THE REIGN OF CHARLES THE NINTH, TO THE PRELIMINARIES OF THE COLLOQUY OF
POISSY.
[Sidenote: The death of Francis saves the Huguenots.]
[Sidenote: Transfer of power.]
If the sudden catastrophe which brought to an end the bloody rule of
Henry was naturally interpreted as a marked interposition of Heaven in
behalf of the persecuted "Lutherans," it is not surprising that the
unexpected death of his eldest son, in the flower of his youth, and
after the briefest reign in the royal annals, seemed little short of a
miracle. Had Francis lived but a week longer, the ruin of the Huguenots
might perhaps have been consummated. Conde would have been executed at
the opening of the States General. Navarre and Montmorency, if no worse
doom befell them, would have been incarcerated at Loches and Bourges.
The Estates, deprived of the presence of these leaders, and overawed by
the formidable military preparations of the Guises,[968] would readily
have acquiesced in the most extreme measures. Liberty and reform would
have found a common grave.[969] But a few hours sufficed to disarrange
this programme. The political power was, at one stroke, transferred from
the hands of Francis and Charles of Lorraine to those of Catharine de'
Medici and the King of Navarre; and the Protestants of Paris recognized
in the event a direct answer to the petitions which they had offered to
Almighty God on the recent days of special humiliation and prayer.[970]
[Sidenote: Alarm of the Guises.]
[Sidenote: Funeral obsequies of Francis II.]
The altered posture of affairs was equally patent to the princes of late
complete masters of the destinies of the country. In the first moments
of their excessive terror, they are said to have shut themselves up in
their palaces, and to have declined to leave this refuge until assured
that no immediate violence was contemplated.[971] Even after the
immediate danger had passed, however, they were too shrewd to pay to the
remains of their nephew the tokens of respect exacted of the constable
in behalf of Henry's corpse,[972] preferring to provide for their own
safety and future influence by being present at the meeting of the
States. The paltry convoy of Francis from Orleans to the royal vaults of
St. Denis presented so unfavorable a contrast to the pompous ceremonial
of his father's interment, that it was wittily said, "that the mortal
enemy of the Huguenots had not been able to escape being himself buried
like a Huguenot."[973] A bitter taunt aimed at the unfaithfulness and
ingratitude of the Guises fell under their own eyes. A slip of paper was
found pinned to the velvet funereal pall, on which were written--with
allusion to that famous chamberlain of Charles the Seventh, who, seeing
his master's body abandoned by the courtiers that had flocked to do
obeisance to his son and successor, himself buried it with great pomp
and at his own expense--the words: "Where is Messire Tanneguy du
Chastel? _But he was a Frenchman!_"[974]
[Sidenote: Navarre's opportunity.]
[Sidenote: His contemptible character.]
[Sidenote: Adroitness and success of Catharine.]
Never had prince of the blood a finer opportunity for maintaining the
right, while asserting his own just claims, than fell to the lot of
Antoine of Navarre. The sceptre had passed from the grasp of a youth of
uncertain majority to that of a boy who was incontestably a minor.
Charles, the second son of Henry the Second, who now succeeded his older
brother, was only ten years of age. It was beyond dispute that the
regency belonged to Antoine as the first prince of the blood. Every
sentiment of self-respect dictated that he should assume the high rank
to which his birth entitled him,[975] and that, while exercising the
power with which it was associated, in restraining or punishing the
common enemies both of the public liberties and of the family of the
Bourbons, he should protect the Huguenots, who looked up to him as their
natural defender. But the King of Navarre had, unfortunately, entered
into the humiliating compact with the queen mother, to which reference
was made in the last chapter. From this agreement he now showed no
disposition to withdraw. The utopian vision of a kingdom of Navarre,
once more restored to its former dimensions, still flitted before his
eyes, and he preferred the absolute sovereignty of this contracted
territory to the influential but dangerous regency which his friends
urged him to seize. Besides, he was sluggish, changeable, and altogether
untrustworthy. "He is an exceedingly weak person"--_suggetto
debolissimo_--said Suriano. "As to his judgment, I shall not stop to say
that he wears rings on his fingers and pendants in his ears like a
woman, although he has a gray beard and bears the burden of many years;
and that in great matters he listens to the counsels of flatterers and
vain men, of whom he has a thousand about him."[976] Liberal in
promises, and exhibiting occasional sparks of courage, the fire of
Antoine's resolution soon died out, and he earned the reputation of
being no more formidable than the most treacherous of advocates.
Sensual indulgence had sapped the very foundations of his
character.[977] It is true that his friends, forgetting the
disappointment engendered by his recent displays of timidity, reminded
him again of the engagements into which he had entered, to interfere in
defence of the oppressed, of his glorious opportunity, and of his
accountability before the Divine Tribunal.[978] But their appeals
accomplished little. Catharine was able to boast, in a letter to the
French Ambassador at Madrid, just a fortnight after the death of
Francis, that "she had great reason to be pleased" with Navarre's
conduct, for "he had placed himself altogether in her hands, and had
despoiled himself of all power and authority." "I dispose of him," she
said, "just as I please."[979] And to her daughter, Queen Isabella of
Spain, she wrote by the same courier: "He is so obedient; he has no
authority save that which I permit him to exercise."[980] The
apprehensions felt by Philip the Second regarding the exaltation of a
heretic, in the person of his hated neighbor of Navarre, to the first
place in the vicinage of the French throne, might well be quieted after
such reassuring intelligence.
[Sidenote: Financial embarrassment.]
[Sidenote: The religions situation.]
[Sidenote: Catharine's neutrality.]
Yet the position of Catharine, it must be admitted, was by no means an
easy one. The ablest statesman might have shrunk from coping with the
financial difficulties that beset her. The crown was almost hopelessly
involved. Henry the Second had in the course of a dozen years
accumulated, by prodigal gifts and by needless wars, a debt--enormous
for that age--of forty-two millions of francs, besides alienating the
crown lands and raising by taxation a larger sum of money than had been
collected in eighty years previous.[981] The Venetian Michele summed up
the perplexities of the political situation under two questions: How to
relieve the people, now thoroughly exhausted;[982] and, how to rescue
the crown from its poverty. But, in reality, the financial embarrassment
was the least of the difficulties of the position Catharine had assumed.
The kingdom was rent with dissensions. Two religions were
struggling--the one for exclusive supremacy, the other at least for
toleration and recognition. Catharine had no strong religious
convictions to actuate her in deciding which of the two she should
embrace. Two powerful political parties were contending for the
ascendency--that of the princes of the blood and of constitutional
usage, and that of an ambitious family newly introduced into the
kingdom, but a family which had succeeded in attaching to itself most,
if not all, of the favorites of preceding kings. Catharine's ambition,
in the absence of any convictions of right, regarded the success of
either as detrimental to her own authority. She had, therefore, resolved
to play off the one against the other, in the hope of being able,
through their mutual antagonism, to become the mistress of both. Under
the reign of Francis the Second she had gained some notion of the
humiliation to which the Guises, in their moment of fancied security,
would willingly have reduced her. Yet, after all, the illegal usurpation
of the Guises, who might, from their past experience, be more tolerant
of her ambitious designs, was less formidable to her than the claims of
the Bourbon princes, based as were these claims upon ancestral usage and
right, and equally fatal to her pretensions and to those of their
rivals. It was a situation of appalling difficulty for a woman sustained
in her course by no lofty consciousness of integrity and devotion to
duty--for a woman who was by nature timid, and by education inclined to
resort for guidance to judicial astrology or magic rather than to
religion.[983]
[Sidenote: Opening of the States General, Dec. 13, 1560.]
A brief delay in the opening of the sessions of the States General was
necessitated by the sudden change in the administration. At length, on
the thirteenth of December, the pompous ceremonial took place in the
city of Orleans. It was graced by the presence of the boy-king, Charles
the Ninth, and of his mother, his brother, the future Henry the Third,
and his sister Margaret. The King of Navarre, the aged Renee of Ferrara,
and other members of the royal house, also figured here with all that
was most distinguished among the nobility of the realm.
[Sidenote: Address of Chancellor De l'Hospital.]
