THE TOUR OF THE PROVINCES (_Continued_). THE INFLUENCE OF THE REVOLT OF
THE NETHERLANDS UPON FRANCE. THE AFFAIR OF MEAUX
From the field of Philip II’s empty victory the court resumed its
pilgrimage, crossing the Loire and traversing Guyenne which was “in
good repose,” visiting Angoulême, Cognac, Saintes, La Rochelle, and
Niort _en route_ to Nantes. The country was the veritable dominion
of Calvinism in France, but as yet the Huguenots let their hopes
belie their fears.[984] The progress through the western provinces
was purposely slow, for Catherine still hoped against hope that
Fourquevaux, who had succeeded St. Sulpice at the Spanish court,
might persuade Philip II to think more favorably of her matrimonial
schemes,[985] until finally, late in December, the bitter truth came
out; only the younger daughter of the Hapsburgs might marry a Valois,
even though he was king of France. The queen mother had been weighed
in the balance by Catholic-Hapsburg Europe and had been found wanting.
Then it was that Catherine turned her eyes toward eastern Europe in the
hope of finding in Poland a recompense for the fondled and despicable
Henry of Valois. Strange are the vicissitudes of history! The effect
of Philip II’s resolution was to put a mountebank on the throne of
Poland and cast Marguerite of Valois into the arms of the son of Jeanne
d’Albret.[986]
Long before this time, however, Spain had begun to be impatient for
the fulfilment of the compact of Bayonne. But procrastination was
Catherine’s trump suit. She averred that the plague was too prevalent
to make it safe for the court to return to Paris until winter,[987] and
when the cold weather diminished the danger from that source, pleaded
the poverty and famine of the realm as an excuse.[988] It was an excuse
the validity of which was everywhere manifest. France truly had been in
the dire pangs of hunger and intense cold during the celebrated winter
of 1564-65.[989] Claude Haton, the priest-historian of Provins, who
was a close observer of meteorological phenomena has given a graphic
description of this season.
The winter at its commencement in November [he says] was very mild
and was so until December 20, the vigil of St. Thomas the apostle,
without either cold or frost in the mornings. The rain was so warm
that it was thought that the winter would be mild and open, but on
the vigil of St. Thomas there came a great cold, accompanied in the
morning by a cold rain, which by midday turned into snow, and which
fell all the rest of the day in so great abundance that the earth,
which was very wet, was covered on the morrow to the depth of a foot,
king’s measure, and more, with snow. With this snow came a northeast
wind, which froze everything under a coating of thick ice. This cold
continued down to the last day of December. The ice was so thick that
a man could cross the river without breaking through. The snow lay
so heavy upon the fields that in the open places the drifts were as
high as a man. After the snow-storm had passed the cold redoubled, so
that even the best clad suffered whenever they went out doors. There
was not a house in the village where the water did not freeze, if it
was not set close by the fire; and I do not exaggerate when I say
that in many good and well-built houses wine froze before the great
chimney, though the latter was heaped up with wood. I saw in many
houses iron pots suspended above the fire with icicles hanging over
the edge. Every night and morning when the people got up there was
frost upon the coverlet, from the evaporation of the bodies of the
sleepers. There was not a wine-cellar where the wine did not freeze
in the casks, unless care was taken to keep charcoal fires burning
there. In some wine-cellars it was necessary to close every aperture
in order to prevent the wine from freezing. It frequently froze so
hard that it was necessary to pierce the bung-hole with a red hot
poker in order to draw it out. On the night of the 23-24 December, as
also on Christmas night, the ice was so heavy upon the trees that the
boughs were broken. These things had not been seen in France since
the year 1480.[990] The greatest cold was on the day of the feast of
the Innocents (December 28). Many men who were exposed died in the
roads. The crests of cocks and poultry were frozen and fell off some
days afterwards, and many were found dead under their roosts. The
sheep also died.
Early in January the ice began to melt. It grew uncommonly warm for
the season, so that fire became unnecessary. On the day following
the edict of the king, about noon, a soft warm rain began to fall,
which caused the snow to vanish rapidly. This lasted for five days,
so that the earth was covered with water. And then came a second cold
for three entire weeks, until the 28th of the month, and snow with a
high wind came, which drove the snow everywhere and piled it in great
drifts. The winter grain was frozen in the furrows. God knows how much
the poor people who had no wood suffered. Most of them stayed in bed
night and day without getting up except to eat once in twenty-four
hours. The poor of Paris and others who had no means, were compelled
to burn their furniture. Those who had made no provision for the
winter, chiefly of wood, were compelled to purchase at high prices,
for it was not possible to do carting because of the condition of
the roads; in many cases, moreover, the bridges were destroyed. When
the thaw came, the high waters penetrated houses and churches in
Provins to the depth of three, four, and even five feet, washing out
the very dead in the cemetery.[991] At Paris the flood damaged the
Pont-au-Change and caused many houses to topple. Vine-growers found
themselves in great difficulty. Those who were wise cut their vines
back to the root, in order that they might sprout better again, and
were repaid for so doing, for they were the only ones that bore.
The spring was fair and mild, so that barley and oats were sown. Yet
much ground lay bare because in the fields sown with winter wheat
the roots were all killed, so that no grain grew. The walnut trees
seemed to be dead through all the month of April and half of May,
for they did not put forth their buds. Pear and apple trees bore a
few blossoms. In some places there were plums and cherries, but not
everywhere.[992]
The winter was just as bad in Gascony, Provence, and Languedoc. On the
day of the Feast of St. John the Baptist (June 24) it snowed![993]
Even the poor people were compelled to build fires, though they could
not afford the fuel. The vines throughout central France were so badly
injured that not a third part of the crop remained. The grain likewise
was destroyed. Water courses were swollen and overflowed their banks,
and in the meadows of the Seine people had to take care lest they be
drowned. As a result of the cold spring, the harvest of 1565 failed
over almost all the realm to such an extent that it was necessary to
abolish the tolls between provinces and to permit free trade in grain.
Paris imported wheat from Champagne, Picardy, Anjou, Lower Brittany,
Burgundy, and Auvergne, the least stricken of the provinces.[994]
The Parlement of Paris passed an ordinance forbidding speculation in
foodstuffs and compelled those possessed of a surplus of grain to throw
what was not needed for their own necessity upon the market.[995] A
measure (_boisseau_) of wheat, from January to April cost from 12-15
sous (= 1½ pecks at from 36 to 45 cents), and after April the price
rose every week until harvest time, to the sum of 25 sous _tournois_
(approximately 75 cents). Wheat was very dear in Paris and throughout
all Brie, the Ile-de-France, Valois, Soissonais, and Picardy; less
so in Champagne, Burgundy, and Lorraine, where there was rye and
barley enough for the people. The stock starved because the grain
was consumed by the people. Many people went over into Champagne in
order to purchase rye and barley to make bread with until the harvest
came. Fortunately grain was plentiful in Champagne, and wheat fell
to 7 and 6 sous per measure (from 19 to 22 cents), and corn in like
proportion after the harvest. Because of the hard times which they had
experienced, many accumulated great stores in the expectation that in a
short time there would again be a dearth.
