Papal Intrigues in France during the Reign of Clovis--of
Childeric III--of Pepin--of Charlemagne--of Hugh Capet--of
Philip IV.--of Louis XII---of Francis I.--of Francis II--of
Charles IX.--of Henry JTK--of Louis XIII--of Louis XIV.
The subtile poison of Catholicism was instilled into the French
government under the reign of Clovis, the Great, who succeeded his
father Childeric, King of the Franks, in 481. Aspiring to extend the
territory of his kingdom, which was confined within the sea and the
Scheldt, he made war upon Syagrius, the Roman governor at Soissons;
captured and put him to death; subjugated Paris, and the cities of
Belgia Secunda; and to obtain assistance in conquering the Allemanni;
espoused Clotilda, neice of Gundebald, King of Burgundy. Clotilda, who
had been educated by the Catholic priests, became in their hands an
instrument for the conversion of her royal husband. Conceiving that
the God and religion of Catholicism were better able to aid him in
completing his intended conquests than were the God and religious
contrivances of Paganism, Clovis submitted to be baptized by St.
Remigius, and anointed with some holy oil which the bishop affirmed had
been brought by a dove from heaven. The crimes and devotion of the king,
in the cause of the church, were rewarded with numberless miracles and
instances of divine interposition. A white hart of singular statue and
brilliancy became the conductor of his army through secret passes, a
dazzling meteor blazed forth as his forces approached the cathedral
at Poitiers, and the walls of Angouleme fell down at the blast of his
warlike bugle. Imbibing the orthodoxy of the bishops, he imbibed also
their hatred to the heretics. "It grieves me," said he to a company
of princes and warriors assembled at Paris, "to see the Arians still
possess the fairest portions of Gaul. Let us march against them with
the aid of God; and, having vanquished the heretics we will possess and
divide their fertile provinces." His savage piety led him to declare
that had he been at the trial of Christ he would have prevented his
crucifixion. He summoned and dismissed a council of Gaulic bishops; and
then deliberately assassinated all the princes belonging to his family.
After having removed, by violence or treachery, the princes of the
different Frankish tribes, incorporated their government into his own,
stained the soil with the blood of its proprietors and defenders, bowed
in abject reverence before the clergy, and committed the most fiendish
and heartrending atrocities, the pope of Rome, in consideration of his
piety and usefulness, bestowed upon him the title of "The most Christian
King and Eldest Son of the Church."
While the pope professed to be the humble successor of St. Peter, the
fisherman, he was secretly laboring to become the successor of the
Caesars, the masters of the world. With this end in view he had scattered
his monks throughout Europe to preach the doctrines of humility,
of passive obedience, of reverence for the clergy, and of absolute
submission to himself. The support which these doctrines gave to
despotism rendered them acceptable to kings, and the conveniency with
which they supplied the want of morality made them popular with the
multitude. The arts and miracles of the holy brotherhood excited the
wonder, and commanded the reverence of the crowd; and their tact
and sycophancy enabled them to become the companions of kings, the
instructors of princes, the confessors of all classes, and the spies
upon the most secret recesses of their thoughts. The avaricious
character of their religious principles enabled them to accept without
scruple the spoils of plundering expeditions, and to augment the stores
of their wealth by artful tricks and pious frauds. The success of
their missionary rapacity enabled them to build spacious convents,
sufficiently sumptuous for the accommodation of pious kings who wished
to abdicate their thrones. The dungeons of these sanctuaries sometimes
contained a monarch, an heir to a throne, or some distinguished
personage whom usurpation, jealousy, ambition or tyranny had there
confined; and sometimes their halls afforded a hospitable asylum for the
sick, the indigent, or the refugee from oppression.
The popes having, with their usual skill and prudence, established the
various parts of their political machinery in different sections of
Europe, and sanctified them in the eyes of princes and people, eagerly
watched every opportunity to set them in motion in favor of their
cherished design. The Saracens, however, entered Europe, and threatened
to subjugate it to the authority of the religion of Mahomet; but the
hammer of Charles Martel, Mayor of France, which alone crushed 375,000
of the invaders, checked the career of their triumphant arms. But as the
warrior had applied the riches of the church to the necessities of
the state and the relief of his soldiers, a synod of Catholic bishops
declared that the man who had saved the Catholic church from extinction,
was doomed to the flames of hell on account of his sacrilege. The
inspired synod, in arriving at this orthodox conclusion was assisted by
the reported facts, that a saint while dreaming had seen the soul of the
savior of Europe, and of Christianity, burning in hell, and that
upon opening his coffin a strong odor of fire and brimstone had been
perceived. The pope entertained a better opinion of his son Carloman,
whose superstition strikingly resembled the malady of insanity. This
Mayor of France, while exercising the regal authority of his office, was
induced by his spiritual advisers to resign his dignity; to consecrate
the remainder of his life to God by shutting himself up in a convent;
and to give all his private possessions and valuables to the church. The
design which prompted this intrigue seems to have been, to prepare the
way for the usurpation of the crown of the Franks, by Pepin, the Short.
The pope well knew Pepin was ambitious of the diadem, and had only been
deterred from supplanting Childeric III., the King of France,--who was
but a youth--by fear of Carloman. This obstacle being removed by the
retirement of the devout warrior, Pepin consulted Pope Zachary about
his intentions, who replied: "He only ought to be king who exercised the
royal power." Encouraged by this papal sanction of prospective treason
and usurpation, he had the office of _Mais du Palais_ abolished, himself
proclaimed King of France, and Childeric imprisoned in a monastic
dungeon, in which he was obliged to pass the remainder of his life.
The interests of the pope and Pepin, by these artful machinations,
became deeply interwoven. The critical state of the Holy See soon
developed the sagacity and good policy of the pope. The Lombards entered
Italy, conquered the Exarchate, and threatened the reduction of Rome.
