrogation.</div> + +<p>In Louis the Eleventh the papal court seemed to have found a more +promising prince to deal with. Animated by hatred of his father, and +disposed to oppose whatever had met his father's approval, Louis had, +while yet dauphin, given the Pope's agents flattering assurances of his +good intentions.<a name="FNanchor_55_55" id="FNanchor_55_55"></a><a href="#Footnote_55_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a> On ascending the throne, he permitted his father's +memory to be treated with disrespect, by suffering a nuncio to pronounce +absolution over the corpse for the heinous sin of originating the +Pragmatic Sanction. Later, on receiving the assurance of the Pope's +support for the house of Anjou in Naples, he consented to repeal the +hateful ordinance. A royal declaration for this purpose was published in +1461, contrary to the advice of the king's council.<a name="FNanchor_56_56" id="FNanchor_56_56"></a><a href="#Footnote_56_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a> It met with +universal reprobation. The Parliament of Toulouse would register the +document only with an accompanying note stating that this had been done +"by the most express command of the king." The Parliament of Paris +absolutely declined to admit it in its records, and sent a deputation to +Louis to set forth the pernicious results that were to be expected from +the overthrow of his father's wise regula<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span>tions.<a name="FNanchor_57_57" id="FNanchor_57_57"></a><a href="#Footnote_57_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a> The University made +bold to appeal to a general council of the Church.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">But subsequently re-enacts it.</div> + +<p>Meanwhile it happened that Louis made the unwelcome discovery that his +Italian friends had deceived him, and that the prospect was very remote +of obtaining the advantages by which he had been allured. It was not +very difficult, therefore, to persuade him to renounce his project. Not +content with this, three years after his formal revocation of the entire +Pragmatic Sanction, he even re-enacted some of the clauses of the +document respecting "expectatives" and "provisions."</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Parliament protests against the repeal.</div> + +<p>But a few years later, in 1467, Louis again conceived it to be for his +interest to abrogate the Pragmatic Sanction. At the suggestion of +Cardinal Balue, the recent enactment against "expectatives" was +repealed. The Parliament of Paris, however, refused to record the +letters patent. Among other powerful arguments adduced was the fact that +a recent investigation had proved that, in the three years of the +pontificate of Pius the Second during which the Pragmatic Sanction had +been virtually set aside (1461-1464), Rome drew from the kingdom not +less than 240,000 crowns in payment of bulls for archbishoprics, +bishoprics, and abbeys falling vacant within this term; 100,000 for +priories and deaneries; and the enormous sum of 2,500,000 crowns for +"expectatives" and "dispensations."<a name="FNanchor_58_58" id="FNanchor_58_58"></a><a href="#Footnote_58_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a> This startling financial exhibit +was accompanied by statements of the indirect injury received by the +community from the great number of candidates thrown on the tender +mercies of relations and friends, whom they thus beggared while awaiting +a long deferred preferment.<a name="FNanchor_59_59" id="FNanchor_59_59"></a><a href="#Footnote_59_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a> Even when successful, "they received +only lead for gold." Frequently, when they were about to clutch the +coveted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> prize, a rival stepped in armed with documents annulling those +previously given. Cases had, indeed, been known in which ten or twelve +contestants presented themselves, all basing their claims upon the +pontifical warrant.<a name="FNanchor_60_60" id="FNanchor_60_60"></a><a href="#Footnote_60_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Fall of Cardinal Balue.</div> + +<p>Cardinal Balue was not slow in finding means to remove from office the +intrepid <i>Procureur-général</i>, who had been prominent in urging +parliament to resist the measure of repeal. But Saint-Romain's bold +stand had confirmed both parliament and university, and neither body +would acquiesce in the papal demands. Louis, however, was reconciled to +a second abandonment of the scheme by the opportune discovery of the +cardinal's treachery. The unhappy prelate met with deserved retribution, +for his purple did not save him from enduring his own favorite mode of +punishment, and being shut up in a great iron cage. The new Perillus was +thus enabled—to the intense satisfaction of many whom he had +wronged—to test in his own person the merits of a contrivance which he +was reputed himself to have invented.<a name="FNanchor_61_61" id="FNanchor_61_61"></a><a href="#Footnote_61_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a></p> + +<p>A concordat subsequently agreed upon by Louis and the Pope fared no +better than the previous compacts. Parliament and university were +resolute, and the king, having no further advantage to gain by keeping +his word, was as careless in its fulfilment as was his wont. The +Pragmatic Sanction was still observed as the law of the land. The +highest civil courts, ignoring the alleged repeal, conformed their +decisions to its letter and spirit, while the theologians of the +Sorbonne taught it as the foundation of the ecclesiastical constitution +of France. Yet, public confidence in its validity having been shaken, it +was desirable to set all doubts at rest by a formal re-enactment. This +was proposed by the Dean of St. Martin of Tours, in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> States General +held during the minority of Charles the Eighth; but, notwithstanding the +well-known opinion of all the orders, this reign passed without the +adoption of any decided action.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Action of Louis XII.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">His motto.</div> + +<p>It was reserved for Louis the Twelfth to take the desired step. In 1499 +he published the Pragmatic Sanction anew, and ordered the exclusion from +office of all that had obtained benefices from Rome. In vain did the +Pope rave. In vain did he summon all upholders of the ordinance to +appear before the Fifth Lateran Council. The sturdy prince—the "Father +of his people"—who had chosen for his motto the device, "<i>Perdam +Babylonis nomen</i>," made little account of the menaces of Julius the +Second, whom death overtook, it is said, while about to fulminate a bull +transferring the title of "Very Christian King" from Louis the Twelfth +of France to Henry the Eighth of England.<a name="FNanchor_62_62" id="FNanchor_62_62"></a><a href="#Footnote_62_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Concordat of Leo X. and Francis I.</div> + +<p>Thirsting for military distinction, Francis the First had no sooner +obtained the throne than he entered upon the career of arms in northern +Italy, and the signal victory of Marignano, won less than ten months +after his accession (September 13, 1515), closed his first campaign. +This success was productive of more lasting results than merely the +temporary possession of the Milanese. It led to a reconciliation with +the Pope, and to a stately interview in the city of Bologna. All that +was magnificent and captivating to the senses had been studied to dazzle +the eyes of a young and imaginative prince; for Leo the Tenth, patron of +the arts and of artists, was an adept in scenic effects. Certainly never +did pomp and ceremony more easily effect the object for which they were +employed. The interview of Bologna paved the way for a concordat, in +which the rights of the Gallican Church were sacrificed, and the spoils +divided between king and pontiff.<a name="FNanchor_63_63" id="FNanchor_63_63"></a><a href="#Footnote_63_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a> Three cardinals took part in the +elaboration of the details of the instrument—two on the pontifical, the +third on the royal side. The last was the notorious Cardinal Duprat, +elevated by Francis to the office of chancellor—a minister of religion +who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> was soon to introduce venality into every department of government. +The source of the concordat determined tolerably well its character.</p> + +<p>Appreciating the strength of the opposition its pretensions had always +encountered in France, the papal court had resolved to renounce a +portion of its claims in favor of the king, in order to retain the rest +more securely. Under the pretext that the right of election vested in +the chapters had been abused, partly by the choice of illiterate and +improper men, partly through the practice of simony, the selection of +archbishops and bishops was taken from them and confided to the king. He +was empowered to choose a doctor or licentiate of theology or law, not +less than twenty-seven years of age, within six months after the see +became vacant. The name of the candidate was to be submitted to the Pope +for approval, and, if this first nomination was rejected, a second was +to be made by the king. Similar regulations were made respecting abbeys +and monastic institutions in general, a few exceptions being allowed in +favor of those patrons and bodies to whom special privileges had been +accorded. The issue of "expectatives" was prohibited; but, as no mention +was made of the "annats," it followed, of course, that this rich source +of gain to the papal treasury was to lie open, in spite of the +provisions of the Pragmatic Sanction to the contrary.<a name="FNanchor_64_64" id="FNanchor_64_64"></a><a href="#Footnote_64_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a></p> + +<p>Such were some of the leading features of the concordat between Leo the +Tenth and Francis the First—a document introducing changes so violent +as to amount almost to a complete revolution in the ecclesiastical +constitution of the land.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Dissatisfaction of the French.</div> + +<p>After receiving the unqualified approval of the Lateran Council, in a +session at which few prelates were present from outside of Italy, the +concordat, engrossed on white damask, and accompanied by a revocation of +the Pragmatic Sanction on cloth of gold, was forwarded to Francis, who +had now returned to his kingdom. The latter, not ignorant of the +discontent already engendered by the mere rumor of the transaction, +first<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> submitted the concordat alone to a mixed assembly composed of +prelates and canons, of presidents and counsellors of parliament, +doctors of the university, and other prominent personages. But the +king's caution failed of accomplishing what had been intended. The +general dissatisfaction found expression in the speech of Cardinal +Boissy, demanding that the clergy be consulted by itself on a matter so +vitally affecting its interests, and suggesting the necessity of a +national council for that purpose. Francis angrily retorted that the +clergy <i>must obey</i>, or he would send its bishops to Rome to discuss with +the Pope.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Struggle with the parliaments.</div> + +<p>Failing in the attempt to forestall the expression of disapprobation of +the judiciary by securing the favorable verdict of a picked assembly of +influential persons, the king, nevertheless, proceeded to carry into +execution that clause of the concordat which enjoined ratification by +the parliaments. Letters patent were first dispatched commanding all +judges to conform to its provisions, and these were followed shortly by +copies of the instrument itself and of the revocation of the Pragmatic +Sanction, for registry. At this point properly began one of the most +notable contests between the crown and parliaments of France. The +Parliament of Paris, taking the ground that so fundamental a change in +the national customs demanded mature consideration, deferred action. +With the view of exercising a pressure on its deliberations, Francis now +commissioned his uncle, the Bastard of Savoy, to be present at the +sessions. Against this unprecedented breach of privilege parliament sent +a deputation humbly to remonstrate; but all to no purpose. The irritated +prince, who entertained the most extravagant views of the royal +prerogative, declared his intention to satisfy himself concerning the +real disposition of his judges, and assured the deputies that he had +firmly resolved to despatch the disobedient to the inferior parliaments +of Bordeaux and Toulouse, and fill their places with "men of worth." "I +am your king," was his constant exclamation, and this passed with him +for an unanswerable argument in support of his views. But the members of +parliament were not easily moved. Undoubtedly the success attending +their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> previous resistance to the repeal of the Pragmatic Sanction, on +at least three occasions in the reign of Louis the Eleventh, emboldened +them in the present instance. Unawed by the presence of the Bastard of +Savoy, they refused to concede the registration of the concordat, and +declared that they must continue to observe the Pragmatic Sanction, +endorsed, as that ordinance had been, by the representatives of the +entire nation. Not only did they protest against suffering the Sanction +to be annulled, but they insisted upon the convocation of the clergy in +a body similar to that assembled by Charles the Seventh, as an +indispensable preliminary to the investigation of the matter.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Haughty demeanor of the king.</div> + +<p>Francis, who happened to be at his castle of Amboise, on the Loire, now +sent word that parliament should appoint a deputation to convey to him +the reasons of its refusal. But when the delegates reached the +castle-gate, an entire month elapsed before Francis would condescend to +grant them audience. They were at length admitted, only to be treated +with studied contempt. "There can be but one king in France," was the +arrogant language of the young prince to the judges who had grown gray +in the service of Charles the Eighth and the good King Louis. "You speak +as if you were not my subjects, and as if I dared not try you and +sentence you to lose your heads." And when the indignity of his words +awakened the spirited remonstrance of the deputies, Francis rejoined: "I +am king: I can dispose of my parliament at my pleasure. Begone, and +return to Paris at break of day."</p> + +<p>A formal command was now addressed to the Parliament of Paris, and the +bearer, La Trémouille, informed that body, as it listened to the +message, that Francis had repeated to him more than ten times within a +quarter of an hour, "that he would not for half his kingdom fail of his +word to the Pope, and that if parliament rebelled, he would find means +to make it repent of its obstinacy." Under these circumstances, further +resistance from a body so completely dependent on the sovereign was not +to be thought of. Yet, even when compelled to yield, parliament, at the +suggestion of the <i>gens du roi</i>, coupled the registry of the concordat +with a declaration that it was made at the ex<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span>press command of the king +several times reiterated, that parliament disapproved of the revocation +of the Pragmatic Sanction; and that, in the adjudication of causes, it +would continue to follow the ordinance of Charles the Seventh, while +appealing to the Pope under better advisement, and to a future council +of the church. Thus the concordat, projected at Bologna in 1515, and +signed at Rome on the sixteenth of August, 1516, was registered by the +Parliament of Paris <i>de expressissimo mandato regis</i>, on the +twenty-second of March, 1518.<a name="FNanchor_65_65" id="FNanchor_65_65"></a><a href="#Footnote_65_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The university remonstrates.</div> + +<p>Even now Francis had not quite silenced all opposition. The rector of +the University of Paris, not content with entering a formal +remonstrance,<a name="FNanchor_66_66" id="FNanchor_66_66"></a><a href="#Footnote_66_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a> took a bolder step. Making use of a prerogative long +since conceded to the university, of exercising a censure over the +press, he posted a notice to all printers and publishers forbidding the +reproduction of the concordat on pain of loss of their privileges. The +dean and canons of the cathedral church of Paris also handed in a +protest. The preachers of several churches rivalled the rector in +audacity, by publicly inveighing against the dangers of the +ecclesiastical innovations introduced by the king. It is not surprising +that a prince impatient even of wholesome rebuke was enraged at this +monkish tirade. Parliament was ordered to bring the culprits to justice; +but, strange to say, none could be discovered—a circumstance certainly +attributable rather to the supineness of the judges than to any lack of +witnesses. To the university Francis wrote in a haughty vein, +threatening the severe punishment of any of its doctors that dared +preach against the government; while, by an edict from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> Amboise, he +forbade the rector and his associates from assembling for the discussion +of political questions.</p> + +<p>These were the closing scenes of the exciting drama. The king had +triumphed, but not without encountering a spirited opposition from +parliament, university, and clergy. If these had succumbed, it had only +been before superior strength, and each of the bodies reserved to itself +the right of treating the concordat as a nullity and the Pragmatic +Sanction as still the ecclesiastical constitution of the land.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">The resistance not altogether fruitless.</div> + +<p>Nor was this altogether an empty claim. Some of the provisions of the +concordat were never enforced, and that was a solid advantage gained +through the opposition. The parliaments persisted in rendering judgment, +in such cases as came before them, in conformity with the Pragmatic +Sanction. The Bishop of Albi, chosen by the canons, was confirmed in his +see, notwithstanding the pretensions of a nominee of the crown. And yet +the concordat was not merely maintained by the Pope and the king, but, a +few years later, its provisions were extended to monastic foundations +previously possessed of an undisputed title to elect. This was done to +gratify Francis on the marriage of his second son Henry to Catharine de' +Medici, niece of Clement, the reigning pontiff. The somewhat suspicious +story is told, that, to aid in carrying out this new act of injustice, +Cardinal Duprat, having ordered all ecclesiastical bodies to send him +the original documents attesting their right of election, at once +consigned the parchments to the fire, in order to destroy all memory of +these troublesome claims. If the tale be apocryphal, it at least +indicates sufficiently well the estimation in which the prelate's +character was held by his contemporaries.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Advantages gained by the crown.</div> + +<p>The clergy reluctantly admitted the concordat into their books after the +lapse of two centuries, but solely, as they declared, for convenience of +reference. The restoration of the Pragmatic Sanction continued to be +demanded by one or all the orders of the States General, during the +reigns of Francis the Second, Charles the Ninth, and their successors, +not least on the ground that the day that witnessed its repeal also +beheld the introduction of the "heresy" that had since attained such<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> +formidable proportions.<a name="FNanchor_67_67" id="FNanchor_67_67"></a><a href="#Footnote_67_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a> But, if opposed and denounced, the concordat +was carried into execution, so far as most of its provisions were +concerned, until the French revolution. The advantages gained by the +crown were too palpable to be voluntarily relinquished. Almost the +entire patronage of the church was thrown into the hands of the king, +who, in the reign of Louis the Fifteenth, held at his disposal eighteen +archbishoprics, 112 bishoprics, 1,666 abbeys for men, and 317 abbeys and +priories for women.<a name="FNanchor_68_68" id="FNanchor_68_68"></a><a href="#Footnote_68_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a> It must not be forgotten that the <i>annats</i>, or +first-fruits of benefices, now regularly falling into the pontifical +treasury, made the concordat scarcely less valuable to the Papal +See.<a name="FNanchor_69_69" id="FNanchor_69_69"></a><a href="#Footnote_69_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Era of the Renaissance.</div> + +<p>The most enviable distinction of the reign of Francis the First +consisted in the fact that it was the era of that extraordinary +development of the fine arts and of literature known as the +<i>Renaissance</i>. Illustrious during the Middle Ages, and foremost in the +pursuit of scholastic learning, France had unfortunately lost that proud +eminence when the revival of letters enkindled elsewhere a new passion +for discovery. Her adventurous sons had taken the lead in the crusades +of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, but three hundred years later no +expeditions were fitted out in her ports to explore and appropriate the +virgin territories beyond the western sea. The art of printing and the +impulse given to astronomical research originated abroad. The famous +mediæ<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>val seat of learning seemed to have been suddenly visited with a +premature decay. Even the exiled scholars of the East, fleeing before +Turkish barbarism, disdained to settle in a country where the treasures +of ancient science which they had brought with them from Mount Athos and +Constantinople were so inadequately appreciated.<a name="FNanchor_70_70" id="FNanchor_70_70"></a><a href="#Footnote_70_70" class="fnanchor">[70]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Francis's attainments overrated.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">A munificent patron of art.</div> + +<p>The reign of Francis the First, however, was destined to remove much of +the reproach which had been incurred by reason of this singular +tardiness in entering the path of improvement. Born of parents possessed +of unusual intelligence and yet rarer education, and stimulated by the +companionship of an elder sister whose extensive acquirements furnished +the theme of countless panegyrics, Francis early conceived the design of +making his court illustrious for the generous patronage extended to the +disciples of the liberal arts. His own attainments have been overrated, +and posterity has too credulously believed all that admiring and +interested courtiers chose to invent in his praise. But, if he was +himself ignorant of anything beyond the mere rudiments even of Latin, +the universal language of science, he possessed at least one signal +merit: he was a munificent friend of those whom poverty would otherwise +have precluded from cultivating their resplendent abilities. I shall not +repeat the familiar names of the eminent painters and sculptors whom he +encouraged and enriched, nor give a list of the skilful architects +employed in the construction of his magnificent palaces of St. Germain +and Fontainebleau, of Chambord and Chenonceaux. Poetry, not less than +painting and architecture, witnessed his liberality. Clément Marot, +whose name has been regarded as marking the first truly remarkable epoch +in the history of this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> department of French art,<a name="FNanchor_71_71" id="FNanchor_71_71"></a><a href="#Footnote_71_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a> was a favorite at +the court of Francis and Margaret of Angoulême, and repaid their gifts +with unbounded eulogy. The more solid studies of the philosopher and the +linguist were fostered with equal care. Vatable, Melchior Wolmar, and +other scholars of note were invited to France, to give instruction in +Greek and Hebrew. Erasmus himself might have been induced to yield to +the king's importunate messages, could he have been able to divest +himself of the apprehension of annoyance from the bigoted "Sorbonnists;" +while even Melanchthon was, at a later period, on the point of accepting +a pressing summons to visit the French court on a mission of +reconciliation.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Foundation of the Collége Royal.</div> + +<p>Among the most notable achievements of this prince was the foundation of +a school of learning intended to supply the deficiencies of the +instruction given by the university. In the "Collége Royal" Francis +desired to leave a lasting token of his devotion to letters. Here he +founded chairs of three languages—of Greek and Hebrew at first, and +afterward of Latin—whence was derived the name of <i>Trilingue</i>, under +which the college was celebrated in the writings of the day. The +monarch's plan encountered the obstacles which prejudice always knows +how to set in the way of improvement. The university doctors, fearing +that their own prelections would be forsaken for the more brilliant +lectures of the salaried professors of the royal school, demanded that +the latter should submit to an examination before the more ancient body +of instructors; but parliament wisely rejected their pretensions. +Liberal men throughout the world rejoiced at the defeat of the Sorbonne +and its representative, Beda,<a name="FNanchor_72_72" id="FNanchor_72_72"></a><a href="#Footnote_72_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a> while<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> Marot, alluding to the quarrel +in a poetical epistle to the king, poured out in verse his contempt for +the "Theologasters" of Paris:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i6">"L'ignorante Sorbonne;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bien ignorante elle est d'estre ennemie<br /></span> +<span class="i0">De la <i>Trilingue</i> et noble Academie<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Qu'as érigée....<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O povres gens de savoir tout éthiques!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bien faites vray ce proverbe courant:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'<i>Science n'ha hayneux que l'ignorant!</i>'"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>It would be unfair to French scholarship to omit all notice of the fact +that there were not wanting natives of France itself whose sound +learning entitled them to rank with the most conscientious of German +humanists; such men as Lefèvre d'Étaples, a prodigy of almost universal +acquirements; or Louis de Berquin, who furnishes a signal instance of a +nobleman of high position that did not shun the toil and danger of a +more than ordinarily profound investigation of theological truth. Both +will claim our attention again.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">An age of blood.</div> + +<p>Yet, by the side or these manifestations of a growing appreciation of +art, science, and letters, it must be confessed that there were +indications, no less distinct, of a lamentable neglect of moral +training, and of a state of manners scarcely raised above that of +uncivilized communities of men. It was still an age of blood. The pages +of chronicles, both public and private, teem with proofs of the +insignificant value set upon human life and happiness. In many parts of +France the peasant rarely enjoyed quiet for even a few consecutive +months. Organized bands of robbers, familiarly known as "Mauvais +Garçons," infested whole provinces, and laid towns and villages under +contribution. Not unfrequently two or three hundred men were to be found +in a single band, and the robberies, outrages, and murders they +committed defy recital. Often the miscreants were <i>aventuriers</i>, or +volunteers whose<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> employers had failed to furnish them their stipulated +pay, and who avenged their losses by exactions levied upon the +unfortunate peasantry. Indeed, if we may believe the almost incredible +statements of one of the laws enacted for their suppression, they had +been known to carry by assault even walled cities, and to exercise +against the miserable inhabitants cruelty such as disgraces the very +name of man.<a name="FNanchor_73_73" id="FNanchor_73_73"></a><a href="#Footnote_73_73" class="fnanchor">[73]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Barbarous punishments.</div> + +<p>The character or the punishments inflicted for the commission of crime +furnishes a convenient test of national civilization. If France in the +sixteenth century be tried by this criterion, the conclusion is +inevitable that for her the age of barbarism had not yet completely +passed away. The catalogue of crimes to which death was affixed as the +penalty is frightfully long; some of them were almost trivial offences. +A boy less than sixteen years of age was hung for stealing jewelry from +his master.<a name="FNanchor_74_74" id="FNanchor_74_74"></a><a href="#Footnote_74_74" class="fnanchor">[74]</a> On the other hand, with flagrant inconsistency, a +nobleman, René de Bonneville, superintendent of the royal mint, for the +murder of his brother-in-law, was dragged to the place of execution on a +hurdle, but suffered the less ignominious fate of decapitation. A part +of his property was given to his sister, and the rest confiscated to the +crown, with the exception of four hundred livres, reserved for the +purchase of masses to be said for the benefit of the soul of his +murdered victim.<a name="FNanchor_75_75" id="FNanchor_75_75"></a><a href="#Footnote_75_75" class="fnanchor">[75]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Especially for heresy.</div> + +<p>For other culprits extraordinary refinements of cruelty were reserved. +The <i>aventuriers</i>, when so ill-starred as to fall into the hands of +justice, were customarily burned alive at the stake.<a name="FNanchor_76_76" id="FNanchor_76_76"></a><a href="#Footnote_76_76" class="fnanchor">[76]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> The same fate +overtook those who were detected in frauds against the public treasury. +More frightful than all the rest was the vengeance taken by the law upon +the counterfeiter of the king's coin. The legal penalty, which is said +to have become a dead letter on the pages of the statute-book long +before the French revolution, was in the sixteenth century rigidly +enforced: on the 9th of November, 1527, a rich merchant of Paris, having +been found guilty of the crime in question, was boiled alive before the +assembled multitude in the <i>Marché-aux-pourceaux</i>.<a name="FNanchor_77_77" id="FNanchor_77_77"></a><a href="#Footnote_77_77" class="fnanchor">[77]</a> Heresy and +blasphemy were treated with no greater degree of leniency than the most +infamous of crimes. Even before the reformation a lingering death in the +flames had been the doom pronounced upon the person who dared to accept +or promulgate doctrines condemned by the church. But when the bitterness +of strife had awakened the desire to enhance the punishment of dissent, +new or extraordinary tortures were resorted to, of the application of +which this history will furnish only too many examples. The forehead was +branded, the tongue torn out, the hand cut off at the wrist, or the +agonies of death prolonged by alternately dropping the wretched victim +into the fire and drawing him out again, until exhausted nature found +tardy release in death.</p> + +<p>But if we can to some extent account for the excess of cruelty which +blind frenzy inflicted on the inflexible martyr to his faith, it is +certainly more difficult to explain the severity exercised upon the more +pliable, whom the arguments of ghostly advisers, or the terrors of the +<i>Place de Grève</i>, had induced to recant. Generally the judge did nothing +more in their behalf than commute their punishment by ordering them to +be strangled before<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> their bodies were consigned to the flames.<a name="FNanchor_78_78" id="FNanchor_78_78"></a><a href="#Footnote_78_78" class="fnanchor">[78]</a> Yet +in one exceptional case—that of a servant whose master, a gentleman and +one of the men-at-arms of the Regent of Scotland, was burned alive—the +court went to such a length of leniency as to let the repentant heretic +off with the sentence that he first be beaten with rods at the cart's +end, and afterwards have his tongue cut out.<a name="FNanchor_79_79" id="FNanchor_79_79"></a><a href="#Footnote_79_79" class="fnanchor">[79]</a> Even the clearest +evidence of insanity did not suffice to remove or even mitigate the +penalties of impiety. A poor, crazy woman, who had broken the +consecrated wafer when administered to her in her illness, and had +applied to it some offensive but absurd epithet, was unhesitatingly +condemned to the stake. An appeal to a superior court procuring no +reversal of her sentence, she was burned at Tours in the year 1533.<a name="FNanchor_80_80" id="FNanchor_80_80"></a><a href="#Footnote_80_80" class="fnanchor">[80]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Belief in astrology.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Predictions of Nostradamus.</div> + +<p>Other marks of a low stage of civilization were not wanting. The belief +in judicial astrology was almost universal.<a name="FNanchor_81_81" id="FNanchor_81_81"></a><a href="#Footnote_81_81" class="fnanchor">[81]</a> Pretenders like +Nostradamus obtained respect and wealth at the hands of their dupes. All +France trembled with Catharine de' Medici, when the astrologer gave out +that the queen would see all her sons kings, and every one foreboded the +speedy extinction of the royal line. The "prophecy," as it was gravely +styled, obtained public recognition, and was discussed in diplomatic +papers. When two of the queen's sons had in fact become kings of France, +and a third had been elected to the throne of Poland, while the marriage +of the fourth with Queen Elizabeth was under consideration, Catharine's +allies saw grounds to congratulate her that the prediction which had so +disquieted her was likely to obtain a more pleasing fulfilment than in +the successive deaths of her male descendants.<a name="FNanchor_82_82" id="FNanchor_82_82"></a><a href="#Footnote_82_82" class="fnanchor">[82]</a></p> + +<p>A still more pernicious form of superstition was noticeable in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> the +credit enjoyed by charms and incantations, not merely among illiterate +rustics, but even with persons of high social station. No phase of the +magic art led to the commission of more terrible crimes or revealed a +worse side of human character than that which pretended to secure the +happiness or accomplish the ruin, to prolong the life or hasten the +death, of the objects of private love or hatred. While systematically +practising upon the credulity of his dupes, the professed master of this +ill-omened art frequently resorted to assassination by poison or dagger +in the accomplishment of his schemes. Sorcery by means of waxen images +was particularly in vogue. Thus, the Queen of Navarre, the sister of +Francis the First, in her singular collection of tales, the +"Heptameron," gives a circumstantial account of the mode in which her +own life was sought by this species of witchcraft.<a name="FNanchor_83_83" id="FNanchor_83_83"></a><a href="#Footnote_83_83" class="fnanchor">[83]</a> Five puppets had +been provided: three, representing enemies (the queen being one of the +number), had their arms hanging down; the other two, representing +persons whose favor was desired, had them raised aloft. With certain +cabalistic words and occult rites the puppets were next secretly hidden +beneath an altar whereon the mass was celebrated, and the mysterious +"sacrifice" was believed to complete the efficacy of the charm. It was +no new superstition imported from abroad, but one that had existed in +France for centuries.<a name="FNanchor_84_84" id="FNanchor_84_84"></a><a href="#Footnote_84_84" class="fnanchor">[84]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Reverence for relics.</div> + +<p>The French were behind no other nation in reverence for relics of saints +and for pictures and images representing them. In the partial list, +compiled by a contemporary, of the curiosities<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> of this nature scattered +through Christendom,<a name="FNanchor_85_85" id="FNanchor_85_85"></a><a href="#Footnote_85_85" class="fnanchor">[85]</a> the majority of the relics mentioned are +selected from the immense treasures laid up in the thousands of +cathedrals, parish churches, and abbeys within the domains of the "Very +Christian King." In one place the hair of the blessed Virgin was +carefully preserved; in another the sword of the archangel Michael, or +the entire body of St. Dionysius. It was true that the Pope had by +solemn bull, about a century before, declared, in the presence of the +French ambassador, that the entire body of this last-named saint was in +the possession of the inhabitants of Ratisbon; but, had any one been so +rash as to affirm at Saint Denis, near Paris, that the veritable remains +were not there, he would certainly have been stoned.<a name="FNanchor_86_86" id="FNanchor_86_86"></a><a href="#Footnote_86_86" class="fnanchor">[86]</a> At Notre-Dame +de l'Ile, above Lyons, no little account was made of the <i>twelve combs</i> +of the apostles!<a name="FNanchor_87_87" id="FNanchor_87_87"></a><a href="#Footnote_87_87" class="fnanchor">[87]</a></p> + +<p>The reflecting man who found, by a comparison of the treasures of +different churches within his own personal observation, that some of the +pretended relics were frivolous or impossible, and that the same members +of some favorite saint were reproduced at points widely distant, might +well speculate upon the probable benefits to Christendom from a complete +inventory of the contents of the churches of two or three thousand +bishoprics, of twenty or thirty thousand abbeys, and of more than forty +thousand convents.<a name="FNanchor_88_88" id="FNanchor_88_88"></a><a href="#Footnote_88_88" class="fnanchor">[88]</a> He might find difficulty in believing that our +Lord was crucified with fourteen nails; that "an entire hedge" should +have been requisite to plait the crown of thorns; that a single spear +should have begotten three others; or that from a solitary napkin there +should have issued a whole brood of the same kind.<a name="FNanchor_89_89" id="FNanchor_89_89"></a><a href="#Footnote_89_89" class="fnanchor">[89]</a> He would be +scandalized on learning that each apostle had more than four bodies, and +the saints at least two or three apiece.<a name="FNanchor_90_90" id="FNanchor_90_90"></a><a href="#Footnote_90_90" class="fnanchor">[90]</a> And his faith in the +genuineness of the objects of popular adoration would be still further +shaken, if, on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> subjecting them to a closer examination, he discovered +that, as was the case at Geneva, he had been worshipping a bone of a +deer as the arm of Saint Anthony, or a piece of pumice for the brain of +the apostle Peter.<a name="FNanchor_91_91" id="FNanchor_91_91"></a><a href="#Footnote_91_91" class="fnanchor">[91]</a></p> + +<p>But, whatever sceptical conclusions might be reached by the learned and +discerning, the devotion of the common people showed no signs of +flagging. In the parish church of St. Stephen at Noyon, it was not the +Christian proto-martyr alone that was decorated with a cap and other +gewgaws, when his yearly festival came around, but likewise the +"tyrants," as they were styled by the people, who stoned him. And the +poor women, seeing them thus adorned, took them to be companions of the +saint, and each one had his candle. The devil with whom St. Michael +contended fared equally well.<a name="FNanchor_92_92" id="FNanchor_92_92"></a><a href="#Footnote_92_92" class="fnanchor">[92]</a> The very stones that were the +instruments of St. Stephen's death were adored at Arles and +elsewhere.<a name="FNanchor_93_93" id="FNanchor_93_93"></a><a href="#Footnote_93_93" class="fnanchor">[93]</a> It was, however, to the Parisians that the palm in this +species of superstition rightfully belonged. The knife wherewith an +impious Jew had stabbed a consecrated wafer was held in higher esteem +than the wafer itself! And so marked was the preference that it aroused +the displeasure of one of the most bigoted doctors of the Sorbonne, De +Quercu, who reproached the Parisians for being worse than the Jews +themselves, "inasmuch as they adored the knife that had served to rend +the precious body of Jesus Christ."<a name="FNanchor_94_94" id="FNanchor_94_94"></a><a href="#Footnote_94_94" class="fnanchor">[94]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The consecrated wafer.</div> + +<p>When such superstitious respect was paid to the relics of saints, it is +not surprising that the consecrated wafer or host received the most +extravagant marks of adoration. The king himself was often foremost in +public demonstrations in its honor. Louise de Savoie, mother of Francis +the First, relates in her quaint diary the pompous ceremonial observed +in restoring to its original position a pyx containing the host which +had been stolen from the chapel of the palace of St. Germain-en-Laye. +The culprit had suffered the customary penalty, having had his hand cut +off and being afterward burned alive. In the expiatory procession which +took place a few days<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> later, Francis himself walked with uncovered head +and carrying a lighted taper in his hand, from Nanterre to St. Germain. +If we may credit his mother's somewhat partial account, the sight of the +monarch's signal piety was so touching as to bring tears to the eyes of +admiring spectators.<a name="FNanchor_95_95" id="FNanchor_95_95"></a><a href="#Footnote_95_95" class="fnanchor">[95]</a></p> + +<p>In view of the general prevalence of debasing forms of superstition +among the people, it is not inappropriate to consider the condition of +that class of the population which is wont to exert the most potent +influence in forming the moral sentiments and moulding the character of +the unlettered masses. We have already touched upon the external +relations of the clergy to the king and to the Pope; let us now look +more narrowly into its internal state.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Wealth and power of the clergy.</div> + +<p>At the period of which I am now treating, the clergy, both regular and +secular, had attained unprecedented wealth and power. Never, perhaps, +had France been more fully represented in the "Sacred College." +Assuredly never since the residence of the Popes in Avignon had the +French members possessed such immense riches. Thirteen French cardinals +sat in the papal consistory at one time in the reign of Francis the +First; twelve at the accession of his son to the throne.<a name="FNanchor_96_96" id="FNanchor_96_96"></a><a href="#Footnote_96_96" class="fnanchor">[96]</a> Their +influence in the kingdom was almost beyond conception, both on account +of the multitude of benefices they held, and the distinction of the +families from whom they sprang and whose titles they retained. Some were +the incumbents of as many as <i>ten</i> bishoprics and abbeys; while the +cardinals of Bourbon, of Lorraine, of Châtillon, of Du Bellay, and of +Armagnac were of the best blood in the realm, and enjoyed in their own +right, or by reason of their office, very extensive jurisdiction.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Non-residence of the prelates.</div> + +<p>A standing reproach against the prelates was their non-residence in the +dioceses committed to their pastoral supervision.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> In fact, when the +Council of Trent, by one of its first decrees, forbade a plurality of +benefices and enjoined residence, its action was regarded as an open +declaration of war against the French episcopate.<a name="FNanchor_97_97" id="FNanchor_97_97"></a><a href="#Footnote_97_97" class="fnanchor">[97]</a> But if this abuse +is deplored by Roman Catholic historians as the fruitful cause of the +introduction and rapid progress of Protestantism,<a name="FNanchor_98_98" id="FNanchor_98_98"></a><a href="#Footnote_98_98" class="fnanchor">[98]</a> the reformers, +viewing their work as an instrument specially designed by heaven for the +purification of a corrupt church, might well be justified in regarding +the negligence of the bishops as a wise providential arrangement. Many a +feeble germ of truth was spared the violence of persecution until the +kindly sun and the plentiful showers had conferred greater powers of +endurance. Happily for the reformers, the duty of watching for the first +appearance of reputed heresy, which belonged properly to the bishops, +was but poorly discharged by many of the deputies to whom they entrusted +it. Nor could a delegated authority always accomplish what might have +been done by a principal.<a name="FNanchor_99_99" id="FNanchor_99_99"></a><a href="#Footnote_99_99" class="fnanchor">[99]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Revenues of the clergy.</div> + +<p>The annual revenues of the clergy of France were estimated by a Venetian +ambassador, with unsurpassed facilities for obtaining accurate +information, at six million crowns of gold, out of the fifteen millions +that constituted the total revenues of the kingdom. While the clergy +thus absorbed <i>two-fifths</i> of the whole income of France, the king was +limited to one million and a half crowns, or just one-tenth, derived +from his particular estates.<a name="FNanchor_100_100" id="FNanchor_100_100"></a><a href="#Footnote_100_100" class="fnanchor">[100]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Morals of the clergy.</div> + +<p>Wealth had engendered luxury and vice. Engrossed in the pursuit of +pleasure or personal aggrandizement, the vast majority of clergymen had +lost all solicitude for the spiritual welfare<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> of their flocks. About +the middle of the century Claude Haton, curate of Mériot—certainly no +friend of the reformatory movement—wrote in his Mémoires: "The more +rapidly the number of heretics in France increased, the more indifferent +to the discharge of their duty in their charges were the prelates and +pastors of the church, from cardinals and archbishops down to the most +insignificant curate. They cared little or nothing how anything went, if +they could but draw the income of their benefices at whatever place of +residence they had selected with a view to the promotion of their +pleasure.<a name="FNanchor_101_101" id="FNanchor_101_101"></a><a href="#Footnote_101_101" class="fnanchor">[101]</a> They let their benefices out at the highest rate they +could get, little solicitous as to the hands they might fall into, +provided only they were well paid according to the terms of the +agreement. The archbishops, bishops, and cardinals of France were almost +all at the court of the king and the princes. The abbots, priors and +curates resided in the large cities and in other places, wherein they +took more delight than within the limits of their charges and preaching +the true word of God to their subjects and parishioners. From their +indifference the Lutheran heretics took occasion to slander the Church +of Jesus Christ and to seduce Christians from it."<a name="FNanchor_102_102" id="FNanchor_102_102"></a><a href="#Footnote_102_102" class="fnanchor">[102]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">No regard to the spiritual wants of the people.</div> + +<p>Such a condition of utter indifference on the part of the clergy to the +interests of the souls committed to their charge cannot surprise us when +we learn that benefices were conferred without regard to the wants of +the people. The Venetian Soranzo, in an address delivered after the +fruits of the concordat had had full time to mature,<a name="FNanchor_103_103" id="FNanchor_103_103"></a><a href="#Footnote_103_103" class="fnanchor">[103]</a> declared that +in the majority of cases these ecclesiastical positions were dispensed +with little respect to things sacred, and through simple favor. They +served as a convenient method of rewarding good services. Little account +was made of the quali<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>fications of the candidate, who might have earned +his reward in the army or in the civil service. And so it often happened +that he who to-day was a merchant or a soldier, to-morrow was made +bishop or abbot. When, indeed, the fortunate man had a wife or was +reluctant to assume the habit, he could readily get permission to place +the benefice in the name of another, himself retaining the income.<a name="FNanchor_104_104" id="FNanchor_104_104"></a><a href="#Footnote_104_104" class="fnanchor">[104]</a> +"These new pastors," said Correro, "placed in charge of the churches men +who had taken it into their heads to be clergymen only to avoid the +toils of some other occupation—men who, by their avarice and +dissoluteness of life, confused the innocent people and removed their +previous great devotion. <i>This was the door, this was the spacious +gateway, by which heresies entered France.</i> For the ministers sent from +Geneva were easily able to create in the people a hatred of the priests +and friars, <i>by simply weighing in the balance the life led by the +latter</i>."<a name="FNanchor_105_105" id="FNanchor_105_105"></a><a href="#Footnote_105_105" class="fnanchor">[105]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The clergy before the concordat.</div> + +<p>It was the fashion among those who passed for philosophers to ascribe +the universal dissolution of morals among French ecclesiastics to the +operation of the concordat between Francis the First and Pope Leo the +Tenth, which, said they, by bringing so many bishops and other high +dignitaries to the court in quest of preferment, had corrupted the +characters of the prelates, while exposing their flocks to all the evils +which neglect is wont to breed. Unfortunately, the portraits of the +period preceding the revocation of the Pragmatic Sanction that have come +down to us dispel the Arcadian simplicity of manners which seems only to +have existed in the imagination of a few warm admirers of everything +ancient. If the prelates of France were dissolute after the introduction +of the concordat, we are assured by a writer by no means partial to the +"new doctrines," that the state of affairs was no better at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> an earlier +period. In their abbeys or bishoprics they were as debauched as those +who followed arms for their profession.<a name="FNanchor_106_106" id="FNanchor_106_106"></a><a href="#Footnote_106_106" class="fnanchor">[106]</a> The bishops bought their +places with money, or with promises which were to be fulfilled after +preferment. "And when they had attained these high dignities," he adds, +"God knows what lives they led. Assuredly they were far more devoted to +their dioceses than they have since been; for they never left them. But +it was to lead a most dissolute life with their dogs and birds, with +their feasts, banquets, marriage entertainments and courtezans, of whom +they gathered seraglios.... All this was permitted, and none dared to +remonstrate or utter censure. Even more could be related, which is +passed over in silence through fear of creating scandal. Our present +bishops, if not better men, are at least more discreet hypocrites, and +more skilfully conceal their black vices."<a name="FNanchor_107_107" id="FNanchor_107_107"></a><a href="#Footnote_107_107" class="fnanchor">[107]</a> Nor were the morals of +the monastic orders depicted in brighter colors. "Generally the monks +elected the most jovial companion, him who was the most fond of women, +dogs, and birds, the deepest drinker—in short, the most dissipated; and +this in order that, when they had made him abbot or prior, they might be +permitted to indulge in similar debauch and pleasure. Indeed, they bound +him beforehand by strong oaths, to which he was forced to conform either +voluntarily or by constraint. The worst was that, when they failed to +agree in their elections, they usually came to blows with fist and +sword, and inflicted wounds and even death. In a word, there was more +tumult, more faction and intrigue, than there is at the election of the +Rector of the University of Paris."<a name="FNanchor_108_108" id="FNanchor_108_108"></a><a href="#Footnote_108_108" class="fnanchor">[108]</a> It was not strange, therefore, +that Francis, unable otherwise to recompense his deserving nobles, +should prefer to bestow upon them rich abbeys and priories, rather than +leave these to the monks in their cloisters—monks who, as the monarch +used to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> say, "were good for nothing but to eat and drink, to frequent +taverns and gamble, to twist cords for the cross-bow, set traps for +ferrets and rabbits, and train linnets to whistle"—men whose idleness +and other vices were so notorious that the expressions, "He is as idle +as a priest or monk," and "Avaricious and lewd as a priest or monk," +passed into proverbs.<a name="FNanchor_109_109" id="FNanchor_109_109"></a><a href="#Footnote_109_109" class="fnanchor">[109]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Aversion to the use of the French language.</div> + +<p>Ecclesiastical teachers themselves so ignorant and corrupt could not be +expected to do much for the elevation of the laity. Of <i>popularizing</i> +knowledge, especially religious knowledge, the clergy and their +adherents had little thought. Latin alone was deemed suitable for the +discussion of matters of faith. It was enough to condemn the employment +of French for this purpose, that it could be understood by the people. +For the reformers was reserved the honor of raising the dialect of the +masses to the dignity of a language fit for the highest literary uses, +and of compelling even their antagonists to resort to it in +self-defence, though, it must be confessed, with a very poor grace. So +late as in 1558 we find a leading theologian of the Sorbonne publicly +<i>apologizing</i> for the condescension. "Very dear friend," he writes in +the address to the reader, "I doubt not that, at first sight, you will +regard it as strange and perhaps very wrong that this reply is couched +in the vulgar tongue; <i>seeing that it would be much more suitable were +it circulated in the Latin rather than the French tongue</i>, inasmuch as +the subject-matter consists of things greatly concerning Christian +faith, <i>which require rather to be put in Latin than in French</i>. Of this +also we have the example of the holy ancient doctors, who were always +accustomed to write against heretics in Latin and not in French."<a name="FNanchor_110_110" id="FNanchor_110_110"></a><a href="#Footnote_110_110" class="fnanchor">[110]</a> +If such was the avowed repugnance to the use of the language of the +people in the treatment of religious themes, so late as within a year of +the death of Henry the Second, it may readily be conceived how deep the +aversion was a generation earlier, at the first appearance of the +reformation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Ignorance of the Holy Scriptures.</div> + +<p>As to acquaintance with the contents of the Holy Scriptures, either in +the original or in translation, there was next to none among the +professed teachers of science and religion. If the statements of the +celebrated scholar and printer, Robert Étienne, or Stephens, seem almost +incredible, they nevertheless come from a witness of unimpeachable +veracity. Referring to the period of his boyhood or early youth—he was +born in 1503—Étienne sketched the biblical attainments of the doctors +of the Sorbonne after this fashion: "In those times, as I can affirm +with truth, when I asked them in what part of the New Testament some +matter was written, they used to answer that they had read it in Saint +Jerome or in the Decretals, but that they did not know what the New +Testament was, not being aware that it was customary to print it after +the Old. What I am going to state will appear almost a prodigy, and yet +there is nothing more true nor better proven: Not long since, a member +of their college used daily to say, 'I am amazed that these young people +keep bringing up the New Testament to us. <i>I was more than fifty years +old before I knew anything about the New Testament!</i>'"<a name="FNanchor_111_111" id="FNanchor_111_111"></a><a href="#Footnote_111_111" class="fnanchor">[111]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Miracles to stimulate the popular faith.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">The "ghost of Orleans."</div> + +<p>The absence of teaching founded upon a rational exposition of the Holy +Scriptures was not less marked than was the abundance of reported +miracles, by means of which the popular faith was stimulated and +sustained. Above all, the doctrine of transubstantiation was fortified +by the circulation of stories of wonders such as that which took place +at Poitiers, in 1516, when the consecrated wine, spilled by a crazy man, +from white instantly became red.<a name="FNanchor_112_112" id="FNanchor_112_112"></a><a href="#Footnote_112_112" class="fnanchor">[112]</a> At other times imposture was +resorted to in support of such profitable beliefs as the existence of +purgatorial fires, or to inculcate the advantage accruing from masses +for the souls of the dead. The "ghost of Orleans" has become historic. +The wife of the provost of the city having died, was buried, as she had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> +requested, without any pomp and without the customary gifts to the +church. Thereupon the Franciscans conceived the scheme of making use of +her example to warn others against following a course so detrimental to +monastic and priestly interests. The mysterious knockings by means of +which the deceased was supposed to give intimation of her miserable doom +and of her desire that her body, as of one that had been tainted with +heresy, should be removed from the holy ground wherein it had been +interred, were listened to with amazement by the awe-stricken people. +But the opportune discovery of a novice, conveniently posted above the +ceiling of the convent chapel, sadly interfered with the success of the +well contrived plot, and eleven monks convicted of complicity in the +fraud were banished the kingdom. They would have been even more severely +punished had not fear been entertained lest the reformers might find too +much occasion for triumph.<a name="FNanchor_113_113" id="FNanchor_113_113"></a><a href="#Footnote_113_113" class="fnanchor">[113]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Theatrical effects.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">A strange coin.</div> + +<p>More excusable were the theatrical effects which were intended, without +actually deceiving, to heighten the religious devotion of worshippers. +Thus, every Pentecost or Whit-Sunday, in the midst of the service an +angel was seen to descend from the lofty ceiling of the Sainte Chapelle +in Paris, attended by two smaller angels, and bearing a silver vase +containing water for the use of the celebrant of the high mass.<a name="FNanchor_114_114" id="FNanchor_114_114"></a><a href="#Footnote_114_114" class="fnanchor">[114]</a> For +this somewhat harmless piece of spectacular display a justification +might be sought in the religious impressions which the people were +supposed to derive most easily through the senses; but nothing could be +urged in defence of much that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> the clergy tolerated or encouraged. +Superstitions of heathen origin were suffered to reign undisturbed. +Pagan statues were openly worshipped. An Isis received homage and was +honored with burning candles. An Apollo at Polignac was a centre of +religious veneration, and even the unsavory surroundings, when the spot +where it stood was transformed into a stable, could not deter an anxious +crowd of devotees from prostrating themselves before it.<a name="FNanchor_115_115" id="FNanchor_115_115"></a><a href="#Footnote_115_115" class="fnanchor">[115]</a> What +better could be expected in an age and country in which the people were +imposed upon by reports that prehistoric coins had been discovered +bearing the strange legend: "I believe in Jesus <i>to be born</i> among +animals and of a Virgin"?<a name="FNanchor_116_116" id="FNanchor_116_116"></a><a href="#Footnote_116_116" class="fnanchor">[116]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Indecent processions.</div> + +<p>It was not astonishing that the church itself did little to remove the +barbarism prevailing among the common people, for, in point of fact, +buffoonery, immodesty, and cruelty had intruded into the very ceremonial +of religion. Never were there more disgusting exhibitions of the low +state of the public morals than when the occurrence of pestilence, +drought, or some other signal visitation of the displeasure of heaven +induced a clergy scarcely less rude than the laity to institute +propitiatory processions. On such occasions children of both sexes, or +perhaps grown men and women, with bare feet, and wearing for their only +clothing a sheet that scarcely concealed their forms, passed through the +streets of the towns, or wearily trudged from village to village, +responsively singing the litanies of the Virgin or the saints, and +loudly repeating the refrain, <i>Ora pro nobis</i>.<a name="FNanchor_117_117" id="FNanchor_117_117"></a><a href="#Footnote_117_117" class="fnanchor">[117]</a> Often shameful +indecency and a reckless<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> disregard of human life were displayed. In one +of the villages of Champagne, during the protracted drought of 1556, the +sacred scenes of the Passion were publicly enacted in the streets. The +person of our Lord was represented by a young man in a state of entire +nudity and bound with cords, who at every step was scourged by his +companions, personating the Roman soldiers. The picture was true to +life, and the blows so far from unreal that the prime actor in the +scandalous performance fell a victim to the inhuman treatment and died +within a few days. The fruits of practices so coarse and debasing were +such as may easily be conceived.<a name="FNanchor_118_118" id="FNanchor_118_118"></a><a href="#Footnote_118_118" class="fnanchor">[118]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The monastic orders incur contempt.</div> + +<p>It was a lamentable but notorious fact that, as a consequence of the +unnatural divorce of religion and morality, the clergy, both secular and +regular, by their excesses had incurred the contempt of the laity. If +the Franciscan monks enjoyed an unenviable pre-eminence in this respect, +so as to have come to constitute one of the stock characters in the +"Heptameron" and similar works, scarcely less constant than the +prodigals or parasites of the New Comedy, the other orders were but +little behind them. And so Louise de Savoie made this significant entry +in her diary: "In the year 1522, in December, my son and I, by the grace +of the Holy Ghost, began to understand the hypocrites, white, black, +gray, smoky, and of all colors; from whom may God, by his clemency and +infinite goodness, be pleased to preserve and defend us. For, if Jesus +Christ be not a liar, there is no more dangerous generation in all human +kind."<a name="FNanchor_119_119" id="FNanchor_119_119"></a><a href="#Footnote_119_119" class="fnanchor">[119]</a> Bishops and cardinals won little more respect than the +monks; for was it not the most prominent of the wearers of the purple +who, as Chancellor of France, introduced venality into the most sacred +offices<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> of state,<a name="FNanchor_120_120" id="FNanchor_120_120"></a><a href="#Footnote_120_120" class="fnanchor">[120]</a> while by his quarrelsome and unscrupulous +diplomacy he richly merited the <i>bon mot</i> of the Emperor Charles the +Fifth, that he was more inclined to make <i>four wars than, one +peace</i>?<a name="FNanchor_121_121" id="FNanchor_121_121"></a><a href="#Footnote_121_121" class="fnanchor">[121]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Abortive efforts at reform.</div> + +<p>It does not enter into the province of this history to discuss in detail +the causes of the deplorable vices that characterized the priesthood on +the eve of the great religious movement of the sixteenth century; nor +can we pause to make that analysis of the doctrinal errors then +prevalent, which belongs rather to the office of the historian of the +Reformation. It will be sufficient, therefore, if we glance hastily at +some of the partial and abortive efforts directed toward the reform of +doctrine and manners of which mediæval France was the theatre.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">The Cathari and Albigenses.</div> + +<p>Foremost among the popular opponents of the papacy were the Cathari and +Albigenses. The accounts of the origin of the sect or sects bearing +these names are vague and unsatisfactory, and the reports of their creed +and worship are inconsistent or incredible. The ruin that overwhelmed +them spared no friendly narrative of their history, and scarcely one +authoritative exposition of the belief for the profession of which their +adherents encountered death with heroic fortitude. Defeat not only +compelled the remnants of the Albigenses to succumb to Simon de Montfort +and his fellow crusaders, but reduced them to the indignity of having +the record of their faith and self-devotion transmitted to posterity +only in the hostile chronicles of Roman ecclesiastics. But even partisan +animosity has not robbed the world of the edifying spectacle of a large +number of men and women, of a quiet and peaceable disposition, +persistently and fearlessly protesting, through a long series of years, +against the worship of saints and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> images, resisting the innovations of +a corrupt church, and adhering with constancy to a simple ritual +unencumbered with superstitious observances. Careful investigation +establishes the fact that the Holy Scriptures were read and accepted as +the supreme authority as well in doctrine as in practice, and that the +precepts there inculcated were adorned by lives so pure and exemplary as +to evoke an involuntary expression of admiration from bitter opponents.</p> + +<p>There is little doubt that strange doctrinal errors found a foothold in +parts, at least, of the extensive territory in southern France occupied +by the Albigenses. Oriental Dualism or Manichæism not improbably +disfigured the creed of portions of the sect; while the belief of others +scarcely differed from that of the less numerous Waldenses of Provence +or their brethren in the valleys of Piedmont. But, whatever may be the +truth on this much contested point,<a name="FNanchor_122_122" id="FNanchor_122_122"></a><a href="#Footnote_122_122" class="fnanchor">[122]</a> the remarkable spread of the +Albigenses during the latter part of the twelfth century must be +regarded as strongly marking the revolt of the French mind, especially +in the more impetuous south, against the priestly absolutism that +crushed all freedom of religious thought, and equally against a church +tolerating the most flagrant abuses. Nor can the historian who desires +to trace the more remote consequences of important moral movements fail +to notice the singular fact that the soil watered by Albigensian blood +at the beginning of the thirteenth century was precisely that in which +the seed sown by the reformers, three hundred years later, sprang up +most rapidly and bore the most abundant harvest. After so long a period +of suspended activity, the spirit of opposition once more asserted its +vital energy—soon, it is true, to meet fresh difficulties, but only +such difficulties as would tend to develop and strengthen it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The crime of vauderie.</div> + +<p>With the suppression of the Albigenses all open popular protest against +the errors of the church ceases until the advent of the Reformation. The +latent tendency did, indeed, manifest its continued existence in those +obscure practices known as <i>vauderie</i>, which, distorted by the +imagination of reckless informers and interested judges, and converted +into the most monstrous crimes against religion and morality, occasioned +the death of countless innocent victims.<a name="FNanchor_123_123" id="FNanchor_123_123"></a><a href="#Footnote_123_123" class="fnanchor">[123]</a> But it was chiefly among +the learned, and particularly in the bosom of the University of Paris, +that the pressing need of a thorough purification of the church found +expression. Not that the remedies advocated were so definite and +radical, or based upon so full a recognition of the distinctive +character of Christianity, as to merit the name of reformatory projects. +Yet, standing somewhat in advance of their contemporaries, a few +theologians raised their voices in decided condemnation of those evils +which needed only to be held up to public notice to incur the universal +reprobation of mankind.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Nicholas de Clemangis.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">John Gerson.</div> + +<p>Nicholas de Clemangis, Rector of the University of Paris, subsequently +private secretary of Benedict the Thirteenth at Avignon, and perhaps the +most elegant writer of his age, drew a startling picture of the wretched +state of the church at the beginning of the fifteenth century. No writer +had ever described more vividly the corruption of the convents and +monasteries, or denounced more unsparingly the unfaithfulness and +impurity of the parish clergy, and the simony pervading alike all grades +of the hierarchy. His censure was the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> more effective because he spoke +in sorrow rather than in anger.<a name="FNanchor_124_124" id="FNanchor_124_124"></a><a href="#Footnote_124_124" class="fnanchor">[124]</a> John Gerson, his contemporary and +friend, who reached the eminent position of chancellor of the +university, was not less bold in stigmatizing the same evils, while the +weight of his authority was even greater. So far, however, was he from +grasping the nature and need of a substantial renovation of the existing +religious belief, that to his influence in no inconsiderable measure was +due the perfidious condemnation and execution of the great Bohemian +forerunner of the Reformation, John Huss. The student of mediæval +history may be inclined to smile at the subtilties of scholastic +distinctions, but he is also compelled to lament the fact that the death +of a <i>Realist</i> was greeted with demonstrations of evident satisfaction +by a philosopher belonging to the opposite school of the +<i>Nominalists</i>.<a name="FNanchor_125_125" id="FNanchor_125_125"></a><a href="#Footnote_125_125" class="fnanchor">[125]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Jean Bouchet's "Deploration."</div> + +<p>A century elapsed between the time of Nicholas de Clemangis and Gerson +and the almost simultaneous appearance of Ulrich Zwingle in Switzerland +and Martin Luther in Germany. During this long interval of expectation +the voice of remonstrance was not altogether silent. A few earnest men +refused to suppress the indignation they felt at the sight of the +impiety that had invaded the sacred precincts of the church. Among<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> the +last of those whose words have come down to us was Jean Bouchet, a +native of Poitiers. In 1512, only five years before the publication of +the theses of the reformer of Wittemberg, he gave to the world a poem +not devoid of historical interest, though possessed of little poetic +merit, entitled "<i>La Déploration de l'Église militante</i>."<a name="FNanchor_126_126" id="FNanchor_126_126"></a><a href="#Footnote_126_126" class="fnanchor">[126]</a> In this +spirited lament it is the church herself that addresses the +hierarchy—pontiff, cardinals, patriarchs, bishops, and others—as well +as kings and secular dignitaries. She complains of the great injuries +and molestations she endures. The practice of simony has converted a +temple into a loathsome stable. Science and learning are no longer +necessary for the candidate for ecclesiastical preferment; a hundred +crowns in hand will serve his purpose much better, no matter how bad his +moral character may be. As for his qualifications, he is full well +provided if he can manage the hounds aright and knows how to hunt with +the falcon. "Cease," cries the church through the poet to the French +princes, "cease to load me down with gewgaws, with chalices, crosses, +and sumptuous ornaments. Furnish me instead with virtuous ministers. The +exquisite beauty of abbeys or of silver images is less pleasing in God's +sight than the holy life of good prelates."<a name="FNanchor_127_127" id="FNanchor_127_127"></a><a href="#Footnote_127_127" class="fnanchor">[127]</a> As it is, the dissolute +ministers of religion are engrossed in forbidden games, in banquets, and +the chase. Decked out with flowers, rings, and trinkets, the bishop in +his dress is more like a soldier or a juggler, than a servant of the +church. He recites his prayers reluctantly, while words of profane +swearing flow freely from his lips. From such disorders as these the +church invokes her worldly protectors to deliver her.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span></p> + +<p>The abuses which Jean Bouchet described, and other abuses of a similar +kind, were so notorious that no intelligent man could close his eyes to +the evidence of their existence. They had been recited again and again +by more eloquent tongues than that of the poet of Poitiers. Dante and +Petrarch had held them up to immortal contempt. Boccaccio had made them +the subject of ridicule in his popular stories. But neither remonstrance +nor taunt had effectually abated the prevailing corruption. It remained +that a new remedy should be tried, and the time for its application was +close at hand.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<div class="blockquot"><div class="sidenote">Changes in the boundaries of France during the sixteenth +century.</div> + +<p>It must not be forgotten that the boundaries of France varied +considerably during the sixteenth century. Thus Artois and +Flanders, at the accession of Francis the First, were nominally +fiefs of the French crown, for which Charles of Austria sent to +France a very honorable embassy, with Henry, Count of Nassau, at +its head, to do homage to the young prince. It was on this occasion +that Francis, desirous of gratifying Charles, proposed or consented +to the marriage of his favorite with Claude de Châlons, daughter of +the Prince of Orange (Jean de Serres, Inventaire Général de +l'Histoire de France, 1619, ii. 4, Motley, Dutch Republic, i. 234). +Eleven years later, January, 1526, by the Treaty of Madrid, Francis +renounced his suzerainty over the counties of Artois and Flanders, +as a condition of his release from captivity (Inventaire Général, +ii. 96). On the other hand, not to speak of the "Three +Bishoprics"—Metz, Toul, and Verdun—definitely incorporated with +the French dominions in 1552, France had for a longer or shorter +time possession of the Duchy of Milan, of the island of Corsica, +and of Piedmont. Not only Bresse, but the very Duchy of Savoy, were +for years merged in the realm of France, until restored to +Philibert Emmanuel by the disgraceful Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis.</p></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER II.</h2> + +<h3>THE REFORMATION AT MEAUX.</h3> + + +<div class="sidenote">Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples.</div> + +<p>The reformatory movement, whose almost simultaneous rise at so many +different points constitutes one of the most noticeable features of the +history of Europe in the sixteenth century, originated, so far as France +was concerned, within the bosom of that famous nursery of mediæval +learning, the University of Paris. Among the teachers who, during the +later years of the reign of Louis the Twelfth, attracted the studious +from the most distant parts of Christendom, Jacques Lefèvre, a native of +Étaples in Picardy, held a high rank for natural ability and extensive +acquirements. It is true that neither his personal appearance nor his +extraction commanded respect: he was diminutive in stature, and he could +boast of no noble blood running in his veins.<a name="FNanchor_128_128" id="FNanchor_128_128"></a><a href="#Footnote_128_128" class="fnanchor">[128]</a> A more formidable +hinderance in the path to distinction had been the barbarous instruction +he had received from incompetent masters, both in the inferior schools +and in the university itself. But all obstacles, physical, social, and +intellectual, melted away before the ardor of an extraordinarily active +mind. Rising steadily above the contracted views, the blind respect for +authority, and the self-satisfied ignorance of the instructors of his +youth and the colleagues of his manhood and old age, he greeted with +delight the advent of those liberal ideas which had wrought so wonderful +a change in Germany and Italy. A thirst for knowledge even led him, in +imitation of the sages of the early world, to travel to distant parts of +Europe, and, if we may credit the statements of his admiring<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> disciples, +to pursue his investigations into portions of Asia and Africa.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Restores letters to France.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">His wide range of study.</div> + +<p>To Jacques Lefèvre, of Étaples—better known to foreigners under the +Latin designation of Faber Stapulensis—belongs the honor of restoring +letters to France. His eulogist, Scævola de Sainte-Marthe, has not +exaggerated his merit, when, placing him in the front rank of the +learned men whom he celebrates, he likens the Picard doctor to a new sun +rising from the Belgian coast to dissipate the fogs and darkness +investing his native land and pour upon its youth the full beams of a +purer teaching.<a name="FNanchor_129_129" id="FNanchor_129_129"></a><a href="#Footnote_129_129" class="fnanchor">[129]</a> Lefèvre confined his attention to no single branch +of learning. He was equally proficient in mathematics, in astronomy, and +in Biblical literature and criticism.<a name="FNanchor_130_130" id="FNanchor_130_130"></a><a href="#Footnote_130_130" class="fnanchor">[130]</a> Brilliant attainments in so +many departments were commended yet more to the admiration of beholders +by a modest and unassuming deportment, by morals above reproach, and by +a disinterested nature in which there was no taint of avarice. The +sincerity of his unselfish love of knowledge was said to be attested by +the liberality with which he renounced the entire income of his small +patrimony in favor of his needy relations.<a name="FNanchor_131_131" id="FNanchor_131_131"></a><a href="#Footnote_131_131" class="fnanchor">[131]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">His pupil, Guillaume Farel.</div> + +<p>Enjoying a reputation for profound and exact learning which had spread +to foreign countries, and admired even by the great humanist Erasmus, +Lefèvre had drawn to him a small band of the most promising of the +scholars in attendance upon the university. Prominent among these for +brilliancy and fiery zeal was a student more than thirty years younger +than his teacher, Guillaume Farel, destined to fill an important place +in the annals of the French reformation, and to play a leading role in +the history of Geneva and Neufchâtel. Farel was born in 1489, near Gap, +in Dauphiny,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> and his childhood was spent at the foot of the Alps. +Unlike Lefèvre, he belonged to a family of considerable importance in +the provincial nobility. The contrast was still more marked between the +mild and timid professor and the pupil in whose nature courage was so +prominent an element that it often assumed the appearance of imprudent +contempt of danger.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Devotion of scholar and pupil.</div> + +<p>But, in spite of dissimilarity of character, Lefèvre and Farel lived +together in close friendship. Together they frequented the churches, and +united in the pious work, as they regarded it, of decking out with +flowers the pictures of the saints, to whose shrines they made frequent +pilgrimages. Lefèvre was scrupulously exact in the performance of his +religious duties, and was especially punctual in attendance on the mass. +In his zeal for the church, he had even undertaken as a meritorious task +to compile the lives of the saints whose names appear on the Roman +calendar, and had actually committed to the press an account of those +whose feast-days fell within the months of January and February.<a name="FNanchor_132_132" id="FNanchor_132_132"></a><a href="#Footnote_132_132" class="fnanchor">[132]</a> On +the other hand, Farel was so sincere an adherent of the current faith, +that, to employ his own forcible description, he had become "a very +Pantheon, full of intercessors, saviors and gods, of whom his heart +might have passed for a complete register." The papacy had so entrenched +itself in his heart, that even the Pope and papal church <i>were not so +papal as he</i>. The man who came to him with the Pope's endorsement +appeared to him like a god, while he would gladly have overwhelmed in +ruin the sacrilegious wretch that dared to say a word against the Roman +pontiff and his authority.<a name="FNanchor_133_133" id="FNanchor_133_133"></a><a href="#Footnote_133_133" class="fnanchor">[133]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Lefèvre's commentary on the Pauline Epistles.</div> + +<p>But the enthusiastic devotion of Lefèvre and his more impetuous disciple +to the tenets of the Roman church was to be shaken by a closer study of +the Scriptures. In 1508 Lefèvre completed a Latin commentary upon the +Psalms.<a name="FNanchor_134_134" id="FNanchor_134_134"></a><a href="#Footnote_134_134" class="fnanchor">[134]</a> In 1512 he published a commentary in the same language on +the Pauline Epistles—a work which may indeed fall short of the standard +of criticism established by a subsequent age, but yet contains a clear +enunciation of the doctrine of justification by faith, the cardinal +doctrine of the Reformation.<a name="FNanchor_135_135" id="FNanchor_135_135"></a><a href="#Footnote_135_135" class="fnanchor">[135]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Foresees the coming reformation.</div> + +<p>Thus, five years before Luther posted his theses on the doors of the +church at Wittemberg, Jacques Lefèvre had proclaimed, in no equivocal +terms, his belief in the same great principles. But Lefèvre's lectures +in the college and his written commentary were addressed to the learned. +Consequently they produced no such immediate and startling effect as the +ninety-five propositions of the Saxon monk. Lefèvre was not himself to +be an active instrument in the French reformation. His office was rather +to prepare the way for others—not, perhaps, more sincere, but certainly +more courageous—to enter upon the hazardous undertaking of attempting +to renovate the church. His faithful disciple, indeed, has preserved for +us a remarkable prophecy, uttered by Lefèvre at the very time when he +was still assiduous in his devotion to the Virgin Mary and the saints. +Grasping Farel by the hand, the venerable doctor more than once +addressed to him the significant words, which made a deep impression on +the hearer's mind: "Guillaume, the world is going to be renewed, and you +will behold it!"<a name="FNanchor_136_136" id="FNanchor_136_136"></a><a href="#Footnote_136_136" class="fnanchor">[136]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Controversy with Beda.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">The Sorbonne's declaration.</div> + +<p>Lefèvre did not intermit his biblical studies. In 1518 he published a +short treatise on "the three Marys," to prove that Mary the sister of +Lazarus, Mary Magdalene, and "the woman which was a sinner," were not +one and the same person, according to the common belief of the time. +Unfortunately, the Roman church, by the lessons set down for the +feast-days, had given its sanction to the prevalent error. Now, the +fears and suspicions of the theologians of the Sorbonne had, during the +past year, been aroused by the fame of Martin Luther's "heresy," and +they were ready to resent any attempt at innovation, however slight, +either in doctrine or in practice, as evidence of heretical +proclivities. Natalis Beda, the ignorant but pedantic syndic of the +theological faculty, entered the lists as Lefèvre's opponent, and an +animated dispute was waged between the friends of the two combatants. Of +so great moment was the decision regarded by Poncher, Bishop of Paris, +that he induced Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, to write an essay in +refutation of the views of Lefèvre.<a name="FNanchor_137_137" id="FNanchor_137_137"></a><a href="#Footnote_137_137" class="fnanchor">[137]</a> But the Sorbonne, not content +with this, on the ninth of November, 1521, declared that he was a +heretic who should presume to maintain the truth of Lefèvre's +proposition. Lefèvre himself would probably have experienced even +greater indignities at the hands of parliament—whose members were +accustomed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> to show excessive respect to the fanatical demands of the +faculty—had not Guillaume Petit, the king's confessor, induced Francis +to interfere in behalf of the Picard professor.<a name="FNanchor_138_138" id="FNanchor_138_138"></a><a href="#Footnote_138_138" class="fnanchor">[138]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Briçonnet, Bishop of Meauz.</div> + +<p>To these two actors in the drama of the French reformation a third must +now be added. Guillanme Briçonnet, Bishop of Meaux, stood in the front +rank of aspiring and fortunate churchmen. His father, commonly known as +the Cardinal of St. Malo, had passed from the civil administration into +the hierarchy of the Gallican Church. Rewarded for services rendered to +Louis the Eleventh and Charles the Eighth by the gift of the rich abbey +of St. Germain-des-Prés and the archbishopric of Rheims, he had, in +virtue of his possession of the latter dignity, anointed Louis the +Twelfth at his coronation. As cardinal, he had headed the French party +in the papal consistory, and, more obedient to his sovereign than to the +pontiff, when Louis demanded the convocation of a council at Pisa to +resist the encroachments of Julius the Second, the elder Briçonnet left +Rome to join in its deliberations, and to face the dangers attending an +open rupture with the Pope. The cardinal was now dead, having left to +Guillaume, born previously to his father's entrance into orders, a good +measure of the royal favor he had himself enjoyed. The younger Briçonnet +had been successively created Archdeacon of Rheims and Avignon, Abbot of +St. Germain-des-Prés, and Bishop of Lodève and Meaux. His title of Count +of Montbrun gave him, moreover, a place in the nobility.<a name="FNanchor_139_139" id="FNanchor_139_139"></a><a href="#Footnote_139_139" class="fnanchor">[139]</a> Meantime a +reformatory tendency had early revealed itself in the efforts<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> made by +the young ecclesiastic to enforce the observance of canonical discipline +by the luxurious friars of the monastery of St. Germain. Here, too, he +had tasted the first fruits of the opposition which was before long to +test his firmness and constancy.</p> + +<p>Briçonnet had been appointed Bishop of Meaux (March 19, 1516) about the +same time that Francis the First despatched him as special envoy to +treat with the Pope. It would seem that the intimate acquaintance with +the papal court gained on this occasion, confirming the impressions made +by a previous diplomatic mission in the time of Louis the Twelfth, +convinced Briçonnet that the church stood in urgent need of reform; and +he resolved to begin the work in his own diocese.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Lefèvre and Farel invited to Meaux.</div> + +<p>Weary of the annoyance and peril arising from the ignorance and malice +of his enemies, the theologians of the Sorbonne, Lefèvre d'Étaples +longed for a more quiet home, where he might reasonably hope to +contribute his share to the great renovation descried long since by his +prophetic glance. He was now invited by Briçonnet, to whom his learning +and zeal were well known, to accompany him to Meaux, where, at the +distance of a little more than a score of miles from the capital, he +would at least be rid of the perpetual clamor against Luther and his +doctrines that assailed his ears in Paris.<a name="FNanchor_140_140" id="FNanchor_140_140"></a><a href="#Footnote_140_140" class="fnanchor">[140]</a> He was accompanied, or +followed, to Meaux by his pupil, Farel. Over the views of the latter a +signal change had come since he entered the university, full of +veneration for the saints, and an enthusiastic supporter of the mass, of +the papal hierarchy, and of every institution authorized by +ecclesiastical tradition. After a painful mental struggle, of which he +has himself given us a graphic account,<a name="FNanchor_141_141" id="FNanchor_141_141"></a><a href="#Footnote_141_141" class="fnanchor">[141]</a> Farel had been reluctantly +brought to the startling conviction that the system of which he had been +an enthusiastic advocate was a tissue of falsehoods and an abomination +in God's sight. It required no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> more than this to bring a man of so +resolute a character to a decision. Partly by his own assiduous +application to study, especially of the Greek and Hebrew languages and +of the Church Fathers, partly through the influence of Lefèvre, he had +become professor of philosophy in the college of the Cardinal Le Moine. +This advantageous position he resigned, in order that he might be able +to second the labors of Lefèvre in the new field which Bishop Briçonnet +had thrown open to him. Other pupils or friends of the Picard doctor +followed—Michel d'Arande, Gérard Roussel, and others, all more or less +thoroughly imbued with the same sentiments.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">The king's mother and sister encourage the preaching of the +reformers.</div> + +<p>A new era had now dawned upon the neglected diocese of Meaux. Bishop +Briçonnet was fully possessed by his new-born zeal. The king's mother +and his only sister had honored him with a visit not long after +Lefèvre's arrival,<a name="FNanchor_142_142" id="FNanchor_142_142"></a><a href="#Footnote_142_142" class="fnanchor">[142]</a> and had left him confident that in his projected +reforms, and especially in the introduction of the preaching of the Word +of God, he might count upon their powerful support. "I assure you," +Margaret of Angoulême wrote him a month later, "that the king and madame +are entirely decided to let it be understood that the truth of God is +not heresy."<a name="FNanchor_143_143" id="FNanchor_143_143"></a><a href="#Footnote_143_143" class="fnanchor">[143]</a> And a few weeks later the same princely correspondent +declared that her mother and brother were "more intent than ever upon +the reformation of the church."<a name="FNanchor_144_144" id="FNanchor_144_144"></a><a href="#Footnote_144_144" class="fnanchor">[144]</a> With such flattering prospects the +reformation opened at Meaux.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Immediate results.</div> + +<p>From the year 1521, when the ardent friends of religious progress made +their appearance in the city, the pulpits, rarely entered by the curates +or by the mendicant monks unless to demand a fresh contribution of +money, were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> filled with zealous preachers. The latter expounded the +Gospel, in place of rehearsing the stories of the "Golden Legend;" and +the people, at first attracted by the novelty of the sound, were soon +enamored of the doctrines proclaimed. These doctrines stood, indeed, in +signal opposition to those of the Roman church. By slow but sure steps +the advocates of the Reformation had come to assume a position scarcely +less unequivocal than that of Luther in Germany. In 1514, two years +after the publication of the commentary in which he had clearly +enunciated the Protestant doctrine on one cardinal point, Lefèvre would +seem still to have been unsurpassed in his devotion to pictures and +images.<a name="FNanchor_145_145" id="FNanchor_145_145"></a><a href="#Footnote_145_145" class="fnanchor">[145]</a> Two years later he was regarded by Luther as strangely +deficient in a clear apprehension of spiritual truths which, +nevertheless, he fully exemplified in a life of singular spirituality +and sincerity.<a name="FNanchor_146_146" id="FNanchor_146_146"></a><a href="#Footnote_146_146" class="fnanchor">[146]</a> And it was not until 1519 that, by the arguments of +his own pupil, Farel, he was convinced of the impropriety of +saint-worship and of prayers for the dead.<a name="FNanchor_147_147" id="FNanchor_147_147"></a><a href="#Footnote_147_147" class="fnanchor">[147]</a> But now there could be +no doubt respecting Lefèvre's attitude. Placed by Bishop Briçonnet in +charge of the "Léproserie," and subsequently entrusted with the powers +of vicar-general over the entire diocese,<a name="FNanchor_148_148" id="FNanchor_148_148"></a><a href="#Footnote_148_148" class="fnanchor">[148]</a> he exerted an influence +not hard to trace. A contemporary, when chronicling, a few years later, +that "the greater part of Meaux was infected with the false doctrines of +Luther," made the cause of all the trouble to be one Fabry (Lefèvre), a +priest and scholar, who rejected pictures from the churches, forbade the +use of holy water for the dead, and denied the existence of +purgatory.<a name="FNanchor_149_149" id="FNanchor_149_149"></a><a href="#Footnote_149_149" class="fnanchor">[149]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Gérard Roussel and Mazurier.</div> + +<p>The mystic Gérard Roussel, an eloquent speaker, whom the bishop +appointed curate of St. Saintin, and subsequently treasurer and canon of +the cathedral, was prominent among the new preachers, but was surpassed +in exuberant display of zeal by Martial Mazurier, Principal of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> +Collége de St. Michel in Paris, who now fulfilled the functions of +curate of the church of St. Martin at Meaux.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Apprehension of the monks aroused.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">De Roma's threat.</div> + +<p>It was not long before the apprehension of the monastic orders was +aroused by the great popularity of the new teachers. The wool-carders, +weavers, and fullers accepted the novel doctrine with delight as meeting +a want which they had discovered in spite of poverty and ignorance. The +day-laborers frequenting the neighborhood of Meaux, to aid the farmers +in harvest-time, carried back to their more secluded districts the +convictions they had obtained, and themselves became efficient agents in +the promulgation of the faith elsewhere. If the anticipations of a +speedy spread of the reformation throughout France were brilliant in the +minds of its early apostles, the determination of its opponents was +equally fixed. An incident occurred about this time which might almost +be regarded as of prophetic import. Farel, who was present, is our sole +informant. On one occasion Lefèvre and a few friends were engaged in +conversation with some warm partisans of the old abuses, when the old +doctor, warming at the prospect he seemed to behold, exclaimed, "Already +the Gospel is winning the hearts of the nobles and of the common people +alike! Soon it will spread over all France, and cast down the inventions +which the hand of man has set up." "Then," angrily retorted one De Roma, +a Dominican monk, "Then I, and others like me, will join in preaching a +crusade; and should the king tolerate the proclamation of the Gospel, we +shall drive him from his kingdom by means of his own subjects!"<a name="FNanchor_150_150" id="FNanchor_150_150"></a><a href="#Footnote_150_150" class="fnanchor">[150]</a></p> + +<p>The Dominican friar stood forth at that moment the embodiment of the +monastic spirit speaking defiance to the nascent reform. The church of +the state, with its rich abbeys and priories, its glorious old +cathedrals, and boundless possessions of lands and houses, was not to be +resigned without a struggle so terrific as to shake the foundations of +the throne itself. The germ of the Guises and the League, with Jacques +Clément and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> Ravaillac, was already formed, and possessed a prodigious +latent vitality.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Briçonnet's activity.</div> + +<p>Bishop Briçonnet was himself active in promoting the evangelical work, +preaching against the most flagrant abuses, and commending to the +confidence of his flock the more eloquent preachers whom he had +introduced. The incredible rumor even gained currency that the +hot-headed prelate went through his diocese casting down the images and +sparing no object of idolatrous worship in the churches.<a name="FNanchor_151_151" id="FNanchor_151_151"></a><a href="#Footnote_151_151" class="fnanchor">[151]</a> But, +however improbable it may be that Briçonnet ever engaged in any such +iconoclastic demonstrations, it is a strong Roman Catholic partisan who +has preserved the record of this significant warning given by the +prelate to his flock, and elicited either by the consciousness of his +own moral feebleness, or by a certain vague premonition of danger: "Even +should I, your bishop, change my speech and teaching, beware that you +change not with me!"<a name="FNanchor_152_152" id="FNanchor_152_152"></a><a href="#Footnote_152_152" class="fnanchor">[152]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Lefèvre translates the New Testament.</div> + +<p>Under Briçonnet's protection Jacques Lefèvre assumed a task less +restricted in its influence than preaching, in which he probably took a +less active part than his coadjutors. The Bible was a closed book to the +common people in France. The learned might familiarize themselves with +its contents by a perusal of the Latin Vulgate; but readers acquainted +with their mother tongue alone were reduced to the necessity of using a +rude version wherein text and gloss were mingled in inextricable +confusion, and the Scriptures were made<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> to countenance the most absurd +abuses.<a name="FNanchor_153_153" id="FNanchor_153_153"></a><a href="#Footnote_153_153" class="fnanchor">[153]</a> The best furnished libraries rarely contained more than a +few detached books of the Bible, and these intended for ornament rather +than use.<a name="FNanchor_154_154" id="FNanchor_154_154"></a><a href="#Footnote_154_154" class="fnanchor">[154]</a> Lefèvre resolved, therefore, to apply himself to the +translation of the Sacred Scriptures from the Latin Vulgate into the +French language. In June, 1523, he published a version of the four +gospels, and in the autumn of the same year he gave to the world the +rest of the New Testament. Five years later he added a translation of +the Old Testament. It was a magnificent undertaking, prompted by a +fervent desire to promote the spiritual interests of his countrymen. In +its execution, the inaccuracies incident to so novel an enterprise, and +the comparative harshness of the style, can readily be forgiven. For, +aside from its own merits, the version of Lefèvre d'Étaples formed the +basis for the subsequent version of Robert Olivetanus, itself the +groundwork of many later translations.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">The translation eagerly bought.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Delight of Lefèvre.</div> + +<p>Lefèvre and his associates had not erred in anticipating remarkable +results from the publication of the Scriptures in the language of the +people. The copies of the New Testament no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> sooner left the press than +they were eagerly bought. They penetrated into obscure hamlets to which +no missionary of the "new doctrines" could find access. By the +wool-carders of Meaux the prize thus unexpectedly placed within reach +was particularly valued. The liberality of Bishop Briçonnet is said to +have freely supplied copies to those who were too poor to afford the +purchase-money. The prelate introduced the French Scriptures into the +churches of Meaux, where the unparalleled innovation of reading the +lessons in an intelligible tongue struck the people with amazement. "You +can scarcely imagine," wrote the delighted Lefèvre to a distant +friend,<a name="FNanchor_155_155" id="FNanchor_155_155"></a><a href="#Footnote_155_155" class="fnanchor">[155]</a> "with what ardor God is moving the minds of the simple, in +some places, to embrace His word since the books of the New Testament +have been published in French, though you will justly lament that they +have not been scattered more widely among the people. The attempt has +been made to hinder the work, under cover of the authority of +parliament; but our most generous king has become in this matter the +defender of Christ's cause, declaring it to be his pleasure that his +kingdom shall hear the word of God freely and without hinderance in the +language which it understands. At present, throughout our entire +diocese, on feast-days, and especially on Sunday, both the epistle and +gospel are read to the people in the vernacular tongue, and the parish +priest adds a word of exhortation to the epistle or gospel, or both, at +his discretion."</p> + +<p>There did, indeed, seem to be amply sufficient ground for the +"exultation" expressed by the worthy Picard at the rapid progress of the +Reformation throughout Europe and the flattering prospects offered in +France itself.<a name="FNanchor_156_156" id="FNanchor_156_156"></a><a href="#Footnote_156_156" class="fnanchor">[156]</a> Everything seemed for a time to promise success at +Meaux. Bishop Briçonnet received with delight the advice of the Swiss +and German reformers.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> The letters of Œcolampadius, from Basle, in +particular so deeply impressed him, that he commissioned Gérard Roussel +to read in the French language and explain the meaning of the Pauline +Epistles every morning to a promiscuous gathering of persons of both +sexes, and chose out the most evangelical preachers to perform similar +duty in all the more important places in his diocese.<a name="FNanchor_157_157" id="FNanchor_157_157"></a><a href="#Footnote_157_157" class="fnanchor">[157]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Enmity of the Franciscans.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Weakness of Bishop Briçonnet.</div> + +<p>But the bishop had excited the active enmity of a resolute and +suspicious foe. In forbidding the Franciscan monks entrance to any +pulpit within his jurisdiction, he had, even before the advent of +Lefèvre and the reformed teachers, incurred their violent +animosity.<a name="FNanchor_158_158" id="FNanchor_158_158"></a><a href="#Footnote_158_158" class="fnanchor">[158]</a> The new movement, while arousing their indignation, gave +them the opportunity they coveted for invoking the power of the +university and of parliament. At first the bishop was bold enough to +denounce the doctors of the Sorbonne as Pharisees and false +prophets,<a name="FNanchor_159_159" id="FNanchor_159_159"></a><a href="#Footnote_159_159" class="fnanchor">[159]</a> while in his private correspondence he stigmatized the +clergy as "the estate <i>by the coldness of which all the others are +frozen</i>,"<a name="FNanchor_160_160" id="FNanchor_160_160"></a><a href="#Footnote_160_160" class="fnanchor">[160]</a> or even as "<i>that which is the ruin of all the +rest</i>."<a name="FNanchor_161_161" id="FNanchor_161_161"></a><a href="#Footnote_161_161" class="fnanchor">[161]</a> But, frightened by the incessant clamor and attacks of his +enemies, he began gradually to waver, and presently lost all courage. In +the end he yielded so far as to suffer to be published in his name +official documents which were intended to overturn from the foundation +the very fabric he had been striving to rear. In one of these, a +"Synodal Decree" addressed to the faithful of his diocese,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> the bishop +was made to condemn the books of Martin Luther, and to denounce Luther +himself as one who was plotting the overthrow of "the estate which +<i>keeps all the rest in the path of duty</i>."<a name="FNanchor_162_162" id="FNanchor_162_162"></a><a href="#Footnote_162_162" class="fnanchor">[162]</a> Quite another +description of the clergy this from either of the descriptions which he +gave to Margaret of Angoulême! The other document was a letter to the +clergy of his diocese, warning them against certain preachers "brought +in by himself to share his pastoral cares," who, under cover of +proclaiming the Gospel, had "dared, in defiance of the evangelical +truth, to preach that purgatory does not exist, and that, consequently, +we must not pray for the dead, nor invoke the very holy Virgin Mary and +the saints."<a name="FNanchor_163_163" id="FNanchor_163_163"></a><a href="#Footnote_163_163" class="fnanchor">[163]</a></p> + +<p>The precise time of Briçonnet's pusillanimous defection, as marked by +the publication of these pastoral letters, is involved in some +obscurity; for assuredly the date affixed to the transcripts that have +come down to us conflicts too seriously with the well-known facts of +history to be accepted as correct.<a name="FNanchor_164_164" id="FNanchor_164_164"></a><a href="#Footnote_164_164" class="fnanchor">[164]</a></p> + +<p>Later Roman Catholic historians have asserted that the act was a +voluntary one; that Briçonnet had never in reality sympathized with the +religious views of reformers whom he had invited to Meaux simply because +of his admiration for learning; that no sooner did he discover the +heretical nature of their teachings than he removed them from the posts +to which they had been assigned; and that he spent the residue of his +life in the vain endeavor to retrieve the fatal consequences of his +mistake.<a name="FNanchor_165_165" id="FNanchor_165_165"></a><a href="#Footnote_165_165" class="fnanchor">[165]</a> But this view is confirmed by nothing in the prelate's +extant correspondence. Everywhere there is evidence that until his +courage broke down, Briçonnet was in full accord with the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> reformers. +His first step may possibly have been justified at the bar of conscience +by the plausible suggestion that, since the anger of the Sorbonne had +been directed specially against Meaux, the evangelical preachers could +be more serviceable elsewhere. But, from the mere withdrawal of support +to positive measures of repression, the transition was both natural and +speedy.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">He is cited to appear before the Parliament.</div> + +<p>Unsatisfied by Bishop Briçonnet's merely negative course, the Parliament +of Paris at length cited him to appear and answer before a commission +consisting of two of its own counsellors. The information thus obtained +was next to be submitted to the judges delegated by the Pope, a tribunal +of the institution of which an account will be given in another +chapter.<a name="FNanchor_166_166" id="FNanchor_166_166"></a><a href="#Footnote_166_166" class="fnanchor">[166]</a> To this secret investigation Briçonnet objected, and +begged to be tried in open court by the entire body of parliament;<a name="FNanchor_167_167" id="FNanchor_167_167"></a><a href="#Footnote_167_167" class="fnanchor">[167]</a> +but his petition was rejected, and his examination proceeded before the +inquisitorial commission. What measures were there taken to influence +him is not known. To Martial Mazurier, lately an enthusiastic preacher +of the "Lutheran" doctrines, who had himself, through fear, receded from +his advanced position, the doubtful honor is ascribed of having been +prominent in exertions to overcome the prelate's lingering scruples. +However this may be, when Briçonnet had given sufficient guarantees to +satisfy the Sorbonne that no apprehension need be entertained of a +repetition in Meaux of the dangerous experiment of the public +instruction of the people in the Holy Scriptures, there was nothing to +be gained by his condemnation. He was accordingly acquitted of all +charge of heresy, although condemned to pay the sum of two hundred +livres as the expense of bringing to trial the "heretics" whom he had +himself helped to make such.<a name="FNanchor_168_168" id="FNanchor_168_168"></a><a href="#Footnote_168_168" class="fnanchor">[168]</a> Hereupon he is said to have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> returned +to his diocese, and, having convened a synod, to have prohibited, as we +have seen, the circulation of Luther's writings, reintroduced the +ecclesiastical practices that had been condemned or discarded, and given +to the persecution now set on foot his unequivocal sanction.<a name="FNanchor_169_169" id="FNanchor_169_169"></a><a href="#Footnote_169_169" class="fnanchor">[169]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Dispersion of the reformed teachers.</div> + +<p>The teachers whom Briçonnet had so cordially invited to assist him were +compelled one by one to abandon Meaux. Among the earliest to leave was +Farel.<a name="FNanchor_170_170" id="FNanchor_170_170"></a><a href="#Footnote_170_170" class="fnanchor">[170]</a> His was no faint heart. If he gave up his activity in Brie, +it was only to return to his native Dauphiny, where a young nobleman, +Anemond de Coct, and a preacher, Pierre de Sebeville, were among the +leading men whose conversion was the fruit of his indefatigable +exertions. After a visit to Guyenne, of which little is known, he passed +into German Switzerland, and labored successively in Basle, Strasbourg, +and Montbéliard.<a name="FNanchor_171_171" id="FNanchor_171_171"></a><a href="#Footnote_171_171" class="fnanchor">[171]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Annoyances of those who remain.</div> + +<p>Lefèvre and Roussel were among the last to withdraw; but, beset with +watchful enemies, they found their position neither safe nor +comfortable. It was as difficult to maintain a semblance of friendship +with an ecclesiastical system which they detested in their hearts, as to +refuse their sympathy and support to the persecuted whose opinions they +shared without possessing the courage necessary to suffer in attestation +of the common faith. Busy informers at one time found evidence, more +than warranting the suspicion that Roussel's manuscripts had furnished +the material of which scandalous placards defamatory of the Pope were +framed.<a name="FNanchor_172_172" id="FNanchor_172_172"></a><a href="#Footnote_172_172" class="fnanchor">[172]</a> A little later the proctor of the cathedral drew attention +to the ir<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>regular conventicles held in the church itself, every Sunday +and feast-day, after Roussel had preached. These "combers, carders, and +other persons of the same stamp, unlettered folk,"<a name="FNanchor_173_173" id="FNanchor_173_173"></a><a href="#Footnote_173_173" class="fnanchor">[173]</a> brought with +them books containing the Epistles of St. Paul, the Gospels, and the +Psalms, in flagrant disregard of the prohibitions they had heard +respecting the discussion of such topics as faith, the sacraments, the +privileges of Rome, and the use of pictures in the churches. It was made +the occasion of "charitable rebuke" and then of formal complaint against +Roussel by his fellow canons, that he failed to repeat the angelic +salutation, according to the orthodox practice, after the exordium of +his sermon. To the combined exhortations and threats of his accusers +Roussel replied in the chapter that, if he had done wrong, it belonged +to the bishop to reprove him, but that as to himself he esteemed the +repetition of the Lord's Prayer quite as efficacious as the recital of +the Ave Maria.<a name="FNanchor_174_174" id="FNanchor_174_174"></a><a href="#Footnote_174_174" class="fnanchor">[174]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Lefèvre and Roussel take refuge in Strasbourg.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Excessive caution of Roussel.</div> + +<p>At last danger thickened, and Lefèvre and Roussel found themselves +forced to leave Meaux (October, 1525), and sought refuge within the +hospitable walls of Strasbourg; for the persecuting measures adopted by +the regent, Louise de Savoie, and the Parliament of Paris, during the +king's captivity, as we shall shortly see, had placed the lives of even +such prudent reformers in peril.<a name="FNanchor_175_175" id="FNanchor_175_175"></a><a href="#Footnote_175_175" class="fnanchor">[175]</a> In the free city on the banks of +the Rhine, Lefèvre met his pupil Farel, and in the midst of cordial +greetings was reminded by him that the day of "renovation" which he had +long since predicted and desired had really come.<a name="FNanchor_176_176" id="FNanchor_176_176"></a><a href="#Footnote_176_176" class="fnanchor">[176]</a> But the contrast +between the two men had become sharply drawn. The fearless athlete, soon +to measure his strength with no puny antagonists at Neufchâtel, +Lausanne, Geneva, and so many other places in French<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> Switzerland, whose +course was to be a succession of rough encounters, discovered that the +master from whom he had received the impulse that shaped his entire +life, shrank from sundering the last link binding him to the Roman +church. And Gérard Roussel was even more timid. The elegant preacher, +with fair prospects of preferment, could not bring himself openly to +espouse the quarrel of oppressed truth. A mysticism investing his entire +belief, and perverting his moral perceptions, led him to imagine that +the heart might be kept pure in the midst of many external corruptions, +and that the enlightened could worship the Almighty acceptably in spite +of superstitious observances, which, while countenancing by apparent +acquiescence, they rejected in their hearts. The excellence of the +reformation already inaugurated at Strasbourg made a deep and very +favorable impression upon Roussel. He wrote to Bishop Briçonnet that the +daily preaching of a pure doctrine, "without dross or leaven of the +Pharisees,"<a name="FNanchor_177_177" id="FNanchor_177_177"></a><a href="#Footnote_177_177" class="fnanchor">[177]</a> the crowds of attentive hearers, the schools presided +over by men as illustrious for piety as for letters, and the careful +provision for the poor, would delight his correspondent were he to see +them. He did not dissemble his own great satisfaction that the +monasteries had been changed into educational establishments, the +pictures taken away from the churches, and every altar removed except +one, on which the communion was celebrated, as nearly as possible, +according to the plan of its institution.<a name="FNanchor_178_178" id="FNanchor_178_178"></a><a href="#Footnote_178_178" class="fnanchor">[178]</a> At the same time he +renounced none of his excessive caution. His words were still those he +had uttered when urged, a twelvemonth earlier, by Farel, +Œcolampadius, and Zwingle, to strike out boldly and by an open +dispute on religion compel the attention of the thoughtless world. "The +flesh is weak! As my friends, Lefèvre and others, urge, the convenient +season has not yet come, the Gospel has not yet been scattered +sufficiently far and wide. We must not assume the Lord's prerogative for +sending laborers into the harvest, but leave<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> the work to Him whose it +is, and who can easily raise up a far richer harvest than that for whose +safety we are solicitous!"<a name="FNanchor_179_179" id="FNanchor_179_179"></a><a href="#Footnote_179_179" class="fnanchor">[179]</a></p> + +<p>Such were the paltry evasions of cowardly souls, to excuse themselves +for the neglect of admitted duty. We cannot wonder at the burning words +of condemnation which this pusillanimity called forth from the pen of +brave Pierre Toussain. "I have spoken to Lefèvre and Roussel," he wrote +some months later, "but certainly Lefèvre has not a particle of courage. +May God confirm and strengthen him! Let them be as wise as they please, +let them wait, procrastinate, and dissemble; the Gospel will never be +preached without the <i>cross</i>! When I see these things, when I see the +mind of the king, the mind of the duchess [Margaret of Angoulême] as +favorable as possible to the advancement of the Gospel of Christ, and +those who ought to forward this matter, according to the grace given +them, obstructing their design, I cannot refrain from tears. They say, +indeed: 'It is not yet time, the hour has not come!' And yet we have +here no day or hour. <i>What would not you do had you the Emperor and +Ferdinand favoring your attempts?</i> Entreat God, therefore, in behalf of +France, that she may at length be worthy of His word."<a name="FNanchor_180_180" id="FNanchor_180_180"></a><a href="#Footnote_180_180" class="fnanchor">[180]</a></p> + +<p>The remainder of the task imposed on the weak Bishop of Meaux and his +new allies, the monks of St. Francis, proved a more difficult +undertaking. The shepherds had been dispersed, but the flock refused to +forsake the fold. From the nourishing food they had discovered in the +Word of God, they could not be induced to return to the husks offered to +them in meaningless ceremonies, celebrated in an unknown tongue by men +of impure lives. The Gospels in French remained more attractive<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> than +the legendary, even after the bishop had abandoned the championship of +the incipient reformation. Briçonnet's own expressed wish was granted: +if he had "changed his speech and teaching," the common people, at +least, had not changed with him.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">The wool-carder, Jean Leclerc, tears down a papal bull.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">His barbarous sentence.</div> + +<p>Among the first fruits of the Reformation in Meaux was a wool-carder, +Jean Leclerc, into whose hands had fallen one of Lefèvre's French +Testaments. He was a man of strong convictions and invincible +resolution. A bull, issued by Clement the Seventh in connection with the +approaching jubilee, had been posted on the doors of the cathedral +(December, 1524). It offered indulgence, and enjoined prayers, fasting, +and partaking of the Communion, in order to obtain from heaven the +restoration of peace between princes of Christendom. Leclerc secretly +tore the bull down, substituting for it a placard in which the Roman +pontiff figured as veritable Antichrist. Diligent search was at once +instituted for the perpetrator of this offence, and for the author of +the subsequent mutilation of the prayers to the Virgin hung up in +various parts of the same edifice. A truculent order was also issued in +the bishop's name, threatening all persons that might conceal their +knowledge of the culprits with public excommunication, every Sunday and +feast-day, "with ringing of bells and with candles lighted and then +extinguished and thrown upon the earth, <i>in token of eternal +malediction</i>."<a name="FNanchor_181_181" id="FNanchor_181_181"></a><a href="#Footnote_181_181" class="fnanchor">[181]</a> Leclerc was discovered, and taken to Paris for +trial. The barbarous sentence of parliament was, that he be whipped in +Paris by the common executioner on three successive days, then +transferred to Meaux to receive the like punishment, and finally branded +on the forehead with a red-hot iron, before being banished forever from +the kingdom.<a name="FNanchor_182_182" id="FNanchor_182_182"></a><a href="#Footnote_182_182" class="fnanchor">[182]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span></p> + +<p>The cruel prescription was followed out to the letter (March, 1525). A +superstitious multitude flocked together to see and gloat over the +condign punishment of a heretic, and gave no word of encouragement and +support. But, as the iron was leaving on Leclerc's brow the ignominious +imprint of the <i>fleur-de-lis</i>,<a name="FNanchor_183_183" id="FNanchor_183_183"></a><a href="#Footnote_183_183" class="fnanchor">[183]</a> a single voice suddenly broke in +upon the silence. It was that of his aged mother, who, after an +involuntary cry of anguish, quickly recovered herself and shouted, "Hail +Jesus Christ and his standard-bearers!"<a name="FNanchor_184_184" id="FNanchor_184_184"></a><a href="#Footnote_184_184" class="fnanchor">[184]</a> Although many heard her +words, so deep was the impression, that no attempt was made to lay hands +upon her.<a name="FNanchor_185_185" id="FNanchor_185_185"></a><a href="#Footnote_185_185" class="fnanchor">[185]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">He is burned alive at Metz.</div> + +<p>From Meaux, Leclerc, forced to leave his home, retired first to Rosoy, +and thence to Metz.<a name="FNanchor_186_186" id="FNanchor_186_186"></a><a href="#Footnote_186_186" class="fnanchor">[186]</a> Here, while supporting himself by working at +his humble trade, he lost none of his missionary spirit. Not content +with communicating a knowledge of the doctrines of the Reformation to +all with whom he conversed, his impatient zeal led him to a new and +startling protest against the prevalent, and, in his view, idolatrous +worship of images. Learning that on a certain day a solemn procession +was to be made to a shrine situated a few miles out of the city gates, +he went to the spot under cover of night, and hurled the sacred images +from their places. On the morrow the horrified worshippers found the +objects of their devotion prostrated and mutilated, and their rage knew +no bounds. It was not long before the wool-carder was apprehended. His +religious sentiments were no secret, and he had been seen returning from +the scene of his nocturnal exploit. He promptly acknowledged his guilt,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> +and was rescued from the infuriated populace only to undergo a more +terrible doom at the hands of the public executioner (July 22, 1525). +His right hand was cut off at the wrist, his arms, his nose, his breast +were cruelly torn with pincers; but no cry of anguish escaped the lips +of Leclerc. The sentence provided still further that, before his body +should be consigned to the flames, his head be encircled with a red-hot +band of iron. As the fervent metal slowly ate its way toward his very +brain, the bystanders with amazement heard the dying man calmly repeat +the words of Holy Writ: "Their idols are silver and gold, the work of +men's hands." He had not completed the Psalmist's terrific denunciation +of the crime and folly of image-worship when his voice was stifled by +the fire and smoke of the pyre into which his impatient tormentors had +hastily thrown him. If not actually the first martyr of the French +Reformation, as has commonly been supposed, Jean Leclerc deserves, at +least, to rank among the most constant and unswerving of its early +apostles.<a name="FNanchor_187_187" id="FNanchor_187_187"></a><a href="#Footnote_187_187" class="fnanchor">[187]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Jacques Pauvan.</div> + +<p>The poor wool-carder of Meaux was succeeded by more illustrious victims. +One was of the number of the teachers who had been attracted to Bishop +Briçonnet's diocese by the prospect of contributing to the progress of a +purer doctrine. Jacques Pauvan<a name="FNanchor_188_188" id="FNanchor_188_188"></a><a href="#Footnote_188_188" class="fnanchor">[188]</a> was a studious youth who had come +from Boulogne, in Picardy, to perfect his education in the university, +and had subsequently abandoned a career in which he bade fair to obtain +distinction, in order to assist his admired teacher, Lefèvre, at Meaux. +He was an outspoken man, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> disguised his opinions on no point of the +prevailing controversy. He asserted that purgatory had no existence, and +that God had no vicar. He repudiated excessive reliance on the doctors +of the church. He indignantly rejected the customary salutation to the +Virgin Mary, "Hail Queen, Mother of mercy!" He denied the propriety of +offering candles to the saints. He maintained that baptism was only a +sign, that holy water was <i>nothing</i>, that papal bulls and indulgences +were an imposture of the devil, and that the mass was not only of no +avail for the remission of sins, but utterly unprofitable to the hearer, +while the Word of God was all-sufficient.<a name="FNanchor_189_189" id="FNanchor_189_189"></a><a href="#Footnote_189_189" class="fnanchor">[189]</a></p> + +<p>Pauvan was put under arrest, and his theses, together with the defence +of their contents which one Matthieu Saunier was so bold as to write, +were submitted to the Sorbonne. Its condemnation was not long withheld. +"A work," said the Paris theologians, "containing propositions extracted +and compiled from the pernicious errors of the Waldenses, Wickliffites, +Bohemians, and Lutherans, being impious, scandalous, schismatic, and +wholly alien from the Christian doctrine, ought publicly to be consigned +to the flames in the diocese of Meaux, whence it emanated. And Jacques +Pauvan and Matthieu Saunier should, by all judicial means, be compelled +to make a public recantation."<a name="FNanchor_190_190" id="FNanchor_190_190"></a><a href="#Footnote_190_190" class="fnanchor">[190]</a></p> + +<p>Even strong men have their moments of weakness. Pauvan was no exception +to the rule. Besides the terrors of the stake, the persuasions of +Martial Mazurier came in to shake his constancy. This latter, a doctor +of theology, had at one time been so carried away with the desire of +innovation as to hurl down a statue of their patron saint standing at +the door of the monastery of the Franciscans. He had now, as we have +already seen, become the favorite instrument in effecting abjurations +similar<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> to his own. His suggestions prevailed over Pauvan's +convictions.<a name="FNanchor_191_191" id="FNanchor_191_191"></a><a href="#Footnote_191_191" class="fnanchor">[191]</a> The young scholar consented to obey the Sorbonne's +demand. The faculty's judgment had been pronounced on the ninth of +December, 1525; a fortnight later, on the morrow of Christmas day—a +favorite time for striking displays of this kind—Pauvan publicly +retracted his "errors," and made the usual "amende honorable," clad only +in a shirt, and holding a lighted taper in his hand.<a name="FNanchor_192_192" id="FNanchor_192_192"></a><a href="#Footnote_192_192" class="fnanchor">[192]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">He is burned on the Place de Grève.</div> + +<p>If Pauvan's submission secured him any peace, it was a short-lived +peace. Tortured by conscience, he soon betrayed his mental anguish by +sighs and groans. Again he was drawn from the prison, where he had been +confined since his abjuration,<a name="FNanchor_193_193" id="FNanchor_193_193"></a><a href="#Footnote_193_193" class="fnanchor">[193]</a> and subjected to new +interrogatories. With the opportunity to vindicate his convictions, his +courage and cheerfulness returned. As a relapsed heretic, no fate could +be in store for him but death at the stake, and this he courageously met +on the <i>Place de Grève</i>.<a name="FNanchor_194_194" id="FNanchor_194_194"></a><a href="#Footnote_194_194" class="fnanchor">[194]</a> But the holocaust was inauspicious for +those who with this victim hoped to annihilate the "new doctrines." +Before mounting the huge pyre heaped up to receive him, Pauvan was +thoughtlessly permitted to speak; and so persuasive were his words that +it was an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> enemy's exclamation that "it had been better to have cost the +church a million of gold, than that Pauvan had been suffered to speak to +the people."<a name="FNanchor_195_195" id="FNanchor_195_195"></a><a href="#Footnote_195_195" class="fnanchor">[195]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The hermit of Livry.</div> + +<p>Scarcely more encouraging to the advocates of persecution was the scene +in the area in front of Notre-Dame de Paris, when, at the sound of the +great cathedral bell, an immense crowd was gathered to witness the +execution of an obscure person, known to us only as "the hermit of +Livry"—a hamlet on the road to Meaux. With such unshaken fortitude did +he encounter the flames, that the astonished spectators were confidently +assured by their spiritual advisers that he was one of the damned who +was being led to the fires of hell.<a name="FNanchor_196_196" id="FNanchor_196_196"></a><a href="#Footnote_196_196" class="fnanchor">[196]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Bishop Briçonnet becomes the jailer of the "Lutherans."</div> + +<p>Where less rigor was deemed necessary, the penalty for having embraced +the reformed tenets was reduced to imprisonment for a term of years, +often with bread and water for the only food and drink. The place of +confinement was sometimes a monastery, at other times the "<i>prisons of +Monseigneur the Bishop of Meaux</i>."<a name="FNanchor_197_197" id="FNanchor_197_197"></a><a href="#Footnote_197_197" class="fnanchor">[197]</a> Thus Briçonnet enjoyed the rare +and exquisite privilege of acting as jailer of unfortunates instructed +by himself in the doctrines for the profession of which they now +suffered! Meantime their companions having escaped detection, although +deprived of the advantage of public worship, continued for years to +assemble for mutual encouragement and edification, as they had +opportunity, in private houses, in retired valleys or caverns, or in +thickets and woods. Their minister was that person of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> their own number +who was seen to be the best versed in the Holy Scriptures. After he had +discharged his functions in the humble service, by a simple address of +instruction or exhortation, the entire company with one voice +supplicated the Almighty for His blessing, and returned to their homes +with fervent hopes for the speedy conversion of France to the +Gospel.<a name="FNanchor_198_198" id="FNanchor_198_198"></a><a href="#Footnote_198_198" class="fnanchor">[198]</a> Thus matters stood for about a score of years, until a +fresh attempt was made to constitute a reformed church at Meaux, the +signal, as will appear in the sequel, for a fresh storm of persecution.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Lefèvre's subsequent history.</div> + +<p>A few words here seem necessary respecting the subsequent fortunes of +the venerable teacher whose name at this point fades from the history of +the French Reformation. The action of parliament (August 28, 1525), in +condemning, at the instigation of the syndic of the theological faculty, +nine propositions extracted from his commentary on the Gospels, and in +forbidding the circulation of his translation of the Holy Scriptures, +had given Lefèvre d'Étaples due warning of danger. We have already seen +that a few weeks later (October, 1525) he had taken refuge in Strasbourg +under the pseudonym of Antonius Peregrinus. But the <i>incognito</i> of so +distinguished a stranger could not be long maintained, and before many +days the very boys in the streets knew him by his true name.<a name="FNanchor_199_199" id="FNanchor_199_199"></a><a href="#Footnote_199_199" class="fnanchor">[199]</a> +Meantime the Sorbonne, in his absence, proceeded to censure a large +number of propositions drawn from another of Lefèvre's works. Shortly +after a letter was received from Francis the First, written in his +captivity at Madrid, and enjoining the court to suspend its vexatious +persecution of a man "of such great and good renown, and of so holy a +life," until the king's return. The refractory judges, however, +neglected to obey the order, and continued the proceedings instituted +against Lefèvre.<a name="FNanchor_200_200" id="FNanchor_200_200"></a><a href="#Footnote_200_200" class="fnanchor">[200]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Lefèvre and the Nuncio Aleander.</div> + +<p>When, however, Francis succeeded in regaining his liberty, a year later, +he not only recalled Lefèvre and his companion, Roussel, from exile, but +conferred upon the former the honorable appointment of tutor to his two +daughters and his third and favorite son, subsequently known as Charles, +Duke of Orleans.<a name="FNanchor_201_201" id="FNanchor_201_201"></a><a href="#Footnote_201_201" class="fnanchor">[201]</a> This post, while it enabled him to continue the +prosecution of his biblical studies, also gave him the opportunity of +instilling into the minds of his pupils some views favorable to the +Reformation.<a name="FNanchor_202_202" id="FNanchor_202_202"></a><a href="#Footnote_202_202" class="fnanchor">[202]</a> A little later Margaret of Angoulême secured for +Lefèvre the position of librarian of the royal collection of books at +Blois; but, as even here he was subjected to much annoyance from his +enemies, Margaret, now Queen of Navarre, sought and obtained from her +brother permission to take the old scholar with her to Nérac, in +Gascony.<a name="FNanchor_203_203" id="FNanchor_203_203"></a><a href="#Footnote_203_203" class="fnanchor">[203]</a> Here, in the ordinary residence of his patron, and treated +by the King of Navarre with marked consideration, Lefèvre d'Étaples was +at last safe from molestation. The papal party did not, indeed, despair +of gaining him over. The Nuncio Aleander, in a singular letter exhumed +not long since from the Vatican records, expressed himself strongly in +favor of putting forth the effort. Lefèvre's "few errors" had at first +appeared to be of great moment, because published at a time when to +correct or change the most insignificant syllable, or a faulty +rendering, in the ancient translations of the Holy Scriptures approved +by the church, was an unheard-of innovation. But, now that more +important questions had come up to arrest attention,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> the mere matter of +retranslation, without introducing unsound doctrine, seemed to be a +thing of little or no consequence.<a name="FNanchor_204_204" id="FNanchor_204_204"></a><a href="#Footnote_204_204" class="fnanchor">[204]</a> Let Lefèvre but leave the +heretical company which he kept, and let him make <i>the least bit of a +retraction</i> respecting some few passages in his works, and the whole +affair would at once be arranged.<a name="FNanchor_205_205" id="FNanchor_205_205"></a><a href="#Footnote_205_205" class="fnanchor">[205]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Lefèvre's mental suffering.</div> + +<p>The reconciliation of Lefèvre with the church did not take place. The +"bit of a retraction" was never written. But none the less are Lefèvre's +last days reported to have been disturbed by harassing thoughts. The +noble old man, who had consecrated to the translation of the Bible and +to exegetical comment upon its books the energy of many years, and who +had suffered no little obloquy in consequence, could not forgive himself +that he had not come forward more manfully in defence of the truth. One +day, not long before his death, it is said, while seated at the table of +the King and Queen of Navarre, he was observed to be overcome with +emotion. When Margaret expressed her surprise at the gloomy deportment +of one whose society she had sought for her own diversion, Lefèvre +mournfully exclaimed, "How can I contribute to the pleasure of others, +who am myself the greatest sinner upon earth?" In reply to the questions +called forth by so unexpected a confession, Lefèvre, while admitting +that throughout his long life his morals had been exemplary, and that he +was conscious of no flagrant crime against society, proceeded, in words +frequently interrupted by sobs, to explain his deep penitence: "How +shall I, who have taught others the purity of the Gospel, be able to +stand at God's tribunal? Thousands have suffered and died for the +defence of the truth in which I instructed them; and I, unfaithful +shepherd that I am, after attaining so advanced an age, when I ought to +love<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> nothing less than I do life—nay, rather, when I ought to desire +death—I have basely avoided the martyr's crown, and have betrayed the +cause of my God!" It was with difficulty that the queen and others who +were present succeeded in allaying the aged scholar's grief.<a name="FNanchor_206_206" id="FNanchor_206_206"></a><a href="#Footnote_206_206" class="fnanchor">[206]</a></p> + +<p>The "anguish of spirit and terror of God's judgment experienced by so +pious an old man as Lefèvre," because he had concealed the truth which +he ought openly to have espoused, supplied an instructive warning for +his even more timid disciples. Farel, who never lacked courage, was not +slow to avail himself of it. Taking advantage of the freedom of an old +associate, he addressed a letter containing an account of Lefèvre's +death, with some serious admonitions, to Michel d'Arande, who never +venturing to separate from a church whose corruptions he acknowledged, +had reached the position of Bishop of Saint Paul-Trois-Châteaux, in +Dauphiny. The letter has perished, but the reply in which the prelate's +dejection and internal conflicts but too plainly appear, has seen the +light after a burial of three<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> centuries. Admitting the guilt of his +course, the bishop begs the intrepid reformer to pray for him +continually, and meanwhile not to withhold his friendly exhortations, +that at length the writer may be able to extricate himself from the deep +mire in which he finds no firm foundation to stand upon.<a name="FNanchor_207_207" id="FNanchor_207_207"></a><a href="#Footnote_207_207" class="fnanchor">[207]</a></p> + +<p>Such was the unhappy state of mind to which many good, but irresolute +men were reduced, who, in view of the persecution certain to follow an +open avowal of their reformatory sentiments, endeavored to persuade +themselves that it was permissible to conceal them under a thin veil of +external conformity to the rites of the Roman church.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Fortunes of Gérard Roussel.</div> + +<p>Gérard Roussel, the most distinguished representative of this class of +mystics, was appointed by the Queen of Navarre to be her preacher and +confessor, and promoted successively to be Abbot of Clairac and Bishop +of Oléron. Yet he remained, to his death, a sincere friend of the +Reformation. Occasionally, at least, he preached its doctrines with +tolerable distinctness; as, for instance, in the Lenten discourses +delivered by him, in conjunction with Courault and Bertault, before the +French court in the Louvre (1532). In his writings he was still more +outspoken. Some of them might have been written not only by a reformer, +but by a disciple of Calvin, so sharply drawn were the doctrinal +expositions.<a name="FNanchor_208_208" id="FNanchor_208_208"></a><a href="#Footnote_208_208" class="fnanchor">[208]</a> Meanwhile, in his own diocese he set forth the example +of a faithful pastor. Even so bitter an enemy of Protestantism as +Florimond<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> de Ræmond, contrasting Roussel's piety with the worldliness +of the sporting French bishops of the period, is forced to admit that +his pack of hounds was the crowd of poor men and women whom he daily +fed, his horses and attendants a host of children whom he caused to be +instructed in letters.<a name="FNanchor_209_209" id="FNanchor_209_209"></a><a href="#Footnote_209_209" class="fnanchor">[209]</a></p> + +<p>And yet, Gérard Roussel's half measures, while failing to conciliate the +adherents of the Roman church, alienated from him the sympathies of the +reformers; for they saw in his conduct a weakness little short of entire +apostasy. More modern Roman Catholic writers, for similar reasons, deny +that Roussel was ever at heart a friend of the Reformation.<a name="FNanchor_210_210" id="FNanchor_210_210"></a><a href="#Footnote_210_210" class="fnanchor">[210]</a> Not so, +however, thought the fanatics of his own time. While the Bishop of +Oléron was one day declaiming, in a church of his diocese, against the +excessive multiplication of feasts, the pulpit in which he stood was +suddenly overturned, and the preacher hurled with violence to the +ground. The catastrophe was the premeditated act of a religious zealot, +who had brought with him into the sacred place an axe concealed under +his cloak. The fall proved fatal to Gérard Roussel, who is said to have +expressed on his death-bed similar regrets to those which had disturbed +the last hours of Lefèvre d'Étaples. As for the murderer, although +arrested and tried by the Parliament of Bordeaux, he was in the end +acquitted, on the ground that he had performed a meritorious act, or, at +most, committed a venial offence, in ridding the world of so dangerous a +heretic as the Bishop of Oléron.<a name="FNanchor_211_211" id="FNanchor_211_211"></a><a href="#Footnote_211_211" class="fnanchor">[211]</a></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER III.</h2> + +<h3>FRANCIS I. AND MARGARET OF ANGOULEME—EARLY REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS AND +STRUGGLES.</h3> + + +<div class="sidenote">Francis I. and his sister.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">The portrait of the king.</div> + +<p>Francis the First and his sister, Margaret of Angoulême, were destined +to exercise so important an influence in shaping the history of the +French Reformation during the first half of the sixteenth century, that +a glance at their personal history and character seems indispensable. +Francis Was in his twenty-first year when, by the extinction of the +elder line of the house of Orleans, the crown came to him as the nearest +heir of Louis the Twelfth.<a name="FNanchor_212_212" id="FNanchor_212_212"></a><a href="#Footnote_212_212" class="fnanchor">[212]</a> He was tall, but well proportioned, of a +fair complexion, with a body capable of enduring without difficulty +great exposure and fatigue. In an extant portrait, taken five years +later, he is delineated with long hair and scanty beard. The drooping +lids give to his eyes a languid expression, while the length of his +nose, which earned him the sobriquet of "le roi au long nez," redeems +his physiognomy from any approach to heaviness.<a name="FNanchor_213_213" id="FNanchor_213_213"></a><a href="#Footnote_213_213" class="fnanchor">[213]</a> On the other hand, +the Venetian Marino Cavalli, writing shortly before the close of his +reign, eulogizes the personal appearance of Francis, at that time more +than fifty years old. His mien was so right royal, we are assured, that +even a foreigner, never having seen him before, would single him out +from any company and instinctively exclaim, "This is the king!" No ruler +of the day surpassed him in gravity and nobility of bearing. Well did he +deserve to succeed that long line of monarchs upon each of whom the +sacred oil, applied at his coronation in the cathe<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>dral of Rheims, had +conferred the marvellous property of healing the king's-evil by a simple +touch.<a name="FNanchor_214_214" id="FNanchor_214_214"></a><a href="#Footnote_214_214" class="fnanchor">[214]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">His character and tastes.</div> + +<p>At his accession, the lively imagination of Francis, fed upon the +romances of chivalry that constituted his favorite reading, called up +the picture of a brilliant future, wherein gallant deeds in arms should +place him among the most renowned knights of Christendom. The ideal +character he proposed for himself involving a certain regard for his +word, Francis's mind revolted from imitating the plebeian duplicity of +his wily predecessor, Louis the Eleventh—a king who enjoyed the +undesirable reputation of never having made a promise which he intended +in good faith to keep. The memory of the disingenuous manner in which +Louis, by winking at the opposition of the Parliament of Paris, had +suffered the revocation of the Pragmatic Sanction to fail, in spite of +his own solemn engagements to carry it into execution, was, undoubtedly, +one of the leading motives inducing the young prince, at the very +beginning of his reign, to adopt the arbitrary measures already spoken +of in a preceding chapter, respecting the papal concordat. Not for half +his kingdom, he repeatedly declared, would he break the pledge he had +given his Holiness. It is not difficult, however, to reconcile the +pertinacity of Francis, on this occasion, with the frequent and well +authenticated instances of bad faith in his dealings with other +monarchs.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span></p> + +<p>If his literary abilities were slender and his acquirements meagre, this +king had at least the faculty of appreciating excellence in others. The +scholars and wits whom, as we have seen, he succeeded in gathering about +him, repaid his munificence with lavish praise, couched in all manner of +verse, and in every language employed in the civilized world. Even later +historians have not hesitated to rate him much higher than his very +moderate abilities would seem to warrant.<a name="FNanchor_215_215" id="FNanchor_215_215"></a><a href="#Footnote_215_215" class="fnanchor">[215]</a> The portrait drawn by the +biographer of his imperial rival is, perhaps, full as advantageous as a +regard for truth will permit us to accept. "Francis," says Robertson, +"notwithstanding the many errors conspicuous in his foreign policy and +domestic administration, was nevertheless humane, beneficent, generous. +He possessed dignity without pride, affability free from meanness, and +courtesy exempt from deceit. All who had access to him, and no man of +merit was ever denied that privilege, respected and loved him. +Captivated with his personal qualities, his subjects forgot his defects +as a monarch, and, admiring him as the most accomplished and amiable +gentleman in his dominions, they hardly murmured at acts of +maladministration, which, in a prince of less engaging dispositions, +would have seemed unpardonable."<a name="FNanchor_216_216" id="FNanchor_216_216"></a><a href="#Footnote_216_216" class="fnanchor">[216]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Contrast between Francis I. and Charles V.</div> + +<p>Two monarchs could scarcely be more dissimilar than were Francis and the +Emperor Charles. "So great is the difference between these two princes," +says the Venetian Giustiniano, "that, as her most serene majesty the +Queen of Navarre, the king's sister, remarked to me when talking on the +subject, one of the two must needs be created anew by God after the +pattern of the other, before they could agree. For, whilst the most +Christian king is reluctant to assume the burden of great thoughts or +undertakings, and devotes himself much to the chase or to his own +pleasures, the emperor never thinks of anything but business and +aggrandize<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span>ment; and, whereas the most Christian king is simple, open, +and very liberal, and quite sufficiently inclined to defer to the +judgment and counsel of others, the emperor is reserved, parsimonious, +and obstinate in his opinions, governing by himself, rather than through +any one else."<a name="FNanchor_217_217" id="FNanchor_217_217"></a><a href="#Footnote_217_217" class="fnanchor">[217]</a></p> + +<p>This diversity of temperament and disposition had ample scope for +manifestation during the protracted wars waged by the two monarchs with +each other. Fit representative of the race to which he belonged, Francis +was bold, adventurous, and almost resistless in the impetuosity of a +first assault. But he soon tired of his undertakings, and relinquished +to the cooler and more calculating Charles the solid fruits of +victory.<a name="FNanchor_218_218" id="FNanchor_218_218"></a><a href="#Footnote_218_218" class="fnanchor">[218]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Francis's religious convictions.</div> + +<p>Of the possession of deep religious convictions I do not know that +Francis has left any satisfactory evidence. That he was not strongly +attached to the Roman church, that he thoroughly despised the ignorant +monks, whose dissolute lives he well knew, that he had no extraordinary +esteem for the Pope, all this is clear enough from many incidents of his +life. It would even appear that, at one or two points, he might have +been pleased to witness such a reformation of the church as could be +effected without disturbing the existing order. To this he was the more +inclined, that he found almost all the men distinguished for their +learning arrayed on the side of the "new doctrines," as they were +styled, while the pretorian legion of the papacy was headed by the +opponents of letters.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">His fear of innovation.</div> + +<p>It will be found, however, that several circumstances tended to +counteract or reverse the king's favorable prepossessions. Not least +influential was a pernicious sentiment studiously instilled in his mind +by those whose material interests were all on the side of the +maintenance of the existing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> system—<i>that a change of religion +necessarily involves a change of government</i>. We shall hear much during +the century of this lying political axiom. When Francis, in his +irritation at the Pope, suggested, on one occasion, to the Nuncio, that +he might be compelled to follow the example Henry the Eighth, of +England, had set him, and permit the spread of the "Lutheran" religion +in France, the astute prelate replied: "Sire, to speak with all +frankness, you would be the first to repent your rash step. Your loss +would be greater than the Pope's; for <i>a new religion established in the +midst of a people involves nothing short of a change of prince</i>."<a name="FNanchor_219_219" id="FNanchor_219_219"></a><a href="#Footnote_219_219" class="fnanchor">[219]</a> +And the same author that records this incident tells us that Francis +hated the Lutheran "heresy," and used to say that this, like every other +new sect, tended more to the destruction of kingdoms than to the +edification of souls.<a name="FNanchor_220_220" id="FNanchor_220_220"></a><a href="#Footnote_220_220" class="fnanchor">[220]</a> Nor must it be overlooked that Francis +doubtless felt strongly confirmed in his persuasion, by the rash and +disorderly acts of some restless and inconsiderate spirits such as are +wont eagerly to embrace any new belief. Not the peasants' insurrections +in Germany alone, but as well the excesses of the iconoclasts, and the +imprudence of the authors of the famous placards of 1534, although their +acts were distinctly repudiated by the vast majority of the French +reformers, inflicted irretrievable damage, by furnishing plausible +arguments to those who accused the Protestants of being authors or +abettors of riot and confusion.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">His loose morals.</div> + +<p>A second reason of the early estrangement of Francis from the "new +doctrines" has more frequently been overlooked. The rigid code of morals +which the reformers established, and which John Calvin attempted to make +in Geneva the law of the state, repelled a prince who, though twice +married and both times to women devoted to his interests and faithful to +their vows, treated his lawful wives with open neglect, and preferred to +consort with perfidious mistresses, who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> sold to the enemy for money his +confidential disclosures—a prince who, not satisfied with introducing +excesses until then unheard of among his nobles, was not ashamed to +bestow the royal bounty upon the professed head of the degraded women +whom he allowed to accompany the court from place to place.<a name="FNanchor_221_221" id="FNanchor_221_221"></a><a href="#Footnote_221_221" class="fnanchor">[221]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">His anxiety to obtain the support of the Pope.</div> + +<p>If to these two motives we add a third—the desire of the king to avail +himself of the important influence of the Roman pontiff upon the +politics of Europe—we shall be at no loss to account for the singular +fact that the brother of Margaret of Angoulême, in spite of his sister's +entreaties and the promptings of his own better feeling—at times in +defiance of his own manifest advantage—became during the later part of +his reign the first of that long line of persecutors of whom the +Huguenots were the unhappy victims.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Studious disposition of Margaret.</div> + +<p>Margaret was two years older than her brother. Born April 11, 1492, in +the city of Angoulême, she enjoyed, in common with Francis, all the +opportunities of liberal culture afforded by her exalted station. These +opportunities her keener intellect enabled her to improve far better +than the future king. While Francis was indulging his passion for the +chase, in company with Robert de la Marck, "the Boar of the Ardennes," +Margaret was patiently applying herself to study. It is not always easy +to determine how much is to be set down as truth, and how much belongs +to the category of fiction, in the current stories of the scholarly +attainments of princely personages. But there is good reason in the +present case to believe that, unlike most of the ladies of her age that +were reputed prodigies of learning, Margaret of Angoulême did not +confine herself to the modern languages, but became pro<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span>ficient in +Latin, besides acquiring some notion of Greek and Hebrew. By extensive +reading, and through intercourse with the best living masters of the +French language, she made herself a graceful writer. She was, moreover, +a poet of no mean pretensions, as her verses, often comparing favorably +with those of Clément Marot, abundantly testify. It was, however, to the +higher walks of philosophical and religious thought that Margaret felt +most strongly drawn. Could implicit credit be given to the partial +praises of her professed eulogist, Charles de Sainte-Marthe, who owed +his escape from the stake to her powerful intercession, we might affirm +that the contemplation of the sublime truths of Revelation early +influenced her entire character, and that "the Spirit of God began then +to manifest His presence in her eyes, her expression, her walk, her +conversation—in a word, in all her actions."<a name="FNanchor_222_222" id="FNanchor_222_222"></a><a href="#Footnote_222_222" class="fnanchor">[222]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Her personal appearance.</div> + +<p>But, whatever may have been the precocious virtues of Margaret at the +age of fifteen, it is certain that when, by her brother's elevation to +the throne, she was introduced to the foremost place at court, it was +her remarkable qualities of heart, quite as much as her recognized +mental abilities, that called forth universal admiration. Her personal +appearance, it is true, was a favorite subject for the encomium of +poets; but her portraits fail to justify their panegyrics, and convey no +impression of beauty. The features are large, the nose as conspicuously +long as her brother's; yet the sweetness of expression, upon which Marot +is careful chiefly to dwell in one of his elegant poetical epistles, is +not less noticeable.<a name="FNanchor_223_223" id="FNanchor_223_223"></a><a href="#Footnote_223_223" class="fnanchor">[223]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Her political Influence.</div> + +<p>In the conduct of public affairs Margaret took no insignificant part. +Francis was accustomed so uniformly to entrust his mother and sister +with important state secrets, that to the powerful council thus firmly +united by filial and fraternal ties the term "Trinity" was applied, not +only by the courtiers, but by the royal family itself.<a name="FNanchor_224_224" id="FNanchor_224_224"></a><a href="#Footnote_224_224" class="fnanchor">[224]</a> Foreign +diplomatists extolled Margaret's intelligent statesmanship, and asserted +that she was consulted on every occasion.<a name="FNanchor_225_225" id="FNanchor_225_225"></a><a href="#Footnote_225_225" class="fnanchor">[225]</a> It is a substantial claim +of Margaret to the respect of posterity, that the influence thus enjoyed +was, apparently, never prostituted to the advancement of selfish ends, +but constantly exerted in the interest of learning, humanity, and +religious liberty.</p> + +<p>Margaret was first married, in 1509, to the Duke of Alençon, a prince +whose cowardice on the battle-field of Pavia (1525), where he commanded +the French left wing, is said to have been the principal cause of the +defeat and capture of his royal brother-in-law. He made good his own +escape, only to die, at Lyons, of disease induced by exposure and +aggravated by bitter mortification. The next two years were spent by +Margaret in unremitting efforts to secure her brother's release. With +this object in view she obtained from the emperor a safe-conduct +enabling her to visit and console Francis in his imprisonment at Madrid, +and endeavor to settle with his captor the terms of his ransom. But, +while admiring her sisterly devotion, Charles showed little disposition +to yield to her solicitations. In fact, he even issued an order to seize +her person the moment the term of her safe-conduct should expire—a +peril avoided by the duchess only by forced marches. As it was, she +crossed the frontier, it is said, a single hour before the critical +time. The motive of this signal breach of imperial courtesy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> was, +doubtless, the well-founded belief that Margaret was bearing home to +France a royal abdication in favor of the Dauphin.<a name="FNanchor_226_226" id="FNanchor_226_226"></a><a href="#Footnote_226_226" class="fnanchor">[226]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Margaret marries Henry of Navarre.</div> + +<p>Early in 1527, Margaret was married with great pomp to Henri d'Albret, +King of Navarre.<a name="FNanchor_227_227" id="FNanchor_227_227"></a><a href="#Footnote_227_227" class="fnanchor">[227]</a> The match would seem to have been prompted by love +and admiration on her side; for the groom had performed a romantic +exploit in effecting his escape from prison after his capture at +Pavia.<a name="FNanchor_228_228" id="FNanchor_228_228"></a><a href="#Footnote_228_228" class="fnanchor">[228]</a> In spite of the great disparity between the ages of Margaret +and her husband,<a name="FNanchor_229_229" id="FNanchor_229_229"></a><a href="#Footnote_229_229" class="fnanchor">[229]</a> the union was congenial, and added greatly to the +power and resources of the latter. The duchies of Alençon and Berry more +than equalled in extent the actual domain of the King of Navarre; for, +from the time when Ferdinand the Catholic (in July, 1512) wrested from +brave Catharine of Foix and her inefficient husband John<a name="FNanchor_230_230" id="FNanchor_230_230"></a><a href="#Footnote_230_230" class="fnanchor">[230]</a> all their +possessions on the southern slope of the Pyrenees,<a name="FNanchor_231_231" id="FNanchor_231_231"></a><a href="#Footnote_231_231" class="fnanchor">[231]</a> the authority<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> +of the titular monarch was respected only in the mountainous district of +which Pau was the capital, and to which the names of Béarn or French +Navarre are indifferently applied. The union thus auspiciously begun +lasted, unbroken by domestic contention, until the death of Margaret, in +1549;<a name="FNanchor_232_232" id="FNanchor_232_232"></a><a href="#Footnote_232_232" class="fnanchor">[232]</a> and the pompous ceremonial attending the queen's obsequies is +said to have been a sincere attestation of the universal sorrow +affecting the King of Navarre and his subjects alike.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">She corresponds with Bishop Briçonnet.</div> + +<p>It was through the instrumentality of the Bishop of Meaux that Margaret +of Angoulême was first drawn into sympathy with the reformatory +movement. Unsatisfied with herself and with the influences surrounding +her, she sought in Briçonnet a spiritual adviser and guide. The prelate, +in the abstruse and almost unintelligible language of exaggerated +mysticism, endeavored to fulfil the trust. His prolix correspondence +still exists in manuscript in the National Library of Paris, together +with the replies of his royal penitent. Its incomprehensibility may +perhaps forever preclude the publication of the greater part;<a name="FNanchor_233_233" id="FNanchor_233_233"></a><a href="#Footnote_233_233" class="fnanchor">[233]</a> but +we can readily forgive the bishop's absurdities and far-fetched +conceits, when we find him in his letters leading Margaret to the Holy +Scriptures as the only source of spiritual strength, and enjoining a +humble and docile reception of its teachings.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Luther's teachings condemned by the Sorbonne.</div> + +<p>On the fifteenth of April, 1521, the University of Paris, whose opinion +respecting Luther's tenets the entire Christian world had for two years +been anxiously expecting, pronounced its solemn decision. It condemned +the writings of the German monk to the flames, on the ground that they +were seductive, insulting to the hierarchy,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> contrary to Scripture, and +schismatic. It likened his latest production, <i>De Captivitate +Babylonica</i>, to Alcoran. It branded as preposterous the notion that God +had reserved the discovery of what is needful to the salvation of the +faithful for Martin Luther to make; as though Christ had left his +spouse, the Church, so many centuries, and until now, in the darkness +and blindness of error. Such sentiments as he uttered were a denial of +the first principles of the faith, an unblushing profession of impiety, +an arrogance so impious that it must be repressed by chains and +censures—nay, by fire and by flame, rather than refuted by +argument.<a name="FNanchor_234_234" id="FNanchor_234_234"></a><a href="#Footnote_234_234" class="fnanchor">[234]</a> A long list of heretical propositions selected from +Luther's works was appended.<a name="FNanchor_235_235" id="FNanchor_235_235"></a><a href="#Footnote_235_235" class="fnanchor">[235]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Melanchthon's defence.</div> + +<p>In the month of June following, Melanchthon replied to the Sorbonne's +condemnation. He declared that, could the great Gerson and his +illustrious associates and predecessors rise from the dead, they would +fail to recognize in the present race of theologians their legitimate +offspring, and that they would deplore the misfortune of the university +as well as of the whole of Christendom, in that sophists had usurped the +place of theologians, and slanderers the seat of Christian doctors. As +for the silly letter prefixed to the decree, the reformer wrote, it is a +feeble production full of womanish fury: "He pretends to the sole +possession of wisdom. He contemns us. He is a Manichæan, a Montanist; he +is mad. Let him be compelled by fire and flame." Who could refrain from +derisive laughter at the unmanly and truly monkish weakness of such +threats?<a name="FNanchor_236_236" id="FNanchor_236_236"></a><a href="#Footnote_236_236" class="fnanchor">[236]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Regency of Louise de Savoie.</div> + +<p>In the summer of 1523 the king, in order to provide for the government +of France during his expected absence from the capital, appointed his +mother temporary regent—a dignity which Louise de Savoie enjoyed more +than once during Francis's reign. The chancellor, Antoine Duprat, +embraced the opportunity to persuade the queen mother<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> that she could +not better atone for the irregularities of her own life than by +enforcing submission to the authority of the papal church. What causes +had contributed to the very radical change apparently effected in her +mental attitude to the established ecclesiastical system, since she had +in the preceding December discovered the monks, of whatever color their +cowl might be, to be arrant "hypocrites" and the most "dangerous +generation of human kind"—if, indeed, any such change in her mental +attitude had really taken place at all, and her present zeal was not +altogether assumed from political motives—we have not the means of +determining with certainty. However this may be, she was now induced to +take a much more decided stand than Francis had ever taken in opposition +to the reformed doctrines, of whose spread, not only in Meaux and other +cities in the provinces, but even in Paris, both in the schools of +learning and without, there began to be symptoms alarming to the +hierarchy.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">The Sorbonne's recommendations for the extirpation of +heresy.</div> + +<p>As a preliminary step, the regent sent her confessor, Friar Gilbert +Nicolai, to the Sorbonne, with instructions to consult it respecting +"the means to be employed for purging this very Christian realm of the +damnable doctrine of Luther." It need scarcely be said that the message +was received with great delight. The theological doctors soon replied, +rendering thanks to Almighty God for having inspired Louise with the +holy purpose of executing whatever might be found most likely to promote +God's honor and the prosperity of France.<a name="FNanchor_237_237" id="FNanchor_237_237"></a><a href="#Footnote_237_237" class="fnanchor">[237]</a> What measures did they +propose to her as best calculated to accomplish this laudable end? +Sermons, disputations, books, and other scholastic means, they write, +may be employed in the refutation of the errors of Luther, as indeed +they are every day employed, at the Sorbonne's instigation, and from +this instrumentality some good effects may be expected; but since, after +all, neither sermons nor books, however learned and conclusive, <i>compel</i> +any person to renounce his heretical views, more practical and coercive +measures must be adopted if the object is to be attained. All<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> royal +officers must be enjoined strictly to enforce every order promulgated +against heretics. The prelates must be urged to demand, on pain of +excommunication, the surrender of all books of Luther or his supporters +found in their dioceses. Meanwhile, the highest ecclesiastical censures +are to be directed against those who in any way uphold the heterodox +belief. It is only in this way that hope can reasonably be entertained +of suppressing this pernicious innovation, which may yet inflict still +greater evils upon unfortunate France; since the Scriptures tell us that +pestilence, famine, and war served as a rod for the punishment of God's +chosen nation of old, whenever it forsook the pure precepts of the law +given by the Almighty.</p> + +<p>In reply to another inquiry made by the regent at the same time, the +Sorbonne enters into greater detail. If any one complains that he is +unjustly accused of favoring the heresy that has recently appeared, let +him clear himself by following St. Paul's example, who, when brought to +the knowledge of the truth, instantly undertook the defence of what he +had ignorantly persecuted. Rumors that some persons in high places are +friendly to the spread of the new errors have gained lamentable +currency, both at home and abroad. They have obtained confirmation from +the praise lately lavished by "some great personages" upon the doctrine +of Luther, and the blame poured upon its opponents. The execution of the +king's order for the burning of Luther's books has been singularly +delayed. Worst of all have been the obstacles placed in the way of the +pious efforts of the prelates, either without the consent of the king, +or by him ill-advised—for example, in the proceedings of the Bishop of +Paris against Louis de Berquin. Similar impediments have been interposed +to prevent the condemnation by parliament and university of the printed +works of this same Berquin and of Lefèvre d'Étaples; while, as if to +make the affair still more scandalous, two treatises lately written in +refutation of Luther's doctrines have been seized in the name of the +king and by his authority.<a name="FNanchor_238_238" id="FNanchor_238_238"></a><a href="#Footnote_238_238" class="fnanchor">[238]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Wide circulation of Luther's works.</div> + +<p>Such were the complaints of the theological faculty, such the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> means +suggested for the destruction of the new leaven that was already +beginning to assert its mission to permeate society. There were +certainly sufficient grounds for apprehension. The works of Luther, as +we have before seen, had early been translated into French, and a +contemporary writer confirms the statement that they had already been +widely disseminated.<a name="FNanchor_239_239" id="FNanchor_239_239"></a><a href="#Footnote_239_239" class="fnanchor">[239]</a> An order of parliament, referred to in its +communication to the regent, had indeed been published, to the sound of +the trumpet, throughout the city of Paris (August 3, 1521), strictly +commanding all booksellers, printers, and others that might have copies +in their possession, to give them up within the space of eight days, on +pain of imprisonment and fine.<a name="FNanchor_240_240" id="FNanchor_240_240"></a><a href="#Footnote_240_240" class="fnanchor">[240]</a> But even this measure failed to +accomplish the desired result. The Reformation was silently extending +its influence, as some significant events sufficiently proved.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Lambert, the first French monk to embrace the Reformation.</div> + +<p>At Avignon, copies of several of the writings of Martin Luther fell into +the hands of François Lambert, son of a former private secretary of the +papal legate entrusted with the government of the Comtât Venaissin. He +was a man of vivid imagination, keen religious sensibilities, and marked +oratorical powers. He had at the age of fifteen been so deeply impressed +by the saintly appearance of the Franciscans as to seek admission to +their monastery as a novice. No sooner did he assume, a year later +(1503), the irrevocable vows that constituted him a monk, than his +disenchantment began. According to his own account, the quarrelsome and +debauched friars no longer felt any of the solicitude they had +previously entertained lest the knowledge of their excesses should deter +him from embracing a "religious" life. A few years later Lambert became +a preacher, and having, through a somewhat careful study of the Holy +Scriptures, embraced more evangelical views than were held by most of +his order, began to deliver discourses as well received by the people as +they were hated by his fellow-monks. Great was the outcry<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> against him +when he openly denounced the misdeeds of a worthless vender of papal +indulgences; still greater when copies of Luther's treatises were found +in his possession. The books were seized, sealed, condemned, and burned, +although scarcely a glance had been vouchsafed at their contents. It was +enough for the monkish judges to cry: "They are heretical! They are +heretical!" "Nevertheless," exclaims honest Lambert, kindling with +indignation at the remembrance of the scene, "I confidently assert that +those same books of Luther contain more of pure theology than all the +writings of all the monks that have lived since the creation of the +world."<a name="FNanchor_241_241" id="FNanchor_241_241"></a><a href="#Footnote_241_241" class="fnanchor">[241]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">He is also the first to renounce celibacy.</div> + +<p>Lambert had made full trial of the monastic life. He had even immured +himself for some time in a Carthusian retreat, but found its inmates in +no respect superior to the Franciscans. At last an opportunity for +escape offered. In 1522, when a score of years had passed since he +entered upon his novitiate, he was despatched with letters to the +general of his order. Instead of fulfilling his commission, he traversed +Switzerland, and made his way to Wittemberg, where he satisfied the +desire he had long entertained, of meeting the great reformer to whose +works he owed his own spiritual enlightenment. Full of zeal for the +propagation of the doctrines he had embraced, Lambert, not long after +(1524), established himself at Metz as a favorable point from which +France might be influenced. But the commotion excited by his +opponents—perhaps, also, his own lack of prudence—compelled him within +a fortnight to flee to Strasbourg.<a name="FNanchor_242_242" id="FNanchor_242_242"></a><a href="#Footnote_242_242" class="fnanchor">[242]</a> Here, more secure, but scarcely +more judicious, he busied himself with sending over the French borders +numbers of tracts composed or translated by himself, and addressing to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> +Francis and the chief persons of his court appeals which, doubtless, +rarely if ever reached their eyes.<a name="FNanchor_243_243" id="FNanchor_243_243"></a><a href="#Footnote_243_243" class="fnanchor">[243]</a> In another field of labor, to +which the Landgrave of Hesse called him, François Lambert performed +services far more important than any he was permitted to render his +native land. As the first French monk to throw aside his habit—above +all, as the first to renounce celibacy and defend in a published +treatise the step he had taken (1523), no French reformer, even among +those of far greater abilities and wider influence, was regarded by the +adherents of the Roman Catholic Church with so intense a dislike.<a name="FNanchor_244_244" id="FNanchor_244_244"></a><a href="#Footnote_244_244" class="fnanchor">[244]</a></p> + +<p>The firm hold which the Reformation was gaining on the population of +several places of great importance, close upon the eastern frontiers of +the kingdom, was a portent of evil in the eyes of the Sorbonne; for +Metz, St. Hippolyte, and Montbéliard, all destined to be absorbed in the +growing territories of France, were already bound to it by close ties of +commercial intercourse.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Jean Châtellain, of Metz.</div> + +<p>In Metz the powerful appeals of an Augustinian monk, Jean Châtellain, +had powerfully moved the masses. He was as eloquent as he was learned, +as commanding in appearance as fearless in the expression of his +belief.<a name="FNanchor_245_245" id="FNanchor_245_245"></a><a href="#Footnote_245_245" class="fnanchor">[245]</a> The attempt to molest him would have proved a very +dangerous<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> one for the clergy of Metz to make; for the enthusiasm of the +laity in his support knew no bounds, and the churchmen prudently avoided +giving it an occasion for manifestation. But, no sooner had Châtellain +been induced on some pretext to leave the safe protection of the walls, +than a friar of his own order and monastery betrayed him to the +bishop.<a name="FNanchor_246_246" id="FNanchor_246_246"></a><a href="#Footnote_246_246" class="fnanchor">[246]</a> He was hurriedly taken to Nommeny, and thence to Vic for +trial and execution. In vain did the Inquisitor of the Faith strive to +shake his constancy. His judges were forced to liken their incorrigible +prisoner to the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear. As "a preacher of +false doctrines," an "apostate" and a "liar toward God Almighty," they +declared him excommunicated and deprived of whatever ecclesiastical +benefices he might hold. The faithful compiler of the French martyrology +gives in accurate, but painful, detail the successive steps by which +Châtellain was stripped of the various prerogatives conferred upon him +in ordination. I shall not repeat the story of sacred vessels placed in +his hands only to be hastily snatched from them, of the scraping of his +fingers supposed to remove the grace of consecration, of chasuble and +stole indignantly taken away—in short, of all the petty devices of a +malice at which the mind wearies and the heart sickens. It was perhaps a +fitting sequel to the ceremony that the degrading bishop should hand his +victim over to the representative of the secular arm to be put to death, +with a hypocritical recommendation to mercy: "Lord Judge, we entreat you +as affectionately as we can, as well by the love of God, as from pity +and compassion, and out of respect for our prayers, that you do this +wretched man no injury tending to death or the mutilation of his +body."<a name="FNanchor_247_247" id="FNanchor_247_247"></a><a href="#Footnote_247_247" class="fnanchor">[247]</a> The prayer was granted—accord<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span>ing to the intent of the +petitioner. On the twelfth of January, 1525, Châtellain was led to the +place of execution, as cheerful in demeanor, the witnesses said, as if +walking to a feast. At the stake he knelt and offered a short prayer, +then met his horrible sentence with a constancy that won many converts +to the faith for which he had suffered. At the news of the fate of their +admired teacher, the citizens of Metz could not contain their rage. A +tumultuous scene ensued, in which it was well that the +ecclesiastics—there were more than nine hundred within the +walls<a name="FNanchor_248_248" id="FNanchor_248_248"></a><a href="#Footnote_248_248" class="fnanchor">[248]</a>—escaped with no greater injury at the hands of the angry +populace than some passing insults. John Vedast, an evangelical teacher, +was at that time in confinement, reserved for a similar doom to that of +Châtellain. He was liberated by the people, who, in a body membering +several thousand men, visited his prison and enabled him to escape to a +safe refuge. It was not until a strong detachment of troops had been +thrown into the city that the burgesses were reduced to submission.<a name="FNanchor_249_249" id="FNanchor_249_249"></a><a href="#Footnote_249_249" class="fnanchor">[249]</a> +"None the less," admits a Roman Catholic historian, "did Lutheranism +spread over the entire district of Metz."<a name="FNanchor_250_250" id="FNanchor_250_250"></a><a href="#Footnote_250_250" class="fnanchor">[250]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Tragic end of Wolfgang Schuch.</div> + +<p>At St. Hippolyte, a town near the Swiss frontier, dependent upon the +Duke of Lorraine, similar success and a similarly tragic end were the +results of the zealous labors of Wolfgang Schuch, a priest of German +extraction. The "good duke" Antoine, having been led to confound the +peaceable disciples of Schuch with the revolted peasants, whose ravages +had excited widespread alarm throughout Germany, publicly proclaimed his +intention of visiting the town that harbored them with fire and sword. +To propitiate him by removing his misapprehension, Schuch wrote to the +duke a singularly touching letter containing a candid exposition of the +religion he professed;<a name="FNanchor_251_251" id="FNanchor_251_251"></a><a href="#Footnote_251_251" class="fnanchor">[251]</a> but finding that his missive had been of no +avail, he resolved to immolate himself in behalf of his flock.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> At +Nancy, the capital of the duchy, whither he had gone to dissuade Antoine +from executing his savage threats, he was thrown into a loathsome +dungeon, while the University of Paris was consulted respecting the +soundness of thirty-one propositions extracted from his writings by the +Inquisitor of Lorraine. On the nineteenth of August, 1525—the +theologians of the Sorbonne having some months before reported +unfavorably upon the theses submitted to them—Wolfgang Schuch was +consigned to the flames.<a name="FNanchor_252_252" id="FNanchor_252_252"></a><a href="#Footnote_252_252" class="fnanchor">[252]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Farel at Montbéliard.</div> + +<p>Less sanguinary results attended the Reformation at Montbéliard, where +the indefatigable Farel was the chief actor. One of those highly +dramatic incidents, in which the checkered life of this remarkable man +abounds, is said to have preceded his withdrawal from the city. +Happening, on St. Anthony's day, to meet, upon a bridge spanning a +narrow stream in the neighborhood, a solemn procession headed by priests +chanting the praises of the saint whose effigy they bore aloft, Farel +was seized with an uncontrollable desire to arrest the impious service. +Snatching the image from the hands of ecclesiastics who were little +prepared for so sudden an onslaught, he indignantly cried, "Wretched +idolaters, will you never forsake your idolatry?" At the same instant he +threw the saint into the water, before the astonished devotees had time +to interfere. Had not some one just then opportunely raised the shout, +"The saint is drowning," it might have gone hard with the fearless +iconoclast.<a name="FNanchor_253_253" id="FNanchor_253_253"></a><a href="#Footnote_253_253" class="fnanchor">[253]</a></p> + +<p>The Reformation was thus gaining a foothold in the bishopric of Metz, in +the duchy of Lorraine, and the county of Montbéliard—districts as yet +independent of France, in which country they were subsequently merged. +But, if suffered to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> victorious at these important points, it might +readily cross the borders and spread with irresistible force to the +contiguous parts of Francis's dominions. Nearer home, the reformatory +movement at Meaux, though abandoned by the bishop who had fostered its +first development, was not wholly suppressed. In Lyons and Grenoble, +Friar Aimé Maigret had preached such evangelical sermons—in French to +the people and in Latin to the Parliament of Dauphiny—that he had been +sent to Paris to be examined by the Sorbonne. The primate and his +council had seen with solicitude that from the ashes of Waldo and the +Poor Men of Lyons "very many new shoots were springing up,"<a name="FNanchor_254_254" id="FNanchor_254_254"></a><a href="#Footnote_254_254" class="fnanchor">[254]</a> and +called for some signal act of severity to repress the growing evil.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Pierre Caroli lectures on the Psalms.</div> + +<p>In Paris itself the Sorbonne found reason for alarm. The sympathy of +Margaret of Angoulême with the friends of progress was recognized. It +had already availed for the deliverance of Louis de Berquin, whose +remarkable history will find a place in the next chapter. Nor did the +redoubted syndic of the theological faculty, Beda, or Bédier, reign +without a rival in the academic halls. Pierre Caroli, one of the doctors +invited by Briçonnet to Meaux, a clever wrangler, and never better +pleased than when involved in controversy, albeit a man of shallow +religious convictions and signal instability, wearied out by his +counter-plots the illustrious heresy-hunter. When forbidden to preach, +Caroli opened a course of lectures upon the Psalms in the Collége de +Cambray. Having then been interdicted from continuing his prelections, +he made the modest request to be permitted to finish the exposition of +the 22d Psalm, which he had begun. This being refused, the disputatious +doctor posted the following notice on the doors of the college: "Pierre +Caroli, wishing to conform to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> orders of the sacred faculty, ceases +to teach. He will resume his lectures (when it shall please God) where +he left off, at the verse, 'They pierced my hands and my feet.'"<a name="FNanchor_255_255" id="FNanchor_255_255"></a><a href="#Footnote_255_255" class="fnanchor">[255]</a></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<div class="blockquot"><div class="sidenote">The Heptameron of the Queen of Navarre.</div> + +<p>I have reserved for this place a few remarks respecting the +<i>Heptameron</i> of Margaret of Angoulême, which seem required by the +disputed character or this singular work. I have spoken at length +of the virtues of the Queen of Navarre, and I may here add a +statement of my strong conviction that the accusation is altogether +groundless which ascribes a sinister meaning to the strong +expressions of sisterly affection so frequent in her correspondence +with Francis the First (see M. Génin, Supplément a la notice sur +Marg. d'Angoulême, prefixed to the second volume of the Letters). +Nor do I make any account of the vague statement of that mendacious +libertine, Brantôme, who doubtless imagined himself to be paying +the Queen of Navarre the most delicate compliment, when he said, +that "of gallantry she knew more than her daily bread."</p> + +<p>But, whatever the purity of Margaret's own private life, the fact +which cannot be overlooked is that a book of a decidedly immoral +tendency was composed and published under her name. Her most +sincere admirers would hail with gratification any satisfactory +evidence that the Heptameron was written by another hand. +Unfortunately, there seems to be none. On the contrary, we have +Brantôme's direct testimony to the effect that the composition of +the book was the employment of the queen's idle hours when +travelling about in her litter, and that his grandmother, being one +of Margaret's ladies of honor, was accustomed to take charge of her +writing-case (Ed. Lalanne, viii. 126). Equally untenable is the +view taken by the historian De Thou (liv. vi., vol. x. 508), who +makes the fault more venial by representing the Heptameron to have +been composed by the fair author in her youth. (So, too, Soldan, i. +89.) I am sorry to have to say that the events referred to in the +stories themselves belong to a period reaching within a year or two +of Margaret's death.</p> + +<p>The facts, then, are simply these: The tales of Boccaccio's +Decameron were read with great delight by Margaret, by Francis the +First, and by his children. They resolved, therefore, to imitate +the great Italian novelist by committing to writing the most +remarkable incidents supplied by the gossip of the court (see the +Prologue to the Heptameron). Francis and his children, finding that +Margaret greatly excelled in this species of composition, soon +renounced the unequal strife, but encouraged her to pursue an +undertaking promising to afford them much amusement. Apportioning, +after the example of Boccaccio, a decade of stories, illustrative +of some single topic, to each day's entertainment, the Queen of +Navarre had reached the seventh day, when the death of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> her +brother, the near approach of her own end, and disgust with so +frivolous an occupation, induced her to suspend her labors. The +Heptameron, as the interrupted work was now called, was not +apparently intended for publication, but was, after Margaret's +death, printed under the auspices of her daughter, the celebrated +Jeanne d'Albret.</p> + +<p>As to the stories themselves, they treat of adventures, in great +part amorous and often immodest. In this particular they are +scarcely less objectionable than those of Boccaccio. They differ +from the latter in the circumstance that the author's avowed +purpose is to insert none but actual occurrences. They are +distinguished from them more especially by the attempt uniformly +made to extract a wholesome lesson from every incident. The +prevalent vices of the day are portrayed—with too much minuteness +of detail, indeed, but only that they may be held up to the greater +condemnation. It is particularly the monks of various orders who, +for their flagrant crimes against morality, are made the object of +biting sarcasm. The abominable teachings of these professed +instructors of religion are justly reprobated. For example, in the +Forty-fourth Nouvelle, Parlamente, while admitting that some +Franciscans preach a pure doctrine, affirms that "<i>the streets are +not paved with such, so much as marked by their opposites</i>;" and +she relates the attempt of one of their prominent men, a doctor of +theology, to convince some members of his own fraternity that the +Gospel is entitled to no more credit than Cæsar's Commentaries. +"From the hour I heard him," she adds, "I have refused to believe +the words of any preacher unless I find them in agreement with +God's Word, <i>which is the true touchstone</i> to ascertain what words +are true and what false" (Ed. Soc. des bibliophiles, ii. 382-384).</p> + +<p>Modern French <i>littérateurs</i> have not failed to eulogize the author +as frequently rivalling her model in dramatic vividness of +narration. At the same time they take exception to the numerous +passages wherein she "preaches," as detracting from the artistic +merit of her work. It is, however, precisely the feature here +referred to that constitutes, in the eyes of reflecting readers, +the chief, if not the sole, redeeming trait of the Heptameron. As a +favorable example, illustrating the nature of the pious words and +exhortations thrown in so incongruously with stories of the most +objectionable kind, I translate a few sentences from the Prologue, +in which Oisile (the pseudonym for Margaret herself) speaks: "If +you ask me what receipt I have that keeps me so joyful and in such +good health in my old age, it is this—that as soon as I rise I +take and read the Holy Scriptures. Contemplating there the goodness +of God, who sent His Son to earth to announce the glad tidings of +the remission of all sins by the gift of His love, passion, and +merits, the consideration causes me such joy that I take my psalter +and sing in my heart as humbly as I can, while repeating with my +lips those beautiful psalms and hymns which the Holy Ghost composed +in the heart of David and other authors; and the satisfaction I +derive from this does me so much good that all the ills that may +befall me through the day appear to me to be blessings, seeing that +I bear in my heart Him who bore them for me. In like manner, before +I sup, I withdraw to give sustenance to my soul in reading, and +then at night I recall all I have done during the past day, in +order to ask for the pardon of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> my faults and thank God for His +gifts. Then in His love, fear and peace I take my rest, assured +from every ill. Wherefore, my children, here is the pastime upon +which I settled long since, after having in vain sought contentment +of spirit in all the rest.... For he that knows God sees everything +beautiful in Him, and without Him everything unattractive." +Prologue, 13-15.</p> + +<p>If any one object that no quantity of pious reflections can +compensate for the positive evil in the Heptameron, I can but +acquiesce in his view, and concede that M. Génin has been much too +lenient in his estimate of Margaret's fault. It is a riddle which I +leave to the reader to solve, that a princess of unblemished +private life, of studious habits, and of not only a serious, but +even a positively religious turn of mind—in short, in every way a +noble pattern for one of the most corrupt courts Europe has ever +seen—should, in a work aiming to inculcate morality, and +abundantly furnished with direct religious exhortation, have +inserted, not <i>one</i>, but a <i>score</i> of the most repulsive pictures +of vice, drawn from the impure scandal of that court.</p></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER IV.</h2> + +<h3>INCREASING SEVERITY.—LOUIS DE BERQUIN.</h3> + + +<div class="sidenote">Captivity of Francis I.</div> + +<p>The year 1525 was critical as well in the religious as in the political +history of France. On the twenty-fourth of February, in consequence of +the disaster at Pavia, Francis fell into the hands of his +rival—Charles, by hereditary descent King of Spain, Naples, and +Jerusalem, sovereign, under various titles, of the Netherlands, and by +election Emperor of Germany—a prince whose vast possessions in both +hemispheres made him at once the wealthiest and most powerful of living +monarchs. With his unfortunate captivity, all the fanciful schemes of +conquest entertained by the French king fell to the ground. But France +felt the blow not less keenly than the monarch. One of the most gallant +armies that ever crossed the Alps had been lost. The kingdom was by no +means invulnerable, for the capital itself might easily reward a +well-executed invasion from the side of Flanders. The recuperative +energies of the country could be put forth to little advantage, so long +as the place of the king—<i>fons omnis jurisdictionis</i>, as the French +legists styled him—was filled by a woman in the capacity of regent. +France bade fair to exhibit to the world the inherent weakness of a +despotism wherein all power, in fact as well as in theory, centres +ultimately in the single person of the supreme ruler as autocrat. For it +was his standing boast that he was "emperor" in his own realm, holding +it of none other than God, and responsible to God alone, and that as +king and emperor he had the exclusive right to make ordinances from +which no subject could appeal without rendering himself liable to the +penalties pronounced upon trai<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span>tors.<a name="FNanchor_256_256" id="FNanchor_256_256"></a><a href="#Footnote_256_256" class="fnanchor">[256]</a> Now that the head was taken +away, who could answer for the harmonious action of the body which had +been wont to depend upon him alone for direction?</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Change in the religious policy of Louise de Savoie.</div> + +<p>Louise de Savoie, to whom the direction of affairs had been confided +during her son's absence in Italy, had, for greater convenience, +transferred the court temporarily to the city of Lyons, where, under the +protection of Margaret of Angoulême, the most evangelical preachers of +France had been allowed to proclaim the tenets of the reformers within +the churches and in the hearing of thousands of eager listeners. The +queen mother had not yet ventured decidedly to depart from the tolerant +system hitherto pursued by the crown.<a name="FNanchor_257_257" id="FNanchor_257_257"></a><a href="#Footnote_257_257" class="fnanchor">[257]</a> But the announcement of the +capture of Francis effected a complete revolution in her policy. There +is no inherent improbability in the story that Chancellor Duprat—the +statesman and ecclesiastic who had gained so strong an ascendancy over +the mind of Louise that he was shortly promoted to the Archbishopric of +Sens and rewarded with the rich abbey of Saint +Bénoit-sur-Loire—insinuated to the queen mother that the misfortunes +befalling France were tokens of the Divine displeasure. Had Francis +spared no exertions to destroy the first germs of the heresy so +insidiously introduced into his kingdom, he would not now, said the +churchman, be languishing in the dungeons of Milan or Madrid. Nor could +hopes be entertained of his deliverance, and of a return of Heaven's +favor, unless the queen mother bestirred herself to retrieve his mistake +by the introduction of new measures to crush heresy. Thus is the +chancellor said to have argued, and to have earned the cardinal's hat at +the Pope's hands. However this may be, it is certain that motives of +policy were no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> less influential than the pious considerations which, +perhaps, might have carried full as much conviction had they come from +the lips of a more exemplary prelate.<a name="FNanchor_258_258" id="FNanchor_258_258"></a><a href="#Footnote_258_258" class="fnanchor">[258]</a> The regent was certainly not +ignorant of the fact that the support of Clement the Seventh, now +specially needed in the delicate diplomacy lying immediately before her, +could best be secured by proving to the pontiff's satisfaction that the +house of Valois was clear of all suspicion of harboring or fostering the +"Lutheran" doctrines and their adherents.</p> + +<p>The ordinary appliances for the suppression of heresy—a duty entrusted +by canon law, so far as the preliminary search and the trial of the +suspected was concerned, to the bishops and their courts—had +confessedly proved inadequate. The prelates were in great part +non-residents, and could not from a distance narrowly watch the progress +of the objectionable tenets in their dioceses. One or two of their +number were accused of culpable sluggishness, if not of indifference or +something worse. The question naturally arose, What new and more +effective procedure could be devised?</p> + +<div class="sidenote">A commission appointed to try "Lutherans."</div> + +<p>After mature deliberation, the privy council resolved upon a plan which +was virtually to remove the cognizance of crimes against religion from +the clergy, and commit it to a mixed commission. The Parliament of Paris +was accordingly notified that the bishop of that city stood ready to +delegate his authority to conduct the trial of all heretics found within +his jurisdiction to such persons as parliament might select for the +discharge of this important function; and the latter body proceeded at +once to designate two of its own members to act in conjunction with two +doctors of the Sorbonne, and receive the faculties promised by the +Bishop of Paris.<a name="FNanchor_259_259" id="FNanchor_259_259"></a><a href="#Footnote_259_259" class="fnanchor">[259]</a> A few days later (March 29, 1525), in making a +necessary substitution for one of the members who was unable to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> serve, +parliament not only empowered the commission thus constituted to try the +"Lutheran" prisoners, Pauvan and Saulnier, but directed the Archbishops +of Lyons and Rheims, and the bishops or chapters of eight of the +remaining most important dioceses, to confer upon it similar authority +to that already received at the hands of the bishop of the +metropolis.<a name="FNanchor_260_260" id="FNanchor_260_260"></a><a href="#Footnote_260_260" class="fnanchor">[260]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The commission a new form of inquisition.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">The inquisition hitherto jealously watched.</div> + +<p>It was, however, no ordinary tribunal which the highest civil court of +the kingdom was erecting. The commission was in effect nothing less than +a new phase of the Inquisition, embodying many of the most obnoxious +features of that detested tribunal. It is true that the "Holy Office," +in a modified form, had existed in France ever since the persecutions +directed against the Albigenses and the bloody campaigns of Simon de +Montfort. But the seat of the solitary Inquisitor of the Faith was +Toulouse, not Paris, and his powers had been jealously circumscribed by +the courts of justice and the diocesan prelates, both equally interested +in rearing barriers to prevent his incursions into their respective +jurisdictions. The Inquisitor of Toulouse was now only a spy and +informer.<a name="FNanchor_261_261" id="FNanchor_261_261"></a><a href="#Footnote_261_261" class="fnanchor">[261]</a> Parliament, in particular, had clearly enunciated the +principle that neither inquisitor nor bishop had the right to arrest a +suspected heretic, inasmuch as bodily seizure was the exclusive +prerogative of the officers of the crown. The judges of this supreme +court had summoned to their bar a bishop, and his "official," or vicar, +and had exacted from them an explicit disavowal of any intention to +arrest, in the case of a person whom they had merely detained, as they +asserted, until such time as they could deliver him into the hands of a +competent civil officer.<a name="FNanchor_262_262" id="FNanchor_262_262"></a><a href="#Footnote_262_262" class="fnanchor">[262]</a> And it had become a maxim of French +jurisprudence, that "an inquisitor of the faith has no power of capture +or arrest, save with the assistance, and by authority, of the secular +arm."<a name="FNanchor_263_263" id="FNanchor_263_263"></a><a href="#Footnote_263_263" class="fnanchor">[263]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Parliament breaks down the safeguards of personal liberty.</div> + +<p>But the Parliament of Paris, at the instigation of the regent's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> +advisers, and with the consent of the bishops, was breaking down these +important safeguards of personal liberty. It not only accorded to the +mixed inquisitorial commission, consisting of two lay and two clerical +members, the authority to apprehend persons suspected of heresy, but +removed the proceedings of the commission almost entirely from review +and correction. A pretext for this extraordinary course was found in the +delays heretofore experienced from the interposition of technical +difficulties. "The commissioners," said parliament, "by virtue of the +authority delegated to them, shall secretly institute inquiries against +the Lutherans, and shall proceed against them by personal summons, by +bodily arrest, by seizure of goods, and by other penalties. Their +decisions shall be executed in spite of any and every opposition and +appeal, save in case of the final sentence."<a name="FNanchor_264_264" id="FNanchor_264_264"></a><a href="#Footnote_264_264" class="fnanchor">[264]</a> While conferring such +extravagant privileges, parliament took pains to prescribe that the +decisions of the commission should be executed precisely as if they had +emanated from the supreme court itself. Such were the lengths to which +the most conservative judges were willing to go, in the hope of speedily +eradicating the reformed doctrines from French soil.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">The commission endorsed by Clement VII.</div> + +<p>The regent and her master-spirit, the chancellor, did not rest here. The +commission was not irrevocable; and its authority might be disputed. The +work of parliament must receive the papal sanction. For this Clement the +Seventh did not keep them long waiting. He addressed to parliament (May +20, 1525) a brief conceived in a vein of fulsome eulogy, expressing his +marvellous commendation of their acts—acts which he declared to be +worthy of the reputation for wisdom in which the French tribunal was +justly held. And he incited the judges to fresh zeal by the +consideration that the new madness that had fallen upon the world was +prepared to confound and overturn, not religion alone, but all rule, +nobility, pre-eminence and superiority—nay, all law and order. The +reader, it may be feared, will tire of the frequency with which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> the +same trite suggestions recur. It is, however, not a little important to +emphasize the argument which the Roman Curia, and its emissaries at the +courts of kings, were never weary of reiterating in the ears of the rich +and powerful. And as they seized with avidity every slight incident of +disorder that could by any means be associated with the great religious +movement now in progress, and presented it as corroboratory proof of the +charge preferred against the "Lutherans," it is not surprising that they +were generally successful in their appeal to the fears of a class which +had so much at stake.</p> + +<p>In addition to his endorsement of their pious zeal, Clement's brief +informed the judges of parliament that they would find in the +accompanying bull his formal confirmation of the inquisitorial +commission.<a name="FNanchor_265_265" id="FNanchor_265_265"></a><a href="#Footnote_265_265" class="fnanchor">[265]</a></p> + +<p>This "letter with the leaden seal," dated the seventeenth of May, might +well have opened the eyes of less devoted subjects of the Roman See to +the injury they were inflicting upon the French liberties, heretofore so +cherished an object of judicial solicitude. Addressing itself to the +four commissioners named by parliament, the bull recited the lamentable +progress of the doctrines of that "son of iniquity and heresiarch, +Martin Luther," and praised the ardor displayed to stay their +dissemination in France. It next declared that the Pope, by the advice +and with the unanimous consent of the cardinals, instructed the +commissioners to proceed either singly or collectively against those +persons who had embraced heretical views, "simply and quietly, without +noise or form of judgment." He empowered them to act independently of +the prelates of the kingdom and the Inquisitor of the Faith, or to call +in their assistance, as they should see fit. They might summon +witnesses, under pain of ecclesiastical censures. They might make +investigations against and put on trial all those infected with heresy, +even should the guilty be bishops or archbishops in the church, or be +clothed with the ducal authority in the state. When convicted, such +persons were to be punished by arrest and imprisonment, or cut off, +"like rotten members, from the communion of the church,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> and consigned +to eternal damnation with Satan and his angels." The commissioners were +further authorized <i>to grant permission to any one of the faithful who +chose so to do to invade, occupy, and acquire for himself the lands, +castles, and goods of the heretics, seizing their persons and leading +them away into life-long slavery</i>. From the sentence of the +commissioners all appeal, even to the "Apostolic See" itself, was +expressly cut off.<a name="FNanchor_266_266" id="FNanchor_266_266"></a><a href="#Footnote_266_266" class="fnanchor">[266]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Its powers enlarged by the papal bull.</div> + +<p>Rome had made one of its most brilliant strokes. While adopting as his +own the commissioners appointed by parliament, Clement had enlarged +their already exorbitant prerogatives, and consummated their +independence of secular interference. A new and more efficient +inquisition was thus introduced into France, with its secret +investigation and unlimited power of inflicting punishment. The +Parliament of Paris had, however, committed itself too fully to think of +demurring. Accordingly, it proceeded (June 10th) to enter on its records +both the regent's letter and the bull of the Pope, to which the letter +enjoined obedience.<a name="FNanchor_267_267" id="FNanchor_267_267"></a><a href="#Footnote_267_267" class="fnanchor">[267]</a></p> + +<p>We have in a previous chapter seen some of the first fruits of the +establishment of the inquisitorial commission, in the proceedings +instituted against Lefèvre d'Étaples, Gérard Roussel, and others who +took part in the attempted reformation of the diocese of Meaux. But, +chief among those whom it was sought to destroy, through the agency of +the new and well-furbished weapon against heretics, was a nobleman of +Artois, whose repeated and remarkable escapes from the hand of the +executioner, viewed in connection with the tragic fate that at last +overtook him, invest his story with a romantic interest.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Character of Louis de Berquin.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">He becomes a warm partisan of the Reformation.</div> + +<p>Louis de Berquin was a man of high rank, whom friends and enemies alike +admired for his uncommon acuteness of mind and his great attainments in +letters and science. A contemporary Parisian, whose diary has supplied +us more than one of those graphic traits that assist much in bringing +before our eyes the living forms of the great actors in the world's past +history, seems to have been strongly im<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span>pressed by the commanding +appearance and elegance of dress of De Berquin, at this time in the very +prime of life.<a name="FNanchor_268_268" id="FNanchor_268_268"></a><a href="#Footnote_268_268" class="fnanchor">[268]</a> But the great Erasmus, his correspondent, stood in +far greater admiration of his extraordinary learning, his purity of +life—a rare excellence in a nobleman of the court of Francis the +First—his kindness and freedom from all ostentation, his uncompromising +hatred of every form of meanness and injustice,<a name="FNanchor_269_269" id="FNanchor_269_269"></a><a href="#Footnote_269_269" class="fnanchor">[269]</a> and a fearless +courage which, in the eyes of the timid sage of Rotterdam, appeared to +fall little short of foolhardiness. Like most of the really earnest +reformers, De Berquin was originally a very strict observer of the +ordinances of the church, and was unsurpassed in attention to fasts, +feast-days, and the mass. It was indignation and contempt for the petty +persecution inaugurated by Beda and his associates of the Sorbonne that +first led him to examine the tenets of Lefèvre. From Lefèvre's works he +naturally passed to those of the German reformers. His curiosity turning +to admiration, he began to translate and annotate the most striking +treatises that fell into his hands. Not content with this, he set +himself to writing books on the same topics, and incidentally depicted +in no flattering colors the intolerance and ignorance of the Paris +theologians. As he made no attempt at concealment, his activity was soon +known.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">His first imprisonment.</div> + +<p>In the spring of 1523, De Berquin's house was visited, his books and +papers were seized, and an inventory was made. Beda was the leader of +the authorities in the whole affair. Parliament ordered the books and +manuscripts to be examined and reported upon by the theological faculty. +What the report would be, it was not hard to surmise. When such works +were found in De Berquin's possession as that entitled "Speculum<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> +Theologastrorum," and another giving Luther's reasons for maintaining +the universal priesthood of Christian believers; when the notes in De +Berquin's own handwriting condemned as blasphemous, and as derogatory to +the power of the Holy Ghost, the ascription of praise to the Virgin Mary +as the "fountain of all grace"—but one answer could be expected to the +requisition of parliament. The books and manuscripts were pronounced +heretical; their author was commanded to retract. This De Berquin +refused to do, and he was, consequently, shut up in the +<i>conciergerie</i>—the civil prison within the walls of the ancient palace +in which parliament sat. Four days later he was transferred to the +dungeons of the Bishop of Paris, to be judged by him with the aid of two +counsellors of parliament and of such theologians as he should see fit +to call in.<a name="FNanchor_270_270" id="FNanchor_270_270"></a><a href="#Footnote_270_270" class="fnanchor">[270]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">He is released by order of the king.</div> + +<p>The case was fast becoming serious. De Berquin was made of sterner stuff +than the weaklings who recant through fear of the stake; and the syndic +of Sorbonne was fully resolved to have him burned if he remained +constant. Happily, just at this critical moment the king interfered. +From Melun, which he had reached on his way toward the south of France, +he despatched an officer—one "Captain Frederick," as his name appears +in the records—to demand the release of De Berquin, whose trial he had +evoked for the consideration of his own royal council. Parliament +attempted to interpose technical difficulties, and responded that the +prisoner was no longer in its keeping. But "Captain Frederick" was +provided against any quibbling. As his instructions were to break open +whatever prison-doors might be barred against him, it was not long +before the expected prey of the theologians was given into his custody. +In the end De Berquin was set at liberty, such an examination of his +case having been made by the king's council as courtiers are wont to +institute when the accused is the favorite of the monarch.<a name="FNanchor_271_271" id="FNanchor_271_271"></a><a href="#Footnote_271_271" class="fnanchor">[271]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Advice of Erasmus.</div> + +<p>It was about this time that Erasmus first made the acquaint<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span>ance of +Louis de Berquin. The Artesian nobleman took occasion to write to the +great Dutch humanist, of whom he stood in great admiration, to inform +him of the position assumed in reference to the writings of the latter +by Beda and Du Chesne. Erasmus tells us that he was delighted with his +new correspondent. But the constitutional timidity of the scholar +compelled him to answer De Berquin by words of caution rather than of +encouragement: "If you are wise, repress your encomiums; do not disturb +the <i>hornets</i>, and spend your time in your favorite studies. At all +events, do not involve me; for the consequences might be inconvenient +for us both." But the dictates of worldly wisdom had no influence over +De Berquin. Presently Erasmus was vexed to find that De Berquin in his +writings was appealing to his friend's authority, and quoting the +sentiments of the latter in defence of his own opinions. Now thoroughly +alarmed at De Berquin's imprudence, Erasmus remonstrated, plainly +intimating that whatever delight others might derive from conflicts such +as he saw approaching, nothing was less grateful to himself.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Berquin's second imprisonment.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Francis again orders his release.</div> + +<p>Meantime Louis de Berquin had retired to his own estates, in the +expectation of pursuing his plans with less danger of interference than +in the capital. Even there, however, he was not safe. The propitious +moment for striking a decisive blow seemed to his enemies to have come +when, the king being a captive, his mother, the regent, had permitted +Pope and parliament to erect a tribunal for the summary trial and +execution of heretics. The Bishop of Amiens, in whose diocese De +Berquin's lands were situated, having applied to parliament, easily +obtained the authority to seize him, disregarding even the ordinary +rights of asylum.<a name="FNanchor_272_272" id="FNanchor_272_272"></a><a href="#Footnote_272_272" class="fnanchor">[272]</a> After his arrest he was again transferred from +the episcopal palace to the <i>conciergerie</i> at Paris, and his trial +entrusted to the new inquisitorial commission. A series of propositions +extracted from his writings, and censured by the Sorbonne, insured his +condemnation as a relapsed heretic, and De Berquin was handed over to +the secular arm for condign punishment. But again, at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> the very instant +when his ruin was imminent, he met with unexpected deliverance. The +sympathy of the king's sister was enlisted, and she used her influence +with her mother to obtain an order adjourning all proceedings against De +Berquin until the monarch should be released. Meanwhile she wrote urgent +letters in his behalf to Francis and to his favorite, the grand master +of the palace and future constable of France, Anne de Montmorency. The +reply came in an order from the king, at Madrid, directing his +parliament to cease from giving disturbance to Berquin and such men of +learning.<a name="FNanchor_273_273" id="FNanchor_273_273"></a><a href="#Footnote_273_273" class="fnanchor">[273]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Dilatory measures of parliament.</div> + +<p>It is suggestive of the delays attending even the execution of the will +of so arbitrary a prince as Francis, that, although De Berquin was thus +delivered from the immediate prospect of death, months passed before he +regained his liberty. Successive royal orders were required to secure +any alleviation of his hard confinement. Thus, when his health suffered +from want of exercise and pure air, parliament grudgingly permitted him +to leave his solitary cell for an hour morning and evening, at such time +as the court might be clear of other prisoners whom he could +contaminate. And when De Berquin complained that his books and writing +materials had been denied him, the extent of the parliament's generosity +was to grant him "the epistles of St. Jerome and some other Catholic +books." At length, the king's patience becoming exhausted by the court's +procrastination and technical objections, he sent (November 21, 1526) +the Provost of Paris forcibly to remove De Berquin from the +<i>conciergerie</i> to the Louvre, where he was soon restored his +freedom.<a name="FNanchor_274_274" id="FNanchor_274_274"></a><a href="#Footnote_274_274" class="fnanchor">[274]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Hopes of Margaret of Angoulême.</div> + +<p>The return of Francis from Madrid, and the rescue of Berquin, Lefèvre, +Roussel, and others, from the dangers to which they had been exposed, +encouraged the more sanguine reformers to hope that now at length the +king would declare himself openly in favor, if not of the evangelical +doctrines, at least of some form of religions toleration. Margaret of +Angoulême had certainly labored piously and assiduously to open her +brother's eyes to the true character of his fanatical advisers. In a +letter still preserved and apparently written even before Francis had +been removed from Italy to Spain, she begged him to regard his +misfortune as only a mark of the Divine love, and intended to give him +time for reflection and consecration. This end being accomplished, +Heaven would gloriously deliver him and make him a blessing to all +Christendom—nay, even to infidel nations to be converted by his +means.