Wine was very dear until the vintage. In the months of August and
September before the grapes were gathered, it was not possible to
purchase wine by the cup at taverns, even for silver; it was with
great difficulty that sufficient wine was procurable for church
service. But after the vintage the price dropped to 14 _livres
tournois_ ($8.70) _la queue du creu_, whereas it had been as high as
80 before ($49.60).[996]
As so often appears elsewhere in history, the economic distress and
strain of poverty was followed by psychological manifestations of
a religio-sociological sort, among the lower and poor classes. In
1565, in the villages of Champagne and Brie and especially in the
bailiwicks of Sens, Melun, Montereau, Nogent, Troyes, Châlons, Rheims,
Epernay, Château-Thierry, Meaux, and Provins, the belief spread among
the peasantry that in honor of the Virgin they ought to refrain from
working in the fields on Saturday after midday, and that this Saturday
rest had been formally ordered by the Virgin in revelations and
apparitions. A young girl of Charly-sur-Marne, near Epernay, boasted
of having received these confidences, and showed miraculous signs of
her mission. But the cardinal of Lorraine caused her to be arrested and
questioned, and she was burned alive as a witch.[997]
Instead of going to Paris, the court passed the winter at Moulins in
Bourbonnais,[998] where the famine was most slightly felt. By this
time the expectations of the Catholics and the fears of the Huguenots
were beginning to bear their bitter fruit, and in the state of public
tension every incident was magnified. At Angers, in November, the
Rohans, having forbidden Catholic worship upon their domains, the King
had had to compel them to reinstate it by threatening to dispossess
them of their châteaux; at Blois the cardinal Bourbon reproached the
queen mother for suffering the edict to be violated by permitting the
queen of Navarre and the prince of Condé to maintain court-preachers
in their entourage. The Catholics of Dijon demanded that in future
Calvinist ministers be forbidden to attend the last hours of the dying,
a petition which the cardinal of Lorraine supported in order to make
the chancellor L’Hôpital commit himself. The answer of the latter
sustained the edict’s grant of the right of selection in the matter of
religion. Of greater anxiety still was the influx of Huguenots into
the town of Moulins, Montgomery among the rest, who for the first time
since the fatal tournament of June 30, 1559, looked upon the court.[999]
The memory of the conspiracy of Amboise haunted the queen like a
specter, and was the more vivid because of the _rapprochement_ between
the leaders of the Huguenots and the Montmorencys, who had met together
at Paris in November at the marriage of the amorous prince of Condé
to Mlle. de Longueville. The incident was sharp enough to strike fire
between the Catholic-Guisard and the Huguenot-Montmorency party. For
when the papal nuncio indignantly demanded the cardinal of Beauvais’
renunciation of the purple, the constable bluffly said: “I am a papist.
But if the Pope and his agents still seek to trouble the kingdom, my
sword will be Huguenot. My nephew will never renounce his dignity. The
edict gives him the right to it.” It is no wonder Catherine de Medici
was anxious to hear of the report of these words at Madrid and what
Philip II would say.[1000] The interdiction of the Protestant worship
at Moulins on January 9, 1566, on the very day that Coligny returned
from the wedding festivities, was her own reply.
The very next day she guarded against new fire being struck between
the factions by compelling at least outward reconciliation between
the admiral and the cardinal of Lorraine. On January 10, 1566, in the
presence of the court, she addressed the cardinal, saying that the
repose of the kingdom was destroyed by private quarrels and especially
by two of his, the one with the marshal Montmorency, the other with
the admiral for the murder of the duke of Guise.[1001] At the same
time the queen mother, in order to preserve peace between the rivals,
hit upon the novel scheme of lodging the cardinal and the admiral in
the same house, so that each had to use the same stairway in order to
reach his apartments, telling both that each was keeper of the other,
and that if either of them experienced any injury it would be imputed
to the other.[1002] The cardinal of Lorraine, for fear of losing all
his influence, accepted the situation (he did not stir from the side of
the queen),[1003] and was compelled to abide by the situation _telle
quelle_, as Sir Thomas Smith wrote to Cecil.[1004] But nothing could
mollify the anger of the constable against the Guises, and when the
duke of Guise at length came to court in February, Montmorency left it
forthwith.[1005]
While the factional feeling thus grew more embittered, serious
and noble effort was yet made to carry out the demands of the
States-General of Orleans and Pontoise—demands which were principles
of the political Huguenots. This programme was supported by the queen
mother, who seems in this way to have sought to placate the fears of
the Huguenots for their faith. The year 1566 is notable for the fact
that greater recognition was then accorded the political demands of the
Huguenots than at any time hitherto, so that large progress was made in
the betterment of the administrative system of France.
The King in his address to the council said that at his accession he
had wanted to travel through all the provinces desolated by the late
civil wars, in order to hear the complaints of his subjects and to
remedy conditions in the best manner possible; that it was for this
cause that he had convoked the assembly and so enjoined them, in virtue
of the royal authority, to apply themselves diligently to affairs.
Then the chancellor spoke: after dwelling upon the general evils of
the state, he asserted that the root of all the evils was the bad
administration of justice; that the King had become convinced of this
in the course of the tour of the provinces; that for himself he could
not refrain from calling things by their right name and from speaking
as he thought; that those who were appointed to administer justice were
guilty of great excesses; that these evils had increased owing to the
impunity and the license which obtained.
I do not deny [he added] that there are too many laws and ordinances
in France and that the multitude of the laws and the number of the
judges is the cause of much unnecessary and tyrannical litigation.
But it is no less true that when new evils arise there is a necessity
of new remedies, and that when the ancient laws have been abrogated
either by inobservance or by license, it is necessary to make new ones
in order to cure current evils and to arrest the course of public
calamity. The public welfare requires new legislation. If the new
laws are not observed, on account of the venality and avarice of the
ministers of justice, they must be punished severely and these public
pests who fatten upon the blood of a miserable people must be driven
from office. Superfluous offices, moreover, must be abolished and the
ruinous multiplication of legal causes stopped.
The justice of the last charge was particularly manifest. Since the
time of Francis I it had been the practice of the crown to sell offices
and even to create them for purposes of revenue only.
The chancellor further asserted that the King could not suffer those
who had not the right to make laws to attribute to themselves the
power to interpret them; he proposed to diminish the excessive number
of the courts, and raised the question whether the demands of justice
would not be better met if the Parlement ceased to be so sedentary and
became ambulatory instead—a suggestion which, it is interesting to
observe, found a partial realization in the seventeenth century in the
establishment of the Grands Jours d’Auvergne. He insinuated that it was
advisable to subject the judges to censure and to compel them to render
account of the manner in which they exercised their office, and that
it might be better to establish judges for two or three years than to
permit the holding of office in perpetuity.
After longer deliberation, in February, 1566, the famous ordinance
of Moulins was framed. It contained eighty-six articles, and dealt
radically with the evils of the time and imposed drastic reform,
especially in the administration of justice.