[Sidenote: Co-existence of two religions impossible.]
To the chancellor was, as usual, entrusted the honorable and
responsible duty of laying before the representatives of the three
orders the reasons of their present convocation. This office he
discharged in a long and learned harangue. If the hearers were treated
without stint to that profusion of ancient learning, upon which the
orators of the age seem to have rested a great part of their claim to
patient attention, they also listened to much that was of more immediate
concern to them, respecting the origin of the States General, and the
occasions for which they had from time to time been summoned by former
kings. L'Hospital announced that the special object of the present
meeting was to devise the means of allaying the seditions which had
arisen in consequence of religious differences. "These," said
L'Hospital, "are the causes of the most serious dissensions. It is folly
to hope for peace, rest, and friendship between persons of opposite
creeds. A Frenchman and an Englishman holding a common faith will
entertain stronger affection for each other than two citizens of the
same city who disagree about their theological tenets."[984] So powerful
was still the prejudice of the age with one who was among the first to
catch a glimpse of the true principles of religious toleration! That two
discordant religions should permanently co-exist in a state, he agreed
with most of his contemporaries in regarding as utterly impossible. For
how could the adherents of the papacy and the disciples of the new faith
conceal their differences under the cloak of a common charity and mutual
forbearance?[985]
[Sidenote: Names of factions must be abolished.]
Yet the dawn of more enlightened principles could be detected in a
subsequent part of the chancellor's speech. After prescribing a
universal council--that panacea which all the state doctors of the day
offered for the cure of the ills of the body politic--he advocated the
employment, meantime, of persuasion instead of force, of gentleness
rather than rigor, of charity and good works, as more effective than the
most trenchant of material weapons. And, while he recommended his
hearers to pray for the conversion of the erring, he exclaimed: "Let us
remove those diabolical words, names of parties, factions, and
seditions--'Lutherans,' 'Huguenots,' and 'Papists'--and let us retain
only the name of 'Christians.'"[986] In concluding his address, he did
not forget to dwell upon the lamentable condition of the royal finances,
thrown into almost inextricable confusion by twelve or thirteen years of
continuous war and the expenses attending three magnificent weddings. He
begged the estates, while they exposed their grievances, not to fail to
provide the king with means for meeting his obligations.[987]
[Sidenote: Effrontery of Cardinal Lorraine.]
[Sidenote: De Rochefort orator for the noblesse.]
[Sidenote: L'Ange for the tiers etat.]
It now devolved upon the deputies to prepare a statement of their
grievances, and for this purpose the "noblesse" retired to the
Dominican, the clergy to the Franciscan, and the "tiers" to the
Carmelite convents.[988] The Cardinal of Lorraine had had the effrontery
to solicit, through his creatures, the honor of representing the three
orders collectively; but the proposition had been rejected with
undissembled derision. Loud voices were heard from among the deputies of
the people, crying, "We do not choose to select _him_ to speak for us of
whom we intend to offer our complaints!"[989] Three orators were deputed
to speak for the three orders.[990] The Sieur de Rochefort, in behalf of
the nobles, declared their approval of the government of Catharine, but
insisted at some length upon the necessity of conciliating their good
will by a studious regard for their privileges. He likened the king to
the sun and the "noblesse" to the moon. Any conflict between the two
would produce an eclipse that would darken the entire earth. He
denounced the chicanery of the ecclesiastical courts and the
non-residence of the priests;[991] and he closed by presenting a
petition, which was read aloud by one of the secretaries of state,
demanding the grant of churches for the use of those nobles who
preferred the purer worship.[992] The Bordalese lawyer, Jean L'Ange, in
the name of the people, dwelt chiefly on the three capital vices of the
clergy--ignorance, avarice, and luxury,[993] and portrayed very
effectively the general disorders, the intolerable tyranny of the
Guises, the exhausted state of the public treasury, and the means of
restoring the Church to purity of faith and regularity of discipline.
[Sidenote: Arrogant speech of Quintin for the clergy.]
[Sidenote: Presumption in favor of the Catholic Church.]
But it was the clerical delegate, Jean Quintin, that attracted most
attention. Standing between the other two orators, he delivered a speech
of great length and insufferable arrogance. He admitted that the clergy
might need reformation; but the Church with its hierarchy must not be
touched--that was the body of Christ. Charles must defend the Church
against heresy--against that Gospel falsely and maliciously so called,
which consisted in profaning churches, in breaking the sacred images, in
the marriage of priests and nuns. He must not suffer the Reformation to
affect the articles of faith, the sacraments, traditions, ordinances, or
ceremonial. Should any one venture to resuscitate heresies long dead and
buried, he begged the king to declare him a champion of heresy and to
proceed against him. He insisted on the presumption in favor of the
Catholic Church, and demanded the unconditional submission of its
opponents. "They must believe us, without waiting for a council; not we
them." He was warm in his praise of the Emperors Theodosius II. and
Valentinian III., who confiscated the goods of heretics, banished them,
and deprived them of the right of conveying or receiving property by
will. He raised his voice particularly in behalf of Burgundy and of his
own diocese of Autun, whose inhabitants "were well-nigh drowned by the
much too frequent inundations of pestilent books from the infected
lagoons of Geneva."[994]
[Sidenote: Temporal interests.]
[Sidenote: Sad straits of the clergy.]
[Sidenote: A word for the down-trodden people.]
In the midst of this tirade against the inroads of Calvinism, the
prudent doctor of canon law did not, however, altogether lose sight of
the temporal concerns of the priesthood. He proffered an urgent request
for the restoration of canonical elections, laying the growth of heresy
altogether to the account of the abrogation of the Pragmatic Sanction by
the Concordat in 1517. The sanction being re-established, "the
detestable and damnable sects, the execrable and accursed heresies of
to-day" would incontinently flee from the church. If he painted the
portrait of the prelate elected by the suffrages of his diocese in
somewhat too nattering colors, he certainly gave a vivid picture of the
sad straits to which the clergy were reduced by the imposition of the
repeated tithes on their revenues, now become customary. Masses were
unsaid, churches had been stripped of their ornaments. Missals and
chalices even had, in some places, been sold at auction to meet the
exorbitant demands of royal officers. It was to be feared that, if
Christian kings continued to lay sacerdotal possessions under
contribution, the Queen of the South would rise up in judgment with this
generation, and would condemn it. Lest, however, this commination should
not prove terrible enough, the examples of Belshazzar and others were
judiciously subjoined. On the other hand, Charles was urged to acquire a
glory superior to that of Charlemagne, and to earn the surname of
_Clerophilus_, or _Maximus_, by freeing the clergy of its burdens. By a
very remarkable condescension, after this lofty flight of eloquence, the
clerical advocate deigned to utter a short sentence or two in the
interest of the "noblesse," and even of the poor, down-trodden
people--begging the king to lighten the burdens which that so good, so
obedient people had long borne patiently, and not to suffer this third
foot of the throne to be crushed or broken.[995] When the crown had
returned to this course of just action, the Church would pray very
devoutly in its behalf, the nobility fight valiantly, _the people obey
humbly_. It would be paradise begun on earth.[996]
[Sidenote: The clergy alone makes no progress.]
Thus spoke the chosen delegates of the three orders when summoned into
the royal presence for the first time after the lapse of seventy-seven
years. The nobility and clergy vied with each other in extolling their
own order; the people made little pretension, but had a large budget of
grievances demanding redress. Nearly forty years had the Reformation
been gaining ground surely and steadily. It had found, at last,
recognition more or less explicit in the noblesse and the "tiers etat."
But the clergy had made no progress, had learned nothing. The speech of
Quintin, their chosen representative, on this critical occasion, was
long and tiresome; but, instead of convincing, it only excited shame and
disgust.[997]
Indeed, an allusion of his to the favorers of heresy daring to present
petitions in behalf of the Huguenots, who demanded places in which to
worship God, was taken by Admiral Coligny as a personal insult to
himself, for which Quintin was compelled to make a public apology.[998]
[Sidenote: Coligny presents a Huguenot petition.]
