Britannica_.
HENRY OF NAVARRE ACCEPTS CATHOLICISM
HE IS ACKNOWLEDGED KING OF FRANCE
A.D. 1593
MAXIMILIEN DE BÉTHUNE, DUC DE SULLY
Few periods in French history are of greater interest and importance
than that of which Sully treats in the following pages. Henry of
Navarre is regarded by the French people as the most brilliant of
all their kings in personal qualities and achievements; and his
great accomplishment of ending the terrible religious wars of his
country is one of the most conspicuous of the happier results in
modern annals. Sully, whose account of these matters stands alone
among those of contemporary narrators, was the friend and companion
of Henry of Navarre, with whom he served in the wars. He also became
famous as King Henry's minister of finance.
After the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, the "Wars of the Huguenots"
in France continued with fury. In 1573, the year following the
massacre, by the Peace of La Rochelle Charles IX granted to the
Protestants partial toleration. By the Peace of Monsieur, in 1576,
Henry III granted them free exercise of their religion in all France
except Paris. Among French Roman Catholics this treaty caused deep
dissatisfaction, and in the same year they formed the Holy
League--also called the Catholic League--for the purpose of wiping
out the Huguenot party and raising the Guises to the throne. The
League made an alliance with Philip II of Spain.
Henry of Navarre, head of the Huguenot party after the death of
Condé in 1569, became heir-presumptive to the throne of France in
1584. The Holy League, refusing to recognize his title, proclaimed
the cardinal Charles de Bourbon heir-presumptive. On the death of
Henry III, successor of Charles IX, in 1589, the League proclaimed
Bourbon as king, under the title of Charles X. In the following year
Henry of Navarre signally defeated the League at Ivry, but still the
war went on. Battles and sieges, widespread intrigues, and frequent
assassinations kept the kingdom in a condition of tumult and alarm.
Disputes between the contending parties proved futile, debates in
the States or legislative assembly of Paris availed nothing, and the
successive "treaties" of the long war period failed to bring lasting
peace.
At length Henry decided to abjure the Protestant faith, and his
abjuration was followed by the surrender to him of the chief cities
of the kingdom (1593), including Paris.
Still, although the King secured the general recognition of the
Roman Catholics, and was crowned, as Henry IV, in July, 1594, war
was continued by the League and its Spanish allies. In April, 1598,
Henry issued the famous Edict of Nantes, whereby Huguenots were
granted the political rights enjoyed by Catholics, and religious,
military, and judicial concessions were made to the Protestants.
This edict ended the long religious wars, and in May the Peace of
Vervins with Spain and the League was concluded. The central event
selected for this work is the securing by Henry of the sovereign
power, whereby the end of these prolonged troubles was finally
reached.
Alternate succession of war and debates lasted all the time that the
States of Paris continued to be held, and even till the day that the
King abjured the Protestant religion. His intention of changing his
religion now became daily more certain: many causes urged him to adopt
this resolution, the principal of which (not to mention his conscience,
of which he alone could be the true judge) were his grief for the
miseries to which the people would still be exposed; his dread of the
Catholics about his person; the powerful and subtle theological
arguments of M. du Perron, added to his sweet and agreeable
conversation; the artful connivance of some of the ministers and
Huguenots in the cabinet, who were willing to profit by the times at any
rate; the faithless ambition of many of the most powerful and
distinguished among the Protestants, at the mercy of whom he dreaded
falling, should the Catholics resolve to abandon him; the contempt which
he had conceived against some of the zealous Catholics (and particularly
M. d'O), on account of the insolent language they had used toward him;
his desire of getting rid of them, and of one day making them suffer for
their temerity; his dread lest the States, still sitting in Paris, might
elect the Cardinal of Bourbon king, and marry him to the Infanta of
Spain; finally, the fatigue and troubles he had endured from his youth,
the hope of enjoying a life of ease and tranquillity for the future,
added to the persuasions of some of his most faithful servants, among
whom may be also reckoned his mistress,[1] the one by tears and
supplications, the other by remonstrances: all these circumstances, I
say, fixed him in his resolution of embracing the Catholic religion.
[1] The Marchioness de Monceaux, who, D'Aubigné says, acted this
part in the hope of becoming queen herself if Henry should be
declared king.
While these things were under consideration a great number of the larger
towns, and Paris in particular, which were in the party of the League,
being no longer able to endure the inconveniences and privations which
the confusion of the times had occasioned--all commerce, internal as
well as external, being at a stand, on account of the prohibitions
against trading with the places in the King's interest--disturbances
broke out among the people, who at last compelled their leaders to send
a deputation to the King to request liberty to trade: M. de Belin was
accordingly appointed for this purpose, and came to the King when he was
either at Mantes or Vernon; but, notwithstanding all his arguments, the
whole council opposed his request. There was not a Protestant there who
appeared willing that he should grant it; and, what is still more
surprising, it met with equal opposition from the Catholics, without
their being able to assign a lawful, or even a plausible, reason for
such a conduct.