This act declared the royal domain inalienable, limited and regulated
the right of remonstrances of parlement, organized circuits of
inspection by magistrates especially appointed to go throughout the
realm, instituted certain changes in the judicial administration,
and pledged the word of the crown to appoint capable and honest
magistrates.[1006]
It profoundly modified both the public and private law of France. In
the former sphere the ordinance strengthened the legislative power of
the crown by laying down the principle that the King’s ordinances must
be observed in spite of remonstrances on the part of the parlements,
and even if the latter refused to register them; the _maîtres des
requêtes_ were enjoined to punish severely any infraction or failure to
observe the ordinances. The powers of the governors in the provinces
were much reduced; they were forbidden to exercise the right of pardon,
to levy taxes, or to institute fairs and markets. The judicial power
of the great _villes_ was almost entirely suppressed. The communal
judges were deprived of all civil jurisdiction and retained cognizance
only of petty offenses; at the same time, the attempt was made to
restrain seigneurial jurisdiction. The right of written proof was
recognized in cases involving 100 livres or more.[1007] No less than
1,500 superfluous offices, treasurerships, secretaryships, etc., were
abolished. In the matter of religion some of the articles were a
confirmation of the edict of 1563. Another article abolished entirely
all confraternities, and prohibited the formation of all leagues.[1008]
The financial administration came in for a most searching
investigation. The flaunting arrogance of some of the King’s treasurers
is remarkable. Numbers of them had had houses, and even châteaux
which rivaled the King’s own in elegance, the means to purchase and
furnish which they had secured by plundering the people and robbing
the government. One treasurer—among four who were hanged at
Montfaucon—was found to owe the crown over three million livres.[1009]
The young duke of Guise, who had refused to be a party to the farcical
reconciliation between his house and the Châtillons soon found means
to leave the court. In May the duke of Nemours and the duchess of
Guise were married at St. Maur-des-Fosses. It was a match which sowed
dragon’s teeth once more. For Nemours forsook his wife, who was a
Rohan, having induced the Pope to nullify the marriage. The Huguenots
murmured indignantly against the insult done the Rohan clan whose
powerful family influence was now joined with the Châtillons and
Montmorencys.[1010]
Catherine de Medici was not the ruler to govern France with a firm yet
facile hand under the circumstances that existed in 1566. Irrespective
of foreign influences, which we shall presently come to, the economic
distress[1011] of the country, the rivalry of the great houses, and
the religious acrimony prevailing made a combination of forces that
needed another sort of ruler to reconcile them—a ruler such as Henry
of Navarre was to be. The queen mother, while a woman of force, was so
deficient in sincerity that no one could have confidence in her; so
jealous of power that she would brook no other control of the King,
whose sovereignty she confounded with her maternal oversight of him,
making no distinction between Charles IX the ruler and Charles IX
the son. Catherine time and again marred or ruined the progress she
had made with the aid of one party’s support by her own envious fear
of that party’s predominance. Her “bridge policy,”[1012] instead of
uniting France, kept it divided. To maintain the balance of power—an
immemorial Italian policy—her Italian nature resorted to duplicity and
deception continually. Accordingly, suspicion prevailed at court and
suspicion prevailed in the provinces, the more so in the latter because
of the Huguenots’ uncertainty about what was done at Bayonne, and doubt
as to Philip II’s course. Men were doubtful of their neighbors; towns
were fearful of other nearby towns. “All the way of my coming hither,”
reported Sir Thomas Hoby, the new English ambassador to France, “I
found the strong towns marvelously jealous of strangers, insomuch that
only by the sound of a bell they discovered a number of horsemen or
footmen before they come; but also, after they are entered they have an
eye to them.”[1013]
When the court finally moved to Paris, the great nobles came thither
with such numerous trains[1014] that the queen sent four companies
of the King’s guard ahead of his coming, and ordered the marshal
Montmorency to require the retirement from the city of all those who
were not of the ordinary household of each nobleman and gentleman. In
vain the marshal, anxious to protect his party against the Guisards,
resisted the order and complained that the queen was interfering with
his authority. The King ordered Lansac and De la Garde to accomplish
what Montmorency was unwilling to do.
If choice must be made as to who were the worst offenders in this
respect, the greater blame lies with the Protestants. It was not
only impolitic, it was insolent on their part to permit Montgomery
to swagger around Paris as he did, “booted and spurred with all
his men.”[1015] Apparently the queen had not the daring to compel
his withdrawal, as she did that of the Guises’ recruiting sergeant,
Roggendorf.[1016] Her policy for the time being was to favor the
Châtillon-Montmorency faction.[1017] Backed by the joint support of
the admiral and the constable, the queen accordingly undertook to
bring certain unsettled or indefinite matters of religion and the
church to a conclusion. On May 31, 1566, Charles IX sent a series of
articles to the cardinal Bourbon for consideration by the clergy of
Paris, then sitting at St. Germain des Près. Two of these had to do
with the baptism of infants where one of the parents was a Catholic,
and the maintenance of Protestants schools. Three concerned church
temporalities, namely, the redemption of the fourth part of the
temporals of the church, given to the King during the late civil war;
the subsidy which was to expire in eighteen months; and the preparation
of an edict defining the privileges and jurisdiction of the church.
The residue of the articles dealt with infractions of the Edict of
Amboise, such as restraint of preaching according to the edict, and the
molestation of former Protestants who had returned to the church of
Rome by the Huguenots. By an awkward coincidence, the sending of these
articles exactly coincided with the arrival of the papal legate in
Paris, who came to request the promulgation of the decrees of Trent in
conformity with the agreement made with the cardinal de Santa Croce at
Bayonne.[1018]
Catherine de Medici’s policy at this time was that of the political
Huguenots. She hoped that the question of religion would settle
itself with time, and to divert attention from that issue, and also
because there was great need of it, she energetically continued the
administrative and economic reforms begun at Moulins. L’Hôpital began
so searching an investigation of the conduct of the King’s treasurers
that some of them were hanged and others banished. The constable was
of service here, although his notorious avarice tarnished the honesty
of his work.[1019] Yet there was peril even in a policy so just and so
much needed by France. Sooner or later such a course would unearth the
dishonesty of bigger thieves than the small collectors of the revenue
who, in many cases undoubtedly suffered for the peculation of their
superiors. The administration was full of “grafters” such as St. André
had been, who would not scruple to conceal their thievery behind the
smoke of another civil war. The queen mother knew this only too well
from former experience, not being unaware of the fact that one of the
causes of “the late unpleasantness” was the demand of the estates that
the Guises should make an accounting and be forced to disgorge their
ill-gotten gains. The government resorted to various devices to raise
money and an imposition was laid upon inn-keepers. The most singular
expedient, though, was the offer of a Genoese syndicate to pay the King
a lump sum for the privilege of taxing dowry gifts and for a license
to endure eight years to levy a crown on every first-born infant, and
after, for every boy born into a family five sous, and for every girl
babe, three sous.[1020] This preposterous measure actually passed the
council, and was only prevented from becoming law by the good sense of
the Parlement.[1021]
But the events happening in the Netherlands were of greater importance
to France at this time than anything within her borders. From the
beginning of the insurrection there the Huguenots had recognized
the important bearing of that struggle upon their own movement, and
as the shadow of Philip II fell in greater length each year across
France, the interest of the French Protestants in the rebellion of
the Low Countries increased.[1022] As Huguenot preachers in Flanders
sowed the double seed of Calvinism and revolt, so Protestant preachers
exiled from the Low Countries sought refuge in France.[1023] This
intercourse became a formidable historical issue by 1566. The issue
was understood from the beginning by all parties concerned, and Philip
II and his ministers were determined to profit by the lesson of France
and to prevent similar trouble by crushing all opposition in the bud.