The incredible supineness of Antoine of Navarre prevented the States
from demanding with much decision that the regency should be entrusted
in the hands of him to whom it belonged of right. For how could
enthusiasm be manifested in a matter regarding which the person chiefly
interested showed such utter indifference? But the religious demands of
the Huguenots were made distinctly known. As expressed in a petition
presented in their name to the queen mother by the Admiral's hands,
these demands were comprehended under three heads: the convocation of a
free universal council, which should decide definitely respecting the
religious questions in dispute; the immediate liberation of all
prisoners whose only crime was of a religious character--even if
disguised under the false accusation of sedition; and liberty of
assembling for the purpose of listening to the preaching of God's word,
and for the administration of the sacraments, under such conditions as
the royal council might deem necessary for the prevention of
disorder.[999] So gracious was Catharine's answer, so brilliant were the
signs of promise, that there were those who hoped soon to behold in
France a king "very Christian" in fact no less than in name.[1000]
[Sidenote: The estates prorogued.]
[Sidenote: Meanwhile prosecutions for religion to cease.]
It was, however, no easy matter to grant these reasonable requests. The
Roman Catholic party resisted, with all the energy of desperation, the
concession of any places for worship according to the reformed faith.
Catharine was loth to take the decided step of disregarding their
remonstrances. It seemed more convenient to avail herself of the
representations of the majority of the delegates of the "tiers etat,"
who regarded it as necessary to apply for new powers from their
constituents, in consequence of the death of the monarch who had
summoned them. The estates were accordingly prorogued to meet again at
Pontoise on the first of May.[1001] The matter of the "temples" was
adjourned until that time. Meanwhile, in order to conciliate the
Huguenots, orders were issued that all prosecutions for religious
offences should surcease, and that the prisoners should at once be
liberated, with the injunction to live in a Catholic fashion for the
future.[1002] This concession, poor as it was, met with opposition on
the part of the Parisian parliament, and was only registered--after more
than a month's refusal--because of the king's express desire.[1003] But
it was far from satisfying the Protestants; for, in answer to their very
first demand, they were referred to the Council of Trent, which the
pontiff had recently ordered to reassemble at the coming Easter. Such a
convocation--neither convened in a place of safe access, nor consisting
of the proper persons to represent Christendom, nor under free
conditions[1004]--could not be recognized by the Huguenots of France as
a competent tribunal to act in the final adjudication of their cause.
They must refuse to appear either at Trent or at the assembly of French
prelates, to be held as a preliminary to their proceeding to the
universal council, in accordance with the resolutions of the notables at
Fontainebleau.[1005]
[Sidenote: Return of the fugitives.]
Yet, as contrasted with the earlier legislation, the provisional
dispositions of the royal letter were highly encouraging. They permitted
a large number of persons incarcerated for religion's sake to issue from
prison. The exiles, it was said, returned tenfold as numerous as they
left the country. Great was the indignation of their adversaries when
all these, with numbers recruited from the ranks of the reformers in
England, Flanders, Switzerland, and even from Lucca, Florence and
Venice, began to preach with the utmost boldness. They might be accused
of gross ignorance, and of uttering a thousand stupid remarks, but one
thing could not be denied--every preacher had a crowd to hear him.[1006]
[Sidenote: Charles writes to stop ministers from Geneva.]
[Sidenote: Reply of the Genevese.]
No such toleration, however, as that now proclaimed was necessary to
induce the ministers of the reformed doctrines, who had qualified
themselves for their apostolic labors under the teaching of Calvin and
Beza, to enter France. The gibbet and the fearful "estrapade" had not
deterred them. The prelates, therefore, induced the queen mother to
attempt by other means to stem the flood of preachers that poured in
from Geneva. On the twenty-third of January, seven or eight days before
the adjournment of the States General, a letter was despatched in the
name of Charles IX. to the syndics and councils of the city of Geneva.
Its tone was earnest and decided. It had appeared--so the king was made
to say--from a very careful examination into the sources of the existing
divisions, that they were caused by the seditious teachings of preachers
mostly sent by the Genevese authorities, or by their principal
ministers, as well as by an infinite number of defamatory pamphlets,
which these preachers had disseminated far and wide throughout the
kingdom. To them were directly traceable the recent commotions. He
therefore called on the magistracy to recall these sowers of discord,
and threatened in no doubtful terms to take vengeance on the city should
the same course be continued after the receipt of the present
warning.[1007] Never was accusation more unjust, never was unjust
accusation answered more promptly and with truer dignity. On the very
day of the receipt of the king's letter (the twenty-eighth of January)
the magistrates deliberated with the ministers, and despatched, by the
messenger who had brought it, a respectful reply written by Calvin
himself. So far, they said, from countenancing any attempts to disturb
the quiet of the French monarchy, it would be found that they had passed
stringent regulations to prevent the departure of any that might intend
to create seditious uprisings. They had themselves sent no preachers
into France, nor had their ministers done more than fulfil a clear
dictate of piety, in recommending, from time to time, such as they found
competent, to labor, wherever they might find it practicable, for the
spread of the Gospel, "seeing that it is the sovereign duty of all kings
and princes to do homage to Him who has given them rule." As for
themselves, they had condemned a resort to arms, and had never
counselled the seizure of churches, or other unauthorized acts.[1008]
[Sidenote: Conde cleared and reconciled to Guise.]
At no time since the death of the late king had the reversal of the
sentence against Conde been doubtful. The time had now arrived for his
complete restoration to favor. The first step was taken in the privy
council, where, on the thirteenth of March, the chancellor declared that
he knew of no informations made against him. Whereupon the prince was
proclaimed, by the unanimous voice of the council, sufficiently cleared
of all the charges raised by his enemies. The Bourbon, who had refused,
until his honor should be fully satisfied, to enjoy the liberty which he
might easily have obtained, had been invited by Charles to the court,
which was sojourning at Fontainebleau, and now resumed his seat in the
council.[1009] Just three months later (on Friday, the thirteenth of
June) the Parliament of Paris, after a prolonged examination, in which
all the forms of law were observed with punctilious exactness, gave its
solemn attestation of the innocence of Louis of Conde, of Madame de
Roye, his mother-in-law, and of the others who had so narrowly escaped
being plunged with him in a common destruction.[1010] Such declarations
might be supposed to savor indifferently well of hypocrisy. They were,
however, outdone in the final scene of this pompous farce, enacted about
two months later in one of the halls of the castle of St. Germain. On
the twenty-fourth of August a stately assembly gathered in the king's
presence. Catharine, the princes of the blood, five cardinals, and a
goodly number of dukes and counts, were present; for Louis of
Bourbon-Vendome, Prince of Conde, and Francis of Guise were to be
publicly reconciled to each other. Charles first announced the object
for which he had summoned this assemblage, and called upon the Duke of
Guise to express his sentiments. "Sir," said the latter, addressing
Conde, "I neither have, nor would I desire to have, advanced anything
against your honor; nor have I been the author or the instigator of your
imprisonment!" To which Conde replied: "Sir, I hold to be bad and
miserable him or those who have been its causes." Nothing abashed, Guise
made the rejoinder: "I believe that it is so; that concerns me in no
respect." After this gratifying exhibition of convenient memory, if not
of Christian forgiveness, the prince and duke, at the king's request,
embraced each other; and the auditory, highly edified, broke up.[1011]
It was fitting that this hollow reconciliation should take place on the
very day upon which, eleven years later, a more treacherous compact was
to bear fruit fatal to thousands.
[Sidenote: Humiliation of Navarre.]
[Sidenote: The boldness of the Particular Estates of Paris,]
[Sidenote: secures Antoine more consideration.]