Oppressed with these misfortunes, the holy father appeared in the camp
of Pepin, dressed in mourning and covered with ashes, soliciting
the assistance of his arms in the defence of the church, and of the
Consulate government of Rome. But Pepin was more ready to speculate
on the misfortunes of the pope than to assist him in his distress. The
cruelties which stained the usurpers crown made him apprehensive of
insecurity. He therefore signified to the supplicant a willingness to
comply with his wishes, if he would officially sanction all the acts of
usurpation of which he had been guilty, crown his two sons, and anoint
them with the holy oil which the dove had brought from heaven. Terms
being satisfactorily arranged between the two parties, Pepin drew his
sword and reconquered the greater part of Italy.
The tricks, sophistry, and eloquence of the monks having failed to
convert the Saxons to the church, the pope was disposed to try the
efficacy of the sword. Charlemagne, Pepin's son, having succeeded to the
Frankish throne, and papal influence having gained the ascendency in his
councils, he was without difficulty tempted to unfurl his banner in the
cause of the church. But the Saxons were courageous warriors, full of
the love of independence and of liberty; and when the alternative of
extinction or Catholicism was presented to their choice, their proud
spirit gave a desperate valor to their arms, in the maintenance of their
rights of existence and of religious liberty. Against superior numbers,
they defended the integrity of their empire for thirty-three years; and
had not their chief advised to the contrary, would rather have suffered
extermination than to have submitted to a religion baptized in blood,
founded upon fraud and treachery, and forced upon their acceptance
against their reason and conscience, and by a sword reeking with the
blood of their fellow countrymen. The arms of Charlemagne, and the
religion and policy of the pope triumphed; but not until the land
was depopulated, the country converted into a desert, and the cost of
subjugation outbalanced the value of the victory.
The competition between aspiring candidates for the opulent bishopric
of Rome had often been productive of turmoil and bloodshed. The favorite
and intended successor of Adrian I. having been disappointed by the
unexpected election of Leo III., his exasperated adherents attacked the
sacred procession on the occasion, assaulted the chosen vicar of Christ,
and, as it is alleged, cut out his tongue, dug out his eyes, and left
him dead on the ground. But a miracle, it is averred, interposed in his
behalf; restored his life, eyes and tongue; and enabled him to escape
a repetition of the outrage by gaining the invisible precincts of the
Vatican.
After having received this assistance from heaven he invoked the
temporal aid of the Duke of Spoleto, and of the friendly interposition
of Charlemagne in his favor. By the influence of these secular princes
he was enabled to ascend the sacerdotal throne, and to exercise his
spiritual authority in banishing his competitors and their adherents.
On a visit of Charlemagne to Rome, after these events, the pope abruptly
crowned him with a diadem, invested him with the regalia of the
Caesars, anointed him with the holy oil which the dove had conveyed
from Paradise, and pronounced him the pious Caesar crowned by God. The
emperor who, professing to have been astonished at the pope's singular
conduct, nevertheless took an oath to preserve the faith and privileges
of the church. Agreeably to this oath he entrusted the clergy with
temporal and civil jurisdiction, expended more cost and labor in the
construction of cathedrals than on useful undertakings, and as the
demons of the air had admonished the payment of tithes he enforced their
exaction with extreme rigor. The favor and liberal indulgence of the
pope enabled the emperor, consistently with his Catholicism to enjoy the
possession of nine wives, to divert his capricious fancy with numberless
mistresses, to prolong the celibacy of his daughters that it might
extend the period of an illicit commerce, and to become the father of
numerous illegitimate children, whom, however, in atonement for his
indiscretions, he consecrated to the priesthood.
The barbarity and usurpations of which Charlemagne was guilty, in the
enlargement of his vast empire, naturally made him suspicious of the
loyalty of his subjects; and the frequent outbursts which disturbed
the peace of certain sections excited his most painful fears for the
stability of his throne. To prevent the disorganization of a power
which he had constructed with so much labor, but endangered with so
much crime, he imprudently scorned the wisdom of adopting concessionary
measures, and had recourse to the artifices of priestcraft. Dividing the
empire between two of his sons, he had them crowned and anointed with
the celestial oil, in expectation that these superstitious ceremonies
would excite in the minds of his subjects such reverence for the
imperial dignity as would secure in its favor their devout allegiance.
But this arrangement excluding his eldest son--the issue of a
divorced wife--from an equal participation with his brothers in the
administration of the government, excited him to rebel against the
authority of his father. His attempt to obtain by arms the justice
denied by parental authority was, in consequence of the loyalty of the
papal political machinery, unsuccessful; and the injured son was obliged
to expiate the guilt of his unfilial insubordination by serving the
church in the capacity of a monk, and passing the remainder of his days
in a monastic dungeon.
This conspiracy was not the only result that was produced by the policy
of Charlemagne, in substituting superstition in the place of justice in
his efforts to conciliate popular dissatisfaction. While it lent a
prop to the governmental structure, it furnished an instrument for
undermining its foundation. The division of the monarchy gave occasion,
after Charlemagne's death, to fraternal disputes and civil conflicts;
and as these disorders favored the pope's ambitious desire to succeed
to the crown and dominion of the Caesars, they were kept active by his
machinery until the empire was disintegrated.