<a name="FNanchor_275_275" id="FNanchor_275_275"></a><a href="#Footnote_275_275" class="fnanchor">[275]</a></p> + +<p>However fanciful these brilliant anticipations may now appear, they did +not seem unreasonable at the time. It was not improbable that the +example of the illustrious German princes, his allies, who had embraced +the Reformation, might incline Francis decidedly to the same side. +Margaret had conceived great expectations, based upon a projected visit +to the French court by Count Von Hohenlohe, Dean of the Cathedral of +Strasbourg—a nobleman, who, having become a Protestant, was anxious to +turn to the advantage of his new convictions the influence secured to +him by high social rank. The correspondence of Francis's sister with the +zealous German noble opens a suggestive page of history. At first, +Margaret, while applauding the count's design and building great hopes +upon it, advises him to defer his visit until the king's return from +Spain. Two months later, she is even more anxious to see Hohenlohe in +Paris, but feels constrained to tell him that his friends have, for a +certain reason, concluded that the proper time has not yet<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> arrived. A +third letter, dated after the restoration of Francis to his throne, +informs us what that certain reason was. "I cannot tell you all the +grief I feel," Margaret writes, "for I clearly see that the state of +things is such that your coming cannot be productive of the comfort you +would desire. The king would not be glad to see you. The reason that +your visit is deemed inadvisable is <i>the deliverance of the king's +children, which the king esteems as important as the deliverance of his +own person</i>."<a name="FNanchor_276_276" id="FNanchor_276_276"></a><a href="#Footnote_276_276" class="fnanchor">[276]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Francis I. violates his pledges to Charles V.</div> + +<p>Here was the secret! Unfortunately for the Reformation, policy was +supposed to make it an imperative duty to conciliate the favor of the +Pope, no less after the release of Francis than while he was yet a +prisoner. There were the young princes sent by the regent as hostages +for the fulfilment of the treaty with Charles of Spain, for whose +liberation measures were to be devised. And there was the oath—to the +shame of Francis, it must be added—from the binding force of which the +king hoped to be relieved by authority of the Roman bishop; for scarcely +had Francis set foot on his own dominions, when he unblushingly +retracted all his treaty stipulations. He announced to the emperor that +the cession of Burgundy, the Viscounty of Auxonne, and other +territories, which had been made by his imperial captor the +indispensable condition of his release, was entirely out of the +question; and that his promises, extorted while he was in duress, were +of no validity! Nevertheless, he offered, in lieu thereof, the payment +of a larger ransom than had ever been proffered by a king of France. +Indignant at a perfidy somewhat flagrant, even for an age tolerably well +accustomed to breaches of faith, the emperor refused the substitute. The +arms recently laid aside were resumed. Clement the Seventh and Venice +became the allies of Francis, who for the present figured as the +champion of the papacy; while his rival, by suffering the traitor +Constable de Bourbon with an army of German soldiers to besiege the +pontiff in his capital, became responsible in the eyes of the world<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> for +all the atrocities of the famous sack of the city of Rome. When, at +length, after three years of hard fighting, peace was concluded by the +treaty of Cambray (July, 1529), the terms agreed upon at Madrid were +virtually carried into effect; but the emperor consented to receive the +sum of two millions of Crowns—<i>êcus-au-soleil</i>—in place of Burgundy, +and on payment to restore to the French the dauphin and the Duke of +Orleans, the future Henry the Second, so long detained as hostages in +Spain.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">The king's necessities.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">A despotic course suggested.</div> + +<p>Meantime the revenues of the royal domain, having during the late wars +been subjected to a long and unremitting drain, had proved utterly +inadequate to meet the extraordinary demand of treasure for the +resumption of the hostilities following close upon Francis's release. +Recourse must be had to the purses of the king's subjects. The right to +levy taxes resided in the States General alone, and Francis was +reluctant, at so critical a juncture, to trample on a time-hallowed +principle. He did not, indeed, hesitate to admit that he had been +gravely counselled by some of his advisers to resort to a more despotic +course; for they maintained that, in so praiseworthy an undertaking as +the effort to recover the young princes, the king was warranted by all +laws, divine and human, in laying under contribution every one of his +subjects, of whatever rank or condition.<a name="FNanchor_277_277" id="FNanchor_277_277"></a><a href="#Footnote_277_277" class="fnanchor">[277]</a> But, as the same ends +might be attained by methods more agreeable to law and precedent, +Francis preferred to have recourse to them.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">An assembly of notables.</div> + +<p>On the sixteenth of December, 1527, one of those anomalous political +bodies was convened in the palace of the Parisian parliament to which +the name of an assembly of notables is given. All the orders of the +state were repre<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span>sented; but the form of a meeting of the States General +(as we have seen, most distasteful to the despotic monarch) was +studiously avoided.<a name="FNanchor_278_278" id="FNanchor_278_278"></a><a href="#Footnote_278_278" class="fnanchor">[278]</a> In reply to a very full exposition of the +present condition of the kingdom and of the incidents of his capture, +made by Francis in person to the assembled clergymen, nobles, jurists, +and burgesses of Paris, each order in turn gave its opinion. All united +in approving the refusal of the king to surrender Burgundy to the +emperor, and in expressing their unwillingness to allow his Majesty to +return to Spain and thus redeem the promise he had given in case the +treaty failed to be carried into effect. All likewise professed their +readiness to contribute, according to their ability, to the necessities +of the crown.</p> + +<p>The first president, M. de Selve, in the name of parliament, delivered a +discourse which the clerk of the assembly, no doubt aptly, describes as +"<i>crammed</i> with Latin and with quotations from Scripture, to prove that +the treaty of Madrid was null and void."<a name="FNanchor_279_279" id="FNanchor_279_279"></a><a href="#Footnote_279_279" class="fnanchor">[279]</a> His grounds were that the +king could neither dispose of his own person, which belonged to the +state, nor alienate Burgundy, which, being a fief of the first rank and +a bulwark of the kingdom, was inseparable from France. But probably the +whole prodigious mass of classic lore, and of scriptural quotation, even +more unfamiliar to most of his hearers, which the pedantic president +forced upon the digestion of the unfortunate notables, was required to +prove to their satisfaction that Francis had in this affair played the +part of the "gentilhomme" he boasted of being.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Speech of the Cardinal of Bourbon.</div> + +<p>The speech of the Cardinal of Bourbon was especially important. He +announced the willingness of the representatives of the French clergy +cheerfully to supply the 1,300,000 livres asked of their order, although +at the same time he suggested the propriety of first convoking +provincial councils, in which the church might be more fully consulted.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> +With this gracious concession, however, the cardinal coupled three +requests, of which the first and third concerned the liberation of the +Pope from his imprisonment and the conservation of the liberties of the +Gallican church; but the second had a pointed reference to the +Reformation: he prayed "that the king might be pleased to uproot and +extirpate the damnable and insufferable Lutheran sect which had, not +long since, secretly entered the realm, with all the other heresies that +were multiplying therein." By thus acting, he assured him, Francis +"would perform the duty of a good prince bearing the name of <i>Very +Christian King</i>."</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Francis promises to prove himself "Very Christian."</div> + +<p>The gratified monarch, delighted with the complaisance of his clerical +subjects, did not hesitate to accede to all the petitions the Cardinal +offered, and declared that, "so far as concerned heresies, he was +determined not to endure them, but would cause them to be wholly +extirpated and driven from his kingdom," inflicting on any found tainted +therewith such exemplary punishment as to demonstrate his right to the +honorable title he bore.<a name="FNanchor_280_280" id="FNanchor_280_280"></a><a href="#Footnote_280_280" class="fnanchor">[280]</a></p> + +<p>It was a rash promise that Francis had made. Like many other absolute +monarchs, he expected without trouble to bring the religious convictions +of his subjects into conformity with the standard he was pleased to set +up.<a name="FNanchor_281_281" id="FNanchor_281_281"></a><a href="#Footnote_281_281" class="fnanchor">[281]</a> He had yet to learn<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> that there are beliefs which, when they +take root in the hearts of humble and illiterate peasants or artisans, +are too firmly fixed to be eradicated by the most excruciating tortures +man's ingenuity has been able to contrive. Through fire and sword, the +victim now of persecution, again of open war, the faith denominated +heresy was yet to survive, not only the last lineal descendant of the +king then sitting on the throne of France, but the rule of the dynasty +which was destined to succeed to the power, and reproduce not a few of +the mistakes, of the Valois race.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">The provincial council of Sens.</div> + +<p>In accordance with the suggestion of the Cardinal of Bourbon, three +provincial councils were held early in the ensuing year (1528). The most +important was the council of the ecclesiastical province of <i>Sens</i>, +which met, however, in the Augustinian monastery at Paris. It was +scarcely to be expected that a synod presided over by Antoine Duprat, +who, to the dignity of cardinal and the office of Chancellor of France, +added the Bishopric of Albi and the Archbishopric of Sens, with the +claim to be Primate of the Gauls and of Germany, should discuss with +severity the morals of the clergy, or issue stringent canons against the +abuse of the plurality of benefices. As an offset, however, the Council +of Sens had much to say respecting the new reformation. The good fathers +saw in the discordant views of Luther and Carlstadt, of Melanchthon and +Zwingle, proof positive that the new doctrines the reformers advanced +were devoid of any basis of truth. They ridiculed the claim of the +Protestants to the presence of the Spirit of God. But they reserved +their severest censures for the practice of holding secret conventicles, +and, with an irony best appreciated by those who understand the +penalties inflicted by the law on the discovered heretics, they gently +reminded the men and women to whom the celebration of a single religious +service according to the dictates of their conscience would have insured +instantaneous condemnation and a death at the stake, that God hates the +deeds of darkness, and that Christ himself said, "What I tell you in +darkness, that speak ye in light."<a name="FNanchor_282_282" id="FNanchor_282_282"></a><a href="#Footnote_282_282" class="fnanchor">[282]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The punishment of heretics.</div> + +<p>More practical were the prescriptions of the council's decrees +respecting the punishment of offenders against the unity of the faith. +Heretics who, after conviction, refused to be "united to the church," +were to be consigned to prison for life, priests to be degraded, the +relapsed to be given over to the secular arm without a hearing. +Heretical books, including translations of the Bible, were to be +surrendered to the bishop. Indeed, it was stipulated that every book +treating of the faith, and printed within the past twenty years, should +be submitted to him for examination. Nor was the council satisfied to +leave the discovery of heresy to accident. It was particularly enjoined +upon every bishop that he, or some competent person appointed by him, +should visit any portion of his diocese in which the taint of unsound +doctrine was reported to exist, and compel three or more persons of good +standing, or even the entire body of the inhabitants of a neighborhood, +to denounce under oath those who entertained heretical views, the +frequenters of secret conventicles, and even those who merely held aloof +from the conversation of the faithful. Lest this stimulus to informers +should prove insufficient to extract the desired knowledge, the threat +was added that persons refusing to testify would be treated as +suspected, and themselves proceeded against.<a name="FNanchor_283_283" id="FNanchor_283_283"></a><a href="#Footnote_283_283" class="fnanchor">[283]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The councils of Bourges and Lyons.</div> + +<p>Not less severe toward the "Lutheran" doctrines did the other two +provincial councils show themselves. At the Council of Bourges, the +Cardinal of Tournon presided as archbishop—a prelate who was to attain +unenviable notoriety as the prime instigator of the massacre of Mérindol +and Cabrières, of which an account will be given in a subsequent +chapter. Besides the usual regulations for the censure of heretical +books and the denunciation of "Lutherans," the decrees contain the +significant direction that the professors in the University of Bourges +shall employ in their instructions no authors<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> calculated to divert the +students from the ceremonies of the church—a caution deriving its +importance from the circumstance that the university, under the +patronage of Margaret of Angoulême, now Duchess of Berry as well as +Queen of Navarre, had become a centre of reformatory activity.</p> + +<p>The letter in which the king had called upon the Archbishop of Lyons to +convene the clergy of his province, declared that Francis had ever held +the accursed sect of the "Lutherans" in hatred, horror, and abomination, +and that its extirpation was an object very near his heart, for the +accomplishment of which he would employ all possible means;<a name="FNanchor_284_284" id="FNanchor_284_284"></a><a href="#Footnote_284_284" class="fnanchor">[284]</a> and the +Council of Lyons responded by cordial approval and by the enactment of +fresh regulations to suppress conventicles, to prevent the farther +dissemination of Luther's writings, and, indeed, to forbid all +discussion of matters of faith by the laity. At the same time the +council unconsciously revealed the necessity imposed on the private +Christian to investigate for himself the nature and grounds of his +belief, by strongly reprobating the disastrous custom of admitting into +sacred orders a host of illiterate, uncultivated persons of low +antecedents—beardless youths—and by confessing that this wretched +practice had justly excited the contempt of the world.<a name="FNanchor_285_285" id="FNanchor_285_285"></a><a href="#Footnote_285_285" class="fnanchor">[285]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Financial help bought by persecution.</div> + +<p>Everywhere the clergy conceded the subsidy required by the exigencies of +the kingdom. But they left Francis in no doubt respecting the price of +their complaisance. This was nothing less than the extermination of the +new sect that had made its appearance in France. And the king +comprehended and fell in with the terms upon which the church agreed to +loosen its purse-strings. No doubtful policy must now prevail! No more +Berquins can be permitted to make their boast that they have been able, +protected by the king's panoply, to beard the lion in his den!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Insult to an image.</div> + +<p>An incident occurring in Paris, before the adjournment of the Council of +Sens, gave Francis a specious excuse for inaugurating the more cruel +system of persecution now demanded of him, and tended somewhat to +conceal from the king himself, as well as from others, the mercenary +motive of the change. Just after the solemnities of Whitsunday, an +unheard of act of impiety startled the inhabitants of the capital, and +fully persuaded them that no object of their devotions was safe from +iconoclastic violence. One of those numerous statues of the Virgin Mary, +with the infant Jesus in her arms, that graced the streets of Paris, was +found to have been shockingly mutilated. The body had been pierced, and +the head-dress trampled under foot. The heads of the mother and child +had been broken off and ignominiously thrown in the rubbish.<a name="FNanchor_286_286" id="FNanchor_286_286"></a><a href="#Footnote_286_286" class="fnanchor">[286]</a> A more +flagrant act of contempt for the religious sentiment of the country had +perhaps never been committed. The indignation it awakened must not be +judged by the standard of a calmer age.<a name="FNanchor_287_287" id="FNanchor_287_287"></a><a href="#Footnote_287_287" class="fnanchor">[287]</a> In the desire to ascertain +the perpetrators of the outrage, the king offered a reward of a thousand +crowns. But no ingenuity could ferret them out. A vague rumor, indeed, +prevailed, that a similar excess had been witnessed in a village four or +five leagues distant, and that the culprits when detected had confessed +that they had been prompted to its commission by the promise of a paltry +recompense of one hundred <i>sous</i> for every image destroyed. But, since +no one seems ever to have been punished, it is probable that this report +was a fabrication; and the question whether the mutilation of the Virgin +of the <i>Rue des Rosiers</i> was the deliberate act of a religious +enthusiast, or a freak of drunken revellers, or, as some imagined, a +cunning device of good Catholics to inflame the popular passions +against<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> the "Lutherans," must, for the present, at least, remain a +subject of profound doubt.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Expiatory processions.</div> + +<p>But, whoever may have been the author, pains were taken to expiate the +sacrilege. Successive processions visited the spot. In one of these, +five hundred students of the university, chosen from different colleges +and belonging to the first families, bore lighted tapers, which they +placed on the temporary altar erected in front of the image. The clergy, +both secular and regular, came repeatedly with all that was most +precious in attire and relics. To add still more to the pomp of the +propitiatory pilgrimages, Francis himself took part in a magnificent +display, made on the <i>Fête-Dieu</i>, or Corpus Christi (the eleventh of +June). He was preceded by heralds and by the Dukes of Cleves and Ferrara +and other noblemen of high rank, while behind him walked the King of +Navarre, the Cardinal of Lorraine, the Ambassadors of England, Venice, +Florence, and other foreign states, the officers of parliament, and a +crowd of gentlemen of the king's house, archers and persons of all +conditions bringing up the rear. On reaching the spot where the +mutilated statue still occupied its niche, Francis, after appropriate +religious exercises, ascended the richly carpeted steps, and reverently +substituted an effigy in solid silver, of similar size, in place of the +image which had been the object of insult.<a name="FNanchor_288_288" id="FNanchor_288_288"></a><a href="#Footnote_288_288" class="fnanchor">[288]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Other icoconoclastic excesses.</div> + +<p>From this time forward, iconoclastic demonstrations became more common. +Paintings, also, when exposed to the public view, shared the perils to +which unprotected statues were subjected. The Virgin, and such reputable +saints as St. Roch and St. Fiacre, depicted on the walls of the Rue St. +Martin, were wantonly disfigured, some two years later; so that at last, +the Parliament of Paris, in despair of preventing the repetition of the +act, or of discovering its authors, adopted the prudent course of +forbidding that any sacred representation should be placed on the +exterior walls of a house <i>within ten feet of the ground</i>!<a name="FNanchor_289_289" id="FNanchor_289_289"></a><a href="#Footnote_289_289" class="fnanchor">[289]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Berquin's third arrest.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">He disregards the cautions of Erasmus.</div> + +<p>The repeated assurances whereby Francis had conciliated the clergy, and +secured their contributions to the exchequer, embarrassed him in the +exercise of leniency toward Louis de Berquin, now for the third time +arraigned for heresy. Moreover, the audacity and violence of the +iconoclasts, characteristics assumed by him to be indicative of a +disposition to overturn all government, probably took away any +inclination he would otherwise have had to interfere in the intrepid +nobleman's behalf. De Berquin had no sooner been released from his +former imprisonment than he set himself to prepare for new conflicts +with his bigoted antagonists. He even resolved to assume the offensive. +In vain did Erasmus entreat him to be prudent, suggest the propriety of +his temporarily going abroad, and propose that he should apply for some +diplomatic commission as a plausible excuse for absenting himself. Beda, +he told him, was a monster with many heads, each breathing out poison, +while in the "Faculty" he had to do with an <i>immortal</i> antagonist. The +monks would secure his ruin were his cause more righteous than that of +Jesus Christ. Finally, the tremulous scholar begged him, if no +consideration of personal safety moved him, at least not to involve so +ardent a lover of peace as Erasmus in a conflict for which he had no +taste. But his reasoning had no weight with a man of high resolve and +inflexible principle, who could see no honorable course but openly +meeting and overthrowing error. "Do<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> you ask," wrote Erasmus to a +correspondent interested in learning De Berquin's fate, "what I +accomplished? By every means I employed to deter him I only added to his +courage."<a name="FNanchor_290_290" id="FNanchor_290_290"></a><a href="#Footnote_290_290" class="fnanchor">[290]</a> If we may believe Erasmus's strong expressions—for his +own writings have very nearly disappeared—De Berquin assailed the monks +with a freedom almost equal to that employed by the Old Comedy in +holding up to merited derision the foibles of Athenian generals and +statesmen. He even extracted twelve blasphemous propositions from Beda's +utterances, and obtained a letter from the king enjoining the Sorbonne +either to pass sentence of condemnation on their syndic's assertions, or +to prove their truth from the Holy Scriptures.<a name="FNanchor_291_291" id="FNanchor_291_291"></a><a href="#Footnote_291_291" class="fnanchor">[291]</a> The Dutch +philosopher, aghast at his friend's incredible temerity, besought him +instantly to seek safety in flight; and, when this last appeal proved as +ineffectual as all his frequent efforts in the past, he confessed that +he almost regretted that a friendship had ever arisen which had +occasioned him so much trouble and disquiet.<a name="FNanchor_292_292" id="FNanchor_292_292"></a><a href="#Footnote_292_292" class="fnanchor">[292]</a></p> + +<p>A third time Louis de Berquin was arrested, on application of the +officer known as the <i>Promoteur de la foi</i>. His trial was committed to +twelve judges selected by parliament, among whom figured not only the +first president and the vicar-general of the Bishop of Paris, but, +strange to say, even so well-disposed and liberal a jurist as Guillaume +Budé, the foremost French scholar of the age for broad and accurate +learning.<a name="FNanchor_293_293" id="FNanchor_293_293"></a><a href="#Footnote_293_293" class="fnanchor">[293]</a> The case advanced too slowly to meet De Berquin's +impatience. In the assurance of ultimate success, he is even accused by +a contemporary chronicler of having offered the court two hundred crowns +to expedite the trial.<a name="FNanchor_294_294" id="FNanchor_294_294"></a><a href="#Footnote_294_294" class="fnanchor">[294]</a> It soon became evident,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> however, from, the +withdrawal of the liberties at first accorded, that Be Berquin would +scarcely escape unless the king again interposed—a contingency less +likely to occur in view of the incessant appeals with which Francis was +plied, addressed at once to his interest, his conscience, and his pride. +But the more desperate the cause of Berquin, and the more uncertain the +king's disposition, the more urgent the intercessions of Margaret of +Angoulême, whose character is nowhere seen to better advantage than in +her repeated letters to her brother about this time.<a name="FNanchor_295_295" id="FNanchor_295_295"></a><a href="#Footnote_295_295" class="fnanchor">[295]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Berquin sentenced to public penance, branding, and +imprisonment.</div> + +<p>The sentence was rendered on the sixteenth of April, 1529. De Berquin, +being found guilty of heresy, was condemned to do public penance in +front of Notre Dame, with lighted taper in hand, and crying for mercy to +God and the blessed Virgin. Next, on the Place de Grève, he was to be +ignominiously exhibited upon a scaffold, while his books were burned +before his eyes. Taken thence in a cart to the pillory, and again +exposed to popular derision on a revolving stage, he was to have his +tongue pierced and his forehead branded with the ineffaceable +<i>fleur-de-lis</i>. His public disgrace over, De Berquin was to be +imprisoned for life in the episcopal jail.<a name="FNanchor_296_296" id="FNanchor_296_296"></a><a href="#Footnote_296_296" class="fnanchor">[296]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">He appeals, is sentenced to death, and is executed.</div> + +<p>More than twenty thousand persons—so intense a hatred had been stirred +up against the reformers—assembled to witness the execution of a +sentence malignantly cruel.<a name="FNanchor_297_297" id="FNanchor_297_297"></a><a href="#Footnote_297_297" class="fnanchor">[297]</a> But, for that day, their expectation +was disappointed. Louis de Berquin gave notice that he appealed to the +absent king and to the Pope himself. It was no part of the programme, +however, that the thrice-convicted heresiarch should gain a fresh +respite and enlist powerful friends in effecting his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> release. No sooner +were the judges satisfied that he persisted in his appeal, in spite of +the secret and urgent advice of Budé and others, than they rendered a +new and more severe sentence (on the seventeenth of April): he must pay +the forfeit of his obstinacy with his life, and that, too, within a few +hours.<a name="FNanchor_298_298" id="FNanchor_298_298"></a><a href="#Footnote_298_298" class="fnanchor">[298]</a></p> + +<p>The cause of this intemperate haste is clearly set forth by a +contemporary—doubtless an eye-witness of the execution—all whose +sympathies were on the side of the prosecution. It was "lest recourse be +had to the king, or to the regent then at Blois;"<a name="FNanchor_299_299" id="FNanchor_299_299"></a><a href="#Footnote_299_299" class="fnanchor">[299]</a> for the delay of +even a few days might have brought from the banks of the Loire another +order removing De Berquin's case from the commission to the royal +council.</p> + +<p>The historian must leave to the professed martyrologist the details of +the constant death of Louis de Berquin, as of the deaths of many other +less distinguished victims of the intolerant zeal of the Sorbonne. +Suffice it to say that although, when he undertook to address the +people, his voice was purposely drowned by the din of the attendants, +though the very children filled the air with shouts that De Berquin was +a heretic, though not a person was found in the vast concourse to +encourage him by the name of "Jesus"—an accustomed cry even at the +execution of parricides—the brave nobleman of Artois met his fate with +such composure as to be likened by a by-stander to a student immersed in +his favorite occupations, or a worshipper whose devout mind was +engrossed by the contemplation of heavenly things.<a name="FNanchor_300_300" id="FNanchor_300_300"></a><a href="#Footnote_300_300" class="fnanchor">[300]</a> There were +indeed blind rumors, as usual in such cases; to the effect that De +Berquin recanted at the last moment; and Merlin, the Penitentiary of +Notre Dame, who attended him, is reported to have exclaimed that +"perhaps no one for a hundred years had died a better Christian."<a name="FNanchor_301_301" id="FNanchor_301_301"></a><a href="#Footnote_301_301" class="fnanchor">[301]</a> +But the "Lutherans"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> of Paris had good reason to deny the truth of the +former statement, and to interpret the latter to the advantage of De +Berquin's consistent faith—so great was the rejoicing over the final +success attained in crushing the most distinguished, in silencing the +boldest and most outspoken advocate of the reformation of the church. +For, in the eyes of the theological faculty and of the clergy of France, +Louis de Berquin merited to be styled, by way of pre-eminence, a +<i>heresiarch</i>.<a name="FNanchor_302_302" id="FNanchor_302_302"></a><a href="#Footnote_302_302" class="fnanchor">[302]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Francis treats with the Germans.</div> + +<p>Three years had not elapsed since the blow struck at the "Lutheran" +doctrines in France, in the execution of their most promising and +intrepid representative, before the hopes of the friends of the +Reformation again revived from a consideration of the king's political +relations. Disappointed at the contemptuous reception of their +confession of faith by the Emperor at Augsburg, the Protestant princes +of Germany had formed a defensive league. Francis, having basely +abandoned his former allies, was left alone to combat the gigantic power +of a rival between two portions of whose dominions his own kingdom lay +exposed. Every consideration of prudence dictated the policy of lending +to the German Protestants, in their endeavor to humble the pride of +their common antagonist, the most efficient support of his arms. Under +these circumstances religious differences were impotent to prevent the +union. Accordingly, in May, 1532, through his ambassador, the sagacious +Du Bellay, Francis promised the discontented Elector of Saxony and his +associates the contribution of a large sum to enable them to make a +sturdy resistance. But the peace shortly concluded with Charles rendered +the proffered aid for a time unnecessary.<a name="FNanchor_303_303" id="FNanchor_303_303"></a><a href="#Footnote_303_303" class="fnanchor">[303]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">and with Henry VIII. of England.</div> + +<p>Equally unproductive of advantage to the professors of the reformed +faith was the alliance for mutual defence between Francis and Henry the +Eighth of England. Both monarchs were inspired with the same hatred of +the emperor, and each had equal reason to complain of the insatiable +rapacity of the Roman court. But neither at the pompous interview of the +two kings at Boulogne, nor afterward, could Henry prevail upon Francis +to take any decided measures against the Pope such as the former, weary +of the obstacles thrown in the way of his divorce from Catharine of +Aragon, was ready to venture. In his intercourse with the English king, +Francis is said to have adopted for his guiding principle the motto, +"<i>Ami jusqu'à l'autel</i>,"<a name="FNanchor_304_304" id="FNanchor_304_304"></a><a href="#Footnote_304_304" class="fnanchor">[304]</a> and declined to sacrifice his orthodoxy to +his interests. But the truth was that, in the view of Francis, his +interests and his orthodoxy were coincident; and the difficulty +experienced by the two kings in coming to a common understanding lay in +the fact that, as has been well remarked, while in the enmity of Francis +it was not the Pope but the emperor that occupied the foremost place, it +was just the reverse with Henry.<a name="FNanchor_305_305" id="FNanchor_305_305"></a><a href="#Footnote_305_305" class="fnanchor">[305]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Meeting of Francis I. and Clement, at Marseilles.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Marriage of Henry of Orleans to Catharine de' Medici.</div> + +<p>Francis had no thought of throwing away so valuable an auxiliary in his +Italian projects, or of permanently attaching to Charles so dangerous an +opponent as the papal power. And thus it happened that, a year from the +time of his consultation with Henry, Francis proceeded to Marseilles to +extend a still more cordial welcome to Clement himself. The wily pontiff +had so dazzled the eyes of the king, that the latter had consented to, +if he had not actually proposed, a marriage between Henry, Duke of +Orleans, his second son, and Catharine de' Medici, the Pope's +niece.<a name="FNanchor_306_306" id="FNanchor_306_306"></a><a href="#Footnote_306_306" class="fnanchor">[306]</a> The match was not flattering to Francis's pride; but there +were great prospective advantages, and the bride was less objectionable +because the bridegroom, as a younger son, was not likely to ascend the +throne. But here again the king was destined to be disappointed. +Clement's death, soon after, destroyed all hope of Medicean support in +Italy; and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> death of Francis, the dauphin, made Henry of Orleans +heir apparent to the throne. It was not long before the French people, +with the soundness of judgment generally characterizing the deliberate +conclusions reached by the masses, came to the opinion, expressed by one +of the Venetian ambassadors two years after the wedding: "Monseigneur of +Orleans is married to Madam Catharine de' Medici, to the dissatisfaction +of all France; for it seems to everybody that the most Christian king +was cheated by Pope Clement."<a name="FNanchor_307_307" id="FNanchor_307_307"></a><a href="#Footnote_307_307" class="fnanchor">[307]</a> Such were the evil auspices under +which the Italian girl, only fourteen years of age,<a name="FNanchor_308_308" id="FNanchor_308_308"></a><a href="#Footnote_308_308" class="fnanchor">[308]</a> entered a +country over whose destinies she was to exert a pernicious influence.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Francis refuses to join in a crusade against heresy.</div> + +<p>There was another part of the Pope's designs in the execution of which +he was less successful. He could not persuade Francis to join in a +general scheme for the extermination of heresy. In the very first +interview, Clement had sounded his host's disposition respecting the +propriety of a new crusade. He had bluntly submitted for consideration +the question, "Ought not Francis and the pious princes of Germany, with +the emperor at their head, to gather up their forces, enlist troops, and +make all needful preparations, to overwhelm the followers of Zwingle and +Luther; in order that, affrighted by the terrible retribution visited +upon their fellows, the remaining heretics should hasten to make their +submission to the Roman Church?" At the same time he threw out hints of +his ability to assist in the good work if only the French monarch would +not refuse his co-operation. But Francis was not ready for so sanguinary +an undertaking. Unmoved by the Pope's repeated solicitations, he replied +that it seemed to him that "neither piety nor concord would be promoted +by substituting an appeal to arms for the appeal to the Holy Scriptures, +to whose ultimate decision both Zwinglians and Lutherans professed +themselves at all times anxious to submit their doctrines and practice." +He added the unpalatable advice that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> the matters in dispute be +considered by a free and impartial council, and declared that, when the +council had rendered its verdict, he would spare no pains to sustain it. +All the usual pontifical artifices proved abortive. Francis, while +valuing highly the friendship of Rome, was not willing to forego the +advantages of alliance with the Elector of Saxony and the Landgrave of +Hesse.<a name="FNanchor_309_309" id="FNanchor_309_309"></a><a href="#Footnote_309_309" class="fnanchor">[309]</a></p> + +<p>While the fickle monarch was thus drawn in opposite directions by +conflicting political considerations—at one time strengthening the +hands of the Protestant princes of Germany, at another, making common +cause with the Pope—the same diversity characterized the internal +condition of France.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Execution of Jean de Caturce at Toulouse.</div> + +<p>At Toulouse, the seat of one of most noted parliaments, Jean de Caturce, +a lawyer of ability, was put to death by slow fire in the summer of +1532. His unpardonable offence was that he had once made a "Lutheran" +exhortation, and that, in the merry-making on the <i>Fête des +Rois</i>—Epiphany—he had recommended that the prayer, "May Christ reign +in our hearts!" be substituted for the senseless cry, "The king drinks!" +No more ample ground of accusation was needed in a city where the +luckless wight who failed to take off his cap before an image, or fall +on his knees when the bell rang out at "Ave Maria," was sure to be set +upon as a heretic.<a name="FNanchor_310_310" id="FNanchor_310_310"></a><a href="#Footnote_310_310" class="fnanchor">[310]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Le Coq's evangelical sermon.</div> + +<p>In striking contrast with the tragedy enacted in the chief city of the +south was the favor openly showed to the reformers by the Queen of +Navarre, not only in her own city of Bourges, but in Paris itself. The +intercessions she had addressed to her brother for the victims of +priestly persecution had long since betrayed her secret leaning; and the +translation of her "Hours" into French by the Bishop of Senlis, who, by +her direction, suppressed all that most directly countenanced +superstitious beliefs, was naturally taken as strong confirmation of the +prevalent suspicion. But, when she introduced Berthault, Courault, and +her own almoner, Roussel, to the pulpits of the capital, and protected +them in their evangelical labors, the case ceased to admit of +doubt.<a name="FNanchor_311_311" id="FNanchor_311_311"></a><a href="#Footnote_311_311" class="fnanchor">[311]</a> She even persuaded the king to listen to a sermon in which +Le Coq, curate of St. Eustache, argued with force against the bodily +presence of Christ in the eucharist, and maintained that the very words, +"<i>Sursum corda</i>" in the church service, pointed Him out as to be found +at the right hand of God in heaven. Indeed, the eloquent preacher had +nearly convinced his royal listener, when the Cardinals of Tournon and +Lorraine, by a skilful stratagem, succeeded in destroying the impression +he had received, and, it is said, in inducing Le Coq to make a +retraction.<a name="FNanchor_312_312" id="FNanchor_312_312"></a><a href="#Footnote_312_312" class="fnanchor">[312]</a> But the opposition to the public proclamation of the +reformed doctrines was too formidable for their advocates to stem. Beda +and his colleagues in the Sorbonne left no device untried to silence the +preachers; and, although the restless syndic was in the end forced to +expiate his seditious words and writings by an <i>amende honorable</i> in +front of the church of Notre Dame, and died in prison,<a name="FNanchor_313_313" id="FNanchor_313_313"></a><a href="#Footnote_313_313" class="fnanchor">[313]</a> Roussel and +his fellow-preachers had long before been compelled to exchange their +public discourses for private exhortations, and finally to discontinue +even these and retreat from Paris.<a name="FNanchor_314_314" id="FNanchor_314_314"></a><a href="#Footnote_314_314" class="fnanchor">[314]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Margaret attacked in the College of Navarre.</div> + +<p>Even so, however, the theologians could not contain their indignation at +the insult they had received. In the excess of their zeal they went so +far as to hold up the king's sister to condemnation and derision, in one +of those plays which the students of the Collége de Navarre were +accustomed annually to perform, as a scholastic exercise in public +oratory (on the first of October, 1533). A gentle queen was here +represented as throwing aside needle and distaff, at the crafty +suggestion of a tempting fury, and as receiving in lieu of those +feminine implements a copy of the Gospels—when, lo! she was suddenly +transformed into a cruel tyrant. It was perhaps hard to detect the exact +connection between the acceptance of the holy book and so disastrous a +change of character—neither the students of the Collége de Navarre nor +their teachers thought it worth while to trouble themselves about such +trifles—but there was no difficulty in recognizing Margaret in the +principal actor of the play, or in deciphering the name of Master Gérard +Roussel—Magister Gerardus—in <i>Megæra</i>, the fury with the flaming +torch, that seduced her. On complaint of his sister, Francis, in some +indignation, ordered the arrest of the author of the insipid drama, as +well as of the youthful performers. The former could not be found, and +the latter, thanks to the queen's clemency, escaped with a less rigorous +punishment than the insult deserved.<a name="FNanchor_315_315" id="FNanchor_315_315"></a><a href="#Footnote_315_315" class="fnanchor">[315]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Her Miroir de l'âme pécheresse.</div> + +<p>An equally audacious act was the insertion of a work published by +Margaret, under the title of <i>Le miroir de l'âme pécheresse</i>, in a list +of prohibited books. When the university, to whom the censorship of the +press was entrusted, was called to account by the king, all the +faculties promptly repudiated any intention to cast doubt upon the +orthodoxy of his sister, and even the originator of the offensive +prohibition was forced to plead ignorance of the authorship of the +volume in question. The rector of the university termi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span>nated the long +series of disclaimers by rendering thanks to Francis for his fatherly +patience.<a name="FNanchor_316_316" id="FNanchor_316_316"></a><a href="#Footnote_316_316" class="fnanchor">[316]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Rector Cop's address to the university.</div> + +<p>Just a month after the unlucky dramatic representation of the Collége de +Navarre, the city was furnished with fresh food for scandal. On All +Saints' day (the first of November, 1533), the university assembled +according to custom in the church of the Mathurins, to listen to an +address delivered by the rector. But Nicholas Cop's discourse was not of +the usual type. Under guise of a disquisition on "Christian Philosophy," +the orator preached an evangelical sermon, with the First Beatitude for +his text, and propounded the view that the forgiveness of sin and +eternal life are simple gifts of God's grace that cannot be earned by +man's good works.<a name="FNanchor_317_317" id="FNanchor_317_317"></a><a href="#Footnote_317_317" class="fnanchor">[317]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Its extraordinary character.</div> + +<p>Never had academic harangue contained sentiments savoring so strongly of +the tenets of the persecuted reformers. True, the rector had not omitted +the ordinary invitation to his hearers to join him in the salutation of +the Virgin.<a name="FNanchor_318_318" id="FNanchor_318_318"></a><a href="#Footnote_318_318" class="fnanchor">[318]</a> But even this mark of orthodox Catholicity could not +remove the taint of heresy from an address the whole drift of which was +to establish the cardinal doctrine of the theology of Luther and +Zwingle. It was a bold step. The doctors of the Sorbonne could not +suppress their indignation, and Franciscan monks denounced the rector to +the Parliament of Paris. When summoned to appear before the court to +answer the charges<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> brought against him, Cop at first endeavored to +arouse in the university the traditional jealousy of this invasion of +scholastic privileges, claiming that these were violated by his being +cited to parliament before he had been in the first instance tried by +his peers. And, indeed, after a tumultuous meeting of the university, +called at the Mathurins a fortnight after the delivery of Cop's address +(the nineteenth of November), the Faculty of Arts came to the same +conclusion.<a name="FNanchor_319_319" id="FNanchor_319_319"></a><a href="#Footnote_319_319" class="fnanchor">[319]</a> But, although the "Four Nations," and apparently the +Faculty of Medicine also, promised their support, the Faculties of +Theology and Law refused, and Cop did not venture to press his point. +Warned of his danger by a friendly tongue, when already on his way to +the <i>Palais de Justice</i>, in full official costume and accompanied by his +beadles, he consulted his safety by a precipitate flight from the city +and from the kingdom.<a name="FNanchor_320_320" id="FNanchor_320_320"></a><a href="#Footnote_320_320" class="fnanchor">[320]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Calvin the real author.</div> + +<p>The incidents just narrated derive their chief interest from the +circumstance that they bring to our notice for the first time a young +man, Jean Cauvin, or Calvin, of Noyon, soon to figure among the most +important actors in the intellectual and religious history of the modern +world; for it was not many days before the authorship of the startling +theological doctrines enunciated by the rector was directly traced to +his friend and bosom companion, the future reformer of Geneva. In fact, +Calvin seems to have supplied Cop with the entire address—a production +not altogether unworthy of that clear and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> vigorous intellect which, +within less than two years, conceived the plan of and matured the most +orderly and perfect theological treatise of the Reformation—the +"Institution Chrétienne." Between the sketch of Christian Philosophy in +the discourse written for the rector, and the Christian Institutes, +there is, nevertheless, a contrast too striking to be overlooked. And if +the salutation to the Virgin, in the exordium, was actually penned by +Calvin, as is not improbable, the change in his religious convictions +would appear to have been as marked and rapid as the development of his +intellectual faculties. At any rate, the recent discovery of the +complete manuscript of Nicholas Cop's oration ranks among the most +opportune and welcome of antiquarian successes in our times.<a name="FNanchor_321_321" id="FNanchor_321_321"></a><a href="#Footnote_321_321" class="fnanchor">[321]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">He seeks safety in flight.</div> + +<p>Calvin was soon reduced to the necessity of following the rector's +example in fleeing from Paris; for the part he had had in preparing the +address had become the public talk. The young scholar—he was only in +his twenty-fifth year—sought for by the sanguinary +<i>lieutenant-criminel</i>, Jean Morin, barely made good his escape. +Proceeding to Angoulême, he enjoyed, under the friendly roof of Louis de +Tillet, a short period of quiet and an opportunity to pursue his +favorite studies.<a name="FNanchor_322_322" id="FNanchor_322_322"></a><a href="#Footnote_322_322" class="fnanchor">[322]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Francis rejects roughly the intercession of the Bernese.</div> + +<p>The incessant representations made to the king respecting the rapid +progress of "Lutheran" doctrines in France, and perhaps also the +occurrence of such incidents as that just mentioned, seem to have been +the cause of the adoption of new measures against the Reformation and +its professors. Already, in October, Francis had written a rough answer +to the Council of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> the Canton of Berne, expressing extreme surprise that +they had ventured to intercede for the relatives of Guillaume Farel, +accused of heresy, and to beg him to give no credit in this matter +either to the royal officers or to the inquisitors of the faith.<a name="FNanchor_323_323" id="FNanchor_323_323"></a><a href="#Footnote_323_323" class="fnanchor">[323]</a> +And he had used these significant words: "Desiring the preservation of +the name of <i>very Christian king</i>, acquired for us by our predecessors, +<i>we have nothing in the world more at heart than the entire extirpation +of heresies, and nothing could induce us to suffer them to take root in +our kingdom</i>. Of this you may rest well assured, and leave us to proceed +against them, without your giving yourselves any solicitude. <i>For +neither your prayers, nor those of any one else whomsoever, could be of +any avail in this matter with us.</i>"<a name="FNanchor_324_324" id="FNanchor_324_324"></a><a href="#Footnote_324_324" class="fnanchor">[324]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Royal letter to the Bishop of Paris.</div> + +<p>On his return from the marriage of his son Henry to Catharine de' +Medici, celebrated only four days before Cop's university harangue, +Francis was induced to make new provisions for the detection and +punishment of dissent. Alarmed by the progress of "Lutheran" sentiments +in his very capital, as reported to him by parliament, he not only urged +that body to renewed diligence, but directed the Bishop of Paris, the +tolerant Jean du Bellay, who may have been suspected of too much +supineness in the matter,<a name="FNanchor_325_325" id="FNanchor_325_325"></a><a href="#Footnote_325_325" class="fnanchor">[325]</a> to confer upon two counsellors of +parliament all the authority necessary to act for him, without prejudice +to his jurisdiction in other cases.<a name="FNanchor_326_326" id="FNanchor_326_326"></a><a href="#Footnote_326_326" class="fnanchor">[326]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> Both parliament and bishop +were at the same time notified of the receipt of two fresh bulls, kindly +furnished by Pope Clement, at Francis's request, to help in the good +work of extirpating "that accursed Lutheran sect."<a name="FNanchor_327_327" id="FNanchor_327_327"></a><a href="#Footnote_327_327" class="fnanchor">[327]</a></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<div class="blockquot"><div class="sidenote">Elegies on Louis de Berquin.</div> + +<p>The number of extant poems on the death of Louis de Berquin attests +very clearly the estimate placed upon him by the Roman Catholics as +the most dangerous heretic—in fact, the <i>heresiarch</i> of the day. A +stanza of eight lines, which seems to have been popular (for it has +been discovered in MS. both in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Génin, +i. 219, and in the library of Soissons, Bulletin de la Soc. de +l'hist. du prot. franç., xi. 131), represents the four elements as +conspiring, at God's bidding, to take vengeance upon him:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Du faux Berquin et de ses documens<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dieu s'est vengé par les quatre élémens:<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Terre</i> luy a désnie sépulture;<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Feu</i> l'a destruit et sa fausse escripture;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tisons par <i>eau</i> pluviale arrosez<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Se sont plus fort esmeus et embrasez.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dont (pour la fin du malheureux comprendre)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">L'<i>air</i> par les vents en a receu la cendre."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>I have been so fortunate as to discover two other poems on the same +subject, in a little collection in my possession entitled <i>Martini +Theodorici Bellovaci Epigrammata</i> (Parisiis, 1539), which seems to +be of such rarity that these pieces may almost be viewed in the +light of inedited documents. They are of special interest because +of the singular circumstance that this collection of extremely +"Catholic" effusions is dedicated to <i>Odet de Coligny</i>, Cardinal of +Châtillon, Archbishop of Toulouse, Bishop and Count of Beauvais, +elder brother of the more famous <i>Admiral</i> massacred on St. +Bartholomew's day. Cardinal Châtillon, created such when only +thirteen years old, was, at the time of the publication of this +book, a youth of scarcely more than twenty-two, and a devout Roman +Catholic, but subsequently, as elsewhere stated, became an avowed +Protestant and a prominent Huguenot leader.</p> + +<p>In the first of these poems, under the heading of <i>Elegia Ludovici +Berquuyni</i>, the writer would almost seem to have had in mind the +description by the ancient dramatists of the impious warfare of +Capaneus breathing out boastful threats against Jove himself +(Septem con. Theb., 416, etc.), or the Titans in conflict with the +Gods.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Occultum patuit quod non celarier ultra<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Debuit. Excellens Jupiter egit opus.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sublimi elatum dejecit sede potentem,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Qui modo regnabat, qui modo jura dabat,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Quique superbifico regalia limina gressu<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Tantum incedebat, pastus honore levi,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Et cedrina petens famæ monimenta perennis.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Insigni optabat sanctior esse Numa.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lector, Ave, et causam properes dignoscere: casus<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Hæreseos fœda labe volutus erat.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hoc impune nefas solida an ratione stetisset,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Et Petri hausissent æquora vasta ratim,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Inviolata fides æterno permanet ævo.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Percutit injustos ira molesta Dei;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Quem neque præmeditans latuit Nero, funera cujus<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Distulit adversa in tempora longa vice.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Occidit ergo miser, Divumque hominumque favore,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Traduxitque illuc sors malesuada virum.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nil gravius pugnare Deo, pugnare feroci<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Fortunæ. Vinci magnus uterque nequit."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The other elegy is shorter and less striking in conception, but +gives a similar impression of the importance assigned to Louis de +Berquin's activity and influence:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Francia dum hymnidico resonet pæane juventus,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Parisia extincto gaudeat hoste phalanx.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hic dudum, et nuper morbo scabiosus edaci,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Francorum reliquas inficiebat oves.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Cognitus haud potuit mundari errore nefando,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Quin purgaretur lucidiore foco.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nam quamvis concessa esset clementia, durus<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Obstitit, et rapido malluit igne mori."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The library of Soissons contains a MS. lament from a Protestant +source over the death of De Berquin, which is at once simple and +touching. It is printed in the Bulletin, xi. 129-131.</p></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER V.</h2> + +<h3>MELANCHTHON'S ATTEMPT AT CONCILIATION, AND THE YEAR OF THE PLACARDS.</h3> + + +<p>It appears almost incredible that, so late as in the year 1534, the hope +of reuniting the discordant views of the partisans of reform and the +adherents of the Roman Church should have been seriously entertained by +any considerable number of reflecting minds, for the chasm separating +the opposing parties was too wide and deep to be bridged over or filled. +There were irreconcilable differences of doctrine and practice, and +tendencies so diverse as to preclude the possibility of harmonious +action.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Hopes of reunion in the church.</div> + +<p>Not so, however, thought many sincere persons on both sides, and not +less on the side of the Reformation than on that of the Roman Catholic +Church. True, the claims of the papacy were insupportable, and the most +flagrant abuses prevailed; but many of the reformers believed it quite +within the bounds of possibility that the great body of the supporters +of the church might be brought to recognize and renounce these abuses, +and break the tyrannical yoke that had, for so many centuries, rested +upon the neck of the faithful. The ancient fabric of religion, they +said, is indeed disfigured by modern additions, and has been brought, by +long neglect, to the very verge of ruin. But these tasteless +excrescences can easily be removed, the ravages of time reverently +repaired, and the grand old edifice restored to its pristine symmetry +and magnificence. In a word, it was a general <i>reformation</i> that was +contemplated—no radical reconstruction after a novel plan. And the +future <i>council</i>, in which all phases of opinion<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> would be freely +represented, was to provide the adequate and sufficient cure for all the +ills afflicting the body politic and ecclesiastic.</p> + +<p>By some of the more sanguine adherents of both parties these flattering +expectations were long entertained. With others the attempt to effect a +religious reconciliation seems to have served merely as a mask to hide +political designs; and at this distance of time it is among the most +difficult problems of history to determine the proportion in which +earnest zeal and rank insincerity entered as factors into the measures +undertaken for the purpose of reconciling theological differences. +Especially is this true respecting the overtures made by the French +monarch to Philip Melanchthon, which now claim our attention.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Melanchthon and Du Bellay.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">A plan of reconciliation.</div> + +<p>Early in the spring of the year 1534 Melanchthon received a courteous +visit at Wittemberg from an agent of the distinguished French +diplomatist, Guillaume du Bellay-Langey, envoy to the Protestant princes +of Germany. The interview paved the way for a long correspondence +between Melanchthon and Du Bellay himself, in which the latter threw out +suggestions of the practicability of some plan for bringing the +intelligent and candid men in both countries to adopt a common ground in +respect to religion. Finally, in response to Du Bellay's earnest +request, his correspondent consented to draw up such a scheme as +appeared to himself proper to serve for the basis of union. The result +was a paper of a truly wonderful character, in which the reader scarcely +knows whether to admire the evident charity dictating every line, or to +smile at the simplicity betrayed in the extravagant concessions. In a +letter accompanying his proposal Melanchthon set forth at some length +both his motives and his hopes. In touching upon controverted points, he +claimed to have exhibited a moderation that would prove to be not +without utility to the church. He professed his own belief that an +accommodation might be effected on every doctrinal point, if only a free +and amicable conference were to be held, under royal auspices, between a +few good and learned men. The subjects of dispute were less numerous +than was generally supposed, and the edge of many a sharply drawn<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> +theological distinction had been insensibly worn away by the softening +hand of time. By such a conference as he proposed the perils of a public +discussion could be avoided—a form of controversy fatal, for the most +part, to the peace of the unlearned. In fact, no radical change was +absolutely required in the ancient order or in ecclesiastical polity. +Not even the pontifical authority itself need necessarily be abolished; +for it was the desire of the Lutheran party, so far as possible, to +retain all the accustomed forms. In fine, he begged Du Bellay to exhort +the monarchs of Europe to concord while yet there was room left for the +counsels of moderation. What calamities might otherwise be in store! +What a ruin both of church and state, should a collision of arms be +precipitated!<a name="FNanchor_328_328" id="FNanchor_328_328"></a><a href="#Footnote_328_328" class="fnanchor">[328]</a></p> + +<p>But Melanchthon's ardor had carried him far beyond his true reckoning. +No other reformer could have brought himself to approve the articles now +submitted for the king's perusal; while it was certain that not even +this unbounded liberality would satisfy the exorbitant demands of the +Roman party.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Melanchthon's concessions.</div> + +<p>Melanchthon not only admitted that an ecclesiastical system with bishops +in many cities was lawful, but that the Roman pontiff might preside over +the entire episcopate. He countenanced, to a certain extent, the current +doctrine respecting human tradition and the retention of auricular +confession. He discerned a gradual approach to concord in respect to +justification, and found no difficulty in the divergent views of free +will and original sin. He did, indeed, insist upon the rejection of the +worship of saints, and advocate expunging from the ritual all appeals +for their assistance. So, too, monks ought to be allowed to forsake the +cloister, and monastic establishments could then be advantageously +turned into schools of learning. The celibacy of the clergy should, in +like manner, be forthwith granted. There was, however, in his view, one +point that bristled with difficulties. How to remove them Melanchthon +confessed himself unable to suggest. The question of the popish mass was +the Gordian knot which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> must be reserved for the future council of the +church to untie or cut.<a name="FNanchor_329_329" id="FNanchor_329_329"></a><a href="#Footnote_329_329" class="fnanchor">[329]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">His own misgivings.</div> + +<p>A faint suspicion seems, however, to have flitted through the Wittemberg +reformer's mind, that possibly, after all his large admissions, his +attempt was but labor lost! For, in a letter to Martin Bucer, written on +the very day he despatched his communication to Du Bellay, he more than +hinted his own despair of effecting an agreement with the Pope of Rome, +and excused himself for his apparently lavish proffers, on the plea that +he was desirous of making his good French friends comprehend the chief +points of controversy!<a name="FNanchor_330_330" id="FNanchor_330_330"></a><a href="#Footnote_330_330" class="fnanchor">[330]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">A favorable impression made on Francis.</div> + +<p>Melanchthon's articles, faithfully transmitted by Du Bellay, produced on +the mind of Francis a favorable impression. The ambitious monarch +welcomed the prospect of a speedy removal of the doctrinal differences +that had previously marred the perfect understanding he wished to +maintain with the Protestant princes of Germany. Whether, however, any +higher motives than considerations of a political character weighed with +him, may well be doubted.</p> + +<p>Meantime, an unexpected occurrence for the time dispelled all thought of +that harvest of conciliation and harmony which the more moderate +reformers looked for as likely to spring up from the seed so liberally +sown by Melanchthon.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Indiscreet partisans of reform.</div> + +<p>If, among the advocates of the purification of the church, there was a +party which, with Melanchthon, seemed ready to jeopard some of the most +vital principles of the great moral and religious movement, in the vain +hope of again cementing an unnatural union with the Roman system, there +was another faction, to which moderation and half-way measures were +utterly repulsive. Its partisans believed themselves warranted in +resorting to open acts expressive of detestation of the gilded idolatry +of the popular religion. For their views they alleged the Old Testament +history as sufficient authority. Had not the servants of Jehovah braved +the resentment of the priests of Baal, and disregarded the threats<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> of +kings and queens? Why treat the saints' images, the crucifixes, the +gorgeous robes and manufactured relics, with more consideration than was +displayed by Hebrew prophets in dealing with heathen abominations? So +inveterate an evil as the corruption of all that is most sacred in +Christianity could only be successfully combated by vigor and decision. +Only under heavy and repeated blows does the monarch of the forest yield +to the axe of the woodman.</p> + +<p>Between the extremes of ill-judged concession and untimely rashness, the +great body of those who had embraced the Reformation endeavored to hold +a middle course, but found themselves exposed to many perils, not the +result of their own actions, but brought upon them by the timidity or +foolhardiness of their associates. A lamentable instance of the kind +must now be noticed.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Placards and pasquinades.</div> + +<p>For many months the street-walls of Paris had been employed by both +sides in the great controversies of the day, for the purpose of giving +publicity to their views. Under cover of night, placards, often in the +form of pasquinades, were posted where they would be likely to meet the +eyes of a large number of curious readers. So, in the excitement +following the arrest and exile of Beda and other impertinent and +seditious preachers, placards succeeded each other nightly. In one the +theologians of the Sorbonne were portrayed to the life, and each in all +his proper colors, by an unfriendly pencil. In another, "Paris, flower +of nobility" was passionately entreated to sustain the wounded faith of +God, and the King of Glory was supplicated to confound "the accursed +dogs," the Lutherans.<a name="FNanchor_331_331" id="FNanchor_331_331"></a><a href="#Footnote_331_331" class="fnanchor">[331]</a> Under the circumstances, it was not strange +that the "Lutheran" placard was hastily torn down by some zealot, with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> +the exclamation that the author was a heretic, while a crowd stood all +day about the other transcribing its unpoetic but pious exhortations to +burn the offenders against Divine justice, and no one attempted to +remove it.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Mission of Féret to Switzerland.</div> + +<p>The success of this method of reaching the masses, who could never be +induced to read a formal treatise or book, suggested to some of the more +ardent "Lutherans" of Paris the idea of preparing a longer placard, +which should boldly attack the cardinal errors of the papal system of +religion. But, the press being closely watched in the French capital, it +was thought best to have the placard printed in Switzerland, where, +indeed, the most competent and experienced hands might be found for +composing such a paper. The messenger employed was a young man named +Féret, an apprentice of the king's apothecary;<a name="FNanchor_332_332" id="FNanchor_332_332"></a><a href="#Footnote_332_332" class="fnanchor">[332]</a> and the printing +seems to have been done in the humble but famous establishment of Pierre +Van Wingle, in the retired Vale of Serrières, just out of Neufchâtel, +and on the same presses which, in 1533, gave to the world the first +French reformed liturgy, and, two years later, the Protestant +translation of the Bible into the French language by Olivetanus.<a name="FNanchor_333_333" id="FNanchor_333_333"></a><a href="#Footnote_333_333" class="fnanchor">[333]</a> +There is less certainty respecting the authorship, but it seems highly +probable that not Farel, but an enthusiastic and somewhat hot-headed +writer, Antoine de Marcourt, must be held responsible for this imprudent +production.<a name="FNanchor_334_334" id="FNanchor_334_334"></a><a href="#Footnote_334_334" class="fnanchor">[334]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The placard against the mass.</div> + +<p>Féret, having on his return eluded detection at the frontiers, reached +Paris in safety. He brought with him a large number of copies of a +broadside headed, "<i>True Articles respecting the horrible, great and +insupportable Abuses of the Papal Mass</i>." Among those to whom the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> paper +was secretly submitted, there were some who, more prudent than the rest, +decidedly opposed its publication. It was too violent, they said. The +writer's ill-advised severity would answer no good purpose. The tract +would alienate the sympathy of many, and thus retard, instead of +advancing, the cause it advocated.<a name="FNanchor_335_335" id="FNanchor_335_335"></a><a href="#Footnote_335_335" class="fnanchor">[335]</a> Remonstrance, however, proved +futile.</p> + +<p>Early on the morning of the eighteenth of October, 1534, a placard was +found posted upon the walls in all the principal thoroughfares of the +metropolis. Everywhere it was read with horror and indignation, mingled +with rage; and loud threats and curses were uttered against its unknown +author.</p> + +<p>The document that called forth these expressions and was the occasion of +more important commotions in the sequel, had so direct and potent an +influence upon the fortunes of the Reformation in France that it cannot +be passed over without a brief reference to the general character of its +contents. It began with a solemn address: "I invoke heaven and earth in +testimony of the truth, against that proud and pompous papal mass, +through which (if God remedy not speedily the evil) the world will be +wholly desolated, destroyed, and ruined. For therein is our Lord so +outrageously blasphemed and the people so blinded and seduced, that it +ought no longer to be suffered or endured." Every Christian must needs +be assured that the one sacrifice of Christ, being perfect, demands no +repetition. Still the world has long been, and now is, flooded with +wretched sacrificing priests, who yet proclaim themselves liars, +inasmuch as they chant every Sunday in their vespers, that Christ is a +priest forever after the order of Melchisedec. Wherefore not only every +man of sound understanding, but "they themselves, in spite of +themselves, must admit that the Pope and all his brood of cardinals, +bishops, monks, and canting mass-priests, with all who consent +thereunto, are false prophets, damnable deceivers, apostates, wolves, +false shepherds, idolaters, seducers, liars and execrable blasphemers, +murderers of souls, renouncers of Jesus Christ, of his death and +passion, false witnesses, traitors, thieves, and rob<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span>bers of the honor +of God, and more detestable than devils." After citing from the book of +Hebrews some passages to establish the sufficiency of Christ, the writer +addresses his opponents: "I demand then of all sacrificing priests, +whether their sacrifice be perfect or imperfect? If imperfect, why do +they deceive the poor people? If perfect, why need it be repeated? Come +forward, priests, and reply if you can!"</p> + +<p>The body of Christ cannot, it is argued, be contained in the host. It is +<i>above</i>, whither also we are bidden raise our hearts and look for the +Lord. To breathe or mutter over the bread and wine, and then adore them, +is idolatry. To enjoin this adoration on others is a doctrine of devils. +But these impudent heretics, not ashamed of attempting to imprison the +body of Jesus in their wafer, have even dared to place this caution in +the rubric of their missals, "If the body of our Lord, being devoured of +mice or spiders, has been destroyed or much gnawed, or if the worm be +found altogether within, let it be burned and placed in the reliquary." +"O Earth! How dost thou not open and swallow up these horrible +blasphemers! Wretched men, is this the body of the Lord Jesus, the true +Son of God? Doth he suffer himself to be eaten of mice and spiders? He +who is the bread of angels and of all the children of God, is he given +to us to become the food of animals? Will ye make him who is +incorruptible at the right hand of God to be the prey of worms and +corruption? Were there no other error than this in your infernal +theology, well would ye deserve the fagot! Light then your fires to burn +<i>yourselves</i>, not us who refuse to believe in your idols, your new gods, +and new Christs that suffer themselves to be eaten indifferently by +animals and by you who are no better than animals!"<a name="FNanchor_336_336" id="FNanchor_336_336"></a><a href="#Footnote_336_336" class="fnanchor">[336]</a> Closing with a +vivid contrast between the fruits of the mass and those of the true +Supper of our Lord, the writer finally exclaims of his opponents, "Truth +fails them, Truth threatens and pursues them, Truth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> terrifies them; by +which their reign shall shortly be destroyed forever."<a name="FNanchor_337_337" id="FNanchor_337_337"></a><a href="#Footnote_337_337" class="fnanchor">[337]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The popular excitement in Paris.</div> + +<p>It would be difficult to exaggerate the effect produced upon the +populace of Paris by this intemperate handbill. If any part of the +ceremonial of the church was deeply rooted in the devotion of the common +people, it was the service of the mass. And in attacking the doctrine of +the Real Presence, the authors of this libel, distributed under cover of +the darkness, had, in the estimation of the rabble, proved themselves +more impious and deserving a more signal punishment than that +sacrilegious Jew whose knife had drawn drops of miraculous blood from +the transubstantiated wafer. Not the parish priests, nor the doctors of +the Sorbonne, could surpass the infuriated populace in loud execrations +of the wretch for whom burning alive seemed too mild a punishment.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Anger of the king.</div> + +<p>But a second act of ill-timed rashness accomplished a result even more +disastrous for Protestantism than the kindling of the fanatical zeal of +the people; for it inflamed the anger of the king, and made him, what +all the persuasions of the Roman court had hitherto failed to make him, +a determined enemy and persecutor of the "new doctrines." A copy of the +placard was secretly affixed by night to the very door of the royal +bedchamber in the castle of Amboise,<a name="FNanchor_338_338" id="FNanchor_338_338"></a><a href="#Footnote_338_338" class="fnanchor">[338]</a> where Francis and his court +were at the time sojourning. If the contents of the tract offended the +religious principles carefully inculcated upon the king by his spiritual +instructors, the audacity of the person who, disregarding bars, bolts +and guards, had presumed to invade the privacy of the royal abode and +obtrude his unwelcome message, could not but be regarded in the light of +a direct personal insult. Francis had not been in the habit of troubling +himself about the private opinions of the learned on vexed points of +theology; nor had he been inclined to permit his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> more fanatical +subjects to harass any of those eminent scholars whose literary +attainments added lustre to his brilliant court. Yet his claim to the +right of enforcing uniformity of belief—and that uniformity a complete +<i>conformity</i> to his own creed—had rather been held in abeyance than +relinquished. Louis de Berquin had, at his cost, discovered that the +royal protection could not be expected even by a personal favorite and a +scholar of large acquisitions, when, not content with holding doctrines +deemed heretical, he strove to promulgate them. The interposition of +Margaret of Angoulême had proved unavailing in his behalf. The heretics +who had now ventured to nail an exposé of their dogmas on his bedchamber +door could scarcely anticipate greater clemency.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Political considerations.</div> + +<p>To personal motives were added political considerations. Indulgence to +the perpetrators of an act so insulting to the Roman Catholic religion +might drive the pontiff, whose friendship was an essential requisite of +success in Francis's ambitious projects, to become the fast friend of +the emperor, his rival. Pope Clement the Seventh had been succeeded by +Paul the Third. The alliance cemented by the marriage of the Duke of +Orleans to Catharine de' Medici had been dissolved by the death of the +bride's uncle. The favor of the new Pope must be conciliated. Under such +circumstances, what were the sufferings of a few poor reformers, when +weighed in the balance against the triple crown of his Holiness?</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Fruitless intercession of Margaret.</div> + +<p>Francis determined to return to Paris for the purpose of superintending +in person a search for the culprits. It is true that the Queen of +Navarre attempted to moderate his anger by suggesting that it was not +unlikely that the placard, far from being composed by the "Lutherans," +was the cunning device of their enemies, who thus sought to insure the +ruin of the innocent. But the king appears not unreasonably to have +rejected the suggestion as improbable; although, seven years later, +Margaret reminded him of her surmise, and maintained that the sequel had +strongly confirmed its accuracy.<a name="FNanchor_339_339" id="FNanchor_339_339"></a><a href="#Footnote_339_339" class="fnanchor">[339]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Francis abolishes the art of printing.</div> + +<p>Far, indeed, from yielding to his sister's persuasions, Francis in his +anger took a step which he would certainly have been glad himself, a few +months later, to be able to forget, and of which his panegyrists have +fruitlessly striven to obliterate the memory. On the thirteenth of +January, 1535, after the lapse of nearly three months from the date of +the publication of the placards—an interval that might surely be +regarded as sufficiently long to permit his overheated passions to cool +down—the king sent to the Parliament of Paris <i>an Edict absolutely +prohibiting any exercise of the Art of Printing in France, on pain of +the halter</i>! It was no secret from whom the ignoble suggestion had come. +A year and a half earlier (on the seventh of June, 1533), the +theologians of the Sorbonne had presented Francis an urgent petition, in +view of the multiplication of heretical books, wherein they set forth +the absolute necessity of suppressing forever by a severe law the +pestilent art which had been the parent of so dangerous a progeny.<a name="FNanchor_340_340" id="FNanchor_340_340"></a><a href="#Footnote_340_340" class="fnanchor">[340]</a> +The king was now acting upon the advice of his ghostly counsellors!</p> + +<div class="sidenote">He suspends the disgraceful edict.</div> + +<p>Happily for Francis, however, whose ambition it had hitherto been to +figure as a modern Mæcenas, even a subservient parliament declined the +customary registration. The king, too, coming to his senses after the +lapse of six weeks, so far yielded to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> the remonstrances of his more +sensible courtiers as to recall his rash edict, or, rather, suspend its +operation until he could give the matter more careful consideration. +Meanwhile he undertook to institute a censorship. The king was to select +twelve persons of quality and pecuniary responsibility, from a list of +twice that number of names submitted by parliament; and this commission +was to receive the exclusive right to print—and that, in the city of +Paris alone—such books as might be approved by the proper authorities +and be found necessary to the public weal. Until the appointment of the +twelve censors the press was to remain idle! Nor was the suspension of +the prohibitory ordinance to continue a day longer than the term +required by the monarch to decide whether he preferred to modify its +provisions or leave them unchanged. "Albeit on the thirteenth day of +January, 1534,"<a name="FNanchor_341_341" id="FNanchor_341_341"></a><a href="#Footnote_341_341" class="fnanchor">[341]</a> wrote this much lauded patron of letters, "by other +letters-patent of ours, and for the causes and reasons therein +contained, <i>we prohibited and forbade any one from thenceforth printing, +or causing to be printed, any books in our kingdom, on pain of the +halter</i>: nevertheless, we have willed and ordained that the execution +and accomplishment of our said letters, prohibitions and injunctions, be +and continue suspended and surcease until we shall otherwise +provide."<a name="FNanchor_342_342" id="FNanchor_342_342"></a><a href="#Footnote_342_342" class="fnanchor">[342]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Vigorous proceedings of parliament.</div> + +<p>Meantime, parliament had not been slack in obeying the command to search +diligently for the authors and publishers of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> the placards. Many reputed +"Lutherans" had been arrested, some of whom, it was given out, pretended +to reveal the existence of a plot of the reformers to fall upon the good +Christians of the metropolis while assembled in their churches for +divine worship, and assassinate them in the midst of their devotions! +The credulous populace made no difficulty in accepting the tale. Paris +shuddered at the thought of its narrow escape, and some hundreds of +thousands of men and women reverently crossed themselves and thanked +heaven they had not fallen a prey to the blood-thirsty designs of a +handful of peaceable and unarmed adherents of the "new doctrines!" As +for Francis himself, a grave historian tells us that his apprehensions +were inflamed by the very mention of the word "conspiracy."<a name="FNanchor_343_343" id="FNanchor_343_343"></a><a href="#Footnote_343_343" class="fnanchor">[343]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Abundance of victims.</div> + +<p>The investigation had been committed to practised hands. The prosecuting +officer, or <i>lieutenant-criminel</i>, Morin, was as famous for his cunning +as he was notorious for his profligacy. Moreover, the judicious addition +of six hundred <i>livres parisis</i> to his salary afforded him a fresh +stimulus and prevented his zeal from flagging.<a name="FNanchor_344_344" id="FNanchor_344_344"></a><a href="#Footnote_344_344" class="fnanchor">[344]</a> The timidity or +treachery of one of the prisoners facilitated the inquest. Terrified by +the prospect of torture and death, or induced by hope of reward, a +person, obscurely designated as <i>le Guainier</i>, or <i>Gueynier</i>,<a name="FNanchor_345_345" id="FNanchor_345_345"></a><a href="#Footnote_345_345" class="fnanchor">[345]</a> made +an ample disclosure of the names and residences of his former +fellow-believers. The pursuit was no longer confined to those who had +been concerned in the distribution of the placards. All reputed heretics +were apprehended, and, as rapidly as their trials could be prosecuted, +condemned to death. There was a rare harvest of falsehood and +misrepresentation. No wonder that innocent and guilty were involved in +one common fate.<a name="FNanchor_346_346" id="FNanchor_346_346"></a><a href="#Footnote_346_346" class="fnanchor">[346]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span></p> + +<p>It does not come within the scope of this history to give an edifying +account of the courage displayed by the victims of the frenzy consequent +upon the placards. The very names of many are unknown. Among the first +to be committed to the flames was a young man, Barthélemi Milon, whom +paralysis had deprived of the use of the lower half of his body.<a name="FNanchor_347_347" id="FNanchor_347_347"></a><a href="#Footnote_347_347" class="fnanchor">[347]</a> +His unpardonable offence was that copies of the placard against the mass +had been found in his possession. A wealthy draper, Jean du Bourg, had +been guilty of the still more heinous crime of having posted some of the +bills on the walls. For this he was compelled before execution to go +through that solemn mockery of penitence, the <i>amende honorable</i>, in +front of the church of Notre Dame, with but a shirt to conceal his +nakedness, and holding a lighted taper in his hand; afterward to be +conducted to the <i>Fontaine des Innocents</i>, and there have the hand that +had done the impious deed cut off at the wrist, in token of the public +detestation of his "high treason against God and the king." A printer, a +bookseller, a mason, a young man in orders, were subjected to the same +cruel death. But these were only the first fruits of the +prosecution.<a name="FNanchor_348_348" id="FNanchor_348_348"></a><a href="#Footnote_348_348" class="fnanchor">[348]</a> However opinions may differ respecting the merits of +the cause for which they suffered, there can be but one view taken of +their deportment in the trying hour of execution. In the presence of the +horrible preparatives for torture, the most clownish displayed a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> +fortitude and a noble consciousness of honest purpose, contrasted with +which the pusillanimous dejection, the unworthy concessions, and the +premeditated perjury of Francis, during his captivity at Madrid not ten +years before, appear in no enviable light. The monarch who bartered away +his honor to regain his liberty<a name="FNanchor_349_349" id="FNanchor_349_349"></a><a href="#Footnote_349_349" class="fnanchor">[349]</a> might have sat at the feet of +these, his obscure subjects, to learn the true secret of greatness.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">The great expiatory procession.</div> + +<p>The punishment of the persons who had taken part in the preparation and +dissemination of the placards was deemed an insufficient atonement for a +crime in the guilt of which they had involved the city, and, indeed, the +whole kingdom. As the offence excelled in enormity any other within the +memory of man, so it was determined to expiate it by a solemn procession +unparalleled for magnificence. Thursday, the twenty-first of January, +1535, was chosen for the pageant. Along the line of march the streets +had been carefully cleaned. A public proclamation had bidden every +householder display from his windows the most beautiful and costly +tapestries he possessed. At the doors of all private mansions large +waxen tapers burned, and, at the intersection of all side streets, +wooden barriers, guarded by soldiers, precluded the possibility of +interruption.</p> + +<p>Early on the appointed morning, the entire body of the clergy of Paris, +decked out in their most splendid robes and bearing the insignia of +their respective ranks, assembled in Notre Dame, and thence in solemn +state marched to the church of St. Germain l'Auxerrois, to meet the +king. Sixteen dignitaries bore<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> aloft the precious reliquary of Sainte +Geneviève; others in similar honor supported the no less venerated +reliquary of Saint Marcel. Those skilled in local antiquities averred +that never before had the sacred remains of either saint been known to +be brought across the Seine to grace any similar display.</p> + +<p>At Saint Germain l'Auxerrois—that notable church under the very shadow +of the Louvre, whose bell, a generation later, gave the first signal for +the massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day—the royal court and the civil and +municipal bodies that had been permitted to appear on so august an +occasion, were in waiting. At length the magnificent column began its +progress, and threading the crowded streets of St. Honoré and St. Denis, +made its way, over the bridge of Notre Dame, to the island upon which +stood and still stands the stately cathedral dedicated to Our Lady. Far +on in the van rode Éléonore, Francis's second queen, sister to the +emperor, conspicuous for her dignified bearing, dressed in black velvet +and mounted on a palfrey with housings of cloth of gold. In her company +were the king's daughters by his former wife, the "good Queen Claude," +all in dresses of crimson satin embroidered with gold; while a large +number of princesses and noble ladies, with attendant gentlemen and +guards, constituted their escort.</p> + +<p>The monastic orders came next. Franciscans, Dominicans, Augustinians, +Carmelites, all were there, with burning tapers and highly prized +relics. The parish churches were represented in like manner by their +clergy; and these were followed by the chapter of the cathedral and by +the multitudinous professors and scholars of the university. Between +this part of the procession and the next, came a detachment of the Swiss +guards of the king, armed with halberds, and a band of skilled musicians +performing, on trumpets, hautboys, and other instruments, the airs of +the solemn hymns of the church.</p> + +<p>An honorable place was held by the ecclesiastics of the "Sainte +Chapelle," originally built by Louis the Ninth, in the precincts of his +own palace, for the reception of the marvellous relics he brought home +from Holy Land. Those relics were all here, together with the other +costly possessions of the chapel—the crown of thorns, the true cross, +Aaron's rod that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> budded, the great crown of St. Louis, the head of the +holy lance, one of the nails used in our Lord's crucifixion, the tables +of stone, some of the blood of Christ, the purple robe, and the milk of +the Virgin Mary—all borne in jewelled reliquaries by bishops.</p> + +<p>Four cardinals in scarlet robes followed—Givri, Tournon, Le Veneur, and +Châtillon—an uncongenial group, in which the violent persecutor and the +future partisan of the Reformation walked side by side. But the central +point in the entire procession was occupied not by these, but by Jean du +Bellay, Bishop of Paris, bearing aloft a silver cross in which was +enclosed the consecrated wafer of the eucharist, whose title to +adoration it was the grand object of the celebration to vindicate. The +king's three sons—the dauphin, and the Dukes of Orleans and +Angoulême—with a fourth prince of the blood—the Duke of Bourbon +Vendôme—held the supports of a magnificent canopy of velvet, sprinkled +with golden fleurs-de-lis, above the bishop and his sacred charge. +Francis himself walked behind him, with a retinue of nobles, officers of +government, judges of parliament, and other civilians closing the line. +The king was naturally the object of universal observation.</p> + +<p>Dressed in robes of black velvet lined with costly furs, he devoutly +followed the elevated host, with uncovered head, and with a large waxen +taper in his hands. Several stations had, at great expense, been erected +along the designated route. At each of these the procession halted, and +the Bishop of Paris placed the silver cross with its precious contents +in a niche made to receive it. Then the king, having handed his taper to +the Cardinal of Lorraine at his side, knelt down and reverently +worshipped with joined hands, until a grand anthem in honor of the +sacrament had been intoned. The scene had been well studied, and it made +the desired impression upon the by-standers. "There was no one among the +people," say the registers of the Hôtel de Ville in unctuous phrase, "be +he small or great, that did not shed warm tears and pray God in behalf +of the king, whom he beheld performing so devout an act and worthy of +long remembrance. And it is to be believed that there lives not a Jew +nor an infidel who, had he witnessed the example of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> the prince and his +people, would not have been converted to the faith."<a name="FNanchor_350_350" id="FNanchor_350_350"></a><a href="#Footnote_350_350" class="fnanchor">[350]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Memorable speech of the king.</div> + +<p>At the conclusion of the mass—the most brilliant that had ever been +celebrated within the walls of the cathedral, Francis proceeded to the +episcopal palace, to dine in public, with the princes his children, the +high nobility, cardinals, ambassadors, privy counsellors, and some of +the judges of the Parliament of Paris. Here it was that he delivered a +speech memorable in the history of the great religious movement of the +time. Addressing parliament and representatives of the lower judiciary, +Francis plainly disclaimed all sympathy with the Reformation. "The +errors," he said, "which have multiplied, and are even now multiplying, +are but of our own days. Our fathers have shown us how to live in +accordance with the word of God and of our mother Holy Church. In that +church I am resolved to live and die, and I am determined to prove that +I am entitled to be called Very Christian. I notify you that it is my +will that these errors be driven from my kingdom. Nor shall I excuse any +from the task. <i>Were one of my arms infected with this poison, I should +cut it off! Were my own children contaminated, I should immolate +them!</i><a name="FNanchor_351_351" id="FNanchor_351_351"></a><a href="#Footnote_351_351" class="fnanchor">[351]</a> I therefore now impose this duty upon you, and relieve +myself of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> responsibility." Turning to the doctors of the university, +the king reminded them that the care of the faith was entrusted to them, +and he therefore appealed to them to watch over the orthodoxy of all +teachers and report all defections to the secular courts.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Constancy of the sufferers.</div> + +<p>Francis had spoken in the heat of passion, but, in the words of a +contemporary, "if his fury was great, still greater was the constancy of +the martyrs."<a name="FNanchor_352_352" id="FNanchor_352_352"></a><a href="#Footnote_352_352" class="fnanchor">[352]</a> Of this, indeed, the king did not have to wait long +for a proof. For, after having witnessed, in company with the queen, the +<i>amende honorable</i> of six condemned "Lutherans" or "Christaudins," which +took place on the square in front of the cathedral, Francis, as he +returned to the Louvre, passed the places where these unfortunates were +undergoing their supreme torments—three near the <i>Croix du Tiroir</i>, in +the Rue St. Honoré, and three at the Halles. The first were men of some +note—Simon Fouhet, of Auvergne, one of the royal choristers, supposed +to have been the person who posted the placard in the castle of Amboise, +Audebert Valleton, of Nantes, and Nicholas L'Huillier, from the Châtelet +of Paris. The others were of an inferior station in life—a fruitster, a +maker of wire-baskets, and a joiner. All, however, with almost equal +composure, submitted to their fate as to the will of Heaven, rather than +the sentence of human judges; scarcely seeming, in their firm +anticipation of an immortal crown, to notice the tumultuous outcries of +an infuriated mob which nearly succeeded in snatching them from the +officers of the law, in order to have the satisfaction of tearing their +bodies to pieces.<a name="FNanchor_353_353" id="FNanchor_353_353"></a><a href="#Footnote_353_353" class="fnanchor">[353]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Ingenious contrivance for protracting torture.</div> + +<p>It would seem, however, that the most relentless enemy could scarcely +have complained that any womanish indulgence had been shown to the +persons singled out to expiate the crime of posting the placard against +the mass. To delay the advent of death, the sole term of their +excruciating sufferings, an ingeniously contrived instrument of torture +was put in play, which if not altogether novel, had at least been but +seldom employed up to this time. Instead of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> being bound to the stake +and simply roasted to death by means of the fagots heaped up around him, +the victim was now suspended by chains over a blazing fire, and was +alternately lowered into it and drawn out—a refinement of cruelty whose +principal recommendation to favor lay in the fact that the diversion it +afforded the spectators could be made to last until they were fully +satisfied, and the executioner chose to allow the writhing sufferer to +be suffocated in the flames.<a name="FNanchor_354_354" id="FNanchor_354_354"></a><a href="#Footnote_354_354" class="fnanchor">[354]</a> So satisfactory were the results of +the <i>Estrapade</i>, that it came to be universally employed as the +instrument for executing "Lutherans," with the exception of a favored +few, to whom the privilege was accorded of being hung or strangled +before their bodies were thrown into the fire. Such was, soon after this +time, the fate of a woman, a school-teacher by profession, found guilty +of heresy. In any case, the judges took effectual measures to forestall +the deplorable consequences that might ensue from permitting the +"Lutherans" to address the by-standers, and so pervert them from the +orthodox faith. The hangman was instructed to pierce their tongue with a +hot iron, or to cut it out altogether; just as, at a later date, the +sound of the drum was employed to drown the last utterances of the +victims of despotism.<a name="FNanchor_355_355" id="FNanchor_355_355"></a><a href="#Footnote_355_355" class="fnanchor">[355]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Flight of Marot.</div> + +<p>The flames of persecution were not extinguished with the conclusion of +the solemn expiatory pageant. For months strangers sojourning in Paris +shuddered at the horrible sights almost daily meeting their eyes.<a name="FNanchor_356_356" id="FNanchor_356_356"></a><a href="#Footnote_356_356" class="fnanchor">[356]</a> +The lingering hope that a prince naturally clement and averse to +needless bloodshed, would at length tire of countenancing these +continuous scenes of atrocity,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> seemed gradually to fade away. Great +numbers of the most intelligent and scholarly consulted their safety in +flight; the friendly court of Renée of France, Duchess of Ferrara, +affording, for a time, asylum to Clément Marot, the poet, and to many +others. Meantime the suspected "Lutherans" that could not be found were +summoned by the town-crier to appear before the proper courts for trial. +A list of many such has escaped destruction of time.<a name="FNanchor_357_357" id="FNanchor_357_357"></a><a href="#Footnote_357_357" class="fnanchor">[357]</a> Fortunately, +most of them had gotten beyond the reach of the officers of the law, and +the sentence could, at most, effect only the confiscation of their +property.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Royal declaration of Coucy, July 16, 1535.</div> + +<p>As summer advanced, however, the rigor of the persecution was perceived +to be somewhat abating. Finally, on the sixteenth of July, the king so +far yielded to the urgency of open or secret friends of progress among +the courtiers, as to issue a "Declaration" to facilitate the return of +the fugitives. "Forasmuch," said Francis, "as the heresies, which, to +our great displeasure, had greatly multiplied in our kingdom, have +ceased, as well by the Divine clemency and goodness, as by the diligence +we have used in the exemplary punishment of many of their +adherents—who, nevertheless, were not in their last hours abandoned by +the hand of our Lord, but, turning to Him, have repented, and made +public confession of their errors, and died like good Christians and +Catholics—no further prosecution of persons suspected of heresy shall +be made, but they will be discharged from imprisonment, and their goods +restored. For the same reason, all fugitives who return and <i>abjure +their errors</i> within six months will receive pardon. But +<i>Sacramentarians</i><a name="FNanchor_358_358" id="FNanchor_358_358"></a><a href="#Footnote_358_358" class="fnanchor">[358]</a> and the relapsed are excluded from this offer. +Furthermore, all men are forbidden, under<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> pain of the gallows, and of +being held rebels and disturbers of the public peace, to read, teach, +translate or print, whether publicly or in private, any doctrine +contrary to the Christian faith."<a name="FNanchor_359_359" id="FNanchor_359_359"></a><a href="#Footnote_359_359" class="fnanchor">[359]</a> The concession, it must be +confessed, was not a very liberal one; for the exiles could return only +on condition of recanting. Yet the new regulations were mild in +comparison with the previous practice, which consigned all the guilty +alike to death, and left no room for repentance. Consequently, there +were not a few, especially of the learned who had been suspected of +heresy, that were found ready to avail themselves of the permission, +even on the prescribed terms.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Alleged intercession of Pope Paul III.</div> + +<p>In explanation of this change in the policy of Francis, the most +remarkable rumors circulated among the people. Not the least strange was +one that has been preserved for us by a contemporary.<a name="FNanchor_360_360" id="FNanchor_360_360"></a><a href="#Footnote_360_360" class="fnanchor">[360]</a> It was +reported in the month of June, 1535, that Pope Paul the Third, having +been informed of "the horrible and execrable" punishments inflicted by +the king upon the "Lutherans," wrote to Francis and begged him to +moderate his severity. The pontiff did, indeed, express his conviction +that the French monarch had acted with the best intentions, and in +accordance with his claim to be called the Very Christian King. But he +added, that when God, our Creator, was on earth, He employed mercy +rather than strict justice. Rigor ought not always to be resorted to; +and this burning of men alive was a cruel death, and better calculated +to lead to rejection of the faith than to conversion.<a name="FNanchor_361_361" id="FNanchor_361_361"></a><a href="#Footnote_361_361" class="fnanchor">[361]</a> He therefore +prayed the king to appease his anger, to abate the severity of justice, +and grant pardon to the guilty. Francis, consequently, because of his +desire to please his Holiness, became more moderate, and enjoined upon +parliament to practise<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> less harshness. For this reason the judges +ceased from criminal proceedings against the "Lutherans," and many +prisoners were discharged both from the Conciergerie and from the +Châtelet.</p> + +<p>That this extraordinary rumor was in general circulation appears from +the circumstance that it is alluded to by a Paris correspondent of +Melanchthon; while another account that has recently come to light +states it not as a flying report, but as a well-ascertained fact.<a name="FNanchor_362_362" id="FNanchor_362_362"></a><a href="#Footnote_362_362" class="fnanchor">[362]</a> +Its <i>singularity</i> is shown from its apparent inconsistency with the +well-known history and sentiments of the Farnese Paul. It is difficult +to conceive how the pontiff who approved of the Society of Jesus and +instituted the Inquisition in the kingdom of Naples, could have been +touched with compassion at the recital of the suffering of French +heretics. Yet the paradoxes of history are too numerous to permit us to +reject as apocryphal a story so widely current, or to explain it away by +making it only a popular echo of the convictions of the more enlightened +as to the views that were most befitting the claimant to a universal +episcopate.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Clemency again dictated by policy.</div> + +<p>Francis himself, however, made no such statement to the Venetian +ambassador at his court. Marino Giustiniano, who gave in his report to +the doge and senate this very year, was informed by the French king +that, on hearing of the suspension by the Emperor Charles the Fifth of +all sentences of death against the Flemish heretics, he had also himself +ordered that against every species of heretics, except the +Sacramentarians, proceedings should indeed be held as before, but <i>not +to the extremity of death</i>.<a name="FNanchor_363_363" id="FNanchor_363_363"></a><a href="#Footnote_363_363" class="fnanchor">[363]</a> It is evident,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> therefore, that the +suppression of the most cruel features of the persecution had no higher +motive than political considerations. Francis had worked himself into a +frenzy, and counterfeited the sincerity of a bigot, when it was +necessary to make the Pope a friend, and a show of sanguinary ardor +seemed most adapted to accomplish his object. He now became tolerant, on +discovering that the course he had entered upon was alienating the +Protestant princes of Germany, upon whose support he relied in his +contest with Charles the Fifth. The turning-point appears to have been +coincident with the time when he found that the emperor was endeavoring +to outbid him by offering a short-lived toleration to the Netherlanders.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Francis writes to the German princes.</div> + +<p>Only eleven days after the solemn propitiatory procession, and while the +trial and execution of the French reformers were still in progress, +Francis had written to his allies beyond the Rhine, in explanation of +the severe punishment of which such shocking accounts had been +circulated in their dominions. He justified his course by alleging the +disorderly and rebellious character of the culprits, and laid great +stress upon the care he had taken to secure German Protestants from +danger and annoyance.<a name="FNanchor_364_364" id="FNanchor_364_364"></a><a href="#Footnote_364_364" class="fnanchor">[364]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Melanchthon entreated to come to France.</div> + +<p>A month later, Voré de la Fosse was on his way to Wittemberg, on a +private mission to Melanchthon. He was bearer of a long and important +letter from John Sturm. The learned writer, a German scholar of eminence +and a friend of the reformed doctrines, was at this time lecturing in +Paris, and after his departure from Francis's dominions, became rector +of the infant university of Strasbourg. He contrasted the hopeful strain +in which he had described to his correspondent the prospects of +religion, a year since, with the terrors of the present situation. +Crediting the king with the best intentions, he cast the blame of so +disastrous a change upon the insane authors of the placards, who had +drawn on themselves a punishment that would have been well deserved, had +it been moderate in degree. But, unhappily, the innocent had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> been +involved with the guilty, and informers had gratified private malice by +magnifying the offence. Francis had, it was true, been led, at the +intercession of Guillaume du Bellay and his brother, the Bishop of +Paris, to interpose his authority and protect the Germans residing in +his realm. But, none the less, he begged Melanchthon to fly to his +succor, and to exert an influence over the king which was the result of +Voré's continual praise, in putting an end to this unfortunate state of +things. Francis, he added, was willing to give pledges for the +reformer's safety, and would send him back in great honor to his native +land, after the conclusion of the proposed conference. "Lay aside, +therefore," wrote Sturm, "the consideration of kings and emperors, and +believe that the voice that calls you is the voice of God and of +Christ."<a name="FNanchor_365_365" id="FNanchor_365_365"></a><a href="#Footnote_365_365" class="fnanchor">[365]</a> Voré followed up this invitation with great earnestness +both in personal interviews and by letter.<a name="FNanchor_366_366" id="FNanchor_366_366"></a><a href="#Footnote_366_366" class="fnanchor">[366]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">His perplexity.</div> + +<p>What answer should the reformer give to so pressing an invitation? In +his acknowledgment of Sturm's letter, Melanchthon confessed that no +deliberation had ever occasioned him so much perplexity. It was not that +domestic ties retained him or dangers deterred him. But he was harassed +by the fear that he would be unable to accomplish any good. If only this +doubt—amounting almost to <i>despair</i>—could be removed, he would fly to +France without delay. He approved—so he assured his correspondent—of +checking those fanatics who were engaged in sowing absurd and vile +doctrines, or created unnecessary tumults. But there were others against +whom no such charge could be brought, but who modestly professed the +Gospel. If through his exertions some slight concessions were obtained, +while points of greater importance were sacrificed, he would benefit +neither church nor state. What if he secured immunity from punishment +for such as had laid aside the monk's cowl? Must he then consent to the +execution of those conscientious men who disapproved of the evident +abuses of the mass and of the worship of the saints? Now, as it was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> +precisely the expression of this disapprobation that had caused the +present massacres, he trembled with fear lest he should be put in the +position of one that justified these atrocious severities. In short, it +was his advice, he said, in view of the cunning devices by which the +"phalanxes" of monks were wont to play upon the hopes and fears of the +high-born, that Francis, if honestly desirous of consulting the glory of +Christ, and the tranquillity of the church, be rather exhorted to +assemble a general council. Other measures appeared to him, not only +useless, but fraught with peril.<a name="FNanchor_367_367" id="FNanchor_367_367"></a><a href="#Footnote_367_367" class="fnanchor">[367]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Formal invitation from the king.</div> + +<p>At this point the king himself took a direct part in the correspondence. +On the twenty-third of June, 1535, he sent Melanchthon a formal request +to visit his court, and there dispute, in his presence, with a select +company of doctors, concerning the restoration of doctrinal unity and +ecclesiastical harmony. He assured the reformer that he had been +prompted by his own great zeal to despatch Voré with this letter—itself +a pledge of the public faith—and besought him to suffer no one to +persuade him to turn a deaf ear to the summons.<a name="FNanchor_368_368" id="FNanchor_368_368"></a><a href="#Footnote_368_368" class="fnanchor">[368]</a> Sturm, Cardinal du +Bellay, and his brother, all wrote successively, and urged Melanchthon +to come to a conference from which they hoped for every advantage.<a name="FNanchor_369_369" id="FNanchor_369_369"></a><a href="#Footnote_369_369" class="fnanchor">[369]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Melanchthon consents.</div> + +<p>No wonder that, after receiving so complimentary an invitation, +Melanchthon concluded to go to France, and applied (on the eighteenth of +August) to the Elector John Frederick for the necessary leave of +absence. He briefly sketched the history of the affair, and set forth +his own reluctance to enter upon his delicate mission, until provided +with the elector's permission and a safe conduct from the French +monarch. Two or three months only would be consumed, and he had made +arrangements for supplying his chair at Jena during this short +absence.<a name="FNanchor_370_370" id="FNanchor_370_370"></a><a href="#Footnote_370_370" class="fnanchor">[370]</a> It appears, however, that Melanchthon felt<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> less confident +of obtaining a gracious reply to his request than his words would seem +to indicate. Consequently, he deemed it prudent to ask Luther to write +first and urge his suit. The latter did not refuse his aid. "I am moved +to make this prayer," said Luther in his letter to the elector, "by the +piteous entreaty of worthy and pious persons who, having themselves +scarcely escaped the flames, have by great efforts prevailed upon the +king to suspend the carnage and extinguish the fires until Melanchthon's +arrival. Should the hopes of these good people be disappointed, the +bloodhounds may succeed in creating even greater bitterness, and proceed +with burning and strangling. So that I think that Master Philip cannot +with a clear conscience abandon them in such straits, and defraud them +of their hearty encouragement."<a name="FNanchor_371_371" id="FNanchor_371_371"></a><a href="#Footnote_371_371" class="fnanchor">[371]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The elector refuses to let him go.</div> + +<p>But even the great theological doctor's intercession was unavailing. The +very day the elector received "Master Philip's" application, he wrote to +Francis explaining his reasons for refusing to let Melanchthon go to +Paris. It is true that the letter was not actually sent until some ten +days later;<a name="FNanchor_372_372" id="FNanchor_372_372"></a><a href="#Footnote_372_372" class="fnanchor">[372]</a> but no entreaties could move the elector to reconsider +his decision. Melanchthon indignantly left the court and returned to +Jena.<a name="FNanchor_373_373" id="FNanchor_373_373"></a><a href="#Footnote_373_373" class="fnanchor">[373]</a> Here he subsequently received a written refusal from John +Frederick, couched in language far from agreeable. The elector expressed +astonishment that he should have permitted matters to go so far, and +that he continued to apply for permission even after his prince's desire +had been intimated. The danger to be apprehended for the peace of +Germany was far greater than any possible advantage that could be +expected from his mission. And the writer hinted very distinctly that +little confidence could be reposed in Francis's pro<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span>fessions, where the +Gospel was concerned, as public history sufficiently demonstrated.<a name="FNanchor_374_374" id="FNanchor_374_374"></a><a href="#Footnote_374_374" class="fnanchor">[374]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Melanchthon's chagrin.</div> + +<p>The most ungrateful of tasks was reserved for Melanchthon himself—the +task of explaining his inability to fulfil his engagement. In a letter +to Francis, he expressed the hope that the delay might be only +temporary, and he exhorted the king to resist violent counsels, while +seeking to promote religious harmony and public tranquillity by +peaceable means. To Du Bellay and Sturm he complained not a little of +the "roughness" of his prince, whom he had never found more "harsh." He +thought that the true motive of the elector's refusal was to be found in +the exaggerated report that he had given up everything, merely because +he had spoken too respectfully of the ecclesiastical power. "I am called +a deserter," he writes. "I am in great peril among our own friends on +account of this moderation; as moderate citizens are wont in civil +discords to be badly received by both sides. Evidently the fate of +Theramenes impends over me; for I believe Xenophon, who affirms that he +was a good man, not Lysias, who reviles him."<a name="FNanchor_375_375" id="FNanchor_375_375"></a><a href="#Footnote_375_375" class="fnanchor">[375]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The proposed conference reprobated by the Sorbonne.</div> + +<p>Meanwhile the proposed conference encountered no less decided +reprobation from the Sorbonne, to which Francis had submitted his +project. For the "articles" drawn up by Melanchthon, a year before, in a +spirit of conciliation much too broad to please the Protestants, when +placed in the hands of the same theological body, in a modified form, +and without the name of the author, were returned with a very +unfavorable report. The Parisian doctors suggested that, as an +appropriate method of satisfying himself whether there was any hope of +accommodation, Francis might propound such interrogatories as these to +the German theologians from whom the articles emanated: "Whether they +confessed the church militant, founded by divine right, to be incapable +of erring in faith and good morals, of which church, under our Lord +Jesus Christ, St. Peter and his successors have been the head. Whether +they will obey the church, receive the books of the Bible<a name="FNanchor_376_376" id="FNanchor_376_376"></a><a href="#Footnote_376_376" class="fnanchor">[376]</a> as holy +and canonical, accept the decrees of the general councils and of the +Popes, admit the Fathers to be the interpreters of the Scriptures, and +conform to the customs of the church?" As an insufferable grievance they +complained that the "articles" were not a request for <i>pardon</i>, but +actually a demand for <i>concessions</i>.<a name="FNanchor_377_377" id="FNanchor_377_377"></a><a href="#Footnote_377_377" class="fnanchor">[377]</a></p> + +<p>The plan to entrap Melanchthon and some considerable portion of the +German Protestants into conciliatory proposals which Luther and the more +decided reformers could not admit, having failed through the abrupt and +tolerably rude refusal of the Elector of Saxony to permit his +theological professor to comply with the invitation of Francis, the +latter appears to have deter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span>mined to put the best appearance upon the +affair. Accordingly, he promptly signified to the Sorbonne his approval +of its action, and he seems even to have suffered the rumor to gain +currency that he was himself dissuaded from bringing Melanchthon to +France, by the skilful arguments of the Cardinal of Tournon.<a name="FNanchor_378_378" id="FNanchor_378_378"></a><a href="#Footnote_378_378" class="fnanchor">[378]</a></p> + +<p>In spite of the rebuff he had received, however, Francis made an attempt +to effect such an arrangement with the Protestant princes of Germany as +would secure their co-operation in his ambitious projects against +Charles the Fifth. To compass this end he was quite willing to make +concessions to the Lutherans as extensive as those which Melanchthon had +offered the Roman Catholics.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Du Bellay's representations at Smalcald.</div> + +<p>Four months had not elapsed since the unsuccessful issue of his first +mission, before Du Bellay was again in Germany. On the nineteenth of +December, he presented himself to the congress of Protestant princes at +Smalcald. Much of his address was devoted to a vindication of his master +from the charge of cruelty to persons of the same religious faith as +that of the hearers. The envoy insisted that the Germans had been +misinformed: If Francis had executed some of his subjects, he had not +thereby injured the Protestants. The culprits professed very different +doctrines. The creed of the Germans had been adopted by common consent. +Francis admitted, indeed, that there were some useless and superfluous +ceremonies in the church, but could not assent to their indiscriminate +abrogation unless by public decree. Ought not the Protestant princes to +ascribe to their friend, the French king,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> motives as pure and +satisfactory as those that impelled them to crush the sedition of the +peasants and repress the Anabaptists? As for himself, Francis, although +mild and humane, both from native temperament and by education, had seen +himself compelled, by stern necessity and the dictates of prudence, to +check the promptings of his own heart, and assume for a time attributes +foreign to his proper disposition. For gladly as he listened to the +temperate discussion of any subject, he was justly offended at the +presumption of rash innovators, men that refused to submit to the +judgment of those whose prerogative it was to decide in such matters as +were now under consideration.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">He makes, in the name of Francis, a Protestant confession.</div> + +<p>Not content with general assurances, Du Bellay, in a private interview +with Brück, Melanchthon, and other German theologians, ventured upon an +exposition of Francis's creed which we fear would have horrified beyond +measure the orthodox doctors of the Sorbonne.<a name="FNanchor_379_379" id="FNanchor_379_379"></a><a href="#Footnote_379_379" class="fnanchor">[379]</a> He informed them, +with a very sober face, that the king's religious belief differed little +from that expressed in Melanchthon's "Common Places." His theologians +had never been able to convince him that the Pope's primacy was of +<i>divine</i> right. Nor had they proved to his satisfaction the existence of +<i>purgatory</i>, which, being the source of their lucrative masses and +legacies, they prized as their very life and blood. He was inclined to +limit the assumption of monastic vows to persons of mature age, and to +give monks and nuns the right of renouncing their profession and +marrying. He favored the conversion of monasteries into seminaries of +learning. While the French theologians insisted upon the celibacy of the +priesthood, for himself he would suggest the middle ground of permitting +such priests as had already married to retain their wives, while +prohibiting others from following their example, unless they resigned +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> sacerdotal office. He would have the sacramental cup administered +to the laity when desired, and hoped to obtain the Pope's consent. He +even admitted the necessity of reform in some of the daily prayers, and +reprehended the want of moderation exhibited by the Sorbonne, which not +only condemned the Germans, but would not hesitate on occasion to +censure the cardinals or the Holy Pontiff himself.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">The Germans are not deceived.</div> + +<p>We cannot find that Du Bellay's honeyed words produced any very deep +impression. Princes and theologians knew tolerably well both how sincere +was the king's profession of friendliness to the "Lutheran" tenets, and +what was the truth respecting the persecution that had raged for months +within his dominions. The western breezes came freighted with the fetid +smoke of human holocausts, and not even the perfume of Francis's +delicately scented speeches could banish the disgust caused by the +nauseating sacrifice. The princes might listen with studied politeness +to the king's apologetic words, and assent to the general truth that +sedition should be punished by severity; but they took the liberty, at +the same time, to express a fervent prayer that the advocates of a +reformed religion and a pure gospel might not be involved in the fate of +the unruly. And they disappointed the monarch by absolutely declining to +enter into any alliance against the Emperor Charles the Fifth. The +French ambassador returned home, and Francis so dexterously threw aside +the mask of pretended favor to a moderate reformation in the church, +that it soon became a disputed question whether he had ever assumed it +at all.<a name="FNanchor_380_380" id="FNanchor_380_380"></a><a href="#Footnote_380_380" class="fnanchor">[380]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Efforts of the French Protestants in Switzerland and +Germany.</div> + +<p>Meantime the French Protestants were unremitting in their efforts to +obtain a more satisfactory solution of the religious question than was +contained in the Declaration of Coucy. They wrote to Strasbourg, to +Berne, to Zurich, to Basle, imploring the intercession of these states. +Particular attention was drawn to the severe treatment endured by their +brethren in Provence and Dauphiny. The writers declared themselves to be +not rebels, but the most loyal of subjects, recognizing one God, one +faith, one law, and one king. They were not "Lutherans," nor +"Waldenses," nor "heretics;" but simply <i>Christians</i>, accepting the +Decalogue, the Apostles' Creed, and every doctrine taught in either +Testament. It was unreasonable that they should be compelled by fines, +imprisonment, or bodily pains, to abjure their faith, unless their +errors were first proved from the Bible, or before the convocation of a +General Council.<a name="FNanchor_381_381" id="FNanchor_381_381"></a><a href="#Footnote_381_381" class="fnanchor">[381]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">An appeal from Strasbourg and Zurich.</div> + +<p>The Swiss and Germans made a prompt response. The Senate of Strasbourg +addressed Francis, praising his clemency, but calling his attention to +the danger all good men were exposed to. "If but a single little word +escape the mouth of good Christian men, directed against the most +manifest abuses, nay, against the flagitious crimes of those who are +regarded as <i>ecclesiastics</i>, how easy will it be, inasmuch as these very +ecclesiastics are their judges, to cry out that words have been spoken +to the injury of the true faith, the Church of God, and its +traditions?"<a name="FNanchor_382_382" id="FNanchor_382_382"></a><a href="#Footnote_382_382" class="fnanchor">[382]</a></p> + +<p>Zurich, going even further, made the direct request of its royal ally, +that hereafter all persons accused of holding heretical views should be +permitted by his Majesty to clear themselves by an appeal to the pure +Word of God, and no longer be sub<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span>jected without a hearing to torture +and manifold punishments.<a name="FNanchor_383_383" id="FNanchor_383_383"></a><a href="#Footnote_383_383" class="fnanchor">[383]</a> Berne and Basle remonstrated with similar +urgency.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">An embassy receives an unsatisfactory reply.</div> + +<p>Receiving no reply to their appeal, in consequence of the king's +attention being engrossed by the war then in progress with the emperor, +and by reason of the dauphin's unexpected death, the same cantons and +Strasbourg, a few months later, were induced to send a formal embassy. +But, if the envoys were fed with gracious words, they obtained no real +concession. Francis assured the Bernese and their confederates that "it +was, as they well knew, only for love of them that he had enlarged the +provisions of his gracious Edict of Coucy, by lately<a name="FNanchor_384_384" id="FNanchor_384_384"></a><a href="#Footnote_384_384" class="fnanchor">[384]</a> extending +pardon to all exiles and fugitives"—that is, "Sacramentarians" and +"relapsed" persons included. This, it seemed to him, "ought to satisfy +them entirely."<a name="FNanchor_385_385" id="FNanchor_385_385"></a><a href="#Footnote_385_385" class="fnanchor">[385]</a> It was a polite, but none the less a very positive +refusal to entertain the suggestion that the abjuration of their +previous "errors" should no longer be required of all who wished to +avail themselves of the amnesty. Nor did it escape notice as a +significant circumstance, that Francis selected for his mouth-piece, not +the friendly Queen of Navarre, but the rough and bigoted +<i>Grand-Maître</i>—Anne de Montmorency, the future Constable of +France.<a name="FNanchor_386_386" id="FNanchor_386_386"></a><a href="#Footnote_386_386" class="fnanchor">[386]</a></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER VI.</h2> + +<h3>CALVIN AND GENEVA.—MORE SYSTEMATIC PERSECUTION BY THE KING.</h3> + + +<div class="sidenote">The placards of 1534 mark an epoch in the history of the +Huguenots.</div> + +<p>In the initial stage of great enterprises a point may sometimes be +distinguished at which circumstances, in themselves trivial, have shaped +the entire future. Such a point in the history of the Huguenots is +marked by the appearance of the "Placards" of 1534. The pusillanimous +retreat of Bishop Briçonnet from the advanced post he had at first +assumed, robbed Protestantism of an important advantage which might have +been retained had the prelate proved true to his convictions. But the +"Placards," with their stern and uncompromising logic, their biting +sarcasm, their unbridled invective, directed equally against the +absurdities of the mass and the inconsistencies of its advocates, +exerted a far more lasting and powerful influence than even the +lamentable defection of the Bishop of Meaux. Until now the attitude of +Francis with respect to the "new doctrines" had been uncertain and +wavering. It was by no means impossible that, imitating the example of +the Elector of Saxony, the French monarch should even yet put himself at +the head of the movement. Severe persecution had, indeed, dogged the +steps of the Reformation. Fire and gibbet had been mercilessly employed +to destroy it. The squares of Paris had already had the baptism of +blood. But the cruelties complained of by the "Lutherans," if tolerated +by Francis, had their origin in the bigotry of others. The Sorbonne and +the Parisian Parliament, Chancellor Duprat and the queen mother, Louise +of Savoie, are entitled to the unenviable distinction of having +instigated the sanguinary measures of re<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span>pression directed against the +professors of the Protestant faith, of which we have already met with +many fruits. The monarch, greedy of glory, ambitious of association with +cultivated minds, and aspiring to the honor of ushering in the new +Augustan age, more than once seemed half-inclined to embrace those +religious views which commended themselves to his taste by association +with the fresh and glowing ideas of the great masters in science and +art. More than once had the champions of the Church trembled for their +hold upon the sceptre-bearing arm; while as often their opponents, with +Francis's own sister, had cherished illusory hopes that the eloquent +addresses of Roussel and other court-preachers had left a deep impress +on the king's heart.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">The orthodoxy of Francis no longer questioned.</div> + +<p>But the "Placards" effectually dissipated alike these hopes and these +fears. There was no longer any question as to the orthodoxy of Francis. +Apologists for the Reformation might seek to undeceive his mind and +remove his prejudices. His own emissaries might endeavor to persuade the +Germans, of whose alliance he stood in need, that his views differed +little from theirs. But there can be no doubt that, whatever his +previous intentions had been, from this time forth his resolution was +taken, to use his own expression already brought to the reader's notice, +to live and die in Mother Holy Church, and demonstrate the justice of +his claim to the title of "very Christian." The audacity of the +Protestant enthusiast who penetrated even into the innermost recesses of +the royal castle, and affixed the placards to the very chamber door of +the king, was turned to good account by Cardinal Tournon and other +courtiers of like sentiments, and was adduced as a proof of the +assertion so often reiterated, that a change of religion necessarily +involved also a revolution in the State. The free tone of the placards +seemed to reveal a contemptuous disregard of dignities. The ridicule +cast upon the doctrine of transubstantiation was an assault on one of +the few dogmas respecting which Francis had implicit confidence in the +teachings of the Church. Henceforth the king figures on the page of +history as a determined opponent and persecutor of the Reformation, less +hostile, indeed, to the "Lutherans," than to the "Sacramentarians," or +"Zwinglians," but nevertheless an avowed enemy of innovation. The +change<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> was recognized and deplored by the Reformers themselves; who, +seeing Francis in the last years of his reign give the rein to shameful +debauchery, and meantime suffer the public prisons to overflow with +hundreds of innocent men and women, awaiting punishment for no other +offence than their religious faith, pointedly compared him to the +effeminate Sardanapalus surrounded by his courtezans.<a name="FNanchor_387_387" id="FNanchor_387_387"></a><a href="#Footnote_387_387" class="fnanchor">[387]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Change in the courtiers.</div> + +<p>While so marked a change came over the disposition of the king, it is +not strange that a similar revolution was noticed in the sentiments of +the courtiers—a class ever on the alert to detect the slightest +variation in the breeze to which they trim their sails. The greater part +of the high dignitaries, the early historian of the reformed churches +informs us, adapting themselves to the king's humor, abandoned the study +of the Bible, and in time became violent opponents of practices which +they had sanctioned by their own example. Even Margaret of Navarre is +accused by the same authority—and he honestly represents the belief of +the contemporary reformers—of having yielded to these seductive +influences. She plunged, like the rest, he tells us, into conformity +with the most reprehensible superstitions; not that she approved them, +but because Gérard Roussel and similar teachers persuaded her that they +were things indifferent. Thus, allowing herself to trifle with truth, +she was so blinded by the spirit of error as to offer an asylum in her +court of Nérac to Quintin and Pocques, blasphemous "Libertines" whose +doctrines called forth a refutation from the pen of Calvin.<a name="FNanchor_388_388" id="FNanchor_388_388"></a><a href="#Footnote_388_388" class="fnanchor">[388]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The French Reformation becomes a popular movement.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Geneva the centre of activity.</div> + +<p>The French Reformation was thus constrained to become a <i>popular</i> +movement. The king had refused to lead it. The nobles turned their backs +upon it. Its adherents, threatened with the gallows and stake, or driven +into banishment, could no longer look for encouragement or direction +toward Paris and the vicinage of the court. The timid counsels of the +high-born were to be exchanged for the bold and fiery words of reformers +sprung from the <i>people</i>. Excluded from the luxurious capital, the +Huguenots were, during a long series of years, to draw their inspiration +from a city at the foot of the Alps—a city whose invigorating climate +was no less adapted to harden the intellectual and moral constitution +than the bodily frame, and where rugged Nature, if she bestowed wealth +with no lavish hand, manifested her impartiality by more liberal +endowments conferred upon man himself. Geneva henceforth becomes the +centre of reformatory activity, of which fact we need no stronger +evidence than the severe legislation of France to destroy its influence; +and the same causes that gave the direction of the movement to the +people shaped its theological tendencies. Under the guidance of Francis +and Margaret, it must have assumed much of the German or Lutheran type; +or, to speak more correctly, the direct influence of Germany upon +France, attested by the name of "Lutherans," up to this time the +ordinary appellation of the French Protestants, would have been rendered +permanent. But now the persecution they had experienced, in consequence +of their opposition to the papal mass, confirmed the French reformers in +their previous views, and disinclined them to admit even such a +"consubstantiation" as Luther's followers insisted upon.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Geneva secures its independence.</div> + +<p>The same complicated political motives that led Francis to relax his +excessive rigor against the Protestants of his realm, in order to avoid +provoking the anger of the German princes, prompted him to assist in +securing the independence of Geneva, which, at the time, he little +dreamed would so soon become the citadel of French Protestantism. After +a prolonged contest, the city on the banks of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> the Rhône had shaken off +the yoke of its bishop, and had bravely repelled successive assaults +made by the Duke of Savoy. The first preachers of the Reformation, Farel +and Froment, after a series of attempts and rebuffs for romantic +interest inferior to no other episode in an age of stirring adventure, +had seen the new worship accepted by the majority of the people, and by +the very advocates of the old system, Caroli and Chapuis. If the grand +council had thus far hesitated to give a formal sanction to the +religious change, it was only through fear that the taking of so decided +a step might provoke more powerful enemies than the neighboring duke. +The latter, being fully resolved to humble the insubordinate burgesses, +had for two years been striving to cut off their supplies by garrisons +maintained in adjoining castles and strongholds; nor would his plans, +perhaps, have failed, but for the intervention of two powerful +opponents—Francis and the Swiss Canton of Berne.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">with the assistance of Francis I.</div> + +<p>Louise de Savoie was the sister of Duke Charles. Her son had a double +cause of resentment against his uncle: Charles had refused him free +passage through his dominions, when marching against the Milanese; and, +contrary to all justice, he persistently refused to give up the marriage +portion of his sister, the king's mother. Francis avenged himself, both +for the insult and for the robbery, by permitting a gentleman of his +bedchamber, by the name of De Verez, a native of Savoy, to throw himself +into the beleaguered city with a body of French soldiers.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">and the Bernese.</div> + +<p>While Geneva was thus strengthened from within, the Bernese, on receipt +of an unsatisfactory reply to an appeal in behalf of their allies, came +to their assistance with an army of ten or twelve thousand men. +Discouraged by the threatening aspect his affairs had assumed, Charles +relaxed his grasp on the throat of his revolted subjects, and withdrew +to a safe distance. His obstinacy, however, cost him the permanent loss +not only of Geneva, but of a considerable part of his most valuable +territories, including the Pays de Vaud—a district which, after +remaining for more than two hundred and fifty years a dependency of +Berne, has within the present<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> century (in 1803), become an independent +canton of the Swiss confederacy.<a name="FNanchor_389_389" id="FNanchor_389_389"></a><a href="#Footnote_389_389" class="fnanchor">[389]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Calvin the apologist of the Protestants.</div> + +<p>The horrible slanders put in circulation abroad, in justification of the +atrocities with which the unoffending Protestants of France were +visited, furnished the motive for the composition and publication of an +apology that instantly achieved unprecedented celebrity, and has long +outlived the occasion that gave it birth. The apology was the +"Institutes;" the author, John Calvin. With the appearance of his +masterpiece, a great writer and theologian, destined to exercise a wide +and lasting influence not only upon France, but over the entire +intellectual world, enters upon the stage of French history to take a +leading part in the unfolding religious and political drama.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">His birth and training.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Studies at Paris;</div> + +<div class="sidenote">also at Orleans and Bourges.</div> + +<p>John Calvin was born on the tenth of July, 1509, at Noyon, a small but +ancient city of Picardy. His family was of limited means, but of +honorable extraction. Gérard Cauvin, his father, had successively held +important offices in connection with the episcopal see. As a man of +clear and sound judgment, he was sought for his counsel by the gentry +and nobility of the province—a circumstance that rendered it easy for +him to give to his son a more liberal course of instruction than +generally fell to the lot of commoners. It is not denied by Calvin's +most bitter enemies that he early manifested striking ability. In +selecting for him one of the learned professions, his father naturally +preferred the church, as that in which he could most readily secure for +his son speedy promotion. It may serve to illustrate the degree of +respect at this time paid to the prescriptions of canon law, to note +that Charles de Hangest, Bishop of Noyon, conferred on John Calvin the +<i>Chapelle de la Gésine</i>, with revenues sufficient for his maintenance, +when the boy was but just twelve years of age! Such abuses as the gift +of ecclesiastical benefices to beardless youths, however, were of too +frequent occurrence to at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span>tract special notice or call forth unfriendly +criticism. With the same easy disregard of churchly order the chapter of +the cathedral of Noyon permitted Calvin, two years later, to go to +Paris, for the purpose of continuing his studies, without loss of +income; although, to save appearances, a pretext was found in the +prevalence of some contagious disease in Picardy. Not long after, his +father perceiving the singular proficiency he manifested, determined to +alter his plans, and devoted his son to the more promising department of +the law, a decision in which Calvin himself, already conscious of secret +aversion for the superstitions of the papal system, seems dutifully to +have acquiesced. To a friend and near relation, Pierre Robert +Olivetanus, the future translator of the Bible, he probably owed both +the first impulse toward legal studies and the enkindling of his +interest in the Sacred Scriptures. Proceeding next to Orleans, in the +university of which the celebrated Pierre de l'Étoile, afterward +President of the Parliament of Paris, was lecturing on law with great +applause, Calvin in a short time achieved distinction. Marvellous +stories were told of his rapid mastery of his subject. Not only did he +occasionally fill the chair of an absent professor, and himself lecture, +to the great admiration of the classes, but he was offered the formal +rank of the doctorate without payment of the customary fees. Declining +an honorable distinction which would have interfered with his plan of +perfecting himself elsewhere, he subsequently visited the University of +Bourges, in order to enjoy the rare advantage of listening to Andrea +Alciati, of Milan, reputed the most learned and eloquent legal +instructor of the age.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">His studies under Wolmar.</div> + +<p>Meanwhile, however, Calvin's interest in biblical study had been +steadily growing, and at Bourges that great intellectual and religious +change appears to have been effected which was essential to his future +success as a reformer. He attached himself to Melchior Wolmar, a +distinguished professor of Greek, who had brought with him from Germany +a fervent zeal for the Protestant doctrines. Wolmar, reading in the +young law student the brilliant abilities that were one day to make his +name illustrious, prevailed upon him to devote him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span>self to the study of +the New Testament in the original. Day and night were spent in the +engrossing pursuit, and here were laid the foundations of that profound +biblical erudition which, at a later date, amazed the world, as well, +unfortunately, as of that feeble bodily health that embittered all +Calvin's subsequent life with the most severe and painful maladies, and +abridged in years an existence crowded with great deeds.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Translates Seneca "De Clementia."</div> + +<p>The illness and death of his father called Calvin back to Noyon,<a name="FNanchor_390_390" id="FNanchor_390_390"></a><a href="#Footnote_390_390" class="fnanchor">[390]</a> +but in 1529 we find him again in Paris, where three years later he +published his first literary effort. This was a commentary on the two +books of Seneca, "De Clementia," originally addressed to the Emperor +Nero. The opinion has long prevailed that it was no casual selection of +a theme, but that Calvin had conceived the hope of mitigating hereby the +severity of the persecution then raging. The author's own +correspondence, however, betrays less anxiety for the attainment of that +lofty aim, than nervous uneasiness respecting the literary success of +his first venture. Indeed, this is not the only indication that, while +Calvin was already, in 1532, an accomplished scholar, he was scarcely as +yet a <i>reformer</i>, and that the stories of his activity before this time +as a leader and religious teacher, at Paris and even at Bourges, deserve +only to be classed with the questionable myths obscuring much of his +history up to the time of his appearance at Geneva.<a name="FNanchor_391_391" id="FNanchor_391_391"></a><a href="#Footnote_391_391" class="fnanchor">[391]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Calvin's escape from Paris to Angoulême.</div> + +<p>The incident that occasioned Calvin's flight from Paris was narrated in +a previous chapter. Escaping from the officers sent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> to apprehend him as +the real author of the inaugural address of the rector, Nicholas Cop, +Calvin found safety and scholastic leisure in the house of his friend +Louis du Tillet, at Angoulême. If we could believe the accounts of later +writers, we should imagine the young scholar dividing his time in this +retreat between the preparation of his "Institutes" and systematic +labors for the conversion of the inhabitants of the south-west of +France. Tradition still points out the grottos in the vicinity of +Poitiers, where, during a residence in that city, Calvin is said to have +exclaimed, pointing to the Bible lying open before him: "Here is my +mass;" and then, with uncovered head and eyes turned toward heaven, +"Lord, if at the judgment-day thou shalt reprove me because I have +abandoned the mass, I shall reply with justice, 'Lord, thou hast not +commanded it. Here is thy law. Here are the Scriptures, the rule thou +hast given me, wherein I have been unable to find any other sacrifice +than that which was offered upon the altar of the cross!'"<a name="FNanchor_392_392" id="FNanchor_392_392"></a><a href="#Footnote_392_392" class="fnanchor">[392]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">He resigns his benefices.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">He reaches Basle.</div> + +<p>The caverns bearing Calvin's name may never have witnessed his +preaching, and the address ascribed to him rests on insufficient +authority;<a name="FNanchor_393_393" id="FNanchor_393_393"></a><a href="#Footnote_393_393" class="fnanchor">[393]</a> but it is certain that the future reformer about this +time took his first decided step in renouncing connection with the Roman +Church, by resigning his benefices, the revenues of which he had +enjoyed, although precluded by his youth from receiving ordination.<a name="FNanchor_394_394" id="FNanchor_394_394"></a><a href="#Footnote_394_394" class="fnanchor">[394]</a> +Not many months later, finding himself solicited on all sides to take an +active part as a teacher of the little companies of Protestants<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> arising +in different cities of France, he resolved to leave France and court +elsewhere obscurity and leisure to prosecute undisturbed his favorite +studies.<a name="FNanchor_395_395" id="FNanchor_395_395"></a><a href="#Footnote_395_395" class="fnanchor">[395]</a> Accordingly, we find him, after a brief visit to Paris and +Orleans, reaching the city of Basle, apparently toward the close of the +year 1534.<a name="FNanchor_396_396" id="FNanchor_396_396"></a><a href="#Footnote_396_396" class="fnanchor">[396]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Apologetic character given to his great work.</div> + +<p>It was here that Calvin appears to have conceived for the first time the +purpose of giving a practical aim to the great work upon the composition +of which he had been some time busy. In spite of his professions of +unsullied honor, Francis the First had not hesitated to disseminate, by +means of his agents beyond the Rhine, the most unfounded and injurious +reports respecting his Protestant subjects. It was time that these +aspersions should be cleared away, and an attempt be made to touch the +heart of the persecuting monarch with compassion for the unoffending +objects of his blind fury. Such was the object Calvin set before himself +in a preface to the first edition of the "Institutes," addressed "To the +Very Christian King of France."<a name="FNanchor_397_397" id="FNanchor_397_397"></a><a href="#Footnote_397_397" class="fnanchor">[397]</a> It was a document of rare +importance.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The preface to the "Christian Institutes."</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Eloquent peroration.</div> + +<p>He briefly explained the original design of his work to be the +instruction of his countrymen, whom he knew to be hungering and +thirsting for the truth. But the persecutions that had arisen and that +left no place for sound doctrine in France induced him to make the +attempt at the same time to acquaint the king with the real character of +the Protestants and their belief. He assured Francis that the book +contained nothing more nor less than the creed for the profession of +which so many Frenchmen were being visited with imprisonment, +banishment, outlawry, and even fire, and which it was sought to +exterminate from the earth. He drew a fearful picture of the calumnies +laid to the charge of this devoted people, and of the wretched church of +France, already half destroyed, yet still a butt for the rage of its +enemies. It was the part of a true king, as the vicegerent of God, to +administer justice in a cause so worthy of his consideration. Nor ought +the humble condition of the oppressed to indispose him to grant them a +hearing; for the doctrine they professed was not their own, but that of +the Almighty himself. He boldly contrasted the evangelical with the +papal church, and refuted the objections urged against the former. He +defended its doctrine from the charge of novelty, denied that +miracles—especially such lying wonders as those of Rome—were necessary +in confirmation of its truth, and showed that the ancient Fathers, far +from countenancing, on the contrary, condemned the superstitions of the +day. He refuted the charge that Protestants forsook old customs when +good, or abandoned the only visible church; and in a masterly manner +vindicated the Reformation from the oft-repeated charge of being the +cause of sedition, conflict, and confusion. He begged for a fair and +impartial hearing. "But," he exclaimed in conclud<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span>ing, "if the +suggestions of the malevolent so fill your ears as to leave no room for +the reply of the accused, and those importunate furies continue, with +your consent, to rage with bonds and stripes, with torture, +confiscation, and fire, then shall we yield ourselves up as sheep +appointed for slaughter, yet so as to possess our souls in patience, and +await the mighty hand of God, which will assuredly be revealed in good +time, and be stretched forth armed for the deliverance of the poor from +their affliction, and for the punishment of the blasphemers now exulting +in confidence of safety. May the Lord of Hosts, illustrious king, +establish your seat in righteousness and your throne with equity."<a name="FNanchor_398_398" id="FNanchor_398_398"></a><a href="#Footnote_398_398" class="fnanchor">[398]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Has no effect in allaying persecution.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Calvin achieves distinction.</div> + +<p>The learned theologian's eloquent appeal failed to accomplish its end. +If Francis ever received, he probably disdained to read even the +dedication, classed by competent critics among the best specimens of +writing in the French language,<a name="FNanchor_399_399" id="FNanchor_399_399"></a><a href="#Footnote_399_399" class="fnanchor">[399]</a> and must have regarded the volume +to which it was prefixed as a bold vindication of heresy, and scarcely +less insulting to his majesty than the placards themselves. Others, +better capable of forming a competent judgment, or more willing to give +it a dispassionate examination, applauded the success of a hazardous +undertaking that might have appalled even a more experienced writer than +the French exile of Noyon. The Institutes gave to a young man, who had +scarcely attained the age at which men of mark usually begin to occupy +themselves with important<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> enterprises, the reputation of being the +foremost theologian of the age.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">He revises the Bible of Olivetanus.</div> + +<p>Other studies invited Calvin's attention. Not content with perfecting +himself in the original languages of the Holy Scriptures, he revised +with care the French Protestant Bible, translated by his relation +Olivetanus, of which we shall have occasion to speak in another chapter. +Meanwhile, in an age of intense mental and moral awakening, no +scholastic repose, such as he had pictured to himself, awaited one who +had made good his right to a foremost rank among the athletes in the +intellectual arena.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Visits Italy.</div> + +<p>Before his unexpected call to a life of unremitting conflict, Calvin +visited Italy. In the entire absence of any trustworthy statement of the +occasion of this journey, it is almost idle to speculate on the objects +he had in view.<a name="FNanchor_400_400" id="FNanchor_400_400"></a><a href="#Footnote_400_400" class="fnanchor">[400]</a> Certain, however, it is that the court of the +Duchess Renée, at Ferrara, offered to a patriotic Frenchman attractions +hard to be resisted.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">The court of Renée de France.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Brantôme's eulogy of Renée.</div> + +<p>The younger daughter of Louis the Twelfth resembled her father not less +in character than in appearance and speech.<a name="FNanchor_401_401" id="FNanchor_401_401"></a><a href="#Footnote_401_401" class="fnanchor">[401]</a> Cut off by the +pretended Salic law from the prospect of ascending the throne, she had +in her childhood been thrown as a straw upon the variable tide of +fortune. After having been promised in marriage to Charles of Spain, +heir to the most extensive and opulent dominions the sun shone upon, and +future Emperor of Germany, she had (1528) been given in marriage to the +ruler of a petty Italian duchy, himself as inferior to her in mind as in +moral character.<a name="FNanchor_402_402" id="FNanchor_402_402"></a><a href="#Footnote_402_402" class="fnanchor">[402]</a> As for Renée, if her face was homely and +unprepossessing, her intellect was vigorous. She had turned to good +account the opportunities<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> for self-improvement afforded by her high +rank. Admiring courtiers made her classical and philosophical +attainments the subject of lavish panegyric, perhaps with a better basis +of fact than in the case of many other princes of the time; while with +the French, her countrymen, the generous hospitality she dispensed won +for her unfading laurels. "Never was there a Frenchman," writes the Abbé +de Brantôme, "who passing through Ferrara applied to her in his distress +and was suffered to depart without receiving ample assistance to reach +his native land and home. If he were unable to travel through illness, +she had him cared for and treated with the utmost solicitude, and then +gave him money to continue his journey."<a name="FNanchor_403_403" id="FNanchor_403_403"></a><a href="#Footnote_403_403" class="fnanchor">[403]</a> Ten thousand poor +Frenchmen are said to have been saved by her munificent charity, on the +occasion of the recall of the Duke of Guise, after Constable +Montmorency's disastrous defeat at St. Quentin. Her answer to the +remonstrance of her servants against this excessive drain upon her +slender resources bore witness at once to the sincerity of her +patriotism and to a virile spirit which no Salic law could +extinguish.<a name="FNanchor_404_404" id="FNanchor_404_404"></a><a href="#Footnote_404_404" class="fnanchor">[404]</a></p> + +<p>The brief stay of Calvin at Ferrara is involved in the same obscurity +that attends his motives in visiting Italy. But it is known that he +exerted at this time a marked influence not only on others,<a name="FNanchor_405_405" id="FNanchor_405_405"></a><a href="#Footnote_405_405" class="fnanchor">[405]</a> but on +Renée de France herself, who, from this period forward, appears in the +character of an avowed friend of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> the reformatory movement. Calvin had +from prudence assumed the title of <i>Charles d'Espeville</i>, and this name +was retained as a signature in his subsequent correspondence with the +duchess.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Calvin leaves Ferrara.</div> + +<p>A point so close to the centre of the Roman Catholic world as Ferrara +could scarcely afford safety to an ardent reformer, even if the fame of +his "Institutes" had not yet reached Rome; and Ercole the Second was too +dependent upon the Holy See to shrink from sacrificing the guest his +wife had invited to the palace. Returning, therefore, from Ferrara, +without apparently pursuing his journey to Rome or even to Florence, +Calvin retraced his steps and took refuge beyond the Alps. Possibly he +may have stopped on the way in the valley of Aosta, and displayed a +missionary activity, which has been denied by several modern critics, +but is attested by local monuments and tradition, and has some support +in contemporary documents.<a name="FNanchor_406_406" id="FNanchor_406_406"></a><a href="#Footnote_406_406" class="fnanchor">[406]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Revisits France.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Is recognized while passing through Geneva.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Farel compels him to remain.</div> + +<p>Once more in Basle, Calvin resolved, after a final visit to the home of +his childhood, to seek out some quiet spot in Germany,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> there to give +himself up to those scholarly labors which he fancied would be more +profitable to France than the most active enterprises he might engage in +as a preacher of the Gospel. He had accomplished the first part of his +design, had disposed of his property in Noyon, and was returning with +his brother and sister, when the prevalence of war in the Duchy of +Lorraine led him to diverge from his most direct route, so as to +traverse the dominions of the Duke of Savoy and the territories of the +confederate cantons of Switzerland. Under these circumstances, for the +first time, he entered the city of Geneva, then but recently delivered +from the yoke of its bishop and of the Roman Church. He had intended to +spend there only a single night.<a name="FNanchor_407_407" id="FNanchor_407_407"></a><a href="#Footnote_407_407" class="fnanchor">[407]</a> He was accidentally recognized by +an old friend, a Frenchman, who at the time professed the reformed +faith, but subsequently returned to the communion of the Church of +Rome.<a name="FNanchor_408_408" id="FNanchor_408_408"></a><a href="#Footnote_408_408" class="fnanchor">[408]</a> Du Tillet was the only person in Geneva that detected in the +traveller, Charles d'Espeville, the John Calvin who had written the +"Institutes." He confided the secret to Farel, and the intrepid reformer +whose office it had hitherto been to demolish, by unsparing and +persistent blows, the popular structure of superstition, at once +concluded that, in answer to his prayers, a man had been sent him by God +capable of laying, amid the ruins, the foundations of a new and more +perfect fabric. Farel sought Calvin out, and laid before him the urgent +necessities of a church founded in a city where, under priestly rule, +disorder and corruption had long been rampant. At first his words made +no impression. Calvin had traced out for himself a very different +course, and was little inclined to exchange a life of study for the +perpetual struggles to which he was so unexpect<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span>edly summoned. But when +he met Farel's request with a positive refusal, pleading inexperience, +fondness for literary pursuits, and aversion to scenes of tumult and +confusion, the Genevese reformer assumed a more decided tone. Acting +under an impulse for which he could scarcely account himself, Farel +solemnly prayed that the curse of God might descend on Calvin's leisure +and studies, if purchased at the price of neglecting the duty to which +the voice of the Almighty Himself, by His providence, distinctly called +him.<a name="FNanchor_409_409" id="FNanchor_409_409"></a><a href="#Footnote_409_409" class="fnanchor">[409]</a></p> + +<p>The amazed and terrified student felt—to use his own expression—that +God had stretched forth His arm from heaven and laid violent hold upon +him, rendering all further resistance impossible. He yielded to the +unwelcome call, and became the first theological professor of Geneva. +Somewhat later he was prevailed upon to add to his functions the duties +of one of the pastors of the city.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Farel's own recollections.</div> + +<p>If the scene impressed itself ineffaceably on the memory or one of the +principal actors, its effect, we may be sure, was no less lasting in the +case of the other. More than a quarter of a century after, Farel, on +receiving the announcement that his worst apprehensions had been +realized, in the death of his "so dear and necessary brother Calvin," +wrote to a friend a touching letter, in which he referred in a few +sentences to the same striking interview. "Oh, why am not I taken away +in his stead, and why is not he, so useful, so serviceable, here in +health, to minister long to the churches of our Lord! To Whom be +blessing and praise, that, of His grace, He made me fall in with him +where I had never expected to meet him, and, contrary<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> to his own plans, +compelled him to stop at Geneva, and made use of him there and +elsewhere! For he was urged on one side and another more than could be +told, and <i>specially by me</i>, who, in God's name, urged him to undertake +matters that were harder than death. And albeit <i>he begged me several +times, in the name of God, to have mercy on him and suffer him to serve +God in other ways</i>, as he has always thus occupied himself, +nevertheless, seeing that what I asked was in accordance with God's +will, in doing himself violence he has done more and more promptly than +any one else has done, surpassing not only others, but himself. Oh, how +happily has he run an excellent race!"<a name="FNanchor_410_410" id="FNanchor_410_410"></a><a href="#Footnote_410_410" class="fnanchor">[410]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Calvin becomes the head of the commonwealth.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">His view respecting church and state,</div> + +<div class="sidenote">and the punishment of heresy.</div> + +<p>For twenty-eight years the name of Calvin was inseparably associated +with that of the city which owes its chief renown to his connection with +it. Excepting the three years of exile, from 1538 to 1541, occasioned by +a powerful reaction against his rigid system of public morality, he was, +during the whole of this period, the recognized head of the Genevese +commonwealth. A complete mastery of the principles of law, acquired by +indefatigable study at Orleans and Bourges, before the loftier teachings +of theology engrossed his time and faculties, qualified him to draw up a +code to regulate the affairs of his adopted country. If its detailed +prohibitions and almost Draconian severity are repugnant to the spirit +of the present age, the general wisdom of the legislator is vindicated +by the circumstance that he transformed a city noted for the prevalence +of every form of turbulence and immorality into the most orderly +republic of Christendom. Few, it is true, will be found to defend the +theory respecting the duty of the state toward the church in which +Calvin acquiesced. But the cruel deaths of Gruet and Servetus were only +the legitimate fruits of the doctrine that the civil authority is both +empowered and bound to exercise vigilant supervision over the purity of +the church. In this doctrine the reformers of the sixteenth century were +firm<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> believers. They held, as John Huss had held a hundred years +before, that <i>Truth</i> could appropriately appeal for support to physical +force, under circumstances that would by no means have justified a +similar resort on the part of <i>Error</i>. The consistent language of their +lives was, "If we speak not the truth, we refuse not to die." "If the +Pope condemns the pious for heresy, and furious judges unjustly execute +on the innocent the penalty due to heretics, what madness is it thence +to infer that heretics ought not to be destroyed for the purpose of +aiding the pious! As for myself, since I read that Paul said that he did +not refuse death if he had done anything to deserve it, I openly offered +myself frequently prepared to undergo sentence of death, if I had taught +anything contrary to the doctrine of piety. And I added, that I was most +worthy of any punishment imaginable, if I seduced any one from the faith +and doctrine of Christ. <i>Assuredly I cannot have a different view with +regard to others from that which I entertain respecting myself.</i>"<a name="FNanchor_411_411" id="FNanchor_411_411"></a><a href="#Footnote_411_411" class="fnanchor">[411]</a> +So wrote Farel, and almost all his contemporaries agreed with him. And +thus it happened that the conscientious Calvin and the polished Beza +were at the pains of writing long treatises, to prove that "heretics are +justly to be constrained by the sword,"<a name="FNanchor_412_412" id="FNanchor_412_412"></a><a href="#Footnote_412_412" class="fnanchor">[412]</a> almost at the very moment +when they were begging the Bernese to intercede<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> with their ally, King +Henry the Second, of France, in behalf of the poor Protestants +languishing in the dungeons of Lyons, or writing consolatory letters to +Peloquin and De Marsac, destined to suffer death in the flames not many +days before the execution of the Spanish physician at Geneva.<a name="FNanchor_413_413" id="FNanchor_413_413"></a><a href="#Footnote_413_413" class="fnanchor">[413]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">His fault the fault of the age.</div> + +<p>In truth, however, it was less Calvin than the age in which he lived +that must be held responsible for the crime against humanity with which +his name has come to be popularly associated. He did, indeed, desire and +urge that Servetus should be punished capitally, although he made an +earnest but unsuccessful effort to induce the magistrates to mitigate +the severity of the sentence, by the substitution of some more merciful +mode of execution.<a name="FNanchor_414_414" id="FNanchor_414_414"></a><a href="#Footnote_414_414" class="fnanchor">[414]</a> But the other principal reformers of Germany and +Switzerland—Melanchthon, Haller, Peter Martyr, and Bullinger gave their +hearty endorsement to the cruel act;<a name="FNanchor_415_415" id="FNanchor_415_415"></a><a href="#Footnote_415_415" class="fnanchor">[415]</a> while if any further proof +were needed to attest the sincerity and universality of approval +accorded to it, it is afforded by the last letters of the brave men who +were themselves awaiting at Chambéry, a few mouths later, death by the +same excruciating fate as that which befell Servetus at Geneva.<a name="FNanchor_416_416" id="FNanchor_416_416"></a><a href="#Footnote_416_416" class="fnanchor">[416]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Calvin shuns notoriety.</div> + +<p>The prominence obtained by Calvin as chief theologian and pastor of the +church of Geneva, however, was foreign to his tastes. He was by +preference a scholar, averse to notoriety, fond of retirement, and, if +we are to believe his own judgment, timid and even pusillanimous by +nature.<a name="FNanchor_417_417" id="FNanchor_417_417"></a><a href="#Footnote_417_417" class="fnanchor">[417]</a> He had in vain sought seclusion in France. From Basle and +Strasbourg he made a hasty retreat in order to preserve his incognito, +and avoid the fame the Institutes were likely to earn for him.<a name="FNanchor_418_418" id="FNanchor_418_418"></a><a href="#Footnote_418_418" class="fnanchor">[418]</a> Only +Farel's adjuration detained him in Geneva, and he subsequently confessed +that his fortitude was not so great but that he rejoiced even more than +was meet when the turbulent Genevese expelled him from their city.<a name="FNanchor_419_419" id="FNanchor_419_419"></a><a href="#Footnote_419_419" class="fnanchor">[419]</a> +But not even then was he able to secure the coveted quiet, for Martin +Bucer was not slow in imitating the urgency of Farel, and employed the +warning example of the prophet Jonah seeking to flee from the will of +the Almighty, to induce him to employ himself in the organization and +administration of the French church at Strasbourg.<a name="FNanchor_420_420" id="FNanchor_420_420"></a><a href="#Footnote_420_420" class="fnanchor">[420]</a> Not less decided +was Calvin's reluctance to accede to the repeated invitations of the +council and people of Geneva, that he should return and resume his +former position.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">His character and natural endowments.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">He is consulted by Protestants in every quarter of Europe.</div> + +<p>Such was the man who was called to take the reins of the spiritual +direction, not only of a single small city, but of a large body of +earnest thinkers throughout France, and even to distant parts of +Christendom—a man of stern and uncompromising devotion to that system +which he believed to be truth; of slender imagination, but of a memory +prodigious in its grasp, of an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> understanding wonderfully acute, and of +a power of exposition and expression unsurpassed by that possessed by +any writer among his contemporaries. His constitution, naturally weak, +had been still further enfeebled by excessive application to study. In +his letters there are frequent references to the interruptions +occasioned by violent pains in his head, often compelling him to stop +many times in the writing of a single letter.<a name="FNanchor_421_421" id="FNanchor_421_421"></a><a href="#Footnote_421_421" class="fnanchor">[421]</a> His strength was +taxed to the utmost by the unremitting toil incident to his multifarious +occupations. The very recital of his labors fills us with amazement. He +preached twice every Sunday, besides frequent sermons on other days. He +lectured three times a week on theology. He made addresses in the +consistory, and delivered a lecture every Friday in the conference on +the Scriptures known as the "Congrégation." To these public burdens must +be added others imposed upon him by his wide reputation. From all parts +of the Protestant world, but especially from every spot in France where +the Reformation had gained a foothold, the opinion of Calvin was eagerly +sought on various points of doctrine and ecclesiastical practice. To +Geneva, and especially to Calvin, the obscure and persecuted adherents +of the same faith, not less than the most illustrious of the Protestant +nobility, looked for counsel and direction. Under his guidance that +system was adopted for supplying France with ministers of the Gospel +which led the Venetian ambassador, near the end of the great reformer's +life, to describe Geneva as the mine from which the ore of heresy was +extracted.<a name="FNanchor_422_422" id="FNanchor_422_422"></a><a href="#Footnote_422_422" class="fnanchor">[422]</a> How faithfully he discharged the trust com<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span>mitted to him +is sufficiently attested by a voluminous correspondence, some portions +of which have escaped the wreck of time; while the steady advance of the +doctrines he advocated is an enduring monument to the zeal and sagacity +of his exertions.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Meets with bitter opposition,</div> + +<div class="sidenote">but obtains the support of the people.</div> + +<p>In his arduous undertaking, however, Calvin had to encounter no little +opposition in the very city of Geneva. It was this, even more than +bodily infirmity, that bore severely upon his spirits, and robbed him of +the rest demanded alike by his overtaxed body and mind. His advocacy of +strenuous discipline procured him relentless enemies among the Genevese +of the "Libertine" party. Those were stormy times for Calvin, when, in +derision of the student, legislator, and theologian, deafening salutes +were fired by night before his doors, and when the dogs were set upon +him in the streets.<a name="FNanchor_423_423" id="FNanchor_423_423"></a><a href="#Footnote_423_423" class="fnanchor">[423]</a> But, when we read of the violent antagonism +elicited by the publication of the severe provisions of the +"Ordinances," regulating even the minor details of the life of a +Genevese citizen, it must not be forgotten that the unpopular system, +although devised by Calvin, was not imposed by him upon unwilling +subjects, but established by a free and decisive vote of the people, in +the exercise of its sovereignty, and influenced to its adoption by the +same considerations that had determined Calvin himself in devising +it.<a name="FNanchor_424_424" id="FNanchor_424_424"></a><a href="#Footnote_424_424" class="fnanchor">[424]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">An estimate of Calvin by Étienne Pasquier.</div> + +<p>Such a man could not fail to secure the respect of his opponents, and +the undisguised admiration of all who could regard his character and +work with some degree of impartiality. Among the most virtuous of his +contemporaries was the excellent Étienne Pasquier, who described him as +he appeared in the eyes of men of culture—men who, without forsaking +the Roman Catholic Church, were stanch friends of reform and of +progress. "He was a man," says Pasquier, "that wrote equally well in +Latin and in French, and to whom our French tongue is greatly indebted +for having enriched it with an infinite number of fine touches. It were +my wish that it had been for a better subject. He was a man, moreover, +marvellously versed and nurtured in the books of the Holy Scriptures, +and such that, had he directed his mind in the right way, he might have +ranked with the most illustrious doctors of the church. And, in the +midst of his books and his studies, he was possessed of the most active +zeal for the progress of his sect. We sometimes saw our prisons +overflowing with poor, misled people, whom he unceasingly exhorted, +consoled, and comforted by his letters; and there were never lacking +messengers to whom the doors were open, in spite of any exertions of the +jailers to the contrary. Such were the methods by which he gained over +step by step a part of our France."<a name="FNanchor_425_425" id="FNanchor_425_425"></a><a href="#Footnote_425_425" class="fnanchor">[425]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Continued persecution.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">The tongues of the victims cut out, and records burned.</div> + +<p>The flames of the persecution kindled by the publication of the placards +continued to burn. From Paris, where Laurent de la Croix fell a victim +to the rage of the priests, the conflagration spread to Essarts, in +Poitou, where a simple girl was consigned to the fire for reproving a +Franciscan<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> monk; and to Macon, where an unlearned peasant underwent a +like punishment, amazing his judges by the familiarity he displayed with +the Bible. Agen, in Guyenne, and Beaune, in Burgundy, witnessed similar +scenes of atrocious cruelty; while at Nonnay, André Berthelin was burned +alive, because, when wending his way to the great fair of Lyons, he +refused to kneel down before one of the many pictures or images set up +by the roadside for popular adoration. At Rouen, four brave reformers +were thrown into a tumbril, reeking with filth, to be drawn to the place +of execution, one of them exclaiming with radiant countenance: "Truly, +as says the apostle, we are the offscouring of the earth, and we now +stink in the nostrils of the men of the world. But let us rejoice, for +the savor of our death will be a sweet savor unto God, and will profit +our brethren."<a name="FNanchor_426_426" id="FNanchor_426_426"></a><a href="#Footnote_426_426" class="fnanchor">[426]</a> But the details of these executions are too horrible +and too similar to find a place here. Nor, indeed, would it be possible +to frame a complete statement of the case of each of the constant +sufferers; for, from this time forward, it became a favorite practice +with those who presided over these bloody assizes to cut out the tongues +of their victims, lest their eloquent appeals should shake the +confidence of the spectators in the established faith, and afterward to +throw the official record of the trial of Protestants into the fire that +consumed their bodies, in order to prevent its furnishing edifying +material for the martyrology.<a name="FNanchor_427_427" id="FNanchor_427_427"></a><a href="#Footnote_427_427" class="fnanchor">[427]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Failure of persecution.</div> + +<p>But, as usual, persecution failed utterly of accomplishing what had been +expected of it. For a brief moment, indeed, Francis flattered himself +that exemplary punishments had purged his kingdom of the professors of +the hated doctrines.<a name="FNanchor_428_428" id="FNanchor_428_428"></a><a href="#Footnote_428_428" class="fnanchor">[428]</a> But, in the course of a few years, he +discovered that, in spite of continued severities, the "new faith" had +so spread—partly by means of persons suffered to return, in virtue<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> of +the royal declaration of Coucy (on the sixteenth of July, 1535), and +partly through the teachings of others who lay concealed during the +first violence of the storm—that he had good reason to fear that the +last errors were worse than the first.<a name="FNanchor_429_429" id="FNanchor_429_429"></a><a href="#Footnote_429_429" class="fnanchor">[429]</a> What rendered the matter +still more serious was the favor shown to the heretics by persons of +high rank and influence.<a name="FNanchor_430_430" id="FNanchor_430_430"></a><a href="#Footnote_430_430" class="fnanchor">[430]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Edict of Fontainebleau cuts off appeal, June 1, 1540.</div> + +<p>With the view of employing still more rigid means for the detection and +punishment of the offenders, a fresh edict was published from +Fontainebleau, on the first of June, 1540. In this long and sanguinary +document the monarch—or the Cardinal of Tournon, who enjoyed the credit +of a principal part in its preparation—enjoined upon the officers of +all the royal courts, whether judges of parliament, seneschals, or +bailiffs, to institute proceedings concurrently against all persons +tainted with heresy. No appeal was to be permitted to delay their +action. The examination of the suspected took precedence of all other +cases. Tribunals of inferior jurisdiction were instructed to send +prisoners for heresy, together with the record of their examination, to +the sovereign courts of parliament, there to be tried in the "Chambre +criminelle." The appeal to the "Grand' chambre," customarily allowed to +persons claiming immunity on account of order or station, was expressly +cut off, so as to render the course of justice more expeditious. +Negligent judges were threatened with suspension and removal from +office. The high vassals of the crown were ordered to lend to the royal +courts their counsel and assistance, and to surrender to them all +offenders as guilty of sedition and disturbance of the public +peace—crimes of which the king claimed exclusive cognizance. +Ecclesiastics were exhorted to show equal diligence in the prosecution +of culprits that were in orders. In short, every servant of the king was +bidden to abstain from harboring or favoring the "Lutherans," since the +errors and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> false doctrines the latter disseminated, it was said, +contained within them the crime of treason against God and the king, as +well as of sedition and riot.<a name="FNanchor_431_431" id="FNanchor_431_431"></a><a href="#Footnote_431_431" class="fnanchor">[431]</a> Every loyal subject must, therefore, +denounce the heretics and employ all means to extirpate them, just as +all men are bound to run to help in extinguishing a public +conflagration.<a name="FNanchor_432_432" id="FNanchor_432_432"></a><a href="#Footnote_432_432" class="fnanchor">[432]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Exceptional fairness of President Caillaud.</div> + +<p>The last injunction was not altogether unnecessary. Even among the +judges of parliament there were fair-minded persons not inclined to +condemn accused men or books on mere report. The ambassador of Henry the +Eighth having, in 1538, denounced an English translation of the Holy +Scriptures that was in press at Paris, the chancellor commissioned +President Caillaud to investigate the case. The latter, finding that the +printer's excuse was the scarcity of paper in England, quietly set about +a comparison of the suspected version with accessible French +translations. He said nothing to doctors of theology or royal +prosecuting officers. "It seemed to me," he reported, "quite unnecessary +to give the matter such notoriety. Moreover, I mistrusted that, without +further investigation, without even looking into it, they would have +condemned the English translation for the sole reason that it is in that +tongue. For I have seen them sustain that the Holy Scriptures ought not +to be translated into the French language or any other vernacular +tongue. Nevertheless, the Bible in French was printed in this city so +long ago as in 1529, and again this present year, and is for sale by the +most wealthy printers. For my part I have seen no prohibition either by +the church or by the secular authority, although I once heard some +decretal alleged in condemnation." Unfortunately such judges as Louis +Caillaud were rare—men that would take the pains to obtain the services +of a person acquainted with the English language to translate aloud a +Bible suspected of heretical teachings, while themselves<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> testing its +accuracy by scanning versions made from the Vulgate and the Hebrew +original!<a name="FNanchor_433_433" id="FNanchor_433_433"></a><a href="#Footnote_433_433" class="fnanchor">[433]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Royal letters from Lyons, Aug. 30, 1542.</div> + +<p>Two years more had scarcely passed before fresh legislation against the +Protestants demonstrated the impotence of all measures thus far resorted +to. The interval had certainly been improved by their enemies, for the +stake had its victims to boast of.<a name="FNanchor_434_434" id="FNanchor_434_434"></a><a href="#Footnote_434_434" class="fnanchor">[434]</a> And yet the new religious body +had its ministers and its secret conventicles, with an ever increasing +number of adherents. Accordingly, on the thirtieth of August, 1542, +Francis, then at Lyons, addressed new letters patent to the various +parliaments, enjoining new vigilance and activity. Previous edicts had +not borne all the fruit expected from them; for there was still a bad +seed of error and damnable doctrines—so wrote the king—growing and +multiplying from day to day. So exemplary a punishment must, therefore, +be inflicted, as might forever terrify offenders.<a name="FNanchor_435_435" id="FNanchor_435_435"></a><a href="#Footnote_435_435" class="fnanchor">[435]</a> The king even +threatened delinquent prelates with seizure of their temporalities, in +case they failed to exercise due diligence in so important a +matter.<a name="FNanchor_436_436" id="FNanchor_436_436"></a><a href="#Footnote_436_436" class="fnanchor">[436]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Audacity of the "Lutherans" of Bordeaux.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Francis I. and the Sacramentarians.</div> + +<p>King, bishops and parliaments were terribly in earnest. All were agreed +that Protestantism must and should be crushed, however little they +harmonized as to the reasons of its increase<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> or the method of +suppressing it. The Archbishop of Bordeaux denounced to the parliament +of that city the growing audacity of the "Lutherans" of his diocese, who +had even dared to preach their doctrines publicly. He accounted for this +disorder by the fact that the prosecution and exemplary punishment of +heretics had ceased to be the uniform rule; as if the experience of the +past score of years had not demonstrated the futility of attempting to +compel religious uniformity by the fear of human tribunals and +ignominious death. He therefore begged the parliament to spare neither +him nor his brother prelates in the matter of defraying the expense of +bringing "Lutherans" to trial and death. The secular judges were of the +same mind with the prelates, and both took new courage from a +declaration of Francis himself, which the archbishop had recently heard +with his own ears at Angoulême. In the presence of Cardinal Tournon and +others, the king had assured him that "<i>he desired that no +sacramentarian should be permitted to abjure, but that all such heretics +should be remorselessly put to death</i>!"<a name="FNanchor_437_437" id="FNanchor_437_437"></a><a href="#Footnote_437_437" class="fnanchor">[437]</a> By such pitiless measures +did Francis still think to establish his unimpeachable loyalty to the +doctrine of transubstantiation.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Royal ordinance of Paris, July 23, 1543.</div> + +<p>But, as ill success continued to attend every attempt to crush the +Reformation in France, it was necessary to find some plausible +explanation of the failure. The ecclesiastical counsellors of the king +alleged that they discovered it in the recent edicts themselves, which +they represented as derogating from the efficiency of both prelates and +inquisitors of the faith. To meet this new objection, Francis +complaisantly published another ordinance (on the twenty-third of July, +1543), carefully defining the respective provinces of the lay and +clerical judges. Prelates and inquisitors were authorized to proceed, in +accordance with canon law, to obtain information alike against clergymen +and laymen, in case of suspected heresy, and the secular judges were +strictly enjoined to afford them all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> needed assistance in execution of +their writs of summons and arrest. But all persons guilty of open +heresy, and not actually in holy orders, must be given over, together +with the documents relating to their offences, to the royal judges and +to the courts of parliament, and by them tried as seditious disturbers +of the peace and tranquillity of the commonwealth and of the king's +subjects, secret conspirators against the prosperity of his estate, and +rebels against his authority and laws.<a name="FNanchor_438_438" id="FNanchor_438_438"></a><a href="#Footnote_438_438" class="fnanchor">[438]</a> In order, however, to secure +to the ecclesiastical tribunals their full control over clergymen, it +was provided that any churchman condemned to banishment, or any other +punishment short of death, should immediately after the "amende +honorable," and before execution of sentence, be remitted to his +spiritual superiors to undergo deprivation of office, and such other +penalties as canon law might prescribe.<a name="FNanchor_439_439" id="FNanchor_439_439"></a><a href="#Footnote_439_439" class="fnanchor">[439]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Heresy to be punished as sedition.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Repression proves a failure.</div> + +<p>But the succession of edicts, each surpassing the last in severity, had +not rendered the path of the judges, whether lay or ghostly, altogether +easy. There were found prisoners, accused of holding and teaching +heretical doctrines, well skilled in holy lore, however ignorant of the +casuistry of the schools, who made good their assertion that they could +give a warrant for all their distinctive tenets from the Sacred +Scriptures. Their arguments were so cogent, their citations were so +apposite, that the auditors who had come with the expectation of +witnessing the confusion of a heretic, often departed absorbed in +serious consideration of a system that had so much the appearance of +truth when defended by a simple man in jeopardy of his life, and when +fortified by the authority of the Bible. More learned reformers had +appealed successfully to the Fathers to whose teachings the church +avowed its implicit obedience. It was clear that some standard of +orthodoxy must be established. For, if St. Augustine or St. Cyprian +might be brought up to prove the errors of the priests, what was it but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> +allowing the reformers to place the Roman Church at the bar, even in the +very courts of justice? Might not the most damaging losses be expected +to flow from such trials?</p> + +<p>The public courts, indeed, were not the only places where the +inconsistencies of the established church with its own ancient standards +and representative theologians were brought out into bold relief. The +pulpits of the very capital resounded, it was alleged, with +contradictory teachings, scandalizing the faithful not a little at the +holy season of Advent.<a name="FNanchor_440_440" id="FNanchor_440_440"></a><a href="#Footnote_440_440" class="fnanchor">[440]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The Sorbonne's Twenty-five Articles.</div> + +<p>To put an end to so anomalous a state of affairs, the Parisian +theologians, with the consent of the king, resolved to enunciate the +true Catholic faith, in the form of twenty-five articles meeting all +questions now in dispute (on the tenth of March, 1543). Of the general +contents of this new formulary, it is sufficient to observe that it more +concisely expressed the doctrines developed in the decisions of the +Council of Trent; that it insisted upon baptism as essential to the +salvation even of infants; that it magnified the freedom of the human +will, and maintained the justification of the sinner by works as well as +by faith; and that, dwelling upon the bodily presence of Christ in the +consecrated wafer, it affirmed the propriety of denying the cup to the +laity, the utility of masses for the dead, the lawfulness of the +invocation of the blessed Virgin and the saints, the existence of +purgatory, the infallibility of the church, the authority of tradition, +and the divine right of the Pope.<a name="FNanchor_441_441" id="FNanchor_441_441"></a><a href="#Footnote_441_441" class="fnanchor">[441]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Francis gives them the force of law.</div> + +<p>On the twenty-third of July, 1543, the very day of the publi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span>cation of +the edict of persecution previously mentioned, Francis by letters-patent +gave the force of law to the exposition of the faith drawn up by the +theological faculty of "his blessed and eldest daughter, the University +of Paris." Henceforth no other doctrines could be professed in France. +Dissent was to be treated as "rebellion" against the royal +authority.<a name="FNanchor_442_442" id="FNanchor_442_442"></a><a href="#Footnote_442_442" class="fnanchor">[442]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Persecution more systematic.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">The inquisitor Matthieu Ory.</div> + +<p>The sanguinary legislation at which we have glanced bore its most +atrocious fruits in the last years of Francis, and in the reign of his +immediate successor. The consideration of this topic must, however, be +reserved for succeeding chapters. Until now the persecution had been +carried on with little system, and its intensity had varied according to +the natural temperament and disposition of the Roman Catholic prelates, +not less than the zeal of the civil judges. Many clergymen, as well as +lay magistrates, had exhibited a singular supineness in the detection +and punishment of the reformed. Some bishops, supposed to be at heart +friendly to the restoration of the church to its pristine purity of +doctrine and practice, had scarcely instituted a serious search. The +royal edicts themselves bear witness to their reluctance, in spite of +threatened suspension and deprivation. It is true that an attempt had +been made to secure greater thoroughness and uniformity, by augmenting +the number of inquisitors of the faith, and this, notwithstanding the +fact that their authority infringed upon that of the bishops, whose +right was scarcely questioned to exclusive cognizance of heresy within +their respective dioceses. Not only had Matthieu Ory<a name="FNanchor_443_443" id="FNanchor_443_443"></a><a href="#Footnote_443_443" class="fnanchor">[443]</a> and others +been appointed with jurisdiction over the entire<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> kingdom, but a special +inquisitor was created for the province of Normandy. Even these persons, +however, were not always equally zealous in the performance of their +allotted task. It was notorious that the good cheer with which Ory was +regaled by the astute Protestants of Sancerre led him to report them to +be excellent people. A deputy, who next visited the reputed heretics, +brought back an equally flattering statement. And so the persecuting +"lieutenant particulier" of Bourges seems to have had some ground for +his complaint, "that good wine and a right new coat caused all these +inquisitors to return well satisfied, without bringing him any +prey."<a name="FNanchor_444_444" id="FNanchor_444_444"></a><a href="#Footnote_444_444" class="fnanchor">[444]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The Nicodemites and Libertins.</div> + +<p>It could not be otherwise, however, than that these severe measures and +the employment of new agents in the pitiless work of persecution should +induce many feeble souls to suppress their true sentiments, and to make +the attempt, under an external conformity with the Roman Church, to +maintain opinions and a private devotion quite inconsistent with their +professions. And, while the progress of the Reformation was seriously +impeded by the timidity of this class of irresolute +persons—appropriately styled by their contemporaries "the +<i>Nicodemites</i>"—scarcely less danger threatened the same doctrines from +the insidious assaults of the <i>Libertines</i>, a party which, ostensibly +aiming at reform and religious liberty, really asked only for freedom in +the indulgence of vicious propensities. Against both of these pernicious +tendencies the eloquent reformer of Geneva employed his pen in forcible +treatises, which were not without effect in checking their +inroads.<a name="FNanchor_445_445" id="FNanchor_445_445"></a><a href="#Footnote_445_445" class="fnanchor">[445]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Margaret of Navarre at Bordeaux.</div> + +<p>It must be confessed that the Queen of Navarre herself gave no little +aid and comfort to the advocates of timid and irresolute counsels, by a +course singularly wanting in ingenuousness. This amiable princess knew +how to express herself with such ambiguity as to perplex both religious +parties and heartily satisfy neither the one side nor the other. She was +the avowed friend and correspondent of Melanchthon and Calvin. She was +believed to be in substantial agreement with the Protestants. Her views +of the fundamental doctrine of justification by faith and the paramount +authority of the Holy Scriptures were those for which many a Protestant +martyr had laid down his life. Even on the question of the Lord's +Supper, her opinions, if mystical and somewhat vague, were certainly far +removed from the dogmas of the Roman Church. She condemned, it is true, +the extreme to which the "Sacramentarians" went, but it was difficult to +see precisely wherein the modified mass she countenanced differed from +the reformed service. Certainly not a line in her correspondence with +Calvin points to any important difference of sentiment known by either +party to exist between them. What shall we say, then, on reading of such +language as she used in 1543, when addressing the Parliament of +Bordeaux? She had been deputed by her brother to represent him, and was, +consequently, received by the court, (on the twenty-fourth of May) with +honors scarcely, if at all, inferior to those that would have been +accorded to Francis had he presented himself in person. Her special +commission was to notify parliament of an expected attack by the +English, and to request that due preparation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> should be made to ward it +off. From this topic she passed to that of heresy, in respect to which +she expressed herself to this effect: "She exhorted and prayed the court +<i>to punish and burn the true heretics</i>, but to spare the innocent, and +have compassion upon the prisoners and captives."<a name="FNanchor_446_446" id="FNanchor_446_446"></a><a href="#Footnote_446_446" class="fnanchor">[446]</a> If, as the +interesting minute of the queen's visit informs us, she next proceeded +to claim the immemorial right, as a daughter of France, to open the +prisons and liberate the inmates according to her good pleasure,<a name="FNanchor_447_447" id="FNanchor_447_447"></a><a href="#Footnote_447_447" class="fnanchor">[447]</a> it +can scarcely be imagined that the assertion of the right at this time +had any other object in view than the release of those imprisoned for +conscience' sake. It is true that she took pains to protest that she +would avoid meddling with prisoners incarcerated for other crimes than +such as her brother was accustomed to pardon; but as the interference of +Francis in behalf of Berquin, Marot, and others accused of heresy, was +sufficiently notorious, her guarantee could scarcely be considered very +broad. Certainly she was not likely to find a "true heretic" worthy of +the stake among all those imprisoned as "Lutherans" in the city of +Bordeaux.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Negotiations in Germany.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Hypocritical representations made by Charles of Orleans.</div> + +<p>While Francis, as we have seen, was from year to year aggravating the +severity of his enactments against the adherents of the Reformation in +his own kingdom, he did not forget his old rôle of ally of the +Protestant princes of the empire. It would be too wide a digression from +the true scope of this work, should we turn aside to chronicle the +successive attempts of the French monarch to secure these powerful +auxiliaries in his struggle with his great rival of the house of +Hapsburg. One incident must suffice. The hypocrisy of Francis could, +perhaps, go no farther than it carried him when, in 1543, his son +Charles, Duke of Orleans, at the head of a royal army took possession of +the Duchy of Luxemburg. The duke, who can hardly be imagined to have +allowed himself to take any important step, certainly no step fraught +with such mo<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span>mentous consequences as might be expected to follow this, +without explicit instructions from his father, at once despatched an +envoy to the Elector of Saxony and the Landgrave of Hesse. The +subordinate agent in this game of duplicity was instructed to assure the +great Protestant leaders that it was the earnest desire of the Duke of +Orleans to see the Gospel preached throughout the whole of France. It +was true that filial reverence had hitherto restrained him from +gratifying his desires in this direction in his Duchy of Orleans; but in +the government of Luxemburg and of all other territories acquired by +right of arms, he hoped to be permitted by his royal father to follow +his own preferences, and there he solemnly promised to introduce the +proclamation of God's holy word. In return for these liberal +engagements, the duke desired the German princes, then on the point of +meeting for conference at Frankfort, to admit him to an alliance +offensive and defensive, especially in matters concerning religion. He +assured them of the support not only of his own forces, but of his +father's troops, committed to him to use at his discretion, adding, as a +further motive, the prospect that the Gospel would find more ready +welcome in the rest of France, when the king saw its German advocates +close allies of his youngest son.<a name="FNanchor_448_448" id="FNanchor_448_448"></a><a href="#Footnote_448_448" class="fnanchor">[448]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Commendable scepticism of the Germans.</div> + +<p>But the princes were much too familiar with the wiles of Francis to +repose any confidence in the lavish professions of his son. And the +historian who discovers that the more intimately the king strove to +associate himself with the German Protestants, the more fiercely did he +commit the Protestants of France to the flames, in order to demonstrate +to the Pope the immaculate orthodoxy of his religious belief, will not +fail to applaud their discernment. Not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> until toward the very close of +Francis's reign, when the Lutherans descried portents of a storm that +threatened them with utter extermination, raised by the bigotry or craft +of Charles the Fifth, did they manifest any anxiety to enter into near +connection with the French monarch.</p> + +<p>Francis was reaping the natural rewards of a crooked policy, dictated by +no strong convictions of truth or duty, but shaped according to the +narrow suggestions of an unworthy ambition. If he punished heretics at +home, it was partly to secure on his side the common sentiment of the +Roman Catholic world, partly because the enemies of the Reformation had +persuaded him that the change of religion necessarily involved the +subversion of established order and of royal authority. If he made +overtures to the Protestant princes of Germany, the flimsy veil of +devotion to their interests was too transparent to conceal the total +want of concern for anything beyond his own personal aggrandizement.</p> + +<p>Two mournful exemplifications of the fruits of his persecuting measures +must, however, be presented to the reader's notice, before the curtain +can be permitted to fall over the scene on which this monarch played his +part. The massacre of Mérindol and Cabrières and the execution of the +"Fourteen of Meaux" are the melancholy events that mark the close of a +reign opening, a generation earlier, so auspiciously.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER VII.</h2> + +<h3>CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE VAUDOIS OF MÉRINDOL AND CABRIÈRES, AND LAST DAYS OF +FRANCIS THE FIRST.</h3> + + +<div class="sidenote">The Vaudois of Provence.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Their industry and thrift.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Vaudois settlements even in the Comtât Venaissin.</div> + +<p>That part of Provence, the ancient Roman Provincia, which skirts the +northern bank of the Durance, formerly contained, at a distance of +between twenty and fifty miles above the confluence of the river with +the Rhône near Avignon, more than a score of small towns and villages +inhabited by peasants of Waldensian origin. The entire district had been +desolated by war about a couple of centuries before the time of which we +are now treating. Extensive tracts of land were nearly depopulated, and +the few remaining tillers of the soil obtained a precarious subsistence, +at the mercy of banditti that infested the mountains and forests, and +plundered unfortunate travellers. Under these circumstances, the landed +gentry, impoverished through the loss of the greater part of their +revenues, gladly welcomed the advent of new-comers, who were induced to +cross the Alps from the valleys of Piedmont and occupy the abandoned +farms.<a name="FNanchor_449_449" id="FNanchor_449_449"></a><a href="#Footnote_449_449" class="fnanchor">[449]</a> By the industrious culture of the Vaudois, or Waldenses, the +face of the country was soon transformed. Villages sprang up where there +had scarcely been a single house. Brigandage disappeared. Grain, wine, +olives, and almonds were obtained in abundance from what had been a +barren waste. On lands<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> less favorable for cultivation numerous flocks +and herds pastured.<a name="FNanchor_450_450" id="FNanchor_450_450"></a><a href="#Footnote_450_450" class="fnanchor">[450]</a> A tract formerly returning the scanty income of +four crowns a year now contained a thriving village of eighty +substantial houses, and brought its owners nearly a hundredfold the +former rental.<a name="FNanchor_451_451" id="FNanchor_451_451"></a><a href="#Footnote_451_451" class="fnanchor">[451]</a> On one occasion at least, discouraged by the +annoyance to which their religious opinions subjected them, a part of +the Vaudois sought refuge in their ancient homes, on the Italian side of +the mountains. But their services were too valuable to be dispensed +with, and they soon returned to Provence, in answer to the urgent +summons of their Roman Catholic landlords.<a name="FNanchor_452_452" id="FNanchor_452_452"></a><a href="#Footnote_452_452" class="fnanchor">[452]</a> In fact, a very striking +proof both of their industry and of their success is furnished by the +circumstance that Cabrières, one of the largest Vaudois villages, was +situated within the bounds of the <i>Comtât Venaissin</i>, governed, about +the time of their arrival, by the Pope in person, and subsequently, as +we have seen, by a papal legate residing in Avignon.<a name="FNanchor_453_453" id="FNanchor_453_453"></a><a href="#Footnote_453_453" class="fnanchor">[453]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">They send delegates to the Swiss and German reformers.</div> + +<p>The news of an attempted reformation of the church in Switzerland and +Germany awakened a lively interest in this community of simple-minded +Christians. At length a convocation of their ministers<a name="FNanchor_454_454" id="FNanchor_454_454"></a><a href="#Footnote_454_454" class="fnanchor">[454]</a> at Mérindol, +in 1530, determined to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> send two of their number to compare the tenets +they had long held with those of the reformers, and to obtain, if +possible, additional light upon some points of doctrine and of practice +respecting which they entertained doubt. The delegates were George +Morel, of Freissinières, and Pierre Masson, of Burgundy. They visited +Œcolampadius at Basle, Bucer and Capito at Strasbourg, Farel at +Neufchâtel, and Haller at Berne. From the first-named they received the +most important aid, in the way of suggestions respecting the errors<a name="FNanchor_455_455" id="FNanchor_455_455"></a><a href="#Footnote_455_455" class="fnanchor">[455]</a> +into which the isolated position they had long occupied had insensibly +led them. Grateful for the kindness manifested to them, and delighted +with what they had witnessed of the progress of the faith they had +received from their fathers, the two envoys started on their return. But +Morel alone succeeded in reaching Provence; his companion was arrested +at Dijon and condemned to death. Upon the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> report of Morel, however, the +Waldenses at once began to investigate the new questions that had been +raised, and, in their eagerness to purify their church, sent word to +their brethren in Apulia and Calabria, inviting them to a conference +respecting the interests of religion.<a name="FNanchor_456_456" id="FNanchor_456_456"></a><a href="#Footnote_456_456" class="fnanchor">[456]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">They furnish means for publishing the Scriptures.</div> + +<p>A few years later (1535) the Waldenses by their liberal contributions +furnished the means necessary for publishing the translation of the Holy +Scriptures made by Pierre Robert Olivetanus, and corrected by Calvin, +which, unless exception be made in favor of the translation by Lefèvre +d'Étaples, is entitled to rank as the earliest French Protestant +Bible.<a name="FNanchor_457_457" id="FNanchor_457_457"></a><a href="#Footnote_457_457" class="fnanchor">[457]</a> It was a noble undertaking, by which the poor and humble +inhabitants of Provence, Piedmont, and Calabria conferred on France a +signal benefit, scarcely appreciated in its full extent even by those +who pride themselves upon their acquaintance with the rich literature of +that country. For, while Olivetanus in his admirable version laid the +founda<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span>tion upon which all the later and more accurate translations have +been reared, by the excellence of his modes of expression he exerted an +influence upon the French language perhaps not inferior to that of +Calvin or Montaigne.<a name="FNanchor_458_458" id="FNanchor_458_458"></a><a href="#Footnote_458_458" class="fnanchor">[458]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Preliminary persecutions.</div> + +<p>Intelligence of the new activity manifested by the Waldenses reaching +the ears of their enemies, among whom the Archbishop of Aix was +prominent, stirred them up to more virulent hostility. The accusation +was subsequently made by unfriendly writers, in order to furnish some +slight justification for the atrocities of the massacre, that the +Waldenses, emboldened by the encouragement of the reformers, began to +show a disposition to offer forcible resistance to the arbitrary arrests +ordered by the civil and religious authorities of Aix. But the +assertion, which is unsupported by evidence, contradicts the well-known +disposition and practice of a patient people, more prone to submit to +oppression than to take up arms even in defence of a righteous +cause.<a name="FNanchor_459_459" id="FNanchor_459_459"></a><a href="#Footnote_459_459" class="fnanchor">[459]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The Dominican De Roma foremost in the work.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Iniquitous order of the Parliament of Aix.</div> + +<p>For a time the persecution was individual, and therefore limited. But in +the aggregate the number of victims was by no means inconsiderable, and +the flames burned many a steadfast Waldensee.<a name="FNanchor_460_460" id="FNanchor_460_460"></a><a href="#Footnote_460_460" class="fnanchor">[460]</a> The Dominican De Roma +enjoyed an unenviable notoriety for his ferocity in deal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span>ing with the +"heretics," whose feet he was in the habit of plunging in boots full of +melted fat and boiling over a slow fire. The device did, indeed, seem to +the king, when he heard of it, less ingenious than cruel, and De Roma +found it necessary to avoid arrest by a hasty flight to Avignon, where, +upon papal soil, as foul a sink of iniquity existed as anywhere within +the bounds of Christendom.<a name="FNanchor_461_461" id="FNanchor_461_461"></a><a href="#Footnote_461_461" class="fnanchor">[461]</a> But other agents, scarcely more merciful +than De Roma, prosecuted the work. Some of the Waldenses were put to +death, others were branded upon the forehead. Even the ordinary rights +of the accused were denied them; for, in order to leave no room for +justice, the Parliament of Aix had framed an iniquitous order, +prohibiting all clerks and notaries from either furnishing the accused +copies of legal instruments, or receiving at their hands any petition or +paper whatsoever.<a name="FNanchor_462_462" id="FNanchor_462_462"></a><a href="#Footnote_462_462" class="fnanchor">[462]</a> Such were the measures by which the newly-created +Parliament of Provence signalized its zeal for the faith, and attested +its worthiness to be a sovereign court of the kingdom.<a name="FNanchor_463_463" id="FNanchor_463_463"></a><a href="#Footnote_463_463" class="fnanchor">[463]</a> From its +severe sentences, however, appeals had once and again been taken by the +Waldenses to Francis, who had granted them his royal pardon on condition +of their abjuration of their errors within six months.<a name="FNanchor_464_464" id="FNanchor_464_464"></a><a href="#Footnote_464_464" class="fnanchor">[464]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Inhabitants of Mérindol cited.</div> + +<p>The slow methods heretofore pursued having proved abortive, in 1540 the +parliament summoned to its bar, as suspected of heresy, fifteen or +twenty<a name="FNanchor_465_465" id="FNanchor_465_465"></a><a href="#Footnote_465_465" class="fnanchor">[465]</a> of the inhabitants of the village of Mérindol. On the +appointed day the accused made their way to Aix, but, on stopping to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> +obtain legal advice of a lawyer more candid than others to whom they had +first applied, and who had declined to give counsel to reputed +Lutherans, they were warned by no means to appear, as their death was +already resolved upon. They acted on the friendly injunction, and fled +while it was still time.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">The atrocious Arrêt de Mérindol, Nov. 18, 1540.</div> + +<p>Finding itself balked for the time of its expected prey, the parliament +resolved to avenge the slight put upon its authority, by compassing the +ruin of a larger number of victims. On the eighteenth of November, 1540, +the order was given which has since become infamous under the +designation of the "<i>Arrêt de Mérindol</i>." The persons who had failed to +obey the summons were sentenced to be burned alive, as heretics and +guilty of treason against God and the King. If not apprehended in +person, they were to be burned in effigy, their wives and children +proscribed, and their possessions confiscated. As if this were not +enough to satisfy the most inordinate greed of vengeance, parliament +ordered <i>that all the houses of Mérindol be burned and razed to the +ground, and the trees cut down for a distance of two hundred paces on +every side, in order that the spot which had been the receptacle of +heresy might be forever uninhabited</i>! Finally, with an affectation which +would seem puerile were it not the conclusion of so sanguinary a +document, the owners of lands were forbidden to lease any part of +Mérindol to a tenant bearing the same name, or belonging to the same +family, as the miscreants against whom the decree was fulminated.<a name="FNanchor_466_466" id="FNanchor_466_466"></a><a href="#Footnote_466_466" class="fnanchor">[466]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">It is condemned by public opinion.</div> + +<p>A more atrocious sentence was, perhaps, never rendered by a court of +justice than the <i>Arrêt de Mérindol</i>, which condemned the accused +without a hearing, confounded the innocent with the guilty, and +consigned the entire population of a peaceful village, by a single +stroke of the pen, to a cruel death, or a scarcely less terrible exile. +For ten righteous persons God would have spared guilty Sodom; but +neither the virtues of the inoffensive inhabitants, nor the presence of +many Roman Catholics among them, could insure the safety of the +ill-fated Mérindol at the hands of merciless judges.