The Turkish attack upon Malta[1024] had been very favorable to the
Protestant cause, and the raising of the siege in September, 1565,
probably influenced the King of Spain in his resolution to extirpate
heresy in the Low Countries.[1025] The Flemish government suspected
William of Orange who by July was openly allied with the Gueux[1026]
and his brother, Louis of Nassau, of direct intercourse with Condé and
Coligny,[1027] and sent Montigny—the faithless member of the patriotic
quartette composed of Orange, Egmont, Hoorne, and himself—to Paris in
the spring to pick up information.[1028] The fear lest Montgomery might
come to Flanders, which Granvella had once laughed at, by the summer of
1566 had some basis of reality, although the braggadocio character of
this adventurer discounted alarm.[1029]
Knowledge of the solidarity existing between his revolted subjects in
Flanders and the Huguenots[1030] which Montluc had warned Philip of
even two years before,[1031] coupled with information concerning the
dealings of Louis of Nassau with Protestant Germany[1032] and France,
stirred the Spanish King’s habitual indecision into action. He sounded
Charles IX as to the possibility of sending Spanish troops directly
across France to the Low Countries and asked him to restrain his
subjects from coming thither with arms,[1033] crowds of whom went to
Flanders disguised as merchants.[1034] Simultaneously Margaret of Parma
begged the Emperor to take the same course.[1035] But the government
of France could not have honored Philip II’s request, even if it had
been so minded, without risking an immediate rising of the Huguenots.
As a matter of fact, it had no desire to do so. The resentment felt by
France toward Spain on account of past scores at Trent, Rome, and in
Switzerland, was now all eclipsed in her rancor because of the massacre
by the Spaniards of her ill-fated colony in Florida in September,
1565.[1036]
Alexander VI’s bull had divided the western hemisphere between the
Spanish and the Portuguese. Florida belonged to Spain. France had built
Fort Caroline on Spanish territory. As peace existed in 1565, France
argued that the massacre by Menendez was a violation of international
law. To this Spain replied that Florida belonged to her by discovery
and as all treaties between Spain and France were silent as to any
change of ownership, there really had been no such change in law.
Consequently the French settlers were intruders and heretics to boot.
The answer was crushing, Fourquevaux was heavily handicapped, for he
could not openly espouse the cause of Frenchmen who were heretics.
Before news of the massacre reached France, Philip II, knowing the
facts, inquired if the French expedition had been commanded or
sanctioned by the French King. The only answer possible was a negative.
An affirmative answer would have been tantamount to a declaration of
war. “Then the incident is closed,” was the Spanish reply. This was
followed by a demand that Coligny, under whose sanction the expedition
had sailed, should be punished.
France was likewise at odds with the Emperor. The reason for this is
to be found in the strong attitude the empire had lately taken on
the question of Metz.[1037] Understanding of this question entails
a glance backward. In 1564 the baron Bolwiller, a native of upper
Alsace, but at that time bailiff of the Emperor in the grand bailiwick
of Haguenau, revived the plan he had conceived in 1558, of recovering
Metz by a surprise.[1038] Bolwiller represented that no time was to
be lost if France was to be prevented from fixing her hold upon the
Three Bishoprics forever. Philip II favored the enterprise and offered
20,000 sous cash, and the assignment of 8,000 écus annual revenue of
the territory, “pour celluy ou ceulx qui’lz luy rendroyent la ville
du dict Metz.”[1039] For with Metz in the hands of the Hapsburgs once
more, the chain of provinces connecting the Netherlands with Spain
through mid-Europe would have been practically complete, lying as Metz,
Toul, and Verdun did, between Franche-Comté and Luxembourg.[1040] This
was at the time when Condé was recreant to his people and was dallying
with the widow of the marshal St. André, and the idea was conceived and
abandoned of buying the prince over and bribing him to betray Metz to
Spain.[1041] Spain, however, in order to avoid a rupture with France
wished to conceal her own participation in the plot to recover Metz,
and urged the Emperor Maximilian to undertake the venture.[1042] The
plot was to tempt Metz to revolt against France by offering to convert
it into a free imperial city, it being expected that the Lutherans in
the city would support the movement.[1043] The alertness of the French
government, however, foiled the project’s being undertaken in April.
In August Bolwiller renewed his plan, alleging to Chantonnay that the
people of Metz were ready to provide 20,000 écus, and that there were
arms in plenty stored in secret. He urged prompt action now for the
French government had begun the erection of a citadel in the city.[1044]
By this time Philip II was so anxious to see France despoiled of Metz
and so impatient at Maximilian’s delay, that it was even considered
advisable by some to take advantage of the check given the Turks at
Malta and have the Emperor make peace with them in order to have his
hands free in the Three Bishoprics.[1045] As for himself, Philip II
dared not make an overt move against France, lest in the event of war
with Spain, Charles IX appeal to the Huguenots, with the result that
Protestantism would profit by the diversion.[1046]
But meanwhile things in Metz had got beyond control of either Spain
or the empire. The Calvinists in both France and the Netherlands had
been quick to see the advantage afforded, for the former by gaining
possession of the territory could connect France and the Palatinate,
thus aiding themselves and their coreligionists at one and the same
time, since by so doing the land route of Spain through Central Europe,
via Milan, Besançon, and Luxembourg, would be cut in half. Matters came
to a head in May and June, 1565, in what is known as the “Cardinal’s
War.” On May 5 the Emperor Maximilian had issued a decree affirming
his suzerainty over Metz, Toul, and Verdun. The cardinal of Lorraine
at once recognized the validity of this decree, which was equivalent
to treason to France. Thereupon, in the name of Charles IX Salzedo an
ex-Spaniard[1047] and leader of the French party in Metz assumed the
title of governor of Metz and appealed to the French King for support
against the cardinal. The issue was really one between France and
Spain. The Guises naturally supported the cardinal. The “war” which
followed was not formidable, although the issue as stake was of great
importance. But the cardinal soon discovered that discretion was the
better part of valor and yielded to the King, more especially as
neither Philip II nor Maximilian raised a hand for fear of betraying
themselves, for the cardinal feared that if he resisted longer Charles
IX would refuse to pardon his treasonable conduct. He was not unaware
of the fact—he did not even deny it—that it was known that he had
been in treasonable communication with Bolwiller and the archbishop of
Trèves.[1048]
If Charles IX and the queen mother had known the full extent of the
cardinal of Lorraine’s treasonable conduct at this time they might
not have been so lenient toward him. For he was guilty not only of
treasonable intercourse with the empire, but directly with Spain also.