It has been necessary to anticipate the events of subsequent months, in
order to give the sequel of the singular procedure. We must now return
to the spring of this eventful year. It was not long after the
adjournment of the States General before the King of Navarre began to
perceive some results of his humiliating agreement with Catharine de'
Medici. The Guises were received by her with greater demonstrations of
favor than were the princes of the blood. The keys of the castle were
even intrusted to the custody of Francis, on the pretext that he was
entitled to this privilege as grand master of the palace. In vain did
Antoine remonstrate against this insulting preference, and threaten to
leave the court if his rival remained. Catharine found means to detain
Constable Montmorency, who had intended to leave court in company with
Navarre, and the latter was compelled to suppress his disgust. But the
deliberations of the Particular Estates of Paris, held soon after, had
more weight in securing for Navarre a portion of the consideration to
which he was entitled. Disregarding the prohibition to touch upon
political matters, they boldly discussed the necessity of an account of
the vast sums of money that had passed through the hands of the Guises,
and of the restitution of the inordinate gifts which the cardinal and
his brother, Diana of Poitiers, the Marshal of St. Andre, and even the
constable, had obtained from the weakness of preceding monarchs. This
boldness disturbed Catharine. She employed the constable to mediate for
her with Antoine; and soon a new compact was framed, securing to the
latter more explicit recognition as lieutenant-general, and a more
positive influence in the affairs of state.[1012]
[Sidenote: His assurances to the Ambassador of Denmark.]
That influence he occasionally seemed anxious to exert in behalf of the
reformed faith. He assured Gluck, the Danish ambassador, that, before
the expiration of the year, he would cause the Gospel to be preached
throughout the entire kingdom. And he displayed some magnanimity when he
answered Gluck, who had expressed anxiety that Lutheranism should be
substituted for Calvinism in France, that "inasmuch as the two
Protestant communions agreed in thirty-eight of the forty articles in
which both differed from the Pope, all Protestants ought to make common
cause against the oppression of the Roman See; it would afterward be an
easy task to arrange their minor differences, and restore the Church to
its pristine purity and splendor."[1013]
[Sidenote: Intrigue of Artus Desire.]
[Sidenote: Curiosity to hear Huguenot preaching and singing.]
So wonderful an awakening as that which was now witnessed in almost
every part of France could not long continue without arousing violent
resistance. The very signs that seemed to indicate the speedy triumph of
the Reformation were, indeed, the occasion of the institution of an
organized opposition of the most formidable character. Hints of the
propriety of calling in foreign assistance had even before this time
been audibly whispered. The theologians of the Sorbonne, alarmed at the
apparent favor displayed for the reformed teachers by the court, had
despatched one Artus Desire with a letter to Philip the Second, in
which they supplicated his intervention in behalf of the Catholic
religion, now threatened with ruin. Happily the enterprise was nipped in
the bud, and, on the arrest of Artus at Orleans, on his way to Spain,
the nefarious conspiracy was fully divulged. The priestly agent, after
craven prayers for his life, was immured for a time in a cloister.[1014]
Well might the Romish party fear. The curiosity to hear the preaching of
the Word of God by men of piety and learning, the desire to hear those
grand psalms of Marot solemnly chanted by the chorus of thousands of
human voices, had infected every class of society. The records of the
chapters of cathedrals, during this period of universal spiritual
agitation, are little else, we are told, than a list of cases of
ecclesiastical discipline instituted against chaplains, canons, and even
higher dignitaries, for having attended the Huguenot services. At Rouen,
the chief singer of Notre Dame acknowledged before the united chapter
that he had often been present at the "assemblies"--nay, more--"that he
had never heard anything there which was not good."[1015]
[Sidenote: Constable Montmorency's disgust.]
In the court at Fontainebleau the contagion daily spread. Beza, it is
true, gave expression to the warning that "not to be a Papist and to be
a Christian were different things."[1016] But of external marks of an
altered condition of things there was no lack. Little account was taken
of the arrival of Lent. Meat was openly sold and eaten.[1017] Huguenot
preachers conducted their services publicly in the apartments of the
Prince of Conde and of Admiral Coligny, first outside of the castle, and
then within its precincts. Catharine herself, partaking of the general
zeal, declared her intention to hear the Bishop of Valence preach before
the young king and the court, in the saloon of the castle. Such was the
news that irritated and alarmed the aged, but still vigorous Anne of
Montmorency. By birth, by tradition, by long association, the constable
was a devoted Roman Catholic. If any motive were wanting to determine
him to cling to the ancient regime, it was afforded by the proposition
made in the late Particular Estates of Paris that the favorites of the
last two monarchs should be required to disgorge the enormous gifts that
had helped to impoverish the nation. This project, for which he held the
Huguenots responsible, was repugnant alike to his pride and to his
exorbitant avarice. His prejudices were, moreover, skilfully fanned into
a flame by interested companions. His wife, Madeleine de Savoie--partly
from conviction, partly through jealousy of his children by a former
marriage--her brother, the Count of Villars,[1018] and the Marshal of
St. Andre--a crafty, insidious adviser--plied him with plausible
arguments. Diana, the Duchess of Valentinois, solicited him by daily
messages. How could the first Christian baron abandon the ancient faith?
How could the favorite of Henry the Second consent to let his rich
acquisitions escape him?[1019]
[Sidenote: Marshal Montmorency remonstrates.]
On one occasion the constable was himself induced to attend the service
in the castle at which Bishop Montluc preached; but he came out highly
displeased at the doctrines he had heard,[1020] and more convinced than
ever that there was a secret compact between Catharine de' Medici and
the King of Navarre to change the religion of the country. The next day
a number of high nobles, in part ancient enemies--Montmorency, Guise,
Montpensier, St. Andre--met in the obscure chapel of the "basse-court,"
where a Dominican monk held forth to the common retainers of the royal
court. The constable's eldest son, the upright but sluggish Marshal de
Montmorency, himself having a secret leaning for the reformed doctrines,
was alarmed by this threatening demonstration, and immediately sought,
in a private interview with his father, to deter him from entering the
arena as the ally of his former antagonists and the opponent of his own
nephews, Coligny and D'Andelot. Better, he urged, to be umpire than
participant in so ungrateful a contest. The Chatillons, of whom Anne had
said that, if they were as good Christians in deed as they were in
profession, they would exercise forgiveness toward the Guises,
themselves came to see their offended uncle, and protested that they
wished the cardinal and his brothers no evil, but desired merely to
remove their ability to do them further damage. Neither his son nor his
nephews made any impression on the obstinate disposition of the
constable. He had caught at the bait by which skilful anglers allured
him. He fancied himself the chosen champion of the church of his
fathers, now assaulted by redoubtable enemies. What a glorious prospect
lay before him if he succeeded! What a halo would surround his name, if
the splendor of the military achievements of his youth should be thrown
into the shade by the superior glory of having, in his old age, rescued
the most Christian nation of the world from the inroads of heresy! To
every argument he could only be brought to repeat the trite sophism,
"that a change of religion could not be effected without a revolution in
the state," and that, though he had no fear of being compelled to
restore the gifts he had received from the late monarchs, he would not
suffer their actions to be questioned or their honor impeached.[1021]
[Sidenote: The Triumvirate formed.]
[Sidenote: A spurious statement.]
On Easter day (the sixth of April), the finishing stroke was given to
the new compact between the leaders of the anti-reformed party. Anne de
Montmorency and Francois de Guise partook side by side of the sacrament
in the chapel of Fontainebleau, and that evening Guise, Joinville, and
St. Andre were invited guests at the table of the constable.[1022] To
the union now distinctly formed, its opponents, in allusion to the
number of the foremost members and to their proscriptive designs, soon
applied the name of "Triumvirate"--the designation by which it has ever
since been known. What the details of these designs were is not
altogether certain. If the document that has come down to us, purporting
to be an authoritative statement emanating from the original parties to
the scheme, could be depended on as genuine, it would disclose to us an
atrocious plot, not only against the Huguenots of France, but for the
extirpation of Protestantism throughout the world. The sanguinary
project was to be executed under the superintendence of his Catholic
Majesty of Spain. The King of Navarre, the support of heresy in France,
was first to be seduced by promises or terrified by threats. Should
neither course prove successful, Philip was to raise an army in the most
secret manner before winter. Should Antoine yield at once, he was to be
expelled from the kingdom, with his wife and children. Should he attempt
resistance, the Duke of Guise would declare himself the head of the
Catholics, and, between him and Philip, the heretical King of Navarre
would speedily be crushed. Then were all that had ever professed the
reformed faith to be slain. Not one was to be spared. The entire race
of the Bourbons was to be exterminated, lest an avenger or a
resuscitator of Protestantism should arise from its descendants. The
emperor and the Catholic princes of Germany would prevent the
Protestants beyond the Rhine from sending succor to their French
brethren. The Roman Catholic cantons of Switzerland, with the assistance
of the Pope, would engage the Protestant cantons. To the Duke of Savoy,
supported by Philip and the Italian dukes, was intrusted the welcome
task of destroying utterly the nest of heresy--Geneva. Here should the
executioner revel in the blood of his victims. Not an inhabitant was to
escape. All, without respect to age or sex, were to be slain with the
sword or drowned in the lake, as an evidence that divine retribution had
compensated for the delay by the severity of the punishment, causing the
children to bear, as an example memorable to all time, the penalty of
the wickedness of their fathers. The fruits of the French confiscations
would be applied as a loan to the expenses of the crusade in Germany,
where the united forces of France, the emperor, and the Catholic princes
would subjugate the followers of Luther, as they had already
exterminated the disciples of Calvin.