<a name="FNanchor_467_467" id="FNanchor_467_467"></a><a href="#Footnote_467_467" class="fnanchor">[467]</a> The +publication of the <i>Arrêt</i> occasioned, even within the bounds of the +province, the most severe animadversion; nor were there wanting men of +learning and high social position, who, while commenting freely upon the +scandalous morals of the clergy, expressed their conviction that the +public welfare would be promoted rather by restraining and reforming the +profligacy of the ecclesiastics, than by issuing bloody edicts against +the most exemplary part of the community.<a name="FNanchor_468_468" id="FNanchor_468_468"></a><a href="#Footnote_468_468" class="fnanchor">[468]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Preparations to carry it into effect.</div> + +<p>Meantime, however, the archbishops of Arles and of Aix urged the prompt +execution of the sentence, and the convocations of clergy offered to +defray the expense of the levy of troops needed to carry it into effect. +The Archbishop of Aix used his personal influence with Chassanée, the +First President of the Parliament, who, with the more moderate judges, +had only consented to the enactment as a threat which he never intended +to execute.<a name="FNanchor_469_469" id="FNanchor_469_469"></a><a href="#Footnote_469_469" class="fnanchor">[469]</a> And the wily<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> prelate so far succeeded by his +arguments, and by the assurance he gave of the protection of the +Cardinal of Tournon, in case the matter should reach the king's ears, +that the definite order was actually promulgated for the destruction of +Mérindol. Troops were accordingly raised, and, in fact, the vanguard of +a formidable army had reached a spot within three miles of the devoted +village, when the command was suddenly received to retreat, the soldiers +were disbanded, and the astonished Waldenses beheld the dreaded outburst +of the storm strangely delayed.<a name="FNanchor_470_470" id="FNanchor_470_470"></a><a href="#Footnote_470_470" class="fnanchor">[470]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">It is delayed by friendly interposition.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">The "mice of Autun."</div> + +<p>The unexpected deliverance is said to have been due to the remonstrance +of a friend, M. d'Allens. D'Allens had adroitly reminded the president +of an amusing incident by means of which Chassanée had himself +illustrated the ample protection against oppression afforded by the law, +in the hands of a sagacious advocate and a righteous judge; and he had +earnestly entreated his friend not to show himself less equitable in the +matter of the defenceless inhabitants of Mérindol than he had been in +that of the "mice of Autun."<a name="FNanchor_471_471" id="FNanchor_471_471"></a><a href="#Footnote_471_471" class="fnanchor">[471]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Francis I. instructs Du Bellay to investigate.</div> + +<p>The delay thus gained permitted a reference of the affair to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> the king. +It is said that Guillaume du Bellay is entitled to the honor of having +informed Francis of the oppression of his poor subjects of Provence, and +invoked the royal interposition.<a name="FNanchor_472_472" id="FNanchor_472_472"></a><a href="#Footnote_472_472" class="fnanchor">[472]</a> However this may be, it is certain +that Francis instructed Du Bellay to set on foot a thorough +investigation into the history and character of the inhabitants of +Mérindol, and report the results to himself. The selection could not +have been more felicitous. Du Bellay was Viceroy of Piedmont, a province +thrown into the hands of Francis by the fortunes of war. A man of calm +and impartial spirit, his liberal principles had been fostered by +intimate association with the Protestants of Germany. Only a few months +earlier, in 1539, he had, in his capacity of governor, made energetic +remonstrances to the Constable de Montmorency touching the wrongs +sustained by the Waldenses of the valleys of Piedmont at the hands of a +Count de Montmian, the constable's kinsman. He had even resorted to +threats, and declared "that it appeared to him wicked and villanous, if, +as was reported, the count had invaded these valleys and plundered a +peaceful and unoffending race of men." Montmian had retorted by accusing +Du Bellay of falsehood, and maintaining that the Waldenses had suffered +no more than they deserved, on account of their rebellion against God +and the king. The unexpected death of Montmian prevented the two +noblemen from meeting in single combat, but a bitter enmity between the +constable and Du Bellay had been the result.<a name="FNanchor_473_473" id="FNanchor_473_473"></a><a href="#Footnote_473_473" class="fnanchor">[473]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Du Bellay's favorable report.</div> + +<p>The viceroy, in obedience to his instructions, despatched two agents +from Turin to inquire upon the ground into the character and antecedents +of the people of Mérindol. Their report, which has fortunately come down +to us, constitutes a brilliant testimonial from unbiassed witnesses to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> +the virtues of this simple peasantry. They set forth in simple terms the +affecting story of the cruelty and merciless exactions to which the +villagers had for long years been subjected. They collected the +concurrent opinions of all the Roman Catholics of the vicinity +respecting their industry. In two hundred years they had transformed an +uncultivated and barren waste into a fertile and productive tract, to +the no small profit of the noblemen whose tenants they were. They were a +people distinguished for their love of peace and quiet, with firmly +established customs and principles, and warmly commended for their +strict adherence to truth in their words and engagements. Averse alike +to debt and to litigation, they were bound to their neighbors by a tie +of singular good-will and respect. Their kindness to the unfortunate and +their humanity to travellers knew no bounds. One could readily +distinguish them from others by their abstinence from unnecessary oaths, +and their avoidance even of the very name of the devil. They never +indulged in lascivious discourse themselves, and if others introduced it +in their presence, they instantly withdrew from the company. It was true +that they rarely entered the churches, when pleasure or business took +them to the city or the fair; and, if found within the sacred enclosure, +they were seen praying with faces averted from the paintings of the +saints. They offered no candles, avoided the sacred relics, and paid no +reverence to the crosses on the roadside. The priests testified that +they were never known to purchase masses either for the living or for +the dead, nor to sprinkle themselves with holy water. They neither went +on pilgrimages, nor invoked the intercession of the host of heaven, nor +expended the smallest sum in securing indulgences. In a thunderstorm +they knelt down and prayed, instead of crossing themselves. Finally, +they contributed nothing to the support of religious fraternities or to +the rebuilding of churches, reserving their means for the relief of tho +poor and afflicted.<a name="FNanchor_474_474" id="FNanchor_474_474"></a><a href="#Footnote_474_474" class="fnanchor">[474]</a></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <a href="images/maplarge.jpg"> + <img src="images/map.jpg" + alt="MAP OF THE VAUDOIS VILLAGES IN PROVENCE." + title="MAP OF THE VAUDOIS VILLAGES IN PROVENCE." /></a><br /> + <span class="caption">MAP OF THE VAUDOIS VILLAGES IN PROVENCE.<br /><br /><i>To face p. 240.</i></span> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Francis signs a letter of pardon.</div> + +<p>Although the enemies of the Waldenses were not silenced, and wild +stories of their rebellious acts still found willing listeners at +court,<a name="FNanchor_475_475" id="FNanchor_475_475"></a><a href="#Footnote_475_475" class="fnanchor">[475]</a> it was impossible to resist the favorable impression made by +the viceroy's letter. Consequently, on the eighth of February, 1541, +Francis signed a letter granting pardon not only to the persons who by +their failure to appear before the Parliament of Aix had furnished the +pretext for the proscriptive decree, but to all others, meantime +commanding them to abjure their errors within the space of three months. +At the same time the over-zealous judges were directed henceforth to use +less severity against these subjects of his Majesty.<a name="FNanchor_476_476" id="FNanchor_476_476"></a><a href="#Footnote_476_476" class="fnanchor">[476]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Parliament issues a new summons.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">The Vaudois publish a confession.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Bishop Sadolet's kindness.</div> + +<p>Little inclined to relinquish the pursuit, however, parliament seized +upon the king's command to abjure within three months, as an excuse for +issuing a new summons to the Waldenses. Two deputies from Mérindol +accordingly presented themselves, and offered, on the part of the +inhabitants, to abandon their peculiar tenets, so soon as these should +be refuted from the Holy Scriptures—the course which, as they believed, +the king himself had intended that they should take. As it was no part +of the plan to grant so reasonable a request, the sole reply vouchsafed +was a declaration that all who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> recanted would receive the benefit of +the king's pardon, but all others would be reputed guilty of heresy +without further inquiry. Whereupon the Waldenses of Mérindol, in 1542, +drew up a full confession of their faith, in order that the excellence +of the doctrines they held might be known to all men.<a name="FNanchor_477_477" id="FNanchor_477_477"></a><a href="#Footnote_477_477" class="fnanchor">[477]</a> The important +document was submitted not merely to parliament, but to Cardinal +Sadolet, Bishop of Carpentras. The prelate was a man of a kindly +disposition, and did not hesitate, in reply to a petition of the +Waldenses of Cabrières, to acknowledge the falsity of the accusations +laid to their charge.<a name="FNanchor_478_478" id="FNanchor_478_478"></a><a href="#Footnote_478_478" class="fnanchor">[478]</a> Not long after, he successfully exerted his +influence with the vice-legate to induce him to abandon an expedition he +had organized against the last-mentioned village; while, in an interview +which he purposely sought with the inhabitants, he assured them that he +firmly intended, in a coming visit to Rome, to secure the reformation of +some incontestable abuses.<a name="FNanchor_479_479" id="FNanchor_479_479"></a><a href="#Footnote_479_479" class="fnanchor">[479]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Intercession of the Germans.</div> + +<p>The Mérindol confession is said to have found its way even to Paris, and +to have been read to the king by Châtellain, Bishop of Maçon, and a +favorite of the monarch. And it is added that, astonished at the purity +of its doctrine, Francis asked, but in vain, that any erroneous teaching +in it should be pointed out to him.<a name="FNanchor_480_480" id="FNanchor_480_480"></a><a href="#Footnote_480_480" class="fnanchor">[480]</a> It is not, indeed, impossible +that the king's interest in his Waldensian subjects may have been +deepened by the receipt of a respectful remonstrance against the +persecutions now raging in France, drawn up by Melanchthon in the name +of the Protestant princes and states of Germany.<a name="FNanchor_481_481" id="FNanchor_481_481"></a><a href="#Footnote_481_481" class="fnanchor">[481]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Death of President Chassanée, who is succeeded by Baron +d'Oppède.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Military preparations stopped by a second royal order.</div> + +<p>The <i>Arrêt de Mérindol</i> yet remained unexecuted when, Chassanée having +died, he was succeeded, in the office of First President of the +Parliament of Provence, by Jean Meynier, Baron d'Oppède. The latter was +an impetuous and unscrupulous man. Even before his elevation to his new +judicial position, Meynier had looked with envious eye upon the +prosperity of Cabrières, situated but a few miles from his barony; and +scarcely had he taken his place on the bench, before, at his bidding, +the first notes of preparation for a great military assault upon the +villages of the Durance were heard. The affrighted peasants again had +recourse to the mercy of their distant sovereign. A second time Francis +(on the twenty-fifth of October, 1544) interfered, evoking the case from +parliament, and assuming cognizance of it until such time as he might +have instituted an examination upon the spot by a "Maître de requêtes" +and a theologian sent by him.<a name="FNanchor_482_482" id="FNanchor_482_482"></a><a href="#Footnote_482_482" class="fnanchor">[482]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Calumnious accusations.</div> + +<p>The interruption was little relished. A fresh investigation was likely +to disclose nothing more unfavorable to the Waldenses than had been +elicited by the inquiries of Du Bellay, or than the report which had led +Louis the Twelfth, on an earlier occasion (1501), to exclaim with an +oath: "They are better Christians than we are!"<a name="FNanchor_483_483" id="FNanchor_483_483"></a><a href="#Footnote_483_483" class="fnanchor">[483]</a> and, what was +worse, the poor relations, both of the prelates and of the judges, had +only a sorry prospect of enriching themselves through the confiscation +of the property of the lawful owners.<a name="FNanchor_484_484" id="FNanchor_484_484"></a><a href="#Footnote_484_484" class="fnanchor">[484]</a> It was time to venture +something<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> for the purpose of obtaining the coveted prize. Accordingly, +the Parliament of Aix, at this juncture, despatched to Paris one of its +official servants, with a special message to the king. He was to beg +Francis to recall his previous order. He was to tell him that Mérindol +and the neighboring villages had broken out into open rebellion; that +fifteen thousand armed insurgents had met in a single body. They had +captured towns and castles, liberated prisoners, and hindered the course +of justice. They were intending to march against Marseilles, and when +successful would establish a republic fashioned on the model of the +Swiss cantons.<a name="FNanchor_485_485" id="FNanchor_485_485"></a><a href="#Footnote_485_485" class="fnanchor">[485]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Francis, misinformed, revokes his last orders.</div> + +<p>Thus reinforced, Cardinal Tournon found no great difficulty in exciting +the animosity of a king both jealous of any infringement upon his +prerogative, and credulous respecting movements tending to the +encouragement of rebellion. On the first of January, 1545, Francis sent +a new letter to the Parliament of Aix. He revoked his last order, +enjoined the execution of the former decrees of parliament, so far as +they concerned those who had failed to abjure, and commanded the +governor of Provence, or his lieutenant, to employ all his forces to +exterminate any found guilty of the Waldensian heresy.<a name="FNanchor_486_486" id="FNanchor_486_486"></a><a href="#Footnote_486_486" class="fnanchor">[486]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">His letter construed as authorizing a new crusade.</div> + +<p>The new order had been skilfully drawn. The "Arrêt de Mérindol," +although not alluded to by name, might naturally be understood as +included under the general designation of the parliament's decrees +against heretics; while the direction to employ the governor's troops +against those who had not abjured could be construed as authorizing a +local crusade, in which innocent and guilty were equally likely to +suffer. Such were the pretexts behind which the first president and his +friends prepared for a carnage which, for causelessness and atrocity, +finds few parallels on the page of history.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">An expedition stealthily organized.</div> + +<p>Three months passed, and yet no attempt was made to disturb the peaceful +villages on the Durance. Then the looked-for opportunity came. Count De +Grignan, Governor of Provence, was summoned by the king and sent on a +diplomatic mission to Germany. The civil and military administration +fell into the Baron d'Oppède's hands as lieutenant. The favorable +conjuncture was instantly improved. On a single day—the twelfth of +April—the royal letter, hitherto kept secret, that the intended victims +might receive no intimations of the impending blow, was read and +judicially confirmed, and four commissioners were appointed to +superintend the execution.<a name="FNanchor_487_487" id="FNanchor_487_487"></a><a href="#Footnote_487_487" class="fnanchor">[487]</a> Troops were hastily levied. All men +capable of bearing arms in the cities of Aix, Arles, and Marseilles were +commanded, under severe penalties, to join the expedition;<a name="FNanchor_488_488" id="FNanchor_488_488"></a><a href="#Footnote_488_488" class="fnanchor">[488]</a> and some +companies of veteran troops, which happened to be on their way from +Piedmont to the scene of the English war, were impressed into the +service by D'Oppède, in the king's name.<a name="FNanchor_489_489" id="FNanchor_489_489"></a><a href="#Footnote_489_489" class="fnanchor">[489]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Villages burned and their inhabitants butchered.</div> + +<p>On the thirteenth of April, the commissioners, leaving Aix, proceeded to +Pertuis, on the northern bank of the Durance. Thence, following the +course of the river, they reached Cadenet. Here they were joined by the +Baron d'Oppède, his sons-in-law, De Pouriez and De Lauris, and a +considerable force of men. A deliberation having been held, on the +sixteenth, Poulain, to whom the chief command had been assigned by +D'Oppède, directed his course northward, and burned Cabrièrette, Peypin, +La Motte and Saint-Martin, villages built on the lands of De Cental, a +Roman Catholic nobleman, at this time a minor. The wretched inhabitants, +who had not until the very last moment credited the strange story of the +disaster in reserve for them, hurriedly fled on the approach of the +soldiery, some to the woods, others to Mérindol. Unable to defend them +against a force so greatly superior in number and equipment, a part of +the men are said to have left their wives, old men, and children in +their forest retreat, confident that if discovered, feminine weakness +and the helplessness of infancy or of extreme old age would secure +better terms for them than could be hoped for in case of a brave, but +ineffectual defence by unarmed men.<a name="FNanchor_490_490" id="FNanchor_490_490"></a><a href="#Footnote_490_490" class="fnanchor">[490]</a> It was a confidence misplaced. +Unresisting, gray-headed men were despatched with the sword, while the +women were reserved for the grossest outrage, or suffered the mutilation +of their breasts, or, if with child, were butchered with their unborn +offspring. Of all the property spared them by previous oppressors, +nothing was left to sustain the miserable survivors. For weeks they +wandered homeless<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> and penniless in the vicinity of their once +flourishing settlements; and there one might not unfrequently see the +infant lying on the road-side, by the corpse of the mother dead of +hunger and exposure. For even the ordinary charity of the humane had +been checked by an order of D'Oppède, savagely forbidding that shelter +or food be afforded to heretics, on pain of the halter.<a name="FNanchor_491_491" id="FNanchor_491_491"></a><a href="#Footnote_491_491" class="fnanchor">[491]</a></p> + +<p>Lourmarin, Villelaure, and Treizemines were next burned on the way to +Mérindol. On the opposite side of the Durance, La Rocque and St. Étienne +de Janson suffered the same fate, at the hands of volunteers coming from +Arles. Happily they were found deserted, the villagers having had timely +notice of the approaching storm.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">The destruction of Mérindol.</div> + +<p>Early on the eighteenth of April, D'Oppède reached Mérindol, the +ostensible object of the expedition. But a single person was found +within its circuit, and he a young man reputed possessed of less than +ordinary intellect. His captor had promised him freedom, on his pledging +himself to pay two crowns for his ransom. But D'Oppède, finding no other +human being upon whom to vent his rage, paid the soldier the two crowns +from his own pocket, and ordered the youth to be tied to an olive-tree +and shot. The touching words uttered by the simple victim, as he turned +his eyes heavenward and breathed out his life, have been preserved: +"Lord God, these men are snatching from me a life full of wretchedness +and misery, but Thou wilt give me eternal life through Jesus Thy +Son."<a name="FNanchor_492_492" id="FNanchor_492_492"></a><a href="#Footnote_492_492" class="fnanchor">[492]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The village razed.</div> + +<p>Meantime the work of persecution was thoroughly done. The houses were +plundered and burned; the trees, whether intended for shade or for +fruit, were cut down to the distance of two hundred paces from the +place. The very site of Mérindol was levelled, and crowds of laborers +industriously strove to destroy every trace of human habitation. Two +hun<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span>dred dwellings, the former abode of thrift and contentment, had +disappeared from the earth, and their occupants wandered, +poverty-stricken, to other regions.<a name="FNanchor_493_493" id="FNanchor_493_493"></a><a href="#Footnote_493_493" class="fnanchor">[493]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Treacherous capture of Cabrières.</div> + +<p>Leaving the desolate spot, D'Oppède next presented himself, on the +nineteenth of April, before the town of Cabrières. Behind some weak +entrenchments a small body of brave men had posted themselves, +determined to defend the lives and honor of their wives and children to +their last drop of blood. D'Oppède hesitated to order an assault until a +breach had first been made by cannon. Then the Waldenses were plied with +solicitations to spare needless effusion of blood by voluntary +surrender. They were offered immunity of life and property, and a +judicial trial. When by these promises the assailants had, on the +morrow, gained the interior of the works, they found them guarded by +Étienne de Marroul and an insignificant force of sixty men, supported by +a courageous band of about forty women. The remainder of the population, +overcome by natural terror at the strange sight of war, had taken +refuge—the men in the cellars of the castle, the women and children in +the church.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Men butchered and women burned.</div> + +<p>The slender garrison left their entrenchments without arms, trusting in +the good faith of their enemies. It was a vain and delusive reliance. +They had to do with men who held, and carried into practice, the +doctrine that no faith is to be observed with heretics. Scarcely had the +Waldenses placed themselves in their power, when twenty-five or more of +their number were seized, and, being dragged to a meadow near by, were +butchered in cold blood, in the presence of the Baron d'Oppède. The rest +were taken to Aix and Marseilles. The women were treated with even +greater cruelty. Having been thrust into a barn, they were there burned +alive. When a soldier, more compassionate than his comrades, opened to +them a way of escape, D'Oppède ordered them to be driven back at the +point of the pike. Nor were those taken within the town more fortunate. +The men, drawn from their subterranean re<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span>treats, were either killed on +the spot, or bound in couples and hurried to the castle hall, where two +captains stood ready to kill them as they successively arrived. It was, +however, for the sacred precincts of the church that the crowning orgies +of these bloody revels were reserved. The fitting actors were a motley +rabble from the neighboring city of Avignon, who converted the place +consecrated to the worship of the Almighty into a charnel-house, in +which eight hundred bodies lay slain, without respect of age or +sex.<a name="FNanchor_494_494" id="FNanchor_494_494"></a><a href="#Footnote_494_494" class="fnanchor">[494]</a></p> + +<p>In the blood of a thousand human beings D'Oppède had washed out a +fancied affront received at the hands of the inhabitants of Cabrières. +The private rancor of a relative induced him to visit a similar revenge +on La Coste, where a fresh field was opened for the perfidy, lust, and +greed of the soldiery. The peasants were promised by their feudal lord +perfect security, on condition that they brought their arms into the +castle and broke down four portions of their wall. Too implicit reliance +was placed in a nobleman's word, and the terms were accepted. But when +D'Oppède arrived, a murderous work began. The suburbs were burned, the +town was taken, the citizens for the most part were butchered, the +married women and girls were alike surrendered to the brutality of the +soldiers.<a name="FNanchor_495_495" id="FNanchor_495_495"></a><a href="#Footnote_495_495" class="fnanchor">[495]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The results.</div> + +<p>For more than seven weeks the pillage continued.<a name="FNanchor_496_496" id="FNanchor_496_496"></a><a href="#Footnote_496_496" class="fnanchor">[496]</a> Twenty-two towns +and villages were utterly destroyed. The soldiers, glutted with blood +and rapine, were withdrawn from the scene of their infamous excesses. +Most of the Waldenses who had escaped sword, famine, and exposure, +grad<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span>ually returned to the familiar sites, and established themselves +anew, maintaining their ancient faith.<a name="FNanchor_497_497" id="FNanchor_497_497"></a><a href="#Footnote_497_497" class="fnanchor">[497]</a> But multitudes had perished +of hunger,<a name="FNanchor_498_498" id="FNanchor_498_498"></a><a href="#Footnote_498_498" class="fnanchor">[498]</a> while others, rejoicing that they had found abroad a +toleration denied them at home, renounced their native land, and settled +upon the territory generously conceded to them in Switzerland.<a name="FNanchor_499_499" id="FNanchor_499_499"></a><a href="#Footnote_499_499" class="fnanchor">[499]</a> In +one way or another, France had become poorer by the loss of several +thousands persons of its most industrious class.<a name="FNanchor_500_500" id="FNanchor_500_500"></a><a href="#Footnote_500_500" class="fnanchor">[500]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The king led to give his approval.</div> + +<p>The very agents in the massacre were appalled at the havoc they had +made. Fearing, with reason, the punishment of their crime, if viewed in +its proper light,<a name="FNanchor_501_501" id="FNanchor_501_501"></a><a href="#Footnote_501_501" class="fnanchor">[501]</a> they endeavored to veil it with the forms of a +judicial proceeding. A commission was appointed to try the heretics whom +the sword had spared. A part were sentenced to the galleys, others to +heavy fines. A few of the tenants of M. de Cental are said to have +purchased reconciliation by abjuring their faith.<a name="FNanchor_502_502" id="FNanchor_502_502"></a><a href="#Footnote_502_502" class="fnanchor">[502]</a> But, to conceal +the truth still more effectually, President De la Fond was sent to +Paris. He assured Francis that the sufferers had been guilty of the +basest crimes, that they had been judicially tried and found guilty, and +that their punishment was really below the desert of their +offences.<a name="FNanchor_503_503" id="FNanchor_503_503"></a><a href="#Footnote_503_503" class="fnanchor">[503]</a> Upon these representations, the king<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> was induced—it was +supposed by the solicitation of Cardinal Tournon—to grant letters (at +Arques, on the eighteenth of August, 1545) approving the execution of +the Waldenses, but recommending to mercy all that repented and +abjured.<a name="FNanchor_504_504" id="FNanchor_504_504"></a><a href="#Footnote_504_504" class="fnanchor">[504]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">An investigation subsequently ordered.</div> + +<p>Thus did the authors of so much human suffering escape merited +retribution at the hands of earthly justice during the brief remainder +of the reign of Francis the First. If, as some historians have asserted, +that monarch's eyes were at last opened to the enormities committed in +Provence, it was too late for him to do more than enjoin on his son and +successor a careful review of the entire proceedings.<a name="FNanchor_505_505" id="FNanchor_505_505"></a><a href="#Footnote_505_505" class="fnanchor">[505]</a> After the +death of Francis an opportunity for obtaining redress seemed to offer. +Cardinal Tournon and Count De Grignan were in disgrace, and their places +in the royal favor were held by men who hated them heartily. The new +favorites used their influence to secure the Waldenses a hearing. +D'Oppède and the four commissioners were summoned to Paris. Count De +Grignan himself barely escaped being put on trial—as responsible for +the misdeeds of his lieutenant—by securing the advocacy of the Duke of +Guise, which he purchased with the sacrifice of his domains at Grignan. +For fifty days the trial of the other criminals was warmly prosecuted +before the Parliament of Paris; and so ably and lucidly did Auberi +present the claims of the oppressed before the crowded assembly, that a +severe verdict was confidently awaited.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Meagre effect.</div> + +<p>The public expectation, however, was doomed to disappointment. Only one +of the accused, the advocate Guérin, being so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> unfortunate as to possess +no great influence at court, was condemned to the gallows. D'Oppède +escaped with De Grignan, through the protection of the Duke of Guise, +and, like his fellow-defendants, was reinstated in office.<a name="FNanchor_506_506" id="FNanchor_506_506"></a><a href="#Footnote_506_506" class="fnanchor">[506]</a> For the +rendering of a decision so flagrantly unjust the true cause must be +sought in the sanguinary character of the Parisian judges themselves, +who, while they were reluctant, on the one hand, to derogate from the +credit of another parliament of France, on the other, feared lest, in +condemning the persecuting rage of others, they might seem to be passing +sentence upon themselves for the uniform course of cruelty they had +pursued in the trial of the reformers.<a name="FNanchor_507_507" id="FNanchor_507_507"></a><a href="#Footnote_507_507" class="fnanchor">[507]</a></p> + +<p>The oppressed and persecuted of all ages have been ready, not without +reason, to recognize in signal disasters befalling their enemies the +retributive hand of the Almighty himself lifting for a moment the veil +of futurity, to disclose a little of the misery that awaits the +evil-doer in another world. But, in the present instance, it is a candid +historian of different faith who does not hesitate to ascribe to a +special interposition of the Deity the excruciating sufferings and death +which, not long after his acquittal, overtook Baron d'Oppède, the chief +actor in the mournful tragedy we have been recounting.<a name="FNanchor_508_508" id="FNanchor_508_508"></a><a href="#Footnote_508_508" class="fnanchor">[508]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">New persecution at Meaux.</div> + +<p>The ashes of Mérindol and Cabrières were scarcely cold, before in a +distant part of France the flame of persecution broke out with fresh +energy.<a name="FNanchor_509_509" id="FNanchor_509_509"></a><a href="#Footnote_509_509" class="fnanchor">[509]</a> The city of Meaux, where, under the evangelical preachers +introduced by Bishop Briçonnet, the Reformation had made such auspicious +progress, had never been thoroughly reduced to submission to papal +authority. "The Lutherans of Meaux" had passed into a proverb. +Persecuted, they retained their devotion to their new faith; compelled +to observe strict secrecy, they multiplied to such a degree that their +numbers could no longer be concealed. Twenty years after their +destruction had been resolved upon, the necessity of a regular church +organization made itself felt by the growing congregations. Some of the +members had visited the church of Strasbourg, to which John Calvin had, +a few years before, given an orderly system of government and +worship—the model followed by many Protestant churches of subsequent +formation. On their return a similar polity was established in Meaux. A +simple wool-carder, Pierre Leclerc, brother of one of the first martyrs +of Protestant France, was called from the humble pursuits of the artisan +to the responsible post of pastor. He was no scholar in the usual +acceptation of the term; he knew only his mother-tongue. But his +judgment was sound, his piety fervent, his familiarity with the Holy +Scriptures singularly great. So fruitful were his labors, that the +handful of hearers grew into assemblies often of several hundreds, drawn +to Meaux from villages five or six leagues distant.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">A woman's pointed remark.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">A favorite psalm.</div> + +<p>Betrayed by their size, the conventicles came to the knowledge of the +magistrates, and on the eighth of September, 1546, a descent was made +upon the worshipping Christians. Sixty-two persons composed the +gathering. The lieutenant and provost of the city, with their meagre +suite, could easily have been set at defiance. But the announcement of +arrest in the king's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> name prevented any attempt either at resistance on +their part, or at rescue on that of their friends. Respecting the +authority of law, the Protestants allowed themselves to be bound and led +away by an insignificant detachment of officers. Only the pointed remark +of one young woman to the lieutenant, as she was bound, has come down to +us: "Sir, had you found me in a brothel, as you now find me in so holy +and honorable a company, you would not have used me thus." As the +prisoners passed through the streets of Meaux, their friends neither +interfered with the ministers of justice, nor exhibited solicitude for +their own safety; but accompanying them, as in a triumphal procession, +loudly gave expression to their trust in God, by raising one of their +favorite psalms, in Clement Marot's translation:<a name="FNanchor_510_510" id="FNanchor_510_510"></a><a href="#Footnote_510_510" class="fnanchor">[510]</a></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Les gens entrez sont en ton heritage:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ils ont pollu, Seigneur, par leur outrage,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ton temple sainct, Jerusalem destruite,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Si qu'en monceaux de pierres, l'on reduite.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>It was neither the first time, nor was it destined to be by any means +the last, that those rugged, but nervous lines thrilled the souls of the +persecuted Huguenots of France as with the sound of a trumpet, and +braced them to the patient endurance of suffering or to the performance +of deeds of valor.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">The "Fourteen of Meaux."</div> + +<p>Dragged with excessive and unnecessary violence to Paris, the prisoners +were put on trial, and, within a single month, sentence was passed on +them. The crime of having celebrated the Lord's Supper was almost +inexpiable. Fourteen men, with Leclerc their minister, and Étienne +Mangin, in whose house their worship had been held, were condemned to +torture and the stake; others to whipping and banishment; the remainder, +both men and women, to public penance and attendance upon the execution +of their more prominent brethren. Upon one young man, whose tender years +alone saved him from the flames, a sentence of a somewhat<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> whimsical +character was pronounced. He was to be suspended under the arms during +the auto-da-fé of his brethren, and, with a halter around his neck, was +from his elevated position to witness their agony, as an instructive +warning of the dangerous consequence of persistence in heretical errors. +Mangin's house was to be razed, and on the site a chapel of the Virgin +erected, wherein a solemn weekly mass was to be celebrated in honor of +the sacramental wafer, the expense being defrayed by the confiscated +property of the Protestants.</p> + +<p>Neither in the monasteries to which they were temporarily allotted, nor +on their way back to Meaux, did the courage of the "Fourteen" desert +them. It was even enhanced by the boldness of a weaver, who, meeting +them in the forest of Livry, cried out: "My brethren, be of good cheer, +and fail not through weariness to give with constancy the testimony you +owe the Gospel. Remember Him who is on high in heaven!"<a name="FNanchor_511_511" id="FNanchor_511_511"></a><a href="#Footnote_511_511" class="fnanchor">[511]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Their execution.</div> + +<p>On the seventh of October, Mangin and Leclerc on hurdles, the others on +carts, were taken to the market-square, where fourteen stakes had been +set up in a circle. Here, facing one another, amid the agonies of death, +and in spite of the din made by priests and populace frantically +intoning the hymns "<i>O salutaris hostia</i>" and "<i>Salve Regina</i>" they +continued till their last breath to animate each other and to praise the +Almighty Giver of every blessing. But if the humane heart recoils with +horror from the very thought of the bloody holocaust, the scene of the +morrow inspires even greater disgust; when Picard, a doctor of the +Sorbonne, standing beneath a canopy glittering with gold, near the yet +smoking embers, assured the people that it was essential to salvation to +believe that the "Fourteen" were condemned to the lowest abyss of hell, +and that even the word of an angel from heaven ought not to be credited, +if he maintained the contrary. "For," said he, "God would not be God did +He not consign them to everlasting damnation." Upon which charitable and +pious assertions of the learned theologian the Protestant chronicler had +but a simple observation to make: "However, he could not per<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span>suade those +who knew them to be excellent men, and upright in their lives, that this +was so. Consequently the seed of the truth was not destroyed in the city +of Meaux."<a name="FNanchor_512_512" id="FNanchor_512_512"></a><a href="#Footnote_512_512" class="fnanchor">[512]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Wider diffusion of the reformed doctrines.</div> + +<p>Far from witnessing the extinction of the Reformation in his dominions, +the last year of the life of Francis the First was signalized by its +wider diffusion. At Senlis, at Orleans, and at Fère, near Soissons, +fugitives from Meaux planted the germs of new religious communities. +Fresh fires were kindled to destroy them; and in one place a preacher +was burned in a novel fashion, with a pack of books upon his back.<a name="FNanchor_513_513" id="FNanchor_513_513"></a><a href="#Footnote_513_513" class="fnanchor">[513]</a> +Lyons and Langres, in the east, received reformed teachers about the +same time; although from the latter place the pastor and four members of +his flock were carried to the capital and perished at the stake. Even +Sens, see of the primate, contributed its portion of witnesses for the +Gospel, who sealed their testimony in their blood.<a name="FNanchor_514_514" id="FNanchor_514_514"></a><a href="#Footnote_514_514" class="fnanchor">[514]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The printer, Jean Chapot, before parliament.</div> + +<p>In Paris itself parliament tried a native of Dauphiny, Jean Chapot, who, +having brought several packages of books from Geneva, had been denounced +by a brother printer. His defence was so apt and learned that the judges +were nearly shaken by his animated appeals. It fared ill with three +doctors of the Sorbonne, Dean Nicholas Clerici, and his assistants, +Picard and Maillard, who were called in to refute him; for they could +not stand their ground, and were forced, avoiding proofs from the Holy +Scriptures, to have recourse to the authority of the church. In the end +the theologians covered their retreat with indignant remonstrances +addressed to parliament for listening to such seductive speakers; and +the majority of the judges, mastering their first inclination to acquit +Chapot, condemned him to the stake, reserving for him the easier death +by strangling, in case he recanted. An unusual favor was allowed him. He +was permitted to make a short speech previously to his execution. Faint +and utterly unable to stand, in consequence of the tortures by which his +body had been racked, he was supported on either side by an attendant,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> +and thus from the funeral cart explained his belief to the by-standers. +But when he reached the topic of the Lord's Supper, he was interrupted +by one of the priests. The milder sentence of the halter was inflicted, +in order to create the impression that he had been so weak as to repeat +the "<i>Ave Maria</i>." But the practice henceforth uniformly followed by the +"<i>Chambre ardente</i>" of parliament, of cutting out the tongues of the +condemned before sending them to public execution, confirmed the report +that Maillard had exclaimed that "all would be lost, if such men were +suffered to speak to the people."<a name="FNanchor_515_515" id="FNanchor_515_515"></a><a href="#Footnote_515_515" class="fnanchor">[515]</a></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER VIII.</h2> + +<h3>HENRY THE SECOND, AND THE ORGANIZATION OF THE FRENCH PROTESTANT +CHURCHES.</h3> + + +<div class="sidenote">Death of Francis I.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Impartial estimates of his character.</div> + +<p>On the thirty-first of March, 1547, Francis the First died, leaving the +throne to his only surviving son. With whatever assiduity the poets and +scholars of whom the late king had been a munificent patron, and the +courtiers who had basked in the sunshine of his favor, might apply +themselves to the celebration of his resplendent merits, posterity, less +blind to his faults, has declined to confirm the title of "great" +affixed to his name by contemporaries. The candid historian, undazzled +by the glitter of his chivalric enterprises, may condemn the animus, but +can scarcely deny the substantial truth of the bitter reproaches in +which the Emperor Charles the Fifth indulged, respecting the uniform +faithlessness of his ancient rival.<a name="FNanchor_516_516" id="FNanchor_516_516"></a><a href="#Footnote_516_516" class="fnanchor">[516]</a> Much less can he pardon the +cruel persecution which Francis allowed to be exercised against an +unoffending part of his subjects, less from zeal for the tenets of the +church whose cause he espoused than from a selfish fear lest his +prerogative might be impaired.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">His three sons.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Henry, Duke of Orleans.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Character of the new king.</div> + +<p>Of the three sons of Francis, the dauphin and his youngest<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> brother, the +Duke of Angoulême, had been snatched away by death during the lifetime +of their father.<a name="FNanchor_517_517" id="FNanchor_517_517"></a><a href="#Footnote_517_517" class="fnanchor">[517]</a> The Duke of Orleans, who now ascended the throne +as Henry the Second, was not a favorite son.<a name="FNanchor_518_518" id="FNanchor_518_518"></a><a href="#Footnote_518_518" class="fnanchor">[518]</a> More than once he had +incurred his father's grave displeasure by insubordination. A mad +frolic, in which the young prince undertook in sport to distribute the +high offices of state, as if his father were already dead, and disclosed +his intention to recall to power the monarch's disgraced courtiers, +occasioned a serious breach. More important consequences might have +flowed from the unfortunate incident, had not the youth and the giddy +companions of his revel sought safety in temporary exile from +court.<a name="FNanchor_519_519" id="FNanchor_519_519"></a><a href="#Footnote_519_519" class="fnanchor">[519]</a> From his father Henry inherited great bodily vigor, and +remarkable skill in all games of strength and agility. His frame, +naturally well proportioned, was finely developed by exercise.<a name="FNanchor_520_520" id="FNanchor_520_520"></a><a href="#Footnote_520_520" class="fnanchor">[520]</a> He +was accounted the fleetest runner, and the most<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> graceful rider in +France. He rarely suffered a day to pass without playing ball, not +unfrequently after having hunted down a stag or two. In the more +dangerous pastimes of mock combat and jousting he delighted to engage, +to the no small alarm of all spectators.<a name="FNanchor_521_521" id="FNanchor_521_521"></a><a href="#Footnote_521_521" class="fnanchor">[521]</a> Unfortunately, however, +the intellectual and moral development of the young prince had by no +means kept pace with the growth of his physical powers. The sluggishness +of his dull and unready comprehension had, at an earlier date, been +noticed by the Venetian Marino Cavalli, while, with a courtier's +flattery, he likened him to those autumnal fruits that are more tardy in +ripening, but are of better quality and last longer than the fruits of +summer.<a name="FNanchor_522_522" id="FNanchor_522_522"></a><a href="#Footnote_522_522" class="fnanchor">[522]</a> Although he had reached the age of twenty-eight years on +the very day of his accession, he was still a child in all that +respected the serious concerns of life and the duties of his elevated +position. Averse to that careful deliberation which the public affairs +demanded, and willing to be led by those who would <i>think</i> for him, it +immediately became evident that he was destined to be the mere image of +a king, while the powers of royalty were to be enjoyed by his trusted +advisers and by those who could minister to his immoderate love of +pleasure. The issue abundantly proved the truth of the assertion that +his reign ought rather to be called the reign of Diana of Poitiers, of +Montmorency, and of the Cardinal of Lorraine; of whom the last, it was +said, had the king's conscience in his sleeve, and the first his body, +as by some species of sorcery.<a name="FNanchor_523_523" id="FNanchor_523_523"></a><a href="#Footnote_523_523" class="fnanchor">[523]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Wotton's view of the French court.</div> + +<p>Scarcely had Francis breathed his last when shrewd observers of the +current of political influence were able to make up their minds pretty +fully upon the favorites that were to rule under Henry's name. "The +French king, straight after his father's death," wrote Dr. Wotton, "hath +revoked the <i>Constable</i> to the court again; who is now in as great +triumph (as men say) as ever he was, if it be not more.... Of the +younger sort of those that are at the court already, these seem to be +the chief favorites: <i>Andelot</i>, younger brother to Châtillon, and his +brother, the <i>Cardinal of Châtillon</i>; the Duke of Guise's sons, in a +manner all, but especially these: <i>Monsieur d'Aumale</i> [Francis, later +Duke of Guise], the <i>Bishop of Rheims</i> [Cardinal Charles of Lorraine], +and the <i>Bishop of Troyes</i>, who, as I hear say, are all three of the +council. Monsieur d'Aumale is in very great favour ... but in greatest +estimation and favour of all, as it appeareth hitherto, either of them +of the older sort or of the younger sort, seemeth to be the said Bishop +of Rheims, who had the chief ordering of the king's house, he being +Dolphin; whom I could wish to be of as good judgment in matters of +religion as I take the Cardinal du Bellay to be, but I hear he is not +so, but <i>very earnest in upholding the Romish blindness</i>.... Of the +dames, Madame la Grande Senechale seemeth to be highly esteemed."<a name="FNanchor_524_524" id="FNanchor_524_524"></a><a href="#Footnote_524_524" class="fnanchor">[524]</a></p> + +<p>To gain a clear view of the various influences—at one time neutralizing +each other, and thus tending to the protection of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> the reformed +doctrines and their professors, but much more frequently acting in +concert, and tending to the suppression of those doctrines—it is +necessary that we examine in some detail the position of Diana, of the +Constable, and of the Guises.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Diana of Poitiers.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">The king's infatuation.</div> + +<p>Diana of Poitiers, daughter of Monsieur de St. Vallier, and widow of De +Brezé, Grand Seneschal of Normandy, had in her youth been celebrated for +her beauty, by which she had first captivated Francis the First, and +afterward made Henry forget the claims of his Florentine bride upon his +affections. But she was now a matron of forty-seven years of age, and +the public wondered as they saw the undiminished devotion of the new +monarch to a woman nearly a score of years older than himself. It is +true that the courtier's pen of Brantôme ascribes to her all the +freshness of youth even at the close of the reign of Henry the Second. +His eulogium, however, is scarcely more worthy of credit than Homer's +praise of the undiminished personal beauty of Helen, when, twenty years +subsequently to the departure of the expedition to Troy, the Ithacan +prince found her reigning again at Sparta. But of the influence which +Diana possessed over Henry there could be no doubt. By the vulgar it was +attributed to the use of charms and love-potions. The infatuation of the +monarch knew no bounds. He loaded her with gifts; he entrusted her with +the crown jewels;<a name="FNanchor_525_525" id="FNanchor_525_525"></a><a href="#Footnote_525_525" class="fnanchor">[525]</a> he conferred upon her the dignity of a duchess of +Valentinois. In her apartments he spent hours daily, in company with his +most intimate courtiers. Through love for her he adopted her favorite +colors, and took for his device the crescent, with the words, "Totum +donec compleat orbem." The public edifices of his time, it is said, +still bear testimony to this dishonorable attachment, in the initials or +emblems of Henry and Diana sculptured together upon their façades; and +the Venetian Soranzo, at a later period in Henry's reign, magnifying her +influence upon every department of the administration, affirms, in +particular, that the dispensation of ecclesiastical offices was in her +hands.<a name="FNanchor_526_526" id="FNanchor_526_526"></a><a href="#Footnote_526_526" class="fnanchor">[526]</a> It is not surprising that,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> being of an avaricious +character, she soon accumulated great wealth.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Constable Anne de Montmorency.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">His cruelty.</div> + +<p>Anne de Montmorency, one of the four marshals of France, grand-master of +the palace, and constable, was among the most notable personages of the +sixteenth century. Sprung from a family claiming descent from the first +Frank that followed the example of Clovis in renouncing paganism, and +bearing on its escutcheon the motto, "God defend the first Christian," +he likewise arrogated the foremost rank in the nobility as the first +baron of the kingdom. From his youth he was accustomed to association +with royalty. Margaret of Navarre was his early friend, and at a later +period had occasion to complain of his ingratitude. He was at this time +fifty-five years of age, severe, stern, fond of arms, complaisant to +royalty, but harsh and overbearing in his relations with inferiors. Of +his personal valor there can be no doubt, and he was generally regarded +as the ablest general in France—an opinion, it is true, which his +subsequent ill-success contributed much to shake.<a name="FNanchor_527_527" id="FNanchor_527_527"></a><a href="#Footnote_527_527" class="fnanchor">[527]</a> But his martial +glory was dimmed by his well-known avarice, his ignorance,<a name="FNanchor_528_528" id="FNanchor_528_528"></a><a href="#Footnote_528_528" class="fnanchor">[528]</a> and a +cruelty that often approached ferocity. Of this last trait a signal +instance was afforded when Montmorency was sent, in the year after +Henry's accession, to suppress a formidable revolt which had broken out +in Guyenne, in consequence of a consider<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span>able increase of the already +burdensome impost upon salt. He haughtily refused to accept the keys of +the city of Bordeaux tendered to him by the citizens on his approach. +His artillery, he said, would serve him as well in gaining admission. +The severity of the retribution meted out under his superintendence to +those who had ventured to resist the royal authority was unparalleled in +French history.<a name="FNanchor_529_529" id="FNanchor_529_529"></a><a href="#Footnote_529_529" class="fnanchor">[529]</a> If the constable's ferocity did not diminish with +age, it acquired a tinge of the ludicrous from his growing superstition. +Never would he omit his devotions at the appointed hour, whether at home +or in the field—"so conscientious was he." But he would interrupt the +recital of his <i>pater-nosters</i> with such orders as the emergency might +demand, or his inclination prompt: "Seize such a man! Hang that one to a +tree! Run that fellow through at once with your pikes, or shoot him down +before my eyes! Cut the knaves to pieces that have undertaken to hold +that belfry against the king! Burn that village! Fire everything to the +distance of a quarter of a league!" So terrible a reputation did his +devotions consequently acquire, that it was a current saying: "Beware of +the constable's pater-nosters!"<a name="FNanchor_530_530" id="FNanchor_530_530"></a><a href="#Footnote_530_530" class="fnanchor">[530]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">His unpopularity.</div> + +<p>In fact, Anne de Montmorency was ill-fitted to win popularity. A +despatch of Sir John Mason, three years later, gives a glimpse of his +relations with his fellow-courtiers. "There is a little <i>square</i>," he +writes, "between the Duchess of Valentinois, who ruleth the roast, and +the constable. A great many of the court <i>wisheth the increase thereof. +He is very ill-beloved</i>, for that he is a hinderer of all men saving his +own kinsfolks, whom he doth so advance as no man<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> may have anything by +his will but they, and for that also he feedeth every man with fair +words, and performeth nothing."<a name="FNanchor_531_531" id="FNanchor_531_531"></a><a href="#Footnote_531_531" class="fnanchor">[531]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Recalled from disgrace by Henry II.</div> + +<p>For six years before the death of Francis the First the constable had +been living in retirement upon his estates. The occasion of his +banishment from court is stated, by one who enjoyed the best +opportunities for learning the truth, to have been the advice which he +had given the monarch to permit the Emperor Charles the Fifth to pass +through his dominions when going to Netherlands to suppress the revolt +of the burghers of Ghent.<a name="FNanchor_532_532" id="FNanchor_532_532"></a><a href="#Footnote_532_532" class="fnanchor">[532]</a> Francis, indeed, is said on his deathbed +to have warned his son against the dangers with which the ambition of +the constable and of the family of Guise threatened his kingdom. But, as +we have seen, Henry had no sooner received tidings of his father's +death, than he at once summoned Montmorency to court, and resigned to +him undisputed control of the affairs of state. The Venetian Dandolo, +sent to congratulate the monarch upon his advent to the throne, +felicitated the favorite on his merited resumption of his former rank +and the honor of the "<i>universal charge</i>" which he held.<a name="FNanchor_533_533" id="FNanchor_533_533"></a><a href="#Footnote_533_533" class="fnanchor">[533]</a> He was now +all-powerful. The Duchess d'Étampes, mistress of the late king, to whose +influence his disgrace was in part owing, for this and other offences +was exiled from court and sent to the castle of her husband.<a name="FNanchor_534_534" id="FNanchor_534_534"></a><a href="#Footnote_534_534" class="fnanchor">[534]</a> +Admiral Annebaut and the Cardinal of Tournon were removed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> from the head +of the administration. The former, of whose sterling worth Francis +entertained so high an appreciation that he had bequeathed to him the +sum of 100,000 livres, was compelled to resign his place as Marshal of +France in favor of a new favorite—Jacques d'Albon de St. André, of whom +more particular mention must be made presently.<a name="FNanchor_535_535" id="FNanchor_535_535"></a><a href="#Footnote_535_535" class="fnanchor">[535]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The family of Guise.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Duke Claude.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">The first Cardinal of Lorraine.</div> + +<p>Francis is reported to have included the family of Guise with Constable +Montmorency in the warning addressed to his son, and the story, received +by the people as an undoubted truth, circulated in a poetical form for +many years.<a name="FNanchor_536_536" id="FNanchor_536_536"></a><a href="#Footnote_536_536" class="fnanchor">[536]</a> The Guises were of foreign extraction, and had but +recently become residents of France. Claude, the fifth son of the Duke +of Lorraine, at that time an independent state, came to the French +court, in the early part of the sixteenth century, in quest of +opportunities to advance his fortunes greater than were open to a +younger member of the reigning family in his father's contracted +dominions. Partly through the influence of Montmorency, partly in +consequence of his marriage with Antoinette of Bourbon, a princess of +royal blood, in some degree also by his own abilities, the young +foreigner was rapidly advanced, from the comparatively insignificant +position at first assigned him, to more important trusts. At length he +became royal lieutenant of the provinces of Champagne and Burgundy, and +his small domain of Guise was erected into a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> duchy.<a name="FNanchor_537_537" id="FNanchor_537_537"></a><a href="#Footnote_537_537" class="fnanchor">[537]</a> His younger +brother John, who had entered the church as offering the most promising +road to the attainment of his ambitious designs, had also come westward; +and, proving to be a jovial companion whose presence imposed no +restraint upon the license of a profligate court, he fared even better +in securing ecclesiastical preferment than his brother in obtaining +secular advantages.<a name="FNanchor_538_538" id="FNanchor_538_538"></a><a href="#Footnote_538_538" class="fnanchor">[538]</a> In his favor Francis made use, in a manner +lavish beyond precedent, of the right of nomination to benefices secured +to the crown by the concordat. Even an age well accustomed to the abuse +of the plurality of offices was amazed to see John of Lorraine at one +and the same time Archbishop of Lyons, Rheims, and Narbonne, Bishop of +Metz, Toul, Verdun, Therouenne, Luçon, Alby, and Valence, and Abbot of +Gorze, Fécamp, Clugny, and Marmoutier.<a name="FNanchor_539_539" id="FNanchor_539_539"></a><a href="#Footnote_539_539" class="fnanchor">[539]</a> To gratify the French +monarch, Pope Leo the Tenth added to the dignity of the young +ecclesiastic, by conferring upon him the Cardinal's hat a year or two +before he had attained his majority.<a name="FNanchor_540_540" id="FNanchor_540_540"></a><a href="#Footnote_540_540" class="fnanchor">[540]</a> Shrewd and plausible, the +Cardinal of Lorraine, as he was henceforth called, contributed not a +little to his brother's rapid advancement; and, as it was well +understood that the rich benefices he held and the accumulation of his +wealth would go, at his death, to enrich his nephews, he was treated +with great deference by all the members of his brother's family.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Marriage of James V. of Scotland to Mary of Lorraine.</div> + +<p>An important era in the history of the Guises is marked by the marriage +effected, in 1538, between James the Fifth of Scotland and Mary of +Lorraine, the eldest daughter of Claude. This royal alliance secured for +the Guises a predominant influence in North British affairs after the +death of James. It brought them into close connection with the crown of +France, when Mary, Queen of Scots, the fruit of this union, was +affianced to the son of Henry the Second, the dauphin, afterward Francis +the Second. It encouraged the adherents of this house to attribute to it +an almost regal dignity, and to intimate more and more plainly its claim +upon the throne of France, as descended through the Dukes of Lorraine +from Charlemagne—a title superior to that of the Valois, who could +trace their origin to no higher source than the usurper Hugh Capet.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">The duke's sons.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Francis of Guise.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Charles, Cardinal of Guise, and afterward of Lorraine.</div> + +<p>But the second generation of the Guises was destined to exert, during +the reign of Henry the Second, an influence more controlling than the +brothers Claude and John had exerted during his father's reign. The six +sons of Claude—all displaying the grasping disposition of the house +from which they sprang, all aiming at the acquisition of position and +wealth, each of them insatiable, yet never exhibiting a rivalry that +might prove detrimental to their common expectations—throw into +obscurity the surprising success of their father and uncle, by their own +marvellous prosperity. Scarcely had a third part of Henry's reign gone +by, before foreign ambassadors wrote home glowing accounts of the +influence of the younger favorites. "The credit of the house of Guise in +this court," said one, "passeth all others. For albeit the constable +hath the outward administration of all things, being for that service +such a man as hard it were to find the like, yet have they so much +credit <i>as he with whom he is constrained to sail</i>, and many times to +take that course that he liketh never a whit."<a name="FNanchor_541_541" id="FNanchor_541_541"></a><a href="#Footnote_541_541" class="fnanchor">[541]</a> Francis, the eldest +son, known until his father's death as the Count of Aumale, and +afterward succeeding him as Duke of Guise, entered the inviting +profession of arms. The second<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> son, Charles, chose the life of an +ecclesiastic, and soon assumed with respect to his brothers a commanding +position similar to that which John had occupied. At an early age he had +been elevated to the Archbishopric of Rheims, voluntarily ceded to him +by his uncle. Henry, soon after his accession, obtained from the pontiff +a place in the consistory for the young ecclesiastic, who then became +known as the Cardinal of Guise, and, after his uncle's death, in 1550, +as Cardinal of Lorraine. The four younger brothers respectively figured +in subsequent years as the Duke of Aumale, the Cardinal of Guise, the +Marquis of Elbeuf, and the Grand Prior of France.<a name="FNanchor_542_542" id="FNanchor_542_542"></a><a href="#Footnote_542_542" class="fnanchor">[542]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Character of Francis.</div> + +<p>Francis of Guise, although but twenty-eight years of age, was already +regarded as a brilliant general and an accomplished courtier. Vain and +ostentatious, yet possessed of more real military ability than his +unfortunate Italian campaign of 1556 would seem to indicate, he won +laurels at Metz, at Calais, and at Thionville.<a name="FNanchor_543_543" id="FNanchor_543_543"></a><a href="#Footnote_543_543" class="fnanchor">[543]</a> Outside of the +pursuits of war he was grossly ignorant, and in all civil and religious +matters he allowed himself to be governed by the advice of his brother +Charles. Even the Protestants, whom he so deeply injured, would for the +most part have acquiesced in the opinion of the cabinet minister, De +l'Aubespine, that the Duke of Guise was a captain capable of rendering +good service to his native land, had he not been hindered and infected +by his brother's ambition. It is the same trustworthy authority who +states that the duke was more than once induced to exclaim of his +brother Charles: "That man in the end will ruin us."<a name="FNanchor_544_544" id="FNanchor_544_544"></a><a href="#Footnote_544_544" class="fnanchor">[544]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Various estimates of the second Cardinal of Lorraine.</div> + +<p>The portraits of men who, for weal or woe, have exercised a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> powerful +influence upon their times, are frequently painted so differently by +their advocates and by their opponents, that for him who would obtain an +impartial view of their merits or defects it will prove a difficult task +to discover any means of removing the discrepancies in the +representations and attaining the truth. Fortunate must he esteem +himself if he chance to find some contemporary, less directly interested +in the events and persons described, to furnish him with the results of +unbiassed observation. In the conflict of the Protestant and Roman +Catholic writers of France respecting Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine, the +"relations" of the Venetian ambassadors, devoted adherents of the Holy +See, made to the doge and senate of their native state, and given under +the seal of secrecy, must be esteemed a rich historical legacy. The +cardinal's intellect, these envoys tell us, was wonderfully acute. He +understood the point at which those who conversed with him were aiming +when they had scarcely opened their mouth. His memory was more than +usually retentive. He was well educated, and learned not only in Greek, +Latin, and Italian, but in the sciences, and especially in theology. He +had a rare gift of talking. In the fulfilment of his promises he was +less famous. According to one ambassador, he had the reputation of +rarely speaking the truth. Another styles him little truthful, and of a +deceitful and avaricious disposition.<a name="FNanchor_545_545" id="FNanchor_545_545"></a><a href="#Footnote_545_545" class="fnanchor">[545]</a> Both agree in representing +him as covetous "beyond the avarice natural to the French, even +employing dishonorable means to increase his wealth."<a name="FNanchor_546_546" id="FNanchor_546_546"></a><a href="#Footnote_546_546" class="fnanchor">[546]</a> Both unite in +extolling his administra<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span>tive abilities. In observance of the precepts +of the church he was exemplary. Yearly did he retire from court to spend +the season of Lent on some one of his numerous possessions. In life, "so +far as the outside is concerned," he observed the decorum appropriate to +his rank, thus presenting a striking contrast to the other cardinals and +prelates of the kingdom, who were "of a most licentious character." But +he was vindictive, slow in rewarding services, and so violent that it +was probable that no other event was so much desired in France as his +death.<a name="FNanchor_547_547" id="FNanchor_547_547"></a><a href="#Footnote_547_547" class="fnanchor">[547]</a> The scandalous stories related by Brantôme, which have +generally been understood to apply to Cardinal <i>Charles</i> of Lorraine, +really refer, as Ranke has observed,<a name="FNanchor_548_548" id="FNanchor_548_548"></a><a href="#Footnote_548_548" class="fnanchor">[548]</a> to his uncle, the Cardinal +<i>John</i>; but the abbé, who was certainly not unfriendly to the Guises, +mingles praise and censure as equal ingredients in sketching the +character of the former. If he was "very religious," after Brantôme's +idea of religion, he was also esteemed a "great hypocrite," with whom +religion served as a stepping-stone to greatness. If he was a "holy" +man, he was "not too conscientious." If gracious and affable at times, +it was only when something had gone wrong with him; for in prosperity no +one was more overbearing.<a name="FNanchor_549_549" id="FNanchor_549_549"></a><a href="#Footnote_549_549" class="fnanchor">[549]</a></p> + +<p>Such, according to writers of his own religion, was the churchman of +whom, with Diana of Poitiers, the cabinet minister who knew both well +wrote: "It were to be desired that this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> woman and the cardinal had +never been born; for they two alone have been the spark that kindled our +misfortunes."<a name="FNanchor_550_550" id="FNanchor_550_550"></a><a href="#Footnote_550_550" class="fnanchor">[550]</a> Pasquin well reflected the sentiments of the people +when he altered the motto that accompanied the device of the +cardinal—an ivy-clad pyramid—from "Te stante, virebo" to "Te virente, +peribo."<a name="FNanchor_551_551" id="FNanchor_551_551"></a><a href="#Footnote_551_551" class="fnanchor">[551]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Rapacity of the new favorites.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Marshal Saint-André.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Servility toward Diana of Poitiers.</div> + +<p>With a weak-minded prince, averse to anything except the gratification +of his passions, and under the influence of such counsellors, France +became almost of necessity a scene of rapacity beyond all precedent. The +princes of the blood continued in their exclusion from official +positions. Each of the new favorites was not only eager to obtain wealth +for himself, but had a number of relations for whom provision must also +be made. To the more prominent courtiers above enumerated was added +Jacques d'Albon de Saint-André, son of Henry's tutor, who, from +accidental intimacy with the king in childhood, was led to aspire to +high dignities in the state, and was not long in obtaining a marshal's +baton.<a name="FNanchor_552_552" id="FNanchor_552_552"></a><a href="#Footnote_552_552" class="fnanchor">[552]</a> Herself securing not only the rank of Duchess of +Valentinois, with the authority of a queen,<a name="FNanchor_553_553" id="FNanchor_553_553"></a><a href="#Footnote_553_553" class="fnanchor">[553]</a> but the enormous +revenues derived from the customary confirmation of offices at the +beginning of a new reign, Diana permitted the constable, the Guises, and +Saint-André to partake to a less degree in the spoils of the kingdom. A +contemporary writer likens the brood of courtiers she gathered about her +to swallows in pursuit<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> of flies on a summer's evening. Nothing escaped +them—rank, dignity, bishopric, abbey, office, or other dainty +morsel—all alike were eagerly devoured. Spies and salaried agents were +posted in all parts of the kingdom to convey the earliest intelligence +of the death of those who possessed any valuable benefices. Physicians +in their employ at Paris sent in frequent bulletins of the health of +sick men who enjoyed offices in church or state; nor were instances +wanting in which, for the present of a thousand crowns, they were said +to have hastened a wealthy patient's death. Even the king was unable to +give as he wished, and sought to escape the importunity of his favorites +by falsely assuring them that he had already made promises to others. +Thus only could they be kept at bay.<a name="FNanchor_554_554" id="FNanchor_554_554"></a><a href="#Footnote_554_554" class="fnanchor">[554]</a> The Guises and Montmorency, to +render their power more secure, courted the favor of the king's +mistress. The Cardinal of Lorraine, in particular, distinguished himself +by the servility which he displayed. For two years he put himself to +infinite trouble to be at the table of Diana.<a name="FNanchor_555_555" id="FNanchor_555_555"></a><a href="#Footnote_555_555" class="fnanchor">[555]</a> After her elevation +to the peerage, he addressed to her a letter, still extant, in which he +assured her that henceforth his interest and hers were inseparable.<a name="FNanchor_556_556" id="FNanchor_556_556"></a><a href="#Footnote_556_556" class="fnanchor">[556]</a> +To give yet greater firmness to the bond uniting them, the Guises +brought about a marriage between their third brother, the Duke of +Aumale, and one of the daughters of the Duchess of Valentinois; while +the Constable of Montmorency, at a later time, undertook to gain a +similar advantage for his own family by causing his son to wed Diana, a +natural daughter of the king.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Persecution to atone for moral blemishes.</div> + +<p>It may at first sight appear somewhat incongruous that a king and court +thus given up, the former to flagrant immorality, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> latter to the +unbridled pursuit of riches and honors, should early have exhibited a +disposition to carry forward in an aggravated form the system of +persecution initiated in the previous reign. The secret of the apparent +inconsistency may be found in the fact that the courtiers were not slow +in perceiving, on the one hand, the almost incalculable gains which the +confiscation of the goods of condemned heretics might be made to yield, +and, on the other, the facility with which a monarch of a disposition +naturally gentle and humane<a name="FNanchor_557_557" id="FNanchor_557_557"></a><a href="#Footnote_557_557" class="fnanchor">[557]</a> could be persuaded to countenance the +most barbarous cruelties, as the supposed means of atoning for the +dissoluteness of his own life. The observance of the strict precepts of +the moral law, they argued, was of less importance than the purity of +the faith. The title of "Very Christian" had been borne by some of his +predecessors whose private lives had been full of gallantries. His claim +to it would be forfeited by the adoption of the stern principles of the +reformers; while the Pontiff who conferred it would never venture to +remove the honorable distinction, or refuse to unlock the gates of +paradise to him who should prove himself an obedient son of the church +and a persecutor of its enemies. To fulfil these conditions was the +easier, as the persons upon whom were to be exercised the severities +dictated by heaven, plotted revolutions and aspired to convert France +into a republic, on the pattern of the cantons of Switzerland. Lending a +willing ear to these suggestions, Henry the Second no sooner began to +reign than he began to persecute.<a name="FNanchor_558_558" id="FNanchor_558_558"></a><a href="#Footnote_558_558" class="fnanchor">[558]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The "Chambre ardente."</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Edict of Fontainebleau against books from Geneva.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Deceptive title-pages.</div> + +<p>Toward the close of the reign of Francis, the prisons of Normandy had +become so full of persons incarcerated for religion's sake, that a +separate and special chamber had been instituted in the Parliament of +Rouen, to give exclusive attention to the trial of such cases.<a name="FNanchor_559_559" id="FNanchor_559_559"></a><a href="#Footnote_559_559" class="fnanchor">[559]</a> One +of Henry's first acts was to establish a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> similar chamber in the +Parliament of Paris.<a name="FNanchor_560_560" id="FNanchor_560_560"></a><a href="#Footnote_560_560" class="fnanchor">[560]</a> Judges selected with such a commission were +not likely to incline to the side of mercy; and the chamber speedily +earned for itself, by the numbers of victims it sent to the flames, the +significant popular name of "<i>la Chambre ardente</i>."<a name="FNanchor_561_561" id="FNanchor_561_561"></a><a href="#Footnote_561_561" class="fnanchor">[561]</a> The rapid +propagation of the reformed doctrines by the press gave occasion to the +publication of a new edict. The printing of any book containing matters +pertaining to the Holy Scriptures was strictly forbidden. Equally +prohibited was the sale of books brought from Geneva, Germany, or other +foreign parts, without the approval of the Theological Faculty of Paris. +All annotated copies of the Bible must contain the name of the author, +and the publisher's name and address. Persons of all ranks were warned +against retaining in their possession any condemned work.<a name="FNanchor_562_562" id="FNanchor_562_562"></a><a href="#Footnote_562_562" class="fnanchor">[562]</a> But these +restrictions had little effect in repressing the spread of the +Reformation. If a severe blow was struck at the publishing trade in +France, the dissemination of books printed abroad, and, frequently, with +spurious title-pages,<a name="FNanchor_563_563" id="FNanchor_563_563"></a><a href="#Footnote_563_563" class="fnanchor">[563]</a> was largely<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> increased. It now assumed, +however, a more stealthy and cautious character.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Execution of Brugière.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">The tailor of the Rue St. Antoine.</div> + +<p>Blood flowed in every part of the kingdom. Not only the capital, but +also the provinces furnished their constant witnesses to the truth of +the "Lutheran" doctrines. The noted trial and execution of John Brugière +revealed to the First President of Parliament the humiliating fact that +the Reformation had gained a strong foothold in his native +Auvergne.<a name="FNanchor_564_564" id="FNanchor_564_564"></a><a href="#Footnote_564_564" class="fnanchor">[564]</a> At Paris, one Florence Venot was confined seven weeks in +a cell upon the construction of which so much perverted ingenuity had +been expended that the prisoner could neither lie down nor stand erect, +and the hour of release from weary torture was waited for with ardent +longing, even if it led to the stake.<a name="FNanchor_565_565" id="FNanchor_565_565"></a><a href="#Footnote_565_565" class="fnanchor">[565]</a> But the death of a nameless +tailor has, by the singularity of its incidents, acquired a celebrity +surpassing that of any other martyrdom in the early part of this reign. +In the midst of the tourneys and other festivities provided to signalize +the occasion of the queen's coronation and his own solemn entry into +Paris, the desire seized Henry to see with his own eyes and to +interrogate one of the members of the sect to whose account such serious +charges were laid. A poor tailor, arrested in his shop in the Rue St. +Antoine, a few paces from the royal palace, for the crime of working on +a day which the church had declared holy, was brought before him. So +contemptible a dialectician could do little, it was presumed, to shake +the faith of the Very Christian King. But the result disappointed the +expectations of the cour<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span>tiers and ecclesiastics that were present. The +tailor answered with respectful boldness to the questions propounded by +Châtellain, Bishop of Macon, a prelate once favorable to the +Reformation. Hereupon Diana of Poitiers, an interested opponent, whose +coffers were being filled with the goods of condemned heretics, +undertook to silence him with the tongue of a witty woman. The tailor, +who had patiently borne the ridicule and scorn with which he had +hitherto been treated, turned upon the mistress of the king a look of +solemn warning as he said: "Madam, let it suffice you to have infected +France, without desiring to mingle your poison and filth with so holy +and sacred a thing as the true religion of our Lord Jesus Christ." The +courtiers were thunderstruck at the turn taken by a discussion to which +they had flocked as to a scene of diversion, and the enraged king +ordered the tailor's instant trial and punishment. He even desired with +his own eyes to see him undergo the extreme penalty of the law. A solemn +procession had been ordered to proceed from St. Paul's to Notre Dame. +The prayers there offered for the destruction of heresy were followed by +an "exemplary demonstration" of the king's pious disposition, in the +execution of four "Lutherans" in as many different squares of the +city.<a name="FNanchor_566_566" id="FNanchor_566_566"></a><a href="#Footnote_566_566" class="fnanchor">[566]</a> In order the better to see the punishment inflicted upon the +tailor of the Rue St. Antoine, Henry posted himself at a window that +commanded the entire spectacle. But it was no coward's death that he +beheld. Soon perceiving and recognizing the monarch before whom he had +witnessed so good a profession, the tailor fixed his gaze upon him, nor +would he avert his face, however much the king ordered that his position +should be changed. Even in the midst of the flames he still continued to +direct his dying glance toward the king, until the latter, abashed, was +compelled to withdraw from the window. For days Henry declared that the +spectre haunted his waking hours and drove sleep from his eyes at night; +and he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> affirmed with an oath that never again would he witness so +horrible a scene.<a name="FNanchor_567_567" id="FNanchor_567_567"></a><a href="#Footnote_567_567" class="fnanchor">[567]</a> Happy would it have been for his memory had he +adhered, in the case of Anne du Bourg, to so wise a resolution!</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Other victims of intolerance.</div> + +<p>The ashes of one martyr were scarcely cold before new fires were +kindled—now before the cathedral, now before some parish church, again +in the crowded market or in the distant provincial town. At one time it +was a widow that welcomed the rope that bound her, as the zone given her +by a heavenly bridegroom in token of her approaching nuptials. A few +years later, it was a nobleman who, when in view of his rank the +sentence of the judges would have spared him the indignity of the halter +which was placed around the neck of his companions, begged the +executioner to make no exception in his case, saying: "Deny me not the +collar of so excellent an order."<a name="FNanchor_568_568" id="FNanchor_568_568"></a><a href="#Footnote_568_568" class="fnanchor">[568]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Severe edicts and quarrels with Rome.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Edict of Châteaubriand, June 27, 1551.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">War upon the books from Geneva.</div> + +<p>The failure, however, of these fearful exhibitions to strike terror into +the minds of the persecuted, or accomplish the end for which they were +undertaken, is proved by their frequent recurrence, and not less by the +new series of sanguinary laws running through the reign of Henry. An +edict from Paris, on the nineteenth of November, 1549, endeavored to +remove all excuse for remissness on the part of the prelates, by +conferring on the ecclesiastical judges the unheard-of privilege of +arresting for the crime of heresy, the exclusive right of passing +judgment upon simple heresy, and conjoint jurisdiction with the civil +courts in cases in which public scandal, riot, or sedition might be +involved.<a name="FNanchor_569_569" id="FNanchor_569_569"></a><a href="#Footnote_569_569" class="fnanchor">[569]</a> Less than two<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> years later, when Henry, uniting with +Maurice of Saxony and Albert of Brandenburg, received the title of +Defender of the Empire against Charles the Fifth, and was on the point +of making war on Pope Julius the Third, he issued an edict forbidding +his subjects, under severe penalties, from carrying gold or silver to +Rome.<a name="FNanchor_570_570" id="FNanchor_570_570"></a><a href="#Footnote_570_570" class="fnanchor">[570]</a> But, to convince the world of his orthodoxy, he chose the +same time for the publication of a new and more truculent measure, known +as the <i>Edict of Châteaubriand</i> (on the twenty-seventh of June, 1551), +directed against the reformed.<a name="FNanchor_571_571" id="FNanchor_571_571"></a><a href="#Footnote_571_571" class="fnanchor">[571]</a> This notable law reiterated the old +complaint of the ill-success of previous efforts, and the statement of +the impossibility of attaining the desired end save by diligent care and +rigorous procedure. Its most striking peculiarity was that it committed +the trial of heretics to the newly appointed "presidial" judges, whose +sentence, when ten counsellors had been associated with them, was to be +final.<a name="FNanchor_572_572" id="FNanchor_572_572"></a><a href="#Footnote_572_572" class="fnanchor">[572]</a> Thus<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> was it contemplated to put an end to the vexatious +delays by means of which the trial of many a reputed "Lutheran" had been +protracted and not a few of the hated sect had in the end escaped. But +the large number of additional articles exhibit in a singular manner the +extent to which the doctrines of the Reformation had spread, the means +of their diffusion, and the method by which it was hoped that they might +be eradicated. Prominent among the provisions appear those that relate +to the products of the press. Evidently the Cardinal of Lorraine and the +other advisers of the king were of the same mind with the great advocate +of unlicensed printing, when he said: "Books are not absolutely dead +things, but do contain a progeny of life in them to be as active as that +soul was whose progeny they are.... I know they are as lively and as +vigorously productive as those fabulous dragon's teeth; and being sown +up and down, may chance to spring up armed men."<a name="FNanchor_573_573" id="FNanchor_573_573"></a><a href="#Footnote_573_573" class="fnanchor">[573]</a> The edict utterly +prohibited the introduction of any books from Geneva and other places +notoriously rebellious to the Holy See, the retention of condemned books +by booksellers, and all clandestine printing. It instituted a +semi-annual visitation of every typographical establishment, a clerical<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> +examination of all packages from abroad, a special inspection thrice a +year at the great fairs of Lyons, through which many suspected books +found their way into the kingdom. The "porte-panier," or pedler, was +forbidden to sell books at all, because many pedlers brought in books +from Geneva under pretext of selling other merchandise. The bearers of +letters from Geneva were to be arrested and punished. The goods and +chattels of those who had fled to Geneva were to be confiscated. +Informers were promised one-third of the property of the condemned. And +lest the tongue should contaminate those whom the printed volume might +not reach, all unlettered persons were warned not even to <i>discuss</i> +matters of faith, the sacraments, and the polity of the church, whether +at the table, in the field, or in secret conventicle.<a name="FNanchor_574_574" id="FNanchor_574_574"></a><a href="#Footnote_574_574" class="fnanchor">[574]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The book-pedlers of Switzerland, etc.</div> + +<p>It is clear that the "dragon's teeth" were beginning to spring up +warriors full armed; but the sowing still went on. From Geneva, from +Neufchâtel, from Strasbourg, and from other points, devoted men of +ardent piety, and often of no little cultivation, entered France and +cautiously sold or distributed the contents of the packs they carried. +Often they penetrated far into the country. To such as were detected the +penalty of the law was inexorably meted out. A pedler, after every bone +of his body had been dislocated in the vain attempt to compel him to +betray the names of those to whom he had sold his books, was burned at +Paris in the midst of the applauding shouts of a great crowd of persons, +who would have torn him to pieces had they been allowed.<a name="FNanchor_575_575" id="FNanchor_575_575"></a><a href="#Footnote_575_575" class="fnanchor">[575]</a> The +printers of French Switzerland willingly entrusted their publications to +these faithful men, not without danger of the loss of their goods; and +it was almost incredible how many men offered themselves to the extreme +perils which threatened them.<a name="FNanchor_576_576" id="FNanchor_576_576"></a><a href="#Footnote_576_576" class="fnanchor">[576]</a> The Edict of Châteaubriand, intended +to destroy the rising intellectual and moral influence of Geneva, it +must be noticed, had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> the opposite effect; for nothing had up to this +time so tended to collect the scattered Protestants of France in a city +where, free from the temptation to conformity with the dominant +religion, they received a training adapted to qualify them for +usefulness in their native land.<a name="FNanchor_577_577" id="FNanchor_577_577"></a><a href="#Footnote_577_577" class="fnanchor">[577]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Marshal Vieilleville refuses to profit by confiscation.</div> + +<p>Yet the publication of the Edict of Châteaubriand was the signal for the +renewal of the severity of the persecution. Every day, says the +historian De Thou, persons were burned at Paris on account of religion. +Cardinal Tournon and Diana of Poitiers, he tells us, shared in the +opprobrium of being the instigators of these atrocities. With the latter +it was less fanaticism than a desire to augment the proceeds of the +confiscation of the property of condemned heretics which she had lately +secured for herself, and was employing to make up the ransom of her two +sons-in-law, now prisoners of war.<a name="FNanchor_578_578" id="FNanchor_578_578"></a><a href="#Footnote_578_578" class="fnanchor">[578]</a> Very few of the courtiers of +Henry's court had a spark of the magnanimity that fired the breast of +the Marshal de Vieilleville. The name of this nobleman had, unknown to +him, been inserted in a royal patent giving to him and others, who +desired to shield themselves behind his honorable name, the confiscated +goods of all condemned usurers and Lutherans in Guyenne and five other +provinces of Southern France. When the document was placed in his hands, +and he was assured that it would yield to each of the six patentees +twenty thousand crowns within four months, the marshal exclaimed: "And +here we stand registered in the courts of parliament as devourers of the +people!... Besides that, for twenty thousand crowns to incur +individually the curses of a countless number of women and children that +will die in the poor-house in consequence of the forfeiture of the lives +and property of their husbands and fathers, by fair means or foul—this +would be to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> plunge ourselves into perdition at too cheap a rate!" So +saying, Vieilleville drove his dagger through his own name in the +patent, and others, through shame, following his example, the document +was torn to pieces.<a name="FNanchor_579_579" id="FNanchor_579_579"></a><a href="#Footnote_579_579" class="fnanchor">[579]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The "Five Scholars of Lausanne."</div> + +<p>Of the considerable number of those upon whom the "very rigorous +procedures" laid down by the Edict of Châteaubriand were executed in +almost all parts of France, according to the historian of the reformed +churches,<a name="FNanchor_580_580" id="FNanchor_580_580"></a><a href="#Footnote_580_580" class="fnanchor">[580]</a> the "<i>Five Scholars of Lausanne</i>" deserve particular +mention. Natives of different points in France, these young men, with +others, had enjoyed in the distinguished school instituted in the chief +city of the Pays de Vaud, under the protection of the Bernese, the +instructions of Theodore Beza and other prominent reformed theologians. +Their names were: Martial Alba, a native of Montauban; Pierre Écrivain, +of Boulogne, in Gascony; Bernard Seguin, of La Réolle, in Bazadois; +Charles Favre, of Blanzac; and Pierre Navihères, of Limoges. A short +time before Easter, 1552, these young men, who had reached different +stages in their course of study,<a name="FNanchor_581_581" id="FNanchor_581_581"></a><a href="#Footnote_581_581" class="fnanchor">[581]</a> conceived it to be their duty to +return to their native land, whence the most pressing calls for +additional laborers qualified to instruct others were daily coming to +Switzerland. Their plan was cordially endorsed by Beza, before whom it +was first laid by one of their number who had been an inmate of his +home, and then by the Church of Lausanne; for it evidenced the purity +and sincerity of their zeal. Provided with cordial letters from +Lausanne, as well as from Geneva, through which they passed, they +started each for his native city, intending to labor first of all for +the conversion of their own kindred and neighbors. But a different +field, and a shorter term of service than they had anticipated, were in +store for them. At Lyons, having accepted the invitation of a +fellow-traveller to visit him at his country-seat, they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> were surprised +on the first of May, 1552, by the provost and his guards, and, although +they had committed no violation of the king's edicts by proclaiming the +doctrines they believed, were hurried to the archiepiscopal prison, and +confined in separate dungeons. From their prayers for divine assistance +they were soon summoned to appear singly before the "official"—the +ecclesiastical judge to whom the archbishop deputed his judicial +functions.<a name="FNanchor_582_582" id="FNanchor_582_582"></a><a href="#Footnote_582_582" class="fnanchor">[582]</a> The answers to the interrogatories, of which they +transmitted to their friends a record, it has been truly said, put to +shame the lukewarmness of our days by their courage, and amaze us by the +presence of mind and the wonderful acquaintance with the Holy Scriptures +they display.<a name="FNanchor_583_583" id="FNanchor_583_583"></a><a href="#Footnote_583_583" class="fnanchor">[583]</a> He who will peruse them in the worm-eaten pages of +the "Actiones Martyrum," in which their letters were collected by the +pious zeal of a contemporary, cannot doubt the proficiency these +youthful prisoners had attained, both in sacred and in human letters, at +the feet of the renowned Beza. Their unanswerable defence, however, only +secured their more speedy condemnation as heretics. On the thirteenth of +May they were sentenced to the flames; but an appeal which they made +from the sentence of the ecclesiastical judge, on the plea that it +contravened the laws of France, secured delay until their case could be +laid before parliament. Months elapsed. Tidings of the danger that +overhung the young students of Lausanne reached Beza and Calvin, and +called forth their warm sympathy.<a name="FNanchor_584_584" id="FNanchor_584_584"></a><a href="#Footnote_584_584" class="fnanchor">[584]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Unavailing intercessions.</div> + +<p>The best efforts of Beza and Viret were put forth in their behalf. A +long succession of attempts to secure their release on the part of the +canton of Berne individually, and of the four Protestant cantons of +Switzerland collectively, was the result. One letter to Henry received a +highly encouraging reply. An embassy from Zurich, sent when the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> king's +word had not been kept, was haughtily informed that Henry expected the +cantons to trouble him no further with the matter, and to avoid +interfering with the domestic affairs of his country, as he himself +abstained from intermeddling with theirs.<a name="FNanchor_585_585" id="FNanchor_585_585"></a><a href="#Footnote_585_585" class="fnanchor">[585]</a> Subsequent letters and +embassies to the monarch, intercessions with Cardinal de Tournon, +Archbishop of Lyons, who would appear to have given assurances which he +never intended to fulfil, and all the other steps dictated by Christian +affection, were similarly fruitless. In fact, nothing protracted the +term of the imprisonment of the "Five Scholars" but the need in which +Henry felt himself to be of retaining the alliance and support of Berne. +Yet when, as a final appeal, that powerful canton begged the life of its +"stipendiaries" as a "purely royal and liberal gift, which it would +esteem as great and precious as if his Majesty had presented it an +inestimable sum of silver or gold," other political motives prevented +him from yielding to its entreaties. The fear lest his compliance might +furnish the emperor and Pope, against whom he was contending, with a +handle for impugning his devotion to the church, was more powerful than +his desire to conciliate the Bernese. The Parliament of Paris decreed +that the death of the "Five" by fire should take place on the sixteenth +of May, 1553, and the king refused to interpose his pardon.<a name="FNanchor_586_586" id="FNanchor_586_586"></a><a href="#Footnote_586_586" class="fnanchor">[586]</a></p> + +<p>Their mission to France had not, however, been in vain. It is no +hyperbole of the historian of the reformed churches, when he likens +their cells to five <i>pulpits</i>, from which the Word of God resounded +through the entire city and much farther.<a name="FNanchor_587_587" id="FNanchor_587_587"></a><a href="#Footnote_587_587" class="fnanchor">[587]</a> The results of their +heroic fortitude, and of the wide dissemination of copies of the +confession of their Christian faith, were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> easily traced in the +conversion of many within and without the prison; while the memory of +their joyful constancy on their way to the place of execution—which +rather resembled a triumphal than an ignominious procession—and in the +flames, was embalmed in the heart of many a spectator.<a name="FNanchor_588_588" id="FNanchor_588_588"></a><a href="#Footnote_588_588" class="fnanchor">[588]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Activity of the canton of Berne.</div> + +<p>The Bernese were not discouraged by the ill-success of their +intercessions. Three times in the early part of the succeeding year +(1554) they begged, but with no better results, for the release of Paris +Panier, a man learned in the civil law.<a name="FNanchor_589_589" id="FNanchor_589_589"></a><a href="#Footnote_589_589" class="fnanchor">[589]</a> With equal earnestness they +took the part of the persecuted reformers against the violence of their +enemies on many successive occasions. It was all in vain. The libertine +king, who saw no merit in the purity of life of the professors of the +"new doctrines," and no mark of Antichrist in the profligacy of Paul the +Third or of Julius the Third, but viewed with horror the permission +granted by the latter to the faithful of Paris to eat eggs, butter and +cheese during Lent,<a name="FNanchor_590_590" id="FNanchor_590_590"></a><a href="#Footnote_590_590" class="fnanchor">[590]</a> maintained his more than papal orthodoxy, and +stifled the promptings of a heart by nature not averse to pity.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Progress in Normandy.</div> + +<p>More than three years had passed away since the publication<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> of the +Edict of Châteaubriand, but none of the fruits which its authors had +predicted were visible. The number of the reformed brought to trial, and +especially of those condemned to the flames, gradually diminished, +whilst it was notorious that the opponents of the dominant church were +rapidly multiplying. In some provinces—in Normandy, for example—their +placards were mysteriously posted on the walls, and their songs deriding +the Franciscan monks were sung in the dark lanes of the cities. Once +they had ventured to interrupt the discourse of a preacher on the topic +of purgatory, by loud expressions of dissent; but when on the next day +the subject was resumed, numbers of hearers left the church with cries +of "<i>au fol, au fol</i>," and forced those who would have arrested them in +the name of the Cardinal Archbishop of Rouen, to seek refuge from a +shower of stones in an adjoining monastery.<a name="FNanchor_591_591" id="FNanchor_591_591"></a><a href="#Footnote_591_591" class="fnanchor">[591]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Proposal to establish the Spanish Inquisition.</div> + +<p>The zealous friends of the church, as well as those who were enriched by +confiscations, represented to the king that this state of things arose +from the fact that the higher magistrates, themselves tainted with +heresy, connived at its spread, and that the "presidial" judges +abstained from employing the powers conferred by the edict, through fear +of compromising themselves with the sovereign courts. Nor could +ecclesiastical courts accomplish much, since the secular judges, to whom +an appeal was open, found means to clear the guilty. They insisted that +the only remedy was the introduction of the <i>Inquisition</i> in the form in +which it had proved so efficacious in Spain and Italy. This, it was +said, could be attained by taking away the appeal that had hitherto been +allowed from the decisions of the church courts, and compelling the +nearest secular court to enforce their sentences. It was, furthermore, +proposed to confiscate, for the king's benefit, all the property of +fugitives, disregarding the claims even of those who had purchased from +them without collusion.<a name="FNanchor_592_592" id="FNanchor_592_592"></a><a href="#Footnote_592_592" class="fnanchor">[592]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Opposition of parliament.</div> + +<p>In secret sessions held at the house of Bertrand, keeper of the seals, +at which were present several of the presidents of parliament known to +be least friendly to the Reformation, the necessary legislation was +matured at the instance of the Cardinal of Lorraine.<a name="FNanchor_593_593" id="FNanchor_593_593"></a><a href="#Footnote_593_593" class="fnanchor">[593]</a> But, when the +edicts establishing the Spanish inquisition were submitted, by order of +the king, to the Parliament of Paris, it soon became evident that not +even the intrigues of the presidents who were favorable to them could +secure their registration. In the hope of better success, the edicts +were for the time withdrawn, and submitted, a few months later, to the +part of parliament that held its sessions in summer,<a name="FNanchor_594_594" id="FNanchor_594_594"></a><a href="#Footnote_594_594" class="fnanchor">[594]</a> accompanied by +royal letters strictly enjoining their reception (lettres de jussion). +Twice the <i>gens du roi</i> were heard in favor of the new system, pleading +its necessity, the utility of enlarging the jurisdiction of the church +courts, especially in the case of apostatizing monks and fanatical +preachers, and the fact that parliament itself had testified that it was +not averse to an inquisition—not only by recording the edicts of St. +Louis and Philip the Fair, but also by two recent registrations of the +powers of the Inquisitor of the Faith, Matthieu Ory.<a name="FNanchor_595_595" id="FNanchor_595_595"></a><a href="#Footnote_595_595" class="fnanchor">[595]</a> After<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span> many +delays and a prolonged discussion, parliament decided by a large +majority that it could not comply with the king's commands, and would +indicate to his Majesty other means of eradicating heresy more +consistent with the spirit of Christianity.<a name="FNanchor_596_596" id="FNanchor_596_596"></a><a href="#Footnote_596_596" class="fnanchor">[596]</a></p> + +<p>The president, Séguier, and a counsellor (Adrien du Drac) were deputed +to justify before the monarch the course taken by parliament. The royal +court was at this time at Villers-Cotterets, not far from Soissons, and +the commissioners were informed on their arrival that Henry, displeased +and scandalized at the delays of parliament, had begun to suspect it of +being badly advised respecting religion and the obedience due to the +church. He had said "that, if twelve judges were necessary to try +Lutherans, they could not be found among the members of that body." The +deputies were warned that they must expect to hear harsh words from the +king's lips. Admitted, on the twenty-second of October, into Henry's +presence, President Séguier delivered before the Duke of Guise, +Constable Montmorency, Marshal St. André, and other dignitaries civil +and ecclesiastical, an address full of noble sentiments.<a name="FNanchor_597_597" id="FNanchor_597_597"></a><a href="#Footnote_597_597" class="fnanchor">[597]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Speech of President Séguier in opposition.</div> + +<p>"Parliament," said Séguier, "consists of one hundred and sixty members, +who, for ability and conscientious discharge of duty, cannot be matched. +I know not any of the number to be alienated from the true faith. +Indeed, no greater misfortune could befall the judicature, than that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> +the supreme court should forfeit the confidence of the monarch by whom +its members were appointed. It is not from personal fear that we oppose +the introduction of the Inquisition. An inquisition, when well +administered, may not, perhaps, always be injurious. Yet Trajan, an +excellent emperor, abolished it as against the early Christians, +persecuted as the 'Lutherans' now are; and he preferred to depend upon +the declarations of those who revealed themselves, rather than to foster +the spread of the curse of informers and sow fear and distrust in +families. But it is as <i>magistrates</i> that we dread, or rather abhor, the +establishment of a bloody tribunal, before which denunciation takes the +place of proof, where the accused is deprived of the natural means of +defence, and where no judicial forms are observed. We allege nothing of +which we cannot furnish recent examples. Many of those whom the agents +of the Inquisition had condemned have appealed to parliament. In +revising these procedures, we found them so full of absurdities and +follies, that, if charity forbids our suspecting those who already +discharge this function among us of dishonesty and malice, it permits +and even bids us deplore their ignorance and presumption. Yet it is to +such judges that you are asked, Sire, to deliver over your faithful +subjects, bound hand and foot, by removing the resource of appeal."</p> + +<p>Is it politic, the orator proceeded to ask, for the king to introduce an +edict standing in direct contradiction to that by which he has given to +his own courts exclusive jurisdiction in the trial of the laity and +simple clerks, and thus initiate a conflict of laws? Or has the +monarch—by whose authority, as supreme head of justice, the decisions +of parliament are rendered, whose name stands at the beginning, and +whose seal is affixed to the termination of every writ—the right to cut +off an appeal to himself, which his subjects, by reason of their paying +tribute, can justly claim in return? Rather let the sovereign remedy be +applied. In order to put an end to heresy, let the pattern of the +primitive church be observed, which was established not by sword or by +fire, but which, on the contrary, resisted both sword and fire through +long years of persecution. Yet it endured, and even grew, by the +doctrine and exemplary life of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span> good prelates and pastors, residing in +their charges. At present the prelates are non-residents, and the people +hunger for the Word of God. Now, it is every man's duty to believe the +Holy Scriptures, and to bear testimony to his belief by good works. +Whoever refuses to believe them, and accuses others of being +"Lutherans," is more of a heretic than the "Lutherans" themselves.<a name="FNanchor_598_598" id="FNanchor_598_598"></a><a href="#Footnote_598_598" class="fnanchor">[598]</a> +The remonstrance of parliament, said Séguier, in fine, is in the +interest of the poor people and of the courtiers themselves, whom others +more needy will seek to strip of their possessions by means of the +Inquisition and a brace of false witnesses.<a name="FNanchor_599_599" id="FNanchor_599_599"></a><a href="#Footnote_599_599" class="fnanchor">[599]</a></p> + +<p>The speech was listened to with attention by Henry, and its close was +applauded by his courtiers, who appreciated the truth of the warning +conveyed. Two days later the king informed the deputies that he had +determined to take the matter into further consideration; and, after +their return, not only Henry, but also Guise and Montmorency, sent +letters to parliament in which the mission of Séguier and Du Drac was +referred to in complimentary terms.<a name="FNanchor_600_600" id="FNanchor_600_600"></a><a href="#Footnote_600_600" class="fnanchor">[600]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Villegagnon sent with Protestant emigrants to Brazil.</div> + +<p>While the influence of the royal court was exerted, in the manner just +indicated, to obtain entrance for the Spanish Inquisition, two events +occurred equally deserving our attention—an attempt at the colonization +of the New World with emigrants of the reformed faith, and the +organization of the first Protestant church in France. Through the +countenance and under the patronage of an illustrious personage whose +name will, from this time forward, frequently figure on these +pages—Gaspard de Coligny, Admiral of France—a knight of Malta named +Villegagnon, Vice-admiral of Brittany, obtained from Henry "two large +ships of two hundred tons burthen," fully equipped and provided with the +requisite armament, as well as a third vessel carrying provi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span>sions.<a name="FNanchor_601_601" id="FNanchor_601_601"></a><a href="#Footnote_601_601" class="fnanchor">[601]</a> +Having embarked with a large number of gentlemen, artisans, and sailors, +and having lost some time by being driven back into port to refit after +a storm, he at length set sail for America, and anchored in the bay of +Rio de Janeiro on the thirteenth of November, 1555. Most of the +colonists were adherents of the religion at this time violently +persecuted in France; and it is said that Coligny's support had been +gained for the enterprise by the promise, on the part of Villegagnon, +that in America the reformed should find a safe asylum.<a name="FNanchor_602_602" id="FNanchor_602_602"></a><a href="#Footnote_602_602" class="fnanchor">[602]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Fort Coligny founded.</div> + +<p>No sooner, therefore, had the small company effected a lodgment on a +small and rocky islet, opposite the present city of Rio de Janeiro, than +Villegagnon conferred on the fort he had erected the name of Coligny, +and wrote to the admiral, as he did subsequently to Calvin, requesting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> +that pastors should be sent from Geneva.<a name="FNanchor_603_603" id="FNanchor_603_603"></a><a href="#Footnote_603_603" class="fnanchor">[603]</a> The petition being +granted, Pierre Richier and Guillaume Chartier were despatched—the +first Protestant ministers to cross the Atlantic. They were received by +the vice-admiral with extravagant demonstrations of joy. A church was +instituted on the model of that of Geneva; and Villegagnon recognized +the validity of its rites by partaking of the holy communion when for +the first time administered, on the shores of the Western Continent, +according to the reformed practice.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Villegagnon becomes an enemy to the Protestants,</div> + +<div class="sidenote">and brings ruin to the expedition.</div> + +<p>Before long, however, a complete revolution of sentiment and plan was +disclosed. The pretext was an animated discussion touching the +eucharist, between the Protestant pastors, on the one hand, and +Villegagnon, supported by Jean Cointas, a former doctor of the Sorbonne, +on the other.<a name="FNanchor_604_604" id="FNanchor_604_604"></a><a href="#Footnote_604_604" class="fnanchor">[604]</a> The solicitations of the Cardinal of Lorraine, +together with a keener appreciation of the danger of harboring the "new +doctrines," may have been the cause.<a name="FNanchor_605_605" id="FNanchor_605_605"></a><a href="#Footnote_605_605" class="fnanchor">[605]</a> Chartier was put out of the +way by being sent back to Europe, ostensibly to consult Calvin. Richier +and others were so roughly handled that they were glad to leave the +island for the continent, and subsequently to return in a leaky vessel +to their native land.<a name="FNanchor_606_606" id="FNanchor_606_606"></a><a href="#Footnote_606_606" class="fnanchor">[606]</a> But the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> infant enterprise had received a +fatal blow. Nearly all the deceived Protestants carried home the tidings +of their misfortunes, and deterred others from following their +disastrous example. Three, remaining in Brazil, were thrown into the sea +by Villegagnon's command. A few suffered martyrdom after the fall of the +intended capital of "Antarctic France" into the hands of the Portuguese. +As to Villegagnon himself, he returned to Europe the virulent enemy of +Coligny, and turned his feeble pen to the refutation of +Protestantism.<a name="FNanchor_607_607" id="FNanchor_607_607"></a><a href="#Footnote_607_607" class="fnanchor">[607]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The first Protestant church organized in Paris.</div> + +<p>But if ruin overtook an enterprise from which French statesmen had +looked for new power and wealth for their country, and the reformers had +anticipated the rapid advance of their religion in the New World, the +founding of the first Protestant church in Paris proved a more +auspicious event. More than thirty years had Protestantism been +gradually gaining ground; but, up to the year 1555, it had been wanting +in organization. The tide of persecution had surged too violently over +the evangelical Christians of the capital to permit them to think of +instituting a church, with pastors and consistory, after the model +furnished by the free city of Geneva, or of holding public worship at +stated times and places, or of regularly administering the sacraments. +"The martyrs," says a contemporary writer, "were, properly speaking, the +only preachers."<a name="FNanchor_608_608" id="FNanchor_608_608"></a><a href="#Footnote_608_608" class="fnanchor">[608]</a> But now, the courage of the Parisian Protestants +rising with the increased severity of the cruel meas<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span>ures devised +against them, they were prepared to accept the idea of organizing +themselves as an ecclesiastical community. To this a simple incident led +the way. In the house of a nobleman named La Ferrière, a small body of +Protestants met secretly for the reading of the Scriptures and for +prayer. Their host had left his home in the province of Maine to enjoy, +in the crowded capital, greater immunity from observation than he could +enjoy in his native city, and to avoid the necessity of submitting his +expected offspring to the rite of baptism as superstitiously observed in +the Roman Catholic Church. On the birth of his child, he set before the +little band of his fellow-believers his reluctance to countenance the +corruptions of that church, and his inability to go elsewhere in search +of a purer sacrament. He adjured them to meet his exigency and that of +other parents, by the consecration of one of their own number as a +minister. He denounced the anger of the Almighty if they suffered his +child to die without a participation in the ordinance instituted by the +Master whom they professed to serve. So earnest an appeal could not be +resisted. After fasting and earnest prayer the choice was made +(September, 1555). John le Maçon, surnamed La Rivière, was a youth of +Angers, twenty-two years of age, who for religion's sake had forsaken +home, wealth, and brilliant prospects of advancement. He had narrowly +escaped the clutches of the magistrates, to whom his own father, in his +anger, would have given him up. This person was now set apart as the +first reformed minister of Paris. A brief constitution for the nascent +church was adopted. A consistory of elders and deacons was established. +In this simple manner were laid the foundations of a church destined to +serve as the prototype of a multitude of others soon to arise in all +parts of France.<a name="FNanchor_609_609" id="FNanchor_609_609"></a><a href="#Footnote_609_609" class="fnanchor">[609]</a> It was not the least remarkable circumstance +attending its origin, that it arose in the midst of the most hostile +populace in France, and at a time when the introduction of a new and +more odious form of inquisition was under serious consideration. Nor can +the thoughtful student of history regard it in any other light than that +of a Providential interposi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span>tion in its behalf, that for two years the +infant church was protected from the fate of extermination that +threatened it, by the rise of a fresh war between France and Spain—a +war originating in the perfidy of the Pope and of Henry the Second, the +two great enemies of the reformed doctrines in France—and terminating +in a peace ignominious to the royal persecutor.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">The example followed in the provinces.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">The fagot still reigns.</div> + +<p>The signal given by Paris was welcomed in the provinces. In rapid +succession organized churches arose in Meaux, Angers, Poitiers, Bourges, +Issoudun, Aubigny, Blois, Tours, Pau, and Troyes—all within the compass +of two years.<a name="FNanchor_610_610" id="FNanchor_610_610"></a><a href="#Footnote_610_610" class="fnanchor">[610]</a> The Protestants, thirsting for the preaching of the +Word of God, turned their eyes toward Geneva, Neufchâtel, and Lausanne, +and implored the gift of ministers qualified for the office of +instruction. Hitherto the awakening of the intellect and heart long +stupefied by superstition had been partial. Now it seemed to be general. +Three months had scarcely elapsed since the foundation of the church at +Paris, before it was asking of the Swiss reformers a second +minister.<a name="FNanchor_611_611" id="FNanchor_611_611"></a><a href="#Footnote_611_611" class="fnanchor">[611]</a> A month later, Angers already had a corps of three +pastors. "Entreat the Lord," writes the eminent theologian who has left +us these details, "to advance His kingdom, and to confirm with the +spirit of faith and patience our brethren that are in the very jaws of +the lion. <i>Assuredly the tyrant will at length be compelled either to +annihilate entire cities, or to concede someplace for the truth.</i><a name="FNanchor_612_612" id="FNanchor_612_612"></a><a href="#Footnote_612_612" class="fnanchor">[612]</a>" +Meanwhile the fires of per<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span>secution blazed high in various parts of +France, but produced no sensible impression on the growth of the +Reformation.<a name="FNanchor_613_613" id="FNanchor_613_613"></a><a href="#Footnote_613_613" class="fnanchor">[613]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Henry II. breaks the truce of Vaucelles.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Cardinal Caraffa.</div> + +<p>On the fifth of February, 1556, Henry concluded with Charles the Fifth, +who had lately abdicated the imperial crown, and with Philip the Second, +his son, the truce of Vaucelles, which either side swore to observe for +the space of five years.<a name="FNanchor_614_614" id="FNanchor_614_614"></a><a href="#Footnote_614_614" class="fnanchor">[614]</a> In the month of July of the same year +Henry broke the truce and openly renewed hostilities. Paul the Fourth, +the reigning pontiff, was the agent in bringing about this sudden +change. The inducement held out to Henry was the prospect of the +investiture of the duchy of Milan and the kingdom of Naples; and Paul +readily agreed to absolve the French monarch from the oath which he had +so solemnly taken only five months before. Constable Montmorency and his +nephew, Admiral Coligny, opposed the act of perfidy; but it was +advocated by the Duke of Guise, by the Cardinal of Lorraine, and by one +whose seductive entreaties were more implicitly obeyed than those of all +others—the dissolute Diana of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span> Poitiers.<a name="FNanchor_615_615" id="FNanchor_615_615"></a><a href="#Footnote_615_615" class="fnanchor">[615]</a> And the negotiation had +been intrusted to skilful hands.<a name="FNanchor_616_616" id="FNanchor_616_616"></a><a href="#Footnote_616_616" class="fnanchor">[616]</a> Cardinal Caraffa, the pontiff's +nephew, was surpassed in intrigue by no other member of the Sacred +College. No conscientious scruples interfered with the discharge of his +commission. For Caraffa was at heart an unbeliever. As his hand was +reverently raised to pronounce upon the crowds gathered to witness his +entry into Paris the customary benediction in the name of the triune +God, and his lips were seen to move, there were those near his person, +it is said, that caught the ribald words which were really uttered +instead: "Let us deceive this people, since it wishes to be +deceived."<a name="FNanchor_617_617" id="FNanchor_617_617"></a><a href="#Footnote_617_617" class="fnanchor">[617]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Fresh projects to introduce the Spanish Inquisition.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Henry's letter to the Pope.</div> + +<p>It was fitting that to such a legate should be committed the task of +making a fresh effort to introduce the Spanish Inquisition into France. +The Cardinal of Lorraine had been absent in Italy the year before, when +the first attempt failed through the resolute resistance of parliament. +He was now present to lend his active co-operation. Yet with all his +exertions the king could not silence the opposition of the judges,<a name="FNanchor_618_618" id="FNanchor_618_618"></a><a href="#Footnote_618_618" class="fnanchor">[618]</a> +and was finally induced to defer a third attempt until the year 1557, +and to give a different form to the undertaking. In the month of +February of this year, Henry<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> applied to the Pontiff, begging him to +appoint, by Apostolic brief, a commission of cardinals or other +prelates, who "<i>might proceed to the introduction of the said +inquisition</i> in the lawful and accustomed form and manner, under the +authority of the Apostolic See, and with the invocation of the secular +arm and temporal jurisdiction." He promised, on his part, to give the +matter his most lively attention, "<i>since he desired nothing in this +world so much as to see his people delivered from so dangerous a +pestilence as this accursed heresy</i>."<a name="FNanchor_619_619" id="FNanchor_619_619"></a><a href="#Footnote_619_619" class="fnanchor">[619]</a> And he solicited the greatest +expedition on the part of the Pope, for it was an affair that demanded +diligence.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">The papal bull.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">The three inquisitors-general.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Odet, Cardinal of Châtillon.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">His Protestant proclivities.</div> + +<p>Paul, who was in the constant habit of saying that the inquisition was +the sole weapon suited to the Holy See, the only battering-ram by means +of which heresy could be demolished,<a name="FNanchor_620_620" id="FNanchor_620_620"></a><a href="#Footnote_620_620" class="fnanchor">[620]</a> did not decline the royal +invitation. On the twenty-sixth of April he published a bull appointing +a commission consisting of the Cardinals of Lorraine, Bourbon, and +Châtillon, with power to delegate their authority to others. Of the +three prelates, the first was the real instigator of the cruelties +practised during this and the subsequent reigns. The Cardinal of Bourbon +was known to be as ignorant as he was inimical to the Reformation, and +could be depended upon to support his colleague. The Cardinal of +Châtillon, brother of Admiral Coligny and of D'Andelot, was added, it is +not improbable, from motives of policy. He was already suspected of +favoring the reformed doctrines, which subsequently he openly espoused. +Indeed, nearly six years before, the English ambassador, Pickering, +after alluding to new measures of persecution devised against the +Protestants, wrote: "Cardinal Châtillon, as I hear, is a great aider of +Lutherans, and hath been a great stay in this matter, which otherwise +had been before now concluded, to the destruction of any man that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span> had +almost spoken of God's Word. Nevertheless, the Protestants here fear +that it cannot come to a much better end, where such a number of bishops +and cardinals bear the swing."<a name="FNanchor_621_621" id="FNanchor_621_621"></a><a href="#Footnote_621_621" class="fnanchor">[621]</a> Châtillon's enemies hoped, by +placing him on this inquisitorial commission, where his vote would be +powerless in opposition to that of the other two cardinals, to compel +him either to enter the rank of persecutors, or declare himself openly +for the Reformation, and thus destroy his own credit and that of his +powerful family.<a name="FNanchor_622_622" id="FNanchor_622_622"></a><a href="#Footnote_622_622" class="fnanchor">[622]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The bull confirmed by Henry II.</div> + +<p>The papal bull was promptly confirmed by the king, who, in a declaration +given at Compiègne, on the twenty-fourth of July, 1557, permitted "his +very dear cousins," the three cardinals, to exercise the office of +inquisitors-general throughout the monarchy. From sentences given by +their subalterns, this document permitted an appeal to be taken, but it +was to a body appointed for the purpose by the inquisitors +themselves.<a name="FNanchor_623_623" id="FNanchor_623_623"></a><a href="#Footnote_623_623" class="fnanchor">[623]</a> Parliament, however, again interposed the prerogative +it had assumed, of remonstrance and delay, and the king's declaration, +as well as the papal bull, remained inoperative.<a name="FNanchor_624_624" id="FNanchor_624_624"></a><a href="#Footnote_624_624" class="fnanchor">[624]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Judicial sympathy with the victims.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Edict of Compiègne, July 24, 1557.</div> + +<p>It is not surprising, perhaps, that the institution of the sacred +office, with its bloody code and relentless tribunal, was pressed so +repeatedly upon the French monarch and parliament for their acceptance. +The number of the Protestants was not only increasing in a most alarming +manner,<a name="FNanchor_625_625" id="FNanchor_625_625"></a><a href="#Footnote_625_625" class="fnanchor">[625]</a> but the very judges before whom, when discovered, the +Protestants were brought, began to show signs of compassion, if not of +sympathy. So it happened that, in one provincial town, two persons +caught with the packages of "Lutheran"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span> books they had brought into +France, after they had made an explicit confession of their faith, were +condemned, not to the flames, but to the trifling punishment of public +whipping; and scarcely had the blows begun to fall upon the backs of the +pedlers, when some of the magistrates themselves threw their cloaks +around the culprits, whose confiscated books were afterward secretly +returned to them, or bought and paid for.<a name="FNanchor_626_626" id="FNanchor_626_626"></a><a href="#Footnote_626_626" class="fnanchor">[626]</a> To such a formidable +height had this irregularity grown, that, on the very day upon which the +confirmation of the three proposed inquisitors-general was made, Henry +published a new edict (at Compiègne, on the twenty-fourth of July, 1557) +intended to secure an adherence to the penalties prescribed by previous +laws. The reader of this edict, remembering the frequency with which the +<i>estrapade</i> had done its bloody work for the last quarter of a century, +will not be astonished to read that the punishment of death is affixed +to the secret or public profession of any other religion than the Roman +Catholic. But he will rejoice, for the sake of our common humanity, to +learn that "it very frequently happens that our said judges are moved +with pity by <i>the holy and malicious words</i> of those found guilty of the +said crimes;" and that, to secure the uniform infliction of the extreme +penalty upon the professors of the reformed faith, it was now necessary +for the king to remove from the judges the slightest pretext or +authority for mitigating the sentence that condemned a Protestant to the +flames or gallows.<a name="FNanchor_627_627" id="FNanchor_627_627"></a><a href="#Footnote_627_627" class="fnanchor">[627]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Defeat of St. Quentin, Aug. 10, 1557.</div> + +<p>Under cover of the war during three years, Protestantism made rapid +strides in France. But the contest itself was disastrous to its +originators. The constable, having, when hostilities had once been +undertaken contrary to his advice, been unwilling<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span> to resign the chief +command to which his office entitled him, assumed the defence of Paris +from the north, while to his younger rival in arms, the Duke of Guise, +was assigned the more brilliant part in the enterprise—the conquest of +the kingdom of Naples. Montmorency's success, however, fell far short of +the reputation he enjoyed for consummate generalship. Not only did he +fail to relieve his nephews Coligny and D'Andelot, who had shut +themselves up with a handful of men in the fortress of St. Quentin; but +he himself (on the tenth of August, 1557) met with a signal defeat in +which the flower of the French army was routed, and many of its leaders, +including the constable himself, were taken prisoners.<a name="FNanchor_628_628" id="FNanchor_628_628"></a><a href="#Footnote_628_628" class="fnanchor">[628]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Rage against the "Lutherans."</div> + +<p>The French capital was thrown into a paroxysm of fear on receipt of the +intelligence. The road to Paris lay open to the victorious army. The +king, not less than the people, expected to hear the Spaniards within a +few brief days thundering at the very gates of the city. Charles the +Fifth, from his retirement at Yuste, is said to have asked the courier +with impatience, whether his son was already in Paris.<a name="FNanchor_629_629" id="FNanchor_629_629"></a><a href="#Footnote_629_629" class="fnanchor">[629]</a> In the minds +of the populace, disappointment and fear were mingled with rage against +"the accursed sect of the Lutherans"—the reputed authors of all the +public calamities. Every prediction which the priests had for a +generation been ringing in the ears of the people seemed now to be in +course of fulfilment. In the startling defeat of a large and +well-appointed army of France, led by an experienced general, all eyes +read tokens of the evident displeasure of the Almighty, not because of +the ignorance and immorality of the people, or the bad doctrine and +worse lives of its spiritual leaders, or the barbarous cruelty, the +shameless impurity, and unexampled bad faith of the court; but because +of the existence of heretics who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span> denied the authority of the Pope, and +refused to bow down and worship the transubstantiated wafer. The popular +anger was the more ready to kindle because the harsh measures of the +government had confessedly failed of accomplishing their object, and +because—to use the expressive language of the royal edict—the fire +still burned beneath the ashes.<a name="FNanchor_630_630" id="FNanchor_630_630"></a><a href="#Footnote_630_630" class="fnanchor">[630]</a> An incident which happened little +more than a fortnight after the battle of St. Quentin disclosed the +bitter fruits of the slanderous reports and violent teachings +disseminated among the excitable inhabitants of Paris.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">The affair of the Rue St. Jacques, Sept. 4, 1557.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Assault upon the worshippers.</div> + +<p>The Protestants of the capital, far from rejoicing over the misfortunes +of the kingdom, as their adversaries falsely asserted, met even more +frequently than before to offer their united prayers in its behalf. On +the evening of the fourth of September, 1557,<a name="FNanchor_631_631" id="FNanchor_631_631"></a><a href="#Footnote_631_631" class="fnanchor">[631]</a> three or four hundred +persons, of every rank of society, quietly repaired to a house in the +Rue St. Jacques, almost under the very shadow of the Sorbonne, where the +sacrament of the Lord's Supper was to be administered according to +previous appointment. Their coming together had not been so noiseless, +however, as to escape the attention of some priests, residing in the +Collége du Plessis, on the other side of the way, whose suspicions had +for some time been fixed upon the spot.<a name="FNanchor_632_632" id="FNanchor_632_632"></a><a href="#Footnote_632_632" class="fnanchor">[632]</a> The reformed were not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> +disturbed during the exercise of their worship. But when, toward +midnight, they prepared to return to their homes, the fury of their +enemies discharged upon them the full force of its pent-up energies. A +fanatical crowd blocked the street or filled the opposite windows, ready +to overwhelm with a shower of stones and missiles of all descriptions +any that might leave the protection of the house. Continual accessions +were made of those whom the cries of "Thieves!" "Robbers!" "Conspirators +against the realm!" attracted to the place. The discovery of the fact +that it was a company not of robbers, but of "Lutherans," only inflamed +the rage of the new-comers. The cry was now for blood. Every avenue of +escape was guarded, and bonfires lighted here and there dispelled the +friendly darkness. Carts and wagons were drawn across the streets, and +armed men occupied the street-corners, or, if too cowardly to expose +themselves to any danger, stood ready at doors and windows to thrust the +fugitives through with their pikes.</p> + +<p>The assembled Protestants, awakened to their danger, at first expected a +general massacre. But the exhortations of their pastors and elders gave +them new courage. In the midst of the storm raging without, they betook +themselves to prayer. At length the necessity was recognized of coming +to a prompt decision. To await the coming of the civil authorities, for +whom their enemies had sent, was to give themselves up to certain death. +Nothing remained but to force their way out—a course recommended, we +are told, by those who knew the cowardice of a Parisian mob. The men who +were provided with swords were placed in the front rank, the unarmed +followed in their wake. Again and again small companies issued into the +street and faced the angry storm. Each successive company reached a safe +refuge. In fact, of all that adopted the bolder course of action, only +one person was knocked down and left upon the ground to be brutally +murdered and suffer the most shameful<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span> indignities. There were, however, +many—one hundred and twenty or more women and children, with a few +men—whom fear prevented from following the example of their companions. +Around them the rabble, balked of the greater part of its expected +victims, raged with increased fury. At one moment they presented +themselves at the windows to the view of their enemies, in the vain hope +that the sight of so much innocence and helplessness would secure +compassion. When only blind hatred and malice were exhibited in return, +they withdrew and quietly awaited the fate which they believed to be in +store for them at the hands of the mob. From this they were delivered by +the sudden arrival of Martine, the king's "procureur" belonging to the +Châtelet, with a strong detachment of commissaries and sergeants.</p> + +<p>With great difficulty restraining the impetuosity of the mob, the +magistrate made on the very spot an examination into the services that +had been held. The whole story was told him in simple terms. He found +that, while the Protestants had been assembling, the Scriptures had for +a long time been read in the French language. The minister had next +offered prayer, the whole company kneeling upon the floor. He had +afterward set forth the institution of the holy supper as given by St. +Paul, had exhibited its true utility and how it ought to be approached, +and had debarred from the communion all seditious, disobedient, impure, +and other unworthy participants, forbidding them to come near to the +sacred table. Then those who had been deemed to be in a fit frame to +receive the sacrament had presented themselves, and received the bread +and the wine from the hands of the ministers, with the words: "This is +the communion of the body and blood of the Lord." Prayers had followed +for the king and the prosperity of his kingdom, for all the poor in +their affliction, and for the church in general. The services had closed +with the singing of several psalms.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Treatment of the prisoners.</div> + +<p>So clear a confession was amply sufficient to justify the arrest of the +entire company. Men, women, and children were dragged at early dawn to +the prison. But their escort was too small, or too indifferent, to +afford protection from the insults and violence of the immense throng +through the midst<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span> of which they passed.<a name="FNanchor_633_633" id="FNanchor_633_633"></a><a href="#Footnote_633_633" class="fnanchor">[633]</a> Not content with applying +alike to men and to women the most opprobrious epithets, the rabble tore +their clothing, covered them with mud and filth, and dealt many a +blow—especially to those who from their long robes or age were +suspected of being preachers.<a name="FNanchor_634_634" id="FNanchor_634_634"></a><a href="#Footnote_634_634" class="fnanchor">[634]</a> Into these outrages no judicial +investigation was ever instituted, so prevalent was the persuasion that +the zeal of the people in defence of the established faith must not be +too narrowly watched.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Malicious rumors.</div> + +<p>The blame for these excesses must not, however, be laid exclusively to +the account of the populace. There were rumors afloat that owed their +origin to the deliberate and malicious invention of the better +instructed, and that were firmly believed by the ignorant masses. The +nocturnal meetings, to which the Protestants were driven by persecution, +were represented as devoted to the most abominable orgies. The +Protestants were accused of eating little children. It was boldly stated +that a luxurious banquet was spread, and that at its conclusion the +candles were extinguished, and a scene of the most indiscriminate +lewdness ensued.<a name="FNanchor_635_635" id="FNanchor_635_635"></a><a href="#Footnote_635_635" class="fnanchor">[635]</a> One of the judges of the tribunal of the Châtelet +was found sufficiently pliant to declare, in contradiction to the +unanimous testimony of the accused, that preparations for the repetition +of similar crimes had been discovered in the rooms of the house in the +rue St. Jacques, where the Protestants had been surprised. These +infamous accusations even found their way<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span> into print, and were +disseminated far and wide by the priestly party.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Trials and executions.</div> + +<p>While the poor prisoners were confined in the most loathsome +cells—highwaymen and murderers being removed to better quarters to make +room for Christians<a name="FNanchor_636_636" id="FNanchor_636_636"></a><a href="#Footnote_636_636" class="fnanchor">[636]</a>—a judicial investigation was set on foot. The +king himself expedited the trials.<a name="FNanchor_637_637" id="FNanchor_637_637"></a><a href="#Footnote_637_637" class="fnanchor">[637]</a> Within little more than three +weeks from the time of their apprehension, three Protestants were put to +death (on the twenty-seventh of September). Both sexes and the extremes +of youth and old age were represented in these victims. To one, a +beautiful young lady of wealth and rank, barely twenty-three years old, +the favor was granted of being strangled before her body was consigned +to the flames. Yet even in her case the cruel executioner had not +abstained from first applying a firebrand wantonly and indecently to +different parts of her person.<a name="FNanchor_638_638" id="FNanchor_638_638"></a><a href="#Footnote_638_638" class="fnanchor">[638]</a> Her companions were burned alive. +One of them was an advocate in parliament; both were elders of the +reformed church. Five days later a physician and a solicitor met the +same fate, but endured greater sufferings, as the wind blew the flames +from beneath them, prolonging their torture; and these<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span> were quickly +followed by two students at Paris, both of them from the southern part +of the realm (on the twenty-third of October).<a name="FNanchor_639_639" id="FNanchor_639_639"></a><a href="#Footnote_639_639" class="fnanchor">[639]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Intercession of the Swiss cantons and others.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Calvin's interest.</div> + +<p>Meanwhile the wretched prisoners were not deserted by their brethren. +Their innocence of the dreadful crimes laid to their charge was +maintained in pamphlets, which showed that these accusations were but +repetitions of slanders invented by the heathen to overwhelm the early +Christians. Their doctrinal orthodoxy was proved by citations from the +early church fathers.<a name="FNanchor_640_640" id="FNanchor_640_640"></a><a href="#Footnote_640_640" class="fnanchor">[640]</a> The Protestants of Paris found means to +introduce a long remonstrance into the very chamber of the king. +Unfortunately, it had as little influence upon him as similar +productions had had with his predecessor. In Switzerland and in a +portion of Germany the tidings made a deep impression. Less than two +weeks after the blow had been struck at the small community of Parisian +Protestants, Calvin wrote the first of a series of letters calculated to +sustain their drooping courage, and suggested some of the wise ends +Providence might have in view in permitting so severe a discipline.<a name="FNanchor_641_641" id="FNanchor_641_641"></a><a href="#Footnote_641_641" class="fnanchor">[641]</a> +Meantime he applied himself vigorously to arouse in their behalf an +effective intervention. "My good brethren," he wrote to the people of +Lausanne, "though all the rest should not suffice to move the hearts of +those brethren to whom an appeal is made, yet this emergency admits of +no delay. It can scarcely be but that, amid so many tortures, first<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span> one +and then another be involved in them, until the number of sufferers +become an infinite one. In short, the whole kingdom will be in flames. +The question no longer is how to satisfy the desire of the poor +brethren, but, if we have a single spark of humanity within us, to +succor them in such extremity.... Though money be not promptly obtained +elsewhere, yet shall I make such efforts, should I be obliged to pledge +my head and my feet, that it be forthcoming here."<a name="FNanchor_642_642" id="FNanchor_642_642"></a><a href="#Footnote_642_642" class="fnanchor">[642]</a></p> + +<p>Beza, with his associates, Carmel, Farel, and Budé, at the same time, by +Calvin's request, took active steps to induce the Protestant cantons and +princes to intercede with Henry, and their exertions were not in +vain.<a name="FNanchor_643_643" id="FNanchor_643_643"></a><a href="#Footnote_643_643" class="fnanchor">[643]</a> It was the object of the reformers to enlist the intervention +of those Protestant powers, in particular, whose alliance and assistance +might be deemed indispensable by the French king in his present +straits.<a name="FNanchor_644_644" id="FNanchor_644_644"></a><a href="#Footnote_644_644" class="fnanchor">[644]</a> The four "evangelical" Swiss cantons, encouraged by the +success of a recent mission in behalf of the Waldenses of Piedmont, sent +to Paris a deputation, whose appearance was greeted by the Protestants +with the utmost joy. The ambassadors, however, allowed themselves to be +cajoled and deceived by the Cardinal of Lorraine, to whom they had the +imprudence to intrust their petition. In reply to their address to the +king, they were told (on the fifth of November), in the name of his +Majesty, that he invited the confederates in future to trouble +themselves no further with the internal affairs of his kingdom, +especially in matters of religion, since he was resolved to follow in +the steps of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span> his predecessors.<a name="FNanchor_645_645" id="FNanchor_645_645"></a><a href="#Footnote_645_645" class="fnanchor">[645]</a> Discouraged by this rebuff, they +did not even attempt to press the matter upon the king's notice, or by a +personal interview endeavor to mitigate his anger against their +brethren. It had been better never to have engaged in the intercession +than support it so weakly.<a name="FNanchor_646_646" id="FNanchor_646_646"></a><a href="#Footnote_646_646" class="fnanchor">[646]</a> The German princes could not be induced +to give to the affair the consideration it merited; but a letter of the +Count Palatine seems to have somewhat diminished the violence of the +persecution.<a name="FNanchor_647_647" id="FNanchor_647_647"></a><a href="#Footnote_647_647" class="fnanchor">[647]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Constancy of most of the prisoners.</div> + +<p>The constancy of the victims, by disconcerting the plans of their +enemies, doubtless contributed much to the temporary lull. No one +attracted in this respect greater attention than the most illustrious +person among the prisoners—the daughter of the Seigneur de Rambouillet +and wife of De Rentigny, standard-bearer of the Duke of Guise—who +resolutely rejected the pardon, based on a renunciation of her faith, +which her father and husband brought her from the king, and urged her +with tears to accept.<a name="FNanchor_648_648" id="FNanchor_648_648"></a><a href="#Footnote_648_648" class="fnanchor">[648]</a> Others, who, on account of their youth, were +expected to be but poor advocates of their doctrinal views, proved more +than a match for their examiners. The course was finally adopted of +distributing the prisoners, about one hundred in number, in various +monastic establishments, whose inmates might win them back to the Roman +Catholic Church, whether by argument or by harsher means. The judges +could thus rid themselves of the irksome task of lighting new fires, and +the energies of the religious orders were put to some account. But the +result hardly met the expectations formed. If a few Protestants obtained +their liberty, and incurred the censures of their brethren, by unworthy +confessions of principle,<a name="FNanchor_649_649" id="FNanchor_649_649"></a><a href="#Footnote_649_649" class="fnanchor">[649]</a> many more were allowed to escape by the +monks, who soon had reason to desire "that their cloisters might be +purged of such pests, through fear lest the contagion should spread +farther," and found it "burdensome to support without compensation so +large a number of needy persons."<a name="FNanchor_650_650" id="FNanchor_650_650"></a><a href="#Footnote_650_650" class="fnanchor">[650]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Controversial pamphlets.</div> + +<p>While the Protestants were thus demonstrating, by the fortitude with +which they encountered severe suffering and even death, the sincerity of +their convictions and the purity of their lives, their enemies were +unremitting in exertions to aggravate the odium in which they were held +by the people. An inquisitor and doctor of the Sorbonne, the notorious +De Mouchy, or Demochares, as he called himself, wrote a pamphlet to +prove them heretics by the decisions of the doctors.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span> A bishop found the +signs of the true church in the <i>bells</i> at the sound of which the +Catholics assembled, and marks of Antichrist in the <i>pistols</i> and +<i>arquebuses</i> whose discharge was said to be the signal for the gathering +of the heretics. A third controversialist went so far as to accuse the +Protestants not only of impurity, but of denying the divinity of Christ, +the immortality of the soul, the resurrection of the body, and even the +existence of God.<a name="FNanchor_651_651" id="FNanchor_651_651"></a><a href="#Footnote_651_651" class="fnanchor">[651]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Capture of Calais, January, 1558.</div> + +<p>Meanwhile, public affairs assumed a more encouraging aspect. Francis of +Guise, recalled from Italy, where his ill-success had been the salvation +of the poor Waldenses in their Alpine valleys,<a name="FNanchor_652_652" id="FNanchor_652_652"></a><a href="#Footnote_652_652" class="fnanchor">[652]</a> had assumed command +of a large force, consisting partly of the troops he had taken to Italy, +partly of noblemen and gentlemen that flocked to his standard in answer +to the king's summons for the defence of the French capital. With this +army he succeeded in capturing, in the beginning of January, 1558, the +city of Calais, for two hundred years an English possession.<a name="FNanchor_653_653" id="FNanchor_653_653"></a><a href="#Footnote_653_653" class="fnanchor">[653]</a> The +achievement was not a difficult one. The fortifications had been +suffered to go to ruin, and the small garrison was utterly insufficient +to resist the force unexpectedly sent against it.<a name="FNanchor_654_654" id="FNanchor_654_654"></a><a href="#Footnote_654_654" class="fnanchor">[654]</a> But the success +raised still higher the pride of the Guises.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Registry of the inquisition edict.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Antoine of Navarre, Condé, and other princes favor the +Reformation.</div> + +<p>The auspicious moment was seized by the Cardinal of Lorraine to induce +Henry, on the ninth of January, to hold in parliament a <i>lit de +justice</i>, and compel the court to register in his presence the obnoxious +edict of the previous year, establishing the <i>inquisition</i>.<a name="FNanchor_655_655" id="FNanchor_655_655"></a><a href="#Footnote_655_655" class="fnanchor">[655]</a> But the +engine which had been esteemed both by Pope and king the only<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span> sure +means of repressing heresy, failed of its end. New churches arose; those +that previously existed rapidly grew.<a name="FNanchor_656_656" id="FNanchor_656_656"></a><a href="#Footnote_656_656" class="fnanchor">[656]</a> The Reformation, also, now, +for the first time, was openly avowed by men of the first rank in the +kingdom. Its opponents were filled with dismay upon beholding Antoine de +Bourbon, King of Navarre, his brother Louis, Prince of Condé, and +François d'Andelot, brother of Admiral Coligny, at the head of the +hitherto despised "Lutherans." Antoine de Bourbon-Vendôme was, next to +the reigning monarch and his children, the first prince of the blood. +Since his marriage with Jeanne d'Albret—in consequence of which he +became titular King of Navarre—he had resided for much of the time in +the city of Pan, where his more illustrious son, Henry the Fourth, was +born. Here he had attended the preaching of Protestant ministers. On his +return to court, not long after the capture of Calais, he took the +decided step of frequenting the gatherings of the Parisian Protestants. +Subsequently he rescued a prominent minister—Antoine de Chandieu—from +the Châtelet, in which he was imprisoned, by going in person and +claiming him as a member of his household.<a name="FNanchor_657_657" id="FNanchor_657_657"></a><a href="#Footnote_657_657" class="fnanchor">[657]</a> Well would it have been +for France had the Navarrese king always displayed the same courage. +Condé and D'Andelot were scarcely less valuable accessions to the ranks +of the Protestants.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Embassy from the Protestant Electors of Germany.</div> + +<p>Other causes contributed to delay the full execution of the plan of the +Inquisition. A united embassy from the three Protestant Electors of +Germany—the Count Palatine, the Duke of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span> Saxony, and the Marquis of +Brandenburg—and from the Dukes of Deux Ponts and Wurtemberg, bearing a +powerful appeal to Henry in behalf of his persecuted subjects, arrived +in Paris.<a name="FNanchor_658_658" id="FNanchor_658_658"></a><a href="#Footnote_658_658" class="fnanchor">[658]</a> Such noble and influential petitioners could not be +dismissed—especially at a time when their assistance was +indispensable—without a gracious reply;<a name="FNanchor_659_659" id="FNanchor_659_659"></a><a href="#Footnote_659_659" class="fnanchor">[659]</a> and, in order that the +German princes might not have occasion to accuse Henry of too flagrant +bad faith, the persecution was allowed for a short time to abate.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Psalm-singing on the Pré aux Clercs.</div> + +<p>An incident of an apparently trivial character, which happened at Paris +not long after, proved very clearly that the severities inflicted on +some of those connected with the meeting in the Rue St. Jacques had +utterly failed of accomplishing their object. On the southern side of +the Seine, opposite the Louvre, there stretched, just outside of the +city walls, a large open space—the public grounds of the university, +known as the <i>Pré aux Clercs</i>.<a name="FNanchor_660_660" id="FNanchor_660_660"></a><a href="#Footnote_660_660" class="fnanchor">[660]</a> This spot was the favorite promenade +of the higher classes of the Parisians. It happened that, on a certain +afternoon in May,<a name="FNanchor_661_661" id="FNanchor_661_661"></a><a href="#Footnote_661_661" class="fnanchor">[661]</a> a few voices in the crowd began to sing one of +the psalms which Clément Marot and Théodore de Bèze had translated into +French. At the sound the walks and games were forsaken. The tune was +quickly caught up, and soon the vast concourse joining in the words, +either through sympathy or through love of novelty, the curious were +attracted from all quarters to listen to so strange an entertainment. +For many successive evenings the same performance was repeated. The +numbers increased, it was said, to five or six thousand. Many of the +chief personages of the kingdom were to be seen among those who took +part. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span> King and Queen of Navarre were particularly noticed because +of the pleasure they manifested. By the inmates of the neighboring +College of the Sorbonne the demonstration was interpreted as an open +avowal of heresy. The use of the French language in devotional singing +was calculated to throw contempt upon the time-honored usage of +performing divine service in the Latin tongue.<a name="FNanchor_662_662" id="FNanchor_662_662"></a><a href="#Footnote_662_662" class="fnanchor">[662]</a> To the king, at this +time absent from the city, the psalm-singing was represented as a +beginning of sedition, which must be suppressed lest it should lead to +the destruction at once of his faith and of his authority. Henry, too +ready a listener to such suggestions, ordered the irregularity to cease; +and the Protestant ministers and elders of Paris, desirous of giving an +example of obedience to the civil power in things indifferent, enjoined +on their members to desist from singing the psalms elsewhere than in +their own homes.<a name="FNanchor_663_663" id="FNanchor_663_663"></a><a href="#Footnote_663_663" class="fnanchor">[663]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Conference of Cardinals Lorraine and Granvelle.</div> + +<p>The visit of the Dowager Duchess of Lorraine, who was permitted to meet +her son upon the borders of France, afforded a good opportunity for an +informal discussion of the terms of the peace that was to put an end to +a war of which both parties were equally tired. There, in the fortress +of Peronne, the Cardinal of Lorraine held a conference with Antoine +Perrenot, Cardinal of Granvelle; and a friendship was cemented between +the former and the Spanish court<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span> boding no good for the quiet of France +or the stability of the throne.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">D'Andelot, Coligny's younger brother, denounced.</div> + +<p>Little was effected in the direction of peace. But Cardinal Lorraine +received valuable hints touching the best method for humbling the +enemies of his house. Of these no one was more formidable than +D'Andelot, who had distinguished himself greatly in the war on the +Flemish borders. This young nobleman, the Bishop of Arras affirmed, had +been found, during the captivity from which he had recently escaped, to +be infected with the contagion of the "new doctrines." Since his return +to France, he had even ventured to send a heretical volume to console +his brother, the admiral, in prison. The cardinal, jealous of the houses +of Châtillon and Montmorency, promptly reported to the king the story of +D'Andelot's defection from the faith. His brother, the Duke of Guise, +loudly declared that, although he was ready to march to the siege of +Thionville, he could entertain no hope of success if D'Andelot were +suffered to accompany him, in command of the French infantry.<a name="FNanchor_664_664" id="FNanchor_664_664"></a><a href="#Footnote_664_664" class="fnanchor">[664]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">D'Andelot in Brittany.</div> + +<p>The sympathy of the younger Châtillon was daily becoming more openly +avowed. On a recent visit to Brittany (April, 1558), he had taken with +him Fleury and Loiseleur, Protestant ministers. For the first time, the +westernmost province of France heard the doctrines preached a generation +before in Meaux. The crowd of provincial nobles, flocking to pay their +respects to D'Andelot and his wife, Claude de Rieux, heiress of vast +estates in this region, were both surprised and gratified at enjoying +the opportunity of listening to preachers whose voice had penetrated to +almost every nook of France save this. So palpable were the effects, +that D'Andelot's brief tour in Brittany furnished additional grounds for +Henry's suspicions respecting the young nobleman's soundness in the +faith.<a name="FNanchor_665_665" id="FNanchor_665_665"></a><a href="#Footnote_665_665" class="fnanchor">[665]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">D'Andelot summoned to appear before the king.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">His manly defence.</div> + +<p>D'Andelot was summoned to appear before the king and clear himself of +the charges preferred against him. Henry is said, indeed, to have sent +previously D'Andelot's brother, the Cardinal of Châtillon, and his +cousin, Marshal Montmorency, the constable's eldest son, to urge him to +make a submissive and satisfactory explanation. But their exertions were +futile. Henry began the conversation by reminding D'Andelot of the great +intimacy he had always allowed him and the love he bore him. He told him +that he had expected of him anything rather than a revolt from the +religion of his prince and an adherence to new doctrines. And he +announced as the principal points in his conduct which he condemned, +that he had allowed the "Lutheran" views to be preached on his estates, +that he had frequented the <i>Pré aux Clercs</i>, that he absented himself +from the mass, and that he had sent "books from Geneva" to his brother, +the admiral, in his captivity. D'Andelot replied with frankness and +intrepidity. He professed gratitude for the many favors he had received +from the monarch, a gratitude he had never tired of making known by +perilling life and property in that prince's cause. But the doctrine he +had caused to be preached was good and holy, and such as his forefathers +had held. He denied having been at the <i>Pré aux Clercs</i>, but avowed his +entire approval of the service of praise in which the multitude had +there engaged. As for his absence from the mass, he thanked God for +removing the veil of ignorance that once covered his eyes, and declared +that, with the Almighty's favor, he would never again be present at its +celebration. In fine, he begged Henry to regard his life and property as +being entirely at the royal disposition, but to leave him a free +conscience. The Cardinal of Lorraine, who alone of the courtiers was +present, here interposed to warn the speaker of the bad way into which +he had entered; but D'Andelot replied by appealing to the prelate's own +conscience in testimony of the truth of the doctrines he had once +favored, but now, from ambitious motives, persecuted.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Henry orders him to be imprisoned.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Embarrassment of the court.</div> + +<p>Greatly displeased with so frank an avowal of sentiments that would have +cost one less nobly connected his life, Henry<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span> now pointed to the collar +of the "Order of St. Michael" around D'Andelot's neck, and exclaimed: "I +did not give you this order to be so employed; for you swore to attend +mass and to follow my religion." "I knew not what it is to be a +Christian," responded D'Andelot; "nor, had God then touched my heart as +He now has, should I have accepted it on such a condition."<a name="FNanchor_666_666" id="FNanchor_666_666"></a><a href="#Footnote_666_666" class="fnanchor">[666]</a> Unable +any longer to endure the boldness of D'Andelot—who richly deserved the +title he popularly bore, <i>the fearless knight</i><a name="FNanchor_667_667" id="FNanchor_667_667"></a><a href="#Footnote_667_667" class="fnanchor">[667]</a>—Henry angrily +commanded him to leave his presence. The young man was arrested and +taken by the archers of the guard to Meaux, whence he was subsequently +removed to Melun.<a name="FNanchor_668_668" id="FNanchor_668_668"></a><a href="#Footnote_668_668" class="fnanchor">[668]</a> The position of the court was, however, an +embarrassing one. Henry manifested no desire to retain long as a +prisoner, much less to bring to the <i>estrapade</i>, the nephew of the +constable, and a warrior who had himself held the honorable post of +Colonel-General of the French infantry, and was second to none in +reputation for valor and skill. The most trifling concession would be +sufficient to secure the scion of the powerful families of Châtillon and +Montmorency. Even this concession, however, could not for a considerable +time be gained. D'Andelot resisted every temptation, and his +correspondence breathed the most uncompromising determination.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">D'Andelot's constancy.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">His temporary weakness.</div> + +<p>In a long and admirable letter to Henry, it is true, he humbly asked +pardon for the offence his words had given. And he begged the king to +believe that, "save in the matter of obedience to God and of +conscience," he would ever faithfully expose life and means to fulfil +the royal commands. But he also reiterated his inability to attend the +mass, and plainly denounced as blasphemy the approval of any other +sacrifice than that made upon the Cross.<a name="FNanchor_669_669" id="FNanchor_669_669"></a><a href="#Footnote_669_669" class="fnanchor">[669]</a> To the ministers of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span> Paris +he wrote, expressing a resolution equally strong; and the letters of the +latter, as well as of the great Genevese reformer, were well calculated +to sustain his courage. But D'Andelot was not proof against the +sophistries of Ruzé, a doctor of the Sorbonne and confessor of the king. +Moved by the entreaties of his wife,<a name="FNanchor_670_670" id="FNanchor_670_670"></a><a href="#Footnote_670_670" class="fnanchor">[670]</a> of his uncle the constable, +and of his brother the Cardinal of Châtillon, he was induced, after two +months of imprisonment, to consent to be present, but without taking any +part, at a celebration of the mass. By the same priest D'Andelot sent a +submissive message to the king, to which the bearer, we have reason to +believe, attributed a meaning quite different from that which D'Andelot +had intended to convey. The noble prisoner was at once released; but the +voice of conscience, uniting with that of his faithful friends, soon led +him to repent bitterly of his temporary, but scandalous weakness. From +this time forward he resumes the character of the intrepid defender of +the Protestant doctrines—a character of which he never again divests +himself.<a name="FNanchor_671_671" id="FNanchor_671_671"></a><a href="#Footnote_671_671" class="fnanchor">[671]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The bloody decemvirate.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Anxiety for peace.</div> + +<p>Meanwhile, Henry and his adviser, the Cardinal of Lorraine, who really +little deserved the reproaches showered on them by the Pope, took steps +to encounter the new assaults which the reformed doctrines were making +on the established church in every quarter of the kingdom. If the +Parliament of Paris<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span> began to exhibit reluctance to shed more innocent +blood, it was far otherwise with the decemvirate to whom the three +cardinals had delegated their inquisitorial functions, and whose power +was supreme.<a name="FNanchor_672_672" id="FNanchor_672_672"></a><a href="#Footnote_672_672" class="fnanchor">[672]</a> But, to the prosecution of the work of exterminating +heresy in France, the continuance of the war with Spain offered +insurmountable obstacles. It diverted the attention of the government +from the multiplication of "Lutheran" churches and communities. It +hampered the court, by compelling it to mitigate its severities, in +consequence of the importunate intercessions of its indispensable +allies, the Protestant princes across the Rhine and the confederated +cantons of Switzerland. Besides, the war had borne no fruit but +disappointment. If Calais had been recovered, St. Quentin and other +strongholds, which were the key to Paris, had been lost. The brilliant +capture of Thionville (on the twenty-second of June, 1558) had been more +than balanced by the disastrous rout of Marshal de Thermes at Gravelines +(on the thirteenth of July).<a name="FNanchor_673_673" id="FNanchor_673_673"></a><a href="#Footnote_673_673" class="fnanchor">[673]</a></p> + +<p>The almost uninterrupted hostilities of the last twelve years had not +only exhausted the few thousand crowns which Henry had found in the +treasury at his accession to the throne, but had reduced the French +exchequer to as low an ebb as that of the Spanish king.<a name="FNanchor_674_674" id="FNanchor_674_674"></a><a href="#Footnote_674_674" class="fnanchor">[674]</a> His +antagonist was as anxious as Henry to reduce his expenditures, and +obtain leisure for crushing heresy in the Low Countries and wherever +else it had shown itself in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span> his vast dominions. Constable Montmorency, +too, employed his powerful influence to secure a peace which would +restore him liberty, and the place in the royal favor likely to be +usurped by the Guises, if his absence from court were to last much +longer. And Paul the Fourth was now as earnestly desirous of effecting a +reconciliation between the contending monarchs—that they might unitedly +engage in the holy work of persecution—as he had been a few years +before to embroil them in war.<a name="FNanchor_675_675" id="FNanchor_675_675"></a><a href="#Footnote_675_675" class="fnanchor">[675]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis, April 3, 1559.</div> + +<p>The common desire for peace found expression in the appointment of +plenipotentiaries, who met, about the middle of October, in the +monastery of Cercamps, near Cambray. France was represented by +Montmorency, the Cardinal of Lorraine, Marshal St. André, Morvilliers, +Bishop of Orleans, and Claude de l'Aubespine, Secretary of State. The +Duke of Alva, William of Orange, Ruy-Gomez de Silva, the Bishop of +Arras, and Viglius appeared on the part of Philip. England and Savoy +were also represented by their envoys. After preliminary discussions, +the conference adjourned, to meet in February of the succeeding year at +Cateau-Cambrésis.<a name="FNanchor_676_676" id="FNanchor_676_676"></a><a href="#Footnote_676_676" class="fnanchor">[676]</a> Here, on the third of April, 1559, was concluded +a treaty of peace that terminated the struggle for ascendancy in which +France and Spain had been engaged, with brief intermissions, ever since +the accession of Francis the First and Charles the Fifth.</p> + +<p>So far as France was concerned, it was an inglorious close. By a single +stroke of the pen Henry gave up nearly two hundred places that had been +captured by the French from their enemies during the last thirty years. +In return he received Ham, St. Quentin, and three other strongholds held +by Philip on his northern frontier. All the fruits of many years of war +and an infinite loss of life and treasure<a name="FNanchor_677_677" id="FNanchor_677_677"></a><a href="#Footnote_677_677" class="fnanchor">[677]</a> were surrendered in an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span> +instant for a paltry price. The Duke of Savoy recovered states which had +long been incorporated in the French dominions. The jurisdictions of two +parliaments of France became foreign territory. The inhabitants of Turin +were left to forget the language they had begun to speak well. The King +of Spain could now come to the very gates of Lyons, which before the +peace had stood, as it were, in the middle of the kingdom, but was now +turned into a border city.<a name="FNanchor_678_678" id="FNanchor_678_678"></a><a href="#Footnote_678_678" class="fnanchor">[678]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Sacrifice of French interests.</div> + +<p>Such were the concessions Henry was willing to make for the purpose of +obtaining peace abroad, that he might turn his arms against his own +subjects. Philip, if equally zealous, was certainly too prudent to +exhibit his eagerness so clearly to his opponent. The interests of +France had been sacrificed to the bigotry of her monarch and the +selfishness of his advisers. When the terms of the agreement were made +known, they awakened in every true Frenchman's breast a feeling of shame +and disgust.<a name="FNanchor_679_679" id="FNanchor_679_679"></a><a href="#Footnote_679_679" class="fnanchor">[679]</a> Henry himself manifested embar<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span>rassment when +attempting to justify his course.<a name="FNanchor_680_680" id="FNanchor_680_680"></a><a href="#Footnote_680_680" class="fnanchor">[680]</a> Abroad the improbable tidings +were received with incredulity.<a name="FNanchor_681_681" id="FNanchor_681_681"></a><a href="#Footnote_681_681" class="fnanchor">[681]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Was there a secret treaty for the extermination of the +Protestants?</div> + +<p>The treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis contained but one article on the subject +of religion—that which bound the monarchs of Spain and France to put +forth their united exertions for securing a "holy universal council." +But common report had it that the omission of more detailed reference to +the subject lying so near to the heart of both kings was fully +compensated by a secret treaty taken up exclusively with this +subject.<a name="FNanchor_682_682" id="FNanchor_682_682"></a><a href="#Footnote_682_682" class="fnanchor">[682]</a> That treaty was represented as developing a plan which +contemplated nothing less than the entire and violent destruction of +heresy by the united efforts of their Catholic and Very Christian +Majesties. By a single concerted massacre of all dissidents, the whole +of Europe was to be brought back to its allegiance to the see of St. +Peter.<a name="FNanchor_683_683" id="FNanchor_683_683"></a><a href="#Footnote_683_683" class="fnanchor">[683]</a> Unfortunately, the secret treaty, if it ever existed, has +never come to light; nor have we the testimony of a single person who +pretends to have seen it, or to be acquainted with its contents. Indeed, +the circumstances of the case seem to render such a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span> united effort as +the conjectural treaty supposes either Quixotic or +superfluous—Quixotic, if the two monarchs, without the concurrence of +the empire, whose crown had passed from Charles, not to his son Philip, +but to his brother Ferdinand, should institute a scheme for a general +crusade against the professors of the doctrines that had already gained +a firm foothold in one-half of Germany, in Great Britain, and the +Scandinavian lands of Northern Europe; superfluous, if it respected only +the dominions of the high contracting powers. For the purpose of Henry +was no less clearly and repeatedly proclaimed than that of Philip. No +subject of either crown could ignore at whom the first blow would be +struck, after the pressure of the foreign war had been removed.<a name="FNanchor_684_684" id="FNanchor_684_684"></a><a href="#Footnote_684_684" class="fnanchor">[684]</a> +Nor, in the execution of their plans, could either monarch imagine +himself to stand in need of the assistance of his royal brother; for it +was not an open war to be carried on, but as yet a struggle with +<i>persons</i>, numerous without doubt, but, nevertheless, <i>suspected</i> rather +than <i>convicted</i> of heresy, and discovered, for the most part, only by +diligent search.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">The Prince of Orange learns Henry's and Philip's designs.</div> + +<p>But, if we have reason to think that the treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis was +accompanied by no secret and formal stipulations having reference to a +combined assault upon Protestantism, we at least know that the +negotiations it occasioned gave rise to a singular disclosure of the +policy of Philip the Second in the Netherlands—a policy which he deemed +applicable to Christendom entire. Among the ambassadors of Philip and +the hostages for the execution of the treaty was William of Orange, the +future deliverer of the United Provinces. Henry, supposing that the +nobleman to whom so honorable a trust had been committed enjoyed the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span> +confidence of his master to an equal extent with the Duke of Alva, his +colleague, imprudently broached the subject of the suppression of +heresy. The prince wisely encouraged the misapprehension, in order to +avoid incurring the contempt in which he would have been held had the +discovery been made that Philip had not taken him into his confidence. +Henry, waxing earnest on the theme, revealed the intention of Philip and +Alva to establish in the Netherlands "a worse than Spanish Inquisition." +Thus much the prince himself published to the world.<a name="FNanchor_685_685" id="FNanchor_685_685"></a><a href="#Footnote_685_685" class="fnanchor">[685]</a> The learned +President De Thou adds that Philip's subsequent design was to join his +arms to those of France, to make a joint attack upon the "new +sectaries."<a name="FNanchor_686_686" id="FNanchor_686_686"></a><a href="#Footnote_686_686" class="fnanchor">[686]</a> This is not altogether impossible. But the plan was +general and vague. Its execution was still in the distant future. Its +details were probably but little elaborated. If, outside of the +dominions of the two monarchs, any points of attack were proposed with +distinctness, they were the free city of Strasbourg, the Canton of Berne +with its dependency, the <i>Pays de Vaud</i>—but, above all, <i>Geneva</i>.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Danger menacing the city of Geneva.</div> + +<p>That small republic, insignificant in size, but powerful through the +influence of its teachers and the books with which its presses teemed, +was the eyesore of Roman Catholic France. It was the home of French +refugees for religion's sake; and the strictest laws could not check the +stream of money that flowed thither for their support. It was the +nursery of the reformed doctrines; and the death penalty was ineffectual +to cut off intercourse, or to dam up the flood of Calvinistic books +which it poured over the kingdom.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span></p> + +<p>Calvin himself and his friends momentarily expected the blow to fall +upon their devoted heads.<a name="FNanchor_687_687" id="FNanchor_687_687"></a><a href="#Footnote_687_687" class="fnanchor">[687]</a> But the same hand that so often in the +eventful history of Geneva interposed in its behalf, by a signal +occurrence warded off the stroke.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">A joint expedition against Geneva proposed by Henry,</div> + +<div class="sidenote">but declined by the Duke of Alva.</div> + +<p>The apprehensions of the Genevese were well founded. In June, 1559, and +but a few days before the date of Calvin's letter, Philip the Second +made the offer to the French king, through the Duke of Alva, then in +Paris, to aid him in exterminating the Protestants of France. Henry +declined for the moment to avail himself of the assistance, which he +regarded as unnecessary; but he sent the Constable Montmorency to +propose that both monarchs should make a joint expedition against +Geneva, and declared himself ready to employ all his forces in the pious +undertaking. It may surprise us to learn that the prudent duke in turn +rejected the crusade against the Protestant citadel. Even Philip and his +equally bigoted agents could close their ears to the call to become the +instruments in the extirpation of heresy. While they could see neither +reason nor religion in the temporizing policy occasionally manifested by +other Roman Catholic sovereigns in their dealings with Protestant +subjects, Philip and Alva never suffered their hatred of schism to be so +uncompromising as to interfere with what they considered a material +interest of the state. Unfortunately for Philip, the quarrel of Geneva +would inevitably be espoused by the Bernese and the inhabitants of the +other Protestant cantons of Switzerland; and it was certainly +undesirable to provoke the enmity of a powerful body of freemen, +situated in dangerous proximity to the "Franche Comté"—the remnant of +Burgundy still in Spanish hands. It was no less imprudent, in view of +future contingencies, to render still more difficult the passage from +his Catholic Majesty's dominions in Northern Italy to the Netherlands. +So Alva, as he himself reports to his master, rejected the constable's +proposition, contenting himself with a few empty<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span> phrases respecting the +great profit that would flow to the cause of God and of royalty from an +exclusion of Roman Catholic subjects from that pestilent city on the +shores of Lake Leman.<a name="FNanchor_688_688" id="FNanchor_688_688"></a><a href="#Footnote_688_688" class="fnanchor">[688]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Parliament suspected of heretical leanings.</div> + +<p>Henry had deemed the progress of the reformed doctrines in France so +formidable<a name="FNanchor_689_689" id="FNanchor_689_689"></a><a href="#Footnote_689_689" class="fnanchor">[689]</a> as to dictate the necessity of making peace with Philip, +even upon humiliating terms. But where should he begin the savage work +for which he had made such sacrifices? His spiritual advisers pointed to +the courts of justice, which they accused of being lukewarm, and even +infected with heresy. For years they had been dwelling upon the same +theme. In 1556 the Sorbonne had denounced the parliament itself as +altogether heretical;<a name="FNanchor_690_690" id="FNanchor_690_690"></a><a href="#Footnote_690_690" class="fnanchor">[690]</a> and, although Henry showed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span> some indignation +at the suggestion, and sarcastically asked whether the theologians +aspired to become the supreme judges of the kingdom, it was notorious, +two years later, that they had succeeded in sowing in his breast a +general distrust respecting the orthodoxy of the entire body.<a name="FNanchor_691_691" id="FNanchor_691_691"></a><a href="#Footnote_691_691" class="fnanchor">[691]</a> Nor +was the suspicion groundless. Chosen from among the most highly educated +of French jurisconsults, belonging to a court upon which high +prerogatives had been conferred, holding for life a post of enviable +distinction, and regarded as the supreme guardians of law and equity, it +was in accordance with the very nature of things that the counsellors of +the Parisian parliament should so far participate in the progress of +ideas in the sixteenth century as to begin to look with abhorrence upon +the bloody task imposed on them by the royal edicts. Into what +profession would liberal views gain an earlier admission than that of +the appointed expositors of the rules of right?</p> + +<p>Some recent occurrences not only seemed to demonstrate the fact that the +principles of clemency had penetrated into the halls of parliament, but +pointed out the very chamber which was most influenced by them. In the +<i>Tournelle</i>, or criminal chamber of parliament—before which those +accused of Protestantism most naturally came—under the presidency of +Séguier,<a name="FNanchor_692_692" id="FNanchor_692_692"></a><a href="#Footnote_692_692" class="fnanchor">[692]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span> the majority of the counsellors had recently conducted a +trial of four youths, on a charge of "Lutheranism," in so skilful a +manner as to avoid asking any question the answer to which might +compromise the prisoners. And when the bigots insisted on propounding a +crucial inquiry, and elicited a decided expression of Protestant +sentiments, some of the judges showed unmistakable sympathy, and the +chamber, to save appearances in some slight degree, condemned them to +leave the country within a fortnight, instead of instantly confirming +the sentence of death which had been pronounced against three of their +number by the inferior courts.<a name="FNanchor_693_693" id="FNanchor_693_693"></a><a href="#Footnote_693_693" class="fnanchor">[693]</a> Other "Christaudins" had been sent +to their bishops for trial, although their guilt was patent to all.<a name="FNanchor_694_694" id="FNanchor_694_694"></a><a href="#Footnote_694_694" class="fnanchor">[694]</a> +In fine, the Cardinal of Lorraine laid to the account of parliament the +spread of the new doctrines throughout France.<a name="FNanchor_695_695" id="FNanchor_695_695"></a><a href="#Footnote_695_695" class="fnanchor">[695]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The Mercuriale.</div> + +<p>In order to discover the truth of the charges, a convocation of the +members of all the chambers was ordered for the last Wednesday of April, +Such a gathering for inquiry into the sentiments and morals of the +judges was called, from the day of the week on which it was held, a +<i>Mercuriale</i>.<a name="FNanchor_696_696" id="FNanchor_696_696"></a><a href="#Footnote_696_696" class="fnanchor">[696]</a> The object of the convocation was announced by the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span> +royal procureur-general, Bourdin, to be the establishment of an +understanding between the "Grand' chambre" and the "Tournelle"—the +former of which relentlessly condemned the "Lutherans" to the flames, +while the latter, to the great scandal of justice, had let off several +with simple banishment. The wily adversary of the "new doctrines," +therefore, called upon the judges to express their opinions respecting +the best method of effecting a return to uniformity. The snare was not +laid in vain. For in the free declaration of sentiment, in which the +members according to custom indulged, several judges were bold enough to +call for the assembling of the Œcumenical Council promised by the +lately ratified treaty of peace, as the sole method of extirpating +error, and to propose meanwhile the suspension of the capital penalties +ordained by the royal edicts.<a name="FNanchor_697_697" id="FNanchor_697_697"></a><a href="#Footnote_697_697" class="fnanchor">[697]</a></p> + +<p>At his admission into parliament each judge had taken an oath to +maintain inviolable secrecy in reference to the deliberations of the +court. This was rightly supposed to relate in particular to the +expressions of opinion before any formal decision. Nevertheless, the +king was at once acquainted by the First President, Le Maistre, and by +Minard, one of the presidents <i>à mortier</i>, with the entire proceedings +of the <i>Mercuriale</i>. He was told that the "Lutheranism" of certain +judges was now manifest. They had spoken in abominable terms of the +mass, of the ecclesiastical ordinances, and of prevailing abuses. It +would be the ruin of the church if such daring were suffered to pass by +unrebuked.<a name="FNanchor_698_698" id="FNanchor_698_698"></a><a href="#Footnote_698_698" class="fnanchor">[698]</a></p> + +<p>The representation of these enormities inflamed Henry's anger. His +courtiers took good care not to suffer it to cool. What if, emboldened +by impunity, the Protestants, of whose rapid growth in all parts of +France such startling reports were brought to him, should attempt to +carry out the plan that was talked of among them, and seize the +opportunity of the wedding festivities solemnly to present to his +Majesty, by the hands of one of the nobles, the confession of faith of +their churches? What punishment of the audacious agent employed would +remove<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span> from the minds of the orthodox foreign princes present at court +the sinister impression that heresy had struck deep root in the realm of +the Very Christian King?<a name="FNanchor_699_699" id="FNanchor_699_699"></a><a href="#Footnote_699_699" class="fnanchor">[699]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Henry goes in person to listen to the deliberations, June 10, +1559.</div> + +<p>If a candid gentleman of the bed-chamber, like Vieilleville, privately +urged Henry to reject the advice of prelates in secular matters, and +respectfully decline the assumption of the post of theologian or +inquisitor-general of the faith, his remonstrances were overborne by the +suggestions of Diana and the Guises, who hoped to reap a rich harvest +from new confiscations.<a name="FNanchor_700_700" id="FNanchor_700_700"></a><a href="#Footnote_700_700" class="fnanchor">[700]</a> The king was entreated to go in person to +listen to the discussions in parliament. Early on the morning of the +tenth of June, his chamber was visited by a host of ecclesiastics—among +them four cardinals, two archbishops, two bishops, and several doctors +of the Sorbonne, with De Mouchy, the inquisitor, at their head. They +urged him to follow out their suggestion, and were so successful in +overcoming his reluctance that, as a contemporary wrote, he thought +himself consigned to perdition if he failed to go.<a name="FNanchor_701_701" id="FNanchor_701_701"></a><a href="#Footnote_701_701" class="fnanchor">[701]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Parliament meets in the Augustinian monastery.</div> + +<p>The magnificent hall of the royal palace on the island of the "Cité," in +which parliament was accustomed to meet, was in course of preparation +for the festivities that were to accompany the marriages of Elizabeth, +Henry's daughter, with Philip the Second of Spain, and of his only +sister, Margaret, with the Duke of Savoy. Parliament was consequently +sitting in the monastery of the Augustinian friars on the southern bank +of the Seine.<a name="FNanchor_702_702" id="FNanchor_702_702"></a><a href="#Footnote_702_702" class="fnanchor">[702]</a> Thither Henry proceeded in state with a retinue of +noblemen, and accompanied by the archers of his body-guard. Taking his +seat upon the elevated throne prepared for him, with the constable, the +Guises, and the princes that had attended him, on his right and left, +Henry made to the judges a short address indicative of his purpose to +take advantage of the peace in order to labor for the re-establishment +of the faith, and of his desire to obtain the advice of his supreme +court.<a name="FNanchor_703_703" id="FNanchor_703_703"></a><a href="#Footnote_703_703" class="fnanchor">[703]</a> When the king had concluded, Bertrand, Cardinal Archbishop +of Sens and Keeper of the Seals, announced the command of his Majesty +that the consideration of the religious questions undertaken in the +<i>Mercuriale</i> should be resumed.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Fearlessness of the counsellors.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Anne du Bourg.</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span></p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span></p><p>The counsellors could be in no doubt respecting the motives of this +solemn and unusual audience; yet they entered upon the discussion with +the utmost fearlessness.<a name="FNanchor_704_704" id="FNanchor_704_704"></a><a href="#Footnote_704_704" class="fnanchor">[704]</a> Claude Viole boldly recommended the +convocation of an œcumenical council. Du Faur declaimed against the +flagrant abuses of the church. While admitting that the trouble of the +kingdom arose from diversity in religion, he pointed out the necessity +of a careful scrutiny into the true authors of those troubles, lest the +accuser of others should himself be met with a retort similar to that of +the ancient prophet to King Ahab—"It is thou that troublest +Israel."<a name="FNanchor_705_705" id="FNanchor_705_705"></a><a href="#Footnote_705_705" class="fnanchor">[705]</a> But Anne du Bourg, a nephew of a late Chancellor of +France, and a learned and eloquent speaker, committed himself still +further to the cause of liberty and truth. He gave thanks to Almighty +God for having brought Henry to listen to the decision of so worthy a +matter, and entreated the monarch to give it his attention, as the cause +of our Lord Jesus Christ, which ought to be upheld by kings. He +advocated a suspension of all persecution against those who were +stigmatized as heretics, until the assembling of a council; and warned +his hearers that it was a thing of no slight importance to condemn to +death those who, in the midst of the flames, called on the name of the +Saviour of men.<a name="FNanchor_706_706" id="FNanchor_706_706"></a><a href="#Footnote_706_706" class="fnanchor">[706]</a> Another counsellor advocated the granting to all +the "Lutherans" of the kingdom a term of six months, within which they +might recant their errors, and at its close might withdraw from France. +But there were others who recommended the employment of severe measures; +and the first president recalled with approval the example of Philip +Augustus, who, in one day, had burned six hundred heretics, and the fate +of the Waldenses, suffocated in the houses and caves in which they had +taken refuge.<a name="FNanchor_707_707" id="FNanchor_707_707"></a><a href="#Footnote_707_707" class="fnanchor">[707]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Henry is displeased, and orders the arrest of two of the +counsellors.</div> + +<p>At the conclusion of the deliberation, Henry summoned to him the +noblemen who had accompanied him, and, after having consulted them, +angrily declared his great displeasure at the discovery that many of his +judges had departed from the faith, and his determination to inflict +upon them an exemplary punishment. Then turning to Montmorency, he +ordered him to arrest two of the counsellors that had spoken in his +presence—Louis du Faur and Anne du Bourg. The constable at once obeyed, +and gave them over into the custody of Gabriel, Count Montgomery, +captain of the Scottish body-guard. Three other judges soon shared their +rigorous imprisonment in the Bastile,<a name="FNanchor_708_708" id="FNanchor_708_708"></a><a href="#Footnote_708_708" class="fnanchor">[708]</a> and as many more escaped only +by flight. It was, however, with the boldness of Du Bourg that Henry was +chiefly enraged. He swore that he would see him burned with his own +eyes.<a name="FNanchor_709_709" id="FNanchor_709_709"></a><a href="#Footnote_709_709" class="fnanchor">[709]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The first National Synod, May, 1559.</div> + +<p>But, whilst the enemies of the Reformation were devising new schemes of +persecution, and were preparing to strike a blow at the more tolerant +sentiments which had stolen into the breasts of the very judges of +parliament, its friends took a step that was at once indicative of its +progress and dictated by its necessities. A few days before Henry was +persuaded to call for a continuation of the discussion commenced at the +"Mercuriale"—on the twenty-sixth of May<a name="FNanchor_710_710" id="FNanchor_710_710"></a><a href="#Footnote_710_710" class="fnanchor">[710]</a>—the first National Synod +of the French Protestants convened in the city of Paris. It was a small +assemblage in comparison with some others on the list of these national +councils extending down for about a century, and its sessions were held +with the utmost secrecy in a house in the Faubourg St. Germain. But it +performed for French Protestantism the two important<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span> services of giving +an authoritative statement of its system of doctrine, and of +establishing the principles of its form of government. The confession of +faith was full and explicit, as well on the points in which the +Protestant and the Roman churches agreed, as respecting the distinctive +tenets of the reformed. The "diabolical imaginations" of Servetus were +equally condemned with the gross abuses of monastic vows, pilgrimages, +celibacy, auricular confession, and indulgences. The pure observance of +the sacraments was established, as well against their corrupt and +superstitious use in the papal church, as against the "fantastic +sacramentarians" who rejected them entirely. Nor need we be surprised to +find the warrant of magistrates to interfere <i>in behalf</i> of the truth +formally recognized. The right of the individual conscience was a right +for the most part ignored by thinking men on both sides during the +sixteenth century—covered and hidden by the fallacious application of +the principle of universal obligation to the inflexible law of right and +of God. The lesson of liberty based upon order was learned only in the +school of long and severe persecution. Even after thirty-seven or eight +years of violent suffering, the Protestant church of France admitted as +an article in her creed, that "God has placed the sword in the hand of +magistrates to repress the sins committed not only against the <i>second</i> +table of God's commandments, but also against the <i>first</i>!"<a name="FNanchor_711_711" id="FNanchor_711_711"></a><a href="#Footnote_711_711" class="fnanchor">[711]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Ecclesiastical discipline adopted.</div> + +<p>The "Ecclesiastical Discipline" laid the foundation of the organization +of the Protestants in France. Thoroughly democratic and representative +in its character, it instituted, or rather recognized, a court—the +consistory—in each particular congregation, with its popular element in +the <i>superintendents</i> (surveillants) or <i>elders</i>, who sat with the +pastors to adjudicate upon the inferior and local concerns of the +members. It provided for the more direct participation of the people in +the control of affairs by making the offices of elder and deacon +elective, and not perpetual. It provided a court of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span> appeal in the +provincial <i>colloques</i> or <i>synods</i>, to be held at least twice a year, in +which each church was to be represented by its pastor and elder. Above +all stood the <i>National Synod</i>, the ultimate ecclesiastical authority. +The constitution strove to preclude the establishment of a hierarchy, by +declaring all churches and ministers equal, and to secure correctness of +teaching, not only by requiring the ministers to sign the confession, +but by providing for the deposition of those who had lapsed from the +faith.</p> + +<p>Thus it was that, in the midst of a monarchy surpassed by none for its +arbitrary and tyrannical administration, and not many hundred paces from +the squares where for a generation the eyes of the public had been +periodically feasted with the sight of human sacrifices offered up in +the name of religion, the founders of the Huguenot church framed the +plan of an ecclesiastical republic, in which the elements of popular +representation and decisive authority in an ultimate tribunal, the +embodiment of the judgment of the entire church, were perhaps more +completely realized than they had ever before been since the times of +the early Christians.<a name="FNanchor_712_712" id="FNanchor_712_712"></a><a href="#Footnote_712_712" class="fnanchor">[712]</a> The few ministers that had met in an upper +room, at the hazard of their lives, to vindicate the profession of faith +of their persecuted co-religionists, and to sketch the plan of their +churchly edifice, as noiselessly retraced their steps to the +congregations committed to their charge. But they had planted the seed +of a mighty tree which would stand the blasts of many a tempest—always +buffeted by the winds, and bearing the scars of many a conflict with the +elements—but proudly pre-eminent, and firm as the rock around which its +sturdy roots were wound.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Marriages and festivities of the court.</div> + +<p>Henry had sworn to behold with his own eyes the punishment of Anne du +Bourg. But the grateful sight was not in store for him. From the +Mercuriale and the persecution of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span> heretics he turned his attention to +the celebration of the marriages which were to cement the indissoluble +peace that had at length been concluded between the kingdoms of France +and Spain. The most splendid preparations were made for the +entertainment of the brilliant train of noblemen who came to represent +the dignity of the crown of Spain, and to claim the destined bride of +Philip. The "Hôtel des Tournelles"—a favorite palace of more than one +king of France—was magnificently decorated; for in its great hall the +nuptials were appointed to be celebrated. In the broad street of Saint +Antoine, in front of this palace, the lists were erected, and the beauty +and nobility of France viewed, from the windows on either side, the +contest of the most distinguished knights, and applauded their feats of +daring and skill. A few paces farther, and just inside the moat, stood a +frowning pile, whose sombre and repulsive front might have struck a +beholder as being as much out of place as the skeleton at the feast—the +ill-omened Bastile.<a name="FNanchor_713_713" id="FNanchor_713_713"></a><a href="#Footnote_713_713" class="fnanchor">[713]</a> Five prisoners, immured for their conscientious +boldness in its gloomy dungeons, and awaiting a terrible fate, +distinctly heard, day after day, as the tourney continued, the +inspiriting notes of the clarion and hautboy, deepening by contrast the +horrors of their situation.<a name="FNanchor_714_714" id="FNanchor_714_714"></a><a href="#Footnote_714_714" class="fnanchor">[714]</a> There was the same incongruity between +the king's pursuit of pleasure and his ferocity. From the festivities, +it is said, he turned aside to order Montgomery to proceed, the very +moment the tourney was over, to the <i>Pays de Caux</i>—a hot-bed of the +"Lutheran" heresy—to destroy with the sword the resisting, to put out +the eyes of the suspected, and to torture and burn the guilty.<a name="FNanchor_715_715" id="FNanchor_715_715"></a><a href="#Footnote_715_715" class="fnanchor">[715]</a> It +was believed, moreover, that he himself would then proceed to the +southern parts of France, and set on foot a rigorous persecution of the +Protestants, with whom those regions swarmed.<a name="FNanchor_716_716" id="FNanchor_716_716"></a><a href="#Footnote_716_716" class="fnanchor">[716]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span></p> + +<p>The nuptial torches burned not less bright for the gloom overhanging the +despised and abominated Lutherans. But in an instant, as by the touch of +a magician's wand, they were turned into the funereal tapers of Henry +the Second.<a name="FNanchor_717_717" id="FNanchor_717_717"></a><a href="#Footnote_717_717" class="fnanchor">[717]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The tournament, June 30, 1559.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Henry mortally wounded by Montgomery's lance.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">His death.</div> + +<p>On the thirtieth of June,<a name="FNanchor_718_718" id="FNanchor_718_718"></a><a href="#Footnote_718_718" class="fnanchor">[718]</a> when the sports of the day were about +ending, the gay monarch must needs re-enter the lists in person, and +break another lance in honor of Diana of Poitiers, whose colors he wore. +The queen had indeed begged him to avoid, for that day at least, the +dangerous pastime; she had been terrified, so she said, by one of those +strangely vivid dreams that wear, after the event, so much of the guise +of prophetic sight.<a name="FNanchor_719_719" id="FNanchor_719_719"></a><a href="#Footnote_719_719" class="fnanchor">[719]</a> But Henry made light of her fears, and closed +his ears to her warning. His choice of an antagonist fell upon +Montgomery, captain of his Scottish archers; and although the latter +begged leave to decline the perilous honor, the king refused to excuse +him.<a name="FNanchor_720_720" id="FNanchor_720_720"></a><a href="#Footnote_720_720" class="fnanchor">[720]</a> At the appointed signal, the knights rode rapidly to the rude +encounter. But Henry's visor was not proof against the lance of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span> +Montgomery, and either broke or was unclasped in the shock. The lance +itself was splintered by the blow, and the piece which Montgomery, in +his surprise and fright, had neglected instantly to lower, entering +above the monarch's eye, penetrated far toward the brain.<a name="FNanchor_721_721" id="FNanchor_721_721"></a><a href="#Footnote_721_721" class="fnanchor">[721]</a> Rescued +from falling, but covered with blood, the wounded prince was hastily +stripped of his armor, amid the loud lamentations of the horror-stricken +spectators, and borne into the magnificent saloon of the <i>Palais des +Tournelles</i>. Here, after lingering a few days, he died on the tenth of +July.</p> + +<p>It was a month, to the hour, since Henry's visit to parliament.<a name="FNanchor_722_722" id="FNanchor_722_722"></a><a href="#Footnote_722_722" class="fnanchor">[722]</a></p> + +<p>The body was laid out in state in the very room appointed for the +nuptial balls. A splendidly wrought tapestry representing the conversion +of St. Paul hung near the remains, but the words, "Saul, Saul, why +persecutest thou me?" embroidered upon it, admitted too pointed an +application, and the cloth was soon put out of sight.<a name="FNanchor_723_723" id="FNanchor_723_723"></a><a href="#Footnote_723_723" class="fnanchor">[723]</a> The public, +however, needed no such<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span> pictorial reminder. The persecutor had been +stopped as suddenly in his career of blood as the young Pharisee near +Damascus. But it may be doubted whether the eyes with which he had sworn +to see Anne du Bourg burned beheld such a vision of glory as blinded the +future apostle's vision. It is more than probable, indeed, that Henry +never spoke after receiving the fatal wound;<a name="FNanchor_724_724" id="FNanchor_724_724"></a><a href="#Footnote_724_724" class="fnanchor">[724]</a> although the report +obtained that, as he was carried from the unfortunate tilting-ground, he +turned his bleeding face toward the prison in which the parliament +counsellors were languishing, and expressed fear lest he had wronged +them—a suggestion which the Cardinal of Lorraine hastened to answer by +representing it as a temptation of the Prince of Evil.<a name="FNanchor_725_725" id="FNanchor_725_725"></a><a href="#Footnote_725_725" class="fnanchor">[725]</a></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<div class="blockquot"><div class="sidenote">"La Façon de Genève"—the Huguenot service.</div> + +<p>The charge of having prayed, or administered the sacrament of +Baptism or of the Lord's Supper, or taken part in the celebration +of Marriage, "according to the fashion of Geneva," so frequently +appears in the documents of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span> first century after the +establishment of the Reformation in France as the chief offence of +its early adherents and martyrs, that it is worth while to examine +in some detail the model of worship that has exerted so important +an influence upon the practice of the Huguenots and their +descendants down to the present time.</p> + +<p>While discarding the cumbrous ceremonial of the Roman Church, on +the ground that it was not only overloaded with superfluous +ornament, but too fatally disfigured by irrational, superstitious, +or impious observances to be susceptible of correction or +adaptation to the wants of their infant congregations, the founders +of the reformed churches of the continent did not leave the +inexperienced ministers to whose care these congregations were +confided altogether without a guide in the conduct of divine +worship. Esteeming a written account of the manner in which the +public services were customarily performed to be the safest +directory for the use of the young or ill-equipped, as well as the +surest means of silencing the shameless calumnies of their +malignant opponents, they early framed liturgies, not to be imposed +as obligatory forms, but rather to serve an important end in +securing an orderly conformity in the general arrangement followed +in their churches.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Farel's "Manière et fasson," 1533.</div> + +<p>The earliest of these liturgical compositions appears to have been +a small and thin volume of eighty-seven pages, which, as we learn +from the colophon, was "printed by Pierre de Wingle at Neufchâtel, +on the twenty-ninth day of August in the year 1533;" that is to +say, on the same press which, about a twelvemonth later, sent forth +the famous "Placards" against the mass, and a year afterward the +Protestant version of the Bible, translated into French by +Olivetanus. It is entitled "<i>La Manière et fasson qu'on tient ès +lieux que Dieu de sa grace a visités</i>." It was undoubtedly composed +by Guillaume Farel, and, like all the other tracts of that vigorous +and popular reformer, it has become extremely rare. Indeed, the +work was altogether unknown until a single copy, the only one thus +far discovered, was found by Professor Baum, of Strasbourg, in the +Library of Zurich.<a name="FNanchor_726_726" id="FNanchor_726_726"></a><a href="#Footnote_726_726" class="fnanchor">[726]</a></p> + +<p>What lends additional interest to the liturgy of Farel, is the +circumstance that it is at the same time, as the modern editor +remarks, "<i>the earliest Confession of Faith</i> of the Reformed +Churches, <i>their first apology</i> in answer to the atrocious, absurd +and lying accusations which the hatred of their enemies, especially +among the clergy, had invented at will, or had borrowed from pagan +calumnies against the Christians of the first centuries." "Do they +not exclaim," writes Farel in his preface, "that those accursed +dogs of heretics who would uphold this new law live like beasts, +renouncing everything, maintaining neither law nor faith, abjuring +all the sacraments; that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span> they reject Baptism, and make light of +the Holy Table of our Lord; that they despise the Virgin Mary and +the saints, and observe no marriage." To remove the prejudice thus +engendered from the minds of the ignorant, is the chief design of +the writer, who accordingly appeals at each step for his warrant to +the Holy Scriptures, and entreats the reader to have no regard for +the antiquity of the abuses he combats, or for the reputation of +their advocates, but simply to examine for himself what "our good +Saviour Jesus has instituted and commanded." The offices are five +in number; for Baptism, Marriage, the Lord's Supper, Preaching, and +the Visitation of the Sick; but to a certain extent, and +particularly in the last-mentioned office, they are little more +than a series of directions for the orderly conduct of worship. In +other cases the service is very fully written out.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Calvin's liturgy, 1542.</div> + +<p>Nine years after the publication of this very simple liturgy of +Farel, appeared the first edition of the liturgy of Geneva, +composed by Calvin, or the "Prayers after the fashion of Geneva," +as they were usually designated by contemporary Roman Catholic +writers. Until recently the first edition was supposed to have been +published in 1543, but Professor Felix Bovet, of Neufchâtel, has +been so fortunate as to find a copy in the Royal Library of +Stuttgart, bearing the date of 1542. This is probably the solitary +remaining specimen of the original impression.<a name="FNanchor_727_727" id="FNanchor_727_727"></a><a href="#Footnote_727_727" class="fnanchor">[727]</a> Although +without name of place, it was doubtless printed in Geneva. The +title is: "<i>La Forme des Prières et Chantz Ecclésiastiques, avec la +Manière d'administrer les Sacremens et consacrer le Marriage, selon +la coustume de l'Eglise Ancienne. M.DXLII.</i>"</p> + +<p>The following brief sketch will perhaps convey a sufficient idea of +the form "which is ordinarily used" for the public worship of the +morning of the Lord's day.</p> + +<p>A brief <i>invocation</i> ("Our help be in the name of the Lord who made +heaven and earth") is followed by an <i>exhortation</i> addressed to the +congregation ("My brethren, let each one of you present himself +before the face of the Lord with confession of his faults and sins, +following in his heart my words"). The <i>Confession</i>, which is the +most beautiful and characteristic part of the liturgy, comes next. +Used by Théodore de Bèze and his companions at the Colloquy of +Poissy, with wonderful impressiveness, as preparatory to that +reformer's grand vindication of the creed of the Protestants of +France, it has been imagined by many that it was composed by him +for this occasion. But it had already constituted a part of the +public devotions of the French and Swiss Protestants for eighteen +or twenty years. A <i>Psalm</i> was then sung, and a prayer offered "to +implore God for the grace of His Holy Spirit, to the end<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span> that His +Word may be faithfully expounded to the honor of His Name and the +edification of the church, and may be received with such humility +and obedience as are becoming." The form is "at the discretion of +the minister." After the sermon comes a longer prayer for all +persons in authority; for Christian pastors; for the enlightenment +of the ignorant and the edification of those who have been brought +to the truth; for the comfort of the afflicted and distressed;<a name="FNanchor_728_728" id="FNanchor_728_728"></a><a href="#Footnote_728_728" class="fnanchor">[728]</a> +closing with supplications for temporal and spiritual blessings in +behalf of those present. The service was concluded by the form of +benediction, Numbers, vi. 24-26.</p> + +<p>Colladon, in his life of the reformer, tells us that Calvin +"collected (recueillit), for the use of the church of Geneva, the +form of ecclesiastical prayers, with the manner of administering +the sacraments and celebrating marriage, and a notice for the +visitation of the sick, as they are now placed with the Psalms." +(Baum, Cunitz, and Reuss, vi., pp. xvii., xviii.) And Calvin +himself, in his farewell address to his fellow-ministers (April 28, +1564), as taken down from memory by Pinaut, observed: "As to the +prayers for Sunday, I took the form of Strasbourg, and borrowed the +greater part of it." (Adieux de Calvin, Bonnet, Lettres françaises, +ii. 578.) The Strasbourg liturgy to which Calvin here refers was +one which he had himself composed for the use of the French refugee +church of Strasbourg, when acting as its pastor, during his exile +from Geneva (1538-1541). The earliest edition known to be extant is +that of which a single copy exists in the collection of M. Gaiffe, +and of which M. O. Douen has for the first time given an account in +his "Clément Marot et le Psautier huguenot," Paris, 1878, i. +334-339. This Strasbourg liturgy of 1542 (the pseudo-<i>Roman</i> +edition already referred to, p. 275), like that of 1545 (which +Professors Baum, Cunitz, and Reuss described in their edition of +Calvin's works, vi. 174, 175), contains some striking variations +from the Geneva forms. In particular, immediately after the +"Confession of Sins," it inserts these words: "Here the Minister +recites some word of Scripture to comfort consciences, and then +pronounces the absolution as follows:</p> + +<p>"Let each one of you recognize himself to be truly a sinner, +humbling himself before God, and believe that our Heavenly Father +will be gracious unto him in Jesus Christ.</p> + +<p>"To all those who thus repent and seek Jesus Christ for their +salvation, I declare the absolution of their sins, in the name of +the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen."</p> + +<p>It was this Strasbourg liturgy of Calvin that was in the hands of +the framers of the English "Book of Common Prayer," and from this +they derived the introductory portion of the daily service. +"According to the first book of Edward VI., that service began with +the Lord's Prayer. The foreign reformers consulted recommended the +insertion of some preliminary forms;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span> and hence the origin of the +Sentences, the Exhortation, the Confession, and the Absolution. +These elements were borrowed, not from any ancient formulary, but +from a ritual drawn up by Calvin for the church at Strasbourg." (C. +W. Baird, Eutaxia, or the Presbyterian Liturgies: Historical +Sketches, New York, 1855, p. 190.)</p> + +<p>The origin of only one of the minor offices of the Geneva liturgy +can be distinctly traced to another and older source. The form for +the celebration of marriage is taken bodily from the "Manière et +Fasson" of Farel, with the omission of two or three unimportant +sentences, and the alteration of a very few words—a trifling +change, dictated in each case by Calvin's keener literary taste. +The form for baptism, Calvin tells us expressly, was somewhat +roughly drafted by himself at Strasbourg, when the children of +Anabaptists were brought to him for baptism from distances of five +or ten leagues around. (Adieux de Calvin, Bonnet, ii. 578.)</p> + +<p>The liturgy of Geneva, composed with rapidity under the pressure of +the times, but with the skill and fine literary finish that are +wont to characterize even the most hurried of Calvin's productions, +has maintained its position undisputed to the present time, being +the oldest of existing forms of worship in the reformed churches. +The gradual change in the French language since the date of its +composition has rendered necessary some modernizing of the style +both of the prayers and of the accompanying psalms. These +modifications, much more radical in the case of the metrical +psalms, took place in the eighteenth century, and commended +themselves so fully to the good sense of all French-speaking +Protestants as soon to be everywhere adopted. The MS. records of +the French church in New York (folio 45) contain, under date of +March 6, 1763, a resolution unanimously adopted in a meeting of the +heads of families and communicants, to change "la vielle version +des Pseaumes de David qui est en uzage parmy nous, et de prandre et +introduire dans notre Eglize les Pseaumes de la plus nouvelle +version qui est en uzage dans les Eglises de Genève, Suisse et +Hollande." The liturgy has always been printed at the end of the +psalter, and the change of the one involved that of the other. It +has been noted above that the "Confession of Sins" was the most +characteristic part of Calvin's liturgy. In fact, the initial words +of this confession, "Seigneur Dieu, <i>Père Éternel</i> et +Toutpuissant," came to stand in the minds of the Roman Catholics +who heard them for the entire Protestant service. Bernard Palissy +accordingly tells us (Recepte Véritable, 1563, Bulletin, i. 93) +that a favorite expression of the Roman Catholics from Taillebourg, +when committing all sorts of excesses against the Protestants of +Saintes, was: "<i>Agimus</i> a gagné <i>Père Éternel</i>!" As <i>Agimus</i> was +the first word of the customary grace said at meals by devout Roman +Catholics—"Agimus tibi gratias, omnipotens Deus," etc.