All these persons were perplexed in their debates, and perceived plainly
that their opinion would signify nothing, yet could not prevail upon
themselves to alter it. The King looking at me that moment, "Monsieur de
Rosny," said he, "what makes you so thoughtful? Will not you speak your
mind absolutely any more than the others?" I then began, and was not
afraid to declare myself against all those who had voted, by maintaining
that it was necessary not to hesitate a moment, but to endeavor to gain
the affections of the people by kind treatment, as experience had proved
that harsh measures were productive of no good consequences whatever. I
therefore advised the King to grant them not only the liberty of trade,
which they requested, but also a general truce, if, as the Count de
Belin seemed to hint, they should desire it. To these I added many other
reasons; but they only excited against me the hatred or contempt of most
of the council, to whose decision the King was obliged to yield, and the
Count de Belin returned without being able to gain anything.
Henry, reflecting upon this refusal and judging that there wanted but
little more of the same nature to alienate the people's affections from
him without a possibility of regaining them, and to induce them to go
over to the party of his enemies, he resolved to defer his abjuration no
longer. He was now convinced that there was no probability of his subduing
the reluctance of several of the Protestants, or of ever obtaining their
free consent to this proceeding;[2] but that it was necessary to act
independently of them, and hazard some murmurs, which would end in
nothing. As for the Catholics of his party, the King endeavored only to
remove their fears that, looking upon them as persons of whom he was
already secure, he would apply himself wholly to gaining the rest by
bestowing all rewards upon them. He therefore at last declared publicly
that on July 20, 1593, he would perform his abjuration, and named the
Church of St. Denis for this ceremony.
[2] Henry IV was always sensible that his abjuration would expose
him to great dangers, which made him write in this manner to
Mademoiselle d'Estrées: "On Sunday I shall take a dangerous leap.
While I am writing to you I have a hundred troublesome people
about me, which makes me detest St. Denis as much as you do
Mantes," etc.
This declaration threw the League into confusion, and filled the hearts
of the people and the Catholics of the royal party with joy. The
Protestants, although they had expected it, discovered their discontent
by signs and low murmurs, and did, for form's sake, all that such a
juncture required of them, but they did not go beyond the bounds of
obedience. All the ecclesiastics, with Du Perron, intoxicated with his
triumph, at their head, flocked together; everyone was desirous of a
share in this work. Du Perron, for whom I had obtained the bishopric of
Evreux, thought he could not show his gratitude for it in a better manner
than by exercising his functions of converter upon me. He accosted me
with the air of a conqueror, and proposed to me to be present at a
ceremony where he flattered himself he should shine with such powers of
reasoning as would dissipate the profoundest darkness. "Sir," I replied,
"all I have to do by being present at your disputes is to examine which
side produces the strongest and most effectual arguments. The state of
affairs, your number and your riches, require that yours should prevail."
In effect they did. There was a numerous court at St. Denis, and all was
conducted with great pomp and splendor. I may be excused from dwelling
upon the description of this ceremony here, since the Catholic historians
have been so prolix upon the subject.
I did not imagine I could be of any use at this time, therefore kept
myself retired, as one who had no interest in the show that was
preparing, when I was visited by Du Perron, whom the Cardinal of Bourbon
had sent to me to decide a dispute that had arisen on occasion of the
terms in which the King's profession of faith should be conceived. The
Catholic priests and doctors loaded it with all the trifles their heads
were filled with, and were going to make it ridiculous, instead of a
grave and solemn composition. The Protestant ministers, and the King
himself, disapproved of the puerilities and trifles with which they had
stuffed this instrument; and it occasioned debates which had like to have
thrown everything again into confusion. I went immediately with Du Perron
to the Cardinal of Bourbon, with whom it was agreed that those articles
of faith which were disputed by the two churches should be admitted, but
that all the rest should be suppressed as useless. The parties approved
of this regulation; and the instrument was drawn up in such a manner that
the King there acknowledged all the Roman tenets upon the Holy Scripture:
the Church, the number and ceremonies of the sacraments, the sacrifices
of the mass, transubstantiation, the doctrine of justification, the
invocation of saints, the worship of relics and images, purgatory,
indulgences, and the supremacy and power of the pope,[3] after which the
satisfaction was general.[4]
[3] Another act of equal validity, by which Henry IV acknowledged
the pope's authority, is the declaration which he made after his
conversion, that it was necessity and the confusion of affairs
which obliged him to receive absolution from the prelates of France
rather than from those of the Holy Father.
[4] It was Renauld, or Beaune de Samblançai, Archbishop of Bourges,
who received the King's abjuration; the Cardinal of Bourbon, who
was not a priest, and nine other bishops assisted at the ceremony.