Such are the reported details of a plan almost too gross for belief. It
is true that the existence of similar schemes--less extensive, perhaps,
but equally sanguinary, and, in the light of history, not much less
absurd--formed by the adherents of the papacy during the sixteenth
century, is too well attested to admit of doubt. But the historical
difficulties surrounding this document have never yet been
satisfactorily explained, and the student of the Huguenot annals must
still content himself with regarding it as a summary of reports current
within the first two years of the reign of Charles the Ninth, respecting
the secret designs of the Triumvirs, rather than as an authorized
statement of their intentions.[1023]
[Sidenote: Massacres in holy week.]
While the intrigues of the Duchess of Valentinois and other bigots had
been successful at court, the enemies of the Huguenots had not been
idle in other parts of France. Fearful of the effect which the apparent
union between Catharine and the King of Navarre might produce in
accelerating the advance of the reformed doctrines, they resolved to
stir up the zeal of the populace--that portion of the people that
retained the strongest devotion for the traditional faith--in the
country as well as in the capital.[1024] Holy week furnished
opportunities that were eagerly embraced. Fanatical priests and monks
wrought up the excitable mob to a frenzy.[1025] When their passions had
reached a fervent heat, it was easy to bring on seditious explosions,
the blame of which could be attached to the other party. "Few cities in
the realm," says Abbe Bruslart in his journal, "escaped at this time
riots and tumultuous scenes occasioned by the new religion."[1026]
Amiens, Pontoise, and Paris itself were among the scenes of these
disorders. Twenty cities witnessed the slaughter of Protestants by the
infuriated rabble.[1027]
[Sidenote: The affair at Beauvais.]
The disturbance that attracted more attention than any other took place
in the episcopal city of Beauvais--about forty miles north of Paris--on
Easter Monday, the very next day after Montmorency, Guise, and St. Andre
had been confirming their inauspicious compact at the sacred feast in
honor of a risen Redeemer. The Bishop of Beauvais was the celebrated
Cardinal Odet de Chatillon, long suspected of being at heart a convert
to the reformed doctrines. More bold than he had formerly been, he now
openly fostered their spread in his diocese.[1028] But even the personal
popularity of the brother of Coligny and D'Andelot could not, in the
present instance, secure immunity for the preachers who proclaimed the
Gospel under his auspices. Incited by the priesthood, the people
overleaped all the bounds within which they had hitherto contained
themselves. The occasion was a rumor spread abroad that the Cardinal,
instead of attending the public celebration of the mass in his cathedral
church, had, with his domestics, participated in a private communion in
his own palace, and that every communicant had, at the hands of the Abbe
Bouteiller, received both elements, "after the fashion of Geneva."
Hereupon the mob, gathering in great force, assailed a private house in
which there lived a priest accused of teaching the children the
doctrines of religion from the reformed catechisms. The unhappy Adrien
Fourre--such was the schoolmaster's name--was killed; and the rabble,
rendered more savage through their first taste of blood, dragged his
corpse to the public square, where it was burned by the hands of the
city hangman. Odet himself incurred no little risk of meeting a similar
fate. But the strength of the episcopal palace, and the sight of their
bishop clothed in his cardinal's costume, appeased the mob for the time;
and before the morrow came, a goodly number of the neighboring nobles
had rallied for his defence.[1029]
[Sidenote: Assault on the house of Longjumeau.]
If such riotous attacks followed the preaching of the ecclesiastics in
the provinces, the demonstrations of hostility to the exercises of the
Protestants could not be of a milder type in the midst of the turbulent
populace of Paris, and within a stone's throw of the College de la
Sorbonne. Toward the end of April information was received that the
city residence of the Sieur de Longjumeau, situated on the _Pre aux
Clercs_, was becoming a haunt of the Huguenots. It was not long before
the rabble, with ranks recruited from the neighboring colleges,
instituted an assault. But they met with a resistance upon which they
had not counted. Forewarned of his danger, Longjumeau had gathered
beneath his roof a number of friendly nobles, and laid in a good supply
of arms. The undisciplined crowd fled before the well-directed fire of
the defenders, and left several men dead and a larger number wounded on
the field. Not satisfied with this victory by force of arms, Longjumeau
resorted to parliament. But the court displayed its usual partiality for
the Roman Catholic faith. While it abstained from justifying the
assailants, and forbade the students from assembling in the
neighborhood, it reiterated the adage that "there is nothing more
incompatible than the co-existence of two different religions in the
same state,"[1030] censured the nobleman's conduct, and ordered him
forthwith to retire to his castle at Longjumeau.[1031]
[Sidenote: New and tolerant order.]
The only salvation of France lay in putting an end to such alarming
exhibitions of discord, from the frequent recurrence of which it was to
be feared that the country stood upon the verge of civil war. For this
reason, Catharine de' Medici yielded to the persuasions of Chancellor
L'Hospital, and, on the nineteenth of April, caused a royal letter to be
addressed to all the judges, in which the practice of self-control and
tolerance was enjoined. Insulting expressions based on differences of
religion were strictly forbidden. The very use of the hateful epithets
of "Papist" and "Huguenot" was proscribed. Far from offering a reward
for denunciation, the king proclaimed it criminal to violate the
sanctity of the home for the alleged purpose of ferreting out unlawful
assemblages. He again ordered the release of all imprisoned for
religion's sake, and extended an invitation to exiles to return to their
homes, if they would live in a Catholic manner, granting them
permission, if they were otherwise disposed, to sell their property and
leave the kingdom.[1032]
[Sidenote: Opposition of the Parliament of Paris.]
It would have been not a little surprising if so tolerant an edict, even
though it did little more than repeat the provisions of the last royal
letters on the same subject (of the twenty-eighth of January), had been
accepted without opposition by the Romish party.[1033] Still more
strange if parliamentary jealousy had not taken umbrage at the neglect
of immemorial usage, when the letter was sent to the lower courts before
having received the honor of a formal registry at the hands of the
Parisian judges. It is difficult to say which offence was most resented.
Toleration, parliament remonstrated, was a tacit approval of a diversity
of religion--a thing unheard of from Clovis's reign down to the present
day. Kings and emperors--nay, even popes--had fallen into error and
been proclaimed heretical or schismatic, but never had such calamity
befallen a king of France. It were better for Charles to make open
profession of his intention to live and die in his religion, and to
enforce conformity on the part of his subjects, than to open the door
wide to sedition by tolerating dissent. Better to renew the prohibition
of heretical conventicles, and to reiterate the ancient penalties.
Particularly ill-advised was it that Charles should be made to pronounce
seditious those who applied the names "Papist" and "Huguenot" to their
opponents, for it seemed to establish side by side two rival sects,
although the name of the one was so novel as never to have found a place
in any former missives of the crown.[1034]
[Sidenote: Popular cry for Protestant pastors.]
The refusal of the Parisian parliament to verify the edict in the
customary manner prevented its universal observance; but,
notwithstanding this untoward circumstance, it proved exceedingly
favorable to the development of the Huguenot movement.[1035] Scarcely a
month after its publication, Calvin, in a letter to which we have more
than once had occasion to refer, expressed his astonishment at the ardor
with which the French Protestants were pressing forward to still greater
achievements. The cry from all parts of Charles the Ninth's dominions
was for ministers of the Gospel.[1036] "The eagerness with which
pastors are sought for on all hands from us is not less than that with
which sacerdotal offices are wont to be solicited among the papists.