The last survivor of the Carlovingian dynasty was Charles, Duke of
Lorraine. The subjects of the realm at that period had become greatly
dissatisfied concerning the oppressive privileges which the clergy
enjoyed, as well as with the impoverishing exactions which they extorted
from their industry. With these popular grievances the temper and
disposition of Charles engaged his warmest sympathies. Pope John XVI.,
elected in 986, perceiving that the heir presumptive to the throne
would, when he acceded to power, listen to the complaints and lessen the
burdens of his subjects; and acting on the historic motive of the Holy
See, in making rulers its tools, and changing dynasties to suit its
purposes, induced the Frankish nobility to proclaim Hugh Capet King
of France. But before this sycophantic papal favorite could be crowned
king, and anointed with the holy oil, he was obliged to swear to
preserve the clergy in all the privileges and immunities which they
enjoyed. Against this formidable conspiracy Charles found himself
powerless; and after making some demonstrations against the usurper,
retired to Lyons, which place was capable of withstanding a vigorous
siege. With great skill and energy, but without any flattering success,
his adversary assailed the strong-built fortifications. The success
which valor denied was, however, accorded by treachery. The bishop of
the city having entered into secret negotiations with Capet, the gates
were thrown open at midnight; and the usurper entering the precincts
amid the stillness of the hour captured the royal family, surprised
Charles in bed and threw him into prison, from which he was never
liberated. The Capitian dynasty, thus founded in fraud, violence and
usurpation, and unsupported by a shadow of legal right, stands forth
in history as the grand champion of the legitimacy of kings, or their
divine right to rule by virtue of their descent, independent of the
consent of the governed. The dynasties of empires and the political
events of nations are so intimately connected with the domestic affairs
of royal families, that in order to control the one, papal intrigue has
constantly intermeddled with the other, Robert II., who became king
of France in 997, married Bertha, his cousin, a lady of inestimable
qualities. The royal pair were a model of connubial loveliness and
felicity; but when an heir had completed the perfection of their
happiness the pope interfered, and by the exercise of his sacred
authority, embittered the remainder of their existence. Robert not
having purchased of the church an indulgence for marrying a cousin, Pope
Sylvester II. pronounced the conjugal union illegal, and commanded the
king to abandon his wife. To be guilty of an offence of such a henious
character against the most amiable of women; to act in violation of
all his matrimonial vows and obligations; to spurn his lawful wife as a
prostitute, and to declare his children bastards, was a complication of
iniquity which Robert declared to the pope that he would rather die than
commit. But the obdurate and savage-hearted holy father, whom the view
of no misfortune could move, in order to reduce the king to obedience
proceeded to pronounce a sentence of excommunication against him. This
act was designed to call into requisition all the appliances of the
pope's machinery in blasting the happiness of two persons, whose worth
was unequaled in the kingdom, and perhaps unsurpassed in the records of
history. Accordingly the churches were draped in mourning; the pictures
of the images of the saints shrouded in black; the bells were tolled
night and day; religious worship was suspended in the kingdom; and no
funeral ceremony allowed to be performed. The immaculate Bertha was
declared polluted; stories were circulated that she had given birth to
a monster, which had the head of a savage and the tail of a serpent; the
poor, on whom she had been accustomed to bestow charity, now fled at her
approach; her domestics broke the costly vases which adorned the palace,
and taking the viands from the royal table dashed them into the fire.
Consternation seized the populace; and priests, courtiers and people
fled alike from the sight of the amiable couple, as if they were
destructive monsters. At length, through the repeated requests of
Bertha, Robert agreed to a separation, and allowed her to retire to
a convent. This act, by which he placed his wife at the mercy of
licentious priests, conciliated the vengeance of the sacerdotal monster.
During the reign of Philip II., who became king of France in 1180,
the province of Languedoc enjoyed an eminent degree of liberty and
prosperity. The charters which the subjects had obtained from their
princes secured them in the enjoyment of many important civil rights,
fortified by such jealous guards as effectually protected them against
the encroachments of executive power. This liberality in their
political constitution encouraged liberality in religious inquiry, which
consequently led to doubts of the pope's right to temporal power. At
the flourishing city of Albi these progressive ideas assumed a definite
shape in an organization of the people, which received the appellation
of the Albigenses. The pope finding this sectary increasing in numbers
and popularity, in spite of the vigorous counteracting efforts of his
appliances of bishops, priests and monks, ordered Raymond VI., Count of
Toulouse, to compel the Albigenses, by force of arms, to change their
religious views. As Raymond of Rogers, Count of Beziers, nephew of
Raymond VI., had declared in favor of the reformer, the Count of
Toulouse refuse to oblige the pope by taking up arms against the Count
of Beziers. On account of this determination, dictated by a high and
delicate sense of duty and honor, the pope pronounced sentence of
excommunication against him. In addition to this insulting manifesto, he
commissioned his legate to raise an army of the cross, for the purpose
of exterminating the reformers and their allies. This authorized
desperado, through the energetic co-operation of the pope's political
machinery, soon collected a numerous army of crusaders; and imposing on
them a horrible oath that they would exterminate the Albigenses without
pity for the cries or tears of their wives or children, immediately
commenced the work of blood and devastation. As this army of murderers
approached the city of Carcassonne, an order was given not to leave
one stone upon another, and to put to death every man, woman, youth and
infant. The butchery was frightful, and mixed with the most fiendish
acts. To arrest the horrible work Raymond of Rogers offered to resign
his authority. With execrable treachery the legate pretended to be
willing to negotiate; but no sooner had he betrayed the Count into
his power than he incarcerated him in a dungeon, where he died after
experiencing years of suffering. After the removal of Raymond by this
base treachery, Carcasonne fell; and thirty thousand men, women and
children were butchered in one day. Tired of the terrible carnage, or
disgusted at its atrociousness, the chiefs of the army of the cross
declared to the legate, that among the crowd they could not distinguish
the heretic from the Catholic. "Kill on," replied the holy legate,
"God will know those which are his." The murderous army moved on; blood
flowed at every step; at Beziers sixty thousand were put to death; nor
did the carnage cease until the inhabitants of almost every town in
Languedoc, without distinction of age, sex or creed, were weltering
in their gore. As an express reward to Simon de Monfort for having
surpassed all others in hardihood and cruelty on those days of blood,
the pope bestowed upon him the devastated domains as a fief of the
church. But the soil sown with the bones of heroes, and enriched
with the blood of patriots, was prolific of formidable avengers;
who constantly shook the throne, and rendered it a calamity to its
blood-stained occupant. His son succeeded him; but not being able to
defend it against the uprising of the people, it was incorporated into
the French empire; but still the war raged, until 1226, when a peace was
concluded with Raymond IV., upon condition of his purchasing absolution
at an enormous price, and ceding the greater portion of his domains to
France.