The one supremely important result of this petty war over Metz is that
at this time the cardinal—and with him the whole Guise house—began
those secret negotiations with Philip of Spain which culminated
in the establishment of the Holy League. Shortly after the end of
his ignominious war around Metz, burning with anger and shame, the
cardinal sent a secret agent to Franche Comté, who found Granvella
at Beaudencourt in July, 1565, to whom he recited the cardinal’s
grievances, saying that owing to the death of his brother the duke of
Guise and the insolence of the marshal Montmorency, he had no hope
in the justice of Charles IX. The agent then went on to point out
the great danger threatening Catholic Europe by reason of what had
recently happened at Metz, and, speaking for the cardinal of Lorraine,
expressed the wish that Philip II would enter into a league with the
house of Guise, the duke of Montpensier—Alva’s convert at Bayonne—and
certain others for the protection of the Catholic faith in France
and the overthrow of the Châtillons, the prince of Condé, “Madame de
Vendôme,” and other Huguenots. This formidable overture was made under
the seal of secrecy. The cautious Granvella listened but refrained
from committing his master to the proposition.[1049] Again, Philip II
hesitated to implicate himself so directly in French affairs, as the
cardinal of Lorraine urged, just as he had hesitated the year before
with Montluc, and while he waited events in the Low Countries went
from bad to worse.
In August, 1566, a furious outburst of iconoclasm swept through the
churches of Flanders.
Commencing at St. Omer, the contagion rapidly spread, and in a
fortnight 400 churches were sacked in Flanders alone, while in Antwerp
the cathedral was stripped of all its treasures. Images, relics,
shrines, paintings, manuscripts, and books shared a common fate.[1050]
The event stirred Philip to action. He determined to send the duke of
Alva to Flanders to repress things with an iron hand.[1051]
On November 18, 1566, the duke of Alva formally requested the French
ambassador at Madrid to secure Charles IX’s permission for a Spanish
army to cross France.
The remedy has become little by little so difficult [said the duke]
that deeds not words and remonstrances, are now necessary. Having
exhausted all good and gracious means to reduce things in the Low
Countries, the King is constrained, to his great regret, to have
recourse to force. Public assemblies, preaching, the bearing of arms,
and violence prevail in the land and the King’s ministers amount to
nothing.
The duke then outlined the plan. Ten thousand new Spanish recruits
under three ensigns were to be sent to Luxembourg, Naples, Sardinia,
and Sicily to take the places of as many veteran troops there,
for the King was unwilling to use Italian infantry. A thousand
heavy-armed footmen and three or four hundred mounted arquebusiers,
all Spanish, were to be drawn from Milan, the most loyal of Spain’s
Italian dependencies. An indefinite number of reiters and other
mercenaries could be had for the asking. These troops would proceed
to the Netherlands through Savoy by way of Val d’Aoste or Mt. Cenis,
Montmélian, Chambéry, and La Bresse, into Franche Comté and Lorraine,
unless—and this was the crux of Alva’s interview with Fourquevaux—the
winter season made it impossible to traverse the mountain passes, in
which case His Catholic Majesty desired leave of France to take them by
sea to Marseilles or Toulon and thence to march them northward up the
Rhône to La Bresse and so reach Franche Comté.
No one knew better than Alva the formidable nature of this proposition
to France and he used all his artifice to conceal its danger, dwelling
on the mutual connection between the Huguenot and the Flemish movement
and the benefit that France would derive from the crushing of the
rebellion in the Low Countries. Fourquevaux in reply declared that
the Huguenots would fly to arms again, if a Spanish army should enter
France, to which the duke rejoined that the presence of a Spanish army
would so overawe them that they would not dare to do so. The ambassador
then inquired whether the Emperor could support Philip, seeing that
he was engaged in a war with the Turks[1052] and was incapable of
raising funds in his behalf. Alva told him that the German princes
would perceive that the Flemings were merely rebels and that “no prince
or soldier in Germany, even were he a Lutheran, would refuse to take
the pay of Spain.”[1053] But Fourquevaux refused to be convinced by
Alva’s smooth words. He had information that Spain was borrowing ships
from Malta, Genoa, and the papacy and Savoy and warned Charles IX to
strengthen the garrisons in Languedoc and Provence.[1054]
This information threw the court of France into great excitement.
Catherine de Medici declared that the heretics would take up arms
immediately, under such circumstances.[1055] The King wrote to
Fourquevaux on December 24 not to spare any efforts to penetrate
the designs of Spain.[1056] Sixteen thousand troops were sent into
the Lyonnais at once.[1057] The marshal Vieilleville returned to
Metz.[1058] The government began the erection of a great citadel in
Verdun and to fortify the frontier against Luxembourg.[1059] D’Andelot
was sent to Switzerland to make new enrolments.[1060] An agent was sent
into Normandy with instructions to pass along the coast and take the
names of master-mariners and sailors.[1061] The queen of Navarre began
to mobilize forces in Béarn.[1062] All this time the duke of Alva kept
endeavoring to quiet French alarm by reiterating that he would use all
means in his power to avoid troubling France and that the army destined
for Flanders, now increased by 1,500 light horse composed of Spaniards,
Italians, and Albanians, would go by the valley of the Rhône only as a
last recourse.[1063]
Finally, in the middle of February, the duke of Alva’s preparations
were made. Don Juan de Acuna, who had been sent to Savoy to make
arrangements with the duke for the transit of the Spanish army,
returned, after having made a satisfactory settlement. The army
was to go through Savoy, via the Mt. Cenis and Chambéry, cross the
Rhône at Yenne, and so proceed to Besançon in Franche Comté, where
it was to be joined by German contingents. This averted the danger
threatening Languedoc and Dauphiné, but threw it upon French Burgundy
and Champagne.[1064] It was a roundabout route for the Spanish troops
in the Milanais, but it was impossible to send them directly through
Switzerland by way of the Grisons, Constance, Basel, and Strasburg
without inflaming these localities; above all, Geneva would thereby
have been menaced, and any movement imperiling that city would have
fired the entire Calvinist world.[1065]
[Illustration: March of the DUKE of ALVA
THROUGH SAVOY, FRANCHE COMTÉ AND LORRAINE.