—this +apparently enigmatical expression was only a profane formula to +celebrate the triumph of the Roman over the reformed church. See +Bulletin, xii. 247 and 469.</p></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER IX.</h2> + +<h3>FRANCIS THE SECOND AND THE TUMULT OF AMBOISE.</h3> + + +<div class="sidenote">The victims breathe more freely.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Epigrams on the death of Henry.</div> + +<p>The plans carefully matured by Henry for the suppression of the reformed +doctrines were disarranged by his sudden death. The expected victims of +the Spanish Inquisition, which he was to have established in France, +breathed more freely. It was not wonderful that the "Calvinists," +according to an unfriendly historian, preached of the late monarch's +fate as miraculous, and magnified it to their advantage;<a name="FNanchor_729_729" id="FNanchor_729_729"></a><a href="#Footnote_729_729" class="fnanchor">[729]</a> for they +saw in it an interposition of the Almighty in their behalf, as signal as +any illustrating the Jewish annals. Epigrams of no little merit were +composed on the event, and were widely circulated. One likened the lance +of Montgomery to the stone from David's sling, which became "the +unexpected salvation of the saints."<a name="FNanchor_730_730" id="FNanchor_730_730"></a><a href="#Footnote_730_730" class="fnanchor">[730]</a> In another, Henry is the +soldier who pierces the Crucified through the side of those whom He +styles His members; but the impious weapon—such is Heaven's avenging +decree—shall be stained with the murderer's own blood.<a name="FNanchor_731_731" id="FNanchor_731_731"></a><a href="#Footnote_731_731" class="fnanchor">[731]</a> These +verses, and others like them, obtaining great currency, offended the +ears of the late king's favorites and of the devoted adherents of the +Roman Catholic Church, who ceased not for years to pour forth +lamentations over the un<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span>timely death of Henry the Second, and the +ill-starred peace with which it was so closely connected.<a name="FNanchor_732_732" id="FNanchor_732_732"></a><a href="#Footnote_732_732" class="fnanchor">[732]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The young king.</div> + +<p>From the hands of a monarch in the prime of life, the sceptre had passed +into those of a stripling of sixteen, who was unfortunately endowed +neither with his grandfather's intellect nor with his father's vigor of +body; but who inherited the enfeebled mental and physical constitution +which was, perhaps, the result of the excesses of both. Although married +to the beautiful Queen of Scots, some time before his father's reign +came to its tragic conclusion, Francis the Second exhibited few of the +instincts of a man and of a king, and showed himself to be even more of +a minor in intelligence than in years. Content to leave the cares of +government to his favorites, he sought only for repose and pleasure. Yet +in this, as has been the case in more than one other instance, the most +turbulent lot fell to him who would gladly have chosen quiet and sloth.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Fall of the constable's power.</div> + +<p>With Henry's last breath, the supremacy of Constable Montmorency in the +councils of state came to an end. In view of the minority of the +successor to the throne, two measures were dictated by the customs of +the realm—the appointment of the nearest prince of royal blood as +regent, and the immediate convocation of the States General to confirm +the selection, and to assign to the regent a competent council of +state.<a name="FNanchor_733_733" id="FNanchor_733_733"></a><a href="#Footnote_733_733" class="fnanchor">[733]</a> Unfortunately for the interests of France during the +succeeding half-century, there were powerful personages interested in +opposing this most natural and just arrangement, and there were specious +excuses behind which their ambitious designs might shelter themselves. +The Cardinal of Lorraine and the Duke of Guise, with the queen mother, +maintained that Francis was in all respects competent to rule; that he +had already passed the age at which previous kings had assumed the reins +of government; that the laws had prescribed the time from which the +majority of subjects, not of the mon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span>arch, should be reckoned;<a name="FNanchor_734_734" id="FNanchor_734_734"></a><a href="#Footnote_734_734" class="fnanchor">[734]</a> +that, if too young himself to bear the entire burden of the +administration, he could delegate his authority to those of his own kin +in whom he reposed implicit confidence. There was, therefore, no +necessity for establishing a regency, still less for assembling the +States General—an impolitic step even in the most quiet times, but +fraught with special peril when grave dissensions threaten the kingdom.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Catharine de' Medici assumes an important part.</div> + +<p>With the advent of her eldest son to the throne, Catharine de' Medici +first assumed a prominent position, although not an all-controlling +influence at court. During the reign of Francis the First she had +enjoyed little consideration. Her marriage with Henry, in 1533, had +given, as we have seen, little satisfaction to the people, who believed +that her kinsman, Pope Clement the Seventh, had deceived the king; and +Francis himself, disappointed in his ambitious designs by the pontiff's +speedy death, looked upon her with little favor. For several years she +had borne no children, and Henry was urged to put her away on the ground +of barrenness. Nor was she more happy when her prayers had been +answered, and a family of four sons and three daughters blessed her +marriage. Her husband's infatuation respecting Diana of Poitiers +embittered her life when dauphiness, and compelled her as queen to +tolerate the presence of the king's mistress, and pay her an insincere +respect. Excluded from all participation in the control of affairs, she +fawned upon power where her ambitious nature would have sought to rule. +Concealing her chagrin beneath an exterior of contentment, she +exhibited, if we may believe the Venetian Soranzo, such benignity of +disposition, especially to her own countrymen, that it would be +impossible to convey an idea of the love entertained for her both by the +court and by the entire kingdom.<a name="FNanchor_735_735" id="FNanchor_735_735"></a><a href="#Footnote_735_735" class="fnanchor">[735]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Her timidity and dissimulation.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">She dismisses Diana of Poitiers.</div> + +<p>Hypocrisy is the vice of timid natures. Such, we have the authority of a +contemporary, and one who knew her well, for stating the nature of +Catharine was.<a name="FNanchor_736_736" id="FNanchor_736_736"></a><a href="#Footnote_736_736" class="fnanchor">[736]</a> In her, however, dissimulation was a well-known +family trait, which she possessed in common with her kinsman, Pope Leo +the Tenth, and all her house.<a name="FNanchor_737_737" id="FNanchor_737_737"></a><a href="#Footnote_737_737" class="fnanchor">[737]</a> And it must be admitted that the +idiosyncrasy had had a fair chance to develop during the five-and-twenty +years she had spent in France, threatened with repudiation, contemned as +an Italian upstart, suffering the gravest insult at the hands of her +husband, but forced to dissemble, and to hide the pain his neglect gave +her from the eyes of the curious world. Nor was her position altogether +an easy one even now. It is true that her womanly revenge was gratified +by the instant dismissal of the Duchess of Valentinois, who, if she +retained the greater part of her ill-gotten wealth, owed it to the joint +influence of Lorraine and Guise, whose younger brother, the Duke of +Aumale, had married Diana's daughter.<a name="FNanchor_738_738" id="FNanchor_738_738"></a><a href="#Footnote_738_738" class="fnanchor">[738]</a> But her ambitious plan, while +securing the authority of her children, to rule herself, was likely to +be frustrated by the pretensions of the two families of Montmoreney and +Guise, raised by the late monarch to inordinate power in the state, and +by the claim to the regency which Antoine of Bourbon-Vendôme, King of +Navarre, might justly assert. To establish herself in opposition to all +these, her sagacity taught her was impossible. To prevail by allying +herself to the most powerful and those from whom she could extort the +best terms seemed to be the most politic course. Her choice was quickly +made. It was unfortunate for France that her prudence partook more of +the character of low<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span> cunning than of true wisdom, and that, in seeking +a temporary ascendancy, she neglected the true interests of her own +children and of the kingdom they inherited.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Her alliance with the Guises.</div> + +<p>In order to prevent the convocation of the States and the appointment of +the King of Navarre as regent, but one course appeared to be open to +Catharine: she must throw herself into the arms of the Guises. Only thus +could she become free from the odious dictation of the constable, under +which she had groaned during her husband's reign. The Guises had had a +narrow escape, it was said; for Henry the Second, having tardily +discovered the insatiable ambition of the Lorraine family, had +definitely made up his mind to banish them from court.<a name="FNanchor_739_739" id="FNanchor_739_739"></a><a href="#Footnote_739_739" class="fnanchor">[739]</a> Now availing +themselves of the great influence of their niece, Mary Stuart, over her +royal husband, the duke and the cardinal prepared, by a bold stroke, to +become masters of the administration, and made to Catharine such liberal +offers of power that she readily acquiesced in their plans.</p> + +<p>Of their formidable rivals, the King of Navarre was at a distance, in +the south. The constable alone was dangerously near. But an immemorial +custom furnished a convenient excuse for setting him aside. The body of +the deceased monarch must lie in state for the forty days previous to +its interment, under protection of a guard of honor selected from among +his most trusty servants. Upon Montmorency, as grand master of the +palace, devolved the chief care of his late Majesty's re<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span>mains.<a name="FNanchor_740_740" id="FNanchor_740_740"></a><a href="#Footnote_740_740" class="fnanchor">[740]</a> +Delighted to have their principal rival so well occupied, the cardinal +and the duke hastened from the Tournelles to secure the person of the +living monarch.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">The Guises make themselves masters of the king.</div> + +<p>When the delegates of the parliaments of France came, a few days later, +to congratulate Francis on his accession, and inquired to whom they +should henceforth address themselves, the programme was already fully +arranged. The king had been well drilled in his little speech. He had, +he said, committed the direction of the state to the hands of his two +uncles, and desired the same obedience to be shown to them as to +himself.<a name="FNanchor_741_741" id="FNanchor_741_741"></a><a href="#Footnote_741_741" class="fnanchor">[741]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The court fool's sensible remark.</div> + +<p>The Cardinal of Lorraine was intrusted with the civil administration and +the finances. His brother became head of the department of war, without +the title, but with the full powers, of constable.<a name="FNanchor_742_742" id="FNanchor_742_742"></a><a href="#Footnote_742_742" class="fnanchor">[742]</a> Of royalty +little was left Francis but the empty name.<a name="FNanchor_743_743" id="FNanchor_743_743"></a><a href="#Footnote_743_743" class="fnanchor">[743]</a> There was sober truth +lurking beneath the saucy remark of Brisquet, the court fool, who told +Francis that in the time of his Majesty's father he used to put up at +the "<i>Crescent</i>," but at present he lodged at the "<i>Three Kings</i>!"<a name="FNanchor_744_744" id="FNanchor_744_744"></a><a href="#Footnote_744_744" class="fnanchor">[744]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Montmorency retires to his own estates,</div> + +<p>Montmorency did, indeed, attempt resistance to the assumption of +absolute authority which the Guises thus appropriated rather than +received from the young monarch. But he was equally unsuccessful in +influencing Francis and the queen mother. The former, when the constable +waited upon him in the Louvre, according to one story, scarcely deigned +to look at him;<a name="FNanchor_745_745" id="FNanchor_745_745"></a><a href="#Footnote_745_745" class="fnanchor">[745]</a> but, according to a more trustworthy account, +received him with a show of cordiality, and assured him that he would +maintain his sons and his nephews, the Châtillons, in the dignities they +had attained under previous kings; at the same time, however, adding +that, in compassion for the constable's age and long services, he had +determined to relieve him of his onerous charges, and to give him full +liberty to retire to his estates and obtain needful rest and diversion! +Montmorency was too much of a courtier to be taken unawares, and +promptly replied that he had come expressly to beg as a favor what the +king so graciously offered him.<a name="FNanchor_746_746" id="FNanchor_746_746"></a><a href="#Footnote_746_746" class="fnanchor">[746]</a> Catharine, to whom he next paid his +respects, was less friendly, and, indeed, told him bluntly that, if she +were to do her duty, he would lose his head for his insolence to her and +her children.<a name="FNanchor_747_747" id="FNanchor_747_747"></a><a href="#Footnote_747_747" class="fnanchor">[747]</a> Meantime Montmorency had fared no better in his +negotiations with Antoine of Bourbon-Vendôme. The latter had not +forgotten the little account made in the treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis of +his wife's claim upon Spanish Navarre, and was indisposed to form a +close alliance with the chief negotiator. He preferred, he said, to +stand aloof from a movement intended only to ruin "his cousins of +Guise."<a name="FNanchor_748_748" id="FNanchor_748_748"></a><a href="#Footnote_748_748" class="fnanchor">[748]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">where he maintains almost regal magnificence.</div> + +<p>The prudent old warrior, long since accustomed to the most startling +vicissitudes, determined to bid adieu for a time to the royal court, and +to retire to Chantilly, one of his paternal estates, where, in close +proximity to the capital, he was accustomed to maintain an almost regal +magnificence.<a name="FNanchor_749_749" id="FNanchor_749_749"></a><a href="#Footnote_749_749" class="fnanchor">[749]</a> So powerful a nobleman, the representative of a +family which, from its antiquity and neighboring greatness, was held in +special esteem by the Parisians, among the wealthiest of whom it boasted +of having two thousand persons its tenants,<a name="FNanchor_750_750" id="FNanchor_750_750"></a><a href="#Footnote_750_750" class="fnanchor">[750]</a> could not safely be +attacked. Accordingly, Montmorency, after having faithfully performed +his duty as grand master, and deposited the remains of Henry in the +abbey church of St. Denis, returned home with so numerous and powerful a +retinue, that the king's appeared but small in comparison.<a name="FNanchor_751_751" id="FNanchor_751_751"></a><a href="#Footnote_751_751" class="fnanchor">[751]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Decided measures of the new favorites.</div> + +<p>The power thus boldly seized by the cardinal and duke was energetically +wielded. The partisans of the constable were at once removed from all +offices of trust, and devoted adherents of the house of Lorraine were +substituted. It was not difficult, if we may believe the historian of +this reign, to bring the parliaments into similar subjection. The system +of venality introduced by Cardinal Duprat had so corrupted the highest +courts of justice that they had lost all traces of their former noble +independence. The sons of usurers sat in places which had been occupied +by the most distinguished jurisconsults of the kingdom, and so debased +the administration<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span> of law that, in the eye of a contemporary, +parliament had become a den of robbers.<a name="FNanchor_752_752" id="FNanchor_752_752"></a><a href="#Footnote_752_752" class="fnanchor">[752]</a> Marshal de St. André made +proposals, which were accepted, to form an offensive and defensive +alliance with the Guises, promising to give his only daughter in +marriage to a member of that family, and to settle upon her the immense +property which he had accumulated during the last reign by extortion and +confiscations, retaining for himself only the life interest.<a name="FNanchor_753_753" id="FNanchor_753_753"></a><a href="#Footnote_753_753" class="fnanchor">[753]</a> In +order to rid the court of the princes of the blood, Condé was sent on a +mission to Flanders, to confirm the peace, and the Prince of +La-Roche-sur-Yon and the Cardinal of Bourbon were deputed to accompany +Princess Elizabeth, Philip's bride, to the Spanish frontier.<a name="FNanchor_754_754" id="FNanchor_754_754"></a><a href="#Footnote_754_754" class="fnanchor">[754]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Antoine of Bourbon, King of Navarre.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">His remissness and pusillanimity.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">His desire to be indemnified for Navarre.</div> + +<p>Meanwhile the eyes not only of the reformers, who had no more inveterate +enemies than the Guises, but also of the friends of order, whatever +their creed might be, were anxiously directed to Antoine, King of +Navarre. His younger brother, Condé, his cousin, La Roche-sur-Yon, and +other great nobles came to meet him at Vendôme, and set forth the +disastrous consequences not only to them, but to their children and to +the entire kingdom, that would certainly follow the base surrender of +the government into the hands of foreigners.<a name="FNanchor_755_755" id="FNanchor_755_755"></a><a href="#Footnote_755_755" class="fnanchor">[755]</a> Earnestly was he +reminded of his undeniable claim to the regency, and entreated to +dispossess the usurpers. Nor did the weak prince openly disregard the +prayers of the ministers and people, who begged him to view his +deliverance from so many perils as intended not merely to advance his +own personal interests, but to secure the welfare of those whose tenets +he had at heart espoused. But, where vigorous and instantaneous action +was requisite, he exhibited only supineness and delay. His manly body +contained a womanish soul.<a name="FNanchor_756_756" id="FNanchor_756_756"></a><a href="#Footnote_756_756" class="fnanchor">[756]</a> His intimate coun<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span>sellors were already +in the secret pay of the Guises, and, in return for the large rewards +promised,<a name="FNanchor_757_757" id="FNanchor_757_757"></a><a href="#Footnote_757_757" class="fnanchor">[757]</a> disclosed every movement and plan of their master, while +they gave him such advice as was calculated to render all his +undertakings abortive.<a name="FNanchor_758_758" id="FNanchor_758_758"></a><a href="#Footnote_758_758" class="fnanchor">[758]</a> When, after long hesitation, he at length +left for St. Germain, he advanced slowly and by short stages, +intimidated by the example of the treason of the Constable of Bourbon, +in the reign of Francis the First, of the consequences of which the +agents of his enemies did not fail frequently to remind him, and +apprehensive of the intentions of Philip upon his small principality of +Béarn.<a name="FNanchor_759_759" id="FNanchor_759_759"></a><a href="#Footnote_759_759" class="fnanchor">[759]</a> It is true that at Poitiers, where he was waited upon by a +large deputation of ministers from Paris, Orleans, Tours, and other +principal cities, and urged, by renouncing the mass and openly espousing +the cause of God, to fulfil the expectations of the persecuted faithful, +he returned a favorable reply, and declared that, if he still conformed +to an idolatry which he abhorred, it was in order not to lose the only +means of being serviceable to them. The sturdy men, who admitted no +compromises in matters of conscience, and had for years been exposing +their bodies to the peril of the flames or gibbet, manfully replied +that, if he would find God propitious, he must not endeavor to make his +own terms with Him; and that his own experience of divine protection +ought to prevent him from temporizing.<a name="FNanchor_760_760" id="FNanchor_760_760"></a><a href="#Footnote_760_760" class="fnanchor">[760]</a> To Henry Killigrew, who came +to meet him at Vendôme with a friendly message from Queen Elizabeth, he +spoke with more definiteness and volunteered the expression of the most +pious intentions. He declared "that he thought that God had hitherto +preserved her Majesty from so many dangers for the setting forth of His +word; and,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span> he trusted, had done the like by him, in having preserved +him from many perils; and how desirous he was to set forth religion as +much as was in him; which he wished might be for the quiet, and setting +forth of God's glory through Christendom (which he minded for his part) +and to the discouragement of such as should stand in contrary."<a name="FNanchor_761_761" id="FNanchor_761_761"></a><a href="#Footnote_761_761" class="fnanchor">[761]</a> But +the hopes which Antoine thus held forth were delusive. The trusty agent +of the Guises had already notified them that, so far as he could learn, +Navarre's principal desire was to be cordially received by the king and +his council, in order that the Spanish visitors at Paris might carry +home to their master so favorable a report that Philip, convinced that +Antoine was no insignificant personage in France,<a name="FNanchor_762_762" id="FNanchor_762_762"></a><a href="#Footnote_762_762" class="fnanchor">[762]</a> <i>might condescend +to indemnify him for the wrong he had done him</i>!<a name="FNanchor_763_763" id="FNanchor_763_763"></a><a href="#Footnote_763_763" class="fnanchor">[763]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Is received at court with studied discourtesy.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Antoine is deaf to remonstrance.</div> + +<p>But if the King of Navarre expected to make any deep impression upon the +subjects of Philip through the friendly reception which he thus +solicited by the most craven abasement, his arrival at St. +Germain-en-Laye speedily undeceived him. Francis, instead of meeting him +on his approach, in accordance with the customary rules of royal +courtesy, and entertaining him graciously as they rode side by side to +the palace, was purposely taken in an opposite direction on a hunting +excursion. Humiliated by this neglect, the adherents of Navarre were +still more annoyed when they found that no chamber had been set apart in +the castle for the first prince of the blood, to whom immemorial usage +conceded the apartments next to those of the reigning monarch. But +neither these insults, nor the contemptuous treatment he received at the +hands of the courtiers, by whom he was compelled to make every advance, +were sufficient to arouse the prince to any noble resolution.<a name="FNanchor_764_764" id="FNanchor_764_764"></a><a href="#Footnote_764_764" class="fnanchor">[764]</a> To +regain the kingdom of which, by his marriage with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span> Jeanne d'Albret, he +had become the titular sovereign, was the great ambition of his life. +This was impracticable without the support of the French court. He could +not, therefore, afford to break with the all-powerful Guises. What were +the prerogatives of the first prince of the blood in the administration +of the French government, in comparison with the absolute sovereignty of +the little kingdom on either slope of the Pyrenees? In vain did his +faithful attendants remonstrate with him, and portray the path of honor +as that of ultimate success and safety. Disgusted at his unmanly +weakness, they returned crestfallen to their homes, or threw up his +service for that of noblemen who, if ancient enemies, could at least +prove themselves valuable and trustworthy patrons. The partisans of the +Reformation, after waiting fruitlessly to hear a single word uttered in +behalf of the churches, now everywhere rapidly multiplying, but still +subjected to bitter persecution, disappointed, but full of faith in God, +renounced their trust in princes, and awaited a deliverance, in Heaven's +own time, from a higher source. Theodore Beza cited Navarre's shameful +fall as a new and signal illustration of our Lord's own words: "A rich +man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven!"<a name="FNanchor_765_765" id="FNanchor_765_765"></a><a href="#Footnote_765_765" class="fnanchor">[765]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Meets fresh indignities.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Philip offers Catharine assistance.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Antoine's appeals to Philip II.</div> + +<p>But the abasement of this irresolute prince was not yet complete. +Submitting to the open contempt in which he was held, he not only took +part in the solemn ceremony of the new king's anointing at Rheims,<a name="FNanchor_766_766" id="FNanchor_766_766"></a><a href="#Footnote_766_766" class="fnanchor">[766]</a> +where his inferiors were preferred to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span> him, but attended the meetings of +the royal council, where he was little wanted. At one of these sessions +a fresh indignity was put upon him. Alarmed by the rising murmurs +against the illegal rule of the Guises, Catharine had taken the first of +a series of disgraceful steps, by invoking the intervention of a foreign +prince in the affairs of France. She implored her royal son-in-law of +Spain to lend her his support against the King of Navarre and other +princes, who were desirous of "reducing her to the condition of a +chambermaid," and of disturbing an otherwise peaceful country. Philip +replied by an offer of his own assistance and of forty thousand men whom +he professed to hold in readiness for a campaign against the rebels that +meditated the overthrow of the French monarchy. The letter of his +Catholic Majesty was purposely read in full council, in the hearing of +Navarre. But, instead of arousing his indignation, it only excited new +fears for the safety of his wife's dominions, and made him more +submissively kiss the rod of iron with which the Guises ruled him.<a name="FNanchor_767_767" id="FNanchor_767_767"></a><a href="#Footnote_767_767" class="fnanchor">[767]</a> +Soon afterward he returned to Béarn, whence he made, before the close of +the year, two ineffectual attempts to move the inflexible determination +of Philip. In October he sent to the court of Spain Pierre, the Bastard +of Navarre, who obtained the promise of an equivalent for Navarre, but +was unable to secure any decided answer to his request for the island of +Sardinia. But when, in December, Antoine despatched a second messenger, +at the suggestion of the Duke of Albuquerque, to solicit permission for +himself and Queen Jeanne to visit the King of Spain and "kiss his +[Philip's] hand," with the view of obtaining such "an indemnity for his +kingdom as some secret injunction of the emperor [Charles the Fifth], +toward the end of his days, or his own conscience" might have suggested, +the unfortunate prince discovered in how base and humiliating a manner +he had been duped. It was not worth his while—such was the rude +reply—for Antoine to expose his wife and himself to the fatigue of so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span> +long a journey, since no other answer could be given him than that which +had been given to his predecessors, and to himself on the occasion of +the late treaty of peace.<a name="FNanchor_768_768" id="FNanchor_768_768"></a><a href="#Footnote_768_768" class="fnanchor">[768]</a> Was it with the expectation of such +rewards that the first prince of the blood had pusillanimously declined +to assert the rights of his rank and family, and to espouse the cause of +the persecuted?</p> + +<div class="sidenote">The persecution continues.</div> + +<p>For persecuted the Protestants continued to be. The death of Henry did +not for an instant interrupt the work of searching for and punishing +reputed heretics. The brief term must be improved, during which the +Spaniards and other strangers who had come to witness the marriage +festivities were still present, to fulfil the promises given to the +Dukes of Alva and Savoy, and demonstrate the catholicity of the Very +Christian King.<a name="FNanchor_769_769" id="FNanchor_769_769"></a><a href="#Footnote_769_769" class="fnanchor">[769]</a> Three days after the fatal termination of Henry's +wound in the tournament, the English ambassador wrote to his government: +"In the midst of all these great matters and business, they here do not +stay to make persecution and sacrifice of poor souls: for the twelfth of +this present, two men and one woman were executed for religion; and the +thirteenth of the same there was proclamation made by the sound of +trumpet, that all such as should speak either against the church or the +religion now used in France should be brought before the bishops of the +dioceses, and they to do execution upon them."<a name="FNanchor_770_770" id="FNanchor_770_770"></a><a href="#Footnote_770_770" class="fnanchor">[770]</a> On the fourteenth of +July, only four days after Henry's death, new steps were taken to bring +to trial the five counsellors of parliament arrested on the day of the +famous "Mercuriale." An account of these proceedings, and in particular +of those instituted against Anne du Bourg, will presently be given.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Denunciation and treachery at Paris.</div> + +<p>The increase of the Protestants in France during the past few months had +been great. Even in the capital the progress of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span> the new doctrines could +not be hidden; but so carefully had the veil of secrecy been drawn over +the conventicles, that, until a short time before Henry's death, the +names and residences of the Parisian reformers had been almost entirely +unknown to the argus-eyed clergy. But the treachery of one De +Russanges—a goldsmith, who, for appropriating the charitable +contributions of the church, had been deposed from the +eldership—furnished to the enemy a complete list of the ministers, +elders, and other principal men among the Protestants.<a name="FNanchor_771_771" id="FNanchor_771_771"></a><a href="#Footnote_771_771" class="fnanchor">[771]</a> The +information thus obtained was for a time left unimproved, in consequence +of the sudden removal of the king; but the zeal of the chief persecutors +had not cooled down. New and more stringent edicts were published, +consigning to the flames, without form of process, all that made or +attended conventicles. Liberal rewards were offered to stimulate +denunciation. Domiciliary visits were enjoined upon the proper officers. +Extraordinary powers were given to the "lieutenant-criminel" and a few +of the counsellors of the Châtelet, known to be inimical to the "new +doctrines," to act during the recess of parliament. It was even ordained +by letters-patent of the king, that the very houses in which unlawful +assemblages had taken place by night and the Lord's Supper had been +profanely administered contrary to the rites of the Roman Catholic +Church, should be razed to the ground, and never rebuilt, as a memorial +for all time.<a name="FNanchor_772_772" id="FNanchor_772_772"></a><a href="#Footnote_772_772" class="fnanchor">[772]</a> The church followed the example of the civil power. +The parishes resounded with excommunications of all that failed to +reveal the heretical sentiments of their acquaintance, and with +exhortations to watchfulness.<a name="FNanchor_773_773" id="FNanchor_773_773"></a><a href="#Footnote_773_773" class="fnanchor">[773]</a> Parliament itself had lent its +authority to the inquisitorial work, by enjoining upon owners or +occupants of houses in the city or suburbs "to make diligent inquiry as +to the good and Christian<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span> life" of such as lodged with them. In +particular they were to inform against such as did not attend upon +divine worship in the churches, especially upon feast-days.<a name="FNanchor_774_774" id="FNanchor_774_774"></a><a href="#Footnote_774_774" class="fnanchor">[774]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Other informers.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">"La petite Genève" a scene of pillage.</div> + +<p>Meanwhile, to De Russanges other informers were added. One was a weak +and unstable man whom persecution had once before—in the famous year of +the Placards—driven to the basest of offices. Among others two +apprentices, brought forward to testify against the Protestant employers +who had dismissed them, were pliant instruments in the hands of the +heretic-hunters. By a well-concerted movement a simultaneous descent was +made, and entire families were put under arrest.<a name="FNanchor_775_775" id="FNanchor_775_775"></a><a href="#Footnote_775_775" class="fnanchor">[775]</a> In some places, +however, an unexpected resistance was encountered. The guests of one +Visconte, with whom travellers from Switzerland and Germany frequently +lodged, supposed the house to be attacked by robbers, and defended +themselves with such bravery against their assailants, that they +effected their retreat in safety. Their host's wife and his aged father +alone were taken into custody. A dressed capon and some uncooked meat +found in the larder—it was on a Friday that the incursion was +made—graced the triumph of the captors. "Little Geneva," as that +portion of the Faubourg St. Germain-des-Prés most frequented by +Protestants was familiarly called, became a scene of indiscriminate +pillage. The valuables of those who, through fear, had absented +themselves, were greedily appropriated by the officials of the Châtelet +and other courts, or fell into the hands of an unorganized force of +robbers who gleaned what the others had left behind. In a day the rich +became poor and the poor became rich. The depredations extended to other +parts of the city where the existence of heresy or wealth was suspected. +Paris, we are told, resembled a city taken by assault. Everywhere armed +men on foot or on horseback were leading to prison<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span> men, women, and +children of all ranks. The thoroughfares were clogged by wagons laden +with furniture and other spoils. The street-corners were filled with +plunder offered for sale. Never before, even when the inhabitants had +fled panic-stricken from Paris in time of war, had the price of such +commodities been so low. Numbers of little children, roaming the streets +and ready to die of hunger, formed a pitiful accompaniment to the scene. +But the tender mercies of the populace were cruel, and few dared to give +a "Lutheran" shelter through fear of incurring extreme danger. The most +incredible tales of midnight orgies were studiously circulated among the +simple-minded people, and served to inflame yet more the lust of cruelty +and gain.<a name="FNanchor_776_776" id="FNanchor_776_776"></a><a href="#Footnote_776_776" class="fnanchor">[776]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The Protestants appeal to the queen mother.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">She gives them encouragement.</div> + +<p>In this emergency the Protestants had recourse to the queen mother. +Afraid to trust herself entirely to the Guises, the crafty Italian had, +from the very commencement of the reign, sought to leave open a retreat +in case a change should become necessary. And, in truth, jealousy of the +cardinal and his brother, who seemed disposed to keep all the power in +their own hands, while giving Catharine only a semblance of authority, +was combined in her mind with hatred of Mary of Scots, their niece,<a name="FNanchor_777_777" id="FNanchor_777_777"></a><a href="#Footnote_777_777" class="fnanchor">[777]</a> +whose influence was as powerful with her son and as adverse to herself +as that of Diana of Poitiers had been with her husband. Scarcely had the +reformers perceived, by the zeal with which Du Bourg's trial was +pressed, that the death of Henry had not bettered their condition, when +they implored the Prince of Condé, his mother-in-law, Madame de Roye, +and Admiral Coligny, to intercede in their behalf with Catharine. At the +suggestion of the latter, they even addressed her a letter, in which +they informed her of the great hopes they had in the preceding reign +founded upon her kind and gentle<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span> disposition, and the prayers they had +offered to God that she might prove a second Esther. They entreated her +to prevent the new reign from being defiled with innocent blood, and to +avert the anger of Heaven, which could only be appeased by putting an +end to persecution. The crafty queen, desirous of retaining an influence +that might one day be of great service, and solicitous, at any rate, of +obtaining their confidence, at first assumed an offended tone. "With +what am I menaced?" she said. "For what greater evil could God do me +than He has done, removing him whom I loved and prized the most?" But +presently becoming more gracious, she promised the noble suppliants to +cause the persecution to cease, if the Protestants would intermit their +conventicles and live quietly and without scandal.<a name="FNanchor_778_778" id="FNanchor_778_778"></a><a href="#Footnote_778_778" class="fnanchor">[778]</a> A private letter +of remonstrance, written by a gentleman formerly in the service of Queen +Margaret of Navarre, is said to have had some weight in extorting this +pledge. He reminded her that her present evil advisers were the same +persons who had, in the first years of her married life, been advocates +of her repudiation; that then in her affliction she had recourse to God, +whose word she had read, choosing as her favorite psalm the 141st, +albeit not of Marot's translating.<a name="FNanchor_779_779" id="FNanchor_779_779"></a><a href="#Footnote_779_779" class="fnanchor">[779]</a> Her prayers had been answered in +the birth of her children. But the cardinal had banished the psalm-book +from the palace, and introduced the immodest songs of Horace and other +lewd poets; and from that time there had come upon her a succession of +misfortunes. Finally, he begged her to drive away the usurpers of the +place that rightfully belonged to the princes of royal blood, and to +bring up her children after the example of good king Josiah.<a name="FNanchor_780_780" id="FNanchor_780_780"></a><a href="#Footnote_780_780" class="fnanchor">[780]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">A second and more urgent address.</div> + +<p>But the promises of Catharine were given only to be broken. Finding the +atrocious persecution still in operation, and seeing themselves hunted +in their houses, the Protestants again approached her. They denounced +the anger of God who would not leave Du Bourg unavenged. They warned her +of the danger that over-much oppression would breed revolt—not on the +part of those who had embraced the reformed doctrines as taught in the +Gospel, from whom she might expect all obedience—but from others, a +hundred-fold more numerous, whose eyes were open to the abuses of the +papacy, but who, not having submitted themselves to the discipline of +the church, would not brook persecution. The embankment, it was to be +feared, might give way to the violence of the pressure, and the pent-up +waters pour themselves abroad, carrying devastation and ruin to all the +neighboring lands.<a name="FNanchor_781_781" id="FNanchor_781_781"></a><a href="#Footnote_781_781" class="fnanchor">[781]</a> The implied menace aroused the affected +indignation of Catharine; but, loth to lose her hold upon the +Protestants, she again professed her pity for a sect whose adherents +went to the most cruel torments as cheerfully as to a wedding feast, and +she expressed a desire to have an interview with one of their ministers. +The Protestants did their part, but Catharine failed to keep the +appointment; and all that the minister could effect was to convey to her +a copy of the yet unpublished Confession of Faith of the French +Churches, which, it is more than likely, she never read.<a name="FNanchor_782_782" id="FNanchor_782_782"></a><a href="#Footnote_782_782" class="fnanchor">[782]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Pretended orgies in "la petite Genève."</div> + +<p>The insincerity of the queen mother's professions was by this time +sufficiently apparent; yet the Protestants may be excused for applying, +in their distress, to any one in power who made even a <i>show</i> of +compassionate feelings. The outrages visited upon the inhabitants of "la +petite Genève" were brought to her notice, and she deigned to inquire +into their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span> occasion. But Charles of Lorraine had a ready mode of +quieting her curiosity. Some verses found among the effects of the +Protestants made mention of the death of Henry as an instance of the +divine retribution. Other lines condemned Catharine for her excessive +complaisance to the cardinal. These were first placed in her hands. Then +the two apprentices, after having been well drilled in their lesson, +were brought into her presence. It was a fearful tale they told, and +much did it shock the ears of the virtuous Catharine. They pretended to +describe orgies at which they had been present. In particular they +remembered a conventicle of Protestants in the house of one +Trouillas,<a name="FNanchor_783_783" id="FNanchor_783_783"></a><a href="#Footnote_783_783" class="fnanchor">[783]</a> an advocate, held on Thursday of Holy Week. A great +number of men and women, married and unmarried, had been present. The +hour was about midnight. The sectaries had first listened to their +preaching. Then a pig had been eaten in lieu of the paschal lamb. +Finally the lamp had been extinguished, and indiscriminate lewdness +followed.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">The device succeeds.</div> + +<p>The testimony of the boys—for such they were in years, if not in +proficiency in vice—was enforced and embellished in the queen mother's +hearing by the Cardinal of Lorraine. The trick had the desired effect. +Believing, or feigning to believe, the improbable story, Catharine +consented that the persecution of the "Christaudins" should proceed; +while to some of her maids of honor, strongly suspected of leaning to +the doctrines of the Reformation, she declared that she gave such full +credit to this information, that, were she certain that they were +Protestants, she would not hesitate, whatever favor or friendship she +had hitherto borne them, to have them put to death. Fortunately, +however, for the calumniated sect, there were among its adherents those +who prized honor above life. Trouillas and his family, although among +the number of those who had made good their escape, voluntarily returned +and gave themselves into the hands of the civil authorities. When the +latter would have put them on trial for their alleged heresy, they +declined to answer to the charges on this point until the slanderous +accusations affecting their personal morals had been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span> investigated. The +examination not only completely vindicated their character and revealed +the grossness of the imposture of which they were the innocent victims, +but exhibited the unpleasant fact that an attempt had been made to +corrupt witnesses by representing to them that, against such execrable +wretches as the accursed "Lutherans," it was a meritorious act to allege +even what was false.<a name="FNanchor_784_784" id="FNanchor_784_784"></a><a href="#Footnote_784_784" class="fnanchor">[784]</a> It is perhaps superfluous to add that +Trouillas, in spite of his manly and successful defence, was unable to +secure the punishment of his accusers. In fact, while the latter +remained at large, both he and his family were kept in prison, until +liberated, without satisfaction for the insult received, upon the +publication of the edict of amnesty of March, 1560.<a name="FNanchor_785_785" id="FNanchor_785_785"></a><a href="#Footnote_785_785" class="fnanchor">[785]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Cruelty of the populace.</div> + +<p>It would be a task neither easy nor altogether agreeable to chronicle +the executions of Protestants in various cities of the realm. "Never," +wrote Hubert Languet, "have the papists raged so; never before was there +a more cruel persecution. The prisons are full of wretched men. The +woods and solitary places can scarce contain the fugitives."<a name="FNanchor_786_786" id="FNanchor_786_786"></a><a href="#Footnote_786_786" class="fnanchor">[786]</a> The +Parliaments of Toulouse and Aix, as usual, vied in ferocity with that of +Paris, where the Guises had not long since restored the "chambre +ardente."<a name="FNanchor_787_787" id="FNanchor_787_787"></a><a href="#Footnote_787_787" class="fnanchor">[787]</a> But the populace of Paris surpassed the judges in +envenomed hatred. Not content with applauding the slow roasting of those +whom the courts had condemned to this torture, they sought to aggravate +the barbarity of other sentences. In August, 1559, a young carpenter was +taken from prison to suffer death for his heretical views. He was to +have been strangled and then burned. The mob, however, resented the +leniency, or were indignant that a pleas<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span>ant show should lose one-half +of its attraction. They therefore resolved to defraud the hangman of his +share in the work, and suspended the youth, yet living, above the +roaring flames.<a name="FNanchor_788_788" id="FNanchor_788_788"></a><a href="#Footnote_788_788" class="fnanchor">[788]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Traps for heretics.</div> + +<p>An ingenious method was devised for the detection of the reformers. At +almost every street-corner a picture or image of the Virgin Mary, or of +some one of the saints, was set up, crowned with chaplets of flowers, +and with waxen tapers burning in its honor. Around this object of +devotion were collected at all hours a crowd of porters, water-carriers, +and the very dregs of the populace, boisterously singing the praises of +the saint. Woe to the unlucky wight who, purposely or through +negligence, failed to doff his hat or drop a coin into the box placed in +convenient proximity! He was an impious man, a heretic, and fortunate +was it for him if he escaped with his life. To refuse to swell the +collection of the monk or nun that came to a man's own door to solicit +funds for the trial of the Protestants, was equally perilous. In short, +it was no unfrequent device for a debtor to get rid of the importunity +of his creditor by raising the cry, "Au Christaudin, an Luthérien!" It +went hard with the former if he did not both free himself from debt and +spoil his creditor.<a name="FNanchor_789_789" id="FNanchor_789_789"></a><a href="#Footnote_789_789" class="fnanchor">[789]</a></p> + +<p>It is time, however, that we should turn to chronicle the fortunes of a +more illustrious victim—the most illustrious victim, in fact, of the +first period of French Protestantism.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Trial of President Anne du Bourg.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">His successive appeals.</div> + +<p>Among the five counsellors of parliament arrested by Henry's orders at +the "Mercuriale," as related in a previous chapter, Anne du Bourg had +incurred his special displeasure by his fearless harangue, and with Du +Bourg the trials began. A special commission was appointed for the +purpose, consisting of President St. André, a <i>maître de requêtes</i> and +two counsellors of parliament, Du Bellay, Bishop of Paris, and +Demochares, Inquisitor of the Faith. Brought before it, Du Bourg refused +to plead, asserting his prerogative to be judged only by the united +chambers of parliament. Letters-patent were therefore obtained from +Henry, ordering the prisoner to acknowledge the authority of the +commission, under pain of being declared guilty of heresy and of +treason. Upon the results of the interrogatories, the Bishop of Paris +declared Du Bourg a heretic, ordering him to be degraded from those holy +orders which he had assumed, and then delivered over to the secular arm. +From this sentence Du Bourg appealed to parliament, on the ground that +it was an abuse of ecclesiastical power.<a name="FNanchor_790_790" id="FNanchor_790_790"></a><a href="#Footnote_790_790" class="fnanchor">[790]</a> The judges—among whom his +most determined enemies, the Cardinal of Lorraine and Cardinal Bertrand +(the latter as Keeper of the Seals) were not ashamed to take their +seats—rejected his appeal, and declared that there had been no abuse.</p> + +<p>From the sentence given by the Bishop of Paris, Du Bourg next appealed +to the Archbishop of Sens, his superior; and when the latter had +confirmed his suffragan's decision, Du Bourg again had recourse to +parliament. He pleaded that it was a violation of the very spirit of the +law that the same person, acting (as did Bertrand) as Archbishop of +Sens, should adjudicate upon a case which he had already acted upon in +the capacity of Keeper of the Seals and Chief Justice of France.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">His officious advocate.</div> + +<p>The counsel whom Chancellor Olivier, newly reinstated in his office by +Francis the Second, assigned to Du Bourg, at his earnest request, put +forth strenuous exertions to induce his client to recant. Failing in +this, he extorted a promise not to interrupt him in the defence he was +about to make. Thereupon the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</a></span> officious advocate, after pleading, it is +true, the injustice of the preceding trial, confessed his client's +grievous spiritual errors, and desired, in his name, reconciliation with +the church. The judges, glad to seize the opportunity of ridding +themselves of a disagreeable case, promptly remanded the prisoner, and +were about to depute two of their number to solicit the king's pardon in +his behalf. At this moment a communication arrived, signed by Du Bourg, +disavowing his counsel's admissions, persisting in his appeal and in the +confession of his faith, which he was now ready to seal with his blood, +and humbly begging the forgiveness of God for the cowardice of which he +accused himself. It is needless to say that his appeal was rejected.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Du Bourg's message to the Protestants of Paris.</div> + +<p>Again Du Bourg appealed from the Archbishop of Sens to the Archbishop of +Lyons, "Primate of <i>all</i> the Gauls," and from his unfavorable decision +to the parliament. Meanwhile he wrote to the Protestants of Paris, who +watched his course with the deepest interest, recognizing the important +influence which his firmness or his apostasy must exert on the interests +of truth, and begged them not to be scandalized by a course that might +appear to proceed from craven fear of death. If he thus had recourse to +the judgments of the Pope's tools, he said, it was not through undue +solicitude for life, nor because he in any wise approved their doctrine; +but that he might have the better opportunity to make known his faith in +as many places as possible, and prove that he had not precipitated his +own destruction, by failing to make use of all legitimate means of +acquittal. As for himself, he felt that he had been so strengthened by +God's grace, that the day of his death was an object of desire, which he +very joyfully awaited.<a name="FNanchor_791_791" id="FNanchor_791_791"></a><a href="#Footnote_791_791" class="fnanchor">[791]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Du Bourg in the Bastile.</div> + +<p>At length the last appeal was rejected, and Du Bourg, under sentence of +death, was remanded to the Bastile, to await the pleasure of the king. +Many months had elapsed since his arrest, but his courage had risen with +the trials he was called to face. To prevent any attempt to rescue him +he had at one time been shut up in an iron cage, and the very passers-by +had been forbidden to tarry and look up at the grim walls of the prison. +But the captive was less solicitous to escape than his captors were to +detain him. He resolutely declined to avail himself of a bull obtained +for him from Rome by friends, through liberal payment of money, and +opening the way for an appeal from the Primate of France to the Pope +himself. The prison walls, it is said, resounded with the joyful psalms +and hymns which he sang, to the accompaniment of the lute.<a name="FNanchor_792_792" id="FNanchor_792_792"></a><a href="#Footnote_792_792" class="fnanchor">[792]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Intercession of the Elector Palatine.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">His pathetic speech.</div> + +<p>A few days before Christmas the order was given for his execution. Two +events determined the Cardinal of Lorraine: the assassination of +President Minard, one of Du Bourg's judges, whose death was caused, +doubtless, by the hand of one of the many whom he had wronged, although +by some ascribed to the Protestants;<a name="FNanchor_793_793" id="FNanchor_793_793"></a><a href="#Footnote_793_793" class="fnanchor">[793]</a> and the intercession of the +Elector Palatine,<a name="FNanchor_794_794" id="FNanchor_794_794"></a><a href="#Footnote_794_794" class="fnanchor">[794]</a> who by a special embassy had ex<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</a></span>pressed the +desire to make Du Bourg a professor of law in his university at +Heidelberg. Unwilling to expose himself to further importunities from +abroad which he was resolved to discourage, the prelate gave the signal +for the closing of the tragic scene. The sentence was announced to Du +Bourg in his cell by the deputed judges. It was that he should forthwith +be taken to the place of execution and suspended above the flames until +life should be extinct. But the courage of Du Bourg did not fail him. +When the counsellors had fulfilled their commission and were about to +retire, the fettered prisoner detained them, and uttered a speech of +exquisite pathos. It was the bewitching spirit of delusion, he said, the +messenger of hell, the capital enemy of truth, that had accused him +before them, because he had abandoned her. To that evil spirit had they +too readily listened and condemned him and others like him, the children +of the God of infinite mercy. It was in no sense disobedience to their +prince that they refused to offer sacrifice to Baal. Was it disloyalty +to be willing to give up to their sovereign everything, even to the last +garment they possessed; to pray for the prosperity and peace of his +realm, and that all superstition and idolatry might be banished from its +borders; to entreat the Almighty to fill him and those under him in +authority with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual +understanding, that they might walk worthy of the Lord unto all +pleasing? Was it not rather disobedience to dishonor and anger God by +impiety and blasphemy, and by transferring His glory to another?</p> + +<div class="sidenote">He depicts the constancy of the victims.</div> + +<p>The judges themselves were moved to tears as the prisoner pictured the +fearful tortures which were daily inflicted upon the innocent +Protestants at the bidding of that "red Phalaris," the Cardinal of +Lorraine.<a name="FNanchor_795_795" id="FNanchor_795_795"></a><a href="#Footnote_795_795" class="fnanchor">[795]</a> "Sufferings do not intimidate them," he said, "insults do +not weaken<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</a></span> them, satisfying their honor by death. So that the proverb +suits you well, gentlemen: the conqueror dies, and the vanquished +laments.... No, no, none shall be able to separate us from Christ, +whatever snares are laid for us, whatever ills our bodies may endure. We +know that we have long been like lambs led to the slaughter. Let them, +therefore, slay us, let them break us in pieces; for all that, the +Lord's dead will not cease to live, and we shall rise in a common +resurrection. I am a Christian, yes, I am a Christian. I will cry yet +louder, when I die, for the glory of my Lord Jesus Christ! And since it +is so, why do I tarry? Lay hands upon me, executioner, and lead me to +the gallows." Then resuming his address to his judges, he protested at +great length that he died at their hands only for his unwillingness to +recognize other justification, grace, merit, intercession, satisfaction, +or salvation than in Jesus Christ. "Put an end, put an end," he cried, +"to your burnings, and return to the Lord with amendment of life, that +your sins may be wiped away. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the +unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and he +will have mercy upon him. Live, then, and meditate upon this, O +senators; and I go to die!"<a name="FNanchor_796_796" id="FNanchor_796_796"></a><a href="#Footnote_796_796" class="fnanchor">[796]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">His death.</div> + +<p>He was led under a strong guard to the Place de Grève. A vast concourse +of people had assembled to witness the death of the illustrious victim. +"My friends," he cried, as with assured countenance he prepared for the +execution, "I am here not as a thief or a robber, but for the Gospel." +The people listened with breathless interest to the harangue he made +them from the scaffold. Then, before he died, he exclaimed again and +again: "My God, forsake me not, that I may not forsake Thee!" The judges +did him the favor of permitting him to be strangled before he was +burned. Perhaps this was done that the story might be circulated that he +had at the last moment recanted; but his refusal to kiss the crucifix +which was offered him was a visible proof to the contrary.<a name="FNanchor_797_797" id="FNanchor_797_797"></a><a href="#Footnote_797_797" class="fnanchor">[797]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[Pg 373]</a></span> Thus he +died, displaying, according to a friendly historian,<a name="FNanchor_798_798" id="FNanchor_798_798"></a><a href="#Footnote_798_798" class="fnanchor">[798]</a> "the most +admirable constancy shown by any that have suffered for this cause."</p> + +<div class="sidenote">His death a disastrous blow to the established church.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Account of an eye-witness.</div> + +<p>Du Bourg's martyrdom was the most terrible blow the established church +had ever received in France. Never had a more disastrous blunder been +committed by the Guises, than when they stirred Henry to imprison and +try, and Francis to execute, the most virtuous member of the Parisian +senate. Such strength of principle in the midst of affliction, such +fortitude upon the brink of death, had never been seen before. The +witnesses of the execution never forgot the scene. Thousands who had +never before wavered in their allegiance to the Roman Catholic Church, +resolved that day to investigate the truth of the faith which had given +him so signal a victory over death. "I remember," writes the most +envenomed enemy of the Protestants that ever undertook to write their +history, "when Anne Du Bourg, counsellor in the Parliament of Paris, was +burned, that all Paris was astonished at the constancy of the man. As we +returned to our colleges from the execution, we were melted in tears; +and we pleaded his cause, after his death, anathematizing those unjust +judges who had justly condemned him. His sermon at the gallows and upon +the funeral pile did more harm than a hundred ministers could have +done."<a name="FNanchor_799_799" id="FNanchor_799_799"></a><a href="#Footnote_799_799" class="fnanchor">[799]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">He deplores the result.</div> + +<p>But the martyrdom of Du Bourg was not a solitary case. The same +consequences flowed from the public execution of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[Pg 374]</a></span> others, whose dying +words and actions shook to its very foundations the fabric of +superstition reared in many a spectator's heart. Florimond de Ræmond, +himself an advocate of persecution in the abstract, noticed and deplored +the inevitable result. "Meanwhile funeral piles were kindled in all +directions. But as, on the one hand, the severity of justice and of the +laws restrained the people in their duty, so the incredible obstinacy of +those who were led to execution, and who suffered their lives to be +taken from them rather than their opinions, amazed many. For who can +abstain from wonder when simple women willingly undergo tortures in +order to give a proof of their faith, and, while led to death, call upon +Jesus Christ their Saviour, and sing psalms; when maidens hasten to the +most excruciating torments with greater alacrity than to their nuptials; +when men leap for joy at the terrible sight of the preparations for +execution, and, half-burned, from the funeral pile mock the authors of +their sufferings; when, with indomitable strength of courage and joyful +countenance, they endure the lacerating of their bodies by means of +heated pincers; when, in short, like an immovable rock, they receive and +break all the billows of the most bitter sufferings at the hands of the +executioner, and, like those who have eaten the Sardinian herb, die +laughing? The lamentable sight of such incredible constancy as this +created no little doubt in the minds not only of the simple, but of men +of authority. For they could not believe that cause to be bad for which +death was so willingly undergone. Others pitied the miserable, and +burned with indignation against their persecutors. Whenever they beheld +the blackened stakes with the chains attached—memorials of +executions—they could not restrain their tears. The desire consequently +seized many to read their books, and to become acquainted with the +foundations of the faith from which it seemed impossible to tear them by +the most refined tortures.... Why need I say more? The greater the +number of those who were consigned to the flames, the greater the number +of those who seemed to spring from their ashes."<a name="FNanchor_800_800" id="FNanchor_800_800"></a><a href="#Footnote_800_800" class="fnanchor">[800]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[Pg 375]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Fate of the remaining judges.</div> + +<p>Of the five counsellors of parliament arrested by the late king's +orders, Du Bourg was the only martyr. By the others greater weakness was +shown, or the judges were less willing to fulfil the cardinal's bloody +injunctions.<a name="FNanchor_801_801" id="FNanchor_801_801"></a><a href="#Footnote_801_801" class="fnanchor">[801]</a> La Porte was reprimanded for finding fault with the +rigorous sentences of the "grand' chambre," and liberated on declaring +those sentences good and praiseworthy. De Foix was condemned to make a +public declaration of his belief in the sole validity of the sacrament +as administered in the Romish Church, and to be suspended from his +office for a year; Du Faur to beg pardon of God, the king, and his +fellow-judges, for having maintained the propriety of holding a holy and +free universal council before extirpating the heretics, to pay a +considerable fine, and to suffer a five years' suspension. Fumée, more +fortunate than his associates, was acquitted in spite of the most +strenuous exertions of the Cardinal of Lorraine.<a name="FNanchor_802_802" id="FNanchor_802_802"></a><a href="#Footnote_802_802" class="fnanchor">[802]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Public indignation against the Guises.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Must the faithful submit passively to usurpation?</div> + +<p>The savage persecution of the Protestants tended powerfully to +strengthen the current of popular sentiment that was setting in against +the government of the Guises. The sight of so many cruel executions for +more than thirty years had not accustomed either the dissidents or the +more reflecting among those of the opposite creed to the barbarous work. +"Is it not time," they asked, "to put a stop to the ravages of the +flames and of the sword of the executioner, when such signal failure has +attended their application? Will the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[Pg 376]</a></span> terror of the <i>estrapade</i> quench +the burning courage of a sect which has spread over the whole of France, +if it could not stifle the fire when first kindled at Meaux and at +Paris? Has not the policy of extermination thus far persisted in only +accelerating the growth of the new doctrines? Shall the sword rage +forever, and must princes of the blood and the noblest and purest in +lower ranks of society incur a common fate? Must the persecuted submit +with as good grace to the arbitrary decrees of the usurpers who, through +their connection with a minor king, have made themselves supreme, as to +the legitimate authority of the monarch, advised by his council of +state? The Gospel, doubtless, enjoins upon all Christians the most +patient submission to legally constituted authority. Its success is to +be won by the display of faith and obedience. But concession may +degenerate into cowardice, and submission into craven subserviency. +Obedience to a tyrant is rebellion against the king whom he defrauds of +his authority, his revenues, and his reputation; and treason against +God, whose name is suffered to be blasphemed, and whose children are +unjustly distressed."</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Oppression becomes intolerable.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">The convocation of the States General.</div> + +<p>The religious grievances thus ran parallel with the political, and could +scarcely be distinguished in the great aggregate of the intolerable +oppression to which France was subjected. The legislation of which such +grave complaint was made, it must be admitted, was sometimes +sufficiently whimsical. The resources of the royal treasury, for +instance, being inadequate to meet the demands of creditors, it was +necessary to silence their importunity. An inhuman decree was +accordingly published, enjoining upon all petitioners who had come to +Fontainebleau, where the king was sojourning, to solicit the payment of +debts or pensions, to leave the court within twenty-four hours, on pain +of the halter! A gallows newly erected in front of the castle was a +significant warning as to the serious character of the threat.<a name="FNanchor_803_803" id="FNanchor_803_803"></a><a href="#Footnote_803_803" class="fnanchor">[803]</a> In +order to provide against uprisings such as the violent course taken was +well<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[Pg 377]</a></span> calculated to occasion, the people must be disarmed. Accordingly, +an edict was published, within a fortnight after the accession of +Francis, strictly forbidding all persons from carrying pistols and other +firearms, and the prohibition was more than once repeated during this +brief reign.<a name="FNanchor_804_804" id="FNanchor_804_804"></a><a href="#Footnote_804_804" class="fnanchor">[804]</a> While thus seeking to repress the display of the +popular displeasure in acts of violence and sedition, the Guises +resolved to prevent the overthrow of their usurped authority by +legitimate means. The convocation of the States General was the +safety-valve through which, in accordance with a wise provision, the +overheated passions of the people were wont to find vent. But the +assembling of the representatives of the three orders would be +equivalent to signing the death-warrant of the Guises; while to +Catharine, the queen mother, it would betoken an equally dreaded +termination of long-cherished hopes. Both Catharine and the Guises, +therefore, gave out that whoever talked of convening the States was a +mortal enemy of the king, and made himself liable to the pains of +treason.<a name="FNanchor_805_805" id="FNanchor_805_805"></a><a href="#Footnote_805_805" class="fnanchor">[805]</a> Every precaution had been taken to make the boiler tight, +and to render impossible the escape of the scalding waters and the +steam; it only remained to be seen whether the structure was proof +against an explosion.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Calvin and Beza consulted.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">They dissuade armed resistance.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Calvin foresees civil war.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">More favorable replies.</div> + +<p>Such a catastrophe, indeed, seemed now to be imminent.<a name="FNanchor_806_806" id="FNanchor_806_806"></a><a href="#Footnote_806_806" class="fnanchor">[806]</a> Among the +more restless, especially, there was a manifest preparation for some new +enterprise. The correspondence of the reformers reveals the fact that, +as early as in the commencement of September, a knotty ques<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[Pg 378]</a></span>tion had +been propounded to the Genevese theologians:<a name="FNanchor_807_807" id="FNanchor_807_807"></a><a href="#Footnote_807_807" class="fnanchor">[807]</a> "Is it lawful to make +an insurrection against those enemies not only of religion, but of the +very state, particularly when, according to law, the king himself +possesses no authority on which they can rest their usurpation?" This +was an interrogatory often put by those who would gladly have followed +the example of a Scævola, and sacrificed their own lives to purchase +freedom for France. "Hitherto," notes Beza, "we have answered that the +storm must be overcome by prayer and by patience, and that He will not +desert us who lately showed by so wonderful an example (the death of +Henry) not only what He can, but what He will do for His church. Until +now this advice has been followed."<a name="FNanchor_808_808" id="FNanchor_808_808"></a><a href="#Footnote_808_808" class="fnanchor">[808]</a> As the plan for a forcible +overthrow of the Guises began to develop under the increasing +oppression, and as malcontents from France came to the free city on Lake +Leman in greater numbers, Calvin expressed his convictions with more and +more distinctness, and endeavored to dissuade the refugees from +embarking in so hazardous an undertaking. Its advocates in vain urged +that they had received from a prince of the blood (entitled, by the +immemorial custom of the realm, to the first place in the council, in +the absence of his brother, the King of Navarre) the promise to present +their confession of faith to the young monarch of France, and that +thousands would espouse his defence if he were assailed. The reformer +saw more clearly than they the rising of the clouds of civil war +portending ruin to his native land. "Let but a single drop of blood be +shed," said Calvin, "and streams will flow that must inundate +France."<a name="FNanchor_809_809" id="FNanchor_809_809"></a><a href="#Footnote_809_809" class="fnanchor">[809]</a> But his prudent advice was unheeded.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[Pg 379]</a></span> Other theologians +and jurists of France and Germany had been questioned. They replied more +favorably, "It is lawful," they said, "to take up arms to repel the +violence of the Guises, under the authority of a prince of the blood, +and at the solicitation of the estates of France, or the soundest part +of them. Having seized the persons of the obnoxious ministers, it will +next be proper to assemble the States General, and put them on trial for +their flagrant offences."<a name="FNanchor_810_810" id="FNanchor_810_810"></a><a href="#Footnote_810_810" class="fnanchor">[810]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Godefroy de la Renaudie.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">His grounds for revenge.</div> + +<p>An active and energetic man was needed to organize the movement and +control it until the proper moment should come for Condé—the "mute" +head, whose name was for the time to be kept secret—to declare himself. +Such a leader was found in Godefroy de Barry, Seigneur de la Renaudie, a +gentleman of ancient family in Périgord. The result justified the wisdom +of the choice. Besides the discontent animating him in common with the +better part of the kingdom, La Renaudie had private wrongs of his own to +avenge. Less than a year before the accession of Francis, his +brother-in-law, Gaspard de Heu, had been arrested as a pretended agent +for bringing about an alliance between the King of Navarre and the +Protestant princes of Germany.<a name="FNanchor_811_811" id="FNanchor_811_811"></a><a href="#Footnote_811_811" class="fnanchor">[811]</a> In the gloomy castle of the Bois de +Vincennes a private trial had been held, in which none of the accustomed +forms of law were observed. De Heu had been barbarously tortured and +secretly despatched.<a name="FNanchor_812_812" id="FNanchor_812_812"></a><a href="#Footnote_812_812" class="fnanchor">[812]</a> That it was a judicial murder was proved by +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[Pg 380]</a></span> extraordinary precautions taken to conceal the procedure from the +knowledge of the public, and by the selection of the most lonely place +about the castle for the grave into which his official assassins hastily +thrust the body.<a name="FNanchor_813_813" id="FNanchor_813_813"></a><a href="#Footnote_813_813" class="fnanchor">[813]</a> La Renaudie held the Cardinal of Lorraine to be +the author of the cowardly deed.<a name="FNanchor_814_814" id="FNanchor_814_814"></a><a href="#Footnote_814_814" class="fnanchor">[814]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">He assembles the malcontents at Nantes, Feb. 1, 1560.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Well-devised plans.</div> + +<p>La Renaudie displayed incredible diligence.<a name="FNanchor_815_815" id="FNanchor_815_815"></a><a href="#Footnote_815_815" class="fnanchor">[815]</a> In a few days he had +travelled over a great part of France, visiting all the most prominent +opponents of the Guises, urging the reluctant, assuring the timid, +inciting all to a determined effort. On the first of February he +assembled in the city of Nantes a large number of noblemen and of +persons belonging to the "tiers état," who claimed to be as complete a +representation of the estates of France as the circumstances of the +country would admit. It was a hazardous undertaking; but so prudently +did the deputies deport themselves, that, although the Parliament of +Brittany was then sitting at Nantes, they were not detected in the crowd +of pleaders before the court. After solemnly protesting that the +enterprise was directed neither against the majesty of the king and of +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[Pg 381]</a></span> princes of the blood, nor against the legitimate estate of the +kingdom, the assembly was intrusted with the secret of the name of the +prince by whose authority the arrest of the Guises was to be attempted. +The tenth of March<a name="FNanchor_816_816" id="FNanchor_816_816"></a><a href="#Footnote_816_816" class="fnanchor">[816]</a> was fixed upon for the execution of the design. +At that date, it was supposed, Francis and his court would be sojourning +on the banks of the Loire.<a name="FNanchor_817_817" id="FNanchor_817_817"></a><a href="#Footnote_817_817" class="fnanchor">[817]</a> Five hundred gentlemen were selected, +and placed under the command of ten captains. All were to obey the +directions of the "mute" chief, and his delegate, La Renaudie. Others of +the confederates were pledged to prevent the provincial towns from +sending assistance to the Guises. The force thus raised was to be +disbanded only when a legitimate government had been re-established, and +the usurpers brought to punishment.<a name="FNanchor_818_818" id="FNanchor_818_818"></a><a href="#Footnote_818_818" class="fnanchor">[818]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Confidence of the Guises.</div> + +<p>The plan was well devised, and its execution was entrusted to capable +hands. The omens, indeed, were favorable. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[Pg 382]</a></span> Cardinal of Lorraine and +his brother, intoxicated by the uniform success hitherto attending their +ambitious projects, despised such vague rumors of opposition as reached +their ears. The party adverse to their tyranny, composed not only of +Protestants and others who sought the best interests of their country, +but recruited from the ranks of the restless and of those who had +private wrongs to redress, was sure, on the first tidings of its +uprising, to secure the active co-operation of many of the most powerful +nobles, and possibly might enlist the majority of the population. Rarely +has an important secret been so long and so successfully kept. It was +deemed little short of a miracle that, in a time of peace, and in a +country where the regal authority was so implicitly obeyed, a +deliberative assembly of no mean size had been convened from all the +provinces of France, and the Guises had obtained intimations of the +conspiracy of their enemies by letters from Germany, Spain, and Italy, +before any tidings of it reached the ears of their spies carefully +posted in every part of the kingdom. So close a reticence augured ill +for the permanence of the present usurpation.<a name="FNanchor_819_819" id="FNanchor_819_819"></a><a href="#Footnote_819_819" class="fnanchor">[819]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The plot betrayed.</div> + +<p>But the timidity or treachery of a single person disconcerted all the +steps so cautiously taken. The curiosity of Des Avenelles, a lawyer at +Paris, in whose house La Renaudie lodged, was excited by the number of +the visitors whom his guest attracted. As his host was a Protestant, La +Renaudie believed that he risked nothing in making of him a confidant. +But the secret was too valuable, or too dangerous, to be kept, and Des +Avenelles secured his safety, as well as a liberal reward, by disclosing +it to two dependants of the Guises, by whom it was faithfully reported +to their masters.<a name="FNanchor_820_820" id="FNanchor_820_820"></a><a href="#Footnote_820_820" class="fnanchor">[820]</a> The as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[Pg 383]</a></span>tounding information was at first received +with incredulity, but soon a second witness was obtained. It could no +longer be doubted that the blow of the approach of which letters from +abroad, and especially from Cardinal Granvelle, in Flanders,<a name="FNanchor_821_821" id="FNanchor_821_821"></a><a href="#Footnote_821_821" class="fnanchor">[821]</a> had +warned them, was about to descend upon their heads.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">The "Tumult of Amboise."</div> + +<p>When fuller revelations of the extent of the plot were made, the court +in consternation shut itself up in the defences of Amboise. Catharine +de' Medici, recalling the warning of the Church of Paris, declared that +now she saw that the Protestants were men of their word.<a name="FNanchor_822_822" id="FNanchor_822_822"></a><a href="#Footnote_822_822" class="fnanchor">[822]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The Châtillons consulted.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Coligny gives Catharine good advice.</div> + +<p>Meanwhile, not only were vigorous measures adopted to guard against +attack, but the most powerful nobles, who might be suspected of +complicity, were sounded respecting their intentions. Coligny and his +brother, D'Andelot, who, in virtue of their offices as Admiral and +Colonel-General of the infantry, stood at the head of the army, received +affectionate invitations from Catharine to visit the court. Upon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[Pg 384]</a></span> their +arrival they were taken apart, and were earnestly entreated by the queen +mother and Chancellor Olivier to assist them by their counsel, and not +to abandon the young king. To so urgent a request Coligny made a frank +reply. He explained the existing discontent and its causes, both +religious and political. Persecution, and the usurpation of those who +were esteemed foreigners by the French, lay at the root of the troubles. +He advised the relaxation of the rigorous treatment of the adherents of +the Reformation. <i>Extermination</i> was out of the question. The numbers of +the Protestants had become too great to permit the entertaining of such +a thought. Moreover, the court might be assured that there were +those—and they were not few—who would no longer consent to endure the +cruelty to which, for forty years, they had been subjected, especially +now that it was exercised under the authority of a young king governed +by persons "more hated than the plague," and known to be inspired less +by religious zeal than by excessive ambition, and by an avarice that +could be satisfied only by obtaining the property of the richest houses +in France. An edict of toleration, couched in explicit terms and +honestly executed, was the only remedy to restore peace and quiet until +the convocation of a free and holy council.<a name="FNanchor_823_823" id="FNanchor_823_823"></a><a href="#Footnote_823_823" class="fnanchor">[823]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The edict of amnesty March, 1560.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">It is promptly registered.</div> + +<p>The privy council, if not persuaded of the propriety of initiating a +policy of toleration, were at least convinced of the necessity of +yielding temporarily to the storm; and even the Guises deemed it +advisable to make concessions, which could easily be revoked on the +advent of more peaceful times. Ac<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[Pg 385]</a></span>cordingly, an edict of pretended +amnesty was hastily drawn up, and as expeditiously published. The king +was moved to take this step—so the edict made him say—by compassion +for the number of persons who, from motives of curiosity or simplicity, +had attended the conventicles of the preachers from Geneva—for the most +part mechanical folk and of no literary attainments—as well as by +reluctance to render the first year of his reign notable in after times +for the effusion of the blood of his poor subjects. By the provisions of +this important instrument the royal judges were forbidden to make +inquisition into, or inflict punishment for any <i>past</i> crime concerning +the faith: and all delinquents were pardoned <i>on condition that they +should hereafter live as good Catholics and obedient sons of Mother Holy +Church</i>. But from the benefits of the amnesty were expressly excluded +all preachers and those who had conspired against the person of the king +or his ministers.<a name="FNanchor_824_824" id="FNanchor_824_824"></a><a href="#Footnote_824_824" class="fnanchor">[824]</a> The edict—much to the surprise of those who knew +the sanguinary disposition of the judges—was promptly registered by +parliament; whether it was that the judges were reconciled to the step +by a secret article with which, it was said, they accompanied it, to +guide in the future interpretation of the law, or that the majority +regarded it as a piece of deceit.<a name="FNanchor_825_825" id="FNanchor_825_825"></a><a href="#Footnote_825_825" class="fnanchor">[825]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">A year's progress.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Beza's comment.</div> + +<p>In spite of its insincerity, however, the edict, wrung from the +unwilling hands of the cardinal and the privy council, marks an +important epoch in the history of the Reformed Church in France. Barely +nine months had elapsed since five members of the Parisian Parliament +had been thrown into the Bastile for daring to advocate a mitigation of +the penalties pronounced against the Protestants, until the assem<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[Pg 386]</a></span>bling +of the long-promised Œcumenical Council. Little more than two months +had passed since one of their number, and the most virtuous judge on the +bench, had been ignominiously executed. And now the King of France, with +the approval and almost at the instigation of the chief persecutor, +proclaimed an oblivion of all offences against religion, and the +liberation of all persons imprisoned for heresy. The reformers, who had +rarely succeeded by their most strenuous exertions in obtaining the +release of a few of their co-religionists, could scarcely restrain a +smile when they discovered what a potent auxiliary they had obtained +unawares—in the <i>fears</i> of their antagonists. "Would that you could +read and understand the number of contradictory edicts they have written +in a single month!" wrote one who took a deep interest in French +affairs. "You would assuredly be amazed at their incredible fright, when +no one is pursuing them, except Him whom they least fear! What you could +not succeed in obtaining by any of your embassies in former years, they +have given of their own accord to those who sought it not—the +liberation of the entire number of prisoners on all sides. Most have +been released in spite of their open profession of their faith. The +injustice of the judges has, however, led to the retention of a few in +chains up to this moment."<a name="FNanchor_826_826" id="FNanchor_826_826"></a><a href="#Footnote_826_826" class="fnanchor">[826]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">A powerful party had arisen.</div> + +<p>Notwithstanding its incompleteness and insincerity, however, "the Edict +of Forgiveness," as it was termed, is a significant landmark in the +history of French Protestantism. It is the point where begins the +transition from the period of persecution to the period of civil war. By +this concession, reluctantly granted and faithlessly executed, the first +recognition was made of the existence of a large and powerful body of +dissidents from the Roman Catholic Church. No longer were there a few +scattered sectaries whose heretical views might be suppressed by their +individual extermination. But a compact and wide-spread and rapidly +growing party had assumed dimensions that defied any such paltry +measures. It had outgrown persecution. The time for its eradica<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[Pg 387]</a></span>tion by +open war or by secret massacre might yet come. Meanwhile, it was +important to avert present disaster by partial concessions.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Dismay of the court.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">New alarms.</div> + +<p>The treachery of Des Avenelles had warned the Guises of their danger, +but had left them in dismay and doubt. They knew not whom to trust, nor +whence to expect the impending blow. Sir Nicholas Throkmorton's +correspondence is full of interesting details throwing light upon the +confusion and embarrassment of the Guises. "You shall understand," he +writes on the seventh of March, "that the Duke of Guise and the Cardinal +of Lorraine have discovered a conspiracy wrought against themselves and +their authority, which they have bruited (to make the matter more +odious) to be meant only against the king: whereupon they are in such +fear as themselves do wear privy coats, and are in the night guarded +with pistoliers and men in arms. They have apprehended eight or nine, +and have put some to the torture." "Being ready to seal up this letter," +he adds in a postscript, "I do understand that the fear of this +commotion is so great, as the sixth of this present, the Duke of Guise, +the Cardinal of Lorraine, the Grand Prior, and all the knights of the +Order which were here, watched all night long in the court, and the +gates of this town were all shut and kept." On the fifteenth of March he +writes: "These men here have their hands full, and are so busied to +provide for surety at home, that they cannot intend to answer +foreigners. This night a new hot alarm is offered, and our town doth +begin again to be guarded. It is a marvel to see how they be daunted, +that have not at other times been afraid of great armies of horsemen, +footmen, and the fury of shot of artillery: I never saw state more +amazed than this at some time, and by and by more reckless; they know +not whom to mistrust, nor to trust.... He hath all the trust this daye, +that to-morrow is least trusted. You can imagine your advantage." A few +days later he writes again: "And now it was thought that this was but a +popular commotion, without order, and not to be feared; when, unlooked +for, the 17th, in the morning, about four of the clock, there arrived a +company of 150 horsemen well appointed, who approached the court gates, +and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[Pg 388]</a></span> shot off their pistolets at the church of the Bonhommes, whereupon +there was such an alarm and running up and down in the court, as if the +enemies being encamped about them had sought to make an entry into the +castle: and there was crying, <i>To horse, to horse</i>.... This continued an +hour and a half,"<a name="FNanchor_827_827" id="FNanchor_827_827"></a><a href="#Footnote_827_827" class="fnanchor">[827]</a> etc.</p> + +<p>La Renaudie had actually established himself within six leagues of +Amboise on the second of March, and had made his arrangements for the +vigorous execution of his plans a fortnight later. The Guises were to be +seized by a party that counted upon gaining secret admission to the +castle, and opening the gates to comrades concealed in the neighborhood. +But another act of treachery on the part of a confederate enabled the +cardinal and his brother to frustrate a project so sagaciously laid and +offering fair promise of success. The parties of cavaliers, who had +succeeded, as by a miracle, in eluding the spies and agents of their +enemies, posted in every important city of France, and had reached the +very vicinity of the court without discovery, were caught in detail at +their rendezvous. Companies of fifteen or twenty men thus fell into the +hands of the troops hastily assembled by the urgent commands of the +king's ministers.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Treacherous capture of Castelnau.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Death of La Renaudie.</div> + +<p>A more powerful detachment of malcontents could not be so easily +stopped, and threw itself into the castle of Noizay. It seemed more +feasible to overcome them by stratagem than by open assault. The Duke of +Nemours, having been sent to reduce the place, allowed Baron de +Castelnau, commander of the insurgents, a personal interview. Here the +Huguenot defended his adherents against the imputation of having +revolted against their lawful monarch, and maintained that, on the +contrary, they had come to uphold his honor and free him from the +intrigues of the Guises. Seeing, however, the hopelessness of resisting +the superior force of his enemy, Castelnau consented to capitulate, +after exacting from the Duke of Nemours his princely word that he and +his followers should receive no injury, and be permitted to have free +access to the king, in order to lay before him their grievances.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[Pg 389]</a></span> The +pledge thus given was redeemed in no chivalrous manner. No account was +made of the terms accepted. Castelnau and his companions-in-arms were at +once thrown into the dungeons of Amboise, and steps were taken for their +trial on a charge of treason.<a name="FNanchor_828_828" id="FNanchor_828_828"></a><a href="#Footnote_828_828" class="fnanchor">[828]</a> Much larger numbers, arriving in the +vicinity of Amboise ignorant of what had happened, were surrounded by +cavalry and brought in tied to the horses' tails. Many a knight, better +accoutred than his fellows, was despatched in a more summary manner and +stripped of his armor, after which his body was carelessly thrown into a +ditch by the roadside.<a name="FNanchor_829_829" id="FNanchor_829_829"></a><a href="#Footnote_829_829" class="fnanchor">[829]</a> La Renaudie was so fortunate as to escape +this fate and the yet more cruel doom that awaited him at Amboise, by +meeting a soldier's death, while courageously fighting against a party +of Guisards who fell in with him. He had just slain his antagonist—one +Pardaillan, his own relative—when (on the nineteenth of March) he was +himself instantly killed by the ball from an arquebuse fired by his +opponent's servant.<a name="FNanchor_830_830" id="FNanchor_830_830"></a><a href="#Footnote_830_830" class="fnanchor">[830]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Plenary powers given to the Duke of Guise.</div> + +<p>While the alarm arising from the "tumult" was yet at its height, the +Guises took advantage of it to obtain yet larger powers, at the same +time securing their position against future assaults. The king, in his +terror, was readily induced to accept the warlike uncle of his wife as +the only person on whose military prowess and faithfulness he could +rely. He regarded the interest of the Guises and his own as identical; +for he had been told, and he firmly believed it, that the enmity of the +insurgents was directed no less against the crown than against its +unpopular ministers.<a name="FNanchor_831_831" id="FNanchor_831_831"></a><a href="#Footnote_831_831" class="fnanchor">[831]</a> On the seven<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[Pg 390]</a></span>teenth of March he therefore gave +a commission to "Francis of Lorraine, Duke of Guise, peer, grand master, +and grand chamberlain," to be his lieutenant-general with absolute +powers, promising to approve of all his acts, and authorizing him to +impose the customary punishment upon the seditious, without form or +figure of process.<a name="FNanchor_832_832" id="FNanchor_832_832"></a><a href="#Footnote_832_832" class="fnanchor">[832]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Chancellor Olivier opposes.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Forgiveness to the submissive.</div> + +<p>There were those about the monarch who could not but look with concern +upon the unlimited authority thus accorded to an ambitious prince. +Chancellor Olivier was of this number. He at first refused to affix the +seal of state to a paper which falsely purported to have been made by +advice of the council. It was, however, at length decided that another +edict should be published contemporaneously, extending forgiveness to +all that had assembled in arms in the neighborhood of the city of +Amboise, under color of desiring to present to the king a confession of +their faith. To avail themselves of the benefits of this pardon, they +must, within "twice twenty-four hours," return to their homes, in +companies of two, or, at the most, three together. The disobedient were +to be hung without process of law, and the tocsin might be rung to +gather a force for the purpose of capturing them. The king, however, +invited all that desired to present him their requests to depute one of +their number to lay them before his council, promising, on the pledge of +his royal word, redress and security.<a name="FNanchor_833_833" id="FNanchor_833_833"></a><a href="#Footnote_833_833" class="fnanchor">[833]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Explained away by a new edict.</div> + +<p>The acts of the court little agreed with these words of clemency. Many +of those who, in obedience to the edict, turned their steps homeward, +found that edict to be only a snare for their simplicity. Indeed, five +days only had elapsed when, on the twenty-second of March, a fresh<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[Pg 391]</a></span> +edict, explanatory of the former, excluded from the amnesty all that had +taken part in the conspiracy!<a name="FNanchor_834_834" id="FNanchor_834_834"></a><a href="#Footnote_834_834" class="fnanchor">[834]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Carnival of blood.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">The young king visibly affected.</div> + +<p>But it was at Amboise that the vengeance of the Guises found its widest +scope. Day and night the execution of the prisoners stayed not. Their +punishment was ingeniously diversified. Some were decapitated, others +hung; still others were drowned in the waters of the Loire.<a name="FNanchor_835_835" id="FNanchor_835_835"></a><a href="#Footnote_835_835" class="fnanchor">[835]</a> The +streets of Amboise ran with blood, and the stench of the unburied +corpses threatened a pestilence. Ten or twelve dead bodies, in full +clothing and tied to a single pole, floated down from time to time +toward the sea, and carried tidings of the wholesale massacre to the +cities on the lower Loire. Neither trial nor publication of the charge +preceded the summary execution. Most frequently the victims were placed +in the hangman's hand immediately after the hour for dinner, that their +dying agonies might furnish an agreeable diversion to the ladies of the +court, who watched the gibbet from the royal drawing-rooms. Few, besides +the Duchess of Guise, daughter of Renée of Ferrara, manifested any +disgust at the repulsive spectacle. Some of the prisoners who +importunately insisted on seeing the king, and making before him a +profession of their faith, were summarily hanged from the castle +windows. One intrepid reformer had been so fortunate as to be admitted +to the queen mother's presence, and there, by his ready and cogent +reasoning, had well-nigh brought the Cardinal of Lorraine to admit that +his view of the Lord's Supper was correct. Catharine's attention having +been for a moment withdrawn, when she returned to the discussion the man +had disappeared. Actuated by curiosity or by a desire to spare his life, +she requested him to be sent for. It was too late; he had already been +despatched.<a name="FNanchor_836_836" id="FNanchor_836_836"></a><a href="#Footnote_836_836" class="fnanchor">[836]</a> For the most part, the victims displayed great +constancy and courage. Many died with the words of the psalms<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[Pg 392]</a></span> of Marot +and Beza on their lips.<a name="FNanchor_837_837" id="FNanchor_837_837"></a><a href="#Footnote_837_837" class="fnanchor">[837]</a> Castelnau, after having in his +interrogatory made patent to all the hypocrisy of the cardinal and the +cowardice of the chancellor, died maintaining that, before he was +pronounced guilty of treason, the Guises ought to be declared kings of +France. Villemongys, upon the scaffold, dipped his hands in the blood of +his companions, and, raising them toward heaven, exclaimed in a loud +voice: "Lord, this is the blood of Thy children, unjustly shed. Thou +wilt avenge it!"<a name="FNanchor_838_838" id="FNanchor_838_838"></a><a href="#Footnote_838_838" class="fnanchor">[838]</a> The body of La Renaudie was first hung upon one of +the bridges of Amboise, with the superscription: "<i>La Renaudie, styling +himself Laforest, author of the conspiracy, chief and leader of the +rebels</i>." Afterward it was quartered, and his head, in company with the +heads of others, was exposed upon a pole on a public square.<a name="FNanchor_839_839" id="FNanchor_839_839"></a><a href="#Footnote_839_839" class="fnanchor">[839]</a> The +sight of these continually recurring executions, succeeding a fearful +struggle in which so many of his subjects had taken part, is said to +have affected even the young king, who asked, with tears, what he had +done to his people to animate them thus against him. It is even reported +that, catching for an instant, through the mist with which his advisers +sought to keep his mind enshrouded, a glimpse of the true cause of the +discontent, he made a feeble suggestion, which was easily parried, that +the Guises should for a time retire from the court, in order that he +might find out whether the popular enmity was in reality directed +against him, or against his uncles.<a name="FNanchor_840_840" id="FNanchor_840_840"></a><a href="#Footnote_840_840" class="fnanchor">[840]</a> Their fertile invention, +however, was not slow in concocting a story that turned his short-lived +pity into settled hatred of the "Huguenot heretics."</p> + +<div class="sidenote">The elder D'Aubigné and his son.</div> + +<p>On others, and especially upon those whose hearts throbbed with +patriotic devotion, a less transient impression was made. Some months +after, the young Agrippa d'Aubigné, then a mere child of ten years, was +traversing the city of Amboise with his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[Pg 393]</a></span> father. The impaled heads of +the victims were still to be recognized. The barbarous sight moved the +elder D'Aubigné's soul to its very depths. "They have beheaded France, +hangmen that they are!" he cried out in the hearing of the hundreds that +were present at the fair. Then, spurring his horse, he scarcely escaped +the hands of the rabble who had caught his words. Afterward, when his +young son had rejoined him, he placed his hand on Agrippa's head, and +exclaimed, full of emotion: "My child, you must not spare your head +after mine, to avenge these chieftains full of honor, whose heads you +have just seen! If you spare yourself in this matter, you will have my +curse."<a name="FNanchor_841_841" id="FNanchor_841_841"></a><a href="#Footnote_841_841" class="fnanchor">[841]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Peril of the Prince of Condé.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">He is summoned by the king.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Condé's defiance.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Guise's offer.</div> + +<p>The Prince of Condé had set out for the court about the time of the +discovery of the conspiracy. If the coldness of the courtiers whom he +met on the way did not convince him that he was suspected, the position +in which he soon found himself at Amboise left him no doubts. Surrounded +by spies, he was viewed more as a prisoner than as a guest. The Guises +even counselled Francis to stab him with his dagger while pretending to +sport with him. The crime was averted both by the caution of the prince +and by a reluctance on the part of the young king to imbrue his hands in +the blood of his kinsman—a sentiment which the Guises interpreted as +cowardice.<a name="FNanchor_842_842" id="FNanchor_842_842"></a><a href="#Footnote_842_842" class="fnanchor">[842]</a> But, unable to resist the urgency of those who accused +Condé of being the true head of the conspiracy, and maintained that the +testimony of many of the prisoners rendered the fact indubitable, +Francis at length summoned the young Bourbon to his presence. He +informed him of the accusations, and assured him that, should they prove +true, he would make him feel the difficulty and the danger of attacking +a king of France. At Condé's request an assembly of all the princes, and +of the members of the Privy Council and of the Order of St. Michael, was +summoned, that he might return his answer to the charges laid against +him.<a name="FNanchor_843_843" id="FNanchor_843_843"></a><a href="#Footnote_843_843" class="fnanchor">[843]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[Pg 394]</a></span> In the midst of the august gathering, Louis of Bourbon arose +and recited the conversation which he had had with the king. He knew, he +said, that he had enemies about him who sought his entire ruin and that +of his house. He had, therefore, solicited to be heard in this company, +and his answer was: that, excepting the person of the king, his +brothers, and the queens, his mother and wife—and he said it with all +respect to their presence—whoever had asserted to the king that Condé +was the chief of certain seditious individuals who were said to have +conspired against his person and estate, had "falsely and miserably +lied." To prove his innocence he offered to waive for the time the +privileges of his rank as prince of the blood, and in single combat +force his accuser at the point of the sword to confess himself a +poltroon and a calumniator. As Condé looked proudly around, no one +ventured to accept the gauntlet he had thrown down. On the contrary, the +Duke of Guise, his most bitter enemy, promptly stepped forward to offer +him his services as second in the single combat proposed! Hereupon Condé +begged the king to esteem him hereafter a faithful and honorable man, +and entreated his Majesty to lend no ear to the authors of such +calumnies, but to regard them as common enemies of the crown and of the +public peace.<a name="FNanchor_844_844" id="FNanchor_844_844"></a><a href="#Footnote_844_844" class="fnanchor">[844]</a></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<div class="blockquot"><div class="sidenote">An alleged admission of disloyal intentions by La +Renaudie.</div> + +<p>It is well known that the Huguenots were accused by their enemies +of intending to remodel the government of France. According to +some, the king was to be retained, but shorn of his authority; +according to others, he was to be dispensed with altogether. Under +any circumstances, the Swiss confederation was to be imitated or +reproduced in France. That which gave the pretended scheme most of +its air of probability, in the eyes of the unreflecting, and +compensated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[Pg 395]</a></span> for the entire absence of proof of its substantial +reality, was the familiarity of many of the Huguenots—both +religious and political—with Geneva, Basle, Berne, and other small +republican states. These were fountains of Protestant doctrine; +these had afforded many a refugee shelter from persecution in +France. It was notorious that the free institutions of these cities +were the object of admiration on the part of the Calvinists.<a name="FNanchor_845_845" id="FNanchor_845_845"></a><a href="#Footnote_845_845" class="fnanchor">[845]</a></p> + +<p>I believe that no contemporary writer has brought forward a +particle of evidence in support of this view, and impartial men +have rejected it as incredible. But a history of the Parliament of +Bordeaux, lately published,<a name="FNanchor_846_846" id="FNanchor_846_846"></a><a href="#Footnote_846_846" class="fnanchor">[846]</a> contains an extract from the +records of that court, which, if trustworthy, would go far to +establish the reality of treasonable designs entertained by the +Huguenots. Under date of Sept. 4, 1561, the following entry +appears:</p> + +<p>"Ledit jour, M. Géraut Faure, official de Périgueux, a dit: qu'il y +a deux ans que le feu <i>Sieur de La Renaudie</i> fust à la maison dudit +official, à Nontron, lui dire <i>que c'estoit grande folie qu'un tel +royaume fust gouverné par un roi seul</i>, et que si l'official +vouloit l'entendre, qu'il lui feroit un grand avantage; car <i>on +délibéroit de faire un canton à Périgueux, et un autre a Bordeaux</i> +dont il espéroit avoir la superintendance. Et lors luy tenant de +tels propos, retira à part ledit official sans qu'autre +l'entendist. Ainsi signé: Faure."</p> + +<p>The late M. Boscheron des Portes, giving full credit to the +assertion of the "official" of Périgueux, believed that the party +of which La Renaudie was a prominent leader contemplated, in +1559-1560, the formation of "a federative republic broken up into +cantons, the number and situation of which were already, it would +appear, determined upon by the authors of the project." And he +deplores the blind sectarian spirit which could induce Frenchmen to +acquiesce in a plan designed to destroy the unity and consequent +power of a realm whose consolidation every successive king since +the origin of the monarchy had unceasingly pursued.</p> + +<p>I imagine that few unbiassed minds will follow this usually +judicious historian in his singularly precipitate acceptance of the +"official's" statement. It is in patent contradiction with +well-known facts respecting the constitution of the Huguenot party. +The noblemen who gave this party their support had everything to +lose, and nothing to gain, by the change from a monarchical to a +republican form of government. Condé, the "chef muet," was a prince +of the blood, not so far removed from the throne as to regard it +altogether im<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[Pg 396]</a></span>possible that he or his children might yet succeed to +the crown. The main body of the party had had no reason to +entertain hostility to regal authority. The prevailing discontent +was not directed against the young king, but against the persons +surrounding him who had illegally usurped his name and the real +functions of royalty. If persecution for religion's sake had long +raged, the victims had never uttered a syllable smacking of +disloyalty, and continued to hope, not without some apparent +reason, that the truth might yet reach the heart of kings.</p> + +<p>But, independently of the gross inconsistency between the design +ascribed to La Renaudie and the known sentiments of the Huguenots +at this time, there are other marks of improbability connected with +the statement of Géraut Faure. It was not made at the time of the +pretended disclosure, or shortly after, when, if genuine, it would +have insured the informer favor and reward; but, after the lapse of +"two years," when Francis the Second had been dead nine months, and +when under a new king fresh political issues had arisen. In fact, +if the term of two years be construed strictly, it carries us back +to September, 1559, when Francis the Second had been barely three +months on the throne, and the plans of the Huguenots had, to all +appearance, by no means had time to assume the completeness implied +in Faure's statement. Not to speak of the great vagueness and the +utter absence of circumstantial details in the announcement of the +conspiracy and in the promised advantages, it should be remarked +that the confidant selected by La Renaudie was a very unlikely +person to be chosen. The "official," an ecclesiastical judge +deputed by the Bishop of Périgueux to take charge of spiritual +jurisdiction in his diocese, could scarcely be regarded by La +Renaudie as the safest depositary of so valuable a trust.</p></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[Pg 397]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER X.</h2> + +<h3>THE ASSEMBLY OF NOTABLES AT FONTAINEBLEAU, AND THE CLOSE OF THE REIGN OF +FRANCIS THE SECOND.</h3> + + +<div class="sidenote">Rise of the name "Huguenots."</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Various explanations given.</div> + +<p>The tempest which had threatened to overwhelm the Guises at Amboise had +been successfully withstood; but quiet had not returned to the minds of +those whose vices were its principal cause. The air was still thick with +noxious vapors, and none could tell how soon or in what quarter the +elements of a new and more terrible convulsion would gather.<a name="FNanchor_847_847" id="FNanchor_847_847"></a><a href="#Footnote_847_847" class="fnanchor">[847]</a> The +recent commotion had disclosed the existence of a body of malcontents, +in part religious, in part also political, scattered over the whole +kingdom and of unascertained numbers. To its adherents the name of +<i>Huguenots</i> was now for the first time given.<a name="FNanchor_848_848" id="FNanchor_848_848"></a><a href="#Footnote_848_848" class="fnanchor">[848]</a> What the origin of +this celebrated appellation was, it is now perhaps impossible to +discover. Although a number of plausible derivations have been given, it +is not unlikely that all are equally far removed from the truth, and +that the word arose from some trivial circumstance that has completely +passed into oblivion. It has been traced back to the name of the +<i>Eidgenossen</i> or <i>confederates</i>, under which the party of freedom +figured in Geneva when the authority of the bishop<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[Pg 398]</a></span> and duke was +overthrown;<a name="FNanchor_849_849" id="FNanchor_849_849"></a><a href="#Footnote_849_849" class="fnanchor">[849]</a> or to the <i>Roy Huguet</i>, or <i>Huguon</i>, a hobgoblin +supposed to haunt the vicinity of Tours, to whom the superstitious +attributed the nocturnal assemblies of the Protestants;<a name="FNanchor_850_850" id="FNanchor_850_850"></a><a href="#Footnote_850_850" class="fnanchor">[850]</a> or to the +gate <i>du roy Huguon</i> of the same city, near which those gatherings were +wont to be made.<a name="FNanchor_851_851" id="FNanchor_851_851"></a><a href="#Footnote_851_851" class="fnanchor">[851]</a> Some of their enemies maintained the former +existence of a diminutive coin known as a <i>huguenot</i>, and asserted that +the appellation, as applied to the reformed, arose from their "not being +worth a <i>huguenot</i>" or farthing.<a name="FNanchor_852_852" id="FNanchor_852_852"></a><a href="#Footnote_852_852" class="fnanchor">[852]</a> And some of their friends, with +equal confidence and no less improbability, declared that it was +invented because the adherents of the house of Guise secretly put +forward claims upon the crown of France in behalf of that house as +descended from <i>Charlemagne</i>, whereas the Protestants loyally upheld the +rights of the Valois sprung from <i>Hugh</i> Capet.<a name="FNanchor_853_853" id="FNanchor_853_853"></a><a href="#Footnote_853_853" class="fnanchor">[853]</a> In the diversity of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[Pg 399]</a></span> +contradictory statements, we may perhaps be excused if we suspend our +judgment of their respective merits, and prefer to look upon this +partisan name as one with whose original import not a score of persons +in France besides its fortuitous inventor may have been acquainted, and +which may have had nothing to recommend it to those who so readily +adopted it, save novelty and the recognized need of some more convenient +name than "Lutherans," "Christaudins," or the awkward circumlocution, +"those of the religion." Be this as it may, not a week had passed after +the conspiracy of Amboise before the word was in everybody's mouth. Few +knew or cared whence it arose.<a name="FNanchor_854_854" id="FNanchor_854_854"></a><a href="#Footnote_854_854" class="fnanchor">[854]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Its sudden rise.</div> + +<p>A powerful party, whatever name it might bear, had sprung up, as it +were, in a night. There was sober truth conveyed in the jesting letter +of some fugitives to the Cardinal of Lorraine. Twenty or thirty +Huguenots succeeded in breaking the bars of their prison at Blois, and, +letting themselves down by cords, escaped. Some others at Tours, a few +days later, were equally fortunate. Scarcely had the latter regained +their liberty when they wrote a letter to the prelate who was supposed +to take so deep an interest in their concerns, informing him that, +having heard of the escape of his prisoners at Blois, they had been so +grieved, that, for the love they bore him, they had immediately started +out in search. And they begged him not to distress himself on account of +their absence; for they assured him that <i>they would all soon return to +see him, and would bring with them not only these, but all the rest of +those that had conspired to take his life</i>.<a name="FNanchor_855_855" id="FNanchor_855_855"></a><a href="#Footnote_855_855" class="fnanchor">[855]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">How to be accounted for.</div> + +<p>No feature of the rise of the Reformation in France is more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[Pg 400]</a></span> remarkable +than the sudden impulse which it received during the last year or two of +Henry the Second's life, and especially within the brief limits of the +reign of his eldest son. The seed had been sown assiduously for nearly +forty years; but the fruit of so much labor had been comparatively +slight and unsatisfactory. Much of the return proved to be of a literary +and philosophical, rather than of a religious character, and tended to +intellectual development instead of the purification of religions belief +and practice. Much of the seed was choked by relentless persecution. +Bishops and preachers, the gay poet, and the time-serving courtier, fell +away with alarming facility, when the blight of the royal displeasure +fell upon those who professed a desire to abolish the superstitious +observances of the established church.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">A sudden harvest.</div> + +<p>But now, within a few brief months, the harvest seemed, as by a miracle, +to be approaching simultaneously over the whole surface of the extended +field. The grains of truth long since lodged in an arid soil, and +apparently destitute of all vitality, had suddenly developed all the +energy of life. France to the reformers, whose longing eyes were at +length permitted to see this day, was "white unto the harvest," and only +the reapers were needed to put forth the sickle and gather the wheat +into the garner. There was not a corner of the kingdom where the number +of incipient Protestant churches was not considerable. Provence alone +contained sixty, whose delegates this year met in a synod at the +blood-stained village of Mérindol. In large tracts of country the +Huguenots had become so numerous that they were no longer able or +disposed to conceal their religious sentiments, nor content to celebrate +their rites in private or nocturnal assemblies. This was particularly +the case in Normandy, in Languedoc, and on the banks of the Rhône.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">The progress of letters</div> + +<div class="sidenote">and of intelligence.</div> + +<p>It may be worth while to pause here, and inquire into some of the causes +of this rapid spread of the doctrines of the Reformation after the long +period of comparative stagnation preceding. One of these was undoubtedly +the astonishing progress of letters in France during the last forty +years. From being neglected and rough, the French language, during<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[Pg 401]</a></span> the +first half of the sixteenth century, became the most polite of the +tongues spoken in Western Europe—thanks to a series of eminent prose +writers and poets who graced the royal court. The generation reaching +manhood in the latter years of the reign of Henry the Second were far +better educated than the contemporaries of Francis the First. The public +mind, through the elevating tendencies of schools fostered by royal +bounty, was to a considerable degree emancipated from the thraldom of +superstition. It repudiated the silly romanese, passing for the lives of +the saints, with which the public had formerly been satisfied. It +scrutinized minutely every pretended miracle of the papal churches and +convents, and exposed the trickery by which a corrupt clergy sought to +maintain itself in popular esteem. Thus the growing intelligence and +widening information of the people prepared them to appreciate the +merits of the great doctrinal controversy now occupying the attention of +enlightened minds. Interest in the discussion of the most important +themes that can occupy the human contemplation was both stimulated and +gratified by a constant influx of religious works from the teeming +presses of Strasbourg, Basle, Lausanne, Neufchâtel, and especially +Geneva. And the verdict of the great majority of readers and thinkers +was favorable to the Swiss and German controversialists.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Calvin's Institutes.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Marot and Beza's Psalms.</div> + +<p>Next to the Bible, translated originally by Olivetanus, and in its +successive editions rendered more conformable to the Hebrew and Greek +texts, the "Christian Institutes" exerted the most powerful influence. +The close logic of Calvin's treatises, speaking in a style clear, +concise and nervous, and touching a chord of sympathy in each French +reader, made its deep impress upon the intellect and heart, while +captivating the ear. Calvin's commentaries on the sacred volume rendered +its pages luminous and familiar. Other works exerted an influence +scarcely inferior. The "Actions and Monuments" of the martyrs, by Jean +Crespin, printer and scholar, not only perpetuated the memory of the +witnesses for the truth, but stimulated others to copy their fidelity. +Marot and Beza's metrical versions of the Psalms, wafted into +popularity, even among those<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[Pg 402]</a></span> who at first little sympathized with the +piety of the words, by the novelty and beauty of the music to which they +were sung, were powerful auxiliaries to the arguments of the theologian. +They entered the house of the peasant and invested its homely scenes +with a calm derived from the contemplation of the bliss of a heaven +where the fleeting distinctions of the present shall melt away. They +nerved the humble artisan to patience and to the cheerful endurance of +obloquy and reproach. They attracted to the gathering of persecuted +reformers in the by-street, in the retired barn, or on the open heath or +mountain side, the youth who preferred their melody and intelligible +words to the jargon of a service conducted in a tongue understood only +by the learned. In the royal court, or rising in loud chorus from a +thousand voices on the crowded <i>Pré-aux-Clercs</i>, they were winged +messengers of the truth, where no other messengers could have found +utterance with impunity.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Morals and martyrdom.</div> + +<p>The blameless purity of life of the men and women whom, for religion's +sake, the officers of the law put to death with every species of +indignity and with inhuman cruelty, when contrasted with the flagrant +corruption of the clergy and the shameless dissoluteness of the court, +openly fostered for their own base ends by cardinals themselves accused +of every species of immorality and suspected of atheism, deeply affected +the minds of the reflecting. One Anne Du Bourg put to death by a Charles +of Lorraine made more converts in a day than all the executioners could +burn in a year.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Character of the ministers from Geneva.</div> + +<p>But, if the rapid spread of Protestant doctrines at this precise date is +due to any one cause more than to another, that cause may probably be +found in the character and numbers of the religious teachers. Converts +from the Papal Church, principally priests and monks, were the first +apostles of the Reformation. Few of them had received systematic +training of any kind, none had a thorough acquaintance with biblical +learning. Many embraced the truth only in part; some professed it from +improper motives. The Lenten preachers whose leaning towards +"Lutheranism" was sufficiently marked to attract the hatred of the +Sorbonne, were generally orators,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[Pg 403]</a></span> more solicitous of popularity than +jealous for the truth—fickle and inconstant men whose apostasy +inflicted deep wounds upon the cause with which they had been +identified, and more than neutralized all the good done by their +previous exertions. But now a brotherhood of theologians took their +place, not less zealous for the faith than disciplined in intellect. +Geneva<a name="FNanchor_856_856" id="FNanchor_856_856"></a><a href="#Footnote_856_856" class="fnanchor">[856]</a> was the nursery from which a vigorous stock was transplanted +to French soil. The theological school in which Calvin and Beza taught, +moulded the destinies of France. The youths who came from the shores of +Lake Leman were no neophytes, nor had they to unlearn the casuistry of +the schools or to throw off a monastic indolence which habit had made a +second nature. They embraced a vocation to which nothing but a stern +sense of duty, or the more powerful attraction of Divine love, could +prompt. They entered an arena where poverty, fatigue, and almost +inevitable death stared them in the face. But they entered it +intelligently and resolutely, with the training of mind and of soul +which an athlete might receive from such instructors, and their +prayerful, trustful and unselfish endeavor met an ample +recompense.<a name="FNanchor_857_857" id="FNanchor_857_857"></a><a href="#Footnote_857_857" class="fnanchor">[857]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[Pg 404]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The Huguenots of Valence</div> + +<div class="sidenote">seize the church of the Franciscans.</div> + +<p>The course of events in many cities of Southern France is illustrated by +the occurrences at Valence, which the most authentic and trustworthy +historian of this reign has described at length. This episcopal city, +situated on the Rhône, about midway between Lyons and Avignon, had for +some time contained a small community of Huguenots. When, in order to +avoid persecution, their minister, who had become known to their +enemies, was replaced by another, a period of unexampled growth began. +The private houses in which the Protestants met were too small to +contain the worshippers. They now adjourned to the large schools, but at +first held their services by night. Soon their courage grew with the +advent of a second minister and with large accessions to their ranks. +The younger and more impetuous part of the Protestants, disregarding the +prudent counsels of their pastors and elders, ventured upon the bold +step of seizing upon the Church of the Franciscans, and caused the +Gospel to be openly preached from its pulpit. The people assembled, +summoned by the ringing of the bell; and it was not long before the +reformed doctrines were relished and embraced by great crowds. A goodly +number of armed gentlemen simultaneously took possession of the +adjoining cloisters, and protected the Protestant rites. The +co-religionists of Montélimart and Romans, considerable towns not far +distant, emboldened by the example of Valence, resorted to public +preaching in the churches or within their precincts.<a name="FNanchor_858_858" id="FNanchor_858_858"></a><a href="#Footnote_858_858" class="fnanchor">[858]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[Pg 405]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">A public assembly of citizens.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">An impressive scene.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">The public morals.</div> + +<p>On receiving the intelligence of the sudden outbreak of Protestant zeal +in his diocese, the Bishop of Valence—himself at one time possibly +half-inclined to become a convert—despatched thither the Seneschal of +Valentinois with the royal Edict of Forgiveness published at Amboise for +all who had taken arms and conspired against the king. The citizens were +summoned to a public assembly, in which the magistrates, the consuls, +the clergy, and the chief Huguenots were conspicuous. After reading and +explaining the terms of the royal clemency, the seneschal turned to the +Protestants, who stood by themselves, and demanded whether they intended +to avail themselves of its protection. Mirabel, their chief spokesman, +replied that it was the custom of the reformed churches to offer prayer +to God before treating of so important affairs as this, and proffered a +request that they be allowed to invoke His presence and blessing. +Permission was granted. A citizen of Valence, who was also a deacon of +the Reformed Church, thereupon came forward, and uttered a fervent +prayer for the prosperity of the king and his realm, and for the +progress of the Gospel. The Protestant gentlemen reverently uncovered +their heads and knelt upon the ground, and their Roman Catholic +neighbors imitated their example. But it was noticed that the clergy +stood unmoved and refused to join in the act of worship. The prayer +being ended, a Huguenot orator delivered the answer of his brethren. It +was, that they rejoiced and rendered thanks for the benignity of their +young prince; but that they could not avail themselves of the pardon +offered. They had never conspired against their king. On the contrary, +they professed a religion that enjoined the most dutiful obedience. As +for bearing arms, it had only been resorted to by the Huguenots in order +that they might protect themselves against the unauthorized insults and +violence of private persons. The citizen was followed by a <i>procureur</i>, +who, for eight years, had kept the criminal records of Valence. He bore +public testimony to a wonderful change that had come<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[Pg 406]</a></span> over the city +since the introduction of the preaching of the Gospel. The acts of +violence which formerly rendered the streets so dangerous by night that +few dared to venture out of their houses, even to visit their neighbors, +had almost disappeared. The fearful story of crime which used to +confront him every morning had been succeeded by a chronicle of quiet +and peace. It would seem that with a change of doctrine had also come a +transformation of life. The speaker challenged the other side to gainsay +his statements; and when not a voice was heard in contradiction, he +administered to the Papists a scathing rebuke for the calumnies which +some of them had forged against the Protestants behind their backs. With +this triumphant refutation of the charges of disorder, the assembly +broke up.<a name="FNanchor_859_859" id="FNanchor_859_859"></a><a href="#Footnote_859_859" class="fnanchor">[859]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The Huguenots of Dauphiny to be exterminated.</div> + +<p>The province of Dauphiny, within whose limits Valence, Romans and +Montélimart were comprehended, was a government entrusted to the Duke of +Guise. Moved with indignation at finding it become the hotbed of +Protestantism, he determined to crush the Huguenots before impunity had +given them still greater boldness. The governors of adjacent provinces +were ordered to assist in the pious undertaking. King Francis, in a +paroxysm of rage, wrote to Tavannes, acting governor of Burgundy, to +take all the men-at-arms under his command and march to the assistance +of Clermart, Lieutenant-Governor of Dauphiny, in cutting to pieces those +who had taken up arms under color of religion. They were, he heard, +three or four thousand men, and had instituted public preaching "after +the Geneva fashion," with all other insolent acts conceivable. He begged +him to punish them as they deserved, showing no pity or compassion, +since they had refused to take advantage of the forgiveness of past +offences which had been sent them. He was to <i>extirpate</i> the evil.<a name="FNanchor_860_860" id="FNanchor_860_860"></a><a href="#Footnote_860_860" class="fnanchor">[860]</a></p> + +<p>These and other equally brutal instructions were obeyed with alacrity; +but their execution was effected rather by treachery<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[Pg 407]</a></span> than by open +force. The Huguenots of Valence were first induced by promises of +security to lay aside their arms, then imprisoned and despoiled by a +party consisting of the very dregs of the population of Lyons and +Vienne. Two of the ministers were put to death<a name="FNanchor_861_861" id="FNanchor_861_861"></a><a href="#Footnote_861_861" class="fnanchor">[861]</a> in company with +three of the principal men, one being the <i>procureur</i> who had given such +noble testimony to the morals of the Protestants. More would have been +executed had not the Bishop of Valence been induced to intercede for his +episcopal city, and obtain amnesty for its citizens. Romans and +Montélimart fared little better than Valence.<a name="FNanchor_862_862" id="FNanchor_862_862"></a><a href="#Footnote_862_862" class="fnanchor">[862]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Concourse at Nismes.</div> + +<p>At Nismes, in Languedoc—destined periodically, for the next three +centuries, to be the scene of civil dissension arising from religious +intolerance—as early as in Holy Week, three Protestant ministers had +been preaching in private houses and administering baptism. On Easter +Monday a large concourse from the city and the surrounding villages +publicly passed out into the suburbs—armed, if we may believe the +cowardly Vicomte de Joyeuse, with corselets, arquebuses, and pikes—and +celebrated the Lord's Supper "after the manner of Geneva." Neither the +presidial judges nor the consuls exhibited much disposition to second +the efforts of the provincial government in suppressing these +manifestations.<a name="FNanchor_863_863" id="FNanchor_863_863"></a><a href="#Footnote_863_863" class="fnanchor">[863]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Mouvans in arms in Provence.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">His message to Guise.</div> + +<p>In Provence the commotion assumed a more military aspect, in immediate +connection with the conspiracy of Amboise. Mouvans, an able leader, +after failing in an attempt to gain admission to Aix, long maintained +himself in the open country. Keeping up a wonderful degree of discipline +in his army, he allowed his soldiers, indeed, to destroy the images in +the churches and to melt down the rich reliquaries of gold and silver, +but scrupulously required them to place the precious metal in the hands +of the local authorities. At length, forced to capitulate to the Comte +de Tende, the royal governor, he obtained the promise of security of +person and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">[Pg 408]</a></span> liberty of worship. New acts of treachery rendered his +position unsafe, and he retired to Geneva. It was thence that he +returned to the Duke of Guise, who professed to be eager to secure for +himself the services of so able a commander, a noble answer: "So long as +I know you to be an enemy of my religion and of the public peace, and to +be occupying the place of right belonging to the princes of the blood, +you may be assured you have an enemy in Mouvans, a poor gentleman, but +able to bring against you fifty thousand good servants of the King of +France, who are ready to endanger life and property in redressing the +wrongs you have inflicted on the faithful subjects of his Majesty."<a name="FNanchor_864_864" id="FNanchor_864_864"></a><a href="#Footnote_864_864" class="fnanchor">[864]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">A popular awakening.</div> + +<p>It was impossible to ignore the fact: France had awakened from the sleep +of ages. The doctrines of the Reformation were being embraced by the +masses. It was impossible to repress the impulse to confess with the +mouth<a name="FNanchor_865_865" id="FNanchor_865_865"></a><a href="#Footnote_865_865" class="fnanchor">[865]</a> what was believed in the heart. At Rouen, the earnest request +of the authorities, seconded by the prudent advice of the ministers, +might prevail upon the Protestant community still to be content with an +unostentatious and almost private worship, upon promise of connivance on +the part of the Parliament of Normandy. But Caen, St. Lô, and Dieppe +witnessed great public assemblies,<a name="FNanchor_866_866" id="FNanchor_866_866"></a><a href="#Footnote_866_866" class="fnanchor">[866]</a> and Central and Southern France +copied the exam<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">[Pg 409]</a></span>ple of Normandy. The time for secret gatherings and a +timid worship had gone by. They were no longer in question. "When cities +and almost entire provinces had embraced the faith of the reformers," a +recent historian has well remarked,<a name="FNanchor_867_867" id="FNanchor_867_867"></a><a href="#Footnote_867_867" class="fnanchor">[867]</a> "secret assemblies became an +impossibility. A whole people cannot shut themselves up in forests and +in caverns to invoke their God. From whom would they hide? From +themselves? The very idea is absurd."</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Pamphlets against the usurpers.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">The queen mother consults La Planche.</div> + +<p>The political ferment was not less active than the religious. The +pamphlets and the representations made by the emissaries of the Guises +to foreign powers, in which the movement at Amboise was branded as a +conspiracy directed against the king and the royal authority, called +forth a host of replies vindicating the <i>political</i> Huguenots, and +setting their project in its true light, as an effort to overthrow the +intolerable usurpation of the Guises. The tyrants were no match for the +patriots in the use of the pen; but it fared ill with the author or +printer of these libels, when the strenuous efforts made to discover +them proved successful.<a name="FNanchor_868_868" id="FNanchor_868_868"></a><a href="#Footnote_868_868" class="fnanchor">[868]</a> The politic Catharine de' Medici, fearing a +new and more dreadful outburst of the popular discontent, renewed her +hollow advances to the Protestant churches,<a name="FNanchor_869_869" id="FNanchor_869_869"></a><a href="#Footnote_869_869" class="fnanchor">[869]</a> held a long +consultation with Louis Re<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">[Pg 410]</a></span>gnier de la Planche (the eminent historian, +whose profoundly philosophical and exact chronicle of this short reign +leaves us only disappointed that he confined his masterly investigations +to so limited a field) respecting the grounds of the existing +dissatisfaction,<a name="FNanchor_870_870" id="FNanchor_870_870"></a><a href="#Footnote_870_870" class="fnanchor">[870]</a> and despatched Coligny to Normandy for the purpose +of finding a cure for the evil.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Edict of Romorantin, May, 1560.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">No abatement of rigor.</div> + +<p>The Guises, on the other hand, resolved to meet the difficulties of +their situation with boldness. The opposition, so far as it was +religious, must be repressed by legislation strictly enforced. +Accordingly, in the month of May, 1560, an edict was published known as +the <i>Edict of Romorantin</i>, from the place where the court was +sojourning, but remarkable for nothing save the misapprehensions that +have been entertained respecting its origin and object.<a name="FNanchor_871_871" id="FNanchor_871_871"></a><a href="#Footnote_871_871" class="fnanchor">[871]</a> It +restored<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">[Pg 411]</a></span> exclusive jurisdiction in matters of simple heresy to the +clergy, excluding the civil courts from all participation, save to +execute the sentence of the ecclesiastical judge. But it neither +lightened nor aggravated the penalties affixed by previous laws. <i>Death</i> +was still to be the fate of the convicted heretic, to whom it mattered +little whether he were tried by a secular or by a spiritual tribunal, +except that the forms of law were more likely to be observed by the +former than by the latter. A section directed against the "assemblies" +in which, under color of religion, arms were carried and the public +peace threatened, declared those who took part in them to be rebels +liable to the penalties of treason.<a name="FNanchor_872_872" id="FNanchor_872_872"></a><a href="#Footnote_872_872" class="fnanchor">[872]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Death of Chancellor Olivier.</div> + +<p>A remarkable figure now comes upon the stage of French affairs in the +person of Chancellor Michel de l'Hospital. Chancellor Olivier, who had +merited universal respect while losing office in consequence of his +steadfast resistance to injustice under the previous reign, had +forfeited the esteem of the good by his complaisance when restored to +office by the Guises at the beginning of the present reign. Overcome +with remorse for the cruelties in which he had acquiesced since his +reinstatement, he fell sick shortly after the tumult of Amboise. When +visited during his last illness by the Cardinal of Lorraine, he coldly +turned his back upon him and muttered, "Ah! Cardinal, you have caused us +all to be damned."<a name="FNanchor_873_873" id="FNanchor_873_873"></a><a href="#Footnote_873_873" class="fnanchor">[873]</a> He died not long afterward, and was buried<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412">[Pg 412]</a></span> +without regret, despised by the patriotic party on account of his +unfaithfulness to early convictions, and hated by the Guises for his +tardy condemnation of their measures.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Chancellor Michel de l'Hospital.</div> + +<p>Of L'Hospital, because raised to the vacant charge by the Lorraine +influence, little good was originally expected.<a name="FNanchor_874_874" id="FNanchor_874_874"></a><a href="#Footnote_874_874" class="fnanchor">[874]</a> But the lapse of a +few years revealed the incorruptible integrity of his character and the +sagacity of his plans.<a name="FNanchor_875_875" id="FNanchor_875_875"></a><a href="#Footnote_875_875" class="fnanchor">[875]</a> Elevated to the highest judicial post at a +critical juncture, he accepted a dignity for which he had little +ambition, only that he might the better serve his country. What he could +not remedy he resolved to make as endurable as possible. It was not +within the power of a single virtuous statesman to allay the storm and +quiet the surging waters; but by good-will, perseverance, and nerve, he +might steer the ship of state through many a narrow channel and by many +a hidden rock. An ardent lover and earnest advocate of toleration, he +yet considered it politic to consent to urge the Parliament of Paris, in +the king's name, to register the Edict of Romorantin, in accordance with +which the system of persecution was for a while to be continued. One of +the original conspirators of Amboise, according to the explicit +statement of a writer who saw his signature affixed to the secret papers +of the confederates,<a name="FNanchor_876_876" id="FNanchor_876_876"></a><a href="#Footnote_876_876" class="fnanchor">[876]</a> he made no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_413" id="Page_413">[Pg 413]</a></span> opposition to the article that +pronounced the penalties of treason upon those who assembled in arms to +celebrate the rites of religious worship. Yet he dissembled not from +timidity, treachery, or ambition, but solely that by unremitting labor +he might heal the unhappy dissensions of his country. "<i>Patience, +patience, tout ira bien</i>," were the words he always had in his mouth for +encouragement and consolation.<a name="FNanchor_877_877" id="FNanchor_877_877"></a><a href="#Footnote_877_877" class="fnanchor">[877]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Perplexity of the ruling family.</div> + +<p>As the summer advanced the perplexities of the Guises increased. Every +day there were new alarms. The English ambassador, not able to conceal +his satisfaction at the perplexity of his queen's covert enemies, wrote +to Cecil: "If I should discourse particularly unto you what these men +have done since my last letters ... you would think me as fond in +observing their doings as they mad in variable executing. But you may +see what force <i>fear</i> hath that occasioned such variety.... They be in +such security, as no man knoweth overnight where the king will lodge. +Tomorrow from all parts they have such news as doth greatly perplex +them. Every day new advertisements of new stirs, as of late again in +Dauphiny, in Anjou, in Provence; and to make up their mouths, the king +being in the skirts of Normandy, at Rouen, upon Corpus Christi Day, +there was somewhat to do about the solemn procession, so as there was +many slain in both parts. But at length the churchmen had the worse, and +for an advantage, the order is by the king commanded, that the priests +for their outrage shall be grievously punished. What judge you when the +Cardinal of Lorraine is constrained to command to punish the clergy, and +such as do find fault with others' in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_414" id="Page_414">[Pg 414]</a></span>solence, contemning the reverent +usage to the holy procession!"<a name="FNanchor_878_878" id="FNanchor_878_878"></a><a href="#Footnote_878_878" class="fnanchor">[878]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Montbrun in the Comtât Venaissin.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Universal commotion.</div> + +<p>New commotions had indeed arisen in the south-east, where Montbrun, a +nephew of Cardinal Tournon, the inquisitor-general, had entered the +small domain of the Pope, the Comtât Venaissin, as a Huguenot +leader.<a name="FNanchor_879_879" id="FNanchor_879_879"></a><a href="#Footnote_879_879" class="fnanchor">[879]</a> Condé had dexterously escaped the snares laid for him, and +had taken refuge with his brother, Navarre.<a name="FNanchor_880_880" id="FNanchor_880_880"></a><a href="#Footnote_880_880" class="fnanchor">[880]</a> Their spies reported to +the Guises a state of universal commotion; and deputies from all parts +of France rehearsed in the ears of the Bourbon princes the story of the +usurpations of the Guises and the Protestant grievances, and urged them, +by every consideration of honor and safety, to undertake to redress +them.<a name="FNanchor_881_881" id="FNanchor_881_881"></a><a href="#Footnote_881_881" class="fnanchor">[881]</a> The Guises had for some time been pressing the King of Spain +and the Pope to forward the convening of a universal council, without +which all would go to ruin.<a name="FNanchor_882_882" id="FNanchor_882_882"></a><a href="#Footnote_882_882" class="fnanchor">[882]</a> In view of the great apathy displayed +both by Philip and by Pius—perhaps, also, with the secret hope of +enticing Navarre and Condé to come within their reach<a name="FNanchor_883_883" id="FNanchor_883_883"></a><a href="#Footnote_883_883" class="fnanchor">[883]</a>—they +consented to the plan which Catharine de' Medici, at the suggestion of +L'Hospital and Coligny, now advocated, of summoning a council of +notables to devise measures for allaying the existing excitement.<a name="FNanchor_884_884" id="FNanchor_884_884"></a><a href="#Footnote_884_884" class="fnanchor">[884]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">[Pg 415]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Assembly of notables at Fontainebleau, August 21, 1560.</div> + +<p>On the twenty-first of August this celebrated assembly was convened by +royal letters in the stately palace at Fontainebleau.<a name="FNanchor_885_885" id="FNanchor_885_885"></a><a href="#Footnote_885_885" class="fnanchor">[885]</a> Antoine of +Navarre and the Prince of Condé declined, on specious pretexts, the +king's invitation. Constable Montmorency accepted it, but came with a +formidable escort of eight hundred attendants. His three nephews, the +Châtillons, followed his example, and shared his protection. At the +appointed hour a brilliant company was gathered in the spacious +apartments of the queen mother. On either side of the king's throne sat +Mary of Scots, and Catharine de' Medici, and the young princes—Charles +Maximilian, Duke of Orleans, Edward Alexander, and Hercules.<a name="FNanchor_886_886" id="FNanchor_886_886"></a><a href="#Footnote_886_886" class="fnanchor">[886]</a> Four +cardinals, in their purple—Bourbon, Lorraine, Guise, and Châtillon—sat +below. Next to these were placed the Duke of Guise, as +lieutenant-general of the kingdom; the Duke of Montmorency, as +constable; L'Hospital, as chancellor; Marshals St. André and Brissac; +Admiral Coligny; Marillac, Archbishop of Vienne; Morvilliers, Bishop of +Orleans; Montluc, Bishop of Valence; and the other members of the privy +council. In front of these, the members of the Order of St. Michael, and +the rest of the notables, occupied lower benches.<a name="FNanchor_887_887" id="FNanchor_887_887"></a><a href="#Footnote_887_887" class="fnanchor">[887]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Chancellor L'Hospital's speech.</div> + +<p>The session opened with brief speeches delivered by Francis and his +mother, setting forth the object of this extraordinary<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_416" id="Page_416">[Pg 416]</a></span> convocation, but +referring their auditors to the chancellor and to the king's uncles for +further explanations. Chancellor L'Hospital was less concise. He +entertained the assembly with a lengthy comparison of the political +malady to a bodily disease,<a name="FNanchor_888_888" id="FNanchor_888_888"></a><a href="#Footnote_888_888" class="fnanchor">[888]</a> pronouncing the cure to be easy, if +only the cause could be detected. He closed by assigning a somewhat +singular reason for summoning but two of the three orders of the state. +The presence of the <i>people</i>, he said, was in no wise necessary, +<i>inasmuch as the king's sole object was to relieve the third estate</i>. +Because, forsooth, the poor people—bowed down to the earth with taxes +and burdens, which the <i>noblesse</i> would not touch with one of their +fingers—was the party chiefly interested in the results of the present +deliberations, it was quite unessential that its complaints or requests +should be heard! The Duke of Guise and his brother, the cardinal, next +laid before the assembly an account of their administration of the army +and finances; and the first day's session ended with the pleasant +announcement that the royal revenues annually fell short of the regular +expenses by the sum—very considerable for those days—of two and +one-half millions of livres.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Coligny speaks and presents two petitions.</div> + +<p>When next the notables met, two days later, the king formally proposed a +free discussion of the subject in hand. The youngest member of the privy +council was about to speak, when Gaspard de Coligny arose, and, +advancing to the throne, twice bowed humbly to the king. By the royal +orders, he said, he had lately visited Normandy and investigated the +origin of the recent commotions. He had satisfied himself that they were +owing to no ill-will felt toward the crown; but only to the extreme and +illegal violence with which the inhabitants had been treated for +religion's sake. He had, therefore, believed it to be his duty to listen +to the requests of the persecuted, who offered to prove that their +doctrines were conformable to the Holy Scriptures and to the traditions +of the primitive church, and to take charge of the two petitions which +they had drawn up and addressed to his Majesty and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_417" id="Page_417">[Pg 417]</a></span> queen mother. +They were without signatures; for these could not be affixed without the +royal permission previously granted the reformed to assemble together. +But, with that permission, he could obtain the names of fifty thousand +persons in Normandy alone. In answer to Coligny's prayer that the king +would take his action in good part, Francis assured him that his past +fidelity was a sufficient pledge of his present zeal; and commanded +L'Aubespine, secretary of state, to read the papers which the admiral +had just placed in his hands.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">The petitions are read.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">They ask for liberty of worship.</div> + +<p>The petitions,<a name="FNanchor_889_889" id="FNanchor_889_889"></a><a href="#Footnote_889_889" class="fnanchor">[889]</a> addressed, one to the king, the other to the queen +mother, purported to come from "the faithful Christians scattered in +various parts of the kingdom." They set forth the severity of the +persecutions the Huguenots had undergone, and were yet undergoing, for +attempting to live according to the purity of God's word, and their +supreme desire to have their doctrine subjected to examination, that it +might be seen to be neither seditious nor heretical. The suppliants +begged for an intermission of the cruel measures which had stained all +France with blood. They professed an unswerving allegiance, as in duty +bound, to the king whom God had called to the throne. And of that king +they prayed that the occasion of so many calumnies, invented against +them by reason of the secret and nocturnal meetings to which they had +been driven by the prohibition of open assemblies, might be removed; and +that, with the permission to meet publicly for the celebration of divine +rites, houses for worship might also be granted to them.<a name="FNanchor_890_890" id="FNanchor_890_890"></a><a href="#Footnote_890_890" class="fnanchor">[890]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_418" id="Page_418">[Pg 418]</a></span></p> + +<p>It was a perilous step for the admiral to take. By his advocacy of +toleration he incurred liability to the extreme penalties that had been +inflicted upon others for utterances much less courageous. But the very +boldness of the movement secured his safety where more timid counsels +might have brought him ruin. Besides, it was not safe to attack so +gallant a warrior, and the nephew of the powerful constable. Yet the +audible murmurs of the opposite party announced their ill-will.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Speech of Montluc, Bishop of Valence.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">The remedy prescribed.</div> + +<p>The fearlessness of the admiral, however, kindled to a brighter flame +the courage of others. Strange as it may appear, toleration and reform +found their warmest and most uncompromising advocates on the episcopal +bench.<a name="FNanchor_891_891" id="FNanchor_891_891"></a><a href="#Footnote_891_891" class="fnanchor">[891]</a> Montluc, Bishop of Valence, drew a startling contrast +between the means that had been taken to propagate the new doctrines, +and those by which the attempt had been made to eradicate them. For +thirty years, three or four hundred ministers of irreproachable morals, +indomitable courage, and notable diligence in the study of the Holy +Scriptures, had been attracting disciples by the sweet name of Jesus +continually upon their lips, and had easily gained over a people that +were as sheep without a shepherd. Meanwhile, popes had been engrossed in +war and in sowing discord between princes; the ministers of justice had +made use of the severe enactments of the kings against heresy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_419" id="Page_419">[Pg 419]</a></span> to enrich +themselves and their friends; and bishops, instead of showing solicitude +for their flocks, had sought only to preserve their revenues. Forty +bishops might have been seen at one time congregated at Paris and +indulging in scandalous excesses, while the fire was kindling in their +dioceses.<a name="FNanchor_892_892" id="FNanchor_892_892"></a><a href="#Footnote_892_892" class="fnanchor">[892]</a> The inferior clergy, who bought their curacies at Rome, +added ignorance to avarice.<a name="FNanchor_893_893" id="FNanchor_893_893"></a><a href="#Footnote_893_893" class="fnanchor">[893]</a> The ecclesiastical office became odious +and contemptible when prelates conferred benefices on their barbers, +cooks, and footmen. What must be done to avert the just anger of God? +Let the king, in the first place, see that God's name be no longer +blasphemed as heretofore. Let God's Word be published and expounded. Let +there be daily sermons in the palace, to stop the mouths of those who +assert that, near the king, God is never spoken of. Let the singing of +psalms take the place of the foolish songs sung by the maids of the +queens; for to prohibit the singing of psalms, which the Fathers extol, +would be to give the seditious a good pretext for saying that the war +was waged not against men, but against God, inasmuch as the publication +and the hearing of His praises were not tolerated. A second remedy was +to be found in a universal council, or, if the sovereign pontiff +continued to refuse so just a demand, in a national council, to which +the most learned of the new sect should be offered safe access. As to +punishments, while the seditious, who took up arms under color of +religion, ought to be repressed, experience had taught how unavailing +was the persecution of those who embraced their views from conscientious +motives, and history<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_420" id="Page_420">[Pg 420]</a></span> showed that three hundred and eighteen bishops at +the Council of Nice, one hundred and fifty at Constantinople, and six +hundred and thirty at Chalcedon, refused to employ other weapons, +against the worst of convicted heretics, than the word of God. Montluc +closed his eloquent discourse by opposing the proposition to grant the +right of public assembly, because of the dangers to which it might lead; +but advocated a wise discrimination in the punishment of offenders, +according to their respective numbers and apparent motives.<a name="FNanchor_894_894" id="FNanchor_894_894"></a><a href="#Footnote_894_894" class="fnanchor">[894]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Address of Archbishop Marillac.</div> + +<p>The Archbishop of Vienne, the virtuous Marillac, an elegant and +effective orator, made a still more cogent speech. He regarded the +General Council as the best remedy for present dissensions; but it was +in vain to expect one, since, between the Pope, the emperor, the kings, +and the Lutherans, the right time, place, and method of holding it could +never be agreed upon by all; and France was like a man desperately ill, +whose fever admitted of no delay that a physician might be called in +from a distance. Hence, the usual resort to a national council, in spite +of the Pope's discontent, was imperative. <i>France could not afford to +die in order to please his Holiness.</i><a name="FNanchor_895_895" id="FNanchor_895_895"></a><a href="#Footnote_895_895" class="fnanchor">[895]</a> Meanwhile, the prelates must +be obliged to reside in their dioceses; nor must the Italians, those +leeches that absorbed one-third of all the benefices and an infinite +number of pensions, be exempted from the operation of the general +rule.<a name="FNanchor_896_896" id="FNanchor_896_896"></a><a href="#Footnote_896_896" class="fnanchor">[896]</a> Would paid troops be permitted thus to absent themselves from +their posts in the hour of danger? Simony must be abolished at once, as +a token of sincerity in the desire to reform the church. Otherwise +Christ would come down and drive his unworthy servants from His church, +as He once drove the money-changers from the temple. Especially must +church<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_421" id="Page_421">[Pg 421]</a></span>men repent with fasting, and take up the word of God, which is a +<i>sword</i>, "whereas, at present," said the speaker, "<i>we have only the +scabbard—in mitres and croziers, in rochets and tiaras</i>." Everything +that tended to disturb the public tranquillity, whether from seditious +leaders, or from equally seditious zealots, must be repressed.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">The States General must be called.</div> + +<p>Nor was the advice given by Marillac for securing the continued +obedience of the people less sound. He regarded the assembling of the +States General as indispensable, in view of the great debts and burdens +of the people. He warned the king's counsellors lest the people, +accustomed to have its complaints of grievances unattended to, should +begin to lose the hope of relief, and lest the proverbial promptness and +gentleness which the French nation had always shown in meeting the +king's necessities should be so badly met and so frequently offended as +at last to turn into rage and despair.<a name="FNanchor_897_897" id="FNanchor_897_897"></a><a href="#Footnote_897_897" class="fnanchor">[897]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Speech of Admiral Coligny.</div> + +<p>Such was "the learned, wise, and Christian harangue," as the chronicler +well styles it, of "an old man eloquent," whom, like another Isocrates, +"the dishonest victory" of his country's real enemies was destined to +"kill with report." The profound impression it made was deepened by the +speech of Admiral Coligny, whose turn it was, on the next day (the +twenty-fourth of August), to announce his sentiments, he declared +himself ready to pledge life and all he held most dear, that the hatred +of the people was in no wise directed against the king, but against his +ministers, whom he loudly blamed for surrounding their master with a +guard, as though he needed this protection against his loyal subjects. +Supporting the proposition of the Archbishop of Vienne for assembling +the States General, the admiral advocated, in addition, the im<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_422" id="Page_422">[Pg 422]</a></span>mediate +dismissal of the guard, in order to remove all jealousy between king and +people, and the discontinuance of persecution, until such time as a +council—general or national—might be assembled. Meanwhile, he advised +that the requests of the reformed, whose petitions he had presented, be +granted; that the Protestants be allowed to assemble for the purpose of +praying to God, hearing the preaching of His word, and celebrating the +holy sacraments. If houses of worship were given them in every place, +and the judges were instructed to see to the maintenance of the peace, +he felt confident that the kingdom would at once become quiet and the +subjects be satisfied.<a name="FNanchor_898_898" id="FNanchor_898_898"></a><a href="#Footnote_898_898" class="fnanchor">[898]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Rejoinder of the Duke of Guise.</div> + +<p>The Guises spoke on the same day. The duke made a short, but passionate +rejoinder to Coligny, and gave little or no attention to the question +proposed for deliberation. He bitterly retorted to the proposal for the +dismissal of the body-guard, by saying that it had been placed around +the king only since the discovery of the treasonable plot of Amboise, +and he indignantly maintained that a conspiracy against ministers was +only a cover for designs against their master. As for the announcement +of the admiral that he could bring fifty thousand names to his +petitions, which he construed as a personal threat, he angrily replied +that if that or a greater number of the Huguenot sect should present +themselves, the king would oppose them with a million men of his +own.<a name="FNanchor_899_899" id="FNanchor_899_899"></a><a href="#Footnote_899_899" class="fnanchor">[899]</a> The question of religion he left to be discussed by others of +more learning; but well was he assured that not all the councils of the +world would detach him from the ancient faith. The assembling of the +States he referred to the king's discretion.<a name="FNanchor_900_900" id="FNanchor_900_900"></a><a href="#Footnote_900_900" class="fnanchor">[900]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The Cardinal of Lorraine is more politic.</div> + +<p>The cardinal was more politic, and suppressed the manifestation of that +deadly hatred which, from this time forward, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_423" id="Page_423">[Pg 423]</a></span> brothers cherished +against Coligny. He declared, however, that, although the petitioners +laid claim to such loyalty, their true character was apparent from the +affair at Amboise, as well as from the daily issue of libellous +pamphlets and placards, of which he had not less than twenty-two on his +table directed against himself, which he carefully preserved as his best +eulogium and claim to immortality. He advocated the severe repression of +the seditious; yet, with a stretch of hypocrisy and mendacity uncommon +even with a Guise, he expressed himself as for his own part very sorry +that such "grievous executions" had been inflicted upon those who went +"without arms and from fear of being damned to hear preaching, or who +sang psalms, neglected the mass, or engaged in other observances of +theirs," and as being in favor of no longer inflicting such useless +punishments! Nay, he would that his life or death might be of some +service in bringing back the wanderers to the path of truth. He opposed +a council as unnecessary—it could not do otherwise than decide as its +predecessors—but consented to a convocation of the clergy for the +reformation of manners. The States General he thought might well be +gathered to see with what prudence the administration of public affairs +had been carried on.<a name="FNanchor_901_901" id="FNanchor_901_901"></a><a href="#Footnote_901_901" class="fnanchor">[901]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Results of the Assembly of Fontainebleau.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">The States General to be convened.</div> + +<p>With the Cardinal of Lorraine the discussion ended. All the knights of +the order of St. Michael acquiesced in his opinions,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_424" id="Page_424">[Pg 424]</a></span> but indulged in no +farther remarks. On the twenty-sixth of August the decision was +announced. The States General were to convene on the tenth of December, +at Meaux, or such other city as the king might hereafter prefer. A month +later (on the twentieth of January) the prelates were to come together +wherever the king might be, thence to proceed to the national, or to the +general council, if such should be held. Meanwhile, in each bailiwick +and "sénéchaussée," the three orders were to be separately assembled, in +order to prepare minutes of their grievances, and elect delegates to the +States General; and all legal proceedings and all punishment for the +matter of religion were to be suspended save in the case of those who +assembled in arms and were seditious.<a name="FNanchor_902_902" id="FNanchor_902_902"></a><a href="#Footnote_902_902" class="fnanchor">[902]</a></p> + +<p>Such was the history of this famous assembly, in which, for the first +time, the Huguenots found a voice; where views were calmly expressed +respecting toleration and the necessity of a council, which a year +before had been punished with death; where the chief persecutor of the +reformed doctrines, carried away by the current, was induced to avow +liberal principles.<a name="FNanchor_903_903" id="FNanchor_903_903"></a><a href="#Footnote_903_903" class="fnanchor">[903]</a> This was progress enough for a single year. The +enterprise of Amboise was not all in vain.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">New alarms.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Antoine and Condé summoned to court.</div> + +<p>The Assembly of Fontainebleau had not dispersed when the court was +thrown into fresh alarm. An agent of the King of Navarre, named La +Sague, was discovered almost by accident,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_425" id="Page_425">[Pg 425]</a></span> who, after delivering letters +from his master to various friends in the neighborhood of Paris, was +about to return southward with their friendly responses. He had +imprudently given a treacherous acquaintance to understand that a +formidable uprising was contemplated; and letters found upon his person +seemed to bear out the assertion. The most cruel tortures were resorted +to in order to elicit accusations against the Bourbons from suspected +persons.<a name="FNanchor_904_904" id="FNanchor_904_904"></a><a href="#Footnote_904_904" class="fnanchor">[904]</a> Among others, François de Vendôme, Vidame of Chartres, one +of the correspondents, was (on the twenty-seventh of August) thrown into +the Bastile.<a name="FNanchor_905_905" id="FNanchor_905_905"></a><a href="#Footnote_905_905" class="fnanchor">[905]</a> Three days later a messenger was despatched by the +king to Antoine of Navarre, requesting him at once to repair to the +capital, and to bring with him his brother Condé, against whom the +charge had for six months been rife, that he was the head of secret +enterprises, set on foot to disturb the peace of the realm.<a name="FNanchor_906_906" id="FNanchor_906_906"></a><a href="#Footnote_906_906" class="fnanchor">[906]</a> At the +same time an urgent request was sent to Philip the Second for +assistance.<a name="FNanchor_907_907" id="FNanchor_907_907"></a><a href="#Footnote_907_907" class="fnanchor">[907]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_426" id="Page_426">[Pg 426]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Philip adverse to a national council.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Projects to crush all heresy and its abettors.</div> + +<p>Nor was his Catholic Majesty reluctant to grant help—at least on paper. +But he accompanied his promises with advice. In particular, he sent Don +Antonio de Toledo to dissuade the French government from holding a +national council in Paris for the reformation of religion, as he +understood it was proposed to do during the coming winter. This, he +represented, would be prejudicial to their joint interests; "for, should +the French alter anything, the King of Spain would be constrained to +admit the like in all his countries." To which it was replied in +Francis's name, that "he would first assemble his three estates, and +there propone the matter to see what would be advised for the manner of +a calling a general council, not minding <i>without urgent necessity</i> to +assemble a council national." As to the Spanish help, conditioned on the +prudence of the French government, the Argus-eyed Throkmorton, who by +his paid agents could penetrate into the boudoirs of his +fellow-diplomatists and read their most cherished secrets,<a name="FNanchor_908_908" id="FNanchor_908_908"></a><a href="#Footnote_908_908" class="fnanchor">[908]</a> wrote to +Queen Elizabeth that a gentleman had reported to him that he had seen +"at the Pope's nuncio's hands a letter from the nuncio in Spain, wherein +the aids were promised, and that the King of Spain had written to the +French king that he would not only help him to suppress all heresy, +trouble, and rebellion in France, but also join him to cause all such +others as will not submit to the See Apostolic to come to order." In +fact, Throkmorton was enabled to say just how many men were to come from +Flanders, and how many from Spain, and how many were to enter by way of +Narbonne, and how many by way of Navarre.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_427" id="Page_427">[Pg 427]</a></span> Quick work was to be made of +schism, heresy, and rebellion in France. "This done, and the parties for +religion clean overthrown," added the ambassador, "these princes have +already accorded to convert their power towards England and Geneva, +which they take to be the occasioners and causers of all their +troubles."<a name="FNanchor_909_909" id="FNanchor_909_909"></a><a href="#Footnote_909_909" class="fnanchor">[909]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Navarre's irresolution embarrasses Montbrun.</div> + +<p>The King of Navarre had, even before the receipt of the royal summons, +discovered the mistake he had committed in not listening to the counsel, +and copying the example of the constable, who had come to Fontainebleau +well attended by retainers. Unhappily, the irresolution into which he +now fell led to the loss of a capital opportunity. The levies ordered by +Francis in Dauphiny, for the purpose of assisting the papal legate in +expelling Montbrun from the "Comtât," enabled the Sieur de Maligny to +collect a large Huguenot force without attracting notice. It had been +arranged that these troops should be first employed in seizing the +important city of Lyons for the King of Navarre. A part of the Huguenot +soldiers had, indeed, already been secretly introduced into the +city,<a name="FNanchor_910_910" id="FNanchor_910_910"></a><a href="#Footnote_910_910" class="fnanchor">[910]</a> when letters were received from the irresolute Antoine +indefinitely postponing the undertaking. After having for several days +deliberated respecting his best course of conduct in these unforeseen +circumstances, Maligny decided to withdraw as quietly as he had come; +but a porter, who had caught a glimpse of the arms collected in one of +the places of rendezvous, informed the commandant of the city. In the +street engagement which ensued the Huguenots were successful, and for +several hours held possession of the city from the Rhône to the Saône. +Finding it impossible, however, to collect the whole force to carry out +his original design, Maligny retired under cover of the night, and was +so fortunate as to suffer little loss.<a name="FNanchor_911_911" id="FNanchor_911_911"></a><a href="#Footnote_911_911" class="fnanchor">[911]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_428" id="Page_428">[Pg 428]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The <i>people</i> not discouraged.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">"The fashion of Geneva."</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Books from Geneva destroyed.</div> + +<p>Maligny's failure disconcerted Montbrun and Mouvans, with whom he had +intended to co-operate, but had little effect in repressing the courage +of the Huguenot <i>people</i>. Of this the royal despatches are the best +evidence. Francis wrote to Marshal de Termes that since the Assembly of +Fontainebleau there had been public and armed gatherings <i>in an infinite +number of places</i>, where previously there had been only secret meetings. +In Périgord, Agenois, and Limousin, <i>an infinite number</i> of scandalous +acts were daily committed by the seditious, who in most places <i>lived +after the fashion of Geneva</i>. Such <i>canaille</i> must be "wiped out."<a name="FNanchor_912_912" id="FNanchor_912_912"></a><a href="#Footnote_912_912" class="fnanchor">[912]</a> +A month later those pestilent "books from Geneva" turn up again. Count +de Villars, acting for Constable Montmorency in his province of +Languedoc, had burned two mule-loads of very handsomely bound volumes, +much to the regret of many of the Catholic troopers, who grudged the +devouring flames a sacrifice worth more than a thousand crowns.<a name="FNanchor_913_913" id="FNanchor_913_913"></a><a href="#Footnote_913_913" class="fnanchor">[913]</a> But +he quickly followed up the chronicle of this valiant action with a +complaint of his impotence to reduce the sectaries to submission. The +Huguenots of Nismes had taken courage, and guarded their gates. So, or +even worse, was it of Montpellier<a name="FNanchor_914_914" id="FNanchor_914_914"></a><a href="#Footnote_914_914" class="fnanchor">[914]</a> and Pézénas. Other cities were +about to follow their example.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_429" id="Page_429">[Pg 429]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Fifteen cities in one province receive ministers.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">The children learn religion in the Geneva catechism.</div> + +<p>These were but the beginnings of evil. Three days passed, and the +Lieutenant-Governor of Languedoc sent a special messenger to the king, +to inform him of the rapid progress of the contagion. Fifteen of the +most considerable cities of the province had openly received +ministers.<a name="FNanchor_915_915" id="FNanchor_915_915"></a><a href="#Footnote_915_915" class="fnanchor">[915]</a> Ten thousand foot and five hundred horse would be needed +to reduce them, and, when taken, they must be held by garrisons, and +punished by loss of their municipal privileges.<a name="FNanchor_916_916" id="FNanchor_916_916"></a><a href="#Footnote_916_916" class="fnanchor">[916]</a> A fortnight more +elapsed. Three or four thousand inhabitants of Nismes had retired in +arms to the neighboring Cevennes.<a name="FNanchor_917_917" id="FNanchor_917_917"></a><a href="#Footnote_917_917" class="fnanchor">[917]</a> When they descended into the +plain, a larger number, who had submitted on the approach of the +soldiery, would unite with them and form a considerable army. "Heresy, +alas, gains ground daily," despondingly writes Villars; "<i>the children +learn religion only in the catechism brought from Geneva; all know it by +heart</i>." The cause of the evil he seemed to find in the +circumstance—undoubtedly favorable to the Huguenots—that, of +twenty-two bishops whose dioceses lay in Languedoc, all but five or six +were non-residents.<a name="FNanchor_918_918" id="FNanchor_918_918"></a><a href="#Footnote_918_918" class="fnanchor">[918]</a></p> + +<p>To all which lamentations the answer came back after the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_430" id="Page_430">[Pg 430]</a></span> accustomed +fashion: "Slay, hang without respect to the forms of law; send lesser +culprits, if preferable, to the galleys."<a name="FNanchor_919_919" id="FNanchor_919_919"></a><a href="#Footnote_919_919" class="fnanchor">[919]</a></p> + +<p>In Normandy, too, it began to be impossible for the Huguenots to conceal +themselves. At Rouen, in spite of the severe penalties threatened, seven +thousand persons gathered in the new market-place, on the twenty-sixth +of August, "singing psalms, and with their preacher in the midst on a +chair preaching to them," while five hundred men with arquebuses stood +around the crowd "to guard them from the Papists." A few days before, at +the opening of the great fair of Jumièges, a friar, according to custom, +undertook to deliver a sermon; but the people, not liking his doctrine, +"pulled him out of the pulpit and placed another in his place."<a name="FNanchor_920_920" id="FNanchor_920_920"></a><a href="#Footnote_920_920" class="fnanchor">[920]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Elections for the States General.</div> + +<p>Nor was the courage of the Huguenots less clearly manifested a little +later in the elections preparatory to the holding of the States General. +In spite of strict injunctions issued by the Cardinal of Lorraine to the +officers in each bailiwick and sénéchaussée, to prevent the debate of +grievances from touching upon the authority of the Guises or that of the +Church, and especially to defeat the election of any but undoubted +friends of the Roman Church, his friends were successful in neither +attempt. The voice of the oppressed people made itself heard in +thunder-tones at Blois, at Angers,<a name="FNanchor_921_921" id="FNanchor_921_921"></a><a href="#Footnote_921_921" class="fnanchor">[921]</a> and elsewhere. Even in +Paris—the stronghold of the Roman faith—the reformed ventured, in face +of a vast numerical majority against them, to urge in the Hôtel-de-Ville +the insertion of their remonstrances in the "cahiers" of the city. Of +thirteen provinces, ten addressed such complaints to the States +General.<a name="FNanchor_922_922" id="FNanchor_922_922"></a><a href="#Footnote_922_922" class="fnanchor">[922]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Clerical demands at Poitiers.</div> + +<p>But the clerical order did not forget its old demands, even where the +Tiers État leaned to toleration. The provincial<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_431" id="Page_431">[Pg 431]</a></span> estates of Poitou, +meeting in the Dominican convent of Poitiers, presented a contrast of +this kind. The delegates of the people, after listening to the eloquent +appeal of an intrepid Huguenot pastor, determined to petition the States +General for the free exercise of the reformed religion. The +representatives of the church made its complaints regarding the +"ravishing wolves, false preachers, and their adherents, who are to-day +in so great numbers that there are not so many true sheep knowing the +voice of their shepherds." The "mild and holy admonitions" of the church +having been thrown away upon these reprobates, the clergy proposed to +open a register of all that should neglect to receive the sacrament at +Easter, and to attend the church services with regularity. And it made +the modest demand that all persons honored with an entry in this book +should, as heretics, be deprived of all right to make contracts, that +their wills be declared hull and void, and that all their property—in +particular all houses in which preaching had been held—be confiscated. +Of course, the aid of the secular arm was invoked, in view of "the great +number and power of the said heretics."<a name="FNanchor_923_923" id="FNanchor_923_923"></a><a href="#Footnote_923_923" class="fnanchor">[923]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Theodore Beza invited to Nérac.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Jeanne d'Albret.</div> + +<p>On the twentieth of July, at the urgent request of the King and Queen of +Navarre, the "Venerable Company of the Pastors of Geneva" had sent the +eloquent Theodore Beza to Gascony "to instruct" the royal family in the +word of God.<a name="FNanchor_924_924" id="FNanchor_924_924"></a><a href="#Footnote_924_924" class="fnanchor">[924]</a> In the dress of a nobleman he had traversed France and +reached Nérac in safety. Here he at once exercised a powerful influence +upon the king. The fickle mind of Antoine was susceptible of no deep +impressions; but it was very easily affected for the time. His queen, +Jeanne d'Albret, was his very opposite in mental and moral constitution. +Whereas the very first blast threw him into a fervor of enthusiastic +devotion to the purer faith, the heart of the queen—a woman not made to +be led, but to lead—yielded slowly to the melting influences of the +Gospel. But it never lost its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_432" id="Page_432">[Pg 432]</a></span> glow. Jeanne came very reluctantly to the +determination to cast in her lot with the Reformation. She hesitated to +risk the loss of her possessions, and regretted to abandon the +attractions of the world. When, however, the decision was once made, the +question was never reopened for fresh deliberation.<a name="FNanchor_925_925" id="FNanchor_925_925"></a><a href="#Footnote_925_925" class="fnanchor">[925]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Antoine's short-lived zeal.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">New pressure upon Navarre and Condé.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Navarre's concessions.</div> + +<p>At this time, Antoine, we are told, renounced the mass, and was supposed +to think, as he certainly spoke, of nothing but the means of advancing +the cause in which he had embarked. Beza preached before him in one of +the churches, and all signs pointed to the rapid establishment of the +Reformation on a firm basis. The eloquent orator added his persuasion to +the entreaties of the representatives of the Protestant churches of +France and the exhortations of Constable Montmorency. All had urged +Antoine to make his appearance at Fontainebleau with a powerful escort. +We have seen the ill-success with which the joint effort was attended. +The spies whom the Guises kept in pay around the King of Navarre, in the +persons of his most intimate advisers, deterred him from a movement +which they portrayed as fraught with peril. A few days after the +conclusion of the assembly came the king's summons. To this Antoine at +first replied that, if the accusers of his brother, of whose innocence +he was fully persuaded, would declare themselves, and if he were assured +that impartial justice would be shown, he would come to the court in +company with few attendants. Condé wrote, at the same time, and +expressed perfect confidence in his ability to disprove all the +allegations against him, provided a safe access to the court was +afforded him. On this point the suspicions of the Bourbon princes were +soon set at rest by new letters from the king and his mother, assuring +them that they would find not only security, but an opportunity to +refute charges which Francis and Catharine professed themselves +unwilling to credit.<a name="FNanchor_926_926" id="FNanchor_926_926"></a><a href="#Footnote_926_926" class="fnanchor">[926]</a> To these reassuring words were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_433" id="Page_433">[Pg 433]</a></span> joined the +solicitations of their own brother, the shallow Cardinal of +Bourbon,<a name="FNanchor_927_927" id="FNanchor_927_927"></a><a href="#Footnote_927_927" class="fnanchor">[927]</a> and of the Cardinal of Armagnac. The princes, already +discouraged by tidings of the failure of the projects of Montbrun, +Mouvans and Maligny in the east, lent too ready an ear to these +suggestions. The first open manifestation of weakness was when the King +and Queen of Navarre, with their son, young Prince Henry of Béarn, +consented to hear mass in the presence of many of their courtiers. But +the extent of Antoine's concessions was, for a time, kept concealed from +his followers. At the very moment when Beza was diligently visiting the +well affected nobles, and urging them to lend prompt assistance, the +Guises were exulting, with joy mingled with fear, over the promise given +by Antoine to the Count of Crussol, that he would come, with an +insignificant escort to Orleans, whither Francis had advanced. The +tidings appeared too good to be true.<a name="FNanchor_928_928" id="FNanchor_928_928"></a><a href="#Footnote_928_928" class="fnanchor">[928]</a> For, although the French king +had received assurances of assistance from Philip—who was reported by +the French envoy at Toledo to be favorable to the exercise of any +severity against the Bourbon princes,<a name="FNanchor_929_929" id="FNanchor_929_929"></a><a href="#Footnote_929_929" class="fnanchor">[929]</a> so great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_434" id="Page_434">[Pg 434]</a></span> was his personal +enmity toward them—yet the same ambassador had not failed to inform +Charles that the troops ostensibly prepared for a French campaign were +really intended for Italy and to make good the Spanish monarch's losses +in Africa. On the other hand, unless Philip could send six hundred +thousand or seven hundred thousand crowns to Flanders to pay arrearages +and debts, he could not move a soldier across the lines from that +quarter.<a name="FNanchor_930_930" id="FNanchor_930_930"></a><a href="#Footnote_930_930" class="fnanchor">[930]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The Huguenot gentry offer him aid.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">He dismisses his escort.</div> + +<p>The strictest orders had been given to the commandants of important +points, such as Bordeaux and Poitiers, through which Antoine might +intend passing, to guard them against him, in case of his showing any +inclination to come otherwise than peaceably.<a name="FNanchor_931_931" id="FNanchor_931_931"></a><a href="#Footnote_931_931" class="fnanchor">[931]</a> These precautions, +however, proved unnecessary. Antoine intended to abide by his +engagement. When by slow stages he had at length reached Limoges, he +found a number of friendly noblemen awaiting him. In a few days more +seven or eight hundred gentlemen had come in, well equipped and armed. +They begged him at once to declare for the liberation of France, +according to his previous promises. The nobility, they said, were only +waiting for the word of command. Meanwhile Gascony, Poitou, and the +coasts offered six or seven thousand foot soldiers, already enrolled +under captains, and prepared to defend him against present attack. +Provence and Languedoc would march to his assistance with three or four +thousand horse and foot. Normandy would raise as many more. He would at +once become so formidable that, without a blow, he could assume the +guardianship of the king. Bourges and Orleans would fall into his hands, +and the States General be held free of constraint. The very forces of +the enemy would desert the sinking cause of the hated Guises. As for the +necessary funds, with the best filled purses in France at his command, +he could scarcely feel any lack. The suggestions of the Huguenot lords, +backed by the entreaties of Beza, were,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_435" id="Page_435">[Pg 435]</a></span> however, overborne by the +secret insinuations of his treacherous counsellors. At Verteuil—a few +leagues beyond—Navarre clearly announced his intentions, and dismissed +his numerous friends with hearty thanks for their kind attentions. He +would ask the king's pardon for those who had accompanied him thus far +in arms. "Pardon!" replied one of the gentlemen, "think only of very +humbly asking it for yourself, who are going to give yourself up as a +prisoner with the halter around your neck. So far as I can see, you have +more need of it than we have, who have determined not to sell our lives +at so cheap a rate, but to die fighting rather than submit to the mercy +of those detested enemies of the king. And since we are miserably +forsaken by our leaders, we hope that God will raise up others to free +us from the oppression of these tyrants."<a name="FNanchor_932_932" id="FNanchor_932_932"></a><a href="#Footnote_932_932" class="fnanchor">[932]</a> This retort proving +futile, as did also the warning of the Princess of Condé, who wrote and +sent a messenger to her husband to escape from the toils of his enemies +while it was still possible, the Huguenot gentry retired in disgust; and +Beza seized the first opportunity (on the seventeenth of October) to +steal away from the King of Navarre, and undertake his perilous return +to Geneva, which he succeeded in reaching after a series of hair-breadth +escapes.<a name="FNanchor_933_933" id="FNanchor_933_933"></a><a href="#Footnote_933_933" class="fnanchor">[933]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Infatuation of the Bourbons.</div> + +<p>The King of Navarre had disregarded the counsels of Calvin and other +prudent advisers, who believed that, if he presented himself with a +powerful escort at the gates of Orleans, the Guises would yield without +a blow.<a name="FNanchor_934_934" id="FNanchor_934_934"></a><a href="#Footnote_934_934" class="fnanchor">[934]</a> Antoine felt confident that his enemies would never venture +to lay hands on a prince of the royal blood. His blind infatuation +seemed to infect Condé also. Their presumption was somewhat shaken when +the royal governor of Poitiers forbade<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_436" id="Page_436">[Pg 436]</a></span> their entrance into that city. +But the depth of the ruin into which they had plunged was more clearly +revealed to their eyes as they began to approach Orleans. Friendly +voices whispered the existence of a plan for their destruction; friendly +hands offered to effect their escape to Angers, and thence into +Normandy.<a name="FNanchor_935_935" id="FNanchor_935_935"></a><a href="#Footnote_935_935" class="fnanchor">[935]</a> But the die was cast. Hostile troops enveloped them, and +they resolved to continue their journey.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">They reach Orleans.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Condé arrested.</div> + +<p>Navarre had figured upon the journey much as a provost-marshal leading +his brother to prison.<a name="FNanchor_936_936" id="FNanchor_936_936"></a><a href="#Footnote_936_936" class="fnanchor">[936]</a> Now the imaginary resemblance was turned +into a sad reality. On Thursday, the thirty-first of October, the +Bourbons reached Orleans.<a name="FNanchor_937_937" id="FNanchor_937_937"></a><a href="#Footnote_937_937" class="fnanchor">[937]</a> Their reception soon convinced them that +they had placed their heads in the jaws of the lion. None of the +courtiers save the cardinal, their brother, and La Roche-sur-Yon, their +cousin, deigned to do them honor. That very day, after a few angry +accusations from Francis, and a courageous vindication of his conduct by +the chivalrous prince, Condé was arrested in the king's presence and by +his order.<a name="FNanchor_938_938" id="FNanchor_938_938"></a><a href="#Footnote_938_938" class="fnanchor">[938]</a> The King of Navarre also was, indeed, little better than +a prisoner, so closely did he find himself watched.<a name="FNanchor_939_939" id="FNanchor_939_939"></a><a href="#Footnote_939_939" class="fnanchor">[939]</a> In vain did +Navarre remonstrate and plead the royal promise of security, offering +himself to become a surety for his brother; the king denied redress. +Then it was that Condé turned to the Cardinal of Bourbon, one of the few +that had come to do him honor and said: "Sir, by your assurances you +have delivered up your own<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_437" id="Page_437">[Pg 437]</a></span> brother to death."<a name="FNanchor_940_940" id="FNanchor_940_940"></a><a href="#Footnote_940_940" class="fnanchor">[940]</a> Others shared in +Condé's misfortune. Madame de Roye, his mother-in-law and a sister of +Admiral Coligny, was brought a prisoner to St. Germain, and a careful +search was made among her papers and elsewhere for the purpose of +obtaining proofs of Condé's guilt.<a name="FNanchor_941_941" id="FNanchor_941_941"></a><a href="#Footnote_941_941" class="fnanchor">[941]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Return of Renée of Ferrara.</div> + +<p>It was at this inauspicious moment that a distinguished princess reached +Orleans, after an absence of thirty-two years from her native land, and +was received with marked honors by the king and all the court, who went +out to meet her and escort her to the city.<a name="FNanchor_942_942" id="FNanchor_942_942"></a><a href="#Footnote_942_942" class="fnanchor">[942]</a> This was the celebrated +Renée, younger daughter of Louis the Twelfth, and widow of Ercole, Duke +of Ferrara, now returning, after the death of her husband, to spend her +declining years at her retreat of Montargis on the Loing. The scene +which she beheld awakened in her breast regret and indignation which she +was not slow in expressing. To the Duke of Guise, who had married her +daughter, Anne d'Este, she administered a severe rebuke. "Had I been +present," she said, "I would have prevented this ill-advised step. It is +no trifling matter to treat a prince of the blood in such a manner. The +wound is one that will long bleed; for no man has ever yet attacked the +blood of France but he has had reason to regret it."<a name="FNanchor_943_943" id="FNanchor_943_943"></a><a href="#Footnote_943_943" class="fnanchor">[943]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Condé's courage.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">His wife repulsed.</div> + +<p>The courage of the imprisoned prince rose with his misfortunes. The +house in which he was incarcerated was flanked by a tower whose +embrasures commanded the approach, the windows were newly barred, and +the door was half-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_438" id="Page_438">[Pg 438]</a></span>walled up to preclude the possibility of escape.<a name="FNanchor_944_944" id="FNanchor_944_944"></a><a href="#Footnote_944_944" class="fnanchor">[944]</a> +But Prince Louis stoutly maintained that it was not <i>he</i> that was a +captive, since, though his body was confined, his spirit was free and +his conscience clean and guiltless; but rather <i>they</i> were prisoners, +who, with the freedom of their body, felt their conscience to be +enslaved and harassed by a ceaseless recollection of their crimes.<a name="FNanchor_945_945" id="FNanchor_945_945"></a><a href="#Footnote_945_945" class="fnanchor">[945]</a> +His wife, the virtuous Éléonore de Roye, fruitlessly applied for +admission in order to minister to his wants. She was rudely repulsed by +the king, at whose feet she had thrown herself in a flood of tears, with +the bitter remark that her husband was his mortal enemy, who had +conspired not only to obtain his crown, but his life also, and that he +could do no less than avenge himself upon him.<a name="FNanchor_946_946" id="FNanchor_946_946"></a><a href="#Footnote_946_946" class="fnanchor">[946]</a> It was only by +special effort that the few who dared avow themselves friends of the +disgraced Bourbons, succeeded in obtaining for Condé legal counsel, and +that these were allowed to hold brief interviews with the prince in the +presence of two officers of the crown.<a name="FNanchor_947_947" id="FNanchor_947_947"></a><a href="#Footnote_947_947" class="fnanchor">[947]</a> No others were admitted, +save a pretended friend, to sound his disposition toward the Guises. +Comprehending the motive of his visit, Condé begged him to inform those +who had sent him, "that he had received so many outrages at their hands +that there remained no path of reconciliation, save at the point of the +sword; and that, although he seemed to be at their mercy, he still had +confidence that God would avenge the injury done by them to a prince who +had come at the command and relying on the word of his king, but had +been shamefully imprisoned at their suggestion, in order to make in him +a beginning of the destruction of the royal blood."<a name="FNanchor_948_948" id="FNanchor_948_948"></a><a href="#Footnote_948_948" class="fnanchor">[948]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Condé tried by a commission.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">He is found guilty and sentenced to be beheaded.</div> + +<p>A commission, consisting of Chancellor L'Hospital, President De Thou, +Counsellors Faye and Viole, and a few others, was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_439" id="Page_439">[Pg 439]</a></span> appointed, on the +thirteenth of November, to conduct the trial. Condé refused to plead +before them, taking refuge in his privilege, as a prince, to be tried +only before the king and by his peers.<a name="FNanchor_949_949" id="FNanchor_949_949"></a><a href="#Footnote_949_949" class="fnanchor">[949]</a> His appeals, however, were +rejected by the privy council, and he was commanded, in the king's name, +to answer, under pain of being held a traitor. In view of the known +desire and intention of the king and his chief advisers, the trial was +likely to be expeditious and not over-scrupulous.<a name="FNanchor_950_950" id="FNanchor_950_950"></a><a href="#Footnote_950_950" class="fnanchor">[950]</a> The most innocent +expressions of disapproval of the violent executions at Amboise were +perverted into open approval of a plot against the king. The prosecution +sought to establish the heresy of the prince, in order to furnish some +ground for finding him guilty of treason against Divine as well as royal +authority. Nor was this difficult. A priest, in full officiating +vestments, was introduced, as by royal command, to say mass in Condé's +presence. But the young Bourbon drove him out with rough words, +declaring "that he had come to his Majesty with no intention of holding +any communion with the impieties and defilements of the Roman +Antichrist, but solely to relieve himself of the false accusations that +had been made against him."<a name="FNanchor_951_951" id="FNanchor_951_951"></a><a href="#Footnote_951_951" class="fnanchor">[951]</a> Before so partial a court the trial +could have but one issue. Condé was found guilty, and condemned to be +beheaded on a scaffold erected before the king's temporary residence, at +the opening<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_440" id="Page_440">[Pg 440]</a></span> of the States General.<a name="FNanchor_952_952" id="FNanchor_952_952"></a><a href="#Footnote_952_952" class="fnanchor">[952]</a> The sentence was signed not +only by the judges to whom the investigation had been entrusted, but by +members of the privy council, by the members of the Order of St. +Michael, and by a large number of less important dignitaries, without +even a formal examination into the merits of the case—so anxious were +the Guises to involve as many influential persons as possible in the +same responsibility with themselves. Of the privy councillors, Du +Mortier and Chancellor de l'Hospital alone refused to append their +signatures without a longer term for reflection, and endeavored to ward +off the blow by procrastination.<a name="FNanchor_953_953" id="FNanchor_953_953"></a><a href="#Footnote_953_953" class="fnanchor">[953]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Danger of the King of Navarre.</div> + +<p>Navarre was himself in almost equal danger. An attempt to poison him was +frustrated by its timely revelation; a plot to assassinate him on +leaving the king's residence, by the strength of his body-guard. A still +more atrocious scheme was concocted. Francis was to stab his cousin of +Navarre with his dagger, leaving his attendants to despatch him with +their swords. Such murderous projects can rarely be kept secret. Even +Catharine de' Medici is said to have attempted to dissuade Antoine from +going to the palace by warning him of the danger he would incur. At the +door of the king's chamber a friendly hand interposed, and a friendly +voice asked: "Sire, whither are you going to your ruin?" But the prince, +with a resolution which it had been well had he manifested at an earlier +period, paused only a moment to say to his faithful Renty: "I am going +to the spot where a conspiracy has been entered into to take my life.... +If it please God, He will save me; but, if I die, I entreat you, by the +fidelity I have ever known in you, ... to carry the shirt I wear, all +covered with blood, to my wife and son, and to conjure my wife, by the +great love she has always borne me,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_441" id="Page_441">[Pg 441]</a></span> and by her duty (since my son is +not yet old enough to avenge my death), to send it, torn by the dagger, +and bloody, to the foreign princes of Christendom, that they may avenge +my death, so cruel and treacherous."<a name="FNanchor_954_954" id="FNanchor_954_954"></a><a href="#Footnote_954_954" class="fnanchor">[954]</a> These gloomy forebodings were +not destined to be realized. Francis's anger evaporated in words, or was +restrained by his mother's secret injunctions,<a name="FNanchor_955_955" id="FNanchor_955_955"></a><a href="#Footnote_955_955" class="fnanchor">[955]</a> and Antoine of +Navarre was suffered to go away unharmed. The duke and cardinal, who +witnessed the scene from the recess of a window, are said to have +muttered half audibly as they left the room, "That is the most cowardly +heart that ever was!"<a name="FNanchor_956_956" id="FNanchor_956_956"></a><a href="#Footnote_956_956" class="fnanchor">[956]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">A plot for the utter destruction of the Huguenots.</div> + +<p>The assassination of the King of Navarre was, however, but a part of a +larger plot for the utter destruction of the Huguenots and of +Protestantism in France, the details of which are but imperfectly +known.<a name="FNanchor_957_957" id="FNanchor_957_957"></a><a href="#Footnote_957_957" class="fnanchor">[957]</a> It is alleged that preliminary lists of those infected by +heresy had been obtained from all parts of France, and that a more exact +knowledge was to be obtained by compelling all classes—from the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_442" id="Page_442">[Pg 442]</a></span> +nobility and members of the Order of St. Michael down to the simple +citizen—to subscribe to the articles of faith drawn up eighteen years +before by the Sorbonne.<a name="FNanchor_958_958" id="FNanchor_958_958"></a><a href="#Footnote_958_958" class="fnanchor">[958]</a> At the close of the sessions of the States +General, the full forces at the command of the court were to be set on +foot, and four armies, under the Duke of Aumale and Marshals St. André, +Brissac, and Termes, were to serve as the instruments of destruction. +Termes was to effect a junction with a Spanish force entering France +through Béarn; and the Governor of Bayonne was instructed to surrender +that important city into the hands of Philip. The expenses of the +crusade were to be defrayed by the clergy, who, from cardinal down to +chaplain, were to retain of their income only the amount necessary for +their bare subsistence.<a name="FNanchor_959_959" id="FNanchor_959_959"></a><a href="#Footnote_959_959" class="fnanchor">[959]</a> The recent publication of the Pope's bull, +renewing the Council of Trent, meanwhile served as a good excuse for +forbidding the discussion of religious questions by the States General, +then about to meet, by the king's direction, at Orleans instead of +Meaux.<a name="FNanchor_960_960" id="FNanchor_960_960"></a><a href="#Footnote_960_960" class="fnanchor">[960]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Illness of the king.</div> + +<p>The moment for the execution of this widespread plan of destruction was +approaching, when its devisers were startled by the sudden discovery +that the health of their nephew, the king, was fast failing. Francis's +constitution, always frail, and now still further undermined, was giving +way in connection with a gathering in the ear, which resisted the +efforts of the most skilful physicians.<a name="FNanchor_961_961" id="FNanchor_961_961"></a><a href="#Footnote_961_961" class="fnanchor">[961]</a> "This King," wrote the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_443" id="Page_443">[Pg 443]</a></span> +English ambassador, on the twenty-first of November, giving to his +fellow-envoy at Madrid the first intimation of Francis's illness, +"thought to have removed hence for a fortnight, but the day before his +intended journey he felt himself somewhat evil disposed of his body, +with a pain in his head and one of his ears, which hath stayed his +removing from hence."<a name="FNanchor_962_962" id="FNanchor_962_962"></a><a href="#Footnote_962_962" class="fnanchor">[962]</a> But the rapid progress of the disease soon +made it clear that the trip to Chenonceau, "the queen's house," whence +the king "was not to return hither until the Estates are assembled," +would never be taken by Francis. The sceptre must pass into other hands +even more feeble than his.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">The queen mother rejects the advances of the Guises,</div> + +<div class="sidenote">and makes terms with Navarre.</div> + +<p>The Guises in consternation proposed to Catharine to hasten the death of +Navarre and Condé,<a name="FNanchor_963_963" id="FNanchor_963_963"></a><a href="#Footnote_963_963" class="fnanchor">[963]</a> and perhaps to put into immediate execution +their ulterior projects. But Catharine de' Medici little relished an +increased dependence<a name="FNanchor_964_964" id="FNanchor_964_964"></a><a href="#Footnote_964_964" class="fnanchor">[964]</a> upon a family she had good reason to distrust. +Instead of accepting the advances of the Guises, she hastened to make +terms with the King of Navarre. In an interview with that weak prince, a +compact was made which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_444" id="Page_444">[Pg 444]</a></span> proved the source of untold evils. He had been +forewarned by ladies in Catharine's interest, as he valued his life, to +oppose none of her demands; but the wily Florentine scarcely expected so +easy a triumph as she obtained. To the amazement of friend and foe, +Antoine de Bourbon ceded his right to the regency, without a struggle, +to the queen mother, a foreigner and not of royal blood. For himself he +merely retained the first place under her, as lieutenant-general of the +kingdom. He even consented to be reconciled to his cousins of Guise, +and, after publicly embracing them, promised to forget all past grounds +of quarrel.<a name="FNanchor_965_965" id="FNanchor_965_965"></a><a href="#Footnote_965_965" class="fnanchor">[965]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Death of Francis II., Dec. 5, 1560.</div> + +<p>The vows which Francis made "to God and to all the saints of paradise, +male and female, and particularly to Notre-Dame-de-Cléry, that, if they +should grant him restoration of health, he would never cease until he +had wholly purged the kingdom of those wicked heretics,"<a name="FNanchor_966_966" id="FNanchor_966_966"></a><a href="#Footnote_966_966" class="fnanchor">[966]</a> proved +unavailing. On the fifth of December, 1560, he died in the eighteenth +year of his age and the seventeenth month of his reign. "God, who +pierced the eye of the father, had now stricken the ear of the +son."<a name="FNanchor_967_967" id="FNanchor_967_967"></a><a href="#Footnote_967_967" class="fnanchor">[967]</a></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<div class="blockquot"><div class="sidenote">"Epître au Tigre de la Prance."</div> + +<p>The most annoying of the anonymous pamphlets against the Guises was +a letter bearing the significant direction: <i>Au Tigre de la +France</i>. Under this bloodthirsty designation every one knew that +the Cardinal of Lorraine alone<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_445" id="Page_445">[Pg 445]</a></span> could be meant, and the style of +the production showed that a master-hand in literature had been +concerned in the composition. The Guises were furious, but it was +impossible to discover the author or publisher of the libel. Both +succeeded admirably in preserving their incognito. Yet, as victims +were wanted to appease the anger of the ruling family, two unhappy +men expiated by their death a crime of which they were confessedly +innocent. The incident, which comes down to us attested not only by +the best of contemporary historians, but by the records of the +courts, recently brought to light, may serve to illustrate the +prevalent corruption of the judges and the occasional whimsical +application of the so-called justice wherein they were given to +indulging. Diligent search on the part of the friends of the Guises +led to the detection of only a single copy of the "Tigre," and this +was found in the house of one Martin Lhomme, or Lhommet, a printer +by trade, and miserably poor. There was no evidence at all that he +had had any part in printing or publishing it. None the less did +the judges of parliament, and particularly M. Du Lyon, to whom the +case was specially confided, prosecute the trial with relentless +ardor. On the 15th of July, the unfortunate Lhomme, after having +been subjected to torture to extract information respecting his +supposed accomplices, was publicly hung on a gibbet on the Place +Maubert, in Paris. The well-informed Regnier de La Planche (p. 313) +is our authority for the statement that Du Lyon having, at a +supper, a few days later, been called to account for the iniquity +of his decision, made no attempt to defend it, but exclaimed: "Que +voulez-vous? We had to satisfy Monsieur le Cardinal with something, +since we had failed to catch the author; for otherwise he would +never have given us any peace (il ne nous eust jamais donné +relasche)." Still more unreasonable was the infliction of the +death-penalty upon Robert Dehors, a merchant of Rouen, who had +chanced to ride into Paris just as Lhomme was being led to +execution. Booted as he still was, he became a witness of the +brutality with which the crowd followed the poor printer, and +seemed disposed to snatch him from the executioner's hands in order +to tear him in pieces. Indignant at this violation of decency, +Dehors had the imprudence to remonstrate with those about him, +dissuading them from imbruing their hands in the blood of a +wretched man, when their desire was so soon to be accomplished by +the minister of the law. The Rouen merchant little understood the +ferocity of the Parisian populace. The mob instantly turned their +fury upon him, and but for the intervention of the royal archers he +would have met on the spot the fate from which he had sought to +rescue another to whose person and offence he was an utter +stranger. As it was, he escaped instant death only to become a +victim to the perverse ingenuity of the same judges, and be hung on +the same Place Maubert, "for the sedition and popular commotion +caused by him, at the time of the execution of Martin Lhomme, by +means of scandalous expressions and blasphemies uttered and +pronounced by the said Dehors against the honor of God and of the +glorious Virgin Mary, wherewith the said prisoner induced the +people to sedition and public scandals." (See Registres du +parlement, July 13, 15, and 19, 1560, reprinted by Read in "Le +Tigre.")</p> + +<p>It is not, perhaps, very much to be wondered at that a pamphlet so +dan<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_446" id="Page_446">[Pg 446]</a></span>gerous to have in one's possession should have so thoroughly +disappeared that a few years since not a copy was known to be in +existence. It doubtless fared with the "Tigre" much as it did with +another outspoken libel—"Taxe des parties casuelles de la boutique +du Pape"—published a few years later, of which Lestoile (Read, p. +21) tells us that he was for a long time unsuccessful in the search +for a copy, to replace that which, to use his own words, "I burned +at the St. Bartholomew, <i>fearing that it might burn me</i>!"</p> + +<p>By a happy accident, M. Louis Paris, in 1834, discovered a solitary +copy that had apparently been saved from destruction by being +buried in some provincial library. The discovery, however, was of +little avail to the literary world, as the pamphlet was eagerly +bought by the famous collector Brunet, only to find a place in his +jealously guarded cases, where, after a fashion only too common in +these days, a few privileged persons were permitted to inspect it +under glass, but not a soul was allowed to copy it. Fortunately, +after M. Brunet's death, the city of Paris succeeded in purchasing +the <i>seven printed leaves</i>, of which the precious book was +composed, for 1,400 francs! Even then the singular fortunes of the +book did not end. Placed in the Hôtel-de-Ville, this insignificant +pamphlet, almost alone of all the untold wealth of antiquarian lore +in the library, escaped the flames kindled by the insane Commune. +M. Charles Read, the librarian, had taken it to his own house for +the purpose of copying it and giving it to the world. This design +has now been happily executed, in an exquisite edition (Paris, +1875), containing not only the text, illustrated by copious notes, +but a photographic fac-simile. M. Read has also appended a poem +entitled "Le Tigre, Satire sur les Gestes Mémorables des Guisards +(1561), "for the recovery of which we are indebted to M. Charles +Nodier. Although some have imagined this to be the original "Tigre" +which cost the lives of Lhomme and Dehors, it needs only a very +superficial comparison of the two to convince us that the poem is +only an elaboration, not indeed without merit, of the more nervous +prose epistle. The author of the latter was without doubt the +distinguished <i>François Hotman</i>. This point has now been +established beyond controversy. As early as in 1562 the Guises had +discovered this; for a treatise published that year in Paris +(Religionis et Regis adversus exitiosas Calvini, Bezæ, et Ottomani +conjuratorum factiones defensio) uses the expressions: "Hic te, +Ottomane, excutere incipio. Scis enim ex cujus officina <i>Tigris</i> +prodiit, liber certe tigride parente, id est homine barbaro, +impuro, impio, ingrato, malevolo, maledico dignissimus. Tu te +istius libelli auctorem ... audes venditare?" While an expression +in a letter written by John Sturm, Rector of the University of +Strasbourg, July, 1562, to Hotman himself (Tygris, immanis illa +bellua quam tu <i>hic</i> contra Cardinalis existimationem divulgari +curasti), not only confirms the statement of the hostile Parisian +pamphleteer, but indicates Strasbourg as the place of publication +(Read, pp. 132-139).</p> + +<p>The "Epistre envoyée au Tigre de la France" betrays a writer well +versed in classical oratory. Some of the best of modern French +critics accord to it the first rank among works of the kind +belonging to the sixteenth century. They contrast its +sprightliness, its terse, telling phrases with the heavy, dragging +constructions that disfigure the prose of contemporary works. +Without copy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_447" id="Page_447">[Pg 447]</a></span>ing in a servile fashion the Catilinarian speeches of +Cicero, the "Tigre" breathes their spirit and lacks none of their +force. Take, for example, the introductory sentences: "Tigre +enragé! Vipère venimeuse! Sépulcre d'abomination! Spectacle de +malheur! Jusques à quand sera-ce que tu abuseras de la jeunesse de +nostre Roy? Ne mettras-tu jamais fin à ton ambition démesurée, à +tes impostures, à tes larcins? Ne vois-tu pas que tout le monde les +sçait, les entend, les cognoist? Qui penses-tu qui ignore ton +détestable desseing et qui ne lise en ton visage le malheur de tous +tes [nos] jours, la ruine de ce Royaume, et la mort de nostre Roy?" +Or read the lines in which the writer sums up a portion of the +Cardinal's villainy: "Quand je te diray que les fautes des finances +de France ne viennent que de tes larcins? Quand je te diray qu'un +mari est plus continent avec sa femme que tu n'es avec tes propres +parentes? Si je te dis encore que tu t'es emparé du gouvernement de +la France, et as dérobé cet honneur aux Princes du sang, pour +mettre la couronne de France en ta maison—que pourras-tu répondre? +Si tu le confesses, il te faut pendre et estrangler; si tu le nies, +je te convaincrai."</p> + +<p>A passage of unsurpassed bitterness paints the portrait of the +hypocritical churchman: "Tu fais mourir ceux qui conspirent contre +toy: et tu vis encore, qui as conspiré contre la couronne de +France, contre les biens des veuves et des orphelins, contre le +sang des tristes et des innocens! Tu fais profession de prescher de +sainteté, toy qui ne connois Dieu que de parole; qui ne tiens la +religion chrétienne que comme un masque pour te déguiser; qui fais +ordinaire trafic, banque et marchandise d'éveschés et de bénéfices: +qui ne vois rien de saint que tu ne souilles, rien de chaste que tu +ne violes, rien de bon que tu ne gâtes!... Tu dis que ceux qui +reprennent tes vices médisent du Roy, tu veux donc qu'on t'estime +Roy? Si Cæsar fut occis pour avoir pretendu le sceptre injustement, +doit-on permettre que tu vives, toy qui le demandes injustement?"