In 1285, when Philip IV. ascended the throne of France, the despotism of
Rome had perpetually encroached on the rights of the sovereignty of the
government, and by an insidious policy subjected it more and more to its
influence. Among the privileges which the popes arrogated was the
right to arbitrate the controversies which arose between independent
sovereignties. A dispute having sprung up between Philip IV., of France,
and Edward I., of England, Pope Boniface VIII., wishing to enjoy the
advantage of dictating the terms of adjustment, arbitrarily attempted
to interfere in the controversy. This officious intermeddling in the
affairs of a sovereign state was resisted by Philip with patriotic
firmness. The irascible pope, transported with rage at the irreverence
and independence of Philip, and at the recollection of his liberal
governmental views and measures, interdicted all religious worship in
his dominions, and suspended the dispensation of the means of grace. But
the policy of Philip, in introducing the "third estates," or deputies of
the people, which had been instituted by Charlemagne, but discontinued
by Hugh Capet, and in his extending the jurisdiction of parliament over
the crowned heads, had fortified him in the affections of his subjects,
while the papal establishments, in extracting the life-blood from the
industrial classes, had weakened popular attachment to the Holy See. The
liberality of the king nullified the virtue of the Vatican thunder;
and the generous support which he commanded from the people, and from a
faction of the priests, enabled him to resist the intermeddling of the
pope with the rights of the crown; nay more, as the tyranny of the holy
father had rendered him unpopular in Italy, it placed him at the mercy
of a prince whom he had insulted and exasperated, and who was capable of
taking revenge. Accordingly, emissaries were sent to Rome who, seizing
the holy father while he was defiantly seated in the apostolic chair,
dragged him from his despotic throne, and cast him into prison. From
this ignominious predicament he was, however, shortly afterwards
released; but as his character was black with crime, it was determined
to summon a council for his deposition. Depressed with the expectation
of certain degradation, chagrined and mortified at the loss of his
dignity and the insults to his holiness, and having refused all
sustenance in confinement for fear of being poisoned, his constitution
broke down, and he died in a paroxysm of rage and fear before
arrangements could be completed for his trial. According to Catholic
authority, "he entered like a fox, reigned like a tiger, and died like
a dog." His condition after his death may be variously conjectured by
theologians according to their different creeds; but Dante, who was a
Catholic, places him in hell between Pope Nicholas III. and Pope Clement
V.
During the reign of Louis XII., who became King of France in 1498, the
duplicity and treachery which has in general characterized the history
of the papal intrigues obtained an illustration in the conduct of the
popes, which would have disgraced the chiefs of barbaric nations. Louis,
upon receiving the royal diadem, pardoned the wrongs which had been
done to him while he was duke, relieved the industry of his subjects by
reducing the burden of their taxation, elevated the literary standard of
the nation by the introduction of scientific collections, and displayed
a nobleness of disposition, and a capacity for the exercise of the
governmental functions prophetic of the highest degree of national
prosperity and greatness. Pope Julius II. before his election, had
professed the warmest friendship for Louis, and secured his influence
in gaining the sacerdotal crown. Having succeeded in this strategic
measure, his ambition led him to grasp at another object which he
conceived Louis's friendship might be made accessory in realizing. That
object was the obliteration of the Venitian republic. He accordingly
formed a holy league, called the "League of Cambray," with France,
Spain and Germany, for the accomplishment of his object. Faithful to
his obligations, Louis fought with distinguished bravery in the pope's
cause. His heroism won encomiums from all but from the holy father,
who was too jealous not to hate superiority, too selfish for sincere
friendship, and too sagacious not to perceive that in the further
developments of his aggressive designs he was bound to encounter in the
heroism and honor of Louis a powerful antagonist. The formidable valor
of the Venitian republicans in the defence of their government, the
mutual distrust among the allies, which they managed to excite, and
the conflicting interpretations of the terms of the compact eventually
dissolved the holy league. But the finesse of the pope, and the
adroitness with which he engineered his machinery, gave him the ability
to conciliate his difficulties with the republicans, and of inducing
that republic to unite with him in a league with Spain, England and
Switzerland, against France. Germany and France then called a council at
Pisa, for reformation in the head and body of the church; at the bar of
which they summoned the pope, to explain his conduct.
But scorning the mandate of the synod, he convened a council at the
Lateran; and causing a decree to be passed declaring Louis to have
forfeited his crown, excommunicated him, and interdicted the celebration
of religious worship in his kingdom. Louis was now assaulted by the
English at Guingate, by the Spanish at Navarre, by the Swiss at Dijon,
while his kingdom was internally convulsed by treacherous priests,
crafty spies, false friends, and unpatriotic Catholics. Unable to
contend against these formidable antagonists, he had to surrendered all
his possessions beyond the Alps and the Pyrenees.