Those who are in quest of them besiege my doors, as if I must be
entreated after the fashion of the court; and vie with each other, as if
the possession of Christ's kingdom were a quiet one. And, on our part,
we desire to fulfil their earnest prayers to the extent of our ability;
but we are thoroughly exhausted; nay, we have for some time been
compelled to drag from the book-stores every workman that could be found
possessed even of a slight tincture of literature and religious
knowledge."[1037]
The letters that reached Calvin and his colleagues by every messenger
from Southern France--many of which have recently come to light in the
libraries of Paris and Geneva--present a vivid picture of the condition
of whole districts and provinces. From Milhau comes the intelligence
that the mass has for some time been banished from the place, but that a
single pastor is by no means sufficient; he must have a colleague, that
one minister may take exclusive care of the neighboring country, "where
there is an infinite number of churches," while the other remains in the
city. Everywhere there is an abundance of hot-headed persons who, by
their breaking of crosses and images, and even plundering of churches,
give the adversary an opportunity for calumniating. "May the Lord, of
His goodness, be pleased to purge His church of them!"[1038]
[Sidenote: Moderation of the Huguenot ministers.]
In these most difficult circumstances--while, on the one hand, the
demand for ministers was largely in excess of the supply, and, on the
other, the folly of certain inconsiderate enthusiasts seemed likely to
draw upon the great body of Protestants the unwarranted charge of
disorder and insubordination to law--the Huguenot ministers fearlessly
took a position that strikingly exhibits their excellent judgment, as
well as their high moral principle. They declined to countenance a
policy which offered, to say the least, bright temporary advantages.
They refused to trust the vessel freighted with their best hopes for the
future of France, to be carried into port on the treacherous waves of
popular excitement. They preferred to abate somewhat of the proper
demands which they might have exacted with success, that they might
deprive their enemies of the slightest ground for maligning their
loyalty to their native land and its legitimate king. When the
Protestants of Montauban--a town then beginning to assume a religious
character which it has never since lost--learned that they had been
falsely accused of having revolted from the king, and of having elected
a governor of their own, established a polity similar to that of the
Swiss cantons, and coined money as an independent state, they not only
refuted the charges to the satisfaction of the royal lieutenant sent to
investigate the truth,[1039] but they discontinued the _public_
celebration of the Lord's Supper, in order to avoid even the appearance
of unwillingness to obey the king's commands. At the same time they
wrote to Geneva an earnest request that, notwithstanding the need of
teachers in France, no persons that had been monks or chaplains should
be admitted to the ministry unless after long and careful scrutiny. They
did more harm, they disquieted the churches more, they said, than the
most violent persecutions that had befallen the Protestants. For they
refused to submit to discipline, made light of the decisions of their
brethren, and, while seeking only their own pleasure, drew odium upon
the ministers who endeavored to uphold good order among the
people.[1040]
[Sidenote: Inconsistent laws and practice.]
[Sidenote: Judicial perplexity.]
The position of the Huguenots was certainly anomalous, and presented the
strangest inconsistencies. The royal letters enjoined that no inquiries
should be made with the view of disturbing any one for religion's sake;
the Parliament of Paris refused to register these letters and obey the
provisions; the still more fanatical counsellors of the Parliament of
Toulouse rather increased than diminished their severities, and daily
consigned fresh victims to the flames.[1041] It was natural that the
clergy should take advantage of these circumstances to renew their
remonstrances against the continuance of the existing toleration. The
Cardinal of Lorraine seized the opportunity afforded him by the solemn
ceremonial of Charles's anointing at Rheims (on the thirteenth of June,
1561) to present to the queen mother the collective complaints of the
prelates, because, so far from witnessing the rigid enforcement of the
royal edicts, they beheld the heretical conventicles held with more and
more publicity from day to day, and the judges excusing themselves from
the performance of their duty by alleging the number of conflicting
laws, in the midst of which their course was by no means easy. He
therefore recommended the convocation of the parliament with the princes
and members of the council, that, by their advice, some permanent and
proper settlement of this vexed question might be reached.[1042]
Catharine, who, in the publication of the letters-patent of April, had
followed the advice of Chancellor L'Hospital, and seemed to lean to the
side of toleration, now yielded to the cardinal's persuasions--whether
from a belief that the mixed assembly which he proposed to convene would
pursue the path of conciliation already pointed out by the government,
or from a fear of alienating a powerful party in the state.
[Sidenote: The "Mercuriale" of 1561.]
On the twenty-third of June, Charles, accompanied by his mother, by the
King of Navarre, and the other princes of the blood, and by the council
of state, came to the chamber of parliament, and the chancellor
announced to the assembled members the object of this extraordinary
visit. It was to obtain advice not respecting religion itself--_that_
was reserved for the deliberation of the national council, and its
merits could not be discussed here--but respecting the best method of
appeasing the commotions daily on the increase, caused by a diversity of
religious tenets. He therefore begged all present to express in brief
terms their opinions on this important topic. It is not surprising that
the answers given should have been of the most varied import. Ever since
the time of Henry the Second, the Parliament of Paris had contained a
considerable number of friends, more or less open, of Protestantism, and
among the princes and noblemen who came to join in the deliberation, the
number of its warm advocates was proportionately still greater. At the
same time, the Roman Catholic party was largely represented in the ranks
of the members of the parliament proper, as recent events had indicated;
while, among the high nobility and the dignitaries of the church, the
weight of the constable and the Duke of Guise, the cardinals of Bourbon,
Tournon, Lorraine, and Guise, and the Bishop of Paris, counterbalanced
the influence of the King of Navarre, the Prince of Conde, the
Chatillons, and the chancellor. Five or six different opinions were
announced by the successive speakers;[1043] but they could all be
reduced to three. The more tolerant advocated the suspension of all
punishments until the determination of the questions in dispute by a
council. A second class, on the contrary, maintained the propriety and
expediency of enforcing the laws which made death the penalty of
heretical belief. The rest--and they mustered in the end a majority of
_three_[1044] over the advocates of toleration, while they were much
more numerous than the champions of bloody persecution--advised the king
to give to the ecclesiastical courts exclusive cognizance of heresy,
according to the provisions of the Edict of Romorantin, and to forbid
the holding of public or private conventicles, whether with or without
arms, in which sermons should be preached or the sacraments administered
otherwise than according to the customs of the Romish Church.[1045] Such
was the result of the deliberations of the Mercuriale of June and July,
1561,[1046] in the course of which opinions had been freely expressed
far more radical than those of Anne Du Bourg in the Mercuriale of 1559.
[Sidenote: The "Edict of July."]
[Sidenote: Disappointment at its severity.]
The edict for which the direction had been thus marked out was published
on the eleventh of July, 1561.[1047] It has become celebrated in history
as the "Edict of July." After reiterating the injunctions of previous
royal letters, and forbidding all insults and breaches of the peace, on
pain of the halter, Charles was made to prohibit "all enrollings,
signatures, or other things tending to sedition." Preachers in the
churches were strictly commanded to abstain from uttering words
calculated to excite the popular passions or prejudice. The most
important portion of the law, however, was that which punished, by
confiscation of body and goods, all who attended, whether with or
without arms, conventicles in which preaching was held or the holy
sacraments administered. Of simple heresy the cognizance was still
restricted, as by the edict of Romorantin in the previous year, to the
church courts; but no higher penalty could be imposed on the guilty,
when handed over to the secular arm, than banishment from the kingdom.
The punishment of all offences in which public disorder or sedition was
mingled with heresy, remained in the hands of the presidial
judges.[1048] These were the leading features of this severe ordinance.