</p> + +<p>With which terribly severe denunciation the reader may compare the +statements of a pasquinade, unsurpassed for pungent wit by any +composition of the times, written apparently about a year later. +Addressing the cardinal, Pasquin expresses his perplexity +respecting the place where his Eminence will find an abode. The +<i>French</i> dislike him so much, that they will have him neither as +master nor as servant; the <i>Italians</i> know his tricks; the +<i>Spaniards</i> cannot endure his rage; the <i>Germans</i> abhor incest; the +<i>English</i> and <i>Scotch</i> hold him to be a traitor; the <i>Turk</i> and the +<i>Sophy</i> are Mohammedans, while the cardinal believes in <i>nothing</i>! +<i>Heaven</i> is closed against the unbeliever, the devils would be +afraid to have him in <i>hell</i>, and in the ensuing council the +Protestants are going to do away with <i>purgatory</i>! "Et tu miser, +ubi peribis?" Copy in State Paper Office (1561).</p> + +<p>The peroration of "Le Tigre" is worthy of the great Roman orator +himself. The circumstance that, on account of the limited number of +copies of M. Read's edition, the "Tigre" must necessarily be +accessible to very few readers, will be sufficient excuse for here +inserting this extended passage, in which, for the sake of +clearness, I have followed M. Read's modernized spelling:</p> + +<p>"Mais pourquoi dis-je ceci? Afin que tu te corriges? Je connais ta +jeu<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_448" id="Page_448">[Pg 448]</a></span>nesse si envieillie en son obstination, et tes mœurs si +dépravées, que le récit de tes vices ne te sçauroit émouvoir. Tu +n'es point de ceux-là que la honte de leur vilainie, ni le remords +de leurs damnables intentions puisse attirer à aucune résipiscence +et amendement. Mais si tu me veux croyre, tu t'en iras cacher en +quelque tannière, ou bien en quelque désert, si lointain que l'on +n'oye ni vent ni nouvelles de toy! Et par ce moyen tu pourras +éviter la pointe de cent mille espées qui t'attendent tous les +jours!</p> + +<p>"Donc va-t'-en! Descharge-nous de ta tyrannie! Evite la main du +bourreau! Qu'attends-tu encore? Ne vois-tu pas la patience des +princes du sang royal qui te le permet? Attends-tu le commandement +de leur parolle, puisque leur silence t'a déclaré leur volonté? En +le souffrant, ils te le commandent; en se taisant, ils te +condamnent. Va donc, malheureux, et tu éviteras la punition digne +de tes mérites!"</p></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_449" id="Page_449">[Pg 449]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XI.</h2> + +<h3>THE REIGN OF CHARLES THE NINTH, TO THE PRELIMINARIES OF THE COLLOQUY OF +POISSY.</h3> + + +<div class="sidenote">The death of Francis saves the Huguenots.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Transfer of power.</div> + +<p>If the sudden catastrophe which brought to an end the bloody rule of +Henry was naturally interpreted as a marked interposition of Heaven in +behalf of the persecuted "Lutherans," it is not surprising that the +unexpected death of his eldest son, in the flower of his youth, and +after the briefest reign in the royal annals, seemed little short of a +miracle. Had Francis lived but a week longer, the ruin of the Huguenots +might perhaps have been consummated. Condé would have been executed at +the opening of the States General. Navarre and Montmorency, if no worse +doom befell them, would have been incarcerated at Loches and Bourges. +The Estates, deprived of the presence of these leaders, and overawed by +the formidable military preparations of the Guises,<a name="FNanchor_968_968" id="FNanchor_968_968"></a><a href="#Footnote_968_968" class="fnanchor">[968]</a> would readily +have acquiesced in the most extreme measures. Liberty and reform would +have found a common grave.<a name="FNanchor_969_969" id="FNanchor_969_969"></a><a href="#Footnote_969_969" class="fnanchor">[969]</a> But a few hours sufficed to disarrange +this programme. The political power was, at one stroke, transferred from +the hands of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_450" id="Page_450">[Pg 450]</a></span> Francis and Charles of Lorraine to those of Catharine de' +Medici and the King of Navarre; and the Protestants of Paris recognized +in the event a direct answer to the petitions which they had offered to +Almighty God on the recent days of special humiliation and prayer.<a name="FNanchor_970_970" id="FNanchor_970_970"></a><a href="#Footnote_970_970" class="fnanchor">[970]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Alarm of the Guises.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Funeral obsequies of Francis II.</div> + +<p>The altered posture of affairs was equally patent to the princes of late +complete masters of the destinies of the country. In the first moments +of their excessive terror, they are said to have shut themselves up in +their palaces, and to have declined to leave this refuge until assured +that no immediate violence was contemplated.<a name="FNanchor_971_971" id="FNanchor_971_971"></a><a href="#Footnote_971_971" class="fnanchor">[971]</a> Even after the +immediate danger had passed, however, they were too shrewd to pay to the +remains of their nephew the tokens of respect exacted of the constable +in behalf of Henry's corpse,<a name="FNanchor_972_972" id="FNanchor_972_972"></a><a href="#Footnote_972_972" class="fnanchor">[972]</a> preferring to provide for their own +safety and future influence by being present at the meeting of the +States. The paltry convoy of Francis from Orleans to the royal vaults of +St. Denis presented so unfavorable a contrast to the pompous ceremonial +of his father's interment, that it was wittily said, "that the mortal +enemy of the Huguenots had not been able to escape being himself buried +like a Huguenot."<a name="FNanchor_973_973" id="FNanchor_973_973"></a><a href="#Footnote_973_973" class="fnanchor">[973]</a> A bitter taunt aimed at the unfaithfulness and +ingratitude of the Guises fell under their own eyes. A slip of paper was +found pinned to the velvet funereal pall, on which were written—with +allusion to that famous chamberlain of Charles the Seventh, who, seeing +his master's body abandoned by the courtiers that had flocked to do +obeisance to his son and successor, himself buried it with great pomp +and at his own expense—the words: "Where is Messire Tanneguy du +Chastel? <i>But he was a Frenchman!</i>"<a name="FNanchor_974_974" id="FNanchor_974_974"></a><a href="#Footnote_974_974" class="fnanchor">[974]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_451" id="Page_451">[Pg 451]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Navarre's opportunity.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">His contemptible character.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Adroitness and success of Catharine.</div> + +<p>Never had prince of the blood a finer opportunity for maintaining the +right, while asserting his own just claims, than fell to the lot of +Antoine of Navarre. The sceptre had passed from the grasp of a youth of +uncertain majority to that of a boy who was incontestably a minor. +Charles, the second son of Henry the Second, who now succeeded his older +brother, was only ten years of age. It was beyond dispute that the +regency belonged to Antoine as the first prince of the blood. Every +sentiment of self-respect dictated that he should assume the high rank +to which his birth entitled him,<a name="FNanchor_975_975" id="FNanchor_975_975"></a><a href="#Footnote_975_975" class="fnanchor">[975]</a> and that, while exercising the +power with which it was associated, in restraining or punishing the +common enemies both of the public liberties and of the family of the +Bourbons, he should protect the Huguenots, who looked up to him as their +natural defender. But the King of Navarre had, unfortunately, entered +into the humiliating compact with the queen mother, to which reference +was made in the last chapter. From this agreement he now showed no +disposition to withdraw. The utopian vision of a kingdom of Navarre, +once more restored to its former dimensions, still flitted before his +eyes, and he preferred the absolute sovereignty of this contracted +territory to the influential but dangerous regency which his friends +urged him to seize. Besides, he was sluggish, changeable, and altogether +untrustworthy. "He is an exceedingly weak person"—<i>suggetto +debolissimo</i>—said Suriano. "As to his judgment, I shall not stop to say +that he wears rings on his fingers and pendants in his ears like a +woman, although he has a gray beard and bears the burden of many years; +and that in great matters he listens to the counsels of flatterers and +vain men, of whom he has a thousand about him."<a name="FNanchor_976_976" id="FNanchor_976_976"></a><a href="#Footnote_976_976" class="fnanchor">[976]</a> Liberal in +promises, and exhibiting occasional sparks of courage, the fire of +Antoine's resolution soon died out, and he earned the reputation of +being no more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_452" id="Page_452">[Pg 452]</a></span> formidable than the most treacherous of advocates. +Sensual indulgence had sapped the very foundations of his +character.<a name="FNanchor_977_977" id="FNanchor_977_977"></a><a href="#Footnote_977_977" class="fnanchor">[977]</a> It is true that his friends, forgetting the +disappointment engendered by his recent displays of timidity, reminded +him again of the engagements into which he had entered, to interfere in +defence of the oppressed, of his glorious opportunity, and of his +accountability before the Divine Tribunal.<a name="FNanchor_978_978" id="FNanchor_978_978"></a><a href="#Footnote_978_978" class="fnanchor">[978]</a> But their appeals +accomplished little. Catharine was able to boast, in a letter to the +French Ambassador at Madrid, just a fortnight after the death of +Francis, that "she had great reason to be pleased" with Navarre's +conduct, for "he had placed himself altogether in her hands, and had +despoiled himself of all power and authority." "I dispose of him," she +said, "just as I please."<a name="FNanchor_979_979" id="FNanchor_979_979"></a><a href="#Footnote_979_979" class="fnanchor">[979]</a> And to her daughter, Queen Isabella of +Spain, she wrote by the same courier: "He is so obedient; he has no +authority save that which I permit him to exercise."<a name="FNanchor_980_980" id="FNanchor_980_980"></a><a href="#Footnote_980_980" class="fnanchor">[980]</a> The +apprehensions felt by Philip the Second regarding the exaltation of a +heretic, in the person of his hated neighbor of Na<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_453" id="Page_453">[Pg 453]</a></span>varre, to the first +place in the vicinage of the French throne, might well be quieted after +such reassuring intelligence.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Financial embarrassment.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">The religions situation.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Catharine's neutrality.</div> + +<p>Yet the position of Catharine, it must be admitted, was by no means an +easy one. The ablest statesman might have shrunk from coping with the +financial difficulties that beset her. The crown was almost hopelessly +involved. Henry the Second had in the course of a dozen years +accumulated, by prodigal gifts and by needless wars, a debt—enormous +for that age—of forty-two millions of francs, besides alienating the +crown lands and raising by taxation a larger sum of money than had been +collected in eighty years previous.<a name="FNanchor_981_981" id="FNanchor_981_981"></a><a href="#Footnote_981_981" class="fnanchor">[981]</a> The Venetian Michele summed up +the perplexities of the political situation under two questions: How to +relieve the people, now thoroughly exhausted;<a name="FNanchor_982_982" id="FNanchor_982_982"></a><a href="#Footnote_982_982" class="fnanchor">[982]</a> and, how to rescue +the crown from its poverty. But, in reality, the financial embarrassment +was the least of the difficulties of the position Catharine had assumed. +The kingdom was rent with dissensions. Two religions were +struggling—the one for exclusive supremacy, the other at least for +toleration and recognition. Catharine had no strong religious +convictions to actuate her in deciding which of the two she should +embrace. Two powerful political parties were contending for the +ascendency—that of the princes of the blood and of constitutional +usage, and that of an ambitious family newly introduced into the +kingdom, but a family which had succeeded in attaching to itself most, +if not all, of the favorites of preceding kings. Catharine's ambition, +in the absence of any convictions of right, regarded the success of +either as detrimental to her own authority. She had, therefore, resolved +to play off the one against the other, in the hope of being able, +through their mutual antagonism, to become the mistress of both. Under +the reign of Francis the Second she had gained some notion of the +humiliation to which the Guises, in their moment of fancied<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_454" id="Page_454">[Pg 454]</a></span> security, +would willingly have reduced her. Yet, after all, the illegal usurpation +of the Guises, who might, from their past experience, be more tolerant +of her ambitious designs, was less formidable to her than the claims of +the Bourbon princes, based as were these claims upon ancestral usage and +right, and equally fatal to her pretensions and to those of their +rivals. It was a situation of appalling difficulty for a woman sustained +in her course by no lofty consciousness of integrity and devotion to +duty—for a woman who was by nature timid, and by education inclined to +resort for guidance to judicial astrology or magic rather than to +religion.<a name="FNanchor_983_983" id="FNanchor_983_983"></a><a href="#Footnote_983_983" class="fnanchor">[983]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Opening of the States General, Dec. 13, 1560.</div> + +<p>A brief delay in the opening of the sessions of the States General was +necessitated by the sudden change in the administration. At length, on +the thirteenth of December, the pompous ceremonial took place in the +city of Orleans. It was graced by the presence of the boy-king, Charles +the Ninth, and of his mother, his brother, the future Henry the Third, +and his sister Margaret. The King of Navarre, the aged Renée of Ferrara, +and other members of the royal house, also figured here with all that +was most distinguished among the nobility of the realm.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Address of Chancellor De l'Hospital.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Co-existence of two religions impossible.</div> + +<p>To the chancellor was, as usual, entrusted the honorable and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_455" id="Page_455">[Pg 455]</a></span> +responsible duty of laying before the representatives of the three +orders the reasons of their present convocation. This office he +discharged in a long and learned harangue. If the hearers were treated +without stint to that profusion of ancient learning, upon which the +orators of the age seem to have rested a great part of their claim to +patient attention, they also listened to much that was of more immediate +concern to them, respecting the origin of the States General, and the +occasions for which they had from time to time been summoned by former +kings. L'Hospital announced that the special object of the present +meeting was to devise the means of allaying the seditions which had +arisen in consequence of religious differences. "These," said +L'Hospital, "are the causes of the most serious dissensions. It is folly +to hope for peace, rest, and friendship between persons of opposite +creeds. A Frenchman and an Englishman holding a common faith will +entertain stronger affection for each other than two citizens of the +same city who disagree about their theological tenets."<a name="FNanchor_984_984" id="FNanchor_984_984"></a><a href="#Footnote_984_984" class="fnanchor">[984]</a> So powerful +was still the prejudice of the age with one who was among the first to +catch a glimpse of the true principles of religious toleration! That two +discordant religions should permanently co-exist in a state, he agreed +with most of his contemporaries in regarding as utterly impossible. For +how could the adherents of the papacy and the disciples of the new faith +conceal their differences under the cloak of a common charity and mutual +forbearance?<a name="FNanchor_985_985" id="FNanchor_985_985"></a><a href="#Footnote_985_985" class="fnanchor">[985]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_456" id="Page_456">[Pg 456]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Names of factions must be abolished.</div> + +<p>Yet the dawn of more enlightened principles could be detected in a +subsequent part of the chancellor's speech. After prescribing a +universal council—that panacea which all the state doctors of the day +offered for the cure of the ills of the body politic—he advocated the +employment, meantime, of persuasion instead of force, of gentleness +rather than rigor, of charity and good works, as more effective than the +most trenchant of material weapons. And, while he recommended his +hearers to pray for the conversion of the erring, he exclaimed: "Let us +remove those diabolical words, names of parties, factions, and +seditions—'Lutherans,' 'Huguenots,' and 'Papists'—and let us retain +only the name of 'Christians.'"<a name="FNanchor_986_986" id="FNanchor_986_986"></a><a href="#Footnote_986_986" class="fnanchor">[986]</a> In concluding his address, he did +not forget to dwell upon the lamentable condition of the royal finances, +thrown into almost inextricable confusion by twelve or thirteen years of +continuous war and the expenses attending three magnificent weddings. He +begged the estates, while they exposed their grievances, not to fail to +provide the king with means for meeting his obligations.<a name="FNanchor_987_987" id="FNanchor_987_987"></a><a href="#Footnote_987_987" class="fnanchor">[987]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_457" id="Page_457">[Pg 457]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Effrontery of Cardinal Lorraine.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">De Rochefort orator for the noblesse.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">L'Ange for the tiers état.</div> + +<p>It now devolved upon the deputies to prepare a statement of their +grievances, and for this purpose the "noblesse" retired to the +Dominican, the clergy to the Franciscan, and the "tiers" to the +Carmelite convents.<a name="FNanchor_988_988" id="FNanchor_988_988"></a><a href="#Footnote_988_988" class="fnanchor">[988]</a> The Cardinal of Lorraine had had the effrontery +to solicit, through his creatures, the honor of representing the three +orders collectively; but the proposition had been rejected with +undissembled derision. Loud voices were heard from among the deputies of +the people, crying, "We do not choose to select <i>him</i> to speak for us of +whom we intend to offer our complaints!"<a name="FNanchor_989_989" id="FNanchor_989_989"></a><a href="#Footnote_989_989" class="fnanchor">[989]</a> Three orators were deputed +to speak for the three orders.<a name="FNanchor_990_990" id="FNanchor_990_990"></a><a href="#Footnote_990_990" class="fnanchor">[990]</a> The Sieur de Rochefort, in behalf of +the nobles, declared their approval of the government of Catharine, but +insisted at some length upon the necessity of conciliating their good +will by a studious regard for their privileges. He likened the king to +the sun and the "noblesse" to the moon. Any conflict between the two +would produce an eclipse that would darken the entire earth. He +denounced the chicanery of the ecclesiastical courts and the +non-residence of the priests;<a name="FNanchor_991_991" id="FNanchor_991_991"></a><a href="#Footnote_991_991" class="fnanchor">[991]</a> and he closed by presenting a +petition, which was read<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_458" id="Page_458">[Pg 458]</a></span> aloud by one of the secretaries of state, +demanding the grant of churches for the use of those nobles who +preferred the purer worship.<a name="FNanchor_992_992" id="FNanchor_992_992"></a><a href="#Footnote_992_992" class="fnanchor">[992]</a> The Bordalese lawyer, Jean L'Ange, in +the name of the people, dwelt chiefly on the three capital vices of the +clergy—ignorance, avarice, and luxury,<a name="FNanchor_993_993" id="FNanchor_993_993"></a><a href="#Footnote_993_993" class="fnanchor">[993]</a> and portrayed very +effectively the general disorders, the intolerable tyranny of the +Guises, the exhausted state of the public treasury, and the means of +restoring the Church to purity of faith and regularity of discipline.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Arrogant speech of Quintin for the clergy.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Presumption in favor of the Catholic Church.</div> + +<p>But it was the clerical delegate, Jean Quintin, that attracted most +attention. Standing between the other two orators, he delivered a speech +of great length and insufferable arrogance. He admitted that the clergy +might need reformation; but the Church with its hierarchy must not be +touched—that was the body of Christ. Charles must defend the Church +against heresy—against that Gospel falsely and maliciously so called, +which consisted in profaning churches, in breaking the sacred images, in +the marriage of priests and nuns. He must not suffer the Reformation to +affect the articles of faith, the sacraments, traditions, ordinances, or +ceremonial. Should any one venture to resuscitate heresies long dead and +buried, he begged the king to declare him a champion of heresy and to +proceed against him. He insisted on the presumption in favor of the +Catholic Church, and demanded the unconditional submission of its +opponents. "They must believe us, without waiting for a council; not we +them." He was warm in his praise of the Emperors Theodosius II. and +Valentinian III., who confiscated the goods of heretics, banished them, +and deprived them of the right of conveying or receiving property by +will. He raised his voice par<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_459" id="Page_459">[Pg 459]</a></span>ticularly in behalf of Burgundy and of his +own diocese of Autun, whose inhabitants "were well-nigh drowned by the +much too frequent inundations of pestilent books from the infected +lagoons of Geneva."<a name="FNanchor_994_994" id="FNanchor_994_994"></a><a href="#Footnote_994_994" class="fnanchor">[994]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Temporal interests.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Sad straits of the clergy.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">A word for the down-trodden people.</div> + +<p>In the midst of this tirade against the inroads of Calvinism, the +prudent doctor of canon law did not, however, altogether lose sight of +the temporal concerns of the priesthood. He proffered an urgent request +for the restoration of canonical elections, laying the growth of heresy +altogether to the account of the abrogation of the Pragmatic Sanction by +the Concordat in 1517. The sanction being re-established, "the +detestable and damnable sects, the execrable and accursed heresies of +to-day" would incontinently flee from the church. If he painted the +portrait of the prelate elected by the suffrages of his diocese in +somewhat too nattering colors, he certainly gave a vivid picture of the +sad straits to which the clergy were reduced by the imposition of the +repeated tithes on their revenues, now become customary. Masses were +unsaid, churches had been stripped of their ornaments. Missals and +chalices even had, in some places, been sold at auction to meet the +exorbitant demands of royal officers. It was to be feared that, if +Christian kings continued to lay sacerdotal possessions under +contribution, the Queen of the South would rise up in judgment with this +generation, and would condemn it. Lest, however, this commination should +not prove terrible enough, the examples of Belshazzar and others were +judiciously subjoined. On the other hand, Charles was urged to acquire a +glory superior to that of Charlemagne, and to earn the surname of +<i>Clerophilus</i>, or <i>Maximus</i>, by freeing the clergy of its burdens. By a +very remarkable condescension, after this lofty flight of eloquence, the +clerical advocate deigned to utter a short sentence or two in the +interest of the "noblesse," and even of the poor, down-trodden +people—begging the king to lighten the burdens<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_460" id="Page_460">[Pg 460]</a></span> which that so good, so +obedient people had long borne patiently, and not to suffer this third +foot of the throne to be crushed or broken.<a name="FNanchor_995_995" id="FNanchor_995_995"></a><a href="#Footnote_995_995" class="fnanchor">[995]</a> When the crown had +returned to this course of just action, the Church would pray very +devoutly in its behalf, the nobility fight valiantly, <i>the people obey +humbly</i>. It would be paradise begun on earth.<a name="FNanchor_996_996" id="FNanchor_996_996"></a><a href="#Footnote_996_996" class="fnanchor">[996]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The clergy alone makes no progress.</div> + +<p>Thus spoke the chosen delegates of the three orders when summoned into +the royal presence for the first time after the lapse of seventy-seven +years. The nobility and clergy vied with each other in extolling their +own order; the people made little pretension, but had a large budget of +grievances demanding redress. Nearly forty years had the Reformation +been gaining ground surely and steadily. It had found, at last, +recognition more or less explicit in the noblesse and the "tiers état." +But the clergy had made no progress, had learned nothing. The speech of +Quintin, their chosen representative, on this critical occasion, was +long and tiresome; but, instead of convincing, it only excited shame and +disgust.<a name="FNanchor_997_997" id="FNanchor_997_997"></a><a href="#Footnote_997_997" class="fnanchor">[997]</a></p> + +<p>Indeed, an allusion of his to the favorers of heresy daring to present +petitions in behalf of the Huguenots, who demanded places in which to +worship God, was taken by Admiral Coligny as a personal insult to +himself, for which Quintin was compelled to make a public apology.<a name="FNanchor_998_998" id="FNanchor_998_998"></a><a href="#Footnote_998_998" class="fnanchor">[998]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Coligny presents a Huguenot petition.</div> + +<p>The incredible supineness of Antoine of Navarre prevented the States +from demanding with much decision that the regency<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_461" id="Page_461">[Pg 461]</a></span> should be entrusted +in the hands of him to whom it belonged of right. For how could +enthusiasm be manifested in a matter regarding which the person chiefly +interested showed such utter indifference? But the religious demands of +the Huguenots were made distinctly known. As expressed in a petition +presented in their name to the queen mother by the Admiral's hands, +these demands were comprehended under three heads: the convocation of a +free universal council, which should decide definitely respecting the +religious questions in dispute; the immediate liberation of all +prisoners whose only crime was of a religious character—even if +disguised under the false accusation of sedition; and liberty of +assembling for the purpose of listening to the preaching of God's word, +and for the administration of the sacraments, under such conditions as +the royal council might deem necessary for the prevention of +disorder.<a name="FNanchor_999_999" id="FNanchor_999_999"></a><a href="#Footnote_999_999" class="fnanchor">[999]</a> So gracious was Catharine's answer, so brilliant were the +signs of promise, that there were those who hoped soon to behold in +France a king "very Christian" in fact no less than in name.<a name="FNanchor_1000_1000" id="FNanchor_1000_1000"></a><a href="#Footnote_1000_1000" class="fnanchor">[1000]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The estates prorogued.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Meanwhile prosecutions for religion to cease.</div> + +<p>It was, however, no easy matter to grant these reasonable requests. The +Roman Catholic party resisted, with all the energy of desperation, the +concession of any places for worship according to the reformed faith. +Catharine was loth to take the decided step of disregarding their +remonstrances. It seemed more convenient to avail herself of the +representations of the majority of the delegates of the "tiers état," +who regarded it as necessary to apply for new powers from their +constituents, in consequence of the death of the monarch who had +summoned them. The estates were accordingly prorogued to meet again at +Pontoise on the first of May.<a name="FNanchor_1001_1001" id="FNanchor_1001_1001"></a><a href="#Footnote_1001_1001" class="fnanchor">[1001]</a> The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_462" id="Page_462">[Pg 462]</a></span> matter of the "temples" was +adjourned until that time. Meanwhile, in order to conciliate the +Huguenots, orders were issued that all prosecutions for religious +offences should surcease, and that the prisoners should at once be +liberated, with the injunction to live in a Catholic fashion for the +future.<a name="FNanchor_1002_1002" id="FNanchor_1002_1002"></a><a href="#Footnote_1002_1002" class="fnanchor">[1002]</a> This concession, poor as it was, met with opposition on +the part of the Parisian parliament, and was only registered—after more +than a month's refusal—because of the king's express desire.<a name="FNanchor_1003_1003" id="FNanchor_1003_1003"></a><a href="#Footnote_1003_1003" class="fnanchor">[1003]</a> But +it was far from satisfying the Protestants; for, in answer to their very +first demand, they were referred to the Council of Trent, which the +pontiff had recently ordered to reassemble at the coming Easter. Such a +convocation—neither convened in a place of safe access, nor consisting +of the proper persons to represent Christendom, nor under free +conditions<a name="FNanchor_1004_1004" id="FNanchor_1004_1004"></a><a href="#Footnote_1004_1004" class="fnanchor">[1004]</a>—could not be recognized by the Huguenots of France as +a competent tribunal to act in the final adjudication of their cause. +They must refuse to appear either at Trent or at the assembly of French +prelates, to be held as a preliminary to their proceeding to the +universal council, in accordance with the resolutions of the notables at +Fontainebleau.<a name="FNanchor_1005_1005" id="FNanchor_1005_1005"></a><a href="#Footnote_1005_1005" class="fnanchor">[1005]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Return of the fugitives.</div> + +<p>Yet, as contrasted with the earlier legislation, the provisional<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_463" id="Page_463">[Pg 463]</a></span> +dispositions of the royal letter were highly encouraging. They permitted +a large number of persons incarcerated for religion's sake to issue from +prison. The exiles, it was said, returned tenfold as numerous as they +left the country. Great was the indignation of their adversaries when +all these, with numbers recruited from the ranks of the reformers in +England, Flanders, Switzerland, and even from Lucca, Florence and +Venice, began to preach with the utmost boldness. They might be accused +of gross ignorance, and of uttering a thousand stupid remarks, but one +thing could not be denied—every preacher had a crowd to hear him.<a name="FNanchor_1006_1006" id="FNanchor_1006_1006"></a><a href="#Footnote_1006_1006" class="fnanchor">[1006]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Charles writes to stop ministers from Geneva.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Reply of the Genevese.</div> + +<p>No such toleration, however, as that now proclaimed was necessary to +induce the ministers of the reformed doctrines, who had qualified +themselves for their apostolic labors under the teaching of Calvin and +Beza, to enter France. The gibbet and the fearful "estrapade" had not +deterred them. The prelates, therefore, induced the queen mother to +attempt by other means to stem the flood of preachers that poured in +from Geneva. On the twenty-third of January, seven or eight days before +the adjournment of the States General, a letter was despatched in the +name of Charles IX. to the syndics and councils of the city of Geneva. +Its tone was earnest and decided. It had appeared—so the king was made +to say—from a very careful examination into the sources of the existing +divisions, that they were caused by the seditious teachings of preachers +mostly sent by the Genevese authorities,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_464" id="Page_464">[Pg 464]</a></span> or by their principal +ministers, as well as by an infinite number of defamatory pamphlets, +which these preachers had disseminated far and wide throughout the +kingdom. To them were directly traceable the recent commotions. He +therefore called on the magistracy to recall these sowers of discord, +and threatened in no doubtful terms to take vengeance on the city should +the same course be continued after the receipt of the present +warning.<a name="FNanchor_1007_1007" id="FNanchor_1007_1007"></a><a href="#Footnote_1007_1007" class="fnanchor">[1007]</a> Never was accusation more unjust, never was unjust +accusation answered more promptly and with truer dignity. On the very +day of the receipt of the king's letter (the twenty-eighth of January) +the magistrates deliberated with the ministers, and despatched, by the +messenger who had brought it, a respectful reply written by Calvin +himself. So far, they said, from countenancing any attempts to disturb +the quiet of the French monarchy, it would be found that they had passed +stringent regulations to prevent the departure of any that might intend +to create seditious uprisings. They had themselves sent no preachers +into France, nor had their ministers done more than fulfil a clear +dictate of piety, in recommending, from time to time, such as they found +competent, to labor, wherever they might find it practicable, for the +spread of the Gospel, "seeing that it is the sovereign duty of all kings +and princes to do homage to Him who has given them rule." As for +themselves, they had condemned a resort to arms, and had never +counselled the seizure of churches, or other unauthorized acts.<a name="FNanchor_1008_1008" id="FNanchor_1008_1008"></a><a href="#Footnote_1008_1008" class="fnanchor">[1008]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_465" id="Page_465">[Pg 465]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Condé cleared and reconciled to Guise.</div> + +<p>At no time since the death of the late king had the reversal of the +sentence against Condé been doubtful. The time had now arrived for his +complete restoration to favor. The first step was taken in the privy +council, where, on the thirteenth of March, the chancellor declared that +he knew of no informations made against him. Whereupon the prince was +proclaimed, by the unanimous voice of the council, sufficiently cleared +of all the charges raised by his enemies. The Bourbon, who had refused, +until his honor should be fully satisfied, to enjoy the liberty which he +might easily have obtained, had been invited by Charles to the court, +which was sojourning at Fontainebleau, and now resumed his seat in the +council.<a name="FNanchor_1009_1009" id="FNanchor_1009_1009"></a><a href="#Footnote_1009_1009" class="fnanchor">[1009]</a> Just three months later (on Friday, the thirteenth of +June) the Parliament of Paris, after a prolonged examination, in which +all the forms of law were observed with punctilious exactness, gave its +solemn attestation of the innocence of Louis of Condé, of Madame de +Roye, his mother-in-law, and of the others who had so narrowly escaped +being plunged with him in a common destruction.<a name="FNanchor_1010_1010" id="FNanchor_1010_1010"></a><a href="#Footnote_1010_1010" class="fnanchor">[1010]</a> Such declarations +might be supposed to savor indifferently well of hypocrisy. They were, +however, outdone in the final scene of this pompous farce, enacted about +two months later in one of the halls of the castle of St. Germain. On +the twenty-fourth of August a stately assembly gathered in the king's +presence. Catharine, the princes of the blood, five cardinals, and a +goodly number of dukes and counts, were present; for Louis of +Bourbon-Vendôme, Prince of Condé, and Francis of Guise were to be +publicly reconciled to each other. Charles first announced the object +for which he had summoned this assemblage, and called upon the Duke of +Guise to express his sentiments. "Sir," said the latter, addressing +Condé, "I neither have, nor would I de<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_466" id="Page_466">[Pg 466]</a></span>sire to have, advanced anything +against your honor; nor have I been the author or the instigator of your +imprisonment!" To which Condé replied: "Sir, I hold to be bad and +miserable him or those who have been its causes." Nothing abashed, Guise +made the rejoinder: "I believe that it is so; that concerns me in no +respect." After this gratifying exhibition of convenient memory, if not +of Christian forgiveness, the prince and duke, at the king's request, +embraced each other; and the auditory, highly edified, broke up.<a name="FNanchor_1011_1011" id="FNanchor_1011_1011"></a><a href="#Footnote_1011_1011" class="fnanchor">[1011]</a> +It was fitting that this hollow reconciliation should take place on the +very day upon which, eleven years later, a more treacherous compact was +to bear fruit fatal to thousands.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Humiliation of Navarre.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">The boldness of the Particular Estates of Paris,</div> + +<div class="sidenote">secures Antoine more consideration.</div> + +<p>It has been necessary to anticipate the events of subsequent months, in +order to give the sequel of the singular procedure. We must now return +to the spring of this eventful year. It was not long after the +adjournment of the States General before the King of Navarre began to +perceive some results of his humiliating agreement with Catharine de' +Medici. The Guises were received by her with greater demonstrations of +favor than were the princes of the blood. The keys of the castle were +even intrusted to the custody of Francis, on the pretext that he was +entitled to this privilege as grand master of the palace. In vain did +Antoine remonstrate against this insulting preference, and threaten to +leave the court if his rival remained. Catharine found means to detain +Constable Montmorency, who had intended to leave court in company with +Navarre, and the latter was compelled to suppress his disgust. But the +deliberations of the Particular Estates of Paris, held soon after, had +more weight in securing for Navarre a portion of the consideration to +which he was entitled. Disregarding<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_467" id="Page_467">[Pg 467]</a></span> the prohibition to touch upon +political matters, they boldly discussed the necessity of an account of +the vast sums of money that had passed through the hands of the Guises, +and of the restitution of the inordinate gifts which the cardinal and +his brother, Diana of Poitiers, the Marshal of St. André, and even the +constable, had obtained from the weakness of preceding monarchs. This +boldness disturbed Catharine. She employed the constable to mediate for +her with Antoine; and soon a new compact was framed, securing to the +latter more explicit recognition as lieutenant-general, and a more +positive influence in the affairs of state.<a name="FNanchor_1012_1012" id="FNanchor_1012_1012"></a><a href="#Footnote_1012_1012" class="fnanchor">[1012]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">His assurances to the Ambassador of Denmark.</div> + +<p>That influence he occasionally seemed anxious to exert in behalf of the +reformed faith. He assured Gluck, the Danish ambassador, that, before +the expiration of the year, he would cause the Gospel to be preached +throughout the entire kingdom. And he displayed some magnanimity when he +answered Gluck, who had expressed anxiety that Lutheranism should be +substituted for Calvinism in France, that "inasmuch as the two +Protestant communions agreed in thirty-eight of the forty articles in +which both differed from the Pope, all Protestants ought to make common +cause against the oppression of the Roman See; it would afterward be an +easy task to arrange their minor differences, and restore the Church to +its pristine purity and splendor."<a name="FNanchor_1013_1013" id="FNanchor_1013_1013"></a><a href="#Footnote_1013_1013" class="fnanchor">[1013]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Intrigue of Artus Désiré.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Curiosity to hear Huguenot preaching and singing.</div> + +<p>So wonderful an awakening as that which was now witnessed in almost +every part of France could not long continue without arousing violent +resistance. The very signs that seemed to indicate the speedy triumph of +the Reformation were, indeed, the occasion of the institution of an +organized opposition of the most formidable character. Hints of the +propriety of calling in foreign assistance had even before this time +been audibly whispered. The theologians of the Sorbonne, alarmed at the +apparent favor displayed for the reformed teachers by the court, had +despatched one Artus Désiré with a letter to Philip<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_468" id="Page_468">[Pg 468]</a></span> the Second, in +which they supplicated his intervention in behalf of the Catholic +religion, now threatened with ruin. Happily the enterprise was nipped in +the bud, and, on the arrest of Artus at Orleans, on his way to Spain, +the nefarious conspiracy was fully divulged. The priestly agent, after +craven prayers for his life, was immured for a time in a cloister.<a name="FNanchor_1014_1014" id="FNanchor_1014_1014"></a><a href="#Footnote_1014_1014" class="fnanchor">[1014]</a> +Well might the Romish party fear. The curiosity to hear the preaching of +the Word of God by men of piety and learning, the desire to hear those +grand psalms of Marot solemnly chanted by the chorus of thousands of +human voices, had infected every class of society. The records of the +chapters of cathedrals, during this period of universal spiritual +agitation, are little else, we are told, than a list of cases of +ecclesiastical discipline instituted against chaplains, canons, and even +higher dignitaries, for having attended the Huguenot services. At Rouen, +the chief singer of Notre Dame acknowledged before the united chapter +that he had often been present at the "assemblies"—nay, more—"that he +had never heard anything there which was not good."<a name="FNanchor_1015_1015" id="FNanchor_1015_1015"></a><a href="#Footnote_1015_1015" class="fnanchor">[1015]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Constable Montmorency's disgust.</div> + +<p>In the court at Fontainebleau the contagion daily spread. Beza, it is +true, gave expression to the warning that "not to be a Papist and to be +a Christian were different things."<a name="FNanchor_1016_1016" id="FNanchor_1016_1016"></a><a href="#Footnote_1016_1016" class="fnanchor">[1016]</a> But of external marks of an +altered condition of things there was no lack. Little account was taken +of the arrival of Lent. Meat was openly sold and eaten.<a name="FNanchor_1017_1017" id="FNanchor_1017_1017"></a><a href="#Footnote_1017_1017" class="fnanchor">[1017]</a> Huguenot +preachers conducted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_469" id="Page_469">[Pg 469]</a></span> their services publicly in the apartments of the +Prince of Condé and of Admiral Coligny, first outside of the castle, and +then within its precincts. Catharine herself, partaking of the general +zeal, declared her intention to hear the Bishop of Valence preach before +the young king and the court, in the saloon of the castle. Such was the +news that irritated and alarmed the aged, but still vigorous Anne of +Montmorency. By birth, by tradition, by long association, the constable +was a devoted Roman Catholic. If any motive were wanting to determine +him to cling to the ancient régime, it was afforded by the proposition +made in the late Particular Estates of Paris that the favorites of the +last two monarchs should be required to disgorge the enormous gifts that +had helped to impoverish the nation. This project, for which he held the +Huguenots responsible, was repugnant alike to his pride and to his +exorbitant avarice. His prejudices were, moreover, skilfully fanned into +a flame by interested companions. His wife, Madeleine de Savoie—partly +from conviction, partly through jealousy of his children by a former +marriage—her brother, the Count of Villars,<a name="FNanchor_1018_1018" id="FNanchor_1018_1018"></a><a href="#Footnote_1018_1018" class="fnanchor">[1018]</a> and the Marshal of +St. André—a crafty, insidious adviser—plied him with plausible +arguments. Diana, the Duchess of Valentinois, solicited him by daily +messages. How could the first Christian baron abandon the ancient faith? +How could the favorite of Henry the Second consent to let his rich +acquisitions escape him?<a name="FNanchor_1019_1019" id="FNanchor_1019_1019"></a><a href="#Footnote_1019_1019" class="fnanchor">[1019]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Marshal Montmorency remonstrates.</div> + +<p>On one occasion the constable was himself induced to attend the service +in the castle at which Bishop Montluc preached; but he came out highly +displeased at the doctrines he had heard,<a name="FNanchor_1020_1020" id="FNanchor_1020_1020"></a><a href="#Footnote_1020_1020" class="fnanchor">[1020]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_470" id="Page_470">[Pg 470]</a></span> and more convinced than +ever that there was a secret compact between Catharine de' Medici and +the King of Navarre to change the religion of the country. The next day +a number of high nobles, in part ancient enemies—Montmorency, Guise, +Montpensier, St. André—met in the obscure chapel of the "basse-court," +where a Dominican monk held forth to the common retainers of the royal +court. The constable's eldest son, the upright but sluggish Marshal de +Montmorency, himself having a secret leaning for the reformed doctrines, +was alarmed by this threatening demonstration, and immediately sought, +in a private interview with his father, to deter him from entering the +arena as the ally of his former antagonists and the opponent of his own +nephews, Coligny and D'Andelot. Better, he urged, to be umpire than +participant in so ungrateful a contest. The Châtillons, of whom Anne had +said that, if they were as good Christians in deed as they were in +profession, they would exercise forgiveness toward the Guises, +themselves came to see their offended uncle, and protested that they +wished the cardinal and his brothers no evil, but desired merely to +remove their ability to do them further damage. Neither his son nor his +nephews made any impression on the obstinate disposition of the +constable. He had caught at the bait by which skilful anglers allured +him. He fancied himself the chosen champion of the church of his +fathers, now assaulted by redoubtable enemies. What a glorious prospect +lay before him if he succeeded! What a halo would surround his name, if +the splendor of the military achievements of his youth should be thrown +into the shade by the superior glory of having, in his old age, rescued +the most Christian nation of the world from the inroads of heresy! To +every argument he could only be brought to repeat the trite sophism, +"that a change of religion could not be effected without a revolution in +the state," and that, though he had no fear of being compelled to +restore the gifts he had received from the late monarchs, he would not +suffer their actions to be questioned or their honor impeached.<a name="FNanchor_1021_1021" id="FNanchor_1021_1021"></a><a href="#Footnote_1021_1021" class="fnanchor">[1021]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_471" id="Page_471">[Pg 471]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The Triumvirate formed.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">A spurious statement.</div> + +<p>On Easter day (the sixth of April), the finishing stroke was given to +the new compact between the leaders of the anti-reformed party. Anne de +Montmorency and François de Guise partook side by side of the sacrament +in the chapel of Fontainebleau, and that evening Guise, Joinville, and +St. André were invited guests at the table of the constable.<a name="FNanchor_1022_1022" id="FNanchor_1022_1022"></a><a href="#Footnote_1022_1022" class="fnanchor">[1022]</a> To +the union now distinctly formed, its opponents, in allusion to the +number of the foremost members and to their proscriptive designs, soon +applied the name of "Triumvirate"—the designation by which it has ever +since been known. What the details of these designs were is not +altogether certain. If the document that has come down to us, purporting +to be an authoritative statement emanating from the original parties to +the scheme, could be depended on as genuine, it would disclose to us an +atrocious plot, not only against the Huguenots of France, but for the +extirpation of Protestantism throughout the world. The sanguinary +project was to be executed under the superintendence of his Catholic +Majesty of Spain. The King of Navarre, the support of heresy in France, +was first to be seduced by promises or terrified by threats. Should +neither course prove successful, Philip was to raise an army in the most +secret manner before winter. Should Antoine yield at once, he was to be +expelled from the kingdom, with his wife and children. Should he attempt +resistance, the Duke of Guise would declare himself the head of the +Catholics, and, between him and Philip, the heretical King of Navarre +would speedily be crushed. Then were all that had ever professed the +re<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_472" id="Page_472">[Pg 472]</a></span>formed faith to be slain. Not one was to be spared. The entire race +of the Bourbons was to be exterminated, lest an avenger or a +resuscitator of Protestantism should arise from its descendants. The +emperor and the Catholic princes of Germany would prevent the +Protestants beyond the Rhine from sending succor to their French +brethren. The Roman Catholic cantons of Switzerland, with the assistance +of the Pope, would engage the Protestant cantons. To the Duke of Savoy, +supported by Philip and the Italian dukes, was intrusted the welcome +task of destroying utterly the nest of heresy—Geneva. Here should the +executioner revel in the blood of his victims. Not an inhabitant was to +escape. All, without respect to age or sex, were to be slain with the +sword or drowned in the lake, as an evidence that divine retribution had +compensated for the delay by the severity of the punishment, causing the +children to bear, as an example memorable to all time, the penalty of +the wickedness of their fathers. The fruits of the French confiscations +would be applied as a loan to the expenses of the crusade in Germany, +where the united forces of France, the emperor, and the Catholic princes +would subjugate the followers of Luther, as they had already +exterminated the disciples of Calvin.</p> + +<p>Such are the reported details of a plan almost too gross for belief. It +is true that the existence of similar schemes—less extensive, perhaps, +but equally sanguinary, and, in the light of history, not much less +absurd—formed by the adherents of the papacy during the sixteenth +century, is too well attested to admit of doubt. But the historical +difficulties surrounding this document have never yet been +satisfactorily explained, and the student of the Huguenot annals must +still content himself with regarding it as a summary of reports current +within the first two years of the reign of Charles the Ninth, respecting +the secret designs of the Triumvirs, rather than as an authorized +statement of their intentions.<a name="FNanchor_1023_1023" id="FNanchor_1023_1023"></a><a href="#Footnote_1023_1023" class="fnanchor">[1023]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_473" id="Page_473">[Pg 473]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Massacres in holy week.</div> + +<p>While the intrigues of the Duchess of Valentinois and other bigots had +been successful at court, the enemies of the Hugue<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_474" id="Page_474">[Pg 474]</a></span>nots had not been +idle in other parts of France. Fearful of the effect which the apparent +union between Catharine and the King of Navarre might produce in +accelerating the advance of the reformed doctrines, they resolved to +stir up the zeal of the populace—that portion of the people that +retained the strongest devotion for the traditional faith—in the +country as well as in the capital.<a name="FNanchor_1024_1024" id="FNanchor_1024_1024"></a><a href="#Footnote_1024_1024" class="fnanchor">[1024]</a> Holy week furnished +opportunities that were eagerly embraced. Fanatical priests and monks +wrought up the excitable mob to a frenzy.<a name="FNanchor_1025_1025" id="FNanchor_1025_1025"></a><a href="#Footnote_1025_1025" class="fnanchor">[1025]</a> When their passions had +reached a fervent heat, it was easy to bring on seditious explosions, +the blame of which could be attached to the other party. "Few cities in +the realm," says Abbé Bruslart in his journal, "escaped at this time +riots and tumultuous scenes occasioned by the new religion."<a name="FNanchor_1026_1026" id="FNanchor_1026_1026"></a><a href="#Footnote_1026_1026" class="fnanchor">[1026]</a> +Amiens, Pontoise, and Paris itself were among the scenes of these +disorders. Twenty cities witnessed the slaughter of Protestants by the +infuriated rabble.<a name="FNanchor_1027_1027" id="FNanchor_1027_1027"></a><a href="#Footnote_1027_1027" class="fnanchor">[1027]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The affair at Beauvais.</div> + +<p>The disturbance that attracted more attention than any other took place +in the episcopal city of Beauvais—about forty miles north of Paris—on +Easter Monday, the very next day after Montmorency, Guise, and St. André +had been confirming their inauspicious compact at the sacred feast in +honor of a risen Redeemer. The Bishop of Beauvais was the celebrated +Cardinal Odet de Châtillon, long suspected of being at heart a convert +to the reformed doctrines. More bold than<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_475" id="Page_475">[Pg 475]</a></span> he had formerly been, he now +openly fostered their spread in his diocese.<a name="FNanchor_1028_1028" id="FNanchor_1028_1028"></a><a href="#Footnote_1028_1028" class="fnanchor">[1028]</a> But even the personal +popularity of the brother of Coligny and D'Andelot could not, in the +present instance, secure immunity for the preachers who proclaimed the +Gospel under his auspices. Incited by the priesthood, the people +overleaped all the bounds within which they had hitherto contained +themselves. The occasion was a rumor spread abroad that the Cardinal, +instead of attending the public celebration of the mass in his cathedral +church, had, with his domestics, participated in a private communion in +his own palace, and that every communicant had, at the hands of the Abbé +Bouteiller, received both elements, "after the fashion of Geneva." +Hereupon the mob, gathering in great force, assailed a private house in +which there lived a priest accused of teaching the children the +doctrines of religion from the reformed catechisms. The unhappy Adrien +Fourré—such was the schoolmaster's name—was killed; and the rabble, +rendered more savage through their first taste of blood, dragged his +corpse to the public square, where it was burned by the hands of the +city hangman. Odet himself incurred no little risk of meeting a similar +fate. But the strength of the episcopal palace, and the sight of their +bishop clothed in his cardinal's costume, appeased the mob for the time; +and before the morrow came, a goodly number of the neighboring nobles +had rallied for his defence.<a name="FNanchor_1029_1029" id="FNanchor_1029_1029"></a><a href="#Footnote_1029_1029" class="fnanchor">[1029]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Assault on the house of Longjumeau.</div> + +<p>If such riotous attacks followed the preaching of the ecclesiastics in +the provinces, the demonstrations of hostility to the exercises of the +Protestants could not be of a milder type in the midst of the turbulent +populace of Paris, and within a stone's throw of the Collége de la +Sorbonne. Toward the end of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_476" id="Page_476">[Pg 476]</a></span> April information was received that the +city residence of the Sieur de Longjumeau, situated on the <i>Pré aux +Clercs</i>, was becoming a haunt of the Huguenots. It was not long before +the rabble, with ranks recruited from the neighboring colleges, +instituted an assault. But they met with a resistance upon which they +had not counted. Forewarned of his danger, Longjumeau had gathered +beneath his roof a number of friendly nobles, and laid in a good supply +of arms. The undisciplined crowd fled before the well-directed fire of +the defenders, and left several men dead and a larger number wounded on +the field. Not satisfied with this victory by force of arms, Longjumeau +resorted to parliament. But the court displayed its usual partiality for +the Roman Catholic faith. While it abstained from justifying the +assailants, and forbade the students from assembling in the +neighborhood, it reiterated the adage that "there is nothing more +incompatible than the co-existence of two different religions in the +same state,"<a name="FNanchor_1030_1030" id="FNanchor_1030_1030"></a><a href="#Footnote_1030_1030" class="fnanchor">[1030]</a> censured the nobleman's conduct, and ordered him +forthwith to retire to his castle at Longjumeau.<a name="FNanchor_1031_1031" id="FNanchor_1031_1031"></a><a href="#Footnote_1031_1031" class="fnanchor">[1031]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">New and tolerant order.</div> + +<p>The only salvation of France lay in putting an end to such alarming +exhibitions of discord, from the frequent recurrence of which it was to +be feared that the country stood upon the verge of civil war. For this +reason, Catharine de' Medici yielded to the persuasions of Chancellor +L'Hospital, and, on the nineteenth of April, caused a royal letter to be +addressed to all the judges, in which the practice of self-control and +tolerance was enjoined. Insulting expressions based on differences of +religion were strictly forbidden. The very use of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_477" id="Page_477">[Pg 477]</a></span> the hateful epithets +of "Papist" and "Huguenot" was proscribed. Far from offering a reward +for denunciation, the king proclaimed it criminal to violate the +sanctity of the home for the alleged purpose of ferreting out unlawful +assemblages. He again ordered the release of all imprisoned for +religion's sake, and extended an invitation to exiles to return to their +homes, if they would live in a Catholic manner, granting them +permission, if they were otherwise disposed, to sell their property and +leave the kingdom.<a name="FNanchor_1032_1032" id="FNanchor_1032_1032"></a><a href="#Footnote_1032_1032" class="fnanchor">[1032]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Opposition of the Parliament of Paris.</div> + +<p>It would have been not a little surprising if so tolerant an edict, even +though it did little more than repeat the provisions of the last royal +letters on the same subject (of the twenty-eighth of January), had been +accepted without opposition by the Romish party.<a name="FNanchor_1033_1033" id="FNanchor_1033_1033"></a><a href="#Footnote_1033_1033" class="fnanchor">[1033]</a> Still more +strange if parliamentary jealousy had not taken umbrage at the neglect +of immemorial usage, when the letter was sent to the lower courts before +having received the honor of a formal registry at the hands of the +Parisian judges. It is difficult to say which offence was most resented. +Toleration, parliament remonstrated, was a tacit approval of a diversity +of religion—a thing unheard of from Clovis's reign down to the present +day. Kings and emperors—nay, even popes—had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_478" id="Page_478">[Pg 478]</a></span> fallen into error and +been proclaimed heretical or schismatic, but never had such calamity +befallen a king of France. It were better for Charles to make open +profession of his intention to live and die in his religion, and to +enforce conformity on the part of his subjects, than to open the door +wide to sedition by tolerating dissent. Better to renew the prohibition +of heretical conventicles, and to reiterate the ancient penalties. +Particularly ill-advised was it that Charles should be made to pronounce +seditious those who applied the names "Papist" and "Huguenot" to their +opponents, for it seemed to establish side by side two rival sects, +although the name of the one was so novel as never to have found a place +in any former missives of the crown.<a name="FNanchor_1034_1034" id="FNanchor_1034_1034"></a><a href="#Footnote_1034_1034" class="fnanchor">[1034]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Popular cry for Protestant pastors.</div> + +<p>The refusal of the Parisian parliament to verify the edict in the +customary manner prevented its universal observance; but, +notwithstanding this untoward circumstance, it proved exceedingly +favorable to the development of the Huguenot movement.<a name="FNanchor_1035_1035" id="FNanchor_1035_1035"></a><a href="#Footnote_1035_1035" class="fnanchor">[1035]</a> Scarcely a +month after its publication, Calvin, in a letter to which we have more +than once had occasion to refer, expressed his astonishment at the ardor +with which the French Protestants were pressing forward to still greater +achievements. The cry from all parts of Charles the Ninth's dominions +was for ministers of the Gospel.<a name="FNanchor_1036_1036" id="FNanchor_1036_1036"></a><a href="#Footnote_1036_1036" class="fnanchor">[1036]</a> "The eagerness with which +pastors<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_479" id="Page_479">[Pg 479]</a></span> are sought for on all hands from us is not less than that with +which sacerdotal offices are wont to be solicited among the papists. +Those who are in quest of them besiege my doors, as if I must be +entreated after the fashion of the court; and vie with each other, as if +the possession of Christ's kingdom were a quiet one. And, on our part, +we desire to fulfil their earnest prayers to the extent of our ability; +but we are thoroughly exhausted; nay, we have for some time been +compelled to drag from the book-stores every workman that could be found +possessed even of a slight tincture of literature and religious +knowledge."<a name="FNanchor_1037_1037" id="FNanchor_1037_1037"></a><a href="#Footnote_1037_1037" class="fnanchor">[1037]</a></p> + +<p>The letters that reached Calvin and his colleagues by every messenger +from Southern France—many of which have recently come to light in the +libraries of Paris and Geneva—present a vivid picture of the condition +of whole districts and provinces. From Milhau comes the intelligence +that the mass has for some time been banished from the place, but that a +single pastor is by no means sufficient; he must have a colleague, that +one minister may take exclusive care of the neighboring country, "where +there is an infinite number of churches," while the other remains in the +city. Everywhere there is an abundance of hot-headed persons who, by +their breaking of crosses and images, and even plundering of churches, +give the adversary an opportunity for calumniating. "May the Lord, of +His goodness, be pleased to purge His church of them!"<a name="FNanchor_1038_1038" id="FNanchor_1038_1038"></a><a href="#Footnote_1038_1038" class="fnanchor">[1038]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Moderation of the Huguenot ministers.</div> + +<p>In these most difficult circumstances—while, on the one hand, the +demand for ministers was largely in excess of the supply, and, on the +other, the folly of certain inconsiderate enthusiasts seemed likely to +draw upon the great body of Protestants the unwarranted charge of +disorder and insubordination to law—the Huguenot ministers fearlessly +took a position that strikingly exhibits their excellent judgment, as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_480" id="Page_480">[Pg 480]</a></span> +well as their high moral principle. They declined to countenance a +policy which offered, to say the least, bright temporary advantages. +They refused to trust the vessel freighted with their best hopes for the +future of France, to be carried into port on the treacherous waves of +popular excitement. They preferred to abate somewhat of the proper +demands which they might have exacted with success, that they might +deprive their enemies of the slightest ground for maligning their +loyalty to their native land and its legitimate king. When the +Protestants of Montauban—a town then beginning to assume a religious +character which it has never since lost—learned that they had been +falsely accused of having revolted from the king, and of having elected +a governor of their own, established a polity similar to that of the +Swiss cantons, and coined money as an independent state, they not only +refuted the charges to the satisfaction of the royal lieutenant sent to +investigate the truth,<a name="FNanchor_1039_1039" id="FNanchor_1039_1039"></a><a href="#Footnote_1039_1039" class="fnanchor">[1039]</a> but they discontinued the <i>public</i> +celebration of the Lord's Supper, in order to avoid even the appearance +of unwillingness to obey the king's commands. At the same time they +wrote to Geneva an earnest request that, notwithstanding the need of +teachers in France, no persons that had been monks or chaplains should +be admitted to the ministry unless after long and careful scrutiny. They +did more harm, they disquieted the churches more, they said, than the +most violent persecutions that had befallen the Protestants. For they +refused to submit to discipline, made light of the decisions of their +brethren, and, while seeking only their own pleasure, drew odium upon +the ministers who endeavored to uphold good order among the +people.<a name="FNanchor_1040_1040" id="FNanchor_1040_1040"></a><a href="#Footnote_1040_1040" class="fnanchor">[1040]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Inconsistent laws and practice.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Judicial perplexity.</div> + +<p>The position of the Huguenots was certainly anomalous, and presented the +strangest inconsistencies. The royal letters enjoined that no inquiries +should be made with the view of dis<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_481" id="Page_481">[Pg 481]</a></span>turbing any one for religion's sake; +the Parliament of Paris refused to register these letters and obey the +provisions; the still more fanatical counsellors of the Parliament of +Toulouse rather increased than diminished their severities, and daily +consigned fresh victims to the flames.<a name="FNanchor_1041_1041" id="FNanchor_1041_1041"></a><a href="#Footnote_1041_1041" class="fnanchor">[1041]</a> It was natural that the +clergy should take advantage of these circumstances to renew their +remonstrances against the continuance of the existing toleration. The +Cardinal of Lorraine seized the opportunity afforded him by the solemn +ceremonial of Charles's anointing at Rheims (on the thirteenth of June, +1561) to present to the queen mother the collective complaints of the +prelates, because, so far from witnessing the rigid enforcement of the +royal edicts, they beheld the heretical conventicles held with more and +more publicity from day to day, and the judges excusing themselves from +the performance of their duty by alleging the number of conflicting +laws, in the midst of which their course was by no means easy. He +therefore recommended the convocation of the parliament with the princes +and members of the council, that, by their advice, some permanent and +proper settlement of this vexed question might be reached.<a name="FNanchor_1042_1042" id="FNanchor_1042_1042"></a><a href="#Footnote_1042_1042" class="fnanchor">[1042]</a> +Catharine, who, in the publication of the letters-patent of April, had +followed the advice of Chancellor L'Hospital, and seemed to lean to the +side of toleration, now yielded to the cardinal's persuasions—whether +from a belief that the mixed assembly which he proposed to convene would +pursue the path of conciliation already pointed out by the government, +or from a fear of alienating a powerful party in the state.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">The "Mercuriale" of 1561.</div> + +<p>On the twenty-third of June, Charles, accompanied by his mother, by the +King of Navarre, and the other princes of the blood, and by the council +of state, came to the chamber of parliament, and the chancellor +announced to the assembled members the object of this extraordinary +visit.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_482" id="Page_482">[Pg 482]</a></span> It was to obtain advice not respecting religion itself—<i>that</i> +was reserved for the deliberation of the national council, and its +merits could not be discussed here—but respecting the best method of +appeasing the commotions daily on the increase, caused by a diversity of +religious tenets. He therefore begged all present to express in brief +terms their opinions on this important topic. It is not surprising that +the answers given should have been of the most varied import. Ever since +the time of Henry the Second, the Parliament of Paris had contained a +considerable number of friends, more or less open, of Protestantism, and +among the princes and noblemen who came to join in the deliberation, the +number of its warm advocates was proportionately still greater. At the +same time, the Roman Catholic party was largely represented in the ranks +of the members of the parliament proper, as recent events had indicated; +while, among the high nobility and the dignitaries of the church, the +weight of the constable and the Duke of Guise, the cardinals of Bourbon, +Tournon, Lorraine, and Guise, and the Bishop of Paris, counterbalanced +the influence of the King of Navarre, the Prince of Condé, the +Châtillons, and the chancellor. Five or six different opinions were +announced by the successive speakers;<a name="FNanchor_1043_1043" id="FNanchor_1043_1043"></a><a href="#Footnote_1043_1043" class="fnanchor">[1043]</a> but they could all be +reduced to three. The more tolerant advocated the suspension of all +punishments until the determination of the questions in dispute by a +council. A second class, on the contrary, maintained the propriety and +expediency of enforcing the laws which made death the penalty of +heretical<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_483" id="Page_483">[Pg 483]</a></span> belief. The rest—and they mustered in the end a majority of +<i>three</i><a name="FNanchor_1044_1044" id="FNanchor_1044_1044"></a><a href="#Footnote_1044_1044" class="fnanchor">[1044]</a> over the advocates of toleration, while they were much +more numerous than the champions of bloody persecution—advised the king +to give to the ecclesiastical courts exclusive cognizance of heresy, +according to the provisions of the Edict of Romorantin, and to forbid +the holding of public or private conventicles, whether with or without +arms, in which sermons should be preached or the sacraments administered +otherwise than according to the customs of the Romish Church.<a name="FNanchor_1045_1045" id="FNanchor_1045_1045"></a><a href="#Footnote_1045_1045" class="fnanchor">[1045]</a> Such +was the result of the deliberations of the Mercuriale of June and July, +1561,<a name="FNanchor_1046_1046" id="FNanchor_1046_1046"></a><a href="#Footnote_1046_1046" class="fnanchor">[1046]</a> in the course of which opinions had been freely expressed +far more radical than those of Anne Du Bourg in the Mercuriale of 1559.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">The "Edict of July."</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Disappointment at its severity.</div> + +<p>The edict for which the direction had been thus marked out was published +on the eleventh of July, 1561.<a name="FNanchor_1047_1047" id="FNanchor_1047_1047"></a><a href="#Footnote_1047_1047" class="fnanchor">[1047]</a> It has become celebrated in history +as the "Edict of July." After reiterating the injunctions of previous +royal letters, and forbidding all insults and breaches of the peace, on +pain of the halter, Charles was made to prohibit "all enrollings, +signatures, or other things tending to sedition." Preachers in the +churches were strictly commanded to abstain from uttering words +calculated to excite the popular passions or prejudice. The most +important portion of the law, however, was that which punished, by +confiscation of body and goods, all who attended, whether with or +without arms, conventicles in which preaching was held or the holy +sacraments administered. Of simple heresy the cognizance was still +restricted, as by the edict of Romorantin in the previous year, to the +church courts; but no higher penalty could be imposed on the guilty, +when handed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_484" id="Page_484">[Pg 484]</a></span> over to the secular arm, than banishment from the kingdom. +The punishment of all offences in which public disorder or sedition was +mingled with heresy, remained in the hands of the presidial +judges.<a name="FNanchor_1048_1048" id="FNanchor_1048_1048"></a><a href="#Footnote_1048_1048" class="fnanchor">[1048]</a> These were the leading features of this severe ordinance. +It is true that the edict was expressly stated to be only +provisional—to last no longer than until the Universal or National +Council, whichever might be held—that pardon was offered to those who +would live in a Catholic manner for the future, that calumny was +threatened with exemplary punishment. Yet it was clear that the law was +framed in the interest of the Roman Catholics, and in their interest +alone. The Duke of Guise openly exulted. He exclaimed in the hearing of +many, "that his sword would never rest in its scabbard when the +execution of this decision was in question."<a name="FNanchor_1049_1049" id="FNanchor_1049_1049"></a><a href="#Footnote_1049_1049" class="fnanchor">[1049]</a> The disappointment of +the Protestants was not less extreme. At court, Admiral Coligny did not +hesitate to declare that its provisions could never be executed.<a name="FNanchor_1050_1050" id="FNanchor_1050_1050"></a><a href="#Footnote_1050_1050" class="fnanchor">[1050]</a> +The farther they were removed from St. Germain, the more loudly the +Huguenots murmured, the greater was their indisposition to submit to the +harsh conditions imposed upon them. In Guyenne and Gascony, and in +Languedoc, where whole towns were to be found containing scarcely one +avowed partisan of the papacy, the discontent was open and threatening. +How long did the bigots of Paris intend to keep their eyes closed and +refuse to recognize the altered aspect of affairs? Until what future day +was the simplest of rights—the right of the social and public worship +of God—to be proscribed? Must the inhabitants of entire districts +continue, month after month, and year after year, to stand in the eye of +the law as culprits, with the halter around their necks, and beg mercy +of a despised priesthood and a dissolute court, for the crime of +assembling in the open field, in the school-houses, or even in the +parish churches,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_485" id="Page_485">[Pg 485]</a></span> where their fathers had worshipped before them, to +listen to the preaching of God's word?</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Iconoclasm at Montauban.</div> + +<p>With the rising excitement the power of the ministers to control the +ardor of their flocks steadily declined. How could the people be +moderate, or even prudent, when their rights were so thoroughly ignored? +The events of Montauban during August and the succeeding months, may +serve to illustrate the growing impatience of the laity. Until now, as +we have seen, the earnest warnings of their pastors had generally been +successful in restraining the Huguenots from touching the symbols of a +hated system so temptingly exhibited before their eyes. But, a few weeks +after the unofficial intelligence of the enactment of the edict of July +had reached the city, the work of destruction commenced. On the night of +the fourteenth of August the Church of St. Jacques received the first +bands of iconoclasts. The pictures and images were torn down or hurled +from their niches and destroyed; but the chalices, the silver crosses, +and other precious articles, were left untouched. The object was neither +robbery nor plunder. A week later, the same fate befel the paintings in +the church of the Augustinians. After another and a shorter interval, +the chapels of St. Antoine, St. Michel, St. Roch, St. Barthélemi, and +Notre Dame de Baquet, witnessed similar scenes of destruction. It was at +this juncture that the edict of July was brought to Montauban and +publicly proclaimed. Nothing could have been more inopportune. The +raging fever of the popular pulse had been mistaken for a transient +excitement, and the specific now administered, far from quenching the +patient's burning thirst, only stimulated it to a more irrepressible +craving. That very evening (Tuesday, the twenty-sixth of August), the +people, irritated beyond endurance, gathered around the Dominican +church. The monks, forewarned of their danger, had taken the precaution +to fortify themselves. They now rang the tocsin, but no one came to +their rescue, and the stronghold was speedily taken. The assailants, +however, cherished no enmity toward God's image in human flesh and +bones. So, after effectually destroying all man's efforts to represent +the Divine likeness in stone or on canvas, the Huguenots proceeded to +the Carmelite Church.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_486" id="Page_486">[Pg 486]</a></span> Here rich trophies awaited them—a "Saint Suaire" +and relics, which, on close inspection, were found to be the bones of +horses instead of belonging to the saintly personages whose names they +had borne. The reader will scarcely feel surprise to learn that the +monks—with the single exception of the Franciscans—now judged that the +time for them to leave the city had arrived.</p> + +<p>Instructed by the somewhat suggestive example of the fate that had +befallen their brethren, the black and white friars, and, doubtless +considering discretion the better part of valor, the priests of the +collegiate church of St. Stephen abandoned their preparations for +defence, and, stipulating only for their own safety, gave up their +paintings to be consigned to the flames. A bonfire was kindled on one of +the public squares; and while the sacred pictures and images thrown upon +it were being slowly consumed, bands of children looked on and chanted +in chorus the metrical paraphrase of the ten commandments. The city +being thus cleared of its public objects of superstitious +devotion,<a name="FNanchor_1051_1051" id="FNanchor_1051_1051"></a><a href="#Footnote_1051_1051" class="fnanchor">[1051]</a> the people next turned their attention to those of a +more private character. As the crowds moved along the streets they +earnestly appealed to the inmates of the houses to follow the noble +example the churches had set them. We are informed by a contemporary +record that the iconoclasts carefully abstained from trespassing, and +confined themselves to an exhibition of those passages of Sacred Writ in +which an idolatrous worship was prohibited. But, if the brief +argumentation for which the rapidity of the transaction allowed time was +not in all cases sufficient to produce entire conviction, it may be +presumed that any remaining scruples were removed by the contagion of +the popular enthusiasm. Montauban was purged of image-worship as in a +day, and without the injury of man, woman, or child.<a name="FNanchor_1052_1052" id="FNanchor_1052_1052"></a><a href="#Footnote_1052_1052" class="fnanchor">[1052]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The Edict cannot be executed.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Impatience with "public idols."</div> + +<p>Coligny was right. The Edict of July could not be carried into execution +in those parts of France where, as in Montauban, the mass of the +population had openly adopted Protestantism.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_487" id="Page_487">[Pg 487]</a></span> If the resistance +encountered was often accompanied by an earnestness that disdained to be +trammelled by the customary forms of civil law, it was almost always +exercised in accordance with the dictates of natural justice. If the +people, emancipated from the service of images, believed themselves to +possess an indisputable right to dash in pieces or burn the curiously +wrought saints sculptured in marble or portrayed by the painter's +pencil, this fact is less wonderful than that they scrupulously spared +the lives of the priests and monks to whose pecuniary advantage their +former worship had principally redounded. The plain Huguenot, like the +plain Christian in the primitive age, was fully persuaded that he had an +owner's title in the public idol, which not only justified him in +destroying it when he had discovered its vanity, but rendered it his +imperative duty to execute the natural impulse. As for the obligation of +nine-tenths of the population to use the idol tenderly, because of any +rightful claim of the remaining tithe, this was a consideration that +scarcely occurred to them.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Calvin endeavors to repress it.</div> + +<p>Nor were they very solicitous respecting the dangers that might arise +from over-precipitancy. Not so with Calvin, from whose closely logical +intellect the influence of a thorough training in the principles of +French law had not been obliterated. Never was disapprobation more +clearly expressed than in the reformer's letter to the church of +Sauve—a small town in the Cevennes mountains, a score of miles from +Nismes—where a Huguenot minister, in his inconsiderate zeal, had taken +an active part in the "mad exploit" of burning images and overturning a +cross. This conduct Calvin regarded as the more reprehensible in one +"whose duty it was to moderate others and hold them in check." He denied +that "God ever enjoined on any persons to destroy idols, save on every +man in his own house, or in public on those placed in authority," and he +demanded that this "fire-brand" should exhibit his title to be lord of +the territory in which he had undertaken to exercise so distinct a +function of royalty. "In thus speaking," he added, "we are not become +the advocates of the idols. Would to God that idolatry might be +exterminated, even at the cost of our<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_488" id="Page_488">[Pg 488]</a></span> lives! But since obedience is +better than all sacrifice, we must look to what is lawful for us to do, +and must keep within our bounds." "Have pity, very dear brethren," he +wrote in conclusion, "on the poor churches, and do not wittingly expose +them to butchery. Disavow this act, and openly declare to the people +whom he has misled, that you have separated yourselves from him who was +its chief author, and that, for his rebellion, you have cut him off from +your communion."<a name="FNanchor_1053_1053" id="FNanchor_1053_1053"></a><a href="#Footnote_1053_1053" class="fnanchor">[1053]</a> Calvin's advice was that of the whole body of +Protestant divines in France and its neighborhood. Even an idolatrous +worship must not be overturned by violent means.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Re-assembling of the States at Pontoise.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Able harangue of the "Vierg" of Autun.</div> + +<p>The States General, after having been first summoned to meet at Melun on +the first of May, and then prorogued, when it was found that some of the +particular States had introduced the consideration of the public affairs +of the kingdom, instead of devising means for the payment of the royal +debt,<a name="FNanchor_1054_1054" id="FNanchor_1054_1054"></a><a href="#Footnote_1054_1054" class="fnanchor">[1054]</a> finally met at Pontoise on the first of August. It does not +come within the scope of this history to dwell at great length upon the +proceedings of this important political assembly. The States were bold +and decided in tone. It was only after finding that those who had a +clear right to the regency were unwilling to assert it, that they +consented, in deference to the request of Du Mortier, Admiral Coligny, +and Antoine himself, to ratify the contract between Catharine de' Medici +and the King of Navarre.<a name="FNanchor_1055_1055" id="FNanchor_1055_1055"></a><a href="#Footnote_1055_1055" class="fnanchor">[1055]</a> Nearly four weeks were spent in the +discussion of the subjects that were to be incorporated in the +"<i>cahiers</i>," or bills of remonstrance to be presented to the king. It +was at the solemn reception of the three orders in the great hall of the +neighboring castle of St. Germain-en-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_489" id="Page_489">[Pg 489]</a></span>Laye,<a name="FNanchor_1056_1056" id="FNanchor_1056_1056"></a><a href="#Footnote_1056_1056" class="fnanchor">[1056]</a> on the twenty-seventh +of August, that the "tiers état" expressed with greatest distinctness +its sentiments respecting the present condition of the realm. Jacques +Bretagne, <i>vierg</i><a name="FNanchor_1057_1057" id="FNanchor_1057_1057"></a><a href="#Footnote_1057_1057" class="fnanchor">[1057]</a> of the city of Autun, a townsman of the clerical +orator of the first of January, whose arrogance had inspired such +universal disgust, was their spokesman. After reflecting with +considerable severity upon the deficiency of the clergy in sound +learning and spirituality—qualities for which they ought to be +pre-eminently distinguished—he took an impressive survey of the +excessive burdens of the people—burdens by which it had been reduced to +such deep poverty as to be altogether unable to do anything to relieve +the crown until it had obtained time to recruit its exhausted +resources.<a name="FNanchor_1058_1058" id="FNanchor_1058_1058"></a><a href="#Footnote_1058_1058" class="fnanchor">[1058]</a> He declared it to be utterly inconceivable how such +enormous debts had been incurred, while the purses of the "third estate" +had been drained by unheard-of subsidies. As he had before exhibited the +obligations of the clergy by biblical example, so the orator next +proved, by reference to the Holy Scriptures, that it was the duty of +Charles to cause his subjects to be instructed by the preaching of God's +word, as the surest foundation of his regal authority. Then, approaching +the vexed question of toleration, he declared that never had monarch +more reason to study the Word of Life than the youthful King of France +amid the growing divisions and discords of his realm. The different +opinions<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_490" id="Page_490">[Pg 490]</a></span> held by Charles's subjects, he said, arose only from their +great solicitude for the salvation of their souls. Both parties were +sincere in their profession of faith. Let persecution, therefore, cease. +Let a free national council be convened, under the presidency of the +king in person, and let sure access be given to it. In fine, let places +be conceded to the advocates of the new doctrines for the worship of +Almighty God in the open day, and in the presence of royal officers; for +the voluntary service of the heart, which cannot be constrained, is +alone acceptable to heaven. From such toleration, not sedition, but +public tranquillity, must necessarily result. And lest the ordinary +allegation of the necessary truth of the Papal Church, on account of its +antiquity, should be employed to corroborate the existing system of +persecution, the deputy of the people reminded the king and court that +the same argument might be rendered effective in hardening Jews and +Turks in their ancient unbelief. "We need not busy ourselves in +examining the length of time, with a view to determining thereby the +truth or falsity of any religion. <i>Time is God's creature</i>, subject to +Himself, in such a manner that ten thousand years are not a minute in +reference to the power of our God!"<a name="FNanchor_1059_1059" id="FNanchor_1059_1059"></a><a href="#Footnote_1059_1059" class="fnanchor">[1059]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Written demands of the tiers état.</div> + +<p>If the harangue of the orator of the third estate was alarming to the +clergy, its written demands were little calculated to reassure them. For +of several propositions made for the payment of the public debts from +the ecclesiastical property, none were very satisfactory to the priests. +According to one, all benefices were to be laid under contribution. The +holders of the lowest in valuation were to give up one-fourth of their +revenues; the holders of more valuable benefices a larger proportion; +while the high dignitaries of the church were to be limited to a yearly +stipend of six thousand livres for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_491" id="Page_491">[Pg 491]</a></span> bishops, eight thousand for +archbishops, and twelve thousand for cardinals. But the most obnoxious +scheme was one proposing an innovation of a very radical character. The +aggregate revenues of the temporalities of the Gallican Church were +estimated at four million livres; the temporalities themselves were +worth one hundred and twenty millions. It was gravely proposed to +dispose of all this property by sale. Forty-eight millions might be +reserved, which, if invested at the usual rate of one-twelfth, or eight +and a-third per cent., would secure to the clergy the revenue they now +enjoyed. Forty-two millions would be required to pay off the debts of +the crown. The remaining thirty millions might be deposited with the +chief cities of the kingdom, to be loaned out to foster the development +of commerce; while the moderate interest thus obtained would suffice to +fortify the frontiers and support the soldiery.<a name="FNanchor_1060_1060" id="FNanchor_1060_1060"></a><a href="#Footnote_1060_1060" class="fnanchor">[1060]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Representative government demanded.</div> + +<p>The constitutional changes proposed by the formal <i>cahier</i> of the third +estate were of an equally radical character. They looked to nothing +short of a representative government, protected by suitable guarantees, +and a complete religious liberty.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_492" id="Page_492">[Pg 492]</a></span> On the one hand, the monarch was to +be guided in the administration by a council of noblemen and learned and +loyal subjects. Except in the case of princes of the blood, no two near +relatives, as father and son, or two brothers, should sit at the same +time in the council; while ecclesiastics of every grade were to be +utterly excluded, both because they had taken an oath of fealty to the +Pope, and because their very profession demanded a residence in their +respective dioceses. On the other hand, the States General were to be +convened at least once in two years, and no offensive war was to be +undertaken, no new impost or tax to be raised, without consulting them. +Happy would it have been for France, had its people obtained, by some +such reasonable concessions as these, the inestimable advantage of +regular representation in the government! At the price of a certain +amount of political discussion, a bloody revolution might, perhaps, have +been avoided.</p> + +<p>In the matter of religion, the third estate recommended, first of all, +the absolute cessation of persecution and the repeal of all intolerant +legislation, even of the edict of July past; grounding the +recommendation partly on the failure of all the rigorous laws hitherto +enacted to accomplish their design, partly on the greater propriety and +suitableness of milder measures. And they judiciously added, with a +charitable discernment so rare in that age as to be almost startling: +"The diversity of opinions entertained by the king's subjects <i>proceeds +from nothing else than the strong zeal and solicitude they have for the +salvation of their souls</i>."<a name="FNanchor_1061_1061" id="FNanchor_1061_1061"></a><a href="#Footnote_1061_1061" class="fnanchor">[1061]</a> Strange that so sensible an +observation should be immediately followed by a disclaimer of any +intention to ask for pardon for seditious persons, libertines, +anabaptists, and atheists, the enemies of God and of the public peace!</p> + +<div class="sidenote">An impartial national council.</div> + +<p>It was natural that, in accordance with these views, the third estate +should call for the convocation of a national council to settle +religious questions, to be presided over by the king himself, in which +no one having an interest in retarding a reformation should sit, and +where the word of God should be the sole guide in the decision of +doubt<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_493" id="Page_493">[Pg 493]</a></span>ful points. Meanwhile, the third estate proposed, that in every +city a church or other place should be assigned for the worship of those +who were now forced to hold their meetings by night because of their +inability to join with a good conscience in the ceremonies of the +"Romish Church"—for so the document somewhat curtly designated the +establishment.<a name="FNanchor_1062_1062" id="FNanchor_1062_1062"></a><a href="#Footnote_1062_1062" class="fnanchor">[1062]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The French prelates at Poissy.</div> + +<p>While the States General were occupied at Pontoise in considering the +means of relieving the king's pecuniary embarrassments, Catharine had +assembled at Poissy all the bishops of France to take into consideration +the religious reformation which the times imperatively demanded. The +Pope as yet delayed the long-promised œcumenical council, and there +was little hope of obtaining its actual convocation on fair and +practical terms unless, indeed, he should be frightened into it by the +superior terrors of a French national council, which might throw France +into the arms of the Reformation. Tired of the duplicity of the pontiff, +alarmed by the rapid progress of religious dissensions at home, not +unwilling, perhaps, to make an attempt at reconciliation, which, if +successful, would confirm her own authority and remove the anxieties to +which she was daily exposed—now from the side of the Guises, and again +from that of the Huguenots—the queen mother had yielded to the +suggestion frequently made to her, and had consented to a discussion +between the French prelates and the most learned Protestant +ministers.<a name="FNanchor_1063_1063" id="FNanchor_1063_1063"></a><a href="#Footnote_1063_1063" class="fnanchor">[1063]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_494" id="Page_494">[Pg 494]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Invitation to all Frenchmen,</div> + +<div class="sidenote">and particularly to Beza.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">The couriers of Rome stripped.</div> + +<p>Accordingly, on the twenty-fifth of July an invitation had everywhere +been extended by proclamation at the sound of the trumpet, to all +Frenchmen who had any correction of religious affairs at heart, to +appear with perfect safety and be heard before the approaching assembly +at Poissy.<a name="FNanchor_1064_1064" id="FNanchor_1064_1064"></a><a href="#Footnote_1064_1064" class="fnanchor">[1064]</a> Even before this public announcement, however, steps +had been taken to secure the presence of the most distinguished orator +among the reformed, and, next to Calvin, their most celebrated +theologian. On the fourteenth of July, the Parisian pastors, and, on the +succeeding days, the Prince of Condé, the Admiral, and the King of +Navarre, had written to Theodore Beza, begging him to come and thus take +advantage of the opportunity offered by the favorable disposition of the +royal court.<a name="FNanchor_1065_1065" id="FNanchor_1065_1065"></a><a href="#Footnote_1065_1065" class="fnanchor">[1065]</a> Similar invitations were sent to Pietro Vermigli—the +celebrated reformer of Zurich, better known by the name of Peter +Martyr—a native of Florence, now just sixty-one years of age, whose +eloquence, it was hoped, might exercise a deep influence upon his +countrywoman, the queen mother.<a name="FNanchor_1066_1066" id="FNanchor_1066_1066"></a><a href="#Footnote_1066_1066" class="fnanchor">[1066]</a> So ear<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_495" id="Page_495">[Pg 495]</a></span>nest, indeed, was the court +in its desire to bring about the conference, that Catharine, well aware +that, should tidings of the project reach the ears of the Pope, he would +leave no stone unturned to frustrate her design, gave secret orders that +all the couriers that left France for Rome about this time should be +stripped of their despatches on the Italian borders! This daring step +was actually executed by means of the governors of cities in Piedmont, +who were devoted to her interests.<a name="FNanchor_1067_1067" id="FNanchor_1067_1067"></a><a href="#Footnote_1067_1067" class="fnanchor">[1067]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">French sincerity doubted.</div> + +<p>In spite of this flattering invitation, however, there was much in the +condition of French affairs, especially in view of the edict of July +just published, that made the two Swiss reformers and their colleagues +hesitate before undertaking a mission which might possibly prove +productive of less benefit than injury to the cause they had at heart. +Well might they suspect the sincerity of a court from which so unfair an +ordinance as that of July had but just emanated. What good results could +flow from an interview for which the blood-stained persecutor of their +brethren, Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine, professed his eagerness, +promising himself and his friends an easy victory over the Huguenot +orators?<a name="FNanchor_1068_1068" id="FNanchor_1068_1068"></a><a href="#Footnote_1068_1068" class="fnanchor">[1068]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_496" id="Page_496">[Pg 496]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Urgency of Parisian Huguenots.</div> + +<p>The Protestants of Paris viewed the matter in a different light. So soon +as they heard that Beza had concluded not to accede to their request, +they wrote again, on the tenth of August. In this letter they begged +him, although it was already so late that they had little hope of his +being able to reach Poissy in time to take part in the opening of the +colloquy, at least to change his mind, and to set out as soon, and +travel as expeditiously as possible, in order to succor those who had, +in his absence, entered upon the contest. Already, seeing little +eagerness on the part of the Protestants, their adversaries had begun to +boast of victory. The common cry at Paris, even, was that the +Protestants would not dare to maintain their errors "before so good a +company." If the prelates should be allowed to adjourn without advantage +being taken of the opportunity accorded the reformers of defending their +faith, the nobles would be too much disgusted to interfere in their +behalf a second time; and the queen had distinctly said that, in that +case, she would never be able to believe that they had any right on +their side. "As to the edict," they added, "which has induced you to +adopt this resolution, although it is very bad, yet it can place you in +no danger; for by it there is nothing condemned excepting the +'assemblies;' and as to simple heresy, as they call it, it can at most +be punished only by banishment from the kingdom, without other loss. +Moreover, we know with certainty that this edict was made for the sole +purpose of contenting King Philip and the Pope, and drawing some money +from the ecclesiastics. These ends are bad, but it seems to us that +there is nothing in all this that ought to prevent our appearing for the +maintenance of the truth of God, since it has pleased Him to give us the +opportunity of coming forward and being heard, as we have so long +desired."<a name="FNanchor_1069_1069" id="FNanchor_1069_1069"></a><a href="#Footnote_1069_1069" class="fnanchor">[1069]</a> Two days later Antoine of Navarre added his +solicitations in an earnest letter to the "Magnificent Seigniors, the +Syndics and Council of the Seigniory of Geneva."<a name="FNanchor_1070_1070" id="FNanchor_1070_1070"></a><a href="#Footnote_1070_1070" class="fnanchor">[1070]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_497" id="Page_497">[Pg 497]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Beza comes to St. Germain.</div> + +<p>That it was no personal fear which had occasioned Beza's delay was soon +proved. Antoine had written on the twelfth of August; on the sixteenth, +without waiting for a safe-conduct, the reformer was already on his way +to St. Germain, acting upon the principle laid down by Calvin: "If it be +not yet God's pleasure to open a <i>door</i>, it is our duty to creep in at +the <i>windows</i>, or to penetrate through the smallest <i>crevices</i>, rather +than allow the opportunity of effecting a happy arrangement to escape +us."<a name="FNanchor_1071_1071" id="FNanchor_1071_1071"></a><a href="#Footnote_1071_1071" class="fnanchor">[1071]</a> So expeditious, in fact, was Beza, that on the twenty-second +of August he was in Paris.<a name="FNanchor_1072_1072" id="FNanchor_1072_1072"></a><a href="#Footnote_1072_1072" class="fnanchor">[1072]</a> The next day he reached the royal court +at St. Germain.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Beza's previous history.</div> + +<p>The theologian whose advent had been so anxiously awaited was a French +exile for religion's sake. Born, on the twenty-fourth of June, 1519, of +noble parents, in the small but famous Burgundian city of Vezelay, none +of the reformers sacrificed more flattering prospects than did Theodore +Beza when he cast in his lot with the persecuted Protestants. At Bourges +he had been a pupil of Wolmar, until that eminent teacher was recalled +to Germany. At Orleans he had been admitted a licentiate in law when +scarcely twenty years old. At Paris he gave to the world a volume of +Latin poetry of no mean merit, which secured the author great applause. +The "Juvenilia" were neither more nor less pagan in tone than the rest +of the amatory literature of the age framed on the model of the +classics. That they were immoral seems never to have been suspected +until Beza became a Protestant, and it was desirable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_498" id="Page_498">[Pg 498]</a></span> to find means to +sully his reputation. The discovery of the hidden depths of iniquity in +the reformer's youthful productions it was reserved for the same +prurient imaginations to make that afterward fancied that they had +detected obscene allusions in the most innocent lines of the Huguenot +psalter. At the age of forty-two years, Beza, after having successively +discharged with great ability the functions of professor of Greek in the +Académie of Lausanne, and of professor of theology in that of Geneva, +was, next to Calvin, the most distinguished Protestant teacher of French +origin. He was a man of commanding presence, of extensive erudition, of +quick and ready wit, of elegant manners and bearing. No better selection +could have been made by the Huguenots of a champion to represent them at +the court of Charles the Ninth.<a name="FNanchor_1073_1073" id="FNanchor_1073_1073"></a><a href="#Footnote_1073_1073" class="fnanchor">[1073]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Wrangling of the prelates.</div> + +<p>Meantime the prelates had been in session more than three weeks. But +little good had thus far come of their deliberations. In vain, had the +king delivered before them a speech in which he incited them "to provide +such good means that the people might be induced to live in concord, and +in obedience to the Catholic Church." In vain had he assured them that +he would not give them permission to separate until they had made a +satisfactory settlement of the religious affairs of the kingdom.<a name="FNanchor_1074_1074" id="FNanchor_1074_1074"></a><a href="#Footnote_1074_1074" class="fnanchor">[1074]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_499" id="Page_499">[Pg 499]</a></span> +The prelates much preferred to fritter away their time in the discussion +of petty details of ecclesiastical order and discipline—in regulating +the number of priests, settling the dignity of cathedral churches, +prescribing the duties of bishops, and other matters of equal +importance—"fancying that, in answering such questions, they were +applying an efficacious remedy to the ills that desolated the church in +these times of troubles and divisions."<a name="FNanchor_1075_1075" id="FNanchor_1075_1075"></a><a href="#Footnote_1075_1075" class="fnanchor">[1075]</a> In the words of a minister +of state, writing to a French ambassador on the very day of Beza's +arrival at court, they intended to treat of the reformation of manners +alone, "without coming to the point of doctrine, which they had as lief +touch as handle fire."<a name="FNanchor_1076_1076" id="FNanchor_1076_1076"></a><a href="#Footnote_1076_1076" class="fnanchor">[1076]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Cardinal Châtillon's communion.</div> + +<p>The doubtful allegiance of some of their own number to the Romish Church +was a source of peculiar vexation. As the prelates were about to join in +the celebration of the Lord's Supper, Cardinal Châtillon and two other +bishops insisted upon communicating under both forms; and when their +demand was refused, they went to another church and celebrated the +divine ordinance with many of the nobility, all partaking both of the +bread and of the wine, thus earning for themselves the nickname of +Protestants.<a name="FNanchor_1077_1077" id="FNanchor_1077_1077"></a><a href="#Footnote_1077_1077" class="fnanchor">[1077]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Determination of Catharine and L'Hospital.</div> + +<p>What with the disinclination of the bishops to enter into the +consideration of the real difficulties that beset the kingdom, and the +open hostility of the Pope and of Philip the Second<a name="FNanchor_1078_1078" id="FNanchor_1078_1078"></a><a href="#Footnote_1078_1078" class="fnanchor">[1078]</a> to any +assembly that bore the least resemblance to a national council, +Catharine and her principal adviser, the chancellor, had an arduous and +well-nigh hopeless task. They strove to quiet the King of Spain and the +Pope by the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_500" id="Page_500">[Pg 500]</a></span> assurance that the prelates had only been assembled in +order to prepare them to go in a body to attend the universal council +soon to be convened. "Those who are dangerously ill," wrote Catharine in +her defence, "may be excused for applying all herbs to their ache, in +order to alleviate it when it becomes insupportable. Meanwhile they send +for the good physician—whom I take to be a good council—to cure so +furious and dangerous a disease." Only those who feel the suffering, she +intimated, can talk understandingly with respect to its treatment.<a name="FNanchor_1079_1079" id="FNanchor_1079_1079"></a><a href="#Footnote_1079_1079" class="fnanchor">[1079]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">A remarkable letter to the Pope.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Effect produced at Rome.</div> + +<p>Catharine was not, however, satisfied with this general apology; she +even undertook to express to the pontifical court her idea of some of +the reforms which were dictated by the times.<a name="FNanchor_1080_1080" id="FNanchor_1080_1080"></a><a href="#Footnote_1080_1080" class="fnanchor">[1080]</a> On the fourth of +August—nearly three weeks before Beza's arrival—she wrote a letter to +Pius the Fourth of so radical a character that its authenticity has been +called into question, although without sufficient reason. After +acquainting the Pope with the extraordinary increase in the number of +those who had forsaken the Roman Church, and with the impossibility of +restoring unity by means of coercion, she declared it a special mark of +divine favor that there were among the dissidents neither Anabaptists +nor Libertines, for all held the creed as explained by the early +councils of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_501" id="Page_501">[Pg 501]</a></span> Church. It was, consequently, the conviction of many +pious persons that, by the concession of some points of practice, the +present divisions might be healed. But more frequent and peaceful +conferences must be held, the ministers of religion must preach concord +and charity to their flocks, and the scruples of those who still +remained in the pale of the Church must be removed by the abolition of +all unnecessary and objectionable practices. Images, forbidden by God +and disapproved of by the Fathers, ought at once to be banished from +public worship, baptism to be stripped of its exorcisms, communion in +both forms to be restored, the vernacular tongue to be employed in the +services of the church, private masses to be discountenanced. Such were +the abuses which it seemed proper to correct, while leaving the papal +authority undiminished, and the doctrines of the Church unaffected by +innovations.<a name="FNanchor_1081_1081" id="FNanchor_1081_1081"></a><a href="#Footnote_1081_1081" class="fnanchor">[1081]</a> To such a length was a woman—herself devoid of +strong convictions, and possessing otherwise little sympathy with the +belief or the practice of the reformers—carried by the force of the +current by which she was surrounded. But, whether the letter was +dictated by L'Hospital, or inspired by Bishop Montluc—at this time +suspected of being more than half a Huguenot at heart—the fact that a +production openly condemning the Roman Catholic traditional usages on +more than one point should have emanated from the pen of Catharine de' +Medici, is certainly somewhat remarkable. At Rome the letter produced a +deep impression. If the Pope did not at once give utterance to his +serious apprehensions, he was at least confirmed in his resolution to +redeem his pledge in respect to a universal council, and he must have +congratulated himself on having already despatched an able negotiator to +the French court, in the person of the Cardinal of Ferrara, a legate +whose intrigues will occupy us again presently.<a name="FNanchor_1082_1082" id="FNanchor_1082_1082"></a><a href="#Footnote_1082_1082" class="fnanchor">[1082]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_502" id="Page_502">[Pg 502]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Beza's flattering reception.</div> + +<p>Despite Pope and prelates, Beza met with the most flattering reception. +He was welcomed upon his arrival by the principal statesmen of the +kingdom. L'Hospital showed his eagerness to obtain the credit of having +introduced him. Coligny, the King of Navarre, and the Prince of Condé +betrayed their joy at his coming. The Cardinals of Bourbon and Châtillon +shook hands with him. Indeed, the contrast between Bourbon's present +cordiality and his coldness a year before at Nérac, provoked Beza to +make the playful remark that "he had not undergone any change since the +cardinal had refused to speak to him through fear of being +excommunicated."<a name="FNanchor_1083_1083" id="FNanchor_1083_1083"></a><a href="#Footnote_1083_1083" class="fnanchor">[1083]</a> Afterward, attended by a numerous escort,<a name="FNanchor_1084_1084" id="FNanchor_1084_1084"></a><a href="#Footnote_1084_1084" class="fnanchor">[1084]</a> +the reformer was conducted to the quarters of the Prince of Condé, where +the princess and Madame de Coligny showed themselves "marvellously well +disposed." On the morrow, which was Sunday, Beza preached in the +prince's apartments before a large and honorable audience. Condé +himself, however, was absent, engaged in making that unfortunate St. +Bartholomew's Day reconciliation with the Duke of Guise, of which +mention has already been made.<a name="FNanchor_1085_1085" id="FNanchor_1085_1085"></a><a href="#Footnote_1085_1085" class="fnanchor">[1085]</a> Certainly neither Beza nor the +other reformers could complain of the greeting extended to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_503" id="Page_503">[Pg 503]</a></span> them. "They +received a more cordial welcome than would have awaited the Pope of +Rome, had he come to the French court," remarks a contemporary curate +with a spice of bitterness.<a name="FNanchor_1086_1086" id="FNanchor_1086_1086"></a><a href="#Footnote_1086_1086" class="fnanchor">[1086]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Beza meets Cardinal Lorraine.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">The cardinal professes to be satisfied.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">A witty woman's caution.</div> + +<p>That very evening Beza and Lorraine crossed swords for the first time in +the apartments of Navarre.<a name="FNanchor_1087_1087" id="FNanchor_1087_1087"></a><a href="#Footnote_1087_1087" class="fnanchor">[1087]</a> The former, coming by invitation, was +much surprised to find there before him not only Antoine and his +brothers, but Catharine de' Medici and Cardinal Lorraine, neither of +whom had he previously met. Without losing his self-possession, however, +he briefly adverted to the occasion of his coming, and the queen mother +in return graciously expressed the joy she would experience should his +advent conduce to the peace and quietness of the realm. Hereupon the +cardinal took part in the conversation, and said that he hoped Beza +might be as zealous in allaying the troubles of France as he had been +successful in fomenting discord—a remark which Beza did not let pass +unchallenged, for he declared that he neither had distracted nor +intended to distract his native land. From inquiries respecting Beza's +great master, Calvin, his age and health, the discourse turned to +certain obnoxious expressions which Lorraine attributed to Beza himself; +but the latter entirely disclaimed being their author, much to the +confusion of the cardinal, who had expected to create a strong prejudice +against his opponent in the minds of the by-standers. The greater part +of the evening, however, was consumed in a discussion respecting the +real presence. Beza, while denying that the sacramental bread and wine +were transmuted into the body and blood of Christ, was willing to admit, +according to Calvin's views and his own, "that the bread is +sacramentally Christ's body—that is, that although that body is now in +heaven alone, while we have the signs with us on earth, yet the very +body of Christ is as truly given to us and received by faith, and that +to our eternal life, on account of God's promise, as the sign is in a +natural manner placed in our<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_504" id="Page_504">[Pg 504]</a></span> hands."<a name="FNanchor_1088_1088" id="FNanchor_1088_1088"></a><a href="#Footnote_1088_1088" class="fnanchor">[1088]</a> The statement was certainly +far enough removed from the theory of the Romish Church to have +consigned its author to the flames, had the theologians of the Sorbonne +been his judges. But it satisfied the cardinal,<a name="FNanchor_1089_1089" id="FNanchor_1089_1089"></a><a href="#Footnote_1089_1089" class="fnanchor">[1089]</a> who confessed that +he was little at home in a discussion foreign to his ordinary studies—a +fact quite sufficiently apparent from his confused statements<a name="FNanchor_1090_1090" id="FNanchor_1090_1090"></a><a href="#Footnote_1090_1090" class="fnanchor">[1090]</a>—and +did not attempt to conceal the little account which he made of the dogma +of transubstantiation.<a name="FNanchor_1091_1091" id="FNanchor_1091_1091"></a><a href="#Footnote_1091_1091" class="fnanchor">[1091]</a> "See then, madam," said Beza, "what are +those sacramentarians, who have been so long persecuted and overwhelmed +with all kinds of calumnies." "Do you hear, cardinal?" said the queen to +Lorraine. "He says that the sacramentarians hold no other opinion than +that to which you have assented."<a name="FNanchor_1092_1092" id="FNanchor_1092_1092"></a><a href="#Footnote_1092_1092" class="fnanchor">[1092]</a> With this satisfactory +conclusion the discussion, which had lasted a couple of hours,<a name="FNanchor_1093_1093" id="FNanchor_1093_1093"></a><a href="#Footnote_1093_1093" class="fnanchor">[1093]</a> was +concluded. The queen mother left greatly pleased with the substantial +agreement which the two champions of opposite creeds had attained in +their first interview, and flattering herself that greater results might +attend the public conferences. The cardinal, too, professed high esteem +for Beza, and said to him, as he was going<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_505" id="Page_505">[Pg 505]</a></span> away: "I adjure you to +confer with me; you will not find me so black as I am painted."<a name="FNanchor_1094_1094" id="FNanchor_1094_1094"></a><a href="#Footnote_1094_1094" class="fnanchor">[1094]</a> +Beza might have been pardoned, had he permitted the cardinal's +professions somewhat to shake his convictions of the man's true +character. He was, however, placed on his guard by the pointed words of +a witty woman. Madame de Crussol, who had listened to the entire +conversation, as she shook the cardinal's hand at the close of the +evening, significantly said, in a voice loud enough to be heard by all: +"Good man for to-night; but to-morrow—what?"<a name="FNanchor_1095_1095" id="FNanchor_1095_1095"></a><a href="#Footnote_1095_1095" class="fnanchor">[1095]</a> The covert +prediction was soon fulfilled. The very next day the cardinal was +industriously circulating the story that Beza had been vanquished in +their first encounter.<a name="FNanchor_1096_1096" id="FNanchor_1096_1096"></a><a href="#Footnote_1096_1096" class="fnanchor">[1096]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">A Huguenot petition.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Vexatious delay.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">The petition informally granted.</div> + +<p>The Protestant ministers, assembled at St. Germain about ten days before +Beza's arrival,<a name="FNanchor_1097_1097" id="FNanchor_1097_1097"></a><a href="#Footnote_1097_1097" class="fnanchor">[1097]</a> had, with wise forethought, presented to the king +a petition embracing four points of prime importance.<a name="FNanchor_1098_1098" id="FNanchor_1098_1098"></a><a href="#Footnote_1098_1098" class="fnanchor">[1098]</a> They guarded +against an unfair treatment of the cause they had come to maintain, by +demanding that their opponents, the prelates, should not be permitted to +constitute themselves their judges, that the king and his council should +preside in the conferences, and that the controversy should be decided +by reference to the Word of God. Moreover, lest the incidents of the +discussion should be perverted,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_506" id="Page_506">[Pg 506]</a></span> and each party should so much the more +confidently arrogate to itself the credit of victory as the claim was +more difficult of refutation, they insisted on the propriety of +appointing, by common consent of the two parties, clerks whose duty it +would be to take down in writing an accurate account of the entire +proceedings. To so reasonable a petition the court felt compelled to +return a gracious reply. The requests could not, however, be definitely +granted, the ministers were told, without first consulting the prelates, +and gaining, if possible, their consent.<a name="FNanchor_1099_1099" id="FNanchor_1099_1099"></a><a href="#Footnote_1099_1099" class="fnanchor">[1099]</a> This was no easy matter. +Many of the doctors of Poissy, and even some members of the council, +maintained that with condemned heretics, such as the Huguenots had long +been, it was wrong to hold any sort of discussion.<a name="FNanchor_1100_1100" id="FNanchor_1100_1100"></a><a href="#Footnote_1100_1100" class="fnanchor">[1100]</a> Day after day +passed, but the attainment of the object for which the ministers had +come seemed no nearer than when they left their distant homes. They were +not yet permitted to appear before the king and vindicate the confession +of faith which they had, several months before, declared themselves +prepared to maintain.<a name="FNanchor_1101_1101" id="FNanchor_1101_1101"></a><a href="#Footnote_1101_1101" class="fnanchor">[1101]</a> Meantime it was notorious that their enemies +were ceaselessly plotting to arrange every detail of the conference—if, +indeed, it must be held—in a manner so unfavorable to the reformers, +that they might rather appear to be culprits brought up for trial and +sentence, before a court composed of Romish prelates, than as the +advocates of a purer faith.<a name="FNanchor_1102_1102" id="FNanchor_1102_1102"></a><a href="#Footnote_1102_1102" class="fnanchor">[1102]</a> At length, weary of the protracted +delay, the Protestant<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_507" id="Page_507">[Pg 507]</a></span> ministers presented themselves before Catharine +de' Medici, on the eighth of September, and demanded the impartial +hearing to which they were entitled; and they plainly announced their +intention to depart at once, unless they should receive satisfactory +assurances that they would be shielded from the malice of their +enemies.<a name="FNanchor_1103_1103" id="FNanchor_1103_1103"></a><a href="#Footnote_1103_1103" class="fnanchor">[1103]</a> It was well for the Protestants that they exhibited such +decision. Catharine, who always deferred a definite decision on +important matters until the last moment—a habit not unfrequently +leading to the hurried adoption of the means least calculated to effect +her selfish ends—was constrained to yield a portion of their demands. +In the presence of the Protestants an informal decree was passed, with +the consent of Navarre, Condé, Coligny, and the chancellor<a name="FNanchor_1104_1104" id="FNanchor_1104_1104"></a><a href="#Footnote_1104_1104" class="fnanchor">[1104]</a>—those +members of the council who happened to be in the audience chamber—that +the bishops should not be made judges; that to one of the secretaries of +state should be assigned the duty of writing out the minutes of the +conference, but that the Protestants should retain the right of +appending such notes as they might deem proper. The king would be +present at the discussions, together with the princes of the blood. But +Catharine peremptorily declined to grant a formal decree according these +points. This, she said, would only be to furnish the opposite party with +a plausible pretext for refusing to enter into the colloquy.<a name="FNanchor_1105_1105" id="FNanchor_1105_1105"></a><a href="#Footnote_1105_1105" class="fnanchor">[1105]</a> +Meanwhile she urged them to maintain a modest demeanor, and to seek only +the glory of God, which she professed to believe that they had greatly +at heart.<a name="FNanchor_1106_1106" id="FNanchor_1106_1106"></a><a href="#Footnote_1106_1106" class="fnanchor">[1106]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Last efforts of the Sorbonne to prevent the colloquy.</div> + +<p>The Romish party, however, was unwilling to approach the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_508" id="Page_508">[Pg 508]</a></span> distasteful +conference without a final attempt to dissuade the queen from so +perilous an undertaking. As the Protestants left Catharine's apartments, +a deputation of doctors of the Sorbonne entered the door. They came to +beg her not to grant a hearing to heretics already so often condemned. +If this request could not be accorded, they suggested that at least the +tender ears of the king should be spared exposure to a dangerous +infection. But Catharine was too far committed to listen to their +petition. She was resolved that the colloquy should be held, and held in +the king's presence.<a name="FNanchor_1107_1107" id="FNanchor_1107_1107"></a><a href="#Footnote_1107_1107" class="fnanchor">[1107]</a></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_509" id="Page_509">[Pg 509]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XII.</h2> + +<h3>THE COLLOQUY OF POISSY AND THE EDICT OF JANUARY.</h3> + + +<div class="sidenote">The Huguenot ministers and delegates.</div> + +<p>On Tuesday, the ninth of September, 1561, the long-expected conference +was to be opened. That morning, at ten o'clock, a procession of +ministers and delegates of the Reformed churches left St. +Germain-en-Laye on horseback for the village of Poissy. The ministers, +twelve in number, were men of note: Théodore de Bèze, or Beza, with whom +the reader is already well acquainted; Augustin Marlorat, a native of +Lorraine, formerly a monk, but now famous in the Protestant ranks, and +the leading pastor in Rouen, a man over fifty years of age; François de +Saint Paul, a learned theologian and the founder of the churches of +Montélimart, a delegate from Provence; Jean Raymond Merlin, professor of +Hebrew at Geneva, and chaplain of Admiral Coligny; Jean Malot, pastor at +Paris; François de Morel, who had presided in the First National Synod +of 1559, and had recently been given to the Duchess Renée of Ferrara, as +her private chaplain; Nicholas Folion, surnamed La Vallée, a former +doctor of the Sorbonne, now pastor at Orleans; Claude de la Boissière, +of Saintes; Jean Bouquin, of Oléron; Jean Virel; Jean de la Tour, a +patriarch of nearly seventy years; and Nicholas des Gallars, who, after +having been a prominent preacher at Geneva and Paris, had for the past +two years ministered to the large congregation of French refugees in +London. It was a body of Huguenot theologians unsurpassed for ability by +any others within the kingdom.<a name="FNanchor_1108_1108" id="FNanchor_1108_1108"></a><a href="#Footnote_1108_1108" class="fnanchor">[1108]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_510" id="Page_510">[Pg 510]</a></span></p> + +<p>So high ran the excitement of the populace, stirred up by frequent +appeals to the worst passions in the human breast, and by highly-colored +accounts of the boldness with which the "new doctrines" had for weeks +been preached within the precincts of the court, that serious +apprehension was entertained lest Beza and his companions might be +assaulted by the way.<a name="FNanchor_1109_1109" id="FNanchor_1109_1109"></a><a href="#Footnote_1109_1109" class="fnanchor">[1109]</a> The peaceable ministers of religion were, +therefore, accompanied by a strong escort of one hundred mounted archers +of the royal guard. After a ride of less than half an hour, they reached +the nuns' convent, in which the prelates had been holding their +sessions.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Assembly in the nuns' refectory.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">The prelates.</div> + +<p>Meantime, an august and imposing assembly was gathered in the spacious +conventual refectory.<a name="FNanchor_1110_1110" id="FNanchor_1110_1110"></a><a href="#Footnote_1110_1110" class="fnanchor">[1110]</a> On an elevated seat, upon the dais at its +farther extremity, was the king, on whose youthful shoulders rested the +crushing weight of the government of a kingdom rent by discordant +sentiments and selfish factions, and already upon the verge of an open +civil war. Near him sat his wily mother—that "merchant's daughter" +whose plebeian origin the first Christian baron of France had pointed +out with ill-disguised contempt, but whose plans and purposes had now +acquired such world-wide importance that grave diplomats and shrewd +churchmen esteemed the difficult riddle of her sphinx-like countenance +and character a worthy subject of prolonged study. Not far from their +royal brother, were two children: the elder, a boy of ten years, Edward +Alexander, a few years later to appear on the pages of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_511" id="Page_511">[Pg 511]</a></span> history under +the altered name of Henry the Third, the last Valois King of France; the +younger, a girl of nine—that Margaret of Valois and Navarre, whose +nuptials have attained a celebrity as wide as the earth and as lasting +as the records of religious dissensions. Antoine and Louis of Bourbon, +brothers by blood but not in character; Jeanne d'Albret, heiress of +Navarre, more queenly at heart than many a sovereign with dominions far +exceeding the contracted territory of Béarn; the princes representing +more distant branches of the royal stock, and the members of the council +of state, completed the group. On two long benches, running along the +opposite sides of the hall, the prelates were arranged according to +their dignities. Tournon, Lorraine, and Châtillon, each in full +cardinal's robes, faced their brethren of the Papal Consistory, +Armagnac, Bourbon, and Guise, while a long row of archbishops and +bishops filled out the line on either side. Altogether, forty or fifty +prelates, with numerous attendant theologians and members of the +superior clergy, regular and secular, had been marshalled to oppose the +little band of reformers.<a name="FNanchor_1111_1111" id="FNanchor_1111_1111"></a><a href="#Footnote_1111_1111" class="fnanchor">[1111]</a></p> + +<p>It was an array of pomp and power, of ecclesiastical place and wealth +and ambition, of traditional and hereditary nobility, of all that an +ancient and powerful church could muster to meet the attack of fresh and +vigorous thought, the inroad of moral and religious reforms, the +irrepressible conflict of a faith based solely upon a written +revelation. The external promise of victory was all on the side of the +prelates. Yet, strange to say, the engagement that was about to take +place was none of their seeking. With the exception of the Cardinal of +Lorraine, they were well-nigh unanimous in reprobating a venture from +which they apprehended only disaster. Perhaps even Lorraine now repented +his presumption, and felt less assured of his dialectic skill since he +had tried the mettle of his Genevese antagonist. Rarely has battle been +forced upon an army after a greater number of fruitless attempts to +avoid it than those made by the French ecclesiastics, backed by the +alternate solicitations<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_512" id="Page_512">[Pg 512]</a></span> and menaces of Pius the Fourth, and Philip of +Spain. Such reluctance was ominous.</p> + +<p>On the other side, the feeling of the reformers was, indeed, confidence +in the excellence of the cause they represented, but confidence not +unmingled with anxiety.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Diffidence of Beza.</div> + +<p>A letter written by Beza only a few days before affords us a glimpse of +the secret apprehensions of the Protestants. "If Martyr come in time," +he wrote Calvin, "that is, if he greatly hasten, his arrival will +refresh us exceedingly. We shall have to do with veteran sophists, and, +although we be confident that the simple truth of the Word will prove +victorious, yet it is not in the power of every man instantly to resolve +their artifices and allege the sayings of the Fathers. Moreover, it will +be necessary for us to make such answers that we shall not seem, to the +circle of princes and others that stand by, to be seeking to evade the +question. In short, when I contemplate these difficulties, I become +exceedingly anxious, and much do I deplore our fault in neglecting the +excellent instruments which God has given us, and thus in a manner +appearing to tempt His goodness. Meanwhile, however, we have resolved +not to retreat, and we trust in Him who has promised us a wisdom which +the world cannot resist.... Direct us, my father, like children by your +counsels in your absence from us, since you cannot be present with us. +For, simple children I daily see and feel that we are, from whose mouth +I hope that our wonderful Lord will perfect the praise of His +wisdom."<a name="FNanchor_1112_1112" id="FNanchor_1112_1112"></a><a href="#Footnote_1112_1112" class="fnanchor">[1112]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">L'Hospital explains the objects in view.</div> + +<p>The king opened the conference with a few words before the Protestants +were admitted,<a name="FNanchor_1113_1113" id="FNanchor_1113_1113"></a><a href="#Footnote_1113_1113" class="fnanchor">[1113]</a> and then called upon the chancellor to explain more +fully the objects of the gathering. Hereupon Michel de L'Hospital, +seating himself, by Charles's direction, on a stool at the king's right +hand, set forth at considerable length the religious dissensions which +had fallen upon France, and the ineffectual measures to which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_513" id="Page_513">[Pg 513]</a></span> the king +and his predecessors had from time to time resorted. Severity and +mildness had proved equally futile. Dangerous division had crept in. He +begged the assembled prelates to heal this disease of the body politic, +to appease the anger of God visibly resting upon the kingdom by every +means in their power; especially to reform any abuses contrary to God's +word and the ordinances of the apostles, which the sloth or ignorance of +the clergy might have introduced, and thus remove every excuse which +their enemies might possess for slandering them and disturbing the peace +of the country. As the chief cause of sedition was diversity of +religious opinion, Charles had acceded to the advice of two previous +assemblies, and had granted a safe-conduct to the ministers of the new +sect, hoping that an amicable conference with them would be productive +of great advantage. He, therefore, prayed the company to receive them as +a father receives his children, and to take pains to instruct them. +Then, at all events, it could not be said, as had so often been said in +the past, that the dissenters had been condemned without a hearing. +Minutes of the proceedings carefully made and disseminated through the +kingdom would prove that the doctrine they professed had been refuted, +not by violence or authority, but by cogent reasoning. Charles would +continue to be the protector of the Gallican Church.<a name="FNanchor_1114_1114" id="FNanchor_1114_1114"></a><a href="#Footnote_1114_1114" class="fnanchor">[1114]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The Huguenots are summoned.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Beza's retort.</div> + +<p>These preliminaries over, the Protestants were summoned. Conducted by +the captain of the royal guard, they entered and advanced toward the +king, until their farther progress was arrested by a railing which +separated the space allotted to the king and his courtiers, with the +assembled prelates, from the lower end of the hall filled by a crowd of +curious spectators.<a name="FNanchor_1115_1115" id="FNanchor_1115_1115"></a><a href="#Footnote_1115_1115" class="fnanchor">[1115]</a> No place had been assigned the Protestants +where they might sit during the colloquy on an equality with their +opponents, the Romish ecclesiastics. They<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_514" id="Page_514">[Pg 514]</a></span> were subjected to the paltry +indignity of appearing in the guise of culprits brought to the bar to be +judged and condemned. In truth, the spirit of conciliation which +L'Hospital had been at so much pains to inculcate had found little +welcome in the breast of the prelates. "Here come the Genevese curs," +exclaimed a cardinal as the reformers made their appearance. +"Certainly," quietly retorted Beza, whose ear had caught the insulting +expression, turning to the quarter whence it came, "faithful dogs are +needed in the Lord's sheep-fold to bark at the rapacious wolves."<a name="FNanchor_1116_1116" id="FNanchor_1116_1116"></a><a href="#Footnote_1116_1116" class="fnanchor">[1116]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Beza's prayer and address.</div> + +<p>When the twelve ministers had reached the bar, Theodore Beza, at their +request, addressed the king: "Sire, since the issue of all enterprises, +both great and small, depends upon the aid and favor of our God, and +chiefly when these enterprises concern the interests of His service and +matters which surpass the capacity of our understandings, we hope that +your Majesty will not find it amiss or strange if we begin by the +invocation of His name, supplicating Him after the following manner."</p> + +<p>As the orator pronounced these words, he reverently kneeled upon the +floor. His colleagues and the delegates of the churches followed his +example. A deep solemnity fell upon the assembly. According to one +account of the scene, even the Roman cardinals stood with uncovered +heads while the Huguenot minister prayed. Catharine de' Medici joined +with still greater devotion, while King Charles remained seated on his +throne.<a name="FNanchor_1117_1117" id="FNanchor_1117_1117"></a><a href="#Footnote_1117_1117" class="fnanchor">[1117]</a> After a moment's pause, Beza, with hands stretched out to +heaven, according to the custom of the reformed churches of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_515" id="Page_515">[Pg 515]</a></span> +France,<a name="FNanchor_1118_1118" id="FNanchor_1118_1118"></a><a href="#Footnote_1118_1118" class="fnanchor">[1118]</a> commenced his prayer with the confession of sins which in +the Genevan liturgy of Calvin formed the introduction to the worship of +the Lord's day.<a name="FNanchor_1119_1119" id="FNanchor_1119_1119"></a><a href="#Footnote_1119_1119" class="fnanchor">[1119]</a></p> + +<p>"Lord God! Almighty and everlasting Father, we acknowledge and confess +before Thy holy majesty that we are miserable sinners, conceived and +born in guilt and corruption, prone to do evil, unfit for any good; who, +by reason of our depravity, transgress without end Thy holy +commandments. Wherefore we have drawn upon ourselves by Thy just +sentence, condemnation and death. Nevertheless, O Lord, with heartfelt +sorrow we repent and deplore our offences; and we condemn ourselves and +our evil ways, with a true repentance beseeching that Thy grace may +relieve our distress. Be pleased, therefore, to have compassion upon us, +O most gracious God! Father of all mercies; for the sake of thy son +Jesus Christ, our Lord and only Redeemer. And, in removing our guilt and +pollution, set us free and grant us the daily increase of Thy Holy +Spirit; to the end that, acknowledging from our inmost hearts our +unrighteousness, we may be touched with a sorrow that shall work true +repentance, and that this may mortify all our sins, and thereby bear the +fruit of holiness and righteousness that shall be well-pleasing to thee, +through the same Jesus Christ, our Lord and only Saviour.</p> + +<p>"And, inasmuch as it pleaseth Thee this day so far to exhibit Thy favor +to Thy poor and unprofitable servants, as to enable them with freedom, +and in the presence of the king whom Thou hast set over them, and of the +most noble and illustrious<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_516" id="Page_516">[Pg 516]</a></span> company on earth, to declare that which Thou +hast given them to know of Thy holy Truth, may it please Thee to +continue the course of Thy goodness and loving kindness, O God and +Father of lights, and so to illumine our understandings, guide our +affections, and form them to all teachableness, and so to order our +words, that in all simplicity and truth, after having conceived, +according to the measure which it shall please Thee to grant unto us, +the secrets Thou hast revealed to men for their salvation, we may be +able, both with heart and voice to propose that which may conduce to the +honor and glory of Thy holy name, and the prosperity and greatness of +our king and of all those who belong to him, with the rest and comfort +of all Christendom, and especially of this kingdom. O Almighty Lord and +Father, we ask Thee all these things in the name and for the sake of +Jesus Christ, Thy Son our Saviour, as He Himself hath taught us to seek +them, saying: 'Our Father, which art in heaven, etc.'"<a name="FNanchor_1120_1120" id="FNanchor_1120_1120"></a><a href="#Footnote_1120_1120" class="fnanchor">[1120]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">His conciliatory remarks.</div> + +<p>Having concluded his petitions, Beza arose from his knees, and addressed +the king. His speech was graceful and conciliatory.<a name="FNanchor_1121_1121" id="FNanchor_1121_1121"></a><a href="#Footnote_1121_1121" class="fnanchor">[1121]</a> It was a great +privilege, he said, for a faithful and affectionate subject to be +permitted to see his prince, and thus to be more clearly impressed with +the fealty and submission which is his due. Still happier was he if +permitted to be seen by his prince, and, what was more important, to be +heard, and finally accepted and approved by him. To these great +advantages a part of Charles's very humble and obedient subjects, much +to their regret, had long been strangers. It were sufficient ground for +gratitude to God to the end of their days that now at length they were +granted an audience before the king and so noble and illustrious a +company. But, when the same day that admitted them into the royal +presence also invited, or rather kindly and gently constrained them +with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_517" id="Page_517">[Pg 517]</a></span> common voice to confess the name of their God, and declare the +obedience they owed Him, their minds were so incompetent to conceive, +their tongues so inadequate to utter the promptings of their hearts, +that they preferred to confess their impotence by modest silence rather +than to disparage so great a benefit by the defect of their words. Yet +one of the points they had so long desired was still unfulfilled, and +that the most important, namely the acceptance of their service as +agreeable. Would to God that so happy a termination might by their +coming be put, not so much to their past sufferings—of which the memory +was well-nigh extinguished by this joyful day—as to the troubles that +had afflicted the kingdom in consequence of religious dissensions, and +to the attending ruin of so great a number of the king's poor subjects.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">The Huguenots victims of calumny.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Their creed.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Points of agreement.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">His declaration as to the body of Christ.</div> + +<p>What, then, had hitherto prevented the Huguenots from obtaining a boon +so long and ardently desired? It was the belief entertained by some that +they were, through ambition or restless love of innovation, the enemies +of all concord, and the impression in the minds of others that their +arrogance demanded impossible conditions of peace. The prejudice arising +from this and other sources to which he avoided an allusion, lest he +might seem to be reopening old wounds, was so strong, that the reformed +would have good reason to give way to despair, were they not sustained +by a good conscience, by their assurance of the gentleness and equity of +Charles and the illustrious princes of the blood, and by a charitable +presumption that the prelates with whom they had come to confer were +disposed to exert themselves with them in the common endeavor rather to +make the truth clear than to obscure it. Respecting the extent of the +differences between the prelatic and the reformed beliefs, those who +represented them as of insignificant importance, and those who made them +as great as between the creed of Christians and the creed of Jews or +Moslems, were equally mistaken. If in some of the principal articles of +the Christian faith there was full agreement, on others, alas! there was +an opposition between their tenets. The orator here enumerated in +considerable detail the articles of the ancient creeds in which the +Huguenot, not less than the Roman Catholic,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_518" id="Page_518">[Pg 518]</a></span> professed his concurrence. +What then, some one would say, are not these the terms of our belief? In +what are we at variance? To which inquiry the true answer was, that the +two sides differed not only because they gave some of these articles +divergent interpretations, but because the Church had built upon this +foundation a structure that comported little with it, "as if the +Christian religion were an edifice which was never finished." To speak +with greater detail, the reformed maintained, in opposition to the +Romish theory, that there could be no satisfaction for sin save in +Christ, and that to suppose the blessed Saviour to pay but a part of the +price of man's salvation, would be to rob him of his perfect mercy, and +of his offices of prophet, priest, and king. They agreed with the +Romanists neither in their definition of justifying faith, nor in their +account of its origin and effects. The same might be said respecting +good works. And, again, as to the Holy Scriptures, they received the Old +and New Testaments as the word of God and the complete revelation of all +that is necessary for salvation, and consequently, as the touchstone for +testing the Fathers, the councils, and the traditions of the Church. Two +points remained for consideration: the sacraments and the government of +the Church. "We are agreed, in our opinion," said Beza, "regarding the +meaning of the word sacrament. The sacraments are visible signs by means +of which our union with our Lord Jesus Christ is not merely signified or +set forth, but is truly offered to us on the Lord's side, and therefore +confirmed, sealed, and, as it were, engraved by the Holy Spirit's +efficiency in those who by a true faith apprehend Him who is thus +signified and presented to them. We, consequently, agree that in the +sacraments there must necessarily supervene a heavenly, a supernatural +change. For we do not assert that the water of holy baptism is simply +water, but that it is a true sacrament of our regeneration, and of the +washing of our souls in the blood of Jesus Christ. So also we do not say +that the bread is simply bread, but the sacrament of the precious body +of our Lord Jesus Christ which was offered up for us. Yet we do not say +that this change takes place in the substance of the signs, but in the +use and end for which they are ordained." The reformer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_519" id="Page_519">[Pg 519]</a></span> then touched +upon the doctrines of transubstantiation and consubstantiation; both of +which he rejected. "If then," he continued, "some one asks us, whether +we make Jesus Christ absent from His Holy Supper, we answer that we do +not. But, if we regard the local distance (as we must do, when His +corporeal presence and His humanity distinctly considered are in +question), we say that His body is as far removed from the bread and +wine as the highest heaven is from the earth; since, as to ourselves, we +are on the earth, and the sacraments also; while, as to Him, His flesh +is in heaven, so glorified that his glory, as says St. Augustine, has +not taken away from Him the nature, but only the infirmity of a true +body."</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Outcry of the theologians of the Sorbonne.</div> + +<p>The last words of the sentence were inaudible, except to those who were +close to the speaker. The words, "We say that His body is as far removed +from the bread and wine as the highest heaven is from the earth," had +fired the train to the magazine of concealed impatience and anger +underlying the studied external calmness of the prelatical body. An +explosion instantly ensued. The cry, "Blasphemavit! Blasphemavit Deum!" +resounded from every quarter.<a name="FNanchor_1122_1122" id="FNanchor_1122_1122"></a><a href="#Footnote_1122_1122" class="fnanchor">[1122]</a> Beza's voice was drowned in the +noisy expressions of disapproval by which the theologians of the +Sorbonne sought to testify their own unimpeachable orthodoxy.<a name="FNanchor_1123_1123" id="FNanchor_1123_1123"></a><a href="#Footnote_1123_1123" class="fnanchor">[1123]</a> It +seemed for the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_520" id="Page_520">[Pg 520]</a></span> moment as if the ecclesiastics would continue their +repetition of the words and actions of the Jewish high-priest in the +ancient Sanhedrim, and break up the conference with the exclamation: +"What further need have we of witnesses? Behold, now ye have heard his +blasphemy." Some of the prelates arose as if to leave, and Cardinal +Tournon went so far as to address himself to Charles and beg him either +to impose silence upon Beza, or to permit him and his brother +ecclesiastics to retire. But no notice was taken of his request.<a name="FNanchor_1124_1124" id="FNanchor_1124_1124"></a><a href="#Footnote_1124_1124" class="fnanchor">[1124]</a> +On the contrary, the queen and the Cardinal of Lorraine felt constrained +to express their displeasure at this outburst of passion on the part of +the prelates, and their desire that the conference should proceed.<a name="FNanchor_1125_1125" id="FNanchor_1125_1125"></a><a href="#Footnote_1125_1125" class="fnanchor">[1125]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Beza's peroration.</div> + +<p>When the storm had somewhat spent its violence, and comparative silence +had been restored, Beza, in no wise discomposed by the uproar, resumed +his interrupted discourse. He deemed it unnecessary to dwell upon the +matter of the administration of holy baptism, he said, for none could +confound the reformers with the Anabaptists, who found no more +determined enemies than they were. With respect to the other five +sacraments of the Romish Church, while the reformed refused to designate +them by that name, they believed that among themselves true confirmation +was established, penitence enjoined, marriage celebrated, ordination +conferred, and the visitation of the sick and dying practised, +conformably to God's Word. The last point—the government of the +Church—Beza despatched with a few words; for, appealing to the prelates +themselves to testify to the results of their recent deliberations, he +described the structure ecclesiastic as one in which everything was so +perverted, everything in such confusion and ruin, that scarce could the +best architects in the world, whether they considered the present order +or had regard to life and morals, recognize the remains, or detect the +traces of that ancient edifice so symmetrically laid out and reared by +the apostles. He closed by declaring the fervent desire of those whose +spokesman he was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_521" id="Page_521">[Pg 521]</a></span> for the restoration of the Church to its pristine +purity, and by making on their behalf a warm profession of loyalty and +devotion to their earthly king. As he concluded, Beza and his associates +again kneeled in prayer. Then rising, he presented anew to Charles the +confession of faith of the reformed churches, begging him to receive it +as the basis of the present conference between their delegates and the +Romish prelates.<a name="FNanchor_1126_1126" id="FNanchor_1126_1126"></a><a href="#Footnote_1126_1126" class="fnanchor">[1126]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Cardinal Tournon tries to cut short the conference.</div> + +<p>As soon as Beza had ended his speech, Cardinal Tournon, the oldest +member of the Papal consistory in France, and presiding officer in the +convocation of the prelates, rose, trembling with anger, and addressed +the king. It was only by express command of Charles, he said, that the +prelates had consented to hear "these new evangelists." They had +hesitated from conscientious scruples, fearing, with good reason, as the +event had proved, that they would utter words unworthy of entering the +ears of a very Christian king, and calculated to offend the good people +around him. It was for this reason that the ecclesiastical convocation +had instructed him, in such case, humbly to entreat his Majesty to give +no credit to the words of him who had spoken for "those of the new +religion," and to suspend his judgment until he had heard the answer +they intended to give. But for their respect for the king, he said, the +prelates, on hearing the abominable blasphemies pronounced in their +hearing, would have risen and broken off the colloquy. He prayed Charles +with the greatest humility to persevere in the faith of his fathers, and +invoked the Virgin Mary and the blessed saints of paradise that thus it +might be.<a name="FNanchor_1127_1127" id="FNanchor_1127_1127"></a><a href="#Footnote_1127_1127" class="fnanchor">[1127]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_522" id="Page_522">[Pg 522]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Catharine's decision.</div> + +<p>How long the age-stricken cardinal, the active persecutor of an entire +generation of reformers, would have proceeded in his diatribe against +the "blasphemy" of the Genevese doctor, is doubtful. He was cut short in +the midst of it by the queen mother, who, in a decided tone, informed +him that the plan of the conference had been adopted only after mature +deliberation, with the advice of the council of state and by consent of +parliament. No change or innovation was contemplated, but the appeasing +of the troubles incident upon diversity of religious sentiment, and the +restoration to the right path of such as had erred. The matter in hand +was to demonstrate the truth by means of the simple Word of God, which +should be the sole rule. "We are here," she said, "for the purpose of +hearing you on both sides, and of considering the matter on its own +merits. Therefore, reply to the speech of Sieur de Bèze which you have +just heard." "The speech was too long for us to undertake to answer it +on the spur of the moment," responded Tournon, in a more tractable tone; +but he promised that, if a copy of it were given to them in writing, a +suitable refutation would soon be forthcoming on the part of the +prelates.<a name="FNanchor_1128_1128" id="FNanchor_1128_1128"></a><a href="#Footnote_1128_1128" class="fnanchor">[1128]</a> Thus the conference broke up for the day.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Advantages gained.</div> + +<p>It could not be denied that Beza had spoken with great effect. For the +first time in forty years the Reformation had obtained a partial +hearing. The time-honored fashion of condemning its professors without +even the formality of a trial had for once been violated; and, to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_523" id="Page_523">[Pg 523]</a></span> +satisfaction of some and the dismay of many, it was found that the +arguments that could be alleged in its behalf were neither few nor +insignificant. The Huguenots had acquired a new position in the eyes of +the court; that was certain. They were not a few seditious persons, who +must be put down. They were not a handful of enthusiasts, whom it were +folly to attempt to reason with. The child had become a full-grown man, +whose prejudices—if prejudices they were—must be overcome by calm +argument, rather than removed by chastisement.<a name="FNanchor_1129_1129" id="FNanchor_1129_1129"></a><a href="#Footnote_1129_1129" class="fnanchor">[1129]</a> If the studied +arrangement of the bar at the Colloquy of Poissy had been employed by +the petty malice of their opponents in order to give them the aspect of +convicted culprits, public opinion, unbiassed by such solemn trifling, +regarded the disputants as equals in the eye of the law, and attempted +to derive from the bearing of the champions some impression concerning +the justice of their respective positions.</p> + +<p>The change in the basis for the settlement of the controversy was not +less apparent. For an entire generation the advocates of Protestantism +had been pressing the claims of the Holy Scriptures as the ultimate +authority for the decision of all doubtful questions. The only reply was +a reference to the dogmas of the Church, and the demand of an +unconditional submission to them. Beza had only reiterated the offer, +made a thousand times by his fellow-reformers, to surrender at once his +religious position should it be rendered untenable by means of proofs +drawn from the Scriptures. Cardinal Tournon had again made the trite +rejoinder of the clergy; but sensible persons were tired of the +unsatisfactory repetition. Catharine had given expression to the +peremptory requisition of all enlightened France when she announced the +sole appeal as lying to the "simple Word of God."</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Brilliant success of Beza.</div> + +<p>From this exhibition of his brilliant oratorical powers, and from those +displays that shortly followed, Theodore Beza ac<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_524" id="Page_524">[Pg 524]</a></span>quired the highest +reputation both with friend and foe. Even those who would have it that +"he deceived the people," that his acquirements were superficial, that +he lacked good judgment, and, on the whole, had "a very hideous soul," +could not help admitting that he was of a fine presence, ready wit, and +keen intellect, and that his excellent choice of language and ready +utterance entitled him to the credit of eloquence.<a name="FNanchor_1130_1130" id="FNanchor_1130_1130"></a><a href="#Footnote_1130_1130" class="fnanchor">[1130]</a> On the other +hand, nothing could exceed the admiration and love excited by his ardent +espousal of their cause in the breasts of the Protestants in all parts +of the kingdom. His appearance at Poissy became their favorite episode +in recent history. His portrait was hung up in many a chamber. He was +almost adored by whole multitudes of Frenchmen,<a name="FNanchor_1131_1131" id="FNanchor_1131_1131"></a><a href="#Footnote_1131_1131" class="fnanchor">[1131]</a> as one whom noble +birth, learning, and brilliant prospects had not deterred from following +the dictates of his conscientious convictions; whom security in a +foreign land had not rendered indifferent to the interests of the land +of his birth; whose persuasive eloquence had won new adherents to the +cause of the oppressed from among the rich and noble; who had maintained +the truth unabashed in the presence of the king and "of the most +illustrious company on earth."</p> + +<div class="sidenote">His frankness justified.</div> + +<p>Nor will the candid student of history, if he but consider the attitude +of the prelates at the colloquy of Poissy, be more inclined than were +the Protestants of his own day to censure Theodore Beza for any degree +of alleged injudiciousness exhibited in that celebrated sentence in his +speech which provoked the outburst of indignation on the part of Tournon +and his colleagues. What, forsooth, had their rev<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_525" id="Page_525">[Pg 525]</a></span>erences come to the +colloquy expecting to hear from the lips of the reformed orators? If not +the most orthodox of sentiments—more orthodox than many sentiments +whose proclamation had been tolerated in their own private +convocation—was there not a moderate allowance of hypocrisy in their +pretended horror at the impiety of the heretic Beza? For certainly it +was scarcely to be anticipated by the most sanguine that he would +profess an unwavering belief in the transmutation of the substance of +the bread and wine into the very body and blood of Jesus Christ that +suffered on the cross; seeing that for a little more than a third of a +century those of whom he was the avowed representative had, it must be +admitted, pretty clearly testified to the contrary on a thousand +"estrapades" from the <i>Place de Grève</i> to the remotest corner of France. +Surely this extreme sensitiveness, this refined orthodoxy, unable to +endure the simple enunciation of an opinion differing from their own on +the part of an avowed opponent, savored a little of affectation; the +more so as it came from prelates whose solicitude for their flocks had +been manifested more in the way of seeking to obtain as large a number +of folds as possible, than in the way of giving any special pastoral +supervision to one, and who found a more congenial residence at the +dissolute court where pleasures and preferment could best be obtained, +than in obscure dioceses where a rude peasantry were thirsting for +instruction in the first rudiments of a Christian education. The truth +was—and no one was so blind as not to see it—that the Romish prelates +had come determined to seize the first good opportunity to break up the +colloquy, because from the colloquy they had good reason to apprehend +serious injury to their interests. Nothing short of a complete betrayal +of his cause by Beza could have precluded this.<a name="FNanchor_1132_1132" id="FNanchor_1132_1132"></a><a href="#Footnote_1132_1132" class="fnanchor">[1132]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_526" id="Page_526">[Pg 526]</a></span> Had he been never +so cautious, he could not have avoided giving some handle to those who +were watching him so closely. Not the nature of the sentiment he +expressed, but the danger lest the prelates might take advantage of it +to refuse peremptorily to proceed with the colloquy, was the true ground +of Catharine's displeasure.<a name="FNanchor_1133_1133" id="FNanchor_1133_1133"></a><a href="#Footnote_1133_1133" class="fnanchor">[1133]</a> In order to remove this, so far as it +might be based upon any misapprehension of the import of his words, Beza +addressed to the queen, on the next day, a dignified but conciliatory +letter of explanation.<a name="FNanchor_1134_1134" id="FNanchor_1134_1134"></a><a href="#Footnote_1134_1134" class="fnanchor">[1134]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The prelates' notion of a conference.</div> + +<p>A full week elapsed before the Cardinal of Lorraine was ready to make +his reply. Meantime the prelates had met, and had resolved that, instead +of embracing a discussion of the entire field of controversy between the +two churches, the conference should be restricted to <i>two</i> points—the +nature of the church and the sacraments. It was even proposed that a +formula of faith should be drawn up and submitted to the Protestant +ministers. If they refused to subscribe to it, they were to be formally +excommunicated, and the conference abruptly broken off. Such was the +crude notion of a colloquy conceived by the prelates. No discussion at +all, if pos<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_527" id="Page_527">[Pg 527]</a></span>sible!<a name="FNanchor_1135_1135" id="FNanchor_1135_1135"></a><a href="#Footnote_1135_1135" class="fnanchor">[1135]</a> Otherwise only on those points where agreement +was most difficult, and it was easiest to excite the <i>odium theologicum</i> +of the by-standers. On the other hand, when this came to the ears of the +Protestants, they felt constrained to draw up another solemn protest to +the king against the folly of making the prelates judges in a suit in +which they appeared also as one of the parties—a course so impolitic +that it would rob the colloquy of all the good effects that had been +expected to flow from it.<a name="FNanchor_1136_1136" id="FNanchor_1136_1136"></a><a href="#Footnote_1136_1136" class="fnanchor">[1136]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">September 16th.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Peter Martyr arrives.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">The Cardinal of Lorraine's reply.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">The Huguenots to wait for their faith to grow old.</div> + +<p>The remonstrance was not without its effect. On the next day, the +sixteenth of September, the same assemblage was again gathered in the +conventual refectory of Poissy, to hear the reply of the Cardinal of +Lorraine. The reformers appeared as on the previous occasion; but their +ranks had received a notable accession in the venerable Peter Martyr, +just arrived from Zurich. The prelates had, it is true, objected to the +admission of a native of Italy; for the invitation, it was urged, had +been extended only to Frenchmen. But the queen, who had greeted her +distinguished countryman with flattering marks of attention, interfered +in his behalf, and, at the last moment, announced it to be her desire +that he should appear at the colloquy.<a name="FNanchor_1137_1137" id="FNanchor_1137_1137"></a><a href="#Footnote_1137_1137" class="fnanchor">[1137]</a> The same trickery that had +brought Beza to the bar, in order to give him the appearance of a +criminal put upon trial, rather than that of the representative of a +religious party claiming to possess the unadulterated truth, assigned +Charles of Lorraine a pulpit among his brother prelates, where, with a +theologian more proficient in theological controversy at his elbow, he +could assume the air of a judge giving his final sentence respecting the +matters in dispute.<a name="FNanchor_1138_1138" id="FNanchor_1138_1138"></a><a href="#Footnote_1138_1138" class="fnanchor">[1138]</a> His long exordium was devoted to a +consideration of the royal and the sacer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_528" id="Page_528">[Pg 528]</a></span>dotal authority, each of which +he in turn extolled. Then passing to the particular occasion of the +convocation of so goodly a number of archbishops, bishops, and +theologians—to all of whom he professed himself inferior in +intelligence, knowledge, and eloquence—he expressed most sincere pity +for the persons who a week ago had, by the king's command, been +introduced into this assembly—persons long separated from the prelates +by a discordant profession of faith and by insubordination, but showing, +according to their own assertions, some desire to be instructed by +returning to this their native land and to the house of their fathers, +who stood ready to receive and embrace them as children so soon as they +should recognize the Church's authority. He would utter no reproaches, +but compassionate their infirmity. He would recall, not reject; unite, +not separate. The prelates had gladly heard the confession of faith the +Huguenots had made, and heartily wished that, as they agreed in the +words of that document, so they might also agree in the interpretation +of its articles. Dismissing the consideration of the remaining points, +as requiring more time than could be given on a single day, the cardinal +undertook to prove only two positions, viz.: that the Church is not an +invisible, but a visible organization, and that the Lord Jesus Christ is +really and bodily present in the Holy Supper. He then called upon the +reformed ministers, if, in their views respecting the eucharist, they +could accord neither with the Latin Church, nor with the Greek, nor with +the Lutherans of Germany, at least to seek that solitude for which they +seemed to long. "If you have so little desire to approach our faith and +our practice," he said, "go also farther from us, and disturb no longer +the flocks over which you have no legitimate charge, according to the +authority which we have of God; and, allowing your new opinions, if God +permit, to grow as old as our doctrine and traditions have grown, you +will restore peace to many troubled consciences and leave your native +land at rest." He urged Charles to cling steadfastly to the faith of his +ancestors, of whom none had gone astray, and who had transmitted to him +the proud title of "Very Christian" and of "First Son of the Church." He +exhorted the queen mother and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_529" id="Page_529">[Pg 529]</a></span> his other noble hearers to emulate the +glorious examples set for their imitation by Clotilde, who brought +Clovis to the Christian religion, and by their own illustrious ancestry; +and he concluded by declaring the unalterable determination of the +ecclesiastics of the Gallican Church never to forsake the holy, true, +and Catholic doctrine which they preached, and to sustain which they +would not spare their blood nor their very lives.<a name="FNanchor_1139_1139" id="FNanchor_1139_1139"></a><a href="#Footnote_1139_1139" class="fnanchor">[1139]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Tournon's new demand.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Beza asks a hearing.</div> + +<p>Such was the substance of the speech of Charles of Lorraine, so long +heralded by his brother ecclesiastics and by the devout Roman Catholics +of the land as the sure refutation of all the heresies which the +reformers might advance. It was fitting that some signal proof of its +success should be given. Scarcely had Lorraine ceased when the whole +body of prelates arose and gathered around the throne. Tournon was again +their spokesman. He declared the full approval with which the Gallican +bishops regarded the address of the Cardinal of Lorraine. They were +ready, if need be, to sign it with their own blood, for it was in +accordance with the will of Christ and of his bride, our Mother Holy +Church. They begged Charles to give it full credit, and persevere in the +Catholic faith of his fathers. Let the Protestants sign what the +cardinal had said, as a preliminary to their receiving further +instruction. If they refused, let Charles purge his very Christian realm +of them, so that there might be only "<i>une foy</i>, <i>une loy</i>, <i>un +roy</i>."<a name="FNanchor_1140_1140" id="FNanchor_1140_1140"></a><a href="#Footnote_1140_1140" class="fnanchor">[1140]</a> He was followed at once by Theodore Beza, who, on the +contrary, urged his Majesty to grant him the lib<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_530" id="Page_530">[Pg 530]</a></span>erty of replying on the +very spot to the arguments of his opponent. But Catharine, after a brief +consultation with the members of the royal council seated near her, +denied the request, and adjourned the discussion until another +occasion.<a name="FNanchor_1141_1141" id="FNanchor_1141_1141"></a><a href="#Footnote_1141_1141" class="fnanchor">[1141]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Advancing shadows of civil war.</div> + +<p>The opportunity thus promised, however, seemed distant and doubtful. The +determination of the prelates to have nothing to do with any project for +a fair and equal conference was undisguised, and rumors were frequent +and ominous that the queen would yield before their resolute attitude. +The decision of the reformers, under these circumstances, was soon +taken: it was, that, if these repeated delays were persisted in, they +would leave the court, protesting against the injustice which had been +manifested to them and to their cause.<a name="FNanchor_1142_1142" id="FNanchor_1142_1142"></a><a href="#Footnote_1142_1142" class="fnanchor">[1142]</a> Yet their anxiety was +great. That dark cloud of portentous aspect could be descried by all +sharp-sighted observers. It was the approaching storm of civil war, +every moment rising higher above the horizon.<a name="FNanchor_1143_1143" id="FNanchor_1143_1143"></a><a href="#Footnote_1143_1143" class="fnanchor">[1143]</a> Even now its advent +was heralded by the anarchy pervading entire provinces—a righteous +retribution for the sanguinary legislation and the yet more barbarous +executions ordered by the courts of law, to repress the free action of +the human intellect in the most noble sphere in which its energies could +be exercised—the region of religious thought.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Another conference reluctantly conceded, September 24th.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Beza's reply to the Cardinal of Lorraine.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Claude D'Espense.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Claude de Sainctes.</div> + +<p>Another tedious week passed by. Again, in view of the threats of an +abrupt termination of the colloquy, the Huguenot ministers petitioned +Charles to give them a patient hearing;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_531" id="Page_531">[Pg 531]</a></span> reminding him of the distance +they had come—some of their number even from foreign lands, relying on +his royal word for a friendly interview with the prelates of his +kingdom—in order to exhibit the inveterate abuses which the Pope and +his agents had introduced into the Church. Other remonstrances of like +tenor followed.<a name="FNanchor_1144_1144" id="FNanchor_1144_1144"></a><a href="#Footnote_1144_1144" class="fnanchor">[1144]</a> At last, with great reluctance,<a name="FNanchor_1145_1145" id="FNanchor_1145_1145"></a><a href="#Footnote_1145_1145" class="fnanchor">[1145]</a> the +twenty-fourth of September was selected for a third conference. The +obstinate resistance of the Romish ecclesiastics gained them one point. +The public character of the colloquy was abandoned.<a name="FNanchor_1146_1146" id="FNanchor_1146_1146"></a><a href="#Footnote_1146_1146" class="fnanchor">[1146]</a> The large +refectory was exchanged for the small chamber of the prioress. The king +was not present. Catharine presided, and Antoine and Jeanne d'Albret, +with the members of the royal council, replaced the more numerous +assemblage of the previous occasions. Instead of the crowd of prelates +whose various and striking dress formed a notable feature of the +colloquy, there appeared five or six cardinals, about as many bishops, +and fifteen or sixteen theologians of the Sorbonne, laden with thick +folios—the writings of the Fathers of the first five centuries, with +which the Cardinal of Lorraine still professed his ability to confute +the Reformed.<a name="FNanchor_1147_1147" id="FNanchor_1147_1147"></a><a href="#Footnote_1147_1147" class="fnanchor">[1147]</a> Again the twelve Huguenot ministers were admitted; +but the lay depu<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_532" id="Page_532">[Pg 532]</a></span>ties of the churches were excluded.<a name="FNanchor_1148_1148" id="FNanchor_1148_1148"></a><a href="#Footnote_1148_1148" class="fnanchor">[1148]</a> The +discussion was long and desultory. Beza began by replying to the first +part of the cardinal's speech, and showed that there is an invisible as +well as a visible church, and that the marks of the true church are the +preaching of God's Word and the right administration of the sacraments. +Not a succession of ministry from the apostles, but a succession of +doctrine is essential.<a name="FNanchor_1149_1149" id="FNanchor_1149_1149"></a><a href="#Footnote_1149_1149" class="fnanchor">[1149]</a> He was followed by a theologian of the +Sorbonne, Claude D'Espense, who, after making the gratuitous admission +that he wholly disapproved of the persecutions to which the Protestants +had been subjected,<a name="FNanchor_1150_1150" id="FNanchor_1150_1150"></a><a href="#Footnote_1150_1150" class="fnanchor">[1150]</a> attempted to prove that the Protestant +ministers had no "calling" to their office, and that recourse must be +had to tradition to explain and supplement the Holy Scriptures. When +Beza was about to reply, the floor was seized by a coarse Dominican +friar, one Claude de Sainctes, who in a scurrilous speech went over much +of the same ground, and, waxing more and more vehement, did not hesitate +to assert that tradition stood on a firmer foundation than the Bible +itself, which could be perverted to countenance the most opposite +doctrines.<a name="FNanchor_1151_1151" id="FNanchor_1151_1151"></a><a href="#Footnote_1151_1151" class="fnanchor">[1151]</a> An hour and a half of precious time was wasted by this +unseasonable interruption, which had disgusted friend as well as foe. +Then Beza, after remonstrating against the long and irregular character +of the discussion, proceeded, amid frequent interruptions, to set forth +the views of the reformers respecting the extraordinary vocation which +they had received.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_533" id="Page_533">[Pg 533]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Lorraine demands subscription to the Augsburg Confession.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Beza's home thrust.</div> + +<p>But this portion of the debate was soon closed by the Cardinal of +Lorraine, who, declaring that the doctrine respecting the Church had +been sufficiently considered, proposed the question of the sacraments, +asserting that the prelates refused to proceed with the conference until +this should be settled. He then demanded of the ministers <i>whether they +would subscribe to the Augsburg Confession, which was received by the +Protestants of Germany</i>. His object was manifest. He had long since +resolved on adopting this course, with the view of either setting the +French reformers at war with their brethren beyond the Rhine, or sowing +dissension in the ranks of the Huguenots themselves. Beza, however, was +not unprepared for the question. He replied by asking whether the +cardinal was himself ready to give the Augsburg Confession his +unqualified approval. The wily prelate parried this home thrust, and +still persisted in his inquiry. Under these circumstances, could the +reformers have relied upon the fairness of the conduct of the +conference, their course would have been clear. But, aware that their +distinct refusal to consider a formula which their opponents were not +themselves prepared to adopt would be seized upon as a welcome pretext +for abruptly breaking off the colloquy, Beza, after declaring that he +and his brethren were deputed by the French churches to maintain their +own confession, and that this document alone furnished the proper +subject for debate, asked that a copy of the articles which they were +required to sign might be furnished him for the deliberation of his +fellow-ministers. The request was granted; and, as the session ended, a +short extract was handed to him, which asserted the real presence of +Christ's body and blood in the sacrament, and its actual reception by +those who partook of the holy ordinance.<a name="FNanchor_1152_1152" id="FNanchor_1152_1152"></a><a href="#Footnote_1152_1152" class="fnanchor">[1152]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Alternatives presented to the Huguenots.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">September 26th.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Beza claims fair play</div> + +<p>Two days later the colloquy was renewed. The delay, which had at first +been a source of annoyance to the ministers, was now recognized by them +as a providential interference in their be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_534" id="Page_534">[Pg 534]</a></span>half. What they had only +surmised, they now learned with certainty from trustworthy friends. +Their <i>hesitation</i> to sign the Augsburg Confession was to be used as a +convenient handle for breaking up the conference; their <i>refusal</i>, for +involving them in a quarrel with Protestant Germany; their <i>consent</i>, +for causing their expulsion from the churches they had betrayed, or +splitting those churches up into many parts.<a name="FNanchor_1153_1153" id="FNanchor_1153_1153"></a><a href="#Footnote_1153_1153" class="fnanchor">[1153]</a> Theodore Beza opened +the discussion by reading the reply which he had carefully prepared by +common consent of all his brethren. Never had his oratorical skill been +exhibited to better advantage. He began by showing the evident +impropriety of introducing, as his opponents had done in the last +conference, a discussion of the validity of the divine vocation of the +Protestant ministers; for they had come here to confer, not to +<i>officiate</i>—much less to witness the institution of the semblance of a +penal prosecution against them. The objectionable character of such a +debate would be the more manifest, should he address any supposed bishop +with whom he was disputing and who had inquired: "By what authority do +you preach and administer the sacraments?" and retort by asking him in +turn: "Were you elected by the elders of the church of which you are +bishop? Did the people seek for you? Were inquiries first made +respecting your life, your morals, and your belief?" or,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_535" id="Page_535">[Pg 535]</a></span> "Who ordained +you? How much did you pay him?" The answers to such questions would make +many a bishop blush. Beza next reminded the cardinal of his promise to +confute the Protestants by the testimony of the Fathers of the first +five centuries. For a discussion based upon them the ministers had come +prepared. But now he brought them a single article on the Lord's Supper, +and imperiously said: "Sign this, or we will proceed no farther!" Even +were the Huguenots prisoners brought before him for trial, they would +not be so treated. Their very office required the prelates to speak +differently, for the bishop must be "able by sound doctrine both to +exhort and to convince the gainsayers."</p> + +<div class="sidenote">and an amicable conference.</div> + +<p>Then turning to the queen mother, Beza reminded her that he and his +companions were there, not only for the purpose of submitting a +confession of their faith, but to serve God, Charles, and herself, by +laboring in all possible ways to appease the troubles that had arisen in +connection with religion. To dismiss them without giving them an +opportunity for an amicable conference would not be the means of +allaying the prevailing disturbances; and those who proposed to do so +knew it well. Were the handful of Protestants at Poissy the only persons +concerned, there might, in the world's eye, be little likelihood that +danger would result from treating them as their enemies desired. But it +might please her Majesty to consider that they were here in behalf of a +million persons in this realm, in Switzerland, Poland, Germany, England, +and Scotland, who watched the proceedings of the colloquy, and who would +be astonished to hear, as they would hear, that, instead of such a +conference as had been promised, the ministers had received the tenth +part of an article, and had been told: "Sign this; otherwise we will +proceed no farther." What would be gained if the Protestants did sign +it; for, did the prelates agree in the Augsburg Confession? If there was +a real desire to confer, let persons be appointed who were willing to +meet the Protestants, and let them examine together the Holy Scriptures +and the old Fathers of the Christian Church, with the books before them, +and let secretaries write out the results of the discussion in an +authentic form. Then it would be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_536" id="Page_536">[Pg 536]</a></span> known that the ministers had not come +to sow troubles, but to promote accord.<a name="FNanchor_1154_1154" id="FNanchor_1154_1154"></a><a href="#Footnote_1154_1154" class="fnanchor">[1154]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Lorraine's anger.</div> + +<p>The prelates were much excited when Beza concluded. His reference to +episcopal elections stung them to the quick. Lorraine angrily accused +him of insulting not only the <i>sacerdotal</i>, but the <i>royal</i> authority, +since it was Francis the First that had taken away the election of the +priesthood from the people.<a name="FNanchor_1155_1155" id="FNanchor_1155_1155"></a><a href="#Footnote_1155_1155" class="fnanchor">[1155]</a> Beza, replying, said that this very +act was an evidence of the radical disturbance of the ancient order, +when avarice, ambition, and unworthy rivalry between monks and canons +rendered such a change necessary. Pressed again to sign the article +submitted two days before, Beza persisted that it was unjust to endeavor +to compel the Protestants to subscribe to that to which the prelates +refused their own indorsement.<a name="FNanchor_1156_1156" id="FNanchor_1156_1156"></a><a href="#Footnote_1156_1156" class="fnanchor">[1156]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Peter Martyr and Lainez the Jesuit.</div> + +<p>The discussion was next carried on between the doctors of the Sorbonne +and Beza and Martyr. The latter spoke in Italian,<a name="FNanchor_1157_1157" id="FNanchor_1157_1157"></a><a href="#Footnote_1157_1157" class="fnanchor">[1157]</a> and won +universal applause; but he was rudely interrupted by the Cardinal of +Lorraine, who said that he did not want to hear a foreign language. A +little later, a Spaniard, Lainez, the second general of the rising order +of Jesus, who had just reached Paris in the train of the Cardinal Legate +of Ferrara, begged permission to speak. Leave was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_537" id="Page_537">[Pg 537]</a></span> granted him, and he +indulged in an address much more remarkable for its coarse invective +than for its weight of argument.<a name="FNanchor_1158_1158" id="FNanchor_1158_1158"></a><a href="#Footnote_1158_1158" class="fnanchor">[1158]</a> Not content with dissuading his +hearers from listening to the Protestant ministers as persons already +sufficiently convicted of error, he called them apes and foxes,<a name="FNanchor_1159_1159" id="FNanchor_1159_1159"></a><a href="#Footnote_1159_1159" class="fnanchor">[1159]</a> +and advised that they be sent to Trent, where the Pope had convoked a +free council to which they might have free access. He condemned the +French for holding a separate council, and reprobated the discussion of +topics of such importance as those now under consideration in the +presence of women, and of men trained to war. After these gentle hints +respecting the qualifications of the queen and his noble auditors to act +as judges, he approached the all-absorbing question of the real +presence—a feeble part of his speech in which we may be excused from +following him. The remainder of the day was spent in warm debate, which +continued until the approach of night. Just as all were rising and about +to leave, however, the queen called to her Beza and the Cardinal of +Lorraine, and adjured them in God's name to strive for the establishment +of peace. A knot of friends gathered around each; the conference was +renewed amid much confusion and noise; but the darkness soon +necessitated an adjournment.<a name="FNanchor_1160_1160" id="FNanchor_1160_1160"></a><a href="#Footnote_1160_1160" class="fnanchor">[1160]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Close of the Colloquy of Poissy.</div> + +<p>It was the last day of the Colloquy of Poissy. If anything more had +until now been needed to demonstrate the futility of all hopes based +upon an open discussion regulated solely by the caprice of the Cardinal +of Lorraine, it was certainly furnished by the experience of the last<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_538" id="Page_538">[Pg 538]</a></span> +session. Catharine, however, was loth to abandon the scheme from which +she had expected such important results to flow. With her usual +incapacity to understand the strength of religious convictions deeply +implanted in the soul, she still hoped to secure, from a private +interview of the more moderate Roman Catholics with a few of the leading +Protestants, a plan of agreement that might serve to unite both +communions. Some of her more conscientious advisers shared in the same +sanguine expectations.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">A private conference.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">The Roman Catholic champions.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">The Abbé de Salignac.</div> + +<p>Five Roman Catholic ecclesiastics were chosen to confer with as many +Protestant ministers. They were selected as well for learning and +ability as for reputed moderation of sentiment.<a name="FNanchor_1161_1161" id="FNanchor_1161_1161"></a><a href="#Footnote_1161_1161" class="fnanchor">[1161]</a> The Bishops +Montluc of Valence, and Du Val of Séez in Normandy, the Abbé's de +Salignac and Bouteiller, and D'Espense, doctor in the Sorbonne, were +probably all believed to be half inclined to fall in with the +reformatory current. Of Montluc and D'Espense, mention has already more +than once been made. Bouteiller, it will be remembered, was the priest +who had officiated in the Cardinal of Châtillon's episcopal palace at +Beauvais, the last Easter preceding, when the communion was administered +under both kinds, "after the fashion of Geneva."<a name="FNanchor_1162_1162" id="FNanchor_1162_1162"></a><a href="#Footnote_1162_1162" class="fnanchor">[1162]</a> Salignac was a +timid man, a fair sample of the "Nicodemites," who had proved the bane +of the Reformation in France. For thirty years he had held, and to some +extent—if we may credit his own words—professed the same doctrines as +Calvin, continually exhorting his hearers to turn from an empty, formal +worship, to Christ as the only Saviour. Confessedly he had not rejected +"<i>that false doctrine</i>"—for thus he did not hesitate, in his private +correspondence with a Protestant, to designate the Romish creed—so +openly as the reformers were wont to do; but he claimed to have won the +universal approval of the best men around him by his attacks upon +"Babylon," which he had approached sometimes "by mines," sometimes "in +open warfare,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_539" id="Page_539">[Pg 539]</a></span> according to time and circumstances.<a name="FNanchor_1163_1163" id="FNanchor_1163_1163"></a><a href="#Footnote_1163_1163" class="fnanchor">[1163]</a> Since no +violent opposition seems ever to have been made, no persecution ever to +have arisen against Salignac, and in view of the fact that the conflict +of the last thirty years had been sufficiently sanguinary and little +calculated to reassure timid combatants, it is highly probable that the +prudent abbé's subterranean operations greatly outnumbered his more +valiant exploits. Well might the reformers, who knew that victory was to +be obtained, not by burrowing under the ground, but by facing the perils +of the battle-field, exclaim:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Non tali auxilio nec defensoribus istis<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tempus eget.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="sidenote">Conference at St. Germain.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">A discussion of words.</div> + +<p>Theodore Beza, Peter Martyr, Angustin Marlorat, Jean de L'Espine, and +Nicholas des Gallars, were appointed to represent the Protestants, and +it was arranged that secretaries should be present at the conferences to +note the progress made toward unity. The ten theologians met in the +apartments of the King of Navarre, at St. Germain. Their conclusions +were to be submitted to the Protestant ministers and delegates present +at the court, and at the same time carried to Poissy for ratification by +the still assembled prelates. Both parties were in earnest in seeking +for common ground on which they might stand. Compelled by the +instructions the bishops had received, to commence with the knotty +question of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_540" id="Page_540">[Pg 540]</a></span> eucharist instead of adopting the more natural order of +the articles of the confession of faith, the Romish party inquired +whether, abandoning discussion for the time, both sides might not agree +on the formula which had been drawn up and approved by four of their +number on the twenty-fifth of September, or on some similarly moderate +statement. The question, so far as the formula they referred to was +concerned, was promptly answered by Peter Martyr. The Zurich reformer, +somewhat apprehensive, as he had lately shown, lest his colleagues +should, in their eagerness for accord, make something approaching a +sacrifice of doctrine, greatly to their surprise drew from his pocket a +paper which he proceeded to read: "I reply, for my part, that the body +of Christ is truly and substantially nowhere else than in heaven. I do +not, however, deny that Christ's true body and his true blood, which +were given on the cross for the salvation of men, are by faith and +spiritually received by the believing in the Holy Supper."<a name="FNanchor_1164_1164" id="FNanchor_1164_1164"></a><a href="#Footnote_1164_1164" class="fnanchor">[1164]</a> A +friendly but laborious discussion, not of ideas nor of doctrines, but of +words, ensued. At length a statement was drawn up sufficiently +comprehensive, yet sufficiently general to admit of being approved in +good conscience by the entire number of theologians.<a name="FNanchor_1165_1165" id="FNanchor_1165_1165"></a><a href="#Footnote_1165_1165" class="fnanchor">[1165]</a> But the +prelates of Poissy promptly rejecting the article, the next day it was +necessary to renew the deliberation. A second form of agreement was +drafted,<a name="FNanchor_1166_1166" id="FNanchor_1166_1166"></a><a href="#Footnote_1166_1166" class="fnanchor">[1166]</a> which the Roman<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_541" id="Page_541">[Pg 541]</a></span> Catholic deputies felt confident would +meet with the approval of those who had sent them.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Premature delight of the queen mother.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">The article rejected by the prelates.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Their demand.</div> + +<p>Although the article itself was to be kept secret until submitted to the +prelates, the tidings that a harmonious result had been reached rapidly +flew through the court and was carried to Catharine herself. Beza and +Montluc were summoned into her presence. In the excess of her joy at the +prospect of the peaceful solution of a difficult problem, and of an +issue of the colloquy which would greatly conduce to her glory and the +firmer establishment of her rule, Catharine even cordially embraced the +reformer, and bade him go on in the good way he and his companions had +entered. Beza, not blind to the difficulties that still beset their +path, replied that their highest desires were for truth and peace, but +that a good beginning only had been made.<a name="FNanchor_1167_1167" id="FNanchor_1167_1167"></a><a href="#Footnote_1167_1167" class="fnanchor">[1167]</a> The Cardinal of +Lorraine, after reading the article, expressed the belief that the +prelates of Poissy would be pleased,<a name="FNanchor_1168_1168" id="FNanchor_1168_1168"></a><a href="#Footnote_1168_1168" class="fnanchor">[1168]</a> and for his own part seemed +to regard the Protestants as having surrendered the entire ground of +controversy to the Roman Catholics.<a name="FNanchor_1169_1169" id="FNanchor_1169_1169"></a><a href="#Footnote_1169_1169" class="fnanchor">[1169]</a> But both queen and cardinal +were soon undeceived. The assembled prelates rejected the modified +article with scorn, treating with insult the deputies that brought it, +as having betrayed their cause and played into the hands of the +reformers.<a name="FNanchor_1170_1170" id="FNanchor_1170_1170"></a><a href="#Footnote_1170_1170" class="fnanchor">[1170]</a> Under these circumstances a continuation of the +conference would have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_542" id="Page_542">[Pg 542]</a></span> been absurd. The Roman Catholic deputies, +despairing of any good fruits from their efforts at conciliation, never +returned; and the last vestige of the colloquy, on which such brilliant +anticipations had been based, vanished into thin air.<a name="FNanchor_1171_1171" id="FNanchor_1171_1171"></a><a href="#Footnote_1171_1171" class="fnanchor">[1171]</a> The prelates +themselves continued to sit for a few days. A committee of three bishops +and sundry doctors of the Sorbonne, to whom the article agreed upon by +the Roman Catholic and Huguenot delegates was submitted for examination, +pronounced it (on the sixth of October) to be incomplete, dangerous, and +heretical. Three days later the prelates published a formal condemnation +of it, offered a definition which they declared to be orthodox, and +called upon the king to require Beza and his companions either to sign +this new formula, or to consult the public peace by leaving France +altogether. A long series of canons, in which the question of church +discipline was touched lightly, and that of doctrine not at all—the +paltry result of more than two months of sufficiently animated,<a name="FNanchor_1172_1172" id="FNanchor_1172_1172"></a><a href="#Footnote_1172_1172" class="fnanchor">[1172]</a> if +not very harmonious discussion—was at the same time given to the +world.<a name="FNanchor_1173_1173" id="FNanchor_1173_1173"></a><a href="#Footnote_1173_1173" class="fnanchor">[1173]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_543" id="Page_543">[Pg 543]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Catharine's financial success.</div> + +<p>From a political point of view, the assembly of the prelates at Poissy +had not been unprofitable to the government. Alarmed by the radical +projects of the wholesale confiscation of ecclesiastical property which +had found no little favor with the other orders at Pontoise, equally +alarmed by the possibility of being compelled to enter into a full and +fair discussion with the champions of the Protestant doctrines, the +wealthy dignitaries of the Gallican Church brought themselves, not +without a severe struggle, to purchase exemption from these perils by a +pecuniary concession which delighted the perplexed financiers of France. +They pledged themselves to pay, by semi-annual instalments, the entire +sum needed for the redemption of the royal domain which had been +alienated to satisfy the public creditors.<a name="FNanchor_1174_1174" id="FNanchor_1174_1174"></a><a href="#Footnote_1174_1174" class="fnanchor">[1174]</a> But in return they +demanded important equivalents. The first item was that the severe +"Edict of July" should be made perpetual and irrevocable. This request +Catharine and the council denied. To declare that odious law, which it +had never been possible to carry into execution in several provinces of +France, a part of the fundamental constitution, would be a gratuitous +insult to the Huguenots, and would precipitate the country instantly +into the abyss upon the verge of which it was already hanging.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Order for the restitution of the churches.</div> + +<p>The other demands of the bishops it seemed more practicable to grant. +They required that Charles should by solemn edict order the +instantaneous restitution of the churches seized by the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_544" id="Page_544">[Pg 544]</a></span> Huguenots. In +spite of the earnest protest of Beza,<a name="FNanchor_1175_1175" id="FNanchor_1175_1175"></a><a href="#Footnote_1175_1175" class="fnanchor">[1175]</a> the government (on the +eighteenth of October) complied with the request.<a name="FNanchor_1176_1176" id="FNanchor_1176_1176"></a><a href="#Footnote_1176_1176" class="fnanchor">[1176]</a> Within +twenty-four hours after the receipt of this edict, all persons who had +taken possession of churches were commanded, on penalty of death as +rebels and felons, to vacate them, restoring whatever valuables they had +removed, and replacing the images and crosses they had destroyed. At the +same time the prohibition of the use of insulting language and acts was +renewed, and both parties were bidden to place their arms in the hands +of the local magistrates.<a name="FNanchor_1177_1177" id="FNanchor_1177_1177"></a><a href="#Footnote_1177_1177" class="fnanchor">[1177]</a> Thus, to use Beza's language, was Christ +betrayed, but at a much dearer price than that for which he was, +centuries ago, sold by Judas—for sixteen millions of francs instead of +the thirty pieces of silver.<a name="FNanchor_1178_1178" id="FNanchor_1178_1178"></a><a href="#Footnote_1178_1178" class="fnanchor">[1178]</a> Having, by extorting the Edict of +Restitution, succeeded in paving the way for renewed commotions, soon to +culminate in open and widespread war, the prelates adjourned, with +mingled satisfaction and disgust, toward the end of October, 1561.<a name="FNanchor_1179_1179" id="FNanchor_1179_1179"></a><a href="#Footnote_1179_1179" class="fnanchor">[1179]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Arrival of five German delegates.</div> + +<p>The conference of Poissy had scarcely been definitely abandoned when +five German Protestants appeared upon the scene. Three of these—Andreä, +Beuerlin, and Balthasar Bidembach—had been sent by the Duke of +Würtemberg; the others—Bouquin and Dilher—by the Elector Palatine. +Early in the summer, the King of Navarre, anxious to strengthen himself +by enlisting in his favor the Protestant princes of Germany, had +expressed to them the desire, in which Catharine coincided, that some +theologians<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_545" id="Page_545">[Pg 545]</a></span>—learned and pious men, and inclined to peace—should be +sent from beyond the Rhine to take part in the adjustment of the +religious questions at the Colloquy of Poissy. The Protestant electors, +the Landgrave of Hesse, and the Duke of Würtemberg, were unable, +however, to agree on the instructions to be given to the envoys. While +the duke, devotedly attached to the doctrines of Luther, was bent upon +strongly recommending the adoption of the Augsburg Confession, the other +princes could not acquiesce in his plan. The landgrave refused to throw +additional difficulties in the way of the reformed churches of France, +just emerging from a period of relentless persecution, and seeking for +the public recognition of the right to worship God, for which so many +martyrs had cheerfully laid down their lives. The Elector of Saxony +distrusted the sincerity of the intentions of the French court. As for +the Count Palatine, he himself had embraced the reformed theology, and +could not be expected to urge the Huguenots to give up their own +well-digested confession for one which they considered far inferior to +it in all respects.<a name="FNanchor_1180_1180" id="FNanchor_1180_1180"></a><a href="#Footnote_1180_1180" class="fnanchor">[1180]</a> And so it happened that, in consequence of a +diversity of sentiment regarding both doctrine and policy, there was no +general deputation sent to France, and the delegates of the two princes +who complied with the invitation arrived at Paris after the +colloquy—too late to do any harm, if not soon enough to do much good. +They were courteously received by the court. The Würtembergers, in +particular, were allowed frequent opportunities of explaining the merits +of the Lutheran doctrine of the Lord's Supper. Before their return into +Germany, they were distinctly informed by Navarre that, while he +recommended a closer union between the two branches of the Protestant +Church, his own views accorded with those of the adherents of the +Augsburg Confession; and that his only reason for delaying to subscribe +to it was a fear lest this step might interfere with the execution of +the union he desired to effect.<a name="FNanchor_1181_1181" id="FNanchor_1181_1181"></a><a href="#Footnote_1181_1181" class="fnanchor">[1181]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_546" id="Page_546">[Pg 546]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Why the colloquy proved a failure.</div> + +<p>The Colloquy of Poissy had proved, so far as the objects contemplated by +its originators were concerned, a complete failure. Instead of drawing +the Roman Catholic and the reformed churches together, it had only +widened the breach separating them. Instead of exhibiting in a clearer +light the common ground on which a union might be practicable, it had +rendered patent to all the antagonism which could not be cloaked by +ambiguous phrases and incomplete statements of doctrine. It is certainly +worth while to inquire into some of the causes of a result so unexpected +to a great number of intelligent men, who had framed their anticipations +upon no superficial view of the subject.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Catharine's crude notion of a conference.</div> + +<p>The crude notions of the court respecting the character which such a +conference ought to assume must be regarded as one of these causes. +Catharine, while extending the most gracious invitations to foreign +Protestants, was herself apparently undecided how to treat the Huguenots +when they should make their appearance. Even if we grant that her +explanations of the object of the projected colloquy, referred to on a +preceding page,<a name="FNanchor_1182_1182" id="FNanchor_1182_1182"></a><a href="#Footnote_1182_1182" class="fnanchor">[1182]</a> received their coloring from the fact that she was +supplying her ambassador in Germany with plausible representations +wherewith to appease such irritated bigots as feared that the French +queen intended to propose a grave discussion of the religious<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_547" id="Page_547">[Pg 547]</a></span> question +upon its own merits, yet the entire course of the conference exhibits +her inability to comprehend the nature of a fair debate of the matters +in dispute. The Huguenot ministers and delegates were obliged to +petition that the prelates should not be permitted to act as their +judges, and afterward to remind her of the promise she had given them to +this effect. Even after the point had been nominally accorded, the most +important questions respecting the conference were decided in the +council, where <i>five</i> cardinals and <i>three</i> bishops had seats.<a name="FNanchor_1183_1183" id="FNanchor_1183_1183"></a><a href="#Footnote_1183_1183" class="fnanchor">[1183]</a> +Under these circumstances it is not astonishing that Lorraine assumed a +tone of superiority which his relation to the debate by no means +warranted.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Character of the prelates.</div> + +<p>Besides this, the character of the assembly of prelates itself precluded +the possibility of an adjustment. With the exception of six or seven, so +insignificant were these ecclesiastical dignitaries individually, that, +as a modern historian has well remarked, not one distinguished himself +sufficiently to be named by any of the writers who treat of the +conference. They were, generally, the younger sons of the most +distinguished families in France, and had entered the church not from +devotion, but in consequence of an immemorial custom which consigned to +the episcopal dignity or to a rich abbacy the youth whom an elder +brother debarred from entertaining the hope of succeeding to his +father's dignities and possessions. Few of them had ever seen their +dioceses save on some great festival; none possessed the literary or +theological training necessary to qualify them for coping with the +master-minds among the Protestants. Accordingly, each bishop had to come +to Poissy with one or more "theologians," doctors of the Sorbonne, to +whose better judgment and superior learning he was content to defer on +every disputed point. There was little probability that a body thus +constituted would consent to enter into a candid consideration of the +differences separating the Roman Catholic and Protestant worlds.<a name="FNanchor_1184_1184" id="FNanchor_1184_1184"></a><a href="#Footnote_1184_1184" class="fnanchor">[1184]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Influence of the papal legate.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">The despondent nuncio, Viterbo.</div> + +<p>But the single event said by an eye-witness and actor in these<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_548" id="Page_548">[Pg 548]</a></span> scenes +to have conduced more than any other to destroy all hope of agreement, +was the arrival at court of the papal legate, Ippolito D'Este, Cardinal +of Ferrara.<a name="FNanchor_1185_1185" id="FNanchor_1185_1185"></a><a href="#Footnote_1185_1185" class="fnanchor">[1185]</a> Pope Pius IV. had long been watching the affairs of +France with deep solicitude. If his legates, Tournon and Lorraine, had +failed to alarm him by their reports of the progress of the "new +doctrines," he could not but be troubled by the accounts which came from +his nuncio in France, Sebastiano Gualtieri, Bishop of Viterbo. +Gualtieri, an experienced diplomatist, learned, eloquent—and not +wanting in cunning,<a name="FNanchor_1186_1186" id="FNanchor_1186_1186"></a><a href="#Footnote_1186_1186" class="fnanchor">[1186]</a> if we may believe his successor in office—had +proved himself unequal to the duties of his present position, by giving +way to extreme despondency. In the gay capital of France he led a +wretched life, in constant dread of future disaster, and ceaselessly +uttering lugubrious prognostications. To the Pope he announced that +religious matters in France were desperate; everything was rushing to +ruin with ever-increasing velocity. The queen mother was unsound in the +faith, although, from motives of policy, she dissembled her true +sentiments. She favored a preacher, one Bouteiller, who was equally +unsound; and she refused to dismiss him when admonished of her error. He +begged the pontiff to recall him, so that he might not witness the +funeral obsequies of the unhappy kingdom.<a name="FNanchor_1187_1187" id="FNanchor_1187_1187"></a><a href="#Footnote_1187_1187" class="fnanchor">[1187]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Anxiety of Pope Pius IV.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">The Nuncio Santa Croce.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">The Cardinal of Ferrara.</div> + +<p>Pius, rendered more apprehensive by these continual tidings of evil, and +displeased with much that his legates had done,<a name="FNanchor_1188_1188" id="FNanchor_1188_1188"></a><a href="#Footnote_1188_1188" class="fnanchor">[1188]</a> could no longer +delay to take decided action. Accordingly, he resolved to grant +Gualtieri's request, and to send as apostolic nuncio in his place Santa +Croce, Bishop of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_549" id="Page_549">[Pg 549]</a></span> Pisa, who had formerly occupied this position at +Paris, but was now acting in a similar capacity in Portugal.<a name="FNanchor_1189_1189" id="FNanchor_1189_1189"></a><a href="#Footnote_1189_1189" class="fnanchor">[1189]</a> But +so grave did the conjuncture appear in the eyes of the papal court, +that, at a solemn consistory held on the twenty-eighth of June, the +resolution was adopted to despatch a <i>third</i> legate to St. Germain! The +pretext of this extraordinary mission was the desire to testify more +clearly than the selection of the two previously existing legates had +done, to the earnestness of the solicitude felt at Rome for the +interests of the Church in France.<a name="FNanchor_1190_1190" id="FNanchor_1190_1190"></a><a href="#Footnote_1190_1190" class="fnanchor">[1190]</a> The true reason would appear to +have been to correct the mistakes which the existing legates were +supposed to have committed. For the delicate post of <i>legatus a latere</i>, +no better candidate could be found than the Cardinal of Ferrara. +Although a man of no high intellectual abilities, he had received a +thorough training in the Macchiavellian theory of politics,<a name="FNanchor_1191_1191" id="FNanchor_1191_1191"></a><a href="#Footnote_1191_1191" class="fnanchor">[1191]</a> and, +during many years of diplomatic service, had enjoyed a fair opportunity +for schooling himself in its practical workings. The son of Lucretia +Borgia, the grandson of Pope Alexander the Sixth, could scarcely help +being an adept at intrigue. Next to this special qualification, his +highest recommendations were that he was the brother-in-law of Renée of +France, and so by marriage uncle of the Duke of Guise; and that he had +twelve good reasons for feeling deep concern for the steadfastness of +French orthodoxy, viz.: the three archbishoprics, the one bishopric, and +the eight rich abbeys which he held within the confines of Charles's +dominions, deriving therefrom an income which was popularly estimated at +from forty to sixty thousand crowns.<a name="FNanchor_1192_1192" id="FNanchor_1192_1192"></a><a href="#Footnote_1192_1192" class="fnanchor">[1192]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_550" id="Page_550">[Pg 550]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Master Renard turned monk.</div> + +<p>The new legate accepted the appointment with alacrity. Not so the +nuncio. It was no small trial to leave the quiet court of Lisbon—where +his predecessors had been accustomed, during a short stay of a year or +two, to accumulate a handsome fortune<a name="FNanchor_1193_1193" id="FNanchor_1193_1193"></a><a href="#Footnote_1193_1193" class="fnanchor">[1193]</a>—for the turmoil of the +French capital, threatened every day with the outbreak of civil war, +where nothing but censure and hatred could be reaped.<a name="FNanchor_1194_1194" id="FNanchor_1194_1194"></a><a href="#Footnote_1194_1194" class="fnanchor">[1194]</a> But Santa +Croce did not hesitate long to renounce his golden prospects, and almost +at the same moment that the Cardinal of Ferrara started from the banks +of the Tiber, the Bishop of Pisa set forth from the gates of Lisbon. +Neither legate nor nuncio, however, was in much haste to reach his +destination. Ferrara could plead ill-health, Santa Croce the prostrating +heat of the season.<a name="FNanchor_1195_1195" id="FNanchor_1195_1195"></a><a href="#Footnote_1195_1195" class="fnanchor">[1195]</a> It took each of the prelates two months and a +half to accomplish his journey—the legate reaching the French court on +the nineteenth of September, the nuncio toward the end of the same +month.<a name="FNanchor_1196_1196" id="FNanchor_1196_1196"></a><a href="#Footnote_1196_1196" class="fnanchor">[1196]</a> The former travelled in great magnificence, with a +brilliant escort of four hundred horsemen or more, and accompanied by +several bishops and other persons of distinction, among whom was Lainez, +the Jesuit, whose acquaintance we have already made. Avoiding the larger +French cities where the Reformation had gained a foothold, and where, +consequently, marks of popular insult were apprehended,<a name="FNanchor_1197_1197" id="FNanchor_1197_1197"></a><a href="#Footnote_1197_1197" class="fnanchor">[1197]</a> he +received a brilliant welcome at the court, the king's brother Henry, and +others, riding out to greet him at his approach. The <i>people</i> were less +cordial. His assumed devotion could not deceive those who knew him to be +a devotee of pleasure.<a name="FNanchor_1198_1198" id="FNanchor_1198_1198"></a><a href="#Footnote_1198_1198" class="fnanchor">[1198]</a> His appearance forcibly reminded them of +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_551" id="Page_551">[Pg 551]</a></span> old story of Master Fox turned hermit, and cries of "Au Renard! Au +Renard!" were so loudly uttered when he was seen in the streets preceded +by an attendant carrying a large silver cross, the badge of his office, +that he was soon fain to discard the obnoxious emblem.<a name="FNanchor_1199_1199" id="FNanchor_1199_1199"></a><a href="#Footnote_1199_1199" class="fnanchor">[1199]</a> This was +not the only insult he was compelled to swallow. A portrait of his +grandfather, Pope Alexander the Sixth, was engraved and published, with +an account of his life and death, in which the moral character of +Lucretia Borgia was painted in the darkest colors.<a name="FNanchor_1200_1200" id="FNanchor_1200_1200"></a><a href="#Footnote_1200_1200" class="fnanchor">[1200]</a> It was, +however, speedily suppressed by the civil authorities.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Opposition of people and chancellor.</div> + +<p>The plenary powers which the papal commission conferred upon Ippolito +d'Este created an opposition even in higher circles. He had, it is true, +apprehending an unfavorable reception, taken the pains to invite the +French ambassador at Venice to confer with him while he was stopping in +Ferrara on his way to Paris, and had assured him that he went with the +sole intention of subserving the interests of France, and would use the +powers given him by the Pope no farther than Charles desired.<a name="FNanchor_1201_1201" id="FNanchor_1201_1201"></a><a href="#Footnote_1201_1201" class="fnanchor">[1201]</a> This +and reiterated assurances of the same tenor, after his arrival, did not +remove the scruples of Michel de l'Hospital. The latter insisted that +the authority which the Pope pretended to confer upon his legate was in +direct contravention of the resolution of the recent States General, +that ecclesiastical benefices should henceforth be at the disposition, +not of the Pope, but of the prelates in their respective dioceses, and +that no papal dispensations should hereafter be received. He therefore +declined to give to the pontifical warrant the official ratification +without which it was of no validity in the kingdom; and he was supported +in his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_552" id="Page_552">[Pg 552]</a></span> refusal by the majority of the royal council. He was, however, +overruled. It would be highly improper, the Cardinal of Ferrara +persuaded Catharine and her advisers to believe, that a prelate allied +to the royal house of France should be the first legate to be denied the +customary honors. And so L'Hospital, after receiving a direct order from +the king, and having had several altercations with the legate, +reluctantly affixed the great seal of France, taking care to relieve +himself of all responsibility by writing below it the words, <i>Me non +consentiente</i>. This addition for the present rendered the document +entirely useless, for parliament promptly refused to receive or register +that which had failed to meet with the chancellor's approbation.