———————- Conjectured route]
In the face of common peril Bern, Freiburg, and Valais concluded a
defensive league on February 20, while Basel and Zurich took up arms
with French approval. Fear of a joint attack of Spain and Savoy upon
Geneva prevailed throughout Switzerland, which was divided into two
camps, the five cantons of the center favoring designs upon Geneva
and the Vaud. Spain aimed to profit by the impression produced by the
passage of her troops close to the Swiss frontier to force certain
military advantages and dispossess France from the exceptional
situation she had lately secured in the Alps. The western cantons
were offered cheap salt from Franche Comté, and those of the center
grain from the Milanais. The duke of Lorraine also offered salt at a
low price from his duchy. As a result Bern found herself deserted by
western Switzerland and apparently single-handed about to be called
upon to protect Geneva from Spanish attack. Perhaps if Spain had been
certain of the support of Savoy at this juncture, this might have
happened, but the duke of Savoy was content to profit by the fear of
the Bernois to compel them to restore the three bailiwicks which they
had formerly agreed to do in the treaty of Lausanne, October 30, 1564,
but had delayed to fulfil. Charles IX himself advised Bern to yield in
this particular and in August the settlement with the duke of Savoy was
made.[1066]
All that Philip now requested of France was leave for French subjects
to provide the army with supplies in its course. Again Fourquevaux
urged his sovereign to be cautious; the fact that France was just
recovering from a year of famine and could ill spare sustenance for
others was not so important as the necessity of avoiding every occasion
of civil war.[1067]
On May 10, 1567, the duke of Alva sailed from Cartagena and arrived at
Genoa on May 27. St. Ambroise at the foot of the Alps was the point
where his munitions and provisions were concentrated. Here on June
2 the duke had a grand review of his troops. There were 19 ensigns
(3,230 men), from Naples, under the command of Alonzo de Uloa; 10
ensigns from Sicily (1,620 men) under command of Julian Romero; 10
ensigns of Lombard troops (2,200 men) under command of Don Sancho
de Londono; 10 Sardinian ensigns with four companies of recruits in
addition (1,728 men) under command of Don Gonzalo de Bracamonte, making
a total of 49 ensigns of Spanish infantry (8,778 men). The duke’s
cavalry was composed of five companies of Spanish light horse and
three Italian and two Albanian companies and two companies of Spanish
arquebusiers on horseback, in all 1,200 horses.[1068] On the march a
company of 15 musketeers was placed between each ensign. This was the
first instance in modern warfare when muskets were used in the field.
Hitherto this weapon had been so enormously heavy that it was used in
siege work only, balanced upon a triangle of wood or iron.[1069]
The route lay via Alessandria de la Paille, St. Ambroise, Aosta,
Turin, the Mont Cenis, St. Jean de Maurienne, and the valley of the
Arve through Savoy. In spite of his small array it was necessary to
divide the army into three parts, the advance guard, the “battle,” and
the rear guard. The “battle” each day occupied the place abandoned by
the advance guard and was itself in turn replaced by the rear guard,
the three divisions of the army marching one day apart. The duke of
Alva commanded the advance guard, his son Don Ferdinand Alvarez de
Toledo the “battle;” while the rear guard was under the command of the
Italian, Ciappin-Vitelli, Marquis of Cetona formally in the service
of the Grand Duke of Tuscany. The army thus divided occupied fourteen
days in traversing Savoy. It was a long and toilsome journey through a
wild and mountainous country, where the difficulties of the march were
increased by constant dread of famine. In many places the country was
completely sterile. In Burgundy the march was easier and twelve days
brought the army via Dôle and Gray to Fonteney near Toul, whence twelve
days more brought Alva by Thionville to Luxembourg (July 29), where he
was joined by new forces.[1070]
In spite of the length of the march and the hardships of it, the duke
retained his traditional iron discipline and the soldiers were not
allowed to forage upon the country or to break ranks.[1071]
On August 12, 1567, the duke of Alva entered Brussels. General terror
prevailed in the Low Countries upon his arrival. The Prince of Orange
left the land. Count Egmont, naïvely declaring that he had done nothing
wrong, remained; his friend Hoorne imitated his example. Alva at
once sent away all the Flemish soldiers and quartered the city with
the new troops. In order to facilitate his policy the duke created a
special tribunal, _not_ composed of lawyers “because they would not
condemn without proofs.” This was the famous Council of Troubles which
the people called the “Council of Blood.” The members of it held no
commissions from the King, but were the simple agents of the duke of
Alva. The most celebrated of them was a certain Vargas, a criminal
himself, against whom action had been suspended in return for his
infamous services.
If the policy of the Spanish government in Flanders took a new and
different form with the coming of Alva, the revolution there was no
less changed. The cardinal Granvella some months before this time had
written to Philip II: “It is a general rule, in matters of state, that
popular enterprises, if they do not terminate in the first outburst,
generally vanish in smoke if the remedy for them be applied before they
have time to follow up the movement.”[1072] He added that contemporary
history afforded some striking examples of the truth of this
observation. But the provinces he had lately governed were not of this
category. For it is clear that a change had taken place in the nature
of the Flemish revolt in the years 1565-67. The revolution by this time
had passed through the earlier stages of defiance and rebellion and
developed an organization with a definite, set purpose before it. The
formation of the Gueux was the clearest manifestation of this change.
In its inception this famous group was an aristocratic body, composed
solely of nobles, and the Spanish government had little fear then of
its becoming a popular association.[1073] Granvella saw the similarity
of the Gueux to the Huguenot association formed at Orleans in 1562, but
he did not anticipate the popular nature it was soon to develop.[1074]
He was soon disillusioned. What was believed by the Spanish government
to be a somewhat close political and aristocratic combination of nobles
before long became a popular confederation of congregations having a
religious propaganda, as well as a political purpose.[1075] Despite
this change, however, Philip’s minister did not yet believe the Gueux
to be formidable. As Alva had declared at Bayonne that all that was
necessary to destroy the Huguenot party in France was to kill the “big
fish,” so he now believed that if the leaders of the Gueux were cut
off, their movement would die too.[1076] But Alva soon discovered
that the Gueux were hardly ever weakened by the detachment of certain
of the nobles either by bribery or intimidation.[1077] By the time
of his arrival, under Brederode’s able leadership, the Calvinists of
the Flemish provinces had worked out a scheme of union in which every
congregation was at once a parish, a rating precinct, a military
hundred, and a political unit. Antwerp, whose population was so large
and so cosmopolitan that police scrutiny could be easily evaded, and
from which it was easy to make one’s escape, was the capital of the
association, as Orleans first, and later La Rochelle, was for the
Huguenots.[1078]
The Flemish government was soon alive to the necessity of breaking the
power of this confederation.[1079] Membership in the confederation,
if proved, was heavily punished. The retirement of the prince of
Orange from the land was believed by the government to be due to a
prudent effort to avoid being so compromised. It was certainly true
of Brederode. But Egmont and Hoorne remained, declaring they had done
nothing, and renewed their oath of allegiance to the King.[1080]
Nevertheless Granvella sarcastically quoted Lycurgus that neutrals were
more odious than enemies. “After the towns have been cleared out,”
wrote the provost Morillon, “it will be time to attack the garden in
order to destroy the weeds and roots there,” and Spain’s agent at
Amsterdam at the same time wrote: “God may pardon those who are the
cause of _one_ and the _other_ league; but I assure you, unless I am
much mistaken, that those who have made others to dance, have some
other purpose than we know. Time will discover it.”[1081]
[Illustration: EXECUTION OF EGMONT AND HOORNE IN THE MARKET SQUARE AT
BRUSSELS
Original copper plate by Franz Hogenberg.]