Pope Leo X., who succeeded Julius II., governed by motives of nepotism
and ambition, concocted a scheme for obtaining for his family the
kingdom of Naples and the duchies of Ferrara and Urbino. At the
same time Louis entertained a design of reconquering Milan, which he
inherited from his grandmother, Valentina Visconti. The success of these
schemes depended on the mutual friendship of the projectors. The pope,
in order to secure the confidence of Louis, entered into a secret
alliance with him, and pretended to favor all his plans. But while he
was flattering his hopes, he was preparing to ruin his cause. To weaken
his resources he secretly sent Bambo, his legate, to Venice to detach
its alliance from France; and though this treacherous mission was
unsuccessful, yet when the French appeared on the confines of Italy, he
increased his power by the purchase of Modena, and finally reduced Louis
to a formal submission.
In 1515 Francis I, ascended the throne, and immediately commenced
preparations for the re-conquest of Milan. Pope Leo X., to defeat this
enterprise formed an alliance with Milan, Florence, Artois, Germany and
Switzerland. A bloody battle ensued in which tigers and giants seemed to
struggle with each other, and which was protracted without intermission
for two days and nights. France recovered Milan; the pope was reduced
to the last extremity; yet the prudence or superstition of Francis
concluded a concordat with him, upon such liberal terms as excited the
dissatisfaction of France, and the surprise of the world.
After this signal and generous triumph the belligerent powers became
reconciled. This event was hailed by the friends of humanity with united
acclamations. But the Holy See, whose policy has ever been to foster
wars and controversies between governments, that it might improve the
consequent confusion and disorder in aggrandizing its power, received
the news of pacification with chagrin and disappointment.
But Milan, which had cost France so much to win, was soon lost by the
conquest of Charles V., Emperor of Germany and King of Spain. This
prince having formed a league with Pope Leo X. against Francis
I.,--which league was afterwards joined by Henry VIII., of
England--active hostilities were soon commenced. After a war of
four disastrous years, the emperor captured Francis, obliged him to
relinquish his claims to Naples, Milan, Genoa, Asti, Flanders and
Artois; to dismember his kingdom by surrendering Burgundy; and to
ransom himself by the payment of 2,000,000 crowns. The popularity and
victorious march of the German emperor now alarmed the jealous fears of
the holy father, Pope Clement VII., who, apprehending in them his
own subjugation, united in an alliance with. Francis I:, the former
antagonist of the Roman See, and with all the Italian powers, to
arrest the dangerous triumphs of his new rival. The allies succeeded
in humbling the pride of Charles; but in the midst of their victories a
plague, more fearful than their foes, broke out in the French army, and
thinned its ranks with fearful mortality. This circumstance led to
the peace of Cambray. But the ambition of Francis, and his indomitable
thirst for the reconquest of Milan, soon led him to violate the terms
of this covenant. Confederating with Solyman II., Sultan of the Ottoman
empire, he drove Charles before his forces. The interest of the Holy See
being threatened by the successes of the allied army, and perhaps in
the event of the triumph of Charles not perfectly secure, Pope Paul
III. interposed his friendly mediation, and induced the belligerents to
conclude a truce of ten years.
In 1559 Francis II., son of Francis I., succeeded to the crown of
France. Amid the flattering successes of the papal intrigues, the rapid
progress of Protestantism in Europe, and the fearless boldness of its
advocates, occasioned great uneasiness to the Holy See. Scorning the
mild but able services of reason and conciliation, it counselled the
most sanguinary measures. The records of the times are consequently
filled with accounts of disorders, assassinations, massacres, and the
most deplorable conflicts. The French nation was divided into two
great factions; the one in favor of Catholicism, the other in favor
of Protestantism. By means of the papal machinery of bishops, abbots,
priests, monks and spies, the Catholics were made to believe that the
religious disorders which had convulsed the empire were but a prelude to
an intended extermination of all Romanists. To narrow-minded bigots, who
absurdly believed that their church afforded the only possible method of
escaping the pangs of purgatory, and of obtaining eternal happiness,
all the zeal which their hopes and fears of eternity could inspire was
awakened in the defence of their religion. While the Protestants who,
on the other hand, believed that Catholicism was idolatry, subversive
of Christianity, demoralizing in its tendency, and destructive of the
rights of conscience, reason and religious liberty, became equally
heated in the defence of their faith. Both factions had been educated in
intolerent principles; in the belief that error of opinion was perilous
to the soul; that it rendered a person a proper object of aversion
and denunciation; and, that a difference of opinion was a sufficient
justification of hatred and persecution. Both factions being educated in
the principles of bigotry and intolerance, nursed amid convulsions and
barbarity, embittered against each other by mutual provocations
and injury, were incapable of pacification by just and reasonable
concession. The Catholics, having the power, were enabled to inflict
on the Protestants the deeper injuries; and, to the credit of the
Protestants it will ever be remembered, that they sought not to
exterminate their foes, but to obtain equal rights with them.
The Cardinal of Lorraine, who had supervision of the clergy, and Henry,
Duke of Guise, the uncle of the king, who directed the military affairs,
were both uncompromising in their hostility to the Protestants. Antony
of Bourbon, King of Navarre, and his brother Louis, Prince of Conde,
being excluded from the governmental administration, united with the
Calvinists for the overthrow of the regime, under pretext of religious
zeal. Catherine de Medici, mother of the king, and niece of Pope Clement
VII., jealous of a power in which she could not participate, favored the
designs of Louis, and employed her art in stimulating the opposition of
the reformers to the administration of the Duke of Guise. Under these
circumstances a conspiracy against the duke was formed at Amboise,
which led to a murderous onslaught, and inaugurated civil war. Louis was
captured and condemned to death.
In the midst of the distraction of conflicting parties Francis I. died,
and Charles IX., in 1560, succeeded to the throne at the age of
ten years. Catherine de Medici, his mother, with the acquiesence of
parliament, administered the affairs of government. Although a bigoted
Catholic, yet having no principle but the love of sway, she was ready to
support any faction or creed that administered to her power, or removed
an obstacle to her ambition. Without profound views of policy, she
was incapable of either originating a great national object, or of
supporting it by adequate measures. So indomitable was her passion
for dominion, that it as much obdurated her maternal feelings as
it disqualified her for a judicious regent. She even studied to
incapacitate her sons for the exercise of the governmental functions,
and to divert their attention from the state of national affairs. With
this end in view she involved them in the grossest dissipation, and
strove to keep them in a perpetual whirl of voluptuous intoxication.