<a name="FNanchor_1202_1202" id="FNanchor_1202_1202"></a><a href="#Footnote_1202_1202" class="fnanchor">[1202]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The legate's successful intrigues.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">His excessive complaisance.</div> + +<p>The first great aim of Ferrara was to prevent the assembly of prelates +at Poissy from assuming in any degree the character of a national +council by undertaking a genuine reformation of doctrine or practice, +and to induce the reference of all such questions as ought there to have +been discussed, to the Council of Trent.<a name="FNanchor_1203_1203" id="FNanchor_1203_1203"></a><a href="#Footnote_1203_1203" class="fnanchor">[1203]</a> How well he succeeded was +shown by the event. By purposely delaying his arrival until the assembly +had convened, he avoided the defeat that he might have experienced had +he been on the spot and opposed its opening.<a name="FNanchor_1204_1204" id="FNanchor_1204_1204"></a><a href="#Footnote_1204_1204" class="fnanchor">[1204]</a> He was sufficiently +early, however, to effect all that was really of moment. His manners +were conciliatory and paved the way for his intrigues. Catharine was the +more friendly both to him and to Santa Croce, because of the contrast +between their deportment and that of Gualtieri, whom she hated for his +sour disposition and boorish ways.<a name="FNanchor_1205_1205" id="FNanchor_1205_1205"></a><a href="#Footnote_1205_1205" class="fnanchor">[1205]</a> Navarre and the princes +suspected of a leaning toward Protestantism were plied with other arts. +In fact, so well did the legate counterfeit liberality of sentiment, +that even the Pope and his brethren of the Roman consistory seem to have +become a little alarmed. For he went so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_553" id="Page_553">[Pg 553]</a></span> far, on one occasion, as to +accompany the Huguenot nobles to hear the sermon of one of their +ministers, greatly to the displeasure of the Pope and of Philip the +Second, as well as of the Cardinal of Tournon and other bigots at the +French court who could not follow the tangled thread of his tortuous +policy.<a name="FNanchor_1206_1206" id="FNanchor_1206_1206"></a><a href="#Footnote_1206_1206" class="fnanchor">[1206]</a> It was difficult for him to convince them that he had made +this extraordinary concession simply in order to induce Antoine and his +more intractable queen in their turn to attend the Roman Catholic +services. Navarre was naturally the person whom legate and nuncio were +most anxious to influence. For, respecting Catharine, they soon +satisfied themselves that, if she was not a very ardent Romanist, she +was nothing of a Protestant.<a name="FNanchor_1207_1207" id="FNanchor_1207_1207"></a><a href="#Footnote_1207_1207" class="fnanchor">[1207]</a> The King of Navarre, however, was to +be gained only by skilful and concerted diplomacy. Easy to be duped as +he was, he had met with so many disappointments that he required +something more than vague assurances to induce him to throw away the +solid advantages derived from still being the reputed head of the +Huguenots. For about this time his agents at Madrid and at Rome had been +coldly received. Philip and his minister Alva excused themselves from +paying any attention to his claims upon Navarre or an equivalent, until +Antoine had shown more decided devotion to Catholicism than was afforded +by simply attending mass, and they had made it evident that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_554" id="Page_554">[Pg 554]</a></span> armed +intervention in behalf of the French adherents of the old faith was +rather to be expected from the Spaniard, than any act of condescension +in favor of the titular king. From Rome he had scarcely obtained more +encouragement than from Madrid.<a name="FNanchor_1208_1208" id="FNanchor_1208_1208"></a><a href="#Footnote_1208_1208" class="fnanchor">[1208]</a> Under these circumstances, it +seemed that little was needed to make his alienation from Romanism +complete.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Antoine of Navarre plied with suggestions.</div> + +<p>While, therefore, the Spanish ambassador, Chantonnay, brother of +Cardinal Granvelle, by his severity and his continual threats of war not +only discouraged the Navarrese king, but rendered himself so hateful to +the court that his presence could scarcely be endured,<a name="FNanchor_1209_1209" id="FNanchor_1209_1209"></a><a href="#Footnote_1209_1209" class="fnanchor">[1209]</a> the papal +emissaries, to whom the Venetian Barbaro lent efficient aid, allured him +by brilliant hopes of a sovereignty which Philip, induced by the Pope's +intercessions, would confer upon him. Convinced that the destruction of +all hope of recovering Navarre from the Spanish king would instantly +cause Antoine to throw himself without disguise into the arms of the +Calvinists, and would thus secure the speedy triumph of the Reformation +throughout all France,<a name="FNanchor_1210_1210" id="FNanchor_1210_1210"></a><a href="#Footnote_1210_1210" class="fnanchor">[1210]</a> they even persuaded Chantonnay to abate +somewhat of his insolence, and to ascribe his master's delay in +satisfying Antoine's requests to Philip's belief that his suppliant was +confident of being able to frighten the Spaniards into +restitution.<a name="FNanchor_1211_1211" id="FNanchor_1211_1211"></a><a href="#Footnote_1211_1211" class="fnanchor">[1211]</a> They represented to Antoine himself that his only +chance of success lay in devotion to the Catholic faith. Join<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_555" id="Page_555">[Pg 555]</a></span>ing arms +with "those flagitious men" the Huguenots, he would arouse the hostility +of almost all Christendom. The Pope, the priests, even the greater part +of France, would be his enemies. In a conflict with them he could place +little reliance upon troops unaccustomed to war and drawn from every +quarter—none at all upon the English, who were ancient enemies, or upon +the Germans, who fought for pay. Better would it be for him to secure +but half his demands by peace, than to lose all by trying the fortunes +of war.<a name="FNanchor_1212_1212" id="FNanchor_1212_1212"></a><a href="#Footnote_1212_1212" class="fnanchor">[1212]</a></p> + +<p>How thoroughly the legate and nuncio, with the assistance of their +faithful allies, the Spanish ambassador and the Guises, Montmorency and +St. André, were successful in seducing the unstable King of Navarre from +his allegiance to the Protestant faith, this, and the disastrous results +of his defection, will be developed in a subsequent part of our history.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Contradictory counsels.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">The triumvirate retire in disgust.</div> + +<p>The edict of the eighteenth of October, for the restitution of the +churches of which the Huguenots had taken possession, was by no means an +exponent of the true dispositions of the court. It was rather a measure +of political expediency, reluctantly adopted, to attain the double end +of securing the pecuniary grant of which the government stood in +pressing need, and of preventing Philip from executing the threats of +invasion which Alva had but too plainly made in his interview with the +French envoy extraordinary, Montbéron d'Auzances, and the ambassador, +Sebastien de l'Aubespine<a name="FNanchor_1213_1213" id="FNanchor_1213_1213"></a><a href="#Footnote_1213_1213" class="fnanchor">[1213]</a>—threats which nothing would have been +more likely to convert into stern realities than the concession of the +churches for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_556" id="Page_556">[Pg 556]</a></span> which the Protestants clamored. It was a measure +determined upon by a royal council in which the influence of the party +inclined to Protestant and liberal principles was preponderant; in which +the advice of the moderate Chancellor L'Hospital was supreme; in which +the plans of the Guises, of Montmorency and St. André, were set aside, +to make room for those of Condé and Montluc, Bishop of Valence. It is +this fact that furnishes the clue to a circumstance which at first sight +seems an inexplicable paradox, namely, that almost the very day on which +the intolerant resolution, compelling the Huguenots to surrender the +churches, even in places where they constituted the vast majority of the +population, was adopted, the members of the triumvirate, formed for the +express purpose of upholding the papal church in France, left the court +in disgust. It was scarcely to be expected that these ambitious nobles, +accustomed to occupy the first rank, and to dispose of the national +concerns according to their own private pleasure, should submit with +good grace to the decisions of a council in which the Bourbons held the +sway, and a hated chancellor's opinions were followed whom they +themselves had raised to his elevated position. Much less was it natural +for them to remain when the measures which the administration proposed +were of enlarged toleration, instead of greater repression. Accordingly, +the Duke of Guise left Saint Germain for Joinville, one of his estates +on the borders of Lorraine, while his brother, the cardinal, repaired to +his archbishopric of Rheims. Here, while pretending to apply himself +with unheard-of diligence to his duties as a spiritual shepherd, and +preaching, as was reported, rather the Lutheran than the Romish view of +the eucharist, he was making bids as high as those of the duke, if of a +different kind, for the favor and support of the neighboring German +princes who adhered to the Confession of Augsburg. Catharine, not sorry +to be rid of their presence, and "best pleased when the world was +discordant," gave them a kind dismissal. The elements were less +propitious. An extraordinarily severe storm that swept over St. Germain +on the day of their departure gave rise to a report among the courtiers +that "the devil was carrying them off." It was little suspected, +quaintly remarks<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_557" id="Page_557">[Pg 557]</a></span> the narrator of this incident, how soon he was going +to bring them back!<a name="FNanchor_1214_1214" id="FNanchor_1214_1214"></a><a href="#Footnote_1214_1214" class="fnanchor">[1214]</a> Cardinal Tournon and Constable Montmorency +followed the example of the Guises, and went into retirement.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Hopes entertained of the young king.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Charles's curiosity respecting the mass.</div> + +<p>The prospect was at this moment as dark to the papal party as it was +full of encouragement for the Huguenots and their sympathizers. Nothing +but a resort to violence could avert the speedy downfall of the +authority of the Roman pontiff in France. A few months more of peace, +and everything might be lost.<a name="FNanchor_1215_1215" id="FNanchor_1215_1215"></a><a href="#Footnote_1215_1215" class="fnanchor">[1215]</a> If the young king continued under +the influences now surrounding him, he might become a Huguenot openly, +as it was pretty well understood, by those who had the opportunity of +seeing him daily and noting his words and actions, that he was already +half inclined to be one now. The Queen of Navarre, the Prince of Condé, +and the leading Protestants at court perceived this and could not hide +their delight. One day about this time, Jeanne D'Albret drew the English +ambassador apart from the courtiers waiting upon her, and, having seated +him by her side, related a conversation she had within the past few days +held with Charles. It is thus reported by Throkmorton in a despatch to +Queen Elizabeth: "Good aunt," said the king, "I pray you tell me what<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_558" id="Page_558">[Pg 558]</a></span> +doth this mean, that the king, my uncle, your husband, doth every day go +to mass, and you come not there, nor my cousin, your son, the Prince of +Navarre? I answered (quoth the queen), Sire, the king, my husband doth +so because you go thither, to wait upon you and obey your order and +commandment. Nay, aunt (quoth he), I do neither command nor desire him +to do so. But if it be naught (as I do hear say it is), he might well +enough forbear to be at it, and offend me nothing at all; for if I might +as well as he, and did believe of it as he doth, I would not be at it +myself. The queen said, Why, sir, what do you believe of it? The king +answered, The queen, my mother, Monsieur de Cipierre, and my +schoolmaster doth tell me, that it is very good, and that I do there +daily see God; but (said the king) I do hear by others that neither God +is there nor the thing very good. And surely, aunt, to be plain with +you, <i>I would not be there myself</i>. And therefore you may boldly +continue and do as you do, and so may the king, my uncle, your husband, +use the matter according to his conscience for any displeasure he shall +do unto me. <i>And, surely, aunt</i> (quoth he), <i>when I shall be at my own +rule I mean to quit the matter!</i> But I pray you (said the king), keep +this matter to yourself, and use it so that it come not to my mother's +ears."<a name="FNanchor_1216_1216" id="FNanchor_1216_1216"></a><a href="#Footnote_1216_1216" class="fnanchor">[1216]</a></p> + +<p>It need not occasion surprise that the Queen of Navarre paused, in the +midst of her expressions of intense gratification, to give utterance to +the fear that Charles might be "too toward, too virtuous, and too good +to tarry amongst them," or recalled the many similar "acts and sayings +of the late King Edward of England, who did not live long."<a name="FNanchor_1217_1217" id="FNanchor_1217_1217"></a><a href="#Footnote_1217_1217" class="fnanchor">[1217]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Beza is begged to remain.</div> + +<p>When the first intimation of the edict for the restoration of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_559" id="Page_559">[Pg 559]</a></span> the +churches reached Beza, his impulse was to abandon forthwith a court +where his hopes had been so cruelly disappointed, and a want of proper +confidence had been displayed by his very friends among the royal +counsellors. But his indignant remonstrances were met by the assurance +that benevolent designs for the Reformation were concealed beneath the +apparent harshness of the law, which was a necessary concession to +certain circumstances. He was entreated to be of good courage and to +remain. Catharine joined her solicitations to those of Condé, Admiral +Coligny, and other chiefs of the Protestants. Beza reluctantly +consented, and while Martyr was suffered to depart with courteous +acknowledgments of his services, the Genevese was still more honorably +retained at court.<a name="FNanchor_1218_1218" id="FNanchor_1218_1218"></a><a href="#Footnote_1218_1218" class="fnanchor">[1218]</a> The new measure from which brilliant results +were expected was the calling of an assembly of notables, including +representatives from each of the parliaments, the princes of the blood, +and members of the council, etc., which was to meet in December, and to +suggest some decree on the subject of the religious question, of a +provisional, if not of a permanent character.<a name="FNanchor_1219_1219" id="FNanchor_1219_1219"></a><a href="#Footnote_1219_1219" class="fnanchor">[1219]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Spanish plot to kidnap the Duke of Orleans.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">The Huguenot churches in France.</div> + +<p>About the same time, upon a rumor that the Duke of Nemours, a faithful +ally of the Guises, had plotted to carry off the young Duke of Orleans, +the future Henry the Third, into Spain, with the view of affording his +brother-in-law Philip a specious pretext for interfering in Trench +affairs,<a name="FNanchor_1220_1220" id="FNanchor_1220_1220"></a><a href="#Footnote_1220_1220" class="fnanchor">[1220]</a> Catharine de' Medici turned to the Protestants,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_560" id="Page_560">[Pg 560]</a></span> and +inquired what forces of theirs she could rely upon in the threatened +contest with the Spanish, Papal, and German Roman Catholic troops. Her +question elicited the significant fact that there were two thousand one +hundred and fifty Huguenot churches in France, varying in size from a +mere handful of believers to a community of thousands of members, +embracing almost the entire population of a provincial city, and under +the guidance of several pastors. In the name of these churches a +petition was presented to the king, asking for places of worship, and +loyally tendering life and property in his defence.<a name="FNanchor_1221_1221" id="FNanchor_1221_1221"></a><a href="#Footnote_1221_1221" class="fnanchor">[1221]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Beza secures a favorable royal order.</div> + +<p>To restrain the impatience of so numerous a body as the Protestants, +while waiting for the assembly of the notables which was to confer the +full measure of liberty they desired, was the task imposed upon Beza. He +was to serve as a <i>hostage</i> for the obedience of the reformed +churches.<a name="FNanchor_1222_1222" id="FNanchor_1222_1222"></a><a href="#Footnote_1222_1222" class="fnanchor">[1222]</a> But the sagacious theologian recognized the difficulty +of the position he was called to fill. He warned the government +accordingly against disappointing the hopes it aroused in the breasts of +his fellow Protestants, and he urged that if they must be temporarily +denied the use of the places of worship which they had occupied wherever +they constituted the bulk of the population, the present rigor must be +somewhat abated during the interval before their formal emancipation. +After much importunity a mandate was obtained, addressed to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_561" id="Page_561">[Pg 561]</a></span> royal +officers, in which they were instructed to interpret the previous edicts +with leniency, permitting different degrees of liberty, according to the +various circumstances in which they were placed. In Normandy and Gascony +the religious meetings might be open and unrestricted. In Paris they +must be held secretly in private houses, and not more than two hundred +persons could be gathered together.<a name="FNanchor_1223_1223" id="FNanchor_1223_1223"></a><a href="#Footnote_1223_1223" class="fnanchor">[1223]</a> Everywhere, however, the +Protestants were to be protected, and this was a great step gained. For +those very officers, whose task it had not unfrequently been to drag the +Huguenots to prison, were now constituted the guardians of their lives +and property.<a name="FNanchor_1224_1224" id="FNanchor_1224_1224"></a><a href="#Footnote_1224_1224" class="fnanchor">[1224]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">How to restrain Huguenot impetuosity.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Foix.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Châlons-sur-Marne.</div> + +<p>Yet, how to restrain the impetuosity, how to check the demands of the +multitudes recently converted to the reformed faith, how to induce them +to give up the churches where whole generations of their ancestors had +worshipped before them, and in which they believed that they had the +clearest right of property, and hand them over to a mere handful of +ignorant or interested persons who would not listen to reason or +Scripture—this was the problem that seemed even beyond the power of +Beza's wit to solve. The young vine, in whose branches the full sap of +spring was rapidly circulating, must have room for healthy growth. From +all parts of France the constant cry was for the Word of God and for +liberty. Although the number of daily attendants on Calvin's lectures +was roughly estimated at a thousand,<a name="FNanchor_1225_1225" id="FNanchor_1225_1225"></a><a href="#Footnote_1225_1225" class="fnanchor">[1225]</a> it was impossible for Geneva +to supply the drafts made upon her, when there were three hundred +parishes, apparently in a single province, which had thrown off the +mass, but had as yet been unsuccessful in their quest of pastors;<a name="FNanchor_1226_1226" id="FNanchor_1226_1226"></a><a href="#Footnote_1226_1226" class="fnanchor">[1226]</a> +when the history of hundreds of towns and villages was the counterpart +of the history of Foix, where, in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_562" id="Page_562">[Pg 562]</a></span> two months, an infant church of +thirty or forty members had grown to have five or six hundred, and the +Protestant population was almost in the majority in the town, although +as yet, notwithstanding incessant efforts to obtain a pastor, the only +public service consisted of the repetition by a layman of the prayers +contained in the liturgy of Calvin<a name="FNanchor_1227_1227" id="FNanchor_1227_1227"></a><a href="#Footnote_1227_1227" class="fnanchor">[1227]</a>—when many a minister met with +success similar to that which attended Pierre Fornelet, who could point +to fifteen villages in the vicinity of Châlons-sur-Marne, begging for +Huguenot pastors, and all this the fruit of seven weeks of apostolic +labours; and could record the fact that poor men and women flocked to +the city from a distance of seven or eight leagues, when they simply +heard that the Gospel was preached there<a name="FNanchor_1228_1228" id="FNanchor_1228_1228"></a><a href="#Footnote_1228_1228" class="fnanchor">[1228]</a>—when it was estimated by +competent witnesses that from four to six thousand ministers could be +profitably employed within the bounds of the kingdom.<a name="FNanchor_1229_1229" id="FNanchor_1229_1229"></a><a href="#Footnote_1229_1229" class="fnanchor">[1229]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Troyes.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Paris.</div> + +<p>In some places, by strenuous exertion, the ministers were successful in +persuading their flocks to refrain from overt acts tending to provoke +outbursts of hostility. At Troyes, in Champagne, a thousand persons +convened by day or by night, not summoned by the sound of bells, but +quietly notified by an "<i>advertisseur</i>" of the daily changing place of +meeting. Yet even there, on Sunday and on public holidays, the Huguenots +took pains to hold their "assemblée" in the open day, before the eyes of +their enemies.<a name="FNanchor_1230_1230" id="FNanchor_1230_1230"></a><a href="#Footnote_1230_1230" class="fnanchor">[1230]</a> At Paris, the Protestants, compelled to go some +distance into the country for worship, on their return (Sunday, the +twelfth of October), found the gates closed against them, and were +attacked by a mob composed of the dregs of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_563" id="Page_563">[Pg 563]</a></span> populace. Many of their +number were killed or wounded. The assailants retreated when the +Huguenot gentry, with swords drawn, rallied for the defence of their +unarmed companions, whom they could not, however, guarantee from the +stones and other missiles hurled at them. For a few days the public +services were intermitted at the earnest request of the Prince of La +Roche-sur-Yon, in the interest of good order and to prevent +disturbance.<a name="FNanchor_1231_1231" id="FNanchor_1231_1231"></a><a href="#Footnote_1231_1231" class="fnanchor">[1231]</a> But a month later the Huguenots assembled openly, and +in still greater numbers. On reaching the suburbs, the women were placed +in the centre, with the men who had come on foot around them, while +those who were mounted on horseback shielded the whole from attack. A +body of guards was posted by the prince in the immediate +neighborhood.<a name="FNanchor_1232_1232" id="FNanchor_1232_1232"></a><a href="#Footnote_1232_1232" class="fnanchor">[1232]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Montpellier.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Churches visited and stripped.</div> + +<p>In the south of France the people were less easily curbed, and the +indiscretion or treachery of their enemies often furnished provocation +for acts which the sober judgment of their pastors refused to sanction. +The chapter of the cathedral of Montpellier, with the view of overawing +the city, had, in October, introduced a garrison into the commanding +Fort St. Pierre. On a Sunday (the nineteenth of October) the Protestants +laid siege, and on the succeeding day the chapter entered into a +composition with the citizens, by which the canons retained the liberty +of celebrating their services, but bound themselves to lay down their +arms and dismiss the soldiers they had called in. When, however, a +soldier, as he was leaving, drew a pistol and killed one of the +Protestants, the fury of the latter could not be repressed. They cried +that treacherous designs were on foot, and madly killed many of the +canons and their sympathizers. Then, directing their indignation against +the churches, where the doctrine that no faith need<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_564" id="Page_564">[Pg 564]</a></span> be kept with +heretics had been inculcated, they overturned in a few hours the work of +four or five centuries. The next day, of sixty churches and chapels in +Montpellier or its neighborhood, not one was open. Not a priest, not a +monk, dared to show his face. Yet this same excitable populace, which +had been wrought up to frenzy by a soldier's treacherous act, submitted +without resistance when, on the twentieth of November, Joyeuse, in the +king's name, published the obnoxious edict for the restitution of all +churches within twenty-four hours. The cathedral was given up, and the +services according to the rites of the reformed church were held in the +spacious "École mage," until, by a new arrangement with the canons, the +Protestants were once more put in possession of two of the old +ecclesiastical edifices. Yet the edict did not arrest the rapid progress +of the new faith. The mass was not reinstated, and the small Roman +Catholic minority remained at home on the feast-days. Even the lowest +class of the population—elsewhere, from ignorance and prejudice, the +stronghold of the papal religion—here seemed to share in the universal +tendency, and, unfortunately, as a local chronicler, to whom we are +indebted for these particulars, informs us, took no better way of +testifying its devotion than by "mutilating sepulchral monuments, +unearthing the dead, and committing a thousand acts of folly." Carrying +their hatred of everything that reminded them of the period of judicial +abuse to the length of detesting even the insignia of office, the people +compelled the ministers of the law to doff their traditional square cap +and assume a hat such as was worn by the rest of the population.<a name="FNanchor_1233_1233" id="FNanchor_1233_1233"></a><a href="#Footnote_1233_1233" class="fnanchor">[1233]</a> +Thus the strength of the reformatory current could be gauged by the mud +and rubbish which it tore from the banks on either side—an addition to +its bulk that contributed nothing to its power, while marring its purity +and sullying its fair antecedents. A class of persons attached +themselves to the Huguenot<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_565" id="Page_565">[Pg 565]</a></span> community that could not be brought into +subjection to the discipline instituted with such difficulty at Geneva. +It would seem invidious to lay their excesses to the account of the +Huguenot leaders, whether religious or political, since those excesses +met with the severe reprobation of the latter.<a name="FNanchor_1234_1234" id="FNanchor_1234_1234"></a><a href="#Footnote_1234_1234" class="fnanchor">[1234]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The rein, and not the spur, needed.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Marriages and baptisms at court, "after the fashion of +Geneva."</div> + +<p>"Would that our friends might restrain themselves at least for two +months!" was the ejaculation of Beza, in view of the natural impatience +exhibited on all sides. "I fear our own party more than I do our +adversaries."<a name="FNanchor_1235_1235" id="FNanchor_1235_1235"></a><a href="#Footnote_1235_1235" class="fnanchor">[1235]</a> The rein was needed, not the spur. When, instead of +two hundred persons, the Parisian assemblies of Huguenots often +consisted of six thousand, a fanatical populace, accustomed for a whole +generation to see the very suspicion of Lutheranism expiated in the +flames of the Place de Grève or of the Halles, could ill brook the sight +of such open gatherings for the reformed worship. How much greater the +popular indignation when it became known that Chancellor L'Hospital had +authorized <i>two</i> places for public worship according to the rites of the +reformed churches, in the neighborhood of the Gate of St. Antoine and +the Gate of St. Marceau! Added to these palpable proofs of the court's +complicity with the heretics, was the no less scandalous fact that +marriages and baptisms, celebrated "after the fashion of Geneva," were +of frequent occurrence; that the nuptials of young De Rohan, cousin of +Antoine of Navarre, and Mademoiselle de Brabançon, niece of the Duchess +d'Étampes, had been performed on St. Michael's Day, and in the presence +of Condé and the Queen of Navarre, by Theodore Beza himself; and that in +a masquerade<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_566" id="Page_566">[Pg 566]</a></span> in the royal palace Charles the Ninth had worn a cap which +bore an unmistakable resemblance to a bishop's mitre!<a name="FNanchor_1236_1236" id="FNanchor_1236_1236"></a><a href="#Footnote_1236_1236" class="fnanchor">[1236]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Tanquerel's seditious declaration.</div> + +<p>While legate and nuncio labored to put an end to these hateful +manifestations by personal solicitation addressed to Catharine, to +Cardinal Châtillon, and others,<a name="FNanchor_1237_1237" id="FNanchor_1237_1237"></a><a href="#Footnote_1237_1237" class="fnanchor">[1237]</a> the priests and monks were no less +active in stirring up the passions of the people to open resistance. In +the scholastic halls of the Collége de Harecourt, one Tanquerel, a +doctor of the Sorbonne, enunciated the dangerous maxim that "the Pope +can depose heretical kings and emperors." At this menacing declaration, +which, under a king in his minority and a regency divided in its +sentiments on religious questions, was much more than a theoretical +abstraction, the government took alarm. The Parliament of Paris +investigated the offence, and the doctrine of Tanquerel was severely +condemned. Tanquerel himself having fled from the city to avoid the +consequences of his rashness, the Dean of the Sorbonne was required, by +order of the supreme court, to utter in his name a solemn recantation in +the presence of the assembled theologians and of a committee<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_567" id="Page_567">[Pg 567]</a></span> of +parliament; and two theologians were deputed to St. Germain to beg the +king's forgiveness.<a name="FNanchor_1238_1238" id="FNanchor_1238_1238"></a><a href="#Footnote_1238_1238" class="fnanchor">[1238]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Jean de Hans.</div> + +<p>The preachers were not behind the doctors in the use of seditious +language. They attacked the government and its entire policy; and one of +their number—Jean de Hans—while delivering Advent discourses in the +church of St. Barthélemi, in the very neighborhood of the palace, so +distinguished himself for the extravagance of his denunciations, that he +was arrested and carried off to the court at St. Germain. Yet such was +his well-known popularity with the Parisians, that it was found +necessary to effect his capture by a troop of forty armed men; and the +powerful intercession made in his behalf induced the government to +forget his disrespectful language respecting the princes, and to release +him after barely a week's imprisonment.<a name="FNanchor_1239_1239" id="FNanchor_1239_1239"></a><a href="#Footnote_1239_1239" class="fnanchor">[1239]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Philip threatens to interfere in French affairs.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">"A true defender of the faith."</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Courteville's mission to Flanders.</div> + +<p>Unfortunately, Tanquerel's treasonable thesis and Hans's excited +declamation were not mere harmless speculations which might never be of +any practical importance to the state. The King of Spain had taken the +pains to inform the queen mother that he had fully made up his mind to +interfere in the affairs of France, and to enforce Catholic supremacy at +the point of the sword. She might accept or decline the offers of the +self-appointed champion of orthodoxy; <i>but, if she declined, he was +resolved none the less to afford his succor to any true friend of the +Church that chose to request it</i>. Timid and irresolute Catharine, who +desired to steer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_568" id="Page_568">[Pg 568]</a></span> clear of the Scylla of Spanish intervention quite as +much as of the Charybdis of Huguenot supremacy, trembled for the +security of her unballasted bark. But the watchful old man who sat on +St. Peter's reputed seat was thrown into a paroxysm of delight. When the +Ambassador Vargas handed him a copy of the message his master had sent +to St. Germain, Pope Pius paused a moment, after he had read the +undisguised threat, then burst out with a flood of benedictions on the +head of the Spanish king. "There," he cried, "is a truly Catholic +prince, there a true defender of the faith! I expected no less of +him."<a name="FNanchor_1240_1240" id="FNanchor_1240_1240"></a><a href="#Footnote_1240_1240" class="fnanchor">[1240]</a> And Philip intended to carry his menaces into effect. On the +twenty-fifth of October his secretary, Courteville, left Madrid, +ostensibly on a visit to his infirm father in Flanders, but in reality +intrusted with a very important commission, which, in an age when it was +no uncommon thing for a messenger to be waylaid and robbed of his +despatches, could scarcely be otherwise discharged. He was to make +diligent inquiries of Margaret of Parma, Regent of the Netherlands, as +to the actual condition of the provinces, and the material support they +could give the undertaking upon which Philip has set his heart. While +passing through Paris he was to confide his dangerous secret to the +Ambassador Chantonnay, and instruct him to support any of the Roman +Catholic nobles that might show a disposition to rise,<a name="FNanchor_1241_1241" id="FNanchor_1241_1241"></a><a href="#Footnote_1241_1241" class="fnanchor">[1241]</a> or to +instigate them to action by the promise of Philip's support. Neither +Margaret nor Chantonnay, however, could fulfil the monarch's desires. +The former thought that Philip had thrown away the golden opportunity by +failing to interfere<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_569" id="Page_569">[Pg 569]</a></span> while the question of Catharine's and Navarre's +claims to the administration was in dispute, and when the number of +sectaries was much smaller than at present; and by the time Courteville +reached Poissy, where Chantonnay was stopping, the assembled nobles had +dispersed to their homes, and the Guises were practically farther from +Paris than from Brussels. So the execution of Philip's plan, both +agreed, must be deferred for some time.<a name="FNanchor_1242_1242" id="FNanchor_1242_1242"></a><a href="#Footnote_1242_1242" class="fnanchor">[1242]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The ill-starred Medici family.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">The Venetian envoy's lugubrious account of France.</div> + +<p>It could not be denied that the situation was critical in the extreme. +Long-headed diplomatists of the conservative school shook their heads +ominously. They hinted that there might be only too much truth in the +current Catholic saying that the Medici family was destined to be fatal +to Christendom. Under Leo the Tenth Germany was lost to the papacy, +under Clement the Eighth England had apostatized, and now under Pius the +Fourth, a third Pope of the same ill-starred race, France was on the +brink of ruin. The king was a boy, without experience and without +authority, the council full of discord, the supreme power in the hands +of the queen, who, though sagacious, was yet only a woman, and both +timid and irresolute. The King of Navarre, while noble and gracious, was +a prince of little constancy and limited practice in government. The +people were in disorder and manifest division. Everywhere there were +seditious and insolent men, who, under the pretext of religion, had +disturbed the general peace, overturned customs and discipline, and put +in doubt the royal authority and the safety of all. Oh, that Philip the +Second had the courage of his father, or that Charles the Fifth had had +his son's glorious opportunity—<i>then would France be France no +longer</i>!<a name="FNanchor_1243_1243" id="FNanchor_1243_1243"></a><a href="#Footnote_1243_1243" class="fnanchor">[1243]</a> For just so certainly as the Spanish king was looked upon +with suspicion by the rulers, was he longed for by all that hated the +present state of things, and,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_570" id="Page_570">[Pg 570]</a></span> most of all, by the prelates and the rest +of the Catholics, who knew not in what other quarter to look for +salvation.<a name="FNanchor_1244_1244" id="FNanchor_1244_1244"></a><a href="#Footnote_1244_1244" class="fnanchor">[1244]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Romish complaints of Huguenot boldness.</div> + +<p>It was not possible that peace should long be maintained under such +circumstances. It could not be but that the Huguenots, conscious of +their growing numbers, confident of the near approach of the day when +their rights were to be formally recognized, and impatient of the +fetters with which their enemies still attempted to embarrass their +progress, would assert their rights from day to day with increasing +boldness. The priests and the rabble, on the other hand, regarded this +new courage with suspicion, and interpreted every action as springing +from insufferable insolence. They were on the watch to detect fresh +examples of Huguenot audacity. They complained of the numbers that +flocked to hear the reformed preachers, of the arms which some carried +for self-defence—a precaution not very astonishing in view of the +excited feelings of the Parisians and the frequent outbursts of their +fury, and still less extraordinary on the part of the "noblesse," who +were accustomed to wear a sword at all times. They went so far as to +assert that the Huguenot multitude usurped the entire pavement, and were +become so overbearing that they were ready to pick a quarrel with any +one that presumed "to look at them." A peaceable Catholic must needs, to +avoid abuse and hard blows, show more skill in getting out of their way +than he would in shunning a mad dog. The streets resounded with their +profane psalm-singing, and ill fared it with the unlucky wight that +ventured to remonstrate, or dared to find fault with their provoking use +of meat on the prohibited days. He was likely to have a broken head for +his pains, or be shut up in prison by judges who sympathized with the +"new doctrines."<a name="FNanchor_1245_1245" id="FNanchor_1245_1245"></a><a href="#Footnote_1245_1245" class="fnanchor">[1245]</a> The court, however, more correctly ascribing the +disturbances that occurred on such occasions to the attacks made upon +the Protestants by their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_571" id="Page_571">[Pg 571]</a></span> opponents, detached the "chevalier du guet" +and his archers to attend the meetings and to prevent the disturbance of +the worshippers on their way to and from the places assigned for the +Protestant services in the suburbs.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">The "tumult of Saint Médard."</div> + +<p>At length, on Saturday, the twenty-seventh of December, a serious +commotion took place. One of the two spots where Catharine, at the +chancellor's suggestion, had permitted the Huguenots of the capital to +meet for worship, was a spacious building on the southern side of the +Seine, outside the walls and not far from the gate of St. Marceau. It +bore the enigmatical designation of "Le Patriarche," derived—so +antiquarians alleged—from the circumstance that it had been built long +before by a patriarch of Alexandria expelled from his see by the +Moslems.<a name="FNanchor_1246_1246" id="FNanchor_1246_1246"></a><a href="#Footnote_1246_1246" class="fnanchor">[1246]</a> Here a congregation of several thousand persons<a name="FNanchor_1247_1247" id="FNanchor_1247_1247"></a><a href="#Footnote_1247_1247" class="fnanchor">[1247]</a> had +assembled in the afternoon. The introductory services over, the pastor, +Jean Malot, had been preaching for a quarter of an hour, when his sermon +was noisily interrupted. Separated from the "Patriarche" by a narrow +lane stood the parish church of Saint Médard. Under the pretext of +summoning the people to vespers, the priests had ordered all the bells +in the tower to be rung violently, and hoped by the din to put an end to +the heretical worship in the vicinity. Finding it impossible to make +himself heard, the minister endeavored to restrain his excited audience, +and after the singing of a psalm resumed his discourse. It was all in +vain: St. Médard's bells pealed out the tocsin, and the sound of the +dis<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_572" id="Page_572">[Pg 572]</a></span>charge of fire-arms, and the crash of stones hurled from the belfry, +increased the confusion. Meanwhile two Protestants had quietly gone over +to the side door of the church, to request an abatement of the +interruption. Their civil request was answered with violence. One of the +men barely escaped with his life; the other, a deacon of the church, was +killed on the spot. Five or six royal archers, commanded by the provost, +Rouge-Oreille, next summoned the party within the church to desist, but +met with no better success. At length the people, now congregated around +the entrance, and subjected to a storm of missiles from the windows and +the tower, forced open the doors and entered the church. Here they +discovered the corpse of their murdered brother. The priests and +sacristans, though armed with swords and clubs, were soon driven to take +refuge in the belfry. In the struggle the ecclesiastics themselves +became iconoclasts, and, when their supply of less sacred implements ran +low, broke in pieces the images of saints, and rained the fragments upon +the Huguenot crowd. Finally a threat to set fire to the belfry put an +end at once to the ringing of the tocsin and to the holy shower. +Meantime the tumultous peals of St. Médard's bells had drawn to the spot +the "chevalier du guet," one Gabaston, who, on learning the +circumstances, promptly lent aid in quelling the disturbance, and +arrested a number of the leaders in the riotous proceedings. Yielding to +an injudicious impulse, the motley crowd of Huguenots and of persons who +had been attracted to the scene by the noise resolved to accompany the +prisoners to the "Petit Châtelet," and the march assumed the appearance +of a triumphal procession. Between Gabaston's troop of over two hundred +mounted and foot archers, and the detachment of Rouge-Oreille, walked a +band of unarmed Protestants, followed by the Roman Catholic prisoners, +many of them in their ecelesiastical dresses, and tied together two by +two. It was deemed little short of a miracle that the procession, even +with its escort of soldiery, should be suffered to enter the city and +pass through its densely crowded streets on a public holiday, without +being attacked by the intensely Roman Catholic populace.<a name="FNanchor_1248_1248" id="FNanchor_1248_1248"></a><a href="#Footnote_1248_1248" class="fnanchor">[1248]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_573" id="Page_573">[Pg 573]</a></span></p> + +<p>Such was the famous "tumult of Saint Médard"—the result of a plan +adopted expressly to stir up the inveterate hostility of the Parisians +against the adherents of the Reformation, and to serve as the pretext +for demanding the prohibition of the Protestant "assemblies."<a name="FNanchor_1249_1249" id="FNanchor_1249_1249"></a><a href="#Footnote_1249_1249" class="fnanchor">[1249]</a> The +popular explosion that had been expected instantly to follow the +application of the match was deferred until the morrow, when a rabble +such as the capital alone could pour forth gutted the interior of the +"<i>Patriarche</i>" and would have set it on fire, had it not been repulsed +by a small body of Huguenot gentlemen.<a name="FNanchor_1250_1250" id="FNanchor_1250_1250"></a><a href="#Footnote_1250_1250" class="fnanchor">[1250]</a> The plot had proved +abortive; but it was the innocent victims and the friends of good order, +not the conspirators, who paid the penalty of the broken law. While the +priest of Saint Médard and his accomplices were promptly discharged, +without even a reprimand, Gabaston and one "Nez-d'Argent," royal +officers who had interfered to restore order, were executed by command +of parliament.<a name="FNanchor_1251_1251" id="FNanchor_1251_1251"></a><a href="#Footnote_1251_1251" class="fnanchor">[1251]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_574" id="Page_574">[Pg 574]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Assembly of notables at St. Germain.</div> + +<p>About a week after the occurrence of the seditious disturbance just +narrated, the assembly of notables was convened at St. Germain (January, +1562). To this body it was proposed to refer the religious condition of +the realm, with the view of reaching some more definite and satisfactory +settlement than the "Edict of July," whose provisions had become a dead +letter before the ink with which they were written was dry.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Chancellor L'Hospital's opening address.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Diversity of sentiment.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">The nuncio's alarm and activity.</div> + +<p>The chancellor, who, according to custom, set forth at considerable +length the circumstances constraining the king, by his mother's advice, +to summon the representatives of his trusty parliaments, with the +highest lords of the kingdom, to give him their counsel, dwelt upon the +signal failure of all the measures of repression hitherto adopted, and +upon the necessity of finding other remedies for the public ills. He +disclaimed any intention on the king's part to introduce a discussion +respecting the two religions in order to settle their respective merits. +It was not to establish the faith, but to regulate the state, that they +were assembled. Those who were in no sense Christians might yet be +citizens; and, in leaving the Church, a man did not cease to be a good +subject of the king. "We can live in peace," he added, "with those who +do not observe the same ceremonies and usages, and we can apply to +ourselves the current saying: A wife's faults ought either to be cured +or to be endured."<a name="FNanchor_1252_1252" id="FNanchor_1252_1252"></a><a href="#Footnote_1252_1252" class="fnanchor">[1252]</a> When the opinions of the members of the +assembly were successively given, the apprehensions entertained by the +Romish party, from the very initiation of the plan of the conference, +were seen to be well grounded.<a name="FNanchor_1253_1253" id="FNanchor_1253_1253"></a><a href="#Footnote_1253_1253" class="fnanchor">[1253]</a> The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_575" id="Page_575">[Pg 575]</a></span> orthodoxy of the sentiments of +the majority was by no means above suspicion. The nuncio, Santa Croce, +chronicles with alarm the preponderance of those who openly advocated +the adoption of lenient measures. It was evident that the Edict of July, +with its bloody policy, could command the votes of only a small +minority. The pontifical ambassador trembled lest the Protestants +should, after all, obtain the largest concessions. He was, consequently, +as despondent as ever his predecessor had been.<a name="FNanchor_1254_1254" id="FNanchor_1254_1254"></a><a href="#Footnote_1254_1254" class="fnanchor">[1254]</a> But, more prudent +than the Bishop of Viterbo, he took pains to conceal his fears from the +eyes of the courtiers, lest he should furnish the Huguenots with fresh +means of influencing the wavering government. Accordingly, instead of +giving up everything as lost, he spared neither time nor money, +besieging the doors of the grandees who were believed to be true friends +of the Holy See, and entreating them to dismiss all intention of leaving +the court, and thus abandoning the field to their enemies.<a name="FNanchor_1255_1255" id="FNanchor_1255_1255"></a><a href="#Footnote_1255_1255" class="fnanchor">[1255]</a> He even +sought an interview with Catharine de' Medici, and, in company with the +Spanish ambassador, offered her the united forces of the Pope and of +Philip to repress any disturbances that might arise from the adoption of +a course unpalatable to the Huguenots; and he returned from the audience +persuaded that "these preachers would obtain no churches, and would gain +nothing from the conference."<a name="FNanchor_1256_1256" id="FNanchor_1256_1256"></a><a href="#Footnote_1256_1256" class="fnanchor">[1256]</a></p> + +<p>In this conclusion, however, the nuncio was but partially correct. It is +true that the small faction favoring an adherence to the old persecuting +policy succeeded, by uniting with the ad<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_576" id="Page_576">[Pg 576]</a></span>vocates of a limited +toleration, in defeating the project of the more liberal party;<a name="FNanchor_1257_1257" id="FNanchor_1257_1257"></a><a href="#Footnote_1257_1257" class="fnanchor">[1257]</a> +but, as will be seen, it was by no means true that Protestantism gained +nothing by the results of the deliberations.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">The Edict of January.</div> + +<p>These results were embodied in the famous law which, from the +circumstance that it was signed on the seventeenth of January. 1562, is +known in history as the "<i>Edict of January</i>." It began by repealing the +provisional edict of the preceding July, because, in consequence of its +sweeping prohibition of all public and private assemblies, it had failed +of accomplishing the objects intended, as was clear from the more +aggravated seditions ensuing. It ordained that "those of the new +religion" should give up all the churches they had seized, and +prohibited them from building others, whether inside or outside of the +cities. But the cardinal prescription was that, while all assemblages +for the purpose of listening to preaching, either by day or by night, +were forbidden within the walled cities, the penalties should be +suspended "provisionally and until the determination of a general +council" in the case of unarmed gatherings for religious worship held by +day outside these limits. The Protestants, both on their way to their +services and on their return, were to be exempt from molestation on the +part of the royal magistrates, who were enjoined to punish all seditious +persons, whatever might be their religion. The ministers were commanded +to inquire carefully into the life and morals of those whom they +admitted to their communion, to permit royal officers to be present at +all their religious exercises, and to take a solemn oath before the +local magistrates to observe this ordinance, promising, at the same +time, to teach no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_577" id="Page_577">[Pg 577]</a></span> doctrines at variance with the true word of God as +contained in the Nicene Creed and in the canonical books of the Old and +New Testaments. Inflammatory and insulting harangues were forbidden +alike to the Romish and the Protestant preachers. All seditious +combinations, the enrolment of troops, and the levy of money, were +prohibited; nor could even an ecclesiastical synod or consistory be held +without the previous consent of the royal officers and in their +presence.<a name="FNanchor_1258_1258" id="FNanchor_1258_1258"></a><a href="#Footnote_1258_1258" class="fnanchor">[1258]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The Huguenots no longer outlaws.</div> + +<p>Such were the most important features of a law the promulgation of which +marks the termination of the first great period in the history of the +Huguenots of France—the period of persecution inflicted mainly +according to cruel legal ordinances and under the forms of judicial +procedure. From the moment of the publication of this charter—imperfect +and inadequate as it manifestly was—the Huguenots ceased to be outlaws, +and became, in the eye of the law, at least, a class entitled within +certain limits to the protection of the ministers of justice. Unhappily +for France, the solemn recognition of Protestant rights was scarcely +conceded by representatives of the entire nation before an attempt was +made by a desperate faction to annul and overturn it by intrigue and +violence. The next act in this remarkable drama is, therefore, the +inauguration of the period of <i>Civil War</i>, or of oppression exercised in +defiance of acknowledged rights and of the accepted principles of +equity—a lamentable period, in which every bloody contest originated in +the determination of the one party to circumscribe or destroy, and of +the other to maintain in its integrity the fundamental basis of +toleration laid down in the Edict of January.</p> + + +<h4><span class="smcap">End of Volume I.</span></h4> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Meantime I am glad that we may expect before very long, +from the pen of my brother, Charles W. Baird, the history of the +Huguenot emigration to the American colonies in the seventeenth and +eighteenth centuries—a work based upon extensive research, that will +afford much interesting information respecting a movement hitherto +little understood, and fill an important gap in our historical +literature.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Of the different modes of spelling this name, I choose the +mode which, according to the numerous fac-similes given by Dr. Forbes, +the worthy knight seems himself to have followed with commendable +uniformity.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> Mignet, Essai sur la formation territoriale et politique de +la France depuis la fin du onzième siècle jusqu'à la fin du quiinzième. +Notices et Mémoires Historiques, ii. 154.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Mignet, 157, 158.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> A manuscript chronicle of the time of Charles the Sixth, +quoted by Guizot, Histoire de la Civilisation en France, iv. 144, states +the interesting fact that the inhabitants of Périgord and the adjoining +districts, thus surrendered to Henry the Third of England, for centuries +bore so hearty a grudge against the French king, of whom the rest of +France was justly proud, and whose name the church had enrolled in the +calendar, that they never would consent to regard him as a saint or to +celebrate his feast day!</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> "Le quali tutte provincie sono così bene poste," etc. +Relazione di Francia dell' Amb. Marino Cavalli, in Relations des +Ambassadeurs Vénitiens (Tommaseo, Paris), i. 220.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> "Dico che il regno di Francia per universal consenso del +mondo fu riputato <i>il primo regno di cristianità</i>," etc. Commentario del +regno di Francia del clarissimo sig. Michel Suriano, Rel. des Amb. Vén., +i. 470.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> "Dopo il papa che è universal capo della religione, e la +signoria di Venezia, che, come è nata, s'è conservata sempre cristiana." +Suriano, <i>ubi supra</i>, i. 472.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> This was in the early part of Queen Elizabeth's reign, Dec. +15, 1559, MSS. British Museum. I use the summary in the Calendar of +State Papers (Stevenson), p. 197, note.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> Marino Cavalli stated, in 1546, that this systematic +policy of continually incorporating and never alienating had been +pursued for eighty years. So successful had it proved, that everything +had been absorbed by confiscation, succession, or purchase. There was, +perhaps, no longer a single prince in the kingdom with an income of +20,000 crowns; while even their scanty resources and straitened estates +the princes possessed simply as ordinary proprietors, from whose actions +an appeal was open to the king. Relazioni Venete (Albèri, Firenze), +serie 1, i. 234, 235.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> Yet the old prejudice against city life had not fully died +out. So late as in 1527, Chassanée wrote: "Galliæ omnis una est nobilium +norma. Nam rura et prædia sua (dicam potius castra) incolentes <i>urbes +fugiunt, in quibus habitare nobilem turpe ducitur</i>. Qui in illis degunt, +ignobiles habentur a nobilibus." Catalogus Gloriæ Mundi, fol. 200.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> Michel Suriano, Rel. des Amb. Vén., i. 488.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> Mignet, <i>ubi supra</i>, ii. 160, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> Rel. dell' Amb. Marino Cavalli (1546), <i>ubi supra</i>, i. +229.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> It would seem that the Venetian ambassadors were never +free from apprehension lest their admiration of what they had seen +abroad might be construed as disparagement of their own island city. +Hence, Marino Giustiniano (A. D. 1535), after making the statement which +we have given in the text, is careful to add: "<i>Pur non arriva di +richezza ad una gran gionta quanto Venezia; nè anco ha maggior popolo</i>, +per mio giudizio, di che loro si gloriano." Rel. Venete (Albèri, +Firenze), serie 1, i. 148.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> The lowest estimate, which is that of Guicciardini (Belgiæ +Descriptio, apud Prescott, Philip II., i. 367), is probably nearest the +mark; the highest, 800,000, is that of Davila, Storia delle Guerre +Civili, 1. iii. (Eng. trans., p. 79). Marino Cavalli, in 1546, says +500,000; Michel Suriano, in 1561, between 400,000 and 500,000. M. +Dulaure is even more parsimonious than Guicciardini, for he will allow +Paris, in the sixteenth century, not more than 200,000 to 210,000 souls! +Histoire de Paris, iv. 384. Some of the exaggerated estimates may be +errors of transcription. At least Ranke asserts that this is the case +with the 500,000 of Fran. Giustiniani in 1537, where the original +manuscript gives only 300,000. Französische Geschichte, v. (Abschn. 1), +76.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> See, for example, the MS. receipt, from which it appears +that, in 1516, Sieur Imbert de Baternay pledged his entire service of +plate to help defray the expenses of the war. Capefigue, François +Premier et la Renaissance, i. 141.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> Marino Giustiniano (1535), Rel. Venete (Albèri), i, 185, +François de Rabutin, Guerres de Belgique (Ed. Panthéon), 697.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> Marino Giustiniano, <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> M. A. Boullée (in his Histoire complète des +États-Généraux, i. 181, etc.) and other writers give the character of +States General to the gathering of princes, clergy, etc., at Tours, in +May, 1506. This was the assembly from which Louis XII. obtained the +welcome advice to break an engagement to give his daughter Claude, +heiress of Brittany, in marriage to Charles, the future emperor of +Germany, in order that he might be free to bestow her hand on Francis of +Angoulême. M. Boullée is also inclined to call the assembly after the +battle of St. Quentin, January 5, 1558, a meeting of the States General. +But Michel Suriano is correct in stating (Rel. des Amb. Vén., Tommaseo, +i. 512-514) that between Louis XI.'s time and 1560 the only States +General were those of 1483. Chancellor L'Hospital's words cited below +are conclusive.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> Some of Louis XI.'s successors imbibed his aversion for +these popular assemblies, and would, like Louis, have treated any one as +a rebel who dared to talk of calling them. Michel Suriano, Rel. des Amb. +Vén. (Tommaseo), i. 512-514.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> Chancellor L'Hospital's remarkable words were: "Or, +messieurs, parceque nous reprenons l'ancienne coustume de tenir les +estats <i>jà délaissés par le temps de quatre-vingts ans ou environ, où +n'y a mémoire d'homme qui y puisse atteindre</i>, je diray en peu de +paroles que c'est que tenir les estats, pour quelle cause Fon assembloit +les estats, la façon et manière, et qui y présidoit, quel bien en vient +au roy, quel au peuple, et mesmes s'il est utile au roy de tenir les +estats, ou non." The address in full in La Place, Commentaires de +l'Estat de la République, etc. (Ed. Panthéon), 80.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> Michel Suriano, <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> "Tellement que sous ces beaux et doux appasts, l'on +n'ouvre jamais telles assemblees que le peuple n'y accoure, ne les +embrasse, et ne s'en esiouysse infiniement, ne considerant pas qu'il n'y +a rien qu'il deust tant craindre, <i>comme estant le general refrain +d'iceux, de tirer argent de luy</i>.... Au contraire jamais on ne feit +assemblee generale des trois Estats en cette France, sans accroistre les +finances de nos Roys à la diminution de celles du peuple." Pasquier, +Recherches de la France, l. ii. c. 7, p. 82.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> "Il rè di Francia <i>è rè d'asini</i>, perchè il suo popolo +supoorta ogni sorte di peso, senza rechiamo mai." Michel Suriano, +Commentarii (Rel. des Amb. Vén., Tommaseo), i. 486.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> Guerres de Belgique (Éd. Panthéon), 585.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> "Egli può riputar poi tutti li danari della Francia esser +suoi; perche nelli suoi bisogni, sempre che li dimanda, gli sono portati +molto volontariamente <i>per la incomparabil benevolenza di essi popoli</i>." +Relaz. Ven. (Albèri), ii. 172.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> Cayet, Hist. de la guerre sous le règne de Henry IV., i. +248. We shall see that Francis carried out the same ideas of absolute +authority in his dealings both with reputed heresy and with the Gallican +Church itself. He seems even to have believed himself commissioned to do +all the thinking in matters of religion for his more intellectual +sister; for, if Brantôme may be credited, when Constable Montmorency, on +one occasion, had the temerity to suggest to him that all his efforts to +extirpate error in France would be futile until he began with Margaret +of Angoulême, Francis silenced him with the remark: "No more on that +subject! She loves me too much; she will never believe anything but what +I desire." Femmes illustres: Marguerite, reine de Navarre.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> "Stanno a quelli soggetti più che cani." Relaz. Ven., ii. +174.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> Ibid., <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> "Mercatores aspernantur," says Chassanée in 1527, "ut vile +atque abjectum omnium genus." Catal. Gloriæ Mundi, fol. 200.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> Mignet, <i>ubi supra</i>, ii. 173.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> See the sketch by Daniel, Histoire de France, reprinted in +Leber, Collection de pièces relatives à l'histoire de France, vi, 266, +etc.; also Mignet, <i>ubi supra</i>, ii. 177, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> Mignet, <i>ubi supra</i>, ii. 212; Floquet, Histoire du +parlement de Normandie, tom. i.; Daniel, <i>ubi supra</i>; Vicomte de +Bastard-D'Estang, Les parlements de France, i. 189.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> The formula is worthy of attention: "Quand on vous +apportera à sceller quelque lettre, signée par le commandement du Roi, +si elle n'est de justice et raison, ne la scellerez point, encore que +ledit Seigneur le commandast par une ou deux fois; mais viendrez devers +iceluy Seigneur, et lui remonstrerez tous les points par lesquels ladite +lettre n'est pas raisonnable, et après que aura entendu lesdita points, +s'il vous commande la sceller, la scellerez, car lors le péché en sera +sur ledit Seigneur et non sur vous." In full in M. de Saint-Allais, De +l'ancienne France (Paris, 1834), ii. 91; see also Capefigue, François +Premier et la Renaissance, i. 106.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> Certainly not than with the Parliament of Aix. See its +shortcomings in the papers of Prof. Joly, of the Faculté des Lettres of +Caen, entitled "Les juges des Vaudois: Mercuriales du parlement de +Provence au XVI<sup>e</sup> siècle, d'après des documents inédits." Bulletin de +l'hist. du Prot. fr., xxiv. (1875), 464-471, 518-523, 555-564.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> "Qu'il n'y a pas un seigneur en ce ressort, qui n'aye son +chancelier en ceste Cour." Boscheron des Portes, Histoire du parlement +de Bordeaux (Bordeaux, 1877), i. 191-194, from Registers of Parliament.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_38_38" id="Footnote_38_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> "La génuflexion ne le ferait pas moins roi qu'il était." +Ibid., i. 185.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_39_39" id="Footnote_39_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> See Pasquier's conclusive argument in his chapter: "Que +l'opinion est erronée par laquelle on attribue l'institution de +l'Université de Paris à l'Empereur Charlemagne." Recherches de la +France, 800. So universally accepted, however, in Pasquier's time, was +the story of Charlemagne's agency in the matter, that "de croire le +contraire c'est estre hérétique en l'histoire," p. 798.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_40_40" id="Footnote_40_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> The chancellor "de Notre Dame," the chancellor proper, +alone had the power to create doctors in theology, law, and medicine; +but candidates for the degree of master of arts might apply either to +him or to the rival chancellor of Sainte Geneviève: "Quant aux Maistres +és Arts, à l'un ou l'autre Chancelier, selon le choix qui en est fait +par celuy qui veut prendre sa licence." Pasquier, Recherches, 840.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_41_41" id="Footnote_41_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> "Le premier juge et censeur de la doctrine et mœurs des +escoliers, que nous appelons Chancelier de l'Université." Pasquier, <i>ubi +supra</i>, 265.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_42_42" id="Footnote_42_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_42_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> Pasquier has a fund of quaint information respecting the +university, the chancellor, the rector, etc. Of the contrast between +rector and chancellor he remarks: "Quant au Chancelier de l'Université +il pare seulement de ce coup contre toutes ces grandeurs (sc. du +Recteur); que le Recteur fait des escoliers pour estudier (tout ainsi +que le capitaine des soldats, quand il les enrolle pour combattre) mais +le Chancelier fait des capitaines quand il baille le bonnet de +Theologie, Decret, Medecine, et Arts, pour enseigner et monter en +chaire." <i>Ubi supra</i>, 843.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_43_43" id="Footnote_43_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_43_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> Sleidanus, De statu rel., etc., ad annum 1521.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_44_44" id="Footnote_44_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_44_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> "Vinculis, censuris, imo ignibus et flammis coercendam, +potius quam ratione convincendam." Determination of the Fac. of Theology +against Luther, April 15. 1521, Gerdes, Hist. Evang. Renov., iv. 10, +etc., Documents.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_45_45" id="Footnote_45_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_45_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> From the <i>Cité</i>, or island on which the city was +originally built, and the Ville, or Paris north of the Seine. Pasquier, +Recherches, 797; J. Sinceri, Itinerarium Galliæ (1627), 270.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_46_46" id="Footnote_46_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a> Juvenal des Ursins, <i>apud</i> Pasquier, 267.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_47_47" id="Footnote_47_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_47_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> Relazioni Venete (Albèri), i. 149.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_48_48" id="Footnote_48_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_48_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> Ibid., i. 226.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_49_49" id="Footnote_49_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_49_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> "Donc, le gouvernement de l'Église n'est pas un empire +despotique." Abbé Claude Fleury, Discours sur les Libertés de l'Église +gallicane, 1724 (reprinted in Leber, Coll. de pièces relatives à l'hist. +de France, iii. 252).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_50_50" id="Footnote_50_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_50_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> "On a contesté l'authenticité de cette pièce, mais elle +est aujourd'hui généralement reconnu." Isambert, Recueil gén. des +anciennes lois françaises, i. 339.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_51_51" id="Footnote_51_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_51_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> Preuves des Libertez de l'Eglise Gallicane, pt. ii.; +Isambert, <i>ubi supra</i>; Ordonnances des Roys de France de la troisième +race, i. 97-98. Section 5 sufficiently expresses the feelings of the +king in reference to the insatiable covetousness of the Roman court: +"Item, exactiones et onera gravissima pecuniarum, per curiam Romanam +ecclesiæ regni nostri impositas vel imposita, quibus regnum nostrum +miserabiliter depauperatum extitit, sive etiam imponendas, aut imponenda +levari, aut colligi nullatenus volumus, nisi duntaxat pro rationabili, +pia et urgentissima causa, inevitabili necessitate, et de spontaneo et +expresso consensu nostro et ipsius ecclesiæ regni nostri." See also +Sismondi, Histoire des Français, vii. 104.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_52_52" id="Footnote_52_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_52_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a> Sismondi, Hist. des Français, xiii. 317, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_53_53" id="Footnote_53_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_53_53"><span class="label">[53]</span></a> The Pragmatic Sanction is long and intricate, consisting +in great part of references to those portions of the canons of the +Council of Basle which it confirms. The entire document may be seen in +the Ordonnances des Roys de Fr. de la troisième race, xiii. 267-291, and +in the Recueil gén. des anc. lois franç., ix. 3-47. Isambert thus +defines the term <i>pragmatic</i>: "On appelle <i>pragmatique</i> toute +constitution donnée en connaissance de cause du consentiment unanime de +tous les grands, et consacrée par la volonté du prince. Le mot <i>pragma</i> +signifie prononcée, sentence, édit; il était en usage avant Saint +Louis."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_54_54" id="Footnote_54_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor_54_54"><span class="label">[54]</span></a> Abbé Claude Fleury, Libertés de l'Église Gallicane, in +Leber, iii. 321.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_55_55" id="Footnote_55_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor_55_55"><span class="label">[55]</span></a> "Commemoravit (<i>i. e.</i>, the papal legate) ea quæ per ipsum +tibi nostro nomine pollicenda, vovenda et promittenda, nos, antequam +regnum suscepisemus, religionis instinctus quidam deduxerat." Letter of +Louis XI. to the Pope, Tours, Nov. 27, 1461.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_56_56" id="Footnote_56_56"></a><a href="#FNanchor_56_56"><span class="label">[56]</span></a> Louis XI.'s letter to the Pope, annulling the Pragmatic +Sanction, is in the Ordonnances des roys de Fr. de la troisième race, +xv., 193-194. Its tone could not have been more submissive had it been +penned for him by the Pope himself. The Pragmatic Sanction is referred +to contemptuously as "constitutio quædam in regno nostro quam +<i>Pragmaticam</i> vocant." Louis professes to be moved by the consideration +that obedience is better than all sacrifice, and that the Pragmatic +Sanction is hateful to the Papal See, "utpote quæ <i>in seditione</i> et +schismatis tempore ... nata est; et quæ, dum <i>tibi, a quo sacræ leges +oriuntur et manant</i>, quantamlibet eripit auctoritatem, <i>omne jus et +omnem legem dissolvit</i>." It was "as if the rod should shake itself +against them that lift it up, or as if the staff should lift up itself, +as if it were no wood." Nothing could surpass Louis's obsequiousness: +"<i>Sicut mandasti</i> ... pellimus dejicimus stirpitusque abrogamus," etc. +He pledges his royal word to overcome opposition: "Quod si forte +obnitentur aliqui aut reclamabunt, nos <i>in verbo regio</i> pollicemur tuæ +Beatitudini atque promittimus exsequi facere tua mandata, omni +appellationis aut oppositionis obstaculo prorsus excluso," etc. Louis +was never more to be distrusted than when he bound himself by the most +stringent promises.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_57_57" id="Footnote_57_57"></a><a href="#FNanchor_57_57"><span class="label">[57]</span></a> See the Remonstrances of Parliament, Ordonnances, etc., +xv. 195-207.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_58_58" id="Footnote_58_58"></a><a href="#FNanchor_58_58"><span class="label">[58]</span></a> The calculations on which these figures are based can be +seen in sections 73-76 of the Remonstrances above referred to. Ibid., +xv. 195-207.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_59_59" id="Footnote_59_59"></a><a href="#FNanchor_59_59"><span class="label">[59]</span></a> "Les autres ambitieux de benefices, si espuisoient les +bourses de leurs parens et amis, tellement qu'ils demeuroient en grand' +mendicité et misere, ou'aucunesfois estoient cause de l'abreviation de +leurs jours; et tout le fruit qu'ils emportoient, <i>c'estoit pour or du +plomb</i>." Ibid., section 64.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_60_60" id="Footnote_60_60"></a><a href="#FNanchor_60_60"><span class="label">[60]</span></a> Ibid., <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_61_61" id="Footnote_61_61"></a><a href="#FNanchor_61_61"><span class="label">[61]</span></a> Historians have represented Cardinal Balue as enclosed in +the very cage he had used for the victims of his own cruelty. This +appears to be incorrect. There is an entry in the accounts of Louis XI., +under date of February 11, 1469, of the payment of sixty livres Tournois +to Squire Guion de Broc, to be used by him "in having constructed, at +the castle Douzain, an iron cage, which the said lord (<i>i. e.</i>, Louis) +has ordered to be made for the security and guard of the person of the +Cardinal of Angers (Balue)." Vatout, Château d'Amboise, 64, 65, note.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_62_62" id="Footnote_62_62"></a><a href="#FNanchor_62_62"><span class="label">[62]</span></a> Fleury, <i>ubi supra</i>, 340.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_63_63" id="Footnote_63_63"></a><a href="#FNanchor_63_63"><span class="label">[63]</span></a> See Capefigue's animated description of the scene in the +cathedral of Bologna, <i>ubi supra</i>, i. 229.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_64_64" id="Footnote_64_64"></a><a href="#FNanchor_64_64"><span class="label">[64]</span></a> The text of the concordat is given in the Recueil gén. des +anc. lois, etc., xii. 75-97.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_65_65" id="Footnote_65_65"></a><a href="#FNanchor_65_65"><span class="label">[65]</span></a> Leue, publiée et registrée par l'ordonnance et du +commandement du Roy, nostre sire, réiterée par plusieurs fois en +presence du seigneur de la Trimouille, etc. Recueil des anc. lois, xii. +97.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_66_66" id="Footnote_66_66"></a><a href="#FNanchor_66_66"><span class="label">[66]</span></a> Appellatio Univ. Parisiensis pro sacrarum Electionum et +juris communis defensione, adversus Concordata Bononiensia, <i>apud</i> +Gerdes. Hist. Ev. Renov. i. 61-69 (Documents). "Idcirco," it runs, "a +domino nostro Papa non recte consulto, et ... pragmaticæ sanctionis +statutorum abrogatione, novorum statutorum editione, ... ad futurum +concilium legitime ac in tuto loco, et ad quem libere et cum securitate +... adire poterimus ... provocavimus et appellavimus, prout in his +scriptis provocamus et appellamus."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_67_67" id="Footnote_67_67"></a><a href="#FNanchor_67_67"><span class="label">[67]</span></a> I have made considerable use of the very clear +dissertation on the Pragmatic Sanction and the concordat, republished in +Leber, Collection de pièces relatives à l'hist. de France, tome 3. The +commotion in Paris at the introduction of the concordat is described in +a lively manner by the unknown author of the "Journal d'un bourgeois de +Paris sous le règne de François I<sup>er</sup>," 39, 70, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_68_68" id="Footnote_68_68"></a><a href="#FNanchor_68_68"><span class="label">[68]</span></a> Almanach royal pour l'an 1724 (Paris), 34.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_69_69" id="Footnote_69_69"></a><a href="#FNanchor_69_69"><span class="label">[69]</span></a> Leo X. also obtained from Francis, as an equivalent for +the concessions embodied in the concordat, the sum of 100,000 <i>livres</i>, +as the dower of Madeleine de la Tour d'Auvergne, a princess of royal +blood, married in 1518 to Lorenzo de' Medici, Count of Urbino, the +Pope's nephew. The money was to be levied upon the next tithe taken from +the revenues of the French clergy, which Leo thus authorized. Catharine +de' Medici sprang from this marriage. See the receipt of Lorenzo for the +instalment of a quarter of the dower, in the Bulletin de la Soc. de +l'hist. du prot. français, ix. (1860), 122.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_70_70" id="Footnote_70_70"></a><a href="#FNanchor_70_70"><span class="label">[70]</span></a> Mignet, Établissement de la Réforme à Genève, Mémoires, +ii. 243. Étienne Pasquier draws a dark picture of the barbarism reigning +at Paris at the accession of Francis. More highly honored than any other +university of Europe, that of Paris had fallen so low that the Hebrew +tongue was known only by name, and as for Greek, the attention given to +it was more apparent than real. "Car mesmes lors qu'il estoit question +de l'expliquer, ceste parole couroit en la bouche de plusieurs ignorans, +<i>Græcum est, non legitur</i>." The very Latin, which was the language in +ordinary use, was rude and clumsy. Recherches de la France, 831.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_71_71" id="Footnote_71_71"></a><a href="#FNanchor_71_71"><span class="label">[71]</span></a> La Harpe, Cours de litérature, vi. 405.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_72_72" id="Footnote_72_72"></a><a href="#FNanchor_72_72"><span class="label">[72]</span></a> Gaillard, Histoire de François premier (Paris ed., 1769), +vii. 282-300. Félibien, among the many interesting documents he has +preserved, reproduces one of the first programmes of the professors of +the Collége Royal, preserved from destruction, doubtless, simply from +the circumstance that it formed the ground of a citation of the +professors by the syndic of the university (Beda), January, 1534, +wherein he alleges that "some simple grammarians or rhetoricians, who +had not studied with the faculty, had undertaken to read in public and +to interpret the Holy Scriptures, as appears from certain bills posted +in the streets and squares of Paris." In the programme, Agathius +Guidacerius, Francis Vatable, P. Arnesius (Danesius), and Paul Paradisus +figure as lecturing—the first two upon the Psalms, the third on +Aristotle, and the last on Hebrew grammar and the book of Proverbs. +Michel Félibien, Histoire de la ville de Paris (Paris, 1725), iv. 682.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_73_73" id="Footnote_73_73"></a><a href="#FNanchor_73_73"><span class="label">[73]</span></a> The law of 1523 thus sets forth some of their exploits: +"Outre mesure multiplient leurs pilleries, cruautez et meschancetez, +jusques à vouloir assaillir <i>les villes closes</i>: les aucunes desquelles +ils out prinses d'assaut, saccagées, robées et pillées, forcé filles et +femmes, tué les habitans inhumainement, et cruellement traitté les +aucuns <i>en leur crevant les yeux, et coupant les membres les uns après +les autres, sans en avoir pitié, faisant ce que cruelles bestes ne +feroient</i>," etc. Isambert, Recueil des lois anc., xii. 216. See also +Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris (1516), 36; and Lettres de Marguerite +d'Angoulême, Nouvelle Coll., lettre 7.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_74_74" id="Footnote_74_74"></a><a href="#FNanchor_74_74"><span class="label">[74]</span></a> Journal d'un bourgeois (1516), 37.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_75_75" id="Footnote_75_75"></a><a href="#FNanchor_75_75"><span class="label">[75]</span></a> Ibid, (anno 1527), 328.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_76_76" id="Footnote_76_76"></a><a href="#FNanchor_76_76"><span class="label">[76]</span></a> Ibid., 36. It would appear that even this penalty did not +deter them from the commission of their infamous crimes, for a fresh +edict, in 1523 (Isambert, xii., 216), prescribes that for exemplary +punishment "lesdicts blasphemateurs exécrables avant que souffrir mort, +<i>ayent la gorge ouverte avec un fer chaud et la langue tirée ou coupée +par les dessouz</i>; et ce faict penduz et attachez au gibet ou potence, et +estranglez, selon leurs desmerites!"</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_77_77" id="Footnote_77_77"></a><a href="#FNanchor_77_77"><span class="label">[77]</span></a> Journal d'un bourgeois, 327. The Marché-aux-pourceaux, or +swine market, was a little west of the present Palais Royal, just +outside of the walls of Paris, as they existed in the time of Francis I. +See the atlas accompanying Dulaure, Histoire de Paris. In December, +1581, the Parliament of Rouen sentenced one Salcède to this horrible +death. Bastard d'Estang, Les parlements de France, i. 428.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_78_78" id="Footnote_78_78"></a><a href="#FNanchor_78_78"><span class="label">[78]</span></a> Journal d'un bourgeois, 326.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_79_79" id="Footnote_79_79"></a><a href="#FNanchor_79_79"><span class="label">[79]</span></a> Ibid., 251.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_80_80" id="Footnote_80_80"></a><a href="#FNanchor_80_80"><span class="label">[80]</span></a> Ibid., 434. A somewhat similar instance is mentioned by +the continuator of the Chronicles of Enguerrand de Monstrelet (anno +1503), l. iii. c. 220.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_81_81" id="Footnote_81_81"></a><a href="#FNanchor_81_81"><span class="label">[81]</span></a> See the vigorous treatise it called forth from the pen of +the great Reformer of Geneva in 1549, under the title of "Advertissement +contre l'Astrologie qu'on appelle <i>judiciaire</i>, et autres curiositez qui +règnent aujourd'huy dans le monde." Paul L. Jacob, Œuvres françoises +de Calvin, 107, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_82_82" id="Footnote_82_82"></a><a href="#FNanchor_82_82"><span class="label">[82]</span></a> Despatch of La Mothe Fénélon, June 3, 1573, Corr. dipl., +v. 345, 346.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_83_83" id="Footnote_83_83"></a><a href="#FNanchor_83_83"><span class="label">[83]</span></a> L'Heptaméron dea Nouvelles de très haute et très illustre +princesse Marguerite d'Angoulême, Reine de Navarre. Publié sur les MSS. +par la Soc. des Bibliophiles français. Première Journée, Première +Nouvelle.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_84_84" id="Footnote_84_84"></a><a href="#FNanchor_84_84"><span class="label">[84]</span></a> The practice of magic with small waxen images into which +pins were thrust, impious words being uttered at the same time, was at +least as old in France as the beginning of the fourteenth century. In +1330 Robert of Artois employed it to compass the death of Philip of +Valois and his queen; just as two centuries and a half later the +adherents of the League resorted to the same device to destroy Henry +III. and Henry of Navarre. See note L to the Heptameron (edit. cit.), i. +170. Jean de Marcouville (Recueil mémor. Paris, 1564, Cimber et Danjou, +iii. 415) alludes to similar sorcery just after the death of Philip the +Fair, in 1314. It was therefore no "Italian sorcery" introduced into +France by Catharine de' Medici, as M. De Félice seems to suppose (Hist. +des prot. de France, liv. ii. c. 17).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_85_85" id="Footnote_85_85"></a><a href="#FNanchor_85_85"><span class="label">[85]</span></a> "Advertissement très-utile du grand profit qui reviendroit +à la Chrétienté, s'il se faisoit inventaire de tous les corps saints et +réliques," etc., 1543 (Œuvres françoises de Calvin). A racy treatise, +which well exhibits the service done by the author to the French +language.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_86_86" id="Footnote_86_86"></a><a href="#FNanchor_86_86"><span class="label">[86]</span></a> Ibid., 171.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_87_87" id="Footnote_87_87"></a><a href="#FNanchor_87_87"><span class="label">[87]</span></a> Ibid., 169.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_88_88" id="Footnote_88_88"></a><a href="#FNanchor_88_88"><span class="label">[88]</span></a> Ibid., 139.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_89_89" id="Footnote_89_89"></a><a href="#FNanchor_89_89"><span class="label">[89]</span></a> Ibid., 155.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_90_90" id="Footnote_90_90"></a><a href="#FNanchor_90_90"><span class="label">[90]</span></a> Ibid., 139.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_91_91" id="Footnote_91_91"></a><a href="#FNanchor_91_91"><span class="label">[91]</span></a> Ibid., 140.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_92_92" id="Footnote_92_92"></a><a href="#FNanchor_92_92"><span class="label">[92]</span></a> Ibid., 179, 180.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_93_93" id="Footnote_93_93"></a><a href="#FNanchor_93_93"><span class="label">[93]</span></a> Ibid., 172.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_94_94" id="Footnote_94_94"></a><a href="#FNanchor_94_94"><span class="label">[94]</span></a> Ibid., 156.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_95_95" id="Footnote_95_95"></a><a href="#FNanchor_95_95"><span class="label">[95]</span></a> "Et lors faisoit beau voir mon fils porter honneur et +reverence au saint sacrement, que chacun en le regardant se prenoit à +pleurer de pitié et de joye." Journal de Louise de Savoie, Collection de +mémoires (Petitot), xvi. 407.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_96_96" id="Footnote_96_96"></a><a href="#FNanchor_96_96"><span class="label">[96]</span></a> Gaillard, Hist. de François premier, vii. 45, etc.; +Mézeray, Abrégé chron. de l'hist. de France (Amst., 1682), iv. 644.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_97_97" id="Footnote_97_97"></a><a href="#FNanchor_97_97"><span class="label">[97]</span></a> Gaillard, <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_98_98" id="Footnote_98_98"></a><a href="#FNanchor_98_98"><span class="label">[98]</span></a> Cénac Moncaut, Histoire des Pyrénées (Paris, 1854), iv. +342, referring primarily to southern France.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_99_99" id="Footnote_99_99"></a><a href="#FNanchor_99_99"><span class="label">[99]</span></a> Since the end of the thirteenth century the bishop had +been accustomed to delegate the contentious jurisdiction of his diocese +to an ecclesiastical judge, taking the name of <i>vicar</i>, or more commonly +<i>official</i> ("vicarius generalis officialis"). The court itself became +known as the <i>officialité</i>. Trials for heresy, breach of promise of +marriage, etc., came before it. See the Dictionnaire de la conversation +(1857), s. v. <i>Official</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_100_100" id="Footnote_100_100"></a><a href="#FNanchor_100_100"><span class="label">[100]</span></a> Michel Surriano (1561), Rel. des Amb. Vén., Tommaseo, i. +502. The other half went to princes, barons, and other possessors of +lands, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_101_101" id="Footnote_101_101"></a><a href="#FNanchor_101_101"><span class="label">[101]</span></a> How they behaved there, the abbé of Mériot elsewhere +tells us: "Et si le plus souvent à telles noyseay estoient les premiers +les prebstres, l'espée au poing, car ilz estoient <i>des premiers aux +danses, jeux de quilles, d'escrime, et ès tavernes où ilz ribloient et +par les rues toute nuict aultant que les plus meschans du pays</i>." Mém de +Claude Haton, 18.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_102_102" id="Footnote_102_102"></a><a href="#FNanchor_102_102"><span class="label">[102]</span></a> Mémoires de Claude Haton, i. 89, 90.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_103_103" id="Footnote_103_103"></a><a href="#FNanchor_103_103"><span class="label">[103]</span></a> Giovanni Soranzo returned from France in 1558, or a year +before the close of the reign of Henry II.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_104_104" id="Footnote_104_104"></a><a href="#FNanchor_104_104"><span class="label">[104]</span></a> Relazioni Venete, Albèri, ii. 409. Brantôme is a familiar +instance of a favorite thus rewarded from the estates of the church. His +amusing vindication of the anomaly is worthy of a perusal. See +Digression contre les Eslections des Benefices, Œuvres, tom. vii. On +one occasion an enemy of the loquacious courtier caused the +assassination of his <i>titular</i> abbot, apparently in the hope of +depriving Brantôme of his chief source of revenue! Ibid., vii. 294.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_105_105" id="Footnote_105_105"></a><a href="#FNanchor_105_105"><span class="label">[105]</span></a> "Solo col ponderar loro la vita che tenevano." Relazione +di G. Correro, 1569, Tommaseo, ii. 150.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_106_106" id="Footnote_106_106"></a><a href="#FNanchor_106_106"><span class="label">[106]</span></a> "Je n'ay point ouy dire, ny leu qu'auparavant ils fussent +plus gens-de-bien, et mieux vivants; car en leurs Eveschez et Abbayes, +ils estoient autant desbauchez que Gens-d'armes; car comme j'ay dit +cydevant, qu'à la cour s'ils faisoient l'amour, c'estoit discrètement et +sans scandale," etc. Brantôme, <i>ubi supra</i>, vii. 312.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_107_107" id="Footnote_107_107"></a><a href="#FNanchor_107_107"><span class="label">[107]</span></a> "Au moins plus sages hypocrites, qui cachent mieux leurs +vices noirs." Brantôme, <i>ubi supra</i>, vii. 287-289.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_108_108" id="Footnote_108_108"></a><a href="#FNanchor_108_108"><span class="label">[108]</span></a> Brantôme, <i>ubi supra</i>, vii. 280.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_109_109" id="Footnote_109_109"></a><a href="#FNanchor_109_109"><span class="label">[109]</span></a> Brantôme, vii. 286.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_110_110" id="Footnote_110_110"></a><a href="#FNanchor_110_110"><span class="label">[110]</span></a> Réponse à quelque apologie, etc. Par Antoine de Mouchy, +surnommé Démochares, docteur en théologie, 1558. Feuillet 2. <i>Apud</i> +Henri Lutteroth, La réformation en France pendant sa première période +(Paris, 1859), 137.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_111_111" id="Footnote_111_111"></a><a href="#FNanchor_111_111"><span class="label">[111]</span></a> "Je suis esbahi de ce que ces jeunes gens nous alleguent +le Nouveau Testament. J'avoys plus de cinquante ans que je ne scavoys +que c'estoit du Nouveau Testament." Robert Étienne, <i>apud</i> Baum, +Origines Evangelii in Gallia restaurati (Strasbourg, 1838), 35.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_112_112" id="Footnote_112_112"></a><a href="#FNanchor_112_112"><span class="label">[112]</span></a> "Un beau miracle," says the Journal d'un bourgeois de +Paris, 38.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_113_113" id="Footnote_113_113"></a><a href="#FNanchor_113_113"><span class="label">[113]</span></a> Histoire ecclésiastique des Églises Réformées au royaume +de France (commonly ascribed to Theodore de Bèze, or Beza) Lille edit., +i. 11; Gaillard, vi. 460. A MS. narrative of the farce, dictated by +Calvin and taken down by his secretary, Charles de Jonvillers, has been +discovered in the Geneva Library. It is printed in the Bulletin de la +Soc. de l'hist. du prot. franç., iii. (1854), 33, etc. Calvin, who had +himself been a student in the University of Orleans, and was fully +acquainted with the circumstances, drew up this piquant monograph for J. +Sleidan to use in his famous history of the times, where an account may +accordingly be read.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_114_114" id="Footnote_114_114"></a><a href="#FNanchor_114_114"><span class="label">[114]</span></a> See the order of Spifame, of Oct. 5, 1527, for payment to +the master mechanic on several annual recurrences of the scene, Bulletin +de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. franç., xxv. (1876), 236, with M. +Bordier's erratum.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_115_115" id="Footnote_115_115"></a><a href="#FNanchor_115_115"><span class="label">[115]</span></a> Farel, Du vray Usage de la Croix, 129, 131.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_116_116" id="Footnote_116_116"></a><a href="#FNanchor_116_116"><span class="label">[116]</span></a> "Credo in Jesum inter animalia ex virgine nasciturum." +Chassanée, Catalogus Gloriæ Mundi, fol. 295. The medals were said to +have been unearthed at Autun, the residence of Chassanée, who informs us +"multum curavi invenire, sed non potui." But, in addition to the coins, +Chassanée gravely tells us there was also a <i>church</i> built by the +<i>Franks</i> at Chartres before the advent of Christ, in honor of the most +blessed Virgin <i>parituræ</i>; "from which it is demonstrated that, if other +Gentiles prophesied <i>in word</i> concerning Christ, the Franks believed on +him <i>in deed</i>, just as also the Greeks, who erected a temple to the +unknown God." Ibid., <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_117_117" id="Footnote_117_117"></a><a href="#FNanchor_117_117"><span class="label">[117]</span></a> From the simple costume worn arose the designation of +"<i>les processions blanches</i>."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_118_118" id="Footnote_118_118"></a><a href="#FNanchor_118_118"><span class="label">[118]</span></a> Le protestantisme en Champagne: Récits extraits d'un +manuscrit de N. Pithou, seigneur de Chamgobert concernant l'histoire de +la fondation, etc., de l'église réf. de Troyes dès 1539 à 1595, par Ch. +L. B. Recordon (Paris, 1863), 31-33.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_119_119" id="Footnote_119_119"></a><a href="#FNanchor_119_119"><span class="label">[119]</span></a> The original of this remarkable record, the more +significant from the subsequent position of Louise as a determined enemy +of the Protestants, may be seen in Journal de Louise de Savoie, Coll. de +mémoires (Petitot), xvi. 407.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_120_120" id="Footnote_120_120"></a><a href="#FNanchor_120_120"><span class="label">[120]</span></a> See Mézeray's bitter words respecting Cardinal Duprat's +last hours and character, Abrégé chronologique, iv. 584.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_121_121" id="Footnote_121_121"></a><a href="#FNanchor_121_121"><span class="label">[121]</span></a> "Poi me disse che per opera del Reverendissimo di +Granmont non si faria cosa buona in questa cosa, perche et lui et <i>il +Gran Cancellario di Francia</i> erano huomini <i>più disposti a fare quattro +guerre die una pace</i>." Cardinal Campeggio to Cardinal Salviati, <i>apud</i> +H. Laemmer, Monumenta Vaticana hist. ecclés. sæculi XVI. illustrantia, +ex tab. sanctæ sedis Apostolicæ secretis, Frib. Brisg., 1861, 67.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_122_122" id="Footnote_122_122"></a><a href="#FNanchor_122_122"><span class="label">[122]</span></a> The Manichæism of the Albigenses is maintained by +Mosheim, Gieseler, Schmidt, etc. A good summary of the evidence in favor +of this view is given in an article in the London Quarterly Review for +April, 1855. The defence of the Albigenses from this serious charge is +ably conducted by George Stanley Faber in his "Inquiry into the History +and Theology of the Ancient Vallenses and Albigenses" (London, 1838). +One of the more recent apologists is F. de Portal, in his "Les +descendants des Albigeois et des Huguenots" (Paris, 1860).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_123_123" id="Footnote_123_123"></a><a href="#FNanchor_123_123"><span class="label">[123]</span></a> At Arras, for instance, in 1460, a number of men and +women were burned alive as <i>Vaudois</i>, after having been entrapped into +an admission of their guilt by a treacherous advocate. Too late they +exposed the deceit practised upon them, and protested their innocence. +The alleged crimes were: flying to their place of assembly by +witchcraft, adoring the devil, trampling upon the cross, blasphemy, +riotous feasting, and vile offences against morality—staple charges +recurring again and again, <i>ad nauseam</i>, whenever persecuted men and +women have been compelled to meet secretly for God's worship. See L. +Rossier, Histoire des protestants de Picardie (Paris, 1861), 1-4; and +more at length, Chronicon Cornelii Zantfliet, which styles the sufferers +heretics a hundred times worse than Waldenses. Martene et Durand, Vet. +Scriptorum ampliss. collectio (Paris, 1729), vii. 501.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_124_124" id="Footnote_124_124"></a><a href="#FNanchor_124_124"><span class="label">[124]</span></a> If, as Adolphe Müntz concludes, after a critical +examination of style, etc. (Nicolas de Clémangis; sa vie et ses écrits, +Paris, 1846), the famous treatise De ruina Ecclesiæ, or <i>De corrupto +Ecclesiæ statu</i>, emanated not from Clemangis at Avignon, but from some +member of the University of Paris hostile to the Popes of Avignon, yet +the undisputed writings of Clemangis contain denunciations of the +corruptions of the church quite as decided as any found in the spurious +treatise. In his tract <i>De Præsulibus Simoniacis</i>, for example, he +declares that the degradation of the clergy, fostered by the cupidity of +the episcopate, had indeed made God's house a den of robbers. It was +"rapinæ officina in qua venalia exponuntur sacramenta ... in qua peccata +etiam venduntur," etc. Müntz, 53. Certainly it would be hard to portray +the life of the priests in darker colors than they appear in the letters +of C. to Gerson, the authenticity of which is not challenged. See the +extracts in Von Polenz, Calvinismus in Frankreich, i. 115. According to +Nicholas de Clemangis, the <i>chaste</i> priest was a rare exception, and an +object of ridicule to his companions.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_125_125" id="Footnote_125_125"></a><a href="#FNanchor_125_125"><span class="label">[125]</span></a> The complicated motives inducing the Council of Constance +to acquiesce in the cruel sentence of Huss were skilfully traced as far +back as by the learned Mosheim, Institutes of Eccles. Hist. (ed. +Murdoch), ii. 429, note.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_126_126" id="Footnote_126_126"></a><a href="#FNanchor_126_126"><span class="label">[126]</span></a> This rare poem has been reprinted, with the unimportant +passages omitted, in the Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. franç., +v. (1857) 268, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_127_127" id="Footnote_127_127"></a><a href="#FNanchor_127_127"><span class="label">[127]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Cessez, cessez me donner ornemens,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Calices, croix, et beaux accoutremens;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Faictes que j'aye ministres vertueux....<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Les images d'argent tant sumptueux,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">La grant beauté des moustiers si notables<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ne sont pas tant devant Dieu acceptables<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Que la doctrine et vie bonne et saincte<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Des bona prelatz."<br /></span> +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_128_128" id="Footnote_128_128"></a><a href="#FNanchor_128_128"><span class="label">[128]</span></a> Scævolæ Sammarthani Elog. lib. i., i. 3. "Statura fuit +supra modum humili," etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_129_129" id="Footnote_129_129"></a><a href="#FNanchor_129_129"><span class="label">[129]</span></a> Sc. Sammarthani Elog., <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_130_130" id="Footnote_130_130"></a><a href="#FNanchor_130_130"><span class="label">[130]</span></a> Lefèvre's scientific works were numerous, and some of +them passed through many editions during the early years of the +sixteenth century. See Haag, La France protestante, art. Lefèvre. I have +before me his edition of the Arithmetic of Boëtius, with introduction +and commentary, of the year 1510, and copies of his Astronomical +Treatises of 1510 and 1516, the last of these published at Cologne.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_131_131" id="Footnote_131_131"></a><a href="#FNanchor_131_131"><span class="label">[131]</span></a> Sc. Sammarth. Elog., <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_132_132" id="Footnote_132_132"></a><a href="#FNanchor_132_132"><span class="label">[132]</span></a> Epistre à tons Seigneurs et Peuples (Edit. J. G. Fick), +172.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_133_133" id="Footnote_133_133"></a><a href="#FNanchor_133_133"><span class="label">[133]</span></a> The passage in which Farel describes his former +superstition is so characteristic, that I quote a few sentences: "Pour +vray la papauté n'estoit et n'est tant papale que mon cœur l'a +esté.... Car tellement il avoit aveuglé mes yeux et perverti tout en +moy, que s'il y avoit personnage qui fut approuvé selon le pape, il +m'estoit comme Dieu; si quelqu'un faisoit ou disoit quelque chose, d'ou +le pape et son estat en fut en quelque mespris, j'eusse voulu qu'un tel +... fut du tout abbatu, ruiné et destruit.... Ainsy Satan avoit logé le +pape, sa papauté, tout ce qui est de luy en mon cœur, de sorte que +<i>le pape mesme</i>, comme je croy, <i>n'en avoit point tant en soy ne [ni] +les siens aussy, comme il y en avoit en moy</i>.... Et ainsy je persevere, +ayant mon panteon en mon cœur, et tant d'advocats, tant de sauveurs, +tant de dieux que rien plus ... tellement que je pouvoye bien estre tenu +pour un registre papal, pour martyrologe," etc. Epistre à tous Seigneurs +et Peuples, 164, 167, 169.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_134_134" id="Footnote_134_134"></a><a href="#FNanchor_134_134"><span class="label">[134]</span></a> Herminjard, Correspondance des Réformateurs, i. 4, 481.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_135_135" id="Footnote_135_135"></a><a href="#FNanchor_135_135"><span class="label">[135]</span></a> See the dedication, dated Dec. 15, 1512, Herminjard, +Correspondance des Réformateurs, i. 2-9.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_136_136" id="Footnote_136_136"></a><a href="#FNanchor_136_136"><span class="label">[136]</span></a> Letter of Farel to Pellican (1556), Herminjard, +Correspondance des Réformateurs, i. 481: "Pius senex, Jacobus Faber, +quem tu novisti, ante annos plus minus quadraginta, me manu apprehensum, +ita alloquebatur: 'Gulielme, oportet orbem mutari, et tu videbis' +dicebat." So in the "Epistre à tous Seigneurs et Peuples" (Ed. Fick), +170: "Souventefois me disoit que Dieu renouvelleroit le monde, et que je +le verroye." A few years later, at Strasbourg, the reformer reminded his +former master of his prediction: "Voicy par la grace de Dieu, le +commencement de ce qu'autrefois m'avez dit du renouvellement du monde," +and Lefèvre, then in exile, blessed God, and begged Him to perfect what +he had then seen begun at Strasbourg. Ibid., 171. These statements are +confirmed by a passage in the Commentary on St. Paul's Epistles, in +which, after deploring the corruption of the church, Lefèvre observes: +"Yet the signs of the times announce that a renewal is near, and while +God is opening new ways for the preaching of the Gospel, by the +discoveries and conquests of the Portuguese and Spaniards in all parts +of the world, we must hope that He will visit His church and raise it +from the degradation into which it is fallen." Herminjard, i. 5.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_137_137" id="Footnote_137_137"></a><a href="#FNanchor_137_137"><span class="label">[137]</span></a> Scævolæ Sammarthani, Elogia doctorum in Gallia virorum, +lib. i. (Jenæ, 1696); Bayle, s. v. Fèvre and Farel; Tabaraud, Biographie +univ., art. Lefèvre; C. Schmidt, Wilhelm Farel, in Leben und ausgew. +Schriften d. Väter d. ref. Kirche; C. Chenevière, Farel, Froment, Viret +(Genève, 1835).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_138_138" id="Footnote_138_138"></a><a href="#FNanchor_138_138"><span class="label">[138]</span></a> Gaillard, Histoire de François premier (Paris, 1769), vi. +397. It was the unpardonable offence of Lefèvre in the eyes of his +critic that he, a simple master of arts, had dared to investigate +matters that fell to the province of doctors of theology alone. Letter +of H. C. Agrippa (1519), in Herminjard, Correspondance des Réformateurs, +i. 51: "Tantum virum semel atque iterum ... vocarunt hominem stultum, +insanum fidei, Sacrarum Literarum indoctum et ignarum, et qui, <i>duntaxat +humanarum artium Magister, præsumptuose se ingerat iis quæ spectant ad +Theologos</i>." As it clearly appears that Lefèvre was not a doctor of the +Sorbonne, Professor Soldan is mistaken in saying: "Seit 1493 lebte er +als Doctor der Theologie zu Paris, u. s. w." The error is of long +standing.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_139_139" id="Footnote_139_139"></a><a href="#FNanchor_139_139"><span class="label">[139]</span></a> See Alphonse de Beauchamp's sketches of the lives of the +two Briçonnets, in the Biographie universelle.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_140_140" id="Footnote_140_140"></a><a href="#FNanchor_140_140"><span class="label">[140]</span></a> According to a contemporary letter, this was the sole +cause of Lefèvre's departure. "Faber Stapulensis ab urbe longe abest ad +XX. lapidem, neque ullam ob causam quam quod convitia in Lutherum audire +non potest." Glareanus to Zwingle, Paris, July 4, 1521, Herminjard, i. +71.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_141_141" id="Footnote_141_141"></a><a href="#FNanchor_141_141"><span class="label">[141]</span></a> Epistre à tous Seigneurs et Peuples, 168-175.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_142_142" id="Footnote_142_142"></a><a href="#FNanchor_142_142"><span class="label">[142]</span></a> In October, 1521. Herminjard, i. 76.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_143_143" id="Footnote_143_143"></a><a href="#FNanchor_143_143"><span class="label">[143]</span></a> "Vous asseurant que le Roy et Madame ont bien delibéré de +donner à congnoistre que la vérité de Dieu n'est point hérésie." +Margaret of Angoulême to Briçonnet, Nov., 1521, MSS. National Lib., +Herminjard, i. 78; Génin, ii. 273.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_144_144" id="Footnote_144_144"></a><a href="#FNanchor_144_144"><span class="label">[144]</span></a> "Vos piteulx desirs de la reformacion de l'Eglise, où +plus que jamais le Roy et Madame sont affectionnés." Same to same, Dec, +1521, Ibid., Herminjard, i. 84; Génin, ii. 274. Compare Louise de +Savoie's own entry in her journal, in December, 1522, a year later, to +which reference has already been made.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_145_145" id="Footnote_145_145"></a><a href="#FNanchor_145_145"><span class="label">[145]</span></a> See the valuable remarks of M. Herminjard (i. 289, note) +respecting the date of the "manifestation of the Gospel" in France.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_146_146" id="Footnote_146_146"></a><a href="#FNanchor_146_146"><span class="label">[146]</span></a> Luther to Spalatin, Oct. 19, 1516, Herminjard, i. 26.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_147_147" id="Footnote_147_147"></a><a href="#FNanchor_147_147"><span class="label">[147]</span></a> Herminjard, i. 41, 205, 206.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_148_148" id="Footnote_148_148"></a><a href="#FNanchor_148_148"><span class="label">[148]</span></a> Lefèvre was placed in charge of the <i>Léproserie</i>, Aug. +11, 1521, and was appointed vicar-general <i>au spirituel</i>, May 1, 1523. +Herminjard, i. 71 and 157.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_149_149" id="Footnote_149_149"></a><a href="#FNanchor_149_149"><span class="label">[149]</span></a> Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, 277, under date of +1526.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_150_150" id="Footnote_150_150"></a><a href="#FNanchor_150_150"><span class="label">[150]</span></a> "Moy et autres comme moy, lèverons une cruciade de gens, +et ferons chasser le Roy de son Royaume par ses subjectz propres, s'il +permet que l'Évangile soit presché." Farel au Duc de Lorraine, +Herminjard, i. 483.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_151_151" id="Footnote_151_151"></a><a href="#FNanchor_151_151"><span class="label">[151]</span></a> Pierre de Sébeville au Chevalier Coct, Grenoble, Dec. 28, +1524: "Je te notifie que l'évesque de Meaulx en Brie, près Paris, cum +Jacobo Fabro Stapulensi, depuis trois moys en visitant l'evesché, ont +bruslé <i>actu</i> tous les imaiges, réservé le crucifix, et sont +personellement ajournés a Paris, à ce moys de Mars venant, coram suprema +curia, et universitate erucarum parrhissiensium, quare id factum est." +Herminjard, i. 315.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_152_152" id="Footnote_152_152"></a><a href="#FNanchor_152_152"><span class="label">[152]</span></a> Fontaine, Histoire catholique, <i>apud</i> Merle d'Aubigné, +Hist. de la Réform., liv. xii. The earliest Protestant chronicle, by +Antoine Froment, of which there is a MS. fragment in the Library of +Geneva, gives a slightly different form to Briçonnet's caution: +"Autrefois, en leur preschant l'Évangile, il leur avoit dit, comme +Sainct Paul escript au Gallates, que sy luy-mesme ou un Ange du ciel +leur preschoit autre doctrine que celle qu'il leur preschoit, qu'ils ne +[le] receussent pas." Herminjard, i. 158.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_153_153" id="Footnote_153_153"></a><a href="#FNanchor_153_153"><span class="label">[153]</span></a> Nisard, Histoire de la littérature française, i. 275. The +only printed work in favor of which the claim of Lefèvre's translation +to be the oldest in the French language could be disputed is the "Bible" +of Guyars des Moulins, finished in 1297, and printed by order of Charles +VIII. in 1487; but the greater part of this is a free translation, not +of the Scriptures themselves, but of a summary—the "Historia +scholastica" of Pierre le Mengeur (latinized "Comestor")—and is +consequently no bible at all. See M. Charles Read, in Bulletin, i. 76, +who remarks that, "everything considered, it may therefore be asserted +that the translations of Lefèvre d'Étaples and of Olivetanus are the +first versions without embellishment or gloss (non historiées et non +glossées), and that thus the first two versions of the Bible into the +language of the people are Protestant."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_154_154" id="Footnote_154_154"></a><a href="#FNanchor_154_154"><span class="label">[154]</span></a> The inventory of the library of the Count of Angoulême, +father of Margaret and Francis I., consisting of nearly two hundred +volumes, contains the title "Les Paraboles de Salomon, les Espistres +Saint Jehan, les Espistres Saint Pol et l'Apocalipse, le tout en ung +volume, escript en parchemin et <i>à la main</i>, et en <i>françoys</i>, couvert +de velous changeant et a deux fermoeres, l'un aux armes de mon diet +Seigneur, et l'autre aux armes de ma dicte dame." Aristotle, Boethius, +Boccaccio, and Dante figure in the list, the latter both in Italian and +in French. The inventory is printed in an appendix to the edition of the +Heptameron of Margaret of Angoulême published by the Soc. dea +bibliophiles français (Paris, 1853), a work enriched with many original +documents of considerable value.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_155_155" id="Footnote_155_155"></a><a href="#FNanchor_155_155"><span class="label">[155]</span></a> This important letter of Lefèvre to Farel, July 6, 1524, +first published in part from the MS. in the Geneva Library, in the +Bulletin de l'hist. du prot. franç., xi. (1862), 212, is given in full +by Herminjard, i. 220, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_156_156" id="Footnote_156_156"></a><a href="#FNanchor_156_156"><span class="label">[156]</span></a> "O bone Deus, quanto exulto gaudio, cum percipio hanc +pure agnoscendi Christum gratiam, jam bonam partem pervasisse Europæ! Et +spero Christum tandem nostras Gallias hac benedictione invisurum."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_157_157" id="Footnote_157_157"></a><a href="#FNanchor_157_157"><span class="label">[157]</span></a> "Provinciam interpretandi populo promiscui sexus, +quotidie una hora mane, epistolas Pauli lingua vernacula editas, non +concionando, sed per modum lecturæ interpretando." Lefèvre to Farel, +<i>ubi supra</i>, i. 222. He gives the names of four such "lectores +puriores"—Gadon, Mangin, Neufchasteau, and Mesnil—of whom we know +little.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_158_158" id="Footnote_158_158"></a><a href="#FNanchor_158_158"><span class="label">[158]</span></a> Parliament, however, as late as June 1, 1525, sustained +his episcopal authority by prohibiting the monks from preaching in +Meaux, whether in the morning or in the evening, when the bishop either +himself preached or had preaching before him in that part of the day. +Reg. of Parliament, Preuves des Libertez de l'Eglise Gallicane, iv. +102.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_159_159" id="Footnote_159_159"></a><a href="#FNanchor_159_159"><span class="label">[159]</span></a> Gaillard, vi. 409.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_160_160" id="Footnote_160_160"></a><a href="#FNanchor_160_160"><span class="label">[160]</span></a> "L'estat par la froideur duquel tous les aultres sont +gelléz." Briçonnet to Margaret of Angoulême, Dec. 22, 1521, Herminjard, +i. 86.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_161_161" id="Footnote_161_161"></a><a href="#FNanchor_161_161"><span class="label">[161]</span></a> "Celluy qui tous ruyne." Same to same, Jan. 31, 1524, +ibid., i. 186.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_162_162" id="Footnote_162_162"></a><a href="#FNanchor_162_162"><span class="label">[162]</span></a> "L'état qui contient tous les autres dans le devoir," as +translated by Herminjard, i. 154.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_163_163" id="Footnote_163_163"></a><a href="#FNanchor_163_163"><span class="label">[163]</span></a> See both documents in Herminjard, i. 153 and 156.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_164_164" id="Footnote_164_164"></a><a href="#FNanchor_164_164"><span class="label">[164]</span></a> Instead of October 15, 1523, it is probable that these +documents ought to be placed nearly, if not quite, two years later. See +M. Herminjard's remarks on this difficult point, Correspondance des +réformateurs, i. 158, note. The same uncertainty affects Briçonnet's +subsequent pastoral, revoking the powers accorded to "Lutheran +preachers," attributed to December 13, 1523, ibid., i. 171.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_165_165" id="Footnote_165_165"></a><a href="#FNanchor_165_165"><span class="label">[165]</span></a> Maimbourg, Histoire du Calvinisme (Paris, 1682), liv. i. +11-14; Daniel, Histoire de France (Paris, 1755), x. 23.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_166_166" id="Footnote_166_166"></a><a href="#FNanchor_166_166"><span class="label">[166]</span></a> Registres du parlement, Oct. 3, 1525, Preuves des +Libertez de l'Église gallicane, iv. 102.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_167_167" id="Footnote_167_167"></a><a href="#FNanchor_167_167"><span class="label">[167]</span></a> "Et supplie la Cour qu'il soit interrogé en pleine cour, +et non par Commissaires." Registres du parlement, Oct. 20, 1525, ibid., +iv. 103.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_168_168" id="Footnote_168_168"></a><a href="#FNanchor_168_168"><span class="label">[168]</span></a> Registres du parlement, Nov. 29, 1525, where the Bishop +of Meaux is ordered to pay 200 <i>livres parisis</i> for the trial of the +heretics, prisoners from Meaux (Preuves des Libertez, iii. 166), and the +receipt for the same (Ibid., <i>ubi supra</i>). This was, however, merely an +application of the general prescription of Nov. 24, 1525, requiring all +prelates to defray the expenses of the trial of any heretics discovered +in their dioceses, with the right to indemnify themselves from the +property of the convicted heretics (Ibid., iii. 165). So the Archbishop +of Tours contributed to the expenses incurred in the trial of Jean +Papillon, Feb. 5, 1526 (Ibid., iii. 167).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_169_169" id="Footnote_169_169"></a><a href="#FNanchor_169_169"><span class="label">[169]</span></a> Daniel, x. 23, 24; Gaillard, vi. 409-411.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_170_170" id="Footnote_170_170"></a><a href="#FNanchor_170_170"><span class="label">[170]</span></a> Neither the reason nor the precise time of his departure +is known. It was apparently as early as 1523.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_171_171" id="Footnote_171_171"></a><a href="#FNanchor_171_171"><span class="label">[171]</span></a> See Haag, La France protestante, art. Farel; Dr. E. +Schmidt, Wilhelm Farel, in Hagenbach, Leben d. Väter und Begründer der +Reformirten Kirche, vii. 3, etc. A brief but very accurate sketch in +Herminjard, i. 178, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_172_172" id="Footnote_172_172"></a><a href="#FNanchor_172_172"><span class="label">[172]</span></a> MS. Seminary of Meaux, January 11, 1524/5, Bulletin, x. +220.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_173_173" id="Footnote_173_173"></a><a href="#FNanchor_173_173"><span class="label">[173]</span></a> "Plusieurs peigneurs, cardeurs et autres gens de même +trempe, non lettrés."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_174_174" id="Footnote_174_174"></a><a href="#FNanchor_174_174"><span class="label">[174]</span></a> MS. Seminary of Meaux, February 6, 1524/5, Bulletin, x. +220.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_175_175" id="Footnote_175_175"></a><a href="#FNanchor_175_175"><span class="label">[175]</span></a> Compare for the date, Herminjard, i. 378, 389, 401. +Gérard Roussel was ordered by parliament to be seized wherever found, +<i>etiam in loco sacro</i>. So, too, were Caroli and Prévost. Jacques Lefèvre +was cited to appear. Régistres du parlement, Oct. 3, 1525, Preuves des +Libertez de l'Égl. gall., iii. 102, 103.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_176_176" id="Footnote_176_176"></a><a href="#FNanchor_176_176"><span class="label">[176]</span></a> Farel to Pellican, 1556, Herminjard, i. 481.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_177_177" id="Footnote_177_177"></a><a href="#FNanchor_177_177"><span class="label">[177]</span></a> "Ita invigilent Verbo ecclesiarum ministri, ut, nulla +pene hora diei, suum desit pabulum et quidem <i>syncerum, ut nulla subsit +palea aut fermenti pharisaici commissura</i>."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_178_178" id="Footnote_178_178"></a><a href="#FNanchor_178_178"><span class="label">[178]</span></a> Roussel to Briçonnet, Strasbourg, Dec, 1525, Herminjard, +i. 406, 407.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_179_179" id="Footnote_179_179"></a><a href="#FNanchor_179_179"><span class="label">[179]</span></a> Roussel to Farel, Meaux, Aug. 24, 1524, Herminjard, i. +271—a document that throws a flood of light upon the motives of the +conduct of both Roussel and Lefèvre. A letter of the same date to +Œcolampadius is, in some respects, even more instructive. Notice the +pitiful weakness revealed in these sentences: "Reclamabunt episcopi, +reclamabunt doctores, reclamabunt scholæ, assentiente populo, occurret +Senatus (parliament). <i>Quid faciet homuncio adversus tot leones?</i>" +Herminjard, i. 278. A reference to the book of Daniel might have enabled +the Canon of Meaux to answer his own question.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_180_180" id="Footnote_180_180"></a><a href="#FNanchor_180_180"><span class="label">[180]</span></a> Pierre Toussain to Œcolampadius, Malesherbes, July 26, +1526, Herminjard, i. 447.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_181_181" id="Footnote_181_181"></a><a href="#FNanchor_181_181"><span class="label">[181]</span></a> Mandement de Guillaume Briçonnet an clergé de son +diocèse, le 21 janvier, 1525, Herminjard, i. 320, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_182_182" id="Footnote_182_182"></a><a href="#FNanchor_182_182"><span class="label">[182]</span></a> It may seem surprising that Jean Leclerc escaped the +stake in punishment of his temerity. But the reason is found in the +circumstance that he was tried, not for <i>heresy</i>, but for <i>irreverence</i>. +This appears from the Registres du parlement for March 20, 1524/5. The +interesting discussions of that session, printed in the Bulletin de la +Soc. de l'hist. du prot. français, iii. (1854) 23, etc., establish the +fact that the reformed doctrines were already making formidable headway +in Paris and the adjoining towns. A brother of Bishop Briçonnet took a +prominent part in the debate, and gave a deplorable view of the +prevalence of impiety and heresy in the higher circles of society.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_183_183" id="Footnote_183_183"></a><a href="#FNanchor_183_183"><span class="label">[183]</span></a> For a description of the punishment, see Bastard +d'Estang, Les parlements de France.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_184_184" id="Footnote_184_184"></a><a href="#FNanchor_184_184"><span class="label">[184]</span></a> "Vive Jésus Christ et ses enseignes!"</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_185_185" id="Footnote_185_185"></a><a href="#FNanchor_185_185"><span class="label">[185]</span></a> Histoire ecclésiastique des églises réformées, attributed +to Theodore Beza (Ed. of Lille, 1841), i. 4; Crespin, Actiones et +Monimenta Martyrum (Geneva, 1560), fol. 46; Haag, La France protestante, +art. Leclerc; Daniel, x. 23, who finds no more suitable epithet for +Leclerc than "<i>ce scélérat</i>."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_186_186" id="Footnote_186_186"></a><a href="#FNanchor_186_186"><span class="label">[186]</span></a> At this time a city of the Empire, and not conquered by +France until the reign of Henry II. (1552).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_187_187" id="Footnote_187_187"></a><a href="#FNanchor_187_187"><span class="label">[187]</span></a> The story of Leclerc's fortunes is told both by Crespin, +<i>ubi supra</i>, fol. 46, and by the Histoire ecclésiastique, i. 4; but, +strange to say, both these early authorities fall into the same error: +they place the first arrest of Leclerc in 1523, and his death a year +later. Almost all subsequent writers have implicitly followed their +authority. The Registres du parlement de Paris, already referred to, +March 20, 1524/5, fix the former event as having occurred only three +days before—"depuis trois jours" (p. 27); while François Lambert's +letter to the Senate of Besançon, dated August 15, 1525, expressly +states that Leclerc was burned Saturday, July 22, 1525. Herminjard, i. +372. Jean Châtellain had been executed at Vic, in Lorraine, six months +earlier (January 12, 1525). See P. Lambert to the Elector of Saxony, +Herminjard, i. 346.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_188_188" id="Footnote_188_188"></a><a href="#FNanchor_188_188"><span class="label">[188]</span></a> In accordance with the uncertain orthography of the age, +the name is variously written—Pauvan, Pauvant, Pavanne, or Pouvent.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_189_189" id="Footnote_189_189"></a><a href="#FNanchor_189_189"><span class="label">[189]</span></a> Pauvan's propositions, with the vindication by Saunier +(or Saulnier) are recapitulated in the censure of the theological +faculty, dated Dec. 9, 1525, and published <i>in extenso</i> among the +documents appended to Gerdesius, Hist. Evang. Renov., iv. 36, etc. +Professor Soldan (i. 107) and others are incorrect in placing the +propositions and their condemnation by the Sorbonne subsequent to the +abjuration, which in this very document the Sorbonne demands.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_190_190" id="Footnote_190_190"></a><a href="#FNanchor_190_190"><span class="label">[190]</span></a> Ibid., iv. 47.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_191_191" id="Footnote_191_191"></a><a href="#FNanchor_191_191"><span class="label">[191]</span></a> "You err, Master Jacques," Crespin tells us that Mazurier +used to say, "You err, Master Jacques; for you have not looked into the +depth of the sea, but merely upon the surface of the waters and waves." +"<i>You err, Master Jacques</i>" became a proverbial expression in the mouths +of the inhabitants of Meaux for a generation or more. Actiones et +Monimenta (Geneva, 1560), fol. 52 <i>verso</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_192_192" id="Footnote_192_192"></a><a href="#FNanchor_192_192"><span class="label">[192]</span></a> "Tout nud, en sa chemise, criant mercy à Dieu et à la +vierge Marie." Journal d'un bourgeois, <i>ubi infra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_193_193" id="Footnote_193_193"></a><a href="#FNanchor_193_193"><span class="label">[193]</span></a> His sentence seems to have been seven years' imprisonment +in the priory of St. Martin des Champs, and it was the prior that +denounced him to parliament. Ibid., <i>ubi infra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_194_194" id="Footnote_194_194"></a><a href="#FNanchor_194_194"><span class="label">[194]</span></a> Crespin, <i>ubi supra</i>, fol. 53; Hist. ecclés., i. 4; Haag, +France prot., s. v. On the 26th of August, 1526, if, as is likely, he is +the "jeune filz, escolier bénéficié, non aiant encore ses ordres de +prestrise, nommé maistre ... natif de Thérouanne, en Picardie," whom the +Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris refers to—page 291—as having abjured +on Christmas eve, 1525, and been burned "le mardi 28<sup>e</sup> aoust, 1526." At +any rate, as M. Herminjard has remarked, Beza and Crespin are certainly +wrong in placing Pauvan's recantation and execution respectively a year +too early (in 1524 and 1525, instead of 1525 and 1526). The date of the +Sorbonne's judgment is decisive on this point.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_195_195" id="Footnote_195_195"></a><a href="#FNanchor_195_195"><span class="label">[195]</span></a> Our authority for the remark of the Parisian doctor, +Pierre Cornu, is Farel, in a MS. note to a hitherto inedited letter of +Pauvan, and in his speech at the discussion at Lausanne. Herminjard, i. +293, 294. Farel's application was not without pungency: "Votre foi +est-elle si bien fondée qu'un jeune fils, qui encore n'avoit point de +barbe, vous ait fait tant de dommage, sans avoir tant étudié ne veu, +sans avoir aucun degré, et vous étiez tant?" The admirer of heroic +fortitude will scarcely subscribe to the words of the Jesuit Daniel, +Hist. de France, x. 24: "On ne donne place dans l'histoire <i>à ces +méprisables noms</i>, que pour ne laisser ignorer la première origine de la +funeste contagion," etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_196_196" id="Footnote_196_196"></a><a href="#FNanchor_196_196"><span class="label">[196]</span></a> Histoire ecclés., i. 4.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_197_197" id="Footnote_197_197"></a><a href="#FNanchor_197_197"><span class="label">[197]</span></a> Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris sous le règne de François +I<sup>er</sup>, April 14, 1526, p. 284.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_198_198" id="Footnote_198_198"></a><a href="#FNanchor_198_198"><span class="label">[198]</span></a> Crespin, Actiones et monimenta, fol. 118.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_199_199" id="Footnote_199_199"></a><a href="#FNanchor_199_199"><span class="label">[199]</span></a> Haag, La France protestante, art. Lefèvre; Schmidt, +Wilhelm Farel. Bayle (Diet. s. v. Fèvre) maintains, on the authority of +Melchior Adam's Life of Capito, that Lefèvre and Roussel were sent by +Margaret of Angoulême on a secret mission to Strasbourg. Erasmus, in a +letter of March, 1526, and Sleidan (lib. v. ad fin.) know nothing of +this, and speak of the trip as merely a flight.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_200_200" id="Footnote_200_200"></a><a href="#FNanchor_200_200"><span class="label">[200]</span></a> Haag, <i>ubi supra</i>, vi. 507, note.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_201_201" id="Footnote_201_201"></a><a href="#FNanchor_201_201"><span class="label">[201]</span></a> Haag, La France protestante, art. Lefèvre; Gaillard, +Hist. de François premier, vi. 411. The boy, at this time Duke of +Angoulême, did not assume the name of <i>Charles</i> until after his eldest +brother's death. The Swiss cantons, acting as his sponsors, had given +him the somewhat uncommon Christian name <i>Abednego</i> (Abdénago)! +Herminjard, ii. 17, 195.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_202_202" id="Footnote_202_202"></a><a href="#FNanchor_202_202"><span class="label">[202]</span></a> The Duke of Orleans may have had sincere predilections +for Protestantism. At least, it is barely possible that the very +remarkable instructions given to his secretary, Antoine Mallet, when on +the 8th of September, 1543, Charles sent him to the Elector of Saxony +and the Landgrave of Hesse, were something besides mere diplomatic +intrigue to secure for his father's projects the support of these +Protestant princes. See, however, a fuller discussion of this incident +farther on, Chapter VI.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_203_203" id="Footnote_203_203"></a><a href="#FNanchor_203_203"><span class="label">[203]</span></a> Margaret to Anne de Montmorency, Génin, Lettres de +Marguerite d'Angoulême, i. 279, and Herminjard, ii. 250.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_204_204" id="Footnote_204_204"></a><a href="#FNanchor_204_204"><span class="label">[204]</span></a> "Come un cavallo ch' ha un apostema stringendoli il naso +non sente il cauterio."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_205_205" id="Footnote_205_205"></a><a href="#FNanchor_205_205"><span class="label">[205]</span></a> "Una retrattationcella." The letter of the Nuncio to +Sanga, secretary of Clement VII., Brussels, December 30, 1531, appeared +in H. Laemmer, Monumenta Vaticana (ex Tabulariis Sanctæ Sedis Apostolicæ +Secretis), Friburgi Brisgoviæ, 1861. I have called attention to its +importance in the Bulletin de la Société de l'hist. du prot. franç., +xiv. (1865), 345. M. Herminjard has given a French translation, ii. +386.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_206_206" id="Footnote_206_206"></a><a href="#FNanchor_206_206"><span class="label">[206]</span></a> This incident has been rejected as apocryphal by Bayle, +and, after him, by Tabaraud (in the Biographie universelle), as well as +more recently by Haag (France protestante). It has rested until now on +the unsupported testimony of Hubert Thomas, secretary of the Elector +Palatine, Frederick II., whom he accompanied on a visit to Charles V. in +Spain. On his return the Elector fell sick at Paris, where he received +frequent visits from the King and Queen of Navarre. It was on one of +these occasions that Margaret related to him this story, in the hearing +of the secretary. (It is reproduced in Jurieu, Histoire du Calvinisme, +etc., Rotterdam, 1683, pt. i. 70.) Bayle objected that it was incredible +that the reformers should have failed to allude to so striking and +suggestive an occurrence. The objection has been scattered to the winds. +With singular good fortune, M. Jules Bonnet has discovered among the +hidden treasures of the Geneva Library an original memorandum in Farel's +own handwriting, prefixed to a letter he had received from Michel +d'Arande, fully confirming the discredited statements. "Jacobus Faber +Stapulensis noster laborans morbo quo decessit, per aliquot dies ita +perterritus fuit judicio Dei, ut actum de se vociferaret, dicens se +æternum periisse, quod veritatem Dei non aperte professus fuerit, idque +dies noctesque vociferando querebatur. Et cum a Gerardo Rufo admoneretur +ut bono esset animo, Christo quoque fideret, is respondit: 'Nos damnati +sumus, veritatem celavimus quam profiteri et testari debebamus.' +Horrendum erat tam pium senem ita angi animo et tanto horrore judicii +Dei concuti; licet tandem liberatus bene sperare cœperit ac +perrexerit de Christo." Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. fr., +etc., xi. 215; Herminjard, iii. 400.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_207_207" id="Footnote_207_207"></a><a href="#FNanchor_207_207"><span class="label">[207]</span></a> "Quo tandem ex hoc profundo limo, in quo non est +substantia, eripi queam." Michel d'Arande to Farel (1536 or 1537), +Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. franç., <i>ubi supra</i>; Herminjard, +iii. 399, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_208_208" id="Footnote_208_208"></a><a href="#FNanchor_208_208"><span class="label">[208]</span></a> Speaking of Roussel's as yet inedited MS., "Familière +exposition du symbole et de l'oraison dominicale," Professor C. Schmidt, +than whom no one has better studied the mysticism of the sixteenth +century, remarks that the basis of the work is the doctrine of +justification by faith, the sole authority invoked is that of the +Scriptures, the only head of the church is Jesus Christ, the perfect +church is the invisible church, the visible church is recognized by the +preaching of the Gospel in its purity, and by the administration of the +<i>two</i> sacraments as originally instituted. He adds that the doctrines of +the Lord's Supper and of predestination are expounded in a thoroughly +Calvinistic manner. See Professor S.'s excellent monograph, "Le +mysticisme quiétiste en France au début de la réformation sous François +premier," read before the Soc. de l'hist. du prot. fr., Bulletin, vi. +449, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_209_209" id="Footnote_209_209"></a><a href="#FNanchor_209_209"><span class="label">[209]</span></a> Historia de ortu, progressu et ruina hæreseon hujus +sæculi (Col. 1614), lib. vii. c. 3, p. 392.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_210_210" id="Footnote_210_210"></a><a href="#FNanchor_210_210"><span class="label">[210]</span></a> <i>E. g.</i>, Tabaraud, Biographie univ., art. Roussel.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_211_211" id="Footnote_211_211"></a><a href="#FNanchor_211_211"><span class="label">[211]</span></a> Haag, France protestante, art. Gérard Roussel; Gaillard, +Hist. de François premier, vi. 418; Flor. de Ræmond, <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_212_212" id="Footnote_212_212"></a><a href="#FNanchor_212_212"><span class="label">[212]</span></a> He was born at Cognac, Sept. 12, 1494.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_213_213" id="Footnote_213_213"></a><a href="#FNanchor_213_213"><span class="label">[213]</span></a> See the fac-simile in the magnificent work of M. Niel, +Portraits des personnages français les plus illustres du 16me siècle, +Paris, 1848, 2 vols. fol.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_214_214" id="Footnote_214_214"></a><a href="#FNanchor_214_214"><span class="label">[214]</span></a> The envoy's description of Francis's curative power is +interesting. "Ha una proprietà, <i>o vero dono da Dio</i>, come han tutti li +rè di Francia, di far guarire li amalati di scrofule.... E questo lo fa +in giorno solenne, come Pasqua, Natale e Nostra Donna. Si confessa e +communica; dipoi <i>tocca li amalati in croce al volto, dicendo: 'Il Rè ti +tocca, e Iddio ti guarisca</i>!'" Cavalli thinks there can be no doubt of +the reality of the cures effected; otherwise, why should continually +increasing numbers of sick folk come from the most distant countries, if +they received no benefit? Relazioni Venete (Albèri), ser. i., i. 237. It +must not be imagined, however, that the kings of France engrossed all +virtue of this kind. The monarchs of England were wont to hallow on Good +Friday certain rings which thenceforth guaranteed the wearer against +epilepsy. These <i>cramp-rings</i>, as they were called, were no less in +demand abroad than at home. Sir John Mason wrote from Brussels, April +25, 1555, that many persons had expressed the desire to obtain them, and +begged Sir W. Petrie to interest himself in procuring him some of this +year's blessing by Queen Mary. MSS. State Paper Office.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_215_215" id="Footnote_215_215"></a><a href="#FNanchor_215_215"><span class="label">[215]</span></a> The small size of the brain and the depression of the +forehead indicated in all the different contemporary portraits of +Francis have been noticed by M. Niel (Portraits, i. 10), who dryly adds +that in view of them he might have been inclined to withhold the +eulogies he has inserted in his notice of the monarch, "had he not +recollected in time that the laws of phrenology are not infallible."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_216_216" id="Footnote_216_216"></a><a href="#FNanchor_216_216"><span class="label">[216]</span></a> Robertson, Charles V., iii. 396.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_217_217" id="Footnote_217_217"></a><a href="#FNanchor_217_217"><span class="label">[217]</span></a> Relazione di Francia (1538), Albèri, i. 203, 204. It will +be noticed that Giustiniano wrote at a period when the youthful ardor of +Francis had somewhat cooled down.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_218_218" id="Footnote_218_218"></a><a href="#FNanchor_218_218"><span class="label">[218]</span></a> The French king's proverbial ill-success gave rise to the +taunt that his was "un esser savio in bocca e non in mente," but Marino +Cavalli is charitably inclined to ascribe his misfortune rather to the +lack of the right men to execute his designs, than to any fault of his +own. Rel. des Amb. Vén., Tommaseo, i. 282.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_219_219" id="Footnote_219_219"></a><a href="#FNanchor_219_219"><span class="label">[219]</span></a> "Sire, vous en seriez marri le premier, et vous en +prendroit très mal, et y perdriez plus que le pape; car une nouvelle +religion, mise parmi un peuple, ne demande après que changement du +prince." Brantôme, M. l'Admiral de Chastillon, Œuvres, ix. 202.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_220_220" id="Footnote_220_220"></a><a href="#FNanchor_220_220"><span class="label">[220]</span></a> Brantôme, Femmes illustres: Marguerite, reine de Navarre. +Also Homines ill.: François premier (Œuvres, vii. 256, 257).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_221_221" id="Footnote_221_221"></a><a href="#FNanchor_221_221"><span class="label">[221]</span></a> The Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. franç., v. +380, 381, publishes from a MS. in the library of the Louvre, an order +from Francis I., countersigned by Bayard, directing his treasurer to pay +to "Cecille de Viefville, <i>dame des filles de joye suivans nostre +court</i>," the sum of forty-five livres tournois. This gift is to be +shared with "<i>les autres femmes de sa voccation</i>," as she and they shall +see fit, and to be received as "a New-Year's present for the first of +January past, such as it has been customary from all time to make." The +last clause may have been inserted for the purpose of palliating the +disgraceful usage. This precious document is followed by Cecile's +receipt, dated, like the order, Hesdin, February 18, 1539 (1540 New +Style).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_222_222" id="Footnote_222_222"></a><a href="#FNanchor_222_222"><span class="label">[222]</span></a> Ch. de Sainte-Marthe, Oraison funèbre, 1550, <i>apud</i> +Génin, i. 3.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_223_223" id="Footnote_223_223"></a><a href="#FNanchor_223_223"><span class="label">[223]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><i>Une doulceur</i> assise en belle face,<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Qui la beaulté des plus belles efface</i>;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">D'un regard chaste où n'habite nul vice;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">. . . . . . .<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tons ces beaulx dons et mille davantaige<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sont en ung corps né de hault parentaige,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Et de grandeur tant droicte et bien formée,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Que faicte semble exprès pour estre aymée<br /></span> +<span class="i0">D'hommes et dieux.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p> +—Ined. Epistle of Marot to Margaret, prefixed to Génin, Notice, xiii., +xiv. One of the two crayons of Margaret by contemporary artists, +reproduced by Niel, Portraits des personnages illustres, etc., tome ii., +was taken in early life; the other represents her as wearing the sombre +dress she preferred in her last years.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_224_224" id="Footnote_224_224"></a><a href="#FNanchor_224_224"><span class="label">[224]</span></a> Vie politique de Marg. d' Angoulême, by Leroux de Lincy, +prefixed to the Heptaméron (Ed. of the Soc. des bibliophiles), i. p. +lxiv.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_225_225" id="Footnote_225_225"></a><a href="#FNanchor_225_225"><span class="label">[225]</span></a> "La serenissima regina di Navarra ... è donna di molto +valore, e spirito grande, e che intervienne in tutti i consigli." Relaz. +di Francesco Giustiniano, 1538, Albèri, i. 203.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_226_226" id="Footnote_226_226"></a><a href="#FNanchor_226_226"><span class="label">[226]</span></a> The document contained a proviso that, should Francis be +liberated, the Dauphin was to restore to him the sovereignty for the +term of his natural life. It was dated Madrid, November, 1525. Isambert, +Recueil des anciennes lois, etc., xii. 237-244.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_227_227" id="Footnote_227_227"></a><a href="#FNanchor_227_227"><span class="label">[227]</span></a> "Le mercredy <i>penultiesme jour de janvier</i>, au dict an, +ils furent espousez an diet lieu de <i>Saint Germain</i> (<i>en Laye</i>). Après +furent faictes <i>jouxtes et tournois et gros triomphes</i> par l'espace de +huict jours ou environ." Journal d'un bourgeois, 302. Olhagaray states +the date differently, viz., January 24th; <i>ubi infra</i>, 488.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_228_228" id="Footnote_228_228"></a><a href="#FNanchor_228_228"><span class="label">[228]</span></a> See Olhagaray, Histoire de Foix, Béarn, et Navarre +(Paris, 1609), 487.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_229_229" id="Footnote_229_229"></a><a href="#FNanchor_229_229"><span class="label">[229]</span></a> He was born April, 1503, and was consequently eleven +years younger than Margaret.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_230_230" id="Footnote_230_230"></a><a href="#FNanchor_230_230"><span class="label">[230]</span></a> Catharine's bitter reproach addressed to her husband has +become famous: "Had I been king, and you queen, we had been reigning in +Navarre at this moment." Prescott, Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, iii. +353. Olhagaray gives another of her speeches: "O Roy vous demeurés Jean +d'Albret, et ne pensés plus au Royaume de Navarre que vous avez perdu +par vostre nonchalance." <i>Ubi supra</i>, 455.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_231_231" id="Footnote_231_231"></a><a href="#FNanchor_231_231"><span class="label">[231]</span></a> The Spanish conquest of Navarre is narrated at length by +Prescott, Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, iii. 347-367. See also +Olhagaray, 454, etc., and Moncaut, Histoire des Pyrénées, iv. 233-271. +It will be borne in mind that the great crime of John d'Albret was his +adhesion to Louis XII. of France, in his determined struggle with Julius +II.; and that Ferdinand's title was justified by a pretended bull of +this Pope giving the kingdoms of his enemies to be a prey to the first +invader that might seize them in behalf of the Pontifical See. The bull, +however, is now generally admitted to be a Spanish forgery. See +Prescott, <i>ubi supra</i>. Baron A. de Ruble observes (Mém. de La Huguerye, +1, note): "On sait aujourd'hui que cette bulle est apocryphe."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_232_232" id="Footnote_232_232"></a><a href="#FNanchor_232_232"><span class="label">[232]</span></a> Brantôme does, indeed, accuse Henry of using severity +toward his wife, on account of her religious innovations, until +threatened with the displeasure of Francis; but the truth seems to be +that the King of Navarre was himself not ill-disposed to the religious +reformation.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_233_233" id="Footnote_233_233"></a><a href="#FNanchor_233_233"><span class="label">[233]</span></a> M. Herminjard has been criticised for inserting too many +of Bishop Briçonnet's epistles in the first volume of his Correspondance +des réformateurs dans les pays de langue française. M. Génin also gives +specimens of the bishop's bombast, observing maliciously: "Si Briçonnet +argumenta en pareil style aux conciles de Pise et du Latran, il dut +embarrasser beaucoup ses adversaires." Lettres de Marg. d'Angoulême, i. +128.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_234_234" id="Footnote_234_234"></a><a href="#FNanchor_234_234"><span class="label">[234]</span></a> "O impiam et inverecundam arrogantiam," etc. See chapter +I., p. 24.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_235_235" id="Footnote_235_235"></a><a href="#FNanchor_235_235"><span class="label">[235]</span></a> Determinatio Facultatis, etc., Gerdes., iv. (Doc.) 10, +etc.; Bretschneider, Corpus Reformatorum (Opera Melanchthonis), i. 366, +etc., 371, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_236_236" id="Footnote_236_236"></a><a href="#FNanchor_236_236"><span class="label">[236]</span></a> Adversus furiosum Parisiensium theologastrorum decretum +Philippi Melanchthonis pro Luthero apologia, Bretschneider, i. 399-416.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_237_237" id="Footnote_237_237"></a><a href="#FNanchor_237_237"><span class="label">[237]</span></a> Lettre de la faculté de théologie à la reine, Oct. 7, +1523, Gerdes., iv. (Doc.) 16, 17.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_238_238" id="Footnote_238_238"></a><a href="#FNanchor_238_238"><span class="label">[238]</span></a> Articules concernans les responces que après meure +délibération a fait la faculté de théologie. Gerdes., iv. (Doc.) 17-21.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_239_239" id="Footnote_239_239"></a><a href="#FNanchor_239_239"><span class="label">[239]</span></a> "Qui [les livres de Luther] furent imprimez et publiez +par toutes les villes d'Alemaigne et par tout le royaume de France." +Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, 94.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_240_240" id="Footnote_240_240"></a><a href="#FNanchor_240_240"><span class="label">[240]</span></a> Ibid., 104.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_241_241" id="Footnote_241_241"></a><a href="#FNanchor_241_241"><span class="label">[241]</span></a> "Ego confidenter loquar, credens in Domino quod verum +sit, quod plus syncerioris theologiæ in libris prædictis continetur, +quam in omnibus scriptis omnium monachorum, qui a principio fuerunt."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_242_242" id="Footnote_242_242"></a><a href="#FNanchor_242_242"><span class="label">[242]</span></a> A contemporary song (1525) denouncing woes against +Strasbourg for harboring the "Lutherans," contains these doggerel lines: +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Ce faulx Lambert, hérétique mauldict,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Te fait prendre la dance<br /></span> +<span class="i4">De l'infemal déduyt."<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p> +Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. franç., ix. (1860) 381.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_243_243" id="Footnote_243_243"></a><a href="#FNanchor_243_243"><span class="label">[243]</span></a> Margaret of Angoulême, out of all patience, at last sent +word requesting him to desist from these untimely letters to her +brother—"qu'il n'escripva plus ny au Roy ny à aultres." Toussain to +Farel, December 17, 1524, Herminjard, i. 313.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_244_244" id="Footnote_244_244"></a><a href="#FNanchor_244_244"><span class="label">[244]</span></a> Witness the malignant satisfaction exhibited by the +Nuncio Aleander when noting the reported death of Lambert and his entire +family: "Mi ha detto hoggi, che Francesco Lamberto d'Avignon, qual +fugito dal monasterio, et ito astar un tempo con Luther ha scritto +infiniti libri contra la Chiesa di Dio, quest' anno in terra del +Langravio di Hassia insieme con la moglie et figliuoli tutti +miserabilmente, et come da miracolo, in gran calamità <i>son crepati</i>." +Aleander to Sanga, Brussels, November 25, 1531, Vatican Library, +Laemmer, Monumenta, 90. See Lambert's autobiographical sketch, entitled: +"Rationes propter quas Minoritarum conversationem habitumque rejecit," +Gerdes., iv. (Doc.) 21-28, and translated, Herminjard, i. 118, etc.; F. +W. Hassencamp, Fr. Lambert von Avignon; Haag, France prot., s. v.; Baum, +Lambert von Avignon.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_245_245" id="Footnote_245_245"></a><a href="#FNanchor_245_245"><span class="label">[245]</span></a> So says Lambert, who states: "Novi ilium ex intimis; fuit +enim mihi perinde atque Jonathas Davidi." Præf. ad Comm. in Hoseam, +Gerdes., Scrinium antiquarium, vi. 490.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_246_246" id="Footnote_246_246"></a><a href="#FNanchor_246_246"><span class="label">[246]</span></a> The Bishop of Metz was <i>John</i>, Cardinal of Lorraine, +uncle of the more notorious Cardinal <i>Charles</i>. Châtellain had written a +poetical chronicle of Metz reaching to the year 1524. A friendly hand +continued it, and recorded the fate of Châtellain, described as +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">"Augustin, grand Docteur<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Qui estoit grand prédicateur."<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p> +The chronicle, which certainly possesses no striking literary merit, is +printed among the <i>Preuves</i> of Dom Calmet, Histoire de Lorraine (Nancy, +1748), iii. pp. cclxxii., etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_247_247" id="Footnote_247_247"></a><a href="#FNanchor_247_247"><span class="label">[247]</span></a> Crespin, Actiones et Monimenta (Geneva, 1560), fol. +44-46.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_248_248" id="Footnote_248_248"></a><a href="#FNanchor_248_248"><span class="label">[248]</span></a> "Quorum (Antichristi prophetæ) fæx in eadem civitate tam +multa est, ut eosdem nongentos esse ferant." Lamberti præf. ad Comm. in +Hoseam, Gerdes., Scrinium Antiq., vi. 485, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_249_249" id="Footnote_249_249"></a><a href="#FNanchor_249_249"><span class="label">[249]</span></a> Ibid., <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_250_250" id="Footnote_250_250"></a><a href="#FNanchor_250_250"><span class="label">[250]</span></a> Hist. de l'église gallicane, <i>apud</i> Gaillard, vi. 404.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_251_251" id="Footnote_251_251"></a><a href="#FNanchor_251_251"><span class="label">[251]</span></a> The letter is given by Crespin, Actiones et Monimenta, +fol. 50; also Gerdes., iv. (Doc), 48-50.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_252_252" id="Footnote_252_252"></a><a href="#FNanchor_252_252"><span class="label">[252]</span></a> Gerdes., iv. 51; Crespin, fol. 49-52; Haag, s. v.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_253_253" id="Footnote_253_253"></a><a href="#FNanchor_253_253"><span class="label">[253]</span></a> The incident, it must be confessed, is by no means above +suspicion (see Kirchhofer, Life of Wm. Farel, London ed., p. 40, and +Schmidt, Wilhelm Farel, p. 6), although, as Merle d'Aubigné observes, +Hist. of the Reformation, bk. xii. c. 13, it is in keeping with Farel's +character. Œcolampadius, foreseeing the possibility of his indulging +in such inconsiderate words and actions, warned him, as early as Aug. +19, 1524, to temper his zeal with mildness, and to treat his opponents +rather as was most expedient, than as they deserved to be treated. +Herminjard, i. 265-267.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_254_254" id="Footnote_254_254"></a><a href="#FNanchor_254_254"><span class="label">[254]</span></a> "Ceste hérésie luthérienne, <i>qui commance fort à pulluler +par deça. Et jam plures de cineribus valde (Valdo) renascuntur +plantulæ</i>." Council of the Archbishop of Lyons to Noel Beda, January 23, +1525. The title of primate was assumed both by the Archbishop of Sens +and the Archbishop of Lyons, the former having apparently the better +claim and enjoying nominally a Wider supremacy (as "Primat des Gaules et +de Germanie"); but the latter gradually vindicated his pretension to +spiritual authority over most of France. See Encyclopédie méthodique, s. +v. Sens, and Lyon.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_255_255" id="Footnote_255_255"></a><a href="#FNanchor_255_255"><span class="label">[255]</span></a> Gaillard, Hist. de François premier, vi. 408.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_256_256" id="Footnote_256_256"></a><a href="#FNanchor_256_256"><span class="label">[256]</span></a> Registres du parlement, Feb. 26, 1417/8, Preuves des +Libertez, i. 124, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_257_257" id="Footnote_257_257"></a><a href="#FNanchor_257_257"><span class="label">[257]</span></a> Yet the trial of Aimé Maigret had been specially +committed by Louise to the Sorbonne, as early as January, 1525 (Letter +of the Council of the Archbishop of Lyons to Beda, Jan. 23, 1525, +Herminjard, i. 326); and Zwingle knew, in March, of a more or less +successful effort to convince the regent that the evangelical doctrines +were subversive of peace—the proof alleged being drawn from Germany, +where "everything was turned upside down." Dedication to Francis I., +prefixed to De vera et falsa religione commentarius, Herminjard, i. +351.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_258_258" id="Footnote_258_258"></a><a href="#FNanchor_258_258"><span class="label">[258]</span></a> See Mézeray's unfavorable portrait of the unscrupulous +Duprat, Abrégé chron., iv. 584.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_259_259" id="Footnote_259_259"></a><a href="#FNanchor_259_259"><span class="label">[259]</span></a> The four were Philippe Pot, President in the <i>chambre des +enquêtes</i>, and André Verjus, a counsellor, from parliament, and +Guillaume Du Chesne and Nicholas Le Clerc, doctors of theology. For the +first on the list, Jacques de la Barde was soon after substituted. +Registres du parlement, March 20, 1524/5, Preuves des Libertez, i. 164.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_260_260" id="Footnote_260_260"></a><a href="#FNanchor_260_260"><span class="label">[260]</span></a> Registres du parlement, <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_261_261" id="Footnote_261_261"></a><a href="#FNanchor_261_261"><span class="label">[261]</span></a> Soldan, Gesch. des Prot. in Frankreich, i. 102.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_262_262" id="Footnote_262_262"></a><a href="#FNanchor_262_262"><span class="label">[262]</span></a> Registres du parlement, July 29, 1458, Preuves des +Libertez, i. 138.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_263_263" id="Footnote_263_263"></a><a href="#FNanchor_263_263"><span class="label">[263]</span></a> "Un inquisiteur de la foi n'a capture ou arrét en ce +royaume, sinon par l'aide et autorité du bras seculier." Pithou, Essaie, +art. 37.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_264_264" id="Footnote_264_264"></a><a href="#FNanchor_264_264"><span class="label">[264]</span></a> "Nonobstant oppositions ou appellations quelconques, +<i>semotâ executione a definitiva</i>, si en est appellé." Registres du +parlement, Preuves des Libertez, iii. 164.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_265_265" id="Footnote_265_265"></a><a href="#FNanchor_265_265"><span class="label">[265]</span></a> "Nos quoque comprobavimus ... sicut per alias nostras +<i>sub plumbo</i> literas poteritis cognoscere." Registres du parlement, <i>ubi +supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_266_266" id="Footnote_266_266"></a><a href="#FNanchor_266_266"><span class="label">[266]</span></a> Recueil des anc. lois françaises, par Jourdan, Decrusy et +Isambert, xii. 232-237.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_267_267" id="Footnote_267_267"></a><a href="#FNanchor_267_267"><span class="label">[267]</span></a> Isambert, <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_268_268" id="Footnote_268_268"></a><a href="#FNanchor_268_268"><span class="label">[268]</span></a> The author of the anonymous Journal d'un bourgeois dé +Paris, 383, 384. His description, written in 1528, is interesting: +"Ledict Barquin avoit environ 50 ans, et portoit ordinairement robbe de +veloux, satin et damas, et choses (chausses) d'or, et <i>estoit de noble +lignée et moult grand clerc</i>, expert en science et subtil, mais +néantmoins il faillit en son sens." Erasmus makes him some seven years +younger, Letter to Utenhoven, July 1, 1529, Opera, ii. 1206, <i>seq.</i>; and +Herminjard, Correspondance des réformateurs, ii. 183, <i>seq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_269_269" id="Footnote_269_269"></a><a href="#FNanchor_269_269"><span class="label">[269]</span></a> His account is important, but too full for insertion +here. See the letter above quoted.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_270_270" id="Footnote_270_270"></a><a href="#FNanchor_270_270"><span class="label">[270]</span></a> Arrêt du parlement, Aug. 5, 1523, Haag, France prot. s. +v. <i>Berquin</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_271_271" id="Footnote_271_271"></a><a href="#FNanchor_271_271"><span class="label">[271]</span></a> Félibien, Hist. de la ville de Paris, ii. 948; Journal +d'un bourgeois de Paris, 169, 170; Haag, s. v.; Erasmus, Opera, <i>ubi +supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_272_272" id="Footnote_272_272"></a><a href="#FNanchor_272_272"><span class="label">[272]</span></a> "Etiam in loco sacro." Registres du parlement, January 8, +1526, Preuves des Libertez, iii., 166.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_273_273" id="Footnote_273_273"></a><a href="#FNanchor_273_273"><span class="label">[273]</span></a> Margaret's gratitude to Montmorency for his kind offices +is very fully attested by a passage in an extant letter (Génin, Lettres +de Marg. d'Ang., 1ère Coll., No. 54): "Vous merciant du plaisir que +m'avés fait pour le pauvre Berquin, que j'estime aultant que si c'estoit +moy mesmes, et par cela pouvés vous dire que vous m'avés tirée de +prison, etc." To Francis she expressed the assurance "que Celuy pour qui +je croy qu'il a souffert aura agréable la miséricorde que pour son +honneur avez fait à son serviteur et au vostre." Ibid., 2de Coll., No. +35.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_274_274" id="Footnote_274_274"></a><a href="#FNanchor_274_274"><span class="label">[274]</span></a> The chief authorities for the first two imprisonments of +De Berquin are the long and important letter of Erasmus, to which I +shall have occasion again to refer (Opera, ii. 1206, <i>seq.</i>), Félibien, +Hist. de la ville de Paris, ii. 948, 984, 985; Journal d'un bourgeois de +Paris, 169, 170, 277, 278; Haag, s. v.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_275_275" id="Footnote_275_275"></a><a href="#FNanchor_275_275"><span class="label">[275]</span></a> It is somewhat amusing, in the light of subsequent +events, to read such outbursts of sisterly enthusiasm as this: "O que +bien-heureuse sera vostre brefve prison, par qui Dieu tant d'ames +deslivrera de celle d'infidélité et esternelle damnacion." Lettres de +Marg. d'Ang., 2de Coll., No. 5, Lyons, May 1525. See, too, 1ère Coll., +No. 26, addressed to Montmorency.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_276_276" id="Footnote_276_276"></a><a href="#FNanchor_276_276"><span class="label">[276]</span></a> Margaret's letters to Count Hohenlohe were translated +into Latin and published by himself. M. Génin has rendered them into +French, and inserted them in his Lettres de Marg. d'Angoulême, 1ère +Coll., Nos. 48-51. The letter of July 5, 1526, is the most important.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_277_277" id="Footnote_277_277"></a><a href="#FNanchor_277_277"><span class="label">[277]</span></a> This precious bit of special pleading deserves notice. In +the instructions of the king to the Archbishop of Lyons, to be read at +the council in that city, Francis thus expressed himself: "Et combien +que pour ung tel et si bon œuvre que celluy qui se offre de présent, +<i>le dict sire fut conseillé</i>, que juridiquement et par tous droicts +divins et humains, <i>il pouvoit et debvoit raisonnablement mettre, +subimposer et faire contribuer toutes manières de gens</i>, de quelque +qualité, auctorité, condition qu'ils fuissent, soient d'église, nobles, +ou du tiers et commun estat, au paiement de la ditte rançon, etc." +Labbei Concilia, xix. fol. 1137.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_278_278" id="Footnote_278_278"></a><a href="#FNanchor_278_278"><span class="label">[278]</span></a> The reason assigned for not convoking the States General +in proper form, viz., that time did not permit the necessary delay, must +be considered scarcely sufficient to explain the irregularity. Ibid., +<i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_279_279" id="Footnote_279_279"></a><a href="#FNanchor_279_279"><span class="label">[279]</span></a> "Fist un discours farci de latin et de citations de +l'Écriture, dans lequel il conclut que le traité de Madrid estoit nul." +Isambert, xii. 299.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_280_280" id="Footnote_280_280"></a><a href="#FNanchor_280_280"><span class="label">[280]</span></a> The declaration is significant and noteworthy as the +first of many similar assurances. Among the documents in Isambert, +Recueil des anc. lois françaises, is a full account of the proceedings +of the notables, xii. 292-301.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_281_281" id="Footnote_281_281"></a><a href="#FNanchor_281_281"><span class="label">[281]</span></a> If Francis was sanguine of success in suppressing the +Reformation in his kingdom, there were others who went farther still. +Barthélemi de Chassanée this very year (1527) chronicles the destruction +of "Lutheranism" in France as <i>an accomplished fact</i>! The passage is not +unworthy of notice. After explaining the significance of the +<i>fleurs-de-lis</i> on the royal escutcheon by the wonderful efficacy of the +lily as the antidote of the serpent's poison, and remarking that the +kings of France had thrice extracted the mortal virus from the bite of +Mohammed, "serpentis venenosi," the writer adds: "Et, his temporibus, +videmus nostram fidem et religionem Christianam <i>sanatam esse a morsu +pestiferi serpentis Lutheri</i>, qui infinitas hæreses in fide Christiana +seminavit, <i>quæ fuerunt extirpatæ a Rege nostro Francisco +Christianissimo</i>, qui non cessat insudare, ut Clemens summus Pontifex a +sua Sede ejectus restituatur, quem Carolus Borbonius dux exercitus +Caroli Austriaci electi in Imperatorem, in urbe obsederat <i>hoc anno +Domini</i> 1527 die 6 Maii." Catalogus Gloriæ Mundi, fol. 143.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_282_282" id="Footnote_282_282"></a><a href="#FNanchor_282_282"><span class="label">[282]</span></a> Labbei Concilia, xix. fol. 1160.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_283_283" id="Footnote_283_283"></a><a href="#FNanchor_283_283"><span class="label">[283]</span></a> The reader may, if his patience will hold out, wade +through the prolix decrees of the Council of Sens as published by +Cardinal Duprat in 1529, and printed in Labbei Concilia (Venice, 1732), +xix. 1149-1202. It is worthy of remark that the confiscation of the +property of condemned heretics, if laymen, to the state, is ordered, +"<i>tanquam reorum læsæ majestatis</i>." Fol. 1159.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_284_284" id="Footnote_284_284"></a><a href="#FNanchor_284_284"><span class="label">[284]</span></a> Labbei Concilia, xix. fol. 1139.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_285_285" id="Footnote_285_285"></a><a href="#FNanchor_285_285"><span class="label">[285]</span></a> The words of the decree are sufficiently distinct: "Illam +plurimum gravem et onerosam ecclesiis, laicis vero contemtibilem, +sacerdotum multitudinem, qui solent plerumque <i>illiterati, moribus +inculti, servilibus operibus addicti, imberbes, inopes, fictitiis +titulis</i> ad sacros ordines obrepere, non sine magno status clericalis +opprobrio." Ibid., xix. fol. 1128. The decrees of the councils of +Bourges and Lyons are given in Labbei Concilia, xix. 1041-1048, and 1095 +etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_286_286" id="Footnote_286_286"></a><a href="#FNanchor_286_286"><span class="label">[286]</span></a> The image was affixed to the house of the Sieur de +Beaumont, at the corner of the Rue des Hosiers and the Rue des Juifs. +Félibien, Hist. de Paris, iv. 676.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_287_287" id="Footnote_287_287"></a><a href="#FNanchor_287_287"><span class="label">[287]</span></a> The strong language of the author of the "Cronique du Roi +Françoys I<sup>er</sup>" (edited by G. Guiffrey, Paris, 1860) may serve as an +index of the popular feeling: "La nuict du dimenche, dernier jour de +may, ... <i>par quelque ung pire que ung chien mauldict de Dieu</i>, fut +rompue et couppée la teste à une ymaige de la vierge Marie ... qui fut +<i>une grosse horreur à la crestienté</i>." Page 66.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_288_288" id="Footnote_288_288"></a><a href="#FNanchor_288_288"><span class="label">[288]</span></a> The silver image, though protected by an iron grating, +fared no better than its predecessor. Stolen before the death of +Francis, it was succeeded by a wooden statue, and, when this was +destroyed by "heretics," by one of marble! The detailed accounts of the +expiatory processions in Félibien, ii. 982, 983, in the Régistres du +parlement, ibid., iv. 677-679, in G. Guiffrey, appendix to "Cronique du +Roy Françoys I<sup>er</sup>," 446-459, from MSS. Nat. Lib., in Gaillard, vi. +434, 435, and in the Journal d'un bourgeois, 348-351, give a vivid view +of the picturesque ceremonial of the times. It must have been a very +substantial compensation for the trouble to which the unknown author of +the outrage of the <i>Rue des Rosiers</i> put the clergy, that the mutilated +statue of the Virgin, having been placed above the altar in the church +of St. Gervais, was said to have wrought notable miracles, and even to +have raised two children from the dead! Journal d'un bourgeois, <i>ubi +supra</i>. See also "Cronique du Roy Françoys I<sup>er</sup>," 67, and especially +the poem (Ibid., appendix, 459-464), in twenty-five stanzas of eight +lines each, which, I fear, has nothing to recommend it, unless it be +<i>length</i>!</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_289_289" id="Footnote_289_289"></a><a href="#FNanchor_289_289"><span class="label">[289]</span></a> May, 1530. Félibien, ii 988, 989; Journal d'un bourgeois, +410.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_290_290" id="Footnote_290_290"></a><a href="#FNanchor_290_290"><span class="label">[290]</span></a> "Quæris, quid profecerim? Tot modis deterrens, addidi +animum."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_291_291" id="Footnote_291_291"></a><a href="#FNanchor_291_291"><span class="label">[291]</span></a> Erasmus to Utenhoven, <i>ubi supra</i>; also his letter to +Vergara, Sept. 2, 1527, and Beda's Apology, Herminjard, ii. 38, 39, 40.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_292_292" id="Footnote_292_292"></a><a href="#FNanchor_292_292"><span class="label">[292]</span></a> Erasmus to Utenhoven, <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_293_293" id="Footnote_293_293"></a><a href="#FNanchor_293_293"><span class="label">[293]</span></a> It was one of the great merits of Francis I., in the eyes +of De Thou, the historian, that he had drawn Budé from comparative +obscurity, and, following his wise counsels, founded the Collége Royale. +Erasmus styled him "The Wonder of France" (De Thou, liv. iii., i. 233), +and Scævole de Ste. Marthe, "omnium, qui hoc patrumque sæculo vixere, +sine controversia doctissimus" (Elog. 3). He was at this time one of the +<i>maîtres de requêtes</i>. Crespin, fol. 58.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_294_294" id="Footnote_294_294"></a><a href="#FNanchor_294_294"><span class="label">[294]</span></a> Journal d'un bourgeois, 378.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_295_295" id="Footnote_295_295"></a><a href="#FNanchor_295_295"><span class="label">[295]</span></a> The series of letters ends with a prayer which it would +have been difficult, we must suppose, for a brother to resist: "Il vous +plera (plaira), Monseigneur, faire en sorte que l'on ne die (dise) point +que l'eslongnement vous ait fait oblier vostre très-humble et +très-obéissante subjette et seur <span class="smcap">Marguerite</span>." Génin, 2de Coll., No. 52.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_296_296" id="Footnote_296_296"></a><a href="#FNanchor_296_296"><span class="label">[296]</span></a> A MS. of the Bibliothèque Nationale, printed by M. Génin +(i. 218, etc.), and G. Guiffrey, Cronique, etc., 76, note, gives these +and other interesting details, which are in part confirmed by Erasmus.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_297_297" id="Footnote_297_297"></a><a href="#FNanchor_297_297"><span class="label">[297]</span></a> Ibid., <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_298_298" id="Footnote_298_298"></a><a href="#FNanchor_298_298"><span class="label">[298]</span></a> It was a slight suggestion of mercy that prompted the +judges to permit him to be strangled before his body was consigned to +the flames.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_299_299" id="Footnote_299_299"></a><a href="#FNanchor_299_299"><span class="label">[299]</span></a> "Ce qui fut faict et expédié ce mesme jour <i>en grande +diligence, affin qu'il ne fût recourru du Roy ne de madame la Regente</i>, +qui estoit lors à Bloys, etc." Journal d'un bourgeois, 383.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_300_300" id="Footnote_300_300"></a><a href="#FNanchor_300_300"><span class="label">[300]</span></a> For De Berquin's history, see Erasmus, <i>ubi supra</i>; +Journal d'un bourgeois, 378, etc.; Crespin, Actiones et Monimenta (ed. +of 1560), fol. 57-59; Histoire ecclés., i. 5; Félibien, ii. 985; Haag, +s. v.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_301_301" id="Footnote_301_301"></a><a href="#FNanchor_301_301"><span class="label">[301]</span></a> Journal d'un bourgeois, and Hist. ecclés., <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_302_302" id="Footnote_302_302"></a><a href="#FNanchor_302_302"><span class="label">[302]</span></a> So he is styled by Martin of Beauvais, writing some few +months later, in a sufficiently bold plea for the use of fire and fagot: +"Si vero <i>hæresiarchæ Berquini</i>, et suorum sequacium pervicacia +delibutus (hæreticus) incorrigibilis videatur, ne fortassis plusquam +vipereum venenum latenter surrepat, et sanos inficere possit, subito +auferte eum de medio vestrum, execrantes atque aversantes illius +perversitatem, et abscisum velut palmitem aridum (juxta Joannis +sententiam) <i>subjectis ignibus torrere facite</i>." Paraclesis catholica +Franciæ ad Francos, ut fortes in Fide et Vocatione qua vocati sunt, +permaneant, authore Martino Theodorico Bellovaco, Juris Cæsarei +Professore (Parisiis, 1539), p. 14.—See note at the end of this +chapter.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_303_303" id="Footnote_303_303"></a><a href="#FNanchor_303_303"><span class="label">[303]</span></a> F. W. Barthold, Deutschland und die Hugenoten, i. 15; +Soldan, Gesch. des Prot. in Frankreich, i. 115-120.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_304_304" id="Footnote_304_304"></a><a href="#FNanchor_304_304"><span class="label">[304]</span></a> Mézeray, Abrégé chronologique, iv. 577.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_305_305" id="Footnote_305_305"></a><a href="#FNanchor_305_305"><span class="label">[305]</span></a> Soldan, i. 121.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_306_306" id="Footnote_306_306"></a><a href="#FNanchor_306_306"><span class="label">[306]</span></a> October 28, 1533.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_307_307" id="Footnote_307_307"></a><a href="#FNanchor_307_307"><span class="label">[307]</span></a> "Con mala sodisfazione di tutta la Francia, perchè pare +ad ogniuno che Clemente pontefice <i>abbia gabbato</i> questo rè +cristianissimo." Marino Giustiniano (1535), Relaz. Ven., Albèri, i. +191.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_308_308" id="Footnote_308_308"></a><a href="#FNanchor_308_308"><span class="label">[308]</span></a> Catharine de' Medici was born April 13, 1519.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_309_309" id="Footnote_309_309"></a><a href="#FNanchor_309_309"><span class="label">[309]</span></a> These interesting particulars are contained in a MS. +letter in the Zurich Archives (probably written by Oswald Myconius to +Joachim Vadian). The writer had them directly from the mouth of +Guillaume du Bellay, the French ambassador, who was with the king at the +interview of Marseilles. Du Bellay also gave some details of his own +conversations with Clement. The latter freely admitted that there were +some things that displeased him in the mass, but naturally wanted so +profitable an institution to be treated tenderly and cautiously. +Correspond. des réformateurs, iii. 183-186.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_310_310" id="Footnote_310_310"></a><a href="#FNanchor_310_310"><span class="label">[310]</span></a> The truth respecting Toulouse probably lies about midway +between the censures of the Huguenot and the eulogy of the Roman +Catholic historian. According to the author of the <i>Histoire +ecclésiastique</i>, the parliament was the most sanguinary in France, the +university careless of letters, the population jealous of any +proficiency in liberal studies. According to Florimond de Ræmond, +writing somewhat later, Toulouse was worthy of eternal praise, because, +notwithstanding a marvellous confluence of strangers from all parts, and +in spite of being completely surrounded by regions infected with heresy, +it had so persisted in the faith as to contain within its walls not a +single family that did not live in conformity with the prescriptions of +the church! Historia de ortu, progressu et ruina hæreseon hujus sæculi, +ii. 486.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_311_311" id="Footnote_311_311"></a><a href="#FNanchor_311_311"><span class="label">[311]</span></a> Crespin, Actiones et Monimenta, fol. 64.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_312_312" id="Footnote_312_312"></a><a href="#FNanchor_312_312"><span class="label">[312]</span></a> Florimond de Ræmond, ii. 394, 395.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_313_313" id="Footnote_313_313"></a><a href="#FNanchor_313_313"><span class="label">[313]</span></a> March 6, 1535. Journal d'un bourgeois, 453.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_314_314" id="Footnote_314_314"></a><a href="#FNanchor_314_314"><span class="label">[314]</span></a> Hist. ecclés., i. 9; Crespin, <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_315_315" id="Footnote_315_315"></a><a href="#FNanchor_315_315"><span class="label">[315]</span></a> John Calvin gives a contemporary's account in a letter to +François Daniel from Paris, October, 1533. Herminjard, Correspond. des +réformateurs, iii. 106, etc.; and translated in Bonnet, Calvin's +Letters, i. 36, etc. See also Jean Sturm's letter of about the same +date, Herminjard, iii. 93.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_316_316" id="Footnote_316_316"></a><a href="#FNanchor_316_316"><span class="label">[316]</span></a> Calvin's letter above quoted, one of the oldest of his +MS. autographs. Dr. Paul Henry, in his valuable Life and Times of John +Calvin (Eng. trans., i. 37) inadvertently makes Cop rector of the +<i>Sorbonne</i>, an office that never existed.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_317_317" id="Footnote_317_317"></a><a href="#FNanchor_317_317"><span class="label">[317]</span></a> A single sentence may serve to indicate the distinctness +with which this is asserted: "Evangelium remissionem peccatorum et +justificationem gratis pollicetur; neque enim accepti sumus Deo quod +legi satisfaciamus, sed ex sola Christi promissione, de qua qui dubitat +pie vivere non potest, et gehennæ incendium sibi parat." Opera Calvini, +Baum, Cunitz, et Reuss, x. 34.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_318_318" id="Footnote_318_318"></a><a href="#FNanchor_318_318"><span class="label">[318]</span></a> Some officious pen has indeed stricken out from the MS. +the sentence, "Quod nos consecuturos spero, si beatissimam Virginem +solenni illo præconio longe omnium pulcherrimo salutaverimus: <i>Ave +gratia plena!</i>" But on the margin the sensible Nicholas Colladon, a +colleague of Beza and an early biographer of Calvin, has written the +words: "Hæc, quia illis temporibus danda sunt, ne supprimenda quidem +putavimus."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_319_319" id="Footnote_319_319"></a><a href="#FNanchor_319_319"><span class="label">[319]</span></a> "Ægre fert Facultas <i>injuriam toti unversitati illatam</i>, +quod tractus fuerit ad superiorem Judicem ... summus suus magistratus, +et, eam ob rem, censet Facultas ut ejus accusatores et qui +supplicationem superiori Judici porrexerunt, citentur in facie +universitatis, causas rei allaturi." Bullæus, vi. 238, <i>apud</i> +Herminjard, iii. 117, note. See many interesting particulars respecting +the privileges claimed by the university, in Pasquier, Recherches de la +France, liv. iii. ch. 29.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_320_320" id="Footnote_320_320"></a><a href="#FNanchor_320_320"><span class="label">[320]</span></a> He was to have been thrown into the <i>Conciergerie</i>. See +Beza's preface to Calvin's Com. on Joshua, 1565, <i>apud</i> Herminjard, iii. +118, note. Parliament complained to Francis, and the latter in his +reply, Lyons, Dec. 10, 1533, ordered proceedings to be instituted for +the capture of Cop and the punishment of the person who had facilitated +his flight by giving him warning. Francis to parliament, Herminjard, +iii. 118. A reward of 300 crowns was accordingly offered for the +apprehension of the fugitive rector, dead or alive. Martin Bucer to Amb. +Blaurer, January, 1534, Herminjard, iii. 130.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_321_321" id="Footnote_321_321"></a><a href="#FNanchor_321_321"><span class="label">[321]</span></a> A fragment of Cop's address—about the first third—was +discovered by M. Jules Bonnet in the MSS. of the Library of Geneva, +bearing on the margin the note: "Hæc Joannes Calvinus propria manu +descripsit, et est auctor." This portion is printed in Herminjard, +Corresp. des réformateurs, iii. 418-420, and Calv. Opera, Baum, Cunitz, +et Reuss, ix. 873-876. Merle d'Aubigné used it in his Hist. of the Ref. +in the time of Calvin, ii. 198, etc. Still more fortunate than M. +Bonnet, Messrs. Baum, Cunitz, and Reuss very recently found a complete +copy of the same address in the archives of one of the churches of +Strasbourg. The newly found portion is of great interest. Calvini Op., +x. (1872), 30-36.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_322_322" id="Footnote_322_322"></a><a href="#FNanchor_322_322"><span class="label">[322]</span></a> Calvin to Fr. Daniel (1534), Bonnet, i. 41; Histoire +ecclés., i. 9.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_323_323" id="Footnote_323_323"></a><a href="#FNanchor_323_323"><span class="label">[323]</span></a> Francis I. to Council of Berne, Marseilles, Oct. 20, +1533, MS. Berne Archives, Herminjard, iii. 95, 96.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_324_324" id="Footnote_324_324"></a><a href="#FNanchor_324_324"><span class="label">[324]</span></a> Berne was accustomed to give and take hard blows. So, +although the chancellor of the canton endorsed on the king's missive the +words, "<i>Rude lettre du Roi</i>, ... relative aux Farel," the council was +not discouraged; but, when sending two envoys, about a month later, to +the French court, instructed them, among other things, again to +intercede for a brother of Farel. Herminjard, iii. 96, note.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_325_325" id="Footnote_325_325"></a><a href="#FNanchor_325_325"><span class="label">[325]</span></a> Du Bellay was himself believed, not without reason, to +have sympathy for the reformed doctrine, and it was under his auspices, +as well as those of the King and Queen of Navarre, that the evangelical +preachers had lately held forth in the pulpits of the capital. See, for +instance, Bucer to Blaurer, Jan., 1534, Herminjard, Corresp. des +réformateurs, iii. 130.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_326_326" id="Footnote_326_326"></a><a href="#FNanchor_326_326"><span class="label">[326]</span></a> Francis I.'s letter to Du Bellay, Lyons, Dec. 10, 1533, +MS. Dupuy Coll., Bibl. nat., Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. +franç., i. 437. His orders to parliament of same date, Herminjard, +Corresp. des réformateurs, iii. 114, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_327_327" id="Footnote_327_327"></a><a href="#FNanchor_327_327"><span class="label">[327]</span></a> Francis to parliament, <i>ubi supra</i>, iii. 116.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_328_328" id="Footnote_328_328"></a><a href="#FNanchor_328_328"><span class="label">[328]</span></a> Melanchthon to Du Bellay, Aug. 1, 1534, Opera +(Bretschneider, Corpus Reformatorum), ii. 740.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_329_329" id="Footnote_329_329"></a><a href="#FNanchor_329_329"><span class="label">[329]</span></a> This is only a brief summary of the most essential points +in these strange articles, which may be read entire in Melanch. Opera, +<i>ubi supra</i>, ii. 744-766.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_330_330" id="Footnote_330_330"></a><a href="#FNanchor_330_330"><span class="label">[330]</span></a> Ibid., ii. 775, 776.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_331_331" id="Footnote_331_331"></a><a href="#FNanchor_331_331"><span class="label">[331]</span></a> See the interesting letter of a young Strasbourg student +at Paris, Pierre Siderander, May 28, 1533, Herminjard, Correspondance +des réformateurs, iii. 58, 59. The refrain of one placard, +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Au feu, au feu! c'est leur répère!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Faiz-en justice! Dieu l'a permys,"<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p> +gave Clément Marot occasion to reply in a couple of short pieces, the +longer beginning: +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"En l'eau, en l'eau, ces folz séditieux."<br /></span> +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_332_332" id="Footnote_332_332"></a><a href="#FNanchor_332_332"><span class="label">[332]</span></a> Crespin, Actiones et Monimenta (Ed. of 1560), fol. 64.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_333_333" id="Footnote_333_333"></a><a href="#FNanchor_333_333"><span class="label">[333]</span></a> Bulletin, ix. 27, 28.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_334_334" id="Footnote_334_334"></a><a href="#FNanchor_334_334"><span class="label">[334]</span></a> Merle d'Aubigné, on the authority of the hostile +Florimond de Ræmond, ascribes it to Farel. But the style and mode of +treatment are quite in contrast with those of Farel's "Sommaire," +republished almost precisely at this date; while many sentences are +taken verbatim from another treatise, "Petit Traicte de l'Eucharistie," +unfortunately anonymous, but which there is good reason to suppose was +written by Marcourt. The author of the latter avows his authorship of +the placard. See the full discussion by Herminjard, Correspondance des +réformateurs, iii. 225, note, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_335_335" id="Footnote_335_335"></a><a href="#FNanchor_335_335"><span class="label">[335]</span></a> Courault was foremost in his opposition. Crespin, +Actiones et Monimenta, fols. 64, 65.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_336_336" id="Footnote_336_336"></a><a href="#FNanchor_336_336"><span class="label">[336]</span></a> "Qui estes pire que bestes, en vos badinages lesquels +vous faites à l'entour de vostre <i>dieu de paste, duquel vous vous jouez +comme un chat d'une souris</i>: faisans des marmiteux, et frappans contre +vostre poictrine, après l'avoir mis en trois quartiers, <i>comme estans +bien marris</i>, l'appelans Agneau de Dieu, et lui demandans la paix."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_337_337" id="Footnote_337_337"></a><a href="#FNanchor_337_337"><span class="label">[337]</span></a> This singular placard is given <i>in extenso</i> by Gerdesius, +Hist. Evang. Renov., iv. (Doc.) 60-67; Haag, France prot., x. pièces +justif., 1-6; G. Guiffrey, Cronique du Roy Françoys I<sup>er</sup>, Appendix, +464-472.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_338_338" id="Footnote_338_338"></a><a href="#FNanchor_338_338"><span class="label">[338]</span></a> Journal d'un bourgeois, 442. Not <i>Blois</i>, as the Hist. +ecclésiastique, i. 10, and, following it, Soldan, Merle d'Aubigné, etc., +state. Francis had left Blois as early as in September for the castle of +Amboise, see Herminjard, Corresp. des réformateurs, iii. 231, 226, 236.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_339_339" id="Footnote_339_339"></a><a href="#FNanchor_339_339"><span class="label">[339]</span></a> "Ne me puis garder de vous dire qu'il vous souviengne de +<i>l'opinion que j'avois que les vilains placars estoient fait par ceux +guiles cherchent aux aultres</i>." Marg. de Navarre to Francis I., Nérac, +Dec., 1541, Génin, ii. No. 114. Although Margaret's supposition proved +to be unfounded, it was by no means so absurd as the reader might +imagine. At least, we have the testimony of Pithou, Seigneur de +Chamgobert, that a clergyman of Champagne confessed that he had +committed, from pious motives, a somewhat similar act. The head of a +stone image of the Virgin, known as "Our Lady of Pity," standing in one +of the streets of Troyes, was found, on the morning of a great feast-day +in September, 1555, to have been wantonly broken off. There was the +usual indignation against the sacrilegious perpetrators of the deed. +There were the customary procession and masses by way of atonement for +the insult offered to high Heaven. But Friar Fiacre, of the +<i>Hôtel-Dieu</i>, finding himself some time later at the point of death, and +feeling disturbed in conscience, revealed the fact that from religious +considerations he had himself decapitated the image, "<i>in order to have +the Huguenots accused of it, and thus lead to their complete +extermination</i>!" Recordon, Protestantisme en Champagne, ou récits +extraits d'un MS. de N. Pithou (Paris, 1863), 28-30.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_340_340" id="Footnote_340_340"></a><a href="#FNanchor_340_340"><span class="label">[340]</span></a> A. F. Didot, Essai sur la typographie, in Encyclop. +moderne, xxvi. 760, <i>apud</i> Herminjard, iii. 60.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_341_341" id="Footnote_341_341"></a><a href="#FNanchor_341_341"><span class="label">[341]</span></a> That is, 1535 New Style. For it will remembered that, +until 1566, the year in France began with Easter, instead of with the +first day of January. Leber, Coll. de pièces rel. à l'hist. de France, +viii. 505, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_342_342" id="Footnote_342_342"></a><a href="#FNanchor_342_342"><span class="label">[342]</span></a> "Combien que ... nous eussions prohibé et défendu que nul +n'eust dès lors en avant à imprimer ou faire imprimer aulcuns livres en +nostre royaulme, sur peine de la hart." As neither of these disgraceful +edicts was formally registered by parliament, they are both of them +wanting in the ordinary records of that body, and in all collections of +French laws. The <i>first</i> seems, indeed, to have disappeared altogether. +M. Crapelet, Études sur la typographie, 34-37, reproduces the <i>second</i>, +dated St. Germain-en-Laye, February 23, 1534/5, from a volume of +parliamentary papers labelled "Conseil." Happily, the preamble recites +the cardinal prescription of the previous and lost edict, as given above +in the text. M. Merle d'Aubigné carelessly places the edict abolishing +printing <i>after</i>, instead of <i>before</i>, the great expiatory procession. +Hist. of the Reformation in the Time of Calvin, iii. 140.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_343_343" id="Footnote_343_343"></a><a href="#FNanchor_343_343"><span class="label">[343]</span></a> Félibien, Hist. de la ville de Paris, ii. 997.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_344_344" id="Footnote_344_344"></a><a href="#FNanchor_344_344"><span class="label">[344]</span></a> Soissons MS., Bulletin, xi. 255.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_345_345" id="Footnote_345_345"></a><a href="#FNanchor_345_345"><span class="label">[345]</span></a> I. e., <i>gaînier</i>, sheath-or scabbard-maker. Hist. +ecclésiastique, i. 10; Journal d'un bourgeois, 444; see Varillas, Hist. +des révol. arrivées dans l'Eur. en matière de rel., ii. 222.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_346_346" id="Footnote_346_346"></a><a href="#FNanchor_346_346"><span class="label">[346]</span></a> "Qui ad se ea pericula spectare non putabant, qui non +contaminati erant eo scelere, hi etiam in partem pœnarum veniunt. +<i>Delatores et quadruplatores</i> publice comparantur. Cuilibet simul et +testi et accusatori in hac causa esse licet." J. Sturm to Melanchthon, +Paris, March 4, 1535, Bretschneider, Corpus Reformatorum, ii. 855, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_347_347" id="Footnote_347_347"></a><a href="#FNanchor_347_347"><span class="label">[347]</span></a> The <i>name</i> and the <i>affliction</i> of this first victim give +Martin Theodoric of Beauvais an opportunity, which he cannot neglect, to +compare him with a pagan malefactor and contrast him with a biblical +personage. "Hunc gladium ultorem persenserunt quam plurimi degeneres et +alienigenæ in flexilibus perversarum doctrinarum semitis obambulantes; +inter alios, <i>paralyticus Lutheranus Neroniano Milone perniciosior</i>. Cui +malesano opus erat salutifer Christus, ut <i>sublato erroris grabato, viam +Veritatis insequutus fuisset</i>. At vero elatus, in funesto sacrilegi +cordis desiderio perseverans, <i>flammis combustus</i> cum suis participibus +seditiosis Gracchis, exemplum sui cunctis hæreticis relinquens deperiit. +Et peribunt omnes sive plebeii, sive primates," etc. Paraclesis Franciæ +(Par. 1539), 5.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_348_348" id="Footnote_348_348"></a><a href="#FNanchor_348_348"><span class="label">[348]</span></a> The Journal d'un bourgeois, 444-452, gives an account, in +the briefest terms and without comment, of the sentences pronounced and +executed. See also G. Guiffrey, Cronique du Roy François I<sup>er</sup>, 111-113.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_349_349" id="Footnote_349_349"></a><a href="#FNanchor_349_349"><span class="label">[349]</span></a> The real message sent by Francis I. to his mother, after +the disaster of Pavia, was quite another thing from the traditional +sentence: "Tout est perdu sauf l'honneur." What he wrote was: "Madame, +pour vous avertir comme je porte le ressort de mon infortune, de toutes +choses ne m'est demeuré que l'honneur <i>et la vie sauve</i>," etc. Papiers +d'État du Card, de Granvelle, i. 258. It is to be feared that, if saved +in <i>Italy</i>, his honor was certainly lost in <i>Spain</i>, where, after vain +attempts to secure release by plighting his <i>faith</i>, he deliberately +took an <i>oath</i> which he never meant to observe. So, at least, he himself +informed the notables of France on the 16th of December, 1527: "Et +voulurent <i>qu'il jurast; ce qu'il fist, sachant ledict serment n'estre +valable, au moyen de la garde qui luy fust baillée, et qu'il n'estoit en +sa liberté</i>." Isambert, Recueil des anc. lois franç., xii. 292.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_350_350" id="Footnote_350_350"></a><a href="#FNanchor_350_350"><span class="label">[350]</span></a> Registres de l'hôtel de ville. Félibien, pièces justif., +v. 345. In the preceding account these records, together with those of +parliament (ibid., iv. 686-688), the narrative of Félibien himself (ii. +997-999), and the Soissons MS. (Bulletin, xi. 254, 255), have been +chiefly relied upon. See also Cronique du Roy Françoys I<sup>er</sup>, 113-121.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_351_351" id="Footnote_351_351"></a><a href="#FNanchor_351_351"><span class="label">[351]</span></a> "En sorte que si un des bras de mon corps estoit infecté +de cette farine, je le vouldrois coupper; et si mes enfans en estoient +entachez, je les vouldrois immoler." Voltaire (Hist. du parlement de +Paris, i. 118), citing the substance of this atrocious sentiment from +Maimbourg and Daniel, who themselves take it from Mézeray, says +incredulously: "Je ne sais où ces auteurs ont trouvé que François +premier avait prononcé ce discours abominable." M. Poirson answers by +giving as authority Théodore de Bèze (Hist. ecclés., i. 13). But on +referring to the documentary records from the Hôtel de Ville, among the +<i>pièces justificatives</i> collected by Félibien, v. 346, the reader will +find the speech of Francis inserted at considerable length, and +apparently in very nearly the exact words employed. The contemporary +Cronique du Roy Françoys I<sup>er</sup>, giving the fullest version of the speech +(pp. 121-12), attributes to the king about the same expressions.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_352_352" id="Footnote_352_352"></a><a href="#FNanchor_352_352"><span class="label">[352]</span></a> Histoire ecclés., i. 13.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_353_353" id="Footnote_353_353"></a><a href="#FNanchor_353_353"><span class="label">[353]</span></a> Histoire ecclés., <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_354_354" id="Footnote_354_354"></a><a href="#FNanchor_354_354"><span class="label">[354]</span></a> "Une espèce <i>d'estrapade</i> où l'on attachoit les +criminels, que les bourreaux, par le moyen d'une corde, guindoient en +haut, et les laissoient ensuite tomber dans le feu à diverses reprises, +pour faire durer leur supplice plus longtems." Félibien, ii. 999.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_355_355" id="Footnote_355_355"></a><a href="#FNanchor_355_355"><span class="label">[355]</span></a> Gerdes, Hist. Evang. renov., iv. 109. For the nature of +the penalty, see Bastard D'Estang, Les parlements de France, i. 425, +note on punishments.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_356_356" id="Footnote_356_356"></a><a href="#FNanchor_356_356"><span class="label">[356]</span></a> When John Sturm wrote, March 4th, <i>eighteen</i>—when +Latomus wrote, somewhat later, <i>twenty-four</i>—adherents of the +Reformation had suffered capitally. Bretschneider, Corp. Reform., ii. +855, etc. "Plusieurs aultres héréticques en grant nombre furent après +bruslez à divers jours," says the Cronique du Roy Françoys I<sup>er</sup>, p. 129, +"<i>en sorte que dedans Paris on ne véoit que potences dressées en divers +lieux</i>," etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_357_357" id="Footnote_357_357"></a><a href="#FNanchor_357_357"><span class="label">[357]</span></a> G. Guiffrey, Cronique du Roy Françoys I<sup>er</sup>, 130-132; +Soissons MS. in Bulletin, etc., xi. 253-254. We may recognize, among the +misspelt names, those, for example, of <i>Pierre Caroli</i>, doctor of +theology and parish priest of Alençon, already introduced to our notice; +<i>Jean Retif</i>, a preacher; <i>François Berthault</i> and <i>Jean Courault</i>, +lately associated in preaching the Gospel under the patronage of the +Queen of Navarre; besides the scholar <i>Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples</i>, and +<i>Guillaume Féret</i>, who brought the placards from Switzerland.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_358_358" id="Footnote_358_358"></a><a href="#FNanchor_358_358"><span class="label">[358]</span></a> Under the head of <i>Sacramentarians</i> were included all +who, like Zwingle, denied the bodily presence of Christ in or with the +elements of the eucharist.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_359_359" id="Footnote_359_359"></a><a href="#FNanchor_359_359"><span class="label">[359]</span></a> "De ne lire, dogmatiser, translater, composer ni +imprimer, soit en public ou en privé, aucune doctrine contrariant à la +foy chrétionne." Declaration of Coucy, July 16, 1535, Isambert, Recueil +des anc. lois franç., xii. 405-407. See also a similar declaration, May +31, 1536, ibid., xii. 504.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_360_360" id="Footnote_360_360"></a><a href="#FNanchor_360_360"><span class="label">[360]</span></a> Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, 458, 459.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_361_361" id="Footnote_361_361"></a><a href="#FNanchor_361_361"><span class="label">[361]</span></a> Neantmoins Dieu le créateur, luy estant en ce monde, a +plus usé de miséricorde que de rigueur, et qu'il ne faut aucunes fois +user de rigueur, et que c'est une cruelle mort de faire brusler vif un +homme, dont parce il pourroit plus qu'autrement renoncer la foy et la +loy. Ibid., <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_362_362" id="Footnote_362_362"></a><a href="#FNanchor_362_362"><span class="label">[362]</span></a> "Et le très-crestien et bon roy François premier du nom, +<i>à la prière du pape</i>, pardonna à tous, excepté a ceulx qui avoient +touché à l'honneur du saint sacrement de l'autel." Soissons MS., +Bulletin, xi. 254. Sturm to Melanchthon, July 6, 1535, says: "Pontificem +etiam aiunt æquiorem esse, et haud paulo meliorem quam fuerunt cæteri. +Omnino improbat illam suppliciorum crudelitatem, et <i>de hac re dicitur +misisse [literas ad Regem]</i>." Herminjard, iii. 311. Cf. Erasmus Op., +1513.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_363_363" id="Footnote_363_363"></a><a href="#FNanchor_363_363"><span class="label">[363]</span></a> "Sapendo, <i>come sua Maestà m'ha detto</i>, che Cesare in +Fiandra aveva sospeso ogni esecuzione di morte contro questi eretici, ha +anche egli concesso che contra ogni sorte di eretici si proceda come +avanti, ma <i>citra mortem</i>, eccetto i sacramentarii." Relazione del +clarissimo Marino Giustiniano (1535), Relaz. Venete, i. 155.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_364_364" id="Footnote_364_364"></a><a href="#FNanchor_364_364"><span class="label">[364]</span></a> Francis I. to the German Princes, February 1, 1535, +Bretschneider, Corpus Reform., ii. 828, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_365_365" id="Footnote_365_365"></a><a href="#FNanchor_365_365"><span class="label">[365]</span></a> Sturm to Melanchthon, March 4, 1535, Bretschneider, +Corpus Reform., ii. 855, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_366_366" id="Footnote_366_366"></a><a href="#FNanchor_366_366"><span class="label">[366]</span></a> A letter of Voré is found in Bretschneider, <i>ubi supra</i>, +ii, 859.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_367_367" id="Footnote_367_367"></a><a href="#FNanchor_367_367"><span class="label">[367]</span></a> Melanchthon to Sturm, May 5, 1535, ibid., ii. 873.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_368_368" id="Footnote_368_368"></a><a href="#FNanchor_368_368"><span class="label">[368]</span></a> Ibid., ii. 879. The address was, "Dilecto nostro Philippo +Melanchthoni."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_369_369" id="Footnote_369_369"></a><a href="#FNanchor_369_369"><span class="label">[369]</span></a> "Nihil est quod de vestro congressu non sperem," are +Cardinal du Bellay's words, June 27th. Ibid., ii. 880, 881.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_370_370" id="Footnote_370_370"></a><a href="#FNanchor_370_370"><span class="label">[370]</span></a> Ibid., ii. 904, 905. The university had been temporarily +removed from Wittemberg to Jena, on account of the prevalence of the +plague.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_371_371" id="Footnote_371_371"></a><a href="#FNanchor_371_371"><span class="label">[371]</span></a> Luther to the Elector of Saxony, Aug. 17, 1535, Works +(Ed. Dr. J. K. Innischer), lv. 103.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_372_372" id="Footnote_372_372"></a><a href="#FNanchor_372_372"><span class="label">[372]</span></a> August 28, 1535. The reasons alleged to Francis were, the +injurious rumors the mission might give rise to, and the damage to the +university from Melanchthon's absence. At some future time, the elector +said, he would permit Melanchthon to visit the French king, should his +Majesty still desire him to do so, and present hinderances be removed.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_373_373" id="Footnote_373_373"></a><a href="#FNanchor_373_373"><span class="label">[373]</span></a> "Subindignabundus hinc discessit." Luther to Justus +Jonas, Aug. 19.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_374_374" id="Footnote_374_374"></a><a href="#FNanchor_374_374"><span class="label">[374]</span></a> "Daneben was eurer Person halb, dessgleichen auch in +Sachen des Evangelii für Trost, Hoffnung oder Zuversicht zu dem +Franzosen zu haben, ist wohl zu bedenken, dieweil vormals wenig Treue +oder Glaube von ihm gehalten, wie solches die öffentliche Geschicht +anzeigen." Letter of Aug. 24, 1535. The elector expressed himself at +greater length to his chancellor, Dr. Brück (Pontanus). Such a mission +would appear suspicious when the elector was on the point of having a +conference with the King of Hungary and Bohemia. Melanchthon might make +concessions that Dr. Martin (Luther) and others could not agree to, and +the scandal of division might arise. Besides, he could not believe the +French in earnest; they doubtless only intended to take advantage of +Melanchthon's indecision. For it was to be presumed that those most +active in promoting the affair were "more Erasmian than evangelical +(<i>mehr Erasmisch denn Evangelisch</i>)." Bretschneider, ii. 909, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_375_375" id="Footnote_375_375"></a><a href="#FNanchor_375_375"><span class="label">[375]</span></a> See the three letters, and other interesting +correspondence, Bretschneider, ii. 913, etc. However it may have been +with M., <i>Luther's</i> regret at the elector's refusal was of brief +duration. As early as Sept. 1st he wrote characteristically to Justus +Jonas: "Respecting the French envoys, so general a rumor is now in +circulation, originating with most worthy men, that I have ceased to +wish that Philip should go with them. It is suspected that the true +envoys <i>were murdered on the way, and others sent in their place</i>(!) +with letters by the papists, to entice Philip out. You know that the +Bishops of Maintz, Lüttich, and others, are the worst tools of the +Devil; wherefore I am rather anxious for Philip. I have therefore +written carefully to him. The World is the Devil, and the Devil is the +World." Luther's Works (Ed. Walch), xxi. 1426.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_376_376" id="Footnote_376_376"></a><a href="#FNanchor_376_376"><span class="label">[376]</span></a> That is, including the apocryphal books.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_377_377" id="Footnote_377_377"></a><a href="#FNanchor_377_377"><span class="label">[377]</span></a> "Qui est, Sire," they observe with evident amazement at +the bare suggestion, "demander de nous retirer à eux, plus qu'eux se +convertir à l'Église." The <i>articles</i> having been submitted through Du +Bellay, August 7, 1535, the Faculty's answer was returned on the 30th of +the same month, accompanied by a more elaborate <i>Instructio</i>, the former +in French, the latter in Latin. Both are printed among the <i>Monumenta</i> +of Gerdes, 75-78, and 78-86.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_378_378" id="Footnote_378_378"></a><a href="#FNanchor_378_378"><span class="label">[378]</span></a> Florimond de Ræmond (l. vii. c. 4), and others writers +copying from him, represent Tournon as purposely putting himself in the +king's way with an open volume of St. Irenæus in his hands. Obtaining in +this way his coveted opportunity of portraying the perils arising from +intercourse with heretics, the prelate enforced his precepts by reading +a pretended story related by St. Polycarp, that the Apostle John had on +one occasion hastily left the public bath on perceiving the heretic +Cerinthus within. Soldan (Gesch. des Prot. in Frankreich, i. 163) +sensibly remarks that little account ought to be made of the statements +of a writer who associates Louise de Savoie—in her later days a +notorious enemy of the Reformation, <i>who had at this time been four +years dead</i>—- with her daughter Margaret, in "importuning" the king to +invite Melanchthon.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_379_379" id="Footnote_379_379"></a><a href="#FNanchor_379_379"><span class="label">[379]</span></a> Some years earlier, Du Bellay had, while on an embassy, +set forth his royal master's pretended convictions in favor of the +Reformation with so much verisimilitude as to alarm the papal nuncio, +who dreaded the effect of his speeches upon the Protestants. "Non è +piccola murmoration quì en Corte, ch'l Orator Francese <i>facea più che +l'officio suo richiede in animar Lutherani</i>." Aleander to Sanga, +Ratisbon, July 2, 1532, Vatican MSS., Laemmer, 141.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_380_380" id="Footnote_380_380"></a><a href="#FNanchor_380_380"><span class="label">[380]</span></a> Sleidan, De statu rel. et reipubl., lib. ix., ad annum +1535. The Jesuit Maimbourg rejects the secret conference of Du Bellay as +apocryphal, in view of Francis's persecution of the Protestants at +Paris, and his declaration of January 21st. But Sleidan's statement is +fully substantiated by an extant memorandum by Spalatin, who was present +on the occasion (printed in Seckendorff, Gerdes, iv. 68-73 Doc., and +Bretschneider, ii. 1014). It receives additional confirmation from a +letter of the Nuncio Morone to Pope Paul III., Vienna, Dec. 26, 1536 +(Vatican MSS., Laemmer, 178). Morone received from Doctor Matthias, +Vice-Chancellor of the Empire, an account of Francis's recent offer to +the German Protestants "<i>di condescendere nelle loro opinioni,</i>" on +condition of their renouncing obedience to the emperor. He reserved only +two points of doctrine as requiring discussion: the sacrifice of the +mass, and the authority and primacy of the Pope. The Protestants +rejected the interested proposal of the royal convert.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_381_381" id="Footnote_381_381"></a><a href="#FNanchor_381_381"><span class="label">[381]</span></a> The authorship of this interesting document, and the way +it reached its destination, are equally unknown. It is published—for +the first time, I believe—in Baum, Cunitz, and Reuss, Opera Calvini +(1872), x. part ii. 55, 56.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_382_382" id="Footnote_382_382"></a><a href="#FNanchor_382_382"><span class="label">[382]</span></a> Senatus Argentoratensis Francisco Regi, July 3, 1536, +ibid., x. 57-61.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_383_383" id="Footnote_383_383"></a><a href="#FNanchor_383_383"><span class="label">[383]</span></a> Senatus Turicensis Francisco Regi, July 13, 1536, ibid., +x. 61.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_384_384" id="Footnote_384_384"></a><a href="#FNanchor_384_384"><span class="label">[384]</span></a> Edict of Lyons, May 31, 1536, Herminjard, iv. 192.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_385_385" id="Footnote_385_385"></a><a href="#FNanchor_385_385"><span class="label">[385]</span></a> François I<sup>er</sup> aux Conseils de Zurich, Berne, Bâle et +Strasbourg, Compiègne, Feb. 20, and Feb. 23, 1537, Basle MSS., ibid., +iv. 191-193. Cf. the documents, mostly inedited, iv. 70, 96, 150.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_386_386" id="Footnote_386_386"></a><a href="#FNanchor_386_386"><span class="label">[386]</span></a> Le Conseil de Berne au Conseil de Bâle, March 15, 1537, +ibid., iv. 202, 203, Sleidan (Strasb. ed. of 1555), lib x. fol. 163 +<i>verso</i>. It must, however, be remarked that the "evangelical cities" +would not take the rebuff as decisive, and, within a few months, were +again writing to Francis in behalf of his persecuted subjects of Nismes +and elsewhere. Le Conseil de Berne à François I<sup>er</sup>, Nov. 17, 1537, +Berne MSS., Herminjard, iv. 320.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_387_387" id="Footnote_387_387"></a><a href="#FNanchor_387_387"><span class="label">[387]</span></a> The Protestants might be pardoned, under the +circumstances, if their language was somewhat bitter respecting both +emperor and king. "Combien que j'espère que nostre <i>Antioche</i> (Charles +V.), qui nous presse maintenant, sera serré de si près, <i>qu'il ne luy +souviendra des gouttes</i> de ses mains, ne de ses pieds; <i>car il en aura +par tout le corps</i>. De son compagnon <i>Sardanapalus</i> (Francis I.), <i>Dieu +luy garde la pareille</i>. Car ils sont bien dignes de passer tous deux par +une mesme mesure." Calvin to M. de Falaise, Feb. 25, 1547, Lettres +françaises, i. 191.—The expression "Sardanapalus inter scorta" occurs +in a letter of Calvin to Farel, Feb. 20, 1546 (Bonnet, Letters of John +Calvin, ii., 35, 36). It will, therefore, be seen from the date that +Merle d'Aubignê is mistaken in referring the description to Henry II. +Hist. de la Réf., liv. xii. c. 1.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_388_388" id="Footnote_388_388"></a><a href="#FNanchor_388_388"><span class="label">[388]</span></a> Histoire ecclésiastique, i. 14.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_389_389" id="Footnote_389_389"></a><a href="#FNanchor_389_389"><span class="label">[389]</span></a> Mémoires de Martin du Bellay (Edition Petitot), xviii. +271-273. See also Mignet, Établissement de la réforme religieuse à +Genève, Mém. historiques, ii. 308, etc. Also, Merle d'Aubigné, Hist. of +the Reformation in the Time of Calvin, v. 395, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_390_390" id="Footnote_390_390"></a><a href="#FNanchor_390_390"><span class="label">[390]</span></a> In dedicating to Wolmar his commentary on II. +Corinthians, Calvin deplored the loss sustained in the interruption of +his Greek studies under his old teacher, "manum enim, quæ tua est +humanitas, porrigere non recusasses ad totum stadii decursum, nisi me, +<i>ab ipsis prope carceribus</i>, mors patris revocasset." Upon the basis of +the words here italicized, Merle d'Aubigné builds up a story of outcries +and intrigues of priests (against Calvin) who "did all in their power +<i>to get him put into prison</i>"! Ref. in Time of Calvin, ii. 28. M. +Herminjard observes hereupon that one need not be very thoroughly versed +in Latin or in Roman antiquities to understand Calvin's allusion; and +every classical scholar will sympathize with M. Herminjard when he +expresses, in view of the historian's blunder, "un étonnement +proportionné à la célébrité de l'auteur." Corresp. des réformateurs, ii. +333.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_391_391" id="Footnote_391_391"></a><a href="#FNanchor_391_391"><span class="label">[391]</span></a> See the very sensible remarks of Herminjard, <i>ubi supra</i>, +iii. 202.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_392_392" id="Footnote_392_392"></a><a href="#FNanchor_392_392"><span class="label">[392]</span></a> A. Crottet, Histoire des églises réf. de Pons, Gémozac, +et Mortagne en Saintonge (Bordeaux, 1841), 10-11, and Merle d'Aubigné, +Hist. of the Ref. in the Time of Calvin (Am. ed.), iii. 53, tell the +story without any misgivings, and the latter with characteristic +embellishment. But it rests on the unsupported and slender authority of +Florimond de Ræmond, lib. vii. c. 14, from whose account I cannot even +find that the scene was laid in the caverns.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_393_393" id="Footnote_393_393"></a><a href="#FNanchor_393_393"><span class="label">[393]</span></a> Stähelin (Johannes Calvin, Leben und ausgewählte +Schriften, i. 33) well remarks that what makes this address very +suspicious is the circumstance that a quite similar passage occurs in +Calvin's letter to Sadolet, leading us to the conclusion that we have +here only a "reminiscence" of this much later document.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_394_394" id="Footnote_394_394"></a><a href="#FNanchor_394_394"><span class="label">[394]</span></a> He resigned his chapel of La Gésine and his curacy of +Pont l'Evêque, May 4, 1534. Herminjard, iii. 201.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_395_395" id="Footnote_395_395"></a><a href="#FNanchor_395_395"><span class="label">[395]</span></a> This, and not the persecution at that time raging in +France, is the reason assigned by Calvin himself in the preface to his +commentary on the Psalms, where he tells us that, the very year of his +conversion, seeing "que tous ceux qui avoyent quelque désir de la pure +doctrine se rangeoyent à lui pour apprendre," he began to seek some +hiding-place and means of withdrawing from men. "Et de faict," he adds, +"je veins en Allemagne, de propos délibéré, afin que là je peusse vivre +à requoy en quelque coin incognu." Corresp. des réformateurs, iii. 242, +243. See the same in the Latin ed., Calvini opera (Amsterdam, 1667), +iii. c. 2. This preface is dated Geneva, July 23, 1557.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_396_396" id="Footnote_396_396"></a><a href="#FNanchor_396_396"><span class="label">[396]</span></a> Whether before or after the appearance of the "Placards," +is uncertain. On Calvin's early life, see Beza's Life, already referred +to; the Histoire ecclésiastique; various letters in J. Bonnet's Letters +of Calvin, and Herminjard, Corresp. des réformateurs; Haag, France +protestante; the reformer's life by Paul Henry, D.D., and especially the +scholarly work of Dr. E. Stähelin (2 vols., Elberfeld, 1860-1863).