It is true that the edict was expressly stated to be only
provisional--to last no longer than until the Universal or National
Council, whichever might be held--that pardon was offered to those who
would live in a Catholic manner for the future, that calumny was
threatened with exemplary punishment. Yet it was clear that the law was
framed in the interest of the Roman Catholics, and in their interest
alone. The Duke of Guise openly exulted. He exclaimed in the hearing of
many, "that his sword would never rest in its scabbard when the
execution of this decision was in question."[1049] The disappointment of
the Protestants was not less extreme. At court, Admiral Coligny did not
hesitate to declare that its provisions could never be executed.[1050]
The farther they were removed from St. Germain, the more loudly the
Huguenots murmured, the greater was their indisposition to submit to the
harsh conditions imposed upon them. In Guyenne and Gascony, and in
Languedoc, where whole towns were to be found containing scarcely one
avowed partisan of the papacy, the discontent was open and threatening.
How long did the bigots of Paris intend to keep their eyes closed and
refuse to recognize the altered aspect of affairs? Until what future day
was the simplest of rights--the right of the social and public worship
of God--to be proscribed? Must the inhabitants of entire districts
continue, month after month, and year after year, to stand in the eye of
the law as culprits, with the halter around their necks, and beg mercy
of a despised priesthood and a dissolute court, for the crime of
assembling in the open field, in the school-houses, or even in the
parish churches, where their fathers had worshipped before them, to
listen to the preaching of God's word?
[Sidenote: Iconoclasm at Montauban.]
With the rising excitement the power of the ministers to control the
ardor of their flocks steadily declined. How could the people be
moderate, or even prudent, when their rights were so thoroughly ignored?
The events of Montauban during August and the succeeding months, may
serve to illustrate the growing impatience of the laity. Until now, as
we have seen, the earnest warnings of their pastors had generally been
successful in restraining the Huguenots from touching the symbols of a
hated system so temptingly exhibited before their eyes. But, a few weeks
after the unofficial intelligence of the enactment of the edict of July
had reached the city, the work of destruction commenced. On the night of
the fourteenth of August the Church of St. Jacques received the first
bands of iconoclasts. The pictures and images were torn down or hurled
from their niches and destroyed; but the chalices, the silver crosses,
and other precious articles, were left untouched. The object was neither
robbery nor plunder. A week later, the same fate befel the paintings in
the church of the Augustinians. After another and a shorter interval,
the chapels of St. Antoine, St. Michel, St. Roch, St. Barthelemi, and
Notre Dame de Baquet, witnessed similar scenes of destruction. It was at
this juncture that the edict of July was brought to Montauban and
publicly proclaimed. Nothing could have been more inopportune. The
raging fever of the popular pulse had been mistaken for a transient
excitement, and the specific now administered, far from quenching the
patient's burning thirst, only stimulated it to a more irrepressible
craving. That very evening (Tuesday, the twenty-sixth of August), the
people, irritated beyond endurance, gathered around the Dominican
church. The monks, forewarned of their danger, had taken the precaution
to fortify themselves. They now rang the tocsin, but no one came to
their rescue, and the stronghold was speedily taken. The assailants,
however, cherished no enmity toward God's image in human flesh and
bones. So, after effectually destroying all man's efforts to represent
the Divine likeness in stone or on canvas, the Huguenots proceeded to
the Carmelite Church. Here rich trophies awaited them--a "Saint Suaire"
and relics, which, on close inspection, were found to be the bones of
horses instead of belonging to the saintly personages whose names they
had borne. The reader will scarcely feel surprise to learn that the
monks--with the single exception of the Franciscans--now judged that the
time for them to leave the city had arrived.
Instructed by the somewhat suggestive example of the fate that had
befallen their brethren, the black and white friars, and, doubtless
considering discretion the better part of valor, the priests of the
collegiate church of St. Stephen abandoned their preparations for
defence, and, stipulating only for their own safety, gave up their
paintings to be consigned to the flames. A bonfire was kindled on one of
the public squares; and while the sacred pictures and images thrown upon
it were being slowly consumed, bands of children looked on and chanted
in chorus the metrical paraphrase of the ten commandments. The city
being thus cleared of its public objects of superstitious
devotion,[1051] the people next turned their attention to those of a
more private character. As the crowds moved along the streets they
earnestly appealed to the inmates of the houses to follow the noble
example the churches had set them. We are informed by a contemporary
record that the iconoclasts carefully abstained from trespassing, and
confined themselves to an exhibition of those passages of Sacred Writ in
which an idolatrous worship was prohibited. But, if the brief
argumentation for which the rapidity of the transaction allowed time was
not in all cases sufficient to produce entire conviction, it may be
presumed that any remaining scruples were removed by the contagion of
the popular enthusiasm. Montauban was purged of image-worship as in a
day, and without the injury of man, woman, or child.[1052]
[Sidenote: The Edict cannot be executed.]
[Sidenote: Impatience with "public idols."]
Coligny was right. The Edict of July could not be carried into execution
in those parts of France where, as in Montauban, the mass of the
population had openly adopted Protestantism. If the resistance
encountered was often accompanied by an earnestness that disdained to be
trammelled by the customary forms of civil law, it was almost always
exercised in accordance with the dictates of natural justice. If the
people, emancipated from the service of images, believed themselves to
possess an indisputable right to dash in pieces or burn the curiously
wrought saints sculptured in marble or portrayed by the painter's
pencil, this fact is less wonderful than that they scrupulously spared
the lives of the priests and monks to whose pecuniary advantage their
former worship had principally redounded. The plain Huguenot, like the
plain Christian in the primitive age, was fully persuaded that he had an
owner's title in the public idol, which not only justified him in
destroying it when he had discovered its vanity, but rendered it his
imperative duty to execute the natural impulse. As for the obligation of
nine-tenths of the population to use the idol tenderly, because of any
rightful claim of the remaining tithe, this was a consideration that
scarcely occurred to them.
[Sidenote: Calvin endeavors to repress it.]
Nor were they very solicitous respecting the dangers that might arise
from over-precipitancy. Not so with Calvin, from whose closely logical
intellect the influence of a thorough training in the principles of
French law had not been obliterated. Never was disapprobation more
clearly expressed than in the reformer's letter to the church of
Sauve--a small town in the Cevennes mountains, a score of miles from
Nismes--where a Huguenot minister, in his inconsiderate zeal, had taken
an active part in the "mad exploit" of burning images and overturning a
cross. This conduct Calvin regarded as the more reprehensible in one
"whose duty it was to moderate others and hold them in check." He denied
that "God ever enjoined on any persons to destroy idols, save on every
man in his own house, or in public on those placed in authority," and he
demanded that this "fire-brand" should exhibit his title to be lord of
the territory in which he had undertaken to exercise so distinct a
function of royalty. "In thus speaking," he added, "we are not become
the advocates of the idols. Would to God that idolatry might be
exterminated, even at the cost of our lives! But since obedience is
better than all sacrifice, we must look to what is lawful for us to do,
and must keep within our bounds." "Have pity, very dear brethren," he
wrote in conclusion, "on the poor churches, and do not wittingly expose
them to butchery. Disavow this act, and openly declare to the people
whom he has misled, that you have separated yourselves from him who was
its chief author, and that, for his rebellion, you have cut him off from
your communion."[1053] Calvin's advice was that of the whole body of
Protestant divines in France and its neighborhood. Even an idolatrous
worship must not be overturned by violent means.
[Sidenote: Re-assembling of the States at Pontoise.]
[Sidenote: Able harangue of the "Vierg" of Autun.]