This somewhat long dissertation upon the nature and development of the
confederation formed by Philip’s II revolted subjects in Flanders is
not a digression beside the mark. The number of Huguenots to be found
in the Low Countries in 1566-67, intriguing with their coreligionists
against Spain was very great. The duke of Bouillon and the prince
of Porcien were the most prominent of these.[1082] In the aggregate
the number was so great and their participation so serious a matter
for the government, that the maintenance of the frontier against the
French was urged upon Alva as the first necessity, immediately after
his arrival at Brussels.[1083] France for her own part began to erect
a citadel at Verdun and to strengthen the Picard frontier, whose towns
received new troops in June, and when word came that there were German
troops in Luxembourg awaiting Alva’s arrival, D’Andelot was sent to
the frontier of Champagne with 6,000 Swiss which the government had
levied.[1084] This action ruffled Philip II’s temper, for to him it was
flaunting his failure to break the alliance of the Swiss with France
in his very face. His ambassador in France protested energetically and
charged the queen with duplicity.[1085] At Madrid the nuncio inquired
with curiosity of Fourquevaux, in what spirit Philip II—who had had
an audience with the ambassador the day before—received the news of
France’s activities in Switzerland. “I told him,” wrote the ambassador
to Charles IX, “that it was the usage and custom of great kings and
princes whenever they saw their neighbors arming, to assure themselves
also of their realms and states.”[1086] Calais was a double source of
anxiety, first because Spain, in pursuance of Alva’s recommendation,
had not been content with fortifying Gravelines, but had actually built
a fort of earth only five paces from the turnpike which marked the
French limit; secondly, because at this embarrassing time Elizabeth
of England had conceived the thought of reviving the English claim to
Calais.[1087] With the purpose of fathoming her son-in-law’s designs
Catherine sent the younger L’Aubespine to Madrid.[1088] War with Spain
was already on the lips of some in France.[1089]
In spite of the wisdom of these military precautions on the part of
the French crown, the Huguenots grew alarmed lest there was a movement
on foot to repress the edict.[1090] There was designed intention in
the unadmirable conduct of the prince of Condé, and perhaps some in
that of Coligny too. The prince craved chief command of the army, and
a war with Spain was in a direct line with his aspirations. He had
been well treated since the peace of Amboise, having been given the
government of Picardy and the county of Rotrou, which was erected
into a duchy under the name of Enghien-le-François. But his appetite
for power was insatiable. In July, after angry speech with the King,
Condé had retired from court, and was followed by the admiral, who gave
out that he had discovered “some practice that wholly tended to his
confusion.”[1091]
It was small politics. In this time of external danger from the
furtive designs of Philip II and the blustering enmity of England,
the honorable course of every subject of France was to stand by the
King and the nation. The Huguenot leaders compromised the cause at
large by indulging their personal vanity, their petty spite, their
pique at such an hour. Friction there was, disagreement there was over
the interpretation and the working of certain parts of the edict of
Amboise. The Catholics, for example, complained that the intention of
the edict was evaded by the Huguenots, asserting that in cases where
the right of preaching was permitted to all barons and high justiciars
only for themselves and their tenants, and for others of lower degree
for their household only, congregational worship was held under cover
thereof.[1092]
The bigotry of Paris and its vicinity, though, was the worst source
of disaffection. In the city district captains were chosen by the
populace to watch against Protestant activity—the nucleus of the
famous Sixteen (_Seize_) of Paris in 1589-94. It would have been the
height of political inexpediency, under such circumstances, to have
tried to enforce the letter of the edict in the Ile-de-France. The July
amendment of the edict of Amboise prohibiting exercise of Protestant
worship throughout the Ile-de-France except in such places as should
be licensed by the King, and the further one prohibiting Protestants
from filling public offices in the cities,[1093] I believe was framed
for the purpose of avoiding conflict and not with any reactionary
purpose. It is certainly of significance that the liberal chancellor
L’Hôpital favored them.[1094] Patience and experience would have worked
out the solution of such difficulties as these. It was criminal in
the prince of Condé to fan the ashes of the late civil war into flame
once more. For in this tense state the prince deliberately exaggerated
and misrepresented things for his own purpose and a spark from
Flanders—Alva’s arrest of the counts Egmont and Hoorne on September
9—kindled France into flame again.
The arrival of the news in France unfortunately coincided with the
session of two synods of the Huguenots, one at Châtillon-sur-Loing,
the other at Valéry.[1095] Dismay prevailed in them. The preachers
cried out that the arrest of Egmont and Hoorne[1096] was the proof
of a secret alliance between Spain and France for the overthrow of
Calvinism. The truth of Bayonne was out at last! Coligny’s iron will
might still have kept them in order, however, if in the midst of this
excitement word had not also come that 6,000 Swiss whom Charles IX had
enrolled to cover the French frontier against the duke of Alva had
entered France. The double news was too much for the excited minds of
the Huguenots. The admiral and the prince who had failed to perceive
the true policy of France in Switzerland, in desperation turned to the
constable for a word of truth and comfort. But the old Montmorency,
who desired to have his son, the marshal Montmorency, succeed him in
the office of constable[1097] (which the prince of Condé coveted for
himself), roughly rejoined: “The Swiss have their pay; don’t you expect
them to be used?”[1098] The words were brutally and thoughtlessly said.
They merely imported anger. The Huguenots interpreted them to mean that
they were to be overcome by military force, and Protestantism coerced,
if not extinguished. The synod of the Huguenots at Valéry[1099]
resolved upon war. The conference was held in the admiral’s château
at Châtillon under the outward guise of a banquet. There were present
the prince of Condé, La Rochefoucault, the cardinal of Châtillon,
D’Andelot, Bricquemault, Teligny, Mouy, Montgomery, and other nobles of
mark, besides some Huguenot ministers. The conference lasted the entire
week, at the end of which it was resolved that all the Huguenots in
France should be notified in every _bailliage_ and _sénéschaussée_, by
the deacons and other officers of their congregation; that they should
be called upon to furnish money according to the means which they had,
for the payment of reiters from Germany, which the count palatine of
the Rhine was to levy; and that all the young men of the religion
capable of bearing arms were to be enrolled for military service.[1100]
The plan was as bold as it was simple. It was to gain possession of the
King’s person by a sudden _coup de main_, for which purpose a force
of 1,500 horse was to be brought secretly to Valéry. The court at
this time was residing at the Château de Monceaux near Meaux, and was
without more than nominal military protection.[1101] On the evening
of September 24, the queen learned of the rendezvous at Rosay-en-Brie.
A midnight council was called. The Swiss, who had reached Château
Thierry, were hastily summoned. The Lorraine party and the duke
of Nemours advised immediate return to Paris. The chancellor and
Montmorency endeavored to persuade the King against so doing.[1102] The
former pointed out that to go to Paris would be for the King to commit
himself to the most bigoted of his subjects and destroy the possibility
of an amicable settlement, while the constable argued that Meaux was a
fortified city capable of withstanding a siege, and that to leave it
might be to court defeat in the open country. In the dilemma the Swiss
colonel Pfiffer cast the die.