Henry IV entering the Chapel of St. Denis, the Archbishop said to
him, "Who are you?" Henry replied, "I am the King." "What is your
request?" said the Archbishop. "To be received," said the King,
"into the pale of the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman Church." "Do
you desire it?" added the prelate. "Yes, I do desire it," replied
the King. Then, kneeling, he said: "I protest and swear, in the
presence of Almighty God, to live and die in the Catholic,
Apostolic, and Roman religion; to protect and defend it against all
its enemies, at the hazard of my blood and life, renouncing all
heresies contrary to this Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman Church."
He afterward put this same confession in writing into the hands of
the Archbishop, who presented him his ring to kiss, giving him
absolution with a loud voice, during which _Te Deum_ was sung,
etc.
The ceremony of the King's abjuration was followed by a deputation of the
Duke of Nevers to Rome, who, together with the Cardinal de Gondy and the
Marquis de Pisany, was to offer the Pope the submission usual in such
cases. Although this change was a mortal blow for the League, yet the
Spaniards and the Duke of Mayenne still held out; they endeavored to
persuade their partisans that there still remained resources capable of
making it ineffectual; but they spoke at that time contrary to their own
opinion, and this feigned confidence was only designed to obtain greater
advantages from the King before he was securely fixed on the throne.
This is not a mere conjecture, at least with regard to the King of Spain,
since it is certain that he ordered Taxis and Stuniga to offer the King
forces sufficient to reduce all the chiefs of the League and the
Protestant party, without annexing any other condition to this offer than
a strict alliance between the two crowns, and an agreement that the King
should give no assistance to the rebels in the Low Countries. Philip II
judged of Henry by himself, and considered his conversion only as the
principle of a new political system, which made it necessary for him to
break through his former engagements. It may not, perhaps, be useless to
mention here an observation I have made on the conduct of Spain, which
is, that although before and after the death of Catherine de' Medicis she
had put a thousand different springs in motion, changed parties and
interests as she thought most expedient to draw advantages from the
divisions that shook this kingdom, yet the Protestant party was the only
one to which she never made any application: she had often publicly
protested that she never had the least intention to gain or suffer their
alliance.
It is by an effect of this very antipathy that the Spaniards have
constantly refused the Reformed religion admission into their states--an
antipathy which cannot be attributed to anything but the republican
principles the Protestants are accused of having imbibed. The King being
fully convinced that, to stifle the seeds of schism in his kingdom, it
was necessary to give none of the different factions occasion to boast
that his power was at their disposal, and that to reduce all parties he
must be partial to none, he therefore steadily rejected these offers from
Spain, and those which the Duke of Mayenne made him to the same purpose,
but at that very time appeared willing to treat with any of the chiefs or
cities of the League which would surrender, and to reward them in
proportion to their readiness and services; and it was this prudent
medium that he was resolved to persist in.
Although he now professed the same religion as the League, yet his
aversion to the spirit which actuated that party, and to the maxims by
which they were governed, was not lessened; the very name only of the
League was sufficient to kindle his anger. The Catholic Leaguers,
supposing that his abjuration authorized them to abolish in those cities
which depended upon them the edicts that were favorable to the Huguenots,
the King caused them to be restored; and though in some places the
Leaguers had obtained the consent even of the Huguenots
themselves--determined to purchase peace at any price--for this purpose,
yet, the Protestant party murmuring at it, Henry cancelled all that had
been done to that effect,[5] and showed that it was his design to keep
the balance even.
[5] The King, on the 12th of December this year, held an assembly
of the Protestants at Mantes, in which he publicly declared that
his changing his religion should make no alteration in the affairs
of the Protestants. And, the Calvinists having asked many things of
him, he told them he could not comply with their requests, but that
he would tolerate them.
The Duke of Mayenne, finding that in this last scheme, which he had
believed infallible, he was disappointed as well as in the rest, placed
all his future dependence upon his old friends the Parisians, and
neglected no method by which he might awaken their mutinous disposition;
but so far was he from succeeding in this attempt that he could not
hinder them from discovering their joy at what had just passed at St.
Denis. They talked publicly of peace, and even in his presence; and he
had the mortification to hear a proposal to send deputies to the King to
demand a truce for six months, and they obliged him to give his consent
to it. The truce for three months, which had been granted them at Surêne,
had only inspired them with an inclination for a longer one.
The King gave audience to the deputies in full council. The greatest
number of those who composed it, listening to nothing but their jealousy
of the Duke of Mayenne, whom they feared as a man that had the means in
his power of purchasing favor and rewards, were of the opinion that no
attention ought to be paid to this demand of the deputies, because the
person who sent them persisted in his revolt against the King, even after
his abjuration. Notwithstanding the justice of not confounding the Duke
of Mayenne with the Parisians, I saw this advice was likely to be
followed, and it certainly might have produced some very bad consequence.