The States General, after having been first summoned to meet at Melun on
the first of May, and then prorogued, when it was found that some of the
particular States had introduced the consideration of the public affairs
of the kingdom, instead of devising means for the payment of the royal
debt,[1054] finally met at Pontoise on the first of August. It does not
come within the scope of this history to dwell at great length upon the
proceedings of this important political assembly. The States were bold
and decided in tone. It was only after finding that those who had a
clear right to the regency were unwilling to assert it, that they
consented, in deference to the request of Du Mortier, Admiral Coligny,
and Antoine himself, to ratify the contract between Catharine de' Medici
and the King of Navarre.[1055] Nearly four weeks were spent in the
discussion of the subjects that were to be incorporated in the
"_cahiers_," or bills of remonstrance to be presented to the king. It
was at the solemn reception of the three orders in the great hall of the
neighboring castle of St. Germain-en-Laye,[1056] on the twenty-seventh
of August, that the "tiers etat" expressed with greatest distinctness
its sentiments respecting the present condition of the realm. Jacques
Bretagne, _vierg_[1057] of the city of Autun, a townsman of the clerical
orator of the first of January, whose arrogance had inspired such
universal disgust, was their spokesman. After reflecting with
considerable severity upon the deficiency of the clergy in sound
learning and spirituality--qualities for which they ought to be
pre-eminently distinguished--he took an impressive survey of the
excessive burdens of the people--burdens by which it had been reduced to
such deep poverty as to be altogether unable to do anything to relieve
the crown until it had obtained time to recruit its exhausted
resources.[1058] He declared it to be utterly inconceivable how such
enormous debts had been incurred, while the purses of the "third estate"
had been drained by unheard-of subsidies. As he had before exhibited the
obligations of the clergy by biblical example, so the orator next
proved, by reference to the Holy Scriptures, that it was the duty of
Charles to cause his subjects to be instructed by the preaching of God's
word, as the surest foundation of his regal authority. Then, approaching
the vexed question of toleration, he declared that never had monarch
more reason to study the Word of Life than the youthful King of France
amid the growing divisions and discords of his realm. The different
opinions held by Charles's subjects, he said, arose only from their
great solicitude for the salvation of their souls. Both parties were
sincere in their profession of faith. Let persecution, therefore, cease.
Let a free national council be convened, under the presidency of the
king in person, and let sure access be given to it. In fine, let places
be conceded to the advocates of the new doctrines for the worship of
Almighty God in the open day, and in the presence of royal officers; for
the voluntary service of the heart, which cannot be constrained, is
alone acceptable to heaven. From such toleration, not sedition, but
public tranquillity, must necessarily result. And lest the ordinary
allegation of the necessary truth of the Papal Church, on account of its
antiquity, should be employed to corroborate the existing system of
persecution, the deputy of the people reminded the king and court that
the same argument might be rendered effective in hardening Jews and
Turks in their ancient unbelief. "We need not busy ourselves in
examining the length of time, with a view to determining thereby the
truth or falsity of any religion. _Time is God's creature_, subject to
Himself, in such a manner that ten thousand years are not a minute in
reference to the power of our God!"[1059]
[Sidenote: Written demands of the tiers etat.]
If the harangue of the orator of the third estate was alarming to the
clergy, its written demands were little calculated to reassure them. For
of several propositions made for the payment of the public debts from
the ecclesiastical property, none were very satisfactory to the priests.
According to one, all benefices were to be laid under contribution. The
holders of the lowest in valuation were to give up one-fourth of their
revenues; the holders of more valuable benefices a larger proportion;
while the high dignitaries of the church were to be limited to a yearly
stipend of six thousand livres for bishops, eight thousand for
archbishops, and twelve thousand for cardinals. But the most obnoxious
scheme was one proposing an innovation of a very radical character. The
aggregate revenues of the temporalities of the Gallican Church were
estimated at four million livres; the temporalities themselves were
worth one hundred and twenty millions. It was gravely proposed to
dispose of all this property by sale. Forty-eight millions might be
reserved, which, if invested at the usual rate of one-twelfth, or eight
and a-third per cent., would secure to the clergy the revenue they now
enjoyed. Forty-two millions would be required to pay off the debts of
the crown. The remaining thirty millions might be deposited with the
chief cities of the kingdom, to be loaned out to foster the development
of commerce; while the moderate interest thus obtained would suffice to
fortify the frontiers and support the soldiery.[1060]
[Sidenote: Representative government demanded.]
The constitutional changes proposed by the formal _cahier_ of the third
estate were of an equally radical character. They looked to nothing
short of a representative government, protected by suitable guarantees,
and a complete religious liberty. On the one hand, the monarch was to
be guided in the administration by a council of noblemen and learned and
loyal subjects. Except in the case of princes of the blood, no two near
relatives, as father and son, or two brothers, should sit at the same
time in the council; while ecclesiastics of every grade were to be
utterly excluded, both because they had taken an oath of fealty to the
Pope, and because their very profession demanded a residence in their
respective dioceses. On the other hand, the States General were to be
convened at least once in two years, and no offensive war was to be
undertaken, no new impost or tax to be raised, without consulting them.
Happy would it have been for France, had its people obtained, by some
such reasonable concessions as these, the inestimable advantage of
regular representation in the government! At the price of a certain
amount of political discussion, a bloody revolution might, perhaps, have
been avoided.
In the matter of religion, the third estate recommended, first of all,
the absolute cessation of persecution and the repeal of all intolerant
legislation, even of the edict of July past; grounding the
recommendation partly on the failure of all the rigorous laws hitherto
enacted to accomplish their design, partly on the greater propriety and
suitableness of milder measures. And they judiciously added, with a
charitable discernment so rare in that age as to be almost startling:
"The diversity of opinions entertained by the king's subjects _proceeds
from nothing else than the strong zeal and solicitude they have for the
salvation of their souls_."[1061] Strange that so sensible an
observation should be immediately followed by a disclaimer of any
intention to ask for pardon for seditious persons, libertines,
anabaptists, and atheists, the enemies of God and of the public peace!
[Sidenote: An impartial national council.]
It was natural that, in accordance with these views, the third estate
should call for the convocation of a national council to settle
religious questions, to be presided over by the king himself, in which
no one having an interest in retarding a reformation should sit, and
where the word of God should be the sole guide in the decision of
doubtful points. Meanwhile, the third estate proposed, that in every
city a church or other place should be assigned for the worship of those
who were now forced to hold their meetings by night because of their
inability to join with a good conscience in the ceremonies of the
"Romish Church"--for so the document somewhat curtly designated the
establishment.[1062]
[Sidenote: The French prelates at Poissy.]
While the States General were occupied at Pontoise in considering the
means of relieving the king's pecuniary embarrassments, Catharine had
assembled at Poissy all the bishops of France to take into consideration
the religious reformation which the times imperatively demanded. The
Pope as yet delayed the long-promised oecumenical council, and there
was little hope of obtaining its actual convocation on fair and
practical terms unless, indeed, he should be frightened into it by the
superior terrors of a French national council, which might throw France
into the arms of the Reformation. Tired of the duplicity of the pontiff,
alarmed by the rapid progress of religious dissensions at home, not
unwilling, perhaps, to make an attempt at reconciliation, which, if
successful, would confirm her own authority and remove the anxieties to
which she was daily exposed--now from the side of the Guises, and again
from that of the Huguenots--the queen mother had yielded to the
suggestion frequently made to her, and had consented to a discussion
between the French prelates and the most learned Protestant
ministers.[1063]
[Sidenote: Invitation to all Frenchmen,]
[Sidenote: and particularly to Beza.]
[Sidenote: The couriers of Rome stripped.]
Accordingly, on the twenty-fifth of July an invitation had everywhere
been extended by proclamation at the sound of the trumpet, to all
Frenchmen who had any correction of religious affairs at heart, to
appear with perfect safety and be heard before the approaching assembly
at Poissy.[1064] Even before this public announcement, however, steps
had been taken to secure the presence of the most distinguished orator
among the reformed, and, next to Calvin, their most celebrated
theologian. On the fourteenth of July, the Parisian pastors, and, on the
succeeding days, the Prince of Conde, the Admiral, and the King of
Navarre, had written to Theodore Beza, begging him to come and thus take
advantage of the opportunity offered by the favorable disposition of the
royal court.[1065] Similar invitations were sent to Pietro Vermigli--the
celebrated reformer of Zurich, better known by the name of Peter
Martyr--a native of Florence, now just sixty-one years of age, whose
eloquence, it was hoped, might exercise a deep influence upon his
countrywoman, the queen mother.[1066] So earnest, indeed, was the court
in its desire to bring about the conference, that Catharine, well aware
that, should tidings of the project reach the ears of the Pope, he would
leave no stone unturned to frustrate her design, gave secret orders that
all the couriers that left France for Rome about this time should be
stripped of their despatches on the Italian borders! This daring step
was actually executed by means of the governors of cities in Piedmont,
who were devoted to her interests.[1067]
[Sidenote: French sincerity doubted.]