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_397_397" id="Footnote_397_397"></a><a href="#FNanchor_397_397"><span class="label">[397]</span></a> The mooted question whether Calvin wrote the Institutes +originally in Latin or in French—in other words, whether there was a +French edition before the first Latin edition of 1536—has been set at +rest by M. Jules Bonnet, who, in a contribution to the Bulletin de +l'histoire du protestantisme français, vi. (1858) 137-142, establishes +the priority of the Latin. The chief points in the proof are: 1st, the +absence of even a single copy of the supposed French edition of 1535; +2d, Calvin's statement to Francis Daniel, Oct. 13, 1536, "I am kept +continually occupied upon the French version of my little book;" 3d, his +decisive words in the preface to the edition of 1551: "<i>Et premièrement +l'ay mis en latin</i> à ce qu'il pust servir à toutes gens d'estude, de +quelque nation qu'ils fussent; puis après désirant de communiquer ce qui +en pouvoit venir de fruict à nostre nation françoise, <i>l'ay aussy +translaté en nostre langue</i>." See also chap. iii. of Professors Baum, +Cunitz, and Reuss, Introd. to Institution de la religion chrétienne +(Calv. Opera, t. iii.).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_398_398" id="Footnote_398_398"></a><a href="#FNanchor_398_398"><span class="label">[398]</span></a> Opera Calvini (Amst., 1667), t. ix.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_399_399" id="Footnote_399_399"></a><a href="#FNanchor_399_399"><span class="label">[399]</span></a> "La dédicace à François I<sup>er</sup>, qui est peut-étre une des +plus belles choses que possède notre langue." Paul L. Jacob, bibliophile +(Lacroix), "Avertissement" prefixed to Œuvres françaises de Calvin. +The Institutes he designates "ce chef-d'œuvre de science théologique, +de philosophie religieuse et de style." "Here," says Henri van Laun, +"was a force and concision of language never before heard in France.... +The influence of Calvin's writings upon the style of his successors, and +upon the literary development of his country, cannot easily be +over-estimated. With him French prose may be said to have attained its +manhood; the best of his contemporaries, and of those who had preceded +him, did but use as a staff or as a toy that which he employed as a +burning sword." History of French Literature (New York, 1876), i. 338, +339.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_400_400" id="Footnote_400_400"></a><a href="#FNanchor_400_400"><span class="label">[400]</span></a> Yet it is more probable, as Stähelin suggests (Joh. +Calvin, ii. 93), that the classical associations of Italy drew him to +the peninsula, which was at that time the home of art, than that his +fame, having already penetrated to Ferrara, procured him a direct +invitation from Renée to visit her.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_401_401" id="Footnote_401_401"></a><a href="#FNanchor_401_401"><span class="label">[401]</span></a> Showing, according to Brantôme, "en son visage et en sa +parole qu'elle estoit bien <i>fille du Roy et de France</i>." Dames +illustres, Renée de France.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_402_402" id="Footnote_402_402"></a><a href="#FNanchor_402_402"><span class="label">[402]</span></a> See the pompous ceremonial on this occasion and the +epithalamium of Clément Marot, in Cronique du Roy François I<sup>er</sup> (G. +Guiffrey, 1860), 68-73.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_403_403" id="Footnote_403_403"></a><a href="#FNanchor_403_403"><span class="label">[403]</span></a> Dames illustres, <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_404_404" id="Footnote_404_404"></a><a href="#FNanchor_404_404"><span class="label">[404]</span></a> "Que voulez-vous? Ce sont des pauvres François de ma +maison; et <i>lesquels si Dieu m'eust donné barbe au menton</i> et que je +fusse homme, <i>seroient maintenant tous mes sujets</i>. Voire me +seroient-ils tels, <i>si cette meschante Loy Salicque ne me tenoit trop de +rigueur</i>." Ibid., <i>ubi supra</i>. A readable account of the life of this +remarkable woman is given in "Some Memorials of Renée of France, Duchess +of Ferrara" (2d edit., London, 1859), a volume enriched, to some extent, +with letters drawn from the Paris National Library, and from less +accessible collections in Great Britain.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_405_405" id="Footnote_405_405"></a><a href="#FNanchor_405_405"><span class="label">[405]</span></a> Possibly including the wonderfully precocious child, +Olympia Morata. See M. Jules Bonnet's monograph, Vie d'Olympia Morata, +épisode de la Renaissance et de la Réforme en Italie. Stähelin has well +traced Calvin's religious influence upon Renée and the important family +of Soubise. Joh. Calvin, i. 94-110. The extant letters of Calvin to +Renée are full of manly and Christian frankness, and affectionate +loyalty. Lettres françaises, i. 428, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_406_406" id="Footnote_406_406"></a><a href="#FNanchor_406_406"><span class="label">[406]</span></a> Stähelin is skeptical about, and Prof. Billiet and M. +Douen reject altogether the story of Calvin's labors at Aosta. Thus much +M. Bonnet believes to be established by concurrent MS. and traditional +authority: That, early in the year 1536, Calvin had succeeded in gaining +over to the reformed doctrines a number of influential men in this +Alpine valley, of the families of La Creste, La Visière, Vaudan, +Borgnion, etc.; that he and his converts were accused of plotting to +induce the district to embrace Protestantism, and imitate the example of +its Swiss neighbors, by constituting itself a canton, free of the Duke +of Savoy; that the estates, on the 28th of February, 1536, declared +their intention (with a unanimity procured, perhaps, by the expulsion of +the opposite party) to live and die in the obedience of the Duke of +Savoy and of mother Holy Church; that Calvin and his principal adherents +escaped with difficultly into Switzerland; and that expiatory +processions were instituted at Aosta, in token of gratitude for +deliverance from heresy, in which the bishop and the most prominent +noblemen, as well as the common people, "walked with bare feet and in +sackcloth and ashes, notwithstanding the rigor of the season." Tradition +still points out the "<i>farm-house</i> of Calvin," his "<i>bridge</i>," and the +<i>window</i> by which he is said to have escaped. The event is commemorated +by a monument of the market-place, bearing an inscription that testifies +to its having been erected in 1541, and renewed in 1741 and 1841. See +the interesting Aostan documents contributed by M. Bonnet to the +Bulletin de l'hist. du protest. français, ix. (1860) 160-168, and his +letter to Prof. Rilliet, ibid., xiii. (1864) 183-192.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_407_407" id="Footnote_407_407"></a><a href="#FNanchor_407_407"><span class="label">[407]</span></a> This is Calvin's distinct statement: "quum rectum iter +Argentoratum tendenti bella clausissent, hac (Geneva) celeriter transire +statueram, ut <i>non longior quam unius noctis moræ</i> in urbe mihi foret." +Calvin, Preface to Psalms.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_408_408" id="Footnote_408_408"></a><a href="#FNanchor_408_408"><span class="label">[408]</span></a> "Unus homo, qui nunc turpi defectione iterum ad Papistas +rediit, statim fecit ut innotescerem." Ibid., <i>ubi supra</i>. Consequently +Beza, in his Latin Life of Calvin, is mistaken when he asserts: "eos +[sc. Farel and Viret] igitur quum, ut inter bonos fieri solet, Calvinus +transiens invisisset," etc.; for it was Farel that sought <i>him</i> out, on +Du Tillet's information.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_409_409" id="Footnote_409_409"></a><a href="#FNanchor_409_409"><span class="label">[409]</span></a> Calvin, in the preface to the Psalms already quoted, +says: "Genevæ non tam <i>consilio</i>, vel <i>hortatu</i>, quam <i>formidabili</i> +Gulielmi Farelli <i>obtestatione</i> retentus sum, <i>ac si Deus violentam mihi +e cœlo manum injiceret</i>. Et quum privatis et occultis studiis me +intelligeret esse deditum, ubi se vidit <i>rogando</i> nihil proficere, +<i>usque ad maledictionem descendit, ut Deus otio meo malediceret, si me a +ferendis subsidiis in tanta necessitate subducerem. Quo terrore +perculsus</i> susceptum iter ita omisi," etc.—Beza throws these words into +Farel's mouth: "At ego tibi, inquit, studia tua praetextenti denuntio +Omnipotentis Dei nomine, futurum ut nisi in opus istud Domini nobiscum +incumbas, tibi non tam Christum quam teipsum quærenti Dominus +maledicat." Vita Calvini (Op. Calv., Amst. 1661, tom. i).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_410_410" id="Footnote_410_410"></a><a href="#FNanchor_410_410"><span class="label">[410]</span></a> This interesting letter, dated Neufchâtel, June 6, 1564, +was communicated by M. Herminjard to the editor of the fine edition of +Farel's <i>Du Vray Usage de la Croix</i>, printed by J. G. Fick, Geneva, +1865, who gives it entire, pp. 314, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_411_411" id="Footnote_411_411"></a><a href="#FNanchor_411_411"><span class="label">[411]</span></a> "Sane non possum de aliis aliud sentire quam quod de me +statuo." Farel to Calvin, Sept. 8, 1553, Calv. Opera, ix. (Epistolæ), +71.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_412_412" id="Footnote_412_412"></a><a href="#FNanchor_412_412"><span class="label">[412]</span></a> Declaration pour maintenir la vraye foy que tiennent tous +chrestiens de la Trinité des personnes en un seul Dieu. Par Jean Calvin. +Contre les erreurs detestables de Michel Servet Espaignol. Où il est +aussi monstré, qu'il est licite de punir les heretiques: et qu'à bon +droict ce meschant a esté executé par justice en la ville de Genève. +1554.—In this famous little book the author classifies doctrinal errors +according to their gravity. Slight superstitions and the ignorance into +which simple folk have fallen, are to be borne with till God reveal the +truth to them. Offences of greater magnitude, because injurious to the +church, should be visited with mild penalties. "But when malicious +spirits attempt to overthrow the foundations of religion, utter +execrable blasphemies against God, and disseminate damnable speeches, +like deadly poison, to drag souls to perdition—in short, engage in +schemes to cause the people to revolt from the pure doctrine of +God—then it is necessary to have recourse to the extreme remedy, so +that the evil may not spread farther" (pp. 48, 49).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_413_413" id="Footnote_413_413"></a><a href="#FNanchor_413_413"><span class="label">[413]</span></a> See Calvin to C. and T. Zollicoffre, March 28, and the +same to Peloquin and De Marsac, Aug. 22, 1553. Servetus was burned Oct. +27.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_414_414" id="Footnote_414_414"></a><a href="#FNanchor_414_414"><span class="label">[414]</span></a> Two months before the execution Calvin wrote to Farel, +Aug. 20, 1553: "Spero capitale saltem fore judicium <i>pœnæ vero +atrocitatem remitti cupio</i>;" and on the 26th of October, he again wrote, +"<i>Genus mortis conati sumus mutare</i>, sed <i>frustra</i>. Cur non +profecerimus, coram narrandum differo." Calv. Opera, ix. 70, 71. As it +is thus in evidence not only that Calvin <i>did not burn</i> Servetus, but +<i>desired him not to be burned</i>, and made an ineffectual attempt <i>to +rescue him from the flames</i>, we might anticipate for the stale calumny a +speedy end, were not the tenacity of life characterizing such inventions +so notorious as to have passed into a proverb.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_415_415" id="Footnote_415_415"></a><a href="#FNanchor_415_415"><span class="label">[415]</span></a> Melanchthon, for example, after expressing his entire +satisfaction with Calvin's treatise, and his conviction that the church +both now and hereafter owes and will owe him gratitude for it, adds: +"Affirmo etiam, vestros magistratus <i>juste fecisse, quod hominem +blasphemum</i>, re ordine judicata, <i>interfecerunt</i>." Mel. to Calvin, Oct. +14, 1554, Opera (Bretschneider), viii. 362.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_416_416" id="Footnote_416_416"></a><a href="#FNanchor_416_416"><span class="label">[416]</span></a> Laborie, one of the heroic "five," sending from prison an +account of his examination, states that, when one of his judges asked +him whether he did not know that God had by Moses sanctioned the +punishment of heretics, he freely admitted it: "Hæreticos certe +puniendos <i>facile concessi</i>, et in exemplum proposui <i>impurum illum +canem Servetum</i>, qui Genevæ ultimo supplicio affectus fuit: verum sedulo +caverent, <i>ne in Christianos et Dei filios</i> velut hæreticos +animadvertant," etc. Letter in Crespin, Actiones et Monimenta Martyrum +(Genevæ, 1560), fol. 291.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_417_417" id="Footnote_417_417"></a><a href="#FNanchor_417_417"><span class="label">[417]</span></a> "Ego qui natura timido, molli et pusillo animo esse +fateor." Preface to the Psalms.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_418_418" id="Footnote_418_418"></a><a href="#FNanchor_418_418"><span class="label">[418]</span></a> "Porro, an propositum esset mihi famam aucupari, patuit +ex brevi discessu, præsertim quum nemo illic sciverit me authorem esse." +Ibid.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_419_419" id="Footnote_419_419"></a><a href="#FNanchor_419_419"><span class="label">[419]</span></a> "Me tamen non tanta sustinnit magnanimitas, quin +turbulenta ejectione plus quam deceret lætatus sim." Ibid.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_420_420" id="Footnote_420_420"></a><a href="#FNanchor_420_420"><span class="label">[420]</span></a> "Præstantissimus Christi minister, M. Bucerus me iterum +simili qua usus fuerat Farellus, obsecratione, ad novam stationem +retraxit. Jonæ itaque exemplo, quod proposuerat, territus," etc. Ibid.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_421_421" id="Footnote_421_421"></a><a href="#FNanchor_421_421"><span class="label">[421]</span></a> "La difficulté est," he writes to M. de Falaise, April, +1546, "des fascheries et rompemens de teste qui interviennent, pour +<i>interrompre vingt fois une lettre</i>, ou encore d'advantaige." He adds +(and the details are interesting) that, although his general health is +good, "je suis tormenté sans cesse d'une doleur qui <i>ne me souffre quasi +rien faire</i>. Car oultre les <i>sermons et lectures</i>, il y a desjà un mois +que <i>je n'ay guères faict</i>, tellement que j'ay presque honte <i>de vivre +arnsi inutile</i>." Lettres françaises, i. 141, 142. Many a scholar of his +day, or of ours, would consider a week of <i>health</i> well occupied with +the preparation and delivery of two sermons and three theological +lectures.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_422_422" id="Footnote_422_422"></a><a href="#FNanchor_422_422"><span class="label">[422]</span></a> "Ginevra ... che è la minera di questa sorte di metallo." +Relazione di M. Suriano, 1561. Relations des Amb. Vénitiens, i. 528.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_423_423" id="Footnote_423_423"></a><a href="#FNanchor_423_423"><span class="label">[423]</span></a> This period of his life was referred to by him in his +last address to the body of his colleagues: "J'ay vescu içy en combats +merveilleux; j'ay esté salué par mocquerie le soir devant ma porte de 50 +ou 60 coups d'arquebute. Que pensez-vous que cela pouvoit estonner un +pauvre escholier, timide comme je suis, et comme je l'ay toujours esté, +je le confesse?... On m'a mis les chiens à ma queue, criant <i>hère, +hère</i>, et m'ont prins par la robbe et par les jambes." Adieux de Calvin, +<i>apud</i> Bonnet, Lettres françaises, ii. 575.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_424_424" id="Footnote_424_424"></a><a href="#FNanchor_424_424"><span class="label">[424]</span></a> "This sacrifice," M. Gaberel forcibly observes, "has +scarcely a parallel in history. Men willingly consent to make the +greatest efforts, to perform the most painful acts of self-denial, with +the aim of saving their country. Formerly the Genevese suffered unto +death to preserve their independence. Now the same unselfish spirit is +demanded of them in ordinary times that they exhibited in evil days. +And, if the people accepts the 'Ordinances,' it is because it has +narrowly scanned the slavery to which that moral license was leading it, +which Rome authorizes in order to confiscate all other liberties. It +accepts the 'Ordinances' because it has just escaped the treacherous +machinations, the servitude prepared for it by men whose principle is to +go just as their own heart leads them.... Strengthened by this vote, +Calvin can henceforth hope to succeed in his project, and make of Geneva +the Protestant metropolis, bearing as its motto, 'Holiness to the +Lord.'" Histoire de l'église de Genève, i. 346, 347.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_425_425" id="Footnote_425_425"></a><a href="#FNanchor_425_425"><span class="label">[425]</span></a> Recherches de la France (ed. of 1621), p. 769. Giovanni +Michiel, in 1561, told the Doge of Venice: "Nè potria vostra Serenità +creder l'intelligenza e le pratiche grandi che ha nel regno il principal +ministro di Genevra che chiamano il Calvino, Francese e Picardo di +nazione, uomo di estraordinaria autorità, per la vita, per la dottrina, +e per i scritti appresso tutti quelli di questa sette." Rel. des Amb. +Vén., i. 415.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_426_426" id="Footnote_426_426"></a><a href="#FNanchor_426_426"><span class="label">[426]</span></a> Histoire ecclésiastique, i. 13-17; Crespin, Actiones et +Monimenta (Geneva, 1560), fol. 65, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_427_427" id="Footnote_427_427"></a><a href="#FNanchor_427_427"><span class="label">[427]</span></a> Histoire ecclésiastique, i. 15.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_428_428" id="Footnote_428_428"></a><a href="#FNanchor_428_428"><span class="label">[428]</span></a> "En manèire que pensions nostredit royaume en estre purgé +du tout et nettoyé," Francis is made to say in the Edict of +Fontainebleau. Isambert, Recueil des anciennes lois françaises, xii. +677, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_429_429" id="Footnote_429_429"></a><a href="#FNanchor_429_429"><span class="label">[429]</span></a> "Tellement qu'il est fort à douter que les nouveaux +erreurs soient pires que les premiers." Ibid., xii. 677.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_430_430" id="Footnote_430_430"></a><a href="#FNanchor_430_430"><span class="label">[430]</span></a> "Plusieurs gros personnages, qui secrettement les +recèlent, supportent et favorisent en leurs fausses doctrines, leur +aydans et subvenans de leurs biens, de lieux, et de places secrettes et +occultes, èsquelles ils retirent leurs sectateurs, pour les instruire +èsdites erreurs et infections." Ibid., xii. 677.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_431_431" id="Footnote_431_431"></a><a href="#FNanchor_431_431"><span class="label">[431]</span></a> "Attendu que tels erreurs et fausses doctrines +contiennent en soy crime de lèze majesté divine et humaine, sédition du +peuple, et perturbation de nostre estat et repos public." Ibid., xii. +680.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_432_432" id="Footnote_432_432"></a><a href="#FNanchor_432_432"><span class="label">[432]</span></a> "Mais tantost et incontinent qu'ils en seront advertis, +les révéler à justice, et de tout leur pouvoir aider à les extirper, +<i>comme un chacun doit courir à esteindre le feu public</i>." Ibid., xii. +680.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_433_433" id="Footnote_433_433"></a><a href="#FNanchor_433_433"><span class="label">[433]</span></a> President Louis Caillaud to the chancellor (Antoine Du +Bourg), Oct. 22, 1538. Musée des archives nationales; Documents orig. +exposés dans l'Hotel Soubise (Paris, 1872), 347.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_434_434" id="Footnote_434_434"></a><a href="#FNanchor_434_434"><span class="label">[434]</span></a> Among others, two "Lutherans," otherwise unknown to us, +whose execution a young German student, Eustathius de Knobelsdorf, +witnessed on the Place Maubert, and described in a letter to George +Cassander, professor at Bruges, like himself a Roman Catholic. One of +the "Lutherans," a beardless youth of scarcely twenty years, the son of +a shoemaker, after having his tongue cut out and his head smeared with +sulphur, far from showing marks of terror, signified, by a motion to the +executioner, his perfect willingness to meet death. "I doubt, my dear +Cassander," writes De Knobelsdorf, "whether those celebrated +philosophers, who have written so many books on the contempt of death, +would have endured so cruel tortures with such constancy. So far did +this youth seem to be raised above what is of man." Letter of July 10, +1542. Translated in Bulletin, vi. (1858), 420-423; and Baum, Theodor +Beza, i. 52-55.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_435_435" id="Footnote_435_435"></a><a href="#FNanchor_435_435"><span class="label">[435]</span></a> "En sorte que la justice, punition, correction, et +démonstration en soit faite telle et si griefve, que ce puisse estre +perpétuel exemple à tous autres."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_436_436" id="Footnote_436_436"></a><a href="#FNanchor_436_436"><span class="label">[436]</span></a> Isambert, Recueil des anciennes lois françaises, xii. +785-787.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_437_437" id="Footnote_437_437"></a><a href="#FNanchor_437_437"><span class="label">[437]</span></a> "Lui a dit qu'il voulait qu'aucun sacramentaire ne fût +admis à abjurer, ains fût puni de mort." Reg. secr. du Parl. de +Bordeaux, July 7, 1543, Boscheron des Portes, i. 47, 48.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_438_438" id="Footnote_438_438"></a><a href="#FNanchor_438_438"><span class="label">[438]</span></a> "Conspirateurs occultes contre la prospérité de nostre +estat, dépendant principalement et en bonne partie de la conservation de +l'intégrité de la foy catholique en nostredit royaume, rebelles et +désobéyssans a nous et à nostre justice." Recueil des anc. lois +françaises, xii. 819.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_439_439" id="Footnote_439_439"></a><a href="#FNanchor_439_439"><span class="label">[439]</span></a> Ibid., xii. 820.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_440_440" id="Footnote_440_440"></a><a href="#FNanchor_440_440"><span class="label">[440]</span></a> The preamble of the royal letters giving execution to the +Twenty-five Articles of the Sorbonne mentions as a moving cause +"plusieurs scandales et schismes par cy devant intervenus, et mesmement +en cest advent de Noel dernier passé, par le moyen et à l'occasion de +contentions, contradictions et altercations de certain prédicateurs +preschans et publians divers et contraires doctrines." Recueil des anc. +lois françaises, xii. 820.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_441_441" id="Footnote_441_441"></a><a href="#FNanchor_441_441"><span class="label">[441]</span></a> Recueil des anc. lois franç., xii. 821-825. Among other +recommendations appended to the articles, was the following somewhat +interesting one, designed to correct the irreverence of the age: "Quand +il vient à propos d'alleguer le nom des saincts apostres et évangelistes +ou saincts docteurs, qu'ils <i>n'ayent à les nommer par leurs norm +simplement</i>, sans aucune préface d'honneur, <i>comme ont accoustumé dire, +'Paul,' 'Jacques,' 'Mathieu,' 'Pierre,' 'Hiérosme,' 'Augustin</i>,' etc. Et +ne leur doit estre grief adjouster et préposer le nom de 'sainct,' en +disant, 'sainct Pierre,' 'sainct Paul,' etc.!"</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_442_442" id="Footnote_442_442"></a><a href="#FNanchor_442_442"><span class="label">[442]</span></a> Ibid., xii. 820. In answer to these Articles, Calvin +wrote his "Antidote aux articles de la faculté Sorbonique de Paris."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_443_443" id="Footnote_443_443"></a><a href="#FNanchor_443_443"><span class="label">[443]</span></a> Ory, Oriz, or Oritz, as his name was indifferently +written, was a prominent character in subsequent scenes of blood, and +was, as we may hereafter see, the agent employed by Henry II. to cajole, +or frighten his aunt, Renée, and bring her back into the bosom of the +Roman Church. The letters-patent giving this personage, who is styled +"doctor of theology and prior of the preaching friars (Dominicans) of +Paris," authority to exercise the functions of inquisitor of the faith +throughout the kingdom, in place of Valentin Lievin, deceased, are of +May 30, 1536, Recueil des anc. lois fr., xii. 503. Similar letters were +issued April 10, 1540. His confirmation by Henry II., June 22, 1550, +ibid., xiii. 173.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_444_444" id="Footnote_444_444"></a><a href="#FNanchor_444_444"><span class="label">[444]</span></a> Histoire ecclésiastique, i. 13. It is, in fact, an +interesting circumstance that Rocheli, or Rochetti, the deputy +inquisitor referred to in the text, not long after became a convert to +Protestantism, and applied himself to preaching the doctrines he had +once labored to overturn.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_445_445" id="Footnote_445_445"></a><a href="#FNanchor_445_445"><span class="label">[445]</span></a> The first, entitled "Epistolæ duæ; prima de fugiendis +impiorum illicitis sacris et puritate Christianæ religionis; secunda de +Christiani hominis officio in sacerdotiis papalis ecclesiæ vel +administrandis vel abjiciendis," 1537. The second, "Contre la secte +fantastique et furieuse des Libertins qui se disent spirituels," 1544. +The latter, from its pointed reference to Quintin and Pocquet, two +notorious leaders, seems to have given offence to Margaret of Navarre, +by whom they had been harbored in ignorance of their true character. A +letter written to the queen by Calvin immediately upon learning this, +April 28, 1545 (Bonnet, Lettres françaises, i. 111-117), is at once one +of the best examples of his nervous French style, and a fine +illustration of manly courage tempered with respect for a princess who +had deserved well of Protestantism. A single sentence admirably portrays +his attitude toward the formidable sect which had so devastated the Low +Countries and had now entered France in the persons of two of its worst +apostles—a sect regarded by him as more pernicious and execrable than +any previously existing: "Un chien abaye, s'il voit qu'on assaille son +maistre; je seroys bien lasche, si en voyant la vérité de Dieu ainsi +assaillie, je faisoys du muet sans sonner mot."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_446_446" id="Footnote_446_446"></a><a href="#FNanchor_446_446"><span class="label">[446]</span></a> "A exhorté et prié la cour de vouloir faire punir et +brûler les vrais hérétiques," etc. Reg. du Parl., May 24, 1543, +Boscheron des Portes, Hist. du parlement de Bordeaux, i. 63.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_447_447" id="Footnote_447_447"></a><a href="#FNanchor_447_447"><span class="label">[447]</span></a> "Réclame son privilége de fille de France écrit dans un +livre qui est à Saint Denis, de faire ouvrir les prisons," etc. Ibid., +<i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_448_448" id="Footnote_448_448"></a><a href="#FNanchor_448_448"><span class="label">[448]</span></a> The text of this singular document, dated Rheims, Sept. +8, 1543, is in Gerdes., Hist. Reform., iv. (Monumenta) 107-109. When the +"Instructions" fell into the hands of Charles V., he naturally tried to +make capital of a paper so little calculated to please Roman Catholics, +emanating from a son of the "Most Christian king." And Francis thought +himself compelled to clear himself from the charge of lukewarmness in +the faith, if not of actual heretical bias, by exercising fresh +severities upon the devoted Protestants of his own dominions.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_449_449" id="Footnote_449_449"></a><a href="#FNanchor_449_449"><span class="label">[449]</span></a> This was true particularly of the wealthy noble family to +whom belonged the fief of Cental, perhaps at a somewhat later date. +Among the Waldensian villages owned by it were those of La Motte +d'Aigues, St. Martin, Lourmarin, Peypin, and others in the same +vicinity. Bouche, Histoire de Provence, i. 610.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_450_450" id="Footnote_450_450"></a><a href="#FNanchor_450_450"><span class="label">[450]</span></a> Crespin, Actiones et Monimenta (Geneva, 1560), fols. 88, +90, 100.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_451_451" id="Footnote_451_451"></a><a href="#FNanchor_451_451"><span class="label">[451]</span></a> Ibid., <i>ubi supra</i>, fol. 100; Garnier, Histoire de +France, xxvi. 27.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_452_452" id="Footnote_452_452"></a><a href="#FNanchor_452_452"><span class="label">[452]</span></a> Leber, Collection de pièces rel. à l'hist. de France, +xvii. 550.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_453_453" id="Footnote_453_453"></a><a href="#FNanchor_453_453"><span class="label">[453]</span></a> The Comtât Venaissin was not reincorporated in the French +monarchy until 1663. Louis XIV., in revenge for the insult offered him +when, on the twentieth of August of the preceding year, his ambassador +to the Holy See was shot at by the pontifical troops, and some of his +suite killed and wounded, ordered the Parliament of Aix to re-examine +the title by which the Pope held Avignon and the Comtât. The parliament +cited the pontiff, and, when he failed to appear, loyally declared his +title unsound, and, under the lead of their first president (another +Meynier, Baron d'Oppède), proceeded at once to execute sentence by force +of arms, and oust the surprised vice-legate. No resistance was +attempted. Meynier was the first to render homage to the king for his +barony; and the people of Avignon, according to the admission of the +devout historian of Provence, celebrated their independence of the Pope +and reunion to France by Te Deums and a thousand cries of joy and +thanksgiving to Almighty God. Bouche, Histoire de Provence, ii. (Add.) +1068-1071.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_454_454" id="Footnote_454_454"></a><a href="#FNanchor_454_454"><span class="label">[454]</span></a> "Ministri, quos <i>Barbas</i> eorum idiomate id est, +<i>avunculos</i>, vocabant." Crespin, fol. 88.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_455_455" id="Footnote_455_455"></a><a href="#FNanchor_455_455"><span class="label">[455]</span></a> The Histoire ecclésiastique, i. 22, while admitting that +the Vaudois "had never adhered to papal superstition," asserts that "par +longue succession de temps, la pureté de la doctrine s'estoit grandement +abastardie." From the letter of Morel and Masson to Œcolampadius, it +appears that, in consequence of their subject condition, they had formed +no church organization. Their <i>Barbes</i>, who were carefully selected and +ordained only after long probation, could not marry. They were sent out +two by two, the younger owing implicit obedience to the elder. Every +part of the extensive territory over which their communities were +scattered was visited at least once a year. Pastors, unless aged, +remained no longer than three years in one place. While supported in +part by the laity, they were compelled to engage in manual labor to such +an extent as to interfere much with their spiritual office and preclude +the study that was desirable. The most objectionable feature in their +practice was that they did not themselves administer the Lord's Supper, +but, while recommending to their flock to discard the superstitions +environing the mass, enjoined upon them the reception of the eucharist +at the hands of those whom they themselves regarded as the "members of +Antichrist." Œcolampadius, while approving their confession of faith +and the chief points of their polity, strenuously exhorted them to +renounce all hypocritical conformity with the Roman Church, induced by +fear of persecution, and strongly urged them to put an end to the +celibacy and itinerancy of their clergy, and to discontinue the +"sisterhoods" that had arisen among them. The important letters of the +Waldensee delegates and of Œcolampadius are printed in Gerdes., Hist. +Evang. Renov., ii. 402-418. An interesting account of the mission is +given by Hagenbach, Johann Oekolampad und Oswald Myconius, 150, 151.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_456_456" id="Footnote_456_456"></a><a href="#FNanchor_456_456"><span class="label">[456]</span></a> Crespin, fol. 89; Hist. ecclés., i. 22; Herminjard, iii. +66.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_457_457" id="Footnote_457_457"></a><a href="#FNanchor_457_457"><span class="label">[457]</span></a> Printed at Neufchâtel, by the famous Pierre de Wringle, +<i>dit</i> Pirot Picard; completed, according to the colophon, June 4, 1535. +The Waldenses having determined upon its publication at the Synod of +Angrogna, in 1532, collected the sum, enormous for them, of 500 (others +say 1,500) gold crowns. Adam (Antoine Saunier) to Farel, Nov. 5, 1532, +Herminjard, ii. 452. Monastier, Hist. de l'église vaudoise, i. 212. The +part taken by the Waldenses in this publication is attested beyond +dispute by ten lines of rather indifferent poetry, in the form of an +address to the reader, at the close of the volume: +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Lecteur entendz, si Vérité addresse,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Viens done ouyr instamment sa promesse<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Et vif parler: lequel en excellence<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Veult asseurer nostre grelle espérance.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">L'esprit Jésus qui visite et ordonne.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Noz tendres meurs, icy sans cry estonne<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tout hault raillart escumant son ordure.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Remercions eternelle nature,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Prenons vouloir bienfaire librement,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Jésus querons veoir eternellement."<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p> +Taking the first letter of each successive word, we obtain the lines: +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"<i>Les Vaudois, peuple évangélique</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Ont mis ce thrésor en publique</i>."<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p> +See L. Vulliemin, Le Chroniqueur, Recueil historique (Lausanne, 1836), +103, etc. Bulletin de l'hist. du prot. français, i. 82.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_458_458" id="Footnote_458_458"></a><a href="#FNanchor_458_458"><span class="label">[458]</span></a> "D'un commun accord," says an able critic, "on a mis +Calvin à la tête de tous nos écrivains en prose; personne n'a songé à +méconnaître les obligations que lui a notre langue. D'où vient qu'on a +été moins juste envers Robert Olivetan, tandis qu'à y regarder de près, +il y a tout lieu de croire que sa part a été au moins égale à celle de +Calvin dans la réformation de la langue? L'<i>Institution</i> de Calvin a eu +un très-grand nombre de lecteurs; mais il n'est pas probable qu'elle ait +été lue et relue comme la <i>Bible</i> d'Olivetan." Le Semeur, iv. (1835), +167. By successive revisions this Bible became that of Martin, of +Osterwald, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_459_459" id="Footnote_459_459"></a><a href="#FNanchor_459_459"><span class="label">[459]</span></a> Sleidan (Fr. trans. of Courrayer), ii. 251, who remarks +of this charge of rebellion, "C'est l'accusation qu'on intente +maintenant le plus communément, et qui a quelque chose de plus odieux +que véritable."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_460_460" id="Footnote_460_460"></a><a href="#FNanchor_460_460"><span class="label">[460]</span></a> Professor Jean Montaigne, writing from Avignon, as early +as May 6, 1533, said: "Valdenses, qui Lutheri sectam jamdiu sequuntur +istic male tractantur. <i>Plures jam vivi combusti fuerunt, et quotidie +capiuntur aliqui</i>; sunt enim, ut fertur, illius sectæ plus quam <i>sex +millia</i> hominum. Impingitur eis quod non credant <i>purgatorium</i> esse, +quod non orent <i>Sanctos</i>, imo dicant non esse orandos, teneant <i>decimas</i> +non esse solvendas presbyteris, et alia quædam id genus. <i>Propter quæ +sola vivos comburunt, bona publicant.</i>" Basle MS., Herminjard, iii. 45.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_461_461" id="Footnote_461_461"></a><a href="#FNanchor_461_461"><span class="label">[461]</span></a> Crespin and the Hist. ecclés. place De Roma's exploits +<i>before</i>, De Thou relates them <i>after</i> the massacre. As to the +surpassing and shameless immorality of the ecclesiastics of Avignon, it +is quite sufficient to refer to Crespin, ubi supra, fol. 97, etc., and +to the autobiography of François Lambert, who is a good witness, as he +had himself been an inmate of a monastery in that city.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_462_462" id="Footnote_462_462"></a><a href="#FNanchor_462_462"><span class="label">[462]</span></a> Crespin, fol. 103, b.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_463_463" id="Footnote_463_463"></a><a href="#FNanchor_463_463"><span class="label">[463]</span></a> The Parliament of Provence, with its seat at Aix, was +instituted in 1501, and was consequently posterior in date and inferior +in dignity to the parliaments of Paris, Toulouse, Grenoble, Bordeaux, +Dijon, and Rouen.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_464_464" id="Footnote_464_464"></a><a href="#FNanchor_464_464"><span class="label">[464]</span></a> By royal letters of July 16, 1535, and May 31, 1536. +Histoire ecclés., i. 23.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_465_465" id="Footnote_465_465"></a><a href="#FNanchor_465_465"><span class="label">[465]</span></a> There is even greater discrepancy than usual between the +different authorities respecting the number of Waldenses cited and +subsequently condemned to the stake. Crespin, fol. 90, gives the <i>names</i> +of <i>ten</i>, the royal letters of 1549 state the number as <i>fourteen</i> or +<i>fifteen</i>, the Histoire ecclésiastique as <i>fifteen</i> or <i>sixteen</i>. M. +Nicolaï (Leber, Coll. de pièces rel. à l'hist. de France, viii. 552) +raises it to nineteen, which seems to be correct.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_466_466" id="Footnote_466_466"></a><a href="#FNanchor_466_466"><span class="label">[466]</span></a> Histoire ecclés., i. 23; Crespin, Actiones et Monimenta, +fol. 90; De Thou, i. 536; Nicolaï, <i>ubi supra</i>; Recueil des anc. lois +françaises, xii. 698. See the <i>arrêt</i> in Bouche, Hist. de Provence, <i>ubi +supra</i>. The last-mentioned author, while admitting the proceedings of +the Parliament of Aix to be apparently "somewhat too violent," excuses +them on the ground that the Waldenses deserved this punishment, "non +tant par leurs insolences et impiétez cy-devant commises, mais <i>pour +leur obstination à ne vouloir changer de religion</i>;" and cites, in +exculpation of the parliament, the "bloody order of Gastaldo," in +consequence of which, in 1655, fire, sword, and rapine were carried into +the peaceful valley of Luserna (ibid., 615, 623)! The massacre of the +unhappy Italian Waldenses thus becomes a capital vindication of the +barbarities inflicted a century before upon their French brethren.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_467_467" id="Footnote_467_467"></a><a href="#FNanchor_467_467"><span class="label">[467]</span></a> See the remark of M. Nicolaï (Leber, Coll. de pièces rel. +à l'hist. de France, viii. 556).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_468_468" id="Footnote_468_468"></a><a href="#FNanchor_468_468"><span class="label">[468]</span></a> Crespin (fols. 91-94) gives an interesting report of some +discussions of the kind. It may be remarked that the Archbishop of Aix, +who was the prime mover in the persecution, had exposed himself to +unusual censure on the score of irregularity of life.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_469_469" id="Footnote_469_469"></a><a href="#FNanchor_469_469"><span class="label">[469]</span></a> The remark is ascribed to Chassanée: "itaque decretum +ipsi tale fecissent, eo consilio factum potius, ut Lutheranis, quorum +multitudinem augeri quotidie intelligebant, metus incuteretur, quam ut +revera id efficeretur quod ipsius decreti capitibus continebatur." +Crespin, <i>ubi supra</i>, fol. 98.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_470_470" id="Footnote_470_470"></a><a href="#FNanchor_470_470"><span class="label">[470]</span></a> Crespin, <i>ubi supra</i>, fol. 100.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_471_471" id="Footnote_471_471"></a><a href="#FNanchor_471_471"><span class="label">[471]</span></a> The ludicrous story of the "mice of Autun," which thus +obtains a historic importance, had been told by Chassanée himself. It +appears that on a certain occasion the diocese of Autun was visited with +the plague of an excessive multiplication of mice. Ordinary means of +stopping their ravages having failed, the vicar of the bishop was +requested to excommunicate them. But the ecclesiastical decree was +supposed to be most effective when the regular forms of a judicial trial +were duly observed. An advocate for the marauders was therefore +appointed—no other than Chassanée himself; who, espousing with +professional ardor the interests of his quadrupedal clients, began by +insisting that a summons should be served in each parish; next, excused +the non-appearance of the defendants by alleging the dangers of the +journey by reason of the lying-in-wait of their enemies, the cats; and +finally, appealing to the compassion of the court in behalf of a race +doomed to wholesale destruction, acquitted himself so successfully of +his fantastic commission, that the mice escaped the censures of the +church, and their advocate gained universal applause! See Crespin, fol. +99; De Thou, i. 536, Gamier, xxvi. 29, etc. Crespin, writing at least as +early as 1560, speaks of the incident as being related in Chassanée's +<i>Catalogus Gloriæ Mundi</i>; but I have been unable to find any reference +to it in that singular medley.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_472_472" id="Footnote_472_472"></a><a href="#FNanchor_472_472"><span class="label">[472]</span></a> De Thou, i. 539.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_473_473" id="Footnote_473_473"></a><a href="#FNanchor_473_473"><span class="label">[473]</span></a> This striking incident is not noticed in the well-known +Memoirs of Du Bellay, written by his brother. The reader will agree with +me in considering it one of the most creditable in Du Bellay's eventful +life. Calvin relates it in two letters to Farel, published by Bonnet +(Calvin's Letters, i. 162, 163-165). The reformer had had it from Du +Bellay's own lips at Strasbourg, and had perused the letter in which the +latter threw up his alliance with Montmian, and stigmatized the baseness +of his conduct.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_474_474" id="Footnote_474_474"></a><a href="#FNanchor_474_474"><span class="label">[474]</span></a> De Thou, i. 539; Crespin, <i>ubi supra</i>, fols. 100, +101.—Historians have noticed the remarkable points of similarity this +report presents to that made by the younger Pliny to the Emperor Trajan +regarding the primitive Christians. Plinii Epistolæ, x. 96, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_475_475" id="Footnote_475_475"></a><a href="#FNanchor_475_475"><span class="label">[475]</span></a> Calvin's Letters (Bonnet), i. 228, 229. Strange to say, +even M. Nicolaï, otherwise very fair, credits one of these absurd rumors +(Leber, <i>ubi supra</i>, xvii. 557). While the inhabitants of Mérindol +entered into negotiations, it is stated that those of Cabrières, +subjects of the Pope, took up arms. Twice they repulsed the +vice-legate's forces, driving them back to the walls of Avignon and +Cavaillon. Flushed with success, they began to preach openly, to +overturn altars, and to plunder churches. The Pope, therefore, Dec., +1543, called on Count De Grignan for assistance in exterminating the +rebels. But the incidents here told conflict with the undeniable facts +of Cardinal Sadolet's intercession for, and peaceable relations with the +inhabitants of Cabrières in 1541 and 1542; as well as with the royal +letters of March 17, 1549 (1550 New Style), and the report of Du Bellay. +Bouche, on the weak authority of <i>Meynier</i>, De la guerre civile, gives +similar statements of excesses, ii. 611, 612.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_476_476" id="Footnote_476_476"></a><a href="#FNanchor_476_476"><span class="label">[476]</span></a> Hist. ecclés., i. 24; Crespin, fol. 101; De Thou, i. 539; +Bouche, ii. 612. The last asserts that this unconditional pardon was +renewed by successive royal letters, dated March 17, 1543, and June 14, +1544; but that in those of Lyons, 1542, the king had meanwhile, at +Cardinal Tournon's instigation, exhorted the Archbishop and Parliament +of Aix to renewed activity in proceeding against the heretics. Ibid, ii. +612-614.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_477_477" id="Footnote_477_477"></a><a href="#FNanchor_477_477"><span class="label">[477]</span></a> Given in full by Crespin, <i>ubi supra</i>, fols. 104-110, and +by Gerdes., Hist. Reform., iv. 87-99; in its brief form, as originally +composed in French to be laid before the Parliament of Provence, in +Bulletin de l'hist. du prot. français, viii. 508, 509. Several articles +were added when it was laid before Sadolet. Crespin, fol. 110.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_478_478" id="Footnote_478_478"></a><a href="#FNanchor_478_478"><span class="label">[478]</span></a> De Thou, i. 540; Crespin, fol. 110.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_479_479" id="Footnote_479_479"></a><a href="#FNanchor_479_479"><span class="label">[479]</span></a> Crespin, fols. 110, 111.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_480_480" id="Footnote_480_480"></a><a href="#FNanchor_480_480"><span class="label">[480]</span></a> Ibid., fol. 110.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_481_481" id="Footnote_481_481"></a><a href="#FNanchor_481_481"><span class="label">[481]</span></a> May 23, 1541. Bretschneider, Corpus Reform., iv. 325-328; +Gerdes., iv. (Doc). 100,101. But when the Germans intervened later in +behalf of the few remnants of the dispersed Waldenses, they received a +decided rebuff: "Il leur répondit assez brusquement, qu'il ne se mêloit +pas de leurs affaires, et qu'ils ne devoient pas entrer non plus dans +les siennes, ni s'embarrasser de ce qu'il faisoit dans ses États, et de +quelle manière il jugeoit à propos de châtier ses sujets coupables." De +Thou, i. 541.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_482_482" id="Footnote_482_482"></a><a href="#FNanchor_482_482"><span class="label">[482]</span></a> Hist. ecclés., i. 27, 28; Crespin, fol. 114.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_483_483" id="Footnote_483_483"></a><a href="#FNanchor_483_483"><span class="label">[483]</span></a> Vesembec, <i>apud</i> Perrin, History of the Old Waldenses +(1712), xii. 59; Garnier, xxvi. 23.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_484_484" id="Footnote_484_484"></a><a href="#FNanchor_484_484"><span class="label">[484]</span></a> Henry II.'s letters of March 17, 1549, summoning Meynier +and his accomplices to the bar of the Parliament of Paris, state +distinctly the motives of the perpetrators of the massacre, as alleged +by the Waldenses in their appeal to Francis I.: "Auquel ils firent +entendre, qu'ils étaient journellement travaillés et molestés par les +<i>évêques</i> du pays et par les <i>présidens</i> et <i>conseillers</i> de notre +parlement de Provence, qui <i>avaient demandé leurs confiscations et +terres pour leurs parens</i>," etc. Hist. ecclés., <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_485_485" id="Footnote_485_485"></a><a href="#FNanchor_485_485"><span class="label">[485]</span></a> "Sur ce que l'on auroit fait entendre audit feu Seigneur +Roi, qu'ils étaient en armes en grande assemblée, forçant villes et +châteaux, eximant les prisonniers des prisons," etc. Letters Patent of +Henry II., <i>ubi supra</i>, i. 46; also, i. 28; De Thou, i. 541. +Notwithstanding the evident falsity of these assertions of Courtain, the +parliament's messenger, writers of such easy consciences as Maimbourg +(Hist. du calvinisme, liv. ii. 83) and Freschot (Origine, progressi e +ruina del Calvinismo nella Francia, di D. Casimiro Freschot, Parma, +1693, p. 34) are not ashamed to endorse them. Freschot says: "<i>Nello +stesso tempo</i> che mandavano à Parigi le loro proposizioni, travagliavano +ad accrescere le loro forze, non che ad assicurare il proprio Stato. Per +il che conseguire avendo praticato alcune intelligenze nella città di +Marsiglia, s'avanzarono sin' al numero di sedici mila per +impossessarsene," etc. The assertions of so ignorant a writer as +Freschot shows himself to be, scarcely require refutation. See, however, +Le Courrayer, following Bayle, note to Sleidan, ii. 256. The impartial +Roman Catholic continuation of the Eccles. Hist. of the Abbé Fleury, +xxviii. 540, gives no credit to these calumnies.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_486_486" id="Footnote_486_486"></a><a href="#FNanchor_486_486"><span class="label">[486]</span></a> The substance of the royal order of January 1, 1545, is +given in the Letters-Patent of Henry II., dated Montereau, March 17, +1549 (1550, New Style), which constitute our best authority: "Le feu dit +Seigneur permit d'exécuter les arrêts donnés contre eux, révoquant +lesdites lettres d'évocation, pour le regard des récidifs non ayant +abjuré, et ordonna que tous ceux qui se trouveraient chargés et +coupables d'hérésie et secte Vaudoise, fussent exterminés," etc. Hist. +ecclés., i. 46.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_487_487" id="Footnote_487_487"></a><a href="#FNanchor_487_487"><span class="label">[487]</span></a> The names are preserved: they were the second president, +François de la Fond; two counsellors, Honoré de Tributiis and Bernard +Badet; and an advocate, Guérin, acting in the absence of the "Procureur +géneral." Letters-Patent of Henry II., <i>ubi supra</i>; De Thou, i. 541; +Hist. ecclés., i. 28.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_488_488" id="Footnote_488_488"></a><a href="#FNanchor_488_488"><span class="label">[488]</span></a> De Thou, <i>ubi supra</i>; Sleidan, Hist. de la réformation +(Fr. trans. of Le Courrayer), ii. 252.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_489_489" id="Footnote_489_489"></a><a href="#FNanchor_489_489"><span class="label">[489]</span></a> The fleet carrying these troops, consisting of +twenty-five galleys, was under the joint command of Poulin, Poulain, or +Polin—afterward prominent in military affairs, under the name of Baron +de la Garde—and of the Chevalier d'Aulps. Bouche, ii. 601. The Baron de +la Garde is made the object of a special notice by Brantôme.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_490_490" id="Footnote_490_490"></a><a href="#FNanchor_490_490"><span class="label">[490]</span></a> Crespin, fol. 115. Sleidan and De Thou give a similar +incident as befalling fugitives from Mérindol. Garnier, alluding to the +absence of any attempt at self-defence on the part of the Waldenses, +pertinently remarks: "On put connoître alors la fausseté et la noirceur +des bruits que l'on avoit affecté de répandre sur leurs préparatifs de +guerre: <i>pas un ne songea à se mettre en défense</i>: des cris aigus et +lamentables portés dans un moment de villages en villages, avertirent +ceux qui vouloient sauver leur vie de fuir promptement du côté des +montagnes." Hist. de France, xxvi. 33.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_491_491" id="Footnote_491_491"></a><a href="#FNanchor_491_491"><span class="label">[491]</span></a> So say the Letters-Patent of Henry II.: "Furent faites +défenses à son de trompe tant par autorité dudit Menier, que dudit de la +Fond, de non bailler à boire et manger aux Vaudois, sans savoir qui ils +étaient; et ce sur peine de la corde." Hist. ecclés., i. 47; Crespin, +fol. 115.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_492_492" id="Footnote_492_492"></a><a href="#FNanchor_492_492"><span class="label">[492]</span></a> Crespin, and Hist. ecclês., <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_493_493" id="Footnote_493_493"></a><a href="#FNanchor_493_493"><span class="label">[493]</span></a> Many, overtaken in their flight, were slain by the sword, +or sent to the galleys, and about twenty-five, having taken refuge in a +cavern near Mus, were stifled by a fire purposely kindled at its mouth. +Sleidan, ii. 255.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_494_494" id="Footnote_494_494"></a><a href="#FNanchor_494_494"><span class="label">[494]</span></a> Hist. ecclés., i. 29; Crespin, fol. 116; De Thou, <i>ubi +supra</i>; Sleidan, ii. 254. The deposition of Antoine d'Alagonia, Sieur de +Vaucler, a Roman Catholic who was present and took an active part in the +enterprise (Bouche, ii. 616-619), is evidently framed expressly to +exculpate D'Oppède and his companions, and conflicts too much with +well-established facts to contribute anything to the true history of the +capture of Cabrières.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_495_495" id="Footnote_495_495"></a><a href="#FNanchor_495_495"><span class="label">[495]</span></a> De Thou, i. 543; Sleidan, ii. 255. Of the affair at La +Coste, the Letters-Patent of Henry II. say: "Au lieu de La Coste y +auroit eu plusieurs hommes tués, femmes et filles forcées jusques au +nombre de vingt-cinq dedans une grange." <i>Ubi supra</i>, i. 47.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_496_496" id="Footnote_496_496"></a><a href="#FNanchor_496_496"><span class="label">[496]</span></a> "Et infinis pillages étaient faits par l'espace de plus +de sept semaines." Ibid, <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_497_497" id="Footnote_497_497"></a><a href="#FNanchor_497_497"><span class="label">[497]</span></a> Hist. ecclés., i. 30.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_498_498" id="Footnote_498_498"></a><a href="#FNanchor_498_498"><span class="label">[498]</span></a> Letters-Patent of Henry II., <i>ubi sup.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_499_499" id="Footnote_499_499"></a><a href="#FNanchor_499_499"><span class="label">[499]</span></a> At Geneva the fugitives were treated with great kindness. +Calvin was deputed by the Council of the Republic, in company with +Farel, to raise contributions for them throughout Switzerland. Reg. of +Council, May, 1545, <i>apud</i> Gaberel, Hist. de l'église de Genève, i. 439. +Nine years later the council granted a lease of some uncultivated lands +near Geneva to 700 of these Waldenses. The descendants of the former +residents of Mérindol and Cabrières are to be found among the +inhabitants of Peney and Jussy. Reg. of Council, May, 10, 1554, Gaberel, +i. 440.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_500_500" id="Footnote_500_500"></a><a href="#FNanchor_500_500"><span class="label">[500]</span></a> Bouche, ii. 620, states, as the results of the +investigations of Auberi, advocate for the Waldenses, that about 3,000 +men, women and children were killed, 666 sent to the galleys, of whom +200 shortly died, and 900 houses burned in 24 villages of Provence.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_501_501" id="Footnote_501_501"></a><a href="#FNanchor_501_501"><span class="label">[501]</span></a> Francis I., on complaint of Madame De Cental, whose son +had lost an annual revenue of 12,000 florins by the ruin of his +villages, had, June 10, 1545, called upon the Parliament of Aix to send +full minutes of its proceedings. Bouche, ii. 620, 621.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_502_502" id="Footnote_502_502"></a><a href="#FNanchor_502_502"><span class="label">[502]</span></a> De Thou, i. 544.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_503_503" id="Footnote_503_503"></a><a href="#FNanchor_503_503"><span class="label">[503]</span></a> "Et sachant que la plainte en était venue jusqu'à [notre] +dit feu père, auraient envoyé ledit De la Fond devers lui, lequel ... +aurait obtenu lettres données à Arques, le 18me jour d'août 1545, +approuvant paisiblement ladite exécution; n'ayant toutefois fait +entendre à notre dit feu père la vérité du fait; mais supposé par +icelles lettres que tous les habitane des villes brûlées étaient connus +et jugés hérétiques et Vaudois." Letters-Patent of Henry II., <i>ubi +supra</i>, i. 47; De Thou, i. 544.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_504_504" id="Footnote_504_504"></a><a href="#FNanchor_504_504"><span class="label">[504]</span></a> Letters-Patent of Henry II., <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_505_505" id="Footnote_505_505"></a><a href="#FNanchor_505_505"><span class="label">[505]</span></a> De Thou, i. 544; Hist. ecclés., i. 30. It is worthy of +notice, however, that the letters of Henry II., from which we have so +often drawn, and which would naturally have alluded to this incident, +are silent in regard to the supposed change of view on Francis's part.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_506_506" id="Footnote_506_506"></a><a href="#FNanchor_506_506"><span class="label">[506]</span></a> De Thou, i. 545. Care was even taken to state that Guérin +was punished for a different crime—that of forging papers to clear +himself from accusations of malfeasance in other official duties than +those in which the Waldenses were concerned, and which came to light in +consequence of a quarrel between D'Oppède and himself. Garnier, xxvi. +40; Bouche, ii. 622. The leniency with which D'Oppède was treated may be +accounted for in part, perhaps, by the fact that the Pope addressed +Henry II. a very pressing letter in his behalf, as "persecuted in +consequence of his zeal for religion." Martin, Hist. de France, ix. +480.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_507_507" id="Footnote_507_507"></a><a href="#FNanchor_507_507"><span class="label">[507]</span></a> "Mais, craignant ceux d'entre les juges qui n'étaient pas +moins cruels et sanguinaires en leurs cœurs que les criminels qu'ils +devaient juger, qu'en les condamnant ils ne vinssent à rompre le cours +des jugemens qu'euxmêmes prononçaient tous les jours en pareilles cause, +et voulant aussi sauver l'honneur d'un autre parlement," etc. Hist. +ecclés., i. 50.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_508_508" id="Footnote_508_508"></a><a href="#FNanchor_508_508"><span class="label">[508]</span></a> "Mais il fut saisi pen après d'une douleur si excessive +dans les intestins, qu'il rendit son âme cruelle au milieu des plus +affreux tourmens; Dieu prenant soin lui-même de lui imposer le châtiment +auquel ses juges ne l'avoient pas condamné, et qui, pour avoir été un +peu tardif, n'en fut que plus rigoureux." De Thou, i. 545. See a more +detailed account of his death, and the exhortations of a pious surgeon, +Lamotte, of Aries, in Crespin, fol. 117. Other instances in Hist. +ecclésiastique.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_509_509" id="Footnote_509_509"></a><a href="#FNanchor_509_509"><span class="label">[509]</span></a> The story of the martyrdom of the "Fourteen of Meaux" is +told in detail by Crespin, Actiones et Monimenta, fols. 117-121, and the +Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 31-33.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_510_510" id="Footnote_510_510"></a><a href="#FNanchor_510_510"><span class="label">[510]</span></a> Ps. 79. I quote, with the quaint old spelling, from a +Geneva edition of 1638, in my possession, which preserves unchanged the +original words and the grand music with which the words were so +intimately associated.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_511_511" id="Footnote_511_511"></a><a href="#FNanchor_511_511"><span class="label">[511]</span></a> The hero of this action was of course arrested. Crespin, +fol. 120.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_512_512" id="Footnote_512_512"></a><a href="#FNanchor_512_512"><span class="label">[512]</span></a> Hist. ecclés., i. 33; Crespin, fol. 121.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_513_513" id="Footnote_513_513"></a><a href="#FNanchor_513_513"><span class="label">[513]</span></a> Hist. ecclés., i. 33-35.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_514_514" id="Footnote_514_514"></a><a href="#FNanchor_514_514"><span class="label">[514]</span></a> Ibid., <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_515_515" id="Footnote_515_515"></a><a href="#FNanchor_515_515"><span class="label">[515]</span></a> Hist. ecclés., i. 34. Occasionally, instead of cutting +out the tongue of the "Lutheran," a large iron ball was forced into his +mouth, an equally effective means of preventing distinct utterance. This +was done to two converted monks, degraded and burned in Saintonge, in +August, 1546. A. Crottet, Hist. des églises réf. de Pons, Gémozac et +Mortagne, 212.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_516_516" id="Footnote_516_516"></a><a href="#FNanchor_516_516"><span class="label">[516]</span></a> Alluding to the compacts into which Francis had entered, +the emperor accuses him of having purposely violated them all: "los +quales nunca a guardado, como es notorio, sino por el tiempo que no a +podido renobar guerra, ó a querido esperar de hallar oportunidad de +dañarme con disimulacion." From Henry he anticipates little better +treatment. Instruct. of Charles V. to the Infante Philip, Augsburg, Jan. +18, 1548, Pap. d'état du Card, de Granvelle, iii. 285. It ought to be +added, however, that both Francis and his son retorted with similar +accusations; and that, in this case at least, all three princes seem to +have spoken the exact truth.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_517_517" id="Footnote_517_517"></a><a href="#FNanchor_517_517"><span class="label">[517]</span></a> The dauphin Francis died at Tournon, Aug. 10, 1536, +probably from the effects of imprudently drinking ice-water when heated +by a game at ball. None the less was one of his dependants—the Count of +Montecuccoli—compelled by torture to avow, or invent the story, that he +had poisoned him at the instigation of Charles the Fifth. He paid the +penalty of his weakness by being drawn asunder by four horses! How +little Francis I. believed the story is seen from the magnificence and +cordiality with which, three years later, he entertained the supposed +author and abettor of the crime. See an interesting note of M. Guiffrey, +Cronique du Roy Françoys I<sup>er</sup>, 184-186. The imperialists replied by +attributing the supposed crime, with equal improbability, to Catharine +de' Medici, the youthful bride of Henry, who succeeded to his brother's +title and expectations. Charles of Angoulême, a prince whose inordinate +ambition, if we may believe the memoirs of Vieilleville, led him to +exhibit unmistakable tokens of joy at a false report of the drowning of +his two elder brothers, died on the 8th of September, 1545, of +infection, to which he wantonly exposed himself by entering a house and +handling the clothes of the dead, with the presumptuous boast "that +never had a son of France been known to die of the plague."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_518_518" id="Footnote_518_518"></a><a href="#FNanchor_518_518"><span class="label">[518]</span></a> See Brantôme, Hommes illustres (Œuvres, vii. 369, +370).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_519_519" id="Footnote_519_519"></a><a href="#FNanchor_519_519"><span class="label">[519]</span></a> This was as early as 1538. Mémoires de Vieilleville (Ed. +Petitot), liv. v. c. 24, 25.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_520_520" id="Footnote_520_520"></a><a href="#FNanchor_520_520"><span class="label">[520]</span></a> "The king is a <i>goodly tall gentleman</i>, well made in all +the parts of his body, <i>a very grim countenance</i>, yet very gentle, meek, +and well beloved of all his people." The Journey of the queen's +ambassadors to Rome, anno 1555 (the last to pay reverence to the Pope, +under Mary), printed in Hardwick, State Papers, I. 68.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_521_521" id="Footnote_521_521"></a><a href="#FNanchor_521_521"><span class="label">[521]</span></a> "Non senza pericolo," says Matteo Dandolo, "perchè +corrono molte volte alle sbarre con poco vedere, sì che si abbatterono +un giorno a correre all' improvviso il padre (Francis) contra il figlio, +e diede lui alla buona memoria di quello un tal colpo nella fronte, che +gli levò la carne più che se gli avesse dato una gran frignoccola." +Relazioni Venete, ii. 171.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_522_522" id="Footnote_522_522"></a><a href="#FNanchor_522_522"><span class="label">[522]</span></a> Relations Vén. (Ed. Tommaseo), i. 286.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_523_523" id="Footnote_523_523"></a><a href="#FNanchor_523_523"><span class="label">[523]</span></a> Histoire ecclésiastique, i., 43. The most striking +features of the character of Henry are well delineated by the Venetian +ambassadors who visited the court of France during the preceding and the +present reigns. Even the Protestants who had experienced his severity +speak well of his natural gentleness, and deplore the evils into which +he fell through want of self-reliance. The discriminating Regnier de la +Planche styles him "prince de doux esprit, mais de fort petit sens, et +du tout propre à se laisser mener en lesse" (Histoire de l'estat de +France, éd. Panthéon litt., 202). Claude de l'Aubespine draws a more +flattering portrait, as might be expected from one who served as +minister of state in the councils of Francis I. and the three succeeding +monarchs: "Ce prince estoit, à la vérité, très-bien nay, tant de corps +<i>que de l'esprit</i>.... Il avoit un air si affable et humain que, dès le +premier aspect, il emportoit le cœur et la dévotion d'un chacun. +Aussi a il esté constamment chery et aimé de tous ses subjets durant sa +vie, désiré et regretté après sa mort" (Histoire particulière de la cour +du Roy Henry II., Cimber et Danjou, Archives curieuses, iii. 277). +Tavannes is less complimentary: "Le roy Henry eut les mesmes defauts de +son predecesseur, l'esprit plus foible, et se peut dire le règne du +connestable, de Mme. de Valentinois et de M. de Guise, non le sien." +(Mémoires de Gaspard de Saulx, seigneur de Tavannes, ed. Petitot, i. +410.)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_524_524" id="Footnote_524_524"></a><a href="#FNanchor_524_524"><span class="label">[524]</span></a> Dr. Wotton to the Council, Paris, April 6, 1547, State +Paper Office, and printed in Fraser-Tytler, England under the Reigns of +Edward VI. and Mary, i. 35, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_525_525" id="Footnote_525_525"></a><a href="#FNanchor_525_525"><span class="label">[525]</span></a> De l'Aubespine (Cimber et Danjou), iii. 284, 285.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_526_526" id="Footnote_526_526"></a><a href="#FNanchor_526_526"><span class="label">[526]</span></a> Relaz. Venete, ii. 437, 438.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_527_527" id="Footnote_527_527"></a><a href="#FNanchor_527_527"><span class="label">[527]</span></a> The legate Santa Croce describes his qualities thus: +"Erat Montmorantius animo alacri et prompto, ingenio acri, corpora +vivido, somni ac vini parcissimus, negotiis vehementer deditus, etc." He +mentions as remarkable the facility with which, in the midst of the most +pressing affairs of state or military exigencies, he could give his +attention, as grand master of the royal household, to the most minute +matters respecting the king's food or dress. De Civilibus Gall. Dissens. +Comment. (Martene et Durand, Ampliss. Coll., v. 1429).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_528_528" id="Footnote_528_528"></a><a href="#FNanchor_528_528"><span class="label">[528]</span></a> The devoted "<i>connestabliste</i>" Begnier de la Planche does +not conceal the aversion the head of the family which he delights in +exalting entertained for letters: "Il avoit opinion," he writes, "que +les lettres amolissoyent les gentilshommes et les faisoyent dégénérer de +leurs majeurs, et mesmes estoit persuadé que les lettres avoyent +engendré les hérésies et accreu les luthériens en telle nombre qu'ils +estoyent au royaume; en sorte qu'il avoit en peu d'estime les sçavans, +et leurs livres." Histoire de l'estat de la France tant de la république +que de la religion sous le règne de François II., p. 309.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_529_529" id="Footnote_529_529"></a><a href="#FNanchor_529_529"><span class="label">[529]</span></a> The people were as a body declared attainted of treason, +their <i>hôtel-de-ville</i> was razed to the ground, their written privileges +were seized and reduced to ashes. The bells that had sounded out the +tocsin, at the outbreak of the insurrection, were for the most part +broken in pieces and melted. One miserable man was hung to the clapper +of the same bell that he had rung to call the people to arms. Others for +the like crime were broken on the wheel or burned alive. Tristan de +Moneins, lieutenant of the King of Navarre, had been basely murdered by +the citizens: they were now compelled to disinter his remains, being +allowed the use of no implements, but compelled to scrape off the earth +with their nails! De Thou, i. 459, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_530_530" id="Footnote_530_530"></a><a href="#FNanchor_530_530"><span class="label">[530]</span></a> Brantôme, Homines illustres (Œuvres, viii., 129).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_531_531" id="Footnote_531_531"></a><a href="#FNanchor_531_531"><span class="label">[531]</span></a> Sir John Mason to Council, Poissy, Sept. 14, 1550, State +Paper Office.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_532_532" id="Footnote_532_532"></a><a href="#FNanchor_532_532"><span class="label">[532]</span></a> Claude de l'Aubespine, Histoire particulière de la cour +du Roy Henry II. (Cimber et Danjou), iii. 277.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_533_533" id="Footnote_533_533"></a><a href="#FNanchor_533_533"><span class="label">[533]</span></a> "Onorevolissimo universal carico che tiene." Relazioni +Venete, ii. 166. It is somewhat painful to find from a letter of +Margaret of Navarre, written after Henry's accession, that this amiable +princess was compelled to depend, for the continuance of her paltry +pension of 25,000 livres as sister of Francis, upon the kind offices of +the constable. Lettres de Marguerite d'Angoulême, t. i., No. 154. The +king's affection for Montmorency was so demonstrative that he ordered +that, after their death, the constable's heart and his own should be +buried together in a single monument, as an indication to posterity of +his partiality. Jod. Sincerus (Itinerarium Galliæ, 1627, pp. 281-284) +takes the trouble to transcribe not less than three of the epitaphs in +the Church of the Celestines, in which Montmorency receives more than +his proportion of fulsome praise.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_534_534" id="Footnote_534_534"></a><a href="#FNanchor_534_534"><span class="label">[534]</span></a> Relazioni Venete, ii. 175, 176.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_535_535" id="Footnote_535_535"></a><a href="#FNanchor_535_535"><span class="label">[535]</span></a> De Thou, i. 237, 245.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_536_536" id="Footnote_536_536"></a><a href="#FNanchor_536_536"><span class="label">[536]</span></a> A contemporary writer (<i>apud</i> De Thou, i. 237, note) +pretends to cite the monarch's precise words. The current quatrain was +the following: +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Le feu roy devina ce poinct,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Que ceux de la maison de Guyse,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Mettroyent ses enfans en pourpoint,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Et son pauvre peuple en chemise.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p> +Regnier de la Planche, Hist. de l'estat de France sous François II., éd. +Panthéon lit., p. 261. The lines are given, with a few variations, by +almost every history of the times; Recueil des choses mémorables, etc., +1565, p. 31; Mémoires de Condé, i. 533. De Thou is a firm believer in +the truth of the vulgar report (<i>ubi supra</i>), and even Davila (Eng. +trans. of Sir Charles Cottrell, 1678, p. 7) admits that later events +have added much credit to the current belief.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_537_537" id="Footnote_537_537"></a><a href="#FNanchor_537_537"><span class="label">[537]</span></a> By arrangement with his elder brother Antoine (A. D. +1530), Claude received, as his portion of the paternal estate, four or +five considerable seigniories enclosed within the territorial limits of +France: <i>Guise</i> on the north, not far from the boundary of the +Netherlands; <i>Aumale</i> and <i>Elbeuf</i> in Normandy; <i>Mayenne</i> in Maine, on +the borders of Brittany; and <i>Joinville</i>, in Champagne, on the +northeastern frontier of the kingdom; besides others of minor +importance. Calmet, Hist. de Lorraine (Nancy, 1752), v. 481, 482.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_538_538" id="Footnote_538_538"></a><a href="#FNanchor_538_538"><span class="label">[538]</span></a> De Thou draws no flattering sketch of his course: "Le +dernier de ces deux prélats avoit eu beaucoup de part aux bonnes graces +de François I<sup>er</sup>, <i>sans autre mérite que de s'être rendu utile à ses +plaisirs</i> et d'avoir su se distinguer par une libéralité folle et +indiscrète, deux moyens par lesquels il avoit été assez heureux pour +adoucir la juste indignation de ce prince contre son frère, Claude duc +de Guise." Hist. univ., i. 523.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_539_539" id="Footnote_539_539"></a><a href="#FNanchor_539_539"><span class="label">[539]</span></a> Soldan, Gesch. des Protestantismus in Frankreich, i. 214. +A still longer list is given by Dom Calmet, Hist. de Lorraine, v. 482.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_540_540" id="Footnote_540_540"></a><a href="#FNanchor_540_540"><span class="label">[540]</span></a> In 1518. Abbé Migne, Dictionnaire des Cardinaux; table +chronologique.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_541_541" id="Footnote_541_541"></a><a href="#FNanchor_541_541"><span class="label">[541]</span></a> Sir John Mason to Council, Feb. 23, 1551. State Paper +Office.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_542_542" id="Footnote_542_542"></a><a href="#FNanchor_542_542"><span class="label">[542]</span></a> Mémoires de Castlenau, liv. i., c. 1; Migne, <i>ubi +supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_543_543" id="Footnote_543_543"></a><a href="#FNanchor_543_543"><span class="label">[543]</span></a> Pasquier, an impartial writer, but somewhat given to +panegyric, paints a very flattering portrait of Guise, in a letter +written after the death of the duke: "Il fut seigneur fort débonnaire, +bien emparlé tant en particulier qu'en public, vaillant et magnanime, +prompt à la main," etc. Œuvres choisies, ii. 258.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_544_544" id="Footnote_544_544"></a><a href="#FNanchor_544_544"><span class="label">[544]</span></a> "Le due de Guyse, grand chef de guerre, et capitaine +capable de servir sa patrie, si l'ambition de son frère ne l'eust +prévenu et empoisonné. Aussi a-il dict plusieurs fois de luy: Cest homme +enfin nous perdra." De l'Aubespine, Hist. part., iii. 286.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_545_545" id="Footnote_545_545"></a><a href="#FNanchor_545_545"><span class="label">[545]</span></a> "Di dir poche volte il vero. Poco veredico, di natura +duplice ed avara, non meno nel suo particolare che nelle cose del rè." +Suriano regards the cardinal as without a rival in this particular: "Che +di saper dissimulare non ha pari al mondo." Tommaseo, i. 526.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_546_546" id="Footnote_546_546"></a><a href="#FNanchor_546_546"><span class="label">[546]</span></a> Not to speak of the property he obtained by dispossessing +the rightful owners, he received, by favor of Diana, on the death of his +uncle, Cardinal John, the benefices the latter had enjoyed, with all his +personal wealth. Charles now had 300,000 livres of income; but he never +thought of paying off his uncle's enormous debts: "Laissa toutes les +debtes d'iceluy, qui estoyent immenses, à ses créanciers, <i>pour y +succéder par droit de bangueroute!</i>" De l'Aubespine, iii. 281. The papal +envoy, Cardinal Prospero di Santa Croce, combines the traits of +ambition, avarice, and hypocrisy in his portrait of his colleague in the +sacred consistory, and makes little of his learning: "Carolus a +Lotharingia ... juvenis <i>non illiteratus</i>, ac ingenio versuto et +callido, <i>maxime ambitioni et avaritiæ dedito</i>, quæ vitia <i>religionis ac +sanctimoniæ simulatione obtegere conabatur</i>." Prosperi Santacrucii de +Civilibus Galliæ dissensionibus commentariorum libri tres (Martene et +Durand Amplissima Collectio), v. 1438. After these delineations of his +character by not unfriendly pens, it is scarcely surprising that a +caustic contemporary pamphlet—<i>Le livre des marchands</i> (1565)—should +describe him as "ce cardinal si avare, et si ambitieux de nature, que +l'avarice et l'ambition mise dedans des balances, elles demeureroyent +égalles entre deux fers." (Ed. Pantheon, p. 423.)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_547_547" id="Footnote_547_547"></a><a href="#FNanchor_547_547"><span class="label">[547]</span></a> "Non credo fosse in quel regno desiderata alcuna cosa più +che la sua morte." Relaz. di Gio. Michiel, Tommaseo, i. 440. I have +united the accounts of two ambassadors, Soranzo and Michiel, the first +belonging to 1558, the other to 1561. Both are contained in Tommaseo's +edit. of the Relations Vénitiens.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_548_548" id="Footnote_548_548"></a><a href="#FNanchor_548_548"><span class="label">[548]</span></a> Werke, viii. 141.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_549_549" id="Footnote_549_549"></a><a href="#FNanchor_549_549"><span class="label">[549]</span></a> Brantôme, Œuvres (Ed. of Fr. Hist. Soc.), iv. 275, +etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_550_550" id="Footnote_550_550"></a><a href="#FNanchor_550_550"><span class="label">[550]</span></a> "Et seroit à desirer que ceste femme et le cardinal +n'eussent jamais esté; car ces deux seuls out esté les flamesches de nos +malheurs." De l'Aubespine, iii. 286. The reader will, after this, make +little account of the extravagant panegyric by the Father Alby (inserted +by Migne in his Dict. des Card., s. v. Lorraine); yet he may be amused +at the precise contradiction between the estimate of the cardinal's +political services made by this ecclesiastic and that of the practical +statesman given above. He seems to the priest born for the good of +others: "ayant pour cela merité de la postérité toutes les louanges d'un +homme né pour le bien des autres, et le titre même de cardinal de +France, qui lui fut donné par quelques écrivains de son temps." This +blundering eulogist makes him to have been assigned by Francis I. as +counsellor of his son.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_551_551" id="Footnote_551_551"></a><a href="#FNanchor_551_551"><span class="label">[551]</span></a> Brantôme, Hommes illustres (Œuvres, viii. 63).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_552_552" id="Footnote_552_552"></a><a href="#FNanchor_552_552"><span class="label">[552]</span></a> Mém. de Vieilleville, i. 179.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_553_553" id="Footnote_553_553"></a><a href="#FNanchor_553_553"><span class="label">[553]</span></a> La Planche, 205.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_554_554" id="Footnote_554_554"></a><a href="#FNanchor_554_554"><span class="label">[554]</span></a> Mém. de Vieilleville, i. 186-189.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_555_555" id="Footnote_555_555"></a><a href="#FNanchor_555_555"><span class="label">[555]</span></a> "Pour du tout s'asseurer, ils se jettèrent du +commencement au party de ceste femme; et specialement le cardinal, <i>qui +estoit des plus parfaicts en l'art de courtiser</i>. Comme tel <i>il se +gehenna</i> tellement par l'espace de près de deux ans, que ne tenant point +de table pour sa personne, <i>il disnoit à la table de Madame</i>; ainsi +estoit-elle appellée par la Royne mesme." L'Aubespine, Hist. +particulière, iii. 281.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_556_556" id="Footnote_556_556"></a><a href="#FNanchor_556_556"><span class="label">[556]</span></a> "Ne pouvant doresenavant estre aultre mon intérest que le +vostre. De quoy Dieu soit loué," etc. Letter of the Card. of Lorraine, +Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. franç., ix. (1860), 216.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_557_557" id="Footnote_557_557"></a><a href="#FNanchor_557_557"><span class="label">[557]</span></a> De Thou, i. 496. Henry was a <i>religious</i> prince also, +according to Dandolo. The ambassador's standard, however, was not a very +severe one: "Sua maestà si dimostra religiosa, <i>non cavalca la domenica, +almen la mattina</i>." Relaz. Venete, ii. 173.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_558_558" id="Footnote_558_558"></a><a href="#FNanchor_558_558"><span class="label">[558]</span></a> Histoire ecclés. des égl. réf., i, 43, 44.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_559_559" id="Footnote_559_559"></a><a href="#FNanchor_559_559"><span class="label">[559]</span></a> Une chambre spéciale composée de "dix ou douze +conseillers des plus sçavants et des plus zélés, pour connoistre du +faict d'hérésie, sans qu'elle pust vacquer à d'autres affaires." Reg. +secr., 17 avril, 1545; Floquet, Hist. du. parl. de Normandie, ii. 241.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_560_560" id="Footnote_560_560"></a><a href="#FNanchor_560_560"><span class="label">[560]</span></a> In the preamble to the edict of Paris issued two years +later, Henry rehearses the ordinance and its motives: "Et pour ceste +cause dès nostre nouvel avénement à la couronne, voulans à l'exemple et +imitation de feu nostredit seigneur et père, travailler et prester la +main à purger et nettoier nostre royaume d'une telle peste, nous aurions +pour plus grande et prompte expédition desdites matières et procez sur +le fait desdites hérésies, erreurs et fausses doctrines ordonné et +estably <i>une chambre particulière en nostre parlement à Paris, pour +seulement vaquer ausdites expéditions, sans se divertir à autres +actes</i>." Isambert, xiii. 136. Cf. Martin, Hist. de France, ix. 516.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_561_561" id="Footnote_561_561"></a><a href="#FNanchor_561_561"><span class="label">[561]</span></a> Martin, Hist. de France, ix. 516.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_562_562" id="Footnote_562_562"></a><a href="#FNanchor_562_562"><span class="label">[562]</span></a> Edict of Fontainebleau, Dec. 11, 1547. Isambert, xiii. +37, 38.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_563_563" id="Footnote_563_563"></a><a href="#FNanchor_563_563"><span class="label">[563]</span></a> A singular illustration of this device is given in a +letter recently discovered. In 1542 a printer, to secure for his edition +of the Protestant liturgy and psalter a more ready entrance into Roman +Catholic cities, added the whimsical imprint: "<i>Printed in Rome, with +privilege of the Pope</i>"!—Naturally enough, this very circumstance +aroused suspicion at the gates of Metz, and 600 copies were stopped. The +ultimate fate of the books is unknown. Letter of Peter Alexander, May +25, 1542, Baum, Cunitz, and Reuss, Calvini Opera, vi. p. xv. A single +copy of this <i>Roman</i> edition has recently come to light. It proves to be +the earliest edition thus far discovered of Calvin's Strasbourg Liturgy, +the prototype of his Geneva Liturgy. O. Douen, Clement Marot et le +Psautier huguenot (Paris, 1878), i. 334-339; and farther on in note at +the close of this chapter.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_564_564" id="Footnote_564_564"></a><a href="#FNanchor_564_564"><span class="label">[564]</span></a> Crespin, fols. 152-155. De Thou (i. 446) mistakes the +date of the sentence of the Parliament of Paris, March 3, 1548 (1547 Old +Style), for that of the execution. The awkward old French practice of +making the year begin with <i>Easter</i>, instead of January 1st, has in +this, as in many other instances, led to great confusion, even in the +minds of those who were perfectly familiar with the custom. The +"Histoire ecclésiastique," for instance, places the execution of +Brugière in the reign of Francis I., whereas it belongs to the first +year of the reign of his son. So does White, Massacre of St. +Bartholomew, p. 19.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_565_565" id="Footnote_565_565"></a><a href="#FNanchor_565_565"><span class="label">[565]</span></a> Crespin, fol. 156.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_566_566" id="Footnote_566_566"></a><a href="#FNanchor_566_566"><span class="label">[566]</span></a> Inedited letter of Constable Montmorency of July 8, 1549, +in the Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. fr., ix. (1860) 124, 125. +"Voilà," says this document, "le debvoir où ledit seigneur s'est mis +pour continuer la possession de ce nom et titre de Très-Chrestien."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_567_567" id="Footnote_567_567"></a><a href="#FNanchor_567_567"><span class="label">[567]</span></a> Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 50, 51. Crespin, fol. +157, etc. The registers of parliament can spare for the auto-da-fé but a +few lines at the conclusion of a lengthy description of the magnificent +procession, and inaccurately designate the locality: "Cette aprèsdinée +fut faicte exécution d'aucuns condamnez au feu pour crime d'hérésie, +tant au parvis N. D. que en la place devant Ste. Catherine du Val des +Escolliers." Reg. of Parl., July 4, 1549 (Félibien, Preuves, iv. 745, +746).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_568_568" id="Footnote_568_568"></a><a href="#FNanchor_568_568"><span class="label">[568]</span></a> Anne Audeberte and Louis de Marsac. Hist. ecclés. des +égl. réf., i. 52, 58; Crespin, fols. 156, 227-234.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_569_569" id="Footnote_569_569"></a><a href="#FNanchor_569_569"><span class="label">[569]</span></a> Isambert, Recueil gén. des anc. lois fr., xiii. 134-138. +Of course the provision giving to church courts the right of arrest, so +opposed to the spirit of the "Gallican Liberties," displeased +parliament, which duly remonstrated (Preuves des libertez de l'ég. +gall., iii. 171), but was compelled to register the law, with conditions +forbidding the exaction of pecuniary fines, and the sentence of +perpetual imprisonment.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_570_570" id="Footnote_570_570"></a><a href="#FNanchor_570_570"><span class="label">[570]</span></a> De Thou, i. 167. Hist. ecclés., i. 53.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_571_571" id="Footnote_571_571"></a><a href="#FNanchor_571_571"><span class="label">[571]</span></a> De Thou, <i>ubi supra</i>. Mézeray well remarks that the +Protestants recognized the fact then, as they always have done since, in +similar circumstances, that there is no more disastrous time for them +than when the court of France has a misunderstanding with that of Rome. +Abrégé chronologique, iv. 664.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_572_572" id="Footnote_572_572"></a><a href="#FNanchor_572_572"><span class="label">[572]</span></a> "A right of appeal to the supreme courts has hitherto +been, and still is, granted to persons guilty of poisoning, of forgery, +and of robbery; yet this is denied to Christians; they are condemned by +the ordinary judges to be dragged straight to the flames, without any +liberty of appeal.... All are commanded, with more than usual +earnestness, to adore the breaden god on bended knee. All parish priests +are commanded to read the Sorbonne Articles every Sabbath for the +benefit of the people, that a solemn abnegation of Christ may thus +resound throughout the land.... Geneva is alluded to more than ten times +in the edict, and always with a striking mark of reproach." Calvin's +Letters (Bonnet), Eng. tr., iii. 319, 320. I cannot agree with Soldan +(Geschichte des Prot. in Frankreich, i. 228) in the statement that the +Edict of Châteaubriand left the jurisdiction essentially as fixed by the +ordinance of Nov. 19, 1549. For the edict does not, as he asserts, +permit "the civil judges—presidial judges as well as +parliaments—equally with the spiritual, to commence every process." It +deprives the ecclesiastical judge, 1st, of the right which the ordinance +of 1549 had conferred, of <i>initiating</i> any process where scandal, +sedition, etc., were joined to simple heresy, and these cases—under the +interpretation of the law—constituted a large proportion of cases; 2d, +of the right of deciding with the secular judges in these last-named +cases; and 3d, of the power of arrest. De Thou, himself a president of +parliament (ii. 375, liv. xvi.), therefore styles it "un édit, par +lequel le Roi se réservoit une entière connoissance du Luthéranisme, et +l'attribuoit à ses juges, sans aucune exception, à moins que l'hérésie +dont il s'agissoit ne demandât quelque éclaircissement, ou que les +coupables ne fussent dans les ordres sacrés."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_573_573" id="Footnote_573_573"></a><a href="#FNanchor_573_573"><span class="label">[573]</span></a> Milton's Areopagitica. This was the view somewhat +bitterly expressed in one of the poems of the "Satyres Chrestiennes de +la cuisine Papale " (Geneva, 1560; reprinted 1857), addressed "aux +Rostisseurs," p. 130: +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Je cognoy, Cagots, que mes liures<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Vous sont fascheusement nouueaux.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bruslez, si en serez deliures<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pour en servir de naueaux.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Mais scavez-vous que c'est, gros veaux,<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Fuyez le feu qui s'en fera:</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Car la fumée en vos cerueauz</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Seulmient vous estouffera</i>."<br /></span> +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_574_574" id="Footnote_574_574"></a><a href="#FNanchor_574_574"><span class="label">[574]</span></a> Recueil gén. des anc. lois fr., xiii. 189-208.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_575_575" id="Footnote_575_575"></a><a href="#FNanchor_575_575"><span class="label">[575]</span></a> Hist. ecclés., i. 59.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_576_576" id="Footnote_576_576"></a><a href="#FNanchor_576_576"><span class="label">[576]</span></a> Letter of Beza to Bullinger, Lausanne, May 10, 1552 +(Baum, Thedor Beza, i. 423): "Et tamen vix credas quam multi sese +libenter his periculis objiciant ut ædificent Ecclesiam Dei."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_577_577" id="Footnote_577_577"></a><a href="#FNanchor_577_577"><span class="label">[577]</span></a> Beza to Bullinger, Oct. 28, 1551, Baum, i. 417: "Tantum +abest ut Evangelii amplificationem ea res (cruentissimum regis edictum) +impediat ut contra nihil æque prodesse sentiamus ad oves Christi undique +dispersas in unum veluti gregem cogendas. Id testari vel una Geneva +satis potest, in quam hodie certatim ex omnibus et Galliæ et Italiæ +regionibus tot exules confluunt, ut tantæ multitudini vix nunc +sufficiat."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_578_578" id="Footnote_578_578"></a><a href="#FNanchor_578_578"><span class="label">[578]</span></a> De Thou, ii. 181.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_579_579" id="Footnote_579_579"></a><a href="#FNanchor_579_579"><span class="label">[579]</span></a> Mémoires de Vieilleville (written by his secretary, +Vincent Carloix), ed. Petitot, i. 299-301. This incident belongs to the +year 1549.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_580_580" id="Footnote_580_580"></a><a href="#FNanchor_580_580"><span class="label">[580]</span></a> Histoire ecclés., i. 54-60.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_581_581" id="Footnote_581_581"></a><a href="#FNanchor_581_581"><span class="label">[581]</span></a> Soldan is scarcely correct (Gesch. des Prot. in Frank., +i. 235) in representing them to have <i>completed</i> their course of study; +"alii diutius quam alii," are the words of Crespin, Actiones et +Monimenta Martyrum, fol. 185.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_582_582" id="Footnote_582_582"></a><a href="#FNanchor_582_582"><span class="label">[582]</span></a> In fact, there seem to have been two "<i>officials</i>" at +Lyons—the ordinary "<i>official</i>" so-called, or "<i>official buatier</i>" as +he is styled in the narrative of Écrivain (Baum, i. 392), and the +"<i>official de la primace</i>," <i>i. e.</i>, of the Archbishop, as Primate of +France (Ibid., i. 388).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_583_583" id="Footnote_583_583"></a><a href="#FNanchor_583_583"><span class="label">[583]</span></a> Baum, Theodor Beza, i. 176.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_584_584" id="Footnote_584_584"></a><a href="#FNanchor_584_584"><span class="label">[584]</span></a> See a letter of Calvin to the prisoners, in Bonnet, +Lettres franç. de Calvin, i. 340.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_585_585" id="Footnote_585_585"></a><a href="#FNanchor_585_585"><span class="label">[585]</span></a> It was in view of this response of the king that +Bullinger wrote to Calvin: "He lives that delivered His people from +Egypt; He lives who brought back the captivity from Babylon; He lives +who defended His church against Cæsars, kings, and profligate princes. +Verily we must needs pass through many afflictions into the kingdom of +God. But <i>woe to those who touch the apple of God's eye</i>!" See Calvin's +Letters (Eng. trans.), ii. 349, note.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_586_586" id="Footnote_586_586"></a><a href="#FNanchor_586_586"><span class="label">[586]</span></a> Prof. Baum has graphically described the unsuccessful +intercession of the Swiss cantons in his Theodor Beza, i. 177-179.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_587_587" id="Footnote_587_587"></a><a href="#FNanchor_587_587"><span class="label">[587]</span></a> Histoire ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 57.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_588_588" id="Footnote_588_588"></a><a href="#FNanchor_588_588"><span class="label">[588]</span></a> Ibid., <i>ubi supra</i>; Crespin, Actiones et Mon., fols. +185-217 (also in Galerie Chrétienne, i. 268-330); De Thou, ii. 180, 181. +The description of the closing scenes of the lives of the Five Scholars +of Lausanne is among the most touching passages in the French +martyrology, but the limits of this history do not admit of its +insertion (see Baum, i. 179-181, and Soldan, i. 236-238). Their progress +to the place of execution was marked by the recital of psalms, the +benediction, "The God of peace, that brought again from the dead, etc.," +and the Apostles' creed; and, after mutual embraces and farewells, their +last words, as their naked bodies, smeared with grease and sulphur, hung +side by side over the flames, were: "Be of good courage, brethren, be of +good courage!"</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_589_589" id="Footnote_589_589"></a><a href="#FNanchor_589_589"><span class="label">[589]</span></a> Beza to Bullinger, Dec. 24, 1553, and May 8, 1554; Baum, +Theodor Beza, i. 431, 438.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_590_590" id="Footnote_590_590"></a><a href="#FNanchor_590_590"><span class="label">[590]</span></a> The bull of Julius the Third sanctioning the use of these +proscribed articles of food—at whose instigation it was given is +uncertain—was regarded by the Parliament of Paris as allowing a +"scandalous relaxation" of morals, and the keeper of the seals gave +orders, by cry of the herald, that all booksellers and printers be +forbidden to sell copies of it (Feb. 7, 1553). But this was not +sufficient, since the bull was afterward publicly burned by order of +Henry the Second and the parliament. Reg. of Parliament, in Félibien, +Hist. de Paris, iv. 763; see also ibid., ii. 1033.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_591_591" id="Footnote_591_591"></a><a href="#FNanchor_591_591"><span class="label">[591]</span></a> Floquet, Hist. du parlement de Normandie, ii. 258-260.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_592_592" id="Footnote_592_592"></a><a href="#FNanchor_592_592"><span class="label">[592]</span></a> Garnier, Hist. de France, xxvii. 49, etc., whose account +of the attempted introduction of the Spanish Inquisition into France is +the most correct and comprehensive.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_593_593" id="Footnote_593_593"></a><a href="#FNanchor_593_593"><span class="label">[593]</span></a> Ibid., <i>ubi supra</i>; De Thou, ii. 375. The edict +establishing the Spanish inquisition is not contained in any collection +of laws, as it was never formally registered. Dulaure (Hist. de Paris, +iv. 133, 134) gives, apparently from the Reg. criminels du parl., +registre coté 101, au 20 mai 1555, an extract from it: "Que les +inquisiteurs de la foi et juges ecclésiastiques peuvent librement +procéder à la punition des hérétiques, tant clercs que laïcs, jusqu'à +sentence dèfinitive inclusivement; que les accusés qui, avant cette +sentence, appelleront comme d'abus resteront toujours prisonniers, et +leur appel sera porté au parlement. Mais, nonobstant cet appel, si +l'accusé est déclaré hérétique par les inquisiteurs, et pour ne pas +retarder son châtiment, il sera livré au bras séculier." (Soldan, from +Lamothe-Langon, iii. 458, reads <i>exclusivement</i>, which must be wrong, +if, indeed, the whole be not a mere paraphrase, which I suspect.)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_594_594" id="Footnote_594_594"></a><a href="#FNanchor_594_594"><span class="label">[594]</span></a> By the advice of the Cardinal of Lorraine, the Parliament +of Paris had been divided into two sections, holding their sessions each +for six months, and each vested with the powers of the entire body. This +change went into effect July 2, 1554, and lasted three years. It was +made ostensibly to relieve the judges and expedite business, but really +in the interest of despotism, to diminish the authority of the undivided +court sitting throughout the year. De Thou, ii. 246, 247.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_595_595" id="Footnote_595_595"></a><a href="#FNanchor_595_595"><span class="label">[595]</span></a> The post of Inquisitor-General of the Faith in France, +having his seat at Toulouse, had, as we have already seen, long existed. +It was filled in 1536 by friar Vidal de Bécanis (the letters patent +appointing whom are given in the Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. +fr., i. (1853), 358). He was succeeded by Louis de Rochetti, who left +the Roman Catholic Church, and was burned alive at Toulouse, Sept. 10, +1538. Afterward Bécanis was reinstated (Ibid., <i>ubi supra</i>). A circular +letter of this inquisitor-general, accompanying a list of heretical and +prohibited works, is given, Ibid., i. 362, 363, 437, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_596_596" id="Footnote_596_596"></a><a href="#FNanchor_596_596"><span class="label">[596]</span></a> Garnier, Hist. de France, xxvii. 49-54.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_597_597" id="Footnote_597_597"></a><a href="#FNanchor_597_597"><span class="label">[597]</span></a> The date, Oct. 16th, usually given (by De Thou, Garnier, +etc.) for this harangue is incorrect. The publication of the valuable +"Mémoires-journaux du Duc de Guise," which Messrs. Michaud and Poujoulat +(1851) have brought out of their obscurity, affords us the advantage of +reading the account of the deputation and speech of Séguier in the words +of his own report, from the Registers of Parliament (pp. 246-249). From +this we learn that Séguier and Du Drac left Paris on Saturday, Oct. +19th, reached Villera-Cotterets on Monday the 21st, and had an audience +on Tuesday the 22d.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_598_598" id="Footnote_598_598"></a><a href="#FNanchor_598_598"><span class="label">[598]</span></a> "Qu'il falloit croire l'Escriture et rendre tesmoignage +de sa créance par bonnes œuvres, et qui ne la veut croire et accuse +les autres estre luthériens, est plus hérétique que les mesmes +luthériens." Mémoires de Guise, 248.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_599_599" id="Footnote_599_599"></a><a href="#FNanchor_599_599"><span class="label">[599]</span></a> Mémoires de Guise, 246-249; Gamier, xxvii. 55-70; De +Thou, liv. xvi., ii. 375-377.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_600_600" id="Footnote_600_600"></a><a href="#FNanchor_600_600"><span class="label">[600]</span></a> Mém. de Guise, 249, 250.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_601_601" id="Footnote_601_601"></a><a href="#FNanchor_601_601"><span class="label">[601]</span></a> According to Claude Haton (p. 38), a part of the +emigrants were, by the king's permission, drawn from the prisons of +Paris and Rouen. Nor does the pious curate see anything incongruous in +the attempt to employ the released criminals in converting the +barbarians to the true faith. However, although Villegagnon was a native +of Provins, where Haton long resided, the curate's authority is not +always to be received with perfect assurance.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_602_602" id="Footnote_602_602"></a><a href="#FNanchor_602_602"><span class="label">[602]</span></a> The reconciliation between the statements of the text (in +which I have followed the unimpeachable authority of the Hist. ecclés. +des églises réformées) and the assertion of the equally authoritative +life of Coligny by Francis Hotman (Latin ed., 1575, p. 18, Eng. tr. of +D. D. Scott, p. 70). that Coligny's "love for true religion and vital +godliness, and his desire to worship God aright," dated from the time of +his captivity after the fall of St. Quentin (1557), and the opportunity +he then enjoyed for reading the Holy Scriptures, is to be found probably +in the view that, having previously been convinced of the truth of the +reformed doctrines, he was not brought until then to their bold +confession and courageous espousal—acts so perilous in themselves and +so fatal to his ambition and to his love of ease. Respecting +Villegagnon's promise to establish the "sincere worship of God" in his +new colony, see the rare and interesting "Historia navigationis in +Braziliam, quæ et America dicitur. Qua describitur autoris navigatio, +quæque in mari vidit memoriæ prodenda: Villegagnonis in America gesta, +etc. A Joanne Lerio, Burgundo, etc., 1586." Jean l'Hery or Léry was a +young man of twenty-two, who accompanied the ministers and skilled +workmen whom Villegagnon invited to Brazil, partly from pious motives, +partly, as he tells us, from curiosity to see the new world (page 6). +Despite his sufferings, the adventurous author, in later years, longed +for a return to the wilderness, where among the savages better faith +prevailed than in civilized France: "Ita enim apud nos fides nulla +superest, resque adeo nostra tota <i>Italica</i> facta est," etc. (page +301).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_603_603" id="Footnote_603_603"></a><a href="#FNanchor_603_603"><span class="label">[603]</span></a> Jean Léry, <i>ubi supra</i>, 4-6.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_604_604" id="Footnote_604_604"></a><a href="#FNanchor_604_604"><span class="label">[604]</span></a> What Villegagnon actually believed was an enigma to Léry, +for the vice-admiral rejected both transubstantiation and +consubstantiation, and yet maintained a <i>real</i> presence. Léry, 58, 54. +Cointas had at first solemnly abjured Roman Catholicism, and applied for +admission to the Reformed Church. Ibid., 46.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_605_605" id="Footnote_605_605"></a><a href="#FNanchor_605_605"><span class="label">[605]</span></a> Léry himself is in doubt respecting the exact occasion of +the change in Villegagnon's conduct. Some of the colonists were fully +persuaded "inde id accidisse, quod a Cardinali Lotharingo, aliisque qui +ad eum e Gallia scripserunt ... graviter fuisset reprehensus, quod a +Catholica Romanensi Ecclesia descivisset: hisque literis eum ita +perterritum fuisse, ut sententiam repente mutaverit." Others believed +him guilty of premeditated treachery: "Post meum tamen reditum accepi +Villagagnonem cum Card. Lotharingo consilium jam inivisse, antequam e +Gallia excederet, de vera Religione simulanda, ut facilius auctoritate +Colignii maris præfecti abuterentur," etc. Hist. navig. in Brasiliam, +62, 63.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_606_606" id="Footnote_606_606"></a><a href="#FNanchor_606_606"><span class="label">[606]</span></a> The Protestants were bearers of a Bellerophontic letter, +addressed to the magistrates of whatever French port they might enter, +intended to compass their destruction as heretics and rebels. They made +the harbor of Hennebon, in Brittany, whose Protestant officers disclosed +the secret plan and welcomed the half-famished fugitives. Léry, 304-330; +Hist. ecclés., i. 102; La Place, Commentaires de l'estat de la rel. et +républ., 25.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_607_607" id="Footnote_607_607"></a><a href="#FNanchor_607_607"><span class="label">[607]</span></a> De Thou, ii. 381-384; Hist. ecclés., 100-102; Léry, 339 +<i>et passim</i>; La Place, <i>ubi supra</i>. "Clarissimi, erudissimique viri D. +Nicolai Villagagnonis, equitis Rhodii, adversus novitium Calvini ... +dogma de sacramento Eucharistiæ, opuscula tria, Coloniæ, 1563." In the +preface of the first of these treatises, Villegagnon denies the reports +of his fickleness and cruelty as slanders of the returning Protestants, +and defends his conduct in throwing the three <i>monks</i> into the sea. In a +dedication to Constable Montmorency (dated 1560) he clears himself from +the charge of atheism brought against him because he expelled the +ministers "on discovering the vanity of their religion." There are +subjoined Richier's articles, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_608_608" id="Footnote_608_608"></a><a href="#FNanchor_608_608"><span class="label">[608]</span></a> Hist. ecclés., i. 61.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_609_609" id="Footnote_609_609"></a><a href="#FNanchor_609_609"><span class="label">[609]</span></a> Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 61-63.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_610_610" id="Footnote_610_610"></a><a href="#FNanchor_610_610"><span class="label">[610]</span></a> Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 63-71.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_611_611" id="Footnote_611_611"></a><a href="#FNanchor_611_611"><span class="label">[611]</span></a> "In Gallia pergunt ecclesiæ zelo plane mirabili. +<i>Parisienses</i> novum ministrum petunt, quern brevi, ut spero, missuri +sumus." Beza to Bullinger, Jan. 1, 1556 (Baum, i. 450).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_612_612" id="Footnote_612_612"></a><a href="#FNanchor_612_612"><span class="label">[612]</span></a> Beza to Bullinger, Feb. 12, 1556 (Ib., i. 453). The +curate of Mériot deplores the progress of the Reformation during this +year. "L'hérésie prenoit secrètement pied en France.... Mais ah! le +malheur advint tel que la plus part des grands juges de la court de +parlement, comme présidens et conseillers, furent et estoient intoxiquez +et empoisonnez de ladite hérésie luthérienne et calvinienne, et qui pis +est de la moytié, se trouva finallement des évesques qui estoient tous +plains et couvers de ceste mauldite farinne. Et pour ce que le roy +tenoit le main forte pour faire pugnir de la peine du feu les +coulpables, y en avait mille à sa suitte et en la ville de Paris, +<i>lesquelz faisoient bonne mine et meschant jeu</i>, feignoient d'estre +vrays catholiques, et en leur secret et consciences estoient parfaictz +héréticques." Mém. de Claude Haton, 27.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_613_613" id="Footnote_613_613"></a><a href="#FNanchor_613_613"><span class="label">[613]</span></a> The execution of the "Five from Geneva" at Chambéry, in +Savoy—then, as now again, a part of France—and the violent persecution +in the neighborhood of Angers, are well known (Crespin, fols. 283-321; +Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 68, 69). The inclination to resist force +by force, manifested by some Protestants in Anjou, was promptly +discouraged by Calvin; letter of April 19, 1556 (Lettres franç., ii. +90). The number and names of the martyrs will probably never be +ascertained. "N'estoit quasi moys de l'an qu'on n'en bruslast à Paris, à +Meaux et à Troie en Champagne deux ou trois, en aulcun moy plus de +douze. Et si pour cela les aultres ne cessoient de poursuivre leur +entreprinse de mettre en avant leur faulce religion." Mém. de Cl. Haton, +48. The Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. fr., vii. (1858) 14, +extracts from the registers of the Parliament of Toulouse, June 11, +1556, the sentence of a victim hitherto unknown—one Blondel. He had +dared to protest against the impiety of the procession of the +"Fête-Dieu," or "Corpus Christi," by singing "a profane hymn of Clément +Marot." Parliament turned aside from the procession, and in the sacristy +of the church of St. Stephen rapidly tried him, and ordered him to be +burned the same day at the stake in a public square, as a "reparation of +the injury done to the holy faith." Certainly a church dedicated to the +Christian protomartyr was not the most appropriate place for drawing up +such a decree!</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_614_614" id="Footnote_614_614"></a><a href="#FNanchor_614_614"><span class="label">[614]</span></a> De Thou, ii. 404.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_615_615" id="Footnote_615_615"></a><a href="#FNanchor_615_615"><span class="label">[615]</span></a> De Thou, ii. 412-416.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_616_616" id="Footnote_616_616"></a><a href="#FNanchor_616_616"><span class="label">[616]</span></a> The papal letter sent by the hands of Caraffa to Henry +(together with a sword and hat solemnly blessed by Paul himself) is +reprinted in Cimber et Danjou, Archives curieuses, iii. 425, 426.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_617_617" id="Footnote_617_617"></a><a href="#FNanchor_617_617"><span class="label">[617]</span></a> De Thou, ii. 417.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_618_618" id="Footnote_618_618"></a><a href="#FNanchor_618_618"><span class="label">[618]</span></a> A letter of Henry himself to M. de Selve, his ambassador +at Rome, gives us the fact of the effort and of its failure: "Voyant les +hérésies et faulces doctrines, qui à mon très grand regret, ennuy et +desplaisir, pullulent en mes royaume et pays de mon obéissance, j'avoys +despiéca advisé, selon les advis <i>que le cardinal Caraffe estant +dernièrement pardeça m'en a donné de la part de nostre Saint-Père, de +mettre sus et introduire l'inquisition</i> selon la forme de droict, pour +estre le vray moien d'extirper la racine de telles erreurs, pugnir et +corriger ceulx qui lea font et commettent avec leurs imitateurs, toutes +fois pour ce que en cela se sont trouvez quelques difficultez, alléguant +ceulx des estats de mon royaume, lesquels ne veulent recevoir, +approuver, ne observer la dicte inquisition, les troubles, divisions et +aultres inconveniens qu'elle pourroit apporter avec soy, et mesmes, en +ce temps de guerre, il m'a semblé pour le mieulx de y parvenir par +aultre voye," etc. Mémoires de Guise, p. 338. The letter is inaccurately +given in Sismondi, Hist. des Français, xviii. 623. See Dulaure, H. de +Paris, iv. 135.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_619_619" id="Footnote_619_619"></a><a href="#FNanchor_619_619"><span class="label">[619]</span></a> "Comme celluy qui ne désire autre chose en ce monde, que +veoir mon peuple nect et exempt d'une telle dangereuse peste et vermyne +que sont lesdictes hérésies et faulces et reprouvées doctrines." Henry +to De Selve, <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_620_620" id="Footnote_620_620"></a><a href="#FNanchor_620_620"><span class="label">[620]</span></a> Sismondi, Hist. des Français, xviii. 62.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_621_621" id="Footnote_621_621"></a><a href="#FNanchor_621_621"><span class="label">[621]</span></a> Sir Wm. Pickering to Council, Melun, Sept. 4, 1551, State +Paper Office MSS. Patrick Fraser Tytler, Reigns of Edward VI. and Mary, +i. 420.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_622_622" id="Footnote_622_622"></a><a href="#FNanchor_622_622"><span class="label">[622]</span></a> Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 72.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_623_623" id="Footnote_623_623"></a><a href="#FNanchor_623_623"><span class="label">[623]</span></a> See the declaration of Henry, in Preuves des Libertez de +l'Égl. gallicane, part iii. 174.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_624_624" id="Footnote_624_624"></a><a href="#FNanchor_624_624"><span class="label">[624]</span></a> Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 72, 73.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_625_625" id="Footnote_625_625"></a><a href="#FNanchor_625_625"><span class="label">[625]</span></a> "Hoc quidem tibi possum pro comperto affirmare regnum Dei +tantum nunc progressum <i>in decem minimum Galliæ urbibus ac Lutetiæ +præsertim</i> facere ut magni nescio quid Dominus illic moliri aperte +videatur." Beza to Bullinger, March 27, 1557, Baum, Theodor Beza, i. +461.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_626_626" id="Footnote_626_626"></a><a href="#FNanchor_626_626"><span class="label">[626]</span></a> At Autun, in Sept., 1556. Hist. ecclés., i. 70. No wonder +that the example set by the judges of Autun "served greatly to instruct +others!"</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_627_627" id="Footnote_627_627"></a><a href="#FNanchor_627_627"><span class="label">[627]</span></a> Recueil gén. des anc. lois fr., xiii. 494-497. The +respective jurisdictions of the clerical and lay judges remained the +same. An article, however, was appended declaring that in future the +confiscated property of condemned heretics should no more inure to the +crown, or be granted to private individuals, but should be applied to +charitable purposes. What a feeble barrier this provision proved to the +cupidity of the courtiers, long glutted with the spoils of +"Lutherans"—real or pretended—the case of Philippine de Luns showed +very clearly, some two or three months later.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_628_628" id="Footnote_628_628"></a><a href="#FNanchor_628_628"><span class="label">[628]</span></a> Besides the accounts of the disastrous battle of St. +Quentin given by the Mémoires of Rabutin, Coligny and other +contemporaries, and by De Thou and other historians of a somewhat later +date, the graphic narrative of its incidents contained in Prescott's +Reign of Philip the Second (lib. i., c. vii.) is well worthy of +perusal.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_629_629" id="Footnote_629_629"></a><a href="#FNanchor_629_629"><span class="label">[629]</span></a> Prescott, i. 240, note.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_630_630" id="Footnote_630_630"></a><a href="#FNanchor_630_630"><span class="label">[630]</span></a> "Comme feu soubs la cendre." Recueil gén. des anc. lois +fr., xiii. 134.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_631_631" id="Footnote_631_631"></a><a href="#FNanchor_631_631"><span class="label">[631]</span></a> By an unpardonable negligence, Mr. Browning places the +"affaire de la rue St. Jacques" before the battle of St. Quentin, in the +month of May, 1557. History of the Huguenots, i. 45.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_632_632" id="Footnote_632_632"></a><a href="#FNanchor_632_632"><span class="label">[632]</span></a> A contemporary account of the affair by the reformer +Knox, dated Dieppe, Dec. 7, 1557, although it adds little to our +knowledge of the incidents, is of considerable interest. I cite a few +sentences: "Almost in everie notabill Citie within France thair be +assemblit godlie Congregationis of sic as refusit all societie with the +sinagoge of Sathan, so were (and yit are) dyvers Congregationis in +Paris, and kirkis having thair learnit ministeris for preishing Chrystis +Evangell, and for trew ministratioun of the halie Sacramentis instited +be him. The brute whairof being spred abrod, great search was maid for +thair aprehensioun, and at lenth, according to the pre-disingnit consall +of oure God, who hath apoyntit the memberis to be lyke to the heid, the +bludthirstie wolves did violentlie rusche in amongis a portioun of +Chrystis simpill lambis. For thois hell-houndis of Sorbonistis, +accompanyit with the rascall pepill, and with sum sergeantis maid apt +for thair purpois, did so furiouslie invade a halie assemblie convenit +(nye the number of four hundreth personis) to celebrat the memorie of +oure Lordis deth," etc. Printed from MS. volume in possession of Dr. +McCrie, in David Laing's Works of John Knox (Edinb., 1855), iv. 299.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_633_633" id="Footnote_633_633"></a><a href="#FNanchor_633_633"><span class="label">[633]</span></a> "As ravisching wolves rageing for blood, murderit sum, +oppressit all, and schamfullie intreatit both men and wemen of great +blude and knawin honestie." Knox, <i>ubi supra</i>, p. 300.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_634_634" id="Footnote_634_634"></a><a href="#FNanchor_634_634"><span class="label">[634]</span></a> Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 73-75. This detailed and +most authentic account is taken verbatim from that of Crespin, which may +be read in the Galerie chrétienne, ii. 253-259; De la Place (ed. +Panthéon lit.), p. 4; De Thou, v. 530. Claude Haton gives a story which +bears but a faint resemblance to the truth—the mingled result of +imperfect information and prejudice. Mémoires, i. 51-53.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_635_635" id="Footnote_635_635"></a><a href="#FNanchor_635_635"><span class="label">[635]</span></a> "And yit is not this the end and chief point of thair +malice; for thai, as children of thair father, wha is the autour of all +lies, incontinent did spread a most schamfull and horribill sclander, to +wit, that thai convenit upon the nycht for no uthir cause but to +satisfie the filthie lustis of the flesche." Knox, <i>ubi supra</i>, p. 300. +For an unfriendly account of the pretended orgies, see Claude Haton +(Mém.), i. 49-51.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_636_636" id="Footnote_636_636"></a><a href="#FNanchor_636_636"><span class="label">[636]</span></a> Foul play was even employed, in addition to barbarous +treatment, if Knox was rightly informed: "But theis cruell tirantis and +privie murdereris, as thai have permittit libertie of toung to none, sa +by poysone haif thai murderit dyvers in prisone." Knox, <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_637_637" id="Footnote_637_637"></a><a href="#FNanchor_637_637"><span class="label">[637]</span></a> Henry ordered parliament to try the accused by a +commission consisting of two presidents and sixteen counsellors, and +enjoined that this matter should take precedence of all others. Hist. +ecclés des égl. réf., <i>ubi infra</i>; Crespin, <i>ubi infra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_638_638" id="Footnote_638_638"></a><a href="#FNanchor_638_638"><span class="label">[638]</span></a> The courageous words of Philippine de Luns, when she was +bidden to give her tongue to have it cut off, were long remembered: +"Since I bemoan not my body," said she, "shall I bemoan my tongue?" Beza +alludes to her as "matrona quædam et genere et pietate valde nobilis, +fidem ad extremum usque spiritum professa signis omnibus, quum, abscisa +lingua et <i>ardente face pudendis ipsius turpissime ac crudelissime +injecta</i>, torreretur." Beza ad Turicenses (inhabitants of Zurich), Nov. +24, 1557; given in Baum, App. to vol. i. 501; Hist. ecclés., i. 82. A +courtier, the Marquis of Trans, son-in-law of the keeper of the seals, +was not ashamed to ask for and obtain the confiscation of her estates, +in violation of the provision of the late Edict of Compiègne, "que +plusieurs trouvèrent mauvais." De la Place, Commentaires de l'estat de +la religion et république, soubs les rois Henry et François Seconds et +Charles Neufviesme, p. 4.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_639_639" id="Footnote_639_639"></a><a href="#FNanchor_639_639"><span class="label">[639]</span></a> Beza to Farel, Nov. 11, 1557, Baum, i. 490.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_640_640" id="Footnote_640_640"></a><a href="#FNanchor_640_640"><span class="label">[640]</span></a> The Scotch reformer, John Knox, being detained by +unfavorable tidings at Dieppe, on his return from Geneva, not only +devoted himself to visiting and strengthening his persecuted brethren in +France (M'Crie, Life of Knox, i. 202; Brandes, J. Knox, Elberfeld, 1862, +p. 136), but had the Apology of the Parisian Protestants translated into +English, himself adding the prefatory remarks, from which several +quotations have been made above. The treatise seems never to have been +printed until the present century, the probable reason, according to Mr. +Laing, being the subsequent release of so many of the prisoners as +survived.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_641_641" id="Footnote_641_641"></a><a href="#FNanchor_641_641"><span class="label">[641]</span></a> "Jusques icy ceulx qui out esté appeléz au martyre ont +esté <i>contemptibles au monde</i>, tant pour la <i>qualité</i> de leurs +personnes, que pource que le <i>nombre</i> n'a pas esté si grand pour ung +coup. Que sçavons-nous s'il a desjà appresté une issue telle qu'il y +aura de quoy nous esjouir et le glorifier au double?" Letter of Calvin, +Sept 16, 1557. Bonnet, Lett. fr. de Calv., ii. 139-145.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_642_642" id="Footnote_642_642"></a><a href="#FNanchor_642_642"><span class="label">[642]</span></a> Calvin aux églises de Lausanne, de Mouden, et de Payerne, +Ibid., ii. 150, 151.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_643_643" id="Footnote_643_643"></a><a href="#FNanchor_643_643"><span class="label">[643]</span></a> The MS. letter of Beza and his companions to the +"Seigneurs" of Berne (to whom their allies had referred the entire +matter, in order to obviate all delay), dated Basle, Sept. 27, 1557, is +in the archives of Berne, and has been printed for the first time in the +Bulletin, xvii. (April, 1868) 164-166. The writers urge the utmost +haste, both for the sake of the prisoners of Paris and of some other +Protestants confined in the dungeons of Dijon.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_644_644" id="Footnote_644_644"></a><a href="#FNanchor_644_644"><span class="label">[644]</span></a> This was particularly the advice of the friendly Count +George of Montbéliard, as recorded by Beza: "Comes fuit in ea sententia, +ut, dum Helvetii priores cum rege agerent, sollicitaremus alios etiam +Germanos principes, ac præsertim eos, a quibus <i>Pharao</i> ille nova +auxilia hoc ipso tempore postularet." Letter to Zurich, Nov. 24, 1557, +Baum, i. 495.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_645_645" id="Footnote_645_645"></a><a href="#FNanchor_645_645"><span class="label">[645]</span></a> "Par la response que le roy fit dernièrement aux députés +que les seigneurs des cantons de Zurich, Berne, Basle et Schaffouse, ses +très-chers et bons amys envoyèrent par deçà à la requeste de ceulx de la +vallée d'Angrogne, pour le faict de la religion, Sa Majesté estimoit que +les dicts seigneurs des dicts cantons se contenteroient et ne +prendroient plus d'occasion de renvoyer devers luy pour semblable cause, +comme ils ont faict les seigneurs Johan Escher, Jean Wyss, Jacob Gœtz +et Louys Oechsly, présens porteurs ... ce que le dict seigneur a trouvé +un pen estrange, pour la considération qu'il a tousiours eue envers les +dicts seigneurs des cantons et aultres ses amys de ne s'empescher ni +soulcier des choses qui touchent l'administration de leurs Estats, ni la +justice de leurs subiets, ainsi qu'il luy semble qu'ils doibvent [faire] +envers luy, <i>priant les dicts seigneurs des dicts cantons estre contans +de doresnavant ne se donner peine de ce qu'il fera et exécutera en son +royaulme, et moings au faict de la religion, qu'il veult et a délibéré +d'observer et suivre, telle que ses prédécesseurs et luy (comme roys +très-chrestiens) ont faict par le passé, et contenir ses dicts subiects +en icelle, dont il n'a à rendre compte à aultre que à Dieu</i>, par l'aide, +bonté et protection duquel il s'asseure maintenir son dict royaulme en +estat, en la tranquillité et prospérité là où il a esté jusques icy." +Réponse du roi. The Swiss envoys were intrusted on their return with a +letter from the Cardinal of Lorraine to the magistrates of the +Protestant cantons, full as usual of honeyed words. It closed with these +words: "Priant Dieu, Messieurs, vous donner ce que plus désyrez. De +Sainct-Germain en Laye, le 6<sup>e</sup> jour de novembre 1557. Vostre meilleur +voysin et amy, Cardinal de Lorraine." This was pretty fair dissembling +even for the smooth tongue of the arch-persecutor of the Huguenots. It +must be confessed, however, that the sheep's clothing never seemed to +fit him well; the wolfish foot or the bloodthirsty jaws had an +irresistible propensity to show themselves. The letter of the cantons, +the king's reply, and Lorraine's letter, from the MSS. in the archives +of Basle, are printed in the Bulletin de la Société de l'hist. du prot. +français, xvii. 164-167.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_646_646" id="Footnote_646_646"></a><a href="#FNanchor_646_646"><span class="label">[646]</span></a> Baum, Theodor Beza, i. 317; Heppe, Leben Theod. Beza, +52-58.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_647_647" id="Footnote_647_647"></a><a href="#FNanchor_647_647"><span class="label">[647]</span></a> "Ab eo tempore (Oct. 23d) audimus perlectis Palatini +literis datas aliquas judiciorum inducias." Beza's letter of Nov. 24th, +<i>ubi supra</i>. It is not improbable that the interference of Henry's +allies had some salutary effect, in spite of the rough answer they +received. Hist. ecclés. des églises réf., i. 84, which, however, says +nothing of the reply to the Swiss.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_648_648" id="Footnote_648_648"></a><a href="#FNanchor_648_648"><span class="label">[648]</span></a> Beza, letter of Nov. 24, 1557, <i>ubi supra</i>. See a letter +of Calvin to this noblewoman (Dec. 8, 1557), Lettres franç. (Bonnet), +ii. 159.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_649_649" id="Footnote_649_649"></a><a href="#FNanchor_649_649"><span class="label">[649]</span></a> Hist. ecclés., i. 84.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_650_650" id="Footnote_650_650"></a><a href="#FNanchor_650_650"><span class="label">[650]</span></a> Calvin to Bullinger, Bonnet (Eng. tr.), iii. 411; Baum, +i. 317, 318.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_651_651" id="Footnote_651_651"></a><a href="#FNanchor_651_651"><span class="label">[651]</span></a> Histoire ecclésiastique des églises réformées, i. 78.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_652_652" id="Footnote_652_652"></a><a href="#FNanchor_652_652"><span class="label">[652]</span></a> Cf. the anonymous letter to Henry the Second, inserted in +La Place, Commentaires de l'estat de la religion et république (éd. +Panthéon Littéraire), p. 5; and in Crespin (see Galerie chrétienne, ii. +246).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_653_653" id="Footnote_653_653"></a><a href="#FNanchor_653_653"><span class="label">[653]</span></a> Guise's glory was, according to parliament, in +registering (Feb. 15th) the king's gift to him of the "maison des +marchands" at Calais, "d'avoir expugné une place et conquis un pays que +depuis deux cens ans homme n'avoit non seulement entrepris de faict, +mais ne compris en l'esprit." Reg. of Parliament, <i>apud</i> Mémoires de +Guise, p. 422.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_654_654" id="Footnote_654_654"></a><a href="#FNanchor_654_654"><span class="label">[654]</span></a> De Thou, ii. 549-552; Prescott, Philip the Second, i. +255-257.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_655_655" id="Footnote_655_655"></a><a href="#FNanchor_655_655"><span class="label">[655]</span></a> Hist. ecclés. i. 87, 88.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_656_656" id="Footnote_656_656"></a><a href="#FNanchor_656_656"><span class="label">[656]</span></a> In Normandy the burdens imposed by the war indirectly +favored the growth of Protestantism. "The troubles of religion were +great in this kingdom during the year 1558," writes a quaint local +antiquarian. "The common people was pretty easily seduced. Moreover, the +'imposts' and 'subsidies' were so excessive that, in many villages, no +assessments of 'tailles' were laid; the 'tithes' (on ecclesiastical +property) were so high that the curates and vicars fled away, through +fear of being imprisoned, and divine service ceased to be said in a +large number of parishes adjoining this city of Caen: as in the villages +of Plumetot, Periers, Sequeville, Puto, Soliers, and many others. Seeing +which, some preachers who had come out of Geneva took possession of the +temples and churches." Les Recherches et Antiquitez de la ville de Caen, +par Charles de Bourgueville, sieur du lieu, etc. Caen, 1588. Pt. ii. +162.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_657_657" id="Footnote_657_657"></a><a href="#FNanchor_657_657"><span class="label">[657]</span></a> Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 89.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_658_658" id="Footnote_658_658"></a><a href="#FNanchor_658_658"><span class="label">[658]</span></a> The letter, dated March 19th, is reproduced in the +Galerie chrét., abridgment of Crespin, ii. 266-269. Melanchthon wrote, +in the name of the theologians assembled at Worms, an earnest appeal to +the same monarch, on the 1st of Dec, 1557. Opera Mel. (Bretschneider), +ix. 383-385.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_659_659" id="Footnote_659_659"></a><a href="#FNanchor_659_659"><span class="label">[659]</span></a> Hist. ecclés., i. 89. Galerie chrétienne, ii. 270.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_660_660" id="Footnote_660_660"></a><a href="#FNanchor_660_660"><span class="label">[660]</span></a> See Dulaure's plan of Paris under Francis I. Hist. de +Paris, Atlas.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_661_661" id="Footnote_661_661"></a><a href="#FNanchor_661_661"><span class="label">[661]</span></a> The date is fixed as well by the Reg. of Parliament (cf. +<i>infra</i>), as by a passage in a letter of Calvin to the Marquis of Vico, +of July 19, 1558 (Lettres franç., Bonnet, ii. 212), in which the +psalm-singing is alluded to as having occurred "about two months +ago"—"il y a environ deux moys."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_662_662" id="Footnote_662_662"></a><a href="#FNanchor_662_662"><span class="label">[662]</span></a> De Thou, ii. 578.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_663_663" id="Footnote_663_663"></a><a href="#FNanchor_663_663"><span class="label">[663]</span></a> Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 90. How large a body of +Parisians took part in these demonstrations appears from the Registers +of Parliament. On the 17th of May, 1558, the Bishop of Paris reported to +parliament that he had given orders to find out "les autheurs des +assemblées qui se sont faictes <i>ces jours icy, tant au pré aux Clercs, +que par les rues de cette ville de Paris, et à grandes troupes de +personnes, tant escolliers, gentilshommes, damoiselles que autres +chantans à haute voix chansons et pseaumes de David en François</i>." On +the following day the procureur general was directed to inquire into the +"monopoles, conventicules et assembées illicites, qui <i>se font chacun +jour en divers quartiers et fauxbourgs de cette ville de Paris</i>, tant +d'hommes que de femmes, dont la pluspart sont en armes, et chantent +publiquement à haute voix chansons concernant le faict de la religion, +et tendant à sedition et commotion populaire, et perturbation du repos +et tranquillité publique." Reg. of Parl., <i>apud</i> Félibien, Hist. de +Paris, Preuves, iv. 783. The charge of carrying arms seems to have been +true only so far that the "gentilshommes" wore their swords as usual.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_664_664" id="Footnote_664_664"></a><a href="#FNanchor_664_664"><span class="label">[664]</span></a> La Place, Commentaires de l'estat, etc., p. 9; De Thou, +ii. 563.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_665_665" id="Footnote_665_665"></a><a href="#FNanchor_665_665"><span class="label">[665]</span></a> Hist. ecclés. de Bretagne depuis la réformation jusqu'à +l'édit de Nantes, par Philippe Le Noir, Sieur de Crevain. Published from +the MS. in the library of Rennes, by B. Vaurigaud, Nantes, 1851, 2-17.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_666_666" id="Footnote_666_666"></a><a href="#FNanchor_666_666"><span class="label">[666]</span></a> Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 91.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_667_667" id="Footnote_667_667"></a><a href="#FNanchor_667_667"><span class="label">[667]</span></a> Ib., <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_668_668" id="Footnote_668_668"></a><a href="#FNanchor_668_668"><span class="label">[668]</span></a> De Thou, ii. 566, 567; Hist. ecclés., <i>ubi supra</i>; La +Place, Commentaires de l'estat, pp. 9, 10; Calvin, Lettres franç. (July +19th), ii. 212, 213.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_669_669" id="Footnote_669_669"></a><a href="#FNanchor_669_669"><span class="label">[669]</span></a> The closing words of this letter, written probably in +May, 1558, and published for the first time in the Bull. de la Soc. de +l'hist. du prot. fr. (1854), iii. 243-245, from the MS. belonging to the +late Col. Henri Tronchin, are so brave and so loyal, that the reader +will readily excuse their insertion: "Et ce que je vous demande, Sire, +n'est point, grâces à Dieu, pour crainte de la mort, et moins encore +pour désir que j'aye de recouvrer ma liberté, car je n'ay rien si cher +que je n'abandonne fort voluntiers pour le salut de mon âme et la gloire +de mon Dieu. Mais, toutefois, la perplexité où je suis de vous vouloir +satisfaire et rendre le service que je vous doibs, et ne le pouvoir +faire en cela avec seureté de ma conscience, me travaille et serre le +cueur tellement que pour m'en délivrer j'ay esté contrainct de vous +faire ceste très humble requeste."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_670_670" id="Footnote_670_670"></a><a href="#FNanchor_670_670"><span class="label">[670]</span></a> Cf. Calvin's letter to the Marq. of Vico, July 19, 1558. +Bonnet, Lettres franç., ii. 213, 214: "Sa femme luy monstrant son ventre +pour l'esmouvoir à compassion du fruict qu'elle portoit."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_671_671" id="Footnote_671_671"></a><a href="#FNanchor_671_671"><span class="label">[671]</span></a> Among the many important services which the French +Protestant Historical Society has rendered, the rescue from oblivion of +the interesting correspondence relating to D'Andelot's imprisonment +merits to be reckoned by no means the least (Bulletin, iii. 238-255). +Even the graphic narrative of the Histoire ecclésiastique fails to give +the vivid impression conveyed by a perusal of these eight documents +emanating from the pens of D'Andelot, Macar (one of the pastors at +Paris), and Calvin. The dates of these letters, in connection with a +statement in the Hist. ecclés., fix the imprisonment of D'Andelot as +lasting from May to July, 1558. A month later Calvin wrote to Garnier: +"D'Andelot, the nephew of the constable, has basely deceived our +expectations. After having given proofs of invincible constancy, in a +moment of weakness he consented to go to mass, if the king absolutely +insisted on his doing so. He declared publicly, indeed, that he thus +acted against his inclinations; he has nevertheless exposed the gospel +to great disgrace. He now implores our forgiveness for this offence.... +This, at least, is praiseworthy in him, that he avoids the court, and +openly declares that he had never abandoned his principles." Letter of +Aug. 29th, Bonnet, Eng. tr., iii. 460; see also Ath. Coquerel, Précis de +l'histoire de l'égl. réf. de Paris, Pièces historiques, pp. +xxii.-lxxvi.; twenty-one letters of Macar belonging to 1558. If the +reformers condemned D'Andelot's concession, Paul the Fourth, on the +other hand, regarded his escape from the <i>estrapade</i> as proof positive +that not only Henry, but even the Cardinal of Lorraine, was lukewarm in +the defence of the faith! Read the following misspelt sentences from a +letter of Card. La Bourdaisière, the French envoy to Rome, to the +constable (Feb. 25, 1559), now among the MSS. of the National Library of +Paris. The Pope had sent expressly for the ambassador: "Il me declara +que cestoit pour me dire quil sebayssoit grandement comme <i>sa magesté ne +faysoit autre compte de punyr les hereticques de son Royaume et que +limpunite de monsieur dandelot donnoit une tres mauvayse reputation a +sadicte mageste</i> devant laquelle ledict Sr. dandelot avoit confessé +destre sacramentayre et <i>qui leust</i> (qu 'il l'eût) <i>mené tout droit au +feu comme il meritoit</i> ... que <i>monsieur le cardinal de Lorrayne</i>, +lequel sa Saincteté a fait son Inquisiteur, ne se sauroit excuser quil +nayt <i>grandement failly</i> ayant layssé perdre une si belle occasion dun +<i>exemple si salutayre</i> et qui luy pouvoit porter tant dhonneur et de +reputation, mais <i>quil monstre bien que luy mesme favorise les +hereticques</i>, dautant que lors que ce scandale advynt, il estoit seul +pres du roy, sans que personne luy peust resister ne l'empescher duser +de la puyssance que sadicte Saincteté luy a donnée." Of course, Paul +could not let pass unimproved so fair an opportunity for repeating the +trite warning that subversion of kingdoms and other dire calamities +follow in the train of "mutation of religion." The punishment of +D'Andelot, however, to which he often returned in his conversation, the +Pontiff evidently regarded as a thing to be <i>executed</i> rather than +<i>spoken about</i>, and he therefore begged the French ambassador to write +the letter to the king in his own cipher, and advise him "to let no one +in the world see his letter." Whereupon Card. La Bourdaisière rather +irreverently observes: "Je croy que le bonhomme pense que le roy +dechiffre luy mesme ses lettres!" a supposition singularly absurd in the +case of Henry, who hated <i>business</i> of every kind. La Bourdaisière +conceived it, on the other hand, to be for his own interest to take the +first opportunity to give private information of the entire conversation +to the constable, D'Andelot's uncle, and to advise him that it would go +hard with his nephew, should he fall into Paul's hands ("quil feroit un +mauvais parti sil le tenoit"). Soldan, Gesch. des Prot. in Frank., i. +(appendix), 607, 608; Bulletin de l'histoire du prot. français, xxvii. +(1878), 103, 104.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_672_672" id="Footnote_672_672"></a><a href="#FNanchor_672_672"><span class="label">[672]</span></a> Letter of Calvin, Aug. 29, 1558, Bonnet, Eng. tr., iii. +460.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_673_673" id="Footnote_673_673"></a><a href="#FNanchor_673_673"><span class="label">[673]</span></a> De Thou (liv. 20), ii. 568, etc., 576, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_674_674" id="Footnote_674_674"></a><a href="#FNanchor_674_674"><span class="label">[674]</span></a> Prescott, Philip II., i. 268-270, has described the +straits in which Philip found himself in consequence of the deplorable +state of his finances. Henry was compelled to resort to desperate +schemes to procure the necessary funds. As early as February, 1554—a +year before the truce of Vaucelles—he published an edict commanding all +the inhabitants of Paris to send in an account of the silver plate they +possessed. Finding that it amounted to 350,000 livres, he ordered his +officers to take and convert it into money, which he retained, giving +the owners twelve per cent. as interest on the compulsory loan. They +were informed, and were doubtless gratified to learn, that the measure +was not only one of urgency, but also precautionary—lest the necessity +should arise for the <i>seizure</i> of the plate, without compensation, it +may be presumed. Reg. des ordon., <i>apud</i> Félibien, H. de Paris, preuves, +v. 287-290.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_675_675" id="Footnote_675_675"></a><a href="#FNanchor_675_675"><span class="label">[675]</span></a> Prescott, Philip the Second, i. 270.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_676_676" id="Footnote_676_676"></a><a href="#FNanchor_676_676"><span class="label">[676]</span></a> De Thou, ii. 584, 585, 660, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_677_677" id="Footnote_677_677"></a><a href="#FNanchor_677_677"><span class="label">[677]</span></a> More than one hundred thousand lives and forty millions +crowns of gold, if we may believe the Mémoires de Vieilleville, ii. 408, +409. "Quod multo sanguine, pecunia incredibili, spatio multorum annorum +Galli acquisierant, uno die <i>magna cum ignominia</i> tradiderunt," says the +papal nuncio, Santa Croce, De civil. Gall. diss. com., 1437. See, +however, Ranke, Civil Wars and Monarchy in France, Am. tr., p. 127.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_678_678" id="Footnote_678_678"></a><a href="#FNanchor_678_678"><span class="label">[678]</span></a> Mém. de Vieilleville, <i>ubi supra</i>. The text of the treaty +is given in Recueil gén. des anc. lois françaises, xiii. 515, etc., and +in Du Mont, Corps diplomatique, v. pt. 1, pp. 34, etc.; the treaty +between France and England, with scrupulous exactness, as usual, in Dr. +P. Forbes, State Papers, i. 68, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_679_679" id="Footnote_679_679"></a><a href="#FNanchor_679_679"><span class="label">[679]</span></a> The prevalent sentiment in France is strongly expressed +by Brantôme, by the memoirs of Vieilleville, of Du Villars, of Tavannes, +etc. "La paix honteuse fut dommageable," says Tavannes; "les associez y +furent trahis, les capitaines abandonnez à leurs ennemis, le sang, la +vie de tant de Français negligée, cent cinquante forteresses rendues, +pour tirer de prison un vieillard connestable, et se descharger de deux +filles de France." Mém. de Gaspard de Saulx, seign. de Tavannes, ii. +242. Du Villars represents the Duke of Guise as remonstrating with Henry +for giving up in a moment more than he could have lost in thirty years, +and as offering to guard the least considerable city among the many he +surrendered against all the Spanish troops: "Mettez-moy dedans la pire +ville de celles que vous voulez rendre, je la conserveray plus +glorieusement sur la bresche, etc." (Ed. Petitot, ii. 267, liv. 10). But +the duke's own brother was one of the commissioners; and Soldan affirms +the existence of a letter from Guise to Nevers (of March 27, 1559) in +the National Library, fully establishing that the duke and the cardinal +understood and were pleased with the substance of the treaty (Soldan, +Gesch. des Prot. in Frankreich, i. 266, note).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_680_680" id="Footnote_680_680"></a><a href="#FNanchor_680_680"><span class="label">[680]</span></a> "Henricus rex se propterea quacumque ratione pacem inire +voluisse dicebat, 'quod intelligeret, regnum Franciæ ad heresim +declinare, magnumque in numerum venisse, ita ut, si diutius diferret, +neque ipsius conscientiæ, neque regni tranquillitati prospiceret: ... se +propterea ad quasvis pacis conditiones descendisse, ut regnum hæreticis +ac malis hominibus purgaret.' Hæc ab eo satis frigide et cum pudore +dicebantur." Santa Croce, De civil. Gall. diss. comment., 1437.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_681_681" id="Footnote_681_681"></a><a href="#FNanchor_681_681"><span class="label">[681]</span></a> Ibid., <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_682_682" id="Footnote_682_682"></a><a href="#FNanchor_682_682"><span class="label">[682]</span></a> "Selon l'article secret de la paix," says Tavannes (Mém., +ii. 247, Ed. Petitot), "les heretiques furent bruslez en France, plus +par crainte qu'ils ne suivissent l'exemple des revoltez d'Allemagne, que +pour la religion." But, it may be asked, was there anything novel in +this? It had needed no <i>secret article</i>, for a generation back, to +conduct a "Christaudin" to the flames.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_683_683" id="Footnote_683_683"></a><a href="#FNanchor_683_683"><span class="label">[683]</span></a> The English commissioners, Killigrew and Jones, in a +despatch written eight or nine months later, express the current belief +respecting the wide scope of the persecution: "Wheras, upon the making +of the late peace, <i>there was an appoinctement made betwene the late +Pope, the French King, and the King of Spaine, for the joigning of their +forces together for the suppression of religion</i>; it is said, that this +King mindethe shortly to send to this new Pope [Pius IV.], for the +renewing of the same league; <i>th' end wherof was to constraine the rest +of christiendome, being protestants, to receive the Pope's authorité and +his religion</i>; and therupon to call a generall counsaill." Letter from +Blois, January 6, 1559/60, Forbes, State Papers, i. 296.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_684_684" id="Footnote_684_684"></a><a href="#FNanchor_684_684"><span class="label">[684]</span></a> "Voila," says Agrippa d'Aubigné, "les conventions d'une +paix en effect pour les royaumes de France et d'Espagne, en apparence de +toute la Chrestienté, glorieuse aux Espagnols, desaventageuse aux +François, <i>redoutable aux Reformez: car comme toutes les difficultez qui +se presenterent au traicté estoient estouffées par le desir de repurger +l'église</i>, ainsi, après la paix establie, les Princes qui par elle +avoient repos du dehors, <i>travaillerent par emulation à qui traitteroit +plus rudement ceux qu'on appeloit Heretiques</i>: et de là nasquit l'ample +subject de 40 ans de guerre monstrueuse." Histoire universelle, liv. i., +c. xviii. p. 46.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_685_685" id="Footnote_685_685"></a><a href="#FNanchor_685_685"><span class="label">[685]</span></a> "Mais quand estant en France j'eus entendu de la propre +bouche du Roy Henry, que le Duc d'Alve traictoit des moyens pour +exterminer tous les suspects de la Religion en France, en ce Pays et par +toute la Chrestienté, et que ledit Sieur Roy (qui pensoit, que comme +j'avois esté l'un des commis pour le Traicté de la Paix, avois eu +communication en si grandes affaires, que je fusse aussi de cette +partie) m'eust declaré le fond du Conseil du Roy d'Espaigne et du Duc +d'Alve: pour n'estre envers Sa Majesté en desestime, comme si on m'eust +voulu cacher quelque chose, je respondis en sorte que ledit Sieur Roy ne +perdit point cette opinion, ce qui luy donna occasion de m'en discourir +assés suffisament pour entendre le fonds du project des Inquisiteurs." +Apologie de Guillaume IX., Prince d'Orange, etc., Dec. 13, 1580; <i>apud</i> +Du Mont, Corps diplomatique, v., pt. 1, p. 392.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_686_686" id="Footnote_686_686"></a><a href="#FNanchor_686_686"><span class="label">[686]</span></a> De Thou, ii. (liv. xxii.), 653.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_687_687" id="Footnote_687_687"></a><a href="#FNanchor_687_687"><span class="label">[687]</span></a> "De nostre costé nous ne sçavons pas si nous sommes loing +des coups; tant y a <i>que nous sommes menasséz par-dessus tout le +reste</i>." Calvin to the Church of Paris, June 29, 1559. Lettres franç., +ii. 282, 283. On the next day the author of the threats was mortally +wounded in the tournament.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_688_688" id="Footnote_688_688"></a><a href="#FNanchor_688_688"><span class="label">[688]</span></a> The Duke of Alva gives all the details of this remarkable +negotiation in a letter to Philip, June 26, 1559, now among the Papiers +de Simancas, ser. B., Leg. no. 62-140, which M. Mignet has printed in +his valuable series of articles reviewing the Collection of Calvin's +French Letters by M. Bonnet, published in the Journal des Savants, 1857, +pp. 171, 172. An extract, without date, from a MS. in the Library at +Turin, seems to refer to this time: "Le roi (Henri II.) déclare +criminels de lèse-majesté tous ceux qui auront quelque commerce avec +Genève, ou en recevront lettres. Cette ville est cause de tous les +malheurs de la France, et il la poursuivra à outrance pour la réduire. +Il promet secours de gens de pied et de cheval au duc de Savoie, et +vient d'obtenir du pape un bref pour décider le roi d'Espagne. Ils vont +unir leurs forces pour une si sainte enterprise." Gaberel, Hist. de +l'égl. de Genève, i. 442.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_689_689" id="Footnote_689_689"></a><a href="#FNanchor_689_689"><span class="label">[689]</span></a> And he did not exaggerate the importance of the crisis. +The adherents of the reformed faith had become numerous, and many were +restive under their protracted sufferings. "I am certainly enformid," +wrote the English ambassador, Throkmorton, to Secretary Cecil (May 15, +1559), "that about the number of fifty thousand persones in Gascoigne, +Guyen, Angieu, Poictiers, Normandy, and Main, have subscribed to a +confession in religion conformable to that of Geneva; which they mind +shortly to exhibit to the King. There be of them diverse personages of +good haviour (<i>sic</i>): and it is said amongst the same, that after they +have delivered their confession to the King, that the spiritualty of +Fraunce will do all they can to procure the King, to the utter +subversion of them: for which cause, they say, <i>the spiritualty seemeth +to be so glad of peaxe</i>, for that they may have that so good an occasion +to worke their feate. But," he adds, "on th' other side these men minde, +in case any repressing and subversion of their religion be ment and put +in execution against them, to resist to the deathe." Forbes, State +Papers, i. 92.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_690_690" id="Footnote_690_690"></a><a href="#FNanchor_690_690"><span class="label">[690]</span></a> "Heri scriptum est ad me Lutetia.... Sorbonicos ad Regem +cucurrisse et tempus ejus eonveniendi aucupatos petiisse curam +inquirendorum Lutheranorum. Quum Rex respondisset: 'Se eam curam Senatui +mandasse, iique respondissent, '<i>totam curiam Parlamenti Parisienis +inquinatam esse</i>,' iracunde intulisse, 'quid vultis igitur faciam, aut +quid consilii capiam? An ut vos in eorum locum substituam, et +Rempublicam meam administretis?'" Letter of Hotman to Bullinger, Aug. +15, 1556, <i>apud</i> Baum, Theod. Beza, i. 294.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_691_691" id="Footnote_691_691"></a><a href="#FNanchor_691_691"><span class="label">[691]</span></a> "The king, however, looks on all the judges with a +suspicious eye." Calvin to Garnier, Aug. 29, 1558. Bonnet, Eng. tr., +iii. 460.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_692_692" id="Footnote_692_692"></a><a href="#FNanchor_692_692"><span class="label">[692]</span></a> Séguier, the leading jurist in the Parisian Parliament, +like most of the judges that possessed much legal acumen, and all those +that were inclined to tolerant sentiments, was reputed unsound in the +faith. Sir Nicholas Throkmorton, the English ambassador, says of him: +"One of the Presidentes of the court of Parliament, named Siggier, a +verey wise man, and one whome the constable for his judgement dothe +muche stay upon, is noted to be a Protestant, and of the chiefest +setters forward and favorers of the rest of that courte against the +cardinalles." The same accurate observer states that, of the "six score" +counsellors present in the Parliamentary session which Henry attended, +only "one of the Presidentes called Magistri and fourteen others were of +the King and the cardinalles side, and did agree with them and +condescend to the punishment of suche as shuld seme to resist to the +cardinalles orders devised for reformation toching religion: the said +Siggier, Rancongnet, and another President, with the rest of the +counsaillors, were all against the cardinalles. Whereupon it is judged," +he adds, "that the House of Guise hathe taken this occasion to weaken +the constable: and because they wold not directly begynne with Siggier, +for feare of manifesting their practise, they have founde the meanes to +cause these counsaillors to be taken; supposing, that in th' examination +of them somme mater may be gathered to toche Siggier withall, and therby +to overthrow him." Despatch of June 13, 1559, Forbes, State Papers, i. +127.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_693_693" id="Footnote_693_693"></a><a href="#FNanchor_693_693"><span class="label">[693]</span></a> Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 106.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_694_694" id="Footnote_694_694"></a><a href="#FNanchor_694_694"><span class="label">[694]</span></a> When President Séguier was defending himself and his +colleagues from the charge made by the Cardinal of Lorraine that they +did not punish the heretics, and alleged as proof the fact that only +three accused of "Lutheranism" remained in their prison, the cardinal +rejoined: "Voire, vous les avez expédiez en les renvoyant devant leurs +évesques! Vrayement voylà une belle expédition, à ceux mesmes qui out +faict profession de leur foy devant vous, tout au contraire de la +saincte église de Rome!" Pierre de la Place, Commentaires de l'estat de +la rel. et rép., p. 11.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_695_695" id="Footnote_695_695"></a><a href="#FNanchor_695_695"><span class="label">[695]</span></a> "Non, non, dict-il, monsieur le président; mais vous +estes cause que non seulement Poictiers, mais tout Poictou jusques au +pays de Bordeaux, Tholouse, Provence, et généralement France est toute +remplie de ceste vermine, qui s'augmente et pullule soubs espérance de +vous." Ib., <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_696_696" id="Footnote_696_696"></a><a href="#FNanchor_696_696"><span class="label">[696]</span></a> Ib., <i>ubi supra</i>, Hist. ecclés., i. 107, 108.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_697_697" id="Footnote_697_697"></a><a href="#FNanchor_697_697"><span class="label">[697]</span></a> La Place, Comm. de l'estat de la rel. et rép., p 12.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_698_698" id="Footnote_698_698"></a><a href="#FNanchor_698_698"><span class="label">[698]</span></a> Idem. Serranus, de statu, etc., i., fol. 14.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_699_699" id="Footnote_699_699"></a><a href="#FNanchor_699_699"><span class="label">[699]</span></a> "There is another consideration of the proceadings of +these maters, whiche (savyng your Majestie's correction) in myne +opinion, is as great as the rest: ... that forasmuch as the multitude of +Protestantes, being spred abrode in sundry partes of this realme in +diverse congregations, ment now amiddes of all these triumphes to use +the meane of somme nobleman to exhibit to the King their confession +(wherof your Majesté shall receive a copie herwithal) to th' intent the +same mighte have bene openly notified to the world; the King being +lothe, that at the arrivall here of the Duke of Savoy, the Duke of Alva, +and others, these maters shuld have appeared so farre forward, hathe +thought good before hande, for the daunting of suche as might have semed +to be doers therin, to prevent their purpose by handeling of these +counsaillors in this sorte." Throkmorton to Queen Elizabeth, June 13, +1559, Forbes, State Papers, i. 128.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_700_700" id="Footnote_700_700"></a><a href="#FNanchor_700_700"><span class="label">[700]</span></a> Vieilleville, ii. 401-404; De Thou, ii. 667; Forbes, +State Papers, i. 127.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_701_701" id="Footnote_701_701"></a><a href="#FNanchor_701_701"><span class="label">[701]</span></a> Mém. de Vieilleville, ii. 405. The date of Henry's visit +to parliament is not free from the same contradictory statements that +affect many of the most important events of history. De Thou, and, +following him, Félibien, Browning, and others, place it five days later +than I have done in the text. La Place, the anonymous "Discours de la +mort du Roy Henry II." (in the Recueil des choses mémorables, published +in 1565, and later in the Mémoires de Condé), Castelnau, the Histoire +ecclés., etc., are our best authorities. As Sir Nicholas Throkmorton +gave an account of the <i>Mercuriale</i> in his despatch to the queen of June +13th (Forbes, State Papers, i. 126-130), I am surprised that Dr. White, +who refers, to this interesting paper (although by an oversight +ascribing it to June 19th) should, while correcting M. de Félice's +error, have preferred the date of June 15th. "Massacre of St. +Bartholomew," Am. ed., p. 51.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_702_702" id="Footnote_702_702"></a><a href="#FNanchor_702_702"><span class="label">[702]</span></a> Discours de la mort du Roy Henry II. (Recueil des choses +mémorables, 1565.) Dulaure, Hist. de Paris, ii. 434-437. Cf. also the +maps accompanying that work.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_703_703" id="Footnote_703_703"></a><a href="#FNanchor_703_703"><span class="label">[703]</span></a> The Discours de la mort du Roy Henry II. add that Henry +demanded the reason of the Parliament's delay to register an edict they +had received from him against the "Lutherans"—doubtless the +last—establishing the inquisitorial commission of three cardinals. +"Cest édict estoit sorti de l'oracle dudict cardinal de Lorreine." Baum, +Theodore Beza, ii. 31, note, etc., has already called attention to the +gross inaccuracies of Browning, in his description of the incidents of +the <i>Mercuriale</i>, as well as of the king's visit to parliament. (Hist. +of the Huguenots, i. 54, etc.). Among other assertions altogether +unwarranted by the evidence, he states that Henry, in order to entrap +the unwary, "declared himself free from every kind of angry feeling +against those counsellors who had adopted the new religion, and begged +them all to speak their opinions freely," etc. (p. 55). If true, this +would rob Du Bourg's course of half its heroism.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_704_704" id="Footnote_704_704"></a><a href="#FNanchor_704_704"><span class="label">[704]</span></a> "Whereas," wrote Throkmorton to Queen Elizabeth, "the +Kinge's presence is very rare, and hathe seldome happened but upon somme +great occasion; so I endevored myself (as much as I could) to learne the +cause of their assemblé." Forbes, State Papers, i. 126.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_705_705" id="Footnote_705_705"></a><a href="#FNanchor_705_705"><span class="label">[705]</span></a> Strangely enough, Mr. Smedley, History of the Reformed +Religion in France, i. 87, note, following a careless annotator of De +Thou, discovers an inaccuracy in the allusion where no inaccuracy +exists. It was not to Ahab's <i>question</i>, but to Elijah's <i>retort</i>, that +Du Faur made reference. See La Place, p. 13.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_706_706" id="Footnote_706_706"></a><a href="#FNanchor_706_706"><span class="label">[706]</span></a> La Place, Comm. de l'estat, etc., p. 13; Hist. ecclés., +i. 122; (Crespin, Gal. chrét., ii. 303); De Thou, ii. 670. Félibien, +Hist. de Paris, ii. 1066.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_707_707" id="Footnote_707_707"></a><a href="#FNanchor_707_707"><span class="label">[707]</span></a> La Place, <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_708_708" id="Footnote_708_708"></a><a href="#FNanchor_708_708"><span class="label">[708]</span></a> Among them Paul de Foix, "who is cousin to the King of +Navarre." Throkmorton to Queen Elizabeth, June 23, 1559, Forbes i. 126.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_709_709" id="Footnote_709_709"></a><a href="#FNanchor_709_709"><span class="label">[709]</span></a> La Place, Com. de l'estat, etc., p. 14; Discours de la +mort du Roy Henry II.; De Thou, ii. 671; Félibien, Hist. de Paris, ii. +1067; Vieilleville, ii. 405-406; Hist. ecclés. i., 122-123. Even Anne de +Montmorency was struck with Du Bourg's boldness, and exclaimed, "Vous +faictes la bravade." Forbes, State Papers, i. 126.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_710_710" id="Footnote_710_710"></a><a href="#FNanchor_710_710"><span class="label">[710]</span></a> The date is variously given as the 25th or 26th of May. +The latter, adopted by the Histoire ecclésiastique, is probably correct. +See Triqueti, Premiers jours du protestantisme en France (Paris, 1859), +253, 254.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_711_711" id="Footnote_711_711"></a><a href="#FNanchor_711_711"><span class="label">[711]</span></a> "Confession de Foy faite d'un commun accord par les +Françoys, qui desirent vivre selon la purité de l'Evangile," etc. In the +Recueil des choses mémorables (1565) this document is published with the +preface and the supplicatory letter addressed to the king (Francis II.) +after the "Tumulte d'Amboise."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_712_712" id="Footnote_712_712"></a><a href="#FNanchor_712_712"><span class="label">[712]</span></a> The proceedings of the first French National Synod are +best given in Aymon, Tous les synodes nationaux des églises réf. de +France (La Haye, 1710), i. 1-12; Hist. univ. du sieur d'Aubigné, liv. +ii., c. iii., t. i., pp. 56-64. They are faithfully, although not always +literally, translated in Quick's Synodicon in Gallia Reformata (London, +1692), i., viii.-xv., 2-7. See also Histoire ecclésiastique, i. 108-121; +La Place, Com. de l'estat de la religion, et république soubs les roys +Henry et François Seconds, etc., 14-16.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_713_713" id="Footnote_713_713"></a><a href="#FNanchor_713_713"><span class="label">[713]</span></a> See the history of the Hôtel des Tournelles and the plan +of Paris in the reign of Francis I., in Dulaure, Hist. de Paris, iii. +355-357, and Atlas.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_714_714" id="Footnote_714_714"></a><a href="#FNanchor_714_714"><span class="label">[714]</span></a> "Duquel lieu tous les prisonniers de léans pouvoyent ouir +les clairons, hault-bois et trompettes dudict tournoy." Discours de la +mort du Roy Henry II., Recueil des choses mémorables, p. 5; Mémoires de +Condé, i. 216.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_715_715" id="Footnote_715_715"></a><a href="#FNanchor_715_715"><span class="label">[715]</span></a> Ibid., <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_716_716" id="Footnote_716_716"></a><a href="#FNanchor_716_716"><span class="label">[716]</span></a> "I am credibly enformed, that the Frenche King, after the +perfection of the ceremonies toching his doughter and King Philip, and +his suster to the Duke of Savoy, myndeth himself to make a journey to +the countreis of Poictou, Gascoigne, Guyon, and other places, for the +repressing of religion; and to use th' extremest persecution he may +against the protestants in his countreys, and the like in Scotlande; and +that with celerité, ymediatly after the finishing of the same +ceremonies." Throkmorton to Cecil, May 23, 1559, Forbes, State Papers, +i. 101.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_717_717" id="Footnote_717_717"></a><a href="#FNanchor_717_717"><span class="label">[717]</span></a> "Paix blasmable, dont les flambeaux de joye furent les +torches funèbres du roy Henry II." Mém. de Tavannes, ii. 242.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_718_718" id="Footnote_718_718"></a><a href="#FNanchor_718_718"><span class="label">[718]</span></a> "The last of this present." Throkmorton to Council, June +30 and July 1, 1559. Forbes, State Papers, i. 151. So in a subsequent +letter, relating a message to him from the constable on July 1st, he +speaks of "the mischaunce happened the daie before to the king." Ibid., +i. 154.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_719_719" id="Footnote_719_719"></a><a href="#FNanchor_719_719"><span class="label">[719]</span></a> Hist. ecclés., i. 123, 124. Catharine de' Medici's dream, +in which the Huguenots saw a parallel to that of Pilate's wife, was not +a fabrication of theirs. According to her daughter Margaret, Catharine +had many such visions on the eve of important events. "Mesme <i>la nuict +devant la misérable course de lice</i>, elle songea comme elle voyoit le +feu Roy mon père blessé à l'œil, comme il fust; et estant esveillée, +elle le supplia <i>plusieurs fois</i> de ne vouloir point courir ce jour, et +vouloir se contenter de voir le plaisir du tournoi, sans en vouloir +estre. Mais l'inévitable destin ne permit tant de bien à ce royaume, +qu'il put recevoir cet utile conseil." Mémoires de Marguerite de Valois +(edition of French Hist. Soc.), 42.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_720_720" id="Footnote_720_720"></a><a href="#FNanchor_720_720"><span class="label">[720]</span></a> Pierre de Lestoile, 14.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_721_721" id="Footnote_721_721"></a><a href="#FNanchor_721_721"><span class="label">[721]</span></a> Lettere di Principi, iii. 196, apud Ranke, Civil Wars and +Monarchy in France in the 16th and 17th centuries, Am. tr., p. 167. Sir +Nicholas Throkmorton, who alone of the diplomatic corps was an +eye-witness, thus describes the scene in a letter written the same +evening: "Wherat it happened, that the King, after he had ronne a good +many courses very well and faire, meeting with yong Monsieur de Lorges, +capitaine of the scottishe garde, received at the said de Lorge his +hands such a counterbuff, as, the blow first lighting upon the King's +head, and taking away the pannage which was fastened to his hedpece with +yron, he dyd break his staff withall; and so with the rest of the staff +hitting the King upon the face gave him such a counterbuff, as he drove +a splinte right over his eye on his right side: the force of which +stroke was so vehement, and the paine he had withall so great, as he was +moch astonished, and had great ado (with reling to and from) to kepe +himself on horseback; and his horse in like manner dyd somwhat yeld. +Wherupon with all expedition he was unarmed in the field, even against +the place where I stode.... I noted him to be very weake, and to have +the sens of all his lymmes almost benommed; for being caryed away, as he +lay along, nothing covered but his face, he moved nether hand nor fote, +but laye as one amased." Letter to the Council, June 30 and July 1, +1559, Forbes, State Papers, i. 151.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_722_722" id="Footnote_722_722"></a><a href="#FNanchor_722_722"><span class="label">[722]</span></a> Discours de la mort du Roy Henry II., <i>in fine</i>. Recueil +des choses mémorables, and Mém. de Condé, i. 216.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_723_723" id="Footnote_723_723"></a><a href="#FNanchor_723_723"><span class="label">[723]</span></a> Hist. ecclés., i. 123, 124. The singular coincidence is +no invention of the Protestants. It is confirmed by a contemporary +pamphlet by the "king-at-arms of Dauphiny" (Paris, 1559), <i>Le Trespas et +Ordre des Obseques, ... de feu de tresheureuse memoire le Roy Henry +deuxieme</i>, etc., which says: "La dicte salle, ensemble lesdicts +théatres, estoient tendus tout autour d'une tapisserie d'or et de soie à +grandes figures, <i>des actes des apostres</i>." (Reprint of Cimber et +Danjou, iii. 317.)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_724_724" id="Footnote_724_724"></a><a href="#FNanchor_724_724"><span class="label">[724]</span></a> De Thou, ii. 674. Yet Francis II., in the preamble to the +commission as lieutenant-general given to Guise, March 17, 1560, seems +incidentally to vouch for the contrary: "Voire de telle sorte que +nostredit seigneur et <i>père, à son décez</i>, ne nous auroit rien tant +recommandé, que d'user à nosdits subjets de toutes gracieusetez," etc. +Recueil de choses mém., 20. Card. Santa Croce speaks of him as "ita ex +vulnere concussus, ut primo die sensum fere omnem amiserit." De +civilibus Galliæ dissentionibus commentaria (Martene et Durand, Ampliss. +Collectio), v. 1438, 1439.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_725_725" id="Footnote_725_725"></a><a href="#FNanchor_725_725"><span class="label">[725]</span></a> Discours de la mort du Roy Henry II., Recueil des choses +mém., <i>in initio</i>, and Mém. de Condé, i. 213-216; La Planche, 202; La +Place, Commentaires, etc., 20; J. de Serres, De statu rel., etc. (1570), +i., fol. 18; Hist. ecclés., i. 123; De Thou, ii. 674; Davila (Cottrell's +tr.), p. 11; Santa Croce, v. 1438, etc. It is characteristic that so +important a date as that of the fatal tournament should be differently +stated; La Place, the Hist. ecclés., and De Thou making it June 29th. +The confusion is increased by subsequent writers. Motley (Rise of the +Dutch Republic, i. 204) making Henry die on the 10th of July of the +wound inflicted <i>eleven</i> days before, and Prescott (Philip the Second, +i. 295) representing him as lingering <i>ten</i> days and dying on the +<i>ninth</i> of July.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_726_726" id="Footnote_726_726"></a><a href="#FNanchor_726_726"><span class="label">[726]</span></a> Professor Baum published the "Manière et Fasson," on the +occasion of the Tercentenary of the French Reformed Church, in 1859, in +an elegantly printed pamphlet, itself a fac-simile of the original in +all respects, except the use of Roman in place of Gothic letters. This +pamphlet in turn is out of print, and it is to Professor Baum's kindness +that I am indebted for the copy of which I have made use.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_727_727" id="Footnote_727_727"></a><a href="#FNanchor_727_727"><span class="label">[727]</span></a> Printed with marginal notes giving all modifications in +other early editions in Joh. Calvini Opera (Baum, Cunitz, et Reuss), +1867, v. 164-223—a work which is the result of almost incredible labor +and research. In February, 1868, the distinguished senior editor wrote +to me: "Nous avons dejà maintenant copié de notre main et collationné à +Neufchâtel, à Genève et autres endroits, quelque chose comme <i>six mille +pièces, lettres et consilia et autres calviniana</i>."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_728_728" id="Footnote_728_728"></a><a href="#FNanchor_728_728"><span class="label">[728]</span></a> The beautiful petitions for "all our poor brethren who +are dispersed under the tyranny of Antichrist," and for prisoners and +those persecuted by the enemies of the Gospel, were not in the original +edition, but appear in that of 1558. Calv. Opera, Baum, Cunitz and +Reuss, vi. 177, note.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_729_729" id="Footnote_729_729"></a><a href="#FNanchor_729_729"><span class="label">[729]</span></a> Davila, p. 20.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_730_730" id="Footnote_730_730"></a><a href="#FNanchor_730_730"><span class="label">[730]</span></a> "Lancea sanctorum tunc inopina salus." Epigram <i>apud</i> Le +Laboureur, Additions aux mém. de Castelnau, i. 276.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_731_731" id="Footnote_731_731"></a><a href="#FNanchor_731_731"><span class="label">[731]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Sic cruce detractum fixit tua lancea Christum,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Per latus illorum quos sua membra vocat.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At Deus omnipotens, Christi justissimus ultor,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Sanguine, dixit, erit lancea tincta tuo. <i>Ib.</i>, <i>ubi supra</i>.<br /></span> +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_732_732" id="Footnote_732_732"></a><a href="#FNanchor_732_732"><span class="label">[732]</span></a> "O que si ce bon roy eusse vescu," says Montluc, "ou si +ceste paix ne se fust faite, qu'il eust bien rembarré les Luthériens en +Allemagne." Mémoires, Petitot ed., ii. 483.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_733_733" id="Footnote_733_733"></a><a href="#FNanchor_733_733"><span class="label">[733]</span></a> Davila, Civil Wars of France, p. 6. Hist. du tumulte +d'Amboise, Recueil des choses mémorables, <i>in initio</i>; Mém. de Condé, i. +320.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_734_734" id="Footnote_734_734"></a><a href="#FNanchor_734_734"><span class="label">[734]</span></a> Yet Catharine herself, in a letter written in 1563 to her +son Charles IX., just after he had declared himself to be of age, admits +the full truth of her opponents' assertion, that Francis II. was a +minor!—"que l'on cognoisse les désordres qui out esté jusques icy <i>par +la minorité du Roy vostre frère</i>, qui empeschoit que l'on ne pouvoit +faire ce que l'on désiroit." Avis donnez par Catherine de Médicis à +Charles IX., pour la police de sa cour, etc., printed in Cimber et +Danjou, Archives curieuses, v. 245-254.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_735_735" id="Footnote_735_735"></a><a href="#FNanchor_735_735"><span class="label">[735]</span></a> "Di natura benignissima, e cerca di gratificare ciascuno, +e massime gl' Italiani quanto più gli è possibile, ed è tanto amato, non +solamente da tutta la corte, ma da tutto il regno che è cosa +incredibile." Rel. del clar<sup>mo</sup> Giovanni Soranzo, 1558, Relaz. Ven., +ii. 429, 430.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_736_736" id="Footnote_736_736"></a><a href="#FNanchor_736_736"><span class="label">[736]</span></a> "La Royne mère, ambitieuse et craintive." Mém. de +Tavannes, ii. 256.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_737_737" id="Footnote_737_737"></a><a href="#FNanchor_737_737"><span class="label">[737]</span></a> Relaz. di Giovanni Michiel (1561), Tommaseo, i. 426.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_738_738" id="Footnote_738_738"></a><a href="#FNanchor_738_738"><span class="label">[738]</span></a> La Planche, 204, 205: "The Duchesse of Valentinoys and +Duches of Buillon are commaunded, that neither they nor any of theirs +shall resort to the courte.... The yong Frenche Quene hath sent to the +Duches of Valentinoys, to make accompt of the French King's cabenet and +of all his jewels." Throkmorton to Queen, July 13, 1559, Forbes, State +Papers, i. 158, 159.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_739_739" id="Footnote_739_739"></a><a href="#FNanchor_739_739"><span class="label">[739]</span></a> Regnier de la Planche, p. 203: "Lequel (Henry) ... avoit +entièrement résolu, après avoir achevé ces mariages, et renvoyé les +estrangers, de les déchasser arrière de soy, comme une peste de son +royaume." So Hist. ecclés., liv. iii. I can scarcely agree with De Thou +(ii., 681, liv. xxiii.) in supposing Catharine deceived in the character +of the Guises: "Comme elle ne connoissoit pas encore le caractère de ces +Princes, elle crut qu'ils se soumettroient en tout à ses volontés," etc. +This statement does injustice to the perspicacity of Catharine, who for +so many years had been quietly, but none the less carefully, studying +these courtiers and all others that figured on the stage of French +politics. La Planche, with his usual acumen, makes much of the advantage +which this circumstance conferred upon her (<i>ubi supra</i>): "La royne +mère, italienne, florentine, et de la race des Medicis, et qui plus est, +ayant depuis vingt-deux ans [rather, for twenty-five years] eu tout +loisir de considérer les humeurs et façons de toutes ces gens, regardoit +ce jeu, et sceut si bien empoigner l'occasion, qu'elle gaigna finalement +la partie."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_740_740" id="Footnote_740_740"></a><a href="#FNanchor_740_740"><span class="label">[740]</span></a> For a full and not uninteresting account of the +obsequies, see the pamphlet already referred to: "Le Trespas et l'Ordre +des obseques," etc. Paris, 1559. Reprinted in Cimber et Danjou, iii. +307, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_741_741" id="Footnote_741_741"></a><a href="#FNanchor_741_741"><span class="label">[741]</span></a> Regnier de la Planche, Hist. de l'estat de France sous +François II., 206. "The French King," wrote Throkmorton to his royal +mistress, "alredy hathe geven him (the constable) to understande, that +the Cardinal of Lorrain and the Duke of Guise shal manage his hole +affairs." Throkmorton to the Queen, July 18, 1559, Forbes, State Papers, +i. 166.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_742_742" id="Footnote_742_742"></a><a href="#FNanchor_742_742"><span class="label">[742]</span></a> "Ut re vera sit conestabilis." Beza to Bullinger, Sept. +12, 1559, <i>apud</i> Baum, ii. App. 1. The <i>title</i> of constable was for +life. Of the tenure of the office, the memoirs of Vieilleville make +Henry II. say: "Vous sçavez que les estats de connestable, mareschaux et +chancelliers de France sont totalement <i>collez et cousus</i> à la teste de +ceulx qui en sont honnorez, que l'on ne peut arracher l'un sans +l'autre." Mém., i. 207.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_743_743" id="Footnote_743_743"></a><a href="#FNanchor_743_743"><span class="label">[743]</span></a> Huguenot and papist agreed in this, if they could agree +in nothing else. "Guisiani fratres," said Beza, "ita inter se regnum +sunt partiti ut regi nihil præter inane nomen sit relictum." Beza, <i>ubi +supra</i>. Cardinal Santa Croce used almost the same expression: "Eo +devenerat ut regi solum nomen reliquisse, alia omnia sibi sumsisse +videretur." Commentarii, v. 1440.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_744_744" id="Footnote_744_744"></a><a href="#FNanchor_744_744"><span class="label">[744]</span></a> The poor fellow's wit was recompensed with a public +flogging. The incident is told in the recently published Journal d'un +curé ligueur (Jehan de la Fosse), 37. It need scarcely be said that the +<i>Crescent</i> referred to Diana of Poitiers.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_745_745" id="Footnote_745_745"></a><a href="#FNanchor_745_745"><span class="label">[745]</span></a> "Nam cum ... regem de more salutatum venisset ... +Lotharingii suasu ne respicere hominem voluit." Santa Croce, Comment., +v. 1439.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_746_746" id="Footnote_746_746"></a><a href="#FNanchor_746_746"><span class="label">[746]</span></a> La Planche, 206.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_747_747" id="Footnote_747_747"></a><a href="#FNanchor_747_747"><span class="label">[747]</span></a> In a remark which he was accused of once making to Henry +II., "that he was surprised that the king had no child resembling him, +save his illegitimate, but acknowledged daughter, Diana, married to the +constable's son!" La Planche, 204, 207; De Thou, ii. 685.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_748_748" id="Footnote_748_748"></a><a href="#FNanchor_748_748"><span class="label">[748]</span></a> Blaise de Montluc, a trusty agent, kept Guise well posted +respecting the King of Navarre's words and disposition. "Encores que M. +le Connestable luy ayt escript plusieurs lettres, néantmoins il m'a +toujours dict qu'il ne se fieroit jamais de luy, ayant bien cogneu que +ce semblant d'amitié qu'il luy portoit n'estoit que pour l'attirer de +son costé, affin de ruiner ses cousins," etc. Instruction donnée par le +seign. de Montluc à M. de la Tour, 22 juillet, 1559, Mém. de Condé, i. +307; Mém. de Guise, 450.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_749_749" id="Footnote_749_749"></a><a href="#FNanchor_749_749"><span class="label">[749]</span></a> The wealth and power of the Montmorency family were +proverbial; their palaces were among the most magnificent in France. Of +one of them the English ambassadors wrote, four years earlier, a long +description for the benefit of Queen Mary, beginning: "We saw another +house which the said constable had but lately built, called Écouen, +which was praised for the fairest house in France." The Journey of the +Queen's Ambassadors to Rome, Anno 1555 (Hardwick, State Papers, i. 63).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_750_750" id="Footnote_750_750"></a><a href="#FNanchor_750_750"><span class="label">[750]</span></a> See the <i>Livre des marchands</i>, Paris, 1565, ascribed to +Louis Regnier de la Planche, the reputed author of the most authentic +history of this reign (Ed. Panthéon litt., 429, 453, <i>et passim</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_751_751" id="Footnote_751_751"></a><a href="#FNanchor_751_751"><span class="label">[751]</span></a> De la Planche, 207.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_752_752" id="Footnote_752_752"></a><a href="#FNanchor_752_752"><span class="label">[752]</span></a> De la Planche, p. 208.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_753_753" id="Footnote_753_753"></a><a href="#FNanchor_753_753"><span class="label">[753]</span></a> Ibid., p. 205, 206; De Thou, ii. 683, whose account, as +in so many other instances during this reign, is almost exclusively +based upon the invaluable history of Regnier de la Planche.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_754_754" id="Footnote_754_754"></a><a href="#FNanchor_754_754"><span class="label">[754]</span></a> La Planche, p. 208; Tumulte d'Amboise, <i>ubi supra</i>; +Languet, Epist. secretæ, ii. p. 2.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_755_755" id="Footnote_755_755"></a><a href="#FNanchor_755_755"><span class="label">[755]</span></a> La Planche, p. 212; La Place, 26; De Thou, ii. 684.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_756_756" id="Footnote_756_756"></a><a href="#FNanchor_756_756"><span class="label">[756]</span></a> "Rex Navarrorum animum in corpore virili gerit +muliebrem." J. C. Portanus, Oct. 30, 1559, Languet, Epist. secretæ, ii. +4.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_757_757" id="Footnote_757_757"></a><a href="#FNanchor_757_757"><span class="label">[757]</span></a> The Bishop of Mende was to become a member of the privy +council; D'Escars to be made a knight of the order of St. Michael, and +to command fifty men-at-arms. La Planche, 213.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_758_758" id="Footnote_758_758"></a><a href="#FNanchor_758_758"><span class="label">[758]</span></a> The Guises did not fail, however, to take precautions +against a surprise. If Throkmorton was well informed, the duke had +"caused two thousand corselets to be laid up in the house of Burbone +(Bourbon), nere to the court, to serve in case of innovacion; if that +any such matter shuld happen upon the arrivall of the King of Navarre." +Desp. of Aug. 8, 1559, Forbes, State Papers, i. 194.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_759_759" id="Footnote_759_759"></a><a href="#FNanchor_759_759"><span class="label">[759]</span></a> La Planche, <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_760_760" id="Footnote_760_760"></a><a href="#FNanchor_760_760"><span class="label">[760]</span></a> Idem, 213, 214.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_761_761" id="Footnote_761_761"></a><a href="#FNanchor_761_761"><span class="label">[761]</span></a> Throkmorton to the queen, Aug. 15, 1559, Forbes, i. 202.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_762_762" id="Footnote_762_762"></a><a href="#FNanchor_762_762"><span class="label">[762]</span></a> "Qu'il n'est point petit compagnon en France."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_763_763" id="Footnote_763_763"></a><a href="#FNanchor_763_763"><span class="label">[763]</span></a> Instruction of Montluc to La Tour, already cited, Mém. de +Guise, 450.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_764_764" id="Footnote_764_764"></a><a href="#FNanchor_764_764"><span class="label">[764]</span></a> Antoine did, indeed, continue his protestations of his +firm intention "not to fail to do the best he could to advance God's +true religion and cause." He made secret appointments with the English +ambassador, at one time about eleven o'clock at night, near the abbey of +St. Denis, at another time in disguise in the cloisters of the +Augustinian friars, and had much to say about his satisfaction "that he +had so good a colleague" as Elizabeth "in so good a cause." But the +diplomatic correspondence does not show a single step which Navarre ever +ventured to take in behalf of that "good cause." See Throkmorton's +despatch of Aug. 25th, Forbes, State Papers, i. 213, 214.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_765_765" id="Footnote_765_765"></a><a href="#FNanchor_765_765"><span class="label">[765]</span></a> "Navarrus ad quem jure ipso et more majorum hactenus +inviolata pertinebat regni administratio, quamvis a plerisque Ecclesiis +salutatus et rogatus ne tam præclaram et divinitus oblatam occasionem +negligeret, quamvis summo et aperto ludibrio a Guisianis exceptus, tamen +omnibus annuit et suo exemplo confirmavit Christi dictum; Difficile est +divitem ingredi in regnum cœlorum." Beza to Bullinger, Sept. 12, +1559, <i>apud</i> Baum, ii., App., 1, 2; La Place, 27; La Planche, 213-216; +De Thou, ii. 686, 687.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_766_766" id="Footnote_766_766"></a><a href="#FNanchor_766_766"><span class="label">[766]</span></a> Held Sept. 18th. See a description in Forbes, State +Papers, i. 232. Navarre, as one of the six temporal peers, represented +the Duke of Burgundy; Guise represented the Duke of Normandy; Nevers, +the Duke of Guyenne, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_767_767" id="Footnote_767_767"></a><a href="#FNanchor_767_767"><span class="label">[767]</span></a> La Planche, 218; De Thou, ii. 688. That the promise of +assistance was only given in order to frighten Navarre was patent to all +who were cognizant of Philip's projected African campaign.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_768_768" id="Footnote_768_768"></a><a href="#FNanchor_768_768"><span class="label">[768]</span></a> De Thou (ii. 722, 723) gives an account apparently +correct, save in one or two particulars, of these two missions. The +slavish letter of Antoine to D'Audoz or D'Odoux, as De Thou writes the +name of the second messenger, may be read in the Négociations relatives +au règne de François II. (drawn from the papers of the Bishop of +Limoges, French ambassador to Philip, and published by the French +government, under the editorial care of M. Paris, 1841), pp. 164-166. +Compare Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 91.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_769_769" id="Footnote_769_769"></a><a href="#FNanchor_769_769"><span class="label">[769]</span></a> La Planche, 209.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_770_770" id="Footnote_770_770"></a><a href="#FNanchor_770_770"><span class="label">[770]</span></a> Throkmorton to Cecil, July 13, 1559, Forbes, State +Papers, i. 161.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_771_771" id="Footnote_771_771"></a><a href="#FNanchor_771_771"><span class="label">[771]</span></a> La Planche, 221; Beza to Bullinger, Sept. 12, 1559, Baum, +ii., App., 3.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_772_772" id="Footnote_772_772"></a><a href="#FNanchor_772_772"><span class="label">[772]</span></a> La Planche, 221; Mém. de Castelnau (Eng. tr. of 1724, p. +23), bk. i. c. 5; Declarations of Sept. 4th and Nov. 14, 1559, in the +Mémoires de Guise, 450, 451. These declarations were registered by +parliament, with the proviso that no house should be razed unless the +owners were privy to the crime or guilty of inexcusable negligence. +Mémoires de Condé, i, 310.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_773_773" id="Footnote_773_773"></a><a href="#FNanchor_773_773"><span class="label">[773]</span></a> La Planche, <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_774_774" id="Footnote_774_774"></a><a href="#FNanchor_774_774"><span class="label">[774]</span></a> Arrêt du parlement, of September 6, 1559, in Mémoires de +Condé, i. 308, 309.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_775_775" id="Footnote_775_775"></a><a href="#FNanchor_775_775"><span class="label">[775]</span></a> In August there were nineteen Protestants in Parisian +dungeons, sentenced to be executed for heresy, some in one place, some +in another. A man and a woman were rescued, on the twenty-first of this +month, while on their way to execution at Meaux. Forbes, State Papers, +i. 211, 212.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_776_776" id="Footnote_776_776"></a><a href="#FNanchor_776_776"><span class="label">[776]</span></a> La Planche, 221, 223; Hist. ecclés., i. 144—147, where +the account is taken word for word from La Planche; De Thou, ii. 691, +692; Félibien, Hist. de Paris, ii. 1069; Mém. de Castelnau, liv. i., c. +4.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_777_777" id="Footnote_777_777"></a><a href="#FNanchor_777_777"><span class="label">[777]</span></a> "La royne Catherine de Medicis, florentine, nation +desireuse de nouvelleté ... haissoit, comme belle mere, la Royne sa +fille, qui l'esloignoit des affaires et portoit l'amitié du Roy son fils +a MM. de Guise, lesquels ne luy deportoient du gouvernement qu'en ce +qu'ils cognoissoient qu'elle ne pouvoit nuire, luy donnant credit en +apparence sans effect," Mém. de Tavannes, ii. 260.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_778_778" id="Footnote_778_778"></a><a href="#FNanchor_778_778"><span class="label">[778]</span></a> La Planche, 211; Hist. ecclés., i. 141, seq.; Beza to +Bullinger, Sept. 12, 1559; Baum, ii., App., 3.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_779_779" id="Footnote_779_779"></a><a href="#FNanchor_779_779"><span class="label">[779]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Vers l'Éternel, des oppressés le père,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Je m'en iray, luy monstrant l'impropère<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Que l'on me fait; et luy feray prière," etc.<br /></span> +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_780_780" id="Footnote_780_780"></a><a href="#FNanchor_780_780"><span class="label">[780]</span></a> "Coppie de lettres envoyées à la Royne Mère par un sien +serviteur après la mort du feu Roy Henri deuxième." Cimber et Danjou, +Archives curieuses, iii. 349, etc. The substance of Villemadon's letter, +which is dated August 26th, 1559, is given by La Planche, 211, 212, and, +after him, by Hist. ecclés., i. 141, 142.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_781_781" id="Footnote_781_781"></a><a href="#FNanchor_781_781"><span class="label">[781]</span></a> La Planche, 219; Hist. ecclés., i. 143; cf. Forbes, State +Papers, i. 226.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_782_782" id="Footnote_782_782"></a><a href="#FNanchor_782_782"><span class="label">[782]</span></a> La Planche, 220; Hist. ecclés., <i>ubi supra</i>. It is not at +all improbable that those who endeavored to influence Catharine showed +too little discretion in their zeal, and needlessly provoked her +displeasure by reference to the judgment of God upon her husband. So, at +least, thought the judicious Frenchman Languet, who added, with some +bitterness, that whoever urged upon them moderation was rewarded for his +pains by being called a traitor to the faith. Epist. secretæ, ii. 41.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_783_783" id="Footnote_783_783"></a><a href="#FNanchor_783_783"><span class="label">[783]</span></a> Or, Trouillard, according to Castelnau, <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_784_784" id="Footnote_784_784"></a><a href="#FNanchor_784_784"><span class="label">[784]</span></a> La Planche, 223-225; Castelnau, liv. i., c. 4; De Thou, +ii. 691.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_785_785" id="Footnote_785_785"></a><a href="#FNanchor_785_785"><span class="label">[785]</span></a> La Planche and De Thou, <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_786_786" id="Footnote_786_786"></a><a href="#FNanchor_786_786"><span class="label">[786]</span></a> Epistolæ secretæ, ii. 30.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_787_787" id="Footnote_787_787"></a><a href="#FNanchor_787_787"><span class="label">[787]</span></a> See <i>ante</i>, c. viii., p. 275. The authority of the +Mémoires de Tavannes (ii. 258)—"Les chambres ardentes sont érigées pour +persecuter les Huguenots, et ce d'autant plus que les princes du sang et +les frères de Coligny favorisoient la religion nouvelle"—cannot weigh +against the positive statement of the preamble of Henry II.'s edict of +Paris, Nov. 19, 1549, <i>ante</i>, c. viii., p. 275. Yet Drion, Hist. chron. +de l'église prot. de France, i. 63, places the original institution +here.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_788_788" id="Footnote_788_788"></a><a href="#FNanchor_788_788"><span class="label">[788]</span></a> Drion, i. 64; Hist. ecclés., i. 151. On the other hand, +Protestant sympathizers sometimes interfered with the course of law in +the interest of their brethren in the faith. "Since our arrivall to this +towne," wrote Killigrew and Jones from Blois, Nov. 14, 1559, "there were +xvii persones taken for the worde's sake, and committed to the +sergeaunts to be conveyed to Orleauns, and other places therabouts, to +be prosecuted. Notwithstanding, it hathe so happened, as the prisoners +in the way betwene this towne and Orleans were rescued, and taken from +the sergeaunts who had charge of them, by sixty men on horsebacke, and +so were conveyed away." Forbes, State Papers, i. 261. At Rouen, Jan. 29, +1560, a bookbinder was snatched from between two friars, as he was being +led in a cart to be burned alive, a cloak thrown over him, and he +conveyed out of the hands of his enemies. Unfortunately, the gates +having been closed, he was recaptured the same night, and the cruel +sentence was executed the next day, with a guard of 300 men-at-arms, for +fear of the people. Memorandum of Feb. 8th, State Paper Office.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_789_789" id="Footnote_789_789"></a><a href="#FNanchor_789_789"><span class="label">[789]</span></a> La Planche, 236, 337; De Thou, ii. 705, 706.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_790_790" id="Footnote_790_790"></a><a href="#FNanchor_790_790"><span class="label">[790]</span></a> "Comme d'abus." La Place, 19; Crespin, Gal. chrétienne, +ii. 304.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_791_791" id="Footnote_791_791"></a><a href="#FNanchor_791_791"><span class="label">[791]</span></a> La Planche, 209, 210; La Place, 20; Hist. ecclés., i. +138, 139; Crespin, Galerie chrétienne, ii. 305-318; Forbes, State +Papers, i. 185. The Mémoires de Condé, i. 217-304, reprint entire a +contemporary pamphlet entitled, "La vraye histoire, contenant l'inique +jugement et fausse procédure faite contre le fidèle serviteur de Dieu +<i>Anne du Bourg</i>, conseillier pour le Roy, en la Cour du Parlement de +Paris," etc. (Paris) 1561. It contains in full the interrogatories and +replies, Du Bourg's confession, etc., and will amply repay a careful +reading. It concludes with a pregnant sentence: "Voila l'issue et fin de +l'histoire que j'avoye proposé d'écrire, <i>pour un commencement de +beaucoup de troubles, guerres et divisions: car d'injustice procède tout +mal</i>." Significant and prophetic words to be written and published the +year before the outbreak of the first civil war! The editor of 1743, p. +217, well observes that the execution of Du Bourg may be regarded as one +of the chief causes of the conspiracy of Amboise, which broke out soon +after, and, consequently, of the troubles agitating France for nearly +forty years.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_792_792" id="Footnote_792_792"></a><a href="#FNanchor_792_792"><span class="label">[792]</span></a> La Planche, 227-235; Hist. ecclés., i. 153-155.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_793_793" id="Footnote_793_793"></a><a href="#FNanchor_793_793"><span class="label">[793]</span></a> There was no proof that Antoine Minard's murder was +wrought by a Protestant hand. An address of Du Bourg, in which he +reminded the unrighteous judge of the coming judgment of God, was, after +the event, perversely construed as a threat of assassination. A +Scotchman, Robert Stuart, a kinsman of the queen, was charged with +firing the fatal pistol-shot, but even under the torture revealed +nothing. Public opinion was divided, some attributing the catastrophe to +Minard's well-known immorality ("d'autant," says La Planche, "qu'il y +estoit du tout adonné, et qu'il ne craignoit de séduire toutes les dames +et damoiselles qui avoyent des procès devant luy," etc.), others to his +equally flagrant injustice, others still to the "Lutherans." La Planche, +233, 234.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_794_794" id="Footnote_794_794"></a><a href="#FNanchor_794_794"><span class="label">[794]</span></a> Not, as La Planche, 235, and the Hist. ecclés., i. 154, +state, Otho Henry, but his successor, Frederick III. Baum, Theodor Beza, +ii. 35, 36; Languet, Epistolæ sec., ii. 36.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_795_795" id="Footnote_795_795"></a><a href="#FNanchor_795_795"><span class="label">[795]</span></a> So the English agents, Killigrew and Jones, wrote from +Blois, Dec. 27, 1559: "Bourg was not executed, till about the xx of this +present: who before his deathe made suche an oration to the Lords of the +parliament, <i>as it moved as many of them as were there to shede +teares</i>," Forbes, State Papers, i. 290.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_796_796" id="Footnote_796_796"></a><a href="#FNanchor_796_796"><span class="label">[796]</span></a> La Place, 22, 23; Crespin, Galerie chrétienne, ii. +318-322.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_797_797" id="Footnote_797_797"></a><a href="#FNanchor_797_797"><span class="label">[797]</span></a> La Place, 23; Crespin, Galerie chrétienne, ii. 322, 323; +Hist. ecclés., i. 155, 156; De Thou, ii. 700-703.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_798_798" id="Footnote_798_798"></a><a href="#FNanchor_798_798"><span class="label">[798]</span></a> La Planche, 236. "Inter quos," writes Jean Crespin in the +colophon to the edition of his Actiones et Monimenta Martyrum of 1560, +"egregie cordatus Dei Martyr Annas a Burgo supremæ Parisiensis Curiæ +senator, xxiij. die mensis Decemb. anni M.D.LIX. admirabilem martyrii +coronam accepit." In the preface dated Feb. 26th—two months after Du +Bourg's death—he is styled "senator innocentissimus, integerrimus, +sanctissimus."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_799_799" id="Footnote_799_799"></a><a href="#FNanchor_799_799"><span class="label">[799]</span></a> Florimond de Ræmond, Historia de ortu, progressu, et +ruina hæsreseon hujus sæculi (Col. 1613), lib. vii, c. vi., p. 411. We +have La Planche's testimony to the somewhat extraordinary statement that +the judges themselves declared Du Bourg happy in suffering in behalf of +so just a cause, and excused themselves for their own conduct by +alleging the pressure of the Guises (p. 228). "Stulte fecerunt +gubernatores Gallici, quod eum publice supplicio affecerunt," wrote +Languet, a few months later; "ejus enim supplicium <i>est una ex non +minimis causis horum tumultuum</i>." Epist. sec., ii, 47.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_800_800" id="Footnote_800_800"></a><a href="#FNanchor_800_800"><span class="label">[800]</span></a> Florimond de Ræmond, ii. 410, 411. Let not the humane +reader mistake. Policy, not pity, dictated toleration. The same +Florimond de Ræmond, presiding as the oldest counsellor, read an <i>arrêt</i> +of the Parliament of Bordeaux, not only ordering the disinterment of a +child buried in the cemetery of Ozillac in Saintonge, but that of all +the bodies of Huguenots that had been placed in any other cemetery +within ten years. Plaintes des églises réformées de France, etc., 1597; +<i>apud</i> Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. fr., xi. (1862), 145.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_801_801" id="Footnote_801_801"></a><a href="#FNanchor_801_801"><span class="label">[801]</span></a> Compare La Planche, 242.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_802_802" id="Footnote_802_802"></a><a href="#FNanchor_802_802"><span class="label">[802]</span></a> The singular details of these trials, which strikingly +illustrate the horrible corruption of the French judiciary in the +sixteenth century, are given by La Planche, 242-245; Hist. ecclés., i. +160-164; De Thou, ii. 703, 704; La Place, 24, who remarks upon the +singularly different judgments in the five cases, and attributes the +variety to the change in the state of the kingdom, and to the diversity +of the interrogatories addressed to the prisoners. The sentences against +Du Faur and De Foix were subsequently annulled and erased from the +records of the parliament, on the ground of irregularity.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_803_803" id="Footnote_803_803"></a><a href="#FNanchor_803_803"><span class="label">[803]</span></a> De Thou, ii. 699; Agrippa d'Aubigné, Histoire universelle +(Maillé, 1616), i. 89.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_804_804" id="Footnote_804_804"></a><a href="#FNanchor_804_804"><span class="label">[804]</span></a> Recueil gén. des anc. lois franç. (July 23, 1359), xiv. +1; (Dec. 17th), xiv. 14; and (Aug. 5, 1560), xiv. 46.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_805_805" id="Footnote_805_805"></a><a href="#FNanchor_805_805"><span class="label">[805]</span></a> La Planche, 218. Cf. Histoire du tumulte d'Amboise.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_806_806" id="Footnote_806_806"></a><a href="#FNanchor_806_806"><span class="label">[806]</span></a> "In Gallia omnia sunt perturbatissima," wrote Languet +(Jan. 31, 1560), "et scribitur esse omnino impossibile, ut res diu eo +modo consistant." The Cardinal of Lorraine, he added, has dissipated the +single church of Paris, but during this very period there have been +established more than sixty churches in other parts of the kingdom; nor +are the Genevese able to supply so many ministers as they are asked to +furnish. Meantime many are defending themselves against the royal +officers. The Gascons lately drove off the commissioners sent by the +Parliament of Bordeaux to make inquisition for Lutherans. The same has +happened in the district of Narbonne, not far from Marseilles. Epistolæ +sec., ii., pp. 32, 33.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_807_807" id="Footnote_807_807"></a><a href="#FNanchor_807_807"><span class="label">[807]</span></a> Beza to Bullinger, Sept. 12, 1559 (Baum, ii., App., p. +3). Calvin, in his letters to Bullinger and Peter Martyr, both dated May +11, 1560, by the expression "eight months ago," points back to the same +period. Calvin's Letters (Bonnet), Eng. tr., iv. 104-106.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_808_808" id="Footnote_808_808"></a><a href="#FNanchor_808_808"><span class="label">[808]</span></a> Beza, <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_809_809" id="Footnote_809_809"></a><a href="#FNanchor_809_809"><span class="label">[809]</span></a> Calvin's Letters, iv. 107. So the ministers of Geneva +declare before the council: "que pour les troubles arrivés en France, +ils n'en sont nullement coupables; qu'il ne doit pas être inconnu au +Conseil qu'ils ont détourné, autant qu'ils ont pu, d'aller à Amboise, +ceux qu'ils ont sceu avoir quelque dessein d'y aller." Registers, Jan. +28, 1561, <i>apud</i> Gaberel, Histoire de l'égl. de Genève, i., pièces +justif., 203.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_810_810" id="Footnote_810_810"></a><a href="#FNanchor_810_810"><span class="label">[810]</span></a> La Planche, 237.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_811_811" id="Footnote_811_811"></a><a href="#FNanchor_811_811"><span class="label">[811]</span></a> De Heu was a man of great influence. He had been +<i>échevin</i> at Metz, and the chief mover in introducing Protestantism into +that city. In 1543 he invited Farel to come thither. Persecution drove +him to Switzerland. He returned from exile upon the fall of Metz into +the hands of the French, in 1552. When he found that the change had only +aggravated the condition of the Protestants, he became prominent in the +effort to enlist the sympathy and support of the German princes in +behalf of the French reformation. Bulletin de l'hist. du prot. fr., xxv. +(1876), 164.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_812_812" id="Footnote_812_812"></a><a href="#FNanchor_812_812"><span class="label">[812]</span></a> The whole affair remained involved in impenetrable +obscurity until the recent fortunate discovery of the "Procès verbal" +(or original minute) "de l'exécution à mort de Caspar de Heu, S<sup>r</sup>. de +Buy" among the MSS. of the Bibliothèque Nationale, 22562, 1re partie, +pp. 110-113. It is now printed in the Appendix to "Le Tigre," 103-108, +and Bulletin de l'hist. du prot. fr., xxv. (1876), 164-168. The very +date (which proves to be Sept. 1, 1558) was previously unknown.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_813_813" id="Footnote_813_813"></a><a href="#FNanchor_813_813"><span class="label">[813]</span></a> "Ce pendant," says the royal lieutenant, in the +interesting document just described, "aurions fait faire une fosse <i>dans +les fosses du donjon dudit chasteau, soubz les arches du pont de la +poterne</i>, comme nous semblant <i>lieu le plus caché et secret</i> d'alentour +dudit chasteau, d'autant que <i>l'on ne va souvent ny aysement esdits +fossez, et que les herbes y sont communément grandes</i>," etc. Le Tigre, +108.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_814_814" id="Footnote_814_814"></a><a href="#FNanchor_814_814"><span class="label">[814]</span></a> The author of that terrible invective, "Le Tigre," +reminds the cardinal of this crime in one of the finest outbursts of +indignant reproach: "N'oys-tu pas crier le sang de celuy que tu fis +estrangler dans une chambre du boys de Vincennes? S'il estoit coupable, +que [pourquoi] n'a il esté puny publiquement? Où sont les tesmoingts qui +l'ont chargé? Pourquoy as-tu voulu en sa mort rompre et froisser toutes +les loix de France, si tu pençoys que par les loix, il peut estre +condemné?" Also in the <i>versified</i> "Tigre," lines 315-326. It is only +just to La Renaudie to add that, according to La Planche, those who knew +him best acquitted him of the charge of being much influenced by these +and other personal considerations. Hist. de l'estat de France, 238, +316-318.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_815_815" id="Footnote_815_815"></a><a href="#FNanchor_815_815"><span class="label">[815]</span></a> "Homme, comme l'on dit, de grand esprit, et de diligence +presque incroyable." Hist. du tumulte d'Amboise, in Recueil des choses +mémorables (1565), and Mémoires de Condé, i. 324.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_816_816" id="Footnote_816_816"></a><a href="#FNanchor_816_816"><span class="label">[816]</span></a> According to De Thou, ii. 762, March 15th. So Davila, 22, +and La Place, 33. Calvin (Letter to Sturm, March 23, 1560, Bonnet, iv. +91) says "before March 15." Castelnau, i. 6, says March 10th.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_817_817" id="Footnote_817_817"></a><a href="#FNanchor_817_817"><span class="label">[817]</span></a> The uniform statement of the contemporary authorities +from whom our accounts of the "Tumult" are derived, is to the effect +that the blow was to be struck at Blois, but that, on discovering their +peril, the Guises hastily removed the court, for greater safety, to the +castle of Amboise. And yet the correspondence of the English +commissioners discloses the fact that the time of the removal had been +decided upon on the 28th of January, several days before the Nantes +assembly. See Ranke, Am. ed., 176. "The Frenche King, as it is said, the +5th of February removeth hens towardes Amboise; and will be fifteen +dayes in going thither." Despatch of Killigrew and Jones, from Blois, +January 28, 1559/60, Forbes, State Papers, i. 315. In fact, the general +outline of the royal progress was indicated by the Spanish ambassador, +Perrenot Chantonnay, to Philip II., so far back as December 2, 1559: "La +cour, lui avait-il écrit, a le projet <i>de passer le curéme</i> à Amboise, +de se rendre en Guyenne au printemps, en passant par Poitiers, Bordeaux, +Bayonne, d'aller ensuite à Toulouse, de demeurer l'hiver suivant en +Provence et en Languedoc, et <i>d'agir vigoureusement contre les +hérétiques</i>." Mignet, Journal des Savants, 1857, 419, from Simancas MSS. +The Spanish ambassador saw so much that appalled him in the rapid +progress of the Reformation in every part of France, that he feared +alike for the North and the South, when the king was not present to +check its growth.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_818_818" id="Footnote_818_818"></a><a href="#FNanchor_818_818"><span class="label">[818]</span></a> La Planche, 238, 239; Hist. ecclés., i. 158, 159; De +Thou, ii. 754-762 (where La Renaudie's harangue is given at length); +Castelnau, liv. i., c. 8; Davila, 22; La Place, 33. Hist. du tumulte +d'Amboise, <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_819_819" id="Footnote_819_819"></a><a href="#FNanchor_819_819"><span class="label">[819]</span></a> De Thou, ii. 762, 763.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_820_820" id="Footnote_820_820"></a><a href="#FNanchor_820_820"><span class="label">[820]</span></a> Castelnau, 1. i., c. 8; La Planche, 245, 246; Hist. +eccl., i. 164; La Place, 33; De Thou, ii. 763. The Histoire du tumulte +d'Amboise, <i>apud</i> Recueil des choses mémorables (1565), i. 5, and Mém. +de Condé, i. 329, describes Des Avenelles as "prest de se donner à +louage au premier offrant;" adding "estant ambitieux et nécessiteux tout +ensemble, il pensa avoir trouvé le moyen pour se rendre riche et +memorable à jamais." For a favorable view of Des Avenelles's motives, +see De Thou, ii. 775. The 12th of February was the date when these +tidings reached the Guises, as appears from the speech of Morage or +Morague, sent in March to deliver to parliament for registry the edict +of amnesty for past religious offences. Mém. de Condé, i. 337. The king, +who had started on his hunting tour from Blois on the 5th of February, +was, when the news came, between Marchenoir and Montoire (places north +and northwest of Blois). The first intimations must, however, have been +very vague and general, since, on the 19th of February, the Cardinal of +Lorraine wrote to Coignet, French ambassador in Switzerland, directing +him to set one or two persons to watch La Renaudie ("à la queue de la +Regnaudie pour l'observer de loin, n'en perdre connaissance ni jour, ni +nuit"), and seize him the moment he entered the French +territories—evidently supposing him to be still in Switzerland and far +from Amboise. Letter of Card. Lorraine from Montoire, Feb. 19, 1560, +Imp. Lib. Paris, Mignet, Journal des Savants, 1857, 420, 421. It was, +doubtless, the receipt of more definite warnings that led the Guises to +hasten the termination of the king's pleasure excursion. On the 22d of +February, Francis arrived at Amboise, "which was two dayes sooner then +was loked for." Throkmorton to the queen, Feb. 27, 1560, Forbes, State +Papers, i. 334.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_821_821" id="Footnote_821_821"></a><a href="#FNanchor_821_821"><span class="label">[821]</span></a> Castelnau, <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_822_822" id="Footnote_822_822"></a><a href="#FNanchor_822_822"><span class="label">[822]</span></a> La Planche and Hist. ecclés., <i>ubi supra</i>. I need not +call attention to the gross absurdity into which Jean de Tavannes falls +(Mém. ii. 260, 261), when he makes Catharine, through policy and hatred +of Mary of Scots and of the Guises, whom the Scottish queen supported, +favor the malcontents! Can the younger Tavannes have been misled by the +hypocritical representations with which she once and again attempted +ineffectually to deceive the reformers when they appealed to her to put +an end to the persecutions?</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_823_823" id="Footnote_823_823"></a><a href="#FNanchor_823_823"><span class="label">[823]</span></a> See the synopsis of Coligny's speech in La Planche, 247, +248. Tavannes ascribes Coligny's impunity throughout this reign to +Catharine's interposition, revealing the plans of his enemies, etc. +(Mémoires, ii. 264). It was much more probably owing to his powerful +family alliances, and particularly to the fear of throwing the weight of +the enormous influence of his uncle, Constable Montmorency, into the +opposite scale. Yet it must be confessed that Catharine displayed for +the admiral, on more than one occasion, that respect which integrity +always exacts from vice, and which is most likely to be manifested in +the hour of danger. Early in this reign the court faction had endeavored +to sow discord between the two principal men of the Protestant party, by +intimating to Coligny that Condé was seeking to obtain the governorship +of Picardy, which the former held. The calumny, however, failed of its +object.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_824_824" id="Footnote_824_824"></a><a href="#FNanchor_824_824"><span class="label">[824]</span></a> Recueil des anc. lois franç, xiv. 22-24; La Planche, 248; +La Place, 37; Hist. ecclés., i. 166, 167; De Thou, ii. 764; Forbes, i. +877. A Latin version, but out of its chronological position in Languet, +Epist. sec., ii. p. 15. The date of the publication of this important +document at Paris is indicated in a letter of Hubert Languet: "Certum +est <i>undecima Martii</i> Lutetiæ propositum esse edictum, in quo Rex +condonat suis subditis quidquid hactenus peccatum est in religione." +Epist. sec., ii. 44.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_825_825" id="Footnote_825_825"></a><a href="#FNanchor_825_825"><span class="label">[825]</span></a> "Car aucuns conseillers disoyent que c'estoit un +attrape-minault." La Planche, 248.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_826_826" id="Footnote_826_826"></a><a href="#FNanchor_826_826"><span class="label">[826]</span></a> Beza to Bullinger, June 26, 1560; in Baum, ii., App. 13.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_827_827" id="Footnote_827_827"></a><a href="#FNanchor_827_827"><span class="label">[827]</span></a> Throkmorton's Correspondence in Forbes, State Papers, i. +353, 354, 374-378.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_828_828" id="Footnote_828_828"></a><a href="#FNanchor_828_828"><span class="label">[828]</span></a> Hist. du tumulte d'Amboise, <i>ubi supra</i>; La Planche, 251, +252; La Place, 34, 35; De Thou, ii. 767, 768; Mém. de Castelnau, liv. +i., c. 8; Throkmorton to the queen, March 21, 1560, Forbes, State +Papers, i. 376, 377. Vieilleville, if we may credit Carloix, foresaw the +impossibility of keeping his honor in this mission, and refused to take +it. Mém. de Vielleville, ii. 420, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_829_829" id="Footnote_829_829"></a><a href="#FNanchor_829_829"><span class="label">[829]</span></a> La Planche, <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_830_830" id="Footnote_830_830"></a><a href="#FNanchor_830_830"><span class="label">[830]</span></a> La Planche, 254; La Place, 35; De Thou, ii. 769; Davila, +25. Sir Nich. Throkmorton, March 21, 1560, Forbes, State Papers, i. 380. +M. Mignet has shown (Journal des Savants, 1857, 477, note) that the +death of La Renaudie cannot have taken place before the evening of the +19th, or the morning of the 20th.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_831_831" id="Footnote_831_831"></a><a href="#FNanchor_831_831"><span class="label">[831]</span></a> Even in their letter to their sister, the Queen Dowager +of Scotland (April 9, 1560), the Cardinal of Lorraine and the Duke of +Guise had the assurance to speak of the affair of Amboise as "a +conspiracy made to kill the king, in which we were not forgotten." +Forbes, State Papers, i. 400.