Perfect in the art of dissimulation, she cajoled Catholics and
Protestants. Anxious to obtain the support of all parties, she
alternately favored the one and the other. To embarrass the Duke
of Guise she threw everything into confusion; but to conciliate
the Protestants she had to redeem her pledges; and in spite of the
opposition of the court, to issue an act of toleration in their favor.
The lines of party became now distinctly drawn. The Protestant faction,
headed by the Prince of Conde, and Coligny, admiral of France, was
assisted by the English; and the Catholic faction, headed by Francis,
Duke of Guise, was assisted by Spain. At a season of intense public
excitement the Duke of Guise, with a band of adherents, was passing a
barn in which some Calvinists were singing psalms. Irritating taunts
were mutually exchanged between the two parties. This exasperating
conduct brought on a collision, in which sixty Calvinists were killed,
the flames of civil war ignited, and the empire divided and distracted
by the hostile conflicts of the two religious parties. The duke, at the
head of his forces, pursued the Protestants with pitiless revenge,
and the Protestants retaliated his cruelties with fearful retribution.
Desperate conflicts perpetually took place, and the land was drenched
with blood. The bigotry of both factions stained their cause with
deplorable excesses. At the battle of Dreux the belligerents came to a
decisive engagement. The Protestants were defeated, and Conde captured.
The Duke of Guise designing to crush Protestantism by striking a blow at
Orleans, its centre, commenced active preparations for the enterprise;
but while he was engaged in them he was shot by Poltrot de Mercy,
a Huguenot nobleman. Advising peace in his last moments, terms of
conciliation were accordingly offered the Protestants, which being
accepted, tranquillity was restored to the empire.
The arts of Catherine, the intolerance of Catholicism, and the suspicion
and fervor of Protestantism, soon convulsed the nation again with the
disorders of civil war. Aspiring to rule with more absolute power than
she had hitherto been able, Catherine conceived the idea of having the
king, whom she held helplessly under her control, declared to be
of competent age for the exercise of the royal functions. This
accomplished, she made a tour through the empire in company with him. At
Bayonne the young king had an interview with his sister, wife of Philip
II., King of Spain. The suspicions of the Calvinists were immediately
excited; they precipitately armed themselves for defence, and formed a
conspiracy to assassinate the king. Civil war consequently broke out. A
severe and bloody engagement took place at St. Dennis. The losses were
heavy on both sides; but Montmorency, a prominent Catholic leader being
killed, another treaty of peace was concluded. But the artifice and
dissimulation of Catherine only made treaties which contained the
elements of future wars. They satisfied neither the Catholics nor the
Protestants; and were evaded by both. Contrary to the stipulations of
the treaty of St. Dennis, the Calvinists still continued to hold places
which they had contracted to surrender, and to continue correspondence
with England and Holland, which they had agreed to break off. The
inflammable material of religious bigotry, together with these
circumstances, provoked another intestine war. The Duke of Anjou,
afterwards Henry III., commanded the Catholic faction; and Conde and
Admiral Coligny headed the Protestant faction. At the battle of Jarnac,
Conde was captured and shot; and at the battle of Montcontour Coligny
was defeated. Amid these discomfitures of the Protestants a peace was
offered them on terms of such extraordinary generosity by the Catholics,
that they were unconditionally accepted.
Henry of Navarre, Conde's son, subsequently Henry IV., on hearing of his
father's death swore to revenge his murder; but the peace which had just
been concluded rendered him destitute of means and arms. His mother,
Queen Jeanne d'Albret, after the death of her husband, Conde, King of
Navarre, had, in order to avoid the intrigues of Catherine, retired from
the French court to Bearn, her hereditary possessions. In this retreat
she declared herself in favor of the Huguenots. When her son was but
eleven years old the Guises, in conjunction with Philip II., King of
Spain, devised a plot for depriving the young prince of his hereditary
possessions in lower Navarre, and of placing him in the hands of the
latter tyrant. The sagacity of Elizabeth, Queen of England, however,
detected this conspiracy in time to frustrate it. In consequence of this
base machination, Queen Jeanne d'Albert placed her son Henry, when he
was but sixteen years old, at the head of a Protestant army, and caused
him to take an oath to shed the last drop of his blood in the defence of
his kingdom and religion.
Henry Guise, son of Francis Guise, Duke of Lorraine, became the
commander of the royal army. The bloody Catherine, in collusion
with this ambitious and bigoted duke, concocted a plot for the total
extermination of all the Protestants in the French empire. The peace
which had been concluded with the Protestants at Jarnac and Montcontour
was but the preliminary measure in the accomplishment of this horrible
project. The terms it accorded were so surprisingly advantageous to the
conquered forces, that the more cautious Protestants regarded it with
suspicion. The next device in this insidious plot, was a specious
pretence of uniting all parties in interest and harmony by the bonds
of two marriages, the one between the king, Charles IX., and Elizabeth,
daughter of Maximilian II., Emperor of Germany, and the other between
Margaret, the queen's sister, and Henry, Prince of Navarre. All the
distinguished Protestant leaders were earnestly invited to be present at
the celebration of the royal nuptials. Fearing treachery many of them,
however, declined the honor. Amid the magnificence and festivity of the
occasion Queen Jeanne d'Albert was poisoned. Shortly after Coligny was
wounded by a shot from a window. The king swore to punish the villain
who had attempted the assassination. His mother assured him Coligny had
the same designs on his life. Bursting into rage he exclaimed: "Kill
every Protestant--kill Coligny." Catherine then held her council
of blood. All having been concerted for a general massacre, on
Bartholomew's eve, at midnight of the day fixed, the church bells
announced the signal for commencing the horrible butchery. Wild shrieks
and murderous clamor immediately shook the air. "Spare none; it is
God's, it is Catherine's it is the kings order." shouted the Catholic
leaders as they led on their gangs of remorseless bigots. In the red
glare of terrifying flambeaux, were seen daggers dripping with the blood
of men, women, and even babes. The people without means of defence or
flight saw they were doomed to perish without mercy or revenge. Coligny
awakened from his sleep by the terrific yells and screams that filled
the air, arose from his bed and opened the door of his mansion.