“May it please your Majesty,” cried he, “to entrust your person and
that of the queen mother to the valor and fidelity of the Swiss. We are
6,000 men, and with the points of our pikes we will open a path wide
enough for you to pass through the army of your enemies.”[1103]
“Enough,” Charles rejoined. “I would rather die free with you than live
a captive among rebels.”[1104]
The return to Paris began at four o’clock in the morning. “When the
Swiss arrived at Meaux,” wrote Correro, “I vow they were the most
villainous looking gang I have ever seen. Yet in battle array they were
admirable. Three times they turned upon the enemy and lowering their
pikes charged upon them like savage dogs in serried ranks and in good
order, without one being a pace in advance of another. Thus the King
was able with his suite to get to Paris.”[1105] He reached the Louvre
that night, travel-worn, hot, famished, and so angry that his fierce
disposition never lost the memory of that humiliation.[1106]
The affair of Meaux came like a thunder-clap to most of France. The
suddenness of the Huguenot action and the all but complete success of
it astonished men. “This movement,” wrote the Venetian ambassador,
“of which several thousand men had knowledge, was conducted with such
precaution that nothing leaked out until it was all but an accomplished
fact. This could not possibly have been done without the perfect
intelligence that exists among the Huguenots, and is a striking
manifestation of their organization throughout the realm.”[1107]
In the light of this judgment, it remains to describe the Huguenot form
of government.
The ecclesiastical—and political unit—of French Calvinism was the
congregation. Congregations were grouped “according to number and
convenience” into colloquies or classes which met from two to four
times each year, the division being made by the authority of the
provincial synod.[1108] In church matters, no church had any primacy
or jurisdiction over another, nor one province over another.[1109]
Ministers brought with them to local classes or provincial synods
one or two elders chosen out of their consistories.[1110] Elders
who were deputies of churches had an equal power of voting with the
pastors.[1111] The authority of a provincial synod was subordinate
to that of the national synod,[1112] and whatever had been decreed
by provincial synods for the government of the churches in their
province had to be brought before the national synod.[1113] The
grand lines of division followed the historic provincial divisions
of France, but smaller provinces and parts of the larger ones, as
Guyenne and Languedoc, were associated together. The national synod
of 1559 divided France into sixteen Protestant provinces, as follows:
(1) The Ile-de-France, Chartrain, Picardy, Champagne and Brie; (2)
Normandy; (3) Brittany; (4) Orleans, Blesois, Dunois, Nivernais, Berry,
Bourbonnais, and La Marche; (5) Touraine, Anjou, Loudunois, Maine,
Vendôme, and Perche; (6) Upper and Lower Poitou; (7) Saintonge, Aunis,
La Rochelle, and Angoumois; (8) Lower Guyenne, Périgord, Gascony,
and Limousin; (9) Upper and Lower Vivarais, together with Velay,
and Le Forêt; (10) Lower Languedoc, including Nîmes, Montpellier,
and Beziers; (11) Upper Languedoc, Upper Guyenne, Toulouse,
Carcassonne, Quercy, Rouergue, Armagnac, and Upper Auvergne; (12)
Burgundy, Lyonnais, Beaujolais, Bresse, Lower Auvergne, and Gex; (13)
Provence; (14) Dauphiné and Orange; (15) Béarn; (16) the Cevennes and
Gévaudan.[1114]
This administrative partition, however, did not remain fixed. Some
provinces, like Brittany, had so few Protestants in them, that the
Huguenots therein could not stand alone, and the first civil war
brought out the weakness of this system. Accordingly, in 1563, the map
of France was partitioned anew, and the former sixteen “provinces”
were reduced to nine. Some of the changes made are interesting. For
example, the Chartrain was cut off from the Ile-de-France and attached
to the “province” of Orleans, manifestly in the endeavor to keep a
connecting link between Normandy and the Loire country. Brittany was
strengthened by the annexation of Anjou, Maine, and Touraine which
formerly constituted an independent “province,” which obviously drew
it into closer connection with the stronger Calvinistic provinces.
The “province” of Upper and Lower Poitou was combined with Saintonge,
Aunis, and Angoumois, thus knitting together all the country watered
by the Charente, the Clain, and lesser streams. Burgundy, Lyonnais,
Beaujolais, Bresse, Lower Auvergne, and Gex absorbed the small
Huguenot province composed of Vivarais, Velay, and Le Forêt. But the
most interesting consolidation was in the south of France. Formerly
Upper Languedoc, in which were Nîmes, Montpellier, and Beziers;
Lower Languedoc, comprising Upper Guyenne, Toulouse, Carcassonne,
Quercy, Rouergue, Armagnac, and Upper Auvergne; Provence; Dauphiné,
and Cevennes-Gévaudan had each formed separate “provinces.” But in
1563 this immense territory was all united to form the great Huguenot
province of Languedoc. The only ancient provinces which remained
unchanged in 1563 were Normandy,[1115] Béarn, and Lower Guyenne, with
Périgord and Limousin.
The Huguenot ecclesiastical organization and its political organization
were one and the same. The congregations, the “colloquia,” the synods,
constituted both taxation units and military _cadres_.[1116] The
strength of the Huguenot organization, however, before the massacre
of St. Bartholomew, I believe has been exaggerated, except in Guyenne
where, in the vicinity of Nérac especially, Montluc early came in
contact with a powerful combination of the Huguenots.[1117] The strong
elements in the Protestant organization were its simplicity and the
vigilance of all, from provincial chiefs to simple pastors, who
made up for scarcity of numbers by the most zealous activity.[1118]
“If our priests,” wrote the Venetian Correro in 1569, “were half
so energetic, of a certainty Christianity would not be in danger
in this country.”[1119] It was not until after 1572 that the
Huguenot organization reached a high point of military and political
development, when a solid federation of the Reformed churches was
formed at Milhaud in 1574, with rating precincts, military hundreds and
civil jurisdictions.[1120]
Exactly as the early organization of the Huguenots has been
overemphasized, so has the republican nature of the early Huguenot
movement been exaggerated. Apart from whatever religious motives may
have actuated them, the Protestant nobles were influenced by political
ambition; the bourgeoisie by the hope of administrative and economic
reform; the masses by the general spirit of discontent. The Huguenots
did not present a united front until after St. Bartholomew, when
the fusion of the political Huguenots with the Politiques reduced
the “religious” Huguenots to a left-wing minority. Before 1572 the
political ideas of the Reformed, if not still inchoate, were not
harmonized into one homogeneous cause, backed up by a compact and
highly organized political system. Individual political theorists or
fanatic devotees, of course, were to be found in the Huguenot ranks,
but there was no systematic political philosophy to guide their conduct
before the massacre of St. Bartholomew. It was this catastrophe that
crystallized Huguenot opinion and organized combination on a large
scale.[1121] In Guyenne, alone, where, as has been said, the Huguenot
organization was most completely developed at an early date, does any
clear republican idea seem to have early obtained.[1122]