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_832_832" id="Footnote_832_832"></a><a href="#FNanchor_832_832"><span class="label">[832]</span></a> Cf. the commission in the Recueil des choses mémorables +(1565), 19-24; La Planche, 252, 253; De Thou, ii. 768; Davila, 24.; +Agrippa d'Aubigné, liv. ii., c. 15.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_833_833" id="Footnote_833_833"></a><a href="#FNanchor_833_833"><span class="label">[833]</span></a> Recueil des anc. lois fr., xiv., 24-26; La Planche, 253, +254; Languet, ii. 48, 49; De Thou, ii. 769. It need scarcely be added +that the aim of the insurgents is misrepresented to be, "under veil of +religion, to ravage all the rich cities and houses of the kingdom."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_834_834" id="Footnote_834_834"></a><a href="#FNanchor_834_834"><span class="label">[834]</span></a> La Planche, 257, 262.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_835_835" id="Footnote_835_835"></a><a href="#FNanchor_835_835"><span class="label">[835]</span></a> "The 17th of this present there were twenty-two of these +rebellis drowned in sacks, and the 18th of the same at night twenty-five +more. Among all these which be taken, there be eighteen of the bravest +captains of France." Throkmorton to the queen, March 21st, Forbes, i. +378.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_836_836" id="Footnote_836_836"></a><a href="#FNanchor_836_836"><span class="label">[836]</span></a> La Planche, 257, 263.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_837_837" id="Footnote_837_837"></a><a href="#FNanchor_837_837"><span class="label">[837]</span></a> Throkmorton, <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_838_838" id="Footnote_838_838"></a><a href="#FNanchor_838_838"><span class="label">[838]</span></a> La Planche, 263, 265; La Place, 34, 35; Hist. du tumulte +d'Amboise, <i>apud</i> Mém. de Condé, i. 327; D'Aubigné, <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_839_839" id="Footnote_839_839"></a><a href="#FNanchor_839_839"><span class="label">[839]</span></a> Ibid., 254-258; La Place, 35; Hist. du tumulte, <i>ubi +supra</i>; Throkmorton, <i>ubi supra</i>, i. 380.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_840_840" id="Footnote_840_840"></a><a href="#FNanchor_840_840"><span class="label">[840]</span></a> La Planche, 258.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_841_841" id="Footnote_841_841"></a><a href="#FNanchor_841_841"><span class="label">[841]</span></a> Mémoires de Théodore Agrippa d'Aubigné (Ed. Panthéon +lit.), 472.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_842_842" id="Footnote_842_842"></a><a href="#FNanchor_842_842"><span class="label">[842]</span></a> La Planche, 267.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_843_843" id="Footnote_843_843"></a><a href="#FNanchor_843_843"><span class="label">[843]</span></a> I have followed in the text the account of La Planche. La +Place, 36, represents Condé as voluntarily making his appearance and +declaration before the king and the princes and knights that were +present, on hearing that the ambassadors of several foreign princes had +named him in their despatches as the author of the enterprise.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_844_844" id="Footnote_844_844"></a><a href="#FNanchor_844_844"><span class="label">[844]</span></a> La Planche, 268, 269; La Place, 36; Hist. ecclés., i. +171; De Thou, ii. 773, 774; Mém. de Castelnau, liv. i., c. 11. The +Cardinal of Lorraine, however, was deeply mortified and vexed. "El +cardenal estava presente teniendo los ojos en tierra, sin hablar +palabra, mostrando solamente descontentemiento de lo que passava." MSS. +Simancas, <i>apud</i> Mignet, Journal des Savants, 1857, 479.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_845_845" id="Footnote_845_845"></a><a href="#FNanchor_845_845"><span class="label">[845]</span></a> The accusation referred to occurs, for instance, in a +private diary, part of which has recently come to light, begun by one +Friar Symeon Vinot, Sept. 10, 1563. He notes: "L'an 1561 "—an error for +1560—"commença à, s'elever en France la secte des Hugguenotz, ou (a +mieulx dire) Eygnossen, pour ce qu'il [ils] vouloient fayre les villes +franches, et s'allier ensemble, comme les villes des Schwysses, qu'on +dict en allemand Egnossen, cest a dire Aliez," etc. Bulletin de l'hist. +du prot. fr., xxv. (1876) 380.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_846_846" id="Footnote_846_846"></a><a href="#FNanchor_846_846"><span class="label">[846]</span></a> Histoire du parlement de Bordeaux, depuis sa création +jusqu'à sa suppression (1541-1790), œuvre posthume de C. B. F. +Boscheron des Portes, président honoraire de la cour d'appel de +Bordeaux, etc. (Bordeaux, 1877), i. 130.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_847_847" id="Footnote_847_847"></a><a href="#FNanchor_847_847"><span class="label">[847]</span></a> Reaching Paris early in May, 1560, Hubert Languet wrote +that suspicion was everywhere rife; men of any standing scarcely dared +to converse with each other; some great calamity seemed on the point of +breaking forth. The king's ministers evidently feared the great cities; +so the court proceeded from one provincial town to another. Disturbances +in Rouen and Dieppe had frightened the Guises away from Normandy, +whither they had intended leading their royal nephew. Letter from Paris, +May 15th, Epistolæ secr., ii. 50.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_848_848" id="Footnote_848_848"></a><a href="#FNanchor_848_848"><span class="label">[848]</span></a> "En ce temps (Mars, 1560) furent appellés Huguenots." +Journal d'un curé ligueur (Jehan de la Fosse), 36.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_849_849" id="Footnote_849_849"></a><a href="#FNanchor_849_849"><span class="label">[849]</span></a> Soldan, Geschichte des Prot. in Frankreich, who, in an +appendix, has very fully discussed the whole matter (i. 608-625). There +is some force in the objection that has been urged against this view, +that, were it correct, Beza, himself a resident of Geneva, could not +have been ignorant of the derivation, and would not, in the Histoire +ecclésiastique, prepared under his supervision, if not by him, have +given his sanction to another explanation.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_850_850" id="Footnote_850_850"></a><a href="#FNanchor_850_850"><span class="label">[850]</span></a> La Planche, 262; Hist. ecclés., i. 169, 170; De Thou, ii. +(liv. xxiv.) 766. This is also Étienne Pasquier's view, who is positive +that he heard the Protestants called Huguenots by some friends of his +from Tours full <i>eight or nine years</i> before the tumult of Amboise; that +is, about 1551 or 1552: "Car je vous puis dire que huict ou neuf ans +auparavant l'entreprise d'Amboise je les avois ainsi ouy appeller par +quelques miens amis Tourengeaux." Recherches de France, 770. This is +certainly pretty strong proof.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_851_851" id="Footnote_851_851"></a><a href="#FNanchor_851_851"><span class="label">[851]</span></a> La Place, 34; Davila, i. 20; Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 96. +See also Pasquier, <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_852_852" id="Footnote_852_852"></a><a href="#FNanchor_852_852"><span class="label">[852]</span></a> Mém. de Castelnau, liv. ii., c. 7. A somewhat similar +reason had, in Poitou, caused them, for a time, to be called <i>Fribours</i>, +the designation casually given to a <i>counterfeit</i> coin of debased metal. +Pasquier, 770.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_853_853" id="Footnote_853_853"></a><a href="#FNanchor_853_853"><span class="label">[853]</span></a> Advertissement au Peuple de France, <i>apud</i> Recueil des +choses mémorables (1565), 7. Also in the Complainte au Peuple François, +ibid., p. 10. Both of these papers were published immediately after the +Tumulte d'Amboise. The eminent Pierre Jurieu—"le Goliath des +Protestants"—tells us that, having at one time accepted the derivation +from "eidgenossen" as the most plausible, he subsequently returned to +that which connects the word Huguenot with Hugues or Hugh Capet. The +nickname confessedly arose, so far as France was concerned, first in +Touraine, and became general at the time of the tumult of Amboise, +nearly thirty years after the reformation of Geneva. "Qui est-ce qui +auroit transporté en Touraine ce nom trente ans après sa naissance, de +Genève où il n'avoit jamais esté cognu?" Histoire du calvinisme et celle +du papisme, etc. Rotterdam, 1683, i. 424, 425.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_854_854" id="Footnote_854_854"></a><a href="#FNanchor_854_854"><span class="label">[854]</span></a> J. de Serres, i. 67; Pasquier, 771: "Mot qui en peu de +temps s'espandit par toute la France."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_855_855" id="Footnote_855_855"></a><a href="#FNanchor_855_855"><span class="label">[855]</span></a> La Planche, 270. At Amboise, too, so soon as the court +had departed, the prisons were broken open, and the prisoners—both +those confined for religion and for insurrection—released. The gallows +in various parts of the place were torn down, and the ghastly +decorations of the castle, in the way of heads and mutilated members, +disappeared. Languet, letter of May 15th, Epist. secr., ii. 51.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_856_856" id="Footnote_856_856"></a><a href="#FNanchor_856_856"><span class="label">[856]</span></a> M. Archinard, conservator of the archives of the +Venerable Company of Pastors of Geneva, has compiled from the records a +list of 121 pastors sent by the Church of Geneva to the Reformed +Churches of France within eleven years—1555 to 1566. Many others have, +doubtless, escaped notice. Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. fr., +viii. (1859) 72-76. Cf. also Ib., ix. 294 seq., for an incomplete list +of Protestant pastors in France, probably in 1567, from an old MS. in +the Genevan library.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_857_857" id="Footnote_857_857"></a><a href="#FNanchor_857_857"><span class="label">[857]</span></a> The high moral and intellectual qualifications of the +Protestant ministers were eulogized by the Bishop of Valence, Montluc, +in his speech before the king at Fontainebleau, to which I shall soon +have occasion to refer again. "The doctrine, sire," he said, "which +interests your subjects, was sown for thirty years; not in one, or two, +or three days. It was introduced by three or four hundred ministers, +diligent and practised in letters; men of great modesty, gravity, and +appearance of sanctity; professing to detest every vice, and, +particularly, avarice; fearless of losing their lives in confirmation of +their preaching; who always had Jesus Christ upon their lips—a name so +sweet that it gives an entrance into ears the most carefully closed, and +easily glides into the heart of the most hardened." "Harangue de +l'Evesque de Vallence," <i>apud</i> Recueil des choses mémorables (1565), i. +290; Mém. de Condé, i. 558; La Place, 55. The eloquent Bishop of Valence +must be regarded as a better authority than those persons who, according +to Castelnau, accused the Calvinist ministers of Geneva of "having more +zeal and ignorance than religion." Mém. de Castelnau, liv. iii., c. 3.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_858_858" id="Footnote_858_858"></a><a href="#FNanchor_858_858"><span class="label">[858]</span></a> Calvin, in a letter sent by François de Saint Paul, a +minister whom he induced to accept the urgent call of the church of +Montélimart, dissuaded that church from this step which was already +contemplated. Better is it, said he, to increase the flock, and to +gather in the scattered sheep, meanwhile keeping quiet yourselves. "At +least, while you hold your assemblies peaceably from house to house, the +rage of the wicked will not so soon be enkindled against you, and you +will render to God what He requires, namely, the glorifying of His name +in a pure manner, and the keeping of yourselves unpolluted by all +superstitious observances, until it please Him to open a wider door." +Lettres françaises (Bonnet), ii. 335, 336. The author of the Histoire +ecclés. des églises réf., i. 138, expresses a belief that had such wise +counsels been followed, incomparably the greater part of the district +would have embraced the Reformation.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_859_859" id="Footnote_859_859"></a><a href="#FNanchor_859_859"><span class="label">[859]</span></a> La Planche, 284-286.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_860_860" id="Footnote_860_860"></a><a href="#FNanchor_860_860"><span class="label">[860]</span></a> Letter of Francis II. to Gaspard de Saulx, Seign. de +Tavannes, April 12, 1560, <i>apud</i> Négotiations relatives au règne de +François II., etc. (Collection de documents inédits), 341-343.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_861_861" id="Footnote_861_861"></a><a href="#FNanchor_861_861"><span class="label">[861]</span></a> With a label attached to their necks bearing this +inscription: "Voicy les chefs des rebelles."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_862_862" id="Footnote_862_862"></a><a href="#FNanchor_862_862"><span class="label">[862]</span></a> La Planche, 286-289.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_863_863" id="Footnote_863_863"></a><a href="#FNanchor_863_863"><span class="label">[863]</span></a> Letter of the Vte. de Joyeuse to the king, April 26, +1560, <i>apud</i> Nég. sous François II., 361-363.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_864_864" id="Footnote_864_864"></a><a href="#FNanchor_864_864"><span class="label">[864]</span></a> La Planche, 293.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_865_865" id="Footnote_865_865"></a><a href="#FNanchor_865_865"><span class="label">[865]</span></a> Hence the festival of Corpus Christi witnessed in some +places serious riots, especially in Rouen, where a number of citizens of +the reformed faith refused to join in the otherwise universal practice +of spreading tapestry on the front of their houses when the host was +carried by. Houses were broken into, at the instigation of the priests, +and near a score of persons killed. Languet, Paris, June 16th, Epist. +sec., ii. 59, 60.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_866_866" id="Footnote_866_866"></a><a href="#FNanchor_866_866"><span class="label">[866]</span></a> La Planche, 294; Hist. ecclés., i. 194; Floquet, Hist. du +parl. de Normandie, ii. 284, 288, 294, 302-306, etc. At Dieppe the +Huguenots had gone so far as to erect, with the pecuniary assistance +afforded by Admiral Coligny, an elegant and spacious "<i>temple</i>," as the +Protestant place of worship was styled. Vieilleville, much to his +regret, felt compelled to demolish it (Aug., 1560), for it stood in the +very heart of the city. I quote a part of his secretary's appreciative +description: "C'estoit ung fort brave édifice, <i>ressemblant au théatre +de Rome qu'on appelle Collisée, ou aux arênes de Nysmes</i>. On fut <i>trois +jours</i> à le verser par terre, et ne partismes de Dieppe que n'en +veissions la fin." Mém. de Vieilleville, ii. 448, etc.; Floquet, ii. +318-336.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_867_867" id="Footnote_867_867"></a><a href="#FNanchor_867_867"><span class="label">[867]</span></a> De Félice, liv. i., c. 12 (Am. ed., p. 111).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_868_868" id="Footnote_868_868"></a><a href="#FNanchor_868_868"><span class="label">[868]</span></a> See La Planche, 312, 313, and the "Histoire des cinq +rois" (Recueil des choses mém), 1598, p. 99, for the punishment of the +possessor of a copy of a virulent pamphlet against the cardinal, +entitled <i>Le Tigre</i> (see the note at the end of this chapter); and +Négociations sous François II., 456, for a letter from court ordering +search to be made for the author and publisher of the "Complaincte des +fidèles de France contre leurs adversaires les papistes." "En ung lundy +après Pasques, 15<sup>e</sup> du moys, fut affiché devant S. Hilaire un papier +estant imprimé d'autre impression de Paris, et y avoit à l'intitulation: +Les Estats opprimez par la tyrannie de MM. de Guise au roy salut." +Journal de Jehan de la Fosse, 37. The piece referred to is inserted in +the Mémoires de Condé, i. 405-410.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_869_869" id="Footnote_869_869"></a><a href="#FNanchor_869_869"><span class="label">[869]</span></a> La Planche, 299-302. The remonstrance, signed +<i>Theophilus</i>, which they addressed her, insisted on the ill-success of +the persecutions to which for forty years they had been subjected; for +one killed, two hundred had joined their assemblies; for ten thousand +open adherents, the Reformation had one hundred thousand secret +upholders. The Edict of Forgiveness answered no good purpose: "<i>c'estoit +bien peu d'oster pour un instant la douleur d'une maladie, si quant et +quant la cause et la racine n'en estoit ostée</i>."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_870_870" id="Footnote_870_870"></a><a href="#FNanchor_870_870"><span class="label">[870]</span></a> La Place, 41-45; La Planche, 316, 317; Mém. de Castelnau, +l. ii., c. 7; De Thou, ii., liv. xxv. 788-791. I confess, however, that +the careful perusal of La Planche's bold speech has nearly convinced me +that the ascription of the anonymous "Hist. de l'estat de Fr. sous +François II." to his pen is erroneous. I shall not insist upon the fact +that the description of La Planche as "homme politique plustost que +religieux" is inappropriate to the author of this history. But I can +scarcely conceive of La Planche correcting errors in his own speech, and +not only expressing an utter dissent from the account which he himself +gave the queen of the motives that led La Renaudie to engage in the +enterprise that had for its object the overthrow of the Guises, but even +accusing himself of falling into a grave mistake with regard to the +importance of the differences of creed between the Protestants and the +Roman Church: "s'abusant en ce qu'il meit en avant des différends de la +religion." La Planche had suggested a conference of +theologians—ostensibly to make a faithful translation of the Bible, in +reality to compare differences—and had expressed the opinion that there +would be found less discord than there appeared to be. The condemnation +of this view certainly does not mark a man of political rather than +religious tendencies! I fear that we must look elsewhere for the author +of this excellent history.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_871_871" id="Footnote_871_871"></a><a href="#FNanchor_871_871"><span class="label">[871]</span></a> It has been ascribed to the virtuous and tolerant +Chancellor L'Hospital, who, it is said, drew it up in order to defeat +the project of the Guises to introduce the Spanish Inquisition. (La +Planche, 305; cf. also De Thou, ii. 781.) But the edict was published +<i>before</i> the appointment of L'Hospital, and while Morvilliers, a +creature of the Guises, provisionally held the seals after Chancellor +Olivier's death; and the spiritual jurisdiction it established differed +little in principle from an inquisition. In fact, three of the French +prelates, the Cardinals of Lorraine, Bourbon, and Châtillon, had, as we +have seen, been constituted a board of inquisitors of the faith; and, +soon after the publication of the Edict of Romorantin, the Cardinal of +Tournon was set over them as inquisitor-general. The subject has been +well discussed by Soldan, Geschichte des Prot. in Frankreich, i. +338-342. The Duc d'Aumale, in his usually accurate Histoire des Princes +de Condé (i. 113), repeats the blunder of La Planche and De Thou.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_872_872" id="Footnote_872_872"></a><a href="#FNanchor_872_872"><span class="label">[872]</span></a> Recueil des anc. lois fr., xiv. 31-33; La Planche, 305, +306; La Place, 46, 47. It is, of course, "an edict holily conceived and +promulgated," in the estimation of Florimond de Ræmond, v. 113. The only +redeeming feature I can find in it is the article by which malicious +informers made themselves liable to all the penalties they had sought to +inflict on others.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_873_873" id="Footnote_873_873"></a><a href="#FNanchor_873_873"><span class="label">[873]</span></a> La Place, 36 (who states that the burning of Du Bourg was +an occasion of deep remorse in Olivier's last hours); La Planche, 266; +J. de Serres, De statu rel. et reip., i., fol. 35; De Thou, ii. (liv. +xxiv.), 775; Hist. du tumulte d'Amboise, <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_874_874" id="Footnote_874_874"></a><a href="#FNanchor_874_874"><span class="label">[874]</span></a> La Planche, 305.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_875_875" id="Footnote_875_875"></a><a href="#FNanchor_875_875"><span class="label">[875]</span></a> If we may credit that professed panegyrist, Scævola de +St. Marthe, L'Hospital was of an august appearance, of a dignified and +tranquil countenance, and, if his intellectual constitution had a +philosophic stamp, his features bore a not less remarkable resemblance +to the head of the Stagirite as delineated on ancient medals. Elogia +doctorum in Gallia virorum qui nostra patrumque memoria floruerunt +(Ienæ, 1696), lib. ii., p. 95.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_876_876" id="Footnote_876_876"></a><a href="#FNanchor_876_876"><span class="label">[876]</span></a> This remarkable statement is made by Agrippa d'Aubigné, +Mémoires, 478 (Ed. Panthéon Lit.). He tells us that he had inherited +from his father, himself one of the conspirators, the original papers of +the enterprise of Amboise. The suggestion was made by a confidant, that +the possession of the proof of L'Hospital's complicity would certainly +secure him 10,000 crowns, either from the chancellor or from his +enemies; whereupon the youth threw all the papers into the fire lest he +might in an hour of weakness succumb to the temptation. In his Hist. +universelle, i. 95, D'Aubigné makes the same assertion with great +positiveness: "L'Hospital, homme de grand estime, luy succeda, quoyqu'il +eust esté des conjurez pour le faict d'Amboise. Ce que je maintiens +contre tout ce qui en a esté escrit, pource que l'original de +l'entreprise fut consigné entre les mains de mon père, où estoit son +seing tout du long entre celuy de Dandelot et d'un Spifame: chose que +j'ai faict voir a plusieurs personnes de marque."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_877_877" id="Footnote_877_877"></a><a href="#FNanchor_877_877"><span class="label">[877]</span></a> La Planche, 305; La Place, 38; De Thou, ii. 776; Davila, +p. 29. I cannot refrain from inserting La Planche's worthy estimate of +his course and its results: "Car pour certain, encores que s'il eust +prins un court chemin pour s'opposer virilement au mal, il seroit plus à +louer, et Dieu, peut-estre, eust bény sa Constance, si est-ce qu'autant +qu'on en peut juger, <i>luy seul, par ses modérés déportemens a esté +l'instrument duquel Dieu s'est servy pour retenir plusieurs flots +impétueux, où fussent submergés tous les François</i>." <i>Ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_878_878" id="Footnote_878_878"></a><a href="#FNanchor_878_878"><span class="label">[878]</span></a> Throkmorton to Cecil, June 24, 1560, State Paper Office; +printed in Wright, Queen Elizabeth, i. 32, 33.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_879_879" id="Footnote_879_879"></a><a href="#FNanchor_879_879"><span class="label">[879]</span></a> La Planche, 338-343.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_880_880" id="Footnote_880_880"></a><a href="#FNanchor_880_880"><span class="label">[880]</span></a> Ibid., 315; De Thou, ii. 787, 788.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_881_881" id="Footnote_881_881"></a><a href="#FNanchor_881_881"><span class="label">[881]</span></a> The long address delivered to the two brothers at Nérac, +and reproduced verbatim by La Planche (318-338), is a very complete +summary of the views of the Huguenots at this juncture.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_882_882" id="Footnote_882_882"></a><a href="#FNanchor_882_882"><span class="label">[882]</span></a> Letter of Cardinal Lorraine to the Bishop of Limoges, +French ambassador to Philip the Second, July 28, 1560. The council "we +hold to be the sole and only remedy for our ills," is the minister's +language. Although the state of affairs was better than it had been, yet +"so many persons were imbued with these opinions, that it was not +possible to find out on whom reliance could be placed." Négociations +sous François II., 442-444.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_883_883" id="Footnote_883_883"></a><a href="#FNanchor_883_883"><span class="label">[883]</span></a> Ibid., <i>ubi supra</i>; La Planche, 349; De Thou, ii. 782.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_884_884" id="Footnote_884_884"></a><a href="#FNanchor_884_884"><span class="label">[884]</span></a> La Planche, <i>ubi supra</i>. An assembly of notables was, as +the term imports, a body consisting, not of representatives of the three +orders, regularly summoned under the forms observed in the holding of +the States General, but of the most prominent men of the kingdom, +arbitrarily selected and invited by the crown to act as its advisers on +some extraordinary emergency. "Telles assemblées," says Agrippa +d'Aubigné, "ont esté appelées <i>petits estats</i>." Hist. univ., i. 96.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_885_885" id="Footnote_885_885"></a><a href="#FNanchor_885_885"><span class="label">[885]</span></a> "This house is both beautiful and larger than any I had +before seen in France or England. I may resemble the state thereof to +the honour of Hampton Court, which as it passeth Fontainebleau with the +great hall and chambers, so is it inferior in outward beauty and +uniformity," etc. The Journey of the Queen's Ambassadors to Rome, Anno +1555, Hardwick, State Papers, i. 67.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_886_886" id="Footnote_886_886"></a><a href="#FNanchor_886_886"><span class="label">[886]</span></a> Charles Maximilian, now a boy of ten, was the successor +of Francis, known as Charles the Ninth. Edward Alexander, Duke of +Alençon, had his name changed in 1565 to Henry, and became Duke of +Anjou. He was at this time not quite nine years of age. He was +subsequently king, under the title of Henry the Third. Hercules became +Francis of Alençon in 1565, and was the only one of the brothers that +never ascended the throne. He was now a little over six years old.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_887_887" id="Footnote_887_887"></a><a href="#FNanchor_887_887"><span class="label">[887]</span></a> La Place, 53; La Planche, 350, 351; De Thou, ii. 706; +Mém. de Castelnau, 1. ii., c. 8; Davila, 29. Minor discrepancies between +these accounts need not be noted.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_888_888" id="Footnote_888_888"></a><a href="#FNanchor_888_888"><span class="label">[888]</span></a> "As if," says Calvin to Bullinger, "finding himself at +his wits' end, he had called in a consultation of state doctors." +(Bonnet, iv. 135.)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_889_889" id="Footnote_889_889"></a><a href="#FNanchor_889_889"><span class="label">[889]</span></a> "Deux requestes de la part des Fideles de France, qui +desirent viure selon la reformation de l'Euangile, donnees pour +presenter au Conseil tenu à Fontainebleau au mois d'Aoust, M.D.LX." +Recueil des choses mémorables faites et passees pour le faict de la +Religion et estat de ce Royaume, depuis la mort du Roy Henry II. iusques +au commencement des troubles. <i>Sine loco</i>, 1565, vol. i. 614-619.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_890_890" id="Footnote_890_890"></a><a href="#FNanchor_890_890"><span class="label">[890]</span></a> La Place, 54, 55, and La Planche, 351, are, as usual in +this reign, our best authorities in reference to Coligny's address and +the presentation of the petition; see also Hist. ecclés., i. 173, 174; +De Thou, ii. 797; Castelnau, liv. ii., c. 8; Davila, bk. ii., p. 30. La +Place and Jean de Serres, De statu, etc., i. 96 (who are followed by De +Thou, etc.), seem to be more correct in assigning the address to the +<i>second</i> session, than La Planche, the Hist. ecclés., etc., who place it +at the very commencement of the <i>first</i>. Calvin, in a letter to +Bullinger, Oct. 1, 1560 (Bonnet, iv. 135) describes the scene in the +same manner as La Place. Vita Gasparis Colinii (1575), 27, etc.; Vie de +Coligny (Cologne, 1686), p. 213, etc. Mr. Browning (Hist. of the +Huguenots, i. 29) erroneously attributes the authorship of the last +mentioned work to Francis Hotman (who died in 1590); whereas the author +wrote after Maimbourg and Varillas, whose statements he controverts. +(Pref., p. ii., and p. 86.) Hotman, as noticed elsewhere, was the author +of the preceding and much more authentic book.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_891_891" id="Footnote_891_891"></a><a href="#FNanchor_891_891"><span class="label">[891]</span></a> Not, however, precisely in the ranks of the clergy. +Marillac was a layman, whose success in negotiation had been rewarded +with the archiepiscopal see of Vienne. In his youth he had been +suspected of composing an apology for a "Lutheran" burned at the stake +in Paris; and he died broken-hearted, seeing the ruin to which both +church and state were tending, two months after the Assembly of +Fontainebleau. La Place, 72, 73; La Planche, 360, 361. Neither was +Montluc of Valence a clergyman. Paris, Négotiations sous François II., +Notice, p. xxxvii.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_892_892" id="Footnote_892_892"></a><a href="#FNanchor_892_892"><span class="label">[892]</span></a> It was not unfrequently recommended, as a species of +panacea for the evils in the church, that the bishops should all be sent +off to their dioceses. An edict to that effect had recently been +promulgated, and it was supposed that the parish curates would soon be +directed to follow their example. (Languet, ii. 68.) "What else will +result from this I know not," quietly adds the sensible diplomatist, +"but that they will betray their ignorance and baseness, and that the +contempt and hatred already entertained for them by the people will be +augmented." Elsewhere, in expressing the same view of the absurdity of +the order, he gives this unflattering description of the prelates: "cum +plerique sint plane indocti et præterea luxu, libidinibus, et aliis +sceleribus perditissimi," etc. (Ibid., ii. 73.)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_893_893" id="Footnote_893_893"></a><a href="#FNanchor_893_893"><span class="label">[893]</span></a> "Autant de deux escus que les banquiers avoyent envoyés à +Rome, autant de curés nous avoyent-ils renvoyés," adds Montluc. La +Place, 56.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_894_894" id="Footnote_894_894"></a><a href="#FNanchor_894_894"><span class="label">[894]</span></a> The harangue of Montluc is contained word for word, +though with erroneous date, in the Recueil des choses mémorables (1565), +pp. 286-305; also in La Place, 55-58; Mém. de Condé, 557-562. Summary in +De Thou, ii. 797-800; Jean de Serres, De statu rel. et reip. (1571), i. +99-106.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_895_895" id="Footnote_895_895"></a><a href="#FNanchor_895_895"><span class="label">[895]</span></a> "Et qu'en tout événement nous ne voulons périr pour luy +complaire." La Place, 60; La Planche, 354.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_896_896" id="Footnote_896_896"></a><a href="#FNanchor_896_896"><span class="label">[896]</span></a> "Et sur ce, ne fault espargner les Italiens qui occupent +la troisiesme partie des bénéfices du royaume, ont pensions infinies, +succent nostre sang comme sangsues," etc. La Place and La Planche, <i>ubi +supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_897_897" id="Footnote_897_897"></a><a href="#FNanchor_897_897"><span class="label">[897]</span></a> La Place, 64; La Planche, 359. Both historians give the +speech <i>verbatim</i>. J. de Serres, i. 106-126; Letter of Calvin to +Bullinger, Oct. 1, 1560, <i>ubi supra</i>; Hist. ecclés., i. 174-178. Would +that these words of wholesome advice and sound philosophy had not been +left unheeded by royalty and <i>noblesse</i>! The course of politic humanity +to which they pointed might have saved a monarch his head, the noblesse +countless lives and the loss of large possessions, and France a bloody +revolution.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_898_898" id="Footnote_898_898"></a><a href="#FNanchor_898_898"><span class="label">[898]</span></a> La Planche, 361; La Place, 66; De Thou, ii. 802; Mém. de +Castelnau, liv. ii. c. 8; Hist. ecclés., i. 178; Jean de Serres, i. +127.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_899_899" id="Footnote_899_899"></a><a href="#FNanchor_899_899"><span class="label">[899]</span></a> La Planche, 361, 362; La Place, 67. The latter and J. de +Serres, i. 129, are certainly wrong in attributing this passionate +menace to the Cardinal of Lorraine. De Thou, ii. 802; Castelnau, 1. ii., +c. 8.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_900_900" id="Footnote_900_900"></a><a href="#FNanchor_900_900"><span class="label">[900]</span></a> La Planche, etc., <i>ubi supra</i>. Calvin to Bullinger, Oct. +1, 1560 (Bonnet, iv. 136).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_901_901" id="Footnote_901_901"></a><a href="#FNanchor_901_901"><span class="label">[901]</span></a> La Planche, 362, 363; La Place, 67; J. de Serres, De +statu rel. et reip., i. 128-131; De Thou, ii. 802, 803. After seeing the +head instigator of persecution, still gory with the blood of the recent +slaughter, assume with such effrontery the language of pity and +toleration, we may be prepared for his duplicity at the interview of +Saverne. The compiler of the Hist. ecclés. (i, 179) explains the consent +of the Guises to the convocation of the estates by supposing them to +have hoped by this measure not merely to take away the excuse of their +opponents, but, by obtaining a majority, to secure the declaration of +Navarre and Condé as rebels, whether they came or declined to appear. +Calvin (letter to Bullinger, <i>ubi supra</i>, p. 137) gives the same view. +So does Barbaro: "Forse non tanto per volontà che s'avesse d'esseguirle +quanto per adomentare gli risvegliati, et guadagnar, come si fece." The +Pope and Philip violently opposed the plan "perchè nè l'uno nè l'altro +sapeva il secreto." "By the plan of the council, ... they succeeded in +feeding with vain hopes (dar pasto) those who sought to make innovations +in the faith." Rel. des Amb. Vén., i. 524, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_902_902" id="Footnote_902_902"></a><a href="#FNanchor_902_902"><span class="label">[902]</span></a> La Planche, 363, 364; La Place, 68; De Thou, ii. 803 +(liv. xxv). Cf. the edict in full <i>apud</i> Négociations sous François II., +486-490; also a letter of Francis in which he explains his course to +Philip II., ib. 490-497.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_903_903" id="Footnote_903_903"></a><a href="#FNanchor_903_903"><span class="label">[903]</span></a> The cardinal had, however, made a somewhat similar +discourse, just about six months before, to Throkmorton, much to the +good knight's disgust. He had expressed a recognition of the faults +prevalent in the church, and pretended to be desirous of reforming it in +an orderly manner. "I am not so ignorant," he said, "nor so led with +errors that reigne, as the world judgeth." He declared himself in favor +of a general council, and spoke with satisfaction of an edict just +despatched to Scotland, "to surcease the punishment of men for +religion." "And of this purpose," adds the ambassador with pardonable +sarcasm, "he made suche an oration as it were long to write, <i>evon as +thoughe he had bene hired by the Protestants to defend their cause +earnestly</i>!" Despatch to the queen, Feb. 27, 1559/60, Forbes, State +Papers, i. 337, 338.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_904_904" id="Footnote_904_904"></a><a href="#FNanchor_904_904"><span class="label">[904]</span></a> Sommaire récit de la calomnieuse accusation de M. le +prince de Condé, Mémoires de Condé, ii. 373; Languet, ii. 66.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_905_905" id="Footnote_905_905"></a><a href="#FNanchor_905_905"><span class="label">[905]</span></a> Throkmorton to Cecil, Sept. 3, 1560, State Paper Office; +La Place, 68, 69; La Planche, 345, 346; De Thou, ii. 804-806; Castelnau, +1. ii., c. 7.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_906_906" id="Footnote_906_906"></a><a href="#FNanchor_906_906"><span class="label">[906]</span></a> La Planche, p. 375. Instructions to M. de Crussol, going +by order of the king to the King of Navarre, Aug. 30, 1560, <i>apud</i> +Négoc. sous François II., pp. 482-486. The beginning of this paper, +directing Crussol to express regret that Navarre had not come to the +council of Fontainebleau, and to announce the result of its +recommendations, is sufficiently conciliatory. If, however, Navarre +should hesitate to obey the summons, the agent was bidden to frighten +him into compliance. On the first show of resistance, Francis would +collect his own troops, consisting of thirty thousand or forty thousand +foot, and seven hundred or eight hundred horse, expected levies of ten +thousand Swiss, and six thousand or seven thousand German lansquenets. +Philip had assured him of the assistance of all his forces, foot and +horse, both from the side of Netherlands and of Spain. The Dukes of +Lorraine, Savoy, and Ferrara would bring fourteen thousand to sixteen +thousand foot and one thousand five hundred horse. The king's +arrangements were complete, and he was resolved to make an example. The +arrest of La Sague was, however, not to be mentioned. Letter of Francis +to the King of Navarre, Aug. 30, in Recueil des choses mém. (1565), 75, +76, and Mém. de Condé, i. 573.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_907_907" id="Footnote_907_907"></a><a href="#FNanchor_907_907"><span class="label">[907]</span></a> See the message in cipher appended to a despatch to the +French ambassador at Madrid, Aug. 31, 1560, <i>apud</i> Nég. sous François +II., pp. 490-497. The discovery is said to have been made within five or +six days. Condé is implicated. Against Navarre there is as yet no proof. +The Queen of England, is suspected of complicity, despite the recent +treaty (of July 23d, by which Mary, Queen of Scots, renounced her claims +upon the crown of England). The affright of the Guises may be judged +from the circumstance that two copies of the despatch were +forwarded—one by Guyenne, the other by Languedoc—so that at least one +might reach its destination.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_908_908" id="Footnote_908_908"></a><a href="#FNanchor_908_908"><span class="label">[908]</span></a> Thomas Shakerly, the Cardinal of Ferrara's organist, sent +him budgets of news not less regularly than the secretary of the Duke of +Savoy's ambassador at Venice supplied the English agent copies of all +the most important letters his master received. See the interesting +letter of John Shers to Cecil, Venice, Jan. 18, 1561, State Paper +Office.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_909_909" id="Footnote_909_909"></a><a href="#FNanchor_909_909"><span class="label">[909]</span></a> Throkmorton to queen, Poissy, Oct. 10, 1560, State Paper +Office.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_910_910" id="Footnote_910_910"></a><a href="#FNanchor_910_910"><span class="label">[910]</span></a> In a despatch to his ambassador at Madrid, Sept. 18, 1560 +(Négoc. sous François II., 523, etc.), Francis states that 1,000 or +1,200 armed soldiers had been posted in sixty-six houses, ready to sally +out by night, capture the city, and open the gates to 2,000 men waiting +outside. Of course, according to the king or his ministers, the object +was plunder, and the enterprise a fair specimen of Huguenot sanctity.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_911_911" id="Footnote_911_911"></a><a href="#FNanchor_911_911"><span class="label">[911]</span></a> La Planche, 365-368; La Place, 69; Nég. sous François +II., <i>ubi supra</i>; Mém. de Castelnau, 1. ii., c. 9; Languet, ii. 70; De +Thou, ii. 806. Calvin, in a letter to Beza (Sept. 10, 1560), seems to +allude, though not by name, to Maligny, and to condemn his rashness; but +the passage is purposely too obscure to throw much light upon the +matter. Bonnet, iv. 126, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_912_912" id="Footnote_912_912"></a><a href="#FNanchor_912_912"><span class="label">[912]</span></a> Letter of the king, <i>apud</i> Négoc. sous François II., 580, +581.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_913_913" id="Footnote_913_913"></a><a href="#FNanchor_913_913"><span class="label">[913]</span></a> The curious reader may task his ingenuity in deciphering +the somewhat remarkable spelling in which the count quaintly relates the +occurrence in question: "Aytant o Pont-Sainct-Esperit, je trouvis entre +les mains de Rocart, capitayne de là, deux charges de mulles de <i>livres +de Genaive, fort bien reliez</i>: toutefoys cela ne les en carda que je ne +les fice toux brûler, comensent le prumier à les maytre o fu; de coe je +fu bien suivi de monsieur de Joyeuse, vous asseurent qu' <i>ill i en avoet +beocoup de la copagnie qu'il les playnoet fort</i>, les estiment plus de +mille aycus: pour sayte foys-là je ne les voullus croere." Letter of +Villars to the constable, Oct. 12, 1560, <i>apud</i> Négoc. sous François +II., p. 655.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_914_914" id="Footnote_914_914"></a><a href="#FNanchor_914_914"><span class="label">[914]</span></a> On Sunday, the 28th of July, a gathering composed almost +entirely of women was discovered. Nothing daunted, 1,200 persons met the +next night, with torches and open doors, in the large school-rooms, +where their pastor, Maupeau, preached an appropriate sermon from Rev. +vi. 9, on "the souls of them that were slain for the word of God." Soon +the same place was resorted to by day. Summoned before the magistrates, +judge, and consuls, the Huguenots declared their loyalty, but said that +they had no idea that the king wanted to dictate to the conscience, +which belongs to God. Presently the church of St. Michael was seized. +Then the Cardinal of Lorraine (Oct. 14th) wrote to the bishop, telling +him to call upon M. de Villars for aid in suppressing assemblies and the +preaching. Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 207-210.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_915_915" id="Footnote_915_915"></a><a href="#FNanchor_915_915"><span class="label">[915]</span></a> They are Nismes, Montpellier, Montagnac, Annonay, +Castres, Marsillargues, Aigues Mortes, Pézénas, Gignac, Sommières, St. +Jean de Gardonnenches, Anduze, Vauvers (Viviers?), Uzès, and Privas.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_916_916" id="Footnote_916_916"></a><a href="#FNanchor_916_916"><span class="label">[916]</span></a> Sommaire des instructions données à Pignan envoyé au roy +par Honorat de Savoye, Cte. de Villars, Oct. 15, 1560, <i>apud</i> Négoc. +sous François II., 659-661.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_917_917" id="Footnote_917_917"></a><a href="#FNanchor_917_917"><span class="label">[917]</span></a> On hearing of the seizure of Aigues Mortes by treachery. +Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 211.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_918_918" id="Footnote_918_918"></a><a href="#FNanchor_918_918"><span class="label">[918]</span></a> Letters of De Villars to the Guises, Oct. 27 and 29, +1560. Nég. sous François II., 671.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_919_919" id="Footnote_919_919"></a><a href="#FNanchor_919_919"><span class="label">[919]</span></a> Letter of the king to the Cte. de Villars, November 9, +1560. Ib., p. 673.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_920_920" id="Footnote_920_920"></a><a href="#FNanchor_920_920"><span class="label">[920]</span></a> H. Barnsleye to Cecil, August 28, 1560, State Paper +Office.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_921_921" id="Footnote_921_921"></a><a href="#FNanchor_921_921"><span class="label">[921]</span></a> I know of no more scathing exposure of the morals of the +clergy than that given by François Grimaudet, the representative of the +Tiers État of Anjou, and inserted <i>verbatim</i> in La Planche, 389-396. It +was honored by being made the object of a special censure of the +Sorbonne!</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_922_922" id="Footnote_922_922"></a><a href="#FNanchor_922_922"><span class="label">[922]</span></a> La Planche, 387-397; Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. +199.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_923_923" id="Footnote_923_923"></a><a href="#FNanchor_923_923"><span class="label">[923]</span></a> Remonstrances, plaintes, et doléançes de l'estat ecclés., +MSS. Arch. du départ, de la Vienne, Hist. des Protestants et des églises +réf. du Poitou, par A. Lièvre (Poitiers, 1856), i. 84, 85.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_924_924" id="Footnote_924_924"></a><a href="#FNanchor_924_924"><span class="label">[924]</span></a> Geneva MS., <i>apud</i> Baum, Theodor Beza, ii. 110.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_925_925" id="Footnote_925_925"></a><a href="#FNanchor_925_925"><span class="label">[925]</span></a> See the interesting passage in the Hist. ecclés. des égl. +réf., i. 204.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_926_926" id="Footnote_926_926"></a><a href="#FNanchor_926_926"><span class="label">[926]</span></a> "As touching the occurrents of this Court, it may please +your Majesty to be advertised, that the King of Navarre being on his way +to this Court, hath had letters, as I am informed, written unto him, of +great good opinion conceived of him by this King, with all other kind of +courtesies, to cause him to repair thither." Despatch of Sir Nicholas +Throkmorton, Orleans, Nov. 17, 1560, Hardwick, State Papers, i. 138.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_927_927" id="Footnote_927_927"></a><a href="#FNanchor_927_927"><span class="label">[927]</span></a> The portrait of this personage is painted in no +flattering colors by Calvin in two letters, to Sulcer, Oct. 1, 1560 +("whose mind is more lumpish than a log, unless when it is a little +quickened by wine"), and to Bullinger, of the same date ("one whom you +might easily mistake for a cask or a flagon, so little has he the shape +of a human being"). Bonnet, Eng. tr., iv. 131-135.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_928_928" id="Footnote_928_928"></a><a href="#FNanchor_928_928"><span class="label">[928]</span></a> The despatches that passed between the court and the +French ambassador in Spain reveal the general alarm. Oct. 4th, Cardinal +Lorraine expects Navarre and Condé within the first half of the month, +"dont je suis fort ayse." Oct. 5th, Francis writes that, within two +days, he has heard that they intend carrying out their enterprise. Oct. +9th, the secretary of state complains of "fresh alarm daily." Négoc. +sous François II., 604-607, 610, 650. Others were, in the end, as much +astounded as the Guises at Navarre's pacific attitude. Throkmorton, +writing to the privy council that this king was looked for shortly at +Orleans, adds that all bruits of trouble by him were clean appeased, +<i>which caused great marvel</i>. Despatch to privy council, Paris, Oct. 24, +1560, State Paper Office.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_929_929" id="Footnote_929_929"></a><a href="#FNanchor_929_929"><span class="label">[929]</span></a> Letter of Bishop of Limoges to the Cardinal of Lorraine, +Sept. 26, 1560, <i>apud</i> Négotiations sous François II., 562: "Je vous +supplie de croire que le roy et mes seigneurs de son conseil [<i>i. e.</i>, +Francis and the Guises] ne feront rien pour extirper un tel mal qui ne +soit icy [in Spain] bien pris et receu <i>à</i> <i>l'endroict de qui que ce +soit</i> [sc. Navarre and Condé]: tant ceux-cy craignent qu'il y ait +changement en notre religion et estat." Cf. also pp. 551, 552.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_930_930" id="Footnote_930_930"></a><a href="#FNanchor_930_930"><span class="label">[930]</span></a> Négociations sous François II., 553, 554.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_931_931" id="Footnote_931_931"></a><a href="#FNanchor_931_931"><span class="label">[931]</span></a> Instructions of the king to M. de La Burie, commanding in +Guyenne, Sept., 1560, <i>apud</i> Négociations sous François II., 578-580; +also Ib., 644.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_932_932" id="Footnote_932_932"></a><a href="#FNanchor_932_932"><span class="label">[932]</span></a> La Planche, 377.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_933_933" id="Footnote_933_933"></a><a href="#FNanchor_933_933"><span class="label">[933]</span></a> La Planche, 375; Baum, Theodor Beza, ii. 120-123, whose +account of this episode in the reformer's life is well written and +interesting. For the general facts above stated the best authority is, +as usual, La Planche, 373-377; see also La Place, 71; De Thou, ii. 807, +827; Hist. ecclés., i. 205; Castelnau, l. ii., c. 9; Davila, 34, 35; +Calvin's Letters (Bonnet), iv., pp. 132, 137, 143, 147-151.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_934_934" id="Footnote_934_934"></a><a href="#FNanchor_934_934"><span class="label">[934]</span></a> Calvin to Bullinger, Dec. 4th, and to Sulcer, Dec. 11, +1560 (Bonnet, iv. 149 and 151).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_935_935" id="Footnote_935_935"></a><a href="#FNanchor_935_935"><span class="label">[935]</span></a> La Planche, 377; Agrippa d'Aubigné, liv. ii., c. 19.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_936_936" id="Footnote_936_936"></a><a href="#FNanchor_936_936"><span class="label">[936]</span></a> La Planche, <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_937_937" id="Footnote_937_937"></a><a href="#FNanchor_937_937"><span class="label">[937]</span></a> Sommaire récit de la calomnieuse accusation de M. le +prince de Condé, in the Recueil des choses mém. (1565), 722-754, and +Mémoires de Condé, ii. 373-395—a contemporaneous account by one who +speaks of himself as "ayant assisté à la conduicte de la plus grand part +de tout le négoce."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_938_938" id="Footnote_938_938"></a><a href="#FNanchor_938_938"><span class="label">[938]</span></a> "Nevertheless, upon his coming, being accompanied with +his brethren, the Cardinal of Bourbon and Prince of Condé, after they +have [had] done their reverence to the king and queens, the Prince of +Condé was brought before the council, who committed him forthwith +prisoner to the guard of Messrs. de Bresy and Chauveney, two captains of +the guard, and their companies of two hundred archers." Despatch of Sir +Nicholas Throkmorton, <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_939_939" id="Footnote_939_939"></a><a href="#FNanchor_939_939"><span class="label">[939]</span></a> "The King of Navarre goeth at liberty, but as it were a +prisoner." Despatch of Sir Nich. Throkmorton, <i>ubi supra</i>. "Tanquam +captivus." Same to Lord Robert Dudley, same date, State Paper Office.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_940_940" id="Footnote_940_940"></a><a href="#FNanchor_940_940"><span class="label">[940]</span></a> La Place, 73; La Planche, 380, 381; Castelnau, 1. ii., c. +10.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_941_941" id="Footnote_941_941"></a><a href="#FNanchor_941_941"><span class="label">[941]</span></a> La Place, 74: La Planche and Castelnau, <i>ubi supra</i>; +Sommaire récit, <i>ubi supra</i>. "Madame de Roy (Roye), the Admiral of +France his sister ... is taken and constituted prisoner." Despatch of +Sir Nich. Throkmorton, Orleans, November 17, 1560, Hardwick, State +Papers, i. 139.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_942_942" id="Footnote_942_942"></a><a href="#FNanchor_942_942"><span class="label">[942]</span></a> "The Dutchess of Ferrara, mother to the Duke that now is, +according to that I wrote heretofore to your Majesty, is arrived at this +Court, the 7th of this present, and was received by the King of Navarre, +the French King's brethren, and all the great Princes of this Court." +<i>Ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_943_943" id="Footnote_943_943"></a><a href="#FNanchor_943_943"><span class="label">[943]</span></a> Brantôme, Femmes illustres, Renée de France; La Planche, +381; La Place, 74; "que si elle y eust esté, elle l'eust empesché, et +que ceste playe saigneroit long temps après, d'autant que jamais homme +ne s'estoit attaché au sang de France, qu'il ne s'en fust trouvé mal." +De Thou, ii. 830.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_944_944" id="Footnote_944_944"></a><a href="#FNanchor_944_944"><span class="label">[944]</span></a> "He remaineth close in a house, and no man permitted to +speak with him; and his process is in hand. And I hear he shall now be +committed to the castle of Loches, the strongest prison in all this +realm." Sir Nich. Throkmorton, November 17, 1560, <i>ubi supra</i>, i. 138.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_945_945" id="Footnote_945_945"></a><a href="#FNanchor_945_945"><span class="label">[945]</span></a> La Place, 75, <i>ubi supra</i>; De Thou, ii. 832, 833 (liv. +26); Sommaire récit, <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_946_946" id="Footnote_946_946"></a><a href="#FNanchor_946_946"><span class="label">[946]</span></a> La Planche, 402.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_947_947" id="Footnote_947_947"></a><a href="#FNanchor_947_947"><span class="label">[947]</span></a> Ib., 401; La Place, 75; Sommaire récit, <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_948_948" id="Footnote_948_948"></a><a href="#FNanchor_948_948"><span class="label">[948]</span></a> La Planche, 400; Castelnau, liv. ii., c. 10.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_949_949" id="Footnote_949_949"></a><a href="#FNanchor_949_949"><span class="label">[949]</span></a> Sommaire récit, <i>ubi supra</i>. "For, being a prince of the +blood, he said, his process was to be adjudged either by the Princes of +the blood or by the twelve Peers; and therefore willed the Chancellor +and the rest to trouble him no further." Throkmorton, Nov. 28, 1560, +Hardwick, State Papers, i. 151. Castelnau (liv. ii., c. 11) has, by a +number of precedents, proved the validity of this claim.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_950_950" id="Footnote_950_950"></a><a href="#FNanchor_950_950"><span class="label">[950]</span></a> Mémoires de Condé, i. 619, containing the royal <i>arrêt</i> +of Nov. 20th, rejecting Condé's demand; Sommaire récit. The (subsequent) +First President of parliament, Christopher de Thou, was, after +Chancellor L'Hospital, the leading member of the commission. His son, +the historian, may be pardoned for dismissing the unpleasant subject +with careful avoidance of details. La Planche makes no mention of the +chancellor in connection with the case, but records Condé's indignant +remonstrance against so devoted a servant of the Guises as the first +president acting as judge.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_951_951" id="Footnote_951_951"></a><a href="#FNanchor_951_951"><span class="label">[951]</span></a> La Planche, 399.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_952_952" id="Footnote_952_952"></a><a href="#FNanchor_952_952"><span class="label">[952]</span></a> La Planche, 401; Davila, 37, 38; Castelnau, l. ii., c. +12. The unanimous voice of contemporary authorities, and the accounts +given by subsequent historians, are discredited by De Thou alone (ii. +835, 836), who expresses the conviction, based upon his recollection of +his father's statement, that the sentence was drawn up, but never +signed. He also represents Christopher de Thou as suggesting to Condé +his appeal from the jurisdiction of the commission, and opposing the +violent designs of the Guises.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_953_953" id="Footnote_953_953"></a><a href="#FNanchor_953_953"><span class="label">[953]</span></a> La Planche, 401; Castelnau, liv. ii., c. 12.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_954_954" id="Footnote_954_954"></a><a href="#FNanchor_954_954"><span class="label">[954]</span></a> La Planche, 405, 406, has preserved this striking speech, +which I have somewhat condensed in the text. Agrippa d'Aubigné, Histoire +universelle, <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_955_955" id="Footnote_955_955"></a><a href="#FNanchor_955_955"><span class="label">[955]</span></a> La Planche, it may be noticed, leans to this supposition. +Ibid., 405.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_956_956" id="Footnote_956_956"></a><a href="#FNanchor_956_956"><span class="label">[956]</span></a> Ibid., 406; D'Aubigné, <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_957_957" id="Footnote_957_957"></a><a href="#FNanchor_957_957"><span class="label">[957]</span></a> See Michele Suriano's account, Rel. des Amb. Vén., i. +528. The ambassador seems to have entertained no doubt of the complete +success that would have crowned the movement had Francis's life been +spared: "Il quale, se vivea un poco più, non solamente averia ripresso, +<i>ma estinto dal tutto</i> quell' incendio che ora consuma il regno." The +Spanish ambassador, Chantonnay, writing to his master, Nov., 1560, +confirms the statements of Protestant contemporaries respecting the plan +laid out for the destruction of the Bourbons, and then of the admiral +and his brother D'Andelot; but the wily brother of Cardinal Granvelle, +much as he would have rejoiced at the destruction of the heads of the +Huguenot faction, was alarmed at the wholesale proscription, and +expressed grave fears that so intemperate and violent a course would +provoke a serious rebellion, and perhaps give rise to a forcible +intervention in French affairs, on the part of Germany or England. "Pero +á mi paresce que seria mas acertado castigar poco á poco los culpados +que prender tantos de un golpe, porque assi se podrian meter en +desesperacion sus parientes, y causar alguna grande rebuelta y admitir +mas facilmente las platicas de fuera del reyno ... o de Alemania o de +Inglaterra." Papiers de Simancas, <i>apud</i> Mignet, Journal des Savants, +1859, p. 39.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_958_958" id="Footnote_958_958"></a><a href="#FNanchor_958_958"><span class="label">[958]</span></a> Mém. de Castelnau, liv. ii., c. 12; La Planche, 404; +Mémoires de Mergey (Collection Michaud and Poujoulat), 567. The Count of +La Rochefoucauld, hearing through the Duchess of Uzès—a bosom confidant +of Catharine, but a woman who was not herself averse to the +Reformation—that Francis had remarked that the count "must prepare to +say his <i>Credo</i> in Latin," had made all his arrangements to pass from +Champagne into Germany with his faithful squire De Mergey, both +disguised as plain merchants.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_959_959" id="Footnote_959_959"></a><a href="#FNanchor_959_959"><span class="label">[959]</span></a> La Planche, 404; De Thou, ii. 835 (liv. xxvi.). The +latter does not place implicit confidence in these reports, while +conceding that subsequent events would induce a belief that they were +not destitute of a foundation. According to Throkmorton, also, writing +to Cecil, Sept. 3, 1560, the chief burden was to rest with the clergy, +who gave eight-tenths of the whole subsidy. State Paper Office.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_960_960" id="Footnote_960_960"></a><a href="#FNanchor_960_960"><span class="label">[960]</span></a> Ibid., 403; De Thou, iii. 82.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_961_961" id="Footnote_961_961"></a><a href="#FNanchor_961_961"><span class="label">[961]</span></a> Throkmorton's despatches from Orleans, several frequently +sent off on a single day, acquaint us with the rapid progress of the +king's disease, and the cold calculations based upon it. "The +constitution of his body," he writes in the third of his letters that +bear date Nov. 28th (Hardwick, State Papers, i. 156), "is such, as the +physicians do say he cannot be long-lived: and thereunto he hath by his +too timely and inordinate exercise now in his youth, added an evil +accident; so as there be that do not let to say, though he do recover +this sickness, he cannot live two years; <i>whereupon there is plenty of +discourses here of the French Queen's second marriage</i>; some talk of the +Prince of Spain, some of the Duke of Austrich, others of the Earl of +Arran." No wonder that cabinet ministers and others often grew weary of +the interminable debates respecting the marriages of queens regnant, and +that William Cecil, as early as July, 1561, wrote respecting Queen Bess: +"Well, God send our Mistress a husband, and by time a son, that we may +hope our posterity shall have a masculine succession. This matter is too +big for weak folks, and too deep for simple." Hardwick, State Papers, i. +174.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_962_962" id="Footnote_962_962"></a><a href="#FNanchor_962_962"><span class="label">[962]</span></a> Throkmorton to Chamberlain, Nov. 21, 1560. British +Museum.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_963_963" id="Footnote_963_963"></a><a href="#FNanchor_963_963"><span class="label">[963]</span></a> De Thou, ii. 833, etc. (liv. 26); D'Aubigné, liv. ii., c. +20, p. 103.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_964_964" id="Footnote_964_964"></a><a href="#FNanchor_964_964"><span class="label">[964]</span></a> On the 17th of Nov. Throkmorton had written: "The house +of Guise practiseth by all the means they can, <i>to make the Queen Mother +Regent of France</i> at this next assembly; <i>so as they are like to have +all the authority still in their hands, for she is wholly theirs</i>." +Hardwick, State Papers, i. 140. D'Aubigné (<i>ubi supra</i>), who attributes +to the sagacious counsel of Chancellor de l'Hospital the credit of +influencing Catharine to take this course.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_965_965" id="Footnote_965_965"></a><a href="#FNanchor_965_965"><span class="label">[965]</span></a> I must refer the reader for the details of this +remarkable interview and its results, which, it must be noted, Catharine +insisted on Antoine's acknowledging over his signature, to the <i>Histoire +de l'Estat de France, tant de la république que de la religion, sous le +règne de François II.</i>, commonly attributed to Louis Regnier de la +Planche (pp. 415-418)—a work whose trustworthiness and accuracy are +above reproach, and respecting which my only regret is that its valuable +assistance deserts me at this point of the history.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_966_966" id="Footnote_966_966"></a><a href="#FNanchor_966_966"><span class="label">[966]</span></a> Ibid., 413.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_967_967" id="Footnote_967_967"></a><a href="#FNanchor_967_967"><span class="label">[967]</span></a> The words in the text are those of Calvin, in a letter to +Sturm, written Dec. 16, 1560, not many days after the receipt of the +astonishing intelligence. "Did you ever read or hear," he says, "of +anything more opportune than the death of the king? The evils had +reached an extremity for which there was no remedy, when suddenly God +shows himself from heaven! He who pierced the eye of the father has now +stricken the ear of the son." Bonnet, Calvin's Letters, Am. ed., iv. +152.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_968_968" id="Footnote_968_968"></a><a href="#FNanchor_968_968"><span class="label">[968]</span></a> Evidently the Guises had acquiesced with so much alacrity +in the convocation of the States General only because of their +confidence in their power to intimidate any party that should undertake +to oppose them. Chantonnay, the Spanish ambassador, informed Philip of +this before Francis's death, and gave the Cardinal of Lorraine as his +authority for the statement: "Le ha dicho el cardenal de Lorrena que +para aquel tiempo avria aqui tanta gente de guerra y se daria tal órden +que a qualquiera que quiziesse hablar se le cerrasse la boca, y assi ne +se hiziesse mas dello que ellos quiziessen." Simancas MSS., <i>apud</i> +Mignet, Journal des savants, 1859, p. 40.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_969_969" id="Footnote_969_969"></a><a href="#FNanchor_969_969"><span class="label">[969]</span></a> Letter of Beza to Bullinger, Jan. 22, 1561, Baum, ii., +App., 18.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_970_970" id="Footnote_970_970"></a><a href="#FNanchor_970_970"><span class="label">[970]</span></a> From Nov. 20th to Dec. 1st, De la Place, 77, 78.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_971_971" id="Footnote_971_971"></a><a href="#FNanchor_971_971"><span class="label">[971]</span></a> La Planche, 418.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_972_972" id="Footnote_972_972"></a><a href="#FNanchor_972_972"><span class="label">[972]</span></a> "Si possible estoit," wrote Calvin, "il seroit bon de +leur faire veiller le corps da trespassé, comme ils out faict jouer ce +rosle aux aultres." Letter to ministers of Paris, Lettres franchises, +ii. 347.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_973_973" id="Footnote_973_973"></a><a href="#FNanchor_973_973"><span class="label">[973]</span></a> "Lutherano more sepultus Lutheranorum hostis." Letter of +Beza to Bullinger, <i>ubi supra</i>, p. 19. "Dont advint un brocard: que le +roy, ennemy mortel des huguenauds, n'avoit pen empescher d'estre enterré +à la huguenaute." La Planche, 421.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_974_974" id="Footnote_974_974"></a><a href="#FNanchor_974_974"><span class="label">[974]</span></a> De la Place, 76.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_975_975" id="Footnote_975_975"></a><a href="#FNanchor_975_975"><span class="label">[975]</span></a> "De consentir que une femme veuve, une estrangère et +Italienne domine, non-seulement il luy tourneroit à grand déshonneur, +mais à un tel préjudice de la couronne, qu'il en seroit blasmé à +jamais." Calvin to the ministers of Paris, Lettres fr., ii. 346.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_976_976" id="Footnote_976_976"></a><a href="#FNanchor_976_976"><span class="label">[976]</span></a> Commentarii del regno di Francia, probably written early +in 1562, in Tommaseo, Rel. des Amb. Vén., i. 552-554.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_977_977" id="Footnote_977_977"></a><a href="#FNanchor_977_977"><span class="label">[977]</span></a> Calvin, who read his contemporaries thoroughly, wrote to +Bullinger (May 24, 1561): "Rex Navarræ non minus segnis aut flexibilis +quam hactenus liberalis est promissor; nulla fides, nulla constantia, +etsi enim videtur interdum non modo viriles igniculos jacere, sed +luculentam flammam spargere, mox evanescit. Hoc quando subinde accidit +non aliter est metuendus quam prævaricator forensis. Adde quod totus est +venereus," etc. Baum, vol. ii., App., 32.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_978_978" id="Footnote_978_978"></a><a href="#FNanchor_978_978"><span class="label">[978]</span></a> Letter of Francis Hotman, Strasbourg, December 31, 1560, +to the King of Navarre, Bulletin, ix. (1860) 32.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_979_979" id="Footnote_979_979"></a><a href="#FNanchor_979_979"><span class="label">[979]</span></a> "En quoy il fault que je vous dye que le roy de Navarre, +qui est le premier, et auquel les lois du royaume donnent beaucoup +d'avantage, s'est si doulcement et franchement porté à mon endroict, que +j'ay grande occasion de m'en contenter, s'estant du tout mis entre mes +mains et despouillé du pouvoir et d'auctorité soubz mon bon plaisir.... +Je l'ay tellement gaigné, que je fais et dispose de luy tout ainsy qu'il +me plaist." Letter of Catharine to the Bishop of Limoges, December 19, +1560, <i>ap.</i> Négociations relat. au règne de Fr. II., p. 786, 787.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_980_980" id="Footnote_980_980"></a><a href="#FNanchor_980_980"><span class="label">[980]</span></a> "Encore que je souy contraynte d'avoyr le roy de Navarre +auprès de moy, d'aultent que lé louys de set royaume le portet ynsin, +quant le roy ayst en bas ayage, que les prinse du sanc souyt auprès de +la mère; si ne fault-y qu'il entre en neule doulte, car y m'é si +aubéysant et n'a neul comendement que seluy que je luy permès." The fact +that this letter was written by Catharine's own hand well accounts for +the spelling. Négociations, etc., 791.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_981_981" id="Footnote_981_981"></a><a href="#FNanchor_981_981"><span class="label">[981]</span></a> Mémoires de Castelnau, liv. iii., c. 2. In July, 1561, +the salaries of the officers of the Parliament of Paris were in arrears +for nearly a year and a half. Mémoires de Condé (Edit. Michaud et +Poujoulat), 579.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_982_982" id="Footnote_982_982"></a><a href="#FNanchor_982_982"><span class="label">[982]</span></a> "Che certo non può più." Relaz. di Giovanne Michele, +<i>ap.</i> Tommaseo, Relations des Amb. Vén., i. 408.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_983_983" id="Footnote_983_983"></a><a href="#FNanchor_983_983"><span class="label">[983]</span></a> And yet—such are the inconsistencies of human +character—this queen, whose nature was a singular compound of timidity, +hypocrisy, licentiousness, malice, superstition, and atheism, would seem +at times to have felt the need of the assistance of a higher power. If +Catharine was not dissembling even in her most confidential letters to +her daughter, it was in some such frame of mind that she recommended +Isabella to pray to God for protection against the misfortunes that had +befallen her mother. The letter is so interesting that I must lay the +most characteristic passage under the reader's eye. The date is +unfortunately lost. It was written soon after Charles's accession: "Pour +se, ma fille, m'amye, recommendé-vous bien à Dyeu, car vous m'avés veue +ausi contente come vous, ne pensent jeamès avoyr aultre tryboulatyon que +de n'estre asés aymayé à mon gré du roy vostre père, qui m'onoret pluls +que je ne merités, mes je l'aymé tant que je avés tousjour peur, come +vous savés fayrement asés: et Dyeu me l'a haulté, et ne se contente de +sela, m'a haulté vostre frère que je aymé come vous savés, et m'a laysée +aveque troys enfans petys, et en heun reaume (un royaume) tout dyvysé, +n'y ayent heum seul à qui je me puise du tout fyer, qui n'aye quelque +pasion partycoulyère." God alone, she goes on to say, can maintain her +happiness, etc. Négociations, etc., 781, 782.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_984_984" id="Footnote_984_984"></a><a href="#FNanchor_984_984"><span class="label">[984]</span></a> "C'est folie d'espérer paix, repos et amitié entre les +personnes qui sont de diverses religions.... Deux François et Anglois +qui sont d'une mesme religion, ont plus d'affection et d'amitié entre +eux que deux citoyens d'une mesme ville, subjects à un mesme seigneur, +qui seroyent de diverses religions." La Place, p. 85; Histoire ecclés., +i. 264.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_985_985" id="Footnote_985_985"></a><a href="#FNanchor_985_985"><span class="label">[985]</span></a> Yet the Huguenots, more enlightened than the chancellor, +while not renouncing the notion that the civil magistrate is bound to +maintain the true religion, justly censured L'Hospital's statements as +refuted by the experience of the greater part of the world. "Disaient +davantage, qu'à la vérité, puisqu'il n'y a qu'une vraye religion à +laquelle tous, petite et grands, doivent viser, le magistrat doit sur +toutes choses pourvoir à ce qu'elle seule soit avouée et gardée aux pays +de sa sujettion; mais ils niaient que de là il fallût conclure qu'amitié +aucune ni paix ne pût être entre sujets de diverses religions, se +pouvant vérifier le contraire tant par raisons péremptoires, que par +expérience du temps passé et présent en la plupart du monde." Histoire +ecclés., i. 268.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_986_986" id="Footnote_986_986"></a><a href="#FNanchor_986_986"><span class="label">[986]</span></a> "Ostons ces mots diaboliques, noms de parts, factions et +séditions; <i>luthériens</i>, <i>huguenauds</i>, <i>papistes</i>; ne changeons le nom +de <i>chrestien</i>." La Place, p. 87.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_987_987" id="Footnote_987_987"></a><a href="#FNanchor_987_987"><span class="label">[987]</span></a> The chancellor's address is given <i>in extenso</i> in Pierre +de la Place, Commentaires de l'estat de la religion et république pp. +80-88; and in the Histoire ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 257-268. De Thou, +iii. (liv. xxvii.) 3-7. "Habuit longam orationem Cancellarius," says +Beza, "in qua initio quidem pulchre multa de antiquo regni statu +disseruit, sed mox <i>aulicum suum ingenium</i> prodidit." Letter to +Bullinger, Jan. 22, 1561, Baum, Theod. Beza, ii. App., 19. Prof. Baum +has shown (vol. ii., p. 159, note) that this last assertion is fully +borne out by portions of the speech, even when viewed quite +independently of the impatience naturally felt by a Huguenot when an +enlightened statesman undertook to sail a middle course where justice +was so evidently on one side. I refer, for instance, to that +extraordinary passage in which L'Hospital speaks of the treatment to +which the Protestants had hitherto been subjected as <i>so gentle</i>, "qu'il +semble plus correction paternelle que punition. Il n'y a eu ni portes +forcées, ny murailles de villes abbattues, ni maisons bruslées, ny +priviléges ostés aux villes, commes les princes voisins ont faict de +nostre temps en pareils troubles et séditions." La Place, <i>ubi supra</i>, +p. 87. See other points specified in Histoire ecclés., <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_988_988" id="Footnote_988_988"></a><a href="#FNanchor_988_988"><span class="label">[988]</span></a> La Place, 88.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_989_989" id="Footnote_989_989"></a><a href="#FNanchor_989_989"><span class="label">[989]</span></a> Ib., 79; Hist. ecclés., i. 269, 270; Beza to Bullinger, +Jan. 22, 1561, <i>ubi supra</i>: "quam ipsius audaciam cum nobilitas et plebs +magno cum fremitu repulisset, indignatus ille ne suæ quidem Ecclesiæ +patrocinium suscipere voluit."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_990_990" id="Footnote_990_990"></a><a href="#FNanchor_990_990"><span class="label">[990]</span></a> This was on the 1st day of Jan., 1561: "Habuerunt hi +singuli suas orationes publice, sedente rege et delecto ipsius concilio, +Calendis Januarii." Letter of Beza, <i>ubi supra</i>, p. 20.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_991_991" id="Footnote_991_991"></a><a href="#FNanchor_991_991"><span class="label">[991]</span></a> All previous legislation appears to have proved +fruitless. "Wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be +gathered together." It was all in vain to endeavor to confine the gay +and aspiring ecclesiastics to the provinces, so long as promotion was +only to be found at Paris and worldly pleasures in the large cities. An +edict of 1557, enjoining residence, Haton tells us, had little effect. +It was obeyed only by the poorest and most obscure of the curates, and +by them only for a short time. The great were not able to observe it, if +they would. How could they? They could not have told on which benefice +to reside, for they held many. "Ung homme seul tenoit un archevesché, un +évesché et trois abbayes tout ensemble; ung aultre deux ou trois cures, +avec aultant de prieurez, le tout par permission et dispense du pape.... +<i>Et pour ce ne sçavoient auquel desditz bénéfices ilz debvoient +résider.</i>" Mém. de Claude Haton, i. 91.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_992_992" id="Footnote_992_992"></a><a href="#FNanchor_992_992"><span class="label">[992]</span></a> La Place, Commentaries, 89-93; De Thou, iii. (liv. +xxvii.) 8-10, Hist. ecclés., i. 277-279.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_993_993" id="Footnote_993_993"></a><a href="#FNanchor_993_993"><span class="label">[993]</span></a> La Place, Commentaires, 89; De Thou, iii. (liv. xxvii.) +8-10; Hist. ecclés., i. 277, 279. None of these authors give more than a +very imperfect sketch of L'Ange's harangue. Beza, in the letter more +than once referred to above, says: "Nobilitatem ferunt valde fortiter et +libere locutam, sed plebs imprimis graviter et copiose disseruit de +rerum omnium perturbatione, de intolerabili quorundam potentia, etc.... +adeo ut omnes audientes valde permoverit." Baum, Theod. Beza, ii., App., +20, 21.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_994_994" id="Footnote_994_994"></a><a href="#FNanchor_994_994"><span class="label">[994]</span></a> "Quasi noyés de telles trop fréquentes inondations des +infectées lagunes de Genève." The mention of the heretical capital +requires an apology on the part of our pious orator, and he adds in +Latin, after the fashion of other parts of his mongrel address: +"Desplicet aures vestras et os meum fœdasse vocabulo tam probroso, +sed ex ecclesiarum præscripto cogor." La Place, 101.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_995_995" id="Footnote_995_995"></a><a href="#FNanchor_995_995"><span class="label">[995]</span></a> "Encores, Sire, vous supplierons-nous très-humblement +pour ce tant bon et tant obéissant peuple françois, duquel Dieu (vostre +père et le leur aussi) vous a faict seigneur et roy; prenez en pitié, +sire, et soublevez un peu les charges que dès long temps ils portent +patiemment. Pour Dieu, sire, ne permettez que ce tiers pied de vostre +throne soit aucunement foulé, meurtry ny brisé." La Place, 108.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_996_996" id="Footnote_996_996"></a><a href="#FNanchor_996_996"><span class="label">[996]</span></a> Quintin's speech is given in full by La Place, 93-109; +Hist. ecclés., i. 270-274; De Thou, iii., liv. xxvii., 11, etc. Letter +of Beza to Bullinger, <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_997_997" id="Footnote_997_997"></a><a href="#FNanchor_997_997"><span class="label">[997]</span></a> "Son discours, qu'il lut presque tout entier, fut long et +ennuyeux.... rempli de lonanges fades, et de flatteries outrées, fit +rougir, et ennuya les assistans." De Thou, iii. 11, 12. Quintin's +address drew forth from the Protestants a written reply, directed to the +queen, exposing his "ignorance, calumnies, and malicious omissions." It +is inserted in Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 275-277.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_998_998" id="Footnote_998_998"></a><a href="#FNanchor_998_998"><span class="label">[998]</span></a> La Place, 109, 112; De Thou, iii. 12, 14; Hist. eccl., i. +280.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_999_999" id="Footnote_999_999"></a><a href="#FNanchor_999_999"><span class="label">[999]</span></a> Beza, Letter to Bullinger, Geneva, Jan. 22, 1561; Baum, +Th. Beza, ii., App., 21, 22; Calvin to Ministers of Paris, Lettres +franç., ii. 348.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1000_1000" id="Footnote_1000_1000"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1000_1000"><span class="label">[1000]</span></a> "Hanc supplicationem, scribitur ad nos, Regina ex +Amyraldi manu acceptam promisisse se Concilio exhibituram, et magna +omnium spes est nobis omnia hæc concessum iri, modo privatis locis et +sine tumultu pauci simul conveniant.... Ita brevi futurum spero ut +Gallia tandem Regem et nomine et re christianissimum habeat." Beza, <i>ubi +supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1001_1001" id="Footnote_1001_1001"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1001_1001"><span class="label">[1001]</span></a> Catharine's fears that the States would enter upon the +discussion of matters affecting her regency undoubtedly had much to do +with this action (Hist. ecclés. des églises réf., i. 280: "qu'on +craignoit vouloir passer plus outre en d'autres affaires qu'on ne +vouloit remuer"). Ostensibly in order to avoid confusion and expense, +each of the thirteen principal provinces was to depute only two +delegates to Pontoise.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1002_1002" id="Footnote_1002_1002"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1002_1002"><span class="label">[1002]</span></a> Letter of Charles IX., Jan. 28, 1561, Mémoires de Condé, +ii. 268.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1003_1003" id="Footnote_1003_1003"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1003_1003"><span class="label">[1003]</span></a> March 1st, "puysque la volunté du Roy est," Mém. de +Condé, ii. 273. When the secretary of state, Bourdin, brought to +parliament the mandates of Charles and Catharine from Fontainebleau, of +Feb. 13th and 14th, ordering its registry, he stated that Charles had +granted this document "at the urgent prayer of the three estates, and in +order to obviate and provide against troubles and divisions, while +waiting for the decision of the General Council granted by the Pope." On +the 22d of February a new missive of the king was received in +parliament, enjoining the publication of the letter of January 28th, +with the modification that any of the liberated prisoners that would not +consent to live in a Catholic fashion must leave the kingdom under pain +of the halter. Mém. de Condé, ii. 271, 272.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1004_1004" id="Footnote_1004_1004"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1004_1004"><span class="label">[1004]</span></a> Calvin, Mémoire aux églises réf. de France, Dec., 1560, +Lettres franç. (Bonnet), ii. 350.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1005_1005" id="Footnote_1005_1005"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1005_1005"><span class="label">[1005]</span></a> Letter of Calvin to brethren of Paris, Feb. 26, 1561, +<i>ap.</i> Baum, ii., App., 26; Bonnet, Lettres fr. de Calvin, ii. 378, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1006_1006" id="Footnote_1006_1006"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1006_1006"><span class="label">[1006]</span></a> "E benchè la più parte fossero ignoranti, e predicasse +mille pazzie, però ogn'uno aveva il suo séguito." Michel Suriano, +Commentarii del regno di Francia, Relations des Amb. Vén. (Tommaseo), i. +532. M. Tommaseo supposes this relation to belong to 1561, and mentions +the somewhat remarkable opinion of others that it was somewhere between +1564 and 1568. The document itself gives the most decided indications +that it was written in the early part of 1562, before the outbreak of +the first civil war—indeed, before the return of the Guises to court. +After stating that Charles IX. when he ascended the throne was <i>ten</i> +years old (page 542), the author says that he is now <i>eleven and a +half</i>. The proximate date would, therefore, seem to be January or +February, 1562. Throkmorton wrote to the queen, Paris, Nov. 14, 1561, +that "the Venetians had sent Marc Antonio Barbaro to reside there, in +the place of Sig. Michaeli Soriano." State Paper Office MSS.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1007_1007" id="Footnote_1007_1007"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1007_1007"><span class="label">[1007]</span></a> Gaberel, Histoire de l'église de Genève, i., pièces +just., p. 201-203, from the Archives of Geneva; Soulier, Histoire des +édits de pacification (Paris, 1682), 22-25.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1008_1008" id="Footnote_1008_1008"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1008_1008"><span class="label">[1008]</span></a> Gaberel, Hist. de l'église de Genève, i. (pièces +justif.), 203-206. He gives the deliberation of the council, as well as +the reply. Lettres franç. de Calvin, ii. 373-378. It needs scarcely to +be noticed that the "Sieur Soulier, prêtre," while he parades the royal +letter as a convincing proof of the seditious character of the Huguenot +ministers, does not deign even to allude to the satisfactory reply. No +wonder; so apposite a refutation would have been sadly out of place in a +book written expressly to justify the successive steps of the violation +of the solemn compacts between the French crown and the Protestants—to +prepare the way, in fact, for the formal revocation of the edict of +Nantes (three years later) toward which the priests were fast hurrying +Louis XIV.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1009_1009" id="Footnote_1009_1009"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1009_1009"><span class="label">[1009]</span></a> La Place, Commentaires, 120; Sommaire récit de la +calomnieuse accusation de Monsieur le prince de Condé, avec l'arrest de +la cour contenant la déclaration de son innocence, in the Mém. de Condé, +ii. 383; De Thou, iii. 38.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1010_1010" id="Footnote_1010_1010"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1010_1010"><span class="label">[1010]</span></a> The arrêt of parliament of June 13th is given in +Histoire ecclés., i. 291-293; Sommaire récit de la calomnieuse +accusation de Monsieur le prince de Condé, iii. 391-394. See also La +Place, 128-130; De Thou, iii. 50, 51; Journal de Bruslart, Mém. de +Condé, i. 39, 40.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1011_1011" id="Footnote_1011_1011"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1011_1011"><span class="label">[1011]</span></a> Strange to say, the editor of the Mémoires de Condé in +the Collection Michaud-Poujoulat expresses his disbelief of this +occurrence; but not only are the historians explicit, but an official +statement was drawn up and signed by the secretaries of state, under +Charles's orders. This notarial document is inserted in La Place, 139, +140, and in the Histoire ecclésiastique, i. 296, 297; De Thou, iii. 56, +gives the wrong date, Aug. 28th. Beza had from the lips of Condé, that +very afternoon, an account, which he transmitted the next day to Calvin. +Letter of Aug. 25th, <i>apud</i> Baum, iii., App., 47.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1012_1012" id="Footnote_1012_1012"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1012_1012"><span class="label">[1012]</span></a> La Place, 121; De Thou, iii. (liv. xxvii.) 40; Mém. de +Condé, ii. 24, 25.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1013_1013" id="Footnote_1013_1013"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1013_1013"><span class="label">[1013]</span></a> La Place, 121, 122; De Thou, iii. (liv. xxvii.) 40, 41.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1014_1014" id="Footnote_1014_1014"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1014_1014"><span class="label">[1014]</span></a> Letter of Beza to Wolf, March 25, 1561, <i>ap.</i> Baum, ii., +App., 30, 31; The Journal de Jehan de la Fosse, under May, 1561 (p. 43), +has this entry: "Artus Désiré fist amende honorable, tout nud, la torche +au poing, dedans le palais, en ung jeudy, 14<sup>e</sup> du mois, et fut +condamné à rester dedans les Chartreux cinq ans au pain et à l'eau: il y +fut quatre moys; les ungs disent qu'il s'en fut, les aultres que les +Chartreux le firent sortir, craignant les huguenots. Depuis il ne se +cacha pas, et se promenoit à Paris."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1015_1015" id="Footnote_1015_1015"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1015_1015"><span class="label">[1015]</span></a> "Où il n'a rien entendu qui ne fust bon." Reg. capit. +Eccles. Rothom., March 16, 1561, <i>apud</i> Floquet, Hist. du parlement de +Normandie, ii. 374, 375.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1016_1016" id="Footnote_1016_1016"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1016_1016"><span class="label">[1016]</span></a> "Aliud est Christianum esse quatn Papistam non esse." +Letter to Wolf, March 25, 1561, <i>ap.</i> Baum, <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1017_1017" id="Footnote_1017_1017"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1017_1017"><span class="label">[1017]</span></a> This very year parliament had issued an order, at the +commencement of Lent, directing the sick, "permission préalablement +obtenue," to purchase the meat they needed of the butcher of the +Hôtel-Dieu, who alone was permitted to sell, and who was compelled to +submit weekly to the court a record, not only of the permissions granted +and the persons to whom he sold, but even of the <i>quantity</i> which each +applicant obtained! Registers of Parliament, Feb. 27, 1561, <i>apud</i> +Félibien, Histoire de Paris, iv., Preuves, 797.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1018_1018" id="Footnote_1018_1018"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1018_1018"><span class="label">[1018]</span></a> Honorat de Savoie, Comte de Villars, had a private +grudge to satisfy against the admiral, who had complained to the king of +the cruelties which he had perpetrated in Languedoc. La Place, 122.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1019_1019" id="Footnote_1019_1019"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1019_1019"><span class="label">[1019]</span></a> La Place, Commentaires, <i>ubi supra</i>; De Thou, iii. (liv. +xxvii.) 41-43; Hist. ecclés., i. 287; Huguenot poetical libel in Le +Laboureur, Add. to Castelnau, i. 745.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1020_1020" id="Footnote_1020_1020"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1020_1020"><span class="label">[1020]</span></a> "Auquel (l'evesque de Valence) il dict qu'il se +contentoit de ceste fois, et qu'il n'y retournerois plus." La Place, +Commentaires, <i>ubi supra</i>; De Thou, <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1021_1021" id="Footnote_1021_1021"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1021_1021"><span class="label">[1021]</span></a> La Place, Commentaires, 123, De Thou, iii. (liv. xxvii.) +45. How deep the disappointment felt by the Protestants at the +constable's course must have been, can be gathered from the sanguine +picture of the prospects of the French Reformation drawn by Languet a +couple of months earlier. Arguing from the comparative mildness of +Montmorency in the persecutions under Henry II., from the fact that he +had allowed no one of his five sons to enter the ecclesiastical state, +which offered rare opportunities of advancement, and from the influence +which his sons and his three nephews—all favorably inclined to, if not +open adherents of the new doctrines—would exert over the old man, he +not unnaturally came to this conclusion: "I am, therefore, of opinion +that, if the Guises still retain any power, the constable will join +Navarre for the purpose of overwhelming them, and will make no +opposition to Navarre if he sets on foot a moderate reformation of +doctrine." Epist. secr., ii., p. 102.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1022_1022" id="Footnote_1022_1022"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1022_1022"><span class="label">[1022]</span></a> La Place and De Thou, <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1023_1023" id="Footnote_1023_1023"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1023_1023"><span class="label">[1023]</span></a> This document first appears in the Mémoires de Condé, +under the title "Sommaire des choses premièrement accordées entre les +Ducs de Montmorency Connestable, et De Guyse Grand Maistre, Pairs de +France, et le Mareschal Sainct André, pour la Conspiration du +Triumvirat, et depuis mises en déliberation à l'entrée du Sacré et +Sainct Concile de Trente, et arrestée entre les Parties, en leur privé +Conseil faict contre les Hérétiques, et contre le Roy de Navarre, en +tant qu'il gouverne et conduit mal les affaires de Charles neufiesme Roy +de France, Mineur; lequel est Autheur de continuel accroissement de la +nouvelle Secte qui pullule en France." The principal provisions are +given by De Thou, iii. (liv. xxix.) 142, 143, under date of 1562, who +explicitly states his disbelief of its authenticity. Neither, indeed, +does the compiler of the Mém. de Condé vouch for it. Among other +objections that have been urged with force against the genuineness of +the document, are the following: The improbability that the Triumvirs +would mature a plan involving all the Catholic sovereigns of Europe +without previously obtaining their consent, of which there is no trace; +the inconsistency of the project with the well-known policy and +character of the German Emperor Ferdinand; the improbability that the +Council of Trent would indorse a plan aimed at the humiliation of +Navarre, who, when the council actually reassembled in January, 1562, +was completely won over to the Roman party. In favor of the document may +be urged: First, that M. Capefigue (Histoire de la réforme, de la ligue, +etc., ii. 243-245) asserts: "J'ai trouvé cette pièce, qu'on a crue +supposée, en original et signée dans les MSS. Colbert, bibl. du roi." +Prof. Soldan, who has devoted an appendix to the first volume of his +Gesch. des Prot. in Frankreich, to a discussion of this reported +agreement between the Triumvirs, was unsuccessful in finding any trace +of such a paper. Secondly, that the Mémoires de Guise, the manuscript of +which, according to the statement of the editor, M. Aimé Champollion, +fils (Notice sur François de Lorraine, due d'Aumale et de Guise, +prefixed to his Mémoires, first published in the Collection +Michaud-Poujoulat, 1851, p. 5), is partly in the handwriting of the duke +himself, partly in that of his secretary, Millet, insert the "Sommaire" +precisely as it stands in the Mémoires de Condé, without any denial of +its authenticity. This would appear, at first sight, to settle the +question beyond cavil. But it must be borne in mind that many of the +mémoires of the sixteenth century are compiled on the plan of including +all contemporary papers of importance, whether written by friend or by +foe. Frequently the most contradictory narratives of the same event are +placed side by side, with little or no comment. This is precisely the +case with those of Guise, in which, for example, no less than <i>four</i> +accounts—<i>three</i> of them from Huguenot sources—are given of the +massacre of Vassy. Now we have the testimony of De Thou (<i>ubi supra</i>) +that this agreement, industriously circulated by the Prince of Condé and +the Huguenots, made a powerful impression not only in France, but in +Germany and all Northern Europe. So important a document, even if a +forgery, would naturally find a place in such a collection as the +Mémoires of Guise. Altogether the matter is in a singularly interesting +position. Could the manuscript seen by M. Capefigue be found and +re-examined critically, the truth might, perhaps, be reached. M. Henri +Martin, in his excellent Histoire de France, x. 79, note, accepts the +document as genuine.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1024_1024" id="Footnote_1024_1024"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1024_1024"><span class="label">[1024]</span></a> The "plebe e populo minuto," the Venetian Michiel tell +us, "è quello che si vede certo con gran fervenzia e devozione +frequentar le chiese, e continuar li riti cattolici." Relations des Amb. +Vén. i., 412.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1025_1025" id="Footnote_1025_1025"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1025_1025"><span class="label">[1025]</span></a> "Aulcuns desditz ecclésiasticques," is Claude Haton's +ingenuous admission respecting his fellow priests of this period, +"estoient fort vicieux encores pour lors, et les plus vicieux estoient +ceux qui plus resistoient auxditz huguenotz, jusques à mettre la main +aux cousteaux et aux armes." Mémoires, i. 129.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1026_1026" id="Footnote_1026_1026"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1026_1026"><span class="label">[1026]</span></a> Mémoires de Condé, i. 27.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1027_1027" id="Footnote_1027_1027"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1027_1027"><span class="label">[1027]</span></a> "In viginti urbibus aut circiter trucidati fuerunt pii a +furiosa plebe." Letter of Calvin to Bullinger, May 24, 1561, <i>apud</i> +Baum, ii., App., 33. At Mans, on Lady-Day (March 25th), so serious a +riot took place, that the bishop felt compelled to apologize in a letter +to Catharine (April 23d), in which he excuses his flock by alleging that +they were exasperated beyond endurance by the sight of a Huguenot +"assemblée" openly held by day in the "Faubourg St. Jehan," contrary to +the royal ordinances—some of the attendants, he asserts, coming out of +the meeting armed. His letter is to be found in the Mém. de Condé, ii. +339.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1028_1028" id="Footnote_1028_1028"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1028_1028"><span class="label">[1028]</span></a> And was openly denounced by his clergy from the pulpit, +in Passion Week, as an "apostate," a "traitor," a "new Judas," etc. +Bulletin, xxiii. 84.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1029_1029" id="Footnote_1029_1029"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1029_1029"><span class="label">[1029]</span></a> De Thou, iii. (liv. xxviii.) 51, 52; Histoire ecclés., +i. 287; La Place, 124; Calvin to Bullinger, Baum, ii., App., 33; Journal +de Bruslart, Mém. de Condé, ii. 27. Interesting documents from the +municipal records of Beauvais, Bulletin, xxiii. (1874) 84, etc. Letter +of Chantonnay, Rheims, May 10, 1561 (Mém. de Condé, ii. 11), who adds: +"L'Admiral ha tant peu avec le crédit qu'il ha ver Monsieur de Vendosme +[Navarre], que l'on a exécuté deux ou trois de ceulx du peuple; lequel +depuis s'est levé de nouveau, et a pendu le bourreau qui feit +l'exécution."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1030_1030" id="Footnote_1030_1030"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1030_1030"><span class="label">[1030]</span></a> "Car, de toutes les choses, la plus incompatible en ung +estat, ce sont deux religions contraires."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1031_1031" id="Footnote_1031_1031"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1031_1031"><span class="label">[1031]</span></a> Journal de Bruslart, Mémoires de Condé, i. 26, etc.; +Registers of Parliament, ibid., ii. 341, etc., and <i>apud</i> Félibien, +Hist. de Paris, Preuves, iv. 798, Arrêt of April 28th and 29th. +According to the information that had reached Calvin, twelve had been +killed and forty wounded by Longjumeau and his friends (Calvin to +Bullinger, <i>ubi supra</i>). The parliamentary registers do not give the +precise number. The good curate of S. Barthélemi makes no allusion to +any attack, but sets down the loss of the Roman Catholics at three +killed and nine wounded. Journal de Jehan de la Fosse, 41. Hubert +Languet says seven were killed. Epist. secr., ii. 117.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1032_1032" id="Footnote_1032_1032"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1032_1032"><span class="label">[1032]</span></a> Letters patent of Fontainebleau, April 19, 1561, Mém. de +Condé, ii. 334, 335; La Place; and Hist. ecclés., <i>ubi supra</i>; De Thou, +iii. (liv. xxviii.) 52.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1033_1033" id="Footnote_1033_1033"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1033_1033"><span class="label">[1033]</span></a> How the devoted adherents of the Roman church received +this edict and its predecessor appears from the Mémoires of Claude +Haton. In the city of Provins, a short distance from Paris, one or two +preachers reluctantly consented to read it in the churches; but "maistre +Barrier," a Franciscan and curate of Sainte Croix, instead of the +required proclamation, made these remarks to the people at the +commencement of his sermon: "On m'a cejourd'-huy apporté ung mémoire et +papier escript, qu'on m'a dict estre la coppie d'un édict du roy, pour +vous le publier; et <i>veult-on que je vous dye que les chatz et les ratz +doibvent vivre en paix les ungs avec les aultres</i>, sans se rien faire de +mal l'ung à l'autre, et que nous aultres Françoys, e'est assavoir les +hérétiques et les catholicques, fassions ainsi, et que le roy le veult. +<i>Je ne suis crieur ni trompette de la ville pour faire telles +publications.</i> Dieu veuille par sa miséricorde avoir pitié de son église +et du royaume de France, les deux ensemble sont prestz de tomber en +grande ruyne; Dieu veuille bailler bon conseil à nostre jeune roy et +inspirer ses gouverneurs à bien faire; ils entrent à leur gouvernement +par ung pauvre commencement, mais ce est en punition de noz pechez." +Mémoires de Claude Haton, i. 123, 124.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1034_1034" id="Footnote_1034_1034"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1034_1034"><span class="label">[1034]</span></a> La Place, 124-126; Histoire ecclés., i. 288, etc.; De +Thou, iii. (liv. xxviii.) 52, 53. The remonstrance of parliament was, in +point of fact, little more than an echo of the strenuous protest of the +Spanish ambassador to the queen mother. See Chantonnay to Catharine de' +Medici, April 22, 1561, Mémoires de Condé, ii. 6-10.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1035_1035" id="Footnote_1035_1035"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1035_1035"><span class="label">[1035]</span></a> According to Claude Haton, the edict was received with +ineffable delight, especially in those cities of the kingdom where there +were Huguenot judges. The Catholics were despised. The Huguenots became +bold: "En toutes compagnies, assemblées et lieux publicz, ilz huguenotz +avoient le hault parler." Despite the prohibition of the employment of +insulting terms, they called their adversaries "papaux, idolâtres, +pauvres abusez." and "tisons du purgatoire du pape." Mémoires, i. 122. +Doubtless a smaller measure of free speech than this would have sufficed +to stir up the bile of the curate of Mériot.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1036_1036" id="Footnote_1036_1036"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1036_1036"><span class="label">[1036]</span></a> Already, on the 6th of March, Claude Boissière had +written to the Genevan reformer from Saintes: "God has so augmented His +church that we number to-day by the grace of God thirty-eight pastors in +this province" (Saintonge in Western France), "each of us having the +care of so many towns and parishes, that, had we fifty more, we should +scarcely be able to satisfy half the charges that present themselves." +Geneva MSS., <i>apud</i> Bulletin, xiv. (1855) 320, and Crottet, Hist. des +égl. réf. de Pons, Gémozac, etc., 57.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1037_1037" id="Footnote_1037_1037"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1037_1037"><span class="label">[1037]</span></a> Letter to Bullinger, May 24, 1561, <i>apud</i> Baum, ii., +App., 32, and Bonnet, Eng. tr., iv. 190.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1038_1038" id="Footnote_1038_1038"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1038_1038"><span class="label">[1038]</span></a> Letter of Gilbert de Vaux, April 5, 1561. MS. in Nat. +Lib. of Paris, <i>apud</i> Bulletin, xiv. 321, 322.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1039_1039" id="Footnote_1039_1039"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1039_1039"><span class="label">[1039]</span></a> After having examined the churches, convents, etc., the +lieutenant, though a Roman Catholic, reported to the Toulouse parliament +"qu'il avoit trouvé une telle obéissance en ceste ville que le roy +demande à tous ses subjects, de sorte qu'il n'y avoit eu jamais un coup +frappé, ne injure dicte aux papistes par ceux de l'Evangile."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1040_1040" id="Footnote_1040_1040"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1040_1040"><span class="label">[1040]</span></a> Letter of Du Vignault to M. d'Espeville (Calvin), May +26, 1561, in Geneva MSS., Bulletin, xiv. (1865) 322-324.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1041_1041" id="Footnote_1041_1041"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1041_1041"><span class="label">[1041]</span></a> "Ceux de Tholoze sont du tout enragés, car ils ne +cessent de brusler les paoures fidèles de jour à aultre. Le trouppeau +est fort désolé, et croy qu'est sans pasteur." Letter of La Chasse, +Montpellier, June 14, 1561, to M. d'Espeville, Geneva MSS., <i>ubi supra</i>, +p. 325.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1042_1042" id="Footnote_1042_1042"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1042_1042"><span class="label">[1042]</span></a> La Place, 127, 128; De Thou, iii., liv. xxviii. 53.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1043_1043" id="Footnote_1043_1043"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1043_1043"><span class="label">[1043]</span></a> Mémoires de Castelnau, 1. iii., c. 3. The discussion was +long, and would have been tedious, had it not turned upon so important a +topic. There were 140 members of parliament, and according to its +regulations no one was allowed to concur simply in the views of another, +but each counsellor was compelled to express his own sentiments, which +were then committed to writing. As some of the high dignitaries of state +also gave their opinions, there were altogether more than 150 speakers, +and parliament met twice a day to listen to them. The Bishop of Paris, +after harshly advocating the rekindling of the extinct fires of the +estrapade, was compelled to hear in return some plain words from Admiral +Coligny, who boldly accused the bishops and priests of being the cause +of all the evils from which the Christian world was suffering, while at +the same time they instigated a cruel persecution of those who exposed +their crimes. The letters of Hubert Languet, who was in Paris at the +time, are exceedingly instructive. Epist. secr., ii. 122, 125, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1044_1044" id="Footnote_1044_1044"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1044_1044"><span class="label">[1044]</span></a> Or <i>seven</i>, according to Languet, Epist. sec., ii. 130.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1045_1045" id="Footnote_1045_1045"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1045_1045"><span class="label">[1045]</span></a> Journal de Bruslart, Mémoires de Condé, i. 40, etc.; +Despatches of Chantonnay, Mém. de Condé, ii. 12-15; La Place, 130; Hist. +ecclés., i. 293, 294; De Thou, iii. (liv. xxviii.) 54. Cf. Martin, Hist. +de France, x. 82, Baum, Theod. Beza, ii. 172, etc., and Soldan, +Geschichte des Prot. in Frankreich, i. 428.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1046_1046" id="Footnote_1046_1046"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1046_1046"><span class="label">[1046]</span></a> It is styled a "<i>mercuriale</i>" in a contemporary letter +of Du Pasquier (Augustin Marlorat), Rouen, July 11, 1561, Bulletin, xiv. +(1865) 364: "On dit que la mercuriale est achevée, mais la conclusion +n'est pas encores publiée."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1047_1047" id="Footnote_1047_1047"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1047_1047"><span class="label">[1047]</span></a> H. Martin, Hist. de France, x. 83.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1048_1048" id="Footnote_1048_1048"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1048_1048"><span class="label">[1048]</span></a> The text of the Edict of July is given in Isambert, +Recueil gén. des anc. lois fr., xiv. 109-111; Histoire ecclés., i. +294-296; Mém. de Condé, i. 42-45. Cf. La Place, 130, 131; De Thou, iii. +54, 55; Mém. de Castelnau, 1. iii., c. 3.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1049_1049" id="Footnote_1049_1049"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1049_1049"><span class="label">[1049]</span></a> "Que son épée ne tiendrait jamais au fourreau quand il +serait question da faire sortir effet à cet arrêté." Martin, x. 83.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1050_1050" id="Footnote_1050_1050"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1050_1050"><span class="label">[1050]</span></a> Ibid., <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1051_1051" id="Footnote_1051_1051"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1051_1051"><span class="label">[1051]</span></a> The cathedral alone persisted in holding out a day or +two longer, and then made an unwilling sacrifice of its pictures, +protesting at the same time that it only wanted peace and friendship.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1052_1052" id="Footnote_1052_1052"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1052_1052"><span class="label">[1052]</span></a> Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 530-532.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1053_1053" id="Footnote_1053_1053"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1053_1053"><span class="label">[1053]</span></a> Letter to the church of Sauve, July, 1561, Bonnet, +Lettres franç., ii. 415-418. It is instructive to note that the +Provincial Synod of Sommières took the decisive step of deposing the +pastor of Sauve; nor was he pardoned until he had been convinced of his +error, and had declared that he had done nothing except through +righteous zeal, and in order to preclude many scandals. Geneva MS., +<i>apud</i> Bonnet, <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1054_1054" id="Footnote_1054_1054"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1054_1054"><span class="label">[1054]</span></a> See the royal letters of prorogation of March 25th, Mém. +de Condé, ii. 281-284.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1055_1055" id="Footnote_1055_1055"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1055_1055"><span class="label">[1055]</span></a> La Place, Commentaires, 140; De Thou, iii. 57; Mém. de +Castelnau, 1. iii., c. 4.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1056_1056" id="Footnote_1056_1056"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1056_1056"><span class="label">[1056]</span></a> The famous chateau of St. Germain-en-Laye, a favorite +residence of the monarchs of the later Valois branch, is situated on the +river Seine, a few miles below Paris. Poissy, where the assembly of the +prelates convened, was selected on account of its proximity to the +court. It is also on the Seine, which, between Poissy and St. Germain, +makes a great bend toward the north; across the neck of the peninsula +the distance from place to place is only about three miles. Pontoise, +deriving its name from its bridge over the river Oise, a tributary of +the Seine, lies about eight miles north of St. Germain.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1057_1057" id="Footnote_1057_1057"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1057_1057"><span class="label">[1057]</span></a> The origin of the singular designation of this +officer—a designation quite unique—is discussed <i>con amore</i> by +Chassanée, in that remarkable book, Catalogus Gloriæ Mundi (edition of +1586), lib. xi., c. 5, fol. 239. Chassanée, who was himself of Autun, +traces the title and office of <i>vierg</i> back to the Vergobretus of +ancient Gallic times. Cæsar, Bell. Gallic, i. 16.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1058_1058" id="Footnote_1058_1058"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1058_1058"><span class="label">[1058]</span></a> The curious may find an instructive paragraph in his +speech, devoted to a list of onerous taxes bearing in great part, or +exclusively, on the people. La Place, 145.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1059_1059" id="Footnote_1059_1059"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1059_1059"><span class="label">[1059]</span></a> "Le temps est une créature de Dieu à luy subjecte, de +manière que dix mille ans ne sont une minute en la puissance de nostre +Dieu." The long speech of M. Bretagne, certainly one of the noblest +pleas for freedom of religious worship to be found within the limits of +the sixteenth century, is inserted in full in the Recueil des choses +mémorables (1565), 620-645, in La Place, liv. vi. 141-150, and in the +Hist. ecclés. des églises réformées, i. 298-305. Summary in De Thou, +iii. 57, 58.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1060_1060" id="Footnote_1060_1060"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1060_1060"><span class="label">[1060]</span></a> Projects somewhat similar had been made, early in the +year, in some of the provincial estates. In those of Languedoc, held at +Montpellier in March, 1561, Terlon, a "capitoul" of Toulouse, speaking +for the "tiers état," advocated the sale of all the secular possessions +of the clergy, reserving only a residence for the incumbent, and +assigning him a pension equal to his present income, to be paid by the +cities of the kingdom. Chabot, a lawyer of Nismes, went further, and, +when the clamor of the people had secured the hearing at first denied +him, did not hesitate to say that the burdens of the province should be +placed upon the shoulders of the priests and monks—whom he stigmatized +as ignorant and corrupt—because of the evils they had inflicted upon +the people. He even wanted a petition to this effect, signed by thirty +syndicates favorable to the reformed religion, to be inserted in the +<i>cahier</i> of Languedoc. Mémoires d'Achille Gamon—advocate and consul of +Annonay—<i>apud</i> Collection de Mémoires, Michaud et Poujoulat, 611. Some +such wholesale confiscation seems even to have entered into the plans of +the cabinet. In May, 1561, royal letters were sent to the Bishop of +Paris, to the provost, and indeed, throughout France, demanding a return +of the true value of all episcopal and other revenues (Mémoires de +Condé, i. 27). The object was plain enough. The clergy remonstrated +energetically, as may be imagined (Ib., i. 29-39). The Paris clergy had +especial recourse to the Cardinal of Lorraine, in a letter of June 3d. +Honest Abbé Bruslart, touched to the quick by the suggestion, notes in +his quaint journal: "Voilà les incommoditez de la nouvelle religion," +etc. (Ib., i. 28).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1061_1061" id="Footnote_1061_1061"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1061_1061"><span class="label">[1061]</span></a> "La diversité d'opinion soubstenues par vos subjects ne +provient que d'ung grand zelle et affection qu'ils ont au salut de leurs +ames."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1062_1062" id="Footnote_1062_1062"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1062_1062"><span class="label">[1062]</span></a> La Place, 152; De Thou, iii. 58, 59; Hist. ecclés., i. +306; Garnier, H. de France, xxix. 308, etc., who gives a very full +abstract; but Ranke, v. 93-97, publishes from the MS. the hitherto +inedited <i>cahier</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1063_1063" id="Footnote_1063_1063"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1063_1063"><span class="label">[1063]</span></a> Catharine's own account is given in an important letter +to the Bishop of Rennes, written September 14, 1561—five days after the +colloquy commenced: "Ayant esté requise, y a déja quelques mois, de la +pluspart de la noblesse et des gens du tiers estat de ce Royaume, de +faire ouïr lea ministres, qui sont départis en plusieurs villes de cedit +Royaume, sur leur Confession de Foy; je fus conseillée par mon frere le +Roy de Navarre, les autres Princes du sang, et les Gens du Conseil du +Roy Monsieur mon fils, de ce faire; ayant avisé après avoir longuement +et meurement délibéré là-dessus, que aux grands troubles ... il n'y +avoit meilleur moyen ny plus fructueux pour faire abandonner les dits +Ministres et retirer ceux qui leur adherent, que en faissant confondre +leur doctrine et montrant et découvrant ce qu'il y a d'erreur et +d'hérésie." Le Laboureur, Add. to Castelnau, i. 732, 733.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1064_1064" id="Footnote_1064_1064"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1064_1064"><span class="label">[1064]</span></a> Baum, Theod. Beza, ii. 175; Martin, Hist. de France, x. +84. The restriction of the invitation to Frenchmen is referred to by +Catharine in a letter of September 14 (Le Laboureur, Add., i. 733): +"Ayant ... accordé à ceux desdits Ministres <i>qui seroient nez en +France</i>, de comparoittre à Poissy."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1065_1065" id="Footnote_1065_1065"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1065_1065"><span class="label">[1065]</span></a> The letters of La Rivière, Condé, Châtillon, and Antoine +of Navarre, are printed in Baum, App., 34, 35. The question naturally +arises, Why did not Calvin himself, who had been specially invited by +the Protestant princes, receive permission from the magistrates of +Geneva to go to Poissy? The truth is, that the Protestants of Paris "did +not see the possibility of his being present without grave peril, in +view of the rage conceived against him by the enemies of the Gospel, and +the disturbances his name alone would excite in the country were he +known to be in it." "In fact," they say in a letter but recently brought +to light, "the Admiral by no means favors your undertaking the journey, +and we have learned with certainty that the queen would not relish +seeing you there, frankly saying that she cannot pledge herself for your +safety in these parts, as she can for that of the rest. Meanwhile, the +enemies of the Gospel, on the other hand, say that they would be glad to +hear all the rest [of the reformers], but that, as for you, they could +not bring themselves to listen to you or look at you. You see, sir, in +what esteem you are held by these venerable prelates. I suspect that you +will not be very much grieved by it, nor consider yourself dishonored by +being thus regarded by such gentry!" La Rivière, in the name of all the +ministers of Paris, to Calvin, July 31, 1561, Bulletin, xvi. (1867), +602-604.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1066_1066" id="Footnote_1066_1066"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1066_1066"><span class="label">[1066]</span></a> Letter of the Syndics and Council of Geneva to the Lords +of Zurich, July 21, 1561, and Charles IX.'s safe-conduct for Peter +Martyr, July 30, Baum, ii., App., 36, 37.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1067_1067" id="Footnote_1067_1067"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1067_1067"><span class="label">[1067]</span></a> Le Laboureur, Add. to Castelnau, i. 724; cf. letter of +Card. de la Bourdaisière to the Bishop of Rennes, Rome, August 23, 1561, +ibid., and of Chantonnay to Tisnacq, September 6, Mém. de Condé, ii. +18.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1068_1068" id="Footnote_1068_1068"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1068_1068"><span class="label">[1068]</span></a> The papal nuncio, Prospero di Santa Croce, indeed, +represents the Cardinal of Lorraine as the originator of the perilous +scheme. When Lorraine and Tournon, whom the Pope had constituted his +legates, with the commission to put forth their most strenuous exertions +to uphold the Roman Church in France, found advice, exhortation, and +persuasion all in vain, Lorraine, in an evil hour, advised the holding +of a colloquy: "Lotharingius audaci potius quam prudenti consilio reginæ +persuasit, ut Possiaci conventus haberetur episcoporum Galliæ, in quo de +religione ac moribus tractaretur: simulque copia fieret Hugonottorum +principibus, Ministros illi vocant, si vellent, veniendi, neque iis +solum qui erant in Gallia, sed ex finitimis etiam provinciis vocarentur, +ut quæ erant de religione controversa proponerentur; futurum sperans, ut +ne respondere quidem ad sua postulata auderent. Confidebat enim +Lotharingius et doctrinæ et eloquentiæ suæ, et plurimum, ut debebat, +ipsius causæ bonitati." Cardinal Tournon was opposed to this course: +"Non probabat hoc factum Turnonius, ut qui disputationem omnem cum +hæreticis fugiendam noverat." P. Santacrucii de civilibus Galliæ +dissensionibus commentarii, Martene et Durand, tom. v. 1462.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1069_1069" id="Footnote_1069_1069"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1069_1069"><span class="label">[1069]</span></a> Letter of La Rivière, in the name of all the ministers +of Paris, Aug. 10, 1561, Baum, ii., App., 37-39.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1070_1070" id="Footnote_1070_1070"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1070_1070"><span class="label">[1070]</span></a> The letter, now in the State archives of Geneva, is +signed "<i>Le Roy de Navarre bien vostre, Anthoyne</i>," Baum, <i>ubi supra</i>, +ii. 40. The character of this contemptible prince is best understood +when such lines are read in the light of the intrigues he was at this +very moment—as we shall have occasion to see—carrying on at Rome. When +it is borne in mind that the colloquy of Poissy <i>preceded</i> the edict of +January by four months, and that Beza manifested no little <i>hesitation</i> +in coming to France, it becomes somewhat difficult to comprehend Mr. +Froude's account (Hist. of England, vii. 390): "The Cardinal of Lorraine +demanded from the Parliament of Paris the revocation of the edicts (sic) +of January. Confident of his power, he even challenged the Protestants +to a public discussion before the court. Theodore Beza <i>snatched +eagerly</i> at the gage; the Conference of Poissy <i>followed</i>," etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1071_1071" id="Footnote_1071_1071"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1071_1071"><span class="label">[1071]</span></a> Letter of Calvin to Martyr, Aug. 17, 1561, <i>apud</i> Baum, +ii., App., 40; and Bonnet, Calvin's Letters, Eng. tr., iv. 209.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1072_1072" id="Footnote_1072_1072"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1072_1072"><span class="label">[1072]</span></a> Letter of Beza to Calvin, Aug. 22, 1561, written three +hours after his arrival, <i>apud</i> Baum, ii., App., 44.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1073_1073" id="Footnote_1073_1073"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1073_1073"><span class="label">[1073]</span></a> See the admirable biography of Beza, by Dr. H. Heppe, +being the sixth volume of the Leben und ausgewählte Schriften der Väter +und Begründer der reformirte Kirche; as well as the more extended work +of Prof. Baum, frequently referred to.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1074_1074" id="Footnote_1074_1074"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1074_1074"><span class="label">[1074]</span></a> "Les avertissant qu'il ne leur donneroit congé de se +départir jusques à ce qu'ils y eussent donné ordre." Letter of the Sieur +du Mortier, French amb. at Rome, to the Bp. of Rennes, Aug. 9, 1561, +<i>apud</i> Le Laboureur, Additions to Castelnau, i. 730. This authority +would seem to be a positive proof that the speech which is attributed by +La Place and other historians of the period to the king at the opening +of the conference with the Protestants on the 9th of September, has, by +a very natural error, been transposed from this place. De Thou, La +Popelinière, and others have made the more serious blunder of placing +the chancellor's speech, which belongs here, at the same conference, and +omitting the true address which La Place, etc., insert. Prof. Baum +(Theodor Beza, ii. 242, note) first detected the inconsistencies between +the two reported speeches of L'Hospital on the 9th of September, but +gave preference in the text to the wrong document. Prof. Soldan has +elucidated the whole matter with his usual skill (Geschichte des Prot. +in Frankreich, i. 440, note).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1075_1075" id="Footnote_1075_1075"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1075_1075"><span class="label">[1075]</span></a> De Thou, iii. 63; La Place, 155.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1076_1076" id="Footnote_1076_1076"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1076_1076"><span class="label">[1076]</span></a> "Sans venir au fait de la doctrine, où ils ne veulent +toucher non plus qu'au feu." Letter of Secretary Bourdin to his +brother-in-law Bochetel, the Bishop of Rennes, French ambassador in +Germany, Aug. 23, 1561, <i>apud</i> Laboureur, Add. aux Mém. de Castelnau, i. +731. If we are to construe the language of the Histoire ecclés. des égl. +réf. (i. 307) with verbal strictness, the theological discussions +occasionally waxed so hot that the prelates found themselves unable to +solve the knotty questions with which they were occupied, without +recourse to the convincing argument of the fist!</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1077_1077" id="Footnote_1077_1077"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1077_1077"><span class="label">[1077]</span></a> Languet, letter of Aug. 6th, ii. 130.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1078_1078" id="Footnote_1078_1078"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1078_1078"><span class="label">[1078]</span></a> Letter of Chantonnay, Aug. 31 (Mém. de Condé, ii. 16).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1079_1079" id="Footnote_1079_1079"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1079_1079"><span class="label">[1079]</span></a> "Mais ceux qui sont extremement malades sont excusez +d'appliquer toutes herbes à la douleur pour l'appaiser, quand elle est +insupportable, attendant le bon medecin, que j'estime devoir estre un +bon Concile, pour une si furieuse et dangereuse maladie." Letter of +Catharine to the Bishop of Rennes, Aug. 23, 1561, <i>apud</i> Le Laboureur, +Add. to Castelnau, i. 727.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1080_1080" id="Footnote_1080_1080"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1080_1080"><span class="label">[1080]</span></a> An incident, preserved for us by Languet, which happened +about this time, reveals somewhat of Catharine's temper and of the +doubts that pervaded the young king's mind. On Corpus Christi day, the +queen mother, in conversation with her son, recommended to him that, +while duly reverencing the sacrament, he should not entertain so gross a +belief as that the bread which was carried around in the procession was +the very body of Christ which hung from the cross. Charles replied that +he had received the same warning from others, but coupled with the +injunction that he should say nothing about it to any one. "Yet," +responded Catharine smiling, "you must take care not to forsake your +ancestral religion, lest your kingdom may be thrown into confusion, and +you yourself be driven into banishment." To which Charles aptly replied: +"The Queen of England has changed the religion of her kingdom, but no +one gives her any trouble." Epist. secr., ii. 127.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1081_1081" id="Footnote_1081_1081"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1081_1081"><span class="label">[1081]</span></a> De Thou (iii., liv. xxviii., pp. 60-63) gives the +substance, Gerdesius (Scrinium Antiq., v. 339, <i>seq.</i>) the text of this +extraordinary letter. See also Jean de Serres, i. 212, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1082_1082" id="Footnote_1082_1082"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1082_1082"><span class="label">[1082]</span></a> From Hurault's letter of July 12th, to the Bishop of +Rennes, we learn the date of the Cardinal of Ferrara's departure from +Rome—July 2d. He travelled so slowly, however, that it was not until +September 19th that he reached St. Germain.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1083_1083" id="Footnote_1083_1083"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1083_1083"><span class="label">[1083]</span></a> "Que je n'avoys reçu change depuis qu'il n'avoit voulu +parler à moy de peur d'estre excommunié." Letter of Beza to Calvin, Aug. +25, 1561, Baum, ii. Appendix, 46. This long and important letter, giving +a graphic account of the first days of Beza at St. Germain, was signed, +for safety's sake, "T. de Chalonoy," and addressed to "Monsieur +d'Espeville, à Villedieu." The Duke d'Aumale has also published this +letter in his Histoire des Princes de Condé, i. 340-342. There are some +striking differences in the two; none more noteworthy than the omission +in Prof. Baum's copy of a sentence which very clearly marks the distrust +still felt by the reformers of the upright Chancellor L'Hospital. After +reference to L'Hospital's greeting, Beza originally wrote: "Force me fut +de le suyvre, mais ce fut avec un tel visage qu'il congnut assez que je +le congnoissois." From the later copy and from the Latin translation +inserted by Beza himself in the collection of Calvin's letters, these +words are omitted.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1084_1084" id="Footnote_1084_1084"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1084_1084"><span class="label">[1084]</span></a> "Avec une troupe cent foys plus grande que je n'eusse +desiré." <i>Ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1085_1085" id="Footnote_1085_1085"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1085_1085"><span class="label">[1085]</span></a> Letter of Beza of Aug. 25th, <i>ubi supra</i>. Beza, to whom +Condé immediately afterward gave an account of the act of +reconciliation, was not altogether satisfied with it. I have spoken of +it as unfortunate, because it removed all the obstacles to the more +complete union of the constable and the Guises against the Huguenots. La +Place, 140; De Thou, iii. (liv. xxviii.) 56.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1086_1086" id="Footnote_1086_1086"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1086_1086"><span class="label">[1086]</span></a> "Estant arrivez à la court, ilz y furent mieux +accueillis que n'eust esté le pape de Rome, s'il y fust venu." Mém. de +Claude Haton, i. 155.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1087_1087" id="Footnote_1087_1087"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1087_1087"><span class="label">[1087]</span></a> Letter of Beza of Aug. 25th, Baum. ii., Appendix, 47-54; +La Place, 155-157; De Thou, iii. (liv. xxviii.) 64; Hist. ecclés. des +égl. réf. i. 309-312.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1088_1088" id="Footnote_1088_1088"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1088_1088"><span class="label">[1088]</span></a> "Nous confessons, dy-je, que panis est corpus +sacramentale, et pour définir que c'est à dire <i>sacramentaliter</i>, nous +disons qu'encores que le corps soit aujourd'huy au ciel et non ailleurs, +et les signes soyent en la terre avec nous, toutefoys aussi +veritablement nous est donné ce corps et reçu par nous, moyennant la +foy," etc. Baum, ii. App., 52.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1089_1089" id="Footnote_1089_1089"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1089_1089"><span class="label">[1089]</span></a> "Je le croy ainsy, dit-il, Madame, et voilà qui me +contente." Ibid., <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1090_1090" id="Footnote_1090_1090"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1090_1090"><span class="label">[1090]</span></a> "Sed illud totum ita complectebatur, ut satis ostenderet +penitus se non tenere quid hoc rei esset. Agnoscebat enim se aliis +studiis tempus impendisse." Beza, <i>ubi supra</i>, p. 50. The Latin version +of Beza's letter of August 25th, made under the writer's own +supervision, for publication with a selection of Calvin's letters +(Geneva, 1576), contains a fuller account of the discussion than the +French original actually despatched. See Baum, <i>ubi supra</i>, 45-54.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1091_1091" id="Footnote_1091_1091"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1091_1091"><span class="label">[1091]</span></a> "Cardinalis testatus iterum non urgere se +transubstantiationem." Latin version, <i>ubi supra</i>. "Car, disoit il, pour +la transsubstantiation je ne suys poinct d'advis qu'il y ayt schisme en +l'eglise." French original, <i>ubi supra</i>, 50, 51.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1092_1092" id="Footnote_1092_1092"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1092_1092"><span class="label">[1092]</span></a> "Tum ego ad reginam conversus: 'Ecce inquam +sacramentarios illos tam diu vexatos, et omnibus calumniis oppressos.' +'Escoutez vous,' dit elle, 'Monsieur le cardinal? Il dit que les +sacrementaires n'out point aultre opinion que ceste-cy à laquelle vous +accordez.'" Letter of Beza, <i>ubi supra</i>, 52.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1093_1093" id="Footnote_1093_1093"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1093_1093"><span class="label">[1093]</span></a> Cf. letter of Beza, <i>ubi supra</i>, 47 and 52.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1094_1094" id="Footnote_1094_1094"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1094_1094"><span class="label">[1094]</span></a> "Vous trouverez que je ne suis pas si noir qu'on me +faict." Beza, <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1095_1095" id="Footnote_1095_1095"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1095_1095"><span class="label">[1095]</span></a> "Bon homme pour ce soir, mays demain quoy?" Beza, <i>ubi +supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1096_1096" id="Footnote_1096_1096"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1096_1096"><span class="label">[1096]</span></a> "Le lendemain le bruict courut, non seulement à la cour, +mais aussi à Possy, et jusques aux pays loingtains, que de Bèze avoit +esté vaincu et réduict par le cardinal de Lorraine au premier colloque +faict entr'eux." La Place, 157. So Beza himself heard the very morning +he wrote: "Or est-il que tout ce matin il n'a cessé de se venter qu'il +m'a convaincu et reduict à son opinion;" but he adds: "J'ay bons +tesmoins et bons garants, Dieu mercy, de tout le contraire." <i>Ubi +supra</i>. So also in his letter of Aug. 30th (Ib., 59): "Cardinalis +fortiter jactat me primo statim congressu a se superatum, sed a +gravissimis tesbibus refellitur." "Ce que le Connétable ayant dit à le +Reine à son disner, comme s'en rejouissant, elle lui dict tout +hautement, comme celle qui avoit assisté, qu'il estoit très-mal +informé." Histoire ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 312.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1097_1097" id="Footnote_1097_1097"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1097_1097"><span class="label">[1097]</span></a> "Duodecima hujus mensis profectos esse in aulam octo ex +fratribus nostris, quibus nunc accessit noster Galasius." Letter of +Beza, Aug. 22, 1561, Baum, 2 App., 44.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1098_1098" id="Footnote_1098_1098"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1098_1098"><span class="label">[1098]</span></a> Aug. 17th. Hist. ecclés., i. 308, etc., where this +document is given; La Place, 154; Letter of Beza of Aug. 22d, <i>ubi +supra</i>, 45.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1099_1099" id="Footnote_1099_1099"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1099_1099"><span class="label">[1099]</span></a> La Place, 154. "Ce même jour selon nostre requeste a +esté accordé que nous serons ouys et que nos parties ne seront nos +juges, mais il y a encore de l'encloueure qui fait que n'avons encore eu +une reponse resolutive, laquelle on diet que nous aurons solemnement et +en cour pleniere." Beza, letter of Aug. 25th, Baum, ii., App., 47</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1100_1100" id="Footnote_1100_1100"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1100_1100"><span class="label">[1100]</span></a> La Place, <i>ubi supra</i>. "Nous avons entendu a ce matin +qu'on avoyt mis en deliberation au conseil, si nous devions estre ouys +selon nostre requeste. Mais la royne a tranché tout court, qu'elle ne +vouloit point qu'on deliberat de cela, mais qu'elle vouloyt que nous +fussions ouys, qu'on regardast seulement aux conditions par nous +proposées. Les ecclesiastiques qui estoyent presens out dit qu'ils ne +vouloyent rien respondre de ceste affaire, qu'ils n'en eussent parlé à +leurs compaygnons." Letter of François de Morel, Aug. 25, 1561, Baum, +ii., App., 55.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1101_1101" id="Footnote_1101_1101"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1101_1101"><span class="label">[1101]</span></a> On the 9th of June, 1561, Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf, i. +308.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1102_1102" id="Footnote_1102_1102"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1102_1102"><span class="label">[1102]</span></a> Letter of Beza to Calvin, Sept. 12, 1561, Baum, ii., +App., 60.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1103_1103" id="Footnote_1103_1103"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1103_1103"><span class="label">[1103]</span></a> "Eo deventum est ut necesse fuerit nos parenti Reginæ +testari statim discessuros nisi nobis adversus hostium audaciam +caveretur." Beza, <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1104_1104" id="Footnote_1104_1104"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1104_1104"><span class="label">[1104]</span></a> Beza to Calvin, Sept. 12, 1561, <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1105_1105" id="Footnote_1105_1105"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1105_1105"><span class="label">[1105]</span></a> Not unreasonably did the queen mother allege—and none +knew it better than she—that even written engagements derive their +chief value from the good faith of those that make them: "Que il estoit +malaisé mesmes avec l'escripture d'empescher de decevoir celuy qui ha +intention de tromper." La Place, 157.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1106_1106" id="Footnote_1106_1106"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1106_1106"><span class="label">[1106]</span></a> "Sans rien chercher que la gloire de Dieu, de laquelle +elle estimoit qu'ils fussent studieux et amateurs." La Place, 157. +Compare the letter of Catharine to the Bp. of Rennes, Sept. 14, 1561, +<i>apud</i> Le Laboureur, Add. to Castelnau, i, 733.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1107_1107" id="Footnote_1107_1107"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1107_1107"><span class="label">[1107]</span></a> Beza to Calvin, Sept. 12, 1561, <i>ubi supra</i>; La Place, +157; Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 314.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1108_1108" id="Footnote_1108_1108"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1108_1108"><span class="label">[1108]</span></a> La Place, 154; Baum, Theodor Beza, ii. 230-234. To the +names mentioned in the text must be added the name of Jean de l'Espine, +who joined his brethren soon after their arrival at Poissy. He was a +Carmelite monk of high reputation for learning, who now, for the first +time, threw aside the cowl and subscribed to the reformed confession of +faith. For an interesting account of his conversion caused by conversing +with and witnessing the triumphant death of a Protestant, Jean Rabec, +executed April 24, 1556, see Ph. Vincent, Recherches sur les +commencements et premiers progrès de la Réf. en la ville de la Rochelle, +1693, <i>apud</i> Bulletin, ix. 30-32. The delegates of the churches were +more numerous than the ministers; there were twenty-two, according to +the Histoire ecclésiastique, i. 316; though the Abbé Bruslart (Mém. de +Condé, i. 51), swells the number to twenty-eight. The names of twelve, +representing twelve of the principal provinces, are given, with +variations, by two MSS. of the National Library of Paris (Dupuy Coll., +vols. 309 and 641), see F. Bourquelot, notes to Mém. de Claude Haton, i. +155.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1109_1109" id="Footnote_1109_1109"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1109_1109"><span class="label">[1109]</span></a> Beza to Calvin, Sept. 12, <i>apud</i> Baum, ii., App. 61; La +Place, 158.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1110_1110" id="Footnote_1110_1110"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1110_1110"><span class="label">[1110]</span></a> Beza, <i>ubi supra</i>. An engraving of the period, +reproduced by Montfaucon, affords a pleasant view of the quaint scene.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1111_1111" id="Footnote_1111_1111"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1111_1111"><span class="label">[1111]</span></a> La Place, 157; Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 314; De +Thou, iii. 65.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1112_1112" id="Footnote_1112_1112"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1112_1112"><span class="label">[1112]</span></a> Letter of Beza to Calvin, Aug. 30, 1561, <i>ap.</i> Baum, +ii., App., 59.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1113_1113" id="Footnote_1113_1113"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1113_1113"><span class="label">[1113]</span></a> The speeches of Charles and L'Hospital seem to have been +delivered before the introduction of Beza; cf. Hist. ecclés. des églises +réf., i. 316. Prof. Baum, following La Place, 157, and De Thou, iii. +65-67, represents them as having been delivered subsequently. Theodor +Beza, ii. 238.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1114_1114" id="Footnote_1114_1114"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1114_1114"><span class="label">[1114]</span></a> La Place, 158; Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 314, 315. +I have alluded to the fact, first noticed by Prof. Soldan, that De Thou +and others have placed here a speech which was in reality delivered five +or six weeks earlier; while not only they, but also the accurate La +Place and the author of the Histoire ecclés. des égl. réf., have done +the same by the king's speech, and a rejoinder of Tournon to +L'Hospital's address.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1115_1115" id="Footnote_1115_1115"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1115_1115"><span class="label">[1115]</span></a> Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 316.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1116_1116" id="Footnote_1116_1116"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1116_1116"><span class="label">[1116]</span></a> This interesting incident Prof. Baum discovered in a +fragmentary MS. in the remarkable collection of the late Col. Tronchin. +Theodor Beza, ii. 238. The text is thus given in the Bulletin xiii. +(1864) 284: "M. de Besze, entrant dans la conférence de Poissy avec un +ministre de Genève, un cardinal dit: <i>Voici les chiens de Genève!</i> M. de +Besze, l'ayant entendu, répondit: <i>Il est bien nécessaire que, dans la +bergerie du Seigneur, il y ait des chiens pour abboyer contre les +loups.</i>"</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1117_1117" id="Footnote_1117_1117"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1117_1117"><span class="label">[1117]</span></a> "Es sind auch die Cardinäl, diewyl er geredt, mit +entdektem Houpt gestunden, und beede mal, diewyl sy gebätet, hat sich +die alte Künigin niderglassen und mit gebätet, der Künig aber ist bliben +still sitzen." Letter of Haller to Bullinger, Berne, Sept. 23, 1561, +<i>ap.</i> Baum, ii., App., 73.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1118_1118" id="Footnote_1118_1118"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1118_1118"><span class="label">[1118]</span></a> Baum, ii. 245.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1119_1119" id="Footnote_1119_1119"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1119_1119"><span class="label">[1119]</span></a> La Place, 159; Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf. i. 316. The +current, but erroneous belief, that this confession was first composed +by Theodore Beza at the Colloquy of Poissy, has already been noticed. It +had been printed, as we have seen (<i>ante</i>, c. viii. p. 343), in the +Geneva Liturgy as early as in 1542; and earlier still in that of +Strasbourg. It was already the favorite of martyrs and confessors. Jean +Vernou, in 1515, recited it at the <i>estrapade</i>. "Verum antequam +mactaretur," says Jean Crespin, "preces ad Deum fudit, ita exorsus: +'Domine Deus et Pater omnipotens ego certe coram sacrosancta majestate +tua ex animo et syncere agnosco me peccatorem esse miserrimum,' et +cætera quæ in precationum formula recitantur statim initio." The margin +reads: "Initium precum solennium Geneuæ." Actiones et monimenta +martyrum, Genevæ 1560, fol. 321.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1120_1120" id="Footnote_1120_1120"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1120_1120"><span class="label">[1120]</span></a> La Place, 159; Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 316.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1121_1121" id="Footnote_1121_1121"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1121_1121"><span class="label">[1121]</span></a> "De Bèze portant la parole pour tous les autres, +commença et continua longuement sa rémonstrance en assez doux termes, se +soûmettant souventefois, si l'on montroit par la Sainte Escriture," etc. +Letter of Catharine de' Medici to the Bishop of Rennes, Sept. 14, 1561, +<i>apud</i> Le Laboureur, Add. Castelnau, i. 733.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1122_1122" id="Footnote_1122_1122"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1122_1122"><span class="label">[1122]</span></a> "His solumodo verbis Cardinales atque Episcopi usque +adeo exasperati atque exacerbati sunt, ut in hæc verba, orationem ipsius +interpellates, proruperint: <i>blasphemavit, blasphemavit Deum</i>! Sed eorum +adversis admurmurationibus D. Beza minime perturbatus, eodem vultu," +etc. Letter of Joh.. Guil. Stuckius to Conrad Hubert, Sept. 18, 1561, +Baum, ii., App., 66.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1123_1123" id="Footnote_1123_1123"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1123_1123"><span class="label">[1123]</span></a> "Da Beza eine schöne Oration gethon, darinn er kurtz +perstringiert alle strytigen Artikel, und als er letstlich kom uff den +Artikel von der Gegenwirtikeit Christi im Sacrament, und under anderm +gesagt das sige so veer von einander als der Himmel von der Erden, +habend die Sorbonischen angfangen <i>klopfen</i>, <i>rütschen</i>, <i>brummlen</i>, das +nieman nüt mer mögen hören, dess die alte Königin übel zufriden gsyn. +Dessgleichen auch der Cardinal von Lutringen und sy gheissen in Stille +losen, man werde sy doch hernach auch gutwilliklich verhören." Letter of +Haller to Bullinger, Sept. 25, 1561, Baum, ii., App., 73. "Cela fut +trouvé si nouveau et estrange entre les prélats, que soubdain ils +commencèrent tous à murmurer et faire un grand bruict; lequel toutesfois +estant aucunement appaisé," etc. La Place, 167, 168. "Hic enim mussitare +Cardinales et Episcopi, et tantum non vestes scindere." Letter of Martyr +to the Senate of Zurich, Sept. 12, 1561, Baum, ii., App., 63.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1124_1124" id="Footnote_1124_1124"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1124_1124"><span class="label">[1124]</span></a> Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 327.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1125_1125" id="Footnote_1125_1125"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1125_1125"><span class="label">[1125]</span></a> Letter of Haller, <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1126_1126" id="Footnote_1126_1126"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1126_1126"><span class="label">[1126]</span></a> The admirable speech of Theodore Beza is given word for +word by La Place, 159-167, and somewhat modernized by the Hist. ecclés. +des égl. réf., i. 316-327. Cf. De Thou, iii. 67, 68; Castelnau, 1. iii., +c. 4; Abbé Bruslart, Mém. de Condé, i. 51; Letters of Stuck, Haller, and +Martyr, <i>ubi supra</i>. Summa eorum quæ a die 22. Augusti usque ad 15. +Septembr. in aula regis Galliæ acta sunt, <i>apud</i> F. C. Schlosser, Leben +des Theodor de Beza und des Peter Martyr Vermili (Heidelberg, 1809), +Appendix, 355-359. Discours des Actes de Poissy, <i>ubi supra</i>, 652-657.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1127_1127" id="Footnote_1127_1127"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1127_1127"><span class="label">[1127]</span></a> Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 327; La Place, 168; De +Thou, iii. 68; Letter of Haller, <i>ubi supra</i>; Actes de Poissy, Recueil +des choses mém., 657, 658.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1128_1128" id="Footnote_1128_1128"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1128_1128"><span class="label">[1128]</span></a> The response of the queen is concisely given by La +Place, the Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., the Actes de Poissy, and De Thou +(<i>ubi supra</i>); but the graphic account upon which the text is based is +found in the letter of Haller to Bullinger, Sept. 25, 1561, which Prof. +Baum discovered at Zurich, and has published in the volume of documents +which figures as an appendix to the second volume of his extremely +valuable biography of Beza. It is superfluous for me to acknowledge +formally my obligations to this rich storehouse of original authorities, +since the frequent references that I have already made, and shall +doubtless have occasion for some time to make, to its separate +documents, will sufficiently attest the high estimate I place upon its +value. The correspondence of the reformers is always an important +commentary upon the contemporaneous history. In the present instance, +much of the most trustworthy information is derived from it. Prof. +Baum's own narrative is admirable (Book iv., c. 5).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1129_1129" id="Footnote_1129_1129"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1129_1129"><span class="label">[1129]</span></a> "Car d'y proceder à present par la force," writes +Catharine de' Medici at this very time, "il s'y voit un si éminent +peril, pour estre ce mal penetré si avant comme il est, que je n'en suis +en sorte du monde conseillée par ceux qui aiment le repos de cet Estat." +Letter of Sept. 14th, <i>apud</i> Le Laboureur, i. 734.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1130_1130" id="Footnote_1130_1130"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1130_1130"><span class="label">[1130]</span></a> The testimony of Marc' Antonio Barbaro is the more +interesting from the reluctance he manifests to say any good of the +reformer, whom he blames for a great part of the progress of the +Huguenots in France. "È d'assai bello aspetto, <i>ma d'animo molto +brutto</i>, perciocchè, oltra l'eresie sue, è sedizioso e pieno di vizii e +di scelerità, che non racconto per brevità. Ha vivo spirito, e ingegno +acuto, ma non è prudente, nè ha ponto di giudizio. Mostra d'esser +eloquente, perchè parla assai con belle parole e prontamente," etc. Rel. +des Amb. Vén., i. 52.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1131_1131" id="Footnote_1131_1131"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1131_1131"><span class="label">[1131]</span></a> "Ha operato tanto con la sua lingua, che non solamente +ha persuaso infiniti, massimamente dei nobili e grandi, ma è quasi +adorato da molti nel regno, i quali tengono nelle camere la figura sua." +Ib., <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1132_1132" id="Footnote_1132_1132"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1132_1132"><span class="label">[1132]</span></a> So Calvin's eye saw in an instant, and he applauded +Beza's boldness. "Your speech is now before us," he wrote to Beza, Sept. +24th, "in which God wonderfully directed your mind and your tongue. The +testimony which stirred up the bile of the holy fathers could not but be +given, unless you had been willing basely to tergiversate and to expose +yourself to their taunts." "I wonder that they were thrown into +agitation respecting this matter alone, since they were not less +severely hit in other places. It is a stupid assertion that the +conference was broken off in consequence of this ground of offence. For +those who now, by rabidly laying hold of one ground, after a certain +fashion subscribe to the rest of the doctrine, would have found out a +hundred other grounds. This also has, therefore, turned out happily." +Calvini Epistolæ, Opera, ix. 157.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1133_1133" id="Footnote_1133_1133"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1133_1133"><span class="label">[1133]</span></a> To her ambassador in Germany, instructed to defend her +course in convening the conference, however, she purposely exaggerated +her indignation, and gave a different coloring to the facts of the case. +"Mais estant enfin (de Bèze) tombé sur le fait de la Cene, il s'oublia +en une comparaison si absurde et tant offensive des oreilles de +l'assistance, que pen s'en fallut, que je ne luy imposasse silence, et +que je ne les renvoyasse tous, sans les laisser passer plus avant." She +accounts for the fact that she did not stop him, by noticing that he was +evidently near the end of his speech, and by the consideration that, "as +they are accustomed to take advantage of everything 'pour la +confirmation et persuasion de leur doctrine,' they would rather have +gained by such a command; and moreover, that those who had heard his +arguments would have gone away imbued with and persuaded of his +doctrine, without hearing the answer that might be made." Letter of +Cath. of Sept. 14th, <i>ubi supra</i>. Prof. Baum well remarks that "the last +words furnish the most irrefragable proof of the great and convincing +impression which the speech in general had made." Theod. Beza, ii. 263, +note.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1134_1134" id="Footnote_1134_1134"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1134_1134"><span class="label">[1134]</span></a> It is inserted in La Place, 168, 169, and Hist. ecclés. +des égl. réf., i. 328-330; De Thou, iii. (liv. 28) 69. Letter of Cath., +<i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1135_1135" id="Footnote_1135_1135"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1135_1135"><span class="label">[1135]</span></a> "Would that he had been dumb, or that we had been deaf!" +the Cardinal of Lorraine is said to have exclaimed in the prelatic +consultation. La Place and Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., <i>ubi supra</i>; J. +de Serres, i. 273.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1136_1136" id="Footnote_1136_1136"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1136_1136"><span class="label">[1136]</span></a> La Place, 170; Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 330, 331, +where the protest is reproduced.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1137_1137" id="Footnote_1137_1137"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1137_1137"><span class="label">[1137]</span></a> "Me excludere volebant adversarii, ne interessem, +tanquam hominem peregrinum. Regina tamen mater per Condæum principem eo +ipso articulo, cum profisciscendum erat, evocavit et adesse voluit." +Letter of Martyr to the Senate of Zurich, Sept. 19, 1561, Baum, ii., +App., 67.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1138_1138" id="Footnote_1138_1138"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1138_1138"><span class="label">[1138]</span></a> Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 332.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1139_1139" id="Footnote_1139_1139"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1139_1139"><span class="label">[1139]</span></a> Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 332-348; La Place, +170-177; De Thou, iii. 70; J. de Serres, i. 273-280. The impression made +by the cardinal's speech upon his Romanist and Protestant hearers +differed widely. According to the Abbé Bruslart (Mém. de Condé, i. 52), +he spoke "en si bons et élégans termes, et d'une si bonne grace et +asseurance, que nos adversaires mesmes l'admiroient." Stuck makes him +speak "admodum inepte" (<i>ap.</i> Baum, ii., App., 66); while Beza writes: +"Nihil unquam audivi impudentius, nihil ineptius.... Cætera ejusmodi quæ +certe mihi nauseam moverunt" (Ib., 63, 64). Peter Martyr judged more +leniently (Ib., 67, 68). It is, therefore, hardly likely that Beza said, +as Dr. Henry White alleges without referring to his authority (Massacre +of St. Bartholomew, 64); "Had I the Cardinal's eloquence I should hope +to convert half France."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1140_1140" id="Footnote_1140_1140"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1140_1140"><span class="label">[1140]</span></a> La Place, 178; Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., <i>ubi supra</i>; +Jean de Serres, i. 280; De Thou, iii. 71.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1141_1141" id="Footnote_1141_1141"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1141_1141"><span class="label">[1141]</span></a> La Place, etc., <i>ubi supra</i>; J. de Serres, i. 281.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1142_1142" id="Footnote_1142_1142"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1142_1142"><span class="label">[1142]</span></a> "Nobis certum est," says Beza in a letter of Sept. 17th, +"vel mox congredi vel protestatione facta discedere, si pergant diem de +die ducere." Baum, ii., App., 64.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1143_1143" id="Footnote_1143_1143"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1143_1143"><span class="label">[1143]</span></a> "Quid novi sperare possim non video. Nempe vel ipsa +necessitas aliquid extorquebit, vel, quod Deus avertat, expectanda sunt +omnia belli civilis incommoda. Quotidie ex diversis regni partibus multa +ad nos tristia afferuntur in utramque partem, quoniam utrinque peccatur +plerisque locis." Letter of Beza, Sept. 17th, <i>ubi supra</i>. In a similar +strain Stuck writes on the next day: "In Gascony and Normandy scarcely +an image is any longer to be seen; masses have ceased to be said. +Undoubtedly, unless the liberty of preaching and hearing the Gospel with +impunity be granted, there is great reason to fear an intestine war." +Baum, ii., App., 67. Cf. Summa eorum, etc., <i>apud</i> Schlosser, Leben des +Theodor de Beza, Anhang, 358, 359.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1144_1144" id="Footnote_1144_1144"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1144_1144"><span class="label">[1144]</span></a> La Place, Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., Jean de Serres, +etc., <i>ubi supra</i>, Castelnau, l. iii., c. 4.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1145_1145" id="Footnote_1145_1145"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1145_1145"><span class="label">[1145]</span></a> No wonder; the prelates had just solemnly decreed, as +Abbé Bruslart informs us (Mém. de Condé, i. 52): "Non erat congrediendum +cum his qui principia et fundamentum totius nostræ fidei et religionis +christianæ negant." Not only so; but they had protested against the +heretics being heard, and had declared that <i>whoever conferred with them +would be excommunicated</i>! "Disants que ceux qui conféreroient avec eux +seroient excommuniés." The reader, if he cannot admire their +consistency, will certainly be struck with astonishment at the fortitude +of the prelates who, a few hours later, could bring themselves with so +little apparent trepidation under the highest censures of the Church. +Bruslart goes on to tell us that it was the Cardinal of Lorraine who +brought them into this dreadful condemnation, partly hoping to convert +the Huguenots, <i>partly to please Catharine de' Medici</i>!</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1146_1146" id="Footnote_1146_1146"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1146_1146"><span class="label">[1146]</span></a> "Mais ce ne fut pas en si grande compagnie +qu'auparavant. Car Messieurs les preslats croignoyent que le monde ne +fut infecté de nos heresies, qu'ils appellent." Letter of Beza to the +Elector Palatine, Oct. 3, 1861, Baum, ii., App., p. 88.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1147_1147" id="Footnote_1147_1147"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1147_1147"><span class="label">[1147]</span></a> Baum, Theodor Beza, ii. 311, 312.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1148_1148" id="Footnote_1148_1148"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1148_1148"><span class="label">[1148]</span></a> Ib., <i>ubi supra</i>, Hist. ecclés., i. 349. Letter of N. +des Gallars to the Bishop of London, Sept. 29th, Baum, ii., App., 80.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1149_1149" id="Footnote_1149_1149"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1149_1149"><span class="label">[1149]</span></a> Beza's speech is given in full by La Place, 179-189; +Hist. eccl. des égl. réf., i. 350-362; and J. de Serres, i. 282-312. See +also De Thou, iii. 71, and N. des Gallars, <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1150_1150" id="Footnote_1150_1150"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1150_1150"><span class="label">[1150]</span></a> "Et hoc quidem prorsus inepte, quia neque conquesti +eramus, neque quemquam poterat videri magis accusare, quam eum ipsum +[sc. Cardinal Loth.] cui accesserat advocatus." Letter of Beza, Sept. +27th, <i>apud</i> Baum, ii., App., 75. It was Beza's firm belief that +D'Espense had been hired by Lorraine to compose his speech of the 16th +of September, as well as to defend him on the present occasion. He +therefore not inappositely calls him, in this letter to Calvin, +"conductitius Balaam."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1151_1151" id="Footnote_1151_1151"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1151_1151"><span class="label">[1151]</span></a> La Place, 189, 190; Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 364; +Jean de Serres, i. 315; Beza, <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1152_1152" id="Footnote_1152_1152"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1152_1152"><span class="label">[1152]</span></a> La Place, 192; Jean de Serres, i. 321-323; Hist. ecclés. +des égl. réf., i. 370; Beza to Calvin, Baum, ii., App., 77; N. des +Gallars to the Bishop of London, ibid., 81; De Thou, iii. 73.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1153_1153" id="Footnote_1153_1153"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1153_1153"><span class="label">[1153]</span></a> Letter of Beza to Calvin, Sept. 27th, <i>ubi supra</i>. +Besides permitting the communication of this information, the break in +the conferences (caused by the discovery, on Catharine's part, that the +majority of the prelates had resolved to submit a proposition respecting +the mass, drawn up in a strictly Romish sense—a refusal to sign which +they intended to take as the signal for declining to hold any further +intercourse with the Protestants) furnished an opportunity for Montluc, +Bishop of Valence—a prelate suspected of Protestant proclivities—and +Claude d'Espense, one of the most moderate of the theologians of the +Sorbonne, to meet privately, by request of Catharine de' Medici, with +Beza and Des Gallars. The result of their interview was the provisional +adoption of a declaration on the subject of the eucharist, which, though +undoubtedly Protestant in its natural import, was rejected by the rest +of the ministers as not sufficiently explicit. Hist. ecclés. des égl. +réf., <i>ubi supra</i>. See a full account in Baum, Theodor Beza, ii. +342-344. They rightly judged that where there is essential discrepancy +of belief, little or nothing can be gained by cloaking it in ambiguous +expressions.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1154_1154" id="Footnote_1154_1154"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1154_1154"><span class="label">[1154]</span></a> Beza's address is inserted in La Place, 193-196; Hist. +ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 371, etc. See also De Thou, iii. (liv. +xxviii.), 74; letters of Beza to Calvin, and N. des Gallars to the +Bishop of London, <i>ubi supra</i>; Jean de Serres, i. 327, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1155_1155" id="Footnote_1155_1155"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1155_1155"><span class="label">[1155]</span></a> La Place, De Thou, letters of Beza, and des Gallars, +etc., <i>ubi supra</i>. "Comme si les feu rois François le grand, Henry le +débonnaire, François dernier décédé, et Charles à present règnant (et +faisoit sonner ces mots autant qu'il pouvoit) avoient été tyrans et +simoniacles." Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 375.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1156_1156" id="Footnote_1156_1156"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1156_1156"><span class="label">[1156]</span></a> La Place, Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., etc., <i>ubi +supra</i>. Letter of Beza to the Elector Palatine, Oct. 3d, Baum, ii., +App., 88, 89.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1157_1157" id="Footnote_1157_1157"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1157_1157"><span class="label">[1157]</span></a> Because he was not sufficiently familiar with French, +according to La Place, 197 (ne sçachant parler françois); and in order +to make himself better understood by the queen "ut a regina intelligi +posset," than he would have been had he spoken in Latin. Letter of Beza, +Baum, ii., App., 79. "D'Espense," says La Place <i>ubi supra</i>, "lors donna +ceste louange audict Martyr, qu'il n'y avoit eu homme de ce temps qui si +amplement et avec telle érudition eust escript du faict du sacrement que +luy."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1158_1158" id="Footnote_1158_1158"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1158_1158"><span class="label">[1158]</span></a> Although Lainez spoke in Italian (see Baum, ii. 363), it +is needless to say that the Cardinal of Lorraine made no objection to +the use of a language which, it may be added, he understood perfectly. +The reader may see some reason in the summary of Lainez's speech given +in the text, for dissenting from the remark of MM. Oimber et Danjou, iv. +34, note: "Il [Lainez] fit entendre dans le colloque de Poissy, des +<i>paroles de paix et de conciliation</i>."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1159_1159" id="Footnote_1159_1159"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1159_1159"><span class="label">[1159]</span></a> "I said," writes Beza, in giving an account of his brief +reply to Lainez, "that I would concede all the Spaniard's assertions +when he proved them. As to his statement that we were foxes, and +serpents, and apes, <i>we no more believed it than we believed in +transubstantiation</i>." Letter to Calvin, Baum, ii., App., 79.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1160_1160" id="Footnote_1160_1160"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1160_1160"><span class="label">[1160]</span></a> La Place, 198; Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 377-379; +Jean de Serres, i. 335-339; Letter of Beza to Calvin, Sept. 27th, Baum, +ii., App., 79.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1161_1161" id="Footnote_1161_1161"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1161_1161"><span class="label">[1161]</span></a> "Qui præ ceteris doctrina et ingenio, atque etiam +moderatione præstare existimantur." Letter of N. des Gallars, <i>ubi +supra</i>, 82. "Gens doctes et traictables." Letter of Beza to the Elector +Palatine, ibid., 90.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1162_1162" id="Footnote_1162_1162"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1162_1162"><span class="label">[1162]</span></a> <i>Ante</i>, p. 475.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1163_1163" id="Footnote_1163_1163"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1163_1163"><span class="label">[1163]</span></a> "Fateor equidem (nec causa est cur id negem) <i>falsam +istam doctrinam</i>, non tam fortasse aperte, quam ipsi facere soletis, +confutasse: Babylonem tamen cum cuniculis, tum aperto etiam marte, ut +res et tempus ferebat, ita semper oppugnavi, ut noster iste in eo genere +conatus optimo cuique semper probaretur." Letter of Salignac to Calvin, +Calvini Opera, ix. 163, 164. Calvin (probably, as Prof. Baum remarks, at +Beza's suggestion) wrote to Salignac, about a month after the +termination of the Colloquy of Poissy, a respectful but extremely frank +letter, in which he urged him to espouse with decision the cause he +secretly advocated. He reminded him that it was no mean honor to have +been among the first fruits of the revival of truth in France. He urged +him to put an end to his inordinate hesitation, by the consideration of +the number of those who were still vacillating, but who would forthwith +imitate his example if he forsook the enemy's camp for the fold of +Christ. Letter of Calvin to Salignac, Nov. 19, 1561, Calvini Opera, ix. +163; Calvin's Letters (Bonnet), iv. 239-241. Salignac's reply, from +which the extract given above is taken, is characteristic of the +man—less conscious of his weakness than Gérard Roussel, but equally +faint-hearted. See also Baum, ii. 387, 388.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1164_1164" id="Footnote_1164_1164"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1164_1164"><span class="label">[1164]</span></a> See Prof. Baum's graphic account, ii. 390-392. The next +day Martyr wrote out and presented a fuller statement of his belief, +which is inserted among the documents of Baum, ii., App., 84, 85.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1165_1165" id="Footnote_1165_1165"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1165_1165"><span class="label">[1165]</span></a> "En tant que la foy rend les choses promises présentes, +et que la foy prent véritablement le corps et le sang de nostre Seigneur +Jésus-Christ, par la vertu du Sainct-Esprit; en cest esgard nous +confessons la présence du corps et du sang d'iceluy en la saincte cène, +en laquelle il nous présente, donne et exhibe véritablement la substance +de son corps et sang, par l'opération de son Sainct-Esprit; y recevons +et mangeons spirituellement et par foy," etc. Mém. de Condé, i. 55; La +Place, 199; Jean de Serres, i. 340. Letter of Des Gallars, Baum, ii., +App., 83.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1166_1166" id="Footnote_1166_1166"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1166_1166"><span class="label">[1166]</span></a> "Nous confessons que Jésus-Christ en sa céne nous +présente, donne et exhibe véritablement la substance de son corps et de +son sang par l'opération du Sainct-Esprist; et que nous recevons et +mangeons spirituellement et par foy ce propre corps, qui est mort pour +nous, pour estre os de ses os, et chair de sa chair, à fin d'en estre +vivifié, et percevoir tout ce qui est requis à nostre salut. Et pour ce +que la foy appuyée sur la parolle de Dieu fait et rend présentes les +choses prises, et que par ceste foy nous prenons vrayement et de faict +le vray et naturel corps et sang de nostre Seigneur par la vertu du +Sainct-Esprit, en cest esgard nous confessons la présence du corps et +sang d'iceluy en sa saincte cène." La Place, 199; J. de Serres, i. 341. +Letter of des Gallars, <i>ubi supra</i>, 83, 84; Languet, Epist. secr., ii. +148; Mém. de Condé, i. 55.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1167_1167" id="Footnote_1167_1167"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1167_1167"><span class="label">[1167]</span></a> Letter of Beza, Oct. 3d and 4th, Baum, ii., App., 93; +Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 382.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1168_1168" id="Footnote_1168_1168"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1168_1168"><span class="label">[1168]</span></a> "Peutêtre qu'il pensait dire vrai," shrewdly observes +the author of the Hist. des églises réformées (i. 382), "<i>n'ayant jamais +le loisir telles gens de bien penser, s'ils croient ou non, ni à ce +qu'ils pensent croire</i>."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1169_1169" id="Footnote_1169_1169"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1169_1169"><span class="label">[1169]</span></a> Letter of N. des Gallars, <i>ubi supra</i>, 84: "Quum hanc +formam legisset Cardinalis, mire approbavit, ac lætatus est quasi ad +ejus castra transissemus."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1170_1170" id="Footnote_1170_1170"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1170_1170"><span class="label">[1170]</span></a> "Intelligimus etiam ipsos a suis objurgari quasi +sentiant nobiscum aut colludant." Letter of N. des Gallars, Oct. 6th, +<i>ubi supra</i>. See also letter of Beza, Oct. 3d, Baum, ii., App., 94.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1171_1171" id="Footnote_1171_1171"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1171_1171"><span class="label">[1171]</span></a> The most extended and accurate view of the Colloquy of +Poissy is afforded by Prof. Baum, who has consecrated to it two hundred +and fifty pages of the second volume of his masterly biography of Beza +(pp. 168-419). The correspondence of Beza and others that were present +at the colloquy, collected by Prof. Baum in the supplementary volume of +documents (published in 1852), and the detailed accounts of the Histoire +ecclés. des égl. réf, of La Place (Commentaires de l'estat de la rel. et +république, which here terminate), and of Jean de Serres, who, in this +part of his history, does little more than translate La Place, are the +most important sources of authentic information. Castelnau's account of +the colloquy (1. iii., c. 4) is remarkably incorrect. He makes the ten +delegates confer together for <i>three months</i>, without agreeing on a +single point, and finally separate on the 25th of November. Davila is +brief and unsatisfactory (pp. 50, 51).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1172_1172" id="Footnote_1172_1172"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1172_1172"><span class="label">[1172]</span></a> From what Martyr wrote to the magistrates of Zurich +(Oct. 17th) respecting the conduct of the bishops in connection with the +subscription to the canons, it would appear that the close of the +prelatic assembly did not disgrace the amenities of the debates at its +commencement (see <i>ante</i>, p. 499): "Accidit mira Dei providentia, ut +repente inter episcopos, qui erant Poysiaci, tam grave dissidium ortum +fuerit, ut fere ad manus venerint, imo, ut homines fide digni affirmant +res <i>ut pugnis et unguibus</i> est acta." Baum, ii., App., 107. See also +the extract from Martyr's letter of the same date to Bullinger, cited by +Prof. Baum, ii. 401, note.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1173_1173" id="Footnote_1173_1173"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1173_1173"><span class="label">[1173]</span></a> Histoire ecclés., i. 383-405. See Baum, ii. 399-401.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1174_1174" id="Footnote_1174_1174"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1174_1174"><span class="label">[1174]</span></a> The vote was, according to Beza's letter of Oct. 21st, +sixteen millions of francs with interest within six years (Baum, ii., +App. 109); according to the Journal of Bruslart, Mém. de Condé, i. 53, +within twelve years. Prof. Soldan, Geschichte des Prot. in Frankreich, +i. 512, 513, gives the details of the famous "Contract of Poissy." It +must be admitted that both nobles and people were ready enough with +plans for paying off the national indebtedness <i>out of the property of +the Church</i>. These generous economists found that, according to the +ancient customs, one-third of the ecclesiastical revenues ought to be +employed for the support of the clergy, one-third to be given to the +poor, and the remaining third expended in keeping the sacred edifices in +repair. They proposed, therefore, to relieve the clergy of the latter +two-thirds of their possessions, and apply them to the extinction of the +royal debt, assuming that the nation would maintain the churches in +better condition, and feed the poor more effectively than had ever been +done hitherto! Languet, Letter of Aug. 17th, Epist. secr., ii. 136.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1175_1175" id="Footnote_1175_1175"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1175_1175"><span class="label">[1175]</span></a> Baum, ii. 408.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1176_1176" id="Footnote_1176_1176"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1176_1176"><span class="label">[1176]</span></a> Oct. 20th, according to Recueil des anc. lois franç., +xiv. 122.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1177_1177" id="Footnote_1177_1177"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1177_1177"><span class="label">[1177]</span></a> Text of the edict in Mém. de Condé, ii. 520-528 (De +Thou, iii. 99, following the Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., erroneously +gives the date as Nov. 3d); Letter of Beza, Oct. 21st, Baum, ii., App., +109; Letter of Martyr, Oct. 17th, ibid., 107.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1178_1178" id="Footnote_1178_1178"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1178_1178"><span class="label">[1178]</span></a> Beza, <i>ubi supra</i>; Car. Joinvillæus, Nov. 5th, Baum, +ii., App., 123.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1179_1179" id="Footnote_1179_1179"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1179_1179"><span class="label">[1179]</span></a> Oct. 19th, according to Bruslart, Mém. de Condé, i. 59. +According to La Place, the assembly of the prelates did not break up +until the 30th of October, after a session of about three months: "Et le +trentiesme dudict mois ... fut ainsi finie ladicte assemblée, sans +apporter autre fruict, après avoir esté toutesfois assemblés [les +prélats] par l'espace de trois mois ou environ." (Page 201.)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1180_1180" id="Footnote_1180_1180"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1180_1180"><span class="label">[1180]</span></a> "De fait," wrote Calvin of the Augsburg Confession, +"elle est <i>si maigrement bastie, si molle et si obscure</i>, qu'on ne s'y +sauroit arrester." Letter to Beza, Sept. 24, 1561. Bonnet, Lettres +franç., ii. 428; Baum, ii., App., 70.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1181_1181" id="Footnote_1181_1181"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1181_1181"><span class="label">[1181]</span></a> The account of the occasion of the mission of delegates +from Germany, given in the text, is based on Soldan, Gesch. des Prot, in +Frankreich, i. 531-537. He has, I think, sufficiently demonstrated the +inaccuracy of the ordinary story (accepted even by Prof. Baum, Theod. +Beza, ii. 370, 419, etc.), which attributes their advent chiefly, if not +wholly, to the desire of Lorraine. It is said that, after hearing Beza's +speech of the ninth of September, the cardinal sought to obtain, through +the instrumentality of the Marshal de Vieilleville, at Metz, and his +salaried spy Rascalon, at Heidelberg, some decided Lutherans, to be +employed in bringing the Protestants at Poissy into contempt, through +the wrangling of their theologians with those of Germany. See the Hist. +ecclés. des égl. réf., etc. Yet it is not improbable, as La Place, +Commentaires, 200, seems to hint that Navarre's project was maliciously +countenanced by the Cardinal of Lorraine. But the circumstance that, of +the <i>five</i> German theologians, not less than <i>two</i> were opposed to the +Augsburg Confession, proves conclusively that they could not have been +despatched with the view of helping the cardinal out in his attempt. +Bossuet's admiration of the prelate's sagacity, in thus seeking to give +a brilliant demonstration of the variations of doctrine among +Protestants, certainly seems to be wasted.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1182_1182" id="Footnote_1182_1182"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1182_1182"><span class="label">[1182]</span></a> <i>Ante</i>, c. xi., p. 493.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1183_1183" id="Footnote_1183_1183"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1183_1183"><span class="label">[1183]</span></a> See the list of the twenty members of the council, in +Recueil des anc. lois franç., xiv. 55, 56.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1184_1184" id="Footnote_1184_1184"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1184_1184"><span class="label">[1184]</span></a> See Baum, ii. 215.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1185_1185" id="Footnote_1185_1185"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1185_1185"><span class="label">[1185]</span></a> "Affulserat aliqua spes concordiæ, sed Legatus +Pontificius, i. e., Cardinalis Ferrariensis omnia perturbavit." Letter +of Martyr to the magistrates of Zurich, Oct. 17, 1561, Baum, ii., App., +108.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1186_1186" id="Footnote_1186_1186"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1186_1186"><span class="label">[1186]</span></a> "Quique ingenio, eloquentia, <i>artificio</i> plurimum +valebat." Prosp. Santacrucii, Comment de civil. Galliæ dissen., 1461.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1187_1187" id="Footnote_1187_1187"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1187_1187"><span class="label">[1187]</span></a> "Ne ipse exequiis, ut dicebat, illius regni interesset." +Ibid., <i>ubi supra</i>. Somewhat maliciously Santa Croce suggests that +Gualtieri was all the more reluctant to remain after he heard of the +creation of nineteen new cardinals, and learned that his own name was +not included in the list.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1188_1188" id="Footnote_1188_1188"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1188_1188"><span class="label">[1188]</span></a> "Angebatur interea Romæ gravissimis curis Pius pontifex, +quod nec quæ legati fecissent satis probaret, et in dies malum magis +serpere, omniaque remedia minus juvare audiebat." Ib., 1462.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1189_1189" id="Footnote_1189_1189"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1189_1189"><span class="label">[1189]</span></a> He was described to the Pope by his secretary, Prosper +himself tells us, as "virum exercitatum, magni animi, multarum +literarum, eloquentem, magnæque apud Gallos auctoritatis," having +obtained great familiarity with French affairs when nuncio in Henry the +Second's lifetime. Ib., 1463.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1190_1190" id="Footnote_1190_1190"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1190_1190"><span class="label">[1190]</span></a> "Non tam ut numerus legatorum, quam ut plus auctoritatis +legatio haberet, si ab ipsius (ut dicunt) pontificis latere legatus +discederet ... quasi aliorum legatorum creatio, quod erant jam in +Gallia, neque Roma proficiscerentur, non satis diligenter curare +negotium diceretur." Ib., 1462.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1191_1191" id="Footnote_1191_1191"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1191_1191"><span class="label">[1191]</span></a> "Grande hombre de entretenimientos y de encantar." +Vargas calls him. Letter to Granvelle, Nov. 15, 1561, Papiers d'état du +card. de Granvelle, vi. 416.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1192_1192" id="Footnote_1192_1192"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1192_1192"><span class="label">[1192]</span></a> "Diess waren zwölf gewiss mächtige Gründe," etc. Baum, +ii. 302; La Place, 153; Marc' Ant. Barbaro, Rel. des Amb. Vén., ii. 86.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1193_1193" id="Footnote_1193_1193"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1193_1193"><span class="label">[1193]</span></a> "Multum inde auri reportaturus existimetur, si ibi annum +vel biennium communi omnium more transigat." Santacrucii, de civil. +Galliæ diss. comment., 1464.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1194_1194" id="Footnote_1194_1194"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1194_1194"><span class="label">[1194]</span></a> That is, excepting the cardinal's hat, which his friends +informed him would be the reward of his services in France. Ibid., <i>ubi +supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1195_1195" id="Footnote_1195_1195"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1195_1195"><span class="label">[1195]</span></a> Ibid., 1462, 1463, 1465.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1196_1196" id="Footnote_1196_1196"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1196_1196"><span class="label">[1196]</span></a> Ibid., 1465.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1197_1197" id="Footnote_1197_1197"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1197_1197"><span class="label">[1197]</span></a> "Lugduno hucusque omnes fere declinavit urbes in +itinere, ut quæ jam habeant Ministros, et ideo irrisiones extimuerit." +Letter of Peter Martyr, Sept. 19th, Baum, ii., App., 68.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1198_1198" id="Footnote_1198_1198"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1198_1198"><span class="label">[1198]</span></a> "These artifices," wrote Languet from Paris at the time, +"impose upon no one; and especially from this man, who is very well +known here, who heretofore has surpassed even the highest princes in the +luxury and splendor of his mode of life, and of whose utter want of +knowledge of letters no one is ignorant." Letter of Sept. 20, 1561, +Epist. secr., ii. 140.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1199_1199" id="Footnote_1199_1199"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1199_1199"><span class="label">[1199]</span></a> La Place, 153.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1200_1200" id="Footnote_1200_1200"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1200_1200"><span class="label">[1200]</span></a> Ibid., <i>ubi supra</i>; Baum, ii. 305.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1201_1201" id="Footnote_1201_1201"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1201_1201"><span class="label">[1201]</span></a> Letter of the ambassador, Hurault de Bois-Taillé, July +12, 1561, Le Laboureur, Add. to Castelnau, i. 729. Hurault, however, +suspected that some mischief, which time would reveal, lay concealed +under this outward show of complaisance.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1202_1202" id="Footnote_1202_1202"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1202_1202"><span class="label">[1202]</span></a> La Place, 153.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1203_1203" id="Footnote_1203_1203"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1203_1203"><span class="label">[1203]</span></a> Ibid., <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1204_1204" id="Footnote_1204_1204"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1204_1204"><span class="label">[1204]</span></a> Compare Baum, ii. 302, 303.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1205_1205" id="Footnote_1205_1205"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1205_1205"><span class="label">[1205]</span></a> Santacrucii, de civil. Galliæ diss. com., 1465: "Quod +mirum in modum oderat episcopi Viterbensis et mores agrestes, et naturam +subacerbam, semperque, ut diximus, male ominantem." Vargas, viewing the +same personage from another point, was far more complimentary. Papiers +d'état du cardinal de Granvelle, vi. 404, 405.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1206_1206" id="Footnote_1206_1206"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1206_1206"><span class="label">[1206]</span></a> Marc' Antonio Barbaro, Relations des Ambassadeurs +Vénitiens, ii. 88; Letter of Santa Croce, Poissy, Nov. 15, 1561, Lettres +anecdotes écrites au card. Borromée par Prosper de Sainte-Croix, nonce +du pape Pie IV. auprès de Catherine de Medicis, 1561-1565. (Aymon, Tous +les synodes nat. (1710), i. 15.) Vargas, Spanish ambassador at the papal +court, who feared that the legate might be induced to lend his influence +to Navarre's scheme for procuring a restitution of his wife's domains, +or an equivalent for them, besieged the pontiff with accounts of his +scandalous intimacy with French heretics of rank. "Repetíle lo que otras +vezes le havia dicho, y con quanto escándolo y ofension de la religion +se tractava en Francia, estrechándose en amistad con Vandoma y almirante +Chatiglon, obispo de Valencia, y los demas principales hereges, con gran +desconsuelo y desfavor de los cathólicos; y de como no era hombre apto +para una legacion semejante," etc. He accused him of already aiming at +the pontifical see, as if it were now vacant, and urged his immediate +recall. Letter of Vargas to Philip II. from Rome, Nov. 7, 1561; Papiers +d'état du cardinal de Granvelle, vi. 403, 404; see also pp. 405, 406.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1207_1207" id="Footnote_1207_1207"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1207_1207"><span class="label">[1207]</span></a> Examine the curious passage in Santacrucii, de civil. +Galliæ diss. comment., 1470, 1471.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1208_1208" id="Footnote_1208_1208"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1208_1208"><span class="label">[1208]</span></a> See the correspondence of Vargas with Philip II. +(letters of Sept. 30, Oct. 3 and 7, 1561), Papiers d'état du card. +Granvelle, vi. 342, 372, and 380; De Thou, iii. 78, 79; or the very full +account of Prof. Soldan, i. 515-521.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1209_1209" id="Footnote_1209_1209"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1209_1209"><span class="label">[1209]</span></a> Rel. di Marc' Antonio Barbaro, Rel. des Amb. Vén., ii. +88, 89. "È proceduto esso ambasciatore con la regina e Navarra con +parole quasi sempre aspre e severe, minacciando di guerra dal canto del +re suo, et dicendo in faccia alle lor maestà parole assai gagliarde e +pungenti, e levando al re di Navarra del tutto la speranza della +ricompensa, stando le cose in quei termini, et ponendoli inanzi +l'inimicizia di Filippo."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1210_1210" id="Footnote_1210_1210"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1210_1210"><span class="label">[1210]</span></a> "Etenim si de ilia (spe) ejiceretur dubium non erat, +quin se totum ad Calvinistas converteret, et qui cum pudore ac +simultatione illis favebat, perfricta fronte eorum sectam ita +promoveret, ut brevissimo tempore totum Galliæ regnum occuparet." +Sanctacrucii, de civ. Gall. diss. comment., 1471.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1211_1211" id="Footnote_1211_1211"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1211_1211"><span class="label">[1211]</span></a> Ibid., 1473.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1212_1212" id="Footnote_1212_1212"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1212_1212"><span class="label">[1212]</span></a> Santacrucii, de civ. Galliæ diss. com., 1472, 1473. That +the whole affair was planned in deceit and treachery, is patent not only +from Santa Croce's account both in his letters and in his systematic +treatise, but from the whole of the Vargas correspondence. Even when the +Pope—much to the ambassador's disgust—thought of complying with +Antoine's request to intercede with Philip for some indemnification for +the loss of the kingdom of Navarre, he took the pains to explain that +his urgency would not amount to importunity, much less to a command; his +aim was only to feed Antoine with false hopes while France was in so +precarious a situation: "esto seria por cumplir con Vandome y +entretenerle, por estar Francia en los términos en que está," etc. +Papiers d'état du cardinal de Granvelle, vi. 344.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1213_1213" id="Footnote_1213_1213"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1213_1213"><span class="label">[1213]</span></a> De Thou, iii. 78, 79.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1214_1214" id="Footnote_1214_1214"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1214_1214"><span class="label">[1214]</span></a> Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 419 (the author of +which, however, erroneously gives the end of November as the date of +their departure); Jean de Serres, Commentarii de statu relig. et +reipubl., i. 345 (who makes the same mistake); De Thou, iii. 99. "Cur +autem aliquid adhuc spei habeam, illud etiam in causa est quod <i>nudius +tertius</i> Guisiani omnes serio discesserunt, omnibus bonis invisi, ac +plerisque etiam malis. Abiit quoque Turnonius et Conestabilis.... +Probabile est aliquid simul moliri, sed tamen incerto eventu. De hoc +intra paucos dies certi erimus, utinam ne nostro malo." Letter of Beza +to Calvin, Oct. 21, 1561, Baum, ii., App., 110.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1215_1215" id="Footnote_1215_1215"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1215_1215"><span class="label">[1215]</span></a> That the Huguenots were about this time as sanguine as +their opponents were despondent, may be seen from the prediction of +Languet (letter of October 9th), that unless the opposite party +precipitated a war within two or three months, everything would be safe; +so great would be the accession of strength that the reformers would +actually be the strongest. At court everything tended in that direction, +and the queen mother herself was not likely to try to stem the current. +Martyr, it was reported, had several times brought tears to her eyes, +when conversing with her. "However," dryly observes the diplomatist, "I +am not over-credulous in these matters." Epist. secr., ii. 145.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1216_1216" id="Footnote_1216_1216"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1216_1216"><span class="label">[1216]</span></a> Throkmorton to Queen Elizabeth, Paris, November 26, +1561, State Paper Office.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1217_1217" id="Footnote_1217_1217"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1217_1217"><span class="label">[1217]</span></a> Others besides Jeanne were apprehensive. The Viscount de +Gruz, in his memorial to Queen Elizabeth (Sept. 24, 1561), stated that +the king's constitution was so bad that he was not likely to live long, +for he ate and slept very little. His brothers were equally infirm in +health. Monsieur D'Orléans had a very bad cough, and the physicians +feared that he had the disease of his late brother, Francis; while +Monsieur D'Anjou had been ill for more than a year, and was dying from +day to day. State Paper Office.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1218_1218" id="Footnote_1218_1218"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1218_1218"><span class="label">[1218]</span></a> Letters of Beza, Oct. 21st and Nov. 4th, <i>ubi supra</i>. +"Tantum abest ut impetrarim (abeundi facultatem) ut etiam regina ipsa me +accersitum expresse rogarit ut saltem ad tempus manerem."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1219_1219" id="Footnote_1219_1219"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1219_1219"><span class="label">[1219]</span></a> "Nam ex singulis parlamentis duo huc evocantur ad diem +decembris vicesimum," etc. Beza to Calvin, Oct. 30, Baum, ii., App., +117; Histoire ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 418.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1220_1220" id="Footnote_1220_1220"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1220_1220"><span class="label">[1220]</span></a> "Je ny voulu faillir de vous advertir," writes the +Prince of Condé in an autograph postscript of a letter (of Oct. 10th) +thanking the magistrates of Zurich for Martyr's visit to France, "des +entreprinses des Seigneurs de Guyse et de Nemours, ennemys de la vraye +religion, qui, voyants que soub le regne du roy de France, le regne de +Jesus Christ sestoit tellement advance que facillement lon pouvoit +appercepvoir que la tyrannie de Lantechrist de Romme seroit en brief +totallement dechassee du dit pays, apres sestre bande du coste du Roy +d'Espaigne, pour maintenir la dicte tyrannie papale delibererent de +desrober et emmener en Espaigne, au Roy Phelippe, le second fils de +France monsieur d'Orleans, esperans que soub le nom du dit jeusne prince +frere du Roy ils auroient occasion de faire la guerre en France et +contre les Evangelistes, estimans que bientost le pape donneroit le +royaulme de France au premier occupant selon sa Tyrannique coustume," +etc. Baum, ii., App., 102, 103. Nemours, after his conspiracy was +discovered, fled from court. He wrote, however, disclaiming any ulterior +object in his invitations to the young Prince of Orleans, to whom he had +in jest proposed to go with him to Spain.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1221_1221" id="Footnote_1221_1221"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1221_1221"><span class="label">[1221]</span></a> Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 419-421. Cf. Beza to +Calvin, Nov. 4th, Baum, ii., App., 120.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1222_1222" id="Footnote_1222_1222"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1222_1222"><span class="label">[1222]</span></a> Letter of Beza, Nov. 4th, <i>ubi supra</i>; "Regina nescio +quo modo libenter me videt, quod est apud multos testata, et re ipsa sum +expertus. Ideo cupiunt nostri proceres me his manere, quasi fidei et +obedientias nostrarum Ecclesiarum obsidem tantisper dum in futuro illo +conventu aliquid certi constituatur, et ipsi conventui me volunt +interesse."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1223_1223" id="Footnote_1223_1223"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1223_1223"><span class="label">[1223]</span></a> Beza's letters, <i>apud</i> Baum, ii., App., 117, 121, 122; +Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 418.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1224_1224" id="Footnote_1224_1224"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1224_1224"><span class="label">[1224]</span></a> "Graces à Dieu, les choses sont bien changées en peu +d'heure, estant maintenant faicts guardiens des assemblées ceux-là mesme +qui nous menoyent en prison." Postscript to Beza's letter of Nov. 4th, +Baum, ii., App., 122.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1225_1225" id="Footnote_1225_1225"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1225_1225"><span class="label">[1225]</span></a> "C'est merveille des auditeurs des leçons de Monsieur +Calvin; jestime quils sont journellement plus de mille." Letter of De +Beaulieu, Geneva, Oct. 3, 1561, Baum, ii., App., 92.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1226_1226" id="Footnote_1226_1226"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1226_1226"><span class="label">[1226]</span></a> Letter of De Beaulieu, <i>ubi supra</i>, 91.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1227_1227" id="Footnote_1227_1227"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1227_1227"><span class="label">[1227]</span></a> "Mais ne nous a esté possible jamais recouvrer ung +ministre, quelque diligence que nous avons faicte, seulement par +quelqu'un de nous faisons faire des prières ainsi que par vostre Eglise +sont dressées." Lettre de l'église de Foix à la Vénérable Compagnie +(1561); Gaberel, i., Pièces justif., 165-167.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1228_1228" id="Footnote_1228_1228"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1228_1228"><span class="label">[1228]</span></a> Lettre de Fornelet à, l'église de Neufchatel, Oct. 6, +1561, Baum, ii., App., 95-100, Bulletin, xii. 361-366; Letter of +Fornelet to Calvin, of the same date, Bulletin, etc., xiv. 365.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1229_1229" id="Footnote_1229_1229"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1229_1229"><span class="label">[1229]</span></a> Letter of De Beaulieu, <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1230_1230" id="Footnote_1230_1230"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1230_1230"><span class="label">[1230]</span></a> Letter of Jacques Sorel for the "classe" of Troyes, Oct. +13, 1561, Bulletin, xii. 352-355, Baum, ii., App., 103, 104.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1231_1231" id="Footnote_1231_1231"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1231_1231"><span class="label">[1231]</span></a> Otherwise, 15,000 or 20,000 Huguenots, of whom 2,000 or +3,000 were armed horsemen, would doubtless have come together, and +possibly seized some church edifices. The prince issued a very severe +order against future assailants. Letter of Languet, Oct. 17, 1561. +Epist. secr., ii. 149, 150. Ordonnance de M. le Prince de La +Roche-sur-Yon, lieutenant-général de sa Majesté en la ville de Paris, +publié le 16 Octobre 1561, Mém. de Condé, i. 57-59. Bruslart, as usual, +misrepresents the whole affair, i. 56. Languet was present with the +Protestants.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1232_1232" id="Footnote_1232_1232"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1232_1232"><span class="label">[1232]</span></a> Languet, ii. 155.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1233_1233" id="Footnote_1233_1233"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1233_1233"><span class="label">[1233]</span></a> Mémoires de Philippi (Collection Michaud et Poujoulat), +624, 625: "Le populaire des fidèles continuoit de mettre en pièces les +sepulchres, déterrer les morts, et faire mille follies.... Le peuple +porta sa haine jusqu'aux bennets quarrés, et les gens de justice furent +obligés de prendre des chapeaux ou bonnets ronds."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1234_1234" id="Footnote_1234_1234"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1234_1234"><span class="label">[1234]</span></a> As a single instance out of many, I cite a passage from +a letter of Pierre Viret to Calvin (Nismes, Oct. 31, 1561), illustrative +of the relation of the Huguenot ministers to the acts of mistaken zeal +with which this period abounded: "Hic apud nos omnia sunt pacatissima, +Dei beneficio. Ego, quoad possum, studeo in officio continere non solum +nostros Nemausenses [inhabitants of Nismes], sed etiam vicinos omnes: +sed interea multis in locis et templa occupantur, et idola dejiciuntur +sine nostro consilio. Ego omnia Domino committo, qui pro sua bona +voluntate cuncta moderabitur." Baum, ii., App., 120.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1235_1235" id="Footnote_1235_1235"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1235_1235"><span class="label">[1235]</span></a> Letter from St. Germain, Nov. 4, 1561, Baum, ii., App., +121. "Denique nostros potius quam adversaries metuo."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1236_1236" id="Footnote_1236_1236"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1236_1236"><span class="label">[1236]</span></a> Mém. de Condé, i. 67, etc.; Letter of Santa Croce (Nov. +15, 1561), in Cimber et Danjou, vi. 5, 6, and Aymon, i. 5.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1237_1237" id="Footnote_1237_1237"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1237_1237"><span class="label">[1237]</span></a> Santa Croce, <i>ubi supra</i>. Of the Cardinal of Ferrara's +apprehensions and the grounds for them, Shakerley, the legate's own +organist, and a spy of the English ambassador, secretly wrote to +Throkmorton from the French court at St. Germain: "Here is new fire, +here is new green wood reeking; new smoke and much contrary wind blowing +against Mr. Holy Pope; for in all haste the King of Navarre with his +tribe will have another council, and the Cardinal [of Ferrara] stamps +and takes on like a madman, and goeth up and down here to the Queen, +there to the Cardinal of Tournon, with such unquieting of himself as all +the house marvels at it." Shakerley to Throkmorton, Dec. 16, 1561, State +Paper Office. Printed in Froude, vii. 391. When a "holy friar" was +preaching before the court, his sermon "being without salt," the hearers +laughed, the king played with his dog, Catharine went to sleep, and +Ferrara "plucked down his cap." Same to same, Dec. 14, 1561, "two +o'clock after midnight." This industrious correspondent, who employed +the small hours of the night in transmitting to the English ambassador +his master's secrets, confessed to Throkmorton that he had no belief in +the depth of Ferrara's assumed concern, having "so marked the living of +priests" that he believed that "whensoever they are sure to have the +same livings that they have without being troubled, they care not an the +Pope were hanged, with all his indulgences," Letter of Dec. 16, 1561. +State Paper Office.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1238_1238" id="Footnote_1238_1238"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1238_1238"><span class="label">[1238]</span></a> Journal de Bruslart, Mém. de Condé, i. 60, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1239_1239" id="Footnote_1239_1239"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1239_1239"><span class="label">[1239]</span></a> Ibid., i. 65; a highly colored, partisan, and +consequently inaccurate account is given by Claude Haton, i. 214-221. T. +Shakerley, in his letter of Dec. 16th, relates the friar's interview +with Catharine, who, on seeing the fellow's boldness and the strength of +his popularity among the merchants of Paris (at least sixty of whom +escorted him), easily accepted his disclaimers, told him "she was much +content to hear that his preaching was good, without giving trouble to +the people," and bade him "go his way and preach and fear no harm, for +it should always please her son and her that the people should be taught +as in old time they had been preached unto." The intercession of the +Parisians, accompanied "by offers of forty thousand crowns pledge of his +forthcoming," Shakerley affirms, "has given <i>such a blow to the +preachers of the other side</i> [the Huguenots] that there is <i>wonderful +change</i>." State Paper Office.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1240_1240" id="Footnote_1240_1240"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1240_1240"><span class="label">[1240]</span></a> "Y quando leyó aquel passo de la letra (que si la reyna +madre no quisiesse el ayuda que se le offrescia, la darie V. M. á quien +se la pidiesse para favorescer la religion y conservarle en la verdad) +reparó un rato <i>y hechó á V. M. muchas bendiciones, diziendo que aquello +era un principe veramente cathólico y defensor de la religion, y que no +esperava ménos de V. M.</i>" Vargas to Philip II., Nov. 7, 1561, Papiers +d'état du card. de Granvelle, vi. 399. The Pope had agreed to assist the +orthodox party with sixty galleys (Ibid., vi. 437), and he cared little +if the French knew that he was in league with Philip (Ibid., vi. +401)—their fears might serve as a check upon their insolence.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1241_1241" id="Footnote_1241_1241"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1241_1241"><span class="label">[1241]</span></a> "Qui premier voulsist monstrer les dens audist Sieur de +Vendosme et ses adhérens."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1242_1242" id="Footnote_1242_1242"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1242_1242"><span class="label">[1242]</span></a> "Rapport secret du secrétaire Courtewille, et fondement +de son envoy devers Madame la duchesse de Parma ès Pays-Bas en Decembre, +1561." Papiers d'état du card. de Granvelle, vi. 433, etc. Letter of +Margaret of Parma to Philip II., Dec. 13, 1561, Ibid., vi. 444, seq.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1243_1243" id="Footnote_1243_1243"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1243_1243"><span class="label">[1243]</span></a> "E s'avesse quello spirito che aveva il padre, o il +padre avesse avuto la presente fortuna, la Francia non saria più +Francia."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1244_1244" id="Footnote_1244_1244"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1244_1244"><span class="label">[1244]</span></a> Michel Suriano, Rel. des Amb. Vén., i. 558-562.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1245_1245" id="Footnote_1245_1245"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1245_1245"><span class="label">[1245]</span></a> Discours sur le Saceagement des Eglises Catholiques ... +en l'an 1562. Par F. Claude de Sainctes, 1563. Reprinted in Cimber et +Danjou, iv. 371. Claude Haton, i. 177, 178. I need not stop to refute +these partial statements. They are not surprising, coming as they do +from writers who accept all the vile stories of Huguenot midnight orgies +with unquestioning faith.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1246_1246" id="Footnote_1246_1246"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1246_1246"><span class="label">[1246]</span></a> It is described in an "arrêt" of parliament as "une +maison size au fauxbourg S. Marcel, rue de Mouffetard, vulgairement +dicte la maison du Patriarche, pour ce que un patriarche d'Alexandrie +déchassé par les barbares la fit anciennement bastir, ayant entrée sur +la grande rue dudict S. Marcel." Félibien, Hist. de Paris, iv., Preuves, +806.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1247_1247" id="Footnote_1247_1247"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1247_1247"><span class="label">[1247]</span></a> De Thou (iii. 100) is much below the mark in stating the +number at about two thousand; the author of the "Histoire véritable de +la mutinerie" does not seem to exaggerate when he estimates it at twelve +thousand to thirteen thousand. The congregation was unusually large, the +day being the festival of St. John, and a holiday. The day before, the +Protestants had for the first time been permitted to assemble on a +feast-day, and Beza himself had preached without interruption to crowded +audiences at Popincourt and at the Patriarche. He had again preached on +the morning of St. John's Day. Letter of Beza to Calvin, Dec, 30, 1561, +Baum, ii., App., 148.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1248_1248" id="Footnote_1248_1248"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1248_1248"><span class="label">[1248]</span></a> Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 422.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1249_1249" id="Footnote_1249_1249"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1249_1249"><span class="label">[1249]</span></a> That the disturbance was premeditated is proved by the +fact, attested by the Histoire véritable, p. 60, that the precious +possessions of the church had been removed from St. Médard a few hours +before its occurrence. Its object was clearly revealed by the haste with +which the parliament despatched a messenger to St. Germain, to solicit +the king in council to revoke the permission heretofore granted the +Protestants to meet in the suburbs of Paris. Hist. ecclés. des égl. +réf., i. 422.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1250_1250" id="Footnote_1250_1250"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1250_1250"><span class="label">[1250]</span></a> With this scene the connection of the "Patriarche" with +the reformed services disappears from history. It had been let to the +Protestants by a merchant of Lucca, who was himself only a tenant. In +the ensuing summer the owner, moved by displeasure for the impiety of +the religious services it had witnessed, made a gift of the "Patriarche" +to the parliament, asking that it might be employed for the relief of +the poor and other charitable purposes. Arrêt of parliament, Aug. 18, +1562, Félibien, iv., Preuves, 806. Of course, Saint Médard was suitably +propitiated by solemn expiatory processions and pageantry.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1251_1251" id="Footnote_1251_1251"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1251_1251"><span class="label">[1251]</span></a> And with every indignity on the part of the people. See +extracts from "Journal de 1562," in Baum, ii. 480, 481. The authorities +I have made use of in the account of the St. Médard riot given in the +text are: "Histoire véritable de la mutinerie, tumulte et sédition, +faite par les Prestres Sainct Médard contre les Fideles, le Samedy xxvii +iour de Decembre, 1561" (in Recueil des choses mémorables, 822, etc.; +Mém. de Condé, ii. 541, etc.; Cimber et Danjou, iv. 49, etc.), a +contemporaneous pamphlet written by an eye-witness; other documents +inserted in Mém. de Condé, among them the Journal de Bruslart, i. 68; +Letter of Beza, who was present, to Calvin, Dec. 30, 1561, <i>apud</i> Baum, +ii. App., 148-150; Hist. ecclés., i. 421; De Thou, iii. 100; Claude +Haton, i. 179, etc.; Castelnau, l. iii., c. 5; J. de Serres, i. 346; +Claude de Sainctes, Saccagement (in Cimber et Danjou). It is almost +superfluous to add that the Roman Catholic and Protestant authorities +differ widely in the coloring given to the event. If any reader should +be inclined to think that I have given undue weight to the Huguenot +representations, let him examine the Roman Catholic De Thou—here, as +everywhere, candid and impartial.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1252_1252" id="Footnote_1252_1252"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1252_1252"><span class="label">[1252]</span></a> De Thou, iii. (liv. xxix.) 118-123; Eecueil des choses +mém., 686-695; Mémoires de Condé, ii. 606, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1253_1253" id="Footnote_1253_1253"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1253_1253"><span class="label">[1253]</span></a> Abbé Bruslart accuses Chancellor L'Hospital of packing +the convention with delegates of the parliaments who were his creatures; +"La pluspart desquels avoient esté éleus et choisis par monsieur le +Chancelier De l'Hospital, <i>qui n'estoit sans grande suspition</i>." Journal +de Bruslart, Mém. de Condé, i. 70.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1254_1254" id="Footnote_1254_1254"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1254_1254"><span class="label">[1254]</span></a> Strange to say, Santa Croce employs, in his letters to +Cardinal Carlo Borromeo, the very same despairing expressions as those +for the use of which in his Latin commentaries he condemns Gualtieri. He +wishes to be recalled; he declares: "Che questo regno è nell' estrema +ruina, che non vi è speranza alcuna, che si vede cascar a occhiate, che +tutto è infetto, in capite et in membris," and that he does not want to +be present at the funeral of this wretched kingdom. Letter of January 7, +1562, Aymon, i. 21, 22; Cimber et Danjou, vi. 16,17.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1255_1255" id="Footnote_1255_1255"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1255_1255"><span class="label">[1255]</span></a> Ibid., <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1256_1256" id="Footnote_1256_1256"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1256_1256"><span class="label">[1256]</span></a> Letter of Santa Croce, Jan. 15, 1562, Aymon, i. 35-40.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1257_1257" id="Footnote_1257_1257"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1257_1257"><span class="label">[1257]</span></a> Of <i>forty-nine</i> opinions, <i>twenty-two</i> were given in +favor of an unconditional grant of the Protestant demand for churches, +<i>sixteen</i> for a simple toleration of their religious assemblies and +worship, such as had been informally practised for the last two months, +while <i>eleven</i> stood out boldly for the continued hanging and burning of +heretics. Among the most determined of these last were the Constable and +Cardinal Tournon. Much to their regret, they saw themselves compelled to +acquiesce in a liberal policy which they detested, in order to avoid +opening the doors wide to the establishment of Protestantism in France. +See Baum, Theodor Beza, ii. 499. Compare, on the course of the +proceedings, Beza's letters and those of Santa Croce, <i>ubi supra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1258_1258" id="Footnote_1258_1258"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1258_1258"><span class="label">[1258]</span></a> See the text of the Edict of January, in Du Mont, Corps +diplomatique, v. 89-91; Mém. de Condé, iii. 8-15; Agrippa d'Aubigné, +liv. ii., t. i. 124-128; J. de Serres, etc.</p></div> + +</div> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2), by +Henry Martyn Baird + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RISE OF THE HUGENOTS *** + +***** This file should be named 22762-h.htm or 22762-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/2/7/6/22762/ + +Produced by Sigal Alon, Daniel J. 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