Meeting the assassins, he courteously invited them into his chamber.
"Companions," said he, "finish your work. Take the blood sixty years
of war have respected: Coligny will forgive you. My life is of little
consequence, and though I would rather lose it in defending you, yet
take it." Touched at these words, and his calm, majestic countenance,
the ruffians fell upon their knees; one of them threw away his dagger;
another embraced the knees of his intended victim, and the courage of
all dissolved into tears. Besme, the commander of the gang, who had
waited in the court for Coligny's head, becoming impatient entered the
chamber, and seeing the assassins overcome by humanity denounced them
as traitors to Catherine. At this denunciation one of them averting his
head, drew his sword and plunged it into Coligny's breast. For
thirty days in every part of the kingdom the most atrocious acts were
perpetrated. Doors were burst open; men and women assassinated night
and day; babes torn from their mother's arms were murdered before their
parents' eyes. Over this dreadful calamity the friends and foes of
France might have together wept; but Rome was illuminated, cannons were
fired in its honor, churches were shaken with the peals of thanksgiving,
priests formed themselves into holy processions to testify their joy,
jubilees were proclaimed, and the pope, jealous of the authorship of
atrocities that shook the world with horror, had medals prepared
to immortalize his right to the honor of having originated the most
horrible massacre on record. When we consider the atrociousness of the
massacre, and the exultations of the holy father, we are at a loss which
most to pity, the victims of the catastrophe, or the fiend that rejoiced
over it. After the incidents of that day Henry of Navarre and the Prince
of Conde had to profess Catholicism in order to save their lives. This
device defeating the designs of Catherine on the life of Henry, she next
added to the ignominy of her character by attempting to dissolve the
marriage which, through her influence, had just been consummated. Foiled
in this scheme, she then sought to poison the happiness of the royal
pair. To hold Henry spell-bound in the power of her fascinations, she
spread around him all the voluptuous allurements of sensual pleasure.
But the native magnanimity of his spirit broke the thralls of her
enchantment; and secretly escaping from a corrupt and besotted court,
he recanted his Catholicism, and placed himself at the head of the
Protestant League as King of Navarre; a title which he had rightfully
assumed since his mother's death. The revenge which was now rife on
the lips of thousands, for slaughtered relatives and citizens, and the
portentous disasters which overhung the empire, convinced Catherine
of her error; and Charles, tracing the calamities of the nation to her
ambition, resolved to atone for his past neglect by governing the empire
himself: but death too soon deprived him of an opportunity to make this
atonement.
On the death of Charles IX., Henry III., his brother, succeeded to
the throne. But being then King of Poland, Catherine, his mother, was
permitted to govern in his name until he should be able to assume the
administration himself. Catherine immediately concluded a peace with
the Huguenots, which granted them religious liberty But this liberal
concession exasperated the Catholics, and afforded Henry Guise a pretext
for perfecting a league which had been projected by Cardinal Lorraine.
The professed object of this league was to defend Catholicism, and
extirpate religious liberty; but it had also a secret object, which was
to usurp the throne. After Henry III. had returned to his domains, his
profligate disposition, and his want of decision and firmness made him
the dupe of his mother's intrigues. By her machinations he was kept
imprisoned in the royal palace, occupied with frivolous intrigues
and stupefied with debauch, even while dissension was shaking his
government, and treason plotting his downfall. Besides the unpopularity
which his neglect of national affairs engendered in the minds of his
subjects, his marriage with the Countess of Lorraine, giving the Guises
increased influence in the government, added suspicion to the popular
discontent.
By the support of the papal machinery, Henry Guise became sufficiently
powerful to dictate laws to the king. He obliged him to annul all
provisions in favor of the reformers, and carried his insolence so far
that the king forbid him to approach the capitol. It was now discovered
that the duke intended to kidnap the king, imprison him in a monastic
dungeon, and usurp the imperial authority. Conscious of his power, the
duke boldly violated the king's command, that he should not enter Paris.
At this defiance the king called on his troops for assistance; but so
effectively had the pope's machinery operated, that the people attacked
the royal troops, drove them away, and thirty thousand papists sprung to
arms in the defence of the duke. Such was the helplessness of the king
that he had to fly for safety to Chartres, and to conclude a treaty with
his enemy. Upon the assembling of the Estates of Blois, they decided
that the duke was too powerful to be brought to trial, but that his open
treason would justify the king in having him assassinated. Appearing to
be reconciled to him he then partook of the eucharist in company with
him; but while he did so, gave secret orders for his assassination. In
a few days after this event the duke was stabbed as he entered the royal
palace, and Cardinal Lorraine met the same fate in a dungeon. The severe
disappointments which these melancholy events occasioned to the hopes
of the Papal See, gave rise to a holy league against Henry III., headed
by the Duke of Mayenne, brother of the Duke of Guise, which league was
supported by all the resources of Rome. Every department of the papal
machinery was now set in the most vigorous action. Paris and the
principal cities of France were incited to declare against the king. The
Sorbonne, the highest Catholic university in the empire, absolved the
subjects from their allegiance to him; the pope threatened him with
excommunication; and his assassination was publicly preached in the
churches; But by a fortunate coalition with Henry of Navarre the king
defeated the pope and his league, re-captured Paris, and established
again his authority in the empire. Yet the Catholic church, which never
forgives an offence, and scruples at no means to remove an obstacle,
found a Dominican monk who executed her vengeance by the assassination
of the king.