I therefore insisted so strongly upon the advantage of letting the
people, already recovered from their first terrors, taste the sweets of a
peace which would interest them still more in the King's favor, that this
Prince declared he would grant the truce they demanded of him, but for
the months of August, September, and October only.
The next day a prodigious concourse of the populace of Paris assembled at
St. Denis. The King showed himself to the people and assisted publicly at
mass; wherever he turned his steps the crowd was so great that it was
sometimes impossible to pierce through it, while every moment a million
of voices cried, "Long live the King!" Everyone returned, charmed with
the gracefulness of his person, his condescension, and that engaging
manner which was natural to him. "God bless him!" said they, with tears
in their eyes, "and grant that he may soon do the same in our Church of
Notre Dame in Paris." I observed to the King this disposition of the
people with regard to him; tender and sensible as he was, he could not
behold this spectacle without strong emotions.
Some months later, while on a mission for the King, I received from his
majesty a letter, which concluded with these words: "Come to me at Senlis
on the 20th of March, or at St. Denis on the 21st, that you may help to
cry, 'Long live the King!' in Paris, and afterward we will do the same at
Rouen."
It was upon some correspondence the King carried on in Paris that he
founded his hopes of being soon admitted there, and he was on his way
thither from St. Denis when I joined him. His party in that city was so
firmly united, and so many persons of equal courage and fidelity had
joined it, that it was almost impossible but that it should succeed. Ever
since the battle of Arques, when the Count of Belin was taken prisoner by
the King's forces, and had an opportunity of discovering the great
qualities of Henry contrasted with the weakness of his enemies, the Duke
of Mayenne perceived the inclinations of the count to lean secretly
toward the King. Full of this suspicion, he did not hesitate a moment
about depriving him of the government of so considerable a city as Paris,
and, seeking for a man whose fidelity to himself and the League could be
depended upon, to whom he might intrust the care of this great city at a
time when the necessity of his affairs obliged him to repair to the
frontier of Picardy, he fixed upon Brissac and made him governor.
Brissac, at first, answered his purposes perfectly well. The study of
Roman history had inspired this officer, who valued himself greatly upon
his penetration and judgment, with a very singular project, which was to
form France into a republic upon the model of ancient Rome, and make
Paris the capital of this new state. Had Brissac descended ever so little
from these lofty ideas to an attention to particular applications, which
in the greatest designs it is necessary to have some regard to, he would
have perceived that there are circumstances under which a scheme, however
happily imagined, may, by the nature of the obstacles which oppose it, by
the difference of the genius and character of the people, by the force of
those laws they have adopted, and by long custom, which, as it were,
stamps a seal upon them, become alike chimerical and impracticable. Time
only and long experience can bring remedies to defects in the customs of
a state whose form is already determined; and this ought always to be
attempted with a view to the plan of its original constitution: this is
so certain that, whenever we see a state conducted by measures contrary
to those made use of in its foundation, we may be assured a great
revolution is at hand; nor does the application of the best remedies
operate upon diseases that resist their force.
Brissac did not go so far; he could not for a long time comprehend from
whence the general opposition his designs met with proceeded, for he had
explained himself freely to the nobles and all the chief partisans of the
League; at last he began to be apprehensive for his own safety lest,
while, without any assistance, he was laboring to bring his project to
perfection, the King should destroy it entirely by seizing his capital.
Possessed with this fear, the Roman ideas quickly gave place to the
French spirit of those times, which was to be solicitous only for his
own advantage. When self-interested motives are strengthened by the
apprehension of any danger, there are few persons who will not be induced
by them to betray even their best friend. Thus Brissac acted: he entered
into the Count of Belin's resolutions, though from a motive far less
noble and generous, and thought of nothing but of making the King
purchase at the highest price the treachery he meditated against the
Duke of Mayenne in his absence. St. Luc, his brother-in-law, undertook
to negotiate with the King in his name, and having procured very
advantageous conditions, Brissac agreed to admit Henry with his army into
Paris in spite of the Spaniards. The troops of the League were absolutely
at his disposal, and there was no reason to apprehend any opposition from
the people.
D'O lost no time in making application for the government of Paris and
the Isle of France, and obtained his request; but now a conflict between
his interest and ambition so perplexed this superintendent that,
notwithstanding his new dignity, the reduction of Paris was among the
number of those things he most feared should happen: he would have had it
believed that the true motive of this fear was, lest the finances should
become a prey to the men of the sword and gown, by whom, he said, the
King, as soon as he was possessed of Paris, would be oppressed for the
payment of pensions, appointments, and rewards. But this discourse
deceived none but those who were ignorant of the advantage he found in
keeping the affairs of the finances in their present state of confusion,
and with what success he had hitherto labored for that purpose.