Henry III. left no male heirs; consequently Henry of Navarre became the
legitimate inheritor of the throne of France. The papal machinery which
in vain had been called into requisition to destroy him, was now set in
vigorous operation to prevent him from establishing a legal right to his
heritage. The Duke of Mayenne, at the head of the Catholics, declared
against him; Philip II., king of Spain, claimed the crown; and several
unsuccessful attempts were made to assassinate him. But the valor
and sagacity of Henry defeated his enemies, and triumphed over all
difficulties. The papal machinery was, however, still formidable; and
Henry IV., convinced that the blood of his subjects must continue to
flow as long as they were governed by a Protestant sovereign, decided to
profess the Catholic faith, which of all others he must have sincerely
detested. By this politic act of humiliation he acquired for his
subjects political security and entire religious liberty, and obtained
from the pope a concession to his right to the crown. But in sacrificing
principle to expediency he did not conciliate papal malice, nor secure
tranquillity to his reign. Conspiracies were rife, female intrigue
abounded, bigotry and intolerance gave birth to much violence and
disorder, and finally; the long-premeditated assassination of Henry
IV. was accomplished by Ravaillac, who stabbed him to the heart with a
double-edged sword, the papal symbol of spiritual and temporal power.
The papal machinery during the past reigns had demoralized the nation.
The national policy was characterized by a system of falsehood,
corruption and intrigue. Princes of the blood were excluded from the
throne, on account of their liberal proclivities. Innocent men, women
and children were imprisoned, murdered and burnt. Female intrigue, the
bane of national peace and virtue predominated in political circles;
and public robbery and extravagance laid the foundation of a debt which
ultimately broke down the government.
Under Louis XIII., who became King of France in 1610, the papal
machinery was directed by Cardinal Richelieu, who governed the king;
by M. Tellier, his confessor, and Madame Maitenon, his prostitute, who
governed the cabinet. Richelieu gave boldness and craft to the national
policy, and consummated the governmental absoluteness which had been
initiated by Louis XI. Division of power being more friendly to justice
and republicanism than consolidation, the papal political machinery has
always vigorously, as well as universally, labored to defeat the first
and encourage the second. But what is unfriendly to republicanism is
destructive to national prosperity; and consequently the papal intrigues
and appliances in favor of absoluteness in France destroyed the
greatness of the nation.
The political security and religious liberty which Henry IV. had secured
to the subjects were annulled by the repeal of the Edict of Nantes, and
Catholic intolerance again domineered over the lives and fortunes of
Protestants. Kings had been taught by their teachers and spiritual
guides that "to dissemble was to reign," and that "to become a great
man it was necessary to become a great villain." The consequence was
national weakness and demoralization. Mock treaties were made to conceal
real ones, and kings, to disguise their intentions, acted differently
from what they thought. A succession of weak, bigoted, tyrannical, and
criminal rulers had oppressed the industry of the country, and drove
thousands of subjects to seek a livelihood under less oppressive
government. Despotic ministers, rapacious favorites, intriguing
prostitutes, foolish enterprises absurd laws, professed rakes in the
garb of priests and cardinals, prodigality, corruption and tyranny
withering the vitality of the nation, and accumulating on the heads
of the people an insupportable load of taxation and misery, were the
deplorable results of the operation of the pope and his political
engine. But while such were the calamities which Catholicism was
maturing, the eloquent writings of Voltaire, of Rousseau, and other
liberal authors were awakening a spirit of inquiry in the public mind,
and preparing the way for political regeneration. The smouldering
fires of freedom which burned in the breast of the nation, rendered the
conflict between monarchy and republicanism inevitable. It finally
took place; the majesty of the people was vindicated; and, a national
assembly convened consisting of three hundred and seventeen clergy
men, three hundred and seventeen nobles, and six hundred and seventeen
deputies of the people; all of whom took an oath never to separate
until they had given France a free constitution, From the ruins of the
monarchy a republic arose in majesty and power. The feudal estates were
abolished without indemnification. The invidious game laws, the
feudal tribunals, the church tithes, the ecclesiastical revenues, the
hereditary descent of officers, the exemption of church dignities from
military taxation, the laws excluding Protestants from offices of
trust or profit, and denying them the right of inheriting, acquiring or
bequeathing property, and all that the toil of the papal machinery had
accumulated on the heads of the people, were swept away by the spirit of
liberal government. To obtain this freedom the nation had poured out
its blood. But the nation had been educated in Catholic bigotry and
intolerance; and now it visited on the heads of its tutors the lessons
which they had taught. The people swept away the despotism of the
throne, but left it remaining in the national councils; and, while
they made a wreck of oppression, they preserved its elements to be
reconstructed in another form. It is not, then, surprising, that hard
as their freedom was won, it was so easily betrayed by the genius of
Napoleon Bonaparte, once its advocate, but always its foe; who hated
republicanism as much as he hated papacy, for they both were in
conflict with his designs; and who loved nothing but himself and supreme
dominion. But the boon he sought his ambition defeated. While he stood
at the height of his fortune, with the conquest of Europe in his grasp,
the mask fell from his brow. The confidence of freemen forsook him;
and his glory, which else might have outrivalled the splendor of the
greatest, flickered, grew dim, and soon vanished away; leaving the
world as much astonished at the obscurity it left as it had been at the
effulgence it had emitted.